Why is This Any of Our Business?

You guessed it. I was browsing again and of course I found something to write about. Throughout the past few weeks there have been a lot of reports about the affair John Edwards had back in 2006. I realize that most people think it is wrong to cheat on a spouse and I realize that the affair coming to public attention in the heat of an election would have been quite a problem for the Democrats had John Edwards won the nomination. While I understand all of these things, there is a question that still looms in my mind. Why is his affair any of our business? It is not because I like John Edwards that I say this (and I do like him), but rather this is how I feel about any politician that has an affair or smoked pot in college or whatever stupid reason people may choose to demonize someone in the public spotlight. I don't think we can ever judge what someone does in their personal relationships. None of us were there and we don't know what was going on in their minds and in their hearts. I realize that some things done in the personal lives of these people reflects the kind of person they are (i.e. illegal acts, cruelty, etc.); however, in matters of the heart, what makes us so ready to judge? John Edwards has many great ideas that would benefit a lot of people. Even if he didn't love the woman and it was just sex, he's only human and makes mistakes just like you and I. His ideas and his ability should not be dismissed based on this incident.


It goes back to something I have said before. We expect politicians to be without flaw and then act shocked and disappointed when they don't live up to impossible standards. I'm not giving them a free ticket to just do whatever it is they feel like doing without consequence; however, we have to realize that the push to make these people into demigods only makes us vulnerable. We need to realize that these are men and women just like the rest of us. They don't have super powers and they aren't perfect. What they should have is a desire to help this country and it's people and a strong will to stand up for what is afforded to us all by the Constitution. There is nothing wrong with them being "elite." I don't mean in monetary terms, but in intellect and drive.


I think it is a shame that this situation with John Edwards occurred. It's not good that he had an affair. It isn't good that he kept it from everyone. However, the point in all my rambling is that we should not judge since we have no real way to know what he was thinking or feeling when he started the affair. Now on top of it all there are those who would chastise Elizabeth Edwards for not letting the public know of the affair. Why would she want to invite the public into the personal pain of the situation? How can anyone blame her for trying to keep it a secret so as not to have to live it day in and day out playing on television and in print and pictures in the newspaper and Web? I think that people have developed much too much of a holier than thou attitude.

All Hail King Jon

There are many reasons to love Jon Stewart.  His sharp wit, obvious intellect, devious smile; but today I've found yet another reason to love him.  In my browsing today, I came across this story in which Jon Stewart takes to task the many reporters out there who, rather than investigate and report facts, end up spouting talking points that have been placed into the vernacular by the political parties.  He compares 24-hour news channels to "gerbil wheels" (priceless!).  He also indicated that perhaps these news channels are somewhat adding to the sense of panic that always seems to covering our country like a cloak and suffocating us all.  Everything becomes urgent and breaking news, just like the terror alert will never go below yellow.  It is refreshing for someone with such notoriety as Jon Stewart would say this in such a public setting.  It seems these days that anyone who speaks frankly about anything suddenly becomes the enemy.  What, you don't like Bush?  Traitor!  You don't agree with the war?  You hate the troops!  You aren't with us?  Then you are against us!  It's this mentality that spills over into the media.  It happens in both parties.  It happens in all situations.  I applaud you Jon Stewart for your ability to tell it like it is.  It is no wonder you are the voice for the up and coming generation.

Disappointment

In my daily browsing of news, I came across this story, which describes how both Obama and McCain are being interviewed by a pastor, Rick Warren. There is nothing wrong with both individuals being interviewed by a particular group of people in order to try to inform their members on the views of both candidates so that they may make a decision as to who they will vote for. In fact, I applaud them for actually interviewing both candidates. My disappointment then resides with the candidates. Both candidates in varying degree are catering to fundamentalist Christians in this country. While a good portion of people in the US consider themselves to be Christians, the number of fundamentalist Christians is not the majority, but they tend to be the ones who scream the loudest and thus get the most attention. I do not have a problem with Christians. I don't share their views, but I believe they have as much right as I do to believe in what they choose. The problem is that fundamentalists do not respect my right to believe something contrary to their beliefs. Not only do they not respect my right, they expect for legislation to be made that serves no real purpose other than to write their beliefs into law (i.e. gay marriage). Our mainstream candidates, rather than stand up and look at the situation and look at the Constitution and take religion out of the equation, tend to find a way to either stand firm with the fundamentalists and/or find some way to make it sound like they sympathize with the fundamentalist nut jobs that want to write prejudice into law in this country (again). They don't just want to write into law; they want to write it into the Constitution, which in my eyes is beyond just law. I want to see the candidate that says "hey, it doesn't matter what my personal view on gay marriage is because there are gay people who deserve to have the same rights as everyone else in this country and the Constitution guarantees them the same rights as straight people." But no one is ever going to say that because they'll upset the homophobes and the fundamentalists who are a loud minority.

I am using the issue of gay marriage as an example here, but that is not the only issue on which candidates do this sort of posturing. The sad thing is that there are much bigger issues out there that no one really wants to address that need to be addressed immediately, but instead we keep letting people like this control what we put out there and discuss and what we take action on. Instead of worrying about excluding gays from a ceremony that every other person in the country has access too, we should be concerned about poverty. We should be concerned about our country's dependence on fossil fuel. We should be concerned about the rising costs of goods and falling salaries, as well as the disappearing middle class. We should be concerned about everyone in the country having access to affordable and GOOD health care (I emphasize good because everyone has access to the ER and while ERs are not bad, they are not intended to be a primary care facility, thus their being called EMERGENCY room). But why don't we instead keep pandering to the wants of a small group of people concerned with recruiting others into their cult until this country is just like any other country in the world that has state run religion, where the law will tell us what we have to believe in and how we have to practice it. I pose this question those who think religion should play such a large role in the government: How does this make us any different than a country like China who outlaws religion? State sanctioned Christianity or state sanctioned atheism, it's all the same. No choice. You are told what to believe.

When Does Coincidence Become Too Coincidental?

I was browsing the news today (as I do everyday) and I found this story and this story.  They are related stories and both equally as disturbing.  In fact, the very fact that there are two stories like these stories is a large part of the thing that makes them so disturbing.

The stories discuss two separate occasions where individual's names were placed on the terrorist watch list, which includes the no-fly list.  These individuals did not find out they were on the list until they tried to get on a plane.  These individuals were not in fact terrorists and are having a lot of trouble trying to get their names cleared.  This is not the unusual part of the story; however.  It starts to get a little suspicious when it turns out that both individuals are individuals who had written criticism of the government and/or Bush Administration immediately prior to their names appearing on the list.  One of the men is a reporter for CNN who had written a piece based on an investigation of the TSA he had done.  The other man is a political author who had written a book shortly before the 2004 elections which, among other things, raised some of the questions about Bush's National Guard service.  The government claims that these are both purely coincidental and refused to comment on the suspected terrorists that supposedly go by the same names as these men.  Interestingly the men's names are James Moore and Drew Griffin.  This has also happened to some of our members of Congress, including Ted Kennedy. 

So when does a coincidence become too coincidental?  Now I fully understand there are many people who don't like Bush and who have openly criticized him and/or wrote books about his administration and there are the numerous expose type articles about the things he and his group have done.  Of course it would be extremely suspicious if they all showed up on the terror watch list (besides, it has been noted that the list is so long it is almost ineffective and adding all those opposed to Bush would make the list almost as large as the country).  So what would the criteria be to determine who goes on the list?  Maybe it is proportionate to the amount of annoyance the person caused them.  Maybe they draw from a hat.  I don't know.  Maybe it is truly a coincidence, but at what point does it start to merit an investigation?  Of the many things in the Bush administration that need investigating, is this really the one to start with? 

I guess only time will tell; however, it cannot be discounted that it is truly suspicious. 

A Set Back for Women?

I often browse headlines and read articles that interest me or are important.  I came across this story when I was browsing CNN.com the other day.  I've been thinking about it a bit and what it means for women and for society in general.  The article discusses a trend for women, most of whom are highly educated, to stay home and be housewives.  These women do not have children.  It is a situation where they stay home and let the husband take care of them.  Of course in most cases, these are women whose husbands make a substantial amount of money.  I am generally not someone who cares what other people do, especially when it really doesn't hurt anyone.  However, I see this as a setback for women.  These aren't women who have their own money who are staying home because they don't need to work or who are going to school full time, or even who have some sort of health issue that prevents them from working (all of those scenarios have been going on for as long as women have been in the workforce).  These are women who have simply said they were stressed in their jobs and decided that they wanted to stay at home and do housework and let their husband support them.

 I think a couple of things when I read something like this.  First, I think about how this affects women and the cause for women as a whole.  While I'm sure every person, man or woman, has fantasized about being able to drop out of the workforce, the fact is that relationships can end.  No one plans for them to end, but they can and do.  What happens to that woman, then, who has been out of the workforce for years who suddenly finds herself single and jobless?  On the same thought of the effects this can have on the cause for women, we have to think how much of a struggle it has been for women to try to be treated fairly in the workplace.  It was common in the past for women to work only until they married and then they would quit working.  Because of this societal expectation, women were paid less.  A woman with the same education level would be paid far less than a man.  There is still an income gap today and I am not sure something like this will help that gap.  It will leave groups of highly educated women at some point possibly looking for jobs, and with gaps in their resume, it will likely affect their pay, furthering the gap in incomes.  I think companies may see this as an opportunity to revert back.  Why wouldn't they?  If the mindset of society is reverting, why would companies not fall in suit? 

Secondly, I can't imagine this sort of arrangement to be healthy over the longterm in a marriage.  I think it puts a large amount of pressure on one partner.  Think of the husband in this scenario.  His wife not working and his being entirely responsible for the survival of both people would put a lot of pressure on him to make more and more money.  Let's face it, in today's economy incomes are not rising so much, especially adjusting for inflation.  In the article, the woman being interviewed makes a statement that it was less stressful for her to not have to work and to not be in a job she wasn't happy with.  What about the man?  People are rarely happy in their jobs.  They may not be miserable in their job, but rarely does a person have a job they are bursting to get to every day.  Why is it that he should be expected to go to a job every day that he may be stressed about and/or dislike to support the woman's decision to stay home?  Longterm, this could cause resentment in the relationship.  Also, every woman who has ever been in a relationship with a controlling man knows they are out there and that you never truly know who they are until your living it.  This gives one person in the relationship an awful lot of control over the other.  I am sure that there are men out there who won't take advantage of this situation, but for every one out there that won't, there are two that will.  Even if initially the relationship isn't like that, longterm I could foresee the man in the relationship starting to get a sense of authority over the woman, if not because of resentment being built up over time, but simply because most people can't handle having that much power over others without feeling a sense of power, which eventually corrupts their nature.  It is a rare thing to find people who can have power and not be corrupted. 

Not everything about this trend is negative.  As the article states, one could see where the woman feeling less tension could make less tension in the relationship overall.  The man may feel less stress knowing that when he gets home, things will be in order.  Perhaps it could be not specific to just women doing it.  There may at some point be men who stay at home as househusbands while the wife works, thus making it more of a gender equal situation, preventing society from creating further stereotypes about the role of a woman.  Not everyone who does this is going to have a negative experience, so for some, it will work in their relationship (that doesn't mean the societal negatives aren't still in play). 

I will admit that I am fairly extreme in being independent.  I've been the woman who has had a relationship go sour in which I was being supported almost entirely by my ex.  I remember having to find a way to get out of my expensive apartment I couldn't afford on my own and try to find a box somewhere to live in that I could afford.  I remember having to forfeit on some of my bills.  I remember eating out of cans and Ramen Noodles and sometimes not eating but one meal a day.  I had a job, but not a high paying one.  Imagine if I had not had a job?  Sure, I survived and what didn't kill me made me stronger; however, I would never put myself through it again.  I am a mother and I would not be a stay at home mother.  I don't begrudge women who are stay at home moms, though I think children benefit from interaction with other children and don't think that daycare is the devil.  I think children benefit from time with their families as well; however, there are other ways to spend time with them.  I may be an extreme case of the independent woman, but that doesn't make my points any less valid to others who aren't the same as me.  

I guess only time will tell what, if any, effect this may have on the gender-bias already in play in society. 

Ron Suskind: Friend or Foe?

Ron Suskind has been thrown into the spotlight over his new book The Way of The World. In his book, he asserts, among other things, that the CIA was ordered by the Bush administration to forge a letter dated prior to 9/11 from Habbush (at the time an Iraqi Intelligence Chief) stating that Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, had trained in Iraq, as well as allegations regarding Saddam's attempt to obtain yellow cake from Niger with the aid of Al Qaeda. Habbush had previously told not only US intelligence officials, but British officials as well, that Iraq in fact did not have any WMDs. Of course he was a member of Saddam's regime, so I'm sure it wouldn't be wrong for those intelligence officials to not be certain of his trustworthiness. British officials stopped contact with him because they did not think he was credible; however, no one had any real evidence that Saddam had the weapons either. It is fact that the letter exists. It has long been suspected that there were large amounts of misinformation fed to the public leading up to the war, but as of yet no solid proof, other than the fact that no WMDs have been found despite the drum beat that they would most certainly be found.

It is not a stretch for me to believe Suskind. First, Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He has never been shown to be dishonest. If a person does any amount of research on him it becomes clear that his sources haven't ever been truly discredited and that the "gutter" journalism he is being accused of by the Bush administration has no fact to back up the assertion. This is; however, just the latest in a string of explosive books regarding the past 8 years, several of whom have been written by people who were right in the core of the administration. It is also no surprise that the administration has gone after these people.

It is no surprise that the sources to whom Suskind spoke in order to write this latest book would try to distance themselves from it. Unlike the other books and articles that Suskind has written, this book contains actual impeachable, punishable by law, offenses. I can imagine the backlash from the Bush administration would be considerable. It is; however, surprising that people would be so quick to dismiss the book as fable. I have not read the entire book. I also cannot say for certain whether the allegations posed in the book are factual not having been in the interviews with the sources, or heard the tapes, or seen any other evidence to support the assertions made by Suskind. The main reason, then, to not dismiss this as fable so quickly is that it is nothing new to see these types of claims. The people making these claims aren't all liberals, or Democrats either. As mentioned they are made by people who were close to Bush and who have worked in the government during the ordeal.

I think that the main reason people would rather try to discredit Suskind than try to get to the bottom of the whole thing is because they can't wrap their minds around it. A good portion of people still believe their government is mostly there for the good of the people and that the President of the United States should be respected, regardless of whether or not he actually deserves it. Then there are the people that actually believe 9/11 was carried out by Saddam because they were led to believe that was the case and have never read past the headlines that turned out not to be true. There are people who just don't WANT to believe because believing would mean that the country they have so much pride in is actually the bad guy in this situation and that their government acted illegally. It would mean that service men and women died for no reason other than Bush's vanity and greed (this is in NO way saying that the troops are to blame for this, the full blame is on those who sent them to die). People don't want to believe those things. Some are die hards who still believe Bush is a decent, honest, Christian man who sticks by his ideals because he believes them to be right and good. There are still others who believe every part of everything is a conspiracy waiting to engulf us all. Then there are those, such as myself, who are simply looking for the truth. People who see the toilet the country is being flushed down and hoping it can be saved before it hits the cesspool. People who know something isn't right and are just waiting for the door to be blown wide open on the whole deal.

We are the people who have to have the guts to stand up and say that these types of things cannot continue. We are the people who have to stand up and demand that these serious allegations be taken seriously and investigated. We have to say that we are no longer willing to watch our fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins die for a lie. We are no longer willing to watch the United States' name being dragged through the mud throughout the world.

Ron Suskind, friend or foe? Only time will truly tell, but we owe it to ourselves, our country, our future to find out.

The Wisdom of a Child

Last night my daughter decided to be a detective. She got out her pen and her paper and looked at my husband and I and said "Ok, what seems to be the problem here?" After we laughed for a minute, we told her there was no problem. So she says "Well I'm going to get to the bottom of this!" At this point we are laughing pretty heavily, as she has such a serious look on her face. The more we laugh the more she began to smirk. Then she says to us "OK, ask me questions." I raise my hand, "OK, here's a question for you. What is it that you are doing?" She doesn't answer my question, but rather begins to write down my question. "Ask another question!" she tells us. So I'm thinking as long as she's answering questions, I might as well ask the big ones! I ask her "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" She answers "Yes, next question!" I am laughing hysterically. She doesn't even think about the answer, just answers. I can't ask another question at that point so my husband asks her "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Without hesitation, she says "The egg! Next question, please." I regain myself enough to then ask her "What is the meaning of life?" What came out of her mouth actually shocked us a bit as we kind of found it fairly insightful for a 5 year old. She said "Recycle!" Of all the words in her vocabulary why she would say recycle is beyond me. But since I am Buddhist, I found it quite insightful. Living and dying and being reborn. Even without Buddhism you have to think, well we die, we become the soil, the soil grows plants, animals eat plants, we eat the animals. In nature there is a lot of recycling. After I regain myself, I ask her "Who created the Earth?" she says "God." Now, apparently she learned this from her cousin because I am Buddhist and my husband is Agnostic so we don't ascribe to God creating the Earth. It's all well and good because I wanted to expose her to all different religions, but it took me aback a little for a 5 year old. I was thinking to myself, now how did it happen between two 5 year olds that a conversation was had about how the Earth was created. I chuckled. Finally, Paul asks her "OK, then what happens when you die?" This was the funniest response yet. She says "Rolly Pollies eat you." Apparently after that, her question and answer session was over, as she handed us each a piece of paper that she had been writing on as our copy of the conversation and went on to do something else. Our daughter the Deist detective.

Searching the Shoreline

Apparently the latest and greatest idea the Republicans have come up with to deal with the energy problem is to open more of our shore for drilling. I'm sure that people with an IQ of 50 truly believe that will solve the problem; however, for the rest of us we are going to need something better than that.

To better understand why this won't be affecting your energy and gas bills, one first must understand how the process works for drilling oil. I do not claim to be an expert by any means. I couldn't be an engineer on a rig, nor could I work on a rig, but I do understand the basic process. Before any drilling can even start, there first has to be exploration to determine if any oil is actually there. If it is determined that there is in fact oil in the area, it has to be determined if it is feasible to extract it, i.e. is there enough to make it worth their while, after all, it can be costly to set up a rig in water. After all that, it can still be years before any actual oil from that venture can be introduced into our market. We all know that oil and gas are limited resources with a limited future. Shouldn't we be concentrating our long-term efforts on something that will get our kids and grandkids and great grandkids through the future? This is where our efforts should be, not scraping the bottom of the barrel for more of the black heroin that we keep pumping into our veins.

So what then is the solution in the short term? Any alternative energy sources are unfortunately years in the future, thanks to years of finding ways to put it on the back burner. I don't really think there is a simple answer to this. I am not even sure there IS an answer. Gas tax holidays won't save us either. If we tax the oil companies more as the Democrats suggest (actually it is just asking them to pay what they should be paying and stop giving them extra special treatment), they would probably pass the price down to us. We could create legislation that would regulate the oil industry to allow them only a certain amount of profit, but let's face it, too many of our "leaders" are in their pockets so that's not likely to happen.

I don't know what the answer is. I think the problem is that neither do our "leaders." Rather than tell the public that they don't have a short-term solution, they make up these bullshit solutions. Next thing they will be telling us that if we all put an egg on our head and hop on one foot without letting the egg fall, then, and only then, will our electric bills top out. OK, I admit, that one is far out there even for the Republicans, but it would be nearly as effective as opening up more shoreline for the oil companies. The difference is that when the egg falls off your head and splatters all over the kitchen floor, the only harm done is that you have one less egg and a floor to clean. When oil and byproducts leak into the ocean, it kills sea life, makes water unsafe, and destroys our Earth.