My shins don�t hurt when I walk anymore! Yay for me!!! :)

There was a Democratic debate on CNN Last week. I watched it. I enjoyed it, probably more so than any up until now. Well, except that I thought Dennis Kucinich was practically ignored, as were Carol Mosley Braun and Al Sharpton. The CNN moderator, as well as the panel who was asking the first half of the questions, focused primarily on five others � Dean, Lieberman, Clark, Kerry and Gephardt.

I know I�m biased. I wouldn�t even have mentioned the slight, though, if I had not heard the same opinion from various sources.

I am getting increasingly more pissed off at the media�s seemingly conscious efforts to avoid entirely talking about candidates who are not shown in polls as being �frontrunners�. First of all, polls mean very little to me. Half the time, they are off the mark entirely and they obviously change on a weekly basis. I also think they actually influence peoples' votes.

More importantly, the press seems to be making choices for we, the voting public. They choose who should get media coverage. And why is it you think these people are front-runners anyway? Not to degrade their merits as candidates, but do we really have a legitimate choice when we aren�t being given fair and balanced information on all candidates? If the press chooses to ignore somebody or some issue, he/she/it gets ignored. If they decide, as the LA Times recently did, that a few days before an election is the right time to disclose a candidate�s prior faux pas (I�m talking about Arnold here), they will do so. If they decide, as they have in the last decade, that even though violent crime among minors has gone down by 17% since 1990, their coverage of such violent crimes should increase by 700%* so as to make everyone a paranoid, nervous wreck, so be it.

Um...Excuse me...I really did not think this was what the press was for.

I really shouldn�t have taken up this subject, though, because I feel a rampage coming on and I just don�t have the energy right now.

Therefore � aside from the above-mentioned issue with fair representation, I found this latest debate to be rather entertaining. And boy, how they did attack the new kid on the block � Wesley Clark.

I don�t know much about Wesley Clark. What I know I don�t like much. I will say, these guys hit him where he hurts in their attacks and he did not offer up much of a defense. In fact, he rarely said anything that actually meant something.

As you may or may not know, my niece Carla�s husband John was in the army for six years, part of which was spent in Kosovo (John was just discharged like a week ago, in fact). One of the biggest complaints against Clark is that he supported the Iraqi war up until he decided to become a Democrat, which was like a month ago. Carla, though, says that is not entirely true and that in one paragraph he would write something supportive about the war, but then go on to talk about all of the bad things we are doing. In essence, I think she was telling me his position was that he thought we should go after Iraq but that Bush did so shabbily.

I�m not sure�that kind of sounds like what he was trying to say in the debate�but I must say, he is really not very good at stating his positions. In the end, his defense consisted of statements like: �Well, I am not going to stand here and berate other democrats when what we really need to do is go after George Bush.� Well, yeah, that�s true...but I still need to know exactly why you are the one who I should vote for to go after Bush and you have failed to give me the slightest clue. What I am left with is the other candidates� accusation that you supported the war until it was politically convenient for you to do otherwise because you have failed to defend yourself in any real way.

*Source: Psychology Today, edition unknown. I think the complete info. is back in the annals of this here journal, because I�ve written about this before. Suffice it to say that I read an article in Psychology Today last year which gave me these statistics. It was an article about how media plays to our fears and encourages them in the name of ratings and sales, rather than telling us�well, the truth, as it turns out.

~~~

Anyway. In other news: John spent the weekend with me. Saturday was mostly spent walking. We spent Sunday with my family, eating lots of salmon and halibut that Arnett caught in Alaska. Man...what yumminess!

Sondra is taking me to Disneyland this coming Sunday, as my belated birthday gift. Yippee!!! Oh how I love the Happiest Place on Earth. I know � so doesn�t sound like me, does it? I have always loved Disney stuff, though. I even own most of their animated movies. I used to have an annual pass to Disneyland for a few years, but I haven�t been now for like two years. And I�ve never been to California Adventure (the new park, adjacent to Disneyland, for those of you who do not live in Cali.) at all. Right now, Disneyland is having a deal where when you buy a ticket you get a free ticket to go back to Ca. Adventure. So now I get to make John go there with me, too. Woo-Hoo!

OK, luck time. Since I haven�t eaten yet today, I really need to go get something to eat. So hasta kids!

~~~

Word of the Day for Tuesday October 14, 2003:

cerebration ser-uh-BRAY-shuhn, noun:

The act or product of thinking; the use of the power of reason; mental activity; Thought.

~~~

Quote a Day:

After the verb 'to love,' the verb 'to help' is the most beautiful verb in the world. --Bertha Von Suttner

Inspiration of the Day:

In 1987, three neighbors in tiny Weston, Vermont, gathered over coffee to compare notes on their recent trips to Mexico. Years later one of them, Ike Patch, would say it was the best cup of coffee they ever had. Mexico has more billionaires than any other third-world country, yet 40 percent of its people live in extreme poverty -- compared with 25 percent in India -- and are not helped by their government. So Ike and friends decided to at least do something small. Sixteen years later, their "small" initiative, called VAMOS!, has blossomed into eighty-two projects that aid about forty communities in the Mexican state of Morelos and serve 370,000 meals per year to impoverished people, including 2,200 children. Ike Patch, at 91, still leads the effort!

Be The Change:

Support Vamos

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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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