The Chapel

As per the below excerpt from Herman Melville's Moby Dick or The Whale, look for my use of the term 'Methinks' in future posts. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Windows dictionary recognized it outright.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall.Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say--here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.

In what census of living creatures the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.

But Faith, like a jackal feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems--aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling--a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

Things that needed saying

Those naively convinced our country has moved past long-trodden racial divides need only look at the Democratic primary race and the tone it's taken in recent weeks. The comments of surrogates have successfully shifted the discussion from issues universal to us all to issues hinged on the colors of our skin. Those comments made by Dina Ferraro and Jeremiah right are not indicative of the beliefs held by Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively. Nonetheless, they have been the fascination of mainstream media. The picture painted by the talking heads is an inextricable fusion between the ill-advised words of campaign surrogates and the convictions of their candidates. Such isn't so. Such is the act of lazy logic, lazy logic that clouds the records our fine candidates' and operates in spite of honest, open discussion.

While in Wyoming, campaigning for Barack Obama, Ryan and I attended a Unitarian/Universalist church service, the first I'd ever been too. The congregation was a nuclear group of progressive thinkers in a deep-rooted conservative region, a group I hope will someday serve as a bellwether for their state. Throughout the service I was taken aback by the notion that we all share universal commonalities, blind to religious allegiances, the race or ethnicity of our parents and the political codes we abide by. Open, honest discussion as the crux, politics are discussed without spurs being flung from any side. Those participating formulate and/or adjust their opinions based on the subjective understandings of others. Without an outright endorsement of the Unitarian Church, I will say that this brand of dialog is what our nation needs. Such should be the brand of discussion at the water tank. Such should be the brand of discussion to which the Talking Heads prescribe.

Such IS the brand of discussion Senator Barack Obama adopted long ago and has offered as his defining attribute as a public figure. Below is a video of Barack Obama's speech on race and politics in America. It runs 40 some minutes and speaks to universal truths that mustn't be ignored within the discussion surrounding the nomination and election of the next American President. The Clinton campaign is aptly mute in response to the speech and it very well may be a final turning point in the tone of the election when it comes to race.



Not since Dr. Martin Luther King, has someone with Senator Obama's influence spoken so candidly on the State of the Union's Racial Divide--and this groundbreaking speech may someday serve as a turning point on racial issues for our generation. Once again I am made proud of my service for this man. I will hope, with the utmost optimism, that this speech casts a shadow long enough to eclipse the dirty, rotten racial baiting of yesteryear and that Senator Obama maintains the highroad he's become accustomed to traveling.

Shenique Smith, Japanese Calligraphy & Street Taught Graffiti

This installation caught my eye. Currently showing at the Proposition in New York.

Wright & Wrong

Well said, although I wish it weren't tele-prompted. He's gotten good, you can hardly tell these days. We'll hope evidence doesn't surface that he's sat in on sermons like the one in question. At least I will.

Post Op - Failure's a Bitch

The recent tone of the Clinton Campaign in the Democratic primary race turned death match reminds me of a quote from Keith Foulke, an MLB pitcher that plays for the Oakland A's --

“I'll never be equipped to handle failure. I'll come in kicking, screaming, throwing stuff, cussing and breaking stuff. I don't handle failure well at all."

Initially I welcomed the vetting of the fresh, young Senator from Illinois but after several weeks of bloodshed, some alarming trends have emerged. What was good political fun quickly became the "silly season of politics" and has hit rock bottom as a knock down, drag out fight leaving the presumptive nominee bloodied. When the Clinton campaign announced that they intended to throw "The kitchen sink, table and chairs" at Barack Obama prior to the March 4th primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, they should have at least introspectively considered that it was (as brought to my attention by a clever commenter over at HuffPo) from "the deck of the Titanic." The delegate and popular vote math is more than daunting for Senator Clinton and has been since Wisconsin. None of her recent wins have put a dent in the numbers that painted Obama a winner more than a month ago.

Recent smears including the 3am ad, commander-in-chief readiness, NAFTA-gate, Samantha Power & Jeremiah Wright were intended to strengthen Senator Clinton's chances to win the Democratic nomination. Pollster's National Democratic polls and trending shows that these attacks have helped little to none. She has made slight gains among the electorate while Obama's numbers have grown steadily.



Despite lackluster gains in the primary race, her recent attacks have had a dramatic effect on the national electorate in theoretical general election match-ups against John McCain.




Senator Obama's support against McCain in the general election has weakened while Senator Clinton's has grown sharply in recent weeks. What can be ruled out is that public opinion has shifted to consider Mrs. Clinton the better opponent to John McCain. If that were the case, we'd see weakening support for Senator Obama in the primary polls, a hint that Democratic voters would prefer her to run against John McCain. What Senator Clinton has successfully done is weaken support for Mr. Obama among voters that aren't already part of his core constituency, voters that will play a decisive roll in November's election -- most likely independents and crossovers. So, instead of increasing her chances of winning the nomination, she has weakened Senator Obama's chances of winning the general election.

I know, you know and anyone that spends five minutes pecking away at the Slate Delegate Calculator knows that Senator Clinton has no chance in hell of closing the gap among pledged delegates. She would need to win 65-70% of the remaining pledged delegates to do so. So why has she been allowed to remain in the race given her actions and the damage she's caused to the Democratic Party's chances in November? Some would argue that she has a better chance of catching Senator Obama in the popular vote thus staging the argument of what's more important -- the delegate count or the popular vote. Given the 2000 Supreme Court fiasco, such an argument would gain traction among most American voters. Unfortunately, with 77% of the electorate having already cast their votes and Obama's popular vote lead of 700,000+ (courtesy of realclearpolitics.com; don't get your tally from hillaryclinton.com, her campaign excludes caucus votes), Mrs. Clinton would need to soak up 58.2% of the remaining votes to match his number.

So if she can't catch Senator Obama in pledged delegates or the popular vote, why are we still grinding this ax? The only elephant left in the room is the looming chance of re-votes in Florida and Michigan. Including those voters and delegates decreases Mrs. Clinton's needed margin among pledged delegates by roughly 5% and by 2% of the popular vote. Bottom line -- even with re-votes in FL and MI, Senator Clinton would need to secure 56% of the popular vote in remaining states to have one leg of an argument to stand on. Given all this, why hasn't Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean stepped in to stop the bloodshed and offer the Democratic party a chance at victory in November? Because they and the DNC would be buried up to their necks in civil litigation until the next election cycle, ensuring a Democratic defeat if this contest is shut down while one iota of a chance remains that Hillary Clinton can make a miraculous comeback. So unless someone at the DNC grows some balls, calls her on her bluff and endorses Senator Obama, we're stuck fighting this fight until the convention. Our only hope is that he can rebound in the 5 months between the final primary contest and the general election.

If a closed-door threat to sue all involved parties over a 'prematurely' terminated primary race did indeed occur, I will give Howard Dean, the DNC and remaining un-pledged super delegates the benefit of the doubt, as she may not be bluffing. Given her actions throughout this campaign that wouldn't surprise me one bit. It seems Hillary Clinton hates failure as much as Keith Foulke. If, by some act of god, she is successful in all this, she very well may be the next President of the United States. I'll have to bite my tongue and vote for her. If she isn't, she will have destroyed the Clinton name and would be lucky to win re-election for her senate seat in New York. If she loses the nomination and Senator Obama isn't able to rebound in national polls and ultimately loses the presidency, a strong case can be made to blame her for the foil. If that happens, god forbid, a concerted grassroots effort should be made to sue her to the gates of hell. I'd love to see Slick Willy's dubious Dubai millions go to child health care. Wouldn't that be poetic justice?

Post Op - D Day On the Horizon

In approximately 34 hours, polls will close in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. We'll make our knee-jerk reactions to the good-for-nothing early results. As "1% Reporting" becomes 14, 23, 57 and 100%, trends will form and winners will emerge. Between now and those closing moments, I'll wonder if I've done enough.

When Senator Obama's announced he would run for president, I took a position on the fence that I'd maintain for the next 6 months. I'd seen his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention and was excited by the prospect of khis candidacy. Up until that point, I considered Hillary Clinton the inevitable Democratic candidate and still felt Obama's candidacy was a long shot, albeit an exciting one. Since her successful run at the New York Senate seat in 2000, I cuddled up to the notion of electing the first female POTUS and that that woman would be Hillary Clinton. I watched her closely. Despite conservative opposition, her work on the Budget, Public Works, and Health & Education Committees impressed me. After all, I couldn't, at the time, fault her for her Iraq vote -- I was in support of a preemptive strike -- I took the administration's bait hook, line and sinker. After all, 29 other Democratic senators supported the motion, including John Edwards and Tom Daschle.

In the time since the invasion of Iraq, I've learned a hard lesson learned about taking things at face value, especially when considering monumental national security and foreign relations decisions. When no WMD's were found, no links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda surfaced and subsequent Bush/Cheney/Rove gerrymandering became public, I rested blame on the shoulders of the administration for beating the war drum and not on those that erroneously voted to support it. Senator Clinton's culpability, and that of her like minded colleagues, lay in their present view of those erroneous votes. The democrats in congress were given a five year opportunity to make up for the mistake. Some, like John Edwards, apologized emphatically for their votes. For Senator Clinton that opportunity came and went. She instead chose to claim that she was unaware that her vote was to authorize a preemptive strike against Iraq and has refused to repudiate her support of the war since. Her political triangulation was faceted by two points -- there was no wrongdoing to apologize for and that the American people would be stupid enough to believe her.

Unfortunately for her, there was wrongdoing and the American public wasn't stupid enough to believe it. If there's anything the Bush/Cheney regime has given the American people it's increased subjectivity and heightened skepticism. Believe it or not, Senator Clinton's spin of her Iraq vote wasn't enough for me to write off her candidacy but it was strike one.

As the three major Democratic campaigns barnstormed Iowa in the lead up to the primary season, I popped some corn and made myself comfortable on the fence. "Ooh, John Edwards has an ass-kicking populist message! Aah, I knew Hillary was nice but I never knew she was 'Iowa nice!' Wow, Obama is one optimistic guy!" When the dust settled, the Hope Monger came out on top, the working man's populist in second and the inevitable in third. I love horse races.

It's too bad John Edwards came across as a bullshitter, I liked his message more than that of the other "top tier" candidates. If I had thought he wasn't full of shit, I would have campaigned for him from "Day One." There was of course his voting record and his 20,000 square foot mansion that put a dull layer over his populist shine. Barack Obama was relatively untested and Senator Clinton lied about her Iraq vote. What's a proud voter to do?

John Edwards became less viable after a heavy loss in New Hampshire and a defeat in his home state of South Carolina. The SC race also highlighted the Clinton campaign's use of blatant race-baiting. Strike Two, thanks to Slick Willy. Had Bill lost all political tact? His comments were made in the wake of several off-color (no pun intended) comments by Clinton surrogates and the senator herself. Despite apologies, the damage was done. It's a strange coincidence that the Clinton campaign would later tow the line that "words don't put food on the table" after how damaging words were to her campaign early in the race. Mark Penn should have completed that line with "...but they can help you lose an un-losable nomination." With questions of John Edwards' electability and Clinton race-baiting, I woke up the next day leaning toward Senator Obama.

By this time, I began looking past policy, the crux of my decision-making, likening both senators' policy packages to a pot and a kettle. It was at this time that I started to watch Senator Obama's speeches online and paid close attention to anything new he had to say. He was simply electrifying and I waited for a reason to throw my hat in his ring. On January 16th, Senator Clinton got her third strike. I was listening to NPR and an interview between Robert Siegel and Hillary Clinton. She dodged a question on Social Security Tax caps no less than three times and was defiantly rude to Siegel who sought a simple answer to a policy question. At the end of the interview, I called the Denver Obama volunteer headquarters and scheduled a visit.

After my first 200 calls that night, I went on to being a Precinct Captain and then to managing precincts in my district that didn't have captains. I threw a Pre-Caucus bash, stapling hundreds of fliers about the neighborhood and inviting anyone with a pulse. I called the 700 Democrats in my precinct at least three times and as many Democrats from neighboring precincts as I could. Each time I'd sit down to make 200-300 calls it was out of guilt that maybe I hadn't done enough to ensure an Obama victory. On caucus night, my precinct voted 75-25 for Obama and the district-wide vote was 70% to 30% for Obama. I'd done enough...here.

I look northward to my cowboy brothers in Wyoming. As a caucus state, their 12 delegates should nearly all fall under Obama's column but only if the necessary groundwork was done. The national campaign did it's part by installing four offices statewide and I did my part by making calls from home and slapping on my cowboy boots for weekend trips to Cheyenne. This past weekend, I opted for video games over a trip to Texas or Wyoming. I went to my Family's home in Franktown and left my laptop and the blogosphere in Denver. I ignored the horse race in the crucial weekend leading up to the Texas and Ohio primaries and now I question whether I did enough to ensure an Obama victory. Well, the chips are down and at 8pm tomorrow night, I'll have my answer. In the meantime, I'm going to keep my eyes glued to the blogosphere.

Post Op - Tuesday's Week in Review

All in all this is shaping up to be a fantastic week. My best friend and I kicked the week off with a Unitarian Church service and some politicking in Wyoming, it's 57 degrees outside amidst a dreadful Colorado winter, Sen. Obama continues to drive nails into his opponent's coffin and I finally got to see Lindsey Lohan's breasts.

Ryan Kulp intends to blog on our Wyoming journey, so I'll withhold my tale and insert a link here when it's up.

Here's a look at Colorado's beautiful weather -


Once again, Senator Barack Obama proves his superior intellect and uncanny analysis of complex foreign relations issues -
CIA Operation Similar To Tactic Obama Advocated, Criticized by Bush

And that concludes a Tuesday's Week in Review.

Inauguration

Kind of feels like the first day of school. I've had a long summer to numb my senses and dumb down my skills but the time has come to put fingers to keys. As a natural-born exhibitionist, I've always liked the concept of blogging and intend to treat my blog as a personal diary open to the world. You won't have to sneak into my room while I'm at cheer practice and tepidly rummage through my pink dresser drawers to find my dirty little secrets.

Before I forget, I'd like to address the title of my blog, Divided Highway, and give credit where due. The name is blatant plagiarism. My good (best(bff)) friend Ryan Kulp coined the term years ago as what could have been the best band name to emerge from the Seventies and never did. Ryan is a writer and this chirp is one of thousands he has and will continue to generate on a daily basis so I'm going to steal it. (Ry, we can work out a royalty deal if you want a percentage of my adsense revenue)

I intend to use this blog both for commentary and reporting and most whole-heartedly intend to differentiate the two. All commentary will carry the tag "Post Op" because it's my blog and I think Op Ed sounds stoopid. All news reporting will be tagged as "Hot Off the Ether" because I'm quite fond of "Ether" as a buzz word for the means of information transfer. Feel free to offer up criticism if my commentary or reporting is lazy but don't comment unless you agree with me. Only stoopid people don't agree with me and stoopid people aren't allowed to post on Divided Highway.