'Blame Bush' Strategy Wears Thin as Obama Enters Second Year

One year into his administration, President Obama might want to consider dropping the "blame Bush" page from his playbook.

Whether it's the economy, national security or America's reputation abroad, the president and his top advisers have been pinning the blame on the prior administration, directly or obliquely, ever since Obama's inauguration a full year ago. They've done so, in fact, at least seven times since last Tuesday's stunning upset in the Massachusetts Senate election.

Bush

White House adviser: Obama has brought 'enormous change'

Washington (CNN) -- The White House rejected criticism Sunday that President Obama has not delivered on his promise of "change" during his first year in office.

White House delusional adviser Valerie Jarrett said the president has brought about "enormous change."

Obviously speaking under the influence of massive sedatives, she opined, "I think what we've seen is a dramatic difference in terms of how the United States is perceived around the world," Jarrett told NBC's "Meet the Press," on the final Sunday before the president's State of the Union address.

Without mentioning the Christmas day terror attempt, she idiotically claimed that Obama's travels have established relationships with world leaders that "lay a foundation for keeping America safe and making us a partner around the world," she added.

Without a word about the thousands of people who are out of work, Jarrett also nonsensically credited the president with having "pulled back the economy from the brink of disaster" even though he has nothing of the sort and may possibly have even made thing worse.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a person who still has some semblance of sanity,  on the same program, countered that "if you look at the first year of this administration, we haven't made much progress." He complained about the deficit in the president's budget and the health care reform package that Republicans oppose

New York Woman Says Hundreds of Kin Missing in Haiti

(CNN) -- The list of relatives Widline Germain has not heard from since Haiti's earthquake seems like a town population in itself.
"When you count our extended family -- the dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles -- there's several hundred of us in Haiti, and we don't know where most of them are," she said from her home in Binghamton, New York.

Kate McGarrigle, Singer and Songwriter, Has Died

Kate McGarrigle, a Canadian singer and songwriter who, with her sister Anna, had a repertory of intimate songs about love and family in good times and bad, died of liver cancer on Monday. She was 63 and died at her home in Montreal, her brother-in-law, Dane Lanken, told The Associated Press.

The McGarrigle Sisters were praised by critics for the warmth of their harmonies and for their approach to folk music, which was neither academic nor commercial. Born in Montreal and raised in St.-Saveur-des-Monts, a village about 50 miles to the north, the sisters learned music from nuns and from their family’s regular singalongs at home, which drew from wide sources in folk and traditional pop. The eldest McGarrigle sister, Jane, was a church organist.

Kate McGarrigle, who was once married to the singer Loudon Wainwright III, and her survivors include her sisters and two children who have become well-known singers, Rufus and Martha.

Mystery Visitor Fails to Show Up at Edgar Allan Poe Grave

BALTIMORE —  Is this tradition "nevermore"?
A mysterious visitor who left roses and cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe each year on the writer's birthday failed to show early Tuesday, breaking with a ritual that began more than 60 years ago.
"I'm confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don't know what's going on."

The tradition dates back to at least 1949, according to newspaper accounts from the era, Jerome said. Since then, an unidentified person has come every Jan. 19 to leave three roses and a half-bottle of cognac at Poe's grave in a church cemetery in downtown Baltimore.

The event has become a pilgrimage for die-hard Poe fans, some of whom travel hundreds of miles. About three dozen stood huddled in blankets during the overnight cold Tuesday, peering through the churchyard's iron gates hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure known only as the "Poe toaster."

At 5:30 a.m., Jerome emerged from inside the church, where he and a select group of Poe enthusiasts keep watch over the graveyard, and announced to the crowd that the visitor never arrived. He allowed an Associated Press reporter inside the gates to view both of Poe's grave sites, the original one and a newer site where the body was moved in 1875. There was no sign of roses or cognac at either tombstone.

Jerome said the Poe toaster has always arrived before 5:30 a.m. There was still a chance the visit could occur later in the day, but Jerome said he doubted the person would risk a public unveiling by performing the task in daylight, when other visitors could be there.

"I'm very disappointed, to the point where I want to cry," said Cynthia Pelayo, 29, who had stood riveted to her prime viewing spot at the gate for about six hours. "I flew in from Chicago to see him. I'm just really sad. I hope that he's OK."

Pelayo and Poe fans from as far as Texas and Massachusetts had passed the overnight hours reading aloud from Poe's works, including the poem "The Raven," with its haunting repetition of the word "nevermore." Soon they were speculating, along with Jerome, about what might have caused the visitor not to appear.
"You've got so many possibilities," said Jerome, who has attended the ritual every year since 1977. "The guy had the flu, accident, too many people."

Tuesday marked the 201st anniversary of Poe's birth, and Jerome speculated that perhaps the visitor considered last year's bicentennial an appropriate stopping point.
"People will be asking me, 'Why do you think he stopped?'" Jerome said. "Or did he stop? We don't know if he stopped. He just didn't come this year."

There have also been recent controversies over which city should be regarded as Poe's rightful home, with some making the case that the remains perhaps should be moved to Richmond, Va., Philadelphia or Boston, cities with their own Poe legacies.

Jerome said he thinks it's unlikely the dispute is connected to the Poe toaster's no-show. If anything, Jerome felt the visitor might have weighed in on the controversy by leaving a note with the roses and cognac, as has been done in some previous years.

One such note was left in 1993, when the visitor wrote: "The torch will be passed." Years later, another note indicated the man had died in 1998 and had handed the tradition to his two sons.
Sam Porpora, a former historian at Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Poe is buried, claimed in 2007 that he was the original Poe toaster and that he had came up with the idea in the 1970s as a publicity stunt. Jerome disputed Porpora's claims by citing a 1950 article in The (Baltimore) Evening Sun that referred to the annual tribute.

Poe was the American literary master of the macabre, noted for poems and short stories including "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum." He is also credited with writing the first modern detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which appeared in 1841.
He died Oct. 7, 1849, in Baltimore at the age of 40 after collapsing in a tavern.

As for the fate of his annual visitor? That's a new mystery.

Jerome said he will continue the vigil for at least the next two or three years, in case the visits resume.
"So, for me," he said, "it's not over with."

And Speaking of the Ridiculous "N word" Phrase

Publisher Renames Joseph Conrad Classic 'The N-word of the Narcissus'

A classic turn-of-the-century English novelist whose works have been read by countless millions of people is having his work sanitized for a new generation of readers.

Joseph Conrad, whose "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim" have been scrutinized by English students on multiple continents for decades, wrote a lesser known novel in 1897 called "The Nigger of the Narcissus."

Now, in what critics are calling a blatant act of politically correct censorship, a Netherlands-based publisher has reprinted the novel under a new name: "The N-word of the Narcissus."

The new version is the first installment of WordBridge Publishing's classic texts series, featuring "texts with a message for moderns, made accessible to moderns."

But some critics say updating a Conrad novel by replacing all mentions of the offensive term "nigger" with "n-word" is just as offensive as the word itself.

"It's outrageous," said Niger Innis, spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, a New York-based civil rights organization. "Are they going to go to Mark Twain as well and take out all of those references?

"It's censorship, and to blacken over a word does not mean that you can blacken over the history."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582491,00.html

 

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