This started as a comment on World Class New Orleans, to Mr. Clio's excellent post A Toxic Culture for the Heart (what I had to go through to get Facebook out of those links is a'whole'nother post). Writing in reference to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's infidelity scandal, one of his points is that we glorify "following our heart" and then punish those who do. I think often about the emotionally unhealthy nature of much of the music I listened to growing up, and its profound effects on me, especially in the context of the rest of popular and family cultures. Hours of "I'm Your Puppet" (just the best example, one of too many) over and over accompanied by melodramatic heart-bursting pining can't lead to anything good. It cost me a fortune, in more ways than one, to escape this way of being.

Perhaps I've over-corrected, driven by a love for my children that requires me to at least try to put them first as the best way of insuring my own happiness; and maybe I'm lying to myself by insisting that the notion of "true love" as a goal or priority is self-indulgent drivel, or more importantly, at least at my age, icky.

When I see someone like Sanford doing this kind of damage to those they claim to love and citing "falling in love" as an excuse, it's repulsive. They put their own grandiose gratification above the well-being of their families. Gross and immature, this seems worse to me than Bill Clinton or even Larry Craig just wanting to get a little on the side. I'm not advocating detached sexual dalliances, but somehow that seems more honest. There are lots of valid reasons to leave a marriage. Even the Catholic Church provides a way of escaping impossible union, and I think it's totally okay for someone who's fought the good fight, tried everything they could to make it work and come to the realization that it can't be done because no one can do it alone, to go and seek happiness with dignity; but, please, lose the drama.

Mr. Clio's description of cultural glorification of "searching for true love" as "bait-and-switch" is exactly right. What works in a novel or a movie becomes destructive in real life. We've been taught wrong. What we should be seeking is a quieter, more day to day, way of living love. It's just not as much fun to watch.

What I find most telling about the whole Sanford mess is that the people closest to him hung his ass out to dry. His family and staff just let him have it. His Lieutenant Governor called attention to his absence. His communications people had no safety net in place, no damage control deployed in his behalf. His wife, his former campaign manager, knew exactly what she was doing when she told the world she didn't have a clue where he'd gone. They must really hate this guy.

Rising Tide IV is scheduled for Saturday, August 22nd, once again at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center. There will again be a meet and greet Friday night social gathering for food and drink and lively interaction. There are exciting new panel discussions planned and details will be emerging soon. Follow @risingtide on Twitter and check the Rising Tide blog for exciting details to come. Who's the keynote? The MC? What are the panel discussions? Where is the Friday night party? Tell me about the food! I can't wait.

I remember my first Rising Tide conference, the first Rising Tide conference. We gathered at a patched together New Orleans Yacht Club (not what it sounds like) and our view of the docks and Lake Pontchartrain beyond was a surreal depiction of why we had gathered. Where all the beautiful sailboats should have been, there were a few coming and going, but many more just masts, sticking up out of the water, sunk where Katrina's surge had left them. I remember driving straight from Atlanta, through a largely deserted Lakeview neighborhood and spending the first of many nights at Dangerblond's.

The keynote speakers at the first Rising Tide Conference were Robert Block and Chris Cooper, Wall Street Journal staff reporters who'd covered the hurricane and the flood that followed it in New Orleans and had just released their book Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. One of the things I remember Cooper saying when he sat in on the journalism panel in the afternoon, respectful of there being a place for citizen journalism, was his emphatic advice that we write about what we know. Quoting loosely, "If you're not an expert on Iraq and Iran, you shouldn't be writing about Iraq and Iran." It stuck with me, and I've tried to follow his advice.

Now, I don't know much about Iran and have no business writing about it. Seeing Twitter profile pictures turn to green to show solidarity with the protesters is moving, and so is seeing everyone's Twitter location turn to Tehran, Iran in hopes that it might make those actually tweeting from Iran harder for their government's censors to find. I've thought a lot about the NOLA Bloggers as I've watched the remarkable events in Iran unfold, brought to us by citizen journalists, via Facebook and YouTube, blogs and Twitter. When social structures break down as they did in the case of the flood in New Orleans and have again during the civil unrest in Iran, conventional paths of information flow disintegrate. As we watch the continuing evolution of Crisis Citizen Journalism allow information to flow out of Iran, I look forward to Rising Tide IV and again meeting with and listening to the New Orleans Bloggers who pioneered the art.

Since I've been sick, my already serious television problem has gotten completely out of control. Now, I've spent large portions part of my life not watching a lot of television. When I was single, I kept the television in the closet and brought it out for important events, usually sports. I was single for a pretty long time too, coming late to the marriage and babies stage. During the busy parenting years that followed those glorious twenties, television became a pleasant diversion in otherwise busy lives and something to share with the kids. I couldn't watch too much TV. There wasn't time for that.

I've been watching "24" since the first breathtaking fifteen minutes of the first "day". I've put up with all the even numbered seasons being pretty terrible, and this one started with such promise. Jack running into so much of the old gang, working independently of any authority, was great, and TONY was alive, working under deep cover for the bad guys, who as it turned out were bad guys we knew from earlier "days" with Jack. After all this time watching Jack Bauer and the folks from CTU become iconic (some might call it torture porn), when Tony went from dead to back and good under cover, to actually, never mind, bad, back to well somewhere between good and bad, they just lost me. All these seasons of devotion (I had the CTU phone ring on my cell for a while), but it was too much to take. The last three hours were near comical agony. I almost quit but didn't want to leave it so, well, unfinished. Bleh.

I haven't said much about being sick. It would have been easy to miss, since I've only mentioned it in a comment on Not Quite Dead Yet. I knew I shouldn't go countin' those chickens, and I know now I was feeling terrible for many, many months (years?) before I left the office and drove myself to the emergency room on May 5. They kept me for seven days. Not knowing when there's something wrong with me seems to be my broken place, but, hey, silver lining: all this "down" time to watch TV. I'm recovering at home, trying to get a chronic condition under control, working reduced hours and determined to take care of myself, despite my inclinations to the contrary. It's a thoroughly messy business, getting old, and I apologize to the forces of the universe for making such rash assumptions about being not quite dead yet. Seriously. I get it. Won't happen again. I swear.

Of course, watching television, even alone, is much more fun than it's ever been before. Live alone? Is your significant other way over somewhere else, scratching his manhood watching basketball or painting her toenails watching Desperate Housewives? No worries, because you can watch whatever you want with all the folks watching it "on Twitter". Only a few of the folks I follow on Twitter watch "24" or "Idol" and I'm pretty sure I'm alone in the crowd watching "Chuck" so I just search Twitter for the show and get a whole column of tweets of folks who I don't normally follow but have tagged their tweets with #showname (Example: "Jack needs an iPhone. I bet there's an app to counteract the bioweapon. #24"). Of course, all those Pacific Coasters whine to the crowd, "no spoilers!", but there's nothing I can do about that. As if. If you don't want to know how it ends, then don't read the East Coast tweets.

BUT I DIGRESS... what brought me here today to this post, though, is American Idol. I can't believe how much folks are still talking about it. Everybody's all up in arms about Kris Allen "upsetting" Adam Lambert on American Idol. Now AT&T is being accused by the New York Times of influencing the outcome of the final voting by "providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes." If this is true, it's quite serious. There are laws governing such things, and, well AT&T is big enough to know all about them. Tsk. Tsk. What were they thinking? All the indicators pointed to Adam winning, not just the judges' almost fawning praise, but the social media buzz, search activity, everything seemed to be pointing to the more colorful Adam as the winner.

I was a big fan of both Kris and Adam from very early in the competition. Forgetting for a moment the possibility that AT&T found the way to digitally stuff the ballot box, I think it comes down to trending. Kris was just good enough each week to stay in the competition, but he maintained a steady improving trend, peaking at the right time with his better than the original version of "Heartless". Adam, thought by some to be the most talented contestant to ever grace the Idol stage, peaked much earlier, with his brilliant "Mad World" (some might argue even before that with "Tracks of My Tears", after which Smokey Robinson himself led the standing ovation, visibly moved), but there was a backlash against Adam, even among his ardent supporters (and I was one) over what can only be characterized as gratuitous screaming as the season drew to a close. I voted for both Adam and Kris many times during the season. I believed that the "Judge's Save" rule was initiated because they were afraid Adam would be voted off before America noticed what they already knew they'd found. As long ago as April 4th, I tweeted: "The Big Question is, will the judges use their save for Kris even though it was put in the rules for Adam! #idol". I honestly went into the final totally unsure of which of these, my two favorite contestants all season, would get my votes. I waited over an hour after the show to decide, and it was a weak edge for Kris (weak, meaning I only voted five or six times), based on his greater need to win since Adam was destined for stardom anyway and the fact that Adam's rendition of Kara's regrettable composition was like fingernails on a chalkboard but Kris' only missed the mark, showing at least some possibilities (we'll see how that goes); but it's really much simpler than that. When Danny Gokey was voted off to leave just Adam & Kris, his voters swung to Kris, the other clean cut, middle America, Christian instead of the eyelined, ultra vamp showman, Adam. Seems kind of duh.

So, I wish them all well, and hold onto the remote between taking mountains of medicine, not at all sure what to do with it since there's nothing worth watching. We're in the dead zone between network season finales and the new cable seasons of Weeds, Dexter & Entourage. Read, write, rest and get better.

Peace, out, y'all

If it's irreverent or sacrilegious or superstitiously dangerous, I apologize in advance, but perhaps I've had enough of death recently to have earned the right to taunt it, certainly enough to want to taunt it, to find every opportunity I can to give mortality a great big raspberry, determined to find the most and the deepest and the widest possible life, for the little time I have left here. After all, no matter how long our lives, in the great scheme of things it's the blink of an eye. None of us is here for long. Now, the two or three of you who wander over here from time to time and see my Twitter updates in the right gutter, know I'm still standing, but I thought I'd bring you up to speed on one of the things we've got cooking, besides the spaghetti and meat sauce in the kitchen.

This phase of life is winding down. The youngest of my three sons is, by every definition, an adult. While they still need me on occasion and I love them more, not less, than I did the moments they came into the world; they needn't be the center of my universe any longer, or at least I need to work a little harder bringing some new focus into view so it's not so obvious. But, what? I've thoroughly enjoyed my time at the KnockingShitDownCo but can't help but look at remaining there indefinitely as something somehow self-indulgent. It's not that I would ever think of quitting without replacing the income or benefits, or would ever leave them in the lurch. That's not me, but it's time to develop a hobby that could be a job, and not just a labor of love, but one that has at least some small chance of buying a beach house one day. I'm not holding my breath, and this new venture probably isn't that, but I'm 100% sure that the KSDCo, no matter how cozy it's been, no matter how at home and loyal I've felt there, isn't ever going to do that, at least not for me.

A friend said to me recently (a blogger who will remain unlinked unless she tells me something different, because she doesn't discuss personal matters on her blog), suggested that when her only child, a daughter, goes off to college this coming fall, she will have to reinvent herself. I know that feeling. A major life purpose is completed. The jury is still out on success or failure, which can't be easily or quickly measured, but my boys are reared, and I can only hope I gave them what they'll need to be whole, fulfilled, loving adults. So far, it looks mostly good, but what to do with myself?

One of my favorite sayings (considering that I just now made it up) is when the going gets rough, register a domain and build a blog and a message board, so I registered NotQuiteDeadYet.net and notquitedeadyet.net/forum was born. Okay, so I can't build a message board to save my soul, but she who calls herself Hurricane Mom sure as heck can. Anyway, now that I've already gone long, I'll repeat what I said over there (even worse, I'll treat it like a quote when what it really is, is me, repeating myself):

Midlife and Beyond. We are made to live in the moment, and somehow few of us see this moment coming. We spend our lives looking at those much older than us as somehow obsolete, irrelevant, finished. Then we arrive here ourselves, our children raised and off to college, or even graduated, and we don’t feel obsolete, irrelevant, finished. In fact, we feel much younger than we really are, hopeful, excited, curious even.

If you wander over, please excuse our dust. This is the creation of three internet friends, planned almost entirely via Facebook mail. We're not web developers, so the navigation is awkward and the functionality has a long way to go, but we're persistent, and we'll get there. What we are is experts on empty nests and relearning how to cook for one or two, in navigating financial aid and feeding ourselves on what's left, on handling graduation weekends and middle of the night calls. Register and speak up if you're so inclined. I don't know what's going to happen next or how long next might be. None of us ever does. I just know I'm not ready to stop dreaming, not ready to quit trying something new, Not Quite Dead Yet.

Shhhh! It's quiet around here. Better not wake up the blogger. Wait, that's me. I'm awake (for the moment), just not having much to say. Work. Sleep. Eat. Run errands. Start it all over again. Winter has turned to spring. We had snow. Did you know? I rang in the New Year in New Orleans and went back again to not just attend my first Mardi Gras parade, but to actually march in it (thanks to Karen). (Note to self: best not to let Dangerblond dress me again.)

But without really disturbing my unscheduled blogging hiatus, I find that there's news needing telling, enough to get me to slip in here and whisper it. Please don't tell anyone.

Maitri and Loki are leaving New Orleans. Both have good reasons, but they'll leave big holes in the NOLA blogging community when they go. I hope to provide them some small inspiration. If I can be a NOLA blogger without ever having lived there, then they shouldn't have any problem carrying on as such, from afar. Still, the blogger gatherings won't be the same without them, so they'll need to visit often. I can't say it any better than Slate said it here. Farewell, dear friends. I'll look for you online.

Amidst the good-byes, there was a wedding. At long last Jeffrey, of Little Yellow Blog Fame and his long-time beloved Menkles made it official. As is the case with any NOLA blogger gathering, there are lots of pics online here and here (gotta click through some Mardi Gras Indians). I so wish I could have been there to walk the Second Line through the Quarter last Saturday night and see the newlyweds off. By now, they're happily honeymooning in France. Pictures to come, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, our fellow Blog-Citizen, John Sherk and his bride are finishing up their vacation in New Orleans. John's been a loyal reader and supporter during all this time of post-flood blogging about the unique circumstances of this special treasure, and now he's been blogging from New Orleans here and here.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the digital world, Time online is holding "elections" for its Top 100 of 2009. Nate Silver's in the running. Y'all likely know that I started following Nate when he was an anonymous Kos diarist, Poblano. Already a fan of his work at Baseball Prospectus (and an internet friend of his Dad's), it was nothing short of amazing watching Nate turn political polling upside down with his methods, forever changing the way polls are used, their results predicted. Here's where you can vote for Nate.

Finally, if you want a close up and personal view of Mount Redoubt's eruption, head on over to The Fool's Spit in the Ocean. Despite his unfitting screen name, he's a regular commenter here, who just happens to live across the little water from the erupting volcano. A man of few, but usually beautiful, words, he's armed with a camera and prone to picture taking walk abouts, hopefully not during ash falls. Fool, dear, take care of you and yours.

That's all for now. I wasn't here and we didn't have this little talk. Peace, out, y'all. Shhhh.

I'm nesting. It's been cold, and I've been going full speed for a while now. I didn't stop much after Bel & Mama died, but rather threw myself into the normalcy of workaday life, seeking the routine and the busyness, and wishing to give back to my employers who had so taken care of me as I helped to tend Bel and Mama. Even the weekends have been busy, though. New Year's Eve weekend spent in New Orleans (it was closer to a week, actually), and since then it's been one thing or another. There have been birthday dinners out. One weekend there were two.

I am happy to stay in, making soup for the first time since I can't remember when, in a gigantic motha' pot I found still boxed in Bel's closet. She must have bought it before she got too sick to go out. I'd like to think it might have been my Christmas present. Whether or not, thank you, Bel. The soup is wonderful and plenty.

I also enjoyed watching the lead up to Obama's inauguration, having missed most of the emotional impact of the election itself, otherwise engaged (see above). I can't help but smile watching the Inauguration Celebration, knowing that one of the last things Mama and Bel did was cast their absentee ballots for Barack Obama. I left Bel in the hospital to run home and get hers. I mailed it from the Grady Hospital post office. Before I did, she made me take a picture of it. I didn't ask why. She died a week later. They would have loved seeing this.

It's been a wonderful time in New Orleans. Last New Year here was rushed, a raucous celebration bookmarked by frantic driving, home to back home again in less than three days. This year has been more sanely paced and, therefore, relaxing.

I love how things get stuck in our personal vernacular. I can't link you to her post because her blog is no longer published, but I will forever think of the Psycho Therapist when I think of New Year because I read it when she wrote this:

The Bulgarian Master Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov said the first twelve days of January represent the whole year. January 1st stands for January. January 2nd stands for February. January 3rd stands for March and so on. By practicing loving kindness, openness and generosity while giving thoughtful attention to the significance of each day, you will thereby be consecrating the New Year.

This notion has gotten stuck in my personal vernacular, the complex connections between language, thoughts and feelings that can't be stopped from coming into my head when I hear certain words in combination. Of course, it's not meant to be taken literally, and might be easily carried too far by the obsessive among us, leading to unnecessary and uncomfortable foreboding in the event that something really rotten happens in the first twelve days of the new year. That's not the point though. An exercise that makes us stop to practice loving kindness, openness and generosity can't possibly be a bad thing, under any circumstances; and giving thoughtful attention to the significance of each day is perhaps life's single most important practice; because without thoughtful (and I would add, honest) attention to the significance of each day, we, well, miss our lives in our rush to the next thing, in our struggle to let go of the in-built need to be the one who gets to decide what that next thing is going to be.

I'm glad I could come here, to New Orleans, where celebrating life in the moment has been raised to high art. I rang in 2009 in the company of bloggers Dangerblond and Cousin Pat within a throng of New Orleanians surrounding a bonfire of Christmas trees on the neutral ground in the neighborhood they call Mid-City. On New Year's Day night, we added Alli to our little cadre and went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the Prytania, the first single-screen theater I've been to in years. I'm glad I saw it because it was wonderful. I'm especially glad I saw it here, in New Orleans, to which it is a visual love letter. It also makes the same point that is made by the notion of consecrating each new year: life is fleeting, loss random and pervasive, and connection with each other, love, amidst a journey that is by definition solitary, is what lasts.

Sometime soon, this blog's Hit Counter will pass 1,000,000 (the first 100,000 were the hardest). My geekiness stops short of understanding the criteria through which Blog-City's fine management reaches that number, but I'll take it. Some things it's better not to know. My point is that I wouldn't trade it for the world, what I've gained in human relationship, that which lasts, from blogging. Without taking away from my beloved friends and family who've escorted and supported me to here, those still with us and those who have passed on or wandered away, this new dimension this late in life has been the most wonderful sort of surprise, as they would call it here, lagniappe. My only resolution for 2009 is to savor it all.

Happy New Year, y'all. Thank you so much for being here. To borrow a phrase that's also been forever changed in my previously mentioned personal vernacular by the previously mentioned movie, it was nice to have met you.

Well, it's been a heckuva year with some real kickers at the end, but we've arrived, some of us still standing, at this end of the year celebration of love. I think it's a message the value of which those of all beliefs can appreciate: this is how we are to love, as if we were the other. It's as if, after years of telling us we were to love each other, in exasperation, He just came down and showed us. Here, like this, I love you so much I will be you, experience your pain, your loss, suffer as and for you to example for you how you are to love each other. It's a message that transcends faith.

I've been a bad blogger since Mama and Bel passed, trying to take care of myself and my family. I'm satisfied. It hasn't been perfect, but, despite numerous difficulties, we have arrived at this day prepared to celebrate. We're not a family that has a sweet holiday, metaphorically speaking (it's pretty sweet literally - yum), but there will be practical gifts for everyone to open (gift cards involved, sorry to say). There will be spectacular food, and plenty of laughter. I've had a quiet morning cooking and finishing the wrapping to beautiful Christmas music on the television thanks to PBS. I stayed up wrapping and watched the Vatican Mass and the Pope's incredibly safe homily.

But now there is cooking to do. I've texted the boys to let them know it's time to get moving. There are great joys to having grown children who live close by in their own apartment. Now I want to wish each and every one of my wonderful friends, whether virtual or face to face, the Happiest Holidays ever! My plan is to spend New Year's weekend in New Orleans.

Peace be with each and every one of y'all.

Dangerblond tagged me. I've watched this meme burn like wildfire through the NOLA blogosphere thinking I'd escaped via the sympathy element, but the Dangerous One is heartless, or at least trying to tag me out of my exhausted self-pity. Here are The Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post The Rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

[Mercy, y'all. Is it just me or is this meme a lot of work!? Number 5, in particular, seems mucho time consuming, but I digress...]

Six Random Things About Me:

1. I sleep with a pillow between my knees and one foot outside of the covers.
2. If I could do anything in the world I wanted, it would be to explore mom and pop motels while they still exist and write about them.
3. I can't make up my mind between the mountains and the beach. When I'm in the mountains, I love the mountains the most. When I'm at the beach, I wonder what I was thinking when I thought it was the mountains. Whichever it is, it is not the city, where I am most of the time.
4. My undergraduate degree is in English. Simultaneously, I accidentally got a BA in History with Honors. I don't remember much of that.
5. I was born the third of four girls. When I was eleven years old, my mother married a man with three sons. I have three sons. This might be three random things, but, who's counting?
6. I like long trips in the car so much that every time I get on an interstate highway, I feel a very strong urge to just keep on driving.

I'm tagging Zen Wizard, Paula, John Sherck, D Cup, Virgotex and Schroeder. Some of you may have already 1) done this meme or 2) been tagged and are trying to ignore it. Realizing you don't need my permission to do so, I am granting it. Please feel free to ignore the tag.

Peace, y'all. Life goes on.

Update Bonus Random Thing About Me: Every now and again, like this year, my birthday falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

From last Friday morning until election day afternoon, I was at Grady Hospital with my sister (never married, no children) who is dying of cancer. (Mama has terminal cancer too, but another sister is in charge of that for now.) Grady is a large, public hosital, so no internet or nice little chair beds for family. Thankfully, the saintly nurses on 11A managed to find a private room for us and by Monday night, I had the floor pallet bed down pat, with a little help from my sons; and it was very interesting to spend the five days prior to the election among (way mostly) black folks. The excitement was palpable. When Sis Bel's medicaid case worker called me at home this day after election day morning, the first thing we talked about was the blessing that occurred last night. To a one, they were surprised to see a matronly white southern woman jumping out of her skin excited about Obama. I'm glad to have voted early, and the nursing staff covered for me Sunday so I could run home and fetch Bel's absentee ballot to post as the Grady post office opened on Monday morning.

Here's where it all gets sad: I managed to get her home about 3:30 yesterday, election day afternoon, and had not quite an hour before the hospice nurse showed up to do the assessment and get the tube feeding equipment set up, which took three hours. At about 8:30 last night, I realized that I'd had nothing but a couple of bites of grits all day, a realization that came, unfortunately, after a couple of glasses of sherry. Like a gift from heaven, Michael (Middle Son, the Loyola grad) showed up with the dinner that his beautiful ex prepared for us, which included still warm cake. I can't remember ever before having been brought still warm cake. I was starving and exhausted. After crying when I voted last Wednesday, after asking hundreds dozens of black folks around the hospital if they'd voted yet (strangers in elevators mostly), after feeling the wind almost knocked out of me every time I thought about the possibilities of what was about to happen, after four years of blogging in hopes of this time coming; I fell asleep before the election was called, before Obama's acceptance speech, which I had to watch online this morning (still cried like a baby). I did manage to stay awake until they called Ohio and it was clear where it was all headed, and woke in the night to reset Bel's feeding tube and administer pain meds to see the Grant Park crowd scattering on MSNBC.

My sad heart fills almost to bursting every time I think of what we've just witnessed. I know that much has been said of the magnitude of an African American being elected president, but I keep thinking that it's something more than that, that the people of the United States of America have retaken our government and announced to the rest of the world that the darkest days are over and we will do better from here on out. As the country and the world erupts in celebration, this is clearly special beyond race, and my primary emotion is how incredible it is that we have elected, not this black man, but this brilliant man, this measured man, this intellectually curious man, to lead us and the absolute certainty that he will do just that.

Update: With attribution to Mike Luckovich in the AJC, I can't say it any better than this:

Republican political strategist (operative, pundit), Ed Rollins, writes for CNN.com:

Guided by his political guru, Karl Rove, it was Bush II's ambition to make the Republican Party the majority party for decades to come. He and Karl wanted to create a political realignment that would marginalize Democrats for at least a generation and maybe more.

Not satisfied to change only American politics, Bush and his neo-con advisers, led by Dick Cheney, wanted to use American military might to spread democracy to places that had been led only by tribal councils and ruthless dictators.

If Bush had accomplished these goals, he truly would have been a historic president much like his newfound hero Harry Truman. But his failures were unimaginable. W will go down in history, all right.

He will leave office with the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern times and will be judged as a catastrophic failure who destroyed his party, left his successor with two unpopular, unfinished wars and left the country in the worst economic condition in nearly eight decades. That's not even counting the Bush administration's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath....

...For Republicans, if the polls are any indication, Karl Rove and George Bush's plans for a major party realignment may come true. It just won't be the party they wanted.

Now, I'm not one for counting chickens, remembering how it felt this far before the election in 2004, and goodness gracious knows, we remember what happened in 2000, but I thought Rollins' words bore repeating. He just did such a great job of putting it in a nutshell. Seven days.

Head down, straight into the wind, I haven't much besides work, family duties and watching the days tick off until the election. I know the word has been overused during this campaign; but, after all the pros and cons and logical arguments, it comes down to one thing: an Obama Presidency would be instantly transformative. It would represent to the rest of the world that the people of this country reject what's happened over the last eight years, beginning the process of healing the damages caused by the Bush Presidency. A McCain Presidency would do the opposite. It really is that simple.

I started this blog in June of 2004 to talk about a whole 'nother bunch of things that I still haven't gotten around to, but I fell in love with blogging blogging the 2004 election debates. It was energizing, invigorating, and I became a part of a community of like-minded people. I haven't blogged two of the last three national pre-election debates for a combination of reasons. 1) Mama was in the hospital. She broke her hip. They found cancer. I watched the second presidential debate with her there. 2) They didn't move me. 3) Watching them in a crowd on Twitter was enough.

I'm going to try to live (or not) blog this last presidential debate. *Sis Bel blows the whistle and I go to her room, clean out and fill her humidifier.* Okay, that's done and I'm settling in on Twitter, flipping back and forth between CNN and MSNBC. CNN just ran a banner telling us to watch the debate with our laptops. Is there any other way? I guess old fashioned taking notes would do, if you can stand the wait. Everyone's talking at once on CNN. I think they're going with volume, presenting, if not the best political team on television, certainly the largest. Goodness Gracious! There're so many of them!!!!

The Twitter crowd gathers (and I'll fill in the links later): @Liprap, @charlotteAsh, @kareng, @MarilynM, @roadkillrefugee, @GambitWeekly, @geekaren, @Pontchartrain, @parenthetical, @andersoncooper, @macfitte, @midcitygirl, @yatpundit, @TheFix (watching the NLCS instead), @pistolette, @BarackObama (hey! where'ya been?), @sharney (10 minutes behind?), @nprpolitics, @maddow,

And so it begins...

Bob Shieffer (hereinafter "BS" - unfortunate, but it just has to be) opens with the economy.

nprpolitics McCain Joe-the-plumber attack a bit choppy. /mo less than a minute ago from web

ricksanchezcnn mccain plan, do you rescue everybody, even guy who paid for house he couldn't afford. even flippers? half a minute ago from web

FakeSarahPalin joe the plumber by the way has a six pack. Srsly. Same dude. Hi Joe! less than a minute ago from mobile web

ricksanchezcnn if they twittered they'd know how to make the words fit right? 1 minute ago from web

macfitte @ricksanchezcnn McCain prob doesn't know twitter exists 1 minute ago from web in reply to ricksanchezcnn

editor_b why isn't McCain wearing a flag pin? Did Obama steal McCain's flag pin as part of his class warfare? 2 minutes ago from web

nprpolitics Obama: If I occasionally mistake your policies for Bush policies, on the four biggest policy areas, you've been a Bush supporter. 2 minutes ago from web

FakeSarahPalin Soooooo bored.... 3 minutes ago from mobile web

nprpolitics Obama: let's disagree without being disagreeable. We can't characterize each other as bad people. / @acarvin 4 minutes ago from web

editor_b McCain accuses ACORN of "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" -- are you kidding me? wow 4 minutes ago from web

macfitte Oh brother:::::::::::sigh::::::::::::I might drink without the key words 4 minutes ago from web

macfitte @thefix Obama starts singing Margueritaville and McCain jumps on desk singing Danger Zone for a great finale 6 minutes ago from web in reply to TheFix

swampwoman cockamamie deserves a drink! 5 minutes ago from web

Noladishu Have the tweeter tubes exploded from the debate yet? 5 minutes ago from web

FakeSarahPalin John only sticks his toung out like that cuz that's how he breathes. Don't be so prejudice 5 minutes ago from mobile web

ricksanchezcnn what's with the loud breathing? seriously, it may be getting on people's nerves. he really should be looking at his opponent. 5 minutes ago from web

David_Ogilvy The bathroom sink is clogged. I need to call Joe the plumber. 7 minutes ago from web

jonathanfields Joe the plumber to host SNL this week 8 minutes ago from web

cspan @digitalsista Thank you for embedding our video! Anyone else in need of embeddable & editable content? http://debatehub.c-span.org #debate08 7 minutes ago from web in reply to digitalsista

swampwoman Still no mention of coastal recovery and property insurance reform - 2/3 of America lives on the coast, they all cannot be relocated 8 minutes ago from web

**********************************

I haven't a clue how it all reads, out of context, but there are more links than anyone could click and they all lead to interesting content. More links and tags tomorrow. That's all I've got. I'm going to bed. 'Night, y'all. Peace.

My generation grew up swooning over Paul Newman. In the summer of 1970 I "saw" Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid at least a dozen times. It was playing at the local drive-in, and my beloved was going off to college. We had to say we were going someplace. It was a great movie (I think) and the soundtrack for some fine, er, moments that I almost remember.

But I digress. During my years of laboring on MississippiRiverLand Airlines' (not its real name) jets as a flight attendant, I saw Paul Newman two times. The first was in the gate area at LAX (Los Angeles) when a gate agent pointed him out to me in the next gate area. I would never have recognized him. He was short, and, at least at that ungodly hour of the morning, not nearly as good looking, in person.

The other was later, and remains my favorite story from my flying days. It was probably 1978, because I'd just come off reserve and was flying an all-night-turnaround with a very junior cabin crew. I was the Flight Attendant in Charge. Back then, we were called "A line" because our name was on the "A" line of the trip paperwork, the name of which I can't recall for the life of me (did I mention the memory is going?). It was a pretty grueling trip. We signed in at about 6:00 in the evening and went Atlanta-Chattanooga-Cincinnati-Detroit-Tampa-three hour nap in a black Naugahyde recliner in a blacked out basement room in the airport-Atlanta, getting home, with any luck, just before sunrise. I really loved driving home through downtown as the amazing colors of dawn crept into the sky, but I digress again.

This day, upon checking in with the gate agent as the A Line, I was told that Joanne Woodward and a young man who was not identified would be traveling with us to Lexington and that they'd be boarding last (or was it first, I can't... oh, hell). Pleased with our light load and having something special to mark the time, I headed down the jetway to the Boeing 727 to prepare for the short hop beverage services. I bet they don't serve anything on those today. I'm pretty sure the seat belt sign never went off on those first two legs, but the No Smoking light did, and we served. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I stood just inside the door of the plane as the passengers boarded, tearing the little tab off of their boarding passes, welcoming them onto the flight and directing them to their seats. I did this for every passenger (without noticing him), before heading to the back of the plane where I was going to serve from a tray from back to front until I met the cart working from front to back, while the fight attendant working first class settled in Ms. Woodward and her traveling companion with beverages on the ground.

We took off. Everything was normal. I served the smokers sitting in the very back on the co-pilot's side next to the galley and headed to ask the single man sitting alone by the window in the three seat row on the Captain's side just in front of the galley. It was sometime around sunset, and, as we were headed from south to north, the sun was shining straight in these west facing windows. When I leaned down and said, "Can I get you something to drink?" he turned from looking out the window toward me and the sun shot through his eyes and nearly knocked the wind out of me. I grabbed the seat backs of his row and the row in front to avoid stumbling backwards. He immediately knew he'd been recognized. I immediately realized he didn't want to be. There was a moment of frozen inability to even breathe, much less manage to stammer, as he handed me a twenty and asked for two Jack and cokes and I just stood there, bent over, trying to gather myself. I went to the galley and held on to the counter ledge trying to figure out what to do. I caught my breath, sort of, and fixed his drinks, and his alone. Normally I'd have taken two or three (four?) rows of orders until my brain was full and I couldn't remember any more. I served him with comic deference, still stammering, but regaining enough composure to make a little fun of my agitated state. That's how the rest of it went. I never said anything beyond what was required to provide him with four Jack & cokes over two legs of flight and give him his change, which was all somehow comical for both of us. I didn't tell any other crew members until he was gone, thinking that was obviously what he wanted. I did go up front and speak to Ms. Woodward and her companion briefly, and I did stand at the front of the plane and wish everyone a good day as they deplaned. When he came off, last of all the passengers deplaning in Lexington, I said, with a tad too much emphasis, "Thank you, for flying MississippiRiverLand!" He laughed and did a little fake (I think) pratfall stumble as he stepped into the jetway, turned around afterward, winked and kind of half waved. I took a very deep breath.

With years to think about it, I've assumed he bought the row to guarantee some privacy, that the agent knew about it and didn't tell us because our famous passenger didn't want to be recognized. It was my best MississippiRiverLand Airlines moment ever, and there were some great ones. I hung out in the back of an airplane talking to the group America one day, carrying a very light load ATL-LAX (they were so nice). I took care of a completely obnoxious (and high as a kite) Big Rock Star (still very famous - you know you want to click that link) in first class from New York to ATL (he spent an inordinate amount of time in the lav). There were politicians, jocks and broadcasters too many to list (one very drunk sportscaster exiting New Orleans in the wee hours after the Sugar Bowl spending the whole flight to ATL necking in the last row of first class stands out), but nothing was as wondrous as that moment I realized that Paul Newman was hiding, back in the cheap seats. Wow.

This world is a little less bright without him in it. Peace. Out. Y'all.

I watched last night's debate "with" a group of mostly liberals, connected via Twitter. It was an interesting and sometimes hilarious experience. I also followed the live blogging of Nate Silver and Sean Quinn at fivethirtyeight.com. I took notes, in a blog-city compose window. For post-debate commentary, I followed both CNN and MSNBC into the wee hours. Despite the highly entertaining Twitter experience, I came away thinking the debate was pretty much a yawner and that Obama was too deferential, missing many chances to go in for the kill, so to speak.

Shows how much I know. According to the polls as they begin to come in, this was a big win for Obama. Apparently, voters were offended by McCain's dismissiveness, his refusal (inability?) to even look at Obama. Quoting Pollmeister Nate Silver's post today entitled Why Voters thought Obama Won:

TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience.

Twitter was abuzz this afternoon with analogies to McCain's announcement that he wanted to "suspend" his campaign, including the debate Friday night, to "focus" on the economy. Oh, my! I want my president to be able to multi-task, and I want to hear from these candidates right now. I do think that the debate format should be altered from a 100% focus on foreign policy to include the economic crisis.

Now, the economic crisis. This is my problem with the current situation. They wailed about Weapons of Mass Destruction and told us we had to approve of their war to be safe. They demanded that we accept their Patriot Act (talk about a misnomer) in order stay safe. Now, these same people are telling us that we must pass this blank check legislation, burdening the taxpayers and the next administration with their unfathomable debt in order to bail out the financial institutions so drunk from their spending spree that they're about to pass out. Rachel Maddow had this wonderful analogy, explaining that they're like children sick from too much Halloween candy, wanting to treat their nausea with, yep, you guessed it, more candy. They want us to enable the frenzy and the guy who's currently playing the President is going on television tonight to tell us that we have to, that it's imperative, that it must be done quickly (before we have too much time to consider what we're really doing). Hmmmm... haven't we heard that somewhere before. It makes me think of something Mr. Bush once said, or tried to say:

I don't want the financial markets to freeze up any more than the next guy. Developers having access to financing directly affects my job. No dollars to lend, no dollars with which to build, no need to knock shit down. But I am not inclined to support anything this administration tells us we must do quickly, no questions asked. Not a blank check. The sky is falling. The little boy's cried wolf too many times. Can't get fooled again.

I'll watch the Presnit tonight & update this post if I have something else to say. My plan is to blog the debate Friday night, if McCain musters the courage to show up.

Peace, y'all. This is getting interesting.

When I want to know what's going on with the weather, I go to Wunderground, which is short for Weather Underground. I've been doing this for a long time, starting way back in the Little League Baseball days, when mostly I was worried about thunderstorms and rain. Then, when The Oldest went to college on the coast of North Carolina and Middle Son in New Orleans, I started paying close attention to hurricanes. By then, I was a regular reader of Dr. Jeff Masters' Wunderblog, and perhaps particularly his lively regular commenters. I've learned over the years, which ones to listen to, and when there's foul weather afoot, it's a Wunderblogger named Patrap whose every link I follow, whose own Wunderblog is linked in the New Orleans section of my right gutter. Patrap, a husband and father, is a former Marine, a New Orleanian and a veteran of the Cajun Navy, a man of action.

The photos above are from the U.S. Geological Survey and were taken on September 9th and September 15th, respectively. Seeing what Ike's done to the coast of Texas, and, well, having been there, so to speak, Pat's just up and done something about it all. With a small band of other Wunderbloggers and regular commenters on Dr. Masters' blog, they've organized a convoy into Texas. Folks are gathering from Louisiana to South Carolina and points in between to help the people struggling and suffering in Ike's wake. Here's Pat's Wunderblog posting about it:

To drop off Bulk Relief Aid, Water, MREs, unopened only..and other Food stuffs. Or a Donation by check...

Contact Patrap in New Orleans at pjp1201@yahoo.com for a Drop off Location.

Hurricane Ike Relief Effort
As most of you know, several WU members are currently working to assist the folks that have been impacted by Hurricane Ike. The goal of this project is to provide assistance and supplies to the folks that are off the beaten path that often do not get the same relief as the mainstream areas. There are many ways to donate and help the folks in Tx and La, and however you feel is appropriate; please help out. If not through this effort, then through many of the others.

Blogger Presslord has been kind enough to use a charity that he has run for over 10 years as the face of this effort. The name of the organization is Portlight Strategies, Inc. You can currently donate by check, and there will also be a PayPal account set up as soon as possible, if that suits you better. If you send checks, the faster they can get to Portlight the better as we plan to be on the road by the end of the week. All checks should be made payable to:

Portlight Strategies, Inc. Link
2043 Maybank Hwy.
Charleston, SC 29412
MEMO: Hurricane Ike Relief

Or donate through PayPal.




Portlight has sole access and responsibility for all funds.

Portlight Strategies will be in charge of all funds, and make sure that the supplies and monies get in the hands of those that need it most. They are also working with several entities in South Carolina to raise additional funds.

Any Checks received by me in My Name and Address via mail will be endorsed and deposited into the non-profit account.


Patrick
 

Just in case any of you fine folks who wander by here might want to help out, I thought I'd make sure you knew that there was this great way to do so. These are just regular folks like us, who wanted to do something, so, well, they just did.

Peace, out, y'all.

Edit: These are some Big Pictures (be warned, they're literally, BIG), but well worth the click if you want to have some idea of the scope of the damage left by Ike. Wow.

I've been waiting for McCain's convention bounce, and it arrived with this morning's poll numbers. I've long believed that staying at the top of the news cycle (free TV) is the secret to winning in this country. Give 'em air time, any air time and it'll show in the polls.

It seems to me, listening to the republicans' convention last week and watching their ads on television, that they've raised to high art the device of saying one thing and doing another. It has to be projection. No, not the kind that pollsters do, but psychological projection. Nothing else makes sense. How else in the world can the McCain campaign really be running ads proclaiming that if Obama is elected, those "tax and spend" democrats will run up big deficits? Huh? I've been thinking it's nefarious and they really believe that voters cannot count, or are so blind they cannot see that, at least for the last couple of decades, it's been democrats who've brought spending under control and republicans who've gone on hysterical spending sprees. Projection would explain it though, making it some colossal form of institutional denial, organizational mental illness, defined by Wikipedia:

According to Sigmund Freud, projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one "projects" one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires and feelings onto someone else. It is a common process that every person uses to some degree. To understand the process, consider a person in a couple who has thoughts of infidelity. Instead of dealing with these undesirable thoughts consciously, he or she subconsciously projects these feelings onto the other person, and begins to think that the other has thoughts of infidelity and may be having an affair. In this sense, projection is related to denial...like all defense mechanisms, providing a function whereby truth about a part of themselves that may otherwise be unacceptable is shielded.

Well that explains it doesn't it? They're not stupid, and maybe they're not the lying thieves I've been thinking they were for all these years. They're just in denial, projecting, in order to avoid coming face to face with, well, themselves. Poor things. I've had a couple of master projectors in my life and I'm here to say they really don't know that they're doing it, and that being on the receiving end of projection makes you think you're the one losing your mind. Isn't that exactly the way it feels to try to talk to a republican who's afraid of those "tax and spend" dems, when it's their candidate whose solution to the health care crisis is to tax employer-provided health care benefits? ANOTHER HUH?

We must find a way to help them, find some kind of cure for this mass mental illness before we're doomed to another four years of government emptying the treasury and invading our personal lives. But let's try to get the language right, call it what it is, because it has changed. This is no longer my father's republican party. The New Republican Party stands for deficit spending, bigger government (that gets way more all up in our lives), diminishing personal liberty, loss of stature internationally, depleted military reserves and the loss of national safety that comes from all of the above. As the wealthy get wealthier the numbers of poor increase. As the numbers living in poverty increase, so does crime. As crime increases, our safety decreases.

Want more of the same? Then vote for McCain. As for the whole lying thieves thing, we'll let's just say they're a little confused. Want to hear it in their own words? Click here. 

Peace, out, y'all.

Update: Coincidentally, the following cartoon was sent to me in an email this morning. The remarkable similarity in message to this post prompts me to add it, without permission, asking for forgiveness and offering attribution. It's the fine work of Steve Greenberg, editorial cartoonist for the Ventura (CA) County Star. Posted with thanks.