Meet the Flintstones

I just read a report that Sarah Palin told a music teacher in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska in 1997 (shortly after being elected mayor of Wasilla) that she believes that humans & dinosaurs lived together on earth 6,000 years ago. She told Philip Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska, that she had "seen human footprints inside the tracks" of dinosaur fossils/tracks. This was after Palin had given a commencement address & Mr. Mauger had just conducted a college band, & they had struck up a conversation. I honest to God don't know what to say about this. Maybe- isn't it really scary that there's even a slim possibility that this woman would someday have access to the nuclear codes? Gee, thanks, McCain, I guess she's another example of you putting country first. Oh, by the way, what's going to happen on Thursday to prevent her from showing up at the VP debate?

Personal Experience

I've just found out first-hand that there are those in the hierarchy of the Catholic church who are very, very displeased with Sen. Joe Biden's position on reproductive rights (imagine that!), to the point that even buttons advocating the Obama/Biden ticket are being banned from being worn by employees of the church on church property. Sen. Biden is both a practicing Catholic & a pro-choice proponent, which I would guess is extremely common today. The ability to be both is a choice that at least some Catholic bishops are not willing to give Catholics; I guess the "don't ask, don't tell" policy started in the military regarding sexual identity has unfortunately trickled down to everyone who actually thinks for themselves in this area, also, especially those of us who work in any capacity for the church.

Nobody but a moron is "pro-abortion". Abortion is almost always the very last choice for the vast majority of women. I just wish everyone would get the language straight: it's "pro-choice" & "anti-choice", NOT "pro-abortion" & "pro-life". Everyone is "pro-life", & I resent that the phrase has been appropriated by the religious right. You can certainly be both morally opposed to abortion & still be pro-choice. It simply means that everyone can make up their own minds about the matter, without laws either prohibiting or advocating abortion. Why is that so difficult for people, especially the religious right, to understand? There are lots of things that are sins without being crimes. Apparently some people would prefer that we throw out the Constitution & replace it with the Ten Commandments. These are the same ignorant people who obviously are unaware that our country owes its very existence to the concept of separation of church & state.

So for those of us who are in the position of needing our jobs but are denied freedom of speech, I guess we just bite our tongues & resent the shit out of the authorities who deny it to us, & hope that this November we finally elect candidates who will give us a government that is genuinely responsive to & actually cares about all people, which has been so sorely lacking the last eight years. I, like Michelle Obama so rightly said (in spite of being forced to back down), would like to have a government & a country I can be proud of again, & a president who really represents the better angels of our natures that I can look up to, instead of being ashamed of. I mean, do you really want to be smarter than the leader of the free world? That's both sad & scary, & I hope never to experience it again in my lifetime. It all IS really up to us, & we can change the history of the world forever this November.

Move Over, Lynne & Dina

Lynne Spears & Dina Lohan have got nothing over Sarah Palin. While the former have exploited their daughters for (mostly) money, Ms. Palin has done the exact same thing for her own political purposes. At least Britney & Lindsay were already in the public eye; poor Bristol Palin has had all this publicity thrust upon her & her problems simply because her selfish mother got the unbelieveable chance of a lifetime to run for national office, & put her ambitions before her daughter's welfare, not to mention the welfare of her 4 month old special needs baby. Simply having 5 kids doesn't make someone a good mother; anyone can HAVE kids, it's the raising part that's hard, & this woman has failed that test, as far as I'm concerned. I'm a mother, & absolutely nothing would come before the needs & welfare of my child, even though she's now grown. Do people not get this? Sometimes you just CAN'T have it all, especially if your family has problems like the Palins do. Something has to come first in your life; everything can't have the same priority, no matter how much of a feminist you claim to be (do prominent Republican women, especially the hard-core evangelicals, even claim to be feminists? I really don't know the answer to that one). What a sad, sad example for our young people this misguided choice for VP is turning out to be. John McCain should be especially ashamed of himself for this, not to mention all the other shit he either does or doesn't stand for (who can keep his positions straight? Even he doesn't remember them most of the time). I hope that Hillary comes out swinging on this one; she raised an exemplary daughter the right way while being in the public eye practically all of her adult life, & it couldn't have been easy. I'm kind of sorry I've been so hard on Hillary; she looks like Mother Teresa next to this Palin broad. I sure as hell hope that this poor child doesn't have any problems with her pregnancy, cause her mother is going to make sure she sees it through no matter what, right? And what the hell is it with all those kids' weird names, anyway?