Giant love

Personal photo taken at the train station in the morning, Nov. 2
after the Giants won the World Series on Nov. 1

Let me start by saying I am not a big baseball fan. Until quite recently, I did not even know who the Giants were. I am marrying a Dodger fan. But, Giant fever bit me this year.

At work, everyone was in a tizzy the last month over the Giants. During a very important dinner with some very important diplomats, most of the dinner guests spent the entire time checking their phones every two minutes to see the score of the Giants game they were "forced" to miss. On Halloween, little kids dressed up as Giants players. Everywhere you went in the area, Giants memorabilia lined storefronts, train stations, offices. Orange and black became representative of the baseball fury instead of Halloween. Target dedicated an entire isle to Giants (and Sharks) jerseys, hats, bats, balls, toys, etc. Co-workers left work at 1:30 to either attend games or make sure they were home in time to watch them on TV. Dedication at its finest.

This reminds me so much of being 18, living in Southern California, and the Lakers winning the championship for the second year in a row. Everywhere you went, Lakers. Everyone you talked to, Lakers. Everyone from Philadelphia was a sworn enemy. Anyone not sticking Lakers flags on their car was a traitor. This was a world or excitement, of anticipation, pride, innocence. It was June in 2001, and just a couple of months later, the world would change for ever. I would leave home to start college. While in Europe, I would watch the TV as New York bled and smoked. L.A. pride turned into American pride. Lakers flags were replaced with U.S. flags. The Lakers would go on to three-peat and win the championship again at the end of the season, but by that time it was getting harder for me to find the time to watch the games, harder to get as excited. Sports mania had somehow passed me by. It's never come back in full glory, but this year I witnessed it as a disinterested onlooker instead of manic fan, and I have to say, it warmed my heart to know so many people are being so fulfilled by "their" team's win.

It is wonderful to again be living in a place that gets to celebrate a victory like this. It makes me take pride in the place I live, as if by having a celebrated sports team, my choice of where I live is somehow validated. Also, seeing the faces of Giants fans lit up with pride reminds me why sports are so important in this world -- they bring folks together, give people something to hope and live for. Two nights before the midterm elections, the Giants gave everyone what they had been waiting for for so long -- a win in the world series! The morning after the elections, the Giants parade again gave the city and the fans something to either take their mind off the election results, or perhaps a reason to get out on the street and celebrate a two-fold win. Regardless of politics, the thousands of people who crowded the trains, the freeways, the parking lots, and the fast food restaurants today were excited, celebrating a victory that they'd had no part in. They were, simply put, happy. Nothing is bringing these folks down.

The power of vicarious happiness is pretty incredible. We may not be athletes ourselves, but when "our" team wins, we feel victorious. We may have best friends from all over the world, but in the final rounds, we protect "our" territory as if a conquering tyrant is threatening to take it over. We may not have ever met a pitcher, a quarterback, or a point guard, but we call these people by their first names, sometimes even by intimate nicknames, we have mental conversations with them, we scream at them from our peanut gallery seats or our couch, we project onto them heroics of Homeric stature, and somehow, mysteriously, we become better people in our own eyes when "our" team, "our" athlete, takes the win.

So, Go Giants! I am going to revel in the fact that I live in a place where people walking down the street have been smiling to themselves, saying hello to each other, laughing with strangers on the train, all because they are under the euphoria of a home team victory. Their happiness lets me forgive the belligerence on the train this morning when thousands of Giants fans crowded the commuter trains on the way to San Francisco for the Giants victory parade. Their happiness makes me happy.

In the spirit of sportsmanship, no matter what team you root for, the following sentiment expressed by a Giants fan and AT&T park usher who participated in the parade today sums up the glory of a hometown win:

"This is Christmas, New Year's, and your first-born all rolled into one. I'm on cloud nine."

Doing that crack cocaine thing...

This is hilarious. Senator Jeff Sessions during the Sotomayor hearings on July 16:

Word of the day: Ridiculous

ridiculous [ri-dik-yuh-luhs]
adjective
causing or worthy of ridicule or derision; absurd; preposterous; laughable.
ORIGIN 16th century

Photo credit: Jim Wilson/NYT, appeared on front page of NYT July 12, 2009.

This poor baby looks like it's being exorcised... Why would anyone want this woman touching her infant, let alone writing on her with a probably toxic Sharpie?!?!

RIDICULOUS!

Mud Run this Saturday!!

Where have the last six months gone? It feels like just yesterday I was lounging on a chaise on a cruise ship, sipping champagne, waiting for the ship to sail out onto the Pacific. This is exactly what I was doing when M's sister called to tell him that indeed, the three of us had been signed up for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run on June 6. Now, it is June 4, and I feel compelled to both run with arms wide open towards this crazy race, as well as run screaming in any direction other than San Diego. Overall though, I am truly psyched and happy to be doing this, and I can't wait for Sunday morning to roll around when I can wake up and have this be behind me!

One thing that truly inspired me on this last stretch is a comment that I received today from a fellow blogger. Sue Ann Jaffarian is also doing the Mud Run this Saturday, and she must have somehow come across one of my entries about the Mud Run, and left me a great comment telling me a bit about her own journey toward Camp Pendleton. I highly recommend giving her blog, Babble 'n Blog, a read.

To catch up briefly on this month's training:

We took it slowly, and sure enough, by last Sunday, I was able to do a six-mile run, complete with hills. We started out a few weeks ago doing two miles, then pushed it up to two and a half, then three... then suddenly I found myself running and running and Gosh-durn, still running, during our six mile trek a few days ago. Needless to say, I'm a bit over running by now, but at the same time I am excited that I have gotten a really good base down, so I can concentrate on running being "fun" rather than "excruciating." This is imperative, as we're doing the Wharf to Wharf at the end of July, and I must be in good enough shape to actually enjoy all the bands and entertainers and supporters along that route.

In preparation for the Mud Run, I even bought myself some really cute - and totally expensive - triathlon shorts, which I bought partially with the intention that they will encourage me to train for the Disneyland Duathlon next year.

Lastly, I must touch upon my lame foot. My lame foot is seriously a pain in my behind (odd phrase, ain't it??) and after much procrastination, I actually went to a real foot doctor. He informed me that I over-pronate in my right foot, a fancy word meaning I don't have enough arch support, which leads to the tibial nerve being overly stressed (perhaps it needs a margarita? I know I do!). Any-this-is-probably-boring, the podiatrist gave me these super nerdy-looking food pad things to add on TOP of my already geeky insoles. I cannot wear them for the Mud Run, as they are made of felt, which shockingly is no friend to mud, but I shall definitely start wearing them as soon as the Mud Run is over. Hopefully, this should improve my foot-falling-asleep issue, and make me a happier and better runner.

Next time you hear from me, I will hopefully have good news to report. If there are no posts by early next week, send out a search party to sift through the mud :)

In other news, great speech by President Obama in Cairo! NYT has the full text, though I'm not sure how well the link will work.

"The Holy Koran tells us, 'O mankind! We have created you male and female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.' The Talmud tells us: 'The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.' The Holy Bible tells us, 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.' The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you." (End of Obama's speech).

P.S. Happy Belated to Anderson Cooper, who turned 42 yesterday :)

Those silly Democrats

This clip featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann is hilarious!

Thanks to thedailybanter for bringing it to my attention.

Hard to talk when you're teabagging...

Oh, Anderson Cooper... I thought I couldn't love you more. I was wrong. (Comments speculating as to how and why Anderson would know it's hard to talk when teabagging will be deleted at my discretion. Leave me fantasy alone!)



*Update - I can't stop watching this. I can't believe his deadpan abilities. Have I mentioned that I love Anderson Cooper?

The Week That Was (Oh, what a week!)

Last week around this time I was feeling a strange combination of elation and crapdom (yes, that is an emotion, the one you feel when your body decides to betray you temporarily by being sick on the happiest day of the year). I was in the middle of an Oracle Financials Training Session, and my body was quickly letting me know that I in fact was about to be sicker than I've been in as long as I can remember. As the lady droned on and on and on about iProcurement, I could not get "Proud to be an American" out of my head despite my abhorrence of overly-indulgent patriotic songs, and kept thinking that instead of wasting my time in class, I wanted to jump around Stanford hugging every person I met.

Last year, I watched "American Idol" with my parents, and every time Kristy Lee Cook came on and butchered the hell out of every "Proud to be an American/America the Beautiful/Yankee Doodle Dandy" rendition possible, I nearly puked. And now, this was me; cynic and critic, belting out this propaganda anthem full blast in my own head, even letting it escape out loud every now and then, and giggling to myself like a crazy person. I would have felt embarrassed if everyone coming into and out of the office was not also having similar issues, keeping Joker-sized grins plastered on their faces, and spontaneously breaking out in conversation that had clearly started in their head and was being voiced mid-thought.

The country had a new President-Elect, and the excitement was palpable. When our Director called us in for an emergency meeting and broke down in front of his staff when he confessed that he in fact had never felt more proud to be an American, I couldn't believe that someone who's had such a long career at the forefront of political thought was compelled to spontaneously share these feelings. I was also reassured, as young people need be by their wiser elders, that California and the United States will one day, and one day soon, do right by all - so that all of the boys, girls, men, and women living under this great American umbrella can share the same rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. James Baldwin once wrote, "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality." Prop 8 passing definitely says more about the people who voted for it than about the people whom it immediately effects. At this moment in time, I feel both disheartened that Prop 8 passed, but also hopeful because I know it won't last long until my friends won't have to feel like their own state sees them as second class citizens.

Last Tuesday night, having the experience of the last two presidential elections behind me, I thought the counting would go on all night. So, M and I went grocery shopping. Shocker! We came back and within minutes, Barack Obama had officially and by a huge margin gained enough electoral votes to cast no doubt that he would indeed be the next President of the United States of America. John McCain's speech that followed was the first time in months that I heard McCain's own voice. It did not surprise me when the crowd boo'ed at Obama's name (it also did not surprise me that the folks in Chicago cheered and clapped when Obama mentioned McCain), and it kind of freaked me out that most of the people in the Phoenix crowd were middle-aged white folk. I mean, seriously-- almost everyone was over 45 and white. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the hundreds of thousands of people huddled together, laughing, crying, chanting, were children, teenagers, college kids, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, middle aged, elderly, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, mixed, all colors and ages and creeds, which encapsulates what America is and has prided itself in being - the cultural, racial, ethnic, religious melting pot of this world.

The images of Jesse Jackson crying I have to say were pretty priceless, and I remember thinking, I wish James Baldwin was alive to see this! I wish DuBois could see this! I do think that John McCain made too much of the "African-American" issue when talking about Barack Obama in his concession speech, but at the same time, he reminded us that people whom we know remember a time when they could not go to the same school, or eat at the same restaurants, or walk on the same piece of street, as white kids. The fact that these memories are not historic memories but actual memories makes this election monumental, but I think that the nation and the world agrees that Obama being black is not the sole or even the main reason why he is perceived with such enthusiasm and anticipation.

My entire adult life has been spent with George W. Bush being the President of the U.S. The 2004 election was the first one in which I could legally vote after becoming a citizen. I remember when my roommates and I volunteered to cater a John Kerry fundraiser in L.A. (note to self- where IS that shirt?!) we all whole-heartedly believed Kerry would win over Bush, no doubt about it. I cast my vote and thought, "Now I am truly an American citizen." Four years later, I am feeling an interesting and hard to explain emotion. I was not born here, and thus will always harbor patriotic love for my home country. And for as long as I've lived here, I've always been happy to live here, and proud. Every time I drove through a particular part of the 5S Fwy in Anaheim, I got an irrational feeling of love and pride for California, and as the plane was about to touch down at LAX, each time I nearly teared up with excitement to be "home." But over the last 8 eight years, it really has become "uncool" to be an American in many parts of the world, because we are seen as bullies instead of liberators, as arrogant instead of accomplished, as ignorant instead of leaders in science. Last week, I actually felt like I was an American, part of the millions of people who went out and voted however they felt was best. But there is always that "adopted" American feeling to it. It's almost like I can see it from both sides - judging the U.S. from a foreigner's point of view, and defending the country from the insider perspective. Again I turn to James Baldwin, who once wrote, "I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." I think he was completely right in this, and this is the sentiment that I think so many Americans ignore in their blind patriotism. To truly be proud of your country, I think you should judge it with high standards, because you expect great things from it. If you take everything a country does blindly, you face a great risk of allowing that country to become an oppressor without boundaries. That is why I think all those Republican allegations that "they" are the "real" America and that Obama and the Democratic party aren't proud of America were so ludicrous. Don't parents chide their children so that the kids might learn to be better people? Anyways, now I am going off topic, which was initially this strange feeling of being an American, and an outsider, and feeling optimistic that in the next few years the U.S. can make its citizens even more proud to call themselves American than they have been in recent years.

***

Moving on from the elections, last week also brought more ups and downs in the Stockmarket, which has people all on edge. I can't believe that literally in a few days, people's entire retirement 401k money is gone!! I guess I am really lucky to have a looo-ooo-oong time to go until I retire!!! But on a positive side, gas is down to under $2.40, which is unbelievable considering it was nearly double just a few weeks ago!!

On a more personal note, M's parents came up for a weekend visit, and M and I had a movie date ("Changeling," which I give 4 stars, but don't recommend to anyone with small children because it will make you SO SO SAD and paranoid). I also bought a really fun hat! Having headed to the mall in search of black, flat shoes with an ankle strap, I returned home sans shoes, but with a super cute brown bowl hat. And yes, I did finish Taltos, a remarkable letdown by Anne Rice. I am now onto George Eliot's Middlemarch because I need to clean my mental palate, so to speak, after Taltos, but I think I might put that aside for some McEwan.

As for the moment at hand, tonight I am very excited about the Country Music Awards!! I think Kenny Chesney and Sugarland will perform, so I am very happy. A few weeks ago, when the VMA's aired on MTV, I had a quarter-life crisis when I realized that besides Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, I had no idea who the majority of the performers were. I didn't know the songs, I didn't know the singers' names, I felt like an old biddy!! That was when I started listening to more hip hop in the car to make up for my exclusive country habits, and now I feel more confident about my contemporary culture knowledge, but I'm still 100% sure that I will know most of the people at the CMA's, because that's just the country bumpkin I've become.

What a week [will] bring

I have neglected my "What's in a week" series, and too much has happened in the past month to write about it right now, but a quick thought process about what MIGHT happen within the week to come.

In a week, we will know who the next president of the United States will be. God willing, we will make the right choice. Everyone always bitches about WHOEVER winds up being president, and I have no high hopes of the next 4 years being smooth sailing if Barack Obama wins, but I harbor deep-seated fears if "that [other] one" (how you like 'dem apples, John?) wins. He won't though. He can't. Can he?!? Oh God.

Moving on before I have an anxiety attack.

Oh wait, one more thing - In a week we will also be voting on all of those "props" that have been constantly in seemingly every commercial on the radio or on TV. Of course, the one everyone is talking about is Prop 8. Why are we voting on this, what is the purpose? We have already voted on, passed, and put into practice legal gay marriage in the state of California. Who are these people that suddenly decide that one vote is not enough, that we must keep voting and re-voting and re-re-voting because they don't like the way people have voted before on a human rights issue? Does this mean that given enough support, we may one day see on the ballot Prop whatever, asking that we amend women's right to vote? What if someone woke up and said, hey, I think a hundred years ago or whenever, they had it right, and black people should only count as a fraction of a person when casting their votes. Should that be allowed on the ballot, even though we have clearly made equal voting rights a human right for everyone a long time ago? How is marriage any different than voting rights? Everyone has the right to vote, to speak, to pray, to protest, to do all kinds of things! Why not marry? And why are religious groups the ones most against this? For Christians, doesn't Jesus tell us to love EVERYONE? Isn't he a defendant of the misrepresented, the marginal, the outcast? Isn't his first miracle performed at a wedding? Why should gay people not have the privilege to enjoy this greatest of human self-imposed misery? The thing that most irks me though is this insane propaganda for Prop 8 that tries to terrify us by using the oldest and lamest trick in the book - "the children." Oh, God, the children! If Prop 8 does not get passed, our children will be forced by their public school teachers to listen to endless propaganda about homosexuality. They will be corrupted! They will turn away from Jesus! They will all become homos and whores! I exaggerate, but this is the innuendo in these ads. I mean, what in the name of all that is holy? When did we EVER talk about "marriage" in elementary school? I don't remember a SINGLE time when we talked about marriage AT ALL unless it was "oh Pocahontas married so and so." Even during Sex Ed no one mentioned MARRIAGE. I highly doubt that if Prop 8 is defeated, suddenly PUBLIC, GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCHOOLS will all of a sudden include curriculum about GAY marriage, let alone any kind of marriage. It's so sad really that this is even an issue.

In a week, I will have finished this most obnoxious book, Taltos. I don't know what possessed me (ha!) to pick this up. I had sworn off this book after reading Lasher last summer... Oh! It was listening to Blackwood Farm on CD during our long drives to/from L.A.! You see, that books combines the Vampire Chronicles AND the Mayfair witches! AWESOME! But thank goodness we are LISTENING to it and not READING, because I may have actually thrown the book at the wall, Anne Rice is SO annoying in her portrayal of Taaaarquiiiiinnnn Blaaackwoood. Let's out it this way, we are on disk 15 of 18, and we STILL have no gotten to the CORE of the novel!! Anyhoo, listening to BF on CD made me really curious about the gap between Lasher and BF, so I finally gave in and checked out Taltos from that haven of mine, the Mountain View Public Library. The first 200 pages were FABULOUS! I felt SO redeemed! There was character insight, interesting plot turns, short scenic descriptions, teasers, sex, the whole shebang. Now, smack in the middle of the book, it has gone incredibly sour. I should have known when I caught a GARRISH mistake on Rice's part -- on one page, the character Mona decides to drink orange juice instead of coffee, we even get a description of what the oj tastes like (so Rice!) and on the VERY NEXT PAGE, the character (Mona, the slutty 13 year old pregnant with her mentor's husband's baby who may/may not be a Taltos, a non-human giant) sits at the breakfast table drinking COFFEE! Then, in the very next paragraph, she is back to orange juice. Tsk, tsk, Anne Rice! I could have forgiven that, if the following chapters didn't deteriorate into a mindless mush. For some reason, my favorite character (aforementioned Mona) has become a complete idiot, and we have entirely lost track of the other, more interesting side story about the actual TALTOS, which gives the book its very title. Enough ranting about this bad literary mistake on my part, which I nevertheless will trudge through, and perhaps award myself with some Didion once I am done.

In a week I will have survived my lover's first midterms in grad school! I may not be the one studying all the time, writing the papers, doing the projects, but it is very tasking to stand by helplessly as your loved one sells his soul over to the demons of academia. Oh, this also makes me miss school SO much. Tonight, I actually felt envy when I read his paper because I want to be writing them too. Even though those going through this right now probably want to slap me (and probably Dickens, as well!)

In a week I will have entered my second month of being "gainfully employed!" I am still settling in at work but I am quickly becoming familiar and comfortable there, and I think it will bring lots of good things.

In a week I will have watched almost the entire first and second seasons of "Desperate Housewives," living on my DVR at the moment. When one's boyfriend is in grad school, and one doesn't have homework of one's self, and one has developed a DH addiction while UNemployed, one begins watching DH at random moments! Now I have gotten to the point where Bree finally finds out that it was George who killed her trifling husband, Rex! And Gaby is upset that her husband has found religion instead of spending lots of money on her after his return from jail! Escandalo! I think another reason I like DH so much is that the show reminds me of my mom, because we used to always watch it together on Sunday nights last year when I lived at home.

Oh what, oh what, will a week bring? No drama, vote for Obama!! ;)

Presidential?

When I first saw this picture, I laughed, I snickered, I rolled my eyes. I thought, "Not only does the picture capture McCain as emotionally erratic, angry, defensive, and bordering on the verge of hysterical at times, but also as ridiculous."

In front of him, Barack Obama looks nothing if not presidential. The picture captures the mood of last night's entire debate -- Obama as serious, and McCain as erratic. CNN's panel of post-debate commentators kept bringing up the word "professorial" in relation to Obama's behavior as if this was a bad thing (I suppose it can be, though personally I did not view it as such), but admitted that he scored well because he kept his cool, smiled, maintained a respectful and thoughtful demeanor throughout. Meanwhile, they drew attention to McCain's smirks, defensiveness in basically badgering Obama for an apology because his feelings were hurt over accusations of racism, and complete inability to hide his utter disdain for Obama. Someone used the word "seethe," which is perfect. McCain practically seethed disdain, an extremely unattractive trait in anyone, but especially terrifying in someone who may potentially have to sit down with world leaders whom he abhors but maintain diplomacy.

The smirks, the cracked-out looking scary big eyes, the rolling of the eyes, the frightening goblin grin... these all frightened me and made me think that I was watching a scarier version of Bush. Why scarier? Because McCain is clearly more intelligent than Bush; clearly more deserving of the presidency that Bush has been, and has a history of being stabbed in the back by his own party. All these added together, I think that a vengeful, embittered, 72-year old former torture victim who can't control his emotions, let alone his facial expressions, is much scarier than a fool who smirks and hiccups into cameras, but no one takes seriously.

After all this is said, however, I look at the above picture and am saddened nearly to tears. John McCain was a beacon of hope once for many Americans across partisan lines, and many were saddened to see him lose to a man who should not have won the presidency. He is not lying when he says that he has in fact battled with his own party; he even came close to considering leaving the GOP, disgusted with the first G.W. Bush administration. But something has happened in the past few years, and I think the party broke him.

The picture above saddens me because I see, underneath the scary bug eyes, the mean comments, the irrational arguments, the unflinching disdain, I see an old man. An old man who had, and I am sure still has, a good heart with good ideals and hopes for a country that he genuinely loves and has nearly died for. I see a man who finds himself to be nearing the end of his life, and who wants to win. I don't know if he wants to win for himself, or for the country, or for his party, but it is most likely he wants to win for all three. To watch George W. Bush be president for eight years and know that could have been him at least for four, and know that he could have done a better job, and that the people and his own party turned away from him, must leave him bitter. And now he wants his moment. He wants the win. He wants the glory and the prestige and the chance to prove that he is what he has told himself he is for so many years. He wants to win, and he wants the other guy to lose. What is more human and more understandable than the desire to see yourself the victor and the other guy the loser?

The photo saddens me because he tries to be funny, but he is awkward. He is a sad, old man. He sees the presidency slipping away from him a third time, and knows he will never get this chance again. He knows that the woman that he picked for his vice president is a moron (he has to) and he knows he chose her to pander. And it makes me sad that an old man knows that he has succumbed to people he hates.

I don't think the hatred that McCain feels and shows for Obama is entirely aimed at Obama, though certainly much of it is. He must hate Obama for being so young; for being so popular; for being so privileged as to talk about terrors of war without having gone through them; for being an iconic image to a country that McCain thinks owes him something; for swooping up something that he wants so badly. But I also think some of that anger and disdain is aimed at himsef; he must feel disappointed in himself because this race is proving so difficult for him, because he is running out of time, because he is not young and vibrant and handsome and eloquent. He kept taking jabs at Barack Obama last night, drawing attention to Obama's "eloquence," as if this was a grotesque quality. The cynicism was just jumping off the screen, and it saddens me that he feels that way, that he is so cynical that he thought the only way to win was to pick that crazy woman as his running mate, because that would get him votes from a particular base. It saddens me that he did not have enough faith in himself and his constituents to truly fight a worthy battle and run a truly worthy campaign. It saddens me that he is brought down to this, and the picture above captures a sad old man who is so painfully awkward that even when he tries to play off a moment of disorientation, he can't do it without looking like a puppet.

I don't know, really, what it is about that picture that makes me so sad. I think it's funny-looking, but the old man with the awkward "oops, what did I just do?" makes me want to give him a hug. It makes me want to slap him, and say "wake the hell up, and tell me who you are, and tell me what you want to do, and stop bullshitting, and be honest, and be yourself!!" I think that is part of the sad part of this picture. I don't know if McCain can still be himself. The facial expression is one that people make when they feel too many eyes on them, and they feel so uncomfortable in their own skin that they make some random weird move to push away the discomford.

The picture comes from Reuters, and no, it is not doctored. We all saw the little dance that McCain did when he lost his way coming off the stage, and the picture just captures a split second of that.

To slightly switch the subject, I also feel like slapping Barack Obama and yelling at him for his utter failure to answer the VP-question last night. What in the freaking world was that!?!? Here was his chance to discuss Palin's lack of experience; of education; her shady background; her hateful speeches; her delusional views that somehow combine traditional family values, a lack of sexual education in schools, no government spending, and a welfare program that pays for children born to teenage single mothers; her lack of diplomacy; etc etc etc. And what does he do? He practically kisses her and McCain's asses, and calls her "capable." Now, I realize he was trying to be "diplomatic" and not trash-sling, but he could have drawn attention to some of the questionable issues without calling her a mindless and poorly programmed robot, as I would have done. I can't forgive him for that, and he needs to step up his game!

To end on a positive note, I would like to draw attention to a matter of high importance, and that is the perfection that is Anderson Cooper. Now, over a year ago, when I opened up and admitted to several people the affection that I harbor for him, I was met with chuckles and even several helpful pointers that in fact Anderson Cooper may be gay. Now, over a year later, Anderson Cooper has grown only more dreamy and perfect in my eyes. He is so dreamy that his steely blue eyes make my tummy all aflutter each time I see him, and his voice, perfectly inflectioned, gives me the schoolgirl giggles. Is Anderson Cooper gay? Who the hell cares? If he is, it does not in the least affect me, seeing as how this love affair is completely single-sided. All I know is that he makes me very, very happy, and it will be a sad, sad day in America and the world when his beautiful face and lulling voice retire from national television. Now, if Anderson Cooper was dumb as a board, or even remotely dull, he would be completely undesireable to me. The man looks like he weighs 95 pounds, and is 5 feet tall. He has prematurely white hair, and pointy, elfin ears. He is objectively a semi-attractive skinny little man, but his eyes are always aflame with intelligence, and his reporting especially during times of crisis like Katrina is always inspiring, enraging, and well thought out. The fact that he went to Yale, marches along everyone else during protests he believes in, and went to Vietnam for the hell of it after graduating from Yale... I don't know how it can get any sexier than that. The man is a tasty morsel of visual, aural, and mental candy, and I can't get enough!

VP Debate, SNL Style

Watch the great Tina Fey do Sarah Palin. Queen Latifah is great, too!!!

Best Political Commentary on YouTube

Hahaha. "If he said 'put lipstick on a pig and it's the second coming of Reagan, then you'd know he was talking about Sarah Palin."

And go to 2:43. Purty pig! Purty pig!

Things that make me happy

I feel particularly jolly today. Perhaps it is because my morning started out by waking up next to my best friend (awe!); or perhaps it is because I have decided that I need to be positive and optimistic about life in general. Whatever the cause, today I was struck at nearly every turn by things that made me happy, and I'd like to share them.

1. I walked out of my apartment today, turned the corner, and arrived at the Copy Factory from which I sent a fax out. I love living close by to necessary things, and I love that I have small private business options, instead of having to go to conglomerates like FedEx Kinkos which basically suck you dry. Case in point: for the same project that FedEx Kinkos would have charged me around 200 bucks, the Copy Center charged me $16!!!

2. My blue suede shoes. They are adorable, and comfortable, and blue! I wore them to my interview at FSI today, and I think they definitely helped me feel confident, vibrant, and prepared to handle anything. Don't think a pair of blue suede shoes can accomplish this? You clearly have never stepped into a pair of blue suede Mary Janes with a flower on the side!

3. Sugarland. I L-O-V-E Sugarland. No, this does not refer to a candy store, but rather to my new favorite band! I have been listening to their music for about a year now without knowing who they are. First, I heard "Stay," a lovely acoustic ballad about loving a married man who inevitably never does leave his wife, and the hard realization that it's better to move on than to be a door mat. I used to bump this LOUD on my drives home from Honnold at 2 in the morning. Then, I heard "Settlin'," the should-be-theme-song for anyone who's ever woken up one day and thought, "What am I doing with my life, wasting it away in this dead-end relationship?" The song captures that moment of clarity when you realize that it's better to be alone that be waiting on Mr. Wrong to mystifyingly turn into Mr. Right. Then, I heard "Everyday America," a song that misleadingly gets you to bop your head and stomp your foot before you realize that you're singing along to a song pointing out that everyday Americans are often barely getting by, but that somehow they push on and make the best of life. Then, I heard "Baby Girl," the sweetest song ever! Basically it's about a young girl struggling to make it as a singer, asking her parents to send her some money so she can get by; luck is hers, and she becomes a big star, and it's her turn now to send money to her parents, to whom she writes,

"Dear Mom and Dad,
I'll send money. I'm so rich that It ain't funny.
Well it oughtta be more then enough to get you through.
Please don't worry cause I'm alright,
I'm stayin here at the Ritz tonight,
Whatta ya know we made our dreams come true!
And there are fancy cars and diamond rings,
But you know that they don't mean a thing,
Well they all add up to nothin compared to you,
Well, remember me in ribbons and curls...
I still love you more than anything in the world
Love,
Your Baby Girl"

Then, I heard... well the list goes on and on. But the point is, I had been singing along to these great songs without ever really knowing anything about the band playing them. Then, M and I watched them on TV, and it was love! This is their website, where it clearly says that they will NOT be playing any time soon in California! Tragedy! Anyhoo, the duo is composed of Jennifer Nettles, who is all teeth and perkiness and smiles, a prettier version of Janis Joplin (and with a cleaner voice) who seems to cute to be country!, and Kristian Bush, who plays a mad guitar and likes fedoras!

4. My DNC shirt. Today I wore the pink "Democratic - Denver Democratic National Convention 2008" shirt that I got in the Denver airport on the way back from Nebraska, and it sparked a nice conversation with the nice man from the Copy Factory! It feels a little like cheating wearing it, because I wasn't at the convention, but I was technically in Denver during the DNC! Anyhoo, the shirt makes me happy for the same reason that people wear Senior Class shirts, or team jerseys - it makes me feel happy to be part of a group, part of an identity with a common interest and a common goal. Plus, it's pink, and pink always makes the day brighter!

5. My upcoming drive to LA. I haven't been to LA in a while, and I really hope to see some of my friends this weekend, while my lovah is at the debauchery that is a bachelor party :)
5a. In addition to seeing some fabulous people while I'm in LA, I'm looking forward to the drive itself, as it will offer the excellent chance to continue listening to Anne Rice's "Blackwood Farm" on CD. It's been too long since we spent any time with Taaaarquuuiiin Blaaackwoood, and I have to know what happens! The book-on-CD is 18 CDs long!!! We are barely on CD 9, I think, so we have a long way to go, but the story is getting good!

6. Costco. How great is Costco? I bought a 36-pack of Diet Pepsi today for the same price as 2 6-packs at Safeway. The only drawback is I can never really make up my mind what else to buy besides soda, bread, and non-perishables, because I fear that the mass quantities will inevitably go bad before we have the chance to eat them! I mean, really, who needs that much cheese?!?!

7. "Scrubs." M and I were pulling "Scrubs" marathons for the past couple of weeks, but we have reached an impasse and need to wait for the next CDs to come. This show is briliant in so many ways. Not only is my second ex-husband, Zach Braff, at his best in this show (or is his best in "Garden State"? Hmm.. It sure as heck wasn't in "Last Kiss," the evil movie from hell! But I digress...), but the writing is fantastic! I didn't think it was possible for a comedy to successfully and sensitively tackle death, or for a show about doctors to make you relate to nearly every character, but somehow, "Scrubs" does. We have temporarily replaced "Scrubs" with "The Office" and it just isn't the same. Sure, "The Office" is funny, but it's no "Scrubs"!

8. Colder weather. I love wearing sweaters, coats, scarves, floppy hats, socks, and my boots with the fur! Fall is beginning to peek through, with a cold breeze every now and then reminding us that the seasons are a-turning, and my new down jacket from Costco is already getting some wear! I feel cozy and comfy in chilly weather, and I only wish it could get only a tiny bit colder, instead of the inevitable COLD that I know I will have to face living in NorCal. I'm trying to hold on to memories of Honnold at 2 am (hmm I see a theme now!) in December, and think, "I can do this, I can do this!" Let me tell you, it is COLD in Claremont in December at 2 am, and after 10 hours of Martha Gellhorn paper-writing, I would emerge from Honnold in scarf, beanie, gloves, and coat, and would drive home to Upland trying not to touch the steering wheel with my bare hands because it was so cold, but also unable to drive wearing gloves because they would slip on the wheel when I turned corners. Oh, joys of grad school!

9. Webcams! I can see my parents every day with the magic that is the webcam! Makes the world much smaller, and lets me show my parents my pretty blue shoes!

10. My boyfriend. Sorry, ladies, but he's taken, and he's the best, so eat your hearts out!

This is from way back when! Winter of 2005, in Big Bear.

Lipstick on a Pig

I would like to thank the McCain/Palin campaign for drawing my attention to what has become my new favorite phrase: "Putting lipstick on a pig."

The Republicans are "outraged" that Obama described McCain's policies on the economy, health care, taxes, education, and foreign relations, as likened to "putting lipstick on a pig" -- meaning, they are pretty much identical to George Bush's policies on similar issues, even though McCain is now (and how originally!) running on "change." Why are they "outraged"? Because they believe that Obama's "lipstick on a pig" phrase is a jab at Sarah Palin, who described herself as a "pitbull with lipstick."

The funny thing is, that if you watch the video (clip below), you will hear clearly that Obama is actually talking about McCain, and in fact, not just McCain, but his policies. He is saying, "McCain is trying to sound like he is all for change, but many of his policies are similar to those of George W. Bush. If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig! Calling it "change" but doing nothing different is still the same old, same old." (My paraphrase. You're welcome!)

Watch the clip here: (I'm having trouble keeping my youtube clips on, so if the video doesn't work, go here)



Now, what I find hi-larious is that McCain himself has used this exact same phrase before, and not very long ago! So, in pointing fingers, the Republican camp is completely ignoring the fact that "lipstick on a pig" is a popular phrase (why oh why have I not heard it before?!).

Not convinced? Watch McCain use it here



and again here (around the 29 second mark. keep watching right afterward to watch the LOVELINESS (read, "evilness) that is Fox News): link here



So... the moral of this story is this: There is NO MORAL! This is politics, people. I personally find it a) Ridiculously funny that the Republican campaign thinks that acting all sensitive and inventing personal attacks is an actual campaign tactic; and b) Sad that this kind of tactic actually works with a large part of their voter base.

Here is Obama's response to this "phony" sensitivity used to distract people from the issues.

Obama shirt fr Moveon.org

Hey,

Want an Obama T-shirt? MoveOn's giving them out if you make a small donation (only 8 bucks, people!) to their young-voter registration program, aimed at registering half a million young voters in swing states. I just got mine, and wanted to share the opportunity with you.

Click this link to get your Obama T-shirt:

http://pol.moveon.org/obamatshirts/index4.html?id=-10512612-UTfQsyx

The polls are showing McCain in the lead for the first time. Registering voters is crucial so that come Novemeber, people can actually vote! I sent my registration form in last week. Have you sent yours in?

What's in a week, part 2

This week has not been quite as exciting as the last, but still, it has been an interesting one.

M and I went to Dublin (the San Fran East Bay one, not the infinitely more interesting Ireland one), and ate with our friend Z at an Indian restaurant playing music as varied as traditional Indian music and Aqua (as in, "Barbie Girl").


I listened to and watched the DNC in Denver, CO, which was the first political convention I've watched, and the day after, witnessed on TV the naming of the first female vice presidential candidate for the presidency.

M and I watched my new favorite movie, "Wall-e"!!! This movie is GRRRREAT! I loved everything about it, and can't wait for it to come on DVD so I can watch it again.

My first CGU visitor came and visited me!!! S and her husband C were wonderful house guests, and they totally inspired me to be more proactive in my own life, as well as to listen to more jazz! Oh, not to mention, study for my GRE again!

I took my first class at our new gym, and it totally kicked my butt! I walked around in pain for two days after, but I'm definitely going back.

And I bought really cute blue suede Mary Janes! The perfect topping to a pretty good week.

Palin update #1

It has been brought to my attention that McCain may have picked Palin in an effort to "steal" Hilary Clinton's female supporters. The thought initially did not occur to me because I like to give women more credit than to think that they would vote for ANY woman just because she IS a woman. But, now that I have thought about it, I can see how many women would fall for that. "Oh well she is a woman, she has five children, she is a Protestant, etc etc etc, therefore she gets ME!" Really? She may get YOU, individual nameless woman, but does she get the COUNTRY, and the other nameless women and men out there? I really hope that come election day, women and men alike make their decision not based on the gender of those running for office, or their religion (Biden is a, GASP!, Catholic), or their color, or their age, as much as I poke fun at old McCain, but based on what we may hope to see from these candidates.

No one seriously believes that either McCain or Obama will be able to pull off 100% of what they promise to do if in office; but if just 10% of what they promise will be achieved, it will make a big difference in the direction this country will move in from now on. If there is only a 10% improvement in health care availability for those who need it, I will be glad to see Obama in office. If there is only a 10% improvement in education, it will be 10 much needed percentage points that will be welcomed. If our dependence on Middle Eastern oil decreases just 10%, it will be 10% of a move in the right direction.

It is sick to think that Palin is attractive only because she is female, and her appointment as the nominee for VP has revealed the Republican machination's flawed ethics. She has a newborn child with Down's syndrome, who will need constant care. When Edwards' wife developed cancer, Republicans cried out that he should retreat from the race and stay home with her. How is this any different? I'm not saying that I think this should keep her from being a candidate for VP, but it is interesting to actually see the Republican hypocrisy at work.

It is sick to think that Republicans think that a woman, any marginally, semi-qualified (though this I find debatable) woman, will convince women who wanted to vote for Hilary to actually vote for her own party's ticket, only because she is a woman. When Obama began running, Republicans cried out that blacks will vote for Obama because he is black! Well, they are doing the same thing here, if in fact that is what they are doing.

But what is most sickening is the fact that I do deep down believe that it is possible that many women will mistakingly view Palin as a beacon for feminism only because she is a woman. I think it is possible that an ill-informed woman would vote for McCain/Palin solely because half the ticket is female, ignoring that this ticket will advocate that women should NOT have the right to choose, that women should NOT be allowed to marry their lesbian partners, that women should NOT have those rights solely because they are not women acting in the way that THAT party would want them to. I want to believe that a majority of Hilary supporters will not feel this way, that they will remember WHY they wanted to vote for Hilary besides her gender, remember that she herself has asked her own supporters to give their support now to Obama, and I think that if this gender game was the reasoning behind Palin's nomination, the Republicans will be disappointed come November.

However, four years ago, I did not believe for a second, for a second! that Kerry would lose, and I appreciate and like Obama much more than Kerry. So, like I said in my previous post, this is an exciting and history-making election. In a few months, Palin and McCain, Biden and Obama, will stand trial in front of the millions of Americans who will cast their vote, and I only hope, regardless of the outcome, that these millions of Americans take at least a minute to think about WHY they are voting for their choice. I can see why some people will want to vote Republican. That is their prerogative. But I only wish that people would vote with their eyes and ears open. That women do not vote for McCain ONLY because he chose a woman, but because they truly believe that team is the better of the two options. Just as I hope that when voting for Obama, people don't vote for him and Biden ONLY because they want to see what a black man will do as president, given the chance, but because THIS black man is the better choice for president between himself and McCain.

What is he thinking?

I am going to base this ENTIRELY on Wikipedia and CNN.com articles, so as I'm not entirely informed, I don't profess that this should be taken in any way too seriously as a political commentary, but rather a first impression.

Let's see what Wiki says about Sarah Palin, in a nutshell...

Runner up in a beauty pageant, which got her to college, which led to a journalism degree and her early career as a .... sports reporter.

City councilwoman and then mayor for Wasilla, Alaska, population less than 10,000.

Current governor of Alaska, population less than a million.

It seems that her politics are clean, and she is a strong advocate for ethical politics and has spoken against corruption, and is an advocate for environmental policies including "independence from big oil companies." *Note, her husband is in the oil industry, and, as will be mentioned later, wants to drill for oil in Alaskan national reserve lands.

She is anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, is pro capital punishment, and advocates creationism to be taught alongside evolution in schools!!!!

She is for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, which even McCain opposes.

She has five children; her eldest son is in the army, and her youngest, born this year (she is 44), unfortunately has Down syndrome.

I don't mean this in a smart-ass way, but I wonder what McCain is thinking. He must have his reasons to pick a 44-year old woman whose only political experience has been in Alaska, a state in many aspects removed from the continental U.S., with no foreign policy experience, and
who I'm sure many will question whether she can become this country's Commander in Chief if something were to ever, God forbid, happen to McCain, who would be the oldest non-incumbent president in U.S. history. As this story develops, it will be exciting to see where all of this goes, though I admit I am surprised and a bit impressed that McCain chose a woman. I think Hilary would have been a better choice but that's my opinion :) Ha. Can you imagine an Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Clinton ticket? God forbid. Hooray for Clinton giving her full support to Obama!!!

I am excited for the Republican Convention in Minneapolis to see what the Republicans will say. The DNC has been very exciting, and I was very lucky to hear Obama's speech last night (read his speech here), which I believe addressed a lot of the reasons why he, as opposed to McCain, gets why certain things need to be done, and done soon. Like he said, it's not that McCain doesn't care; it's that he most likely doesn't know.

By the way, did you know McCain attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA, a prep boarding school that today, in 2008, has a yearly cost of attendance of $38,000? Nothing wrong with that, lucky him that his wealthy navy admiral father could send him there, but this just shows that from the beginning, he was quite removed from the lifestyle that most American teenagers in the 50's were leading. The fact that he was a teenager in the 50's also brings to mind the question of how in the world is he supposed to relate to the country's youngest voters? I think McCain is a bright politician, but this country has had enough of wealthy old white men who have never lived among "us"!!

In conclusion, how lucky are we to partake in this historical moment? A woman nearly made it as president, and now, a woman is in the race for becoming vice president! We are going to witness America's first black president, and I'm looking four or eight years ahead, and thinking, Hilary, why not?!

This is an exciting time, to be sure. But the question remains, what is McCain thinking? Is this a plot to fill seats at the RNC, which I hear has been difficult? Does he truly believe Palin is a better choice than, say, Romney? Palin is 28 years younger than McCain, and perhaps he views her as that voice that can relate to the younger population. Can't wait to see where all of this goes.

And seriously, people, check out this site and read through the speeches. I am sure they must be on youtube, but speeches are really interesting when read, as well :) They make for remarkable documents for posterity, and like I said last night, I expect my kid to study last night's speech in his or her political literature class two decades from now :)


Oh what the heck. Here are some youtube clips :)

One of the speeches I most enjoyed, Beau Biden's, Joe Biden's son, and Delaware's Attorney General and a Captain in the Delaware Army National Guard (and born the day after my birthday!!). Check it :)



And one of the best parts of Obama's speech. *Note- Obama's comment about McCain saying that middle class means making less than $5 million/year is in relation to an August 15, 2008 response that McCain gave to the question of what he believes "rich" to mean, to which McCain said, "I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?" (Obama's response: "I would argue that if you are making more than $250,000, then you are in the top 3, 4 percent of this country," he said. "You are doing well.") McCain's spokespeople later said McCain had been "joking." Hardly believable when his wife is an heiress and his own background was highly privileged. Seriously, this man has NO IDEA what it means to be a regular American. At least Obama went to law school on loans, not because his daddy had been an alumni! Anyways, I regress. Here is part of Obama's speech:



P.S. Happy birthday to John McCain. Today, August 29, 2008, he turns 72.

For the love of Blog!

The average Gen XY-er is likely to spend more time on cnn.com rather than actually watching CNN. After all, who has the time nowadays? Many of us juggle work, school, family, relationships, hangovers -- and those of us living in Los Angeles, well we spend half our life in traffic! Even as Tivo makes it possible to watch what we want, when we want on TV, the Internet somehow just makes information access quicker and easier. Everything we need is at our fingertips (literally, since now we can even pull up the Internet on cell phones). Email, the weather, traffic reports, world-wide news, last night's Desperate Housewives episode, or the latest celebrity scandal - these are all accessible immediately.

In fact, as I'm typing this in the middle of the day, someone just sent me an instant message on meebo with a link to cnn.com's story on Al Gore's son getting arrested on the 4th of July for speeding and possession! If I want to be kept up to date on the latest "celebrity" DUI drama, but don't want to read about the downers of "real" news (is that war still going on? are we really killing the penguins at the North Pole with our Hummers?), I can just click the link, read the story, and leave the CNN site. Even CNN can't be all serious, all the time - sometimes it needs to give the people what they want... dirt!

Which leads me to the real subject of this post --- the political blog. After reading the dirt on Al Gore III, the news-conscient can browse through CNN's website and come across Anderson Cooper's 360 blog. Not withstanding that Anderson may well be the most adorable news anchor ever, he is also an excellent example of how legitimate news sources have widely embraced the blog, which just ten years ago was nonexistent. Cooper's blog, to whom others beside him contribute, and where readers can post comments directed at either the blog's content or other readers' remarks, covers a relatively flexible spectrum of news topics. Recent posts from the past week cover the car bomb attempts in London, the blog's search for an official theme song (Air Supply, anyone?), and of course the 2008 elections.

Cooper's blog shows the two most important aspects of a political (and in fact, any) blog -- it allows for opinion ("it may already be too late for candidates who are trailing in fundraising or the polls. That may sound rude and wrong, but it's right on the money," writes Tom Foreman, the CNN correspondent who posted this particular entry) and it encourages reader interaction ("Here's my question: Which top-tier candidate do you think runs the greatest risk of falling back into the minors?"). Blog readers aren't looking for objective reportage when browsing through the blogoshpere. For the most part, blogs "preach to the choir" -- blogsforbush offers exactly what its title promises, a Bush administration-friendly, anti-Democrat slant. Meanwhile, liberals who go to dailykos.com will most likely find their own opinions validated. However, regardless of blogs' tendency to run along partisan lines, they do offer one thing that traditional journalism does not: the element of (anonymous) interaction.

First and foremost, blogs give people who aren't Anderson Cooper or Bill O'Reilly with a television show outlet to voice their opinions the chance to speak their mind to an endless audience. Any Joe Shmoe with Internet access can suddenly mouth off on the war, on the election, on Paris Hilton going to jail - on anything! and have no real limits to what he (or she, or they) can say. The regular citizen thus can interact with the whole world. More importantly, the whole world can interact right back. Most blogs enable comments and some allow private messages to be sent via email, so that readers can voice their reaction to whatever they read on a blog. Blog comments are, essentially, the traditional "letter to the editor" updated and, for the most part, unedited.

How the Political Blog Made Waves

Although the political blog has been around for nearly a decade, with some of the first being Bob Somerby's Daily Howler begun in 1998 and Mickey Kaus' Kausfiles started in 1999, it was not until 2002 that the phenomenon began to spread like cyber wildfire.

When U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott suggested that the United States would have benefited if Strom Thurmond had been elected President in the 1948 elections, many cried "racially-insensitive foul!" Thurmond's platform had greatly focused on racial segregation, a truly un-politically correct thing to still advocate half a century later. Blogs like Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo posted transcripts of interviews and relevant articles that created a sort of underground anti-Lott frenzy that eventually played a part in Lott's stepping down as Majority Leader -- nd all this without any initial mainstream media attention given to the story! The Lott incident validated the influence blogs have in perpetuating information and garnering public interest, even outrage. Although for the most part blogs cover information already covered by the media, the Lott/Thurmond story is not the only incident which bloggers covered before mainstream news coverage. A few New Orleans residents with blogs whose Internet signal held up were the first to post images online of the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Just this year, students at Virginia Tech used their blogs to record minute-by-minute developments and communicating their own survival to far-away families and friends. (Granted, these don't originally fit into the "political blog" category, but since many of the reactions to these blogs were related to political issues like emergency response and gun control, I am including them under this heading).

There are many, many political blogs out there to date. In the ever-developing meta-layered blogosphere, some political blogs like rightwingnews.com rank the popularity of political blogs. According to rightwingnews (at number 18 on this list), andrewsullivan.com (The Daily Dish) is the most popular political blog, ranking in as the Internet's 7,203rd most popular site! A look at Sullivan's recent posts (titled "Things We Love About America") reveals another key factor of blog popularity - the video post!

The technical possibilities of the modern blog are pretty exhaustive and impressive considering the quick evolution of this recent invention. From linking to other sites (as this entry is doing) and posting images related to post (ditto), the blogger can also include video footage (which I keep trying to do but gets erased so it may or may not appear when you are reading this). With the eruption of YouTube in recent years, bloggers use vehicles like YouTube to post relevant footage. For example, here is (or should be, depending on how this works out) Hilary Clinton responding to President George W. Bush's decision to pardon "Scooter" Libby. This, of course, despite the President's promise to assure full punishment to whoever the "leak" in the Valerie Wilson case turned out to be.

Libby served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and was his assistant for national security affairs as well as President George W. Bush's assistant from 2001 to 2005. The first sitting White House official to be indicted in 130 years, Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison after being found guilty of four out of five federal offenses related to the Valerie Wilson case, whose secret identity as a covert CIA operative in Africa was revealed in 2003.

Of course, Republicans/Conservatives aren't the only ones who manage to get themselves involved in political and media scandals which are then fodder for the blogarazzi. Democrats/Liberals came under fire, partially from bloggers, for the "Rathergate" scandal in 2004. When on September 8, 2004 CBS veteran Dan Rather introduced on 60 Minutes supposedly authentic documents (referred to as the "Killian documents) that challenged President Bush's military service record, it turned out that in fact the documents had never been properly background checked, and may have been forgeries. Conservative bloggers the nation over criticized this scandal as proof of Democrats' attempt to sabotage the elections (clearly this attempt, if true, failed) and further solidified Rather's reputation as being liberally biased. The massive blog attention given to this incident further established the power of the political blog as able to apply political sources. Some believe that Dan Rather's departure two years later after forty-four years at CBS was related to the "Rathergate" incident. Rather's statement upon leaving CBS were not exactly friendly:

My departure before the term of my contract represents CBS's final acknowledgement, after a protracted struggle, that they had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there. As for their offers of a future with only an office but no assignments, it just isn't in me to sit around doing nothing.

Whatever the real story is behind the Killian documents, the blog world played a huge part in the attention given to the incident, and is just another major example of blog-power.

Many popular political bloggers move on from the blogosphere and into the "real" world - generally television. Among them are Duncan Black of eschaton, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Dailykos, Alex Steffen of Worldchanging, and Ana Marie Cox of wonkette, who will be further discussed below. Perhaps this can be taken, cautiously, to indicate that most people, given the opportunity to get personal recognition, basically to put a face to the person behind the blog, will jump at the chance. Of course, it could just mean that by becoming more main-stream, they will get more attention for their blog and thus more readers - more influence.

The Blog in (as?) Fiction

Having discussed the weight political blogs can carry, and the influence individual bloggers can have on their readership, let's look at the phenomenon of blogs moving from the cyber world into the print world, and then at how blogging is actually (potentially) changing the idea of the "novel."

Among the Washington D.C. blog genre, wonkette.com covers the usual D.C.-related dirt, news stories, occasional entertainment industry gossip, and every now and then - itself. (Check out wonkette discussing its very own previous editor Ana Marie Cox, whose novel Dog Days is the slightly silly story of a campaign aide's mishaps, including fabricating a wildly successful, sexy tell-all-without-telling-a-thing blog about D.C. sexcapades). Responses to the book, published in 2006, were lukewarm, as many felt the sarcastic wit in Cox's blog during her time writing for it, particularly during the John Kerry/John Edwards campaign in the 2004 Presidential race, was absent from the chick-lit novel, and that the theme had already been exhausted in wonkette's expose on "Washingtonienne" Jessica Cutler and her blog about D.C.'s sexual trysts.

Cox's novel opens up the question of where the blog fits into the wider world of writing. After all, bloggers are first and foremost writers - should we think of them as restricted to the blogging arena? Whether the blog is hosted by myspace or CNN, it remains a piece of writing that potentially could reach thousands, if not millions, of readers.

Cox's Dog Days was not a commercial success, even though one could argue that wonkette had provided Cox with a ready audience. In fact, a 2004 article on the Washington Post website gave wonkette the honorable mention award for "Best Campaign Dirt" political blog for the duration of the presidential elections. However, whether hugely successful or not, Dog Days proved that a novel can still have, at the core of its plot, the blog. The book's heroine, Melanie's entire personal/career crisis occurs as a direct result of Julie's invention of the promiscuous blogger, Capitolette (the aforementioned, thinly veiled version of Washingtonienne). So what that the book is partially about the impact that the political blog can have? Cox's book still came to its readers as a traditional novel - complete with dust jacket and hard cover, and was published by the Penguin group subdivision, Riverhead Books, which has published books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nick Hornby, and Anne Lamott. The book has a close relationship to its author's first publishing venture, the blog. It is divided into chapters that slightly resemble blog entries what with their dated entry openers and excerpts from emails and text messages that hint at the blog's ability to enable links, messages, and comments. Despite this, we can feel free to judge this book by its cover. It is, indeed, a book.

Recently, however, blogs have started a different relationship to the traditional novel. Rather than being part of the plot, or even serve to update the epistolary novel from using letters to using blog entries as its chapters, blogs have started to become novels! To those of us who have a soft spot for the novel - what can be more exhilarating than turning page after page in the middle of the night, wide-eyed in anticipation? - this new trend is disarming. Could this relatively new trend eventually take over the paper novel? Will novels be written in blog entry installments to be read online, much as previously novel chapters were published chapter by chapter in magazines? Here is one blog novelist's testimony about the possibly success this new genre can achieve. Maybe a new acronym will even be invented (if it hasn't already). How about "the novlog"? Personally, I think that no matter how pervasive the Internet becomes, it is unlikely that the novel in print form will lose favor any time soon. The blog is just not suited for the novel.

The blog is meant to introduce one's ideas/opinions/knowledge to an audience who can respond. Though novelists have at times allowed public opinion to sway the outcome of their story, it does not seem likely that serious literature will ever be entirely open to anybody putting in their two cents every time a chapter goes up. Rather, the blog is much more suited for precisely the kind of venture that wonkette.com and dailykos.com aim for - musings on the current political system, current events, and personalities.

Wonkette

Ana Marie Cox founded wonkette in 2003 and left it in 2006 to focus her attentions on promoting Dog Days. Cox's website describes her as having "poor people skills," making her unpopular in the mainstream media environment, and having a "sarcasm [that] drove people away." Lucky for her, as wonkette, Cox could indulge her sarcastic nature and not worry about offending anyone. Probably worked in her favor if she did! In fact, her blog was known for sarcasm, sharp with, and a certain lewdness that encouraged talk about D.C.'s dirty deeds. David Lat followed Cox as editor of wonkette.

After the publication of "Dog Days," Cox began blogging at her personal website. The site includes biographical information about Cox as well as information about her novel but also includes her off-the-cuff blog entries, written in much the same style as she used at Wonkette.com. She occasionally contributed to Wonkette.com until she joined the staff of Time magazine to contribute a D.C. feature in the magazine and write for Time's blog.

Why We Need the Political Blog

When I first saw Martin's class title, "Political Fiction," I was a little anxious about the reading list, because for some reason, "political" can sometimes be mistaken for "boring!!" Which is really unfair, since some of my favorite novels are definitely "political" -- 1984, Unbearable Lightness of Being, and others. So why this stigma against the American political novel? Maybe because America's political history has not been, overall, as "exciting" as other countries who produce stimulating political literature. After all, there have been no recent revolutions, no coups, no imperial colonization of the United States. What about the Civil War? one might ask. Truly, American literature had not really come into its own in the 1800s, but Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage showed that an interesting Civil War novel could in fact be written. Is Red Badge a "political novel"? That is a debatable question, but the fact remains that overall, American politics have been not so exciting as to produce what one might expect to be exciting fiction. However, the books we read in Martin's class proved that interesting novels can in fact be written about politics - even the political process, like Advise and Consent.

Politics, however, remains, for the most part, pretty boring. News reporting, transcripts... Even the Starr Report was boring!! The political blog, in this rather boring environ, adds a little spice to the topic. Gossip, mud slinging, name calling, favorites--these are all game on the blog! Even speculation is perfectly acceptable on a blog! And if anal sex and politics can come together (no pun intended) on a political blog like wonkette, then more power to the blog! After all, we roll our eyes when we hear about Edwards' latest haircut on the news, but when it's on a blog we have no problem reading eagerly about the latest sexcapades, mishaps, and blunders that politicians make, sometimes on a daily basis.

A Recent Wonkette Edwards Post (Laughs included)

Americans Want Fictional Democratic President

A shocking new poll shows that America wants a Democrat president — just not Hillary, Obama or Edwards. The reasons are about what you’d expect from the American Voter: Hillary’s a woman of determination, Barry Hussein is black, and John Edwards is a gay lawyer.

“I just think he’s a slick character,” some old retired guy said about Edwards. The old retired guy in question said he wants a Democrat president more than anything — unless Haircut 400 is the nominee, in which case he’ll gladly vote for any Republican.

Hang in there, everybody! Just seventeen more months to go!

Wonkette Toots Its Own Horn

Since it launched in January 2004, Wonkette has become compulsory reading for Washington, D.C. insiders, political junkies, and a new generation which responds more to humor than the traditional journalistic obsession with process. Wonkette is to political weblogs as Jon Stewart's Daily Show has been to the political shows on television. USA Today describes the title as a "sensation" in Washington, DC. Slate's media critic says it's "sadistic"--but then confesses he's addicted.

Readership. Wonkette continues to grow rapidly. As of November, 2005, it attracted in excess of 2.7 million pageviews per month.

Returning to the political blog

Conservatives and liberals alike in the United States have plenty of options for spending hours on end perusing political blogs, whatever their lasting influence may be. Perhaps the best way to sum up political blogs is to say that they are political fiction meant to inform yet entertain, be an arena where political frustrations can be released and validated, and an alternative to serious political journalism that does not have to be restricted by silly things like formal interviewing/fact checking/no potty mouth standards. It's not that what gets published on a political blog is not true - but what does get published has been constructed like any other fiction - with a specific slant and carefully chosen characters and plot lines to explore.

Just Because It's Too Funny: