Getting Dressed

What with the U.S. House of Representatives dithering over the Violence Against Women Act, I thought it would be a good time to post the second of the two pieces of writing I got paid for. Speaker Boehner and the gang seem to be resigned to the fact that they will have to pass some sort of act to protect women, as much as it pains them to do so, but they are still hoping that they can find a few here and there to exclude. ETA: The House passed the Senate version of the VAWA today, February 28. My representative, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, voted against it.

Here, with a Trigger Warning for domestic violence, is the account whose publication in The Denver Post was one of the ways in which I was once the most dangerous person on earth. Maybe I can find a way to summon up those powers again and use them for good this time.

Getting Dressed*

It doesn’t help that my mornings are usually punctuated by the “What am I going to wear?” question anyway. What fits is in the wash or needs ironing or has a button missing.  As I stand in front of my closet, it occurs to me that it didn’t take me this much time to get dressed on my wedding day.  On the other hand, on my wedding day I didn’t stand in front of my closet thinking, “Now what am I going to wear?”

Now what am I going to . . .

Do?  Not think for a start, or at least not think about why getting dressed presents more than its usual puzzle .  What I want to wear is my teal skirt and its matching teal, purple, royal and gold striped T-shirt, a Mother’s Day present and the most expensive daytime outfit I have ever owned.  It’s attractive and comfortable, and the colors are perfect for me.

The sleeves, however, stop an inch or so short of covering the large purple bruises (finger marks, really, although that is not immediately apparent) on my left arm.

My pink cotton shirt covers the bruises, but I can’t wear it with my teal skirt.  There is a cream skirt that goes with it, but it won’t cover the bruises on both knees. I have a white cotton overshirt that goes with the teal skirt, but it needs a belt, which chafes my sore and, for all I know, broken, rib. 

I cannot cover my arms and my knees and wear clothes appropriate to the weather which on June 14, 1983 is hot. June 14 is one day past my 36th birthday. My coworkers will want to know what my husband gave me for my birthday.

Don’t laugh. My rib hurts when I laugh. Don’t cry for the same reason. In fact, I won’t cry for another 18 months, until my cat dies. Then for three days I won’t be able to stop.

I shouldn’t be going to work in my condition, but I can’t stay home either. I find myself pacing in tight, precise circles, while my thoughts follow tight, precise circles of their own.

Why am I covering up – for him? But why should I expose myself to questions, comments, possibly criticism? What the hell am I going wear?

The striped T-shirt, I decide grimly, matches the bruises on my arm.

For the next several weeks, while the bruises heal, I present a most ladylike appearance to the world, even while taking out the trash. For the next two years, I cope with the housekeeping of a marital breakup: seeing an attorney, finding an additional part-time job, putting up my house for sale, taking my son to a counselor.

And shopping. Suddenly I, who had worn the same out-of-style outfits until they fell apart, am interested in clothes.  I study fashion magazines, note hemlines and styles, make a new suit and two dresses, buy sweaters, a coat, hats, scarves. My friends tease me about dressing for my new single life style. Since my new single lifestyle resembles my old married lifestyle, except with half the income and twice the workload, I think they are missing the point, although I am not sure myself what the point is.

Then one night in front of a group of women like myself, I tell my story of standing in front of my closet wondering what to wear. Suddenly every woman in the room has a story of getting dressed: of sunglasses worn indoors, sweaters on hot days, hats, layers of makeup, bruises visible under long sheer sleeves.

When we finish, the group facilitator says softly, “And wasn’t it sad, after everything you had been through, that getting dressed had to be such a struggle, too?”

A few weeks later, preparing to go out to dinner with a (male, platonic) friend, I find that I enjoy getting dressed. I debate between two skirts, try on several blouses and sweaters, switch belts, only to settle on the original outfit. I even slip on pantyhose, which I normally do not wear.

At dinner, I describe the whole process to my friend, precipitating a silence so profound that I wonder if he thinks, and dreads, that all this primping is for him.  A month later, when I have not heard from him, I wonder if he has misunderstood. There can be other explanations for his silence. Perhaps he has out-of-town guests, or has been hit by a bus. If he has fled from my presumed ardor, it will just have to stay that way. How can I explain to him what getting dressed means to me?

He’s never had the experience of carrying around someone’s guilty secret on his skin and not knowing what to do about it. It’s not an experience one can imagine without having experienced it, and even then  . . .

I find that I cannot imagine, make an image of it. For when the  group facilitator asked, “And wasn’t it sad, after everything you had been through, that getting dressed had to be such a struggle, too?” the only answer I could think of was, “Yeah.  I guess so.”

*When this piece was published in the Denver Post, they gave it the title Abuse So Slow to Wear Off  instead of my title, Getting Dressed.  I was not happy about the title, but forgave them when I saw Cindy Enright’s perfect illustration. I can’t post that here, for copyright reasons, so I made my own illustration using Polyvore.

That's the Way You Do It

So you’re hosting the Oscars, and you want to get away with singing an opening number called We Saw Your Boobs addressed to a number of women in the audience. Well, one way to do that is to embed it in a sequence in which Captain James Kirk comes back from the future to tell you how badly your hosting performance was received, in part because of that song. It’s a rhetorical technique called apophasis, from the Greek for “I’m not saying”. (Okay, actually, from the Greek for “to say no”, if you want to be so everlastingly picky.)

That works to an extent, but you don’t want to have to embed every tasteless joke, like the one about John Wilkes Booth, in that one opening sequence, and William Shatner is demanding some outrageous coin to stick around for the whole show for the has-been actor he is.

So what do you do? You have a surprise presenter give out the final award, the one for Best Picture. Somebody well-known to the public, but not associated with the movie industry. Somebody attractive and articulate, but at the same time controversial. Someone who is all dressed up anyway, in a Naeem Khan creation, because she and her husband are hosting a black-tie dinner for 100 or so people at the White House.

Who do we know who fits that description? Yes, it’s first lady Michelle Obama.

And the trick works. The outrage over Mrs. Obama’s appearance is instantaneous and, to me at least, hilarious. Never mind that she is not the only first lady to make an appearance at the Oscar ceremony. Laura Bush appeared at the 74th Academy Award show in a short film showing 100 people discussing movies. Of course, Mrs. Bush’s appearance could easily be overlooked in the controversy over whether it was too soon after the attacks on the WTC to hold a big Oscar extravaganza at all, not to mention she was one of 100 people shown in 3 minutes of film. Michelle Obama got a whole three minutes or so all to herself, live.

It’s amazing how many of her critics managed to overlook the fact that Mrs. Obama was not physically present at the ceremony, just shown on a screen from the White House. 

Some typical comments from Facebook:

I'm more concerned about the taxpayer money used to get her there and back. I'm tired if them spending my money to party.

That one drew a reaction:

On the other hand,[name], it's nice to know that transporter technology is working so well. Just think of all the military applications it will have.

which apparently went over more than a few subsequent commenter’s heads, because then we got:

The First Lady should not be at the oscars! She should be out trying to help make a difference in the world!

and

STAY THE HELL IN WASHINGTOn

The funny thing is, the article these people were responding to made it clear that the FLOTUS was in Washington, hosting the governors' dinner.

That fact also did not stop at least one person from believing that Mrs. Obama got dressed up and summoned up a military guard purely for her three minutes of fame on TV:

We were all waiting to see who was going to win for Best Picture and then all of a sudden, cut to Michele Obama from Jack Nicholson? She's wearing a gown at the White House for the Oscars with military guard? What is the purpose of this?? Why didn't she just go to L.A. and present then? None of this makes sense, because it's totally contrived and self serving.

So why didn’t she just go to LA, so that people could criticize her for not staying home? By now I’m seeing boobs, but not the kind Seth MacFarlane sang about. (See, I bet you forgot about that already.)

I also loved this comment:

She's definitely no Hillary, that's for sure...

Yes, because when Hillary was first lady, everybody loved her and no one ever criticized her.

The after several people made the predictable accusation that Mrs. Obama is a communist, there were these comments:

She had NO business there!!!

I thought Michele Obama had no right being on The Oscars,

She had no.business there

Because if there is one thing the free enterprise system means, it’s that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can’t invite just anyone they want to be a presenter. We the people will decide who they can ask, through our special Who Can Be a Presenter Commissar. 

Undecided

Apparently, I am not the only one having a hard time making up her mind in the Louisiana House District 65 special election. Another flyer from Candidate Sumac brags that he has pulled into the lead over Candidate Woodrow. The numbers he gave showed around a third, plus or minus, for each of the candidates, with Sumac leading, and over 30% still undecided. In addition, LABI (The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry) has declined to endorse either candidate through its PAC. Whether that means it finds them both equally satisfactory or equally unsatisfactory it is hard to say. 

Other interesting news: Sumac raised no money this month, but is paying his campaign expenses from the $50,000 of his own money he has donated to his campaign. I guess that is a good sign that he will not be beholden to special interests. On the other hand, if nobody is willing to donate to his campaign, that says something about how his fellow Republicans and business owners see him as a potential legislator.

Woodrow has raised “$30,400 in donations from 43 contributions, with an average donation of about $700. Among his largest donors are the Louisiana Realtors PAC and Louisiana Restaurant Association, which each gave more than $1,000 to his campaign.” I’m not sure what the significance of his popularity among realtors and restaurant owners is. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing.

This morning there was a special city council meeting to discuss whether our police chief  should be dismissed, as the mayor wants. I had hoped to go attend the meeting to see Woodrow in action. Unfortunately, I had a dentist appointment to fill a small cavity before it became a large cavity, right at the same time as the meeting.

As much as I hate to break my record of voting in all local elections, I may sit this one out. It sounds like a lot of other folks may, too.

Tweedledum and Tweedledummer

It’s been two weeks since I sent my email to “Dred Woodrow” and I haven’t received an answer, so I don’t think I ever will. Not that I expected the candidate himself to respond, but I did suspect a volunteer minion had been tasked with responding to questions by matching up the appropriate campaign boilerplate to each question in a way that might pass a Turing test.

This is the email I sent:

Dear Mr. Woodrow,

I have recently received some of your literature regarding your campaign for state representative, district 65.  I have some questions regarding issues and positions that I hope you can answer.
First of all, I see you voted against the new CATS bus tax. I understand that you want to prevent public money from being wasted, and I certainly respect that position. On the other hand, I worry about the ability of people who do not have their own transportation to be able to access jobs and medical care. I know you will not be facing this issue in the state legislature, since you probably agree with me that public transportation is best addressed at the municipal level, but can you explain why you voted against the tax, and what strategies you had for getting people without transportation to jobs and health care (or perhaps getting jobs and health care to those people?) Knowing your thinking on this matter will help me assess you as a candidate.
Secondly, I see you are pro-life. As you are probably aware, Louisiana has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country. Those are 2006 numbers, but the numbers haven’t changed much. I think this is a problem that can and should be addressed at the state level, and would like to know how you see yourself doing so.
Thank you for your time.

Perhaps my attempt to be polite and fair minded didn’t come across that way, I don’t know. I’m not impressed by not having received any kind of response.

The other candidate, as I mentioned in my last post, doesn’t even have an email address for his campaign. He has, however, reached out in his own way, with a newsletter styled mail-out with a big headline stating Conservative Choice. The newsletter is 8 pages long with nine articles about the campaign, his family and marriage, his business experience, plans, and why he is running. There are even mock ads, which are more statements from “Hussein Sumac” and his wife. It’s a slick idea, and it gives a lot of information.

All of it dreadful. Okay, most of it dreadful. For one thing, one headline reads “[Hussein Sumac]to Lead Big Fight Against Gun Control in State Legislature”. Of course, there is no gun control legislation being proposed in our state legislature. The legislation he is talking about is proposed Federal legislation, and he can’t do anything about that. He’s just grandstanding. At least, I hope he’s just grandstanding, because I’d hate to think he doesn’t really know the difference between the state and Federal government.

Another article is headlined, How My Experience as a Job-Creator Will Pay Off.  Here I have to say something good about Mr. Sumac. He has built a business that employs 200 employees and he is only in his early 30’s*. That is a decent accomplishment. I do take issue with his statement, “I have learned to create jobs - real, high-paying jobs in the private sector - not government jobs.” First of all, that job he is trying to get himself elected to, I don’t know how to break it to him, is a government job! It’s not a good idea to be condescending about a job you are applying for in what amounts to a job interview. It’s especially puzzling to see him dismiss government jobs as not real jobs and then turn around and say that he is running for office because “life is partly about giving back to the community.” (That was actually another headline.) Yes, we know, all those people holding government jobs feel like they are serving the community, too.

But our Mr. Sumac has some positive proposals to make. One of them is extending Hooper Road “across [the] Amite River to  Watson without imposition of tolls”.  Hooper Road is in the northern portion of East Baton Rouge Parish. Watson is in nearby Livingston Parish. (Parishes are our equivalent of counties.) The only ways to extend the road across parish lines is to 1) convince Livingston Parish to extend the road on their dime or 2) make it a state road. The state highway department is limited by law to the number of miles of road it can hold in each district. In order to add a state road, they have to demote an equivalent amount of roadway to a parish road or even private road. It can be done, but getting it done requires a lot of pull in the legislature, according to my source, who worked for DOTD for 30 years and loves to lecture me on obscure laws, usually when I’m trying to read. But maybe our boy has connections. Nope, here’s another headline: “Not Part of Good Ole Boy Network”. Good luck with that road.

What’s even more puzzling is his insistence on not using a toll to pay for the road. Supposedly Mr. Sumac is for balanced budgets and no new taxes. The state is already facing a shortfall. How do we pay for this new road? No headlines there.

And of course you have no doubt thought of my last point by now: building roads is a [dreaded] government job. Even though private contractors will be employed, government at either the state or parish level will be responsible for obtaining the land, awarding the contracts, inspecting the work and oh, yeah, paying for it.

I still don’t know who to vote for. I just wish I had a better choice than Tweedledum or Tweedledummer.

*His business has been described as supplying janitorial services to nuclear power plants. I suspect “janitorial services” in this context does not mean dusting and mopping. The picture he uses to illustrate his business article is a picture of a nuclear power plant. I can’t resist. “You didn’t build that!”

Are You Sure About That, Cassandra?

Since the election I have developed a morbid fascination with reading old right-leaning blogposts and their predictions in the days preceding the elections. It isn’t schadenfreude, since I don’t take joy in knowing that those people are going to be very unhappy in just 3 days, 1 day, or 6 hours. It’s more like watching Titanic, seeing the people dancing and dining, and knowing that there is an iceberg out there with their names on it. I suppose there were some people watching the movie and chuckling gleeful little chuckles deep in their hearts over what was coming next, but I think most people just felt sad, or even wondered what confident expectation of their own was about to come undone.

In the course of my reading, I came across this comment:

I trust your analysis [name]. You’re a straight shooter and an honest man, far more than Rasmussen, Rove, Morris, or Zogby (remember when he was taken seriously?). You’ve never wavered from telling the truth, even when some of the less crooked pollsters have taken the opportunity to tighten things up for profit here and there.I thank you, and think many other people out here appreciate you for being a lone voice of reason in a chorus of Cassandras.

Let’s review the sad history of Cassandra, shall we?

In Greek mythology, Cassandra . . . was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. In an alternative version, she spent a night at Apollo's temple, at which time the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future (this is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes it brings an ability to understand the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future).[2] When Cassandra of Troy refused Apollo, he placed a curse on her so that she and all her descendants' predictions would not be believed. She is a figure both of the epic tradition and of tragedy . . . 

While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies since no one believed her.

So the thing about Cassandra was that her prophecies were always right. Always right, and nobody believed them. Our comment writer above was painfully accurate when he described the conservative writers who were predicting a Romney loss as Cassandras, but context shows that he didn’t mean it that way. I think the writer saw a Cassandra as one who prophesied doom (which is true), but missed the part where she was right in doing so.

In thinking about Cassandra over the years, I have come to realize what fine observers of human nature the ancient Greeks were. The myth of Cassandra reveals truths about human thinking. To be able to predict the future accurately, you have to be open to the idea that things won’t turn out the way you hope. You can’t just cherry pick the evidence you like and ignore or criticize the evidence you don’t like. Yet who is more likely to be able to sell an idea to others: the person who is open to evidence that is contrary to their hopes, or the person who is convinced zie is right and won’t look at contrary evidence?

I was in the position of Cassandra once. There was a horrible event in our city. Someone had been tossing rocks from overpasses, and after 2 or 3 such incidents, a woman was killed when the rock broke her windshield and then hit her head. We were talking about it at work and I opined that the rock tosser may have been a teen or teens who thought of it as a prank and didn’t foresee what could go wrong.

Another coworker, our psychologist, said no, this was the deliberate work of someone with a lot of anger. She was the psychologist, so I decided she was right and I was wrong and didn’t say any more about it. Two days later, two horrified teens turned themselves in. They had been throwing  the rocks as a prank and didn’t mean to kill anyone.

Unlike Cassandra, I am not always right, even when I do set aside my prejudices and wishful thinking and look at all the facts I can find. I’m not always disbelieved, either, and unfortunately, sometimes I’m believed when I’m wrong. I suspect, though, that we have all had our Cassandra moments, when we were right but were outargued by some blowhard who wasn’t.

It’s human nature.

As the Cricket Chirps

I ran into a snag in writing to the two candidates for state house district 65 as proposed in my post, The Opposition. “Dred Woodrow’s” website gives an email address where he can be contacted, but “Hussein Sumac’s” does not. 

“No problem,” I thought, “I’ll write to him snail mail.” It turns out his website does not offer a street address either, nor even a post office box. This makes sense if he is running his campaign out of his house, or more likely, the office of his overworked personal assistant at his business.

I did find a news story about a joint appearance the two candidates made at a local Chamber of Commerce meeting right after they announced their candidacies. A few pertinent paragraphs are below, and, as usual, snarky comments of mine follow in italics.

At a luncheon hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of East Baton Rouge Parish the two candidates, District 4 councilman Scott Wilson and Central small business owner Barry Ivey, said they'll be banking on their experiences as businessmen to help win over constituents concerned about crumbling infrastructure, an uptick in traffic congestion, schools and a ballooning state budget facing a $963 million shortfall. 

http://www.nola.com/news/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2012/11/two_candidates_emerge_in_race.html

So far it sounds promising. So what are they planning to do about the crumbling infrastructure, [and] an uptick in traffic congestion?

Audience member Elizabeth Dent said Richardson [the legislator whose seat they are competing for] took a stand against the CATS tax.
Baton Rouge and Baker voters approved a $15.3 million property tax increase in April for the Capital Area Transit System, or CATS, which operates the bus system.
Dent wanted to know if Wilson and Ivey would be as brave as Richardson.
Ivey said he is not afraid to be the only dissenter.
He said positive things follow when people do things for the right reasons.
Wilson said he opposed the CATS tax and showed through his service on the Metro Council that he is willing to stand up.
http://theadvocate.com/home/4528666-125/2-vying-for-state-legislators

They are proposing to fight traffic congestion by not supporting public transportation. I see.

Wilson, who recently won reelection after running unopposed in November, said his experience as a city council member and his tenure as a small trucking business owner make him a qualified candidate for the seat. He drew on his conservative voting record, saying he's consistently stood up for ideals that weren't universally popular.
"I think you need someone who's been there as far as fiscal responsibility, as far as looking after your tax dollars," he said.

If by “weren’t universally popular”, you mean across the nation, that’s probably true. If you mean in his district, he was running unopposed.

Ivey said he strives to be transparent.

He said he intends to be an overcommunicator and use technology to his advantage.

This is the candidate who does not have an email or snail mail address listed on his website. That communication thing is supposed to run both ways.

I like the way they both claim to be willing to stand up for unpopular ideas while feeding the chamber members exactly what they wanted to hear. 

Hey, guys, you know what would be unpopular? It would be for one of you to say, “As the pro-life candidate, I’m going to push the governor to accept federal Medicaid money and expand Medicaid services as one step in reducing Louisiana’s truly disgraceful infant mortality rate, one of the worst in the nation.”

Overcommunicate that.

The Opposition

Hussein Sumac’s opponent in the upcoming special election is also a Republican, a current city council member whom I will refer to as Dred Woodrow. The same day that Mr. Sumac knocked at my door, campaign mail from Mr. Woodrow arrived. I see by his flyer that Mr. Woodrow is “for pro-life, limited government”. I think these folks get their campaign slogans from Oxymorons R Us, or perhaps an abbreviation thereof.

Although both candidates list themselves as pro-life and pro-gun conservatives, there is a huge difference between them. Mr. Woodrow is a Catholic, while Mr. Sumac is a a member of a church that does not give a denominational affiliation, but describes itself as believing that the whole of Christianity can be found within God’s word (IOW, not-Catholic).  

Mr. Woodrow also brags that he was “against the new CATS bus tax”. I don’t hold that against him, because there was a legitimate concern that the new plan was not going to work and would just mean throwing good money after bad. I would, however, like to know what his plan was for getting people without transportation to jobs or jobs to people without transportation. 

He also was “against wasteful spending on the downtown library”. There again, he may have been in the right. The downtown library is part of a downtown meeting/entertainment venue and is not convenient to many residential areas, and there was reason to think that dressing it up was putting lipstick on a pig. My husband, for one, thinks the remodel is a big boondoggle.

The tell, to me, is that Mr. Woodrow is for “parents’ rights to consolidate their school districts.”  If that sounds like gobbledygook to you, there’s a reason for that. What Mr. Woodrow was for is splitting out a portion of Baton Rouge that lies to the south and east and making it a separate school district from the rest of the city. This area does not have a particular geographical separation from the rest. It doesn’t have a name. It does have a few gated, multi-million dollar subdivisions and a whole lot of white folks. (The vote to allow this split failed.)

So when you take his position on CATS, and the downtown library, and the school district split, there seems to be a common thread, but I can’t quite  . . .

My plan is to see whether there are any upcoming debates or candidates nights involving these two men that I can attend. I also am composing an e-mail to be sent to each of them, asking what their plans are for addressing infant mortality (since they are both pro-life),  and how they feel transportation barriers to getting jobs should be addressed. If I get replies, I’ll post them.

A Knock at the Door

Actually, it was a ring at the doorbell, but “A knock at the door” sounds more portentous, somehow. Saturday morning I was messing around on the computer when I heard someone at the front door. It being Saturday, UPS was out, so I suspected the Jehovah’s Witnesses or maybe some teenage Baptists wanting to tell me how I could predict whether I’m going to hell.

I was close. The man who appeared at my door is a candidate in the upcoming special election for state representative, district 65. For the purposes of this post, we’ll call him Hussein Sumac. Obviously that’s not his real name, but it’s close, at least the way my brain figures close. 

Mr. Sumac informed me that the special election is being held due to the incumbent having to resign over ill health. The two people running are Mr. Sumac and another Republican. Mr. Sumac preceded to make his case, as outlined below. My thoughts, none of which I was unkind enough to voice out loud, follow in italics.

First of all, he’s a conservative.

Me: I’m not. (That was actually out loud.)

He’s a businessman.

Me: So you actually have no prior experience in government.

He built his business himself, but most of his business is out of state, so there is no conflict of interest with him running for election.

Does “by himself” include a loan from the SBA? Actually, I’m impressed he thought to bring up conflict of interest. Most Louisiana politicians seem to think it’s a myth, like global warming.

Unlike his opponent, he has no ties to the political establishment.

So not only do you have no experience in government, but none of your friends and associates do, either.

He has decided to run for office because he’s tired of seeing so many politicians who seem really dumb.

Dr. Dunning, meet Dr. Kruger.

He is funding his own campaign.

So no Republican funding sources think enough of your chances to donate to your campaign.

He has always lived in this area, and has attended the same church since he was five.

So you aren’t big on exposing yourself to new and possibly contradictory ideas.

He is honest. His wife can vouch for his honesty, because no one knows you like your spouse.

No one knows me like my spouse, either, but if I were running for office, there would be a limit on what he could reveal about me and live.

After he leaves, I look at his literature and read that he is “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Gun, and Anti-Tax”. I wish I had read that before I let him get away, because I have some questions. He is running for a political office that will provide him with a salary and benefits. How does he propose the state pay him without taxes? 

And he’s pro-life? I should have asked him what his plans are to bring down Louisiana’s appalling infant mortality rate, which has us ranked 49th out of 50 states in the nation, and not in a good way. I should have asked him his pro-life plans to do something about Louisiana’s gun death rate, the worst in the nation. Oh, wait, he’s pro-gun. Well, guns don’t kill people, Louisianans kill people.

I need to research his opponent, who does at least have government experience as a member of the city council. I may wind up voting for Hussein Sumac after all. 

One time many years ago, I lamented to my dad about the two hopeless choices I had in a statewide election. “Just don’t vote,” he advised. 

“Dad, one of them is going to win. If I don’t vote, I’m just letting someone else choose for me.” 

That’s just as true today as it was then.

I Don't Think That's Going to Solve the Problem

As a result of the big Saturday night fight at our local mall, one of our city councilors has reintroduced measures to toughen up teen curfews. Louisiana already has a curfew of sorts, in that driver’s licenses for teens are not valid for a portion of the night hours (later on weekends), unless they are traveling to or from a job. This driving restriction was what allowed my son to Neal call me five minutes before curfew every weekend and say, “Can I stay over at my friend’s? I can come home, but it means I’ll be driving after curfew.” 

I wonder what is going on in the council’s collective minds. The fight at the mall took place some time around 6 PM.  Four year olds aren’t even in bed at 6 PM. Are they planning to confine all teens in their homes from 5 PM Friday night until time to leave for school on Monday? Because if so, they are going to have a lot of pissed off parents to deal with.

Of course, I can understand them feeling the need to do something. The fight did not cause any significant injuries or property damage, but it could have. This is a concealed carry state. All it would have taken is one self-identified “good guy with a gun”, and this event could have turned into a tragedy. A curfew, no matter how irrelevant to the situation, is a better solution than arming all the teens in town.

It’s just that, is it a solution? It was 6 freakin’ PM, guys!

Our council members seem like geniuses, however, compared to the people who are behind this amazing idea:

Birthers Suggest Impeaching John Roberts 

So the sequence of events would be:

1) Chief Justice Roberts swears in Obama on the 20th, per the Constitution.

2) Birthers, in turn, will call for the impeachment of Chief Justice Roberts. If they are successful, 

3) Newly sworn-in President Obama selects the new Chief Justice.

I think I may have left out the two additional steps:

4) ?????

5) Profit!

Okay, to be fair, columnist Craig McMillan did not really demand Roberts’ immediate impeachment. What Mc Millan said was 

Your own oath of office, sworn before God and the American people, requires you to uphold the Constitution. (If not you, then who?) If you now administer the oath of office for the presidency to a man who by his own admission fails to meet the natural born citizen requirement imposed by that Constitution, you have violated your own oath of office and are rightly subject to impeachment by any House of Representatives, at any time, now or in the future.

It sounds more likely that he is envisioning a scenario in which Tea Party members take over the House and the Senate in  2014, and not only impeach and convict Justice Roberts, but also investigate President Obama and declare his birth certificate to be a fraud, and then impeach both him and Vice-President Biden, who of course colluded in the deception. Then, in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the then Speaker of the House (no doubt a re-elected Alan West) would become president, and fill the vacancy created by Roberts’ impeachment.

That’s not the sort of idea to mock anybody for, really.