I will admit to having typed the words "Kool-Aid," but only in private and only in reaction to one particular group of people -- there's a thankfully tiny but fairly obnoxious subset of Obama supporters, mostly a handful of commenters on the non-b.org sites I visit and a handful of posters on sites I don't visit anymore, who are... I guess just more Obama supporters than yellow-dog Dems.

It was very interesting (if depressing) the level of segregation that developed in the political blog world over the course of the primary. For whatever reason, most of the blogs I frequent were generally Obama leaning, but were existing blogs with a purpose beyond the election. After some discussion or other at Shakesville I started feeling that I really needed to branch out more myself and try to get a more comprehensive picture. And so I went back to some lefty blogs that I don't normally read and some good ones, but also found some perviously okay blogs that were seriously off-putting in their rage against Obama and most especially Obama supporters. The mental gymnastics that the primary math required people to spout didn't help any either.

So I found some of the pro-Clinton anti-Obama-supporters histrionics to be way over the top. But on the last primary night I was casting around trying to find somewhere that was liveblogging the speeches and happened on Wonkette. Which, tone-wise, I always found kind of unbearable to begin with, but did used to be a good info source. And whoa. Two minutes there and I had a much better understanding of why some Clinton supporters felt so disrespected.

(ETA: candidate-segregation, I mean above. Though certainly the more real world forms of segregation were also a big issue.)

Yikes, tommyrot. I think sometimes people do inappropriate laughter after thing that would have been scary.

Oh, we were talking about little babies, right? Numbers of low birth weight babies are on the rise. [link] To blame? Mothers, of course!

Beavers said part of the overall increase in low-birthweight babies was due to a rise in multiple births as more older women use fertility treatments to conceive. But she said the birth-weight problem also has been worsening for single-baby deliveries.

The rate of low-weight births is sharply higher for blacks (13.6 percent) than for whites (7.3 percent) or Hispanics (6.9 percent). One important factor, Beavers said, is the mother's overall health at the time of pregnancy and her access to good prenatal care.

ION, a coworker at another location just asked for my personal email, and I totally knew why -- she's starting to look for a job and wanted to ask if I'd be a reference. Ah well.

One of the things that bothered me is that how the Clinton supporters were angry about the sexism (totally true), but seemed to be upset with Obama because he didn't acknowledge it or say anything about it. I don't get this sentiment. Why blame him for the media's failing?

Yikes, tommyrot. I think sometimes people do inappropriate laughter after thing that would have been scary.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

But oh holy fuck, y'all. I forgot to mention something from Sunday. We're driving along the Stevenson Expressway and this group of five of six motorcycles passes us. And this fucking idiot is riding his motorcycle side-saddle. As in, he's sitting on his ass on the engine compartment with both legs draped over on the left side. At 70 mph on a busy freeway. And the guy keeps turning around to check and see if we're watching him. Meanwhile all we can see is images of his body flying through the windshield at any moment. Jackhole. What the fucking fuck.

I had a long 11 and a half hour day, yesterday. Today looks to be more of the same, except I am SO out of here by five so I can babysit Noah.

At least I came home to a big bouquet of flowers from my mom. Pink roses and gerber daisies. Lovely.

One of the things that bothered me is that how the Clinton supporters were angry about the sexism (totally true), but seemed to be upset with Obama because he didn't acknowledge it or say anything about it. I don't get this sentiment. Why blame him for the media's failing?

I do think he could have done better on this front, frankly. But the sense that much of any of it was his doing or his responsibility is baffling to me.

Ugh Kat, at least I don't have to go to work today. I'm trying to decide what to do with the kids. I think we'll make play dough.

I don't get this sentiment. Why blame him for the media's failing?

Eh, I can understand. I got annoyed with that, but I also got annoyed with Clinton for not coming out and saying the whole Rev Wright blow up was lame media bullshit.

And some are just freaktastic.

I'd give Morford a pass because he's like that about everything. I like a lot of his writing, but he'd make picking a salad dressing symbolic of an Epic Struggle For Our Nation's Very Soul that is being waged between toxic multinational conglomerates and unicorns in favor of organic hemp products.

My HUGE problem with "drank the Kool-Aid" is the whole Jonestown reference, drinking the Kool-Aid means accepting a suicidal proposition.

Not really; it means being cultish. Idioms, by definition, aren't that literal.

I do think he could have done better on this front, frankly

Yeah, and the Clinton campaign could have done a lot better on the racism front. I don't think either of them gets to claim the higher ground here. (Fortunately we're now in the phase of the campaign where both Clinton and Obama get to pretend that the primary race never happened and they've totally been BFFs all along, so I can put aside my disgust at the candidate I voted for and start aiming it squarely at the GOP where it belongs.)

One of the things that bothered me is that how the Clinton supporters were angry about the sexism (totally true), but seemed to be upset with Obama because he didn't acknowledge it or say anything about it. I don't get this sentiment. Why blame him for the media's failing?

It is totally unreasonable to blame him for the media; however, the folks on Shakespeare's Sister have been following the media ugliness and speaking out on behalf of both D front-runners. What they noted was:

(a) equally scurrilous and revolting rhetoric, sometimes right out front and sometimes under a thin veneer of politeness and code words, by the media, a scarily passionate single-minded minority of each candidate's supporters, and, much more rarely, actual campaign members or the candidates themselves; and

(b) DNC bigwigs going like gangbusters, righteously and rightfully, to call people on most of the racist shit (definitely failing to call Hillary herself out enough on her remarks about the hard-working (white) vote in the last few weeks, but generally being pretty forthright and awesome), but letting most of the sexist shit slide.

From my perspective, that's where the anger has been: that no party bigwig has stepped up to say, "Both of these are unacceptable." But my perspective is probably skewed, since I've mostly managed to avoid contact with the screaming outliers on both sides.