Heavy is the Head That Eats the Crayons

Haven't posted in a while... Just want to let my 3 readers know that I'm alive and reasonably well.  Don't you love the title of this post?  Ever since I heard Tracy Morgan utter those ridiculous words on 30 Rock last week, they've been stuck in my head.  I'm sure the writers of the show didn't know it, but that line pretty much sums up life over the past 6 weeks.  Kids!!

Obamanation

I have to congratulate Barack Obama on an historic victory.  I must admit that my knee-jerk reaction is anger and profound disappointment (Shannon will tell you that I said a few things that I shouldn't have), but it would be counter-productive to will him to fail as our next President.  I have daughters to worry about just like he does.  I disagree with him on just about every major issue of our time, and it scares me to death that he has free reign and a blank check to do whatever he, Reid and Pelosi want to do for the next four years.  I can only hope that Obama makes good on his acceptance speech tonight when he promised to be "my president too".

Tonight's sweeping Democrat party victory does have a few positives:

1.  It can no longer legitimately be accepted as an excuse by any minority that success can be hampered by the color of someone's skin.  That ship has finally sailed.

2.  I saw Jesse Jackson crying in the audience tonight.  Couldn't tell if it was because he was happy for Obama, or if it just struck him that he's out of a job.  Haven't heard from Al Sharpton yet.

3.  This is a much needed wake up call for the Republican party.  We will be able to compare and contrast what totalitarian Democratic rule will yield.  (disclaimer:  I know that I told you that I wouldn't root against Obama here.  I won't, but along with my hopes is a healthy dose of pragmatism).  The Republican party needs to do more to entice youth to the GOP and give them something to cheer about.  There is an incredible message in Conservatism, and too often it gets overshadowed by pompous old white guys.  We're more than that.

4.  Political ads are off the air.  I think we can all agree here!

5.  Hillary Clinton has a new theme song:  "Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!  Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead..."  

6.  Sarah Palin is going back to Alaska.  Please stay there.  I'm tired of Hockey Moms, lipstick and the inability to pronounce the letter "g" (I think you know what I'm sayin').

7.  We don't have to hear John McCain say "My Friends" anymore.

That's enough for tonight.  Onward an upward...  

Obama Should Put His Money Where His Mouth Is...

Obama is has assumed the Robin Hood role in the 2008 election.  Here's a thread you may not be aware of.  How much money is the Obama/Biden ticket giving to charity out of their own back pockets?  Aren't we our brother's keeper?

It is easy to talk a good game, but you need to look at a person's actions.  Obama talks about providing for the needs of the poor, but his own charitable donations don't support that.  During his years as a community organizer - when he and his wife were attorneys and both making good money, how much of his own cash did he dno'ate to the poor and under-priveleged in South Chicago?   

Here is a spreadsheet I found that shows Obama's adjusted gross income since 2000 along with the corresponding year's charitable gifting.  As you can see, from 2000-2004 his donations average around 1% of his income.  Only since 2005 has he given more, maxing out at between 4.7% and 6.1%.  Granted, he made more money during those years due to book deals, but those dates also correspond to his more visible years in the Senate where those figures are tracked a little more closely through his tax returns.  

As you know, I'm no McCain fan, but  in 2006 and 2007, John McCain gave 28% and 27% of his personal income (not Cindy's- they file separately) to charity.  Obama says he is all about spreading the wealth- as long as it isn't his.

If you think Obama is bad, Joe Biden made almost $320k last year.  (his spreadsheet is on the left)  He gave $995 to charity during the same period.  Talk about intellecutal dishonesty!  I do have a bit of a disclaimer here- anyone refuting this could say that Obama and Biden COULD HAVE given more and just not claimed it on their tax returns.  May I just say BS to this.  If that were the case, why would they worry about deducting ANY of their donations?  Another argument could be that their donations were given in time and not in money.  That may very well be true, but given the sweeping redistribution of wealth they are seeking to impose, this answer seems to be all too convenient.  What hypocrisy.

I Voted.

I just voted- Yes, I voted for John McCain (hold on a second while I go barf... thanks, I'm back now). I wasn't entirely sure I was going to do so. The Libertarian candidate (Bob Barr) was still a toss-up in the back of my mind. It became clear that this would have been a throw away vote once I pulled into the parking lot. Obama REALLY is winning on the get out the vote front. There was a chalk line drawn in a semi-circle from the front door of the library where I cast my ballot. I was told that this was a buffer zone where no campaigning could take place. Pacing the outside of the line were people dressed in Obama-logoed garb handing out tracts for him.

To be fair, there was one gentleman who was a Republican candidate for the county commission (not affiliated with the McCain campaign), so it wasn't only a pro-Obama effort. The poor guy did have a McCain/Palin pin on his hat, and it looked like he had taken a fair amount of grief from the Obama crowd. I spoke to him for a minute about his campaign, and as I was taking a leaflet from him, an Obama worker rudely stuffed a stack of papers in my hand on top of his leaflet. I told her that I didn't appreciate her forcefulness, and handed it back to her. She left without a word. Disclaimer: This is not to say that all people who work the precincts for Obama are rude. This just happened to be my experience today.

Once inside, the voting line snaked in and out of rows of books. It was interesting to stand there and people-watch. The two ladies in front of me were very much into Obama. They were talking to other people they knew in line about the calling they were doing on behalf of the campaign. From what I could overhear (yes I was being intentionally nosy), they were going to be in high gear until November 4th. They mentioned that they were working on putting together a call bank at a local strip mall, and would be manning it 12 hours a day until the election.

It is no secret that Obama has got a better ground game than McCain, and I witnessed it first hand today. Oh the times, they are a-changin’. God help us all…

Obama vs. Joe the Plumber

Well?  What did you think?  I think McCain won this debate- in substance at least. Here's a list of the stronger points:

1.  He did a better job tonight of picking apart Obama's plans- especially the semantical "get out of jail free" card on nuclear energy- the one where Obama supports nuclear energy as long as it is "safe".

  

2.  The "I'm not George Bush" line was also very effective.  Wish McCain would have been more assertive in this regard in earlier debates.

  

3.  McCain could have spent more time on the "present" votes that Obama used so often in the past.  He could have mad a valid argument here, driving home the point that Obama refuses to take stances on substantive issues.

4.  The abortion issue was handled better by McCain, but there was blood in the water when Obama brought up his vote concerning the treatment of babies that survived an abortion.  Obama lawyered around the issue about how and why he voted the way he did (esentially infanticide in my view) and McCain just let it drop.  This could have been a much more powerful blow.

5.  "Joe the Plumber" was an effective tool for McCain tonight.  I think Obama was caught off guard by Joe, and had no effective means by which to counter in tonight's debate.  This should be a red flag to other "Joe's" out there, and it put a face on all the people in the country who will be affected by either candidate's presidency.  McCain came off as being more in touch with the issues that mattered to Joe.

In terms of delivery, I think Obama wins.  I learned something tonight b sheer accident.  I spent half of the debate listening from the kitchen while cleaning up a spill in the refrigerator.  The parts of the debate I thought McCain won were the parts where I didn't see the him talking.  McCain (as always) looked twitchy and agitated.  Obama (as always) was cool as a cucumber.  McCain's eye rolling isn't going to play well in the morning.  Why can't the Republicans find a guy who is at least SOMEWHAT charismatic???

My opinion:  Net effect zero.  Had McCain been this tough in the first two debates, he may have increased his chances.  Every post-debate show I've seen so far says the same thing, but I think that their motivations are different than mine.  I see it as a series of missed opportunities while the network news teams try to run out the clock for Obama.  I've never been a huge media conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but see it in this instance.

Not even the Funny Pages are sacred anymore...

I don't know about you, but I love to read the funnies in the daily newspaper.  Between the economy, politics and the stresses of everyday life, it can be good to unwind with a little humor.  The packaging is great too- three or four frames, a pun or two and a 10 second investment of time.  A good comic strip can uplift your whole day.  

That is, until the line is blurred between escapism and politics.  Granted, you can argue that comics have been used as political tools since Methuselah was an kid, but political cartoons are generally (as they should be) confined to pages dedicated to editorials and politics.  Now that it is en vogue for celebrities to spout their idiotic political views, ie. Sean Penn (Jeff Spicoli from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”), I guess comic strip geniuses feel like they have artistic license to do the same.

Just check out these three comics strips from today’s Charlotte Observer.  That's right, 3 pro-Obama cartoons in the same newspaper on the same day.  Can you guess how many comics were pro-McCain?  That's right, kids.  Zero.  Nada. Zilch.  As you know, I'm no McCain cheerleader, but the lack of equal coverage is blatant.  And it's the DEMOCRATS who want "the Fairness Doctrine" passed!  For those of you who don't know what the Fairness Doctrine is, it is basically a left wing idea designed to bring down conservative talk radio and other such media outlets under the guise of equalizing time for political speech.  Bottom line, if Liberal talk radio had a market, it wouldn't be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.  Google "Air America Radio" for more details...

Back to the topic at hand...

Let’s take a look at “Get Fuzzy” first.  This is one of my fav strips.  The interchange between the guy (Rob) and the cat (Bucky Katt) is usually hilarious.  Note the shirt on Rob this morning.  He’s been wearing an Obama T-shirt all week.  Many of the recent strips have been about lambasting Bucky’s “uber-conservative nut-job ideals”.  Feel free to look it up.  I have to admit that they’re funny.

Next, let’s examine “Jump Start”.  This is not a comic that I read very often.  Happened to check it out today and lookie what I found.  I’ll have to monitor this one a little more closely to see if all the strips are as worshipful to the Obamessiah as this one.

 

Last is “Doonesbury”.  Admittedly, Doonesbury has always been a leftist political cartoon.  The past two day’s strips have featured a Barbie-like Sarah Palin doll, complete with a push-button nose that squeaks out supposed GOP talking points.  A little trivia for you here- the artist of the Doonesbury comic strip is Garry Trudeau.  His wife?  Television journalist Jane Pauley, formerly of NBC’s “Today” show and “Dateline NBC”.  So much for preserving journalistic integrity, huh?

Again, I have no problem with satirical political cartoons.  They are as much a part of the fabric of Americana as apple pie.  I just wish that they’d stick to the editorial pages, regardless of political affiliation.

Deviation from the norm...

All three of you who read my blog know that it has morphed into a protracted political diatribe.  I'm going to take a little break from that tonight.  First of all, you will notice from the time stamp on this post that it is about 2:30 in the morning.  I've got this weird ear infection/vertigo thing that is extremely painful and gives me the bedspins (See end of post for a definition of "the bedspins").  So, for the past three or four nights, I have been unable to sleep.  What have I been doing with this blessed nocturnal time you ask?  I have discovered Facebook.  I initially went to the site just to poke around and see what it was all about, having heard many of my blogger friends mention their "Facebook Pages" with an air of cyber-superiority.  What a wonderful resource it has turned out to be!  I feel like a kid in a candy store.  I have been able to track down long lost high school and mission friends that I thought I'd never hear from again.  It's fun to see all the receding hairlines and paunches that have developed, as well as the beautiful faces of little ones that have come to people that I befriended years ago.  

It is interesting to me to see how the lives of the people I knew in high school have evolved.  You can find Facebook groups that pertain to your school for a specific class- in most cases, my former high school classmates are doing well.  Some have gone on to do tremendous things (surprisingly so for some- I knew these people when they were teenagers).  

I have also reconnected with some old missionary companions, and this has been especially precious to me.  I find it amazing that while my missionary experience was only a short two year period, I am connected to them in a way that is indescribable.  There are bonds created through service that can be as deep as blood and as profound as scripture.  I can imagine that it is similar to the bond between war buddies.  The mission experience is really a microcosm of life.  You are "born" as a new missionary- thrust into a new world to which you are inevitably ill-prepared.  You learn and grow, forgetting yourself and relying on a higher power and your companion to serve those over whom you are called to labor.  As time goes (flies) by, you train other missionaries and watch them progress and mature as they serve.  Pretty soon, you're at the end of your two years and your missionary life-cycle ends.  All you take home are the friendships you cultivated when you were there.  It's a shared event that can't be duplicated anywhere else.  One of my favorite movies is Stand By Me, based upon a Stephen King novella.  At the end of the movie, the writer says, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve."  Well, that guy never served a mission.

Sorry to wax nostalgic like that.  It's gotta be the insomnia talking.  I'm going to try and get some sleep now since the girls are going to be up in a few hours.  Before I go, I promised you a definition of "the bedspins".  For the uninitiated, bedspins occur when you lie face-up in bed and you feel that the room is rotating around your stationary bed.  It is an unpleasant sensation that leads to a feeling of nausea.  For most, this phenomenon is brought upon them through the over-indulgence of certain beverages.  Not so in my case.

Game Changer

I gotta say that I was NOT PLEASED to hear that McCain chose a complete unknown in Sarah Palin for the VP slot. After cooling off a little and listening to her last night, I feel much better about it. She had some great one-liners, and since politics today seems to orbit around sound bites, I'll give you a few. You'll find that most of these revolve around Barack Obama. Some will make better sense if you actually heard the speech. If not, it's worth the forty minutes.

"A Mayor is a community organizer but with actual responsibilities"
"I put the jet on eBay"
"Obama has penned two memoirs, but never a major piece of legislation"
"After the styrofoam greek columns have been returned, after he has turned back the waters and saved the planet..." THIS LINE ALONE WAS WORTH STAYING UP PAST MY BEDTIME
"The American Presidency is not a journey of self discovery"

My initial reaction to her selection was that she took away McCain's best argument against Obama- the one about experience. Having heard Palin last night, that debate is back in play. We'll have to see how she does against Biden (I can't wait) and in a one-on-one situation when she has to defend her record.

It is a shame that her family life has taken center stage in the case against her. I don't think that her daughter's pregnancy has any bearing on her ability to lead. Hopefully we can have a substantive debate on the issues moving forward...

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's uhh... Obama?

We all know that Barry came out with a book called, The Audacity of Hope. Given what we know of him now, it would have been more aptly titled, The Gall of Hubris. Case in point - this article from today's Washington Post Blog site:

By Jonathan Weisman: "In his closed door meeting with House Democrats Tuesday night, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama delivered a real zinger, according to a witness, suggesting that he was beginning to believe his own hype.

Obama was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he concluded, according to the meeting attendee, "this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for."
The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives. "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," he said, according to the source." End quote here.

Great. The Germans love him. Maybe we can convince him to go after Angela Merkel's job. Ich wollt zu sein Kanzler! Hoffe und sich umziehen als jedermann! (translation: I want to be Chancellor! Hope and Change for everyone!)

Obama and Academia

Been a while, huh? I'll spare you the excuses (which are many- some valid, some not). Here's an article in today's New York Times that took a peek into the academic life of Barack Obama. I was flabbergasted that it's not all praise and worship to the "Chosen One." For my post to make any sense, you've got to read the article first, so check it out here

A few things that stick out to me. The lines in red are from the article followed by my points:

“Are there legal remedies that alleviate not just existing racism, but racism from the past?” This is code speak for "reparations"

"When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail — the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the measure, or the community groups that supported it out of concern about crime. 'He just observed it with a kind of interest,' said Daniel Kahan, now a professor at Yale. Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically... 'He figured out, you lay low,' Mr. Epstein said." Seems like he honed his senate voting record in the classroom. Hillary Clinton famously cited this in the primary election, "In the Illinois state Senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times 'present.' That's not yes, that's not no. That's maybe."

"In his voting rights course, Mr. Obama taught Lani Guinier’s proposals for structuring elections differently to increase minority representation." Apparently Obama used the classroom to "test run" the gerrymandering of his voting districts. There's an interesting article From the July 14th 2008 National Review addressing Obama's uneven stance on voting district redrawing. Read it here and see some of the juicier parts below:

Obama's answers on redistricting, to the Midwest Democracy Network, back in November 2007:

As President, would you support federal legislation prohibiting states from redrawing valid congressional district lines more than once a decade?

OBAMA: I opposed the partisan mid-decade gerrymandering that Tom Delay engineered in Texas. I believe that mid-decade redistricting is rarely justified. There may be some exceptional cases, such as a natural disaster, that create population shifts that may warrant mid-decade redistricting. But I do not support state efforts to redraw otherwise valid congressional district lines more than once a decade.

Issue: Independent Redistricting Commissions
As President, would you support federal legislation requiring states to form diverse, transparent, and independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional district lines?

OBAMA: I would encourage states to form such commissions.
But earlier in his career, according to the Ryan Lizza profile in The New Yorker:
One day in the spring of 2001, about a year after the loss to Rush, Obama walked into the Stratton Office Building, in Springfield, a shabby nineteen-fifties government workspace for state officials next to the regal state capitol. He went upstairs to a room that Democrats in Springfield called “the inner sanctum.” Only about ten Democratic staffers had access; entry required an elaborate ritual—fingerprint scanners and codes punched into a keypad. The room was large, and unremarkable except for an enormous printer and an array of computers with big double monitors. On the screens that spring day were detailed maps of Chicago, and Obama and a Democratic consultant named John Corrigan sat in front of a terminal to draw Obama a new district. Corrigan was the Democrat in charge of drawing all Chicago districts, and he also happened to have volunteered for Obama in the campaign against Rush...

Obama’s former district had been drawn by Republicans after the 1990 census. But, after 2000, Illinois Democrats won the right to redistrict the state. Partisan redistricting remains common in American politics, and, while it outrages a losing party, it has so far survived every legal challenge. In the new century, mapping technology has become so precise and the available demographic data so rich that politicians are able to choose the kinds of voter they want to represent, right down to individual homes...

Like every other Democratic legislator who entered the inner sanctum, Obama began working on his “ideal map.”

So, states should form diverse, transparent, and independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional district lines. But if there's an opportunity to design an ideal district, Obama's not going to pass that up...

"Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.” Obama has proven to be yet another politician that has come to appreciate the sound of his own voice rather than those he wants to represent. In my opinion, bad form from The Chosen One.