Presidential, baby

I'll have more to say about this when I can guarantee that I am indeed living on this planet (been dealing with a back injury for the last week or so), but I the speech by Barack Obama tonight was easily his finest hour.

Yes, I've exposed my blatant Obama-bias in the past, so my feelings should be no surprise, but that speech was gold.  He is miles of a better choice than McCain.

I'll say it again: if Obama loses in November, it will be solely due to the fact that a majority of America cannot deal with the idea of a black president.  He is exactly the kind of president that this country needs in the aftermath of Bush-Cheney. 

If we blow this, America will never be the same.

Time to see if I can get back into orbit.  I've seen more stars this past week than Halley.

Reeling us in

Desmond was eight months on Thursday.  He celebrated by spending most of the day sleeping, as he has his first ever cold.  He's handling it well, except for the moments when he realizes that he cannot breathe through his nose and ERUPTS in a cauldron of anger, nasal fluid and dismay.  It would be heartbreaking if it weren't so damn cute because it only lasts a few seconds and as soon as it is over he goes back to his smiley self.

He's a pretty happy kid.  I know his parents are as well.  We expected parenting to be a roller coaster, especially when our child would be unable to communicate with us in our own language, but he is so easy to read.  He cries when he is upset, be it hunger (the full spoon of food had better be back in the mouth less than two seconds after its been removed or there will be heck to pay), pain (he has rolled into a few hard structures lately with no permanent damage, and his teeth are cutting through his gums like a machete cuts through sugar cane) or frustration (he understands now that if we take something away from him we are impeding on his fun); it's pretty simple to determine why he is fussing, and he generally stops in appreciation when we address it.

Ah, we get along well.  I have a hard time believing that this kid will ever scream "I HATE YOU!!!" or want to sneak out of the house or eat his own shoelaces rather than tell us anything, but I know someday he's going to be a kid instead of a baby, and then a teen instead of a kid, etc etc etc (cuing my inner Yul Brunner here...); I guess this is why we start out as babies, so that our parents will fall completely in love with us and therefore tolerate whatever crap we try to pull once we start growing.  And by "tolerate" I mean "not kill us."  Looking back, I must have been one heckuva cute baby because I drove my folks nuts once I hit ten, and yet, here I still am.

Our son flirts with strangers.  He wraps them around his finger in about two seconds.  He knows he is doing this now, and he enjoys it.  He understands the power that he has.  We are thinking about paying people to ignore him.

I thought that there would be times when he was a baby that I would toss my arms up in complete confusion with no idea as to what he wanted or what was wrong, and just try to plug my ears until he fell asleep.  Hasn't happened.  I speak the same language that our baby does, and when he cries, all I think about is how much he needs us.  We're fortunate that he really doesn't cry much, that he seems so happy all of the time, but we also know that we probably control none of that.  He could wake up tomorrow and decide that he wants to do nothing but cry just to confound us, and we'll react the same way. 

He's got us hooked.  He knows it.  We don't even try to hide it.  The center of our universe is twenty-eight inches long, weighs twenty-five pounds and has as many teeth as the average ninety-seven year old. 

Pinky and the Brain

So, in what I have to admit is a stroke of pure super genius, Paris Hilton has put out an ad in response to the McCain campaign including her in the Obama "Celebrity" attack ad.

Well played, Ms. Hilton.  Don't get me wrong-I still despise you; I still think that you are the biggest waste of DNA ever, and I still can't understand why anyone would admire you-but you do have a sense of humor.  And your delivery here is spot on.  The fact that I could watch you speak for more than ten seconds is proof of a miracle.  Wait a sec...

AMERICA, YOUR NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER!  BRETT FAVRE HAS BEEN TRADED BY THE PACKERS TO THE NEW YORK JETS!

I'll get back to Ms. Hilton in a moment, but the news about Favre just pre-empted my watching "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN.  I couldn't care less about Brett Favre.  The attention that football gets year-round drives me bonkers.  Here in Chicago, there could be a nuclear attack in Europe tomorrow when the Bears open the exhibition season against Kansas City and it wouldn't be enough to knock the Bears off the lead story on all local newscasts.  I like football, but it's not a year round sport, and I would lose this argument to 75% of the population here.  I digress.  I think sending Favre to the Jets is great, because he can slip in under the radar there, since the NY media is so ambivalent.  It will be a long, long time before we hear about Brett Favre again.

(Question: should it be required that sarcasm be written in a different font, or maybe a different color?)

OK, back to Paris: this is your moment.  Or should I say "was."  I implore you to go away for a while, say two decades, so that the genius of this spoof is not lost.  Go into the vault for a spell.  Sure, it would be very tempting to give your pal Britney Spears a call and make a series of follow-ups where she is your vice-presidential running mate, but I fear that would get old fast.  And as we all know, old is not hot.

God, I just made a reference to Paris Hilton's catch phrase.  Where am I, and what have they done with my universe?  We'll always have Paris.  That is one of my greatest fears.

I've never needed to cleanse my pallet more, so I'll segue into Desmond.  It's been far too long since I mentioned my son, who is 7 1/2 months now.  Sigh (that's both a wistful and content sigh).  When he was a newborn and the days turned into weeks and then into months, things seemed to be going by in a proper perspective.  Somewhere a few months ago that changed and time stared going by faster than ever.  I woke up a few days ago with an infant, and now he barely seems like a baby anymore.

For every addition there is a subtraction.  He has one and a half teeth; he cannot sleep comfortably on my chest anymore.  He rolls around on the floor like a golf ball on a cart path; he can't be left alone to nap in the middle of our bed by himself.  He has his own personality, and his complete and utter dependence on his mother and I seems gone, like if he wanted to, he could find a way to get by without out us for a day or so if need be. Not that he'll be cooking his own meals anytime soon, or even changing his own diaper.  It's just that I can see him laying the bricks on his road to independence already.

Everything new makes me smile, and the realization that some things about him exist only in memory now does not break my heart as much as I imagined it would six months ago.  I know that he is barely half a year old, but I think the latter realization is the first step towards letting go.  I think about Desmond as a grown man a lot for some reason.  I am in no hurry to see him twenty years from now obviously, but I also know that as life progresses we are left with no option other than watching our kids become adults.  I'd rather accept this in pieces than all at once.

When Desmond is happy he purses his lips together and blows, making a sound like a motor boat.  This is unfortunate when he is eating and makes me wonder if I could patent a plastic baby-feeding bubble, but otherwise it is a sound of glee.  It is an especially pleasant sound to wake up to.  Then there are the times when we mistake him for a parrot because of the loud squawks that erupt from him when he discovers that he can now put his toes in his mouth when he lies on his back, or that when he goes into the highchair food almost always follows.  He's very excitable.  Wouldn't have it any other way.

And now the news for parrots. 

Man, I love Monty Python.  See the second title of the video in the 'related' column?  "Sheep in Wainscotting."  That happens to be the name of a band I played in when I was in college.

No, it wasn't.  I leave with this: a week or so after the 9/11 attacks I walked over to the grocery store across the street from the drug store that I was managing at the time, and immediately noticed a small display table by the entrance full of plastic containers of red, white and blue miniature cupcakes.  A handwritten sign hanging off the table read "Patriotic Cupcakes $1.99."  And ever since I have fought the desire to go out and discover the next big singing group, name it "The Patriotic Cupcakes" and produce their first hit single "Only $1.99"

Dancing is forbidden

WARNING: ATTEMPTED VIDEO EMBEDDING AHEAD!

I have never got the hang of embedding video into this, and I apologize for bogus alerts (if they happen) but I can't pass up a few that came to my attention today.  I'd like to thank John McCain and the geniuses (genii?) of the GOP in advance.

First, this is priceless.  Pay close attention to the first five seconds:



I thought I was hallucinating.  Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in a political ad?  What the hell is that?  What's the IQ of the dude who came up with this idea?  I'm trying to figure out how this ad is meant to hurt Obama, and the only thing I can think of is that the GOP slipped in subliminal messages that no one noticed.  I gotta go back and watch the ad real slow...aha! It's just as I thought.  When Britney Spears is on screen, there is a brief flash of a message: "Your next Secretary of State.  And don't forget Vice-President Kevin Federline."  For Hilton, it's "This is Barack Obama's new BFF!"

Is Obama a "celebrity"?  Sure.  And I'm a Supreme Court justice!  Why would the McCain campaign knowingly promote the fact that Obama drew huge crowds in Europe last week?  He wasn't giving concerts.  He wasn't performing his new one man show.  He was introducing himself to multiple regions of the world as the man who might be the next president of the United States.

Ya think McCain would create a reaction like that?  I picture an Obama ad including Bea Arthur and Betty White.

Remember all the "Obama hasn't been to Iraq" screeching last month?  Now it's "Obama's going to Iraq...and the Mid-East...and Europe. Who does he think he is?"

Someone tell me why anyone wants to run for president anymore?

Backfire!  Most of the populace is laughing at the inanity of this ad, and anyone who supports it wasn't going to vote for Obama anyway.  President Celebrity!  He'll deliver the State of the Union on TMZ instead of CNN! He'll drill for Botox offshore instead of oil!  He'll raise taxes on the ugly! 

Good Lord, even Jon Voight is getting involved.  Angelina's gonna be pissed...

(By the way, Jonny, babe, loved you in Midnight Cowboy but your op-ed implodes from the git-go.  If I may quote you directly:

"We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up.

Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset."

So if we follow your logic we are to assume that Obama was taught by this quadrennial collection of all that is hateful in America when he was a child?  I don't think so.  Why is Obama portrayed as easily influenced from his twenties?  Shouldn't you be working on "Anaconda 3"?)

I'm John McCain, and I approve of this message, because I am running out of things to say.  Yes, I am getting desperate.  But hey, Jon Voight is behind me, so good news, it looks like I have that "Runaway Train fan club" vote sewn up.  Good times.

And I will end this with one more McCain ad that broke today.  This one also features Europe, and again please pay close attention at the 25 second mark for the cameo of cameos.  I hate to spoil this, but the secret word is HASSELHOFF!

(God help us all.  Seriously, God help us.  No really.  God help us.)

Flash it across the screen

Today's word is:  SATIRE

Satire is that most trickiest of literary devices. Its usage triggers more "is it or isn't it?" moments than all others combined.  Commonly confused with irony and sarcasm, satire is neither.  It stands alone.  It's like a pelican on one leg.

Satire has suffered needlessly in this age of ultra political-correctness.  People are terrified of using it lest it be misinterpreted literally.  It's a shame really; good satire is as entertaining as a campfire sing-a-long.

To wit: the cover of the New Yorker this week.  It's been all over the news these last forty-eight hours: Barack and Michelle Obama, in their finest Muslim/terrorist garb, celebrating the destruction of America with a "terrorist fist jab" in the Oval Office.

Obama hates it.  McCain hates it.  I think Bugs Bunny hates it too.  Pity, because it is absolutely brilliant.

Come on!  How many bogus "Obama's a Muslim" e-mails have you received since January?  How many times have you heard him referred to as Barack HUSSEIN Obama by right-wing blowhards?   Michelle Obama hates America remember?  Oh yeah, this is definitely what an Obama Oval Office will look like if we are foolish enough to elect him.  Obama! Osama! Osama! Obama!  Let's call the whole thing off! (before they kill us all!  BOO!)

In my opinion (and we all know how important that is) this cover illustration is a perfect satirical commentary on the politics of fear, racism, and Islamophobia.  It's completely ridiculous how we accept and allow the political forum to distort the realm of our elections, and this cover calls it out.  We have more people who will cast their vote on the basis of whether or not they believe Obama is a Christian then on the basis of whether he will be good for the economy, the war, etc.  It's unbelievable.

The New Yorker knows this.  And they knew that when they released this issue that a lot of people wouldn't get it.  They've proved their point.

What I like most about this is that it recalls the single dumbest piece of "objective" and "responsible" television journalism in the history of mankind: Fox anchor E.D. Hill referring to the Obamas' fist bump when he claimed the nomination after the Oregon primary as a "terrorist fist jab."  She said this.  Seriously.

Personally I have always thought of terrorists as high-fiving kind of folks, but what do I know?  I'm not witty enough to make up things for Fox News.  Hill (I think E.D. stands for "Eloquent Dingbat") was never made to explain what she meant.  We all know what her intent was: use the word "terrorist" in the same sentence as "Obama" because someone somewhere will make the "connection."  Remember, if Obama is elected, we are all toast.  By March.

You've been warned.  If you don't rip that cover off, frame it beneath your American flag on the wall, and take it with you into the voting booth while you vote for John McCain, then you hate America.

How ironic.  Um, no I mean sarcastic.  Damn!  Satirical!  Yeah that's it!

Everybody's got a Jesse Helms story!

A happy belated birthday (just one day, and only in print, as I was there Sunday) to my mother, who doesn't look a day over forty.  Which is amazing, since I am forty-one.

That is not the Jesse Helms story.  I continue:

I heard that Helms died on July 4th and my eyes rolled back into my skull because I knew knew knew that as soon as I turned on the news some GOP lap dog would go on about how appropriate it is that he died on Independence Day because he was (say it with me) a "Patriot."  The fact that it was President GW was like getting an extra scoop of ice cream in a banana split.

Helms was legendary for his bigotry and his outrage over the degradation of society, and sometimes he was able to combine the two.  I was guided to a list of his "Greatest Hits" and he has some whoppers.  The man was clearly upset that the South lost the Civil War.  I'd also guess that he wasn't too pleased when the drug cocktail that kept many HIV patients from developing full-blown AIDS was discovered.

I am amused at how those in the public eye conveniently forget a person's character when they die.  I take no joy in Helms' death but I certainly am not going to change my opinion of him just because he has shuffled off this mortal coil.  That's the thing about life: in the end, nobody wins.  The good and the bad end up the same, non-metaphysically speaking.

I can't remember how it first started, but when my nephew was very young, maybe five, he reached a point where he thought he knew what was offensive and what wasn't.  After while it got kind of annoying, and being it the time when Helms was ranting and raving about the moral character of America being further down than Atlantis, I developed a retort to my nephew whenever I heard him raise an objection:

"Thank you, Jesse Helms."

I said it enough that within a week or so my nephew was saying it too, in delightfully inconsistent ways.  I can't have a cookie.  Thank you, Jesse Helms.  Time for a bath.  Thank you, Jesse Helms.  I can't play outside while Ihave the chicken pox.  Thank you, Jesse Helms.

It came and went quickly, as everything subjected to the attention span of a pre-kindergartner ultimately is, and I hadn't thought about it in a while.  Like I said, I'm not happy that Helms died, but I am definitely amused by the memory of a five year old wandering around our house invoking Helms' name for all sorts of reasons.  You can't make that kind of stuff up.

It was nauseating to hear people call Helms a patriot in the aftermath of his death.  I remember about ten years or so ago he waged a one-person war to keep former Illinois senator Carol Mosely-Braun from becoming ambassador to New Zealand.  I can't recall why he was against it (wait a tic, CM-B is black); he ultimately lost and the episode was embarrassing for him and probably enhanced his decision to retire when his term was up.  He was petty and a bigot throughout his life.

He was nothing like a patriot.  Give me an H and take the P-Helms was a "hatriot".  The sooner that the remainder of his generation that shares his beliefs passes the better off we will all be.

Your attention please

Would whoever had June 21st in the "First time that Desmond sprays his father with 'buckshot'-the kind that comes from a baby's nether regions and does not clean up with just a mop-at the ungodly hour of five a.m. with absolutely no warning, timed to release just as an old diaper is pulled down to be changed, loud enough to make him jump back three feet, which is not far enough to avoid the 'pellets', and stuns him so much that according to his wife (who was in the bathroom at the time) he yells out 'I've been hit', which he does not remember and assumes is due to a form of 'septic shock', then looks at himself in the mirror and wonders when his torso became covered in 'freckles' while listening to the six-month old baby giggle non-stop, then slips on the floor which needs a major cleaning, not to mention a fumigation, and thanks the Heavens above that he did not happen to be singing to the son at the time, which has been known to happen before, and wonders if it would have killed him, and as he changes his boxers wonders if it is worth it to try to wash the old ones or just throw them away, but isn't sure if he has a hazardous material container anyway, and then shakes his head as he goes back to the bed, where he swears he hears the son snicker softly and say 'did you really think I was never going to get you sucker?'" pool please report to information.

You have won a fabulous prize.