Katie, I'd like to use one of my life lines now.

I was catching up on the Sarah Palin gaffes of the last few weeks on YouTube today, and someone posted her interview with Charlie Gibson. This person overlaid some text on the first part of the video, with a list of questions Gibson had asked Barack Obama, suggesting that Gibson was biased in his treatment of the two. One of these "biased questions", which he asked Obama and not Palin, was, "How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?"

Ummmm ... so, in 1984, a woman named Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket, which was led by Walter Mondale. This is the first presidential election in which ANY of the four presidential/vice presidential candidates is black. Palin hasn't broken any glass ceilings, unless, I suppose, you consider the question to be: "How does it feel to break a glass ceiling that was broken by the Democrats 24 years ago, but that your party just decided might be something to think about, and only because one of the Democratic front-runners was a woman?"

People voted for Clinton in the primaries because they believed she had a better policy agenda than her opponents. I believed so, too, but I am no more going to vote for McCain because he decided to select a woman as his running mate than Republican women voted for Mondale because he did the same thing. I suppose some women might do this, sure, but I am not one of them, and I find the selection of Palin somewhat insulting. It does nothing to show women are capable of being president, and to some degree reinforces perceptions that women are less intelligent than men and less able to lead.

Couldn't McCain at least have picked an American version of Angela Merkel? She has a PhD in physics! Ah well, not much can be done about his choice now. I wonder, were she and McCain to debate, if McCain could manage to, oh, I don't know, look at her instead of Jim Lehrer? And, perhaps even treat her with respect? I'd like to hear them have it out over global warming. Just as a side note, there is zero debate in the scientific community about global warming and its cause; it's that darned "liberal media" that acts like there's any sort of doubt over what's occurring.

Seriously, are you eight?

Living in a state where a guy you saw in Batman and Robin is the governor is more than a little strange. His signature even appears on my diploma from Berkeley, because, as governor, he is president of the UC Regents.

Now, he wants to veto the budget, but even Prof. Ellwood (whom I had for a politics class at GSPP) thinks it's a moot point. I am, however, glad to hear that any useful law passed in the last year or so may now get vetoed out of Ahh-nold's immaturity. Maybe Mr. Freeze was the perfect character for you to have played.

What the hell?

I remember, hopefully correctly, about how the media used to deal with lies that politicians would come up with about their opponents. The media used to be journalists, a term I will not grant them any longer. The media used to say, "Mr./Ms. Z said that Mr./Ms. X said/claimed/did Y. However, Mr./Ms. X never actually said/claimed/did Y." Today, they take the easy way out and say, "Mr./Ms. X said this. Mr./Ms. Z said that." But they never bother to investigate either claim or stand up for, oh, I don't know, the truth!

The truth, these days, has become the responsibility of the opposite-editorial page writers. Or, I should say, more precisely, that the op-ed writers are the only ones willing to take responsibility for the truth. The media writers, who used to be journalists, are apparently too scared.

Here are a couple of pieces I recommend.

Paul Krugman, as always, and Dick Cavett, whom I am beginning to seriously admire and respect. I especially loved the side note to the typesetter.

On one side, there are some gold bars ... Mmmm ... Look at those! And on the other side ...

My favorite scene in An Inconvenient Truth comes near the end when Al Gore is demonstrating the fallacy in the logic that we must sacrifice economic growth for the environment and vice versa. He projects a picture of a scale with gold bars stacked in a pyramid on one side and the "entire planet" on the other. That it's funny only reinforces how true it is.

I can almost guarantee that my soon-to-be ex-opthamologist has not seen this (extremely important) film. I went to see him for the first time a couple of months ago, and after four exams and twelve hundred dollars (my payments + my insurance company's), I have neither functioning glasses nor functioning contacts. The glasses he prescribed gave me such a bad headache that I missed two entire days of work last week.

When I went to see him today, his response was that I should "persevere" and that switching back to my old prescription would cost me some distance vision. Never mind that I have already done this by putting on my old glasses, and been completely free of problems ever since. "I wouldn't sacrifice that vision," he said. Never mind that I didn't even realize I was missing it in the first place.

I tried to impress upon him that, in theory I might be "losing" some vision, but it made no practical difference to me if gaining that vision meant my head hurt so bad it felt like it was going to explode and all I could do was lie in bed with my eyes closed. He didn't listen. He also didn't listen to my concerns about my contact lenses. In fact, he didn't even want to examine my eyes with my contacts in today. (He also went off on a couple of tangents telling me that my eyes will only get worse as I age (I'm 29!), and that I should be wearing my contacts most of the time. Again ... not helpful for the problem I came to see you about!)

Aside from informing you that perhaps Dr. Melvyn Bert is not your best choice for an opthamologist, the point of this post is that once you realize one of your relationships is messed up, you start to see the same pattern in all of them.

It turns out that my parents were and are what psychologists call "narcissistic parents". This doesn't mean exactly what you think it does. Yes, it can mean that the narcissistic parent engages in unhealthy self-love, but it can also mean that the parent is playing the role of Echo in the adult relationship. (It takes two to tango, right?) Either way, the parents are essentially useless to their kids, but can be fantastic in other ways. They can be driven and hard-working and accomplish amazing things. But if their kid needs attention, well, unfortunately, that child is either on her own, or is expected to act as the parents' parent.

Laura suggested I read a book called Children of the Self-Absorbed. In response, I joked that it sounded like Children of the Corn. As Laura laughed, she noted that I was right; growing up with narcissistic parents is a life-long nightmare. I had always known my parents weren't great, and growing up, I always got blamed for my family's problems. Now, I realize that I wasn't the cause of the problems (the entire family was screwed up, for so many reasons). I was just the only one who ever said anything about the problems. My brother laid low and escaped as soon as possible. I, however, tried for years to show them who I was, and to tell them what I wanted. They didn't listen. Exhausted from fighting for so many long, painful, empty, lonely years, I had, by the age of 19, renounced even the existence of love. This renunciation of love, however, had not succeeded in stopping me from looking for it.

Ten years later, I realize that in a large proportion of the relationships I've had with friends and with men, I have been engaging in a battle I will never win. I will never get what I need from these people because they are also narcissists. Narcissus himself was not even aware of his problem, and so while I recognize this trait now, I don't blame those who possess it entirely. Perhaps the most interesting thing I realized this week was that being in a relationship with a narcissist feels safer for me than being in a relationship with someone who can be there for me, and does truly care about me. In the few instances where I've felt connected to someone as a friend or as a lover, I've felt scared almost immediately and pushed the other person away, which I regret.

This story doesn't have a tidy ending in my life, but I have thought of a tidy ending to this post for you, my esteemed reader. I would like to revise my statement from ten years ago. It's not that I don't believe in love. It's that I don't believe I'm ready for it. At least not yet.

And, if you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, I highly recommend it; I liked it almost as much as Michael Clayton, and way more than the book One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Legal Disclaimer

I realized I should have posted this to go along with the last couple of posts.

This is, um, a blog. As such, it represents only my opinions (and a collection of stories about things that happen to me ...), and shall not, will not and should not be construed to represent anything but, well, my opinions. If you agree with my opinions, super. If you disagree, super.

I'm going to get your attention, and then I'm going to try to say something substantive. The trouble with most TV news is that they skip step two.

Apparently Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and (of course) going to marry her boyfriend. Do Republicans not believe in birth control? You can go to Planned Parenthood and get help, no matter what your parents say. I donate money to that organization for exactly that reason. But that's not what I'm really worried about. This 17-year-old is going to have to deal with the consequences of her choice. Let's just say it's a good thing she's got health coverage!

To be fair, birth control is not 100% effective, but if you are serious about preventing pregnancy, you should have learned in about fifth grade that combining methods such as the pill and condoms greatly reduces your risk. Unless, of course, the Republicans have outlawed teaching sex ed?

What I'm really worried about is the chance that McCain might win this election, and that Obama didn't bounce post-convention. We all know that a popular vote win doesn't equal the White House, and at least Obama is ahead by a couple of points. What I wonder about is, how did we get into this position in the first place?

There's plenty of blame to go around, but what concerns me most is that so many Americans have fallen into the sensationalist trap for so long. Remember that anti-Dukakis ad Bush I ran that made everyone think he'd be a terrible Commander in Chief? Or that Swift Boat shit Rove cooked up for Bush II? Or AHEM, that nasty set-up Dan Rather fell into? This year's campaign appears to have degenerated into whether Obama likes beer (see last night's 60 Minutes interview).

Sharp thinkers will notice I have fallen into this trap at the beginning of this post, because I have the Today show on in the background and they ran a story about it, which is what got me thinking about this. Growing up, I watched Peter Jennings on World News Tonight on ABC, because that's what my mother liked to watch. At some point after I graduated from high school, perhaps because of Jennings' death, she switched to watching NBC, which I cannot stand. No matter who is anchoring it that night, he or she always seems to be yelling at you, no matter how low you turn the volume. And the show's foreign coverage sucks.

I have long since switched to PBS and BBC for any television news (and only had the Today show on this morning for noise and Hurricane Gustav coverage). Jim Lehrer is even better than Jennings in my mind, and he makes it clear how sad and angry he is about the war. He even has a surprisingly fun personality that only comes out in situations like coverage of the DNC. Even though Lehrer's opinion about the war is clear through his actions, the show shies away from editorializing without sacrificing the truth, which all the other media outlets seem to have given up on. (For more on this, I recommend reading Paul Krugman's take on the media in his columns in the New York Times.)

On occasion, like today and last night, I will watch some network or cable news, and I always feel like I'm being treated like a kid. "Hey, Lisa, look over here at this shiny, sparkly news story that is totally meaningless and just sensationalist crap. Oh, hey, here's another one. Don't change the channel! Are you CRAZY??!! You might miss a few seconds of the "Developing Story" we're working so hard on right now!! What would you do then??!! Oh, it's not enough for you to have a "Developing Story"? Okay, then, we'll make it "Breaking News". Still not satisfied? Seriously? Wait, don't go, don't go, we need you ..."

It feels like a vicious cycle. Politicians figured out how to scare people into action (or inaction) long ago, and the media seems to have learned that lesson very well. So Sixty Minutes stoops to some low about whether Obama likes beer, and the Republicans make up a lot of crap about how he's "too popular" and how he's "just like a celebrity". It's just one more example of how insulting modern politics has become to people who actually care about policies. I just wish the media and the campaigns would stop encouraging people to sacrifice what matters most — the future of this country's education, transportation, health care, economy, et cetera! — for what matters the least —the fact that one of the candidates grew up in Hawaii or may or may not like beer!

To be fair to both parties, let's avoid making the fact that Palin's daughter is pregnant into a campaign issue. Knowing the Republicans, they would probably just turn it into a huge deal about how happy Palin is to become a grandmother (at 44) and how people who consider having abortions, even in the case of rape or incest, or when they are completely unable to care for a child, are part of that "axis of evil".

Never mind the fact that nearly two million Americans have to declare bankruptcy every year because of medical bills, or the fact that record numbers of kids attending public schools are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch (does anybody remember the War on Poverty? apparently we stopped fighting that a LONG time ago), or that we cannot compete in the global economy or that transportation and energy are huge problems. (I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you guessed that already.) The big problem is people who may or may not like beer, or whose teenagers are pregnant.