EHarmony for Elections

Here is a totally fun 11-question quiz over at WQAD, based on the survey by Minnesota Public Radio, that will help you figure out which candidate is most in line with your views on key issues. I tied for Obama and Clinton so it's really rather accurate at least in my case. The full survey is linked via WQAD. Enjoy!

WQAD

The Hard Truth About Soft Rock

So, as threatened, I am here at Chez Mohs getting the last thing on my face removed. Thank heaven they have wifi. Curse the gods that they have piped-in radio from one of those "the hits of yesterday and today, all day" stations. Today's playlist so far?

--Please Forgive Me, Bryan Adams
--Fields of Gold, Sting
--Voiceover by Dido, saying the radio station's call letters
--My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion
--Crazy For You, Madonna
--Every Rose Has Its Thorn, Poison
--Thats What Friends are For, Dionne and Friends
--Inconsolable, the new one from the Backstreet Boys
--Voiceover by Mike Reno of Loverboy
--Almost Paradise, by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson of Heart

I needn't tell you that the only pain I am feeling at the moment is that of being trapped in a situation that forces me to slowly and substantively come to terms with the fact that the songs of my adolescence are now the songs of cheesy "adult contemporary" radio play, "at the office, at home and in your car! Nine hits in a row, every time!"

Now we just need freakin' Bananarama doing Cruel Summer and the Footloose/Karate Kid/ VisionQuest adult contemporary/spit-on-my-memories trifecta will be complete. No, no. What we need is Journey's "Faithfully" so I can totally relive the time my boyfriend broke up with me in high school and I spent the rest of the night listening to every song Journey has ever written and crying my eyes out. Yeah, bring that on. Because there's no humiliation like nostalgic humiliation courtesy of Steve Perry and Neal Schon. Although, they could also play You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi and I'll be reminded of that most 80's of truisms: Whenever life makes you feel small, the cure is to make your hair bigger.

When Democrats Attack

Last night's debate! Whoa! What a good time! And I'm not even talking about Kucinich saying he believes in UFOs.

Finally the gloves are off and we are having a real dialogue (well, all the dialogue a debate with Timmy Russert and Brian Not Brokaw Williams will allow). But seriously, it was the first time that Senator Obama has said to Clinton's face what he's been saying about her in interviews. It was yet another example of how Joe Biden is totally and eminently qualified to be President of the United States based on detailed grasp of policy nuance and history--but who remains unelectable for various intangible reasons I can't quite enumerate. Edwards came out swinging at Senator Clinton, precipitating the ensuing pile-on from the other candidates. And amen to that, quite frankly.

It's fashionable in certain circles to either hate Hillary and express disbelief that she should even be in this contest or to worship her as the rightful heir to the Clinton legacy--and a woman to boot! I'm in neither camp. She was, to be sure, under constant attack in last night's debate. But her performance was lackluster even if you give her points for being on the defensive. She didn't seem to FEEL anything she was saying, although I hesitate to say that because female candidates are always in a difficult position vis a vis showing emotion. She has to ride the line between being seen as caring too much, e.g,, weak, and being the shrew she's accused by many of being. So I don't want to ding her too much on that, but the fact remains that she didn't seem animated by anything in particular. She seemed to be playing the role of someone running for President, doing what she thinks that person is supposed to do.

Which is not to say that any of the candidates up there were somehow being "just folks" (well, except Dennis Kucinich and perhaps Joe Biden). They are all running for a job that requires them to speak and act in a particular manner. I get that. But Senator Clinton needs to step up the human side of things if she's going to disarm the other candidates' attacks on her. But, boy, did she completely not help herself in her flub of an answer to whether Spitzer's idea of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in NY was good one. First she said yes then no then not really. It was a classic "maalox moment" for campaign staff, where you can just see the candidate coming undone on an answer that seems to the majority of people to be a simple yes or no. She will regret that exchange if she does win the nomination because the tape will be played over and over again by her Republican rival.

Edwards performed rather well, leading the charge to stop Senator Clinton's lead in the polls. I really like his message of two Americas and hope that there is a place for some of his ideas in the next administration. I'm just not sure he's the guy to run that administration.

Which brings us to Mr. #2 in the polls: Senator Barack Obama. He needed to show something in this debate to set himself apart, to give him an identity beyond being "the black candidate with the strange name." He did it. I especially liked his answer to the asinine question of whether he is bothered by other candidates "accidentally" calling him Osama. He said, "But there is no doubt that my background is not typical of a presidential candidate. I think everybody understands that, but that's part of what is so powerful about America is that it gives all of us the opportunity -- a woman, a Latino, myself -- the opportunity to run. And listen, when I was running for the United States Senate, everybody said, "Nobody's going to vote for a black guy named Barack Obama. They can't even pronounce it." And we ended up winning by 20 points in the primary and 30 points in the general election. The way to respond to swiftboating is to respond forcefully, rapidly and truthfully. And I have absolute confidence in the American people's capacity to absorb the truth as long as we are forceful in that presentation. And we are seeing it as we travel all across the country. We have received enormous support in states where, frankly, there aren't a lot of African Americans and there aren't a lot of Obamas."

It was a classy answer to an unclassy question. I also liked his periodic digs at Mitt Romney's two-facedness. That said, I'm still smarting from his recent tour with Donnie McClurkin the "recovering" gay minister. I want to hear more from Obama with regard to his beliefs about gay Americans before I can fully support him the way I want to.

All of which brings us to two final points:

1. Joe Biden is funny and seemingly lacking an internal monologue, which means all manner of debate hijinks for you and me. His assessment of Rudy Giuliani: “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11, I mean, there’s nothing else. And I mean it sincerely. He is genuinely not qualified to be president.”

2. When two candidates are still awaiting a single question after 15 minutes, you don't have a debate. You have a vanity project for Russert and Williams. Richardson and Kucinich are candidates in this race whether anyone thinks they can win or not. To simply ignore them in favor of the top three candidates is shoddy work on the part of "journalists." As we have seen time and time again in debates, the "lesser" candidates very often raise issues that force the front runners to respond where they otherwise would avoid the topic all together. Another sign (as if we needed one) that we cannot trust the media any more than we can trust the candidates to truly bring the democratic process to the American people.

Wednesday Is Hump Day

It's also Mohs day. Yep--it's time for another round of Mohs surgery on a squamous cell near my ear. Then--finally--that should be all of the dermatological incisions I'll need for a short while.

Wednesday is also Halloween. Bambina is dressing up as a sunflower carrying a dog. Odd, yes. But hey, I don't meddle in my kid's dress-up interests. She just meddles in mine, which means that I have to go as a witch carrying a dog. It works for me, because I can use the witch hat to hide what will be the extremely large mohs surgery gauze pad over half my face. Which will also be behind a big turquoise N95 mask. Scaaaaaaayyyy-reeeeeee!

I'm hoping having the mask on will dissuade me from eating tons of chocolate, but not likely. I got some winter clothes out of storage the other day and had my little crisis when I realized that a pair of pants I used to wear are now a bit tight around the keester. (Keister? kiester?...never mind): ass. My old brown pants are tight around my ass. I was about to rack my brain like, "what the eff could I be doing to make pants tight? I barely ate for three months! Gimme a break!" when I looked at the tag and realized that the pants that now feel tight are a Size One. Yeah, I said the same thing: E, Shut the F Up. And throw out the stupid pants. It's called perspective, darlings, and the past few months have given me a serious--and very welcome--dose of it. And believe me: no one is more delighted than the BBDD who has experienced one too many of my "oh my god when did I turn into a pie shop?" meltdowns over nothing more meaningful than a pair of snug britches.

But I digress. Wednesday is also the day I will discuss the Dem Debate, the latest season of Heroes, and the ongoing drama of SCHIP.

I'll also give out candy if you tell me what you're wearing... :)

No Gloating

Which is why I will only say to those who consistently used the word "Rocktober" on this site:

SOXTOBER, BABY!!!

There. Now I'll display some sportsmanship. :)

How The Other Half Lives

So today Bambina and I were doing jumping jacks for fun while counting.
I did 100 without blinking.
And recovered my breath in about 4 seconds.
I turned to the Baby Daddy and said, "Is this normal? Am I okay?" He assured me that, yes indeed, even the most marginally fit person with normal bone marrow function will be able to do 100 jumping jacks without keeling over.

Forget keeling over; as the Brits say, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

I don't think, now that I look back on my life, that I've ever really known how you all have been living lo these many years. How the hell was I functioning with less than 25% bone marrow? How was I working out? How was I parenting my child? How the hell was I getting up in the morning and not collapsing by day's end? (oh wait--that I did). But seriously. I've been missing out! It's kind of like (although actually not really) that SNL skit with Eddie Murphy where he impersonates a white guy and all of a sudden he tries to pay for stuff but the newspapers are free, the bus is a party, life is just wildly different from his previous experience:

Eddie Murphy: You know, a lot of people talk about racial prejudice. And some people have gone so far as to say that there are actually two Americas: one black and one white. But talk is cheap. So I decided to look into the problem myself, firsthand. To go underground and actually experience America.. as a white man.

[ Eddie walks onto the street, the perfect portrait of a white man. He enters a convenience store, grabs a newspaper and drops it on the counter. ]

Clerk: What are you doing?

Eddie Murphy: I'm buying this newspaper.

Clerk: That's all right. There's nobody around. Go ahead, take it. Take it. [ Eddie gives him a quizzical look ] Go ahead, take it. Yeah. Take it. Take it.

[ Eddie takes the newspaper, and cautiously exits ]

Eddie Murphy Voiceover: Slowly, I began to realize that when white people are alone, they give things to each other for free.
[ cut to Eddie catching a bus. He sits down between two white women. ]

Eddie Murphy Voiceover: There was only one other black man on the bus. He got off on 45th Street. [ the busdriver looks around the bus carefully, then sets a party in motion, complete with music and cigarette girls ] The problem was much more serious than I'd ever imagined...

Yep. This "moving around without thinking your head will explode after 10 steps" thing has been your big secret. But the secret's out, y'all. Now I know what humans can do when appropriately fueled: hundreds and hundreds of jumping jacks.

Followed by a free newspaper.

Monday Monday

Check back Monday afternoon for an update. The fan was hit by the proverbial shiv this evening, so no blogging pour moi sadly.

I Only Get What I Don't Ask For

I’ve been having lots of really interesting conversations with Bambina lately. The difficulty level in chatting with a 3 year-old mirrors that of an adolescent in that so much of what she tells me comes as a result of active and intent listening rather than direct asking. For example, if I ask, “How was preschool today?” She’ll say “Fine.” But if I tell her I’m glad she’s home and that I can’t wait to hear about her day whenever, she will randomly offer quite detailed stories when she’s good and ready. I’m therefore learning to be interested and open to chatting without needing to dictate when and in what form the chat should occur. What’s really neat about this dynamic is that she and I end up talking about really deep or really humorous stuff that we’d never broach if I insisted on the Ask-Question-Get-Answer process. I was trying to figure out the name of this style of communication when it occurred to me that it’s simply called, “talking with your kid like she’s an actual person.” Yes indeed, we have our moments of adult/child scripted dialogue such as, “Say thank you to the nice man,” and “I’m going to count to three and if you are not—whatever—by three [insert grievous consequences here].” I’d be a pretty bad mommy if we didn’t. But the majority of our chats feel like chats I’d have with anyone, albeit on a different level and about more random types of subject matter.

From the theological/existential:
“Mama? Where is Bumpa again?” Followed by the delicate, “He dead, right?” Yes my love, he died. He’s in heaven. “How’d he get there? By train?”

To the philosophical:
“Mama, how do we get here? Who makes us?”
Oooh good question! Do you mean like in a mother’s tummy or do mean something else? “I mean how come we’re here? Why? Did God make us to be here?”

To the sociological:
“Mama, why are there mean people? I don’t like mean people. Do you?”

To the unknowable-but-vital-to-answer-properly:
“Mama, where is my Chinese mother? Is she still in China?”

Deep questions all. Of course, just when I think I’ve got the next incarnation of John Locke or Jacques Barzun on my hands, we discuss this:

“Mama! Sophie pooped in her pants today! It smelled yucky! (raucous laughter….reverent, ruminative silence)…Why do poops smell so bad?”

Like I said, conversations I’d have with anyone…

Now If Only They Had Q*Bert

GamaSutra
Is it *completely* dorky that I got a bit teary-eyed reading this retrospective of the Commodore 64? You remember the Commodore 64, don't you?

Good times, baby. Good old-timer times.

PS--You'll feel particularly old if you ever played a computer game with state of the art graphics like this (I'm talkin' to YOU, brother mine):


Man, I miss the 80's...

True Story of Lipton's Former "Craft"

May I submit the following article for inclusion in the most random, disturbing and simply weird factoid of the week? Even if you've only ever seen James Lipton and Inside the Actors Studio from the perspective of Will Ferrell and SNL, you still know you weren't expecting THIS:

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors' Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France. The revered TV presenter, who has sat down with Hollywood's biggest names for in-depth chats about their life and work over the last 13 years, has revealed he once procured clients for French hookers.

He says, "This was when I was very very young, living in Paris, penniless, unable to get any kind of working permit... I had a friend who worked in what is called the Milieu, which is that world and she suggested to me one night, `Look, you'll be my mec... We would translate it perhaps... as pimp. "We were earning our living together, this young woman and I, we made a rather good living, I must say." Lipton reveals in his new book Inside Inside he would set up sex shows for clients of his lady friend.

He adds, "I had to accompany my clientele to the Rue Pigalle, which is where these things occurred. And then I'd take them up to the room and I had to remain there because they were very nervous, they were young Americans for the most part... and they didn't speak French."
Copyright World Entertainment News Network

Vibrators Don't Stimulate Genitals...

PEOPLE Stimulate Genitals.

From Langiappe:

It’s official. You can buy a gun in Alabama but you can’t buy a vibrator.

After nine years of arguing the constitutionality of the law, the state ban on the selling of sex toys will finally go into effect. On Monday, Oct. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear adult-oriented retailer, Sherri Williams’ challenge to the law, thus ending the battle and allowing state law enforcement officers to soon begin making arrests. The ban is a part of the Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act, which was originally passed in 1998 in an effort to end nude dancing in parts of Madison County, not to ban sex toys. The act states that the distribution or production of "any device designed or marketed as useful for the stimulation of human genital organs" is prohibited in Alabama.

Once the injunction that has delayed enforcement of the ban has been lifted by Alabama’s Attorney General’s office, violators will face up to a year in prison and a fine of less than $10,000. Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Nebraska, Virginia and Utah all have similar bans. There are a few exemptions to the Alabama law, however. Devices can still be sold if they have "bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purposes." Law enforcement purposes?

My suggestion is a National Vibrator Association, the NVA, that will vigorously support candidates who believe in an Americans' god-given right to masturbate in the privacy and comfort of their own home. We can make those witty bumperstickers: "Take My Vibrator? You Can Pry It Out Of My Cold, Dead Hand." Or we could refashion our image by promoting our educational programs around the safe use of sex toys, or we could call masturbation a hobby, much like hunting. More helpfully, we can come up with all the faux "medical" or "law enforcement" purposes that will allow people to continue to purchase any toys they damn well please.

All joking aside, this ban is asinine, to say the least. How a ban on strip clubs became a ban on stuff like joy jelly is inexplicable. And moronic. And sad. And, ironically, the perfect illustration of what "obscene" really means.

I Like My News Invented

RawStory
That's a link to a story showing that Fox News used a four year-old FBI memo, claiming it was from this past June, to raise fears that al-Qaeda may be responsible for the wildfires in California.

Here's my question: How many times do you get to eff up the news before you have to take the word "news" off your broadcast? Isn't there a professional association of journalists that sets standards for news organizations? Doctors lose their licenses, lawyers are disbarred, so why aren't journalists and news anchors excommunicated when they repeatedly display an inability to report the news correctly? How can you still have a "news" channel when you consistently and unapologetically report incorrect information?

Your Life As a Joke

TwiceTheRice

That's a link to a really wonderful post from the perspective of an adult adoptee from Korea. In it she addresses the impact on adoptees of seemingly "harmless" statements by adoptive families and the community at large. She specifically addresses this:


That image horrified me when I saw it, only to horrify me more when I read that adoptive parents are actually walking around with it on T-shirts.

If you've been reading since 2005 you know that I see the adoptive community like many other communities: mostly normal people with the best of intentions, with an unfortunate minority of people who are clueless to the point of malignancy, and a smaller number who are just outright bad for kids, bad for America. This T-shirt, for me, determines who sits in what category.

Our agency, and everything we read, emphasized the importance of truly thinking through the permutations of an international interracial adoption. Do you live in a community that will be hospitable to your child? Will your family provide an environment of unconditional love for your child? Are you comfortable that rest of your life will now be spent either educating or politely brushing off often-well-meaning but nonetheless-rude people? Are you comfortable with the fact that you will need a complete toolkit of skills that a biological parent may not need to have? Are you resolute in your belief that the only important thing is your child and not someone else's feelings/intentions/sense of humor? Do you have the skills and the commitment to become a "visible" family while working to ensure your kid is as anonymous as she (like most kids her age) wants to be? Are you at ease with the presence of biological parents, whether physical or emotional, in your family's life?

To my mind, the most important element for deciding to internationally adopt was to truly examine my motivations. In contrast to some of the literature, I genuinely felt that I was ready to adopt internationally when I could say that I was doing it for ME rather than for the child. After all, if I'm adopting a daughter from China to "save" her or to make her Christian (which, believe me, many many people there were quite open about), I'm not treating her as a person, as my daughter. I'm engaged in charity and conversion, not parenthood. I felt like it was the right decision when I said, "I want a family and we're going to China because that is where our daughter is." End of story.

Now that Bambina is my daughter I cringe when I see T-shirts like this, or I see behaviors among adoptive parents that fetishize their child's ancestry (like celebrating Chinese holidays without putting them on an equal footing with the family's other holidays, or constantly dressing their kids up in the qipao for special occasions when they can't even pronounce qipao or understand its place in Chinese culture), or when they search methodically for any potential biological siblings among the many adopted Chinese children which, aside from being almost impossible, only tells their kids that "bio is better." I pray every day that I find the right balance between saying, "She's not my Chinese adopted kid, she's just my kid," and recognizing that being Chinese and adopted are parts of her identity that are hers to decide what to do with as she grows. And it is my job to help her trace those parts of her heritage that matter to her, and to help her navigate between and among "American" culture, Chinese-American culture and Chinese culture. I want her to feel comfortable in her own skin, recognizing that she may take herself and our family on uncomfortable journeys to get there. I want her to be able to feel the losses she will inevitably feel, to seek the answers she may inevitably seek, and to live proudly and comfortably in all the worlds she must inhabit. Most of all, I want her to understand and feel in her gut and in her heart that she is loved completely and soulfully (in a way that will perhaps not have meaning till she has her own kids); a feeling she can't have if I treat her birthparents or her birth country as a jokey T-shirt.

Lazy Blogger

Sorry for the total lack of interesting posts lately. I'm lazy, uninspired and feeling more inclined to sit around and eat peanut butter cups while reading Perez Hilton than write anything semi-intelligent. Attitude adjustment coming soon. I swear!

US Senate: Chickens of the Sea?

Here's a very interesting article on the little-known Law of the Sea, a treaty the US should sign. As the article says, "'You have an agreement that's endorsed by a Republican president, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard, an overwhelming number of senators from both political parties, business groups, trade associations, and you already have 155 countries that are party to the treaty. It seems like if you can't get that through, I don't know what kind of treaty you can get through the Senate,' said Spencer Boyer, director of international law and diplomacy for the Center for American Progress."

AmericanProspect

FrankenBerry Time!

Woo Hoo!! Kids of the Eighties! Let's Get Our Cereal On! This was my favorite cereal back in 1983. It remained my favorite even when my sister would cherry-pick all the marshmallows, leaving only pink cereal. After all, the main event was turning your milk pink, wasn't it?

TampaBay.com