IT’S A FIGHT

That’s what the kids at school would gleefully cry if something erupted into a show of knuckles (we were very old fashioned). How we’d (if not actually partipants) would run to watch and cheer those eruptions that never, I am glad to say, amounted to more than a bloody nose. The teachers inflicted the real pain with the canes of which they had fine collections. One, Dogface, the history master's collection ranged from four to six feet long. He’d have you stand before him as he tested each perhaps for the right air or atmosphere, bending the cane, selecting one then returning it to the cane case and then studying thoughtfully as though remembering when Constantinople fell. The whole idea was to increase the tourure, for he figured that his contemplations were more punishment than the blows delivered, ideally and usually to the very finger tips. It was an art, but waiting was not as painful as being caned and there was always the chance Dogface would have a stroke. From memory the masters had another collective case they could select from before, if one was especially honored by the fates, being dragged by the ear, to give the impression of cowardice in front of the other kids and in the hope the tiny victim would burst into tears, preferably before the first strike of the rod. I guess they put away the canes in the late sixties. Dogface, he really looked like a particularly unpleasant bulldog, and in adulthood I could never properly love that breed, would enjoy the coming battle for North Carolina on May 6 as would the school kids. All bar the victim. Barack or Hillary. Joe Trippi figures the primaries will be decided there. Joe has been wrong in the past and Hillary is a strange bird but he makes a convincing argument. The polls are contradictory. Obama mania seems to be waning yet 2,500 tickets to see him in North Carolina disappeared in a few hours when he confirmed his appearance last week. Hillary is still strong in Pennsylvania and it’s hard to see Steelers changing their minds in sufficient numbers at this stage to deliver for Obama on March 28. Indiana, which votes the same day, is a toss up. By May 6 Hillary may be within “coooeee”. Joe says the following; “I really believe May 6 has the potential to be everything." Joe was, amongst many other things, strategist for the presidential bids of former North Carolina senator John Edwards this year and Howard Dean in 2004. "Every day you see increased pressure on Hillary Clinton about why she's staying in, and if she could win in North Carolina it would shut down that kind of talk and open up the possibility she could get there" to the nomination.
"But if he wins in North Carolina," Trippi says of Obama, "I think you're going to see things close up very quickly. You'll see a lot of superdelegates line up behind him." Popular leftist blog 0legend has it that the race is won and Hillary is merely damaging the party by hanging on but the count is close, and the superdelegates may fall her way if, and it’s a pretty big if, she can pull off a win in Sth. Carolina. I wonder if another, white male candidate, would meet the demands of Hillary, that she stand down, or even face them with the delegate count being a mere 100 or so votes. I stole those Tippi quotes from an otherwise indifferent article in USA Today. What was remarkable about it was a few hours after the article appeared more than 2000 readers had written to comment. It’s a fight!