political animal – Page 8

Category: political animal

can't buy me love

Posted on March 12, 2008 by wrekehavoc

eliot spitzer’s recent alleged dalliance with high-priced prostitutes is just one more disappointment in the world of male leaders, but not a surprise. whether you’re bill clinton with an intern in the oval office, wilbur mills with a stripper in the tidal basin, newt gingrich divorcing his wife by her hospital bedside, or even jim bakker with a church secretary G-d-knows-where, men in power have an abysmal history of being infantile idiots who think they can’t get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, democrats and republicans alike. i even remember rumors of george bush senior having a certain special someone; somehow, that didn’t get much press, though. (wonder why?) it isn’t just politicians, as i pointed out above; it’s just that we hear mostly about the politicians when they’re in trouble. the opposing party of the problem child makes good and well sure of that.

i often joke that living in washington, dc, is like living in the land of former high school student council presidents. smart, nerdy and shrewd, they couldn’t land the cheerleaders in high school. so they come here, and they land usually-smart girls who appreciate a smart guy. only, too bad for the women, since the guys, finally landing a date (or a lay), see that there are other mountains to conquer (so to speak.) they can’t help themselves: they feel like they finally are getting their day in the sun.

unfortunately, they look for this day in the sun after they’ve put a ring on someone else’s finger. cos they’re all about doing the right thing. or having the right image, anyway.

so why would someone with a reputation for corruption-fighting go and throw it all away? what does $5,500 an hour buy? it buys cachet: the i got ice cream, you can’t have it effect (mature language for those listening at work). the same guy who didn’t have a date for the prom, the same guy who didn’t get laid until he was in his 20s, the same guy who probably got beat up one too many times for being a dweeb — now he can have things those morons back home can’t have.

unfortunately, spitzer went beyond the immoral — he went illegal. frankly, i don’t care what politicians do in their personal lives, as long as they don’t break the law. but he did.

i wonder sometimes whether women in power do these similar things. are they tempered by their experiences so that they don’t want to be bothered with extracurricular activities? are they too intelligent or moral for that? or are they smart enough not to get caught with their trousers down?

i know i ought not be surprised by this latest info. but i am still very, very disappointed. calling spitzers literary agent — time for spitzer’s political memoirs: smart men, stupid choices.

california

Posted on February 16, 2008 by wrekehavoc

while chomping on my almonds today, i noticed something hilarious on the package (translation below the poorly-taken photo):

Almonds were first cultivated in California in the 18th century. Today, the state is known for producing some of the highest grade nuts available.

i didn’t even make that up.

::ducking before my CA friends smack me down::

😉

reason to believe

Posted on February 15, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i voted on tuesday, of course. and i never revealed how i voted.

but even after the primary, i have this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. bill cusack sums it up well in the huffington post (led by arianna huffington, formerly an annoying social climber who is now the darling of left-thinkers everywhere.) not to brag, but i should be able to figure things out, things like where politicians stand on a few issues. i have a masters degree in public policy/political science, which entitles me to be a ~~cynical~~ savvy consumer of political information. and i read, people. yes, i did. and do.

and i can understand why i don’t care for john mccain. and i know enough about hillary clinton’s record to decide whether she earned my vote. (incidentally, i am incredibly annoyed that so very many commentators call her hillary and not clinton. it’s not like they think bill is running again so the confusion factor should not be an issue (and anyone THAT stupid should go back in their time machines and reset them for 2008 — or maybe 1208, for all i care), and no one simply talks about john or barack. it’s effing sexist and rude.)

but, as i asked BS the other night as we watched the tuesday returns, what exactly does obama stand for?

looking at all the signs surrounding obama, BS read aloud, obama stands for hope.

now, my snarky BS aside, i am really struggling here. i want to believe. i think millions of americans want to believe. but believe what? that someone will wave a magic wand and poof! years of our flawed (understatement of the year) foreign policy disappear? that our disastrous economic policies will be righted? improvements in health care policy? environmental policy? poverty?

i’m going to read the blueprint again.

but i have to wonder aloud. plenty of ~~stupid americans~~ conservative americans got caught up in the cult of personality when ronald reagan won two elections in the 1980s. he was charismatic, he blew winds of change (among other things), and people wanted to believe that the horrors and embarrassments of the 70s would be swept away (under a rug), leaving only the fresh scent of ~~a carolina pine forest~~ the free market system and superior american defensive strength. people on the left, like me, derided his cult of personality: how could americans be so incredibly gullible to be won over by this amazing orator who didn’t know squat about how washington works?

and now i think i know.

like i said: i am not necessarily knocking obama, but i won’t feel better until i have a better idea of what he’s planning to do. it’s not enough to say that the person was against the war from the start, for example. (i’ve heard plenty of people go off on clinton, for example, because she voted for the war, just like a lot of people who would normally not do something like that except under strange circumstances. which these probably were.) what the hell will he DO when he’s in office about the war? just pull us out and leave the iraqi people to fend for themselves in their shambles of a nation? or has he thought through precisely what he thinks we should do in a gradual way that helps to preserve lives — american and iraqi?

i have plenty of hope, i think. i am not sleeping. i do want to believe. but i need a lot more than that.

i need details.

election day

Posted on February 12, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i guess i don’t have to lecture anyone in the greater chesapeake area (this means everyone — from the Deliverance parts of the commonwealth, the amazingly democratic district of columbia, and even the farthest mountain reaches of maryland) to vote this election day.

i just returned from my polling place, and i can state with no doubt that i have never, ever seen my polling place this crazy (except for the 2004 presidential election.) i specifically went at a non-rush hour time, and yet the line snaked around about 5 times. it didn’t help that school was in session, and parents — like me — were racing to get their children in school amidst no parking and narrow streets crammed with busses and extra cars. in short: dogs and cats. living together. mass hysteria. the voting officials could have done with an amplifier; they’re surely earning their $85 today.

and in VA, people don’t register as democrats or republicans or independents. they just vote. so there was one loooooong line of everyone waiting to choose which party they wanted to vote for that day (i often wonder about the people who wake up and decide to try out life as voters of a particular party that particular day to see how the other half votes) and then move on to the electronic voting box of joy. i approached it with some trepidation; i literally didn’t know who i was voting for up until the moment walked up with my blue democratic ticket and cast my ballot.

but i voted. i won’t reveal how i voted in this space, as according to a mom who i’ve never met, i have the power to move mountains, to influence thousands of moms in the greater DC area, and apparently to control the universe. maybe not in that order. and as i want to use my powers responsibly, i will keep mum, only announcing: hooray for peter pumpkinhead!

(just let me know when you want to buy a shirt that says: WHAT WOULD WREKE DO, and i’ll get one ready for your wearing pleasure. 😉

seriously though, i just hope whoever wins takes the other one as a veep. it’s such an embarrassment of riches, you know.

tuesday afternoon

Posted on February 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

we don’t vote until next tuesday here in the magical commonwealth of oz. by then, i expect it will be all over except for the shouting, as today, 24 states are in play for the presidential primary vote. SUPER TUESDAY! TSUNAMI TUESDAY! WAHOO! seriously, i wonder why VA didn’t join the ecstatic fray on this day. it sort of makes us into a strange little unnecessary postscript: sorry, folks. we didn’t really need YOUR vote. go about your business. nothing to see here.

when i was younger, it was so much easier to feel one way or another about a candidate. i mean, when i was REALLY small, it was quite easy to vote for anyone except for richard nixon. (of course, they didn’t ask me, a snarky 7 year old at the time, for my electoral opinions, though my next-door-neighbor at the time, who had NIXON stickers plastered all over her camper, nearly swatted me every time i went on an anti-nixon tirade.)

it was even a piece of cake to vote against ronald reagan in my first presidential election (1984), though history shows that my vote, once again, meant precious little. i had an internship at the ABC affiliate in miami then, and i was running the results to the anchors that night. i stood there with the ticker — yes, kids, this was long before the internet, and we received the latest on little pieces of paper — and trembled when i read the election was being called a little after 8 that night, long before the west coast had even closed. i didn’t want to bring the anchors the results: miami doesn’t have to know!, i thought. but in the end, i did my job, sad as it was.

now, it seems more complicated to me. on the one hand, whoever gets elected will inherit a thankless foreign policy disaster and economic nightmares on the horizon. who the hell wants to be saddled with that? and if you care only about party affiliation, then you’d say that it might be a great idea to vote for the opposing party, if only to see them riddled with angst when the time comes to make things better. they’ll get heaped with blame, even if they didn’t start the proverbial fire.

but i have children now. and i have to worry about the world they’ll inherit. i have to think about who i believe will actually take steps to get us out of the international morass and who might help them have an actual future. it is quite a bit more daunting than provoking that old next-door-neighbor. the worst that would have come of that is her slamming her camper door in my face. but the worst that could come of electing a leader who could turn the country into a shambles?

wait, hasn’t that already happened?

so things have to look up. things have to get better. and so, i’ll cast my absurd vote NEXT tuesday. and next november. my vote might be useless — as it was in the past two elections — but it’s my teeny tiny stand in the world for my kids.

and yours 🙂

sistahs are doin' it for themselves

Posted on January 29, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i often enjoy radicalmother’s posts, and this one has me inspired.

in a related vein, i once got into a horrifically-awful shoutfest in grad school. i took a feminist theory class. there were two men in the class, two of the most thoughtful and wonderful people i’ve ever known. two men i knew then to definitely be feminist. the prof asked whether men could truly be feminists. a chunk of the women in the room were screeching that men could not, in fact, ever be feminists because they could never experience oppression like women do.

i am a staunch feminist (though i do not play one on TV), but i had a very difficult time stomaching that idea. a) i found it divisive — a movement needs all the members it can get, imho; and b) men *can* get oppressed. generally, the oppression comes from other men; but due to racism, class-ism, and sexual preference, men can be oppressed. (ask some of the recently-emigrated guys from african or asian nations how they are treated here.) therefore, in my mind, they, too can be feminists.

the womyn in my class went on to tell me that i could not be a true feminist because i’m a heterosexual woman, and i can’t really know what it’s like to be a lesbian. well, that last bit is true — i don’t know what it’s like to be a lesbian. but i do know how it feels to be beaten up over my religion. and like lots of other women, i also have experienced my fair share of oppression. not being allowed to join the little league because girls did not do that back in my day. having the identical qualifications as BS and having to take a typing test when he did not for a job. losing a promotion because i looked so tired when i brought my six-week-old to visit at work so we didn’t think you’d come back from maternity leave. i can keep going, but i don’t want everyone feeling sorry for me. i don’t.

i guess where i’m rambling is this: there are so, so many doofuses (doofi?) out there who will denegrate what they fear. there are men out there who can and want to participate in a real dialogue about sexism. there are women who want to refine the definition of feminism to the enth degree until it’s a very limited club. it’s tough sailing when you’re negotiating these waters with your kids in the boat. so i just try to teach my kids the golden rule: do unto others as you’d have them do to unto you. i hope that somehow translates into just doing what’s right. in the end, that, to me, is what being a feminist is all about: treating women and men, boys and girls, fairly in all arenas of life.

i just wish i could call it humanism.

heartbreaker

Posted on January 11, 2008 by wrekehavoc

the district of columbia social services strikes again. and this time, too late.

four girls are now dead, allegedly by their mother’s hand. the mother, clearly a very sick individual, would not let social workers into the house (apparently, she refused entry to a police officer without a warrant, too.) hmm. you would think that at some point, doors would have been broken down. at one point, social services thought that the kids had moved (and, i suppose, had become someone else’s problem.)

saddest was that a school employee contacted social services after one child was missing from school for 33 days. the mother would not let the school social worker in her house; and when the school social worker reported that the mother appeared to be having mental health issues and expressing concerns that [the child] was being held against her will, not a whole lot happened. the mother had also withdrawn the other children from public school, stating that she’d educate them at home. and somehow, a police officer was judging whether the kids were making educational progress? how about day-to-day living progress!

what the hell is up with THAT?

murders are always horrific. but somehow, i am always particularly horrified when a parent murders her own child. the level of distress and illness she must be experiencing must be all-encompassing. i am heartsick, too, that the DC system failed.

again.

every encounter i have ever had with DC services — from the police to the people who monitor DC child care to the DMV — has been completely frustrating and excruciating. i actually had to have two members of congress intervene on my behalf when i could not move my way through the bureaucracy after six months of trying. that’s how frustrated i was. i knew how to do that. i suspect plenty of people, though, don’t. it should not take two members of congress to accomplish things that are a daily task of an agency. it shouldn’t even take one. it should just take one citizen talking with one district employee. and it should be an employee who actually cares about the mission of her agency.

the children of DC deserve better. the people of DC deserve better.

those four children surely deserved better.

home(school) is anywhere you hang your head

Posted on January 9, 2008 by wrekehavoc

here comes ms. misery.

i promised a rant on homeschooling, and i must make good on that promise, though i’ll try my best to be calm. i expect a giant learning experience of children, organized by their ardent moms, at my door, screaming that homeschooling is the best thing since sliced bread. (just let me know in advance so that i bake enough brownies for the kids.)

on the one side, i must show my admiration for those parents who want to take on the monumental task of educating their children to the current state and local education standards. i don’t believe for a second i could undertake such a mission. i don’t believe i possess the patience. i don’t believe i possess the pedagogical skills. and while i am one smart chick with the IQ test scores to prove it, i don’t believe i will be doing my kids a favor when they need to learn higher order math skills (READ: anything beyond algebra) or other topics where i am currently not up to snuff. and no one, and i mean NO ONE, will be dissecting any animals in my kitchen. (that one’s for YOU, hellboy, who’d probably voluntarily do that deed right now at age 4.)

parents who want to homeschool their children apparently have these reasons for homeschooling, according to the national home education research institute:

· teach a particular set of values, beliefs, and worldview,
· accomplish more academically than in schools,
· customize or individualize the curriculum and learning environment for each child,
· use pedagogical approaches other than those typical in institutional schools,
· enhance family relationships between children and parents and among siblings,
· provide guided and reasoned social interactions with youthful peers and adults, and
· provide a safer environment for children and youth, because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, and improper and unhealthy sexuality.

i suppose i could understand wanting to pull my kids from the public schools if i lived in a terrible place with terrible schools. i would certainly pull my kids if i thought they were going to get killed during the school day. (of course, then i’d get the hell out of the area, if it took the last cent i had.) but sometimes, when i am at local playgrounds with jools on his home day, i marvel at the women and their tribes of homeschooled children playing at the playground. our school district is one of the finest in the nation, and yet these people, who CHOOSE to live here, pull their kids out of the public school. it’s mystifying.

there’s something very isolationist and elitist about homeschooling, as if parents fear the very tainting of their children through their interaction with other children, the media, or, most horrifyingly, with alternative ideas. it’s as if homeschooling parents are building a giant bubble for their children, and only they know everything in the world that’s best for their kids. parents should make decisions for their children when they’re young, but as they get older, one of the most important skills i think kids need to learn is how to make decisions — smart ones — on their own. i wonder how willing homeschooling parents are to give up control.

and homeschooling is all about control. control of ideas and who delivers them. control over who gets to interact with the children. control of the environment. in short, i think some of these people had some toilet training issues in their past and they are taking them out on their kids.

why would anyone want to be with anyone 24/7? if your mom (or dad!) is your teacher, you, the kid, have no escape. from school. from pressure. from HER. i get to be the bad cop enough when it comes to discipline. i don’t want my kids to see me and think, oh G-d, i didn’t do my homework/my project/my whatever. i’m so busted. kids need a break from school. parents need a break from kids. when home is school and school is home, there is no division.

do the parents make conscious and deliberate attempts to ensure their kids meet other kids from different racial, religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds? (i can see it now: let’s meet the JEWISH kids today on our field trip, children! and next week, we go visit the GHETTO!) i suspect not. probably only other kids from their church, kids who share their values and world views, need apply. (oh, except for those days when they do some church-sponsored community project. oh, how weird if your only interaction with other ethnicities is through some service project. then you get to assume that “all of them” are like that. so wrong, so dead wrong.)

what i want to know is what happens when these kids go to college and subsequently enter the real world. i am not impressed by the dearth of research on this topic (and i am a little suspect of the national home education research group, anyway). do the kids have to stay on the narrow, little path their moms and dads have made for them in order to lead a decent life? what happens when they don’t understand any of the cultural references of their peers? are they ostracized? how do they tolerate lines of inquiry that don’t have a ready answer? (do they build an answer with G-d in it instead?) do they expect the world to be a neat and tidy place, just like their home school, with all of the answers provided?

i am the child of a teacher, a niece 0f a teacher, a relative and friend of teachers galore. i’ve been a student of education policy. my bias is obvious here. i believe firmly that there is a certain level of pedagogical training, a certain level of knowledge necessary, to truly lift all boats for all children. i’m not naive enough to think that our public schools are churning out 100% success stories, 100% of the time. please.

but i like to think that my kids are getting taught by people who usually have their best interests at heart. (obviously, not always or else we would have avoided last year’s trauma.) and i intervene when things go seriously awry. that’s my job as a parent — i am my child’s advocate.

and i like to think that what they learn by going to public school — with children who may not be just like them, who may eat different foods and celebrate different days and who may have more money or less money than we have — is how to live in a starter microcosm of our big and diverse world. one lesson at a time. i can’t give them that if i keep them in my cozy, sheltered home. and i need them to learn how to cope with situations, how to become increasingly responsible for their own learning and lives, and to discover that sometimes, life is incredibly ambiguous.

and that’s ok.

i don’t want my children to be dependent on me for decisions and answers. i don’t want them to necessarily be dependent on assuming that G-d has all the answers or even IS the answer. i probably will never be able to teach them much beyond how to treat people and how to bake a mean brownie.

but i damn well know how to guide them to the places and the experiences which will help them grow. and guide them i will. toward being independent, forthright, unsheltered and open-minded citizens of the world.

jesus of suburbia

Posted on January 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

recently, i TIVO’d jesus camp, an indie movie documentary that lost out in the land of oscars to an inconvenient truth. i thought it would be something BS and i would watch at some point; however, when BC got hold of the TIVO and found it, she asked what it was about (evangelical kids going to evangelical summer camp! wheee!) and whether she could watch it. i told her that the only way she’d watch this was if i watched along with her, and voila! we watched this amazing documentary. (not the mother-daughter experience i was envisioning — little women is also on the TIVO — but no matter.)

hey — you out there — you citizen who reveres the separation of church and state. the charismatic christians in this movie will make you bark at the moon. you first meet some of the children at a children’s christian conference in missouri. one child passes out pamphlets while at a bowling alley (after praying to jesus to help her bowl well. no, i am not making this up.) one child wants to dance to christian heavy metal — she’ll dance not for the flesh, but for jesus. (the subject: go-go boots. the question: what would jesus do?::snerk::) and another child wants to grow up and be a preacher. you see kids crying, speaking in tongues, squirming uncomfortably. i was especially shocked to see parents in there, just standing by, letting their children undergo uncomfortable and upsetting experiences with no guidance and little support. i felt like i was watching parents throwing young christians to the lions.

most of the kids, by the way are — SURPRISE! — homeschooled. G-d forbid they actually have to interact with people who believe in things different from the beliefs touted by their church.

[note to self: the day will come when i will rant a HUGE, SUPERCOLLOSAL RANT about homeschooling. but not today.]

anyway, you end up at camp in ND, at a megachurch in colorado springs (which looks more like a concert venue — with diamondvision), and driving around scenic missouri with the camp organizer, pentacostal minister becky fischer. oh, and lest we forget washington, DC, where the children have tape on their mouths with the word LIFE scrawled across it as they pray outside the supreme court. (they wanted to make sure judge alito replaced sandra day o’connor. which, unfortunately, he did. today, a justice. tomorrow, abortion rights.) for me, the film is punctuated with occasional bouts of sanity from radio host mike papantonio, who even duels with fischer on the air over how children should be learning, not indoctrinated, at young ages.

anyway, i tried reallyreallyreally hard to keep myself quiet and available to BC should she have questions. we ended up talking about abortions, we ended up talking about heaven and hell, we talked about creationism. i carefully pointed out that this is a specific group of christians, that not all christians are like this. i did my duty for Dog and Country. (you’re welcome.)

but girlfriend couldn’t help but be creeped out by it all. mama, she pointed out, these people are terrorizing the kids! they’re making them scared and they’re making them cry! why are they doing that to kids?

because, i replied, it’s kind of like brainwashing. you have to break people down and then build them up again — but this time, with your ideas getting planted in their brains. they want them to not question the ideas but to just believe them. and then, make everyone else believe them, too.

we were both horrified. it’s one thing for parents to teach kids about their religion, to share their core beliefs. i support that 100 percent. it’s another thing to train them to be soldiers for G-d. these kids are not learning about tolerance. i’m not christian, but i always thought jesus was a pretty tolerant kind of guy — he hung with people like mary magdalene, right? i wonder how many of these people would go within ten feet of her now?

and when they started praying for george w bush… and when they started to smash mugs, which represented government, with hammers — well, my bullshit detector went off. i could barely stand this. hello, division of family and youth services? anyone out there? anyone home?

you don’t have to be a grownup to realize just how effing perverse this all is.

give blood

Posted on January 4, 2008 by wrekehavoc

one of my oldest friends, wah, has moved back into the area from scenic wisconsin (motto: hey look — another cow!) i am so thrilled beyond belief that she’s in chevy chase (even though i’m not.) today, we were going to try an exercise class together — something called nia, a sort of meditation, stretching, and dancing kind of experience which my friend adores, especially since it relieves some of the agony and pain she has from a condition. i’m all about that earthy-crunchy old fashioned spirituality stuff, so i’ve always wanted to join her. and we were going to go this morning but alas! wah had a flare up and the poor girl was in serious pain. another day. (feel better, wah!)

so back i went to the community center to do my BFL workout. as i walked in, i noticed that there’s a red cross blood drive going on. i looked at the woman at the sign-in table. she looked at me. i continued to look. she continued to look back at me. i finally snapped myself out of it and walked over to the locker room. damn, i thought, one more thing i can no longer do.

see, BS and i used to give blood all the time, so much so that you’d think we were deeply concerned about the vampire community. i gave at my workplace, he gave at his, it was just something we did. something easy that really helped people. i always loved talking to the people i’d meet when i went at work. once, while i worked at ED (motto: education is a state and local policy area, but somehow, here we are!), i ended up giving blood and chatting with Senator Rockefeller’s daughter, Valerie, in the cot beside me.

we gave blood on our anniversary. (i figured we were happy and this was one way to share it with someone who needed a little happy in his life.) the funny thing about giving blood with your spouse is that you pretty much are forced to have a conversation. it’s hard to hold a magazine (though believe me, BS tried), and you can’t exactly walk away while it’s happening, so it’s actually a perversely solid bunch of uninterrupted couple time. and you get to toast each other afterwards with oreos.

i even remember when we had a day off, the day after hurricane katrina. we were going to go to six flags, but OOPS – it was closed. so we figured, what the hell — we’ll donate (cos they’ll probably need more blood thanks to the hurricane) and then go out to lunch. there we were at PF Changs afterwards. the server noticed that we had bandaged arms. he asked us if we had just donated because of katrina. we said yes. he excused himself, then came back a few minutes later. my manager and i would like to thank you for your public spirit by giving you a free appetizer. well, woowee! that’s better than the free cookies and juice the red cross gives out!

but now, i can’t do it anymore.

see, i had a transfusion when my platelets decided to run off to brazil. without that blood, i might not be here, annoying you with my blather. (no one say yay about that. i’m lifting weights now, and i’m strong enough to smack you silly.) and now, i get IVIG infusions for CVID, which are ::drum roll please:: gammaglobulin, a blood product. so no one wants my blood anymore. it bums me out, because this is one of the easiest public service things anyone (over 110 pounds!) can do.

so think about it today. (not you, dee. you’re about to drop two puppies.) and hell, find a blood drive here, at your workplace, or through your local hospital. you’ll be doing a good deed. and maybe your blood won’t be the blood that saves my life, but you can damn well be sure it will save someone else’s. i’ll never know who gave the blood that saved me from total brain bleed-down. but i’ll always be eternally grateful.

and maybe i’ll have to find a new way to contribute… maybe organizing something like this.