The May issue of Atlantic has a long article called "Elegy for the American Century" by George Packer, who says it only lasted 50 years anyway. "Doomed" featured somewhere in it, as did "Bosnia." I started to read it last night, but was too exhausted so put it aside and went to bed.

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times has an Op-Ed by Virginia Heffernan on Joe Biden: "The white male savior we've outgrown." She really did not like his announcement video, which she called, "an elegy for an obsolete American dynamic." There's that word Elegy again.

In the case of Joe Biden, I object, and surprisingly I feel rather hurt. I don't believe much in saviors myself, and I know Joe's a Catholic and probably doesn't confuse himself with Jesus, either. Personally, I started out hoping Biden would stay out of the race because of his age -- and I could practically write Andrea Mitchell's snarky jabs about "gaffes" in my sleep, as well as DU fights about Anita Hill.

But then Joe released his video, and I practically wept. The old warrior, I thought, had got it exactly right for this moment. While the others are going to spend their time arguing over fine points of what is already in the Democratic platform and worrying about whether they should ignore Trump or engage with him by name, and how to make the deplorables vote for them, Joe went straight for the jugular of the Mad King and called him and his cultists out. My God, somebody has to do it, and I find myself grateful that it is Joe Biden. If what he is telling us in that video is obsolete, we really are doomed and damned.

Thanks for letting me ramble on a bit myself. I think I needed to.