Things here have been so hectic of late that I just haven’t had time to read the books I’ve been sent to review. So tonight’s plan is to sit down with a highlighter, a martini and my copy of Why You’re Wrong About The Right: Behind the Myths (The Surprising Truth About Conservatives) by by S. E. Cupp and Brett Joshpe.

Recently, a long-time friend of mine expressed surprised when I mentioned that I’m a registered Republican. “But you read National Geographic and Smithsonian,” she said. “You have gay friends. You can’t be Republican. You’re nice.”

Cupp and Joshpe’s book arrived the very next day, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it ever since. Unfortunately, stress over my mother and father-in-law’s health has left me a bit too frazzled to crack open the cover. But tonight that’s exactly what I plan to do.

Not that I can read such heavy fare all evening, mind you. I like to curl up with a novel at bedtime, so I’m very glad to have received an advance copy of The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss, a thriller set in the years following the Revolutionary War.

Did I mention that VH is conveniently returning home tonight from a 4-day visit with his family in Minnesota? Four long days during which I’ve been parenting solo and today watching my friend’s two kids as well as my own.

Yeah, I’m definitely having a martini while I unwind with a good book. Or two. Books, that is.

Okay, maybe two martinis, too.

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Faced with soaring food prices and plummeting grain supplies, officials in India are encouraging the populace to eat rats. That’s right, rats.

Fans of “Fear Factor” probably just lost their breakfast after reading that sentence. One FF viewer even sued NBC after watching the episode. Granted, that incident involved the consumption of pureed rats, hair and bones and all. But even intact the rodent is considered gruesome fare in America, so much so that restaurants are closed down when rat infestations are discovered.

Now, I like to think of myself as a adventurous gastronome. I’ve munched on preying mantis, guzzled down goat innards, licked my lips after eating lamb cheeks and once even worked on a wad of whale baleen. Though I’ve never done dog meat, I couldn’t consider consuming a cat. Other than that, I have what we’ll just kindly refer to as a cast-iron stomach. (No doubt a history of drinking martinis has somehow contributed to that fact.)

So I can’t honestly say I’d reject rat right from the start. But rats that have been running around on the streets of India, a country with some of the world’s worst industrial pollution? Every year, India’s filth-contaminated drinking water kills people, and it was just over a decade ago that rat-borne bubonic and pneumonic plague wiped out scores in the country’s rural areas. When it comes to eating the little buggers, I have to admit I’m a bit too squeamish to consider it.

Then again, I live in a country where food is so abundant that we pay money to gyms, personal trainers, nutritionists and physicians to help us work off the effects of over-consumption. We can’t begin to imagine losing 50% of the country’s grain supply as India has thanks to rats.

The good news is that an Indian-born researcher at the University of Florida may have discovered a vaccine against both bubonic and pneumonic plague. Rats given an injection of the vaccine survived exposure without any traces of the plague remaining in their bodies. The vaccine is being developed in oral form as well which means, depending on the result of human trials, that an inexpensive yet effective way to prevent plague may be just around the corner.

If that’s the case then perhaps the Indian government’s recommendation to “let them eat rats” is an innovative and responsible one in the face of the country’s food crisis. Come to think of it, perhaps it’s something Americans will get less squeamish about as our own food prices continue to soar. After all, I hear they’re pretty good in rat enchiladas or shepherd’s pie

Electric Venom (as well as I Think Therefore I Blog) will be participating in Blog Action Day 2008, a day on which participating bloggers, podcasters and videocasters collectively exercise their ability to focus global discussion on globally important topic.

In 2008, the Blog Action Day theme is Poverty. Bloggers are free to interpret this as they see fit. We invite bloggers to examine poverty from their own blog topics and perspectives, to look at it from the macro and micro, as a global condition and a local issue, and to bring their own ideas, views and opinions on the subject.

The site provides a list of post ideas for those wondering how to fit the topic into the context of their blog and resources for those interested in learning more (though some on the right may find the resources a bit too biased). Once written, you’ll be asked to insert a snippet of code into your post to help organizers locate and promote participating entries. And, of course, there are all sorts of pretty, shiny banners.

I’m in. Are you?

There’s still time to enter the contest looking for the best one-line answer to the age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the street? (Or road for those of you living in urban areas.)

The prize is a $10 Amazon gift certificate or donation to your favorite charity in your name.

Get your entries in by midnight (CST) on Thursday!

Not long ago, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter was asked why he didn’t think he’d be a good choice for the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee. Said Ritter:

I’ve been governor for 18 months. It’s been a great experience. But it’s just 18 months…Obama has to think about experience…levels of experience…

Not surprisingly, he immediately backed off from his statement because, after all, Obama himself only has 143 days of actual Senate experience yet believes he’s qualified to lead the free world.

To put things in perspective, it’s been barely over 143 days since Obama made his “typical white person” remark. (The coffee cup declaring that you’re a T.W.P. is still available.)

And it’ll be longer than 143 days before the next President is sworn in.

Yeah, he’s got that little experience. Perhaps that’s what he really meant about the “audacity of hope”.

Selling $1.99 gas to promote electric cars? What’s next, holding an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet to fight obesity?

I still remember the days before Jay Solo met Deb. Heck, I remember when Deb was “the Accidental Jedi”, and I remember how neat it was when their blogs led them down the wedding aisle. Three children later — yes, three! — they’re still going strong.

Except that, as I know all too well, even the strongest people sometimes encounter bumps in the road. Why, a few years ago when a bicycle accident knocked out my front teeth, both Jay and Deb — along with hundreds of others — chipped in to by my new fangs.

Now it’s my turn to repay the kindness. Jay and Deb need help keeping their power on, either through donations or purchases of Deb’s beautiful crochet pieces at their online store.

Because, let’s face it, they can’t blog without power, much less see their beautiful children smile.

I’m so excited! I just booked a ticket to fly down and visit my mother over the Labor Day weekend. It’s a bittersweet thing, to be honest. See, I’d thought that VH and I would be taking the kids up to Minnesota to visit my father-in-law, whose health is going rapidly downhill.

But one of the things high on his Bucket List (which we’re referring to as things he wants to accomplish “while the weather is warm”) is a chance to spend a weekend fishing with his brother. Since he’s feeling up to it at this point, and we don’t know how long that will last, it makes more sense for us to postpone our visit until a later weekend.

Which means I’m free to go see my own mother whose health, although better, is still iffy. (She doesn’t go in for a full post-chemo PET scan for another 3 weeks, so we’re all trying to think positively until then.) Unlike my visit in June, I’ll be going alone this time and staying with her rather than in a hotel. That means more one-on-one time with Mom, something I didn’t get much of on the last trip.

I doubt we do much sight-seeing this time, though. We’ll probably hit the mall and visit my niece, who’s due to have her second child any day now. And, of course, I’m going to try talking my big brother into taking me to my happiest place on earth again for more BBQ.

Something tells me I won’t have to beg too hard, though.

Online DVD and on-demand video giant Netflix suffered a severe service disruption last week. This was only the second service interruption in the company’s nearly 10-year history.

Although the “mystery outage” didn’t affect on-line viewing or ordering of movies, it did prevent Netflix from shipping movies via U.S. mail for three days. But the company has no plans to leave consumers feeling the brunt of the problem.

Netflix customers whose movies were delayed will receive a 15% credit on their next billing cycle. New subscribers still using the free 2-week trial will receive an additional week without charge.

If you ask me, that’s some impressive customer service.

Maybe it’s just me, but I get a chuckle thinking of a U.S. President tapping his feet under the desk in the Oval Office while listening to the Rolling Stones or even ABBA. But, based on what Barack Obama and John McCain’s Top 10 favorite songs, that’s precisely what may happen come January.

What I find even more surprising? How many of Obama’s top 10 songs are on my high-rotation play list.

BARACK OBAMA
1. Ready or Not -Fugees
2. What’s Going On - Marvin Gaye
3. I’m On Fire Bruce - Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman - Nina Simone (Simone is one of my musical obsessions)
6. Touch the Sky - Kanye West
7. You’d Be So Easy to Love - Frank Sinatra
8. Think - Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights - U2
10. Yes We Can - will.i.am

JOHN McCAIN
1. Dancing Queen - ABBA
2. Blue Bayou - Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me - ABBA
4. If We MakeIt Through December - Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By - Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong (my wedding recessional)
8. I’ve Got You Under My Skin - Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
10. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - The Platters

Still, I have to agree with the folks at Blender about the oddness of Obama’s #10 song which is essentially a mix of Obama’s speeches. Self-absorbed much?

Since I continue to suffer from a curious mixture of blogger’s block and an emotional bankruptcy that Leelu has aptly described as “bone crushing”, I figured it’s time to turn this blog over to better minds than mine… at least for today.

So, my Venomites, riddle me this:

Q. Why did the chicken cross the street?

(Answer in the comment section. The answer that makes me laugh the most gets a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate or, for the other-minded, a $10 donation in their name to the non-political charity of their choice.)

It’s been a rough 10 days here in the Venomous Household, ten long days during which we’ve all been learning as much about grace as we have about pressure. Over the past 5 1/2 years I’ve turned to my blog to let off most forms of stress, and you Venomites have been wonderfully understanding and supportive.

I’ve learned, though, that the kindness of friends can sometimes unintentionally add to one’s stress. Repeating an explanation of the situation for the thirtieth time (not to mention the 300th) has a way of trapping a person into a situation, rather than giving them space from it.

I needed space. I needed time to myself in between the time I’m now devoting to keeping my son from dwelling on his grandparents’ health and the time I’m spending trying to keep my husband together, too. So many, many thanks to my friend Kimsch who posted an entry for me last week to let y’all know I was okay.

We are, by the grace of God, doing all right. Yes, we’re still under quite a bit of pressure, but the past few days off have given us a chance to come together and arrange our schedules to get through this difficult time as a team.

The Big-Eyed Boy started school today at a nearby, highly rated school district. We applied for admission under open enrollment last week, and as late as Friday we were still waiting to learn the decision. Come to find out the district had to hire 6 teachers at the last minute just to deal with the kids who live in-district, and as a result they had opening for 4 more kids living outside of it. We learned on Monday we were one of the four and he’s thrilled, as am I.

Of course, we don’t want to go through this every fall and risk learning that there’s no room for him, so we’re now planning on moving within the district limits to ensure he can continue attending there year after year. As luck would have it, friends of ours are selling a large lot in their neighborhood. (They’d bought it planning to construct their own house then purchased one that was already built across the street.)

Taking a huge leap of faith that God will make the money happen, we’re making a down payment on the lot this weekend. The homeowners’ association rules require us to build a residence on the lot within the year, so I’ve been having fun using Sims 2 to design and redesign our “dream home”. (Sims was originally created to be an architectural program, after all.)

Honestly, we have no idea how we’re going to afford this, but somehow things always manage to come out all right. We’re counting on this coming out okay, too. If nothing else, it’s giving us something positive and exciting to look forward to, and right now we need that because there’s not much else upbeat about our lives.

My husband’s father is rapidly going downhill. He needs esophageal stent to move his tumor aside so he can eat, drink and breathe, and so far it’s continuing to work. At some point, though, it’s very likely he’ll need machines to help him with those tasks instead. He’s lost quite a bit of weight, although it’s difficult to say how much of that is simply from draining the fluid that had built up in his abdomen, legs and elsewhere.

We will be grateful if he’s still with us at Thanksgiving. It will be a miracle if we get to celebrate this Christmas with him. As a result, every day is more precious than ever before, and my husband plans to make the most of those he has left with his father.

He’ll be visiting his father in Minnesota most weekends from here on out while I’ll be remaining at home with the Big-Eyed Boy. We do plan a family trip up there for Labor Day and at least once a month I’ll be visiting my mother in Texas, who has just recently finished her own chemotherapy for colon cancer.

In other words, although things definitely feel less nightmarish than they did 10 days ago, it’s not because things have changed so much as we’ve simply resigned ourselves to accept their inevitability. Perhaps that is what “grace under pressure” is all about: knowing that when the situation isn’t going to change, one must change one’s life to rise up to it.

Hence, I am back to blogging, but for the time being it’s going to be something that fits in the spare moments of the rest of my life, rather than being my primary focus. I’m sure you understand, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. Thank you to all who’ve sent emails, letters and cards. I’ll be replying to each of you individually as I can, but please understand if it takes me a while. Like most people, I need a break from strain now and again, and for me that break has always been blogging.

So let’s get back to it, shall we?

kimsch here. Kate’s going to be taking a couple of days off to deal with what she has to deal with. She wants to thank you all for your support. It means a lot to her.

Last week I mentioned that I was about as stressed out as I could bear. Little did I know that the stress had only just begun.

I mentioned earlier this year that my mother was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. She’d had surgery to remove the lemon-sized tumor and has been going through chemotherapy for the past 12 weeks. Tomorrow is her final chemo round — we hope — and she seems to be doing quite well.

My father-in-law, meanwhile, has been battling kidney cancer for years. On 9/11 he was in surgery having a kidney removed. Until earlier this year he’d been in remission, but then the doctors found some “spots” had returned. He, too, began chemo treatments. Unlike my mother’s, which were administered via a pump worn in a fanny pack for 3 days at a time and tied into a port embedded in her chest, my father-in-law’s have been via pill form.

Last month when we visited he was in an enormous amount of pain. Most of the discomfort was situated in his upper abdomen and, according to the doctors, had to do with chemo side effects. They gave him lidocaine for the pain and did a CT scan using a lower level dye that was supposed to be gentle on his one remaining kidney. Seven weeks ago they said he was “all clear” aside from the “spots” we knew about. Spots they said they’d monitor, but didn’t see as threatening.

In mid-July he began having problems breathing. He couldn’t eat an entire meal without feeling nauseous. He was exhausted. His skin hard turned yellow, an apparent side-effect of one of the chemo drugs. He’d lost a dramatic amount of weight in the 2 short months since we last saw him.

Last week my father-in-law, one of the most kind-hearted and yet quiet men I’ve ever met in my life, went in for an endoscopy. They found a 3-inch tumor in his esophagus. Yes, he used to smoke but he quit over 40 years ago. He hasn’t drunk a drop of liquor in well over 50 years. He had none of the standard lifestyle triggers for esophageal cancer.

On Thursday, that’s what they diagnosed him with. A PET scan was scheduled and he was admitted to the hospital. On Friday a “family meeting” was held. My husband couldn’t be there but, since the man listened to me for once, I’d booked a flight for him to get to Minnesota to be with his family over the weekend.

(Open wide…)

Back when J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, wrote the Tales of Beedle the Bard only a limited number of copies were available. Seven, to be precise. Amazon quickly snapped up one of the copies for a cool $3.8 million, perhaps in anticipation of today’s news: Beedle will be released to the general public.

As of today, you can pre-order a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The collector’s edition sounds a Potter fan’s wet dream:

• All five fairy tales from the original The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• Outer case disguised as a wizarding textbook from the Hogwarts library
• Exclusive reproduction of J.K. Rowling’s handwritten introduction
• 10 new illustrations by J.K. Rowling not included in the Standard Edition or the original handcrafted edition
• Velvet bag embroidered with J.K. Rowling’s signature
• Metal skull, corners, and clasp
• Replica gemstones
• Emerald ribbon

And did I mention that in addition to containing Rowling’s initial illustrations it’s also extensively footnoted by Albus Dumbledore?

Order your copy today!