Bits of This and That

Having enjoyed it, I wouldn't want anyone to miss Camile Paglia's column in Salon. I liked her take on Hillary and the red phone but keep reading until you get to where she talks about women and what is sexy. To her, French women get it and Americans don't with the pumped up boobs and botoxed faces-- Camile Paglia.

Someone asked that I comment on Eliot Spitzer and his being caught up in a prostitution ring. I have several thoughts about it. One, I have voiced before. Prostitution between mature, of-age adults should be legal, licensed, and taxed like any other business. Why it is not is a mystery to me. There are health benefits in having it legal. It isn't going to go away. It's an odd concept that a woman can have sex with ten men in a night but if any of them paid, it's a crime. So what is the issue? Morals or money? This is part of our weird Puritanical thinking which never has made sense to me.

Kristof in the NYTimes made the opposite side of this cultural issue in terms of legalizing prostitution-- Kristof and he makes good points. The problem is none of it stops it. Nevada has legalized prostitution and it seems to work where there are houses that can be inspected, but they ban it in the big cities where I am sure girls still work the streets in the conditions he describes.

I don't disagree that prostitution is a horrible thing for a woman to have to do (or man), but the issue is if you can't stop it, what can you do about it? They have tried arresting the johns in some areas, as evidently Spitzer faces, but it doesn't end the practice. For the girls, it could be reduced by teaching values in the homes (a lot of them didn't have that kind of home), by educating women for jobs that pay a living wage, by helping abused girls to get back health self-attitudes, but those girls on the level that Spitzer was using were choosing it as a quick way to make money. They had other choices but chose that one. Should that be a crime? Why is it legal to have promiscuous sex but not legal if money exchanges hands?

In regards how Spitzer was caught, I have not been a fan of the government being permitted to check everyone's bank records, of banks having to notify the government if money over a certain amount is transferred without it being clear to them where it went. This is part of Big Brother Government and I have never liked it. Spitzer got caught on what they thought was a money laundering sting. Invasion of your privacy by government has been increasing since 9/11 with the excuse of terrorism but in reality it's mostly used for other crimes. Any large transfers of money can be delayed while banks notify the Federal Government. I know. It's all about catching bad guys but it is invasion of privacy and I don't like it being routinely done.

Spitzer himself is a hypocrite. It's so typical of the ones who yell the loudest about some moral issue but often are involved in it themselves. It seems most of the men who rise to higher office do have such secrets in their background. It's frustrating to me how so many in politics don't care if they are hypocrites. But so many people don't see themselves as they are but rather as some kind of inner vision tells them they are. The next thought is along that line.

George Bush's appearance before some group, where he did a song, wore a cowboy hat, and had his audience roaring in laughter as he sang about getting Scooter off from his criminal conviction and on and on. The performance was supposed to be private but ended up on MSNBC because someone in the audience had a phone to make a video. It shows the idiocy of this man who still has the power to get us into war with yet another country. He just managed to remove another of the generals who was standing in his way for attacking Iran. Something is very wrong with George Bush, but even more so of those who laugh at his antics and don't see that it's worse than the Emperor's New Clothes and they are part of it. It would just be ridiculous except for the people's lives being ruined, the huge debt being accumulated, the damage being done to our country. How does someone so divorce themselves from the horror of what is actually going on to enjoy ridiculing those who do care about it? It takes it being someone oblivious to their true nature.

I don't know what Geraldine Ferraro was thinking with her inane comment on how Obama is only having the success he is because he's black. So a charismatic, even tempered, youthful, enthusiastic, good looking, all-white male wouldn't end up one of the last two candidates in a major Democratic primary? Tell that to John Edwards who was in a very similar position in 2004. Ferraro is why I didn't vote for Walter Mondale when he chose her for his Veep in 1984. She has now decided she is the victim because someone called her on the illogic of what she was saying. How did she say the same thing many years ago when it was Jesse Jackson running and yet I didn't hear her voice it when it was Edwards. Could it be she does have some racism in her that she would even say such a thing? I don't know her but being a Democrat doesn't mean someone can't be a bigot secretly. Her way of thinking and talking is why so many, like myself, support someone we hope will see an end to this kind of old style politics-- and if one choice ends up wallowing in the mud with them, then we will be looking for someone else who can stay above it.

Originally I had intended to mix my desert dweller photos into this potpourri blog, but I have a few things I want to say about them. This post was timely for what is going on right now. They can wait a day or so and have their own blog (not that they'd care)-- javelina, quail and rabbits coming soon.