To think I started off today feeling optimistic about things.

After a relatively frustration-free workday yesterday, I had a nice four mile hike along the river after work, had meal of fresh vegetables, and spent some decent time chilling with the cat and watching Veronica Mars before settling in for an actually pretty good night’s sleep.

Things started going down-hill as I quickly started discovering how all these other people upon whom my projects and livelihood depend are continuing to drag their feet rather than provide the data, answers, or support they’d promised. My 9am working session with *my* project was especially dire; I can’t remember the last time I was part of a group that felt so helpless because others wouldn’t pull their weight.

It was dire.

And it continued through the rest of the day. I did make an executive decision to write off the half-assed efforts to continue untenable strategies and started rebuilding, again, the acquisition packages that got savaged in the review board last week, and the boss, uncharacteristically (probably because he’s stuck out of town in his own hassle of crap meetings), provided welcome, direct, and prompt support.

At least that’s something.

This is all leading toward some humor, as promised.

Intermittently throughout the day, as most people do, I made idle text conversation with my lovely spouse. At one point, I expressed my intention and desire to pursue some outdoor stress relief, as follows:

“I’m definitely hooking after work today…I need the outlet.”
“HIKING. HIKING”

My lovely wife (who’s been struggling with autocorrect a lot recently) asked if my phone “had other plans for me.”

Honestly, I desperately needed that laugh.

As I lie here on my bed, my eldest child’s cat lying asleep next to me (I’m the perennial second choice; she’s currently out with friends) watching another too-short weekend come to a close, I feel kinda hung over (I can’t say I had *nothing* to drink Saturday evening while we sat and watched Veronica Mars series 4, but certainly not that much…) due to seasonal allergies and the medication I take to address them, I think about things.

Reflect, even. I reflect on the fact that I got a decent amount of things done this weekend. I paid the bills, did the shopping, washed a bunch of laundry, made some decent meals, hiked/power-walked ten miles through the woods along the river, and, he-says-with-significant-pride, fixed the loose door on the dryer.

I didn’t manage to get the fish tank cleaned the way I’d have liked, though while out buying cat food, I talked a woman out of buying an angelfish to drop into her 20 gallon tank full of neon tetras; as that way lies sorrow and madness, primarily for the neon tetras, who would quickly become cichlid feed, though also for the angelfish, who, within a few months will be the size of a cereal bowl (rather than the cute little quarter-sized baby he is now) and will be stuck in a too-small tank; I call that a win.

I also never got around to recording the power-pop guitar lines I hear in my head for “Hello, Friend”, but I’ll get it there this week, I think. I’ve almost got enough tunes almost in the can that the theoretical record is kind of coming together. I can almost see the end of the track list – I *think* it’s going to come in around ten songs, plus maybe a demo or two if they fit (I’ll see about sticking that stuff up for sale/name-your-price online eventually, but I want to get this record done first. After wrapping Stranger Things this week (which started slow, but ended very strong), my tune about Eleven in season two that certain friends really dig is getting added to the docket; it’s largely an acoustic jam anyway. Stay tuned.

As I look toward the week to come, it looks like I shall indeed (after conversations with my boss on Friday) soon be transitioning into the requirements/budget slot and away from being the electronic data interchange program manager, in part because I’ve spent the last two of three years working to make that job soon irrelevant, and I’m better than anyone else at this whole acquisition thing. We’ll see what happens, but I have a few more packages to knock together this week for other departments, and this other pain in the ass one that got trashed at the pre-review through no fault of mine (though it felt like it) to salvage. It’ll be a change; and a gradual one at that. I hope it’s going to be a good one.

Otherwise this coming week, besides the things I talked about above, I need to get another load of crap over to the second-hand shop, keep my fitness routine going, and I’ve got a corner of the house stacked with old equipment and documents I need to clear out; it’s starting to irk me.

…but right now, I’m going to raise a toast to all my friends (of whom there are many) setting up tents in Western Pennsylvania for the Pennsic War, which I’d love to pop into someday, but I honestly can’t see adding the SCA to my pile of hobbies any time soon, pet the cat some more, take my nighttime medicinals, and brace for another week as a goddamn professional.

One unique thing I can really say about this week is that it passed, at least to the point I write this, remarkably fast; I’ll take it.

Work’s been work, apart from the absolute shit briefing on Thursday afternoon; ’nuff said. I’ve been hiking rather than biking this week for my fitness/stress relief; partially for a change, partially because weather has been iffy for biking (it’s either way too hot or way too wet). It’s been nice; each the days I’ve gotten out so far I’ve done three miles or so at a different local park along the James and it’s associated marshes/watersheds, seeing lots of pretty dragonflies and and logging some km in the Niantic AR games (Wizards and Pokemon), because if the phone’s in the pocket anyway, why not (it also helps me track my distance)?

I’ve also started working on some downsizing of possessions and media (old CDs, books, comics, and DVDs), because my house is only 1400 sq. feet and there are lots of living things in it, and this old stuff is just taking up space, really. Figuring some of it’s worth something to somebody, I ran a big load of things out to 2nd and Charles, a kind of neat used book/media/etc chain that’s got a location nearby, on Tuesday (when it was raining too much to knock out much outdoor exercise), which got a lot of stuff out of the way, and logged me some store credit, but not as much as I’d like (to be fair, it was mostly mass-market paperbacks that they sell for a buck or two, so I probably got a quarter a pop) that I can use eventually, though, it’s really only the first load of many; Once I finish the books, I’ll start working on thinning out the blu-rays, which should net me a bit more, that I can spend on fleshing out a slightly more curated pile of crap.

After last week’s wealth of paying gigs (heck, I made almost $200 playing music inside a week), it’s been quiet musically, though I did arrange a basic drum track for the next song, which is going to be much more electric than most of the other stuff I’ve recorded thus far – “Hello Friend” (my big hit?) feels like it needs to lean into the power pop feel for the studio recording, which I’ll spend some time on this weekend, I think, since there’s not much else going on.

Speaking of power pop, there’s a lot of that in this randomized musical selections; Spotify’s “weekly discovery” playlist appears to have spent some time watching MTV’s 120 Minutes circa 1988 recently. Overall, this isn’t bad; it reminds me of that cute mousy alternative-ish girl from freshman honors english class who listened to IRS-era REM and the Smiths that we nerdy types had huge crushes on but were too socially awkward to do anything about it.

Whatever. I think I managed to do pretty well in the romance department in the end; I can still dig the music:

1. “See America Right” – The Mountain Goats
2. “Apollo 9” – Adam Ant
3. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
4. “Crater” – Gord Downie, The Sadies
5. “God” Tori Amos
6. “Son Of A Gun” – The Vaselines
7. “Best Friend” – The Beat
8. “Birth, School, Work, Death” – The Godfathers
9. “Joining A Fanclub” – Jellyfish
10. “Ladykillers” – Lush
11. “Valerie Loves Me” – Material Issue
12. “Gun” – Uncle Tupelo
13. “Starry Eyes” – The Records
14. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle” – Cake

In my usual scanning of the headlines and news aggregators today, my attention was drawn to a story from the land of my youth, Northeastern Pennsylvania (reported by venerable and often delightfully quirky and local WNEP) about schools in Luzerne County threatening to call CPS/Foster care on families with overdue lunch money bills.

As comments sections on local news stations never disappoint, much of the discussion on Newswatch 16’s site’s comments section was all about dumping on “freeloaders” who were surely spending money “on dope” or whatever, and using barely-veiled dog-whistle racist language, and complaining about how their taxes are high enough, and general resentment about paying for others’ education or well-being*.

For the record, Luzerne County went 67.4% Republican in the 2016 Presidential race, and, for context, 16.9% of households (approximately 52,000 people) receive government food assistance.

A lot of the discussion of the article I first encountered, being presented on a site that’s a bit more of a liberal enclave than local news affiliate comment boards, trended toward the issues with school funding and the general misallocation of monies in education (for the record – or at least according to this source – Pennsylvania’s education spending is 6th highest in the nation, but it’s distribution system is antiquated, unpredictable, and one of the most regressive in the nation), as well as issues of food insecurity, teachers paying for student supplies, and even food, out of their own pocket, and the relative merits and benefits of schools providing free breakfast and lunch for students (which are significant), especially in less affluent areas like, say, Luzerne County, where schools receive less state funding, since property taxes (the primary source of education funding) are significantly lower than the state average.

Yet residents of that area continue the refrain of complaining that their taxes shouldn’t be used to pay for programs, like education and food aid, that don’t benefit them directly**.

That got me to thinking, of course, of a particular quotation that I like:

“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (attributed)

According to my quick research, this quotation, or variations of it, did come directly from Justice Holmes, according to anecdotes in various biographies, as well as in a few Supreme Court opions written by him. Whether accurate or not, though, the meaning carries through, and it’s a valuable sentiment, and one I wholeheartedly subscribe to.

It may draw significant attention to my heart bleeding liberally to the left, but I’m a definite adherent to the idea that investing in people with tax dollars benefits all of us, even if I don’t benefit *directly* from said spending. Taking the example that prompted these thoughts, I have no problem with my taxes benefiting the education of children that aren’t mine; the reason being that those children will someday be adults working in my community, and I’d really rather they had the skills and knowledge to make them successful and productive members of society; an educated populace benefits us all, whether it be public sector bureaucrats like myself understanding the laws and policies of government, those in the legal system knowing and understanding the law, or simply the cashier at the grocery store being able to county my change accurately. The success of others benefits me through their ability to contribute to the community, and frankly, that success begins with kids in the classroom not being distracted from their education by hunger.

I don’t complain about paying taxes; it’s one of the responsibilities of citizenship (and the responsibilities get lost in talk of rights more often than not) and part of being an active member of the community. That doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions and very strong feelings about how those tax dollars should be spent (which I regularly share with my representitives in government), especially since as a public sector bureaucrat myself, I have a first-hand perspective on how that money gets spent, and I can tell you from experience, we could do a lot better in that area.

So yeah, getting back to the point that started off all these statistics and political philosophizing…maybe we’d be better off feeding the kids than spending money to refer overdue lunch bills ($22,000 across the entire county) to child protective services, who, frankly, have bigger things to worry about.

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* – Full Disclosure: My attention to this particular issue may indeed be driven by my personal experience with people I knew grewing up who complained about “those people” freeloading off the system, while collecting public assistance themselves, and not seeing or acknowledging the obvious discontinuity. Irked me then as a much less educated and more conservative youth, irks me even more now.

** – I don’t intend to dump on the land of my birth at the expense of the land where I built my adult life (which spends a bit less on average than Pennsylvania on education, and has it’s own issues); I encounter similar commentary here in suburban Virginia, (my county being a bit more conservative politically than average in the metropolitan area – my county went Republican by a 2.3% margin) – my little village was one of the early hotbeds of “Tea Party” patriots a few years back, after all.

Yes, this post will go up Friday, but I am writing it, as usual, on Thursday, which, as I indicate in the title, is my twenty-first wedding anniversary. Not much is going to happen on Thursday, because dance class, but the plan is go go out for dinner on Friday; I’m thinking Ammo Brewing, because I’ve been wanting to go there for a while and they’ve got what looks like a great menu, but it could change; one never knows.

Anyway, I did, Wednesday night at Open Mic (when my wife was absent, again, because dance class), play a tune celebrating things, which went over well enough. I remain very happy, even after these two decades and change (depending on how far you’re looking back…).

Otherwise…

Open Mic this month was, as usual, pretty great. It’s such a privilege, even when I play a pretty good set myself, to be upstaged so consistently by so many talented performers. If I was the kind of guy who went aroudn talking about such things, this is a case where I could say I’m truly blessed to be part of something special.

Continuing the music theme; as I’d mentioned previously, I’m sitting in with the ‘Riffs at Retro Daddio for a couple of sets pn Saturday, which I expect will be fun; it’s been a while since I’ve played with these kids, even with the occasional frustrations.

That is, by my count, two paying music gigs inside one week. One of these decades I’ll manage to make a living at this.

Workwise, I’ve been very busy, sitting in for the boss on a bunch of things this week, and working to massage a tricky acquisition package into somewhat acceptable shape by a deadline, which I beat by a good twenty-four hours, and I’m relatively confident it’ll get through with minimal issues, though we’ll see. The good news is that the rest of the week, apart from a couple of phone calls, I’ll be working much less hard, especially after I actually drove back to the office after-hours and put in another couple of hours’ work on tightening up the package with some spreadsheet magic that wouldn’t leave my brain, and I knew that if I didn’t solve the problem right then, it would occupy way too many brain cycles. Still, it could be worse.

Finally, Phoenix the cat is settling in wonderfully, and to the chagrin of some, has pretty much adopted me as her favorite. I’ll take it.

As far as the playlist goes, I wrestled this extra-long one (to celebrate the previously mentioned anniversary) out of Spotify, which came out decent enough, and includes a new tune from my buddy Mikey, who put out a new record, M, this week, which is pretty great, and includes a bunch of tunes he came up with this year during fawm this year. Anyway, here are the tunes:

1. “Psycho Killer (2005 Remaster)” – Talking Heads
2. “Amazing Grace” – Ani DiFranco
3. “Summertime” – The Sundays
4. “Tom’s Diner” – Suzanne Vega (w DNA)
5. “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver”- Mission of Burma
6. “Only Shallow” – My Bloody Valentine
7. “Not Too Soon” – Throwing Muses
8. “The Freshmen” – The Verbe Pipe
9. “I Don’t Want to Wait” – Paula Cole
10. “Divorce” – Alex Cameron
11. “Pride and the Badge” – Marty Robbins
12. “Going Under” – Evanescence
13. “Surrender” – Trixter
14. “Hungry Eyes” – Eric Carmen
15. “All That I’ve Got” – The Used
16. “Smooth Criminal” – Alien Ant Farm
17. “Love And…” – Mikey Mason
18. “Didn’t Know What I Was Looking For” – Better Oblivion Community Center
19. “Stay” – Sharon Van Etten
20. “Faith” – Bon Iver
21. “On The PC” – Tom Smith

Hey folks, with a couple of new confirmations, I updated the gigs page (always linked above) with some neat new performance opportunities:

• Jult 20, 2019 – Williamsburg, VA – Retro Daddio -I’ll be sitting in with my old bandmates Dimensional Riffs for RD’s “Potter Party” event
• August 29 – September 2 2019 – Atlanta, GA – Dragoncon 2019 – Humdingers are back at D*C as part of the filk track, along with friends like Mikey Mason, Hawthorn & Holly, Gray Rinehart, and The Misbehavin’ Maidens!

Really looking forward to getting back to DragonCon after taking last year off; so many great friends and performers to see and perform with. Plus, a week from today, I’ll be sitting on guitar with my old local-ish crew for a couple of sets at the awesome Retro Daddio; Jen’s always such a great host.

…and don’t forget, this Wednesday, Open Mic at Castleburg!

My life this week has been defined primarily by the never-ending fountain of documents related to the acquisition nightmare I’ve gotten yanked into by the boss. This should be a relatively easy thing, but this particular effort has been kicked back by the review board three times now, and the strategy has been changed just as many times because the policy shop can’t make up their mind.

Grrr.

I’ve been so deep into this business, and apparently carrying so much of the load on preparing this stuff* that my boss actually offered me the opportunity to jump into the role of procurement document shepherd full-time; I told him I was going to think about it; I’ve finally gotten my shop to the point where it doesn’t require much guidance (and some of the efforts I have in the pipeline are going to make it all but go away in the next year if all goes well), plus, odds are I’m going to be doing this shit anyway, regardless of what happens. I’m seriously considering it, since if I’m going to be doing all this stuff anyway (as seems likely), so I might as well let the other thing go. I still need to think on things, as I’ve gotten very used to this giant office in my own building, and I might end up losing it; gotta see what the impact of that would be. Also, part of me (probably the masochist part) wants to see pieces of that parenthetical effort above through to the end. Oh well; something to think about – the new thing the boss is talking about wouldn’t change the salary at all, and is actually closer to the skills in my particular wheelhouse. More to come; I’ve got some thinking to do.

Otherwise, it’s been pretty much the usual hike/bike/clean/pet the cat thing, along with some extra nerves due to the stuff described above. I did, however, thanks to an empty house for a few hours Wednesday night, get some serious recording for the theoretical album done, knocking out a couple of scratch tracks for new tunes, and did a couple of better vocal takes on some others. This is feeling like it might actually turn into something one of these days.

Looking to the weekend, the house is going to be a bit empty, as the girls are heading out of town for that dance competition. The teenage boy and I have some gaming on the agenda with the folks at the game store, but otherwise, I plan on doing very little; I could use it.

As for the playlist, I shuffled the Spotify “discovery” list, which is surprisingly good, as I’ve finally started training this particular service on my tastes. A little heavy on the 80s Alternative at the expense of other things, but it’s kinda neat. Go rock:

1. “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” – Sugar
2. “Having An Average Weekend” – Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet
3. “Don’t Do Me Like That” – J Mascis
4. “Gray Cell Green” – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
5. “Up All Night” – The Boomtown Rats
6. “Dragon Butter” – Wasnatch
7. “Dear Prudence” – Siouxie and the Banshees
8. “Sea of Heatbreak” – Meat Puppets
9. “Alone Again Or” – The Damned
10. “Head On” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
11. “Take the Skinheads Bowling” – Camper Van Beethoven
12. “Hey Sandy” – Polaris
13. “Feed The Tree” – Belly

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* – as I posted on social media earlier this week:

yes, this is pretty much my life right now.

So, Monday after work (which went late because of a meeting where I once again end up salvaging a failing acquisition), I quickly ran home to grab my lovely spouse’s car to take to the shop to get new tires put on; one of them had been regularly losing pressure, and at her last oil change we had the garage take a look, only to find that the belts were separating – not the kind of thing you can readily patch. As she and the girls are heading up to Lake Erie this weekend for the big feis (That’s “Irish dance competition” for those of you who don’t do basic gaelic) and the van’s up for inspection at the end of the month anyway, I started shopping deals to get the tires replaced, because, frankly, even apart from the bad belts, it was time.

So, the tire guys quote me a good deal, so I book a slot, and find, as they take the wheels off, that the brakes are pretty much shot all around – we’re talking pads with less than the thickness of a dime left on ’em, and none of that noisy sensor squeak that my old Chevy truck had. I can’t exactly send the girls on an eight or nine hour road trip with crap brakes, so I get them done too. This means that I’m spending my entire evening at the shop, and dropping damn near a grand on repairs on all four corners. I guess I should be happy, or at least nod in admiration, that the original brake pads on the van lasted almost 99,000 miles, and that we caught it before the rotors got torn up, which would only cost me more.

Oh well, better to spend the money now than find 3/5 of the family stuck someplace (or worse) between here and the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.

Oh, and additionally, my wife’s early anniversary present: a new laptop that she can play some games on and store her patterns for the burgeoning sewing business and such, won’t connect to my FIOS router (though will connect to the FIOS service at our favorite brewery!), though as we dig into it, we discover, or are at least reminded, that our broadband internet program is ancient, and we’re basically grandfathered in with a nearly decade-old plan with a router that’s no longer supported. So, I upgraded out plan, and for 10 more dollars a month, I go from 15 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and get a modern router out of the deal.

Anyway, I felt kind of awful about the fact that she couldn’t connect her machine to the internet without a Cat5 cable. 21st anniversary fail, right there.

Said router arrived today, though honestly, after spending all day as an Excel monkey at work and dropping a ton of money on car maintenance, I just didn’t have the energy to set up the new network this evening. I basically only had the energy (after a 3 mile hike at the park, since it was raining last night and I didn’t rack the bike) to eat a salad, pour a glass of cabinet-aged/forgotten-in-the-bacck-of-the-liquor-cabinet-for-seven-years Two-Buck Chuck shiraz and cuddle with the cat.

Hoping the rest of the week is a little less expensive and exhausting, but I know better than to pin my hopes on it.

I started tapping this one out totally believing it was Friday morning, as I’d internalized the fact that this was my last workday for the week, given the holiday weekend (and the fact that nearly everyone, including me, is taking off Friday).

Of course, it’s only Wednesday, but whatever.

This three-day week does, as short weeks often do, feel like it’s gone on more than the usual requisite five. Even though all my regular meetings were cancelled for the week because the holiday, I’ve been stuck managing a bunch of ad-hoc stuff: sitting in for my boss (who’s getting yanked elsewhere) leading meetings, editing, writing, and proofing all kinds of documents the bureaucracy insists need to exist, as well as seemingly getting stuck being substitute building manager on top of all my “other duties as assigned”, which is basically my lot in life.

Last weekend, as described, did involve the drag show, some D&D at the comic shop with the teens; it’s a collection of “teaching moments”, but it’s still nice to just play, rather than have to run things for everyone.

It also involved that “reward”, as I mentioned in previous posts. Most of a week in, she’s doing well. I am still in love, and I don’t think that’s going to change.

Otherwise this week:

• I’ve gotten back on the bike, as my ankle has finally started sorting itself out. I’m starting a bit light – ten miles after work every day so far, but I’m holding together; might have it up to fifteen by the end of the week.
• I made use of a bunch of aging produce and some best-i-can-probably-get-round-here sausage to create a kick-ass german feast with all kinds of cabbages and potatoes and such on Monday. Es war gut!.
• I was out a little later than I’d like on Tuesday night (which I was feeling this morning), because I was asked very politely to sit in with Dimensional Riffs in a couple of weeks out in Williamsburg, and I got together with my old bandmates in the evening to run some tunes, and I still mostly have it with that material.

• Speaking of material, I haven’t gotten anything done regarding the record this week, because frankly, my studio is my bedroom, and there’s a very talkative and affectionate cat in there right now, and, at least thus far, I don’t have a place for meows on the vocal tracks. 🙂

Looking toward the weekend, I’ve got a couple of quiet days – our Independence Day celebration will not, as far as I know, infrastructure-destroying military hardware, and will take place on Saturday, when we join our friends at their big-ass giant gathering/celebration at their family homestead up in Spotsylvania County. I still need to figure out what I’m making to take along.

As I’ve said probably enough already, here’s the playlist…definitely a different mix this time, and pretty heavy on the americana/folk in there. Not bad, really.

1. “Still of the Night” – Whitesnake
2. “Mother Goose” – Jethro Tull
3. “Moonchild” – Fields of the Nephilim
4. “Yam Yam” – No Vacation
5. “Heaven Is A Place on Earth” – Elvenking
6. “Moment of Weakness” – Bif Naked
7. “Wasted and Rollin'” – Amanda Shires
8. “Nobody Smokes Anymore” – Robert Ellis
9. “The Boys of Summer” – Front Country
10. “Devil May Care” – Sarah Shook & the Disarmers
11. “Pinball Song” – Slobberbone
12. “Humans Being” – Van Halen
13. “You’ve Got Other Girls For That” – Lillie Mae
14. “Satan’s A Woman” – Twin Temple

Happy Independence Day, folks. I’m personally going to try to focus on the positive aspects of what we should be on the day, because there’s so much else wrong right now (and I’ll send messages to my representatives to support working on that stuff – kids in squalid cages is never a good look).

I actually feel kind of like a bad citizen and participant in democracy for not actually watching the two-evening Democratic primary debate live last week. That said, I did catch the highlights and have read endless commentary and analysis, which while i know isn’t the ideal, it’s the situation I found myself in and better than nothing.

I probably also should have not waited a week to post my thoughts, but again, there it is. I’ve been reading voraciously, and discussing at length with political-minded friends (which, honestly, is most of them).

As for the fallout, nothing really happened to change my position on my ideal candidate being the impossible creation of a Warren/Harris super-hybrid, though damn if the rest of the world finally sit up and take notice of Senator Kamala Harris. By now, since last Friday morning it was THE STORY of the day, you’ve all seen her masterful takedown of VP Biden, who she, for whatever baffling reason, caught unprepared and flat-footed on the issue of busing/school integration, which has been a very prominent topic in the political sphere for at least a week leading up to the event.

In the days since, stories of her star being on the rise, and talk of chaos in the Biden camp have been the order of the day. I’m glad to see her rising in the polls, because she brings a lot to the table, even if she’s not a perfect candidate (she does legitimately present concerns on her AG/DA record, but I look forward to hearing her defend them), she’s definitely worthy of serious consideration, and definitely rises above the sea of mediocre white guys of a certain age in the bottom tier.

My other big reaction to the Thursday debate (since I talked briefly about the relatively sedate Wednesday evening where Warren maintained her top-tier status pretty effortlessly), is the relative ineffectualism of Senator Sanders. While his positions as expressed in the 2016 primary have definitely shaped the platforms of most of the candidates worth considering this time around, he’s a much less significant factor when he’s not in the position of being the alternative to the annointed frontrunner. When there are a dozen other folks on stage offering variations and refinements of his schtick, he’s not nearly as impressive. I’ve never really been a BernieBro (though I did vote for him in the ’16 primary), but I do appreciate his positions, and he deserves some definite credit for pulling the Overton Window of the party back to the left a bit; because he brought it up, it’s prompted discussion of a lot of very good things.

In any case, I think these unwieldy debates served a purpose in getting the candidates out there for people to see, and helping to winnow down the pack a bit (read some backchannel rumors today that Hickenlooper is likely on his way out, which is fine – he, and O’Rourke, should be running for Senate anyway). Top tier as I see it at this point is basically Biden, Warren, Harris, Sanders, and an outside chance of Buttigeig. Honestly, unless the situation changes drastically (always a possibility), I don’t see anybody else doing it – I suspect Castro, Gillenbrand, and Booker are still in the running, but they’ve got to step up their game soon. The rest? They all just kind of run together.