You'll have to forgive the blurry photo, but I was standing on a chair, in the back.
I was given the mistaken impression by our fearless Greenville News, that Senator John McCain himself, war hero, author and Republican presidential candidate, would be at Tanner's Big Orange yesterday. So, I hightailed it over there, only to discover that NO, he only sent his flunkies, Senators Graham and Lott. Also appearing, McCain backers, Greenville Mayor Knox White and State Senator Mike Fair. These are the heavies, folks. Mitt Romney has obviously been left for dead.
Tanner's Big Orange is as old south as it gets. We were generously given free onion rings (I skipped on the chili dogs, thanks) and orange juice while we waited for the legendary Straight Talk Express, McCain's bus, to pull up. Straight Talk? He isn't even on his bus, he is up in Michigan campaigning for the big numbers. Am I supposed to be impressed with that? And, um, Lindsey? Straight talk? Do we really wanna go there?
The place was jam-packed with southern hawks, diehard military fellas with shirts, buttons and patches letting you know which wars they were in. (One of them politely offered me his seat--yes, southern gentlemen!) This made me sweat a bit, suddenly conscious of my corduroy tie-dye skirt and long hair, but a few of the veterans had that scruffy, long-haired outsider-look Dennis Hopper used to have before he started shilling for Wall Street. These guys are SOLID behind McCain, and totally unapologetic for the Iraq War. They are there to WIN, as Lindsey repeatedly said, to cheers.
Lindsey Graham, to put it very honestly and bluntly, is one of the most charming people in the world. He is sweet, funny and whimsical. He has a million one-liners, delivered in his lilting, gee-whiz-I'm-a-Senator-can-you-dig-it? fashion. This seems like a sharp contrast to his style on the Senate floor, where he doesn't miss a trick. Nonetheless, when he started talking, I was jarred by the juxtaposition of the hard-ass, masculine veterans and sweet, nonmasculine Lindsey, and I am always surprised at how much they like him. Do they see it? If they do, they don't care. Lindsey, as usual, appealed to his military service, which he holds up like a banner in most political discussions of Iraq. And then he tells jokes. He'd be fine with ANY of the good men running for the GOP nomination, he said, except Ron Paul (whose name was met with a round of boos)...but Lindsey says he figures he'll have to worry about that when he is drafted for the NBA (he's short), so he isn't too worried.
About John Edwards (more boos), he says people don't realize that they BOTH were born in Seneca, South Carolina. In fact, Lindsey Graham and John Edwards were born in the same hospital! "I was born in the right wing of that hospital, and he was born in the left wing of that hospital!" The crowd ate it up.
I didn't hang around for Trent Lott, hey, I have my limits, okay? But I will say that in person, his toupee is something to behold. It looks much more toupee-ish than on TV, and you wonder, if he can afford summer homes and the like, can't he find a decent toupee? What's up with that?On the way out, I spied two Ron Paul boys of college age, busily leafleting windshields. HEY GUYS! "They are trashing Ron Paul in there," I told them. They sneered in the general direction of Tanner's Big Orange. "Not too surprising!" sneered one. "Politics as usual!" sneered the other. Both chuckled that McCain couldn't even be bothered to show up in person.
Maybe, I thought, he doesn't have to. It's obviously between McCain and Huckabee here in the upstate, and judging by the tenor of the Tanner's crowd, I'd give the SC primary to McCain.
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My piece on Spider-Man and Mary Jane, the non-marriage that has rocked the comics-world to its foundations, has been linked on When Fangirls Attack, as well as Anthony McCune's Surfer's Paradise blog carnival! WELCOME EVERYONE, and stick around!
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Left: Graphic from Earthstation1.com.Check out Ren's post, patiently explaining why pornography (and she makes it, so she knows whereof she speaks) is NOT the same as sex education. And never the twain shall meet:
A great post, really worth reading. ADULTS ONLY please! (Although maybe the teenage boys need to read it, in particular.)
Well, as I’ve said before, and as I am saying right now, and as I am sure I will have to say in the future, Porn Is Absolutely Shitty Sex Education. It sucks as sex education. It is, quite possibly, the worst excuse/form/whatever of sex education out there. Porn is adult entertainment. Pornographers and porn performers are adult entertainers. Sex Education rarely if ever enters the mind of a lot people in the porn biz, and yeah, they would do themselves a huge favor if they made porn less accessible to minors, but with the internet, file sharing, downloading, free sites, so on, I don’t even really know how much that would help. Either way, it is known that kids, male and female, are looking at porn and taking it as some form of sexual education, and that is not at all what it’s for, and the messages they are getting out of it in regards to sex & sex ed are totally inane, misinformed, and even dangerous.
GOOD WORK, REN!
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Also check out Mother Jones' excellent article of last issue, Did I Steal My Daughter?--which is about international adoption.
These issues are regularly discussed on Marley Greiner's fantastic blog, The Daily Bastardette.
And that's when it finally sank in: Beatriz hadn't made a "choice" in the liberating way that our post-Roe culture thinks about reproductive options. Like any woman in the developing world placing a child for adoption, she'd buckled under crushing financial or social pressure—perhaps even coercion. I'd considered this before, but had always batted the thought away by telling myself that Flora was going to be adopted, whether it was we who stepped forward or someone else.
No Dead Air Church today, but enjoy your Sabbath anyway!
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Listening to: The Pretenders - Message of Love
via FoxyTunes
