The Plight of the Female Politician

Yesterday I made jokes about both Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin. It reminded me of making gay jokes, because I felt compelled to follow it up with a defensive disclaimer, that being “Not that I have anything against female politicians!”

We do, indeed, have double standards when it comes to women in power. Often it seems like the only way they can rise in the ranks is to be tougher than their male counterparts – which then makes them look cold and heartless. Here’s a quick inventory of three high-profile female politicians and my immediate reactions to each:

Hillary Clinton – “Ick!”
Nancy Palosi – “Ack!”
Sarah Palin – “Yikes!”

Not that I have anything against female politicians ;)

Really though, the rise of female politicians is long overdue. Where did Diane Feinstein go? I’d vote for her. In fact, I think I once did. The current situation is likely a result of a confluence of social events and political evolution. Politically, in our current system you have to become a career politician to rise to power – coupled with the fact you must be quite rich as well. Those factors, along with the advent of women’s rights and equality finally starting to catch up, pretty much requires they give up most of their personal lives to get themselves into the public eye (See realty shows, stupid overly-opinionated statements and Dancing With the Stars) – without which they are “below the radar” and un-electable. As my dad would point out, that’s not really what our forefathers had in mind. I’ll take my own political temperature here by gauging my reactions to a few political realities:

Career Politicians – “Ick!
Left wing ultra-liberals – “Ack!”
Right wing ultra conservatives – “Yikes!”

Do you think there’s a chance we could ever have representatives that actually looked like the electorate? Instead of a bunch of lawyers, maybe a teacher, a doctor, a small business owner…. Let me try each of those out with my very un-scientific gut-check meter:

Lawyer – “Ick!”
Lawyer – “Ack!”
Lawyer – “Yikes!”

Or

Teacher – “hmmm”
Doctor – “OK – but remember there are other egos in the room, please”
Small Business Owner – “Wow!”

Yes I like this system already! So, Captains of Industry, here’s my fix for the system:

6 year single term Congress
6 year single term President
Judicial system? I’m OK with the way that’s going. I’m sure they’ll all be glad
to hear that.

I guess one argument against this type of system would be that with no insiders, how would they get anything done? Well…. most teachers, doctors and business owners I know are at least as smart as the politicians I know. Perhaps they’d eliminate the large staffs and layers of bureaucracy to simplify the dialogue, thus leading to more direct and open communication among the actual congress(wo)men. I know I know – I’m an optimist!

Oops – what was I talking about again? Oh yeah – females in politics - the current crop being Ick, Ack and Yikes. Well, I’m looking forward to a new crop – hopefully Hmmm, OK and Wow.

You never know. It COULD hap…. Hey! What was that!? I think a monkey just flew out of my butt!!

The Mother of Invention

I thought Id take a few minutes to review some of the most recent technological advancements hitting the market – here is a sampling:


Talk and Text
In the interest of safety and convenience, this new invention allows your smart phone to pick up your speech and convert it to text, thus allowing you to speak out loud and send your thoughts to the intended recipient of your message. I assume the next safety advancement will convert it on the other end, converting text to voice, thus not having to read the screen and allowing the receiver to keep their eyes on the road. Hmmm….. if these advancements keep up, pretty soon people will actually be able to talk back and forth in real time like a pho…… hmmmmmm. Well, let’s move on.

You are the Controller
This is the latest game advancement – instead of a hand controller, you actually move around, and a sensor picks up your movement, and projects the image of you moving around on the screen. Like looking at your reflection in a mir…. hmmmmm. Well, the other part of this is that other people with the same system can be doing the same thing, and then you are both projected on the screen with the help of the internet, like you are actually interacting and jumping around together, and well like you’re danc…. Hmmmmm. OK – So there seems to be a circular pattern to some of these advancements. If we keep this up, we will advance ourselves right into the 1960’s. Let’s move on and see what’s next.

Smell-o-vision
I just read that some clever Japanese inventors figured out a way to use ordinary fax machines as an enhancement to your high-def TV’s as a way of delivering Smell-O-Vision to your home. You simply replace the cartridge with an odoriffic cartridge….

OK, I’ve had enough. If everyone wants to simulate life instead of live it, that’s one thing. I don’t want to smell the alley in the shoot out – the cats in the cat-lady’s house – the formaldehyde in the morgue. To be perfectly honest, I think one of the best attributes of watching TV is I DON’T have to smell what’s on my screen.

So gadgetry is intriguing – but the more advanced things get, the more life-like they get. And life being what life is – that being finite – here’s what I’m thinking. Instead of simulating a conversation, have one. Instead of jumping around with a friend on TV – jump around with one you can touch. And when your loved ones are not close? Yes, that’s the best application for this technology. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take a shower before we get together to jump around.

I like real time smells. Smell-O-Vision would greatly effect what shows I would like to watch. Good bye CSI – Hello Nature Channel. Hmmm….. ;)