I found your early history with the Bible fascinating. Not only is the Bible one of the most popular books of all time, the poetic quality of the St. James version is superb.
Reading the Bible from cover to cover has probably done your English – and your thinking – some good.

I suspect the Bible passages have worked unconsciously to give you a sense of rhythm. I won’t go so far as to say it has infused your writing with the “Holy Ghost”, but it may at least have imparted a certain reverence for the spoken word.

My Dad was the actor of his high school class before he was sent off to the Navy to fight at the Battles of Normandy and Okinawa. And when we kids were growing up, he would sit one of us down in a darkened dining room – often when he had a glass of Seagram’s Seven in his hand – and recite great English poetry and prose.

He never knew more than the first two lines of any passage, but I distinctly remember stuff like:

“Water, water everywhere. . . and not a drop to drink”
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
“Half a league, half a league onward…”
“You’re a better man than I am Gunga Din.”

And looking back, I believe it’s given me a great appreciation for the glories of the English tongue. For example, it encouraged me to memorize a few of the great Shakespeare soliloquies. And at one point, I memorized Kennedy’s Inaugural Address and remember my father having me recite it to people who visited the house.

So these treasures of the mind seem to stay with us over the years and hopefully give a little color to a world that is often too gray.

“One imagines it was composed in the waiting room of some infernal government office.”

Correct!

Any free-thinking and iconoclastic mind rebels against the silliness of the many rules society imposes on us. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th century American poet and philosopher, certainly had such a mind. And I think his poem below echoes your own attempt to break free from the shackles of convention.

Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
Thunderclouds are Jove\’s festoons,
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread
Lightning-knotted round his head;
The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s an interesting analysis. But I wouldn’t paint the picture so dark for Republicans, nor that bright for Obama either.

The media and Republican elite have been pushing Romney figuring he’s the kind of “conservative” who won’t rock the boat too much. But the rank and file Tea Party distrust Romney’s conservatism and this is why he’s having trouble despite all the money he’s spending on negative ads to sink his opponents.

Conservatives are encouraged by the surge in popularity for Santorum. He doesn’t have the baggage of either Romney or Gingrich, so he’s viewed as more electable. Romney, because he started Romneycare in Massachusetts, the pre-cursor to Obamacare, doesn’t strike the contrast with Obama’s policies that a Santorum or Gingrich would.

But just as important is he will energize the Republican base to get out and vote.
If we had listened to the pollsters and the press, the race would have been finished already and Romney crowned the winner. In some senses, instincts are a better judge of what’s going to happen.

Dan Baker

I was searching for a good picture on the theme of Revenue Assurance using Google Image Search and found Newt\\\’s picture being posted. I was curious about the association till I clicked and found your site.

And I write this the day after Newt had his big victory in South Carolina.

I think you’re right to perceive that the only thing consistent about the candidates is that they consistently flip flop.

Newt probably hated to attack Mitt Romney on his Bain Capital experience. But he figured the end justified the means because Romney’s proxies attacked Gingrich in a very personal way in an ad campaign during the New Hampshire battle. It was payback time, and this time the tactic succeeded.

I believe libertarianism is a powerful political philosophy — less government intrusion and self-reliance. People who oppose Ron Paul say his newsletter supported some fairly racist columns written by somebody else 20 years when he was a publisher. I have not investigated that, but I find it curious that this \\"racist stain\\" is the only thing opponents are harping on.

People forget the racism that occurred when Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court 20 years ago. So there\\\’s a lot of distasteful guilt by accusation that goes on in American politics. Herman Cain got treated the same way, although the personal attack made it easier for him to bail out when his ignorance of Libya exposed his foreign affairs weakness.

So those are three and a half thoughts. . . .