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Last night was the second debate between Barack Obama and John McCain and boy was it awful. A "town hall" that wasn't thanks in part to the campaigns negotiating terms in which nobody can ask follow up questions and/or have a true conversation that may have their candidates veer from the pre-approved script.

In other words, a world of political crap. Well, almost.

If anything, last night's debate was a night of contrast and compare of demeanors, poise and class between the two candidates. Guess who lost. Yup, the white guy :

[ Senator McCain ] By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.

You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me. I have fought time after time against these pork barrel -- these bills that come to the floor and they have all kinds of goodies and all kinds of things in them for everybody and they buy off the votes.

A lot of people had a "WTF?!?!" moment over McCain's uttered contempt for Obama. You just could smell the hate seeping through the TV screen.

The other day, while researching images of the 9/11 devastation, I came across this image of the entrance of the World Financial Center.

All I could think of while looking at this photograph was "this is what they (Bush, Paulson, Bernanke) are doing to us all over again. Only this time they have no terrorists to blame, just sinister market forces.

My other thought was, and is that capitalism is ultimately violent and destructive.

Our visual moment of silence.

This post was going to be a long rant about how I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. After a long week battling a sore throat, I succumbed to antibiotics the following 5 days, only to find out on the last day that, alas, the pain and rawness in my throat are back again.

It's in times like these that I reckon how much I need some sand, a Caribbean beach and the soothing nothingness of a blue ocean's horizon. I miss living close to a beach. And no, Coney Island or any other dirty, stinky, filthy New York City beach just doesn't cut it because I actually may end up with a cut up foot if I don't watch every step I take.

No.

I need salty clean and fresh blue water. I need the unrelenting wind that only comes with whirly waves. And no, neither a river nor a lake or needless to say a pond or lagoon can make me happy.

It's why I've never believed the Babalawo who dare to read my Orisha as Osun and not Yemanya. I can't understand how I can be an Oshun if I hate mountains, rivers and lakes so much. Am happiest when I know I have a sea or an ocean where I can rest my weary soul.

Am getting old.

Am pining for my old Puerto Rico days.

And it's making me think about what would be for me a heaven on earth.

The answer is simple : A house, close to a Puerto Rican beach yet with a nice pool for a backyard.

David and Michael have the uncanny ability to read my mind. David and I hadn't spoken in a while and yet the day he posted this photograph, I was toying around with a new banner for the front page with another photo of "Barackelle".

Yes, I've Brangelinaed Barack and Michelle, so sue me.

The front page image hadn't changed in a while not only due to the surprisingly long primary we're experiencing but because I have to code that particular part of the page by hand.

Not anymore, and not a moment too soon.

I've been DYING to use our galleries more and to be able to create impactful front page posts on the fly. Now we can. The image is being pulled from the a photo gallery called "Banner Posts". As long as the image is 660 pixels, we'll be able to have the site automatically pull a new image when a new banner post is created.

Awesomeness.

And I'm happy to test it with not only the woman who is our presumptive First Lady; but my namesake. You see, my full name is Liza Michelle Sabater Tirado.

Not only that, but Michelle reminds me a lot of my sister-in-law Milly. I spent quite a lot of time during my pre-teens with my oldest brother and his then fiancee.

This has been a primary rife with what I call The Opression Olympics.