I was watching television tonight and an infomercial came on for the Midnight Special DVD package. It got me thinking who I went to see in concert. Liv and I had a great time talking about this on our Wild West Adventure.
I'm going to try to remember, but by no means should this be perceived to be all inclusive.
Aerosmith, Heart, AC/DC, John Denver, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Grand Funk Railroad, John Prine, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Itzhak Perlman, Jimmy Buffet, Jethro Tull, Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Leon Redbone, The Kinks, Marshall Tucker Band, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Kenny Rogers and Dottie West, Dwight Yokum, Ricky Skaggs.
Liv and I are going to see John Prine in a week or so. I realized this will be the third time I have seen him. The first time was in roughly 1984 in a club in Lexington, Kentucky. I took an album with me for him to sign. I didn't have the nerve to ask him to sign it after the show was over. I went alone. Back then, no one I hung with had ever heard of him. I think I paid $5 for the ticket. I had a table for two to myself. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'm sure I'll enjoy the hell of it next weekend, too.
I watched the final debate tonight. I was bored out of my mind. I've heard it all before. And McCain wanted many, many more town hall debates? OMG, I'd be comatose by now.
I reiterate my belief that most everyone's mind is made up. PZ Myers commented that he was done with the independents. He thought they just wanted to be on TV. I'm ready for this race to be done. I'm done. I'm ready to vote. I'm thinking about going and voting on Friday. Although there is something nice about voting on THE day.
One comment on the debate, though. I was pleased that they finally began to talk about some social issues and the Supreme Court, but I was not only disappointed but actually afraid when McCain used air quotes to talk about the "health of the mother". I get the feeling that he has very, very limited ideas about what constitutes the health of a mother. Scary. Very scary.
Oh, and Obama is going to be in St Louis on Saturday. He's going to be speaking under the Arch. I am so going. No camping for me this weekend. I'll be heaving my breathless support for MyBama. I am so glad he's coming and I'm getting this chance. I'm excited as hell. Is that possible? Tired of the race. Tired of the pundits. Tired of the negative campaign ads. Tired of the drama that is mostly made up. But excited to see my next President.
I wish you could see me. I'm grinning from ear to ear.
If any of you folks at Dell or HP or Compac or whoever else is leading in the PC laptop race these days wants some input on computer design, step right up and dig in. Of course, I know that no computer designers read my blog, but maybe if you tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends.....
Well, at least I'm putting it out there. Maybe one of them will stumble across it.
Either the power cord needs to go on the back of the computer or it needs to be put on the side opposite the handedness of the user. My power cord plugs in on the right-hand side of my computer. This means that it interferes with my ability to use a mouse with my laptop.
Dudes. You need a fan that works. This is ridiculous. The temperature on this "laptop" computer on my lap falls roughly between molten lava and boiling oil. Is there some reason that the fan can't actually cool faster than the fan action heats up the computer. And why is air input for the fan on the bottom of the computer? The fan is trying to draw air from beneath the computer? Ummm, the computer is nearly always sitting on a flat surface with no airflow beneath it. This ain't brain surgery, folks.
The touchpad. Don't even get me started on the touchpad. First, why is it located exactly where I rest my right thumb when not in use? I can't tell you the number of times I've been unable to type a sentence because my hands brush against the touchpad, moving the cursor God knows where on the page. As for actually using it.....OK, here's a quick and easy overview of how I use the touchpad. I use it to move the cursor or arrow to the top of the page or to scroll up and down through a page. And finally, I use point and click to place the cursor where I want it. Point 1. The iPod mouse "wheel is a much more effective and intuitive means of scrolling than the touchpad. I would prefer a keystroke that auto moved my cursor to the bottom of the page (as in Word). In fact, I could use a series of keystrokes to achieve a lot in the way of page navigation if I was only given the opportunity. Anyone who uses Launchy gets the hang of that sort of thing pretty quick. But please, do something about that damn touchpad.
USB ports. Need more than two. At least 4. I shouldn't have to unplug my wireless mouse in order to download my pictures. Also need to be placed on the back. Or on the side of the monitor.
You never know when it's going to strike. You are hanging out, minding your own business when all of a sudden an urgent need to ask dad something comes up. Tonight was one of those nights.
You see, I liked my dad. Although we hate to admit it, my dad was my favorite parent. He was easy-going, intelligent, dependable. He had a sense of humor. A dry wit. He was a practical joker. He used to travel for his job and loved to tell us of how he would get on a plane and make up some fantastic story he'd tell to his seat mates. He was a world famous obstetrician on his way to give a talk at an international conference. He was a poker player in Vegas. Somehow, when he told his stories, you were as regaled as I'm sure his traveling companion was.
My dad was wicked good with kids. I never met a kid who didn't like him. I remember once that he got on the roof with a water hose (he must have been cleaning out the gutters) and before you know it, most of the kids in the neighborhood were in a water war with my dad. Just a tip for you. It takes a lot of kids with garbage can lids to take down a man with a 10' advantage and a water hose.
My father used to take me to high school football games when I was only in grade school. I was a bit of a sports nuts as a child. It was "our" time. My dad didn't even seem to mind when I gave a play-by-play replay of every single play he just saw. I'd yank on his shirt and say "Did you see that? That guy just ran up the middle and four guys tried to take him down and he fell on one knee but kept going." My dad had the patience of Job.
Tonight we got to talking about organic chemistry. My father was a chemist.
I've always been curious. I mean EVERYONE hates organic. How did he get beyond that hate?
I miss my dad. There is so much I had left to talk to him about.
Football and chemistry. And probably politics.
My father passed away on April 5, 1989. He was 53 years old.
I just didn't know it. There have been a lot of articles in the past several days on race in America as the McCain-Palin ticket has turned into a hate-mongering, violence-supporting attack machine. Now we've come to understand Palin meant by her prescient comment that she is a "pit bull with lipstick". She's leading the charge to lynch a presidential candidate.
Think I"m over-exaggerating? Check out this advertisement (above) published on a conservative blog (since pulled, but now be commented on more liberal blogs). h/t Feministing Or this protest sign seen outside a Toledo rally for Obama. h/t FiveThirtyEight.
You know you've gone too far when your supporters--both of them (*cough*Rove and Feingold* cough)--begin to tut-tut you on your campaign tactics.
But I was unaware until I had read many articles on these events that it was bloggers and not the mainstream media (hereafter MSM) that brought the mob-mentality/hate-speech going on at M-P rallies to the public's attention. Why isn't it newsworthy when attendees at a political rally are whipped into a froth and threaten to kill the opponent and injure cameramen? Was the MSM going to bring it up AFTER someone had been maimed or killed?
There are two points I want to make about this. The first is that everyone gets that McCain's disgust over the hate-speech toward Obama is feigned. That is why it continues unabated at his rallies. There are times in life when failure to speak up, speak out, and put your f'in foot down is to give your de facto seal of approval. That's where McCain is now. When the media said that McCain would do anything to win, I didn't realize they actually meant anything. I don't get his tactics. I don't believe there are enough bigots in this country to elect him president. IMO, his campaign made two fatal flaws. First and foremost was his selection of Palin as VP. I know hard-core, lifelong Republicans who are sitting out this election because of her. The second was this "anything goes" approach because he's down in the polls. You could almost hear the moderates scatter as he clicked the shotgun back together and vowed to "take the gloves off". His campaign is done. Kaput. He might as well concede today. His only achievement now is to divide our country in a way that will reverse 35 years of gains made in civil rights, racial equality, and human dignity. For this he should be rightly vilified. I honestly hope that he has the next 20 years to consider the impacts of his behavior, because his behavior is having significant impacts on the nation.
The second point I want to make is about the MSM not reporting on this initially. If it weren't for the ubiquitous nature of bloggers, we might never have heard about the race-baiting going on in a national presidential campaign. You have no idea how that blows my mind when I actually think about it. But, if you consider that the MSM travels with the candidates on planes, trains and buses financed by the campaign, doesn't it stand to reason that a reporter wouldn't want to risk his or her seat on the campaign trail (and access to the candidate) by pointing out something so damaging to the candidate? Our independent media is not living up to their mandate. And they most certainly are not independent.
Finally, I want to say that the hate-speech does more than simply attack Obama. Claiming that Obama is a terrorist because his family background includes Muslims or because it includes Africans or because he's a member of the black community or from Chicago or whatever finger-pointing seeds of doubt McCain attempts to sow--none of this is without broader impacts. Every finger he jabs toward Obama points a damning finger at every single Muslim/black/African-American/Chicagoan/etc in this country. If Muslim=terrorist, then where does the damning end? McCain's tactics threaten to take us back to that sad and scary moment following the 9/11 attacks when roving bands of teenagers attacked anyone who was remotely brown. Remember when Hindus were getting beaten in the streets for wearing turbans? Remember when mosques were being spray-painted with hate messages? Do we really want to go back there? Khaled Hosseini wrote an excellent editorial in the WaPo Sunday pointing out the danger in McCain's behavior. Even GWB, who is a complete idiot, spoke out against violence against Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent. McCain is screaming "fire" in a crowded movie theater. He must know that his words have impact. Apparently, he doesn't mind being a complete and utter dick.
Oh, and one last thing. I've heard plenty of people "defend" Barack Obama against these accusations of his being a Muslim. They say in an entirely exasperated voice, "but he's a Christian!" IMO, it doesn't matter. Being a Muslim is not some sort of indictment. Muslim is not a dirty word. Extremism might be. And that includes all you intolerant Ohio Christians against baby-murdering Muslims". Own the intolerance, jerk.
Six months ago, I actually said these words out loud: "I want Obama to win, sure, but I could live with any of the three remaining candidates" (Obama, Clinton, and McCain). That man just made me eat my words. I apologize world. I don't support the bigot. He owns those people he's encouraging. He owns that advert. He owns the hate. Own it, asshole.
After waking up to this article this morning and alerting my colleagues, I realized that I am in violation of the ethics policy for employees of the state of Illinois simply because I have not one, but two Obama stickers on my car.
I am not too awfully worried because I gave the chair of our department an Obama sticker, which he stuck on his car. If I'm going down, lots of faculty members are going with me.
However, as I mentioned to my colleagues, I have always taken off my Obama button while teaching or exposed to students in any official capacity as a courtesy. I don't think it is appropriate to bring my specific political beliefs into the classroom unless it is directly relevant to the curriculum.
But I am rather irritated that the State of Illinois thinks they can dictate my behavior outside my workday. I have always said I couldn't work for the federal government for just these reasons. Well ok, there are other reasons as well. Foremost, I don't think I could do so little. But the whole, not being able to speak out against the president should I so desire is something of a big deal to me. If universities become the same sorts of oppressive employers, I'm out. I would have exploded if I couldn't have bitched about GWB over the past 8 years.
I will not be silenced. I'm already gearing up for bitching about President Obama. I wouldn't miss the fun for anything. I've been a fan of the First Amendment from way back.
Where are my chacos? They disappeared about 2 weeks ago and I still haven't found them.
Why does Nevada keep pooping on the wheelchair ramps? I practically have to drag her outside whereupon she just stares at me until I let her back in. Then 5 minutes later, she jumps up and runs to the door and I let her out and she has to go so badly that she poops on the wheelchair ramp. One day last week, she pooped on her way to the door. Damn dog.
Tell me what you think about the new layout and design. Something always bugged me about that old one, so I decided to take the bull by the horns and design my own. Well, based on someone else's template, but I did a LOT of modifying of the html.
Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts. Is it hard to read. Do any of the colors get you all buggy? Let me know.
And Liv might recognize this photo in the banner. It was one of the few pictures I was able to snap at Morro Beach in California on our Wild West Adventure this summer.
Life in Dowell isn't all amber waves of grain...or should I say combines and corn fields. Sometimes, it's a wicked-fun bunch of people who know how to put on a good time. Case in point. Last night I attended my third annual Dowell Volunteer Fire Department Fundraising Dinner and Auction. Well, I actually skipped the dinner, but attended the auction. I've missed two auctions because the MoBot Systematics Symposium is ALWAYS held on the same weekend, and I generally ended up opting for a dinner on the Hill instead of rushing home for the auction. But research funds being so tight this year, and the symposium topic being on South Africa, I decided to opt for the closer-to-home mind expanding event.
I live two doors from the volunteer fire department. That is a blessing and a curse. If'n my house ever catches on fire, I figure they'll get here pretty darn fast. On the other hand, every time there is a fire, I first hear the air siren alerting the volunteers to come a-runnin', which is quite an abrupt alarm clock if they get a call in the middle of the night. Second then is the truck or ambulance sirens as they streak out of the firehouse. Then again, it isn't any worse or better than the train blasting their whistle as they streak through our intersection in the middle of the night. You get so you don't hear it after a while. When I was a kid, the firehouse in our small town was a small red brick building, hardly any wider than it takes to park 2 fire trucks, with an upper floor of one room where 6 firemen or so had to live, eat, and do their business in tight quarters. My town had about 27,000 people. The Dowell Fire House is an aluminum building that can hold 6 full-size emergency vehicles. The town is 450 strong.
And once a year, they polish up the trucks, pull them out front, set up tables and chairs, and put on a kick-ass barbeque dinner and auction. All the items are donated by local businesses. They have a 50/50 raffle. Whatever proceeds are collected, the winner splits 50/50 with the fire department. The first year I attended the auction, I won the 50/50. It was quite an exciting night! They also raffle a shotgun. I heard the fire chief say that they had raised well over $1200 in the raffle for that gun. Never underestimate the small-town folks to dream big--especially in the vicinity of deer season. Damn, Palin would be proud.
I would guess they had about 120 auction items. Almost every auction package included a baseball cap. I don't know what it is about those caps. There was a joke when you won a package that included a hat, the folks around you pat you on the back and say "welcome to the hat club!"
Small town humor.
I paced myself. I bought a 1/4 sheet cake for $4. I bought 2 pizzas from the local gas station/pizza joint for $10. And then this sad little floral display came up and no one would bid on it. So I bid $2. And then someone bid $3. The auctioneer returns his gaze to me. Begins trash talking. I'm shaking my head no and thinking to myself, thank god someone else outbid me. But now he's like a dog on a bone. Come on, now. You can't win that thing if you won't bid. You know she's gonna bid $5. So I acquiesce. $4. Damn if she didn't give up.
)*@#)&$&#*!!!!
$4 for THIS:And did I mention that it was in a beat up old colander? Good God. How am I gonna re-gift this? Any takers? Please? Well, then, just be that way. But if it shows up on your doorstep one day with a big bow on it, remember it was for a good cause.
Here's the rest of my haul. Grand total: $44. There were some interesting items up for sale.Everything from a purse to a stereo system. Note there were several bushels of apples for sale. These are the ladies who cooked dinner for everyone. Well, the guys grilled the meat in the bbq pit in the park, but these ladies did the real work. I wish I had some software to put an arrow in my pictures. I'd point out the couple that bought about 10 bottles of booze. Guess they are going to have a good year. Every year someone asks me where I live, if I'm from the area, and I meet one or two new people. Even those who take no interest in me always make small talk. I kinda like Dowell. It grows on you.
If you replace the sweaty, smoke-stained terror of Nathan Thurm with the cutsie, dimple-laded scoff of Sarah Palin, the parallels are uncanny.
It was all a big joke then, but 60 Minutes used to actually make people sweat. Those were the days before the corporations took over the media outlets and got the de facto upper hand on the media. Why in God's name Katie Couric didn't say what everyone was thinking is beyond me. WTF is that woman talking about?
Ok, just so you know. The OC behavior is back. I'm now spending 4 hours a day reading, re-reading and reading yet again the same articles, blog posts (mine and others), and emails over and over. Twelve weeks of therapy alerted me to the fact that this is a response to stress. Where is the stress coming from? Nothing seems any different to me. Somehow I get a perverse sense of calm from repeating the same action, reading the same words, whatever the hell you call this, over and over again. I hate this.
Yesterday I agreed to meet Bek and Katie for dinner. They were seated in the restaurant and I was still at my house reading my blog. WTF? I lied about already being on the road. I encouraged them to drink some wine.
I'm hella crazy again. I wish that just telling myself to stop worked. I wish that the understanding that nothing is accomplished by doing this was enough to make me stop. It's stupid. It's counter-productive. It's ......aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
J and I have been having a very interesting series of conversations on race, politics, and economics lately. And maybe this is a bit off topic, but our discussions have caused me to focus on my own social awareness lately. I am interested in how I got to my present point of view. I mean, let's face it. I was raised in the same environment that produced those rednecks screaming "terrorist" and "kill him" about Obama, and "sit down, boy" to a black cameraman at McCain rallies. I know the people behind these epithets. While I tend to see my personal development as a continuum, I occasionally think that it is a continuum punctuated by forehead-smacking Gestalt moments where everything comes together and there is a fundamental paradigm shift. In any event, I have a tendency to personalize when I think about most issues and sometimes get lost in the forest for looking at the trees (i.e., my thoughts on race, economics, and politics arise primarily from my own experiences, hence the rather personal nature of a lot of my posts).
If my very public self-exploration has made anyone uncomfortable, I sincerely apologize. I examine my own thoughts in public because I think that there is nothing that fosters honesty more than the light of day. And just maybe, others can benefit from my voyage of self discovery. What I was trying to get at (and perhaps none too well) in my earlier post above love is that it is okay to talk about tough issues honestly and openly. We don't have to be embarrassed about being human. It isn't a breach of trust to disagree with those we love. It doesn't diminish me as a person or my capabilities for the future if I acknowledge that I was wrong in the past. Or to have someone point out to me when I am wrong in the present. So when I talk about my grandmother and her way of thinking, it doesn't mean I love her less. We may disagree on issues of race, but she taught me more about unconditional love than anyone else ever will.
Racial inequality is a very personal issue to me. Who knows why? Maybe I just identified with the outsiders. I don't recall ever having a conversation with anyone about these issues growing up. But to act like I accepted the status quo in my environment is fundamentally incorrect. I mean, at a very early age, I noticed that there was segregation--starting with the lunchroom at school. I agonized over ways to break that gridlock. It was easier to sit in my chair with my white friends than to get up and cross the room and ask if I could sit down at that table. I think I was more afraid that they wouldn't want me there. That they would just stare at me and I'd have to slink back to my seat in defeat. Fear of rejection is a crippling thing to a teenager. The fact that I didn't know what to do and so did nothing still fills me with a sense of regret. Stupid, I know, to beat myself up about things that happened 25 years ago. But at some point I made a distinct break with the social morality of my upbringing. I believe what prompted that break was what one friend termed "my overdeveloped sense of justice". Somehow that internal dialogue that others are able to suppress when they see discrimination kept screaming at me and all it said was "Why are you accepting this? You know this isn't okay." I decided to silence that voice and I started down a different road. And for me, that moment was both personal and liberating. It happened when I was sitting in my living room in Chicago listening to my brother make a racist comment. I remember that moment as if I'm in that room now. Not in my house. Oh hell no. Never again. Get out. That may well have been my first adult action. It wasn't as hard as I thought.
I remember a second such moment. It wasn't that long ago. Bek and I were sitting at a stop light in C-dale when she announced that it was okay that I found black men attractive. I didn't even realize that I had made that apparent. After all, I was still not admitting those feelings in public. So I can thank Bek for my second Gestalt moment. It validated feelings I had long hidden, like the incredible crush I had on a black kid at my school, but couldn't admit to anyone. Like the fact that I had married someone I wasn't particularly attracted to because he was acceptable in superficial ways to those around me.
Now, since "my people" as I'm so fond of saying (I'm only 2 generations removed from folks who never dreamed of a high school education) were the target audience for a Southern Strategy, I think that perhaps the best thing I can offer is some insight into what that has meant in my life and the lives of those around me. Maybe this insight isn't needed. Maybe it's been done to death. If that is the case, then this really is a personal journey, and that's okay, too.
"Meeting" J has really been helpful to me (thanks Liv!) because he has been instrumental in raising my line of sight above the treeline and pushed me to explore the broader impacts of these issues, which brings a whole 'nother level of analysis to my effort. I believe I'm always going to bring these issues into the personal realm, because that seems to be my shtick. I wonder though, if another head-smacking moment isn't in the making. I seem to be in a period of rapid growth. I'll keep you updated. Unless of course, you all just want me to STFU. =) Happy Friday.
I've discussed my upbringing in eastern Kentucky before. The river town where I grew up lies at a point where Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia meet. What I didn't realize is how important the area is in the elections. I've read that Ohio falls red or blue based on the votes cast in a small number of southeastern and southwestern counties in Ohio. Suddenly, I see the news filled with announcements of candidates traveling to towns with names very familiar to me: Portsmouth, South Point, Ironton. Anyone who lives in a tri-state area understands that the lines between states blur. Points of entry are numerous. Bridges at Huntington, Ashland, Cattletsburg, Russell, and Portsmouth allow easy access across the river and its tributaries. I've been to the movies in Portsmouth; my brother' wedding reception was held in South Point; I've gotten a parking ticket in Ironton. I went to college in Huntington, where my grandparents all lived. In fact, when I was a kid, trips across the river were a regular occurrence because southern Ohio was wet and eastern Kentucky was dry. My father took us over on beer runs regularly. When I got a little older, I made trips across to West Virginia because the legal age was 18 versus 21 in Kentucky and Ohio.
It is amusing to me when this area is referred to as Appalachia. It is the foothills of the Appalachians. It is not the Appalachians proper. It's hill country and I'd be surprised if a single hill in the area gets much above 900 ft. But it is isolated. It may be the 21st century, but some folks are clinging to their 19th century resentment. I've talked about my issues with "my people"before. So I read with interest this article. Read it. I'll wait.
How bad does a ticket or economic prospects have to be to force racists to vote for the smart guy that one? Apparently pretty bad. But the good news is that in the toss up that is racism vs. your own pocketbook, it appears that the pocketbook wins. Which brings me to the point of this post. My grandmother announced to me the other day that she was thinking about voting. She was thinking about voting for Obama. Now, I love my grandmother with all that I am, but this is the same woman who once told me that is was okay to talk to black folks over the back fence, but you wouldn't...you know...actually invite them into your house. She announced to me as a sign of the changing times that "young kids today just all pile in a car together". She has led an exceedingly segregated life. She goes to an all-white Baptist church. I'm trying to think where my grandmother might actually have had to interact with anyone who wasn't white. Maybe at the grocery store. Maybe at hospital when she volunteered. But by and large, she is isolated from any ideas or cultural influences that are different from her own. My grandmother is 90 years old.
And what is driving her to vote for someone she wouldn't invite into her house? Sarah Palin. Now this isn't a matter of sexism trumping racism. If anything, I have done more to move my grandmother's ideas about what is proper for a woman to do. My grandmother calls ME when she needs help around her house. I painted, papered, and rewired her kitchen. She calls ME when she can't get her answering machine, VCR, or television remote to work. I'm her go-to handy-person.
My grandmother, who had announced months ago that she was sitting out this election (she didn't like McCain but had no intention of voting for Obama), is driven to vote for an African American by what she thinks is the incredible incompetence of McCain's vice presidential selection.
My grandmother represents that sort of ingrained racism that I just took for granted growing up. It isn't in your face or even seething below the surface. If it makes any sense, it isn't purposefully mean. It just is. Its the kind of racism that makes all the black kids sit at the same table in the lunchroom at high school. It's the kind of racism that results in all-white parties. You know, the kind where you'd invite your black friend but then he/she would be the only black person there and then they'd be uncomfortable. In reality, you aren't sure who'd be uncomfortable. It's the kind of racism that, when the unwritten mores are broken, isn't likely to get any comments unless someone drinks too much beer and gets mouthy and the last thing you want to have happen is for someone to actually say something. It isn't a racism you can point your finger at...something more you get a feeling about. In some ways, that kind of racism is worse than the sign on the water fountain. It's insidious, it's accepted without being acknowledged. It just is.
The fact of the matter is, I'm glad my grandmother is being faced with this choice. I'm glad America is. If there hadn't been this grand intersection of economic and political issues right before this election, my grandmother might never have had an opportunity to challenge her own thinking about race. She's 90 years old. Her opportunities to change deeply seated beliefs are running out. I am filled with great optimism to know that even at 90, paradigm shifts are possible.
Thanks to Samhita at Feministing for this one. Donna Brazile gives a moving discussion of the imapct of Obama's candidacy, her experiences growing up with racism in America, along with a vision of our collective future. I figure Donna Brazile and I are about the same age.
Trust me. I never had to move to the back of the bus. My mother never had to warn me to be careful of anything more than someone offering me candy. I never had to be careful not to look someone in the eye. Had I gotten into Harvard (sorry, had to stop laughing there for a minute), no one would have called me uppity or thought that I got in on a quota system.
Oh, I might have had to deal with my share of "sweeties" and "dears", and I'm sure I lost a job opportunity or two when I was studying architecture due to my gender. I couldn't play little league baseball. My grandfathers didn't really want to take me fishing with them. But I never had to fear for my personal safety at far too early an age because of my gender. Puberty brings on a whole world of new concerns for women at a time when men begin to look on you as a sexual object, but that reality isn't exclusive to white women. We all deal with that equally.
There is no way you can convince me that electing a woman president or vice president is nearly as cutting edge or will have nearly the social impact as electing a black president.
It's funny. I went to school with a kid just like Obama. Biracial. Very popular. Our class president, in fact. Dated one of the prettiest white girls in the school. He went to the naval academy on a scholarship and served for a number of years before getting out. Last I heard of him, he was selling insurance. I wonder sometimes if his experiences outside of our small high school were as accepting of him. I'll never know.
But I know where Donna Brazile stands, and I stand with her.
Rachael Maddow's analysis of the second presidential debate rings true. McCain's is a campaign that is unraveling. Desperate to do something that will capture attention, McCain looks like a man trying to win a gold medal in diving by doing the biggest cannonball. First it's Palin as VP. Then it's suspending his campaign to address the economic crisis. Now it's another bailout of people who made poor borrowing decisions. McCain's campaign is doomed. Why? Because he's now cast, not as an underdog, but as a loser. And no one wants to jump on the loser bandwagon. I think most people who claim to not have made up their mind have. And I think they are all leaning Democrat. I listen to these supposedly independent voters talking on the various news outlets. I don't think there is an undecided voter left in America at this point. McCain can't put the economic crisis behind him, and that is the one issue that he tanks on. He's done. Might as well pack up the banners and call it a day. Nothing left to do but wait for the fat lady to sing.
Tonight, the media certainly seemed to think America has settled on a president. Chris Matthews even described America reflecting back on having elected its first African American president in response to his ability to lead in a time of crisis. So much for inexperience. Apparently, Obama is the man we can trust.
Whether or not Obama is capable of such leadership remains to be seen. I think it will simply be a hard and difficult road for us all and the president may just be along for the ride. Certainly, the next president has been saddled with debt, wars, foreign policies and hardships that will make his job infinitely more difficult. It's not the world is such a more dangerous place. It's that we are so much less capable of dealing with it.
I do think in spite of it all, the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief when Obama is elected. His inauguration will be that 21st century Camelot and at least for a time things will look up.
Tonight, I want to talk about love. You might not think it to talk to me, hell, you might not think it even if you knew me well, but I miss being in love. For all my bitching about marriage and the utter and absolute failure that mine turned out to be, being in love is...wonderful.
And the fact of the matter is love isn't hard, relationships are. I am the first to admit that half of the problem in my marriage was me, but there seems to be something larger going on here. When it comes to love, my siblings and I suffer from poor mate selection. Three of us are divorced, the fourth getting divorced after having stayed together just for the kids. (Trust me. The kids would have been better off if those two had gotten away from each other years ago.) One brother married a mental ward nurse who stole psychotropic drugs from her patients. My sister married a philandering counterfeiter. I married a pot-smoking, chronically unemployed man whose life ambition seemed to be getting on disability/unemployment without cause. My other brother married what I can only term as the biggest bitch on Earth, and I mean that in a respectful way, because she really had an aptitude for it. Although I have spent hour upon hour reflecting on this matter, I still have no explanation for this universal failure in my family. My parents seemed to have an incredibly life-affirming, strong, healthy, meaningful, and loving relationship. I'd have given anything to have met a man like my father. My sister and I joke that our man-pickers are broken.
The problem with marrying poorly is that you don't rebound like you did from the girlfriend-boyfriend relationships. It took me a full two years post-divorce before I could even think about dating again. But in that down-time, I did a lot of soul-searching and I learned a lot about myself, my desires, my sexual triggers, what I find attractive and what I do not. I don't know if it was the severity of the breakup that caused the intense reflection. When someone tries to kill you, isn't that natural? In any event, I've come to understand my faults, identify my idiosyncrasies, and also to know my own strengths and how I can use them to benefit a relationship. I have worked to tone down the more distasteful parts of my personality. Dare I say that I almost think I might have something valuable to offer someone in a relationship? I think I've achieved some measure of emotional maturity.
At the same time, my tastes have changed. I don't need a bad boy. I know what I find desirable and attractive and for once I can honestly say that if I find him, I doubt he will try to kill me this time. So here I am at 45 thinking maybe, just maybe, I'm ready to try again. So I put on my suit and dared anyone to say something about the way I look in it and I'm ready to dive in.
Unfortunately, someone drained the dating pool.
While small-town America was as good a place as any for undergoing this transformation, it isn't a great place to crawl out of your chrysalis. I've got these boss new wings and no one to flash them in front of. I have isolated myself in the middle of nowhere, over-educated myself, developed some pretty strong opinions, learned to stand on my own two feet, and realized that I don't NEED a man for anything. While that may be very empowering for me, it doesn't exactly put me high on the dating list for the pool of single 30- to 53-year olds in Poontwang, USA.
I'm reminded of those empty-nesters who say that now that they've learned all the lessons and gotten the kids out of the house, they finally feel prepared to raise a child. All that wealth of knowledge just...what? Wasted?
I try to be patient. I try to get out there, wherever there is. I've done the online dating thing. I've been willing to go on blind dates or be set up by friends. I seldom pass up an opportunity to meet new people, to mingle, to try. Nothing has been terribly successful. In the past 8 years, I haven't met one man truly interested in a serious, meaningful relationship. I've met an awfully lot of overgrown boys interested in recreating scenes from their favorite pornos. And ya know, I'm better than that. I just think that there is more to life than random sex or sex-buddies. I don't understand them....the players. They are just satisfied with the nothingness of meaningless sex. They don't even seem to be interested in love. I'm just left with the feeling that I could have done a better job myself, and I wouldn't have had to change the sheets. Love is such a wonderful feeling. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever in love at all. After a while, you being to doubt things.
There was a man once that I am sure I loved. I was young. He was forbidden. It was over really before it even started. It will be the greatest regret of my life if that small taste was all I ever get.
And if you wonder what prompted this, I'll tell ya. Take a look at this. I know at first it might not make sense, but it is relevant. He makes a statement about mid-way through this. Right about the point that he starts to get serious. He says, "I am an expert on my own story."
It's an excellent point. We are all experts on our own story. A little self-analysis, a little introspection, even if we don't find the ultimate answer, is seldom a bad thing. If it weren't for self-introspection, I'd still be drunk dialing old boyfriends. And usually our behavior and our outlook are more important than our achievements and whatever glory and reward we seek. Whatever I have learned about love....whatever I have learned about being a good person in this world....I have learned from examining my own story and making sure it was leading down the road I wanted. Making adjustments, constant vigilance. And we don't have to be embarrassed about sharing these things. Craig Ferguson can do it on national television. I can do it in a blog. I had a professor give an extremely moving life lesson to a classroom that expected a lecture on Hamlet. We needn't hide behind some veil that makes us pretend not to be human. We fuck up. We learn from it. We move forward.
I did a terrible disservice to a man when I agreed to marry him. I should have known better. Now I do. I want to love again. There, I said it. And I feel better for it.
The NYT's Paul Krugman and I often haven't seen eye to eye. In general, I've tended to think he was an old fart. Well, I should clarify, he's something of an economic conservative. But his analysis of McCain and Obama's health plans are spot on and just go to show that what Biden was saying in the VP debate was on the money.
Without the tax break (that employers currently get when they offer employees heatlh insurance), many employers would drop their current health plans. Several recent nonpartisan studies estimate that under the McCain plan around 20 million Americans currently covered by their employers would lose their health insurance.
But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes....Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.
In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems.
It seems pretty common-sensical that it doesn't take much in the way of necessary health care to break an uninsured person. I have had to forgo the appropriate medical care due to an inability to pay for it as a student. I can't imagine facing a catastrophic illness and having the current coverage I have. All the more reason to graduate and get on with it. I can't afford to be underinsured and get older.
I've noticed something very interesting in the past few weeks. Internet sources are now seen as more objective and independent than traditional media.
Listen to this bit from Michael Shear and WaPo this morning:
Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, "Who is Barack Obama?" The ad alleges that "Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes." The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions. (emphasis mine)
I remember a day when the major newspapers and news outlets were considered capable of fact-checking information on their own. But, it is testament to the times that if NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, or any of the other major news players were to present information as fact, a vast majority of people would view it as untrue due to the news media's partisan bents.
How did this happen? I think it is all this fair and balanced business. As a scientist, I see this happen all the time in the news. In the interests of presenting "both sides of a story" (a false dichotomy in most cases), the media will present some scientific breakthrough and then an opposing view--usually an outright rejection of the findings based on some obscure technicality. And what is the American public left with? The idea that rejecting scientific findings based on beliefs is OK because even scientists can't agree on this stuff. So there are people who actually think that we haven't landed on the moon, that global warming is a government conspiracy, that evolution isn't true or if it is it is directed by the will of God, that the Holocaust never happened, etc. And thus, we have woo trumping science on a regular basis.
But in most cases, scientific theories are not up for debate. Evolution is real, folks. We aren't way out on a limb here. We're pretty solid on the facts. We've got 150 years of facts piled up in neat little stacks all pointing toward the same reality. Sticking your head in the sand because it conflicts with what your preacher tells you, doesn't change the reality. There is no controversy. There are no two sides to this story. There is one and it is the right one.
When did the media become afraid to tell us this? This isn't a case of bitching about taxonomy with lumpers and splitters. Many, many things in life are stone-cold fact and any other perspective is fiction. For a lot of things, there are no shades of grey. When it comes to scientific theories, the only areas of grey are in the details.
But the real question is, why did the traditional media give up its credibility, and at what point did internet sources like Snopes and FactCheck.Org get to be the "trusted" source for Americans? I think it is time for the media regain its credibility. There is a reason that we protect professional journalists from revealing sources...it is precisely so they can bring us closer to some approximation of the truth. But no one has the balls to stand up for their own work anymore. The media has become unprincipled, unless that principle is making money. I think it is time for a media outlet to start acting like it is worthy of the tremendous protections that we bestow on them. Take the commentary and partisanship out of the reporting of the news and put it back where it belongs: in a clearly identified opinion/commentary portion of the news.
The election is 4 weeks away. At this point, for me, there is only one issue in this election that matters. I'll give you a hint. It's not the economy.
Sarah Palin's performance in the vp debate was, by media pundit standards, "not awful". And the bar has been set so low for her that "not awful" apparently translates into credibility as a candidate and potential vice president. I don't know how to tell them, but no it doesn't.
There is only one way for me to describe what I saw coming from Sarah Palin during the vice-presidential debate last Thursday night: The Stupid. It Burns.
What did she say that was so stupid?
1. The vice presidency has "flexibility" inherent in it. That is to say that she supports Dick Cheney's "unitary executive". Although I doubt very seriously she has any idea what Cheney means by that. I doubt she has any idea how Cheney has changed the vice presidency. I doubt she has any idea how Cheney has trampled the Constitution. I doubt she has any idea how Cheney's expanded role misled the country into war, threatened and continues to threaten our prosperity and security, was responsible for setting up prisons of torture, and did all of it with blatant disregard for the law, the Constitution, the will of the people, and basic humanity. IMO, Dick Cheney is a war criminal. I suspect that her original statement to the press about the vice presidency is reality: she has no idea what a vice president does all day. She doesn't know because she's probably never read the f***king Constitution of the United States of America. How in the world she could swear before her God and her country to defend something she lacks basic understanding of is beyond me. The Stupid. It Burns.
2. If Palin didn't know the answer, she answered a question she did know the answer to and justified it by implying that in doing so, she was a maverick like John McCain. At one point she said to Joe Biden, "I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear." Somehow, she was under the mistaken impression that Joe Biden and Gwen Ifill were her constituency. She forgot one little group that might have an interest in her actually answering the questions posed: the American public. The Stupid. It Burns.
3. A shout out to Sarah Palin. You are not the MC of the high school pep rally anymore. That comment about school kids wasn't cute. It said to me that you weren't taking the debate seriously. The Stupid. It what? That's right. Burns, burns, burns.
4. She has gone on record as saying that she believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible. That is to say that she fervently believes the Earth is 6000 years old, that dinosaurs walked with humans, that abortion is wrong in all cases except for saving the life of the mother (which I doubt seriously she believes as well, but this is likely a compromise), that she was helped in her campaign to become governor by a fundamentalist minister who prayed over her (a minister, who, BTW, claims to have chased a witch out of his village), that God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, etc. Just think of this. She believes in a Earth-cleansing flood, tablets carved by the hand of God, the tower of Babel, the parting of the Red Sea, water into wine, walking on water, the creation of all life in 6 days. You name it, she's buying it. She believes that life is unchanging, that the prophesies are real, and she looks forward to the apocalypse. As Matt Damon pointed out, I don't want THAT having the nuclear codes. Oh, and Sarah dear? It's nuclear not nuke-u-lure. And I've got a mushroom cloud of burn.
If anyone can show me some reason....any reason at all....to believe that this woman has grasped a fundamental understanding and preparedness for the crushing responsibilities of the position to which she aspires, please, please, please....I beg of you....point them out to me now.
In claiming that Dick Cheney was "the most dangerous vice president we've had in American history", Joe Biden only had it partially right. If McCain is elected, that honor will be lauded upon a Vice President Palin. It is the job of the vice president to serve as second in command. To take the President's place should he or she be incapacitated. She is patently incapable of assuming this responsibility and fulfilling her role. That means that someone else will be running the country from the sidelines, and THAT someone is not someone we voted for.
At this moment in history, Sarah Palin is the most dangerous woman in the world. And the reason she is so is all John McCain's fault. For me, there is no choice in this election.
The Stupid. It Burns. And if they win, there will be nothing left but scorched Earth.
...when Wall Street is operating within the law? I haven't heard one expert accuse Wall Street professionals, as Sarah Palin did in the debate, of criminal activity. There was nothing illegal about anything they were doing. The only thing criminal here was that these businesses were given free reign without regulation or oversight that would have tempered the poor investment decisions and excessive risk that were packaged in these mortgage-backed derivative instruments.
But for Palin to call the pursuit of capital and profit in legal (if not poorly understood and ill-advised) investment instruments "corrupt" is ridiculous when it is the Republican/conservative approach to economics to get government out of the regulation/oversight business.
This economy is the most important issue in this election right now. It is the reason that no Republican deserves the vote they are asking you to give.
Ok, this is a response to J's post, which itself was a commentary to Emily Bazelon's article on Slate.
Here's the question. Do I, by virtue of having girly bits, feel some kinship with Sarah Palin? Do I, deep down inside, secretly want her to win (or at least do well) because she's one of us? Am I conflicted by the fact that I don't share a single personal value with this candidate, but want to vote for a woman? Am I anti-feminist if I don't applaud her ascent to power? Do I feel sorry for her because she isn't doing well?
Fuck.That.Shit.
Oh it's not that I don't want to see a woman succeed. It's just that I don't believe in a vagina network. My version of feminism isn't that women are pulling for one another, working as a group to overcome. Save the kum-ba-ya crap for church camp. Hey! I didn't contribute one of those 18 million cracks in Hillary's glass ceiling. IMO, that's not the purpose of feminism. The objective of feminism is to create a world where what's inside my pants ceases to matter unless I am actually using it at the time. This means that no woman should get a free pass to the front of the line. That means that if a woman gets to the highest level in her field, they shouldn't move the goalposts so she can, you know, serve as a role model. When everyone is allowed access to the same opportunities, how far we go is an individual endeavor. I'm not a feminist, per se. I just believe in equal opportunity.
Call me cold. Call me an anti-feminist. (You'd be dead wrong, but give it a go anyway.) I don't believe in double standards. There is one standard. If you are a woman and want to enter a traditionally male field, don't expect a paradigm shift to accommodate you. First woman entering the field? Little head's up for you. You are probably going to suck at it. You are probably going to be put down, second guessed, and judged more harshly than they'd ever judge one of their own. Is it worth it to you?
Ask Hillary Clinton that one. I think she'd say yes.
Maybe I'm insufficiently sentimental, but I have, without even knowing or understanding it, approached my entire life based on the idea that my gender doesn't limit me, excuse me, or condemn me. The only thing that truly limits me is me. I have met exceedingly few obstacles in my life that couldn't be driven over, around, or a detour found. Oh, I have experienced sexism. I just haven't allowed it to make a victim of me. I consider myself successful. Not a blazing light in the wilderness, but a little more than a bic lighter. A sea of bic lighters might make it easier to see, but it isn't the same as being the blazing light.
I know I'm going to hear it. The old "you're harder on women than other minorities."
Not really. Because I think the same should be true of all irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth, yadda, yadda, yadda. I didn't grow up in this "let's give all the kids a trophy so they feel good" era. I grew up where accomlishment and recognition were earned. And not everybody made it. Sometimes I failed. Sometimes I succeeded.
I do not want to be judged by a woman's standard in a man's world. I don't want special accommodation. I want to know when I make it that I made it on my own merits. If I had to work harder, my accomplishment is all the more satisfying. And I don't mind that other women have to work as hard. Intelligence, competence, ambition, hard work, and a little luck. You have to have drive to achieve. You have to want it and never say die.
I didn't buy into Clinton's "I'm doing this for Chelsea" bologna, and I don't feel sorry for Sarah Palin because she bit off more than she could chew. I remember once I found myself in the finals at a summer swim meet. THE FINALS. Ok, so I was in the far outside lane indicating that I made the finals by the skin of my teeth, but there I was. And I swam my heart out. And when I finished and looked up, everyone else was already done. More than one girl was already out of the pool. I came in dead last. Embarrassingly last. Slinking out of the pool and hoping no one asks my name last.
Welcome to my world, Sarah Palin. Sometimes the competition is vastly superior to you. And you have to learn to be okay with that. And not because you are a woman, but because that's how it is. America is a tough town. You can believe in yourself all you want, but sometimes you just come up lacking.
Sarah Palin isn't getting my vote...not because I don't want to see women succeed. She won't get my vote because she took an end run around to the front of the line. She didn't earn it. Ok, so she's also a neanderthal in her thinking and grossly unsuited and unqualified for the job. That's just gravy.
Are they just having a group meltdown or something? After failing to get behind Sunday's bailout plan, some members of the House leadership blamed the failure of the bill on a harsh, but hardly over-the-top speechlet by Nancy Pelosi on the House floor. After the failure, the coward Republicans jumped on her like white on rice and said that her speech caused otherwise supportive representatives to vote against the bill--the same bill that everyone seems to agree is necessary to keep America from plunging into a deep and lasting economic recession.
This is an obvious and blatant lie. Congresspersons don't have feelings. Well, at least not in the performance of their jobs. If they did, they would never have been able to say the things, point the fingers and compromise in the way that politics demands. And as Barney Frank aptly put:
Frank: “We don’t believe they had the votes and I think they are covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this: somebody hurt my feelings so I will punish the country. I mean that’s hardly plausible. And there were twelve Republicans who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America but not if anybody insulted them. I’ll make an offer: Give me those twelve people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”
My question is: what the heck is going on with the Republicans? After ruling Congress for 20 years with an unstoppable coalition, they have fallen apart and it's every man for himself. Is it GWB's low approval? Is it that their positions aren't resonating with the majority of Americans anymore? Is it that they are showing themselves to be the self-serving slime that most politicians are? Even then, party leadership can usually hold things together over the short-term to act in everyone's best interest....or at least the best interest of the party.
I can't imagine that if the economy tanks the Dems are going to be the one's left holding the bag. Can these guys not see beyond next week, or is November the only thing that matters to them? Sadly, I suspect the latter.
D is Daktari. Daktari is me. I have many interests, but I'm no slave to a master plan. My greatest joy is in being fully open to what life presents. Adventure abounds and life is full of wonder. I am adventurer, explorer, friend, gypsy, and companion. My greatest vice is that I am far too accommodating of my curiosity. Despite this, my life is quiet but by no means unremarkable. I am willing to share what little insight I have gained, my thought processes, and the journey of my growth. If you like what you learn, I'm glad. If you don't, I'm not going to sweat it. Because ultimately, this is all about me.
This is mine. This is Daktari's place. Welcome. In case you wondered, I'm not apt to put up with a lot of crap. That doesn't make me a hard person. It makes me someone who doesn't put up with a lot of crap. I hope you enjoy the company of dogs. There is generally one hanging about these parts.
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