I know I moved politics to liberalmom.com, but lets face it, for now, MLT gets much more traffic. And besides issues of race, at least to me, are not political.. they are basic common sense.

To the point, Mychal Bell's bail has now been denied. And I literally feel sick to my stomach.

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And I'm still poking around looking to see if there has been a legal fund set up, though I do know there are several firms working pro bono on the Jena 6 case.

*cross posted at liberalmom.com

Ok, right from the start here, I'll lay out the disclaimer.. I really dislike our local PBS station. And most of you know why. If you don't know what my exact reason is, but you live in the Syracuse area, you may know part of it. WCNY has developed a bit of a bad rep in the past two years.

But first, let me say, I grew up on PBS. I lived in a household that supported its local PBS station yearly, and attended its community events. I, (or rather- we as a family,) strongly believe in public television, and its connection to the community.

Now I've known for a long time, that WCNY was planning on going "pledge free". At first I thought this was an interesting idea. In fact, very interesting that a PBS station could be self sustaining without the financial support of the community it serves. But then I thought.. what a bad idea! See.. in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, its the members who ultimately run (or should run) the station. The perfect PBS affiliate is very involved in its community, and the community in it. This was the case with my hometown affiliate, WVIA. And it was this way with Wisconsin Public Television in Madison.

WCNY.. not so much.

Forget "Central New York's Own".. lets call it what it is, "Corporate New York's Own"

So yesterday I got a phone call, and according to the caller ID, although it said "unknown caller" it did display a phone number outside of this area code. The call went a little bit like this...

"hello"

"can I speak with Carla?"

"speaking"

"hi, I'm calling on behalf of WCNY.."

"um, before you go any further.. the caller ID says this is not coming from my area code, where are you calling from?"

"Oregon City, Oregon"

Oregon.

The one 2,000 miles away.. soliciting me to support WCNY.

Three days before "Pledge Free on September 23".

And if you read the statement on their site, "pledge free" is total misnomer, because they still need the community's financial support. They just won't be interrupting programming for pledge drives. I guess instead they've hired a marketing firm on the other side of the country to call me during dinner?

I have to say, I personally, looked forward to pledge weeks. Who doesn't love a whole night of Dame Judy Dench on Britcom night? Or goodness, as a Deadhead, I practically counted down the weeks until Grateful Dead night (even though I own the dvd that they're airing!) I treated the "intermission" where the pledge drive actually took place, as a nice break to get up stretch my legs, get a snack, whatever. I'm more irritated by getting a call from Oregon than I was with George and Liz begging for pledges.

So what this tells me is that the original notion of going "pledge free" has failed since they apparently still need member support via pledges.  Not really pledge free is it? You'd think they might forget that whole idea, and embrace their volunteers, right? You know.. stick with tradition. Well when local talk radio personality, Jim Reith goes on air and begs his listeners to give some time during a WCNY pledge drive, since WCNY is falling short, you know theres a problem.

What I do know is that I've met a lot of people since moving here. And few continue to support WCNY.

"Pledge Free on September 23"

Not really. They just want you to think that.

Mostly because I'm cold today. Really cold. And wasn't the outdoor temperature here something like 100 degrees, a mere 5 days ago?

And I pulled a muscle in my left thigh..

Not great news since theres this thing called the Memory Walk on Saturday morning that I'm totally committed to doing. Three and a half miles with a pulled thigh muscle. This should be fun. I'm also missing Hemlock (a.k.a. The Finger Lakes Fiber Festival) on Saturday, but its not as if I'd give up raising money for a cause I care deeply about, to walk around a field spending money at a fiber festival. We could always hit Hemlock on Sunday, but I'm thinking with the pulled muscle, by the time I finish the walk on Saturday, I may not even be able to manage planned fridge shopping on Saturday afternoon.

But the icing on the cake?

A double wide trailer, being moved by way of driving down my hill, and attempting to make the very sharp turn, got stuck and hung up on the guard rail across the street. Normally this wouldn't make me grumpy. But I'm sick of trucks coming down this hill - period. There are other ways to get into the Valley and safer ones for sure. But what really ticked me off about that trailer issue today, was that it caused quite a back up of traffic, reaching up the hill and around a corner where drivers couldn't see what was going on. So whats a rude New Yorker* to do? Honk the freaking horn.. Repeatedly. And then they just started pulling out and driving down on the wrong side of the road, causing quite a back up on the other end of the mess, where, guess what? More honking. I swear this has to be a New York thing*. I've had jerks honk at ME while I'm trying to turn left into my driveway, but waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. Yeah dude.. I'm just sitting idle on this corner, with my left blinker on, watching the day go by just to piss you off. Oy!

Theres more going on in my noggin today, stirring up crap, but nothing family related, and certainly nothing serious. Just stuff making me grumpy.

* Not all New Yorkers are rude honkers. I always feel guilty when I rag on NY because I have quite a few wonderful friends here who are not at all rude or honkers.

I'll be honest, I forgot what today's date was.

This morning was just like any other morning. After the frantic rushing of children to get ready for school and on the bus, I was finally able to sit down with the just awaken Connor for some morning cuddle time. Flip on the TV and it turns out MSNBC is replaying the Today Show coverage from 9/11 in real time.

What was odd about this to me was that on that day in 2001, I got up like any other morning, and sat down in the rocker to nurse the then 15 month old Alex, a bit uncomfortably mind you, since I was 6 months pregnant with Dylan. I flipped on the TV, The Today Show, just in time to see the second plane hit.

So this morning, when I sat down with Connor on my lap, turned on the TV, just in time to see the second plane hit. Weird.

I think its important to remember what happened.. and learn the lessons from it (like paying attention to certain national security warnings,) but I'm more than a little irked by some networks, replaying the coverage in real time, every year. Last year it was CNN, this year MSNBC.

I don't think it needs to be relived. And it has to be incredibly painful for loved ones of those who died that day. If anything I think this day requires quiet thought, remembering those lost, honoring their memory, and for petes sake... finally healing. Reliving, in real time, doesn't help the healing process.

But thats just my opinion.

Those fish?

Ugh.

You couldn't imagine how much money we've spent in the last week on this aquarium. Maybe you can. It would be really helpful if we got all of the right information at one time. But its like trickle here, trickle there. Go to the pet store, and they seem to tell you HALF of what you need to know, and you don't figure out that you only got half of it until you get home and realize you have a problem. Even on the web, I've found, that on one web site, they tell you one thing pertaining to goldfish, and a totally different explanation/set of directions/diagnosis on another.

To backtrack a little bit. Remember, Marina went on a one way trip down the porcelain express on Friday morning. So Friday night we took Cassidy to pick out a new fish. She chose a very pretty Black Moor. Within 24 hours, "Emily" stopped eating. Within 48 hours, "she" was a goner. Our tank's water tests fine, with maybe the exception that it still hasn't built up the required "good bacteria" (yeah theres a chemical solution for that.. more cha ching!) pH is fine, no excessive nitrates, or nitrites.. hardness fine. Blah blah blah.

Today when I returned the belly up "Emily" (Petco has a 15 day live pet guarantee), I was razzed because I didn't bring in a water sample (though the section of their website pertaining to the 15 day guarantee on fish says nothing about a water sample!) Besides, the tank water tests fine. I pointed out the lack of clarification on the website, and she agreed to replace the damn fish anyway. She then goes on to criticize the fact that we started a new tank with more than one fish (the theory that you should only start a tank with one fish and add a fish once a month or every two months.) It would have been helpful if her co-worker had told me that when she sold me the other fish, knowing full well that it was a new tank.

Damn you fair fish. You started this!

Oh and Optimus Prime is now missing a good chunk from his fan tail. Color me confused as to how THAT happened.

At this point I'm thinking a puppy would be easier and cheaper.

Once again, an insurance company sucker punches the Martin family.

This time..

forms filled out and sent in on time (in JUNE!)

time ticks by with no premium charged and no cards sent in the mail.

Calls made.. "sorry we have no record of you. no you don't have coverage."

Inquire.

Told don't worry.. cards coming.

Sill no premium charged.

Finally get someone else involved and it turns out there was a clerical error. Error fixed this week, but guess what? Even though we didn't have coverage for the past several months, the insurance company has decided they have to go retroactive back a few months, and guess who has to pay for it?

Do you get that? We didn't have insurance all summer, put off the kid's well child visits and immunizations waiting for it.. and NOW we have to pay for those months where we had no coverage. We complain and they say "but it goes retroactive! you can turn in your costs!" What fucking costs you morons? We purposefully put off these medical visits waiting for the insurance. I bought some of Richard's diabetic testing supplies on eBay. Do you think Excellus BC/BS is going to take my paypal receipt? Think again.

I'm still not certain how this could possibly be legal, but you know how it is in America. Insurance companies say jump and we're all forced to say "how high?"

Too bad medical insurance doesn't pay the mortgage.

I'm avoiding all contact with other human beings for the rest of the day. Seriously.. I may bite someone's head off.

Y'all know I adore Keith Olbermann and despise Bill O'Reilly. But this is the first time I'm going to say this publicly, on my blog and not just to those close to me..

If you watch Bill O'Reilly, or the rest of Fox News programming, for anything other than pure entertainment... the kind of entertainment where you proceed to throw soft items at your TV, or curse loudly, or just laugh at Bill, Sean or Gibby's obviously insane lies...

Your an idiot.

I won't limit your idiocy to just watching Faux News. I'm including listeners of the same knuckle dragging jerk's radio shows.

There I said it, and I feel better.

Just because the news of the day doesn't go your way, doesn't mean you should create a news channel just to make shit up. Got that Rupert?

So if you scare easily by curse words, and unadulterated political ranting, avert your eyes (or don't make the jump)

Blue Gal blogged about a post at PoliTits, and I can't agree more. The entry's title is award winning (jump inside the extended entry)