A Trip Home

Of course you can go home again, it's just that you will have a lot of questions when you do. Especially if home is Minneapolis and you are staying downtown at a hotel that in your 51 years there you never had heard of, because then it was a bank and only for the past year has been called the Hotel Minneapolis. You realize that in all your years there you have never slept over night downtown and had to leave a hotel in search of breakfast. They eat outside now in Minneapolis and here is a fine Irish pub called the Local on the Nicolette Mall that serves an excellent breakfast. New buildings all around but you're too proud to ask some young transplant waiting on your table what their names are.

Where exactly is the new main public library, how do we turn onto downtown streets that now have train tracks for the light rail, when you need lunch in the mid-afternoon what would be a good place to go, why are we so shocked by the new Guthrie Theater on Washington Ave. (nothing we've read has prepared us for this!)

Home looks better than ever; I'm glad I left and it is good to be back. On Thursday we fly back to the California desert and wait for the cooler weather to arrive and the license plates from Minnesota to begin to turn up in the parking lots. Minneapolis has a ghost on every corner for me while La Quinta has a palm tree with a mountain view. It is good to be back.

What Comes Naturally

Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina set a new record for boorishness in the House tonight when he shouted,"You lie!" at President Obama during his health care address. Wilson is--what else?--a Republican. John Dingle of Michigan is a Democrat and the longest-serving member in the House, he said that Wilson's infantile behavior was only natural for him since he was a Republican and the poor schlub couldn't help it. This child-man should be severely reprimanded by the House; better, he should grow some sense of dignity and resign his seat (and take bat-shit crazy Jean Schmidt of Ohio with him).

For their response to the President's speech the Republicans chose a congressman who is a birther, and who once fell for a scam that promised he could buy himself the English title of Lord! You truly can't make this stuff up. His Lordship gave Bobby Jindall a good run for his money in the numb-nuts-deer-in-the-headlights competition. Too bad Paula Abdul isn't around to judge this one.

Good presidents are lucky presidents, and Barack Obama has lucked into the craziest goddam bunch of political quacks since the Marx Brothers rampaged through Freedonia.

Great job tonight, Mr. President. The haters and the nit-wits will present themselves to you like worms wriggling up from wet ground: thread them onto hooks and catch some fish with them!

Fired Up

Obama's Labor Day speech today in Cincinnati was a welcome reprise of the style we saw last year in the campaign. He said he was fired up and certainly seemed to be. This bodes well for Wednesday night when no one will be slurping beer and munching hot dogs, school will have started again, and the grim reality of another summer gone will have settled on us all. Today was good, two days from now will be vital.

Wednesday's Speech

President Obama has set up a rendezvous with Congress and the people for next week over the health care debate. The stakes are greater than the single bill that he will finally present, they are for the future of his presidency itself and the quality of our politics for years to come. The Republicans are represented by ignorant and increasingly dangerous extremists, and Democrats are starting to doubt the core of their champion. Where is he lately? And I am not referring to his current holiday. At Ted Kennedy's funeral he seemed to be in a distant place, only physically present at the basilica in Boston. He gave a eulogy that was little more noticeable than Bush, Clinton, and Carter were, silent in their pew. Is there a problem we don't know about yet? His passion and his presence are gone somewhere and it does not appear to be on vacation.