I'm an Obama Mama

I should have said this a long time ago. I'm an Obama Mama. No, make that a Crazy-for-Obama Mama. Over at Cupcakes, we're all Obama gals, totally sweet on the guy. This man needs to be elected. It's not because he is black or young or about "change"--it's because he represents much needed change and a new paradigm. The snarky, mean-spirited, irresponsible, unaccountable spit-firing status quo has not been working for some time. Eight years in fact but that road was paved long ago during the Reagan years.

As the recent economic bubble bursting would indicate, the party is over, people, and we need to cut back, regroup and focus on America again. Not on corporate greed, not on rewriting the Constitution for our own purposes, not on wars we have no business fighting in the first place and that we can't possibly win.

We need another FDR to benefit and sustain the middle class through programs that create work. Sustainable energy would be a start: in this country, not outsourced, pay as we go. And while we're at it, let's bring back the FDR stance on isolationism. Sure, he eventually realized we had to enter World War II but that was a different kind of war than the small turf wars we are fighting now (and in countries that hopefully Sarah Palin can identify were she to be elected).

As for the experience question, when you get right down to it, who is really qualified to be president of the United States? A warrior and same-old politician who changes his mind and his alliances for public favor or someone who passionately, eloquently gets things done and thinks them through and who will surround himself who those who think and challenge him, also? As for religious views, I echo the words of others: we are not electing a new Messiah, we are electing a person to run this country. They are two different entities. America was founded on personal and religious freedoms and we can never take those for granted but the current administration has been doing a great disservice to those freedoms.

If race (or even gender) is a consideration, consider that is probably the most ignorant posture one can take--in this era or any other. If it is the economy and you are still wrapped up in the tiresome Democratic "tax and spend" debate, consider this: George W. Bush has spent more of your tax dollars and his country's largess than any other president in history. Meanwhile, for those who think Obama is a socialist because McCain says so, please consider that the government's recent bail out of Wall Street is Republican socialism for the rich. Think of what that same money--or the billions of dollars in Iraq--could do towards helpful programs like health care and quality education? If that's considered socialism, I'll eat my high monthly health insurance bill and private tuition expenditures.

Needed change will come by ousting out any semblance of the past eight years and allowing someone new and bright and inspiring to have a try. I believe that Senators Barack Obama and Joseph Biden and Democratic leaders across the nation are our only hope for reversing many negative situations and the collective ethos of this country. America has been a great nation, is great, and can be even greater again. I am looking forward to November 5--a new day and hopefully a new era for the United States of America.

Mercury is in Retrograde--Of COURSE it is!

Why didn't I think of this sooner? Tonight it occurred to me, after a weekend of failed communications in my work life (very failed, and misunderstood I might add), and with the nation's economic collapse and hate-spewing bimbos running for office, that what we've got here, folks, in the words of Strother Martin as the Captain, left in Cool Hand Luke "is failure to communicate." ["what we got heehr is...failyuh to com-municate "] But why is that?

Well, we could blame Mercury for one, that pesky little planet that three times a year or so goes into "retrograde." While I don't really understand what that means in planetary terms, here is a synopsis of what it means in astrological terms, according to AstrologyCom.com:

In general, Mercury rules thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information and all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation. By extension, Mercury rules people who work in these areas, especially people who work with their minds or their wits: writers and orators, commentators and critics, gossips and spin doctors, teachers, travelers, tricksters and thieves.

[Basically that sounds like the media, anyone who writes, or "tricksters and thieves..." Mmm, who could they be?]

Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.
["Astray or awry..." Wall Street crisis anyone?]

It is therefore not wise to make important decisions while Mercury is retrograde, since it is very likely that these decisions will be clouded by misinformation, poor communication and careless thinking. Mercury is all about mental clarity and the power of the mind, so when Mercury is retrograde these intellectual characteristics tend to be less acute than usual, as the critical faculties are dimmed. Make sure you pay attention to the small print!

This period of time began on September 24, influenced by Libra, will peak on October 15, and wane by October 31st. Just in time for the election. Let's hope the uninformed masses, some as witnessed in this segment below, will find that their "critical faculties" have returned. These interviews, recorded on BlueOhioan, make me somewhat embarrassed to be a native of that big Blue-ish-Reddish state (which I guess, when mixed, makes it purple, which is the color of homosexuals, which I guess isn't such a bad thing -- At least, on a symbolic level, Ohioans would be heading in the right direction for tolerance that way). Have people lost their minds? If these clips weren't real they would be brilliant parody. But they're real, and really sad.



Another "huh?" moment for me occurred this evening when a friend announced the end of her blog (something I was briefly tempted to do myself this weekend--at least to announce some sort of hiatus from this computer realm where I seem to often be misunderstood or misheard or misconstrued...and I'm supposedly a writer).

Here is a little Bill Maher to round out the weekend (from October 10--"New Rules" and closing monologue). He, too, is puzzled by divisive candidates and a fair number of idiotic prospective voters but he is an equal opportunity comic, even though we know where his politics lie:



We live in a deeply divided country...the truth is we hate each other's guts. Bill Maher

Meanwhile, I'm guessing this whole retrograde thing is starting to affect our neighbors, too, because since I started typing this blog fifteen minutes ago I've heard a series of gun shots (maybe 20 or so) from their direction. I suppose I wouldn't otherwise worry except it is 1 o'clock in the morning! And we're on a ridge, in the middle of freaking nowhere. I woke my husband up and he didn't seem concerned. But my friends, if I might get all folksy for a moment, fact is always stranger than fiction. I suppose it is just another day in a big, giant Red state.

Ok, Sarah, This Isn't Funny

A few months ago, not really that long ago in the scheme of things, a virtually unknown governor from Alaska emerged on the political scene, apparently molded from a Hollywood GOP machine: vibrant, attractive, mother of five and soon-to-be grandmother, an accomplished huntress at close range, and as conservative as Ronald Reagan. An unusually giddy Ann Coulter, who had promised to vote for Hillary before she voted for McCain, showed her complete approval in her endorsement of her as the new Ronald Reagan. Another female pundit, very early on, said something like, "I think the American public will greatly underestimate Sarah Palin." I believe she was right.

At first I hated this woman. I admit, I shed a few tears during her dazzling convention speech (you have to give her major points for public speaking and her ability to charm the pants off a crowd), especially when she looked at the camera and promised that she would champion rights for special needs children when she is in the White House. I don't have a special needs child but I'm a mother and she just reached in and plucked at those maternal heart strings a bit.

But then I began to get really hot around the collar about her politics and her apparent inability to tell the truth about her political background. I also cringed at her book banning in Wasilla and her emerging jabs at her opponents. Another angry, hate-mongering Republican. Just what the world needs now. I tried to keep that she was a woman out of my realm of thinking but that was easily replaced by an image of her firing at wolves at close range from the open door of a low-flying plane. A GOP man's wet dream come to life or a living poster girl for her own self-proclaimed Joe Six-Pack. YOU betcha!

When Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson interviewed her after weeks of being kept from the media, I actually began to feel sorry for Sarah Palin. Here is this sacrificial lamb, put up by the men in the GOP, who think she will get the votes needed to bring more of the same, if not worse, to the White House. Her deer-in-the-headlights "sentence to nowhere" blunders belied unpreparedness, a lack of intelligence almost like G. W.'s (but she seems smarter than he, or at least more shrewd). So I eased up on my feelings for her, hoping she would just quietly go away. In the debate, I cringed with the expectancy that Biden would pummel her but he did not and she did not falter. While her responses, or "talking points," seemed well studied, her ability to look at the camera, into the hearts of undecided American voters and her own fan base, was positively Eva Peron-esque. In her sweetly-tempered but angry populist rantings and ability to incite a crowd she is divisive and dangerous.

While the polls are way down for McCain, it is likely the economy and not Palin's behavior and performances that is driving that reality. With her recent hate-mongering at rallies, attacks on Obama, and mention of the word "terrorist" in the same sentence as Obama, this is enough to get some of the uneducated masses near hysterics. This woman is doing the political process no favors while certain clergy members liken Obama to the anti-Christ. I live in a region of the country, where, sadly, racial and "hate in the name of Christianity" comments are still muttered and the people who make these remarks are what give rednecks a bad name.

However, racism and hateful behaviors behind the cloak of Christianity span all classes and genders--and regions of the country--and I do not mean to single out one group of people. Any pandering in that direction, or racial innuendos, and that's all the fuel people who live by fear and ignorance need. Sarah Palin, and her operators in the GOP, are just savvy enough to know this and their populism belies a scarier agenda. Country First! Yeah, right. It is more like divide and conquer. [But it is heartening, on a brief search of the Internet to find a website or blog devoted to Women Against Sarah Palin, and many of them Republican. If I were a registered Republican, conservative or moderate, I would be appalled by McCain's selection of Palin: this is the best you could come up with? If he was playing the gender card, what about well-respected long-time Maine Senator Olympia J. Snowe for starters?]

In the words of Betty White on a recent Late, Late Show appearance, this Palin woman is "one crazy bitch." There, I've said it, too.

So, Sarah, you're in my sights again as a distasteful candidate for vice-president but also as a non-representative woman for our country or for someone who could be the first woman vice-president (and God forbid, president). No, this shouldn't be about gender but, speaking as a woman, mother, citizen and voter in this country, you are really beginning to piss me off. Please take a cue from the Jesus you claim to follow and stop the hate-mongering. It isn't becoming of a Christian or a politician or a woman. You need to stay up in Alaska, keep a close watch across the Bearing Straits for Putin (mmm, kind of sounds like PALIN), and do some more reading. I'm certain that your local librarian can point you in the right direction (and I'm not speaking about politics--and hey, I know some Cupcakes who could set you straight, also, with their own reading lists and Democratic thinking). Please stay close to home and take care of your babies, defend it if you have to with your own close-range weapons, but leave the lower-48 alone. I wish you many prosperous years ahead in the splendid isolation of the Alaskan wilderness. I'm not going to waste any more time thinking about you.