Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Is this a joke?
Really, this is like a bad parody. She's from Arizona, even!
Notice how we don't get to see what she actually hit with all those guns...
Sharron Angle: Asshat
My home state may have produced some face-palm-worthy politicians over the years, but I don't think even the likes of Jesse Helms would've gone so far as this. Sharron Angle, the Republican running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, said in an interview earlier this year (which came to light this week) that she thinks that no one should ever get an abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. Why? Because she's a Christian, that's why.
Well, Sharron, I'm a Christian, too, and I think you're full of it. Shall we settle this with a game of rock-paper-scissors?
Look, I'm not going to tell Angle how she should interpret her beliefs, even if I think her interpretation is deeply flawed, both logically and theologically. (Why does a pregnancy from rape get to be part of God's plan, but a clinic in the pregnant rape victim's hometown doesn't get to be?) But since she's running for public office, I think it's fair to ask how her stated views will affect her votes on legislation.
Angle does not say - at least in this interview - that she believes X is wrong, and therefore the law should also prohibit X. But the fact that she didn't say "My personal beliefs are one thing and the law is another" indicates that she doesn't see a difference between the two. And that's scary. Because we don't elect senators to be our ministers. We elect them to pass laws.
Angle's comments here do nothing to assure voters that she understands her larger responsibilities to the public, aside from her personal feelings. To put this in perspective, the Senate to which Angle wants to be elected has the duty to confirm everyone from Supreme Court justices to ambassadors to Cabinet secretaries, all of whom have to bend over backwards to assure senators, under oath, that their personal feelings will not trump the laws they're being asked to enforce. Why shouldn't a prospective senator have to meet the same standard?
And, on a personal note... I think Angle's comments are ill-informed at best. And that's a phenomenally restrained assessment on my part. Someone who has been sexually assaulted, especially a child (who the stats show was likely victimized by a relative or close family friend), has enough to deal with without hearing a U.S. Senator tell her that she's a sinner. No, Angle didn't use those words. But any religious person will have no trouble drawing the conclusion that, if X is "God's plan," then doing the opposite of X is counter to that plan, a.k.a. sin.
If the people who think as Angle does were truly compassionate toward these victims, they wouldn't be lecturing them from on high about "God's plan." They'd be down on the front lines - the hotlines, the victim services, etc. - and then maybe they'd learn a little humility.
Well, Sharron, I'm a Christian, too, and I think you're full of it. Shall we settle this with a game of rock-paper-scissors?
Look, I'm not going to tell Angle how she should interpret her beliefs, even if I think her interpretation is deeply flawed, both logically and theologically. (Why does a pregnancy from rape get to be part of God's plan, but a clinic in the pregnant rape victim's hometown doesn't get to be?) But since she's running for public office, I think it's fair to ask how her stated views will affect her votes on legislation.
Angle does not say - at least in this interview - that she believes X is wrong, and therefore the law should also prohibit X. But the fact that she didn't say "My personal beliefs are one thing and the law is another" indicates that she doesn't see a difference between the two. And that's scary. Because we don't elect senators to be our ministers. We elect them to pass laws.
Angle's comments here do nothing to assure voters that she understands her larger responsibilities to the public, aside from her personal feelings. To put this in perspective, the Senate to which Angle wants to be elected has the duty to confirm everyone from Supreme Court justices to ambassadors to Cabinet secretaries, all of whom have to bend over backwards to assure senators, under oath, that their personal feelings will not trump the laws they're being asked to enforce. Why shouldn't a prospective senator have to meet the same standard?
And, on a personal note... I think Angle's comments are ill-informed at best. And that's a phenomenally restrained assessment on my part. Someone who has been sexually assaulted, especially a child (who the stats show was likely victimized by a relative or close family friend), has enough to deal with without hearing a U.S. Senator tell her that she's a sinner. No, Angle didn't use those words. But any religious person will have no trouble drawing the conclusion that, if X is "God's plan," then doing the opposite of X is counter to that plan, a.k.a. sin.
If the people who think as Angle does were truly compassionate toward these victims, they wouldn't be lecturing them from on high about "God's plan." They'd be down on the front lines - the hotlines, the victim services, etc. - and then maybe they'd learn a little humility.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Vuvuzela revenge!
Actual commentary from inside this dog's head:
"Dude, stop that, it's really annoying."
"Seriously, stop now, I mean it."
(To person with camera) "Will you please tell this guy to shut up? He's not hearing me.."
"Alright, pal, I warned you."
"Dude, stop that, it's really annoying."
"Seriously, stop now, I mean it."
(To person with camera) "Will you please tell this guy to shut up? He's not hearing me.."
"Alright, pal, I warned you."
Two books, two roles
Boy oh boy do people get stabby when you mess with the classic stories they grew up with. Two of my favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of Anne Frank, are in the news this week. This year marks the 50th anniversary of TKAM, so much revisionist literary criticism is called for. And a British writer has written a novelization of Frank’s Holocaust captivity, which has come under fire because of its depiction of a relationship between Frank and Peter van Pels (van Daan in the original edition of the published diary).
I’m not just a lover of these two books. I also appeared in community theatre adaptations of both when I was in high school and college – as it happens, two of my favorite roles.
Let’s take Anne first, because I played her first – twice, actually, in 10th and 11th grades in productions for local school children. It’s interesting to me that people are freaking out at the idea that Anne and Peter might have crushed on one another, given that the Goodrich/Hackett theatre adaptation went there about 50-some years ago: the play has them going on a “date” in Peter’s small room and kissing. Even the more historically accurate version of the play that opened on Broadway in the late 90s saw Anne and Peter spending a lot of time together, and added monologues (direct from the diary) where Anne talks pretty frankly about her sexuality.
That’s how I tried to approach her. Yes, Anne Frank is an icon of innocent idealism destroyed by bigotry, but before all of that she was a person – a girl who bitched about her family, who tore pictures of movie stars out of magazines and taped them to her wall. She was a girl that, at 15, I could identify with easily. Doesn’t part of Anne’s appeal, 65 years after her death, lie in the fact that teenage girls everywhere feel what she felt? That we’re special, that we’re misunderstood, that we just can’t wait for the one person who will instantly know these things about us? These are universal emotions.
Of course novelizing the life of a real person is going to raise eyebrows. But, please, don’t make Anne Frank a marble statue.
Atticus Finch has kind of been turned into a marble statue over the years, at no fault of To Kill a Mockingbird or its film adaptation, or the play version that I was in when I was about 20. Atticus seems to be the locus of the “TKAM isn’t THAT great” crowd’s criticism, with the Wall Street Journal calling him “a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams.” His main offense seems to be the scene early in the novel where Atticus tells his daughter Scout that the KKK is foolish, and nothing to be feared.
Let’s remember that Scout is six years old when this scene happens, so Atticus is perfectly justified in downplaying the brutality of the organization he’s about to go up against. (What is he supposed to say. “Yeah, they lynched somebody just last week, six-year-old. Let me tell you all about it...”) And, more importantly, let’s remember that the entire rest of the novel refutes this moment where Atticus gives his daughter a little comfort. Whether it’s Atticus facing down the KKK at the courthouse, classmates and relatives calling Scout a n****-lover or, you know, the entire plot of a racially motivated trial – TKAM’s theme that racism a) exists and b) is both harmful and stupid, couldn’t possibly be clearer.
My role in the theatre production of this story? I played Mayella Ewell, the woman who accuses Atticus Finch’s client Tom Robinson of rape. It’s still probably my favorite role, because it was just such a stretch for me. Unlike Anne Frank, I had next to nothing in common with Mayella. My job was to find some way to connect with her so that she wouldn’t be just a caricature. I focused on passages in the novel – Mayella hauling extra water for the flowers she grew at her house, thinking about the extra work that meant for her, and why she would take that on with everything else she had to do. Thanks to the part where Mayella talks about making shoes for herself and her siblings out of old tires, I even picked up a tire tread from the side of the highway so I could feel what it was like to walk on.
My hope is that I presented a character with which the audience could empathize, even as she did terrible things. I didn’t have to create Mayella’s humanity on my own; I had quite a bit to go on thanks to what Harper Lee wrote decades earlier.
So, when someone complains that TKAM is simplistic in its morality, I’m mystified. Maybe that reader who feels that way didn’t have the proper context of life in the South in the 1930s, when it takes place, or 1960, when it was published – but that’s hardly the novel’s fault. I’m not going to knife-fight people who don’t like TKAM because they think it’s too one-note. But I am going to pity them, because they’re missing out.
I’m not just a lover of these two books. I also appeared in community theatre adaptations of both when I was in high school and college – as it happens, two of my favorite roles.
Let’s take Anne first, because I played her first – twice, actually, in 10th and 11th grades in productions for local school children. It’s interesting to me that people are freaking out at the idea that Anne and Peter might have crushed on one another, given that the Goodrich/Hackett theatre adaptation went there about 50-some years ago: the play has them going on a “date” in Peter’s small room and kissing. Even the more historically accurate version of the play that opened on Broadway in the late 90s saw Anne and Peter spending a lot of time together, and added monologues (direct from the diary) where Anne talks pretty frankly about her sexuality.
That’s how I tried to approach her. Yes, Anne Frank is an icon of innocent idealism destroyed by bigotry, but before all of that she was a person – a girl who bitched about her family, who tore pictures of movie stars out of magazines and taped them to her wall. She was a girl that, at 15, I could identify with easily. Doesn’t part of Anne’s appeal, 65 years after her death, lie in the fact that teenage girls everywhere feel what she felt? That we’re special, that we’re misunderstood, that we just can’t wait for the one person who will instantly know these things about us? These are universal emotions.
Of course novelizing the life of a real person is going to raise eyebrows. But, please, don’t make Anne Frank a marble statue.
Atticus Finch has kind of been turned into a marble statue over the years, at no fault of To Kill a Mockingbird or its film adaptation, or the play version that I was in when I was about 20. Atticus seems to be the locus of the “TKAM isn’t THAT great” crowd’s criticism, with the Wall Street Journal calling him “a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams.” His main offense seems to be the scene early in the novel where Atticus tells his daughter Scout that the KKK is foolish, and nothing to be feared.
Let’s remember that Scout is six years old when this scene happens, so Atticus is perfectly justified in downplaying the brutality of the organization he’s about to go up against. (What is he supposed to say. “Yeah, they lynched somebody just last week, six-year-old. Let me tell you all about it...”) And, more importantly, let’s remember that the entire rest of the novel refutes this moment where Atticus gives his daughter a little comfort. Whether it’s Atticus facing down the KKK at the courthouse, classmates and relatives calling Scout a n****-lover or, you know, the entire plot of a racially motivated trial – TKAM’s theme that racism a) exists and b) is both harmful and stupid, couldn’t possibly be clearer.
My role in the theatre production of this story? I played Mayella Ewell, the woman who accuses Atticus Finch’s client Tom Robinson of rape. It’s still probably my favorite role, because it was just such a stretch for me. Unlike Anne Frank, I had next to nothing in common with Mayella. My job was to find some way to connect with her so that she wouldn’t be just a caricature. I focused on passages in the novel – Mayella hauling extra water for the flowers she grew at her house, thinking about the extra work that meant for her, and why she would take that on with everything else she had to do. Thanks to the part where Mayella talks about making shoes for herself and her siblings out of old tires, I even picked up a tire tread from the side of the highway so I could feel what it was like to walk on.
My hope is that I presented a character with which the audience could empathize, even as she did terrible things. I didn’t have to create Mayella’s humanity on my own; I had quite a bit to go on thanks to what Harper Lee wrote decades earlier.
So, when someone complains that TKAM is simplistic in its morality, I’m mystified. Maybe that reader who feels that way didn’t have the proper context of life in the South in the 1930s, when it takes place, or 1960, when it was published – but that’s hardly the novel’s fault. I’m not going to knife-fight people who don’t like TKAM because they think it’s too one-note. But I am going to pity them, because they’re missing out.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
World’s Largest Frying Pan
Some things are better left to the imagination. The new book 101 Places Not to See Before You Die lists some of them, in the form of vacation spots and roadside attractions that sound really awesome in the abstract but in reality are somewhere between “Meh” and “Oh my hell, please just let me go home,” ranging from Mt. Rushmore to the Jersey Turnpike to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
Since vacation planning is one of my many time-killing hobbies, I definitely want to read this. Because my favorite vacation destinations (and stops along the way) are kind of out there – figuratively, and occasionally literally.
There was the visit Grandma/rafting trip that took me over the Cherohala Skyway from Tellico Plains, Tenn., to Robbinsville, N.C. (very cool, excellent views, don’t wreck or plan to stop for a bathroom, watch out for the motorcycles). There was the one-day drive from my house to Nags Head (4 hours and 37 minutes!), around on 264, where I didn’t see another car for 50 miles, to Bath (which I’d wanted to visit since reading about it in North Carolina Legends when I was about eight years old).
I’m one of those people who love to take backroads as much as possible, stopping at any place that looks interesting. Which is how I ended up in Rose Hill.
Every time my family went to the beach on I-40, we’d pass a sign proclaiming Rose Hill the “Home of the World’s Largest Frying Pan.” And every time we passed it, we’d wonder what exactly the World’s Largest Frying Pan was… but by that point, we really just wanted to be out of that stretch of 40 where there’s not much, so we never did stop to check it out.
Right after I finished college, the guy I was dating at the time and I decided to take advantage of the fact that I finally had a job that offered vacation time, so we went to the beach for the weekend. Finally a grown up in control of the trip schedule, I’d planned a whole itinerary that included taking Highway 421 almost the whole way to Wilmington – and at long last stopping in Rose Hill.
Since the then-BF was a blacksmith, he was particularly excited about the frying pan. Was it cast whole, or in pieces? Had it been hammered out in a forge? And other metal-production questions I didn’t completely understand, but that fascinated him.
The thing about driving through eastern N.C. – with all the windows down, of course – is that you pick up some interesting smells (yay, hog farms!). Right outside of Rose Hill, we drove through a pocket of fresh cat food. I still have no idea what that smell was from. Anyway, we stopped at the first gas station we came to for directions.
I never want to assume that locals know their own landmarks – landmarks are generally without honor in their own countries – but the staff at the gas station not only knew of the World’s Largest Frying Pan, they were really excited to tell us how to get to it. You go about a half-mile down this road, one of the clerks told me – and it’s on the right. You can’t miss it.
Well, the “it’s on the right” part was true, at least. It’s in a sort of recreation area, under a shelter. And, no offense to the people of Rose Hill, but it’s hard for me to believe that what we saw under that picnic shelter was the world’s largest anything.
It’s basically a big deep-fry pit with black-painted cardboard masking around the bottom and a fake handle sticking off to one side. So it looked like a frying pan. Or, more accurately, like the set that volunteers would build for a community theatre production of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
The blacksmith just turned to me and said, “CARDBOARD?”
We got back in the car. We went to the beach. We never spoke of it again.
Since vacation planning is one of my many time-killing hobbies, I definitely want to read this. Because my favorite vacation destinations (and stops along the way) are kind of out there – figuratively, and occasionally literally.
There was the visit Grandma/rafting trip that took me over the Cherohala Skyway from Tellico Plains, Tenn., to Robbinsville, N.C. (very cool, excellent views, don’t wreck or plan to stop for a bathroom, watch out for the motorcycles). There was the one-day drive from my house to Nags Head (4 hours and 37 minutes!), around on 264, where I didn’t see another car for 50 miles, to Bath (which I’d wanted to visit since reading about it in North Carolina Legends when I was about eight years old).
I’m one of those people who love to take backroads as much as possible, stopping at any place that looks interesting. Which is how I ended up in Rose Hill.
Every time my family went to the beach on I-40, we’d pass a sign proclaiming Rose Hill the “Home of the World’s Largest Frying Pan.” And every time we passed it, we’d wonder what exactly the World’s Largest Frying Pan was… but by that point, we really just wanted to be out of that stretch of 40 where there’s not much, so we never did stop to check it out.
Right after I finished college, the guy I was dating at the time and I decided to take advantage of the fact that I finally had a job that offered vacation time, so we went to the beach for the weekend. Finally a grown up in control of the trip schedule, I’d planned a whole itinerary that included taking Highway 421 almost the whole way to Wilmington – and at long last stopping in Rose Hill.
Since the then-BF was a blacksmith, he was particularly excited about the frying pan. Was it cast whole, or in pieces? Had it been hammered out in a forge? And other metal-production questions I didn’t completely understand, but that fascinated him.
The thing about driving through eastern N.C. – with all the windows down, of course – is that you pick up some interesting smells (yay, hog farms!). Right outside of Rose Hill, we drove through a pocket of fresh cat food. I still have no idea what that smell was from. Anyway, we stopped at the first gas station we came to for directions.
I never want to assume that locals know their own landmarks – landmarks are generally without honor in their own countries – but the staff at the gas station not only knew of the World’s Largest Frying Pan, they were really excited to tell us how to get to it. You go about a half-mile down this road, one of the clerks told me – and it’s on the right. You can’t miss it.
Well, the “it’s on the right” part was true, at least. It’s in a sort of recreation area, under a shelter. And, no offense to the people of Rose Hill, but it’s hard for me to believe that what we saw under that picnic shelter was the world’s largest anything.
It’s basically a big deep-fry pit with black-painted cardboard masking around the bottom and a fake handle sticking off to one side. So it looked like a frying pan. Or, more accurately, like the set that volunteers would build for a community theatre production of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
The blacksmith just turned to me and said, “CARDBOARD?”
We got back in the car. We went to the beach. We never spoke of it again.
Apparently "frustrated" has an entirely different meaning in D.C.
So, last year when President Obama announced that he was sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, various Republicans in Congress praised him for "follow[ing] the advice of Generals Petraeus and McChrystal."
Then, today when news broke of a Rolling Stone interview where Gen. McChrystal criticizes Obama and some of his advisers, Republican leader Rep. Eric Cantor excuses it, saying that McChristal is "frustrated" with the administration.
Let me make sure I have this correct... a year ago - according to the Republican Congressional leadership - Obama was obediently following McChrystal's lead. Now suddenly Obama is doing the exact opposite, and McChrystal is justifiably "frustrated."
I'm not sure what changed over the last year. Other than Cantor's vocabulary. Or his willingness to politicize a personnel issue between the commander and chief and a general.
It's senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Leiberman who have this one right.
Then, today when news broke of a Rolling Stone interview where Gen. McChrystal criticizes Obama and some of his advisers, Republican leader Rep. Eric Cantor excuses it, saying that McChristal is "frustrated" with the administration.
Let me make sure I have this correct... a year ago - according to the Republican Congressional leadership - Obama was obediently following McChrystal's lead. Now suddenly Obama is doing the exact opposite, and McChrystal is justifiably "frustrated."
I'm not sure what changed over the last year. Other than Cantor's vocabulary. Or his willingness to politicize a personnel issue between the commander and chief and a general.
It's senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Leiberman who have this one right.
Friday, June 18, 2010
There’s no price tag for this
So here’s this guy. This guy, who apparently got paid actual money to write a web column about his urge to buy VIP tix to a Jonas Brothers concert for his family (including two pre-teen children) for $1,200 each – or, $4,800 total – just kinda because. Because one of their 9-year-old-friends had them. Because his own uncool parents never did anything like this. Because, dammit, they deserve them, because!
Fortunately, he didn’t spend the equivalent of several months’ salary on the VIP tickets, or on the $500/head consolation version. Honestly, I could care less what this writer does with his money. It’s just kind of disturbing to me that a prominent media outlet – and, judging by Salon.com editor Joan Walsh’s appearances on national TV programs, they are indeed prominent – could publish a story whose appeal hinges on the ability of their reading audience to connect to the central dilemma: don’t my kids *deserve* extravagant spending?
I don’t get this. But… You know what? I might never get it. I was raised by parents who made me clean out the basement and wash cars to earn money to buy my first CD player. It was made very clear to me growing up that, if I wanted something, I should work to earn it.
I try really hard not to judge other peoples’ parenting choices, ‘cause it’s really none of my business… But seriously? I went to one concert before puberty* – New Kids on the Block at Groves Stadium, circa 1990 – which I barely remember. I DO, however, remember very clearly the trips my family took when I was growing up, the service projects with my Girl Scout troop and church youth groups, and just the countless evening when my family and I had dinner, played cards and simply talked.
So – no judgment here – but, parents? The most important things you do for your children won’t have a price tag. I promise.
*Technically, my mom and older sister went to a Johnny Cash concert at UT when she was pregant with me, but I don't feel this should count.
Fortunately, he didn’t spend the equivalent of several months’ salary on the VIP tickets, or on the $500/head consolation version. Honestly, I could care less what this writer does with his money. It’s just kind of disturbing to me that a prominent media outlet – and, judging by Salon.com editor Joan Walsh’s appearances on national TV programs, they are indeed prominent – could publish a story whose appeal hinges on the ability of their reading audience to connect to the central dilemma: don’t my kids *deserve* extravagant spending?
I don’t get this. But… You know what? I might never get it. I was raised by parents who made me clean out the basement and wash cars to earn money to buy my first CD player. It was made very clear to me growing up that, if I wanted something, I should work to earn it.
I try really hard not to judge other peoples’ parenting choices, ‘cause it’s really none of my business… But seriously? I went to one concert before puberty* – New Kids on the Block at Groves Stadium, circa 1990 – which I barely remember. I DO, however, remember very clearly the trips my family took when I was growing up, the service projects with my Girl Scout troop and church youth groups, and just the countless evening when my family and I had dinner, played cards and simply talked.
So – no judgment here – but, parents? The most important things you do for your children won’t have a price tag. I promise.
*Technically, my mom and older sister went to a Johnny Cash concert at UT when she was pregant with me, but I don't feel this should count.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
June 14 is now officially Gorilla Liberation Day
So, on Monday, June 14, a gorilla at the N.C. Zoo in Asheboro very nearly escaped its habitat by climbing up a downed tree branch to the top of the glass wall separating him from spectators. No word on whether the gorilla actually placed the tree branch against the wall, or the branch just found itself in the right place at the right time. My favorite part of the linked video is when the parents realize that, Holy Sh*t, that gorilla is swinging from the top of the wall, sh*t's about to get real, and start screaming for their kids to run away.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta on Sunday, a male silverback charged the glass wall of its habitat, breaking it badly enough that the exhibit had to close for repairs. The zoo says that he saw a veterinarian and reacted with e same anxiety that humans feel toward the dentist. The gorilla, Taz, doesn't appear to be one of the descendant's of Zoo Atlanta's famed Willie B., who awesomely glowered at my family on a vist there circa mid-90s.
Total coincidence, I'm sure. Now, I'm not saying that these gorillas had a coordinated plan to escape their respective zoos during the same weekend. Surely they'd require Internet access, or at the very least some ability to text one another.
Which is preposterous. Everyone knows you can't get cell service in Randolph County.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta on Sunday, a male silverback charged the glass wall of its habitat, breaking it badly enough that the exhibit had to close for repairs. The zoo says that he saw a veterinarian and reacted with e same anxiety that humans feel toward the dentist. The gorilla, Taz, doesn't appear to be one of the descendant's of Zoo Atlanta's famed Willie B., who awesomely glowered at my family on a vist there circa mid-90s.
Total coincidence, I'm sure. Now, I'm not saying that these gorillas had a coordinated plan to escape their respective zoos during the same weekend. Surely they'd require Internet access, or at the very least some ability to text one another.
Which is preposterous. Everyone knows you can't get cell service in Randolph County.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The oil-drenched pelicans come home to roost
Just for giggles, let’s play “what if?” for a second.
Let’s pretend it’s, say, early April, and President Obama calls a press conference to announce that, due to poor practices in the Minerals Management Service, he and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have determined that many of the nation’s hundreds of deep-water off-shore drilling sites may not have been inspected as thoroughly as they should. Just to be on the safe side, he says, we’re going to suspend production at deep-water wells for six months to make sure that they’re all safe.
Let’s imagine how Republicans in Congress react. Let’s imagine how the media and blogosphere react. Let’s mentally compose some run-on sentences for Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Let’s keep in mind that, for the entire year previous, the president couldn’t so much as roll out of bed without being called a socialist. (Reality interlude: delivering millions of new customers to health insurance corporations is not a socialist act.)
We all know how loudly the president’s opponents would’ve screamed. They weren’t even happy when Obama did the exact opposite of the above scenario, and announced an expansion of deep-water drilling rights just days before the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which is still spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The chickens (or, in this case, the oil-covered pelicans) aren’t just coming home to roost for conservatives, though. A few weeks ago on ABC’s “This Week,” my future husband George Will said that what we’re seeing now (in the criticism that Obama isn’t moving fast enough) is the product of nearly 50 years of concentrating executive power – for which we have to thank LBJ (and FDR, for that matter). (Video here... Will's comments start about one minute in.)
He’s right. It’s physically impossible for the president to manage everything we ask him to manage, which is why we’ve developed such a sprawling executive branch bureaucracy to manage it all. But yet – especially in times of crisis – we still seem to expect that the president will personally fix the problem. As Joan Walsh said on that same panel, we can’t expect the president to be Daddy… and yet, we do.
Presidents love it, too – what’s not to like about getting to take credit for positive things that had nothing to do with you other than that they happened to take place on your watch? Well… there’s the fact that you also get to own the bad things that had nothing to do with you other than that they happened to take place on your watch. In this sense (and pretty much only in this sense), the Gulf oil spill is indeed Obama’s Katrina.
The president’s most important job is to hire people. This also means knowing when and how to delegate responsibility – and yes, blame; the last Democratic president who found himself unable to do this quickly found himself on a plane back to Plains. Obama’s got to learn that, when you get up on TV and tell the American people that you’re personally on top of a situation, then you own that situation all the way – for better or worse.
Let’s pretend it’s, say, early April, and President Obama calls a press conference to announce that, due to poor practices in the Minerals Management Service, he and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have determined that many of the nation’s hundreds of deep-water off-shore drilling sites may not have been inspected as thoroughly as they should. Just to be on the safe side, he says, we’re going to suspend production at deep-water wells for six months to make sure that they’re all safe.
Let’s imagine how Republicans in Congress react. Let’s imagine how the media and blogosphere react. Let’s mentally compose some run-on sentences for Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Let’s keep in mind that, for the entire year previous, the president couldn’t so much as roll out of bed without being called a socialist. (Reality interlude: delivering millions of new customers to health insurance corporations is not a socialist act.)
We all know how loudly the president’s opponents would’ve screamed. They weren’t even happy when Obama did the exact opposite of the above scenario, and announced an expansion of deep-water drilling rights just days before the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which is still spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The chickens (or, in this case, the oil-covered pelicans) aren’t just coming home to roost for conservatives, though. A few weeks ago on ABC’s “This Week,” my future husband George Will said that what we’re seeing now (in the criticism that Obama isn’t moving fast enough) is the product of nearly 50 years of concentrating executive power – for which we have to thank LBJ (and FDR, for that matter). (Video here... Will's comments start about one minute in.)
He’s right. It’s physically impossible for the president to manage everything we ask him to manage, which is why we’ve developed such a sprawling executive branch bureaucracy to manage it all. But yet – especially in times of crisis – we still seem to expect that the president will personally fix the problem. As Joan Walsh said on that same panel, we can’t expect the president to be Daddy… and yet, we do.
Presidents love it, too – what’s not to like about getting to take credit for positive things that had nothing to do with you other than that they happened to take place on your watch? Well… there’s the fact that you also get to own the bad things that had nothing to do with you other than that they happened to take place on your watch. In this sense (and pretty much only in this sense), the Gulf oil spill is indeed Obama’s Katrina.
The president’s most important job is to hire people. This also means knowing when and how to delegate responsibility – and yes, blame; the last Democratic president who found himself unable to do this quickly found himself on a plane back to Plains. Obama’s got to learn that, when you get up on TV and tell the American people that you’re personally on top of a situation, then you own that situation all the way – for better or worse.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Is Michael Pollan anti-feminist?
Full disclosure: I’ve never read any of Michael Pollan’s books, so I pretty much judge him only by his media coverage. Part of the reason that I don’t want to read any of his books is that I get irritated at pop-analysis of issues that have major, complex systemic roots (like why people eat what they do), and whose only observable results seem to involve an uptick in the smugness quotient of the people who read them.
And, as I’ve complained before, people who earn millions off of guilt-tripping working class and poor people about buying irradiated apples from California at Walmart just kind of chap my ass. It’s within the realm of possibility that there’s someone in America who eats Hamburger Helper because he honestly believes it’s the best-tasting stuff on the planet, but most of us go there because it’s cheap.
I absolutely agree with Pollan that meals made with whole ingredients are both cheaper and healthier than a preservative-loaded meal in a box. My problem is Pollan’s explanation for why Americans have steadily moved toward eating more McD’s and less scratch cooking: It’s all the fault of the feminists.
Beginning in the early 60s, Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine last year, feminist activists “taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.” Well, yeah, because for some women, it was. It wasn’t the act of cooking that was oppressive – it was the fact that women weren’t allowed many other options.
(And can I reiterate that feminism didn’t magically drag millions of women into the workplace where they had never been before? My grandmother worked in the 50s, as did many women whose families needed the income.)
It should go without saying that Pollan is radically simplifying here. Let’s pretend that, instead of scapegoating Betty Friedan, Pollan had randomly picked any of the dozens of other paradigm shifts that took place mid-century, and then correlated that with the rise of factory food. Cheaper cars. Microwave ovens. White flight to the suburbs (meaning longer commutes). The space program (yay for Tang!). Declining real income, necessitating two-income households. Increases in federal agricultural subsidies. (See what I meant about complex systemic issues?) Unless Pollan presents some evidence that Friedan invented TV dinners, I’m not buying it.
Here’s what feminism IS responsible for, though: removing the stigma around men who do traditionally female things… like cook.
To be fair, the “form of oppression” thing is just one sentence in a much longer piece. And the book review that’s currently got him in hot blog water, Pollan largely quotes that book’s author. So he’s hardly Rush Limbaugh out here. Maybe he’s just naïve about the gut reaction some of us have whenever we hear someone waxing romantic about the days when marital rape wasn’t illegal.
I’m trying to go by Jay Smooth rules here (what you said vs. what you are)… So, Michael Pollan: I’m sure that you’re a lovely person and you have deep respect for all of the people in your life and for women in general. I don’t think you’re sexist, anti-woman or anti-feminist. But saying that the fight to dismantle patriarchy is responsible for the level of corn syrup in my ketchup – that kind of is.
And, as I’ve complained before, people who earn millions off of guilt-tripping working class and poor people about buying irradiated apples from California at Walmart just kind of chap my ass. It’s within the realm of possibility that there’s someone in America who eats Hamburger Helper because he honestly believes it’s the best-tasting stuff on the planet, but most of us go there because it’s cheap.
I absolutely agree with Pollan that meals made with whole ingredients are both cheaper and healthier than a preservative-loaded meal in a box. My problem is Pollan’s explanation for why Americans have steadily moved toward eating more McD’s and less scratch cooking: It’s all the fault of the feminists.
Beginning in the early 60s, Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine last year, feminist activists “taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.” Well, yeah, because for some women, it was. It wasn’t the act of cooking that was oppressive – it was the fact that women weren’t allowed many other options.
(And can I reiterate that feminism didn’t magically drag millions of women into the workplace where they had never been before? My grandmother worked in the 50s, as did many women whose families needed the income.)
It should go without saying that Pollan is radically simplifying here. Let’s pretend that, instead of scapegoating Betty Friedan, Pollan had randomly picked any of the dozens of other paradigm shifts that took place mid-century, and then correlated that with the rise of factory food. Cheaper cars. Microwave ovens. White flight to the suburbs (meaning longer commutes). The space program (yay for Tang!). Declining real income, necessitating two-income households. Increases in federal agricultural subsidies. (See what I meant about complex systemic issues?) Unless Pollan presents some evidence that Friedan invented TV dinners, I’m not buying it.
Here’s what feminism IS responsible for, though: removing the stigma around men who do traditionally female things… like cook.
To be fair, the “form of oppression” thing is just one sentence in a much longer piece. And the book review that’s currently got him in hot blog water, Pollan largely quotes that book’s author. So he’s hardly Rush Limbaugh out here. Maybe he’s just naïve about the gut reaction some of us have whenever we hear someone waxing romantic about the days when marital rape wasn’t illegal.
I’m trying to go by Jay Smooth rules here (what you said vs. what you are)… So, Michael Pollan: I’m sure that you’re a lovely person and you have deep respect for all of the people in your life and for women in general. I don’t think you’re sexist, anti-woman or anti-feminist. But saying that the fight to dismantle patriarchy is responsible for the level of corn syrup in my ketchup – that kind of is.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The good and the bad
Courtesy of CNN.com's Ticker blog, we have two stories about young people working to effect change in our world, albeit in very different ways. Let's guess which one will actually go on to make people's lives better in the long run:
First up is Barbara Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush, who recently created a non-profit, Global Health Corps, to recruit people under age 30 to work for a year in a health organization, focusing on young professionals in fields other than health care. (In other words - Me, if I weren't turning 30 next week. Darn.) "You really can work in the health field even if you're not a doctor or a nurse," Bush told CNN. ""We wanted to build the next generation of leaders in health."
Next is the not-so-charming tale of that brat James O'Keefe, famous for creatively editing ACORN out of existence and getting himself arrested for tampering with a U.S. Senator's phones, who this morning told ABC "I don't regret what I did... Senators are corrupt, politicians are corrupt. These people have to be investigated."
I think O'Keefe is still young enough to qualify for Bush's Global Health Corps program. Maybe he should look into it.
First up is Barbara Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush, who recently created a non-profit, Global Health Corps, to recruit people under age 30 to work for a year in a health organization, focusing on young professionals in fields other than health care. (In other words - Me, if I weren't turning 30 next week. Darn.) "You really can work in the health field even if you're not a doctor or a nurse," Bush told CNN. ""We wanted to build the next generation of leaders in health."
Next is the not-so-charming tale of that brat James O'Keefe, famous for creatively editing ACORN out of existence and getting himself arrested for tampering with a U.S. Senator's phones, who this morning told ABC "I don't regret what I did... Senators are corrupt, politicians are corrupt. These people have to be investigated."
I think O'Keefe is still young enough to qualify for Bush's Global Health Corps program. Maybe he should look into it.
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