For those of you who wear contacts & have been blissfully unaware, there was a contact lens solution recall slipped out over the holiday weekend. I diaried on Sunday but you may have missed.

Take a look at this news item: CDC: Don’t use that contact lens solution. The solution in question is AMO Complete Moisture Plus Multi-Purpose Solution.

Folks, if you wear soft contacts or know people who do - make sure they are aware of this recall. Hopefully, it's not their brand of solution but if it is, they may need to be checked.

A few weeks back, I suddenly developed a very red, sore eye. Just one eye, my other eye was fine. Family doctor examined me, asked lots of questions, figured it must be allergy-related. It wasn't regular conjunctivitis, but what it was - couldn't tell. On his advice, I flushed my eye frequently with various drops. Replaced my 30-day lens early. The redness cleared up, came back, cleared up again, showed up in other eye, cleared up, etc.

I was on the 2nd bottle of a 2-pack of solution. Relatively new case, new lenses, allergies really weren't that bad... what was going on?

Then I saw this news item Saturday night: CDC: Don't use that contact solution.

Granted, this is an online poll I'm quoting. But here's an incumbent Republican in a so-called safe election, well... look for yourselves.

Today's Charleston Gazette has a Readers Survey.

The question for today is

"If the election were held today for the Second Congressional District who would you vote for?"
*Mike Callaghan
*Shelley Moore Capito
*Undecided

The death toll rises, away from the headlines and cable news cameras of January. Neither of these men was blamed for the disaster, but apparently they could not cope with the "what ifs."

From today's Charleston (WV) Gazette:

"Mine dispatcher William Chisolm and John Nelson Boni, a fireboss, shot themselves in separate incidents, authorities said."

"Chisolm was the dispatcher on duty the morning of the explosion and Boni had discovered a buildup of methane five days earlier in the sealed part of the mine where the blast occurred."

I'm sure the loss of so many of their co-workers in such a tragic manner weighed heavily on them. Even when they did what they knew to be right, someone higher up didn't do that which might have prevented this outcome.

Tonight, in Charleston, West Virginia, the President will be the Honored Guest at a fund-raiser for Shelley Moore Capito (R - WV-02Abramoff). This will be a private event and the price of admission is the maximum allowable donation per individual, $2,100 - or $4,200 per couple.

Yessirree! Ol' Shelley will be partying with HER base, the local Haves and Have Mores.

Mike Callaghan, the Democratic challenger for WV-02, is hosting a little soiree for a lesser fee. A fee that the Regular People can afford - $21, or $42 per couple.

Another day, another dippy@ss "fwd: fwd: fwd:" email in my inbox. Today's treasure was imploring us to "wear red on Fridays to support the troops." Silly me, I actually clicked on the link to read the article.

As you probably guessed, the article confuses "supporting the troops" with "supporting the Iraq war, Dubya and all he stands for."

I saw Senator Byrd on Fox News, and I got the impression that they were not attacking him. Did anyone else see this?

Has something happened, and the world suddenly turned upside down? Is black now white?

Today, I received one of Those Emails, the ones  that you are to read then forward to "everyone you know." I'm not sure why this one struck me wrongly, because ordinarily I'd just hit DELETE and not give it another thought.

But for some reason, today, I actually read this drivel, and thought about it. And it bothered me.

Am I getting overly sensitive to anything that could be perceived as being from the Religious <Not> Right? Or is this something we should be on the lookout for in our everyday lives - the subtle propoganda?

Our peaceful, lovely university town suffered the indignity of a Presidential Visit this morning. What did America's Best Small City do to deserve such a thing?

We sang "America the Beautiful" & "This Land is Your Land," and we chanted such inflammatory rhetoric as "No More Lies" and "This is What Democracy Looks Like."