Kinze Pagoda, originally uploaded by twoblueday. Somewhere along I-80 in Iowa. This farm equipment manufacturer seems to have a sense of humor. I drove across Iowa, and back, in 2007, from Illinois to Colorado and back. Here’s my report: It’s beautiful in a prairie sort of way; nobody did anything bad to me while I was there; the gas stations had gas. Many years ago, I entered military service in Des Moines.
Today, they are caucusing (assuming there’s a verb form of the noun “caucus”). Iowa is, ethnically, pretty much unrepresentative of the country as a whole. I think maybe 2% African-American and 3% Hispanic. I heard this on the teevee. I don’t know if it’s important, but I found it more interesting than most of the coverage of the primary season in Iowa, or anywhere else for that matter. According to our Constitution, the ethnicity shouldn’t matter, since it would be unconstitutional to pass any law favoring or disfavoring a specific ethnic group, in my lawyerly opinion.
I haven’t the faintest idea why doing well in the Iowa caucuses (not to be confused with the Caucusus) matters on a national basis, but apparently it does. It certainly receives far too much press coverage. All this boring coverage does serve to inform us citizens that there ain’t but a nickel’s worth of difference in the stated positions of all the candidates when all is said and done. Scary. Every candidate, at bottom, wants to be a “stealth” candidate, hoping any given voter will not find a reason to disagree with him or her. Weasels, all of ‘em.
At least after today the good people of Iowa can go back into winter hibernation. They can dream, and, by dreaming, adjust their minds to growing corn for ethanol (pretty much a scam product), instead of for “high fructose corn syrup” (pretty much a poison). You are getting sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy, sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy.
Here’s someting to ponder on one of the main issues being bruited about in this election season–terrorism.
