A few of you might have noticed that the Obama campaign’s got a a really slick graphic-design department.

One of this design team’s major motifs is a solitary, serif capital “O.”

To many, that letter, presented in that context, is reminiscent of a magazine whose figurehead and co-owner is a big Obama supporter.

To others of us, it reminds of The Story of O, the classic novel and movie about bondage, discipline, submission, pain-as-pleasure, and the total surrender of one’s being to a figure of strong authority.

Damn, doesn’t that sound exactly like the ol’ Republican seduce-n’-swindle syndrome, from which Obama promises to deliver us.

Oh, and the time remaining until Election Day? Nine and a half weeks.

Alas, McCain’s veep pick Sarah Palin is no relation to Michael Palin, who at least has vast experience in foreign relations.

Instead, the GOPpers offer us another pseudo-“maverick,” complete with all the proper pro-gun and anti-choice credentials.

But for now, let’s riff on some lines by the more famous Palin:

“Look, matey, I know a dead political party when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.

“No no he’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable party, the Republican, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!”

“The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.”

“Nononono, no, no! ‘E’s resting!”

“E’s not restin’! ‘E’s passed on! This Republican Party is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARTY!!”

“Well, I’d better replace it, then.”

Postscript: Perhaps the one outsider who correctly guessed Ms. Palin’s selection was the lucky joker who’d already registered the domain name VPILF.com.

Certain commentators and bloggers on Tuesday were all outraged or snickering or both. The reason: John McCain, in a campaign stop at the Sturgis bike rally, “jokingly” suggested his wife ought to enter the event’s biker beauty pageant–a contest known for nudity and sexually suggestive stage acts.

But across the proverbial pond, a veteran model who’d appeared in dozens of topless/bottomless stills in the 1990s is now the first lady of France.

Mind you, there are differences between the two situations.

Carla Bruni had retired from that sort of public exposure before she became a political wife. Cindy McCain already was a political wife when her hubby made his joke, which was applauded by the Sturgis audience but jeered and mocked elsewhere.

But a bigger difference is context. The French edition of Elle is a far different space than the Buffalo Chip Campground.

I’ve been trying to develop a simple essay/open letter, perhaps in the form of a .pdf e-booklet, to help persuade remaining conservative voters toward the Progressive side in this and future elections.

My brother, the unemployed naturopath, would like a simple side-by-side book. Each two-page spread would juxtapose something George W. Bush said a few years ago with something he said more recently on the same topic.

I foresee two problems with this approach:

• Examples of overt double-headedness from Bush himself are relatively rare; he’s notorious for living in, and publicly promoting, a reality distortion field of facts-be-damned consistency.
• Bush’s name isn’t appearing on any more ballots. Despite the liberal blogosphere’s catch phrases about “Bush’s third term” and “John McSame,” this election’s not really a referendum on the Bush legacy. It’s about how we’ll deal with that legacy’s multiple tragic results.

So: What other approaches could one take?

I’m currently thinking of a values-based approach. I’d ask my intended readers what they truly believe in–perhaps faith, prosperity, health, safety, security, opportunity, truth, beauty, public ethics, an honest reward for honest work, or simply a good burger at a decent price.

Then I’d explain, item by item, how the right-wing coalition’s various components have afted against all of these values, and how they’ve instead propagated greed, fear, graft, corruption, recession, and needless bloodshed.

Then I’d show how each of these values is far better served by a progressive-populist movement (as respectfully differentiated both from conservative DLC Democrats and from exclusionist college-town “radicals”).

I won’t expect such a document to convert everyone. Not every follower of conservatism does so out of any true adherence to higher values, however defined. Some are just plain bigots, war lovers, and extreme nationalists. I call these folk “tribal conservatives.” They’ll stick with their chosen tribe to the end.

Then there are the folk who care only about money and other forms of raw power, and who’ve sided with the Right as their best bet for achieving those aims. They won’t likely switch either. If they do vote Dem this November, it would be a mere conversion of convenience.

But we have a chance with the people who still believe in something beyond themselves, at least a little.

I’m interested in any advice from you as to how to win them over.

Warning: The following essay mixes metaphors pretty much without discipline.

This day after Indie Day finds much of the nation in a pensive mood, waiting for the pages to turn and for 1/20/09 to show up already.

Meanwhile, the reign of Nixon 2.0 drags on in a seemingly interminable final act. It’s beyond my old metaphor of the annoying jam band that will never leave the stage with its trite 45-minute noodling routines. It’s more like the emotionally abusive old relative who ruins every family gathering by reciting the same endless, unfunny racist “jokes” and always messing up the punch lines. Nobody tells him to shut the hell up anymore, because they know he won’t.

During this time, everything’s winding down. The thievery on high gets more desperate and more overt. The cast of crooks gets more blatantly maniacal.

(Next in our metaphor megamix: The pre-climax of an old mad scientist movie when the mad scientist goes utterly kabong and starts declaring himself to be immortal and invincible, just before his monster/alien ally/chemical formula/hypnotic spell turns around to attack him.)

Yes, a few industries with close ties to the Thief-in-Chief are reaping obscene profits, while the economy as a whole is speeding into reverse.

Yes, this stupid/tragic/inane/unneeded war drags on and on.

Yes, the graft, the corruption, the sweetheart dealing, the money grubbing, and the power grabbing all have gotten as blatant as you could imagine, then went beyond that, and still keep going beyond that.

Yes, the nationalism/tribalism excuse for a state religion of FUD (computer-world-ese for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”) keeps getting trotted out in the face of decreasing belief.

Yes, the environmental health of this and all the other continents gets ever more precarious.

And yet—

There’s still so much in this land for which to be grateful.

There’s still so much wealth (material and other) from which we can rebuild the old wastes.

But we can’t wait until January, or even November.

We need to build upon all the values that make up America-at-its-best. The loveable human-mongrel melting pot, the can-do spirit, the love of adventure, the love of novelty, the optimism, the devil-may-care foolishness, the risk-taking, the what-if imagining.

Those are all vital aspects of what’s made this country great.

Those other things, the bigotry and the fearmongering and the inter-tribal hate, those aren’t really American.

Alas, those traits can be found in every big society on Earth and a lot of the smaller ones.

And since America is a huge mix-tape of folks from all those places, it’s only natural that we’d pick up on those cultures’ dark sides, and that they’d have melded into one big all-American dark side.

But for every yang there’s a yin and vice versa.

This X-Treme-osity is America’s weakness and her strength.

And it’s how we’re going to get out of this mess-of-messes.

Yes, the right-wing firebrand ex-senator helped to perfect what we’ve all come to know as conservative standard operating procedure. Bash the blacks and the gays; openly appeal to fear and bigotry; proclaim a love for “America” that includes a hatred for many, if not for most, of the people living in it.

But it’s important to remember, no one politician, not even Helms with his devious genius for divisiveness, created this recipe.

Helms simply exploited and extended the heritage of intolerance and lizard-brain emotions that’s long been a part of our nation’s dark side.

Of course, there’s another side to out nation’s history. Many sides, in fact. I’ll mention them in my next post (which, thanks to the conventions of blogging, you may have read prior to reading this).

To mix sports metaphors, the city punted. Nickels took a dive. They settled for a settlement. They whored out to Clay Bennett. They took sheckels of gold (and the vaguest of non-promises by the NBA for a new team in some future decade) instead of continuing the fight to keep the Sonics here.

The separate Howard Schultz lawsuit continues, and is our only remaining chance to keep this team, OUR team, our first big-league team.

This feels worse than the 1978 finals loss, the 1996 finals loss, and the trading of Ray Allen combined.

…for those of us in western Washington’s prog-politix community. Our top regional campaign prospect, Congressional candidate Darcy Burner, lost her home in a fire.

She and her family are safe. But she’ll have to find new digs within her district, at a time when she’s trying to fund a serious election run against incumbent Dave Reichert. That fundraising has gone quite well, particularly with “Netroots” donations from online supporters. Those funds can’t be used for personal expenses, of course. She and her hubby will be arranging to relocate themselves. It’ll be up to her campaign staff, and her campaign supporters, to shoulder more of the campaigning and campaign fundraising work while Burner’s personal time/attention deals with this tragic distraction.

Greta Christina intelligently discusses a topic about which I’ve occasionally and incoherently ranted—non-thinking and anti-thinking in “alternative” culture.

Like many “sixties youth icons,” Carlin was already 30 by the summer-O-love. Aside from being an anti-censorship icon (who nonetheless got his share of “family entertainment” roles, he was one of the last bridges between the Ed Sullivan and Saturday Night Live eras. He also virtually invented the pay-TV comedy special genre, that most direct of storytelling formats.

…with phosphates: Remember, when Cascade is outlawed, only outlaws will have sheeting action.

The nonexistent (outside Africa) hetero AIDS scare that was supposed to hit us any year now has cost governments and health groups about a billion bucks. Bucks that could’ve been spent on treatments and possible preventions for those who really did have it, or who really were at risk.

Clay Bennett’s minions have been making public statements that could only properly be responded to by laff tracks. The latest: After fielding as lousy a team as they could, moving the Sonics’ radio broadcasts to a comparatively low-rated right-wing-talk station, tarting up the Sonics Dance Team’s routines and costumes, and generally behaving like twerps, Bennett’s dudes now claim there’s no real Seattle interest in the team. As King Kaufman at Salon puts it, “This is a little like a kid who murders his parents, then begs for mercy because he’s an orphan.”

Everyone knows the “fist bump” gesture was invented by Howie Mandel!

Before she was the first Asian American on the King County Council, she owned the first Chinese restaurant in Seattle outside of the Chinatown/International District. With her husband in the kitchen, she presided over the dining room as a pure diva. This name/face recognition fueled her rise to influence, both within the Asian American community and beyond. You may know of her daughter, longtime public-schools advocate Cheryl Chow. You might not know Chow was the sister of Mary Pang, whose frozen-foods mini-empire met a fiery end at the hands of Pang’s convicted-arsonist son.