Sissy.

I swear, between the I-spoke-in-errors from astralounge and the please-don't-hurt-me-I'm-weak-and-fragiles from my two cents, it's hardly worth my trouble to log in and type.

Anyway, my two cents, take a powder or a tonic, or a bubblebath or whatever. The poll you're referring to is, if I remember correctly, a CNN poll of 1,008 people. This is not representative... or at least not as representative as, say, the Gallup Poll, which puts Bush's lead at a much less Republican-comfortable level.

Of course, all of that will likely change when the U.S. armed forces capture Bin Laden sometime in mid October, pushing Bush's popularity up by 6 points or so, and converting a majority of the swing states.

There, see? I can be all comforting and polite and shit.

I had an interesting experience the other day. One could almost call it an epiphany.

I found myself driving behind a car with a bumper sticker reading "A black man can" and was startled to find that I was neither offended nor irritated. In fact, I found myself nodding slightly in agreement and approval.

Now, here's the thing... my quick and easy litmus test for whether any particular sentiment relating to race, gender, religion or sexual orientation is worth listening to is this: would intelligent people object to the same phrase if you substituted my identifying characteristics (straight white male) for the characteristics being listed? If so, then the sentiment can generally be dismissed as thoughtless hate-mongering or agit-prop.

(The practical application of this is that I don't need to waste my time talking with someone who is so goofy-stupid that they think wearing a button saying "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" is a good idea.)

Anyway, upon realizing that I agreed with the power, affirmation, confidence and positive outlook of the afore-mentioned statement, I automatically ran it through my mental filter to see how I felt about the phrase "A white man can"... and found that the substitution remained offensive.

I have drawn my own conclusions about this event, and I feel no particular urge to go into them here.

So, I leave this anecdote for your consideration. I know what it does for me... what does it do for you?