Jill Rants and Raves

shakespeare unplugged

West Oakland,2008 © Jill Posener All Rights Reserved

I've been very quiet, I know. I've been fretting about some things, and getting all riled up about the usual stuff - the nature of love, passion, drama, relationships and the futility of it all - but really it's all just been simmering like an overcooked pot of beef stew - no, make that lamb, in light of the recent beef recall - on the back burner of my trembling busy brain.

It was Super Tuesday Part The Second yesterday - did y'all read Shakespeare when you were at school? This election is looking more Shakespearian than the Bard himself. You've got Ancient McCain who is really having difficulty reading the teleprompter. He does this strange thing with his eyes, where he seems to make a punctuation mark by opening them wide. It's unnerving. He then repeats the words 'my friends' and I keep expecting 'romans, countrymen' to follow. And isn't it a little unsettling that he has a name which could have come straight out of Macbeth? He is prone to evoking '100 year wars' and 'the battle for the soul of Islam'. I'm waiting for the medical report on this guy. Who exactly is going to be his VP choice? Aaaarggghhhh. I see Ancient McCain sitting in an empty castle in the highlands of West Virginia, with only lobbyists entering the inner sanctum while Mac is getting his daily shot of botox and getting the teeth glued so that they don't chatter so much when he speaks. And when he speaks, even at a victory celebration, the guy is barely awake, Never mind Barack not being able to answer the 3am 'emergency red' phone call - McCain's emergency phone is hooked directly to voicemail after 7pm. 'Hi this is Ancient Johnny, please call back during business hours'.

But then you've got an epic battle across the aisle. The former queen decides to revenge herself on her lying cheating king by taking the crown herself and forcing him to do the flower arrangements and work out menus for state dinners with the heads of countries with weird food requests for four (or more) years. But alas, the courtiers who once served her king are flocking to a young upstart prince who brings together the tribes of Kansas and Kenya and challenges Queen Hilaire to a duel in the plains of Texas, where much blood has been shed in the past.

There are accusations of an ugly child fathered by a woman in a man's suit, there are consorts declaring they have never been proud of their country, candidates who when they leave the battle declare that the whole campaign has been about unborn children. One candidate is declaring 'hope', another declaring 'faith', but none so far declaring 'charity'. There are battles being fought on foreign soil with men and women in inadequate armour dying for a cause they know little about. True there are no place names like Elsinore and Cawdor, but Abu Ghraib and Kabul are at least as hauntingly poetic and equally tragic. Kabul's ancient Greek name was Kofin, meaning the place were bees accumulate - the place of honey. It was home to an ancient tribe called Nuristanis. In the late 19th century Islamc rulers in the area attacked. The men were forced to join the army and the women who survived were taken into harems.

If only Will Shakespeare were alive to chronicle this terrible time - a moment in history more dramatic than Hamlet, a scene more sinister than the slaughters in Macbeth, a time more in need of a hero than the epic Henry V. Perhaps only Othello comes close to the dreadful unfolding of this monstrous family and tribal battle. There'll be some eyes poked out before too long.

Next week! Where is Falstaff when we need him most? Is Barack really Puck? Where is the love between Antonio and Sebastian from Twelfth Night when we need it, and who is our modern Jack Cade who leads a proletarian revolution in Henry VI Part 2 (of course)

the prince and the pee

Ooops, I lied. This is not about lesbian sex. I came home from a movie on Saturday night - the turgid There Will be Blood - and found that Oscar, the senior wiener in my home of lurve and devotion, had pee'd on the bed. This is a regrettable first for him. He has, I admit, been driving me nuts this winter, making what seem to me to be arbitrary decisions to pee indoors sometimes. At best the puddles are right by the open back door, as if he had every intention of taking his ten pound self outdoors but was beaten back by the California sprinkling we call rain. At worst, a river of piss runs down one of the gently sloping wood floors in my 100 year old house. I have been ready to throttle his little neck. And he knows it. He looks at me with brown menacing eyes and says 'I freakin' dare you Jill. I'll have Animal Services down here so fast you ....you ....well ....I just will'.
Oscar, as some of you know is somewhere around the 18 year old mark. This gives him enormous leeway. But the indoor pee thing. Wow, that just pisses me off.

But just last weekend, I went on a hike in the hills with Susie and the dogs including Oscar, and he probably walked at least 2 miles of the trail. He bounces, more than walks, on his short, still muscular dachshund legs, and his ears rise and fall as his body elevates. He is definitely at the back of the pack but never really out of sight (except when I lose him and panic), and the small bell I attached to his collar heralds his turn at a corner. Sometimes I start singing 'he'll be coming round the corner.....if he comes'. Most people we meet on the trail insist on stopping Oscar even though it slows his momentum and means he has to start his engine again. A few berate me for not carrying him. My answer 'hey, he asked to come on this walk, if he keels over right now, he's only got himself to blame' elicits looks of shock and tut tutting over my lack of dog parenting skills. Susie giggles.

But look - Oscar is a miracle. You've seen the pictures. He looks like a being from another planet. He is happiest when with me and the other dogs. Whether that's in bed or in my office watching me - as he is now - or out in the sun on the dusty trail finding some long forgotten horse poop to eat, he is first and foremost - a dog. During the night I often wake and check for his little chest heaving gently. I suppose it would be fine for him to go to sleep tucked into my arms and never wake up. But I suspect Oscar would be equally content to stop on the trail one day, look up at the redwoods and the blue sky and fall over.

I'm mad at him. He can't be pissing on the bed. But last night after piling all my bedding into the laundry and re-making the bed, I lifted him from the floor and tucked him up as usual. One of my cats, Blackie (I didn't name her by the way) who lived with a homeless woman next to the railroad tracks for years, before Linda asked me to give Blackie a more certain future,  jumps on the bed at some point every night and finds Oscar. She begins to purr and curls up beside him, licking his threadbare ears till they are damp and crinkly. Oscar just lays there with his eyes shut gently soaking up the attentions of this special feline. In the morning these two are entwined like lovers.

So I put up with my prince and his pee and remind myself that, as Anatole France wrote 'Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened'. I am wide awake.

the obama swoon

The Swoon Comes to West Oakland Photo: Jill Posener © 2008 All Rights Reserved

Yeah, the swoon thing. Clearly Obama is the nominee. Was this what we were being set up for when John Kerry suggested Obama give the keynote address at the Demo Convention in 2004? I guess so. You gotta give the Demos credit for thinking that far ahead. The comparison being made between BO & RFK is apt - and who knows what might have been had Kennedy lived? But I keep hearing people talk about Barack as if they were reading from a Winnie The Pooh story. Their voices grow sweet and sugary. Men as well as women are enamored of this guy, they speak of Obama's 'vision', his 'hope for the country'. It's as if everyone started believing in the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy all at once.

And which country are they talking about? Is it the country that just recalled hundreds of millions of pounds of beef, of slaughterhouse workers in a video shown torturing diseased cattle as they lead them to the death line? The same country that then uses the meat from those abused animals in the federal school lunch program? Is it the country that has seen a slew of mass killings by disturbed loners in the last year? Is it the country of Tom Cruise's Scientology or the Nation of Self-Medication? Is it the country of the inspirational Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco or the nation of 'god hates fags' Fred Phelps at his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka. The nation of Code Pink or the Nation Of Islam, the Marine Corps or marine mammals?

What country does Barack have hope for? The country that still executes human beings or the country that describes Cuba as enslaved while millions here cannot read or write, afford health care and feed their children cheap beef at fast food outlets? One Nation Under God? There is no 'one nation'.

What there is, is a sliver of opportunity every few years to redress the most egregious desecrations committed in the name of progress. And while Amerika remains a two party system - shackled to party machinery and wedded to pretending the divides don't exist while driving the wedge deeper - between rich and poor, black and white and immigrant and illegal, male and female, gay and straight, right and left, insured or not, owning or renting, gun supporting or gun opposing, and faithful and faithless - America will swing wildly on it's familiar pendulum.

I heard a plump liberal radio talk show host from the Dakotas in conversation with Tom Daschle the other day and he asked him two questions. First, 'what is China like?' Ok, yeah. I guess if you come from Fargo the vastness of China might escape you. Then he asked 'Do they like us?' They? The Chinese. All 1.3 billion of them. 20% of the entire population of the world. Do they like us? Who is us? It is this level of facile b.s that is driving the Obama campaign, the idea that somehow if we get the right preacher, we can all follow along with the sermon and not feel left out.

I don't dislike BO. He seems like a good and solid human being. He is however not a knight, on any kind of horse, and any armour he's wearing probably includes a bulletproof vest. But a large number of Americans are swooning. Expect a 'wave' to spontaneously sweep the Convention Hall after he takes the stage. This just is not the way to elect a leader of a government. On election day 2008, chances are that almost half the country will have voted against him. He may have hope for them. Let's just all hope it's mutual.

Alright, I'm gonna leave election politics behind for a while. The number of hits on my blog spikes markedly when I write the words lesbian and sex in the same sentence in keywords or in the title....so next blog: Lesbian. Sex. And how heterosexuals taught us everything we know about drama.

preacher obama, berkeley cops, rain and self pity

Grrr, I'm really annoyed at myself. No matter how hard I try to write a new blog about how I feel Obama is becoming more of a preacher in a travelling tent every day (and what is this bullshit about inclusion in the 'big tent' political cliche crap?), no matter how hard I try to write a follow up to the shooting on my street when a 51 year old black woman was shot to death by a black Berkeley officer (why mention his race? Because, godammit, it's been raised by neighbors who somehow seem even more incensed that he was black, than if he had not been. Is it a more egregious shooting? I don't think so). I have tried to write about how much relationship drama I seem to circulate in, and before you start lecturing me, it is not all of my making. But man it just does my head in. And on top of this lack of good ideas, I'm having trouble starting a piece of writing for which I might actually get paid. Freaking bejesus. What is wrong with me?

Obama feels like the guy with a bottle of elixir, and everywhere the circus sets up the tent, people faint as they try to get a whiff of that stuff. He makes claims about the benefits of the potion he's carrying in his hands and condemns the competition for running ads that question whether the small blue bottle with the simple formula is nothing more than rose flavored tap water. Do you know what I mean? I listen to him, I really do, and feel like pulling my car over and beating the radio to death. He's more preacher than Huckabee. He's more supercilious than Newt. He's more ethical than Miss Manners. He's more popular than Jesus, at the moment. Step aside John Lennon. Simply - he scares me. He can't deliver on the promises because he may not have that majority in the Senate the Dems need to fully undo and re-do the stitching in DC.

I think the Dems missed the chance to have a knowledgeable, work both sides of the aisle Prez. I think many Dems are beginning to see the dreadful truth here. Hillary will not win, but I've been saying that for over a year. A few people owe me for that prediction. But Obama? Who knew the American Idol producers were pulling the levers?

As to the shooting a block from me. Wow, it feels sadder and sadder to me. I understand that a cop makes a quick judgement about the safety of himself or others. I don't know exactly what happened. It scares me senseless that a woman got shot to death in her own home while under the influence of some product, while with her family. It's just wrong. I'll come back to this.

It's raining again, I've had a really bad cold for days, doping myself with Zicam, Sudafed, Advil and lots and lots of coffee. I think that is the key to successfully fighting off most bugs. But I hate this weather. I live with my dogs and cats and they have simply failed me - I had to cook for myself again last night. Life just is not being fair right now. I'm bummed that the New York Times is using a sex slur against Johhny Boy McCain. All in all, I'm thinking of moving again. The real problem though, is that wherever I move to, I go too.

berkeley police shooting

It is eerily quiet on my street this morning. It was deathly quiet on my street last night, a Saturday night of a long weekend. This was not normal. I live in one of those neighbourhoods in Berkeley which teeters on the edge of trouble but doesn't usually tip over. I live with a pretty constant sense that eruption is close, but hey, the volcano can simmer for years and not blow. Right? The last year has seen the temperature rising though. And these days my neighbours and I share an increasing number of complaints about the lack of police or city response to a growing sense that our streets and our homes are not as safe as they were. Yesterday, early evening, I was heading into San Francisco to see friends and as I drove away from my house, noticed two teens making their way down the side of a neighbours yard and stopping to share drugs. I told them to leave. The response of the girl who cannot have been more than 14 was that she would blow my car up. Perhaps she should visit the Marine Recruiting Office Berkeley is trying so hard to get rid of.

But neighbors here do care about one another and, in their defense, police response, when they are called, is swift. But who knew just how fatal this particular response would be.

When I got home at ten, the news vans were ahead of me, the whole block immediately next to mine was taped off with yellow tape, and it seemed that every police cruiser Berkeley owns was within a hundred yards of my house, 6 of them in the middle of my street and outside my house. I felt safe. I asked a young officer what had happened. He said he couldn't say.

What had happened is that a woman died at the receiving end of a police service revolver. It is too soon to know what really happened. The news reports spoke of a domestic dispute call and windows being smashed, and then a second call, a woman wielding a knife and a veteran police officer shooting in 'self defense'. Officers killing people in Berkeley is a rarity - unlike Oakland, where it seems almost routine - but the still which enveloped my neighbourhood last night was somehow like the blood draining from a blunt trauma injury. And though I am shocked at the cause of the peacefulness, I had a sense last night of what it is like to sleep in a truly safe neighborhood. I'm upset at myself for being grateful for the calm, in which my dogs slept through the night and didn't rear up fretfully at the sound of the guy on the Harley Davidson who shatters the sound barrier at night - consciously, deliberately and repeatedly, just to let us all know he is out there. I'm amazed at the sleep which I experienced, without waking to the sounds of a group of over stimulated jerks having a debate about some shit fuck crack cunt bitch ho outside my darkened windows.

I'm angry that I slept so well because my street was blocked off and police were everywhere. A woman was shot to death on a night that may have started like many others for her, but which ended with no possibility of another one.

Berkeley is filled with people who look over their bi-focals at distant problems they are powerless to correct, but our infrastructure and quality of life is cracking and becoming as rutted as the street that bears Martin Luther King Jr's name, that you can't drive along anymore because presumably there is either no money or no will to fix the damage to it. The gap between life in the hills and the flatlands gapes wider. Berkeley is so in love with its reputation and history as a maverick, it no longer seems to care that the stain is seeping across the south part of the city. That's the problem with thinking the eruption isn't happening. The rumble is there, constant, but until a tragedy puts a finger to our lip and shushes the whole area, we don't notice the lava boiling.

the heart is a sturdy piece of rebar

code pink brings the stars and stripes to berkeley

If I didn't live (and pay massive property taxes) in Berkeley, I would definitely want to watch the show on TV. But as it is, I just wake every morning and wonder what the next episode will bring. And we do this even with Hollywood writers on strike. Amazing. On one day it could be the sight of ex mayor Shirley Dean and octogenarian council member Betty Olds climbing the branches of an old oak tree to save it from UC Berkeley's attempts to cut it down, on another it could be Mayor Tom (Bates) pushing lifestyle legislation onto the city's Telegraph Avenue by making it illegal to lie down. It might be the sludge, dredged (without the required permits) from a man-made lake, and left sitting for months under huge plastic wrap. Or the fact that my council member, having campaigned on a promise to do better than the last one on the issue of transparency, went straight into some back room deals to develop the Ashby BART station area without public oversight. But today, Berkeley's reality cable show is being watched by millions as our local council may have to reverse itself after trying to throw the Marine Recruiting Office out of our precious, pious, self righteous little town.

I'll say it right here. I want the United States to have an army. I think an army is a good thing, and when you want the really dirty stuff done, you want the Marines to be there. And I think if the armed services want to open a recruiting office in Berkeley, they have every sodding right to do so. And I'll go further. If anyone thinks the Obama Express is gonna pull troops out of Iraq any faster than a different Democrat President, think again. This guy is going to break your hearts. Smooth talking, skinny and good looking (he also hasn't suffered under the writer's strike, his speechwriters are damn good), he's delivering a tuna melt with the cheese dripping down the sides of the toasted rye. You feel satisfied, but there's an empty feeling ahead.

So today, as the Code Pink anti war protesters waving their pink banners and handing out their pink bumper stickers and buttons took up their position of the west side of MLK Jr Way outside the Council Chambers, a growing crowd of Republicans, right wing radio talk show denizens, and flag waving Marine supporters took up residence on the east side. The homeless and drug addicted were rousted from their place near City Hall by a population not usually seen in this self absorbed town. Berkeley is getting a feel of what it would be like to live in Chico. Most people in Berkeley don't know which way round the stars and stripes hangs, nor what a Ford F350 looks like, and definitely don't know what to do with all these folks who brought their take out coffee containers from Denny's (in Emeryville, not Berkeley).

And we owe it all to a bunch of NIMBY's (Not In My Berkeley Yard) having verbal trade offs with the officer in charge of the recruiting office, who started doing a brisk trade in young lives once everyone found out - courtesy of Code Pink - that there even was a Marine office here.

War is a dirty job. Most of us don't want to do it. During the time of conscription, thousands fled America to avoid doing the time. Many were  principled conscientious objectors. Others were cowards. Some felt entitled to skip it. Most Republican politicians-to-be simpy cried on Mommy's shoulder who cried on Daddy's shoulder who called the local officials and got a deferment. Minorities and the working class died in disproportionate numbers. Not much has changed with a volunteer army. When jobs, entire industries are being outsourced to India and China not to mention Vietnam, when 10 billion dollars a month is being spent on Iraq while America's infrastructure collapses, and empty promises are made in exchange for signing up, minorities and the poor will flock to the uniform.

I didn't support going to war, I'm deeply uncomfortable with nation building, I'm embarrassed by the culture war being waged by the right against Muslims, and I believe that America had a golden rare moment after 9/11 to unify the world against extremism and squandered it. When an outpouring of condolence and support echoed around the globe, the US turned around and used the opportunity to settle scores carried from papa to little boy Bush. But right now, I'm bummed that nationalism is wide awake in Berkeley, woken from a slumber by a self aggrandising protest against a Marine Recruiting Office.

boys will be boys

Okay, so I was wrong. Pretty damn wrong. McCain? Grandpa McCain? I didn't see it, I just didn't see that the divide between 'conservatives' and what are described as 'New York Times Republicans' was that severe - like a guy with his legs on an ice floe - the right leg on one, the left leg on another and they are drifting apart. Fast. The reds are destroying themselves from the inside out. The right wing hates McCain. Detests and loathes him for a million different sins - he is, as they say, a pretty centrist kinda guy who promises everything to everybody and then wonders why no-one trusts him. He's a politician, not a leader.

Rush, the fuzzball, and his animal rescue sidekick Mark Levin are frothing at the mouth on air. Get the rabies vaccines handy. Sean Hannity and Michael Savage are obsessed with 'Islamo fascists' and how Romney was the guy to confront them. Yeah, he would take the weird Mormon tablets and the nutty angel Moroni and shout them down in the marketplace of non-ideas. Romney, in the ultimate flip flop, rallied his followers after Super Tuesday, then gets hauled into the big tent for a whupping by the Republican handlers, and comes out on Thursday and says he is 'suspending' his campaign. By what are you suspending it Mitt, bungee cords?

There are accusations of Huckabee or 'Huckaphony' as he is fondly known in conservative circles, being the 'wingman' for Johnny Hanoi Hilton, throwing delegates to McCain in states where the Huckster could not win, but the extra help for McCain pushed him past Romney. Huckabee is virtually begging for the Veep job. There is already an attempt at 'swiftboating'  McCain, with hit pieces from Vietnam vets saying he was known as 'Songbird' in captivity because he gave it up so quickly when tortured. Whatever else he is or isn't, McCain is a war hero, no question.

This is an electrifying election season. Nearly 30 Rebublicans in Congress have said they aren't running again. They are in fact running for the exits. But why in such numbers? They don't wanna be there once Cheney, Rove, Bush et al are gone. There aren't too many people defending the Bush presidency, and their fear that they might be held accountable for the shameful events of the last seven years is way too much for the country club cons to handle.

So this should be a cakewalk for the Democrats right? I think not. I think the blues could blow the whole thing. And now that McCain is the presumptive nominee, the loss of John Edwards is even more galling. Edwards would have been the perfect counter to McCain. But ironically, the Democrats desire to 'make history' may backfire and push the pallid aged Republican cheddar cheese into the White House. His appeal to independent voters and to Democrats who don't wanna see history made is clear. The scent is already beginning to fade from the Barack bouquet, perhaps blooming too early in the season. And the vitriolic disdain towards the Clinton machine is not limited to the opposition.

Younger voters - even into their thirties - who have joined the Barack Brigades are openly admitting they have never voted before and conceding that if Hillary is the nominee they may sit this one out also. I have one thing to say to those idiots. This is not a popularity contest you stupid dickheads. Voting is your civic duty, not a late night decision about whether to go to a frat party. And it's about Supreme Court Justices. That's why you support the Democratic nominee no matter who it is. Let the conservative whiners pout and say they will sit it out. Every vote not cast by a Democrat is a vote for McCain.

Geez, my shoulders are aching badly, I'm stressed by all this. But it is way more fun than the British way of doing things. On the other hand, I have to say I was impressed by the freak show in the Italian Parliament the other day when a vote of no confidence in the leadership was followed immediately by the uncorking of masses of champagne bottles, corks whizzing through the air, and grown men shaking the bottles and spraying each other with the urine colored liquid with bubbles. Ah, boys will be boys. We can look forward to many boy moments with McCain, like the day he asked why Chelsea Clinton was so ugly and then chuckling said 'because Janet Reno is her father'. Or perhaps the day he said that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Hey John, she may well be on the ballot. Just vote for her.

super mary gauthier

It is the eve of super tuesday and it was definitely super bowl yesterday and I have nothing superlative to say on either. Not today at any rate.

I'm still in a superlative mood about the show I went to on Friday at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. I've been listening for a while now to Louisiana singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier (pronounced Go-shay) so when my buddy Joann called and said she and her partner Cynthia were going that night and should they get me a ticket, I fairly shivered at the thought. Gauthier is on a solo tour promoting a new CD Between the Daylight And The Dark and from the moment she came onstage she revealed her storyteller's charm as well as the ability to deliver her songs without a band to buff it up. Great show.

She told tales about hobos and their lives riding the underbelly of the American Dream, and about being in Nashville trying desperately to find a co-writer to write 'hit' songs for a record label, about lives destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and about her consistent failure to become a star - 'hey' she said 'I'm 47, why change now'.

If there is any justice - the new album should project her into the rarified atmosphere inhabited by other songwriters and artists who reveal their own demons in their work. She has a voice that sounds like a whisky soaked cloth is stuck down her throat, she is intense, passionate, articulate and on the side of social justice. My kind of lesbian. See her whenever and wherever you get the chance.

what's a liberal to do?

This is the question asked by my liberal, dog fanatic, Bernal Heights dwelling, almost retiree, boy buddy Barry. Bear, I have no freakin' idea. You've all messed this up something awful. America should be feeling morose today about John Edwards decision to quit the campaign. But I've a feeling that, being in lust with Obama and in love-hate with Hillary, most 'liberals' won't even notice that the best candidate has gone.

Photo: Jill Posener, Melbourne, 1985 © 2008 All Rights Reserved

Think on this - it is just the start of February, the vast majority of the states have yet to vote in primaries, but the internet, media, radio and celebrity endorsements have already decided which ideas and visions you get to choose from. This is known in any other industry as bait and switch.

That liberal talk show hosts are giving Edwards more airtime today than they ever gave him while he was a candidate is all the more depressing because they refuse, like all addicts in denial, to take some responsibility for their own actions. Who is the media if it isn't talk radio? They all act as if they are somehow marginalised minorities. Talk radio is among the most dominant influences in US culture today, so if y'all thought John Edwards was the most progressive and most principled person on the national stage, why the freak didn't you say so?

The primary system is, if anything, more broken than any rigged Diebold voting machine. The scandal of the Democratic National Committee's punitive action in disqualifying Florida's delegates because of the decision to hold an early primary is just one example of how fractured the system is. The winner yesterday (Clinton) can claim a win of the popular vote, but has no delegates to show for it. Florida, popular vote, delegates ...and the Republican legislature playing a role as well... is this deja vu all over again?

Some commentators are oozing self congratulation because America will be making history - by nominating either a woman or an African American for a presidential race. Geez, it must be me - but we got a good look at what voting gender can bring when we elected Maggie Thatcher in the UK, and as far as I can see, people of colour have been elected around the world for as long as there have been elections. It is a measure of the American myopic obsession with race that Obama's candidacy and possible nomination is even seen as unusual.

I did believe, somehow, that Edwards could emerge victorious as the nastiness of the campaign between the two 'history makers' would leave most everyone with a bitter taste. I was right about the bitterness, I was wrong that Americans could choose a path other than the popularity contest where the list of endorsements became more important than the list of accomplishments.

And on the Republican side, I believe the right is wondering how best to challenge what they see as an inevitable Obama nomination. Will McCain be a better choice for them? A man who appeals to independent voters, and to many white southern democrats who have said they are not ready to elect a black man, or will they push the man who might appeal more to evangelicals, Mitt Romney. But there are many evangelicals who are disgusted by both - Romney after all is a mere Mormon and McCain is a centrist flip flopper. The enormous power of the evangelical bloc vote may well be nullified as many may sit this one out. A tiny footnote is the colossal failure of Rude Boy Rudy, the arrogant thug who had the best hand of any Republican candidate and squandered  it. Amazing!

Maxine Waters one of the most dominant African American politicians on the West Coast endorsed Hillary - making herself a stand out for loyalty. She knows the debt liberals owe the Clintons and she's paying dues. The rest are fleeing for the Ship Of Good Hope, clinging to the shirt tails of the new knight in shining armour. Eager not to be left on board when the Clinton big rig explodes, they are lining up at the gate of the Obama Express.

I think this is a sad day for the Democratic Party. As a lifelong British Labour Party supporter - you vote Labour (with no illusions). Here, you vote Democrat (with no illusions) that's all there is to it. But without meaningful campaign reform, America may as well just employ Simon Cowell to run the election and we can all punch in our votes on our cell phones come November.