And, Also, Palin

We thought the word “mavericks” dominated the debate. I enjoyed the many maverick references FriendFeeders dug up. It’s tough to say who’s cuter, Sarah Palin, Tom Cruise in Top Gun, or that awkward Ford that knew it could. There, however, was another word lurking in every nook and cranny…

There’s been a ton of fun with Palin’s words. From mad libs to sentence diagrams only an English teacher is mad enough to map out. If you missed the clips from the Couric interview, it looked something like this:

*Biden’s Wordle is available here.

New Theme Song for the New James Bond

Have you heard the new Bond theme? You either love Jack White or don’t know what you’re missing so I encourage to give this a chance. I only recently saw Casino Royale and was completely blown away by the new bad ass quotient.

I think this theme song might be perfect for the new James Bond.

Palin-o-rama

I know it’s been far too long. Our two ardent readers let us know they missed us and for that, we thank them. So what hot-button issue dragged me back from the techmines (deep caverns where silicon and hot air are found in abundance)? Oh what do you think? It starts with a P and ends with an embarrassing McGovern-style withdrawal buried in a Saturday morning news cycle. As a blog that deals heavily in sharp women around the world, we’d be remiss not to address the candidate everyone’s talking about.

The core issue here, even more so with McCain’s advanced age and cancer history, is whether we want Gov. Palin to run our country. I’ve always found it odd, by the way, that such a vital position in our government is *not* left up to the voters; that it’s essentially determined by a team of lawyers and political strategists. But that’s what we’re stuck with for the moment, so let’s work with it. McCain’s team (and it’s known now that McCain wanted Lieberman instead) chose Palin for many reasons, some smart and some not so smart.

Hope Rhymes

NY Times blog, The Caucus, included just a short note on Ted Sorenson, once Kennedy’s speech writer. On a book signing tour, Mr. Sorenson responded with poetry when asked to compare Senator Obama and President Kennedy.

From a Seamus Heaney poem, “The Cure at Troy”:

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme

Sorenson added one final thought, ““I’ve seen it two times in my lifetime.”

Reagan’s Wit and Occasional Wisdom

Citing President Lincoln’s quip, “If I didn’t laugh, I couldn’t stay in this job 15 minutes,” President Reagan used his own political wit to great effect. Some of his remarks are even funnier in retrospect. Don’t miss the line about the Taxpayers’ American Express card the big spenders never leave home without. Would he be talking about his own party today?

With all the recent talk about votes who want change, both in policies and in their pockets, I’d like to get that credit card back in my wallet! I’d also like to cut up the card that’s keeping Hillary’s campaign going!

Like Dancing with a Hurricane

This post has already weathered a number of incarnations. From celebrating a couple of tough women to hating their mangled faces to reveling in the independence they represent. I may still not know how this is going to end but it begins with yesterday’s Oprah show. The stage was set in Las Vegas and the show began with a sequence of clips celebrating the musical careers of Cher and Tina Turner.

Did you know Cher is the only female performer to have top ten hits in every decade since the 60’s? I didn’t but it doesn’t surprise me. From my perspective, it does seem like she has always been there.

It felt something like flipping through my mother’s forgotten album collection and I was too curious to stop looking. I haven’t been an avid fan of either of these ladies so I won’t be able to dance with you over their accomplishments. What I began to see, however, is the role these women played as touchstones. That too seems to be something stretching across generations.

When Cher claimed the stage with electric blue hair, she was the picture of celebrating who you and where you are. Who can’t fall in love with that? She sat down to talk to Oprah and I was struck by her soft and quiet responses. I think this has puzzled me before, this quietness that’s as solid as stone and says I’ll hold my ground against any of them. Oprah’s appreciation of Cher’s daring is present throughout the conversation. I think my mother, who completed her entire education at St. Wendelin’s Catholic School and Ohio Dominican College, secretly admired that brazen sexiness too. My mother would never admit it, but Oprah is now reveling in it. Her eyes are on fire throughout the interview as though she now has electric blue hair.

I remember Cher’s attempt to turn back time in the 90’s. I didn’t care much for the music but knew I wanted to be able to rock like that when I was 50, if that’s what I decided to do. As a young woman just starting college I wasn’t sure I’d have my own internal combustion engine. That’s what I saw in Cher, unbridled horsepower.

Next on the show was Tina Turner. Apparently these two women first performed together nearly 30 years ago and would sing “Proud Mary” together one more time for Oprah. Tina, now 68, sat next to Cher for a chat amongst girlfriends. Sonny and Ike were mentioned as only one event of their long careers. Oprah asked about the money either of them owed to their exes after the break-ups and Tina turned to Cher to ask, “How could you have owed Sonny anything?” These were two women who knew they had it and now wondered how they ever doubted themselves.

In this celebration of two larger-than-life divas, this was a perfect “every woman” moment. Cher spoke about her stage fright and how daunting it was to consider dancing on stage with Tina Turner, “it’s like dancing with a hurricane.” There is something more natural about Tina’s raw power.

My Thirty Cents on the Gas Tax

Hillary is trying to buy votes at the cost of $.30 a day by repealing the federal gas tax. That’s an annual price tag of $28 she has put on her desperate campaign and it’s an idea running on empty.

This sorely underestimates the intelligence of the voting public as well. Who believes oil companies will pay the gas tax reinvented as a windfall profit tax without raising the price at the pump? There’s nothing prohibiting the oil companies from adjusting their price after the government adjusts their costs. And, there are just a few of us who remember the gas lines the last time Congress tried to fix the price of gas.

On ABC’s This Week today, Hillary said she doesn’t need an economist’s approval to know this is an idea that works for working Americans. This is more governing from the gut directed towards earning the allusive political capital she thought she had in the bag. I’d like to hear the new ideas experts believe could work for all of us, something that works for the next three months and the next three years.

Hillary’s proposal isn’t just about the short term as she insisted. It’s simply short sighted. This proposed holiday will put a few extra pennies in the average American’s pockets for a few days but that change will continue to do less and less for us without real solutions.

She can keep my thirty cents because I want more. I want 50 mpg to be the norm the next time I shop for a car and I want a concern about global warming to drive government decision making like it drives my decisions at home. Is it hard? yes. Is it more expensive? Yes. But I believe I’m worth it and protecting our future quality of life is more important than empty rhetoric about punishing the oil companies.

This isn’t their problem, it’s ours. They’re the suppliers and we’re the addicts and those roles will persist until we do something to break that addiction. We don’t need a price break. We need an intervention.

The Song that Takes You There

This starts with a confession. Getting ready for work this morning, I heard John Cougar’s “Jack and Diane” and enjoyed it. A cloud of powder had settled settled across my nose and the miracle eye cream had just infiltrated fine lines and wrinkles. In an instant, that reality disappeared as the song convinced my head I was thirteen again with a world full of possibilities.

It isn’t a new phenomena but the power of the right song to transcend the continuum of time and space amazes me every time. One of Einstein’s theories of time provides for every instance of ourselves to continue to exist in each moment we’ve lived. A song with the perfect wavelength provides a wormhole that transports you directly back to one of those moments. As if admitting a moment of joy over “Jack and Diane” wasn’t enough, I’ve been contemplating what other songs work as mile markers like this.

Here’s a mildly unashamed walk through my life via the music that somehow defined it. If you snicker even once, you owe me your own confession in the comments…

“I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News takes me back to a pivotal moment in my family life. We were moving from Ohio to Texas in the early 80’s. Part of the moving plan included my dad driving his 1979 Ford Mustang to Texas and then taking a Greyhound bus back to Ohio to drive the U-Haul. I was a lucky fifth-grader who was able to tag along for the adventure. I imagined myself to be a great writer and wrote a story about Pac-Man while we were on the road. When I hear the heartbeat of this Huey Lewis and the News song, I can imagine the wheels spinning down the road, the red vinyl, and my incredible journey….with my dad and Pac Man!

Ok, this one hurts a little. You might snicker but then you owe me your owe me!

I can’t hide my middle school self’s joy when “Footloose” gets time on the radio. A very good friend of mine died our freshman year of high school and I’m pretty convinced she would point to this 8th grade slumber party at her as one of the best times of her life. Our small group of friends danced and danced and danced in the living room that night. We played Light as a Feather with St. Elmo’s Fire playing in the background. When I hear this song I can still see all the stuff in her mother’s china cabinet bouncing back and forth with us as we…uh…cut footloose.

Yeah, I’m groaning over that one too but sometimes you just have to embrace it.

And the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Revere” is an instant celebration. I still know all the words to it too. A friend and I spent most of our time in Algebra trading lines from Beastie Boys songs. We were trying to figure our lives out and it was easier to imagine this song would reveal a secret than it was to think Algebra would have anything to do with it.

I still don’t understand how that cynical student became a teacher but I did. Rancid’s “Time Bomb” takes me straight back to those first three years of teaching when I was on the verge of becoming a statistic. 50% of our new teachers leave the profession within the first three years. I understood why and Rancid helped me funnel the rage through their frantic and driving music while I made sense of my adult life.

Before this becomes “This is Your Life the Mixtape,” let me ask…what song takes you there?

PA Results Still a Losing Proposition for Clinton

Watching PA results this evening. I have to admit I’m disappointed it wasn’t closer but it’s still a clear testimony to the strength of Obama’s candidacy. He was behind by double digits just a week ago. The days since then have included many swipes by the Clintonistas, and Senator Obama provided an opportunity with his careless remarks about rural voters.

PA was Clinton’s to run with from here to the convention but she can’t do it despite miserable media for Obama. She doesn’t even have the kitchen sink left for the next two weeks and is millions of dollars in debt. And, what about those pesky math problems?

Chuck Todd reported Clinton would need to win more than 80% of the vote in the remaining primary states to walk into the convention with the competitive tone she has imagined. In everyone else’s book that equation works out to a zero chance of winning the nomnination.

A tight Obama win in IN and maintaining a double digit win in NC should take care of it, even for those who believe math is open to debate.

A 3 A.M. Smackdown and No More Debate

David Brooks started it on Meet the Press this Sunday. He suggested we’re all tired of the debates and he has never been so right. He then questioned why we use this model for selecting a president. When the phone rings at 3 A.M. will it be a national security crises or another question from the media determined to draw blood?

His proposal was war games. With the next debate on ice, perhaps we can consider this alternative.

Lock the presidential candidate and a team of advisers in a make-believe bunker. Saudi Arabia has military vehicles in motion and appears to be preparing to fire a nuclear weapon at Israel. What do you do? Have the writing team for West Wing provide the responses to the candidates’ proposed actions. Who launches our military firepower the fastest and what steps do they take first?

That might tell you something that matters about the would-be President.

Whatever you thought of the moderators last week, does anyone really want to listen to another 20 minute discussion about universal healthcare with and without mandates? Plenty of people are watching this primary who have never watched before and we’re all tired of the nuanced arguments that make a negative ad positive. This is politics as a spectator sport and the spectators are bored.

Let’s give them something to see…What should replace any remaining debates?

A reality TV show where candidates are charged with growing a financial investment or charitable contribution? Don’t forget the popular vote by phone or text at the end of each episode!

A smackdown in the wrestling ring with silly slogans and threats tossed at opponents?

A monster car event with a fire breathing robosaurus whatever his opponent would be?

A NASCAR race? Ask the candidate to explain the winning strategy in terms of balancing resources and maintaining position to win.