Truth About Palin

I am just enraged about all this Sarah Palin stuff... It's making my 'lady brain' hurt!

This is one of the best descriptions of all the lies in her acceptance speech at the RNC. I may have too much faith in humanity... but just this once can we not all drink the kool-aid and see the lies for what they are? Just because she's a woman, doesn't mean women have to vote for her! Look at the issues and see that she isn't good for traditional "women's issues" - just because she's a mother, doesn't mean she supports health care for children or fair and equal education!

The article below is reprinted without any permission, but I swear it's not edited at all!

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held
back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and
flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases,
the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and
championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told
the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to
Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million.
In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in
special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the
nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge
from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that
opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to
nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening
to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two
memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state
senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does
have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass
legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons
of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The
legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to
also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a
respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader
on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by
police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty
cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income
taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death
tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American
people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings
Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would
increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by
2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all
income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3
percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and
the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for
minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the
wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above
$250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make
more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent
of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the
nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can
keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow
comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said
in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a
state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no
more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was
governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power
is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska
Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could
as easily have called it the 47th largest state - by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been
in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary
responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that
authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service.
When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they
assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the
Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have
a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard
organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor
of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United
States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and
got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped
out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23
states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the
2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right - change
from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a
prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out
the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative
Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year,
Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have
been in charge of the House and Senate.

box of kittens!

as you can tell, i'm not a diary person. hence the last time i updated this was a... year ago. in fact, it took me 20 minutes of time better spent doing work to figure out how to log back into my blog so i could post a message to baby sheep, my friends liz and lisa's soon-to-be son or daughter. at any rate, that led to all sorts of poking around on blogger and google until i realized i hadn't posted anything in forever.

so i am posting - box full of kittens!



aren't they just the cutest things ever? don't they make you squeal out loud in a high-pitched girly voice? if not, then you need to readjust your 'cute' setting... because they are the cutest thing ever!

and one of them in MINE! well, OURS! ;-) new kitten is the white and black one (not to be confused by his sisters, who are spitting image of our dearly departed mr. bates who left us last month after suffering from cancer... i'm glad he went quickly, though, because his last few days were fab - eating all the cheese steak he could and being cuddled lots. i still miss him and think that maybe having another kitten might be harder than i realize...)

but i digress!

new kitten has many names at the moment:

carter
kaos
bwni boi (bunny boy!)

those are the top contenders, i think. carter is starting to grow on me. and i like carrying on bates' legacy.

speaking of mr. bates - the human version is in my city tonight. i can't seem to muster up the excitement that this should engender. maybe i'm really growing up? part of me can only think about how much work i have to do and how much time i am wasting going to a concert.

okay, i'm old.

but at least i know box of kittens are the cutest thing ever! ;-)

-sheri

new friends

haven't blogged in a while, not that anyone is noticing such things. perhaps i'm the only one who reads these rants/musins/10 minute writing sessions. probably best that way.

a few months ago i found 2 new friends - we'll call them neli and lexi. one is a course i'm taking for nonprofit leaders and the other... isn't. both have created an amazing amount of change in my life. this weekend i added another - q.

i joined the pda/phone/blackberry-like world and got one of those nifty phones that will do everything except clean my house. seriously. i think version 2.0 might actually be a sentient (did I spell that right?) being. not sure. but thanks to my friend, lexi, i don't really care. not alot bothers me. to the point where i wonder if i need to start cutting back on lexi so i can start being the normal work-aholic productive me that everyone is used to. i wonder how long someone can coast on 20+ years of "bad" good behavior before people start noticing..?

but q is amazing. she's small and sleek - just like a girl should be, i guess. and now she lets me check my email whenever.

i know, i know. i should probably learn to NOT be available 24/7... but it's sort of who i am. and my neli goal is create a better balance between work and 'non-work' (as an unmarried 30-something, i feel weird saying 'family' - is that odd? i'm sure there's an article in there somewhere...). oddly enough, q is supposed to help me do that.

so instead of going into the office so i can be accessible, i can check my email (theoretically) from the car and no one will know that i'm not at the office. that's kind of cool and creepy all together.

anyway... that's what i've been up to for hte past few months. learning about my new friends and settling into life with them... i'm sure there will be more in the future.

can you go home again?

it's probably a rhetorical question, i know. but the answer is really no. well, not and think that it will be the life and home you remember.

this trip is particularly bizarre. there is still the 24/7 Fox News on in the background. television volume set to '10' because we all need to know what the prolific bill o'reilly is thinking. *gag* and bizarre squabbles over things like who emptied the cheerios into the cereal container and when (because, you know, dad can never be wrong!).

but then there are things that are different and have changed our world irrevocable.

retirement has turned my father into the homemaker. it's nearly exactly what i would have predicted too. the house is filled with 'to do' lists in my father's handwriting - get milk, cheerios, chicken broth, thyme. as you can see from that list, he's cooking. partly, i think, because he believes they are going to run out of money tomorrow and, perhaps, also to show my mom that what she did for all those years - you know, it's not so tough.

so when he does laundry or makes a bed or cooks dinner - well, it's not only a production, but one that needs to be lavished with praise, lest his feelings be hurt.

my mother, of course, just laughs this off.

but for some reason i can't do that. it just pisses me off. i become angry on her behalf.

maybe i feel like it's some way of saying: i really don't value what you did all those years. raising our family, working and keeping everything ordered and moving forward. because look how easy this piece is. sure, it takes me all day to do what you'd do in an hour, and there are no children to contend with... but you know, i could have done that if i wanted to.

so things are the same, after all, aren't they?

life revolves around my father. in a family full of women, you'd think he'd be perpetually out-numbered, but that hasn't really happened. which is just... odd.

oh, and one more thing... when you go home again, it's like going back to visit your old school once you are an adult. it's still there and sort of looks the same, but everything is smaller and you wonder: how did i ever fit in this space? and is it any wonder that i had to leave?

tipping point

So I’ve been hearing this phrase for the last 6-8 months – ‘the tipping point’. And I never really considered it much. Figured it was business philosophy propaganda and soon my Board would be using it and it would creep into my everyday lingo. Like saying something was a ‘win/win’ or we need to ‘work smarter, not harder.’ Hate it when that happens. It’s just proof that I’m old and there’s no getting around it!

But yesterday ‘the tipping point’ happened for me. It was nearly a religious experience, only instead of God it was Gwen.

Seriously. My tipping point came in the form of Gwen – I’m horribly over exposed and need to eat a sandwich and put on some frickin’ clothes all ready – Stefani.

Now, I LIKE Gwen. I love No Doubt. Seeing them in concert was amazing (although Shirley Manson is twice as sexy in my opinion, without trying half as hard). I even wanted my fictional Rachel to be friends with the fictional Gwen – they have a tortured relationship, those two, since Sudden Silence is sooooo much like No Doubt (completely non-intentional!).

Anyway, we were sitting there watching TRL (don’t all 30-somethings Tivo and then fast forward through TRL before they watch the evening news? No… oh… ) and her new video for “Luxurious” (or something like that came on). And nearly ¼ of the way through, it was there: the tipping point.

I’d had enough of over-exposed and under-dressed Gwen Stefani. That’s it. I’m done.

It’s sad but true. What does Gavin see in her? What does anyone see in her? Yeah, she’s hot. I guess she can sing – but she HAS NOTHING TO SAY! (And this is coming from a woman who loves Nick Carter and can sing nearly every Backstreet song!)

I mean, she has the means and one would assume the intellect to write meaningful and interesting songs… but she produces crap like “Hollaback Girl” (essentially a cheerleading chant that gets to use a dirty word!) when she’s left to her own devices and singing about how she’s ‘rolling in cashmere’ or something stupid. Basically how rich and fabulous and pretty and… did we mention rich?… she is.

And don’t get me started on the stupid Asian women as accessories!

home alone

i suck at being alone. i could probably be one of those people that grow to be the size of her couch because she never leaves the house and hates to interact with people. seriously, that could be me.

so it's a good thing that i have someone to live with, huh? i'd hate to see the person i'd become otherwise.

so beth is out of town, which is really unusual, actually. usually it's me who travels - for work or to see the family in ohio - but she had a work thing in lancaster and then a wedding for her cousin this weekend in washington dc. so i'm home alone.

okay - weirest thing about being home alone. i'm in nyc next week for work, so i brought my laptop to take with me (lord forbid i not log on and work while i'm away, you know? - okay, let's revise that description above: i'd be a woman a big as my couch because i never left, was terrified of people and surfed the 'net all day!). so my laptop is upstairs, my regular computer in the basement and now beth's nifty new ibook is living in the living room.

so i live in a 800square foot row home (or something like that - think small!), with a wireless-connected computer ON EVERY FLOOR.

okay, i am becoming the scary couch woman, aren't i?

;-)

but i still have a sense of humour about it, so it must be okay!

i should be writing. i should be working. i should be doing something produtive, but i don't feel like it. they say that it might stop raining here tomorrow. we've had something like 8 straight days of rain and it's put me into a depressive fog, i think. and left me with one of those sinus headaches that will not go away. i finally gave in this afternoon and slept for a few hour, even though i should have been working. and now i'm afraid to move my head much for fear that the headache which is now just a dull pain behind my left eye will come back.

or maybe it's a brain tumor? ;-)

okay - why the hell does anyone need 'bratz home decor'? scary thing is that beth and i would probably like it. but the idea is just odd. i'm watching a bizarre cartoon called 'my dad's a rock star' and it's pretty amusing. about a nerdy kid whose dad is basically a kiss-type rock star. and when you watch kids tv, you see commericals for products that you - as a childless spinster - would never know existed otherwise.

okay, the brain tumor will not be denied... time to go take some more sinus medicine!

what are they teaching the kids?

I might be too old to go to concerts. At 35 that should not be something that you say or even think, I know. But last night was just… weird.

Beth and I go to a lot of concerts. I once had a friend tell me that she couldn’t go to a show because she’d made her concert decision for the year. The year?!!? That’s insane to me! If I go a MONTH without seeing someone in concert, it feels weird.

Then again, I might be the woman who should be locked in the crazy wallpaper room in the attic, huh?

But last night we went to see the current guilty pleasure – Jason Mraz. Now, I expected this to be a fairly sedate crowd. Certainly not the teen-fans of ‘Nsync or BSB. But maybe more along the lines of the WXPN and politically minded crowd that we saw at the last Ani DiFranco show. Not that I think that Jason fans are necessarily political… but BSB fans barely know that President Bush is in office.

Okay, that’s a wide chasm there, isn’t it?

At any rate, it was a teen crowd and it wasn’t a ‘we’re here for the music, man’ crowd either. What it was – at least up in the balcony – fuckin’ annoying drunk frat boys and their annoying drunk Tara Reid wannabe girlfriends crowd.

I kid you not!

The man who gave us such amazing lines as:

Take off, both your, shoes and clothes, I'll follow. Undo, corkscrew, drink from the top of a broken bottle. Lately we're running out of time, aren't we?”

And

“I’m just a singer, you’re the world.”

Not to mention the entire SONGS “Remedy” and “Geek in the Pink.”

This man’s fans (and they were singing along to every word, mind you!) were annoying frat boys who thought that if they screamed loud enough and clapped right in my ear, they’d make Beth and I move so that they could see better.

We were in the top of the freakin’ balcony for christ’s sake! It’s not like when we saw Blur at the Black Cat and were standing in the front row (where I held Damon up as he leaned into the crowd – * sigh * Damon’s tummy is still the happiest place on earth!). I get that. It was annoying, but I understand that.

This was just…

Maybe I’m too old for shows with immature college kids. I’ll stick with the high school kids. Seriously, the hormone enraged teenage girls swooning over Nick Carter and Justin Timberlake are MUCH better behaved. What are they teaching our kids in college these days?