Well, howdy. It's been a while, yeah? Everyone have a good weekend? Mine was good. It was nice to see Ashley and Yannos again. Weather was kind of shitty, but, once they left, it turned gorgeous. Figures.

Sarah Palin's memoir comes out today. Part of me actually wants to read it. Well, some of it. I know there's no way I could get through the whole book. But I feel obligated to read at least some of it if I'm going to slam her over it. However, that guilt isn't enough to motivate me to actually sit down and read "Going Rogue." Thing is, I kind of feel bad for Sarah Palin. I like the idea of the independent woman who does what she wants and works hard. That's the picture the conservatives depict. But I don't like that she really seems to work against any sort of issues related to women and their advancement. Not to mention the fact that some of the things she's said have been beyond stupid. This is what the liberals like the focus on. To me, Palin was living a simple life of good-time-y conservative values when, all of a sudden, she got swept into something way bigger than she could've imagined: the media. They tore her apart. Granted, some of that was by her own hand, but I kind of feel like she was a character in one of those Greek tragedies where the gods have conspired against an individual and sit back and relish in that person's demise. That said, I disagree with her political beliefs and am incredibly happy she is not the current vice president. Also, watching that 2008 political campaign unfold was entertainingly funny-in-a-sad-way. But I kind of feel sorry for her, that's all. Just not enough to read her book.

Last week in my Literary Criticisms class, we discussed race. One of the essays we read was by Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher. He talked about two mentalities we could adopt to move forward toward equality: one is the politics of equal dignity, the other is the politics of difference. They're pretty self-explanatory, but here goes: on the one hand you eliminate any sort of dividers and treat everyone the same (equal dignity), and on the other hand you embrace these dividers but don't place a precedent on the "good life" (difference). Admittedly, both of these options seem too idealistic to me, but, if I had to choose one, I'd go with equal dignity. I arrived at this conclusion over the weekend. We had lunch with Yannos' sister on Saturday, and, later in the afternoon, she mentioned that a gay, lesbian, and transgendered high school recently opened up in the city. It made me realize the problem I have with the politics of difference: by having those separate categories, I don't think it's ever possible to truly transcend those divisions. By putting gay, lesbian, and transgendered people in their own high school, doesn't it ostracize them further? I don't know what it's like for them to go to school in a "normal" high school -- I expect they might get teased/bullied -- and I don't mean to presume that it's no big deal. But taking them out of that environment and placing them in their own self-contained high school doesn't seem like the way to go. It's a temporary solution for a situation that needs major change. And it seems to me that the best way to get these ignorant homophobic-fucks to accept gay, lesbian, and transgendered people is to force them to interact with one another. Show them that, hey, they have similar teenage problems like you. That, hey, they're not going around trying to convert people to the "gay lifestyle." That, hey, maybe they're not really all that different at all. Instead of quarantining them in an entirely new place where there's no hope for any sort of fruitful interaction whatsoever. But who knows.