Who are the twins? Um, to be delicate, they hang off milady's chest. They make milk.

Happy Mardi Gras! A nice quasi-religious holiday of over-indulgence (king cake, booze, boobs, beads, boobs, boobs, New Orleans) that, this year, coincides with ‘Super Tuesday.’ The Super Tuesday political storm has steamrolled over every media outlet and in my opinion has led to a severe over-saturation of the candidates, the ‘issues’ and even the political process itself. I credit the argument that as Americans we should want as much information about the candidates as possible in order to make the most informed decision come ballot day. However this line of reasoning comes with certain ingrained fallacies… that the general public will absorb and use the abundance of information and that the information provided on the most accessible outlets are accurate and unbiased.

The journalistic media is shaded to the wills of media corporations and tycoons, Rupert Murdoch, et. al., and largely by the reporters themselves in whatever shtick they operate. The saving grace is that there is enough exposure leaning one way to counterbalance exposure to the other. There is no getting around biased opinions of the journalist, and I am not sure the general public is savvy/motivated/intelligent enough to sort through to the facts regarding the candidates. It blows my mind that American politics has fallen to those with enough money to pay for the best advertising. Do we really want the same marketing process that sways which fast food we raise our cholesterol with to help sway our vote of the next commander-in-chief? I have reconsidered the electoral process in recent days after watching CNN, FOXNews, MSNBC, and others interview street people to get their opinions of national political happenings. I assume news stations interview at least a couple people and choose the best ones to air (Jen, you can correct me if I am wrong). This scares me because so far I have seen 5 super ignorant people vomit misinformation for every one halfway competent response. I realize the inequity associated with the electoral college, but it comforts me a bit knowing uninformed clowns don’t have a direct say, technically speaking, in the outcome of an election. Not that leaving it up to our currently elected officials is any better. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Anyway I just felt like voicing my extreme displeasure with the stupidity of recent interviewees and my wish to karate chop their minds. Also this continues my streak of discussing things a well-mannered individual never discusses in a public forum. Last week religion, now politics, maybe next week’s fodder should be economics.
Today was my first day teaching Spanish. Surprisingly I think my time spent teaching ‘head, shoulders, knees, and toes’, “my name is…,” and the color ‘red’ all in Spanish was highly successful. My victory is probably a direct cause of my relating to the kids--which correlates as a reflection of a possible infantile regression and a similar sense of humor. Anyway I was fairly discouraged when I left the classes to go help Erin in the library. I felt like I had little control of the class and despite enthusiastic participation by the kids, they learned nothing. But during our homework sessions a few hours later, one of my little pupils came in and pointed to her head and said “bay-sa,” as in the Spanish word ‘cabeza’ (head). That’s pretty close right?! Anyway that made me feel pretty good and like my day was worthwhile. Celebrate the little things, I guess.

Have a good night all you party people.

---Patricio sana in corpore sano---

p.s. Holy balls what an unbelieveably awesome Super Bowl.
p.p.s. I am glad all of you got such a kick out of the photos of me in earlier times. I am just glad I have proof that my dashingly handsome mug is really my face and not some Dr. 90210 patchwork. That’s right… you can’t make a nose like this.