I have to admit it: the Tea Party knows how to get attention.

It certainly has mine. They scare me to death!

I’ve been listening to their rhetoric since long before they “organized,” and it has always creeped me out. See, I’m surrounded by right-wing conservatives. I live in Indiana. My parents are Republicans, and many of their friends are even more right-leaning than they are. They are all concerned that I no longer share their views. They are certain I’ve been brain-washed, although by whom, they aren’t sure. Probably all those academic elitists I work with at the university, even though I actually started moving away from the GOP when I was working for a very conservative financial services company. Anyway, to counteract the scary liberal influences that have drawn me from the path of righteousness, they send me e-mails, talk down to me as directed by Ann Coulter and shake their heads at my responses.

I’ve shared a few of these e-mails on this blog before, but I don’t think I’ve ever documented the ridiculous phone “conversation” I had with a friend of my mother. I was at my parents’ house, and the phone rang. I picked it up and said hello. When my mom’s friend realized it was me, she proceeded to spend the next several minutes explaining to me that Hillary Clinton was a lesbian, Barack Obama was a secret Muslim terrorist, and all the media outlets except Fox are run by Muslims. Oh, and Obama is the anti-Christ. I called my mother to the phone.

So now, my mom’s crazy friend and thousands of other older, white, middle-class folks like her have put together these “tea parties.” Just the name annoys me. I have lovely little tea parties with my 4-year-old where we dress up and use my good wedding china and eat tiny sandwiches and drink tea. It’s very civilized and sweet. Nothing about today’s tea parties is civilized or sweet. I know that they are trying to make some vague connection to the Boston Tea Party of 1773, but their logic is not working for me.

The 1773 Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against an imperial power. The colonists were unhappy that the king, a monarch who was not elected by anyone, was taxing them from across an ocean without their having any representation in the British Parliament. Their rallying cry was “No Taxation Without Representation!” Well, aside from the fact that today’s Tea Partiers do not live in a colony ruled by a remote monarchy, there is also the problem that the taxes to which they are opposed were passed by duly elected representatives. This is taxation WITH representation. (Although, to be honest, I haven’t actually seen any of these taxes yet.)
But they don’t like it. They say THEY didn’t vote for the people passing these laws, so they haven’t been represented. Newsflash, Tea Party folk: just because it’s a representative democracy, doesn’t mean your side always wins. Thank goodness.

So they gather in public squares and parks and scream inflammatory rhetoric about God and guns and gangsters (”Tea Party Rally Upbraids ‘Gangster’ Government,” Associated Press, 4/15/10). “I’m clinging to my guns, my religion and my ammunition,” exclaims one Republican candidate at a recent protest. Really? God and guns? I’m sorry, but I must’ve missed that part of the New Testament where Jesus advocated violent overthrow of the Roman occupiers. Or where he told his followers NOT to pay taxes. What I remember is: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” Which sounds a lot to me like: “Pay your taxes and quit complaining. You can’t take it with you to Heaven anyway!”

Tea Partiers insist they aren’t violent or extreme; they’re just good Christian Americans upholding their rights. Patrolling the perimeters of tea party rallies in camouflage, carrying AK-47s to defend the protest against “the left-wing nut jobs out there” (”Tea Party Rally Upbraids ‘Gangster’ Government,” Associated Press, 4/15/10). I’m sorry, who are the gangsters again?

These people frighten me because they are inordinately, illogically angry. And they have guns. Big guns that they like to wave in people’s faces. Not a good combination.

It doesn’t make sense that they are this angry NOW. If they really are upset about the federal debt, why didn’t they love Clinton? Why didn’t they demonstrate against George W. Bush who took Clinton’s $236 billion surplus and turned it into a trillion-dollar deficit by playing fast and loose with the accounting for the Iraq War.

If they’re angry about gun rights, why take it out on Obama who has not proposed a single gun control bill?

If they’re angry about their Constitutional rights, why didn’t have a hissy fit over Bush’s warrantless wiretapping or suspension of habeas corpus?

What really changed to make them so angry? Well, I’m just judging from my own experience with these folks, and that is a dangerous thing to do. Extrapolating from your own narrow experience can often lead to logical fallacies. Stupid stuff like: “It’s snowing here in Cincinnati in March, so global warming is a hoax.” So reader, beware, the following is just my opinion, but here are the changes I see.
First, the recession. I could blame it on George W. Bush or the Republican Congress, but it’s more complicated than that, and its causes don’t really matter here. It happened, and the recession changed a lot of things. It made people unhappy and anxious.

Second, the Democratic Congress. Most of the Tea Partiers are current or former GOP voters. They don’t trust Democrats in Congress, even if they haven’t done much with their power. A Democratic Congress makes these people upset.

Third, a Democratic president. Most of the Tea Partiers did not vote for Barack Obama. These people lost the election. They did not share our joy when he walked into Millennium Park on election night. Losing makes most people angry.

Finally, a black president. There’s just no getting around it. The first African-American president is a big change for our nation, and a lot of people are furious about it. Now you can make some pie-in-the-sky argument about how his race has nothing to do with the anger of the Tea Partiers, but before you do, take a look at Stormfront.org. If you’re not familiar with this group, consider yourself lucky. They are a white supremacist group that happens to own the domain rights to martinlutherking.org, a website I have used for years when teaching my students about information literacy and the dangers of believing everything you read on the Internet. Obviously, Stormfront hates President Obama. But they have of other things in common with the Tea Party - love of guns, distrust of the government in general, hatred of taxes.

Now my conservative and libertarian friends hate it when this race issue comes up, but the fact remains: I have yet to see a black person at a Tea Party rally. Show me three. Not just one token, but three separate people of color at a Tea Party function. Then maybe I’ll be less anxious about this situation.

According to one Tea Party activist, “”We don’t want to be misrepresented, whether it’s by someone who is not part of the group and has their own agenda, or whether it’s by some fringe extremist who may actually be a racist” (”Tea Party Leaders Anxious About Extremists,” Associated Press, 4/15/10). So the Tea Partiers are anxious? Good. I have a bit of advice for them: “Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation” - George Washington.

If your message appeals to racists and militias and crazy fringe groups, maybe the problem is the message itself. Stop using this frightening rhetoric. Stop waving your guns around. Stop threatening our duly elected officials and throwing rocks through their windows like a bunch of Nazi brownshirts during Kristellnacht (”Former militiaman unapologetic for calls to vandalize offices over healthcare,” Washington Post, 3/25/10). Engage in the democratic process established by the founding fathers you claim to revere. Follow their example. Go ahead. But not just by hanging tea bags to your hats and calling yourselves “modern Sons of Liberty.” Be really brave and engage in the dialogue. Civilly. And preferably, without an AK-47.

I’ve had so many ideas for blog entries lately, they’ve kind of created a logjam in my brain. So rather than try to work all these ideas out into separate pieces, I’m just gonna toss them, raw, onto a page. Once I get the backup cleared out, maybe I’ll be able to see what’s really worthy of more consideration?

1. Daylight Savings Time sucks. The only people who like it seem to be golfers and people from New England. All it does for me is give me an extra hour in the evenings to fight with my kids and try to get them to bed.

2. The NCAA basketball tourney is almost here! Even though my beloved Indiana Hoosiers will not be playing, I will have my Butler Bulldogs who are playing great ball right now. I will also follow Purdue, just because they are an Indiana school and many of friends attended there. I have to admit, though, the spanking the Boilermakers endured yesterday at the hands of Minnesota was kind of fun to watch. Purdue had just 4 points 15 minutes into the game. Did my IU Hoosier heart good. hee hee hee

3. Rush Limbaugh says he is moving to Costa Rica if the health care reform bill goes through. SWEET! Not only will we get some health care reform, but we’ll get rid of that windbag too?! I teared up at the very thought. Rather ironic, though, that he’d choose to escape to Costa Rica, which has had socialized medicine for over half a century and still manages to have some of the finest health care in the world, as well as a longer life expectancy than the U.S.. I guess Rush doesn’t mind universal health care for himself, just for his fellow Americans.

4. Home schooling seems to becoming an epidemic. When I was a kid, I did not know a single home-schooled child. Now I know 20. It worries me for a several reasons. One, I have a Master’s in English, and I still do not feel qualified to teach my children all subjects. Two, I teach just one class of 16 students, and it takes a huge amount of time to prepare. How are home-schooling parents giving the same quality of education to their kids with their limited time? Three, I have had home-schooled kids in my college classes; they are smart, but they are also backward, shy, and overwhelmed. Four, many of the home-schooling parents seem to think that public schools are liberal indoctrination centers. Having grown up surrounded by my high school teacher mom and ALL her public school teacher friends, I can assure you that public school teachers are, in general, some of the most politically conservative folks I know. And did you read about the good ol’ Texas Board of Education’s textbook standards that will help dictate curriculum for the entire nation? Fear not, right-wing conservatives; your values are safely in the hands of Texas. Another thing that kind of cracks me up about the home-schooling phenomenon is that I hear so many of these parents saying, “Well, little Timmy really needs more one-on-one attention.” Most of the time, I think little Timmy needs less! A lot less! Maybe little Timmy is an immature brat because he thinks he is the center of the universe. Put him in a classroom with 25 of the other 6.4 billion human beings and let him get a sense of his real place in the universe. Finally, home-schooling tends to perpetuate the worrisome trend of people who refuse to allow their beliefs to be challenged. People who watch only Fox News because it tells them what they want to hear also tend to home school their kids so they can teach them only what they want them to be taught. This kind of thought vacuum (and it goes both ways: liberals do it too) is not conducive to democratic discourse.

5. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg is an idiot. All the problems in New York City and he picks a  battle with salt? Really? Does this mean you won’t be able to get pickles or corned beef in NYC anymore? Sometimes, I can really appreciate the Libertarians’ perspective.

6. American Terrorists seem to be popping up like mushrooms all over the world. Two of them who have made the biggest headlines are women - marginalized, abused, isolated women. Hell hath no fury? Or is it something bigger than just their gender? So often these days, we see some loner (male or female) just walk into or fly their plane into some institution they believe has been victimizing them and wreak havoc. I think part of it goes back to that self-perpetuating “thought vacuum” that is part of my home-schooling concern. It also seems to be symptomatic of our American society, where technology may bring us together, but it also paints us into corners. Just this week, I was standing at a busy corner on campus, surrounded by students. Three were talking on their cell phones, two were texting, and another was listening to his MP3 player. No one made eye contact with the people standing inches from them. No one said “thank you” to the kid who pressed the crosswalk button; he wouldn’t have heard anyway because he was wearing headphones. What happens to the people who have cell phones but no one to text? What happens to the folks with computers but no real friends? Maybe they turn into domestic or foreign terrorists?

7. Hugo Chavez is the Fidel Castro of my generation - a charismatic South American nutjob who I would really like to see just go away. Or at least shut up.

8. Poor Corey Haim. Dead at 38. A has-been at 20. Maybe that’s why the jokes about him started about 5 minutes after the news of his death hit the web. That should be everyone’s nightmare: to spend half your life chasing the brief success of your childhood and to be mocked before your corpse is even cold.

9. The Oscars were really lame this year. Don’t get me wrong: seeing a woman finally win the Best Director award was awesome, but the rest of the show was long and lame. I guess it didn’t help that I’d seen only 4 of the nominated films: Julie/Julia, Harry Potter, Up, and The Princess and the Frog. Movies are just not worth the money and aggravation to me anymore. Why pay $30 to sit in a theater with people who talk through the whole film? I guess I’m getting old and crotchety, huh?

Well, that’s it. My brain feels unclogged which is a relief. Looking back over this, I guess I can’t avoid the home-schooling thing. It’s probably going to cost me a few friends/acqaintances, though. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they won’t read it. I think I’ll also have to explore the whole self-perpetuation “thought vacuum” thing more broadly too: how the vast variety of cable and internet media lets us pick and choose our facts, and how technology isolates us from each other and the challenges that “others” present to our worldviews. *sigh* Those are pretty hefty topics. I think I’ll tackle them after March Madness ends. And I’ll have all that extra daylight to do it in. Stupid DST.*mutter* *mutter*

As an English teacher and writing tutor, I spend a lot of time thinking about words. Lately, it seems like many other Americans are thinking about them too. From Rahm Emanuel, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh to John Mayer to Shaun White, people are taking flak for the words they are using.

First, we had the spat between Rahm Emanuel and Sarah Palin over Emanuel’s use of the word “retard.” Then Rush Limbaugh jumped into the fray, repeating the word half a dozen times and accusing Palin of trying to be “politically correct.” Now you can go about 50 different ways with this argument.  You can go the Mom direction: if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. You can go the political route: liberals are all about political correctness, so Emanuel’s use of such a word is particularly egregious. You can even go the etymological route: “retard” is derived from the Latin “tardare” which means “to slow,” so there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the word itself. I’ll let other people take on those debates.

What really interests me in the classroom, at the tutoring table, and in the news lately is the issue of audience. I was talking with some students the other day, and we decided that the world is made up of two kinds of people – those who are only concerned with getting their point across for their own sake and those who want to communicate in a way that affects their audience appropriately. In all the recent language scandals, what has made the difference to me is the audience.

Take Rahm Emanuel first. He actually used the word “retard” months ago in a private meeting with staffers (telegraph.co.uk, 2/4/10). His intended audience was a small one, a group of people with whom he works on a regular basis. Did he offend some of them? Maybe. He probably didn’t surprise any of them, though, since he’s known for his brash, Machiavellian, potty-mouthed style. But he never intended everyone in America to hear his remark. It only came to light in recent weeks because of a tell-all book and Palin’s attempt to jump into the spotlight again by calling for his resignation. I’m not excusing Emanuel. It’s not a word I use, and I don’t like to hear other people use it. I’m not sure I can give Emanuel a pass. It’s pretty insensitive language to use with any audience, but he’s certainly not as guilty as Limbaugh.

Limbaugh used the word multiple times on his radio show which reaches millions of Americans. He not only repeated it, he defended its use. He was talking about the word, its meaning and his right to use it. To me, that kind of conscious discussion in front of a huge audience of whom you are proudly aware is far more egregious than an incidental usage in a private meeting. Limbaugh fail. As usual.

Evidently, Sarah Palin does not agree with me. Shocker. For her, it’s all about the speaker. Emanuel is a Democrat, so his use of the word is wrong. Limbaugh gets a pass because he’s a conservative. Just more evidence of Palin’s deep thinking.

But word snags are not hitting just the political world. The music world got a dose of the drama when John Mayer’s Playboy interview went public (Associated Press, 2/11/10). His use of the n-word and rude comments about his ex-girlfriends offended millions. Does he get a “pass” because he’s an artiste? Full of angst and creativity? No. At least not as far as I’m concerned. The guy was doing an interview with Playboy. It has millions of readers and subscribers all around the world. What an idiot. Did Mayer really think no one would notice his racism or misogyny? Fail.

I woke up this morning to another word snag, this time at the Olympics. It seems the sports world can’t get enough of this language craziness. Today it’s about Shaun White’s coach, Bud Keene. Evidently White and Keene were at the top of the snowboard run. They knew White had the gold medal wrapped up. They were excited and happy, and they were talking. To each other. Unfortunately, NBC had one of its huge boom mikes close enough to pick up a couple of F-bombs (Chris Chase, Yahoo! Sports Blog, 2/18/10). So the NBC announcers immediately had to apologize “for Bud Keene.” Wrong. Bud Keene was talking to his athlete, a guy he’s known for years. They have trained for this moment for ages, and they were thrilled with the outcome. Two adult professionals should be able to say anything they want to each other. The fact that NBC felt the need to eavesdrop that closely in that situation is not Keene’s fault. Would I have been angry if I’d been watching with my kids? Sure, but not at Keene. His intended audience was Shaun White. He gets the pass.

Language is a tricky thing, and these days it’s getting harder to keep track of your audience. Cell phones can record anywhere at any time. Sometimes we post things on Twitter or Facebook, forgetting that certain of our friends may be offended. As technology becomes more and more invasive, those of us who actually try to consider our audience when we communicate are going to find it ever more difficult. For the other folks who don’t care who’s listening as long as they get to say what’s rattling around in their head at the moment, I guess they’ll just go on offending everyone in their wake. Soldier on, Limbaugh and Mayer!

I’ve been in the hospital all weekend with my daughter who is very sick with pneumonia. There’s not much to do here. We got hit with a snowstorm on Friday, and today is Super Bowl Sunday. Most of my friends and family are either hunkering down trying to stay warm or prepping for Colts’ parties. So in between my daughter’s breathing treatments and meals, I’ve been reading and surfing the net.

This morning I noticed that the Yahoo! News page had three Associated Press stories in a row on Sarah Palin: “Palin assails Obama at ‘tea party’ gathering,” “Palin says ‘absurd’ not to ponder presidential bid,” and “Palin: Obama could win votes by playing ‘war card’.” I read all three, but it was the last one that just blew my mind.

The article is only four sentences. The first: “Sarah Palin says that if President Barack Obama ‘played the war card,’ he could improve his chances of being re-elected.” So sending troops to risk their lives is akin to a card game? Or even worse, the president should use troops to improve his political chances of re-election? I know many soldiers in our armed forces who have already served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know they were proud to serve their nation and felt they were doing good things for the people in those countries, but I also know they would not appreciate being “played” as pawns in some political game. Such an assertion is disgusting.

The second sentence: “Palin says that declaring war on Iran or showing stronger support for Israel might convince voters that Obama is tougher than they think on national security and doing all he can to protect the U.S..” Obviously, Mrs. Palin subscribes to the George Bush school of foreign policy: do whatever you have to do to other countries, regardless of the impact on their citizens, as long as it gets you votes back home. Again, a disgusting notion. Mrs. Palin claims to be a Christian, but evidently she has forgotten the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Should Vladimir Putin invade the U.S. or show more support for China to improve his chances of re-election? Somehow, I don’t think I or my fellow Americans would appreciate that much.

The third sentence: “Otherwise, according to Palin, Obama won’t be re-elected if he continues on his current path.” Palin seems to have forgotten that one of the main reasons Obama was elected was because Americans were worn out with the Iraq War. Not only that, but she assumes that all voters are hawks who would welcome another politically motivated conflict. I thought voters made it pretty clear to the G.O.P. in ’08 that we did not think much of that behavior. Maybe Palin believes in SSDEC – Same S#!^ Different Election Cycle.

The final sentence of the article: “Palin was interviewed on ‘Fox News Sunday’ — the network where the former GOP vice presidential nominee is a paid commentator.” This final line was really the icing on the cake. So let me get this straight. Palin is a Republican poster girl; she is being interviewed on Fox News, which, despite their protestations, is just a mouthpiece of the Republican party. She is also now employed by this “news” outlet which “interviewed” her about her speech at the tea party convention. Does anyone else see the irony, not to mention the conflict of interest, in this?

It just so happens that this article was the last one of the three listed and the last one I read. But I couldn’t help synthesizing the points Palin made in this article with a line in the “Palin assails Obama at ‘tea party’ gathering” article: “Aside from broad conservative principles like lower taxes and a strong national defense, the speech was short on Palin’s own policy ideas that typically indicate someone is seriously laying the groundwork to run for the White House.” Evidently, she did her usual sweeping-generalization-folksy-jokesy-talking-point speech style during her tea party speech. (That would play well with that audience, which she ironically described as “fresh” and “young” although the average age of the attendees was about 95.) Her “interview” on Fox News Sunday filled in some of the blanks in her policy ideas, though: use the troops for your own political gain, invade whenever it will promote your career, assume that all Americans love war, and use any outlet necessary to forward your ideas, even when it’s unethical. So those are some of the things we can expect from Candidate Palin in a couple years?

Sarah Palin ’12? Excellent.

All my liberal friends are mourning today. All my conservative friends are gloating.

Last night, Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election for the Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy. Pundits on both sides are having a field day. It’s the “Democrats’ Nightmare.” It’s the return of “The Reagan Revolution.” To be honest, I’m just not that fussed about it.

The Democrats put up a candidate with the personality of a warm rattlesnake, then let her run a half-hearted campaign. At the last minute, when they realized she’d blown it, they tried to throw the president at it. Didn’t work. Now they’re all freaking out, and the Republicans can hardly contain their glee.

The G.O.P. wrested the old Kennedy seat from the Dems, and now they can stop President Obama’s socialist agenda. Well, sort of.

First, the Democrats really gave this one away. They couldn’t imagine that seat in that state going to a Republican. Much less could they imagine going to THAT guy. He has a truck. Did you know that? I don’t even live in Massachusetts, but I know he has a truck. (I have a truck, but I still want healthcare reform.) He also posed naked in Cosmopolitan a while back. Classy. You know, Burt Reynolds posed naked in Cosmo too. Maybe he should run for the Senate. And Mr. Brown is not above using his political platform to marry off his daughters. In case you missed his acceptance speech, they are both “available!” Gentlemen, step up for your chance to play Levi Johnston to Brown’s Sarah Palin!

Second, the G.O.P. is still the minority in both House and Senate, and a Democrat sits in the White House for another 3 years. (Which is also, by the way, how long Brown has in that seat, but more on that in a minute.) So if the Democrats could get their act together, they could still pass some good legislation. The Republicans managed for years without a filibuster-proof majority. Of course, the Dems aren’t ideological and dogmatic, so they don’t move very fast. They actually think about the consequences of their actions. So maybe they will never get anything done. Meh.

Okay, so Brown won the remainder of Kennedy’s term. He will be up for re-election in 2012, and I believe that he will lose. See, I’m pretty sure the independents didn’t even show up for this election. They usually don’t for non-presidential years. And Coakley was rude and out of touch; liberals couldn’t get excited enough to get outta bed for that. But EVERY conservative in the state was ready to pounce on this, even if their candidate was a Cosmo pin-up! In 2012, when all of Massachusetts votes, Mr. Brown and his big…truck will be driving into the sunset.

I wonder if anyone in the Republican party is at all concerned about their recent champions. A full-frontal pinup, two beauty queens, and a loudmouthed drug addict. Brown, Palin, Prejean and Limbaugh - now there’s a team I could get excited about. If they were on a reality TV show. Or maybe a remake of “Boogie Nights.” Brown can take Burt Reynolds’ part. And then Reynolds can take Brown’s Senate seat.