Recent Headlines

Today Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) “respectfully” reminded the President that he is not, in fact, the sole “decider” as he claims.
Yeah, no kidding, there’s Dick Cheney too!

Run Democrats Run!
We need a strong democratic candidate to run and win the presidency in ’08 so that after his or her successful run he or she can get us out of IRAN.

President Bush pushing for a troop surge of 21,000 soldiers, eager to move forward with his impossible "plan" for insanely costly Iraqi free-dumb.

Bush Administration having always objected to the blame game is particularly irked by the “escalated” version, the Plame blame game. Looks like I. “Scooter” Libby will be taking the fall for Cheney and Rove. We shouldn’t be surprised; it’s not a stab in the back really. After all, Cheney and Rove have always openly despised, expressed the utmost contempt for, and railed against Libbyrals.

The Boy who Cried: Wolf
In an interview with Cheney on Monday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked the VP how he felt about Focus on the Family (an evangelical group that has given great financial and public support to Bush/Cheney) having publicly condemned the pregnancy of Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Mary. Cheney objected to such an “inappropriate” question, calling it "out of line." Rather than challenging Cheney’s moral hypocrisy and standing by the legitimacy of his question, Wolf Blitzer practically whimpered and nearly peed his pants. Looks like The Situation Room may be planning to merge with Romper Room.

The Miracle of Motherhood

When I first became a mother it took a little while for the reality of my situation to set in. I would find myself on the couch, scratching my head and wondering what was this odd creature that kept gnawing and slurping at my bosom? Furthermore, from whence came said bosom for which I had once so ardently prayed and then lost all hope of ever acquiring more than a decade past? I suppose that my previous lackluster track record at making plans and following through had managed to somehow make me completely skeptical that my nine-month pregnancy was indeed going to result in my having a baby.

During my pregnancy, my daily ritual had become waking up in the morning to an unexpectedly swollen belly and thinking that I had yet again irresponsibly rendered myself shamefully flatulent. I would then begin to berate myself for having so pigishly indulged the previous night in a glut-fest whose quantities of corndogs, lemon meringue and pickles would be sure to make the most desperate of reality show contestants bow their heads in shame. But then I would remember that I had always detested corndogs, lemon meringue and pickles in any quantities whatsoever and would recall that the unexpected was due, in fact, to the fact that I was expecting.

The defining moment that made me realize that I really was a mother came a week before my birthday when my husband asked me what I wanted. “A diaper genie!” I emphatically exclaimed before a microsecond had passed. By what miracle had a desperate desire for an odor-restricting excrement receptacle vainquished my lifelong fantasies of diamond pendants and designer footwear? Then it hit me: it was the miracle of motherhood.

Things Aren't Always Black and White

After pledging to his constituents, the majority of whom are African American, that he would seek to become the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Democratic Representative Stephen Cohen of Tennessee has now withdrawn his bid. Apparently outraged that an elected representative in a predominantly black district should seek to represent his constituents and to place himself in a position to be as informed as possible about their needs, the all-black members of the Black Congressional Caucus made it clear to Cohen that he was not welcome, that the Congressional Black Caucus must remain black and that it is not to be “taken lightly.”

This should come as no surprise as members of the caucus have traditionally been staunch conservatives, very satisfied with and eager to sustain the status quo. One can only speculate that their tacit blackballing of Caucasian Cohen is based on a fear that fair representation would interfere with their goal of achieving fair representation.

Furthermore, one can only surmise that they are concerned that the Jewish representative from Tennessee, (regardless of the purity of his intentions) would not be in a position to fully comprehend what it means to be a member of a minority population and would denigrate and blacken the integrity of the Black Caucus.

Baby-wearing!

This Sunday “morning,” when I woke up at the crack of noon, my husband, who is far less of a lazy schlub than I am, informed me that our best friends had called to say that they were attending an event near our home and could therefore stop by to see us when it was over. He said something that sounded like “they can come after the baby-wearing convention.” Thrilled at the chance to see them, I shrugged off this baby-wearing thing. Since my husband is not a native English speaker I assumed that he had misunderstood what they told him or that I, not yet doped up on coffee, had surely misunderstood him.

Holy shit! My best friends actually did spend their Sunday afternoon at a baby-wearing convention! I suppose that an avid interest in baby-wearing is a positive sign that for Dana and Drew having a baby hasn’t become too wearing. But a f**king BABY-WEARING CONVENTION?!

I still love them dearly, but not too long ago Dana and Drew were very sane people. Then, naturally, Dana became a total whackadoodle when Emma was born. This, however, is not cause for alarm. Psychologists say that it is actually very healthy for the mother of a newborn to establish a relationship with her child that under any other circumstances would be considered clinically psychotic—it’s true, I checked this with my shrink, my back-up shrink, my ex-shrink and his back-up shrink and they were all in perfect accord on this point.

But "what’s Drew’s excuse?" I can’t help but wonder. Safety belts, buckles, adjustable straps—he arrived all bound up in what, were it not for the duckies and bunnies motif and the adorable baby inside, would have resembled some sort of sadomasochistic restraining device purchasable only in Las Vegas. They say that in an insane world, insanity is sanity—or Sean Hannity, I forget. Yes, insanity—Sean Hannity, that sounds right (and I have long since had my “morning” coffee).

It took us a few minutes to excavate baby Emma but she came out all smiley and happy—a positive sign that she enjoys playing the role of a non-traditional body accessory. Since she is but a few months old, I will not allow myself to be disturbed by her apparent strange, fetishistic form of pleasure.

It’s quite fortunate that she does like it actually since the first time Drew finds himself without a three-person crew to help him extract himself from the device Emma might very well be worn for far longer. With any luck she’ll match his shoes. This is not something that I usually wish on my friends, but when that fateful day does arrive, for the sake of all involved I sincerely hope that Drew will find himself constipated.

Judgmental Gym Equipment

For many years I was one of those people who would repeatedly make going to the gym my primary new year’s resolution (right behind things like read War and Peace, cure cancer and floss regularly). Naturally, I kept falling off the wagon, or in the case of War and Peace the turnip truck. Then a few years ago I had the genius idea of joining the gym in the gay neighborhood. As a heterosexual female, I thought this was the perfect solution to feeling self-conscious. I was tired of feeling overwhelmed by the throng of smiley, pony-tailed stick figures who inspired an inferiority complex that inevitably sent me straight from the gym to the Ben and Jerry’s. Low and behold, good golly, it actually worked!

Today, however, I had a most disconcerting experience. You see, I have grown quite accustomed at my gay gym to the immeasurable luxury of being invisible. Today indeed started off like any other exercise day. I self-scanned my membership card and the desk attendant didn’t so much as lift his eyes away from People. Hurray, yet another victory for the rat’s nest, scrunchy-cum-sweat-band coiffure of stealth!

And then I saw it, my new enemy. Like most enemies it had a deceptively innocuous appearance. In fact, it even hypocritically masqueraded as not just benign but welcoming and friendly. It was the new Precor stepping machine, shiny and new, no doubt financed by the flux of membership fees from this year’s batch of early-January-only gym-goers who have been rapidly flaking out one by one.

When I stepped onto the machine it asked me to select a program. Fat-burner, of course! Honestly, I don’t know why the other five buttons even exist. Then it asked me to enter my age. As invisible me, I was able to enter it without the slightest flinch or twitch in regular people years, not marine turtle years, not botox years. And the machine replied, “age accepted.” Age accepted?! What, had it scanned me and decided that my entry was credible? Was this machine judging me? Before I could even recover my balance (which it is always a good idea to maintain on this kind of contraption) it was asking me my weight.

When the judgmental exercise machine asked me my weight I got a little nervous and my heart rate began to rise. It had surely already seen many a body more fit than mine. With the slight increase in heart rate, I briefly entertained the idea that the machine had thus already done its job and that I was free to go—but alas, my moment of panic had lasted but a few seconds, not a half hour. So I began to calculate. This morning when I stepped on the scale it was after drinking a large (enormous, huge!) coffee and before I had pooped. Surely I could subtract a pound or two. But would the machine buy it, or after my entry would it refuse to flash “weight accepted”? And what if this shiny, new, alluring piece of equipment were feeding my stats directly to the NSA? Should I “disappear” another pound or two from my record or would I be running the risk of this potentially being used against me as evidence impugning my credibility in a court of law? Great sigh of relief when “weight accepted” appeared on the screen. The gullible chump! Good thing too or I may very well have relapsed into the annual early-January-only crowd.

Headlines 1/17/07

Here are some of today’s headlines:

War and Piece

American and NATO commanders have requested that new troops be sent to Afghanistan. The country has seen a surge in attacks ever since Pakistan’s September 5 signing of a peace deal with Taliban leaders in North Waziristan. Critics of the Administration blame the President's great concentration on efforts to increase troop levels in Iraq for the neglect of the situation in Afghanistan, an accusation the Bush administration emphatically denies. According to White House sources, when local media reported on the agreement, one paper accidentally wrote “piece” instead of “peace.” This, explained White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, led local Taliban commanders to believe that they could justifiably blow things to pieces across the Afghan border without violating the agreement. He went on to lament that such an error could have been made, asserting that President Bush was very disappointed that major players in the world political arena did not have a better command of English.

Schoolhouse Rocks

At least 70 are dead and another 170 wounded after three bombs exploded at a university in Baghdad.

Are you Syria’s?

Private Israeli and Syrian citizens co-drafted a proposal recommending that Israel return the Golan Heights to Syria. The document was disavowed by both governments.

In other news, The New York Times breaks into human trafficking:

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The Behanging

As everyone knows, under Saddam’s regime torture was rampant. So entrenched in the reigning leadership’s culture, torture had become rather stale, codified—you could hardly tell one rape room from another.

Today, with the advent of the behanging, the newly liberated Iraqi nation has reached another high point in its path to rebuilding a new society. Although in their characteristic modesty Bush, Cheney and other senior administration officials have denied deserving any of the credit, sources say that Iraqis are grateful to have finally been blessed with the spirit of American innovation.

Says one gleeful member of the new Iraqi government: "were it not for the creativity exhibited in American torture workshops such as those held at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the behanging may never have seen the light of day." It looks as though good old American know-how is finally beginning to get a stronghold in this roadside a'bombin' nation.