Red Heart/Blue Brain; Clinton Mocks the Brits

Little Rock, Arkansas, November 18: Here I am, in the middle of a fifteen day Ameripass (to research a travel article, "Ameripassing Through: A Skinflint's Journal") as all Little Rock turns out, plus 30,000 visitors, to celebrate the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center. When I got off the all night bus from St. Louis to get a room at the Peabody ("Are you kiddin", they laughed), I noticed surging crowds with one roll of film cameras looking for any old celeb to shoot. I got a cheer from them when I took a picture of them looking for something to shoot.

When the London Economist sneered that the longish glass structure poised at the very edge of the Arkansas River reminded them of an RV, Clinton parried on "Larry King Live" that it just goes to show that he was part RED and part BLUE. Take my word for it, the Center and its surroundings are absolutely glorious, the first such Prexy Library to have any architectural distinction.

James Polashek, the same long ball hitter who gave us the Rose Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History, paid Clinton the ultimate client praise, that he was a Renaissance client, even sending Chelsea to check out Polashek's new museum at Stanford. Especially tasty is a grove of trees native to Arkansas. Polashek is also my kind of Detroit proley: their office door lists the six partners alphabetically, putting James' P surname far down the list.

Clinton is utterly truthful when he stresses that the $168 millions Center is his personal thank you to the city that gave him access to the Presidency. Instead of hunting for a leafy suburb, Clinton chose a run down stretch of the river front adjacent to downtown. What pleases him most is that his Center has already spun off $800 millions of development in the formerly tacky neighborhood.

Hillary talked on Larry King tonight about the warts and all historiography of the displays, insisting he wouldn't have it any other way. And he's releases the 80 million items in the archival collections earlier than legally protected. That is, right away! And the director of the Archive, Dr. David Alsobrook (born in Eufaula, Alabama in 1946), is also a blue collar riser.

I should say that my Ameripass didn't start this amiably. It began in Washington where I paid my first visit to Canadian Blackfoot architect Douglas Cardinal's Museum of the American Indian, where the first Americans were finally accorded the last open space on the Smithsonian Mall.

As I awaited the express bus to Philadelphia, a commotion broke out in the restaurant. It turned out that two DC cops were trying to cuff a young black man on PCP. For almost a half hour, the threesome rolled around on the floor, with the black Greyhound workers and travellers cheering on the felon! Since I majored in Yellow at the University of Detroit, with a minor in timidity, the quietly slipped out onto the street--where black hobos pestered me for change.

Now the irony. The black Greyhound driver from St. Louis to Little Rock was a dead ringer for the PCP emboldened felon: strikingly handsome deeply dark young men. Except the driver was as Red as the felon was Blue. He was born again at age 25, attends a Pentacostal church, and waned the travellers not so much as use the word hell! He shamed me for being a fallen away Catholic! Finally, our talk turned to the election (the supervisor at Greyhound/Philly authorized my sitting in the usually off limits right front jump seat, to get better pictures and palaver the drivers).

Our talk turned to 2008, where I offered my first theory: that Condi Rice would oppose Hillary Clinton for the presidency. And that no matter who won, America would be guided by an intelligent, good-looking woman. After several hours of mulling that suggestion, the driver Mr. Coty allowed as how he had been thinking about my speculation. And liked the idea. See: we're not a Red or a Blue country: We're fated to turn Purple, as the Reds and the Blues start mixing, as me and Mr. Coty did on our trip yesterday from St. Louis to Little Rock.