As expected, Hillary Clinton won big in the West Virginia primary Tuesday. Though it didn’t change the math - Barack Obama still leads in states won, pledged delegates, popular vote and superdelegates (with more committed superdelegates added today) - the landslide win gave Clinton another emotional boost. Her only hope of winning now rests with getting the Florida and Michigan delegations seated at the convention - which she again called for during her victory speech Tuesday night.
Before its reconstruction began, people used to consider Kellogg a joke. Since then, the joking has been about how long the project is taking. The most-told joke notes that because scientists say the sun will burn out in several billion years, “that means we’ll have to finish the Kellogg freeway construction in the dark,” as then-City Manager Chris Cherches put it in the ’90s. Similarly, when the downtown flyover opened in 1994, colorful signs went up nearby declaring, “And people said the sun would burn out first!”
Local wit Bucky Walters noted in The Eagle three years ago that “historians have always held that the construction of Kellogg was begun by Coronado in the 16th century. However, with the discovery of a mastodon tusk by present-day Kellogg workers, scientists have confirmed that the planet’s oldest unfinished highway was first started by prehistoric man.”
Anyone have other Kellogg jokes to offer? In any case, as our editorial today argues, the seemingly endless construction project remains essential for the community.
A Washington Post article reports that behind the cheering crowds that have greeted Barack Obama in states like Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, his field workers have at times “endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African-American president.â€
While Obama officials say the overwhelming response has been positive and generous, his staffers recount story after story of whites saying they would never vote for a black man.
One told a phone worker in Pennsylvania, “Hang that darky from a tree.â€
In Kokomo, Ind., black high school students holding up signs for Obama along a highway were greeted with racial slurs by several passing motorists.
Whites who don’t see any racism in America should open their eyes.
Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr is unlikely to win too many votes. But in a close election, it’s possible that the former GOP congressman could tip the race away from John McCain. Ron Paul certainly showed during the GOP primaries that there is a significant number of Republicans who favor libertarian ideals. Barr’s complaints with the GOP include government eavesdropping, runaway spending and the war in Iraq.
It’s a common gripe of immigration critics: Immigrants today aren’t as interested in assimilating into American society as past immigrants. But a new study found that as a group, immigrants of the past quarter century have been assimilating at a notably faster rate than did previous generations, the Washington Post reported. And this is in spite of the fact that today’s immigrants arrive here with lower levels of English proficiency and less earning power than immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.
As expected, Hillary Clinton won big in the West Virginia primary Tuesday. Though it didn’t change the math - Barack Obama still leads in states won, pledged delegates, popular vote and superdelegates (with more committed superdelegates added today) - the landslide win gave Clinton another emotional boost. Her only hope of winning now rests with getting the Florida and Michigan delegations seated at the convention - which she again called for during her victory speech Tuesday night.
