You sent us to camp. They made us sing.

Randal may not like this news but the singular tunes of Barry Manilow are actually being used as punishment for young noise violators.

Some may call being locked in a room for an hour listening to "Mandy" a sort of torture, but I'd call it simply "heaven."

(Although the Geneva Convention may apply if this occurs within the continental United States.)

Look at Mr. Addams. He's always developing outside interests.

We have three kids. Our middle child (13) is just about the sweetest girl you could ever meet.

At the end of the school year last year we had one of the teachers at her middle school call us up and tell us she was worried about her. Our daughter seemed a little withdrawn, shy and didn't seem to have a lot of friends. This teacher was concerned that there may be a an issue that would cause our daughter to get "lost" as she advanced into high school.

We had always known our daughter was a little behind socially but she's also very smart (an encyclopedic knowledge of Pokemon and anime for instance) and a voracious reader, if a bit disorganized in her studies. Her grades haven't been stellar but her standardized testing has been pretty good. We took her as a bit of an egghead who was sometimes unfocused.

But this teacher's concern forced us to reflect on our daughter and any little clues that there might be something else going on . Long story short- after a series of tests and psychological profiles she was diagnosed with mild Asperger's.

(As an aside let me just say that my wife owe and enormous debt to this public school teacher. She didn't have our daughter in class at the time and met huge resistance from the powers that be and fellow teachers in pushing that our daughter be tested. Because our daughter would sit quietly in the classroom and not cause trouble she wasn't considered someone with a social disorder by a few of the her teachers.)

Reading through the paperwork compiled by the district doctor and the counselors in their diagnosis was both enlightening and heartbreaking. At one point during an interview our daughter asked the doctor "if they could teach her to make friends." That's a gut-punch for a parent.

Going into this school year our daughter is meeting with specialists and learning how to socially interact with her peers. The district has been great in accommodating for this after the initial diagnosis. We are all looking forward to this year

Which brings me to yesterday. For months our daughter has been planning on attending Kumoricon, the local Anime convention in Portland. My wife had to work so I got tapped to escort the little mynx to the festival.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here. I love my daughter but yesterday I really didn't want to go to this thing. I had a hellish week at work and personally am not a huge fan of that particular style of animation. But I sucked it up like a good dad and off we went.


I'll do a little report with some more pics sometime later but let me just say that the convention was absolutely wonderful. There were costumes galore from Star Wars to Disney to Sailor Moon. The whole thing had a circus atmosphere that was infectious. I have never been around a more joyous group of people in my life. Everywhere you went people were breaking into song or dance. The convention-goers took over the park across from the hotel and it turned into one big anime party. These guys are just happy to be alive.

But what really made the day worth it, what really touched my heart was how my daughter (Now "#1Animefan" by her convention badge) took the whole day in. She was walking on air from the minute we parked the car. She danced (danced!) the Carmelldansen, chatted with other friendly people that shared her interest in anime, played Red Rover with a group of Pikachus and pretty much went crazy with fun.

For the first time in a long time (maybe her life?) she wasn't the odd man out. She had met 10,000 other "#1Animefans." She was in her element. She was happy. She was with friends.

She's not alone and that means the world to her and to her parents. Everythings going to be fine.

TISH. That's French.

Becca over at No Smoking in the Skullcave has done an absolutely terrific drawing of the Addam's Family that would do Charles Addams proud.

I love a man with integrity - I wish I knew one.

I got into a short discussion with my favorite cousin about blogging this weekend and inevitably the issue of Lieberman came up. I have been making a conscious effort to NOT write about the Lamont/ Lieberman race but it's practically impossible under the current political environment. As Steve Gilliard points out Lieberman is the "Flying Wedge" of the Republican strategy for retaining control of congress in 2006. Like it or not the Connecticut Senate race has implications well beyond the state and that's putting aside Lieberman's effect on the three House seats Democrats might be in better position to pick-up in Connecticut if Joe dropped out.

It was fascinating to read the give and take between several prominent moderate to progressive sites on this very issue. Most notably Josh Marshall has been bantering back and forth with Duncan Black and Matt Stoller over where progressive netroots support and energy ought to be heading. Josh takes the position that the resources being poured into the Lieberman race would be better spent on other important races around the country. I say Josh but most of his arguments have been posted in the form of emails he received from "TPM reader DK"

Putting self above party at the expense of party should have consequences. But at what cost? I part ways with those wanting to enforce party discipline even as they admit it might cost Dems a Senate majority. As I have said before, a Democratic Senate with Lieberman in it far surpasses a GOP Senate without Lieberman.

It'd be difficult to quantify how ignorant this comment is of the current mood among grassroots Democrats and party activists. Most Democrats have a difficult time imagining how a Democratic Senate would be better than it is under Republican control. The party's failure to morph into a true opposition party over the course of the last decade in the minority makes it clear they have yet to see the modern Republican party as the threat it really is. There is little possibility that the a Democratic Senate wouldn't revert to the same go-along-to-get-along form it took the last time they were in charge. That means that all of the things which the Republican majority took away by brute force (blue slips, committee make-up, ability to get legislation to the floor, conference committee) would be ceded back to Republicans when they are then in the minority.

And all of that's taking Joe Lieberman's ego out of the equation AND taking the dubious promise he's made to caucus with Democrats at face value. Once you figure him in and his "Meet the Press" approach to governing it's impossible to see how a Democratic Senate would be better if Joe Lieberman were a part of it.

Gomez, last night - you were unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me. - Do it again!

Much of the discussion among progressives as of late has been centered around the possibility of overkill with investigations of the Bush Administration should the Democrats retake one or both houses of congress. The theme running through this conversation is Democrats are so frustrated at the constant lies and transgressions of this President that, once they have the institutional levers of oversight under their control, they risk the possibility of going completely apeshit to the degree they dilute the possibility of actual oversight. For this reason Democrats should limit the investigations to one or two big-ticket items. Digby comes with a list of three items to investigate.

I agree with Matt that the Democrats need to be smart about how they go about investigating the Bush administration and should concentrate on the key areas that best illustrate their massive failure. I also agree that war profiteering is an overlooked subject that focuses on the corrupt crony capitalism that has fueled this administration from day one. (Jane was on this a year ago.) It's long past time people started asking where in the hell all that money went.

I would suggest that the other two issues that are ripe for investigations, and which would capture the worst of the egregious actions of the Bush administration, are presidential abuse of power and the manipulation of intelligence and strategic errors of Iraq. Those are the areas in which it is important to demand accountability from the administration and demonstrate to the American people that mature, responsible leadership will not allow such behavior to go unpunished.

Putting aside the HUGE cart-before-the-horse element of this conversation I think there's another thing missing here: it's built on the assumption that the Democrats have effectively assumed opposition party status and are itching for a fight.

I don't doubt for a second that if the Democrats were to win Congress (an enormous, colossal, gargantuan "if") there would be investigations of the administration. The difference will be in that these investigations will be institutional rather than partisan. Democratic leaders will focus on issues in which the lines of the traditional balance of powers between the coequal branches of government have been redrawn these last few years. The hearings will focus on the loss of institutional power by congress itself. In short: they will once again miss the forest for the trees.

The administration through Alberto Gonzalez's Unitary Executive theory has asserted unchecked power on matters of policy ranging from torture of prisoners, secrecy, ability to interpret statute covering the Executive branch and even the ability to declare war above and beyond congressional authorizations for the use of force (themselves probably unconstitutional.) Efforts by congressional Democrats in a majority to reign in the administration on all of these issues would be pointless if it didn't address the philosophy behind their assertion of power in the first place. It's not enough to say "Congress matters!" The extraconstitutional philosophy that led to this radical and dangerous rogue presidency needs to be exposed and exercised from the body politic. Congressional Democrats just don't have it in themselves to do this.

We know this because even while in the minority for twelve years, even while dealing with an unprecedented level of corruption by majority Republicans, even while being neutered to the point of political impotence and treated like dogs, congressional Democrats continue to show deference to their collegues across the aisle.

Take Jay Rockefeller for example. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee he has continued to let himself get pushed around by Chairman Roberts and done nothing about it. Yesterday it was reported that Roberts was going to kick the can of Phase Two of the Iraq war intelligence down the road until after the election and it appears Rockefeller is okay with that. His officed announced he wouldn't have objections to postponing the postponement of the postponement of the investigation that they had already postponed on numerous occasions. He then rolled over on his back and begged Roberts to scratch his belly.

The point being it's hard to imagine a situation where CHAIRMAN Rockefeller would act differently in defference to a request by then ranking minority leader Roberts request to postpone. Out of respect for the instititution, deference to his collegues, etc. Rockefeller would probably postpone the investigation rather than ignore the request. These guys don't have the fire in their belly no matter how much the grassroots has tried to beg and cajole them into realizing these are different times and you can't show deference to radical maniacs who clearly want to eliminate you and everything you stand for and the country in the process.

Meek and mealy-mouthed Democratic Senators and Congressmen aren't going to suddenly grow a spine once they take the majority. In the inverse Republican Senators and Congressman won't suddenly understand the importance of comity and consensus once they're back in the minority. All of us will be better off once we come to terms with that.