This week was like a jarring alarm clock... waking me up from my summer coma and reintroducing me to the grind of reality. My inbox at work is exploding, and the political climate is more dramatic than the novellas my college roommate used to watch! At least people are paying attention, though- right? Just take a look at some of the stuff that came my way this week...
"She is 17 and conceived this child out of wedlock. Now imagine she wasn't the daughter of a prominent Republican politician but an average person. Now imagine she was black.
What do you think conservatives would have to say about her? "Typical, urban youth with no sense of responsibility raised with loose morals who plans to depend on the state to take care of her child." You know it. It's not within dispute. That's exactly what they would say.
Barack Obama has told everyone to lay off this because it is a personal, family matter. Yes, but it also has public policy ramifications. Governor Palin is for abstinence only education. Well, that obviously didn't work."
"Cindy McCain was addicted to drugs and stole from her own charity to feed her addiction. Now what do you think the Republicans would have done if Michelle Obama had done that? How do you think the press would have covered it? You think they would have called it a simple mistake and moved on?"
Good question.
Since we sometimes make generalizations without thinking about it, we should be constantly evaluating our own racial views- whether they're unconscious or not. For example, what did you think of 7-year old Latarian Milton when you first saw him on CNN? Did you notice he was black? What would you have thought if he was white, instead?
He spoke with Cipher Sounds and Rosenberg- hilarious!
Putting race aside for a moment, the big issue regarding Bristol Palin is teen-pregnancy and abortion rights. Sarah Palin is pro-life, which to many women, is a little unnerving. But even more unnerving than that is Jezebel.com's article on a website claiming to have a list of all America abortions:
"To get access to this alleged database, you need to pay $799 for a seven day pass to the site or up to $16,999 for unlimited access to 'full names, complete addresses, unlimited contact information, false names used during operation procedures, reasons listed for abortions, known STDs at (and since) time of abortion, [and the] name of person believed to be the father.'"
Intense, right? To lighten things up a bit,
Watch this hilarious video commentary on the McCain/Palin relationship...
Is McCain Palin's Bitch?
Salon.com had a great article on Palin's experience with/knowledge of energy policy issues (that we may be overlooking)...
"I don't think she's going to pull in disaffected Hillary voters -- she's too much a card-carrying member of the religious right for that, which is one reason why the convention attendees were so delirious. But that's not all she is, by a long shot. On one of the crucial issues in this campaign -- energy policy -- Sarah Palin knows the territory."
They also had an article calling her "The Hugo Chavez of Alaska" since she has apparently gone to bat with major oil companies and supports "expanding the search for domestic oil and gas as a solution to the energy crisis." So to help prevent Palin from getting in the good graces of recent Clinton supporters, The New York Times reported that Obama is now deploying Hillary and other female Democrats into swing states for a counter-attack. I'm all for it! Just because we finally have a woman vying for the job, that certainly doesn't mean she will contribute to female political advancement overall. In fact, there's a huge chance this woman might set us back 20 years! Every time Sarah Palin calls herself a "hockey mom," I cringe violently and feel Betty Friedan roll over in her grave. That type of diction is neither progressive nor helpful for females, even if she does spend the rest of her speech proving her toughness by aggressively taking shots at Obama (starting 7 minutes in).
Jay Smooth returns, commenting on the HATE in Sarah Palin's HEART:
("Contrived showmanship"... I'd totally have his kids.)
Speaking of the DNC/RNC speeches, The New York Times dissected and analyzed the word-use of Democrats and Republicans, and even broke it down by individual. See for yourself:
And just when I want to throw myself out a window with the taking-sides hoopla of this whole process, a new season of Bill Maher returns to HBO, and slowly talks me off the ledge. Below, in his season premiere's set of "New Rules," Maher reminds me why it's so important to question our societal norms...
Specifically: At 2:14, Maher brings up John Edwards being "airbrushed out of the Democratic party," and then discusses how crucial it would have been to put the adultery aside, and have him speak at the DNC. After making the analogy that John Edwards is to Poverty what Al Gore was to Global Warming, Bill sneaks in a few jokes and goes on (at 4:10) to mention the important facts that Edwards would have addressed in his speech. Moments like that make me appreciate Maher for challenging the system in ways that many others do not... He may support Barack Obama, but he's still able to objectively criticize the Democratic party, and even question the presidential candidate himself for not presenting an alternative to war.
