Rob Bell's New Career

Has anyone seen Rob Bell's new commercial?

We all know Rob has been known to delve into the acting world, and he has SoCal connections, and the Best Buy employee's name is "Brad Hill"...

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I'm just saying...

Comments

A few things in the news today:
- Elderly man freezes to death: An absolute shame. A WWII vet from Michigan died alone in his home because his power was shut off. From the article, it wasn't clear "if anyone had made personal contact with (the man) to explain" what actions were being taken after his bills were left unpaid.
We're turning into machines. Cold, insensitive, robots. This is one example, but it happens all over the world in greater numbers than we'd like to think about.

- Senate extend HDTV deadline: Conversely, endless updates for months have plagued the airwaves, warning people that if they didn't prepare themselves, they'd lose their TV signal. The government has even provided coupons to help people with their TVs. And now, millions of dollars will be spent to extend a deadline that we have known about for years.

A man is left to die in the cold, but we let the Senate worry about our TVs? Is there an issue with priorities? Enough already!

VP Debate

I made it home last night in time for most of the vice-presidential debate. I missed the "Can I call ya Joe?" comment, but I did hear all of the meat.

Overall, I enjoyed the debate and was charmed by both candidates. Palin certainly made up for her awkward interviews with Katie Couric, and Biden was clear and concise in expressing his positions. I appreciated that neither of them were shy in defining their positions. The same-sex marriage issue was particularly interesting, as both of them spoke with honest candor.

My issue is with the coverage of the debates. Let me elaborate....

I am an American, born and raised. My parents are the same way, and their parents before them, and their parents before them. In fact, I've always said the only thing more American than me is a Native American! My family doesn't have close ties to our European roots because

1) they're so mixed that it's pointless to try and break it down into percentages (English, German, Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, French, etc...), and

2) Centuries and generations have passed since the majority of my ancestors left their respective lands and came over to America, losing or blending their languages and cultures into a rural, northern/Great American culture.

I lay down my credentials as a bread and butter American to ask the following. Where did I miss the turn? Where did my fellow Americans become unrecognizable to me? Or better yet, when did I become unrecognizable to my fellow Americans?

After the debate last night, television and print media took Sarah Palin to task for how she spoke. Is this normal? Has this become accepted and I missed the memo? Sure, comedy pieces have been written about the Kennedy's New England accent, or a deep south politician's drawl, but a serious news piece about speech behavior? I pulled some lines from an AP article for an example: "You became 'ya,' change was 'comin' and a class of third-graders even got a 'shout-out' from the Alaska governor."
Is there anything inherently wrong with that? I know a lot of people who speak like that, and I sometimes speak like that myself. A news commentator on CBS last night noticed with disdain how she "began to drop her G's at the ends of words" and how she was appealing to the folksy element of the American population. Also, for effect:

"I found her folksy talk insulting and inappropriate for someone running for the vice presidency," added an Obama supporter. That is nothing more than an elitist attitude of superiority based solely on the fact that he was raised somewhere where she wasn't, which is logic built on a house of cards. Now, I know accent superiority exists in this country and others, but I honestly thought we had moved forward. If you want to report on Palin (or McCain, or Biden, or Obama), report on their policies, not the way they talk. Leave that to Tina Fey.

Term Limits

So Florida and Michigan were fully reinstated back into the Democratic Convention beginning next week and the Republicans are expected to follow suit. Their delegates will have full voting rights that were denied to them at the beginning of the year because of breaking the party rules.

I'm sure I could make a case for the ineptitude of the current system to begin with, that is, having early primaries in some states that effectively send the latter states into relative voting oblivion. Why even bother in Indiana when Iowa and New Hampshire have already made their voices heard months in advance, giving the media a chance to squash whatever chances the candidate had that was truly popular in your state (i.e. Rudy Giuliani's Florida disaster)? 

But now that Michigan and Florida are back in after being black-sheeped most of the year, what message does that send? That there are no consequences? Sure, with the inclusion of these two states, we might be talking Clinton v Romney instead of Obama v McCain, which would have been completely counter-productive to what the national parties had designed, that is, disallowing that an early primary affect the race on a national level, but who's counting?

It's all pretty bad, and I fear that if nothing changes, it will set a bad precedent for 2012. I mean 2011. 

Because that is when we will really being voting in newer, earlier primaries.

It's been a long year.

never before and maybe never again

Don't ask me how or why, but I'm way into gymnastics this Olympics. Intense stuff, both in terms of competition and physical ability. 

Don't tell anyone...

eight years ago

i was skinnier, goofier, listened to loud music and had a good time at concerts.