A Costly Campaign

Can someone please stop Sen. Clinton? She's dragging the American political process through the mud, and everyone's getting a bit on them. Her only way to win is if Sen. Obama has some major screw-up.

He hasn't yet, so the fact that she is still running means her paid staff has two choices: keep her in it long enough for a major party foul to happen by chance (statistically improbable since it hasn't happened yet, and near-impossible if Obama is who he says he is), or seek a victory for Sen. Clinton by willfully destroying Sen. Obama's reputation.

So, if she wins the nomination, she will have won either by luck or by underhanded subversion. Is this how we want her to run the country? Not love your neighbor, but destroy your neighbor? If she is this vicious with a fellow American, fellow member of the US Senate, and even fellow member of the Democratic Party, what will be her tactics for other, more foreign entities which she will need to compete with as Commander-In-Chief?

She is doing more harm than good, and we are all paying the price. Obama is right when he derides divisive politics on the basis that it turns the public off. He is also right when he suggests that the strength of a Democracy comes through interest and involvement by the people. Hillary Clinton is intentionally undermining Democracy for her own gain. She and Mark Penn might be playing dirty enough to win. Just like Karl Rove and George Bush did.

I value Sen. Clinton as a public servant, and understand that she has been the target of such tactics as much as anyone, but she, of all people, should know the negative effects such tactics have on the individual and on America as a whole.

We want change.

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Painting, Vegetables, and Climate Change

It's winter, and warm outside. I swear it's Global Warming. A glance to the mirror and I'm out the door, across the street to the grocery store to buy some vegetables because I feel better when I eat them.



I have spent much of the day painting another depiction of a human head; this one is a bit more abstract. I paint because something inside me tells me to. It's the same reason I will greet those I pass in the street and the same reason I travel whenever possible. All this to say that I have no idea why I paint. I have no idea why it seems like a good idea to collect canvases and then one day make the time to jump into a new painting that will very likely resemble the ones I have painted before.

Today I am buying a cucumber and some broccoli, maybe some squash. In my mind, I imagine the color green washing my insides and strengthening my molecules. I feel deeply whole.

I walk into the store and find the produce section. I inhale deeply. I think for a moment about farmers then the mist starts and I am awakened. I sort through the piles of vegetables and look for produce without scars, but I know scars don't affect the flavor. I pay in cash and ask for paper. As automatic doors slide shut behind me, I say hello to a man out front with a clipboard who, in response, asks if I'm a registered voter. I say yes, but decline to sign his petitions. I don't feel like it today.

The air is growing colder, but I enjoy the short walk home and plod noisily up the steel stairs to my apartment. The door closes behind me and I hang my keys with a jingle. I find my painting where I left it next to my brushes, so I squint and stare then cock my head and squint and stare again. It looks the same. Perhaps I will paint over this one, I think to myself, or perhaps I will sit down to it and add the perfect stroke and want to show everybody.

Looking out the window, I notice the blue sky being replaced with white and gray, so I put on a sweatshirt and start a pot of tea to seal the deal. Maybe Global Warming will kick in next year, my mind says, which starts me laughing.

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