This morning, I’m recovering from a UMass party at which I unwisely combined jello shots with Rum & Coke. And even in my current condition, I still know more than Sarah Palin.
Run, Sarah, run. Pleeaaazee please please please please. I soooo want you to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.
It would make America’s choices so very clear.
Sarah Palin a feminist icon?
Oh, please.
Just because she’s a woman in a position of influence doesn’t make her anything but a woman in a position of influence.
Feminists want to succeed based on their knowledge, ability, work, and achievement — not just because some crusty old man picked them as his running mate and Fox News picked them as a spokesmodel for its thuggish political propaganda.
Palin is a woman who, when CBS news reporter Katie Couric asked her which newspapers she read, couldn’t name a single newspaper. Palin is a woman who, when Fox News commentator Glenn Beck asked her which American founder was her favorite, couldn’t name a single one. Mine might be Abigail Adams or Margaret Corbin, but Palin couldn’t even think of an easy one like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
Compare Palin to someone like MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow, who has a doctorate in government from Oxford University and was the first openly gay Rhodes Scholar. Maddow actually knows things and can speak without being coached. She is a feminist icon.
If anyone should be a candidate for president or an influential voice in American politics, it’s Rachel Maddow, not Silly Sarah from Wasilla.
At our school, tuition and other expenses are over $50,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the stock market and other investments are way down. Our parents have less money to pay for our education. Our schools have less money to provide financial aid.
What’s a student to do?
One New Zealand woman found a way to get college money: on the Web, she auctioned off her virginity.
The other bad news is that she only got $32,000 for it. That would almost cover a single year’s tuition here.
Am I crazy, or is there something wrong with a world where women have to become prostitutes in order to pay for their education?
I’m not saying it’s never happened before. But in societies that call themselves civilized, there has to be a better way to pay for college.
Teen Vogue has a quiz to find out “Are you a tomboy or a glamour girl?”
I’m not sure which category I think I’m in. Where do they put science nerds?
Anyway, let’s do the quiz. It’s multiple choice, so it should be easy.
As a kid, your mother couldn’t tear you away from: (a) Your brother’s Transformers, (b) Your beloved Barbie, or (c) Your xylophone.
I didn’t know my mother when she was a kid. But when I was a kid, well, I guess that (c) is closest. I didn’t have a xylophone but I loved music and still do. I got pretty good at piano but never mastered violin. I can sing on key but my voice and my moves aren’t good enough to be a pop singer. 
I don’t want to spoil the quiz for you, so I won’t list all the choices after this.
Now that you’ve stopped playing with toys, your favorite thing to do is …
Goof around with friends.
Though I never completely stopped playing with toys.
On the weekend, you’re most likely to be found …
Relaxing at home, listening to music or reading.
One of the other choices was “at the mall,” where I also go a lot when I’m home from school. But that’s partly to goof around with friends, so it kind of overlaps with question 2.
Your morning routine consists of …
Jumping in the shower and quickly blow-drying my hair.
Though I usually get out of the shower before I blow-dry my hair. And they left out my breakfast Pop Tart, preferably strawberry.
It’s Friday night and you have 30 minutes before the biggest party of the year. Quick, get ready! …
Me get ready in 30 minutes? I don’t think so!
Of course, it really depends on the party and who’s going to be there.
I answered the rest of the questions, but I don’t want to spoil the quiz for you. You can find it here. Here’s what the quiz said about me:
You’re not quite a tomboy, and you’re definitely not a full-on glamour girl. Instead, you’d rather borrow the best from both worlds for a quirky look that’s all you!
Actually, that’s pretty accurate. Except for the “quirky.” I’ll have to think about that for a while.
OK, so it’s kind of a stupid topic. But it’s 12 degrees outside and my mind wandered.
What got me thinking about it was an opinion column today on a news site. The columnist wrote that “Some children would rather do hours of violin practice than discuss sex with their parents.” Amen to that. Of course, I am so bad at violin that hours of practice might not do me any good. So I guess we’re left with the dreaded parental sex talk.
My parents and I had our sex talks a long time ago. Mercifully, they seem to avoid the subject these days, though I actually can talk to my Mom about a lot. Not everything, but a lot.
The first time we had a serious talk about sex, Mom wanted to make sure that I knew all kinds of things I had already learned in school or, more accurately, from talking to my friends.
Dad tried to make sure I knew that all guys were lying scum who would do anything to get what they wanted, which was mainly just one thing. Check. Though unlike my Dad, who seemed very alarmed about the fact, to me it has always seemed kind of funny and a little exciting. And let’s be fair: it’s not true of all guys, not even all straight guys.
If you understand how the game works, it’s much less clear who is the hunter and who is the prey. I can be either.
President Obama at the Republican House Issues Conference in Baltimore (New York Times photo).
I know that there are smart, honest, and well-meaning Republicans. But I saw a little of President Obama’s visit to the Republican Congressional meeting, and it didn’t seem as if any of them were there.
Really, it seemed as if President Obama was the only one there who had any sense and was doing anything besides reciting slogans.
The President also reassured me on one point. He’s been talking about a government spending freeze. Not all government spending, but some of it. It’s seemed like he just wanted to shut up people who were complaining about the government budget deficit and the increased national debt, which my generation and probably the next generation will have to repay.
I’m not an economist, just a student, but I did take economics. And I learned that one thing you don’t do when the economy is in trouble is to cut government spending. The government spending provides demand to help get the economy growing again and reduce unemployment. That’s not complicated: it’s just Econ 104.
At the Republican meeting, President Obama made that same point: the economy is still in trouble, so he doesn’t want a spending freeze right now. Instead, he wants it for 2011, and we all hope that the economy will be better by then. So he’s reassuring people about the deficit but at the same time wants to postpone spending cuts until they won’t hurt the economy. OK, I buy that. It makes sense.
P.S. Here’s why you should be glad that President Obama met with the Republicans: The blog I was originally going to write was “Does Hair Color Matter That Much?”
President Obama gave a good State of the Union speech last night.
But we all knew he could give a good speech. He’s smart, he knows the facts, and he’s personally attractive.
The question is, what happens now?
It’s nice to say all the right things. It’s even nicer to do them. And doing them is what we need.
Nice words aren’t enough. America needs results.
Well, it’s official: health care reform is dead.
The Republicans won. So did the insurance companies, the drug companies, and the medical industry. All of them profit from the current system and don’t want it changed just to help a lot of grubby unemployed and minimum-wage people who can’t afford medical insurance for themselves and their families.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says they’ll come back to it later. Much later. In the meantime, Sen. Reid, Sen. McConnell (R-KY) and all their friends will have guaranteed health care. It will be paid for by the taxes of people who can’t get health care or health insurance.
Sen. Reid wants Democratic voters to be sure and turn out in November so that he keeps his majority in the Senate. That’s because of all the important issues on which he hasn’t yet caved in to the Republicans. He wants a chance to cave in on those issues, too.
Vote Democratic in November?
I’ll come back to it later. Maybe in December.
I feel like such an idiot for believing in them.
I was fine Friday night, but I’ve had a little bit of flu the rest of this weekend. Nothing terrible like last time when I couldn’t keep any food down. Just feeling icky and a little feverish.
The good thing about being sick is that your friends take care of you, and you have an excuse to let them.
Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria, glad that she didn't have to wear the crown for the entire movie.
Back from a fun evening. Dinner at Johnny’s and then saw “The Young Victoria,” which was wonderful.
I think it’s great that they made a movie about Queen Victoria as a young woman. She’s always been portrayed as very old, but she was young once. She presided over Great Britain’s transition into a constitutional monarchy. And I’m sure she did a lot more than that.
Of course, “Young Victoria” was probably more entertainment than history, but it was based in fact. Victoria’s mother in the movie did make me appreciate how nice my mother is by comparison.
I like Emily Blunt, who played Victoria and was also in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
Anyway, time to go to bed. Have a great weekend! Ttfn.
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