Sherry Chandler

In my letter to my congressman below, I state that I’m ambivalent about background checks for child care workers. Several things have come to my attention today that make me think our values are really skewed on this. On the one hand, we can get ourselves in lynch-mob state about one kind of sexual predator. And on the other hand, we don’t blink twice about another kind of sexual predator — the corporate kind.

For example, a correspondent drew my attention to this article from the Lexington Herald-Leader about a Hannah Montana (a Disney Channel product) concert in town:

Club Libby Lu, a national chain that carries dozens of Hannah Montana wares, also offers tween queen makeovers.

On a typical busy Saturday, the Lexington store, in Fayette Mall, might do 80 makeovers. So far, some 225 girls ranging from age 4 to 11 years old are scheduled to be transformed into Hannah look-alikes today via blond wigs, special makeup and microphones, said Robyn Caulfield, a spokeswoman for the store.

Four years old.

The piece says that the manager of Rupp Arena, where this concert will be held, has been getting calls from parents who want to know where they can drop off their 7-year-old daughters. What kind of parent “drops off” a 7-year-old at a huge sports arena for a concert? Does it occur to any of them that such an event might draw predators of one kind or another?

I was also struck by the closing paragraphs of this piece:

Flatwoods native Billy Ray Cyrus [father of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana] is being held up as a parental model to emulate. That would be the same Billy Ray who was widely put down when his hip-shaking, mullet-wearing persona burst onto the achy-breaky scene in 1992.

Bruce Leslie, Billy Ray’s longtime personal attorney, said he’s not surprised by the Cyrus family values. Billy Ray, he said, is a fairly conservative guy who, from the beginning of his fame, asked good questions about securing his financial future. And, he said, Billy Ray listened when professionals made suggestions.

He said having been through the achy-breaky days, the family “has been down this road before” and “they’ve learned the pitfalls to avoid.”

Leslie said Billy Ray and wife Tish, who is from Ashland, have “retained their hometown values.”

Please note that these hometown values all seem to be about “securing his financial future.”

Rants my correspondent, “This is appalling. It is of a piece with the ‘Who Needs Credit Cards’ panties—using children as bits of commerce.”

What “Who Needs Credit Cards” panties, you ask. From Feministing, by way of Have Coffee Will Write, here are the culprits, on sale in the junior department at at Wal-Mart:

Says Feministing:

Reader Scarlett saw these oh-so-charming panties in the junior department of her local Wal-Mart on Kildare Farms Road in Cary, NC. There’s nothing quite like telling adolescent girls that they don’t need to worry about finances since they have their very own moneypot between their legs.

You can contact Wal-Mart here.

These are the same people who want to censor your rock lyrics, you know.

And anyway, they’re nearly sold out of Talking Jesus dolls, so they have to make their Christmas profit on something.

Here is sad news for the members of our household:

Terry Pratchett, the bestselling author of the Discworld fantasy books, is suffering from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s.

The author has published a statement on a website calling the diagnosis “an embuggerance”. Pratchett, who is 59, says that he is taking the news “fairly philosophically” and “possibly with mild optimism”.

Says Pratchett:

I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it’s too soon to tell.

My U.S. Congressman, Ben Chandler, has sent out a mailer that contains a survey. He wants to know how his constituents “feel” about certain issues (assuming here that we don’t bother to “think” about those issues?).

So, because I always endeavor to be a good citizen, I tried to fill out the survey. But I found I could not. It was a list of ten yes-or-no questions and I just don’t have a yes-or-no mind.

So instead I sent him a letter. I know he’ll be oh-so-grateful. Or anyway his office staff will be glad for the job security.

Then, figuring nobody would actually ever read my letter and that I’ll probably get mad when I read the boilerplate reply the office staff sends out, I decided I would not let good dudgeon go to waste but that I’d share it with you.

Here’s what I said to Congressman Chandler (a blue doggish sort of Democrat, but hey! this is Kentucky):

I’ve been trying to complete the survey you sent out recently but I find it impossible to do so because the choices are too limited and some of the questions seem sort of loaded to me. I can’t answer them yes or no. Maybe I’m overthinking. And I understand that a survey can’t go in to nuances.

Anyway, on the question of Iraq, yes, I am in favor of beginning a withdrawal of our troops but I am not sure we should maintain a military presence “in the region.” What does that mean? I am very worried about the huge embassy and the bases we’re building within Iraq and what they imply for further adventurism in the area. I am strongly against escalating the hot war for oil but think we should fight this battle by diplomacy abroad and by encouraging development of creative alternatives at home. Terrorism is a law-enforcement issue.

Do I favor tax breaks for middle and lower-income citizens? Well, considering the current state of the national debt, I’m not sure it’s time to be lowering any taxes. I am for _increasing_ taxes on the rich and the super rich — or at least in allowing some to the tax laws to kick back in. I am definitely against any _increase_ in the payroll taxes — Social Security, Medicare, etc — that tend to hit the lower income segment hardest. But, coming as I do from a fairly low-income family, I’m willing to pay my taxes if the money is used wisely and for the right kinds of things: healthcare, education, job development, etc. Not for a military buildup and more war. Not for corporate welfare.

I’m not even over concerned about earmarks. It’s how Congressmen and Senators get re-elected, after all. I doubt that all the earmarks in the budget come anywhere near the amount we’ve squandered in Iraq.

Free trade. Probably good but not when it means corporations are free to exploit poverty in other countries while doing nothing to alleviate poverty in their own country.

Immigration — open the borders. Don’t build stupid useless expensive fences. Let illegals into the system so they can pay taxes and fight for better pay. We are exploiting people and then punishing them for being exploited.

Pollution — yes. Restrictions on pollutants.

Federal screening of child care workers — on the fence, low on my priority list. I think we are all scaring ourselves to death about child molesters while doing little to help children through education, health care etc.

Very concerned about global warming — see above about oil wars. And, by the way, all those explosions in Iraq are not doing the atmosphere much good. We’re thinking awfully short term here.

CHIP programs — fund ‘em!! Defy Bush and fund ‘em.

Mountaintop removal — stop it!! See above. Surely there must be some other way to bring jobs to Eastern Kentucky.

Kentucky is moving in the right direction in that it has elected more Democrats. We’ll see how that works out.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Sherry Chandler