Hasn't he earned enough to to hire a real publicist?

Time magazine has posted a piece called, "Tongue Tied, Mitt Romney's Top 10 Gaffes." Although my first inclination is to bash Time for printing such a story -- I mean, can we concentrate more on what the man plans to do if elected instead of the fact that he has weird ideas for bumper stickers?

But the more I read, the more I wondered where the heck his publicist was and why he wasn't coaching him on the fact that some Americans might take umbrage at the idea of a world without France or the fact that he actually recommends reading, "Battlefield Earth." I don't want a President that is so political that he never steps away from the party line but by the same token, I do want one who knows how to play the game enough to get things done.

And Mitt? Your staff is right. Your hair is too perfect. Let's get to work on the simple stuff first.

Disturbing.

The NY Times has published a very disturbing op-ed called, "Dick Cheney Rules."

An excerpt:

In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to “demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.”

It's a good read, if only to wonder if the idea of a "unitary executive" is what our Founding Fathers really had in mind when they drafted our constitution.

Well, Edwards just lost my vote.

CNN has the highlights from the Democrats' debate in New Hampshire. And John Edwards' first priority if he were to become President? You know, besides making sure no hair is out of place?

Traveling and re-establishing "America's moral authority."

Has he learned nothing from his Republican counterparts? Actually, what am I saying? The truth of the matter is that he's probably learned all too much.

McCain is looking better and better.

Fourteen.

I hate headlines like this.

What the hell is so frickin' awful about brewing your own coffee?

A year ago, a NY Times money columnist, Damon Darlin, wrote out saving advice for graduates. It was practical advice like make sure to save, learn to cook and don't spend $3-10/day on lattes.

Apparently, those graduates revolted. They wrote in and whined about how hard it was to live on $40K a year in a big city. Wah, fucking wah.

Damon Darlin has now written a follow-up column -- again dispensing very practical advice about how to save money. He reiterates the stupidity of spending so much money on coffee.

The column was forwarded to me by no less than three different people (so far). And in the notes above the hot link, they, too, decried his sentiments about the Starbucks.

I don't get it. What gives, people? Since when did spending $4 on a cup of coffee become such a character defining habit?

What writers read.

The NY Times has a great piece up called "What are you reading?" which asks bestselling authors like Jonathan Safran Foer, Elizabeth Gilbert and Nora Ephron what books they haven't been able to put down.

It's a fairly predictable list. These writers, being serious and all, read serious books. I so wish one of them would admit to reading a Barbara Taylor Bradford book or one of the Idiot's Guides. Hell, I'd even settle for them reading Umberto Eco's latest. But that's never going to happen. After all, they are "artistes."

''We like to say there are three kinds of soldiers: those that are deployed, those that have been deployed and those that are going to be deployed."

Interesting AP article on why 37% of the Army has never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan despite others going for multiple tours. It's kind of a "duh" but still a nice reminder.

Those crazy Nederlanders.

Amidst public outcry, it has now been revealed that plans for a Dutch reality show where contestants would compete for a kidney was just a hoax.

Now some are upset that it wasn't real. You really can't please some people, I guess. But isn't it awesome that they managed to get people talking about organ donation and to realize just how hard it is to get transplant organs? I think it's awesome.

Take a look at your driver's license. Are you an organ donor? If not, have you asked yourself why?

Exhaustion sets in.

For whatever reason, Munchkin was perfectly okay for the first 36 hours after his surgery. In fact, you would have never known he had been under the knife with all the jumping, running and general Munchkin-craziness.

But...and with kids, there is always a but...that all changed yesterday.

During his nap, he woke up coughing so hard that he vomited. All over me, mostly, since he couldn't understand why his little body was rebelling against him in such an unexpected and painful manner and figured that holding on to me could somehow keep the demons at bay. A whole lot of vomit in my hair and a little Prednisone suppository helped with the coughing but then last night, he didn't want to go to sleep. He just cried and fretted to the point that he started coughing again. And I wasn't about to let it get out of control, poor guy.

So I did what any Mom would do. I bunked down with the boy.

I thought sleeping with my husband required perseverance but CPT Dick has nothing on our toddler. Munchkin is the most violent sleeper I've ever seen. And when you are sharing a twin bed with him, you can expect to be hit in the eye at least four times per hour. You know, when you aren't being kicked in the kidneys or being suffocated by his butt. As such, I was awake pretty much all night.

With a year and a half of sleeping through the night behind me, I have absolutely no idea how I managed to do this waking up thing several times a night, every night for so long. I am absolutely useless without sleep. So useless that I almost didn't comprehend the words when my husband woke up this morning and said, "Wow, I slept great last night! That was probably the best sleep I've had in months!"

All I can say is, it's a good thing that I'm too tired to punch him in the head.

I am so napping later.

My Daddy-Loving Fool

Munchkin is in a serious Daddy phase. When CPT Dick is here, Munchkin wants to be right next to him. When he's gone, he says "Daddy?" in such a way that I'm left thinking it actually translates to "What did you do with my father, oh-woman-not-as-fun-as-my-Dad, and how fast can you bring him back?"

I find it ironic that we may have solved Munchkin's speech problems just in time for him to be able to articulate his anguish at his father's absence during the deployment. My kid is only a little over two years old. His father will leave for nearly that long. How will that affect things? How can I pick up the slack so that my son's feelings for his Daddy will remain even with him so far away?

Everything these days -- the articles I read in the paper, emails and letters from friends, the neverending coverage of the war on television, even just the sight of my husband picking up my thoroughly delighted son when he returns from work -- seems to remind me that our time is limited, that it won't be too long before CPT Dick returns to the sandbox and everything changes.

And then I wonder where I will find the strength to do this, how I can make sure that our family survives whole and intact.