In Case You're Confused

I don't usually post email forwards, but I loved this. And it's my blog.


If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate represe nting a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience..

If your resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.

If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA , your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Please To Explain

I don't understand the anger that celebrity political views garner. People are infuriated by Matt Damon's comments on Sarah Palin (read the comments under the video, on the original page - they'll make your hair curl with the vitriol).

Why isn't a celebrity allowed to express his or her opinion on politics? Why do they need to stay out of it? Aren't they citizens of this country, just like the rest of us? Why do people feel the need to claim that they should shut up and just act, not spout off?

We spout off, no matter what side of the political blanket we're on. We go on about one candidate or another, one cause or another. Why is it verboten for a celebrity to do the same?

If you don't like what they have to say, don't listen. If you don't agree with them, say so. Why hurl epithets and derision? It doesn't get us anywhere.

In my years of being a political animal, I've been able to have reasoned, rational conversations with people who don't think the way I think. I have not felt the need to hurl insults or call names. I can come up with many ways to say why I think they're wrong and none of those ways insult the other person in the slightest.

So why do we hold celebrities to a different standard? Why aren't they allowed to express their opinions too? I don't understand why this is such a horrible thing, I really don't.

Local Maine Reporter Takes On McCain

Great stuff.

(originally posted on Joe. My. God.)

ETA: Go over to Oh, The Joys and read her latest post. It's great.

Are We So Lost That We Have To Be Sold Our Own Democratic Right To Vote?

Watch the entire thing. It's fucking fantastic.

And REGISTER TO VOTE!

If you don't vote, you're a moron.

Like A Really Bad Disney Movie

Excellent.

Reason 8,792 Why I Love John Cusack

Want to see this on television? Go to MoveOn.org and donate a couple of bucks.

Yes, We Can

I have never cried tears of happiness over an election before. Today, I feel hopeful. Overwhelmed, overjoyed and this faint, flickering glimmer of hope I've held on to so, so desperately, for the last four years, had finally, finally come true.




I lean pretty far to the left (no way, really?). It's no surprise that Keith Olbermann is my guru, that I totally drank the Ted Kennedy/Bill Clinton kool-aid. But I have never, since the day I started paying attention to politics - dateline Belgium, August, 1979 (it involved marzipan, sweahtagawd) - been so thrilled, so absolutely over the moon, about the guy I helped nominate as president.

That Canadian Boy I Married is not into politics at all. He humours me, but he doesn't really care. I can't really blame him - he can't vote, since he's not yet a citizen, and he feels frustrated by that. But he knows I care and he spent a good 2 hours tonight, listening to me wax rhapsodic over Obama's nomination, wanting to know the ins and outs of the process and why I (and the pundits) thought Hillary was done. He hates Bush with the same fire of a thousand burning suns intensity that I do (which is good - I'd have to ship him back otherwise), but he's been an uncommitted observer of this election. I think it's helped solidify my views on Obama. I have been a huge fan ever since the 2004 Demcoratic National Convention and said, even back then, that if he ever ran, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. TCBIM didn't quite get my fascination until now. I don't know that he's a total convert, but at least now, he gets it.

So, yeah. Maybe we can. And wouldn't that just be amazing?

A Couple Of Political Links

This made me tear up as I was driving my daughter home from school today. Why? I'm not gay. I don't think I'm going to become gay, although it could happen. But I've never understood why a man who loves another man or a woman who loves another woman shouldn't be allowed to get married, to be allowed the same rights that a heterosexual couple is allowed. I've never understood why people are so threatened by gay marriage. What, exactly, does it threaten? Is it just that they don't like gay people and this is one of the only socially acceptable ways to let that dislike show? It baffles me.

Anyway. I'm thrilled that California has had the great good sense that Massachusetts did and hope that other states follow suit.










I read a post today on a blog called Whisky In My Sippy Cup. It made me want to stand up and cheer. She's a fantastic writer and she's got one hell of a post today. And she referenced Keith (My Boyfriend) Olbermann. So, go, read. She said it way better than I could ever hope to.

Does Keith Olbermann...

...read my blog?


Ok, so I'm not so vain to think that he does, but it was surreal to watch his special comment last night and hear him say practically the same thing I wrote last week.




That whole comment by Bush, threatening to stay home rather than go on a planned trip to Africa sounded so much like "If you don't behave, I'll turn this car around right now!" How many times can he pull that terror threat?

Super Tuesday: Go Vote!

I tried to teach Boo how to say Barack Obama today. She came up with Go Rock Omama.

I'm going at 4-ish to vote, so that I can take my girls with me. I try to take my kids every time I vote - I think it's a good thing to teach them and while I know the little ones are too young to even get it, O will understand. She might roll her eyes at me now but one day she's going to be able to vote and I want it to seem like a normal thing, something you just do, something to make into a big deal.

Because it is a big deal. I really fear for this country and the path we've traveled over the last 7 years. We have willingly, for the most part, given up huge chunks of our civil rights. The phone companies and George Bush have been able to listen in on every phone call made in this country for the last couple of years. And if this stupid FISA bill goes thru, the phone companies won't bear any responsibility for their illegal activities. It's mind boggling that this doesn't upset more people.

Bush claims that we need this law in order to catch terrorist activities. However, he's threatened to veto the bill if it doesn't include this immunity for the telecom industry. I'm confuuuused. If he vetoes the bill, he's vetoing it protect the telecoms. What about the America people? Do we deserve less protection than the phone companies? Isn't it the president's job to protect the citizens of this country? By threatening to veto this bill, Bush is showing exactly what he thinks of us and our safety. Nothing. We are less important than the phone companies.

The Democratic Congress needs to step up and block this bill. They need to get off their asses and do what they were elected to do - put a stop to this sort of thing. It enrages me when I hear how mealy-mouthed and pitiful the Democratic majority sounds when they can't accomplish these things. Get up there and DO something, for fuck's sake, before you just hand the entire country over to a fascist regime.

Gah!

Go vote, people! It's more important than ever.

Supah Tuesday

This is cross-posted at New England Mamas.

Whatever about the Super Bowl, I can't wait until Super Tuesday. I've already informed my husband that I shall be monopolizing the television that day. All day. MSNBC is going to start election coverage at, like, 6 a.m.. I may have to fight my toddlers over this - they are little Noggin addicts - and pray that they take a nice, long nap. I'm going to be in political geek heaven. It's too bad I don't know any other like-minded people or I'd have a primary party.

The endorsement of Barack Obama by Ted Kennedy was interesting to see. According to several sources, including The Huffington Post, Kennedy really gave Bill Clinton an earful, saying his comments were inappropriate for a former president. I couldn't agree more. Those few days when Bill Clinton was out there making remarks made me lose a lot of respect for the man and he was someone that I really liked and respected. It's disappointing and I'm sick of being disappointed by the Clintons.

When the New York chapter of N.O.W. said that Kennedy's endorsement of Obama was a betrayal of all women, I cringed. I don't know how his endorsement is a betrayal of anything. Am I betraying all women by voting for Obama? I don't think so. I'm not going to vote for someone just because she's a woman. If I don't like her, why should I vote for her? Shouldn't I base my vote on issues, not on gender or race? It seems to me that N.O.W. is endorsing Hillary Clinton simply because she is a woman, not because of anything she's done for women. I won't vote for her because she voted for the war in Iraq, plain and simple. And now she's saying that she didn't expect Bush to use the use of force resolution to go to war. Um, duh. Jesus. I know she's not a stupid person, but man, that sure makes her seem like one.

My other beef with Hillary Clinton is that she stayed with Bill after he left office, not out of any love for him but for purely political reasons. It was cold and calculating and I think she would have scored more points by leaving him and then going on to be elected to the Senate. She has relied on his good reputation and the fondness that people still have for him to boost herself politically. She's ridden his coattails into the Senate and now on to the Presidential primary. It annoys the shit out of me. If she wants to be a strong woman, she should stand on her own two feet and prove that she is capable of being president, that she doesn't need her husband to get her there.

Here's hoping that something gets decided on Tuesday. I don't know if my nerves can take much more of this.

Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around

"Mom, she hit me."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Mom, he's being mean about me."

"Am not!"

"Are too!

"Stop touching me!

"No, you stop touching me!"

"Ok, you two! Knock it off right now or we won't go one foot further. I'll turn this car around and we'll go home."

My interpretation of the recent debate and subsequent speeches given by Clinton and Obama. Seriously, doods. Cut the shit. I hate that crap. Grow up, suck it up and stop taking these petty, stupid swipes at each other. It's not making either of you look smart or like you're the candidate for change - which, by the way, I'm going to puke if I have to hear one. more. time. It's making you look petty and small and like every other politician out there. If there's one thing that doesn't epitomize change, it's these stupid, juvenile squabbles.

I'm starting to think about giving my vote to Edwards. I really can't stand to listen to much more of this crap. It's bugging the hell out of me that Bill Clinton is doing a lot of the sound bites. I can understand him campaigning for his wife - that's his right. But to continually smear Obama somehow diminishes him. He was the president. Maybe I'm being naive, but somehow, it seems a president should be above that type of campaigning. Bill Clinton is such a wonderful and persuasive speaker, I don't think he needs to sink to those levels.

I hope to hell this stops soon. I can't take another couple of months of this crap. I already listen to this from a couple of toddlers every day. I don't want to turn on the TV and see it there, too.

(In a total aside, did you see that Johnny Damon endorsed Rudy Giuliani? Way to jump on to another sinking ship, there, Johnny boy.)

(This is cross-posted at New England Mamas.)

This Is Me, Opening A Can Of Worms

I'm spouting political over on the New England Mamas blog.



Anyone have a flak jacket they aren't using?



Edited to fix broken link.

The Kid Is Alright

Last night, while we were driving to my mother's, I was listening to All Things Considered. I enjoy that show but rarely get to hear it because I'm usually at home when it's on, wrangling babies. If there's one thing I know, it's that trying to listen to NPR while small children are around is a Very Bad Idea.

Last night, though, the kids were quiet for an entire five minutes and I got to listen to the story on Congress and the Senate's approval of the FISA bill. The host was talking about the bill a bit. Uncharacteristically for me, I wasn't swearing or throwing things at the radio. I just listened. Apparently, so did O. The report ended and she said, "Pfft. And here I thought America was a free country. Now they're going to be able to read emails and listen to phone conversations whenever they want."

I love my kid. I love that she got it, that I didn't have to explain anything to her, that she listened and drew her own conclusion on the report.

More Olbermann Love

I feel like standing and cheering every time I hear one of these.

I even have my oldest daughter watching these special comments.