The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Indiana

Tony Dow, who played the Beav's big brother in the 1960s sictom "Leave It to Beaver," has built quite a career for himself as a director and artist.
Now comes word that one of Dow's abstract sculptures has been selected for an exhibit at the Louvre in Paris.

Yeah, the one the guy died in at the beginning of "The Da Vinci Code."

The sculpture by Dow, 63, will be part of the Societe National des Beaux-Arts Exhibition in December.

"Uh, gee, Wally, bein' in the Louvre is kinda neat, huh?" whined his little brother.

Those who know your Uncle Rod know that he likes his coffee strong, his women sassy and his Christmas presents with frilly little ribbons.

And he also likes him some "Morning Joe" on MSNBC.

Joe, Mika, Willie, Courtney, Erin, Mike and the others offer a more relaxed, more real morning show, something sorely lacking in the forced cheeriness and banality of "Today," "Good Morning America," "The Early Show" and all the others.

Did anyone else notice something odd on Saturday? At about 11 a.m.?

The warning sirens went off. The sirens that usually go off at noon.

An hour later.

Now, a glitch like this might be explainable by factoring in the annual expiration of daylight-saving time.

Except that, as far as Uncle Rod can surmise, the sirens would STILL be set to go off at noon. So even if the clocks did "fall back" to 11 a.m., the only way they would've gone off at that time would be if someone rang them, personally, using a clock set to the wrong time.

On Tuesday, November 4th the nation choose the 44th President of the United States. Now what?

Skimming the blogs here today, I was stunned at the time that has elapsed since I last blogged. (Gee, that sounds distasteful.)

So here I am, rested and relaxed after my participation in the triumphant Indiana Public Radio production of "H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds." If you missed it, be looking for it on the Web sometime this week: www.bsu.edu/ipr.

And, like any journalist, I'm just all a'twitter with anticipation over Tuesday night. It's Election Night, of course, the night that has been making news people drink heavily for 200 years.

In The Illinois Senate Obama,voted for infanticide and the refusal of medical assistance of an aborted fetus already born alive. Who does Obama,think that he is God?

The city of Pendleton has announced that they will be accepting credit cards and debit cards for payment of utility bills. While this may have been initiated to make it more convenient for payments, given the times we are in, it may lead some to further extent already troublesome debt. Many families are already robbing Peter to pay Paul because of increased cost at the grocery, a job loss, or an other increase in the cost of living that have struck many.

Believe it or not there is some positive news scattered in with the doom and gloom. The AP just reported that new home sales rose by 2.7% according to the most recent Commerce Department report. And the National Association of Realtor's issued a report stating existing home sales were also up over 5% in October. The down side in both of these reports is that neither of these figures came without a price given the overall drop in home prices. But this is still far better than all of the earlier housing reports reported on earlier.

So...last night I went to see Sarah Palin! Earlier this week, a friend of my wife called to say that Sarah Palin would be making a live appearance at Talbot Street. Talbotstreet.com is a drag bar in Indianapolis. I've never been to a drag bar before but this was just the sort of motivation get me there.

We arrived shortly before the show started, found our seats and ordered a couple of $4 beers. My fingers dug into my wife's forearms as I watched Asia LaBush and Mercedes lip-synced their way to drag stardom while I worked my way through 3 more Amstel Lights.

As a Democrat and a supporter of Barack Obama, it is especially difficult for me to say this, but Sarah Palin rocked "Saturday Night Live" last night.

Good-natured, self-deprecating, she even joined in (as far as she felt comfortable, being a vice presidential candidate and all) on a rap song about her. (The immensely pregnant and darling Amy Poehler ended up singing it.) Just a tremendously funny and entertaining appearance.