Yeah, guess so. Who would have thought anybody would let their prejudices affect their choice for the president of the United States? I guess there really weren’t that many people who wouldn’t consider voting for a woman. I mean, even the republican housewives all said they liked the idea of a woman president, just not Hillary Clinton. Well allow me to suggest Laura Bush. She is a vital woman who has involved herself in many productive enterprises. She’s no doubt a saint. And another thing. This needs to be said. I have no patience for anyone who hates the Clintons. What the hell are you so pissed about? Whitewater? Bin Laden? The Clintons are decent hard-working public servants. Noboady can tell me different. Rush Limbaugh hated Clinton. You idiots just needed his cue to know it was cool to hate Clintons. The only problem with Clinton was he waited a little bit too late in his second term to try to really change anything. But it was still a hell of a presidency. “Don’t stop, thinking about the past…” I guess with the choice of Obama or Hillary, we have feared a Republican victory all along. But now it is an epic battle. The party that dared to put forth a woman and a black man for the highest office in the land must win at all costs. A vote for McCain would consolidate the grip of the neo-fascist cabal that has controlled the Bush presidency. And all you whining Hillary supporters, just come to your senses and don’t even joke about voting for McCain.

One other thing I find totally disgusting about this country is how people can’t vote for someone because of race or sex. I have heard from people I know closely that they will not vote for Obama because he’s black. Not because of my passion for politics, but because of the lack of maturity on this issue, I find myself screaming at them for being idiots. I think that for that to even still be an issue these days, is completely ridiculous. Just as being a woman would somehow make someone a less effective leader. Well, if that’s the case, someone forgot to tell Margaret Thatcher, Cory Aquino, Golda Mayer, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, all past ruling Queens of England (when it mattered), and other women throughout history that lead their countries. If you vote for a man over a woman for this reason, may I present the one man who has proven how ineffective a male leader can be……Mr George Dubya Bush.

Flying Junior, I read your post on Obama. I have found myself feeling much the same way. What do we really know about him? I know that he supports nuclear power which is a real flaw in my view. When I think about how the Pentagon and the spy agencies manipulated Carter and to a lesser extent Bill Clinton (accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade) it makes me wish for someone tougher and with more experience with dealing with them.

Like you I will vote for Obama but with a heavy and worried heart. In fact, I think he will win in California but I will be very surprised if he can withstand the smear machine in the swing states.

Granted it is not exactly the political tea of the day. But why do some of us human beings feel relationship to weird mammals of the sea of the northern frontier? Yes I do recall, some years ago, a picture in a copy of National Geographic Magazine that included pictures of a walrus floating under water all blob-like and doing their existential confrontation, that is staring at me through photographic sightings—like you get walking through a Scripp’s aquarium. It was really perplexing to wonder why these strange things exist outside my human world of common mundaneness.

Newspapers, of course, would do much better if they were to include the pronunciation and etymology of strange words as “Odobenus rosmaris” via Greek ‘odontos’ meaning tooth and ‘benus’ maybe meaning good? Why are science writers so afraid to include the background schemata to words like “pinniped”? That is why do I have to lift my heavy Randon House dictionary to my lap to learn this word’s pronunciation and gain insight that ‘pinna’ means feather and ‘ped’ means feet? Certainly the concept of a feather foot has some detail of interest? But the fact is that professional writers constantly exclude these important pieces of fact and fiction—and thus alienate readers with their strange scientific jargon.

Nevertheless, the story as it was written was still fascinating—that is to those who occasionally look for animal interest stories—and who are not completely opposed to giving the local fish wrap’s various teams an occasional nod of approval.

Cheers to sea within all of us.