Feeding the birds

By Capt. Fogg

We had only a jumble of disconnected phrases from which to discern Sarah Palin's plans for the future and a possible reason for her abandonment of the governorship of Alaska. We have a few more complete and coherent sentences from Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez but probably no better idea of why he's walking away and where he's going. "Feeding the birds" is the clearest hint he's given us of his plans.

I wouldn't blame anyone for not being aware that a US senator from a large state spontaneously resigned yesterday. The press has been otherwise occupied with trying to make it less obvious that Big Pharma and the Republicans are trying to disrupt any rational discussion of health care reform using violence and intimidation and symbols and tactics of the Third Reich. Martinez tries hard to emphasize however that it is indeed spontaneous and of his "own free will" and nobody is pressuring him. That he brings up that strange notion, rather suggests that someone is.

It will be up to Governor Charlie Crist to replace Mr. Martinez, but Crist will be leaving the governorship to run for senator himself and so isn't going to be motivated to replace him with anyone unbeatable -- which is a nice but unavoidable conflict of interest.

On a more local level, my state representative, Ken Pruitt, recently resigned "for family and financial reasons." As Pruitt wasn't shy about endorsing the fundamentalist agenda, I'm not sorry to see him go, even though I have to wonder what the family and financial problems were and what improprieties might be involved. Of course, his replacement is no less fond of government support of Christian institutions and the first thing one notices about him is his striking lack of intelligence, but one has to expect that in Florida.

But something is happening here, and neither I nor Mr. Jones knows what the hell it is.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)