Primary and secondary

Today is the primary election for city council and son is a candidate. The field of five has to be narrowed down to four before the March election. I am delighted he is running, not just because he'll be a great asset to the council but because we need some young blood in our governing bodies. Of course, experienced people are desirable but it's time for some retreads to take a seat with their coffee klatch buddies and make room for the next generation. The names of ax grinders often appear on the ballot. The good news is that even if elected, they don't normally run for re-election. I suspect they've settled whatever score they felt needed settling or they found out that they didn't have the power to do so. Anyway it's good to see young people running. That means they have not become so jaded or apathetic that they feel they cannot make a difference in their community.

Computers can be a blessing or a curse. T'was a blessing last night as I watched my daughter and son-in-law's plane fly over Tennessee on their way to Amsterdam. Thanks to the flight tracker I knew they were flying at 31000 feet, going 610 miles per hour and took off 29 minutes late. Now is that cool or what? Once I knew they were safely on their way, I ordered a pair of jeans from my favorite jean emporium without leaving the comfort of my armchair...another blessing for one who hates shopping malls.

My widely divergent reading the past week:
I finished Craddock Stories by Fred B. Craddock, preacher extraordinaire. A delightful collection of teaching tales.
Then I finally read If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. In places I was frustrated to the point of quitting this book, but I was rewarded when I persevered. I wish I knew the literary allusions, but the satire is delightful-gentler than Voltaire but every bit as clever. Calvino led me back to reread parts of The Arabian Nights . I wish I'd read it to my children. Alas, no one read it to me either. Better late than never.
Now I'm listening to the CD of Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor, published in 2004. I was curious to learn what a life-long Democrat had to say about being a Democrat in these days of widely polarized party politics. In my neck of the woods, Democrats have become so demonized that they are viewed in the same manner communists were during the McCarthy era. Keillor has such a romantic view of his Minnesota childhood. He admittedly is an observer of people and as such sees always through the lens of his own myopia. I enjoy his voice and basic decency even if I do not always agree with his conclusions or his politics. He, too, is guilty of demonizing. I find it telling than at the time of writing, he was living again in St. Paul near the University of Minnesota where he went to college.
And I am also into a somewhat work related book Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward et al. Although its title is extreme, the book does deal with common manipulative patterns, how they work and why they work, at least for a while. Interesting but not profound.