Monday, July 28, 2008

Ramblin Blog




Here are two American classics -- a 1931 Davenport locomotive and a 1966 Coronado II Fender guitar -- brought together by yours truly. (Do I count as a classic too? I'm certainly old enough.) I did every railroad song I know while staying in a nearby caboose during our vacation in Catawissa, PA. The Catawissa Railroad Caboose hotel is a great get away and it's near Knoebels amusement park.

Meanwhile, Obama marches on. He looked very "Kennedyesque" speaking before swooning Berliners. In his very BEING, he represents an America that has finally come together. As Bruce Springsteen recently said: "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years". OK, Bruce, I'll grant you that. I too, want to finally put to rest our sad racial divide and Obama is a physical manifestation that we are becoming one people. YET, no matter how much my HEART may find this candidate the fulfillment of an ideal, my HEAD won't have any of it. Obama's positions on the issues are the classic 60's liberalism, which TIME has thoroughly DISCREDITED. It's as if the "Great Society " hadn't crashed and burned. It's also as if Ronald Reagan hadn't come along to lead us down a more Constitutionally correct road.

2008 is even made a more difficult choice by the very flawed Republican nominee. John McCain seems to flaunt his contempt for traditional conservatives and certainly has been wrong on so many issues from immigration to "free trade". The only thing his candidacy might offer is a Supreme Court justice.

Certainly, this is the strangest election during my lifetime. The conventional wisdom that Obama was a political light weight was wrong. His political skills are excellent, he is charismatic, and looks like the probable winner. What a shame for America that ideologically he stands for the policies that gave us dysfunctional families and cities, as well as our globalized "McEconomy".