Six Little Words

So, it looks like I got tagged by Saoirse Daily 2.

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.

4. Tag five more blogs with links.

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

So, with no further ado, here are my six words:

Secret Assistant to the Regional Manager

I hereby tag:

Laura's MySpace blog

Repressed Memmeries

Live from the Wang of America

Sack Of Monkeys In My Pocket

Mom, Mother, Wife, Daughter

Mr. Elrod Goes to "Wahington"?

Once again, I'm brimming with Hoosier pride.

As some of you may know, my congressional district here in Indy - the Fightin' 7th - is currently without representation in the House, due to the somewhat sudden (although hardly surprising) passing of longtime local politician Rep. Julia Carson in December.

Hoosiers will be hitting the polls this coming Tuesday for a special election to replace Carson for the remaining months of her term. As expected, the Democrats have thrown their support behind Julia's grandson, City-County Councilman Andre Carson.

And then there are the Republicans. Granted, winning this contest only guarantees a few months in the Congressional seat, since the regular elections are scheduled for this November. Still, a victory now would be a big publicity boost for any candidate, and would certainly give him or her a leg up on the competition this fall.

So it would seem that this might be a fortuitous opportunity for the Republicans to attempt to assume control of the 7th, which has been one of the few solidly Democratic districts in our exceptionally red state. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem like the GOP candidate, state representative Jon Elrod, is getting much support from the party.



Well, either that or Republicans are morally opposed to spell check. You know, maybe: "That Bill Gates shouldn't interfere with God's true plan for our spelling..."

(As an aside, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that, while the nice people at Taking Down Words and Blue Indiana were kind enough to circle the misspelling of "commercial" in the above ad, the word "television" on the previous line is also misspelled. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.)

And now for my favorite part of the story... the one and only Jon Elrod television commercial. While it is not normally my practice to post Republican campaign ads on my blog, I had to make an exception for this. Pay particular attention to the on-screen graphics at the beginning:




Wow! Now you know that's got to be one smooth campaign operation.

Stay classy, Indianapolis!

What Did YOU Do This Weekend?

Here's what I did this weekend...




I claim no ownership of this video - our seats weren't nearly this good. It's just from the same Ben Folds concert we attended this past Friday at Purdue.

I've been to plenty of concerts in my time, including lots of piano players (Billy Joel, Elton John). But I'm pretty sure this show marked the first time I've witnessed anyone playing a keyboard with another keyboard. Or playing 3 keyboards simultaneously: one with the left hand, one with the right hand, and a third with the right foot. Granted, both of these tricks sound a lot like things my 7 year old nephew would try if given the opportunity... and I can see that for free pretty much any time I want. But somehow it was still pretty cool.

So we enjoyed the concert tremendously (we give it 2 enthusiastic thumbs-up), but it was kind of bittersweet to be puttering around the old campus. And poor Mark is just now getting the feeling back in his legs from squeezing into the doll-sized theater seats in the 2nd balcony of Elliott Hall. But all in all, we had a great night.

Trying to Contain My Hoosier Pride

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash
How I long for my Indiana home.

Somehow, I don't think John McCain shares my love of the Hoosier state... at least, not today.

Fellow Hoosier (and my new hero) Thomas Cook of Blue Indiana filed an official complaint with the Indiana Election Commission this afternoon, contesting the inclusion of John McCain on the ballot for our May 6th primary. Seems that Senator McCain's local campaign organizers (including our esteemed Governor and King of Creepy Comb-Overs, Mitch "Montgomery Burns" Daniels) failed to collect the required number of petition signatures in one congressional district to qualify for the ballot. Huh. (You can read all the details here.)

Predictably, the Republican Powers-That-Be have already approved McCain for the ballot despite this little technical snafu, and I'm sure that they will either ignore the complaint or finagle some way around it. This is what politicians do, after all.

Still, I never thought I'd live to see the day when a Republican candidate - ANY Republican candidate - would have trouble finding signatures for anything in Indiana. I bet could get 100 names in my own neighborhood tomorrow on a petition advocating drunk driving with orphaned cancer puppies if I said I was collecting them for the Republican party. How hard should it be to get 500 names in any district for the acknowledged national Republican front-runner in this overwhelmingly red state?

I kinda wondered why McCain was coming to Indianapolis this Friday... We don't usually get a lot of visits from national candidates. There's not really much reason for it - it's a waste of time for both Democrats and Republicans. For Democrats, there's not much return on the time invested during such a busy season; and for Republicans, our state is typically a slam-dunk with or without a local campaign stop. In light of this new information, though, the hastily-arranged visit is starting to make sense. If McCain's staff is at all competent, they have to be concerned about what appears to be waning support for their candidate in the heart of one of the reddest states in the country.

I think my favorite part of this story, though, is the DNC response:

Despite the fact that the McCain campaign clearly failed to qualify for the ballot, Republican Attorney General Steve Carter and Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita (who recently endorsed McCain) rubberstamped it anyway, trying to sneak McCain onto the ballot. Clearly, the Republican Culture of Corruption is alive and well within the McCain campaign.

Clearly, the Democratic National Committee spokesperson hasn't spent much time in Indiana. The "Republican Culture of Corruption" is just business as usual around here.

Grandma Would Be SO Proud...

...although she might be a bit disturbed that I matched Reagan at 50%. She'd be even more disturbed to see his name on a list of "great" American presidents.

Well, Reagan did spend half his life as a Democrat, so I'm just going to assume that I just matched that earlier half - you know, before he sold his soul.

Which Great US President Are You Most Like? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as John Kennedy 35th President, in office from 1961-1963 Born: 1917 Died: 1963 (assassinated) John Kennedy 74% Franklin Roosevelt 69% George Washington 62% Abraham Lincoln 59% Thomas Jefferson 50% Ronald Reagan 50% Dwight Eisenhower 45% Theodore Roosevelt 41% Lyndon Johnson 38% Woodrow Wilson 22% Harry Truman 19%

Investigative Entertainment Journalism

Once again, I apologize to all of you for my continued absence from posting. As I've said before, I just haven't been feeling very motivated to write lately, even with minute by minute changes in the political landscape. Well, that is, until today...

Unfortunately, the topic which finally struck a chord with me falls squarely in the realm of television and entertainment, although it does also deal peripherally with politics. So, even though I had originally intended to post it here, I felt the story was more appropriate for my media blog (which is humbly entitled The Queen of All Media).

But I hope you will take a few moments to check out my attempt at investigative entertainment journalism on here (the post is titled So Who REALLY Made Huckabee?). Actually, it may be more than a few moments... the first video clip alone is probably about 8 minutes long, although the second clip is much shorter. But it's well worth the time - and if you've been watching Conan, Colbert and/or Stewart over the past few weeks, you can probably skip the longer clip.

And I promise to post something interesting here soon.