4 posts tagged “politics”

Sarah Palin is adorable, I grant you, but she makes me nervous. The hotsy-totsy Pentecostals always do.  As for her daughter's pregnancy, if Sarah's happy, then I'm happy for her. It's been many years since I've gotten any joy out of demonizing pregnant teenagers. What I'm not entirely psyched about is what Sarah has in mind for my daughters. As much as I love her beehive--and I really do; I totally want to try it out, though the thought of it makes me feel like one of those women who ran out to get Dorothy Hamill's wedge or Princess Di's cut or "the Rachel"--I really really don't want to live in Sarah Palin's America. I tried a buffalo burger once and I didn't like it at all. Something tells me eating moose would be a similar experience.

Is there any chance we could get Michael Palin instead? Because he's great. I really like him. If anybody could get me interested in Beltway politics, it'd be Michael Palin.

I just re-registered to vote with my new address. I'm also getting back together with an old flame--the Democratic Party. We broke up in the early nineties. Basically, we had grown apart, and I felt betrayed, really. I was still more or less the same person I'd always been, politically, with the same beliefs and concerns, but it got to where it felt like I couldn't even recognize the Party I'd joined. You know? Sometimes I would ask myself, What does this party stand for? And I didn't know the answer anymore. It seemed like the Party got more conservative and less trustworthy every day. It made me feel uncomfortable and unwanted. Disgusted, even. I remember very clearly in 1996 when the Party started dismantling welfare and going to wine tastings. Then, in '98, there were four or five different people trying to win the Party's endorsement for governor of California. But they all seemed exactly the same. All that talk about inclusion, for what? To play things so safe that it's not worth playing? I remember thinking, I don't even know this Party anymore.

All the things that had once been important to us didn't seem important to the Party anymore. I wondered if they ever had been. Was it all just talk? So one day I gathered up my courage and I left. It was scary, and I wasn't sure what the future would hold, but I couldn't see staying. While the Party had been out there playing golf and becoming unrecognizable to me, I was left at home, alone, to brood. And yes, after licking my wounds for a while, I started looking around. You're damn right I did. After all, I was still young enough to start over with a new Party. But I wasn't sure if there was another Party out there that was right for me.

However, it wasn't long before I became smitten with the Green Party. I was so happy in those early days! The Greens always seemed to know just what to say to win my heart. It was always what I wanted to hear, and I lapped it up after having felt so neglected for so long. But I have to admit that while I still love what the Greens stand for, I haven't been "in love" with the Greens for a long time. I stood by them during the whole 2000 election debacle, because I felt it was my duty--and I will still defend the Greens against all comers. But the reality is, it can be hard to be in a relationship with a small, idealistic party. I can remember so many times when I was on my way out the door, to work or running errands or whatever, and there would be the Green Party, still lying on the couch, dreaming about the future, or arguing endlessly on the computer over pointless details, or in the basement puttering around with the grow lights and home-brewing beer. I just felt like, Jeez, get a job, will you? 

So, yeah. We were together for ten years. That's a long time, but I don't regret it. I learned a lot about myself and what's important to me. But when you take a long look at your life, and you see how you've been evolving, but your party is still the same party it was in 1993, well, that's not good. The truth is, the fire went out years ago, and we haven't been political bedfellows for some time. We've barely communicated the last few years. Really, we've been together in name only. As far as I'm concerned, I left the relationship a long time ago.

So when the Democratic Party started coming around again lately, flirting and wanting to go out for coffee, I have to admit, I started feeling those butterflies in my stomach again. The Party looked good. Really good. I'd been keeping tabs on the Party from afar, all that time, and I never could have predicted, even a couple of years ago, that we'd ever get back together. Seriously, there were so many times when I wanted to call up the Party and chew them out over one thing or another. But the most I ever did was cough up a couple of chilly e-mails and march in some anti-war protests.

But there's no denying that the Party isn't on the same path it was on when I left in all those years ago. Sure, I'm still wary. I know how this could turn out. But right now, I don't care. I never stopped loving the Democratic Party; I just couldn't live with it. But now, with this new candidate, it feels like the first time. No, better. It feels new. I'm in love again, and it feels good. Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know. Of course many of the things that bothered me before are still there, behind the new look. But I've made a commitment and I intend to stick with it.

This is how, time and again, I find myself in the indefensible position of being a fiction writer who doesn't like to make things up. Because real life provides so many stories that are literary, but wouldn't be credible as fiction. And these are the stories I'm most interested in.

Hillary Clinton picked a horse to win the Kentucky Derby. I would have urged her to resist the impulse, because of the symbolism and long history of metaphorical comparisons between political contests and horse races, and the very real possibility that it could turn out in a way that would be, shall we say, metaphorically inconvenient. I thought of all this before I heard the rest of the story. But I can also understand why it would seem like a charming opportunity. Because Clinton picked a filly to take it all. The first one to enter the race since 1999. A young horse named Eight Belles.

Eight Belles owner Rick Course has decided to take this chance despite his trainer Larry Jones' reluctance. Jones like others is concerned that Eight Belles has not proven herself even against other filly fields and on a grade 1 race. The demand required from unproven filly will put doubt in many a bettors mind but don’t count out the girl I’m sure Hilary would agree with that. [from onlinesportshandicapping.com, published May 2, 2008]

On Derby day, Eight Belles ran a great race. But after she crossed the finish line, in second place, she went down on the track. Her two front ankles had broken. She was euthanized even before her trainer could reach her.

The name of the horse that won the race? Big Brown.

Clearly, the symbolism is rich. But remove the presidential candidates from the story and it's just horribly sad. The part of my brain that is permanently eight years old always wonders why they have to put the horses down at all. Just because they break their legs?  But people break their legs all the time, and it's not considered particularly debilitating. Certainly not life-threatening. I just don't get it, even after it's explained to me. I can't help but wonder why it can't be changed. Couldn't they just give them horse wheelchairs until their bones heal? I know it sounds stupid, but I've seen two-legged dogs rolling around that way. And they weren't ever going to get better.

I didn't watch the Derby because it is part of a whole raft of things I'm not crazy about, like boxing and dog racing and circuses with animal acts. I'm not standing around outside these events holding up placards, or starting petitions and boycotts, because I realize that there can be admirable qualities on display at such events, and many other people are deeply invested in them. But these things are not for me.

[B]oo Hoo, poor terrorists. Only a liberal America hater could care what method was used to kill these vile rats. I’m sure Saddam’s sons were very careful to make sure people they fed into wood chippers died with dignity, or that the young children they disemboweled in front of their parents were executed according to some inane standard set by the “better people,” who apparently now reside in the Democrat Party. I sincerely hope that these psychotic, Prozac gobbling mentally disabled Liberals who cannot stand their own country are the first to die when the inevitable holocaust they helped create does indeed occur.

— Posted by charles fisher

I found this comment posted on the New York Times site. Ordinarily, I wouldn't put something like this in my blog, because it seems like fouling my nest, but I'm including it because it is a good example of its type and I'm thinking if I talk about it, maybe it won't bother me so much. At the risk of Mr. Fisher or someone like him discovering this and coming to excoriate me for my liberal weaknesses, which I admit I would find unpleasant, I'm going to talk about it.

I just can't talk about it right NOW. I need to mull it over, have some time to respond, but I've got this damn deadline hanging over my head. Frustrating. It'll just have to wait.