OFF TO SEATTLE

Tomorrow morning early, Susie and I fly to Seattle for the weekend. My son's wife's brother is getting married. I am sure the anthropologists among you can name a language in which this relationship is consecrated with its own term, but not in English. I shall be out of touch with the internet until we return late Monday, so I shan't be posting. I am sure there will be a good many outrages and absurdities on which to comment while I am away.

One thought as I prepare to leave: These mid-term elections are terribly important, for all that they are local and confused and dispiriting. The United States is in very bad economic shape right now, and should the Republicans take control of the House, it will be impossible to do anything to pull us out of the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. I abjure you to set aside any disappointments you may feel with the Obama Administration and do everything you can to elect a Democratic Senator in your state and a Democratic Representative in your House District. If you and countless others do not, we shall not have the luxury of complaining in the next two years. We will be fighting for our collective life. I shall do everything I can to elect Elaine Marshall to the Senate here in North Carolina [I have aleady given her campaign more than a thousand dollars], and since my Rep is in a safe seat, I will cast about for other things to do. It is not exciting or gratifying, but it is necessary. In an off year election, turnout is all, so persuade everyone you know to vote.

See you Tuesday.