Executive Privilege My Arse!
It’s a happy day in my neighborhood today since a house panel has voted to cite Karl Rove for contempt of congress. The vote was 20 to 14 split exactly along party lines. In response, Republican Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) had this to say:
“Instead of conducting witch hunts, we should consider bipartisan legislation to reduce the price of gas, reduce crime and secure the borders.
First, he’s right. Karl Rove is something of a witch. The bad kind of witch who poisons things and hurts people who don’t deserve it. Second, IT’S ABOUT TIME DEMS! Cause let’s get something straight. Karl Rove is not the executive that executive privilege was meant to protect in the great balance of power between our branches of government. Alberto Gonzales, meanwhile, is suffering a different sort of pay-back.
The man can’t find a decent job. A former attorney general of the US? Wow, that’s gotta hurt! So maybe the long dark days of the Bush Administration are really winding down. Maybe there’s light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. While I am very tired of shrill partisan screeching (Nancy, dude, keep it righteous. We’ll all be happier.) It’s a relief to know that our system can still self-correct.
Aliens Align for Obama
I’ve been closely following the campaign in all the blogs and news sources when it finally hit me: there’s been a significant rise in the number of UFO sightings reported recently!! We all know what this means! Yet another faction, yet another source of undue influence over our political system. I’ve had it. Between all the PAC money and special interests, do we really want aliens in the mix? I wrote to Senator Obama with my concerns. He completely assured me that he is immune from all forms of external influence, including alien mind control which has in the past been known to influence other politicians (including Alaska Senator Ted Stevens). The picture at left was sent by the Obama camp along with his reply letter. It *is* exciting to know the aliens love Obama as much as the Europeans do.
So then I felt better — until this! An excessively well-educated ex-astronaut from NASA has come forward with his shocking belief that we are not alone. This is no country bumpkin, this is a smart guy. He walked on the moon for nine 
hours. I’m thinkin he knows what he’s talking about. In fact I read somewhere recently that children in the US are more likely to recognize alien forms than bees when shown pictures. Why is our culture so heavily steeped in alien lore? Is our collective unconscious conspiring to prepare us as a species for universal politics? We can’t even handle the United Nations! We’re not ready! Start making your tinfoil hats, people. If Obama can hold out, so can we!
McCain’s Classic Cringing Stance on Reproductive Freedom
FREEDOM!! Yeah, Mel. You go, boyfriend. I’d like to think you really do love freedom. But sadly, you and your ultra-Christian friends do not. What’s still the coolest thing about being American? We love freedom. Remember that when you go to the polls because McCain, as Carly Fiorina so accidentally pointed out, is a scary throwback when it comes to Reproductive Rights.
Let me give you a real, live example, which I’ve been hearing a lot about from women. There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won’t cover birth control medication. Those women would like a choice,” [Carly Fiorina] said.
But as the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America was happy to point out, McCain twice voted against measures that would have required insurance companies to cover birth control — in 2003 and 2005.
If you haven’t given this much thought, perhaps because you’re a man who’s never been pregnant, now’s the time. Having the right to determine what happens to your own body is about as fundamental a freedom as you can get. I do see the logic, flawed though it is, in preserving the rights of the fetus. After the first trimester that is. The part that sends me into a pissed off tizzy is that this also guarantees freedom for men: freedom from accountability, freedom from financial and cultural responsibility, freedom to go around humping women without a second thought to the consequences. I have always said FEEL FREE TO MAKE ABORTION ILLEGAL THE DAY YOU ALSO PASS A LAW REQUIRING THE FATHER TO PROVIDE 50% OF ALL CHILDCARE, CHILD NURTURING, FINANCIAL SUPPORT, AND LIVE WITH THE MOTHER AND CHILD FOR THE NEXT 18 YEARS OF THE CHILD’S LIFE. Because let’s face facts. The men are off the hook. Why do the religious conservative groups think that it’s okay to punish the women by making them keep the baby, but let the men run off and do it again?? Well, I guess women are the evil downfall of the planet in the first place (according to the parts of the Bible emphasized by mean people) and deserve to be abandoned with baby. Adoption you say? Yes. It’s an option. So then I say the man would have to live with the pregnant woman for one year while she manages the pregnancy and goes through the legal and emotional struggle of giving the baby up. I’m okay with that.
People. Let’s be reasonable!! If you are going to be anti-abortion then for the love of all sane thought please distribute birth control like you do junk mail: make it ubiquitous and readily available. Remove the shame-factor when discussing and educating kids. Would it be so bad for children to know they have control over this huge issue? The more birth control we have available the less abortion. Do I need to repeat that? THE MORE BIRTH CONTROL WE HAVE AVAILABLE THE LESS ABORTION.
McCain’s views on this issue are so out-of-touch with real people’s. Bush, too, (“Birth Control Pills are Abortion”) but I’m trying my hardest to pretend he’s already out of office. Aaaaagh, get out already!
In discussions with conservatives and liberals alike, many voiced the opinion that they would not choose a candidate based solely on his/her opinions about abortion. Okay, that’s cool. But there’s a gnawing worry that I can’t shake. If it’s so easy to take away a woman’s right to choose, it’s going to be pretty easy to take away your other rights, too. I’ve had about enough of that. What about you?
Jamie Lynn Spears Attacks Iran
So, yeah, I’m prone to bizarre daydreams. There’s been this reverberating thought (thanks to some author on NPR whose name I cannot recall. Maybe Robert Kagan?) This author blithely announced that the Neo Cons would like nothing more than to invade Iran before January. Today’s headlines included more news (aka, fear mongering) from the Pentagon about just how far Iranian missiles can reach. They may reach to Europe, but they sure the heck can’t reach to the US so why the heck does the US need to go get ‘em? Can’t we let the Europeans guard their own backyards? I don’t trust the Pentagon! Which brings me squarely to Jamie Lynn Spears. I think Iranians must feel just like I do when I see her in the grocery store on the cover of the magazines with her new baby. WHAT IS SHE, like, TWELVE?! My kids have on occasion watched Zoe 101, where Spears is the star. Did she lose her job as an actress, and therefore, role model, for little girls when she BLEW IT and got pregnant? No she didn’t and that’s so yucky. Even my kids saw her on the magazines and said, “Mom! Look! There’s Jamie Lynn Spears with her baby. AND SHE’S ONLY SIXTEEN!” Ugh. Sometimes I feel like there is some vast conspiracy between the media and our government that is designed entirely to offend morality. I don’t agree with Iran’s morality, far from it, but is it my job to change it? No way. 
Neither do I need to change Jamie Lynn Spears. But do I need to see her baby beauty queen face staring at me in all it’s “Being a Mommy is so Fun!!” glory? No thanks. And sorry Iran. It’s hard to know what to believe these days, but I know your people must be good and I bet your Pentagon sucks just as bad as ours.
Goodbye Disney Channel
We’ve done it. We’ve divorced. My kids and the princesses are finished forever. Now that my daughters are eight and ten, I’m shutting off the cable. I can no longer see those wicked attempts to ‘princessify’ my daughters as innocent fun. The Disney Channel rants endlessly about how badly one needs — REQUIRES — fame and an audience to achieve self-worth. At first I thought iCarly was kind of neat. A kid’s web show. Cool. I said to my girls, “Hey, would you guys like to do that? Have a web show?” I offered to help them produce it. They weren’t interested, but I did notice something else instead. It’s summer and they don’t want to do anything by themselves. They constantly say (yell), “Mom! Look at this!” for the most inane of reasons, to which I reply, “Not the audience…” as in, I am not the audience, as in, go the heck outside already and stop trying to get me to pay attention to you.
My girls are not prissy. I’m lucky if their outfits match. But still. The girls argued to keep the TV. An Official Girl Scout segment aired showing a group of tweeny girls, hairified and shellacked with makeup in all the colors of the rainbow who were promoted for bringing their hip hop dance to the less fortunate. Disney showcased them for their giving natures. Or so my girls argued. But then it was my turn. “Hmmm,” I said, “Are all those girls skinny?” “Are they wearing tons of makeup?” “Do they all look ‘white’ even the black girls?” “Do any of them look like regular old kids, like your friends?” It’s so pervasive. It’s so hard to escape. The message is to look pretty, not to be smart or innovative. Oh and I didn’t even get to the part where I freak out on how rude and inappropriate all the cartoon/live kids are on Nickelodeon. I had my kids keep a chart rating the various characters on the shows they watched with a 10 for perfectly acceptable behavior down to 1 for completely rude and unacceptable in real life. The ratings were low. The parents on these shows are all retarded and the kids are ugly and rude. This is humor. Okay, I get it, it’s humor. Okay, I don’t get it. IT’S NOT FUNNY! So there you go. Bye bye stupid TV shows. I won’t miss you!
The Answer is 42
We love our humanness but we need to contain it. Our beautiful structures, shiny and grand, our desire to manicure everything, the need to build, and build, and build. Our ant nature. We are related to chimpanzees and bonobos. Closely related. This is contrary to our habit of seeing ourselves removed from the natural order. We’ve engineered our surroundings on a scale so grand we’ve impacted other species and the climate.
Is it possible to be different? I can’t see it. I can’t see us, all 6 billion of us, renouncing materialism and consumer culture and living humbly. We pity the people who now live as humbly as we maybe should. Third world people living subsistence lives.The wealthy around the globe who’ve accumulated the most don’t want to give an inch. Our chimp nature. Monkey hoarders. No one wants miss out, to be left behind.
Truth is, no one is really sure where we’re going. Why do we accumulate? Scarce resources? That thinking leads to wars and shortages and survival of the fittest. Or the smartest. Or just the most brutal. It’s exclusivity as its best. It’s “better me than you.” But that mentality is bringing us all down.
Here in the “western hemisphere” (a complete construct) we have traditionally frowned on proscriptive politics where someone or some group seeks to steer the masses in a concerted effort toward some heroic goal. We call that communism or tyranny. We think it’s bad, unnatural, and leading to no good. At what point do we reconsider that idea? What if the plan of action is solid and improves the quality of life for everyone? Self-serving all-natural competitiveness is ruining the world as we know it. We need leaders who are anti-Cheney with his hunting, discompassionate, hatred of things that should be sacred like human rights, environmental stewardship, and peaceful coexistence. We need to become fundamentally different. We’ve got good people: Christians who can love more and protect less, business people who can first do the right thing, parents who accept that two children is enough, farmers who refuse to poison the soil they know gives us almost everything we need.
Who are we today? How can we be different? We can start by getting off the hate bus. We are all one together, not a threat to each other. If we want to make it so, we can have paradise on earth. Less people, plenty of food, plenty of space. Less people is key. More trust is essential.
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