Demolition. I sit, in my "mobile office", just outside the fence between two big 460s, watching Frankie* load the dump trucks almost lovingly with the bucket and the thumb, first dropping the tangles of rebar and concrete into the big empty trailers then reaching in with the butt end of the bucket to tamp down the rebar, finally catching and containing the errant metal strands with the thumb, the ones that poke up and would pierce the driver's tarp if not subdued. It's almost maternal the way a mother bird feeds a babe or even sexual, the way one lover tends to another, if I remember such distant things correctly. That first load hitting the empty bed reminds me to watch, as it shakes the truck's trailer, the ground and the car in which I sit, just outside the fence.

Then Otter* in the other machine, the one with the grapple, rips up the concrete foundation that once held these buildings, these bricks, these homes, stopping just short of removing the steps I surreptitiously photographed just yesterday. Their turn will come to be tossed in chunks onto a pile for loading later. His mechanical extension is as violent as Frankie's is gentle. I back the car away, out of caution.

Behind it all a local welder with his mask and sparks repairs the bucket's teeth on the last of the three biggest machines. The water cannon rumbles behind the bobcat, a mobile fountain to wet the streets our work has dirtied, streets that the firehoses will wash clean at the end of the day.

Truckers stop by to pick up their checks, the independents, crippled by the cost of fuel, eagerly. Clouds are building in the sky and the day has become gray, not a bad thing from my perspective, sitting in the car, running the air conditioning on idle. The wind picks up and blows the shirts of the men tending the grounds of the tidy Asia Baptist Church just on the other side of this street as a church employee stands on the front steps sipping a soft drink and folks wave as they pass. NOPD roars by, lights on, and an airplane pulls a fucsia "Hustler Club" banner across the gray sky as people gather just down the road to celebrate the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The only music I can hear is the roar of these machines and their payloads crashing into the trailer beds, the spew of firehoses fighting the dust high into the air and the rumble of the trucks as they carry away these homes, in smaller, more manageable pieces.

*The names have been changed to protect the operators.

I so haven't had anything to say since Ashley's funeral and haven't quite managed to make it home either. I've been working very long hours starting way too early in the morning on a special project (*ahem*) out of town (a few details here) since Monday before last for ye olde KnockingShitDownCo. The fun just never stops. (Those of you who've clicked the details link, perhaps are seeing Sophmom wink.)

Anyway, so many of the NOLA bloggers wrote so eloquently about Ashley, his larger than life, his beautiful family and his amazing funeral and wake that I can't possibly do it all justice.  However, the always insightful Greg Peters of Suspect Device fame has said it perfectly right here. Please. Go. Now. Read. Follow his links (okay, please follow his links). Pics are here. If that's not more than anyone can bear, Ashley's wife, Hana, has taken to keeping up his blog, and has now invited a whole mess o' bloggers to her birthday party this Sunday.

As for life going on, there was a cookout with Dangerblond and Hana and the kids. Then last weekend was dinner out Friday and Saturday, making Sunday a true day of rest. This weekend there will be Jazzfest. Next weekend there will be Jazzfest. Weekend after that, there will be graduation (and in case you're the one person on earth I forgot to tell, that graduation will be cum laude *proud mama puffs out chest* - okay, stop it with the big boob jokes in the peanut gallery, please). I guess, after that, I'll be ready to go home, if I can still call it that.

In the meantime, I'm sitting on the side of the road in a well-wired "office" (read: rented Toyota), counting trucks and keeping a small army of independent haulers honest (and one boss man who's about to lose it, hopefully, on his best behavior and out of prison). Scroll down and you'll see my silly thoughts as they come to me (a/k/a "tweets"), let loose on Twitter, in my gutter, well hidden under my profile link. So.... Capt., Paula, John, Catty, Glenda, Fool, John-Ward, Mary, Kevin, Lisa (I know I'm forgetting somebody, my sweet wonderful regular commenters); y'all keep keeping the light on for me, please. I promise I'll be back (good lord willin' and the creek don't rise 'n' all that). I may never get caught up, but I swear I'll pick up where I left off.

Peace. Out. Y'all. 

Ashley's funeral will be this Friday and there is information on his blog about the service, as well as about the memorial fund that's been set up to help his wife and three small children (5, 3 & 2 years old) defray these costs and move forward, somehow (donate buttons in this post and in my left gutter, please, if you can). Those wonderful geeks have built a whole website about him too.  If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, please see the previous post.

I'm posting Blake Haney's video, Blight Field Talks #1 / Rough Edit, Ashley and Oyster sitting in a field talking about blogging and about New Orleans.

A bright light went out in the NOLA blogosphere and this world yesterday when The Perfesser, Dr. Ashley Morris, died suddenly. There is nothing I can say. His wife Hana, who survives him with their three young children, announced his passing on his blog and the many voices of the NOLA blogosphere are eulogizing him. Loki called him "the man most likely to call Ray Nagin a fuckmook to his face," and in the Tweeter Tubes declared that "an Ashley Morris day of Profanity laden blogging is in order for all NOLA Bloggers in his honor." Famous for many things, perhaps most especially his legendary "Fuck You You Fucking Fucks" post, he was, in Maitri's words, "Geek, educator, blogger, musician, but more importantly husband, father and a great friend of New Orleans." Greg said it beautifully:

The NOLA bloggers, rising in response to an unimaginable tragedy, quickly found themselves steering different parts of the beast, if I can mix my metaphors. There’s the head, the brains, the analysts like Oyster & Matt McBride and Tim Ruppert; the soul — poets like Mark Folse, philosophers like Michael Homan — and the guts, the workers like Karen Gadbois and the Zombie.

Ashley was fire. Ashley was the furnace where the rage was forged, where the steam pressure built, where raw anger began its conversion to power and motion.

In lieu of comments I ask that you go to his blog, read what he wrote, and visit the blogs of my dear friends in New Orleans who are mourning this terrible loss. I'm posting links to those who've written about him, many (if not most) with pictures, and I will add updates as posts appear. Please start with Greg, Ray (and with Councilperson Shelly Midura's homage before the council), Adrastos (and an audio tribute), Maitri, Schroeder, Loki, Liprap, Karen, Michael, Lisa, WetBankGuy (and more WBG), Mr. Clio, dsbnola, Bart, Dangerblond, Oyster, Blake, G-Bitch, Scout, Greg's made a video (take a hanky), Saintseester (beautiful memorial icon), Charlotte, Tim, Varg, Celcus, Animamundi, Alan, JudyB, Cliff, Cenlamar, New Package, Video of Oyster & Ashley (thanks to Blake), Barbawit, Nancy Nall with a unique and moving tribute and Ray talks about "playing it sad", Micheal Tisserand for Gambit Weekly, YatPundit's Kos Diary, Dangerblond's post about the newly established memorial fund has a great picture, Remember Ashley Morris (geek mourning activism)....

I glommed this picture from Maitri's Flickr (asking forgiveness rather than permission). Left to right: Ray, Sophmom, Loki & Ashley at Alan's apartment for the First Geek Dinner (July 14th, 2006 - the Hottest. Night. Ever.). Having only just "met" them, I felt like I'd known them forever. In honor of Loki's above referenced request: FUCK.

In Full Mom Mode:

Dear Senators Clinton and Obama,

Please promise me you know what you're doing, that both of you really are present enough to be a good president and neither one of you will do anything that might deliver this election to McCain. It's not so much that I hate John McCain, because I don't. He's a patriot who served his country nobly throughout his adult life. I don't even hold his widely acknowledged anger issues against him. Sometimes a little righteous indignation is highly motivating, as long as he demonstrates better impulse control than the inmate who's been running the asylum for the last almost eight years. We just really can't afford to stay on our current path. I mean, we literally can't afford it, can't pay for it, don't have the money to wage endless, expensive wars that, more than anything else, prove the points of those who hate us, fan the flames of anti-Americanism, make the world more dangerous for us and us lame broke. Haven't we had enough of leaders who say one thing and do the opposite?

Barack, Hillary, please just promise us you have a plan, that you'll drag this out only long enough to keep yourselves and your party atop the news cycle to fill this gap 'til the conventions, but that you'll do it without drawing too much blood. Then, find a way to make a true and lasting peace for the good, not just of your party, but of your country. Walk the damn walk. There sure has been enough talk. You can prove what great presidents y'all would be, prove it, by bringing peace and harmony to the Democratic Party. At this stage I don't care which one of you is atop the ticket, or if the other is on it, just that, whatever happens, it is genuinely without animosity (or you do a grand job of making it look that way - and that you make some important place for John Edwards). First, you must make peace. Kiss and make flipping up.

Demonstrate what a great president we're going to have, 'cause we're going to need one with the mess this disastrous administration has left for you to clean up. If y'all can come out of this forging party unity I'll believe you're more than just ordinary presidential candidates, you're patriots and diplomats, totally prepared to meet the challenges of the presidency.

I've been watching John Adams on HBO and I'm deeply touched by the enormous sacrifices our founding fathers and mothers (and their families) made when they gave birth to this country Their wisdom and commitment are now so clear in the difficult choices that yielded our republic, as well as in the well-chosen words that became their Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We need the next president to respect the foundation on which this country is built and care about individual rights. Put the good of the nation ahead of your own goals and ambitions, and please start now. 

So, stop pointing out each others' weak spots, or else the boys and girls on the other side of the aisle will be laughing all the way to the White House. Show us you're ready before day one.  Really be living conduits for change. Take the high road. Both of you. Work it out. Senators, I believe that you each think you'd be a great president. I don't care which one of you it is. The good news is that you have before you a great chance to show us how it's done.

Either that, or both of you go to time out.

Yours, in Momness,

Sophmom

I went to the pottery studio yesterday thinking I might just find my center there, but it was closed for the holiday weekend. I thought it might be, looked on the website and found nothing. I would likely have known if I hadn't been gone last weekend, to New Orleans. Since then I've found my center (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) in a short collapse into the internet with some basketball on the side.

I can't help but have a sense of wondering what's next, restlessness relative to work, yearning for something closer to my area of expertise, something challenging that could go someplace, mean more than just being a cog in someone else's machine. I guess it comes down to rate of return. I am grateful for the stability and the benefits and I resolved to stay until after the partner who was so sick had passed, believing I was genuinely needed. They've weathered that storm and I think it's time for me to begin preparing them for doing without me and me for doing without them. Am I naive for wanting some kind of meaning to work, a sense of some room for development or at least the possibility of increased reward? I have none of those where I am.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been twittering. I like it. With basic internet and email on my phone last weekend on my trip to New Orleans, the addition of twittering as a means of staying in contact, provided sufficient interaction. I needn't have taken my laptop, which never left its case. In the course of looking around for some sign of our beloved Blog-City's management because of Adrastos' spam problem, I wandered over to Alan's blog and found this very interesting video starring Google's own Sergey Brin, showing us all the cool new interactivity coming soon to a hand-held device near you (well, sooner if you're an ubergeek). I wonder if my little aforelinked mobile device can run this open source software.

I don't know if it's related to the spam problem, but the B-C interface is sluggish and slow today, noticeably more so than navigating elsewhere in other tabs and windows (so it's not my computer). I wonder if all those scary spam bots are dragging us down.

I'm cooking a ham (if you can call prepping Paula Deen's spiral sliced ditty, cooking) and Sis Bel, who seems to be feeling better a week out of her radiation treatments, is making au gratin potatoes. Not much of an Easter here. Mama came by earlier and left mad because I didn't feel like talking about not being happy at work right now. I still can't quite figure where she got to be the one who was upset when I was the one whose scab she was picking, but I'm way over trying. It just is what it is. She called a few minutes ago like it never happened. I wished her Happy Easter. She said she didn't want to come over for dinner.

The youngest is safely home from Hilton Head and Part 3 of John Adams is on HBO tonight. The Old Blind Dog is fed and walked and curled at my feet. Dinner is ready and, by all accounts, delicious. Who could ask for more than that?

Peace. Out. Y'all.

I've always sworn never to blog about lack o' blogging, but it's been so long and I have so little to say, I feel like I must. I've stayed quiet as Clinton and Obama duke it out, because, well, I like them both about the same, and will support whichever one of them ends up being the nominee unless it just keeps getting weirder and weirder and becomes somehow totally disenfranchising (I can't imagine that though).

Some of you know that my younger sister (Sis Bel) with whom I've been living since completing the cohabitation phase of my marriage (although he seems to have made himself very comfy as a permanent helper/guest in our cozy little quarters), has been very sick. For a while this winter, she slipped into a very critical stage from severe weight loss as a result of cancer treatments (radiation and chemo) and we nearly lost her, but she's bounded back thanks to a feeding tube, to which she seems to have adjusted remarkably well.

Business is thriving at ye olde KnockingShitDownCo, so my work days have grown longer and I return home at night more weary, but that's all good. These are hard times in the building industries, judging by the long line of job seekers marching to my desk, and I'm very grateful to be employed by a concern that is growing when so many are folding around us. Job security is good, I think, although the lack thereof might be of some value in overcoming inertia, nudging me to change.

I'm still making pots, although slowly, as I don't have much extra time for it. I sneak over to the studio after work some evenings, but usually on Saturday afternoons, although not all Saturday afternoons. Like riding a bicycle, it's as if I'd never stopped, and a joy (I first typed "job" instead of "joy" - hmmm). Our Friday nights lost to the closing of our bar were quickly replaced by the migration of most (almost all) of the "regulars" to a new spot that is a regular grab takeout lunch and eat at my desk haunt of mine, but which is now opening at night, staffed by the former Paradise Cafe staff, patronized by the former Paradise Cafe patrons. While we still miss the funkiness of the old haunt (the Bistro is upscale by comparison), the community (funky enough all by itself) is what matters and that seems to have survived the PC's closing. That's a good thing.

Not this weekend, though. This weekend, I'm going to see Sister Mer (a/k/a the Professor) from Houston. We're driving towards each other and meeting in the middle. You might wonder where that is... well, it's our great fortune to be able to meet in New Orleans. I'm excited about seeing Middle Son for the first time since the holidays, and hoping to get the chance to visit with at least some of those from another favorite community. All of this babbling (who, moi?) is to say that I'm sorry to be missing what y'all've (gotta love extended y'all-based contractions) been writing recently and that I haven't a clue when I'm going to get caught up. If there's anything exceptional goin' on out there in the blogosphere, nudge me please and let me know.

Otherwise, peace, out, y'all.

Edit: Golly, I almost forgot. I've been Twittering. If any of you fine folks are looking for me on Twitter, I'm here. Now, peace, out, y'all.

It's easy to be serene amidst calm, at least easier than finding calm amidst chaos. I'm usually pretty good at both but seem to be losing my touch amidst the shit really hitting the fan. Not that I'm not well practiced, but it seems worse than even my usual. Additionally, I've come to believe that, sometimes, excellent stress management techniques do nothing so much as enable us to sustain, well, more and more stress. Sometimes I think it would just be better in the long run to become hysterical, declare the vapors, fall apart, give up, lean into nothing there. I just don't know how, and can't quite forgive those who do, being also slightly outnumbered by them.

It was a year ago this morning that The Oldest's dear friend Sean passed from this life. He is still so terribly missed; and his family and tender, loving soul remain in my daily prayers. I can't describe how sweet and funny and beautiful Sean was. His friends flew in and gathered last night in Wilmington, NC, where many of them went to college, to remember him.

This picture is of The Oldest (his NC friends call him Tommy) and Mike (left and right) with Sean standing behind them. It was taken on the UNCW Ad Club's trip to New York in the fall of 2005, a month before Sean's graduation, two before his diagnosis. On January 28th, I received the letter copied and pasted below in an email broadcast by one of Sean's brothers from his family. In the letter, those of us who received it were asked to share it with as many others as possible. I have no better place to do this than here.

Family and Friends:

In honor of my brother Sean’s birthday (he would have been 25 today), I’m again requesting your help in the fight against blood cancers.  To put what we're up against into perspective:

• Every five minutes, someone in this country is diagnosed with blood cancer.
• Every ten minutes, someone loses their fight.
• Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children.
• Lymphomas are the most common blood cancers.
• The myeloma survival rate is only 32 percent.

You can become a potential bone marrow donor with only a small blood sample or a quick swab of cheek cells!

Although Sean lost his courageous 13-month and 13-day fight with leukemia, nearly 1,000 donors (Sean’s personal goal) have registered as a result of the bone marrow donor registration drives that Sean started. However, Sean's personal goal doesn't take into account the over 300 donors per week that are now registering at the US Marine Corps' "School of Infantry" (SOI).  Since April of 2007, SOI's medical clinic has registered over 10,000 new donors.

If you're interested in participating, please go to the National Marrow Donor Program website at:  Marrow.org (help).

Additional info, including some general guidelines for bone marrow donation, may be found at:  marrow.org (join the registry).

To request a testing kit:  marrow.org (join now / test).

Please pass this on to everyone and anyone...the registry needs A LOT more potential donors.  Thanks so much for your support!

Sincerely,

The Williams Family

*********************************************************

Peace, out, y'all.

(Updated 2/11/08 - see below) My, there's a lot going on! As the primary election returns unfold from the television, Mardi Gras pictures and stories are cropping up all over the internet. I worked today at the KnockingShitDownCo with the NOLA.com Parade Cam open on my desk top. While we were very busy, it was nice to be able to glance over and see the parades roll down St. Charles.

The media called my state for Obama almost the minute the polls closed, although the rest of the country seems to be breaking in so many different directions that the end result, while not quite yet in sight, looks like it could be a dead heat. Hillary's talking about "the work of my life" lifted right out of Edwards' song book, and Barack is telling us that the people, not the special interest groups, are funding his campaign. Hell, it's like John's not even gone if you close your eyes. And those Republicans are a bucket of worms. At least the Dems only have to work through a two way tie. I think I'm better off going to bed early and just reading about it in the morning. Is it my imagination or is everybody declaring victory?

So, I'm sending y'all elsewhere, to those heartier than I who have pictures to share. I'll continue to post new Carnival & Mardi Gras pictures as updates to this post as I find them. For now, scoot on over to Maitri's where you'll find, not only Elvis, but very hot Diva Bloggers and their friends in beaded bustiers as they head out to protect endangered pleasures (as you might guess, there's a dangerous blond involved). Or go to Mr. Wet's Flickr pics of today's Krewe of St. Anne foot march in the Quarter. Karen's got a batch up on her Flickr doodle too. Yat Pundit has some great pics of Rex rolling down St. Charles this morning that give you a sense of just why it's considered one of the loveliest stretches of road not in America. At no extra charge he's thrown in a narrative that helps us outlanders understand a little more about Mardi Gras. Then stop over at for a Mardi Gras short at KatrinaFilm (decorated breasts warning). And of course, there's the motherlode at NOLA.com (living dangerously, offering many thanks for the pic below).

I'll leave you with a text message from Middle Son that I found when I woke up for Monday morning: "Hot 8 is playing in the middle of Dryads Street right outside of work. Gotta love this town."

It's way past my bedtime. Sweet dreams, y'all. Happy Mardi Gras. Peace. Out.

Update: Adrastos has chimed in with some Uptown Mardi Gras photos.

UPDATE 2: Ooooooo.... Really excellent pics (including Rex Ball pics) can be found by way of Gumbofile. Thanks for the heads up!

Meet Poblano, the most interesting new voice in the blogosphere, a self-proclaimed "data wonk" with a Kos Diary. In his Super Tuesday Preview, 1/31/08, he parses an astonishing amount of data, from polls and trends, endorsements (possible endorsements) and past voting patterns, projecting what it all means going forward, particularly in next week's Democratic primaries.

After a discussion of many variables, from Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama to the withdrawal of John Edwards (and a discussion of the importance of the frontrunners' California debate), he then breaks the facts down, state by Super Tuesday state, with a graphic summary for each. Here's Georgia:

He concludes with a delegate breakdown projection, five possible scenarios, and the odds thereof. If you read only one thing political between now and next week, this should be it. Seriously. (Go. Now. Read.)

Peace, out, y'all.

The view from where I'm sitting (not half bad for my first time back):

Peace, out. y'all.

If you're looking for something more interesting, Ashley has it here. I sure as hell can't say it any better.

While we're on the subject, Greg Sargent at TalkingPointMemo's The Horse's Mouth also seems way bothered by the whole media ignoring John Edwards' candidacy thing, pointing out that the Edwards campaign has decided to have a little fun with it all, probably because continuing to complain about it can only make the candidate seem whiney; and they're still, well, trying:

 Sargent concludes his post with (for those few of you who didn't Go. Now. Read.): 

I understand that Hillary and Obama are historic figures and that editors often have to make tough choices about how to allocate resources and so forth. And I'm not at all arguing that the media is solely to blame for the Edwards camp's problems. Just saying again that we should all admit that in a broad sense Edwards got screwed here, because, well, that's exactly what happened.

I guess that's all I'm trying to say too. I'm an economy voter. The Bush years have been financially devastating for my little family. The Clinton years were great. Maybe it's all coincidence but I can't help but, well, notice how we've gone from very comfortable and able to indulge with the occasional luxury to barely making ends meet, since Bush was elected. But I really haven't decided who has my vote. I want the candidate best equipped to win in the fall. I want what's best for the country. While I'm solidly in line with Edwards' position that corporate greed has to be stopped in order to save America, the last time I heard a presidential candidate described with words like transformative, I was a little girl.

I came away from MSNBC's Las Vegas debate pulled towards Obama. Maybe it was sympathy because he got kind of hosed, like being the novice going first at Truth or Dare and saying way too much. When asked to cite a strength and a weakness, he actually did it, telling the whole world that he's organizationally challenged, keeps a messy desk and has to have top of the line administrative help in order to find things. Of course his competitors offered up weak-ass pretend faults like impatience amidst "passionate commitment to the nation" (Clinton) and a (presumably too) "powerful emotional response to the pain I see around me" (Edwards). Puh-leeze. It pretty much made up for the snarl that might have cost him New Hampshire.

I don't expect Obama's candor will help him in the long run, but it looked oddly genuine amidst so much caution. I settled in to watch with pen in hand, ready to take notes for the sake of blogging it and didn't write down one word. The media-anointed front-runners seem satisfied with themselves, happy to be rid of the other hangers on (and hoping to be rid of Edwards soon), focused now on the general election. I'm the hard core faithful and I thought it was a yawner.

Peace, out. y'all.

From maybe tears to cries of barely discernible racism, both Clinton and Obama have managed to keep themselves and each other top of news, garnering gobs of free airtime and crowding, or attempting to crowd, John Edwards out of the national picture. I believe we're smarter than that, and apparently so do many Nevadans, as reported in this Reno Gazette-Journal blog (h/t GeorgiaWomenVote ): 

Monday, January 14, 2008

New Poll: Democratic race in Nevada a dead heat A new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows a neck-and-neck three-way race among Democrats for Saturday's caucus. On the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain has taken his first lead in Nevada of the election season, and Mitt Romney, who has been working Nevada harder than any other Republican, is trailing in fourth place. A look at the top line results (more will be posted later this morning): Barack Obama: 32 percent Hillary Clinton: 30 percent John Edwards: 27 percent John McCain: 22 percent Rudy Giuliani: 18 percent Mike Huckabee: 16 percent Mitt Romney: 15 percent Fred Thompson: 11 percent Ron Paul: 6 percent Duncan Hunter: 1 percent The poll was conducted Jan. 11 to Jan. 13 , with samples of 500 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 500 likely Republican caucus-goers statewide by Maryland-based Research 2000. The margin of error is 4.5 percent.

So, why is Edwards being frozen out of the MSM? On the first new Real Time with Bill Maher we've had in a long time due to the Hollywood writers' strike, it comes up again and again and again, without ever being properly addressed. Bill asked Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi (Go. Now. Read. Read all the way to the end.), essentially that question with, "I'm very curious - you cover this campaign - you must have seen John Edwards speak - it seems like he has the message that would do well in these times...why isn't John Edwards' message resonating?" Taibbi tried to blame the press as being part of that very privileged class that Edwards is accusing of fattening themselves on money siphoned from the middle class (I'm paraphrasing), but the panel (starting with Mark Cuban) wouldn't let Taibbi answer Bill's question. Taibbi tried again with, "I've seen Edwards a lot on the campaign trail and he does resonate..." before Tony Snow put a stop to it by talking and talking until the change in subject was complete. Again, for a third time the political reporter tried to suggest that Edwards as a candidate has a message that causes some discomfort for a press corps that's living the good life on the backs of the very gluttonous corporations that Edwards is attacking, before, again, Snow changes the subject.

Clinton and Obama, their campaigns rich with corporate/lobbyist dollars to begin with, are also rich in the free airtime that comes from our MSM. Edwards' message isn't accepted or promoted by the MSM because that very press structure that is deciding which parts of this campaign we get to see and hear (see: keeping Kucinich out of the debates) is owned and operated, wholly funded and brought to you by the very corporate structure that Edwards rightly tells us has bloated themselves on the backs of the ordinary folks.

I think Obama, Clinton and Edwards are all fine candidates. I'll be proud to support whichever one of them is nominated, but I believe we're all better off, that we're exposed to a healthier dialogue, the longer the three of them (and Kucinich) remain in the running. I can't help but think that the fact that the establishment media clearly wants to elevate either Clinton or Obama to "front-runner" status, ignoring the one candidate who has the guts to point out the enormous transfer of assets from public coffers as well as ordinary tax payers' pockets to the wealthiest among us, is, in and of itself, reason for me to support that candidate, John Edwards.

The discussion of Edwards starts about four minutes in: 

Both the Huckabee and Ron Paul candidacies represent angry grass-roots challenges to the entrenched Republican party apparatus, while the Edwards candidacy is a frank and open attack on his own party's too-cozy relationship with corporate America. These developments signaled a meaningful political phenomenon — widespread voter disgust, not only with the two ruling parties, but with a national political press that smugly enforced the party insiders' stranglehold on the process with its incessant bullying of dissident candidates.

But there was no way this genuinely interesting theme was going to make it into mainstream coverage of the campaign heading into the primary season. It was inevitable that different, far stupider story lines would be found to dominate the headlines once the real bullets started flying in Iowa and New Hampshire. And find them we did.

The morning after Hillary Clinton proved to the world that pollsters don't always know what they're doing, I sat down at my desk to the Yahoo! headline, "