Rhiannon's Place

Early voting started here yesterday and turnout was heavy.  I have hope that TX might not be such a red state this time.  We have no dog in this hunt as it were.  No one on the top of either ticket is from here, and well I would hope that voters got informed about both major parties candidates.  And honestly we cannot afford more of the same here any more.  I would love to see TX flip over to blue this time.  I don't expect it, but yeah I would love to see it happen.

I for one am waiting to see what the McShame/Palin campaign make of Obama going to HI to see his sick grandmother this week.  Part of me is thinking they can't sink any lower, but then again they've sunk lower than I expected, so yeah ... they can.  I am hoping for Senator Obama's sake that she recovers but that he's going there doesn't look too hopeful at all.  

That said I am absolutely amazed at the sliming of General Colin Powell by the republicans since he endorsed Obama.  I am very impressed with the endorsement and his calling out the republican campaign on their smear tactics but damn this man is beyond party.  He's one who many democrats would've crossed party lines to vote for, had he run himself.  Powell gave a very thoughtful nuanced set of reasons for endorsing Barack Obama and race was not part of it.  He also had a very good answer for the 'socialist' thing they've been laying on Obama.  He made the point that taxes are always a redistribution of money.  Taxes pay our Soldiers, they pave our roads,  they put cops on the street, books in the schools and pay our teachers.  Taxes aren't a bad thing even though no one I know likes them much.  

For people like McCain and Palin to make the statements they make about taxes show me they don't have a flipping clue about what the country needs or wants.  They just need to go away.  I HOPE like hell I don't ever hear of Palin again after this election and I hope like hell that the good voters of Arizona vote McCain out when he runs for the senate again or he just retires on his own.  They are both behaving badly, and we just don't need that right now.  I've developed more than a little contempt for them and their campaign.  Some of the crap Palin has spewed has done nothing but piss me off.  I am appalled at the idea that some parts of the US are more American than others.  I find myself cursing more about the racist subtext of their campaign than I ever did about either of the Bushes, and I loathed W with a passion that only one who'd lost a job thanks to him could feel.  When I voted against W it was damned personal, I liked that job!  But McCain and Palin have hit me to a level of dislike bordering on outright hate that even he could not reach.

When did LIberal become a bad word in the US?  When did the idea of fairness, decency and honor become something to laugh at?  I grew up in a very liberal family.  We loathed Reagan and the voodoo economics he espoused.  We hated the demonisation of Affirmative Action that happened on his watch.  We watched our incomes flatline and our bills increase.  My mother told me once that the assassination of Dr. King broke her heart.  I told her the killing of George Moscone and Harvey Milk broke mine.  And we watched the 'angry white men' have their way and their say with voices like Rush Limbaugh who never ever spoke for me or mine.  Rush Limbaugh, the Josef Goebbels of the right wing.  Gods I loathe that man.  

The republican party is imploding and part of me is gleeful at its' implosion.  They've done so much damage with the divisiveness and bullshit of the Rove machine.  I want them to go away and reinvent themselves and get some credibility.  But mainly I want them to go away.  I want Palin to go home and take care of her kids and shut the hell up about taking my choices and my kid's choices away.  I want McCain to go away and get over himself.  I want the makeup of the Supreme Court changed to a bit more center-liberal.  I want so much for a better polity and I want all that damned hate that they stirred up to die with the generation it appeals to. I want the politics of hope, and as I've said Senator Obama has that.  

Roomie asked me why I support Obama, and I told him it's because he speaks to me.  The white woman who married black.  The veteran who still gets asked at the VA, 'where's the vet?'.  The mother of biracial children who see a biracial man poised to take it all.  And the woman who never thought melanin was all that damned important when the dream exists and the attainment is possible.  Someone who wants our politicians to appeal to our best selves, not the baser selves.  We've already been there, done that.  Time for change.  Time for hope.  And damn sure time for a difference.

I have a bumper sticker from the last election sitting in a drawer here.  I never put it on the car because my roommate is actually a republican.  The slogan? 'Republicans for Voldemort'.  It was popular in the last election.  Roomie's ex wife countered there should be one that said 'Democrats for Umbridge'.  Right about now that bumpersticker is looking more appropriate.

I had the thought earlier that Palin reminded me of Bellatrix LeStrange, but then I realised something.  Bella was actually very competent at what she did.  Batshit insane but bloody competent at being a DE.  Poor Sarah isn't.  Not really.  She claims that because some Alaskans can see Russia and that because her state is bordered by two foreign countries she has expertise in foreign affairs.  Hmm I lived in military housing in Munich Germany for 3yrs.  Does that make me a foreign policy expert? Or does that make me an expert on government housing since I not only lived in it there, I lived in it in Georgia(our state Georgia) and here in Texas.  I don't think so myself, but hey if she can puff up her resume, why the hell can't I? Oh right, it's dishonest.

McCain said he knows veterans and they know him and he loves them and they love him.  Funny that.  The major veteran's organisations give him failing grades for consistently voting against us.  Yes I am a vet as I have stated on many occasions in this journal.  I don't feel the love from a man who has canned his whole Viet Nam experience into a platform to launch himself as a politician.  Most vets I know who went to Nam don't talk much about it.  The vets I know from the first gulf war don't talk much about it, same with the current batch.  He promises 100% honesty in his campaign, he reiterated that on monday in Des Moines IA, but his campaign airs ads that are quite bluntly untruthful and gets downright pissed when called on it.  Swears up and down they are the truth.  Makes you wonder what color his sky is in the morning. He reminds me of Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic who denied the truth of Voldemort's return for an entire book which gave him time to rebuild his operation and continue infiltrating his government.  

But these are not fictional characters and I find myself less tolerant of them because of it.  To me this yr the republican ticket is frankly scary as hell.  They want us to elect a 72yr old man with 1100 pages of medical records, who has had 3 separate bouts of cancer? And a 44yr old ex beauty queen who governs a state with a population roughly equal to Austin TX? They want us to vote for a man known for a bad temper and a woman who can't string a sentence together that isn't a talking point that makes sense.  A woman who can't even name one periodical she reads regularly.  A man who flailed as I said last week harder than the economy.

And for the first time in years the so called 'wedge' issues just aren't getting the play.  In 2004 they used wedge issues to sway voters when they weren't outright stealing the election.  I heard more in that year about gay marriage and abortion than I'd heard throughout the first 4 yrs of the Bush presidency.  And then they went away.  As soon as he was re-elected they stopped mattering with small bubbles of discontent coming up through the torpor.  San Francisco issued marriage licenses, but got smacked down.  MA legalised it(gay marriage) and the world didn't end but a lot of states said they'd not recognise those MA marriages.  And then recently in CA it became legal again through a court decision that tossed out a state constitutional amendment.  Oh yeah they got Prop 8 right now and I hope that bastard goes down in flames myself.  Right now same sex marriage is a bloody patchwork and I am thinking it's going to take a Supreme Court decision like Loving V. Virginia to solve it.  As for abortion? De facto it's getting harder to get one, and the wingnuts are getting pharmacology degrees so they can deny women their birth control perscriptions.  Uh dude?  You get a job, you cannot just decide to do only part of it.  Birth control pills are not just used for that purpose.  

Now we have an election cycle being driven by something the Republicans cannot run, it's running them.  The economy is in the toilet, and there is blame a plenty to go around.  But they cannot change it, and a fix is not going to be quick or easy.  The bail out voted on last night and passed, is essentially a band aid, and it may not contain it longer than the money the 'masters of the universe' are getting lasts.  We have a few very large financial organisations now that quite frankly scare me.  Merrill Lynch is part of Bank of America which has already gobbled up many smaller banks and become a superbank.  WaMu went under.  Wachovia was sold to Citigroup which used to be Citibank.  And so on.  It's scary times and the only thing that keeps it from getting worse is that Americans have not run on the banks. There is real fear out there.  And someone leadership that is calm is valued right now.  We had cowboy leadership, and it got us war, wedge issues, and this financial mess.  And I know I like others want to see someone go to jail for it.  I suspect we won't.  But I want those 'masters of the universe' to hurt as much as the rest of us do financially.  

And dammit I think this time that bumper sticker is hitting my car.  Along with an Obama sticker.  

I am a registered voter.  I am a Democrat on my registration.  I have been registered as a Democrat for yrs.  And yes I have crossed party lines when I felt the Republican had more to offer.  Party for the most part means something, but there are Republicans who speak my language just as there are Democrats who do not.  I don't think I can categorise myself just on party lines.

I want financial responsibility in my politicians.  I do not want 'tax and spend'.  I want liberal social policies where privacy is respected and my rights as a woman to choose my reproductive future(or past in my case) is assured.  I want my daughter and future granddaughters to have those rights.   I want equality for those who don't have it because when we give equality to others we gain equality ourselves, just as when we dehumanise one segment of the population we enable others to dehumanise us.   I don't mind paying taxes when it benefits us with infrastructure, health care and education.  I do mind waste.  I want a strong defense but not at the expense of our young.  Our best defense has been to be one of the freest nations on the planet, and to have some of the best education going.  

I will be voting Democrat this time again with a candidate who has one hell of a shot at winning because he offers a vision that in this time is as sweeping as anything John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt offered.  He offers change from the failed politics of the Republican right wing, who has literally destroyed an economy and an international reputation using fear of the 'other' as it's basis.  

This time it will not be a vote against.  It will be a vote for. 

It will be a vote for inclusion which has sadly been lacking since Reagan took office.  It will be a vote for the 'little guy' who never caught a break while the 'masters of the universe' did.  It will be a vote for a woman's right to choose, and be a woman.  It will be a vote for the Muslim who just wants the American dream along with the freedom to wear her hijab.  It will be a vote for the immigrant who came here for the dream, and it's all about that dream ya know?  

It will be a vote for my children.  A son in the military, who is on orders for Iraq, and a daughter who just wants to have a good life with her spouse and the child she is attempting to conceive.  it will be a vote for my ex husband who deals with color every day in a southern state where at 53yrs old he is still referred to as 'Boy' and 'Son'.  It will be a vote for myself, repudiating a hierarchy that thinks that because I am past 40 and not botoxed, drop dead gorgeous, and looking for a man to validate my existence I should STFU and take what my so called betters give me.

I am an American. I am proud of my country even when I can see we can do better.  I served my country in uniform for 5 yrs. I am proud of our diversity where an African-American man can achieve what Senator Obama has achieved. I am also proud that a woman like Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi can get where they got.  I do not include Governor Palin here, because I think her choice by John McCain was tokenism at its very worst.  I will vote Obama in November because he offers something McCain does not: hope.  

I am a daughter of immigrants who made it.  I am a child who felt that she owed her country for the opportunity and paid back in a uniform.  I am a citizen who wants her country to do right, not just easy.  I want all of us to succeed, and a good percentage of my working career has been in state and federal government because I KNEW it made a difference.  

I love my country.  The country my parents came to, to make a better way for their future and their childrens future, and I am damned if some right wing, 'born again Christian' tells me I don't love my country.  Because they are dead wrong.  Liberals love their country just as the right wing nationalists who think 'my country, right or wrong'.  And that's where it all breaks down.  There seems to be an awful lot of fear in the good ole US of A. And that fear has crippled us in some ways.  That fear of the 'other' has held us back.  We are better than our fears, we have been in the past and we shall be in the future.  We will make history in November no matter which ticket.  Either we elect a man of color to the presidency or a woman to the vice presidency.  Personally I am betting on the man of color.  But history will be made. 

Found this article a few days ago.  I will link at the end to the MSNBC reprint of it since it is a New York Times article and they want you to register.

I've had misgivings concerning the Republican ticket ever since John McCain sewed up the electoral votes in the primary.  I am not Republican, but I DO watch them to see what they've got and HOPE like hell they throw off the yoke of the religious right that hijacked them so many yrs ago. They've yet to do it, but one can hope that the party of Lincoln will do it eventually.  When he(McCain) selected Palin as his VP running mate, I went straight to cynical here.  First thought? He chose her because she's a woman, and he's trying to get the more disappointed Hillary supporters to vote his ticket.  Now, I did not support Hillary, but I DO respect her and her supporters and I think I'd be insulted if I were one of her supporters to think that he thinks I'll support his VP candidate because she has the same reproductive system I have. Because Palin is NO Hillary Clinton, not even close.  

Now with McCain his VP choice really is important.  Man is 72. He spent 6yrs in that oh so healthy Hanoi Hilton(he loves to remind us of that!).  He's had several episodes of cancer.  And statistically he could pass away pretty much any time now.  Former POWs have all sorts of health issues and he has some injuries that have never healed from Viet Nam.  So yeah, he could go, and whoever sits in the second seat would be the next president.  So yeah his VP choice IS critical.

So he chose someone that a good percentage of the US had never heard of.  He chose someone who speaks directly to the Republican's 'base'.  He chose a woman who surrounds herself with people who are dependent on her good will to stay employed, and governs using personal loyalty to her, not the state, as a guide to whether you are with her or against her. The article I am linking really does explain that. But if you depend on her to keep your job, you'd better agree with whatever she wants 110% because this woman is thinskinned and vindictive, a double whammy of not good for a politician.  The triple on it? She takes it personally.  If you disagree with her, you are against her, even if the disagreement is not major, you become the enemy.  This is most definitely someone I DO NOT WANT in the White House.  

Her personal views on right to life vs pro-choice piss me off.  Her desire to insert the fundamentalist viewpoint into gvt policy pisses me off. I am all for separation of Church and State.  Her lack of experience at anything outside of state and local politics frankly scares me since she's been running her office as governor as a private fiefdom.  Yeah I SO do NOT WANT her or her partner in shame elected.  The sad part? I once LIKED McCain.  Not anymore.

Here's the link.  Interesting reading.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26691018/

Sarah Palin=Tracy Flick.

I was wondering why Governor Palin gave me such a bad reaction and someone else in the LA Times mentioned the comparison.  It makes sense.   Reese Witherspoon in one of her earlier movies played a character named Tracy Flick and the movie was about an election.  A High School election.  I remember seeing it on DVD with my daughter yrs ago and thinking that chick is evil.  The character would do and did do just about anything to be elected.  Listening to Governor Palin at the convention last week I had the same sense of revulsion towards her that I had towards Ms Witherspoons character, Tracy Flick.  The movie is called 'Election' and it was memorable. 

Palin will exploit everything and anything in her life to get elected.  That announcement last weekend about her daughter's pregnancy?  Yep, that was an appeal to the 'base'.  Her son serving in the military and going to fight 'God's War'?  Yet another appeal to the 'base'.  She's a politician, she knows how to sell herself and her message.  The plane on eBay?  Nice story, but that's not where the plane was sold.  It was sold at a loss through an offline broker.  The chef?  Sorry, I don't get that one.  Most governor's mansions come with staff.  They are there to make the governor's life easier.  I really don't expect Governor Palin to nip off from work the day some dignatory is coming to dinner to cook for him.  That's NOT her job.  

Policywise she is good at slanting things.  As a mayor she had her hands out open, eagerly for federal earmarks.  In her speech she's against them.  Yeah right.  She does walk the pro-life walk though.  She could've terminated her last pregnancy, but she chose a different path.  I will say upfront that her choice is admirable.  That she wants to remove that choice from everyone else is not.  Her feelings that abstinance only sex ed is the way to go is definitely a fail in my book.   Knowledge is power and can save lives.  Just telling kids no is not good enough.

Sarah Palin does not speak to me politically.  She has opinions that are pretty opposite of my own.  I am pro-choice.  I prefer gun control, but yes I DO know how to use them and have.  She supports the war in Iraq.  Something I never could do, even though my son will be there by the end of this yr.  I support the veterans, I always will.  They're just doing their jobs.  It's the politicians responsibility to do right by them.  Something the Republican Party has NOT done.  

I support Senator Obama.  But he has a huge negative no matter how much spin you put on it.  He's a black male in a country that while not admitting it, is racist.  I think he can win, and I find myself really hoping he does win.  I was enraged with the dissing of his community organiser experience by both Giuliani and Palin.  Do they NOT know what community organisers do?  A line I saw somewhere was that: Jesus was a community organiser, Pilate was a governor.  Made sense to me.  Community organisers are the guys that help old people get benefits they've worked for.  They help poor people with housing and such.  They help sick people get to their doctors and get meds.  And they do this for little to nothing financially.  The responsibilities of a community organiser are the ones they voluntarily take up. They are to be admired, and respected.  The Republican Party shat on people who did not deserve that treatment.

Now my friends, I do not expect you to agree with me 100%.  No indeed, if you support her and McCain, you have your reasons as I have mine.  I do not expect to be defriended for expressing myself either.  If however you wish to, I will be sad because I will be missing the knowledge you bring with the differences of opinion.  But I felt the need to express myself here and say what I feel.  So I did.

So I'm glued to the TV as usual during the games.  Not real impressed with NBC's coverage of the Games.  But then again I've bitched about that for yrs. Did Micheal Phelps get better looking in the last 4 yrs or what? Seriously not only can he swim astoundingly well but Gawd he's serious eye candy.  Just finished watching the women's gymnastics where the US scored gold and silver on the individual all around(they choked on the team event!).  Very happy for Ms Liukin and Ms Johnson, they deserved to win and they showed up with their best skills to do so.  The real story in gymnastics is the Chinese teams.  They got good, real good and it's a treat to see good gymnastics.  Now in the next two days it will be event finals and seeing that should be real good since so many gymnasts are specialising in one or two events, unlike in the past when specialisation was not as common as now.  I'd like to see how Oksana Chusovitina does.  She's 33 and competing in her fifth olympics now. 

Roomie is out of town once again and that makes the house too damned quiet. He's due back in on Saturday .  We have the tax free weekend this week which is a good time to buy clothing. So I suspect we'll be shopping this weekend.

I've not followed the 'Twilight' series and after hearing about the last book and how unhappy people were with it, I am glad I chose to stay away from it.  Not too happy with the push back on the release of the HBP movie, I was actually looking forward to it based on the trailer.

Cruising the Internet this morning and found this one on CNN.  A nine yr old child in New Zealand will be allowed to change her name as a ward of the court. The name? Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.  Yeah. That kid has a rough life.  My own first name is as common as dirt, my last name when I was a child rhymed with an unfortunate attribute, and believe me the teasing was not fun.  My married name had all of 12 letters in it, and I developed a rhythm in spelling it on the phone when I ordered pizza or just when I knew the person I was speaking to would have to spell it.

You have to wonder just what someone is thinking when you see some of the odd names people name their kids. Pilot Inspektor is a recent celeb name for a kid. Poor kid. Some of the names I saw back in the day when I was handling welfare cases were just amazing. I understand your child is unique to you and naming is personal, but think of the poor kid.  When I was pregnant with my children I wanted nice sensible names that would work with their surname and would not open them up to massive teasing.  So my son was one of 4 kids in his elementary classes with his first name.  My daughter's name was unique. During her school yrs she only met one other person with that name. Her middle name was fairly common, and that surprised me since her names are Gaelic. She likes her name these days, and it works with her married surname.

But yeah. Unique names can be a good thing or a real whammy on the kid. Names affect you. And some names just sound better than others.  They just do.  Mary sounds plain to most people, whereas Moira sounds different; yet they are essentially the same name.  Just like Maria, and Marie are all the same name.  My daughter is working on getting pregnant, and because she has some reproductive issues it will take some medical assistance.  When she does get pregnant, names will come up and I intend to have my say with her.  But I know she is sensible and I doubt she will name a kid Apple or some such. I suspect she will think like I did and come up with something the kid and everyone else concerned can live with.

Is there anyone feeling like I do right now?  I feel somewhat disconnected to fanfiction.  I've read some of the post DH fic and have enjoyed what I read but for some reason I can't wrap my brain around the preDH stuff right now.  I've lived with Harry Potter for a good long time.  Fandom and the fanfiction produced in it has been a major hobby.  So to feel a disconnect when after GoF, OotP and HBP I was devouring any fic I could get my hands on ... I am thinking this is temporary and in a week I will be most definitely looking at and reading pre, post and everything else under the sun.  But for right now? I am processing JKR's story.  I am satisfied with her ending because it was her ending.  I know fandom will create more endings and I look forward to reading em.  We waited along time for her ending.  Now's the time for all of us to come up with and write our own.

Okay I admit I was massively spoiled by book 6.  And the spoilers to this day piss me off. I DID read the uploaded epilogue online the other day and for some reason I don't feel as if it were all that spoilery.  That said I understand scans of the entire book are online now but I shan't look for it as the epilogue was a bit of an eye strain and well I am not going to read more of the same eyestrain when I will have the book in my hot little chubby hands late friday night, early saturday morning.   I've also stayed the hell away from LJ to avoid the temptation of spoilers and anticipate the meltdown of wank following the release.  So to my flist I am and am not ignoring you, but I am staying away until saturday after I've read through and enjoyed it. I KNOW I will post my reactions then, and yes I will cut so people who read a bit slower will NOT be spoiled.

In other news my son went into the Army last week and is now at Basic Training in the exact same place I was 30 yrs ago; Fort Jackson South Carolina.  I find that a bit ironic or something.  Anyways I hope for his sake the Army works out as he has burned some serious bridges here with his friends and family in TX and seriously NEEDS to grow up.  I also hope he does not see Iraq but that one is a hope not likely to be fulfilled even if he does not have a combat specialty.

So how is everyone else doing??