Speech Night

I watched tonight's politics from a kicked back arm chair position, tuning in at 6:30 PM PST, Tara coming home from work a little later (she gets dinner thrown in, I dined on cold cereal).

I found myself musing about camera angles, how they get those drift shots (slow pans at balcony level or thereabouts).

I used to sit in those balconies sometimes, especially in the Senate, then I'd go back to my typewriter and make comments, sometimes send them. This was in the 1980s. I was pretty civic minded, curious to see this democracy in action, maybe get a foot in the door, plus we didn't have C-SPAN yet, or at least I didn't. Those balconies were put there for a reason (to encourage onlookers, and kibitzing).

Note to self: I have to rewind that tape I didn't make and check out that one face in the crowd. Web site maybe.

Leave it to the fiscal conservatives to kill our Disneyland-to-Vegas maglev train, dammit all to hell.

Anyway, I agreed with the commentators that we saw a lot of bipartisanship, but is that a good thing?

I'm not persuaded "two parties" is really best, seems awfully bipolar, so I do cringe a bit when it gets too bipartisan. Mono-partisan wouldn't be any better, like at least we have two, plus I like the idea of "parties" (whoever thought of calling them that?).

Appropriately, I found myself working with another "inaugural ball" from David Koski, echoing an earlier speech-making occurrence (inauguration day).