cross-posted at RochesterTurning.com

My dad bought and worked a small farm in rural western Pennsylvania in the last years before he died.  He was a friendly guy, and the local farmers would come help him when he was having trouble with the Farm-All or whatever.

They often  would say mysterious things in the context of the phrase "Come the revolution..."  Things like, "Come the revolution, we won't have to worry about taxes anymore..."  Eventually my dad got up the courage to ask what they meant, and found out it basically meant (I'm paraphrasing here): "When those damn liberal gay coloreds come to take our guns, we'll rise up."

My dad and I had a good laugh at that, mixed with sadness. Funny because, I mean, come on-- cuckoo!  Sad because they were so adamant that their world view was the right one, and so was their response.

I told the story to my wife, and we've adopted the phrase, but in different contexts.  It's basically our generic phrase to cover any number of doomsday scenarios: global warming, peak oil, economic collapse.  "Come the revolution, we'll be simply NOSTALGIC for these days when the worst we had to deal with was all these poopy diapers."

I've recently gotten interested in reading my friend's army unit's history.  They're named the "2nd St. Lo Brigade", because they played a crucial role in the Allied breakout in France at the town of St. Lo. (They were called the 2nd Armored Divison, 2nd Brigade at the time.) This breakout, in which Allied troops drove the Nazis back across France to the German border, was a huge success, and a welcome change to the months of brutal, painfully slow progress from the beaches of Normandy to St. Lo.

Sooo...Why am I bringing this up?  Why is this relevant, less than a week before a crucial election?  Why is a vegan pacifist like me even referencing a war, let alone using it as an example?

Sure, this story is huge at the national level, but how's it playing in Peoria?  Wait a minute, we ARE Peoria!  So let's do a roundup of local headlines and take the pulse.

On to the roundup!  Please keep your head and arms inside the roundup at all times. It's going to be a bumpy ride.  Especially if your name begins with Tom, ends with Reynolds, and you represent NY's 26th congressional district.

D&C:

Rep. Reynolds squirms in light of Foley scandal

On 9/11/01, I was flying cross country from Buffalo, NY to San Diego, CA.

We hopped to Chicago in the early morn, then flew out of Chicago's O'Hare airport towards San Diego mid morning. We had just reached cruising altitude, and crossed the Mississippi, when the pilot came on. "Ladies and Gentlemen...uh...we've...uh...we're going to turn the plane around and ...uh...return to O'Hare. There are no...uh...technical problems with the plane."

I looked at my wife, who was holding our 6 month old on her lap. "That's weird." The content didn't freak me out so much as the delivery--pilots are usually the smoothest talkers around, next to lounge lizards, and the distracted, hesitant tone he took was a little unnerving.

(Crossposted at RochesterTurning.)

Some of you may know about Non-Violent Communication. I'm in a workshop with a handful of folks where we're learning and applying it. An example of it just happened to a friend of mine, and inspired me to write this.  Folks that are tired of waiting for a Department Of Peace to be created are using it to work, person-to-person, to spread peace throughout the world. Yes! magazine (the best magazine in the friggin' world) put its use in "Active Non-Violence" as #1 on it's 10 most hopeful trends of the last 10 years:

I've always been progressive, but never really a HUGE activist. I voted every now and then, which would've gotten me somewhere south of a C- if Howard Dean was grading me. But the longer this current administration has been in office, the more I've been freaked out by the full-scale assault on the constitution and the middle class.

Until I found dkos, via Air America and their blog, I was kind of flailing and hopeless. I constantly "lost" arguments with my conservative co-workers and friends, feeling like the guy who gets sand kicked in his face. I felt like, all pithy sayings aside, what COULD one person do to make a difference? What-ever.

dkos changed that, changed me, and empowered me to do something I never thought I could.

I was going to make this an openthread comment but then I thought maybe other folks could use the info.  This is my first diary (though I've been "refreshing" dKos for about 2 years now), so let me know if I'm lame-ing out here, and I'll delete it.

Thanks!

jted