We tend to think badly when faced with a hard choice.  Consider the horror of the U S.  Neither candidate is attractive, but one is a disaster.  So, you choose the least dangerous.  But many of a conservative bent say that neither is fit for the position.  It is hard to think of anyone better qualified than Mrs Clinton; it is impossible to think of anyone more disqualified than Trump.  But he is backed by losers, and the success of Mrs Clinton in life drives them mad.  And in a woman to boot.

The head of the FBI has failed the test – twice.  The hardness of the second choice he faced was partly of his own making.  He says that the FBI has to be transparent.  Bullshit.  That’s for judges, not coppers.  He is not a judge, as he showed when he passed a gratuitous judgment on Mrs Clinton when he decided not to charge her – a decision that we would leave to lawyers in our version of the Justice Department.  Then, when he found his officers had been sitting on more emails for weeks, he told the world.  He was scared of adverse comment if he did not.  He put the possible loss to him up against the certain loss to Mrs Clinton – and a possible disaster for the world – and his nerve failed – as it happens, on the side of the party he has been a member of.  The mad claims of election rigging had got to him.  Now we are all on the brink. If the holocaust does come, the FBI may in truth have delivered a rigged election.

Poet of the month: Lee Cataldi

(The poem below comes from Invitations to a Marxist Lesbian Party.  The poet was described to me by someone who should know as a ‘fiery particle’. You can take this is a caveat.)

Balmain Ladies

Balmain ladies

entertain sailors

on windy verandahs

beside the sea

there’s more here than meets the eye

tumble down

drowned

sailors

float among stranger ladies

starting

life in the taverns trying

to find their heads

among dockside gods  sailors

labourers  wanderers

across sexual categories

sometimes Balmain ladies

rampage through their wardrobes

sometimes through beds

they are as gay as their men are gullible chauvinists

lying in wait for their women

weaving spells

Balmain ladies

entertain sailors

on windy verandahs

beside the sea.