I do not mean this in a tabloid-y gossipy way. I think that these two kids are in a situation that unfortunately happens to teens all over the world, but in their case, it is playing out in the media to a certain point. Kids that age, they are still figuring things out, still very much driven by their hormones or their peers.  They are still in the learning-to-be-a-human phase.

Apparently, I am not alone in my curiousity as Levi Johnston appeared on the Tyra Banks show recently. He spoke about a tension between himself and Bristol. From what I can see, he isn’t trying to sell out as much as …. well, he’s a kid. He’s not saying Sarah Palin is a bitch, Bristol is a puppet, he’s just saying this is what is going on, this is the reality of his situation, as he sees it. Maybe he is a cad to continue to talk about it, but he is a kid. He’ll figure that out later.

I have a couple of very good friends who were teenage parents and contrary to popular belief, their lives were not over with the birth of first one and then a second unplanned bundle of joy. They dug in deeper, worked harder, loved fiercer and are living a life most people dream about.  Challenges are there to make you stronger, to see what you are made of. 

I could be wrong about this kid, but I think that his wanting to see his boy, even when negative statements are made in the press about him, I think he’s going to do alright by that child. Perhaps he will even do right by the child’s young mother. 

He said, in his Tyra Banks interview, that Sarah Palin “probably” knew that they were having sex. “Moms are smart,” he said. Moms are smart and facing some truths about my own teens, well it has not been easy, but we are all human and we crave human contact. People who love each other, whatever their age, they want to take that next step.  Sex. It’s biology,  baby.

So sure teach abstinence as a choice, but please, be realistic about human nature and offer information about birth control, as well.

Image credit: All Posters.com

Post from: Blisstree

Levi Johnston Is Not A Cad

1. She reminds me of my mother.

2. She kind of reminds me of my mother-in-law.

3. She reminds me of myself actually.

4. She’s ballsy. She stood up to all the mean girls who trashed her and the perverts who made pornography of her and the media who mocked her. She did it with grace, complete sentences (unlike our current resident moron) and with HUMOR and a big wide smile on her face.

5. She refuses to stay in the box society made for her. In fact, she pretends there is no box.

6. She believes in God and she believes God has a plan for HER. So to I.

7. Seriously, she breast fed her baby in the limo and green rooms before those speeches. Let me repeat – she breast fed her baby on the campaign trail. That’s cool. That’s freaking amazing.

8. She realized kids are portable and brought them with her to campaign instead of refusing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue her dreams “because she had kids.”

9. She’s ambitious.

10. She’s beautiful AND smart. Yes, world, women can be pretty AND smart. We don’t have to pick one.

In fact, the ONLY thing I don’t like about Sarah Palin is her politics this year.

In 8 years she’ll be more mature and more experienced and qualified-enough if she can keep her nose clean in Alaska.

Barack Obama is the LAST man I will vote for before a woman serves as President of the United States.

So some Democratic women better step up to the plate and groom themselves for a solid run in 8 years. Hear that Emily’s List and The White House Project? It’s Sarah Palin if you can’t train a female superstar to step up to the plate and win in 8 years. I’ll even send you money and help you groom her, but I’m not voting for another pro-woman MAN.

I WILL vote for Sarah Palin in spite of her politics to break the glass ceiling on 2016.

In fact, the way I figure it – if Barack Obama does what he says he’s going to do, then I will be satisfied with my equal pay, universal healthcare, family medical leave insurance, and solid standing in the Supreme Court, and will have healed the economy by using cash to pay as we go.

The Republican Party will have reinvented themselves and brought in some young blood like Sarah Palin and kicked out the crazies who are against birth control or I’ll be menopausal so it won’t be that important to me.

Obama will have healed the racial divide and sexism will be the final social frontier (Ok there will still be homophobia, but it too will be less pronounced in 8 years) and I’m sorry people, I don’t give a crap how much you personally hate her, feel offended by her, feel jealous of her, feel defensive by her outward morality – I NEED to see a woman in the highest office of that land.

More importantly MEN need to see it so we can earn their damned respect. My children need to see it, both my son and my daughter.

If that woman is Sarah Palin, well, she’ll be highly entertaining to watch for 8 years. We might learn a few useful tricks from her about how to have it all. I’ll be watching her.

Photo Source: JohnMcCain.com

Post from: Blisstree

10 Things I Freaking Love About Sarah Palin

What are you doing here?

GO VOTE!

Photo Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Post from: Blisstree

What Are You Doing Here?

Tomorrow is Election Day.

I’m the Alternate Election Judge in my precinct. I’m can’t wear campaign paraphernalia – but, I will be wearing dog tags bearing the name of a real woman who never had the right to vote. This has been a banner year for women – all women – and I salute both parties and all people for the participation of women we’ve seen in 2008.

Let there NEVER, EVER be another election without the female half of this country being represented on a Presidential Ticket. That’s my fervent prayer.

I’ll be at my polling place to make sure the Republican Election Judge doesn’t cheat or harass Barack Obama voters. He’ll be there to make sure that I, the Democratic Election Judge doesn’t cheat or harass John McCain voters.

It’s going to be a very, very long day and I’m super-excited.

My husband and I participate in election judging every election we can. We both do it if we’ve got a grandma to watch the two kiddos for 12 hours. This year we don’t.

After the election we’re going to the Democratic Headquarters for Pizza and News.

We’re feeling optimistic enough to bring champagne. If polls are to be believed at all then Barack Obama is going to win.

But, anything could happen. It’s hard to determine what will happen.

Personally, the human nature of this election has been a little disappointing for me.

The racism and sexism and blatant and intentional ignorance isn’t in our country’s best interest.

I’m praying for a landslide because being on the fence as we have for the last 8 years – where half the country loathes and disrespects the sitting President hasn’t been good for us. Having a president who openly disregards and disrespects half the country’s interests and ideas has been detrimental to our citizen moral.

The best thing that could ever happen tomorrow is to have a solid Congress that sits with the President – at least for 2 years. Nothing can ever get done if we’re a 50/50 country at war with each other. Then both sides become cynical and blame the other.

The party who wins tomorrow better do it with grace and proceed with rapid action.

The party who loses tomorrow better do it with grace and lick their wounds in a quiet support of the winners. That’s the American way. A peaceful transition of power.

We consent to and support the outcome (even if it’s not the one we wanted) – that’s our process.

We need to move to the middle people. We need to make some compromises with each other or there will not be peace in our country. There will be anger in our country.

Choose one way or the other America.

Make it a crystal clear choice and make it a consistent one.

Vote your conscience.

Marrianne Williamson had a lovely prayer for both candidates and all voters and a peaceful and loving election on her daily devotional today.

Oh, and if you want to experience a Patriotic High there will be plenty of volunteer opportunities tomorrow. Help an elderly person vote, take a neighbor, call your party’s headquarters and volunteer to make phone calls.

Image Source: www.barackobama.com

Post from: Blisstree

Patriotic High – VOTE!

Joe the Plumber sits on Joe Six Pack.

John McCain and Sarah Palin’s depiction of the American man:

Drowning his anxiety in beer every night, after being knee deep in shit all day long.

(Of course this is most excellent if you happen to be in the beer industry like the McCain’s.)

Image Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Post from: Blisstree

2 American Joes

What We Could Have Done with the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We’ve Spent on Iraq, by Rob Simpson looks like it’s worth reading.

For only $9.95 you could buy a book that examines how short sighted your government has been by going to war with Iraq.

I myself have just been thinking – we could have developed all the energy technology we need right now over the last 6 years of the war, if we were only willing to spend the money here instead of fighting Iraqis for their oil (and don’t pretend our international “security” policy isn’t about oil – wake up and smell the petroleum people).

This guy literally worked out the math for 50 alternatives: pave the streets with gold, literally; paying off the entire country’s credit card debt; give everyone on earth an iPod; take all the Iraqi’s to a baseball game; pay for every high school kid’s college education making us more globally competitive; rebuilding the entire city of New Orleans; rectifying Social Security and Medicare.

I’m in the mood for long term strategy and smart thinking and better financial priorities.

To make myself feel powerful I spend my $1 Trillion on the cool online shopping spree and I was able to literally change the world. For the better.

I rebuilt levies in New Orleans, fed a lot of starving children until they were 18, conserved natural habitats and forests, fed the hungry all over America, bought goats for families, empowered 1,000 business women all over the world, provided health care for many.

I voted for Barack Obama last week!

Cause John McCain seems to think doing all those kind and generous things for people makes “the big scary government too big – but big fat expensive violent wars in Iraq do not.” I just don’t happen to agree.

Think. People. Think.

Post from: Blisstree

What Would YOU Do with $1 Trillion?

No one cares about your personal beliefs Sarah.

The questions are referring to whether you would pass laws that would hold US to your beliefs.

That’s what we have a right to know.

Post from: Blisstree

Sarah Palin on Abortion, Morning After Pill & Science

It’s not your grandma’s modesty and “don’t do it.” It’s a hotter, sexier, kind of “don’t do it” that Sarah Palin exemplifies.

Had the sexier version of “don’t do it” and the empoweringly hot message of “make him chase you to the alter and then do it wildly,” been the focus of my community’s “don’t do it” message when I was growing up . . . .

Well, I might not have done it. . .

Read the article about the Sexy Puritan type at Slate.

I’m kind of Sexy {Feminist} Puritan aren’t I?

Post from: Blisstree

Sarah Palin – Sexy Puritan

You know what I find fascinating?

The religious conservatives, by which I mean the specific people in my life, who have always been the biggest influences on my own Internal Mommy Wars are in full, unequivocal support of Sarah Palin and have no doubts that can be both an effective mother and vice president.

Then why do you doubt that I can be both a great mom and fulfill my professional ambitions using the gifts and the calling God gave me? I wondered, as I lay sobbing during one yoga practice last week. If there is some distinction between she and I – and our worthiness for my family’s support – I don’t get it.

My whole motherhood and professional, experience would have been vastly different had these same people in my life been as unquestioningly supportive of me and my abilities to do both as they have been about Sarah Palin.

The economic and emotional toll of my own internal Mommy Wars can be added up to include: poverty and massive amounts of debt including a bankruptcy, unbelievable strain on my marriage almost leading to divorce, addiction to anxiety medication including a hospitalization that incurred yet more debt, severe post partum depression, not to mention the decision to stop having children so I could return to work without debilitating guilt and extreme economic “sacrifice” sooner.

But, at least I was a “good mom,” according to the specific narrow definition my family and cultural influences – religious conservatives, represented by Sarah Palin – have held out as the one virtue I must live up to above all.

Go figure.

They don’t even know her, they’ve never met her, they’ve never seen her with her children, they know very little about her politics even. Yet, they support her without reservation, judgement or criticism. If only I’d been worthy of the same support.

Thank God for Sarah Palin - I’m choosing to make their full support of Sarah Palin apply to ME and all other women. Her mission is no more important than mine, her abilities to both be a good mother and ambitious in her work is no more developed, her values no more sacred, and above all – she is no more entitled than the rest of the working mothers of this nation to respect, equal pay and working hours that adjust to acknowledge the existence of a family.

I’m choosing to let go of their judgement that has so effected my choices. It’s quite liberating really. Its like releasing a burden that has weighed heavily on my soul and tainted my experience of motherhood.

My motherhood experience has been about unnecessary guilt and sacrifice – false choices really. False choices that have made me teeter on a fence between working and motherhood, judgement and approval, fear and love, economic stability and poverty as sacrifice, powerfulness and powerlessness, economic independence and social acceptance - it’s not as though choosing to not work to be a good mom to acquire the currency of their social acceptance and approval came without serious consequences.

Forgive them for they know not what they do. I want to be free of their criticism and judgement, therefore I forgive it.

I don’t think they knew. They didn’t know they would feel this positively and supportive about a working mother character. They may or may not realize the kind of inner-turmoil they’ve caused in my own emotional life. Likely, it is only a reflection of their own inner conflict about themselves – not really about me at all.

I’m going to expect them to feel the same about my abilities as they feel about Sarah Palin’s and if they choose not to, well, this time I’ll perceive that choice as their failure, instead of my own. I’ll figure out a way not to internalize it.

Surely, I had this power all along – lots of other women have done it – but I wasn’t strong enough to apply it. So, I forgive me too.

Thank God for Sarah Palin, she’s liberating me from a social construct and false choices and a deep inner conflict about working and motherhood.

Image source: JohnMcCain.com

Post from: Blisstree

Thank God For Sarah Palin

This article from The Caucus Blog – NY Times says Oprah has refused to interview Sarah Palin and that John McCain isn’t letting anyone interview her.

“The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.”

Of course, there are also rumors that John McCain is deliberately refusing to allow the woman to speak in interviews.

“Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children? So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment.”

Uh, cause you’re proposing her to be the Vice President of the United States and we have a right to know exactly who she is and what she thinks and where she stands before she takes any power over our lives and our laws.

The only information I’m getting about Sarah Palin is from people who think she’s either God (pro-life groups, hunters, people who don’t equate drilling for oil to the end of the world, the very religious, some Republicans) or The Devil (pro-choice groups, people who do equate the drilling of oil to the end of the world, atheists afraid of anyone who professes a belief in God and thinks it’s an acceptable criteria for having an opinion, some Democrats) .

I’m betting she’s neither.

I want to hear this woman speak about what she REALLY thinks and Oprah is the perfect person to ask the right questions and get the real answers to things I care about.

Please interview Sarah Palin, Oprah.

Image Source: www.johnmccain.com

Post from: Blisstree

Oprah Please Interview Sarah Palin