winding road in urban area

four of the best words in the world

I told you so.

Being God ain't no bed of roses, once said Father Divine.

For years, I told my students that there would be a black man nominated for president before their was a white woman nominated for president.  It would come down to who we hated more women or black men.

Because there is tremendous romance and feeling great about ourselves that we have overcome and someday is here.

And we cannot come face to face with the hatred of women--misogyny to those of you who are using the world to express mere ambivalence about women.

Women are tremendously hated in these United States.  Multi billion dollar industries are based on it.  It is a huge marketing tool-pornography, so called legitimate films, television programming, sports, cosmetics, dieting, automobiles, --name one industry that isn't directly about or marketed on the hatred of women.

Women simply have no idea how hated they are.

While Obama's speech about his kicked to the curb preacher of his now kicked to the curb church was morphed into a speech about race, which it was supposed to be about his preacher but whenever Obama caught criticism he made that criticism about race, you will not get such a speech about sexism and misogyny from Hillary Clinton.

Because if you did it would be called by the press, the "I lost because I am a girl." speech.

Obama is not going to name Hillary Clinton his running mate. Because it would overshadow his story and this is all about Obama.

I am not going to vote for Obama because I do not like the people who are going to vote for Obama.  I am tired of their sexism and cries of racism.  I am tired of the sports metaphors, the violence, the hatred spewed forth about Hillary.  I knew I wouldn't vote for him when he shot Hillary the finger and then acted like he didn't but he did because he is too cool not to shoot her the finger and too cool to get caught doing it.

She has peeled the hide off every walk of American life and for that she will not be forgiven.

Obama will pick a woman in an attempt to show women exactly what we are supposed to be --helpful, helpmates that don't overshadow men.  A supporting cast, not a star.  Not a demanding, in your face, woman that makes you uncomfortable.

John McCain is going to be elected president.  Because white lower income working class people like me are either going to vote for McCain or stay home.  Hispanics have no desire to vote for Obama.  They aren't part of his story.   

 

what about her safety?

“Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June, in 1992 and 1968,” she said. “And I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That’s a historic fact.”--Hillary Clinton, The New York Times.

Well, the Obama people were privately furious but publicly working this statement.

They must love it.

She wasn't talking about him.  But the Obama people make it about him.  And why not?  Suddenly it sounds like Hillary was comparing Obama to Robert Kennedy.

Hillary told the historic fact, just as she did when she said Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law while Martin Luther King made speeches.  And she gets attacked by the sexist media and Obama Campaign.

She certainly was not advocating violence.  And anyone who thinks she was is fairly sick.  Or an ego maniac.  Or so cynical and manipulative that they qualify to work on the Obama campaign.

What about her safety?  She just pisses people off.  "Iron my shirt.  Iron my shirt."  She has had Secret Service protection since 1992. She threatens to liberate the biggest source of free labor since the abolition of slavery.  If she becomes the nominee, which she won't because the Democratic Party--a rather conservative institution (which merits more discussion so stay with me) won't allow it--women will think of themselves differently.  And if they do, they might start asking for the law to mean what it says--equal treatment at work. at home, in culture.

Hillary Clinton has been treated like hell in the press.  The Obama campaign does not treat her seriously.  They look down on her, her supporters, her agenda.  From the beginning the campaign has been about Obama the person and not the voter.

The Democratic Party is conservative in that they didn't take the radical step of impeaching Bush or voting against war funding.  They did what they have always done.  Grumbled on the fringes and done the predicable safe thing.  Old Party hacks like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy who passed a shitty bill called, Leave No Child Behind with President Bush.  They back Obama like he is their man--they back him like a machine.  He isn't going to change anything.  He has treated people with contempt because the whole campaign, the whole being Obama depends on the old rules--that some people can be fooled some of the time. He can't be accused of underestimating people's ignorance. He says he is going to do great things for the country?  When is he going to start?  After he finishes doing great things for himself.

WTF?

Dear People for the American Way:

Please remove me from your mailing lists, your membership lists, and stop sending me email and mail asking for my financial support.  I interned for PFAW while I was law school, but I will never support PFAW again.

I cannot support institutions that support people who do not support the Constitution of the United States.

Cal State isn’t asking Wendy Gonaver to take up arms to support the Constitution. Cal State is not infringing on her religious freedoms.  They didn’t fire her because she is a Quaker or a pacifist. Cal State is asking whether professors support the United States Constitution.  Why can’t she sign that?  They do not have to hire individuals who do not support the United States Constitution.

She should know, being an educated person, that she already has a First Amendment right to her religious beliefs.  Religious objections to military conscription is already guaranteed without People for the American Way rewriting a state university’s statement.  Cal State is a state and tax supported institution.  They have a right to hire faculty that support the United States Constitution.  I don’t really want to support someone who doesn’t want to support the U.S. Constitution.  The Constitution protects her right to refuse to fight—Clay v. United States.  That is the Constitution that I freely support and support it without reservation.

Please tell me that your attorneys have read that case.  Please tell me that your attorneys know that Clay v. United States protects everyone’s right to conscientious objector status.  The Constitution protects everyone’s right not to take military action to defend the Constitution.

The law and the Constitution protect her. Why does she need a qualifying statement?  Why does she need to explain her beliefs on an employment contract? Why can’t she support the law, the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings that support her rights?  I will not support someone who does not support the Constitution.  I do support people who do not want to fight in wars.  I support religious freedom and free speech.  I do not support people who cannot support the Constitution.

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Obama should call Clinton a thespian and be done with it

Guess what: there are racists in America and, yes, the occasional rubes (even among Obama voters). Some of them may reside in Indiana, which hasn’t voted for a national Democratic ticket since 1964. But there are many more white working-class voters, both Clinton and Obama supporters, who prefer Democratic policies after seven years of G.O.P. failure. And there is little evidence to suggest that there are enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall.

Is there anything racist in what Frank Rich had to say in the New York Times this morning?  No of course not.

But the Sunday morning talk shows tried to say that Hillary Clinton was saying something unseemly when she noted that she was the candidate of hard working white people.  Those are the people who have voted for her and she making an observation about their jobs that require hard work.  The jobs that people stand on their feet doing, the jobs that require long hours, little benefits, and of course are often in unsafe, unairconditioned conditions.  Not jobs like oh, college classrooms, executive suites, offices, and the like.

But did she say something racist?  No of course not.

Television programs and candidates know who supports and watches them.  It is called demographics.  It is how CBS and ABC and NBC know that white men over 55 are more apt to watch their news programs--notice they are white guys themselves and all the commercials for investments, laxatives, and Viagra--than blacks.

But if the Clinton's say it, it is racist.

The Obama campaign knows that their demographics are that black voters were more apt to vote for him as were college educated whites.  The Clinton campaign knows that white, lower income, less educated men and women are more apt to vote for them.  In an effort to continue the fiction that the Clinton's played the race card against Obama, the Obama people offered one more parting shot to explain why Michelle Obama a woman with more in common with Hillary than the voters who support her husband has denied Hillary a place on the ticket.  Hillary is a racist.   The only thing they haven't done is call Hillary a thespian.

It isn't true.  It hasn't ever been true.  But it isn't true that the Obama campaign is about change.  He has used every trick in the very old play book.  He needed the black vote, so he made sure that the Clinton's who made perfectly innocent and intelligent remarks like, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina, too," were seen by the press as ignorant racist remarks. 

Bill Clinton who offices in Harlem is a racist?

Hillary was talking about a demographic reality and the press played along with Obama because the script has been written for them by the Obama campaign.  The press wouldn't be so vulnerable to manipulation if they didn't already hate Hillary.  Ask Al Gore about the press repeating baseless statements like, "Al Gore says he invented the Internet."  He never said it.  But get the mainstream press to admit they made that up and they will not do it.  Half of the statements the press attributed to Namoi Wolf were not her statements.  But the press won't admit that, either.  Gore couldn't get a fair shake in the media and has written and spoken about how dumb the press is.  Their retort, "Al Gore is an egghead."

The Obama campaign has used the old trick of calling themselves new and improved when in fact they are not. They label the same box of soap flakes, "new" and sell it with a sort of religious spell binding that would make Elmer Gantry blush.  And if you criticize Gantry--er--Obama then you are a bigot.  And hate God.  There is a classic story of a sheriff that got elected because he called his opponent's wife a "thespian." They name call, they misconstrue, they fan the flames of race, they are vague as Ronald Reagan.  They make weird statements like Obama noting they have visited 57 states. How does someone say something like that? If the press says, "Obama said he has been to 57 states," reporters are called down for questioning the man of hope.

Reporters and networks are terrified of losing the small black audience that they have.

And why won't that woman get out of Obama's way?  She is just going to damage the party, herself, Obama.  As Bob Schieffer asked, "What does she get out of it?"  Well, Bob, until yesterday, she had more super delegates than Obama and there are more delegates to go.  Are you kidding or is your mind unable to get around the fact that millions of people want to vote for a woman?  "Well, Puerto Ricans don't get to vote for president," Schieffer sniffed.  And we don't have 57 states, either Bob.

So if Hillary makes a statement using demographic information, she is labeled a racist and Democratic Party operatives can't answer it coherently because they are frankly horrified that a reporter would be so stupid as to make such an outrageous statement.   Democrats don't have much taste for telling the press that they are full of it to the press' face.  They write missives about it later, like Al Gore, instead of saying, "What the hell are you talking about, George, Bob, Tim."  At least most of the Democratic Party knows the difference between Matt and Tim.  But if you point out that Obama doesn't know the difference between Lauer and Russert, then you are a racist.

When I was in high school, we regular competed against an African-American kid who gave an amazing oratory where he said that if he didn't walk away with a first place trophy, the judge was "ripping my pride."   He won more times than he didn't.  But he smiled and charmed when he threatened the judge who was usually white by saying, essentially, "you don't want to be another white person standing in my way."  It was an amazing speech with an incredibly ability to touch on emotions like guilt, shame, and horror.   And it was done with humor, art, manipulation, leadership and grace.  And it worked.  Was it reality?  Of course not.  Was it a great communication with his audience?  Yes, even better than the speech judge knew.

If  you liked the post, please tell the Houston Chronicle that you did.  dwight.silverman@chron.com

Schafly doesn't think that married women's husbands can rape them

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do.

Phyllis Schafly, woman, political activist, lawyer, and tool for the right wing does not believe that married women can be raped by their husbands.  She told the Washington University student newspaper those very words.  She is the reason that the majority of people in this country do not have an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Schafly is probably having a rough time of it.  What with Senator Hillary Clinton seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for President, Nancy Pelosi serving as Speaker of the House of Representatives.  One would think that Schafly isn't as influential as she once was, however, if she didn't exist, the right wing would have to invent her.

She is saying that married women lie about rape.  That the lie is used to get out of marriages in which feminist are tired.  She is saying that assault and battery is law enough to prosecute wife beating.  But when a woman gets married that she has consented to sex with her husband and cannot say no. 

Once upon a time it was perfectly legal for a husband to beat his wife.  And it isn't legal for a husband to rape his wife now.

But Phyllis Schafly marches on.  And Washington University gives her honorary degrees.  Rewarding her idiotic statements like the one she made about how English literature classes at Virginia Tech caused the shootings at that campus.

Do you think perhaps she will speak at the Republican National Convention on the State of Women's Affairs?  Oh, I hope so.

did you bring some rocks so you can stone her and the baby?

Teenagers give birth in all sorts of bathrooms.  Airplane restrooms, school restrooms, and now home in the shower. 

The miscarriage on the airplane wasn't actually birth but that doesn't stop the general public from commenting and giving the rest of us a perfect example of how Enlightenment thinking that we get smarter and progress is so very, very wrong.  Comments about police questioning of the young girl who dropped a fetus in the trash were amazingly ignorant.  Some of my feminist sisters, careful to make pregnancy and miscarriage a hateful statement said, why did the police question her?  It isn't like miscarriage is a crime?  Are the police experts in fetus development?  Do they know if a fetus is malformed, or full term, or ready to enter the country illegally?  A person, including oppressed women of minority persuasions cannot simply dump genetic material resembling a human being into the nearest trash receptacle and wash their hands.   Too be fair, no girl or woman regardless or race, color, alienage, or religious persuasion can do same such act, either. 

There will be questions.  Probably few problem solving answers, but there will be questions.

Did the police offer to take her to the hospital?  Some dumb ass would surely wonder out loud in the comment section of the newspaper or even here on this blog, who was going to pick up the hospital bill.

Or the middle school student who delivered in a school restroom after the school nurse told her to get back to class with her menstrual cramps.  The girl walked into the school toilet and gave birth and tried to flush the full term infant down the toilet.  She doesn't remember what happened.  Of course every expert on being under 16 and facing a life threatening trauma like giving birth without the aid of a saddle block in a junior high school public restroom after the nurse ignored the fact she was pregnant and in labor doesn't buy her story that she simply doesn't remember at least one of the top five traumatic things that ever happened to her. No one who knew the girl knew she was pregnant including her friends, her friends' mothers, the school nurse, the teachers, the gym teacher, the science teacher, and her own mother. 

But we certainly believe combat victims of violence don't remember what happened to them or others, unless of course we don't.  It has only taken us almost 90 years to accept something once called "shell shock" as post traumatic stress disorder.

Well, getting pregnant at 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, is at least as stressful as combat, especially when these children are often impregnated by grown men, funny uncles, their older brother, or their older brother's friends, or a teacher or coach, or their own fathers,  and many, many young people live with a level of violence that certainly is not being discussed at dinner tables and presidential campaigns.

And everyone has an opinion.  But no answers, talent or ability to discuss public policy problems.  Can we have a one year moratorium on commenting on things we don't understand?  Can we ban snarkiness as some indication of intelligence.  Can everyone shut the hell up?

Now comes this, as they say in court cases, a young girl goes into labor in the shower in the morning before school.  She hadn't told mom she was pregnant because she didn't want to wind up in the streets.  She did make arrangements to live with a friend if her mother did indeed throw her out.  She gives birth and doesn't kill her infant son.  She wraps the baby up, gets dressed, and walks four blocks to the hospital. 

The hospital didn't judge her or her son.  Placenta and umbilical cord intact, they told her "Don't move."  They helped her.

No recriminations.  No stoning.  Just medical attention.  They didn't hurt her.  They helped her.  And may be mom and dad, who wouldn't comment while their daughter held their grandson and talked to the press--smart girl--may be someone will help her pay for day care so she can finish high school and work in a hospital like she wants to when as she says, she "grows up," will help her, too.

But those who often care to comment in one of America's newspapers are so stunned by their own inability to grasp reality, they really don't  have anything but hatred and anger for a stand up, courageous young woman and her innocent son.  Same people who criticize her and her baby played dice for Christ's robe.

odds and ends

Jack the Cat, a little ocelot marked tabby, who came into our lives, was struck and killed by a car on what has become a busy street behind our house.  I have resisted letting every cat who comes to the back door into the house to stay, but I can't resist it any more.  We have three males who are all neutered who stay in the backyard on the porch most of the time, but seeing little Jack's mangled body has completely changed my mind.

I will get a shovel and a box and pick him up off the jogging path and bury him in our flower bed near a stray tuxedo from Austin who lived with us all over the state until she died of breast cancer and a torty from Sugar Land who found me and produced the best kittens who now live with my parents until she too was struck by a car in the same place as poor little Jack.

Everyone is due shots anyway.  So they are going to the vet for shots, flea medications, and bathes.  I am going to also pick up a water pistol.  One of the males cats, Monroe Moonpie, hates the female Callie Calico so much he frightens her into horrific howling.  They can get a squirt when they squabble.  They hate it but it doesn't hurt them and will stop the fighting.

For some odd reason, I can't get the Houston Chronicle to carry this blog anymore.  It isn't on their list on their on-line edition and it isn't ever recommended reading.  I used to get picked up by the Blog Watch section of the opinion page in the Chronicle regularly, but alas, no more.  Care to ask them why?

My husband had gastric by pass surgery one year ago in March.  He has lost 170 pounds this year since his surgery.

I had knee surgery at the end of this March.  I am still trying to recover.  I have an appointment with the surgeon today.  I probably need more physical therapy.  I still have pain and it still gives out on me.  I may require another surgery or Synvisc injections.  Aging isn't for sissies.

There are other things happening besides politics.  There are many things we need to do this summer, install a new air conditioner, think about new cars, build a shed in the back yard, paint inside the house, find some nice bookcases, read more.

Saw an interesting Ed Harris movie The Third Miracle on cable.

I am reading the first book of the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay.  My husband is reading The Moviegoer, again.  I can't open the email or pick up the phone without someone shouting about the Democratic Primaries.  I can't keep explaining to people that the television press is so corporate as to not matter.   No more news about preachers and politicians.  The speech that was supposed to denounce the preacher became a speech about race and the preacher has come back for more limelight and a bigger book advance.  Why is the image of victim hood more attractive to media? The Obama campaign isn't about the war or oil prices or insurance--it is about why he didn't leave a church years ago that was so offensive to most Americans?  And now why he can't change the conversation away from the preacher back to the campaign? 

Will he have so much trouble with unpleasant political problems as he has with unpleasant preacher problems?

There is no information in the news.  All of it looks like bad press releases and publicity stunts.   Reminds me of that Russian expression about no news in Izvestia and no truth in Pravda. 

Not one more word about that Disney girl not liking the photos everyone saw and discussed with her and that baseball pitcher and underage country singers.  Way too much ink on young girls singing country music and being inappropriate with adults who were being inappropriate with them.  Not one more picture of an underage girl with fewer clothes--we went through that 30 years ago with Brooke Shields.  Not another news story about baseball drug use and use of underage girls.

Obama save me from your followers

If being a liberal means I have to tolerate being told what to think and what to believe and what to say, you can keep it.

This is a missive, an email, from some Olbermann fan.  Read and ponder what abuse blogging invites:

You are ostracizing a person who has taken incredible personal career risks to bring real news to TV, for one remark.  This is the act of a fool.  Do you think Keith's continued efforts to promote the career of Rachel Maddow, who would be the first openly lesbian national TV commenter, is a sign of a woman hater?

The fact that you would turn on Keith for one remark indicates to me that your opinions are coming not from rational analysis, but from some kind of inner emotional turmoil.  This election is too important for pettiness and foolish distractions to get in the way of our unity.  The Republicans cannot defeat us this year, but we can defeat ourselves.  Don't be a part of that.

I am not part of that.  I am an individual.  I am not part of some movement.  I voted for Hillary.  I don't like men advocating beating women.   

What personal risk?  No one watches that network.  If he really wants to lay it on the line, he will broadcast that Bush should be impeached and make the case the Democrats in Congress won't make.  And to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, what is personal risk for but to lay it on the line.  Brave would be looking into the camera and making an on air apology and examining what reduces people to want to physically harm Senator Clinton.  Why, America, do you not blink when men say women should suffer violence?

Goddamn it I am sick to death of celebrity worship in this country.  If it is on the television it must be worshiped even when it is wrong.  And Olbermann was wrong to advocate violence against Senator Clinton and if you can't see it you are more fucked up than I am as I advocate boycotting that smirking spoiled overpaid teenager on television.

What are you threatening me with?  Not being part of Obamarama?  I am not part of it.  Not being on the winning team?  I am a Clinton Democrat.  I know what it means not to feel the love.   Beating women isn't petty, it isn't foolishness.  It is deadly serious.  And your fondness  for Obama over standing up for any woman anywhere makes me sick.

Boycott Olbermann

Keith Olbermann, normally a rational human being, advocated violence against Hillary Clinton on his program tonight.  He said of her insistence in running against Barak Obama that a man should take her into a room and only a man should come out.  Equally repulsive is Newsweek's Howard Fineman, who sat there and then agreed with Olbermann.  When called down by Huffington Post, Olbermann said he should have made it gender neutral and politically specific.  No.  Because as I told him via email tonight:

No matter what you think of the twice elected Senator Clinton, no one deserves violence used against them. Not one person deserves a beating for who they are, what they think, what they say, what they believe, their politics, their religion, their sexuality.

Mr. Olbermann, what is wrong with you? A perfectly normal appearing man is so angry that a woman will not allow him to have his way that he thinks someone should go into a room with her and only he comes out?

This is sick. And it must stop. And the only way to redeem yourself is look at that lame excuse of an apology, pull yourself off the air and get into some intensive therapy for your hatred of women.

You essentially thought that Don Imus should. And you should too. I will not watch your program or anything else on NBC until you do.

MSNBC should be boycotted.  He should be suspended as other idiots have been over such "pimping out" Chelsea remarks and "nappy headed ho," remarks.  Advertisers should be called and told that women control considerable dollars in this fabulous economy and won't tolerate such talk.

McCain keeps breasts and vaginas from causing more lawsuits

John McCain opposes legislation, which died in the Senate, to give women with sex discrimination claims against their employers the ability to sue to uphold women's constitutional rights against unequal pay for equal work or sexual harassment.

McCain said that pursuing these claims would cause more lawsuits.

That is like arguing that white collar crime shouldn't be prosecuted because it would put more white collar workers in jail.  Like arguing that we shouldn't pursue murderers because it would cause more prosecutions against alleged murderers.  Like arguing that we shouldn't build more courtrooms or jails because well, we would just use them to sue people and lock people up.

Maude Lebowski's (pictured here) work is commended as being strongly "vaginal." 
And John McCain and the U.S. Congress think your's is too, honey.    

We shouldn't pursue freedom because more people would be free.

We shouldn't pursue unequal pay because more people would get equal pay for equal work.

We shouldn't treat people equally before the law because then more people would be treated equally and then people would, Oh My God, actually be equal.

And you thought George W. Bush had problems with language and logic.

That is like saying it is ethical and legal to pay someone less money because they are black or Hispanic.  Well, if you did that people would obviously see that it is discrimination.  But if we stop paying women less than we pay men then those damn women are going to want more rights like the right not to have their asses slapped at work, or the right not to be treated as just another qualified employee when it comes to job performance reviews.  Or the right to be judged on the merits, not on her breasts or vagina. 

Those breasts and vaginas cause a lot of trouble.  They have a lot of purposes other than ogling and fondling.  You can use them to keep women from being paid the same salary as a man.  You can use them to keep a woman off a golf course.  You can use them to keep a woman in her place which according to some is still prone on her back.  You can use them to say terrible things about a female presidential candidate that you would never say about a male candidate.  You can use them to judge a woman's intelligence, fitness to lead others, and use them to justify violence, hate, ignorance and fear about women.

Women cause trouble.  Not only do we cause men to rape us we cause litigation when we think that there is something wrong with being discriminated against because we have these uncontrollable urges to be treated the same as men in the workplace and the courthouse and the three branches of government.

Thank God we have men like John McCain taking care of our breasts and vaginas.  Thank God he understands what women just cannot.