Women's Work

I've been thinking a lot about my family's 96 gallon recycling totter - in some towns they are affectionately called "Big Blue". Our town, in an effort to cut down on how much trash homes produce, gave each household one large totter and only trash in that totter will be collected. It forces families to do a better job sorting their "true" trash from items that can be recycled.

So we fill up our 96 gallon totter for the biweekly pick up with cans, plastic items and others that can be recycled. And a large collection truck comes by and dumps them all together with other recyclables. And off they go to a plant to be sorted.

But who does the sorting? What is the safety standards of these plants? While we feel good about decreasing our overall trash, who is compromising her or his safety to sort our recyclables?

So on this International Women's Day, I'm inspired by the nameless women (and men) who do the work to make our planet green - sort our recyclables, weatherize our homes, create new items out of "trash" (e.g. a purse from an old rice bag).

Because they are not being thanked for cleaning up, or sorting through, our mess.

Six voters

My assigned task for the Martha Coakley campaign on Special Election day was to drive voters who could not get themselves to the polls. At first I only had three folks to drive, all southeast of my hometown, and figured I would get to return to finish the day holding signs or making a few last ditch Get The Vote Out (GTVO) calls.

The first voter, the note said, used a wheelchair. I arrived at the apartment building, Mrs. D buzzed me in, and I rode up the elevator to her floor. Turning down the hall I was immediately struck by the medicinal smell of a nursing home, although this was a mixed use building. Her door was all the way at the end and slightly ajar. I knocked and opened the door to find a tiny, frail woman sitting in a motorized wheelchair.

After switching to a chair I would push, and attaching Mrs. D's oxygen tank, we locked up and started down the hall. She proceeded to rail, in her tiny voice, about people in her building "who aren't even registered to VOTE!" She continued, aghast "Can you imagine?"

We arrived at my mini-van and she struggled mightily to get herself up into the passenger seat. As we started to drive I mentioned which polling station I was taking her to and she felt pretty strongly that she voted at another location. I suggested we go to the one I was told and run in to ask. She agreed.

I entered the large church hall only to find two precincts voting in that location. It became apparent I was asking for someone else and when I finished explaining Mrs. D's situation, a clerk declared "Well you should just bring her ballot to the car. Let me get one of the police officers to escort you". And like that I was able to bring a ballot and pen to Mrs. D and she voted in my van. It was an honor to have my dingy van be the site of something so important.

Another voter later in the day became a US citizen 35 years ago. Mr. A was born in Trinidad and Tribago but raised his three sons in the big city. He had a prosthetic leg, above the knee, that kept popping out requiring him to stop and either have me push it back while sitting in his wheelchair or he would rearrange it so he could stand. It took him 30 minutes to get out of his house.

While driving to the polls he talked about how the United States was the greatest country in the world and that voting was very important. At one point he declared "Let's get Martha elected!" with a broad grin and a clap of his hands.

Coming back he mused "maybe I should have gotten an absentee ballot" so that he didn't have to vote at the polls. "But then I would've never met you!" I replied.

It took 30 minutes to get him back into his house, through the garage and up a winding staircase. I left him at the top of his stairs, on a mobile stair chair waving goodbye.

I drove others that day. An 88-year-old woman who had never missed an election since she was 21 ("we couldn't vote until we were 21" she reminded me). A 56-year-old man living in an assisted living facility who had suffered a massive stroke and asked my help to fill out his ballot since he couldn't find the dot to fill in. One woman who told me about how she missed out on her chance to vote for McGovern (and declared with pride that Massachusetts was the only state to vote for him) because she had emergency surgery that day.

While I was on the losing side of the election (in more ways than one), I did win in other ways. I helped six people vote. Six people who each had very good reasons, and in some cases many of them, to not vote.

So while I am still sorting out my anger and disappointment from other parts of the election, I am hopeful.

Because people vote.

The Girl Elephant in the Room

I spent the last few weeks devoting all my free time (all 32 seconds per week) to the Martha Coakley campaign to represent Massachusetts in the US Senate. I missed both my chance to volunteer during the primaries, and celebrate her win, when I had an emergency appendectomy the early morning hours of December 8th. But that didn't stop me from voting. My father brought me an absentee ballot to my hospital bed and I proudly filled it out, hours after surgery.

So I jumped into phone banks leading up to the general election and drove people to the polls on election day who had no means to get there. I talked her up to anyone who would listen. I was committed to getting her elected.

It is old news that she lost. That she went down in flames. All the talk is about how poorly her campaign was managed. Few people are willing to acknowledge that something much more insidious was involved.

Misogyny.

During the first hours of the polls being open, I stood with a large Coakley sign outside an elementary school. As young children walked on the sidewalk past me a man who looked to be in his 50's rolled down his car window. There was a sidewalk and an entire lane between us requiring he had to yell to be heard.

Very clearly he shouted "She's a fucking beast".

During the days leading up to the election I would call voters, asking them to vote for Martha Coakley and half the time they would say to me that they hated her negative ads. When asked about Scott Brown's ads they insisted he was never negative. And yet, several years ago during the Presidential campaign when Senator John Kerry ignored the Swift Boat negative ads, he was considered weak. So according to those callers a woman couldn't fight back.

Later, after the polls closed, I was at a town gathering unrelated to the Senate race. I was surrounded by Democrats, Republicans and unenrolled voters. I started talking to a man I know. He isn't someone I know well but we've interacted over the years. We got to talking about the Senate election and he made it clear he voted for Scott Brown in part for his position on abortion.

After a discussion of Brown's failed amendment to create a massive loophole in a bill to protect rape victims, the man suddenly said,"If my daughter was raped, she wouldn't get an abortion. Two wrongs don't make a right."

I thought I had been kicked in the gut. I started to cry, describing the hell of pregnancy - even when that pregnancy is a product of love - and asked him how he, sans overies or a uterus, could even think that he should have a say.

I returned home late election night, reeling from my bookend experiences. A man who felt no inhibition to yell such profanities in public and a man who would look a woman in the eye and say that a woman should be expected to carry a pregnancy from a rape. I cried until 2:30 in the morning. I awoke at 4:30 in the morning only to start crying again.

I would talk to liberal men about the sexism and be brushed off. "It was all about her bad campaign. It had nothing to do with gender" declared one young [male] colleague.

Yet every woman I spoke to agreed. Agreed that there was vitriol directed at a female candidate that would never happen to a man.

So why is it o.k. to diminish the impact of gender on this race? Why is it o.k. to yell obscenities about a woman candidate? Would the driver that morning have felt it was alright to yell a racial epitaph if the candidate was black? Why is it o.k. to be matter-of-fact about options for a female rape victim? Would the man at the party have said the same about denying treatment to the victim of any other form of assault?

I have no answers. I'm still too raw from Tuesday's results. Both inside and outside the polls.

Like it was 1996

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone at home.

If it was a normal day, one spent at the desk working on my computer next to a phone it would not have been a big deal.

But yesterday was not a normal day. Yesterday I got to watch, after a few years of my work and literally decades of other people's efforts, a bill get to the last stage of becoming a law. And I couldn't instantly tell people outside the State House about the progress.

The funny thing is that my counterpart from a sister organization didn't have his phone either. He forgot to charge it.

So we ran back and forth between the House and the Senate chambers to watch the different proceedings. While waiting to hear about the bill we talked, because we couldn't text or surf the web. It reminded me of how the State House was before the Internet, cell phones and texting.

You sat around with colleagues, watching history be made, and really talked. About people, the weather, upcoming efforts, gossip and jokes.

And I found myself missing 1996.

"people of ill will use time"

This morning, I finally got to sit through an entire service at church. This fall has been spent teaching the middle school class. Today was my first "day off" since September and I relished the chance to sit in quiet, sing some hymns and reconnect with dear friends.

The two readings included one by Tony Kushner, the Angels in America playwright, and a excerpt from Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham. I took some liberties:

I had also hoped that the white straight moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white straight brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored gay people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial all injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

So to those of you who are silent as these ballot initiatives strip human rights - who chose not to speak out against the hatred towards gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexual persons, who attend houses of worship that ferment hate yet say nothing - you too are people of ill will.

Knock knock - hello? Maine?

Knock, knock. Hello, Maine?

Hi, I'm SMID and I live in Massachusetts which has had marriage equality for over 5 years.

Funny thing? Even after five years of gays being able to marry, the sky is still where it belongs. No four horsemen nor large swarms of bugs have descended upon us. Everyone's marriage - straight or gay - continues to be the business of the two people in that marriage.

Why, Maine, why couldn't you just do the same?

Maybe this piece from The Colbert Report explains it.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Mormon Church Trespassing
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

So really Maine is just another fearful, bigoted Utah. Why don't you move West. As one friend of mine says, you don't deserve the Atlantic Ocean.

We could've staged a coup while visiting South Carolina

Unbeknown to Ambassador and me, and apparently the rest of South Carolina, this past weekend their governor - one of those Republicans who wouldn't take federal stimulus money "on principle" and was a rising star in the party - couldn't be found.

Governor Sanford literally walked off the job without telling people where he was going. At first his staff were saying that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Then on Monday it was disclosed that no one knew where he was.

Apparently he was in Argentina because he (I'm not making this up) "wanted to do something exotic". He admitted that he has been having an affair with a woman living in Buenos Aires.

Personally I don't care who people screw. I don't care if they are unfaithful. That is their business.

What I think is absolutely, completely appalling is that this man walked away from his job and was unreachable for several days. He was elected to take care of an entire state - a state I was visiting - and he couldn't bother to leave a number where he could be reached in case of an, oh, hurricane, explosion, flu outbreak.....

But good thing Ambassador and I didn't know. We would've staged a coup.

More photos tomorrow....

"The Tank Man" - Beijing, June 5, 1989

The above photo was taken by Charlie Cole of Newsweek Magazine. He described his version of taking this iconic photo twenty years ago along with three other photographers on the New York Times photoblog site. I've just highlight a bit of his story:

As the tanks neared the Beijing Hotel, the lone young man walked toward the middle of the avenue waving his jacket and shopping bag to stop the tanks. I kept shooting in anticipation of what I felt was his certain doom. But to my amazement, the lead tank stopped, then tried to move around him. But the young man cut it off again. Finally, the PSB (Public Security Bureau) grabbed him and ran away with him. Stuart and I looked at each other somewhat in disbelief at what we had just seen and photographed.

After taking the picture of the showdown, I became concerned about the PSB’s surveillance of our activities on the balcony. I was down to three rolls of film, with two cameras. One roll held the tank encounter, while the other had other good pictures of crowd and PLA confrontations and of wounded civilians at a hospital.

I replaced the final unexposed roll into the one of the cameras, replacing the tank roll, and reluctantly left the other roll of the wounded in the other camera. I felt that if the PSB searched the room or caught me, they would look even harder if there
was no film in the cameras.

I then placed the tank roll in a plastic film can and wrapped it in a plastic bag and attached it to the flush chain in the tank of the toilet. I hid my cameras as best I could in the room. Within an hour, the PSB forced their way in and started searching the room. After about five minutes, they discovered the cameras and ripped the film out of each, seemingly satisfied that they had neutralized the coverage. They then forced me to sign a confession that I had been photographing during martial law and confiscated my passport.

Sometime later, I was able to return to the room and retrieve the film, which I took over to the A.P. office and developed. Afterwards, David Berkwitz, who had been sent to Beijing as the Newsweek photo tech-photographer, transmitted the picture to Newsweek in time for our deadline.

Imagine if this photo had been confiscated. Imagine never seeing this photo and what it represents. This photo has always given me chills. I never knew it had to spend time hidden in a toilet in order to see the light of day.

Won't be silent

To be honest I didn't even want to play music this Monday.

Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions was shot inside his church on Sunday morning.

According to the New York Times, "Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered."

As one of the few doctors who would perform third-trimester abortions when the life or health of a mother was at stake his death will make it even harder for women dealing with those situations to terminate their pregnancies.

So I was going to not play any music today. I was at the March on Washington in 1992. I do not apologize for believing in a woman's right to choice.



But then, the horrid murderer would win. Those who want to silence women and our right to choose would win. So I choose to play a loud, buoyant anthem for us. For Women. Because Sisters, no one is going to do this but us.

Dr. Tiller's motto was "trust women". How sad that someone who treated us as grown-ups had to die for that belief. But we will not be silenced. Dr. Tiller should not die in vain.

Got any girl power songs to share?

Hearing the love

One of the outcomes from a birthday party is hearing folks say how much they like the birthday CD.

During preschool pick-up, a dad followed us up the stairs to retrieve his son's belongings. I had my entire crew with me. His son came to little lady's birthday party.

"I LOVE the birthday CD!" he practically shouted at us.

He then told us how he plays it at work. His work is a construction site. I think he is at least the foreman if not the actual company owner. So clearly he gets to chose what music is played on the site.

"Yeah. And there is this one guy who just grumbles when 'Barack Obama' comes on. He tells me to turn it off." There was a pronounced pause between the "to" and "turn" which the kids didn't pick up on. I assume there is a swear that began with an f between those two words.

"Why?" asks one of my sons incredulously.

"Did he," my 8-year-old asks with grave seriousness, "did he vote for [pause to clearly wrap his head around this]

John McCain?!?" with complete horror to his voice.

"Yes. I think he did" answers the dad.

And we all - including the dad - sang "Barack Obama" in the preschool hallway.

Tyranny has finally come to our shores

I don't watch that wiley news network. The one that is supposedly "Fair and Balanced".

However, I have been having a field day as Jon Stewart skewers them.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

In case you miss what Jon says...

"So, government is taking over our schools, our corporations, our health care. our personal liberties.

Scary.

And while President Bush was the one who started it

• Nationalizing an insurance company
• adding a $17 trillion prescription drug entitlement program
• had a government mandated public school initiative literally titled "No Child Left Behind"
• wire tapped citizens without warrants
• created secret internment camps in international waters beyond the reach of our justice system
• and allowed his Vice President to live in a Netherworld between the Executive and Legislative branch where his house didn't exist on Google Earth

Only now has tyranny come to our shores."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you Jon.

A Watched Government

I continue to be missing in blogging although this time it is for work. Last Wednesday evening found me in the third training in 5 weeks in another small city in my state. A while ago I wrote about a presentation I made about my organization's efforts to strengthen foreclosure prevention law in our state. That bill I was talking about became law in November, 2007.


This current round of presentations are called "Legislative Learning Sessions". A colleague and I are working to get more folks engaged in state policy advocacy - how their tax dollars are spent and what bills become laws. Years ago I learned a wonderful phrase - "A Watched Government Behaves Differently" - and hope that at the end of the session people get that. They get that this is their government and they have a say in it.

Last Wednesday's session was unique because my colleague and I were in the minority - nearly everyone was a Spanish-speaker. We turned the tables and wore the translation headsets and had the translator translate for us.


I kept hearing stories that their local government was not responding to their needs. I challenged them to challenge their government. Watch them. Write letters to the newspaper. Go to hearings.

I saw one of the participants this week and asked her if they had stormed City Hall yet.

She waved her hand, rolled her eyes and assured me as she turned away it was scheduled for tomorrow.

Not a Funeral Dirge and a Free Song

When we were leaving a restaurant the evening of the Inauguration, a young African-American man saw my "Mr. President" button with Obama's portrait. He looked me in the eye and let out a rousing "Yes we can!"

To which I replied "Yes we DID!" He laughed, clapped several times and gave me a big thumbs up.

***

That is just one of the many times we celebrated with strangers - black and white, young and old, locals and visitors - during the Inauguration. A woman from Florida gave my kids a lecture on how to ride the subway, then admitted she had never ridden on one before. An older couple leading an even older gentleman followed my kids as they led all of us to where we can get on the bridge.

The video below captures the incredibly feeling of one - we were all one. One nation, one people. It is a group of folks with snare drums, trumpets and their voices performing the most rousing rendition of We Shall Overcome. One friend, after seeing the video, commented that this is how it should be sung. As an uplifting song, not "a funeral dirge".

***

Now for the FREE SONG!!

Go to Michael Franti & Spearhead to get this song. My kids and I can't stop singing it.

A celebration and a freebie! What more could you ask for on a Monday?

Any music inspired you lately? Please join in Music Monday. Just remember if you plan to use little Mr. Linky below, write a post about music and link back to me.



But if you plan on posting an advertisement, I will delete your link as well as your comment. Just don't bother.

Stories from history

Soon after the election I got in touch with a friend (Frank's widow) and asked if the boys and I could stay on her living room floor. She told me she would be out of the country during the Inauguration, so she would be sending me the keys to her apartment. We stayed in a penthouse facing the Potomac River with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Little lady and my dad were part of the journey.



I still can't get over the mood of everyone we met. It was as if we were in a small town and we all knew each other, even if we were meeting for the first time. Both times crossing the Roosevelt Bridge (for the concert and the Inauguration) my kids started talking to random strangers and they in turn talked freely with my kids. People looked out for us on the subway, graciously helped us with directions and smiled freely.



On Monday, when it became incredibly clear that there was no way we would get within a mile of the Capitol building on Inauguration Day, my dad and I took the kids to the site of the swearing in ceremony. While walking from the Metro station a woman sitting in a parked car rolled down her window and yelled with a huge sound of relief "It is his last full day in office!"



Little lady tried very hard to be a trooper but there were times that a four-year-old body just couldn't walk any more. The Wonderful Grandfather was often her personal chariot.



There is some debate about whether I've been to the Lincoln Memorial before (I have no memory of it). We all went there the morning of the Inauguration. The boys asked what was written to the left of Lincoln's statue. As my dad read the end of the Gettysburg address, we were both crying.



It was by far the largest crowds I have ever been in. It was also the longest I asked my kids to be out in cold weather. Once again, little lady couldn't do it. And once again, Wonderful Grandfather whisked her away to the apartment. He even flagged down a bicycle rick-shaw for the princess to return to her borrowed palace in style.



Once President Obama was sworn in, people started leaving. I knew I had to go with the flow and miss the rest of the ceremony. The tide of people was too great to stay to listen to the poetry or remaining words. But never did I feel unsafe or worried that the crowds would get rowdy.




As we were walking back towards the Lincoln Memorial I could hear the most spirited version of We Shall Overcome. It was like a second line. Drums, horns and happy singing. The boys and I walked over to see this spontaneous celebration of song and dance.



After the singing, the 2 mile walk back in the cold seemed to fly by. Even the boys kept saying they had seen history.

And it was an honor to be there.

Witnessing history

Did you notice the choir?

We're in Washington DC. "We" meaning me, all three kids and my dad. Amazing Guy wanted nothing to do with the crowds, cold and chance of mayhem. My dad and I can think of nothing more fun than to deal with all three for the chance to be a part of history. And we'll drag 3 little kids around with us to do just that.

We couldn't get into the Sunday concert on the Mall. After standing in line for an hour the "gate" we were entering suddenly shut down. We gave up and headed back to the apartment we are staying in.

We did watch the rebroadcast in the evening. Both my dad and I nearly fell out of our seats when "My Country 'Tis of Thee" got into full swing. It followed the recounting of American-born opera singer Marian Anderson being invited in 1939 to sing at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from a concert because she was black.

The music started with Josh Grobin (what? they followed the story of a black woman singing on the steps with a white dude? huh?) then Heather Headley came out. The backdrop opened to reveal rows and rows of smartly dressed men all wearing the same red ribbon on their lapels. I looked at my dad, he looked at me and gave me a thumbs up over the kids' heads.

[Sorry for the lousy video. The best I could do.]

Any music inspired you lately? Please join in Music Monday. Just remember if you plan to use little Mr. Linky below, write a post about music and link back to me. Music always makes Monday a bit more fun.



Just no advertisements. I will delete them.

Taking the kids to see history

Inauguration

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

It is coming true

Friday night I went with several (straight) moms to the local movie theatre (really, that is how it is spelled "-tre") to see Milk. It starts with these haunting images - black and white films of police raids in which men are rounded up and placed in the back of vans. The first time you see Harvey Milk, brilliantly played by Sean Penn, he is speaking into a tape recorder. He clearly states as the tape begins recording it is only to be played upon his death.

Before the movie had started I warned one of the women that I was a cryer at movies and I expected to ball profusely. I had kleenex at the ready and was prepared for a good, hard cry. Crying about the hatred that fueled Milk and Mayor George Mascone's assassin, crying about the hope and optimism Milk had until the end, crying that he was so desperately needed since the California Prop. 6 fight of the 1970's (in which anyone gay or sympathized with gays couldn't teach in public schools) morphed into the Prop. 8 fight of today.

But I didn't cry. I didn't cry as the film graphically depicted the shooting at close range, at all of Milk's staff, friends and supporters - 30,000 of them - held candles the night of his shooting. I didn't cry as the postscript flashed on the screen and the bogus "Twinkie Defense" appeared under the murder's name and face.

I shook. I shook uncontrollably. I felt cold. I felt unbearably cold.

The following night was Saturday and I rushed over to the local community house to spend a few minutes at a friend's husband's surprise birthday party. I had helped my friend line up the space, even using my membership to the community house to get the reduced rental rate, and felt I should make an appearance even though Amazing Guy couldn't come (we didn't have a babysitter) and I would literally only know two people there.

So I charged into the house, smiled at the men hanging out along the grand staircase, walked through the room with the food and nodded at the men eating hoers d'ourves - saw a woman in the mix - and walked onto a huge wrap-around porch where my friend was moving some trash bags. I gave him a hug. He told me to find his husband.

I found the birthday boy, gave him a hug and was going to leave. My friend caught me at the door and introduced me to one of the lone straight women but she was heading out the door because she had left her kids alone without a sitter for the first time. Then my friend introduced me to a fellow who does similar work as me. We talked about foreclosures and housing policy (really) and then saw some guys dancing in another room to Madonna's Vogue. I kept looking into the room and then Beyonce's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) came on and he said "Oh this is a fun one to dance to - come on!"

Suddenly I was dancing in a grand old house with a room full of gay men - some married (because that is legal in my state and has been for years), some not, some old, some young. And as I asked the DJ to play the following song I realized Harvey Milk's words from the the 1978 Hope speech recreated in the movie was true all around me:

"We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets ... We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions."

And while this song was playing, as with Laura Branigan's Gloria, Prince's Little Red Corvette and Madonna's Like a Prayer, I was sweating. Sweating and dancing.

Please join in Music Monday. Just remember if you plan to use little Mr. Linky above then write a post about music and link back to me. Music always makes Monday a bit more fun.



But if you plan on posting an advertisement, I will delete your link as well as your comment. Just don't bother.

Go See

Milk.

For more Singular Saturdays go visit Jenn in Holland.

Friends like this.....

Amazing Guy sent me the following link from CNN today. It is a clip from the Campbell Brown show. In it Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania is recorded on an open microphone having one of those "side" conversations. He clearly didn't realize the mike was on and said the following about current Arizona Governor Janet Nepolitano being nominated to head Homeland Security for President-elect Barak Obama:

"Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it."

I'm just flabbergasted that one of the more progressive governors would say something that moronic, that sexist, that so friggin' stupid.

But I can't talk too much about it now. I have to make dinner for those kids. Those kids that mean I can't devote 19-20 hours a day to a job. I guess that means I'm not a good worker.