Here’s my parting gift to Messrs. Bush and Cheney (size 9 New Balance 810). Don’t go planning any overseas travel, you might get diverted to den Haag.

If it was imperative for McCain to choose a woman as his running mate, there are certainly many more qualified Republican women available.  I knew enough already about Palin’s record in Alaska when the announcement was made to know that she is a extremely bad choice for Vice President.  As I learn more about her, that feeling just gets reinforced.  Learning that rape victims were charged for the evidence kits needed to prosecute their attackers while she was mayor of Wasilla enrages me.  Because the Alaskan legislature had to take action to outlaw this travesty of justice, I cannot believe that she was unaware of this policy while she was mayor.  For McCain to assert that she is his best choice sends two messages, the first that justice is contingent on your ability to pay for it, and the second is that his own judgment is seriously lacking.

2) The current problems in the home lending industry coupled with insanely obscene housing prices in the SF Bay Area. I have no frakkin’ clue how anybody can afford to buy a house here on only one middle-class salary without relying on hitting the Lotto, and if they do manage to do that, without falling prey to the current crop of predatory lending practices. This feeds into the discussion of the opt out BS.

I am not a fiction writer, so all the useful and necessary programming focused on writing is not useful for me.

I just had a flash earlier this evening (possibly warmer than ambient perimenopausal flash?) that right now my mental energies aren’t focused on other worlds/cultures/fantasies, it’s how I need to find a way to live on this particular planet in this particular time. I’m rapidly approaching nominal Croning age, and even if I’m fortunate enough to live another forty-six years in good mental and physical health, I’ve got this background noise telling me I don’t have unlimited resources available to me and I need to be judicious in where I direct the resources I have at hand.

There’s several things festering in my mind that I’ve read (or re-read) lately that I can see all interconnecting.

1) Suzette Haden Elgin has had a very interesting discussion of “scutwork” going on in her LiveJournal. (who does the cooking/cleaning/caregiving?) The first entry in the discussion is here.

2) Badgerbag’s discussion of “integry” (emotional work)

3) The recent Columbia Journalism Review article about the fictitious opt out dilemma, and all the classist/racist assumptions underlying it.

So here’s a heads up, I’m going to be trying to churn all of this together and welcome comments as I do so.

Fortunately, it seems like some Santa Clarans aren’t afraid to challenge racism and classism in their own midst.

I hope Father Locatelli and the rest of the University community takes this incident as a wakeup call. It’s hard to see sometimes, but not all Santa Clarans come from upper- or middle-class backgrounds. It wasn’t that way almost thirty years ago when I first got there, and it isn’t that way now, but I am encouraged that they’re not trying to keep this under wraps.

I just sent this message to the Edwards folks:

Keep Amanda and Melissa working on your web presence. The people most enraged by them working on your campaign will never be your supporters, and if you cave in due to their pressure, then you send a message to all Democrats and progressives that the right wing are the only people in this country who have the ability to define the terms of political campaigns. We are the ones who have the right to tell our stories to the rest of the country and the planet; if we let the right wing get away with this, our stories would never get heard. What would our beloved Molly Ivins say about this?

Stay strong.

If you like, go make your voice heard over there.

Bill Donohue does not speak for this particular technopagan Buddhist Catholic, but then according to him, I’m already consigned to various forms of eternal torment. Pthpppt.

So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead, pp. 254-5

I am trying to cheer myself with envisioning Molly, Ann Richards, and Barbara Jordan having a raucous reunion and then getting back to business on another plane. The $AFTERLIFE will never be the same again.

I’m just sorry I won’t have more of her writing and humor to prod me along in the struggle.

Saint Molly of Austin, pray for us (and kick our butts into gear!).

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

—Gandalf to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring

Unfortunately, I don’t see any of the very wise making decisions in either Washington DC, London, or Baghdad.

Reading Riverbend’s latest post places this all in horrifying context.