Because I have two kids in the local city school system at the same time, I receive double the school memos.  So while Friday’s after-school-folder-clean-out yielded the usual classwork, homework and doodles, there were also some notices clearly indicative of these times in which we’re living: a list of swine flu H1N1 symptoms and (what I thought at the time anyway)  to be a routine parental notice with optional exclusion form.  You know the type –  I would not like my son / daughter to participate in the following school activity (fill in the blank, field trip, sex ed, open lunch, etc.), signed (parent’s name). This time the form was in reference to an address by Barrack Obama, the President of the United States, to the students of the country.  When I  received the memo, I was all in favor.  I would not be one of the parents who declined my child the opportunity to be involved with current events and history in the making.  I thought it was great that the President was making an unprecedented, concentrated effort to make a positive influence on America’s youth.  But then I read CNN.com and the other news outlets, and I saw that some people seemed to be using this as a political soundboard, and I think it’s just sad that some people use everything our President does as a reason to bring up racial tension.

I would like to steer my blog from most politics, however, I am a parent of two kids who are in American public schools, so this is an issue that hits close to home.  So whether you watch the Obama student address or not, whether you approve of the President and/or his message to students, consider the significance of the Presidential address taking place this Tuesday, September 8, 2009 for what it is – history in the making.

As a kid, I was a very avid reader – I would always read myself to sleep.  Somewhere in my 20’s though, I lost sight of my reading hobby; I guess that’s when I got too busy and too tired to lie in bed awake at night and read.  During my last pregnancy, however, I started reading before bed again, and it’s something that I really enjoy, even though I often get too tired to make it through more than a few pages per night.

When I recently began reading again, I started by reading mostly non-fiction; it was really fun for me to unwind at night and learn something at the same time.  I read a book about an Afghan girl who stepped on a land mine, lost her leg, and fled the Taliban by coming to America.  I read a book about a family that bicycled across the country – they had kids who were 13, 11, and 3 years old, and they made it from New Jersey to Colorado on their bikes.  There was also the book about the Burnham’s; they were husband and wife missionaries who were held hostage in the Philippines for almost a year.  The wife wrote a book about their daily struggles as hostages – it was fascinating.  Then I switched to a few fiction books by Christopher Pike, an author best known for his young adult horror novels.  I read those as a teen, so as an adult, I decided to try his novels for adults – one I really liked and one wasn’t so good – Falling and The Blind Mirror, respectively.  I then started a book about the plight of Terri Shiavo, a woman who collapsed in the early 90’s and suffered brain damage.  Her case was in the national spotlight because her husband insisted that she would have never wanted to live hooked up to machines while her parents disagreed.  The governor tried to help, and even the President of the United States tried to step in, but ultimately Terri’s right to live became just another case in the courts and her husband won.  Her feeding tube was removed and it took her almost 14 days to slowly starve and dehydrate to death.  The case fascinated me at the time, and I found this book about it written by Mark Fuhrman of the OJ Simpson murder trial fame.  Except that I’m having trouble reading the book since it’s about a rather dark and depressing subject, and that’s not really how I want to unwind before bed.  Though I did learn something interesting from Mark Fuhrman: according to him, a coroner is an elected official who doesn’t even necessarily have to have a medical degree.  Hmmm…

A friend recommended the author John Grisham, and the other day I ran into the library, trying to be very quick since the family was waiting in the car.  His books looked so large and lengthy and intimidating, so I grabbed the smallest one I saw called Skipping Christmas.  I began to read it, and it’s about a family called the Krank’s who decide to skip Christmas one year.  That sounds familiar, I thought, and after a quick trip to imdb.com, I discovered that the awfully panned movie of 2004 called Christmas With The Krank’s is indeed the movie based upon John Grisham’s book, Skipping Christmas.  So far the book is ok, but nothing that keeps me looking forward to reading it or anything.  I have Grisham’s only work of non-fiction on hold at the library, maybe I’ll get up there today to get it because maybe I’m sick of fiction and it’s time to go back to non-fiction…  I hate to admit it, but I really like to read true-crime books before bed, mostly about murder.  True, murder is a dark and depressing subject, but not in the same way as the story of Terri Shiavo; it’s hard to explain.  And it sounds kind of strange, but true-crime books are the ones I seem to be drawn to and I can’t watch true-crime on tv in bed anymore – too many nightmares for my husband and I.  One of the best true-crime books that I ever read was The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule.  If you don’t know, Ann Rule is a famous true-crime writer, and this book was extra-fascinating because it chronicles her relationship with the famous psychopathic serial killer, Ted Bundy.  Ann Rule was actually friends with Ted Bundy – they met working at a suicide hotline together.  The book chronicles their friendship while working at the hotline, while the murders were taking place, and after Ted was caught – very interesting read, and crazy that one of the most famous crime writers had a friendship (unrelated to her ever writing a book about him) with one of the most prolific serial killers of all time.

So, another election year is upon us and guess what…  We’re deciding between a black man and a white woman.  Either decision will result in the potential for “something new” in the Whitehouse.

But you have to ask yourself…  Are they really going to be any different?  After all, WHAT makes these candidates so different from the past presidents?  Well, we’ve already established that…

RACE  &  GENDER

If you could choose two candidates that don’t fit the “presidential mold” then a black man  and a woman are about as different (in appearance) as you can get.  But at the core…  Obama, a straight black man, and Clinton, a gay white woman, think very much the same…  They both think “WHITE MAN”.

Remember, Obama is not black.  He is 50% black.  So, if 50% black makes him black then 50% white makes him white.  So, if you’re saying he is a “black man” running for president.  You can use the exact same logic to say he is a “white man” running for president.  In fact, Obama’s main influence growing up was his WHITE mother.  He was raised in a white household by a white parent.

Remember, Hillary is not a lady.  Sure, she is genetically a female but she thinks male.  She has male drive, male goals, and if you watch her on the stump — male emotion.  In fact, rumors that Hillary Clinton is gay have been circulating long beofre her presidential campaign.  See here and here and here.

• Obama, LOOKS black but thinks WHITE; looks MALE and thinks MALE.

• Clinton LOOKS white and thinks WHITE; looks FEMALE but thinks MALE.

So they both think WHITE MALE even though neither of them have that appearance.

The difference IS only skin deep.  So, as we try to pretend that this is a new breakthrough in the Whitehouse and that this is not just another election of a WHITE MALE we should be ashamed of ourselves.  Yes, it is politics as usual in Washington.