Today one woman recommended to me a Slate article entitled "Death of a Saleswoman How Hillary Clinton lost me—and a generation of young voters," by Meghan O'Rourke. O'Rourke write that many women in their 20s and 30s voted for Obama because they felt that Clinton was "not transformative enough." http://www.slate.com/id/2192827 That Obama supporter seemed to agree.

O'Rourke's gender-neutral comparison of Obama and Clinton is light-years from the wounded ignorance of Harriet Christian, though I think it was mistaken for Walsh to suggest that Christian was in some way representative of a substantial faction of Clinton supporters who must be reckoned with.

This was a good speech, and a difficult one to make. I could not help detecting a little edge whenever Clinton forcefully exhorted her supporters with the words "and that is why we must elect Barack Obama President!"

The chance that Obama would support the ERA between now and November is less than the probability that the moon will crash into the earth next week.

Now that the contest is between Obama and McCain, both will adjust their positions to the median voter and attempt to portray the other as an extremist. Obama's AIPAC speech is an example. Bush's talk of appeasement might have been a way for McCain to appear more liberal by comparison without McCain's having to move to the left, except that McCain agreed with Bush.

These articles come from ZNet; Salon is mainstream by comparison, for its reluctance to mention popular opposition to the Iraq war and its effect on the election.

Why Obama Won

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/17867

Why Clinton Lost

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/17868

The mainstream corporate press is pretty consistent in its reluctance to mention popular opposition to the war in Iraq and the role this played in determining the outcome of the primaries. This article is no exception. For an article on remembering Clinton as she was, there seems to be amnesia on the subject of Iraq.

Compare Rebecca Traister's article with the progressive analysis of Zachary Roth on ZNet:

http://zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17868

From the article:

"If Hillary Clinton's loss in this epic nominating contest comes to be understood as the result of her choice of the wrong "message" and her failure to organize caucus states, we'll all be able to draw conclusions for next time around about the best campaign strategy to pursue- but about very little beyond that. If, on the other hand, her loss comes to be understood as a result, in large part, of a substantive mistake she made, while in office, on the most important question of the day, we'll have learned much more-about the mood of the country, about the reactions of our public officials in times of crisis, and about the functioning of our democracy. And so will our elected officials facing similar decisions in the future."

Here is a better feminist analysis, care of ZNet, written by Katha Pollit, entitled, "Thank You, Hillary, for Opening the Door for Other Women."

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17870

This article does mention Iraq.

Factometer wrote "If any more evidence were needed that Salon has thoroughly internalized the values of corporate journalism, Alex Koppelman's assertion that the mainstream press should not cover Kucinich's articles of impeachment will suffice."

Here here! This is the Salon which refuses to link to the 35 articles of impeachment, which uncritically parrots Pelosi's line that "impeachment is off the table," and which congratulates itself for Traister's article on Clinton "as she was" with no mention of Iraq and no mention of the popular opposition to the Iraq war and the role this played in the election, despite attempts of "journalists" like Koppelman to keep the discussion focused on personalities and away from substantive issues.

Koppelman's post here, of course, is focused on Kucinich --he is "widely considered a laughingstock"--and not focused on the articles of impeachment themselves.

Koppelman is constitutionally and intellectual incapable of serious journalistic analysis, or else Koppelman would have been able to focus on the articles of impeachment themselves, and at least provide a citation, as Factomter notes.

Defecting Salon readers should consider zcommunications.org. Steadfast defenders of Koppelman can uncritically do what they are told.

The following sentence is ambiguous:

A bat can eat half its weight in insects every night; if the female bat is lactating, it swallows twice that.

Does the author mean that a lactating female bat can eat two times half its weight (its weight) every night, or twice its weight in insects? Which quantity does the word 'that' refer to: "half its weight" or "its weight"?

For most of my adult life I have a disfiguring skin condition. Now I'm in my late 40s, I am still single and have no children--I have given up. [Good choice: I probably would have been divorced, barred from contact with my children and laboring under the obligation to pay off the second mortgage of a house belonging to an ex-spouse. Sour grapes turn sweet in an economy capsizing in the troubled waters of the failing mortgage industry, the rising cost of oil and the accelerating decline of the dollar, but I digress.]

I did have a total of three therapists. When I was thirty, my first therapist (a psychologist) informed me that my skin condition was unattractive. The second one, a psychiatrist, sent me to the head of dermatology at a well-known university. The dermatologist was sympathetic but unhelpful; the psychiatrist introduced me to his son as follows: "He's insane." Perhaps it was true at the time.

I mentioned the remarks of the first therapist to the third, who replied, "was that a therapeutic comment?" The third was a decent man, but my insurance did not pay for his time, and I had to terminate my therapy.