12 Days and Counting.....

Before I begin I must explain a few things (and of course Anderson Cooper listens with intense interest, as you can see by the picture). First I am feeling very old tonight. I don't usually say I'm old, don't usually think of myself as old, but old I must be. Why? Because I am trying to watch Anderson Cooper on the MTV special and it's not going so well. I hate the music, well not all of the music. I did enjoy Juanes...but he sang in Spanish.....a language I don't speak. At least his song seemed to have words and there were no choruses of hey, hey, ho, ho.

The second thing, if you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm cranky tonight. I don't usually blog on Friday nights, it's date night for DH and moi. But since Ms. Sapphire so graciously offered to cover for me on Wednesday I am returning the favor. DH and I decided not to forgo our night on the town, just scale it back a bit with a quick, early dinner. We ended up eating with all the old folks who feel the need to eat before the sun goes down and hurry home, so as not to miss Wheel of Fortune. Since we were throwing caution to the wind and eating early we also decided to make our first visit to one of those pizza buffet restaurants. I don't think I have ever consumed so many carbohydrates in one meal in my entire life. I feel like my body is going to explode from the carbs and my mind will too because of the MTV music. Now that I've painted that lovely picture of myself for you let's move on to discuss Friday's AC360 (in bullet points).

• Terrible breaking news about the death of members of Jennifer Hudson's family. The singer and actress lost her mother and brother in the senseless attack. There was mention that one of her family members was involved in an abusive relationship with the killer.
• Next report was the young Pittsburgh woman who lied about being attacked by an Obama supporter. Seriously? A panel to discuss the mentally ill person who perpetrated this lie? Really stupid waste of time, imo. The Gerg opened the discussion by saying she had no impact on the race and it should be forgiven and forgotten. So then why discuss???? • Tom Foreman and Joe Johns led discussions with voters about race and its impact on the elections. Portions of the interviews were shown and Roland, Soledad, Tom and Joe discussed the results. This was a really relevant and interesting report. I assume this will be an upcoming special (forgive me if they mentioned that, I might have missed it). Topics discussed included 'code words', Reverend Wright and 'the Bradley effect'. For those of you who are not familiar with the history of this, here's the short version. Tom Bradley ran for Governor of California in 1982. He was African American. The polls showed him slightly ahead but he lost the election. It was theorized that people tell pollsters they will be voting for the Black candidate because they want to appear not to be racist. But in the privacy of a voting booth they will vote for the White candidate. The panel consensus is we have moved past this prejudice, at least as far as polling is concerned.

• Randi Kaye did the 360 Bulletins (an ATA commenter told us that Erica was off because of her sister's wedding) and yet another report on the nut job from Pittsburgh who faked the attack.

•The Shot was a photo shopped video of the Senators Obama and McCain dancing. Would you agree with me that this might have caught AC's eye because he thinks it would solve his problems about not dancing for Kelly, Erica and the AC360 crew? I smell a plan in the works.

Now onto the MTV special 'A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE '. Cyn is my hero for uploading Anderson's portion of the program.
Here's AC introducing and wrapping up his clip

Here's AC introducing and wrapping Michael Ware's clip

And ditto for Sanjay Gupta's clip


Thanks to an anonymous tipster here are a few pictures of Anderson in Times Square on Thursday night before the MTV taping. (click to enlarge)

And thanks to some readers who forwarded along a few pictures they took of Anderson in the past year. The first is from Laura and was taken on NYE 2008 in Times Square.
These last 2 pictures were taken by Toby at the Democratic National Convention in August.


I have one more little goodie from our friend Kristien. It seems that many of our readers have developed a fondness for Jack Gray. He's smart, funny and actually seems to enjoy blogging (unlike his boss). So here's his picture and a the story behind the arm in a sling.

Jack GrayAC360° Producer
It wasn’t the way I envisioned my trip to San Francisco concluding…
You see, I was scheduled to spend the evening with the Young Republicans of San Francisco (no, that’s not a typo) to discuss how a group of political conservatives exist in arguably the most liberal city in the country. It was to be the ying to the yang of my visit with the Young Democrats of Utah. But, a few hours before we were to get together, I fell. In broad daylight. Getting into a cab. Sober. It’s lame, I know.
The irony is that I had just moments earlier – according to the San Francisco Police Department – narrowly escaped getting my “ass kicked” by an encampment of drug addicts in Golden Gate Park. Apparently the park is a de facto sovereign nation and it was sheer luck that two bike patrolmen came along just as the unhappy crowd began to converge on me and my $3,000 CNN video camera. By the way, special thanks to the guy on the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets who suggested the park would be a great place to get footage. Hilarious, pal. Anyway, after getting out of the park alive I realized I had pushed my luck enough for the day and it was time to go back to the hotel.
So I hailed a cab, told the driver where I was going and asked that he make a quick stop at City Hall as I needed to get a few quick exterior shots. Easy as pie, right? Not quite, as it turns out. I got the exterior shots alright but as I was getting back into the cab things fell apart – literally. It was one of those mini-van cabs. I had my left hand on the top of the door frame and my right hand (which was also holding the camera) on the right side of the door frame. Any idiot could handle it, right? Well, not me.
I remember the cab driver saying something to me, the door sliding and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, writhing in tremendous pain and freaking out that the camera was broken. Fast forward a few minutes – I’m back at the hotel, in denial that I have seriously injured my arm and busted the camera. One call to the hotel doctor and I’m over at the Saint Francis Hospital Emergency Room. X-rays….something about a fracture and the joint space of my elbow. I need surgery, they tell me. Meantime I’m getting frantic emails from the Young Republicans – “are you going to be able to make it tonight?”
I feel badly that they’re all standing around waiting for me but there’s nothing I can do. One gigantic arm splint and two Vicodins later and I’m back at the hotel packing my bags so I can catch the red eye home to New York. The story of the San Francisco Republicans will have to wait.
P.S. – The silver lining — it turned out I didn’t need surgery!

Don't forget to tune into Anderson's special ' Anderson Cooper 360: Back from the Battle' that airs on Saturday night and repeated again on Sunday night. Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michael Ware will both have segments on the program too.
Have a great weekend everyone. When I blog next the election countdown will be in single digits.......FINALLY! ~Phebe



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All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.