RumourNation

Super Tuesday with Agnes and Myrtle

I already mailed my absentee ballot, I'm so excited for this election.  But for the rest of you "declined to state" party members, here are some excellent voting instructions from Agnes and Myrtle for next week's primaries: 

The Future.

And it's a little scary.

Sin Cojones

I'm wearing my Hillary t-shirt today, in celebration.  I had started a blog post in reaction to asshole Jake Tapper's post on ABC.com (I refuse to link to it) after Clinton's debate appearance in New Hampshire.  For responding firmly and cogently on a question, and refusing to accept the condescension that John Edwards was attempting to hand her, Hillary was dubbed, among other things, "shrill" and "angry."

And the comments . .  woah.  Why is it that it's unacceptable to refer to Obama's race and background in perjorative words, but it's perfectly acceptable to call a woman candidate a "bitch," or even more disturbingly, a "c***?"  (I hate that word so much I refuse to type it.)

Well, trust priestess Gloria Steinem to hit the nail on the head:  It's all about the boys, and the fact that they are scared.  In her Op-Ed piece in the NYT, "Women are Never Front Runners,"  Steinem says "Gender is the most restricting force in American life," and reminds us that black men received the vote 50 years before women did.  American men, apparently, don't have the cojones to support a woman president.

And when Hillary suffered a defeat in a primary that she never really thought she would win, the boys emerged.  They hooted and hollered over the perceived comedown of a powerful woman, one who's consistently been held to higher performance standards on the campaign trail, and who has handled the challenge with grace and dignity.  The worse they've been able to come up with to date?  A few debate missteps on one incident of "tearing up."  Get real, guys. 

Who came to the rescue?  Women.  Out in force.  Even those who previously said they weren't supporting Hillary noticed how unfair her treatment was.  Read Rebecca Traister's excellent article in Salon.   Women are beginning to realize that the calm around Hillary's candidacy was unnatural, that standing back and waiting for "another woman candidate" may mean waiting for a day that will never come.  The glass ceiling seems to get higher and higher, but it never seems to go away.

And look at the countries we revile.  We're smug about Pakistan, aren't we?  And yet the crazies there had the balls to put a woman in office years ago, and then martyr her just to make her story stick.  India. Israel (okay, we don't revile Israel, but most Americans still think we're better than they are).  Even ever-proper Brits thought a chick would do a good job.   But we still keep sticking the Christian white guys in office, even while they become an endangered species.  And if we can't find a white one, well then, we'll take a black or brown one, gosh-darn it.  Anyone but a woman.  (Never mind that we make up the majority of the voting population.)   

Boys, beware.  I think women might be waking up.  I want to send a giant shout-out to all the sisters who marched out in New Hampshire and handed a great big "up yours" to self-appointed pundits like Chris Mathews.  Let's keep up the good work.  Carpe diem, ladies.   

Meditation.

It's freezing here in La-la Land, but this video's still interesting.

LOL Green

I can has laugh.

moar funny pictures

Race Card, Gender Card, Human Card

Interesting post by Jonah Goldberg has caused a lot of cyberchatter this weekend . . . he posits that a "certain segment" of the population will become "completely unhinged" if Obama does not win the Dem  presidential nomination.

Now, I respect the National Review about as much as I respect the New York Times (read: not at all), so I tend to read this post the same way I would read any ravings by the lunatic fringe.  If Jonah thinks that black people are going to riot if Obama doesn't win . . . well, seems a little nutty to me.  And why doesn't he make the same prediction about women, if Hillary doesn't win?  I'm ready to riot, believe me.

I actually visited the Reagan Presidential Library about a year and a half ago.  The most striking moment in my visit happened when I walked into the front room, lined with pictures of all our past presidents.  And my two 10-year-old companions -- my daughter and her best friend -- asked two questions right away:  "Where are the women?" and "Why is everyone white?"   You see, they live in multi-cultural Los Angeles, and they both go to girls' schools, where the majority of the populations are neither male nor white.  Our past presidential politics do not represent their point of view, and although they are not yet voters, I can't imagine that they are going to be comfortable with the status quo, if it remains in place for the next decade.  (They'll be voting in the 2016 election).  And, BTW, none of their black or female friends are prone to rioting.   

It's the status quo that's pre-emptively trotting out the race card  when it comes to Obama.  "Please, please don't let him run away with the media," they say, "Or he'll make 'his people' violent."  Never mind that "his people" includes his white mother from Kansas.  I suspect that it was the same status quo that pounded on Hillary for referring to her gender -- when we all know full well that women are held to higher standards when it comes to the old boys clubs of boardrooms and politics.  (Remember Martha Stewart?  What's happened to all the guys who are always doing the same kind of insider trading?) 

Salon has posted an amusing response to Mr. Goldberg, with this great picture of the "rioters" in Florida after the 2000 election:

Nary a black person and hardly a woman among them.

Jesus, I'm irritated.  Fed up with the politics of hatred driven by those who have subverted the term "conservative" to mean "don't change anything and, BTW, we get to tell you how Godless you are." 

Most people I know aren't concerned with questions regarding regarding religion (the Constitution handles it), abortion (again, the Constitution), or the capabilities of women (gee, where the the ERA go?).  They ARE concerned about the tanking economy, falling home values, a government that lied regarding the rationale behind an illegal war, our dependence on oil, and how we pay for health care.   And that includes not only my friends in SoCal, it includes my old Southern family in Virginia.

In short, they're concerned about the simple, everyday, how-to-keep-our-lives going "human card."   The candidate who responds to those problems is the one who's going to win.  If s/he doesn't, then we'll show you a hullabaloo -- I think it will be the most bipartisan riot you've ever seen.