Mitt Don't Git It

Wow. Read the transcript below to hear Mitt Romney's answer to the question of why none of his five sons have joined the military to support the war Mitt supports. Is there any question left that Mitt Romney is a completely out of touch joke?

First, the example he gives of supporting the military is about his neice's neighbors helping her landscape her yard while her husband is on active duty---so that the homeowner's association won't fine her. He called the gesture "touching." Wow. His best example of Americans coming together to support our troops is a bunch of people working in a yard so his niece doesn't have to pay neighborhood association fines??? Is that really all you got, Mitt? Is he even aware that most average Americans do not have any connection to a "neighborhood association"? Or that their only experience with such an association is to know that they are not permitted to live in the neighborhood? The man is clearly speaking from a place most Americans do not live.

Second, he says that one of the ways his sons are serving their country is by helping him get elected. Yes indeed. Mitt considers driving a winnebago around a few states getting YOUR DAD elected President to be a close second to joining the military and heading to Iraq. I'd LOVE to offer that kind of patriotic service. If only I could afford a winnebago. And afford to take time off work to campaign for my father. And to bring the whole family along since my wife, I assume, can ditch work too.

Yeah. Life as a Romney is pretty good. Too bad for all those brave men and women who didn't realize they could just as proudly serve their country by holding a sign at a polling station. Or, as the case may be, driving a large mobile home for their Dad.

And contrary to the campaign's assertions, reading the transcript does NOT show that the remark was taken out of context. Along with the niece/landscaping/neighborhood association anecdote, it offers perhaps more "context" than they'd like to admit.

Question: "Hi, my name's Rachel Griffiths, thank you so much for being here and asking for our comments. And I appreciate your recognizing the Iraq War veteran. My question is how many of your five sons are currently serving in the U.S. military and if none of them are, how do they plan to support this War on Terrorism by enlisting in our U.S. military?"

Governor Romney: "Well, the good news is that we have a volunteer army and that's the way we're going to keep it. My sons are all adults and they've made their decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty. I respect their decision in that regard. I also respect and value very highly those who make a decision to serve in the military. I think we ought to show an outpouring of support just as I suggested. A surge of support for those families and those individuals who are serving. My niece, for instance, just to tell you what a neighborhood can do and how touching it can be.

"My niece, Misha, living out West, her husband I think he got a call on a Tuesday. He's in the National Guard. He got a call on a Tuesday that he was going to be called up and shipped overseas on a Thursday. And they just bought a home -– they hadn’t landscaped it -– but the rules in the neighborhood were that unless you got your home landscaped within a year of the time that you bought your home, they began fining you, because they didn’t want people having mud holes in front of their homes. And she was very worried and just before the year expired, she woke up one morning and looked out the window and all the neighbors were out there, rolling down sod, putting up trees, getting it all done."

"It’s remarkable how we can show our support for our nation and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country."

The Collapse of the Dollar?

China owns $900 billion in US bonds, which of course lets us spend spend spend. But, as in all cases, if someone is financially supporting you, they get a certain say in how things are run.

This, my friends, is why you don't allow 44% of your national debt to be held by foreign entities. You'd think a good conservative like George Bush would know this...

ps--why is this not front page news here in the US?
UK Telegraph

Open Mouth, Insert Hand and Foot

I've been a mom for two and a half years, so you'd think I'd have this stuff down by now. Friday afternoon Bambina did the following completely out of character things:

1. Refused ice cream
2. Said she was hot and tired
3. Just wanted to "sit and read on my bed"
4. Became Bambina "Clingy" McClingstein
5. Thereafter decided that I was not meeting her needs and began to wail for "Dada"

So I figured I'd take her temperature just to see what was up. 100.7. Not dire, but for a kid who is, like her mama, usually a high 97/low 98 for a normal temperature, I was a bit concerned. So I called the Dada who said, "Did you give her some motrin or tylenol?" Oh. Yeah, right. Of course. So I gave her the motrin. After which she fell asleep so fast that I was positive she'd passed out. So I started to rouse her and move her, which did work, but I still was a little bit concerned. So I called my Mom to ask if it was okay for a kid to sleep with a temperature as long as I had ascertained that she hadn't actually gone unconscious. She offered her thoughts which I thought sounded reasonable, but then couldn't bring myself to leave Bambina alone "just in case." I recognize that I sound like a completely unfit mother, but Bambina has been sick two (yeah, TWO) times since April 2005; last summer and this summer. That's it. So every time this happens (as in, last time and this time) I realize how inexperienced I am with sick kids and vow that I will read ahead in the Mommy Textbook handed to you either in the delivery room or in the location of the official adoption, to pre-learn 4 and 5 year-old medicine dosages and treatments. (You did get your handbook, right?) But then I don't and I am once again calling my Mom to ask inane questions like, "is it okay to sleep with a fever?" while polishing my Mama Of The Year awards on the mantel.

Anyway, not for nothing, my next thought after the sleep/fever one was "Should I be around a kid with a fever?" So I called the Dada again to see if he'd come and tag in just in case I was on dangerous ground. He told me to go get a mask on. I couldn't because Bambina was asleep with her head in my lap. So a brief 20 minutes later, he tagged in, I masked up, and shortly thereafter Bambina bounced back. Until...we noticed on Saturday that she had big purple spots in her mouth and she started saying that her mouth hurt and her tummy hurt. So we called the after hours line where we got the "possible strep" diagnosis. Followed immediately by my call to MY after hours line to discuss the "possible strep" diagnosis. Followed by early Monday AM calls for same-day appointments with pediatrician and transplantatrician respectively.

After all the "S word" drama of the weekend it turned out that Bambina had something much, much worse. Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. No, it's not actually medically worse than strep. But it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?! Like some livestock affliction that has leapt to humans and for which there is no cure. Well, actually, that part is correct; you just have to wait it out. It's a very common virus found in child care settings (as usual, passed mainly by contact with fecal matter; which begs the question of what little monster's parents have not taught hand washing at home). Fair enough. But for the parent it is akin to being told your kid has lice (another affliction I'm assured will be visited upon my home in years to come); ie, it's common and normal and yet just mortifying in the extreme to imagine that my daughter ingested somebody's fecal matter particles. Saints preserve us.

So I was flipping out that my poor, dear precious child has this terrible virus clearly created by dirty, nasty ruffian children whose parents have no sense of hygiene. Which is when I called my doctor back and said ixnay on the epstray; it's actually (I'm ashamed to admit, doctor) HFMD. His response? "Ah yes, the coxsackie virus. Well, that's going to be a bummer if you get it. It won't be fun, but we'll figure something out." Me: "Should I wear a mask and gloves around my daughter?" HIM: "I would say that the cat is already out of the bag at this point, wouldn't you?" ME: "Well, should I avoid getting near her on the potty?" (Yes, I said "potty" to a grown man). HIM: "If you can, but let's be honest. When you have kids, there is no such thing as personal hygiene. Do the best you can."

So here I am, awaiting my mouth sores. From somebody else's kid's butt.

How was YOUR weekend?

You're A Wonderful Audience.

A recent book I read recommended the following writing assignment for writer's block: Sit down, and for 20 minutes keep your pen moving no matter what. Make the first sentence something like, "I am thinking about..." or "I am looking at..." and see where your pen takes you. This was mine. And if you send me yours, I'll post it. Anonymously or with full attribution. :)

I'm thinking about my father today. When I have really amazing days with Bambina I find myself thinking about my Dad. Perhaps it's part of the cosmic continuum of the parent-child relationship, ie, being a parent conjures up memories and images of being parented. Maybe it's his way of poking his nose in, just to give an uncharacteristically non-invasive greeting. Or maybe, most likely, it's the quiet part of my subconscious that, all these months of "normalcy" later, keeps daily vigil over all the events and happenings I wish he were here to enjoy.

I was chatting with Sweet D last night about the nature of loss, both of us agreeing that the first year's life cycle events are the hardest: First Birthday Without Him. First Thanksgiving Without Him. First New Year Without Him. Each one brings an unique feeling of pain mixed with relief. Pain, almost physical, from knowing that you will never again hug him on his birthday. Relief at the end of the day that you made it through, that you're still here, that you have managed to affirm his life and memory without curling up and dying yourself. Each event offers more proof that life will go on and that it will get better. No, it will never be the same, but it will go on and you will smile again. Not that smile that you do for the first few months. The one you do much later when you are finally able--and willing--to smile from your heart again.

A year passes and you find yourself able to tell stories about him without tearing up--except for those times that you do. Life finds a new normal and you immerse yourself in it, busy with work and kids and all of the daily pedestrian activities that fill your calendar and your brain. You tell people you are fine now, although you "miss him every day," and you are mostly correct. But I believe that none of us is ever more than one soul-deep memory away from feeling the loss all over again. Not in the sudden, surprising, stomach-churning intensity of the death itself, but in the heart-full-of-joy intensity that you can no longer share with him in this physical world.

In other words, it's the happy days--not the sad ones--that hurt the most.

I didn't think about my Dad during any of the dark days of my transplant even though I assumed I would. But every day I got good news or felt good or could keep food down--however small the victory--I would find myself thinking, "Yo. Check me out Dad! Watch me do this!" I guess the part of me that is 4 years old swinging way up in the air at the park is still yelling, "Daddy! LookLookLookLook at me! Look what I'm doing! Look at me!" The good days (however low my standards for 'good' may be these days) were--and are--when I feel him the most.

Why?

I once read that one of the best ways to improve your emotional health was to honestly list on paper all of your "internal audiences." These are the people who reside in your head, sometimes without your knowledge, for whom you "perform" the actions of your life. Some of them deserve to be there, others do not. An easy way to determine who's who is to catalog all the people to whom you sometimes find your mind saying, "If you could see me now" or "Ha! I made it in spite of you!" or "Maybe you will love me now." Those are the ones who need to go. Think of those people who show up on Springer to tell their high school nemeses that they are no longer fat and ugly. These are the victims of the internal audience, as evidenced by the fact that the other person rarely remembers the Springer guest, or wasn't aware of their effect on the guest. They have lived their lives trying to be worthy of some kid from 20 years ago who called them fat; a kid who has gone on and lived his life without a single thought of them. There are obviously much worse cases of abused children and the like, but in the same way, they must find a way to remove the abuser (even if a parent) from their internal audience so they can live their happiest life.

So. I did this exercise a couple of years ago and promptly realized that I had about 6 extra people attending my show who needed to go home already. One was an ex-boyfriend (do you think I'm pretty enough to love now?), one was an old boss (I own my own business, b*tch, and you wouldn't even send me to a small state conference. How do you like me now?), and a couple were friends or family. I was driven to succeed in business for lots of reasons, but succeeding so I can make an old boss eat it is just a waste of mental energy (especially since, potential Springee that I was, the old boss couldn't have given a rat's a** what I was doing with my life). Same with the old boyfriend. He was no doubt in bed with his new girlfriend as I was doing that list, most certainly not thinking about how great I'd be looking in a bikini these days. Again, I was in dangerous Springer territory, so I called security and had him shown the door. It took a couple of tries to not let them all back in, but it finally did work. It was a tremendously valuable exercise.

At the time I agonized over the fact that I didn't feel compelled to evict my parents from the audience. Was I a Mama's Girl? What was my problem? But in the end I decided that there was nothing wrong with caring that my parents' respect for me was an integral part of decisions I made, any more than I now care that my daughter will respect me. I did, however, (as all grown adults should) downgrade my parents' seating from front row, center stage to a far left balcony with complimentary binoculars. Believe me, it's good for everyone.

Well, with that old exercise in mind, I decided in the weeks and months after my Dad died as I spoke to him in my head and missed him, that there was no rule stating audience members had to be alive. They just have to bring out the best in you. So JP got to stay in the show, and now that I think about it, maybe that's why I think of him and look to him when everything's coming up roses: because as much as it hurts to have the conversation in my head and not in person, sharing joy with someone you love always makes it double.

Or in other words, sometimes the loudest clapping you hear can come from even the farthest balcony.

I Don't Want To Start Something, But...

From the AP:

A newspaper reporter who said Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick would have been "better off raping a woman" than being charged with dogfighting has apologized and will no longer appear on the local sports panel TV show where he made the remark. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise made the comments Sunday night on the Sports Showdown show on KDKA-TV, a CBS affiliate. He was disagreeing with another panelist who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend Vick for the rest of the season because he was indicted on federal dogfighting charges July 17.

"It's really a sad day in this country when somehow ... Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened," Zeise said. "Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for four games and he'd be back on the field. But because this has become a political issue, all of a sudden the commissioner has lost his stomach for it." Zeise apologized Monday.

I'm pretty sure Paul Zeise was not comparing the killing of a dog to the raping of a human female. And I'm not sure if he was trying to say that dogfighting is no big deal and therefore Vick should not be punished, or that rape is no big deal. If so, then he ought to be off the air.

But here's the thing.

The gist of his statement--as reported--is not necessarily wrong.

Back in 2003 during the Kobe Bryant situation, research into rape allegations against professional athletes showed that data for "168 sexual assault allegations against athletes in the past dozen years suggests sports figures fare better at trial than defendants from the general population. Of those 168 allegations, involving 164 athletes, only 22 saw their cases go to trial, and only six cases resulted in convictions. In another 46 cases, a plea agreement was reached. Combined with the six athletes convicted at trial and one who pleaded guilty as charged, that gives the athletes a 32% total conviction rate in the resolved cases. That means more than two-thirds were never charged, saw the charges dropped or were acquitted. "I would say almost the exact opposite would be true in the normal course of business," says Nancy O'Malley, who chairs the sexual assault committee of the California District Attorneys Association and who is Alameda County's chief assistant district attorney. "In some areas, the conviction rate is 80-85%" at trial, O'Malley says...National statistics also suggest most ordinary defendants charged with sexual assault are punished. In May 1998 the U.S. Department of Justice tracked rape charges in the nation's 75 largest counties and found 52% of the defendants in 586 cases were convicted of rape and 14% were convicted of some other crime, either at trial or through pleas.

"It's not surprising that it's a relatively low conviction rate" for prominent athletes, says Linda Fairstein, former head of the sex crimes unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office in New York and a board member of the National Center for Victims of Crime. "These are cases where frequently even if the claim is legitimate there is enormous pressure on the victim not to press charges, that you're ruining his career," Fairstein says. Prosecutors who have handled these high-profile cases say they also face a hurdle because of the "he said-she said" nature of sexual assault trials, particularly when a celebrity defendant's word is pitted against that of an accuser unknown to jurors..."

Dogfighting charges are harder to beat because you can't really impugn the character or chastity of dogs. You can't find "reasons" why the general public should believe that the dogs deserved it, or why they are lying. You can't find anything in a dog's past to imply that that dog is not stable and therefore unreliable. You can't, via fan hate mail, convince a dog to drop the charges because he'd be ruining your career. And you can't convince the public that you can be a nice guy and kill dogs, but somehow you can find ways to imply just that when it comes to ethically-questionable sexual encounters with an acquaintance.

The sad truth is that athletes accused of sexual assault are indeed in better luck than those accused of dogfighting. Zeise didn't say anything untrue. What he said was ugly and uncomfortable for us as a society to contemplate, but it wasn't technically false.

His firing shows how far we have to go towards honestly acknowledging that fact.

Just When We Couldn't Look Worse in Iraq...

Here is a link to a Congressional Oversight Committee hearing in which a former US contractor in Iraq testifies that other US-hired contractors kidnapped Filipinos to build the American Embassy in Baghdad.

Yet another reason to be proud of ourselves over there. How much more diplomatic malpractice can we visit upon the region, for heaven's sake? At what point do we all just agree that the entire US operation in Iraq meets or exceeds every single necessary criterion for classification as an Absolute All-Out Comprehensive Clusterf*ck?

AngryAsianMan

Seize This, Michael

Right wing nut Michael Savage raised the asinine notion on his radio show that "the Democrats" had something to do with Chief Justice Roberts' seizure. No, I'm not kidding. His cockamamie--and slanderous--theory is helped along by a complete misquotation of Chuck Schumer and a horde of unbelievably soft-minded listeners who perhaps don't have the critical thinking skills to recognize unmitigated nonsense when they hear it.

Yeah, cause the Dems are so powerful. Note how we were able to immediately pull troops out of Iraq, impeach Bush, fire Gonzalez, pass ethics legislation, stop Bush from decimating child health insurance coverage, and punish Rove and Cheney for their misdeeds. Yeah. And now we can cause seizures too.

Or, to put it another way, if "the Democrats" (which is who specifically, by the way, Michael?) were that powerful, Savage wouldn't have a show on which to feature his syphilitic ramblings to begin with.
MediaMatters