Just when I thought it was safe to turn my TV back on...

I can't turn away, hard as I try, from the Michael Jackson funeral. It reminds me of a major mob do.

Six of our Marines were killed in Afghanistan yesterday. There is currently a major offensive in the south of Afghanistan. Major.

Liberty Hall at Forest Lawn Cemetery is the site for the family and friends portion of the funeral this morning. There's an aerial shot of pallbearers hauling out a huge gold casket to a waiting hearse. Good Lord, there must be fifty limos lined up--like Jackson was a president himself! What a strange country we live in.

Iraq is trying to play house now that we're pulling out. Hard to believe, isn't it, that we are actually getting out of there? I think it's a mistake, but my time at war college is limited.


Staples Center, known for Lakers basketball, is the venue for the bigger-than-life memorial for MJ whose contribution to society are those of a dancer and singer! Unfortunately, the city of Los Angeles, which is broke, is paying for the security and police (overtime) and accompanying costs. This unbelievable fact seems irrelevant to the Jackson family, who has enabled him and excused him or were in denial of his unspeakable character defects.


"That girl," Sarah Palin, has flushed her political career down the toilet by quitting her governorship in Alaska, purportedly for the sake of the state. She has decided to maintain the four point chip on her shoulder and alienate the moderates--like me--in the Republican Party who were more than on her side. She's squandered an opportunity with her stubbornness which has taken on an unattractive side. Instead of an interesting, becoming maverick, she's become instead a boor with nothing but a lame excuse and old stories about how she's saved the average Alaskan a bunch of money, you betcha, wink, wink. That is so over, Sarah.


They (the "theys" who know) say that MJ's casket will be on stage. Will it be open or closed? Oh, wait. It's Smokey Robinson. He's reading a letter from Diana Ross. Couldn't she bring herself to go to his funeral? LOL. What strange, selfish people these entertainers are. Gee, it sure is quiet in the Staples Center right now...you'd think the guy was a saint or something. I just don't get it.


VP Biden told everyone on Saturday the Obama Administration "misread" the economy. No one quite explained how the stimulus would thus work.


(Sigh)

Good grief, this thing does look like a mob funeral. I hear there are 6500 empty seats. Hmmm.

North Korea is continuing its weirdness. Do you suppose Kim Jong Il just wants to get the bomb off while he's still alive? I wouldn't be surprised.

Everyone who's anyone is at this funeral. Even Magic and Tobey came to talk about his philanthropies. What a guy, huh? Guess they missed all those stories about child molestation. Gosh, I must just have a dirty mind.

Robert McNamara, the ex secy of Defense during Vietnam, died this last weekend. Some of us remember him. For those who don't know, he was about as popular as Donald Rumsfeld.

Does anyone else wonder why all these famous people have shown up now that MJ's dead? Where were they when he was on trial for child molestation? I think it's rather odd.

Barack Obama has Freudian slipped his way into the good graces of Prime Minister Putin by addressing him as "President," and further flatters him by indicating the error was natural mistake considering...Mrs. O looks very odd, I must say, in her choice of fashions. I think they're too casual for the occasion, but then I think SHE's too casual all the way around. I'm just saying, I'd like to see her dress up some...the girls look wonderful, as usual. What cuties they are!

Good Lord, the Jacksons are letting that little girl, Paris, speak. She looks exactly like her mother, Debbie Rowe, sweet child.

It looks like we're not going to get out of this recession any time soon. The unemployment rate where I live is 11.5%. Of the seven people with whom we spent July 4th, five were unemployed. Of those six people, all were upside down on their mortgages, most were at least 100 thousand or more dollars upside down. Of those six people, all were prime borrowers with credit FICO scores of 750 to 825 and 20 years of excellent credit histories. All were over 50 years of age. Two were small business owners; the rest worked for companies. Three had mortgages in jeopardy and one in default, one owned freed and clear and the others not in default yet, but they were worried. The two people working were worried about losing their jobs as they were laying off their subordinates. We are all Repubicans. We just keep looking for jobs and wishing the banks would work with us (which they will not unless you're late).

It is wonderful that Michael Jackson has finally been laid to rest. Now can we finally move on?

Thanks for the read.

Sarah Palin's idea of advancement

Sarah Palin should probably run for P.T.A. president, because that is about all she's capable of handling.


Her desultory, you-won't-have-me-to-kick-around-anymore press conference on Friday made clear to me that she is completely incapable of handling a major job outside of Alaska.


Prior to that, I was keeping an open mind. However, she now has demonstrated that her prickly skin is so thin, that I'm convinced a national office for her is not in the Republican Party's best interest.


The talk over the weekend at the gathering we attended was one of sympathy for Palin; however, I was the only one who thought she was completely out of her element, get out of kitchen if you can't stand the heat. Once I suggested we were speaking about the presidency, then asking everyone if they have heard ANYTHING new and fresh from her since they've been introduced to her--they hadn't because she's said NOTHING new--a couple of my friends admitted that what I was saying was true.

Now that she's resigned from her job--bad move--she's lost her credibility and shown me she can't go the distance.

Plus, she's become arrogant.

Thanks for the read.

Palin's redux in Vanity Fair

If you read the Vanity Fair piece about Sarah Palin you'll realize it's an awful lot like a recapitulation of Sarah's failures during the presidential campaign--in the eyes of the most vain and ridiculous of the media cultural elite.

There's nothing really new therein--something I was looking for--except maybe the latest dirty laundry statements made by Steve Schmidt, McCain's guy, about Sarah being a total whack job. He suggested she may have been deep in post partum depression (Yeah, that's it.) Other than that, most of the story was a gossipy thing, lazily written by someone who sounds like he'd be a silly type anyway, if one were to decide carry on a conversation with him. In other words, you know he'd never step up and do something serious with you.

And much of it is the usual he said she said.

After the election, I wrote that Governor Palin desperately needed to hit the books, find a subjects committee and work her little fanny off in research and learning, understand and base her beliefs in sound theory...work on the presentation. There were others who agreed that she does possess the "quick study" capability, and with some honing and grooming...well, maybe she could influence or at least hold her own with a hostile media. At least, they couldn't take advantage of her knowledge, or make fun of her lack thereof.

Well, evidently Mrs. Palin has decided against working within such a leveling constraint because here she is--bigger than before: at a ball game, hockey game, shopping, here and there. She's picked a fight with Letterman and sort of won; she's currently picking a fight with Vanity Fair and the McCain advisers (which will do NOTHING to help her); and she's continuing to play in the dirt with the rest of them. I can see her being "difficult." Sorry. She does so at her own risk, I think.

There's still time, maybe, for her to return to Alaska and become a hermit.

Thanks for the read.