I read this the other day, and laughed. But I also think it's a great idea.

A Great Political Idea

Here’s what you should do, Mr. President. In the debates this fall, pull out a small, laminated card you’ve had made as a prop for this purpose. Then remind Mitt Romney that the ranks of the uninsured today are equal to the combined populations of Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and ­Wyoming.

Read that list slowly, Mr. President. Then ask your opponent: Would America turn its back on the citizens of these 25 states if everyone there lacked basic health coverage? That’s what we’ve been doing for decades. You knew it was right to act when you were governor of Massachusetts, Mitt. How can you pretend we don’t need to solve this for the nation? And how can you object with a straight face when your own pioneering plan was my model?

~~~~~Matt Miller, in a Washington Post opinion piece, July 10, 2012

And then, there was Ann Romney, telling the world that she and Mitt have already released "all you people need to know" about their finances. Seems Ann shares Mitt's tendency to insert foot when speaking.

Seriously, what is it Mitt doesn't want us to see in his tax returns? Given how poorly his campaign is doing at defining the election on his terms, he couldn't possibly think that allowing Obama (and the media, and more and more Republicans) to continue to question why he won't release his tax returns is a good strategy. As this goes on and on and on, you really have to wonder, what is in those tax returns? What has Mitt so scared about us seeing that he's stonewalling even his own party?

Secrecy has never been much of a selling point for the Presidency. We don't like being kept in the dark (well, those of us who aren't simulating mushrooms don't).Mitt seems to love it, however. He's against disclosing his campaign money bundlers, against the Disclose act to make all those PACs list their donors, against releasing his tax returns (even though he gave years and years of those same returns to John McCain while he was running for president.) I guess letting another 1%er look at his returns is different than letting the other 99%ers see them. That's a rather telling point, don't you think?

I was incensed the other day when one of Romney's guests at his Hamptons weekend fundraiser told a reporter that people like common workers just "didn't get it" about what was at stake in this election. They "have less education", this woman said. They just don't understand their world, apparently.

While I am not saying that everyone in America is brilliant, or even well-educated ,(well, not in Texas, I guess, since they keep putting crazy stuff in their standards for education) I am sure that many, many people this woman dismisses as "poor, uneducated voters" do indeed know what this election is about. And it is my fervent hope that this snotty woman, and others like her, find that out in the most painful way, by the re-election of Obama.

I guess the rich are different. Really different. Clueless about the world they're living in, sometimes even clueless about the little circle of entitlement they inhabit. Talk about class warfare? That was a statement  surely  intended to start one.

And there was good ole Mitt, ranting on about how taxing the rich would hurt our economy, burden the "job creators", and all sorts of bad things.  Doesn't that man read? Every graphic out in the last month has clearly shown that "job creators" do not inhabit the 1% world. In fact, the lower their rate of taxes, the worse the economy does in terms of employmen, wages, and growth.All of those things go up, by a lot, when the upper tax rate hits anything over 70%. And goes down, by a lot, when the rate dips below 35%.  The real job creators, the middle class, need a tax break. The 2% at the top of the wealth scale do not.

We've been down this road before. Over and over. Doing the same thing, giving the wealthy more and more benefits, lowering their tax rates, all in the belief that all sorts of good things would "trickle down" to the bottome 98%.  As everyone knows, it HASN'T WORKED! And no wonder. What Romney, et al, are proposing to do is basically, keep doing the same thing, over and over, and he keeps telling us to expect a different result. Standard definition of insanity, no?

And where is the media on all this? Why don't they call him out on his pet failed policies? On his flip-flopping? Why do they keep reporting what he says as the truth, rather than just more campaign rhetoric? What happened to fact-checking? Why aren't they in full hue and cry about his refusal to release his tax returns? We already know he had, or has, a Swiss bank acount, and many accounts (at least 30) in the Caymen Islands and other off-shore locations. What else is he hiding? And if he's not hiding, why doesn't he release them? His own father had no qualms about releasing 12 years of his tax returns. But wait ~ his dad earned his money the regular way, through work and smart investing (of his own money). Guess Mitt isn't a "chip off the old block". He's more like the oil we get out of tar sands. Dirty, and hard to process. 

On Marriage Equality, and Not

I was surprised this week by a colleague of mine. I had forwarded to her an email about the President's comments on marriage equality. She's rabidly anti-Obama, but I thought she'd appreciate his position, since one of her sons is gay. Her response? She doesn't support gay marriage, because God created marriage to be one man and one woman. She hopes her son will find someone to love and build a life with, but he shouldn't be able to marry.

I don't know whether I was more surprised that she would cast her youngest son into the twilight zone, or her idea that God created marriage.

The Greeks were noticeably not Christian. They were polytheists, didn't even think of being monotheistic. They had marriage. Of course, they didn't call it that (probably because English hadn't been invented yet, nor would it be for many, many centuries). The concept, however, was alive and well in Ancient Greece. Until much later, the Romans were polytheistic, as well, and had marriage. It seems, in fact, that every society that ever existed (and left records) has had an institution that nearly everyone would recognize as marriage. I say nearly to account for those die-hard, blinded-by-the-light fundamentalists that claim everything was created by God, long before any group even knew He existed.

Instead of being created by God, I think marriage was coopted, as so many rituals and institutions were, by the early Christians in their zealous take over of the various groups. They reassigned all sorts of feast days to Saints Days, Christ's birthday, His death, etc. It's how they replaced the older gods or other deities. Wow, everybody has a big to-do in winter. Let's call it Christmas, and say it was the day our Christ was born, and soon they'll forget it had anything to do with those heathen gods. It was a brilliant political move, and the early Church was highly political.The Church created new rituals to replace the older, non-Christian ones they found. They created a ritual for marriage, for baptism, for dying. The world hadn't existed without these prior to the rise of Christianity, but the Church supplanted all the older rituals and belief systems, both stealthily, and when necessary, forcefully.

I don't claim to know what God thinks, or wants. I've never spoken to Him in person, you know? And while I may have prayed now and then, I didn't, and don't, think He was listening. I know He never responded.I honestly don't believe anyone, ever, has truly heard from God.Ever. I know the Bible says some folks did, but then, the Bible was written by primitive men to explain their world, and their hierachical control of it. You can't really accept it at face value. I mean, really. What sort of omniscient, omnipotent, super-evolved deity would accept slavery as okay, would condemn women for having a vagina, and exalt men for having a penis? No, thanks, I'll pass on worshipping that sort of god.

So, I guess I'm just more troubled by my colleague's indifference to her son's status. He has always been the best of her children. Her oldest, a girl, put her through hell, got into drugs and illegal activities, spent some time in Juvie, and then in jail. Hated her mother. Her other son tends to use her rather than really support her. (She's divorced, has been for years.) He mooches off her constantly. Borrows money, never repays it. Doesn't have his own cell phone, so uses one on his mother's account, but doesn't pay the bill for it. Lives with her even now, but pays no rent, and doesn't do anything around the house. He even brought his girlfriend, with her two dogs, to live with him for a while, then left the dogs there when his girlfriend had to return to Canada because her visa was expiring. He's going to marry this woman someday, but he hasn't yet asked her. He just assumes she'll say yes.

The youngest son, the gay son, has been independent for some time. He ran into some difficulty with employment for a awhile (he got injured in a motorcycle accident, and was laid up for a long time. His company went out of business while he was recovering.), and moved home. He pays rent, he buys food, doesn't ask her for anything. He's a good guy.  And this is the son she says doesn't deserve the right to marry, should he find someone he wants to spend his life with.  I just don't understand this at all. You're supposed to love all your children equally, albeit in different ways. How can she work so damned hard to rebuild a relationship with her daughter, who is finally on the road to recovery, or allow a son to take such blatant advantage of her, and still consign the third child to a never-never land of not-quite-equal, not-quite-entitled to the same civil rights as others?

She's my colleague. They aren't my kids. But I just can't wrap my head around this, and I'm hurt by her cavalier attitude towards her son. I guess I expected more, better, from her.

Reliving the Past

So, it's apparently a two-man race, now, for president of the United States.  Well, except for all the hangers-on in the Republican Party. Two of whom are planning on making their move during the convention later this summer. Who've suspended their campaigns, but not their egos or ambition.


I'm going to be 60 in another few months. I lived through a time when women had to fight to be allowed to work, to receive the same pay (and we're still working on that, sadly) as men, to have control over our own bodies, to make it unnecessary to go to a back-street butcher to end a pregnancy. It was an ugly past, that. Sure, there were good times even during that past. I went to college. I graduated with honors. I worked for a while, started a company, was successful. Personal tragedy brought that to an end. I got set adrift for a while, worked sporadically. Found a calling that spoke to me and became a teacher. But during that whole time, there was always this culture war going on.


My mother told me, early and often, to hide my intelligence, because men didn't like intelligent women. My father told me to go to college, my mother said I shouldn't, I should find a man and get married instead. I grew up in a family that had two different sets of expectations; one for the boys and one for the girls. The girls had to learn how to "keep house", the boys didn't. They had to learn to ride a bike, mow the lawn, and make friends.  I didn't meet any of their expectations. My father was pleased; my mother was disappointed. I lived in a neighborhood that cherished that discrimination against women. A city, a state, a nation that cherished that discrimination. Girls weren't supposed to grow up to be successful, independent people.


Imagine my dismay, then, to see that exact same discrimination coming from the Republican candidates this year, and from statehouse after statehouse. Republican governors and legislatures passing laws to limit abortion, contraceptives, routine health care for female issues. Where states are repealing things like equal pay statutes. I really loved the statement from one Republican legislator. State Senator Glenn Grothman, who defended Scott Walker's repeal of pay equity protections explainedto reporters that women aren't paid the same as men for the same work because money is more important to men.
Of course it is! Women don't need money, we don't have bills to pay for rent/mortgage, food, clothing, etc. Huh?

We're now facing all the same arguments that we did half a century ago, arguments we thought we were done with. Birth control? Abortion? (When are these Republicans going to realize that birth control would eliminate a huge number of abortions?) Equal pay?  When is enforced male dominance going to become a thing of our past? When is the manufactured fear of women going to become a thing of our past?

I work hard to make sure the students I have don't share that bias, that each of my students understand that everyone is equally valued. We do not discrimate based on gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, or any other quality. I support the candidacies of many women running for national office, and some men. I donate to Emily's List, Move-On, DFA, and a host of other political entities.

I am single. My only child, a daughter, died a long time ago. I don't have to worry about what sort of life she would have. Instead, I worry for all my students, and what the future holds for them. If Romney wins, if states vote Republican, I fear for my students. They will be growing up in country hostile to them on so many different fronts ~ poor, Hispanic, female, gay/lesbian.  Talk about stacking the odds against them!

Okay, I've just had it. Totally. Who do these idiots think gave them the right to micromanage a woman's life? Any woman. All women. Arizona is passing a law that makes *women* have to tell their employer why they're taking contraceptives, and if he doesn't like it, well, then, no insurance for her! And, since AZ is a right-to-work (heh) state, well, he can just fire the bitch.

** Why do we call states that ban unions, and allow any employer to fire any employee for any reason, why is it called "right-to-work"? Shouldn't it be called "right-to-fire", instead?***

Kansas is promoting a bill that encourages, and finds blameless, doctors to withhold information, or lie to the patient about information that informs them about a yet unborn child if it's negative. Oh, and the Congressman who stood up and told the world that women should just go ahead and carry a dead fetus to term, because, gosh, cows, pigs, and chickens do it all the time.

And Virginia, that said women who wanted an abortion had to endure a "medical rape" before being granted an abortion. (and then blinked and changed the bill.) A procedure that is legal in the US, by the way. Let's not forget that dummy who gleefully offered to provide aspirin to any women seeking contraceptive service, cause "gals just put aspirin between their knees" and voila! No conception.

Texas is defunding Planned Parenthood, cause, gosh, 3% of their funding goes to abortions, but none of them in Texas. And the 97% that goes toward women's health ~ cancer screenings, Pap smears, general health, well, that's just too bad. And another almost 200,000 women lose any access to health care, because all the clinics, Planned Parenthood and others, are closing up shop. Way to go, Texas!

And this, from a woman (only physically, apparently) who actually said, out loud, in front of God and country, that women could expect to be raped if they joined the military, but allowed that some women should get help if they were among the few who were "raped too much".  Once isn't enough? And rape is a reasonable response to a woman who puts her life on the line to protect this country?

So, where are all the comparable bills for men? Do men have to tell their employers why they are using Viagra? Should doctors be encouraged to lie to male patients about testicular cancer? I mean, if a doctor allows a man to remove his testicles, isn't that tantamount to abortion, too? I mean, killing sperm is a crime, right? If removing an egg is tantamount to abortion, then certainly, sperm must be accorded the same status. And shouldn't men be gelded, since, gosh, horses, dogs and cats do it all the time.

Funny how Santorum is righteously glad to circumscribe the rights and privileges of women (who really shouldn't work, or go to college, or remain single, or ever try to prevent pregancy, and when they are pregnant, shouldn't ask for pre-natal care), all in support of the "family", but never says a word about what men can and should do. Like take responsibility for their sperm. Or support the children they father. Or honor their marriage vows and never have an affair. Never abuse a woman or child. Support the family he creates, since his wife is forced to stay home and become a baby factory.

Frankly, I believe Santorum and his ilk are terrified of women. Afraid they aren't going to look as good to women who think for themselves. Terrified that a woman may be better than them at a job they want. Afraid they might have to actually grow up in a world where women are equals. How sad. And how sad that this sick psychological disorder doesn't get treated, but gets approval from a large section of America.

God save America ~ the Republicans sure won't.

Sorry to have been missing for so long, but Blogger doesn't seem to agree with something on my system when using AOL, so I can't post anything. I discovered, though, that using IE I can post, so I'm back!

Anyway, I can't begin to tell you how disgusted I am over the whole Rush L. uproar. That man is just sick.  Not the kind of sick where we would have to feel sorry for him, take him chicken soup, place a cool washcloth on his fevered brow. The kind of sick where one should call the police and the local Insane Asylum, and have him put away.

Although, I do have to say that while RL is truly disgusting, Santorum and Gingrich don't seem much better, and Mitt... well, he's just creepy. He's seeking to become the first AI elected president.

Santorum wants religion to run the country. He's trying to prove that our Founding Fathers always intended it that way.Guess he didn't really understand the history classes he took. There's absolutely no way in Hell Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, et al, ever dreamed that the Church would ever hold sway in the American government. They weren't, for the most part, even really Christian. Unless you include Deism as one sect of Christianity. They didn't so much believe in "God the Father" as they did in "God the Watchmaker", a very different sort of God. And they made clear their intentions in numerous writings about religion and government, not just in the Constitution. And given that most of them actually wrote the Constitution, I think it behooves us to give them credit for knowing what they intended.

And then there's Gingrich. He doesn't really want to be president, I've decided. He wants to be the American God/King.  Hmmm. People are losing their homes, going hungry, losing hope? Let's build a moon colony, and when He has packed the colony with 1,300 of the right kind of people, let's make it the 51st royal colony, er, state. The Constitution doesn't agree with Him? Well, the Constitution is wrong. Narcissicism is just wonderful, isn't it?

January Insanity

So, Obama gave the State of the Union speech. And South Carolina favored the most unsupportable candidacy of Newt. Romney released his tax return (singular), and no one was surprised that he is among the 1%ers. Perhaps we were a little surprised at how much glee he found in telling us how wealthy he is, and how unrepentent he is about milking the tax code for his benefit, but honestly, not that surprised. I mean, this is a man who says "Let the foreclosure process run its course" while holding stock in a great many companies that are foreclosing on folks right and left.  Who can toss off a "I'll bet you $10,000" challenge to Perry. Who calls his speaking income, some $374,000 "not very much" money.  Heh. It's disheartening that the American public isn't more surprised, isn't even outraged at this. And they're probably going to put Romney forth as the candidate to beat Obama.

And then there's Newt. If he has his way, Romney will be retired as the front runner, and Newt will begin his ascent to Glory as the Saviour of the Western World. This is the man who divorced his first wife while she was seriously ill in order to marry his mistress, then divorced the second wife, who wouldn't accept an "open marriage", also while she was ill, to marry his next mistress. Who tried to remove Clinton from office because of the tacky Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, while carrying on his own tawdry affair. And he claims he was unfaithful because he was consumed by patriotism. Dear lord.

Newt uses vanishingly thin veiled racism to appeal to the extremes of the already extreme Republican party. He uses mock outrage when questioned about his past affairs, his past lobbying-in-all-but-name tenure at Fannie and Freddie, and then has the audacity to say that the crash was caused by them. (It wasn't) He offers to teach the NAACP how to help poor black people. He suggests that kids from projects (black kids) should be given janitorial jobs at their schools, to teach them the "work ethic".

Newt calls himself an historian, which makes real historians shudder. He isn't an historian. He's a megalomaniac twister of history. He was fined and castigated during his vicious term in Congress, forced to step down, but to hear him tell it, he was solely responsible for all the economic sucess in Clinton's presidency. He distilled and promulagated the vicious, take-no-prisoners, lie often and well approach to campaigning, which is just what we're seeing now in the Republican primaries, and he's the most vociferious voice calling for an end to all this invective. Heh. John King asking him about the news that his second wife was admitting that Newt asked her for an "open marriage" was, according to Newt, close to the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard. As Jon Stewart so aptly remarked, Newt "must have quite an imagination".

And then there's his over the top suggestion, in Florida of course, that we establish a colony on the moon, and confirm the process for that colony to become a state as soon as they have 13,000 people. Puerto Rico has been waiting a long time for statehood, but of course, Puerto Ricans aren't white.

And then there's Obama. His first term hasn't been the spectacular success we all believed it would be. He hasn't been the president we all believed he would be. Admittedly, he took office saddled with the monstrosity that Bush left behind, but he also was saddled with a Republican party whose most important goal was to make sure Obama was a one-term president. If it came from the president, a bill couldn't pass. If Obama nominated anyone, he or she couldn't be approved. If Obama said it, it must be a lie. Hell, he wasn't even really an American! What, fix the economy? Nope, it might improve Obama's chances for re-election. The source and causes of the Great Recession should be firmly laid at the door of Bush? Nope, it's all Obama's fault.

The Republican Party has become an embarrasment and a danger to our society. It has lost all sense of decency, and abdicated any responsibility for anything (except of course anything it did that was viewed favorably by themselves, although not by the American people).It's become even more  tilted toward exhalting white rich people, and more adamantly determined to squash anybody else. (And America is more diversified in terms of color than most any other country in the world.) I think, or maybe I hope, this is the death knell for the GOP. I think that party will find itself splintering, like a Balkan nation, into exclusionary, angry factions with no tolerance for any one else. I devoutly hope so.

Given the disease that the Republican party has become, even if I hated Obama (which I don't), I would be compelled to vote for him simply for the preservation of the American union.