syntaxoflife
sunbeamj
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
So, Marie awarded me a Brilliant (or Brillante, if you want to be a stickler about it) Weblog Award, and now it’s my turn to pass it on!
The rules are to pass it on to 7 more weblogs and tell those blogs in their comments sections, so as to spread the love and brilliance! (I love this award. SO MUCH positive energy!)
- Lunsh, of course. I’ve been following Rebee’s blog in one format or another for the last few years. It is an awesome weblog, even though she says she’s confused on what she wants to post. I like everything she posts. And all of her designs. I need to steal some of her talent to make a layout for my blog (just a little bit please Rebee!). Hopefully her portfolio will be up soon so we can all ooh and ahh over her skills!
- phoeknits: I haven’t followed this blog for long (a week and a half?) but I can tell already that it’s Brilliant. I hope that doesn’t mean it’s already gotten this award. Ah well maybe it has. Who cares! I love spreading the lurve anyway.
- One Green Generation: Melinda’s posts are seriously inspiring, and she’s so nice about my extra-super-long comments practically every time she posts. Usually it’s a challenge for me to come up with something to say to someone’s posts. On One Green Generation, I almost ALWAYS have something to say. The posts are so thought-provoking. Definitely Brilliant.
- brokeknits: Her pictures are always so clear. How does she do it?! I’m in awe of her pictures and her projects, even when they’re as simple as a garter stitch cowl. I love her mismatching socks that are on top right now!
- Jeanne Knits: Jeanne is such a warm person, and it seeps into her blog posts and makes me feel welcome. She’s also always working on something different, so we get to see a lot of variety of projects and enjoy them all. (Yes, having a ton of WIPs is really interesting to a monogamous knitter like myself, Jeanne!)
- kelp! knits: I love her socks. And her photos. And the blue background in a lot of her photos. ;)
- The Knitting Harpy: A relatively new blog, but WOW. Look at all that info. And a year of knitting without patterns? What a goal.
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I’ve been thinking lately about the way people are either aghast at Gov. Sarah Palin or in love with her, and how I’m perceived to fall squarely on the “aghast” side. Yes, okay, I am against her as choice of running mate. But that doesn’t mean I’m against her personally. I don’t know her. All I know is that she’s ill-suited to be VP, but I wasn’t planning on voting for McCain anyway. (Yeeeah! My first presidential election!)
However, even though I never planned on voting for McCain to begin with, I’m still deluged with endless e-mails and info against Palin. Like the Women Against Sarah Palin e-mail that Caroline sent me. Like the “Everything you wanted to know about Palin, rape, and pregnancy” e-mail I got from my dad, forwarded from a friend of his from high school, that detailed all the ways Palin has been against sex education, rape (being charged for rape kits!), etc. (Some links from the e-mail: Palin has cut funding on programs to help teen mothers, Palin backed abstinence-only education, Wasilla charged rape victims for exam.) As soon as she was announced my aunt sent me an e-mail asking me to donate to Obama because Barack Obama is not taking any contributions from Washington lobbyists or political action committees.
(And yes, I’m planning on donating my meagre $10 once I get my next allowance.)
So… is it because I surround myself with like-minded liberals that I get all these e-mails against her? Certainly I didn’t get any e-mail about Biden when he was announced. But why do we seem so intent on crucifying the woman? That’s not my intention at all. Like I said (when referring to environmental issues) in my last political post, I’m more of a “just get out of my way” type of person. Which would make me truer to Republican ideals, I suppose, in the idea of less government involvement in one’s day-to-day life.
You know, that idea that Palin isn’t into. See: trying to censor books at the library. That’s government involvement if I ever saw it. And I don’t understand those people who say she’s will be right for the government, but doesn’t give actual reasons… see: some of the comments here. A lot of the things against her are well-documented. I wonder which parts those who agree with her agree with. Censoring books? Abstinence-only education? It’s okay to believe in abstinence but fully support your daughter when she doesn’t act out your beliefs and no one points that out? As the Livejournal community liberal_rage points out, And I have to say, if Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant at 17, the conservative media vultures would have fucking CRUCIFIED her, I’m not even exaggerating in the slightest.
.
I mean… I don’t know what I mean. I just don’t get this whole people-based smear campaign. Isn’t this kind of politics left to the politicians? (I hate negative ad campaigns. Hate, hate, hate.) Why are we taking up the negativity? Why are we trying to convince everyone that Palin is a bad pick for running mate, when we can’t change the running mate anymore? (Why did McCain choose her in the first place?)
And what if this is what the majority of the U.S. populace wants as a leader? What if everyone believes in abstinence-only education, charging rape victims for exams (holding the victim responsible for what happened), global warming is not humankind’s fault and therefore not a problem, abortions shouldn’t exist, even for rape/incest victims, etc. etc. etc.?
What a scary world I would live in then.
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Hey! I’m an official German Studies major! Let’s celebraaaaaaate!
Hey! I happened to stumble upon here and realized that you (and your site title) seem verrrrrry familiar!
You were from soapbox.jellowcat.net waaaaay back in 2005, right? :P
LONG TIME NO SEE!
Woo! Thanks! :)
Hey! Remember me! Glad to see you back to blogging! I’ll be reading you again! How’ve you been?
Thank you, Stephanie!
One of the things I’ve admired about Obama throughout his campaign is his constant redirection away from the personal and family issues, and toward the real issues. It is a shame that we don’t spend our time during presidential elections really talking about what matters, as they do in most parts of the world.
Exciting that it’s your first presidential election!
Now that I’ve read the article…
People are calling all this out because if elected, Palin will be one failed heartbeat away from the presidency and she is no more suited for it than my high school principal.
People are calling this out because the media is inconsistent in calling this out. Because McCain has begun branding all questions about her lack of experience “sexist”. Because he took Palin on soley so that he could bat against Obama for a “first in the whitehouse” and thinks that America’s women are stupid enough to believe that any woman in the white house will protect women’s rights and be an advocate for women everywhere.
That hasn’t been true with Bush, and it won’t be with McCain/Palin. Read this article.
When Palin gets questioned, I welcome the questions about her (lack of) experience and readiness for the job. Anything that is relevant to her qualifications, or how she isn’t, is valuable to know. It’s our duty to be informed about candidates.
Did you know she’s not being subpoenaed in the Alaskan state trooper trial because they say it would be “disrespectful” to a VP candidate? That sort of thing is not acceptable.
By all means we should stay away from digs that target her family and those close to her, but by accepting VP candidacy, she accepted this level of scrutiny.
Yay, thanks! I feel so warm and fuzzy inside. :D
About Palin … Republicans are smart. Very smart. Much smarter, in my opinion, than Democrats when it comes to organizing a party and winning votes from new groups of people because of what you said. They bring up Democratic scandals and people see that. They care! It may be stupid to care about something so petty as to who’s having sex with whom or who’s divorcing whom or so on, but people do care. When a Republican scandal crops up, the Democrats say nothing.
That said, you’re not going crazy. A lot of people don’t like Palin and so there’s a lot of stuff cropping up about her. It’s partly that you’re more aware of this election as well. I think people are getting really, really heated about about this election, especially considering the person elected will be president for 4 years.
Here’s a good article if you’re wondering about the reasons: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12032126
I’m staying far away from all this. I signed up for an account on reddit JUST so I could turn the Politics section off. Someday I’ll make a post about which candidate I like better, but for now I’m staying well away.
Hey, thanks for the award! I’m so glad I found your blog – I really do enjoy it.
I think that people just don’t know anything about this person – and she would be in a position of great power if they won. So they are doing digging and all these things keep on coming up – I think its good to get information, but it is a fine line against just being crazy about it and making it personal. I think its important to know who she is and what she stands for – and from what I see so far – she’s not what I want running the country (but that’s just me!)
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[...] quite a while ago I received a Brillante Weblog Award from both Sunbeam Soapbox and One Size Fits All. Thanks, Stephanie and [...]