Pit Bull Palin or The Hockey Mom With Lipstick

I don't like Sarah Palin. That's plain to anyone who reads my blog. I don't believe that she is experienced enough or savvy enough or smart enough to play hardball as Vice-President of the United States of America. If she were a he named Stan Palin from Alaska, there would be no McCain/Palin ticket.

I could list many of the things that I dislike about the woman, everything from her ignorance on many historical matters and issues but for now I'll hit hard about the pit bull with lipstick.

Pit bulls are dangerous dogs. They are not sweet family pets or even loyal guard dogs. Pit bulls are bred to fight to the death, to kill. They attack without provocation, often helpless small children or older adults.

In the last few years there have many fatal pit bull attacks in the United States. When I was newlywed back in 1994, my husband and I were acquainted with a family whose six year old daughter had her face almost torn off by a pit bull, a dog that she had seen many times before at a family friend's home. She survived but many do not.

Her self-comparison to a pit bull seemed especially strange when in Alaska, Palin's home state of which she is the current governer, was the scene for a tragic pit bull attack which ended up with a six year old girl being taken off life support and existing in a vegative state within the last three weeks

Either Palin is an uninformed governer or she doesn't care. I vote for the latter.

A lipstick wearing pit bull or even a barracuda (Sarah's other most flattering nickname) is not my idea of a suitable Vice-President or God forbid, Commander in Chief.

Is Kool-Aid The Official Drink of the GOP Convention?

The question that occurs to me as Republicans appear to rally around last minute Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is whether or not Kool-Aid is the official drink of the GOP Convention this year.

Palin, a virtual unknown until less than a week ago in the Lower
48, has become the darling of the GOP. Republicans old and young seem to flocking to her like bees to a blooming flower. Evangelicals like her because she didn't abort her youngest son and forgive her all her sins. Somehow they don't seem to mind that she is not only a working mother but a now absentee mother. Wonder how young Trip, the infant, is doing on formula now that his breast feeding Ma has gone off with Senator McCain?

I long ago decided how I would vote in this all important election year, for Barack Obama. I celebrated when he cinched the nomination although if it had gone to Hillary Clinton, I would have voted for her in November. I don't like Hillary Clinton but her goals are more in line with my own goals. She supports issues that are important to me.

Palin doesn't. If McCain thought that the choice of a woman would sway Hillary supporters, he was wrong.

She is inexperienced and ignorant. She didn't know what the duties of a vice-president are and she thinks that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by the Founding Fathers. Apparently she has no idea that it was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, more than a hundred years after the Founding Fathers founded this nation. Nor does she seem aware that the words "under God" were not included until Congress approved their addition in 1954.

She is not ready to lead, she has family issues that she needs to deal with, and she is for too many things that I am against.

I am pro-choice; she is pro-life.

Almost every day since her candidacy was announced, new storms have exploded over various aspects of her life but the Republicans are worshipping at her altar with fervent faith, real or feigned.

There is no real substance to Sarah Palin. And she presents what I consider a very real danger to the United States of America should she become Vice-President or God forbid, President.

That is why I have to think that the GOP is serving up Palin-laced Kool-Aid at their convention because supporters are falling into party lines, led by the nose.

Obama Doesn't Look Like The Average President And He Has A Funny Name

Once again - just as with his "small town" remarks during primary season - McCain and his minions are up in arms about something Barack Obama said.

And once again, Obama's remarks resonate with me, especially since they were said in my home state of Missouri.

First, it's no secret that Obama is not exactly white. And he does, by the definition of many rural folk, have a "funny name".

I know. My maiden name of Sontheimer has been referred to as a "funny name" for decades, ever since my family moved from an urban environment to southwest rural Missouri.

He's the son of a black man and a white woman so he's not just "white". Saying so isn't playing the so-called "race card". Instead it is just simple fact. If he didn't say it, someone would accuse him of pretending to be white or all black or something.

I've had pizza orders that never arrived because they thought I had a "funny" name and that the order was a joke.

I had few teachers who could whip their lips around the syllables of my surname, even after I explained how simple it is to really say.

The "funny name" tag has stuck to me for years and if Sontheimer is funny, so is a last name like Obama.

You have to understand that in rural Missouri most folks have simple names like Brown, Clark, Richards, White, Hunt, Hawkins, Scott, and such.

Most rural Missourians idea of an ethnic name is Murphy, my married name or O'Connell or another ancestral name, Zumwalt.

Obama is way out there for many people.