29 and Holdin'

I just received the best card EVER. I finally emerged from the bat cave around 3 to head over to the post office to pick up a mysterious package (check from Daddy??). It turns out it was from auntie sash! As I made my way home (after a brief stop at the bodega for a 40, potato chips and spinach dip, yes I am pregnant), I couldn't resist the urge to open the package. As I attempted to free the darling little package from alcatraz-like tape-enings, I thought, is she channeling her mother, my grandmother? We used to receive gifts from Gramma Schmidt and if she hadn't given us swiss army knives that one year, we NEVER would have gotten INTO the packages.

Anyhoo, I DID finally get INTO the auntie sash package and found the most AMAZING card (pictured here). Crumpled dollar bills, a stick of gum, some change, three paperclips (the purple is my favorite of course), a 60 cent off coupon for hot sauce and, of course, a spork were the contents. I BURST INTO LAUGHTER as I read the sticky note attached that read: A "channeling Gramma Schmidt" birthday moment. OMG. As I began to straighten out the money I thought, yes, Gramma Schmidt would put a lot of thought into meticulously emptying her purse into a birthday card, sure. But, Auntie SASH? Would she really send me $48? And then I counted the change. 1 dollar coin, three quarters, a dime, two nickels and five pennies round it out to a lovely and hilarious $50. LOVE IT.

Also, in the care package are lovely lotions, a single serve of easymac (a drunk man's best friend), a pin that reads, "Bitch covered bitch with a creamy bitch filling," a magnate that reads, "What happens over the rainbow stays over the rainbow," a box of purple chocolate candies (yes purple chocolate candies), a bumper sticker, "Sorry Girls, I'm Gay" (which I will be promptly delivering to the stage door of Spamalot), an air freshener that depicts a fellow drinking a cocktail that states, "Being an asshole is ALL Part of My Manly Essence," and (other than the Gramma Schmidt card) the piece de resistance:

My favorite magnets included are:
1. I HATE THE FACT THAT YOU PEOPLE DON'T SALUTE ME
2. HELL WAS FULL SO I CAME BACK
3. TAKE YOUR PROJECT ELSEWHERE (which is going ON MY DESK ON MONDAY)
4. But Enough About Me...What do YOU think of ME?
and finally
5. Treat Me No Differently Than You Would The QUEEN.

Surprise of the Century

His baby's name is Carter.

From Eve Ensler re: Sarah Palin

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for 'The Vagina Monologues', wrote the following about Sarah Palin

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 mo st 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 herself20of 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 ma ny 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=2 0the 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?

Eve Ensler September 5, 2008

GOBAMA!

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/16/anne_lamott/index.html

http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html


Yours,
Ladel Torque Palin