Less than two weeks before the biggest election of my lifetime, I got a tour of Sarah Palin’s “Real America.” In rural, Central Florida the “McCain-Palin” signs outnumber “Obama-Biden” by about 50-1 and add color to a flat, dead landscape of mildewed trailer parks, crumbling buildings and rusted old Chevy lawn ornaments in many front yards.

The dirty, 1950’s storefronts advertise cheap smokes and even cheaper beer. The corporate mass-produced products of slow death numb whatever senses these “real” Americans have left. That and God. The only buildings that stand out here are the churches, and they are largely of the evangelical variety, dominating Catholic houses of worship in numbers similar to what the Republicans enjoy. “What opportunity do people have when they’re born here?” I rhetorically asked my dad. “Not much,” he replied. I assume a military “career” at one end of a gun barrel must look pretty good to young men or women staring down a barrel of emptiness in places like Lake County, FL. These are the kids sent to fight neocon wars and flag-draped “thank you’s” are marketed as “heroic” instead of what they are: exploited.

After touring the still heart of blood red Florida, it’s no mystery why they vote Republican. They’re still living in the glorious post-WWII 1950’s, a time when their cheap labor was the only available and the asbestos factory was at full capacity. Now the factories exploit Chinese workers and asbestos kills those first shift workers who now lack health benefits. Since then, local schools and dominating churches continue to mold young minds to believe in an infallible America and the vital national importance of banning gay marriage. The ignorance bred red also makes these “real” Americans fearful of what’s different, including a middle name of “Hussein.” It’s no wonder Republicans shred education budgets.

Sadly, most of the people living in the rural towns of counties like Lake and Volusia in Florida long for a time that’s never coming back, and some despicable Republican strategists steal their votes by telling them it will.

I’m not crazy about heights, in fact terrified would nail it, yet staring down on a life fifty years in the making is serene. Sure, it’s strewn with a few big rocks and some regrets, but there’s beauty down there too. Today marks my fiftieth anniversary of October twentieth, and Saturday we celebrated Madison’s first. She’s actually was the BIG ONE yesterday, but really, she didn’t know. In fact, I selfishly believe her 10 minutes on the porch wrapped in a blanket with her Papi, were her best of the day. Inside was the din of 25 people talking at once. Outside was fresh air, peaking colors and quiet love. Maddy cried when I moved toward the door, but there were presents to open and chocolate cake to smear in her silky blonde hair.

Madison’s mom is semi-smooth diamond formed over nearly 20 of my years. I am so proud of the mother she is. About this time last year priorities proposed were a new baby and continuing education. Megan is a natural with Maddy and she’s enjoying and excelling in school. For extra credit she’s a wonderful, pain in the ass sister to Kyle and a loving “Mom” to her niece MacKenzie. I’m pretty demanding on my girl, but she’s one jewel I want to see sparkle at full potential. Since she’s got the whole, smart, funny and beautiful thing going on, my Megan should have a shining life.

Speaking of shine, no one I know radiates love like Mr. Kyle Daley. I know a “song in his heart” is trite cliché, but anyone who knows Kyle realizes “his heart will go on” because of the love and songs in it. To see Kyle doting on his 87 year old grandmother or baby Maddy is to see the actions of a young man who makes the world a better place. Kyle’s also a pretty funny guy with a sense for comedy and timing. He also does some great impressions of his favorite movie characters. Actor, singer, comic… Kyle does it all.

Today I’ll begin the end of the work that has consumed much of my favorite month. It’s been a rewarding effort, and I know there are people who truly appreciate it. In times like these, coaxing a smile or laugh from a concerned face is more satisfying than ever. I guess that’s the gift of my life. Like Megan, I think I have my priorities in order, but like Kyle, I live a life with a soundtrack and always look for the one liner that might shine a little light. Yep. I’m just “Mr. Glass Half-Full.”

The impressions of Fall blaze a great canvas staring down from a thousand feet, but only for a few last breezes before the crisp descent of the end. As the chlorophyll drains, the drying diffuses into firey red, yellow and orange like an explosion of Fruit Loops over an evergreen pitch.

It happens every weekday in corporate America with déj? vu-like time precision. As focus shifts silently from intellectual (probably too strong a word) to biological, the office is exited, GPS* kicks in, and a biological mission commences. It’s an efficient, repeatable process, a um, flowchart if you will… Head down. Determined. Like a subway car on rails. No turns allowed.

This unconscious route execution allows the conscious mind to continue jumbling things like a rat bouncing on a circular treadmill after succumbing to exhaustion.

Occasionally, an interruption delays the void, often just as the “swing open bathroom door” task is about to be executed. This process deviation is startling and causes the screeching brakes of the subway car to engage, cratering cranial operations to near shutdown. It is at this point when visual systems connect and sort of a whispered, barely audible, “scuse me…” trails off to silence and visual connection trickles to a stop. The Bathroom Brush By is a strange ritual and impacts almost every traveling unit the same way. The phenomena is a combination of the system drain and a, “I know what you were just doing and you know what I’m about to do and that’s really more than either of us can handle right now” kinda thing.

Do you experience the Bathroom Brush By?

* Global Peeing System

Paul Newman spoke those words in the classic, “Cool Hand Luke.” “Luke” wasn’t my favorite Newman film; not with his classics like “The Hustler,” The Sting,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and of course, “Slap Shot.” While his role as “celluloid hero” offers immortality, “Newman’s Own” is his real gift to many.

That 1982 venture with neighbor and writer A.E. Hotchner has grown to a huge charitable enterprise, and donates ALL of its profits to charities. As of 2007, those donated profits totaled $175 million.

Yesterday I asked the mother of my children about the “Newman’s Own” coffee she was sipping. “It’s delicious.” We went on to chat a bit more about his products and charitable mission. “I think he’s going to die soon,” I said.

“You know, when I was a kid,
I always thought I’d grow up to be a hero.”
– Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy

Rather than cite sources that will be dismissed as “liberal-left media,” I’ll use FoxNews’s focus group queried by GOP pollster Frank Luntz. The group of Nevada independents gave the debate edge to Barack Obama.

What I saw was a draw with two candidates holding their own on the issues. Here’s what else I saw:

• Barack Obama spoke directly and respectfully to Sen. McCain and the American people in a knowledgeable, intelligent and charismatic way.
• John McCain, who didn’t have the decency to even look at his opponent, came across as angry, gruff, and unpresidential.

For Senator McCain to promote himself as a “Maverick” that can “reach across the aisle,” to Democrats in a bipartisan way, it’s strange he couldn’t even look across the aisle last night in front of the whole country. Not looking an opponent in the eye is a sign of fear. Might John McCain be intimidated by Barack Obama?

We’ll see how their performances are reflected in the polls.

Speaking of polls, the House Republicans against the Bush administrations Wall Street bailout plan are largely playing election year politics. They are facing a wave of anti-Bush sentiment in their home district races and this gives them one last gasp at an issue they can play up to the home voters:

“We didn’t cave to Bush or Wall Street.”

That’s the game. Hopefully, enough voters will be sophisticated enough to see through the ruse and see these hypocrites who gave Bush everything he wanted for 8 years are now putting “Politics First” in an effort to save their careers. And they’re risking a collapse of our economy doing it.

Just like an episode ending cliffhanger of “24,” we’re huddled together in a room hog-tied (sans lipstick) and blindfolded. We’re hostages. The stolen suitcase bombs are strategically placed for maximum destruction, and the red neon numbers dance toward a vaporizing of all within their blast radius. The suitcase “weapons of mass destruction” as described by Warren Buffett, are filled with toxic debt instruments; the ransom is $700 Billion Dollars, and if we don’t pay it, capitalist terrorists will allow the clock to run out and watch the pancaking of our economy from lower Manhattan penthouses.

The government of course is led by an inept president, and many in congress are united by fear and by terrorist infiltrators whispering the corporate slogan, “just do it.” There’s fear in the air and the drumbeat to deliver “shock and awe” to our financial system is heightening. Today, history provides 4,161 reasons why we should have slowed down prior to invading Iraq, and the magnitude of our financial crisis demands we think this through.

Paying the ransom as currently constituted will transfer a minimum of $700B of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street firms, and nothing to individuals and small businesses preyed upon by them. Just this morning, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is dismissing Democratic efforts to aid households as part of the bailout bill. “We need this to be clean and to be quick,” Paulson said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” This episode of “24” is brought to you by Goldman Sachs, the firm Mr. Paulson formerly led. In a case of naked corporate nepotism, Mr. Paulson actually gets to act in the episode, and is serviceable as the cliché “Fox in the Henhouse.” Many of these people the administration wants to leave in the burning towers were put there by the marketing efforts and slick sales pitches of the builders, and many of them weren’t educated enough to save themselves. I’ve seen it. My daughter hasn’t graduated high school yet, but she receives 1-2 credit card solicitations a week. Just try it… you won’t get hooked.

Of course, the terrorists control the weapons, so any delay in the Bush administration’s “clean and quick” plan will be met by frantic Wall Street selling tomorrow and a ratcheting up of fear, another post-9/11 tactic that swayed public opinion toward war. The men calling for the ransom to be paid and threatening dire consequences if it isn’t, built empires on leveraging leverage and personally profited obscene numbers while doing it. In 2006, Wall Street firms paid $33.9 Billion in bonuses alone. 2007 was an “off” year, and the bonus pool shrank to $33.2 Billion, or $180,420 per employee. The combined $67.1B is nearly 10% of the bailout price tag, and these giants of capitalism stuffed their personal piggy banks with it in just 2 years. We don’t know all of their names, but we know a few of the alleged leaders and their 2007 compensation for helping to get us here:

• Martin Sullivan – former Chairman and CEO of AIG – $14.3 Million
• James Cayne – former Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns – $38.3 Million
• Kenneth Lewis – Chairman and CEO of Bank of America – $24.8 Million
• Daniel Mudd – former CEO of Fannie Mae – $11.6 Million
• Richard Syron – former Chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac – $18.3 Million
• Lloyd Blankfein – Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group – $68.5 Million
• Richard Fuld, Jr. – Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers – $34.4 Million
• John Thain – CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. – $17.3 Million
• E. Stanley O’Neil – former CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. – $24.3 Million
• Angelo Mozilo – founder and former CEO at Countrywide Financial Corp. $122 Million in stock options alone.

Will any of these “perps” be held responsible? Will homeowners be helped as part of Bush’s bailout? Will the American terrorists allow the clock to run out? Tune in tomorrow to see if anything remains ticking.

Tick… Tick… Tick…

The blue ticker says “Deal or No Deal,” but it’s been preempted for a CNBC special on our nation’s latest financial crisis. Electronic voyeurs fix emotionless on employees leaving Manhattan towers with their office belongings. Reality TV. As 158 year old Lehman Brothers stands on the cliff of bankruptcy, insurance giant American International Group struggles to find capital and restore investor confidence, and Merrill Lynch desperately seeks a buyer for itself, tomorrow may go down as an infamous “Black Monday” on Wall Street. Lehman and Merrill Lynch gone in a weekend… Before tonight, that was unthinkable.

I have no idea how these financial black holes will impact the day to day of American businesses, but as they suck available capital and again shock the confidence of American consumers, it cannot be good.

So how did we get here? Well, some blame can be um, leveraged on John McCain’s primary financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of the “nation of whiners” comment who sponsored the deregulation responsible for much of the speculation that depression-era legislation was designed to limit. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 to address the rubble of a large portion of the American commercial banking system that collapsed from over-speculation.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 repealed Glass-Steagall and in the opinion of some economists, contributed to the risk driven subprime mortgage crisis which has now snowballed into a full-fledged financial system crisis. The Gramm law has been described as “corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly.”

Oh, here’s how the voting went on Gramm-Leach-Bliley:

• 53 Republican Senators including John McCain – AYE
• 44 Democrats no Republicans – NAY

Are these the guys we want running our country?

Barack Obama is a black man with a Muslim middle name and he’s smarter than you.

Get ready for the onslaught of coded racism and xenophobia that will make the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry look like an afternoon sail off Martha’s Vineyard.

It’s already happening. When Sean Hannity of Faux noise often spews, “Barack Hussein Obama,” he’s implying Obama is somehow a covert Muslim. Of course, let’s not forget their describing Michelle Obama as “Obama’s baby mama,” a term used to describe unwed mothers. I don’t think Faux used that one on Gov. Palin’s daughter…

Then there’s Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) recently using “elitist-class” (smart) and the racially-loaded term “uppity” to describe Sen. Obama: “Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” When astonished reporters asked him to clarify his use of “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.” Behind closed doors, I’m sure he adds the noun.

The right has some history here. In the 1988 presidential election, I was leaning toward voting for George H.W. Bush until his campaign used the despicable “Willie Horton” ad against Michael Dukakis. I could not support a candidate that allowed racial smearing.

We have time for another example, right? In 2006, Republicans smeared Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, a black man, with an ad featuring a white woman saying she had met Rep. Ford at a “Playboy party.” Get it? Black man – White woman – Playboy Party…Sex! Ford lost the tight Senate, um, race.

The wheels of the Repugnantan slime machine are cranking right now and I expect that around Halloween we’ll know the names of any white women Barack Obama has ever dated… One last “Mandingo” scare before the erect… uh, I mean election. Boo!

I haven’t seen the whole interview, but this exchange reminds me of a scene in the first “Austin Powers” flick when Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) begins repeating herself in tape recorder fashion and Austin realizes she’s a fembot.

But I guess I shouldn’t second guess the coaching job the McCain team is doing…

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.

PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.