I've decided to head in another direction altogether and am working on that. I agree with you that globalization is here...and yet I wonder what kind of response we can create to it. I actually like the idea of "green jobs" although I'm not sure what these are and where they are.

Washington State. In fact, our two U.S. senators -- Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray -- have been extremely successful in this.

http://murray.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=288680

http://murray.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=289041

Unfortunately, as Murray notes, President Bush is still the main obstacle to providing the type of tax and other incentives to "green" technology/energy that would help move it along faster.

Washington State has an abundance of active wind energy sources in Eastern Washington, geothermal, and hydroelectric (thanks to an abundance of water in the PNW...)

Puget Sound Energy will soon be converting garbage to fuel sources, thanks to technology developed in the PNW.

We also have companies in the Puget Sound area that are developing battery powered and other green auto technology, among others.

Washington State is, I believe, the "greenest" in the country with regard to energy, transportation, environment. It's not perfect and we have a long way to go, but...

Her story does remind me of tragedy (which I teach) in that she's a protagonist who keeps bumping up against something in herself that limits her in certain ways -- and seems completely unaware of what this quality is, and that it is indeed her own.

Interesting.

As a feminist, I would have liked to have seen Hillary individuate herself from Bill as it seemed she was poised to do when she first ran for the Senate. Her claiming of his elected-office experience in office now as if it were her own is disturbing to me and a bit of that problem with the truth that you mention. Given his past scorchingly public humiliation of her, I think it would have been more healthy of her to become more of her own person thereby becoming less of that mirror you mention.

However, she seems to have a certain wall beyond which her delivery just can't go. It has to do with what acting coaches call the "element of discovery" -- the sense that everything the speaker says is new in the moment. In short, she sounds like she's reading a speech, even a very good one, as last night's was. The element of discovery isn't about fooling anybody that the speech (or role) isn't prepared; it's about establishing in the present a palpable relationship with the audience.

Obama's method of reaching and motivating such people aligns with Plato's definition of rhetoric, "which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body." ...

"She has answers to hard questions," says liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., "but he has the one answer that voters hunger for: He offers himself as the vehicle for creating a new political movement that will break the country out of a sour, reactionary political era." ...

"When Cicero spoke," Adlai Stevenson said, comparing himself unfavourably to John F. Kennedy, "the crowds declared, `How well he spoke.' But when Demosthenes spoke, the crowds exclaimed, `Let us march!'"

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/301885

People who say Obama should wait his turn are deficient in imagination. Let us march! Now.

but that doesn't mean his point is not valid. There has been disproportionate support for obama in red states which is highly suspicious. People don't undergo instant conversions and if they do it is based on them seeing what they want to see; a lot of independent and republican obama supporters are either gaming the system or convincing themselves he is really a republican, either way they won't be there for the democrats in november. I'm not saying this explains ALL of his support, the problem is we don't know how much because there has been a total news blackout of any examination of obama(this is also suspicious in itself). It will be interesting to see what happens when/if the republican contest is over. Will there be more evidence of more republican mischief making?

Do you seriously think that Karl Rove and the Neo-Cons will not hand our candidate his/her head on a plate in spite of their intense dislike for McCain?

I actually believe they cherry-picked McCain because he's the only candidate that even has a shot at picking up the Latin vote and reversing their trend of losing in the west. Coulter and Limbaugh's rants, are merely rehearsed rhetoric to make the general electorate, most of whom is in the middle, believe McCain to be more moderate than he is.

But they always have a plan B and that's Barrack.

...the only question is: Who's going to have the honor of pulling it out?

Headline: Campaign Manager Quits

Mrs. Clinton is done.

Now let's enjoy the match between the "Human, All Too Human" John McCain versus the "Bionic" Barack Obama.

And the VP choice will give a good hint of who's the shrewder of the two.

I agree with everything you said, but don't see how it happens now. Either they succeed in promoting an unviable candidate, or she may be unduly crippled now for having to fight for the primary so expensively and bitterly.

First, whatever Obama started with, there's no question he ended up very comfortable from his stints in Illinois politics. Connections and kickbacks and 2 million dollar homes from a slumlord, mysterious salary increases for his wife. Similarly he has sat back and enjoyed the neolib and GOP sponsored promotion of him as being the God of Antiwar Activism, where as his voting history and statements cast much doubt on that. His campaign, after denying being involved, was then found to indeed have engineered the twisting of a harmless speech on MLK by Hillary into a race war among black voters.

There are many many reasons to question his credibility, but for your own reasons, you won't so why discuss it.

John Edwards in 2004 was not qualified to be President which is why he was shooting for the VP. But that's a side issue now. To answer your question I do wonder if he has more helped or hurt our chances. After all, it was he, not Barrack Obama who first began the character assasinations of Mrs. Clinton - and this after he himself had "voted for Iraq".