Farcical Aquatic Ceremony?

McCain has just picked Palin as his running mate. I think we have a right to know Palin's political philosophy. Here it is, in Palin's own words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA&feature=related

Ma Belle

This is supposed to be books on the bus, or so says the mission statement in my brain. But it is important, I think, for this country we love -- if it is to remain the country we love and not some grotesque mutation -- that we do not allow another 4 years of a Republican presidency.

So I'm going to digress from the mission once in a while.

Michelle Obama just addressed the Democratic Convention. And now this has to be said, and I hope it will be said by those with greater audiences than I have: If you persist in hesitating about Obama on the grounds he is "not like us" or that he is in any way apart from what it means to be American, then all you can possibly mean by that is that Obama is black. And that makes you a racist. You are not a racist, are you? You don't possibly believe that "elitist" crap, that "not sharing our values" garbage being spewed by the odious slime that run Republican campaigns.

Find the speech if you haven't heard it. It is important. It is vital. There can't be hesitation; we must eliminate its causes.

I Like Larry McMurtry

Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry: The story starts in Texas, and I kept waiting for everyone to move to Cheyenne so someone could leave it. No one did. the word "Cheyenne" is never used. No one leaves anywhere. McMurtry quotes the song "Goodbye Old Paint" in the epigram, and implies that "Cheyenne" is youth. Still, it would have been nice if someone had sung that song during the course of the book; as it is, I'm left with the suspicion the title was foisted on him to sell a "cowboy book" -- sort of like the pornographic covers were attached to Kilgore Trout's science fiction.

Anyway, I had to start with the title because it's a smelly guy on the bus with a loud boom box -- somebody's got to say something. And now that it's out of the way, I can tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. This is just a great book!

There isn't really s plot. It's just three people, two guys and a gal, in love with each other (no, not a precursor to Brokeback Mountain). Each gets to talk a little, to move the story forward through the years, from the spring of their youth to the sad nostalgia of old age. It's so good, I think, because McMurtry pretty much dispenses with other characters and hones in on the three. Even the ostensible "bad guy", the wife of one of the guys, disappears from view fairly early. Two other characters that have a profound influence are the sons, neither of whom is ever present: Molly (the gal) gets pregnant with the first one, and the next time either is mentioned is after they have been killed in World War II.

So it's all focused on Milly, Gid and Johnny. They two guys love Molly, completely and in every way one can love another. The two guys' friendship is one of the deepest and most vivid I've ever read. Molly sleeps with them both, regularly, and they both know it. The friendship and love of all three of them is so strong that it can stand this arrangement. It even survives the marriages of two of them t other people -- people, as I've said, who barely scratch the surface of minor charactership.

The ending is just great. I'd been wondering for days how it could end, was hoping it wouldn't be tragic or maudlin. It ends like it oughta.

I should mention I love language quirks (usually). In this case it's the use of "never" where "didn't" would do.