The behavior of some (or a lot) of the mainstream media has been downright despicable of late. I recently added NewsBusters to my blogroll, and today read there that the McCain campaign has been inundated with requests/demands from media outlets that they provide DNA samples from Sarah Palin to prove that she is indeed the mother of 4 month old son Trig. The incessant and ignorant rumor mill is obsessed with the notion that Trig is actually the son of 17 year old Bristol Palin, who herself is currently 5 months pregnant.

Who do these reporters think they are anyway? So I guess John McCain is supposed to call up Sarah Palin’s doctor and make her an appointment to get a DNA test? And why in the world is the media wanting to make this a contest between Barack Obama and a 17 year old girl anyway? Lost somewhere in all this foolishness is the fact that Obama is running for president against John McCain… not Sarah Palin, and certainly not Bristol Palin. They’re hyperventilating over these things like it’s going to spell the end of our country as we know it if Mrs. Palin becomes Vice President. Where was all the outrage and indignation when a married, sitting president was misbehaving right in the Oval Office? Back then we were told it wasn’t anyone’s business what the President did in his private life… except that he was conducting affairs (no pun intended there) of state while engaged in these so-called private acts. I know the Clinton’s are a non-factor in this race, too, but I bring that up to illustrate the hypocrisy that’s at work here.

But blind, slavish devotion is a powerful thing. Much of the mainstream media is unabashedly head-over-heels with Mr. Obama. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews cannot even contain himself when speaking of the Democratic presidential nominee…

“I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg.”

Ummm… so much for objectivity in the media, wouldn’t you say? To be fair though, Matthews used to be in the tank for George W. Bush, so at least he’s an equal opportunity biased reporter.

But back to the problem at hand… we now have reporters who feel that they have some sort of inalienable right of access to something as personal as DNA from a political candidate. Not to prove that she committed adultery, but to try and somehow influence an election by going after a young girl who isn’t running for anything. Now, I’m not here to defend what Bristol Palin has done, not at all. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog much knows how I feel about that situation (her being pregnant now, I mean… not the wild accusations that she is the mother of Trig Palin), although by all accounts she has taken responsibility for her actions, and she has chosen life for her baby. But the simple fact is that her situation has absolutely no bearing on the presidential race, despite what the mainstream media wants you to believe.

If I were a journalist in the current climate, I think I’d find a job in a completely unrelated field just to avoid being guilty by association. The rest, I hope, will find it within themselves to repent.

The other day, out of a lot of frustration with the news media, I did a post entitled “Breaking News” and linked to an absurd article about some guy in Indonesia or Malaysia that did something idiotic and had to have a surgical procedure done to get himself out of a um, delicate situation.  At the time I didn’t think much about it other than it was a stupid article about somebody that did a stupid thing.  However, it was pointed out to me by a great friend and loyal reader that there was no advance warning about the somewhat graphic nature of the article reflected either in the post title or the post itself (”breaking news” could have been alluding to almost anything halfway relevant given the volatile nature of the news of the past week… hurricanes and politics being what they are currently).

But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that advance warning notwithstanding, that article was totally inappropriate to this site and I should have just taken a pass on it altogether.  For starters, while not every post is overtly Christian in nature, I am a Christian, the name of this blog is a reflection of my standing as a follower of Christ - the “King” in Ridin with the King - and the stuff posted here should never cross the line of bad taste.

Additionally, I have a fairly high percentage of female readers (among the known visitors to the site) and I should have been more sensitive to you all.

I apologize for the lapse in judgment, and promise to be more vigilant with future posts.  That isn’t to say that I’m guaranteeing that everything I post in the future will not make somebody mad or cause a disagreement, but there will be nothing posted of questionable aesthetics in the future.

Thanks for your faithful readership!

Dean

Well, I thought it was over.  This morning was interesting to say the least.  Looked out my back door to see that a tree behind our cottage was on fire.  It’s been raining for a day and a half… how is it possible that there is a tree dry enough to catch fire?  Well, when a 14,000 volt power line meets a tree, it apparently doesn’t matter how wet the wood is.  I was going to snap a pic but about that time I got a call to run over to our music teacher’s house with another cottage dad and tack a tarp onto her roof because it started leaking last night.  That was big fun.  Every time we thought we had it down flat enough to nail some one-by’s around the edges, some 30 mph gusts would get hold of it.

But not long after we accomplished that mission, the rain quit, the wind died and the sun even broke through for awhile.  All over!  Hahaha, Dean, you idiot.  Ever since 4:00 pm, it’s been torrential.  We finally got our cable back so I switched over to the Weather Channel.  Here’s what they had to say about our situation:

Flooding is possible in flood-prone areas.

Those guys are like the daredevils of weather forecasting.  No wonder you have to have a college degree to predict the weather!  I also noticed that the humidity is 87%.  Exactly how long and how hard does it have to rain to have 100% humidity anyway?

I can’t even begin to imagine how Noah must have felt, doing this for 40 straight days.  It’s been raining nonstop for over 15 hours… cable’s been off since 7:00 last night, and board games have turned to bored games.  School doesn’t go back until Thursday.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE

Well, there isn’t an available hotel or motel room in town, and we just found out last night that the kids are out of school until Thursday (statewide closings). We have evacuees staying on campus in all our available vacancies, so now we just sit and wait. Watching the projected path on Weather Channel, the “cone of uncertainty” is entirely encompassing Louisiana. Up here where we are we aren’t expecting serious rain or any kind of wind until Tuesday, but at this point, who can say for sure. So while we certainly appreciate your prayers, we’ll be inconvenienced at the worst. The folks along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts are in the cross hairs. Contraflow (ALL lanes heading OUT) started at 4:00 this morning throughout south Louisiana, New Orleans mayor Nagin has said there will be no shelters opening and anyone who stays should not expect any help from the city… everyone should LEAVE… and yet I’ve read numerous articles in which people have said they aren’t going anywhere. How they have such short memories is mind-blowing to me. Yeah, mind-blowing. I said it. I’m a child of the 60’s.

Well, we’ll keep you posted for as long as we have electricty and/or internet signal. I don’t wanna be a downer, so in honor of the first week of college football, I leave you with this picture I took in O’Charley’s a while back with my crummy cell phone camera…

Dude’s running in the open field with a MUSHROOM. 2 mind-blowers in one blog post. And I don’t even charge admission…