The Sparkling, Snapping White House

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I am a fan of Obama’s. I wept the night of the election, when he won. It felt like a vindication, like we people of the United States were finally getting a president for us. We triumphed over the shadow government, that tight little cabal who governs in the $$ interests of a select few.

So it is with interest that I watch Obama’s staff and cabinet choices. He seems to be picking people with teeth. Smart, capable, talented people with strong opinions, values, and intentions. People who don’t necessarily back down. People who don’t easily tolerate fools. I am eager to see how that works out. I can imagine some bracing discussions. Rahm Emmanuel and Hilary Clinton and Lawrence Summers, hmm. Wasn’t Summers disgraced at Harvard for saying women couldn’t be scientists? Clinton isn’t a scientist but she is one tough, brilliant, competent woman. Should be fascinating.
And I am impressed that Obama is choosing based on the feisty intelligence factor, not on who will say Yes to him easily. There’s a dynamic quality that can’t help but bring change. I believe that.

I support gay marriage

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About 30% of the time I hate my husband. I mean hate, really loathe, as in, Chris-Rock-staring-at-a-box-of-rat-poison-and-the-only-thing-that-stops-me-is-an-old-episode-of-CSI hate. Other married people know what I’m talking about. And why should gay people be denied those exquisite feelings?

Seriously, why should the excruciating agony of marriage and divorce be reserved only for straight people?
Marriage is fundamentally different from living together or committing informally. It just is. I’m sorry to all those people who say, “Why do I need a piece of paper, etc” …. Well, the rites of marriage bring another dimension, another quality, to the state of being a couple–whether you like it or not. The act of getting married is one of those irrevocable passages, like having a child, that demarcates life. It’s never again the same. Two adults who wish to undertake that passage together should be allowed to, whether they are gay or straight or transgender or one of them is from the planet Xetron–as long as the Xetronian is an adult over the age of consent, and isn’t being forced into the marriage. 
In the end it comes down to two hearts who wish to formalize a journey together. Every such wish is an act of tremendous courage and optimism. Who is to say that God, whoever She is, would not admire that courage and optimism just because the two hearts are both temporarily encased in male bodies? Or temporarily wearing female bodies? If I were God, I would be applauding: “Yay! You go! Marriage is one of the most difficult tasks on earth, and you’re going for it! I’m proud of you!” I do not understand the sanctimoniousness of people who use God as an excuse for their own bigotry.
The great poet Rumi:  “You that hand me this cup, you are my soul and my loving. Whatever enthusiasm I’ve had, you are those, and any success is yours. Clap for yourself! These are your hands.”
It’s not about bodies or the costume of gender. It never was.

Jupiter in Capricorn

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I follow astrology for the same reason I use the multiplication table: because it works. I use both Western and Vedic astrology, because they are views through different windows into the same richly nuanced room.

In the Vedic system, Jupiter recently entered Capricorn, the sign of its fall. It joins Rahu, the north node, the head of the karmic snake. From what I’ve read–and, admittedly, I am an amateur Vedic astrologer–this makes for a special situation (yoga) in which false guru’s are exposed. And sure enough, here’s the news about Madoff, the billionaire ponzi scheme con artist. Many people considered him a financial guru. I also read something about a NYC lawyer who was engaged in a scam, bilking people out of their savings. And, regarding a different kind of crime, it seems timely that poor little Caylee Anthony’s bones were found, a duct-taped skull rolling out of a plastic bag on a swampy piece of land near her home, during Jupiter’s entrance into its least favorite sign.
So I wait with interest to see what else will occur, what other guru’s will fall, their wisdom exposed as fraud. I am curious to see how this will play out.
Capricorn is a sign of practical, grounded, building and construction. This style of action is sharply in contrast to the exuberant, bouyant nature of Jupiter, the great benefic. Jupiter expands; it has open hands that shower luck everywhere. Feels good. But there’s a place for the steady, careful concretization of effort that makes for realistic foundations in the world, too. 
But even in Capricorn, Jupiter is lucky. Take this crook Bernard Madoff: exposing him was lucky. It was lucky for the people who were saved from his scheme, who might have invested with him if he’d been allowed to keep on trucking. We get to know the truth, which is Jupiter’s greatest gift–even if it’s the truth we don’t want to know.

WHY I LIKE BARACK OBAMA

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Chris Rock said it best on Larry King Live: Obama is a class act.

That is, he demonstrates a graceful, intelligent poise and sense of respect for himself and others. It’s a fine quality. There’s an august thoughtfulness about him that’s very appealing, an air of cerebral gravity, passion for his causes, and caring. In the debate when Obama spoke of middle America, it was clear that middle America matters to him. He is concerned for those of us who make under $1,000,000 a year and he sees it as his duty to help us have better lives. 
I also like the fact that Obama represents the melting pot that is the United States. All kinds of blood runs in my veins: Native American, English, Irish, Welsh, Russian, Czech, Polish, Romanian Ashkenazi, Scottish…. My ancestors interbred with great ingenuity and I am happy to vote for another American whose ancestors did the same thing. I support the mixing of races; it strengthens all of us. Not just genetically, but also in terms of brotherly love. Nothing broadens the mind faster than having relatives–kids, in-laws, a spouse–from a different race, religion or creed. Tolerance comes quick when blood commingles. Tolerance is what will gather us all into a community that encourages individual differences while also strengthening our common bond as people living together on one Earth. Tolerance is what will save us all.
And Obama did something that showed forethought and commitment to the country’s best interests: he chose a running mate with a wealth of experience. There’s no gimmick to Obama’s vice-presidential candidate. Biden is an intelligent, seasoned servant of the people, and the fact that he has a profound, long-term understanding of foreign relations adds breadth and depth to Obama’s candidacy. It leads me to believe that these are the kind of people Obama will choose as advisors and cabinet leaders: experienced, thoughtful, well-credentialed people. People who will guide Obama’s concern for the common man and woman with wisdom and forethought. People who will be able to heal our economic situation, restore confidence in the US at home and abroad, and put in place measures that will support and strengthen Americans for generations.

SARAH PALIN WANTS TO BAN BOOKS LIKE THE NAZIS DID: DON’T VOTE FOR HER

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I regret to say that recent reports of Sarah Palin have changed my mind about her.

Originally, I was inclined to like her. If moms don’t cut other moms slack, no one will. We mothers are the first ones blamed for everything, for every rotten decision a son or daughter makes, every wrong turn, every misery and failure and short-coming, every lousy card that fate deals a kid. This is part of the distortion of modern talk psychotherapy, of course, as it has osmosed into the zeitgeist. So when I first heard and read about Palin, I thought the best of her.
But subsequent reportage has changed my opinion. What changed my mind is the report that Sarah Palin espouses book banning and censorship. The New York Times printed that Palin brought up the idea of banning books at a town meeting. “The librarian (of Wasilla, Palin’s town), Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to ‘resist all efforts at censorship,’ Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after office.” The Times goes on to say that Emmons was reinstated when residents made a strong show of support. 
But the damage was done. And there are few acts of greater civil sabotage than the attempted mind-control of citizens by banning books. People are defined by their actions, and Sarah Palin’s acts show her to be a repressive, vindictive politician, a fascist of the first order who is intent on curtailing free thought. Anyone who votes for her can expect to see jackboots, an empowered Gestapo, and concentration camps in short order: that’s the natural evolution from that first, powerfully evil act of banning books.
All tyrannies ban books and espouse censorship. Books release ideas into the collective consciousness, and ideas are the great liberators of the human spirit. Ideas cause change, freedom, and human dignity. To oppose those dreaded eventualities, all repressive regimes strive mightily to control ideas. Banning books to control ideas is an effective way to control constituents, to turn citizens into subjects and slaves. Fraulein Fuhrer Palin is rightly afraid of books and ideas… but in the US, she should not, must not, can not be allowed to, fear a free citizenry.

I LIKE SARAH PALIN BUT WILL STILL VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

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John McCain is a smart man. In choosing a woman who’s had several children, he’s chosen someone who understands about working through exhaustion, is creative and resourceful, can multi-task and think on her feet, profoundly grasps the simultaneous need for both boundaries and flexibility, can negotiate between raging, demanding people, and has a big heart that’s been beaten up by life. Those are the irreplaceable gifts of motherhood, which is the single most demanding, least gratifying 24/7/365 state of being. 

 According to the NY Times, of which I am skeptical because I know reporters, and in my idiosyncratic opinion they are smart but difficult people who are pissed because they don’t make more money and who cherish pretensions to more meticulous integrity than they actually practice, Palin rose in Alaska by “impressing voters more with gumption, warmth and charm than an established record in government.” I really like gumption, warmth and charm. It’s first rate stuff.
And I am in favor of lower taxes and economic stimuli for small businesses. My husband Sabin Howard runs a sculpture business as a business, and he provides employment for models, foundries, mold-makers, finishers, packers & shippers, so he is an integral part of a capitalist economy  and should be rewarded with tax breaks and incentives. As an author, I am an entrepreneur, gambling on a good product: the books I write. The Democratic party isn’t going to help me out with this.So let’s call the Democratic party for what it is: the great punisher of rich people, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. Ayn Rand would have something to say about this, and she wouldn’t be all wrong. 
BUT. Despite the great appeal of Sarah Palin, and of McCain himself, I will never vote Republican. It is unfortunate but true that the Republican party has been hijacked by the Christian right, who do not have the country’s best interests in mind. Sadly, fundamentalist Christians are no more enlightened than fundamentalist Muslims, and are equally prone to the misguided opinion that anyone who worships the divine differently than they do, is damned. Bigotry. The necessary end to an insistence on purity is terrorism. And the people who vote AGAINST abortion will never understand, because it is never spelled out to them, that they are also voting against a better standard of living provided by education. Republicans do not support education.
So I like Sarah Palin, but I will still vote for Obama.