I just heard a fascinating observation from one of those political pundits (I secretly get such a kick out of them).  He was talking about Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver and others and he said that boomer women are getting two different stories from the women in their life.  Their mothers are telling them they must be for Hilary and their daughters are telling them to go for Barack.

This makes so much sense!

The mothers of the boomers were the original american feminists, the owners of the women's lib movement and how can they possibly pass up the dream of seeing the first woman president in their lifetime.

The daughters of the boomers don't need a woman to be the one to give women the voice and this country the transformation they so desire.

As a daughter of a boomer, i can feel this pull so well.  I never thought that there would be a viable female candidate at this point in my life.  So i can only begin to imagine what this means to the women who have paved the path that i so often take for granted.

It is something i talk about with my young feminist friends. Those of us who are Obama supporters, do feel a sense of guilt for not joining our tribe and supporting the woman.  But we don't feel any less like feminists.  I don't think the feminisim of my generation is that narrow.

They were just saying on Hardball with Chris Matthews, what if this is the only shot for years for a woman to be in the white house.  I must say that is just a haunting idea to me.

The Melissa Etheridge song, "What Happens Tomorrow" comes to mind.

"I believe a woman can work hard and succeed and we could be content to believe that she could be in charge of the free and be the president. If not now when if not today then what happens tomorrow"

When i began thinking on this topic, i thought i would write some thoughtful blog about the difference between generations of feminists and here i am caught up in the feelings of it all. 

So there is the part of me, standing with the feminists before me that is just overwhelmed with the idea of the first female president.  I mean truly emotionally overwhelmed. And i think other women can relate to the surprise that seems to have over us.  The idea that a woman would vote for a candidate just because she is a woman on a rational level is downright insulting and yet, the pull is there.

That being said, I want to thank those beautiful feminist that have gone before me that have shown me that i can have and i can do anything that i put my mind to.  And my mind has led me to be a supporter of Barack Obama.

What beautiful liberation!

This video from the Colbert Report had me rolling with laughter!

Clap Clap, Point Point...

http://cliffschecter.bravenewfilms.org/blog/28303-colbert-report-clap-clap-point-point

Why write your own blog posts when there are things this funny out there!

Enjoy!

Why I Hate Partner Yoga
by Catherine Price
www.salon.com

Is having my face in a stranger's crotch really helpful for my meditative state?

My dislike of partner yoga started with a stranger's sweaty thighs. I had just moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to the San Francisco Bay Area, and I was working my way through a Sunday morning Vinyasa class with the same discipline, determination and Type A drive I bring to most attempts at relaxation. But I kept getting distracted by the young man next to me.

To be specific, I was distracted by the moisture he was producing. No sooner had we started sun salutations than the man began to sweat, energetically and abundantly. By the time the class was halfway through, drops of perspiration rolled off his nose with the regularity of a leaking faucet, and a puddle had formed on the floor in front of his mat. Instead of wiping off his face with a towel, he removed his shirt. Now sweat began to drip from a new spot: his nipples.

I, too, was disgusting. Perspiration comes easily to me; I like to say I have a gift. So I was caught off-guard when, after a lovely series of hip openers, the instructor asked us to pair up with a partner. First, I was confused. (A partner? For what?) Then indignant. (I hate group work.) Then anxious. (What if no one wants to be my partner?) By the time I had worked through my emotional process, everyone else was paired up. The young man was mine.

It turned out the teacher wanted us to do a "partner exercise" -- a playful five-minute break in which you assist someone with a difficult move, use your weight to deepen each other's stretches or, in extreme cases, do balancing poses on top of one another's bodies. I watched in horror as the room, formerly quiet and calm, burst into an excited buzz. It was like my yoga class had morphed into a cocktail party.

I had done yoga before -- many times, in fact. By the time I moved to California, I was used to chanting to gods and goddesses I didn't believe in; I had learned to endure the smell of patchouli. I loved it when the teacher touched me to adjust my position or deepen my stretch -- it was the equivalent of a free massage from a trained professional. But in all my East Coast yoga experiences I had never, ever had to touch anyone else.

In this particular move, I was supposed to help my partner work on a handstand by putting my fist between his legs so he could squeeze it for support. The young man looked at me with excitement: Was I ready? I nodded and braced myself as he popped his legs into the air with such force that I had to catch them against my shoulder to keep him from toppling over. The impact sent a drop of sweat onto my cheek. Instinctively, I grabbed onto his calves, and slipped my hand into position, using his leg hair to provide traction against his slick skin. Standing on the man's moist yoga mat, my fist wedged between his upper thighs, I kept coming back to one thought: This would never have happened in New York.

I've since found out that partner exercises have spread, like a contagious disease, to the East Coast as well. And if you ask my instructor Thomas about my thigh incident, he will tell you that I did the exercise wrong. ("In my defense, I said knees," he insists. "Knees!") But, although I tried to accept partner yoga, something in me snapped when a different teacher, a likable and energetic woman named Laura, demonstrated a move where your partner does a downward-facing dog while you attempt a backbend over their body. I felt a knot of dread in my stomach -- a dread that proved justified as I threw myself backward over my partner, shimmied myself up over her bottom, and got stuck. Belly up, arms and legs dangling, I felt like a human sacrifice.

That's when I decided to find out what was going on.

First, I asked friends. Was I the only person who abhorred partnering? Apparently not. "I hate it," wrote one friend in an e-mail. "Hate holding sweaty hands and pressing together mutually filthy bare soles. Have no interest in smelling my partner's groin from a short distance, or having anyone besides a loved one grapple with my sloppy midsection while I bend awkwardly forward." Another told me about a partner yoga exercise sprung on her in Dallas. It involved a stranger's head between her legs -- on the first day of her period.

But when my classes explode into partner exercises, most of the other students don't join me on emergency trips to the bathroom. Was I missing something? And why were my instructors using partnering in the first place? I decided to ask them.

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