Reasons to be cheerful I

After the last, rather depressing post, something more cheerful.

In the course of one lucky day last week two young boys (about 8 years old) separately and spontaneously held gates open for me whilst I was wrestling with my bike.

And then I came across this:


Amazing. Alongside the adverts for suspiciously cheap rooms and busty caribbean ladies in the window of a newsagents on the Holloway Road. I wonder if he has had any interest...

Philadelphia XII

Two things from the papers this morning that I thought might interest you.

The Obama campaign has published behind the scenes photos of the Obama family on election night - Flikr seems to be struggling to keep up with demand to see them, but if you refresh a few times they should appear!

And Salon has this very interesting article by Michael Lind tracing a pattern of governmental growth and backlash throughout American history. He divides this history into three "Republics", each lasting approximately 72 years, and each divided in half, with growth in the role of the state followed by determined contraction. He sees the fourth republic as having begun with Bush's re-election in 2004 (without much justification), but admits that Obama will be remembered as the first president of the new era.