Random Unblogged Vacation Thoughts

I may not have been blogging during August, but I was thinking.   Some of the flotsam and jetsam of the month --
August 4:  Barack Obama's birthday.  According to the Seattle Times, on this day in 1892, Andre and Abby Borden were discovered hacked to death with axes -- by their daughter Lizzie? -- in Fall River, Massachusetts; Anne Frank was discovered in hiding in Amsterdam by the Nazis in 1942; ad the bodies of civil rights workers Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner were discovered in Mississippi.  That's some seriously bad shit.  Obama would have to serve five terms to make up for it.
August 5 -- Had dream about someone seeking my advice to establish a Rhodes Scholarship program on another planet.  I guess there is a downside to getting so much sleep.
August 8 -- Edwards says that running for President caused him to feel he was special and lapse into narcissism.  We figured that out from the YouTube hair-combing video, thanks.
Little boy, maybe ten, in the Mukilteo ferry tonight, excitedly re-introducing himself to the canteen waitress, brought me practically to tears:  "Remember me?  You haven't seen me in a while because, well, my Mom and Dad ... I don't want to talk about it."
August 9 -- Nixon resigned as President 34 years ago today. Why is this not a national holiday?
Bernie Mac, dead at 50 of pneumonia.  Why?  Because his underlying condition was sarcoidosis, the relatively benign thing I was suspected of having a few years ago when I was in the throes of my pulmonary mysteries, never confirmed.  For some reason it is mainly found among Blacks and Scandinavians, and I was secretly happy, if I had to share an illness, with such reliable Democratic voters and paragons of the Nordic welfare state.
August 10 -- Terrific haul at William James Bookseller in Port Townsend,  WA yesterday:  Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County, Beard on Pasta, The Avenger Takes His Place (history of the first 45 days of the Andrew Johnson Presidency, ok, an acquired taste), a fairly recent Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and a coffee table book, Exotic Postcards:  The Lure of Distant Lands.  All used, in very good condition, and the price tag:  $41.
August 18 -- Musharraf of Pakistan resigned today, and for the first time I paused to wonder:  I wonder what the diminutive form of "Pervez" is?
August 19 -- Listening to LBJ tapes on Fresh Air on the car radio, I wonder:  is anyone planning to note the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's birth, which falls on August 27, during the Democratic National Convention?   The night of Hillary Clinton's speech, I believe.
August 20 -- Reading an Entertainment Weekly which contains side-by-side interviews with McCain and Obama about their popular culture preferences, I was surprise to find McCain more up to date, and apparently a big TV-watcher -- he likes Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dexter, The Wire, 24, and even saw, and admires, the celebrity video done for Obama some months ago.  Obama can't stop telling people how much Michelle loves the Dick Van Dyke show, which I assume he thinks will give them big Middle America cred.
August 25 -- Hard not to be obsessed, as I and so many others have been all year, by the election, though I am on vacation and not reading the newsapers and checking blogs as regularly.  I am pretty sure I am not the only person whose emotional temperature in the past year has been regularly affected by political events -- the Clinton/Obama context, the Reverend Wright stuff, "bittergate," and now McCain's swift-boating. 
August 26 -- One of the great things about Rhode Island is Rhode Island clam chowder, but it doesn't seem to be sold anywhere -- just the too-creamy New England stuff.  When I was a kid, you would go to a Knights of Columbus picnic and someone would have spent all day simmering a huge pot of the R.I. version, which is a clear broth, full of big clam chunks (which also seem to be in extremely short supply in, say, clam fritters, which are now much more dough than clam -- is there a clam shortage I haven't read about?)
August 27 -- Enjoying playing tennis, since there are good, mostly empty public courts about, for the first time since I took lessons in Texas almost 25 years ago.  But the more I play the more the glow of my initial aptitude -- good hand-eye coordination, a decent serve -- wears off and I realize this is much harder than I thought.  I console myself with the thought that you can get as much exercise playing bad tennis as good tennis, right?
August 28 -- During the primary campaign, Maureen Dowd came in for a lot of criticism for columns about Hillary that were viewed as sexist.  But in fact she is an equal opportunity sexist.  Look at almost every column of hers about Obama and the theme is:  he needs to be more of a man -- i.e., stand up to the Clintons, come out swinging, put on some weight, be less precious, whatever.  She's obsessed with stereotypes about both genders.