Sherry Chandler

Yet.

Though I’m told I’ll probably be the last to know.

And that was in the day before agribusiness gifted us with Mad Cow Disease.

Squirrel and rabbit could be called the “soul food” of poor white southerners. Certainly they made a protein supplement when times were hard. My mother could shoot a squirrel out of a tree with a 22 rifle, and I’ve eaten a many, as we say, but it was a right smart while ago. I’m more inclined to buy my protein shrink-wrapped in plastic these days.

Squirrel brains are considered a delicacy. There’s a knack to cooking them and to eating them. My Daddy taught me how to do it and how to suck the marrow from a bone. I won’t go into it here. Some are squeamish. But I could do it if times got hard. Dress a chicken, too, and butcher a cow.

Though I do wonder why squirrel brains and not rabbit brains. Rebecca?

Anyway, to get to the point, the Lexington Herald-Leader endorses Barack Obama but, I’m glad to say, they aren’t just cheerleaders for their golden boy. Here are some wise words from their editorial today, and many thanks to the correspondent who pointed me toward them (emphasis added):

On the heels of his drubbings in Kentucky and West Virginia, we have two words for Sen. Barack Obama: road trip.

Once he has sealed the Democratic nomination, he should enlist one or both of the Clintons to show him around the states he lost so decisively.

Former President Bill Clinton has traveled enough Kentucky backroads this spring that he probably wouldn’t need a guide. And if actor George Clooney joined in, they’d have a native along.

What the presumptive nominee and his media entourage would find is that despite the region’s heartbreaking poverty, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s stronghold in the foothills and highlands of central Appalachia is not the exclusive domain of white racists desperate for their next meal of squirrel brains.

The region has been home to anti-slavery abolitionists, some of the American labor movement’s most courageous acts and a strain of Democratic politics that produced such stalwart progressives as the late Rep. Carl D. Perkins.

Obama didn’t contest Kentucky. So it’s not surprising that he lost or that he lost some counties 10 to 1. Kentucky Democrats are loyal to Bill Clinton because his years as president produced measurable improvements in their lives. Poverty declined while more people gained health insurance.

Bill Clinton’s economic expansion really did lift all boats, while the Bush years have been very, very good for a few while leaving many more people bailing furiously to keep afloat.

Obama shouldn’t write off Kentucky and West Virginia to Republican John McCain. But Obama needs to put some meat on his “change” message to reassure voters that, like Hillary Clinton, he’s offering practical solutions, especially for the economy.

…

With the notable exception of African-Americans, Hillary Clinton’s base is the Democratic Party base.

And Kentucky Democrats turned out in record numbers Tuesday. Forty-three percent of Democrats voted; the next highest turnout in a Democratic presidential primary was 31 percent in 1992.

I do not agree with the editor’s presumption that Obama is the Democratic nominee. After all, they said it themselves: Hillary Clinton’s base is the Democratic base.

But when, and if, he is that nominee then he’d better come see us, ya hear.

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I have talked too much. I am all talked out. I have laryngitis, both physical and philosophical. So I will let Nick Gisburne read you a ghost story by an American master.