Peter Krupa

Maybe it’s because I work from home now, so I no longer have to be out in it, but the afternoon rain has become one of my favorite parts of the day. The clouds come in and a cool breeze kicks up and the rain comes roaring down on all the tin roofs, straight down, like it’s heavier than other rain. I always imagine that the jungle is still covering the Central Valley, or I think of the Ticos in the countryside taking shelter from the aguacero to drink afternoon coffee and watch it come down.

When you live in a foreign country, you become hyper-sensitive to the preoccupations and foibles and absurdities of your adopted land. Then one day you inadvertently turn that sensitivity on your own culture, looking it square in its lazy-eyed, slack-jawed, moon-shaped face, and you wonder what in the hell is going on.

More to the point, I just had the misfortune to watch a few minutes of an episode of 24. Keep in mind that there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack on American soil (nor a conviction for the planning thereof) for almost seven years, and before that it was another seven years. Yet for some reason, there exists a TV show - a hugely (or formerly hugely?) popular TV show - completely dedicated to the machinations of shady brown men with names like “Ahmed” and “Yusef” who, like an indiscriminate alligator in some one-off horror flick, want to hurt white people living in the suburbs.

A woman on the show literally just called 911 and said, “A terrorist is holding my son hostage.”

A terrorist! A terrorist? As if the 911 operator is going to say, “Of course! A terrorist! Happens all the time!”

Seriously, is this what people in the United States are thinking about? Terrorists hurting their families? For fuck’s sake, this is the lamest terrorist threat in the history of terrorist threats, even below bee-swarms, lightning strikes, nail gun accidents, dehydration, etc. etc.

And yet we have politicians making campaign ads about jihad (”this century’s nightmare“) and idiots in West Virginia who won’t vote for Obama because they think he’s a Muslim! Any more of this and I will respectfully resign.

Working class; Reagan Democrats; the Racist Vote. I’m sorry, but who, in the history of the United States, has ever claimed electability because they were ahead in the polls in West Fucking Virginia? Unless, of course, they were running against a black man?

Hillary! Please. Stop.

From the New Yorker:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer.

Philly cops pull over two dudes and beat the living shit out of them. A friend of mine saw something similar happen close to his house the other day - in Costa Rica. Eh, Costa Rica, Philly, I guess they’re both developing countries.

Timothy Noah has written a great piece on Slate.com explaining that, look, it’s pretty much impossible for Hillary to win the nomination under any circumstances, so why does the media keep pretending she’s in the race?

He counts up the delegates and points out that, first, Obama is all but certain to win both the popular vote and the non-super-delegate count, and second, that it would therefore take a massively unprecedented shift by a couple hundred super-delegates to vote against the popular will. And it’s not bloody likely:

Should they vote their conscience, or should they follow the popular will? We could debate that one all day. The more relevant question is: How do superdelegates choose the nominee? Answer: They tend to follow the popular will. That’s why superdelegates gravitated to Clinton when polls showed she looked like a sure thing, and then to Obama when he started outpolling her. That’s why more than one-third of the superdelegates remain uncommitted now. Believe me, it isn’t because they haven’t been paying attention, and (except for a few head cases) it isn’t because, after 23 Democratic debates, they still don’t know which candidate tickles their fancy. It’s because they’re reluctant to be out of step with the popular will as expressed through all the primaries and caucuses. The longer any given superdelegate waits to make his or her endorsement, the likelier he or she is to choose whoever ends up with a plurality of delegates. Why else wait?

I guess there’s a possibility that Hillary is loitering around just in case Obama mysteriously self-destructs. Seems like an expensive bet.

Meanwhile she keeps proposing things that make her seem either stupid or conniving.  Please pack it up, Hillary. This has gone on long enough.

I try to deny it sometimes, but the truth is I love gadgets, and my new Asus EEE laptop is just too sweet for words. Tiny, light, cheap, useful, robable… so far I have nothing bad to say.

The keyboard is a little small, but that’s only a problem when transitioning from a different laptop. I love this little thing. If someone were to invent a machine specifically designed to be a poor, traveling journalist’s best friend, this would be it.

I give it an A, for Awesome.

Does anybody else find it weird that Hillary Clinton is running as the Rudy Guilianni of the Democratic Party? I mean, 3 a.m. phone calls, can’t-stand-the-heat, “totally obliterate” Iran: I thought trying to scare the shit out of the electorate was a Republican gambit.

Plus, the pundit wisdom seems to be that Obama didn’t win Pennsylvania/Ohio/Texas because he doesn’t get the un-educated, white, clinging-to-guns-and-religion vote. Like, darn, the Democrats better nominate someone who can snake the idiot vote from Republicans.

The only thing sillier than that argument is this idea that Hillary Clinton, of all people - Hillary Clinton! - would somehow fare better than Obama in a jaw-clenching contest with John McCain. Except that while McCain was being tortured, Hillary was in Moscow. She’d have to explain that one again. Promise.

I mean, Hillary? More electable? Wait till the right dusts off Vince Foster’s skeleton, and God knows what else. The main curiosity, though, is that one would think that this year, of all years for as long as I can remember, would be a good year to run as a Democrat, on Democrat issues.

Instead, Hillary flashes Osama bid Laden’s face in campaign ads. Focus group must have liked that one.

This morning my wife and I drove our SUV to the gym, so we could exercise our bodies using electronic machines. Then we drove back, I dropping her off at work and passing through San José in our SUV so I could meet someone on the other side.  Afterwards, I drove the SUV to lunch with a friend, where I ate tuna. Then I drove home, through crushing traffic, and when I arrived, I turned on all our incandescent light bulbs. After a little while, I drove back into the city to pick up Ona, then we drove home, turned on all the lights again, turned on the stove, and watched a documentary about global warming.

That’s to say, it has not been a very good Earth Day.