Lots of heavy crap going on around these parts, so I won’t be updating too much for the next week or so. Just so you don’t think I have forgotten about my adoring public I will try my best to get some fun stuff up occasionally until things calm down.
Make mine a double
The political situation in Illinois affects me in no measurable way, but I am strangely compelled to observe the increasingly strange behavior of their embattled governor who is, in case you are not from Earth and thus unaware, accused of corruption for trying to sell the replacement appointment of the legislative seat vacated by the new President.
Today he stated “You can conceivably bring in 15 angels and 20 saints, led by Mother Teresa, to come in and testify to my good character and my integrity and all the rest; it wouldn’t matter.”
I must disagree. If Governor Blagojevich could produce 15 beings who were proven to be supernatural creatures, 20 individuals who were actually Saints (that’s with a capital “S” complete with halo) and a woman who is known to be deceased, it would most assuredly matter. I’d be damned impressed.
Use your imagination to picture in your head how a former Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan would react when he sees a black man take the oath of office after being elected President of the United States then settling down for a nice lunch in the Capitol Building.
I’m guessing he would freak out and be carted away, even if he had sort of lost interest in the whole “… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds” …thing a few years ago.
See? Things do have a way of working out in the most poetic of ways. I jest, I jest. The old dude actually endorsed Obama in the run-up. Plus, he was probably just overcome by the plight of his long time friend Ted Kennedy. It makes quite a story, their careers and friendship.
Ain’t America great?
As my personal role model Dr. Egon Spengler famously said “Print is dead.” Along those lines I would like to announcement that our dear friend Kristi has left those luddite bird cage liners in the dust and moved to a intarweb blog. The new venue, Health Hits, will focus on health (imagine that!) an wellness issues that would probably have gotten squeezed out of the print edition. Best of all, if you dislike something she writes you can SCREAM BACK AT HER IN ALL CAPS if you wish. Can you Digg it? She probably wishes you would.
Enough with the puns. Raise your internet glasses and join me in toasting Kristi. To your health!
About the blog
News Sentinel reporter Kristi Nelson blogs about health. She has been a reporter for more than 15 years and has written about health for almost a decade. The married mother of a baby girl, “Bunny,” born in 2007, she lives in South Knoxville with a menagerie of pets. E-mail her with questions or news you’d like to see addressed on this blog.
Regardless of your politics, you have to love a day like today. Most any channel you tune your television to is showing inauguration coverage, and everyone seems happy and excited. It is a welcome switch from the steady drumbeat of misery that is usually on The cynic in me is sure that it won’t last, but the optimist (ususally silent) in me is telling him to STFD & STFU.
In other news, Claire & I felt the earthquake last week and were likely the first of the public to report it since Claire was on the website within 30 seconds of the rumbling. This shift occurred along the New Madrid fault line. In 1812 the New Madrid was the source of the earthquakes that created Reelfoot Lake by making the Mississippi River run backwards for up to two days. We saw nothing remotely interesting, but I must admit a desire to witness a sandblow.
Media reports of my death have been mildly exaggerated. Claire, my immediate family and I have survived a mostly uneventful holiday season. None of us were shot nor did we feel compelled to shoot anyone. Mom, incredibly, has remained out of the hospital since mid-November and has actually increased her ability to shuffle around the house and gained some upper body strength. Dad is doing most of the care giving, leaving Claire & I to tend to our own affairs for the most part.
The bad news concerns our plan to build a house. If you need a case study to explain how the current economic situation affects the middle class look no further. We have very good credit scores, own our primary residence in East Tennessee free and clear, have two acres of property here in West Tennessee also paid for, and we can put 20% down on a mortgage -and we still cannot get a construction loan! That has been very disheartening to say the least. Our Plan B is to add on to the cabin we are living in now. Maybe it is for the best since the economy still has plenty of room to crash and the house we wanted to build was not going to have the features we really wanted, like passive solar heat and grid-tied photovoltaic, due to high costs. If we can get a bedroom and laundry added to this cabin we will be comfortable enough.
I promise to get back into the swing of blogging. Thanks to all who inquired about my lengthy absence. There are lots of things to catch up on such as our first chicken slaughter.
