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Here are some bits and pieces of fluff that have drifted into your blogster's crooked mind on a quiet Sunday evening in Michigan.
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* Michigan Red Haven peaches are now in the farm markets and on roadside stands.  There is nothing better.  When they're ripe and soft, take a bite and let the juice run all over your shirt. 

* We were in Midland, after a bike trip on the Rail-Trail. There is a pizza joint and hot dog emporium on Main Street. Lots of people were coming in and out for ice cream cones and hot dogs and milk shakes and cokes, and of course pizza. Kids of every age in groups, and oldsters sitting and enjoying a drink. Babies in fathers' arms. Everyone peaceful, everyone respectable, everyone enjoying themselves on a sunny Sunday.

An evocation of a past memory? Maybe. This is 'American Main Street' as it should be. It is very like an experience in Grand Rapids earlier this summer when the lineup at the ice cream parlor contained people of every color, speaking several languages, and folks of all ages. Everyone orderly and nice. It was wonderful. It's what American looks like now.

* The American basketballers defeating Spain was a study in restraint. You could see that some of these guys were bursting their seams, trying not to give in to their urge to be nasty. Two weeks of sustained niceness must be a real culture shock for some of these 'play-ahs.'

* The most disgusting, know-nothing piece of political propaganda has now hit the airwaves. It seeks to represent Obama as a friend of bomb-setting terrorists from the 1960's, specifically Bill Ayers. This is the worst piece of campaign shit-throwing so far this year. Let's hope this election doesn't get any worse, for the whole world may catch the stink if it does.