Livingston, I Presume

Update on Common Sense 2006

Looks like I wasn't the only one getting push-polled last night. Matt's post here and here (and the comments) provide the most info about what's going on. Sleazy, hypocritical bastards.

Common Sense 2006?

Does anybody know who these people are?

Pardon me for not having time to do all the research right now, but I just got what would seem to me to be a completely illegal push poll automated call. The disclaimer at the end said it was paid for by Common Sense 2006, which in my preliminary Googling seems to be a health and multivitamin company?!? That can't be right.

Anyway, here's the meat of the call, transcribed from memory as my digicorder was unfortunately in the other room.

"We're conducting a sixty-second political poll. Are you planning to vote in the upcoming U.S. Senate race? Are you planning to vote for Conrad Burns? Are you planning to vote for Jon Tester?"

So far, all standard. Then...

"Do you believe that parents should have the right to choose the best schools for their children?"

Uh-oh.

"Do you believe that the sacred bonds of marriage in Montana should be limited to one man and one woman?"

Definitely suspicious now.

"Would you still vote for Jon Tester even if you knew that he had voted to raise taxes some $60 million (figure is hazy for me) and has refused to sign a no-tax-increase pledge? Conrad Burns has never voted to raise your taxes and has pledged never to do so." (Italics mine.)

Is it just me or did they just cross a line?

The tagline said that the poll had been paid for by Common Sense 2006, with a treasurer named Susan Carson (again, hazy). I'd be interested to know who's bankrolling them and if this is, in fact, illegal. Especially since I'm having a vague remembrance of Connie trying to hang Tester out for using automated calling...

Help me out here, blogosphere. My toddler is agitating to get up (thanks to the phone ringing) and I can't make him nap any longer.

Edited to add: My caller ID reveals a Northern Virginia number registered to S2006: 703-961-9120.

Come on, Salon!

Anybody who has read much of my blog knows by now that I generally love Salon. It's one of the first sites I read in the morning, and that morning ritual has gone on now for probably eight years. I'm a subscriber to the site and have given subscriptions as gifts. I strongly support their mission of independent journalism and appreciate that they mix it up with entertaining, lighter features.

All that said, could we PLEASE get off the George Allen watch? It's not that I love Senator Allen or want to see him get re-elected, but come on. Today's contribution runs with the ridiculous-sounding subhed: "A Lynchburg, Va., man says he remembers hearing about George Allen shoving a severed deer head into a mailbox during an early-'70s hunting trip."

Somebody remembers hearing something about something that somebody else did more than 30 years ago and it's news? To me, this smacks of Swift-boating. I know that one of the perennial problems that Democrats have in getting elected is that we're all too nice and too ethical, but is this the way it has to be?

George Allen--like a certain Montana Senator with whom we are all familiar--is doing a great job of hanging himself currently. We don't need a news source we rely on for solid investigative journalism to seem as if they are gathering the rope and rubbing hands with glee.

Edited to add: The story has now been confirmed, with its fully sourced version replacing the one I originally linked to up top. So mea culpa, and thanks to Jay for pointing out the confirmation. This Internet thing sure does move fast!

Disgusting

The Bozeman Chronicle this morning offered a sneak peak into the next set of anti-Tester mailers going out to Montana voters. They are, in a word, loathesome.

A new flier soon to hit mailboxes accuses U.S Senate candidate Jon Tester of failing to protect children from sexual predators because he voted against a bill requiring Internet filters at public libraries.

The flier, paid for by the Montana Republican Party, shows a picture of a cowering little girl hugging a teddy bear. The caption under it states, “Violent sexual predators are out there.”

Do I even need to outline the subtext here? I can just see the thinking at the headquarters:

Hmmmm...terrorists aren't scaring people like they used to. People are starting to wise up to the Dear Leader's role in encouraging terrorism around the world. For some reason, gays aren't inciting the same knee-jerk reaction either. What in the hell are we going to use to scare people into supporting the corrupt status quo? Oh, wait! Do you know what *still* terrifies people? CHILD MOLESTORS! BOOGETY BOOGETY BOOGETY!!!

I am a parent. Obviously, sexual predators are a fear of mine. But to equate a thumbs-down on library filters to giving child molestors a pass? That's just f*cked up. Interestingly, according to the article, only 12 senators voted to support the bill in 2001. Thirty-seven legislators, many of them Republicans, voted against it right alongside Jon Tester.

To my mind, when you have to trot out child molestors to try to elect your candidate, you must be pretty desperate--pretty sleazy, and pretty desperate.

Edited to add: Matt has a great examination of why this mailer is not just loathesome but double-plus ultra disgusting. Blame the rape victim much?

Bad mommy blogger

I am already at seven minutes over Connery's normal naptime, so I'm tempting fate severely, but I did want to at least acknowledge my continued blog existence. I've been working hard on several stories and have not felt like forming any more sentences than I had to. (You can tell from that oh-so-graceful construction that in reality I've been sparing you from awkward prose.)

Besides, what is there to blog about these days? It's not as if there's an important campaign going on or any key debates in our nation's capital. I mean, it would be one thing if people were rioting in Hungary or there had been a coup in Thailand.

Thank heavens there's nothing like that afoot.

Ann Richards, an appreciation

One of the first things I heard this morning on NPR was that Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, had died of cancer. I always considered her to be a personal hero, and I'm sorry to hear that she's not with us anymore.

In 1999 I was working a job that I did not love. It involved a lot of sales, a lot of cold calling, a lot of short-trip travel. About the only good thing was that schmoozing was a daily expectation, and so I was able to get the company to pay for my admission to a women's leadership day conference in Springfield, Massachusetts. I remember nothing about that day except that it was held in a downtown hotel in lovely (not!) Springfield and Ann Richards.

Richards was one of the featured speakers, and I think perhaps, in the eyes of the organizers, she may have gone a little off script. I don't remember anything about the other speakers, but I think that's because they all stuck to safe platitudes about using our girl power to eventually achieve equality. When Richards was introduced, all platitudes (and bets) were off.

One of the things she said has stuck with me ever since. It may not be something she thought up, but she explained it better than anyone I've heard before or since. I wish I had the actual quotation, but the gist of it was her twang-laced rhetorical question, "How is it that both working moms and welfare queens can be causing the downfall of our society?" What she meant by that was that most women are thrown into a guilt complex no matter what choices they make. Middle class married women with children who choose to work are told that their children will be aggressive and detached, while poor mothers on welfare are forced to get sub-minimum-wage jobs, sometimes hours away from their homes, with no provision made for their kids. How can we, as a society, not see the disconnect there?

Richards saw the disconnect, and she wasn't afraid to speak it. Rest in peace, Governor Richards. You will be missed.

Edited to add: Salon.com has posted a nice tribute to her on their site this afternoon, written by Liz Smith. As always with Salon, if you're not a subscriber, you may have to sit through an ad. But why aren't you a subscriber?

Worth a look

An old friend of mine from college has recently moved to Jerusalem for intensive Hebrew language studies in preparation for rabbinical school in Germany next fall. He's been blogging about his experiences, and I'm really enjoying the read. Today he posted about the ordination of Germany's first rabbis since the Holocaust. I first read about the story in an Associated Press article and immediately wanted to send it to Paul. When I went to his site, I found his own thoughts on this milestone, as well as a very impressive translation that he did from an article in Die Zeit that highlights one of the three men who is to be ordained, a Czech.

I've never considered myself to be a conventionally religious person, but I really enjoy reading about issues of faith as presented by deeply religious and thoughtful people. I guess the key in that sentence is thoughtful. There's nothing blind or rote about what I read on Paul's blog, and for that I'm grateful.

Houston, we have a problem

This is my new phone. It's sleek. It's got a camera. It takes short videos. I could watch TV on it, for heaven's sake. But best of all, it was free with our contract renewal.

The problem is that the receiver is so sensitive that I apparently sound like a crank call pervert when I breathe. I noticed it first when I was recording my voice mail greeting, which sounded a little like this:

(SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH): "Luke, you've reached my voice mail, Luke." (EXHALE LIKE DARTH VADER WITH A HEAD COLD) "Oh, and, Luke? I'm your father." (INTAKE OF BREATH)

This is a problem, as I use my mobile phone for business. It's going to be very impressive to do interviews with people while they are wondering if I'm going to ask next if they have Prince Albert in a can or threaten the Jedi with extinction.

The mystery of gendering

Sometime within the last few weeks, Connery has become acutely aware of gender roles and where he thinks he fits in. This is somewhat distressing to me, because we have worked hard--I think--to try to show him that girls and boys can do anything and that no one gender is better and so on. We are the kind of fuzzy-headed liberal parents who didn't even want to find out whether we were having a girl or boy for fear of pre-birth gendering (and the inevitable onslaught of pink or blue toys and clothes).

We did our nursery in neutral greens and yellows and, although we called pre-born Connery "Cletus" (the Fetus, doncha know), I actually had a feeling that we were having a girl. I was as shocked as anyone when the attending physician said excitedly, "I feel balls!" (He was breech, and I swear it sounded less vulgar in Czech, though perhaps not to native Czech speakers.)

Throughout his baby and toddlerhood, I've attempted to emphasize gender equality, even in the face of books like The Good Humor Man, in which "mommies left their kitchens and daddies left their lawn mowers" to go meet the ice cream truck. I'm not above rewriting on the fly to make things less sexist, though I know the literary purists will scream. And yet, Connery is still, at not-quite-three, acutely aware of what is "for girls" and what is for him.

Last week, right on schedule for the Con-man's upcoming birthday bash, Birthday Express sent their catalog of party accessories. It's laid out in one or two-page spreads that show all the items available to have a Spongebob party, a dinosaur party, a pirate party--you name it. Last year he had Nemo--again, pretty neutral in my view--and so I thought I'd let him look through to see what kinds of party themes were available. Flip--dog party. Check. Liked that one. Flip--Cars party. Check. Liked that one. Flip--Disney Princesses. Immediate page turn. When I asked him about it, he said, "That's a GIRL'S party." Every other page with any hint of pink or a girl character--even Dora!--was just as summarily dispatched.

Then last night we were discussing the possibility of dance class. Connery took a gymnastics class a while back and loved it, and dance is one of the few organized physical activities for kids that allows three-year-olds. So I asked him about it. The first thing he asked? "Is that class for little boys? Will there be other little boys there?"

Of course we said yes, but I don't want to lie to him. When we got the dance registration form today, it was just as gendered as Connery's party rules. All of the classes had guidelines about what should be worn for each class. For the class at Connery's level? Pink leotard with pink tights. Real inclusive. And each dancer will be given a princess teddy bear. What kind of uphill battle am I fighting here?

I'm not trying to make Connery's life harder by forcing him into a role of some child soldier in the battle of the sexes. I just would have thought that by 2006, enrolling a boy-child in a dance class would not be an act of tremendous rebellion. And yet, when I think back to that gymnastics class, Connery was the only boy there. He didn't mind then, but he would mind now. He would want to know why there weren't any other boys there.

So we'll go and watch a class, but we'll probably end up with no organized physical activities for him this year. When he's four, we might be able to try martial arts or soccer. It grates on me, though, that no one would think twice about encouraging a girl to take karate--as I did, and loved, growing up--but boys' activities are still stuck in tradition-land.