Sigh. This digression is my fault.

Nope, its my fault. I apologize to the OP. Maybe a mod could cut the digression comments out and paste them in a new thread about lawyers, or the legal system, or whatever?

So - will any of the Democratic (or Republican, for that matter) candidates bring about the kinds of changes that most of the people posting here would hope to see? I can speak about one candidate with some knowledge, and that’s Sen. Obama. Consider that he was a State Senator in Illinois for (I believe) 8 years, and he has been a Federal Senator for a little over 2 years. What changes has he tried to make there? The answer is, damn few. In the Illinois State Senate he pretty much kept his head down and played ball with the Combine (a.k.a. the establishment). He has repeatedly endorsed machine candidates (i.e., the regular Democratic party candidates) and has refused to endorse what you would all call “progressive” candidates. He bought his house in a sweet deal from a machine power broker. Don’t look for change from him, folks. He looks like change, but he hasn’t actually done any.

Am I on the wrong thread? I thought Maia was talking about the election in general, and in particular about how it’s not realistic to turn to any US presidential candidate–Obama, Clinton or Edwards–as a herald of progressive and anti-capitalist politics.

I do feel in a meta way this thread has demonstrated what I was suggesting in the headline - which is that presidential elections are a dangerous distraction.

*Sigh*

I guess I’m not surprised.

And that isn’t meant as a diss to Maia, Amp, or any of the other posters at Alas. It’s just…DAMN! Erase the issue at hand much, people?

Anyway, to Maia: I agree with you; however, like BFP and P6, I think that you and Boggs are basically saying the same thing. Nonetheless, I agree that there is some ambiguity in Boggs’ statement that you (and so many of us) quote that can lead one to interpret her as arguing that there *can be* an ideal Presidential candidate. Reading the piece, though, I suspect that she (like you) is aware that the Presidential candidate she envisions can not exist in our political landscape. She’s wishfully thinking. “In a better world, this is what a viable U.S. Presidential candidate would look like,” is what I hear her saying.

Thanks a lot for this post, Maia. It got me thinking a lot more in new directions, none of which have anything to do with lawnmowers.

Best.

Have you ever, in fact, seen a “careful, edge is sharp” sticker on a knife?

Maia:

Wow - that was a digression.

Take it to an open thread.

Kevin - I think she is making important points about the history of black leadership. In fact in itself that leadership is seen as coming from presidential candidates rather than (or as well as) preachers.

Incidentally I just listened to a fascinating talk Katrina to Obama - Black Leadership in the Post Civil Rights Era (Mp3 link). by Gary Younge.

So were the kinds of cases that Edwards won and got rich on along the lines of what I would consider real negligence on the part of a corporation (”We know that tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, let’s keep it quiet so we can keep selling cigarettes”), or was it from cases where people put large cups of boiling hot coffee between their legs and then sue when they drive like that and get burned?

Based on my discussions with my sister-in-law, who started out as a nurse and is now CEO of a hospital, quite a few.

I’m sorry; you’ve got to be pretty stupid to stick your hand under a running lawn mower. I’ve got a kill switch on my lawn mower, and I tie a piece of string around it so that I can walk away from my lawn mower to pick up a piece of rock or dog shit or tree branch without having to restart my mower. I’ve got 3/4 of an acre of yard with about 30 trees on it and a dog who has a healthy appetite.

I figure what we have now is a reasonable compromise; lawn mowers that have kill switches for stupid people that can be easily defeated for those of us who know better.

I don’t believe you could win a lawsuit if you cut off your hand after taping down the kill-bar on a lawnmower.

I suppose you might if you could show the lawnmower company was passing around internal memos along the lines of “Hey, people keep taping down the kill-bar on our product because it’s a pain in the ass to use it with the kill bar operational, think we should do something about that?” Otherwise, unlikely.

What’s especially funny about the “millionaire lawyer” whining is that Edwards made his millions on commission; he didn’t get any money unless he won. This approach discourages frivolous lawsuits (when you, the lawyer, are fronting the costs, you have every incentive to make sure you will get them back someday). Funnily, this is yet another one of those instances where certain conservatives turn anti-market.

If I was mowing the lawn in a toddler campground, I’d want the killswitch. Working alone on my own property, it’s a pain in the ass.

I don’t have a lawn guy. My mower has a killswitch. And I long for the day that the annoyance of having a killswitch on my mower actually registers on my radar, as that will mean that my life is damn near perfect.

Possibly - I do not know for certain - because people don’t like that feature. If I was mowing the lawn in a toddler campground, I’d want the killswitch. Working alone on my own property, it’s a pain in the ass.

Or would be, if I hadn’t got a lawn guy. It’s his problem now.

I guess they made a law. I wonder why manufacturers didn’t do it on their own?