Scavenged

I said to dpr, "Could you go check the nest, I think the crow has gotten into it." He checked. I couldn't bring myself to go look first. Even though I suspected it was over for the eggs, I didn't want to see it, to confirm my suspicions. I didn't want to make the discovery. I could only go and look when I was certain of what I would see.

Which culprit savaged the nest, overturned it and left it empty in its little hiding place? Was it the crow that cawed and cawed yesterday afternoon and flew from the willow to ground nearby? Was it the raccoon that we watched prowl our yard the other night, grubbing and poking everywhere, dipping its clever little paw into the pond or into anything that caught its eye or nose. Was it the squirrel that hopped across lawn and headed straight for the bird feeder where it finds all the seeds the birds have tossed in their eating frenzy? Any one of them could have done it and had a tasty meal: four small bluish speckled eggs. Nothing more, nothing less.

When dpr found the nest just a few days ago I wrote that those four eggs conveyed that something was right with a very small part of the world. A very brief respite it was.

My first husband would often say, "My mind is a hodge-podge of half-baked ideas." He was joking about himself, and he was right of course. It was. But today, I feel that way about myself.

After the tide, after the hunters, after the scavengers

I've been thinking about Hillary Clinton. I'm sick of her already, and I don't want her to run. I would never vote for her. She displeases me immensely. Yet, I hear an overwhelming media drumbeat for her. Where exactly does this drumbeat come from? Do you know anyone at all who wants her to be president? Anyone who thinks Hillary is the best thing that the Democrats have to offer? Anyone who thinks she has really smart political instincts and a solid internal compass? It's so obvious that the right is eager to the point of drooling to run against her. That bothers me. Why is she the presumptive front runner? What has she done to garner such speculation?

I took a Zogby poll Tuesday morning that was specifically about the Democratic ticket in 2008. Here's the list of contenders they came up with:

Clinton
Kerry
Edwards
Biden
Feingold
Vilsack
Richardson
Clarke
Bayh
Warner

Notice who is not on that list?

Al Gore.

You remember him, the guy who won the election in 2000 when it was stolen from him and us by the worst bunch of psychopaths our country has ever seen. I still like Gore. I think he would make a good president. I don't know if he would be a great president. I suspect that greatness and authenticity have been de-selected by our election processes, but I would vote for him. Most importantly for me, I think Al Gore can erase the past few years in a way that no one else can. And I really want these Bush years to be erased, expunged, repudiated, and soundly defeated. Electing Gore would be like having a do-over and making the cheaters leave the game. Then, we can start to repair all the damage they have done to our country and our constitution.

Hillary, on the other hand, keeps all the players in the game. She keeps the polarization utterly intact. She fuels the right wing psychopathology. She's the one anointed by the media. Why? It makes me very suspicious, and it drives me a little crazy. Okay, not a little, a lot, which is why I wish she would just go away.

Thinking about Hillary Clinton running in 2008 is like having to go look at the empty nest. Someone else needs to go look first, so I can steel myself for what I am about to see.