Marco Rubio: the Iowa Winner

   It seems to various pundits that the outcome from the Iowa vote is that Hillary has a problem and Marco Rubio is the new Republican front runner.  The Donald is beginning his long slide into obscurity, and the rest of the pack has to decide when to depart.  Ted Cruz will have little chance in New Hampshire, and Hillary will not bother with those results next Tuesday.  She's already looking to South Carolina.
     Marco, the son of Cuban immigrants, is now planning to take his show to a higher level.  He'll have to reposition his positions for broader appeal.  Good luck, Marco.
     Everybody but Hillary fears the "Coastal" effect.   Those 'blue' state borders that harbor America as we know it.  Dick Spotswood, a political writer from California, has been on the ground in Iowa for the past week, sniffing around, taking the pulse of the local voters and putting that into a broader perspective.  He's right on:  things are different in the Mid West-the people are bewildered, wandering about, trying to figure out who they are and where do they fit in, in America, an America increasingly unrecognizable to them.  Their towns are shrinking; their children leave and don't come home.  There's nothing for them at "home".  Farming-forget it.  Corporate jobs? No way.  Maybe Ted can offer some solace for the situation, but his balm is no cure.
     Our great heartland-the vast, rolling plains, that appealed to generations with its cheap, fertile, productive opportunities.  Now, gone.  Now the space is seen not as opportunity, but empty, devoid of possibility.  It's like the Summer of Love all over again:  take me to San Francisco, with ear buds in my hair.
Starship Connection
      San Francisco, the City on a(7) hill, the beacon for a another restless generation of seekers, holds sway over young seekers.   Recently, one of the original seekers died.   Signe Toly Anderson, age 74, died last week.  She was the original voice of the Jefferson Airplane.   In a remarkable coincidence, she died the same day as her singer/ partner of the same group-Paul Kantner, aged 74.  The two were on the first Jefferson Airplane album.   She was followed by Grace Slick.