I took this video with my pocket digital camera off the dock of the cabin we rent in the Adirondacks every year. It overlooks Utowana Lake in the Central Adirondacks.
This brief 30 second scene is of a family of loons that I watched the whole week I was there. In this little drama, which starts with a picture of the cabin's porch, the mother loon tries to feed the baby by bringing a small fish to insert into the baby's mouth. The baby drops the fish and starts splashing in panic. The mother disappears and then pops back up with the fish in her mouth, which she gives to the baby.
The second scene is the mother loon calling for the father, who appeared shortly after the call (not on the video). I imagined the conversation when he returned, "I've had enough of these kids. You're turn!" The call of the loon on this rainy day was ethereal. If you listen closely, you can hear the chorale music I had playing in the background, which adds to the spiritual feel.
In his June 30 op-ed column “The GOP’s trump card,” Marc A. Thiessen stated the Republican position clearly: “If the dire predictions of his Treasury secretary are to be believed, the consequences of a default would be so calamitous that Obama cannot allow it to happen. He must sign whatever debt-limit increase Republicans give him. This means Republicans hold all the cards.”
In other words, the president is at a disadvantage because he must worry about the welfare of the nation, whereas Republicans can ignore that and concentrate on beating Obama. That has been the Republican attitude since President Obama took office, and it goes a long way to explaining why we cannot get out of the mess left by the Bush administration and its congressional allies.
