Obama, Osama and Matt Lauer

I think he does it on purpose.  This morning on the Today Show they ran a report on the newest search for Osama Bin Laden.  When it was thrown back to Matt after the piece he immediately said 'Obama.......excuse me...........Osama........'  and went on to talk about bin Laden. No stumbling on it, just out with it.  As if there weren't enough folks already confused about Obama's name, Matt Lauer again pairs the next President of the United States with our greatest terror enemy.   Do the Republicans pay him to do that or is he just a true believer?

BTW, thanks to D for catching this alleged 'slip'.  If she hadn't noticed it as well, I might well think I need to make myself a tinfoil hat.......

Also, BTW, or BTW Part Deux, if you haven't already, RUN to the theater to see Wall-E.  It is amazingly good.  I wouldn't recommend it for really little kids; they may be bored or scared during the first half.

See No Evil

I was in the checkout line at the supermarket yesterday and noticed that in addition to a couple of candy-free checkstands there was now a couple of 'Child Friendly Checkouts'.  Apparently some parents don't want their precious little snowflakes seeing the moral decay represented by magazine covers.  The store (as far as I know this is an individual store thing and not chain-wide) has printed up and laminated green signs that cover all of the magazines and state that this is, indeed, a child-friendly checkout.  Now, okay, I can live with that if the magazines they are covering up are Maxim or Playgirl but we are talking about my faves, People, OK, Star, Us!!!!

I mean, the stories are trashy and morally decayed and if I had a six-year-old I probably wouldn't want her to read them.  But the cover pictures are not really racy.  I think this is a case of too much coddling of the precious snowflakes.

On the other hand, why not cover up Oprah, More and AARP while you are at it. (And I know they don't sell the AARP magazine in stores.  Don't ask me how I know.)  But Oprah and Goldie and Jamie Lee, all of these women with whom I share a decade.  All looking fabulous.  Maybe some young - er - ish - middle-aged women don't want to see these beautiful women.  Maybe it makes them feel bad about themselves.  If I do say so myself I look damn good for my age but I also know when the wrinkling and sagging does set in, I don't have the money to get it repaired. So here's to the 'Young - er - ish - Middle Aged Women Friendly Checkout.'  Do you think they could fit that on a sign and cover up the great looking aging women?

Larry Craig Moments

Before Larry Craig took his wide stance into the men's room I, as a woman, would think nothing of reaching under the stall partition to give or receive that most precious gift a women's room can bestow, toilet paper.  Women do this all the time.  Women's rooms are notoriously short on paper and if you sit before you check, as I often do, you can be in trouble.  But will this activity become suspect?  I now think twice about asking for t.p.  I am less nervous giving it when someone asks.  I can plead innocence that the question, 'Could I have some toilet paper' also means 'Can we do the sexy times' especially if I am caught with wad in hand.

Today I had my mini-Larry Craig moment.  Only it wasn't in a airport bathroom.  It was in a department store fitting room.  In taking off the shirt I was wearing, I inadvertently shot my Bluetooth ear thingie under the partition and into the fitting room next door.  Not even thinking about it I reached under to get it.  Only then did I notice that the room was occupied and the feet and the girlish giggle that occupied it were no more than 12-years-old.  Shit! I grabbed the Bluetooth, lamely apologized and, had I not been half-undressed, would probably have just nonchalantly strolled out of the fitting room area.  My thoughts were racing; what if the fitting room attendant or the security cameras saw that?  What if they think I'm perverted instead of clumsy and call the police?  One has to think about these things.

Alas, nothing happened.  I finished my business, the girl finished hers and returned to her grandmother. (Oddly the grandmother was dressed totally in black with her hair arranged in white, Pippi Longstocking pony tails; but that, while an amusing image, has no relevance to the story).  I have not been branded as the local Lorrie Craig and all is right with the world. Makes ya' think though.....

So Who's Correct

The MSM is making the case that the British terror arrests are helping George Bush. Let's take a closer look. John Kerry said during his campaign that terrorist acts are averted by quality law enforcement. Bush believed terrorist acts are averted by occupying a country that while it had a nasty dictator, has NOTHING to do with the terrorist attacks we experienced on September 11.

While the British unfortunately joined in George's Great Iraq Adventure, the most recent terrorist plot was foiled by good police work. Hmmmm. Police work = law enforcement. Police work <> invading a country. Who, in fact, was right?

Cheney's on Board Team Connecticut for Ego Joe and Random Thoughts about Terrorist Threats

EEEEWWWW. Not sure about anyone else but if Dick Cheney were on my political side with his robust 18% approval rating, his charming scary old cyborg personality, and not to mention his superb abilities with a gun, I'd want to kill myself. But Ego Joe (is he still holed up in the hotel fortifying the walls of his fantasy world?) must be so pleased. What with the rest of us blue-state, terrorist loving, anti-war extremists (all 60% of us)leaving him to truly 'be himself'. He has shaken off the taint of the Democratic 'out of the mainstream' extremists (all 60% of us). He is free to kiss whichever of Bush's body parts he wants. He's got Rove begging the Repubs not to abandon their senatorial candidate (the political equivalent of a toaster)so that the vote will go to Ego Joe. Sitting pretty Joe, is all I can say.

In the meantime, on a more serious note, as yesterday's events in London illustrated we are clearly no safer, and quite possibly even less safe from terrorism than we were five years ago. And all of this banning toothpaste and handlotion on airplanes seems a lot like closing the proverbial barn door after the horse is long gone. It's reminiscent of post 9/11 grounding all aircraft. Now I am no anti-terrorism expert like our much vaunted Department of Homeland Security but it seems to me that an appropriate way to fight the terrorists is to be two steps ahead of them at all times instead of one step behind. I understand that one can't imagine all possibilities but if the would-be terrorists could figure out that you can make a bomb with Gatorade, peroxide paste, and a cellphone is it too much to ask why the anti-terrorism experts can't assess the possibility of seemingly benign substances used in a non-benign fashion and proactively deal with the threat.

Gotta shout out to the Brits though for busting what appears to be an actual threat. Their operation seems on the surface at least to be much more credible and professional than the infamous terrorist cell we managed to break up in Miami a few months ago. Please, the threat to blow up the Sears tower was credible because one of the suspects had visited Chicago. I've visited a lot of places. Does that mean I have plans to blow up landmarks? Come to think of it the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis is pretty offensive........

The morning after

After losing the CT primary, Joe Lieberman is sounding even more like GWB. He stated this morning that ‘no one’ could persuade him to drop out of the race as an independent. He is the new ‘decider’ and he has decided. He has also showed a bush-like contempt for the will of the people in stating that he ‘cannot and will not’ let the results of the primary stand. I have to say I am deeply insulted by this arrogance and the implicit assumption that the voters of CT somehow did not know what they were doing when they sent a loud and clear message that it is time for Joe to go.

I overheard a co-worker say that despite his feelings about the war he could not vote for Lamont because of his political inexperience. Maybe inexperience is not such a bad thing. Insider Joe has lots of experience, lots of lobbyists filling his war chest, lots of sucking up to Bush and his failed policies. This is the kind of experience that brings us successful strategies like ‘stay the course’ even if the course is leading over a bloody cliff.

Connecticut Democrats made it clear last night that they want a change. Joe would do well to listen and let the will of the people prevail.

Hmmmmm

More than once now I have seen this headline:

POLICE INVESTIGATE FATAL KILLING

See Linguistic Pet Peeve #4 below.

Hmmmmmm

The Real Mothers Day

FOund this by Ruth Rosen at the above link (click the title for the whole article). Thought it was interesting.....

Let me take you on a quick trip into the history of this holiday. Mother’s Day began as a day to commemorate women’s public activism, not as the celebration of one individual mother’s devotion to her own family. In 1858, Anna Reeve Jarvis organized Mother’s Work Days in West Virginia. Her immediate goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities. Later, in 1872, Julia Ward Howe—author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”—promoted an annual “Mothers’ Day for Peace.” Devoted to abolishing all wars, Howe wrote: “Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage. ... Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be tender of those of another country not allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

Unfortunately, she turned out to be wrong.

For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mother’s Day for Peace on June 2. To women activists, the connection between motherhood and the struggle for social and economic justice seemed self-evident. These were middle-class women reformers who had fought to end slavery, launched campaigns against lynching, exposed consumer fraud, fought for suffrage and improved working conditions for women workers, ended child labor, demanded clean food and drugs and insisted upon social welfare assistance to the poor.

In 1907, Anna Jarvis, daughter of the original Virginia organizer decided to campaign for a national Mother’s Day. By then, America was well on its way to becoming a consumer society. Politicians and businessmen eagerly embraced the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by individual mothers. As The Florists’ Review, the industry’s trade journal, bluntly put it, “This was a holiday that could be exploited.” Heavily lobbied by the flower and card industries, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother’s Day in 1914.

The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to honor their mothers—by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who sold carnations for the then-exorbitant price of $1 a piece, Anna Jarvis campaigned against those who “would undermine Mother’s Day with their greed.” Naturally, she lost. Since then, Mother’s Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar holiday.

During recent decades, women activists have resurrected Mother’s Day as a holiday that celebrates women’s political engagement in society. Women have protested at nuclear test sites and have marched against gun violence. This year Codepink: Women for Peace will hold a national vigil in the nation’s capital to protest the needless deaths of American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians.

Nineteenth-century women dared to dream of a day that honored women’s commitment to peace, justice and political activism. We can do no less. We should honor their vision by committing ourselves to solving the Care Crisis and promoting the rights of working mothers.