We all know today, Feb. 5, 2008, a day which will go down in hyperbole, is SuperDuperExpialadiciousUltra Tuesday. Those of us who can, are expending effort today persuading the persuadable, or taking our candidate dolls to be blessed by the brujo or wizard of our choice, in the Red States and the Blue States. But this poor diary is only here to lend a bit of weird syncronistic perspective to your experience of this Very Special Day. Find out more about the curious trifecta below the fold.
As Keith O. remembered to remind us Monday night, today, in the calendar of the Western Church, is Shrove Tuesday, the Day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. And it's certainly fat with primaries and caucuses this year, fat like some force-fed goose on the pate factory floor. We have got this front-loaded horror, and, as Unca Donnie mighta said, "you march to the Denver convention with the primary schedule some chaotic process gave you, not with the ideal process you want". So it goes. So, laissez les bon temps rouler aujourd'hui! (How sad that N'orlins is getting so little attention this year....)
But today is also the 108th birthday of a childhood hero of mine, the Democratic governor of Illinois, later US Ambassador to the UN. Adlai Stevenson was twice our party's presidential candidate, in 1952 and 1956. Thus he shares a curious distinction with W. J. Bryan (yes, him), as the only two men the Democratic Party have nominated twice in a row for the presidency without their ever having won the job at the general election. My mom loved Adlai enough that, unsure of JFK's bona fides in 1960, she went door to door gathering signatures on a Draft Stevenson petition! Let's dedicate this election season to avenging the memory of Adlai. Surely any of our candidates will dwarf their GOP opponent in intellectual stature and ethical sensitivity!
The third leg of the trifecta du jour is another birthday celebration. Today, Henry Louis Aaron is 74 years old. A great, disciplined baeball player, he was in the second wave of African-Americans to break through in a big way in America's newly-integrated National Pastime. Hammerin' Hank never had the level of fame accorded to Musial, Mays, Mantle, or Williams, but he kept on keepin' on, and, despite racist death threats, passed Babe Ruth's historic career mark for homeruns in 1974 (the year Nixon took his southern strategy into shameful retirement with him; alas, they both made comebacks of sorts in the Reagan years). As an Obama supporter, I must beg the indulgence on Hank's birthday of those of you who have not chosen to support Barack by saying Aaron's career was one long "yes we can!". And yes, he did!
So, vote and work today, and the rest of this year, as if the fate of the nation depended on it, since it does, but have moments of joy when and where you can, remembering the luminous spirits who have plowed the furrow before us.
PS - not to freak you out, but Feb. 6 is the birthday of both Babe Ruth and Ronald Reagan. No, I don't know what to make of that either.