Some Intemperate Thoughts

We had a storm today in C'ville. Not Charlottesville. Not Centereville. Not even Claudeville, but Collinsville. Speaking of Claudeville, from the looks of the clouds I saw over in that direction this afternoon, my guess would be that we shared a storm.

Somehow I knew that the AEP truck sitting on the side of South Daniels Creek Road on my way from Fieldale to C'ville was not, in the words of Martha Stewart a "good thing". My spirits lifted when I opened the door to my house and found the lights actually worked. The clock on the CD player on my bookcase was blinking 12:00, and the filter pump in Shelly's tank had lost prime, so I knew power had been off but it had returned.

Then I re-fired my computer only to discover that Adelphia Cable was down. No Internet. No blog reading. No E-mail. No TV (no big deal). So I'm going to just write.



I'm a Republican. I do try to keep up with what my Democrat friends are doing, though, so I read such stuff as Brian Patton and Waldo Jaquith and that new kid from Martinsville who is now at Sorensen. Sometimes I'll even be lured over to the more rabid sites like Raising Kaine and Virginia Centrist. One thing that has interested me lately is the effect a military uniform has on Democrats.

If you wear a military uniform and follow orders and behave like a good soldier, sailor, airman, or marine, then you are engaged in a useless struggle that will only lead to more violence and destruction. All of your efforts (and injuries, and deaths) are in vain. Oh, but they support you! Don't forget that. It's just that everything you are doing is for naught. Now I'm not real sure how to reconcile those two conflicting thoughts, but I'm sure my Democrat friends could explain it to me. And if you once wore that uniform and fully back the efforts of those who still do, then you are a hopeless hawk, parroting the words of the present Commander in Chief. (Can a hawk parrot? I'm into turtles, not birds. Could an avian expert out there help me out here?) If you never wore the uniform, (like me, but it's a long story) and still support the efforts of those that do, you are a "chicken hawk". I've heard of chicken hawks all my life, but I think it's really what we call here a Red Tailed Hawk. It's quite a majestic bird, if you really want to know.

Right now, right here, in Virginia, there's one other uniform wearer type that's causing quite a stir among the Democrats. No, not John Kerry, he's already caused his stir and faded into obscurity, though he's not really aware of it yet. Here in present day Virginia we have James Webb. Mr. Webb once wore the uniform. Hell, he was way up there, Secretary of the Navy, I think, during the Reagan Administration. That was long ago, children. Waldo was not yet in high school. This new kid from Martinsville still had the same teacher all day long.

At some point in the recent past Mr. Webb decided he had political ambitions. He could have put the uniform back on and continued from where he left off and remained a Republican. He decided not to go that route, for whatever reasons, and declared his opposition to the war on terror (in Iraq, specifically) and became a Democrat. I have no problem with that. A man is not a man if he can't change his mind like a woman, hell; I do it all the time. Sometimes I love calamari; sometimes the thought of eating squid makes me queasy. I figure Mr. Webb saw the mileage Mr. Kerry got about 30 years ago from his rebellion from the military and decided to try that route into the Senate. Who knows, it might work twice, but Virginia is not Massachusetts. Neither of our current Senators is known for being a bad driver but a good swimmer. One is known for being a rather good Secretary of the Navy, though.

All of this is quite confusing, though, when you step back and look at it. The really liberal Democrat sites are completely into backing James Webb, a candidate that was very conservative, but can now come up with no real agenda except that he's against the present Commander in Chief. While all the more moderate Democrat sites are backing the candidate that most closely resembles Jack Abramhoff, the person those liberal sites most like to hate. Maybe I just explained it to myself without realizing it. The two sides of the Democrat Party have, on this one primary ticket, the perfect combination. The Anti-Republican vs The Anti-Democrat. Did somebody just say one of them is Jewish? I'm not sure why that matters, but surely it's not the red headed one?