From Alternet/Huffington Post:
Obama, grave-faced and sympathetic in tone, opined that when Senator Clinton was ‘feeling down,’ she went on the attack to make herself feel better; that is, she committed an error in judgment because she was in a bad mood. That was the moment when I, and other women of a certain age, all over the country, winced.
The change candidate had embraced one of the oldest clichés in the book — that women are held hostage by emotion, that we can’t be trusted with the big decisions because, depending on our age, we’re either on the rag or having a hot flash. The overtly sexist position used to be that you didn’t want to entrust the red phone to a woman because women are unpredictable and irrational; a fit of hormonal pique and kaboom, we all glow in the radioactive dark. The ones who aren’t instantly vaporized, that is.
The kinder, gentler version? A soft-spoken observation about what a female candidate does when she’s “feeling down,” the implication being that Hillary’s distress over the delegate count had impaired her judgment, and that someone who loses her way like that is not strong enough to withstand the rigors of the presidency. If you think that I and the indignant gal friends I’ve polled are overreacting, try the acid test: Imagine any major candidate making that kind of subtle put-down about a man’s psychological fortitude. In 1972, Thomas Eagleton had to have shock treatment to get us to raise a national eyebrow about his mental health, ending his brief tenure as George McGovern’s running mate. Short of that, we tend to assume that the boys are steady enough to handle the job.
[…] If it wasn’t a spontaneous comment — if someone in Senator Obama’s camp thinks it’s wise to use code to address and exploit our primitive fears about whether women can cope — then whoever came up with it ought to be ashamed of himself, and the man who uttered it needs to rethink the strength of his opponent and her supporters. Beat her on better ideas, or oratory, beat her with passion and energy, but beat her fair and square, if you can. Don’t talk about change and then quote from a 1950s playbook on the battle between the sexes. (Emphasis mine)
Now I’m sure everyone has heard about this but now, but I couldn’t agree more. It was a ridiculous comment to make. While it is not my goal to analyze every single thing that comes out of someone’s mouth in regards to Clinton, this is pretty ridiculous. Relying on the accepted idea that women are out of control and can’t be trusted to make sane decisions, especially if they’re upset. Heaven forbid the leader of our country get emotional or have a menstrual cycle! Maybe, just maybe emotions are what our country needs to fix all of its ridiculous problems.
I don’t feel that this is a personal attack on Barack - although more than one person has told me that my past posts are “personal attacks” rather than legitimate questions regarding his politics and abilities. He said something, he made a mistake, and he’s being scrutinized for it. The same thing has happened time and time again with Hillary - the key difference being her getting “emotional” is suddenly described as a tear-fest and Barack’s words and actions being taken as they are and for what they mean.
How amazing would it be if I could yell at someone and not get the response “geeze, are you PMS-ing” or “it must be that time of the month”?! How delightfully wonderful would it be if I could cry, be in an irritable mood, or just be downright irritated and not have to answer questions regarding my menstrual cycle? I think it would be downright wonderful. But, apparently, Obama does not.
I love Ellen Page. I have a huge, gigantic, unreasonably large amount of love for her. In the words of Juno, “she is the macaroni to my cheese”. This only makes me love her more.
Is “Juno” a pro-life movie?
Not in the slightest, and if you knew me and if you knew the writer and the director, no one would ever say that. It happens to be a film about a girl who has a baby and gives it to a yuppie couple. That’s what the movie’s about. Like, I’m really sorry to everyone that she doesn’t have an abortion, but that’s not what the film is about. She goes to an abortion clinic and she completely examines all the opportunities and all the choices allowed her and that’s obviously the most crucial thing. It’s as simple as that.
I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am ’cause it’s about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you’re working in a patriarchal society when the word feminist has a weird connotation. “Hippie” has a weird connotation. “Liberal” has a weird connotation.
How sick are you of these questions?
Well, because I very much am pro-choice, I don’t really get it. People are always going to project. It’s kind of amazing, though, that a movie that’s caused this much controversy has done really well in America.
Yay!
Last weekend the boyfriend and I settled in for a nice and dull evening at my house. We curled up with the cats in my bed and popped a movie into my fabulous iMac as we eagerly awaited the beginning of the movie. I had just gotten 3:10 to Yuma from Netflix and the boyfriend really wanted to see it, even though he didn’t particularly care for westerns. I thought it looked decent, and I’d heard some okay things about it, so I didn’t have many objections.
It was one of those movies that was good, but terrible at the same time. I couldn’t really put my finger on what bothered me about the movie. From my perspective, it was a movie about people and their complex morals and personalities and all that… except, when you finished the movie, you didn’t feel like you knew much about anyone who was in it. It was a movie about character development that didn’t really spend much time on character development. And I thought about it some more, and the only thing my brain kept saying was “damn westerns”, and I blamed masculinity for the movie’s pathetic failure in my mind.
It took me a little longer than Cate, but I was finally able to articulate in a coherent manner why I can’t support Barack Obama.
I’ve been feeling a lot of unwarranted political pressure in my office and my life lately. Everyone but myself in the office supports Barack Obama, and while a few people are supportive of my advocacy for Hillary Clinton, the majority of them are not. It is the same with my friends - most of them support Barack and are not afraid to be crude and insulting towards my candidate of choice. I try to maintain a level of respect with it comes to the upcoming Presidential election simply because, well, my opinion isn’t hateful, rude, or insulting.
I have several reasons why I have chosen Hillary over Barack, and most of them have to do with her policies on key issues, her experience, and my belief in her ability to do the job. I cannot support Barack because he has been consistently vague about his policies during his campaign, he has almost no experience, and I do not believe he can do the job as well as I believe Hillary can. I do not feel comfortable having someone who was a Senator for one term (regardless of their potentially shady past, all politicians are dirty) running the country I live in. We would not want someone who has only been a doctor for three years inventing experimental treatments and executing them with no supervision whatsoever.
Take it from me and Gloria Steinem, if Barack was a woman, his lack of experience would be a huge issue. People are used to men running the country, and they are willing to elect the far less experienced candidate because they want to keep things the way they are. And, personally, I couldn’t agree more with her. I am not a fan of saying “what if he were a woman…” in situations like this, but I think it’s time we take it a bit more seriously when it comes to Obama:
The woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.
[…] I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.
Yes, Obama is an appealing candidate because of more than just his sex or race. But still, he is severely lacking in experience. Severely.
I am, by almost 10 years, the youngest person in my office. It’s kind of a shitty position to be in, because even though I am not the lowest on the ladder, I get treated like I am simply because of my age. Grunt work is often assigned to me when it shouldn’t be, and I’ve had a difficult time getting some of my directors to respect the fact that I am a college graduate and it is not in my job description to answer phones or send faxes for random people in the office or take old phones to the storage unit. That said, every Friday I can’t wait to go home for the weekend and spend some quality time with people my age.
The only problem is people my age are still in college. Most of my friends are actually in their last year, about to finish up, and they can’t wait to graduate. While I’ve never been a big partier, this weekend made it very clear to me that I am no longer in college.
I can’t believe to express my words of anger, frustration, and downright disbelief about this.
CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) — The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
But it’s an issue that raises major privacy concerns — what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.
The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans.
Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”
But it’s unnerving to privacy experts.
“It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project.
So, let me get this straight: it’s important to record every defining physical characteristic of every person living legally in the United States in order to better identify criminals? I’m sorry, but if people can remove their fingerprints and not leave their DNA behind, I’m sure they can cover up their tattoos and disguise their eye color.
This is such an invasion of privacy - I can’t believe this is even being considered. I do not feel safe because they have decided to create this database. I feel more at risk because criminals are going to find different, more discrete, and possibly more violent, ways to commit their crimes. An identification database is not going to prevent criminals from committing crimes. Fingerprint and DNA databases haven’t done that, so what makes the FBI think this will?
