Rayne Today

As I came down the stairs I heard somebody moaning in the general vicinity of the kitchen. Unnhh. Mmmfff. Unh-huh. Mmm-mmm-mmm-unh. What the hell is going on, I wondered? Standing over the kitchen island, eyes closed, murmuring to himself is my spouse. With a half-eaten jar of pickles in his hand. "Oh my God, these are so good." "Good," he said, as if I didn't hear him the first time through the mouthful of pickles. "My mom would have loved these, these are soooo good. What are they?" Just bread and butter pickles. Pickles and peppers from our garden, and some big sweet onions from the farmers' market, with some extra garlic. That was a week ago. He's eaten another jar since then. I don't think I've made enough to make it through the winter, at this rate of consumption. Try them yourself, they're easy to make. But you'd better do it soon if you live in northern climes as hard frosts will take out the rest of the pickle crop over...

After a rather aggravating discussion this past week with rank-and-file members of the local Democratic Party as well as representatives for elected officials, it became clear that hold-outs in Congress who refuse to commit that they will do everything possible to obtain the public option are not on the same page as us. They believe they need to make no commitments to anyone, including constituents, in order to have maximum negotiating power when bargaining with the health care industry. We, on the other hand, believe they simply need to do their utmost to get the public option, which is not the same as bargaining away and settling for less. I was pretty steamed about this situation. Perhaps if I knew less about the health care industry's performance over the last couple of decades I might be more amenable and understanding. But I do know about these choice examples -– and they are only a very small number, a smattering of cases presented here in no particular order which exemplify...

The text of President Obama's speech scheduled for delivery tomorrow to public school children has been released today; I've read it. And I asked my both of my kids read it. With a bored, so-what shrug, the new sophomore said, "It's rather elementary, but I suppose it has to be since it's meant to reach elementary school kids. Like kindergartners." The new middle-schooler was more forthcoming. "Yeah, I read this part about Obama and his mom this past year," by which he referred to the portion of the speech in which Obama recalls how mother got him up at 4:30 a.m. to study. "I already knew about that. And the President is telling kids the same thing you already tell us, that we need to go to school and study and work hard." I asked him about parents being afraid to let kids hear President Obama's speech -- what did he think about this? "Profiling. They're profiling him." You could have knocked me over with a feather; I was...