Julie Pippert: Using My Words

After a stroke today, incomparable JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen died . He was 82. Sorensen might be the most quoted speechwriter. He is certainly the man behind JFK's best lines. Sorensen, though, always attributed the famous lines -- such as "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" -- to Kennedy. In an interview with the BBC about a decade ago, Ted Sorensen tried to explain why he and John F Kennedy got along. I think, in fact, it was his way of trying to explain why he always said JFK came up with the best lines, rather than taking the credit. It's something writers can understand, I think; in essence, to paraphrase, he said he channeled JFK when writing -- he knew him so well, knew what he'd want to say and simply formed the lines that he knew his friend would want. As someone who has ghostwritten and extensively "developmental edited" books, I know what he means. As someone who has written lines for politician...

In 1984 I was a teen, but not old enough to vote yet. That didn't keep me and my peers from being interested in the election that year. For those of you who don't recall (or weren't born yet) in 1984 Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro challenged Republican incumbents President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush. It was unprecedented: a ticket with a woman. The nation was sort of flummoxed, and everyone was talking about it, a lot. That was the year then Colorado Senator Gary Hart, former Vice President Walter Mondale and Illinois minister Jesse Jackson all ran for Democratic nominee. Hart lost after Mondale mockery of his new ideas, and Jackson lost because...well, we can all speculate why. History will probably attribute it to his bigoted remarks, largely about Jewish people. History is rarely completely wrong, but it also doesn't always tell the whole story. Once Mondale secured the nomination, he selected Ferraro as his running mate, and the Wom...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Glennia Campbell, Managing Editor glennia.campbell@gmail.com http://momocrats.typepad.com/ Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama answers MOMocrats "The Questions We Wish the Debates had asked" MOMocrats step up where mainstream media and traditional debates let the American public down, "Things we wish they'd asked in the debates..." Palo Alto, CA -- April 30, 2008 -- Recently, MOMocrats asked the Democratic Presidential candidates the questions we all wish reporters or moderators had asked in any interview or debate. Today, Senator Barack Obama sent back his answers to the MOMocrats' questions. This is the latest example of the influence political blogging groups are showing in the presidential campaign. The most recent debate between the Democratic candidates was disappointing to most citizens. We felt that the questions were directed more towards mud slinging between the candidate rather than substantive questions a...

It's been a wild week in nearly every avenue. Here's what I've seen that might intrigue, interest, disgust, enthrall and/or appall you: The good: Earth Day ramp up has motivated some really fantastic things. At Moms Speak Up, I joined The Nature Conservancy's campaign to Plant a Billion. One tree, one dollar...and every dollar counts. Click over here to check out the information and join in the campaign! Aimee Greeblemonkey launched a project near and dear to my heart (for those of you who know how I feel about art, kid art , and art in school , as well as the environment). Inspired by her son who hosted a backyard art auction and a reader suggestion, she launched Kid Art Auction for Earth Day 2008 . Izzy asked if I would take on Moms Speak Up as Editor-in-Chief, which I agreed to do. I'm currently seeking motivated writers who are passionate about the environment, dangerous imports, health care, food safety, media and marketing, education, politics and many othe...

The first and biggest mistake that people make about my beloved country is that it is one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I realize that there is this pledge that we ourselves use to perpetuate this misunderstanding. But seriously, you know you can't take these advertisements literally. I mean, think of food photography, for example. When you buy those little frozen meals (and I do...I'm like a Lean Cuisine-a-holic), do they come out of the microwave (because we all know nuking food is the healthiest method of preparation) looking as pictured? No. They do not. For one thing, I don't even own that style of plate. For another, notice the little caveat on the image: Serving Suggestion. I found out about food photography ages ago when I first began my career. I was working for the production company and we had a professional photographer on retainer. In fact, we had two. One who specialized in people and one who specialized in objects. These a...

Or so I keep trying to tell myself. Persistence slept in until 7:30, which is a good hour later (adjusted time) at least than her usual. In exchange, our big family TV blew its tube. Now that's what I call a fair exchange, not to mention how appreciative I am that God brought the smiting in within the hour. I can now go about the rest of my day with a clear mind. If you need me...I'll be driving to a little somewhere in my totally unsafe Check Engine light on car (appointment this week) to find a bruja to get some gris gris. Or maybe I'll just drive on over to my friend Melissa's to hand back her Curse of Entropy. If you simply need to see me using my words... Come celebrate (or denigrate) my lifelong love of my OCD and Barbie as I explain how I am a total hypocrite about porn star Barbie . If Barbie isn't to your taste, feel free to learn about how I know there is a God, math, and the upswing in the onset of the Curse of Entropy . If you prefer a more political fla...

Several days ago, Liz at Mom-101 wrote Political Death by Middle Name? for MOMocrats. In that article, she informed us that some conservative right wing talk show guy had decided a good political tactic was to employ the George Bush Manufacture Fact By Proximity and Repetition technique to link Barack Obama to terrorism. How? Because he happens to be named after his father, which means his middle name is Hussein. That's right: Hussein. It's a name. That's all. Not everybody named Wayne is a serial killer, and not everybody named Bush is...well, best to not hoist myself on my own petard here. I read Liz's informative article, made a mental note, was annoyed, but thought, well, that's just too stupid to go anywhere. I underestimated the mental immaturity and reckless irresponsibility of some right wing talking heads. I overestimated people's sense of honor, mistakenly assuming that all of us have this interior gauge that prevents us from going too low. I overesti...

Image Source: Hillary Clinton photostream at Flickr . Last night I live blogged the Democratic debate for MOMocrats , a fantastic group of writers who use their words to share political views and news---a group I am happy to have recently joined. During the debate, I noticed one of the moderators' favorite things to do was take Hillary Clinton to task for her detracting remarks of Barack Obama. Obama hasn't been a perfect choir boy during this campaign, but Clinton is the one who has taken some fairly low potshots that smack either of self-righteousness or desperation. Both self-righteousness and desperation smell like weakness and appear as a challenge. Shark like reporters and detractors scent blood. Indulge me as I backtrack for a minute here... I always had a pretty good mind of my own. But in eighth grade we moved to an environment that was harshly unaccepting of that in me. I had a choice: bend and go along to get along, or break and be alone. I chose the former. By the t...

As many of you have probably figured out, Kyla is a good friend of mine. I've sketched a portrait with words about how I admire her and passed along awards. We've brought our kids together to play, with entertaining results of course. Patience has declared BubTar, "Good to play with and fun, even though he's a boy." Persistence thinks KayTar is neat, and loves looking at the photos that Kyla puts up each day. Kyla and I broke our stress together this past Saturday by having a lovely girl's day out, including being ladies who lunch and shop. If I spent some money on a lovely Jane Austen leather bound collection, it's her fault. ;) I'm going to beg advice from Mr. Tar about whether I ought to add another hard-drive or just invest in a new computer. In short, the Tars are real people to us, people we like and care about. We want the best for them. That can mean many things, but for KayTar, it means continuing health care to help her with her challenges....

(Apologies in advance to anyone who gets offended...bygones?) Oh Friends. I think I need say nothing. I think this picture is worth a thousand words, especially the orgasmic expression on McCain's face. He just reclaimed his seat in the GOP. Let us not speculate at all about how. For the record: Loving this photo? Does not cause me to lose my seat in the Tree Huggin' Liberal party. I'm not sure if we are currently represented, but anywho... I will be baracking and ba-rolling tonight. P.S. As a fabutastic non sequitur, I'd like to reassure all Heroes fans that the writers of that show have had a source of income during the writer's strike. They've been speech writing for Barack Obama. I'd recognize that style anywhere. Also, I personally know that politicians like to hire out of work TV writers for speeches. AHEM Copyright 2008 Julie Pippert Also blogging at: Using My Words Julie Pippert REVIEWS : Get a real opinion about BOOKS, MUSIC and MORE Julie Pipper...

Because Gina asked, this is how I am LEANING so far. I still have AMPLE time to change my mind, if I so desire. Good grief...hard to read. Okay, some clarification if you need for the bottom line: Top left quadrant is Social-Liberalism and Economic Left (we aren't shocked are we?) and that's where I apparently fall post robotic quiz. Barack Obama is circled. But I know you don't want to miss the rest of my bitingly funny humor here, so CLICK HERE to see a better image and catch all the oh-so-witty rejoinders I threw in to my quiz result image. Source: Electoral Compass . Copyright 2008 Julie Pippert Also blogging at: Using My Words Julie Pippert REVIEWS : Get a real opinion about BOOKS, MUSIC and MORE Julie Pippert RECOMMENDS : A real opinion about HELPFUL and TIME-SAVING products Moms Speak Up : Talking about the environment, dangerous imports, health care, food safety, media and marketing, education, politics and many other hot topics of concern.

We are all operating under some informational delusions, and they are affecting how we vote. We're letting the very people who have a personal agenda tell us what to think; that's called a conflict of interest and unreliable resource in my book. So let me clear up a few things and express my largest cultural concerns along the way: * we're in an economic crisis and a stimulus package isn't going to fix it. Stimulus packages are for the short term, and we have a long-term problem ahead of us because the cost of living and big business interests are dangerously outpacing earnings. (Not to mention big business practices---such as those evil Adjustable Rate Mortgages---which benefit business at the expense of the people, economy and country at large. Banks, mortgage lenders, speculators and so forth who perpetuate this shouldn't just be ashamed, they should be fined and jailed. And politicians who enabled and supported it---including our President---should be ousted fro...

I had a different post entirely queued up for today but then yesterday two news articles crossed my desk and I wanted to make sure that you were informed, on the off-chance you hadn't heard about this. The first I read at one of my "read every day and write for when I get the time" blogs (I will be posting there today about the second item, H.R. 847): The Political Voices of Women . BlueBloggin (out of Texas) shared this AP news article: Bush Vetoes Kids Health Insurance Bill By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program. It was Bush's seventh veto in seven years - all but one coming since Democrats took control of Congress in January. Wednesday was the deadline for Bush to act or let the bill become law. The president also...

Both are on the rise. On December 5, 2007, Mike Stobbe, AP Medical Writer, wrote an article that reported a 3% increase in the teen birth rate---the first increase in 14 years. For some reason, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were surprised. I'm not. I fully expect that the teen birth rate, and rate of STDs, will be on the rise. I attribute this to the absolute failure of the only sexual education program taught in schools: abstinence-only. As I stated in my post, " Abstinence only sex education is risky and ineffective ," the abstinence only program---which received $168 billion in funding in 2005, and has only received more funding since---uses an approach to education and discipline that any parent knows is likely to have a high failure rate: Don't Do It Because I Said So. In fact, I cited three reasons why I believe the abstinence-only programs are a failure: 1. Mixed messages about group think 2. One size does not fit all 3. The irony in the...

On December 4, NPR and Iowa Public Radio hosted a debate among the Democratic presidential candidates. (Read the transcript of the debate here .) The debate was relatively civil, especially considering the amount of disagreement among candidates. I think the radio format worked well; without a live audience, candidates were more in discussion mode than performance mode and therefore I believe we got better information from them. The focus of the debate was on Iran, Iraq, China, and immigration---all foreign policy issues. This means they missed debating most of American voters' top issues, which center around issues that affect us on a daily basis. A Pew Research Center poll in November ranked the top voter issues as (read full article at Kiplinger ): 1. Economy (79%) 2. Health care (76%) 3. Iraq (76%) 4. Education (75%) 5. Jobs (71%). "Energy is rising rapidly, from 54% in 2004 to 65% in 2007." The candidates seemed familiar with this list, and proved that they are in to...