Tuesday Morning Warmup

I could be writing all day.  There’s a huge post in my head about Karen Ho’s book but I have to read Matt Taibbi’s piece in the Rolling Stone before the last piece slides into place.  But in the meantime, I wanted to post about the stupidest headline I’ve seen so far today and it’s early.

Here it is:

Bubba Watson’s courage, creativity made Masters win happen

Yes, it takes courage and creativity, not natural or practiced hand-eye coordination, to knock a small spherical object into a tiny hole in the ground.  That’s the kind of courage and creativity that ends wars, cures cancer, and gets you an invitation to join an exclusively male country club where you and your other rich and powerful male buddies can make plans to influence the lives of the everyone else in the country, including the 53% of the population who can’t possibly overhear or join in on your conversations on the back nine.

Bubba deserves a call from the President where they can talk the manly man talk and maybe even get an invitation to PBO’s next golf outing (which was only integrated with women after they made a big stink about it).

Well done, sir. Well. Done.

***********************

Remember a few weeks ago when I said that Republicans would go after the Family Leave Act and a bunch of you rolled your eyes (I know you did) and said to yourselves that RD was one tin foil hat shy of a full conspiracy?  Well, take a look at this post by Digby.  Scott Walker in Wisconsin has signed a bill repealing the state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act.  If the Family Leave Act doesn’t start getting some attention soon from  the wingnuts as some kind of hostage for a budget deal, I’ll eat my blog.  It’s perfect.  I can almost hear the arguments now.  Unemployment is high and employers, I’m sorry, JOB CREATORS, need the flexibility (this is an important word.  Pay attention) to hire when they have a position open.  Why are we holding these empty positions open while women are on maternity leave when they could be filled by men who need jobs to feed their families?  And Rush will probably start telling everyone that we are paying these women to sit on their asses all day eating bon-bons for 6 months.

Repeal it or no raising the debt ceiling/extension of unemployment benefits/free lunch program.

You know it’s coming.  And I’m not entirely sure that Republicans are going to lose this battle.  They’re certainly going to get the attention of white males who are struggling to support their families on one income.  Plus, they get the added bonus of watching Obama twist himself into knots trying not to piss off his Wall Street crowd who think anti-discrimination laws get in the way of doing business while keeping women on his side by being “not as bad as Republicans”.  That should be interesting.  Anyone want to make a bet about just how finely Obama is going to try to thread this needle?  Let me guess: the laws will be attacked and he’ll have to disapprove but sign and then he’ll make some teensy squeak of support for women’s aspirations or some such bullshit.

BTW, has anyone noticed that atheists, the 99% and hoodied people all have marches and rallies to show their voting strength and solidarity but women are conspicuously absent with their own zillion females on the mall event?  What’s up with that?