In which I rant about the need to discuss Wiener’s wiener and about why and what we’re sacrificing to afford high gas prices.
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Motherhood and Political Activism Are Not Mutually Exclusive
May 13, 2011 by 2 Comments
Last Sunday, in honor of Mother’s Day, my friend Dana Loesch wrote a great piece on why she believes that motherhood is political. She says:
The nurture and protection of your children isn’t limited to monitoring their dietary needs, their educational needs, their emotional and spiritual well-being. I speak out because I don’t want my children saddled with debt. I don’t want my children’s generation to be the first generation that comes out of the gate with a lower standard of living because of our recklessness.
This pretty much echoes my thoughts on the matter. I feel like I owe it to my children to educate myself on Constitutional rights and limitations. I want others to love our country as much as I do and understand what makes it special. Like Dana, I want my kids to grow up in a phenomenal America, where if you can dream it, you can achieve it.
Working to protect the freedoms we enjoy in America flows seamlessly with our hopes and dreams for our children to be better off than we are. It makes perfect sense that moms are getting politically active, because we’re the ones with the most to lose: Our children’s future.
In response to Dana’s article, some chick piped up criticizing every mom in the country. Apparently, us mamas are not worthy to participate in politics because we choose to be a womb instead of study politics. Stay-at-home-moms are the absolute worst, because we’re lazy un-American do-nothings that leech off our partner’s salary.
Someone needs to call her mother and apologize.
This 23-year-old law school student has no idea what it means to be a mother. Our brains are not (completely) hijacked for 18 years when we give birth. We have every ability to read, listen, learn, write, and speak about any subject — including politics.
Motherhood and political activism are not mutually exclusive. It’s easier now than ever for moms to educate themselves and get involved with the conversation. Anyone with an Internet connection can find the Constitution online, download the text of laws like Obamacare, read the news, and find and share opinions on blogs.
Moms are awesome multitaskers. We take care of our kids, our husbands, and our homes. We learn new recipes, new technology (have you seen kids toys these days??), new stain-fighting tricks, and about the embalming techniques employed by the ancient Egyptians (that one might be just me).
We are smart enough to know that we can use sites like MomThink.org as a jumping off point in developing our political points-of-view. I love this site because of its straightforwardness on issues that will undoubtedly affect our children in the future. I love the encouragement to join Twitter or Facebook groups, where we can mingle with other moms over a virtual soda or glass of wine and share thoughts and even engage in friendly debate. I love that it makes me feel empowered, rather than inferior, to be a mom.
Motherhood is political. Anyone that’s ever navigated a playgroup or PTA meeting knows that.
Food Network Enlists Social Media Superstar Ree Drummund for New Show
May 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Andrew Breitbart’s Big sites (ahem, like the one you’re reading right now) have replaced the average news junky’s old school fixes of newsprint and the 5 o’clock news.
Why not? It’s a fast, easy, and mostly free way to communicate and share information. Anyone can contribute, and everyone else can choose to listen, watch, or read at will. It’s a beautiful free market system – anyone can try and anyone can buy.
The mainstream media has paid attention, and bloggers like Erick Erickson, Dana Loesch, and Andrew Breitbart himself are now regular media fixtures. They are informed, they have opinions, they share share them, and have gained a following. Media outlets saw the demand for their insight, and offered them CNN commentary jobs, radio hosting opportunities, and book deals.
Read the rest at Big Journalism
Wonkette Mocks ‘Retarded’ Trig Palin on His 3rd Birthday
April 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment
In a low that hardly seems possible in this age of civility, the online DC gossip site Wonkette has viciously attacked the disabled toddler of a former politician. Trig Palin celebrated his third birthday on April 18, and to mark the occasion, Team Sarah posted a birthday poem to the former Alaskan Governor’s youngest son.
In a completely unwarranted response to the gesture, the folks at Wonkette questioned Trig’s parentage, implied incest within the Palin family, called the little boy a retarded political prop, and recommended that he get drunk to deal with his family that’s even stupider than he is.
Also, he licks strangers just like his big sister Piper licked her fingers to smooth down his hair on camera once. That must mean all the Palin children are morons because … because why, exactly? What mother hasn’t smoothed down her kid’s hair with spit on occasion, and what big sister hasn’t mimicked mommy with her younger siblings?
Read the rest at The Stir
Mom Takes On Keith Olbermann Over Abortion Comment
April 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Conservative author and columnist S.E. Cupp was on the Joy Behar Show earlier this week to talk politics with Jerry Springer and Joy. The conversation centered around President Obama’s tax-the-rich speech, and whether or not wealthier Americans should be more heavily taxed to support massive social programs.
Springer and Behar spoke in favor of higher taxes, while Cupp preferred to let everyone keep as much of their own money as possible. As a side note, I’m dying to know how much money the two liberal talk show hosts donate to the federal government each quarter.
Eventually the subject of Planned Parenthood came up, and Cupp said that she did not support federal funding of the biggest abortion millin America.
The morning after this segment aired, blatherskite Keith Olbermann tweeted about Ms. Cupp, “On so many levels she’s a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does.” The implication is obviously that he believes her mother should have aborted her.
Read the rest at The Stir
Jenny Erikson Radio Show – Episode 0013
April 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment
In which I rant about cleaning my daughters’ room, household budgets versus the federal budget, and Amelia Hamilton joins me for Conservative Chick Chat.
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Koran Burner Terry Jones Is Not Evil, Just Wrong
April 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment
A Florida pastor caused a ruckus late last summer when he declared that he would be burning a pile of Korans to mark the ninth anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attackon America on September 11, 2001. The controversialTerry Jones backed down on his plan … for several months at least.
Last month the preacher set fire to the religious book ofIslam, which went remarkably unnoticed by the U.S. press. Thank goodness for that — the last thing attention-seekers need is more attention to fuel the craziness.
Unfortunately, word got out in Afghanistan, and the incident supposedly sparked a terrorist attack that resulted in the death of at least 11 people, seven of whom were U.N. staffers and guards.
Being quite the argumentative bunch (democracy rocks!), we Americans hopped on this story to decide whether or not Terry Jones has blood on his hands for the deaths in Afghanistan. He may be a jerk, but he’s not a murderer. The radical Islamic terrorists are murderers.
Read the rest at The Stir
Is Facebook Causing Depression in Teens?
March 31, 2011 by 2 Comments
Is the online social networking site Facebook causing depressionin teenagers? Some researchers argue that Facebook can lead to teen depression, as happy updates and smiley pictures on their peers’ pages bombard those on the lower end of the social ladder.
Boston-area pediatrician Gwen O’Keefe warns that Facebook portrays a false reality that can be even more painful than “sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria.” As every teen knows, there’s no worse tragedy in life than sitting in a clean, safe space to eat in solitude (until they become moms and long to eat a meal in peace).
Technology changes and advances, but people are people. Kids have been tormenting each other since Cain killed Able because he thought his brother was showing off with his God-pleasing sacrifice. The medium may change, but the human desire to be liked and admired by others doesn’t. The kid that becomes depressed by seeing Facebook updates is the same kid that would resent hearing classmates chat in the hall about the awesome time they had at the beach over the weekend.
Read the rest at The Stir
Will the United States Go to War in Libya?
March 22, 2011 by 2 Comments
Here’s the thing about humans: We’re not necessarily good people. In fact some pretty evil Homo sapiens have walked the planet over the years. Did anyone see The Last King of Scotland? That Idi Amin guy was not exactly good for the Ugandans. Other super bad dudes have included Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Attila the Hun.
Because I’m an equal opportunist, I feel compelled to also add Jezebel, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, and Andrea Yates to the list. It’s apparent that evil comes packaged in either gender.
There’s been an evil dude in power in Libya for more than 41 years.Muammar Gaddafi has been the totalitarian ruler of the middle-eastern state since a military overthrow in 1969. Life is not kind to the average citizen under Gaddafi’s rule (it never usually is when one lives under a dictatorship), and recently Libyans have protested the oppressive government regime.
Gaddafi’s response was to call the protesters “cockroaches” and claim they were “serving the devil.” Oh, and he had his minions kill anyone they found opposing him. After the funeral service for those massacred by Gaddafi, the tyrant ordered his peeps to use artillery, swords, or even hammers to attack the mourners. In other words: Crush any and all dissent.
Not cool, evil dictator dude, not cool.
Read the rest at The Stir.
It’s Time for the Federal Government to Stop Funding NPR
March 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment
A few months ago, conservatives were outraged at the firing of liberalJuan Williams by National Public Radio for saying that flying with Islamic-looking males made him nervous on Fox News’ The O’Reily Factor. According to NPR’s head honcho Vivian Schiller, Mr. Williams had “several times in the past violated [their] news code of ethics with things that he had said on other people’s air.”
Apparently expressing an opinion based on the fact that virtually every airplane-hijacking terrorist in the United States over the past few decades has been a Jihadist is punishable by unemployment from NPR. Juan Williams did not state that he thought all Muslims were terrorists, or even that he refused to fly with them. He simply stated that it made him nervous.
Shortly thereafter, many prominent conservative pundits called for NPR to be defunded of the federal money that it receives. Private businesses can run things how they see fit, but organizations receiving taxpayer money should not be able to terminate someone’s employment for expressing a valid opinion, especially when it wasn’t even done on NPR’s airwaves.
In November, the then-Democratic House of Representatives defeated a bill to cut the federal fundingof NPR. The supposedly unbiased organization released this statement after the vote:
In an increasingly fractious media environment, public radio’s value in fostering an informed society has never been more critical. Our growing audience shows that we are meeting that need. It is imperative for federal funding to continue to ensure that this essential tool of democracy remains available to all Americans and thrives well into the future.
Fast forward to March 2011. Ron Schiller, a senior executive at NPR, was caught on tape in a sting operation criticizing the Republican party, and Tea Party Republicans in particular, as being racist, fundamentalist Christian, and fanatically involved in people’s personal lives.
**Side note: Democrats want to control our health care, our education, and what we can feed our kids, but Republicans are “fanatically involved in people’s personal lives”? Um, ok …
Read the rest at The Stir
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