squidbag

Reading The Rogue

I have this week just finished Joe McGinniss' excellent book, The Rogue: Searching For the Real Sarah Palin.  I will tell you this, just to begin: If Joe is to be believed, and I think he is, since his journalistic integrity score measure (JISM) is pretty high (the man wrote Fatal Vision, The Selling of the President 1968, and gave back a million bucks rather than write about OJ - though there is this to consider), whatever your current opinion of Sarah Palin is, it'll be lower once you read this book.  Mine certainly was.

I'd like to give that the weight it deserves.  To repeat: My opinion of Sarah Palin was lowered by the information in this book.  Previous to reading this book, I wrote this.  And this.  And perhaps most damnable, this.  And if you read closely, I mention her every few days or so like a dying person mentions the rash that started this whole death thing in the first place.  So I pretty much hated Sarah, but I thought it was just because I disagreed with her about everything and that she was an idiot and a liar.

But it's worse.  She's a fake and a bully and an opportunist and a crazy religious person, too.  It's like the fuckwit combo plate.  "Excuse me, waiter?  I'd like the Fuckwit Combo Plate."  "An excellent choice, sir, we call that the Palin Plate.  Would you like that with extra bullshit on the side?"  As if there were really a choice in the matter.  There is so much bullshit, and it goes everywhere.  She's much worse than you imagine.  Why?  Her lack of matrimonial and parenting skills coupled with her habits of cutting people loose once she's done with them would seem to indicate that she's some kind of sociopath, incapable of forming actual personal relationships.  She changed colleges five times to escape people of color, then fucked Glen Rice when she got a chance.  She's a Dominionist, just like Prick Perry and Michelle Batshit and given years of research, Joe STILL couldn't put to bed the Trigg Conspiracy.   Because you can't.  It's too weird, and not enough information is available.

On top of everything else, she vomits hypocrisy upon us, and we can't remember that it is hypocrisy, because we can't remember the thing she said before she did the thing that directly contradicts it.  Read the book - I recommend it.  It's going to be something we need again in 2012 when she runs for real, hoping that we've forgotten about all the stuff in it, too.

Gerrymandering: The Movie

I got to see this Thursday night at the Belcourt, courtesy of Nashville's own 1st Amendment Center and the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, along with my Politics & Elections professor who let me know about the thing in the first place.

If you're not already aware that legislatures having the power to re-draw districts is a bad idea, and if you have somehow reached internet-usage and reading age without encountering axioms about foxes and henhouses, then you should see this film.  If none of that applies to you but you've always had kind of a lurking sense of backroom disenfranchisement then you should see this film.  Finally, if you ever have or ever intend to vote in an American campaign of any kind, you should see the damn film.

Despite being a documentary about the institutionalized theft of 2 fifths of every American's 1st Amendment rights, it's very entertaining and a couple of times downright funny in a kind of half-evil schadenfreude-type way.  Some quick examples: Hakeem Jeffries, a NYC assemblyman, ran against an incumbent and was not expected to garner any votes.  None at all.  Not a sausage.  Bugger all.  Instead, he pulled close to 40% of the vote, and was promptly drawn out of the district by the incumbent before he could run again.  They literally show a map with an arrow pointing at "Hakeem's house" and then the new map with a perfect little paralellogram subtracted from it around his block.

Additionally, the film covers an Iowa man who was elected to city council with only 2 votes (out of 3 cast) because his district is largely imprisoned (referred to as "representation without population" in the film) Tom DeLay's 2003 redrawing of Texas and the flight of Dems over the border to avoid it, and finally, Florida's 27th District, which runs almost from the Atlantic way on over to the Gulf of Mexico.  And lots lots more, including the briefest of arguments about proportional representation vs. single member district plurality.  Many in the audience seemed not to know which we had in America, so THAT was enlightening.

It's really great.  The trailer is here.

The Plan Revealed

Yeah, you fucking suckers, we tricked you.  You should have listened to your "crackpot" emails about Obama.  But you didn't.  They sounded so crazy, you dismissed them.  And we were counting on that.

We got the big Liberal Leftist Militant Black Muslim Atheist Terrorist Anti-Christ Socialist Marxist Obama elected, and within days of him taking office, the SECRET LIBERAL AGENDA will come to pass through a series of executive orders, each more bone-chilling than the last, if you're a conservative American.  First off, Dick Cheney and George Bush will be extracted from secret locations and/or Crawford, Texas, and will be paraded through the street naked in manacles before being forced to submit and bow at the feet of the new leader of the free world, who has two shoes, one for each of them to clean with his tongue.  Dick will then be shot in the face while Bush is force-fed pretzels.  After that, the Republican Party will continue its whirling descent into fractured madness, and will inevitably split into hundreds of tiny social issue based parties - the Right to Life Party, Americans for Jesus, the Anti-Gay Agenda, The Invisible Hand, White People for Change, and so on.

Smaller hate groups, in an attempt to mainstream, will split into more and more minuscule factions, eventually ceasing to exist.  An ill-advised alliance between the Klan and Westboro's Fred Phelps leads to a surprise mass murder by Easter, wiping out the heads of both organizations.  Meanwhile, the ACLU will become a part of the legislative branch of government.

Ann Coulter will be executed live during game three of the Stanley Cup series by the author of this blog, because blood bounces on ice.  Method of execution: gagged and not allowed to speak - eventually, her little head will blow up.  Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh will abandon their careers as pundits, and form a separatist state from part of what is now Montana.  Swift and brutal government action will quash this rebellion, and the empty heads of all three men will be put on gleaming pikes behind the fence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Barack Obama will consume the hearts of all three men, thus eating their eternal souls.  During this, the Fox News Network will continue to flounder, as its predictions come to pass and it claims the pride of being right as it simultaneously drifts to center to avoid being culled.  This will fail as Rupert Murdoch is extradited back to Australia, and Fox, MySpace, and the Dow Jones revert to American control.  The producers of the Daily Show, together with Rachel Maddow, take over the news division at Fox, which drops its "Fair and Balanced" brand in favor of "Left is Right."  A giant poster of Barack Obama is hung in the square of every major American city.  USA Today ceases to exist, and infomercials are outlawed.  Holy books are only allowed to be sold in specially designated stores.

Churches, the ones allowed to remain, will be taxed for 75% of total revenue, unless they wish to become legal non-profit charitable organizations and can demonstrate on paper that they funnel that amount into previously defined social improvement endeavors, such as feeding the hungry or providing clothing and housing to those in need of it.  Religious broadcasting will become illegal under new FCC guidelines, and preaching will be confined to churches during the hours set aside for such behavior.  Religious schools will have government oversight, and evangelical and missionary behavior will be tightly regulated under new provisions to the First Amendment.  All mentions of deity will be removed from our official documents, history, buildings and currency.  The White House creates a panel on Radical Islamic Exploration, and begins a dialogue with Al-Qaeda, discussing the effects of blowback. The 10 Commandments will actually be smashed by Reverend Jeremiah Wright after American Idol one evening, kicking off a 50 state tour where he eliminates all publicly displayed remaining copies of the Commandments with a sledgehammer bearing the seal of the Office of the President.  Rev. Wright and TD Jakes will both have offices in the White House.

Same sex marriages are not only written into the Constitution of the United States, but the validity of "One Man, One Woman" comes under fire as well.  Abortions are made legal and safe across the land, and many women become pregnant just so they can have a celebration abortion.  The missionary position will be made illegal, as will any vocation which demands celibacy.  The skies will blacken with smoke from your burning houses of worship and your sacred texts, and there will be perverted sex acts in public places.  The streets will run with the fluids of passion.

The Pledge of Allegiance is now illegal.

Hawaii is allowed now to restore its monarchy, all the while maintaining the benefits of statehood.  The breadbasket of the United States is declared tribal lands for all Native Americans, and flyover permission must now be granted by the newly formed United Tribes, who also have jurisdiction over drilling and mineral rights.  A new EPA is formed with tribal elders at its head, and is now given final say over the dispensation of land for any purpose.  While the States are still united, it is a forced arrangement no longer - imperialism is dead.  Our borders are now open for free and easy immigration, so illegal immigration becomes a thing of the the past.  A flood of Mexicans provides for the huge amount of labor improving our infrastructure will require during the changes, and whites quickly become a minority.  A new "White Flight" across the Atlantic Ocean is written about.

Corporations are legally defined as "groups of people working together to produce a good or service for a profit that benefits the individuals in the group as well as the United States" and are then stripped of any other rights beyond this.  Property rights will become a thing of the past, and once a week a group of people in trucks will come and audit the inventory of your homes and bank accounts.  If it is found that you have more than you need, your wealth will of course be redistributed.  Universal health care will become a right, but along with it will come restrictive but perfectly common sense rules about living a healthy life if you want to stay in the program.  Get ready for a sober, non-smoking, vegan America.  On bikes, probably.

William Ayers is made Secretary of Homeland Security, and immediately draws up a "to go" list.  Urban renewal involving large segments of the military industrial complex follows hard upon.  The Black Panthers replace the Secret Service as Presidential Security detail, and each major city is required to have a branch office of Panthers for the purposes of Presidential visits.  Local police forces are now run by the Panthers in coalition with the Nation of Islam, and every citizen must complete three years of domestic peacekeeping service.

What else?  Oh, yeah.  Weed is legal, sex ed will be taught to pre-schoolers using porn, we're giving your job to a black guy, Spanish is printed on everything, your car's a hybrid, Gays and Jews control everything, your kids have dyed hair and listen to crap music, we're putting Hillary in as Secretary of Health and Kerry in over at Defense; in short, it's your worst nightmare.

Moo-hah-ha.

Election Day Aftermath(s)

Euphoria never lasts.  Other stimuli come along, and the responses to them dilute the good feelings until you find yourself awake at four in the morning standing outside looking at the rain, or curled up on the couch watching an old Frank Sinatra movie with Nazis.  Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States of America, and already malcontents of various stripes have sounded off about this within my earshot, virtual and otherwise.  My advice: If you don't like the President of the United States, you can either shut the fuck up or start a blog and post hurtful and demeaning things about him once or twice a month for the next four years or so, more often when necessary, as dictated by the news cycle or your own personal strong feelings.  You will feel better, and it gives people the option of coming to you to get your opinion, instead of you just offering your half-assed, ignorant, and often racist POV in public forums where decent folkand indeed, myself, can't help but hear you.  It is my belief that making people come to you for vitriol is just more polite than indiscriminately spewing it out there like a toxic fart blast of rage.

See?  I believe in stuff.

I believe I'd be upset if the state I lived in came along and told me that while yes, I was allowed to fall in love with whomever I wanted, they wouldn't officially recognize that relationship.  Prop 08 is pretty fucked up, and what flummoxes me about it is that it was a balloted amendment, meaning that once the people of California were finished being manipulated by their own clergy on Sundays and the Big C Church teaming up with the Mormons' multi-million dollar ad push the rest of the week, they made another bad ballot box decision, (Conan for Governor, anyone?) and decided gay marriage was wrong.  Two things: one wonders how long after a black president is elected this puritanical hogwash will stick around; I'd like Starbucks to start requiring a morning shot of Enlightenment in with every coffee served.  And two?  The next time I hear about the Commie Fag Left Coast run by the Liberal Agenda, I'm going to punch someone in the face.  What a bunch of shit.  Lies.

In my city, I notice a lot more Obama stickers now that he's won.  I know what I think that is, but I don't want it to be true.  I did get behind a woman on the way to work last week for whom I felt really sorry.  She had a little trifecta of Thompson, Romney, and McCain/Palin.  Aw - not a fun cycle for you, was it?  Think about how far the elections are from what she wanted.

Apparently, Sarah Palin's even crazier and more self-important than we thought.  According to various reports I heard over the last few days, she addressed newspeople while clad only in a towel, she cried and threw shit at her handlers, and she tried to buck the chain of command and tradition inherent in the Presidential candidate  / VP candidate relationship.  My favorite one is the one where she refuses to take any responsibility for the campaign tanking.  Uh-huh.  Okay - yes, they ran out of money last Xmas and then cheated to get more, and yes, they had no coherent economic policy ever - but seriously, you don't think Sarah's incompetence and inexperience scared the shit out of the Old Reliable White Men voting bloc in the GOP?  Don't bullshit us, Sarah - you were off the fucking rails.

I enjoyed Obama's first press conference, though I still would like to get ahold of whatever super-cool mood altering drugs he takes to make him that smooth and unruffled.  The media's so in love with his "mutt" comment, they're tempted to take a pass on the Nancy thing.  He apologized, anyway.  Could've used more flags on stage, though.

Finally, I'm sick to death of these sore loser McCainiacs, who are about a rung and a half up the evolutionary ladder from dittoheads.  First off, all of them are saying the same non-sensical things; "Obama hasn't done anything yet, where's the magic, when do we see change?"  Are you collectively really this fucking stupid?  He's picked a chief of staff, talked about how he will use his executive powers to reverse Bush's really stupid shit, and nailed down some of the new economic stimulus stuff.  That's kind of all he can do right now.  I mean, if you guys are so blasted anxious, I'd just as soon see the Monkeyface ridden out of 1600 on a rail covered in blood oil and pretzel dust, but we typically don't do that in this country.  We have that whole pesky "ordered transition of power" thing.  So sit down, and shut the fuck up.  It'll happen - wait for it.  This incapability to experience delayed gratification is evidence that the whole nation is stunted emotionally. It's one of the reasons Xmas starts after Halloween now.

Either way, I'm not sleeping as much.  Could be the change in the air, could be the time change, could be my impending birthday - don't know what it is.  But there is now a possibility that it could work out.

"While We Breathe, We Hope."

Hope and change.  Two words that may come to mean something again.  Two words filled with promise for a different direction for the country that I love, two words which symbolize everything that all Americans should be able to expect from a living, breathing, system of governance of which it is once again possible to believe we might control.  Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States, and he carries with him the hopes of a nation of people who do not like the way things have been, and still cling to the belief that they can be better.

In truth, I am having trouble processing the new reality of things.  I watched the stirring speech in Grant Park, and I am glad to know that this man is to be the new President, and that the future is wide open - but emotionally, I'm not entirely there yet.  I am too used to being hollowed out by electoral politics, being made (perhaps a bit unseasonally) into a jack-o-lantern inside which burns only my anger at the way things turned out.  Now, I have to abandon being upset, being in a rage at the way it went, because it went my way.  This is what I wanted.  After eight years of feeling the country hydroplaning out of control, pinwheeling chaotically no matter what kind of force was exerted against the wheel, it seems now that the tires have bit, there is traction, and we might be able to get this thing pointed back in the right direction.  Yes we can.  There is hope.

I came home tonight from work, nervous with heartburn, and flipped through channels watching it all come together.  My lovely wife tolerated this, for she is also an information junkie.  From CNN's "Help, Obama Won" appalling holo-reporter, (and this is measured against the equally appalling Mr. Wolf Blitzer) to Comedy Central's rudderless lampoons, to MSNBC's graphic-heavy coverage, (I think I'm in love with Rachel Maddow, by the way) we sat, and we made phone calls, and we looked at maps,  and we waited, and the excitement slowly built.  Again, I should point out, I still can't quite believe it.  I'm not having the trouble Matt was having, but then, Matt had dipped liberally into his own product field.  Slowly, it became clear that the polls were not bullshit, that votes did count, and that the momentum was real.

I was impressed by McCain's concession speech - a profound congratulations and a sincere call to unity marred by a booing audience.  McCain is a man of honor and dignity - his supporters, as I have long suspected, are not.  It was nice to see Tim Russert's boy doing some coverage, and it was wonderful to watch Fox News splash around in uncharted waters, often saying, "We don't really know where all of this is headed."  You're off the edge of the map, Fox.  Here there be Democrats.  Kenya is apparently declaring today a national holiday.  My son crashed on the couch, and had to be awakened to be told that Obama was now the President, a result his school reached in mock elections on Monday.

It's a lot to take in, and this entry's a little disjointed.  Let me finish with the dreams I had this morning.  And then I shall go to sleep.

One was of President-elect Obama and current President George W. Bush getting into a fistfight during the limo ride to the podium on January 20th of next year, and the resultant quandary that this would create for the Secret Service.  The other was idle speculation about relative peace, a US that had regained global respect and standing, and a bright future for my kids.

Hope.  It's a helluva thing.

You VOTE Now.

If you don't know by now...

You must vote today.  Not voting is irresponsible, unpatriotic, stupid, and invalidates your right to bitch for the next four years.  If people fuck with you whilst you are voting, punch them in the face and vote anyway.  Let no one tell you that there's a special "Blackucrat" election tomorrow, there's not.  It's today.  Don't listen to anything except what I'm telling you - the Squidbag never lies unless it's funny, and not voting would not be funny, it'd be a travesty.  Every freak, every norm, every mother's child, motherless children, those hatched, born, crazy, every race, color, religion, creed - you fuckers, unless you've already done it, you vote TODAY.

And Vote Obama.  Anything else is like punching America in the chest.  "Really?  'Cause I was thinking of going with those spunky mavericks over at McCain/Palin."  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.  Obama.  You will not have a hangover in the morning.  And neither will this country.

Must go to sleep now; will be up all night tomorrow night watching returns and sucking information from whomever had it last.

The Sticker War

Beginning on October 3rd of this year, I have kept a piece of paper (specifically the back of a Taco Bell receipt) and a pen (actually a series of pens, as I cannot keep hold of a writing implement for more than a day or two, it seems) in my car, and kept track of the number of election-based stickers I see, McCain vs. Obama.  The numbers, then, one day shy of Election Day, are: Obama 75, McCain 40.  I only hope the real election is that much of a landslide.

My rules for counting: I did stickers as opposed to yard signs because I drive the same routes every weekday and would see the same stuff, so that seemed pointless.  A car counts once, even if it has three stickers.  Zealotry does not earn extra points.  Everyone gets one vote.  I only counted when I was in my own car, and I used the traditional "prisoner trapped in solitary" hashmark method.  I frankly realize that this proves nothing other than the one theory I posited in the first week of doing this: liberals are possibly more likely to stick shit on their cars.  Republican conservatives tend to have nicer vehicles, perhaps (one McCain sticker I saw was actually on a Rolls Royce), and are less likely to want to mar them with stickers.

Anyway, I kind of expected it to be lopsided, but also found myself relieved when I would see a McCain/Palin when I was out and about, simply because my sample looked so obviously biased.  The only stickers I find truly offensive and stupid are the anti-Obama smear stickers, the ones that evoke the silly lies people keep spewing about him, or the simple "NOBAMA" stickers which indicate a couple of things for me: These people had nothing positive to say about their guy, so they had to come after mine, and also that they are voting for reasons that have little to do with choosing a candidate to lead this country.  Additionally, in the Southeastern United States, which is imbued this time of year with a fervor for the teams in the SEC, these stickers are particularly ill-conceived inasmuch as they seem to indicate a dislike for the football program at the University of Alabama, instead of/in addition to the blasting of any candidate.

What was really truly interesting, during a time when so much of TV and blogs and news and conversations are dominated by what is, no doubt, an extremely important election, is the number of cars that have no political stickers at all.  Most of the "Ws" are gone, though you still see a few, presumably only on the vehicles of the illiterate, and those actually related to the First Family.  There are a few "01-20-09" stickers still around, and a few holdout Hillaries, some Kerry/Edwards, and a few Bush/Cheney '04s.  These are few and far between, though.  Also, here in Nashville, you will still get an occasional Thompson.

Mostly, though, people have bands, schools, churches and these things on their cars.  Occasional beliefs are evident, but these are almost all religious, and targeted either at abortion, or alternate religions.  Which says what?  That they care more about the shit they see on a regular basis than they do who's in charge in Washington?  Maybe.  That is one of the major points of this campaign, the Wall St. vs. Main St. mentality.  And maybe that's true - for the most part, people are more engaged in what goes on around them than the bullshit candidates for the highest office in the land throw at each other for almost two years.  They have to be.  They have no choice, this is life, the day-to-day thing which surrounds you.

Now - go vote tomorrow.

Matters of the Spirit

'Cause you know, I'm all about spirit.

First of all, happy El Dia de los Muertos.  Go out and respect your dead.

Secondly, it has recently come to my attention that Kirbyjon Caldwell, one of the Monkeyface's spiritual advisors and pastor of a megachurch in Texas, the man who married Jenna Bush to her beau, is endorsing Barack Obama for the Presidency of the United States. This is not a new endorsement - he's been supporting him since the primaries.  So, one of God's mouthpieces in the ear of the President (and I don't know how many he has - could be just the one, might be a little evangelical coffee klatch for all I know) is endorsing the candidate of the oppositional party, the one who will reverse what this President has wrought, the one who is running on a platform of change, and that change being directed at the current bullshit, which one could easily argue was instigated by the primacy of the Monkeyface.

Like a mesa of mashed potatoes, this means something.

It could be a black thing, but I feel it's irresponsible to dismiss it as such - that would make me more like Rush Limbaugh, and Rush and I already have cigars, fluctuating weight and painkillers in common, so I'm not looking for any more connections there.

No, what I wonder is this: The President, by all accounts, is (now) a deeply spiritual man, who talks to God...and God talks back, I guess.  The advice of his advisors should be treated with respect, I would think.  He only has them because he needs them, he seeks their counsel to gather opinions about matters of the spirit which would - in theory - inform his decisions.  So, if one of his advisors endorses Obama, isn't that by necessity a rejection of his last eight years of work?  Sort of like an invalidation of the Bush Presidency?  And shouldn't that give him pause?  Isn't he required to take that seriously?

Or - it's all just a pile of shit; they're all hypocrites and liars, and they do whatever's politically expedient and whatever suits them at the time.  That's probably more like it, yeah?

Shut Up & VOTE

Consider this my contribution to whatever GOTV efforts with which you may be involved.

I am sick and fucking tired of the keening mewl that is rising from substantial portions of this country that goes something like this: "Oh, I am so sick of this election.  I just hate politics.  I will be sooo glad when all this is oooover."  The Squidbag has two words for these people - SHUT THE FUCK UP.  And yes, the Squidbag is aware that's four words, but the Squidbag will not be lectured on grammar and indeed, math, by the likes of you.  Be quiet, the lot of you.  I have absolutely had it with this shit, this idiotic whining in the streets of an apparently fatigued electorate who just cannot take another minute of being deluged by election coverage.  Take a day off.  Don't watch TV, listen to the radio, or read anything for a day.  Give it a shot.  It means pulling your greedy little mouth off of the media teat for 24 hours, though.  Think you can do it, you pathetic gripe in people clothes?  For fuck's sweet sake, we can follow an NFL season, or a season of Lost, we can talk endlessly in the workplace about American fucking Idol or Dancing with the loser has-been Stars, but we can't seem to summon up the wherewithal within our void little souls to continue to care about this election until it is over?  What an ADD fucking country this is.  You know the only reason we don't get daily Afghanistan or Iraq reports highlighted in the news is because you moron doorknobs got tired of it, right?

The saddest, most digustingly vomitous part of this whole shitty bitching and complaining bullshit is, many of these people will not even vote, because "they're so tired of it all," or because they just don't think it makes any difference.  These are the same people who have to have dinner with Uncle One-Toothed John before they can remember to brush a couple of times a day.  These people will be fucked and not know why - but you can bet they'll know how to fucking bitch about it.  "Hey, loudmouth, your Aunt Kvetch is on the phone, and she wants her nametag back, you whining, small-minded jerkoff."  Democracy is wasted on these fucking people.

Suck it up, tired America.  Stiff upper lip and all that.  Wait, that's the English.  Well, who gives a fuck; stiffen your lips anyway.  No one gives a shit that you're tired, right?  No one wants to hear that shit. you add to the noise by saying it, and then you make me add to the noise to put you in your fucking place.  You're part of the problem, there, mouthy.  Go vote, be quiet, and don't let me hear any more of your puking whine noises, or I will go door to door on a Squidbag Shuts Your Big Yap tour, carrying a hammer, a stapler and a crooked stick festooned with broken glass, red ants and habanero.

The View from the CR

Over the weekend, I was talking by Internet phone (meaning it cuts off every 15 minutes and makes weird echoes in the conversation when it is working) to Jesse, whose blog can be found here.  Jesse is a teacher, husband and about-to-be-dad (like, this week) in the cloud forest of Costa Rica, so there's a lot of weird mutant jungle biology on his blog, along with his creative writing and observations about his unique experiences living in the developing world.

We were discussing what American news had filtered into Costa Rica over the weekend, and I thought I would pass this along because it's a marvelous gift of perspective.  Jesse was telling me that pretty much all Costa Ricans had heard about America was stuff about our election and the World Series.  The World Series coverage is apparently hilarious, because not only are CR sports commentators unfamiliar with the principals, ("The PHY-Lees?") but they lack a basic understanding of the game of baseball, which leads to a lot of dead air punctuated by statements of the completely obvious.  "The player hits the ball, and now he runs."  I can only imagine what their reaction was to postponing a game because of what they probably regard as "a little bit of rain."

In terms of our election, were they hearing stump speeches, promises, allegations, revelations or talking points?  Nope.  They got the one highlighted story about the Sarah Palin Stripper Look-A-Like contest out in Vegas.  So that's what they think about us, folks.  Democracy is afoot, but strippers and baseball grab the headlines.  That might be for the best, really.  The economy's for shit, but that naked chick who sort of kind of resembles Sarah Palin clone got ten grand.

So yeah - perspective.