~ we’ve pointed out a few times that howard dean is no dennis kucinich [w], but watching dean stand there and advise us all to turn over to john kerry was enough to cause us to drop our heads and avert our eyes, lest our stomachs be turned instead. it’s one thing to be practical and to avoid showing any lack of division before the competition, but it is no less disheartening to see someone who held some of your respect eating his words and acting like a company mule. the democrats are apparently asking ‘deaniacs’ to sign a pledge of loyalty to the party, promising that they will routinely devote their support to whoever becomes the nominee, which reminds me of the childish notes we used to sign that promised we would have the front seat on the next car ride – when we were children. meanwhile, ralph nader [w] does not seem to be on any ballots yet.

~ does anyone else find that it is curious to hear laughing whilst listening to the “9/11 Commission Hearings”?

proposal for an overweight america #1:

car manufacturers, stop including console cupholders that are able to be configured for 48oz drinks.

~ find some new images in the u.s.a. scene report, particularly in new york and a couple of the new england states.

the only thing remarkable about the pritzker prize this year is that the iraqi/woman angle provided it with enough media play to enable us to discover that the new republic has an architecture critic.

~ the people who have been trying to follow the links in the previous post doubtlessly have noticed that seds [w] is down.

~ any npr fact checkers out there should please note that phobos is the larger of mars’s two moons. on the latest ‘weekend edition’, it incorrectly was mentioned that deimos [w] is larger than phobos [w].

~ the flag for the state of georgia, as chosen by a non-binding referendum, is lackluster, unimaginative, and otherwise quite lame. it is about as clever as the flag of malaysia, liberia, or texas. we continue to await a public design competition, juried by the populace, rather than a default logo coughed up by the fossils behind the closed doors of the state house.

~ back in january, we thought some people in iowa were fools for not having made a decision less than a day before their caucus. this ‘super’ tuesday, it is clear that we won’t vote for kerry; it is not clear what will be the most effective move against him. we had been pulling for dean, even sending out all those handwritten letters, so our original intention was to vote for him as an ‘i told you so’ to the naysayers and morons who used the term ‘dot-com’ when referring to his candidacy. it is conceivable that our state could go for edwards, so should we vote for him just to spite kerry and to add some tumult to the season? kucinich is the only person in the running who comes close to the ideological persuasion of the angry red planet, so perhaps we should ‘vote our conscience’, despite the likelihood that he might not get the nomination; this is what we have always done in the past. the result is that we are stuck in the position against which it is our policy to rail: having a vote be part of some byzantine chess match instead of having it be some declaration of hope and optimism.

of course, this is all idle chatter, because when november arrives, we will be casting our votes for an independent candidate.

~ well, the postwoman delivered to our mailbox evidence as to why dr. dean did not get enough votes in wisconsin to carry on his campaign for the nomination/presidency. maybe if this ‘letter for dean’ had reached the recipient, the election would have gone another way. as it is, we will now have to scratch out ‘dean’ and replace it with ‘nader’ before sending it out again.

~ if any of our readers know Fresnel Lucien from port-au-prince, haiti, please get in touch; we would like to send him a copy of ‘the red dragon’, as well as a few other texts that he may find more rewarding to read.