Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Don'tcha Wish Your President Was Hot Like Me?*

*With a grateful nod to the Pussycat Dolls...

Happy Solstice, everyone, and have a great summer! We feel this photo pretty much says it all. No matter what idiocies are thrown at him from both the Right and the Left, and MSM hacks of every stripe, this question remains eternal!

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Happy Father's Day!

John Kerry is a great dad. I know this because I have a great dad. My dad is not perfect and neither am I, but I love him and I know he loves me. Who wants perfection when you can have that?

That's the feeling I get every time I see John Kerry with his daughters. Their lives have not been idealized or airbrushed, but they have triumphed over any difficulty through love. They tease each other, they laugh together, they are there in the hard times to support each other. They have a genuine bond, the kind of connection that it is just not possible to fake and that shows in every smile or hug.

We see them mostly in public situations, but their love and pride in each other is plain to see, even in the camera's glare. These two smart, beautiful, decent women Vanessa and Alexandra Kerry, each made heartfelt, affectionate speeches about their dad at the Democratic National Convention, testifying to their love for him as a father as well as affirming their belief in him as a principled public servant who should be president.

It is clear to any observer that his daughters have been John Kerry's greatest pride and joy since the day they were born. Whenever he mentions them, he is, just for a moment, not the vital, inspired politician; he is any fond, proud father.

I honor John Kerry and the late Julia Thorne Kerry for dedicating themselves to the happiness of their daughters even as they were navigating the difficult waters at the end of a marriage and I honor John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry for blending their two families and being loving parents to his daughters and her sons.


I also honor John Kerry this Father's Day for something I feel, though I cannot know it for sure. It appears to me that he and his daughters have let their relationships evolve and grow with time. In early photos (thank you, George Butler!) he appears as the strong, protective father supplying playfulness or comfort as needed. As adults, not only do his daughters repay that protectiveness and support with their own loyalty and presence, but I sense that he has allowed himself to learn from their wisdom as they learned from his.

I recognize that quality of openness and respect in my own father as my sister and I have grown into that role with him and I honor every father who has the humility and grace to grow into equality with his children as they grow up.

Happy Father's Day to my dad, Alexandra and Vanessa's dad, and dads everywhere!

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

"When right, keep it right and when wrong, make it right"

So says our superhero senator to all who believe in blind nationalism and who suggest that those in power are always right, simply because they are in power.

His mission is to "make it right" and he pursues that mission with inexhaustible resolve.

This last Saturday, he was at Grinnell College, delivering a speech that took the best of his April 22 Faneuil Hall call to honor and combined it with the Ten Point Plan he unveiled in New Hampshire in March. Time Magazine considered him worth quoting (and they thoughtfully included a picture as eloquent as his words...)

The Grinnell speech was one of a series he is making on college campuses across the country.




This Thursday, April 11, he will be at American University in Washington, D.C., speaking at 1 p.m. in the Kay Spiritual Life Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
CONTACT: April Boyd, 202-224-4159

Yesterday, our energetic hero was in Nashua, speaking at the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire convention and examining the latest in firefighter bootwear.



Kerry told the firefighters that he had problems with the President's nominee to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA because Hayden is "one of the main supporters representing Donald Rumsfeld who helped to put in place the programs of spying on Americans and has been one of the biggest defenders of it."

The Senator is asking us to take back our government, to "make it right." How fortunate we are that he is answering his own challenge with such vigor and conviction!