Font Rants on Many Subjects

Dewey vs. Truman all over again. This column while detailing Kerry and Edwards surge in the polls; also contains an omnious message; pollsters don't call cellphones. How many people use a cellphone as their only phone anymore? Or use the cell phone when they are dailing into the Internet.

Four articles you must read:

1. The owner of The Washington Times says God will call for a genocide against gays. Yet George Bush will still take checks from the Rev. Moon; 3 24 hour cable news networks and they can't find five minutes to say anything about this.

2. The Daily Kos recommends: this article in Salon about the anti-democratic media meatgrinder; and gives some ideas about what you can do to end this bias.

3. Paul Krugman in the New York Times. Krugman has now officially become my favorite liberal columnist.

4. This piece in the post on Dean's anger. I particularly like the quote from a Post reader "Call me up on the phone and I'll give you a three minute screed about the Washington Post then see if you can tell me to shut up as POLITELY as Dean told that gentleman."

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Genesis 1:1-3

This is my favorite Biblical passage. One imagines the sea on a pitch black night. A loneliness where there is nothing. Then a wind comes; the water begins to rise and fall in waves. There is light; and by implication heat and evaporation. Any sailor will tell you this is not a recipe for an ordered world. This is a recipe for storms and tumult. The opening act of creation is not God setting forth a world of law and order; it is God taking a still and uniform world and injecting chaos and discord; night and day, wind and stillness.

At the core of faith are unanswerable questions to ponder throughout your life. This is the first mystery; God sows the seeds of chaos on the first day of creation. God takes people from their simple ordered lives; and disrupts. Adam is cast from the Garden. Noah loses everything; and everyone but his immediate family in a flood. Abraham the simple idol maker is taken from his native land; and forced to drive away his first born son; and then almost made to kill his second. Jacob is sold into slavery by his brother. Moses goes from son of the king of Egypt to desert wanderer; who will never get to set foot into the promised land. Jesus his own son goes from anonymous carpenter; to crucified dissident. Think of all the gruesome things that happen to the Saints in the 1970 odd years since the Gospels finished up.

I say we are meant to ponder the meaning of this. We are meant to wonder why; and perhaps never reach a conclusion. We are here from the chaos that God created.

MTP/Russert review today. Russert spent the first half-hour on the irrelevant Kerry. One week before the Iowa caucus they put on Kerry; a guy who isn't in contention and who's dropping in the polls like a stone. Thank God for TiVo so I could skip ahead. No wonder his roundtable spends 15 minutes bashing bloggers.

Other highlights:
1. David Broder comments that Dean supporters as a bunch of women, little guys and gays. While Gephardt men are big beefy 6'3" lunks. This makes for nice soundbites; but is a bunch of crap designed to make Dean look soft; ahh the old Liberal = Pinko . Lets start with Mr. Al Gore; 6' tall and 190lbs. Then move of to Mr. Bill Bradley (NBA hall of famer Dollar Bill Bradley) at 6'3" and 200lbs. And I'm sure these less well known gentlemen love the fact that David Broder finds them so dainty.

2. Next there is a long discussion about the political impact of Blogs. Some of it actually insightful. The bottom line is that the MTP gang appears very nervous about the Blogsphere. The emergence of an independant group of pundits not tied to fancy TV appearance who can command audiences as large as the Sunday talk shows (which is really only a few million); must be quite alarming ot them.

3. There is a comment about how Dean's momentum has slowed in the last few months. How growth in Meetups was exponential over the summer; but has slowed recently. Also a comment about how the famous fundraising bats have slowed; and they aren't meeting their goals as quickly. I've noticed this as well. Still I've been tracking the Dean BAT vs. the Clark Train and if Clark is the one with the momentum; how come that train ain't moving very fast. I suspect this slowdown is the calm before the storm. Keep in mind the primary voters represent a small part of the overall voters in the general election campaign. Of those voters how many have seriously committed to a candidate; vs how many are committed enough to give money; vs how many may give money when the nominee is chosen; or looks more likely. The facts they don't talk too much about are that Dean has quickly built a huge small donor network. Once he wins the nomination he will be able to leverage so called 527; and the traditional $2000 Democratic donor lists to leverage millions; hopefully enough to catch Bush and take on: The Clearchannel Talk Radio Monopoly, Bushes huge campaign warchest; Fox News and all the rest of the conservative cable channels.