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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Published Letters: 329 Editor's Choice: 37
Was Rush Limbaugh all over the airwaves in 1995 spewing garbage? I thought so. Because that would have made him a huge part of the machine that helped bring us the OKC bombings. And then there was Eric Rudolph, and more recently the young white dude who stockpiled heavy artillery in his apartment and killed two NYPD police officers. And now the FBI is warning that the possibility of domestic terrorism is increasing again among right-wing wackos, as it did in the 1990s under another hugely popular, successful Democrat. Except, of course, that this Democrat is black, which makes it all the scarier.
You know, I thought maybe Wanda Sykes had gone over the line with the comment about hoping Limbaugh's kidneys fail. (It was kind of lame. She should have substituted "liver"--now, that would be funnier.) Now, actually, I'm wondering if it'll be necessary for the good of the country.
These aren't the smart people; they're simply liberally-inclined people (mostly) whose hypergraphia may give them a temporary appearance of intelligence. In some cases I'm guessing that they no longer have the ability to read an entire two-page article and simply start hammering away at their keyboards about two paragraphs in, trying to be frist or whatever.
I had to laugh at your suggestion about kittens, though.
Look, I know what it's like to be judged. I'm married, but I don't have children, and therefore I'm considered less mature, less responsible, less compassionate, less unselfish, less wise and above all, less of a woman because I'm not a mother.
It didn't even occur to me to think about Sonia Sotomayor's marital status until Rodriguez brought it up. I don't care. Janet Reno wasn't married. Janet Napolitano wasn't married. Condoleeza Rice wasn't married (and I thought she did an abysmal job, but she was still a very smart, accomplished woman in a position of great responsibility). I was more interested in her qualifications, and if her gender entered into it at all, it was along the lines of her being a formidable woman who won't take any shit from anyone (unlike Rice, who got all whiny and wheedly under pressure, or Palin, who got along on her looks and ability to wink).
It almost seems like Rodriguez is attempting, rather gratuitously, to make a tenuous link between Sotomayor and gay marriage, because, you know, gay marriage is the linchpin of America's future, and whether or not two people of the same sex can get married is absolutely key to stopping our economy from bleeding out, reducing the growing number of families who are losing their jobs, home, and any semblance of basic health care, ending two ineffective wars against terrorism, and keeping another ice shelf from sliding into the Arctic Ocean.
He also seems to be insinuating, through this tenuous association, that Sotomayor, because she's unmarried, may be a lesbian, like all those other strong, take-no-shit-from-men women in high positions of power who just never married for one reason or another. You know, I kind of resent that, too, the assumption that if a woman is able to act like a man, and doesn't seem to need a man, that she must be playing for the other team. Even Hillary doesn't get a pass (it's just a marriage of convenience, she's a closet lesbian, etc). God forbid a straight woman should be able to have a full life without the need for penetration.
Seriously. This is not a mothering issue, this is a parenting issue. I have two objections to this: one, I'm tired of mothers hijacking feminism, as I'm not a mother; and--more seriously--two, lumping parenting in with feminism feminizes parenting.
If we want to tie it tangentially to feminism (and I don't see any genders ascribed to these teachers) we might consider this: that teaching is a largely female occupation, and that this is partly because women have traditionally been shepherded into it and away from other jobs for which they might be better suited. Perhaps that doesn't explain the abuse, but it would go a long way towards explaining why there are so many incompetent female teachers and administrators--education is a low-status, low-paying field that involves working with children, one at which men are more likely to turn up their noses, and women have been told from an early age that this is what they're expected to settle for, whether they're good at it or not. (I don't mean to come off sounding like I'm slamming teaching, just that it's been degraded through feminization.)
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
