(Pat Oliphant via GoComics.com)
Yet another GOP debate tonight, at 9pm EST, hosted by ABC and Yahoo. Schedule your evening drinking accordingly. The Guardian‘s Richard Adams will be live-blogging the event, starting at 8pm EST: “Given it is the first high profile event since the dust settled in Iowa, it should be a cracker. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry in particular have nothing to lose – Perry went shooting to warm up – so let’s get ready to rumble.”
Other members of the Media Village are already sick unto tears of the adorable Granite Staters and their quaint, quirky ways:
MANCHESTER, N.H. — What do you learn when you try to meet every single Republican presidential candidate in person?
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You learn that Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) is awful at small talk. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a ham, breaking into funny voices and goofy faces. And former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is . . . not like that at all. “Like talking to your doctor,” one voter remembered.
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And, as it turns out, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. is surprisingly calm after he’s been bitten by a goat.
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The voters who attempt this feat during primary season — trying to meet every serious candidate, preferably more than once — are the earnest heart of this politics-obsessed state. They make New Hampshire what New Hampshire is: a place where the contest to lead a nation of 312 million takes on the intimacy of a junior high student council race…
And who doesn’t have fond memories of junior high, after all.
Is anybody actually going to be watching this particular sporting event? What else is on the agenda for everyone’s weekend?
Alexandra
I’m working this weekend. Deadlines on Monday. Boo.
And I shall not be watching this debate. Romney has the whole thing sewn up already.
capt
I’ll do anything except watch the GOP primary non-infomercial debate.
Phylllis
Not watching either. The facile questions and non-answer answers make me stabby. We’re headed to the lovely city of Aiken SC for errand, lunch, and some Div. II college hoops. Forecast high for today is 70 degrees. My power bill budget is loving it.
Steeplejack
Why the hell is Manchester City-Manchester United not on TV until 5:00 p.m. (not live)?! Now I’ve got to spend the day in spoiler-avoidance mode. And that will collide with the first NFL game. Damn you, Fox Soccer Channel!
Bmaccnm
I’m leaving Sunday morning for twenty-nine days working as a midwife in an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons- refugees who can’t get out of the country) camp in Somalia. I’m a little trepidatious. Maybe a lot trepidatious. I’ve done some international work in hospitals in Kenya and Guatemala, but nothing like this. Has anyone here done such of a thing?
Phylllis
@Bmaccnm: No, but I surely commend you for doing it. Midwives provide such terrific care.
Nicole
I’m up early, trying to get work done (I freelance recording textbooks on mp3). It’s not so fun, nor easy, when one has a bad cold, though.
@Bmaccnm- that’s an extraordinary thing you are doing. I wish you safe travels and safe births while you’re there.
Cheryl from Maryland
I’m going ice skating. I need the practice — My goal this year is to be able to spin.
Mustang Bobby
I was going to watch the debates, but I have to give my parakeet a karma transplant.
Which reminds me… I need to get a parakeet.
Other than that, no plans for the weekend other than the usual chores like laundry and shopping, and a welcome return to Quaker meeting after three weeks’ absence… it’s not cool to cough loudly and repeatedly during an hour of (mostly) silent worship.
Phylllis
Btw, Google is saluting the incomparable Charles Addams on what would be his 100th birthday today.
Baud
I would like the watch the Newtron Bomb go off on Romney, but…football.
Brian R.
So the Republican primary is down to three main contenders.
Mitt Romney, whose father was governor of Michigan and then a member of the Nixon administration. Newt Gingrich, a self-described “Army brat.” And Rick Santorum, whose father was a VA psychiatrist.
In other words, a son of a government employee, a son of a government employee, and a son of a government employee. And yet all three of them are desperate to disparage and destroy the federal government?
Sounds like the Daddy Party has some serious daddy issues.
J.W. Hamner
Is there a Balloon Juice/Ta-Nehisi Star Wars: The Old Republic server we’re all supposed to use? Just got it last night and I can’t really recall the server I ended up on.
Elizabelle
Watching UP with Chris Hayes.
They’re discussing vulture capitalism and Bain/Romney.
WereBear
Seconded. And Lawrence Welk. I have limits.
WereBear
@Bmaccnm: Blessings on you for such service. I don’t blame you for trepidation; but you are there to give.
KyCole
Also watching UP, and trying to finish knitting some baby gifts that should have been done by now. It was 65 degrees in Louisville yesterday- I’m really glad I no longer own a yarn store.
Elizabelle
@Bmaccnm:
I would LOVE to see a guest post of your Somalian experiences.
Godspeed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bmaccnm: I am awestruck. What a good thing you’ll be doing. is there any way for you to post comments while you’re in Somalia? If so, please do. If not, please, a nice long post when you return. Either way, Godspeed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: Ha! I swear I didn’t see your comment before I wrote mine, but clearly we are thinking alike up to and including use of the somewhat archaic (but completely appropriate) “Godspeed.”
aimai
I agree with everyone, Bmaccnm, you are doing a real mitzvah. You are right to be nervous but whatever you can accomplish will be such a blessing. If you are going to have access to the internet try to keep us posted. I had a homebirth with a midwife for my second baby. I can’t imagine the relief the women you will be helping will feel when you pop up in Somalia. You are doing a great thing. Hard on you, but great for the mothers and babies.
aimai
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear: This made me laugh. On Xmas eve I was waiting for something or other I wanted to watch on PBS and caught the last 15-20 minutes of a very old L.W. Xmas special. It was teeth-curlingly awful, but — not unlike a small bird in the presence of a cobra — I couldn’t look away.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brian R.:
If we’re really lucky, MoDo will write about it in tomorrow’s NYT.
/snark
Linda Featheringill
You’re kidding, right? I attended the 7th and 8th grades with dinosaurs and it was crappy even back then. Yuck!
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne:
mind meld!
henqiguai
In case anyone cares, Chris Hedges In Depth now on C-SPAN2.
Elizabelle
@henqiguai:
Thank you.
CaseyL
@Bmaccnm: My god, that’s a brave and generous thing you’re doing. I’ve never done anything remotely like that, so have no specific advice, but my guess is that clean fresh water will be hard to come by, so I’d say lay in a good supply of hand sanitizer, and any kind of sanitizing wipe you can find.
My plans for this weekend? Curl up in a miserable ball and get over a head cold. I’ll try to get out and be active, because I know for a fact that helps, but the trouble with being sick is that I really don’t feel like getting out and being active.
handsmile
Wading late into this thread-stream as is my habit on weekend mornings; in the event that certain earlier commenters are still reading:
@Bmaccnm: (#5)
I wish to add my voice to the chorus of praise and appreciation for the remarkable and deeply honorable work you are performing as a midwife in such hazardous regions. Upon your safe return, any account of your experiences in Somalia would be eagerly read.
@henqiguai: @Elizabelle: (#26/#27)
No longer merely a great journalist, Chris Hedges has become an essential sage and prophet whose writing is always illuminating. I’ve been fascinated to learn that he become truly radicalized during his graduate studies at the Harvard Divinity School.
@Steeplejack: (#4)
That 5:00pm FSC broadcast is a repeat of ManU’s 1-6 humiliation by its “noisy neighbors” last October. (And well worth viewing for that alone.) The FA Cup third-round match-up between the Red and Blue footballing halves of Manchester will be broadcast live by FSC on Sunday morning at 8:00am (EST). A proper way to begin the lord’s day.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bmaccnm: That is a fantastic thing to do. Safe travels. Also, please let us know what the experience was like once you get back. (Or while you are there if you have time and an internet connection.)
Yutsano
@Bmaccnm: You will make a difference. A HUGE one. And you may yet birth the next hope for Somalia. Courage is not the absence of fear remember that. And if you can’t get an Internet connection get a notebook. Or two. Or ten. This sounds like an experience worth journalizing.
plato451
I’m in New Orleans and there’s only one thing any New Orleanian will be doing this evening. Watching the Saints continue shattering records while winning vs. Detroit. Watching this team play right now is pure enjoyment. The Saints have some of the best athletes in the game and tonight we set the tone for our trip to the Superbowl. WHO DAT!!?!
gelfling545
@KyCole: It was 50 degrees here in Buffalo god-help-us New York.