I'm Baffled

The democrat party is supposed to be the one with the new ideas and all. Progressive. Whatever. So why is it that ever since I've been paying attention (I was for Ford against Carter when I was six) the democrat candidate is always portrayed as the smartest guy ever and their women are such noble creatures while the Republican is always dumb as a stump and their women are spendthrift kook control freaks?

Girlfriend, look out.

I don't know an awful lot, but I know we're being set up.

When the person you are dating drops their company manners it can be seen as a sign the relationship is developing. As you become more secure in the affections of your sweetheart, more of your real personalities come through. You begin to notice things about each other, things that cross the line between 'quirky' and 'obnoxious;' his secret love of Air Supply, her shopping issues, etc. You must decide which foible is a dealbreaker, and if you go on with the relationship you may hear, during the course of an argument, "You knew I was like that before...." See, it's your fault. They were honest about who they were. They don't have to change. You have to accept them. Be supportive. Or else you're a heartless jerk.

We have reached that point in our relationship with Misters Obama and Biden. Perhaps it is a good thing that the campaign has been going on since the Bronze Age; it's taken this long for the new to wear off. Obama's tacit approval of the hounding and investigation of a private citizen tells us what will happen to those who help Obama look bad. Remember, it wasn't that guy's question that was the problem. And now Biden has said in so many words we will face some kind of crisis in the first six months of Obama's administration, one that won't be handled appropriately, and we should all just suck it up and support the guy anyway.

Pass.

As a woman and a cynic, I respectfully decline. This relationship will turn out like so many others have. He won't improve; in fact, as he discovers our tolerance for bad behavior, he will only get worse, more unreasonable, more erratic. And it will always be our fault. We never beleived in him. We always stood in the way of his dreams. We were just so damn negative all the time.

I can totally see why Oprah digs him. Personally, I'd feel better with grown people in charge.

More Projection Than Sundance

James Carville is an ass. There, I said it. I feel cleansed. There have been simperings in the media before this, but leave it to Mr. Matalin to reinforce the stereotype of the unreconstucted ignorant bigot cracker. But first, allow me to address the dolts at the L.A. Times, since their story came first.

This started a few days ago, the murmurings that Gov. Palin might not be following the literal word of the Bible by being submissive to her husband, as if this made her somehow less than Christian. First of all, I should like to congratulate the author of the article, Teresa Watanabe, for reading a biblical passage without vaporizing or whatever. Second of all, if she were possessed of shame, she should feel it for blithely assuming that telling those backward fundies that Miss Sarah wasn't toeing Watanabe's interpretation of some obscure New Testament sentence fragment would be all it took to send them for the tar and feathers. Or perhaps she had a good old- fashioned stoning in mind. At least it's plausible to the layman that Gov. Palin practices some sort of faith. Unlike some people. Anyway, it's not like Christians-- other than my ex-inlaws-- keep score about who's the most observant. Sort of not what it's about. The whole brouhaha was concocted in the fevered imaginations of the godless, who arrogantly assume they are the clever ones. I thought ignorance was supposed to be bliss. These people seem awfully chapped.

Speaking of suppurating pustules, James Carville achieved the dubious distinction of making a statement of incredible racism against both blacks and whites simultaneously. I didn't think I'd live to see it.

Now let me be clear here, if Obama goes in this race with a 5- point lead and losing this election, the consequences are -- bull, man. I mean I don't think that's going to happen, but I think David it's a point to bring up. But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there."

Al Gore was 11 points ahead at this time in 2000, by the way.

The consensus has been that Carville meant riots. So he must think of black folks as unreasoning beasts that can be called out like dogs to ravage the countryside if whitey wills it. At the same time, he seems to think that the specter of angry blacks breaking windows resonates on a visceral level with the white and uptight. In short, blacks are animalistic and whites are supposed to fear them. Now, I like antiques, but honestly. Step out of the wayback machine, will ya?

These are the people who want to lead us into the future? These unevolved cro-magnons who think everybody is as heart-rendingly, teeth-grindingly, head-poundingly stupid as them? You know what? Get out of the damn way, and be grateful that some people think all life has value, even as a bad example to to others.

The Days of Swine and Poses

Isn't it interesting that Obama seems to have forgotten his opponent is McCain? Maybe it's because he understands Palin could get the big job. Not because McCain might keel over in office; they said that about Reagan, too. Stay Classy, people. On the slim chance Obama wins the election he could be running against Palin four years from now.

For some reason it's particularly galling for a man to be bested by a woman. I don't get it -- I can't even make myself think like that -- but I understand the opinion exists here on this planet and I'll play along. There is, though, something unbecoming about descending into grade-school epithets in place of actual reasoned debate. While Palin can discuss McCain's platform at length in terms that resonate with the other average people, I don't think she will respond to Obama they way they must do it at Harvard, by thumbing her nose and saying, "I know you are, but what am I?"

The Democrat line is that, among other reasons, Mrs. Palin is a poor choice for VP because she has no foreign policy experience. We hardly ever trot the VP out to do the heavy lifting on foreign policy. In fact, sending the Veep is our way of telling you, foreign leader, we don't think you rate. It must be part of the whole 'rooting-for-McCain-to-die' thing. Lovely. Mr. Obama has said his foreign policy would mainly consist of sitting down with other leaders and talking things out. Now I really wonder how that's going to go. Boy, I sure hope they all agree with him.

Nobody Asked Me...

OK, so I'm a little late to the Palin party. I wanted to see how things were shaking out. So far I've got: She's unqualified, inexperienced, too religious, frumpy, and a bad mother. Also, she's evil. She purposefully afflicted an innocent baby -- her own baby --with a genetic disease. Your baby could be next.

Of course none of this is true. Alaska's pretty big and it borders on two foreign countries, one of whom hates us while the other merely tolerates us. You pick which one's which. People in the lower 48 ( No, really, Mr. Obama. 48. ) tend to forget about Alaska, all tucked away up there like that. It's got military installations, some that are en clair and some that aren't. I suspect she already has a working relationship with the top brass. They produce and export energy, although I don't think they have refining facilities up there, so they pay the most for the petroleum and propane they consume. More than Hawaii, even. Sucks. Because Alaska's so big it's a logistical challenge to get anything civic done statewide, like law enforcement. Mrs. Palin has to coordinate the activities of state and local authorities with the Feds, who are run from DC, the opposite of Alaska. She's had as much experience running a government as Harry Truman did when he became President. He managed.

So she's got to be on the ball to do all this and coordinate the activities of all those kids. And don't start on the pregnant daughter. The same thing happened to my son, his cousin on dad's side, my oldest uncle on mom's side, Mr. Obama, and several members of your own family whether you know about it or not. The dinosaurs of feminism, Quinn and Steinem, for whom Sarah Palin represents everything they claim to admire, say she has too many children and she can't look after them properly and work outside the home. Nobody said that to Al Gore, who has four kids, or Grammaw Pelosi, who rounded up every child in a five-mile radius and a couple of short adults for her swearing-in photo, or JFK, who had his kids in his office with him while he was President. Maybe men are better at thinking about more than one thing at a time.

I think I know what the problem actually is. I ran into this attitude a lot when I was working construction. The idea of me appealed to the "hear me roar" crowd. You know, single mommy gets herself off welfare, works in a nontraditional field, competing with the menfolk on their level, yada yada yada. The most patronizing and obnoxious people, the ones who took the most care to remind me that I was there because of affirmative action and not because I worked damn hard, the ones who expected me to be grateful to them specifically, were my union reps, every man Jack a good liberal. When I made it clear that I not only did not feel beholden, but that I thought they should thank me for making it so they could work indoors swinging a pencil was when they started in with the "stupid girl" crap. Like in that movie -- "Full Metal Jacket," I think it was-- where the soldier slaps the Vietnamese guy upside the head and says "We're doing you gooks a favor, here!"

Sarah Palin's problem is that she's uppity and she doesn't know her place.

This has me wondrering.

Three Million Bees Found in Miami Home

Who counts them? Is it the new guy? The allergic guy? He'd do a thorough job.The guy who didn't find air traffic control enough of a challenge? How do they count them? Do they take a picture? Do they mark them some way? I'm getting a visual of the guy who paints the "m" on the candy. Do they have a one-bee-at-a-time vacuum cleaner attachment and count them as they go through?

Maybe they just guess. I'd just guess, through binoculars. Sealed up in a car a half mile away. With the engine running.

The Meanest Nice People in the World.

I get a lot of heat from my family and friends over my political views, especially from friends I've reconnected with after a period of being out of touch. It varies from indulgent disapproval (hi, mom) to vitriolic name-calling. That would be my older brother. He's bald and bitter. My friends and I share a mutual befuddlement; them over "how conservative I've become," and me over how they managed to get lead poisoning. Kidding. It's more likely mercury from the fluorescent lights. I feel like the guy in the Joe Walsh song: "Everybody's so different/ I haven't changed."

And I really think I haven't changed. I've always thought that we were each in charge of our individual destiny, that women and men are complimentary equals -- as in, not the exact same, thank God, that race doesn't matter; like love, stupid sees no color. I also think the strong should show consideration for the weak, and that the weak have an obligation to become stronger so they can shoulder their responsibility for themselves. My favorite freedom, though, the one I really miss, is -- as W.S. Burroughs put it -- the freedom to mind my own damn business. I never really thought of these as conservative views. I always kind of saw them as the way things were supposed to work.

And once upon a time my friends felt the same way. Some still think they do. But they see the world in childish, comic book terms, where the "Neo-Cons" are the Forces of E-vil and the "Progressives" are the superhero class, like the X-men. All war is bad, unless neither side is white, and then we're not touching that one. That doesn't happen. No person is illegal, unless they are more wealthy than you. Everyone has a right to earn a living, unless it's in oil production or whaling, in which case those damn Eskimos can starve. Women are always better than men. No religion and all religions are better, more virtuous than Christianity, the dominant religion of Western Civilization. Because we're too big, too wealthy, our citizens deserve to be attacked and we don't deserve to defend ourselves. We had it coming.

I'm telling you that to tell you this: If we lay back and allow things to progress the way they are there will come a group of people who aim to take us over for real, people whose lines of reasoning and life philosophies are foreign to ours in every sense of the term:

Is it obligatory for the husband to provide medical treatment for
his wife?
Q: If the wife becomes temporarily or chronically ill, does the husband have to pay for her treatment? If she for example, wants to have children but suffers from problems preventing her from having children,
does her husband have to seek treatment for her and pay for it? If it is not compulsory on the husband to do so, then what shall the wife do if she becomes ill while she does not have money and her husband doesn’t give her money to save?

A: Praise be to Allaah.
According to the majority of fuqaha’ from the four madhhabs, the husband is not obliged to pay for medical treatment for his wife. Some of them gave the reason for that as being that it is not one of the essential needs, rather it is something extraneous. Imam al-Shaafa’i (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in al-Umm (8/337): The man is not obliged to offer a sacrifice on behalf of his wife or to pay the fee of a doctor or cupper for her. End quote.
It says in Sharh Muntaha al-Iraadaat (3/227): He is not obliged to provide medicine or pay the fee of a doctor if she falls sick, because these are not essential needs, rather they are incident and are not obligatory. End quote

See: Haashiyat Ibn ‘Aabideen (3/575); Sharh al-Kharashi ‘ala Mukhtasar Khaleel (4/178).

This is the website that quote came from. To be fair, it ultimately says that it would be a nice thing to do to pay for your wife's medical bills. Do check out the home page, and notice it's in English, among several other European languages.

I don't know how it is that my close circle seems to think that just because the guy down at the corner store is nice that I'm a sheet-wearing racist for implying that maybe Islam is not as benign as they think. I can't understand other women I know who rail and cry over how unfair our society is to them, and I don't understand how anyone who claims to believe in personal liberty could be sanguine with a society that demands you pray to their god five times a day, that bans pet dogs, literature and music, that punishes homosexuality with death, the same way it punishes teaching little girls to read.

I wish there was a way to make them see, before we all have to learn by example.