Bog Turtle

Yesterday on my way to an electronics recycling event at the Towamensing Township municipal building, I saw a turtle crossing Strohls Valley Road.  A car was coming in the opposite direction, so I quickly stopped to carry the turtle across the road. (I have discovered that quite a few people do this.)

When I picked it up, I was amazed how small it was.  I’m familiar with box turtles, but this one was much smaller. It occurred to me that it might have been a bog turtle.  When I looked up the photos on YouTube, there it was--a bog turtle.

Bog turtles are an endangered species.  Evidently they live along the stream that flows into Hunter Creek that parallels Spruce Hollow Road.  That’s where the UGI-Penn East tracking gas pipeline will run--125 foot construction corridor and a 50 foot permanent scar.  

Who will prevail?  A multi-billion dollar company or a small turtle about the size of a dessert plate?  I think you know the answer.

Gov. Scott Walker and "cool ultrasounds"

The new strategy of abortion opponents is not to try to ban abortions, but to make abortions almost impossible to obtain.  Require waiting periods.  Put up roadblocks.  Shame the women.  

Wisconsin is in the forefront passing such laws.  One such law, signed by Governor Scott Walker, requires women who want an abortion to undergo an ultrasound which they must watch while the physician points out various features of the fetus.

There is absolutely no medical reason for this.  It is an attempt to convince the pregnant woman to forego the abortion.  

According to a column by Gail Collins in today’s New York Times, here is what Walker said on a radio program:

We defunded Planned Parenthood.  We signed a law that requires an ultrasound, which, the thing about that, the media tried to make that sound like that was a crazy idea.  Most people I talk to, whether they’re pro-life or not, I find people all the time who’ll get out their iPhone and show me a picture of their grandkids’ ultrasound and how excited they are, so that’s a lovely thing.  I think about my sons are 19 and 20 and we still have their first ultrasound pictures.  It’s just a cool thing out there.

What we have here is a man comparing a parent who wants a child showing off an ultrasound to a woman who has made the difficult choice, for whatever reason, to obtain an abortion.

This man would like to be our president.

Lehighton Stadium

The headline in today’s Times News does catch one’s eye:  “Lehighton OKs $6.3M stadium.”  It is good to know that the Lehighton School Board is doing its best to ensure that its students can compete with Chinese students in the modern economy.

My local government expert Linda told me that people often home in on a small item of the budget rather than the huge expenditure, and I did that.  In the article I noted that the cost included $17,000 for signs spelling out “Lehighton” and “Indians.”  I will not discuss the use of the term “Indians” for a sports team and the tomahawks and an Indian in Plains headdress which no Lenni Lenape would ever wear, but I did think that was an outrageous amount to pay for end zone lettering.

I called my friend Rocky, one of the school board members who opposed the $6.3 million stadium, and he said I was reading it correctly.  $17,000 for lettering.  I realize that is a small amount next to $6.3 million, but to paraphrase Sen Everett Dirksen, $17,000 here, $17,000 there; after a while it adds up to real money.  

Luckily, I live in the Palmerton Area School District, where I would hope our school directors have better sense.

Rickie Santorum announces

Does he have a chance?  

According to the February 2015 Harper’s Index, the percentage of Americans who believe that vaccines are safe and effective:  53%.  

Percentage of Americans who believe that houses can be haunted by ghosts:  54%.

I’d say he has a chance.

President Carly Fiorina?

As I’m sure you know, California is undergoing a horrendous and historic drought.  Now, thanks to Carly Fiorina, we know what has caused it.  In a speech to a group in Iowa, she blamed the drought on “overzealous liberal environmentalists.”  I am not making this up. 

This is a woman who in 2005 was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard after laying off nearly 30,000 people and watching the company’s stock price plunge.  But don’t be too concerned for her.  She got a $21,000,000 severance package.  Her next big accomplishment was losing a Senate race to Barbara Boxer by a million votes.

Now she’s running for the Republican nomination for president.  The amazing thing is that she is not the worst candidate.  That would be Ted Cruz.  Or Rickie Santorum.  Or Ben Carson.  Or Huckabee.  Or Trump. 

Rick Perry, you are looking good.

Breakfast with a priest

This morning Linda and I ate breakfast at the Bowmanstown Diner.  We ate in the back room, and the tables are rather close together.  The guy behind me said to his table mates, “I can’t imagine that anyone voted for Obama.”  I turned around and said, “I did, and I’m glad I did.”  The guy replied, “I’ll pray for you.”

Linda said, “You realize that guy is a priest?”  I had no idea.  Later he and his table mates got into a discussion about the Affordable Care Act, complaining about the cost, ignoring the fact that 17 million more people now have medical insurance.  (WWJD?)  

I then heard the priest say, “I think everyone should have a choice.”  I wanted to turn around and say, “That’s what I’m talking about,” but Linda restrained me.

The food was good, but I could have used better ambiance.

We Shall Overcome

Back in the early 60s I was a camp counselor for the 4-H at Camp Daddy Allen in Hickory Run State Park.  One year, and I’m not kidding, I taught archery.  

I also taught the kids to sing “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the Civil Rights movement.  It was actually rather strange--a group of white farm kids, mostly Pennsylvania Dutch, singing “We Shall Overcome” in the Hickory Run woods, although at the time it seemed completely reasonable.

Recently the man who popularized that song for the Civil Rights movement, Guy Carawan, died at age 87.  He didn’t write the song, but he taught it to the delegates at the inaugural meeting of SNCC in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 15, 1960.  

Mr. Carawan’s obituary traces the song back to the 1790s, and, like many folk songs, it underwent many permutations.  The version we sing now is Mr. Carawan’s.

In 1965, when I was a grad student at Penn State, my friend Joe and I were watching Lyndon Johnson’s speech on the Voting Rights Bill.  Johnson ended his speech pointing out that American Negroes were trying to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.  

He ended with this:  “Their cause must be our cause too.  Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.”  

And then he added, “And we shall overcome.” 

The Pipeline Manifesto

I’ve always wanted to write a manifesto.  The very word “manifesto” sounds important and revolutionary.  So here is my first manifesto, entitled “The Pipeline Manifesto.”

We home owners and farmers are annoyances standing in the path of the PennEast pipeline.  PennEast wishes we were gone.  That’s why wherever possible the pipeline runs though state parks and state gamelands.  The trees, animals, and birds in those areas will not complain, so they can be disrupted, ignored, or eliminated.  Human impediments are more of a problem.

People, of course, can also be disrupted, but we must be dealt with.  We are fed a lunch at the Flagstaff.  We are sent slick brochures.  We are given maps impossible to read.  We are told it is our patriotic duty to allow the pipeline to bring fracking gas across our land.  We are told we are standing in the way of jobs, prosperity, and the economic well-being of our fellow citizens.

If we still object to the pipeline in spite of this barrage it won’t matter; we can be forced to cede the rights to our land even though the profits do not flow into the U.S. treasury.  The gas will not be available to citizens on a non-profit basis.

Of course not.  Profits from this gas pipeline will go into the coffers of multi-billion dollar companies whose executives help to fund the campaigns of politicians who write the policies that govern pipeline company rights.

The only way to stop this unholy alliance of federal authority and corporate greed is by a nationwide grass-roots movement that rises up and demands, “NO MORE.”  

It will take a long time and a hard effort.  Let’s get started.

The President's Twitter account

The editor of the Independent Gazette, a fairly new Carbon County tabloid, asked me why I didn’t permit anonymous postings on this blog.  His question was, “Don’t you want a dialog?”  I wouldn’t mind a dialog, as those of you who post comments well know.  What I will not accept is anonymous postings.

President Obama recently opened a Twitter account, and the problem with anonymous comments quickly became apparent, with racist tweets involving exhortations that the President should kill himself, pictures of the President with his head in a noose, profanity, and comparisons of the President to a monkey.

If you ever wondered if much of the opposition to the President is racially motivated, I think you have your answer.  If you ever wondered if racism runs deep in this country, I think you have your answer.  And if you want to know what is wrong with the anonymity so prevalent on the internet, there it is.

Too eclectic

In graduate school at Penn State in the 60s I was a teaching assistant to Professor Eldon Eisenach.  I thought he was brilliant, and I wanted to be just like him.  He knew so much about all sorts of subjects.

I mentioned this to another professor, and he said that Dr. Eisenach was “too eclectic” to become a star in the academic world..

I don’t know what happened to Dr. Eisenach (I suppose I could google him, but I have not), but if you are a reader of this blog and one night you read about honeybees and the next night you read about Burmese refugees and that is followed by a rant about Scott Walker and it seems like this blog wanders all over the map, you can blame Dr. Eisenach, my role model and my hero.  I am proud to be “eclectic.”

The Death Tax

Speaker John Boehner wants to eliminate the federal estate tax, which he and many other Republicans label the “Death Tax.”  Republicans in Congress often bemoan the family farms and small business wiped out by this tax. 

Here are the facts.  The federal tax currently applies to estates worth more than $5.43 million for an individual or $10.86 million for a couple.  Assets above those levels are taxed at rates up to 40%.  The tax applies to just 0.2% of the deaths anticipated in the U.S.  In 2013 approximately 20 (that’s right, 20) small business and small farms owed any estate taxes, and those were taxed at a rather low average of 5%.

The beneficiaries of an elimination of the estate tax would be the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans.  The tax will generate about a quarter of a trillion dollars from that small group.  And that is the group the Republican Congress members are proud to represent.

Bottled water

Tonight a representative of a bottled water company gave a powerpoint presentation to the Pohopoco-Aquashicola Watershed group.  The water company, a subsidiary of the international food giant Nestle, proposes to take tankers of water from springs that flow into the Buckwha Creek, that flows into the Aquashicola, that flows into the Lehigh, that flows into the Delaware, that flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

One time at a conference in California, I heard the poet Gary Snyder propose that we should draw our political boundaries according to the watersheds in which we live, and ever since that I’ve paid attention.

The water would be captured near Kunkletown, Pennsylvania  It would not be drawn from the springs, which might have surface contamination, but rather from wells dug near the springs.

I am opposed to this on a number of levels.  First of all, the bottled water industry is a completely superfluous industry.  Fifty years ago the idea of selling people water that they could get for free from the tap would have seemed ludicrous.  It still seems completely ridiculous to me.  In the U.S. the water is safe to drink.  It might not taste very good in some towns, but it won’t make you sick.

Secondly, the bottled water industry is an environmental disaster.  Plastic bottles fill our dumps and float in our rivers and oceans.  Electricity is used to cool the water, adding to environmental costs.

Finally, if water comes out of a spring and flows into the Buckwha Creek, why should an international food conglomerate be able to tap into that resource for private profit?  Screw that.  

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay until the end of the presentation, made by a hydrological engineer who has sold his soul to a multinational company.  I will try to learn more about the plans and what I can do to thwart this water grab.  You’ll hear more about this.

Ex Machina

Our local theater at the Mahoning Mall has been booking some very interesting movies lately.  On Saturday night we saw Ex Machina, a film built on the Turing Test.  Alan Turing in 1950 said we would have created artificial intelligence if a human interacting with a computer or a machine would not be able to tell that he or she was interacting with a machine.

In the film a very rich computer company founder has developed a robot he calls Eva.  He brings in a young employee of his company to determine if the robot passes the test.  

I certainly won’t tell you the ending, which might not come as too much of a surprise if you remember Mary Shelley and Frankenstein’s monster.  I do urge you to see the movie.

As a bonus,the film contains a very funny dance routine.  

If you do not like this film, I will refund your ticket price.*

*  This offer is valid only for residents of Carbon County, Pennsylvania.  

Voter guide for Tuesday

Ok, judges’ races.  Democrat.  Vote for all the women.  All have received high ratings rom the PA Bar Association, and all would make good judges.

As for Republican judicial races, don’t vote.  All candidates are lousy.

Carbon County Commissioner race.  Four of the five Democratic candidates are personal friends of mine.  Walck, O’Gurek, Ahner, and Green are all qualified.  I’m not sure about Boyko, who as far as I know, never did much in the past to help Democratic Party candidates. 

On the Republican side, I again am personal friends with Dellecker, Nothstein, and Gerhard.  I don’t know Smith, but he seems like a nice man.  My advice to Republicans–stay home.

Carbon County Coroner.  Why is this position an elected one?  Wouldn’t it be better to appoint a qualified coroner?  I’m voting for Blazosky, a personal friend, but Miller, Jones, and Hoffman are all qualified.  I don’t recommend Bossard because I heard him speak about the evils of assisted suicide.  I see nothing wrong with assisted suicide the way it is done in Oregon.

Towamensing Township Supervisor.  Nobody’s running on the Democratic ticket.  Tom Newman, the Republican candidate, is also a personal friend.  If you are a Republican, vote for Newman.  After all, he supported the recent resolution against the PennEast pipeline.

You probably should vote.  Turnout in “off-year” elections hovers around 15%.  That’s because voters don’t know the candidates or the issues. 

Clintons "earning" money

Parade magazine for years ran an issue with the headline “What they earned.”  The magazine listed various people–actors, sports figures, regular workers–along with the amount of money they made that year.

I was always irritated by the use of the term “earned.”  A CEO who took in ten million did not “earn” that money, he (and it’s almost always a he) took in that money.  He got that money.  He received that money.  He certainly did not EARN that money.

Now I see the following headline in the Times today:  “Clintons Earned $30 million in 16 Months, Report Shows.”  Most of that money came from speeches to corporations, banks, and other organizations.

It’s a tidy sum, but it was not earned.

Burmese refugees

You’ve probably heard of the boatload of Jewish refugees within sight of the lights of Miami, turned back.  Many of those refugees died in German concentration camps because the U.S. wouldn’t accept them.

Today refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, are being towed back out to sea by Thailand and Indonesia.

The refugees, including children, will die.  Surely the U.S. could take them in.  Look at refugees we have taken in the past who were a plus for the U.S.  Hungarians in ’56.  Cubans fleeing Castro.  Vietnamese in the 70s.  Hmong in the 70s.  Aside from the humanitarian aspect, we benefit from refugees.

Where are our Republican Presidential candidates who tout their Christian beliefs?  Where is our president?  The U.S., greatest nation in the world we are told again and again, can afford to take in a few thousand Burmese refugees who will otherwise die. 

We live in a cruel world that seems to have learned no lessons from the past.  Why don’t the anti-abortion fanatics in the U.S. worry about children who are already born?  Where is Sen. Toomey?  Where is Barletta?  I am so tired of this evil.

Honeybees

Honeybee deaths last summer exceeded winter deaths for the first time.  (See Michael Wines, “A Sharp Spike in Honeybee Deaths Deepens a Worrisome Trend,” NYT, p. A11.) Commercial bee keepers expect some loss during the winter months.  This is the first year that summer honeybee deaths exceeded winter deaths.

Scientist cite two factors.  First, a deadly parasite, the varroa mite, has been spreading.  Secondly, a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, now banned in Europe, seems to be a culprit.  The pesticide Roundup is a neonicotinoid.  

You can buy Roundup at your local hardware store.  “Roundup Ready” soybeans and corn are increasingly planted in the U.S.  I keep reading that GMO crops are safe, and they probably are, but when GMO crops are produced to enhance a specific pesticide produced by Monsanto, we have a problem, especially when that pesticide is killing honeybees.

Carbon County Fire Training Facility

It appears that almost every fire department in Carbon County supports a proposed county training facility.  I certainly support fire fighters being trained, but I must ask–isn’t this the kind of thing that could be done regionally?  Do Monroe and Schuylkill Counties have facilities to train fire fighters?  Could Carbon County firefighters train there?  Would that be cheaper than setting up a Carbon County facility?

Perhaps this has already been investigated.  If not, it should be.  I think we have way too many local governments in Pennsylvania with way too many separate facilities that could be combined to save taxpayers’ dollars.

The Carbon County Commissioners' Race

Remember presidential races before accurate polling?  I don't either, but in the early days of polling, candidates had no idea who would win.  Truman's victory over Dewey in 1948 was not known at the time Truman turned in for the night.  Kennedy's victory over Nixon wasn't assured until the early morning hours.  Now we generally know how the election will turn out on the morning of election day before the first vote is cast.

Except where polling isn't done. I have no idea who will win the race for Carbon County Commissioner.  On the Democratic side, I'm fairly sure that Bill O'Gurek will do very well in Summit Hill and Lansford while the stronger areas for Jesse Walck and Rocky Ahner will be Mahoning, Lehighton, Bowmanstown, and Palmerton.

I can predict with some confidence that Mr. Green and Mr. Boyko will not win.  Mr. Green, who is a smart guy, will do well in Lower Towamensing where he is Supervisor, but he is not well known in the rest of the county.  Mr. Boyko has much the same problem, and he also has not been active in politics until the current election.

On the Republican side, Mr. Gerhard is well-regarded in his home area of Weatherly and its environs, while Mr. Nothstein is long-time incumbent with all of the advantages–and disadvantages–that implies.
Mr. Dellecker should do well in the more southern boroughs and townships, while Mr. Smith will probably take Mahoning and Lehighton.

Bottom line:  I have no idea who will be selected in the primary.  I can tell you this--I won't be going to bed early on election day next week.

Authentic motels

I've sometimes told people it isn't an authentic American motel unless you can smell the curry cooking when you are checking in at the motel office.  Gujaratis from India now control over 40% of the hospitality industry in the U.S.

When I started driving across the country, many of the small independent motels were run by Indians, but most of the chains (which I hardly ever used) were staffed by Anglos.  Now you can find Indians in all kinds of motels, including the chains.

This is what is known in anthropology as an "occupational niche."  Almost all Amish are farmers, Somalis drive cabs, Irish at one time joined the police force, brick layers were often Italian, and so on.  Indian immigrants at this particular point in time often move into the motel and hotel business.

Tonight we are in the Mountain View motel in Maryville, Tennessee.  When we signed in, you could smell the curry.  I felt at home.

Eating our way across the south

I've already told you about the barbeque restaurant with the blue grass band in Marion, Virginia.  The next day we ate lunch at a "Belgian southern bistro" in Lenoir, Tennessee.  The proprietor was Flemish, and the "bistro" featured Belgian beers.  On the 8th we stopped in Bessemer, Alabama, at a Mexican butcher shop with a side room restaurant.  The patrons included three Bessemer fire fighters and some Mexican gardeners.

On Friday we had a late supper at a small takeout fish fry place in Beaumont, Texas.  The establishment was run by Vietnamese, and the clientele was black, except for us.  Linda had the giant shrimp and I had three boudin balls, which are some kind of deep fried balls composed of rice and pork parts.  I don't recommend them.

Yesterday Linda's brother-in-law took us to Nifa's, a locally famous Mexican restaurant in the 5th Ward of Houston.  My goodness, that was wonderful.

Today we started back.  We stopped for lunch at Cajun Tales, a restaurant in Welsh, Louisiana. I had fried catfish.

I don't care for much of the politics down here, but the food is amazing.

Outlawing abortion in Alabama

The Alabama legislature just reported out a bill imposing further restrictions on abortions.  Katha Pollitt wrote recently in The Nation magazine about why gay marriage is becoming more acceptable, but abortion is more and more restricted.

One important reason is that gay marriage involves men, although more gay women have been marrying than men.  Men have clout; women don't.  And while approximately one in three American women have had abortions, many of them buy into the idea that this is something you don't talk about publicly.

Pollitt notes that corporations don't threaten to pull out of states that pass anti-abortion laws, unlike the threats issued against Indiana when it passed an anti-gay law.  Meanwhile, more and more states restrict abortions.  And corporations are now allowed to refuse their workers insurance that covers birth control.

Tonight we are in Beaumont, Texas, after driving through Mississippi and Louisiana.  We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do.

Road Kill in Alabama

We were driving south on I-59 when I commented to Linda that we didn't see any dead deer along the highway.  In Pennsylvania you see dead deer along the highway every few miles, or so it seems.  I speculated that maybe in Alabama the authorities removed them.

I mentioned this to Linda's cousin Terry, and he explained the reason we saw no deer.  In Alabama people stop and pick them up.  Why waste good venison?  He's said he's seen situations where a driver hits a deer and the following driver will stop and inquire, "Do you want that deer?"

He said the general rule is, if you see a dead deer and it is still warm, it is good to go.

In Red America

     Today we visited the Knoxville Art Museum (free, with an excellent collection of modern art) and the Chickamauga Battlefield near Chattanooga.  Now we are in Fort Payne, home of the 80s country band Alabama.

     I walked to a gas station near our motel to buy some wine and saw "Spanish Lingo for Contractors" and "Spanish Lingo for Gardeners and Landscapers" on the counter.  I asked the cashier if Fort Payne had many Spanish speakers.  She rolled her eyes and went into a rant against the people who didn't speak English.

     At least I think that was what she was saying.  I'm having a hard time with the northern Alabama accent and only pick up about one in three words.

Valley Grass

Linda and I are in Marion, Virginia, about 50 miles north of the Tennessee border.  We ate at Wolfe's BBQ while listening to a five-member blue grass band named Valley Grass.  This is the redneck part of  Virginia; the Courthouse has the inevitable statue of a Confederate soldier.

I'm not totally comfortable here, but the music is great.

Goat rodeo

What a bunch of losers.  This weekend Dr. Ben Carson announced for the Presidency.  (He’s a medical doctor, by the way, not a real Ph.D like me.).  Mike Huckabee will announce in a few days.  Did Rickie Santorum announce yet?.  And there’s Christie.  And Rubio.  And Bush.  And Jaindal.  And Perry.  And Carla Fiorina.  And Homer Simpson.  And that guy from Wisconsin.

Faithful blog readers know that I try to keep my postings on a high level.  That’s why I’m using the term “goat rodeo” rather than the Jon Stewart term, “Cluster F---.”  

Oh shit, I forgot Rand Paul and Chuckles the Clown.

Nobody listens

Recently Robert Reich wrote a column about the growing sense in the U.S. about having no power.  The common viewpoint was "They don't listen."  The political and economic systems are less accountable.

He notes that in 2005, the U.S. had nine major airlines.  Now we have four.  He notes that 80% of Americans are served by just one Internet service provider, usually Comcast, AT&T, or Time Warner.  He points out that in 1990 the five biggest banks held 10% of all banking assets.  Today they hold about 45%.

Companies treat workers as disposable, because workers need the work and must take whatever they can get.  They really are disposable.

Over 85% of the congressional districts are considered safe for the incumbents.  Only 3% are rated toss-ups in 2016.  We don't have a democracy.  Workers have no power; 7% of the private workforce is union. The Koch Brothers and their ilk buy elections.  The Supreme Court approves.

I personally feel "they don't listen."  My own example is that the grassroots groups that are fighting the PennEast pipeline are fully aware that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is in thrall to the natural gas drillers.

The reason Reich finds that people are saying "They don't listen," is because that is a truth that those of us on the bottom know all too well.  They (read that as the powers that be) really don't care what we (read that as the common ordinary people) think.  Why should they?

Insecticides and the slug population

In the latest issue of Research/ Penn State, students at Penn State and the University of South Florida report that certain insecticides could make slugs toxic to the insects that eat them.  It turns out that slugs (mollusks) are not affected by neonicotinoids (read Roundup), but they become toxic to the beetles that feed on them.

According to John Tooker, associate professor of entomology at Penn State, “Slugs are among the most challenging pests faced by Mid-Atlantic no-till growers.  Our research reveals that neonicotinoids can indirectly increase slug damage to crops by poisoning insects that eat slugs.”

Do you ever get the feeling that insecticide, fungicide, and herbicide producers have no idea of what they are doing?  I’m pretty sure they don’t care, as long as they can make money selling their poisons.

Bernie Sanders announces for President

I have levels of candidate support.  First are the candidates that I completely support without reservations.  As my friend Edie says, I’d take a bullet for them.  They would include candidates like Jerry Brown, Morris Udall, Barack Obama, and Patti Borger.

Then there are candidates that I support because they are so much better than their opponents, although they may have positions I don’t care for or they are flawed in some way.  That group would include Bill Clinton, and yes, Hillary Clinton.

Some candidates are truly awful, but I still would support them because their opponents are evil.  I can’t think of many examples, but when Edwards ran against Duke for governor of Louisiana, Duke was a KKK officer, while Edwards was just a crook.  The bumper stickers summed it up:  “Vote for the lizard, not the wizard.”

What to do about Sanders?  I think I’ll vote for him in the primary.  He understands the corruption money brings to politics, while Clinton rakes in huge amounts from large donors.  He is spontaneous while Clinton is scripted.  He is to the left; Clinton is to the center.  I know he can’t win, and I know that I will support Clinton in the general, but I want to vote for a candidate in the primary I really like.  Go Bernie.