Dydd Dewi Sant

And if you don't know what that means, it's Welsh for "Saint David's Day", which is today, March 1st, the Welsh national holiday. It's akin to the Irish St. Patrick's Day in Wales and it is tradition to wear a leek and to eat cock-a-leekie soup to commemorate this holiday. St. David is the patron saint of Wales and apparently lived around the 6th century and was a monk, abbot and bishop who spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes through out Wales. I always celebrate this day by hanging my little Welsh flag in my living room window. I'd love to hang it outside, but my fear is that it'd get ripped off by roving college student drunks, especially because this is the weekend, the traditional party time for college kids on this street. I doubt that any of them would know what kind of flag this is or what country it's from, but it has a very cool red dragon on it and it would probably appeal to those folks who are into fantasy novels or who like to play Dungeons and Dragons, if anybody even does that anymore. So for the sake of safety, I hang it instead in my window for all the world to see, but I rather doubt that passers-by know why I do that or what country it's from. Still, as someone who can say that I am descended from Welsh ancestors on both sides of my family, this is the one day each year that I can proudly display that part of my heritage. Oh, sure, I always wear green on St. Patrick's Day and everyone wants to be Irish on each and every March 17th, but how many people can proudly claim Welsh blood and hang their red dragon flags like I do each March 1st? I can't say that I'll wear a leek today or eat cock-a-leekie soup (known as cawl in Welsh), but at least I have some way to display my pride in my ancestors who emigrated to these shores from Wales so long ago. As Saint David always told his followers, "Do the little things", which is now a common Welsh expression. So I am doing just that today in commemoration of this, the holiday that celebrates his memory.

"THE POETRY OF BARACK OBAMA"

The comic strip "Doonesbury" is having a lot of fun regarding the intense rivalry between Hillary and Obama and the language of their respective campaigns. This past week has been about a class offered (I suppose at Walden, the university usually featured in "Doonesbury" strips") in "The Poetry of Barack Obama", a class apparently very difficult to get into, and another class called "The Prose of Hillary Clinton" which, as you can see from today's strip, is a real snoozer. Naturally, one of Hillary's weapons that she's using against Obama is his soaring rhetoric vs. her practical experience. In one of her attack speeches against him, she said, “Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.’ I think that she sees the writing on the wall, that she's not a terribly inspiring speaker, that she can be very polarizing and can sound downright strident on occasion, where Obama comes off as cool, collected, occasionally funny and inspiring. "Doonesbury" seems to be having a lot of fun with this "war of words" between the two rival Democratic candidates and I'm loving every minute of it. I can't tell exactly who Gary Trudeau seems to be leaning toward in the way of a candidate, but something tells me he's probably in admiration of Obama as well, given his portrayal of Hillary's speeches as dull as dishwater. So it boils down to this: practical experience vs. inspiring and fresh ideas. Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think it's time for fresh ideas and a good dose of inspiration after these dark years of the Bush administration. Obama's always positive tone sure beats Hillary the attack dog. And I think that's kind of what "Doonesbury" is getting at here. There are other strips that are also having fun with the current political environment, but none quite like my favorite "Doonesbury".