What I find both powerful and useful about Glenn's essays are his keen dissection skills. No argument. These analyses are deathly depressing. And, I am discovering that, to read them day after day, takes a certain emotional fortitude. And, I've asked myself why I keep coming back. If good misery needs company there is plenty of misery, and plenty of company to keep, elsewhere.

My still-developing thought centers on what is to be learned. If I use today as an example, it is the anatomy and physiology (if I may use that analogy) of a species of politician no one here wants to see elected. The skeleton, musculature, neurology, and bio-mechanics of this species is being described and laid bare such that I can recognize that species in the field myself. And, if I shift to a train-the-trainer model of thinking, not only am I better at recognizing the DiFi's out there, I am better able to describe the DiFi's to others. Similarly, I find myself being tutored in process. To know the what and who is part of the equation, but I also need to understand the ecology that supports this species. The dynamic interaction of the species with the environment.

If I think of it this way I save myself from the abyss of depression, and I gain a sense of not being totally powerless and without recourse. So I wish for myself to acquire the skills of a good tracking dog. To be able to sniff out a presence, and the trail a presence leaves behind. I may have to follow some cold trails, and I may meet with dead ends. This shift in the Democratic party I hear many posit will take the dogged determination of a pack of Bloodhounds. I tell myself that I am acquiring competency. If half of those 43 million blogs inspire progressives to learn and then act, maybe all is not lost after all. The terrain may be rocky, steep, and unforgiving, but if it were easy we'd have done it by now.

Time challenges prevent me from exploring all of those 43 million blogs in the world, but I'm finding Glenn's to be the place to go to understand, and FDL to figure out what I can do.

And, yeah. Add my voice to the chorus. Thanks Bebop-o.

I voted for them in the state where I live, and if I had known then, what I know now, I wouldn't have done it. All those politicians you're happy to see leave, turn up as Presidents of your colleges and universities, serve on boards of regents and trustees, and a whole array of places where you don't appreciate their politicized mischief.

No 12 step program for me. No sir. I can spin the wheel on my mouse and MoveOn.

Think about it. Do you really want them all together in one place AND share a border with them?

Glenn, this essay is interesting on so many levels.

1. The way you expose Brooks' tendency to make it up as he goes along. He does not let the facts get in the way of his story (history major that he was), as he did with his book Bobos in Paradise. You might think someone who graduated from the University of Chicago might not be averse to poll numbers.

2. Brooks' projection of himself onto his "high school educated women in the Midwest". This characterization evoked for me AL GORE AND THE ALPHA GIRLS The Enduring Power of Cliques in a Post-High-School World posted at The Rittenhouse Review http://tinyurl.com/2u4u7y (click my signature). And, of course the object of that post was this description:

The Alphas of the media are the big guys and gals, the heavy hitters, the swinging dicks of popular political commentary, the fever-pitched voices that have developed a supernatural ability to reduce complicated political issues to the distorted and misleading five-word sound bites they use in both their written work and in their seemingly endless television and radio appearances.

3. The way you have modeled, over the last couple of posts, how the MoveOn betray-us theme could be deployed at various targets without using that angst generating word "betray."

re: Douglas Hofstadter. GEB, I Am a Strange Loop, or a different title?

I'm only about 100 pages into I Am a Strange Loop and thought maybe I'd missed something. Like, totally missed something. Although the pictures in it *are* fascinating!

The Neo-Laffer Curve is the best response to the Laffer Curve I've encountered. As fascinating as it is, it's also funny. It's my preferred reponse to Laffer Curve lovers everywhere.

According to Amazon, Metamagical Themas is still in print, and it's in my shopping cart. I'm afraid any discussion of fractals takes me in over my head quick. I'll take your word for it on "strange attractors" in that context.

Appreciate your follow-up. Thanks, again.

For the last couple of months I have felt as though I was living in some alternate universe watching the Senate's votes on FISA, Habeas Corpus, withdrawal from Iraq, and MoveOn. I kept thinking, WTF?? And, now, by a vote of 76-22, the Senate passes the Lieberman-Kyl amendment. Okay! Gosh, have I been s_l_o_w, or what? These folks in the Senate must have been thinking to themselves, "Those poor dimwitted dolts need to have it spelled out for them." And so, they did. 76-22. No wonder impeachment was never on the table.

Why do they hate democracy so much?

Because it means you have to share?

Thanks. I thought Bebop-o was onto something but hadn't yet taken the time to check. Thanks for the information.