Manifesto of the Perfect Union Party

Nowadays we call it a mission statement. Inspired by my blogger friend, Middle-aged Mormon Man, I thought about Lincoln's words at Gettysburg. It seems that neither of today's major parties nor even any of the fringe's parties are anywhere near the Great Emancipator in political philosophy. With some trepidation in daring to edit the great man's expressions, I took out Civil War references and fused in a couple of lines from his Second Inaugural. I came up with an inspired policy platform - all in the words of Lincoln:

Announcing the Perfect Union Party!

I finally came up with a good name for my new political philosophy. The Perfect Union Party, or PUP. Because everybody loves PUPpies!!

Chesapeake Bay Retriever pups, a true, American breed
And we'll take German Shepherds, Irish Setters, Chihuahuas,
Shih Tzu, and even French Poodle PUPs!

Perry Wakes Up One of His Gorillas

Or maybe it's "guerilla" as Perry now wants to start up again the arguments about the Viet Nam War. He might as well start up arguments about secession. Oh, wait.

According to this report, Perry spoke to a Veterans' group to lay out his foreign policy which is apparently non-interventionist except when we do and then we have to stay in charge to we can win and not have to fight civilian enemies at home like all the Viet Nam Vets did. Oh, my heck!

Our Golden Age Is Still to Come

One of the ideas of the tea party types that bothers me is the seeming obsession that things were better in a mythical past. They go on about the inspired founders and how he need to get back to those ideals completely ignoring things like, well, slavery. It's not just a political thing but a cultural and sometimes religious idea that somehow everything used to be so much better and now we are heading for some kind of apocalyptic reckoning for all our current evils. Maybe it's part of human nature to idealize the past, and maybe it's a personality difference I have in that I tend to idealize the future. But it sure makes me feel better about life and my place in it to maintain the hope of a better world ahead.

Rick Perry, Gunnin' fer Libruhls!

Well, to be fair, he may have been shooting blanks at the "rain gods" with a
little Texan, anti-drought humor  ("Har-de-har!" and "Yippee, Kiy-oh!")

Due to Governor Perry's rise to the top in the polls, I thought I'd better check him out a bit. My first reaction is that he seems an awful lot like a recent president except that Perry appears to be a "real" Texan and no poser. And I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing.

All my initial reactions were negative, so I was really trying to find something to like about him. Then I ran into that 800-pound gorilla, again.

Mormon Plastic Grapes: Inspired by Mary Tyler Moore

Our Family Inheritance - The Turquoise Grapes

Yes, I just solved another Mormon Culture mystery. For anyone who was in an active LDS home in 1960s, you would have seen the plastic resin grapes prominently displayed. My mom had deep purple ones in the Seattle suburbs. I don't know where those ended up. Fortunately, my wife and I were able to appropriate her mother's oddly-colored turquoise (?) grapes. My mother-in-law lived in Albuquerque which might help explain the color, but my wife recently explained that her grandmother in Salt Lake made every daughter and daughter-in-law a set of grapes to match the decor of their respective homes. So, my mother-in-law got turquoise. Most fun of all, I hear that my wife's grandmother's were pink. (My wife thinks her Aunt Virginia has them!)

The President's Near Perfect Pitch on Race

The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell (1963)

The President had this painting placed in the White House just outside the Oval Office. The picture is based on a 1960 incident in Louisiana from the Civil Rights Era. Guess who was President in 1960 and authorized federal enforcement of Civil Rights recognized by Brown v. Board of Education? Yep. That would be President Eisenhower again, the slightly right of center guy a lot like our slightly left of center current President.