Battle Royale
Yes, the chatter about Jeb 2016 has begun (did it ever stop?).
2016 looks to be a particularly interesting bloodbath on the right. It will be Jeb’s last chance. It will probably also be Chris Christie’s last and best chance, as well. So unless one or both of them gives up on the dream, expect to see ’em in the ring.
And Jeb’s fellow Sunshine Stater… Marco Rubio? It won’t be his last chance, but it will likely be his best chance. The talk and enthusiasm will not have waned after years in office, the youthful (but not green) mystique will be there. And if a Republican wins in 2016 and he doesn’t run… well, but 2024, his moment will have passed.
Congresswoman Elect Tammy Duckworth
My mother-in-law was thrilled to meet the first Thai-American ever elected to Congress. She had asked if knew Ms Duckworth when she arrived here from Bangkok. I did not but she stopped by Eastern Market just in time for me to snap this picture.
Weekend Reading – Presidential Poets
Midweek Staff Meeting
Funny Story…
First of all, let me say that no one could have predicted that this man’s actions would be a colossal waste of time and taxpayer money nor that his statements would be crazy, stupid, and wrong.
I say that as preface to noting that (and this will blow your mind, man!) (soon to be former) Congressman Allen West’s recount efforts and legal challenges have not worked.
As crazy as it sounds, Florida voters in that district did not choose to send back to Congress a man who just spent two years in Washington looking for Communists. And he checked everywhere, from the men’s bathroom in the east corner of the third floor of the Rayburn House Office Building all the way coat check counter on the south side of the United States Capitol.
Instead, they plumped for some moderate Democrat who opposes privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
Must have been voter fraud. Only reasonable explanation.
Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Where The Poets Are
And the hottest new poetry scene is in… Queens.
Or Forklift, Ohio (not a real place).
Sadly, none of these places are Washington, DC or St. Petersburg, Florida.
DC is, perhaps, a little too institutional. Though it’s got a thriving visual arts scene. But the local poetry scene is very slam-centric. There is the Beltway Poetry Journal, but that’s exclusively online and I’m looking for more. I’m just not a slam person, as I’ve said before. I love poetry on the page, even when I read it aloud. Yes, there are the readings at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which I attend religiously, as well the Poet Laureate and other readings at the Library of Congress. But nothing which seems half so interesting as what’s happening elsewhere. But they – the residents of elsewhere – they feel that way too, don’t they?
And Florida is Florida. We elected Rick Scott for governor, for heaven’s sake. The man ran a company that in a very real and tangible way defrauded the taxpayers of this country for billions. You can’t write an elegy that depressingly sad.
Saturday Post – President Heidegger
The Only Comment I Intend To Make Regarding The Petraeus Issue
You won’t hear anyone from Tampa Bay actually use the phrase ‘Tampa socialite.’
Because ‘Tampa socialite’ is a genus that only people from some other place would ever think exists.
File it under ‘Sasquatch’ (which is entirely mythical, unlike the Loch Ness Monster, which is a real thing).
Columbia University Press & Indie Bookstores
They also give some shout outs to some fine bookstores, including local favorite, Bridge Street Books, and my old haunt, Skylight Books.
I’d once visited University Press Books in Berkeley (though I can’t remember what I bought there) and of course I’ve been to City Lights.
Embarrassingly, I’ve never been to Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa, despite having lived in the Hawkeye state for a political cycle. On my way out of there, I stopped in Iowa City to visit former (then current) Iowa House Minority Leader, Dick Myers (great man; a little crazy, but great). It would have been a perfect opportunity to stop by Prairie Lights and pick up a literary memento, but I never did.
the coffee philosopher 