Idiocy filled the air yesterday

"The Lord has blessed me and cursed me with an ability to see over the horizon." (Glenn Beck, declaring himself a prophet)

"The Democrat Party base, fringe Alinskyite, Marxist leftists that they are, are the number one impediment to progress in this country." (Rush Limbaugh, ringing bells for his mindless poodles)

"Climate change, global warming appears to be in full effect. ... It was announced today that the cherry blossom festival dates have been moved up in Washington, D.C. by a month because warm weather has caused them to blossom that much earlier." (CNN's Erin Burnett, confusing climate with weather)

"Lately, we’ve heard a lot of professional politicians talking down these new sources of energy. ... If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they probably would have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society." (Pres. Barack Obama, making the case for exacerbating our national economic crisis)

[snicker]

I don't waste time fretting about any dreaded "liberal bias" in the mainstream news media. Ideological slants abound, of course -- MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right come to mind -- but they're poseurs, not credible news networks.

I'm fully capable of digging past headlines and sound bites, thank you very much, and I can form my own opinions.

That said, CNN is my primary source for TV news. Over 31 years it's developed the horsepower to be present, relevant, agile and useful. It's not 100% accurate every time but, in my experience, it gets its facts straight far more often than do most other outlets. When it screws up, it takes responsibility.

One thing that continues to annoy me about CNN, however, is the outright clumsiness of many of its anchors. Carol Costello, for example, clearly is better suited to early-morning duty at a small-market affiliate. Wolf Blitzer, though well-traveled and smart, is such a company man that his reports often become interminably awkward infomercials for the network.

The unsophisticated Brooke Baldwin took over the mid-afternoon slot last fall when CNN fired The Crazy Cuban. Late in yesterday's program, she preceded a commercial break with the following tease:

"More and more members of Congress [are] getting a look at those pictures of a dead Osama bin Laden, and those who have been invited to see these photographs sit on the House and Senate committees on intelligence and the military.

"Coming up next, I will speak with Congressman Doug Lamborn about what he saw and why one Senator suggested bin Laden was still alive in some of those pictures. I wonder what he saw. Stay right here."

The implication: Our guys photographed bin Laden before they shot him. Intrigued, I stuck around for the interview. Here's how it began:

BALDWIN: "Congressman Lamborn, thank you for coming on. And sir, let's just start with, how many photos did you see today at Langley?"

LAMBORN: "Well, when I went over to the CIA headquarters this morning, there were about six or eight photos. And some have a side-by-side showing him living, but from at roughly the same angle, so you can use that for identification and comparison purposes. He is, indeed, dead."

Ok, at that point I felt foolish for biting on the hype -- that is, I got it and laughed (at myself) out loud. Baldwin, alas, did neither.

BALDWIN: "You bring up -- and this is what we [heard] from Senator [Jim] Inhofe last night, talking to my colleague, Eliot Spitzer. So, several of these photos were of him living. Can you explain more specifically how -- how those photos were shot?"

LAMBORN: "Oh, they just had on-file photos of him over the years, and they only do a side-by-side to show the same angle and for ID purposes for, like, the forensic people.... He is dead."

There was a brief-but-delicious pause.

BALDWIN: "I see. So the living photos were not shot in the [Abbottabad, Pakistan] compound...."

Behind every inept anchor is a whole team of doofuses -- the detached producer, the clueless director and an army of wet-behind-the-ears interns. Take a look at what Sen. Inhofe said on Spitzer's program the night before, words that formed the basis for Baldwin's on-air idiocy:

"Three of the first 12 pictures were of [bin Laden] when he was alive. And they did this for the purpose of being able to look at those and seeing the nose, the eyes and [their] relationship for positive identification purposes."

Sen. Inhofe's description seems crystal-clear to me. It didn't send host Spitzer careening into the ditch, either, but it exposed the gulf between Baldwin and common sense.

For me, this won't prompt a rant about incompetence in the media -- there's incompetence in every profession -- but I was glad for a chance to chuckle at chuckleheads.

'The Rifleman' mashup

The Rifleman, which starred Chuck Connors, was my favorite TV show during the early 1960s. (Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges ran a close second.) Even at a tender pre-school age, watching Lucas McCain wield that Winchester Model 1892 would get me grinning every time.

A YouTube link that Mrs. KintlaLake sent me today, on the other hand, had me laughing out loud. It's a digital "mashup" of scenes from The Rifleman and...well, you'll just have to watch it.

Chowder, please -- hold the chicken

"Whoever advised Palin to say this should be fired." (Jonathan Capehart, The Washington Post)

"I read that answer several times, and I still really don't know what she's saying." (Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary)

"All defensiveness and self-absorption. A hefty dollop of chowder-headed babbling re: Egypt as well." (Mike Murphy, GOP consultant, via Twitter)

"We should be used to this by now: lots of feathers, no chicken."
(Jack Cafferty, CNN)

"I have a big problem with people who glamorize dumbness and demonize education and intellect -- and I'm giving a pretty good description of Sarah Palin® right now." (Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter, "The Social Network")

("Sarah Palin" is a registered trademark -- or it will be, presumably, as soon as the former Mayor of Wasilla and former half-term Governor of Alaska re-submits her application to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The first time, last November 5th, she neglected to sign it. And just to show that certain traits are inherited, her daughter did the same thing when applying to register "Bristol Palin.")

Forty-five

Like millions of other Americans, my wife, younger spawn and I watched Super Bowl XLV. We settled in our living room, the glow of the TV before us and a fire flickering on the hearth behind.

From the bluest of blue-collar cities, small markets both, Green Bay and Pittsburgh brought a refreshingly non-NFL atmosphere to the Jerry Dome, an enthusiasm rivaling that of big-time college football. And three former Buckeyes -- A.J. Hawk, Ryan Pickett and Matt Wilhelm -- earned championship rings as members of the Packers.

It turned out to be a pretty good game, too.

As you might expect, I could do without six hours of pre-game falderal. Ditto a pop star flubbing the one song she was paid to sing -- the National Anthem. I was out of the room during the halftime fluff, but from what I hear it was a gremlin-infested Charlie Foxtrot.

I do enjoy the commercials. Bridgestone's beaver brought a grin, as did the VW ad with the kid in the Dick Cheney getup. But my runaway favorite -- by a mile -- was this Chrysler spot.



That one pulled me out of my recliner -- from concept to production it's pure genius. Whether coincidence or not, it's the second Chrysler commercial that I've dropped here on KintlaLake Blog.

As the football season faded into memory last night, we turned off the TV and retired to bed. Sleep eluded me for a time -- my mind was restless, but it wasn't replaying Super Bowl highlights. It was still stuck on rewind, conjuring scenes from 42 years ago, remembering one foggy summer morning when my father and I went plinking down by Coxey's Quarry.

It'll be a while, I think, before I can shake those visions and move on.
(My father hadn't yet marked his first birthday when this ad appeared in the July 1927 issue of Boys' Life. Methinks that Remington's claim is a bit of a stretch.)

A truthy 'toon

Here's a YouTube video sent to me by a reader over the weekend, prompted by a recent KintlaLake Blog post about the Fed's so-called "quantitative easing."



If you're tempted to dismiss that as just another anti-capitalist grenade, don't. Wrapped in simple animation, sprinkled with colorful characterizations, are facts beyond credible dispute.

Don't believe me? Eliot Spitzer -- yeah, the guy known as "Client-9" during the prostitution scandal that forced him to resign as Governor of New York but also as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" during his tenure as the state's Attorney General -- had this to say at the top of CNN's Parker-Spitzer last night:

"...when I first saw this [video] I started laughing so hard, I started -- tears coming out of my eyes. Then I was crying because it's true.

"I mean, think about this, Goldman got TARP money. Goldman got $12.9 billion from that whole AIG mess that was completely insane. Should never have happen[ed]. Goldman was turned into a bank holding company overnight -- never happened before -- so they can make more money. They get money interest-free from the government.

"It's a scam. It's a rip-off. What's going on here?"

"I don't have any problem with [banks] making money, but there is fundamentally a problem with our policy that has given so much money to the banks over the last couple years. It has not brought the economy back to where it should be. The banks are giving themselves huge bonuses out of taxpayer money. It is wrong ethically. It should have been wrong legally. The government didn't know how to negotiate with them, and that is the source of a lot of anger, and a legitimate anger I believe."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The U.S. economy is fundamentally and perhaps irreparably broken. Federal fiscal policy isn't merely incompetent -- it's corrupt.

Short memory, off-balance

Juan Williams is a smart guy and one sharp journalist. He worked for The Washington Post for 23 years, joined FauxNews in 1997 and National Public Radio a couple of years after that.

Two of those employers are actual news organizations, at least. His presence at the third owes to his (relatively) conservative leanings. Of course, FauxNews sees him as (relatively) liberal.

Williams said this on Monday's edition of The O'Reilly Factor:

"Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality. I mean, look Bill [O'Reilly], I'm not a bigot, you know the kind of books I've written on the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

"Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts. But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it's not a war against Islam."

NPR promptly fired Williams, saying that his remarks on FOX were "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR." Yesterday CEO Vivian Schiller told the Atlanta Press Club that Williams should consult "his psychiatrist or his publicist -- take your pick." Classy.

I hardly know where to begin. The best place, I guess, is with the words that got Williams canned:

"...when I get on a plane...if I see people who are in Muslim garb...I get worried. I get nervous."

I'm quite sure that's how he feels, just as I'm certain that he's not the only American who has the same reaction. His confession flies in the face of "political correctness," that's for damned sure, but it's also unbecoming of a black man who should know better than to perpetuate irrational fear.

His caveats notwithstanding, Williams would be wise to recall many whites' equally unreasonable fear of African-Americans, especially during his youth.

Williams' human reaction is understandable, his independence and candor admirable. His common sense, however, needs a tuneup.

His memory could use a good stretch, too.

And then we come to NPR, which has been less than thrilled with Williams' commentary on FauxNews for a while now. Swamped by a wave of outrage over the firing, the network's ombudsman admitted that "NPR handled this situation badly."

No shit?

Unlike CNN's dismissal of Rick Sanchez a few weeks ago, NPR's termination of Williams robbed it of an intelligent, thoughtful voice of reason -- a (relatively) conservative voice which brought respectable balance to the network's analysis. NPR willfully diminished itself and, as a result, insulted its listeners.

Williams, of course, got a shiny new contract with FauxNews, which insults us all.

Ultimately, I come down on the side of intellectual honesty and, by that measure, NPR falls short. I've ended my support of public broadcasting. It won't resume until NPR regains its balance.

Re-hiring Juan Williams would be a step in the right direction, but I'm not holding my breath.

Today's crystals

"Republicans love America, they just seem to hate about 50 percent of the people who live in it. Democrats...love this country, they just somehow wish it were a different country."

"It feels to me like the right wants to take us back to a time in America that never really existed, and the left wants us to advance to a Utopian environment where no one can say anything about anybody...where we're all just worried about the fragility of stepping on each other's toes." (Jon Stewart, on last night's edition of Larry King Live)

"It's freaking football. There are going to be big hits. I don't understand how they can do this after one weekend of hitting. And I can't understand how they can suspend us for it. I think it's a bunch of bullshit.

"You know what we should do? We should just put flags on everybody. Let's make it the NFFL -- the National Flag Football League. It's unbelievable." (Brian Urlacher, Chicago Bears linebacker, to the Chicago Tribune, reacting to the NFL's announcement that it'll begin suspending players for flagrant hits to the head-and-neck area)

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

"You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

"I'm sorry I didn't bring my Constitution with me. Fortunately senators don't have to memorize the Constitution -- can you remind me of what the [14th and 16th Amendments] are?" (Christine O'Donnell, GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from Delaware, during Tuesday's debate with Democratic candidate Chris Coons, reminding us that while she may be entitled to run for office, she's anything but qualified to serve)

Catch that?

A number of KintlaLake Blog readers looked closely at an image in one of yesterday's posts, past those old pocketknives to the words on the page of my 1967 BSA Fieldbook.


To satisfy expressed curiosity, then, here's the paragraph appearing behind the knives (emphasis mine):

"Quality in a knife, an ax, or a saw--or any other tool--has to be judged on proper design, suitable material, and honest workmanship. To the expert, just 'hefting' a tool--trying its weight and balance--and running an eye along its edge tells him a lot. The maker's name may influence his opinion--some--but the test will be in the using: will the knife take and hold a keen edge, does the ax hang right and swing true, can a saw bite deep and smooth and not chatter or run out of the cut?"

The guidance is simple, practical, correct. I used that page quite intentionally, of course -- thanks for noticing.

Watch & learn
Last week my exasperated younger spawn came to me and said,

"I'll sure be glad when the election is over."

Like the rest of us, he's tired of being bombarded with political ads at every commercial break. This 15-year-old even acknowledged that the candidates' pitches are laced with half-truths and outright lies, and that they're not very helpful. (A budding critical thinker, that one.)

Before the conversation ended, I reminded him that what he's discovered isn't unique to political ads. Come November 3rd, when the television starts telling him what he craves for Christmas this year, I want him to notice that commercial ads do the same thing.

We'll wait to see if that sticks. Color me cautiously optimistic.

Affinity redux
Josh Mandel, a 33-year-old Republican from the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, wants to be our next State Treasurer. Mandel's bio, like every one of his campaign ads, leads with this factoid:

"Josh Mandel is a Marine intelligence veteran who served two tours in Iraq..."

I honor his military service, of course, but it doesn't qualify him to manage Ohio's $50 billion budget -- in fact, it's wholly irrelevant.

What's more, even though I'm not a veteran myself, I recoil from anyone who uses their military service as a gambit -- whether in politics, in business or in everyday conversation. Many vets see the tactic as diminishing their collective honor, and I agree.

Let's tell the truth about this -- Mandel is exploiting military service (as well as resorting to bigotry and Islamophobia) because it works.

Affinity politics, closely related to the identity politics typified by Christine O'Donnell's "I'm you" strategy, relies on voters to make decisions based on irrational fears, superficial personal qualities and insignificant biographical bits. Sadly, that's how most American citizens choose elected officials, so Josh Mandel will win.

He just won't be getting my vote.

Same difference

CNN fired nutjob Rick Sanchez last Friday, less than 24 hours after his flaky guest appearance on a satellite-radio show. Good riddance.

The Crazy Cuban, who tilts reliably to the left when he's not tilting at windmills, plunged headlong into the weeds. During his embarrassing dissociative rant he called Jon Stewart "a bigot" and told listeners that Jews run the news networks (including CNN). He went off on the "white liberal establishment" and "elite Northeast establishment liberals" for short-sheeting Latinos like him.

The First Amendment may allow for loose cannons but CNN does not. Game over.

FOXNews, on the other hand, wouldn't dream of dismissing The Manic Mormon -- Glenn Beck, no matter what he says or where he says it, is paid to be a loose cannon, a loon unconstrained by accuracy. Beck's bosses at FauxNews don't insist that he be responsible, only provocative. His audience, estimated at three million each day, gobbles it up.

There's a new Beck-book out -- Dana Milbank's Tears of a Clown. The author says of his subject:

"[Glenn Beck] perfectly captures the vitriol of our time and the fact-free state of our political culture. The secret to his success is his willingness to traffic in the fringe conspiracies and Internet hearsay that others wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole: death panels, government health insurance for dogs, FEMA concentration camps, an Obama security force like Hitler's SS.

"But Beck, who is, according to a recent Gallup poll, admired by more Americans than the Pope, has nothing in his background that identifies him as an ideologue, giving rise to the speculation that his right-wing shtick is just that -- the act of a brilliant showman, known for both his over-the-top daily outrages and for weeping on the air."

"Ultimately, only Beck knows if he actually believes the things he says on-air. Given his background as a pro-choice, ponytail-wearing, drug-using DJ on morning radio, it's tempting to think he invented the conservative persona, and found the ideology, to exploit a market opportunity. Anger and fear always grow in times of economic trouble and Beck's arrival at Fox News in early 2009 just after the American economy collapsed could not have been better timed.

"Yet even if Beck embraced the ideology for entirely commercial reasons, it's entirely possible that, after playing the role for so long on radio and TV, he has internalized it."

Now here's the thing: Many of Milbank's observations of Beck apply to Sanchez. It doesn't matter that one is a bleeding-heart Miami liberal and the other a weepy-eyed occupant of the far-right fringe -- both are manufactured characters, real-life cartoons catering to audiences that can't be bothered with thinking.

The two are more similar than they are different. Preferring one of these snake-oil salesmen over the other is a reflection of ideology, not credibility.

I'll get my news -- and my entertainment -- elsewhere, thanks.

Transparent

The moment captured in that photograph -- Chief Justice John Roberts administering the oath of office to Pres. Barack Obama for a second time -- has led to a chuckle or two (and a bit of eye-rolling).

On Inauguration Day, Chief Justice Roberts famously flubbed the oath. Since the Constitution prescribes that the term of the outgoing President ends at noon on the 20th of January, the President-elect assumed the nation's highest office at that stroke anyway.

So as a matter of constitutional law -- thanks to the 20th Amendment, which was ratified in 1933 -- the oath of office is ceremonially inspiring but legally moot.

Conspiracy junkies seldom are deterred by facts, however, and the caterwauling commenced with the Chief Justice's first stumble. Here are but three examples of how some of our fellow citizens "think":

"Obama's inauguration day was rendered legally void by the failure to recite the constitutionally decreed oath of office. Obama's refusal to recite the oath was thinly and incompetently masked by a staged flub by the judge administering the oath. As a result, Obama failed yet ANOTHER constitutional requirement for the office of the Presidency."

"The oath was NOT spoken EXACTLY as written in the Constitution, the inauguration is invalid and hence Obama is NOT the real president!"

"I have to say I'm not sure Barack Obama really is the President of the United States because the oath of office is set in the Constitution and I wasn't at all convinced that even after he tried to amend it that John Roberts ever got it out straight and that Barack Obama ever said the prescribed words. I suspect that everybody is going to forgive him and allow him to take over as president, but I'm not sure he actually said what's in the Constitution, there."

If you're sure that this kind of ignorance is confined to the blogosphere and free-for-all forums, by the way, guess again -- that last quote belongs to perennially challenged Chris Wallace of right-tilting FOX News.

"Forgive him and allow him to take over as president" -- really? Well, Chris, as long as it's ok with you...

White House Counsel Greg Craig advised that it'd be a good idea to take the oath again, "out of an abundance of caution." And so the president did, on Wednesday evening, thus the photo.

But the howling didn't end there. Typical:

"He may have said the right words the second time, but did you notice that he didn't swear on a Bible? This abomination may be your president, but he isn't mine."

I guess these people got bored with the whole fringe-on-the-flag thing. Or maybe they grew tired of talking about all those scary coins that China is warehousing. In any case, so it goes.

You can't fix stupid.

In addition to a still photo of Oath: Take Two, there's an audio recording -- no video. The re-do was arranged in a relative hurry, and administration officials pulled in only a handful of print reporters and a White House photographer.

Seems reasonable to me, considering, but the television networks went indignantly ballistic. This is what CNN's Ed Henry had to say about the perceived snub:

"(Pres. Obama) began the day pushing for more transparency in government, only to end it by keeping TV cameras out when Chief Justice John Roberts re-administered the oath of the presidency."

"So the whole point of the ceremony -- getting the word out there that the president was in fact inaugurated -- was undermined by the fact that now there's no videotape to prove he was sworn in.

"Not to mention that it may run counter to the main message the president was trying to deliver Wednesday with his executive order pushing for more openness in government."

(Translation: Anything not recorded on video didn't really happen.)

Looks to me like someone needs to learn the difference between transparency and unrestricted access. Not disclosing the second oath would've broken the promise of transparency; choosing not to stage a grand, made-for-TV event did not.

Get over yourselves, please, and move the hell on.

* * *
One example of Obama-Biden's transparency is the Agenda section of the White House website. That's both good news and bad.

Buried in "Urban Policy" under "Crime and Law Enforcement" are ominous anti-Second Amendment promises:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

I saw this same language on the campaign and transition websites. I wasn't ok with it then, and I'm not ok with it now -- any of it.

First, the Tiahrt Amendment must remain in place. Releasing the information serves no useful purpose, and law-abiding gun owners know that very few guns are used in the commission of crimes. Most important, the confidentiality of gun-ownership information has been eroded too far already -- no more.

Second, as we've seen in Obama-Biden's support of the District of Columbia's onerous regulations, "commonsense measures" effectively would prohibit the practical defensive use of firearms -- no thanks.

The "gun show loophole" is a myth -- no loophole exists.

As for "making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent," gun owners will resist any measure that seeks to return us to the dark days of the Clinton (nee Biden) Gun Ban -- no way.

Americans have cause to be optimistic, generally, about some of the "change" that the new administration will bring. Law-abiding gun owners, unfortunately, have good reason to be pessimistic.

From 'The Daily Show'

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Thanksgiving's best

"Oh my God, they're turkeys! ... Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!" (Les Nessman, from "Turkeys Away")

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." (Arthur Carlson)

Radio echo

In the days before cable TV and video gluttony, my family's black-and-white Zenith offered three choices: NBC, ABC, and CBS, all via affiliates broadcasting out of Cleveland. Most days, our rooftop antenna delivered decent reception, but sometimes I'd have to squint through "ant races" to see the grainy image.

For all the love of Lucy, cartoons and football on weekend afternoons, there truly wasn't much on TV back then.

Ah, but we had radio -- I'm talking about AM radio. I'd usually dial up an Akron station or, if I got lucky (and weather permitting), I could find a strong Cleveland signal. I'd hide a small AM receiver under my pillow, listening to pop music every night 'til the Ray-O-Vacs gave out. (That probably explains why I can sing along with every top-ten tune from 1966 to 1970.)

Among my most vivid radio memories is baseball -- Cleveland Indians baseball. My family would tune-in those tinny broadcasts in the living room, in the kitchen, in the car. Whenever we traveled an hour south to visit family, there was my grandfather, sitting in his favorite chair, listening to the Tribe on his old Magnavox set.

I don't remember any one particular game, really, just a few names like Rocky Colavito and Sam McDowell. But to this day, I can close my eyes and hear the call: "It's a high fly ball, deep down the left-field line..."

Playing inside my head is the voice of Herb Score, who called Indians games from the mid-'60s through the '97 World Series. Herb died yesterday at 75, but he'll always be the quintessential Voice of the Indians.

There must be miles upon miles of tape preserving the incomparable work of Herb Score. More precious recordings of his voice, however, are woven into childhood memories of summer afternoons by a crackling radio -- and those echoes will outlast any magnetic tape.

Irrepressible

This morning, Heather Pick lost her battle with breast cancer. She leaves behind her husband, Joe, and two children, a daughter and a son. She was just 38 years old.

My wife and I are creatures of habit, and each morning's ritual begins with coffee and the 5am news on WBNS-10TV out of Columbus. Heather had co-anchored that newscast since 2002, and we came to enjoy her plain-spoken, Wisconsin-born personality and clearly indomitable spirit.

Heather made no secret of her cancer -- quite the opposite. During rounds of chemotherapy she stayed on the job and on the air, auditioning different wigs for the viewing audience. She was a tireless activist for community causes, especially those involving children and cancer research.

Back in 2006, I worked with Heather in my professional capacity on a story she was doing about a male survivor of breast cancer. After finishing the interview with him, to my surprise she instructed the videographer to mic me. She then asked me to repeat for the camera something I'd shared with her earlier, a story about a friend, another male survivor of this dreaded disease.

What I remember most about that day was feeling that I'd met a true Force of Nature -- I'd had the privilege of coming face-to-face with the same brilliant soul that I saw every morning on our bedroom TV.

A few months ago, other anchors began appearing in Heather's chair. We thought she might be on vacation, but after a month went by, then two, we knew. Despite the substitutes announcing that they were "sitting in for Heather Pick today," we knew.

Heather, who kept on living while fighting for her life, is my hero. Her bravery and selfless service to this community are her legacy. Like a stained-glass window, she was someone the light shines through.

Godspeed, Heather. Shine on.

It goes to motive

Sen. John McCain's cringe reflex must be in a full-on cramp.

Gov. Sarah Palin sat down today for an interview with Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News. Ms. Vargas suggested that Gov. Palin might, in light of all of the attacks leveled at her, react to an Election Day loss with, "I've had it. I'm going back to Alaska." Gov. Palin's response:

"Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that...that would...bring this whole...I'm not doin' this for naught."

At least the undisciplined Gov. Palin revealed publicly why she agreed to accompany Sen. McCain on his Marginal Misery Tour in the first place -- not that we didn't know her motives already.

If only Sen. McCain would let his guard down long enough to tell us what the hell he was thinking when he chose her.

Local color

Barbara West, an anchor with ABC affiliate WFTV in Orlando, asked Sen. Joe Biden this question during an interview last Thursday:

"You may recognize this famous quote: 'From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Sen. Biden, smiling broadly, responded:

"Are you joking? Is this is a joke? Or is that a real question?"

The rest of the five-minute interview was, let's say, contentious.

She said later that she was simply asking "tough questions," and she's won praise from the far right for her performance. There's only one problem with that: Ms. West didn't ask tough questions -- she asked laughable questions. She must've quaffed an entire keg of high-test right-wing Kool-Aid before regurgitating it in front of the cameras.

A critical viewing of her subsequent interview with Sen. John McCain, conducted today, leaves no doubt about what Ms. West has been drinking.

Voters, by and large, don't care about the whole Marxism thing. If they cared enough to actually learn about it, they'd know that what Sen. Barack Obama is proposing isn't Marxism. They'd understand that Ms. West, disguised as a news anchor, was trafficking in extremist buzz-words and GOP talking points, nothing more.

Did I mention that Ms. West is married to a Republican spin doctor?

I'm no fan of Sen. Biden and I won't be voting for the Obama-Biden ticket, but I know partisan idiocy when I see it. I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that Ms. West, typical of a "personality" languishing in middle age and stuck doing the 5:30am newscast in a local market, probably doesn't know Karl from Harpo.

And she'll probably have her own FOX News show before Christmas.

It gets no better

Ike & the like

Most Americans can't imagine what it's like to stare down the barrel of Hurricane Ike, now taking aim on the Texas Gulf Coast.

I know I can't.

Sure, I lived in southern New England when Gloria -- the most-hyped storm in history -- came ashore as a weak Category 2 hurricane just 20 miles south of my home in 1985. I remember walls shaking, trees falling, lights winking and the eerie calm of the eye passing overhead.

Compared to Ike, Gloria was a nursery rhyme.

Forecasters say that Ike will arrive on Galveston Island early tomorrow morning as a Category 3 hurricane. By the time it reaches the Houston metropolitan area, 40 miles inland, it may still pack a Category 2 wallop. Coastal communities are expecting a 20-foot storm surge, and some areas already are under water. Ike's cloud shield, edge-to-edge, measures a staggering 900 miles.

As I watch a different weather system drop rain outside my window, a thousand miles from Galveston, Ike is just another news story -- except that it'll interrupt 25% of America's oil-refining capacity, 20% of domestic oil production and 15% of our natural-gas production, not to mention the temporary shutdown (at least) of numerous big chemical plants.

So while I keep the people of Galveston and Houston in my thoughts, I'll be equally mindful of the storm's impact on our punch-drunk economy. We seem capable of absorbing these painful blows, provided they're thrown one at a time, but what'll we do if they start coming in flurries?

* * *

I should've bought gas last week.

I don't drive much these days, and I've let my tank (and my fuel cache) drift toward empty while watching prices fall. In just the last 24 hours, they've jumped by 20 cents a gallon around here.

Lazy, optimistic, and not terribly smart.

* * *

On Wednesday, Sen. Joe Biden said -- out loud and publicly -- that Sen. Hillary Clinton "might have been a better pick" for Sen. Barack Obama's running mate.

And yesterday, when asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson if she agrees with the "Bush Doctrine" -- the well-known policy of striking preemptively before being attacked -- Gov. Sarah Palin did her best impression of a moose in the headlights.

You just can't make this stuff up.

* * *

As I said on Wednesday, I've joined the ranks of the undecided, stepping back from my decision to vote for McCain-Palin. Reaction from readers, friends and family has been strong, to say the least, and overwhelmingly negative.

For the most part, I've been told that not voting for McCain-Palin would be "stupid" -- that's what we say, of course, about people who disagree with us. Democrats say it about Republicans. Conservatives say it about liberals. We have bookstores full of titles like Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, and If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans.

No wonder our country is stuck in reverse.

The 2008 presidential election will be my ninth, so I'm not exactly naive about the dynamics of a close race. I know that if I don't vote for McCain-Palin, I could be handing the equivalent of two votes to Obama-Biden -- especially significant in the so-called "battleground state" of Ohio, thanks to the Electoral College.

The McCain-Palin campaign's intellectual bankruptcy finally drove me to question the wisdom of casting a "defensive vote" against Obama-Biden, especially in light of my clear disagreement with the GOP ticket on issues like abortion rights, the U.S. occupation of Iraq and fiscal policy. I realized that I'd become part of an opposition flock of red sheep, and I'm not sure that's the best way for me to exercise my sacred privilege on November 4th.

If I do decide to vote for a minor-party candidate, I'd be leaving the flock in pursuit of a far greater good, as I perceive it, acknowledging that an Obama presidency isn't the most sinister threat to my country's future.

In terms of sentiment, I'd be standing with a majority of Americans who believe that the two dominant parties have broken more than they've fixed. In terms of action, however, I'd be decidedly in the minority, and frankly, that's a scary place to be. But as natural-gas wildcatter John Masters said,

"You have to recognize that every 'out-front' maneuver is going to be lonely. But if you feel entirely comfortable, then you're not far enough ahead to do any good. That warm sense of everything going well is usually the body temperature at the center of the herd. Only if you're far enough ahead to be at risk do you have a chance for large rewards."

(It occurs to me that political poseurs McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden might want to consult Mr. Masters before invoking buzzwords like "maverick" or "change.")

We need fundamental and revolutionary change, not the cosmetic, dime-store variety proposed by the two big campaigns. It won't happen in a single election, but it has to start somewhere.

It might as well start with me.

* * *

Less than 36 hours from now, my #5 Ohio State Buckeyes will play the top-ranked USC Trojans in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

OSU running back "Beanie" Wells, arguably the team's best player, is still nursing an injured foot and has been listed as "doubtful" for the game. USC presents enough of a challenge with Wells in the lineup, and if he's on the sidelines...

I'm going to end this post here -- it's damned near impossible to type with all my fingers crossed.

Stretch run

This morning we awoke to a world without big political conventions -- and what a glorious world it is.

Looking back at the parties' parties, the Democrats survived the PUMAs and emerged with something close to the unity they sought. Although not to my political tastes and far from perfect, it was, by any credible measure, an extraordinarily well-produced and successful event. Grade: A-.

Note to the DNC: Good show. No more silly-ass columns.

The Republican National Convention, however, may well be hoist by its own petard. Its minimalist set and low-key stagecraft, ostensibly for the purpose of making the Democrats look overly gaudy by comparison, did nothing to contribute excitement to the festivities -- and creating excitement, really, is the whole point of a convention.

That left the job to speakers and other players. With the exception of Gov. Sarah Palin and possibly Mayor Rudy Giuliani, none delivered. Grade: C.

Now, as the campaign enters its final 60 days, the big, bad, "elitist liberal media" are reporting on a number of unforced errors committed by the GOP in St. Paul.

I'm sure you've heard that as a high-school basketball star, Gov. Palin earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda." Naturally, I suppose, Republicans decided to play the 1977 hit "Barracuda" by the rock group Heart at every opportunity during the convention -- without permission, as it turns out, prompting this statement from Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late '70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

Ouch, babe.

On Monday evening, Mrs. KintlaLake and I watched Cindy McCain and First Lady Laura Bush speak on the convention's unofficial "Hurricane Gustav Day." I remember my wife wondering aloud about the designer of Ms. McCain's striking dress.

Seems Vanity Fair was curious, too, and promptly put its research team on the case. Naming the designer, Oscar de la Renta, wasn't the half of it, though -- according to the magazine, the estimated price tag of dress, shoes, watch and necklace was a whopping $20,000.

People just like us, eh?

There's more: including her three-carat diamond earrings, the total came to more than $300,000.

Look, it's the McCains' hard-earned money and they have every right to spend it as they like, but this sort of extravagance is colossally bad form on the campaign trail. It's not something the Obama campaign will mention, however -- both because they shouldn't and because they won't have to.

And then there's the inexplicable matter of a certain image that appeared on the big screen behind Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech on Thursday.

First, the camera went to a tight shot, setting Sen. McCain against a field of green -- just like that cheesy green background in Louisiana a few months ago.

It may sound like the teleproduction equivalent of inside baseball, but green is bad and this was a mistake -- a repeat mistake, this time with the highest of stakes.

When the camera went wide again, I saw that the green field actually was a lawn in front of an elegant stone building. At the time, the first thing that occurred to me -- Why are they showing a photo of some big, fancy villa? -- made absolutely no sense, especially after the lamentable seven-homes flap.

I shook my head and turned my attention back to the speech. It wasn't until today that I got, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

The building isn't a villa at all -- it's Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. (Nice digs, kids.)

Wait a minute -- could it be (as many today are speculating) that some junior McCain staffer was asked to find a photo of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and picked a junior high instead?

The McCain campaign says no, this was exactly the photo they wanted -- a schoolhouse with a flag and a porch, typical postcard Americana.

I don't believe that for a second.

Adding insult to self-inflicted injury, Walter Reed Middle School has issued a statement saying that the RNC didn't have permission to use the image to promote Sen. McCain's candidacy.

Sound familiar?

Unforced errors kill more campaigns than do October surprises engineered by the opposition. If McCain-Palin can't eliminate the screwups, they're going to fade into also-ran status.

As it is, they're already making me feel unwell about casting my vote in their direction.