A Minor Political Rant

Virginia's primary is next week, so this is not late from my standpoint. I will also note that Virginia has to have open primaries because there is no way to actually register as a member of a particular party here. That is, the voter registration form is entirely non-partisan, with nary a box to check off.

But the rant is triggered by a "survey" I received in the mail from the Democratic National Committee. I put the word "survey" in quotes, because it is really a thinly disguised begging letter.

My concern is that there is exactly one question on issues and it is worded as follows:
"Which issues would you like the Democratic presidential nominee to focus on in the campaign? Please rank the following issues from 1-14 based o their importance to you, with "1" being the most important."

The list of issues is (with their flaky capitalization):

• Education
  
• Ethics in government
  
• Energy policy
  
• Immigration
  
• Social security
  
• Taxes
  
• Civil rights / liberties
  
• Stem Cell Research
  
• Iraq
  
• Health care
  
• Homeland security
  
• Environment
  
• Reproductive rights
  
• Jobs / Economy
  

One problem is that the only foreign affairs matter mentioned explicitly is Iraq. Never mind that we're also fighting in Afghanistan (and not as effectively as we could be, in my opinion, an opinion which was heavily influenced by discussions with two people I know who spent time deployed there). Never mind the on-going human rights crisis in Darfur, which is related to the civil unrest in Chad. Never mind the emerging collapse of Kenya. Never mind Iran, Cuba, North Korea. Or our deteriorating relations with our allies. Or the impact of globalization on the economy as India and China advance.

I could go on with other subjects, but that's a good illustration of the real problem. There's no vision, no sense of the big picture.

Not that I think the Republicans have any vision either, but they didn't send me a survey.

No wonder we're down to the least offensive candidates on both sides. (Well, Huckabee is still technically in it and is scary, but the remaining serious candidates all have some middle of the road potential.)

All I can do is hope that somebody chooses a decent running mate.

For what it's worth, he's long since been out of it, but Bill Richardson was my choice.

A Fashion Rant

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon so took advantage of being sort of in the area to stop in at Tyson's Corner Center afterwards. For those unfamiliar with it, this is a large, moderately up-scale shopping mall. It's less ritzy than Tyson's Galleria down the block, but a step up from most of the rest of what there is in Northern Virginia.

My real purposes in going there were to pick up some check register pages at the Franklin Covey store and to get the roll of film I shot in Fiji developed. (I take a lot of digital pictures, but film has its uses, too.) And those chores were accomplished. But I also browsed the stores.

Background here is that I wear roughly a size 18. Could be 16, could be 20 depending on style and manufacturer. Regardless, this is usually somewhere in the plus-size department. And said departments are full of perfectly decent sportswear - jeans, casual tops, jackets and so on. They have plenty of dressy dresses. But in 5 stores I went into (3 department stores, Lane Bryant and Talbot Woman) there were exactly 2 dresses that could be worn by an adult woman to a professional job. Both of those were at Talbot Woman and both of them were in colors I don't wear.

I am flattered that, say, Macy's thinks I have such an interesting social life that I need all that sparkle and glitz. But I have a job so I can pay for that glittering social life and I need nice suits or dresses to wear to that job and, yes, maybe a pantsuit or two is okay but skirts have really not gone the way of the farthingdale (whatever that was).

All I want is a couple of long sleeve shirt-waist dresses and maybe a new tweedy skirt suit (or A-line skirt with blazer). This should not be so bloody hard.

And, by the way, Nordstrom's appears to have stopped selling their nice comfy cotton pajamas. Or at least hidden them so well in the lingerie department as to be equivalent.