But on the days and nights its hard to breathe
and you can’t believe you still walk the streets
stretch out your weary hand to me—it’s alright
And if you’re not content to just believe
and if you don’t consent to just let it be
stretch out your legs and dance with me all night

So I don’t usually write about very personal things on here. I try not to write about things that are very personal, mostly because I don’t think that my political/socioeconomic/religious/culinary/musical views have anything at all to do with what I write about here, but I’m all het up and I’m going to use my meager little platform to work it all around in my head. Feel free to stop reading here, but there is booze involved further on down the post.

As I’m sure have all experienced, the election is everywhere these days. I can’t turn around but run into a sign for something-or-another and, frankly, it’s getting a little annoying. I’m not affiliated with any party or platform, so I’m pretty much over being pandered and proselytized to in a futile effort to win my vote. I registered without a party affiliation for a reason: because I don’t want to be inculcated with empty talking points ad nauseam. Not that you can get away from a fair chunk of it if you’re breathing, but I avoid what I can and swear a vicious blue streak at the morons with “Yes on 8″ bumper stickers on their cars. I’m generally pretty tolerant but they and their small-minded bigotry can skip on off down the primrose path to Hell. (Before you waste your time leaving a comment about my sinful ways, I’m not going to approve it. Please feel free to wander off elsewhere and spread some bile.)

I grew up in a family where voting was considered a civic obligation. If you’re a thinking person that makes you a citizen and a member of this “democracy.” It wasn’t until later that I learned about the difference between a democracy and a republic, about what the word “representative” means and why the electoral college matters. When I was growing up it was all togas and Founding Fathers and a reasoned belief in allowing people to govern themselves. As you might have gathered, I was a relatively sheltered child.

Fast forward a few decades and here we are, at the center of DECISION 2008: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER DO IN YOUR LIFE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE OF ALL TIME. I have watched all the debates. I have endured countless hours of outrageous and only very occasionally insightful political commentary. It’s all happened, and nothing thus far has made me feel as though my cynicism is unwarranted. Then again, thus far nothing has upset me nearly as much as an argument I had tonight.

My mother, the very woman who has mattered most in my life, the one who raised me to be proud and strong and think for myself, the woman who found it so important that I avoid being swayed by any religion before I was old enough to make a reasoned decision about faith, who told me amazing stories of her adventures across India and Africa, who was so incensed by anyone ever telling her what to do about anything (including her body)—that woman told me that she doesn’t find Sarah Palin to be an appalling and pathetic excuse for a female role model. Sarah Palin! A woman who thinks that we should be forced to carry to term the product of the most base and brutal act that can be perpetrated upon a woman. A woman who thinks that drilling for oil is so much more important than preserving the few natural habitats that are left. A woman who can’t even name a major American court case besides Roe v. Wade—not Brown v. Board of Education, not Miranda v. Arizona, not Plessy v. Ferguson. Not the cases even the most remedial social studies class requires its students to memorize! As a matter of fact, my mother finds Biden to be more suspect than Palin. As previously stated, I am no lover of the Democratic party, but she doesn’t think that Biden’s years of experience make him more qualified to lead the government than Palin.

I’m as big a proponent of women as you’ll find, but I just can’t back Sarah Palin. (Before you get all het up, I am not a Hilary fan, either.) I hate being pandered to, I really hate being lied to and I really, really hate when a woman is trotted out to represent “progress” for femalekind. Firstly, you have about as much of a chance of finding one woman to represent all of us as you have of getting tickets to next week’s Cowboys game. Secondly, while a female Vice President would be a great thing, it’s only progress if she isn’t standing on a mountain of values that undermine rights for everyone, including women. As a friend said, “If I want folksy I’ll go to the Cracker Barrel, but not really, because fried food will kill you. Is the greeter at Wal-Mart any more real than the Barista at Starbucks just because they’re more likely to say y’all and use some cliche about Mondays? I don’t need cheap shoes, censorship or shotgun shells, but I am out of coffee beans. That’s real. Isn’t it?”

During the heated debate, when posed the question “Does it bother you that she could have her finger over the button that triggers nuclear war?” I got the response “That doesn’t mean she would.” It probably doesn’t sound like much, but that pulled the rug out from under every civic conviction my parents ever tried to instill in me. I know her answer doesn’t make any sense, but I think that’s what upsets me most. I know my mother as an impassioned, opinionated woman and here I’m faced with her giving up—letting go of the things that she so passionately defended to me as the rights that mattered most to her as an American, a child of immigrants. It doesn’t matter that Palin would try to overturn Roe v. Wade (the only thing she knows about the judicial system). It doesn’t matter that she isn’t content just to shoot wolves from airplanes—we should destroy their habitat too! It doesn’t matter that she can’t even come up with a straight answer for Katie Couric, and softest of the softball journalists. Nothing matters except that you betcha she’s just the darned cutest dumpling in the pot and she doesn’t make us feel stupid when she talks. She’s, well, gosh, the poster child for exceptionalism! The conversation depressed me so much I retired to my bar to drink and listen to Ted Leo records. I don’t feel any better, but the drink is pretty good and I love Ted Leo.

So drink and be merry, my dears, for tomorrow brings rain. For tonight, let’s dance in the cloudy starlight and rejoice in those we love. Here’s hoping the infrastructure keeps us dry. Here’s to life.

2 oz Four Roses Single Barrel bourbon
2 dashes bitters (Jeff‘s Madeira-Cask Aged Orange Bitters)
orange twist

Swish all together over ice in an old-fashioned glass.

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