I was so happy to hear that The Rachel (as I refer to her, said with a big smile in my voice) is getting her own show, and so quickly. I had a feeling this would happen sooner rather than later when on the first time she guest-hosted, Countdown had it's highest ratings ever. Gracious as usual, Keith Olbermann gave her full credit and that's when I knew we'd be seeing this day. And now it's here! Yippee!

Like someone else mentioned, I miss her radio show due to scheduling so this is wonderful to me. Not that I don't think Dan Abrams is all kinds of cute, as well as tenacious in his pursuit of Karl Rove, but I'd rather see Rachel. Besides, when she was on Countdown tonight, she and Keith talked like they'd do some sort of hand-off a la Stewart/Colbert. Well, not exactly like those two, but I think the potential for silliness occasionally is there.

Once again, a beautiful piece with wonderfully descriptive writing. I wish I'd seen Wilkinson's last dives, but I decided to watch 'Burn Notice' instead. Yeah yeah, I know...but hopefully I can still catch it on the web. Regardless, Gary Kamiya's beautiful writing expressed the emotion of the moment perfectly, and I can see exactly what smile she had just from what he wrote. I'm sorry she wasn't able to go out on top, but even according to Wilkinson herself in one of NBC's puff pieces, her body was done after years and years of basically throwing herself off a 3-story building into a pool of water. She's such a graceful diver, and a great athlete.

like how the sports car "vroom" sound has been scientifically proven to arouse women

So that's why I've loved sports cars all my life, and now have one for my veryownself. Now if only I can manage to find a man who isn't intimidated by a woman who can drive better than him. *sigh*

And as for Palin? Feh. She's a female version of Bush, and we've had far more of that than we need already.

For taking me back to my memories of Venice, 18 years ago. Glad to hear you finally made a visit to one of the most magical places in the world.

LW, you have to realize that Cary has a reeeeally big blind spot when it comes to family/parents, and walking away from them. In my opinion, he needs to keep some sort of caveat in the header for his column for the folks who haven't been reading him for ages (like myself).

However, that doesn't answer your question other than to say ignore Cary. Heck, I didn't get further than the first paragraph or so when I saw he was on his hobby horse again. My advice to you after reading your letter is that you and your siblings should probably stay as far away from your parents as possible. Hopefully you all have good relationships with each other so you won't lose all family ties; my ex's family was pretty damn toxic (different strain, though. not lawyers), and being an only child it was too hard for him to walk away when he should have. So if you have those ties, take advantage of them, band together against Teh Crazy that is your parents and let them be. Keep the communication to a minimum, and you will feel better. It won't be easy, but blood ties aren't a license to emotionally abuse people and you don't deserve this.

As for why your mom did what she did vis a vis the guardianship for the lawyer friend? From my distant point of view, she seems to have done it to try to compete on a more even playing field with your father the lawyer. Once I read that detail about your dad, it was obvious to me why your mom had done what she'd done. That one item jumped out at me, and that level of Teh Crazy can't be messed with; ergo, my advice to collect your siblings and create a united front against your parents.

I have come to that conclusion, between his 'that one' comment, the mention above that he visibly recoiled from shaking Obama's hand (I didn't see it myself), and the fact that McCain forgot the name of the African-American young man he was speaking to during the first part of the debate (h/t Rachel Maddow on Countdown just now). Add to it his reluctance to vote yet for MLK Day, and that's the only answer I can come to: John McCain is a racist, and that is playing a large in his increasingly erratic behavior.

The Pipeline: Is it too much to ask that Alex and Salon stop repeating repub bullshit on this issue? [snip] Can we please have a minimum of journalistic standards here?

Next time, read the article a little slower and let the words sink in before you fire off a comment. Koppelman was quoting what McCain said, and this article is not about the subject of the pipeline or where it ends up. The article is about the appearance of McCain/Palin on Fixed News with Sean Hannity. So if Koppelman had rabbited on about oil sand drilling, it would have made no sense. I suppose you would have been happy, though.