Test balloons are for popping

Posted on Jewschool.com first. 
 
Rabbi Jonah Pesner said he may be interested in running for John Kerry's vacated Senate seat in the special election. Some believe he should jump in with both feet, up to his neck, and go for it with the belief of a zealot. This is a bad idea.

If the report in The Boston Phoenix about this run was a test balloon, I hope this blog post at least starts a leak.

Rabbi Pesner—for all his political maneuvering in the Jewish world—is not a politician. He is a community organizer sure, but a politician with national chops he is not. Blah blah, President Obama, blah, blah. These two men should not and cannot be compared in the same breath. Now that this is out of the way, we will get into the meat of this disastrous move.

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We need a lot more than love

This morning as many of us on the West Coast were getting ready for work, the cheery December morning shows were interrupted shattering our normalcy.  Mocktail recipes were cut short to blast images of SWAT teams rushing into an elementary school and lackluster journalist reports telling us that many children were killed in a small town in Connecticut.

At this hour 20 children, six adults and the shooter have been pronounced dead in Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Kids were shot in two classrooms. Classrooms. At school. 

In the aftermath of today's horrific events we need a hell of a lot more than love.

Sorry, we need more. (source)

Pictures of hugging and smiling children don't stop another Sandy Hook.  They don't save the lives of the children who will be killed in the next school shooting, because we know there will be another one.  Prayers will not do anything to stop a person from legally purchasing an automatic weapon, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and pulling the trigger. Tweets and Facebook posts will not provide mental healthcare services to those who need them.

No in fact the only thing those things will do is make you feel better for not getting killed today.

So here are a few things you can do that might help.

Call the President and demand he send a bill to Congress.  Fiscal Cliff or not, dead children should be enough to make him act.

Call Congress and tell them to get their act together. They must support and improve access to mental healthcare and pass a comprehensive assault weapons ban. Again, dead kids motivate people.

If you are in D.C. join my friend Adam Barr and thousands of others tonight at the White House to demand action because #TodayIsTheDay to end gun violence.

 Make a donation. 

There is no explanation that we can give for a massacre of children. All Americans are responsible for this one.  Let this be the last day we place our hands over our mouths and watch the unimaginable play out on the news.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It speaks to my social and religious world view. It is a forces slow-down to be grateful and to acknowledge what you got. 

Like every year, this year other stuff is happening making it hard to be comfortable with being able to be Thankful. 

Gaza is Burning, Israelis are Running
While I stay far away from the blame game, it is clear that both sides have skin in this game. Israel shouldn't launch a ground offensive.  Hamas should stop lobbing rockets towards civilians.  The world should see this for the extremely complicated and convoluted situation it is and stop placing all the blame on one group. Ach.  Anyway, it is hard to be all happy happy joy joy when I have friends in harm's way and others digging out their boots and greens.

Remember that Storm that we Forgot About?
Yup people still don't have power and such.  Kids are still out of school.  Pets are still unclaimed. Sandy's impact won't be fully calculated until Q3 of next year.  That is nuts. We are talking BILLIONS and BILLIONS in damage but we should get back to talking about idiots waiting in line for Black Friday deals.

Complicated Number Things
Yeah the Fiscal Cliff is also getting me down. It could be the end of the world as we know it or other such doom's day things.

But, we get to eat pie.  So that is great. 

Media and the Israel Gaza Battles

In case you missed it, Israel and Gaza are fighting again. Hamas and others are lobbing rockets at Israel.  Israel is launching "eliminations" of Hamas leadership in broad daylight.  However the Twitter fight is something new.

Them's Fightin' Words

BuzzFeed is calling it how to fight a war for real and online.

I suppose this is to be expected.

It is the new face of war...Twitter. Something to think about. 

Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts:

1. I am running a marathon in 10 days and again in a month and nine days.
Back when I was trying to prove to myself that I was able to do anything I set my mind to, I signed up for the California International Marathon. Mind you I was already registered for the New York City Marathon.  All of my training has been focused on New York. My hill mantra is "5th Avenue" and I visualize my kick starting as we run through Engineer's Gate.

But I have another one to consider...and I think that just hit me, especially as I deal with my shin splint. But in reality, I am ready for both and I am just getting into my head.

2. Being the Bandwagon is fun.
Let's go Giants! My lovely wife is a life-long Cards fan and I am sorry she doesn't get to watch her team in the Fall Classic, but come on!  This is exciting. San Francisco is acting like a normal city with normal sports fans.  We were there for the Perfect Cain so it is clearly our arrival to a City by a Bay that took the team back to the World Series.  One down side: Listening to Joe Buck for another baseball series. I really dislike that man.

#PerfectCain

3. This is my soft launch of asking for money.
I have often coveted those with fantastic facial hair. Due to my impatience and my wife's insistence, I have never sported much more than a week and a half of beard, stash, or anything else. However, now I have committed to raising some money for testicular and prostate cancer as part of Movember, in order to be forced into facial hair.  I will be using this forum as a progress report but I will not go all Armstrong and use Rogaine or Just For Men, no matter what.  I want my contribution without controversy. (I intend to make a lot of jokes at Lance's expense.)

4. This election could be over now. 
I am done. And so are most Americans. Here in California we have all these wacky Props that will most likely not work and I am sick of the ads.  I bet FOX is pretty excited that the election is after the World Series...at least they get the reveune from these interminable ads. I will be voting for the goods guys and not the bad guys. That is all.
 
5.  I am now on the Board of Directors of my running club.
I was honored to be asked to join the SFRRC board and I think based both on my presentation of ideas and my outfit, I got the job. 

A Pro Running Outfit

I am excited to take part in organizational management and help our club be even better. Join us for a run sometime.

6. In one week I will fly to NYC. 
I am excited to see friends and family. Also I get to run the marathon...in case I didn't mention that.

My Bib - 42053

Hillary Clinton is Gangster

Interestingly two of my most read posts ever have been on sexism and gender issues.  I find them to be extremely interesting for a number of reasons, most obviously was because of how I grew up.  I am most proud of the post about my feelings on Anne-Marie Slaughter's treatise on the mythical work-life-balance.  Slaughter's epic was based on her time in the Clinton State Department.  And it appears that Hillary Clinton, life-long woman, has a few words for her former staffer.

If there was any question if Hillary Clinton is an abject badass, this interview clears up any confusion:

Last summer Anne-Marie Slaughter, Clinton's former director of policy planning, caused a stir among the State Department ranks when she wrote a controversial cover story in The Atlantic, entitled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," about why she felt an obligation to quit Clinton's staff because she found "juggling high-level governmental work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible."

Once the dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, she is now back at Princeton as a professor.

When asked by Marie Claire about the piece, Clinton didn't hold back.

"I can't stand whining," she told the magazine. "I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they made. You live in a time when there are endless choices."

She pointed out that she spent her life advocating on behalf of women and tried to make work places, including the State Department, friendlier to women with children. Another dig at Slaughter suggested she just didn't have what it takes to play with the big girls.

"Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs … Other women don't break a sweat."

Oh yeah. I don't believe that she is done either. 

Nazis are still bad

Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros
(No Head Tattoo in Real Life)

Over the past few years there has been an alarming increase in the power far right wing political parties, especially in Eastern and Southern Europe.  Quietly, they have amassed power and influence.  Now we all know that Nazis were bad and we probably don't want them ruling parts of Europe again.  So I am puzzled why more people aren't pissed off about the rise of the Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungry, among others.

It is not really surprising that the inflation that is killing these poorer nations is being inflicted by the stronger Northern and Western European powers and that this economic shift came before the real power surge for these right wing groups. For those of you not getting my less-than-subtle histo-economic reference, I point you to the Great War Reparations that were levied upon Weimar Germany.  In short, Germany, loser of the First World War, got hosed in the post war deal making room.  It lead to technical hyper-inflation, where burning currency to stay warm was more efficient than paying for heat with the same paper notes.

Now, we have the European Central Bank and the IMF and others pushing Greece and others to make HUGE cuts to social services.  So why not blame the Jews and the Muslims and the Gypsies and the immigrants who are taking up the share of social services that belong to real Greeks/Hungarians/others?  It has worked before, so why change?  No good reason I can see...

The Business Insider has been reporting on this issue for a while and the New York Times has a few articles on the issue. With the U.S. Presidential election completely into allegations of Big-Bird-a-cide odds are we aren't going to hear much about this from Obama or Romney.  This is sort of surprising since the European economic recovery, which will be hampered by the return of Facism, is pretty central to the U.S. economic recovery.

Surprisingly it hasn't really made the rounds in the Jewish community.  You might think Jews would be a bit less pleased with Nazis in new clothing roaming around the birthplace of Democracy.

But not so much.

This has me worried.

This Canned Zinger is Brought to you by the Letter C

"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down." (source)

Let's review: Mitt Romney wiped the floor with Barack Obama during the debate.  No, he did not use a rope-a-dope or any other boxing/sport/debate metaphor. The President was beaten by the Governor, and the Governor has seen a slight bump in the polls because of it. 

However, Mitt had a few canned zingers ready for the president.  The most notable was his professed love for Big Bird, but his desire to cut funding to PBS. Now anyone who watched The West Wing knows this is a long-time talking point of the right: cut funding for public education because blah blah blah states rights.  There was the great episode when some congressional aid from some right-wing office comes in to say something to Toby about funding and he completely loses his mind...come to think of it that was a vast majority of the show.

But in this particular episode, Toby lists all of the PBS shows he watched as a child that drove him to want to read more and go to school longer and serve the public professionally. So this brew-ha-ha is nothing new.

Now, after a week of Big Bird references on Twitter and even in passing from the campaigns-endorsed talking heads, we have an official, I-approve-this-message campaign ad from the Obama camp using Big Bird against Romney.

STOP IT NOW. TALK ABOUT REAL THINGS AND NOT THIS STUPID DISTRACTION AND GET TO WORK.

Obama 2012 - More Grudgingly Each Day - Not the best slogan, but you NOT HELPING YOUR CAUSE.

Things I learned in the debate

Book Report: Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell is a bad ass.

That could very much end this report but I cannot leave it there.  I choose to read this book because it was listed on a list of the best memoirs ever written by some person who read a lot of memoirs.  While I am no expert in such things, or any things really, I happen to agree.

The narrative chapters about Orwell's time at the front and his posts during the May fighting in Barcelona were raw and beautiful at the same time.  He pulled no punches and provided an honest view of something I never want to know.

While written in the 1930s, there are a number of parallels to today's economic situation in Europe generally and Spain specifically.

I will say that the chapters about the internal anti-Facist political struggles behind the front were extremely complicated and hard to follow.  I understand that, at the time, they were used to set the record straight (or as straight as they could be set) but they were tough to follow today.

War sucks and this book does nothing to convince you otherwise.  However, it does provide insight into the mind of someone willing to die in the muck to fight against what should not be.  It was clear that Orwell in someways enjoyed the fight and what he was doing, but he didn't pretend that it was something beautiful.  His heroism was beautiful, as was his desire to leave the country.  His dedication to democracy and workers' rights was as inspirational as was his dash to get out of Spain before he was killed or arrested.

4 out of 5 stars.

Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the Democratic Party

Save a Puppy.

So, that happened. 

AP is now reporting that President Obama intervened personally to change the recently adopted platform, which was pro-Israel by any account, to include more specific language about God and Jerusalem.  This was met with opposition by many of the party members and CSPAN zooming in on the only Arab it could find in the crowd.  The vote was close and most likely did not reach a two thirds voice approval. But that doesn't matter, it passed.

He is saying "No."

Now, I am a Democrat and a Jew.  I believe that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security; and I think the US should support Israel.  I know that Israel believes that Jerusalem is its capital. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital but still is its only staunch ally in the world.  Republicans and Democrats alike have not recognized Jerusalem and both have been supporters of the Jewish state. 

The fact that the Parties must include Jerusalem, even if neither has ever had a president that recognized the city as Israel's capital, as a plank in their platform doesn't make any sense. Supporting the country is clearly more important than this stupid semantic argument but hey, substance has no place in convention season.

This is a failure of democracy and transition.  This change and then regression, via presidential intervention, is a power play of small minded special interest politics. Good job AIPAC, you still have your chops.

Not only was this a back-track, flip-flop, or whatever else you want to call it, it was done shamefully. The Party builds the platform and nominates its leader...not the other way around.

So, no matter how you feel about the Jerusalem issue, this was just as bad, if not worse, than the rules changes forced upon the GOP by the Party Leaders that the wack-a-do Ron Paul delegates were so pissed about.

If you wonder why young people aren't interested, his presidential intervention a perfect example of why.  Party leaders say something and then it is done.  No voice for those not in the back room.  No voice for those without the ear of the special interests. No power for those who are told they are being empowered.

And now the Democrats look like fools

Puppy Link.

Last week we got to see the wonders of the GOP convention and its non-fact based presentation.  Now we get the Democrats.

To kick off the week the California Democratic chair, John Burton, compared Paul Ryan to Joseph Goebbles.

STOP IT. BAD POLITICAL OPERATIVE. NO. BAD.

“They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie… Joseph Goebbels – it’s the big lie, you keep repeating it,” Burton said Monday before the Blake Hotel breakfast. He said Ryan told “a bold-faced lie and he doesn’t care that it was a lie. That was Goebbels, the big lie.” (Source: SFGate.com)

New rule that shouldn't have to be said: NO NAZI REFERENCES. That goes for both sides. And this quote wasn't even that good! If you are going to have the gal to call someone a Nazi at least put a sentence together, you illiterate ass-hat.

This bodes well for the next few days.  Perhaps the DNC and the California Dems might think about giving this guy the boot for being an idiot.  Doubtful but it would be nice.

Just a thought

Puppy Link.

It would appear that my posts about Paul Ryan and FOX News and Paul Ryan and his marathon times garnered a lot of views on this little, meaningless blog. So after making a big deal about Paul Ryan being a lying sack of shit, I want to talk about how the media has jumped on an unimportant issue --his marathon times-- as harbinger of something more meaningful.

• FACT: Paul Ryan said he ran a "two hour fifty-something" marathon.
• FACT: Paul Ryan ran a 4:01:25 marathon in 1990. 
• FACT: Paul Ryan finished a marathon and that is nothing to scoff at. 
• FACT: His "slip-up" should upset runners but not the general public. 
• FACT: The general public should be upset with Ryan about his lies about everything else.

However, the NPR, the New York Times, The New Yorker and a few others have made a big deal about his marathon lie.

Besides the fact that many people in high stress gigs, like political reporting, tend to run and also hate when people lie about their PRs, this seems like a pile on. These publications have discussed short parts of the nearly 99% untrue speech delieved by Ryan, but they have given significant digital column inches to his "mistake" regarding his marathon time. Not to go all liberal-media-conspiracy here, but come on folks.

Do not take this for me for forgiving this lying sack of shit for lying about his PR. But I am a runner who will never BQ nor ever coming close to a "two hour and fifty-something" marathon.  So after the untruths perpetrated during his speech in Tampa, this just got my goat.


As a runner I feel like I am in the right bitching about Ryan's slip-up, however the Times, NPR and The New Yorker should focus on fettering out the real, important bullshit that Ryan and Romney are spewing to lead our country back to the 1700s and not about the running thing.

 Just a thought.

Two Hours and Fifty-something

In today's installment of why I hate politics I would like to focus on a lie that any marathoner can spot. In that this post is really about running, you don't get an early exit puppy link.

In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said he's run a sub-3:00 marathon.

In the interview, after Ryan told Hewitt that he ran in high school, Hewitt asked if Ryan still runs. Ryan replied, "Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don't run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or less." When Hewitt asked Ryan what his personal best is, Ryan replied, "Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something." Source: Runner's World (Updated at 7:20pm with new info.)

I call bullshit, Mr. Ryan. If you ran a Boston Qualifying marathon, either with this year's or last year's rules, you would remember where it was, the weather, how you felt at mile 22, what you wore and for sure you would remember your exact time.

Ryan's finish line photo

I don't believe runners are a significant voting block so this won't matter much. But this kind of crap is a sure way to piss us off. These are PERSONAL records and should be held as point of pride.

My first marathon was completed in 5:00:03 and I am proud of that. It stood as my personal best time until I ran my second marathon, where I cut nearly an hour off my time with a 4:00:11 marathon.  Believe me I would remember my 2:50ish marathon for sure.  And I am not alone; we all remember how we did in that PR race.

NYC Marathon 2010, Owning 5:00:03

It is one thing to lie to me about medicare funding (which you did) or even about the President's record (which you did).  But don't lie to me about your marathon times you blowhard. You are no longer a guy with a big heart from a small town; you are on the main stage.  Mr. Ryan, you have graduated to the big leagues and now you need to run a clean race and finish, but not make up your times. When you came up fast from the back bench of Congress people were impressed with your P90X routine and your boyish good looks, but that doesn't cut it anymore.

Step-up and lead, or get off the course.

Fine, here is a puppy link.

The Word of the Day is Liar

Puppy Link

When I was in fifth grade, my class took a trip to Sacramento to do gold rush stuff, take pictures, and eat too much candy in Old Town Sac. But there are two things that I remember most from this trip.  My dad came along as a chaperone and we watched a comedy show, which I think was In Living Color, in which they spoofed a kids' show with a word of the day.

The word of the day was liar. L I A R, Liar.  The bit was way above my head at the time but the adults who were in the room thought it was really funny, and the kids just laughed along.

L I A R

This is a long way of saying that the spelling of liar in that sing-song kids' show way was ringing through my head while reading Paul Ryan's speech from last night. (Yeah, I don't watch. I just read in the morning. Better than coffee to get you moving.)

But this morning the liberal Internets exploded with claims of FOX News calling Ryan a liar. This claim is just a lazy and untruthful as his speech.

Sally Kohn, an opinion contributor to FOX News' website, is a left-wing, community-organizing, feminist with a history of working for foundations and organizations that support equality for LGBT Americans. Sounds like the typical FOX News contributor, right?

Book Report: Running the Rift

Naomi Benaron's well researched and beautifully written book was impossible to put down.  Following the story of a young boy through school, running, and genocide in his native Rwanda, Running the Rift is a great book.

As a student of international politics and the West's abject failures during the Rwandan Genocide, as well as a runner, I found this book to be a painfully perfect historical fiction.  While you know what happens, and if you don't you need to do some research, you can't stop reading and must know what happens next.  The interpersonal relationships are complex, real, and haunting.  The political realities of a neo-colonial Africa are presented without pretense, even when presented by a white American woman.

Benaron explores the real impact and long term effects of European definitions and divisions on neighbors and families. The nationalism felt by all was overpowered by myth that was eternal even if it was perpetuated by European colonialists.  The powerlessness of moderation over extremists was defeating.  Only the extremist tendencies of Jean Patrick -- which were positive in nature, but extreme all the same -- gave a reader hope for the future.

Benaron's inclusion of a degree of fiction in the form of love blunted the harsh realities of the early 1990s in this small central African nation.  The love story, which honestly didn't seem very believable, enabled me to read this book before bed without nightmares.  However, it was the many stories lines of humanity, which remind you that while reading this horrific history, people tend to be good, even in times of extreme evil.

5 out of 5 stars. 

History is Written By the Victors

This is a political post so, here is the requisite puppy link.

While the title quote cannot be attributed to one source, we can attribute the degradation of our educational system to the Tea  Party.  In a story you can file under "You have got to be kidding me" we learn that Tea Party activists in Tennessee are actively lobbying to include the rosier aspects of the Antebellum South in the state educational curriculum.

This group of activists wants to include the following in the standards for selecting text books, according to the HuffPost's report:

"No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

In order to celebrate the Founding Fathers, says the Tea Party, we must ignore aspects of history.  Look at the bright side, at least they aren't out-right denying the rape, pillage, and murder.

Seperating Sox in the News Cycle

Here is your puppy link, as promised.

It has been a tough few days in Red Sox nation. We lost Youk.  This hard-nosed, ass-kicking, Jewish infielder and killer batsman who helped secure the first and second championships for my Boston Red Sox in eons was traded.  His age, diminished speed, injuries, and the presence of a new guy hitting about .375, all mean that this super star is off the Chicago White Sox.  It was sad.  He will be forever loved in Boston and throughout the Red Sox nation.

Then to make matters worse, the President of the United States made a joke about this trade.  The President, an ardent White Sox fan, is excited about having Youkilis on his team.  Obama struck a cord when he joked about it at a fundraiser in Boston.  It was a bit too soon to make a joke at the expense of a team, my team, so soon after loosing a hero.  You could say, his joke stung just a bit.

You know, reading back over that last paragraph I note the excessive use of the word JOKE.  It was pretty funny, a bit mean, but pretty funny.

But not to the Romney camp:

“Last night in Boston, President Obama went to the heart of Red Sox nation and committed an error by taunting fans over the Kevin Youkilis trade to the Chicago White Sox,” [Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea] Saul wrote in an email. “And he was booed for it. . . at his own event! The Red Sox have suffered many setbacks over the years – the Babe Ruth trade, the ball through Buckner’s legs, the Bucky Dent home run. Maybe the President should have congratulated the team for winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007. Instead, he chose to mock them for trading away one of its favorite players at a time when the team is struggling.”

Oh, for sake of something people!  There has been an entire news cycle dominated by this silly comment.  The President is a White Sox fan. He was digging at Red Sox fans. That is what sports fans do.  And when politicos pretend to care about the team for votes, nothing good happens. I remind you of an interview with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in which he said on Meet the Press that he liked the Red Sox and Yankees.

This non-issue should have been left for the sports guys on ESPN to talk about not the Romney camp or the Obama guys.  Sports are fun and totally meaningless, and that is what makes them fun. 

Come on now.  I will forever distrust this front office for canning the best (with his own set of problems) manager the Red Sox ever had for this blowhard and for showing Theo the door but I know my life will go on after the Red Sox don't make it to the play-offs.  Also I hate the Yankees (had to get it in).  But that is for Sports Center debates and bar room conversation with like-minded fans.  Just a thought, the presidential campaigns could talk about the economy or healthcare or foreign policy or seniors or education or anything else...

SPORTS ARE FUN.  Making fun of an opposing team, when done for fun, is fine.  Now. SHUT UP and try to make the country better.

Why No One Can Have it All

Or Why Anne-Marie Slaughter is wrong.

While a number of very smart women have chimed in and written great articles about why this interminable essay was bad, missed the point, is dangerous, or simply stupid, there aren't a lot of men who have or will.  I grew up in a household were my mom went to work and climbed the corporate ladder.  My dad stayed home, ran his own business, and waited until both kids were in or done with college to have what you could call a traditional career.

Arguably you could say, my home life was very much a product of the feminist revolution. I have been called on occasion a feminist.

But before going on to my thoughts on The Atlantic article, I asked two people who also lived in my house to comment on the article:

“Jesus, I got to the end of the first page and saw there were six more pages. No wonder she couldn't get her work done. Fucking academics -- they don't know when to shut up. – Mother, 58, Senior Executive at a Fortune 50 Company

“Ugh. This has been floating around all day and I've been avoiding it, because I don't give a shit why The Atlantic thinks I'm going to be barefoot in the kitchen.

“I just think [the concept of the article is] so stupid. Men make the same choices, it's just that they don't care as much -- or maybe they do! And then they step down too! Like, cool the fuck out; life is full of compromises…obviously you have to make compromises. I just think this is so dumb and backward ...  You can't be a traditional stay-at-home mom and a high powered executive in the same way you can't be a high-powered executive male and coach all your kids’ sports teams. There are 24 hours in a day, regardless of your sex.” – Sister, 25, Ivy League Graduate and Third-Year Medical Student at a Top 10 Medical School

My mother went on to say that the unbelievably long essay was a "six page cop-out" of the ideals that the author allegedly still supports and was riddled with hypocrisy and contradictions. 

And I agree.  The issue at the heart of this essay should be what do you value you more, not finding a way to have everything at once.  Feminism, as I understand it, was (and is) a fight for choices, not a fight for women have the same life as men.

Everyone, as my sister notes, must make choices in life.  This does not mean that society couldn't shift slightly to help make those choices easier.  And there is no doubt that because of women (and men) who came before my sister, she is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate and is well on her way to earning her M.D. at one of the best medical schools in the world.

The only thing she has to thank them for is opening the door.

And while that door was a real pain to open, she had to learn, study, lose sleep, sacrifice health, and make many other CHOICES to make it to where she is today. You cannot take away the fact that my sister -- not some conceptual fem-ubermench -- worked hard.  There were real sacrifices that were and continue to be made. 

The entire concept of work-life balance is a myth.  You either work more or you "life" more. There is never a perfect mix if you are racing to the top. Something has got to give.  And the sooner you realize that, the sooner "having it all" becomes just as meaningless as an essay written by an academic who had to live through two years of what every female executive at a large or growth company deals with everyday.

The choices aren't tough

When I haven't been blogging about running, food, or other fun stuff in my new city, I have been talking about why I am sick of political discourse.  This is another installment in my multi-part, ever-developing series exploring my disgust of the political space.  So if you too are sick of politics, are one of my friends who makes his or her living in the space, or just don't care what I have to say about the issue, here is a link that will take you to pictures of puppies.  (Future installments will always have an early exit puppy link.)

As you know, 2012 is an election year.  This year we will be faced with plethora choices of very stupid candidates promising all sorts of craziness. Local, state, and Federal elections will dominate the news outlets for the next five or so months. These news outlets will break news that will sound freakishly like this:

OBAMA SLIPS 3% WITH UNDECIDED VOTERS AFTER HE ATE SUSHI

or

ROMNEY IN THE MARGIN, POS OUTWEIGH NEG FIRST TIME 

Two things come to mind when I read these kinds of headlines:  

1. I think Greece actually got this one right.
2. WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE?