Well, apparently Hell has frozen over...

Or perhaps the opposite has occurred. I came home tonight and it appears (at least as far as I could see) that my street has, indeed, been ploughed. Kudos to Lexington for adding contractors to help this year. It was a very pleasant surprise, anyway.

It was nice to be back at work today, and I caught up pretty quickly. One of the ladies at work who is subbing for a co-worker out on maternity leave came in and asked me if I’d seen the Sarah Palin endorsement of Donald Trump. I’d seen the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, but she told me that the original was far more surreal. So on my break I watched that and the Stephen Colbert take on it. Oh, my goodness. It was worse than I thought. What scares me? Americans actually pay attention to these two self-absorbed egomaniac blowhards. Only Sarah Palin would make a political endorsement in a showy blouse and talk a lot about herself, rambling on and on saying crude things about the current President and looking like she’s laughing at the very people she’s talking to at the same time. Both she and Trump sicken me.

Granted, I’m the one with a Bernie Sanders sticker on her car, but the man has something these people don’t have (or Hillary Clinton either, in my opinion)—integrity and consistency. The only thing that I have any doubts on Bernie about is foreign policy, but on the one thing, he’s smart enough, as my co-worker said, to surround himself with experts on it, and compared to people like Trump—who has the capability to pretty much undermine any foreign policy and alienate virtually any sane country on the planet, and who has been the subject of a debate in the UK Parliament concerning a ban on his visiting, Bernie looks damn good in comparison. It’s horrible that he’s making gains on fear-mongering, as well. On the other hand, I don’t trust Hillary Clinton one bit, and the whole e-mail server thing frankly causes me to question her intelligence. It’s simply common sense to handle sensitive material—of importance to governmental operations—on secure government servers. I don’t transact my company’s business on my personal e-mail—and I work for a non-profit with no real trade secrets, much less government security secrets. Even if there were no real sensitive information—and it does not look like that’s the case—it was colossally dumb, and even if she were that naïve, someone on her staff should have had a clue. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I thought that it was horrible that the stupid in our country actually elected George W. Bush twice. Now I’m beginning to think that it’s going to be far worse.

Okay, I’ll leave my political musings to that for now. I think I’m going to go find something fun to do, now that I’m home, and take some of my medicine. Good night, just in case I don’t write any more tonight.

There was this skit on 'Saturday Night Live' tonight

With Tina Fey reprising her role as Sarah Palin giving a speech in support of Donald Trump,  making fun of the actual one given in Iowa. The guy playing Trump says,  'She's about two Corinthians short of a Bible.' I love that.  I'm going to keep that in mind for decribing crazy Bible-thumpers in the future,  since, of course,  one of the most quoted passages (but not by them,  when expressing their vitriol) on love is found in II Corinthians.  :)  Real Christians tend to focus on the love in the Bible,  not the hate.

I had the Tonight Show on in the background, a rerun

and then this came on...and I laughed, and I laughed, as William Shatner takes on the poetic resignation speech of Sarah Palin.

I wish I'd seen these during the campaign

The first is a send up of Hillary vs. Obama as part of an epic battle in a galaxy far, far away. Bill as the Emperor is a great touch. YKWIA, who showed me the video, thinks Rev. Wright should have been Jar Jar Binks. :)



The second was aired more than a year before Sarah Palin became a vice-presidential candidate, so I guess Craig Ferguson was quite possibly the first national figure to draw the similarity between Palin and...a naughty librarian. :) I think Craig's a bit naughty, too, but after all, he is Scottish. ;)



Sometimes the YouTube comments under the video can be very interesting, and that is the case with this one. In one exchange, the first person, going by the moniker derajsyla15 used the 'f' word a lot and basically said in a cruder way that he'd like to cut her head off and feed her to special needs children. Really. So there was of course a reply, and it was great: 'You come across as a very articulate and mature person, I'm going to take all your comments seriously. But other than that, you seem like a serial killer that belongs in an asylum.' (from irsh4lyf3). It was a comment worthy of YKWIA.

Good night.

Some thoughts

I really wish Kentucky would extend its voting hours. 6 am-6 pm (at least in many areas--we have a variable schedule--some areas have until 7 pm) doesn't work for many workers or parents trying to get their kids to and from school. I took the day off just in case of problems. Not everyone has that luxury.

I apparently belong to one of only two precincts in Lexington with less than 100 voters registered. I know this because a news story mentioned that there were two with only one voting machine because of this. I guess that means if I don't want to encounter lines, I have to stay put. :)

I really think McCain lost this election not because the oeconomy tanked in September (let's face it, it's been doing so for months now--it just became more palpable due to Wall Street tanking), but because 1) his campaign never really found a direction to go forward with (chasing issues from here and there, not really presenting what John McCain himself stood for well, not like Obama's platform for change and slogans that included people like 'Yes, we can') but even more importantly, 2) the choice of Sarah Palin as running mate. No matter how much he might have been liked by many voters, it proved to be a very telling about his judgement, and I think many voters could not stomach her being a heartbeat away from the presidency--not because she is a woman, I think that has nothing to do with it--but because she is Sarah Palin. She has some very scary ideals that believe it or not do not resonate with the majority of Americans, and is obviously unprepared to be vice-president, much less president.

I think the gender card got played way too much during this race. I did not favour Hillary Clinton based on her personality. It had nothing to do with her gender. And I found the selection of Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate insulting, knowing that there were many other Republican women who would have served very well. It seems like some people had an idea that as long as someone had the female plumbing than we are all interchangeable, which is not the case. I would love to have a female candidate I could really have gotten behind like I did with Obama. But whilst I won't say I would have voted McCain over Clinton in this election, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to vote for her, and would only have done so out of necessity. I could not have voted for McCain, however, once he selected Palin, because among other things I question his judgement strongly over that one. I'd rather have a candidate I can believe in. I found that with Obama.

Also, I'm happy that in the end, race was not as important as say, oeconomy. Obviously there was a huge turnout among blacks and apparently a very good one among Latinos. And looking at the breakdown in Applalachian counties (at least in my state), the numbers for McCain over Obama were very strong--but it's unclear whether that had to do with race or if they're just such Republican counties). But one of the pundits also pointed out that a different demographic which Obama did well with were college-educated whites, a group Democratic candidates have not done well with in the past. Since I'm part of that demographic, I'm glad we were able to make a difference.

An embarrassed alumna

Effigy of Obama Found Hanging From Tree

I guess we have racist boneheads at UK, too (but I'd argue they're pretty much everywhere). The comments to the news story are especially interesting, many pointing out that there is a very different reaction from people and the media of the incident vs. the gay couple who as part of their Halloween decorations in West Hollywood have hung an effigy of Sarah Palin and put John McCain on the chimney surrounded by flames like the Devil.

I think the history of lynching black people makes something of a difference. Nor do I think anyone is attacking Palin due to her gender--she and McCain were targeted because of their politics. But I agree that neither case should be treated like Halloween fun. I just don't think Palin's represents a hate crime (and wouldn't be treated as one under the law, which as far as I know doesn't recognise gender for hate crimes, which I think is unfortunate). The Obama effigy may be meant as a Halloween prank, or a political statement, but it strays more fully into hate crime territory. I don't support either 'statement', to be honest.

I definitely am embarrassed that this happened at my alma mater.

It's not the slickest of videos, nor will any singing careers be launched

--but I think it captures the fears of the liberals regarding the handbasket to hell we'll be in with Sarah Palin as Vice President. There is a bit of profanity.

'Hey Sarah Palin' (to the tune of 'Hey There Delilah' by the Plain White T's)


YKWIA: Be sure to show A this.

My favourite line?

Hey Sarah Palin, just because you're good at shootin'
Doesn't mean you have the ammo to negotiate with Putin

There's even a T-Shirt. :)

PS, here's hoping for a full recovery of a fellow medical librarian

***SEE UPDATE BELOW***

I didn't really read much of my RSS feeds, including news, over the week I was on vacation. I have 600 in my reader right now, and I went through a few earlier today. But one thing I did see was unfortunate, and I thought I'd mention it here. David Rothman, a medical librarian whose blog I read and who was named as a Mover and Shaker in Library Journal last time they came out with the list, had a heart attack a few days ago, followed by a quadruple bypass within 24 hours. There was a 90% blockage. David doesn’t smoke and is primarily a vegetarian, but apparently there is a family history of heart problems. He's not that old (he looks to be in his 30s or early 40s at the most). He and his wife were blessed with a baby this summer. I'm hope he's doing better now.

To put a face to a name, you can see David in a video shot earlier this year as part of a plenary session called Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices: Discovering the Participatory Web at the MLA annual meeting in May. He was the first presenter. He gave a great talk, and has a definite sense of humour. Or there's a nice article about him called 'Direct Effects: David Rothman, Community General Hospital' with a picture. Again, best wishes, and I hope everything turns out for David and his family.

UPDATE: Please see the next post for the real story. Basically, the David Rothman who had the heart attack was not the medical librarian who blogs at davidrothman.net. Their names are very similar, and it appeared in my library feed because David H Rothman (who did have the heart attack) is involved with E-Books.

Thanks to David (no H) for putting me straight, both in the comment below and on his blog. Sorry for the confusion/alarm, and a personaly apology to David for any misunderstandings that may arise. I've tried to update this in such a way, both with a new post and editing this one, so it'll make it through searches and RSS feeds okay.)

I hope to Gods this doesn't turn viral. I'll have more understanding for gaffes that politicians and reporters make (although I still love Biden's assertion that FDR addressed the country on television in 1929, when he wasn't president yet, no was there television. Hey, I'll still vote for him, even if he has a weak sense of history. At least he knows he's running for vice-president, which is more than you can say about Sarah Palin.)

I didn't get to see the actual debate because I was at work

but this is probably funnier...

I'm getting a late start on my first day of vacation

but since I got two hours' sleep on Saturday night, I'm cool with that. I just ate breakfast I think today will be relax day as a transition into working on projects, since there's not much time to work on notes or clean this afternoon. I have an appointment with my counselor at 3 pm, and I'm working an extra shift for my boss from 4-8. Then there's Heroes! I didn't have my Internet connexion when it premiered, so I didn't blog, but let me tell you, I was very excited. And Mohinder has gone down the much-travelled road of comic book mad scientist geniuses who inject themselves with untested serums. Agh! I'm not sure what he's transforming into (insectoid, perhaps), but it's no doubt going to be very, very bad, and hard to hide. I hope I can do an hour or so of notes tonight.

I spent part of my time last night on the site for the newest Saturday Night Live's Palin sketch (with Amy Poehler as Katie Couric interviewing Tina Fey as Sarah Palin). It's not as funny as last week, but the comments were very intersting. A person writing under the name CristinaMariaV refers to Obama as the anti-Christ and makes several racist comments about Jews and Blacks. I went ahead and flagged the racist comments because, well, although I believe in free speech, it doesn't really apply to hate speech. It was good to see that several other comments were people writing against such racist remarks. You can't take anything on the Internet at face value, but this person (who I assume is female, but have no proof) left remarks that give a particularly nasty look at an ignorant and racist mind.

Okay, I'm going to go for now. Have a great day!

Good grief

Okay, let me point out that witchcraft is real, although it's not what most people think it is, and many of the people who think they are witches are deluded. But isn't it good to know that the potential vice-president of our country has been blessed so evil witches don't get her?

Palin pastor prayed for 'witchcraft' protection: YouTube video shows McCain running mate being blessed at church service

You can see the video with the news story.

This is absolutely hilarious!

It's a Hilllary Clinton and Sarah Palin sketch from Saturday Night Live. Thanks to YKWIA for sharing it with me.