Politics
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HPV for Boys
We’ve all seen the commercials, right? The ones that say, “I want to be one less”, the girls who don’t want to become a statistic, to get cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine prevents a few varieties of the virus that causes cervical cancer, so while it isn’t a cure, it could be a step in the right direction. Well, Maya is 12 now, and not really acting interested in boys. We’ve been deciding whether to vaccinate her now or later. It’s not a matter of whether to vaccinate her or not…if we can protect her from the possibility of dying from cancer, wouldn’t we want to do so? And HPV…
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Back to School
The other night was ‘back to school night’ at Maya’s middle school. The evening started with speeches with the Principal, the Superintendent of the district, and the head of the PTA. They talked about how lucky we are to have such wonderful kids, how our district is in the top 95% of the state in test scores, and how parent involvement and dedicated parents help to make this the case. They talked about how raising healthy, happy children was about much more than these test scores, but still, yay test scores! Then we went and sat in each of the classrooms that our child attends for 10 minutes each, and…
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We Get the Government We Deserve
As I was laughing hysterically at the comic above (this is just one panel…click here to read the whole thing…I love Bad Reporter) in today’s paper, Ted was reading about how Obama’s poor choice of analogies is pushing voters over towards McCain/Palin. I will admit, when I heard Obama’s comment, I thought, “That was not a smart comment to make. Even though McCain made the SAME COMMENT about Clinton and her policies last year, in this charged environment, and so soon after Palin’s folksy joke about Hockey Moms and pit bulls with lipstick, it did appear that he was calling her a pig. Not wise. But clearly, people are getting…
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September 11, Again
This is the third time I’ve posted this. Part of me thinks I should publish something new on this, but part of me thinks I said everything I had to say back then. I’m tempted to get political this year and ask if you feel safer this year, and if Osama bin Ladin has been caught “Dead or Alive”, like we were promised…or if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq look close to being over. I’m tempted…but I won’t. Wait. I just did. Sorry. Edelmiro Abad of Brooklyn at a wedding with his close-knit family: his wife, Lorraine, and in white from left, daughters Serena, 19, Rebecca, 26, and Jennifer,…
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Conversation about Politics, via email
With my dear friend, who shall remain nameless, because I didn’t ask her permission to post this. This is from an email conversation we had yesterday. ************************************************************ DEAR FRIEND OF MINE: Hey darling, I had a great time a dinner too. I am glad you love me because of what I am about to say. I really like Palin. I appreciate the fact of her trying to raise a child with special needs and being a working mom. She had gotten a lot of flack and people have said how could she possibly be Vice-Pres with a small child but give me a break, how long has everyone said women…
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Talking Politics with a 12 Year Old
Last night, watching Palin speaking at the convention, Maya started asking us, “Is she lying?” She’s 12. She does not understand nuances yet, sees the world in black and white, us and them, good and bad. She likes Obama, and therefore if there’s a woman up on stage trash-talking him, she wants to know if that woman is lying. She doesn’t yet see that, sadly, ALL politicians skew the facts in their own favor, ALL politicians pump up their own resumes in order to make themselves more electable. What she wants to know is, “Is she lying?” So, I printed this article up for her today when I saw it…
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One Cure for Racism…
My Grandmother, who is the granddaughter of slave-owners on the Southern side of the family…my Grandmother, who blames black folks in this country for the fact that her Grandfather on the Northern side of the family died for their freedom in the Civil War (conveniently ignoring the blame to be held by generations of our Southern side for the crimes against humanity that they committed)…My Grandmother, who, with half a glass of wine in her, will volunteer that no matter what anyone else says, there’s just ‘something different’ about black people, something that somehow makes them less than the white folks amongst us…. My Grandmother is voting for Obama. See…
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My Cynicism is Melting…
This may be the first time in my life that I’ve ever had the opportunity to vote for someone I can truly believe in for President. Every time before now, I’ve held my nose. Every time, I’ve been sure that the talk is just rhetoric, not much more. Watching Obama accept the Democratic nomination tonight, I found myself, finally, getting excited, at least a little bit. Feeling hopeful, at least a little bit. My skeptical side fears that big business is too deeply entrenched in our country, and no matter what his good intentions, and those of the folks in congress, nothing substantial will change. But my hopeful side says,…
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Political blurb…
Just finished watching Clinton give her speech. She rocked. We were watching on MSNBC, and when she finished, they started saying what a great job she did, and how she hit it out of the park, and how supportive of the Democratic cause she was. How she slammed McCain and supported Obama. Then we switched it over to Fox News, and they couldn’t shut up about how she never got around to saying that Obama would be a great president, how she didn’t put herself 100% behind him. How she didn’t really slam McCain, and you’d think to listen to her that we had been living in Belarus rather than…
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Time to Pay Attention
We’re getting to the point in the Presidential Campaign where it’s becoming more important, I think, to start paying attention. Which is too bad, because we’re also at the point where we’re all sick of this never-ending campaign that feels like it started back when Moses was a child, and we just want it to friggin’ END already. Well, we’ve got maybe 9 or 10 more weeks to go, so suck it up and pay attention, OK? This week is the Democratic Convention, where Barak Obama will receive the nomination for Democratic candidate to become President of the United States.  There will be a floor vote, as there has been…
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Wordless Wednesday – Thursday Edition
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Immigration
(photo found here) Every so often, in the argument about illegal immigrants in America, and more specifically here in California, we hear that we need these workers to come to America, legally or illegally, because Americans aren’t willing to take these jobs. The jobs that immigrants take in America, mostly agricultural, are jobs that Americans aren’t willing to take. Well, I stopped awhile ago to think about that, the last time I heard about coal miners getting trapped underground for days, weeks, until they die…I thought, if people are willing to go into the bowels of the Earth to bring out fuel, at the risk of becoming crushed and losing…
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Torture…
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=PtS45bh_INY[/youtube] I wrote last year about waterboarding, and how it’s clearly torture, no matter what the dickwads in Washington think. Well, I was walking Genevieve the other day, and listening to Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me on my beloved iPod, and what should I discover? (I swear, you get better news from this show and Comedy Central than 99.9% of what else is out there.) The U.S. government is being sued for copyright infringement, because they tortured inmates at Guantanamo by playing crappy music over and over again, and they never paid the artists any sort of royalties. Kind of an ingenious way to stop torture, I guess, but I…
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Don’t Hold Your Breath
(image found here) Growing up, my mom was a Libertarian, and being a child, I pretty much followed her lead. Being a Libertarian means never having to say you’re sorry for what the current administration is doing, because the current administration is never going to be comprised of Libertarians. It also meant that I was raised with a large dose of cynicism about politics and politicians. Always told to follow the money, because that’s what makes politicians tick, even if their ideals are high, the reality is that they need money to run election and re-election campaigns. So if you want your favorite politician to be in office, to do…
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Happy Independence Day, Everyone
Does anyone else remember this little April Fools Joke that ran in the newspapers back in 1996? I remember it because my mom was visiting us, and Maya had just been born (March 29), and we were looking at the newspaper, and Mom got all outraged. I wonder if it was sleep deprivation, due to all of the excitement, or if perhaps the fact of being in such a historic city got the blood all of her patriot ancestors flowing freely, but she decided this was just too much. And to think, George Bush wasn’t even in office yet! Anyway, she was talking to my dad on the phone, and…