Has already demonstrated a decided joy at screaming at 4am, a love for her car seat, and ten tons of cuteness.
September 7th has nearly left us, so our daughter is officially "late". Of course, late is a complete misnomer, given that the whole 40 weeks thing is just an estimate (arbitrarily decided in the early part of the 20th century), but there is still something about having a concrete date, and not hitting it.
We are being assiduous with our application of completely unvalidated home remedies to induce labor. Nicely summed up with "hot sex, hot food, hot bath". Somehow my taste buds have adapted because on Friday I wolfed down a vindaloo that my husband couldn't eat more than a bite from.
At least she didn't come yesterday on my birthday.
Obama's coffers have been filling since Sarah Palin attacked him repeatedly in St. Paul last night.
An Obama aide confirms Drudge's report that Obama has raised about $8 million from more than 130,000 donors and is on pace to raise $10 million by the time McCain reaches the stage tonight.
UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton says, "Sarah Palin's attacks
have rallied our supporters in ways we never expected. And we fully
expect John McCain's attacks tonight to help us make our grassroots
organization even stronger."
You know, I rarely actually write anything about politics, never here, and rarely on the community blogs I frequent. It's primarily because I'm not the best writer in the world, and usually because someone has said what I want to say better than I could anyway. But all morning I've been dying to write something about Giuliani's speech last night. I haven't been able to formulate a good way to write it without sounding like it's straight out of the metafilter echo chamber. so I'm not going to write one here. But this comment from Douglas Rushkoff's blog, quoted in the thread, sums up what I want to say.
I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).
I usually don’t feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter’s intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their fists, and smiling the way gladiators do when going into combat against barbarians. And this is the incumbent party. The ones currently in power.
What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear:
community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below.
From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy
towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict
with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.
A few weeks ago we went to a Yankees game (our last of the season, our last in the old Yankee Stadium). Unfortunately, the start of the game was delayed by a thunderstorm. We hadn't gone inside yet to meet our friends, and were standing under cover outside the stadium, eating pizza, when I overhead this conversation between a little boy (around 9 or 10) who was there with his dad, and a friendly stranger who was chatting to him.
Man: So is this your first time to Yankee Stadium?
Boy: Yep
Man: Well, I was talking to A-Rod earlier, and he said he'd hit a home run for you!
Boy: ...
Man: How'd you like to see A-Rod hit a home run and win the game?
Boy (to Dad): But you said A-Rod's a choker! You said he doesn't hit home runs at the right time!
Me: heh.
