Summer is over. I was ready. I had enough of the beach, parties and barbecues. Since I live at the Jersey Shore, it’s always nice when the summer ends, the vacationers go home and I can finally sit on the beach and read a book in peace. As always, the summer flew by and I’m sort of sad that it’s over. But I also look forward to Fall, my favorite season. A bittersweet season that symbolizes a “transition” of life. The trees will change color, leaves will fall and the weather will get colder. It’s time to get serious again. School starts today. I’m taking a couple of classes at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Last semester, I declared my major - “Political Science”. It was inevitable. I’ve always been interested in what’s going on in the world, different cultures and types of governments. I’m also looking forward to watching the final fight for the Presidency. This is when the gloves come off, skeletons come out of the closet and the respective campaigns either fight dirty or clean. I’m quite impressed with Barack Obama’s decision not to make an issue out of Sarah Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy. I wonder what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot? I’m pretty sure that the “family values” ideologues would be pouncing on this. Cause we all know that only liberals have pre-marital sex, are gay, do drugs and get AIDS. Conservatives don’t do anything like that. If they do, they publicly flog themselves (only if they get “caught”), confess to God and county, go into rehab and reemerge as “reborn”.

Hey, I think it’s poetic justice - and I really wish the girl well. Sarah Palin (The Republican Vice Presidential nominee), it seems, is a baby factory, so I guess the torch is now passed to her daughter. And that’s her choice. I don’t condemn her for that. But don’t condemn anyone who does not want to have six children, because they are poor, lack access to birth control, or do not have a stable family to support the high cost of raising a child. All the while, the Federal Poverty level has been reduced by the Republican Congress, making it more difficult for children and families to get healthcare, or SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Plan), more difficult to pay for food, gas, electricity, heat, medicine, tuition and mortgages (for those fortunate enough to own their own homes.)

And all John McCain talks about is lowering taxes. “My friends” (as he often begins his speeches) the taxes he’s talking about are not for you and me. They are for the wealthiest Americans (2% of our population) and large corporations. In the meantime, we have an amassing deficit, which must be paid somehow. Ah, that “somehow” is the key word. Either it will be passed to the next generation, reduced by revoking the tax cuts for those wealthiest 2% of Americans or large corporations.

Choose your poison.

But life goes on. For me, today I’ll probably get lost on campus, get my parking pass, books and sit in my first class “Women and Politics”.

I’ll try to stay silent for the first class.