Folksiness

Could we all come together, as a society, and just ban the word “folks” from our vocabulary? It’s condescending and really dumbs us all down. 

That thought had never occurred to me until I read it in Susan Jacoby’s book “The Age of American Unreason,” in which she chronicles the slow descent of America into our current age of idiocy.  She explains that people used to take offense at being called “folks” as it implied that a person belonged to a lower class.  However, these days politicians in particular have come to throw around the term arbitrarily, to label their constituents as just “good plain folks;” working hard and getting by.  It seems to be some sort of badge of honor these days to be one of the “folks.” 

I think this constant usage of the term encourages people to be proud of their ignorance, and it encourages people in power to look down on the people they’re “representing.” 

As I heard the term being used for the 790^th time this week on MPR this morning, it just grated on my ears as it does every time I hear it.  “The folks in rural Minnesota have to work hard and cut back and so should the government.”  As if being one of the “folks” means you have some sort of enlightened status whereby you know that the only important things in life are working hard, going to church, and drinking beer.  The “folks” like to stay out of politics and leave that stuff up to the people in St. Paul or Washington. 

Every time a politician uses that word, it’s like they’re metaphorically patting a grown up on the head and saying “Don’t you worry your little selves about all this budget business.  Just go back to watching American Idol.”

It’s all nonsense.  We are not “folks.”  I am not one of the “folks.”  We are individuals with various personalities and needs and concerns.  And politics does affect all of us, whether you folks choose to pay attention to it or not.

This is a bi-partisan issue.  I’m calling on all politicians, all people really, to immediately cease and desist with the use of the words “folks.”  If I hear it again I’m going to start fining you each $100 per offense.  That would be a surefire way to fix the budget.

Bumper Sticker Blues

So I’m driving to my friend’s house the other day, and as I pull onto the highway, I notice a car in the left lane that’s quickly catching up to me.  The car pulls up alongside me and honks vigorously.  I turn to look thinking maybe it’s somebody I know, and see the driver leaning over the passenger seat (and whoever’s sitting in it) to give me a hearty thumbs down sign.  He then starts pointing towards the back of my car. 

My first thought was, “is my back tire flat?” It’s happened before that another motorist pointed out a flat tire to me.  But then I realize, no, he’s pointing to my bumper sticker that reads “Pro-Child, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice” and showing his disapproval by giving me a thumbs down.

I then slowed down to make sure he got ahead of me a little bit, and by the time I turned left off the highway, he was on my right honking again as he drove by.

I can only assume that he thinks his big display will somehow make me pause and reconsider my point of view, which is asinine because I clearly have a strong enough view of my own on the issue to place a bumper sticker on my car in the first place.

I can also only assume he really could care less about the actual baby sitting directly behind me in the backseat whose life he was endangering by distracting me from driving at 70 mph, not to mention the two children he had in his backseat who apparently weren’t important enough to keep his eyes on the road for.  He seems to care more about theoretical fetuses than about the living, breathing children we were both hauling in our backseats.

So presumably this guy doesn’t care what choice you make, as I clearly chose to have a baby.  He just cares about making sure women have no choice at all.  And he seems to think endangering the life of my baby is an appropriate way to share his opinion.

What a jackass.

Bible Thumping

While going through my son's backpack last week (on May 10th to be specific), I found a letter telling me that the Gideons would be at my son's PUBLIC elementary school on May 10th handing out bibles.  The letter was dated May 6th but somehow didn't make it into his backpack until the 10th (I check it every day).  So even if I had wanted to do something to prevent it, I wouldn't have been able to.

This also happened last year, while he was in kindergarten.  I was outraged by it then, but didn't do anything.  I just had a talk with my son telling him he didn't need to take a book if it was offered to him because we already have one at home and it was wasteful.  Never mind that we all teach our kids to avoid strange men in the street handing them free things.

My problem now is, what exactly am I supposed to do about this?  The letter specifically says the guy is on the street, which I'm sure makes it legal somehow.  And since they do it at every school then it's not really something the principal has control over.  If I go to the superintendent he'll just tell me they're not doing anything illegal.

This really pisses me off.

What's the point of it all?

Sometimes things just feel so futile. 

Like, when I get action notices from one of the many, many liberal advocacy groups that I seem to be on the email list for, urging me to contact my senator or representative, I know that it won’t matter if I do or not.  If the issue is access to abortion, my state representative and senator are both personally against that, so it doesn’t matter what their constituents think. 

My congressman is also a solid right-winger, so he’s not going to be on board with anything I write to him about.  My two Senators, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, are pretty solidly liberal, so I can already count on them to echo my views.

It feels like if you’re a liberal living in a red-county, it doesn’t really matter what you think.  The majority rules here, and the majority goes to church and thinks that gay people are “icky” so they shouldn’t be allowed to get married and raise children.  What’s the point in calling my representative or senator?  I already know where they stand on the social issues.  My state representative (who is an anti-choice DEMOCRAT) told me on Pro-Choice Lobby Day two years ago that he has “a personal faith that guides his decisions on these issues.”  How can I argue with that?

And our state senator makes his decisions based on his Christian world view. He has a gay daughter yet still authored a bill to add a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.  How do you talk sense to a person like that? 

Sometimes I just wonder what the point of it all is.  Maybe I’m just having some sort of birthday existential crisis, or maybe I just need some cheerleading from my liberal cohorts.  Or maybe I just need a cigarette.

Town Hall Meeting

Our uber-conservative state senator had a town hall meeting on Saturday.  It was attended by roughly 30 liberals and 4 conservatives.  I gotta say though, he kept fairly cool for a guy who had a whole room full of people ganging up on him.

Here are some direct quotes (to the best of my memory).  My italicised responses are my thoughts, but most of them were directed at the senator by various people in the group:

Responding to a question about why we aren't raising the taxes of the richest 2% of people in the state -
"Well, the thing is that we live under the system of capitalism, not socialism."
So "socialism" now means requiring that the richest people in the state pay the same percentage of their taxes as the poorest people do?
"Rich people have worked hard for their money and they deserve to keep most of it."
But I guess poor people don't work as hard for their money.  All those wonderful rich people must have started out at the bottom, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made a fortune all on their own, huh? 

In response to the onslaught of people begging him (some through tears) not to support the creation of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage-
"The purpose the state has being involved in marriage is that it brings two people together to have children."
Then why do we let the elderly get married?  And why did my marriage license not come with a mandate to bear children for the state of Minnesota?
"We just need to let the good, common sense people of Minnesota make this decision and not activist judges."
You do NOT put the rights of the minority up for a vote by the majority.  What if we had done that with civil rights for black people 50 years ago.  And an "activist judge" usually means one you don't agree with.
"When gay marriage passed in Massachusetts, it trampled the rights of the Catholic Church and the rights of parents not to have their children taught tolerance for gay people."
So somehow, since Catholic Charities was no longer able to discriminate against gay people in their adoption policies, that was "trampling on their rights?"  As far as I know, they're still allowed to NOT marry gay people in their churches.  And I may be mistaken, but are parents in Mass. no longer allowed to send their kids to parochial schools to learn their intolerance?

All in all, it was fun to watch the senator sweat a little bit, but I couldn't help but think we were just talking to a brick wall.  The best part of the afternoon was the liberal drinking session in the bar afterwards.

Mother's Day

I must say, Mother's Day is one of my favorite days of the year.  It's the one day of the year when my husband wakes up early, gets the kids up, and they all leave the house for the morning, leaving me to sleep in and then enjoy my cup of tea in peace and catch up on all of my violent TV shows instead of watching Go, Diego, Go.  It's a wonderful, wonderful gift.

For all the hoopla surrounding Mother's Day though, we don't seem to give much respect to mothers in this county.  We're asked to give birth to a child (usually working up until the day we deliver), and then get our lazy asses back to work after about 4 to 6 weeks.  If you've ever had a newborn, you know that 4-6 weeks is not enough time to adjust to sleepless nights and spending every waking moment caring for your baby. 

Every civilized country in the world has a vastly more generous policy on maternity leave than we do here in the land of the free.  They recognize that motherhood is an overwhelming and life changing experience, and they honor that fact. 

Here we just demand that women carry babies to term no matter what their circumstances, then provide no daycare or health care assistance to them and talk shit about them for not working hard enough when they get stuck below the poverty line.

Happy Mother's Day!

National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, so it's time to think about what we as adults can do to try to curb the epidemic of teen pregnancy in our communities.

One thing going on in my community is the Wellness Educators program.  It's a program that teaches teens about various wellness issues (birth control, substance abuse, nutrition, suicide prevent, etc.) and then tasks them with mentoring the peers about what they've learned.  There's also a service learning component in which they have to work for various community organizations.

There used to be a similar program (although it was just for boys) called "Wize Guyz" that was run by the local Planned Parenthood office.  That one was seen by the community as a ploy by PPH to get their evil claws into our children for the purpose of teaching them how to have rampant orgies and abortions.  Wellness Educators is run through Sexual Assault Services, so it's seen as more acceptable by the community.  I guess sexual assault is better than planning parenthood.

I'll be heading over to the WE session tonight to help them make buttons.  What will you do today to help engage the youth in your community?

Wordplay

I was listening to NPR in the car earlier and they were discussing whether or not some of the info crucial to capturing Osama Bin Laden was obtained using "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Who wrote the memo telling everyone in the media that they had to use that term? Probably Frank Luntz I suppose. Is there some reason we can't just call things what they are? Jesse Ventura called waterboarding "torture." Considering he's actually had it done to him, I'm going to go ahead and take his word for it.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" makes my mind conjure up some sort of peaceful breathing exercise. And I think that's the point. If the words we use trick our minds into thinking things are less serious than they are, then we won't take things as seriously.

The opposite is true as well. If we use words like "death panel" and "big abortion," then things seem a lot worse than they really are.

My grandmother always told me that when you speak as though you're stupid, then people will assume you're stupid. Words matter.

OsamaCare

So we finally got Osama Bin Laden huh? Well it's about damn time. So conservatives, go ahead and tell me how the President did it wrong. Come on, I'm waiting. I want to hear it.

Wouldn't you just have loved to be a fly on the wall for that phone call from Obama to Bush? "Hey George, whatcha havin' for breakfast? Eggs? Great - tell Laura hi for me. Oh ya, I CAUGHT OSAMA BIN LADEN!! HA!"

I gotta say though, this whole display of people cheering in the streets is really creeping me out. It reminds me of the "death to America" scenes we always get from the middle east. Aren't we supposed to be a Christian nation? I know Bin Laden was a despicable human being, but this ostentatious celebration of a person's death seems very un-Christian. I thought we were supposed to be better than that.