east end women (they were at the east end of the table), including the birthday one 

west wing men  

sometimes you see her in her uniform on State Street 

How many mistakes can one make in one day?

I fear I made a big one. I have let my impulsive fingers click click click (one used to say dial but now one just clicks) in a wanton and reckless disregard of the human spirit.

Here’s what happened.
Charter sent all these wonderful brochures about expanded cable. Not interested!-- I thought. This is how much I do not watch TV: when I turned it on the day of the first debate and it wasn’t working I screamed at Charter to get it together and fix it! They came the next day and said the cable had been disconnected in the back yard for, it looks like, months.

That says something about my commitment up to now to TV viewing.

But there were the brochures, and friends were watching Comedy Central and I was getting pretty tired late at night and so I called.

You should never do these things on an impulse. Sleep on it – is my sage advice. But no. I called. Another debate is coming up, neighbors are coming over – I want expanded cable! (Besides, it’s virtually cost-free! Special deal this, special package that…And, I was feeling wealthy because I just learned yesterday that AirFrance and Northwestern merged their frequent flyer programs and so that has just zapped me into the stratosphere of mile abundance. Wealth is wealth.)

Today, the Charter young man came out and now I have a box. The box is magic, he tells me. It will let me watch movies on demand. It will give me 77 channels and then some. It will sing, it will play, it will entertain me. He left. I am looking at the box. I don’t want to watch television! I tossed the remote aside and went up to blog instead.

Old habits die hard. I should have slept on it.

Twenty-seventh street pre-election diary*

I do believe we are on 27th 

In truth, I am suspended between days and between debates. It is night and I still have three papers to reread. There is no “next day.” I am on the same day as yesterday. Twenty-seven is looking awfully like twenty-eight. I am even wearing the same pair of jeans and I have yet to close the curtains for the night. Or is it morning?

Similarily, I am suspended between debates. Tomorrow's, yesterday's (no, make that day before yesterday's), they are almost running into each other. Almost.

I read this morning about one (of many) misstep made by Cheney during the debate. You have to read this. Maybe it’s that I am in a no-sleep stupor, but I find the following completely hilarious (possibly because I think it is the kind of thing that would happen to me). The Wash Post reports:

After Democratic nominee John Edwards raised some nasty allegations about Halliburton Corp., the company Cheney once ran, Cheney angrily responded to the "false" charges. "If you go, for example, to FactCheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton," he said.

But when people followed Cheney's instructions, they wound up at a site sponsored by administration antagonist George Soros. "Why we must not re-elect President Bush," the site blared. "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values."

Evidently, Cheney meant to say FactCheck.org a site run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Instead, he directed the nation's attention to a Web site that refers people to sellers of dictionaries and encyclopedias -- at least at first. The company behind the site, Cayman Islands-based Name Administration Inc., which also owns sites such as Lipbalm.com and Antarctica.com, was quickly overwhelmed.

"Suddenly they had 48,000 hits in an hour, then 100 hits a second," said John Berryhill, a lawyer for the company. "They had a technical problem on their hands."

To avoid crashing, and to exact revenge on Cheney for causing it such grief, Name Administration decided to forward traffic to GeorgeSoros.com -- a site that could handle the traffic, was not soliciting funds and clearly wasn't tied to Bush. "And you got to admit it was kind of cute," Berryhill said.

Soros's Web site issued a statement saying it had nothing to do with the redirection of traffic.

The irony is that once you did reach the proper site, the one Cheney intended to have you go to, you read that (in their words): "in fact, Edwards was mostly right."

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post)

A longish post about how I think I must be living on another planet

This afternoon, in a symbolic move, I put this up:

That was then

I studied it for a while, contemplated simpler days where it was all about Lieberman’s attempt at folksiness and Gore’s lockbox.
Then I covered it up with the newly arrived-in-the-mail this:

No longer a November 7th election

And I just wish people would remember that this is the election before us.
I was astonished at fellow bloggers who wrote about yesterday’s debate: “a clear win for Cheney" (here) or “a quintessential draw” (here).

Were we listening to the same debate? We are not confusing it with the Lieberman-Cheney discussion of four years back, are we?

Because really, you’ll have to explain to me what you mean by that. A “win” (or “draw”) means different things for different parties. From the Democrat standpoint, a “win” for their party would happen if the debate did not derail the momentum from the last debate – a tough standard because Cheney appears knowledgeable (how he can have credibility at this point is beyond me, but for many voters, he does), much more in control, indeed more “presidential” than Bush. Nothing was derailed. Indeed, many news sources today applauded Edwards’ command of the facts, his seriousness, his attempts at setting straight the wild record that Cheney was flaunting. As a side note, even on the “let’s have another peek at our true blue (or red in this case) Cheney” front, Cheney lost points. So much has been written this morning about his petulance and disgruntlement. We now have George and Dick, the two angry boys who cannot believe that the country, indeed, the world would question their command of the playground.

To me, there was no doubt, then, that Democrats “won” what they needed to win last night.

A “win” for the Republicans would have happened if Cheney had managed to say something that hadn’t already been said by the GOP that would freshly cause one to feel enthusiastic about the same old same old stuff, both in terms of the economy or the war. It would happen if Cheney presented compelling evidence that would discredit Edwards’ or Kerry’s strong allegations. It would also happen if Edwards, the novice in the campaign, would appear stupid, uninformed, weak, etc. We know all about Cheney and his command of (illegitimate) facts. The spot light was on Edwards. The so-called ‘most embarrassing moment’ of Cheney stating “I am meeting you for the first time” turns out to be incorrect, foolish and not responsive to anything voters are worried about (remembering, too, that many many voters were happy to put Edwards on the presidential ticket).

The Republicans lost because they did not undo any of the damage from last Thursday, nor did they manage to let Edwards look bad. Their mission failed.

A draw would happen if both parities gained something or gained nothing. How can you think that this was the result? The Democrats gained by solidifying their momentum. They lost nothing. The Republicans, on the other hand, only rubber stamped a Cheney that we already know all too well, and they failed to get out of the swamp that GWB put them in. Even if you love Cheney (oh dear!), he is not running for president. His work was to make Bush’s lackluster performance look good after all. True, it, too, was an almost impossible assignment. I dare say, Kerry is skilled enough to have pulled it off, but Cheney could not (boost his running mate).

So where is the draw or the Cheney win? I must have been watching a different channel. I just called Charter and purchased upgraded cable. Maybe that’ll help for Friday’s debate – we’ll all be on the same page. Or screen.

Twenty-eighth street pre-election diary*

at 1 East 28th, you'll find plenty of pickles 

This post is all about pickles. How ever did the cucumber in brine come to depict “a jam,” as in “I am in a pickle”? Or “a muddle”? Or “a plight”?

I should imagine a brine bath would be restorative more than muddling. You know, in the spirit of preserving and rejuvenating, in the way that salt baths typically are. Thus perhaps a brine bath would be in order for a Vice President who, as the NYT today said, appeared “dyspeptic.” I know the references is to “disgruntlement,” but for me, it connotes a man with severe indigestion. I flashed back and imagined Cheney squirming with the kind of heartburn you experience from eating too many pickles. It is maybe in anticipation of this uncomfortable digestive issue that the Republicans, in negotiating the terms of the debate, insisted that the two men remain seated at a table.

As to who is the better “preserved” candidate? It is no secret that Edwards looks far younger than his 51 years. But if we stay with the pickle metaphor as implying a muddle or a plight, I would think that the older gentleman last night found himself in one time and time again. It is hard, after all, to stand in support of a platform which has put this country in the pickle that it finds itself in at the moment – here and abroad. Thus, if you actually listened (or read this morning, as I did) to the substance, I think the brine is swirling around the older one. Um, we all do listen to the substance, don’t we? Don’t we?

On 28th street there is a pickle shop, run by a man who moved to NY from Turkey some while back. He loves New York, he loves his pickles. I found the place by chance, but now I am a complete fan. Yes, it reminds me of pickles I used to buy from barrels in Polish grocery stores. Poles are fussy pickle eaters. None of this sweet vinegary stuff you buy in jars here for your burgers. We like ‘em brined and seasoned with fresh dill. But in this NY place of pickles you can get something I have never tried before: chocolate-covered pickles. It is amazing how many ways you can get into a pickle and how many ways you can get at a pickle.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post)

a pickle for every occasion 

Tango

Wow, that was an interesting debate, wasn’t it?
I watched couples practicing tango at Union South.

Excuse me? You see yourself as a serious observer of the political process and you are telling me you watched tango dancers tonight?
Isn’t that the same thing? Do you understand tango at all? It’s intricate, improvisational, fluid, one leads, another follows, it requires skill and a straight face.

But you saw no politicians tonight?
You might say Fred Risser and I dined together. Both he and I ate at L’Etoile. (He sat at a different table.)

Okay – point blank: did you watch the debate?
Yes. A portion of it. Nothing that I saw changed my mind about the capabilities of those who were debating. You have to remember, in the primaries, I voted for Edwards.

Twenty-ninth street pre-election diary*

29th and 5th: think positive! think good outcome 4 weeks from today! 

I am about as unlikely as anyone to quote Norman Vincent Peale. I was, indeed somewhat surprised that the city honored Peale by “naming” a street after him, though given his influential “positive thinking” messages after World War II and his large following, I suppose one can find reason for the honor. Peale spent a great many years at the pulpit of the Marble Collegiate Church, seen in the background of the photo, at 29th and 5th. Who did his message appeal to? Well, Nixon was a fan (his daughter, Julie, then used the church for her wedding to Dwight), as was Trump, who married Ivana here back in the 70s.

(Across the avenue, btw, in a different league altogether is the Little Church Around the Corner, known to those who are Woody Allen fans at the time of Hannah and her Sisters)

Is there a Peale quote that one can pull for today's political landscape? Certainly. The man lived a long time and had a lot to say. Here’s one notable line:

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory. (Norman Vincent Peale)

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)