My unintentional hiatus

Okay, so I'm back. It's been a week, but quite a busy week. Stressful and whatnot.

Belial's [mis]adventures, September 8-15:

• Estrangement from Grandmother
• Atheist outing to mother
• Worrying about parents' ability to survive the beast known as Ike
• Worrying about baby brother's homelessness
• Devising a homeful solution to homeless brother's problems

As you can see, these events left little time for sleeping, let alone virtual pontificating.

But I'm back. And I really want to address some of these items (particularly the second one) in blog-form. I think it would be best to address them each in an individual blog over time. (The amount of caffeine consumed over the last week has left me jittery and restless, so I will assume these blogs will be written in the coming days. I need some time to chillax.)

I'll try to churn some ish out over the remainder of the day, but first need to hit the (evil known as the) mall to pick up stuffs for my coming vacation (shit, do I look forward to that).

Other blog items I intend to address this week:

• 9/11 memorial
• (More) Sarah Palin
• I most certainly will not be over-looking John McCain
• My new Obama swag
• Tina Fey [LOVE]
• Marriage
• The subjective importance of family

And I'm sure there's more.

Everybody enjoy the remainder of their Monday. Look forward to the end of their week!

Wait, so now that it's your son...

Apparently, when posed the question "[Are you] sending your son on a task that is from God?" Charlie Gibson referencing both Sarah Palin's prior assertion that the Iraq occupation is a god-given task and her son's deployment to Iraq, Sarah Palin's response is "I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie."

WTF?

To be clear, Palin didn't waive her confidence in the war, but somehow changed her response concerning God's involvement.

Provided for context:

Morning's first realization

Through this morning's perusal of blogs-news-everything-else-on-the-WWW, I stumbled upon this realization:

That I have totally forgotten what it is like to sleep with someone who in no way identifies with feminist ideals and notions.

Thankfully, this morning's realization will forever prevent me from un-learning that sex with a feminist is the most empowering and fulfilling type of sex. And that everything else has the potential to drain your soul.

You're fucking kidding me, right?

Apparently, because Kwame Kilpatrick (the estranged, and soon-to-depart mayor of Detroit) and Barrack Obama have shared the same stage on a few occasions, exchanged political niceties, posed for a photo op, and perhaps because they did this all while both being black, they are BFF.

That's what the Freedom Defense fund would have you believe, anyhow.

According to The Detroit Free Press:

A self-described "small government conservative" political committee based in Washington, D.C., launched an attack ad against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Macomb County on Friday, attempting to link him to disgraced and soon-to-depart Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The 30-second ad uses audio and video from a May 2007 appearance Obama madebefore the Detroit Economic Club at which he is introduced by Kilpatrick and, inturn, describes Kilpatrick as "your great mayor," "a friend," etc. Obama'spraise then plays over a police mug shot of the mayor as a list of the criminalcharges against him scrolls down the screen.

Tell me how a group, and I don't care how small and grass-roots funded it is, can put such blatant displays of racism on the air. I understand smear campaigns, even though I don't believe they have a place in the political process. But to link two people by nothing more than their race (first), and their political affiliation (a distant second), and then backtrack and force some commonality to use one's corruption to taint the other, as so obvioiusly done here, is fundamentally unacceptable.

A lesson learned

I have decided to end the evening with a cup of chamomile tea instead of heading straight to bed and suffering the restlessness I endured last night.

Zombie-like status kept me from being productive most of the day, as witnessed by lack of posting. Only got a total of three hours sleep in last 48 hours. On second thought, the tea might not be necessary, but I'll still partake and call it a preventative measure. For the love of Rod Stewart, I hate early shifts but 'tis part and parcel for life right now.

Tomorrow, Mr. B and myself have a leisurely day of apple picking planned. And as such, posting will probably be minimal tomorrow as well (not as if I was expecting anyone to be so looking forward to it...lol). So I will make great strides to pick it back up Monday.

Hope everyone enjoys the remainder of the weekend!

The real imagined (cat) fight: NYT

Patrick Healy has a piece titled The Real ’08 Fight: Clinton v. Palin? over at the New York Times. In it, he questions "will Mrs. Clinton fight Ms. Palin to help her former rival, Mr. Obama?"

Is it just me, or is everyone tired of the media concocting these headlines to use the name Hillary Clinton as a driving divide in the minds of voters this election? I really don't understand, or see the need for, creating these non-stories in the midst of a very real, substantive political stories. Not to mention, pertinent non-political news stories cropping up around the world. that are dying due to neglect.

The Gulf Coast communities recovering from Gustav, the Carolinas current coping with the impact of Hanna, while we wait all wait for the impact of a third. The Federal Highway Fund is running out of money, and Condoleezza Rice is the first is the first US Secretary of State to visit Libya in more than 50 years. And those are only stories relevant to the US.

So tell me, why create this dramatic, dynamic political triangle in the first place? Ugh.

Side note, yet still relevant:
Why are we referring to Sarah Palin as Ms. Palin, and Hillary Clinton as Mrs. Clinton? Furthermore, why aren't we referring to both of them (and Obama, too) by their earned titles (Governor and Senator, respectively). Am I being sensitive here, or is this a definite slight by the media?

Favorite things: Maude

While I'm busy burying myself in current events, a little something to bide the time.