A Woman for President in the USA?

Is the United States ready for a woman president? Frankly, I don’t expect it will happen unless we start to see more women in really powerful positions in other areas. We need more women in the House and Senate. We need more women CEO’s. I don’t see huge changes in those areas so I am not holding my breath for a women to be elected president in 2008. Consider that my home state of Michigan has only elected seven women to the House in the ENTIRE history of the U.S Congress (currently there are two female members of the House from Michigan).

I don’t think we will see a woman president until either the Republican party changes enough to nominate a woman or until there are enough progressive people in the Democratic party to compensate for any centrist voters who will vote Republican because they don’t like the idea of a woman running the show. Since there are so many in the Republican party who believe in a world view where only men should have power, I doubt the former will happen any time soon. There are many moderate Republicans who are willing to vote for a woman of course. I just don’t think there are enough of them to secure a woman’s nomination to a national platform. I think that the progressive world view could gain strength and I certainly hope it does but I don’t think that will happen by 2008.

If we could encourage more women to run for other offices, we might see a change in the way people in this country view things. People need to see that having a women as their House Rep; a woman as their Senator; or a woman in whatever other political position you can think of, will not result in the end of the world or even a government that is worse off than when it was only men running the show. *THEN* our country might be ready to have a woman President.

Related Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060118/pl_afp/uspoliticswomen

Misc.

I havent really had a lot to write about lately. I spent Saturday playing a new video game I bought that is kind of a virtual train set. It is called 'Locomotion' and is kind of an older game so I got it cheap used. It is very fun though and I honestly spent almost 20 hours playing it. I actually got a cramp in a couple of my fingers! Every now and then it is good to lose oneself in such things though. By Sunday I was feeling pretty relaxed.

So, instead of blogging or playing on the computer, I decided to clean my house. I moved furniture and found all kinds of things under the couch. It was pretty amazing really. I found the tag that had fallen off Crissy's collar the week before she died. When I noticed it missing, I figured that I wouldnt bother replacing it because she simply wasnt going to run away at that point. It was nice to find it though because it will be something I have to remember her by...as if I would need something, but it is still nice to have it.

I had a Grex board meeting tonight at my house and that went well although like most meetings that run over an hour, I thought it was too long. But, then, I guess the point of such meetings is to discuss things. And we did cover a lot of topics so I would say it was productive.

Cookie was well behaved. She always is around people. She likes *everyone* and is nice and sweet. Brooke on the other hand, has a thing where she sometimes just doesnt like certain people or is afraid of them so she did her share of barking and growling which isnt behavior I can tolerate in a dog. I had to keep giving her time outs in the kitchen. It is my own fault of course because I dont have enough visitors here at my house and usually when someone does come over, it is someone she knows. Oh well, perhaps I should start having more folks over.

Dogs as Role Models

"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive." —Gilda Radner

This was the quote of the day in our newsletter at work. When I first read it, my thoughts were total agreement. Dogs forgive easily, are passionate about things (like chasing squirrels), and are generally nice creatures. Oh yes, they are role models.

And then I remembered that my dogs like to eat poop out of the cat box. I guess that even when it comes to role models, there are limits to everything.

Rules for Dealing With Other People's Children

I recently have had some fun discussions with my childless friends about dealing with other people’s children. So I have developed some rules.

• Forget about all of that “It takes a village to raise a child” crap. Many parents say they believe this but try to participate in the raising of a child and you will learn very quickly that they don’t mean it. Or rather, by “it takes a village to raise a child” what they mean is that single people should pay lots of taxes to support programs designed for other people’s children but should keep their mouths shut about them. Now, I think that it is perfectly ok for any tax payer to have an opinion about how their tax dollars are spent but one should expect some parents to pull out the “you don’t have kids, so what do you know about kids or education” thing if I happen to mention my opinions around them. I have found that the best approach is to remind them that I am only expressing an opinion as a tax payer about a public program (and I make sure that is what I am doing too. Saying, “parents need to spank their kids more so they are better behaved in school” is REALLY saying something more about a parenting style than a public program)
  
  
• Do not *ever* think about giving any parent advice about child raising unless they ask for it (and even then I proceed with caution). Even if I know that even though I don’t have kids, I know more about raising kids than they do. Sure, I don’t have kids so I know less about raising kids than I would if I had kids of my own, that isn’t in dispute. But there are seriously stupid people out there who raise their kids in really terrible ways. So I might know that verbally abusing a kid to the point of tears every night is probably not a good parenting technique but, trust me, if I were to ever suggest that to a parent who does that, they will say, “what do you know? You don’t have kids” as if I would suddenly change my mind about calling children names and telling them they are worthless if I had kids. Yes, if I had kids, I would have more insight into the world of parenting than I have now but I would still be me and my fundamental values probably wont change. I know this. But they don’t. And they don’t want to hear what I am saying so unless I see the kind of abuse that needs to be reported to Social Services, I just stay out of it. Seriously.
  
  On issues less obvious than the verbal abuse example I gave, I just remember that there are lots and lots of ways to raise kids and most of them work pretty well, even the ones I don’t like. So while I might do things differently, it doesn’t mean that the parent I see is doing things wrong. And if I were a parent, would I want everyone telling ME what to do? I mean, I wouldn’t because I already know that if I had kids, whatever I did would be totally 100% correct….(hahaha. ok just kidding). But you get the idea. I wouldn’t want a bunch of busy bodies getting on my case if I did co-sleeping or natural fiber diapers or whatever other hippy dippy parenting thing I would be prone to doing. It took me a long time to learn to keep my mouth shut in such situations and I still slip up sometimes but really, it probably is better for everyone when unsolicited advice is kept to oneself.
  
  
• Do not *ever* think of reprimanding another person’s child. There are two exceptions to this rule but generally, just don’t. Every parent seems to have a different method they use and unless you have been given permission and detailed instructions from a parent it just is better to keep your mouth shut. So…if you see some kid engaging in poor behavior, just ignore it. It isn’t worth the trouble to say *anything*. But as I said there are two exceptions to this rule
  
  1. Exception 1: My House, My Rules. If it is your house and you see a kid wipe a booger on your wall, it is perfectly acceptable to tell that child that booger wiping isn’t allowed in your house. I have lots of rules in my house that I enforce with *everyone* (not just children). As I have already mentioned, I don’t allow booger wiping. I also do not allow annoying the dogs, writing on the walls, screaming, running, climbing, and there is a definite bedtime of midnight if I have to go to work the next day.
     
  2. Exception 2: My Body, My Rules. Oddly this is an exception that a friend who is a parent asked me to do. Her kids sometimes hit me or jumped on me and I didn’t like it but was afraid to say anything. She said that she was trying to teach her children that they had the right to control their own bodies and how other people touched them. She wanted me to set an example by telling her kids that they couldn’t hit me. Then I thought to myself: Hey, I have control over my body and I have control over who touches me and in what way. I mean, if an *adult* hit me, I wouldn’t just stand there and smile and say “oh how cute” I would say something like “It is not ok for you to hit me” because it is NOT ok for someone to hit me even if that someone is a child. So now if a kid hits me, I tell them that they aren’t to do that anymore and if they continue to do it, I leave the room.
  
  
  
• If you have a friend who only talks about their kid and seems to have no other interests, there are some things you can do.
  
  1. You can talk about your pets in the same way they are talking about their kids. Trust me, if you start describing your dog’s poop in the same animated way they describe their baby’s poo, they usually get the idea. And if they don’t? Well, who else is going to listen to you talk about your dog’s poop? *snort* I secretly LOVE doing that. Yeah…so bring it on, you parents who like to talk about your children’s poo. I have *two* dogs and they poo every day. Sometimes TWICE.
     
  2. Remember that sometimes (especially if they are a stay at home parent) your friends with kids don’t get too much adult conversation and simply need to have the conversation redirected with simple questions. In fact, getting the topic off of the kid is usually doing them a favor. They are talking about the kid because that is all they have been focused on but everyone needs to have other things in their lives. Your friend NEEDS to discuss Madonna’s new look or the BUSH administration’s latest fuckup (depending on the friend).
     
  3. Just go with it and listen to them complain about the sleepless nights and how they have no life anymore. This almost always makes me GLAD that I don’t have kids which is good because I don’t have kids and it is a lot better to be glad about that than wishing I had them.
  
  

The End of the Christmas Season

I have been pretty busy the last few days.

I took my dogs up to my parents house on Thursday evening. They always love going there and when I am ready to take them, I love to just say “who wants to go to the lake”? That phrase, more than any other produces a frenzy in my house that just cracks me up. The dogs snap to attention and then start running around the living room in circles while making excited dog noises. In the car on the way there, they jump up and down the whole way like kids on the way to DisneyLand. It always makes me laugh.

Friday evening was the Russian Christmas Eve dinner with the family which is fun. We did the trational dinner on Dec 24th too but it still was nice to repeat it again on the actual holiday. Russians still celebrate Christmas on Jan 7th. When I was a child, my grandparents did Christmas on the 7th and refused to celebrate on December 25th. I honestly used to believe that there were two Santas. There was the regular Santa who brought presents to everyone but there was also a special Santa: Russian Santa who brought presents on January 7th to all the little Russian children who also, luckily for ME, also brought presents to half Russian children who lived in the United States.

So...this year Russian Santa kind of made a return but in the form of a bald man visiting from San Francisco who brought gifts of Scharffenberger Cocoa Nips. I spent Russian Christmas with good old verlaine and his family and kate too. His family is sooooo fun. I had such a good time. We had glorious dinner of the best take-out fried chicken I have ever had. Then we sat around and opened presents from verlaine and kate. And we talked and talked until late in the evening. Good times.

And today? A movie and lunch with my friend Andee. Life is good.

Michigan in January

I really hate Michigan in January. I cant remember the last time I saw the sun. My full-spectrum light helps but it just isn’t the same. Everyone I see looks like zombies mindlessly going about their daily business. Oh well, at least folks here in Michigan have better skin that folks in less cloudy parts of the world.

I had a dream last night that I haven’t been able to shake all day. I wont bore anyone with the details but a few long lost friends (a couple of whom I haven’t seen in over ten years) were in it and when I woke, I had an incredible longing to talk to them. That longing has been like a dull emotional ache all day. Still, I don’t think I will do anything to try to contact them because for the most part, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find them and honestly I am a little too lazy to try. I guess it is just weird how sometimes certain people never leave us.

hmmm. tblog seems to be down or at least, I cant access it so I guess that for now, this wont be mirrored there.

Happy New Year

My big five day celebration of laziness and sloth has come to an end. I have to say though; I enjoyed it thoroughly and completely. I pretty much did nothing with myself for the better part of five days. I ventured out to see one movie with Kate but otherwise it was just me and my dogs and all socializing was done via telephone. It makes for a very relaxing time but not exactly for great blogging. I mean, as much as I am sure you all would LOVE to read blog entries with titles like: Investigating Belly Button Lint – Day 2, I just cant bring myself to write them ;)

I had been a little worried about some friends who live in Sonoma County where there has been a lot of flooding. I got a message from them on my machine left on New Years Eve just before midnight. It sounded like they were drunk and having a good time and not phoning from some Red Cross shelter because their house had been flooded. But then it occurred to me that if I were ever evacuated on New Year’s Eve to a Red Cross shelter, I would probably get drunk and start calling all my friends too. I talked to them eventually though. Luckily it turned out that the only great tragedy the weather caused for my friends has been that it rained so hard that they couldn’t let the kids go outside to play so everyone was stuck inside. I guess they resorted to drawing on the floors of the house with sidewalk chalk. Whew. Thank goodness they have concrete floors!


So, this is my first blog post of the new year. I was reading a bit about some New Year's traditions and how one superstition is that how you spend the first day of the New Year sets the tone for the rest of the year. If that is the case, I guess I can expect to be alone but by choice and relaxed about it. Oh and hung over a little bit but not too upset about that either. :)