John McCain is the father of seven children - three of them adopted. The story of his daughter, Bridget McCain, is especially touching and tells us a lot about what kind of people John and Cindy McCain are. Photos and a video are below.

First of all, let’s get the seven kids straight. Doug and Andy are the two children that he adopted when he married their mother, Carol - his first wife. He and Carol then had Sidney. After his divorce from Carol, he and second wife, Cindy, adopted Bridget from Mother Teresa’s orphange in Bangladesh. He and Cindy are the biological parents of Meghan, Jack and Jimmy.

Meghan McCain kissing sister, Bridget McCain

The story of Bridget McCain goes like this:

[Cindy McCain] visited Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she saw 160 newborn girls who had been abandoned. The nuns handed her a small baby with a cleft palate so severe that she couldn’t be fed. Another baby, also just a few weeks old, had a heart defect. Worried they would die without medical attention, Cindy applied for medical visas to take the girls back to the United States. But the country’s minister of health refused to sign the papers. “We can do surgery on this child,” an official told her. Cindy, frustrated, slammed her fist on the table. “Then do it! What are you waiting for?” The official, stunned, simply signed the papers. “I don’t know where I got the nerve,” Cindy said.

When she arrived in Phoenix, she carried the baby with the cleft palate off the plane. Her husband met her at the airport. He looked at the baby. “Where is she going,” he asked her. “To our house,” she replied. They adopted the little girl and named her Bridget. Family friends adopted the other little girl.

It is telling that you don’t hear the McCain’s bragging about their humanitarian efforts. You don’t see them trying to make a big deal out of having a multi-racial family. Bridget McCain is their daughter. Period. I like that. People are people are people.

Scholastic has a kid reporter interview with Bridget McCain in which she talks about being just a regular girl. Great reading - click the link to read it for yourself.

Bridget McCain with Scholastic Kid Reporter, Jacob Schroeder

The McCain Family, 1999

Video of Meghan McCain telling about Bridget McCain

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I’m in professional development meetings this week with instructors from Teachers College of Columbia University. The information on reading workshop is wonderful. Today, though, when I was reading part of the thick binder of information we each were given, I had to laugh at one little snippet:

“The author Annie Dillard once said that sometimes it is as if writers have all these Christmas tree ornaments and no Christmas tree to hang them on. If you forgive the religious reference, I suspect you’ll see that Dillard’s image can be a wise critique of too many primary reading units of study.”

IF YOU FORGIVE THE RELIGIOUS REFERENCE! That cracked me up.

A place like Teachers College WOULD feel the need to apologize for using the C-word. I’m actually surprised they didn’t quote another author or substitute a different metaphor: books without a bookshelf, plants without a garden , hot dogs without a grill, charms without a chain, merchandise without a store….. well, you get the idea.

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Amy Winehouse has developed emphysema and will die unless she stops smoking drugs, according to her father. Photo and Video below. Emphysema is an incurable disease that leaves its victims struggling for breath.

Amy Winehouse has been in the news a lot lately.

Singer Amy Winehouse, defiant in her drug use, to the point of writing a song vowing not to go to rehab, has the lungs of a 70-year-old from smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes. She’s 24 and suffering from emphysema, a usually irreversible lung disease found in aged smokers, according to doctors. Her father, Mitch, told the Sunday Mirror that watching his daughter deteriorate reminded him of his own 78-year-old mother struggling for breath before she died of lung cancer.

After weeks of a very public slide into drug abuse, Winehouse fainted and was rushed to the hosptial, where she underwent a thorough examination. Doctors told the star that she will need oxygen mask to survive, unless she stops smoking drugs and crack immediately. “To think this could be my beautiful 24-year-old daughter’s life is preposterous. But if drugs mean more to her than breathing properly, then so be it. But the doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her. It’s been a tough week,” he father told the tab.

Talk about an understatement! More than “tough” I would imagine. The only positive thing to this story is that MAYBE Amy’s experiences will be a graphic example to other young people of the dangers of drugs.

Amy Winehouse - Daddy’s Girl

Amy Winehouse Video “You Know I’m No Good”

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Cheryl McGuinness kissed her husband good-bye on September 11, 2001, and then never saw him again. He was the co-pilot of Flight 11 which was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Now Cheryl talks about forgiveness, and today she christened an attack submarine named The New Hampshire. Photos and video below.

In 2006 I wrote about Thomas McGuinness on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, and I learned a lot of Cheryl McGuinness in the process.

Cheryl McGuinness Video on “Forgiveness”

Now Cheryl McGuinness in the news again. Today the latest attack submarine, The New Hampshire, was christened by Cheryl McGuinness.

I believe I’m looking at heroes,” Cheryl McGuinness, of Portsmouth, N.H., said, looking at the ship’s crew. “You all are my heroes.”

Newsday has information about the ship’s christening:

The Navy said the boat, which will have a crew of about 134, is an example of efficiencies in technology and budget advances. It was delivered $54 million under budget and eight months ahead of schedule, the Navy said.

A crowd of a couple of thousand onlookers, including officials of the Navy, members of Congress and Electric Boat workers helped celebrate the christening at the Electric Boat shipyard.

“The submarine is scheduled to begin sea trials this summer and is scheduled for delivery to the Navy in October at a ceremony at the Naval shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

The submarine was named with the help of New Hampshire schoolchildren, who began a letter-writing campaign in 2003. Students at Garrison School in Dover sent letters to senators, congressmen, the governor, the secretary of the Navy and others.

The first ship named for New Hampshire was in service from 1846 to 1921, including during the Civil War. The second, from 1908 to 1921, was a battleship used for convoy escort duty during World War I and as a training ship.

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Here’s Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World” - THE most beautiful song ever. The first version is of Louis Armstrong himself. The second version is with visuals to match the words. The second version has the “oh yeah” ending that I love, although I love watching Louis himself sing the song on the first video. Enjoy!

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Scott Kalitta was killed in a fiery crash today when his car exploded and crashed into a shutdown area retaining wall at the NHRA Super Nationals in Englishtown, New Jersey. Here is the Scott Kalitta crash video:

Scott Kalitta’s career began in the 1980s, and his first win was in the NHRA’s premiere series in 1989 - the Funny Car event in Houston. In Topeka in 1993, he set a national speed record to win the Top Fuel championship. Over the next few years he won more Funny Car championships, Scott Kalitta retired in 1997. Kalitta returned to Top Fuel in 2003. In 2004 he had another top five points finish. He won two races in 2005. He returned to Funny Car in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo in 2006.

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Brian Williams will host/moderate this Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press” on NBC. However, NBC execs are quick to say that this isn’t a permanent replacement for Tim Russert who died suddenly of a heart attack last week. See a photo, video and biography below.

Reuters reports that

NBC News president Steve Capus said Thursday that the news division was still in mourning, and it was likely that NBC News talent would moderate “Meet the Press” on a revolving basis.

“I just don’t think there’s any way we would ask anyone to go into any of the roles on a permanent basis. It would be too much, too soon,” Capus said. “The only way I can contemplate it is, thinking for people who could step up temporarily.”

Sunday’s “Meet the Press” guests will be Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, both of whom had been scheduled to appear on the show last week.

Brian Williams’ Biography
Brian Williams was born on May 5, 1959. He is the seventh anchor and managing editor for the NBC Nightly News, succeeding Tom Brokaw in December 2004. He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut with his wife, Jane Stoddard Willliams, and their two children.

Although he’s a news anchor, he doesn’t limit himself to news television. He has appeared on shows such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live.

Brian Williams is the son of a business executive, and he was raised in a middle class Irish Catholic home. He was born in Elmira, New York and later moved to Middletown, New Jersey. During high school he served as a volunteer firefighter. Later he attended Brookdale Community College and then transferred to George Washington University and then to the Catholic University of America. However, he didn’t graduate. Instead, he took an internship with President Jimmy Carter’s administration. He considers the fact that he left college as one of his great regrets in life. In 2008 he received an honorary Doctor of Journalism degree from Ohio State University.

He began his career in broadcasting at a Kansas TV station in 1981. The following year he moved back to Washington, D.C. and worked as a “general assignment correspondent” at a television station there. In 1985 he replaced Maury Povich as the host of a locally produced talk show. In 1985 he was hired by CBS and worked as a New Jersey correspondent for its Philadelphia affiliate, WCAU-TV. In 1987 he was promoted to WCBS-TV in New York where it didn’t take long for him to start anchoring the noon news. He won his first Emmy for reporting about the October 1987 stock market collapse. In 1993 Brian Williams began work as the weekend anchor for the NBC national news, and in 1994 he became NBC’s chief White House correspondent. Then in 1996 he took over as lead anchor for The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC in 1996.

Brian Williams on Saturday Night Live

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Canadian police have a puzzling problem: Severed feet have been turning up along the shore in British Columbia. Yes, feet washed up on shore. Five of them so far - four right feet and one left foot.

What comes to MY mind is an undertaker with a sick sense of humor. After all, when they cremate someone - or put them in a casket - who’s going to know if the feet of the deceased are there or not. A ready supply of feet to wash up on shore.

The Toronto Star has the story:

Cathy Fox was reading about the strange tale of severed feet washing up on B.C. shores in the newspaper yesterday morning.

But even before she finished the article, a friend rushed in with news. Another foot had been washed up just a short distance away, this time in Campbell River where Fox lives.

“I was absolutely disgusted and horrified,” Fox said yesterday. “Here I was reading this and thinking it was the most devastating thing and there’s one right here.” The sixth foot - the second one to wash up since Monday - was found in an area called the Tyee spit.

The RCMP said yesterday the foot will be examined by a forensic pathologist to determine if it is related to the other feet found recently.

DNA analysis done on the other five feet - four right and one left - have yielded no clues on identity.

In Campbell River, boater Mike Rollo said yesterday there is speculation that at least some of the remains belong to the four victims who remain missing after a small plane went down near Quadra Island about a quarter of a kilometre away in 2005.

Family members of the victims of that crash, whose remains have not been fully recovered, have been asked to provide DNA samples.

Terry Smith, the chief coroner of B.C., said the discovery fires up the imagination.

“I can tell you I’ve never come across anything like this,” he said. “One hesitates to say it’s a mere coincidence but at this point, that’s all we have to work with.”

The foot found yesterday was a right foot in what looks to be a size 10 black Adidas running shoe. The foot earlier this week in Ladner appeared to be in a Nike runner.

The first foot was found a year ago on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia. Less than a week later, another foot was found inside a man’s sneaker on Gabriola Island. In February, a third foot was found on Valdes Island.

A couple of months later, in May, another foot was found off Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, and then on Monday, a fifth foot was found along the same river in Ladner

It sounds crazy, but I was watching CNN earlier and the announcer was talking about this story and said “No foul play is expected.” WHAT?! Feet - with no legs or bodies attached - are washing up on shore, and they don’t expect foul play? If not foul play, then what? Why only feet? Where are the rest of the bodies? And if my earlier theory is correct, I would consider that foul play.

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Here is a video of “Tim Russert’s Rainbow” - the version of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” that was played at Tim Russert’s funeral - along with footage of some of the guests at the funeral - John McCain and Barack Obama side-by-side. Then there is a still photo of the rainbow. Enjoy:

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I was watching CNN awhile ago, and they were reporting about Tim Russert’s funeral earlier today. Anderson Cooper mentioned that as the mourners left the service the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was playing - and then when they walked out, there was a rainbow. The Russert Rainbow! RT and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Wow!”

The video they showed of the Russert Rainbow was beautiful - parts of the rainbow were double. I’ve searched for a story or photos of the rainbow, but I haven’t been able to find it. A video of Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz is below.

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