Almostgotit.com

Since when did “Do your best at school” become a coercive, politically-biased message?

Barack Obama, the man we legally and democratically elected to be our president, wants to support education by speaking in our schools today, as both Bill Clinton and GW Bush did before him.

“Special interest groups” are protesting Obama’s speech. For real? I’m struggling to believe it, and even wonder if the media might be making up a controversy that doesn’t exist. What’s even remotely controversial about “do your best at school?”

The president is not going to talk about health care or anything else of a political nature. He even made the text of his speech available ahead of time, so parents and educators could be assured of that.

Mr. Obama is a black man who was raised by a single mother, who nevertheless managed to be an educational success: he knows what he is talking about. Moreover, he has already proven to be an inspiration to an entire socio-economic class that desperately needs role models.

I have no patience with people who only love democracy and freedom of speech when it serves their own interests.

And I have no patience with people who are apparently so afraid of the man himself that they can’t let their children hear ANYTHING he has to say… and yet remain willing to raise those children among the dangerous electorate who chose this man as their leader.

Perhaps it’s not Barack Obama we’re afraid of at all, but rather the specter that he might actually help someone — or even a whole class of someones — succeed, when we’d rather they didn’t.

My “Writing Humor” class in Iowa bonded deeply with each other last summer.  There’s something about writing, laughing, and almost drowning together that will do that to people, I suppose.

One of my classmates was a banjo-playing lawyer named Sheila Simon, who published an article promoting the use of clotheslines in the Chicago Tribune not long after our stint together in Iowa City.  Here’s what Sheila and I have both discovered about hanging up our laundry:

1. Save a hundred dollars on your electric bill every month.
2. Keep your house cooler in the summer, and save on your AC bill, too.
3. Hanging laundry takes much less time than you think.
4. Line-dried laundry smells wonderful.
5. You paid for that yard and all that landscaping, so why not enjoy it?
6. Get to know your neighbors, too.
7. Help humidify your house in the winter.
8. Join virtually every other modern country on the planet.
9. Get your daily ration of Vitamin “D.”
10. You can still use your clothes dryer for emergencies.

A little more about humble Sheila.  We particularly enjoyed a story she shared about her father driving the entire family to MacDonalds, where he gravely recited their lengthy take-out order…  to a concrete traffic post. 

Eventually, we learned that Sheila’s family is from Illinois.  Later still, we learned that the take-out order had been delivered in the familiar, sonorous voice of a certain former Illinois legislator and presidential candidate. 

Yeah, THAT Simon.

Nor did Sheila tell us that she was a politician herself, having just completed a (sadly unsuccessful) run for Carbondale mayor last Spring – with a little help from another Illinois senator, last name of “Obama.”

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More about clotheslines:

• Project Laundry List: everything you need for air-drying (and for low-energy clothes washing, too)
• Vermont Clothes Line Company: more air-drying supplies and ideas
• Clothesline rule creates flap: Boston Globe article on states which are once again embracing “The Right to Dry.”
• Do clotheslines really lower property values? Discussion, with many good links
• A Line in the Yard: The Battle over the Right To Dry Outside New York Times article on the world-wide resurgence of clotheslines

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Cross posted at Blogher.com

Tennessee is a strongly Republican state, and I *know* (I’ve seen the hard numbers) that Knoxville is too. Strangely, though, every group I hang out with seems to be 100% Democrat. And how I do love them.

But I marvel at how often my friends still manage to encounter so many Republicans, while I still manage not to. A favorite theme at recent gatherings has been the extreme presumption of “those people” (Republicans) who boorishly assume my friends are also Republicans. My friends are genuinely indignant, but I can’t tell if it’s because they are offended by people who make assumptions, or offended for being mistaken for something as vile as a Republican.

The irony here is that in the twenty-something years I’ve spent mostly in the company of left-ish people, present company included, most of them have been as exactly as presumptuous about me and my own political affiliation.

I suspect, therefore, that making assumptions about people, even discriminating against people, is not so much partisan as it is a human condition.

To be fair, I do look, walk and quack very much like a Democrat. I also understand that being included in these conversations is deeply complimentary, as my pureblooded friends clearly feel such an affinity for me that they consider me one of their own race.

But it’s also a little disturbing to think that anyone’s approval of me, for any reason, also informs them that I can’t possibly bear any of the enemy’s genetic material. Sadly though, I do.

My friends’ own distress at being oppressed by Republicans is clearly not so terrible that they can’t also enjoy the conviviality of ranting about it over lunch.  Not me.  I’m much happier ranting about single issues than I am about entire groups of people.

Well.  Okay. Unless they’re from  The Institution that Shall Not be Named.  I never said it was about virtue on my part.  It’s more an irrational fear of suddenly finding myself among those being crucified.

Speaking of which.  I also enjoy a good rant about religion.  That’s very weird, I’ve just realized. Could it be that our country actually is much more religiously tolerant than it is politically tolerant? That’s a test question. I don’t know the answer. What do you think?