The fourth of November, 2008

It is Election Day, which means that starting tomorrow, frequently uninspired bloggers like me are going to have to find other subjects besides politics to fall back upon when we can't think of anything else to talk about.

Still:

By the first Tuesday in November in most election years I'm thoroughly sick, like most people, of the length and nastiness of the political process, also known as the politics of personal destruction.

But this year I don't feel that emotion so strongly, despite some truly disgusting mountebankery on the parts of you-know-who.

As the punditocracy has posited, we very likely are experiencing a "defining moment," or sea change in American history. Two years ago who could have imagined a black man seriously competing for the highest office in the land at the same time as two women, one a candidate for president and the other a hopeful for vice president? With a voter turnout of a magnitude rarely (if ever) seen? And all during a global upheaval of financial disaster in the middle of a war?

"Sea change" may be a weak term for what actually is happening. What are the real dimensions of this moment in history? Are they more illusory than real? In that favorite (but often honest) cop-out of the editorial writer, "It remains to be seen."

And what of the near future? Who knows?

But the times have been interesting, and let us hope not in the sense of the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."

And now, to change the subject abruptly, I'll tell you about somebody I'd like to know: Carolyn Chute.

Hmm. She has me thinking about forming the First Porcupine County Volunteer Militia. I could field-general the potluck suppers while the troops swat the black nanohelicopters.