Primitives, unblemished by contact with the modern world, discovered in Amazon rain forest. Plane flies over tribe's tiny village of thatched huts snapping pictures - we can see savages violently brandish spears and with wild gestures invoke whatever gods they worship against dark avatar of the unknown. Mystery of human ordeal laid bare. Something of a farce about it. Sad too I think.

On Hillary's RFK remark: some have rightly noticed that in elevating a non story into a big story the press revealed its bias for Obama and sadly demonstrated just how fraught with abject foolishness politics under the spell of modern media has become - but none as far as I know made mention of the fact that the remark served Obama's interests, not by making Clinton look bad, but by solemnly linking him with RFK. It was the Obama camp that was being cynical, not Clinton - and I guess that no one seeing fit to comment on that is further evidence of a media bias. I mean it's pretty obvious - anything that links Obama with RFK or with the Kennedys in general and the lost dreams of Camelot the assassinations evoke is going to be welcomed by him - hell, his speeches are virtually ripped from Bobby's '68 campaign. So why did no one point this out? Why was it ok to suggest, wrongly, that Hillary was up to no good by associating RFK's assassination and Obama's campaign yet apparently wasn't ok to suggest, rightly, that Obama campaign probably welcomed such an association?

Obama at Mt Rushmore looking up at big stone heads wonders how Hitchcock managed to film scene from North by Northwest oh so way up there. Tour guide shyly informs him scene actually filmed on sound stage. Obama marvels.

Why does this strike one as very odd? Silly, tenuous at least to draw conclusion from it that Obama is an idiot. Is it because he always tries to come off as so suavely astute and effortlessly bright that this small moment rings so harshly? Possible. Or because sounds like he was prepped to say something like this by a handler thus giving one a brief glimpse through the phony veneer? Hmmn.

Maybe cause you don't like the guy. No - have actually been warming to him a bit - not that I've changed my mind viz what a horrible president he'd be or what a dangerous lot of lefty wackos roiling in his wake would flood the Oval office were he to get in - no, it's just that I can see why a naive voter would be attracted to the style of the man.

"... no, it's not so much that I'm anti-gay... although neither am I pro-gay... I'm not one or the other in particular. You see? This is the problem - I don't want to have to think about it either way, I don't want to care and I don't particularly want to be made to feel like a lout for not caring. Sure, I guess as a civilized human I should in some sense indulge their concerns... but... there are bigger issues, no? More important things to worry about for the ninety-five percent of the species that ain't so inclined. Do I really want to stop them from getting married? No, not much interested in that. On the other hand, do I think they should be allowed to marry? No, it's stupid, and especially stupid given that civil unions afford them all the purported rights and privileges thereof. Marriage is a heterosexual artifice, it's specifically hetero - all its meaning is derived from the harrowing reality and resulting mysticism surrounding sexual congress between a guy and a gal - namely, on the way up the hill, randy Jack may get pretty little Jill pregnant. A Jack and a Jack or a Jill and a Jill can't have that experience and that experience is what marriage is and has been all about for the few thousand years men and women have been climbing up hills and tumbling down them. Gays want to make it about love, in fact their arguments only make sense in that context - but love per se is not what it's about at its core for us. If they wanna think it's all about love good for them, let them go off and do what they do to their hearts content - I don't care, and for that matter, neither should it be the government's province in general to care who loves what and why. But don't expect me to buy into this sentimental view of marriage - more importantly, don't try and force me to buy into it. I should have the right to reject the supposed enlightenment of others if there's no compelling reason why I should be denied the freedom of that right. The contention that denial of traditional marriage vows supposedly somehow encumbers the true expression of love within a gay relationship is decidedly not a compelling reason..."

company he keeps

Tom Hayden, 60's lefty radical, Marxist, thinks Obama is the one they've been waiting for to make all their old dreams new again. Sort of like being endorsed by death himself.

In same vein - lefty blog I was kicked off of for being too insensitive ran some anti-war drivel from Twain on Memorial Day. I commandeered the computer at work so I could sneak on their comments page and muse: it's 1588, the Armada is on its way, who do you want on the throne: Elizabeth with cunning bastard Walsingham at her side - or Edmund Spenser? Lefties didn't seem to get the point of the question. Some, wearing proudly the mantle of idiocy common to their ilk, actually tried to define what a sensitive, thoughtful man like Spenser would bring to the executive office. One clever whelp nominated Marlowe over Sir Edmund - had to allow that that indeed might have been interesting to see.

"... did I support the surge? I don't remember. Don't think so. Or was it that I said its political objectives could never be realized? Think that's it. But I wasn't really wrong, just as the people who are right really aren't right: it's not so much that the surge seems to have worked but that it played a somewhat unexpected or unanticipated part in an evolving dynamic that seems to be working. Lesson to be learned there, I suppose. I did say, however, a long time ago, that McCain was betting his candidacy on Iraq turning around before the election, a bet he took on when prospects there appeared much bleaker than they do today. Now how's it gonna look come October when McCain gets to go before the people and say if Obama had been president America would have 'cut and run' a year ago, leaving behind a failed state that was unraveling and stirring up such security concerns that it looked like we were gonna have to go back in? Won't look good, I reckon. Careful what ya wish for, eh? The left wing loves Obama and have carried him to the nomination - all because ostensibly he opposed the war. I say ostensibly because he represented a very liberal district in the state legislature of Illinois and so would have been expected to oppose the war - still, oppose it he did and the left loves him for it. But their animus is all emotional in nature, merely reactive: it's clear none of them have really thought about the war in a broader, more involved context - or if they have it's been with such adulterated bias that their thoughts count for little in the greater scheme of things..."

"... oh, Obama's wife clarified her remark alright - by changing its meaning. Similarly, when I said I hate the French and the French complained I clarified the remark by saying what I actually meant was that I love the French, it's Germans I can't stand. This clarification seemed to mollify the French, who apparently have a healthy dislike of so many people..."

"... you know, little remarked on is troubling likelihood that, just as if the war had gone well it would have been exploited to promote a conservative agenda and rationalize a specifically conservative view of the world, so to a failed war now works the same questionable magic for democrats and their agenda... liberal blogs and policy portals now wax all wroth about the debacle as if military affairs had all along been their favourite topic of discussion... seems like it's impossible to publicly analyze the war outside the constraints of a rather narrow political context... hard to see how that's a good thing... although it may be people are not capable of better..."

Released, reams of documents detailing Pentagon's attempt to 'spin' the war - phrases to use, narratives to sell etc etc - and of course lefties get all apoplectic about it - we were mislead, tricked, fooled!! Question is, should this be surprising? Hasn't this always been the case? Certainly, I believe every significant war America has marched into has been spun, it's just that in the 'popular' ones people don't seem to mind so much. Civil War really about freeing slaves? Undoubtedly a wide majority of Americans believe it was but truth is it was about a lot of things, most of which had not so much to do with mules and forty acres going to displaced Africans. Point is, of course wars are gonna get spun by the powers that be - given the unpleasantness of their natures [what subject being modified here?] hard to imagine it being otherwise. Not that one shouldn't train a somewhat jaundiced eye on the actors - but probably more important to watch out that in the process of running the show those actors don't end up fooling themselves, which certainly seems to have been the case in Iraq.

"... why does Hillary trudge on even though winning is virtually impossible? Because she thinks Obama doesn't deserve to be president and will make a bad job of it? There's that. Because she'd prefer McCain if it can't be her? That follows, absolutely. But more than anything I'm guessing is fact she can't really stand the guy as a person or as the irrational force that robbed her of a prized place in history, she can't stand him and knows that as soon as she drops out she's going to have to bury her pride and hurt feelings and extreme enmity towards him and campaign for the son of a bitch, has to campaign for him or ruin her credibility as a democrat. I think she genuinely loathes the coming of that concession and is trying to put it off as long as possible. Still, come that day you best watch your back, Obama and apostles of hope - ya know what I mean... hell hath no fury..."