Saintless

Today feels like a day where I need reminding of these words.

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?
Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?
Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know
That it alone does not equate wisdom?
Do you see everything as an illusion?
But enjoy it even though you are not of it?
Are you both masculine and feminine? politically aware?
And don’t believe in capital punishment?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer

Do you derive joy from diving in and seeing that
Loving someone can actually feel like freedom? are you funny?
la self-deprecating? like adventure? and have many formed opinions?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover

I’m in no hurry I could wait forever
I’m in no rush cuz I like being solo
There are no worries and certainly no pressure in the meantime
I’ll live like there’s no tomorrow

Are you uninhibited in bed? more than three times a week?
Up for being experimental? are you athletic?
Are you thriving in a job that helps your brother? are you not addicted?
…curious and communicative…

Ok, if you can see this, one or maybe two things have happened. First, it means that my transition to a new host was successful. Yay, me! Second, it probably means this site is really ugly, because I’ve done nothing with it. Ewwww! At least I can still blog, though! :)

Utah’s lone Democratic Congressman, Jim Matheson, sent me an email tonight, asking for my opinion (via  radio-button survey) on the Financial Crisis. In case you aren’t on his “advisor list”, here are the questions he asked, along with my responses. My answers are the ones shown as bold.

Dear Misty,

Most economists accept that the nation’s financial crisis demands intervention by the government.  But I have concerns about the proposal to put $700 billion to $1 trillion in taxpayer money on the line.

Are we acting too quickly, without gathering enough information? Will the proposal work? What benefit will taxpayers receive, if the financial system is stabilized?  Are we giving too much power to one government agency?

I would like to hear from you.  Please take a moment to respond to the following brief survey.

Sincerely,

U.S. Representative
2nd District of Utah

Do you support the use of taxpayer money to buy up the bad debt on the books of troubled investment banks?

yes
no
don’t know enough about it

How concerned are you about financial executives receiving excessive compensation even as their companies go bankrupt?

Not too concerned
Quite concerned
Strongly opposed to it

Should homeowners facing foreclosure be allowed to restructure their mortgages to afford the payments and stay in their homes?

Yes
No
Don’t know

If the bailout plan is approved, should an independent oversight board be appointed to keep tabs on the program?

yes
no

Who do you blame most for the current crisis?

Banks
Wall Street executives
Homebuyers
Mortgage lenders
Homebuilders
Realtors
A combination of the above
the government

How worried are you about the safety of your savings accounts and mutual funds?

Not worried
somewhat worried
very worried

I found the phrasing of the questions quite interesting, and much of it quite leading. Especially the question about who I blame most. Why wasn’t this question a checkbox? I can’t blame the government as much as Wall Street, and if I want to blame both Wall Street execs and Banks, I have to blame the home builders, too? That doesn’t make much sense.

If you want to give Matheson your thoughts, you’ll have to use his web site. Unfortunately, I don’t think the survey is “open”, but you can use a feedback form to pass your answers on. Or give them a call at (202) 225-3011.

Feel free to leave a comment telling if you’d answer differently than me, and why.

I have had a ton of people asking me if we have lawn signs. So, for all of you who still need a lawn sign….

Read the remainder of this entry »

I just got this email, and I think it’s a wonderful idea!

This idea came from Letty Cotton Pogrebin.

Make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin’s name. A Planned Parenthood donation is tax deductible, where a political donation isn’t.And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ go to donate, then to honorary gifts.

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card.

Governor Sarah Palin
Alaska State Capital Building, 3rd floor
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau AK 99811-0001.

The fax # is 907 465.3532.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJW67YfLWgs]

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1574983&w=425&h=350&fv=file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theonion.com%2Fcontent%2Fxml%2F86319%2Fvideo%26autostart%3Dfalse%E2%84%91%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theonion.com%2Fcontent%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FANTI-BUSH_ECONOMY_article.jpg%26bufferlength%3D3%26embedded%3Dtrue%26title%3DEconomists%2520Warn%2520Anti-Bush%2520Merchandise%2520Market%2520Close%2520To%2520Collapse]

I adore The Onion. (h/t Greg Mankiw)

Here’s Barack Obama’s message to Americans:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONM7148cTyc]

Here’s his plan, as mentioned in the video. It’s hard to get much in a commercial, even when it’s a 2-minute commercial. The starts off by presenting the problem:

The Problem

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

And the topics that the plan covers:

• Jumpstart the Economy
• Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
• Trade
• Job Creation
• Support Small Business
• Labor
• Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud
• Address Predatory Credit Card Practices
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws
• Work/Family Balance

Given that I work in the tech industry, and I’m very focused on the environment personally, I really appreciate that Obama wants to create green jobs. I’ve said this a lot lately, but if we (America) don’t take the lead and become innovators when it comes to alternative energy and green jobs in general, someone else will. We will have lost the opportunity to continue the tradition of making America great, and being leaders for the rest of the world. We have to do it at some point. Our environment will not sustain our current course of action. Our gas prices will not sustain our current course of action. We have to. And I believe Obama gets that, and realizes there are mutiple reasons for us to head this direction.

There’s a reason why…

Over the weekend Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, told Bloomberg News that he was “not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money” and that the United States could not afford big tax cuts such as those proposed by Republican John McCain. Alan Greenspan went on to say that the current economic crisis, that began with the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market last year, is so bad that he called it “a once in a century” crisis and will lead to the failure of more firms.

And don’t forget, while the economy is in it’s downward spiral right now, that McCain himself gave the reason why Obama’s plan is better than McCain’s.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_APdK9fgDM]

I really, really don’t want to write another blog about Sarah Palin. But, this issue just cannot be ignored. First, I will say that I fully respect Palin’s right to her personal views on abortion and contraception. However, I do not believe she has any right to force those beliefs on me, or anyone else.

My personal view of abortion is that, in a nutshell, it’s an awful, horrific thing. My moral values tell me it’s wrong. My moral values also tell me that I can’t force my morals on any other person, and the government has absolutely no business doing that, either. And anyone who believes that abortion should be 100% banned should read this article.

That aside, Sarah Palin has absolutely no respect for a woman’s body when it comes to the issue of rape. I’m convinced of that after finding out more of the story about Palin’s “Troopergate” scandal. (h/t Kagro X of DailyKos) According to ABC News, Alaska has an epidemic of “sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and murder that make her state one of the most dangerous places in the country for women and children”, the rate of this abuse is 2 1/2 times that of the national average. Even Palin apparently agrees that this is an epidemic, and needs to be fixed.

According to the article, Palin did have members of her administration focused on the issue, and they were even devising a very ambitious plan to combat the problem.

But, then….

Some members of Palin’s administration were focused on the issue of sexual violence. Officials in the Department of Public Safety were devising an ambitious, multi-million-dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state, but Palin’s office put the plan on hold in July.

Days later, Palin fired its chief proponent, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, after he declined to dismiss a state trooper Palin accused of threatening her own family members. Palin has said she fired Monegan because she wanted to move his department in a “new direction,” and he was not being “a team player on budgeting issues.” The dismissal is now at the center of a hotly-contested investigation by the state legislature.

Many have suggested that Palin’s true cause for firing Public Safety Commissioner Monegan was that he wouldn’t fire her former brother-in-law. That’s the subject of the investigation centering around Sarah Palin. This isn’t a bad rumor going around about Palin. There’s enough evidence that she’s being investigated over it.

This suggests to me that, as Governor, a vendetta against Palin’s brother in law trumped women’s safety. If her brother in law was truly a danger, there are protections in place that would have led to him being fired. But, those would have gone through a normal course of legal standards, which Palin apparently has little respect for.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Back in 1996, when Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, the town’s police force began charging rape victims for forensic work done in their case. Palin signed of on the budget where that became the standard, and otherwise never said a word about it, leading to Alaska having to make it illegal in the state to charge the victim for the kit. I cannot even imagine the empty space that must be inside of any person who would even consider asking a rape victim to cough up $1,000 to cover a rape kit. Mary Mapes over at HuffPo has this to say:

Oddly enough, Fannon did not make the same kind of choice in other criminal cases. He did not make people injured by hit-and-run drivers or mugging victims or the families of murdered men and women cough up money to investigate their cases or collect evidence to catch their attackers.

It only happened in rape cases.

Hmmm.

Now, why would that be?

There is one terrible possibility: that this happened because somebody in charge in Wasilla — either the police chief or the Mayor or both — hails from the craziest corner of the pro-life community, the people who believe that birth control is abortion.

These people oppose paying for forensic work in rape cases because as part of that process — as a final step in a humiliating and dehumanizing procedure — a woman is typically asked if she would like a “morning after” pill, a medication that will prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of her uterus. The treatment is believed to be about 80% effective in preventing pregnancy.

Sarah Palin has not deigned to take questions from the unwashed masses in the media, but if she ever does, this might be a good place to begin.

Does she believe that giving a rape victim a “morning after” pill is committing murder? Does Palin believe that the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for this or that police shouldn’t offer this as a matter of course? Does she really believe that a woman should have to bear the child of her rapist?

We already know that’s what she would want for her daughter.

During her successful gubernatorial campaign in 2006, Palin declared that she would not choose an abortion for her daughter — then 14 years old — even if the girl was raped and became pregnant. “I would choose life,” Palin said.

Eric Croft suspects that these pro-life beliefs were the reason behind Wasilla’s no pay police policy on rape victims.

He is the Democratic legislator who got the system changed by sponsoring a state proposal in 2000 that required local police departments in Alaska to pay for victims’ “rape kits,” as the evidence-gathering process is called. He wrote the bill with Wasilla’s misguided police procedure in mind.

After asking a whole host of questions related to this story, Mary Mapes then says:

Maybe this is all some kind of unthinkable misunderstanding. Maybe Palin didn’t know this was happening, didn’t hear about it even the whole state joined the conversation, maybe this tough-talking Mayor couldn’t control her police chief.

Maybe she has changed over the years, maybe she now recognizes the immorality of treating rape victims this way.

Whatever the answer — before we vote — before we are treated to another story about her taste in shoes or her time as Governor, would someone please pin Palin down and ask her what the hell was going on with rape victims in Wasilla?

And more importantly, why?

This person who says she’s prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency could clear this whole thing up in a heartbeat.

Why won’t she?

After you read the ABC article, read the rest of Mary Mapes’ article, and think about how these stories fit together.

It really reminds me of my childhood. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (JW). They have strict beliefs about literal interpretation of the bible, and I understand that Palin’s religion does, as well. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that if a woman is being raped, but she does not yell out, struggle with all of her might, even up to death, that she is responsible for the rape. I have no idea whether this idea might be taught from the pulpit of Palin’s church, or whether she agrees with it. But, this teaching comes from Deuteronomy 22:23, 24:

If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death–the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Now, having grown up where that scripture was used to teach us that if we’re raped, it’s our fault. We were also taught that if we wore clothes that excited a man, then we were asking to be raped, and even screaming wouldn’t take that responsibility from us.

Add to that, when a JW elder, who was also a close friend of the family and my employer, began to touch me inappropriately about the age of 14 or 15, I ended up telling. Which led to me being taken into a room with other elders, and my mother, where I was told it didn’t happen, because there weren’t two or more witnesses, and I must be imagining it. His wife later told me he was impotent, so it couldn’t have happened. I didn’t have a clue what impotent was for years. But, I did know that when he would come up behind me at the counter and “give me a hug”, there was something poking at me, and it’s not normal for a 50-something year old man to “hug” a 14 year old girl for 10 minutes at a time.

I won’t get into the other, more personal, stories that have affected me regarding religion and/or rape. But, suffice it to say, it’s a big issue with me. And when I put the bigger picture together about Palin’s passive acceptance of charging for rape kits, her putting on hold the comprehensive rape legislation to get back at her brother in law, I can’t help but wonder if her religion could be guiding those decisions. And if so, what future decisions might be guided by her religion, and what direction would they go?

Mind you, I could care less what church someone belongs to, with very few exceptions. But, what a person of authority and power does with their religious beliefs is very much my business. When that person’s worldview is very much shaped by their religion, it’s my business. And yours.

There are lots of scary questions out there, but my biggest question is this: Does Sarah Palin care more about doing what is right, or what her religion says is right?

Sarah Palin seems to have some very misguided views, and she’s repeatedly been on the wrong side of the issue of rape, which scares the shit out of me. She doesn’t seem to have a moral compass that tells her kindness and compassion is needed, and she’s put her interests ahead of the citizens of the town and the state that she’s been in charge of. And she most certainly doesn’t have the judgement to be Vice President of the United States of America.

Kudos to the Obama campaign for being quick on the draw.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reQLzgywzk]