Confundis Charm - - Harry is that you?

So after the high that was Obama's speech last night...I was expecting (as was most of the world) the announcement of McCain's running mate today. I have to admit I'm confounded. I don't think she was a good choice. On the one hand she was probably picked because she's a woman. But why wasn't one of the more qualified women chosen? One of the longer serving governors or congresswomen?

Was she really chosen to "woo" the Hillary voters? I don't get the ones who say they will vote for JM. If you were supporting HC because of issues it's counterproductive to jump to the other side. Seriously.

Now, Palin could have been chosen because she's hyper conservative and the other hyper conservatives didn't/don't like JMcCain. There are questions arising about her. She kept her pregnancy under wraps? She's being investigated for firing someone who wouldn't fire her brother-in-law (who alledgedly was a royal booger head but still).

On the one hand I'm pretty sure Obama's going to pull it off. With oodles of help from his volunteers. On the other hand....I'm a little worried.

Barack's Acceptance

6:46pm Waiting for Barack to start. Excited to hear him talk. Psychin' myself up to cry....because I know I will.

Also: I got a text from the campaign...woo, they know who I am! LOL

6:50pm Durbin's(D-Sen. Illinois) intro.

I totally hafta pee...but don't want to miss anything....eek!

6:56pm--video
Augh!!!! Baby pictures!!!

7:00
I love Michele Obama!

Trying to place the narrator's voice...I know I know who it is...grr.. HAY!!! they're playing Uno Spin...I have that game!

aww he's choked about his mama's death. Grampa "Boy Americans, we can do anything if we put our minds to it". OMG....I love love loved his keynote four years ago!

"That's the country I believe in, That's worth fighting for."' OMG
Imagine 75,000 people cheering for you...Holy Cow. I'll try to be a little more coherent (or not, who am I kidding). The chanting at the RNC.....is gonna SUCK! rofl

Damn....first sentence and I'm crying! His acceptance was lovely.

I love a candidate who can speechify! BOOOOOOOO! to a third term with McSame! Booooo!
LMAO 8 is enough!!!!!

"What does it say about your judgement when you say GWB has been right 90% of the time. I don't know about you but I don't want to take a 10% chance on change"

Booooooo! nation of whiners!!! "These are the Americans I know..." (workers, soldiers families)
"I don't think John McCain doesn't care about the middle class...He just doesn't know."

"It's not that John McCain doesn't care, he just doesn't get it"
"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps....even if you don't have boots."
I'm glad I'm not the only one crying....people in the crowd are too! How can people not agree with this???? "Our Government should work for us, not against us."

"Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility".

This speech is amazing. I have not disagreed with anything he said.

Oh. God. I want him to win. Now to the pundits...LOL...won't write about them.

stolen phrases

Well, right now, there's only one but....

please God give me an occasion in which to say:

beaten with a stick of holiness like a devil pinata

it made me laugh so hard.

Secondly, NBC your "the closing ceremonies at 7pm....oh wait let's watch volleyball first SUCKS!

Finally, geek alert: the thought of the Olympic Flame going out for another 4 (okay 2 for winter) years makes me choke up a little.

Edit 9:49pm....flame is going out and I'm crying a bit....the pictures around the screen from all the days of the games. So sad.... I'm such a freaking sap. Part of it is optimism dammit! Frowny face.


perplexed....showing the drum part of the opening ceremonies with out preface.....it's way cool but it's two weeks old. Bob Costas you fruitloop. 15 minutes ago he said closing ceremonies in about an hour. He just said it again.

WOOT!

A Noun, A Verb, and POW

working on exhaustion

Been having trouble falling asleep--I think because I've had a weird schedule. Basically since I got back home I can sleep whenev. Ah well. I felt compelled to jot down an insight that just coalesced in my brain.

Regarding blogs. Honest to pete, Mhari, you just read them to live vicariously through other people. Yup. yup I do. My existence is so "normal". Other people have such amazing experiences. I'm also enamored of the talent many people have for writing. I don't feel that I write very well. Passably, I stick with admitting to writing passably. Often I don't write what I want; or click "upload" because I'm worried about "sounding" like a moron. My preoccupation with blogs is to get a voyeuristic view into other peoples lives--not necessarily in a kinktacular way.

It's really the same as my taste for Adventure/Romance and Fantasy/Romance. Albeit I'm a little soft on the Romance part. I like it but it's not the important part. Though I have become more demanding of the heroines--they need to be intelligent. They can be needy because we're all needy in our own way. Gads, we are all SO needy in our own way. I will only suffer a main character's idiocy for a short amount of time. It's probably why I didn't find Anna Karenina a sympathetic character. On the one hand I understood her situation but she was pretty much just pathetic and I cared more for the other characters. I don't know if that was the point of her "existance". I'll have to read up on some commentary.

Anyhoo. I think I'll set the alarms and get to bed.

Alas Bulletin Boards

Back to work today. As a student, it never really occured to me what teachers did to prepare for school to start. Laminating things...cutting those things out. Creating bulletin boards (and even more difficult, creating boards that are different from last years).

I don't remember my Junior High teachers having lots of stuff in their rooms. I remember some of my High School teachers did. My room dec. heroine is my Humanities/Adv. Comp./AP English teacher. Her room was pretty much totally covered with an amazing collection of stuff. Postcards from around the world, life size cut outs of Wayne Gretzky and Humphrey Bogart, Art Prints, drawings by students, articles that specifically meant something to her (and by extension us), a Hockey puck and stick, and more. She showed Simon & Garunkel's Concert in the Park.

So, I'm kinda tired even though most of what I did today was staple, cut, and organize things.

On another note...
I am getting damn sick and tired of Hillary Clinton supporters who are so effing shortsighted that they're willing to risk McCain getting into office. Seriously? I would have been disappointed had Barack not gotten the nomination (which he doesn't "technically" have) but I sure as shootin' would have worked to have the democrat elected. Honest to murgatroid...they (HC & BO) are virtually (not exactly) on the same page.

Ah. Well. From one addiction to the other. Next week I'll be following the Democratic National Convention. At least the Olympics and DNC(Denver) didn't happen at the same time...my head would have exploded.

Oh and... really happy about THIS.

oh and.....HELL yes!!!

Such a cutie!

Love Him...

I have to say, I pretty much adore Keith Olbermann; especially when he says, "Word to your mother", after berating some rappers. And then there was yesterday's special comment which can be found here.

Clippets:

And fourth, encouraging Senator McCain, while there, to address his opponent in the language of unseemly contempt, undignified calumny, and holier-than-thou persiflage unsupported by reality... near-nonsensical bluster that -- at best -- makes the speaker look like a dyspeptic grouchy neighbor shouting "Hey you kids, get out of my yard."
"Though victory in Iraq is finally in sight," you told the V-F-W today, Senator McCain, "a great deal still depends on the decisions and good judgment of the next president. The hard-won gains of our troops hang in the balance. The lasting advantage of a peaceful and democratic ally in the heart of the Middle East could still be squandered by hasty withdrawal and arbitrary timelines. And this is one of many problems in the shifting positions of my opponent, Senator Obama."
The shifting positions of Senator Obama?
Senator McCain -- on the 22nd of May, 2003.. you said, of Iraq, on the Senate floor, quote:
"We won a massive victory in a few weeks, and we did so with very limited loss of American and allied lives. We were able to end aggression with minimum overall loss of life, and we were even able to greatly reduce the civilian casualties of Afghani and Iraqi citizens.
Senator -- you declared victory in Iraq, five years and nearly three months ago.
Today you say: "victory in Iraq is finally in sight"?
The victory you already proclaimed five years ago?

I love him.

On another note. NBC's west coast Olympics coverage SUCKS!!!!

holy cow

I wish I could be more poetic or amazingly literary. I'm so proud.

He. Did. It.

on mission trips

This quote:

"Let's fall in love on the last day of the trip and then break up when we get dropped off back at the church. I mission trip love you!"

from this blog made me laugh really hard. Having been a chaperone on mission trips for the last 7 or so years I can't even say how many times the above happend.

On an Olympics note I am LOVING Mr. Phelps very much. He's such a cutie.

I'm sick to death of beach volleyball. NBC (a network I love) has sorta sucked regarding coverage. Some of my favorite stuff can be found in Ron C. Judd's Blog at Seattle Times dot com. Especially the parts about those of us out west being part of the "Disadvantaged Time Zone DTZ"

I've been watching so much Olympics coverage, if I can't watch for whatever reason I sorta feel withdrawal. What am I gonna do until Vancouver 2010. The bonus is...I can't get as involved in Winter Olympics because I'll be working and not on summer vacation. 'Kay that's all.

Happy Feast of the Assumption! Hail Mary!

afeared of hiatus

so geeky about the olympics right now I'm not sure I'll be posting much. just so ya know

Weekend

Camped out at my parentals for a coupla days because I had to travel a distance for a wedding. I'm still in this same place regarding that.

On an uppity up note the Olympics Geek Out continues. Sis and I and 'Rents watched the Opening Ceremonies (sis and I the whoooooooole thing). It was pretty amazing. Teared up when the cute little boy who went back into his demolished school twice to save classmates after climbing out of the rubble. He said, "I'm a class leader, it's my responsibility." Yeah. He's 9.

Watched events as much as I could yesterday. Was getting on-line to look something up --non-Olympics related--and my homepage which is MSNBC pops up with the big old Phelps Wins Gold headline that I couldn't avoid. I'm all for making the information available, but for God's sake make the headline smaller (it was HUGE) or make an "If you want to see who won" click though.

Then I watched the Men's 4x 100 relay. The Frenchies had said, "We will smash the Americans". Au contraire mon chien.... WE BEAT THE FROGS!!!! it was all I could do to not wake the 'rents. It was so exciting that the dog jumped on my lap because he thought there was something wrong.

I don't like the pressure of everyone saying M. Phelps could surpass Spitz' 7 gold medal record. But, I have to admit....I'm really hoping he pulls it off. It's been stated that yesterday, and today's races were the most tricky. Fingers crossed, I'll be so proud of him if he does it.


Oh and if you want another tearjerking story check out the 33 year-old gymnast from Germany (well not...but that's part of the story).

Frustration

So...I'm watching a repeat of Oprah in which they are discussing the deplorable state of education in America. I totally agree there's a lot wrong with education. There are issues of equity and resources. There are crappy teachers. I completely understand the issue.

But.

There has been no discussion of parental responsibility and societal responsibility.

Society: our kids see all kinds of things that take away from education. Play video games all the time. Watch t.v. . What's a book? Why not become famous and you don't have to do anything. Money will just magically appear.

When I was a kid, if my parents got a call from a teacher for a discipline problem (which I don't think ever happened) it was all on me. "Mhari, why did you do what you did? No t.v.. No phone...no other activities, you're grounded for 6 months" (okay...only a slight exaggeration). The response I get now is more like, "Ms. Dubh, why are you picking on my child?"

I kid you not, I had a parent one time tell me, "Well, I tell Sonny that if he gets in trouble at school, he won't get in more trouble at home."

Are you s#$tting me? Seriously? Oh no, no no no.....If you're getting in trouble at school you sure as shootin' need to get grounded at home. Otherwise there is no expectation of respect for school.

I've felt undercut again and again by parents who put too much importance on sports and other things and school comes in a distant second or third or even fourth.

I understand that education is in crisis. They showed students not being able to name the first 5 presidents. Well of course not. That's not what's tested. That's not knowledge that students are supposed to have for the standardized test that teachers are supposed to prepare them for.

sigh. I don't know how to fix things. oh....If I ran the world

me again!

Catching up on my favorite Olympics columnist, Ron C. Judd.

He Posted this:

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/olympics/2008/08/us_athletes_flagbearer_choice.html#start_comments

honest to God, teared me up. Jumpin' Jehosephat

Happy {shyeah} Anniversary

Seven years ago today the president's daily briefing which he ignored...warned of the antics of a bunch of followers of a guy named OBL who were in the U.S. preparing for attacks. There was also a phone call to the embassy in the UAE to inform "us" of this fact.

Nancy Pelosi: we're not impeaching him why?

I <3 The Usual Suspects

Verbal: How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

Verbal: After that my guess is that you will never hear from him again. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that... he is gone.

McManus: Old McDonald had a farm ee i ee i o. And on that farm he shot some guys. Badda boom badda bing bang boom.

Even knowing the twist. Watching the actors. Freakin' amazing.

I'm tryin' ta figger...

why I like romance novels so much. Okay....I'm over the "Bodice Rippers" from High School. I can't even seriousl pick them up and read the back because they're all the same story. I was aware of that when I would check out 10 at a time from the library. I spent a lot of time away from the Romance section when I hit the book store. Now I peruse the section for particular authors. The stories are still somewhat the same...and maybe that's why I like them. There are certian criterion (I think that's proper usage) that have to be evident. The female character cannot be a complet idiot. I'll admit that I'm not as picky about the male character. It is more likely that I'll buy adventure romances.

Anyhoo....still haven't figured out why I like 'em. Could be the guaranteed happy ending. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Oh and p.s. Brian Williams on Daily Show....frickin' HY-larious.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=178206

Oh, Hell...

Now, I'll have to read the book. The movie was so good. I found the acting of the two young boys so moving. There are times when I wish I had the money and other resources to adopt orphans (and other kids needing care). I suppose I couldn't stop with just one or two tho'. {sigh}

On another note. RIP Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A Story Here.

oh em gee

I Love Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. I have to say I loved Christian Bale when he was in Empire of the Sun. I didn't start loving Russell Crowe until Proof of Life (I know...I know but I loved his character). They are both just yummy. Seriously, there are a handful of actors who do amazing work and these are two of them.

WE MUST RALLY BEHIND VETERANS

This Blog Entry over at The Sandbox talks about "the Monster" that is PTSD.

This is one of the important parts:
"...there are thousands coming back from this war without resources, without education and without the knowledge and skills to defend themselves against the monster known as PTSD. A monster it is, and it grows bigger and more deadly with each passing day.
The way to defeat it is to understand it. To realize it’s okay that you have it. You were placed in situations where you saw things and experienced things you would not have if you were not in the arena of war.
The way to defeat it is with education. Education about what it is, what the signs and symptoms are and where to go for treatment, because make no mistake; PTSD is a disease. It is a lifelong disease that goes in and out of remission. It can be extremely well controlled with the right treatment, but is devastatingly deadly if not."

Because of my reading everything about the Vietnam War phase, and having worked (in my youth) at the local VA Medical Center I have a reasonable understanding of PTSD. I also understand that there is a certain stigma for the troops to seek help. What with an astronomical increase in suicides of veterans of both theaters we MUST fund veterans support resources.