More Summer in a jar

Today, I turned these, into this:

Department of Book Reports: Renegade: The Making of a President

Renegade: The Making of a President, by Richard Wolffe (Random House $26.00) Early on in the 2008 primary season, Candidate Barack Obama urged Newsweek writer and MSNBC correspondent, Richard Wolfe, to write the story of the campaign in the tradition of the old Theodore White books, The Making of a President for whatever year there was an election, beginning in 1960. Wolffe, (who, incidentally, has authored as well two Spanish cookbooks, Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America [Clarkson Potter in the US and Planeta in Spain, 2005] and Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes for the American Kitchen [Clarkson Potter, 2008]), was initially reluctant to do so, but finally decided to do so upon further urging and with the promise that Obama would give him exclusive interviews, with the caveat that Obama would not tell him certain things, like how he really felt about some of his opponents.

And Wolffe succeeds. The book gives a great feel about how the campaign ebbed and flowed. Beginning with the successfull organizing and winning of the Iowa caucuses, to the bruising primaries against Hilary Clinton, through the Reverend Wright controversy, and the writing of his great speeches on both race and his convention acceptance speech, and onto the fall campaign against John McCain, frequent contributor to the General's blog.

Wolffe acknowledges the contributions of a staff put together by Obama that included the David's Plouffe and Axelrod and his speechwriter, Jon Favreau. The organization was led firmly by Obama, who kept staff and volunteers focussed, and in style by being No Drama Obama. And while also acknowledging Obama's ambition, he notes the candidate's (and as President-Elect) willingness to have people around him that would challenge his own positions and mind-set.

Wolffe makes clear that Obama, even early on, has that mind-set of looking forward, and not looking back and, above all, wanting to be a transformative candidate and President. And therein may lay the problem many Progressive critics have with the President thus far. The looking forward seems to mean not looking seriously at the crimes of the previous President and his administration, which seems to skewer any notion of justice that we know. And for the transformative portion, we see too much of executive perogatives being defended, with too many compromises on the important issues. When will we see action on Dont Ask, Dont Tell, or the Defense of Marriage Act? What is Health Care reform without a public option? Why is Single-payer off the table? Of course it is still early and with the complete mess Bush left the country in, there is much to be done and not all can be done immediately. I get that. And I remain a hopeful man, and perhaps this administration can be the most transformational since FDR's. I read this book with the expectation that I could get fired up and ready to go. There is much of that. There remains much to be done.
Renegade: The Making of a President is available at Jackson Street Books and fine independent bookstores everywhere.
*Note from SeattleTammy: If you need more reasons to shop your local indie bookstore, please watch this video from our colleagues at The Regulator Bookstore (HT to our SLpal Griffin!) While we can't quite make the same claims, being online only, re-using and recycling our packing materials is a priority for us. I re-use packing paper to wrap your purchase and re-cycle bubble envelopes whenever possible. We ship via US Postal services and the mailman is already coming to your house, so we aren't dispatching a separate truck.

R.I.P. Gumby (and others)

Sad news in today's paper. The voice of Gumby, Pokey, Archie, Buzz Buzzard & Wally Walrus, Toughy, Bucky and Pepito, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, Professor Calculus, and Cincinnatus the storekeeper, has passed away. Dallas ("Dal") R. McKennon had been living in Raymond the past few years to be closer to his family. More here.

Department of Book Reports: A Better View of Paradise

Here's some more Hawaii! A Better View of Paradise by Randy Sue Coburn (Ballentine Books, $25.00) 36 year old landscape architect Stevie, has just completed a park in Chicago, but a broken pump has flooded the fountain and grounds and critics are ruthless in their reviews of the design. On the heels of this career set-back, her boyfriend dumps her and she decides a return to her childhood home on Kaua'i will put her back in tune with the nature she brings to her garden designs. Facing her argumentative father is the part she dreads, but learning he is dying forces Stevie to come to an understanding of her relationship with him and her stiff upper lip British mother. Family secrets are revealed and Stevie learns much as she finds a new life for herself among the natural splendor that is Hawaii.

If you can't get away for a vacation this summer, this is a book to make you feel you have spent the day at the beach. The legends of the islands are vividly drawn on here.

A Better View of Paradise is available at Jackson Street Books. The book's release date is Bastille Day, which coincidentally is Stevie's birthday. This fact tickles me to no end.


I'd like to invite everyone to attend the movie, A Soldier's Peace, tonight in Second Life. You can read much more about it in Progressive Witness' dailykos diary.
Netroots Nation in Second Life and Virtually Speaking are very proud to host the SL premiere of Marshall and Kristen Thompson's documentary A Soldier's Peace, the remarkable chronicle of one veteran's 500-mile journey into activism, which follows former Army journalist Marshall Thompson, an Iraq war veteran, as he walks the entire length of his home state of Utah, talking to people along the way about war and peace.

Please join us at Netroots Nation Arena for this simple yet powerful film, followed by an interview with Marshall Thompson.

Serenity has been Muppet-Rolled.

This promises to be much fun!


And another SL friend, Larkworthy, has made this powerful video:

Department of Book Reports: Julian

In the Spring of AD 380, letters are exchanged between two old men, philosophers, one in Athens and the other in Antioch. They squabble over the price of copying and their respective ages. One complains about the aging process while the other brags about his on-going virility. Most importantly, they discuss the existence of a hidden memoir written by the Emperor Julian, their friend, who was killed in 363 while conducting a military campaign in Parthia, modern day Iran.

Gore Vidal's Julian (Vintage $16.00) was first published in 1964, and remains one of the great historical novels. For me, it bears a rereading often as new ideas and details emerge on each reading. The prose is luminous, and the voices of the three narrators, the philosophers Libanius and Priscus, as well as the Emperor Julian, are lively and engaging.

Julian reigned only two years, but the memory of his time remains. He was the nephew of the Emperor Constantine, who built the new Roman capital of Constantinople, as well as adopting Christianity as the preferred state religion. Following the death of Constantine, Julian, reared as Christian, managed to avoid the family fighting among his cousins for the Imperial throne. He fell in love with philosophy, studied in Athens, which he loved, and secretly renounced his Christianity. Ultimately impressed into Imperial duties, first as Caesar in Gaul, where he warred successfully against the threat of the German tribes on the frontier; and then as acclaimed Emperor. As Emperor, he tried much less successfully to reintroduce Paganism to the Empire, resisted at all times by the various Bishops of the Church. Perhaps thinking himself a new Alexander, Julian went on to march against Rome's great Eastern nemesis, Parthia, where he was killed in a skirmish, maybe by a Roman lance.

Gore Vidal is our best historical novelist. Anyone who read his series on American history know how compelling a storyteller he can be. From Burr, to Lincoln, 1876, Empire and Hollywood, he knows (and is related to many) the major actors of the American past. He is one of the last of those great public intellectuals born in the 1920's that included Norman Mailer and is as well-known for his essays on contemporary affairs as well as his novels. He has also written plays like Visit to a Small Planet, as well as mysteries under the name of Edgar Box. In any event, if you enjoy history and historical novels, do yourself a favor and read Julian. Or re-read it.

Julian, and other novels by Gore Vidal, is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores.

Westport Pirates

We decided to venture out and look for pirates today. We got to see a few, but it was the boats we came to see.This is the Lady Washington, originally built 20 years ago to illustrate the local history of Gray's Harbor.


the Hawaiian Chieftain


You can catch the silliness here. I really wanted to see the Pirates Parade, and I did notice the firetruck and another float two blocks away, but I didn't realize we missed the parade. Note to Organizers: if you have a parade; tell people where it is. Oh, and don't leave your floats parked on the street we're not supposed to be looking at.

I hadn't realized alien abductions were such a problem in Westport.
We did go look at the ocean! We waved at RevPaperboy!