Sunday, January 02, 2005

A young Dennis J. Kucinich, who now has a blog. 'DeeJayKay' has a blog (I know: Who doesn't?) I just discovered former Democratic presidential contender Dennis Kucinich's blog. I love Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. (Not that way, although he is single, I think...) If it were up to me to pick the person who will be sworn in as president of the United States later this month -- like it was up to the U.S. Supreme Court to pick the person who was sworn in as POTUS four years ago -- it would be Kucinich. I supported John Kerry for president from the get-go because Bush removal was my primary objective and Kerry seemed to be the best politically strategic choice. (I still think that Kerry was the best strategic choice; he very nearly unseated a sitting "war president," which, to my knowledge, has never been done.) Don't get me wrong -- Kerry would be a fine president -- but Kucinich was my ideological favorite from the beginning. (This bumper sticker, which I just discovered during a search on amazon.com for any book that Kucinich has written, pretty much sums up my seemingly contradictory stance of having Kucinich as my favorite but having supported Kerry:  ) Anyway, in his blog, Kucinich -- "DeeJayKay" -- discusses, among other things, his thoughts on never having had children (it seems to me that people with children wish that they'd never had them and that people who never had children wish that they had); reveals his love of "South Park" (I love "South Park" too -- I loved "Team America"); and wonders out loud whether or not his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination made a difference (in a comment on that post, I told him that he most certainly did make a difference). To give you an idea of his straightforward style, "DeeJayKay's" first full post, from Dec. 19, is copied and pasted here: Goodbye to all that. Here we are, brothers, here we are at the end of 2004, another year another beer, and what do we have to show for it? Or let me ask you, man -- what do you have to show for your time on the planet these 365 days? You spent your hours bellyaching world affairs -- Rummy this, Condi that, Dubya screwed this up, Blair screwed that up, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Scalia, Frist, Lott, Rove, Delay, yada yada yada yada -- ENOUGH! I say. What'd you do besides complain? And don't say you voted. Good for you, you voted. Great. You want a medal? A shiny certificate? An honorary doctorate from Harvard? You're supposed to vote, maroon. Don't claim any prizes for voting. And not for phone-banking or canvassing either. So you left your moist, windowless basement apartment in Brooklyn to spend a week in Miami -- you think that's some kind of civic sacrifice? You think that's on the order of Give me liberty or give me death? No. It's kid stuff. And as we saw on Nov. 2, fat lot of good it did, too. All your blogging and your MeetUps and your ACTing and MovingOn -- heh, that worked out well, didn't it? Friends, I'm not trying to sound mean-spirited. I understand you meant well. But I think you've got a problem, and I don't think we're going to win unless I intervene. The problem is this: you've gone soft. You claim to be a liberal but I fear that what really thrills you is looking like a liberal, thinking you care about the world's ill, the dying, the disaffected, etc., etc. But go home tonight and set a chair in front of a good, clean mirror and look at yourself deep in the eyes and, if you dare, ask yourself this: If you were asked to make a really hard choice, to sacrifice something of real value in order to better this world, would you do it? If a man asked you to give up your iPod so that a boy in Nepal can eat a good meal this evening, would you squirm? Be honest with yourself. If a man asked you to throw out your TiVo to spare the life of a Chilean Sea Bass, would you politely walk away? How many hours of HBO would you do without in order to get our troops out of Iraq? What if I asked you to boycott Desperate Housewives until the Saudis abdicate their throne? Would you look at me as if I'd keyed your Audi? Goodbye to you, I say. Goodbye to all you softs. We don't need you in the movement. When Dennis J. Kucinich decided to change the world, I stopped wearing shoes. I stopped eating meat and cheese. I did without. I've done without women, without love, without children. I may even have to give up my cats. I've put up with the slings of our jokeaday society, our angry, angry world. I've given up my dignity, my pride. And until the rest of you do the same, I say: Goodbye to you, and goodbye to all that. Powerful shit. I hope that DeeJayKay keeps it up (even though it's becoming harder and harder to be noticed in a rising tide of blogs...). Update (Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005): A regular reader asked me in an e-mail today, "Do you think the Kucinich blog is legit? I certainly hope so, but there is something about it (the tone, maybe?) that just doesn't feel right." I responded to him: While it's possible that the Kucinich blog is a fake, Salon.com reported on the blog's existence (and did not question the blog's authenticity) and in the blog nothing un-Kucinich-like (to my knowledge) has been said thus far, so unless it comes out that the blog is a fake -- we will hear from Dennis himself shortly if the blog is a fake, I surmise -- I am assuming that the blog is genuine. We'll see, eh?   P.S. In his latest or one of his latest postings, "DeeJayKay" (I'm still not sure if I like that nickname or if I think it's too affected) addresses the question that some (many?) are having as to whether he really is Dennis Kucinich. Perhaps the reason that Kucinich's blog might not seem authentic is that it's a personal blog, a real blog, not one of the pseudo-blogs written mostly by campaign staffers that we saw in 2003 and 2004.  10:47:15 PM    Comments []

Associated Press photo U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui in February 2003 Robert Matsui, 1941-2005 My congressman died last night. Rep. Robert Matsui, 63, who represented the Sacramento region in the U.S. House of Representatives, died of a rare blood disease. I didn't even know he was sick. (That's not a sick joke -- it's a serious statement of truth. The Sacramento Bee indicates that Matsui and his family knew of his illness for some time but kept it under wraps. ["Only his closest friends and family apparently knew of the diagnosis, and his sudden death left many shocked when his office announced the news early Sunday," the Bee reports, adding that Matsui "had given no signs that his health was in peril."] As a constituent, I don't feel so happy about that.) To Matsui's credit, he overcame an inauspicious beginning in life: A year after his birth in 1941, his Japanese-American family was forced into one of the World War II-related internment camps for Japanese-Americans in the United States. He went on to win his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978. "In 1988, Matsui helped shepherd the Japanese-American Redress Act through Congress, in which the government formally apologized for the World War II internment program and offered token compensation to victims," Reuters notes. Matsui held onto his seat in Congress for more than 25 years. He was elected to his 14th term in November. Not so much to his credit, The Associated Press notes that Matsui "was the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the past two years, in charge of the unsuccessful effort to regain control of the House." The worst part of Matsui's death, politically and immediately speaking, seems to be that Matsui was one of the most important Democrats who was going to block the Bush regime's efforts to eviscerate Social Security, thus further widening the already gaping chasm between rich and poor in the United States of America and thus further undermining the United States' democracy, which is but a shadow of its former self as it is. Anyway, Matsui was not, to my knowledge, particularly beloved by most of his constituents who aren't Democratic Party insiders, who, like me, probably have viewed him as competent but not necessarily as warm and fuzzy. (I voted for him in November and two years before that, but the man never excited me.) There will be a special election to fill Matsui's now-vacant seat. There is no heir apparent of whom I am aware, although I am fond of Democrat Darrell Steinberg, my former state assemblyman who recently was termed out. He does excite me, and I'm going to try to contact him to urge him to run for the seat that Matsui's death has left open. Whether Matsui's more than 25 years in his seat uniquely qualified him to represent his district or whether a fresher face will more greatly benefit the congressional district remains to be seen, but Matsui's seat is safely Democratic. This is a copy-and-paste from the home page of Matsui's Web site: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sunday, January 2, 2004 CONTACT: JIM BONHAM (202)225-7163 / (202)225-0564   THE HONORABLE ROBERT T. MATSUI DIES AT AGE 63 BELOVED SACRAMENTO CONGRESSMAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE SPENT FINAL DAYS SURROUNDED BY FAMILY WASHINGTON, DC – The Honorable Robert T. Matsui (D-CA-05) died at 10:10 pm Saturday, January 1, 2005 at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Family surrounded the beloved Congressman from Sacramento for his final days as he battled a recent illness. His wife, Doris; his son, Brian; his daughter-in-law, Amy; and his granddaughter Anna survive Matsui. One of the most senior and highly respected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Matsui was first elected to Congress in 1978. He has been overwhelmingly returned to office in every election since, most recently by over seventy-one percent to his 14th term. “Bob wanted me to express his most profound gratitude to all of those he had the honor to serve and who made his life so extraordinary,” said Doris Matsui. “Thank you to his constituents, his friends, his staff, and his colleagues. Brian, Amy, Anna and I will forever be grateful.” Matsui was the third ranking Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the Ranking Member on the Social Security Subcommittee, and was elected two years ago by his colleagues to serve as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- the National Party Committee responsible for electing Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives. In recent months, Matsui had been battling Myelo Dysplastic Disorder (MDS), a rare stem cell disorder that causes an inability of the bone marrow to produce blood products, such as red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. The disorder leaves the patient at a heightened susceptibility to illness and compromises the ability to fight illness when it occurs. Matsui entered Bethesda Naval Hospital on December 24, 2004 with pneumonia, a complication that developed as a result of his prior illness. The Matsui family and friends are establishing a charitable fund in memory of the Congressman and ask that all gifts be sent to The Matsui Foundation for Public Service, P.O. Box 1347, Sacramento, CA 95812. 3:37:20 PM    Comments []