Dear Hummer driver

To the woman in the white Hummer on Indian School and Girard on 9/22,

Part of me really wants to believe that you were just a performance artist making a post-modern statement about the oblivious, self-absorbed American attitude, but the more realistic, cynical, pissed-off part of me knows that's too good to be true.

The flashing lights on the poles outside Montezuma Elementary school? Those mean SCHOOL ZONE. That means that you need to slow down (the brake is the one on the left) when you drive between those lights and the sign that says "End School Zone." I understand that it takes 10 gallons of gas to get your Hummer up to 35, but you wouldn't want one of those 8 year olds to get blood and guts and gooshy stuff all over your white paint, would you? I mean, crushing all those itty bitty bones in their bodies might ruin your alignment or puncture one of your tires! I know you just dumped your little brats on the nanny, but some people actually emotionally invest in their offspring and care that they turn out to be productive people, so they might be upset if you killed their kids.

Maybe if you detached your little pink RAZR phone from your ear for just one second, you could actually remove your head from your ass and pay attention to the other people in the world around you, the environment, and the impact we all have on each other. Or you can tell your country club friends about the crazy bitch who rolled down her window and yelled at you the other day for absolutely no reason.

I love Dan Savage.

Context and caveat: Dan Savage is a no-apologies-about-it liberal and gay man with a sometimes hilarious and always topical sex advice column that runs in the Onion. He's often out to the left even for me, but I thought his most recent column had an elegant (in theory if not in language) example of the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin's philosophy.

From the September 10th Savage Love column by Dan Savage:

"Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin got her ass knocked up five or so months ago by 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Among the hobbies listed on Levi's since-yanked MySpace page—"fishing, shoot some shit, and just fuckin' chillin'"—was this revealing tidbit: "I don't want kids." But Bristol, says her mom, "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," and is now engaged to Levi "Shootin' Shit" Johnston.

As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I'm certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But I believe that it's a choice teenagers should be able to make for themselves—with input from their families whenever possible—and, so it seems, does the GOP's VP nominee. Sarah Palin is pleased that her daughter made the decision—on her own—to keep the baby.

But Sarah Palin doesn't believe that other girls should be able to make their own decisions. Sarah Palin believes abortion should be illegal in almost every instance—including rape and incest. So Bristol Palin is being celebrated for making a choice that Sarah Palin would like to take away from all other American women. Apparently, today's GOP believes that choice is a special right reserved for the wayward daughters of Republican elected officials.

Oh, and Sarah Palin also believes that birth control shouldn't be made available to teenagers, she opposes medically accurate sex education, and she backs abstinence-until-marriage sex "education."

Sigh.

The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence "education" programs during the Bush years. I believe this enormous investment of public funds raises the obvious question: Is our children abstaining? Sarah Palin's aren't. Despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example set by her Christian parents, Bristol Palin became sexually active while still in high school. Excuse me, but if abstinence education can't keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and some of the sons—of average Americans?

I'm a cad for even writing this, of course, because shortly before Bristol and Levi were paraded before cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention, the Palins asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.

Another special right: When it comes to respecting your family's privacy, Palin and the GOP see no need. They want to micromanage the most intimate aspects of your private life. And if their own kids fail to live up to the standards that Palin and the GOP seek to impose on your family, well, that's a private matter between the Palins, their daughter, their God, and the thousands of screaming imbeciles in elephant hats waving McCain/Palin signs on the floor of the Republican National Convention."

Let's Talk, America.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a liberal. But I'm not a mindless Demo-bot; I disagree with my party AND the other one at times. That said, is it really that hard of a choice, America? I respect John McCain and I'm grateful for his service. I think he's an honorable man; I've read his books. (I think his wife is one step above a blow-up doll in the personality department, and I don't even want to start on Palin, but that's beside the point.) But McCain and the Repubs had their chance, and quite frankly the difference between the two tickets and their respective campaign messages is like, well, black and white.

No, I don't think that Barack Obama is the messiah (didn't you know all us liberals are Godless heathens anyway?). But when you look at what is at stake and who is applying for the job, is there really a question about who is best qualified to hold the most dignified office in our nation? Really? No knee jerks here, people. Think about it.

Yes, pretty speeches don't mean everything, but Obama is more than pretty speeches. He gets shit DONE, people. Maybe he doesn't have executive experience, but quite frankly neither does McCain. Obama decided he wanted to go to law school, so he went, and graduated top of his class. Then he decided to help build up neighborhoods in Chicago, and they flourished with his guidance. Then he went into government and rose through the Illinois state senate. When he set his sights on Washington DC, he got there. Then he decided that someone better than W needed to lead the country, and instead of waiting for that someone to come along, he DID SOMETHING about it. Talk about the American spirit. Talk about the American drive to innovate, to lead, to change that which needs changing. How can you not look at Barack and not know that this man genuinely believes in America, not just in the red white and blue and the abstract 'liberty and justice for all' stuff, but the real America, the good AND the bad. He's a realist, but he's also an optimist, and better yet, he's a pragmatist.

He inspires us because he KNOWS we can be better, America, and that makes us believe that we can do better, too. Isn't that the first step toward improvement? And isn't that what the Republicans are saying, too? Don't we ALL know that we can do better than we are doing right now?