Of course what did completely overtake me was this general election and the entire Palin pageant of puffery! Just when I thought the general electorate couldn't disappoint me more - when I thought I was really at rock bottom - this PERSON arrives and almost eradicates all the final drips of confidence I had for that swirling tea called humanity. But now that I think of it, this PERSON has given me the opportunity to connect politically with many folks that I've never had the nerve to broach the topic with - and that's a good thing. After all what is democracy but discourse - sometimes discordant yes, but at least we're talking and sometimes listening - which is always, always, always better than shooting.
In my new department below (Plug o' the Post) you'll find some wonderful stuff that this PERSON has inspired. Excellent analysis and commentary and ways to participate - check it out.
But on to the turtle! I was in Townsend's Inlet for a very short stay with my pal Suzy from
SFS
U. TI, as it is known to those in the know, is one of the fabulous, comfy, middle class resorts along the fabulous Jersey shore where I spent summers growing up. The first evening I'm there she's got me paddling away in a double kayak and we're in the fabulous bay-side wetlands that Congressman Williams way back in the '70's took so much heat politically to protect (oh thank you sir! Here's a view of them with a full moon at sunrise).
We turn of the main waterway into the grasses and see this huge gray lump about 200 feet ahead.
At first we can't imagine really what it might be but pretty so
on we realize it's this HUGE DEAD SEA TURTLE! We try to get some decent pix of it but we were fighting a waning battery. Here's the rear->
<-And here's the front of it - you'll notice most of its face is submerged. You can't tell from these pix but it was about 6 ft long (what was showing) and I guessed it must have weighed 500 lbs. It was big and solid! Anyway we looked it up on the Internet and surmised that it is a standard green sea turtle - not a loggerhead or leatherback. It seemed freshly demised because it didn't stink and wasn't really bloating yet. It didn't belong this close to shore, but with Ike and Hannah and Gustav and whoever's next churning up the Carribean, I guess if got swept off course and stuck in the shallows of the Jersey inland waterway. As fascinating as this all was, it was also very distressing. We mourned it and reported it to Fish and Game, Wetlands Rescue, and the Coast Guard all of whom seemed at the most nonplussed and the least downright disinterested. The USCG were conveniently located right near Suzy's family's place and the nice young man there took all our info down and even tried to connect with us via kayak two days later when we went out to check on "our" turtle. But alas! The tide must have taken him out or else he might have sunk into the murky brack - we couldn't find him or the Coast Guardian. Missed opportunities abounding! I've now seen three large sea turtles in as many months: in June I saw two mating turtles off of Palm Beach Florida and now I saw this poor specimen in Jersey. I don't know what turtles symbolize but you can bet I'll be looking them up! The rest of the TI trip was super-fabu-lo-so! Scrabble games and eating breakfast in salt air and bike riding from Deauville in Strathmere all the way through Avalon (and past our old summer house) to the central shopping district of Stone Harbor (I forgot how GREAT end of season shopping is down here). Suzy's dad, Dewey, made his famous DeweyBuster cocktails (the recipe is ultra haute - it changes every night) and her mom, Edna, shared her delish shrimp salad with us (leftover from her "girls" luncheon). And then of course we went to Busch's - a TI landmark this is a rambling white structure with a package goods store, two bars and an enormous dining room specializing in Jersey shore favorites: crab fingers, fried clams, burgers, everything parmagiana, salads of iceberg and Jersey tomatoes. Some yum, some less so. The second night we went they were supposed to have "Larry" doing his lounge act but he called in sick and a guy name Jack Johnson was playing guitar and singing really loudly - he's a session musician I think and was quite good and played all kinds of stuff but nothing danceable. So we each drank two of these tasty vodka gimlets with fresh lime - lip smacking good - and the next morning my head seemed like soggy felt and my tummy tied in a square knot! Nothing like a hangover for my bus ride to NYC - oh, well. Since everyone was calling us "girls" I guess it was okay to act like one. It was sooo wonderful to return to a place of my childhood and find all the really important things; the white sugar sand, the crisp slapping waves, the hazy blue skies and the green grass of the wetlands (just turning to autumn yellow) all unchanged. Did my skin and soul a world of good.
Plug o' the Post: Okay everyone, please read one or all of these (but especially the first) and then go find a McCain - Palin supporter and just ask "Why"? And keep asking, patiently and calmly, until they can't make a logical answer. And then just look at them. (Thanks to Matty Bloom and Meg Withers) #1: This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
9/13/08
For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who
are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it,
perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol
Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your
family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you
or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black
and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as
irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes
with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like
to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible,
all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six
years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of,
then returned to after making up some coursework at a community
college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to
achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as
unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first
place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with
about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of
Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people
don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S.
Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means
you're "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under
God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the
founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately
disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was
written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until
the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and
terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you
used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous
and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an
extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the
Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your
patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your#2: For women who would like to express your emphatic NO to Sara Palin, please email your thoughts to:womensaynopalin@gmail.com.
spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's
being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and
the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of
women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to
child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you
merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month
governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in
college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even
agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your
running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the
ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them
give your party a "second look."
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and
merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in
Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors
say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going
to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who
say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for
rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good
church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black
pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of
Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign
policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on
black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such
a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give
one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging
the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has
anything at all to do with your fitness for being president, while being
black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it
a "light" burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush
90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are
losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly
isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure
about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and
ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very
concrete and certain.
There is a write-up on ABC News regarding this blog: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/women-against-s.html.
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic,
different."
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
If your name is Barack yor're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, and you're a maverick.
Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black
President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that
registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law
professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with
over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human
Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a
state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the
Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs
committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
If your resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6
years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the
governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to
become the country's second highest ranking executive.
If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the
proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other
option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen
daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community,
then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent
America 's.
If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction
and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once
was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the
USA , your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
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