April in the West Indies

A Caribbean cruise, and a few days in San Juan, Puerto Rico, celebrating Robin's and my 15th anniversary. I took a few pictures, of course.

Looking for someone to love

Peter Rashkin writes

I'm getting excited about politics, and that's rare for me. The thing is, my congresswoman died, and there's a special election June 26 to replace her in this totally safe Democratic district. Some liberal SoCal Dem is going to congress, where she'll probably stay for the next 20 years. So for the first and perhaps only time, I get to have some input into who will represent me in Congress.

Right now there are two leading Democratic candidates, and I just met one and talked to her briefly. I told her I wanted to be involved and I was preparing some questions to help me decide who to support. She took my card and said she would get in touch with me. I will try to contact other leading candidates as well.

I've started a blog about this at 37th Congressional District - 2007 Election. I've posted my list of questions there, but I'm still working on them and would appreciate any input on them at this time.

You'll notice that there's nothing about Iraq, abortion, gay rights, healthcare or labor rights. These are all moderately liberal democrats or they couldn't be viable candidates here. I assume they will all basically agree on these core issues. (Maybe I should include a few questions on these issues to be sure I'm right.) I could try to tease out nuances, but I'm looking for issues I care about where there may be some differences. For example, if I could send someone to congress who could lead in getting us out of the drug war quagmire, that would be the greatest thing.

If you do or don't think these are good questions, I would be very glad to hear about it now, and to hear your suggestions. I basically agree with Susan Sontag, that if you study history you can't take politics seriously, but if I ever can, this is it!

I agree with Peter: this is an interesting opportunity.