Karen
9/29/09
Gary -- you got me with the picture this morning. I was thinking NO WAY! Look forward to the new (easier) ones next week. We watched the Jeopardy with Wolfe -- he was terrible. They usually send the people away if they are in the hole, but Alex made an exception and gave him $1,000 for final Jeopardy. Nice fall day, chiily in the morning -- could actually see your breath, but now it's nice and sunny. Erika has Teen Court soon, so I should get her there on time....

Blitzer did manage to walk away with $2000 (for charity) only because they wiped out his negative score and spotted him a thousand bucks for the final question, and then served up a softball that all three contestants got right.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wolf Blitzer is the most overrated journalist on TV. He acts like he's Walter Cronkite, and he's barely a Ted Baxter. :-)

Oh, and one more thing: new pictures today.

Excellent! See you Saturday! --Gary

If you plan to check them out, the displays have to be completed by 10:30 am Friday (they are judged at noon). The campus streets will be closed on Friday from 6 to no later than 7 for a parade. So anytime before or after that should work.

[ooops, pulled from YouTube]

Sheesh, I wish the lawyers who have nothing to do except pull videos from YouTube could have spent a little of their free time watching over the Constitution during the Bush years. If you want to see the MoveOn spot with Will Ferrell, go here.

So, if you want to order a magazine & help Mickle out & help me earn some prizes this year (cash!) here's how you order:

1. Go here.
2. Drop down menu select "Nebraska"
3. For school type "Mickle"
4. And student name type "Tristen"
5. Click Search & up above it will have the option to click on Mickle Middle School, Lincoln, NE School code 129765
6. Browse the magazines
7. Make your selections

Remember, if you already get a magazine or two you can renew through this fundraiser & Mickle gets the proceeds! This is the easiest way to get something you already love-your magazine & help Mickle & Me out! Or, get magazine subscriptions as Xmas gifts for others!

If I sell 12 items I get into a drawing for cash. The lowest bill is a $10, or I could draw $20, $50 or $100. If I sell 24 items I get to draw twice, 36, 3 times, etc.

You have to order by Wednesday night, September 23rd, but it just takes a few minutes!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Tristen

P.S. Don't forget to order because I get my name in a drawing for either $500 or $1,000!!!!!!

Here's a brief article that supplies some interesting facts and figures on both sides.

And here is a not-too-shabby music video on the same subject:

Check out FairVoteNebraska.com.

I am looking forward to the new Dan Brown book, should try to get it this week-end.

Dang, Emily, get well soon! As for "The Lost Symbol," I just now finished it. WOW! Much better than the Da Vinci Code, in my opinion. An amazing book, and I can't wait to see it as a movie! --Gary

Chapter 3 opens with Robert Langdon riding a limo from Dulles Airport to the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. It's about a 30-minute ride which takes him across the Potomac River. In the map above, he's arriving from the left edge, and Dan Brown specifies he's on the Memorial Bridge. He says, "Directly in front of the car, the Lincoln Memorial rose with rigid austerity" -- which is so, and "farther away ... the Washington Monument loomed dead ahead" -- which it does. But then he says, "Langdon gazed left, across the Tidal Basin, toward the gracefully rounded silhouette of the Jefferson Memorial..." Ooops. If Langdon gazed left, he would see the Watergate Hotel and Georgetown in the distance. He would have to gaze right to see the Jefferson Memorial.

Good. Then maybe I won't catch it this year. :-) --Gary

What was the flu news? I missed it. --Gary

Story 1: A while back on this page (almost exactly a year ago--I just now looked it up!), I did one of those "entertainment updates" in which I mentioned a good-looking movie then in production. It was untitled then, but now it is soon to be released as Creation, a biographical picture about Charles Darwin and his formulation of the theory of evolution. It stars Paul Bettany (who is most famous for his role as the "invisible" friend in A Beautiful Mind) and Jennifer Connelly (who was the wife in A Beautiful Mind and is Bettany's real-life wife). The trailer for the picture looks great (view it here), but it may be a long while before any of us see it. Why? Because U.S. film distributors feel the film is "too controversial" and are unwilling to show it. They're afraid of all the Bible-literalists who believe the world was created in six days 4000 years ago....

Story 2: It was announced over the weekend that the Philadelphia Public Library System will be shutting down due to lack of funds. Let me say that again: the public library system in Philadelphia, the city where America was born, is shutting down in less than a month due to lack of funds. I am glad the Founding Fathers aren't alive to see this. (Of course, if they were alive, they would already have shot themselves during the Bush administration, but I digress.) I thought schools and education had been under-funded about as low as it could go in this country, but it seems I was wrong. What kind of a country is okay with spending hundreds of billions of dollars on propping up corrupt banking and brokerage firms (not to mention hundreds of billions on pointless wars), and yet is unwilling to to spend a tiny fraction of that on books and schools? Of course this is fine with the Rush Limbaughs and Glen Becks of the world: The stupider the voters are, the easier it is to elect Republicans. On a related note, I also heard this morning that Gov. Schwarzeneggar of California is proposing eliminating all textbooks from the California school system as a cost-cutting move -- "let 'em learn off the internet!"

Both these stories may be false alarms: Maybe Creation will be picked up by a distributor this afternoon, and maybe the Philadelphia library system made their announcement only to scare people into action. I hope so. But the fact these stories are even stories at all is a sad sign.

Sorry to be a downer first thing Monday morning. Feel free to change the subject! :-)

He's out of the White House now, thank God, but there are still other dangerously stupid Republicans in Washington. The one getting all the attention at the moment is Joe "The Heckler" Wilson, the white-supremacist Senator from South Carolina who interrupted a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress by yelling "You lie!" Unbelievable. After the speech, when it began to be reported who had done the yelling, I went to Wilson's web site to leave him a comment (to the effect that he owed the President and the Senate an apology, and further that he didn't deserve to set foot in the halls of Congress), but his website was jammed -- I presume because many other people with similar messages were trying to get through. I understand his phones were jammed too -- nothing but a constant busy signal. I never did get through; his site is still jammed as of this minute, two days later. (I did later find a direct link to his email and got my message sent.)

Obama's speech was great (in case you missed it), and approval for his health care plan among "undecideds" went from below fifty percent before to nearly seventy percent after. And seeing all those disapproving sleepy Republicans sitting on their hands during the speech gave Obama a Jimmy Stewart "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" quality. I think the Republicans' negativity made Obama's approval numbers go higher as much as the speech itself did. Certainly Wilson's "You lie!" outburst had an effect: Wilson's Democratic challenger (for next year's election) received nearly a million dollars in donations in the 24 hours following the speech! When he ran against Wilson in the previous election he had a campaign fund total of around $300,000 (and lost by only a few percentage points).

Wilson apparently called the White House shortly after the speech to apologize. In a brief appearance later -- where I was pleased to note he looked shaken and nervous -- he said the "Republican leadership" insisted he make the call. But now, two days later, after no doubt receiving lots of supportive messages from the other racists out there, he has recanted and says he "stands by" his remark. Beyond being merely uncivil and undignified and turning the United States Senate into the Jerry Springer Show, this weasel actually broke several regulations that apply to him. One, you are specifically forbidden in the Senate bylaws from calling another member a liar (let alone the President). Also, he's a National Guard reservist, and there are regulations about insulting a superior officer (let alone your Commander-in-Chief). Yet so far, the Democrats are showing their usual spinelessness. Nancy Pelosi, who was visibly shocked at Wilson's outburst at the time (watch her around the 1:23 mark), is now making nice with "let bygones be bygones" and "it's in the past" and saying she didn't plan to make any reprimands. One can only hope that this is all for the news cameras, and behind the scenes the Dems plan to make life miserable for The Heckler. If Lyndon Johnson was around, this guy would suddenly be serving on the Senate Cafeteria Cleanup Subcommittee and nothing else for the rest of his term....

P.S.: Here's one of the funnier moments of the evening: Lindsey Graham starting to clap and then suddenly remembering he's a Republican. :-)

Wow, what a stroke of genius! She will be fantastic on that show. --Gary

The "squirrel photo-crasher" has become an internet phenomenon. Millions of hits worldwide on that photo, and on the many spin-off sites -- like this one. :-) --Gary

Thanks for all the birthday greetings, everyone. Had an excellent day yesterday. In the late afternoon I suddenly decided to buy myself a new camera, and did. Took it over to Grandma's that evening for a fun party which included cake, candles, and balloons. Photographic evidence here.

Long week-end is just about over. Brent took Friday off too and seems to be feeling better. He and the girls did go to Artsplash on Saturday. Yesterday we all went shopping and then out for lunch. Today is just a lazy day at home.

What did everyone else do for the week-end? Amanda -- did you make it to the fair?

No particular plans, though I am taking the day off. I'll be happy if it's a slightly better day than last year. :-) --Gary

On another note, we felt the Christmas spirit and started the Christmas list for next year since everyone likes to start shopping early! Tristen and Teghan are helping me and Amanda draw names. Gary sent me the lists for the last few years so we'll be able to mix up who buys for who.

If you answered yes to both of those questions, you may be interested in this: Buddha-shaped pears. The page is in Spanish so I'm not getting the details, but apparently you put this plastic form around the growing pear, and it comes out Buddha-shaped. Cool!

Thanks, Lindsey! --Gary

Shadow has gotten very big! He is definately bigger than Max, and dad thinks he is at least twice as big! We're going to puppy classes and those are good so far. The old class we had had like 8 dogs and 15 people. One lady brought her husband and her neighbor. It was just way too crowded so we got into a later class that's on Monday nights. There is two other dogs and just the owners with them, no neighbors! Shadow is definately the biggest of the dogs, then again he is almost a month older than one of the other dogs.

That's all I think I had to say--so I'll talk to you all later!!!