If this doesn't get you, your heart is made of concrete...

You're going to hear a lot about Lopez Lomong tomorrow night. That is if you're watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics and not getting baked and standing in line for Pineapple Express (isn't there room in life for both?). This is the inspiring tear jerker Olympic story to end all inspiring tear jerker Olympic stories (don't worry - they're not really going to end - they're never going to end). Lopez was born in the Sudan and kidnapped at the age of 6 by rebels intent on turning him into a child soldier. Tomorrow night he will enter National Stadium in Beijing carrying the flag for Team U.S.A. He was chosen unanimously by the captains of the participating U.S. teams to lead our Olympians onto the field.


A competitor in the 1500m race, Lomong is a prominent member of Team Darfur, "an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness of the crisis in the region." Team Darfur was co-founded by U.S. Olympic speedskating gold medalist Joey Cheek, whose Chinese visa was revoked yesterday. On the same day the USOC threw Cheek under the bus, the U.S. Olympians, themselves, made it clear that even though they weren't willing to give up their dreams and years of hard work because the IOC chose a country terribly guilty of human rights violations, they are aware of those violations and do not approve of them. They made their statement in the most elegant, gracious way possible - by awarding the highest honor they could to their teammate who deserved it the most. I, for one, think I can wait 'til Saturday to see Pineapple Express.

In other news, Hell freezes over...

Paris has just won points with me. Now I'm worried I'm going to fall in love with a Kirsten Dunst movie or buy a Celine Dion album. Obviously, anything is possible.

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(I'm sure everyone has already seen this, but I had to do it)

The One, Cont'd.

After an emergency quilting circle with Rach where we explored our feelings about this new ad from McCain, I have figured out what bothers me so much about it and can now express myself (somewhat) coherently. As is often the case with me, my response is two-fold. First, the incredibly sarcastic and condescending tone of the ad doesn't do much more than paint McCain and his campaign as bitter. It's not an attractive quality. Second, and this certainly is the more offensive of the two points, this ad doesn't just mock Obama, it mocks his supporters. Telling folks they are stupid for buying into an arrogant false prophet parading around as a messiah is not necessarily the best way to win friends and influence people. At least the "Celeb" ad deals in some way with the issues, mentioning taxes and offshore drilling. "The One" doesn't even bother to pretend to go through the motions. And perhaps the most condescending statement of all? In a press conference today, when asked about the turn his campaign has taken of late, McCain had the balls to say, "I don't think our campaign is negative in the slightest." I feel like, "How stupid does this guy think we are?" is going to become a tired refrain of mine. I told Rach I'll be so disappointed if these ads work on the American people, but she assures me they will not. And she has a degree in this stuff.

The One

So, just as I was getting good and worked up about the Paris/Britney thing, McCain drops this bomb on us. I'm stunned. I sincerely can't believe this is an official ad from the campaign of one of the two major party candidates for the highest office in this nation. While I try and figure out what the hell I want to say about this, I'll pass on the official response from the Obama campaign:

"It’s downright sad that on a day when we learned that 51,000 Americans lost their jobs, a candidate for the presidency is spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has on these sorts of juvenile antics. Senator McCain can keep telling everyone how ‘proud’ he is of these political stunts which even his Republican friends and advisors have called ‘childish’, but Barack Obama will continue talking about his plan to jumpstart our economy by giving working families $1,000 of immediate relief."