Jackson Free Press

Last week I drove out to Rankin County to get my nails done. I don't normally spend a lot of time in Rankin County and only went this time because I had a gift certificate for a pedicure. I guess this means it takes at least $40 in pocket for me to enter Rankin County. I don't want people from out there to get horribly offended, but I generally don't like places that don't sell liquor. I think its very anti-Catholic of them. I promise you that just because of the lack of liquor, the Catholic population of Rankin County isn't large.

I decided to take a friend to jabber with during the 45-minute ride out to that lovely piece of suburban dreamland. My friend and I made several stops at different stores picking up a few things before we went for our pedicures. We eventually found the strip mall housing the place, parked, and then walked inside at just the right time as to garner immediate and solicitous service. This was great as I like immediate and solicitous attention in most situations. The pedicures that followed were so lovely that we decided manicures were in order. But 10 minutes into these manicures, things started getting unpleasant.

It was about this time that I heard the nail tech servicing the woman seated in between my friend and me ask her customer if she "liked Sarah Palin." Now, contrary to what one might believe, I usually keep my mouth shut when people state their political beliefs—especially if they are diametrically opposed to my own. I'm very practiced at keeping quiet due to my sweet Delta family and their conservative viewpoints. So, it normally would have been very easy for me to keep my mouth shut as she said: "Oh, I just looooove her. She's so gorgeous. And, that Cindy McCain is just beautiful!"

After she said this, she looked my direction. I assumed she wanted my nod of approval and appropriate coo concerning Cindy's hair and Palin's MILF hotness. I am ashamed to say that my self-restraint buckled under the woman's gaze, and I very innocently exclaimed: "Yes! She is beautiful. She's had a lot of good work done on her face."

I could see the woman trying to figure out my intentions when the nail tech helping my friend decided to ask my friend if she is a Republican.

Now, I may not have many manners. But, I do feel as if nail and hair salons should follow the same rules of the dinner table. No politics, religion or money talk at the manicure table. My friend appropriately replies to the tech that she believes that is a "personal decision," but that she is a Democrat. The nail tech polishing the woman's nails immediately throws my friend a dirty look and screams, "So, you are pro-choice?"

It's right about here that I begin to truly understand how people like Sarah Palin get the majority of Mississippians to vote against their best interests every four years. They go straight from being a Democrat to baby-killing. That's it. There is no understanding of the subtleties of politics and people holding different beliefs about policy, and there is obviously no understanding of tax code and the average income of Mississippi families compared to the rest of the country. Dems are baby-killers and liberal pansies who all want to be Communists.

Not one week later, as the Republicans are losing ground in the polls, the lead story on CNN is titled "Palin Ups Rhetoric on Abortion," which supports my theory. I think this story signifies everything I dislike about Sarah Palin. It is extremely difficult for a woman like me—who understands that Roe v. Wade isn't about baby-killing but is about women's rights—to understand another woman who is opposed to these rights.

Palin consistently fights against the rights won by the very same feminist movement that allowed her the ability to reach her current political position. Does she know this? Can someone tell her? And, while we are at it, can they also tell her that if we want a culture that "respects life," she is going to have to change her beliefs about the death penalty? I'm not quite sure she's gotten that memo, either.

What makes me even angrier about the exchange at the nail salon—other than the fact that the tech doing my friend's nails refused to finish them after her announcement of being a Democrat—was the woman sitting next to me had no idea of Palin's beliefs and what they could do to the women's movement in general. The women's movement didn't win us the right to be "hot." This movement garnered each of us the right to vote, and work, and decide to choose what to do with our bodies. This is the same movement that allows me to sit at a nail salon on a Saturday speaking freely about how I would cast my vote. It is also the movement that gave her the ability to divorce her husband whom she proclaimed "worked in energy" and take half his sh*t. Ain't feminism grand?

Now, I know that most women in Mississippi are smarter than this. I write this column simply to call on them to understand that Palin—who has absolutely no substance to her platform other than beliefs that divide and suppress women—doesn't deserve to hold the office of vice president. She doesn't deserve to benefit from the feminist movement she denigrates. She doesn't deserve our vote, and she doesn't deserve any more "rock star" attention during this election.

In short, she simply doesn't deserve us.

Previous Comments

ID

139195

Comment

Lori, you're a genius and you look better than Palin by far, inwardly and outwardly. Palin lost any beauty she had as soon as she opened her mouth.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-16T09:22:06-06:00

ID

139266

Comment

You hit the nail on the head. And I sincerely hope that Palin is headed back to Alaska on the first bobsled she can find after the election. And she's probably praying that there's not a petition going to impeach her.

Author

lanier77

Date

2008-10-16T15:18:43-06:00

ID

139285

Comment

Ditto both Walt and Lanier. As for Palin, I think she's moderately attractive, though not "hot". Regardless, what physical attraction I saw in her was FAR more offset by her snide, sarcastic manner and seeming general lack of empathy for those who think differently from her - starting with her convention speech!

Author

Philip

Date

2008-10-16T18:45:33-06:00

ID

139316

Comment

Just thought I'd cut and paste this comment from conservative Peggy Noonan throwing Palin under the bus. From the WSJ article: "But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality. But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things."

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-10-17T09:16:56-06:00

ID

139317

Comment

Joe the plummer did a better interview than Palin. Joe knows more probbaly. Sure, he lied about some personal things but he's just a wanna be pummer, not a guvner. President Bush upon being asked if Joe the plummer was a plant to harm Obama said Joe looked human to him.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-17T09:29:03-06:00

ID

139324

Comment

President Bush upon being asked if Joe the plummer was a plant to harm Obama said Joe looked human to him. ROTFL!

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-17T10:26:04-06:00

ID

139327

Comment

I 'heart' Palin. I think she's the perfect symbol for republican womanhood. She's put it right out there for all to see. I'll bet a dime against a dollar she does a Playboy "Women of Alaska" spread after the election is over.

Author

HardTravelin

Date

2008-10-17T12:50:41-06:00

ID

139329

Comment

Thanks Walt! YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU... I've come to think that Palin may know just what she's doing.....her comment to Rush L. saying "Well, Rush, I have nothing to lose" says a whole hell of a lot. She's got nothing better to do than fly around the country winking, shaking her butt, and "palling" around with racist bigots. She's probably having the time of her life.

Author

Lori G

Date

2008-10-17T13:51:45-06:00

ID

139330

Comment

Author

Lori G

Date

2008-10-17T13:52:20-06:00

ID

139336

Comment

When I've read your posts before, I had no idea you were so young and pretty. You're the same Lori G with the shotgun?

Author

HardTravelin

Date

2008-10-17T20:24:08-06:00