Sarah Palin: Fighting for Women's Rights!

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YEAH! That's a plaid skirt of GENDER JUSTICE!

That's the Way the Ball Bounces

To everyone who's called on the American people to make a sacrifice,
to everyone who's bemoaned our decadent and soft lifestyle,
to everyone who's lamented that today's children haven't faced real hardship,
here's what you've been waiting for.

I expect shortly to discover just what I've been taking for granted. It will be a growth experience, I'm sure.

Either that, or it will all have been an embarrassing false alarm. Right? That could still happen, couldn't it?

A Mark Hunter wrote in to the Detroit News, saying "I keep waiting for Orson Welles to appear, explaining that, like the fictitious 1938 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast, this financial calamity is pure fiction."

I think that's wishful thinking.

It's Not My Real Father

I'd like to meet Susan LeFevre and ask her what her opinion is.

I wouldn't specify a topic - I'd ask just that. "Hello, Susan. My name is Joel, one of thousands of people who impersonally know you. What's your opinion?"

Still waiting on that pardon from our Governor, if in fact she really is that. I begin to suspect that we are not governed by Jennifer Granholm, but rather a poorly-designed robot incapable of taking action outside its narrow and limited programming. It's definitely trying to do a good job - but it's a robot.

As I've said earlier, I pray we never have to depend on Susan LeFevre's faith in humanity. And I'd really like to meet her, to apologize for something (I don't know exactly what), and ask her opinion.

What does Susan LeFevre think of the energy crisis? Who does she favor in the presidential election? Does she prefer PCs, or Macs? Does she think I look like Bill Murray?

I think the only reason she's still in jail, really, is because she has a French last name. The French are right there in third place, behind Arabs and non-Arab Muslims, just above Indians-who-are-commonly-mistaken-for-Arabs, on the list of prejudged people in America.

This morning, I went for a run around the block. Upon my return, I had pastries, green tea and ice-water. At my own pace, I took my breakfast with me to the computer. I now sit in front of it, idly thinking of what to type next as I stare out the window. At this time of morning, the sun reaches gently through it, making solar glare the most significant difficulty I currently face.

From this point, it would be ignorant and naive to say that I have an abusive father. I'm rather one of my father's favorite sons, for whom scorn is unknown, and gifts abundant. At Christmas time, Daddy doesn't want me to look in the corner at my sister, clad in rags and idly staring through black eyes at her happy meal toy. He shows me shiny new iMacs and video games, and then despairs as I can't take college seriously.

Barack, You Should Have Practiced With My Grandpa

Debates are awesome.

Is there any competition so subjectively judged, with such bias in virtually every spectator (other than figure skating)? Is there any other kind of struggle, whose victory conditions are not only amorphous and vague, but even unpredictable and as fickle as public opinion?

My day could have ended with the sad knowledge that my candidate lost the debate - even got trounced and laughed at. Fortunately, I stayed up late enough to see the poll numbers.

Wow. So after my initial surprise, and soberly acknowledging that unscientific polls are severely flawed, my question is this: with most pundits saying the debate was a tie, how is it that only 6.4% of those polled think so?

I think this tells us something about what kinds of people respond to post-debate online polls - people like me, who thought McCain won, but will gladly claim the opposite for a poll. Bwahahahaha. Ugh.

Is it just me, or does all of this hoopla seem like insubstantial fluff, more like an inconsequential sports match than a debate over the future of our country?

Expensive Stuff

I was at dinner with my extended family, unable to relax or take more than an obligatory part in the conversation. I was hiding scraps of weed in one of my hands, desperately searching for a safe way to get rid of the stuff.

Opportunity seemed to present itself: a bowl of pesto afforded my schwag the finest camouflage one could ask of an Italian dinner. Deciding that I would sort it out later, I deposited my forbidden valuables in the bowl.

It was only then that I realized: pesto isn't usually stored in liquid. In this particular case, it was. I saw then that it wasn't just any liquid, either - it was my sister's perfume.

As she began to look at me, aghast, I insisted that I would sort the pesto out from her perfume, promising to lose as little perfume as possible. She seemed unconvinced.

What my extended family thought, I have no idea. That was when I woke up.

My Friends...

"He won that election, right?"

The Real Reason She Got Fired

Now Serving Crispy Bruschetta with Scapegoat Cheese

Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard and until recently advisor to the McCain campaign, caused a small stir when she said that Sarah Palin did not have the experience to run a major company. She later qualified this comment by adding that John McCain didn't have that kind of experience, either. Finally, she added that Barack Obama and Joe Biden couldn't run a major company either, before promptly being fired.

Here's my quick, irrelevant question, before we get on to the big beef here: Should we expect candidates for president to have the experience necessary to run a company - not just the ability or leadership qualities, but the experience? Hilariously, Fiorina's defense of her statements, something to the effect of "But Palin isn't running for CEO," was a legitimate point. It's absurd to expect our presidential candidates to be qualified for a very different job, but this obvious truth was lost in a world where nuance is largely ignored, and oversimplification is the order of the day.

We shouldn't be talking about who can and can't run a major company. CEOs are accountable to shareholders; Presidents are accountable to everybody. CEOs don't veto legislation, engage in diplomacy with other countries (oh sure, "diplomacy" with other CEOs. Must a CEO study the cultural practices of other companies before going abroad to speak with them?), or have to deal with anything resembling Congress and the Supreme Court. CEOs manage companies; presidents manage economies. CEOs don't have any kind of authority over war (well, at least in theory), over "hot-button social issues" like abortion or gay marriage. CEOs are not expected to perfectly execute that most vague and difficult of tasks, "being a leader" to an entire nation of people.

Anyway. The real reason Carly Fiorina got fired was not for her candid statements about her boss, which should not have (but probably has) hurt his campaign, but because of her very un-hip reaction to Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. There's nothing John McCain hates more than to be portrayed as uncool and behind the times. (All those celebrity ads about Obama? As MSNBC's liberal talking heads suggested, I think he's jealous of Obama's coolness.)

Even as Johnny Mac and Sarah P were saying nice things about the SNL skit, Fiorina derided it as "sexist." (In what way, you ask? Because she thought it made Hillary Clinton, who incidentally is a woman, look better than Sarah Palin.) Ooops.

The Campaign: "Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain, and almost all the campaign staff, watched it and thought it was hilarious. Carly is speaking for herself."

Warrior Culture

Can we just stop pretending that we like peace, for just a minute? Because we don't.

We've got a war on drugs, a war on terrorism, a culture war and a class war. We're proud of our military, proud of our military history, and proud of our competitive spirit. We love politicians who say they're going to fight - for our rights, for our families, against corruption, etc. It's no coincidence that football is our favorite sport; that it defeated docile baseball for that title. We're pretty excited about guns, too.

Much has been said of our love for violent film and television. Much has been said of human nature being violent at its core; if that's the case, we're not doing much to collectively resist that impulse.

Much has been said, in fact, about all of these things. Many commentators have pointed out that ours is a violent culture, and that's the most telling sign of all: we haven't changed. Brought to face our love of violence, our response has been "So? What's wrong with it?"

In public, we certainly speak of peace. Certainly it would look bad, in public, to support a statement like this: "Trample the weak, hurdle the dead." But the world in which we purchase goods is private, and here is where we show our true colors.

Old People Love to Argue

Dear Barack Obama,

Hello. My name is Joel, and I'm a canvasser working for your campaign. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about my grandfather.

My grandfather is 94 years old. He's had several strokes, and is now afflicted with a debilitating dementia that renders him barely able to communicate, let alone remember most things. He has military experience, and rose to the rank of staff sergeant; today, he'll confusedly report having been a staff sergeant at his local synagogue.

Three times a week, I go to his house to help take him to an adult day-care center. As he's in a wheel-chair, it takes two people (myself and a hired helper) to get him out of the house, into a car, and back again later in the day. What little time he has at this center is all he has to look forward to, other than his favorite food, White Castle hamburgers. (Ironically, he was once president of the Michigan Public Health Association.)

I'm writing you not about any particular seniors' issue, or about any particular disease. I am not advocating for federally funded programs for old people or anything relating to social security. I am, in fact, suggesting my grandfather as a possible practice-opponent to help you prepare for your upcoming debates with John McCain. With Jennifer Granholm playing the part of Sarah Palin for the sake of honing Joe Biden's debate skills, I figure you need someone who somewhat resembles John McCain. My grandfather has experience in the military, was engaged in politics through his public health career (where he was even a president!), and most importantly, will present you with an intellectual challenge similar to what you'll face in the real debates.

Thank you for your time,

Me

P.S. - I can't believe you're in favor of charter schools! You can be a real schmuck sometimes, you know that?

Right From the Heart

Now Serving Thuggery

Hunter S. Thompson Rides Again!

I should do some submersion journalism, from the perspective of a door-to-door canvasser. Man, do I have some stories.

"Can I just say this?" began the staunch Democrat. She had informed me that she hated McCain, but couldn't vote for Obama. I didn't ask why. "This is from the heart - I really just want to say this: to have a black man in the White House, it's just un-American. I really think that." Maybe she was more of a pre-1960s democrat.

When I played World of Warcraft, I had a guild-leader who said "Everybody who's white is white trash. If you think you're not, that just means you're trashier." I've since discovered that he was right; I was living in willful ignorance of my own trashy tendencies. Not only have I sat in a sofa that was on a front lawn, it was an inclined lawn, and I was smoking cigarettes. I've drunk Budweiser - and liked it. I have shot off a firework while it was in my hand (it was a really small one). I've never eaten squirrel, but I did room with a guy who had. So when I met a woman who'd hated Obama until two weeks ago, which was when she discovered he's a democrat, I took it in stride and signed her right up as a supporter. Hell, I myself didn't know who Sarah Palin was until August 29th.

Itchy Itchy

Now Serving Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Latex and Leather Flavors

This place smells like dryer sheets.

I was relieved to find red stains on my socks. I feel like having blood in your socks means you've truly made a sacrifice - like, you're so hardcore, you've done something until your feet bled. That something need not have been dancing, running, or a winter at Valley Forge. It can be something like scratching mosquito bites on your ankles way too much - it's still hardcore.

Here's a shocker - Comcast is appealing the FCC's recent pro-net neutrality ruling. And apparently, public interest groups supporting net neutrality are suing the FCC, for not requiring Comcast to stop its bittorrent-blocking immediately.

I'm not sure that's a useful expenditure of our energy, pissing off the organization that we're trying to influence.

If this is an economic issue, we should look at the economic side of it. It seems to me that without net neutrality, we will allow a monopolizing of internet business. As I understand it, monopolies aren't good for the overall health of the economy. It seems like a compelling reason to believe that the telecomm industry isn't looking out for the health of the market, as they claim, so much as the short-term health of their own businesses. (Another excellent reason - the many corporations that support net neutrality).

And, you know, there are those ethical reasons. And the democracy thing.

I Don't Get It

I'm sitting in front of my computer.

My parents paid for this computer, mostly. I paid for as much of it as I could, and the rest was covered by a generous, no-interest parental loan. A rare instance of my benefiting from inflation.

I feel spoiled. I don't want to call it "my computer," I want to call it "the computer."

This is one of the two activities that dominate my time in my room, which dominates the time in my life. I lie in my bed, or I sit in front of my computer. I listen longingly to the eccentricities and surprises of strange music, filling up with frustration. I feel like I can hear what I'm missing out on. I don't know anything about the creative process of this music, the people and relationships that make it, or the feel of the places where it comes from. They're inaccessibly distant, not just because they're mostly in Canada.

From where I lie on my bed, I used to see a Red Wings banner celebrating their 2008 Stanley Cup championship. I'd hung it up on the back of one of the bookshelves that forms a wall of my room. I'd never liked its layout, and it was beginning to resonate with the power of stir crazy monotony, so I took it off recently.

I think a lot, and very hard. I spend a lot of time staring. When I'm lying in bed, I see what looks like a shadow on the back of that bookshelf, a permanent sun-protected imprint of my Red Wings poster.

I also took away a medal I'd hung up, one of those you win just by being on the kids' soccer team. Looking now, I see that it too left an imprint, what looks like a scorch mark down the back of the other bookshelf.

I walk up and down the stairs a lot. Sometimes I don't have a reason. I plan on doing something just after I get back from the upstairs trip I need to take. I can't quite speak. I walk around. I look in the fridge. I can't quite speak. I dismiss what's on TV. I walk around. I look in the fridge. I dismiss what's on TV. I go back downstairs.

My soccer medal was on a necklace. I don't know what they're called, those things for hanging medals around necks (or keys, I often see). Some of them advertise for colleges, or the army. My soccer necklace looked like a party hat from Chuck. E. Cheese's.

Songs pop into my head with the appropriateness of network news. Lighting up a cigarette, I hear Stevie Jackson singing "...smoke another one..." When I'm overwrought, I hear "Take it Easy." When I realize that I need google to know anything about a song's context, I hear the Beatles' "Nowhere Man."

Is that actually the name of the song? I don't remember.

I've Got Your Submersion Journalism Right Here

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Bad Media! Take a Timeout!

It's almost as though the McCain campaign thinks politicians are entitled to keep a leash on journalists, and not the other way around.

I don't understand how this can be spun into "bias." It was a textbook example of a disingenuous, slimy weasel dodging a question. He got called on the carpet for it, and yet somehow people come away from that thinking that the interviewer was "foisting her opinions on the public."

I guess a journalist is entitled to the opinion that truth has value, so long as that journalist remains objective and respects differing opinions about truth. If the facts heavily favor one side in a debate, fudge them until you've got a symmetrical difference of opinion. Don't make the flat earth society look stupid; don't have a story about Obama without an equal-length story about McCain right next to it; don't bully the brave souls who speak to you by asking them questions they weren't prepared for in advance. To rock the boat or hold public officials to any kind of standard is to completely compromise your journalistic integrity.

In other news, PETA fought for cops' rights by protesting at the ham factory. I saw it myself.

Routine Alarm

A star whose words are nightly ritual
lists nouns foreign in my own tongue.

Places without postcards
where people live
exist, and things are happening.
Here are some names for you.

I'm the only one listening.
I can't mark the patterns
or find context for my first
question. I wonder if I'm really listening.

With more strange gifts
left admired, unused and forgotten,
the words become bland,
filtered as I want
and not as I need -

a solo experience,
intimate time spent with
the dynamic world I never
meet in real life.

"Hot Damn" Indeed

Now Serving Raw Moose and Jack Daniels

With his selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate, John McCain has made it clear he's not above using cynical ploys to garner votes from horny conservative men.

Step Aside, Ann Coulter. Not only did Rush Limbaugh call Palin a "babe," his callers are chiming in: "...she's attractive, not in a superficial Hollywood way, she's just an attractive woman..." There is some speculation that Palin's selection may backfire for McCain, but Rush disagrees: "She's not going to remind anybody of their ex-wife, she's going to remind men, 'Gee, I wish she was single.'"

Fear not, men of America: John McCain has not nominated a nag to the White House.

Q: "What is it exactly that the VP does every day?"

A: Get the President a sandwich and a beer?

Oh yeah, and show up at funerals. That's the other one people are mentioning a lot, for some strange reason.

Personally, I'm concerned about this comment of hers: "But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all." Since Hillary was running for president, and Palin's only running for vice president, we're forced to assume that she's plotting to assassinate McCain - possibly by giving him a heart attack. (We know she's got his supporters excited.)

Seriously, though, as a male feminst, I'm very happy about this pick.* I'm proud to say I'll be voting for McCain/Palin, and I hope Sarah Palin will go on to be our next vice president. I can't think of a better role model for our daughters, and I'm confident that she'll inspire the next generation of American women to smile, wave, and look pretty at the side of old men.

And she's got the same independent streak McCain has. She may be foaming at the mouth with the reactionary policies of the status quo; she may be falling over herself trying to emphasize her traditional family and traditional values; she may oppose abortions even for rape victims or women whose lives are threatened by pregnancy, but she's a maverick. You can tell by the rebellious ways of her daughters - one is boldly challenging the patriarchal hierarchy by having a child out of wedlock, while the other can be seen courageously crossing her arms for the national anthem.

*The real reason feminists are happy about this pick: it appears that it might sink McCain's campaign. Not that it'll matter, of course - with men like these, institutions like this, and companies like Diebold around, who needs to win voters?