Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Wow. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I have to confess: I haven’t written in so long because, well, I’ve been mentally constipated. Truly – with my life (and the times) doing a 180 in the last couple of months, I think the sphincter of my capacity for self expression contracted tighter than prairie dog’s butt in a dust bowl (thank you, Dan Rather).

In what I hope turns out not to be a pathetic effort, I’m just gonna get rambling here to see what I can jog loose and, at the very least, get caught up on the doings in my little speck of the universe.

My Life and Welcome To It

I’m a week into what friends have dubbed The Transition. I’ve been unemployed now for two weeks and started school a week ago.

The day after my last day of work I felt a little discombobulated. It wasn’t like a sick/mental health day or a day of annual leave or a holiday. It was a you-are-now permanently-off work day and it felt odd. Not bad, mind you. Just odd.

I haven’t been unemployed since my late twenties. Oh, during my starving artist decade of my thirties, there was a smattering of no work here and there, but nothing extended and certainly no length of time that warranted collecting unemployment benefits – not that I could have collected at the time.

I have to pat myself on the back for impeccable timing. Who could have guessed that the collective mutiny at work would have landed us on the unemployment line right at one of the worst economic upheavals in modern times!

Setting the quickly evaporating hope of an actual retirement aside, though, this could end up being a positive thing. Oh, how, you ask, do tell.

Okay, I will.

For the next nine to twelve months, I’m on a fixed – and very tight – budget. I’m fortunate in that I had a nice soft financial cushion to fall back on. I’m relying on that to see me through for the next year while I regroup.

It’s limited, though. There’s X amount of dollars with nothing else coming in (aside from unemployment benefits which fizzle out sometime in March) which means I have to get frugal. This has forced me to scrutinize my spending and to begin to find ways to to stretch that dollar farther than a peasant on medieval torture rack.

I’ve mapped out a detailed budget (thank you Google docs – they’ve got some great templates just for that purpose) and identified areas that needed to cut – some easy, some not so easy.

My biggest area of wasted dollars is in food. I don’t, or didn’t, regularly cook for myself. I am a fast food and take-out junkie (Sonic burgers my drug of choice) which isn’t good for the pocket book to say nothing of the habit’s ill effect on one’s health.

I’ve set a target for weekly food expense and am determined that the food I eat will be generated from my kitchen. Period. I’ve managed to log one full week without slippin’ off the wagon – yay me.

One element that helps this effort along is the school I am attending is darn near out in the middle of nowhere, which makes lunch time treks near impossible. So, I bought a lunchbox and have been bringing my lunch every day which, by the way, has garnered some envious looks from other students who’ve lusted after my homemade chicken soup while they munched away at a box of microwaved, over-processed, and poor excuse for sustenance in the misguided belief that what they are eating is actually better than the fast food fare offered from the school cafeteria.

Speaking of lunchboxes, I’ll soon be replacing the one I have with a Bento Box.You may be thinking that that’s not exactly frugal, and you might be right – but, my reasoning which lead me to the purchase had to do with efficiency.

justification of purchase/ The Bento Box stores hot food and keeps it hot along with un-hot food. It will allow me to heat up my lunch before leaving for school in the morning and thus avoid the line at the microwave at lunchtime, as well as avoid microwave line social faux pas, like removing someone else’s meal before it’s done even though the timer’d gone off and it’s owner wasn’t standing there waiting on it and how was I to know it wasn’t finished yet?

With winter coming on, hot meals will be a comfort, plus I prefer to eat my main meal of the day at lunch. The Bento Box will hold more than will my little Target box. Plus, it’s just way cool./ justification of purchase

So, unemployment, radical life shift and an uncertain future, in the long run, may just turn me into a kitchen queen and budget diva – not a negative, to be sure. And in the meantime, I’m gaining new skills that just might be in greater demand once this economic crisis subsides – anyone think they might be in need of a newly minted bookkeeper in about, oh, say, nine months?

He Said, She Said, They All Said

How about that economic crisis, huh? How about those presidential campaigns, huh?

I’ve purposely avoided tuning in to the TV pundits this fall. Their egregious and willful ignorance (to say nothing of their bias) does nothing to keep my blood pressure down. Instead I’ve been hitting the internets, reading everything I can – pro and con – about the campaigns, the economy, et al.

I am so weary of the partisan shenanigans. How does one party dare to point the finger at the other? No-one has a clean record here. No-one doesn’t have a few bones rattling around in their respective closets.

And of course the tail-spinning economy is the Democrats fault. No, wait, it’s the Republicans fault. Ooops, no it’s Obama’s fault for his tax plan (which hasn’t been implemented yet because he hasn’t been elected yet – surprise!). No, wait – it’s McCain’s fault because he was buds with Charles Keating.

You know what’s really frightening? It’s the voters who make up their minds based on a few sound-bites on the evening news. It’s the noisome party die-hards who refuse to engage in intelligent and open minded discourse. It’s the, excuse me, idiots who can’t see past the propaganda and do nothing on their own to ferret out the facts.

Add to that the sorely misguided folks who opt not to vote at all, who do so out “protest” or to “send a message” or, even worse, just don’t care.

I have a very good friend who is a political officer for the State Department. In a recent conversation, he stated that he may not vote at all because there were aspects of both candidates’ platforms with which he strongly disagreed.

Well, I kinda lit into him. I was appalled that he would so blithely give up this most fundamental of rights. Especially given his position as a State Department employee!

I later got an email in which he stated my sermonizing had prompted him not to waste his vote after all. He found a party more in line with his views – the Green party – and he’s voting.

Folks, not voting isn’t the way to fix things. Not voting is saying “I don’t care. Do whatever you want.” Not voting inches the door closer to shut on our basic freedoms. Think about it. Think about the consequences if we all gave up that right.

Shudder.

Okay. Well, I think I’ve rambled on enough. I certainly hope I’ll be back here more regular-ly in the future (pun intended). In the meantime, I’d be interested to know how the economic turmoil has affected you. Have you made budget changes? Lifestyle changes? Let me know in comments.

Thanks for stopping by – before you go, enjoy some pics taken (with the iPhone camera) on the campus where I am attending school. Not bad for a Vo-Tech, eh?

Enough of the gloom and doom, dear readers. The sun is out and I’ve let some light in. I just may be back to my usual self. In fact, I’m darn near perky, if you can believe that.

My appetite seems to have returned in spades. To satisfy it, I paid a visit this morning to one of my favorite breakfast spots in town. It’d been a few months since my last visit due to the initiation of a new diet – one for health, more than for losing weight. I, therefore, had banned myself from…

Waffle House

Yeah. Crazy of me, I know. Who in their right mind would do a thing like that? Well, it’s fairly evident that I have not been in my right mind of late…

There are two of these establishments in my fair city. One is Waffle House Hell and the other is, well, not. In three visits to the first one, I’ve walked out twice after waiting too, too long to get served. In addition to that, it’s lack of upkeep would discourage even an in-discriminate cock-roach.

The second, well, I’ve had only one bad experience with a waitress who had an irrepressible need to give more attention to stocking the silverware than taking my order. Other than that sour encounter, it’s rep with me is one of a clean, well-managed establishment. And friendly.

This morning was no different. I was greeted like an old friend when I entered and my waiter proposed marriage after I sat down.

“No, really. You think I’m kidding. You say yes, I”ll leave right now,” he implored. I laughed and gave him my order – coffe, OJ, cheesey scrambled, hash-browns, wheat toast and bacon. Crisp.

On my left were a largish man and woman who had just finished what looked like a couple of heaping plates of biscuits ‘n gravy and whatever else the kitchen had to offer. They were jovial and chatty with the staff. While I waited for my order, I dove into my Google-Reader subs on my handy iPhone to catch up on my internet neighbors.

Just before my order came, the largish man ordered a steak. The waiter thought he was kidding. “Nope, I’m serious. Cook me up one of those steaks.”

One-of-those-steaks was a two handed Waffle House T-bone. Did I mention he was a largish man?

A couple on my right had finished up and, when the waiter brought the check, mentioned they were going fishing.

“I’m going with you,” the waiter announced. He turned to the rest of the staff, “Hey, I’m leaving. I’m goin’ fishin’ with these guys.”

There was a general laugh and the largish man said, “What? Ya’ not happy here? How long you been workin’ here?”

“Four years, but it’s about to be none.”

The largish man asked him what was going on.

“Well, ya’ see, I’m a cook. I kin cook uppa thousand dollars inna night an’ this croppa new cooks cain’t even manage a coupla hunert dollars worth without screwin’ up an order.”

He was clearly frustrated.

My breakfast was delivered, whereupon the largish man expressed his desire to possess my bacon. Crisp.

“Kin I have yer bacon? It looks mighty good.” He smiled. I thought to myself that this poor man’s wife was probably going to find her husband keeled over from a heart attack someday soon.

“Maybe, we’ll see how far I get,” I answered, but my bacon was going to stay put. I didn’t want to contribute to his impending coronary distress.

I gave my attention to my breakfast and my reading and let the rest of the Waffle House world swirl outside my bubble for a bit.

I tuned back in as I was finishing up. The general topic had shifted to politics.

“I’ll vote fer her, before ah’d vote fer that Obama,” the waiter stated as he cleared the dishes from in front of the largish couple.

“I cain’t stand her,” largish man protested. “She’s a liar and cain’t be trusted. I cain’t vote fer him either.”

“I’m not a democrat, but ah’d vote fer her before him. I couldn’t vote fer him ever.” Clearly my potential intended was further right than I. And maybe just a bit of a bigot. But, as I learned in the next moment, perhaps not as much of a bigot as my largish neighbor.

“Well, that Obama is full of anti-Amurikin sentiment. He’s got no substance. But, he’s got the blacks nailed.”

It was at that point that I noticed a new couple on my right. A young black man and his girlfriend. I gave them an “He’s an idiot” look. They sat quietly waiting to give their breakfast order.

Attempting unsuccessfully to lower his voice, largish man turned to his spouse and scoffed “When you mention blacks it’s s’posed to be high praise only…”

I pulled two dollars out of my pocket for the tip and tucked them under the side of my plate. I gave another look to the young couple on my right. I then looked at the largish man.

“Bacon?” He gleefully took my half eaten plate of bacon – crisp – from my hands.

I paid my bill and departed.

I am always suspicious of forwarded emails. Most (memed surveys, “click this”, and megabytes of cute jpegs) I usually discard without even reading. My sister is the source of many of the forwarded emails I receive. As this is usually the only communication I get from her, I am loath to discourage her of the habit. Every now and then, though, I get something from her that makes me laugh, intrigues me or makes me think.

One such forward landed in my in-box today. It echoed thoughts that have been racing through my head during this election season. After reading it, I went to the altar of Google and invoked its great wisdom regarding the author of the essay. I wanted to know if this person actually existed and whether or not he was a legitimate intellect or some crackpot. It’s always helpful to know if one is running with the idiots or with genuine thinkers.

Google offered up the source of the essay – John Shelby Spong’s website. From Bishop Spong’s website, I learned that he is a very liberal retired Episcopalian Bishop who e-mails his essays to subscribers. For a fee. Yes, capitalism is alive and well even in liberal Christiandom.

I did, however, find the few essays that were available for free to be interesting and compelling. Plus, this guy has some street cred with appearances on several prominent television shows – 60 Minutes, Politically Incorrect and the ever enlightening Extra.

Ok, so maybe that last endorsement lands him in the crackpot pile, however I suspect, depending on one’s religious, political or intellectual point of view, he is viewed as both crackpot and wise sage.

At any rate, I felt the essay my sister forwarded was worthy of passing on. This election year is proving to be historical, stirring up passions in the political arena that haven’t been seen in ages – if ever. Bishop Spong offers a reasoned point of view that, admittedly, could be criticized as biased, but at the very least is food for thought – especially for those folks out there who are quick to paint Hillary Clinton as an evil entity bent on obtaining power at all costs. It might just explain why she’s fighting so hard.

Anyway – here it is for you to read:

Sexism! Still a Force in American Politics

The quest for the Democratic nomination continues to ebb and flow as the two rivals struggle to gain an edge. Senator Clinton was presumed to be the front runner prior to the Iowa Caucuses, but Senator Obama won that state impressively. Then Senator Clinton came back to win the New Hampshire primary and looked poised for a sweep on Super Tuesday. The sweep turned out to be more of a draw and launched Senator Obama on to a string of eleven straight primary or caucus victories from South Carolina to Wisconsin from Washington to Vermont. Once more he seemed on the crest of victory. The super delegates who had been pledged to Senator Clinton began to waver and defect. No one smells blood better than a politician. The pundits were now sure that he would wrap up the nomination on March 4. It was, however, not to be as Senator Clinton roared back dramatically, scoring impressive victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Next Senator Obama won a caucus in Wyoming and a primary in Mississippi to regain his frontrunner position, but he did not win so decisively that he was able to clinch the nomination. So the struggle now moves on to the key state of Pennsylvania in which Senator Clinton, according to the polls, stands poised to make her third comeback of this primary season.

Beneath the excitement of what is surely the most interesting political contest in recent memory, there is another dynamic, always present, but seldom talked about. Two debilitating prejudices, sexism and racism, are in this political process being routed from their dwelling places deep in the psyches of our citizenry. Both have had long histories in the Western Christian world. Racism, the more overt and obvious of the two prejudices, was once protected by the laws of this nation, but it has had its back broken first by the bloodiest war in our nation’s history and second by a rising consciousness that found expression in the relentless pressure of the Supreme Court. Sexism on the other hand penetrated the culture in an almost assumed way that seemed to many to be appropriate, even proper. Even though sexism was also protected by the laws of this nation it was always more subtle and its evil less recognized. While no one would seriously argue today that racism in this society is dead, it is recognized at once when it rears its ugly head, while sexism is still widely supported in high places, including an obvious presence in the official statements of organized religion. Many church leaders continue to use a version of the “separate but equal” argument that has no credibility at all when applied in a racial context. No one in the political arena would dare to make an overtly racist comment, but overtly sexist comments have not been absent from this campaign. History tells us that while racism is crueler, sexism is more difficult to root out. Remember that this nation gave the vote to black men many years before it was given to white women. Data from this political season still points to the fact that sexism continues to be less recognized in the body politic than racism.

Senator Clinton, who had been first defined nationally as the “First Lady,” had to establish her professional competence apart from her husband. She did this by winning a seat in the United States Senate, by mastering the intricacies of that most exclusive of clubs, by gaining the respect of her colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and by avoiding the spotlight of the media while doing her unglamorous homework. Her constituents in New York responded to these efforts and rewarded her with election to a second term by an astonishing 64% majority. Senator Obama, on the other hand, had been in the Senate for only two years when he announced his intention to seek the presidency. This is not to say that he is without significant credentials. He was an impressive student in law school, being chosen to be editor of the Harvard Law Review, an honor that goes only to Harvard Law School’s top student. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago’s Law School for ten years, during which time he was elected to and served in the State Senate of Illinois. Those accomplishments are not to be minimized, but it is to say that no woman with a resume as brief as that of Senator Obama would have been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. A woman still has to be twice as impressive to be viewed as equal. That is an expression of sexism.

Hillary Clinton also had to carry the baggage of her husband in a way that no male politician has ever had to do. She is colored by the foibles of her husband’s administration. His negatives became her negatives. She wanted to keep her maiden name, Rodham, but political pressure on Bill Clinton after he lost the governor’s office in Arkansas forced her to become Hillary Rodham Clinton. The loss of her own identity, a reality that women have had to live with for centuries, has played a significant role in this campaign when people, defining Hillary as a Clinton, realized that in the elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 there had either been a Bush or a Clinton on the presidential ballot. She was thus identified with the Clinton politics of yesterday, not the Rodham politics of tomorrow. She was implicated in what came to be called the Whitewater Affair, which was investigated endlessly and finally dismissed, yet its odor seems to cling to her. When the Clintons left the White House in 2001 charges were made about the Clintons removing things that were not theirs. These charges turned out to be nothing more than political attacks and were demonstrated to be false; nonetheless the stain on her integrity remained. When Hillary Clinton was cast in the role of violated wife in the sordid Lewinsky affair, she could not win. She was criticized by some for refusing to leave her husband and by others for standing by her man. None of these things would have been the fate of a male politician. Sexism was clearly operating below the surface.

In 1972 when Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, she carried with her candidacy the impact of both racism and sexism. It is interesting to note that she said overcoming her status as a woman was always more difficult than overcoming her status as an African-American. That was an indication that even long ago racism was more overt and easily identified in the public arena than was sexism. In support of that thesis, I cite the following data from this campaign.

When Bill Clinton played the race card in the South Carolina primary, it backfired because people, aware of racism, were embarrassed by it. The sexist rhetoric that commentators let forth on Hillary Clinton, however, did not receive a similar rebuke in the Court of Public Opinion. Carl Bernstein on live national television referred to Hillary’s “thick ankles” and Tucker Carlson, an MSNBC conservative talking head, observed that “every time I get near Hillary Clinton I feel castrated.” Those were weird sexist comments, saying more about both Bernstein and Carlson than they did about Senator Clinton, but the point is that no female reporter could have gotten away with describing Governor Huckabee’s legs or with saying, “Every time I am in the presence of Mitt Romney, I feel like I am going to be raped!”

A male radio host for Station KOA in Denver, Colorado, wondered on a live national network whether Chelsea Clinton “was going to wind up with a big posterior like that of her mother.” Can anyone imagine such a statement being made about a son of John Edwards? When a woman in a political gathering asked John McCain how he was going to “beat the bitch,” he knew to whom the question applied and proceeded to answer it without unloading its hostility. McCain later, however, rebuked a right wing radio host when he spoke of Senator Obama in a derogatory racist manner.

Another radio talk show host accused a cable news channel of overreacting by suspending one of its political reporters, who had wondered aloud on national television “if the Clintons were pimping out their daughter as a campaign presence.” Is that not sexism?

Senator Clinton also had the distinction of being the only candidate to be called “the anti-Christ” by a member of the religious right. That was, I believe, a sign of misplaced sexist rage. Why would not the three times married, admitted adulterer, Mayor of New York, whose children will not speak to him because of his treatment of their mother, be a candidate for that title? Yet he was spared this ultimate religious slander.

Many people quite clearly still carry unconscious fears about a powerful woman. Look at the way Sandra Day O’Connor was negatively described by all of the Republican candidates except John McCain. Look at the number done on Geraldine Ferraro when she was the vice presidential nominee. Look at how Margaret Thatcher developed the aura of autocratic masculinity to win in Great Britain and how British male pride was displayed when they described her “as a man wearing a skirt.” Maybe no one ever forgets those years in our lives when we were helpless dependent infants being cared for by that seemingly all powerful woman we called mother. Maybe the fear of being made dependent again on a strong woman is still buried in our psyche. Maybe our sexist, male-oriented society, which still holds to the primary definition of a woman as a sex object, creates an unconscious difficulty in our ability to relate to women in a position of ultimate authority. Maybe women, who were taught how important it is to please a man to get ahead, were also threatened by her potential power. Perhaps that is why there have always been more “Aunt Jemimas” in the women’s movement than there were “Uncle Toms” in the black movement. There is much about which we can speculate, but the fact of which we are certain is that sexist barriers are still potent and that Hillary Clinton, is the current victim.

People uncomfortable about this charge reply, “I am not opposed to women, only to this woman.” However, this woman was the only one who has battled to the place where she has a real shot at the presidency and, in the final analysis, she has not yet won a normal portion of the white male vote while she has consistently lost,, never the majority, but a substantial part of the female vote to her opponent. Hillary Clinton may or may not become our next president. That is yet to be decided. What is clear, however, is that she has taken some of the sexist poison out of the body politic by absorbing it. That will make it possible if she fails in this quest for another woman in another day to climb to the top of the hill.

I am drawn to Hillary Clinton’s ability and to her intelligence. I admire the integrity and independence of John McCain. I am excited about the vision of a potential Obama presidency. I hope, however, that I will live long enough to see my nation and this world be able to celebrate the full humanity and the equal competence of women.

John Shelby Spong

There’s a stretch of road in my town that, up until recently, was devoid of buildings and traffic. It winds between the highway and the small airport on a north/south route for about two miles. It’s a route I enjoyed taking because, most times, I’d be the only driver on the road. I could wind my way slowly or push my speed to challenge the curves, worry free that there’d be other drivers to contend with – low risk and, well, relaxing.

It’s no longer an empty road. Progress has invaded with a surge that includes and strip shopping center, a Super Target and a new Embassy Suites hotel – and that’s only the beginning. Traffic has picked up, more stoplights have been installed and my enjoyment of a lazy two mile ride has been spoiled by shoppers hell bent to beat the next car to the best parking space.

Oddly, this road came to mind today as sort of a metaphor for some experiences of the last few weeks.

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I’m not a person who enjoys controversy, nor do I like to stray very far from routine. I like things to stay on an even keel and agreeable. I’d like to say that this sort of existence brings me a nice level of peace of mind and tranquility. The truth is, though, I tend to take it too far and bury my head in the sand. I’ve become an expert at avoiding the uncomfortable. This has resulted in a solid pain in the neck – quite literally – that I have struggled to get under control in the last couple of years.

But I’m digressing a bit. On the personal front, in the last few weeks I experienced the death of a colleague and the announcement from my best buddy his wife is leaving him. On the work front – our office is the champion of low morale and poor working conditions. On the external front – the election has me more concerned than any previous election has in my lifetime. My nice, empty, winding life road is filling with with unavoidable traffic.

What I want to address with this post, though, is the last concern – the election. I got so wound up about this that by Friday of this last week, I was having small bouts of uncontrollable and irrational tears throughout the day. I wound myself up so tight that Friday night, I had perhaps the worst nightmare I’ve had in a long time, if not ever. I woke up panting and scared.

The source of this angst began with my indecisiveness over who would get my vote in my state’s presidential primary. As a registered Democrat, I had two choices – Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. My lead choice, John Edwards, had dropped out of the race. I took every chance to talk with friends and read everything I could in an attempt to make a decision. The critical factor for me was who was the better candidate to win the general election. Which one could beat McCain?

Getting the Republicans out of the White House is extremely important to me. I firmly believe Bush’s administration will go down in history as one of the worst – if not the worst – our nation has ever had the misfortune to experience. I also firmly believe that another Republican administration will do little to clean up GW’s mess and nothing for bringing the kind of change and leadership the nation needs to get back on track and strong again.

I was equally divided between Hillary and Obama. Not so some of my friends. The fuse to my extreme angst was lit after a conversation with a good friend and a response from another friend to a post on my other blog. Both of these individuals stated that, for them, it would be Obama or no-one. They unequivocally and unabashedly hate Hillary Clinton to the extent that if she were to get the nomination, they would choose not to vote..

I can’t understand it. The hatred borders on the irrational. I launched a search on the internet in an effort to understand and found that there is quite a faction of people out there that share this extreme hatred. It goes beyond a disagreement with policy – Hillary and Obama are nearly identical on their issue positions, so it isn’t that. It is vitriolic, vehement and unwavering hatred.

But that expression of hatred isn’t what wadded me into a ball of angst. It was the statement that if Hillary Clinton ends up being the nominee, these individuals that have this hatred for her, would throw away their vote and not vote. I love my friends, but I can’t respect that choice. I’d rather see them give their vote to McCain then to waste it in some petulant protest that proves nothing. Giving that vote to McCain might serve to make them think about what is at risk with another Republican administration:

• the loss of even more of the individual rights that the Bush administration has chipped away in the last eight years.
• the perpetuation of a war that is wasting billions of dollars that could be better spent on a crumbling infrastructure and rebuilding the farce that is “Homeland Security.”
• up to another decade before real progress can be made in the Health Care crisis.
• a worsening of the economy, more job-loss to off-shore and overseas interests, and increased unemployment…

I could go on, but I’ll stop there.

I’ve managed to calm myself down. I actually got a stretch of good sleep last night – a rare thing. I believe the haters are a minority and that whichever one gets the nomination will have the fight of their life to get elected. Either one will be fine by me. I urge my friends to rethink – really consider what not voting accomplishes – what would really be achieved by throwing that fundamental right away?

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One last thought on my metaphorical drive. My quiet two mile stretch of winding road has a disturbing landmark. A tree was planted on the divide where someone died in an accident. No doubt a young one who felt the need to push the boundaries and had something to prove. I’ll leave you to ponder on whatever you wish to extract from that.