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In a guest column at the New York Times, Elizabeth Edwards rates the campaign so far: Bowling 1, Health Care 0 . Why this annoying emphasis on things that don't matter? ...every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture. ...I was lucky enough for a time to have a front-row seat in this campaign — to see all this, to get my information firsthand. But most Americans are not so lucky. As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina, I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president. Is it really too much to ask?

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan -- yes, Peggy Noonan -- had some time on her hands waiting to get through a TSA screening. in The View From Gate 14 she paints a fine portrait of what the current administration has done to America, and what Americans might be thinking about Obama: ...what about Obama and America? Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all? And this: The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma's hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conse...

(An occasional reminiscence on the events of 1968 ) On April 11 Defense Secretary Clark Clifford announced Gen. Westmoreland's request for 206,000 additional soldiers would not be granted. He set a ceiling of 549,500 troops in Vietnam, and a plan for Vietnamese military to take over responsibility for the war effort. Also that day, president Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which added fair housing provisions to the previous civil rights legislation of 1964: it prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. In Germany, student leader Rudi Dutschke was shot in an attempted assassination. Riots broke out on the news. The Prague Spring was under way, since Alexander Dubcek had become first secretary of the Central Committee of Czechoslovakia in January. Novotny resigned as president the end of March and in April, Dubcek's reforms were launched. On April 20, Pierre Trudeau became prime minister of Canada, replacing Lester Pearson. On...

Over at Time Goes By , Ronni Bennett has set up a survey to find out more about bloggers over 50. Says Ronni: The goal is to find out what elderbloggers are like, how we may be similar and how we are different, how we relate to technology, how we came to be bloggers or blog readers, how we feel about it and what our demographics are. This is for bloggers and blog readers, so if you're in the age group and have any interest in blogs -- and you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't -- help out by taking this brief survey. It says it takes 20 minutes but I think I did it in 5. (I'd have posted the graphic link to the survey but Blogger isn't letting me upload images right now.) (Added later:) I love this, in an earlier post on Ronni's blog, in her 'Crabby Old Lady' guise: One of the pleasures of writing primarily for elders is they understand historical references or know how to look them up. A young reader emailed about yesterday’s post asking who Joe...

Can't do much better than Google ....

Well, not much more new this week, but here are some good ones. For more on what I've been doing, some photos from a weekend art/music festival in Dahlonega GA ( Bear on the Square ) on my other blog. The Mike Wallace Interview , great collection of late '50s personalities interviewed by Wallace on his show, collected at U.Texas. Truemors , fun news site. Statistical Yearbook of Latin America and the Caribbean , 2007 edition from ECLAC. Daily Source : news aggregator with human editors. Live Search News from Microsoft, similar to Google News but with local news in a sidebar.

Mary Mapes says what a lot of us feel about this presidential campaign about now, in Okay, Now I'm Bitter : I want my life back. This political junkie has just about had her fill of political junk food. I'll come back when there is something more substantial on the table. Until then, I guess I'll just cling to my guns, my religion and my long-ignored need to improve my bowling scores. Because this whole presidential campaign thing has gone into the gutter. Or, as this Onion news report says, all the media care about is bullshit.