Just a bunch of parents at a school basketball game, rooting for their daughters. It just happens to include the President, the First Lady, the Vice President and his wife. Something heartening about this.

And the 2010 Nader Award goes to...Dennis Kucinich, who announced that he will vote against the healthcare reform bill because it's not good enough for him. If he is the deciding vote against it, he will go down in infamy along with another erstwhile force for good who let ego, image and ideological purity ruin his name forever, when he made the decisive difference in wrecking a decade and perhaps the future, Ralph Nader in 2000. Kucinich's purity will be intact, while those who will suffer and perhaps die because they can't get care due to lack of affordable insurance or who are denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition as defined by insurance companies--well, purity has its cost, as long as you don't personally have to pay it. And as long as you ignore the bill's many progressive elements.

Update: After President Obama held an enthusiastic rally in Kucinich's district, and had a one-on-one with him, Dennis the K changed his mind and his vote, and began to lobby strenuously for the President's bill with his fellow Members. Good for him.