Endorsement: President Barack Obama

Perhaps we're in the minority here at Anyone's Cockatoo but we like - appreciate - President Barack Obama more today than we did four years ago. (And four years ago we were deliriously smitten.)

We like that he never whines despite being handed a Bush-generated house a'fire.

We like that he seems to be thinking constantly about how to make things better for the American people.

We like that he cut out the financial institution middle-men in the student loans system so as to be able to give out more student loans. (Sometimes he'll make a speech on the subject and we think, "What, again with the student loans?" But that's how one gets people out of the poverty / the working class and into the middle class, so good on him.)

We admire him for taking a chance on the auto industry bail-out, and are glad that it paid off for the workers and the country.

We admire him for (1) realizing that it isn't right that people - Americans - go bankrupt and/or die because of our insurance company-dictated healthcare system and (2) fighting with every ounce of muscle to get the Affordable Health Care Act passed and signed into law. BFD, indeed!

Again, we like that he never whines, despite the insane, racist, dog whistles and direct attacks he's been subjected to. A lesser man would not have handled the nonsense with such grace. Particulary egregious is the oddly-coiffed New York man demanding proof of the President's academic records, passport records, etc. It puts us in mind of the publisher who demanded that the black abolitionist get a white man to vouch for the authenticity of his book.

We like how comfortable PBO is in his skin - whether with world leaders, grieving townspeople, or the NBA champs, PBO always strikes the right tone.

Michelle Obama.

We like how he incarnates the best of this country, this experiment in democracy. A smart, hard-working young man with a non-cookie cutter background gets to be POTUS. And we're all the better for it.

We're moving in the right direction and he clearly deserves a second term.

Would just ask in the second term that he ools-it-cay with the ones-dray - the targets can't be worth the cost of civilians; stand up to the rat bastards at the NRA; and for the love of God, sign some executive order only allowing public financing of campaigns - and no televisions ads.

And here's the punchline about PBO: For all of the insinuations of his otherness, his supposed exoticism, at the end of the day do you know what he his? With those exquisite manners, the self-deprecation, the work ethic, the sincerity? HE'S A MID-WESTERNER. Yes, his father was from Africa, and yes, he happened to have lived in Hawaii and Indonesia. But his character - the content of his character - is that of a plain, ol' mid-westerner. You know, the good folks Fox News commentators claim to adore but, it turns out, don't know one when they see one.

Cuts

It was a small cut, maybe a quarter inch. We were weilding a scissor-point against a seamed canal on the side of a new bra. Pinch, poke, pinch. We cut ourself when the scissors slipped, making a small slice alongside our middle finger. It turned red, but wasn't near deep enough to bleed.

The object was to pry out a tiny yet diabolical strip of clear plastic. It was the shape of a short, slightly wide popsicle stick. It's purpose on either side of a bra? Who knows. Someone's antiquated notion of how the glands should appear in a blouse, under a tee-shirt. As if we were Marilyn Monroe or some other performer. All I knew is that they hurt like heck, and even if they did gave us a silhouette that made people stop, stare and applaud I didn't want the ridiculous discomfort.

Imagine being pinched hard on either side of yourself. All frigging day.

Looking how we want to look and feeling how we want to feel is a basic human right.

I fingered the pieces of plastic and wondered what kind of sick, twisted bastard would inflict such a thing on half the country. Well, the answer was in the question.

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Cockatoo is perhaps the last progressive in the country to just become aware of NYT reporter's Nicholas Kristof's Half the Sky, a book about the obstacles placed in front of women throughout the developing world. The documentary was on television last week and it was beautiful, maddening, lovely and crazy-making.

While we were relieving our garments of pinching plastic strips, somewhere on earth - in Africa - little girls were in a hut, bound, their trauma and pain coalescing into a lifetime of physical difficulties. An unnecessary, malignant act performed in the crudest manner.

Kristof, along with a progressive African health worker, and his crew were in a hut in (we believe) Kenya. They listened to an ancient, ancient woman talk about her "job" of grabbing the girls for the "ceremony" and performing the mutilation. She said she performed ten mutillations a day.

(Cruelty engenders cruelty, and we had a sick fantasy of the reporter turning off the camera, just snapping the crone's neck on the spot, and back on camera, claiming it was self-defense. Fool-proof, really; who would expect such a thing from journalism's biggest bleeding heart? And actress Diane Lane who accompanied him looked sufficiently pissed off to corroborate any "she came at me with a knife" story Kristof concocted.)

Obviously the only answer for ending mutilation is education, education, and since we're at it, more education. Westerners needn't go into full-on screed mode; the best thing, I think, would be for other African women, like that wonderful health professional in the film, to just lay out the facts to their sisters:

Mutiliation leads to infections, dismenorrhea, and makes basic hygiene difficult. It increases the likelihood of maternal death.

A tiny cut endured for my rights and freedom. A mutilation because...we've always done it? Tradition? To reign in the mere threat of promiscuity?

There are cuts and there are cuts.

Carmella's Little Sister

We're a bit ashamed to report that the process of searching for and researching a new bike has become as pleasurable as actually riding. We've been finding ourself in shops talking about aggressive geometries, comparing aluminum to steel, and handing our driver's license and credit card to random dudes in exchange for a block's length long test ride.

The poor kid at my favorite shop (approx. three visits in the past couple of months)! He must be thinking, I just want to sell bikes, not be priest-slash-therapist to some boomer who desperately needs a life.

I've had two dreams about bike shops. Walking inside a new one is like a lucid, wide-awake dream. The smell of the tires, the hope everytime one turns over a price tag.

The possibility of falling - finally falling -in love.

So, no decision yet. There's a frightening risk that all of my research will be for nothing: I saw a bike painted "claret and silver", a rich, luscious purple. (We are swooning even as we type it.)

Courage, Cockatoo! Enjoy the process!