Getting Sick All Over Again
2006-03-08, 16:18

Oh, but I am a sad little man. I'm sure that I've mentioned at some point that we watch American Idol, mainly H, the Boy and I. The Girl is much too cool to spend time with such a triviality, and besides, it's not Law & Order: SVU, of which she is an obsessive fan. (I believe that Law & Order's - and all its incarnations' - fan base is retired men and teenage girls. Strange but seemingly true.) We watch for the idiots who try out in the first few weeks, and then later for the singing, so we can feel judgmental and sometimes even hear a song sung well. We normally don't vote or anything; I find it interesting so see what the rest of America finds interesting as far as performers go.

But oh, the confession I must make, for I did vote this week. I voted I'm not sure how many times for my pathetic boyish crush, Katharine McPhee. Can you blame me? Unbearably cute, perky, awesome curves and can sing? And does musical theater? Yowza. I'm definitely going to enjoy watching this one work her way to the top, though she's going to have some serious competition from Chris the Bald Rocker Dude With the Stepkids. I got a sense last night that she's a drama queen (befitting of someone who wants to be a pop star, not tom mention being a Theater Person) - after Mandisa (down to one name, I see) sang so well last night, Katharine was, instead of standing at the rail with the other girls, sitting back on the red couch, looking like she'd gotten punched in the stomach or was told that her dog died. Definitely some esteem issues there (also befitting the Theater Person).

She also reminds me of someone, and of course my poor quality recall system isn't coming up with it. It's either someone I knew in high school, or an actress. Anyone have a guess as to who I'm thinking of?

On to the relation to the title of this entry (as Ms. McPhee definitely does not make me sick):

I was poking around the 'net, as I'm wont to do occasionally, and bumped into this. (You'll need Acrobat to read it, or you can read it in HTML format here.) Do yourself a favor and peruse it. I did, and found my sense of dismay, anger, disgust and outrage well up all over again. If you don't click, let me at least sum up: it's the House of Representatives report on the problems with the '04 Presidential election in Ohio. There's exactly one gazillion of them (I counted), and none of them to this day have been adequately addressed, to my knowledge. How is it that, rather than running a religious campaign for governor, Mr. Blackwell is not being dragged into the street and stoned to death? Could it be, perhaps, not unlike Ms. Harris from the first time 'round, he's 'done his job' and is under the protective hawk wing of our wonderful Administration, to be rewarded with the Executive-branch job of his choice? Where are the people marching in the streets? Where is the outcry?

So that event didn't whack the bee's nest of social injustice. The lies of the Iraq 'war' didn't do it. Completely failing on - and lying about - Katrina didn't do it. Proliferating an arms race between India and Pakistan didn't do it. Gearing up for the coming war on Iran probably isn't going to do it, either.

I was just about to say that I think that this country is finally, inexorably lost, that the middle and lower classes have been drowned in a sea of soundbites and paperwork, too busy trying to making ends meet to spare an iota of energy on politics. But maybe the people are just holding their collective breath and waiting for the '06 elections. I'll save my fatalism for November - although things already look bad, considering the slimeball Delay has won his primary in TX. But I'll wait and see, because it's all I have time to do; I have to get my taxes done, after all, and hope our return will help pay down our debts.

-- End Transmission --