News Moratorium. Really!

I'm about halfway through the first day of another two-day moratorium on watching or reading or listening to the news. I try to go on a news fast when I find myself becoming too cynical (if there is such a thing) or too vitriolic about everything, not just about the state of our country but about life itself. When I find myself getting too wrapped up in trying to figure out why over forty percent of Americans are supporting the racist, incendiary campaign of a decrepit multimillionaire and a MILF whom Pravda called "Ms. Nobody Know-It-All," I know it's time to stop with the news.

(A reporter for Newsweek, Maria Stoyadinova, reporting on what the Russian press is writing about our very own Princess Palin, wrote:

The authors of a recent article in the Russian daily newspaper "Izvestia" questioned the dubious logic linking the Alaska's proximity to Russia with Palin's foreign policy know-how. They concluded, rather sarcastically, that the former alone is enough to qualify the Alaskan governor as a global politics 'specialist.' [. . .]

Another highly unflattering article in the daily Moscow paper "Pravda" was even more scorching in its discussion of the Alaskan governor, calling her "A Mrs. Nobody Know-it-All" and classifying her threats of initiating war with Russia as "the most irresponsible thing anyone could do at this moment in time."

What's worse, journalists aren't the only ones in Russia expressing concerns about Governor Palin's foreign policy credentials. The Moscow Times quoted a statement by Sergei Markov, a representative from the Russian Duma, who called a potential win by the McCain-Palin team in the elections this November a "catastrophe" and referred to the vice-presidential candidate as a "housewife, chosen by mere chance."

Vladimir Putin is probably quaking in his boots, no?

And from that same Pravda piece--from Pravda's English-language website--that calls Palin "Ms. Nobody Know-it-all:

So Sarah Palin, Mrs. Hockey Mom housewife-cum-small-town gossip merchant and cheap little guttersnipe, suppose you shut up and allowed real politicians and diplomats to do their work? Threatening Russia with a war is perhaps the most irresponsible thing anyone could do at this moment in time. Have you any idea what a nuclear holocaust is? Have you any notion of the power of Russia’s armed forces? Did you know that Russia has enough missiles to destroy any target anywhere on Earth in seconds?

And have you not forgotten, you pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond, that small detail about the slaughter of Russian citizens by Georgians, which started the whole debacle? So next time suppose you keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too. Your country has enough failed mothers as it is.

Yeah. They don't think much of our future President Palin, do they?)

Anyway, what do I do when I'm not mainlining the mainstream media? Hmmm. Well, let's see. I got on Amazon and ordered a couple of new books and I went grocery shopping. What? I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's only been half a day.

One of the books I ordered was by a woman named Sarah Vowell. You may know her as the voice of Violet from the Disney movie The Incredibles--or you may know her from her spots on NPR's "This American Life." Or you may know her as the author of some very strange and very smart books about American history. Or you may, like me, not have ever heard of Sarah Vowel until she appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Both she and Jon Stewart are New Yorkers and both are understandably offended by Republicans who campaign at Ground Zero but then disparage "the East Coast elite" in favor of what they call "real Americans." Of this schizophrenic approach to New York and New Yorkers, Vowell said "I feel that if we're American enough for Al Qaeda, we should be American enough for them [those politicians]."

I love smart, sassy women.

And speaking of smart, sassy women, Kelly Workout has signed up to watch absentee ballot counters count ballots. No, she's not counting ballots, she's watching other people count ballots. There's a job that's going to require a lot of caffeine, I think. There might not be enough caffeine in the world.