I'm leaving for Denver in five-ish hours. Ever been? Have some suggestions of what a girl who likes to be a local should do?
On the docket as of now is visiting with John's family and seeing his home, canoing, hiking, eating at the original Chipotle, picking up convention swag and then and avoiding the convention craziness as best I can.
Maybe I'll dine with Barack...
Anyway, I will hopefully be back soon with some pictures to prove that I was in the mountains!! Elevation sickness, here I come!
PICTURED: My mom, second from left, and her sibs, ready for their own family vacation.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
On Vacation
Monday, August 25, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
It's Michael Phelps!
So much better than Mary Carillo's Slice of Chinese Life pieces and further proof that tall nerdy white guys all look alike.
Monday, August 18, 2008
The future of the news as we know it?
Sometimes I wonder if the AP makes this stuff up. Ol’ McDonald reports that cow named Apple chases bear away from favorite apple tree? Really?
HYGIENE, Colo. (AP) -- Residents of a rural Colorado town say a cow named Apple chased off a bear that had climbed into her favorite apple tree. Jack McDonald of Hygiene, about 30 miles northwest of Denver, said the bear had climbed out of the tree when the cow approached it Sunday afternoon.
McDonald says the animals touched noses and hung out together for a bit before Apple chased the bear off.
''It was hilarious,'' McDonald says.
There's no sign that either animal was hurt.
Apple belongs to McDonald's landlady, Nancy Dayton, who has a house and three rental units on 14 acres.
Dayton says Apple weighs about 1,200 pounds and is more pet than livestock. She got her name because she loves to eat apples from the tree the bear had invaded.
Friday, August 15, 2008
I'm sorry.
When I posted an uplifting video, I SHOULD have posted the trailer for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR. While I admit I’m excited for this movie (cough cough *motion picture EVENT*), I preferred keeping my perverted too-old-for-this-kind-of-stuff enjoyment inside my living room. I guess it’s gonna be me and all the tweens squealing for Zanessa, after all.
Also this:
Chicago 2016 to the rescue!!
Things are way too heavy and political here on my blog. Let's lighten things up with this promo for Chicago 2016 that brings a tear to my eye!
Monday, August 11, 2008
What does 10 pounds of guilt really look like?
I haven’t had a chance to watch the Nightline interview with John Edwards yet, but I did read his statement after penning a letter to him. (FWIW, I’m inclined to say that I found his statement to be relatively redeeming.) As Slate pointed out, this kind of story is only a story when hypocrisy is involved (Again, see: Larry Craig.), as it was with Jesse Jackson. But even Jackson was able to maintain a public image. (Kind of.) And sure, mainstream media’s reluctance to cover the story is worth mentioning as well.
But I found Alessandra Stanley's article, True or False: Everyone Looks 10 Pounds Guiltier on TV, to be just a wash of anti-Edwards rhetoric. Stanley writes: “Even if he acted to pre-empt another wave of reports, Mr. Edwards didn’t need to put himself in front of a camera. Silence, or a written statement followed by a tactical retreat from public life, would have sufficed. But apparently Mr. Edwards is not ready to leave the stage; he just wanted to have more control over the script.”
Really? Because if he hadn’t gone in front of the cameras, what would the media have said then? And honestly, what’s wrong with controlling the script? Stanley does no more than piss and moan about smart politicking. In her world, Edwards was damned because he did, but by someone else’s standards, he was damned if he didn’t.
If Alessandra Stanley was really looking for an example of someone looking 10 pounds guiltier on TV, maybe she should have watched the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies on Friday night instead. Because as Iraq’s four athletes entered the stadium, George W. Bush’s face contorted into an uncomfortable smirk that was worth several thousand lives worth of guilt. Or when Thailand entered the stadium, Bush exemplified all the enthusiasm for his country that one might expect from a president so disliked, as he disinterestedly slapped his thigh with the American flag and stared blankly into space.
At the very least Edwards apologizes for his behavior.
Friday, August 8, 2008
My Dear John Letter
Dear John,
I really hoped against hope that the National Enquirer was pulling a Bat Boy on you. Even last night, as I watched The Birdcage and National Enquirer reporters trailed Gene Hackman’s senatorial character down to South Beach for a scandal, I thought of you and my stomach clenched up with fear. What if the tabloids were right? I took another bite of Black Diamond Cheddar to calm myself. No, I repeated. This politician who seemed like America’s son—the Bobby Kennedy of my generation—would not so scandalize himself or undermine his party.
And now, I discover, I’m the one who was wrong.
I’m a big girl, and I know that people aren’t perfect. Even Bobby had more than his fair share of fish in the sea. But in today’s cable news age—the Golden Era of Exaggerated and Reiterated News—wrong-footing like that spells career disasters, right? (See: Larry Craig.) But, look. That foot is neither here nor there, and the real issue is that I believed in you, your ideals and your policies, I stood up for you when Obamaniacs put you down as some big-time, overprivileged lawyer, and the whole time, you were lying to me, everybody else, and dare I say—yourself?
Do you remember the first time we met, John? It was 2005, I was only 20, it was a drizzly fall Sunday afternoon at Northwestern University, and you made a quick stop to talk with us College Democrats. After your speech, you spoke to a handful of us about what you’d been up to in the last year since the loss of the 2004 election. You were more than charismatic—your energy and enthusiasm enchanted me. You spoke of domestic issues like education and health care in such lyrical terms that you were more bard than politician. I was smitten, won over, and already invested in you, who I saw as a bright light in that dark time still shrouded in the residue of 9/11, an endless war, a lost election, and, most freshly, Katrina. When you and your aides left that day, I was spellbound and sung your praises to my friends. And so I did, until recently.
I’m only 23, so I’m young and that means a couple things.
First, I don’t know a whole ton about what it’s like to bear the burden of America’s troubles as you run for office and your wife struggles with cancer. I’m sure that must be hard. But I also know the simple truth that when you fight to represent a country you love, you want to practice the morals that you preach.
Second, I think I’m too young to become jaded by politics and politicians, but I’m beginning to feel like I’m well on my way. For a while, I too considered a life in politics, but after enough involvement in college politics to recognize it wasn’t for me, I left it up to people like you to do what’s right.
But finally, and thankfully, I haven’t given up yet. I am disappointed in you, I’m hugely disappointed in this election, and I’m infinitely disappointed (and flabbergasted) by a country that could elect Bush twice. Despite whatever mistakes you’ve made, I still want to believe in you, and I hope that whatever you have to say gives me a reason to believe and your actions from here on out give me justification in that belief.
Thanks for listening,
Caitlin
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Great Lakes Showdown
While searching easy, cheap ways to get to Duluth from Chicago (there seem to be none, FWIW), I stumbled across this great article from The New York Times, circa June 9, 1888, that details the struggle between Duluth and Chicago to be the great train and shipping center of the Great Lakes. Essentially, they tell us, Duluth is the right choice as its trip will be an easier one to New York.
"The odds are 400 to 150 in favor of Duluth. Chicago and its great railways may as well face the truth first at last. They are handicapped in nature, and Chicago is in a measure sidetracked."
Ah, how I love my city's history. And how I love how New York has always believed itself to be the center of everything.
[The pic, btw, is of the 1888 Chicago White Stockings.]
Monday, August 4, 2008
Trouble in Monkeytown
More shocking (shocking!) news from Bachelor world as Shayne and Matt have officially broken things off. While this may not come as a surprise to some of us who sensed the tension between the two of them, even as they discounted rumors of their break up at an After the Final Rose pow wow with Chris Harrison.
But even better (better!) news is that Shayne refuses to return the ring that Matt, er, I mean ABC bought for her. Matt wants her to auction the ring off to give the proceeds to charity, but the little monkey just won’t take her paws off it! Imagine that. [BuddyTV]
Cello Song
It’s rainy, I’m tired, Lollapalooza and Chicago wore me out this weekend.
Jumping around on Muxtape this morning brought me back to Nick Drake, which turned out to be just what I needed on this gray day. No matter how long it’s been since the last time I listened to Nick Drake, every time I return to his music, it’s like hearing it for the first time.
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