Having It All? (End of Year Re-Run)

It's something I think about a lot, and it spawned some good discussion last time, so I thought we should revisit Mandi's Post (from June 26th) about whether women can have it all...  

P.S. And speaking about having it all... Please get well soon, Hillary.  P.P.S. Please shut up everybody who is dogging Hillary while she's ill.  Get a life.  Now without further ado -


I thought it was a good time to chat about the article that has been making waves around the internet recently, the Atlantic article on why women can’t have it all.  This type of article, in various permutations, has been coming out yearly for a while now.  In the beginning, it was penned by men, then by women.  Either which way, someone is always willing to wag their finger in women’s faces and admonish them for thinking that they “can have it all”.

I confess I’m not sure what that means. 

Suffer The Little Children

Because guns don't kill people.  Lack of access to mental health services don't kill people.  America's fascination and worship of violence doesn't kill people.  No, it is the lack of school-sponsored prayer that kills people.

The response to the Newtown shooting, in which 26 people were killed on school property, 20 of them children, was as predictable as it was infuriating:

You know the question’s gonna come up, where was God?” he said. “I thought God cared about the little children, God protected the little children. Where was God when all this went down? And here’s the bottom line: God is not gonna go where he’s not wanted.

Now we have spent, since 1962, this, we’re 50 years into this now, we have spent 50 years telling God to get lost. Telling God, we do not want you in our schools, we don’t want to pray to you in our schools, we don’t want to pray to you before football games, we don’t want to pray to you at graduation, we don’t want anyone talking about you in a graduation speech.

We’ve kicked God out of our public school system. And I think God would say to us, "Hey I’ll be glad to protect your children, but you’ve gotta invite me back into your world first. I’m not gonna go where I’m not wanted. I am a gentleman."

And then, Mike Huckabee weighs in:

Why Won't He Marry Me?-Blame Feminism

Is the modern man pissed off at the modern woman, and reacting by becoming a bunch of slackers?  Author Suzanne Venker thinks so:

Come Sail Away: Our Top 3 Take-Aways from the 2012 Election

So there has been over 24 hours of sobbing, crowing, whining, gloating, and finger-pointing.  And that was just on Facebook.  Now that we have a bit of distance from the emotion of the night, what are our top take-aways from the election?  We will each give you our top 3.



Emily:

1. Women Matter -

Live-Blog 5.0: Can I Get A...?

AAAAAAAHHHHHH.  It's finally here, people.

No more friggin' political ads.  No more robocalls.  Actually, we may have a few more hours of those.  For those people who inexplicably have yet to decide.


Follow us below to the live-blogging action, and the results contest (yes, you could earn your very own YBGP t-shirt if your prognosticating skills are up to snuff).

Black Flag

When you're already in a ditch, stop digging.We've touched on this subject before ( here and here), but John Sununu has stirred the pot yet once again with his recent remarks.  "When you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to look at whether that's an endorsement based on issues or he's got a slightly different reason for endorsing President Obama," he said. "I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him." Sarah Palin recently wrote in a Facebook post, “President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end."

Live-Blog 2.0: This Debate Is Veeptastic!

The last debate was just so awesomely good that we decided to live-blog again.

The one and only VP debate.

Follow us below the fold to the live action, starting in...

Friday Follies-Presidential Debate Edition

On Wednesday night, the first of the 2012 presidential debates happened.  Snap polls taken after the debate gave a decisive victory to Mitt Romney.  While Romney's spokespeople walked back many of his statements, and many in the press acknowledged that many of the statements that Romney said were not true, the media gave the victory to Romney on style points.  They thought the President looked sluggish, and Obama was often unwilling to challenge Romney forcefully on his facts.  The media also piled on the debate moderator Jim Lehrer, whom they thought did an atrocious job of reigning the two candidates in.  YBGP did a live blog of the debates found here.   Neither Emily nor I really found the debate to be so one sided, so it has been interesting listening to the post-debate coverage.  Emily covers the post-debate spin here.  

But of course, after every media event these days, the memes take over.  So to wrap up debate week over here at YBGP, here are some of the memes that have emerged since the debate....

Take Me Out of the Ball Game

It's late.  I don't particularly want to talk about the debate, both because we just live-blogged it and because, quite frankly, it was boring.  No real hits, no really memorable lines, no big flaws on either side (though if you reacted the way Mandi and I did, you thought Obama was a bit rambling and Romney was a bit creepy).


So instead, let's talk about the place of spin, punditry, and general game-theory in politics.


Because of the rise of 24-hour news cycles which have lots of "news" channels that have lots of air time to fill - and yet seem to have no real desire to do investigative journalism (which is expensive and work-intensive, and doesn't always result in high ratings), we have developed a bizarre sports-type model to our political system.

Live-Blog 1.0: This Debate Is Fabulous!

Ahh, it's starting!!!  Follow along live below the fold...


So we're brand-new at live-blogging, but since we spend most political events texting, this shouldn't be too mind-bending for us.  We've decided to favor CNN with our presence, since we wanted to go main-stream and as much as I love PBS, CNN is more main-stream-y.

I can't wait to see which ties the gentlemen are rocking and whether Romney will be his Univision-shade of orange tonight.

Oh, and for those who get bored easily by policy, Maddow has a Lingo Bingo game up (preview below, real-size at link)...

Follow the debate below the fold....

Honey, You Shrunk My Penis!

Well, they have finally managed to make subtext just plain old text.  Perhaps revealing too much about his personal life, Rush Limbaugh has recently complained that "feminazis" are causing men's penises to shrink.

 I think it’s feminism. If it’s tied to the last 50 years — the average size of [a male's] member is 10 percent smaller than 50 years — it has to be the feminazis, the chickification and everything else.

Give ‘em time and they’ll blame Bush. But air pollution vs. feminazis? Ha!

How Mitt Can Get His Groove Back

As Emily noted yesterday, Mitt Romney's campaign appears to be foundering, much earlier in the election cycle than normal. The polls generally agree that Mitt is following further behind. In purely anecdotal ways I can also tell that many people feel that defeat for the Republicans is nigh. My conservative friends and family have stopped posting about the presidential race on Facebook. In some cases they have given up talking about the election until after it is already over. In contrast, most of my more liberal friends have been in full political frenzy, sharing posts, photos, and writing screeds for Obama. Even some of my less politically engaged liberal friends have been doing this. So the outlook seems gloomy for Mitt. But I think it is very premature for Obama supporters to start celebrating a victory party quite yet. Mitt still isn't that far behind in some polls. And given the nature of politics in the United States, he still has plenty of time for a comeback. Follow me below the fold to see how Mitt can still win this thing...

Girly Questions

So I have this list of things that I've been thinking about using for post ideas.  But I mostly just want to share them and ask some girly questions.  So here goes:

• Here, we are arguing whether women get to have abortions or use birth control.  In China, they are arguing whether to continue forcing women to have abortions (even as late-term as 7-months) as they enforce their historically anti-girl one-child policy.  Either way, the mostly-male governments would really, really like to be able to tell women what to do.  The good news is that China has undermined its own progress by short-sightedly messing with its gender dynamics and age dynamics.  123 boys to 100 girls under age 4.  How's that going to work out for you in 20 years, guys?  One thing about democracy: you end up talking about things a whole lot before you do them.  But which argument is more anti-girl?  Why do governments spend so much time trying to control reproduction?  Is there a better way to have this conversation?

The Decision...

So it’s day one after The Decision.  And the political fallout has yet to be seen.  When I first heard about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act (aka the health care act, or Obamacare), I’ll admit that my first reaction was one of giddiness and glee.  I totally thrust my fist into the air, and with the kind of satisfaction that can only come from a mixture of relief and schadenfraude, I thought to myself, 'na na na nah boo boo, stick your head in doo doo', which, I’ll freely acknowledge, was not the most mature reaction I could have had.

Girl Talk

So this graphic and study have been making the rounds for awhile now, and I've been meaning to talk about them.

Having It All?

I thought it was a good time to chat about the article that has been making waves around the internet recently, the Atlantic article on why women can’t have it all.  This type of article, in various permutations, has been coming out yearly for a while now.  In the beginning, it was penned by men, then by women.  Either which way, someone is always willing to wag their finger in women’s faces and admonish them for thinking that they “can have it all”.

I confess I’m not sure what that means. 

Why I Hate This Video

"Women are not an interest group.  They are mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives.  They are half of this country.  They are perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health."