And it’s an odd thing to write because I don’t really feel like I have a home. It reminds me of the home that I rarely write about, because it’s so much in the past, so long gone. It doesn’t even exist. Really, it’s gone- the broseph and I used to race into the forest behind our house after school or every day of the summer. All the other kids from the neighborhood did the same, and we would spend our days and afternoons there, building forts, digging up salamanders, venturing deeper into the woods until our childhood internal alarms warned us we had gone too far. It was our own little world and we lived in it every day until dusk, when our neighbor Michael’s mother would ring a loud cow bell, and all of us scattered back home to our very, very different lives. And that place is not just gone because I’m no longer a child, or because I no longer live in EBF, or because times have changed such that a bunch of 5 to 7-year olds wandering around the woods is no longer kosher. The forest was cut down years ago so that a new housing development could be built instead. Trees no longer hold any mystery; you can see the house behind them clearly now. brimful

Ah, brimful, I’ve got memories like that, and feelings like that, and I think, it’s all a part of getting older (and, dare I say it: of aging?) The feeling that no home that you make for yourself has the same solidity or permanency of the childhood home, even as time damages the illusion of permanence. And, those of us that feel that way have a lot to thank our parents for, don’t we? Not everyone feels that way or starts out life with such riches.

I found these Butch Belair watercolors at the wonderful linesandcolors blog.

Karakapend

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary on the newest unemployment figures and the health care bill.

An unwieldy bill – of truly gargantuan proportions – hastily and stealthily voted on, in the cover of night, er, I mean, on Saturday or Sunday. Sounds prudent. The very picture of competence. The height of clear thinking, modesty and servant-of-the-people servanting! Why worry? What could possibly go wrong?

(cross-posted at chicagoboyz)

Update: HEALTHCARE BILL PASSES HOUSE, 220-215. Elections matter. Well, yeah, kinda. Also, please do read Michael Kennedy’s comment in the comments section, below. (OPS: the comment is posted at chicagoboyz….)

…and busy at home, so, not really in the mood to blog, lately. I dunno. I don’t have anything to say. How exhausting to always have to say things, to have opinions. Wait, does this post count as an actual opinion? Whatever.

Today was an election day in my locale. There were several referendum questions. They were a mix of questions that were legitimate attempts to rein in an out of control legislature and others that were just pet issues of various busybodies. The vote also included some local races; a random batch of scoundrels looking to gain access to the public coffers. Schmedlap

Quite a dry sense of humor, too.

Update: Jill Sobule and Erin McKeown will be at the Old Town School of Folk Music (Chicago), November 8.

“Ten seconds into the film, the camera pans up from the newlyweds and the street to a girl sticking her head out a second floor window. Watching the 20-second clip, there’s no reason to notice this girl. Except that the girl is Anne Frank. And so, knowing that you will see her, and then seeing her, you cannot concentrate on anything else in the film.” 

Ghost Story: On Anne Frank and windows, Stephany Anne Golberg (The Smart Set, via)

….listen to the DOD blogger’s roundtable, too.

“I wanted to mention that I’ve been invited to the DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable tomorrow on the implementation of the Stop Loss special pay for servicemembers “who had their enlistment extended or retirement suspended due to stop loss are eligible for this special pay, if they served on active duty between Sept. 11, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2009.” I’m not sure who else is participating in the Roundtable, but we’ll be talking with Sam Retherford, a retired Army colonel who is the Director of Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management.”

“He felt government doesn’t understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they’re human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they’re all rats.”

Everyone (okay, some of the blogs I regularly read) is linking to this Peggy Noonan column. I don’t know how accurate the article is, but the theme of it sure feels right, somehow. It’s been my cranky refrain for years: our credentialed elite doesn’t seem very good at its jobs. (Note: Yes, I am painting with a very broad brush, and, of course, there are marvelously talented people in public life.  They seem not to be winning out, however.)