Where Were You?

Seven Years ago today, the entire world stood still, held its breath and watch as the most devastating and dramatic terrorist attack in modern history unfolded before our very eyes.

As with the bombing of Pearl Harbor was to the Lost Generations and the Kennedy Assassination was to the Baby Boomers, X-ers and Y-ers now ask "where were you when..."

Today is a day of reflection, remembrance and prayers. I will share my story, but this is really about you and your stories and thoughts. Where were you?

Please post.

I was in Denver, Colorado attending a week-long seminar for my job and I was to head home Tuesday, September 11th. My plane was scheduled to take off at 730 in the morning, Mountain Time. I was standing in the baggage check line, groggy with my carry-on over my shoulder, my suitcase in one hand, a Starbucks in the other.

I remember on the right side of the cue was a row of television screens which showed arrivals and departures; on the left side, a row of televisions were playing The Today Show. I was making small conversation with an elderly woman in front of me - chatter about how early it was, did the sun really come up that early, we need stronger coffee. I don't recall her name.

At approximately 6:55, the man behind me uttered under his breath, something similar to "Just what I need to see before I get on a plane." He pointed to the left t.v's with images of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in NYC drenched in smoke.

No one thought terrorism. No one thought anything other than an accident, or at worst, a drunken pilot.

We stood there, watching occasionally.

Twenty Minutes after the first tower was hit, the elderly woman in front of me screamed - literally screamed - and I looked up in time to see the South Tower engulfed in flames.

I was fully awake now and all I could do - all we all could do - was stand there with our mouths agape. After a few minutes, I looked over to the right t.v.s and saw the itineraries of incoming and outgoing flights all read "delayed" as every flight in America got out of the air; no one was going anywhere.

Getting home was a chore and I will save that for another day. But as I remembered, I prayed that day, as I do today, for the lives that were lost and the families who were left behind.

Though we can may debate the outcome of what happened that day or the correct way to retaliate - or even about retaliation itself - though we may be desensitized now, we may be angry, we may be numb - though we may be more spiritual or less, more patriotic or less, more cynical or less, more afraid or less - we pause to remember those who were lost on the day America changed forever.

FRIDAY FUNNYBONE; 5 September, 2008

This guy arrives at the Pearly Gates. He has to wait to be admitted, while St. Pete leafs through his Big Book. He's checking to see if the guy is worthy of entry or not.

Saint Peter goes through the books several times, furrows his brow, and says to the guy, "You know, I can't see that you did lots of good in your life but, you never did anything bad either. Tell you what, if you can tell me of one REALLY good deed that you did in your life, you're in."

The guy thinks for a moment and says, "Well, there was this one time when I was drivin' down the highway and I saw a Biker Gang assaulting this poor girl. I slowed down my car to see what was going on, and sure enough, that's what they were doing. There were about 50 of 'em torturing this chick.Infuriated, I got out my car, grabbed a tire iron from my trunk and walked straight up to the leader of the gang. He was a huge guy with a studded leather jacket and a chain running from his nose to his ear. As I walked up to the leader, the Gang formed a circle all around me.So I ripped the leader's chain off his face and smashed him over the head with the tire iron. Then I turned around and yelled to the rest of them, 'Leave this poor, innocent girl alone, you slime! You're all a bunch of sick, deranged animals! Go home before I teach you all a lesson in pain!'"

St. Peter, extremely impressed, says, "Really? Wow, when did all this happen?"

"Er.. about two minutes ago."

*********

God says to Adam, "I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want to hear first?"

Adam says, "Tell me the good news first."

God says, "I'm going to give you a penis and a brain. You'll derive from these great pleasure and great intellect."

Adam replies, "Wonderful! But what's the bad news?"

God says, "I'm only going to give you enough blood supply to work one at a time."

*********

An old Jewish beggar was out on the street, begging with his tin cup. A man passed by and the beggar said to the man, "Sir, could you spare 3 cents for a cup of coffee?"

And the man said, "Where do get coffee for 3 cents?"

And the beggar said, "Who buys retail?"

Forget a Pitt Bull...

...we're looking at a shark.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been under intense scrutiny over the last week - some fair, some not-so-fair. She has had no interviews with the press and the McCain camp has done little to try and clarify her image. The media has been harder on her than the Dems have, but that's another blog.

The biggest worry has been her lack of experience on the national stage and if that dearth would hinder her in a debate with Joe Biden. Last night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, that worry was bagged and thrown out with the garbage.

Governor Palin not only met expectations, but surpassed them - proving she can speak almost as well as Biden can and like him, will embrace the traditional roll of the 'Pitt Bull' of the campaign.

She went after Obama left, right and sideways, attacking him on his experience, his record, and in a lot of cases, she down-right lied about his positions. But whatever was said about him got the crowd on their feet. She also touted her position as a wife and mother, and showed her toughness going after the environmentalists and oil companies in Alaska. She also talked about being a hunter. I am quite shocked she didn't tell the story about the time she killed a rabid moose with her loose-leaf notebook as a 5th grader.

Under all of it was her sarcastic mockery of Barack Obama which made it perfectly clear that not only is she up for a fight but the gloves are coming off and she's going to go for the balls and twist.

Joe Biden now has a new problem. His first problem was if he went after her in the debates the Reps would cry sexism. Now, the question is simply "can he handle himself at all?"

I think he can, but this is going to not only be an interesting fight, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Now, John McCain has a new, more immediate problem. McCain is not a great speaker. He's not even an average speaker. One might argue that 'poor' is being generous. He is not great behind a podium, but he is great one on one. Obama set the bar extremely high a week ago in Denver. He had a lot to show; however, everyone knows how great a speaker Obama is and how great a speaker McCain isn't. All McCain had to to was talk straight and he would do well.

As a Presidential candidate, you never want to be upstaged by your running mate. This was part of the reason, if not most, why Obama didn't chose Hillary. Now Palin has proven herself to be an outstanding speaker, though not quite the Obama level (but then again, who is?) and McCain has to do spectacularly well, or she, Gov. Palin, will have upstaged him. That will leave him in a very bad lie going into the final chapter of this excruciatingly long campaign.

Prediction: McCain will do better than expected, but will fall flat. He will give the people what they want to hear, but by the time he gets there, they will have stopped listening. The campaign will get a bounce out of the convention, bringing the polls back to an even number and that's not where the Republicans want or need to be. They need to be ahead - far - because they are going to lose ground in the next two months. If, however, McCain upstages Palin, all bets are off and the Dems are going to be sweating.....but don't count on it.

Coming Soon!

Coming soon is a new feature on Kill the Cat: a Video post.

Every so often I will post a video - me, at a desk, talking to you - like a cable news program. Topics will vary, much like the texts you read every day, but instead, they will be on video. Sometimes, we may even have guests discussing - arguing - talking loudly.

Again, you are always encouraged to comment.

This Week's Big Winner and Loser!

This week's big winner: Louisiana and New Orleans.

The response to Hurricane Gustav has been remarkable. The evacuation of the Gulf Coast has run more smoothly than anyone expected and that is a tribute to the leadership of Governor Bobby Jindal and The Big Easy's Mayor Ray Nagin. They had a very organized campaign to clear the area and patrol the streets to protect the public from looters, which is why more people stay during natural disasters than leave.

Normally, I would say they were just doing their jobs and because they were just doing their jobs they don't qualify for being a winner. But after both the natural and political disasters of Katrina and Rita three years ago, the authorities got their butts in gear and worked to prevent them ever occurring again. After all, isn't life about learning from your mistakes?

The critical thinking and fast action of these governments are what make them this week's big winners.

This week's loser: Barack Obama.

From what was supposed to be his big week, the week of all weeks, the week that he was to re-introduce himself to the nation as a hard-hitting, take no prisoners campaigner, the week he was to prove he can make great executive decisions by choosing a vice-president the nation was very open to - has been stepped on by - (drum roll, please)

John McCain. Ouch.

The McCain camp made a very smart move by announcing the V.P choice the day after Obama's big speech in Denver. Not only did they announce it, but they created more buzz by leaking several false reports naming several potential veeps causing a frenzy at the networks. This was a very risky, but ultimately a very wise move for McCain. It payed off. The weekend headliner was to be Obama, but instead he found himself below the fold on all the major newspapers.

Obama also got a nice bounce out of the convention: Real Clear Politics shows roughly nine points. It would have been much bigger, maybe double if McCain would have waited until Sunday to announce.

But he didn't.

Now we all await the arrival of McCain's speech on Thursday. Can he hold a candle to Obama?

We shall see.

Response to The Anti-Soma's 'Hooray...'

First, let me be clear: I love The Anti-Soma. Anti-Soma is a dear friend of mine no matter how often (and it's only been once) I get mad at them. We are often at opposite sides of many issues and we have stated that, as long as we back up our own arguments, we can get as cut-throat as we want because, hey, it's fun! So, here I go.

Let me be equally clear: Anti-Soma is not going to vote Democrat if Jesus Christ himself came down from his banqueting table and ordered them otherwise. They were never looking for a reason to vote for Obama but they were looking for a reason to vote for McCain. But, come on, A.S., find a better reason. I mean, really!

On Friday, I wrote a piece regarding McCain's terrible choice for V.P. The Anti-Soma responded and you can read that here. Now, like them, I do agree you need a reason to vote for a candidate. Simply voting against a hopeful is not enough. It completely goes against the whole process. A.S. stated that they found a reason in Sarah Palin, and began to refute my reason's against her.

A.S.' logic has totally escaped them. Gone. Kablooey. Call the paddy-wagon.

In response to my suggestion that her lack of identity nation wide was going to be a liability and the McCain camp was going to need to define her before the opposition does, A.S noted:

...she did a fair job defining herself in her initial acceptance speech,
and I think she'll define herself better than anyone else possibly can
within the next two months.

It takes more that one speech to define a Presidential candidate. Just ask John Kerry. He had an excellent self-promotion tour just prior to the 2004 DNC, but the Republicans did a better job of defining him. Kerry defined himself as a war hero. Bush defined him as a traitor.

Bush won.

Think about it. She defined herself as a wife and mother. Great. But a wife and mother doesn't make you experienced enough to be President of the United States. And that's the argument that the Obama Camp is going to make. Duh.

As for the op-ad piece in the Daily Kos: it's disgraceful. It's tasteless and I won't link to it on the principle of frivolity. I agree with A.S. It's crap.

Continuing, I stated she was under Federal investigation. A.S.:

First of all, she's not under federal investigation. She's under
investigation by a state ethics committee. There are allegations, but she
has discussedwhat's going on.

Yes, I miswrote. I apologize to Mrs. Palin, her family and her supporters. But A.S. totally missed the point.

The mere fact that she is under investigation, state or otherwise, whether or not she discussed the problem, is moot. The average American voter does not care about details. They hear "investigation" and it's a black mark.

She's only held elective office for two years. Again:

This completely ignores her eight years as a mayor of a small town. John
Zogby rightfully points out that small town politics can be far more vicious and
cutthroat than those of larger towns. In other words, she's not only got two
years of elected office experience on Obama, but that all ten of her years of
elected office--as mayor and governor--give her ten more years of executive
experience than all of the other candidates, presidential and vice, put
together.

Let me see if I'm clear because I don't want to misunderstand: a small town mayor, a town roughly the size of Webb City, Missouri, gives you the 'executive experience' needed to run a country? Are you telling me that Small Town, Alaska, population 35,000 (and I am being very liberal with that number) readies her for dealing with Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq?You are telling me, if I am clear, because Small Town, Alaskan politics are cut-throat, that she is ready for the world debate and a nation wide campaign? A.S., if that is your argument, all you, Palin and McCain are in for a very rude awakening.

Let me point out the fact that Senator Obama, who I am not endorsing by any means, has far more foreign policy experience than she does. Why? Oh, yeah. She has none. Obama has about the same amount experience on the Nation wide stage as she, but McCain keeps touting Obama's lack of experience. All I am saying is Gov. Palin totally diminishes his own argument against Obama. Her time in Small Town, AK has prepared her for conflict with Caribou, not Putin. Give me a break.

Now, I agree that Palin is not to be underestimated. I am not saying that she is going to be a bad campaigner. I am simply saying that McCain's choice, at first read, looks senile. He wanted a woman so he chose a woman he met once, during the vetting process who has no experience what so ever. There are far more qualified women to take that spot if he really wanted a female. The fact he chose THIS female is what will be perceived as being condescending.

Geraldine Ferraro even said so.

Friday Funnybone: 29, August, 2008