Eve Ensler, Sarah Palin and Guns

Let me begin by saying that I simply cannot take Eve Ensler seriously. The woman is famous for one incredibly asinine "play" that has been irrationally successful, I suppose because it is just so damn "controversial" and "taboo" that it just had to be produced (over and over and over and over and over) on every university campus in the known universe.

That said, she had a post on the HuffPuff a while back titled "Drill, Drill, Drill" attacking Sarah Palin for being out of step with the global sisterhood (or something like that). I didn't bother to read it all the way through until I saw David E. Petzal's response on his blog today. He does a mostly excellent job of critiquing Ensler's moronic "thoughts" on guns and wildlife, but he missed a few. That's where I shall pic up.

Just as a warmup: "I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks."

Now, about these drowned polar bears, what the hell happened to them? After all, polar bears are excellent swimmers, found tooling along hundreds of miles off shore, and topping out around 6mph. I guess that doesn't sound fast, so let's put it this way: If you put Michael Phelps up against a polar bear in the 200M freestyle, the polar bear would have a good shot at winning (Phelps' world record time in the 200M in Beijing works out to just over 4mph), and would then put Phelps' now legendary diet to shame by eating Michael Phelps.

Eve likes polar bears, and on that, we are in accord. Of course, I like them because they are totally badass, she likes them because she dreams them to be big white teddy bears.

Moving on, Eve whines: "I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war."

Really, because it seems like you don't mind raging at women at all. You seem perfectly content to do so when they don't think and act the way you think they should.

"I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover."

Typo in the original. Anyway, was that a threat, Eve? I'm sure if I took the time to look I could find her railing against the "politics of fear" or some such, but I'm sure the irony would be lost.

"She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list."

I'm pretty sure Petzal missed this one. Here's the deal, Eve: Polar bears are actually listed as threatened, not endangered, and have only been so listed since May of this year. They were listed not because there are few of them, or because populations are massively declining, but because, put broadly, the EPA was pressured by environmental groups in court to make a decision on listing the polar bear, based on potential loss of habitat due to climate change projected over the next 100 or so years. So, there are still plenty of bears for now, but if you want to touch one, as Eve apparently does, you better move fast!

"As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'"

More like "Not at all what she said."

"She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes."

Uh, yeah, that would be zero. Bristol Palin was presumably taught abstinence, but I can say with 100% confidence that she wasn't practicing it when she got pregnant. She was also probably well aware of condoms and any other sort of birth control imaginable. No one counts the times that a condom isn't used when evaluating the effectiveness of protection focused programs, why should times when abstinence isn't used count against it?

"Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth."

Well, apparently you failed to gather the thorough debunkings of the book banning nonsense.
As for the aversion with those who think independently. 1. Pot, meet Kettle. 2. Any executive, whether mayor, governor, CEO, or president, is going to want his or her administration to be made up of people with whom he or she agrees. Lively, robust debate is wonderful, but it is not how any administration ever has been run. Debates are at home in the legislatures.

Finally, I'll end with:
"If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain."

Whole lot of crazy going on there. I'll just say this: For Eve Ensler, rape is only bad when a penis is involved. Google "The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could" if you don't believe me, but keep in mind that in the original the storyteller was 13, not 16, and that the closing line was "If it was rape, it was good rape." Ensler changed both when people got upset, since apparently 16 is far better than 13.

Like I said, not to be taken seriously.