
I’ve been neglecting the blog for a few days, but there have been several NY Times articles that I’ve wanted to post about. Let’s just do a roundup of the best ones:
- It’s insulting — and unhealthy — to call elderly people by demeaning terms like “sweetie” and “dear.” Stick to the traditional, factual labels like “John McCain.” [NY Times]
- An a cappella group from Indiana University has been reunited after ten years to sign a five-album record deal with Atlantic Records. Craig Killman, the chairman and chief executive of Atlantic, discovered the group on YouTube and smelled potential. The group, called Straight No Chaser, will be coming out with a holiday album at the end of October, and they may be touring with headliners like Josh Groban and Michael Bublé. Not too shabby for a group of guys who thought they’d never sing again. I’m not one of those ex-coeds who is obsessed with a cappella, I swear, but this story is worth reading. [NY Times]
- Seriously, WHY ON EARTH would it be a bad thing for our president to be “elite”? I want my president to be about a million times smarter than me. I tend to have mixed feelings about Maureen Dowd, but she had a great column a few days ago. This paragraph alone is pure snarky genius: “Darn right. And that, doggone it, brings us to a shout-out for the latest virtuoso of Frontier Baroque, bless her heart, the governor of the Last Frontier. Her reward’s in heaven.” You betcha. [NY Times]
- And a few days ago, this was the “On This Day in History” thinger at the end of my daily headlines: “On October 5, 1947, in the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe.” I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about anything, really, but there are still lots of starving people in the world, and still a lot of livestock in America that eat shit tons of grain each day. Basically, people around the world starve because we think it’s more of a priority to feed animals that we can slaughter and eat. Yes, I know it’s not quite that simple, but it’s worth thinking about. (And no, I’m not a vegetarian, but I’ve cut back my meat-eating by about 75% in the past month.) Just take a look at this fact from the 2004 book The New Consumers, by Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent: “If each American cut his or her meat consumption by just 5% (roughly the same as eating one less meat dish a week), that would save enough grain to make up the diets of 150 million malnourished people.” Chew on that one.







live blogging the vice presidential showdown.
9:01 – Hi Gwen! Looking foxy in teal. We get it, we get it. Let’s just get to it.
9:03 – Ooooh the bail out. Joe is on message. YESSSSSS. I’m mesmerized by the chart at the bottom of the screen. The positives soared for Sen. Biden. Oh, here goes Sarah talking about parents at a soccer game. Do you have kids? I had no idea! But I thought you were hockey mom? GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT, LADY. Both candidates went to bat for the top of the ticket right away. Not surprising.
9:08 – She whipped out the maverick card. “Git down, to gitting business done.” Ugh. She threw in the “all due respect” line, which we all means with no respect at all. I don’t think that inferring Biden’s been in the Senate for too long is a good approach, Sarah. Have you met John McCain? And stop trying to steal the term change from the Change Master.
9:14 – She’s not going to answer the questions the way the moderator wants? If I were Gwen, I would have given her an eye roll and snapped my fingers in her face. Straight talk, Sarah? Answer the straight questions. I’ve got a question for you. Did dinosaurs and humans exist at the same time? But we digress.
9:17 – Sarah, government isn’t the problem. YOU are the problem with government.
9:21 – Biden made a funny about the bridge to nowhere! And a great rebuttal about the health care system.
9:29 – Yawn. I want to see them take the gloves off. Maybe I’ll make myself a glass of chocolate milk.
9:30 – Oh goody! CLIMATE CHANGE. Well at least she acknowledges that it exists. Biden corrects his coal gaffe of last week. Thatta boy, stick it to them.
9:35 – Palin says the word “rape” and the ticker is showing a drop in favorability among women.
9:41 – Biden is hitting this war question out of the park. I cannot believe that she just called Barack’s plan a “white flag of surrender”. The fact that both of these candidates have children in the military and in the Middle East is huge. It prevents cheap shots, for sure. I’m staring at Palin’s potentially tatooed lip liner. I’m kind of freaked out.
9:49 – Ever notice that sometimes Sarah Palin sounds like a leprechaun? Where is she from again?
9:54 – Yawning again. But wait! A question about the Bush administration. STOP GIVING THE CAMERA SEX EYES PALIN.
9:56 – Every time Biden said “George Bush’s”, I chuckled. It sounded like George Bushish. Which, in my mind, was twisted to George Bushit. Teehee.
10:02 – Come on guys, get spicy. But right now, Biden talking about helping Darfur is really inspiring. He’s showing that he really knows what he’s talking about with foreign policy. This guy knows what’s going on. I wonder if Sarah Palin could point out Darfur on a map? Stop talking about Alaska. Nobody cares.
10:07 – My friend just said Palin is really into these “mom pep talks”. Well put, sir. Mom pep talks are not what we need though. We need ideas. We need someone who understands what’s going on. Someone that reads the newspaper, perhaps.
10:17 – Defending Dick Cheney is not a strong position for Sarah Palin.
10:21 – Did Biden just choke up a bit while talking about being a single parent? Awwww! Make fun of him for running his mouth all you want, but this guy is genuine.
10:24 – Biden just nailed the Maverick thing. He pointed out everything that John McCain has voted against. That’s not being a maverick. And he tied it back to the issues talked about at the kitchen table, just like Palin was talking about. BRILLIANT.
10:29 – Palin’s closing statements. Blah blah blah, Ronald Reagan, blah blah blah, her family.
10:31 – Biden reclaims the word “change” for Obama. I’m feeling good. God bless America.
10:40 – Naturally I want to call this for Biden. And I think issues wise, he won. He was is the better debater. And I could tell he was holding himself back from the zingers that he’s so good at. (On Rudy Guiliani: “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”) I sort of wish he had let her have it a little bit more.
But here’s the thing about Palin– she didn’t have any egregious gaffes, which is what we were all wishing for. Except calingl a U.S. General by the wrong name…and some other minor stuff. Anyway, the standard was so low for her that all she really had to do was give an answer, use folksy language and bat her eyes. I wonder what would have happened if she had been forced to do more follow up questions. She was well-rehearsed, and it showed. She was, after all, in beauty pageants. Except that she isn’t really looking for world peace.
What do you think?
[Posted by Kathleen]
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