WARNING: Grump Alert!

I am not feeling very well today and not in the mood to play nice. I started feeling crappy yesterday. Aching knees and slight fever. I knew you were wondering.

Son had a blast at Ren Fair, as I knew he would. His girlfriend bought and wore a wench's outfit and he looked semi-authentic with his made-up attire. He purchased some essential souvenirs - a serpent headed staff, wooden short handled axe, small hand drum, and incense. Boys and their toys.

I watched the Sunday morning talking heads shows and was snorting with disgust at the usual suspects. Bob Sheiffer, on his CBS News show, did the end of the show commentary with a rambling "lesson" about the freedom of the press ideals of which this country holds dear. Unless, of course, it gets in the way of your political spinning. He explained that in totalitarian governments only the government delivers news, in a democracy we have the government and a free press. So far, so good. Then he states the government gave a very different picture of Katrina and of the war in Iraq than of people (journalists) on the ground. All of this was to justify Judy Miller, reporter for The New York Times, going to jail on the principle of not telling who your sources are even though you never wrote the story. What a bunch of crap. She is coming through loud and clear as a crackpot who got caught in her own web of lies. Her source was apparently Scooter Libby, chief of staff to Cheney ( oh, no, not the Dark One!) and he is on record that over a year ago he signed off on her telling that he is her source of conversations.

Lest we forget the mounting evidence that the so-called journalists have been caught simply reporting rumors on both the war and for Katrina. Everyone from Oprah, Naquin, the Police Commissioner (who has now resigned), on down to Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard have been made to look as fools for info they were spouting for the public's consumption. Blatant skewing of facts to churn up public outrage of conditions at the Superdome, which were not good by any stretch, but not anything like the worst being portrayed in the press.

On the war front, I do wonder how Michael Isakoff comes to terms with his lies he wrote about soldiers flushing Korans at Gitmo causing a riot in Afghanstan with the results being American soldiers killed. Oops. He wasn't there to see what he was reporting but felt free to level such a powderkeg of a charge on the word of a source. If there really was a source to begin with in the first place. We already know the majority of the press is anti-war and anti Bush. We get it.

On a much better note, I enjoyed several segments on C-Span 2 Book TV. I look forward to it when I am bored on the weekends. Yes, I have told you before that I am a nerd. Sandra Day O'Connor has a new children's book out called Chico and it is about her favorite horse on the family ranch. She was raised in Arizona and is very proud of her Western roots. She spoke at the Scottsdale Public Library and she autographed a book that was to be used as the first book to go to replenish a school library in Gulfport, Mississippi that was destroyed in Katrina. Nice gesture.

Gosh, I do hope the Roberts family was dressed appropriately for the Washington Post style section this time. I thought of that while they were posing for photos outside the Supreme Court this morning.