Well, here I am at the epicenter of a national whirligig. What I mean by that is that I live a ten-minute walk from where tonight’s debates are being held. I drive by there everyday. St. Louis is one of those secret places of political power. You don’t think St. Louis and national/global influence in the same thought stream, but at the turn of the century (meaning 18 into 19 on the number front) there was more concentrated privately held wealth here than anywhere else in the country. So, even today St. Louis keeps a lot of old money under its petticoats.

A few years back there was a plan to encircle the entire city in a green curtain, build a bypass, that sort of thing. But it was reasoned that there were way too many small dogs city wide for that sort of plan to ever hold curtain rod. Also the OZ dance club is on the East Side, so there would be the river to contend with and drapes do tend to hold moisture... sorry I’ve been reading Tom Robbins again and he seeps into my style.

Donations that come from the city are fairly split right down the middle. Old money is a good bet hedger and Boeing’s got to make bombs and planes regardless of who wins, so it makes sense to peddle a little influence in both directions. The red is wining presumably on psychic slippage from the Cardinal’s fan base, or just psychic slippage in general.


I saw my friend Kathleen, who teaches at Wash U, walking to work on Wednesday and when I saw her next I inquired.

Kathleen, “Oh, they’ve closed the parking lots on this side of campus for security reasons so I had to walk to work.”

They are doing a great deal of construction on this side of campus, so I hadn’t really noticed the additional fencing, but on my drive home last night Big Bend (which I drive everyday) was closed down to one lane and there were signs saying it would be completely closed on Friday, fences galore. All the media vans from the national networks were parked along that street – so if they do “outside the van” coverage chances are they’ll be on Big Bend. Though I would only really expect “bubbly news girl” outside a van from Fox media and our local gazabos.

Traffic in the city in general is up. Angela flies out to Kansas City today and we were concerned about the media circus at the airport. We only live fifteen minutes from the terminal, but have figured on much more than that.

So, the other day when I wrote that long rant about the first debate someone out there found it interesting and linked it – thank you very much unknown person – but as a result of that interest and that link I’ve felt the compulsion to once again launch into a semi-political rant. I didn’t feel compelled to write about the vice presidential debates because in a certain sense we didn’t really see much of anything there.

Synopsis:

Mary and I had gone to dinner at Schlafly’s bottle works, running into Dave there and setting up Saturday’s golf outing. We ran various errands and I passed Gunther the Grunter, Mary’s front porch gnome, with just enough time to pour a drink and get a beer before the opening remarks (yes both were required). Courtesy of Mary’s sister Margaret, we decided to Mark the event with Makers and some Huber Bock, so my reportage of the first half of the “debate” will be the clearest.

Cheney began by telling us all about the links between Sadam and al Qaeda in his opening howdy. A question or two in he said that he had never ever suggested that there was a link, and then later he talked again about the link. That’s an extra special waffle don’t you think?

Any trial lawyer worth his salt would have nailed him to the floor on that, “Your honor, the witness has just perjured himself within the first ten minutes of taking the stand. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I rest my case.” but Edwards was too “on message” at that point to hammer on the obvious gaff until later.

Watching the event with a media professor is handy. Note: Cheney is centered and larger than Edwards, who is shown to be smaller and is filmed from a slight angle. Coincidence? Unlikely. The problem with image is that America likes being lied to by a pater familias, especially if he’s really good at wringing his prayer hands and tolerating his prodigal daughter. I was imagining a little paper clip holder on the desk next to Cheney filled with heart stints, like the one keeping him alive, and somewhere in the country its’ inventor Dean Kamen has a ponderous look on his face. Would you like some irony?

“· The Heinz Award was awarded to Dean in 1998 in Technology, the Economy and Employment for a set of inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide.”



Teresa, I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

So… how should I get involved for your reading enjoyment. Here’s the widget, I have to work tonight 1-9. I’ll roll a TV into the office and watch from there. The Democratic Party has been kind enough to send me tickets to the Kerry rally being held after the debates in Forest Park. I can get as many as I want, but I have to get them printed out from the web in advance, as no one will be admitted without one. Locals, would you like to go to the rally? It might be rainy?