For your listening pleasure...

a great new tune:



Found at Powerline blog.

Wonder what George Benson thinks of it?

"Think on it"

This morning I'm in the "not despairing" part of the cycle.

Despair is a sin, and often a mistake. The polls do not record the "refused to respond" which in my judgment is a much larger category than any admit -- it includes me, five times so far this year since I'm home to answer the phone more than many people are -- and I suspect that more McCain people refuse to respond than the trendier Obama enthusiasts.

Read the rest.

Yes, it's anecdotal.

Why did Zogby poll show McCain up yesterday, only to be down again today? The polls are so crazy!

Be sure to vote. Don't fall to despair and stay home eating Halloween candy. But put some in your pocket in case there is a long line.

Remember when...

conservatives were saying that it would be better to have Obama win the nomination because he would be easier to beat than Hillary? He was such a lightweight, such an unknown... he could never win.

Ha ha. Looks like the joke's on us.

More election talk

Monday is piano lesson day; during each half-hour lesson I sit on the lovely front porch of the piano teacher with one child and read or do some kind of schoolwork while the other has a lesson. Then, we swap.

Today I wanted to go over some math stuff with my boy but when we were trying to dash out of the house we couldn't find the book; funny how that is, in particular since when we got home I found the book immediately, in the exact place it is supposed to be, and where I swear I looked twice before we left.

So we talked about the election. He wanted some history; who had run in the last election, and how Senator Obama came to be known well enough to be running for President. We just talked about how all that worked out, and somehow came to talking about Obama as the first black man to be a candidate and how this would be a historic election. He went on to comment that either way it would be, because McCain would be the oldest (surely not a feature for most people) and of course there's Palin.

We talked a bit about the fact that it was historic for a black man to reach this point. This boy does not really get that. Surely he notices that most people around him are white; he also notices that when we drive through the really rundown part of town to the orthodontist, most people are black. But he doesn't really get why that is or why it should be that way. He doesn't see any real difference between black, white, Asian... isn't that the way it's supposed to be? I don't get into a lot of discussion of race except to say that some people might not vote for Obama because they don't want a black President, and some will vote for him simply because he is black, but that people should vote based on what a person has done in the past and how that compares with what they say they will do in the future.

We talked about other parties and he asked if the Communists had a candidate in this election. He is fascinated with the Soviet Union and the Cold War; the idea of communism really disgusts him. We talked a bit more about taxes and what taxpayer money (I try not to use the term "government money") should be used for. Of course the first thing he brought up was the military. As always we got on the topic of "poor people" and welfare and how some people do need help; he said something about "also needing to help people who don't want to work" - whoa, where did that come from? No, I said, we should not help people who don't want to work.

He always seems vaguely dissatisfied with these discussions, as if there is more to talk about but he doesn't know what it is. In a few days or weeks some unanswered question that has been percolating in his brain will come out, and we'll start all over again.

He is taking a series of standardizes tests this week; unfortunately none of the topics of this discussion will be covered. Still, I guess the way we spent our time was at least as useful as going over fractions, and much less frustrating than working on finding the lowest common denominator.

It figures.

Like so many others I was delighted to see "Joe the Plumber" all over the net, asking Candidate Obama a tough question and getting a telling answer.

But, natch, focus moved from the main point, which would be Obama's socialist tendencies, and into irrelevant interest into the plumber's life. I like Glenn Reynold's comment:

They've done more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they've done on Barack Obama in two years . . . .

It doesn't matter who he is, how much money he makes or even if he's really a plumber. What matters is Obama's response to his question about taxes. "Spread the wealth," "don't want to punish you for your hard work, but..." But no, it's more important to take the focus off Obama's socialist tendencies and trash this guy.

Somewhere I read that he is being harassed now. Obama really ought to make a specific and strong comment about that and call off his attack dogs - even if he didn't set them on the guy in the first place. It should be OK to ask a Presidential candidate a tough question. That it might not be is a pretty good indicator of the state of free speech and political discourse in an Obama administration.

"Surveying the Abyss"

The seminarian sent this to me with the question "feeling like this?" I read it over a few times and yes, this pretty well articulates how I've been feeling lately:

But I must confess of late to a recurring sense of foreboding, about a great many things. Now, prognosticating about the future is a fool’s game, to be sure; a review of most any futurist’s predictions invariable shows a predictive rate substantially less than could be had by tossing a coin.

....

In a world which incessantly rips its cultural chords at rock-concert levels, it is no small feat to listen to the still, small voice — and harder yet to distinguish it from the countless seductive whispers and wishes of life long lived in self-gratification and indulgence. Yet that voice ever quiet is nevertheless persistent — and it seems to be speaking with an urgency and clarity which is hard to dispel.

We are standing, I sense, at the edge of an abyss — and the earth beneath our feet is shifting and unstable.

Now I am not a Left-Behind reading kind of person. I don't have an "in case of rapture..." bumper sticker on my car. I know a couple of you might be thinking that... But, yes, this is about how I feel right now.

So it behooves us to stand back; to turn off the TV, shut down the browser, put down the paper, turn off talk radio, and truly listen — not to the screeching banshees with their banal hysteria, but rather to that inner source, be it spirit, or soul, or mind, or the wisdom acquired by life’s experiences.

Take a moment, if you will, for a brief look around, surveying our 21st-century world. Let yourself absorb the panoramic view, all 360 degrees, not averting your eyes at things which are unsettling or fear-provoking.

...

For years we have tolerated incompetence, corruption, dishonesty — and yes, greed — in government while looking the other way. On those rare occasions when politicians have made principled stands, we have rewarded them with a firestorm of political assault, full-throated media ridicule and criticism, and enormous financial pressure from lobbyists pouring money into the pockets of those who purport to represent the people. We have elected a government of the people, in the most literal and disgraceful sense: we have elected, and kept in office, those who share our desire for self-gratification and materialistic acquisition at the expense of character, moral integrity, honesty, and prudence. The cesspool which is our current Congress is what we have reaped by our own actions — or perhaps more accurately, by our inaction. We have elected those politicians who are like us in every way — and we hate them for it. They are, after all, created in our own image.

A young person dear to my heart recently told me that this is the most important election of his life. I've got news for him: every election from here on out will be the most important. Unless and until we somehow elect someone who can truly unite us, each election to come will have more anger, more corruption, more uncertainty, till this country is torn apart.

If you are a person of faith, it is time to dig in, hard, and quit playing games — your life may depend on it. If you are skeptical of such matters, consider: upon what will you lean when your world collapses? Will your considered indifference and intellectual smugness about us fools of faith save you? What will you do when all that matters to you is taken, and you are left, finally, profoundly alone with naught but that frightened face in the mirror?

If you are a person of faith, you might be nodding your head right now. If you are not, you probably think the writer and I are both crazy. But go read it all anyway. Think it over. Maybe you'll still decide I'm crazy. Or maybe not.

Why do I assume objectivity?

Today in the car I found myself listening to NPR. We were on the way home from my kid's ADHD therapy and I was flipping stations. When I heard that they were going to speak with the Secretary of State of Ohio about voter registration, my ears perked up. Ohio recently had a week or so when people could register and vote on the same day. A news report on this went 'round the net because volunteers were rounding up homeless people and taking them to register and vote. There were concerns that people could vote even though ineligible, or vote more than once because they were using shelters as temporary addresses to register.

I was listening carefully, waiting to hear the NPR guy ask how they were going to verify the registrations of people without an address. He had his chance: Secretary Brunner explained the verification process, which includes sending a letter to the address on the verification form. If the letter comes back, they know there's a problem with the registration. So, a simple question: how would that work when the letter goes to a homeless shelter and the person is not there anymore?

Well, he didn't ask. Now this is supposed to be an astute news guy who has already researched this issue and should know more about it than me, a suburban homeschooling mom/housewife. But no. The question did not come up.

My head was ready to explode. It was all I could do to keep myself from screaming "ask her the question!" But there we were, on the way home from the neurobehavioral specialist with whom my kid spends 2 hours each week learning how to train his brain to pay attention, live in the moment, and control his responses to situations that cause him stress or make him angry. Mom is learning to control herself too.

But it still makes me angry. Then, there was a teaser for an upcoming segment: responding to reports about offensive comments from people attending McCain/Palin rallies. Not from the candidates, from the people attending. Oh, come on. As if no one ever made offensive comments about the Republicans at any Obama rallies?

When I had the chance to rant to the seminarian about it, he just said "you're assuming objectivity from these people." Oh, silly me.

Despair and back again

So I went to church this morning full of despair (my favorite word now, apparently) and then found this in the order of worship:

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life.
5 Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.
6 I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made." Isaiah 43:1-7 (ESV)

I don't know if that passage was chosen because of the election, financial crisis or other current events. Anyway, a good thing to hear and read.

But then I came home and saw this:



As the Gateway Pundit says:
Could you even imagine if a conservative group were to run dead Obama ad?

Of course not. And why are the pulling up that old rape kit story?

But then, when reading in Robinson Crusoe to my kids tonight, I came across this:

... how frequently, in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into it, is the most dreadful to us, is often-times the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into.

So, as of 9:14 pm EDT, I am in the not despairing part of the cycle. I'm also not reading any more news or blogs for the rest of the night. Well... maybe.

Despair

Hunting Mr. Good Will

WHO is "Will, Good"?

Mr. Good Will - who lists his employer as "Loving" and his profession as "You" - has contributed 1,000 times to the Barack Obama campaign.

All the contributions have been in amounts of $25 or less. But they add up to $17,375 - far more than the legal limit of $4,600. That's $2,300 each for the primary and general election campaigns.
...
If there are more suspicious donors to the Obama campaign, we won't know until long after the election as long as their aggregate contributions are below the legal limit. Mr. Timmerman was particularly curious about 11,500 contributions from overseas totalling $33.8 million.
...
CNN recently sent a reporter to Little Diomede Island, the westernmost part of Alaska (2.4 miles from Russia) to determine whether Sarah Palin had ever been there to see Russia with her own eyes. But CNN - and the rest of the media - have been incurious about the Obama campaign's fund-raising.

via Instapundit

And this video report on registering voters in Ohio.

OK, you might say, Republicans play dirty tricks too. Send me the links.