Dear Democratic Women,

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain announced his Vice Presidential Candidate on Friday. Commentators speculated that McCain would choose a more youthful candidate, perhaps Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (1). However, McCain unveiled what I am sure he regards as his trump card, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.

Palin has been the governor of Alaska for almost two years, her anniversary coming in early December. She held office in Wasilla, Alaska for two terms on the city council and for two terms as Mayor before moving on to run the entire state. Outside of the political arena, Palin is your "average hockey mom" to quote Palin herself. She has been married for 20 years to her high school sweetheart and they have 5 children, the youngest being 5 months old (2).

Admittedly, Palin is a great example for women to hold strong careers, yet still be thoroughly involved in their family's lives. Despite this, the choice of Palin as the Vice Presidential Candidate should make voters think twice before falling into McCain's politically correct trap. The decision upon Palin shows that even "straight talking" McCain speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

McCain has repeatedly attacked Obama on lacking foreign policy experience, or rather, experience in general. However, as noted earlier, Palin been in office for about 5 terms (her fifth not being completed yet) and only 2 years of this period has she served at a state level. Please compare this to Obama's 7 years on the state legislature, and 3 years in the U.S. Senate(3).

McCain launched a national television ad that I'm sure you've all seen comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in terms of celebrity status. (Click here to view it). Oddly enough, Palin is the former Miss Wasilla and was a runner up in the Miss Alaska contest in 1984 (5). She has bumper stickers which read "Coldest State, Hottest Governor" and has posed for Vogue (4).

But McCain is not the only one double talking. Palin herself is also quite equivocal. While she is the governor of the state with one of the largest acreages of national parks, she favors drilling for oil in Alaska. She wants to stand up to the "good old boys club," yet stands alongside one of the members (1).

Perhaps one of the greatest strikes against Palin is her recent interview with CNBC (before her designation as the Vice Presidential Candidate) in which she stated, "What is it exactly that a VP does everyday?... We want to make sure that this VP slot would be fruitful type of position especially for Alaskans and for the kind of things we are trying to accomplish here for the rest of the US." (1) I am sure she has a vague recollection of what a VP does, but this distain is a little disconcerting.

Undoubtably, McCain's advisors probably noted that a woman was one of the only choices McCain could make in order to combat the perceived, though unfounded, racial appeal of Obama. Should he have chosen a white man, journalists would have cited him as "good ol' boy" retaining the status quo. Should he have chosen a black man, he would have been accused of choosing his running mate directly to combat Barack Obama's appeal to black voters. However, just as it would be a travesty to vote for Obama simply because he is black, it would be just as horrendous to vote for McCain because his running-mate is a woman.

On a forum which I visited recently, one person commented, "Everyone compares her to Obama, but she is not running for a presidency he is" (sic). This reminds me of an old adage that my tennis coach used to tell me whenever I hit a great serve, "Your serve is only as good as your second serve." McCain might be running for the number one spot, but should anything happen to him (I don't know, maybe a return of his skin cancer or just the fact that he's OLD), Palin is next in line.

And let's not forget to watch Alaskan political news from here on out. Why? In order to find out the results of an "abuse of power" investigation which Palin is under regarding her  former brother in law.

While I might not pull a #75 on the "Stuff White People Like" list, i.e. threaten to move to Canada (6), should McCain/Palin be elected, I will sure as hell will not be happy.

So dear Democratic Women, do not fall for the fact that Palin would be the first female Vice President and "shatter the glass ceiling" that she loves to quote in order to reach out to you. So far, she has not gotten any farther than Geraldine Ferraro did in 1984 - oh yes, when Palin was busy winning beauty pageants.

Sincerely,

Bellevoce

Sources:

(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7589412.stm

(2) http://gov.state.ak.us/bio.html

(3) http://www.barackobama.com/learn/meet_barack.php

(4) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080829/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_veepstakes_palin

(5) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/

news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4636745.ece

(6) http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/24/75-threatening-to-move-to-canada/

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To Conquer a Subway

Give me a car, Google Maps, and the road, and I’ll be all right. But public transportation? That’s a whole other topic.

A few of the “joys” of living in Southern California are its high gas prices, spread out services, and lack of efficient public transportation. (If you comment on this post complaining about gas prices, please expect that my next post will only be a rant of profanity infused political bashing. Don’t make me go there.) I had a great experience a couple of weeks ago when I was in San Francisco checking out graduate schools in Northern California. I took my car, my phone (the new iPhone with Google Maps), and hit the road for Stanford University. The route I took was gorgeous and I found the university in no time. Needless to say, I had the completely opposite experience the other day on different graduate school visit.

Time: 12:05 pm

Place: New York City

Destination: Columbia University

I walked out of the hotel doors on 32^nd street, turned to the right, and started my journey down to Penn Station. As I strided confidently down the street, I reviewed my directions once again as given to me by my mum’s friend who was a New York local.

“Oh, to get to Columbia University, just go down to Penn Station, take the 1 line, and get off at around 116^th or 120^th.”

As told, 32^nd dead-ended at Penn Station and I walked down the crowed stairs to the 1 line. However, my mum’s friend forgot to mention one thing – Penn Station is frickin’ gigantic! Was the 1 line on the NJ transit, Amtrak, or the Long Island Rail?! I stood in the center of the branching hallways teeming with commuters, feeling like a leaf pushed in the center of converging rapids. I took a chance on going into the Long Island Rail to find a mess of people, very little helpful signage, and no employees to ask questions of in sight.

After blindly drifting about for 5 minutes, I saw a couple of Police officers on a platform. Now, usually it’s the damsel in distress stuck in the tower, but at this particular moment, she was stuck on the floor in a labyrinth passageways while her two knights towered above her.

Having left all pride upon entry into the underground obstacle course, I pleaded to my knight in blue, “Excuse me officer, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing! I was told to take the 1 line to Columbia University, but I don’t know where the 1 line is or even what exact stop to get off at!”

The officer chuckled (I’m hoping at simply my naivety). “I’ll tell you what, 90 percent of the people in here don’t know what they’re doing! The 1 line is around the corner to the right and you’ll get off at 116^th which is right in front of the University.”

“Thank you so much!!!” And I took off to buy my metro pass and enter the turnstile for the 1 line. So now I had to decide if I needed to go Uptown or Downtown; I settled on Uptown and took the stairs up to what I thought was the platform for Uptown. The train (is it called a train or a subway?) pulled in, I climbed on board, and found a seat. Granted, it was a little hard to stay put on the seat since my skirt was a satin-like material, which slid on the hard plastic with every acceleration.

After a few stops, I began to have doubts as to whether I was going in the right direction. Most of the time, this is when I whip out my trusted 3G internet and find my own answers, but the yards of steel and dirt above me prevented my love from reaching me.

I glanced around the car to look for a person who might be of help, all the while trying to avoid eye contact since I did not know the social norms of subway etiquette. There was a guy (with a really cool Yarmulke) sitting diagonally from me who looked like he could be a respectable college student. But after he got off, not on 116^th, I seriously began to doubt myself. After a couple more stops, everyone in my car exited and I was left alone in the deserted tin can underground. I felt like the last drop of Pepsi that you can’t get over the rim of the Pepsi can, so you throw it away to be buried in a landfill and disintegrate after a thousand generations.

After a second, the conductor woman came out and saw me sitting in fear for what happened next. “Where are you trying to go, honey?”

My wide blue eyes looked up in a cry for goodwill. “116^th,” my voice squeeked. “I’ve never ridden the subway before. This is my first time. I went the wrong way, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you went the wrong way. You should have gone Uptown, but instead you’re by the South Ferry. But don’t worry, I’m headed back up that direction, but it’ll take you about 30 or 35 minutes.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” I replied and continued to sit in my spot as new people boarded the car and we turned around. And the conductor was right, after 35 minutes, 116^th rolled up to my utter bemusement. I rose from my seat triumphant and took my leave of the metal beast to climb the stairway to the sun. And what do you know? The gates of Columbia University greeted me with glee!

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So Sorry if You Missed Me...

Upon the plea of my fellow bloggers, Matios and Orhan, I have (hopefully) returned to the blogging society once again.

I think that one of my problems has been my incessant procrastination. If I think of something to write about, I put it off until a “better” time has reached me. Thus forgetfulness takes hold and ::poof:: the inspiration is gone.

However, after needing to write, in 15 minutes, a short explanation as to why I am of the quality to take Honours level English courses at the University of Warwick in the Fall, I realized that the prime reason I have been inspired to write on my blog is probably due to the fact that I rarely wrote in general at all over the past few months. In fact, the ONLY essay that I had to write last quarter is my last post. I had two English classes and the only essay I wrote was for ART class!

As such, I shall now try to write, on my own, more frequently, even if they are not the scholarly masterpieces that I wish my posts to be, I suppose that I will share them anyways.

And now for a little insight into why I am an English major, I invite you to read that 250 word statement mentioned earlier.

“During my first class as a Political Science major, it took every nerve in my brain to stay awake through the dry lectures. My boredom reached such a point that I began using my class time to search the requirements for other majors. However, I ran into a slight problem; I didn’t have a back-up plan. I fretted about the major choice continuously until I realized something a few days later while sitting in a Freshman English composition class. No matter how dull I thought my professor to be, I loved reading, discussing, and even writing essays for my English class. Hence, that day after class, I went to my Dean’s office and switched majors.

Three years later, I have taken scores of English classes and rejoiced when I finally reached the level in my university career that the only classes that I needed to take were about Literature. Reading is not just work for me. I don’t read Ulysses or The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History simply because I need to pass an exam after 10 weeks. Rather, I read because it inspires me and my inspiration flows through my fingers as they type furiously with the fervor of an aspiring scholar. It is with this passion that I feel I am capable to be taking English Literature classes at the Honours level. And where better to study the Literature of the English language, than in the home of its birth?”

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