Barack Obama and the Floating Uterus

Excerpt from an article in Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2189485):

"On his train tour Saturday, Sen. Obama...decried Clinton's 'tactics of Washington,' in which she attacks him with every possible weapon. 'She's got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying. The buffet is coming at me …'"

Come on, Barack. Why do you have to resort to characterizing Hillary Clinton as an hysterical, embittered housewife? Doesn't anyone else see how sexist this remark is? I am simply mortified at how pervasive and accepted sexism is in our country (I would venture to say the world...). Television, movies, and news have made sure that the image of the out of control, demanding, irrational woman is emblazoned on the minds of all men. No doubt when he said those words, every man in that audience emitted a "knowing" laugh and thought to themselves, "I can relate to that!" Of course, what they are relating to is a fiction they have conjured up in their collective male minds.

I should be fair, here...lest I get accused of being sexist. Women buy into these fictive ideas about themselves as well. It is for this reason that women are the largest consumers of self-help books. Women are constantly told where they are lacking and are told just as quickly how they can "fix" themselves. Either way, it is harmful to both men and women and the relations between them.

I really, truly thought we had at least made it out of the Victorian era with its fantastical and absurd ideas about women. (Quick, duck! There is a floating uterus!) Thanks, Barack, for letting me know that this kind of sexism is alive and well! Oh, and Barack...a word of advice--hide all of your kitchen knives when Michelle is having her "monthly visitor".

Eminent Domain: A Modern-Day Indian Removal

After forcibly removed from their homeland in Indiana in 1846 and placed on a reservation in Kansas, the Miami people were again removed just thirty years later and forced to settle in an area now called Miami, Oklahoma. Much of that land was sold off by unscrupulous Indian agents to just as unscrupulous white settlers. The Miami have since sought to repurchase their original allotment lands in order to perpetuate their cultural identity and to reestablish a land-base for Miami citizens. But now the State of Oklahoma is forcibly removing Miami Indians once again. One older couple, Ken and Sharon Prescott (a Miami elder), bought 15 acres of original Miami allotment land. This was to be their retirement home. They wanted to live the rest of their lives on Miami land. This is not to be. The Grand River Dam Authority has just filed a condemnation suit of eminent domain on the Prescott’s property. At almost 70 years old, Sharon is to be honored at her nation’s powwow in Miami this summer, but she does not know whether or not she will still have a home there because Oklahoma wants to appease recreational boaters and expand one of its lakes. In the wake of Kelo v. City of New London, has eminent domain gone too far?