Blue Crab Boulevard

It has been very quiet here at the Crabitat for a couple of days. Even lighter than the fairly low posting rate of recent months. There is a reason for that. I've been busy with computers and air compressors.

My son has been badgering for a more powerful computer to play games on for a while now. Tomorrow is his birthday and my wife suggested that I should find a good barebones system that he and I could build together. This kind of suggestion, being the equivalent of a royal command, is one I acted on with alacrity.

So yesterday and today was spent with two very important missions: putting together a computer and securing the perfect gift for my perfect wife. It being Mother's Day and all. My son is now the proud owner of a more powerful computer and my wife has her dream gift.

The computer is not, by any means, a bleeding edge one, just a bit beefier than the one he was using. As for building it together, he mostly watched and handed me various parts and tools. But it was the thought that counts. I think. Most of the time today was getting Windows set up, frankly. Once all the updates were loaded and the various software transferred from his older machine to the new one, he started using it. I can hear him raging at the computer game he is playing right now, as a matter of fact. His frustrated utterances are coming more rapidly than they used to, so the new machine must be faster.

As to the perfect gift for my perfect wife, that is where the air compressor comes in. She (really) wanted an air compressor. So I went out and got her one. It is just a small one from Sears, but exactly what she wanted - heck, she sent me the link to the item in an email as a hint. My wife likes power tools and ones powered by compressed air are a new horizon.

I told you she was perfect.

Die hard Hillary Clinton supporters are not giving up the fight. The Washington Post tells of one small group in West Virginia that came out to support Clinton, despite the insults from Obama supporters.

Clinton's most loyal supporters — the ones still standing on street corners — have adopted their candidate's motto, even as she trails Sen. Barack Obama by an insurmountable margin in pledged delegates: to fight like hell, despite dim odds and denigration, until someone officially wins the Democratic nomination.

But on this day, the intersection of Highway 480 and German Street, where they stood, divided Shepherdstown into two factions. College kids from Shepherd University approached from the north, angry that Clinton has remained in a race she appears destined to lose. Truck drivers and farmers approached from the south, their support for Clinton fortified by her perseverance.

The two groups met at the intersection in a cacophony of honking horns and shouting that echoed across this town of about 1,000 near the Maryland border. After two hours, Luanne Smith had heard enough.

"It's become so personal, just one insult after another," Smith said. "These sides are starting to feel some hate for each other. Everybody is angry, but I'm going to keep at this as long as I can. I never want to look myself in the mirror and say, 'You quit. You didn't do your part.' "

An indication of just how badly divided the Clinton and Obama supporters are comes later in the story:

"Give up already," shouted a woman in a red jeep.

"Boo. Clinton's a loser," said a man in a blue sedan.

"What are you doing?" asked a passenger in a weathered Pontiac. "Didn't you hear Clinton already lost?"

After each insult, Smith and Kuzma glared straight ahead, venting to each other only after the drivers had pulled away.

"This just isn't very nice," Kuzma said. "These are some mean people."

"Every one of them is the same — skinny kids who've never experienced anything but college," Smith said. "The more I'm involved, the angrier I get. Every call for her to get out of the race just incenses me. It makes me crazy. Who are you? Who in the world are you to tell this woman who's done so much that it's time for her to be quiet and sit down?"

I doubt Clinton can win regardless of what happens in the few remaining races. But it also looks increasingly likely that Obama will not be able to heal the rifts his supporters have caused. It has gotten too ugly and too personal.