The 'Queerness' of sitting down for a beer at the White House.

Is it just me or does the idea of Obama, Gates, & Crowley sitting down for a beer today seem queer (in the broad queer theory sense of being outside socially constructed 'norms'). I am white and female, and my image of guys having a cold beer after work involves some kind of (safe, third space?) social setting (a bar) with some (safe?) reason/excuse for sitting down together (a game) so that you don't have to really go too deeply emotionally or solve problems any bigger than the Red Sox and steroid use. I like going for a drink after work to wind down and shoot the sh*t as they say. But if it means having drinks with people I don't know in the most power-drenched setting in the world, and then taking on some weighty, politically fraught subject like the Gates arrest I'm going straight home.

As an opener I suggest 'How 'bout them Sox?' Lots of luck guys but you can count me out.

Is Parental Alienation Child Abuse? It can be.

I haven't been able to unearth the details about why the judge in Palin's sister's divorce case was concerned about child abuse but my guess that the judge saw evidence of psychological harm to the children. It was an acrimonious divorce case and Sarah Palin's sister and her family may well have been putting the children of the divorcing couple through hell. I'm a social worker and a child of divorce. In my case my parents tried (not always completely successfully) to stay respectful of one another. Yet it was still difficult for me not to feel some distancing from my father.

Divorce is hard enough on kids but too many parents make the children suffer terribly by doing everything they can to make the child despise and fear the other parent, including enlisting his/her parents and siblings in the war for the children's affection and trust. This is parental alienation. It's a continuum but anyone who has been subjected to this as a kid knows how life-scarring it is. When other members of the family get into the fight, the child has no safe harbor and is forced to take sides and "lose" the other parent. Child abuse? It can be.

McCain Cheated at the Saddleback and here's the proof.

I actually did not think that the Saddleback Civil Forum was going to be that compelling but wanted to hear how Obama managed because I care about his faith and how he expresses it. So I Tivoed it and watched it Sunday evening. Now I have it recorded and I can go back to it when I need to because it was the most revealing picture of McCain’s character I’ve seen yet. When I watched it casually, I had the strong sense that something was “off.” Well, it certainly was. I’m a college professor and I know cheating when I see it and McCain out-and-out cheated. It doesn’t even matter how he did it but he had the questions beforehand.

First let me say, Obama and McCain did not get the same test. Warren introduced the Forum by saying that the candidates would get the same questions. They did not get the same questions. They were asked in very different ways and with different introductions by Warren. So Warren is implicated here and he needs to pray for forgiveness for his part in all of this.

Second, Warren did not call McCain out when he jumped on the questions almost before Warren finished asking (see McCain about 1:50 in the video on education for example, “Yes, yes, and yes”), and indeed answered two of them well before they were asked (see below). Warren warned Obama not to use his stump speech but let McCain gleefully launch into his “drill now” thing. The guy was showing off that he knew the questions and he manipulated the audience (shame on them for falling for it) with his Christianism-speak.

I was dumbfounded at what Warren let McCain get away with while he held Obama’s feet to the fire. We all know now that there was no “cone of silence” but Warren implied that McCain was in a room waiting with no access to what was being asked. McCain reinforced the impression that he was in a secure room by joking that he “trying to hear through the wall.”

McCain does not answer the question Warren asks about a position he held 10 years ago and changed his mind about, McCain launches into his stump speech on drilling and security and basically answers one of the questions that hadn’t been asked yet and Warren says,

WARREN: Well, you just took the — I had that question later on but now we don’t have to ask it.

Later, many minutes before Warren asks about the Supreme Court Justices the following exchange takes place.

WARREN: OK, we don’t have to beleaguer on that one. Define marriage.
MCCAIN: A union — a union between man and woman, between one man and one woman. That’s my definition of marriage.
Could I — are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention –
WARREN: We will get to that.
MCCAIN:
WARREN: You’re jumping ahead (inaudible).

Obama was respectful of the audience and of the setting and gave thoughtful, authentic answers. But McCain is in the end zone doing his victory dance on this one. Are we going to let him get away with this?

Bush's ol' fashioned racism

Bush managed to insult the President of the Phillipines this week by commenting that he appreciates the cooking of Phillipine-Americans in the White House. Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was in Washington while her country tries to recover from a typhoon that devastated coastal areas and flipped a ferry carrying over 800 passengers last week. Before discussing aide for the Philippines, Bush couldn't resist beginning the sober meeting with a quip about a Filipino member of his kitchen staff.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Thank you.

Then there is this photo of him taken in Iowa. I guess Po' ol' Massah just doesn't know that rubbing the head of a black child (or an adult) is a deeply repugnant act and a racial insult. Makes you shudder to think what he'll do to Obama at the Inauguration. It helps that Obama is tall and may well be wearing a hat.

McCain's Spiritual Guide

You Spin me 'Round 'Round

I've been in Toronto at a conference and heard James Pennebaker comment on the words that candidates use. This analysis is about spin. Check it out. http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/skill/uselection/

Sittin' in my kitchen--got the blues

Let's have a bit of fun with the use that Clinton and Obama have made of the kitchen (not that I can picture HRC puttering about in an actual kitchen, and I’m sure neither McCain or Cindy know their way around one). First Clinton treated to us to that old taunt, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” After the two primaries yesterday, I don’t expect that to come up again. For those of you who may not know what Clinton meant, it was basically, you’re not “man” enough for this fight. Going back an election or two, it is pretty much the same as calling someone a wimp.

Then in February it was well known that Clinton was going to pursue a kitchen sink strategy to defeat Obama. The idea there was that she would throw everything she could get her hands on to attack him with. This is the first time I recall that particular usage. The saying I’m more familiar with is “Everything but the kitchen sink.” For you entymology fans the phrase is based on the idea that if you brought many things to someone, a kitchen sink is one of the last things you would bring because it is difficult to move. Hmmm—makes me wonder if Clinton plans to throw the sink too.

For the last two weeks, as both candidates courted the voters who are in financial distress, we began to hear about the “kitchen table” issues, e.g., gas prices, and Obama met with voters around a small kitchen table.

The image that the kitchen table is supposed to conjure up is a family going over their budgets and bills at a chrome and formica table in the kitchen—a Norman Rockwell scene. A lot of us don’t have a kitchen large enough (“eat-in” in real estate lingo) for a table and even if we did we’d be using it for eating not for sorting bills.

Now for some serious fun. if you google "McCain and kitchen" you will find nothing about John McCain and that particular domestic space but there is a singer named Edwin McCain who sings the Kitchen Song, one of the choruses is as follows:

Oh pretty baby, don't know what to say
I just want you to ... go away
Well I'd love to sit and reflect on this
But I haven't got the time
Just tell me why you chose
to be so cruel, mean, brutal
so unkind

I wonder of Obama knows that song.

And what is a good search without checking in with YouTube, where I found there are several genres of kitchen videos. One is music made from kitchen sounds, another is a singer or groups sitting in the kitchen singing, and the other uses the kitchen as the central metaphor. I posted one of the the best of those, I Got the Kitchen Blues. Enjoy!