Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A different sort of Veterans Day

Every previous Veterans Day post here on Peace Tree Farm (2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003) was written in the continuing context of George W. Bush’s unconscionable and disastrous destruction of Iraq.  While that horror continues—dozens dead yesterday, more today—the nation’s orientation is now different.

The election of Barack Obama won’t immediately end the insanity that was the Iraq invasion.  More Iraqis, and more Americans, will die in that nation that has been destroyed in our name.  But the orientation of the American activities will undoubtedly shift from Bushian plunder and destruction to efforts at disentanglement and reconciliation.  It will be a difficult and dangerous task, but it’s a long overdue change.  We can never undo the awfulness that Bush caused this nation to inflict on the people of Iraq, but we can, at the very least, put an end to it.

I write on this Veterans Day as a Draft Board member.  The results of last week’s election probably make it less likely that I’ll ever have to perform such duties.  If unforeseen circumstances do somehow take us in that direction, however, I will always be fully aware that those responsibilities lead directly to this day.  What the Draft Board does, what the Selective Service System does, would convert young American men and women in to veterans of the armed services. 

That is, those who aren’t honored and remembered on Memorial Day.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Every place I've ever lived...

...will be represented in the House of Representatives by a Democrat in the 111th Congress.  It took a pair of R-->D electoral switches in yesterday’s balloting, and it’s a sweeeet feeling.

I note that happy fact not out of a sense of blue state provincialism, nor as any sort of gloating over yesterday’s electoral results.  It’s more that I’m astonished to see the good people of such a variety of locales display the voting wherewithal to elect people who are so much more likely to be of service to their constituencies and to the nation than Republicans have been and would be.

Herewith, a chronological roster of my home Congressional Districts during my 58 years on the planet.

• 1950-1960: When I was born, my parents lived in the colonial town of Woodbury NJ, county seat of Gloucester County.  Woodbury is in NJ-01, represented since 1989 by Rob Andrews.
• 1960-1968: In 1960, we moved a few miles north to the burgeoning uber-suburb of Cherry Hill NJ, part of NJ-03.  That district’s long-time GOP Congressman retired, and in yesterday’s election the seat was won in a close battle by Democrat John Adler.  NJ-03 is one of the two party switches in my CD lifelist.
• 1968-1972: My undergraduate years at Dartmouth College in Hanover NH.  In 2006, my classmate Paul Hodes defeated another Big Greener (two years behind us) to wrestle NH-02 into the Democratic column.  While at Dartmouth, I briefly lived off-campus in nearby Fairlee VT, which has been represented in the House by Peter Welch since 2007.  Before that, of course, VT-AL was represented by now-Senator Bernie Sanders.
• 1972-1973: I spent one miserable year in medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia PA.  Because the building I lived in is a block east of Broad St., I was in PA-01, represented by Congressman Bob Brady.
• 1973-1975: Moving into epidemiology, I spent two years in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst MA.  Currently represented in the House by John Olver, MA-01 is the district in which I voted for a Republican for the first and only time in my life.  I happily and proudly backed Silvio O. Conte—environmentalist, supporter of public education and scientific research, liberal—in the 1974 election.
• 1975-1981: My first job was at the University of Louisville, located of course in Louisville KY.  The city is in the 3rd District of Kentucky.  After defeating horrid Republican incumbent Anne Northup in 2006, Representative John Yarmuth cruised to victory yesterday, again against Northup.
• 1981-1986, 1987-1994: Grad school, and later employment, at the University of Pittsburgh.  The strongly Democratic city is part of PA-14, and has been represented in Congress since 1995 by Mike Doyle.
• 1986-1987: Between those stints at Pitt, I did a post-doc back at Temple (see 1972-1973).  This time around, I lived in a different part of Philadelphia, in Chaka Fattah‘s district PA-02.
• 1994-1995: Briefly becoming a “gentleman farmer” while working at Pitt and then Allegheny General Hospital, I lived in the tiny rural hamlet of Fenelton PA (between Butler and Kittaning, if you really want to know).  That town is in PA-03, which is about to send freshman Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper to Washington.  She defeated Republican incumbent Phil English, who had been in the House since 1995.  In this usually-conservative CD, Dahlkemper’s late rush to victory was a real surprise.
• 1995-1996: Still at AGH, but soon unemployed, I spent a disspirited year in an outer suburb of Pittsburgh, Cranberry Township PA.  Continuing my tour through the Keystone State’s districts, it’s in PA-04.  This CD went from GOP to Democratic two years ago, when Jason Altmire defeated Melissa Hart.  Yesterday, he outpolled Hart again.
• 1996-2001: Moving into Medicare quality improvement research, I made a clean break in relocating to Somersworth and then Portsmouth NH.  Both cities are in NH-01, which was the site of perhaps the most amazing House race of 2006.  Hugely outspent in both the Democratic primary and the general election, and running against well-entrenched incumbent Jeb Bradley in the latter, Carol Shea-Porter won both times by dint of hard door-to-door work and an army of impassioned volunteers.  She confirmed yesterday that New Hampshire is now a blue state, handily defeating Bradley for a second time.
• 2001-now: Leaving the Eastern Time Zone far behind, I came here to ultra-blue Seattle, happily represented in ultra-blue WA-07 by ultra-blue Jim McDermott.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Think Blue

Today is Election Day 2008.  If you haven’t done so already, VOTE!!

If you’re in Washington, I urge you to support whichever of the candidates and measures displayed over on my sidebar are on the ballot in your particular jurisdiction.  In particular, Governor Gregoire and Peter Goldmark are in tight races ... they need every vote they can get.  If you’re in the WA-08 Congressional District, I urgently demand that you cast your vote for Darcy Burner.  And if you’re across the mountains in WA-04, you’ll find that George Fearing will be a vastly better Congressman for your CD than not-even-close-to-being-a-Doc Hastings (please don’t think of that as damning George with faint praise).

Soon after the bitter disappointment of the last presidential election, when my fellow Americans somehow saw fit to retain the disastrously horrid Bush malAdministration, and to permit a Republican-led House and Senate to aid-and-abet their destruction of our great land, I came across a website selling Think Blue wristbands.  I bought one for myself, and have been wearing it ever since.  It looks something like this:

Actually, my wristband is an “enhanced” version of the one in the picture.  Along with Think Blue, it displays the dates of the 2006 election—11/07/2006, when we took back control of both houses of the federal legislature—and the 2008 election—11/04/2008, when we take back the executive branch and solidify our majorities in the Senate and the House.  It also shows the website that sold these wristbands (thinkbluedems.com), which I’m sorry to report is no longer in existence.  For that matter, neither is its successor website, thinkblue2008.com.

It’s exciting as all hell that the message of that wristband is about to be fulfilled.  In early 2005, I don’t think any of us thought this result would be in sight on this day.  But now that its mission has come to a happy ending, I’m in a quandary.

What do I do with my wristband?

Do I now simply remove it and drop it in the trash with a happy sigh about a mission well accomplished?  Do I continue to wear it, even though its message is, in a sense, no longer relevant?  Do I frame it and hang it in some place of honor?  Do I offer it as a souvenir on eBay?

Suggestions are welcome.  In the meantime, I suppose I need to take in some nourishment as a stomach coating, in preparation for a night of celebration and happiness!

[UPDATE]

DailyKos CHEERS & JEERS maven Bill in Portland Maine, who also proudly wears a Think Blue wristband, has a suggestion that seems quite reasonable:

Just tack it to a wall.

Because it’s shaped like an ‘O’ so it’s got at least 4 years of life left in it and probably eight.

Amazing how those wristbands knew who would be the next president.  Spooky!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

World Champions!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay Phillies!!!!!!!!!

This time I got to see it!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

World Series status report

As the weather in Philadelphia continues to suck, the Phillies and Rays won’t return to the field tonight.  Game 5 is now scheduled to recommence tomorrow night, weather permitting.

There is precedent for multi-day delays during the World Series, if not for mid-game delays during the Series. 

Perhaps the most famous one occurred in 1975.  The justly-praised Game 6 of that Series between Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine and the Lynn-Rice Red Sox, the game in which Carlton Fisk willed his 12th-inning flyball to hit the foul pole for a Series-tying homer, took place a full five days after Game 5.  Following a Thursday game in Cincinnati and a scheduled travel day on Friday, the clubs were rained out at Fenway Park on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Another such delay, much shorter than 1975’s, also involved the Red Sox and also involved an extremely famous ballgame.  After the shocking Bill Buckner error game (Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Sox and the New York Mets), rain postponed Game 7 from Sunday to Monday.

If the Rays and Phils do play again tomorrow night, it’ll begin just after Barack Obama’s 30 minute television program, on the very same network (FOX).  At least, that’s how it’ll run in the Eastern and Central time zones.  No word yet on how the two programs will be handled in the Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii time zones.