The Dish

To a graduating class of … one.

Against the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters in his home state.

A reader writes:

My friend and his boyfriend are coming to NYC in a few weeks from London, and one of them is H.I.V. positive. Due to the obvious concerns, he is going to post to me his medications in case his bags get searched going through immigration.   

I’m thinking that that is best option for him, but I was wondering if you happen to know a better way to deal with this.

It’s always safest to hide any evidence that you’re HIV-positive when entering the United States. Mailing the meds ahead of time seems like a good compromise – but only as much as it takes to get through the visit. Hiding or mislabeling the meds could lead to worse problems. Oh, and welcome to America.

One way to look at it:

The designer of the typeface used by Obama, Gotham, is one of the United States greatest living type designers (seriously, there is a renaissance in type design happening right now and Toby is one of the leaders). Gotham is simultaneously urban and working class but also high end as well. It was carved on the cornerstone of the new World Trade Center complex but is based on urban san serif type made by local sign shop guys. Toby is a native New Yorker.

John Baskerville (Clinton’s type choice) lived during 18th Century in England. Baskerville is respectable but conservative and more an early 1990s choice.

Optima (McCain) was designed by Hermann Zapf, a well regarded soft spoken German type designer known for his calligraphic inspired type designs. Zapf is 90 years old and still hard at work (like McCain?)

All about Gotham here:

Will Wilkinson counters Arthur Brooks’s argument that religion produces societal happiness.

Toronto, Canada, 10.53 am.

"Every candidate for public office inflames the passions of people who fervently disagree with them. To suggest, as Gov. Huckabee did, the misuse of a firearm toward a political candidate is reckless. His attitude toward proper, legal and safe use of firearms was demeaning to all of us who advocate the right to bear arms. His reprehensible use of a threatening and violent scenario involving a firearm at the NRA’s national convention was vile beyond belief," – Bob Barr, already campaigning against some Republicans.

Despite loathing the guy, Publius wants Lieberman to keep his committee chair:

The problem is that Joe’s vote will actually become more important the more that Democratic majorities expand. More precisely, the closer that the Dems get to the magic number (60), the more vital Joe becomes. Ironically enough, I think Lieberman is more important in a 59-41 Senate than in a 53-47 one.

A classic:

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party’s presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ. "John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Everhart was praising McCain for never denouncing the United States while he was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I’m not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ, I’m looking at the pain that was there," she said.

A reader responds to the weekend’s Dish on Buddhism and Christianity by telling a story:

I took a step outside for some fresh air tonight.  It’s a beautiful, clear, and crisp Autumn evening in Australia, and all I could do was look up at the almost-full moon and stars.  I said, "thank you," as I do whenever I’m moved by nature’s sublime beauty. Then it dawned on me – I was praying.

Sixteen years of Catholic education drilled the standard prayers into our gourds to the detriment of a true relationship with what it’s all about.  While I recall that the priests and sisters who taught me would occasionally say that my relationship with God is mine alone, they’d immediately follow it up with the Lord’s prayer or a request for intercession from the Virgin Mother. The relationship I was taught was formulaic and impersonal. But the prayers that work for me, both in times of awe and thanks and in times of pain and despair, are mine and mine alone with God.  And they’re closer to the Truth than any rule or catechism can convey.

There is a Spirit greater than me, but I am also a part of that Spirit. I am connected to It, and as much as It inspires me, my life, led well, is a gift back to It and makes It more whole, more alive, more dynamic.  It strikes me that these little moments of prayer, of thanks, of wonder, of doubt, are indeed the most intimate moments of both humility and pride.  The more of these moments I allow for myself, the closer to the Truth I’ll arrive, and the more Truth will be lived.