The world has been too much with me late and soon.

Several men I’ve known well have died within recent times and a good friend is almost dead after taking antifreeze for the second time in just a few weeks.

Foremost on my mind at the moment is Craig, a simple barkeep and Boston sports fan. He drove convertibles and we often exchanged pleasantries about the weather and the advisability of leaving the top down (or up).

The man had the largest collection of music you’d ever want to see. His mind was a repository of music history and trivia.

The best epitaph I could write for any man: he will be missed.

He isn’t the only one.

This weekend, I learned of the death of Mark Schwartz, a former city councilman, and Tom Riddle, a former fire fighter’s union president here. I knew them both very well in my 1970s political life and was on campaigns with both. I lost touch with both, but kept up with Mark more than Tom; I saw and spoke with Mark not more than a few months ago.

Then there’s Jeremy, the pizza delivery murder victim and Red Cup devotee, and poor Josh who took his own brief life.

I still haven’t processed those two young men’s demise.

I don’t have anything profound to say in the face of death, the most profound event after birth in a human’s life. I’m uncomfortable about irreversible and absolute. I’m sad for my own loss and sympathize with the families of these men. My heart goes out to Craig’s partners on Paseo, I know they’re taking this hard. Love you guys and there’s nothing you can do about it.

What prayers can the living say for the dead?

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From Politico.com:
“Shennanigans” blog

There is a new recruiter in politics these days, and it ain’t Rahm, Chuck Schumer, Mike Duncan, Howard Dean, Jim Nussle, John Cornyn, Norm Coleman or [insert any name here].

It’s … Craigslist?

Yes, Craigslist items are a bit overserved, but bear with us.

The site has an ad seeking a woman to run against one of the embattled Republican senators, David Vitter. Vitter, did you think people had forgotten about you?

And, oddly — or not, depending on how you look at it — the ad is looking for a woman who has “a history in some aspect of the adult entertainment industry.”

Read below:

“Seeking a female candidate to challenge David Vitter in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in 2010. Candidate must be over 30 years old and a registered Republican in the state of Louisiana. Beyond this, we are looking for a candidate with a history in some aspect of the adult entertainment industry who has taken the benefit of that experience both monetarily and otherwise and translated it into success in their later career.

“Candidate will have the benefit of an experienced campaign staff, including finance and media teams. Reasonable compensation as allowed by federal campaign finance rules will be offered. This is a serious offer for a serious candidate who cares about the direction of her state and community and who is willing to accept the serious commitment of a statewide political campaign.

“Please forward a résumé or CV with contact information along with a 200-word description telling us who you are and why you think you are the ideal candidate to challenge David Vitter.”

I know I said i wasn’t going to blog and I really am working very hard on my political internet obsessions, but this struck me as hilarious. I would SO go to work for that campaign! It would be so much fun to do. That’s so evil, it just tickles my left wing heart.

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I’m suspending my posting here for awhile.

I’m exhausted.

The presidential campaign and election has left me played out.

I’m so proud of my country for its turnout, more people voted and a higher percentage voted than in decades. That alone is a victory.

A great many people will write with more talent and insight than I have about Obama’s historic rise to president-elect. I’ve been his supporter since last year and I’m overjoyed.

The past couple of months, I’ve been an internet addict. I have spent anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day on my laptop. It’s got to stop. I must reclaim my life. It’s become self-destructive to other areas of my life, to the point that I do very little of anything else I really enjoy.

I don’t know what else to do but make a clean break.

In three years, I’ve done about 900 posts and another few dozen comments. That’s a lot, for those of you who don’t try to do this.

When i come back, I’m going to try to come back with a redesigned page, more photos, more links and “tags”. I’ll expand my blogroll and make other changes I hope makes this page more readable and more friendly to discussions.

To my fellow bloggers, I’ll still read your stuff, but perhaps a tad less obsessively.

I really need a break, readers, so please don’t begrudge me a few weeks off. I love all of you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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Oh, well, since my daughter insists that because she blogged today, I must, I will.

To the best of my knowledge, the oldest living member of my family is my mother’s older brother, Bud, who lives in Virginia. He called to tell my Mom a story about my grandfather.

Back when, Mississippi had a poll tax of $2.00. It was meant to keep out the riff raff, especially the “colored” riff raff.

But, my grandfather was quite poor. He was a plumber (Andy and not Joe) and had a passell of kids. He didn’t have the $2.00 to be able to vote.

So, he made an arrangement. He worked an entire day for the county commissioners to earn $2.00 so he could vote.

After that, he never missed a vote.

Bud recalled that people would pass “Pop” in the streets of Laurel, MS, and ask if he “voted right”. He always said yes, but he told his oldest son that as long as you voted, you voted “right”.

Today, I voted about 10 a.m. and the line was fairly long, maybe 100 people. There was a very high number for that early in the day for my precinct, 1488 was my number and most presidential election years, I would vote at 10 a.m. and be about 450, so about 3X “normal” turnout. I saw many more younger voters than normally. I saw that my mother had voted before I got there, which is pretty much the norm, and I dutifully cancelled out her vote as is also pretty much the norm.

Tonight, I’ll join a group of my friends at an election watch party. Pretty unusual — normally, I’m about the only one politically motivated enough to stay up just to watch election returns, even among the high educated, issue oriented crowd I run with.

Whatever the outcome tonight, it would please me if 130 million Americans went to the polls, a greatly enlarged electorate from 4 years ago.

If you don’t vote, don’t bitch — you didn’t earn the right.

God Bless America.

We really are the land of the free, a beacon to the world.

I hope we act like it today.

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First, Gov. Palin:

Then, here’s Obama’s reaction to the news that Vice President Cheney endorsed McCain in Wyoming:

I’d like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn’t come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington’s biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney’s support.
But here’s my question for you, Colorado: do you think Dick Cheney is delighted to support John McCain because he thinks John McCain’s going to bring change? Do you think John McCain and Dick Cheney have been talking about how to shake things up, and get rid of the lobbyists and the old boys club in Washington?

Colorado, we know better. After all, it was just a few days ago that Senator McCain said that he and President Bush share a “common philosophy.” And we know that when it comes to foreign policy, John McCain and Dick Cheney share a common philosophy that thinks that empty bluster from Washington will fix all of our problems, and a war without end in Iraq is the way to defeat Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorists who are in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So George Bush may be in an undisclosed location, but Dick Cheney’s out there on the campaign trail because he’d be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain. He knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush’s economic policy and Dick Cheney’s foreign policy — but that’s a risk we cannot afford to take.

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John Zogby, not generally regarded as the world’s best pollster by any means, says of his tracking poll that on Friday McCain outpolled Obama by a point for the first time in a long time. Drudge trumpets this news and it has the conservatives and the McCain campaign fired up. McCain’s pollster released an internal poll and said it showed the Republican closing fast and hard and that the race was far closer than public polling indicated. In the past two elections, Bush and Karl Rove used evangelical support the last weekend before the election to move up two-three points almost overnight Sunday through Tuesday. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

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My daughter has posted some Halloween snapshots of her children at Mom-A-Tron. RebL is such a charming writer and my grandkids are the cuuuuu-test ever.

In other grandchild news, my sister at MindOverMary posts about her cute and costumed love.

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Sen. McCain has taken to calling Sen. Obama a “socialist”.

Ike didn’t call Adalai Stephenson that, and Ike was around when “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy was waving around his list of communists in the State Department.

Dick Nixon, who was on the House Un-American Activities Committee and prosecuted/persecuted Hollywood leftists never called George McGovern a socialist.

Nor did Nixon accuse McGovern of “palling around with terrorists”, even though that was the time that Bill Ayers and his wife were actually exploding bombs and the South Dakota senator was presumably in league with every dirty hippy and weed smoker in the country (me included).

Back when Ronald Reagan was head of the actor’s union, he testified before Nixon’s committee and accused a bunch of “blacklisted” writers and directors of being members of the communist party. But Reagan used no such language to describe President Carter or Walter Mondale.

I started this year believing that John Sidney McCain, the senator from Arizona, was an honorable man. I now believe that he has run the most foul campaign of my lifetime. I can no longer see him as honorable.

Today, Republican House leader John Boehner said Sen. Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois Senate were “chickenshit.” Whatever one may think of those 130 votes, is this the kind of language we think permissable by public figures during a political campaign? Our sitting vice president told a sitting U.S. senator to “go fuck yourself”.

And the GOP pretends to be the party of “family values”.

The POLITE conservatives on the internet think nothing of calling the Democratic nominee a “baby killer.” Is this what passes for political disagreement these days?

I hope all those warmongering fascists poured out of colostomy bags are ashamed of themselves.

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