Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dear One of My Bosses,

I have decided to take it as a compliment that you have just given me three days worth of work and a deadline three hours from now, rather than taking it as a sign of your lack of organization.

(My bonus had better be HUGE this year)

(And I know you said I should get what I could finished before I need to leave. You also know full well that I am not going to leave you in the lurch. )

Monday, June 23, 2008

BIG BILL!

I came across this lovely picture.

(Go and look. I'll wait.)

Now, although the caption doesn't say anything about it, students of history will remember that President William McKinley was shot (he died a few days later) by Leon Czolgosz in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.

Students of musical theater will, at this point in this post, have this song running through their heads:



(Sorry. I couldn't find a better recording.)

And here are the lyrics.

This song has been stuck in my head all morning. You are welcome.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Exactly.

Everybody calm down and think.

"As St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, an enthusiastic Clinton backer, said this week, 'You don’t spend your life fighting for women’s rights and then vote for Sen. McCain.'"

"'I’m not going to get into whether any rational progressive could think it makes sense to prefer John McCain in the White House to having it occupied by Hillary Clinton’s virtually ideologically indistinguishable colleague. But one thing that should be said is that focusing entirely on Roe v. Wade as a reason to oppose third-party narcissism is very mistaken. Yes, it’s true that replacing John Paul Stevens and/or Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a Republican appointee will be bad for abortion rights, although this is likely to occur by further draining content from Casey rather than overturning Roe outright.

But even when it comes to women’s rights, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The enforcement of civil rights protections for women is likely to be much less in a Republican administration, for example. The global gag order will remain firmly in place. And in general, four more years of a tax-cut-supporting, massive-defense-spending GOP president will not only make any kind of serious progressive reform (much of which disproportionately benefits women even if not specifically targeted to do so) virtually impossible for four more years but will also make it more difficult in the future. A McCain presidency would be very, very bad for women even if not a single Supreme Court vacancy opens up during his tenure.'"

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Happy, but not satisfied.

I completely agree with Matter-Eater Lad's comments here.

However, there is a reason I was torn about which candidate to support when I caucused:

"Prejudice against older women, apparently, is one of the last non-taboo biases. I've been stunned by the extent to which trashing Clinton supporters as washed up old white women is acceptable. A writer whose work I respect submitted a piece addressed to "old white feminists," telling them to get out of Obama's way. I've found my own writing often dismissed not on its merits (or lack thereof) but because as a woman who will turn 50 in September, I'm supposed to be Clinton's demographic. Salon's letters pages, as well as the comments sections around the blogosphere, are studded with dismissive, derisive references to bitter old white women."

I myself have encountered people who never liked Hillary, who thought it was OK in the past to say extremely sexist things about her and especially her appearance, who have been whole-hearted Obama supporters. They may be totally sincere, with no sexist agenda now, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I am *extremely* excited about Barack Obama as a candidate (and I have issues with some of Clinton's recent and not-so-recent campaign strategies), and I did end up caucusing for Obama, but that doesn't mean that this sort of sexism has gone away, or that there aren't whole segments of our society that find it charming to wax nostalgic about days when women had very few choices and very little power. I once got into a heated argument with someone who was somewhat aghast that the struggle of women in this country was in any way being compared to that of African Americans in this country. That person, not wrongly, argued that the direct consequences of slavery have no equal. However, to trivialize the struggle for women's rights in this country and across the world is a mistake, and to try to pretend that sexism isn't present every day is naive. It is not unusual for people who are considered mainstream to talk about how much more wonderful it would be for our families to go back to days when women always stayed home with the kids (not chose to do so, but had to do so, and there is no option for men to stay home for the kids in that scenario), times when women had no options but to go from being protected by their fathers to being protected by their husbands with no way out if something went wrong. What would the reaction be in a similarly-positioned person said something like that about the days when African Americans had to sit at the back of the bus? Racism AND sexism are alive and well in this country, and neither one should be able to be considered acceptable in any way.

I should also add that I do not think that sexism hurt Hillary Clinton more than racism hurt Barack Obama. Both were and are present here.

Edited to add:

Per Matter-Eater Lad's post, I do think one major difference is that women really thought Hillary Clinton could be the nominee and then president, while African-Americans really thought that Barack Obama could never do it. This difference could explain why so many people feel like this nomination was taken away from Hillary while people would not have felt that way if Barack had lost.

I still have not downloaded the pictures from my camera.

However, here is another phone photo:



V. was all for the cheering!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

And it was totally awesome.

It took almost three hours of waiting in line for my pregnant sister and me (with the baby strapped to me) to get into the Xcel Center last night. The line wound all around downtown Saint Paul. It was all worth it to be there the moment at which Barack Obama announced that he is the Democratic candidate for president. It was electric.

Here is a photo from my phone (I will have real-camera pictures later):