I have HAD it. Sonia Sotomayor is constrained by the unjust rules, sitting alone and representing herself against a phalanx of white male bullies, just for the right to be a Girl and get into position to finally help have that be a good thing instead of an institutionalized handicap. And at the same moment, Rush Limbaugh is on the radio trying to denigrate President Obama (again) but instead this time, insulting every female on the planet.
Obama “throws like a girl”; Bush “is a man”
What is WRONG with these guys?? I mean, I know Limbaugh’s literally deaf but what excuse do the rest of them have?
He ranted for half an hour at the top of his show today as Young Son and I listened, wondering if he saw the feel-good power of story nationally televised last night, that we had watched and loved. (Even the Yankees and the National League opponents!)
On the upside, here’s a truly heart-warming story for everyone about last night’s All-Star Game. Which was a big American League victory, credited to Papelbon btw, whoo-hoo! Pedroida got to stay home with the baby-and-mom-to-be . . .
All the Sox were super imo and the President too, even if he DID have another team’s jacket on.
He shook hands with the players in the locker room before the game, which we don’t recall seeing before, and here’s what he was doing in the hours leading up to that first pitch: honoring undisputed star athletes Serena Williams (a girl!) and traveling with Willie Mays (a man of color!)
The southpaw president had practiced his delivery in the White House Rose Garden and in Busch Stadium for a warm-up session with St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. Mr. Obama was hoping for a better pitch than his 2005 attempt at the Angels-White Sox game, but his pitch was short of the plate.
Still, the president did a fist pump after the throw and later told Mr. Buck that baseball is “such a reminder about what’s great about this country. You can’t beat it.”
For another Snook favorite who did fine . . .
See Real Change for the Left, for the Right Reasons and Jason Bay Best Trade Evah?
The reason I single out JayRayBay is that he has a sister. Who throws like a girl. As a profession and all the way to the Olympics, baby.
(Take that, Limbaugh the Hutt and all you impotent bullies in the Senate too, trying to prove your manhood by ganging up on a girl on the cusp of a permanent berth in your game’s Hall of Fame, while you’re reduced to throwing rocks at her as if you’re her judge and jury, Taliban fashion. . .)
Well, Paps win was a vulture win, right place right time. He really didn’t pitch well, he got lucky. He has done that a lot this year. His fastball has no movement and he isn’t locating it well.
Limbaugh wants you to get upset about his maniacal ravings. Attention is what puts all those zeros on his paychecks. The best thing those of us in the real world can do is ignore Limbaugh and his ilk.
My oldest wants to be the first female Red Sox player. I keep telling her she needs to learn to throw a mean knuckleball because that way she wouldn’t need the physical power to bat like a pro or throw 100+ mph pitches. There’s a reason why Wake was on the All Star roster at age 42 (even if he didn’t get a chance to pitch), it simply takes less of a toll on one’s body.
CW, the story I saw said Wakefield absolutely loved his first All-Star game and actually played the important role of emergency endurance hole card, in case they needed 15 innings or so again this year. Lucky they didn’t but still. . . lucky they had him too.
Chris, you’re right but still I go back and forth with these guys, on the ignore-or-mock and push back continuum. What this week e.g. is showing me is how thoroughly their most outrageous crap winds up defining the game for us all, when we ignore it. I don’t know that the mockery does any better but as a “girl” I can tell you we tend to err on the be nice and let it go side, so it takes a lot to get me ready to fire back and then once I’m there it feels imperative . . .
Oh, and I forgot to add — the reason we were happy about Pap’s win was because he usually gets the save, not the win. And this time he got in earlier (and as you say at the right time) so that someone he’s looked up to as a closer, could get the save for the league. The story I linked said that’s what was special for him (because even he admitted it was a vulture win!)
Is it unusual that two siblings would both be left-handed like Lauren and Jason Bay?
If I am feeling sorry for anyone during the Sotomayor hearings, it is the hapless Republicans. Sotomayor can handle these guys with one hand tied behind her!
Let Rush rant on, let Fox “News” focus on the President’s less-than-perfect pitch. In the real world, we are going to have a bright new Supreme Court Justice and a new healthcare plan.
America’s looking better and better!
And if you want to celebrate that with baseball, that’s OK too.
Nance
So you’re saying our heavy-idea-lifting work is done, and these guys are (culturally and politically) dead men walking? Okay then.
Now, now. No resting on your laurels. Keep on a-liftin’.
Nance
Btw, I just published my old “affiliated independence” essay about rules and group governance, as a Snook “First Thinks First” page . . .next, Beta’s interest in unschooling has inspired me to go back in the archives and work up the story about the time 10-year-old FavD was recruited by Dick Clark Productions for their insipid and faux-education reality show, The Smartest Kid in America.
Here’s my question. If Sotomayor couldn’t take the grilling of the guys, we wouldn’t want her as a Supreme Court Justice (I don’t want her, anyway), so why wouldn’t we want them to grill her? And, if we truly believe in equality for the sexes, doesn’t that mean that we believe in equality in the way they are treated at ALL times? When male nominees have been before the Senate, they have had to answer all kinds of questions that Sotomayor has not even come close to having to answer. Yet, we put up a stink because she has worked hard to get here? And the guys didn’t? I’m not getting the equality there.
A note about the health care thing: I have no desire to see this go through. I’ve done this time of health care. It sucks. I don’t know why people think America will be able to make it work when it doesn’t work anywhere else, and when we have a horrible track record with this sort of thing on the relatively small scales (Indian health care, Medicare, Veterans Health Care, Military Health Care, etc–I have experienced them all, and they ALL SUCK!) has been horrible.
Finally, I love Papalbon. He is my favorite Red Sox, although Padroia comes in a close second. Papalbon is just so fun!
Who’s putting up a stink? I’m home watching on tv like you are. It’s the dead men walking in the racist senate boys’ club who are putting up the stink as you say, and aptly, because boy does it! (stink)
I’d argue against her only because she’s not helpful to diversity as the sixth Catholic — if I were judging her fitness on that basis.
Kristina, I forget — did you grow up in the South? (I did.) It gives one a certain “wise woman” background . . .
Sotomeyer will end up ruling more conservative than the white male conservative that she is replacing. She is horrible on government power issues – ruling for the state almost 90% of the time. She has been endorsed by just about every law enforcement group in the country. The too liberal meme is just another fund raising appeal by the right. And as usual, the sock puppets are falling for it.
Personally, I don’t consider ruling for the state conservative. On the other hand, I am for a very minimalist government, and that includes law enforcement and law in general.
Wild west-like, 300 million people fighting it out for survival of the fittest, law of the jungle?
Peggy Noonan on who Sotomayor really is:
Pat Buchanan versus Rachel Maddow, on who WE really are:
“wild west like?” Ah, no. I’m saying that it should be minimum. We have so many laws that it is absolutely ridiculous, especially since many of them could be rolled into one law that is then interpreted. Instead, we deal with a law system that micromanages. As far as law enforcement– they also micromanage. I’m just saying that if someone doesn’t want to wear a seat belt, they shouldn’t be made to. And, if someone wants to mow the lawn and drink a beer, they shouldn’t be arrested for DUI (honestly, we’ve had two people locally arrested for DUI because the police could see that what they were drinking was beer while mowing their lawns. Their mowing was not even erratic. What did that teach us? That you don’t drink your beer in it’s original container.) It’s ridiculous the way laws and law enforcement micromanage. And I think it should be reduced.
Gotcha. Have you read “The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America” btw, Kristina? It was all the rage in Florida government when then-governor Lawton Chiles brought its lawyer-author in as a consultant.
But that was back in the mid-90s. Then Chiles died in office and I guess the legal reform fervor died with him . . .
I just heard on the local radio this morning, though, that Florida’s capital city reform now has morphed from that left-brain law focus, to right-brained creative community focus. We have community teams currently using Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class” to brainstorm blueprints for change, similar to Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” right-brain reform ideas. . .apparently we’re one of his official “creative communities” under the “Four Ts” or something like that.
So according to that website, here’s what my city is doing with his Four Ts:
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Tallahassee, FL
Tallahassee Film Festival (Cultural Celebration)
A three-day celebration of the region’s existing, emerging, and overlooked filmmaking talent. Also includes K-12 and college education programming.
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Get Gaines Going (Neighborhood Revitalization Advocacy)
An advocacy group working to eliminate hurdles and create incentives for decision makers involved in revitalizing the central business corridor on Gaines Street.
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Greenovation (Environmental Advocacy Projects)
An umbrella organization focused on sustainable business and living practices. Projects include educational and recycling-in-schools programs, smart transportation policy advocacy, a regional green product and service inventory and building an urban green-design studio.
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Jump Start Plan X (Small Business Incubator)
A business incubator designed to support small business creation. Programs include resource connections, community financing bank and physical office space.
Florida also wrote The Flight of the Creative Class and explicitly mentioned homeschooling, as Dan Pink did before him in Free Agent Nation. I wrote more about these “creative class” ideas in a 2006 Culture Kitchen essay titled Failing at Freedom and its comments.