Happy Halloween

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy BIRTHDAY dear Diva Jood,
(you old prude)
Happy birthday to me.

Yep, 10/31/48 I am 60!

Attention Blog Friends

I am really sleep deprived - Mr. Bean might be an adorable kitten, but he has been keeping me up at night and I really am at my wit's end. He bites my fingers. He wants to play with my cosmetics. He likes to knock my glasses off the night stand (so they now live in a drawer at night.) He does what he can to be annoying, and I can't think straight. Any suggestions? I'm serious. I'm so tired, I cannot find the words, nor the energy to go read your posts, because all I want to do is sleep.

So anyone who has dealt with a 7 month old male kitten who is adorable but annoying, tell me what to do. Please.

No Time For Complacency

This article in today's LA Times is enough to give me nightmares. Warning against election day potential problems are huge, ranging from the 30,000 voters who were purged from the Colorado lists to the problems of long lines that will cause people to leave for work rather than vote. The Colorado voters will be allowed to vote provisionally, but the Republicans have adopted a very aggressive policy to challenge voters.

The reason? Obama supporters registered 2-to-1 over McCain supporters in battleground states like Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Florida. Republican dirty tricks want to disenfranchise these new voters any way they can. They treat this responsibility as a game, and will do what they can to deny people their voice.

Vote. Vote. Vote. If you have a job to go to, either vote early or take the day off. You cannot be docked pay for voting. Don't give up, don't cave in, don't be afraid. Do not be complacent. Vote.

Hockey Mom For Obama

Meanderings for a Tuesday

I spent yesterday with my new addiction. Facebook is quite hilarious. I challenged Border Explorer to a game of word challenge, she opened a whole can of whoopass on me. I challenged both my kids to sudoku, neither of whom have played yet. But I also reconnected with some people from my past, which is sweet.

Today, I wish I was here. This has got to be an amazing exhibit, and it would be fantastic to be able to make the comparisons between Picasso and the Masters first hand. Picasso once said

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what instinct and the brain imagine quite apart from the canon.

The review of this blockbuster exhibit contends that Picasso got bogged down with looking backward, despite his major accomplishments.

Listen, I'm a huge fan of Picasso's work - he took grand risks, and was willing to fail miserably. One of my favorite places in Paris is the Musée National Picasso which houses a major collection of his work. But Picasso was at some point bigger than his work - the work itself became secondary to the grandness of the personality. He was, in a way, the first rock star artist. He became way too aware of his place in history, which ultimately made his later work less than his reputation.

In the Picasso Museum, there is a clay sculpture of a sleeping cat that is used as a door stop. The cat is graceful, playful, beautifully done with none of the various riffs that embellish the paintings. In fact, most of his ceramic work is elegant. It's as though the clay mastered his personality and made him less self-conscious.

The reviewer suggests that the selection of works for the exhibit create the problem - that it's just too much of a "blockbuster" for its own good, that the exhibit is self-conscious. The last "blockbuster" exhibit I've gone to was the Jeff Koons at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago - the exhibit was hilarious, with one well-made joke after another, beautifully constructed, ultimately cold.

I'm of the belief that art should be experienced in a smaller, intimate setting. I like the Picasso Museum because it is a beatiful setting, the Hotel Salé, built in1659. I like the Musée d'Orsay because it was the former Gare d'Orsay, a railroad station. The building is interesting.

At any rate, I still wish I was in Paris, and at the exhibit. It would be a real treat.

virtual 'Tornado of Change' necklace.

Susan is amazing artist. Not only does she draw, and write, and paint apparel, now I find she also makes beaded necklaces. How do I know this? Because she gave me one of these undeserved virtual awards, the virtual 'Tornado of Change' necklace.

I suggest you all go over to her blog and buy her work, because it's gorgeous. I mean that, she's amazing. Thank you, Susan.

Yes We Carve

Hat tip to Enigma for the link to Yes We Carve. They even provide stencils and they're having a good old fashioned pumpkin carving contest.

I don't forgive the pun-kins, though.

Flash Fiction

Randal, by way of Ubermilf, has called for the return of Flash Fiction. There are rules (there are always rules), which means this:

You will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem beginning with the sentence below. You will add comments to this post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your story. You may join in at any time prior to the deadline. You will display your story as a post on your own blog. You will be done by Monday 12:00 Noon CST.

This week's sentence is She was suddenly gripped by...

Since Randal sez, and I do everything Randal tells me to do (he is my campaign manager and that's why I pay him the big bucks), here goes nothing:

She was suddenly gripped by an insane urge to giggle. The staff meeting was ridiculous, and the boss was so full of his own self-importance that she could not even look at him. He was short, and he had a bad habit of putting his hand in his lapel just like pictures of Napoleon. She could not look at him. He had been droning on about all the awards and accolades he'd won that year, how important he was, and how terrible the attitude was in the office so he'd won those awards on his own accord, without team support, blah blah blah. The agent sitting next to her passed a note that said "He's speaking Urdu," and that's when it hit her. She bit her tongue. She put her hand over her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing helped. She just had to get up and run to the ladies room, and that would mean he'd scream at her for at least a half an hour about her rudeness. But if she laughed in front of the entire staff, that would have been worse. She timed it, and ran out the door. She knew she'd have to quit this job, sooner rather than later. She heard his whiny voice, "And where do you think you're going, Ms. Know-it-all?" "Bathroom, sir," came her choked reply. "Emergency."

The entire staff cracked up at that. It was code for "I can't take your droning any longer, you self-absorbed twit." She was really going to get it, oh, well.

A Message from the Secretary of Strawberries

My mommy sez that peepols should only call 911 when they has real dismergencies. So but that means not like this:

911, what's your emergency?

"I'm stuck in traffic."

"Are you having a heart attack?"

"No. But this traffic won't move."

"Is someone in the car having a heart attack? Are you being threatened? Has there been an accident?"

"No, no, and no. Do you know who I am?"

"No, sir, but please state your emergency."

"I TOLD YOU I'M STUCK IN TRAFFIC. THIS IS JOE (not the plumber) MCCAIN. I'M IMPORTANT!"

"Ummmm"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So my mommy sez that's not a dismergency. My gramma saw a dismergency yesterday, she saw a car crash with a car flipped onto its top and the other car all smushed in front and peepols with blood and such and lots of pleece cars and amblances and hurt peepols. She dint call 911 cause they were arredy there.

An Ms. Sarah Palin thinks that her clothes are sexist the fight about what she spent on them. Ms. Sarah Palin has a pretty red leather jacket from her clothes and somebody went to help her pick out the clothes but peepols got upset when John Edwards spent too much on his hair so she's wrong it isn't sexist she spent too much money an such.

My gramma got a new sweater which she likes which she will wear when she comes to visit me soon.

The Only Difference Between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom

Appears to be a $150,000 wardrobe. Since August, 2008.

The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission's long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use. Politico did pursue the McCain campaign for comment, however, spokeswoman Maria Comella said “The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent." So, dressing the Vice Presidential Candidate to look like Tina Fey is a strategic decision?

I guess it's more important to dress well than it is to actually have a point of view and intellectual curiosity. This bizarre form of window-dressing has caused real Republicans and real Conservatives to re-think their alliegence to a candidacy that prefers lies and innuendo to common decency. It motivated 4-Star General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell to break ranks with the Republicans and endorse Obama. It moved Christopher Buckley to endorse Obama. Chris Buckley, son of the father of Modern Intellectual Conservativism William F. Buckley, wound up being booted from the magazine his father founded, The National Review for his obviously socialist leanings.

Look, it takes more than spending $75,062.63 at Nieman Marcus or $49,425.74 at Saks Fifth Avenue to make a campaign work. Perhaps Republican donors should ask for a refund?

I'm a Real American

Recently, I established that I am Pro-Life. Now, in the face of Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman's call for an investigation into Congress to see who is Anti-American, I thought it wise to establish my apple pie standards right away.

I love my country so much that I believe in my right to dissent. Like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. His beliefs led to the the First Amendment (also known as the Establishment Clause) which states

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Unlike Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), I have never associated with a group that wants to secede from the United States.

In my vision of America, we are are not color-blind when it comes to matters of race. Instead, we have a full-palette, seeing all people. We don't separate because of race, we don't discriminate because of race. We celebrate and learn from our differences.

In my vision of America, we have three separate but equal branches of government to establish a system of checks and balances, so that no one branch seizes too much power.

But instead, we have a first term Republican Congresswoman demanding a witch hunt on Hardball. We have a previously unknown Governor from Alaska claiming that Senator Obama pals around with terrorists. We have an increasingly hate-filled, fear-mongering campaign from the Far Right, designed to paralyze intelligent thought. Why the Republicans need to demonize their opponents rather than discuss issues continues to astound me.

Still, if you need proof, I have a fantastic recipe for Apple Pie: I use nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Lots of butter. Brown sugar. Yum.

The Weekend's Endorsements

Senator Obama has an impressive list of endorsements, but a few stand out. On Friday, Oct. 17, The Chicago Tribune came out for Obama, stating

On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

The Tribune Editiorial Board stated that they've worked with Obama over the last dozen years as he rose to this historic position. They say they have confidence in "intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready." And they talk about the substance of the "Change" Obama puts forth: the Tribune says that "Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics."

But the real significance of the Chicago Tribune's endorsement is this: in the paper's history, they have never before endorsed the Democratic Nominee for President.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

The Tribune editorial in full cites Obama's ability to listen carefully to people who disagree with him; his ability to build consensus; how he worked with Republicans in the Illinois legislature on several key issues in the state.

Obama, they say, "is is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations." Frankly, when the Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama, that was a huge step in returning to those aspirations.

The other truly significant endorsement from this weekend was from former Sec. of State Colin Powell. Describing Obama as "a transformational figure", Powell broke ranks with the Republican Party in his endorsement. Powell cited the negative nature of McCain's campaign, and said that Obama's nature is better-suited to solving the problems the US faces.

Rush Limbaugh says Powell's endorsement is about race.

OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Of course, Powell donated money to John McCain's campaign last year, and waited until two weeks before the election to make any endorsement. Powell said it was about the way the campaigns were being run, and the candidates they have both become. Had it been about race, Powell said he would have endorsed Obama when he first announced he was running for President.

Obama's full list of endorsers includes a host of Republicans, conservatives. The reasons they all give talk about his ability to remain calm and build consensus. This gives me hope.

Sunday Fantasy

Because it's Sunday, and I have not a damn thing to say about anything, I thought I'd rather feast my eyes upon the sexiest 62 year old on earth.

What an honor

The amazing Liquid AND my beloved Utah Savage have seen fit to bestow these two honors on l'il ole me. I'm really quite surprised, and grateful for this. Liquid is a real artist; Utah is one of the most colorful writers on the interwebs. They are both quite wonderful, so this means a lot. I'm humbled.

Uber (synonym to Super)Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:

~ inspire you
~ make you smile and laugh
~ or maybe gives amazing information
~ a great read
~ has an amazing design
~ and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules (there are always rules) of this award are:

* Put the logo on your blog or post.
* Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
* Let them know that they have received these Uber Amazing awards by commenting on their blog.

Once again, spreading the linky-love, and there are so many bloggers I adore. Amazing designs, great reads, inspiring, humorous, you name it. So I'm going to pick a few.

1. Dr. Monkey Von Munkerstein even though he's also running for President. I will beat him, but I have to honor his blog.

2. Distributorcap, NY treads the balance between informative, and funny, and is brilliant.

3. FranIAm tackles real matters of faith, and I feel like she's my sister.

4. The Pagan Sphinx reminds me that we must have a world filled with art. And art needs to be examined.

5. Susan, phansythat is another real artist. I love her ink drawings, and her stories. I love her silk paintings. She's wonderful.

6. and of course, my campaign manager and poet laureate, Randal even though I've given him tons of raises (hey, 5 times zero is still a raise.)

What the hell - anyone on my blogroll deserves these awards.

Go forth and read, people!

A Message from The Secretary of Strawberries & Cream

Hi my gramma gotta new kitty his name is Mr Bean but she don' havany picksures yet cause she's lazy and besides there's Mr. John McCain's friend Joe The Not Plumber to talk bout. Mr. John McCain doesn't do too well vetting peeples too much. Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is really not a plumber at all. So but he also seems to owe some back taxes too. An he doesn't have a liesenze thingy that sez he can be a plumber. I don wan him to work on my mommy's toilets because he's not really a plumber and we need to fix the back bafroom. So but he wanted to know about if he buys this bizness and it makes $250000 a year wud his taxes go up but they wudn't and that's good caus he owes about $1200 in back taxes anyways.

An Joe-the-not-plumber has the same last name as Robert M. Wurzelbacher Jr., the son-in-law of Charles Keating of the infamous "Keating Five" scandal but nobody's really proven that he's related to Robert M. Wurzelbacher Jr. but lotsa peeples think he is related but I don know for sure. If they is related then that's kinda stoopid of Mr. John McCain but he's a meanie man an I don much like him. An look what he does, he tries to grab anybody's behind.

I Am Pro-Life

Yes. It's true. I am Pro-Life, and I can prove it: I support Roe v. Wade which upholds a Constitutional right to privacy as defined by the 14th Amendment. Essentially, the decision of the Supreme Court ensures that women have the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy without interference from the States.

I oppose hunting for sport and trophies. Hunters using semi-automatic weapons, with telephoto sights will always hit their target. Animals cannot escape our greed. I certainly am opposed to the aerial hunting of animals which is outlawed by the Airborne Hunting Act. I am opposed to Capital Punishment
which neither acts as a deterrant, nor does it bring back any victims. And, I am completely opposed to the USA engaging in Pre-Emptive Warfare based upon lies and misinformation.

Oh, and back onto the support side: I do support Assisted Suicide when a patient has no other options. Yes, it's our right to die, to choose our death as well as to choose our life.

I maintain that my Pro-Choice positions make me completely Pro-Life, and I am determined to take back the language of compassion from the Neo-Conservatives. Being Pro-Choice does not make me an abortionist. But it seems that some who call themselves Pro-Life feel it is okay to attack abortion clinics and practitioners, which I really don't understand.

But during last night's final debate between Obama and McCain, when McCain started talking about being Pro-Life (anti-abortion), I felt I had to just shout out NO. I am the one who is Pro-Life, not you, Mr. McCain. Not you, not your running mate. I want my language back.

Make Poverty History Blog Action Day

The dream is to end poverty globally by 2015. That's seven years from now. Seven years. I wonder about the reality of this on a global scale, until I remember that we can think globally but act locally.

A few days ago, I read an article in the LA Times which described how a homeless man, called John, was burned to death by an unknown assailant. John had been a fixture in the Beverly Wilshire District of Los Angeles for about 20 years. People fed him, took him once a week to get a shower, gave him cigarettes. They were kind to him. He was harmless, he was homeless, he was a face of poverty. Some punks decided to burn him up for whatever reason - anger? Hatred? Some bizarre gang initiation? Whatever it was, murdering John does nothing to eradicate poverty.

I had originally thought to write something else, but this climate of hatred, anger, fear and destruction is the root cause of poverty. Fear breeds a poverty of spirit; fear breeds a poverty of hatred; fear breeds the poverty of "otherness" that keeps us separate from one another. Fear causes us to lie, to hoard, to steal, to cheat, all in the name of getting ahead. Remember that bumper sticker that said "He who has the most toys wins"? The more stuff, the more money, marbles and chalk you have, theoretically, the better you were. Not true.

I'm not claiming that this murdered homeless man was a saint - he was homeless, he was apparently mentally ill. Yet he did not deserve to meet this horrific end. Nor do the people who have worked hard but are losing their homes deserve to be cast out on the street. People who have saved, only to see their savings wiped out by the banking crisis and Wall Street crash. Nobody deserves to have pain or tragedy come into their life - at the same time, everybody has an obligation to try and end this growing poverty.

Actions we can take are as simple as supporting local farms by going to local farmers markets; driving less, and walking more for short trips; recycling; using CFS bulbs; conserving water. We can also help by creating jobs - something along the lines of what FDR did when he created The New Deal, which created jobs for the unemployed, and regulated business and banking.

We have to act. We have to think of us as connected - not just in the USA, but to all people, in all nations. Let's make poverty history. Yes, we can.

This is REALLY Special

Last night, I went to see Tina Turner perform at The Staples Center. She's amazing - really connected with the crowd, despite the size of the venue. And, at 69 years of age, she clearly loves what she does. Her version of the Beatles Song "Help" was amazing - completely re-invented the song.

So that made the following message from Ringo Starr REALLY special. Pay attention, he says it's really important.



Well. Isn't that just so perky? Asshole.

His Name is Mr. Bean

And he's a love muffin who purrs all the time, and has made sitting in my lap his number one priority.

Pictures will follow. Thank you all for the suggestions. He's a bit of a clown, too.

Name the Cat Contest

I adopted a 7 month old male kitten today. He's at the vet being neutered, I bring him home tomorrow. He's black, with gold eyes, very playful, very affectionate, and sweet. However, I need to name him. The Shelter is calling him Ooogey, which doesn't fit.

So I am holding a "Name the Male Kitten" contest. Winner will be awarded the cereal prize (nothin, honey) unless I design an appropriate award. Help please.

Mellow Sunday Sounds

It is one of those weekends where I feel disconnected, strange, and distant. The election has me unsettled. In 2000, I was certain Gore would win; I could not imagine a nation so superficial that it would allow Frat Boy George W. Bush to take the White House. In 2004, I was convinced the people had had enough, and that Kerry would win. I will continue to do all I can to help Obama win the election, but the truth is that at this point I don't hold out hope. I don't, and it's because I think that the majority of our citizens are driven by fear.

We demand our sports heroes be elite, the best of the best. We expect our entertainers to live an elite life, to be unobtainable so that we can fantasize. But when it comes to our Nation's leaders, we think it's okay to turn the reins over to somebody we might like to have a beer with. I don't want to have a beer with my President. I want him, or her, to be smarter than I am, to understand complex world issues, to be calm in the face of conflict and to inspire. I want my President to be visionary.

But today I don't hold out hope. And so, I give you this lovely song:

So My Campaign Manager Doesn't Get Worried

I recently raised a question about why certain images are posted more frequently than others. My campaign manager suggested that I use the interwebs to do a google search (thus distancing myself from John McCain) specific to my own preferences.

So I did that search. Handy little tool, those Googles. Really.

I thought if I started small, with this lovely little self-portrait my heart-throb dashed off, it would make this post have at least a semblance of intellectual versisitude.



That makes it easy to slide into a man in kilts. Nice legs. Really.



From there, we can segue into the shy guy, hiding behind the bust, keeping it all modest and coy:



Before leaping into nearly naked man at the beach with friends:




Oh, well, as much as I adore Alan Rickman, he just is not the beefy stud I know many of us long to gaze at. I personally would love a committed relationship with Mr. Rickman, complete with regular sex, but for just gaping, please god, give me this:

A message from the secretary of Strawberries and cream

Gramma likes this pikshure ame coz it looks like I giving a speech. I like it too coz I rode my big wheel an I like it it pink. I made a apple pie with my mommy we went to the apple fesval, an I go downa really big slide. So we made a pie. An we don't much like the new ads Senator McCain is running coz they aren't true about Bill Ayers an Rezko an The Bailout an as much as I like Strawberries I think Senator Obama has to talk about McCain's scandal. I mean the S&L scandal but so Obama's got a new ad that starts today about it. It's long. I don't have time to look at it now, I have to go to skool.

Onze upon a time

Monsieur Graves has tagged me with a charming little meme that asks for eleven things you might not know about me. Well, of course you wouldn't know them, unless you've been to my house, and no, I cannot see Russia from my house. Hell, I can barely see Catalina Island, due to the fog, but that's weather-related. So, but, I have to answer these one-word questions, which I am certain are a nefarious plot to link my candidacy to William Ayers.

1. Clothes Shop: Turley Road in Chicago. Yes, it's true. A hip designer in the Windy City. Also, caBI.

2. Furniture Shop: Hmmm. I haven't got a clue how to answer this. I used to like antiques, so I would rummage various antique stores. Now I want to sell everything I own, every stick of furniture and start over with just a more relaxed, beach-cottage look. So I dunno.

3. Sweet: are ya kidding me? Chocolat. It's a food group.

4. City: Well, I live in San Pedro, California, which is really Los Angeles. I LOVE Chicago, but it's too fucking cold. So there.

5. Drink: well, not since July 18, 1988. Oh, that's not what you meant. Okay, then it's gotta be Root Beer.

6. Music: I could listen to Yo-Yo Ma all day long. I mean, forever.

7. TV Series: toss-up between Sex and the City and The Sopranos. Oh, unless you mean currently? Um. Oh. Er.

8. Film: This is really, really, really hard. I love films. From Casablanca to Lawrence of Arabia; from Oklahoma to Singin in the Rain; from It Happened One Night to Gone With The Wind; from Dogma to Die Hard - I really can't pick just one. However, for 2008, I really loved Burn After Reading.

9. Workout: I walk. I try to get in 3 miles every day. Really.

10: Pastries: Chocolate cake. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Update: Dammital, Distributorcap noticed I forgot #11. Here it is:

11. Coffee: not for me. Tea all the way. Robust, Irish Breakfast. Yum.


Now I have to pick five suckers bloggers to play along. Hmmm. Sort of a "tic-tac, no trade-back" sort of thing, eh? Okay, Katie Schwartz, Border Explorer, Liberality, Susan, and Dianne.

Go forth, spread the meme.

A Cool Hand At The Tiller

Last night, during the debate, John McCain said "we need a cool hand at the tiller." Hmmm. People who know him say he has a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty. John McCain is a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.



I don't want the McCain/Palin team anywhere NEAR the White House. We must act decisively November 4th. In Ohio, you can already vote. Go DO it.

Leave it to the British to say what the US Media will not

Normally, I never take a complete article and reprint it. Today I am, because this about says it all. Friday, October 3rd, Michelle Goldberg of The Guardian writes:

At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.

And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"

None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

In Beauty and The Beast, we knew which one was the Beast

JoAnn Wypijewski's September 10th, 2008, article in The Nation shows John McCain's rampantly hypocritcal morality for what it is. As I read through the article, once again I was infuriated by his cynicism. He didn't pick Sarah Palin for her qualifications. He picked her because 'Palin is the sex symbol they've been waiting for, better looking and more real than the ghastly gasbags Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.'

Remember John's first wife? Carol? The one he dumped because she was in a wheel chair when he returned from Viet Nam, and the 'sight of her appalled him?' He replaced her with Cindy. Wypijewski writes:

At 42 McNasty, as he was called in high school, took up with 24-year-old Cindy, a former junior rodeo queen, and, having boosted his image and his net worth via a marriage vow, soon reverted to the pattern of insults and macho egotism that has typified most of his life. He denigrated her education at USC as a tour through "the University of Spoiled Children." For all but one of several miscarriages, he left her on her own. When she was popping ten to fifteen pills a day to mask her pain and "do everything he wanted," he never noticed. In 1992, in a rage over her gentle teasing about his thinning hair, he exploded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt," a one-two punch hurled in front of three journalists and two aides but unreported until recently, by Cliff Schecter in The Real McCain. On the campaign trail in June he joked about "beating my wife" and took umbrage when others failed to grasp the simple good fun in the remark. In early August he said he'd encouraged Cindy to enter the Miss Buffalo Chip beauty pageant at the high-revving, flesh-swinging biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. It might have been a fine quip except that up on the stage with her daughter Meghan, staring out toward the throng where a sign urged Show Ur Tits 4 McCain, Cindy had the thin, fixed smile of endurance, not joy. Just before the Palin pick, Mrs. McCain was so brittle that a supporter's energetic handshake put her in a cast. With the press and vast swaths of the country swooning over the Obama family, John needed a new queen.

And the new queen is Miss Wasilla 1984, a woman who believes dinosaurs and man walked together on an Earth created 6000 years ago. Lovely. Even Cindy McCain feels this is a perfect match.

She is Rush Limbaugh's wet dream. "Sarah Palin: babies, guns, Jesus, hot damn!" he crowed. "We're the ones that have the babe on the ticket!" Never before has a political woman been pictured so often in a T-shirt, armed--Rambette. Never before in a major political figure has the image of Mother been merged so readily with fantasies from porno. "You Go, GILF," proclaim buttons on Republican chests, that is, Governor (or Grandmother) I'd Like to Fuck. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis said that "this election is not about issues; this election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates," as cynical a statement as any Republican has made. This election is not about issues, it's about personality.

JoAnn Wypijewski refers to the Biblical Book of Esther. King Ahasuerus dumped his queen, Vashti, and held a beauty pagent to replace her. Esther was his Miss Wasilla, 1984. However, Sarah Palin, a biblical literalist, will know the outcome of this story. Esther enables her people to engage in bloody slaughter against the king's other subjects, maneuvers for the public execution of his closest adviser and the man's sons, sees her de facto father become the de facto king; in sum, sabotages and unmans Ahasuerus.

We have seen Sarah Palin in action. She ranges between absolutely idiotic to charming and cagey. She's played all sides against the middle, from using sexuality as a tool to claiming her Christian values, from supporting the Bridge to Knowwhere to opposing it when the politics of that support became untenable. She's Anita Bryant with a high-powered rifle. And, she can stick the knife in your back, and twist it with a smile.

John McCain may have met his match, and he may have unleashed this disaster on all of us.

Diva Jood's Campaign

This is the BEST News Coverage Shit from Shinola has had. I'm so impressed. (hat tip to Betmo

A Cub Fan's First Sentence: Wait til next year.

Truly, the worst fold of a team since the 1969 Cubs. Or maybe the 1984 Cubs against San Diego. Or, perhaps the Cubs vs. Steve Bartman. Or... year, after year, after year. After year, after year, after year...

My clothes are torn, I'm in black, I'm in mourning. Don't gloat, I'll call out a hit man on you.

So You Think You're Jackson Pollack?

You can be Jackson Pollack for a minute but not really. Try it, it's fun!

A Message from the Secretary of Strawberries and Cream

My gramma is deserpesed depersed sad. Don't make her sad. She's sad because the Chicago Cubs forgot how to play baseball and aren't doing too good. I can sing take me outa ballgame take me outacrowd real loud but it isn't helping. And gramma is sad because John McPain's runner mape isn't too smart but she was winking at everbody when she debate Joe Biden and talking about Joe Sixpack but Joe Biden is kind of Joe Sixpack and it scared Gramma to see Sarah Palin ack sorta like Raygun. All charmy chummy cute. It was icky.

But gramma had lunch with Alicia from Last Left Turn Before Hooterville and they had fun and got hand massages and ate sammiches and salads and had cookies. I like cookies too. That's them in the picture below.


They look happy, but it was before the debate and baseball.

Declare Yourself

h/t to D-Cup. Now, pass it on.

How to prepare for tonight's debate

I've been a bad Diva. I've not visited anybody, and didn't blog at all yesterday. The reason is because tonight is a big debate, and my running mate, Nunly hasn't been invited. Still, I wanted to find a way to help everyone prepare. Here it is: You can channel your inner Sarah Palin and get ready for ANY debate.

But it is also October, and yesterday, an October Surprise. The Cubs were bludgeoned by the Dodgers in game 1 of the Division Series, and dug themselves into a pretty deep hole. Where in the world was Ryan Dempster? The man who never walks anybody walked seven, and gave up a Grand Slam in the 7 - 2 loss. I'm sick. Who gives a shite about the World Economy and various Creditors when baseball is at stake? (Randal, you knew I would have to get an Alan Rickman reference in somewhere.)

Nevertheless: IF someone asks YOU about your foreign policy experience, you can always respond

**Alaska that we work with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this country, and victory in the stringent oversight, making sure that these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would allow terrorists to be able to go back in history and if you really think I can give you examples of things that can be looked to as the solution to the mission, the mission is to control and to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world is and how important it is about doing a lot of background work first and shoring up our economy.

**computer generated response based on probabilities calculated from Sarah Palin's actual speech.