Conservative Amazons

You may have noticed that I sew.  And if you got to this blog by searching “Republican women network” or “liberal women stupid,” you probably don’t give a rat’s ass about some stupid pig dress or cupcake apron I’m planning on sewing.  If you’re one of those, be rest assured that you won’t have your politics diluted with any more craftiness.

If you got to this blog by searching “cupcake fabric,” though, then you are a woman after my own heart and ought to be reading my new blog Fabric Junkie.  There will be current projects, random inspirations, flights of fancy a-plenty, and more than the occasional procrastination.

I don’t really have the time to do the one blog, so I probably shouldn’t be adding another, but I’m operating under the assumption that two stupid choices will eventually make a right.

I’m not sure which I’m angrier about: that Democrats are saying that McCain promised a 100 year war, an outright lie, or that the media are repeating the lie right along with the Dems.

Here’s what McCain actually said:

 Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted — “Make it a hundred” — then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so.” Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: “That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

Which is a far cry from what Democrats and their sympathizers are reporting it as:

• “He says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq” (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

• “We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years” (Obama, Feb. 26).

• “He’s willing to keep this war going for 100 years” (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

• “What date between now and the election in November will he drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?” (Chris Matthews, March 4).

Why, even a CNN anchor (Rick Sanchez) buys it: “John McCain is telling us . . . that we need to win even if it takes 100 years” (March 16).

I’d like to take this moment to point out that Mr. Obama’s use of this lie as a campaign tool does not bode well for his promise of a new kind of politics.   After all, twisting an opponent’s words by removing them from context is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

A headline and summary from the NY Times editorial page today:

Plastic Card Tricks
Before more Americans get so deep into credit card debt that they cannot dig out, Washington needs to change the way credit card companies do business.

I get the point they’re trying to make in the  editorial about deceptive lending practices.  But here’s what I’d like to know: How much of the debt that the NY Times is so worried about is the result of deceptive lending practices?  And how much of it is the fault of people who simply weren’t responsible about their money?

The NYT had a similar editorial a few months ago bemoaning how many students were graduating with credit card debt.  I may not have the lofty perspective of a reporter in the NYT news room, but I do have plenty of opportunities to observe college students in their natural environments. Very few are the students who rack up credit card debt just trying to survive.  More often, students just aren’t particularly responsible about money.  They want a certain lifestyle, don’t have the means to afford it, and buy it anyway.  My heart does not exactly weep for them when they graduate with credit card debt.

The moral is this: some people (many, in fact) will make bad decisions regardless of how clear and open lending practices are.  So let’s stop playing like the fault rests on credit card companies instead of individuals.

Bill Richardson, former Democratic presidential candidate, just announced that he’s endorsing Barack Obama for president.  His reasons for doing so are laced with the same vapidity we’ve come to expect from Obama supporters:

“There’s something special about this guy,” Mr. Richardson said of Mr. Obama. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but it’s very good.”

[...]

“Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him,” he said. “He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.”

He’s inspiring!  He talks so nicely!  He makes me feel good!

“You will be an outstanding commander in chief,” Mr. Richardson told the Illinois senator at a rally in Portland, Ore., yesterday. “Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together.”

Could we please get over this idea that an Obama presidency will result in a new, hand-holding, Kumbaya-singing Washington, where Democrats and Republicans work together to advance the Democratic agenda.  There’s a reason politics is divisive - people disagree on how best to run a country.  Electing a man who claims to transcend race, politics and meanness isn’t going to change that.

An ecard hilariously appropriate for the occasion:

Over at Alternet, we have a defense of Eliot Spitzer on the basis that sex has no moral dimension:

Are we still so Victorian in our thinking that we think it’s bad for somebody to pay large amounts of money for a few hours of skin-time with a professional? Have we not learned enough at this point about psychology and neuroscience to understand that a roll in the sheets is just a fun, chemical fizz for our brains and that it means nothing about ethics and morality?

If a “role in the sheets” is as innocuous as any other form of entertainment, why do we spend so much time as a society hyperventilating over whether people are having too much, not enough, or the wrong kind of sex? Why are the emotions we feel so strong compared to the emotions we feel when watching TV? If nothing else, there is a moral dimension to sex because it involves another person, and we should at least be able to agree that people should be treated with dignity. In Spitzer’s case, there were two other people involved: his wife and the prostitute. Even if you think that prostitution should be legal, how can you argue that there is nothing morally wrong with marital infidelity?

Susan Estrich sees things a little differently from both the author above and myself:

The easy answer, the one I heard frequently as the story was breaking, is that men just get stupid about sex. But prostitution is — from my vantage point as a woman and a mother — a particularly unattractive and offensive kind of extramarital activity. I really believe it is none of my business, as a member of the public or the media, if a political or business leader has an affair. I don’t sit in judgment of other people’s marriages or their private lives. But prostitution isn’t just sex. Prostitution objectifies the women who engage in it, dehumanizes sex and sexuality, and turns both into commodities with a price tag.

While I agree with her take on prostitution, I do care that he had an affair, for two reasons.  First, extra-marital affairs are the ultimate broken promise, a sign that the person having the affair lacks the loyalty to keep them doing the right thing.  Second, I think a man who has an affair is dehumanizing and objectifying his wife.  With his actions, he’s saying that his promises are made to be broken, and he doesn’t respect his spouse enough to stay faithful.

I could go on about sexual morality forever, but I’m about to run out the door to the airport and fly home for Easter with the family.  And I’m sad to report that while it’s supposed to be warm and sunny here in Charleston over the weekend, I’m going to be stuck with wintry weather back home in Arlington.

From the New York Times:

Last month the Danish police arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent on charges of plotting to kill Mr. Westergaard, one of the 12 cartoonists whose pictures of Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked protests, some of them violent, by Muslims around the world in 2006 and put bounties on the heads of Mr. Westergaard and his editor, Flemming Rose. Mr. Westergaard (he drew Muhammad with a bomb in his turban) has been in hiding ever since.

Ever had someone tell you that there are extremists in all religions, so we can’t really frown on the extremists in Islam? Here’s the difference: when Christians get angry about things that denigrate their faith, like insulting cartoons, they boycott or write letters to the editor. When Muslims get angry about the same, they send cartoonists into hiding with attempted murder.

It strikes me as incredibly strange to see the New York Times print an article on the prostitute whom Eliot Spitzer allegedly bedded based largely on the woman’s MySpace page.

I have no real objection to using information from MySpace but it just seems so…collegiate?  It’s one thing for a reporter from the George Street Observer to mine Facebook for incriminating pictures of Student Government Association.  It’s another for America’s newspaper of record to write about the life and times of a Ms. Ashley Alexandra Dupre based on what she has to say about herself on MySpace.

Isn’t this the most adorable pie print fabric you’ve ever seen in your life?

I’m still trying to think of a way to justify buying some of this.  My first thought was that I could open a pie bakery and make all of my waitresses wear matching pie-print dresses to work. My slightly more level-headed roommate managed to talk me down from that ledge, so my second thought was that I could make matching apron and pot holder sets for myself and everyone I love.  I’m still considering that one, but I’m afraid that I would crave pie every time I saw it.

So, because I can’t really justify an hour’s worth of labor per yard to indulge my highly-developed love of the novel and cutesy, I’m posting it here, in hopes that if some soul who actually is opening a pie bakery Googles pie print fabric, they’ll find a link here to just what they need to whip up some aprons or dresses.  Just click on the picture to buy your very own.

NY Governor Eliot Spitzer has been linked to a prostitution ring and has apparently stepped down.  From the NY Times:

Mr. Spitzer, a first term Democrat, today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.” He did not address his political future.

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”

I like that he characterizes breaking the law as a “private matter.”  There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to personal ethics in politics.  The first says that what a politician does with his or her personal life has nothing to do their efficacy or worth as a politician, and therefore ought to be disregarded.  This argument generally appears in defense of scummy behavior by the likes of Newt Gingrinch, Bill Clinton, David Vitter, etc.  I place myself firmly in the second school of thought, which says that those who want to tell the rest of us what to do had better be prepared to set squeaky clean examples.

This applies to politicians of both parties, and to all points on the sliding scale of sexual misconduct.  I would hold Spitzer in greater contempt than, say, Rudy Giuliani, because while Giuliani was just slutty and dishonest, Spitzer actually admitted in a press conference to having broken the law.  But neither of them get the Conservative Amazon Gold Star for Statesman-like Behavior.

Politicians, by the very act of running for office, declare their intent to guide the behavior of others (with the exception of some libertarians, who run for the expressed purpose of preventing government from telling people what to do).  Therefore, the citizens who elected the politician have every right to hold said politicians to a higher standard of behavior than your Average Joe.

In other exciting news, I got my pig fabric and my money fabric over spring break, so I’m all ready to start constructing the Capitalist Pig dress.  Unfortunately, I also got my roommate’s cold over spring break, so most of my extra time and energy are being used to expel mucus from my lungs.  So the dress may have to wait a little while longer.

There was an interesting article from the NY Times health section on binge drinking today:

In a series of studies in the 1970s and ’80s, psychologists at the University of Washington put more than 300 students into a study room outfitted like a bar with mirrors, music and a stretch of polished pine. The researchers served alcoholic drinks, most often icy vodka tonics, to some of the students and nonalcoholic ones, usually icy tonic water, to others. The drinks looked and tasted the same, and the students typically drank five in an hour or two.

The studies found that people who thought they were drinking alcohol behaved exactly as aggressively, or as affectionately, or as merrily as they expected to when drunk. “No significant difference between those who got alcohol and those who didn’t,” Alan Marlatt, the senior author, said. “Their behavior was totally determined by their expectations of how they would behave.”

I know I’ve seen this happen.  And if you’re in college, you probably have too.

And because I’m on spring break, chilling at Disney World, that’s all I’m going to bother to write.