Oz

Got a slow start this morning due to migraine, so opted for Oz-stravaganza (closer, later in day). Now I remember why I don't go to small-town festivals--I always come home feeling like Sayyid Qutb (that I actually thought of Qutb while waiting for the parade frightens me). I haven't seen so many 350-lb people since the last family reunion I attended, but we have the good sense not to leave the house wearing only camisoles and short-shorts (especially the men). And then the pregnant teenagers/teenage mothers smoking on the sidewalk and covered with tattoos (easily visible when you're half-naked)--how can they afford cigarettes and tattoos!?!? Also spent some time wondering how 300-lb women with mullets and no teeth have babies and I don't...maybe I was just too picky with my dating requirements back in the day ("basic hygiene" and "literacy"--shameful snobbishness).

Cranky old maid ranting aside, the festival was disappointing--the parade was short, the "history tent" mostly empty--but I had a nice lunch, and there were a lot of cute kids in costume.

So I'm really bummed I couldn't get up earlier and gone to see Sarah Palin. Although better than a short speech in a crowd would have been to be at the Women's Rights National Park* yesterday when she was there. I'm impressed at the ignorance of the people insisting she's some sort of hypocrite for being interested in the first-wave feminists--Elizabeth Cady Stanton had seven kids, including a change-of-life baby, and Susan B. Anthony opposed abortion and once voted (illegally) for Republicans. I bet Gov. Palin had all sorts of interesting things to say there!

* I visited in 2005, and may again; it's open year-round so I'm not in a hurry. In addition to abolition and women's rights, the first-wave feminists were also anti-alcohol, and that's where we part ideological ways, but other than that I find them quite inspiring.

Good grief.

Youngsters of both genders avoid careers that involve math and science because they lack confidence in those topics, "despite the fact that the largest number of kids ranked math and science as their favorite subjects."

All told, 85% of kids say that they are not interested in an engineering career, according to a survey released Monday from the American Society for Quality.

The headline the J-S puts on this is "Girls shun engineering careers, ASQ study shows". As if anyone needed a survey to know that, or we already know why. But why don't boys want to pursue engineering careers? What are they being told to do instead? What's changed in the past 20 years?

ASQ cited numbers from the National Science Foundation, which projects that the U.S. shortage of engineers will reach 70,000 by 2010*, even as the nation's employers court talent from China and India.

Who cares what an engineer has between their legs if they're qualified and capable? Seriously, why does it matter? China and India don't make a big deal out of forcing women into science...

I suspect the "lack of confidence" in math and science has something to do with a) how it's presented in classrooms, in the seven minutes left in the school day after all the multicultural feel-good self-esteem social-services stuff by b) K-6 teachers who have no mathematical interest or ability. (In my weekend with Facebook, I've noticed a strong positive correlation between "couldn't pass pre-algebra without cheating on the homework" and "employed as a teacher.")

* In January 2009, there seems to be a glut of software engineers. Next life, I'm majoring in Lesbian Latina Deconstructionist Studies.

Huh.

I read this whole article about middle-aged "feminists" (the original title, they took the f-word out) pining for their daddy's money, and not once do they note that the federal government will take 55% of it, unless Daddy dies in 2010. Huh.

This need for an inheritance to fund retirement could have been avoided, at least until last week. Huh.

Ah, feminists.

They're having psychological issues because conservatives are "violating" Rosie the Riveter. Example: Ellen Goodman in a snit. I fixed this key graf for her:

After all, Sarah Palin Nancy Pelosi may yet be is the fulfillment of an old feminist prophecy that Texan Sissy Farenthold once described with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. We will have achieved equality the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men. Check that one off the to-do list.

There. Now it's true.

And look what they were selling at the Milwaukee County "Victory Center" (my model was uncooperative, something about Palin's lack of interest in Feline-American issues):


Much less vulgar than the "contemporary feminist" version. I hope I annoy them. I also bought a "Nobama '08" button for my ham-sammich-Dem-but-making-an-exception-this-year best friend. :P

(I have a ticket for the rally in Waukesha, but I don't yet know if I can get out of work on Thursday. I'm taking some time off later in the month and I'd hate for them to realize they don't really need me. The GOP could get Obama-like turnout every day if their members/voters didn't work for a living...)

Mmmmrph.

I'm always impressed by how much feminists hate, despise, and condescend toward women. You'd think by now it wouldn't surprise me; they've never cared about empowering ordinary women, only about forcing a different oppressive structure on them.

(I could do without all the conservatives repeating over and over that you have to have had babies to be a "real" woman but I'm hoping they're not motivated by malice.)

(Goldstein: "I mean, who knew it would be the left who saw sin growing in a young woman’s womb?")

Oh, and I've spent most of the weekend wishing I could eavesdrop on phone conversations between Bobby Jindal and Ray Nagin.

New Youth Trend

Once a week or so, I catch up on Dear Abby:

My daughter later told me that several of her other friends were considering trying to get pregnant near prom time so they, too, wouldn't have to deal with the pressures of going to college. Apparently, parents are less strict about their children's whereabouts on prom night and let their teens spend the night in a hotel or at mixed-gender sleepovers.

I thought this sad trend might be local to our area, but during a class reunion in California I learned the trend may be nationwide. One of my oldest friends, "Dana," confided during the reunion that she had become a grandmother at 43 due to her daughter having a prom baby.

Shit. I couldn't get a prom DATE, much less one that wanted to have sex with me. *sniff*

OK, personal bitterness aside, there's some good stuff here. First, all the people in the story, including the Californians, are raising the babies they made. No one's advocating killing the babies so they can go to school unencumbered--this is a huge cultural shift from when I was in high school. Girls with good grades had abortions; average girls had babies; Heather had a computer. Second, Abby sticks up for potential victims of these bizarre schemes:

The individuals who should be warned are the young men who will be escorting those young women on prom night. One foolish mistake could lead to a 20-year commitment to support a child before they are emotionally or financially ready for that responsibility. And all because their prom date was afraid to tell her parents she wasn't ready for college? I'm appalled.

Yup...fathers have equal responsibility--and they can avoid it by making responsible decisions about sex and birth control, in case their dates "pull the goalie" (yes, I listened to Rush today).

Lastly...well, it's not the end of the world. It might even be a good thing. Young mothers can always go to school and have a career when their children are older; most of us who wasted our child-bearing years on school and career won't be having children later, no matter how much we want.

Dammit.