So John McCain has chosen for a running mate one Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Here's my theory on how that conversation went:
Senator McCain: "Wow, all those Democrat ladies sure are mad that Hillary's not on the ticket. "
Campaign Guy: "Yep. They wanted to cast a vote for a woman"
SM " (light bulb over his head) SAY! We should put a woman on our ticket!"
CG: "That's a great idea sir! Like who?"
SM: "I dunno - a Republican. Maybe a Senator?"
CG: "Yeah, like Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas?"
SM: "No, she's real smart. You know how I feel about smart women. Pick another one"
CG: "Actually, all the women senators know what a jerk you are, sir. They won't want to sign up"
SM: "Oh yeah... maybe a governor?"
CG: "Are there any lady Republican governors? I'll look it up... here we are! Alaska!"
SM: "Alaska! She won't know me at all! I don't even know her name! Let's call her up."
And so after 36 hours of frantic and obviously incomplete vetting, we have a Republican Vice-Presidential candidate. I had never heard of Sarah Palin before this week and I don't know much about her now. Here's what I've learned so far - all of this from other sources than the lady herself.
- She has been governor of Alaska for two years. Before that she was the mayor of a fairly small town (in all fairness, it's big for Alaska ) of about 6000 people.
- She refers to herself as a "hockey mom" and enjoys the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and that sort of stuff.
- She has five children, the youngest a boy of less than one year - I think he was born in April. So we know she can multi-task.
- Her husband works for an oil company on Alaska's North Shore and is away from home for very long stretches of time. Again with the multi-tasking.
- She understands oil and oil companies. Alaska produces more oil than any state other than The Great State of Texas and exports much of it across the Pacific to Russia, China and Japan.
- She is under investigation by her state's legislature for illegal actions relating to a supposed "private vendetta" against her brother-in-law, a former law enforcement officer (I think Sheriff but don't know for sure). No idea on the details about this - it may be fact-based and it may be political flailing.
- She is a former beauty pageant contestant and news anchor.
- She is extremely conservative socially - pro-life, anti-stem cell research, pro-marriage amendment, etc. etc.
So all of this sounds okay, right? The choice of a woman for VP is pretty clever - there are enough angry bitches out there who will vote for a woman even if her political ideas are diametrically opposed to those of the typical angry-bitch mindset. And she actually sounds like a great story - a mom of five from Nowhere, Alaska ending up as the Vice President (and considering McCain's age and state of health, quite possibly as commander-in-chief someday). Haven't we all been saying for years, "Send a Mom to the White House! She'll have everything fixed in two months". I was kind of excited about it myself, and eager to learn more about this woman.
But yesterday a story broke about Bristol Palin, her 17-year-old daughter, who is five months pregnant. I feel awful for this girl, whose private business is now front-page news, especially as I watch her being paraded in front of the camera along with her boyfriend, who wears the dazed expression of a kid who realizes that he prefers the frying pan to the fire after all.
First of all, I have to assume that there is no way that McCain knew about this or he would never have chosen Palin, which really makes me wonder about why and how that decision was made. Was she really the only woman they could think of?
But what I really don't get is Sarah Palin agreeing to be on the ticket, considering her daughter. There are two possible explanations: First - she didn't know her daughter was pregnant, even though she's a skinny teenager in her second trimester. I'm just not sure how that could be if Palin was making any effort at all to pay attention to her daughter. I'm not saying it's not possible but it sure doesn't reflect well on her. But it's certainly preferable to the second possibility: that she knew her daughter was pregnant and decided to go ahead and run, fully aware of the kind of horrible, vituperative things that would be said about her little girl. "Sure, I'll toss my daughter to the wolves, allow her to be branded a slut, make this difficult situation she's in fuel for every talking head on TV, and claim her out-of wedlock teen pregnancy really reflects my "family values" because she didn't have an abortion. I'm willing to put my child through hell for the sake of my political ambitions." I just can't get my brain around that one.
Oh, there she is on TV now, wagging her kids at the camera. I wonder if she will still be on the ticket in two weeks. For her daughter's sake, I hope not.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Politics and Religion. Can't talk about them at parties...
So there's an election coming up. Now, I have a political science degree and consider myself knowledgeable about such things as why we have an electoral college (basically, to keep certain votes from counting as much as others) and the two-part Democratic primary in Texas (Democrats in Texas had no opposition for about a hundred years and got real bored) and whether or not it's racist to expect people to have a photo ID and be able to read in order to vote (answer depends on whether or not you can read and/or have a photo ID).
So as sort of an expert I can comfortably say that there's not much new under the sun when it comes to presidential politics. Generally, carefully groomed and scripted candidates slog it out in the primaries and the guy with the best hair and the richest wife wins, then it's on to the national elections in which the one who can scare voters the most comes away with the victory.
But this election is pretty interesting. Of course much of it is politics as usual - candidates trying to reassure centrists and moderates that they are not wild-eyed radicals, while at the same time assuring their party base (whether that's the Religious Right Against Curing Disease or Gays and Lesbians Against Drilling in ANWR) that they are just wild-eyed and radical enough. The exception here is that the two candidates are guys that I .. actually... like.
I think John McCain is an American hero. Even though he's using it as a shield-all against character questions now, the guy spent five years as a POW in Viet Nam. He was abused and tortured. And he had a chance to get out (his father was an Admiral) and didn't because he wouldn't abandon his comrades. Yeah the guy went nuts when he got home, ran around on his wife, and married a young rich woman. And he has that thing on his neck I can't stop staring at. But the guy has a pair of brass cojones that you have to respect. He knows what's important, he knows what war is about, and he's actually pretty funny - watch him on Letterman, he's on like every week. On the downside, I think he's pigheaded, hot-tempered, and perfectly comfortable with the "Lone Ranger" foreign policy decisions that have been so disastrous for the current administration.
Barack Obama I don't know so well. There's no denying he's handsome, smart, and tremendously charismatic. How else could a one-term senator from Illinois end up as a presidential candidate? I've liked what I've seen and read in interviews - I think he could truly be called a "Man of the World" in that he has lived all over the world, is bi-racial, and understands the cultures and perspectives of many different races and religions. He understands that we will never - NEVER - get the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq to hold hands and sing Kum Ba Ya and it's stupid to try. He seems to have common sense - a quality that it is impossible to rate too highly - and a willingness to learn and listen. I think the reason that he's the first viable candidate of color is that he's not just a "candidate of color", like Jesse Jackson, for whom everything begins and ends with White People Should Apologize and Give Us Money. He's truly a man for the 21st Century, in which lines of race and color have become so blurred that most intelligent people give them little to no consideration at all. Now for the downside - an almost laughable lack of knowledge or experience of national, much less international, politics.
And - my uncomfortable suspicion that his charisma and likability are about all there is. It's easy to trumpet for change but much harder to make it happen, and he has yet to really enumerate how all this glamorous reform is going to happen.
I am not willing to make an endorsement in this election (sorry, all of y'all who are just waiting for me to tell you what to do). My personal political views are Libertarian - I think the government should stay the hell out of things that are not its business and that people should be able to live their lives as they want as long as they are not hurting anybody, and that people who work hard to earn a living should not have to give part of their incomes to support people who choose not to. I think it is the responsibility of the government to protect citizens from each other, but not from themselves. So to my mind, McCain is way too conservative socially - anti-choice, anti-stem cell research, anti-telling teenagers that condoms will keep them from getting pregnant. And Obama is way too liberal fiscally - every time he opens his mouth I can hear my taxes go up, to finance more help for people who refuse to help themselves. But the truth is that the President does not have all that much influence on government policy - that has a lot more to do with who's the majority in Congress - but there are a few things the president affects directly - military actions and Supreme Court justices.
I have voted a straight Republican ticket in every state and national election since 1996, but this year I am probably going to vote for Obama because of two important issues. One - Iraq. We never should have gone in and we should get out. It turns out that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator because that was the only way to maintain order in that backwards hellhole, and nobody can drag them out of the Dark Ages before they're ready to go. So unless we're going to carpet bomb the whole miserable country and then take their oil, we should just get out before one more American son dies for no damned reason at all. Two - the Religious Right. We could be looking at as many as four new Supreme Court justices in the next eight years, and I do not want anachronistic fundamentalist judges taking away what's left of our Constitutional freedom of religion - or from religion, in our case. In a perfect world abortion would never happen but in this world it's a sad necessity, especially for rape and incest victims and certain medical cases. It is an absurdity and a crime that in the year 2008 public schools' only approved sex education curriculum is "keep your pants on". And the very idea that public schools have to remind 12th-grade AP Biology students that "evolution is just a theory". The stranglehold that people like James Dobson and Pat Buchanan have on American public policy is absolutely ludicrous, and it's only getting worse and more dangerous. As the world gets smaller and more connected, religious tolerance is more necessary and we must all take our blinders off and realize that being an American means understanding that you can't legislate truth or morality.
So... there's my two cents. I have a lot more to say about religion, prejudice, and why sensible people are so eager to be misled, but it's after midnight and I have to get up early. More soon on vice-presidential selections and whether McCain's desperate bid for "Female-Americans" will work or not.
So as sort of an expert I can comfortably say that there's not much new under the sun when it comes to presidential politics. Generally, carefully groomed and scripted candidates slog it out in the primaries and the guy with the best hair and the richest wife wins, then it's on to the national elections in which the one who can scare voters the most comes away with the victory.
But this election is pretty interesting. Of course much of it is politics as usual - candidates trying to reassure centrists and moderates that they are not wild-eyed radicals, while at the same time assuring their party base (whether that's the Religious Right Against Curing Disease or Gays and Lesbians Against Drilling in ANWR) that they are just wild-eyed and radical enough. The exception here is that the two candidates are guys that I .. actually... like.
I think John McCain is an American hero. Even though he's using it as a shield-all against character questions now, the guy spent five years as a POW in Viet Nam. He was abused and tortured. And he had a chance to get out (his father was an Admiral) and didn't because he wouldn't abandon his comrades. Yeah the guy went nuts when he got home, ran around on his wife, and married a young rich woman. And he has that thing on his neck I can't stop staring at. But the guy has a pair of brass cojones that you have to respect. He knows what's important, he knows what war is about, and he's actually pretty funny - watch him on Letterman, he's on like every week. On the downside, I think he's pigheaded, hot-tempered, and perfectly comfortable with the "Lone Ranger" foreign policy decisions that have been so disastrous for the current administration.
Barack Obama I don't know so well. There's no denying he's handsome, smart, and tremendously charismatic. How else could a one-term senator from Illinois end up as a presidential candidate? I've liked what I've seen and read in interviews - I think he could truly be called a "Man of the World" in that he has lived all over the world, is bi-racial, and understands the cultures and perspectives of many different races and religions. He understands that we will never - NEVER - get the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq to hold hands and sing Kum Ba Ya and it's stupid to try. He seems to have common sense - a quality that it is impossible to rate too highly - and a willingness to learn and listen. I think the reason that he's the first viable candidate of color is that he's not just a "candidate of color", like Jesse Jackson, for whom everything begins and ends with White People Should Apologize and Give Us Money. He's truly a man for the 21st Century, in which lines of race and color have become so blurred that most intelligent people give them little to no consideration at all. Now for the downside - an almost laughable lack of knowledge or experience of national, much less international, politics.
And - my uncomfortable suspicion that his charisma and likability are about all there is. It's easy to trumpet for change but much harder to make it happen, and he has yet to really enumerate how all this glamorous reform is going to happen.
I am not willing to make an endorsement in this election (sorry, all of y'all who are just waiting for me to tell you what to do). My personal political views are Libertarian - I think the government should stay the hell out of things that are not its business and that people should be able to live their lives as they want as long as they are not hurting anybody, and that people who work hard to earn a living should not have to give part of their incomes to support people who choose not to. I think it is the responsibility of the government to protect citizens from each other, but not from themselves. So to my mind, McCain is way too conservative socially - anti-choice, anti-stem cell research, anti-telling teenagers that condoms will keep them from getting pregnant. And Obama is way too liberal fiscally - every time he opens his mouth I can hear my taxes go up, to finance more help for people who refuse to help themselves. But the truth is that the President does not have all that much influence on government policy - that has a lot more to do with who's the majority in Congress - but there are a few things the president affects directly - military actions and Supreme Court justices.
I have voted a straight Republican ticket in every state and national election since 1996, but this year I am probably going to vote for Obama because of two important issues. One - Iraq. We never should have gone in and we should get out. It turns out that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator because that was the only way to maintain order in that backwards hellhole, and nobody can drag them out of the Dark Ages before they're ready to go. So unless we're going to carpet bomb the whole miserable country and then take their oil, we should just get out before one more American son dies for no damned reason at all. Two - the Religious Right. We could be looking at as many as four new Supreme Court justices in the next eight years, and I do not want anachronistic fundamentalist judges taking away what's left of our Constitutional freedom of religion - or from religion, in our case. In a perfect world abortion would never happen but in this world it's a sad necessity, especially for rape and incest victims and certain medical cases. It is an absurdity and a crime that in the year 2008 public schools' only approved sex education curriculum is "keep your pants on". And the very idea that public schools have to remind 12th-grade AP Biology students that "evolution is just a theory". The stranglehold that people like James Dobson and Pat Buchanan have on American public policy is absolutely ludicrous, and it's only getting worse and more dangerous. As the world gets smaller and more connected, religious tolerance is more necessary and we must all take our blinders off and realize that being an American means understanding that you can't legislate truth or morality.
So... there's my two cents. I have a lot more to say about religion, prejudice, and why sensible people are so eager to be misled, but it's after midnight and I have to get up early. More soon on vice-presidential selections and whether McCain's desperate bid for "Female-Americans" will work or not.
You had me at six-pack
I just read a hysterically funny blog called "June Cleaver After A Six-Pack". It's as funny as the name implied. Go check it out.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Apparently I'm a Nog
My dear friend Ariana is in Norway for a year. First off, I miss her terribly and it really sucks that she's gone, especially since her daughter and mine are best buddies and Bailey misses her friend terribly too.
But - silver linings - I am learning about my heritage. I am half Norwegian, from my father. And while the country is beautiful, apparently its people are not so lovely. "Nogs" (a slang term for Norwegians, and I suspect a pejorative one) are reportedly as a whole dour, unfriendly, slightly xenophobic, averse to fun, suspicious of joy, and rather lazy - knocking off work at four every afternoon and taking the entire month of July off.
According to my source, for a Norwegian I am cheerful, accepting and optimistic. (Break while all who know me pee on themselves from laughing so hard). See? My bad attitude is not my fault. It's cultural. Don't discriminate, y'all.
One more thing - all my life I have thought my father was a grouchy, mean-spirited, arrogant, judgemental, pessimistic, Puritanical horse's ass. Turns out he's just Norwegian.
But - silver linings - I am learning about my heritage. I am half Norwegian, from my father. And while the country is beautiful, apparently its people are not so lovely. "Nogs" (a slang term for Norwegians, and I suspect a pejorative one) are reportedly as a whole dour, unfriendly, slightly xenophobic, averse to fun, suspicious of joy, and rather lazy - knocking off work at four every afternoon and taking the entire month of July off.
According to my source, for a Norwegian I am cheerful, accepting and optimistic. (Break while all who know me pee on themselves from laughing so hard). See? My bad attitude is not my fault. It's cultural. Don't discriminate, y'all.
One more thing - all my life I have thought my father was a grouchy, mean-spirited, arrogant, judgemental, pessimistic, Puritanical horse's ass. Turns out he's just Norwegian.
Warrior Princess
We call my daughter Bailey the Warrior Princess. She is the most incredible combination of frilly girly-girl and total badass. She loves dress-up, ballet, singing and dancing to princess movies, tiaras and high heels, lip gloss and nail polish. She dreams about her "marrying day" when she will be the center of attention in a beautiful gown and ride off into the sunset with her handsome prince.
(The fact that after your marrying day you actually have to live with said handsome prince and try to get along is something that slaps all us princesses in the face sooner or later).
But the pink lace covers a will of steel, and an incredible physical strength. And a remarkable ability to get her own way.
Bailey is the most sunny, sweet-natured child I have ever seen. She greets every day with a smile, and every person with a hug and kiss and kind compliment (Oh your hair is so lovely! I like your beautiful shoes! You're so sweet!). I have absolutely no notion of where that came from - I am a grouchy misanthrope, especially in the morning. She is on a constant quest for flowers so she can bring one to me and present it with an exchange of kisses. Everyone loves Bailey, because she loves everyone. She has the most joyous, generous heart.
But my God what a challenge. Everything is a struggle with Bailey - getting her hair washed, her clothes on, her food eaten. She is a climber, a wanderer, a questioner. I swear she is talking and asking questions every single minute she is awake. In restaurants she shouts, wiggles, and refuses to eat. In the grocery store she touches everything and usually knocks it off the shelf. She's a spiller, a destroyer - ruins every new white T-shirt the first time she wears it, loses or breaks her toys as soon as the package is opened, squirts her juice box all over the inside of the car. She questions every statement and looks at instructions as an invitation to negotiate. And Oh the drama. When she is thwarted it's an immense tragedy. When she's been too long without attention she manufactures an injury. And she can't stand for there to be conversation around her that's not about her - she will totally invent a story so she claim a place in the discussion - become the star of the show, as it were. I find myself losing my temper and speaking harshly to her way more often than I would like, especially since she really does have a true desire to be good.
Everyone says that Bailey is just like me. Appearance-wise, that's certainly true - she's mini-me, and it gets more obvious the older she gets. But personality... I disagree. We share some traits - stubbornness and a quick temper come immediately to mind. But she is so much her own person. And I enjoy her so much - except when she's driving me crazy.
Oh, Cooper
Oh, Cooper. I sent you off to your first day of Kindergarten on Monday. You took to it like a champ, as I thought you would. You've been in school for several years now and you were excited and not at all scared. Meet the Teacher night was last Thursday and we met Miss Tharnish, a kind and lovely girl who graduated from Texas A&M three months ago and is determined to excel at teaching. The school is brand new, beautifully appointed, with a principal who is, by all accounts, the best in the business. You love riding the bus home and eating your lunch in the cafeteria. You climb out of the car in the morning and find your classroom without help.
My dear son. When I look at you with your cool new Power Rangers backpack - with attached lunchbox! - and your new shoes and your gap-toothed smile, marching bravely off into not needing me anymore, you look so big to me and yet so very little. I carried you under my heart and fed you from my own body and cherished and loved you more than I every knew it was possible. I am so proud of you, my little man, so strong and independent and determined. But it tears at my heart that you don't really fit in my lap anymore. It's the fundamental contradiction of parenting and it will only get worse - we want them to be their own persons, to manage on their own, to be all right without us. But oh how hard it is to let go. I must learn to live with wanting to follow and keep watch, because I've come to understand that feeling will never go away.
Someday my son will be taller than me. He will get in his car and drive away and not look back. He will make all his own decisions and order his own life. Someday he will have a wife, a woman he loves more than he loves me, and I will be a place to visit instead of home. But then he will smile and I will see in his face the moment he was born, when he was so completely mine, my whole world swaddled in a blanket, his tiny hand wrapped around my finger.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Sort of his first day of school
My son Cooper is starting kindergarten in less than two weeks. It's a big day, right? He seems kind of underwhelmed. He gets that it's a new school (as it happens, it's a brand-new school building) with a different group of kids, and that he'll be staying all day, but he's not worked up about it at all. I'm glad that he's not scared or anxious but I regret that he's not more excited.
Maybe that has to do with the fact that he's been going to some sort of school since before he turned two. He doesn't ever remember not being in school and he doesn't like vacations. He likes the routine and seeing his friends and having his brain stimulated.
My first day of kindergarten was my first day of school EVER. I had no idea how to manage myself away from my mom and brother. The whole "sharing, listening, taking turns" thing was definitely not a skill I had cultivated previously and it was rather a rocky time for me.
So is it better for Cooper to not be scared even though he's losing a little of the excitement? I think so.
Maybe that has to do with the fact that he's been going to some sort of school since before he turned two. He doesn't ever remember not being in school and he doesn't like vacations. He likes the routine and seeing his friends and having his brain stimulated.
My first day of kindergarten was my first day of school EVER. I had no idea how to manage myself away from my mom and brother. The whole "sharing, listening, taking turns" thing was definitely not a skill I had cultivated previously and it was rather a rocky time for me.
So is it better for Cooper to not be scared even though he's losing a little of the excitement? I think so.
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