A Wild Friday Night

Most college students, even the self-proclaimed "hard-core partiers" stayed in to watch the presidential debate. Despite McCain's nervous chuckles, and Obama interchanging the names "Tom" and "John," most students concluded that neither candidate made any serious blunders. And, therefore, most students admit that there was no clear "winner" of this debate. Both candidates did well. John McCain surprised us with his good answers concerning the economy, and Barack Obama did well when discussing his "weakness": foreign policy.

Next Thursday, the Vice-Presidential Debates will be aired.

"I don't even care that I'm missing Grey's Anatomy," a fellow college student said. "For once, Meredith and Derek have to take a back-seat to reality."

John McCain: "Older than the Chocolate Chip Cookie?"

Things Younger Older Than John McCain





John McCain, is not, however, older than his mother.

Refreshing

Senator McCain and Obama at Ground Zero, on September 11th.



It's nice to know that two people can set aside their differences. Even if only for one day.

There is Meaning Behind the Humor

Feminism and the Election

The following is written by Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

From White Castle to the Campaign Trail

Anuj Gupta, Border State Director for Barack Obama's Campaign for Change in Virginia, spoke to American University students today. His speech concerned the importance of Virginia as a "defining state," and deatailed his experiences on the campaign trail.

In a Question and Answer session, Gupta responded to a question about the impact of celeberity supporters on Obama's campaign. Gupta stated that, while celeberity endorsments often cast a bad light onto the canidates they support, there is such a thing as "good celebrity support."

He listed the example of Kal Penn, of the Harold and Kumar movie series, as being one such positive supporter. Gupta stated that Penn is working with the Obama's campaign. He goes door- to - door, informing potential voters about their options, and speaking at campaign rallies.



This is true.

It is also true that some celberties, in their haste to help out, do not always present themselves with as much composure as the Obama Campaign would hope. For example, view this video featuring actress Scarlett Johansson talking about her love for Obama.

Bristol's Pregnant.... So What?

The political world was rocked when Sarah Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, was 5 months pregnant.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family,” the statement said. “We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,” Sarah Palin stated.

When asked if his campaign had helped add fuel to the fire, Obama responded with frustration. “Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be,” Obama said. “And if I ever thought there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired, O.K.?” He went on to add that this “has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. My mother had me when she was 18. How a family deals with issues and teen-age children — that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics.I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.”

Yet, the press, especially the bloggers, refuse to do anything of the sort.

Monica Guzman, an on-line reporter for seattlepi.com, wrote: "The debate about Bristol Palin isn't really about Bristol Palin. It isn't even about teenage pregnancy. The most angry exchanges in this conversation are about political consistency."

"Liberals are mad that social conservatives, who have so often linked teenage pregnancy with social decay, are giving their blessing to the Palin family. And conservatives are mad that liberals, who have so often linked conservatism with intolerance, are not praising the Palin family for supporting their daughter," laments Guzman.

Yet, still others raise another issue: "How can Governor Palin preach abstinence when her own daughter gets pregnant so young, obviously an unplanned pregnancy," asks "William" on an on-line fourm.

Megahn McCain "supports Bristol" in a emotional blog post. "The first political convention I ever attended was when my mom was pregnant with me in 1984 and the Republican Party nominated Ronald Reagan for a second term as President. I have been on political stages and in campaigns since before I could walk or talk. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that it is difficult to establish your identity and independence as the son or daughter of a politician. When I was 14 years old, a reporter questioned my father about me having a hypothetical abortion, had I been pregnant at 14. This reporter's question single-handedly changed my life. This story comes up in almost every profile written about me and in almost every interview. It's a rough go being the son or daughter of a politician. I have not known Bristol Palin very long, but there is a certain kinship I feel to her as I do other political daughters such as Chelsea Clinton, Jenna and Barbara Bush and Mary Cheney. You can't fully understand it unless you have lived it. So I just wanted to let it be known that I support Bristol and the entire Palin family."

Still others are disgruntled that McCain "chose Sarah Palin in order to lure in women voters." The New York Times on-line asks: "Can you cross out 'Hillary' and write 'Sarah?'"

Of course not.

On the battles rage. Tonight, Palin will speak at the RCN. Good luck, Palin. You have a lot ahead of you.

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