First Day Of September Bucolic Sikes Lake Meghan McCain Great America Musings

How did August disappear so quickly in a HOT blink? I grow weary of time seeming to fly by ever faster.

This first day of September I spent the morning watching the National Cathedral John McCain memorial service.

I had no idea, when I began watching, that the memorial would take up almost the entire morning.

Even though she is sort of a right winger, I have found myself liking Meghan McCain in the past. Watching Meghan's moving eulogy had me liking her even more.

Particularly when Meghan said, "The America of John McCain has no need to be great again because America was always great” to the eruption of loud applause for the first time during the memorial.

I hope the Orange Menace can restrain himself from doing any unseemly tweeting about all the subtle comments made today which were directed at our ongoing National Embarrassment. Unless someone explains it to him, he likely is too dense to figure out on his own what the words meant.

Sometime before noon I turned off the TV to take off on a bike ride, eventually arriving at Sikes Lake, where I stopped to take the bucolic photo you see above, looking at the Sikes Bayou, and a flock of geese, at the west side of Sikes Lake.

The reality that September is likely going to fly by just as fast as August has me concerned. Because I am not yet adjusted to the idea of doing so, but in early October I am currently committed to roadtripping to Arizona, where a house has been rented as my temporary abode for almost a month.

In addition to the regular characters I see when I am in Arizona, this time I will be seeing some new faces with which I used to be quite familiar, from Washington, the Skagit Valley of Washington to be precise.

I expect I will be finding it amusing, me being the tour guide guiding the Arizona site seeing....

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama for President

If only Obama had picked Colin Powell as his running mate I'd be 100% happy to vote for him. With Joe Biden, not so much. Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama on Meet the Press yesterday was a prime example of why Colin Powell would make a great President. Colin Powell is relatively young, it could happen. In the meantime I think I'll go early vote tomorrow. And it won't be for McCain and that Alaska dame, even with my Joe Biden aversion.

John McCain on the Letterman Show

Dow Jones, Debates & Icy Water

It is now the Ides of October, as in October 16. I continue to go swimming early in the morning. At midnight it was 59 degrees here. When I went swimming this morning it was 56. I continue to be amazed that this is doable, to swim when the water is so cold.

I've gotten so many problems fixed this week that I'm feeling sort of relieved. And then I opened the morning paper to see that the Stock Market crashed again. Just when I thought things were starting to look up.

I tried to watch last night's debate, really I did. I am truly perplexed as to what has gone wrong with me. I used to watch all things political religiously. Conventions beginning to end. All the debates. I made it through several of the primary debates. But I've only made it through one of the current string of debates, that being the Palin/Biden debate.

Maybe it has something to do with I already know who I'm voting for. But that hasn't stopped me from watching a debate previously. Maybe I'm turning into a cranky old man. Just way too easily annoyed. I think I made it past maybe 4 instances of rolling my eyes and thinking I was hearing pure idiocy and then turned off the TV and went to bed.

McCain was embarrassing. Obama seemed like the grown-up in the room. We live in scary times.

John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

First Presidential Debate Down, Two More To Go

I surprised myself last night. Even though I found it pretty much a boring snorefest I made it through last night's debate. The debate had none of those memorable type moments that so many previous Presidential debates have had.

Like Gerald Ford saying Eastern Europe was not under Soviet control. For those of you born post the 1970s, up til the collapse of the communism, Eastern Europe was behind what was called the Iron Curtain. Basically the countries that the Soviet Union occupied after World War II the Soviets turned into communist states. If one of the Soviet's communist "allies" got frisky, like Czechoslavakia did in 1968, the Soviets would invade and squash the rebellion.

This type thing was why it was a laugh producing gaffe when Gerald Ford made his unfortunate assertion. He really never recovered from that one incident.

The first President Bush had a memorable debate moment that hurt him when he looked at his watch, as if he was bored and anxious for the torture to end. But he was on a stage that included Clinton and Ross Perot. I really didn't think it all that odd that he'd check the time. But it bothered others.

Michael Dukakis had a bad debate moment when he coldly and robotically responded to a question regarding the death penalty and what his position on that issue would be if his wife, Kitty, were raped and murdered. That was one odd debate moment.

Al Gore had some bad debate moments when he'd do a heavy sigh in response to something coming out of George W.'s mouth. Now that almost the entire country has done similar sighing it now just seems like Al Gore was ahead of his time.

The first debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan gave most of the country their first good look at Reagan. And he surprised a lot of people. He didn't come across as some sort of hardline right winger. Instead he came across as really likable, funny, and, well, presidential. While Jimmy Carter looked and sounded really weak, at one point Reagan zinging some Carter nonsense with his famous line, "There you go again." At the time it was a great debate moment.

So, last night, to my eyes and ears there were no memorable moments. John McCain seemed toned down. No flashes of crankiness. Barack Obama seemed less long-winded than usual, with fewer moments of speaking haltingly, like he has in previous debates. Obama seemed more forceful than he has before. Very measured.

McCain rarely looked at Obama, instead directing his attention to the moderator, Jim Lehrer. It made it look like McCain was ignoring Obama.

McCain repeated himself a few times. Whether this was due to him thinking he had to hammer in a point, or he forgot he'd already said it, who knows. I'm guessing an early sign of senility. Like twice he said he has not been awarded the Miss Congeniality title while in Washington.

All in all, I guess I'd call the debate a tie.

Tonight's Uncertain Debate

The only convention speech I listened to in its entirety was Sarah Palin's. In all the years that there have been Presidential Debates I have only missed one, that being a debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. I'd gone picking apples in Eastern Washington with my mom and dad and we didn't make it back to the west side of the mountains in time for the debate.

So, even with my ability to watch much TV in serious decline I'm almost certain I'll muster the energy and focus to watch the debate if it happens tonight.

I'm guessing John McCain will let this play out all day long til it's time for him to hop on a plane bound for Mississippi with him telling reporters that enough progress had been made today that he felt okay about wasting his precious time debating Barack Obama.

Speaking of Barack Obama, why has Rush Limbaugh taken to calling him Barry? I've heard no one else call him Barry.

UPDATE: As usual, my prediction about tonight's debate was wrong. McCain did not wait til the last minute to announce he'd show up. Instead he let it be known this morning that he'd be in Mississippi tonight and head back to Washington immediately after to continue to try and prevent the Financial Pearl Harbor from happening.

John McCain Suspends Campaign & Debate While Clay Aiken's Gay

Can't I have a peaceful lunch without hearing something shocking on Fox News?

It was bad enough to be told that Clay Aiken had shocked his fans and the rest of civilization with the news that he is a father. And gay. These revelations came via People Magazine.

I'd barely digested the shocking news about Clay Aiken when special breaking news had John McCain announce that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington to participate in finding a solution to the financial crisis. This includes postponing Friday's debate and when that debate is held sometime next week, switching the subject from foreign policy to the economy.

McCain asked Barack Obama to do the same. To go along with the debate postponement and to return to Washington. They are both senators, after all. It seems the responsible thing to do.

But, I was looking forward to Friday's debate. I don't take postponed gratification well.

John McCain's Teleprompter Problems

In this video John McCain blames his nephew's incompetent handling of the teleprompter keyboard for his frequent miscues...scroll down the list to find the John McCain Teleprompter video. I could not seem to get the right embed code and instead it turned into some sort of entertainment news thing that started off with Britney Spears. I don't want Britney Spears on my blog...

John McCain's First Wife Carol

That's Carol McCain in the photo. The survivor of a horrible car wreck. And a husband who dumped her almost immediately upon getting home from the Viet Nam War. To start womanizing, eventually ending up with a former rodeo queen, wealthy heiress named Cindy.

The ever memorable Ross Perot said this about John McCain...

“McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory. After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.”

In 1979 - while still married to Carol - he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued Cindy, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage. Some of McCain's acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

When John McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. Today, she stands at just 5' 4" in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and , at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

Ross Perot paid for Carol McCain's medical bills all those years ago.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans' rights, said: "I have been following John McCain's career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is -deceit. Then he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better."

I guess I'm back voting for Obama. Even though I really really don't like Joe Biden.

Yikes! John McCain's Senior Moments