How representative are they?

I'm already missing baseball - and the season just ended! I'm trying not to look at the financial news right now - the Market is down 600 points in light of the failure of the House to pass the bailout bill. So, instead, I'm amusing myself with politics! My sister sent this to me via email - I think it's one that's been making the rounds, but I think it's right on the money!

>>Let Me See if I Have This Straight.

I'm a little confused.

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different." Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable. Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive and a heartbeat away from the presidency should a 72 year old man (who has had cancer 4 times) die.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard law graduate who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now...

I love SNL

Thanks to becks for finding this link to last night's opening of SNL. It's the follow-up interview by Katie Couric of Sarah Palin - very funny, but also scary. It's way too close to the truth

Things that annoy me

My buddy Cyn had a good post the other day called "20 things that suck more than last night's loss." I'm stealing her idea.

I have been in a particularly feisty mood of late - perhaps stemming from the fact that I had to work Saturday because of Parents' Weekend - so here are things that really annoy me (in no particular order):

• People who snap their gum when they chew it
• Men who leave their hats on in a restaurant
• People who have forgotten how to use their car's turn signal
• People who try to drive and have an animated discussion on their phone
• People who wait until the last minute to merge into traffic
• The price of airline tickets
• Feeling like I have to be a WW role model all the time
• Feeling like I have to be a role model in front of my students all the time
• The start of the new fall television season coinciding with the end of baseball season and playoffs (you can only record so many things at once)
• My Comcast DSL
• Fox Sports
• Tim McCarver
• Joe Buck
• Smart asses
• The GOP
• Dumb asses
• People voting based on exteriors - just because Palin's a woman or Obama is African American - VOTE SMART, people - delve into the issues!
• Dumb asses who write editorials in our local paper. Latest example: the woman who wrote in to support Palin, saying that McCain demonstrated his respect for women by choosing her and how we should all respect women. She closes with "Gov. Sarah Palin is my kind of girl." Kind of undermines the point, doesn't it??
• Living in a Red State
• Hypocrites
• The New York Yankees
• Yankee Fans
• The Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays
• Rays fans
• The Red Sox losing

On a more positive note! Ellen Goodman had a great column in Friday's Boston Globe (which was reprinted here today with a different title: "Women, Palin and the Vote"). She discusses the difficulties Democratic women are having with Palin's candidacy. Her last paragraph is particularly powerful:

After all, Palin may yet be the fulfillment of an old feminist prophecy that Texan Sissy Farenthold once described with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. We will have achieved equality the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men.

Amen, sister.

Reality check

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy:

• Eight of 10 teen fathers do not marry the mother of their first child
  
• Less than half of mothers who have a child before the age of 18 graduate from high school
• Teen parents will have 10-15% less income in their lifetime
• Children of teen mothers are 50% more likely to have to repeat a grade in school and are less likely to finish high school
• The sons of teen mothers are 13% more likely to end up in prison

These are sobering facts. This are also the reality that most pregnant teens face. I hope Bristol Palin realizes how lucky she is to be part of the Republican family. She won't have to rely upon aid from the government to improve the life of her child - she won't have to rely upon programs that her mom would like to eliminate.

Don't mess with the Librarian

Briefly creeping back to politics....

From yesterday's New York Times:

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

Now that just gets my dander up all over again. Don't go messin' with the Public Library - or the Librarian!

It's all about choices

Kind of surprising news today that the 17-year-old daughter of presumed Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin is 5 months pregnant. Sources say McCain knew about this before he chose Palin. Hmm. The spin-meisters are out in force, but the theme is obvious. From CNN -

• "Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father's example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said.

• Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely."This is the pro-life choice"

• The McCain aide emphasized that Bristol decided to keep the baby, a decision "supported by her parents."

Interesting choice of words. Interesting, because if Palin's Republican party had its choice, the decision would have been taken out of Bristol's hands. They would prefer that no woman have any choice in the matter of reproductive freedoms. I am happy to live in a country that allows all women - even Republicans - the right to choose.