Happy Holidays

My holiday wish is coming true.  Newt is falling in the polls.  True, we've still got Mitt out there, but I'm not really worried about him.  He's just not that awesome.  He's uninspiring.  It doesn't really matter how much people hate Obama.  If they can't be inspired by their own candidate, they're not going to vote for him.  Democrats have had similar problems in the past.  Think about how much we hated George W. Bush.  He was, in my opinion, the worst president ever, but could we get behind anyone who ran against him?  No.  The problem was that Gore and Kerry, wonderful politicians and terrific people though they are, were not inspired.

Romney is even less inspiring than either of those examples.  He stands for nothing.

Plus, Obama is pretty awesome. 

In a race with one pretty awesome candidate and one that is less inspiring than watching paint dry, it's clear who wins.  So happy holidays indeed. 

Now, if only congress could get over this idiotic show of trying desperately to make the president look bad, we'd really have something to celebrate.

Forces of Nature

My wife and I had a baby in April and since that time, I haven't been camping or hiking or fishing or anything remotely close to participating in an outdoor activity.  It's hard to get out when you have an infant hanging around who needs to eat and be changed and fed and bathed every hour or so. 

It takes effort, and equipment to make an expedition, even to the relatively close Wasatch front, successful.  In part, this means that my bona fides as an outdoor enthusiasts have suffered, and there is a certain amount of shame and embarrassment in that idea. 

I used to be the guy that headed to the mountains every weekend.  Even in the last couple of years, I got out fairly often.  My wife, Raven, and I hiked the Appalachian trail for three consecutive summers from '08 to '10 spending weeks at a time in the outdoors, and this year, diddly squat.

Soon enough, Ezra will be old enough to make going out for a couple of hours at a time worth it.  We might even be able to mount a camping expedition in 2012 and have it be relatively enjoyable, but for now, the prospect of hiking or camping with my son chills my blood. 

It's not a safety issue.  I'm plenty safe for both of us in the outdoors.  I always pack extra food and clothes and I never go too far into unknown areas.  I know how to avoid dangerous animals and plants, and I have a strong set of survival skills. 

What makes a trip into the wilderness unthinkable right now is that my son, Ezra, is like a wild animal.  He has abrupt mood swings.  He eats, sleeps, and poops when and where he wants.  He cries when he doesn't get his way.  He grabs things and puts them in his mouth, and then spits them out again covered in slime.  Going on a hike with him would be like dragging along an honry bobcat.  Worse, because at least a bobcat can take care of itself most of the time. 

There will come a time when Ezra will be very fun to hike and camp with, I have no doubt.  Right now, however, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with having a force of nature tear around my living room.

The Donald

I just read that Trump may enter back into the republican race after his reality TV show "Celebrity Apprentice" wraps up.  WTF?  I was pretty sure that starring in a reality TV show  automatically disqualified one from holding any significant political office.  I think it's in the constitution somewhere.

I think that's why all the republican candidates (minus Gingrich and Santorum) have opted out of Trump's debate, too.  It counts as reality TV, and they're worried they might get voted off the island if they attend.

This election season has been called a carnival, a circus, a joke... but the fact that most of the candidates are skipping out on Trump shows that they do have standards.  Those standards are incredibly low, but they exist, and that's good news for us voters.  It means we've finally bottomed out.  After this, we have nowhere to go but up.  Practically speaking, I hope that means the ridiculous field will start being whittled down a bit. 

We've already seen the departure of Cain.  Perhaps more will leave the field before too long.  Santorum should've been out a long time ago.  Perry and Bachman haven't contributed anything for months now, and Ron Paul seems to be in the race only to say crazy things in a high pitched voice every once in a while just to liven things up.

The one candidate I still know little about is Jon Huntsman, which is a shame because he seems like a reasonable candidate.  He believes in climate change and has foreign policy experience from what I gather, which is definitely a cut above the mental prowess we've seen from most of these idiots.  Still, it doesn't look like he's going anywhere this election cycle. 

The last two men standing seem to be Gingrich and a beleaguered Romney... and possibly Trump.

Maybe we're not quite out of the woods.

Choices

If there were justice in the world, Newt Gingrich would would have been mated up with Herman Cain to create Rick Perry's ideal running mate, and the Texan would be leading in the polls right now.  That, I think, would have made the ideal Saturday Night Live season possible.  But there is no justice.  Gingrich and Cain remain unspliced and Perry is pretty much out of the race. 

It's down to Romney and the Newt for all intents and purposes, and the fun is slowly leaving this race, to be replaced by the scary.  Gingrich may be the most scandalous man alive.  He's steeped in ethics violations, marital infidelity, lies, and scams.  I still can't really believe he's a contender here, but I'm hoping he can stay alive through a long primary season and become the republican nominee if only because it's what the Republican base deserves.  People who cheer speeches about the death penalty and child labor are getting, in Gingrich, exactly what they asked for.  He is as slimy as they come.

Romney is somewhat less exciting than toast.  He is a politician of convenience with, it seems, no vision for the future of America, and no hope of rousing anyone into paroxysms of pride.  He is a business man, and perhaps America has become a nation of business men, of risk averse, cautious, middle aged white men who wear sweaters.  If that's so, we deserve Romney too.  He will, I'm quite sure, lead us steadfastly into irrelevance. 

I've had a lot of conversations with people recently about President Obama.  Personally, I'm a fan.  No, he hasn't done crap on the environment, but other than that, I think he's been pretty effective at bringing about the kind of change he promised in his campaign.  He got a health care bill passed, and it has some pretty good stuff in it.  He's done pretty well on the economy so far.  He hasn't solved all our problems, but he's certainly prevented the kind of wholesale societal breakdown that some of us were predicting when the housing market collapsed.  He's even managed to get rid of don't ask don't tell, which is huge.  He's been steadily working towards  tolerance, acceptance, and increased rights and freedoms for Americans, and all in the face of an incredibly hostile congress.  All things considered, he's certainly earned my vote, but many of the people I've talked to remain unconvinced.

I'd like to point out our options here.  We have choices when it comes to our leaders.  We can't change the fact that virtually all of our politicians are taking money from big corporations in exchange for influence.  We cannot change the fact that there are a lot of voters who are too far gone to make any kind of rational decision about our government (I'm talking about Fox newsers, birthers, and people voting against abortion).  We can, however, vote for people who are working to make the country a better place to live when they come up for reelection.  Your frustration with the current state of our government doesn't change the fact that if you vote for someone besides Obama, we can do no better than an uninspiring, non-threatening, pandering politician.  And, should you choose to vote against Obama, or even not vote, we might end up with a scandal ridden laughing stock of a president whose policies are as scary as anything that comes out of the middle east.

We have a good man as our president right now.  He is perhaps not the greatest man there is, nor even the greatest president we've ever had, but he is a good man and a good president.  There is no excuse for us not to support him, and no hero who will step out of the shadows at the last moment to provide the answers and leadership that will magically and immediately deliver us from our present darkness.

It's time to throw our weight behind Barack Obama.

An Antidote for Outrage

Screw Newt Gingrich is my first response to a plan that seems to be specifically designed to piss me off.  Newt says that the poorest kids from the poorest school districts in America should get a job, specifically that they should get jobs cleaning their schools.  This plan is supposed to teach kids the value of an honest day's work.  I am torn between wanting to cry and punch Mr. Gingrich in the face. 

New Gingrich is a racist.  He is corrupt.  He is a chauvinist.  He is a homophobe, He is derisive of poor people.  He is dismissive of ethical standards.  He is a bastard, and he is currently winning the race for the republican presidential nomination. 

Aside from the man himself, I think the thing I'm most upset about is that other people agree with him.  And these aren't just any people.  They are Americans, my cultural kin, my people.  It makes me feel dirty to hear my brothers and sisters laugh at jokes made at the expense of the poor, to hear them clap and cheer for a speech in favor of stripping gays of their already limited rights, to hear reasonable people seriously consider supporting this man who represents hate.

Newt doesn't care about my outrage, or my disapproval.  He wears it like a badge.  He is pleased that some of us want to hit him.  It means his rhetoric is working.

There is pleasure in the idea of hating something or someone.  If Newt is the enemy, I do not have to feel compassion for him.  He becomes one dimensional, evil, inhuman, but I know better than this.  I know it's an act, a game.  As inhuman as I find him, republicans see Obama in the same light, as a monster bent on undermining their deeply held beliefs about justice, morality, and decency.  They are probably just as confused and angry about my support of The President as I am about their support of Newt.  We are on opposite sides of a battlefield.  This is how we've been set up.  As though there is a right side and a wrong one, as though we share nothing, but our enmity for one another.

The truth is that we have much in common.  We want our children to be happy.  We want to be safe.  We want to be prosperous and successful.  We want to protect the people we care about.  More than that, we are concerned with our fellow Americans, and, in particular, those less fortunate than us.  We want to help each other.

The Republican primary is filled with divisive politicians, this season, who are bent on taking advantage of our dissatisfaction with the current state of the economy, and our animosity towards the current administration.

I don't know how to opt out.  There's no candidate in the race at the moment who I think can unify us.  There is no genuine moderate behind whom we can rally, but I wish there was.  I wish there was someone real and intelligent, and compassionate, and willing to bridge the gap between republicans and democrats.  I wish my political options amounted to more than hate and anger, but there's too much money in politics, too much corruption, to much to be gained from pitting us against each other. 

We are in violent agreement.  Right now, politics sucks!

Harasment Vs. Affair

By now you've seen the headlines that Herman Cain has been accused of conducting a long running extra marital affair.  This story, it seems, has finally killed his campaign, which is fine with me.  The man seemed to be a bit of an idiot in my opinion.  The thing that really galls me, though is that the affair is what did it. 

Herman Cain was accused of far worse than having an affair.  He was accused of sexual harassment, and possibly sexual assault.  Why didn't that kill his campaign?

Possibly, Cain supporters simply took this latest scandal as the straw that broke the camel's back.  Too much intrigue to deal with, or maybe they believed Cain that his first batch of accusers were lying, but didn't believe him this time.  Perhaps his time just ran out.  But I don't think so.

I think we, as Americans, tolerate sexual harassment more readily than we tolerate affairs.  Why this is, I'm not really sure, but it seems true.  We seem to believe accusations of adultery more readily than those of harassment.  We seem to put the blame for adultery on whoever is having the affair, but the blame for harassment on the accuser.  We villainize men who have affairs, but we tend to villainize women who accuse men of harassment.

Perhaps this is because adultery is not legally actionable.  Women who accuse men of having affairs cannot sue them for it, whereas sexual harassment can lead to legal consequences.  Maybe we think, subconsciously, that women are more apt to lie about harassment because they have something to gain by it, a cash settlement, or the chance to get their bosses fired.

Whatever the reasons we make up for downplaying harassment, it doesn't change the fact that sexual harassment is a very serious crime and should be taken seriously.  It's hard to say whether harassment is more destructive than an affair.  It would depend on the affair and the harassment, but it's clear to me that our attitudes about sexual harassment are a symptom of a deep sickness within our culture.  We are willing to put up with abuse, willing to tolerate cruelty and torture, which is what harassment amounts to, and willing to dismiss allegations of such behavior without investigation.  Cain said they were liars and at least some of us simply took him at his word. 

Would we have done the same thing if someone had accused him of tax evasion?  How about child abuse?  Murder?  I think we would have investigated any of those claims much more closely and been slower to dismiss them. 

I believe the fact that so many of us were alright with Cain even after he'd been accused of sexually harassing multiple women, speaks volumes about how prevalent and ingrained sexism still is in our culture.  It is the shameful underbelly of our democracy. 

If you were one of the many who dismissed those claims out of hand, you should ask yourself why, and then let us know.  There's a comments section below, and I'd be very interested to hear your opinion.

Poop

I work in the basement of an office building.  My office is really nice and big, and there is a little kitchenette that we share with two other offices, a conference room and a bathroom.  The bathroom is the problem.  It's not dirty or anything.  In fact, it's a rather nice bathroom.  There are showers in a little space off to the left and a urinal and a stall.  It's pretty standard.  The problem is that since this bathroom is in a secluded, little used spot in the basement, it attracts people who have to poop.

I have no real evidence for this, but my suspicion is that people who would normally use the bathroom on their own floor are embarrassed about stinking up the bathroom and having their co-workers smell the aftermath of their BM's, thus they make the trek to the basement whenever they have to poop to avoid gaining a reputation on their own floors.

This means that my bathroom almost always stinks, and the stall is occupied more often than not when I go in there to use it.  Also, the toilet gets clogged far more frequently than I would like because of the abnormally large volume of feces the toilet must deal with.

All of this upsets me, and more so because I imagine that the people who are willing to come downstairs to poop must be the more foul smelling employees in the building.  They are probably consistently stinky, otherwise they would not fear the reputation so much.  These people probably eat goulash and Mexican food for every meal and spend upwards of twenty minutes at a time in the bathroom grunting and farting.  They are likely the lowest of the low, the least hygienic people in the office, and they're using my bathroom which adjoins the kitchenette.  Imagine my displeasure.

I am considering asking the building manager to put a lock on the door and give out keys only to those on our floor, but it seems impractical.  Maybe I should just put up a sign, or better yet, maybe I'll go upstairs next time I have to take a dump.

Abortion.

I am amazed and appalled at the emphasis being put on abortion in this election cycle and in all election cycles.  It's stupid and irresponsible to vote on this issue for several reasons.

Number one is that laws against abortion do not stop abortions from occurring.  There is really good evidence that while abortion was illegal in this country, many women still attempted to terminate their pregnancies to disastrous effect in many cases.  So, a law making abortion illegal would be ineffective.

Two:  The best way to cut down on abortions is by cutting down on the number of unintended pregnancies.  A law against abortion will have no effect whatsoever on that number.  What does have a significant impact on unintended pregnancy is access to birth control.  Most people in favor of overturning Roe vs. Wade also want to make it more difficult for women to get birth control.  Planned Parenthood is one of the foremost providers of low cost birth control in the U.S. and receives significant funding from Title X in order to provide those services, but many of the politicians who oppose abortion also tried to strip Title X funding from Planned Parenthood earlier this year.  One would think that politicians intent on bringing down the number of abortions might try to increase Title X funding rather than eliminating it.

Even more significant in reducing unintended pregnancies is education.  The more education women have access too, the lower the rates of unintended pregnancy.  Rates drop even more as women are exposed to sex education that includes a accurate information about anatomy and birth control methods.  Yet, again, politicians opposed to abortion tend to be opposed to accurate and complete sex education programs.  Many prefer abstinence only sex ed. which has been shown to be ineffective in curbing the rates of unintended pregnancy.

Why are politicians opposed to sex ed. and birth control when their stated goal is to eliminate abortion in America?  My opinion is that these politicians don't actually care about unborn children.  I think their hidden agenda is nothing more or less than stripping away women's rights.  Why anyone would want to do this is a mystery to me, but I am at a loss as to any other explanation for the idiotic policy stances that some politicians seem to be taking on these issues.

They claim that birth control, sex ed. and abortion all fall under the heading of immorality.  Supposedly, birth control and sex ed. are evil because they encourage pre-marital sex, but a quick look at the numbers indicates otherwise.  Kids, and especially girls, who participate in sex education that includes accurate information about birth control are more likely to delay their first sexual encounter, and much more likely to practice safe sex when they do make the decision to have sex.  Both sex ed. and birth control tend to empower women and girls to make better decisions about their sex lives, so politicians must have another agenda.

Disempowering women makes sense politically for social conservatives because women, especially young women, tend to vote democratic.  Women who have kids early and often tend to have lower levels of education, which means they'll stay home on election day.

All of this is disturbing, but there is another aspect to the debate that I find more frustrating still.  Abortion is a smokescreen.  Politicians with other agendas tend to use abortion as a means to polarize voters who might otherwise vote on more relevant policy issues.  It is a matter of slight of hand.  Instead of voters being focused on foreign policy, where President Obama has excelled (ending the Iraq war, killing Osama Bin Laden, forging ties in Asia), conservatives are trying to focus voters on abortion.  Instead of looking at tax policy where they are trying to raise taxes on the poor and middle class while lowering them yet again on the richest 1%, conservatives are trying to attract our gaze to personhood amendments and stripping funding from Planned Parenthood. 

The fact is that abortion has been legal for over thirty years now, and though conservatives have succeeded in chipping away at women's rights by limiting abortions in many ways, disrupting sex education, and limiting access to birth control, there is still a hard core of men and women determined to preserve those hard won rights.  The issue is a stalemate, a non-issue, a trick used to separate us.  Despite what conservatives say, pro-choice Americans are committed to reducing the number of unintended pregnancies in this country. No one is fighting for more abortions. 

My advice:  Don't vote on this issue.  Ignore it, and look at other, more relevant factors before you cast your vote.

Occupy

I saw a bunch of people get pepper sprayed on the news.  They were sitting on a green lawn, arms linked, heads bowed like monks in prayer.  I think they knew it was coming, but they didn't flinch.  A police officer in riot gear wielding a red canister casually walked up to the line of protesters and discharged his pepper spray at point blank range into the faces of a dozen of them over and over again until the can was empty.  The protesters just sat there.  They didn't run, didn't squirm, didn't retaliate.  They sat with their heads down breathing in the foul stuff, and they did not give an inch.

I've been having a lot of conversations about the occupy movement recently.  One friend tells me that he thinks the protesters can't all be normal people.  "There are rebellious students out there that just want to protest for the sake of protesting."  Another friend went down to the Occupy Salt Lake headquarters in Pioneer Park.  She brought her husband and daughter with her, but they left after only a few minutes because whoever had the megaphone was using too much profanity, and she didn't want her daughter exposed to that sort of language.  I, myself, haven't been down to the protests.  I heard that a man was found dead last week in SLC from a combination of drugs and asphyxiation.  Apparently, he passed out without turning off the gas heater in his tent. 

I have reasons for writing off the protest.  We all do.  These people seem like fringe members of society.  They're dirty, unshaven, dressed in worn out clothes, sleeping in tents.  I don't care what anyone says, they're not ordinary people.  Also, I have a seven month old son, and the one thing I haven't seen on the news is babies at the protests.  I don't think he'd be safe there.  I'm in solidarity with the movement's ideals, and I think to myself that I don't have to go down there and take up space to support them.  I can do that from my living room or from my desk at work, or here on this blog.

All of my reasons left me when I saw that footage of protesters silently holding on to each other while being viciously assaulted by uniformed police officers.  I felt like crying.  The image brought up so many emotions for me: despair, anger, pride.  I am outraged at the police officers that did this, outraged at the politicians or bureaucrats who gave the order that these people were to be removed from that lawn by force.  I am outraged at what we've been cowed into accepting as normal, that one small group of people with money and influence and power can simply push the rest of us off their land if we inconvenience them, that, for the most part, we take it.  I'm outraged that we let this happen to ourselves, that we let it get to this point. 

That image of protesters refusing to be moved as the police officers spray toxic chemicals directly into their faces sits with me in a way that other images from this movement do not.  It highlights the disparity between those in power and those who have none.  The police officer in the video is dressed in tactical gear, armour.  He is wearing a helmet with a face shield and carrying a weapon.  He moves casually and confidently because he's been trained for just this situation.  And then he sprays them, and I wonder how one person can do that to another, how he can spray those chemicals on them and cause so much pain without batting an eye.

That's what they've done to us, the banks, the corporations, the politicians, those people who've seized power in America.  They've used their money and influence to hurt us, to kill us, to impoverish our lives, and they've done it without a second thought, in the name of profits or power, or because they've deluded themselves into believing that it's for our own good.  We've been at their mercy for so long, and we're helpless in a lot of ways.  They have the weapons and the money and the power.  They have the courts and political system.  They have our jobs and our homes and our land.  They can ruin us, or lock us up if they want, but we cannot touch them.  In so many ways, we are not free. 

Except that those protesters refused to move.  They refused to give in, to go quietly.  They sat and they occupied that lawn.  In the face of violence, they refused to rise.  In the face of power, they did not acquiesce.  In the face of overwhelming odds, they did not give in.

I am forced to conclude that we are powerful, too.  If we can hold on to each other.  If we can hold on.  If we can hold out...  Our government, which is supposed to stick up for us, to protect us, has failed. It is up to us to hold our ground, to occupy, and to keep it up until something changes.  When it is my turn to stand up, I will be there.

I believe things can change. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4