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A little patriotism please

I just watched John McCain talking before an Irish group in Scranton, Pa., and it occurs to me how transparent is his unseemly use of this crisis for political gain. He should be following Barack Obama's tone in this and supporting a unified solution to this absolutely terrifying economic situation. As Congress is meeting to consider the president's proposal, the four top candidates need to be supplying as much light and as little heat as possible. As the nation's leaders have proven over and over again that they cannot deal with our most difficult problems in sane ways, this moment is essential to come together wisely and not produce the economic equivalent of the Patriot Act.
The bailout brings the possibility of helping the economy or ruining it. It also brings the possibility of creating a monolithic role for the secretary of the treasury with no oversight and no transparency. And there's the little matter of impoverishing 99 percent of the country while enriching the 1 percent that put us in this situation in the first place.
Barack has spoken his mind about how to protect the American pocketbook as much as he can and supported the process of considering how to fix this situation without adding too much heat. That looks pretty presidential to me, and I mean that in the good sense of responding calmly, seeking information and considering a range of ideas before arriving at a solution.
Even a war hero should understand that the highest expression of patriotism is to put your country first, whether it's in economic or foreign policy, and no matter how bad you want to be president.

Pig in a poke

My grandmother used to say, "I ain't buying no pig in a poke." She had a lot of other colorful expressions that got much more colorful the older she got. The license of age. This one puzzled me because I didn't know what a poke was. 

I don't remember who explained to me that a poke is a sack, in this case a burlap bag. You wouldn't want to buy it because you couldn't really tell what you were buying. You could see if it were shaped like a pig and how big it was, but beyond that, your imagination had to fill in the details. I guess you might buy it if you really, really trusted the seller. But in any economy a whole hog has been an expensive investment.

Now, I'm not calling Sarah Palin a pig, but it surely looks like Karl Rove, and the rest of the rogues' gallery that's run the government for the past eight years, are the ones holding the poke. They're keeping that string drawn taut. They've tied all kinds of pretty bows on it and built some really lovely pedestals to set the poke on. They're traveling the country showing off the package. But there's a velvet rope they're calling a media blackout around the pedestal and they aren't letting anyone in to peek at the contents. They aren't even letting anyone but the shills on the payroll ask questions about what's in there. 

They've made movies reportedly outlining what's in the poke. They change the ribbons and bows and paint a face on her every day. They put a mike up next to the whole package and it sounds like whatever is inside is speaking. But who can tell? 

We can, however, look at where that package has been and what it left in its wake. With Palin, the wake is weak and what is there doesn't look very good and it doesn't match at all the picture that's being painted on the outside of that poke. I hope people in this nation who cast ballots in this race have the good common sense my Nanny had and demand that McCain and crew open up that poke or move on to Barack Obama, the man standing out in the sunshine, dodging the rocks and explaining his plan for the country.

Palin nominated for worst mom

With all the power vested in me as a political blogger and mother who raised two smart, kind, involved, beautiful daughters in the Great State, the Lone Star State, the Friendship State, the Longhorn or Armadillo State, I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the latter half of 2008. I would have picked her for the whole year, but there's that mom who microwaved her infant and even Palin isn't THAT bad: She only threw her teen into a whirlwind and under the campaign bus with the whole world watching.

I think, and have lived my whole life with this credo, that women who have children should be with those children, as much and as long as she can. She should be close enough to feed them problems to solve as they gain the skills and information to solve them. For example, at 2, they should be able to choose between two outfits and whether it's OK to wear them inside out. They learn from consequences if they scream and lay on the floor at pre-K because they don't want to wear their coats outside, they get cold on the playground. They learn the stove is hot by a little touch on the outside of the oven. They don't learn to dress warmly by running naked in a blizzard or that fire burns by sticking their hands in the fireplace.

When they mess up, say, get a grasp on the physical principle of gravity by jumping off the porch and spraining an ankle, a mom should be close enough to dry their tears and apply ice and hugs. When they start taking on the bumps and bashes of social interaction, get snubbed by the popular kids or pinched or punched by a bully; when they just give up on ever learning algebra; when she starts her period and needs a change of clothes; when that first crush breaks his heart, Mom needs to be there to listen to those huge problems. And they are huge. They are earth-shattering, because that's all the world they know and that's how they learn to cope with life. That's the second wave of their core concepts of whether the world is a basically good place they can trust or whether life is hard and punishing and its them alone against it all.

All of us mothers in the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st understand the reality that we must work and we are going to miss many of those moments in our children's lives. We have to deal with them when we get home from work. And in this horrible economic time, more and more women are forced into the workplace who would choose to be at home with their kids, a choice less advantaged women have never had.

There are so many wonderful fathers out there; single fathers, we can just plug into those lines above as Dad in place of Mom; so many terrific guys who are choosing to be the primary caregiver to his children to allow his families needs to be met immediately with Mom coming in to reinforce that as soon as she in from work. We have Joe Biden as a role model of how a loving, nurturing father can go to work in a powerful office, with the support of family members and great caregivers, and come home every night and listen to their stories and problems. Biden, however, did not seek the vice presidency, the heart-beat away position, when he was performing the vital role of Mr. Mom.

BUT, Sarah Palin's story is vastly different from any of that. She has five children, one going off to war, a young teenager, one who looks about 8, a special needs infant and a teenager who is about to become a mother herself. I don't know much about Mr. Palin, but he doesn't appear to be much of a Mr. Mom. I don't think he stayed home from his commercial fishing business to take care of the newborn baby with Down Syndrome when Sarah Palin went back to work three days after the baby's birth. And in the tragic case that she does become president, she could be locked in a war room for days at a time; in her office conferring with economic advisors past their bedtime and too late for talking for weeks at a time.

So here are the wherefores I would attach to my nomination:

-- Whereas Sarah Palin knowingly brought her daughter and her daughter's baby daddy into a political maelstrom at the most painful, scary and stressful time of their lives;

-- Whereas Bristol and Levi, living in that fishbowl, must make decisions that they and their baby will have to live with the rest of their lives;

-- Whereas she has three other children who, if she should get her wish to be vice president and becomes president, will know for the remainder of the next four years that they come second to every other person in America;

--- Whereas they will have no Mom there -- to dry their eyes, dream of their futures, put it all in perspective, tell them to get over it, look at their great art and put it on the refrigerator, help them to learn from their mistakes without being crushed -- until after all the people's work is done in war and in peace;

-- Whereas Bristol will pretty much be on her own to plan her wedding, learn how to be a Mother and wife and deal with the public stress (oh, Bristol, here carry Trig in front of your belly and spread the blanket out so no one can see that pooch you got going. Stop whining, that baby's going to be the first grandbaby of the first Republican woman nominated vice president)

-- Whereas Mr. Palin is not Michelle Obama, who is willing and able to be the primary parent 25 hours a day;

-- And Whereas Sarah Palin will be spending much of her first year in office learning to define the borders of Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq (special tutors must be employed because her boss doesn't know it) and studying what this economics thing is about in a country that is not oil rich and has more than 600,000 people within its borders;

I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the last half of 2008 and, in an unimaginable nightmare, the next four years.

You can cast your vote here or e-mail me at kismetacres@hotmail.com