Tags

, , , , , ,

 

Guess who finally got a new pair of running shoes today?

This girl.

I am so excited because, as you can tell from my last post, my old pair had a lot of holes, and even more miles. I am also really excited because the laces and lining are bright purple, and, for anyone who has ever known me more than a day, I love purple. Sadly, though, it wasn’t the extra money from not having to pay for birth control that payed for these. Apparently, with the birth control mandate comes a grandfather clause that states I can’t get birth control for free until I renew or switch my insurance plan, and, it’s my guess, that after renewing or switching plans, I’ll probably just end up paying more in premiums to cover the cost. As my twelfth grade econ teacher liked to espouse, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Sigh.

But there are really generous parents who know that running is the one of the few things keeping their daughter sane and healthy at what is apparently the fifth most rigorous school in the country (to be honest, Newsweek’s lists fluctuate so much from year to year that I don’t really trust any of their rankings, but hey, if they want to say that my college is pretty tough, they can go right ahead). So today my mom sent my dad and myself to go get new running shoes at the specialty running store in St. Paul. The sales clerk, honest to goodness, looked like he was fresh out of middle school, but I rolled with it. To think I probably bought my first pair of running shoes when he was still in elementary school…

In unrelated news, I really like the Green Party’s presidential candidate, Jill Stein, enough that I almost went to a meet and greet with her this morning in Minneapolis. Why do I like a third party candidate who will never in a million years have the finances, media coverage, or votes to win the largest possible election? Well, it’s her ideas that get me mostly. Last night, she appeared on Twin Cities Public Television’s local political show, Almanac, to talk about her platform, and while it was only a brief segment, there was not a single thing she said during that time that I did not agree with. I agree with both Romney and Obama that we need to fix our economy and create more jobs, especially as I inch closer and closer to graduation. However, neither candidate gives much attention to what those jobs actually should be. When I heard Joe Biden speak at a grassroots event last Tuesday in Minneapolis, he spoke mostly about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from China, which, to be honest, I don’t think will happen anytime soon. And with what we’ve done to the environment and the climate, I think Dr. Stein has a point that we should use this continuing recession as a time to rethink our priorities as a nation, the kind of industries and future we are leaving to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and put our money where our mouth is in terms of creating green jobs. Why not kill two birds with one stone, working towards both a better economy and a better climate?

I also like where her head is in terms of budgeting. The amount of money that the Pentagon spends unnecessarily on Cold War type weapons and security is astounding, and I’m always frustrated when both major parties talk about debt, but neither party, especially Democrats, talk about cutting military spending as a way to solve it. Osama Bin Laden wasn’t killed using a nuclear weapon or any sort of fancy military equipment. He was killed using a special operations force and a very limited amount of weaponry. While I’m a pacifist at heart, the pragmatist in me wonders why the Pentagon treats warfare like it’s the same as it was thirty years ago. Clearly it’s more about intelligence now than brute strength, so why spend all of this money on outdated weapons and supplies we don’t need and that may very well end up in countries that we may one day go to war with? Why not instead spend that money on making our country more secure through education, jobs, healthcare, and environmental programs? All the missiles in the world can’t protect the American people from an increase in heart attacks, depression, and natural disasters. And the creation of more guns certainly won’t help the increasing amount of gun violence we’ve been hearing about across the U.S. for the past month. It’s the lack of hope and opportunity in so many American cities, not the threat of international violence, that worries me at night. If people could be given meaningful jobs, good healthcare, affordable housing, and fair taxes, that would, at the very least, make the American Dream more secure.

With all of that being said, I still very much love Obama. I love that he has experience living in a non-U.S. context and thus seems like less of a parochial politician on the world stage. I love that he has had to grabble and come to terms with his identity in the U.S., seeing how privilege works and the U.S. social system so easily shuts out people based on their skin color, background, and religious creed. I also love that he was willing to take two years to live out his ideals on the South Side of Chicago, no matter how ridiculous or futile it may have seemed. I like to think that in many ways community organizing is just as hard, if not harder, than running a company, and that the stakes are just as high. And, to be honest, while Obama maybe hasn’t done everything he promised to do and change in 2008 –the list was pretty long –he has done a lot of it, and, with the right people in Congress, he could probably do a whole lot more.

So, of course, I’ll campaign for Obama in the fall, and vote for him come November. I just wish there was some way to give Jill Stein my vote and backing as well. Did I mention, her VP is an anti-poverty advocate working in Philly, but born and raised in Minneapolis? What an awesome ticket.