Comfort Dogs

I love the idea of these beautiful dogs comforting the children affected by the Newtown shooting.

Hallelujah

This has always been one of my favorite songs and it's just beautiful here.

Logos And Theme Music; Politicians And Guns

Food for thought.

Logos and Theme Music

Politicians and Guns

All Bo, All The Time

Well, not really, but I'm on a bit of a doggie kick this morning, so I'm posting a couple of cute videos of the first dog. First we have Bo in bunny ears:



Then he goes into full-on Christmas Elf mode:



Woof!

The White House Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from Bo Obama!

Still "Over-Egging The Pudding"

I've always loved "Les Miserables". I saw it on stage in Chicago in the early 1990's and I've listened to the CD soundtrack probably 1,000 times. (Although, full disclosure, I've never actually read the book...) Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the new movie, based on the stage play, so I was enjoying the positive review in the British paper The Telegraph. They like the film, great, and I was just reading along when there it was, in the last paragraph, another use of my new favorite expression, "over-egging the pudding." My first exposure to this charmingly British idiom was in an article about Paul Ryan's exaggerated marathon time, which I linked to last August. Now here it is again, this time slightly abbreviated and referring to "comic book camera angles." I'm still waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it in a sentence.

"We Deeply Regret The Incident..."

Wow. There's a nurse at the King Edward VII hospital in London who's now having a very bad day.

Update:  This really is embarrassing for the hospital and the nurse involved, because now that I've heard part of the tape, all I can say is "What was she thinking?" That Australian DJ doesn't sound even a little bit like the real queen. And someone was barking in the background, pretending to be a corgi? Hopefully this nurse has more medical expertise than her apparently minimal common sense and discretion.

Another thought: I was continuing to ponder how a nurse could possibly have mistaken an Australian DJ for the Queen of England when it occurred to me that mistaken identity isn't the real screw up. Even if the caller had been the actual Queen, it's still not OK to disclose confidential information about a patient over the phone to an extended family member without permission from the patient. How can a nurse with enough experience to care for a senior member of the royal family not know that?

People Announces The Big News

Elizabeth, George, Diana, William... What To Name The Baby?

The royal baby news is getting saturation coverage in the media, no surprise, with speculation about everything from when we'll see the first picture of Kate's baby bump to the actual due date to could it possibly be twins? One of the big questions is what to name the baby when he/she finally arrives. This article includes some fun possibilities, but I didn't decide to link to it until I noticed that it has a couple of significant errors. Come on, Today show! Don't you have a fact checker?

In the "George" section it says that the Queen's grandfather (George the fifth) led the nation through World War one, which is technically true, but it seems to me that George is a hot prospect for the baby's name because of the Queen's father (George the sixth) who lead the nation through World War two. The second mistake is just plain careless. In the "Philip" section, the writer describes Prince Philip, the baby's great-grandfather, as the "wife" of the reigning Queen. Really? NBC, don't you have anyone who can catch this stuff?

Things Change, Things Stay The Same

The Royal Baby

I read that when the future King Edward VIII was born, in 1894, royal historians noted that it was the first time in British history that there were three generations of living heirs in the direct line of succession to the throne: Edward's father (future King George V) and his grandfather (future King Edward VII) were both alive and kicking, along with his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria herself. Assuming there are no monarchical disasters between now and next summer, the same situation will be in effect when the next royal baby is born, who will be the child of Prince William, the grandchild of Prince Charles and the great-grandchild of Queen Elizabeth.

Just a little royal trivia as my way of saying congratulations to Will and Kate on the announcement of her pregnancy. For me the most interesting part of the announcement is that there's been a significant change in the rules concerning the succession. Historically boys took precedence over girls, regardless of birth order, but the British government and commonwealth are in the process of updating that rule, so if the first-born child is a girl, she'll get to keep her place at the head of the line, even if a brother shows up at some point in the future. (More trivia:  When the current Queen's father became King after the abdication of his elder brother in 1936, 10-year-old Princess Elizabeth is said to have started fervently praying for a brother, so she wouldn't have to be Queen.) The rule change is only fitting - after the Queen's exemplary 60-year reign, who could possibly look at a newborn princess and mutter "too bad it wasn't a boy."

For what it's worth, most of the top tier royal women in the recent past, including the Queen, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, the duchesses of Kent and Gloucester, Princess Alexandra, Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Diana, all had boys first. That doesn't mean that Kate will, too, however, and for right now I'm kind of hoping she has a girl. Now that they're actually changing the archaic boys-first rule, it would be fun to have a girl show up and actually benefit from the change.

And when will the new baby actually get to be King or Queen? If Prince William lives to be 85, it won't be until 2067 and there's a lot to think about in the meantime. As People magazine put it in their November 23, 1981 cover story announcing Di's first pregnancy, "Nannies, nappies, names and Lord knows what all..."  Let the pink and blue celebrating begin!

Creativity

I'm not sure what the cosmic significance of this is, but it struck me as creative and entertaining. Enjoy.

Fifty Shades Of Chicken

A little poultry humor on Thanksgiving!

"The Turkey Hasn't Committed A Crime": More TV Fun On Thanksgiving

I miss The West Wing! In the spirit of the day I thought I'd post another fun clip from a TV Thanksgiving. This is from the "Shibboleth" episode in season two, and according to the booklet that came with my DVD set, it originally aired exactly 12 years ago, on November 22, 2000.  It looks like Aaron Sorkin may have taken a little creative license when he wrote that the unpardoned second turkey gets eaten, or maybe things have changed since 2000, because at yesterday's pardoning ceremony President Obama made it clear that both of this year's turkeys get to live out their natural lives at Mt. Vernon.  President Bartlet and C.J., I miss you!

Still Hilarious After All These Years

"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." Love it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday, Prince Charles!

After the trauma and drama of the election and Petraeus-gate, it's fun to return to one of my other fave blog topics, the Royals. I'm actually a day late - yesterday was Prince Charles' 64th birthday and of course I want to send my warmest birthday greetings to the prince, even a day late! Anytime you talk about the Prince of Wales and age, you're almost required to do the math, so here goes. Charles is 64 and he's been Prince of Wales since 1958; his mother the Queen is 86, she's been Queen, like, forever and if she lives as long as her mother did (101), Charles still has another 15 years to wait before he becomes King, at which time he would be 79 and Prince William would be 45. Got that?

The men in the British royal family have historically not been as long-lived as the women, so there's always been a (mostly unspoken) possibility that the Queen would outlive her eldest son, depriving him of his primary career option after a lifetime of waiting. Given that Charles' father Prince Philip is now 91, however, Charles apparently gets longevity from both of his parents and would seem to be a good bet to beat the odds and actually live to become King. At that point William would presumably be named Prince of Wales, Kate would be the new Princess of Wales, their son would be... Oops, I'm getting a little ahead of things, aren't I? For now I'll stick with Happy Birthday, Charles, and of course, Long Live The Queen!

How Many Stalls Do The Men Get?

From U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar:

“For the first time, there was a traffic jam in the Senate women’s bathroom,” she said. “There were five of us in there, and there are only two stalls.”

For the record, the next Congress will have 20 female senators, which is not even close to parity with our percentage of the overall population, but definitely on the right track.

This Is The Real Scandal.

I've been trying hard to keep up with all of the info about the expanding Petraeus scandal and there's a lot to keep up with. My reactions have been all over the place, from laughing to head-scratching to eye-rolling at the stupidity of it all. This is the part that made me cry:

As a military spouse, I wish the spotlight would fall on the real tragedies and crises military families face every day. They don’t require FBI investigations or White House notification. Simply drive down the main road at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. (or any local VA hospital), where a young man whose body consists of a head and a torso blows into a straw to steer himself through the crosswalk on the way into the hospital. This is where the reporters should be. Stop by the base post office, where a young man, face down on a stretcher, waits in a line for his mail. Step over to Dunkin Donuts, where another young man with four prosthetic limbs attempts to hand the cashier a $5 bill, which keeps slipping out of his metal claw.  Pass a young veteran in a wheelchair trying to push his infant’s stroller with one hand while wheeling himself forward with the other. In this city of amputees, and in the scores of American towns that will house and attempt to heal them for decades to come, the dirtiest secret of wartime is already out in the open, for everyone to see.

As of now this is a Petraeus-free blog.

Unintended Consequences

If you think the Petraeus sex scandal is just a sex scandal, consider:

• Both "other woman" Paula Broadwell and "other, other woman" Liz Kelley have now hired high-powered defense attorneys. Kelley has also hired a well-known crisis communications/PR guru. 
• Broadwell's home was searched by FBI agents last night and they carried out boxes of documents, a laptop computer and a briefcase.  
• A second 4-star general is now being investigated, on the basis of having exchanged 20,000 or more pages of e-mail communications with Ms. Kelley over the last couple of years.  
• The FBI agent to whom Ms. Kelley initially expressed her concerns about the threatening e-mails that turned out to be from Ms. Broadwell, had sent Kelley pictures of himself "shirtless." When the investigation didn't proceed as quickly as he thought it should, he leaked the story to a member of Congress, who told Eric Kantor, who told the director of the FBI.
• Broadwell's father says there's a lot more to this story and that the truth will eventually come out. 

Yikes. Are you still with me? Do we need a flow chart? In my original post about the scandal I said that things were sure to get juicy. I had no idea.

It's safe to say that when General Petraeus decided to get naked with his biographer, he didn't anticipate this. When Broadwell sent the original e-mail messages to Kelley, she didn't anticipate this. When Kelley asked the FBI to check into those e-mails, she didn't anticipate this. And what the heck were Kelley and General John Allen talking about in their 20,000+ e-mail messages anyway? Even if they were only discussing the weather and her daughter's upcoming multi-cultural Thanksgiving pageant, it's safe to say that the General may have been distracted from his important work making the world safe for democracy, or some such thing. It's entertaining to speculate about and heaven knows it's manna from heaven for a blogger, but still. Real people, with real families are at the center of this and their lives, and probably their careers, will never be the same. You never know where things will lead when people start secretly getting naked... 

Mittens And The Donald

The strange love/hate relationship between Mitt Romney and Donald Trump.

I Couldn't Resist...

Juice, Juicier, Juiciest...

If giving a concession speech is the hardest thing a public figure has to do, surely getting caught in a sex scandal and being forced to resign is the second hardest. As is always the case with these things, details about what forced CIA Director Petraeus to quit are trickling out and as always, there's plenty of embarrassment, bad judgement and stupidity to go around.

It didn't take long for the identity of the "other woman" to surface. No surprise, she's a lot younger and, yes, a lot prettier than the General's wife of 38 years. One of the things that always intrigued me about the Charles/Diana/Camilla dynamic was that Charles continued to be obsessed with Camilla, who was older, chubbier and dowdier than his younger, thinner, stylishly fashionable wife. None of that here. Compared to the glamorous Paula Broadwell, who's 20 years younger than the General, poor Mrs. Pretraeus looks old and tired.

Apparently yesterday was Broadwell's 40th birthday; she's married to a doctor and has two kids. Did she know that her secret was about to go public in a very big way? She recently wrote a hagiographic biography of General Petraeus and did a book tour to promote it. Videos of interviews from the tour are now going viral, and watching them now, it certainly looks like her relationship with her subject may have been more than strictly professional.

The Washington Post says that rumors of infidelity have followed General Petraeus for years. Really?  As I think about it, it seems strange that this didn't surface when he was under consideration to be CIA Director. On the other hand, "Pulitzer Prize-winning WaPo Pentagon correspondent" Thomas Ricks was on CNN yesterday talking about the scandal and when Wolf Blitzer asked if he was surprised by all this he replied, "Not at all. In the CIA, if you haven't had an affair you're not a player." Wow. Who knew?

Finally, there's this. Someone wrote into the New York Times' Ethicist column in July, saying that his wife was having an affair with a "government executive." With what we now know, it sounds like the letter could have been written by Mrs. Broadwell's husband. Was he trying to "out" his wife and her lover?

It's A Woman Thing, Part 2

Karen Hughes is a Republican who served as one of President George W Bush's closest advisers. I don't agree with everything she says but I'm cheering for this:

And if another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of “legitimate rape.”

CIA Director Resigns, Was Having An Affair

I read a lot of thrillers and spy novels, and the headline on this post sounds like the basis for a good one. In truth I'm not making it up. There's a "breaking news" headline at msnbc.com, saying that David Petraeus has submitted a letter of resignation due to an affair. First thought: With the security that surrounds a CIA Director, how on earth could anyone sneak away for a tryst with a woman he's not married to? I haven't read any of the details yet, but this is bound to be juicy.

Sacked By Visigoths

I've been debating whether I should write any kind of after-the-election wrap-up post, or just move on to the next really important things, like the upcoming season of The Bachelor, the first Jack Reacher movie and the holidays. I was leaning towards moving on, but when I see a phrase like "sacked by visigoths," in this article about shutting down the Romney campaign, my blogger juices start flowing, a headline is born and there's nothing to do but take to the blog and start typing.

Anyone reading my blog can deduce that I'm not a fan of Mitt Romney. I've had a lot of fun making fun of him, his running mate and his wife's horse throughout the course of the campaign. Still, I'm actually being sincere when I say that they all have my sympathy this week. It's not easy to run for President and it's certainly not easy to lose. One commentator on election night said that giving the concession speech as a losing Presidential candidate is the hardest thing anyone in public life has to do, and that sounds about right. It's also a brutally fast transition.

Up until about 11.15 eastern time Tuesday night, Governor Romney was a potential president, surrounded by a multi-million dollar organization, dozens of fawning staff members, cheering supporters, reporters hanging on his every word and a secret service detail. The campaign was so confident of victory that they didn't even write a concession speech, $25,000 worth of fireworks were waiting to be shot off over Boston Harbor at the end of the victory celebration and an "Office of the President-Elect" website was revved up and ready to go.

Then the race was called for Obama and after a phone call to the President and a short concession speech, Mitt Romney was back to being a private citizen. I read that he rode to the election night party in a 15-vehicle secret service motorcade; leaving the hotel Wednesday morning he and Mrs. Romney were in the back of a family car, driven by their eldest son. The secret service was gone and the staff had already started breaking down and packing up the campaign's offices.

So good-bye to the election of 2012 and on to other things. Who will Bachelor Sean pick?  Can Tom Cruise really play Jack Reacher? Are people really going to start their Christmas shopping at 8.00 on Thanksgiving night? All important to ponder and blog about. And if we start missing all the fun of a presidential campaign, not to worry. Articles about who might run in 2016 are already starting to pop up.

Lawn Signs And Looking Good In A Tuxedo

The crazy will be over soon, or at least I fervently hope so. In the meantime, here's another link to another interesting take on the election. A few days ago Republican writer/blogger Peggy Noonan called the Romney campaign incompetent. Shortly thereafter she clarified her thoughts -- she really meant that it was a "rolling catastrophe." She's now changed her mind and says that in her opinion, Mittens is headed for a big win. She can just feel it: "All the vibrations are right." Wherever it is that she hangs out, she's apparently seeing a whole bunch of Romney lawn signs. And didn't Mitt look spiffy in his tux at the Al Smith dinner a couple of weeks ago? If Mitt wins Peggy's going to look brilliantly prescient. If he loses, someone might suggest that her prediction was an incompetent one.

Friday afternoon update: Incompetent. In fact, not only incompetent, but what planet was Peggy on? To her credit, in her column today she acknowledges that things played out a little differently than she expected:

President Obama did not lose, he won. It was not all that close. There was enthusiasm on his side. Mitt Romney's assumed base did not fully emerge, or rather emerged as smaller than it used to be. He appears to have received fewer votes than John McCain. The last rallies of his campaign neither signaled nor reflected a Republican resurgence. Mr Romney's air of peaceful dynamism was the product of a false optimism that, in the closing days, buoyed some conservatives and swept some Republicans. While GOP voters were proud to assert their support with lawn signs, Democratic professionals were quietly organizing, data mining and turning out the vote. Their effort was a bit of a masterpiece; it will likely change national politics forever. Mr. Obama was perhaps not joyless but dogged, determined, and tired.

A whole bunch of Republican pundits and prognosticators have egg on their faces this week, but Ms. Noonan is the only one, as far as I know, that made her prediction based on good vibrations. Next time, maybe a little less time counting lawn signs and a little more time pondering actual facts.

Today's The Day

Election day is here! To get into the spirit of things, check out Talking Points Memo's review of the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2012 campaign.

The Cake Is Baked

Nothing too profound here. I'm linking to a short post in Talking Points Memo's editor's blog, mostly because I wanted to use "the cake is baked" as a blog post title. We're in the home stretch now, yay!

And Now It Starts

It's as predictable as the rain. At the end of a presidential campaign, or, as of early Saturday afternoon, almost the end of this one, the really fun stories start to come out. What really happened. Why our candidate lost. It wasn't my fault...

I enjoy all the "inside baseball/process stories" we get to read after a campaign a lot more than some of the silly reporting that's done during the actual campaign, and today politico starts us off with a story saying that Mitt Romney came very close to selecting Chris Christie for VP. Really? What makes this article especially intriguing is that it comes on the heels of a week's worth of coverage of the post-Superstorm bromance between Republican Christie and the Democratic President. Did Mitt's head explode when he heard that Christie, up 'til now one of his best surrogates, was going around saying how great Obama is? Almost certainly.

The election will be over soon; dishing the dirt will go on for months. Now we're really getting to the good stuff.

Like "Fifty Shades of Grey," part 2

The Economist has endorsed President Obama for president, more or less, saying that in their opinion Obama hasn't been a great president, but Romney would be worse. This isn't that big of a deal, since as I said in my first Fifty Shades of Grey post, the magazine's impact on American voters is minimal. I just wanted an excuse to type Fifty Shades of Grey as often as possible.

The President's New Best Friend

I've said before that I'm intrigued when Republican writers/bloggers/pundits criticize Republican politicians. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy we're seeing the flipside of that coin: New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention and top Romney surrogate, is now heaping praise on President Obama for his handling of the storm.

On the Today Show: "The President has been outstanding in this."

On CNN: "I spoke to the President three times yesterday. He has been incredibly supportive and helpful to this state and not once did he bring up the election."

On Twitter: "I want to thank the President personally for all his assistance as we recover from this storm."

Yowza. What's Christie up to? Salon's Steve Kornacki has some thoughts.

Update: I'm not the only one who's finding this entertaining.  Maureen Dowd, Jeffrey Goldberg and Reuters are all trying to get inside the Gov's head.

Stocking Up For The Storm

Or, as I almost titled this post, "Too little, too late."  I never know what, exactly, will send me back to the blog to vent my spleen; this morning it's a more-than-usually-inane segment I watched on Good Morning, America.  All the morning shows, of course, were in full-on Apocalypse mode covering the big storm that hit New York and other East Coast cities, and that's okay. Even if they occasionally go overboard with the melodrama (heard during b-roll of a hospital evacuation:  "it's an infant...") the storm is in fact big news.  The  segment that caused me to roll my eyes and take to my keyboard had to do with how to manage for the next few days if your power is out. The information was sensible, if not too original (canned goods, manual can opener, bottled water, use your outdoor grill if you have one...) but I was struck by two things. First, the storm went through last night and the affected cities are basically shut down. If you didn't stock up on canned tuna and bottled water in advance, now's not the time for a quick jaunt to Walmart. Secondly, and maybe more annoying - the audience for whom this advice is meant, i.e., the people without power, can't watch television, because they don't have power. The fact that GMA says they need a gallon of bottled water per person, per day, for at least three days, isn't going to help.

Binders Full of Women? Really??

The blogosphere's having a lot of fun with Mitt's "binders full of women" story in last night's debate, but the real news is that the story as he told it isn't true. There were indeed binders with information about qualified professional women, but they weren't put together at the request of Mitt Romney. As outlined by Boston political reporter David S. Bernstein, non-partisan groups were gathering information about qualified women before the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election even took place. The binders were presented to Mittens shortly after he was elected.

Another Bad Week For Mittens

I said in an earlier post that I'm always intrigued when a conservative, or a Republican, criticizes one of their own. Now in the wake of Mitt Romney's "47%" statements, both Mark McKinnon, who was a political strategist/communications guru for President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004 and also an advisor to John McCain during the 2008 primaries, and Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, are reluctantly falling out of love with Mittens. Says Mr. McKinnon, referring to Michelle Obama's comment in her convention speech that "a presidency reveals who you are," "Mark me down as one Republican who is not happy with what is being revealed about Mitt Romney." And Ms. Noonan: "This is not how big leaders talk, it's how shallow campaign operatives talk... It's time to admit that the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. It's not big. It's not brave. It's not thoughtfully talking about great issues." To use one of my favorite blog words, Yowza.

Friday morning update:  Peggy Noonan clarifies her thoughts. Double yowza.

"This week I called [the Romney campaign] incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant "rolling calamity." A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: "Glad you said this," "Mad you said this." But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued "you're missing some of its quiet excellence," - Peggy Noonan.

Musings From The Leeward Side

Aloha from the beautiful island of Oahu! It's been over 10 years since I've been here and it's just delightful - I'm definitely not going to wait another 10 years to come back.

Yesterday we toured the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri Memorial, both of which were fascinating and very moving. I was surprised to learn that after 71 years since the attack in 1941, there are 13 Pearl Harbor survivors still living. When a survivor dies, if the family wishes, the Navy will conduct a memorial service out on the white Arizona memorial structure, then send a diver with the cremated remains down under the water. The specially packaged remains are then inserted into a crack in the Arizona, allowing the veteran to be interred with his fallen comrades for all eternity.

On the Missouri, I was most intrigued to see the actual site of the Japanese surrender, which brought World War II to an end. My favorite tidbit:  As they were setting up for the ceremony on the deck of the Missouri, apparently General Douglas MacArthur arranged for the tallest soldiers and sailors on the ship to be lined up along the pathway where the Japanese officials would walk - one last bit of in-your-face intimidation for the much-shorter representatives from Japan.

On a much lighter note, we purchased inflatable rafts at the local ABC store, and since I have pretty good lungs, I figured it would be no big deal to take a few deep breaths and blow mine up. Ha! I gave it a good shot but eventually caved and asked the nice young man at the activities shack for help. It took him about 7 seconds to inflate my raft using his cool compressed air machine, and he charged me $5.25, which was more than I paid for the actual raft. Quite the racket he's got going, but who cares. I was ready to hit the waves.

In other raft news, my b-i-l Kevin kindly let a stranger at the beach "borrow" my sister's raft, for what was supposed to be a few minutes. The next thing we knew the guy's floating in the direction of Tahiti and the raft was never seen again.

Hawaii, as always, is delightfully multi-cultural. On our guided tour to the Arizona/Missouri memorials, I was struck by the diverse make-up of our group. In addition to Americans from Oregon, Illinois and Pennsylvania, there were visitors from Australia, Canada and even Bulgaria. Hawaii must have become a big vacation destination down under because I'm hearing a lot of Australian accents, which I don't remember from the last time I was here.

Apparently the Hilton Hawaiian Village, where we're staying, is frequently used as a set for Hawaii Five-O. We haven't seen Alex O'Loughlin, shirt on or shirt off, yet, but we're keeping our eyes peeled.

Final thought for now: I really like spray-on sunscreen. It makes it so much easier to "grease up" then the messy cream in a tube.

Her First Guest Was Jessica Simpson???

I didn't see Katie Couric's new talk show today, but based on Howard Kurtz's review at the Daily Beast, it doesn't sound as if it was anything very exciting. ABC's been hyping this show for over a year, and on day one the big guest is Jessica Simpson?? Is that really the best Katie Couric could do? Sheryl Crow was on as well, but still. It certainly doesn't sound very earth-shattering/format-busting to me. Now I'm really interested to see if Katie can make this work.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo And Other TV Updates

I had intended for this blog to be a Boo Boo-free zone.  I figured pretty much everything there is to say had been said elsewhere:  it's a new low, it's exploitative, it's the end of civilization as we know it; countered by no, the family gets the joke, they're laughing all the way to the bank, etc. Then I saw this item in the current issue of TVGuide:  "On August 29, Honey Boo Boo was the top-rated show at 10 p.m. with adults 18-49." Wow. I'm trying to think of something profound, or even profoundly snarky to say about all this and so far, inspiration isn't striking, so I'm stuck with Wow.

In other Reality TV news, I've been having some fun with Snooki, her new baby and the cover of People magazine, but I admit I don't take Snooki very seriously. Then I read that she makes $150,000 per episode of Jersey Shore. Can that be true? I've been known to say that when I was in school, back in the day, we didn't know that in the future Food Network Chef was going to be a career option. Obviously "falling down drunk jersey girl" is a pretty good career option, too.

Who will be the next Bachelor? ABC should be making the big announcement any day now, perhaps even tonight during the finale of Bachelor Pad. Over the week-end producers announced that after an audition, they've decided not to give Ryan Lochte the rose, which was probably predictable. Reality Steve said a few months ago that it will be Roberto, who's now single after he and Ali broke up, and Arie and Sean from Emily's season are apparently also in contention, although Arie's been quoted as saying it's not him. For the record, I'm rooting for Roberto. Stay tuned, Bachelor fans, we'll know soon.

Finally, today is the premiere of Katie Couric's new talk show and I'm interested to see how it goes. Does the world really need another television talk-fest? To put it another way, can Katie really bring anything new to the table? Many, many talk shows have been launched with great fanfare then ignominiously cancelled a  few months or a season later. Will Katie be different? She was beloved and hugely successful on the Today show, (which, by the way, is probably fervently wishing they could have her back,) and maybe she does have just the right combination of luck, timing and interesting things to say and her show will be a big hit.  Her promo on Good Morning, America this morning struck me as "same old, same old," but maybe I'm wrong.  In Chicagoland "Katie" comes on at 3.00 p.m., and Ellen, Rikki Lake and Dr. Phil are all doing their talk show thing in the same time slot. Is there an audience for Katie?  We'll see.  

Snooki, Yes, One Week Later

It turns out I wasn't wrong, just a week early. Snooki and her baby are indeed the cover story on the current issue of  People magazine. I've never watched Jersey Shore and I'm proud to declare that I don't really know that much about Snooki, but obviously she's important enough in pop culture terms that People put her on the cover, which is really depressing to me.  

Over-Egging The Pudding

I really hadn't intended to say anything else about Paul Ryan's marathon time, but then I couldn't resist linking to this article on the BBC News website. It's always interesting to me to see how American politics is playing in other countries, but what really got to me this time was the oh-so-British expression in the 4th paragraph from the end. I'd never heard of "over-egging the pudding," meaning to exaggerate, but it's definitely in my head now. I can't wait to have a chance to use it in a sentence.

Doesn't He Know This Stuff Can Be Fact-Checked, Part 2

In a previous post, I wrote admiringly about the fitness level of all four of the current Pres/VP candidates, including a "wow" for ultra-fit Paul Ryan. Now we learn he even runs marathons, with a personal best of under three hours. Except, oops, once again Ryan's been caught saying something that's easily verifiable as not true. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Ryan said his best marathon time was under three hours, specifically "two hour and fifty-something." It didn't take much effort for Runner's World magazine and others to determine that in fact his time was just over four hours. Details here and here.

Political narratives frequently take on a life of their own, and my favorite political scientist/blogger, Jonathan Bernstein, says Ryan's in real danger of ruining his reputation as "a wonk and a truth teller." In particular, he notes that once political reporters get an idea in their heads, such as "Paul Ryan sometimes tells lies", they start checking and digging and investigating and once that starts, who knows what they might find. As James Fallows notes in the article I linked to above, we've all exaggerated about something or other to make ourselves look better. In and of itself, Paul Ryan's marathon time isn't that big of a deal. If it's what creates the tipping point of the "Ryan is untruthful" narrative, it will turn out to be a very big deal indeed.

Saturday afternoon update: Although Congressman Ryan used the word "marathons" in his conversation with Hewitt, Runner's World has confirmed that he has only run one.

Has It Really Been 15 Years?

It's hard to believe it's been 15 years since the night Princess Diana died in a Paris tunnel. Prince William is now 30 so it's been half his lifetime, and as I reflect on the Diana era, including both the 16 years of her life as a royal and the 15 years since her death, I find that my thoughts are all over the place. It's impossible to summarize her life, her death and her impact in one clever, pithy phrase. Here's how things look to me right now.

What were they thinking? Going back to the very beginning, I want to slap my forehead and say who on earth thought it was a good idea for these two people to get married?  Seriously. I have the wisdom of hindsight, of course, but still. Did anyone really think that a prematurely middle-aged man and an undereducated, unsophisticated, inexperienced teenage girl could make a marriage work? As one wag put it, at the time of their engagement, Charles was 32 going on 45; Diana was 19 going on 12, which isn't exactly the formula for a sustainable partnership. After a short and superficial courtship they certainly didn't know each other very well, and Camilla was always hovering in the background. Common sense says they didn't have a chance.

What if there was no Camilla? I play this one out in my head sometimes. Imagine that Camilla didn't exist. Charles didn't fall in love at the age of 24, but rather spent his 20s serving in the Navy, growing into his role as Prince of Wales and dating as many aristocratic and attractive young women as he could find. At age 30, he's emotionally available and searching for his soulmate and the nation's next Queen. In this frame of mind my guess is that Charles wouldn't have looked at Diana as anything other than a pretty teenager. The idea that she could be his life partner would have been laughable.

What would Diana have done with the rest of her life? Truth be told, I don't think she would have aged well. I don't mean physically - today Diana would be 51 and I'm sure she'd still look spectacular. I'm wondering how she would spend her time. What would she do all day long? She didn't have the intellect or the temperament to pull a Jackie O and settle into an office job. "Being famous" isn't really a vocation and as we've seen with Fergie, it's not easy to be an ex-royal. At the time of the divorce there was a perception that Diana "won" the PR battle with her husband, being seen as the wronged party and enjoying more affection and popularity from the public. That may have been true in the short term, but 15 years later, with the exception of the Queen Mum, the royal family is still there, they're still doing the things that royal families do, and as I wrote in Annus Wonderfilis, they're more popular than ever. Compared to all that, as the years went on I think Diana would have become less and less important and more about simply being famous, and unfortunately, even being famous isn't what it used to be. As People magazine's favorite cover girl, Diana would now be competing with the Kardashians, the Bachelorettes and Brangelina. She probably wouldn't cope well with the dimming spotlight and strutting around the Mediterranean in a leopard print bathing suit, as Diana was known to do when she wanted to upstage the royal family, is less charming when you're fifty-something.

So what does it all mean? I'm still thinking about that. The royal family isn't as interesting without Diana around, although we've still got Prince Harry, naked or otherwise, to spice things up. There are milestones to come, as Will and Kate have kids and Harry gets married. One of these days Charles will be King and Camilla will be Queen, or not. Regardless of how it all plays out, I'll be watching.

Harry: Yes, Snooki: No.

And this is a good thing. Updating my "Things I Don't Care About" post from Sunday, People magazine did indeed put Prince Harry on the cover, the second young royals cover in a row, with a headline proclaiming him to be "The Naughty Prince!" No sign of Snooki and her new baby, and no Mitt Romney or Lance Armstrong, which were my other two guesses. (Neil Armstrong, Taylor Swift and Bachelorette Emily Maynard are the secondary cover stories.) People does love baby stories, so Snooki could still show up on the cover in the next few weeks, proudly showing off her son, or a few weeks after that in a bikini with a "Body After Baby" headline, which is one of People's favorite lines. Still, for the moment she's nowhere to be seen, at least on the cover and for that, I'm cheering.  

Doesn't He Know This Stuff Can Be Fact-Checked?

I'm seeing a theme in reactions to Paul Ryan's speech last night.

Michael Tomasky:  Web of Lies
Dylan Matthews:  The True, The False and The Misleading
Washington Post Editorial Board:  Mr. Ryan's Misleading Speech
Talking Points Memo:  Whoppers
Jonathan Chait:  Large Lies and One Big Truth
Joan Walsh:  Brazen Lies
Even Fox News:  Blatant Lies and Misrepresentations

Update: As I said in my It's A Woman Thing post, I'm always intrigued when a conservative criticizes or questions a fellow conservative. Now here's Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace, talking about Paul Ryan's speech: "There are some things that I think are factually questionable."

Channeling Mark Zuckerberg

• 

I love these pictures! We usually see Her Madge in glittering tiaras or fab hats, not hoodies. Like Hillary Clinton, who recently said that she's at a point in her life where if she doesn't feel like wearing make-up, she'll be seen in public without make-up, the Queen is opting for comfort over style, not at all afraid to be seen with what looks like a baby blanket draped on her head.  

And when was the last time you saw a head-of-state at the wheel of a car?

I really do need to go live in England! 

It's A Woman Thing

Kathleen Parker is a conservative, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. Four years ago, after first approving of Sarah Palin's nomination for VP then observing her less-than-stellar performance on the campaign trail for a few weeks, Parker broke ranks with Republicans and wrote a column declaring that Sarah Palin was "out of her league" and should withdraw for the good of the country. She took a lot of heat for that column, receiving something like 11,000 comments, most of them from fellow conservatives and most of them extremely critical of Parker.  

She's at it again this morning with an article at The Daily Beast entitled "What the *#@% is Wrong With Republicans?!" Most of the political commentary in our country is boringly predictable: Left-leaning/liberal pundits and bloggers criticize the Republicans; right-leaning/conservatives criticize the Democrats. So it's always intriguing to me when a conservative writer takes a good hard whack at his or her own side. Money quote:

"To whom, then, are these Republicans talking? Apparently not to women, whom they treat not as equals but as totemic and unknowable. Which is to say, they don’t “get” women. As such, they risk losing not only independents and moderates, whose votes they desperately need come November. They also risk losing their own women, who want very much to cast a ballot for smaller government, reduced deficits, and a confident, job-producing business environment, but don’t want to belong to a club that seems aggressively hostile to women and whose members can’t keep their mouths shut about issues that only reinforce the notion the Republicans are intolerant and rigid."

I don't always agree with Kathleen but this morning I'm cheering. It's a woman thing. 

Whose Idea Was This, Anyway?

With the possible future exception of 2014, the Super Bowl has never been played in the snow. The NFL has rules about climate, average temperatures and stadiums with roofs, to ensure that fans paying thousands of dollars to enjoy the big game don't get snowed on. That's why the game is played either in cities like Miami (10 times) or Los Angeles (7 times) where it's reliably balmy in February, or Minneapolis, Detroit and Indianapolis, all of which have stadiums with retractable roofs. What's happening in 2014? In an exception to the rule, the Super Bowl will be played at Met Life Stadium in metro New York City, which doesn't have a roof and could possibly have a lot of snow on the ground. For now, however, that's a blog post for the future.  

So why am I banging on about Super Bowl site selection rules in the last week of August? The city of Tampa, the Republican National Convention and tropical storm/potential hurricane Isaac, of course. With the storm approaching and the so-called "cone of uncertainty" about where it will go including Tampa, day one of the Republican convention has been cancelled, out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of attendees. A last-minute change to an event of this size is a big deal, messy and inconvenient, no matter how the convention organizers try to spin it. It's also manna from heaven for snarky bloggers, so here goes:

Worst. Site. Selection. Decision. Ever.
WHAT ON EARTH WERE THEY THINKING???
Who can we blame this on????

The finger pointing and blame-shifting have already started, with some honcho from the site selection committee being quoted to the effect that they played the odds, i.e., Tampa hasn't been hit by a hurricane in the last week in August in a really long time. The Governor of Florida says, "We know how to deal with hurricanes," and announces he won't be attending the convention; Michael Steele, who was the RNC chairman at the time the site selection decision was made, says, in response to criticism of the decision, "Get over it." Oh, okay.

The show will go on, for sure, just one day later than originally planned and smushed into three days instead of four. The speakers will speak, the delegates will cheer, the bands will play and the balloons will drop. Hopefully everyone stays safe and dry and nothing else will disrupt the party. Next time in Boise, Idaho, perhaps?

Things I Don't Care About

Snooki had her baby.

Is this big enough news to get Snooki the cover of People this week? Maybe, depending on what else is going on in the world. As I mentioned earlier, People jumped the gun last week with their Will and Kate story and missed out on naked Prince Harry. They actually had a short item inside the mag about Harry's fun week-end in Las Vegas, obviously written before the pictures went viral. Does Harry's scandal get the cover this week or have we all moved on to other things in our heads? (Note brief Aaron Sorkin reference.) Mitt Romney? Lance Armstrong? Sussing out the cover story is a game I play with myself from time to time, and sometimes I get it right, sometimes they surprise me. people.com usually posts the new cover on Wednesday mornings, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Like "Fifty Shades of Grey" Without The Sex

You knew that would get my attention. I'm actually quoting from The Economist's new cover story entitled "So Mitt, what do you really believe?", and they're referring to Romney's program for economic recovery.

I like The Economist. Anglophile that I am, I like the occasional British spelling and occasional British turn of phrase. The magazine takes a more serious, nuanced look at things than the gaffe-of-the-day, dumbed down/sexed-up silliness of what passes for news coverage in this country. (Trust me on this, an American magazine would have found a way to put the "Shades of Grey" reference on the cover.) So it's fascinating to read their take on the Republican nominee for president, which starts out positive, sort of, with the idea that perhaps a sober businessman can have more of an impact on our ailing economy than the Obama administration, which is described as "four years of soaring oratory and intermittent reforms."  

Unfortunately their opinion of former Governor Romney goes downhill from there, culminating in what they call their main doubt: "Nobody knows who this strange man really is." Wow, and not in a good way. The Economist's impact on American voters is probably minimal to zero, but still - this isn't the kind of thing a campaign wants to see in the days leading up to their convention.

And speaking of the Republican convention, day one, Monday, has now been cancelled, because of soon-to-be Hurricane Isaac, making it two GOP conventions in a row that have been messed with by Mother Nature. Nothing for the delegates to do but hunker down in their hotel rooms and dive into Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Blogger Mind-Meld

Andrew Sullivan is one of my favorite bloggers. He's a brilliant thinker and a great writer, so I really liked reading this post, which nicely echoes my perceptions of Ryan Lochte. Great minds...

Popping The Culture

Lots of interesting tidbits this week. Consider:

Did Taylor Swift crash/get thrown out of a Kennedy wedding this week-end? One of the Kennedy cousins got married in Boston and according to the Boston Herald, mother-of-the-bride Victoria Gifford Kennedy asked Taylor to leave because she didn't want the country superstar to overshadow the bride. There's conflicting info about whether or not Swift, who's currently dating one of the other Kennedy cousins, was actually invited. What intrigues me is the fact that Taylor Swift is 22 and her new boyfriend, Conor Kennedy, son of Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and grandson of RFK and Ethel, is only 18 and just starting his senior year of high school. Question: Does a 22-year-old woman qualify as a cougar?

The TomKat divorce is final, just a few weeks after Katie Holmes filed in June, which in Hollywood counts as warp speed. (See Kardashian, Kim.) Question: Who will be the next Mrs. Cruise?  

Jennifer Aniston has a pre-nuptial agreement with fiance Justin Theroux, or not.
OK! magazine: Jen Shocker: No PreNup!
In Touch magazine: Jen's $150 Million PreNup.
Question: There isn't one. This is one of those things I don't care about.

Will and Kate are on the cover of People magazine again. It's that nice picture of them embracing at one of the Olympic events, and I'd be willing to bet that this is one of those instances where the magazine had a great picture for the cover and not much of a story to go with it. If only they'd known that a much juicer royal story was only a few hours away! Question: Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall the next time Prince Harry sees his grandmother?

Naughty Prince Harry

Looks like I need to update a previous post. In "Annus Wonderfilis" I wrote that Prince Harry was "staying out of trouble and serving his country." While that may be true on some days, at the moment he's apparently letting it all hang out in Las Vegas, and yes, there are pictures. Note that I'm linking to the Daily Beast's article about the pictures, not the pictures themselves, which you can find at TMZ. I haven't looked yet, but, true confession, I probably will.

Poor Harry. Can't a prince get naked and frolic with frisky American girls without someone getting him in trouble?

So my previous article is now a little out of date. That's okay. "Deliciously charming rascal"? That part's still true...

Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner

Dirty Dancing is 25 years old! The movie premiered on August 21, 1987, and after all these years, you may not know that it wasn't supposed to be a hit. It was made on a tiny budget, by not-well-known producers and directors, and even Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey weren't all that famous at the time. Roger Ebert hated it, but much to pretty much everyone's surprise, the movie caught on. The music was catching and people were seeing it again and again, and this was back when you couldn't just call it up on Netflix or pop in the 10th anniversary DVD - if you wanted to see Dirty Dancing you had to actually go to the movies.

So Happy Anniversary to Baby and Johnny! She's still like the wind, love is still strange and you still don't own me. I'm still having the time of my life, and nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Things I Don't Care About

Naked Congressmen. Seriously. If they want to throw off their clothes and jump in the water, it's fine with me.  Just don't make me watch.

Romance, Showmance?

I miss the Olympics. Every day while they were going on there was so much to watch, with lots of good stuff to think about and blog about. Without them I've gone blog-silent for a couple of days, but over the week-end several things have stuck me as blog-worthy, so here we go.

First, politico points out how physically fit all four of the presidential/vice presidential candidates are. Apparently youngest-of-the-four Paul Ryan is a former personal trainer who is still dedicated to extreme fitness and has a body fat percentage in the range of 6-8%. Wow. Even oldest-of-the four Joe Biden is fit and trim at the age of 69. Romney does the treadmill, Obama plays basketball, it's all very inspiring. Or maybe not. All this fitness puts these guys somewhat at odds with regular Americans, most of whom are getting fatter by the minute. And hey there, Chris Christie. If you have presidential dreams for 2016 or beyond, get yourself to the gym, post haste.

The Daily Beast has a fun story about how much travel has changed in the last 25 years. I've always been intrigued by the idea of the longest scheduled commercial airline flight, which in 1987 was from Sydney, Australia to San Francisco on a Pan Am 747SP, at 7,417 miles. Pan Am and the 747SP are both long gone now, of course, although United still flies the route in a 747-400, with the westbound flight scheduled for 14 hours/28 minutes. Today the longest flight is an 18 hour/40 minutes Singapore Airlines marathon from Newark to Singapore, flown in an Airbus A340 and coming in at 9,534 miles. That's a really long time to sit in an aluminum tube.

Speaking of the Olympics, Michael Phelps is apparently in some trouble with the IOC. He's appearing in a print ad for Louis Vuitton which could potentially cause him to be stripped of his medals. Why? The IOC forbids Olympic athletes from appearing in promotions for companies other than the official Olympic sponsors while the Olympics are going on and for a couple of weeks before and after. The LV ad leaked early and the IOC isn't happy. I can't imagine they'll really take Phelps's medals away, but this is a good reminder of what's really at the heart of the Olympic movement: sponsorship money.

Finally, and speaking of sponsorship money, tomorrow is an important anniversary in the world of romance, true love and reality TV. You don't remember? August 20 was the day Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries said "I do" in their over-the-top made-for-TV wedding-of-the-year extravaganza. At the time I gave the marriage two years, which turned out to be just a wee bit optimistic. Kim filed for divorce 72 days later and now the divorce proceedings have been going on longer than the actual marriage and there's no end in sight. Apparently the jilted groom is holding out for an annulment, based on his belief that it wasn't a real marriage, but rather a publicity stunt cooked up to goose ratings for that Masterpiece Theater imitation known as Keeping Up With The Kardashians. My favorite comment came from an observer on the Today show this morning, who said it's actually a third party who's whispering in Kris's ear that he should string things along as long as possible. Who could possibly have a vested interest in Kim staying married to Kris? Kanye West. Love it.

The Road To Rio

Wow, that was fast. It feels like the Opening Ceremony was just yesterday and now London 2012 is over. I didn't get to watch as much of the sports as I'd like, but it was a fun two weeks, with lots of thrills and chills, new songs, some silliness, some stupidity, Will and Kate, Prince Harry, Rafalca, etc., etc. The usual Olympic stuff. A nice long cheer goes to London, for putting on a really great event, and a special tip of the hat for all the medals they won. Great job!  The U.S. topped the medal count, which was probably predictable given how many athletes we had competing, but what I like the most is the fact that the U.S. women kicked butt. I think I read that the girls won more medals than the boys, which I really hope is true! And I'm still hoping Ryan Lochte will get to be the Bachelor.

The Olympics are never really over, of course, and planning is now underway for the next three Games. Do you know where they'll be? The IOC's official site has a countdown clock for each host city, which is how I know that the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia are 540 days away; followed by the Rio Summer Games in 1451 days; and even the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2004 days. Three cities, Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid are bidding for the 2020 Summer Games, which will be awarded on September 7, 2013. So on it goes. 

Battle Of The Brides

Now that Brad Pitt's current and former life partners are both engaged to be married, can the "battle of the brides" tabloid headlines be far behind? And who will People magazine put on its cover this week? Normally I'd say Jennifer Aniston in a rout for sure, but people.com has an interview with the Romneys and the Ryans, and that may turn out to be the magazine's cover story too. Brad and Angie are still laying low.

Quite A Week-end

Yes, Mitt Romney did announce his VP pick. No, Brad and Angelina didn't get married. Yes, Jennifer Aniston is engaged. Wait, what?? Yes, it's true, after a year of dating Jen and her boyfriend Justin Theroux have announced their engagement, in a nice bit of timing that might not be a total coincidence. So now Brad and Jennifer are both engaged to their new partners and two weddings are on the way. Let the tabloid wedding watch/feeding frenzy begin.

Give The Other Ryan A Rose

Paul Ryan, that is, and of course I'm talking about his selection as Mitt Romney's running mate. Some random thoughts:

Not Pawlenty, not Portman.  I jumped on the bandwagon, along with many others, who were sure Romney would go with a so-called boring white guy. Received wisdom seemed to be that Ryan was too polarizing, too hard right, too "bold" for the famously risk-averse Romney. I feel some "always a bridesmaid" sympathy for Tim Pawlenty, or T-Paw, who was a finalist last time around too, before John McCain selected Sarah Palin.

A sharp right turn. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus writes that when the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard and the National Review are all telling you to do something, you should run the other way. All three of those conservative publications insisted this week that Romney should select Paul Ryan, and lo and behold, he did. Did Mittens cave? The Romney campaign has provided a meticulous tick tock timeline, making sure everyone knows he decided last week, before getting instructions from Bill Kristol and his friends. By the way, Kristol was Sarah Palin's biggest cheerleader four years ago, repeatedly insisting that she was McCain's best bet. And John McCain is still saying that he's "proud" of Palin. Ick.

Paul Ryan is young. At 42 he's younger than Sarah Palin was when she was selected and he's a lot younger than Mitt Romney. I was thinking yesterday that there's a slight father-son dynamic between the two of them and it turns out, Ryan is the same age as Romney's eldest son.

Ready on day one? Paul Ryan has more government experience than Palin had, with seven terms in the House of Representatives, but he has no executive or private-sector experience, which up until now Romney has been touting as a crucial qualification, and no experience running for office at the statewide level, much less the national level. The "big fish in a little pond" nature of running in a House district isn't the strongest preparation and seasoning for a national level campaign, which is one reason why Congressmen don't usually go directly from the House to the vice presidency (or the presidency.) Gerald Ford was the last Congressman to make the leap, back in 1974 and he wasn't elected. He was appointed by Richard Nixon after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. Before that you have to go back to 1932.

Apparently Vice President Joe Biden called Ryan to congratulate him and welcome him to the race. Nice. Political junkies are salivating at the thought of the Vice Presidential debate, which should be a doozy.

Finally, how many years worth of tax returns did the Romney campaign require Mr. Ryan to provide?

Give Ryan A Rose!

I haven't been paying much attention to Ryan Lochte. He got a lot of press early in the Olympics when he beat Michael Phelps for a gold medal in one of the early races, but then he pretty much faded from view, or at least from my view. Then this morning there he was on the Today show for an end-of-the games retrospective interview with Matt Lauer, and wow, all of a sudden my cup runneth over with potential blog posts.

First I was struck by how cute he is, and then by the fact that he's not very, um, articulate. I was thinking that when the Olympics are over he can go to college and learn some new words, then Matt asked how old he is and he said 28. Yikes. Potential blogpost headline: He Really Is A Himbo.

Then they got into that whole "Ryan pees in the pool" issue and he sheepishly admitted that yes, he does, and I'm thinking, do the synchro swim girls know about this? In addition to the cool corkscrew move, the swimmers also come charging up out of the water spitting water into the air like a fountain, not something I want to do in a pool where Ryan has peed. Potential blogpost headline:  I Hope It's Not The Same Pool.  

Finally Matt asked Ryan what he wants to do next and he mentioned reality TV, like Dancing With The Stars or the Bachelor. Eureka! Ryan as the Bachelor! I'm still rooting for Roberto as the next Bachelor but after that, Ryan, will you accept this rose?  

Brangelina Watch

Are Brad and Angelina getting married this week-end? Apparently there are some clues, such as bustling arrangements for what looks like a big party at their chateau in France, Brad's parents are in town, Jennifer Aniston's into the Tequila... I just made that last part up, but if I were her, I would definitely be drinking. I admit I haven't thought about Brad and Angelina's potential wedding in a while. After a tabloid frenzy when the engagement was announced they've kind of gone underground, or at least they haven't done anything recently that merits the cover of People magazine. Would the wedding knock the Veepstakes off the front pages? Stay tuned, maybe we'll know soon.

Messing With Mittens

With the Olympics winding down and the Republican convention just over two weeks away, reporters, bloggers and pundits are amusing themselves playing the game known as "Veepstakes." A few posts ago I speculated that Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman were the finalists, but this week there's been a  boomlet of support for Paul Ryan. Is he a legitimate candidate or are bored reporters just messing with Mitt's head for sport?

Republican blogger David Frum says neither - it's the conservative base trying to keep Romney, a candidate they don't love, in line.  Fascinating.   

This Is How It Starts

Olympics 2024. 

Things I Don't Care About

Bachelor Pad.

Olympic Tidbits

I've found that there are a few sports I can't watch without cringing, simply because it always seems as if someone's about to get hurt. Jumping and twirling on a 4-inch slab of wood, known as the balance beam, or running as fast as you can then jumping over a 4-foot high wooden barrier, known as the hurdles, both strike me as bone-breaking disasters waiting to happen. And, no, this isn't another post about Rafalca, but it's also hard for me to watch horse jumping. I know the horses are really big, strong animals, but their legs seem so fragile and as they jump over the barriers the words "broken leg" and "humanely destroyed" are never far from my mind.

Ann Curry had a piece on the Today show this morning and based on the icy politeness between her and Matt Lauer, I'd say she's still pissed about the way her recent change in professional status was handled.

There was also a piece on synchronized swimming, and if I was in the mood to be politically correct, I'd bang on about how strong the swimmers are, how well trained they are, their endurance and coordination, blah, blah, blah, but, you know, screw that. Here's what I really think:  OMG - the make-up. The sparkly spangly swimming costumes. The la-de-da waving and swishing and strutting. (No, really, this isn't a post about Rafalca.) Yowza. I love the upside-down, underwater, holding your breath swirling corkscrew maneuver, but overall the whole thing struck me as an elaborate excuse to have one more event where the athletes (and yes, it's the female athletes) wear the skimpiest outfits possible.

Finally, NBC is reporting that today "might" be the day Mitt Romney announces his VP pick. Possible, I suppose, but if he wants to get the biggest political bang for his buck, I'm guessing he'll wait until the Olympics are over.

It's Over

Rafalca's run at the Olympics is over, after she and her rider failed to qualify for the finals in the individual dressage event.  Presumably Rafalca will now be heading home, as will horse mama Ann Romney, who has been cheering for her horse from the stands.  Can the VP announcement be far behind? 

Annus Wonderfilis

In November, 1992 the Queen memorably described the previous year as her “annus horribilis.” To recap, Andrew and Fergie announced they were getting a divorce, Princess Anne and her first husband actually did get a divorce, Princess Diana’s “I want a divorce” manifesto was published, which resulted in her separation from Prince Charles, and just when it seemed as if things couldn’t get any worse, Windsor Castle caught on fire. A writer at the time wondered if the Queen ever found herself thinking, “God saved me for this?”  

Fast forward 20 years and it’s stunning how much things have changed. In 2012, the Queen and her family are basking in the warmth, affection and admiration of not only the British people, but people everywhere, in recognition of her 60 years as head of state. Charles and Camilla are a boringly uncontroversial married couple, and trust me, back in 1992 that was an outcome that was considered unthinkable. Will and Kate are down-to-earth and dutiful, with just enough glamour to keep things interesting, and that deliciously charming rascal Prince Harry is staying out of trouble and serving his country as an officer in the Army Air Corps. If she ever thinks about it, Her Majesty must feel that the future of the monarchy is in good hands. 

And yet… The phrase “future of the monarchy” hints at an eventuality that’s also hard to fathom. Even though she appears hale and hearty at the age of 86, reality is that the Queen can’t live forever, and one of these days the Brits will wake up to a new era. King Charles III will be on the throne and I’m guessing it will feel strange to everyone, not least Charles himself. Charles’s path, to marital happiness as well as to the throne, hasn’t always been smooth and his mother’s footsteps won’t be easy to fill. (If you’ve forgotten all the juicy details, go to Google and type in “Camillagate.”) There’s also uncertainty about what Camilla will be called. When their engagement was announced it was said that when time comes she will be titled “The Princess Consort,” but the longer they’re together as a married couple the stranger that compromise will feel. Even the national anthem will change. I wonder how long it will take to get used to hearing “God save our gracious King.” It’s all interesting to think about, but happily it’s also all in the future. For now the Queen is having a very good year and that’s something to cheer about. 

It's Not Over 'Til It's Over

Based on native skill, past performance and that killer vault she laid down in the team competition, McKayla Maroney was expected to win the gold medal in the individual vault event last night. She was supposed to win. Everyone knew she was going to win.  Except she didn’t win. Her first vault was fine, but she lost it on the second. My technical knowledge of vaulting is basically zero so I’ll simply say that she fell on her butt and it wasn’t pretty. 

Unlike other events I was able to watch on NBC’s taped delay/plausibly live coverage, I hadn’t seen the vault results in advance. As the event went on it occurred to me that if Maroney had won, I probably would have seen a “Maroney Wins Gold” headline on one website or another at some point during the day. The fact that I hadn’t was my first clue that perhaps this competition didn’t play out according to the script. 

Second thought:  was “Maroney Wins Gold” an accurate script or was that just how the American announcers played it? With hindsight, it’s easy to say that NBC blew the call, in particular the male commentator. I don’t know who it was, but throughout the competition he talked as if McKayla’s gold medal was a done deal, even saying at one point, “everyone knows she’s going to win.” Listening to him, you’d almost wonder why they bothered having the actual competition.

Although it’s devastating for the athletes, unpredictable outcomes are one of the reasons I like sports. The competitors are actual human beings and things don’t always go the way they’re expected to. If nothing else, I’m hoping NBC reminds its on-air talent that in sports, it’s not over ‘til it’s over.

Things I Don't Care About

"The biggest scandal?" I really hope this is satire.

Tax Deductions and Business Expenses; Caviar and Spam

Apparently I was wrong, a few posts ago, when I wrote that Mitt Romney took a $77,000 tax deduction for Rafalca. It turns out it was a business expense. Writer Margaret Carlson also points out that for ordinary Americans, the whole therapeutic horse narrative is a bit of a stretch, saying that dressage is to therapeutic horseback riding as caviar is to spam.

Olympic Tidbits

"That our flag was still there..." Except it wasn't.  During Serena Williams' medal ceremony, the wind was blowing so hard that the U.S. flag was blown right off its pole. I'm trying to find a video link.

Speaking of Serena, I was watching her match this morning and I realized that I know almost nothing about tennis. I know two people volley a little yellow ball back and forth over a net, but after that I'm lost.  Seriously, I didn't have a clue about how the match was scored.  All of a sudden, "Gold Medal Point" was posted on the TV screen and I realized the whole match was almost over.  Still, based on her body language and facial expressions alone, Serena is one tough chick, and I mean that in a good way. At some point I may try to learn why tennis balls are always yellow.

Last night I happened to see a small segment on the trampoline competition, which was kind of a surprise because I didn't even know trampoline was an Olympic sport.  What struck me as funny, however, was the name of the competitor, an athlete from China.  What was his name, you ask?  Dong Dong.

I love reading stuff like this.  On the surface, winning a race like the men's 100 meters is just a matter of running faster.  In reality there's a lot of science and technology involved.  Imagine what could happen if Usain works on his starts.

Speaking of Usain, sort of, I saw an interview with Prince Harry and apparently he's the co-owner of a race horse named Usain Colt.  Perhaps Usain Colt should meet Rafalca...

A Cool Medal Ceremony

Had you ever heard the national anthem of New Zealand?   Believe it or not, for those of you who know my story, after all these years, neither had I. It's fun to hear it now, and what a cool medal ceremony.

Can't A Horse Prance In Peace?

Because none of this is Rafalca's fault.

A Long Way From Charles And Di

I love these pictures of William and Kate! Charles and Diana, all those years ago, looked like frozen automatons compared to these two!  In spite of the royal PDA, however, judging by Kate's flatter-than-flat tummy, there's no royal baby on the way yet.

Veepstakes: Who Will Mitt Pick?

The Olympics aren’t the only event that comes around every four years.  We’re also in the midst of our quadrennial presidential election, although at the moment things are in a bit of a lull.  The next big events will be the conventions, with the Republicans in Tampa starting on August 27 followed by the Democrats in Charlotte starting September 3.  Before that, however, at some point in the next couple of weeks Mitt Romney will announce who he wants for Vice President, and guessing who that might be is what’s keeping reporters, pundits, bloggers and political geeks entertained now that the Romneyshambles European tour is over. 

In a previous post I said that it seems like the Beijing Olympics were just yesterday, and the four years since John McCain dropped the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb and selected Sarah Palin as his running mate have also gone by in a flash.  My blog readers know that I’m not a fan of the former governor of Alaska, at least not as a politician. As blog fodder, however, she’s been both hilarious and invaluable and I’ve had a lot of fun snarking about Sarah, the fam, the once-and-future over-my-dead-body son-in-law, the stupid things they all say and do, etc. It’s safe to say that whoever Mitt Romney selects, he or she won’t be nearly as entertaining. 

As a matter of fact, conventional wisdom seems to be that Mitt’s biggest goal is to pick an “anti-Palin,” an authentic politician, solid and serious, who won’t give late-night TV comics, or snarky bloggers, anything to talk about.  I admit I’ve even felt a tiny little bit of sympathy for Sarah Palin over the last few weeks, as I’ve read article after article speculating about who Romney might pick and emphasizing that above all else he doesn’t want to make a “disastrous” mistake. You know, the way John McCain did.

It’s all a lot of fun and I’ve seen lists suggesting everyone from Marco Rubio to Kelly Ayotte to Susana Martinez to Joe Scarborough.  If I had to guess, however, I’d say that “boring white guy” is the order of the day, and my money’s on either Tim Pawlenty (former governor of Minnesota) or Rob Portman (junior senator from Ohio.)  It won’t be long before we know if I’m right. 

Go Gabby!

Could she be any cuter? Gabby Douglas wins gold in the gymnastics all around event and I'm cheering.  Understand, I haven't actually seen her performance, because NBC is saving it for their primetime show.  The results, however, have been all over the web today and you'd pretty much have to take to your bed and cover your head with a pillow to avoid hearing anything about the events taking place five hours to the east.  I'm going to try to stay up late enough tonight to see gymnastics, but I might not make it. My colleagues and I leave our hotel at 6.30 every morning, and given that the primetime Olympic show doesn't even start until 8.00 p.m., the television/sleep/Olympics/yawning continuum isn't working in my favor right now.

A few posts ago I said "Go Gymnastics Girls, kick some butt and win some gold."  They did, and as I said, I'm cheering. 

Inscrutable And Somewhat Precious

See, I'm not the only one writing about Rafalca. And before reading this article, I didn't even know that part about the whips... 

Rafalca's Big Day

Today's the day, horse ballet fans!  The Romneys' dressage horse, Rafalca, takes the stage in London as the individual dressage events get underway today. Horse mama Ann will be in the stands, horse daddy Mittens is probably hiding under a bed somewhere, wishing the whole thing would just be over. As far as I can tell, Rafalca and his rider are not serious medal contenders, but you never know. Dance on, Rafalca, dance on!

Fake Cake

Has it really come to this? Weddings are out of control here in the U.S, that's for sure. The Wedding Industrial Complex has been phenomenally successful in convincing brides that if their wedding isn't an elaborate and expensive extravaganza they'll somehow offend the wedding gods, and you know, something really bad might happen. The result is that many brides appear to be caught up in planning the latest installment of the Ziegfeld Follies, rather than a warm and meaningful event to signify the start of a couple's life together. I've spent the last few hours feeling both amused and dismayed after learning about what is apparently a growing trend:  the rental wedding cake. 

There's no question that wedding cakes are expensive, especially the elaborate ones, although I'm not sure brides always get their money's worth.  I've been to some weddings where the cake looked spectacular and tasted like sand.  Many "How to save money on your wedding" articles suggest getting a very small version of your dream cake, which can be used for the cake-cutting ritual and saved for the first anniversary. The slices that are actually served to the guests are cut from an inexpensive sheet cake and no one knows the difference. There may be a slight deception involved, but at least it's a real cake. 

The rental "cake" is different. It's made of styrofoam, it comes in a box, and after the wedding you pack it up and ship it back. Apparently there's a small cut-out in the back of the fake cake, where you can place a small piece of real cake to be used during the ceremonial cake cutting at the reception. According to the cake rental website "three pieces of Twinkie fit perfectly."  If you go to the homepage, you'll see the slogan: "Don't settle for less on your wedding day."  That sounds lovely except they're talking about styrofoam! Am I really the only one who sees the irony here? Weddings really are out of control.

Some Really Strong Women

It's early evening here in Indianapolis and I'm watching Women's Weightlifting on MSNBC, a discipline apparently known as the "clean and jerk."  To say that this isn't one of the glamour events of the Olympics is an understatement. This one of those sports that gets pretty much zero coverage in the 3 years and 50 weeks between Olympiads, and I certainly know nothing about it. It may be a bigger deal in other countries; as I'm watching I notice that there are no American women competing, or at least not in the top 10 spots that are listed on the screen.  

There's another factor that may affect the way this sport is covered, at least in the U.S., and it has to do with the competitors themselves.They're not glamorous. They're not wearing skin-tight leotards like the gymnasts or bikini bottoms and tight T-shirts like the beach volleyball players.  To be blunt, they're not pretty, at least not by the standards of American pop-culture, and in terms of media coverage in America, "pretty is what it's about." They are, however, world-class athletes and I'm glad their event is being shown even if it is outside the main limelight.  As I'm watching, the competitor from Kazakhstan takes the gold, Russia takes silver and Canada takes the bronze.  Congratulations, everyone! 

Hanging Out In The Eastern Time Zone

It's day 3 of the Olympics and I'm watching the men's synchronized diving, which is very cool. I won't be watching for very long, tonight, however, because I'm in a hotel room in Indianapolis and we're in the Eastern Time Zone, or the Central Time Zone but they don't observe Daylight Savings Time, or, you know, whatever. NBC's prime time coverage didn't even start until 8:00 here and if I want to see it all I have to stay up until midnight, and that's not going to happen. I already know today's results, of course, just from surfing around to my usual news and politics sites and blogs. It's almost impossible to get to the daily prime time show without already knowing the results. I don't really want to go back to the flickering black and white television images from the 1968 games in Mexico City, but on the other hand social media and 21st century technology have certainly changed the experience of "watching" the Olympics.  I'll stay up as long as I can, then it will be lights out.  Whatever I miss tonight I can find on-line tomorrow.  A lot has changed since 1968.

What Did Rafalca Ever Do To Mitt?

This isn't a political blog, other than my snarky rantings about the latest political sex scandal and other silliness from the clueless politician-du-jour.  At the moment, however, I admit that I may appear to be obsessed with the confluence of sports and politics represented by Ann Romney's horse Rafalca. Specifically I'm intrigued by Mitt's attempts to distance himself from the nice horsey. To recap, last Wednesday, in an interview in London with Brian Williams just before the start of the Olympics, Mittens said, in response to a question about Rafalca, "I'm not even sure when the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well." 

"I'm not even sure when the sport goes on." Let's think about this. I'm not Mitt Romney's biggest fan, but I sincerely believe that he's a devoted and loving husband, which is why that statement strikes me as odd.  Mr. and Mrs. Romney were in London for the Olympics Opening Ceremony, as well as some meetings with British leaders. Then they flew to Israel, and then they're going to Poland.  They're flying on a private jet, accompanied by some or all of their sons, some campaign staff members, some reporters and the United States Secret Service.  At the completion of the visit to Poland, Mitt will return to the U.S. and Ann's going back to London to watch the equestrian events that start on Thursday. With all the planning that goes into a trip like this, are we really supposed to believe that Mitt has no idea why his wife isn't coming home with him? 

I'd be willing to bet that Mitt told a teensy-weensy fib because he doesn't want to be too closely associated with the fancy-dancy sport of dressage, or as Stephen Colbert put it, competitive horse prancing.  He probably doesn't want to discuss the $77,000 tax deduction they were able to take for Rafalca's care and feeding. When you're as rich as the Romneys, 77K is a rounding error, but for us regular folks it's a lot of money, more than many of us earn in a year, and our pets aren't tax deductible. Mrs. Romney likes to emphasize that Rafalca has been therapeutic in helping her cope with her M.S. and that's nice, but most Americans don't have the option of importing a $100,000 European horse when they get sick. 

So don't take it personally, Rafalca. Mittens likes you a lot more than he's willing to admit. Pretending he doesn't is just part of his efforts to convince voters that he's not really an elite one-percenter.

Will this be my last post about Rafalca?  Almost certainly not.

It Wasn't Really The Queen!

I'm still having fun thinking about the Queen's role in the "Bond. James Bond" segment of the Opening Ceremonies Friday night, mostly the fact that she was laid-back enough to do it. In case you were wondering, it turns out it wasn't really Her Majesty who jumped out of that airplane.  Matt Lauer talks to the stunt man who wore a pink dress.

Mittens Has A Very Bad Week

It's not a good day for a politician when a foreign newspaper runs a headline that reads "Mitt the Twit." Now Newsweek piles on with a cover story titled "The Wimp Factor." Political junkies will remember that back in 1987, the same magazine called then-Vice President George H.W. Bush a wimp, but in the new story about Mitt Romney, Newsweek admits that was a mistake, saying that "in hindsight, Poppy looks like Dirty Harry compared with Romney."  Yowza. It's all keeping me amused and entertained during the hot hazy days of summer, and this is all before Rafalca takes the stage.   

Olympic Tidbits

I heard my first national anthem today and it wasn't the Star Spangled Banner. I actually enjoy the medal ceremonies. It's fun to see the winners and the flags, I especially like hearing the national anthems of the various countries. Some I recognize, like O Canada, La Marseillaise and of course, God Save The Queen, others are pretty obscure, but it's always a nice moment when the flags go up and the winning athlete hears the song representing his or her country.  NBC ended their daytime coverage with one of the first medal ceremonies, and although I didn't hear what the sport was or the name of the winner, it was still fun to see.  Which country's anthem was it?  Kazakhstan. 

I also saw one of the heats in rowing, with eight men in a boat and a coxswain. I've always thought rowing, or "crew," was cool and wished I could try it.  Not a sport for wimps, obviously and not as easy as it looks when they're gliding through the water. Those guys are tough, and really, really fit.  Strange as it sounds, my biggest exposure to world-class rowing comes from watching The Social Network, featuring the Winklevoss twins, or as Aaron Sorkin memorably put it, "the Winklevi."

Still no sign of Rafalca.

The Opening Ceremony

Who knew the Queen has a sense of humor? Most of the time she keeps that fact pretty well hidden, at least in public, but last night during the opening ceremony she entered into the spirit of things with gusto, performing in a skit with one of the James Bonds and letting her "body double" parachute into the games like Mata Hari.  Wow. There were other "wow" moments during the ceremony, too, of course, along with a few "ick" moments, as always.  So here's my take on the good, the bad and the ugly of London's Opening Ceremony.

One of the Wows for me was simply the number of nations taking part, some of which I've sort-of heard of but don't know very much about (Andorra, Kiribati, Malawi...), some of which I literally didn't even know existed (Comoros, Djibouti, Nauru, Timor-Leste...), and some of which are so associated in my mind with political turmoil that it's easy to forget that they even have regular citizens and athletes (North Korea, Iran, Syria...) It was fun to see all the athletes walk in the parade, especially when they were in native costume. That's pretty much the only chance we have to appreciate them because these tiny, obscure countries get almost no television coverage during the actual events, at least not here in the U.S. I tell myself it would be interesting to google some of them and see what pops up, which I may get around to doing, or not. 

I was stuck by how attractive the athletes were, or perhaps I should say the athletes NBC choose to focus on. 

Speaking of NBC, the biggest ewwwww of the night for me was the seemingly unending commercials.  In my previous post I called the games a corporate promotional money-fest and boy was I right.  Sometimes the commercial breaks seemed to last longer than the segments with actual scenes from the ceremony. 

On the other hand, there were a couple of commercials that I actually liked.  A Visa spot showing a diver diving off the Burj Khalifa, formerly known as the Burj Dubai, made me smile, simply because I've always been intrigued by the world's tallest building.  And I loved the commercial with little kids doing all the things Olympic athletes do, with the proud Moms watching in the stands.  As cute as that was, however, the tagline "Proud Sponsor of Moms," just bugs me.  What does that even mean?

Finally, no sighting yet of Rafalca but the equestrian events haven't started yet.  Stay tuned.