Like most bloggers, I get a log of blog pitches. As a communications professional, I regularly reach out to bloggers and have led training sessions on blogger relations. When I get a good pitch, I generally email the person to thank them. Most of the time, they are simply horrible.

Today, I got a pitch that shows what happens when a Google search for certain keywords is done without looking at the context of those keywords. Given my recent comments on climate change, I’m not the best candidate to approach about this. I hope the language barrier was an issue, but Christin uses perfect English in her pitch. Also, generic blog pitches are never the best way to go.

How does a blog have CO2 emission of 8 lbs per year? A blog doesn’t exist outside of cyberspace. There are no physical properties to a blog. I’m all for planting trees. As a conservationist and nature lover, please plant more of them, but do it to simply plant a tree. Don’t approach me about planting a tree to eliminate virtual carbon footprints.

Since it’s Friday afternoon, here’s a fun question. What are weird or unusual wedding traditions that you’ve seen?

This past weekend kicked off the 2010 Wedding Season in which those of use in our twenties and early thirties spend at least one weekend per month from March to June and then September to October at some type of wedding activity for a friend or family member.

We have all participated in some odd wedding moments. The wedding I attended this past weekend was fun because the bride and groom are both artists. We made paper airplanes out of scrapbook paper to throw at the couple as they left the church, and they had an ice cream sundae bar in lieu of cake. Both of those were cool and unique.

This morning, a good friend of mine was discussing some wedding plans via gchat and shared a tradition that her fiance mentioned. At most weddings he has attended, the winner of the garter toss places the garter on the winner of the bouquet toss. Having only attended weddings in the South, this was a new one to me.

Intrigued, I posted the question on Twitter and got a few replies:

-I have seen that all too often..and it is…once it happened to be a brother and sister…

-Yep. Although I didn’t do it when I caught the garter at my brother’s wedding. The bouquet catcher was 8 years old.

-Yes-last Nov & the groomsmen were suppose to tell the guy how high to put the garter on the girls thigh. It was different.

As someone who finds the garter toss tacky, this is just well…creepy.

Hence, my Friday afternoon question: what strange wedding traditions have you seen?

I know that much of the health care debate has surrounded the government funding of abortion, and we all know where I fall on that debate. However, I had not read how the Senate bill would implement the policy until I read this Washington Times article:

The groups are divided over whether the Senate bill allows for federal funding of abortions. Status quo, as dictated in the Hyde amendment, bans taxpayer funding of the procedure in programs such as Medicaid, except when the life of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest.

Members of the Pro-Choice Caucus say that they don’t like the Senate bill because it requires women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums.

The line, women who want an insurance policy that covers abortions to pay for the abortion coverage entirely on their own and send two separate checks to cover premiums, makes my blood run cold.

The Pro-Choice Caucus infers that there are women out there who pro-actively pay for abortion insurance. Insurance is an economic decision to invest in services that you will possibly need. When you opt into getting a specific policy, you are acknowledging that the odds are against you. For example, if you live on a mountain, are you likely to get flood insurance?

Women who opt for this coverage would make a premeditated decision thinking, “It is likely that I will get pregnant unexpectedly. If I do, I want to abort any child that I conceive.”

Perhaps I’m naive. I’ve always believed that even those who support abortion view it as a worst case scenario. Lately, the left has managed to shock me by endorsing abortion with glee. It’s as though pro-abortion advocates are shouting, “Who cares if abortion is murder? I’m ok with that. In fact,  I’m going to be a cheerleader for it because a woman’s “right” the most important factor. To hell with everything else.”

Just look at Feministing’s response to Mary Ann Sorrentino, former Planned Parenthood executive director in Rhode Island, when she questioned Angie Jackson’s live tweets of her abortion.

Sorrentino’s piece reads like she’s telling Jackson to be ladylike, to be a “good girl.” There are certain things a woman just shouldn’t speak about in public. This isn’t the feminism of a previous generation – it’s an argument that the divides between public and private should be maintained, with women’s experiences kept in the private sphere. It’s an argument for silence, for stigma, and for an appropriate way of being a lady.

This goes against the approach to destigmatizing abortion that I learned from pre-Roe organizers. The Redstockings Abortion Speakout in 1969 began a traditional of women telling their abortion stories publicly to humanize the procedure, to bring it into the public sphere, and to remove shame. These women didn’t listen when they were told their stories should be kept private. Jackson used new technology to share the experience as it was happening, a new twist on an old consciousness raising technique.

In removing the stigma of abortion, feminist forces aren’t justifying this debate, they’re celebrating it. They are reveling in this legal right regardless if it is good for women. Forget the gory details and pain that Angie Jackson’s tweets revealed. She’s raising the collective consciousness of womankind! To hell with anything else. As long as the feminist agenda is advanced, nothing else matters.

Anyone else sickened by this?

Back in August, I nearly bought a t-shirt emblazoned with the Gadsden Flag to wear at the 9/12 rally. I decided not to spend my money and thought “How many rallies could I possibly attend to justify buying this shirt?”

In hindsight, it would have been a good investment in protest attire.

FreedomWorks has issued a call for another protest on March 16 to kill the Obama healthcare bill. The President has declared that the bill must be through the House and Senate by March 18, so he can conveniently schedule a photo-op before he flies off to the Pacific.

Wouldn’t you hate for the overwhelming opposition of the American people to conflict with Obama’s tight schedule? How rude of us.

If you’re like most Americans and too busy to read whiny feminist blogs, note that March is Women’s History Month. Christina Hoff Sommers has an article in the current Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute’s Policy Express on taking back the feminist movement and highlighting women’s history. It’s an absolute must read. She writes:

But today the movement has been taken over by aggrieved eccentrics. Marching under the banner of feminism, the current activists are fighting a gender war that few women support or understand. The potential for harm is enormous. Mainstream women are going to have to rescue feminism from the feminists.

We badly need a responsible, reality- based women’s movement. Women in many parts of the developing world are still struggling for their basic rights.
Egalitarian progressives—some would say radicals. They held that men and women, although socialized to different roles, are identical in their essential natures. By appealing to principles of social justice and universal rights, egalitarians sought to liberate women from the private sphere of the home—into the public spheres of politics, business, and work.

I came into this fight over feminism late. As a young woman and conservative college student, I purposely avoided anything relating to womyn’s studies or gender politics. After working at a nonprofit geared towards girls, I came face-to-face with the “egalitarian feminism” that Sommers discusses. Behind every rallying cry for “equality” there’s a scary agenda from the Radical Left to remake our society into a European socialist copycat that has taken over colleges, the media and our court system.

Since the left has demonized conservative women for so long, most females on the right avoid anything remotely resembling feminism. That leaves us woefully ignorant when it comes to the history for women’s equality. Please take a few minutes and understand that there is a need to fight for equality between men and women, but this can be done–and has been done–in ways that value and protect American traditions and capitalism.

As Sommer’s notes in the article, Clare Booth Luce was writing about women’s issues long before Betty Friedan ever felt bored in her affluent suburban home. Rather than fight to change society into some socialistic utopia, she understood how women operate. Sommer’s quotes Luce:

It is time to leave the question of the role of women in society up to Mother Nature—a difficult lady to fool. You have only to give women the same opportunities as men, and you will soon find out what is or is not in their nature. What is in women’s nature to do they will do, and you won’t be able to stop them. But you will also find, and so will they, that what is not in their nature, even if they are given every opportunity, they will not do, and you won’t be able to make them do it.

Feminist arguments fall flat over “second shift” work, the so-called wage gap and complaints that we still have not achieved equality despite making up more than half of the workforce, as seen in the recent Shriver Report. Women don’t make choices to better the cause of women. Women make choices that better their individual lives and families. When you make women equal, as our society has largely done, women will reject what doesn’t work, even if this conflicts with the agenda of the left-leaning feminist movement.

H/T American Enterprise Institute

After a nice four-day weekend in Chattanooga, I’m back to the grind and attempting to catch up on the news. I can’t believe the audacity of good friends getting married on what ended up being a heavy news weekend. They should have known better…

Back in TN-03, I noticed the Congressional race is heating up. Van Irion signs are everywhere, and “Send Mrs. Smith to Washington” bumper stickers covered numerous cars. While the entire country becomes more and more divided over politics, my home district is just slugging it out over which Republican to elect. One of the many reasons I love East Tennessee.

What did I miss over the weekend?

1. There was not one, but two new “scandals” involving Sarah Palin. E! News reported that she was a bit greedy at an Oscar event, which conflicted with a number of other stories that I read earlier. Ted Casablanca, who doesn’t have the best gossip track record and is just a tad partisan, spread the vicious story. Earlier accounts said that Palin accepted the free gifts and then donated them to the Red Cross in addition to donating $1,700. Immediately after Casablanca published his version, the blogosphere and media ran with that angle. When you factor in Radar incorrectly announcing the retirement of Chief Justice John Roberts, don’t trust celebrity gossip sites for political news. If these are legitimate sources for politics, Perez Hilton needs a Sunday morning talk show.

The media is also going crazy with reports that Palin’s brother illegally obtained medical care in Canada when they were children. Hot Air has a rebuttal. Good heavens. We need a version of Snopes just to get Palin facts right.

Dear media: we get that you don’t like Palin. Get over it and focus on real news.

2. Christopher Buckley realized that Obama is not that great after all.

Mr. Buckley, you are still my favorite novelist, but you are not your father. Sad that someone who writes razor-sharp satire about the Beltway could be taken in by the slick marketing of the Obama campaign.

3. The Census sent letters to 120 million households announcing that the Census will be mailed in April. How much did this cost? Mail from the Federal government doesn’t require postage like private mail does, but this had to cost several million dollars to print and deliver. Couldn’t those resources have been used more efficiently? Also, what about the environmental impact? How many trees died so that the US Government could tell us something we already knew?

Offline, I’ve gotten a lot of criticism for writing about this Al Gore situation at UT. In the long-run, I fully agree with all of you that this doesn’t matter. As I’ve said numerous times, honorary degrees are publicity stunts. But I’m truly bothered by what UT is doing. Good news! You’ll get a break. I’m going back to  Chattanooga this weekend for a wedding, so I doubt that I’ll have time to write.

When I first heard about this ridiculous decision to politicize UT’s commencement, I instantly thought of the promotional campaign that UT was running my senior year of high school. It’s one of the reasons I originally looked at the University. Despite growing up in Chattanooga, I had never felt a desire to become a Volunteer.

Coming off of the 1998 National Championship, UT ran a campaign that said, The University of Tennessee/2 Nobel Laureates/7 Rhodes Scholars/6 Pulitzer Prizes/10 Astronauts. We also play a little football.” I remember landing at the airport in Nashville after my senior trip to LA in 2000 and seeing the ad. For the first time, I got really excited about college. Since I attended an uber-Baptist high school, every teacher clearly expressed his/her disappointment in me for not choosing a Christian college, and my parents had their own qualms about sending me to such a big school.

There was a poster that accompanied it, but I can’t find a graphic of it. Once upon a time, I had a copy, but it got destroyed in one of my many moves. The poster had the slogan printed on an awesome photo of Neyland Stadium. It captured UT perfectly. Great football (at the time) and athletics combined with strong academics. That poster made me realize that there was more to UT than just Peyton Manning and Jeff Hall. (My best friend and I had  bit of a crush on Jeff Hall in high school.)

What happened to recognizing those people? I realize that not all of them are probably alive. In fact, it’s sad that I don’t really know who any of those people are. The 10 astronauts are a lot cooler than Al Gore, but that’s a personal preference.

This morning, I was greeted by an email alerting me to the fact that the Drudge Report had linked to a Knoxville News Sentinel story on what I’m naming DegreeGate. A KNS poll is overwhelmingly against it.

Now, I know that web polls are hardly scientific, but 96% against the decision should be telling. Then Red State picked up on the story.

Oh UT, why? Why did you willingly walk into another controversy on the heels of the Kiffin scandal? I also appreciate the smug column from KNS telling people like me to, “Get over it.” Well, KNS, I refuse to get over it. I’m outraged at the actions of my alma mater, and I plan on making as much noise about it as possible. I’d also like to explain a thing or two to editor who wrote this paragraph:

Some objectors have pointed specifically to Gore’s involvement in the global-warming debate, suggesting that man-made climate change has been disproven by the “Climategate” e-mails. That’s far from true. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander is among those who still say climate change must be addressed, and he certainly shouldn’t be disqualified from some future honorary degree. In fact, he would be an excellent choice.

You see Climategate is a big deal. The East Anglia CRU emails and subsequent stories prove that the data that created the infamous “hockey stick” graph is completely flawed. Al Gore used the hockey stick graph in his documentary. The same documentary for which he won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, and the main reasons that the administration cites in giving him this degree.

Essentially, KNS is defending the decision by the University to award a man who has knowingly spread misleading information and refuses to acknowledge that. That is academic fraud, and it is shameful that my alma mater, a research institution, is willing to be complicit in what could be the biggest scandal of the 21st century.

The Facebook page has 1,100 people less than one week after it was started. Drudge has linked to the story. Red State is covering it. Doesn’t the University realize that it’s only going to get worse the closer we get to graduation? People are only just now learning about it.

Many have argued that Gore deserves this as a public figure. Why do universities award honorary degrees? Essentially, they’re PR stunts and a nice recognition to prominent figures.

However, what happens when the university awards a degree to a controversial and polarizing figure? Well, alumni like me get ticked off and withhold fundraising dollars. The university needs to weigh the opportunity costs of recognizing a political figure or threatening their donation base.

Now, if Vice President Gore would come clean and say that he apologizes for fraudulently using bad data, and that we need to put more open-minded resources towards the climate change debate, I’d be ok with UT’s decision. Until then, I’m going to be an unhappy and very vocal alumna.

In UT’s defense, I just got off the phone with Megan Smith in the Chancellor’s office. She was very nice and reacted the way all PR people are supposed to. I’ve been on her end of the phone before and feel for what she’s either going through or likely to go through. However, UT made a huge mistake here, and it keeps getting worse.

A number of people that I respect have attacked me for making this “political.” It’s not that at all, and I’m offended that friends are trying to silence me. I deeply care about my alma mater, and my blood runs orange. It always will. My four years at UT were amazing, and my education was outstanding. However, as the leader in the climate change debate, Al Gore is suspect when the science ends up being questionable. As I said in my original post, if Climate Gate is remedied or climate change proven, give Al Gore every prize you want.

My main concern is with the University. If Climategate keeps getting worse, Gore’s reputation is going to be incredibly tarnished. Any organization that recognizes him for his work on this issue will look foolish. As a leading research institute, UT has an obligation to only support legitimate and honest research. Why doesn’t UT wait and see how Climategate plays out?

This is not a personal vendetta or a political fight. This is questioning why my alma mater is partnering with a promoter of bad science. Ultimately, my right to freely express my opinion and protest the actions of my alma mater should be respected. Nothing less than that is acceptable.

Despite promises from Obama and a strongly-supported measure in the House, the new version of the health care bill funds abortions. Americans United for Life Action have a new ad urging Congress and Obama to prohibit any federal funding from going to abortions.

Susan B. Anthony List also has more information about abortion and the Health Care Summit last week. This is a major problem. Americans should not be required to fund abortions with tax dollars.

This week, Washingtonian.com featured Cosmopolitan Conservative on The Blogger Beat. Check it out if you want to see my thoughts on a GOP cocktail, the best/worst dressed Republicans and my final opinion on Meghan McCain.

Since the Washingtonian rarely covers political blogs, I was really honored to be considered. To my knowledge, the only other conservative included has been Rob Bluey.