I Apologize for the Hiatus

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been really busy. Between my GRE this Saturday, a billion schools to apply to (which require 2 essays each), a full-time job that takes forever both to get to and to come from, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and spending time with my lovely lady, sometimes I feel too lazy to blog it up. However, I know how much my readers anticipate the venom that I spew forth, and how much they've missed it. I know this because I got a complaint that I was posting too few and far in between.

I'm going to try to make this a short post. I tend to get overexcited and try to get all of my thoughts down at once. First, I want to lightly cover baseball. Rays, good job. I heartily congratulate you. Sox: you didn't win the pennant but you made it a bruising fight, commencing with an incredible comeback starting in the 7th inning of Game 5. I have to applaud that, despite my disappointment at the final outcome. That a team could go from AAA-caliber to winning the pennant of their league is to be applauded. It's actually pretty miraculous. No one ever thought that the Rays would be anything more than a doormat for Boston and New York to piss on.

As for the election - I don't even know what's the point of talking about it, although talk about it I damn well will. It's pretty scary how easily and quickly Americans have fallen in love with Barack Obama. He's got a silver tongue and he's even kinda funny, as we saw at the Alfred E. Smith dinner at the Waldorf in NYC. But the lack of curiosity about the man continues to appall me: no medical records needed, nothing about his past important, nothing about his associations are important. What is important? Oh, that he's the one we've been waiting for. Why is he? Because he's going to "change" things. Change what? "......" I can't hear you. "...Fuck Bush, man. He's an asshole." Thanks for your scholarly exegesis.

Look, this is hyperbole. There are many thoughtful supporters of Obama, including many family members of mine. However, this country is a center-right country. Obama is hard left. Not sorta left, or left. Hard left. I understand that people are frustrated with Bush and his cronies because they're responsible for (fill in anything horrible that has happened in the past eight years anywhere in the world that comes to mind here). Dick Cheney invented a time machine, went back in time, shot Lazar Kaganovich in the face "accidentally", took over his post, and increased the efficiency of the Holodomor. I know all of this. BUT -if the people of this country were made more aware of Obama's actual philosophy, positions, and past, maybe they would see beyond his silver tongue. The fact that he has been portrayed as some sort of messianic figure is a joke, except that it isn't as funny as it should be, because so many people are buying into it, whether realizing it or not. They call him "transformational", they say he will heal the partisan divide, make the rising waters slow, etc. They have absolutely no evidence to support any of this. Indeed, it is based on what people want to think. They want to believe that Obama is a post-partisan and -racial candidate who will make everything hunky dorey by simply sitting down with someone and soothing him/her with his mellifluous voice. In fact, they actually do believe this; they have made themselves believe it.

If you were to watch only MSNBC and the "analysts" on CNN (read: liberal commentators), you would think that John McCain was a hybrid of John Wayne Gacy and William Calley. Because I'm into serious sadomasochism like my boy Dice-K (see first post), sometimes I watch MSNBC just to see what Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann say. I don't know about Maddow but I know Olbermann pretends to have a veneer of neutrality, which is a joke. I know Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are blowhards too, but guess what - they know they are conservative and they make it clear. The thing that makes Olbermann and Maddow laughable is that not only are they so in the tank for Obama that their brains are dead from want of oxygen, but I have never seen a conservative or Republican on their show to contest them. Sean Hannity has liberals on his show to debate all the time. Everytime Olbermann and Maddow has a guest, it is ALWAYS a fellow liberal. They share snide remarks about Republicans and how "stupid" they are, hate on McCain and Palin and Joe the Plumber. Which means they never have to defend the bullshit that continuously pours from their mouths. They never have to debate, or to look at it from the other side. It's easy to share smirks with those who support you. This is the problem with the media - they all think alike so they don't really think to think otherwise. In other words, it's a big circle jerk.

But this charade of the media continues. Joe the Plumber has been given a public colonoscopy. I don't care whether he owes taxes, that his first name is Samuel, etc. I don't. I care about who is running for office. He's just a dude in Ohio who asked a candidate for president a legit question. The main news-getter should be Obama's socialist response to Joe's query. The media, though, has reacted in predictable fashion and has turned on a private citizen who did nothing but ask the guy a question. If an "average Joe" had asked McCain a hard question which required an extemperaneous response which he had flubbed, the media would be festooning praise on the guy. Inviting him on "The View," etc. But we all know that you can't question Obama. I'm not talking bash, or be racist about. I'm talking, you can't question him. Joe (or Samuel, or whatever), learned this quickly. Don't you know better than to question the Lord thy God, you fucking peon?

We all know McCain's deal, Palin's deal, and we all know whether or not Joe the Plumber has ever been late to a doctor's appointment. But we know very little about Obama. Yeah, we know a few things, but when you get down to it, you don't know much. You know what you want to know and you see what you want to see. Any sort of criticism of Obama is castigated as racism, no matter how it's posited. I have covered this on another post, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Anything mentioning Franklin Raines: racist. Mention Paris Hilton: playing into the racist stereotype of lustful blacks chasing blondes. In other words, "Shut your mouth, McCain and let Obama win this election. You're not being a good enough loser. Don't you know you're supposed to lose?"

A New York Times reporter has sent messages to associates of McCain's daughter, via Facebook, to get the inside scoop (on what, I don't know). If the media showed half of this dedication in trying to find out things about Obama, then maybe the poll numbers would look different (or maybe if they stopped polling a majority of Democrats). I want every one of you reading this to google "Obama and Odinga". Because Ayers isn't enough to sway people. Neither is Wright. But you all know that if McCain had these sort of associations, the media would be in our face with a new revelation every day. You know it, I know it. We all know it. If you don't know it, then you really do know it and you're lying to yourself.

In sum, if the media showed even a modicum of the gusto with uncovering stuff about Obama as they do with McCain, then people would be able to make an informed decision. But because they don't, all we hear are the positives of one and the negatives of the other. Which means that, if one does not do his or her own research, one will vote for the man the media touts as the better of the two. This is what's happening. Most people aren't curious enough to do their own reading beyond the paper or the evening news, they just take everything they're told at face value. If Obama wins, this is why. Not because he is some miraculous Lightworker.

Soon to come (and I mean immediately): a post on McCain and how, now that he is the Republican nominee, he is such a mean jerk.