Oil is pushing record highs, the dollar is dropping, inflation is rearing its ugly head, creditors are pulling back, raw material prices are skyrocketing, we are in a war we aren't even paying for, and we're NOT headed for recession?

I don't need a crystal ball to see the obvious. Oh, that, and my company has shed a quarter of its workforce in the past six months.

I have to respectfully disagree. The right wing attacks that are beginning to increase in their intensity and their vociferousness against Obama are largely based on fluff themselves, such as where his hand was during a pledge, where he went to school, and his name.

As he is likely the Democratic candidate for president at this point, the attacks will become far, far worse. Ultimately, do these attacks create a cultural meme creating fear in the large portion of the electorate not closely following politics? In other words, would a presidency be decided on something as innocuous as a NAME? Sadly, I think this is entirely possible.

Articles such as these help to provide those of us who support this candidate (such as myself) with ammunition to deflect these attacks. And frankly, it is interesting to learn about the origins and meaning of names anyway. Names are very powerful things, and we neglect this truth at our own peril.

Will some people still vote against a candidate over a name? Yes, of course. But I would much prefer a candidate losing over issues of substance, such as withdrawal policies in Iraq.

I live in a weird New England town that is part dying mill slum and part yuppie college campus. We have one Starbucks.

It is always active, but what is quite interesting is that there has been a proliferation of other (locally-based) coffee places since Starbucks opened for business, something that did not happen with Dunkin' Donuts. Has anyone else noticed this sort of trend?

I am neither an obsessive fan nor a rapid detractor. Starbucks does all right at coffee (better than Dunkin' by a long shot, but that is saying nothing), but there is certainly better to be had.

This sort of tripe is the worst kind of pandering to a dying sort of philosophy. Yes, there are men who will vote for a candidate because he is a male, and women who will do the same for a female. And we will always have these sorts of people. Unfortunately.

And there has been a bit of a gender split recently. But think back to November when Clinton assured anyone and everyone that she WOULD be the Democratic nominee. She was leading in polls for both genders. And now, Obama is poised to take the lead in the women's vote. We can argue why (and goodness knows we do to no end in these posts), but unless the vast majority of polls have been complete rubbish (yet another topic for another time), facts are facts.

Both Ellen Goodman and Maureen Dowd of the Boston Globe and NYT, respectively, have noted that Obama's politics embraces a more feminine flavor than Clinton's. While we cannot be sure as to why, it would seem that Clinton is stuck in a past where women's liberation was wrapped up in cutting away (I use that term very deliberately) a woman's feminine identity. How would a woman get ahead thirty years ago? By espousing masculine archetypes, from authoritarianism to aggression to preferring hard cold facts to any possibility of idealistic hopes.

But nowadays, a woman is often able to move ahead by being comfortable in her own skin, and being feminine in all sorts of ways. I have one co-worker who is a flannel-wearing, truck-driving lesbian, and another who wears high cut leather boots and cute little tops and a ponytail. But they both excel at what they do, and have done it by being THEMSELVES. Hell, I picked up my computer at the shop today from a Mac geek so cute and yet utterly formidable with her Allen wrench, a soldering kit, and a magnifying glass. Her being feminine did not diminish my faith in her ability to do a kickass repair job on my machine whatsoever.

My point? Many people are realizing that, in their first real shot at voting a woman into office, they are just getting someone with external female characteristics. Hell, I'd bet that Hillary has a bigger set of brass ones than Bill. (As an aside, we all owe those in the equal rights movement their sacrifice of femininity to get women where they are now, but I sure as hell won't give away my vote as some sort of consolation prize.)

But so many of us don't want a bitch/bastard/asshole right now; we've had more than enough of those lately. We'll give Barack a shot and see where it goes.

And I will hope for a woman who comes along for office who is not afraid to paint her long nails pink; that, or wear her Carhartts to Home Depot where she picks up twelve two-by fours and an 18-volt power drill.

Is this the sort of nonsense we are going to see for the next eight-plus months? Of course, that answer is yes.

I am an Obama supporter, but this is a trite waste of space. Can't we have conversations about domestic and foreign policy just for once?

What next? How many times McCain picked his nose at press conferences? Wake me up on Election Day.