I’m so used to horrible attitudes toward abortion that I didn’t adequately react to John McCain’s debate response last night. Did you see it? Mocking the idea of "health of the mother" in hand gestures and a voice of dismissal. I don’t think I need to say anything except to thank, for probably the only time in my life, Fox News, for the best edit on YouTube. It speaks for itself.
Category: WOMEN
Sarah Palin, Rape Kits and Birth Control
When you first heard that Wasilla, AK and its then-mayor Sarah Palin were charging rape victims for the cost of their rape kits (evidence collecting) you didn’t quite believe it, right? This video is the first of a series being produced by "The Wasilla Project" and was called to my attention by Nerdette, a sharp cookie whose blog "Not My Gal" is usually on top of these things. After I watched it I went back to this CNN version of the story:
It’s kind of slippery but, partly because I’ve been working on the issue of very scary threats to the right to planning ones pregnancies, and to actual birth control and family planning, I’ve very aware of the Palin perspective on these important life decisions. Watch both videos and see what you think. And if you want to learn more, stop by Birth Control Watch and see for yourself what informs a lot of the thinking behind Sarah Palin and that guy she’s running with.
SARAH PALIN, SARAH PALIN, SARAH PALIN AND THE DANGERS OF A DESPERATE PARTY
This photo says it all. I took it yesterday, on our second Sunday canvassing for Obama in Virginia. When I got home I decided to review the stats for this blog and discovered that no post has drawn either the traffic or comments as those I’ve written about Sarah Palin. Friends tell me the same is true of theirs. I don’t think it’s brilliant writing that’s doing it. Sarah Palin has captured a large chunk of this presidential campaign as well as either the imagination or the rage (depending on perspective) of many American voters.
The Tina Fey stuff is funny, and effective, as I’ve mentioned before. The mean stuff is plenty mean. The "middle-class hockey mom" stuff is more effective than I wish it were, especially since the Palin family is worth over $2M and they made close to $200,000 last year. None of this matters as much as it should. She draws huge crowds. She’s cute. Those who support her either believe she is a wonder of accessibility and straight talk or have twisted themselves like pretzels to find reasons to justify her presence. For me, at least, it’s kind of sad.
What makes so many people prefer a less-educated, less-experienced candidate with a limited academic past, no curiosity or sense of exploration, untrammeled ambition and not much of a history over far more capable, experienced leadership? I remember when I was a kid and my mother’s adored Adlai Stevenson ran for president in 1952 and 1956, people called him an egghead, he was accused of being too cold and not able to connect to voters. And some analysts have compared him to Obama – two Illinois candidates too smart for the room.
I don’t see it. Obama appears to me far looser and more accessible- and more well-rounded in experience and education – and he’s younger and more available to young voters; Stevenson was a different man at a very different time and he was running against the man who, at least partially, won World War II. Even so, the question really is, how far have we evolved since then? AND how much have we learned from voting for the guy we’d "rather have a beer with" when that guy was George W Bush? AND in times so very dangerous that by the time each post is replaced at the top of the que, markets around the world have gone down once more and international tensions risen – will we still, as a country, opt for the "mavericky mom" who is not, at least on paper and on the stump, capable of understanding, much less solving, our problems? (OH and that guy who’s running with her…..)
As I write this, Palin, just introduced by Joe Lieberman (%#@!!**&) to a huge Florida crowd screaming "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah", continues to draw the faithful to great emotional response. It’s hard to know if, when people go into the voting booth, this emotion will translate into votes – or the reality will hit them and they won’t be able to do it.
My other fear is that because the race is moving toward Obama, acts of desperate chicanery will be part of the election day landscape. Here are some things that are already happening;
- Republicans purging voter rolls, particularly of young first-time voters
- De-listing voters whose homes have been foreclosed – with the claim that since the voters no longer have an address, they can’t vote.
- Closing polling places in Democratic areas and intimidating officials
- Trying to keep absentee ballots from newly registered voters
- Names missing from voter rolls that affect legitimacy of absentee ballots
If you’re an attorney or law student, you can help with these things and the others that will happen.
We Americans will be tested in many ways in the next few years: economically, militarily, educationally, diplomatically and more. The first test, though, is this: As we face these challenges and all the others certain to emerge, and we think about our kids and what we want to leave for them, will we be able to take a deep breath and vote for "the smart guy" or is the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin the canary in our coal mine – warning us that our electorate is, even after W, not ready to choose the most capable and visionary, who has inspired so very many of our next generation to enter the fray, when they can elect Tina Fey light and her "old guy" running mate instead?
SARAH PALIN, JOE SIXPACK AND GEORGE ORWELL
I used to run a TV news show, and I told my staff (literally) that using the term "Joe Six Pack" in a script or interview was a firing offense. I probably couldn’t have gotten away with firing them but it made the point. I grew up just outside a mill town along the Monongahela River — it was the same town so brilliantly portrayed in The Deer Hunter — and I went to school with kids whose parents worked in steel mills and coke plants and river locks. Some of them lived in trailers. I was the Jewish Girl – a bit of an outsider but usually part of the gang – parties, sleepovers, crazy afternoons sneaking cigarettes in pine-paneled basement "family rooms."
I guess lots of those parents were what Sarah Palin called Joe Six Pack. But that’s not who they were- who they are. America is full of hard working people who drink beer. Bruce Springsteen portrays them all the time – much better than I could. They are dads and husbands and brothers and sons and they love their kids and their wives and, where I lived, the Steelers. They often don’t ever move out of their "starter houses" because that’s what they can afford. The dads that I knew sent their kids to college though – or to "the service" which paid their tuition, and the next generation did better economically – the American dream at work.
I admired these people, and loved some of them. When you spend lots of Saturday night sleepovers at girlfriends’ houses you get to know their parents. And, remembering those dads, I do NOT understand how Sarah Palin can talk about "Joe Six Pack" and still say she’s one of "the people." It’s like talking about "Polacks" and then claiming you’re Polish. The term is a colossal insult, the speaker setting herself above the folks she’s describing. For some reason, it’s painful — almost heartbreaking, to hear. I know it’s partially my rage at her for claiming some special channel to working class Americans while, it appears, cynically performing like a parody of them – much like Frances McNormand did as Marge Gunderson in FARGO. Her "Joe Six Packs" deserve better.
I was going to write about all the Orwellian rhetoric too — McCain and Palin repeatedly claiming untruths and running against things McCain himself helped to put in place. Here’s what I mean: They talk about Wall Street malfeasance when they and their party repeatedly squashed efforts to bring it under control. They talk about change when they’re fighting it and economic insecurity when their policies helped to cause it. That’s not a working class agenda, it’s just cynical pandering. Mr. Orwell would be proud. "Joe Six Pack" — and the rest of us, deserve better than that, too.
TINA FEY, SARAH PALIN, HOME PERMANENTS, AND THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
When I was a kid there was a thing called a "home permanent*." It was a hair treatment that made your hair curly (horrifying to girls like me who ironed their hair and wrapped it around orange juice can sized rollers [or real orange juice cans] to keep it straight.) One of the most visible products was called Toni Home Permanents and its ad campaign was at least as popular as a great Saturday Night Live catch phrase.
Yup. It asked "Which twin has the Toni?" That’s a photo of the print version on the left. The idea was that one twin had a fancy salon permanent and one curled hers at home with Toni, but you couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, any kid who ever had a sleepover at the home of a friend who’d just done a "home permanent" knows that the chemical smell was gross (and if I remember correctly you couldn’t wash you hair for a couple of days) and their hair was often substantially more dry and brittle than the "salon permanent" girls’. In fact, there was a difference.
Every time I see Tina Fey being Sarah Palin I’m reminded of that. The McCain-Palin campaign is asking us to believe that when you spend upscale salon money it’s mostly for snob appeal, because all you need is a Toni and your bathroom sink, and you’re just as gorgeous. In this context though, the comparison is different — and ironic. If you saw Chevy Chase being Gerald Ford or Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan or Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, the impressions were great, but you always knew that the real guy was smarter, and more serious, than the comedian. No trouble knowing which "twin" was which. But with Tina and Sarah, it’s reversed. The brains, and the class, go to the comic, not the politician. The girlfriend of a young friend, asked if she was jealous about another woman in his circle, responded that she’d only worry "if he was hanging around with Tina Fey." Her intelligence, class and charm are that attractive. It’s pretty clear that she’s smarter and probably knows more about what’s going on in the world than The Candidate and, for many of us, appears better equipped to serve as Vice President. Many conservative pundits seem to agree. And many Alaskans. And liberals. Several posts, and tweets, from strong progressives, have described a "cringing" sense of discomfort when watching her stumble.
So what thoughts, and emotions, do we bring to this spectacle tonight? What do we, who support her opponents, consider as we watch alone, or with like-minded friends at debate-parties or with tweeters on #Debate08? From here, it’s complicated. Angry at her searing convention speech, but sad to see her stumble so pitifully in the Couric interview; fearful of what could happen if she and McCain win, furious that she’s trying to stall the Alaska report about her alleged abuses of power, and, in my case at least, completely detached from the fact that this woefully inadequate candidate happens to be female, we hope the battle is fought on competence and capacity, not gender and one-liners. Mostly, we’re aware that the copy is far superior to the original, and that the smart, attractive version of the candidate isn’t the one who’s going to be there tonight.
*I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently there still are things called home permanents but who uses them?? No clue.
SHOWER THEM WITH LOVE – FOR KRISTEN, AND ALL OF US
What an emotional shock it has been to write this. I need to start with that; the feelings, years later, are still there.
Since this baby shower is for one of my favorite bloggers, and friends, the inimitable creator of Motherhood Uncensored, our own Kristen, (and her friend Rebecca, of Girl’s Gone Child,) and since it’s organized by four amazing bloggers in their own right, I’m grateful to be part of it. Our task is to share those lovely early moments with our brand new children. That’s why I’ve added this – which may be the most perfect photo I own because it says just what we all know. The connection of a mother and newborn is so complete that it’s almost impossible – even with writers as remarkable as this community — to describe. At least I can’t find words that say what I know this photo says.
This is actually my second son, very soon after he arrived. He’s 28 now and more extraordinary than even I, proud mama, could have imagined that cold November day in Roosevelt hospital in 1979. He and his brother both started off with beautiful souls though. They are beautiful still.
When I think of those early days, it isn’t all the getting up at night (although it could be) and it isn’t that I had so much trouble nursing that I needed to supplement (although it could be) and it isn’t the absolutely perfect terror that I might do them harm that accompanied the first days of their lives (although it certainly, indubitably could be.)
Nope. Here’s what I remember, and what I wish for the two of you and all you other moms and moms-in-waiting: it’s a cold winter night, maybe after about a week as the new parent of son number 1. It’s dark, but out the window you can see the boats going up and down the Hudson River (even though our windows leak so there’s ice on our windows, on the inside.) You hear a cry and struggle out of bed, grab a robe, go retrieve this new little person from his crib, change him and move with him to the bentwood rocking chair (of course there’s a rocking chair) facing the window. And you hold him in your arms and you feed him. The dark envelops you, the dim skyline across the river in New Jersey is the only light you have, except for the tiny pinpoints of light on the tug boats and barges as they make their way. And it’s silent. Not a sound. And, with this new life in your arms, you rock gently back and forth. The gift of peace of those nights in the rocker was so intense that as I write this, I can feel it. If I let myself, I could cry.
I remember watching my mother with each infant – can still see her face as she responded to them, thinking to myself then "Oh. This must be the way she was with me. How beautiful. How beautiful."
And I remember this. My parents came to us very soon after our first son was born, helped put the crib together, celebrated with us. Late one night, as I stood with our baby in my arms, my dad walked into the room. Looking at the two of us, in perfect peace, he said to me "NOW do you understand?" Of course I did.
MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET
This is the logo from a blog called Mothers with Cancer. (We are twenty (or so) moms
fighting cancer. Some of us have been in remission for years; others
are newly diagnosed, or battling a new recurrence. All of us have
something to say.) I’ve spent much of the past week reading personal and group cancer blogs for a project and I’ve been near tears for most of that time. The sadness, the courage, the resilience in the face of multiple recurrences, the joy in small moments – there’s only so much of it you can read before you start to crumble. Then you tell yourself that they’re living what you’re reading, and, out of respect, you force yourself to go on.
In 1998 there was a big cancer March on Washington. I was around DC for much of it; because of my husband’s long-time work on prostate cancer advocacy I’ve been around cancer advocates and survivors for years. But none of that, and none of them – brought truth to the words "you’ve got cancer" the way these bloggers do, as their realities become ours. I’ve come to believe that we owe them our attention – that, as Willie Loman‘s wife Linda said: "Attention must be paid." And so it must
You’ll find many of a legion of cancer bloggers on Mothers with Cancer and many more on their individual blog rolls. I urge you to visit their sites and leave a message. They may not know us, but through their honesty — and their pain — we know them. And we can’t leave them sitting out here alone. Listen:
The truth is, I am scared. I am trying to reassure myself with the fact
that I have been feeling pretty good, that I have been biking and
running But I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was feeling the
healthiest and most fit that I had in years. And I was diagnosed with
liver mets three weeks after I returned to work, at a time when I was
feeling strong, energetic and (so I thought) on the road to reclaiming
my life from cancer. Not Just About Cancer
Continue reading MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: SARAH PALIN IS THIS ELECTION’S WIZARD OF OZ
This is an argument for a change of focus. As I began to write it all I could think about was the Wizard of Oz, the fake behind the curtain who had everyone believing he could save them all. When he finally presented gifts to all but Dorothy, it sounded horrifyingly like the tactics of the current "wizard," nominee Palin, and her boss. I am as angry and uneasy as anyone over the nomination of Sarah
Palin but I think it’s time to stop now.
This morning I heard Paul
Begala say on MSNBC that every day McCain isn’t talking about the
economy, he wins. That he can’t win ON the economy so if he keeps
distracting the voters and the press he will be better off – a premise
supported by the current poll numbers. Begala also kept comparing
Palin to the "shiny object in the water" on a fishing line that makes a
fish take the bait. I think he’s right.
The issues of this
election are, as we all know, so enormous and scary that it may be
easier to keep focusing on the governor, but that will not win the
election. We need to help remind people of the real issues – the
devastating effects of the sub-prime crisis and it’s sequel, investment bank failure so evident in the past few
days, the state of the economy generally, our sinking competitiveness
in education and the tragic decline of many of our schools, the
attempts by the Right to place (with hat tip to Auntie Mame)"braces on
our brains" and of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, energy and
infrastructure.
We’re in a mess. It wasn’t caused by pigs or
lipstick or tanning beds or even community organizers — it was caused
by the people currently in office who want four more years and are
Orwell-ing us into giving it to them. This community has enormous
impact and knows how to raise a ruckus (If you don’t think so, mosey on
over to the League of Maternal Justice!) Let’s get some message
discipline here, leave Sarah to others and push the issues. We’re
going to kick ourselves if we don’t.
A version of this post appears on Blogher.com.
SARAH PALIN II: IS ANYBODY ELSE READY TO THROW UP THAT WE’RE DOING ALL THIS MOMMY TALKING?
I worked at the TODAY SHOW from 1980 to 1989. During that time I probably produced, conservatively, two pieces a month on "working mothers", as we were called then. It was rough slogging. No matter how many times we looked at it (always from both sides) it just wouldn’t die. Of course early in that same period we had trouble getting cameramen who would shoot a story including an AIDS victim, so there were tougher issues for sure.
In any case, in that period we talked to T. Berry Brazelton (often), Lois Hoffman, Ellen Galinsky, Dr. Edward Zigler, Phyllis Schlafly, Sylvia Hewlett, activists from Catalyst, NOW, Eagle Forum, David Elkind, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and literally hundreds of others. We debated every aspect of child development, nature/nurture – you name it, we covered it. By the time I left at the end of 1989 the issue had mostly been settled – by demographics if nothing else. Mothers were working. Many needed to be. More were on their own, abandoned by or never having had a partner in raising their kids. What was left of the battle was scraps, remnants and [very important] policy issues dealing with childcare, equal pay and family leave etc. Working moms were an American reality.
That was twenty years ago! Twenty years! And now, artificially or not, the issue has emerged again. And many of those allegedly "defending" working moms (or at least one named Sarah) are those who, for much of my working mother life, so vehemently opposed the idea of women going out of the home to work. Sorry. I know the conversation has passed this issue in many ways but as I read posts and newsletters today, it made me mad all over again. With all these conservatives defending working mothers, after what I remember, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. They’re all working now too so some of it is probably genuine but there’s also such an element of strategic hollering. Anyone else feel like they fell down the rabbit hole?
JUST READ THIS – SARAH PALIN BY MOM-101 ON MOMOCRATS
I really want to quote this (not long at all) post by the wonderful Liz of MOM-101 but it would spoil the surprise. You have to read it yourself. You’ll know what I’m talking about when get to it. She’s always great, but this is… well…. does off the charts cover it?
