he wasnt on my ballot

according to osama bin laden, we had our choice of a third candidate in the election: SATAN!

in a video aired on al-jazeera, al-zawahiri said: 'You can elect Bush, Kerry or Satan himself, it doesn't matter to us...What's important to us is the U.S. policies toward Muslims.'

(time out: policies towards muslims? who knew? i didnt realize the US had any policies towards muslims? or is that the problem? the utter and dire lack of such policies? and why would we have specific policies towards one religion and not others? i presume he means our 'policies' towards israel? please discuss amongst yourselves, or blog away, whichever you prefer.)

if i'd have known i could have voted for satan himself, my choice might have been easier. hahaha.

this is one of the funniest things i've heard out of the region since i learned of a high goverment post in the taliban-era afghani government - the minister for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

where was that job at my college career fair?

note to all: i've not gone all quiet. i've tried on many occasions to write up an analysis of the new bridget jones and what it suggests about being a swinging single gal. alas, blogger keeps eating my post. maybe it's saving me from making some humiliating public observations about my life/thoughts on this subject. more to follow...

oh woe is my computer

yahoo! finally some great debate going on the blog. couldnt be happier. well done, fellas! let's see more!

as many of you have heard in endless detail, i have had my share of computer woes of late, thus no blogs from me in a week. after getting the loudest laptop in the history of mankind flown to me from sunny san diego (with the power cord arriving one lo-ong day later), i'm back in bidness, so to speak, and will be blogging later this week - there is just oh so much fodder from which to choose my topic.

but tonight is movie night for me - made all the better with my new glasses. yes, i broke down and finally bought my long-sought-after black chunky glasses. and i look every bit the nerd that you might imagine. for those who might be that interested, i did take a snappy snap of me in the new specs with my camera phone and can email it to you! who'd ever have thought it - little ol' sbb with her very own sporty specs, camera phone, and blog. welcome me to the 20th century!

more to come this week - but in the meantime, please debate away. i'm off to watch 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,' a jim carrey film with a title plucked straight out of my favorite alexander pope poem, 'eloisa to abelard.'

and i didnt need new glasses for most of you to yoke me and nerd in the same sentence, eh?

thine loom and churn must be still on the sabbath

so...funny quote from ed helms, doing a bit on last wednesday's day-after-the-election episode of 'the daily show.' very funny. and i dont usually find him all that funny. stephen colbert is my man. but i digress.

the idea that american life might get ever so slightly more skewed towards religion made me think back to last week when i was discussing religion in school with a couple of friends while we watched the early election returns. and one friend was quite passionate about how important it was that the ten commandments be present - taught even - in schools. when i pushed him on why he felt so strongly, he said that the ten commandments were in reality not strictly religious tenets as much as they were basic instructions on how one should live one's life and treat others.

while i dont necessarily disagree with the core of what my friend said, i suppose i am a moral and ethical relativist (thanks, jc!). i pushed back with a 'so if we all agree that we can post the ten commandments in the classroom, then why cant i also insist we post excerpts from the torah, the bhagwad ghita, the book of mormon, or even the koran?'

equal time for all possible religions, right? fair is fair.

but of course no one really feels this way (and especially not the friends with whom i had this discussion). and even i dont feel this way. while i think if one religion gets airtime in a publicly-funded school, then ALL religions should get equal airtime. but the point here is that no religion should get ANY airtime in a publicly-funded school. this is precisely at the core of separation of church and state, yes? dont use my tax dollars to force a particular religious doctrine or core teaching on someone who may or may not share such beliefs. and i no more want to have my nephews be taught to live their lives and shape their hearts according to the teachings of a religion they dont know, dont understand, and perhaps wont ever believe than i want their religion being used as the basis to shape the minds and hearts of their classmates. and, as my other friend in this conversation pointed out, wasnt the freedom from having religion forced upon them and their children the very purpose for and rationale on which our forefathers and foremothers founded our great country? excellent point ('tis pity i didnt think of this myself. oiy!)

the teaching of religion or religions to children should be done in the home or in the church that the family belongs to or that the child chooses to pursue. because even if i did concede that some amount of religion (or, more aptly, my religion) could be taught in schools, then that begs the question as to who will establish the curriculum of these teachings -- who decides what interpretation to teach? who decides what i might or might not want my child to be exposed to? what gets censored? who makes that determination? these are NOT questions i want my public schools to answer for me and certainly not for any child i might ever have. see what a slippery slope we begin to slide down...?

but what strikes me as even more interesting and even more complex is that it seems that the more conservative a person politically - and by this i will say that i mean conservative republican (because, let's be blunt, conservative democrat is almost an oxymoron) - the more strongly they tend to feel about prayer and religion being an important part of schools' teachings.

i need to understand how this can reconciled with the notion that republicans, and in particular conservative republicans, believe so strongly that the federal and state government should be small, that government should not interfere with the choices a family makes on almost any other issue, and that the individual in our society should be given the freedom to live unencumbered by a bureaucratic, monolithic 'big government.' i cant quite wrap my brain around how many of the same people could be espousing that government really should take a backseat in so many issues except for religion.

it's too simple, and too much of a simplification, to suggest that people are just so blinded by the rightness of their own religious beliefs to exempt themselves from their own normal mode of thinking about and viewing the role of government to take such a position, isnt it? there has to be a logic here that i am utterly missing. someone please help me understand this line of thinking, because i admit - i am lost.

but i am chilled to my core at the notion, being covered heavily on websites, blogs, and the talking heads on tvs in the past few days, that this country is on the verge of a huge cultural divide if not out-and-out war. the pundits were saying over and over tonight that bush is, in his first seven days of having been elected by a relatively small majority of american voters, already setting the stage to restock his cabinet and the supreme court with religious conservatives that take bush's same 'my God is my guide' approach to goverment and governing that bush takes. just listen to what he's said publicly - he'll spend the 'capital' he feels he won in this election to make the choices he knows his fellow republicans will support in both the house and senate.

one part of me smiled and sighed a great breath of relief seeing the news tonight that ashcroft resigned. until i wondered by whom he might be replaced.

and on that cheery note, a good night to all.

no wine, please, we're american

yes, another night with wine through a straw. somehow my good pal michelle thought this seemed like such a revelation of utter genius that i had devised a way to keep drinking my beloved red wine while not tainting my clear braces with that oh-so-attractive hint of burgundy discoloration. luverly. but that is one of the things i dearly love about my friend michelle - she always lets me know that the things i do that make me feel the stupidest are actually things that she thinks makes me very clevah. merci, mon amie!

speaking of wine and such, i had a great wine tonight and a dog of a wine. the winner of the bunch was a very nice 2002 merlot from jacob's creek.

the less than great wine was also australian - a 2002 shiraz from kalbarri. please friends, spare yourself. it's almost indescribably unpalatable. and coming from me - a girl who drinks her wine through a straw - that's saying something. whew. that dog is going down the drain toot sweet.

(if anyone writes to me telling me i should have written 'toute de suite' instead, i'm going to make sure you get a bottle of yummy kalbarri from me for christmas.)

well, while we're on a food roll here - pun intended! - i'm going to make this blog into a food review of my weekend food revelries. the restaurant references will only be helpful to those of you reading this blog in the greater cincinnati area, so my apologies to my friends out there in those glam locations like collegeville, exton, malvern, easton, delaware county, and darien - but all the more reason to visit me, and we can visit (or avoid) these places when you're here.

double dragon: szechuan broccoli with shrimp. this is my new favorite meal in the world. i adore broccoli and shrimp just about more than anything in the world, and the coupling of them together in the szechuan sauce at DD is food nirvana, so far as i'm concerned. and the folks at DD are so chummy with my family that they actually will make the SBwS extra spicy for me. i can't say much for DD's soups though as both recently - the hot and sour as well as the wonton - have both been disappointing. i've never quite had such a flavorless wonton soup. i think i might talk to them about jazzing that up a smidge. because aside from that, DD is one of my favorite holes in the wall in northern kentucky. plus, you simply must love a chinese restaurant that has a drive thru.

http://www.citybeat.com/gbase/Restaurant/RestaurantListing?restaurant=Double%20Dragon

the county seat: sunday brunch. this is not my new favorite meal in the world. the sunday brunch, priced at $9.95 is so-so at best. as far as breakfast went, it only had: scrambled eggs; (very yummy) hashbrown casserole; way, way, way overcooked, dried-out goetta (the horror, the horror); sausage links; NO BACON - wha? huh?; biscuits; sausage gravy; loads of pastries and cakes; and some lunchy stuff that i didn't bother to check out bc sunday is all about breakfast.

i will give them props, though, for a damn tasty bread pudding. but that's my second venture to this cute little restaurant in burlington, and both times i've been rather underwhelmed with the food.

another set of props is due to them for having some baked goods and candies to buy and take away. i've never in my life been able to buy fresh buckeyes in a store. they were good, but they weren't as peanut buttery as buckeyes should be. so were they worth the whopping $.59/piece price? yes, of course. were they as good as my mom's? no way, jose. and i mean that literally in florence. teehee.

but the county seat deserves the biggest credit for giving me the flashback of my life. in their candy/bakery take-away, they had haystacks! that's the little concoction of chocolate, peanut butter, and oats that is right up there with buckeyes as far as i'm concerned. but more than that, my friends, cooking haystacks was what got me to the kentucky state finals of the 4H cooking competition when i was a mere 4th grader. come on now - i know both shelly and michelle were the lucky recipients of some of my 4th grade cooking prowess. yeah, you remember.

http://www.boonecountyheritage.org/content/Services/PlacesToEat.asp

wild oats: assorted cheese, olives, and bread. ohhh, how i miss fresh fields in philadelphia. wild oats is owned by the same company (whole foods is what i think we're meant to call all of their stores now, thank you very much). but wild oats could fit in the prepared food section of the fresh fields in philadelphia. not exactly, but it sort of feels like it. but they do have a decent cheese department - not great, but ok, and friendly (read: cute) help willing to answer any cheese-related questions (i didnt push my luck). i walked away with some boursin (more for my (yum!) salt bagels that i bought than for regular cheese consumption); maytag blue (good, would have preferred their english stilton, but i could not find a piece for less than $10, and i wasnt feeling the need for stilton that badly); and some reblochon. anyone who knows me even slightly knows for my adoration of the strong, smelly cheeses. this one did not let me down. though i think it might have been ever so slightly past its prime. ah well. still very yummy in my book. me and the travelling gnome with our smelly cheeses. mmm, mmm good.

wild oats simply must do better with their prepared foods selection though. it's shameful. and when covington gets its own wild oats - go covington city commissioners, fulfill that promise!! - i will be the obnoxious customer who will fill out the comment cards that whole foods always wants its customers to fill out. yep, that'll be me. the future manager of a starbucks will be filling out her comment card at wild oats while wearing her birkenstocks and patchouli. i can see it now.

ok, clearly it's bedtime. robert palmer is singing 'she makes my day,' and i'm feeling e'er so slightly weepy thinking of memories associated with this song and the fact that poor robert palmer died last year. such a pity. such a voice.

drinking wine through a straw

these dahmn braces! i cannot wait to get them removed and i can go back to drinking my merlot like a normal human being.

(is it a truth universal that drinking through a straw makes you drunk faster, or am i just psychosomatically making myself expeditiously inebriated? say that five times quickly!)

speaking of truths universal and such, my mind tonight can't stray far from a conversation i had with a friend earlier this evening and which seems to have followed me around all evening as i went to the gym (go me!) and watched bill o'reilly and as i came home and watched hannity and colmes while eating my szechuan broccoli. [do not ask why all the fox news tonight. it was coincidental, i think.]

so anyhow, the topic was gay marriage and in particular, john kerry's stand on gay and lesbian marriage.

a lot of press is out today that president clinton, while advising kerry on how to conduct himself in the latter stages of the campaign, encouraged kerry to come out in favor of the 11 states which had ballot measures to prohibit same-sex marriages. specifically, in kentucky, the language was so confusing that you had to vote 'no' if you were, in fact, a-ok with the idea of same-sex marriage. here in our great commonwealth, the ballot was a yes or no vote on whether or not state law should be ammended to prohibit same-sex marriages. so if you agreed that such unions were fine in your book, you actually had to vote no so as to defeat the measure to ammend the state's laws.

[just a brief interlude: WHY oh WHY must legislation be worded in such a way that many, if not a majority, of the electorate can't quite tell what position they should take to vote their conscience? i am just cynical enough to suspect this is quite intentional. even my poor mom, one of the smartest women i know, voted the opposite of what she really meant to vote because of how the wording on the ballot was construed.]

so back to kerry, clinton, and same-sex marriage.

clinton advised that kerry come out in favor of all the on-the-ballot laws to make such unions illegal. clinton, purportedly, felt that this would engender more support amongst the more socially conservatives among the democrats and potentially even engender support among relatively liberal republicans who, while they disliked bush, disliked kerry's social views even more. kerry refused to back such legislation, even though he personally disagreed with the notion of same-sex marriage.

[point of clarification: kerry has asserted that he is in favor of same-sex civil unions. it's marriage that he does not condone among same-sex couples.]

while kerry hasn't clearly articulated why he is in favor of unions and not marriage, i am not as struck by this (rather unfortunately glaring) ommission on his part; i am, though, struck by the power of kerry's conviction and his fortitude on this particular issue.

there is no doubt in my mind that kerry would have won more votes had him clearly articulated some less liberal views on social issues. even if he'd moved his positions ever so slightly to the right, he still would have been miles and miles left of bush's views on any social issue one could imagine. so the fact that he would not moderate his view on same-sex marriage and would not sell out his public position in order to (potentially) gain more votes makes me respect him all the more.

but more importantly, it raises the question in my mind: are there other issues that kerry simply would not compromise himself on in order to win this election?

as we read article after article, hear pundit after pundit, and hear armchair quarterback after another dissect kerry's campaign and highlight every perceived failure, i am struck by learning that kerry, despite the strong urging of his closest advisors, would not compromise the notion that coming out in favor of the anti-gay marriage legislation was tantamount to 'legislative gay bashing' (as he referred to the 1996 defense of marriage act, as quoted on salon.com by geraldine sealey in her article, 'thank you, john kerry' 11/5/04).

to me, this exemplifies that kerry is a complex man with a complex set of ideas. while he might personally find an issue problematic or troublesome - such as gay marriage - he understands and respects that the greater good might necessitate refining or broadening that opinion. this is NOT flip flopping. that is a vast oversimplification of this means of addressing an issue. intelligent folk understand that while an idea might be good (or bad) for me personally, the greater good necessitates that i don't just think in terms of myself but in terms of society, culture, or the world at large. such thinking is vastly more rational, vastly more sound, and vastly more intellectual than a one-size-fits-all, my-God-is-my-guide way of looking at one's personal life and one's public agenda and about life in general.

while i was not kerry's most fervent supporter during this campaign - hardly, one of my dear friends actually said i morphed into a republican there for a while (not true!) - i am coming to the opinion that he was much more logical, sound, and right than i ever gave him credit for being.

and while he did get my vote last tuesday, i am saddened to think of those who now, like me, may re-evaluate kerry's views in light of what we will now learn about how he conducted his campaign and realize - tragically too late - that he was a far better candidate and possible president than the majority of voting americans gave him credit for being.

ps -

this is a hilarious site. but please - my bush-supporting friends out there - do NOT watch this unless you are in a particularly open-minded and good-spirited frame of mind:

http://filmstripinternational.com

this is in no way, shape, or form kind at all to bush. don't say i didn't warn you.

a big thanks to ms shelly for always being the source of the good anti-bush rhetoric out on the web.

pps -

why won't sean hannity let anyone speak? he had geraldine ferraro on tonight - geraldine ferraro for cripes sake! - and he wouldn't let her finish her sentences without jumping all over her to interrupt. someone please, muzzle him.

and while i'm at it

ok, i have wallowed enough.

i made the decision a while ago to stick with my instinctual beliefs and, perhaps more importantly, my heart, and vote democrat in the election.

so john kerry and john edwards got my vote.

they got my vote with a whole slew of other democrats who lost their bids on tuesday as well. and rather than feel bitter and dejected, i felt motivated while reading through some political quotations this morning. i felt especially good after seeing the following:

jesse jackson:

"In politics, an organized minority is a political majority."

to that end, i marched myself right over to google, did a search on the democratic party in kentucky, and i signed up as a volunteer for the kentucky democratic party. for any of you feeling equally inspired to work towards the upcoming elections in 2006 and 2008, do check out the following and sign up to volunteer:

http://www.kydemocrat.com/index.php?display=Home

and in the spirit of doing good works, i have also signed up to do the upcoming thanksgiving day race - in honor and memory of thom, who, as you many of you know, did this race every year. i'm trying to corrall the family to join me on turkey day for the 6.2 mile walk/run, but please anyone else who might be interested in a fun time that will mean the world to me, check out the thanksgiving day race website:

http://www.thanksgivingdayrace.com/2004/home.asp

thanks, all.

that pretty much says it all...

from john kenneth galbraith...

"There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose."

i will not allow covington to be their shopping mall for sex and drugs

i thought that's what newport was for...

hah hah!

in all seriousness, the quote is from mr alex edmondson, who is running for re-election tomorrow for covington city commissioner. and while i've done a good job of waffling around about which candidates i will support tomorrow, i am pleased to say i will definitely be supporting edmondson.

first of all, he's got the following things going for him:

1) he's helped to clean up loads of old, blight-y buildings around the city - and god knows we need as much of that as possible.

2) he's targeting in on certain areas of covington, including my little piece of paradise - austinburg. and he wants to get a park in this neighborhood - wonderful idea. hopefully that will give the kids somewhere to play besides my front porch where they vandalize my property and smash my plant boxes.

3) he included a snapshot of the cock and bull tavern in his literature. gotta love a man who includes my favorite pub in covington on his campaign materials.

4) he came to my house tonight. and i am not ashamed to admit that the site of a very young, very enthusiastic, and very cute politician at my front door is just about all the convincing i need to vote for someone. thanks to mr alex, i was driven to distraction all evening as i shopped through the latonia krogers imagining just how very lovely it would be to be a politician's wife.

[pshaw! on all of you who think i'm being serious. all who know me know just how very seriously i take my politics.]

so, with that being said, please check out my new boyfriend's website:

www.alexedmondson.com

and for you covington residents out there, be sure to give him some serious consideration at the polls tomorrow.

ahhhh...just listening to ella fitzgerald singing 'i love paris.' between this music and my new screensaver of the medici fountain at the luxembourg gardens in paris, i might as well be saying 'oh la la, ma chere' while spreading nutella on a baguette while wearing a beret. francophile, i am.

and while it's no paris, to be sure, maybe covington has more going for than i gave it credit for.

ps - BIG, WONDERFUL happy anniversary wishes to mr stephen and ms shelly!

pps - new great blog i'm happy to plug: http://ponderon.blogspot.com/

ppss - very interesting article passed along from my friend, mr jc, who likes to share good reads with me: http://amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html