I'm thinking now that the RNC is over that it is time for a self-imposed political hiatus, because frankly I don't think I can last for sixty more days at the rate that my head is spinning.
I did watch McCain. I tried not to, but ultimately I had to so that I could compare the two (he and Obama, not Palin); it's amazing how different two people and events can be. Obama's speech was electric; McCain's was as dull as year-old sandpaper. I continue to be amused at the length that the GOP goes to discredit Obama as a public speaker ("When you strip away the glitz...") as if Obama's motivation is to fool the country into thinking that he is eloquent and presidential, and once he gets into the Oval Office he'll start using (gasp!) split infinitives.
I think that there are thinly veiled racial overtones to that type of ad strategy, of course, and paired with Palin's "community organizer" slams we are starting to see the "BOO!" factor here. Unlike 2004, they won't spend all of their fear fuel just on terrorism; some of it will go towards the idea of whites not being in power. It will all be just hinted at, of course.
Just asking: what is the racial/religious makeup of Palin's staff in Alaska? Why hasn't this been looked at?
I think it is vital not too get bogged down on race though, because there are other things that are more obvious to prove that McCain/Palin is a hypocritical ticket. For example, I dug McCain's finger-wagging at Washington all throughout his speech, and how he claimed that the tone in DC will change if he is elected. First, that is the EXACT same thing GWB said all through the 2000 race, and he was right-the tone became even more polarizing than before. Does McCain seriously believe we buy this? Did he even listen to the speeches at his own convention? They were nothing but polarizing! Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, etc. Do you think that if McCain wins that these folks will not be part of his administration in some capacity? Of course they will! Do you think that every one of them will suddenly have an epiphany and stop demonizing the other side?
The hypocrisy of the GOP is huge and examples are ample. For instance, how many times has it been mentioned that Sarah Palin, in a moment of reform so daring that Martin Luther came back from the grave to kiss her feet, sold the Alaska state plane on Ebay? You'd think she built the plane herself from spare parts and then tugged to the airport with her teeth from the way this story has been all over the place. There's only one problem: it's not true. She put the plane up for sale on Ebay, but it did not sell, and when it did sell through a broker, the net loss was half a million dollars. Oh, and the company that bought the plane wants Alaska to give back some of the money because there have been a ton of maintenance issues.
There's nothing wrong with her trying to sell the plane. That's not the issue. The issue is that the backstory being told isn't truthful.
This video from the Daily Show is brilliant. I don't see how Karl Rove has any credibility when he is shown to be such a duplicitous liar, but I'll go to my grave not understanding a lot of things about conservative punditry. People like Rive think that a majority of Americans have the intelligence of an ear wig, and I am sorry to say that most of the time, we seem to prove him right. How else to explain George W. Bush being re-elected?
I have to take a break from the political spectrum because I can feel my sanity seeping out of my pores. I can't stand another presidential election that becomes all about God again. I can't watch as poll after poll shows the country moving away from common sense even though we've lived through eight years of an example of how screwed up this country can get when people who have no clear right to hold office are elected anyway.
I didn't hear one thing from John McCain Thursday night related to policy. Nothing. Not a mention of health care, no reference to ending the war in Iraq, nada about energy (except DRILL DRILL DRILL!). It was devoid of information.
Why should that be rewarded? St. Paul was nothing but a hurricane of anti-Obamaism. Shouldn't they have spent some time telling us why to vote for them instead of against Obama?
I still have high hopes for this election, though it is going to get worse before it gets better. The pro-life attacks should be getting started any day now, and it will be uglier than ever before. I'll have more to say when relevant, but be prepared to hear this phrase over and over again: "Barack Obama is for infanticide."
See, that's why I have to self-impose for a bit. I'll spontaneously combust if I keep going at thispace.
06 September 2008
04 September 2008
In the theater of the surreal and absurd
First: Gustav, Chicago. Chicago, Gustav.
Yesterday might very well have been the strangest of my life. I went to the doctor to discuss the results of the MRI on my back Tuesday (and let me say that I managed to survive being shoved into a tube for an hour or so without wigging out but there is no way I could have done that when I was a kid-I was so claustrophobic as a child that I could barely wear hats) and things could be a lot worse. There is no herniation in the disc that I hurt and I seem to be responding well to treatment. Today is the first day that I have been able to do stuff around the house (to which my lovely wife screams "AMEN!" as she should, because she was awesome these last two weeks and deserves to take the next year or so off) and so far I feel fine. I still need some follow up because I am not 100% symptom free.
The most interesting part of the appointment is when the doctor put one of my x-rays up and asked me what I did ten years or so ago to break three vertebrae just at the end of the rib cage. Huh? Are you sure that's my x-ray we're looking at? Yep, that's my name, birth date, time I was here, etc. Hmm. Yep, I see the three vertebrae that have fused towards the end in a bit of self-healing and look quite unlike the other ones that have never been fractured (think tuna cans, and the broken ones have bent sides).
I guess that car accident that I was in during July 1998 was more serious than I thought. It was early in the morning and I was on my way to some BS meeting that was forcing me to rearrange my day off, which meant that I had to cancel a golf outing. Traffic on the Eisenhower was horrible so I took Roosevelt Road, and at Cicero some clown pulled out in front of me to make a left turn. I smacked him just above the back wheel, and he was kind enough to flee. The front of my car crumpled, and the first auto I ever owned totaled.
I remember seeing the accident unfold in front of me, closing my eyes and gripping the wheel. I know they say that you aren't supposed to brace for a collision, but I did. I walked away from the crash without a scratch, or so I thought. I never got checked out, never felt any pain.
When I relayed this to my doctor yesterday he said: "this looks like an injury consist with someone who either was wearing their seat belt (I was) and hit the steering wheel (I didn't), or went through the windshield and flew into a light pole."
I don't know what to tell him or myself. I don't recall it being that big of a deal. There is now danger or risk from it now, but it sure does explain why my back has ached so much since then.
I could not resist the RNC last night, and I would have sworn that I was hopped on some very effective pain pills while listening to the cavalcade of speakers, because those were some unbelievable auditory hallucinations I experienced. Wait, they were real? The heck you say!
Mitt Romney? Bat shit crazy. There's just no other way to say it. Well, yes, there is:
Mitt Romney seems to use the word "liberal" in a randomly pejorative fashion. I half expect him to say "I was eating breakfast this morning, and my hash browns were all liberal. I sent them back and told the waitress to bring me some good, conservative hash browns.
Damn skippy! Next was Mike Huckabee. For some reason, I like this man. He seems like a really nice guy. I think it's because he avoids much of the nasty rhetoric that the majority of the GOP spews. He's still nuts though. His speech was all rah-rah faith, troops, John-McCain-can't-raise-his-arms stuff, but it also included the single funniest moment I've witnessed in the political arena. Funny how? Well, I probably cannot do the story justice, so I urge those who have not seen it to watch the speech, but towards the end Huckabee told the story of an Arkansas school teacher who removed the desks from her classroom on the first day of school, and vowed that no student would get one until they knew where the desks "came from".
Now I'm listening to this and trying to figure how out how the manufacturing of desks at some factory bleeds into Republican policy, but then Huck revealed how the teacher revealed the answer: one by one she had a uniformed soldier walk into the classroom with a desk. Get it? It's the troops, man. The GOP "old reliable." All those times that the US went to war was about desks! I never knew that! It wasn't for freedom, or bashing Nazi oppression, or defeating communism (all noble causes for sure)-nope, just desks. Millions made the ultimate sacrifice...for desks.
Huckabee then thanked John McCain for spending all that time in the Hanoi Hilton, because it allowed him "to get a desk." Huckabee said that he wanted to give McCain a desk of his own-the one in the Oval Office.
Of course now I picture a President McCain walking into the OO on his first day, seeing that there is an empty space were his desk should be,and bellowing in his best Ricky Ricardo "Huckabeeeeeee!!!!"
(Seriously, you have to watch or read the end of Huckabee's speech. I am not doing it justice. It was completely ridiculous, a perfect ten on the scale of unintentional comedy).
Next was the female governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, who stepped in it big time I thought when she took a dig at Joe Biden's home state of Delaware. She mentioned that both Alaska and Delaware have the same amount of electoral votes (3) even though "you could fit 250 Delawares into Alaska." Think about that. Lingle is obviously inferring that Sarah Palin is better qualified to be VP because she's governor of such a large state while Biden represents tiny, tiny Delaware in the Senate.
Her logic might be witty if electoral votes were awarded according to land area. They're not; they're awarded according to congressional representation, which is determined by population. So despite being 250 times smaller than Alaska, as many people (actually more) live in Delaware. And this makes Palin more qualified how? Because she governs more moose, salmon and glaciers?
It was almost Palin-time, but we had to suffer through Rudy Guiliani first. Rudy is all teeth and 9/11 these days. As to further make the point, the screen behind the stage featured a shot of the NYC skyline with the spot where the twin towers of the WTC centered perfectly. Deep. Guiliani was embarrassing; he openly mocked Obama's "only in America" story and made googly eyes at his voting record. He is repulsive. The less said about him the better.
By the time Palin emerged, I knew it was going to be all pit-bull, all the time. She didn't disappoint. She lied about Obama's record again and again, which was to be expected and didn't bother me so much. What else was she there for really? But one thing she did really irked me, and made me lose just about any respect that I could ever muster for her: she mocked Obama's time as a "community organizer" in Chicago-her exact quote was "I guess being a small town mayor is like being a community organizer except that you have responsibilities."
How dare she? She was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of about 9000 people. Obama worked in poor neighborhoods that might have had as many people living within a square mile. And which area was less economically viable?
It was a bitchy comment, ignorant and unnecessary. I spent about three years working at stores in the inner city (not as a community organizer, but a retail manager. They were some of the highest performing stores I worked at, yet the inner city has challenges unique to other spots) and I can't imagine Sarah Palin working there. She made Obama sound like a city worker who sleeps in his truck all day. What's more, it is extremely insulting to the people who take pride in the places where they live, no matter the societal factors. Palin told the world yesterday that it is far more important to be a mayor in rural Alaska than to work as an organizer in the inner city, that gun-owning hunters are more deserving of representation of inner city poor.
Remind me who is supposed to be elite in this race again? And when was it written that being a mayor qualifies one for being president? I grew up in a town with almost fifty thousand people. Is the guy who was mayor throughout most of my childhood five times more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin? He's about ninety now. I wonder if McCain knew he was available?
And let's not forget Sarah Palin's family. How could we? They were plastered all over the TV during her speech last night, including the newest member, the boyfriend of the pregnant 17 year old daughter. Talk about surreal: this dude (who looks like Joe from Blue's Clues, I think) has been whisked off on a whirlwind adventure from Alaska to the Midwest, getting to meet countless well-known GOPers and shake the hand of the Republican nominee for president. He gets rock star treatment for knocking up his girl friend! What do you think John McCain said to him on stage? "Well done"?
Amazing. Just try to imagine if Barack Obama'a eldest daughter was seven years older, pregnant, unmarried, and parading on stage at the DNC. Tell me that the Republicans would not be all over it. Go ahead. I'm waiting. Tell me that if the Obama's had a special-needs infant and insisted on having it passed around in full view of the cameras (and having a seven-year old sibling lick her hand to slick his hair back-ick) that they would not be vilified as using the baby as a "prop."
The same folks having aneurysms about Palin's family being attacked are the same ones who made sure to call him "Barack Hussein Obama," are the same people who swore that there was a video of Michelle Obama trashing "Whitey" and are the same folks forwarding e-mails that still suggest Obama is a Muslim.
Republicans live in the largest glass houses, and they also toss the largest stones. They can't have it both ways.
Back to Palin: she did her job. The VP is supposed to be the attack dog. Never mind she contradicts her presidential running mate when she chastises both Obama and Biden for being senators only and therefore having no executive experience (like, um, say John McCain); never mind that she has no experience when it comes to national security in a time when the GOP swears that if they lose the White House that we are all going to die; never mind that she lies every time she says that she was against the infamous "bridge to nowhere." She had them frothing last night, convinced that Obama wants to take all of your money, destroy America and kill every single conceived baby.
I have no idea what world I am living in anymore. Maybe I did go through the windshield ten years ago. Maybe. I do know that I am skipping McCain tonight. I'll read the speech instead. I can't stomach hearing anymore of whatever Bizarro World I have been inhabiting lately.
Yesterday might very well have been the strangest of my life. I went to the doctor to discuss the results of the MRI on my back Tuesday (and let me say that I managed to survive being shoved into a tube for an hour or so without wigging out but there is no way I could have done that when I was a kid-I was so claustrophobic as a child that I could barely wear hats) and things could be a lot worse. There is no herniation in the disc that I hurt and I seem to be responding well to treatment. Today is the first day that I have been able to do stuff around the house (to which my lovely wife screams "AMEN!" as she should, because she was awesome these last two weeks and deserves to take the next year or so off) and so far I feel fine. I still need some follow up because I am not 100% symptom free.
The most interesting part of the appointment is when the doctor put one of my x-rays up and asked me what I did ten years or so ago to break three vertebrae just at the end of the rib cage. Huh? Are you sure that's my x-ray we're looking at? Yep, that's my name, birth date, time I was here, etc. Hmm. Yep, I see the three vertebrae that have fused towards the end in a bit of self-healing and look quite unlike the other ones that have never been fractured (think tuna cans, and the broken ones have bent sides).
I guess that car accident that I was in during July 1998 was more serious than I thought. It was early in the morning and I was on my way to some BS meeting that was forcing me to rearrange my day off, which meant that I had to cancel a golf outing. Traffic on the Eisenhower was horrible so I took Roosevelt Road, and at Cicero some clown pulled out in front of me to make a left turn. I smacked him just above the back wheel, and he was kind enough to flee. The front of my car crumpled, and the first auto I ever owned totaled.
I remember seeing the accident unfold in front of me, closing my eyes and gripping the wheel. I know they say that you aren't supposed to brace for a collision, but I did. I walked away from the crash without a scratch, or so I thought. I never got checked out, never felt any pain.
When I relayed this to my doctor yesterday he said: "this looks like an injury consist with someone who either was wearing their seat belt (I was) and hit the steering wheel (I didn't), or went through the windshield and flew into a light pole."
I don't know what to tell him or myself. I don't recall it being that big of a deal. There is now danger or risk from it now, but it sure does explain why my back has ached so much since then.
I could not resist the RNC last night, and I would have sworn that I was hopped on some very effective pain pills while listening to the cavalcade of speakers, because those were some unbelievable auditory hallucinations I experienced. Wait, they were real? The heck you say!
Mitt Romney? Bat shit crazy. There's just no other way to say it. Well, yes, there is:
Mitt Romney seems to use the word "liberal" in a randomly pejorative fashion. I half expect him to say "I was eating breakfast this morning, and my hash browns were all liberal. I sent them back and told the waitress to bring me some good, conservative hash browns.
Damn skippy! Next was Mike Huckabee. For some reason, I like this man. He seems like a really nice guy. I think it's because he avoids much of the nasty rhetoric that the majority of the GOP spews. He's still nuts though. His speech was all rah-rah faith, troops, John-McCain-can't-raise-his-arms stuff, but it also included the single funniest moment I've witnessed in the political arena. Funny how? Well, I probably cannot do the story justice, so I urge those who have not seen it to watch the speech, but towards the end Huckabee told the story of an Arkansas school teacher who removed the desks from her classroom on the first day of school, and vowed that no student would get one until they knew where the desks "came from".
Now I'm listening to this and trying to figure how out how the manufacturing of desks at some factory bleeds into Republican policy, but then Huck revealed how the teacher revealed the answer: one by one she had a uniformed soldier walk into the classroom with a desk. Get it? It's the troops, man. The GOP "old reliable." All those times that the US went to war was about desks! I never knew that! It wasn't for freedom, or bashing Nazi oppression, or defeating communism (all noble causes for sure)-nope, just desks. Millions made the ultimate sacrifice...for desks.
Huckabee then thanked John McCain for spending all that time in the Hanoi Hilton, because it allowed him "to get a desk." Huckabee said that he wanted to give McCain a desk of his own-the one in the Oval Office.
Of course now I picture a President McCain walking into the OO on his first day, seeing that there is an empty space were his desk should be,and bellowing in his best Ricky Ricardo "Huckabeeeeeee!!!!"
(Seriously, you have to watch or read the end of Huckabee's speech. I am not doing it justice. It was completely ridiculous, a perfect ten on the scale of unintentional comedy).
Next was the female governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, who stepped in it big time I thought when she took a dig at Joe Biden's home state of Delaware. She mentioned that both Alaska and Delaware have the same amount of electoral votes (3) even though "you could fit 250 Delawares into Alaska." Think about that. Lingle is obviously inferring that Sarah Palin is better qualified to be VP because she's governor of such a large state while Biden represents tiny, tiny Delaware in the Senate.
Her logic might be witty if electoral votes were awarded according to land area. They're not; they're awarded according to congressional representation, which is determined by population. So despite being 250 times smaller than Alaska, as many people (actually more) live in Delaware. And this makes Palin more qualified how? Because she governs more moose, salmon and glaciers?
It was almost Palin-time, but we had to suffer through Rudy Guiliani first. Rudy is all teeth and 9/11 these days. As to further make the point, the screen behind the stage featured a shot of the NYC skyline with the spot where the twin towers of the WTC centered perfectly. Deep. Guiliani was embarrassing; he openly mocked Obama's "only in America" story and made googly eyes at his voting record. He is repulsive. The less said about him the better.
By the time Palin emerged, I knew it was going to be all pit-bull, all the time. She didn't disappoint. She lied about Obama's record again and again, which was to be expected and didn't bother me so much. What else was she there for really? But one thing she did really irked me, and made me lose just about any respect that I could ever muster for her: she mocked Obama's time as a "community organizer" in Chicago-her exact quote was "I guess being a small town mayor is like being a community organizer except that you have responsibilities."
How dare she? She was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of about 9000 people. Obama worked in poor neighborhoods that might have had as many people living within a square mile. And which area was less economically viable?
It was a bitchy comment, ignorant and unnecessary. I spent about three years working at stores in the inner city (not as a community organizer, but a retail manager. They were some of the highest performing stores I worked at, yet the inner city has challenges unique to other spots) and I can't imagine Sarah Palin working there. She made Obama sound like a city worker who sleeps in his truck all day. What's more, it is extremely insulting to the people who take pride in the places where they live, no matter the societal factors. Palin told the world yesterday that it is far more important to be a mayor in rural Alaska than to work as an organizer in the inner city, that gun-owning hunters are more deserving of representation of inner city poor.
Remind me who is supposed to be elite in this race again? And when was it written that being a mayor qualifies one for being president? I grew up in a town with almost fifty thousand people. Is the guy who was mayor throughout most of my childhood five times more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin? He's about ninety now. I wonder if McCain knew he was available?
And let's not forget Sarah Palin's family. How could we? They were plastered all over the TV during her speech last night, including the newest member, the boyfriend of the pregnant 17 year old daughter. Talk about surreal: this dude (who looks like Joe from Blue's Clues, I think) has been whisked off on a whirlwind adventure from Alaska to the Midwest, getting to meet countless well-known GOPers and shake the hand of the Republican nominee for president. He gets rock star treatment for knocking up his girl friend! What do you think John McCain said to him on stage? "Well done"?
Amazing. Just try to imagine if Barack Obama'a eldest daughter was seven years older, pregnant, unmarried, and parading on stage at the DNC. Tell me that the Republicans would not be all over it. Go ahead. I'm waiting. Tell me that if the Obama's had a special-needs infant and insisted on having it passed around in full view of the cameras (and having a seven-year old sibling lick her hand to slick his hair back-ick) that they would not be vilified as using the baby as a "prop."
The same folks having aneurysms about Palin's family being attacked are the same ones who made sure to call him "Barack Hussein Obama," are the same people who swore that there was a video of Michelle Obama trashing "Whitey" and are the same folks forwarding e-mails that still suggest Obama is a Muslim.
Republicans live in the largest glass houses, and they also toss the largest stones. They can't have it both ways.
Back to Palin: she did her job. The VP is supposed to be the attack dog. Never mind she contradicts her presidential running mate when she chastises both Obama and Biden for being senators only and therefore having no executive experience (like, um, say John McCain); never mind that she has no experience when it comes to national security in a time when the GOP swears that if they lose the White House that we are all going to die; never mind that she lies every time she says that she was against the infamous "bridge to nowhere." She had them frothing last night, convinced that Obama wants to take all of your money, destroy America and kill every single conceived baby.
I have no idea what world I am living in anymore. Maybe I did go through the windshield ten years ago. Maybe. I do know that I am skipping McCain tonight. I'll read the speech instead. I can't stomach hearing anymore of whatever Bizarro World I have been inhabiting lately.
03 September 2008
Pop Quiz
I am dealing with a feeling of sickness in my stomach that I've never quite felt before, nausea of indescribable measure, and almost--almost--feel like dying is a better option. Have I:
1. Eaten a pound of raw oysters left out in the sun for half a day?
2. Spent the last week on a fishing boat in Antarctic waters without any Dramamine?
3. Watched five minutes of the Republican National Convention?
Who had two minutes in the "how long until the first time 9/11 is referenced at the RNC" pool? You've won an authentic Alaskan Wilderness chastity belt.
Did you know that the GOP is now "The Party of Unwed Mothers"? I actually heard someone say this on television. He (of course it was a "he") was being serious.
There isn't enough Pepto Bismol in the world to save me. Must...turn...off...TV...now...
1. Eaten a pound of raw oysters left out in the sun for half a day?
2. Spent the last week on a fishing boat in Antarctic waters without any Dramamine?
3. Watched five minutes of the Republican National Convention?
Who had two minutes in the "how long until the first time 9/11 is referenced at the RNC" pool? You've won an authentic Alaskan Wilderness chastity belt.
Did you know that the GOP is now "The Party of Unwed Mothers"? I actually heard someone say this on television. He (of course it was a "he") was being serious.
There isn't enough Pepto Bismol in the world to save me. Must...turn...off...TV...now...
01 September 2008
The gathering storm
This is one of those times when I know that I am about to write for two hours or so. It's 12:31 as I begin. Let's see where I end up.
The back is better for now, but it looks like I have a herniated disc, which means that some gelatinous goo has burst through the side of one of my vertebrae and is pressing up against a whole lotta nerve endings. Rest and medication help, but nothing is guaranteed until I subject myself to a claustrophobic morning in an MRI on Tuesday. I am back on planet Earth, at least for now, but for a few days there it felt like my back was a break away Soviet Republic and the Russian army was throwing all it had at it. There were times where I felt like I had been tasered for about one month straight. I am not looking forward to the possibility of re-visiting this type of pain anytime soon. At least I can pick up Des again, for now.
I've had some time to further reflect on Obama's convention speech, and the same word comes to mind: presidential. He's the one. This might be the most profound difference among the two candidates in my lifetime.
The GOP is starting to implode. Someone please explain to me why the RNC has to cancel most of their convention activities because of Hurricane Gustav hitting Louisiana; I don't get it. It's not like the convention is in New Orleans, though I certainly would not have been surprised if they tried to have it there. Remember how the Republicans couldn't wait to get to NYC for the 2004 convention so that they could tap dance all over 9/11 and Ground Zero?
So McCain has decreed that tomorrow is nothing but business at the convention, which crushes me, truly, because both Bush and Cheney were supposed to speak in St. Paul tomorrow. There are millions of Republicans praising the powers that be for delivering this hurricane, thus sparing the spectacle of the worst president/vice-president tandem in history from the thrashing that the media would have so deservedly given them.
Perhaps you heard that in the build up to the Dems convention in Denver last week that several bigwigs from "Focus on the Family" (I feel so dirty even writing that) called for people to pray for "significant, torrential, historical" rain during Obama's speech at Mile High Stadium last week. What better to way to establish the moral high rode through meteorological censorship? It didn't work; the weather was perfect last Thursday night in Denver and Obama nailed his speech. But hmm, less than a week after a significant rain event is bearing down on the one part of the country that surely doesn't need it. How do James Dobson and his boys feel about that? What a pity Jerry Falwell isn't still around to contemplate this.
Now McCain and his running mate (more on her, oh so much more, in a sec) are in Mississippi being briefed on what's being done in preparation for the storm. Why? Are they the head of FEMA now? What could they possibly do to help? McCain does have seven homes, remember, so surely he could help out and put up some folks who need to evacuate for a few days. If Obama went to New Orleans today, he'd be vilified for getting in the way. He's stayed for away, and rightly so. The storm isn't about him, and it's not about the GOP. Have your convention already; you couldn't possibly look more uncaring or inept than you did the last time New Orleans got hit.
Now, on to Sarah Palin. I freely admit that before Friday I had no idea who this person was. I thought Mitt Romney was going to be McCain's veep choice, but silly me: Romney is a Mormon, and much of the evangelical base don't like Mormons. I never felt the rumors about Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman were worth taking serious despite their "strong" national security credentials (you do remember that if anyone but a Republican is in the White House that we are all going to die right?) because they also happen to be pro-choice. Mickey Mouse could be McCain's running mate and he'd get more votes than a ticket with a pro-choice running mate on it.
I digress. Enter Sarah Palin. She's got guns. She likes to eat moose. And, most importantly, she is 44 years old and has an infant son who has Downs Syndrome. The inference here is as large as the storm surge about to hit the bayou: she had a baby with Downs; she could have aborted it instead; she is a pro-life hero; ergo, she is qualified to be president of the United States.
Now let me clarify something here: I'm a cynical, cynical person who believes that each and every move on the presidential stage is carefully calculated, and since the abortion debate is so heated, I certainly believe that the infant son with Downs is being used as a thinly-veiled political pawn.
National security? Over-rated. Besides, according to Cindy McCain, Palin is qualified to be president because she is governor of the state closest to Russia. Good to clear that up. By the way, Palin's oldest son is in the army and is being deployed to Iraq soon. Remember, Joe Biden has a son who is being sent to Iraq as well. Push.
Let's go back to the baby issue: how do I continue without sounding sexist? I don't understand how a mother of four month old can leave the baby for the campaign trail, especially a baby with special needs. I don't understand how any parent could; there is no way I would leave Desmond to spend eighteen hours a day campaigning all over the country for the next few months whether he had special needs or not. Others have expressed that opinion, and combined with some other observations there is a rumbling starting that suggests perhaps that this baby is instead Palin's grandson, the son of her eldest daughter. It's a lengthy story that can be read here, and I have to say that I am now inclined not to believe it. However, it also brings up this point, which I believe is quite insane. I am speaking to the issue with the airline flights. Why would any mother who has already four kids and knows that the kid she is carrying now is special needs be so reckless with her decision making? It seems more than a little risky to me, but apparently, Gov. Palin has a little bit of Russell Crowe in her.
Here's the deal: this whole thing is not about Sarah Palin. It's not about a baby boy with Downs Syndrome (and the parents of the child deserve praise and respect for going ahead and having the little guy-while I'd like to think that I would make the same decision I will not judge anyone who actually has to do it). It's not about anyone else but John McCain. It's about his decision making process, how he didn't bother to recognize the potential land mines of his decision.
And I haven't even got into the offensive implications of how this pick assumes that Hillary Clinton supporters who are not thrilled by Barack Obama will now flock to McCain.
Almost at two hours. I feel that this is terribly unorganized and unclear. I have a feeling that Gustav isn't the only storm approaching.
The back is better for now, but it looks like I have a herniated disc, which means that some gelatinous goo has burst through the side of one of my vertebrae and is pressing up against a whole lotta nerve endings. Rest and medication help, but nothing is guaranteed until I subject myself to a claustrophobic morning in an MRI on Tuesday. I am back on planet Earth, at least for now, but for a few days there it felt like my back was a break away Soviet Republic and the Russian army was throwing all it had at it. There were times where I felt like I had been tasered for about one month straight. I am not looking forward to the possibility of re-visiting this type of pain anytime soon. At least I can pick up Des again, for now.
I've had some time to further reflect on Obama's convention speech, and the same word comes to mind: presidential. He's the one. This might be the most profound difference among the two candidates in my lifetime.
The GOP is starting to implode. Someone please explain to me why the RNC has to cancel most of their convention activities because of Hurricane Gustav hitting Louisiana; I don't get it. It's not like the convention is in New Orleans, though I certainly would not have been surprised if they tried to have it there. Remember how the Republicans couldn't wait to get to NYC for the 2004 convention so that they could tap dance all over 9/11 and Ground Zero?
So McCain has decreed that tomorrow is nothing but business at the convention, which crushes me, truly, because both Bush and Cheney were supposed to speak in St. Paul tomorrow. There are millions of Republicans praising the powers that be for delivering this hurricane, thus sparing the spectacle of the worst president/vice-president tandem in history from the thrashing that the media would have so deservedly given them.
Perhaps you heard that in the build up to the Dems convention in Denver last week that several bigwigs from "Focus on the Family" (I feel so dirty even writing that) called for people to pray for "significant, torrential, historical" rain during Obama's speech at Mile High Stadium last week. What better to way to establish the moral high rode through meteorological censorship? It didn't work; the weather was perfect last Thursday night in Denver and Obama nailed his speech. But hmm, less than a week after a significant rain event is bearing down on the one part of the country that surely doesn't need it. How do James Dobson and his boys feel about that? What a pity Jerry Falwell isn't still around to contemplate this.
Now McCain and his running mate (more on her, oh so much more, in a sec) are in Mississippi being briefed on what's being done in preparation for the storm. Why? Are they the head of FEMA now? What could they possibly do to help? McCain does have seven homes, remember, so surely he could help out and put up some folks who need to evacuate for a few days. If Obama went to New Orleans today, he'd be vilified for getting in the way. He's stayed for away, and rightly so. The storm isn't about him, and it's not about the GOP. Have your convention already; you couldn't possibly look more uncaring or inept than you did the last time New Orleans got hit.
Now, on to Sarah Palin. I freely admit that before Friday I had no idea who this person was. I thought Mitt Romney was going to be McCain's veep choice, but silly me: Romney is a Mormon, and much of the evangelical base don't like Mormons. I never felt the rumors about Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman were worth taking serious despite their "strong" national security credentials (you do remember that if anyone but a Republican is in the White House that we are all going to die right?) because they also happen to be pro-choice. Mickey Mouse could be McCain's running mate and he'd get more votes than a ticket with a pro-choice running mate on it.
I digress. Enter Sarah Palin. She's got guns. She likes to eat moose. And, most importantly, she is 44 years old and has an infant son who has Downs Syndrome. The inference here is as large as the storm surge about to hit the bayou: she had a baby with Downs; she could have aborted it instead; she is a pro-life hero; ergo, she is qualified to be president of the United States.
Now let me clarify something here: I'm a cynical, cynical person who believes that each and every move on the presidential stage is carefully calculated, and since the abortion debate is so heated, I certainly believe that the infant son with Downs is being used as a thinly-veiled political pawn.
National security? Over-rated. Besides, according to Cindy McCain, Palin is qualified to be president because she is governor of the state closest to Russia. Good to clear that up. By the way, Palin's oldest son is in the army and is being deployed to Iraq soon. Remember, Joe Biden has a son who is being sent to Iraq as well. Push.
Let's go back to the baby issue: how do I continue without sounding sexist? I don't understand how a mother of four month old can leave the baby for the campaign trail, especially a baby with special needs. I don't understand how any parent could; there is no way I would leave Desmond to spend eighteen hours a day campaigning all over the country for the next few months whether he had special needs or not. Others have expressed that opinion, and combined with some other observations there is a rumbling starting that suggests perhaps that this baby is instead Palin's grandson, the son of her eldest daughter. It's a lengthy story that can be read here, and I have to say that I am now inclined not to believe it. However, it also brings up this point, which I believe is quite insane. I am speaking to the issue with the airline flights. Why would any mother who has already four kids and knows that the kid she is carrying now is special needs be so reckless with her decision making? It seems more than a little risky to me, but apparently, Gov. Palin has a little bit of Russell Crowe in her.
Here's the deal: this whole thing is not about Sarah Palin. It's not about a baby boy with Downs Syndrome (and the parents of the child deserve praise and respect for going ahead and having the little guy-while I'd like to think that I would make the same decision I will not judge anyone who actually has to do it). It's not about anyone else but John McCain. It's about his decision making process, how he didn't bother to recognize the potential land mines of his decision.
And I haven't even got into the offensive implications of how this pick assumes that Hillary Clinton supporters who are not thrilled by Barack Obama will now flock to McCain.
Almost at two hours. I feel that this is terribly unorganized and unclear. I have a feeling that Gustav isn't the only storm approaching.
29 August 2008
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.
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.
22 August 2008
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.
07 August 2008
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"
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"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)