He reminds how in trying times some songs have boosted the spirits and he invokes a couple that represented a needed optimism in their day.  It made me immediately think of Petula Clark.

In a small Texas town or in ‘big ole Houston ’ in 1965, nothing could invoke an uplift and a sense of ‘gettin going’ like Petula Clark's "Downtown."

Music does play to the ear at first blush and then to the memory of the time and place.

For me, the beat and lyrics to optimism will always call up Petula Clark with her short blond hair, petite, pretty presence and easy way with a tune.  As Ms. Clark is the same age as my own petite, short haired blond mom, Pet Clark stays with me and invokes all the past that once stood as the promise of the future.

In Houston, in 1965 a wee lad could go to Herman Park and marvel at the big locomotive or walk into the fantastic new Warwick Hotel as transistor radios blared out "Downtown" around you.  “Downtown”, like Papa Hemingway’s “Movable Feast” is always resonant.  If you experienced it, lived it, then you’ll never lose it.  It’s a touchstone for optimism; it's ensconced in your expectations.

"When you're alone

And life is making you lonely,

You can always go downtown

When you've got worries,

All the noise and the hurry

Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city

Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty

How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there

You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go

Downtown, things'll be great when you're

Downtown, no finer place for sure,

Downtown, everything's waiting for you"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVE7lRZuFM

Like wise the CEO of Chrysler that might have driven in a 64 Barracuda Coup or the CEO of GM in a 66 Camaro ...

Cars didn't need to be huge, they needed to be exciting.

Break out the museum keys.

Now that would be a proper statement for the new American President on behalf of his nation.

In 732 AD, Charles Martel, (Charles the Hammer) and his Frankish infantry stopped a Moslem army of up to 400,000 under the command of Abd-er Rahman that is arguably the most important victory ever garnered by the Christian West over a foe bent on destruction and conquest. The battle at Tours ended Moslem conquest of Western Europe ... (until recent immigration policies etc.)

Now I know this President (and to be sincere no President) would make Tours their site for a statement to Islam as we battle the insanity that rages from within it but it would be a great declaration to those that only understand immediate and complete defeat.

If Mr. Obama goes into any Moslem capital and gives the world that pathetic bromide that America is not fighting their religion, only those that have hijacked it with terror and homicide, his speech will fail its purpose. He'll only show how out of touch he/we are with how to fight. It will embolden the extremists to kill more in that very capital just to show how they received the message.

A proper Islamic site might be an appearance at Hagia Sophia. At least it would be in a site where East straddles West and the rivalry between the secular West and religious fundamentalism is kept in check by a national identity that seeks a balance between radical Islam’s no mans land and a heritage that encompasses a world view.

Turkey over Jakarta, Istanbul over Cairo but a quick tour of the Loire Valley and a stop and nod at Charles the Hammer in the City of Tours if the President Elect wants to make a sound statement that will be heard by friends and foes alike.

"At the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month ..."

We do not spend much time with the carnage of World War I these days. We should.

The French refer to the veterans of W.W.I as "les trenchees", the 'trenchists'. It is an apt moniker for the combat veteran in all theatres at any time.

The trench, cold, wet, was the respite of shielding earth until the clarion sound that called for the leap into fire that sent so many back to earth forever.

How would the world have been different if all the risk takers of W.W.I had not been cut down in their bloom. What would have been the course of events if they had lived lives and seen their generation flourish. Those that are quick to leap, to run and to risk are those that advance society.

For the veterans that did not come home and those that did shattered and scarred, we honor you.

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-tributes/poppy.html

On a warm Saturday, I get to clean my pool.  Enough time to look into aqua blue gallons that turn with sweeps and strokes and wonder how the Press itself, forget the pool, became so pH imbalanced.

The acidity of the bias in coverage, reportage and opinion has since the 2000 election gone from opaque to oblique to outrageous.

Some are caricature, the NYT, Atlanta Constitution, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, etc. 

Others, Washington Week, resort to less representation by seasoned intellectual writers and allow junior journalism grads to report on substance.  The out come is superficial and snarky, side of the mouth reporting that aligns with the common left take on any subject from guns to God and gays.

If there is one word to describe the writing/research objectivity coming out of print newsrooms and broadcast managerial direction, it is 'predictable.'

Pick your subject and you can speak the dénouement of a story before the sign off. 

D. Milbank, J. Klein, R. Martin, M. Isikoff, H. Fineman, C. Brown, all lines on a grid.  Plot the issue and you can anticipate and predict exactly where they'll lift a rhetorical eyebrow or end a story.  No need to vector the result with these folks.

How they got to a place in their lives where they believe that they should use their voices to degrade or promote is the unknown.  Is it mere 'anchoritis'?  Perhaps an inflated sense of self owing to the public light?

In film and TV production, some Directors will call out, "the actors may now step out of the hot lights" upon finality of a scene.  For the little legion of print and broadcast purveyors of their own passions, it would be hard to imagine them acceding to the invitation to withdraw, even momentarily from the heat of the shinning light.

So, I seek to balance the acidity in my pool with the required alkalinity that will make the clean, clear water balanced again.

What is the pH balance of the Press in America today?

Is anyone thinking about how Sen. Obama is going to acquire knowledge of all our nuclear codes, first strike plans, covert operations, (present, future and past), names of operatives and names of cooperating foreign officials?

Sen. Obama is going to learn what Israel has in the way of on the ground assets in Syria, Lebanon, Saudia, Iran!  He's going to learn what friendly governments we spy on and how we do it.

He's going to learn about how much fossil fuel we can develop. How much uranium we have. Every natural asset and exploitable commodity is going to be available to him in binders and briefings.

He's going to learn about every R&D at National Laboratories prospective and planned.

Is anyone thinking that with this information he can wreck havoc upon a Nation that he has decried in his own words and books?

If he so chooses, he can serve a term, pass information to rogues during or after the term and never be tagged for it.

Would you put Rev. Wright in charge of the above?

How can anyone justify giving trust to one such as Barack Obama in the areas of National Security?

Like the cult of seppuku, we might as well just go out write haiku and slit our stomachs now.

If Senator and Michele Obama walk into the White House, they'll bring more than their baggage with them.

A person is hard pressed to morph into a something they resent just because the proscenium arch was lowered sufficiently for them to walk through backward.

During the 1992 campaign, then NBC Financial Reporter, Irving R. Levine was the nightly grim reaper of reportage on all things economic as George Herbert Walker Bush sought re-election against challenger Wm. Jefferson Clinton. You could not view the NBC broadcast in that time without holding on to your wallet and checking repeatedly for evidence of shrinkage.

This despite a minor recession that showed all the evidence of finality and the approach of a new year and a strong recovery.

Wm. Clinton inherited that recovery and rode it into self congratulation.

Sen. Obama has his Irving R. Levine beaters, gone geometric with the current media and this 'October Financial Surprise'.

However, this time the economy that beckons comes with a world that awaits as well and that is not likely to get the quick stimulus of recovery that will inure to Sen. Obama if he were President.

Which brings us back to Michele and Barack and their butter fingered baggage. One doesn't see those two as ascending without defending within weeks of any swearing in. Sen. Obama is a scandal awaiting a name that ends in gate.

If he were elected, his chance of completing a term and seeing a second one are slim. He's got Elliott Spitzer's incorruptibility stamped into his soul and his life's performances to date. Dirty politics and hidden agenda coupled with unsavory characters won't get past the first term.

Socialists seldom survive scrutiny ... or savor the success of their own succession.

Republicans, (John McCain,) need to state, restate and then proof strike with the public that deregulation has Democratic footprints, thumbprints and philosophical imprints,

It is absurd for Republicans to be tarred with an anti laizzez-faire backlash that points the bony finger at deregulation as the origin of all excess in the credit markets.

One of the prime movers beginning in the late 1970's of deregulation in critical sectors of the American economy has been the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy.

From deregulation of the trucking industry, the dissolution of the Civil Aeronautics Board, (CAB) and the deregulation of the Airline Industry to deregulation of  Ma Bell and the telecom industry along with deregulation of Banking and Insurance as expressed in the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Ted Kennedy and other prominent Democrats including Wm. Jefferson Clinton were front and center.

Deregulation is not now to be cast off and ignored as if it were some unfortunate tryst with some easy virtue that we now want to ignore when we are with the wife and kids at a Sunday go to meeting moment.

Memories on this subject appear to be as short term as the pot smoker’s lunch the day before.

Republicans are not alone in the deregulation of American life and deregulation is not a bankrupt philosophical concept for government in the modern age.