This is an addendum of sorts to my post from earlier today. It is in response to those who are currently encouraging conservatives to "stand on principle" and vote for Ron Paul, or to just refuse to vote altogether, in protest against a GOP that appears to have abandoned its conservative principles because they are too "liberal" fiscally. While you won't hear any disagreement from ME on that score, I have to argue that they have picked the wrong half of their platform to cling to, and it is killing them as much (if not more) than their RINO tendencies when it comes to tax and spend policies (or immigration).
Spending soooo much time harping on social issues like gay marriage and abortion--issues that no real "conservative" would really want the Federal government to deal with in the first place, never mind make such a huge part of their platform--has also turned the party into a contradiction. On the one hand they're saying "Get the government out of my business, my wallet, my dinner plate (since they--Thank God--still have the good sense to stay out of the Nanny State business where babysitting our waislines is concerned)," and on the other they seem to be saying "but c'mon in to my BEDROOM, and while you're at it, tell me what to do with my UTERUS!"
Anyone find something STRANGE about this?
And let me remind you, this criticism is coming from a woman who is religiously pro-life (literally and figuratively), and who believes the word "marriage" is a Biblical term referring to the union of ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.
How then can I be so angry at these politicians you ask? Because to me, being a "conservative" means being CONSISTENT about wanting the Federal Government to BACK THE HELL OFF! I don't want gay marriage not because I'm against gay rights. On the contrary! I think the only way to fairly ensure that we don't deny gays their full civil rights is for the government to get OUT of the marriage business altogether! They're job is to PROTECT rights, and amongst those are the rights of RELIGIOUS institutions to refuse to "marry" whoever they want to refuse, gay, straight, whatever. Another right they ought to be protecting is the right of individuals of legal consenting age to CONTRACT with each other, for whatever purpose they see fit! Want to keep men from marrying their dogs? Don't make "marriage" a civil right, make legally binding CIVIL UNION one instead! Take love and sex out of the equation, since when did the government have a stake in these things anyway?? Where in the Constitution does it say that the Federal (or state government for that matter) shall have the right to decide who may be permitted to form a household with whom? Wasn't the introduction of that particular "authority" a racist move to keep whites from marrying blacks? Yeah, ya think we can do away with that now (or at the very least not associate ourselves as conservatives with something that was SURELY a Dixiecrat invention once upon a time)? I think so!
See that's where the Democrats are more "honest" in a way than the GOP. When they go off the reservation, demanding powers they don't have and shouldn't get, they are being CONSISTENT. They want to be the authority on just about everything we do and say, and marriage is no different. They would love nothing more than to put religious institutions into civil rights violators (those that would not comply with their new "laws" guaranteeing the "right" for gays to "marry"). And the GOP are feeding right into this by putting those of us in the middle, those of us who want to protect "marriage" but who really don't care if Jim wants to share his stuff and his kids legally with Joe, those of us who don't feel that this particular arrangement in any way threatens our "marriages." Now what are we supposed to do? If we support their all-or-nothing stance, we feel like irrational bigots, and for those of us who are truly devoted to following Christ (as opposed to using Him as a tool with which to judge and beat others into feeling and being less than we), this is as unacceptable as it is to the average raging liberal!
The GOP doesn't seem to care that we and those on the left with whom we reluctantly sympathize on this issue are in the MAJORITY in this country right now. They are more intent on capturing the votes of the 25% of the people who still think Bush is the savior of the world (and that Jesus will be arriving for a second time THIS WEEK perhaps, leaving cars and airplanes to crash as the faithful are sucked up to heaven, or something...) than they are about actually being anything resembling "conservative." There's nothing "conservative" about authoritarianism! It's just the flip side of today's liberal, making yourself into a busy-body in another way, but busy-body you still are.
So why is this such a huge problem? Why is appealing to the so-called "base" so detrimental to our conservative cause? Because it practically FORCES us to cave on the fiscal and defense policies that--for some bizarre reason--the overwrought "base" seems to have put lower on their priority lists. In order to keep this minority happy (like our foes on the other side) we have sold our souls (quite literally) and turned ourselves into their holier-than-thou twin, separated at birth. Instead of learning from their mistakes and watching how their march to the left is hurting them by alienating the vast middle, we are in a race to catch up with them, running as fast as we can off the cliff in the opposite direction. It's MADNESS!
Anyway, my New Year's plea is that we not "stand on principle" if our principles are going to be nothing more than the inverse of the social busy-bodies on the left who want to tell us how to raise our kids and what to eat, drink, drive and feel about our country. Let's get out of the busy-body business, and get back in the BUSINESS business--the business of running this country, properly, and as near as I can tell, that has less than nothing to do with telling individual people whom to love or what to believe about God.
Why the question marks? Well, I guess because I know for some of us, the year will end happily, with a President OTHER than Hillary Clinton OR Mike "Evolution is just a theory, kinda like gravity" Huckabee, or even Mitt "Really, I'm not a RINO, truuuuuuuuuust meeeeeee" Romney, and for some of us, there will be "Burn-My-U.S.-Passport-Parties."
I also question how NEW the year will be in the sense that I lately despair of finding the truly NEW. It seems that--whether we're talking about our culture or our political scene--everything old, tired, unproductive, unconstructive and ultimately toxic is new again. Whether it's bitter partisanship (yawn) or oversexed starlets in crisis, I am hard-pressed to envision anything but more of the same in 2008. I see little in the way of real LEADERSHIP, either politically or culturally, and most people around me are either apathetic about the situation or are in denial, with their heads buried firmly in the sands of "Farther-Away-Than-the-Tip-of-My-Nose" and "Less-Interesting-Than-My-Navel." Both sound like places in a Shrek sequel, which is fitting considering I predict more sequels than you could ever dream of...Even in your worst nightmares.
I hate to sound so gloomy, especially after declaring my support for a guy who at least hopes to be the embodiment of HOPE itself, but it's hard not to. I do believe Obama would be a breath of fresh air for the country, and those of you who know me know that's not an easy thing for me to say. To support someone you will have to oppose from the day-one on many key policy issues seems symptomatic of borderline personality disorder, doesn't it (Steve, chime in here, you're the shrink after all, and my friend, so I know you'll be honest with me...)?
But there it is, the truth as I know it, and the truth is, the "new," the truly experimental and novel may well be that which seems LEAST logical and least predictable. Although, having just said that I realize it may constitute an argument FOR a Hillary presidency! I mean, what could be LESS predictable than the positions of that woman? The questions "Will she or won't she?" "Does she or doesn't she?" were practically written with her in mind weren't they? (Deb chuckles softly and sadly to herself...). Nah, not really. I think those of us who have followed her "career" over the years realize she is nothing if not predictable. If it's mean-spirited, underhanded, dishonest and self-serving, she'll probably do it. So the policy position is immaterial really, all that matters is her character (or lack thereof) and there's nothing new to talk about where that is concerned.
Why does a conservative fixate on the "new?" Isn't that in and of itself "NEW?" I suppose it is, superficially anyway. I like to think of it as "new" in that it's NOVEL. Today's conservatives--those in power anyway--have so forgotten who they are and what they represent (Ron Paul excepted of course, but I wouldn't say he's "in power" either) that calling them conservative is merely a way of letting liberals know they oppose gay marriage and abortion. Beyond that, there's nothing conservative about them. So for me, the "new" I seek is not just hope and courage and character, it is REAL conservatism. It may not be "new" in the literal sense. In fact, it may be as old as this country itself, but in this decade--what's left of it anyway--it WOULD be a novelty to see, and THAT is what I want.
How can I possibly expect to get that from 2008 if Obama wins? Well, call it reverse psychology, call it "intelligent design" (of authentic conservative opposition that is), the point is that it's too easy for lazy inauthentic conservatives to stand up against a Hillary. How could you call yourself conservative--even in name only--without doing at least THAT much! But to stand against a man who WILL talk to you, who WILL work with you and listen to you, that takes guts, that takes brains, that takes IDEAS. New ones, old ones that didn't see the proper light of day when we held power for six long years, and everything in between. The point is, enough with resting on our anger and partisan invective. It's boring, it's tired and, most importantly, it's INEFFECTIVE.
If we pick one leader, who has the potential at least to be honest and fair and GOOD, perhaps others will rise to meet him, to challenge him, to work with him and bring to the fore the REAL conservatism, the one I hold dear, the one I"m proud to associate myself with, the one I haven't seen in a loooooooong time. And that my friends, if it came to pass, would be very "new" indeed.
So here's wishing all of us who long for the same thing a HAPPY and a NEW year.
Might have, just might have...
Let me start by saying that despite being a registered Independent, I have voted for the Republican candidate in every election since 1984. Yes, I had the great privilege of voting for Ronald Reagan, in my very FIRST election no less. No, I never voted for Clinton, despite enormous pressure from those around me (my own father included) to do so. So it's only natural that this time around I would cast my gaze first and foremost to the GOP candidates, right? It also fits because, after all, lack of party affiliation aside, I am an avowed conservative, pro-life, libertarian-leaning on tax policy, pro-military, anti-amnesty and illegal immigration, pro-school-choice Christian voter. But (you had to know there was a "but" coming right?), this time I'm not so sure even the "lesser of two evils" argument is going to convince me that any of these guys is worthy of my (albeit probably worthless in a strictly numerical sense, but valuable thing to me personally nonetheless) vote.
Why? Well, let's go down the list, shall we?
McCain
I don't "like" him. What I mean by that is, I don't think I'd want to have a beer with him. I might like to be stranded on a desert island with him because for sure he'd know how to survive and would have some great stories to keep me from being terminally bored--stories of an historical nature in particular--but on the whole? I think he's got a mean streak a mile wide and that concerns me. I also think he's too old, I really do. Not in isolation, but relative to the field on both sides. I think he represents a generation that is on the way out, in many ways, for good reason. He may have been one of the best of that generation, but frankly, it's not a generation that really "gets" where the current one is going, never mind from whence it's coming, mentally that is.
He just strikes me as a step backwards, not just to more of the same, but even perhaps to where we were before the Clintons and Bush the Younger made a mess of the country (and let's face it, one mess led to the current one, without a doubt). As nice a fantasy as it may be that we could "restore" the GOP to it's Reaganesque greatness, and as tempting as it is to see an elder statesman like McCain as the guy to do it for us, it's a pipe dream. He's a RINO at best, and a snarky mean one at that. I have nothing but respect for his abilities and service to his country, but he carries a lot of baggage. I don't see a lot of forward thinking or movement in a McCain Presidency, except in directions I don't want to travel (think Amnesty).
His support of the troop surge is nice, but it does not make up for that baggage, in my opinion. We have more than Iraq to worry about in the coming four years.
Rudy
Loved him as Mayor. I lived in Manhattan during his tenure and he did a bang up job, no question about it, the man gets shit done like no one else...When he's on his own turf that is. I really can't stress this enough, he's NOT "America's Mayor" and the misnomer is almost absurd when you think about it! New York City is no more an example of an "American" city than Los Angeles is! It is located in the US, to be sure, but it is about as far from "Main Street" as you're gonna get! It's more accurate to suggest the man has foreign policy experience because of his time as Mayor than to say he's representative of what "Americans" want. And I'm not just talking about his views on social and cultural issues (most of which I agree with by the way). I'm talking about an attitude that is distinctively "New Yawka." I am one, so I can say that. The way he shunned Iowa, the way he touts his experience in New York as if it's enough, as if making it there means he could make it anywhere--as the song goes--is really grating to the ears of a Midwesterner, for example. It's also not music to the ears of a Southerner. I ought to know, I live in the South now, trust me, they wince when he drops the big apple bomb in every other sentence. All it does is reinforce the stereotype people have of New Yorkers as arrogant people who think the county begins and ends at the Hudson River. He forgets that while 13 Mil. plus people may call the five boroughs "home," most Americans have never even visited. They can't. They can't AFFORD to. That ought to tell him most of what he needs to know.
Finally, he too has a mean streak and a pit-bull personality that I'm not sure I'd trust in the office. I'm sick and tired of partisan bickering and anger-inspired policies. He comes off best when he talks business, but sadly, the Average American isn't well-versed in the vocabulary of CNBC or the Financial Times. When he talks about the economy, I find myself wishing he could package his knowledge in something a little less abrasive, but alas, he cannot. He is who he is, lisp and all, and I just don't see him as our President.
Romney
Oh dear, where do I start? I cannot even stand this man. The idea that he's running as a Republican is laughable to me. I think he chose that party solely because he could be the physical model for the "Republican Man" poster, you know the one with call-out quotes, like they had the "Preppy" poster in the 1980s? The call-outs would point to the perfect hair, with just the right amount of patrician gray around the temples, the perfectly tailored expensive (but not trendy) suit, the pearly white grin of a man with excellent dental care, and the blond wife and gorgeous children to complete the package. He's a movie Republican, not a real one. And I speak from experience on that score. I lived in MA during his (brief) stint as Governor.
First of all, for him to tell the nation that his health plan is different from socialized medicine is a LIE. Oh sure, it's still provided by private insurance companies, but they were chosen through a bidding war decided upon by the state. The mandates are enormous, and include--amongst other things--abortions for $50 on demand, regardless of medical necessity. So when he tells you he's "pro-life" don't you believe it. The plan is terrible, it is enormously expensive and getting moreso by the hour it seems. People in MA have to wait sometimes months to get a doctor's appointment and they will be FINED if they don't buy coverage. Oh sure, employers still provide coverage, but you are required to pay for it, or to buy the state-sponsored kind, which while sometimes cheaper, is usually not as good (although they won't tell you that). And some employers are finding it's just easier and less costly to ditch their coverage benefit altogether and pay the gov't fees, which means even fewer "choices" for the citizens of the commonwealth.
Then there's the Big Dig....Did Romney do squat to reign that boondoggle in? No. Did he--the supposed business magnate, executive uber-manager extroaordinaire step in to make sure the process of spending the COUNTRY's money (because, after all, the project was heavily subsidized by the Fed) was being handled ethically, never mind efficiently? Nah. Not sure what he was busy doing (combing his hair maybe?) but that wasn't on his list.
Shall we move on to the way he allowed the commonwealth to be turned into a colony of Brazil? Or how about the way he cow-towed to Finneran and the Dems in the State House at nearly every turn and then called it "bipartisanship?" Was it a tough place to govern because of the oligarchical nature of the government of that state? Sure. But if he thinks D.C. is going to bend over and do his bidding, he's living in a dream world. Romney has no core, he is merely a smarter (intellectually), slicker, better looking, "nicer" version of Hillary in my view, so what's the upside of voting for him? I can't see one.
Thompson & Hucakbee
I'm lumping these two together because really, in some ways, they are the same person. I'll admit it, I gave money to Thompson early on, and I really had high hopes for him. He talked the talk, but since he's entered the race, he's walked a different walk. Instead of talking turkey in many ways, he's talked LIKE a turkey, putting on his little Gomer-Pyle act as if he is in a race with Hucakbee to be the more "authentic" everyman, folksy down-home goober everyone can relate to. He is like the polar opposite of Rudy, the anti-Cosmopolitan, and to this dweller of "Middle Earth" (the land between the two extremes), it's irritating in the same way. Yes, we get it, you're a Christian. We also get that you're for the war, against abortion and gay marriage, blah blah blah. Are you going for the award for most devoted to those causes, or are you trying to demonstrate your character?
I realize I sound like hypocrite, on the one hand criticizing Romney for being a slick chameleon and then turning around and calling Thompson and Huckabee rubes with tunnel vision, but the fact is, the character of the leader we need is somewhere between those two extremes, it is. A core is nice, but not when it makes you rigid or antagonistic, and certainly not when it makes you seem like a walking cartoon character stereotype from late-night-comedy cartoons. I can see it now "L'il Fred" to follow "L'il Bush." Uh-uh, no thanks. I've had eight years of being one who voted for the village idiot, joke of the world, not up for another four.
And Huckabee? Yeah, I "liked" him too at first, seemed like a real genuine guy, but he went down about a hundred notches in my estimation when he started waving the cross around like a flag. Even I, no fan of Hugo Black's brick wall of separation between church and state, was none too impressed by the way he tried to make faith a deciding factor in choosing him. Uncool. We've had eight years of that, we don't need to give the left MORE reasons to assume every policy decision was made in the pulpit of a church we don't all attend.
I'm not going to talk about Ron Paul because I'm running out of energy to type this post (not to mention time) and what's the point of even talking about someone who has as much chance of winning as I have? I'm glad he's out there on the stump reminding us there is this little document called the "Constitution" and it does matter what it says, but I'm afraid he's only giving me MORE reasons not to support his fellow GOP candidates, not fewer. Maybe that's a good thing in the end, who knows, all I know is, I like the guy, but Presidential he is not.
So that leaves me with Democrats doesn't it? Well, there are only two worth discussing really. Edwards has successfully staked out the socialist side of the Democratic party, and that makes him both unelectable and not worth discussing in this post. So that leaves Hillary and Obama, and rather than expound on what I think of each of them (if you don't know how I feel about the Hildebeast by now, you're obviously not a regular reader of this blog. Suffice it to say, to me, she is the Anti-Christ), I'm going to let David Brooks do the talking:
....the presidency requires a different set of qualities. Presidents are buffeted by sycophancy, criticism and betrayal. They must improvise amid a thousand fluid crises. They’re isolated and also exposed, puffed up on the outside and hollowed out within. With the presidency, character and self-knowledge matter more than even experience. There are reasons to think that, among Democrats, Obama is better prepared for this madness.Many of the best presidents in U.S. history had their character forged before they entered politics and carried to it a degree of self-possession and tranquillity that was impervious to the Sturm und Drang of White House life.
Obama is an inner-directed man in a profession filled with insecure outer-directed ones. He was forged by the process of discovering his own identity from the scattered facts of his childhood, a process that is described in finely observed detail in “Dreams From My Father.” Once he completed that process, he has been astonishingly constant.
Like most of the rival campaigns, I’ve been poring over press clippings from Obama’s past, looking for inconsistencies and flip-flops. There are virtually none. The unity speech he gives on the stump today is essentially the same speech that he gave at the Democratic convention in 2004, and it’s the same sort of speech he gave to Illinois legislators and Harvard Law students in the decades before that. He has a core, and was able to maintain his equipoise, for example, even as his campaign stagnated through the summer and fall.
Moreover, he has a worldview that precedes political positions. Some Americans (Republican or Democrat) believe that the country’s future can only be shaped through a remorseless civil war between the children of light and the children of darkness. Though Tom DeLay couldn’t deliver much for Republicans and Nancy Pelosi, so far, hasn’t been able to deliver much for Democrats, these warriors believe that what’s needed is more partisanship, more toughness and eventual conquest for their side.
But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.
Obama did not respond to his fatherlessness or his racial predicament with anger and rage, but as questions for investigation, conversation and synthesis. He approaches politics the same way. In her outstanding New Yorker profile, Larissa MacFarquhar notes that Obama does not perceive politics as a series of battles but as a series of systemic problems to be addressed. He pursues liberal ends in gradualist, temperamentally conservative ways.
Obama also has powers of observation that may mitigate his own inexperience and the isolating pressures of the White House. In his famous essay, “Political Judgment,” Isaiah Berlin writes that wise leaders don’t think abstractly. They use powers of close observation to integrate the vast shifting amalgam of data that constitute their own particular situation — their own and no other.
Obama demonstrated those powers in “Dreams From My Father” and still reveals glimpses of the ability to step outside his own ego and look at reality in uninhibited and honest ways. He still retains the capacity, also rare in presidents, of being able to sympathize with and grasp the motivations of his rivals. Even in his political memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” he astutely observes that candidates are driven less by the desire for victory than by the raw fear of loss and humiliation.
What Bill Clinton said on “The Charlie Rose Show” is right: picking Obama is a roll of the dice. Sometimes he seems more concerned with process than results. But for Democrats, there’s a roll of the dice either way. The presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.
Now why would I support a guy who's not only not a conservative, but who supports policies I don't support? Because he's HONEST about that fact. I know what I'm getting into with him because he has this "core" Brooks talks about, he believes in what he believes in because of something real, not because he stuck his finger in the wind and said "This'll sell!"
Also, I can get behind someone who has a different approach to solving a problem than I would have, I'm not some egomaniac who thinks I have all the answers. Sure, I have a philosophy of what works best (and what doens't), but that doesn't make me *correct.* All I ask is to have my point of view considered, and Obama seems to be the ONLY candidate who will actually do that. The guys who may *seem* to automatically agree with me lack the character of a good President, in my opinion, so their "agreement" or support of positions I care about loses its value. They might agree, but choose a course of action I would find abhorrent. Or they might agree in principle, but lack the inner strength to lead or make that principle stick. I've had eight years now of a guy it became harder and harder to defend because his way of implementing the things I cared about was so deeply flawed, so driven by his own character flaws and personal neuroses (pathological loyalty to the point of self-destructiveness being chief amongst those, along with the typical reformed drunkard's tendency to moralize and preach), I'm soooo over that. I'm ready for someone who may not agree with me going in, but who's mature and thoughtful enough to realize that anger and blame never solved a damn thing, and that dichotomies and bitter partisanship make for punchy headlines, but not for sound (never mind solvent) government.
If you want even more detail about how I arrived at this conclusion, read this piece in the New Yorker. It's long, but well worth a read if you're not solidly behind anyone yet, from either side. It's not a hard-sell by any means, it's just thought-provoking and illuminating, and not just about Obama. Juxtaposing Hillary against him the way the article does makes it as crystal clear that Hillary is driven by anger and uses envy and negativity to drum up support. If you thought the past eight years have been divisive, just wait until she takes office. Bush will seem like a unifier by comparison that's for sure.
Anyway, I know it's odd for me to be casting my lot with a man who is arguably the least "qualified" on paper for the job, but I've come to the conclusion that this time around, we need a certain type of PERSON, not a set of credentials. I can only hope Obama is able to do as good a job of conveying that he is that type as Brooks and MacFarquahar have done. If he does, he just might win because I'm certain I am not alone in feeling as I do about the lack of character amongst the current contenders for the job.
...just in case, it's pretty funny!
To All My Democrat Friends: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Yeah, all three of you who actually read this drivel!
Any-hoo....Here's the update:
- Still pregnant, 14 weeks now, almost 15 actually
- Not sick anymore, turned the corner just in time to devour enough Turkey and trimmings (and pie) to gain ALL the weight I didn't gain (or gain back that which I lost, give or take a pound or two) in the previous 12 weeks.
- Current craving? Haagen Dasz chocolate, got any for me?
- CVS test results: am carrying one chromosomally healthy baby girl. Yes, you read correctly, I am having yet another girl, proving again that God has a sick sense of humor. Spend my life as a tomboy, very few female friends, not even all that sure I'm that wildly crazy about women frankly (well, some of them are marvelous, but as a gender, we have some pretty irritating traits, fondness for gossip and pink and pretending to be nice amongst them), and then I have the privilege of giving birth to not one, not two, but THREE of them, two of whom are, so far, the coolest people I know!
- Yes, we've picked a name. This is me remember? Where would I be if I had to endure not knowing her name for the next 6 months? I'm supposed to refer to her as "hey you" or something? Oh, what is it? Her name will be Catherine Elizabeth, Cate for short.
- No, you may not *remind* me that John Edwards has a daughter by the same name. I'm well aware of it, and I don't really care. A great name is a great name.
- Politically I'm not asleep at the wheel here, just not posting b/c I'm not sure where to start after such a long hiatus (isn't it always the way?). I suppose I could just START, but honestly, I'm a little weary of the whole mess right now. It's the holiday season, I'm enjoying the whole decorating/baking/gift buying and wrapping gig with my kids--I might actually be ready in time this year--and turning on the news or reading it online is a buzz kill most days. I'll keep my eyes and ears open though, and if anything happens that trips my trigger, you'll be the first to know. Until then, just picture me dancing around like a fool to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas" (my girls love it, sue me) and baking cookies like the good little conservative Hausfrau I pretend to be. That will either make you laugh or puke, but given how many calories you're likely to consume in the coming weeks, I'll still be providing a service either way (yes, even laughing burns calories).