Without the Democratic or Republican parties realizing it, women on the right changed dramatically over the last thirty years.

Many feminists on the left must be asking themselves, “How did we get here? When did conservatives start embracing the word “feminism” with enthusiasm?

Unfortunately, when put to the test, feminists didn’t open their arms to their conservative sisters or engage in a lively debate. Rather they borrowed a few phrases and attacks from their patriarchal foes, and the leading matriarchs completely dismissed the notion that conservative voices were needed in the sorority. The feminist spokeswomen — Gloria Steinem, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte and others — were vocal in their frequent attacks of Mama Grizzlies.

These reactions radically differed from the platitudes that feminist writers and speakers had offered for decades. Given the quotes below, shouldn’t conservative women fit in somewhere?

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Obama’s new Oval Office decor is overwhelmingly…blah.

It’s like their Christmas decorations from 2009. It isn’t truly awful, but it isn’t great.  His office is a step above Michelle’s 1980s Days Inn-inspired East Wing, which is just lacking a cheap reproduction print of a Georgia O’Keefe painting to complete the theme.

Looking at the remodeled office, it takes some blah aspect of decorating from each decade since the 1970s. It also has overtones from Jimmy Carter’s Oval Office. Similar color palette and furniture. I wasn’t crazy about Bush’s Oval Office and Clinton’s was garish, but wow. This is ugly. Did Obama decorate to match the style of his presidency? Hopeless and overpriced?

The Wallpaper
The wallpaper is bothering me. I know it was in some movie during the 90s. I’ve watched decorating shows my entire life, and that wallpaper is from the Clinton Administration era. I had a pink and white version of it in my room growing up. I keep expecting Shari and Matt from Room By Room on HGTV to burst into the Oval Office with helpful hints on how to hang wallpaper.

While searching for movie sets, I stumbled upon photos from the house in John Hughes’ Mr. Mom, one of my favorite 80s films. Compare the Oval Office to the set. It’s beige, beige, beige, beig…. (sorry, I fell asleep writing it).

The Couches
I know Obama is a fan of Man Men, so why didn’t he go with couches from a decade earlier? These are straight up 1970s ugliness. I spend a lot of time shopping in thrift stores for 1940s-1960s stuff. The White House Historical Society could have gone shopping with me one Saturday at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore and bought these couches for $25 each. The fabric is equally awful. It’s a hybrid of toned-down harvest gold and baby poop. The faux-velor also looks like the couch is wearing some awful 1970s pimp clothes.

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Talking Points Memo attacked Sarah Palin today over the details of her speaking contract at the Cal State-Stanislaus. These stories have emerged before, and I never got to address them. Having worked a little bit on concerts in Chattanooga, few people understand the demands and details that go into contracts.

For starters, read through the Smoking Gun’s concert and speaking riders. Palin’s demands are absolutely nothing compared to Christina Aguilara, Mariah Carey and even Dick Cheney.

However, let’s address the issues that TPM finds so offensive. Just what are these “diva” demands?

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Like the new look? I stayed up late tonight working on customizing a new template.

You may have noticed that the urls are slightly different. My site was going down about once a week, which was frustrating. I had both AdrienneRoyer.com and CosmopolitanConservative.com going to the same directory. (I don’t know either. Dumb mistake when I merged two blogs last year.) If you stopped by this afternoon, you may have been puzzled to see a lot of changes. My blog is now officially hosted on AdrienneRoyer.com with CosmopolitanConservative.com redirected. I’m working out the kinks with the RSS feed.

Functionally, I’ve wanted a refresh for a while. To me, templates are like virtual handbags. You need a change occasionally. I also wanted to find a way to better organize posts. Because I cover everything from Tea Parties to Mad Men, posts an easily get lost.

This set up allows me to high light the most recent post in the four most common categories.  This way, if you only like political posts and could care less about book reviews, you’ll be a happier reader.

Please let me know if you find any bugs or have ideas. As always, email me at cosmocon at gmail dot com.

Today, I volunteered for the Restoring Honor rally hosted by Glenn Beck. Unlike the other rallies, protests and tea parties I’ve attended, this event was quite different.

Last week, while I was lying in the hospital, I caught Glenn Beck on the O’Reilly Factor. Beck explained that this event would be non-political and very, very different.

“Yeah, right.” I thought. “I’m supposed to volunteer for that. There’s no way the tea party crowd will be apolitical.”

I was completely wrong.

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Several months ago, I wrote a post explaining that Cash for Clunkers had destroyed the used car market. Later, I had a long twitter debate with well-known Democratic blogger in Tennessee, who swore up and down that Cash for Clunkers had worked. He had a similar debate with another Tennessee conservative this week on Twitter.

Yeah, it turns out I was exactly right. Back in June, I wrote:

Yes, capitalism is harsh. But you know what’s even worse? The government interfering with markets that indirectly end up hurting the very people they claim to be helping.

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Well, sort of. Last week I was very, very sick. My daily accomplishment was to email the office and let them know I was still alive. For several days, I even forgot that I had a blog. Now that I appear to be back to normal (i.e. the concept of eating no longer seems disgusting), I should be back to posting.

I did learn that doctors and moms aren’t joking when they say to drink plenty of fluids.  On one particularly un-fun day last week, I landed in the ER for dehydration while my co-workers enjoyed a spa day. My company has spa/golf day for their anniversary each summer, and I missed it!

Lesson learned: drinking fluids when sick is important.

Aren’t conservatives consistently accused of intolerance? We’re intolerant for questioning the mosque at Ground Zero. We’re intolerant for opposing gay marriage based on the tenets of our faith. We’re intolerant because we’re concerned that illegal immigrants fill up the welfare rolls and commit crimes in the U.S. But you never hear the intolerance of the left exposed.

This t-shirt sums up most younger feminists views on abortion. (Sorry for the language. As Lori Ziganto notes, feminists delight in the crude.)

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Despite sobbing for the last half of the book and movie, I thoroughly enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife. The plot was original, the writing tight, and it ingeniously crossed science fiction and romance. This weekend, I tore through Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry largely because the location — Highgate Cemetary in London — is one of my favorite places on earth.

Highgate Cemetary

Perhaps it’s morbid, but historical cemeteries are fascinating.  Highgate Cemetary puts anything we have in America to shame. The barely contained wilderness is trevassed by paths and streets that meander through the elaborate tombs and vaults.  It can only be described as a gothic fantasy land and couldn’t exist outside of London.

Built at the height of Victorian drama and ritual in the 1830s, Highgate was one of the first commercial cemeteries in London and catered to the Victorians desire for pomp and class structure even death. After it fell in disrepair, a group of local residents bought it and only mildly attempted to control the underbrush, which heightens the surreal aspects.

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Surrounding the launch of Real Housewives of DC, The Washington City Paper examines why DC-based reality shows suck.

Welcome to reality TV’s Washington: Wealthy women with Newsweek-grade opinions waxing soporific on the existential significance of a black president on Real Housewives; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dicing things up on Top Chef; twentysomethings pining progressive on the Real World. And absolutely everyone—except maybe Tareq and Michaele Salahi—boring the pants off their viewers.

Are people boring? Not the ones that I know and have observed. It’s the the opposite. When all the fascinating and interesting stuff is private and off-the-record, only the flimsy, boring moments remain.

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