Here I am, rocked you like a hurricane

Sorry about the lack of updates, but I had to suspend my blogging so I could rush back to Washington and save our nation’s economy. I even had to cancel an appearance on Letterman at the last minute to do it. Now that it appears that society as we know it has been saved, I’ll resume blogging regularly (or at least what passes for regularly around here) tomorrow.

And what will you find here tomorrow evening? An epic tale involving a hurricane, birthdays, monkeys, a ukulele, cellular hijinks, minor medical issues, hanging out in the dark, more storm debris than you can shake a stick at (figuratively) and yes… the much anticipated return of Chuck Norris.

To make this post more than just a tease, I guess I’ll throw some actual content on here. Let’s see… what can I get into briefly? How about this weekend’s presidential debate?

Regardless of whether you thought McCain or Obama won the evening, it’s clear the real loser was Jim Lehrer and the much-ballyhooed format designed to make the candidates hold a back-and-forth discussion. You know – the real exciting Lincoln-and-Douglas kind of repartee that exists only in our idealized notions of the past.

I sat there for the whole 90 minutes and I don’t think either candidate looked at the other cowpoke on the stage for more than ten seconds, much less spoke directly to each other. Lehrer tried to make them talk to each other for the first couple of questions, but just kind of gave up after a while. Score one for old habits dying hard I suppose.

Unfortunately, the next presidential debate is slated be a town hall deal. Man, I hate town hall forums. There’s nothing worse than watching candidates sit uncomfortably on stools with a mic in hand fielding rambling questions from “average citizens” with questionable fashion sense and numerous axes to grind. If your local town hall actually operated that way, you wouldn’t have running water or lights.

I was displeased with the backseat that foreign policy took at the first debate (which was actually supposed to be the big foreign policy debate). I understand that the economic crisis was the topic de jour and that it needed to be addressed, but it still disappointing to see our national discussion about the world once again watered down to a rehash of Iraq and some vague sense that the Russians are up to no good.

Sooner or later, our nation’s leaders are going to have to realize that the world map still has all those countries (more or less) that it had eight years ago. Sadly, we’ve just stopped paying attention to 99% of them.

Oooh, wasn’t that preachy? Can’t end like that. Here’s a picture of a lazy animal instead.