This is identity politics at its worst.

Clinton and Obama are both imperialists. If you don't believe me, search for "Obama's Audacious Deference" and take a few minutes to read it. Paul Street takes Obama's own words and makes it clear what kind of dangerous fraud he (Obama) is.

The comparison with JFK is appropriate. There's this large segment of the American liberal-left that idolizes Kennedy, out of ignorance or wishful thinking. On the fifteenth of February, 2003, I was walking on the streets of Dallas with thousands of others in the gigantic, global, synchronized anti-war protests. The march here in Dallas finished at the JFK memorial. That's a monument erected to the same man who ordered US planes to bomb and gas South (yes, South) Vietnam without Congressional approval nor public knowledge.

Under Obama, and surely under Clinton, we're likely to see more so-called "humanitarian interventions," a la The Clinton Wars. How does the Salon crowd feel about those?

I'm not registered as a Republican, so I don't think I can vote for Paul on the fourth of March. I might as well make a protest vote for Gravel or Kucinich. Come November, I really don't want to vote *against* someone. If Ron Paul is truly saving his money to run as a Libertarian, I'll be tempted. After that, the Greens have nominated Cynthia McKinney (black woman, everybody!! I wish Nader would join with her,) and she'll be in Fort Worth this Sunday. Brian Morris is the Socialist candidate. How can we get a parliament here?

This whole prospect scares me to death, and I'm male and 26. I've thought about it off and on for about ten years or so, but now I've got a serious third-life crisis. Even the labels like "mid/third-life crisis" don't really address the problem. Long before someone is actually dead, it seems like so much of them is essentially dead already.

I've been looking at the obituaries a lot lately. Suppose you're one of those people in there who lives to somewhere around 100. What do you do for the last twenty years? What do you do when you can't rawk anymore, when you can't run, or skate, or sing, or play an instrument? What do you do when you're no longer sexually attractive, and neither is anybody else your age?

Worst of all must be the mental decay. I hate being talked down to and not taken seriously. I refuse to go through a pathetic second childhood. I've seen it happen.

I started examinging the obituaries because I was looking for a friend of mine (let's call her AM.) She died rather suddenly, aged slightly under 50, in late December. Her death was a sad end to a rather tumultuous life. That's true, but another friend mentioned that she was happy that AM had the peace she (AM) deserved. Part of me envies AM.

I know I can avoid the worst of it, because I have no qualms about checking out like Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, James Whale, Sara Teasdale, George Eastman, and so many others. The suicide rate rises with age, but it's not often discussed, because it makes perfect sense. I just want to make sure I've enjoyed my time first. I'm trying.

That's what the first president of Tunisia called the Islamic headgear. Part of me hates to see the state interfering in people's lives like this, but then I think that it's the duty of various institutions to drag people into modernity, for everyone else's sake if not theirs. Remember, children growing up in superstitious environments don't have the autonomy to decide whether or not to wear the bedsheets.

There's no reason why religion should get a free pass. Superstitious, ludicrous drivel should not be respected in any way. That includes its symbols, including those worn by anyone of any age. Once again, I don't like the idea of the state exercising this much control over people's lives, but at the very least its official institutions (especially those dedicated to education, of all things) should be purged of superstition.

The Algerian election cancellation of 1992 won the praise of women's groups, because they knew what Islamic rule meant for them. In the resulting civil war, Islamists targeted women who didn't wear Islamic garb, and the government forces targeted those who did. The same war also severely damaged the country's economic progress. It could have been another Tunisia (a place where hijabs are discouraged, by the way,) but unfortunately it was not to be. I have mixed feelings about that whole affair... though maybe not. If the Islamists had been quickly and thoroughly annihilated, the damage would have been minimal.

Religion poisons everything.

"Antisocial" means destructive. The LW should have written "Asocial." Also, one of the anonymous responders used "disinterested," which means unbiased. They should have used "uninterested."

So many people have such a hard time with their families. I avoid this problem by simply refusing to participate in conflicts. I don't care what they do, and I don't care what they think of me. My parents have given to/taken from me in equal proportion, I guess, so I say we're even. I just hope I don't clash with my brother over my parents' late-life issues. I hope they drop dead without too much fuss, unlike their parents.

I think part of the problem can be solved by becoming unavailable. If my brother marries his awful girlfriend, I'll simply always be unable to spend too much time in their proximity. How hard can it be?

Once again, religion poisons everything. I don't know how much stock I put in the USA Today cover story (on the 11th of Feb.) that portrayed Mexico as a country joining the fully-developed world, but it did make mention of how things have changed since family planning caused birth rates to peak in the 1970s and decline ever since. Birth control programs get great results everywhere, as far as I know.