Post-Election Blues

Congratulations to President-elect Obama. Not my pick but my President now and we'll just have to look to the next race if he doesn't work out.

It turns out, Emily may have been the most disappointed of us. She watched the returns last night - we opted for a DVD - goodness, that means I should post a review! - but she dutifully reported the results the best she could. She lamented the media bias - when McCain was ahead in the early returns, the media pooh-poohed, but when Obama took over, well, look out, the inevitable had begun. Emily has a life of misery ahead of her being a Conservative. Poor girl.

I'll try to be as fair as possible in my postings about Obama. He deserves at least that. And, who knows, things may actually work out.

Let's get on with things, shall we?

iPod Shuffle Post #11

642. James Taylor Ananas
641. Norah Jones Nightingale
640. Paul McCartney & Wings Man We Was Lonely
639. Bonnie Raitt Spit of Love
638. Robert Palmer Simply Irresistible
637. Los Lobos Viking
636. The Beatles Nowhere Man
635. The Pogues South Australia
634. Sting They Dance Alone
633. Garbage Cup Of Coffee
632. Glenn Miller Orchestra Indian Summer

Election Day 2008

We arrived at the precinct only 10 minutes after opening - the church parking lot was already jammed and though there was no line out the door, the precinct workers had set it up so that any line that formed would wind down the various halls of the church. By the time we found the end of it, it was clear we weren't getting through it soon. So we opted for later in the day.

Which turned out to be a good idea. Still crowded but far less so and things moved pretty quickly.

I wanted to get a shot of the crowd but ran into an old co-worker and spent the time catching up. I did get a shot of my ballot though, before I spoiled it with my vote:

I'll leave who I voted for a mystery for -

Oh, all right. I voted for McCain. Big surprise, right?

It felt good to have done our democratic duty. People all over the world die for this right and here we're able to do it without giving it too much thought. We're blessed to live in a country like this, no matter who wins.

Vote As If Your Live Depends On It!

Because it does! Whoever you support, get out there and vote for 'em.

iPod Shuffle Post #10

631. Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris Donkey Town
630. Five For Fighting If God Made You
629. The Band Life Is A Carnival
628. The Beatles The Long And Winding Road
627. Dave Matthews Save Me
626. The Beatles One After 909
625. Bob Dylan If You See Her Say Hello
624. The Band I Shall Be Released
623. The Band Knockin' Lost John
622. The Beatles Don't Ever Change
621. Beethoven Sonata Op 13 in C Minor
620. Sting Forget About The Future
619. Jack Johnson Fortunate Fool
618. Billy Joel I Got To Extremes
617. Don McLean Wonderful Baby
616. Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris Beyond My Wildest Dreams
615. Gorillaz Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo)
614. Beck The New Pollution
613. Ceu Roda (Bombay Dub Orchestra's Grateful Dub Radio Mix)

Track 613 was one of those given away by Starbuck's not too long ago in their iTunes promotion. A good track but I have no idea how it differs from the regular mix. These re-mixes get kind of silly, don't they? If you wanted to release a different version, why not release that version and not the others? (Yeah, yeah, I know: marketing. It's like the iPod. Apple invented a great little gadget and then they sell it to you in a kajillion different versions.)

Track 617 I used to sing to the girls when they were babies because, well, they were wonderful babies.

Track 625 comes from my favorite Dylan album, Blood On The Tracks. Looks like I was wrong. I do have other Dylan albums on my iPod. I just don't know how many.

Joni Mitchell Turns 65

I've got a few of her tracks on my iPod and when they come up on the shuffle mode it's always a treat. You'll find a good analysis of her recording career here:

Joni Mitchell turns 65 years old on Friday. As a milestone, reaching that age doesn't mean what it once did, but any opportunity to celebrate Ms. Mitchell and her work is worth seizing. Gifted and fearless, she remains among the finest singer-songwriters of the rock era, a title that doesn't quite accommodate the breadth of music and the audacity of her career. As David Crosby told me when I called him last week, "In a hundred years, when they ask who was the greatest songwriter of the era, it's got to be her or Dylan. I think it's her. And she's a better musician than Bob."

That's no small praise, and reason enough for me to look for more of her stuff to add to my iPod.

Obama and The Tax Cut Issue

Larry Kudlow discusses how Obama may have swiped the tax cut issue from McCain:

Well, for almost two years Obama has talked about cutting taxes for 95 percent of the people. McCain has no such record. And even though McCain has launched a strong Joe the Plumber investor-class tax-cutting surge in the last days of the campaign, it may not be enough to significantly impact Tuesday’s voting results.

This is bad news since Obama has some pretty strange views on taxes. Just look at his recent explanation for the decline in third-quarter GDP. He calls it “a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four.”

Is Obama really blaming the Bush tax cuts for this recession?

After the bursting of the tech bubble and the 9/11 attacks, George Bush lowered tax rates across-the-board for individuals and investors. For five years the stock market rallied without interruption — the longest bull market without a correction in post-WWII history — while the economy expanded for six years, a bit longer than the average post-war recovery cycle.

And Obama wants folks to believe that tax cuts caused this downturn? Not the credit shock? Not the Obama-supported government mandate to sell unaffordable homes to low-income people and the pressure on Fannie and Freddie to securitize these loans? Not the oil shock?

No one to blame but McCain on this. McCain's got the better plan but you wouldn't know it by him.

Ebert Tells Us About The Pot And How To Use It

I have much to criticize when Roger Ebert strays off the movie critic's reservation but his latest post about how to use a rice cooker is, well, let's just say he's on fire:

Now you have your oatmeal. You can substitute any grain of your choice. Even amarath, seen as the favorite side dish in "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." I like to use low-fat Silk soybean milk. Use what you like. Have a small or medium chopping block and a nice knife. Slice into smallish pieces the fruit of your choice. Any fruit except something like watermelon. I shouldn't have to be telling you this. Slice your bananas, your peaches, your applies, pears, plums, apricots, strawberries, your Kiwi. Throw in your blueberries, your blackberries, your boysenberries, your this berry, your that berry. Drop in maybe a couple dried prunes. No, stupid. Not all the fruits at once. We're making breakfast, not fruit compote. Let's say two fruits together are nice. Bananas and peaches make Peaches 'n Cream. Mmmm! . . .

Let's make some soup. Assemble your ingredients. Throw them in the pot. Add enough water to make it soup. Slam down the lid. This watched Pot boils. Click to Warm when the soup looks about right. If it looks undercooked, add a little more water and keep going. You will also learn to add the ingredients in a mixture in the reverse order of how long you think they'll take to cook. For example, dried beans first. Even let them sit in water and Warm for awhile. If you're in a hurry, throw them in and boil them. The hell with them. Never put in meat and chicken so soon it will overcook. There are no rules. You are Aunt Mary. The last ingredients into the Pot should be the things you like still a little crunchy, like frozen peas and corn.

Stews. Like soup only with less water, Albert Einstein.

Read the whole thing. Then get yourself a rice cooker.

1.95 Gas!

We haven't seen this since we drove to Washington D.C three summers ago.

No guarantee it'll stay this low and, of course, low energy prices isn't necessarily good news for us here in Oklahoma. But, hey, enjoy it while you can. It may not come around again for a long, long time.

Halloween 2008

Halloween fell on a Friday this year, the weather was warm, Daylight Savings Time was still in effect, so it all added up to a later-than-usual evening for us. That was okay: Clara had laid in the candy supplies and we could weather quite a trick-or-treater storm before things got desperate.

Rachel had her parties to go to so that part of the evening remains a mystery. This may be Emily's last year to go out; she and her friend, Jillian, decided to go together.

Emily went as the Queen of Hearts:



Another pose, with dog:

Jillian was some sort of goth fairy:


Jillian's mother and Jillian's toddler brother went with them and they covered quite a bit of ground. They stopped by our house twice and by the second time they were quite exhausted; they gratefully took Clara up on her offer to drive them home so I did.

They came in waves. The first bunch were the young ones from the 'hood. We no longer recognize any of them but there were a few we did. A new generation has taken over and that's good. Next came what Lileks has dubbed the carpetbaggers: trucked in swarms from some other neighborhood, older and only out for the candy. Not unusual but funny just the same.

We closed it down around 10:00. Rachel rolled back in around 11:30. No pranks. No mishaps. Another Halloween for the record books.