It's not easy being a green NASCAR fan. There's more than a little cognitive dissonance involved. You've got to reconcile your sense of obligation to the planet that gave you birth, your responsibility to your grand-kids, with the fact that a high octane-burning V8 is just damn cool. When you hear those 43 engines roaring by at 200 m.p.h. and see them casting off used rubber five or six times each race, and you smell that heady perfume of burning fossil fuels...you just feel like an a-hole the next day lecturing other people about how they should recycle more, you know?
But maybe there's a solution. ESPN.com's Ryan McGee puts forth the possibility that one day NASCAR's big guns could fun on alternative fuel made from kudzu. Sweet. You'd be killing about a half-dozen birds with one stone, if you could make it work. For starters, that mess is everywhere. Kudzu's got to be a better source of ethanol (as are many plants, such as sugar cane). And unlike corn, people all over the world don't need to eat it. (How screwed up is that, by the way? Here's this substance, and you can either eat it or use it to power a car. Guess what the U.S. government wants to do. One thing on which I don't agree with Barack Obama.)
I can see it now - thanks to new kudzu fuel, the entire Southeastern U.S. turns into the 1980s version of West Texas, only without the Bushes. And we still get our racin'. Ooh, even better idea: let's tariff the hell out of it, just as a "f*ck you" to those Midwestern corn-loving states who expect our federal tax-dollars to subsidize their inferior corn-ethanol. (I'm tired of spending money protecting industries that can't hack it on their own, aren't you?) All those stereotypes of people who live in Appalachia? Gone, 'cause guess who lives in the kudzu capital of the world? That's right - who you calling redneck now, bitches?!? Go pump my kudzu-gas.
(Okay, I'm excited now, we totally need to make this happen!)
Thursday, June 26, 2008
"Dalton Trumbo and American Evil"
I'm a bit of a documentary junkie, so I hope I get to see this one...Andrew O'Hehir over at Salon.com has a sort-of review of "Trumbo," an upcoming documentary about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten."
It's always interesting to me to see Hollywood treatments of the McCarthy era, when a number of actors, filmmakers and writers were "blacklisted" because of actual or alleged relationships to the Communist Party. It's kind of like when Germany makes a Holocaust film. There's always an undercurrent of self-flagellation with a side of self-pity and a self-righteous cherry on top. "We did horrible things," they seem to say. "In fact, we knew they were horrible at the time but we were powerless to stop the horribleness. So you can't really hold it against us. Actually, now that we think of it, we're pretty damned heroic."
I don't think that admitted Communist filmmakers who lost their careers were heroes. I don't think the other filmmakers who in many cases sold them out to save their own skins were pure evil. I don't think it's fair for anyone who didn't live through this to pass judgment on anyone who did. (Except for McCarthy himself. I don't need to walk in his shoes to know he was a f*cker.)
I do think this period in history is not something Americans should sweep under the rug, as we tend to do with anything unpleasant that doesn't fit in with our rosy national narrative. When people can be jailed simply for holding a belief, and their friends and neighbors do nothing to prevent it - that's not something we should ever forget.
By the way...So, did you know that Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, had ties to the Communist Party USA? The mistress he had for years was a longtime party member, as were many friends and colleagues. It was pretty hard in the 1930s to be an intellectual or academic and not have at least some connection to the party. And the Feds were perfectly aware of this, too. So, the guy who's in charge of building the atomic bomb can be a Communist sympathizer, and that's okay. But 10 or 15 years later, that guy who wrote "Gun Crazy" is a mortal threat to America's way of life??? Right. I say again, Joe McCarthy was a f*cker, and if there's any justice in this world, he and J. Edgar Hoover are lacing up their corsets on the same circle of Hell. Here's hoping they leave room for Dick Cheney.
It's always interesting to me to see Hollywood treatments of the McCarthy era, when a number of actors, filmmakers and writers were "blacklisted" because of actual or alleged relationships to the Communist Party. It's kind of like when Germany makes a Holocaust film. There's always an undercurrent of self-flagellation with a side of self-pity and a self-righteous cherry on top. "We did horrible things," they seem to say. "In fact, we knew they were horrible at the time but we were powerless to stop the horribleness. So you can't really hold it against us. Actually, now that we think of it, we're pretty damned heroic."
I don't think that admitted Communist filmmakers who lost their careers were heroes. I don't think the other filmmakers who in many cases sold them out to save their own skins were pure evil. I don't think it's fair for anyone who didn't live through this to pass judgment on anyone who did. (Except for McCarthy himself. I don't need to walk in his shoes to know he was a f*cker.)
I do think this period in history is not something Americans should sweep under the rug, as we tend to do with anything unpleasant that doesn't fit in with our rosy national narrative. When people can be jailed simply for holding a belief, and their friends and neighbors do nothing to prevent it - that's not something we should ever forget.
By the way...So, did you know that Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, had ties to the Communist Party USA? The mistress he had for years was a longtime party member, as were many friends and colleagues. It was pretty hard in the 1930s to be an intellectual or academic and not have at least some connection to the party. And the Feds were perfectly aware of this, too. So, the guy who's in charge of building the atomic bomb can be a Communist sympathizer, and that's okay. But 10 or 15 years later, that guy who wrote "Gun Crazy" is a mortal threat to America's way of life??? Right. I say again, Joe McCarthy was a f*cker, and if there's any justice in this world, he and J. Edgar Hoover are lacing up their corsets on the same circle of Hell. Here's hoping they leave room for Dick Cheney.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
What the #@&^*#@$!!!
Ok, so I'm reading this Time.com piece about the high school students in Gloucester, Mass., who hit the news last week because they supposedly made a "pact" to get pregnant and have babies in high school. (Of course, that blood-oath thing turned out to be not quite true...but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?)
The Time article is a nice examination of how the story was interpreted by anyone with an agenda - abstinence-only sex-ed folks, sane access to birth control folks, etc. In the rush to turn this into a message of some kind, the real issues - HELLO! Seventeen teen-aged mothers!!! And their almost certainly doomed-to-poverty kids! - got steamrolled. I particularly love the part where one of the young women told Good Morning America that she's mystified as to why the screaming heads think movies like "Juno" are to blame.
Then we get to this chestnut of BS - after an analysis of trends in teen pregnancy rates, Time concludes that girls aren't having sex or getting pregnant in greater numbers than they ever were, just that more of them are keeping their babies. "Surely they deserve more sympathy and support than shame and derision [yes, good], if the trend they reflect is not a typical teenager's inclination to have sex [a bit shaky - do you have some sort of data to back that up?] but rather a willingness to take responsibility for the consequences."
LOUD NOISES!!! Oooooh, that pisses me off. So, a 16- or 17-year-old who gets pregnant, has the baby, keeps the baby, permanently f*cks her life, her kid's life and the baby-daddy's life, not to mention the extra load on her 50-something-year-old parents, deserves a gold star? But the girl who makes a different decision is an evil lazy slacker? We saw this same crap back when Jamie Lynn Spears announced her pregnancy - this condescending pat-on-the-head for a young, inexperienced person under immense pressure, simply because she made a decision that happens to jibe with that of the patriarchy.
Let's get a few things straight - children are a gift, but they can be an incredible burden to someone who isn't prepared financially or emotionally. The decision to carry through an unplanned pregnancy is a deeply personal one, and not easily made no matter what a woman's age. No one needs the added burden of feeling like she'll disappoint people if she doesn't make the "right" choice. There's more than one way to be responsible. For one woman, giving her baby up for adoption could be the responsible choice. For another, terminating the pregnancy early on could be the responsible choice, as heartbreaking as that choice would be. Pretty much any course of action that doesn't end with the baby left in a Dumpster is responsible.
Time's right when they state that these young people deserve support, not shaming. To that I wish they'd added, "and they also don't deserve judgment - ours or anyone else's."
The Time article is a nice examination of how the story was interpreted by anyone with an agenda - abstinence-only sex-ed folks, sane access to birth control folks, etc. In the rush to turn this into a message of some kind, the real issues - HELLO! Seventeen teen-aged mothers!!! And their almost certainly doomed-to-poverty kids! - got steamrolled. I particularly love the part where one of the young women told Good Morning America that she's mystified as to why the screaming heads think movies like "Juno" are to blame.
Then we get to this chestnut of BS - after an analysis of trends in teen pregnancy rates, Time concludes that girls aren't having sex or getting pregnant in greater numbers than they ever were, just that more of them are keeping their babies. "Surely they deserve more sympathy and support than shame and derision [yes, good], if the trend they reflect is not a typical teenager's inclination to have sex [a bit shaky - do you have some sort of data to back that up?] but rather a willingness to take responsibility for the consequences."
LOUD NOISES!!! Oooooh, that pisses me off. So, a 16- or 17-year-old who gets pregnant, has the baby, keeps the baby, permanently f*cks her life, her kid's life and the baby-daddy's life, not to mention the extra load on her 50-something-year-old parents, deserves a gold star? But the girl who makes a different decision is an evil lazy slacker? We saw this same crap back when Jamie Lynn Spears announced her pregnancy - this condescending pat-on-the-head for a young, inexperienced person under immense pressure, simply because she made a decision that happens to jibe with that of the patriarchy.
Let's get a few things straight - children are a gift, but they can be an incredible burden to someone who isn't prepared financially or emotionally. The decision to carry through an unplanned pregnancy is a deeply personal one, and not easily made no matter what a woman's age. No one needs the added burden of feeling like she'll disappoint people if she doesn't make the "right" choice. There's more than one way to be responsible. For one woman, giving her baby up for adoption could be the responsible choice. For another, terminating the pregnancy early on could be the responsible choice, as heartbreaking as that choice would be. Pretty much any course of action that doesn't end with the baby left in a Dumpster is responsible.
Time's right when they state that these young people deserve support, not shaming. To that I wish they'd added, "and they also don't deserve judgment - ours or anyone else's."
Monday, June 23, 2008
Meet the Press Smackdown! Joe vs. Lindsey
It was with more than a little trepidation that I approached my very first Tim Russert-less edition of "Meet the Press" yesterday morning. Sure, NBC gave us a buffer in the form of last Sunday's memorial/retrospective. But with the 6/22 edition, it was back to something resembling normalcy. Only this time Russert's giant shoes would be filled by...Brian Williams.
I'm a bit lukewarm to Williams. He's a throwback to the good ol' days of Broadcast Man, the white bread (and white) clean-cut Boy Scout of indeterminate accent, only without the obvious intelligence of a Walter Cronkite or a Tom Brokaw. He makes me yawn. If Broadcast Barbie ever needed a milquetoast Ken, she'd hire Brian Williams. But I hate to bitch too much...at least Williams has never gone within 100 miles of the self-righteous hysteria that's the stock in trade of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
I should cut Williams some slack - it couldn't have been an easy job. And he did okay. But I couldn't help missing Tim Russert like hell at several points.
To recap: two senators, Joe Biden (Delaware) and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) played proxies for the Obama and McCain campaigns, respectively. Let me go ahead and admit my bias - while Joe Biden, a former Democratic nominee for president, was not my first choice or even my fifth, I think he's cool as hell. He's on my list of people I want to have a beer with. As for Graham...Ah, what can I say about Lindsey Graham? His name fits him perfectly. He's the sniveling little f*cker with a Howdy Doody haircut that you hated in kindergarten, just on principle, who first arose to national prominance when he presented the House's case in the impeachment of President Clinton.
Apparently that particular exercise in hubris was only a dress rehearsal. Remember when Randy Moss was still with the Vikings, and he pretended to moon the Green Bay fans, and Fox Sports' Joe Buck had to go clutch his smelling salts for what seemed like several decades? Multiply that by a thousand, and you have a rough approximation of Graham's performance on Sunday. He would've been entertaining enough in his own right, but coupled with Biden's pugilism and Williams's total effeteness (effetery? I like that better. I think I'll officially make that a word if it's not already), Sunday's broadcast was a perfect storm - The Clash of the Talking Point Titans.
Basically, we got a preview of the McCain camp's big anti-Obama message: he's an opportunist who can't be trusted. Expected argument, and laughably easy to deflect. It's a presidential campaign after all. What took this to the next level, for me, was Graham's utter commitment to that angle. To hear him tell it, every disaster large and small can be chalked up to the fact that Obama is [gasp!] a politician, who, as politicians are wont to do, sometime tacks to the prevailing winds. (Not at all like John "torture is bad unless the USA is doing it" McCain. Not at all.) No matter what the question, Lindsey had the answer. I try to watch "Meet the Press" with clear eyes, but like I said, I fully admit a bias against both mindless spin. But see what you think...
I gotta ask...Lindsey seems pretty heartbroken by Obama's decision to forego public financing. Either he drank the Obamamania Kool-Aid, or he's full of what my high school Spanish teacher called caca. Spare me the crocodile tears, dude.
(Personally, I think Williams dropped the ball. I can't help wondering how Russert might have cut off Graham's concern-trollish blustering. Luckily, NBC announced late Sunday that Brokaw will serve as interim MTP moderator through November. Thank Heaven for small favors.)
I'm a bit lukewarm to Williams. He's a throwback to the good ol' days of Broadcast Man, the white bread (and white) clean-cut Boy Scout of indeterminate accent, only without the obvious intelligence of a Walter Cronkite or a Tom Brokaw. He makes me yawn. If Broadcast Barbie ever needed a milquetoast Ken, she'd hire Brian Williams. But I hate to bitch too much...at least Williams has never gone within 100 miles of the self-righteous hysteria that's the stock in trade of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
I should cut Williams some slack - it couldn't have been an easy job. And he did okay. But I couldn't help missing Tim Russert like hell at several points.
To recap: two senators, Joe Biden (Delaware) and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) played proxies for the Obama and McCain campaigns, respectively. Let me go ahead and admit my bias - while Joe Biden, a former Democratic nominee for president, was not my first choice or even my fifth, I think he's cool as hell. He's on my list of people I want to have a beer with. As for Graham...Ah, what can I say about Lindsey Graham? His name fits him perfectly. He's the sniveling little f*cker with a Howdy Doody haircut that you hated in kindergarten, just on principle, who first arose to national prominance when he presented the House's case in the impeachment of President Clinton.
Apparently that particular exercise in hubris was only a dress rehearsal. Remember when Randy Moss was still with the Vikings, and he pretended to moon the Green Bay fans, and Fox Sports' Joe Buck had to go clutch his smelling salts for what seemed like several decades? Multiply that by a thousand, and you have a rough approximation of Graham's performance on Sunday. He would've been entertaining enough in his own right, but coupled with Biden's pugilism and Williams's total effeteness (effetery? I like that better. I think I'll officially make that a word if it's not already), Sunday's broadcast was a perfect storm - The Clash of the Talking Point Titans.
Basically, we got a preview of the McCain camp's big anti-Obama message: he's an opportunist who can't be trusted. Expected argument, and laughably easy to deflect. It's a presidential campaign after all. What took this to the next level, for me, was Graham's utter commitment to that angle. To hear him tell it, every disaster large and small can be chalked up to the fact that Obama is [gasp!] a politician, who, as politicians are wont to do, sometime tacks to the prevailing winds. (Not at all like John "torture is bad unless the USA is doing it" McCain. Not at all.) No matter what the question, Lindsey had the answer. I try to watch "Meet the Press" with clear eyes, but like I said, I fully admit a bias against both mindless spin. But see what you think...
I gotta ask...Lindsey seems pretty heartbroken by Obama's decision to forego public financing. Either he drank the Obamamania Kool-Aid, or he's full of what my high school Spanish teacher called caca. Spare me the crocodile tears, dude.
(Personally, I think Williams dropped the ball. I can't help wondering how Russert might have cut off Graham's concern-trollish blustering. Luckily, NBC announced late Sunday that Brokaw will serve as interim MTP moderator through November. Thank Heaven for small favors.)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I hate it when people f*ck with my uterus
Apparently, the American Medical Association needs some busy-work. Yep, now that our nation's doctors have cured cancer, AIDS and heart disease and implemented that efficient-yet-comprehensive public health care system, they clearly needed something else to occupy them. How else can you explain the AMA's resolution, introduced by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, to ban home birth? I mean, I can't think of any other reason, other than the erradication of every other medical problem on the planet, for the AMA to go and f*ck with my uterus.
I'm sorry, what was that? The AMA hasn't cured cancer, AIDS and heart disease? Millions of Americans still don't have health insurance? It's still easier to buy liquor than fresh fruit in East Winston? Huh. I guess the AMA are just f*cktards.
I'm a little pissy, in case you can't tell.
Here's the thing. I'm not going to get into a debate about how safe home birth and/or midwifery is vs. a traditional hospital birth. I know plenty of women who've opted for non-traditional birth (at home with a doula, at birthing center with midwife in addition to doctor, etc.), and I know just as many women who had radical, unforeseen complications during childbirth and likely would've died had they not been in a hospital. When I have kids (a LONG ways off), I'm leaning toward home birth because I hate how the modern "health" care system treats pregnancy like a disease to be cured. I hate the horror stories about women forced into taking potentially dangerous medication, or into having C-sections. I really hate hearing from Medicaid patients who got second-class treatment.
But I may change my mind on that. That's the thing about options - having them allows one to choose what's best in a given situation for herself and her family. Not, say, what's best for her OB/GYN's tee-time.
Some say the AMA and ACOG are motivated solely by the business they stand to lose if more women go the home-birth route. That may be a piece of it. But I'd say a good portion of their motives come from pure old-fashioned paternalism. (Hey, I don't blame them...It must suck to realize that an 80-year-old woman on top of a mountain somewhere knows as much or more about birthin' babies than you do with your $100,000+ education.) (Not to suggest that all midwives fit that stereotype. They have to go through a pretty rigorous licensing procedure.)
As far as I'm concerned, they're no better than the fundies who want to outlaw abortion, early contraception or birth control pills. In both cases, the argument goe like this: You, the woman, don't have the capacity to research your options. You don't have the judgement to make an informed decision. And you're far too emotional to deal with any consequences arising from your decision. It's best to let us, the (typically) privileged old white men, make these choices for you. And if you ignore our measured counsel, you deserve whatever you get.
If this were only a resolution confined to a meeting of a professional group, it would be disturbing enough. But that last "resolved" item gives me the willies:
RESOLVED, That our AMA develop model legislation in support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers.”
Gosh, if I had the capacity and judgment to, I dunno, think through consequences, I suppose I might find a few quibbles with the AMA's logic. If you legally ban - that is, outlaw - home birth, what happens to the woman who just goes into quickie labor at home and pops Li'l Johnny out before she gets to the hospital? Does Mom go to jail? What if I'm walking by selling Girl Scout cookies or something and I happen to be there when Li'l Johnny crowns, and I help Mom with her pushing? Do I go to jail? What if I'm a now-underground midwife? Do I get a heavier sentence than if I were just a random citizen, like first-degree murder vs. manslaughter?
Since (in Happy AMA Land) all women magically give birth in hospitals...um, who's paying for this? And are other medical conditions next? 'Cause, if so, my Mom might be in serious trouble - she had a "stomach ache" for more than a month before she finally let them take out her appendix. Come to think of it, don't we have laws in this country that protect the rights of people who decline medical treatment (such as vaccines) for religious reasons?
It's worth a reminder that "pro-choice" includes a whole array of reproductive issues, of which abortion is only one. In this presidential race, one candidate wants to f*ck with my uterus and one thinks I can handle her just fine on my own. Something to think about when you go to pull that lever in November.
I'm sorry, what was that? The AMA hasn't cured cancer, AIDS and heart disease? Millions of Americans still don't have health insurance? It's still easier to buy liquor than fresh fruit in East Winston? Huh. I guess the AMA are just f*cktards.
I'm a little pissy, in case you can't tell.
Here's the thing. I'm not going to get into a debate about how safe home birth and/or midwifery is vs. a traditional hospital birth. I know plenty of women who've opted for non-traditional birth (at home with a doula, at birthing center with midwife in addition to doctor, etc.), and I know just as many women who had radical, unforeseen complications during childbirth and likely would've died had they not been in a hospital. When I have kids (a LONG ways off), I'm leaning toward home birth because I hate how the modern "health" care system treats pregnancy like a disease to be cured. I hate the horror stories about women forced into taking potentially dangerous medication, or into having C-sections. I really hate hearing from Medicaid patients who got second-class treatment.
But I may change my mind on that. That's the thing about options - having them allows one to choose what's best in a given situation for herself and her family. Not, say, what's best for her OB/GYN's tee-time.
Some say the AMA and ACOG are motivated solely by the business they stand to lose if more women go the home-birth route. That may be a piece of it. But I'd say a good portion of their motives come from pure old-fashioned paternalism. (Hey, I don't blame them...It must suck to realize that an 80-year-old woman on top of a mountain somewhere knows as much or more about birthin' babies than you do with your $100,000+ education.) (Not to suggest that all midwives fit that stereotype. They have to go through a pretty rigorous licensing procedure.)
As far as I'm concerned, they're no better than the fundies who want to outlaw abortion, early contraception or birth control pills. In both cases, the argument goe like this: You, the woman, don't have the capacity to research your options. You don't have the judgement to make an informed decision. And you're far too emotional to deal with any consequences arising from your decision. It's best to let us, the (typically) privileged old white men, make these choices for you. And if you ignore our measured counsel, you deserve whatever you get.
If this were only a resolution confined to a meeting of a professional group, it would be disturbing enough. But that last "resolved" item gives me the willies:
RESOLVED, That our AMA develop model legislation in support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers.”
Gosh, if I had the capacity and judgment to, I dunno, think through consequences, I suppose I might find a few quibbles with the AMA's logic. If you legally ban - that is, outlaw - home birth, what happens to the woman who just goes into quickie labor at home and pops Li'l Johnny out before she gets to the hospital? Does Mom go to jail? What if I'm walking by selling Girl Scout cookies or something and I happen to be there when Li'l Johnny crowns, and I help Mom with her pushing? Do I go to jail? What if I'm a now-underground midwife? Do I get a heavier sentence than if I were just a random citizen, like first-degree murder vs. manslaughter?
Since (in Happy AMA Land) all women magically give birth in hospitals...um, who's paying for this? And are other medical conditions next? 'Cause, if so, my Mom might be in serious trouble - she had a "stomach ache" for more than a month before she finally let them take out her appendix. Come to think of it, don't we have laws in this country that protect the rights of people who decline medical treatment (such as vaccines) for religious reasons?
It's worth a reminder that "pro-choice" includes a whole array of reproductive issues, of which abortion is only one. In this presidential race, one candidate wants to f*ck with my uterus and one thinks I can handle her just fine on my own. Something to think about when you go to pull that lever in November.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Happy Fathers Day!
Here's to fathers and father figures! I'm blessed to have so many wonderful, brave and giving men in my life, and hope you all are as well.
Now for some warm fuzzies...
Barack Obama's sermon/speech today in a Chicago church where he slaps down absent fathers, particularly in the African American community.
The tribute to Tim Russert that capped today's moving edition of "Meet the Press." Yes, I cried.
And, finally, the warmest of all warm fuzzies. Congrats, Junior. I wish I'd remembered there was a race on today. (For some reason I completely zone out on NASCAR between Richmond and the Bristol night race. Happens every year...)
Now for some warm fuzzies...
Barack Obama's sermon/speech today in a Chicago church where he slaps down absent fathers, particularly in the African American community.
The tribute to Tim Russert that capped today's moving edition of "Meet the Press." Yes, I cried.
And, finally, the warmest of all warm fuzzies. Congrats, Junior. I wish I'd remembered there was a race on today. (For some reason I completely zone out on NASCAR between Richmond and the Bristol night race. Happens every year...)
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Little Russ and Me
So, last Sunday, I rolled out of bed at 8:50 a.m., as usual, which leaves me just enough time to nuke a crab cake and mix up some chocolate milk before tuning in to "Meet the Press." It just isn't Sunday without my weekly date with Tim Russert and a ridiculously high-calorie brunch. Only last Sunday, I flipped over to NBC to find that my weekly dose of intellectual Beltway smackdown had been replaced by...some tennis thing.
I'm sure it was hugely important. But I didn't care. In fact, I was kind of pissed. There I was standing in my living room, with crab cake and milk I'd bought especially for the occasion, and no Tim. I was unmoored. It threw off my whole day. I grumbled, allowing that Russert was allowed an occasional vacation like anyone else.
It turns out he was in Italy with his wife and son, celebrating his only child's graduation from college. I read that today in the same news alert that told me that Russert had died suddenly earlier this afternoon. While I was debating whether my wildfire fume-induced headache was severe enough for me to cut out early, this man whom I count as one of my top ten heroes of all time was being rushed to a D.C. ER following what may have been a heart attack. He was in his office at NBC's Washington bureau (which he headed), recording the voice-overs for this Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press."
Russert was to be the second in our annual series of speakers on campus - Nov. 18. I've been more focused on getting to meet Salman Rushdie (Feb. 10), but I reserved a fair amount of excitment for Russert. How could any political news junkie do otherwise?
I'm completely and totally flummoxed. I don't know what on earth I'm going to do this Sunday at 9 a.m., or how I'm possibly going to get through the elections this November without Russert and his dry-erase board, which is still way more informative than any computerized electoral map simulator on any network. I don't know if I'm ever going to get over watching Tom Brokaw announce Russert's passing with his iconic newsman's voice cracking with emotion.
Tim Russert's family and friends will grieve for the man they knew and loved. I - and other thinking news junkies - will grieve for one of the only TV journalists I'd grown to trust. I'll worry about who NBC will send to replace him at the head of "Meet the Press"'s odd hexagonal desk - Keith Olbermann? Chris Matthews? Dear God in Heaven, please, no... - and at the same time I'll pity that person, who has such beloved shoes to fill.
In other words - It's going to take me some time to come to terms with a world that doesn't have Tim Russert in it.
I'm sure it was hugely important. But I didn't care. In fact, I was kind of pissed. There I was standing in my living room, with crab cake and milk I'd bought especially for the occasion, and no Tim. I was unmoored. It threw off my whole day. I grumbled, allowing that Russert was allowed an occasional vacation like anyone else.
It turns out he was in Italy with his wife and son, celebrating his only child's graduation from college. I read that today in the same news alert that told me that Russert had died suddenly earlier this afternoon. While I was debating whether my wildfire fume-induced headache was severe enough for me to cut out early, this man whom I count as one of my top ten heroes of all time was being rushed to a D.C. ER following what may have been a heart attack. He was in his office at NBC's Washington bureau (which he headed), recording the voice-overs for this Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press."
Russert was to be the second in our annual series of speakers on campus - Nov. 18. I've been more focused on getting to meet Salman Rushdie (Feb. 10), but I reserved a fair amount of excitment for Russert. How could any political news junkie do otherwise?
I'm completely and totally flummoxed. I don't know what on earth I'm going to do this Sunday at 9 a.m., or how I'm possibly going to get through the elections this November without Russert and his dry-erase board, which is still way more informative than any computerized electoral map simulator on any network. I don't know if I'm ever going to get over watching Tom Brokaw announce Russert's passing with his iconic newsman's voice cracking with emotion.
Tim Russert's family and friends will grieve for the man they knew and loved. I - and other thinking news junkies - will grieve for one of the only TV journalists I'd grown to trust. I'll worry about who NBC will send to replace him at the head of "Meet the Press"'s odd hexagonal desk - Keith Olbermann? Chris Matthews? Dear God in Heaven, please, no... - and at the same time I'll pity that person, who has such beloved shoes to fill.
In other words - It's going to take me some time to come to terms with a world that doesn't have Tim Russert in it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
A Wednesday Funny for Ya
I love Scott Bateman's cartoons, and this one's another classic:
By the way, after the behavior of the Hillary Clinton supporters at the Democratic National Committee's rules hearing last Saturday, I never, ever in my entire life want to hear about how "immature" Obama supporters are. Seriously, where's a Taser when you need one?
By the way, after the behavior of the Hillary Clinton supporters at the Democratic National Committee's rules hearing last Saturday, I never, ever in my entire life want to hear about how "immature" Obama supporters are. Seriously, where's a Taser when you need one?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Putting it in perspective
This essay in today's New York Times should be required reading, whether you're pro-choice, anti-choice or just indifferent. It's written by former gynecologist Waldo L. Fielding, now in his 80s, about what abortion was like in the bad old days before the Roe v. Wade decision. You know, when as many abortions were performed in the U.S. each year as there were, well, last year. Or, as Fielding puts it:
"It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.
"It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.
What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such."
In related news, Dana Stone, MD writes on Feministing.com about the right-wing movement to ban birth control pills. By the way, I don't know a single woman who takes "birth control pills" to actually control birth - meaning that they're either not sexually active, not in heterosexual relationships where sperm is an issue or just rely on more effective forms of birth/disease prevention, such as condoms. But I guess it's more fun to depict women (and their partners) who have the temerity to want to control the timing of their pregnancies as wanton ho-bags who want to have sex without any consequences. (Not like men...)
Even the ads for BC [sic] focus more on the lifestyle benefits of "the pill," such as the elimination of psychotic mood swings and the "how the F*CK did I gain six pounds overnight???" effect. (Could it be that the latter has some impact on the former? Hmmm...) Can we officially start referring to "birth control pills" as something more reflective of their actual use - hormone regulation pills? Skinny jeans pills? "But I've waited a year for this vacation!" pills? I'm open to suggestions...
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