Despite what some people may think of me (and despite what impressions my actions or writing may give off), I generally try to hold to the principle of interpreting what other people say or write in the best possible light. While sometimes it is true that I just don't see how the most charitable interpretation can be the correct one, other times it baffles me why so many people get their bowels in an uproar over something that almost certainly wasn't meant to convey the worst possible message that could be seen in the actual words. Take for example the recent brouhaha over Hillary Clinton's recent comparison of the present Democratic primary to that of 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Clinton's words are open to two obvious interpretations. One is that it isn't unusual to have a primary last up through June. The other is that she needs to stay in the race just in case Barrack Obama gets assassinated so she can pick up the pieces. Short of any context or other behaviors, the first of these is to be preferred and Clinton's words understood as nothing more than an embarrassing gaffe that a politician of her stature probably should have known better to make. The second interpretation needs other support which, at present time, doesn't seem to be out there. Yet some folks out there, Keith Olberman being a notable example, that are practically foaming at the mouth over this.

Today passed quickly. Housework. Shopping. The only notable bit of the shopping was that we plundered a local Half Price Books. I came away with a handsome hard bound edition of Voltaire's Candide, a dog eared copy of Don Quixote and a DVD of the 1919 release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Youngest daughter is off partying like a Rock Star with my mom who is in town from Sequim, Washington. But my eldest daughter picked up quite a bit of Chick Lit (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, etc.). For Xanthippe, it was a couple of movies about psycho killers and a very nice volume of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales.

We got back from shopping just in time for my eldest daughter and I to walk to Vespers. Upon our return, we bugged out for fast food before consuming The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. While I'm a big fan of fables, this one was exceedingly heavy handed. The puns were good. The moral of the story, or rather the many morals of the story, I heartily approve of. But it was crap. The inverse of last night's movie watching with my eldest daughter, the Steve Martin / Hillary Duff remake of Cheaper by the Dozen which was a very well acted, well produced fable chock full of messages of which I disapproved. In Shark Boy and Lava Girl the over-arching morality play was about how if you focus too much on a dream as a dream, it can become real with disastrous results but if you take actual steps to make a dream reality, you can make a dream real. But in Cheaper the the morality play seemed to be that family is the greatest good. Full stop. If your family can't deal with following your dream within the first weak of trying to make it real, you're fucked. Full stop.

Full. Stop.