Poetics and Ruminations

Tiger Claws at Xmas

Tiger, Tiger, quite contrite

By the hydrant late at night,

What infernal hand or fist

Would do this to an amorist?

William Flake

 

HEALTHCARE PLAN BLUES: An Interview

  

 

Sunday, November 29, 2009. Special to the Dresden Mills Gazette. By Wesli Court, Blues Reporter.

DMG. At the moment I am standing in front of the candy counter of the Dresden Texaco and Take-Out in Dresden, Maine, having a conversation with Republican Senator Gloria Monday. Good morning, Senator Monday.

GM. Good morning.

DMG. The Democrat-controlled Senate recently voted to send to the floor of the United States Senate for debate a health care bill that was crafted by the Democrats. As a Republican senator from Bluestate, how do you feel about that?

GM. As you know, I voted with all the other members of my Republican Party against sending that bill to the floor.

DMG. Why was that?

GM. Although I feel that the health care system desperately needs to be reformed, I was against the bill’s containing a Public Option provision.

DMG. What is wrong with the Public Option?

GM. It will lead inevitably to Socialism in our Republic.

DMG. How so?

GM. It will create a system in which the government will weigh in with a heavy hand on our citizens’ rights to choose their own health care, and it will tell our doctors and medical practitioners how much they can charge for their services.

DMG. Aren’t you ignoring the word “option” in the bill? Citizens will keep their right to have the health insurance program of their own choosing, if they already have one.

GM. I don’t feel it is ever a good idea to have the Government involved in health care. People will eventually drop their private insurance coverage in favor of the Public Option.

DMG. Doesn’t that imply the private companies would be providing worse care, like deciding if a person covered by their policies has a “pre-existing medical condition” that they don’t want to pay for, or like choosing to drop a person’s coverage arbitrarily?

GM. Oh, I don’t think so. Government health plans are likely to be much worse than private ones, tied up in red tape, run by committees that decide who should live or die.

DMG. Excuse me, Senator, but Senior Citizens are all covered by a “Public Option,” Medicare. Doesn’t Medicare do a decent job?

GM. Medicare is beset by problems, like fraud and waste.

DMG. “Fraud” is a crime. That’s really not a part of the plan, is it? That requires investigation by law enforcement agencies. Are you suggesting that the Government is being remiss in not enforcing laws against medical fraud?

GM. That may very well be the case.

DMG. Perhaps the Congress should appropriate more money for law enforcement?

GM. That is a different subject than the one we were discussing.

DMG. That’s true. To get back to the idea of the “Public Option,” aren’t all members of the Armed Forces — the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard — all covered by a Government health care system? Not to mention veterans of all the services, who are covered by the U. S. Veterans Administraton.

GM. Yes, they are, but there’s a very good reason for that system.

DMG. Although it’s run by the Government, the USVA hospitals are both efficient and effective, aren’t they?

GM. In general, yes, but again, they had better be. Our service men and women deserve the best care available. But that’s not the kind of “Public Option” I was talking about.

DMG. Well, how about the “Public Option” that the U. S. Congress is covered by? Do you find that you personally receive decent health care?

GM. Er, ah…, uh, well, yes, of course.

DMG. And how about the health care option that covers ALL government workers? All Civil Service employees, employees of the Postal Service, and the various “public options” that cover State, County, and Local government employees?

GM. I am against specialty options for American citizens.

DMG. You mean like Medicaid that helps the very poor?

GM. No, no….

DMG. Isn’t it true, Senator Monday, that the “Public Option” included in the current Senate bill would apply only to those people who are covered by no health care plan at all? In other words, a relatively small segment of the population who are falling through the cracks of the current “system” of health care?

GM. Um. Well. Perhaps….

DMG. And isn’t it true that the bill also contains provisions for those states — primarily Republican Red States, one would assume — that would have another kind of option: the option to “opt out” of the coverage outlined in the bill if they wished?

GM. Well, yes, but….

DMG. Thank you, Senator Gloria Monday, Republican of Bluestate. You have been most helpful. I’m sure the readers of the Dresden Mills Gazette will find your remarks enlightening.

REMARKS

Well, Wesli,

You certainly nailed that interview! How can that dodo ever show her face in public again?

But wasn't Senator Monday implicated in the recent, notorious Seven-Day Escort Ring scandal involving the Washington call-girl known as Ruby Tuesday? Their boss was the sinister and secretive Mr. Friday, who ran the operation from a fortified island in the South Pacific.

Rhina Espaillat

 

You're making me Thursday. Good thing I have a cup of coffee in my hand.

Wesli

 

Love It, Lew.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving & post-tryptophan days.

Moira Egan

 

Lew,

Thanks for sending the hilariously pathetic interview.  The responses, I mean, not the interview questions, which are terrific.

Clarinda Harriss 

  

Lew,

Didn’t you just interview this woman? (click on link:)

Understanding Our Hollow "Centrists"

Dennis Morton

  

Thanks, Lew. 

It's about time Someone gave Anyone the straight dope on the option. It's 

possible no one can persuade a Monday, though — the week's most recalcitrant day-- 

 
Ruth Harrison

It infuriates me that so many people are so purblind. EVERYBODY knows about the Public Options we already have. They're just determined to be stupid, apparently. I could hardly believe it when I saw all those old people who are clearly on Medicare waving signs AGAINST the "public option." And how politicians can actually get up in front of a camera and act like THEY are not on the Public Option themselves boggles the imagination. They must have gonads of brass if male and ???? if female. It requires tremendous amounts of cynicism on everyone's part. Lew

Yes.  The pretense at not grasping a truth which is straightforward and plain — it's shoddy indeed.  But that has been the nature of the Reps the past three decades or so, and by now it's an accepted technique — pretend something else is true if you do not like the truth before you.  You've got it — it's determined stupidity.

Am I wrong, or has it become more pronounced of late? 

Maybe I'm just old and crotchety ...

Ruth

 

No, you're correct, but probably we're both as old and crotchety as those morons waving those stupid placards.

Lew

 

Thanks, Lew. Enjoyed reading the Wesli Court interview!

Don Kimball

HEALTH ALERT!

 

 Marcel Proust

Dresden, Maine, October 21, 2009. Exclusive to the Dresden Mills Gazette. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, today released an urgent appeal to the medical community and to the nation at large regarding an impending health emergency.

According to Dr. Horace S. Asce, M. D., seminal assistant director of reproductive assets at the Centers, bird flu has crossed with swine flu to coalesce into a major epidemic threat indigenous to the United States and potentially a danger to everyone world-wide.

“This could cause a pandemic,” said Dr. Asce when asked why he and not someone from the department of infectious diseases was spokesman for the Centers on this issue.

“Because,” Dr. Asce replied, “this disease is spread by unfertilized eggs. Anyone who has eggs for breakfast is in danger of infection.”

“Why breakfast?” he was asked by reporters present, in particular Wesli Court, chief influenza correspondent of the Dresden Mills Gazette.

“Sorry,” the doctor said, “I did not mean to imply one could catch this new strain of flu only at breakfast. One is at risk at any meal where eggs are served, in any form.”

“Is eating eggs the only way somebody can become infected?” Court asked in a follow-up question.

“No,” said the doctor. “One can also catch this disease by reading a particlar novel written by the French author Marcel Proust.”

“What novel is that?” Court asked.

“Swann’s Way,” he was told.

“How so?”

“Because,” Dr. Asce explained, “This cross between swine flu and bird flu is called Swann flue,” said the Doctor.

“You can get sick from a novel?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Asce. “I speak from experience. Many novels have made me sick.”

“Is this novel flu a single strain?” Court rejoined.

“No,” Dr. Asce said. “There are two strains. The more lethal has a capital S and a double n, as in ‘Swann.’ The other strain is simple swan flu, and you can avoid it if you duck or are goosed in time.”

“That would be a good thing,” opined the reporter, which the doctor confirmed. “Not only good, but eggcellent,” he agreed.

“Has anyone died of swan flu?” Court asked.

“Only readers of Proust so far,” was the reply. “The best defense against this deadly disease is to refrain from reading French novels. In fact, to be perfectly certain that one will not be infected at any stage, in my opinion one should reman at a distance from French literature entirely for an extended period,” said Dr. Asce. 

The Day We Bombed the Moon

(AND BARACK OBAMA WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE),

A SESTINA

 

October ninth, 2009, we sent

A rocket off to Luna. We meant to bomb her

Into submission? No, our good intent:

To blow up surface dust to test for ice.

On the same day the Nobel Prize Committee

Amazed the world by bestowing its amity

 

Award upon a tyro. A calamity,

It seemed to some — an evil precedent

Imposed upon America by committee.

They gave the Peace Prize to Barack Obama!

Many Republicans needed to ask for ice

Water and Schnapps, or even an oxygen tent.

 

No one had dreamed an explosion of this extent

Could blow moondust in the face of amity

Around the House and Senate. It wasn’t nice

That those Norse should cause old pols to resent

Explosive love. It was a suicide bomber

NASA sent to ruin comity —

 

If not around the world, the R. N. C.

At the very least. Gaddafi in his tent

Celebrated Luna’s death. “Embalm her!”

Was his battle cry, his enmity

For  global infidelity was sent

To Cocoa, Florida, well packed in ice.

 

But NASA said, “It isn’t very nice

To imply we had an impact on the Committee

Rather than the moon! Our bomb was sent

Out into space. We’re not incompetent!”

Meanwhile, a wave of pure tsunamity

Engulfed the Oval Office, and Obama,

 

Although surprised himself, felt like the balm or

Salve of sweet salvation in a trice

Had rehabilitated amity,

Restored a modicum of comity

To the world at large to some extent.

One could sense the very aloe’s scent.

 

Barack Obama, the Nobel Committee,

And malcontents hope NASA finds its ice,

But what price amity amid dissent?

COMMENTS

 

I'm pretty sure his first thought was "Oh shit!"  I expect that his acceptance speech will be very good.

Sam

 

Really challenging set of 6 words you set yourself, Lew! And you've done it, complete with outrageous rhymes and variants: 3 cheers for you, for the sestina — and for Obama.

Rhina

 

Balm a, Obama, wonderful. Reminds me a lot of Byron's "annuities" and "an old Jew it is."

Clarinda

 

Hey, Lew, liked your sestina.  Will you be America's closest thing to a French chansonnier, and keep producing timely comment on current events? We could use you!

Joe

 

I love "chansonnier"! Sure, I'll be one of those. Though it's kind of close to "chandelier" and I don't like just hanging around.

Lew

HEALTH ALERT!

April 28, 2009. Special to the Dresden Mills Gazette. By Wesli Court, Health Editor. A medical emergency has been called by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta regarding the current threatened swine flu epidemic. The Senate today confirmed Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas for the past six years, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, just in time for her to attend to the stymie over the swine influenza strain that is emerging from Mexican piggeries.

         Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said the threat of a flu pandemic made it urgent for the Senate to confirm Ms. Sebelius, “so President Obama has in place a strong secretary of health.”

         But no one foresaw the latest twist in the current knotty health problem, for apparently the virus has mutated among a particular group of scientists. Physicists are being tied up by what experts are now calling the “twine flu,” in particular those who believe in string theory.

         “There is a cord among scientists that this new problem must be solved before the illness can taper off,” an unnamed source located high in the A.M.A. told this reporter. “Right now,” she continued, “it’s hanging fire.”

         A sure symptom of the disease, according to sources, is that a sore throat turns the victim into a sneezer or, among sailors, a hawser or a painter, in a chain of events that can cost a bundle. “All you can do is truss your doctor,” is the common consensus. “And remember that sailors at sea believe that an ampoule a day keeps the doctor aweigh.”

         Finally, all you can do is take precautions, and the number one precept ought to be, “DON’T KISS A PIG! Wear a mask to remind you not to splice up your life.”

 

  

REMARKS

Ah, Lew,

I sow right through that — it was just you wanting to hog all the attention ... you big boar.  But thanks for the update - the shoat must go on. 

Ann

 

Oink, oink, Ann! Great comment!

Lew

 

Sorry, but I think the gossips are stringing you along. What can you do? Give 'em enough rope — you know the rest.  Don't get entwined in all the mumbo-gumbo — it IS a knotty problem, with a new twist — but it can be unravelled with patience.  All I'm twine to say is, don't lose the thread.  If you do, you'll end up back at the Minotaur's pad, and that'll amaze you. I guarantee.

Ruth

p.s. I talked to Larry at the hardware store about your bulletin, and he hadn't heard the noose.  He hasn't anything in stock to help you, says riata carry some hawsers, but don't have any in stock.  He promised to ask the lasso-ver at the counter, who does the ordering. "'Frayed it all depends on memory," he braid.

Well, Ruth,

You can tell Larry that no noose is good noose. Tell him too that he should slip knot into temptation.

Lew

Lew,

I guess you're just bound to pun, to string us along by means of wordplay, to link your meanings on a verbal tether, betide what may!

But have you heard of the latest observed symptom of the current disease? A pig in a border town in New Mexico has sprouted wings! Yes, in plain sight of all, the SWINE FLEW!

Rhina

 

Not only that, Rhina,

But one variety has crossed with bird flu and produced a terrifying strain: one flu over the cuckoo’s nest.

By the way, did you notice that your email letter is infected with rime?

“I guess you're just bound to pun,

to string us along by means of wordplay,

to link your meanings on a verbal tether,

betide what may!”

I’d suggest that you go to an animal doctor for a cure, but you are an inveterate rhymester!

Lew  

Valentines

 

 TO SEE THE WHOLE CARD, CLICK ON IT!

Tomie dePaola

 

 

CORRESPONDENCE IN FEBRUARY

 

Groundhog Day has come and gone,

So how’s it going where you are

Up there in Maine? Are you thin and drawn

Or fat and sassy? The calendar

Tells me that the chilly dawn

Comes early now, and earlier —

C’est bon, n’est-ce pas?

 

I’m weathering the winter,

Withering in the wearing wind.

 

Valentine’s Day is over and done,

So how are things now where you live

Up there Down East? Are you still alone,

Or was there someone new to give

You chocolates or your dog a bone?

What’s up with love strained through a 

                                                         sieve –

C’est tres bourgeois!

\

I’m weathering the winter,

Weary in the weathering wind.

 

President’s day won’t be rerun

Until next year, so how’s it going?

Has sap in the maple trees begun

To drip? Are the buckets overflowing,

And how’s the love life? Anyone

Contributing to your fire’s glowing?

Priez, dites moi!

 

I’m weary of the winter

And withering in your wearing wind!

 

Wesli Court 2009

 

Infinite Liberty or, "The Inauguration of Hope"

What is history but the curtained window through which we look to see who we are today? Some folk gently part the cloth, and easily raise the window with hands on sill and frame and breathe the air of their own experiences to see from that context how the nation stands. Others find their windows painted shut and throw bricks through history’s opaque glass to release what needs to be outside — rambling through the woods of citizenship, or flying in freedom’s blue sky.

When man creates a nation he has limited knowledge, tools and time to achieve perfection. Some say there is only so much liberty to be had. We in America are still experimenting with the construction of a large house with many windows — some are dark, some are bright. “Liberty for all” speaks from the podium of aspiration, but on occasion it’s a phrase that proves inspirational. Today is one of those occasions. The balance of violent acts and kindness, through terms defined in the American lexicon as democratic, is what has brought us to this day.

Today we all stand at America’s biggest window, curtains flung back by many hands. Today’s window is revealing a panorama of powerful political persuasion — and as today’s window is raised, the fresh air of freedom and justice and joy comes rushing in refreshing the interior atmosphere of every room where doors have been unlocked and opened, and seeping even under the shut doors of angered inhabitants as well. This house is the house known as the house of many people. It is the diversity and commonalities of the inhabitants that make this house strong and incapable of surrender to the destructive elements we know are present outside this house.

May this day find each of us at a place at the window, and there may each of us give praise to God who has led us through so many problems to so many solutions, who leads us through so many questions to so many answers.

January 20, 2009

 

Image and essay by

George Edward Buggs

123 Robinwood Driive 

Aiken, SC 29803

www.aikenartistguild.org/George%20Buggs.htm

_________________________________________________________

REMARKS

I think that would have been more inspiring to hear read than the inaugural poem. Thanks for posting it.

Paul A. Austin

Lew,

I do wish this had been the inaugural poem. It's beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Alice Teeter

Lew,

What did you think of the "poem" on Inauguration Day? I know you love Whitman!

Best,

Herb Coursen

 

Herb,

I'm afraid I thought about what everyone else seems to think of it, including The Daily Show.

Lew

Dear Ms. Alexander,

I have long considered whether to write this note about your inaugural poem, “Praise Song for the Day.”

It may well be better to let the matter (and the poem) be forgotten, as I believe they will be. Or if remembered, remembered only as still another dull poem written for still another presidential inauguration. I wondered whether you showed the poem to anyone before you decided it was “finished.” Surely a clumsy line like “We need to find a place where we are safe; we walk into that which we cannot yet see” might have been improved. From a purely musical point of view, didn’t you have difficulty saying “we walk into that which we cannot yet see”?

Nobody sets out to write a bad poem, yet, unfortunately, many bad poems have been achieved. Just about any poet of any distinction is guilty of writing badly at times. And I realize that you’ve written far better poems than the one you displayed for the entire nation to see.

But that is what is depressing about it.

Here was an opportunity to show millions of people—millions of people—what an exciting thing poetry is. Look at what you gave them. Look at what you gave all those people who think poetry is dull, genteel, a form of little interest—a dead thing. You gave great affirmation to their opinion; without meaning to, and I’m sure with the best of intentions, you drove still another nail into the coffin of poetry.

I'm sorry to be writing this because I think you are basically a good poet. But now a bad, banal, rhetorically dull poem will be presented to the American people as an example of the high reaches of the art. What a shame.

Sincerely,

Jack Foley

P.S. If you wish to find out anything about me, there’s a Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Foley_(poet)#Biography

Hot Head

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW IT PROPERLY.

Yes, the idiot in this newspaper story is yours truly. All is on the mend.

Sam.

I have a chair like that. It can put you to sleep. That must be what happened to you. For a moment there you had red hair. Glad you're all right. I had a similar experience while I was teaching in Potsdam '68-'69> I went to a doctor to have a couple of growths removed from my scalp. He decided to burn them out, but before he did he disinfected the area with alcohol. I suddenly felt him and his nurse whacking me on the head with the palms of their hands: he'd set me afire. He cut the second one out with a pair of surgical scissors while I sat ensconced in his chair.

Great name for a fire chief! Or any man, I'd say. Now all you have to do is find a woman named Vaginasdaughter to put out the flame in your pubes.

Reminds me of three file cards I found at BuPers my last year in the Navy - Lunger, Crapper, and Glasscock. I thought they'd make a fine law firm.

Lew

Actually I was out of the chair and seated on a quite different kind--white porcelain.  When I returned, the flames were a'risin'.  Lost a lot of poetry books.  Send me a new Book of Forms one of these days.

Sam

I will send you one on Monday, my xmas gift with commiserations for your adversities.

Lew

It must have been a helluva massage!

Roy Howe

 

In a chaise pour massage, our friend Sam

made himself just as snug as a clam

till the gizmo defied him

and just about fried him

and served him with pancakes and ham.

Rhina

 

It takes a special person to own up. Or a person who knew his cover was already blown.

Tim Summerlin

Good God Sam!!!! What were you thinking???? I hope Captain Penis-son.....took good care of you and that you are NOT permanently damaged....

Love, Co

 

Oh, Dear!

FOR OUR FRIEND SAM

The chair he sat on like a burning throne

Flared in his office for a failed massage,

While all around him poems went up in flames

As their creators hoped they would some day.

It was a conflagration of the art

Much to be desired by mincing Logans

And others of that ilk. O mighty pyre,

That saves the critic from a chore to read,

Why should a garden hose rescue a poem?

If only it had spewed forth Maker’s Mark

We should have seen the Burning Man of art.

Yet still our friend lives on to blaze and write

Another book review, another rite

Of sanity disposed of in his prose.

Shine forth, O Burning Man, and in the night

May thy new-dappled nose dispel the gloom

Like reindeer guiding Santa’s laden sleigh.

Composed with love between courses of a reasonably good dinner,

Dave Mason

 

Sam,

I truly had no idea how prescient I was when I wrote your epitaph long ago:

 R.I.P.  R. S. GWYNN

May 13 1948

He made us laugh, he made us giggle,

But now he makes the earthworms wiggle,

He smoked until they let him in:

Here lie the ashes of R. S. Gwynn.

Lew

 Sam, this gives a whole new meaning to being in the hot-seat!   But I'm very glad you're okay; those heating-pad things are dangerous, and it could have been a whole lot worse.

Marilyn

 

 TEXAS POET SURVIVES ELECTRIC CHAIR!(and I just wonder who wrote up that marvelous article with a title just made for poetry?... in fact,  the entire ordeal seems poetry-ready!) Now HEAL, SAM!

T.P.

Please, T. P.,

Stop treating Sam like a dog.

Lew

Universal Mercantile Gift Certificate

Steve and Melora Ann Turco Norman, 2006.

Dear President-Elect Obama:

Please allow me to nominate my son-in-law Steve Norman, Director of the Belfast, Maine, public library, for Secretary of Commerce. Steve has come up with an inspired idea for boosting the recessive economy of the United States — it is a better idea than I have heard from anyone else.

You will, I am sure, recall those checks we all received in the spring from the Government that “hoped” we, the consumers, would spend on consumer goods. That did not happen. Speaking for myself, most of that money resides in my bank account to this day. If the money wasn’t saved, it was used to pay off debt mostly, not to buy goods.

However — and this is Steve’s wonderful idea — what would have happened if the Government had provided us, not with checks, but with gift certificates good at any mercantile establishment, but not good for depositing or paying off debt?

That, Senator Obama, would have worked!

It is this kind of innovative thinking that I believe your impending Administration is looking for. Steve doesn’t have an MBA from anywhere, nor has he taken a single entrepreneurial course, but if he can come up with, say, just one idea like this in each of the next four years, he will be the greatest success any member of a cabinet has had in the last eight years (which, I admit, isn’t saying much). I’m not sure how soon Steve will be available to serve in your Cabinet because at the moment he is serving on jury duty in Augusta, Maine. However, it shouldn’t be too long.

So, if you’re looking to stimulate the American economy any time soon, I’ll be looking for my Universal Mercantile Gift Certificate within the next year or so.

Sincerely,

Lewis Turco

_______________________________________________

Comments

What a great idea to have given out gift certificates instead. I hope President-Elect Obama will seriously consider Steve Norman as Secretary of Commerce.

Alice

Bravo -  it's one of those "gee why didn't I think of that" ideas. Congratulations, Steve, for thinking outside the box.... Now, can you think of something to help the Big 3 in Detroit?

Ann

 

Did ya mail it? You want me to send you a stamp?

I think it is a great idea. Nice picture of Steve and Melora, too.

Paul A. Austin

What a wonderful idea!  That's one that would work, and Government has been short of those for about eight years--?  Thanks for sharing the photo, too -- Melora has often been in my thoughts, because of your poems, but a photo is grounded in more reality than an imagined picture.

Looking forward to my certificate!

Best,

Ruth  

Lew:

This idea may not be as smart as you think. Current industry stats show that some 30% of gift certificates are either lost or never claimed. Thus, to whom would this 'windfall' be beneficial?

I like an earlier idea, instead of giving $700 Billion to banks and insurance companies, send that to the approx 128 Million taxpayers directly as a check. That will pay off a lot of consumer debts and shore up mortgages from the bottom.

I am not a fan of the 'trickle down' economics that Reagan pushed. Sure, shit flows downhill, but money — not so much.

Jerry

Jerry,

That's what they tried last spring, don't you remember? It didn't work. People just salted it away. That's what I said at the beginning of this post.

Lew

An Open Letter to Some of My Friends

(Reuters / Jason Reed)

November 5, 2008,

To Dee in New Jersey: Last spring, when we were bickering over Hillary, do you remember that I said there would be a landslide for Barack Obama in the fall?

To Ar in Ohio: Do you remember how, in all your evangelical wisdom, you told me I was always voting on the losing side?

To Em and Ar in Pennsylvania and Oregon: Do you remember how, when I asked you how many campaign signs you saw in the countryside you replied that nearly all of them were for Obama-Biden? Congratulations on your excellent observations.

To Ar in Massachusetts: Do you remember that when McCain picked Sarah Palin as his veep running mate I said that he'd just given the election to Obama and you replied, "From your mouth to God's ear"?

To Ay in New Jersey: Do you remember when I said that I had no idea how, remembering Mussolini in World War II, Italian-Americans could vote for Republicans, you replied that Rudy cleaned up New York City just fine and Benito did great things for Italy after World War I, and sometimes dictators were necessary? Alas, what are we going to do now? Let’s both cross our fingers and hope that Obama can do as well as Giuliani and Mussolini.

To Vee in Oklahoma: Do you remember when you told me that you and your hubby weren’t going to vote for Obama because he is a “Socialist”? Wasn't that what I suspect it truly was: An excuse not to vote for a mulatto?

And thanks especially to my wife in Maine and New York for reminding me frequently over the decades how few of my political predictions have panned out. However, this is the one that counts, the one that irrefutably proves once again that the United States of America is truly a great nation.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

COMMENTS

Lew,

I'm as elated as you. I feel like I finally woke up in the America I was told about, that others were promised, and the rest of the world aspires to.

Paul A. Austin

Paul,

It's 7:14 p.m. on Thursday, November 6th, 2008. Jean and I got back to Dresden about an hour ago after a month in Oswego where we voted. I was so drained yesterday I could hardly move: what a let-down; no, I mean relief! Today I'm up and ready to live again even though the stock market plunged over another cliff today and next month we find out how our CREF retirement portfolio is doing. Right. It's lying at the bottom of that cliff, no doubt. 

It's going to take a while for our new President Obama to begin to deal with the situation, but at least he doesn't have to wait until he is sworn in to begin doing things because the Democrats already control the Congress and he can start to work with them immediately.

I hope two things: That Ted Stevens is thrown out by the Republicans if he manages to be reelected somehow, and I hope Lieberman is ostracized completely. That process began today. I look forward to the day when the term "Joe the Traitor" is as widely used as "Joe the Plumber" is, or as "Joe Six-pack." Have you seen who voted for Obama? EVERYBODY! Including a whole pile of Joe Six-Packs and hockey moms. He did well across the spectrum, and he truly is everybody's President.

Lew

Lew,

If Joe Lieberman had a whit of decency, he would resign. Ted Stevens is already being shunned by his own.

Wednesday morning I recalled a pop song that came out when the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe broke away from the Soviet Union. The song is called "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones and the opening words were:

A woman on the radio talks about revolution when it's already passed her by.

Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about, you know it feels good to be alive.

It felt wonderful to be alive then, but even more so now.

Paul