Maureen Dowd says Christine O'Donnell, like Barack Obama, is "smart to think of politics in terms of passion and myth."

That is, Barack Obama, the presidential campaigner. As an actual President, the "passion and myth... are sorely missing." 

Obama’s bloodless rationality has helped spawn the right’s bloodletting of irrationality.

Now, there's an assertion! I agree that the blood is on the right, but I'm not seeing much rationality from anyone.

[Obama] has never shaken off that slight patronizing attitude toward the working-class voters he is losing now, the ones he dubbed “bitter” during his campaign....

The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all. The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all.

Oh, my. This is all so Dowdesque. She gets multiple themes going, many mixed images, and she demands that you believe that she's tied them all together when she says she has. It's ironic here, because she's the one full of passionate intensity and low on rationality. What I just can't buy is that Obama is rational. He's phlegmatic. He always was. You can read that as rational, but it's irrational to do so.

***

I was just reading an old post of mine from April 2007 — "Is Obama a gasbag?":

[I]f I didn't know who he was and that there was a crowd there, I would picture an old man slumped in an armchair, expatiating for the benefit of anyone unlucky enough to be within earshot. It's formless stream of consciousness. Oh, there is that theme of hope. The stream swirls back there at predictable intervals....

[R]eally, such drivel. Just listing a lot of issues and saying hope, hope, hope should not inspire real hope. I can't believe people are hearing this and thinking: brilliant rhetoric. "Intellectual slovenliness" is a much more apt phrase.

Yes, I know, I ultimately voted for him. Here's a post of mine from February 2008 explaining how I got from "gasbag" to the decision to vote for him in the Wisconsin primary. I can't really say that I was terribly rational.

"Wondering if the myth of Dedalus and Icarus has ever been thought of as the first science fiction story."

Page 38, "The Last Novel," by David Markson.

I have an idea: Sweater Christmas!

Let's buy Christmas (and Hanukkah) presents. Why not agree amongst your loved ones that everyone will buy a particular type of present? For example: Everyone buys everyone a sweater...



... or a scarf. Have Sweater Christmas. Or Scarf Christmas. Or Sweater/Scarf/Gloves Christmas. It would be so much simpler and nicely reciprocal. And if people are traveling by plane, it will be easy to slip these things into the suitcases and nothing's going to get broken.

Or do you think you need to be more creative? If so, I have a suggestion! It's The Hoof Candle, from D.L. & Co.:

$150.00!

Aunus, the roman version of pan, is the companion of the nymphs and god of shepherds and flocks. His lower half being that of a goat represents our barbaric nature or beastial side of our humanity: indulgence and celebration. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans often designed their furniture with the legs of beasts, this grounded the pieces to the earth and paid homage to the animal nature in all humans. D.L. & Co.'s Effigy Wax Sculptures are exquisite, exceptional works of art, each a timeless treasure to appreciate and admire. Due to the non-linear shape of the sculpture, the wick does not run from the top to the base.

Aunus, my ass. Sweater Christmas, okay? That will serve my "beastial" nature quite well enough.

IN THE COMMENTS: The comments are off to a great start, with Pogo:

I'm gonna have an Ambien n' golf club Xmas.

Hold the Escalade.

And Wardwood, "Sweater and animal":

Beautiful Albany.

My favorite building in Albany is City Hall, also pictured in the previous post:



In front is a statue of Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general, born in Albany:



Also lovely is the building that houses the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the state of New York). The Court of Appeals Hall has a fabulous rotunda:



The mural inside the dome is called "Romance of the Skies." It was painted by Eugene F. Savage:



A very new age vibe. With painted sparkles that remind me of a 5-year-old girl's princess fantasy. Visionary, painted in 1959. What it has to do with law, I'm not too sure. Is law some sort of astrology? But what else to paint in a dome in a government building? You can't depict a God anyone believes in, so why not some Greek/Roman gods?

Near the Court of Appeals Hall, is St. Mary's Church:



Nearby, is Academy Park, which has a cool sculpture of Lewis A. Swyer, who seems to want company:



In the background, you can see the New York State Capitol. All I want to say about that building in this post is that I love the magnificent equestrian statue of the Civil War general Philip Henry Sheridan that guards one side of the Capitol:



I won't go on to the New York State Capitol in this post. An overdone horror, it is only beautiful relative to the unbelievable atrocity that is the Empire State Plaza. It will take separate posts to attend to these complicated architectural matters. This post is called "Beautiful Albany," and I will end it here.