Tread Carefully, Feminists...

The smell of hypocrisy hangs in the air over the Presidential campaign... Democrats are howling over the fact that the other side, the Grand Old (White Man) Party, has beaten the Dems to the punch and put up a woman as a Vice Presidential candidate. There have been chuckles over the relative inexperience of Sarah Palin, along with the fact that she comes from a small state, is pro-gun and pro-life, and now has both a baby with Down Syndrome and a daughter who is pregnant, proving without a doubt that she is an irresponsible parent to boot.

In essence, the Democrats are doing everything they can to marginalize Sarah Palin, just as all men tried to marginalize all women candidates a generation ago. If Sarah Palin breaks through the glass ceiling, are we to believe it won't count because her politics are not NOW politics? Do GOP women have to submit to chromosome tests to prove their gender?

Here's what is really at play here. Last Thursday night, the Democrats thought they had the election all but locked up after Barack Obama's electrifying acceptance speech in Denver. Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Romney? Surely an electoral landslide!

What the Democrats had not counted on is that the Republicans were slick enough to steal the spotlight and turn conventional wisdom on its ear. And now the Democrats are pissed.

They are pissed that what they thought would be a rout is now a horserace. They are pissed that, after finally getting Hillary Clinton to go away, her legacy remains alive in Sarah Palin. And they are extremely pissed that of the two parties, the one that had the imagination to nominate a woman was the party of Darth Vader and Dick Cheney.

This is a hypocritical temper tantrum in the making. Would feminist groups rather have a strong woman in the White House, even if she does not share the traditional NOW platform, or would they rather have Joe Biden in a dress?

I don't expect feminist groups to support the McCain/Palin ticket... But I would hope they don't spend the next two months trying to claim that Sarah Palin is not a legitimate candidate for Vice President. Like her or not, Palin is going to make the GOP ticket more attractive to voters. And that speaks to her power... as a candidate AND as a woman.

-- Written by a pro-choice, anti-gun Obama-leaning moderate who thinks candidates deserve the courtesy of being fully-vetted by the public instead of being instantly dismissed in order to justify a political stance.

Weekend Odds And Ends!

Several little items for you from this weekend... Enjoy!


We open with kudos for my boy Spencer, who made his off-Broadway debut (way off Broadway... OK - Thurmont!) as Officer Krupke in the Camp Airy production of "West Side Story"... Details of his performance are sketchy, since the show was for campers only... However, we have managed to sneak a peek at our own little "Man in Blue"...

Playing a cop... eating donuts! A part that Spencer was BORN to play! Your parents are WAY proud of you, Spence!

Speaking of Spencer, Robin and I are re-doing his room while the boys are away at camp... In Spencer's case, it's a bit of EXTREME MAKEOVER. We had to dismantle the loft bed that he's slept in the past four years, and now outgrown... The unit has both a desk and dresser underneath the bed, and rather than just toss it all away, Robin and I decided to take the bed portion off the top, and remove the back half of the piece, which was used for storage space. The only problem was that we needed to literally saw off the back half of a piece of furniture that was never designed to be removed.

There's nothing more manly than going out and buying a power tool! By Saturday afternoon, I was the proud owner of a Craftsman reciprocating saw, which I used to hack off about 50 pounds of finished wood! 10 minutes and four cuts later, I had successfully performed a storage unit-ectomy! The surgery did leave a small scar - about a 6 inch gash in the carpet, but we'll find something to cover that up, I promise! Now all I have to do is pay a visit to the Montgomery County Solid Waste Transfer Center to drop off all of the surplus wood, and we'll be all set. The "MCSWTC" is a fancy way of saying "the dump", but this is Montgomery County, where taxpayers obviously pay by the word, hence the fancy name...

So - now that Spencer's loftbed had been reduced to sawdust, the Missus and I drove up to Costco to buy him a new bed for his room... That was no sweat. After Costco, I treated Robin to dinner at our favorite Frederick eatery, the Double-T diner, which was delicious as always... However, when I went to pay, I reached in my pocket and found... nothing.

This was troubling, because I had checked my cash at Costco and had about 85 bucks in my pocket. The only guess I could hazard was that the money had fallen out while I was wrestling the mattress and boxspring into the back of the minivan... On a complete lark, we drove back to Costco just as dusk was setting in and pulled up to the space we had parked in. Robin looked out the window and promptly spotted a wad of cash. There was 60 bucks right where we'd left it! Robin and I spent the next several minutes inspecting every bit of trash in the vicinity, and just as we were set to give up, Robin found another 20 dollar bill! I did end up losing five bucks, but given the circumstance, getting 80 dollars back felt like winning the lottery!

One more thing to mention for today. The Redskins have won the latest round in their ongoing battle to keep their trademark. You can read the details of the case here, but all you really need to know is that the victory was on a technical matter, and the plaintiffs in the case are appealing. A group of Native Americans is suing the team, making the claim that the name "Redskins" is racist and disparaging. The team insists the word "Redskins" honors native Americans.

Now, I must tell you... I have been a Redskins fan since I was eight years old. I have not missed watching one of their games in at least a decade. I do call them the Redskins, and I would probably continue to call them the Redskins out of habit even if their name was changed. But let's at least be honest. Having a native American as a mascot is racist. Basing a sports team's name solely on the color of a group's skin is racist. This is not even a close call. In a world that demands political correctness... where virtually all colleges have long since abandoned their American Indian nicknames and mascots... the Redskins are an endangered species. I am no more anxious to give up the tradition of their name than any other fan of the Burgundy and Gold. But this is one battle I hope the Skins lose, and I think it's just a matter of time before they do.