L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

May be running in 2012? Has someone called Tina Fey yet?

Alaska Governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is resigning at the end of this month. She said she is doing so because she doesn’t want to be a lame duck. Well…she’s already done lame so well, I guess she just doesn’t feel she’d do justice to the duck part.

Why is she not yet a non-issue? She can’t possibly be serious about running in 2012, is she? You know what, I’m not even going to bother with coming up with any more jokes than the lame one I’ve already dropped. That last question is a big enough joke by itself.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ADDED JULY 4

Okay, so I posted the first part of this entry rather quickly last night before going out for the evening. But then I started to think about it. Why did she make this announcement on a Friday afternoon right before a holiday weekend? That’s what you do with news that you want to sweep under the rug, not celebrate. And it’s one thing to announce that you won’t be running for re-election. She’s forfeiting the game with time still left on the clock.

Seriously, all that insane babbling about having fun as a lame duck…that’s not even relevant at this point because she was still in the midst of her first term. It really makes no sense. Of course, nominating her as the VP pick for the GOP didn’t make much sense either. Maybe that’s just her modus operandi: Confuse them into voting for you.

So, is she just “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” crazy? Or is she leaving for reasons as yet undisclosed? Are there skeletons trying to break out of her igloo? Late night trysts with all those Russians she can see from her house? Or does she really think she has a shot at the 2012 GOP presidential nomination?

I’d say stay tuned, but frankly, I just want her to go away. Not only does she make women look ridiculously stupid, but she’s making the GOP look inept and flaky. Even though I’m not much on Republican love, I also don’t believe in kicking a dog when it’s down.

Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and...oh, you know the rest.

I know that our government is backward and slow 5,000 different ways or more, but this was a bit ridiculous. The Minnesota State Supreme Court has just issued a unanimous ruling in favor of Al Franken being the winner of November’s Senate race. Yeah. November 2008. This would be the last day of June 2009.

Franken’s opponent, Norm Coleman, has been the spanner in the works ever since the November election, claiming “inconsistent practices by local elections officials and wrong decisions by a lower court had denied him victory.” There’s still a possibility that he will take this to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Remember when Al Gore wanted to protest the Florida bullshiggidy regarding miscounted votes for the 2000 presidential election and Republicans mouthed off about how he was a sore loser and he needed to just step aside and let the winner spoil the take…er, take the spoils? I guess Republicans are of the “do as I say and not as I do” generation.

(Not that I’m in any way insinuating that this is the same situation in reverse; truth be told, I haven’t really been following the meat and potatoes of this race. I just know that it’s been dragging on for forever. I’m sure, though, that Rush and Ann and Sean will all be able to update me on how “the fix is in.”)

Personally, I don’t really know how I would feel about having a former Saturday Night Live writer/performer as my new U.S. Senator. Then again, Minnesota did vote for a former WWE wrestler for their governor. And, hell, we as a nation did vote for a former actor to be U.S. President for 8 years. Well, “we” not meaning me. If I hadn’t been only 3 years old the year Reagan first ran for president, you can be sure I wouldn’t have voted for him.

I’ll be interested to see what Mr. Franken does now that he is theoretically heading to Washington, D.C. And I’ll be sure to take him a nice Bundt cake as a housewarming gift.

No, I don't think you know what I want for Father's Day this year...

So maybe you didn’t hear that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford went a little AWOL for a while. He just ambled away one day and didn’t tell anyone where he was going. He kind of mentioned that he was thinking about hiking the Appalachian Trail, so his staffers assumed that this was what he was doing. They even sent out a press release indicating that this was indeed where he was.

SIKE. Just playing. He was really in Argentina. Schtooping his mistress.

That’s right, you’ve read correctly: GOP Governor Mark Sanford— devoted GOP politician, loving husband, and father of four—abandoned his gubernatorial and familial duties without telling anyone where he was going so that he could bounce his mistress in Argentina ON FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND.

Sanford was another rising star that the GOP were hoping would have presidential potential. You know, along with Senator John Ensign. I told you all about Ensign, right? Yeah.

I love the GOP. They’re so delightfully and offensively hypocritical.

Two of my all-time favorite television shows are Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and Ron Moore’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Interestingly enough, at the heart of both shows is a strong vein of politics played both fairly and deceptively (not that big a surprise from the former show, but a lovely layer of the latter that made it such a pleasure to watch).

Both shows also featured presidents, one of the United States and one of what’s left of the 12 colonies of Caprica. Martin Sheen played U.S. President Jed Bartlet, a bright beacon of hope during the dismal darkness of the real Bush II presidency. Mary McDonnell portrayed Laura Roslin, former Secretary of Education who found herself thrust into the presidency when all in line before her were killed in the Cylon attack on Caprica that started the BSG journey.

Beyond the obvious similarities, both of these presidents held health secrets from their constituents. Bartlet had relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. By the end of the show, the disease was causing a rapid and noticeable decay of his body.

In the very first episode of BSG, Roslin learns that she has terminal cancer. By the end of BSG…well…like I said, she had terminal cancer. I’m sure you can figure this one out on your own.

Now even under the healthiest situations, a president always leaves his station looking much more bedraggled and aged than he did coming into it. Look at recent evidence. Du(m)bya left looking much older than the actual numbers of his age (or his IQ). And the only way Clinton was still feeling young at the end of his presidency was when he was groping up interns in the Oval Office. Several have even pointed out that Obama is already starting to show more gray than he did prior to January 20, 2009.

Add the strain of an incurable disease and you’re bound to look even more wrung out, right? Certainly was the case with President Bartlet.

In the beginning, he was a middle-aged statesman, with still dark hair and minimal lines to his face. He was commanding and centered and the White House was bright with hope in his presence. By the end, however, he’d gone gray with white at his temples, the lines had deepened, his stance slouched and aided by a cane, and the brightness of his new administration slowly dimming to a close (aren’t these photographers just too clever?).

Yes, I’m sure that some of this was makeup decisions done to enhance the strain of both being president and fighting a once relapsed illness that is now making up for wasted time.

BUT…then there is Laura Roslin.

To borrow that ridiculous BSG epithet: What the frack?!

Seriously, I cannot even begin to express the joy I felt inside when I saw Mary McDonnell that first time as Laura Roslin. It had been a while since I had last seen her, and then there she was, wrinkles and crow’s feet, and looking absolutely beautiful. Even better, she looked REAL. And I was filled with so much hope and happiness that here was an actress who was embracing her age and all the lines that came with it, and doing it with incomparable grace.

This second photo is how she appeared in the final season. You could bounce a quarter off her face, it’s so tight. Dull, expressionless forehead. No more lines around her eyes or her mouth. What you don’t see in this photo, but what was depressingly obvious in the show, is the fact that this “youthful” appearance came with a price. One side of her mouth droops now as though she’s had a stroke. Her eyes also don’t always blink synchronously anymore.

This was supposed to be a woman who was leading the remnants of a destroyed world through the unknown dangers of space while fighting a seemingly unstoppable Cylon enemy and being slowly consumed by incurable cancer. But this is how she looked at the end. Yes, they did her up on the show with pale makeup and a “cancer” wig (which is what she’s wearing in this second photo). But that face…

It was perfectly acceptable to show the progression of age and illness with Bartlet, but Roslin not only had to lead the colonists to earth, but she had to do it while apparently paying regular visits to Doc Cottle for galactic Botox injections. Maybe he was really just injecting her cancer treatments straight into her face and this was the end result.

Obviously, what I’m really doing at this point is screaming into the roar of the Hollywood machine that makes women feel less than publicly acceptable if they dare show even one shadow of an age line on their face. How else can we explain this recent photo of the now perpetually surprised Jessica Lange? Would you have even known this was Lange had I not identified her? I sure as hell didn’t recognize her without a caption.

And why is this acceptable? Because we’ve got fat tubs of douche like Rush Limbaugh clogging up the airwaves with “relevant” questions like is this country ready to have to watch Hillary Clinton age if she became president. Newsflash, Tubby: You’re not looking any younger (or thinner) yourself.

We all get old. It’s a fact of life. I’m in my early 30s, but I can see time leaving little trails across my face. Wrinkles around my eyes, parenthetical lines on each side of my mouth, a bagginess to my eyelids. Who gives a shit? The lines come from living, and I’d far rather have lines than not live. And guess what? You can tighten your face to the point of splitting in two and it’s not going to fool the Reaper.

For two seasons, Mary McDonnell made me so very happy when I would see her very real and very beautiful lines. I can’t say that I blame her or fault her for her decision to join the plastic posse. I can’t imagine the pressure she and her female acting peers must feel to constantly look 25. But just once, I’d like for an actress to just flip the double bird and embrace her age and all that it brings with it—the wrinkles, the bifocals, the gray hair, the works.

I know she’s out there. When I find her, maybe we can share some laughs and a few Activia yogurts…

Have you heard? GOP Golden Child Senator John Ensign from Nevada announced last night that he had an affair with a former campaign staffer. Ensign, the fourth ranking leader in the GOP who many speculated was eyeing a run at the White House in 2012, supports the Defense of Marriage Act and voted to add a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

A few years ago, Senator Ensign led the call for the resignation of GOP Senator Larry Craig from Idaho. You remember him, right? The senator caught trying to solicit sex in a Minnesota airport men’s room? Yeah. Senator Craig also voted for the Constitutional banning of gay marriage and supported the Defense of Marriage Act. He’s still married to his beard…I mean, his wife. But he’s no longer a senator.

All of this, of course, was started by Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law while he was president. And we all know the length [ahem] of his marital indiscretions. (Oh, by the way, John Ensign was one of the loudest voices, along with then GOP Representative Newt Gingrich, calling for Clinton to resign for his marital dalliances).

Speaking of Newt, he’s another gay marriage opponent who was called out for diddling someone other than his wife. Well, Wife Number Two. He’s been married three times. His third wife is the one he was fooling around with while still married to his second wife.

And let’s not forget those very vocal media supporters of gay marriage bans and defending the “sanctity” of marriage. Mr. Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Married three times. Divorced three times. Bill O’Reilly. Only one wife. Also one sexual harassment suit filed against him in 2004 by a former Fox television producer, Andrea Mackris, who claimed that O’Reilly called her repeatedly for sexually explicit conversations involving, among other things, vibrators and falafel (the latter being what O’Reilly thought a loofah was called). The suit was settled out of court, with O’Reilly allegedly paying Mackris several million dollars, more than likely just to make her go away so he could continue on with his own “defense of marriage” ranting.

Hmm. Who else…how about another Democrat? Marion Barry, unrepentant crack whore. Married four times. Divorced four times. Last month, Barry was the only hold-out vote on a D.C. bill that would recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Although Barry claims to support gay rights, his vote was contingent upon the fact that “The Black community is just adamant against [gay marriage].” Hmm. There were lots of White people adamantly against desegregation back in the day, weren’t there, Mr. Barry? Bet you’re glad the politicians from those days didn’t use your lame-ass excuse when they voted.

And what is it exactly that these staunch “defenders” of marriage are fighting against?

• One of the first same-sex marriages to legally occur in San Francisco was between 83-year-old Phyllis Lyon and 87-year-old Del Martin. They were only married for just shy of three months before Martin passed away. Prior to their legal nuptials, however, they’d been together for 56 years.
• Actress Lily Tomlin has been with Jane Wagner for almost 40 years.
• Actor George “Sulu” Takei recently married his partner, Brad Altman. Prior to their nuptials, they’d been together for 21 years.
• Wisconsin Representative Tammy Baldwin has been with Lauren Anzar for more than a decade.
• Actor Richard Chamberlain has been with Martin Rabbett since the mid-1970s.
• Mary Cheney, daughter of former vice dick President Cheney…er, former vice president Dick Cheney, has been with Heather Poe for almost 20 years.
• Playwright Tony Kushner has been with Mark Harris for more than a decade as well.

Wait. I’m sorry. Who exactly is defending the sanctity of marriage again?

The phrase “hate crime” has always made me uncomfortable in a very Orwellian way, and the feeling has returned in full force in light of the recent events at the Holocaust Museum. Hate is not a crime. Hate, like love or fear or anger, is an emotional response. Hate cannot be policed. Hate cannot be arrested. Hate cannot be punished by the law.

Oh but wait. It can be. In fact, there are several documented instances in which those accused of hate crimes have received stronger punishments than those who have committed comparable “non-hate” crimes. What I do not understand is this: Are not all criminal acts driven by some kind of emotional urge? Lust for money, lust for power, lust for control, crime of passion, crime of regret, crime of greed, crime of hate. How is murdering your neighbor because you hate him for being Black any different than murdering your neighbor because you hate him for having a Lexus and a Rolex? How is raping the woman at the bar who refused to dance with you because she is gay any different than raping the woman at the bar who wouldn’t talk to you even though she was dressed “provocatively”? Isn’t the end result the same in both scenarios? One crime was committed under the emotion of hate, the other under the emotion of greed and/or lust. Should one receive a sterner punishment than the other?

I think it is incendiary and intolerable to allow any government entity to label an emotion as a crime. This is as close to the Thought Police as we have ever come in this country…and that’s saying a lot considering who our last president was. Policing who we hate is as dangerous as policing who we love. Hate is not the crime. The action inspired by hate is what should be policed. But how is the policing of a premeditated “hate crime” any different from the policing of any other premeditated crime? It’s not, and it shouldn’t be. As disdainful as groups like the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Nation are, they are protected under the First Amendment. Their hatred is bilious and corrosive to their members…but what they believe, what they feel is not a crime. It only becomes a crime when they act on it, and only then can the law step in.

Of course, that begs the question, how can we step in before the hatred leads to a criminal act, as it did at the Holocaust Museum. You want to stop “hate” crimes? It’s the same as stopping any crime. Try investing less money into prisons and more into schools. Try spending less time writing bills to police emotions and more time writing bills to increase funding to afterschool programs, accessible housing, improved community facilities, access to suitable employment and the training to perform these jobs. Try spending less time feeding the emotional blood lust and more time feeding the intellect—it’s time to end the reign of the “Just Do It” act without thinking reactions that we’ve bred in this country. Try less time accusing people for what you think they think and more time listening to each other.

The more we spend on eradicating ignorance, the less we’ll need to spend on enforcing these frighteningly Orwellian laws. Because let’s face it: By the time the law has to get involved, it’s too late anyway. The act has been done, the crime committed. It doesn’t matter what emotion was driving the bus off the cliff, the devastation at the bottom of the ravine is the same.

I know, I’m painfully naïve when it comes to these things, right? There’s nothing we can do against any kind of crime other than punish the criminal. Right?

Right?

It is the duty of every student to respect Liberty’s Statement of Doctrine and Purpose. They may not engage in any activity on or off campus that would compromise the testimony or reputation of the University or cause disruption to Liberty’s Christian learning environment.

Guess what Liberty University now considers to be compromising to their testimony. Nope, it’s not the evangelical porn club. It’s not even the Jews for Jesus pig roast.

It’s the LU College Democrats Club. You can read the entire e-mail sent to the head of the Democrats Club at theWashington Post. Or, if you’d rather read the news from a more fundamentally approved paper, you can read the article at the Washington Times.

Am I surprised by this move? Not one bit. After all, Liberty was Jerry Falwell’s baby. And as we all know, Jerry Falwell was many things in this life…but a good Christian was not one of them. Good hypocrite, yes. Good manipulator, of course. But I refuse to believe that he correctly represented Christianity with the hatred and castigation that he spewed throughout his lifetime. Let’s just review some of his “greatest hits” in his honor:

• AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
• It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men’s movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
• The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
• There is no separation of church and state. Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
• Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.

That last one I added just because it represents to me the keystone of why people like Jerry Falwell get away with peddling their hate and ignorance to misguided masses: Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to believe. And since his death, his like-minded son has been running his legacy, including Liberty University.

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I didn’t go to this Offred Reprogramming Center like I was supposed to. I’ve changed many of my opinions since I last blogged regularly. I’ve even changed many of my opinions regarding religion. But one thing that has not changed is my absolute intolerance for this kind of manipulative mind fucking. Jerry Falwell represented everything I saw wrong with organized religion, everything that I still find vile and reprehensible. I’m so very glad that I have met others beyond the scope of Falwell’s narrow and bigoted religious views who have helped me see hope for the future of the religious finding its right path in this country.

Unfortunately, however, schools like Liberty University (or worse…let’s not forget that Bob Jones University is still pumping out its own Baptist sock puppets) continue to mold young minds into the shape of religious perversion that these fundamentalists have decided is God’s will and God’s message.

Too bad Reverend Falwell can’t give us a little sign as to what that message should really be…

So, dipping into the Angry Blogger^TM topic files, I still receive e-mails from the GOP at my junk e-mail account. Said e-mails are still addressed to my father. Said e-mails still both amuse and unnerve me (kind of like the GOP in general). The e-mails are punctuated by catty swipes at all the big Donkey names: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Frank. They each contain some puerile jab like “Ultraliberal,” “Leftist Radical,” or “Kitten Crusher.” Almost all the messages harp on the national deficit (but strangely fail to mention the name of the president responsible for plunging us into said deficit).

Each message is “signed” by Michael Steele, current RNC chair, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, and eternal douche bag. I love how he is so gung-ho for his party now. Funny how he did everything short of actually switch parties when he ran for the U.S. Senate a few years ago. Funnier how he lost. The messages also always end with a plea for donations to the RNC. Let me get my checkbook now!

To your right you will see a particularly amusing graphic from one of these e-mails. The graphic comes from an e-mail decrying outrage over Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic party. It rebukes Specter for:

[peddling] his services—and his vote—to the leftist Obama Democrats who aim to remake America with their leftist plan.

It then goes to compare Specter’s defection to Benedict Arnold’s defection to the British, and compares the GOP to George Washington. Oh, and it asks my father twice for a donation (because outrage costs money!). Actually, it asks for money three times if you count the fact that this graphic also links to the GOP’s secure donation page.

And we wonder why nothing really substantive ever gets done anymore. It’s because hyperbole and fundraising are more important than anything else. And it’s not just the GOP that is guilty of this. My party does it just as much. I’m just picking on the GOP because…well, hell, if you’re going to e-mail me your crappy messages and think that I’m my father, you’re just begging for a blog skewer every now and again. And truth be told, I don’t receive DNC messages anymore. I got tired of reading all about the hyperbole and fundraising. You want money from me? Do something to earn it.

I keep coming back to what I want this new lair to be. I know that’s strange to say at this point since I’m steadily closing the gap on my first 100 posts, but that’s just the way I am. I can worry a hole into any issue imaginable (or imagined).

I actually do still feel very passionately about things like politics and society, and I suppose most of how I feel is still positively negative. But when I come here to vent, I always get sidetracked by all the pretty, shiny WordPress things like widgets and plug-ins. Case in point: Do you all like the pretty progress meter I snagged for my 50 Book Challenge? It’s originally a meter to chart progress for those who participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but it works in this instance as well.

I suppose I also feel a certain sense of “what’s the point” regarding venting about things over which I have no control and no way of changing. Politics, for example. What’s the point? Our political system is interminably corrupt to the point that we shouldn’t believe a single word that passes from the lips of any of them, Obama included. How many times have we heard him beat the “difference between campaigning and governing” horse? It’s dead, Mr. President. Stop kicking it. Besides, I don’t think there should be a difference between the two. If you don’t think you can carry it through in reality, don’t promise it. I’m tired of ample servings of empty promises. Give me honesty or give me four more years of same shit, different party.

Speaking of parties, I’m so glad to see that my political party is still full of jackasses. Nancy Pelosi, WTF? We’ve already got Joe Biden sticking his foot in his mouth every other sentence; could you maybe STFU? And, yes, I’m going to be incredibly hard on the Democratic party here at the lair, probably even more so than the GOP. Why? Because I expect better from my party (whereas my Republican expectations have always been more than exceeded, which should let you know just exactly what I expect from them).

Here, however, is a recent GOP disappointment. Today’s WaPo has an article about how Republicans are worried about how to approach the task of opposing Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter:

An all-out assault on Sotomayor by Republicans could alienate both Latino and women voters, deepening the GOP’s problems after consecutive electoral setbacks.

As a woman, I take deep offense to this statement. I despise that we have become a society that accepts granting preferential treatment or kid glove treatment based on one’s gender. Guess that’s why I also have a huge problem with affirmative action in action. As a law to level the playing field in the job market, affirmative action was a remarkable ruling. Then they added quotas. Quotas don’t level anything. And I can only speak for myself on this one, but I would rather lose out on potential employment if I lose because my competition is more qualified than receive the job because I happened to be born with “girl boobs.” Just like it’s not cool to knock me out of the competition because I’m a woman, it’s equally unfair to give me bonus points for being a woman. It almost makes me feel like there’s justification to the ridiculous notion that I am inferior because of my gender and that I need bonus points in order to compete. Screw that mindset.

(By the way, that YouTube clip contains the only things that were actually funny in that craptastic TNG episode of Family Guy).

Oh, and screw you, Senator Schumer for saying “[Republicans] oppose her at their peril…. I think this process is going to be more a test of the Republican Party than of Sonia Sotomayor.” Again, right back to my original argument: If the GOP have justifiable reasons for opposing her based on their party’s dictates and standards, then they should do so. And we should not assume that they do so because she is a woman or because she is a minority. I should also like to point out that it was under Republican presidents that the Supreme Court received its first woman justice and its second minority justice…you know, just in case anyone out there is keeping score of things that should come secondary to actual qualifications.

No, his last name isn’t Moron, but it might as well be. Seems that Brian Moran, one of three Democratic contenders in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial primary, is holding against Terry McAuliffe the fact that McAuliffe supported Hillary Clinton for president rather than Barack Obama.

What bothers me the most about these accusations is this:

Moran this week unveiled radio advertisements in the heavily African American communities of Hampton Roads and Richmond reminding voters of Clinton’s “3 a.m. phone call” ad that questioned Obama’s qualifications for the presidency.

By unveiling these ads in “heavily African American communities,” I can’t help but extrapolate a sinister unspoken accusation from Moran’s camp. It’s the same sinister accusation that WaPo op-ediot Eugene Robinson made when he wrote: “I know there’s a possibility that [W]hite Americans, when push comes to shove, won’t be able to bring themselves to elect a [B]lack man as president of the United States.”

Two different approaches, one seemingly similar message: If you’re White and you didn’t support Obama, it’s obviously because you’re racist and didn’t want to vote for a Black man.

Am I reading too much into this to think that Moran is trying to paint McAuliffe as racist because he chose to support HRC for president rather than Obama? As someone who glutted themselves to the point of political apathy on everything that pertained to the 2008 presidential race—articles, op-eds, comments, etc.—I don’t think this is too much inference on my part at all. I saw such a deep vein of accusation, both blatant and implied, that the only real reason someone would not want to vote for Obama was not because he was unqualified or lacked experience, but because he was Black.

I supported Hillary Clinton for president. I participated in several online discussions regarding the various reasons why. I was labeled many things during these discussions, but nothing more often than “racist.”

Now I read that Moran is running a campaign in which he is trying to undermine one of his opponents by reminding predominantly Black communities that McAuliffe opposed Barack Obama’s run for the presidency…by supporting a different Democrat. That’s the thing right there. McAuliffe wasn’t supporting a Republican over Obama. It’s not like he pulled a Joe Lieberman D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. moment. He was still supporting the Democratic party.

Bottom line is this shouldn’t even be a campaign issue. It’s smoke and mirrors to detract from real issues, and it’s the kind of campaigning that absolutely disgusts me. If I lived in Virginia, Brian Moran would officially be off my gubernatorial contender list.