Author Archives: Tin Man

Drive

Posted on by

Matt and I are trying to plan a short vacation to New England this fall. The idea of going out into the country in the fall just fills me with wonderful shivers. We’d like to take off a Monday/Tuesday or a Thursday/Friday and make a long weekend of it. But where to go, exactly?

One idea is Boston. Matt’s never been. But I’ve been there several times. Even though the most recent visit was eight years ago, I wonder if I’d be bored. Maybe, maybe not.

The other idea is to do something rural — a country inn or something. I have this fantasy of staying in a B&B that has a library with comfy chairs, where I could pick random books off the shelves and curl up with one of them in front of a fireplace, and we eat dinner in nice cozy restaurants.

The thing is, I haven’t driven a car in four years and I’d be a little nervous about it. I used to drive all the time. I used to love to take road trips. When I was in school, I’d drive between Virginia and New Jersey a few times a year. In the early part of this decade I drove to and from work. Does driving a car come back to you pretty quickly? It seems like it would.

If we were to do Boston, we could just take Amtrak. But for the New England countryside idea, I’d probably visit my parents in NJ a couple of times in the next few weeks and take the car out for a spin, just to get my road legs back, and then we could rent a Zipcar and drive up to Massachusetts or Vermont or wherever.

Any ideas for where to go or what to do?

Campaign Lies

Posted on by

I liked this from Electoral-vote.com:

Nobody really expects politicians to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but the willingness of the candidates to brazenly tell out-and-out lies has reached a new high this year. In the past, politicians would shade the truth a bit and if they were caught, would stop. No more. The Washington Post has a story on that today. One example: “McCain says rival Barack Obama would raise everyone’s taxes, even though the Democrat’s tax plan exempts families that earn less than $250,000.” But a poll taken Sept. 5-7 shows that 51% of the voters thought Obama would raise their taxes. Republican strategist John Feegery said: “these little facts don’t really matter.” What he means is that the campaign is trying to exploit the long-standing Republican theme that Democrats raise taxes and Obama’s promise to raise taxes only on the rich is an unimportant detail that can be safely ignored. In the past the press called candidates to order when they lied. Now the model is to give each side equal time, even if one is brazenly lying. For example, if Obama wanted to motivate younger voters, he could say: “McCain will bring back the draft and everyone under 21 will be sent to Iraq.” There is not a shred of evidence for this, of course, but the press would dutifully report it along with McCain’s outraged denial. But the seed would be planted. Three days later there would be a poll showing that 35% of the voters think McCain will bring back the draft. That’s how the game is played these days. It ain’t beanbag.

What Obama should actually do is start saying to seniors, “McCain will take away your Social Security.” Then let the press fight it out with McCain.