Poetry Time

“Personal” by Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

R*E*S*P*E*C*T

It ain't just an R&B song so expertly belted by Ms. Franklin gentle reader, it is unfortunately something, along with civility, that is all to lacking in our society today—at least American society, I won't presume to speak for the other nations around the globe.

I have been ruminating on this for a little over a week now, starting with the nonsense surrounding President Obama's speech to school children and the way so many on the right lost their shit over the idea. 'The very idea of the President wanting to tell our kids to work hard and stay in school! How dare he!' Alrighty. I may catch some grief over this, but I stand with many of the more outspoken commentators on the Left who believe this all boils down to simple racism and nothing else.

During a broadcast of the Stephanie Miller show on Air America this week, a guest (I apologize I didn't catch who the guy was, but it was a show when Miller was on vacation and had a guest filling in) stated something along the lines of a lot of this garbage we have been hearing about President Obama is coming from the South and that many Southerns seem to take pride in being ignorant.

At first I was offended. I am a Southerner and I certainly take no pride in ignorance, my own or anyone elses'. But then I started thinking about it more and while this may not be exactly what the guest meant, from my final take on it he may have a point after all. Thirty years ago, before 24 hour media, before the Internet, before bloggers, people got their news from the major three networks, newspapers and some magazines. And while this may be a rosy, glow, Ozzie 'n' Harriet view of things, I have this gut feeling that they were better informed than the average American today who has WAY more access to information. I think this is a particular problem with self-identified Rednecks, who while a vast section of the Southern populous, also exist any where across our nation. My point is people don't seem to care today that they aren't informed, many do take pride in not knowing about politics and history and geography, if it doesn't directly impact them, they think it doesn't matter.

The reaction to Obama's speech I think falls in this domain to a certain degree, while I disagree that it comes exclusively from the South. I believe that a fair amount of blame can be laid at the feet of the media. As Bill Maher said on his show this week, "The Media is supposed to be the teacher." And when the Media gets their knickers in a twist over a Coast Guard training episode, even though it occurred on the anniversary of September 11, before finding out the hard facts, then they are doing a disservice to Americans and are not teaching us anything but that they are not to be trusted.

One of Maher's guests, Paul Rieckhoff (Director, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) also said of the Media, "They confuse balance with accuracy." All too true. Having talking heads from both sides screaming at each other does nothing to educate the general public, it is merely a Jerry Springer-esque way to hold too easily distracted Americans' attention. That isn't news, it isn't educational and it is surely not accurate.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how that wing-nut from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, figures into all of this. While I often, in my Anglophile heart, long for America to be more British, we are not in fact British. Therefore, it is not acceptable in our Congress to heckle our leader. What Wilson did during Obama's speech before Congress was not only unacceptable, it was juvenile, ridiculous, uncouth, racist and disRESPECTful.

Yep, there we are gentle readers, full circle back to Ms. Franklin's ode. If I had a dollar for every time I had to endure people saying during Dubya's eight years of lunacy that he should be respected because he was president, I would be a rich woman right now and not living off the government's dime and looking for work. But alas . . . . Now those same people are the ones applauding this dipshit who acted like a drunk frat boy at a comedy club. Well turn about is fair play folks. Obama is your president now, and you need to show him the respect the office deserves, even if you don't like him or didn't vote for him.

I made no bones about my dislike of Dubya, still don't, but for all my blustering, I would have been just as dismayed and outraged should someone had acted towards him in that manner. Aw, who am I kidding I would have loved it, just as I loved it when the guy in Iraq threw a shoe at him. My real problem with Mr. Wilson's outburst is less that he made it and more the reason behind it—racism. I bet you dollars to donuts that he would have never done that had it been a white democrat standing up there as president.

Finally, I know this is a bit lengthy and rambling, but I want to close with something else that Bill Maher said on his show last night (I know I need to develop a new news crush) that liberals aren't taking to the streets to protest the way the right-wing crazies are, instead we sit on our sofas and yell at the TV. Well, maybe it is time we get off our asses and show our country some R*E*S*P*E*C*T.

Defining the Times

A lesson today for all of you who might be confused by the rhetoric being tossed about so liberally in the news of late.

From Merriam-Webster online:

Socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Fascism
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Communism
1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2 capitalized a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably d : communist systems collectively

Nazism
: the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer

Now many pundits and talking heads have been spouting that President Obama is a socialist, a Nazi, a fascist. Well I will admit that in some people's eyes the socialist label might have some sticking power to the current administration, not that I have any problem with that personally, I am all for there being less of a yawning gap between the haves and have nots. Plus Sweden doesn't look so bad and they are socialists.

But the latter two labels really rub me the wrong way. Obama and his administration are not fascists or Nazis and while the two groups may both espouse authoritarian rule, their goals for that rule were different in my eyes, as were their ideology of why such rule was necessary.

Now listen, I didn't major in political science, so maybe I am missing some small nugget of correlation between the two, but in the broader range of things, all these people on the right aim to do is frighten the beejesus out of people by invoking Nazis and Fascists and the like.

So far as all this hullabaloo about the President indoctrinating school children today during his speech, well give me a break. President Obama is not the first president to address schools and he won't be the last (Remember Dubya reading My Pet Goat? Anyone??). It appears to me that a speech about personal responsibility, staying in school and trying to get ahead is not even remotely rooted in socialism or any ideology that is centered on the government owning the means of production. No in fact, those all seem like tools that might come in handy for this kind of society:

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

Yep, CAPITALISM.

Peggy Get Your Gun

What is there to say about Mad Men? I am quite frankly obsessed—with Don Draper's classic depiction of a troubled asshole, which despite just how unfeminist it is, fascinates me to no end; with the idea that the 1960s were not all Ozzie and Harriet, that people were cruel and manipulative and most of all fucked with abandon; with the way you can see glimmers of change and strength in all the characters, but particularly the women. Big things are afoot this season I believe and with a show that is replete with female writers, it is no wonder that so many of the female characters are as rich, if not richer than their male counterparts. Hello Joan, Betty and Peggy, I am talking about you.

Which leads me to Sunday's episode, where Peggy tokes up, asserts herself with the boys in a way that wins not only the smarmy adulation of the Princeton pal selling the pot, but of her coworker Smith. You could see the wheels turn in that boy's head as he began to rewrite his opinion of Peggy. For that I say hell yeah! You go girl—who is smart and quick and who the boys seem to dismiss specifically for those reasons.

But what I loved most of all is the following, her conversation with her new secretary Olive, that the women at Salon's Broadsheet extrapolated:

And in her loopy, stoned, sweet way, Peggy suddenly gets it: “But you're scared,” she says. Olive isn’t scolding her, per se, she’s scared for her, and worried about the consequences to a young lady who breaks the rules that governed women in her own day. Leaning in, Peggy says, “I am going to get to do everything you want for me. I'm going to be fine, Olive.”

How I have dearly wanted to say just that very thing to older, female figures in my life who have doubted me or worst of all been jealous. 'I am going to get to do everything you want for me, and while you may hate me for it in the end, I will be fine. I am fine.'