Sexism

Geraldine Ferraro had an article in the Boston Globe today complaining (once again) about the sexism that has been shown toward Hillary Clinton during this campaign season. Says Ferraro:

That sexism impacted Clinton's campaign, I have no doubt. Did she lose a close election because of sexism? I don't know. But I do know that it will never happen again as long as women are willing to stand up and make sure that it is just a one-time bad experience.

No, Hillary did not lose because she's a woman. And Obama did not win because he's black. I'm sure that residual sexism and racism (including the racism displayed by Ferraro herself, which got her kicked out of Hillary's campaign) played some role in how this primary election played out, but in the end I think the nation came to realize that Obama is simply a better campaigner and a better candidate. Why the Clinton supporters continue to deny this possibility so stubbornly is beyond me.

Unbelievable

"It was West Virginia that made it possible for John Kennedy to become president," [Hillary] Clinton told 400 supporters at a local high school. "John Kennedy didn't have the number of delegates he needed when he went to the convention in 1960; he had something equally as important - he had West Virginia behind him."

The support of West Virginia, a nearly all-white state with the 37th-highest population of all U.S. states, is "equally as important" as owning a lead in delegates, which by definition determines the presidential candidate. Hey, whatever supports your lost cause, Hill. Next she'll be telling us that the support of James Carville is more important than the support of every superdelegate combined.

"Democrats don't get elected president unless West Virginia votes for you," Hillary said. She failed to note that they also don't get elected if the vast majority of Democrats nationwide do not support their candidacy.

Time To Go, Hillary

When I tuned in and start following as the results were tallied in last night's Democratic primary processes, I found myself less than surprised. Early in the evening, Barack Obama had a humongous lead in North Carolina (where he has consistently dominated in the polls) and Hillary Clinton had a single-digit lead in Indiana (where she has led polls).

Yet, as the night went on, Clinton's lead in Indiana slowly began to shrink. From eight percent, to six percent, to three percent. By the end of the night, it actually appeared that Obama might pull off a major upset and take Indiana, but in the end he fell short by about 1.5 percent of the total vote.

Meanwhile, Obama crushed Clinton in NC. Several weeks ago, polls showed him with a nearly 25 percent lead in North Carolina, a state where the electorate demographics heavily favor him, but in recent days polls have shown that lead shrinking into the single-digits. Nevertheless, Obama defeated Clinton by about 16 percent, and in doing so, he effectively erased the gains she made with her victory in Pennsylvania.

It was a great night for Obama, and one that allows him to regain any "momentum" that he was thought to have lost over the past month or two. It's time for Hillary to drop out of this race. She has a 147-delegate deficit which she stands almost no chance whatsoever of erasing, and at this point she's only wasting her money and Obama's time/effort (which could be spent focusing on John McCain) by remaining in the race.

The arguments being made by Clinton's campaign and her supporters are nothing short of ridiculous. They cherry-pick election and poll results to make her case. "She wins the big states!" ... "She leads McCain in the polls in battleground states!" ... "She wouldn't be getting spanked so bad if Florida and Michigan were counted!"

Yeah, sorry to all those of you in the 32 states which have voted Obama (many in landslide fashion), your votes don't matter. Hillary should win because she's getting the majority of the votes in some of the larger states. That's democracy at its finest folks. Obama is winning BY THE RULES. Everything else is irrelevant. The rules dictate that the candidate with the most delegates is the winner, and Obama has a substantial delegate lead which will not dissipate. Michigan and Florida chose to break the rules (a set of rules which were supported by Clinton, by the way), so their votes aren't counted. It's that simple.

Here is an important point that seems like it's getting overlooked by all these rabid Hillary supporters who claim she is the most electable candidate. I think Clinton has clearly proven during this process is that she is a shitty campaigner. She entered this race as a clear favorite, but she has been completely overmatched by a young and inexperienced senator out of Illinois. Obama's campaign has out-earned Clinton's, and he's shown an impressive ability to overcome adversity (we've been hearing nothing but Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the past few weeks, yet look how much effect that had on his performance last night). I think people have really grown tired of the Clintons' "whatever it takes" philosophy -- which some have gone so far as to label "lying and cheating." I don't trust her ability to effectively campaign against McCain in the general election when she has been so thoroughly outperformed by Obama in the primaries.

Clinton can't win, and there's no reason for her to stay in this race. Time to bow out.

Bee in my bed

So the most bizarre thing happened to me the other day. I wake up for class, like any other day, and hop in the shower. Weird huh.



Posted by Devin E at 9:55 PM 0 comments




No, the weird part actually happened after the shower. I got dressed. Crazy, isn't it.


Posted by Devin E at 9:56 PM 9,000 comments


I lied again, really the abnormal part was I went to class. Odd, huh.



Posted by Craig at 9:57 PM -100 comments

Ok I'll stop fooling around. The REAL weird thing was, after the shower, I went back into my room to get ready, and on my pillow, inches from where my head rested moments earlier, was a GIANT bumblebee, sitting there motionless, just staring at me with it's little bee eyes! It was so eerie. After a few seconds it buzzed into the air and flew up to my ceiling fan... How did it get in?? I left my window open all day and upon returning that afternoon it was gone. But I have to say, I can think of no worse way to wake up than to get stung in the head by a giant bumblebee. What could be worse than that? I defy you to think of a worse way to wake up (within reason).


Oh also that night I went to bed. What a crazy day.

Cell Phones are for Phone Booths, Duh

Thought I'd share this story, as it was quite bizarre.

I'm walking to class today and I'm chatting with Devin on my cell phone, catching up on various things as he and I are wont to do. So suddenly this old man walks by and says to me, and I quote, "It's not a phone booth." Then as he's walking away he loudly mumbles, "... Prick."

I would have loved to have countered with some witty retort, but in truth, I was too blown away by his comment. This guy was lividly pissed at me, as if I had wronged him some horrible way. Apparently, in the mind of this senile old coot, cell phone usage should be restricted to phone booths. Now granted, I haven't paid much attention to state legislature as of late, so it is entirely possible that this may indeed be a law that was recently enacted, in which case I guess I'm just an ignorant criminal. Then again, I spotted at least three other students walking on the sidewalk and speaking on their cell phone as I finished my walk to class, so I guess this campus is just full of delinquents.

Every Day is Earth Day

Happy Earth Day. I hope that you were able to enjoy some of it out in our world, enjoying the weather.

Every single day is Earth day. How could it not be? Can you imagine a day not being a day sustained and made possible by the Earth? When we wake up tomorrow, will it somehow be human day, where the only thing we all need to live is humans? Will it be Mars day? No, it will always be Earth day. Maybe the calendar should have a little fine print on every square that says "This day made possible by the generous contributions of Mother Earth." I think a lot of people these days forget how intertwined we are with our natural world. Think about it. If I can urge you to do one thing on this day, change one behavior, it would be to look for the links.

When you prepare your dinner tonight, or order it in a restaurant, stop and think. Where did that pasta come from? Grains that were grown in the soil, given life by the Sun, and then mashed into long thin strips to be boiled in water which was recycled by the water cycle that has been persistent for billions of years. What about the tomatoes, or the lettuce in a salad? They were also grown in the ground. Where? On a farm, probably hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from where you are consuming it. Who brought it to you? People, human ingenuity, life. What about the meat, if you choose to consume meat today? The meat came from an animal that was raised on a farm, where a farmer diligently woke up every morning before you or I could ever imagine waking up unless we have some flight to catch. And the farmer woke up every day before the sun to feed and hopefully care for that animal. What did the animal eat? Corn, wheat, rice, soy. He sure as heck didn't eat chips, cookies, crackers, frozen pizzas, canned soups, or anything else that has to be processed. He ate from the ground. And he spent months and months growing up off of this food, living his life. Eventually when it came time for slaughter, the animal was butchered up, packaged, labeled, and shipped by human beings, far away from your table. What about your drink? Wine, beer? Grapes, hops, barley, etc, all grown naturally. Milk? Same story as the animal. Water? That one's a given. It may seem like you simply bought or ordered your food and then ate it, but it was not chance or coincidence that the food was made readily available for you. It all traveled from thousands of miles away to meet on your plate tonight.

Thinking about where our food comes from connects us to the land, to nature. Consider just where your meal came from. If you truly can't say, maybe think twice about putting it into your body.

What about the building you are living in or studying in? Was it built from the land? Yes. The wood was cut from trees in some forest far off, hopefully sustainably harvested (but not likely). The concrete came from cement; sands, limestones, water, and a few other natural products. The plaster in the walls (the drywall) is made from a mineral called gypsum which is mined from the Earth. How about bricks? Well they are natural too. Nails, steel, iron. Mined.

The paper in your book or notebook? Trees. The gas in your car - like it or not, came naturally from the Earth, by decomposition over millions of years of marine organisms. The electricity I am using to type this post with was generated from coal, which is mined from the ground, either in Wyoming or West Virginia probably. The coal was created naturally too, like oil.

It can be easy to forget this day-to-day, when we drive in our cars and live in our rooms, work in our offices, all which have benefited from human ingenuity to be the way they are, but have lost the obvious qualities of the natural world. If the car wasn't painted and looked like the rocks the metal was mined from, we'd see. If the walls had chunks of sand and rocks in them, we'd know. And if we wrote on slabs of wood, we'd get it. While we get a lot of use from our natural world, it is the idea of separateness, of us vs. nature, of nature being there solely for us to exploit, that is the problem. Understand that we rely on nature to sustain life, but also that nature is precisely that itself. Nature is life! So when you sit under a tree or simply pass one on your way to class or work, think about how much you share with that tree. How the tree sustains your life, but how you sustain the tree's life just the same.

If we could see those connections, then caring for the Earth would no longer be a feel-good virtue that we strive for or hope that we can "figure out," but rather a natural impulse, as organic and innate as caring for oneself.

HYPOCRITE!!!!

Seriously, Hillary??

After a debate Wednesday night in which moderators trained their ammunition on Barack Obama in what many view as an unfair manner, Obama complained about the line of questioning, which was aimed more at campaign blunders and trivial political matters than actual issues. Never missing a chance for a cheap shot, Hillary told the following to a FOX affiliate in Philadelphia:

"I know he spent all day yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked. Being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House. In fact, when the going gets tough, you just can't walk away because we're going to have some very tough decisions that we have to make."

Isn't this the same woman that once said "maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow" during a February debate? She was playing off of an SNL sketch in that instance, and my guess is that she was half-joking, but she's made no secret of her long-held viewpoint that the media goes too easy on Obama. Yet, when the tables are turned and Obama complains about being treated unfairly, she paints it as some sort of character flaw.

I do not like Hillary Clinton. I really don't. I would strongly consider voting for McCain if she was the Democratic nominee.