Sometimes I give in and say something personal. Can't keep it dignified all the time, right?! This time it's because if I could get my hands around the neck of whoever gave this cold to me I'd throttle them. My nose is stuffed, but only on one side which means I can breathe kind of, and my lips are dried out mostly on the inside because of the air that passes over them since I can't really breathe through my nose (does that happen to you when you have a cold or is it just my problem?) and I'm drinking so much water and tea that I have to go to the loo every two or three minutes and my eyes drip every so often just to remind me they're involved in a head cold, too, I guess. Then I get cold one minute and warm and stuffy the next (thank heavens I have a shawl) but the good news is that my throat isn't sore any more so that's progress. I've taken Quantum drops and they taste okay which is a plus but I'm not sure they do anything. I keep smearing Burt's Bees on my lips which helps a little and I suck on a Cold-Eze and/or a Tylenol every so often to try and stop the outright unpleasantntess but I don't think they help much either. I suppose I just have to accept the inexorable march through the symptoms but it's so annoying.

All right, I think that's all. That felt good. One just needs to to moan and groan sometimes.

Labels: about me, silliness

Is anything reported accurately? Does any public figure tell unembellished facts about themselves?

The headlines this afternoon report that Jennifer Lopez completed the Nautica Malibu Triathlon today in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 28 seconds. I read that and my mouth fell open. That was superhuman time, along the lines of something Superman could accomplish if he rewound the world after each portion of the triathlon. 2:23.28 would be awesome marathon time so how on earth, I asked myself, did she finish a triathlon that fast? Was it a half triathlon, I wondered? But the headlines said "triathlon" so . . . what?

Then my inner skeptic took over and I looked up the facts of regular triathlons as well as the Malibu Triathlon. A usual full-on triathlon consists of:
- 3.8K swim (2.4 miles)
- 180K bike course (112 miles)
- 42.2K run (26.2 miles - a full marathon)

And it turns out there were two events in the Malibu, one Saturday (the "olympic") and one Sunday (the "classic"). (J)lo and behold, Lopez ran Sunday and, hmm, the classic consisted of:
- half-mile halfswim
- 18 mile bike course
- 4-mile run course
Not easy unless you're in decent shape but basically a quarter triathlon.

And just as a point of information, the so-called olympic part of Malibu's triathlon wasn't. It consisted of:
- 1.5K swim
- 40K back bike course (along Pacific Coast Highway!)
- 10K run (on Zuma Beach)
Gorgeous and certain grueling for any ordinary person but less than a half triathlon and certainly not "olympic".

Oh and while I'm being snide and skeptical, the stated reason of an injured foot caused JLo to withdraw from being the celebrity judge at the finale of Project Runway on Thursday and Friday last week. I guess the really impressive thing, then, is that an injured foot on Friday prevented her from sitting in a chair and assessing clothing designs but was so much better two days later that she could complete in a quarter-triathlon on Sunday.

Would it make her sports accomplishment any less impressive if she said straightforwardly that she competed in a quarter triathalon? Especially considering that it's only a few months since she gave birth to twins? Doesn't the misleading report just make her seem self-aggrandizing and silly?

Labels: people, silliness, sports

I think it's accurate to say that Laura had significant and substantial misgivings about Obama from the outset. I did not. I was caught up. Willingly and with great hope and with only a tiny bit of wariness. I was excited by the prospect of an America president who would encourage and lead us politically and emotionally to be regain the upbeat and positive character that we have at the core of our national self. Perhaps I am an eternal and therefore cockeyed optimist, who knows.

So I was startled and interested that Laura wrote this post this morning in which she expresses alarm similar to mine earlier today resulting from seeing the ridiculous Grecian set being built for Obama's acceptance-of-nomination speech. And then, as I clicked around other sites, I learned that his seat on his airplane is festooned with his name and "president 08" which sure seems a tad premature. And I saw posters that are springing up all over the place that show raised hands forming a big O between two hands using thumbs as the bottom and the rest of the fingers to complete the circle and sun-like radii emanating from the O. Aside from the absurb deification, this kind of overly dramatic political art alarms me because it was used to such (infamous) effect in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

I guess the podium-with-presidential seal incident didn't teach him that Americans aren't fond of people who take themselves too seriously. I think, for example, that one reason celebrities are so attended to in the U.S. is that they are patently unserious. I am baffled that a man who sold himself to an excited and welcoming electorate as being of and for the greater good of mankind could be blowing his apparent cover even before he's actually got the brass ring in his hand.

If he meant the common man stuff, the pomp and drama are completely inappropriate and out of place and whoever is making him do it should be stopped immediately. If he really wants to be chancellor or emperor or something, then he is out of place and should be stopped immediately. Or is this just his version of Clinton's neediness, i.e. the effect of a father leaving a son and causing a permanent wound that even national attention cannot heal?

Labels: 2008 election, family, people, silliness

Sometimes I think Obama isn't paying attention to the whole idea of what it means to be a public figure.  Why would he refuse a seat on his plane to the New Yorker writer??  (Article here.)  Okay, obviously I know the answer but it's another "gee I wish it wasn't like this" moment with him.

With all the vitriol and anger shoveled at him, there's never been a report that GWB refused a seat to a newsperson or even declined to answer anyone at a news conference, no matter what they had written or said about him elsewhere.  Can you imagine the reaction if he had done?!

Labels: 2008 election, silliness

My sister, daughter, g'daughter and I had tea yesterday afternoon at a wonderful tea room in Tarrytown (more on that in another post today). During the course of a marvelously wide-ranging conversation, that little 'joke' about why are fire engines red came up and none of us knew all the words, so to speak. I researched it online and no one had it exactly as I remembered it so here it is as I recall (and by the way all praise to the internet):

Why are fire engines red?

Well, to begin with, fire engines have 8 wheels and 4 people riding in them.
8 plus 4 is 12.
12 inches is a foot.
A foot is a ruler.
A famous ruler was Queen Elizabeth.
The "Queen Elizabeth" was a ship that sailed the sea.
The sea has fish.
Fish have fins.
The Finns fought the Russians.
The Russians are red [sic] and fire engines are always rushin' . . .
    . . . which is why fire engines are always red.

And there you have it!

Labels: about me, silliness

I just caught a quick headline: Bill Clinton announced just now that he's running as Hillary's vice presidential candidate. That may change things.

Labels: 2008 election, silliness

The final 12 were announced tonight. I think everyone including me thought David Archuleta had it all sewed up from the get-go but this week there were at least two who made many of us realize he has some stiff competition. Jason's "Hallelujah" was fantastic - so well sung and so moving that Simon even said he liked it as much or better than the original (really?!). David Cook sang an original and well-phrased version of a "Hello" which is horribly bland in the original and was wonderful in his hands, er voice. They're both much more interesting than David A. who is adorable and has a stupendous voice but is awfully young and, I'm afraid, oh-so-profound in that young/innocent way. It would be much more exciting to have a complex singer win.

The women, admittedly less exciting than the men this year as everyone has been pointing out, have a couple of potential super dupers. Brooke did a terrific rendition of "Love is a battlefield" that highlighted the intense and very sad lyrics instead of the tune. And I like Kristy Lee Cook, especially her "Faithfully," even if she seems a bit half-hearted at this point. As in politics this year, America's votes show that what seems to be written in stone isn't necessarily there at all. Carly Smithson is the judges' darling but I can't stand her one-tone yelling and, by the way, if she's so gosh darn wonderful, how come her CD (made under contract to Randy's production company, incidentally) sold a mere 360 copies?

Here are my current quick takes on The Twelve of 2008:
David Archuleta - wonderful voice, tho horrible airy breath; maybe too bland and wide-eyed innocent
Jason Castro - don't like his hair but c'est la vie; adore his voice and song choices
David Cook - hate his hair and scarves, love his voice and interpretations
Kristy Cook - adorable to look at, not bad country-ish singer
Chikezie Eze - way too full of himself and hate his voice
David Hernandez - the strip club alum, too pretty for me, not interesting voice to me
Michael Johns - the Aussie; nice to watch but booorrrriinng to me
Ramiele Malubuy - cute, seems phony-sweet, big voice sometimes, bad song choices often
Syesha Mercado - bright-eyed and cute but boring as heck to me
Amanda Overmyer - could've been terrific but wastes time focusing on being too-cool-for-this-competition
Carly Smithson - just too unremittingly screechy angry and loud, and uninteresting
Brooke White - very blonde, a bit too ditzy for my taste, gorgeous voice and terrific interpretations

I'm going to assume that Overmyer will burn out soon and both Johns and Smithson bore us all to smithereens. So I'll predict the final four is Archuleta, boy Cook, Castro and White.

Labels: a.i., a.i.7, reflections, silliness, tv

I love making charts. It's some kind of organizational and graphic illness, I think. Anyway, I thought it would be a blast to see whether I could construct an Excel chart that would reveal the bias of various news organizations and, perhaps, the truthfulness of others. But I hadn't realized how utterly bizarrely the primaries and caucuses are run. (By the way, what's happening with Huckabee's entirely justifiable protest about Washington's caucuses being shut down because the organizers said it was late?) I also hadn't realized that party bosses still ruled with strong-arm tactics all these many years after Tammany Hall became a heap of ashes. As a result, plain and simple arithmetical calculations differ so much from what states report as their delegate counts that it is nothing short of astonishing.

The one agreed-upon fact is vote count. What voters did is clear. But that's where it ends. Each states makes its own (often utterly arbitrary) decisions as far as ascribing delegates. You might think it would be obvious. You might think % of votes would determine and equal % of delegates but all I can say, as politely as possible, is "not on your life" and "no way." Plus, for their part, the Republicans have a whole bunch of winner-take-all states so it's impossible to see the real actual so-called will of the people reflected in their delegate counts. The Democrats may be saved in the end by the relatively open situation this year since everyone can see what the votes actually are. They may have to accept that the votes matter enough that reversing the results simply won't work. And perhaps that's what Romney was hoping for and why he "withdrew" rather than stopped.

At about two-thirds through the process, here are the numbers for any rare readers to check out. Perhaps, like me, you will fall to the floor clutching your calculator and gasping for air. What was that about one man, one vote? Not even the delegate totals being divvied up by the "authorities" are the same. Sheesh.

And if you think that's crazy, check out the Democratic side which at least has the benefit of more proportional assignment of delegates, although it must have more strong-arm party bosses given that many states' results won't be certified until the bosses say they are:

After that, all I have left to say is uncle.

Labels: 2008 election, silliness

Huckabee won 60 delegates in the Kansas Republican primary today. He's pressing on.

Only a few months ago, as recently as November, McCain was thought to be out of money and out of realistic contention. What the heck happened? He's not even remotely conservative, has a famously raucous tongue and temper and yet there he is. What happened to Romney and Guiliani who were supposed to be the real contenders with Huckabee the darling of the religious right but unlikely to win enough delegates to put him in contention. And Thompson supposed to be the candidate for the rational thoughtful Republicans.

Thompson delayed entering the race for aaaaggggeeeesss and then was desultory about the whole thing, so much so that one wondered if he cared. And Guiliani decided to sit out all the states until Florida and pin all his luck on that donkey. Not surprisingly, neither strategy - if that's what they were - worked at all.

As a result of which, the angry little old man with a pretty second wife and an admirable war record (about which I am mighty tired of hearing, forgive me) is back on the radar screen. How come?

In fact, Romney isn't as far behind McCain in *actual* delegates as Billary is behind Obama, yet the Democrats are talking about how close their race is while the Republicans have handed the mantle to McCain, although Huckabee refuses to cave in. I can't stand the man's views but I am relieved that someone refuses to look at the emperor and praise his new clothes.

I can only think that deals have been made. How else explain all this? Remember smoked filled back rooms? Cigar-smoking wheelers and dealers? Why isn't it possible that GOP Powers That Be are convinced that Billary or Obama can only be beaten by McCain (not Romney or Thompson or Guiliani or Huckabee) and that, therefore, "for the good of the country" (as Romney almost chanted the other day when he withdrew) all the rest of them should take a hit? What else explains Rudy's plummet from eager to utterly lifeless AND Thompson's shuffling off the mortal coil of the campaign AND Romney's withdrawing when he's not actually very far behind and there are 27 states yet to have primaries and caucuses? How is it possible that Huckabee is the only one with enough personal gumption to say "take that deal and shove it"? What other conclusion can one draw?

Labels: 2008 election, reflections, silliness

Oh for goodness sake (here). Does she really think voters will fall for this AGAIN?? Please tell me no one is so easily manipulated in 2008? Pulleeezz tell me it isn't so. And, by the way, if on-the-eve-of-election displays of just a touch of emotion are a good thing for Billary Rodton because it shows she has feelings, then why were Edmund Muskie's tears so catastrophic?? And does she really think a female whimper or whine will appeal to voters? I thought that was exactly why people did not want to elect a woman. What have I missed?

Labels: 2008 election, silliness

Why is it that some states such as New York require you to register a full three weeks before the primary election, when states like Connecticut allow you to register up to one business day before a primary election? Isn't the idea to get everyone to vote who is eligible to raise a voice? Don't we want more people voting? In New York, by the way, you can register three weeks before an election but you can only change your party affiliation once a year, at the general election. Is that ridiculous or what? Why does New York, the "empire" state and the hub of so much business and culture, have so many backward restrictions on so many things?

Labels: 2008 election, modern culture, reflections, silliness

Perhaps geophysical names are simply too much to bear (River Pheonix, Heath Ledger).

Labels: headlines, silliness

If Hillary was at all the genuine person those tears were meant to suggest she is, she'd jettison her other half quickly or at least tell him to chill. He flipped out at Chris Wallace a while ago, and then got livid at about the fairy tale that he said Obama was spinning, and yesterday he went ballistic at a reporter who asked him about proposals for Nevada casino employees to register and vote at work. He absolutely went off on the guy, turned pink, eyes flashed, spoke in that clipped way he has when he's just furious. Do we want such a loose canon as vice president first spouse??

Update. Demonstrating that some people seem to think you can fool some of the people all of the time, former president Clinton is suing the so-called casino caucuses and insisting it's all about one-person-one-vote and has nothing to do with his wife's campaign. In which case, I say with equal vehemence that I am 6' tall, blonde and thin.

Update. A judge threw out Clinton's suit. (For a moment of judiciary levity, let me point out that this judge is probably not in danger of being the recipient of a fifty-four million dollar lawsuit in retaliation, since the suit he threw out is a lawsuit not something in houndstooth.)

Labels: 2008 election, headlines, silliness

I'm going to post many details about this later tonight, but I need to say right now that I'm amazed and appalled but it's not possible to get factual results of the primaries. Many reasons. Partly it's that each state has its own often quirky way of tallying caucus and/or primary results. Partly it's that there are at least two zillion ways that whatever the percentage results are get translated into numbers of convention delegates. Partly it's that every news outlet has a story they want to tell as to who is or is not leading on either side. Partly it's that each news outlet "estimates" the delegate count and doesn't show that the numbers are estimates except in very tiny gray print. Reliable cold hard facts are nowhere to be found. It's nuts. There are no posted results that are simply straightforward numbers. Romney either has 27 or 36 or 42 or 47 or 52 delegates. Billary either has 24 or 25 or 190. Details anon, as I say, but no wonder there's confusion and craziness among the electorate. It's absolutely astonishing we ever elect anyone with anything even vaguely resembling the will of the people (remember them us?).

Labels: 2008 election, reflections, silliness

A campaign manager can make a campaign (Jim Carville) or be irrelevant - who even remembers most victors' managers' names? In light of which, I wonder why anyone thinks viewers (i.e., potential voters) should take anything Susan Estrich says seriously? In case the name is unfamiliar, she ran Michael Dukasis' campaign.

Remember Michael Dukasis? You don't remember him, if you're fairly young, because he lost (i.e., didn't win) and was never heard from again on the national political scene. Which could all be because he was a dreadful candidate even though she was a brilliant strategist . . . or . . . it could be because the campaign was dreadfully run. It's kind of like distinguishing between the director and the script and the actors in terms of what makes a play flop or soar. In this case, however, although he wasn't the best candidate in the world by any means, it was also one of the worst-run campaigns you can imagine. There were fiascos after fiascos and ill-conceived photo-ops one after another and various publicity stunts galore. It was really bad. Plus, she's got a grating voice and conveys a smug, superior attitude. And yet, for some reason, various and sundry news shows on several channels seem to think viewers should take what she says with some seriousness given that they keep her front and center. Makes no sense to me.

Labels: 2008 election, headlines, silliness

I've thought of a good gimic for Obama. Enthusiasts could put tips of index fingers to tips of thumbs and thus make an "O" sign. Remember the sixties' peace sign? Can't you just see subways full with people raising their arms, making "O signs? Or at Billary rallies? It would be very cool. I'm sure they'll use it one of these days - just remember I said it first!

I don't really mean to be lobbying for him, but Obama catches my interest more than anyone except Thompson - and Thompson has only risen to the level of real candidate in that debate last week.

Labels: 2008 election, silliness

Amusingly enough, today is the 95th anniversary of Richard Nixon's birth. If anyone had thought of it, or at least mentioned it, it might have explained a lot of yesterday's apparently unpredictable behavior in New Hampshire's voting booths.

Labels: 2008 election, anniversaries, silliness

Ill-informed as we often are, we might leap to an assumption that religious people are often homeschoolers and therefore right-wingers and therefore supporters of Mike Huckabee. On the other hand, no one can know everything about everything (which is a perfectly good reason that we form mistaken opinions now and then) but that doesn't stop us from making incorrect assumptions based on thin evidence. Just as every one of the assumptions I voiced in the first sentence is false at least some of the time, it is also true that one vocal and influential homeschooling blogger adamantly opposes Huckabee, thus providing clear evidence that one should never jump from a to b to c.

If a person believes xyz and knows some people who believe xyz and also believe wxy, it is nevertheless wrong to assume that all people who believe xyz also believe wxy. Some examples come quickly to mind: New Yorkers are not all loud pushy and rude (although some are - but so are people from lots of other places), Southerners are not all religious lunatics (although some are - but so are people from lots of other places), Californians are not all touchy-feely hippies (although some are - but so are people from lots of other places), retired people do not all wear plaid and play golf (although some do - but so do people who just have strange taste even if they're employed and young), every girl does not like pink (although some do - as do (gasp!) some boys), etc., etc.

I'd love to know your own favorite bad assumptions; I'll write a longer post about this soon.

Labels: modern culture, politics, reflections, silliness

Yup. Global warming sure is something. These snowy, cold folks must agree. Or maybe not.

Labels: silliness, warming, weather

Several interesting comments were made about my rant about Mike Huckabee. They each have good points but I continue to think he is extraordinarily worrisome. He says he wants to change politics as usual, dislikes the traditional approach to presidential politics, etc., etc. The problem is that I get a vibe from him that fairly trembles with disingenuousness. As some have noted, many of his spoken policies are liberal which means he's holding himself up as one thing while being another. More to the point, he seems like a beautiful rattlesnake - stunning and quiet to look at but lethal if you get too close.

Meanwhile, Romney is pretty darn scary too. The other day, for example, he said he "saw" his father "march" with Dr. Martin Luther King. It turns out that George Romney never marched with Dr. King, as a matter of simple fact. George R. is widely regarded as a good man who did support civil rights and worked hard for equal justice, but he never marched. Which means Mitt never saw him march, of course. Which means he lied. I don't know if he spoke too quickly and without thinking, or if he meant that he saw his father do things that evidenced his commitment to civil rights, but he did not see his father march with Dr. King. And when he started to explain that "see" is a moving target word, I thought it was awfully familiar . . . and Anderson Cooper, of all people, thought so too. Cooper played the whole video of Bill Clinton's "it depends what 'is' means" chat. I'd never heard all of it but it's appalling. Clinton's eyes shift from side to side as he mumbles about "is" can mean "really happened" or it can mean "could have happened" or . . . well, it's all just nonsense so I won't go on.

The point is that a man who engages in flat-out lying about something that's very easy to determine is not someone to whom I want to entrust the White House. Dalliances with interns don't matter, of themselves, and it really doesn't matter whether George Romney marched with King or actively supported the enterprise. But it does matter that people are so oblivious and careless when they know the press and the public are watching their every move and listening to their every statement.

Labels: politics, silliness