Hamlet

A couple of nights ago, I watched a BBC production of "Hamlet," featuring David Tennant as Hamlet, and Patrick Stewart as Claudius and old Hamlet's ghost. This production is set in the 20th century, allowing the players to wear modern clothes, and giving the production a kind of immediacy. I liked it very much. Tennant is nearly overwhelming in the title role, and Patrick Stewart is an urbane, almost sympathetic villain.

I wondered as I watched, what had happened at Elsinore before the play began. Hamlet obviously holds his dead father in high regard and is extremely distressed that his mother Gertrude has married the old king's brother only a few months after old Hamlet's sudden death. But Hamlet's opinion of his father might not square with what other people thought. In fact, as I remember, old Hamlet drops a very broad hint that he's now in hell.

Perhaps he was a very bad man and a very bad king. Maybe he and Gertrude were unhappy together. We might guess that Gertrude and Claudius were attracted to each other while old Hamlet still lived. Later in the play, when Claudius confesses to the audience that he did indeed kill the old king, he says his motives were ambition and lust. So he wanted his sister-in-law, even if she didn't yet return his love.

Now about the opening scenes, when the ghost appears to Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio. As a schoolboy, I always pooh-poohed the ghosts and witches in Shakespeare as figments for a credulous crowd, fantastic and foolish to modern readers. Now, grown-up and a little more understanding of both playcraft and psychology, I get that the supernatural characters are figments, but occurring within the characters' own minds. Hamlet imagines his father's ghost, meaning he has been moping about the old man's death and it suddenly crosses his  mind that his father was murdered and his uncle did the deed. In fact the whole opening of the play might be considered to have happened as Hamlet's musings.

I'd be willing to bet I'm not the first person to have thought of this. Readers might well be thinking, "Well, he finally figured it out," as they read this blog. If that's the case, please just chalk this post up as the belated insight of someone who enjoys Shakespeare, but is only  just now putting things together.

And, get hold of that BBC production. It's really very good.

President Romney

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that Mitt Romney wins the presidential election on November 6. I  don't think it will happen, but I'm not nearly as sure about it as I was a month ago. President Obama might well have kicked away his re-election chances during that first debate on October 3.

But suppose there will be a Romney presidency. Let us also suppose that the Democrats will keep their present majority in the Senate. (GOP gains in North Dakota and Nebraska offset by Democratic wins in Maine and Massachusetts. There might be some other changes, but those appear to be the most likely.)  Further, let us say that despite Democratic gains in the House of Representatives, Republicans maintain a small majority there.

Romney  is  pledged to repeal Obamacare and replace it with "something common sense that works." Republicans in the House quickly will pass a repeal bill when the new Congress meets in January. It's possible that a couple of Democrats in the Senate would vote to repeal, so the Democrats will threaten a filibuster to prevent a vote. Republicans might let that happen, and we'd be treated to weeks of senators talking about their dear old mothers and reading recipes into the Congressional Record. The Senate rules are frankly ludicrous, allowing a minority to stop anything they don't like, and the Democrats have learned from past masters - the senate Republicans - how to thwart the majority.

Perhaps the Senate will vote to enforce cloture after weeks of acrimony and the repeal bill passes, to be signed immediately and gleefully by the new president. In truth, Romney has nothing to replace Obamacare, and we revert to the status quo of 2009. Insurance companies can once again refuse to cover illnesses because of pre-existing conditions, both real and bogus, young people must buy their own coverage beginning at age twenty-two, and women can be charged higher premiums than men. Millions of people lose their chance to buy insurance at all because of cost or prior poor health. Lifetime maximums will once again be written into policies.

Romney will ask the Congress to extend the "Bush era" tax cuts permanently, and Congress, with their eyes on future elections, will do so right speedily. Whatever Romney said about closing tax loopholes for wealthy taxpayers during his campaign, he will do nothing once in office and neither will Congress. Money made by money will continue to be taxed at a much  lower rate than money made by work. And despite what Romney promised, the annual deficit will get much larger.

Congress will move to cut federal spending to keep things from getting out of hand completely, but Republicans have never been averse to spending, whatever they say about it, so expect some very large construction projects to be approved, most especially the Keystone pipeline. Big construction projects mean big contracts, after all, with big profits for construction firms.

What will be on their chopping block, aside from Big Bird? The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities come to mind. These barely  make a dent in federal spending, so what else? Since President Romney wants to buy more warships and other weapons, he and Congress will need to cut almost every other federal discretionary spending program, and make a huge reduction in force of the civilian government employees to even come close to balancing the budget. So, those of you who like to visit public lands, for example, don't expect to receive any interpretive walks or talks, or any rescue services for that matter. Don't expect that the medicines, food and water you use will be inspected adequately. Don't think the states will get any federal money for relief of indigent people. Say good-bye to any public funding for Planned Parenthood.

Do expect an attempt to weaken the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, and the Endangered Species Act could itself become endangered. Do expect an attempt to criminalize some or all abortions. (Republicans have promised that before, and haven't delivered on it. If I was more cynical, I'd say they deliberately don't want to pass such a law because then they wouldn't be able to use it as an issue, election after election.) Do expect them to  end any tax laws favorable to the development of renewable energy in favor  of new give-aways to the petroleum industry. Do expect President Romney to threaten Iran. Romney will meet the Obama timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite having criticized Obama for setting a calendar date for doing so.

Expect the rich to get richer and the poor  to get poorer. Ain't we got fun.

Debate 2

Last night I watched the presidential debate. That is to say, I  sat at the library counter and watched the video on the CNN feed without any audio. So what follows is just an impression based on what my eyes saw.

President Obama was clearly much more alert and engaged than he was in Denver two weeks ago. That isn't saying too much, as he was almost asleep then. The president has a million dollar smile and it was on exhibit last night.

Likewise,  Mitt Romney looked happy and engaged for awhile. I remember thinking after fifteen minutes or so of the debate that he looked like a very good salesman who was trying to convince me I  should buy a product that I don't really need or want.

By the time an hour had gone by, I thought Romney was showing his age; he looked like a sixty-five year old man. There's nothing wrong  with that, he is sixty-five, but he looked tired for awhile. I wondered, "If this guy has to wake up at three in the morning for some crisis, will he be able to pull himself together?"

Romney rallied in the last half hour. He has a dash  of distinguished looking gray at his temples, and near the end reminded me of the kind of loan officer who smilingly tells people he cannot approve their loan applications. I also wondered how much Grecian Formula he has to  apply to get that carefully coiffed look. (What is it about Republican candidates, by the way, that they can't let us know they've gone gray? Ronald Reagan never showed a single strand of gray, even in his mid-seventies.)

CNN was running an electronic tape across the bottom of the screen, a kind of "approval-o-meter" of undecided voters. For the most part, these people seemed to like the responses of most men, though I thought they liked Obama's answers a little more. Oddly, it looked as though the undecided men liked Obama more and the women favored Romney, both marginally.

As I write this, I'm listening to a replay of the debate. I'm not an undecided voter. I have my mail-in ballot right here and will mark it for President Obama. I'll just say that I like the president's answer on energy much better than Romney's, I just wish Obama went further and said clearly that we must move towards a post-fossil fuel society by every means we can muster.

Ironically, the CNN replay broke for commercial, and there was an ad by "clean coal" claiming the Environmental Protection Agency is preventing full exploitation of coal resources.

I'm glad they finally  got around to discussing an environmental issue after concentrating almost exclusively on taxes and the deficit which, important though they are, by no means are all we need to  be concerned about.

Smut

Smut!

Give me smut and nothing but

A dirty novel I can't shut

If it's uncut

And unsubt-

le

I thrill

To any book like "Fanny Hill"

And I suppose I always will

If it is swill

And really fil-

thy

Oh, smut!

I'm a market they can't glut

I don't know what

Compares with smut

Hip-hip-hooray

Don't let them take it away.

That's a bit of a sarcastic song by Tom Lehrer, written about forty years ago. I recalled it last night as I was making the last sweep of the evening through the library where I work, and spied a novel called "Italian Stallions" on our new releases shelf. Curiously, I opened it to a random page and read two sentences, in which a young woman was inviting a man to "pop her cherry."

I was frankly embarrassed and put it back on the shelf. 

I don't think of myself as a  prude, and I am fervently against censorship. There is a place for such books, and I've read some of them during my life. I agree with the psychologists and sociologists who say that pornography can actually prevent sex crimes by providing a kind of pressure release valve for potential rapists and molesters. Also, some books that look at sex graphically have important literary value. Another verse of the Tom Lehrer song I quoted at the beginning of this post refers to "Lady Chatterley's Lover," by D.H. Lawrence, one of the more important writers of the twentieth century.

But in the public library, accessible to children and adolescents? I really have a problem with that. Library policy, by the way, is that we don't evaluate or censor what patrons want to borrow. When I issue a library card to a child, I often mention that it's up to the parent to monitor what the young person checks out, not up to the librarians.

Currently, the "Fifty Shades. . ." trilogy has been at the top of the best seller lists and our  library stocks all three volumes. Strictly to stay au courant, I read most of the first book, and found it just awful. The writing was a cut above romance novels and most dirty books, but the subject matter - sadism and masochism - left me disgusted. 

In a country of over 300 million people, there's probably nothing that doesn't happen from time to time. I'm sure there are hugely rich young men who have such psychological problems that they derive pleasure from inflicting pain on women, and women who are willing to take the pain to be close to their abusers. Some people, both male and female, get pleasure from pain. What troubles me so much about these books is that it suggests such things are the normal activities of the sexual world. Impressionable young people might get the idea that women generally take gratification from pain, and that the only  way a woman can attract or keep the interest of a man is to accept his abuse.  

My point here, and I do have one,  is that what for years was considered smut has gone mainstream. I don't mind that, in fact think that there's an important place for sexually explicit writing, but that the public library isn't it.

"Clean" Coal?

The following editorial was in yesterday's Washington Post.

The Washington Post

“I LIKE COAL,” Mitt Romney declared during last Wednesday’s presidential debate.
Both candidates have catered to coal-state voters, but Mr. Romney has been particularly full-throated in his pandering. Not only did he back the “clean coal” myth last Wednesday; in August he promised Ohio coal miners that he would save their jobs. “We have 250 years of coal,” Mr. Romney said then. “Why in the heck wouldn’t we use it?” His explanation for trouble in coal country is that President Obama has a wayward obsession with regulating the economy, resulting in an unnecessary “war on coal,” a term that popped up again last month in one of his campaign advertisements.

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Forget the ‘coverup’ — there are real issues to examine.

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Editorial Board OCT 11

His monument is all around D.C.

Mr. Romney is wrong on almost every point. The coal industry cannot and should not continue operating as it has, and Mr. Obama is not the reason. Cheap natural gas has gutted the economic case for burning coal. Climate change and coal-related pollution explain why that’s a good thing.
Natural gas is coal’s primary competitor, and with the increasing use of hydraulic fracturing to extract gas trapped in subterranean shale formations, its price has plummeted. Power companies used to dispatch gas-fired electricity last because it was the most expensive. Now the chief executive of Duke Energy, the country’s largest electric power holding company, says his firm uses coal as a last resort.
A study from the Brattle Group finds that coal use is more sensitive to the price of gas than to new government regulations. It projects that 59,000 to 77,000 megawatts of coal-fired power will come offline over the next five years, more than its 2010 estimate, despite the fact that, under Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency’s coal-plant regulations turned out to be more lenient than the researchers had expected. The power plants’ reason: low electricity demand and low natural gas prices. Brattle also calculates that a $1 drop in the price of gas would double the magnitude of coal-plant closings over the next five years.
Even if the price of natural gas rises somewhat, it will still be a major component of any rational, medium-term climate-change policy, since the transition from coal to gas is technologically easy and coal is particularly dirty. Part of the reason the EPA has written so many rules affecting coal is that burning it produces many types of pollution — not only carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to warming but also a noxious mixture of fine particles and gases, encouraging heart attacks, asthma and other ailments, which tax the economy in hospital costs, sick days and early death.
When the economics of energy help to redress environmental and public-health problems, the country’s leaders should cheer. They also should help those who depend on the industry prepare for transition, not tell them fairy tales. 

The Last of the Light Brigade

In 1854, as part of the Crimean War, now almost completely forgotten, a light brigade of English soldiers was foolishly ordered to charge a Russian strong point, and suffered heavy losses for no military advantage. If the charge is remembered at all today, it's because of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade." 

Thirty-seven years later, another English poet, Rudyard Kipling, also wrote about the brigade, the survivors of which had fallen on hard times back in Blighty. The poem pleads for better care of old veterans and suggests that private charity is not nearly enough to keep them in the dignity they deserve.

The Last of the Light Brigade by Rudyard Kipling

1891

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be conbnued' and 'see next page' o'the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the sconrn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shamme.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made --"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade! 

Civil Rights

A Tea Party web posting is criticizing black Democrats for their overwhelming support of President Barack Obama. It seems that a black actress who says she's voting for Mitt Romney for president has been the subject of hate mail, and accusations that she's deserting the candidate and party that fought for equality for all Americans.

The posting goes on to say that it was the Democrats who defended slavery, who were tied to the Ku Klux Klan, who fastened segregation on black Americans, who beat and lynched black men and abused black women, while the Republicans fought to secure civil rights and liberties for all Americans.

At least a part of that is true, but it doesn't come close to telling the whole story. Yes, southern Democrats and numerous northern Dems too, favored human race slavery. Even northern Democrats who went to war to preserve the Union by and large opposed  emancipation. Their slogan was, "The Union as it was, the Constitution as it is," meaning no amendment banning slavery.

In the aftermath of the war, the Klan, a terrorist organization if there ever was one, was closely allied with white southern Democrats. It's also true that a Republican president, Ulysses Grant, used the army, trying to eradicate the Klan, an effort that was soon abandoned by his Republican successor, Rutherford Hayes. Thereafter, neither party did much to protect black Americans, but it was the Democrats who instituted Jim Crow laws and kept them in force until the 1960's.

Speaking as a history teacher, I always made a point of telling my students that it was President Theodore Roosevelt and his  successor, William Howard Taft, who took some baby steps towards racial equality, including hiring some black civil servants, and their Democratic successor, Woodrow Wilson, who fired all the black government employees.

However, things were changing by the 1920's. In 1921, the new Republican president, Warren G. Harding, made a speech  in Birmingham Alabama, in which he said, "Let the black man vote when he's ready to vote," which was widely taken to mean, never. Meanwhile, a new Ku Klux Klan flourished in the 1920's, opposed by both  northern Democrats and Republicans. It's true that a resolution condemning the Klan was defeated at the 1924 Democratic convention, but the Democrats' party rules in those days required a two-thirds majority to  do much of anything, and the resolution did get almost that  large a majority.

By the 1940's, the northern Democrats were clearly the controlling factor in the party, though there remained an obstreperous fanatical minority of southern Democrats who could block civil rights legislation by filibustering the Senate. Nevertheless, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, integrated the armed forces. Southern Democrats were so upset they deserted Truman in 1948 to run their own presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, on what was widely called the Dixiecrat ticket. Truman won the election.

Dwight Eisenhower, the great hero of World War II, became president in 1953, as cracks appeared in the Democratic "solid south." Eisenhower had no publicly held position on race relations.

In 1953, shortly after President Eisenhower took office, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court died. Eisenhower quickly decided on Earl Warren of California as his nominee to be the new Chief. Eisenhower was aware that lawsuits were headed to the court challenging segregation in the public schools. At the first meeting of the two men, which took place at a breakfast meeting of southern Republicans, Warren was shocked when the president said quietly, "Look at these people. They're not bad people. They just want don't their precious little daughters going to school and being seated next to some big black buck."

Nevertheless, it was the Warren court, headed by a Republican, that struck down segregated schools in the Brown v.Board of Education decision. (The case for segregation, by the way, was argued by John W. Davis, who was once the Democratic party's candidate for president.)

Eisenhower did nothing to foster integration until 1957, when he sent the army to enforce a court order to  integrate Little Rock Central High School.

Campaigning in 1960, John F. Kennedy, who needed to carry at least a few southern states, said nothing about civil rights. Neither did Vice-President Richard Nixon, his Republican opponent. Instead they fussed about who would do more to defend two tiny uninhabited islands off the coast of China.

As the pressure to end segregation generally grew, with Freedom Riders, sit-ins, and attempts by black Americans to integrate southern universities, Kennedy tried to finesse the situation, sending U.S. Marshals to enforce the law, but withholding the army, even as civil rights leaders and workers were murdered. By 1963, however, he could not turn a blind eye to the struggle any longer, especially when mass arrests, police dogs and fire hoses were used on demonstrators  in Birmingham. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress that would ban segregation in most public accommodations. Southern Democrats in the Senate launched a filibuster.

It was president Johnson who guided the bill to passage, twisting every Senator's arm as hard as he could, aided to some extent by the Republican leader, Everett Dirkson. But the man who  was about to be nominated as the Republican party candidate for president, Barry Goldwater, voted against it.

This was a real sea change in American politics. It placed the Republican party, the party of Lincoln, in opposition to equal rights for black Americans. Now, I personally reject the idea that Goldwater was in any way a racist. He based his opposition on the premise that a businessman could decide who he wanted to do business with, and that was none  of the government's affair. But Strom Thurmond, the ex-Dixiecrat, left the Democrats and became a Republican. So too did millions of white southerners.

The election avalanche for Lyndon Johnson that fall swept over the entire country, except the states of  the old Confederacy, and Goldwater's home state of Arizona. The Democratic south was no more. Four years later, Richard Nixon, the political phoenix, won the White House using a "southern strategy" of trimming on the issue of racial equality. The south has been the most reliable Republican constituency ever since.

Nixon, ultimately cynical, used the image of aggressive black people to scare and infuriate whites. Probably his nastiest trick was to hire black women who characterized themselves as the "National Welfare Rights Organization," paraded at the 1972 Democratic convention and were as obnoxious as possible.

Democrats continued to win some elections in the south. Notably, in 1970, Reuben Askew of Florida and Jimmy Carter of Georgia both became governors, saying the time for segregation was past. Carter went on to win most of the southern states in his 1976 campaign for president, then lost almost all of them in 1980.

So now back to the original proposition. Is a black American who intends to vote for Mitt Romney in this year's election somehow betraying the best interests of the black community, and a black president? Is the Republican party the true defender of racial equality?

Answering the first question, I'd say certainly not. It's no more a betrayal for a black American to vote for Romney than it is for a white American to vote for Obama. (Like me, for instance.) Political polls indicate something like ninety-five percent of black Americans who vote will cast ballots for the president. That should be an indication that they know who will protect their rights, but the five percent who are voting Republican must also be accorded the presumption that they think they know what their own best interests are and those of our country.

The second question requires a little more thought and review of the historical record. I've just outlined that for you, my many readers. I'd say that until about ninety years ago the answer would have been yes. But Warren Harding, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon turned the Republicans away from civil rights, while Harry Truman and succeeding Democrats redeemed their party's reputation before history.

Baseball

It's time to take a break from writing about politics or society in favor of something that truly makes a difference in our lives. I mean baseball,  of course.

I started following baseball in the spring of 1955 when my older brother Larry asked me what team I hoped would win the pennant. I really didn't have any idea what he was talking about, but he explained that we should be for  the Red Sox since we came from Boston. That seemed sensible to me - I was five years old - so I said we should be for them. Larry immediately told me the Sox had finished fourth the previous year, and I said I wished more people had voted for them. That required another explanation, that baseball is an athletic contest, not an election.

Later that spring, my father took Larry and me to Miami Stadium to see the hometown Marlins play the Montreal Royals. Pitching for the Marlins was Satchel Paige. I hardly remember the game, but I mark it as a great experience, seeing a legend of the game my very first time in a ballpark.

Lately I've been thinking about the changes in the game  since I first became a fan. Major league players are paid much much more now than they were when I was a boy. Back then, a retiring ballplayer knew he'd have to start a new career. Nowadays, even a couple of years in the big leagues should leave a careful man set for life.

The inflation in salaries and the huge increase in the sales prices of teams has meant a great increase in ticket prices. My first major league game at Fenway Park in 1964 cost $2.50 for a reserved seat. Fifty years later the same seat costs about twenty times as much.

What really has changed is sports medicine. Even in the 1960's, baseball players, especially pitchers, were described vaguely as having "sore" arms. Writing in 1969, Jim Bouton talked about the conflicting advice given to pitchers  - rest, or throw more, or run - strengthen your legs to strengthen your arm. Bouton told the story of another pitcher on the Houston Astros - I think Don Wilson - who always seemed to do well for about four innings, then fell apart and was hit hard. Bouton explained that Wilson was in pain. He could stand the pain for about four innings, but then he would alter his delivery as the pain became unbearable, lose velocity and the touch on his off-speed pitches, and suffer the consequences.

Nowadays, we hear about "Tommy John" surgery almost to the point of nausea. Even very young players - think Stephen Strasburg - have the operation, lose a year but come back with brand new fully warranted arms. In addition, players now are afflicted with other maladies we didn't hear about half a century ago. Strained obliques and concussion now remove players from lineups for extended periods of time. Back when, men played through such things, and the quality of play was not as high.

The other thing I see as a significant difference is the quality of playing field maintenance. I was surprised recently when looking at a highlight film of the 1964 All-Star game in St. Louis to note bare spots in the infield grass. You would never see that on a major league diamond now, and on very few minor league fields for that matter.

Baseball history has many stories of games decided by bad hops, players tripping over uneven places on the field. Mickey Mantle's career, for example, was nearly ended before it could really begin when he fell over a sprinkler head in right field at Yankee Stadium and damaged his knee. The Mick still had a mighty career, but was running on one good leg for the rest of his playing days.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I just hope the Bosox can restock their team by next spring.

Obamney for President

This is a letter I received from my cousin Bob. I don't think he'll mind if I post it  here.


Dear Peter,

I read your "Debate" piece on your blog.

It's interesting that in 1960, people who listened to the Kennedy/Nixon debate on the radio thought Nixon won and people who watched on TV thought Kennedy won.

I listened on the radio as I drove from Ashland, MA to Canton, MA - about 45 min on back roads.
I then listened as I shaved in the bathroom.

Dianne watched on TV and thought Romney clearly won. My impression from the RADIO was that
it was a draw, albeit Romney DID come across as more electrifying and confident.

Later, on WBZ, host Dan Rea talked about Obama's 'BODY LANGUAGE' which I had obviously not seen.
This morning on radio that's the BIG thing being talked about...how Obama LOOKED. Those who WATCHED
whether they like Obama or not thought he did badly.

I wish Romney was not the chameleon that he is. He has been all over the place on SO many issues and
while he did not raise taxes in Mass he DID increase fees FOURFOLD. Fees SKYROCKETED. And,
he has gone from very pro choice to pro life and pro gay rights to somewhat anti gay rights. On the other
hand, I really mean what I wrote in the past about Obama. He is a very nice guy who in my opinion has
absolutely no business being President.

I know I have pledged I will never vote for Romney. As it gets SO close to Nov, I actually MAY "hold my
nose and vote for him" but if I do it will be with little enthusiasm.

BOB

My only suggestion is that, since Massachusetts is clearly not competitive, if you don't  like either major party  candidate, find someone else, write in your own name, leave the presidential vote blank to voice your protest, or vote that perennial favorite, Mickey Mouse.

For myself,  I'll just repeat what I posted earlier this year. If Romney was a successful governor of Massachusetts, why isn't he competitive there in the presidential race? And if he wasn't a successful governor, what's he even doing running for president?

The Debate

People make their voting decisions on vague impressions as much as they do by checking a list of positions to determine which candidate they agree with more often than not. For half a century historians have been telling us that Richard Nixon lost the 1960 election because he looked pale and tired in his first debate with John Kennedy. Nixon's famous five o'clock shadow emphasized his pallor and his tendency to sweat heavily made him look worse, compared with the cool calm collected (and covered in pancake make-up) Kennedy.

I doubt that's all of the story. Despite being tied in the  public's mind to a popular outgoing president, Nixon was defeated by a weakening economy in the last month of the 1960 campaign. He said as much himself in his memoir.

Still, people want to look at the candidates side by side, and last night Mitt Romney  looked better than President Obama. Fact checkers this morning are all over Romney's statements, pointing out the numerous places where his claims don't square with reality, but it must be conceded that he looked capable and confident as he spoke. A little too wordy, maybe, but as if he could hardly wait to get started as president.

Our current president looked like he wanted to take a nap. Why is his delivery  so halting, I asked myself. Why does he look down at his podium so much while Romney talks (and talks and talks and talks). He looked like he was tacitly agreeing with all Romney's criticisms of him. It was, frankly, the worst visual impression left by a presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis decided to go for a ride in a tank.

The question, I suppose, is did it make any difference. Polls indicate that ninety percent of the electorate has already decided how to  vote. Was Romney impressive enough either to secure the ten percent who are on the fence, or change the minds of anyone who had been leaning towards Obama?

This morning's Denver Post, headlining that Romney "won" last night's debate, contains an article about undecided voters. The paper hosted fifteen people who said they have not yet made up their minds, and interviewed them after it was over to measure their reactions.

Only one said she had climbed off the fence and now intends to vote for Romney. One other person said he now leans toward the Republican.

That leaves thirteen of fifteen still undecided. Here are a few other comments they made.

"I don't think either of them  said anything they haven't said before. They should have focused more on what they would do specifically in each situation. Romney kept saying he was going to cut costs, and I think it was bad that he couldn't say specifically what he would cut."

"Obama struggled, but he had the misfortune of taking over a bad situation.  Romney seemed more confident, but of course since he's the challenger he could be more confident. I'm still not swayed either way."

"Romney was more relatable to the middle class. Obama, it felt like he was on the defensive. I'm leaning more toward Romney now, and I wasn't expecting that coming in."

The Post reports that the undecided voters didn't like it when Romney criticized Obama but most of them felt Romney did the better job as a debater. If that doesn't make  sense to you, it doesn't to me either.

Enough. It's time to get started on my day. I have a deck to stain.

It's Debate Day!

It's debate day, a quadrennial occasion in America, in which two politicians have at one another in a rhetorical battle to decide which one will be able to take a major cut in personal income and become president of the United States.

Here in Colorado Springs, Democrats are hosting debate parties where I guess they throw popcorn at the television image of Mitt Romney and cheer for President Obama. I'm sure Republicans are doing much the same, except for the person they throw popcorn at and cheer. Probably they buy more expensive popcorn too.

To be sure, electing a president should be serious business, and a person's vote should be cast after sober reflection, not after watching television in anticipation of who can throw out the best "zinger."

Aw, screw that. It's a contest, not unlike "The Price is Right," with cheering crowds, much money thrown into the campaign coffers, and maybe even a 2012 equivalent of "Obamagirl," though she is sadly not in evidence this time around. (However, it would be difficult to imagine a "Romneygirl." For one thing, "I've got a crush on ______" requires a candidate whose last name has three syllables and neither Romney nor Ryan would fit.)

Thinking that the whole debate thing has a kind of sports image, I figured it would be fun to conjure how sports announcers might narrate tonight's festivities.

First, football.

Howard: we're late in the third quarter, Danderoo, and Romney still trails by two touchdowns. He has the ball though, in his own territory.

Don: you know my name  isn't actually Dan, it's Don. I'm really starting to get annoyed about you calling me Dan. But it's a passing down, Howard. Romney's in the shotgun. He has Ryan split wide right. He'll need to get to midfield where North Carolina, Colorado and Florida are to move the chains and keep this drive alive.

Howard: Obama's in the standard pass defense, spreading over the field in a zone, protecting Ohio and Michigan. There's the pass, it's complete gaining Indiana, but short of a first down, and Romney will have to punt.

Don: at least that means he won't have to explain his tax plan in any detail. It's a kick deep into Obama territory and the president calls a fair catch in New York. Now that powerful Obama ground game will be able to take some more time off the clock.

Howard: that means hand-offs to Biden. Joe can be a good broken field runner, but we all know his tendency to fumble.

Don: the daring strategy would be to spread the field and make Romney defend Arizona and Missouri.

Howard: short pass over the middle, complete for a short gain as Obama once more goes to his "tax the rich," offense. That's especially effective in Ohio and Wisconsin. Romney will have to defend that better if he wants to get back in the game.

And so on. If that doesn't seem valid, how about a NASCAR announcer.

(I don't actually  know the name of any NASCAR announcer): we're at lap 150 of this 200 lap race, and Obama in the number 12 car continues to lead. Romney trails, but he has already made a pit stop on lap 47 that cost him considerable time. It remains to be seen if the Obama car can finish the race without a stop. Obama's pit crew from Chicago and Hollywood stands ready to gas up the Obama car.

Possibly the problem is that the Romney car only burns premium  Koch brothers gas and is dependent on Adelson oil that has to be brought all the way from Las Vegas.

Romney's making a move now. He's jettisoned the upper midwest and is steering straight south, hoping to make up ground along the long stretch between Virginia and Utah.

Oh! Obama's car is in trouble! He veered to the left side of the track, nearly hit the restraining wall, and now he's steering back toward the center as fast as he can. That might have cost him New Hampshire, though. We'll see if the Romney car can take advantage of it. He's shifting into "zinger," his afterburner.

He'll go through his own fuel supply real fast now though. He might have to stop in Texas for more.

If NASCAR is a little lowbrow for you, how about a chess analogy.

Announcer (speaking softly): Romney is down a pawn and a bishop as we move into what is clearly the endgame, but he does have a passed pawn, and if he can get it to the end of the board he should be in good shape. Obama seized the initiative almost from the start of the match. His "99" defense has proven effective against the Romney attack, especially after Romney's very questionable 47th move in Florida.

Bishop to king's knight five, putting pressure on Pennsylvania. A daring move, but we'll see if Obama can counter. He's contemplating the board. He can bring his own Queen Michelle into play to protect the mid-west, or gamble that he can force Romney away by making a play for Iowa and even South Dakota.

He's bringing out his weak side rook. It could be a gambit to make Romney use his resources in defending Georgia, but I think he's seriously after Montana, which  might be vulnerable. Obama's advantage in resource pieces allows him to attack simultaneously on both Romney flanks.

Romney has had a grip on the center of the board front the opening moves. The Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas squares have all been his, but Obama is making some progress in Missouri.

For many years conservative players insisted that control of the center of the board was of crucial importance, but recent theory emphasizes the sides where California, Florida and New York are.

Well, that's it for today's musings. Enjoy the debates and may the better, more thoughtful candidate become evident to us all.