(NUNAL) (EYEBALL)

Have you noticed how large the flags on politicians' lapels have become?  There is flag size creep, and it is real. Of course, all politicians these days have a little enameled flag pin on their lapel since 9-11.  But both Romney's and Ryan's flag pins are just a wee bit bigger than their opponents.  Take a look at the next debate, I am not making this up.  The Republicans seem to be pushing a somewhat subtle claim that they are just that much more American. The darksuit and blue or red tie is a uniform.  Adding in the flag enhances the uniformity of the whole. Increasing the size of the flag is a development that seems to warrant close attention. If the flag migrants from placement on the lapel to a band on the shoulder, we are in trouble. update: ok, I see now that others have noted the same .  Here I thought I was a trendspotter or something. Apparently, if I read tweets I would have seen this.  I prefer the slow accretion of my thoughts on ...

I enjoy watching presidential debates, but I truly do not understand people who shape their opinions of the candidates from these brief episodes, or who are undecided.  Do they simply pay no attention during the previous year plus? Read nothing at all?   Don't answer these questions.

The Dalai Lama was at William and Mary yesterday, you can watch his talk here .

Living in  a swing state - or, even, perhaps, in the swing states of all swing states-- means a lot of political messanging of all forms, constantly. It is not an exaggeration that we receive a mailing and a phone call (usually several) every day.  Most are robocalls or pollsters.   I don't watch broadecast tv except every once in a while so I largely am spared the ads with those intoning deep voices. Every once in a while something good comes along in the mail. ' This mailing struck me as something akin to the iconic Lyndon Johnson daisy ad in terms of subtlety and willingness to exploit a little girl for political gain. Here is the train bearing down on the little girl.  "The conductor of this runaway train doesn't know when to stop" And the conductor is...yes, yes, you guessed it: The hat is what pushes this mailing into the realm of inspiration. The train is probably Amtrak too, the socialist! I did see one TV commercial today that ma...

I've been getting complaints that the twins haven't appeared here since they have gotten so big and beautiful, so here you go: That is Birch on the left, Aura on the right

The zombie bees issue returns to the NYTimes in a well written piece that manages to quote both Lenin and SpongeBob SquarePants

I've been meaning to post these for several days but finally had a moment. This is a n interesting story about a stateless man trapped in a U.S. territory operating at this moment as a anomalous zone. "Instead of a five-day holiday to the lush, tropical US territory in the South Pacific, the 39-year-old has spent more than nine brutal months there caught in an immigration law hell. Experts agree it’s an unprecedented illustration of America’s broken immigration system. The key sticking point: Though he’s lived legally in Houston and the Los Angeles area for years under a special arrangement with the Department of Homeland Security, Sebastian is stateless, with no citizenship at all. The federal government argues that during his vacation he “self-deported” from the United States — despite the fact that American Samoa is a US territory." also worth reading is this story about the other hotly disputed tiny islands in East Asia, these between Japan and Korea...