The last debate

The final Democratic debate took place last night in Philadelphia and was broadcast on Channel 5 out of Cleveland. I watched most of it but managed to fall asleep toward the very end. What annoyed me the most was that the moderators were asking Obama stupid questions about people vaguely associated with him that said or did controversial things and things he'd said himself and how that would affect voter opinion of him, and Obama answered, quite smartly, that these were exactly the kind of distractions that were detracting from the serious issues of health care, the economy, the War in Iraq and other important issues of the day. That every little thing that a candidate says, does or who they are associated with in even the vaguest manner can be put under such a microscope and dissected for everyone to see is so ridiculous. I couldn't care less who is associated with who and what these associates say, but last night, it was made clear to us that who a person associates with can call into question their very character, even if the candidate has great ideas about how to solve the toughest problems. Yes, that is true - to a point. I mean, Karl Rove turned out to be the very thing that Bush needed to stay in power by resorting to creating fear mongering as a political tool to keep the NeoCons in power for as long as they've been around, but one's church pastor should not count as a "associate" that could reflect on a person's character. The whole Jeremiah Wright affair was resurrected in what I felt was an attempt to distract voters from the important issues of the day, and issues of faith were brought up as well, which I could care less about, frankly. Also, the whole comment that Obama made about bitter blue collar workers in Pennsylvania was rehashed and rehashed over and over again and I just thought that it was a ridiculous attack on Obama in a blatant attempt to paint him as observing blue collar workers from the high ivory tower of academia like some kind of anthropologist observing a foreign culture. Oh, puh-LEEZ. It seemed like they were avoiding the important issues and focusing on stupid, trivial stuff that has been played to death by the mainstream media as painting Obama as being somehow "out of touch" with "Real America"™. Read that, blue collar, shot 'n' beer Joe Lunchbucket who laments the loss of his factory job sent to China. Well, I want to hear what the plan is to end the war in Iraq, turn around our sinking economy, strengthen our weakening dollar on the world markets, create a "green economy" and make this country a beacon of hope around the world again instead of the international pariah that it has become in recent years. That's what I am still waiting to hear from debate moderators, not stupid trivial stuff that really distracts voters and plays right into the hands of the Republican Party's famous attack machine.

PHYSICAL THERAPY

Yesterday I began physical therapy on my injured Achilles tendon. Turns out that I have a pretty bad case of tendonitis, because it was visibly swollen and red and excruciatingly painful. They did ultrasound on it and massaged it and gave me a few stretches to do and told me to soak it in an ice bath once a night and in a few weeks, we'll see how it feels, but in the meantime, I'm going to have to curb my workouts somewhat. No jumping, no running, no straining the tendon. The primary thing that I was told would be good for it was lots and lots of rest. Tendonitis, as I found out from having tennis elbow a year and a half ago, is a nasty and painful injury and can take forever to mend, because it's a soft tissue injury and usually occurs in a spot where you use a particular tendon a lot. In the case of the Achilles tendon, every time you stand and walk, you're using that tendon. Going up and down stairs as well uses it a great deal. So you have to rest it as much as possible. I'm still going to go to my women's workout class because Jason told me yesterday at PT that he can tailor a program for me so I don't have to work that tendon and can still get in a good workout doing core and upper body strengthening and ab tightening as well, so I don't completely have to stop going to workouts, just no running, jumping or doing anything to strain the tendon until it's more healed up and less painful. I don't know how long this is going to take. It could take a few weeks, a few months, hopefully not longer than that. If I do as I have been instructed, I could be completely mended in as little as 6 weeks, by the time I see Dr. Mineo again in late May. I'm just going to have to be sure to do as much as I can to prevent strain on this thing and let it rest, even if it means slowing down a little bit for a while. I can handle that. As long as it's not too long, that is.