Experience This, McCain

I am so ever lovingly sick of hearing John McCain harp about Barack Obama's supposed lack of experience. Who the hell does he think he is to criticize someone's level of experience?
Sen. McSame has been in Washington for almost 30 years and for the past eight years he has voted with President George W. Bush 9 out of 10 times. That means that ninety percent of the time he actually thought that W. was doing the right thing. Or even if he didn't, he was willing to vote that way in order to kiss his ass. Is that the kind of experience America needs. I think not. One of McCain's ads even raises the question "would you want a doctor with only one year of experience operating on you?" Perhaps the better question is, "Would you choose the doctor with one year of experience or the doctor who has killed nine out of ten of his patients?" Umm, hey Rookie. Over here.
It has been my experience that if something isn't working, you don't keep doing the same thing over and over again and hope for a different result. Clearly our country is broken right now. The Republican answer to fixing any problem has always been 'if you can't fix it with what you have, don't change, just get a bigger hammer' Anyone remember "Stay the course"? Personally, I think Obama's lack of 'Washington' experience is refreshing. I want someone who is going to go in and make changes. The world changes and we as people have to change with it. Obama understands that. McCain is simply a bigger hammer.
Also let's not forget some of McCain's own campaign choices. Is he really qualified to question Obama's readiness for the Presidency based on lack of experience when he picked Caribou Barbie for his running mate. Sarah Palin is dumber than a ten-pound bag of stupid and he has picked her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. One heartbeat. And let's face it, McCain's a fossil. Given the rigorous demands and stresses of the Presidency, how many heartbeats can he actually have in him? I don't mean to sound ageist - but come on. Stop trying to convince me that Obama doesn't have the experience needed to lead the country and spend more time trying to assure people that you're actually going to be alive for the next four years. I'd feel a lot better knowing that I wasn't going to be stuck with Billy Madison's big sister as my President when you croak.
Even McCain's own party is through with him. Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican and one of the most widely respected men (by both major parties) in the country, has thrown his support to Barack Obama citing his concerns over Sarah Palin's lack of experience. That is huge. I don't think there is any way McCain can recover from that, Thank God. He might as well spend the rest of his time picking out what pair of pajama's he's going to wear in bed in one of his seven (or is it nine?) homes on inauguration night. I hear it's cold in Alaska in January. Perhaps he and Sarah Palin could get matching pairs. Maybe with Moose on them. No no, Elephants. They really are funny creatures, aren't they?

Playground Prostitutes?

My daughter's ninth birthday is coming up. Yes, my baby girl is entering her 'tweens', a category I don't remember when I was her age. If I recall, we were little girls until 13 when we officially got to be teenagers. Even the we watched our share of Saturday morning cartoons (another fossil from pre-historic times), not that we would ever want our friends to find out that we slept in Winnie-the Pooh pajamas and got up early to watch Garfield and Friends.
Today, however, it's different. We live in a society where every product is marketed to specific age groups and even kids are considered consumers. Perhaps it has something to do with parents inability to say 'no!' and get their children whatever they whine for. Kids in my daughter's class have cell phones. Cell phones! What in the world could a third grader need a cell phone for?
So my husband and I decided that nine was a good age to stop the birthday party ritual. We are still celebrating her birthday, of course. We will have a nice family dinner, invite the grandparents, have a little pie (the birthday girl's choice - smart kid), and she can open her presents, and fun will be had by all. What we will not be doing is blowing the national budget on a cracked out, over the top, birthday bonanza that will do nothing but wreck my house and my wallet and leave me in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor wondering what I will do next year to top it. And we don't just try to outdo ourselves.
We moms have to compete with every other mom on the birthday party circuit. Little Suzy has a bowling party? We're having a hula party, complete with grass skirts, real pineapples and coconuts, and a little 'hush up and were this cocnut bra and have a good time, damn it'.
The next party she's invited to is a sleepover. Crap. You know what that means. Roll out the air mattress, honey. We're having a slumber party. But I couldn't have just any slumber party. I had to have a spa party where the girls got to make their own bubble bath and lip-gloss and generally make a ginormous mess of my dining room. They refused to even think about sleep until my sister-in-law had the bright idea to set all the clocks ahead and tell them it was four in the morning. It worked. But still, no more sleepovers.
Last year we had a Halloween party. Fun and easy to decorate for. But still exhausting, not to mention expensive.
So this year, I said No Party. We decided to go shopping instead. I told Sweet-Pea that we would use the money that we would have used for a party to buy clothes instead. This was greeted with much enthusiasm. She loves clothes and especially shoes. Imelda Marcos would be jealous of this girl's shoe stash.
We got up early, drove two hours to our states biggest mall, on college game-day no less, and proceeded to spend four of the most miserable hours of my life. Sweet-Pea was in her glory. At least for a while anyways. I let her pretty much have her way in Libby-Lu. A girl has to be a girl after all. Then it was on to actual clothes shopping. What a surprise.
I do not like people much, so I do most of my shopping online. Consequently, it had been quite a while since I had been in a mall, much less stores that catered to young girls. Imagine my surprise when I was surrounded by belly shirts meant for third graders and pants with 'heart breaker' emblazoned across the ass. What the hell kind of school-age stripper store was I in?
"Oh, mom," Sweet-Pea gushed. "So and so has this exact sweater. Can I have it? Please please please." The sweater in question was hot pink leopard print with 'Miss Kitty' spelled out in sequins across the chest. Miss Kitty? Wasn't that the hooker from Gunsmoke?
"Uh, no," I say without question. She just puts the sweater back with one of those 'I knew you weren't cool' looks. Whatever. If the sexualization of elementary age girls is what passes for cool these days then I'll gladly be a Poindexter.
Everywhere we look for the rest of the day I am reminded of what the world has come to. And what's worse my daughter is reminded time and time again that she has to be 'sexy' in order to be pretty. Even if she doesn't know what 'sexy' is.
I blame the Brittany's and Paris's and the Lindsey's. These girls are everywhere, making a name for themselves by doing no more than partying and having a good time. They were skimpy (read: slutty) clothes, do trashy things, get arrested and we are all supposed to let our daughters look up to them. Hell, Brittany can't even keep her own kids. The courts decided K-Fed would be a better parent ( a man who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend to be with Brit, by the way). So what would make anyone want to be like her? Who knows. But it's certainly out there.
Finally after laboring for what seemed like days we were able to put together several cute outfits that we both agreed on. Mostly from the GAP, where I was happy to spend a little extra money for a quality piece of clothing that actually covered sweet pea's little ass and didn't have any sort of cheap graffiti written on it. She was finally getting it, I thought, when she help up a cute little plaid skirt. "This isn't too 'hoochy', is it, mommy?" I shook my head no. It was jsut right as a matter of fact. Plaid and plenty of fabric for me. Tiny bit of lace peeking out at the hem for her. We even agreed on a matching sweater that while it did have sequins, they were trimming out the collar instead of spelling out some dress-code no no. And of course, there were shoes. She wanted wedges, I wanted flats. We settled on a cute pair of cowboy boots with a little bit of sparkle design up the side. Compromise is a beautiful thing. Just like my daughter actually looking nine on her ninth birthday.
The moral of this story is this. We as parents have to stand our ground and teach our daughters the value of self respect and decency. If we don't then they will get their values elsewhere. iCarly and Hannah Montana are certainly ready to take up the slack. Don't be fooled by Miley's wholesome apple-pie act. She may be a sweet girl with a good head on her shoulders, but remember this : even Brittany was a Mousketeer once upon a time. And let's face it who wants a teenager with a shaved head and a sex video?
* For more on this topic please read the book Stop Dressing Your Six-Year Old Like a Skank available at Amazon.com.

You take care of your brats, I'll take care of mine.

I got in a fight at the pediatricians today. Big surprise, huh?
It's flu shot time, and while my kids are on fall break I thought I would take them to get theirs. Little did I know I would be walking into a freakin' mad house.
We walked in, and what I assumed to be a waiting room full of sick kids was actually the demon offspring of one sad woman. There were only two of them, boys both under five or six, plus the screaming baby that wailed its head off from the depths of its car seat.
"Let's set over here," I say to my kids, ushering them towards the well patient section. I shoot the lady a 'For the love of God' look before walking behind the partition. She doesn't see me because, ironically, she's got her face buried in a Parenting magazine. Of course.
Thankfully we are out of sight of the little trouble makers who, when last we saw them, were attempting to crawl through the receptionist's window while she was doing all she could to beat them off with tongue depressors. She finally succeeds, I guess, because I hear the window slam closed.
My kids, naturally attracted to all of the unsupervised carnage going on just beyond the flimsy little wall, are now pushing each other off the chairs and sticking their tongues out at one another. "Stop it," I say. "Just because other people are being rude, doesn't mean that we have to be, too." They stop. They know from experience that I am never so dangerous as when other people aren't minding their own children.
Just then one of the hell-spawn peaks over the partition. What the hell is he standing on, I wonder. That wall is at least six feet tall. He would have to be standing on top of his brother on top of the chair, which I don't doubt. I shake my head in shear wonderment. Does this woman have no idea what her kids are doing? Or does she simply not care? Perhaps she is hoping that they will kill themselves and save her the trouble.
Right at that moment the little bas-, I mean kid, coughs on my son's head. That does it. I am a bit of a fanatic about the germs. My son has asthma. And while it's not severe, a simple cold can escalate into something worse. And besides I don't want him to be infected with all the crazy.
So, I do it. I enter into somebody else's business. I walk around the partition. "Excuse me, ma'am?" She looks at me in surprise. "Could you please keep your kids on this side of the wall? I'm trying to keep my kids from getting sick."
"Por favor?" she asks. Shit. Now how am I going to sufficiently express my outrage? More importantly, how am I going to bitch her out so that she can understand and I don't come off as a racist? I involuntarily roll my eyes. Screw it.
"Keep them," I say pointing to her children, who by the way are now trying to dump the baby out of the car seat. "Over here." I point to the chairs, making a gesture that I hope she understands as 'tie those heathens up, if you have to!'
She gets it, all right. She stood up, and it was then that I realized that she was easily half a foot taller than me and built like a female wrestler. And not the respectable Olympic kind. We're talking WWE here. She gets this crazy look in her eye and walks toward me. She called me something that I am certain was a very rude name in Spanish.
I must have been right because her kids immediately hush, clearly recognizing a foul word when they hear it just like kids from all over the world.
"Lady, just make your kids mind, OK. The rest of us are tired of hearing it." The receptionist claps, then catches herself and merely smiles. The other mother might not have understood all my words, but she got the picture. She looks at her kids, now back to squirting the baby's bottle like a water gun. Then she looks at my kids (she can see over the partition). I am happy to note that they are absorbed in Nemo on the waiting room TV. They do not even take notice when Mom gets on her soapbox anymore. It happens a lot.
She gives me one more ugly look, then picks her children up (one in each arm) and places them forceably in chairs. They begin to pout, but do no more than kick at each others legs.
"Gracias," I try to say graciously. Thankfully my kids names were called shortly thereafter. The nurse gives me a smile of thanksgiving. Apparently these patients have been here before.
So that is the story of how my kids got extra suckers and stickers at the doctor's office and how I almost caused an international incident on 13th street, without even trying very hard. Funny the things that can happen in a waiting room.

Not Surprise

So, OJ Simpson is guilty. Big freakin' surprise. He broke into a Vegas hotel room, accompanied by a group of thugs, guns blazing, demanding 'his' memorabilia. Here's a memory for you, OJ. Remember that time when you were a respected athlete and public figure. You know, back before you killed your wife and flaunted the fact that you got away with it all over the country.
And now he's bitching that he didn't get a fair trial. That the jurors were biased against him and were only punishing him for the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman.
Maybe. But isn't that the way the universe works. You do bad things and then you pay for it. The end. Sometimes it may take a little longer for retribution to catch up with you, but in the end it always does. Just ask Earl. It's Karma, man.
So, now poor OJ has to pay the piper. Maybe a different piper, but a piper nonetheless. Even OJ himself is not surprised. When the verdict was read in court Friday after 13 hours of jury deliberation he could only let out a loud sigh. Almost like he knew it was coming. It has been reported that his sister collapsed and had to be led out of the court room. What did she collapse of - not surprise? I hear there's a lot of that going around these days. Look at Wall Street.
I suppose that he will have plenty of time in the pen to work on a book. Oh, wait. He already did that. A thinly veiled confession called 'If I Did It'. If- my ass. I guess he'll have to appoint someone else in charge of going to the golf course to look for the 'real killer' Give me a break.

Standard of Excellence?

It's all the pundits can talk about. Sarah Palin held her own. Well, surprise. Surprise. If I'd had as much practice as she got on that AZ ranch, I could have debated a pit bull, too.
No, to give the Gov. credit, she did do a fairly admirable job of not messing it up. You could tell that she had studied and she was ready for this test. She spent a lot of time on energy, even when it had nothing to do with the question asked. But the American people know bullshit when they smell it. And Palin clearly BS-ed her way through that debate.
However, what will fool the American people is how down home, golly gee, Mrs. Palin appeared to be. And to some voters that's all they are looking for and Palin is glad to deliver. She would have you believe that she will be simultaneously fighting for these alleged tax cuts (which is a whole 'nother show, Sally), whipping up an apple pie, digging a pipeline from (gasp) Alaska, and ripping bed sheets into bandages for our troops. Please!
Give me Joe Biden as a VP any day. He does not apologize for the fact that he never tells you just what you want to hear. When he has been wrong in the past, he freely admits it. He has even admited that he has even learned from his mistakes. What a concept. And while he was respectful of Gov. Palin during the whole debate, he never held back from correcting her when she was wrong on any given point. Sen. Biden, you win a Tell It Like It Is Award for your performance at last night's VP debate. I actually feel like I have a better understanding of where he and Sen. Obama stand on certain issues.
Meanwhile, the best we can say for Gov. Palin is that she answered the questions (sort of) and that she knew every one's names (kind of). Apparently everyone, Republicans included, was expecting her to do so poorly that when she pulled through without any visible scratches they claimed a victory.
So is this it now, America? Is this the kind of Presidential administration that you want leading our country? An administration that judges success by not sucking? If that's the case what is their excuse for the last eight years?
Damn. Maybe Pres. Bush should enroll in the McCain/Palin boot camp to practice his public speaking. Maybe then he could Not Suck, too.

No Dumb Chick

This morning I was taking my morning walk with my grandmother - don't laugh, I can barely keep up - when we passed a house with a Bush, I mean McCain/Palin sign in the yard. Nothing new in the decidedly red Christian College neighborhood where I walk. What was new was that today they had added a homemade sign with a picture of what can only be described as a sick roadrunner and the words "I'm Voting For the Chick" emblazoned across it. Nothing like advertising your stupidity.
So as we walked we talked about how the "chick" affected the climate of the campaign. Mamaw told me that she saw some TV political pundit say that Sarah Palin was brought on to the McCain campaign to try and sway Clinton voters away from Obama.
Wait just a minute. Hillary voters going over to the dark side just because they've called up some pig in lipstick from the minor leagues. Does the GOP think that women are really that stupid? I mean seriously. First off I do not recall one single woman supporting Hillary Clinton on the basis of her gender. In fact it was often the other way around. (Bros before Hoes, if I recall. Very clever, 'Bros') Secondly, I cannot imagine anyone who did support Mrs. Clinton, based on gender or otherwise, supporting Sarah Palin. There is absolutely no comparison on the issues.
Well, I can only assume that they are divided. Some of the issues like gun control, the war in Iraq, abortion, and gay marriage are just gimmes. But the fact is that I have absolutely no idea where Gov. Palin stands on health care, social security, education, etc. I haven't heard her say a word about it. In fact the only thing I do know for certain is that she allegedly has foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from her back door in Alaska. Well, hell, I could see a baseball field from my old house but it sure as shootin' didn't make me capable of managing the Yankees.
It seems like every time Gov. Palin is set down for the unavoidable interview she has a hard time understanding the questions, much less answering them. CBS even gave her an interview from Katie Couric which should have made her a little more comfortable since she's so Pro-Gal and all. But, alas, not so much. Poor Katie had a hard time trying to draw out even basic answers to what should have been pretty standard questions.
The Republicans are even a little embarrassed by her lack of experience, it seems. They wouldn't let her talk after last Friday's Presidential debate, instead trotting out Giuliani. Undeniably intelligent, in an ingenious diabolical Fearless Leader kind of way, he was evidently too morally bankrupt to lead the country or even veep. Good thing they got Ol' Sarah Palin. She may have a crazy right wing separatist husband, an ex-brother-in-law Alaska State Trooper rightfully out for blood, and no discernible experience of any kind to lead this country - other than 18 months as governor of a state that her own husband would like to see succeed from the Union; but who cares? She's got an all American son deploying to war, a pregnant teenage daughter (that's supposed to prove that the Palins are like all American families - the Spears family maybe?), and a baby who was discovered to have Downs Syndrome before it's birth and she courageously decided to keep anyway. And that's to say nothing of how good she looks in some lipstick.
So, Republicans, please do not believe that your desperate attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of women voters has worked. Contrary to what you have always believed American women are far far more intelligent than you give them credit for. Sarah Palin is nothing more than a GOP puppet (and a cheap one at that) for the good ol' boys club in a way that Hillary never could be. It has been said many times that nothing scares a Republican more than a smart woman, but evidently a dumb 'chick' will do just fine.