U.S. Politics

I haven't got around to including my links on this new blog but one of my favourites which addresses issues of aging is Time Goes By.

There's always lively discussion , contributions from a geriatrician and great stories on a sister site. Ronnie, the webmistress, tirelessly provides information on the upcoming American elections and invites contributions from readers, which are published on a Sunday. It's all made fascinating reading, albeit a little scary and, to be honest , fills me with despair and frustration.

I've noticed from following the reports in the Guardian, that many of the commentators on articles are from the USA. Some are full of righteous indignation that anyone outside of the USA has the temerity to criticise or comment on how the elections are being handled. But here's one that caught my eye apropos a recent speech by Sarah Palin.

Interesting post from Craigslist in Sacramento.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic', 'different', even 'elitist'

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your middle name means "handsome" or "good looking" in Arabic you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 9,000 people where you raised sales taxes and which you left with a newly created debt, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency behind a 72 year-old cancer survivor with high blood pressure who takes Ambien to sleep at night.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife a number of times and finally with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you ARE a good Christian.

* If you advocate responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly push abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values are not America's family values.

* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable and ALWAYS puts 'country first'...

OK, much clearer now.

Posted by: HapR | 17 Sep 2008 16:17:00

There's so much written on this issue that it's a full time job sorting the wheat from the chaff, but I can only plug away trying to keep up as the outcome is going to have an impact on us all.