Bill White for Governor? (of Texas)

I know little about White except that he was elected mayor of Houston twice with incredible 80%+ support.  He also has an impressive pate that is not obscured by excessive hair.  It would be a refreshing contrast to Gov. Goodhair. 

In a time of great fiscal stress, White also managed the budget in Houston with such proficiency that few or no major cuts in services occurred. 

I'm thinking he may be the most viable candidate for major office that the Democrats have had in a while. 

He had planned to run for the Senate, but now he is deliberating about running for Governor. 

I will now channel George Bush (the little one):  My gut tells me that White has a better shot at Governor than he does at Senator 'cuz Gov. Goodhair is so unloved in quite a few quarters.  But Senator would be a more important post for him to hold.  The Governor's power in Texas is more a matter of bully pulpit than it is vested executive authority.  But then 80%+ margins suggest a certain amount of charisma--either that or an incredible degree of rationality amongst the citizens of Houston.  Anything is possible, I guess (I lived in Houston as a youth & while I was not too conscious of local politics, I recall them as being as opaque and chaotic as any anywhere). 

But the idea of even a moderate centrist & technocratic Senator from Texas who is also a Democrat is pretty exciting.  His opponent, Cornyn, is not well loved in many circles either, but Cornyn has a solid core of supporters behind him and he is also politically more savy than many of those who hold to his extreme views...

I dunno.  I welcome comments as long as they don't hurt my feelings. 

R.
 
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Northern pastoral

In order to maintain my literary pretensions, I resolved a couple of years ago to read the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, cobbled together in the early 19th century (I think) by a fellow named Lonnrot (sp?).  At the time, the only translation I could handily find that was affordable was  a contemporary one, written in contemporary English.  I had seen excerpts online from a late 19th century translation by one John Martin Crawford that I liked a lot better,  but at the time there were no affordable editions of that one available, at least that I could find. 

Well, I read the first 70-100 pages and then let the project lapse.  But these days I'm reading the stream of mysteries coming out of Scandanavia and Iceland and I can't seem to get enough of them.  And even though I didn't like the translation of the Kalevala that I had much, the evocations of nature from what I have read there often haunt my consciousness in the morning, especially if the weather is cool or rainy. 

A friend of mine sent me a review by Christopher Hitchens of Stieg Larsson's trilogy.  Hitchens remarks in passing that he has heard of bookstores that now devote whole sections to Scandanavian mysteries.  I wish there was a book store in Austin that had one. 

Northrup Frye asserts somewhere that the Western is a fictional analog to the poetic genre known as "pastoral."  I can see that.  I am led to wonder also if part of the appeal of the Scandanavian mysteries is the quiet but constant presence of the northern landscape in the background.  The winters, I imagine, make it hard to ignore. 

In any case, I have found a cheap edition of John Martin Crawford's translation of the Kalevala.  Maybe now I can finish it and really impress people at parties. 

R.

P.S. The Kalevala was an inspiration for Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha," according to people who know this sort of thing.
 
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Headed for home plate?

 

Everybody (except for about 30% of population)  is sweating bullets about the prospects of real health care reform (as well they should be, with the Democrats' talent for "f*cking up a wet dream") and yet, the frail Reid has whispered the magic word "reconciliation" to the Conservadems & they seem to be melting into the shadows...

 

What I would like to think is that this is like the campaign, where we kept wishing Obama would "get tough" or do this, or do that, and yet he made it come off & rather brilliantly at that.  I think it is also true now, as it was then, that he and all the Good Guys have a mighty assist from the rank ineptitude of their opponents...So health care reform may yet happen.  If it does, though, I really think the Good Guy Democrats and Obama should get their act together better.  One cannot rely on the ineptitude of the opposition lasting forever...

 

(I just violated one of my core principles in the caption:  never use sports metaphors except from horse racing--a guilty pleasure I allow myself.  I guess I'll get over it).

 

R.

 

 

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Make It Stop...

The rain of chickensh*t from the Far Right seems relentless--even after the Reign of Chickensh*t (i.e. the Bush Administration) is over.  Even uber-conservative Grover Norquist doesn't agree with this attitude--(& it's a very odd feeling to find yourself in agreement with Grover Norquist).  

I myself worry about stepping out into the yard and being bitten by a copperhead.  Or attacked by a rabid pit bull.  It could happen. 

Rep. Shadegg Suggests Mayor Bloomberg's Daughter Will Be "Kidnapped" By A Terrorist

by Matt Finkelstein

Despite the fear-mongering of many conservatives, the Obama administration's decision to prosecute five alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City has the backing of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  "It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered," Bloomberg said last week, noting that the city has "hosted terrorism trials before."

However, a far-right congressman from the other side of the country doesn't appreciate Bloomberg's confidence in New Yorkers.  Speaking on the House floor last night, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) went after Bloomberg personally, suggesting that the mayor's daughter could be "kidnapped at school by a terrorist" because of the trial:

SHADEGG: I saw the Mayor of New York said today, "We're tough. We can do it."Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped?  Or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok.    
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Rhetorical question on last night's health care vote...

Why does everything have to be so effing hard? 

Just once it would be nice to see the Forces of Light triumph without a struggle unto the 11th hour. 
 
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Roots of terrorism

Or one of them any way.   The awfulness of the shootings at Fort Hood are self-evident and I don't have much to say about them in their particularity.  The shooter had Arabic & Islamic origins and I'm sure that's going to be fodder for all kinds of ignorant, boorish & hateful bullshit politics.  Not that I have any great sympathy for the man.  In fact, I partially hope that he dies, not only because it would be emotionally satisying, but also to spare the country a lot of back-and-forth rhetoric that a long, probably complex trial would occasion. On the other hand it would be an opportunity for a vindication of the criminal justice system as a means of dealing with terrorist incidents. 
 

But I submit the following impressions:  what lies at the root of terrorism in some corners of the Islamic world is not something confined to the Islamic world and has little to do with Islam, per se.  It has more to do with the tribal codes in place in the Arabic world before Islam and which colored much interpetation of Islam thereafter.   It is a thing which pre-dates Islam anywhere and which could be found everywhere and  is still with us nowadays just about anywhere, but I would especially indicate the American South, American gun culture,  various street gangs of varying ethnicity. East Asia (insofar as it remains traditional) and among the professional military throughout the world.    What is this awful thing, this mother of blood feuds? 

I think it is a thing variously called "honor" and "face."  It's a matter of taking slights and insults to heart and feeling that one is diminished until one is avenged by the taking of appropriate retaliatory action up to and including violent retribution.  I would note that "appropriate" does not refer to how much objective harm is done, but rather how grievous the insult is felt to be.   Obsession with honor also overrides a concern for self-preservation. 
 
It is bad enough with indivduals when they become mass killers a la Columbine,   but when when a preoccupation with honor becomes collective, through vehicles of nationalism or chauvinisms of race, religion, or culture, it's all the worse. 
 
I believe that what a sense of honor is ultimately is a corruption of a sense of justice. 
 
R.
 

 
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