No news is good news?

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown...oh, wait, wrong city. Well, for those of you waiting with baited breath to find out the latest goings on here in the Tree City.....well, quite frankly, there isn't a whole lot to report, other than the fact that the City Council seat left vacant by the death of Bill Schultz was filled by a high school classmate of older sister Polly, a prominent black activist named Robin Turner. I think that he will do very well in this position and it must have been a tough choice, as there were 15 highly qualified applicants for the job, any of whom would have been an excellent choice. So Council now finds itself with four new members, which can only be a good thing to have so much new blood to add to the mix. It makes me hopeful that Kent will finally move forward and that the downtown revitalization program will progress in a good way and not fall victim to chain stores that send their profits out of town. I want to see locally owned businesses here that keep the money in our community, not being send to some out-of-town corporate headquarters half a continent away. Other than that, the only news of note is that there was a break-in and robbery on this street in the wee hours of yesterday morning (I didn't even know about it until brother John called me this morning to mention that it was in the paper, and he wondered if my house was involved). The robbers, according to the newspaper article, demanded cell phones and money, leading me to believe that it was drug involved somehow. I wouldn't be surprised, quite frankly. Anyway, police have now said that they will beef up patrols on this street, which is something that they should have been doing all along, if you want my opinion, given how many college rentals are on this street and how many rowdy and noisy parties take place any given night of the week that result in a lot of trash ending up on front and back yards.

HILLARY, THE UNDERDOG?
Well, it seems that Hillary is now trying to campaign as the underdog in the Democratic race for the nomination. She's also trying to pin Obama with the label of being the "establishment" candidate. As if! She's had the long time backing of the mainstream Democratic establishment, so I consider this criticism of Obama to be totally hypocritical. Can you say, pot calling the kettle black? She's already had to loan her campaign $5 million to keep pace with Obama's phenomenal ability to raise money after Super Tuesday. Obama won the most states but she won the big ones like New York and California and it depends on which source you consult, but either she has the most delegates or Obama does, because I haven't been able to find an accurate delegate count anywhere. Every news source seems to have a different count, which perplexes the heck out of me. It's hard to figure out who's actually ahead in this race. But by positioning herself as an underdog, Hillary's trying desperately to pull out some more wins because let's face it, everybody knows that Americans love underdogs. After all, that's about the only explanation that I can figure out as to why McCain seems to have become the default GOP nominee for President. It wasn't long ago that his campaign was all but finished and out of money. But somehow, it came roaring back to life and he's now pretty much got the nomination sewn up. Mathematically speaking, it won't even be possible for anybody to catch up now to McCain's numbers. But Hillary and Obama seem to be running neck and neck, and what concerns me about that is that it seems to indicate disunity within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Some seem more to be favoring the more conservative Hillary, while others are wowed by Obama's soaring speeches, relative youth, 100 watt smile and quasi-progressive message of hope. He's not a true progressive in the model of, say, a Paul Wellstone or a Dennis Kucinich, but he's more progressive on some issues than Hillary. Neither is progressive enough on health care for my druthers, but then, most folks fear a single payer, not-for-profit system as being too socialistic.

But then, what are Social Security and other social safety net programs but basic socialism? Why do people fear the idea of the government doing for people what they cannot do themselves? Some say, well, let people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but some folks lack the boots to pull themselves up on. This is where government can - and should - help. But people seem so darn afraid of the idea, yet they forget that social safety net programs have allowed a lot of people to survive who otherwise might not have. I'm a beneficiary of social safety net programs. My father's GI Bill and Social Security survivor's benefits helped to keep our family afloat after his death. It helped to pay my way through college, and this is why, after so many years, I still wear my college class ring, to remind myself of my good fortune in being able to get an education via social safety net programs. I consider this to be my father's legacy to me and my family, for which I will always be grateful. So people forget that some of us are useful, tax paying citizens with good jobs who received our educations basically at government expense, who are now paying our taxes and giving back to the same government that paid our ways through school. I am not a burden on society and I have Uncle Sam to thank for that. I just wish people would grasp the significance of this and not be so critical of socalism. It can, when done right, be a very beneficial thing to society. So we'll see where the chips fall when it comes to socialized medicine. It may never happen or it might, if enough people demand it, but I'm not optimistic that Big Pharma, Big Medicine and Big Insurance will step aside and let the government run things. After all, they have too much to lose by giving up their big profit making machines, their lobbyists and their multi-million dollar CEO's. But then, all I can do is to hope. And that is what this campaign year is all about.