The Week in White Trash

So, I'm driving home Monday around lunchtime after spending part of the weekend at my parents' house up in Pilot Mountain. It was such a gorgeous, sunny day. On a whim, instead of turning off to get on the freeway, I decided to take back roads the whole way to Winston-Salem. This was how I found myself on a two-lane road between Tobaccoville and Bethania behind a black Pontiac of mid-90s vintage that was driving right at or just over the speed limit. Not what I'd prefer, especially on a road that I could drive in my sleep...But they weren't so slow that I could pass them easily, so I just fell in behind them.

The road took us through "downtown" Bethania, where I freely admit that the speed limit drop to 25 m.p.h. caught me off-guard. (No excuse for that - I mean, I'm on the friggin' board of the Historical Association, for crying out loud...) Apparently the driver of the Pontiac took this as a sign of aggression. Because, just after leaving Bethania, on the one-mile (or so) stretch before the two-lane spills into Winston-Salem's bustling Reynolda Road, he/she/it slammed on the brakes. Hard. As in, I WAS NOT following too closely (having just pulled away from a stop sign), and I still had to lock it down to keep from hitting them.

(Tip: when you're trying to wreck someone who, say, is tailgating you and pissing you off, for crying out loud, at least throw on your turn signal! At least pretend that your sudden stop was legit! People, I swear...)

Now's the time for a more thorough description. Like my car, the Pontiac was crusing with all four windows down. Unlike my car, out of each window dangled a painfully white and Spam-fattened arm clutching a burning cigarette. Judging by the passengers' silhouettes, they were rockin' some first class, Grade A mullets, too.

One other thing the Pontiac had that my car didn't - An unrestrained toddler. If memory serves, North Carolina requires children to use car seats until they're eight years old or weigh 80 pounds. This child was neither - couldn't have been more than four or five. And if he or she was in a car seat, then my chain-smoking friends need to invest in a new car seat. That's judging by the way the kid flew around the back seat when they brake-checked me a second time.

Reynolda Road is a four-lane, and my engine's both larger and in better repair. As I passed them, one of the women removed her Doral long enough to shout - out of the window of her moving car - "I GOT A BABY IN 'IS CAR, YA STUPID BITCH!" It's too bad I was laughing too hard to holler back, "And what a lucky tyke it is!" Seriously, let's hope the child who was so imperiled by MY driving survives the illegal car ride long enough to develop asthma from the second-hand smoke inhalation.

I guess I should count myself lucky that none of them shot a stream of Skoal juice at my car...Or I guess I should say, they're lucky. 'Cause you don't f*ck with a redneck's wheels. If they'd laid one single ash on my car, I would've been the one leading the patrol cars on the low-speed chase back to whatever single-wide on concrete blocks these classy folks call home. But I had a book to finish, and sunscreen to use, so I guess I'll never know exactly which of the north-city trailer parks they belonged to, and precisely how many pit bulls they had managed to cram into the 10-by-12 chain-link enclosure out back...I guess that's what I get for being a stupid bitch, huh?

I'm a stupid bitch with electrical issues, is what I am. The breaker which controls almost everything in my house that matters flipped its lid late Saturday night. So now my refrigerator's plugged into a power strip in the living room via one of those long orange extension cords running through half the house. I'm mortified, obviously...But it's consoling, in a way. The difference between ordinary rednecks like me and Honest-to-God white trash is that, when true white trash plug major kitchen appliances into outlets in inappropriate rooms, they don't care. Hell, they probably do it on purpose. (What could be more convenient than having the repository of beer and the TV in the same room, anyway?)

In other news, I'm prepared to grant my future husband Joakim Noah Honorary White Trash status. Over the holiday weekend, Noah observed the sacrifices of millions of U.S. military personnel in classic white trash fashion - boozing it up in public. According to ESPN.com, Noah (who was drafted by the Chicago Bulls last year), returned to his alma mater, where University of Florida campus police busted him on some minor traffic violations. His wheels out of commission, Noah was further busted for walking down a public street at 2 a.m. with an open container of what appeared to be beer. (It turned out he had a small amount of pot on him at the time.)

Well, I mean, really, who hasn't been there? They take your ride, what are you supposed to do? Just not party? Oh, come on. See, this is why Noah can only be honorary white trash. If he were honest-to-God, true white trash, he'd still be on the front porch of his mansion in Chicago on a Goodwill couch hollering at his bug-light.

(In all seriousness...why is it ok to walk around visibly drunk with gads of open containers - say, tailgating at a race or football game - but not at others? Inquiring rednecks need to know. Really, I need to know.)

A Very Special Pic of the Week

For the life of me, I can't understand why May 22, 2008 wasn't a national holiday. What, we can observe the birthday of the guy who, aside from leading the genocide of our country's indigenous population, thought he was actually "discovering" a subcontinent 10,000 miles away (to quote John Turturro in "Quiz Show," "They're Indians because some white guy got lost"), but we can't pause to reflect on the release of the first Indiana Jones movie in almost 20 years???

It's probably for the best. In this country we tend to mark our national holidays with things like gas price hikes and furniture close-out sales. Frankly, Indy deserves more than that.

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," the most recent of the franchise, was the movie that made me want to make movies. When I heard that Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, et al had finally gotten their sh*t together and were making Indy 4, I was both exhilarated and terrified - that it would suck and would sour the first three films for me. The Indiana Jones (formerly) trilogy hold a sacred place among movies for me. Even "Temple of Doom," which doesn't hold a candle to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Last Crusade," is redeemable because it introduced Spielberg to Kate Capshaw, and I can't begrudge a man his life partner. (Plus, there are elephants, which always ups a movie's cool points for me.)

I went to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on opening night with my mother, my sister and my nephew Alex, who's the same age as I was when "Last Crusade" came out. I was surprised when I arrived at The Grand half an hour before showtime that it wasn't more crowded. Hello??? When I saw the regretable "Phantom Menace" on opening night, every TV station for 40 miles had a remote van hovering out front to document the hoards of fanboys who'd made the pilgrimage.

Alex was more excited to be allowed to wear my vintage Lucasfilm-licensed Indy hat than to be seeing the film itself. I swear, I told myself, if this movie sucks, I will personally drive for the next three days to California to find George Lucas and demand a refund, like in that "South Park" episode with "The Passion of the Christ," $4 per gallon gas be damned.

It doesn't suck - far from it. Indy 4 has its flaws, but it's still the most entertaining film I've seen in a long time. Just a partial list of things I loved...the fact that they let Harrison Ford just be his age, instead of pretending it was still 1939...Karen Allen, who hasn't done much of anything since her role as Indy's perfect foil Marion Ravenwood back in "Raiders," instead of some 20-something love interest...the sly references to previous films, such as the warehouse (you know what I'm talking about) and Indy's snake phobia, which comes back at a particularly unfortunate (for him) time.

For the first 10 or so minutes, it's an aggressively Spielberg film in its visual touches, like he went back and rewatched "Duel" and "Jaws" for the first time in several years and remembered what he loved about filmmaking in the first place. There are moments when I can picture him on-set thinking to himself, "I'm Steven Spielberg, bitches!" And, as someone who couldn't sit through "A.I.," hated "The Terminal" and didn't even bother to watch "War of the Worlds," I'm thrilled to have the director I love back among us.

And I was pleasantly surprised by Shia LeBeouf, who was the biggest question mark for me coming in. I freely admit I was a little resentful of this child whose name I'd not heard a year ago getting to take part so prominently in the franchise that I love. But he made me a believer. At times, it seemed like he was acting in a different movie than the rest of the cast, but not because he was in the wrong...Does that make sense? For instance, he's the only character whose reactions made me believe that he was really feeling the reality of what I was seeing on-screen - Crazy Commies have kidnapped everyone I care about and will likely kill all of us. At one point, he lets a tear slide down his cheek, and I thought, Why is he crying? Oh yeah, because if this situation were actually happening in real life, guess what? He'd be crying.

That's my main complaint with "Crystal Skull"...it's not very deep compared with the other films in the series. The Indy films are a cut above the typical action flick precisely because they've got all the major organs - brain, heart, funny bone. This one's basically one long chase scene punctuated by moments of exposition. It's underwritten, but still well made. And, because I'm a bit of a Luddite, I have to gripe a bit about the CGI. It's nowhere near as bad as the "Star Wars" prequels, which looked like cartoons to me. But, one of the things I always loved about the Indies was their reality - everything you saw on-screen was real, even if only in miniature. That's missing here, for the sake of action sequences that still don't impress me because they, well, just don't look real.

All that said, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" made me feel things I hadn't felt upon leaving a contemporary movie in some time. One of the members of my screenwriting group and I were talking about this last week, how films are basically rides - you pick one because you expect it to leave you with a certain emotion. "Crystal Skull," despite its imperfections, made me want to jump on a horse (which I'm allergic to), crawl throught the jungle (ignoring my sweat phobia) and crack open a 5,000-year-old sarcophagus and rip out some bones because, dammit, I need a torch - all with that frakking gorgeous John Williams score urging me along. It made me feel like a kid again. And after all, that's kind of the point, right?

(All together now..."Da da da DA, da da DA... da da DA DA, da da DA DA DA...)

Pic of the Week: French People Behaving Badly Edition

[Maybe, in the interests of accuracy, I should change the name of this feature to “Pic of the Month,” or perhaps “Pic of the Millennium”…]

Just for fun, an all-French list. I could retroactively add “Breathless” to this list, but that would feel like cheating. From the land of people inexplicably obsessed with Jerry Lewis, here we go…

“Belle de Jour” (1967)
Given my four years of high school French, I translated the title literally – “pretty woman of day.” The actual idiom is translated more like “Morning Glory,” which also happens to be a much cooler title. From the opening sequence, you know this is a Luis Bunuel film. I’m not really into his whole surrealist movement, but here Bunuel uses surrealist elements like fantasy sequences to illustrate the main character’s state of mind so well that it seemed totally organic to me. Catherine Deneuve is a bored, and apparently frigid, housewife who won’t even sleep in the same bed with her adorable, adorably square and endlessly patient husband. Poor sap. Because the unfulfilled wife finds her way to a super-discreet brothel that allows her to work the day-shift, and she gets into all kinds of trouble. I’ve never been a big fan of the “self-actualization through adultery” genre, but there’s more than that going on here. Our heroine, and several other characters, have issues with balancing fantasy and reality. I thought the ending was unsatisfying, but I do like how Bunuel handled the material.

“Last Tango in Paris” (1972)
…picking up in the whole degrading sex meme where “Belle de Jour” leaves off, this is the movie that leaves my mother foaming at the mouth…though now, having seen it, I’m not sure if that’s because of the aforementioned degrading sex, or the fact that it’s boring as hell. Maybe that’s not fair. It was released at the height of the 1970s “who gives a sh*t?” era of filmmaking, and Pauline Kael loved it, so one should go into viewing this expecting a certain amount of built-in nap time. Basically, Marlon Brando’s a shockingly recent widower whose wife was cheating on him. Maria Schneider (whom I loved in “The Passenger” – she’s the sole reason I ignored Mom’s warnings and rented this) is a young French woman about to be married to Jean-Pierre Leaud (more on him later). They meet randomly in a vacant apartment for rent, have random sex and then continue to meet in said apartment for even more random sex. If that were the whole movie…hey, I’m all for depictions of random sex, since Antonioni says my eros is defective. But this is not erotica. It’s more like sex is a tool for the characters degrading one another. More precisely, for him to degrade her, as if he can avenge himself on his wife by sexually humiliating a woman who’s too naïve to know what’s happening until it’s too late. The acting is brilliant – I’ve never believed Brando more, with the possible exception of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” But still, a film that will disturb a lot of people. Coupling this with “Belle de Jour,” one wonders - Is meaningless, soul-destroying sex all French people care about?

“Paris Je T’aime” (2007)
Of course not! They’re also into looooooo-ve, with or without sex. I hesitated to include this one, since I didn’t actually watch it all the way through. I carry a certain amount of guilt for this. First of all, I consider quitting on a movie to be a character flaw. Second, “Paris je t’aime” was a film fest darling, what with its innovative use of some 20 international filmmakers, each producing a five-minute short about life and love in a different Paris neighborhood. The stories don’t link together at all. They’re just laid out there in all their five-minute Parisian glory. Theoretically, this should be my kind of movie because I have the attention span of a gnat. But it’s precisely because I have the attention span of a gnat that I need some structure, dammit. What I saw was pleasant. But in six weeks of Netflix “did you receive…?” e-mails, I couldn’t sit through all 20 segments. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a bathroom book. So, I’m obviously film fest-darling-deficient. Maybe you’ll like it better than I did.

“Delicatessen” (1991)
…Lucky for me, French people are into food, as well. But I wouldn’t recommend eating what’s on the menu at this joint…It takes place in an unspecified post-apocalyptic time that looks curiously like the 1950s (surely the post WWII years weren’t this bleak…) where food, particularly meat, is in short supply. The action centers on a carnival-creepy apartment building that also houses a butcher’s shop on its lower floor. The building’s tenants get their sustenance by luring itinerate workers and then, well, pretty much grinding them into sausage. Things go about their merry way until an out-of work clown (Dominique Pinon) moves in and falls for the butcher’s geeky daughter. Since “Delicatessen” is brought to you by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (co-directed by Marc Caro), you should expect a slightly distorted perspective, along with lots of hugely entertaining, laugh-out-loud details. (Jeunet also did “Amelie” and “City of Lost Children.”) But Jeunet strikes me as being the French Tim Burton – no matter how absurd the material or its presentation, he really makes you care about the fate of the characters. Side note – Pinon, the sweet hero here, played the psycho stalker diner customer Joseph in “Amelie,” and has appeared in several other Jeunet films.

“The 400 Blows” (1959)
But lest we forget, the French also gave us neo-realism, developed and popularized by, among others, my Dead Celebrity Crush #47, Francois Truffaut. “The 400 Blows,” aside from being one of those films that looms toward the top of any number of “Must-See if You Want to Call Yourself a Film Geek” lists, brings us another French idiom. “Striking one’s 400 blows” is an expression roughly akin to the American expression “sowing one’s wild oats,” and that’s what our scruffy, juvenile delinquent hero, Antoine Doinel, is doing here in the first of several Truffaut films featuring that character (supposedly a fictionalized version of Truffaut himself). I have to confess that I didn’t feel a great deal of sympathy for Antoine, because I didn’t identify with him. He does stupid sh*t, then digs himself even deeper by doing progressively more stupid sh*t. I was not a particularly stupid sh*t-doing kid, myself. But Jean-Pierre Leaud, in his debut role, is marvelous as Antoine (and would reprise the role in the later films). And there are some pretty neat film-geek tricks to pick up here. For one thing, Truffaut shot much of the film MOS, or without sound, which makes production cheaper because you can just shoot without having to worry about keeping the set quiet. But, it means that you have to go back and re-record all the dialogue and then dub it in, which has massive Samurai Mouth potential. However, the dubbing looked pretty seamless to me – remarkable, considering that more modern MOS attempts (“El Mariachi” comes to mind) had to cut like crazy to avoid Samurai Mouth. And, oh yeah…in any film textbook you’ll read a lot about the famous last shot of the film. It’s cool. But not necessarily any more well-done or fraught with meaning than the rest of the film.

Day for Night” (1973)
Now, this one has a special place in my heart because, not only was it the first film I watched in a bona fide college film class (the only thing that ass-hat UNCG professor did for me), but Dead Celebrity Crush #47 himself actually appears on-screen. Yep. Truffaut directed, and plays the director of a “film within a film” – which had to make for some interesting moments on-set. No, the plot’s not terribly consequential – some people are trying to make a movie – but it’s still a marvelous, and thoroughly entertaining, film. And it brings us yet another idiom, though this one’s not particular to France: “day for night” refers to the practice of shooting a night-time scene during broad daylight, using a special filter to make it look like it’s dark. (The French title, “La Nuit Americaine,” means the same thing.) It’s an old-school money-saving film trick that’s managed to survive into the digital era. Kind of fitting, since a major theme of “Day for Night” is the dying of old-school filmmaking – toward the end, the director character laments that they won’t be making movies like this much longer. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Digital filmmaking can be cheaper, more efficient, and it opens new technical possibilities. But there’s just something elemental about the act of exposing film, physically cutting it and splicing it back together…Progress is good, but it’s sad to see the old ways go. Also, Jean-Pierre Leaud appears in this one as well. So it definitely gets points for that.

Pic of the Week: You know, I know so many film geeks who swear by the 1995 flick “Living in Oblivion” as the ultimate depiction of life on-set. They obviously have not seen “Day for Night,” and they’re missing out.

You, sir, are no Edward R. Murrow

So, it wasn't enough for Keith Olbermann to destroy "Football Night in America," which you couldn't pay me to watch anymore. Now he's got to go bashing golf, too. Or rather, he's bashing President Bush's statement earlier this week that he gave up golf after the murder (in Iraq) of special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he told Politico. Well, he's right. And while President Bush came off as overly simplistic, I understood what he was trying to say. Yes, that's right; for some reason I don't feel the urge to bash Bush for this one. He doesn't get it, he's never going to get it. I mean, what would be the point? At this point Bush reminds me of a puppy I had once that I tried to house train. He'd sh*t in the house, so I'd wag my finger at him and toss him out on the porch, like all the books told me to do. Guess what? He just started sh*tting on the porch instead. He'd give me this look, like he honestly didn't get what on Earth he was doing wrong. Bush has that same look. (Later, Max went to live with a friend who had a farm, where he could frolic all day and sh*t where he pleased. Eight months, George, don't worry.)

But leave it to Olbermann to uncover a picture of Bush apparently golfing a few months after Vieira de Mello's death. BUSTED! Woo-hoo, Pulitzer for Mr. Olbermann! Wow, I feel so much safer with Ol' Keith keeping tabs on the world. And there he goes, co-opting Edward R. Murrow's "Good night, and good luck" tagline again. Golly, gee, Keith just oozes integrity, doesn't he?

Check out this video, part of a 12-minute rant on last night's "Special Comment" segment:



Whenever I catch these little rants, I always find myself wondering about a few things ... They're too seamless and organized, not to mention articulate, to be improvised. So that means somebody has to write this and program it into a teleprompter. Olbermann has to practice it. Which means that his seemingly on-the-fly Howard Beale-esque outrage is ... an act.

I might possibly find myself in agreement with some of what Olbermann says if his self-righteousness weren't so darn transparent. When he's fuming, I just can't shake this mental image of him back in his dressing room before the show, trying out various inflections to see which version sounds the most genuine, crossing his fingers that someday George Clooney will make a movie about him, too.

And really ... I don't care how gratifying it might be, how does this kind of "shut the hell up" dialogue contribute in any way to our public discourse?

Breaking News: Washington U. Students "Get Life," Big Time

So, building on yesterday's post, which referenced Washington University (St. Louis) and their decision to grant Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree...

- Yes, I know I misspelled her name. And no, I don't really care. I'll give her back her "L" when she gives me back my personal autonomy and basic civil rights.

- Why does SchLafly even need an honorary degree, especially from Washington University? She's already got a bachelor's and a law degree from there. If you ask me - keeping in mind that I'm the person on the college advancement staff who isn't responsible for bringing in $$$ - making her "more" of an alum shouldn't be necessary. If Washington U. isn't already in her will, this isn't likely to put them there.

Yesterday, when asked about the controversy, Schlafly removed her oxygen mask and popped in her dentures long enough to call the 3,000 members of the opposition Facebook group, et al, "a bunch of bitter women," saying they should "Get a life. Move on. Try to do something with your life." Wow, my mom was right. She really is a mean old snake. Hey, Phyllis, you kiss your grandkids with that mouth?

So, today, protesting students, faculty, non-whackjobs, etc., unveiled a Web site they've developed to spread the word about their displeasure. (I could be wrong, but I think I see a few men in that picket line...I wonder if they're bitter, too? Probably not, because then they'd be in church with their guns.)

It kind of makes me chuckle...if her "Get a life" comments are a true indication of what she's thinking, then she apparently honestly thinks that the main objection to Wash U. slapping a big wet kiss on her stems from her work against the Equal Rights Amendment. "It was 25 years ago that we buried the Equal Rights Amendment and they are still whining about it," she's quoted as saying.

Hmmm. The ERA missed its deadline for ratification in 1982, only after a 1979 deadline had been extended. That's 29 to 26 years, Phyllis, not 25. It's a small thing, I know. And she probably got sidetracked watching "Golden Girls" or something while she was doing the math. I think I'll cut Schlafly about as much slack as she cut Virginia Tech last year, less than a month after the shooting. I'll give her all the consideration she's offered to the 28 percent of women who are sexually assualted every year by a husband or other intimates.

It's amusing to me that Schlafly's getting her feathers ruffled so by the fact that students and others at Washington are organizing in opposition to her. I'm curious to know what, exactly, she would define as a "life," and how she would suggest one goes about attaining one. Maybe we should look at Schlafly's own biography for some clues:

- Her mother, Odile, was a college graduate who worked as a teacher before her marriage to Phyllis' father. During the Great Depression, Odile went back to work as a teacher and librarian to support both her own out-of-work husband and her father, an attorney. None of this is in her official biography, for some reason. Seriously, dropping my natural inclination to snark it up for a moment...did her mother working during her childhood somehow scar Schlafly for life? Personally, my family's precarious financial situation inspired me to get an education and develop a career so that I'd always be able to take care of myself. Schlafly's experience apparently prompted her to do the same...

- ...and then pull the ladder up behind her. I noted this in yesterday's post, so at the risk of repeating myself...Schlafly is obviously brilliant, highly educated (three degrees, not counting the latest BS from Washington U.) and accomplished, and yet she calls herself "America's best-known advocate of the dignity and honor that we as a society owe to the role of fulltime homemaker," something she's never been.

- On that subject...Schlafly has six kids. One son runs something called Conservapedia, which has some fun things to say about homosexuality. Another son came out in 1992. But it's okay, because he doesn't believe in gay marriage, says mommy dearest. And Dick Cheney's relatively nuanced position as an ardently conservative parent of a gay daughter? "I just think that's a blip that's going to pass in the night."

- Oh, yeah, one more thing. I read somewhere earlier this week (and now can't find it anywhere, natch) where no less than Ann Coulter called women who disagree with Schlafly - oh I can't remember, but it was something insulting involving conservative epithets like "Hollywood" and "botox." Anyway, the implication was that anyone who thinks, for instance, that marital rape does in fact occasionally happen is a blazingly brainless syncophant who probably drives a Volvo and doesn't shave her armpits. (Yeah, I know, consider the source.) So I thought the full list of this brilliant intellectual light's published works was interesting. Out of 20 books, Schlafly's own press published nine of them, including her first five.

This 1978 Time magazine article has a nice run-down of Schlafly's political career up to that point, not including the self-published books. But it does have this tidbit: "Her opponents claim that she is using the ERA issue to aid her own career, but she denies having further ambitions for political office. Still, given her record, she seems unlikely to retire to hearth and home."

So, in other words, Schlafly went all George Wallace the legislation that would have helped secure education and advancement for all the people (not just women) who, unlike her, weren't raised by other educated, privileged people.

Yeah, she infuriates me, and so to the other "Aunt Thomasina" women who bash feminism from their high seat at the kiddie table in the Old Boys Club banquet hall. But then I remember, she's going to die soon anyway. I mean that as un-nastily as possible, I really do. It's just that, how relevant is this person, really? Before this week, when was the last time you'd heard about Phyllis Schlafly?

So, what, Phyllis, you kept the ERA from passing before I was even born, good for you. I'm still out here at my job, owning my own home (which is really messy btw - do you mind swinging by and tidying up on your way to St. Louis? kthnx.) and pretty much just living my life as if I'm entitled to everything any man is, and getting it. But I'm not so arrogant that I can ignore the role privilege has played in my life, and that others haven't had a lot of those privileges. That's where I differ with venomous bone-bags like Schlafly.

Well, that, and the whole "I'm not evil" thing.

Isn't Phyllis Schafly dead yet?

Somehow, in the 47 billion colleges I attended and the two where I've been employed, I've been lucky enough to have dodged the twin teats of attention-whoredom on which much of higher education can't help but suck: celebrity commencement speakers and honorary degrees. But after watching this yearly rite of spring - students, faculty, alumni, etc., blowing a gasket over some controversial interloper's seat on the platform party - I can't help but wonder if some colleges and universities go out of their way to court publicity, by any means necessary.

Let's start with commencement speakers. It used to be that a college would invite a reputable academic, prestigious government figure or - rarely - a writer or other entertainer who had demonstrated a scholarly bent. Presumably these figures were better able to impart the wisdom they'd picked up along their reputable, pretigious and scholarly paths. Better yet, this gravitas was sure to rub off on the university, improving the reputation, prestige - oh, you know, blah blah blah - of the school itself. Same with honorary degrees, except that one involves the school shelling out money, while the other involves at least the promise that the school will get some money. (Quid pro quo, Clarice.)

But the brouhaha over Washington University's decision to grant longtime anti-pretty-much-everything whack-job Phyllis Schafly (over 3,000 in the Facebook group opposed to this - including yours truly) indicates, at least to me, that this whole celebrity commencement pissing match is getting WAY out of hand.

(Pause for a rant - I'm not the first to note the irony of granting an honorary Ph.D. to someone who got her master's from a women's college and then a friggin' law degree, then another master's from Harvard, and who has then devoted her career to telling women that feminists are evil because we want them to be able to go to college, law school, etc... Oh, and that higher education is stupid. BTW, she also thinks it's impossible for a husband to rape his wife. And you thought "whack-job" was just me being hyperbolicious, didn't you?)

For what it's worth, it seems that some - sorry! - prestigious, reputable colleges in the U.S. don't play the honorary-degrees-for-attention game, at least not this year. For instance, you're not likely to read about any of Columbia University's 2008 honorees in People magazine. (But then again, last year Princeton gave one to Muhammed Ali. So there you go.) St. Mary's College of Maryland, on the other hand, gave honorary degrees to former Maryland governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (makes a little sense) and Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank (I love Third World micro-lending, too, but...huh?)

This Web site has a supposedly comprehensive (and strangely addictive) list of celebrities who've received honorary degrees. It looks like the folks at Berklee College of Music might need some sort of 12-step intervention...

Meanwhile, back at the keynote speaker ranch...Inside Higher Ed reports that the furor over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's commencement address at the University of Georgia has less to do with his conservatism and more to do with bad timing: it seems UGA has been accused of mis-handling few high profile sexual harassment cases lately. Oops.

What is this speaker/degree brinksmanship getting colleges and universities, besides steadily larger chunks of money devoted to events that few people can even attend, as opposed to, say, faculty salaries? From where I sit, it seems that so much of this is driven not by a sincere desire to draw parallels between the college and Phyllis Schafly or Clarence Thomas (*shudder*). No, this is happening because some alum knows somebody who knows somebody, etc., who plays golf or whatever with Thomas. It's because Schafly's going to kick the bucket any day now (*fingers crossed*) and Washington U. wants her planned gift. At a much more cynical level, it's about people within the college community who think the best way to promote their alma mater is to get it on the 6 o'clock news, any way, any how.

News flash - the prospective students on whom your alma mater's survival ultimately depends don't watch the 6 o'clock news. They're busy texting each other asking who Phyllis Schafly is. Just because reading a front page story in your podunk local daily about the big name who lighted on your campus long enough to wear a funny robe and impart words of wisdom doesn't mean said article is going to translate into a single admission.

I have a much better idea. You know that pile of money you're spending on a big name commencement speaker in order to "raise the profile" of the university? Try giving it to the communications and marketing budget next year instead. kthnx bai.

Close Encounters of the Hillary Kind

As I mentioned in my last post, I got to attend both Obama and Clinton rallies last week. One was intentional, one wasn't. Both were thrown together in a matter of hours, largely organized by volunteers, trying to get in under the wire - North Carolina's May 6 primary.

At the Obama rally, I really was just one of a few thousand attendees. Since Clinton spoke on the campus of the college where I work, I got a much better seat to that rally (and a press pass that I will keep forever)...ironic, since I'm not a Clinton supporter. But, my non-support allowed me to view the proceedings with a great deal more objectivity than I would have had otherwise.

My boss told me at about 5 p.m. Wednesday that the Clinton campaign had approached Guilford about holding an event in our gym. We got the confirmation Thursday morning, but that was it. Just, this is happening at this time - no other details. By the way, our commencement is this Saturday, and the Friday of Clinton's visit was the first day of exams. As impressed as I am at the Clinton people and their ability to schedule events on the fly, let's not forget that they do this every day. I'd like to pause for a moment to recognize Guilford's staff, who pulled this together literally at a moment's notice. Everything worked, no snafus and, best of all (from my perspective), no streakers!

So let's focus on the event itself. The single coolest moment of the day, if you ask me, was that random time before lunch when our staff was just kind of walking through, making sure the press had a place to park, etc., and the sound guys asked me to do Hillary's sound-check. Yep. I happened to be the only woman in the gym at that point, so it was me who got to go up on the stage and blow into the mic.

If you know me, you know that I have zero problem talking under pretty much any circumstances. But for some reason, broadcast-like machinery leaves me flummoxed (which is why I didn't go into TV). I feel like a dumbass standing up there saying "check....check...." and I never know how high to appropriately count. So after a few moments of me stuttering, the main sound guy says, "Tell me yur plan for America." Now all kinds of things are popping into my head, none of which I can say because the Hillary campaign people are milling about, and they probably don't have much of a sense of humor at this point. So, I say, "My plan for America? If John McCain wins, I'm moving to Mexico, 'cause I won't be able to afford to live here anymore." This gets a big laugh. Also, the sound guys love me because the timbre of my voice, apparently, is similar to Hillary's. I still can't decide how I feel about this.

Fast-forwarding a bit...they actually ended up holding the door-opening for bit in the hopes that more people would show up. Attendance was pretty light...That's no reflection on Hillary. It's just that a) the event was in the middle of an 80-degree Friday afternoon, b) people only had 24 hours notice and c) everyone in this area who wants to see Hillary has had ample opportunity. Seriously. That same afternoon, Chelsea Clinton was scheduled to appear at Salem College (my alma mater!), after already appearing at the Young Dems convention. Hillary herself spoke again in High Point, not 20 minutes away, over the weekend. And I think Bill's still going door-to-door in my neighborhood. We're a bit saturated.

Just before Hillary's arrival, a staffer informs the local press (including me) that we'll be allowed in the "buffer zone" for a few minutes (whatever that is.) It turns out that the buffer zone is the area right in front of the stage. And that's how I find myself kneeling on the floor looking up the blue pants-suit of a woman I've only ever seen on TV, and only expected to see, ever, from hundreds of feet away.

And you know something? When I saw Chelsea back in March, I was so struck by not just her poise and intellect, but her physical beauty. And I can honestly say she gets it from her mother. I know it's fashionable to paint Hillary as this ball-crunching harpy. But - I swear to you - she's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She just glows. When she walked out on that stage, my jaw dropped. There's this strange sensation when you see someone famous in person for the first time, when you start noticing that he/she's short, flabby, etc. Hillary looks just as I imagined her, and so much more.

Part of it is this amazing presence, without which, of course, no one survives in politics. And she's nothing if not a political animal. Like her husband, Hillary could convince you that the sky isn't blue. She could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, as the saying goes. But that's my problem...this isn't a high school debate society. I don't care how sound an argument one can make. Hell, I'm a Gemini, that ability doesn't impress me.

For instance, at one point in her remarks, Hillary said (paraphrasing here) that, if Henry Ford were to pop open the hood of a modern car, he'd see basically the same engine he built 100 years ago, that in fact the Model T got better gas mileage than modern SUVs (Maybe because the Model T weighed less than my laptop? Maybe 'cause drivers back then weren't competing for oil with a billion Chinese people?). That's my issue with Hillary. She can't just make a valid point about how fuel economy standards need to improve. She's got to go 50 miles past the point to some completely unnecessary rhetorical mirage that makes her look like she's oversimplifying at best, lying at worst. Engines haven't changed in 100 years? Great, now every greasemonkey who drives a fuel-injected, non-carburated Saturn (e.g., Me) thinks you're a fraking idiot. Or that you're just lying. Neither is good.

I know she's an intelligent woman, so I can only conclude that she doesn't think I'm capable of nuanced reasoning. And, call me crazy, but that kinda pisses me off. I want my president to trust me to understand the fine print. (And I really want my president to understand how her car works...but I'm a redneck, so that might just be me.) Later in her speech, Hillary talked about the need to make college more affordable. (Downloading college-location talking-points now...) And she mentioned various people she's met who are paying astronomical interest rates on their student loans - 20, 30 percent - citing them as evidence. Once again, WAY overstating the problem. I'm sorry, if you're paying 30 percent interest on a student loan, it's because you f*cked up. I don't even carry 30 percent on that credit card I can never seem to pay on time. Some unsophisticated borrower bit on a loan-consolidation scam, and yes, that sucks. But don't drag the feds into this.

She's taking the most extreme example and casting it as the norm. This reminds me of a class I took my first year in college, back when I was still pre-law, about how to (and how not to) argue. As part of one debate, I argued in favor of legalizing hemp crops in the U.S. In my inexperience, I thought that it would be to my advantage to downplay the relationship between hemp and marijuana. One of my classmates called me on it, saying, basically, that my argument seemed too good to be true, that he wondered what I was leaving out. That's the danger of Hillary's style of debating. By oversimplifying and sugar-coating the facts, she leaves our platform too open to attack.

Also, can I just say that her speech last night from Indiana scared the crap out of me? Look, Hillary, getting killed in one state and winning another by less than 40,000 votes is not a victory. And the fact that you could stand up there and pretend that it is reminded me painfully of "Mission Accomplished" banners and "I don't think anyone anticipated the breech of the levees." I've had eight years of this Orwellian BS, and I don't want any more.

And, btw...every time Hillary talks about her plan to make a plan to begin to plan to withdraw troops from Iraq within her first 60 days, all I want to do is scream. So, voting to authorize the war in Iraq was not a mistake, but you're going to withdraw troops anyway? And stop implying that because I oppose your gas tax sop that I'm an elitist "egghead," you Yalie.

The week that was

It feels like it's been about 10 years since my last post, instead of 10 days. So, here's what the intervening time was like for me:

Monday: Bruce Springsteen in concert - woo-hoo! (Floor seats and everything!)

Tuesday: Barack Obama rally here in Winston-Salem - I'm glad I went, but it wasn't as surreal as I thought it would be. Tuesday afternoon, when I call Mom to brag and she tells me she's on her way to see Bill Clinton, I don't even get a Bill-related flutter in my stomach. Is this how people in Iowa and New Hampshire feel all the time?

Wednesday: Back to normal...or so I thought. As I'm walking out of the office, I'm informed that the Hillary Clinton campaign has asked to hold a get-out-the-vote rally here on campus on Friday. No other details.

Thursday: We get the confirmation on Hillary's rally by about 9:30, but no other details. We're supposed to do a walk-through with the Secret Service people and the Clinton advance people in the afternoon. (Over the next 24 hours, I'll tell roughly 497 people, most of them strangers, that my uncle's getting married to a Secret Service agent on Sunday.) Thursday night, I somehow make it to a Young Dems meeting, even though I still haven't packed and I get to meet Hillary frakin' Clinton tomorrow.

Friday: See, here's the issue. Julie, the photographer that we always hire when we need good pictures might not be able to get here until right before the rally starts. But we need a picture of our president with Sen. Clinton, so someone's got to get clearance to go "behind the curtain" and snap the pic once Clinton arrives. And that person might end up being me. I touch up my eye-shadow just in case...but as it turns out Julie gets there in plenty of time.

I was a little disappointed by the whole thing. People arriving, a handful of students actually protesting, and I still feel so detached from it all. I might as well be watching this on TV. I'm waiting for what Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" called "the click" (only not in an alcoholic way). I want to be one of those people who faints and pulls out my hair when the Beatles get off the plane, but I don't think it's ever going to happen.

The closest I got was a mild palpitation when the traveling press corps arrived. On one end of the gym, a former first lady, U.S. Senator, and front-running presidential candidate whom we know had sex with Bill Clinton at least once is catching her breath behind a masking drape. On the other are a dozen overly surly, poorly fed masters of journalism who make less than I do working for WaPo, the Times and CNN and who are shooting the local press the evil eye 'cause we got the good seats on the platform. Guess where my attention was?

I'll share more thoughts on Clinton's remarks later. From a standpoint of, "I can tell my grandkids about this," it was pretty cool. (I got to go into the "buffer zone," btw - the area between the stage and the audience.) And I'd put heavy money on the fact that a good portion of the people attending were there just to be able to say they saw Hillary Clinton, not because they plan on voting for her.

But I give her enormous, heaping kudos for actually being somewhat close to on time. Because that meant that I got to leave the office on time, get home, pack, get to my parents' house and leave on schedule for Georgia, where the most important event of the week happened - my Uncle Scott's wedding.

Saturday: driving, driving, driving...Apparently while rolling around on the floor in the buffer zone snapping pictures of Hillary Clinton, I seriously strained muscles in my thighs. Couple that with five to six hours in a car, and I'm walking kind of funny. Saturday's also the day of the rehearsal dinner, held at a lovely restaurant that inexplicably doesn't serve alcohol. (This is even more funny if you know my family.) Don't worry, we picked up supplies later.

Which turned out to be a good thing, as I'm not sure I could've gotten my mom to watch the Richmond race with me if we hadn't been exhausted, but with plenty of wine. (This should probably be its own post...)

Sunday: The wedding isn't until tonight, so we meet up with my grandmother, aunt, uncle and two cousins at good ol' Cracker Barrel. (Yeah, 'cause I don't have to fit into a pretty dress in six hours or anything. I think I'll have some hashbrown casserole.) It turns out that our hotel is right across the street from the Mall of Georgia, so my little sister Elizabeth and our friend Kristie decide to, ahem, get some exercise after lunch. We did have an actual mission - handbags, cheap sparkly jewelry from Claire's, etc. (I LOVE Claire's. If I ever go to the Oscars, that's totally where I'm buying everything.)

Okay, so my new Aunt Tania (I love writing that!) is not only perfect for my Uncle Scott, but also happens to be magnificent in her own right. Let me just give you an example: not half an hour before the wedding was to start, Elizabeth and I came upon Tania sitting in a hallway just inside the entrance to the house where they were getting married. And do you know what she said? This gorgeous woman, sitting there in her wedding gown, her hair and make-up flawlessly done, glowing becuse it's the happiest day of her life, says, "Oh, you two look so beautiful!" That's what I'm talking about. Tania loves Scott, we know. But she also loves his family, and that's what pushes her off the charts.

And that's when I felt the click. Yeah, yeah, Springsteen, Obama, Clinton, traveling press corps gys...Y'all have nothing on my family. I may not be a screamer, but, when I'm feeling that warmth somewhere in my mid-section, I know how to let it in. I'm thrilled that Scott and Tania found each other, and even more thrilled that they had the courage to just go after one another. Nothing could compare to last Sunday, seeing that many truly happy people in one place.

Monday: Rode home. Legs still hurting. Went to sleep.

Tuesday: wasn't some primary thing happening today......?