Indy Colts Haiku, Week 1

... in which our intrepid Indianapolis Colts haiku correspondent reviews the opening act of the Andrew Luck quarterbacking era:

Whuther Lucker?

Oh, everybody
Stop hyperventalating!
Let's let the kid learn.

Mary Campbell-Droze

Dipping a Toe Back Into the Presidential Campaign Waters: The VP Pick

I really meant to get out of the campaign analysis biz after the Republican Primary wrapped up.  In part this was because I didn't think the main event would be nearly as interesting as the clown cavalcade that rolled across Iowa and New Hampshire this winter. But also because I'm a Democrat and a strong supporter of President Obama.  And it's difficult to write neutral analysis when you have really strong feelings about the outcome of a campaign.  Besides, this is really just a little "friends and family" blog and not a political blog.  So it's not really the right forum for long-form political commentary.

However, in a recent e-mail round-robin with some friends we discussed Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his VP.  And while some of them thought it was a dumb pick by Romney, I thought it was a pretty smart pick for some reasons that weren't discussed by the punditocracy. I wrote a pretty long bit of analysis about it, and one of them thought it was worth sharing more broadly.  So, I reckoned I'd pop that up here on the ol' Patio Boat, since it seems to be a view that hasn't gotten much play in the media.

Here are my two cents on the real rationale for the Ryan pick:

As of the time of the announcement, Romney had been running right on pace for a narrow defeat: 52%-48% and maybe 300-238 in the electoral college.  Also, the Obama campaign has done a very good job of defining him as a rich guy who wants to help other rich guys and doesn't care about regular people.  That's hardly a stretch, I grant you.  But here I give credit to the Obama campaign for doing what they've needed to do on this front. Good political campaign make the easy layups.

In terms of changing that narrative of this campaign, Romney has been running out of time for events to intercede.  The economy's been bumping along without looking as if it will implode.  And at this point we're close enough to the election that a genuine international crisis would be more likely to present a "rally round the flag" bump for Obama than to provide any help for Romney's candidacy.

Mitt Romney felt he needed to take a risk somewhere to change the dynamic, and the VP pick was his last real opportunity to do that.  That weighed heavily against making a safe pick like Sen. Rob Portman from Ohio, who would've brought some electoral help in a swing state and been much less controversial than Ryan.

As an interesting aside here, Zach Green (@140elect on Twitter) tweeed at the time of the announcement that "@RobPortmanVP was created July 21st while @PaulRyanVP @MarcoRubioVP @TimPawlentyVP were created Aug 2nd" which is an interesting bit of evidence that Portman may have been the original pick.

So why the Paul Ryan pick when there were safer options? Here I think that a look back at his father George Romney's presidential campaign may give us a bit of insight into what Mitt was thinking here.

In one important way, Mitt is very like his father George Romney in that each derived much of his campaigning and political style from his CEO experience.  George Romney was a solid mid-20th century American CEO of the type who built companies with substance, reality, and industrial production with a sales structure to support those things.  In that way he may not have been ready for the shift of politics into the sound-bite era, which was why he was so readily taken down by the "brainwashed" comment that he must certainly have seen as a triviality.

Mitt Romney, however, is a perfect 21st century American CEO. He seems to believe that finance and a good marketing campaign are all you need, and that substance takes a back seat to those things.  Since Mitt has 40 years of experience and $300 million proving him right, I think that ruled his instincts here.

What did he do?  He went for the pick that reflects that: a guy who will help to keep the money flowing and is a really good salesman.

That's the thing about Ryan that most commentators seem to be overlooking.  As near as I can tell, Paul Ryan is not all that impressive in the "details, policy wonk, tough choices" sense for which he gets praised.  His "Ryan budget" is mostly a compendium of the right-wing wish list with a hefty assortment of magic asterisks to pretend the numbers add up.  But he did a great job of selling that to the always-gullible Beltway media.  And on the social issues Ryan has managed to find a place on the far, far right while coming across as reasonably moderate in his presentation.

As became evident early on when I started to take a closer look at the Republican primary, Mitt Romney's campaign has had nothing to do with reality or policy since it started, so why would anybody think that he suddenly wants to shift to a detail-oriented reality-based mode now? Romney is a smart CEO in terms of being able to pick talent, and he picked one of the best salesmen in the GOP for the biggest sales job in the world.  That's what Paul Ryan is very good at, and those who oppose him politically forget that at their own risk.

Plus, as has been pointed out by all the punditocracy, Paul Ryan's got dreamy blue eyes to die for.  Really, how could Mitt resist?

What has Summer 2012 looked like?

Thanks in great part to the new Canon EOS that Monique and I bought, we have some excellent proof that much fun was had this summer.  Here are some of the best photos of the summer ... thus far.

Katie the Beagle checks out the greenery.

Monique at the Eastern Market.

Flowers at the Eastern Market.

The FUN MG visits Arsen and Brigitte.

Sunset on Wolverine Lake.

Katie the Beagle greets Monique after a kayaking expedition.

Miggy slides home safe!

Battling swans on Wolverine Lake during a Fathers' Day cruise with Arsen & Brigitte.

The Dog Days of Summer have arrived.

Fine dining on the porch: cedar-planked trout, grilled eggplant, cucumber salad, baguette, cyser, and sparkling companionship!

Some of the best fireworks photos this summer were the mistakes.

The Great Race circled the Great Lakes this summer, with a stop in downtown Ypsilanti.

And now, some Tiki Night photos:

The magic hour of anticipation.

Fireworks! Fireworks! Fireworks!

My sister Susan drove out our way from Gettysburg a couple of times.  In between her drives we had a great deal of fun hosting Shea and Atlee for a two week visit.

Shea, Emerson, Atlee, and Greeley swimming.

Emerson takes his seat for a cruise.

Atlee swimming.

Kayaking in the canals.

Red, white, and blue petunias.

Heat lightning seen from the porch.

Make your own pizza night.

Miss Atlee heads out for her first-ever ride in a convertible.  Alas, it was almost also her first ride in a tow truck after the fuel pump died.

Greeley, the Friendly Werewolf.

Arsen & Brigitte brought one of their black-swallowtail cocoons for us to watch.  When it finally hatched the butterfly had a bit of a wing problem.  But since he eventually flew away after savoring a lot of petunia nectar, we like to think he's doing okay.

Yes, the FUN MG had to take the Ride of Shame after its fuel pump died.  Fortunately, all was repaired in time for the Dream Cruise!

John driving his classic car in the Dream Cruise. Hurrah!

Monique snaps a photo of the prettiest thing on route: herself!

Eventually, Monique took the wheel.

Even Batman was there.  And no, that's not a Batmobile next to him.

How many photos do people take on the Dream Cruise? Even your intrepid photographer was photographed!  (Though I rather suspect her focus may have been the MGB instead of me.)

And that's a wee assortment of photos from this summer.  I easily could've picked a hundred more, but hopefully this has given you all a sense of what this Summer's been like around Wolverine Lake.

The best way to spend rainy days in the summertime

Rainy work at home.
Katie the Beagle helps me
By sleeping on couch.

Back in Business

Hurrah! After being reduced to an incommunicado mess by my broken and dislocated right ring finger, I am finally back to ten-fingered typing at my normal rate.  This means that I am well overdue to get the ol' Pontoon Boat back up and running.

So, what did you all miss while I was away?  I did do a little bit of posting over at Facebook during the blog outage, so I reckoned I'd copy along some FB posts to catch you non-FBers up on the last couple of months.  Upon review, it looks like the usual mix of whining, lunch, and monster movies, wrapped up by a fun two-week visit from my nephew Shea and niece Atlee.

-----

John Magee
and Monique are watching "Rebirth of Mothra 2." The insane plot of this thing makes me believe it's the "Axe Cop" of giant monster movies.

-----

John Magee
and Monique just saw the Transit of Venus by projecting it on a piece of paper with a pair of binoculars. Awesome!

-----

John Magee
has spent $200+ on wheel alignments in the last year and would prefer that the state fix the damn roads instead of futzing around with a marginal income tax break that won't put nearly that much money back in my pocket. The Belle Isle Grand Prix track disaster wasn't an unlucky coincidence. It was just another day of crumbling state infrastructure for most of us.

-----

John Magee
is watching an Ishiro Honda quadruple-feature (Gojira, Rodan, Mothra, and The H-Man) while Monique and Katie the Beagle snooze. I suspect their dreams are filled with screaming Japanese people and inexplicably huge monsters.

-----

John Magee
is very proud that the Michigan International Speedway has yet to accidentally blow up a dryer truck during today's rain delay. #BetterThanDaytona

-----

John Magee
just learned that my dental insurance doesn't cover sedation unless you're having at least *two* wisdom teeth pulled at once. This leads to two interesting questions: 1) How cheap ... er, frugal, am I? 2) If I do save $300+ by going with the local, am I entitled to spend some of that on a fun toy?

-----

John Magee
Actual conversation as Monique and I drove home from Columbus, Ohio, today:

MONIQUE: "What exactly is a buckeye, anyway?"

JOHN: "It's a kind of nut."

MONIQUE: "Oh. ... That explains a lot about this state."

-----

John Magee
Actual conversation from last night, after we drove the MGB to Ann Arbor via Pontiac Trail:

JOHN: "We motored our roadster through the countryside."

MONIQUE: "I'm going to write a complaint letter to 'Wheeler Dealers.' They've corrupted your vocabulary with British."

-----

John Magee
For those wondering, my sister Susan did indeed survive the drive from Gettysburg to Detroit with all four kids plus Wilson. We immediately dispensed a therapeutic margarita and she is now recovering on the couch.

-----

John Magee
Lunch in the Cube: leftover linguine with beurre au citron, clams, eggplant, and peppers. (Atlee thought we should have seafood for dinner last night after she and Shea spent all day swimming and trying to catch fish with their hands.)

Susan Magee Riordan Atlee will no doubt have a very convincing reason why you should have seafood each evening. :-)

John Magee You'd be surprised at how easily I'm convinced on that front.

-----

John Magee
returned home to find Atlee (age 8) serving as DungeonMaster and running Shea & Monique through a Dungeons & Dragons game. However, I don't think those are *quite* official 4th edition rules she is running.

John Magee The plot is oddly reminiscent of "Return of Mothra 2."

Phil Gaven Set the record straight. Time to go all nerd-Santini on them Uncle John.

John Magee What really surprised me was when Katie the Beagle took over as DungeonMaster.

-----

John Magee
is increasingly annoyed at Phil Gaven for pointing out that every time anybody clicks on a sponsored "Romney for President" link, they force the Romney campaign to lose money. Sure, it's an incredibly effective bit of slacktivism that gives the average person a tool to fight back against millionaires and billionaires, but that Romney website is soul-deadening.

John Magee Ugh. That very post caused a Mitt Romney sponsored link to pop up in my sidebar. CLICK. There goes another little piece of my soul, nibbled away by the mendacious vapidity of the Romney campaign.

Phil Gaven While you're there, play this fun game: Find the Non-White People

John Magee Dear God, please don't make me linger.

-----

Susan Magee Riordan
Now I remember the chaos of four kids. Maybe Rich and I can slip out of Detroit Monday morning before John and Monique notice we've "accidentally" left Emerson behind.

John Magee We'll ship him to you via UPS.

-----

John Magee
Shea has decided to root for the Swiss in the Olympics. He likes their stance on neutrality. (And chocolate.)

I'm not dead, really.

After a frenzy of posting in the first few months of this year, the last month turned into an unexpected posting desert.  Sorry to leave you all with a critical deficit of beagle haiku and other nonsense, but I had two good excuses:

1) Market Share Reporter: Trends Over Time -- As mentioned in the previous post, this was the book that devoured Monique for four months. In the last few weeks before it went to the printer it swallowed me alive, too. I thought I had a clever idea that would whittle the creation of its index down to a manageable size given a very tight deadline. Instead, it turned out that I had a clever idea that whittled the creation of its index down to an Oh-my-God-it's-waaaaaay-too-big-to-edit-in-this-amount-of-time!!! size.

In retrospect, I produced an index that should've taken six full-time weeks in two weeks of mostly evenings and weekends crammed around the day job. I hope not to do such a thing again anytime soon.  Needless to say, it cut deeply into my available beagle-haiku time.

2) And then, just a couple of days after MSR:TOT went to press I developed excuse #2, which I present in haiku:

Ahhhh, rugby: Thanks for
My dislocated right ring
Finger. Can't type. OUCH!

Monique has asked that I stop describing exactly what happened to my finger, so I shall simply say that the full-time splinting of my poor abused finger will end in another week or two.  After that I may begin to rebuild my typing speed.

In the meantime, look for any posts in the next few weeks to be short.

The Loyal Beagle Shares the Work

Today we celebrate in beagle haiku the above-and-beyond-the-call-of-canine-duty efforts of Katie the Beagle on behalf of Editorial Code & Data Inc.  Katie has loyally been hard at work, lying on the guest bed and staring adoringly at Monique every day, all day -- often late into the night -- as Monique has worked like a madwoman for the last six months to get Market Share Reporter: Trends Over Time out the door and off to press on time.

Katie's contributions towards this project were so large and substantial that they just couldn't be captured in a single seventeen-syllable haiku.  Thus we at the Patio Boat present a double-haiku poem to commemorate her contributions:


The Loyal Beagle Shares the Work

Katie the Beagle
Wants to chase rabbits. But she
Watches Monique type.

The walk comes at two
In the afternoon. Joy! Joy!
Then back to work.
Sigh.


As for Monique's work on this project, it would take a Norse saga twice the size of the Edda to capture all that has been accomplished and overcome.  If you see her anytime soon, please congratulate her on getting this fabulous book off to press on time and surviving the experience.

I shall simply say for now, "Well done! And welcome back!"