Addicted to Palin

Okay. I said it. It's the first step. I admit that I have a problem.

I have been thinking about Sarah Palin, reading about Sarah Palin, watching video about Sarah Palin, following convention coverage about Sarah Palin, wrestling with my feelings about Sarah Palin, and trying to figure out what I think about this polarizing newly minted political rockstar.

I can't get her out of my mind, because I am having a hard time making a decision about her and what to think about her.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sarah Palin is qualified to be Vice President.

The qualifications for the vice presidency are the same as those for the presidency. The vice president must be a native-born American of at least 35 years of age who has resided in the United States for at least 14 years. -- Encarta

This means that I, too, am qualified to be Vice President--or President for that matter.

In my obsessive reading, some folks are saying that they have alot in common with Gov. Palin, and since they do NOT think that they are qualified for the job, therefore SHE isn't qualified. Others are happy to have somebody who is "just like me," who will understand and respond to their needs. Next I find myself thinking about why I believe that Brack Obama is qualified to be President.

This gets me thinking about serendipity and timing. Before Obama became a 2008 Presidential candidate, I was wishing that he would wait until the next round. But sometimes circumstances thrust you into a position and you have to grab for the ring. It might not be presented again. And I think that I need to apply that same standard to Palin.

But what about her family?, I was thinking. How could Palin be a mother to babies, young children and teens while being Vice President?

What wrong thinking.

I always thought that I tried hard not to judge other parents and their decisions--whether mom should work or stay home, what role does dad play, is quality time better than quantity time, prudes versus permissives, milk versus ice tea? In our family the mom went back to work when the babies were 9 and 8 weeks old--and still nursed both until they were two. The dad worked part time for the first few years and did main duty. The mom took a new job that entailed alot of domestic travel 4 months before the youngest was born--and she dragged the baby from coast to coast. His first hotel was in Boston at 10 weeks. Good mom? Bad mom? Sometimes. Okay, I think Palin is a fine parent. Her kids look happy (and gorgeous!) and I bet they will survive her parenting and become productive adults. As I pray my kids will survive my own parenting.

But what does parenting have to do with being a "heartbeat away from the Presidency" anyway? Nothing. But the heartbeat away from the Presidency thing is pretty important.

So, I think that Palin is qualified enough. And I think that, as Obama has forcefully and genuinely said, her family needs to be off limits. So that leads me to where I should have been from the beginning--what do I think about her as a potential president, because that's the job she is going for?

I definitely think that she is a shrewd and formidable politician. She has worked hard and appears to spit nails and bring down the hammer on foes. Her rise to the governor's mansion in Juneau is something to be respected and admired. Politics is a tough game, and a young upstart from a small town making it to the top of the heap in Alaska is nothing to shake a stick at. Go Sarah Barracuda!

So now I am returning to her convention speech--what tells me most about who she is and what kind of president she might be, because that's all we got. And this is the source that makes me most uncomfortable about Sarah Palin, and a McCain-Palin presidency.

The speech--well delivered by a confident, accessible, smiling candidate--helped to draw a clear distinction between the choice we have in November. And it isn't about Palin, specifically, but about what her ticket stands for.

Change for them means making a U-turn and going back to the 50's. The speech was very backwards looking, to the "good ole days" of some idyllic and perhaps mythical small town America. Where people are homogeneous (but not homos), where nostalgia and the familiar trump intellectual curiosity, and where we need to run back to the cocoon rather than boldly face the challenges of health care, the environment, education and globalization.

Backwards to when diplomacy means that the U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A. (chant it with me like its 1980) plays nuclear games of chicken with our enemies, and globalization means that everyone oversees wants an American car and the imports from Japan are cheesy.

Where small towns are filled with honest, sincere dignified people who are somehow immune to a failing economy, the mortgage crisis, and the false prospect that cutting taxes for the wealthiest will make us all better off, even if that leaves state coffers empty without money for infrastructure projects and public safety (can you say levies?) and with gimmicks to improve education.

When the natural resources of this great planet were seen as infinite, and frontier settlers were the masters, taking whatever they wanted and moving on when the land was depleted or destroyed because it was their right. In contrast to the people already in this country that the settlers displaced. People who were stewards for the land, the water, the air, the animals and plants.

I watched Gov. Palin's speech--and within the context of the Republican Convention--felt like she saw the best times were behind us. Simpler times. Times that needed to be protected from the future.

And her reiteration of wedge issues in the guise of small town values--guns, abortion, creationism--sets up the old "us against them" no-compromise zone. I appreciated Sen. McCain talking about reaching out across differences to make changes during his acceptance speech, but he really didn't advocate anything new. And, if his running mate and others making speeches have their way (as they did with his choice for VP), his calls for pragmatic compromise to resolve tough issues will likely disappear.

I used to work in an academic environment with decisions made by "consensus." What that meant in practice was that anyone could stop an idea by crapping on it. It was a huge challenge to get anything done, make change, see things in a new way, innovate or invent. It was status quo all the time, because there was always someone who knew they could stop change and keep their fiefdoms intact.

So it's really not about Sarah Palin, who is truly a remarkable person on many levels. I don't need to think about her, although she helped me to reconcile some ideas that were vexing me.

It's about the fact that on most issues I absolutely and fundamentally disagree with Sarah Palin and her running mate. And all the distractions that have been fed up by the 24/7 news personalities and Democratic and Republican spinmeisters are just that. Distractions.

So yes, I have been thinking alot about Sarah Palin. And I think that now, I am on the road to recovery.

A Tale of Two Thomases

It was the worst of Thomas, and it was the best of times.

The worst, (Justice) Clarence Thomas, once again smearing Anita Hill in an attempt to hustle his book and polish his rep. The best, Ms. Hill reclaiming her dignity.

The worst, (basketball executive and former playa) Isaiah Thomas saying that while it's always wrong for a white man to refer to a black woman as a "bitch" or a "ho", it is no such restriction on a black man. The best, the Knicks and Mr. I. Thomas getting socked for $11.6 million in damages for sexual harrasment.

Orlando Patterson wrote a thoughtful piece in the NYT in the context of the Jena 6 case (and OJ, again), in which he says

...something that has been swept under the rug for too long in black America: the crisis in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the catastrophic state of black family life, especially among the poor....a fact of life for too many black women who must daily confront indignity and abuse in hip-hop misogyny and everyday conversation. What is done with words is merely the verbal end of a continuum of abuse that too often ends with beatings and spousal homicide.

Gentlemen do not talk to ladies like the two Thomases did, or like Don Imus has. We need to expect better of our men. All of the time.

Fighting Words

Don Imus has been pushed off of the table. Along with the me-too media furies, and, of course, the tsk-tsk over that "rap music language."

But as the dust settles there are still some very accomplished young women at Rutgers--and all across the country--who will be degraded tomorrow. Some simply because they are women, and some simply because they are women of color.

Three weeks ago, before the Rutgers/Imus/CBS media frenzy, the 12-year old relayed a conversation at his small school. One of his friends, a 13-year-old African-American boy, asked another of their friends, the only African American girl in her middle-school grade, "Why don't you act black?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you're not like a bitch or a ho'," he replied.

The following day, I saw the two moms of these kids talking in the parking lot. I wondered if they were talking about their kids' exchange. And I wondered if they had a solution. They walked away with their arms around each other. Embracing each other as they were fighting against crappy images, self-hate, and words that, as they are repeated, take stronger hold over our thinkings. Or so I imagined.

And today I wonder, was the girl reminded about her classmate's question in the wake Imus' crass remarks? Did this honor student, musician, on her way to high school girl with her first contact lenses uncovering her beautiful eyes, see herself in the sad faces of the basketball players during their press conference?