The Chance to be better...

It's no secret that I am a HUGE fan of Rachel Maddow. And I take pleasure in the knowledge that others are discovering Maddow's geniusness/fantasticness/adorableness. AfterEllen posted an article about Maddow at the Television Critics Association Winter Tour (she attended last week). She spoke eloquently about a variety of topics, but it was this statement about the Obama Inauguration that brought a tug to my heart.


What this inauguration means is that in front of a White House that was built with slave labor in an inaugural week that starts at the Lincoln Memorial, where the second inaugural address is etched into the wall, which is about our country shedding a drop of blood by the sword for every drop of blood that was drawn by the lash, in this country, we are electing an African-American president.

Certainly Maddow isn't the only person to make this connection - the 1 to 3 million people that are expected to visit DC this Tuesday know it, too. But her ability to wrap it up in a beautiful package is so utterly astute.

Maddow has proven to be a brilliant communicator. She has that rare ability to take book learnin' (Stanford, Rhodes Scholar) and reshape it so that it is accessible to us all.

She has the tenacity of Hillary Clinton, but she dresses like Barack Obama

I didn't come up with that title myself...it is one of the blurbs on the Rachel Maddow Show (radio version) that they play at the beginning of the hour.

Here is what Rachel said about being out on AfterEllen.com.

“I think the responsibility that we have as gay Americans,” she says, “is to the extent that we can - and we ought to be really ambitious about the extent to which we can - we have to be out.”

“That’s the thing that we owe the people who came before us who are the pioneers, and that’s the thing we owe the next generation of gay people in terms of clearing the way and making life easier for them. I think that there is a moral imperative to be out, and I think that if you’re not out, you have to come to an ethical understanding with yourself why you are not. And it shouldn’t be something that is excused lightly. I don’t think that people should be forced out of the closet, but I think that every gay person, sort of, ought to push themselves in that regard. Because it’s not just you. It’s for the community and it’s for the country.”

Thank you, Rachel. I think you summed it up perfectly!

Maddow Giddiness...

At this moment my heart is swelling with pride. Rachel Maddow is a rock star.

I just (again) watched Rachel spank Pat Buchanan on national television. I love it when she does that.

Let's talk about how amazing this person is as compared to me. I am almost 32 years old; Rachel is 35. I have $67 in the bank and am unemployed; Rachel is the host of a successful radio show, regularly appears as a political pundit on MSNBC, and was just given her on show on the same network. I'm sitting in a house I don't own playing with cats that aren't mine watching the Democratic Convention on TV; Rachel is part of the political roundtable in Denver AT THE CONVENTION and she was just complimented on her intelligence by Kathleen Sebelius and Tom Brokaw in the span of 30 seconds. I suck.

Seriously though: I'm proud. Proud that a person - a woman - a gay woman, at that, is receiving so much publicity and respect because she is SMART. Not because of her looks or her funniness (although I do think she is both hot and funny), but because she is a Rhodes Scholar and an outstanding politcal commentator. I'm proud because she is an out "mannish woman" lesbian (her words!) and that a representation of me and the people that I care about is finally a part of mainstream television news. Maddow doesn't flaunt her sexuality - it is just a fact, like the air she breathes or the color of her hair.

Thank you, Rachel.

Bad Blogger

Okay, I admit it. I've been remiss. I haven't blogged and I'm ashamed. It isn't because I don't have things to say... I'm just lazy. But here I am, unemployed, waiting to start school again... and I'm going to do better. I SWEAR.


Now the problem is, I can't POSSIBLY blog about everything that has had an effect on my life in the last 6 months... and there really has been oh so much. So here is a list of things that I would talk about if I had been blogging all this time.


#1 - Amy Ray's new CD - Didn't It Feel Kinder is a work of art. The more I listen, the more I want to sit down with her and just talk things over. My favorite is "Bus Bus". And the publicity that she is getting is amazing. I get at least 5 google alerts on her a day. If I could say one thing to Amy Ray, it would be this: "Please - in the name of all that is holy - play Washington DC or Baltimore on your promotional tour... I'm dying to see your solo show." So yeah, there you go.

By the way - she looks like my girlfriend in this picture AND I'm not just saying that because I want it to be true - I've heard it said by way too many other people for it not to be true.

#2 - I stumbled onto Rachel Maddow by accident one night. I was skipping through the channels one night, and there she was - sitting in for Keith Olberman. The gay-dar went off of course - even in make-up this girl is obviously a lesbian. So of course, I was mezmerized and made it my goal to learn everything about her that I could. Not two days later (and quite coincidentally) my good friend Katie (a much more superior blogger than myself) posted about Rachel. And now the news has come out (no pun intended) that Rachel is getting her own show on MSNBC. Let me tell you - Rush Limbaugh is thrilled. I would give you the link to his quote, but I don't want to promote his website in ANY WAY...so to save you that agony, I'll just throw it in here

"There's our buddy Dan Abrams, by the way, the last voice you heard there. Again,
he's been replaced by Rachel Maddow, or will be, in early September. He's losing
his show to somebody with more testosterone than he has. It's just a shame."

Ick... I need a shower.

And finally ....

#3 - It is everyone's civic duty to go out and get - AND THEN READ - this book:

Yes, that is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It will change the way that you look at your food forever (but not in that gross way like Skinny Bitch). Think you are being socially responsible by eating tofurky at Thanksgiving? Think again!

More later.