Sundays with Stretchy Pants

How much do you love what Colin Powell said on Meet the Press? Not even the bit about endorsing Obama but this bit:

Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I cried. Did you cry? I did. Because he’s Colin frickin’ Powell and he’s finally saying what I wish all of the other powerful people would say. Even if he came out to endorse McCain, I would have still felt the same surge of extra respect. Endorsing Obama is just the icing on the Colin Powell cake.

As for the Sarah Palin on SNL, I’m confused by my feelings. First of all, she wasn’t funny. Second, she just kind of seemed like a punching bag, which I love, but that also makes things murky for me because here’s this woman who isn’t smart enough to realize that just because she’s on Saturday Night Live doesn’t mean she’s in on the joke. She was still the butt of the joke and the fact that she wasn’t smart enough to realize that and not put herself in that situation speaks to her desperate ignorance even more than any terrible Katie Couric interview. It’s one thing for Tina Fey to do her hilarious imitation of her when Palin isn’t there, but I couldn’t believe that Palin felt good about standing there while Alec Baldwin went on a tirade about her, calling her “that horrible woman” and her only comeback was to tell him that Stephen is her favorite Baldwin brother.

I was afraid that they would write some really funny stuff for her and then she would seem human and hilarious, but that’s not what happened. Remember when Hillary Clinton was on SNL? It was good and funny and smart. And, of course, the writers wrote better for Clinton, but I think that Palin should’ve been savvy enough to realize that the writers would not do that for her. At every turn, I thought it looked like they were all laughing at her, not with her. And it made me feel weird, like, as a woman, which was confusing because I really, really abhor her as a VP candidate, so I would think I would have just laughed at her, but I didn’t. I don’t even know if there’s a word for how I felt. I thought I would be happy that she didn’t have any good lines, but it just made me go, “Holy cow, you really are that dumb.” And it made me sad-ish. And scared. What if we have a VP who is that dumb? That would be bad.

So I walked around with a furrowed brow all weekend wondering why I have any feeling other than, “Haha! You’re dumb,” and wondering why I would even hope that she would be show us a glimmer of intellect. I guess I’m just going to chalk it up to the fact that she’s a woman and when a woman with that much power looks bad, I worry that we all look bad. Way to go, Palin. You are a ridiculous embarrassment and now I’ll never be chosen as anybody’s VP candidate. You’re ruining it for everybody.

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I consider myself to be a person of varied interests, but I just don’t care about anything else right now. What could I possibly write about with this election stuff going on?  I didn’t call McCain a chicken. I didn’t make fun of Palin’s interview with Katie Couric (”I’ll try to find ya some and I’ll ‘em to ya!” WTF?) and I didn’t even mention the debates. It was hard, but I restrained myself. See my “Shared Items” over there in my sidebar? I’m even really super trying hard to share items that are not political (FAIL!) I really want to, but I just can’t. Even Kids Know Stuff is getting in on the political posts today.

Luckily, I saw the pic below at Racialicious so I headed over to PunditKitchen to see what else they had to choose from so I could still be political without actually writing a post about how unqualified Sarah Palin is or how awesome Obama is or how old McCain is or how racist America is. I thought I would find another pic just as good as the one posted at Racialicious, but I decided this one was my favorite. So I copied. It’s ok though because most of you don’t click on my shared items anyway, so here it is again, in honor of the post-debate poll bump.

Now I’m going to do yoga and go thrifting and get on with the rest of my life. Maybe.

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We hung out at Campaign for Change headquarters last night. Kristen has pictures here.

The kids all said they thought it would be boring, but it ended up being fun. They decorated signs, they talked to other campaign workers about our country and what needs to change. Liberty couldn’t sleep because she’s worried Sarah Palin is coming for her uterus. And it’s not even ripe yet. I’m kidding. Sort of. She actually did misconstrue “taking away women’s reproductive rights” as being the same thing as slavery, though. Wait, maybe she actually understood it better than most people. Smart kid, that Liberty.

So I made almost 70 phone calls, talked to 7 real people, 2 of those people hung up on me, 4 were already voting for Obama so we talked about morning sickness, cost of college, racism, etc. And 1 person was translating for his Chinese mother and he told me he wasn’t planning to vote because he has a tiny baby. Yeah, I don’t get it either, but I said, “Well then you especially have to vote for Obama so the tiny baby can afford to go to college!” and then I read a little bit off of my script about the American dream and whatnot. It was super fun and I LOVED leaving the scripted messages on answering machines. I’ll do it again. My kids will do it again. I don’t care if, as some people say, it doesn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things; it made a difference in my kids’ education and it was fun. I’m all about the fun memories and this was a good one.

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I like Junie B. Jones. I know a lot of people don’t like the fact that she talks like a Kindergartener or a First Grader, but I think she’s cute. There, I said it. I love being controversial on my blog.

It’s been a long time since Lena and Liberty were into Junie B., but, thanks to a life-size poster in our library, Maya has jumped on the Junie bandwagon with full force. She’s been checking out book after book and listening quietly to chapter after chapter. This is kind of a big deal because Maya has never been the “listening quietly” type. Never. Goodnight Moon? Feh. The Runaway Bunny? Boring! But Junie has a hold on her. Maybe it’s because Maya has a bit of a speech problem, so she feels she can relate to Junie B? Whatever the reason, she’s hooked. And a lot of my day is spent with her following me around saying any of a number of versions of, “Remember when Junie B. lost her furry mittens and then she was sad and then she went to the lost and found and then she didn’t find them yet and then she wanted that backpack that wasn’t even hers? That was funny!” And I totally agree. It was funny!

I got nothing else today. I’m tired and it’s raining and Sarah Palin is still making my ovaries act all rebellious. I swear, it’s like they’re trying to get out so they can use the fallopian tubes to strangle somebody. Probably John McCain. Will the Secret Service read that and think I’m serious? I hope my ovaries don’t go to jail. Or maybe I hope they do go to jail. I can’t decide.

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Fabulous speech, Mr. McCain, but even seeing you with all of that make-up and with your lips actually moving a little bit when you talk didn’t make me forget that you are super old and near death. And Sarah Palin is your VP choice. That was dumb and it won’t be forgiven.

P.S. You’re old. And Sarah Palin was a poor choice. Because you’re old and everybody thinks you’re going to die soon. But you and Sarah have a super good speech writer. Kudos on that.

P.P.S. You’re not very young. And Sarah Palin makes my ovaries angry.

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Oh, hi. I know this isn’t a political blog, but I have just one more thing to say and then I’ll get back to crap that doesn’t matter.

All of these election issues (the real ones, not the fake ones) make my head spin. For every economist who slams McCain’s plans, there’s another who slams Obama’s plans. It’s all just theory and hope (sweet, sweet hope) right now and nobody knows for sure what will happen if either of these candidates is elected.

Here’s what I do know: I’m a person. I have thoughts. I have a body. I have a life. And when people chip away at my person-hood by taking away my own very personal rights, it makes people think I’m less than a whole person. It happens subtly, but it happens. It happens in homes where sons are put on pedestals and daughters are put in boxes. It happens when a grandfather laments that there’s no one to carry on the family name because he has only granddaughters (sure granddaughters are great, but what about the name?). It happens when a teacher chooses over and over again to call on the boys in the class, allowing the girls to continue to hide within their ever-thickening shells. These girls don’t know their worth because the world thinks they’re worthless.

It happens when a woman of child-bearing age is passed over for a job because she is only seen as a fertile uterus who will need to breed soon, causing all sorts of HR issues (forget about paid leave, what if she wants on-site daycare? Horrors.) And it happens when a childless woman of a certain age is looked at with pity because people see her as a barren uterus that missed out on the only worthwhile thing that could’ve brought purpose to her life. We are more than our uteruses, but it’s hard to see it that way when we’re not even in charge of the ones right inside our bodies.

Let’s not get me started on violence against women not being taken seriously. I’m feeling very dark and gloomy, but even I don’t want to bring you down that far.

Here’s the thing, I have the right to decide to have my baby or not. I do. It’s ok if you don’t believe in abortion. It’s ok if you would never, ever have an abortion. You just need to believe that we all have the right to make our own decision about this really big thing. Because, you know what? If you don’t believe that, then you eventually have a hard time believing other things about my basic rights. For instance, did you know that I have the right to choose my very own favorite method of birth control and I should really have the right to be able to obtain it just as easily as crusty old dudes can obtain their vi@gra? It’s true. Do you know why I should have this right? Because I’m a person. Also, I have the right to be paid equal money for equal work. Guess why? Because I’m a person. Remember when black people first started being able to vote, only their votes were only worth 2/3 of a vote? Yeah, that was mean. And that’s the kind of thing that happens when people think you’re not a person. You end up with no voice.

Women are people. And Obama knows it.

(Most of these links came very handy-dandy like from this post at MOMocrats. And one of them came from my husband. I’ll give you one guess which one. It’s the one that is about something that starts with econ- and ends with -zzzzzz.)

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I’m a little bit bummed about all of the anti-Alaska sentiment out there. Referring to “moose burgers” and whatnot while making fun of Sara Palin. It seems a little bit mean to Alaskans. I don’t know. It just makes me feel a little bit icky.

And, Palin was all, “somebody* said Hillary put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling and I’ma bust through ‘em!” Does she know that being anti-women’s rights kind of goes a long way toward sealing up all of those cracks? Seriously. A female VP with her ideology is kind of a wash as far breaking through glass ceilings goes. Of course she can get through the glass ceiling; any woman who doesn’t believe in women’s rights can get through. And any woman who is willing to be used as a pawn by the dudes can get through. Whatevs. It means nothing as far as progress for us.

*And I’m super pissed she quoted my girlfriend without giving credit. Not cool.

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