A New Direction: The Philosophy of All of Us

When I first started this blog, I was in a very different place emotionally, physically, and about any other -ly you can think of.

Me in 2014

 Me in 2010

I'm going through some pretty hard-core health drama at the moment, and I have found myself unable to write.  My plan is to move this blog in a new direction, to either write about topics you (my readers) recommend or what I see on the news.  Or maybe the naked guy in a Santa jacket my husband and daughter saw at the ice cream shop yesterday.

If there are topics you'd like me to tackle, please either comment below or read through some of the posts I'm linking and ask for clarification or to look at something from a different angle.  You can contact me at kloud1026 at yahoo(dot)com.  I have got to get rid of this stupid writer's block (I intend to leave a mark on the world in some way), so please, I encourage suggestions for writing topics.

Going back to the beginning of this blog (gulp), here are some things I think might be interesting reads for newcomers ...

*  My sister and I had the most epic Facebook conversation ever.  It gets into horse urine and lettuce and really odd places. I just peed a little when I reread it ;-p

* In 1998, I was raped at a small party at a friend's house.  I can say those words aloud now, but back when I wrote this, I could only write them.

*  Stephen King on writing before he wrote On Writing; in fact, he compares it to masturbation.  Okay, he's a little weird, but best author ever, really!

*  I'm quite amused by my random ramblings about pink tissues.  Who knew?

*  This is where I honor the man my ex-husband used to be.  I forgot some of the finer things about him, and I'm sorry to report that they haven't returned.

* I got caught up on why children's television is so milquetoast these days.  It's a bit soap-boxy, but I enjoyed rereading it.

*  If you know me well at all, you know I am fascinated by Charles Manson.  That is explained a bit here.

* If you are from New Hampshire, you are probably familiar with the name Michael Addison.  I am still bothered by the potential racism in a criminal case here in the Granite State.

*  Way back in 2009, I got rather indignant at the whole "Lipstick on a Pig" debacle during the Obama vs. McCain election.

*  I used Socrates to talk about the Easter Bunny in this post.  That sort of makes it a must-read.

I guess that's a pretty wide variety of posts for you to read, if you're interested. Again, starting tomorrow, I am blogging daily.  I am hoping desperately to find something to write about since I've been blocked for so long.  Please share your ideas in comments or via e-mail and let me know if you read any of those Golden Oldies listed above.

I'm sort of laughing and crying both right now ... and wishing I had a pink tissue.

Be well,
<3 katie="" p="">

Lipstick on a Pig

Back when the election was getting hot and heavy, a political cartoon by Glenn McCoy depicting Barack Obama as a mental asylum inmate appeared in my local newspaper. Restrained in a straitjacket, Obama has clearly been writing the word "Sarah" with his foot all over the walls of his padded white room ... in lipstick. The clearly simian bend of McCoy's portrayal (the monkey-like face is overshadowed by the clenched ape foot clutching the tube of lipstick) is obviously a not-so-subtle jab at Obama's race.

So where’s the outcry? I mean, the chorus of dissent over Obama's use of a popular political phrase reached the rafters, but why are cheap shots about the fact that Obama is an African-American allowed to pass without comment? I'm a white female, and my increasing awareness of the double-standard allowing everything that might possibly be seen as anti-woman being blown out of proportion while blatant jabs at African-Americans are evidently fair game is starting to really make me angry.

If anyone hasn't heard about it, Senator Obama said, in reference to McCain's economic policy, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." For some reason, this was taken as somehow referring to Sarah Palin and, faster than you can say hypocrisy, the word was out that Obama had made an anti-woman crack.

The phrase, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" is clearly another way of saying that, no matter what short-term appearance fixer you put on something ugly, it's still going to be ugly. In other words, you can't change what something is by playing with its outward appearance. A similar phrase involves the inability to make chicken salad out of chicken shit, but I digress.

The fact that John McCain said of Hillary Clinton's health care plan, "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" in Iowa last October (that's less than a year ago) is for some reason not getting the same press. There was no feminist outcry last October, and there is very little mention of this in response to the public skewering Obama is currently taking.

A longtime part of used-car dealership jargon, the phrase was, according to Time magazine, first exposed to the public in 1985 when a news station said using its financial surplus to renovate Candlestick Park would be like "putting lipstick on a pig." Since then, the phrase has been used by (in no particular order) Elizabeth Edwards, Dick Cheney, Torie Clark (former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Rumsfeld, former communications chief for the Pentagon for a portion of Bush's presidency, and former McCain press secretary), John Edwards, and House Minority Leader John Boehner as well as by John McCain and Barack Obama.

The overblown criticism Obama has taken for his use of a saying that has been used by a variety of people from differing walks of life is just adding to the surreality of this campaign. That direct cracks directed at Obama (a la McCoy's political cartoon) are somehow fair game only add to the bitterness that is starting to really bog me down and look at my country with a cynical eye.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just overly sensitive, cynical, or out-and-out wrong?