That DID NOT Just Happen

A couple of weeks ago, the spouse, spawn and I were cruising down one of North Carolina's major highways on our way to visit some friends from yore. My car still sports its Obama 08 sticker. As we went down a six lane road, we were in the center lane of our three. A car pulled in front of me and seemed to slow a bit. It was covered in copious amounts of anti-Obama stickers. I thought nothing of it, but the spouse remarked that the person probably deliberately slowed down in front of us because of my Obama sticker. Several moments later I moved into the far left lane and proceeded to pass the car. The driver of the car (a middle aged white woman) proceeded to flip me off when we got parallel to her.

Needless to say I was stunned and outraged–I had done nothing to this woman other than disagree with her politically via a BUMPER STICKER. Have we lost all of our ability to agree to disagree with civility?

The incident had really faded from my memory until this afternoon when the amazing level of hostility and animosity some have towards our current president came roaring back in an even more in my face kind of way.

The spouse and I were out at a small local hot dog restaurant that shall remain nameless. I was at the counter ordering when an older man got in the line next to me. As he ordered he remarked that he wished we could go back to the day of five cent hot dogs. As he said this I turned toward him and smiled, but that all changed with what came out of his mouth next. He said that it wasn't going to happen with Obama-laden in office and that he wanted to kill old people like him.

My first instinct was to inform the impolite geezer that we were all dying regardless, some of us faster than others. Then I wanted to yell at him that I was unemployed with no full time position in sight and unsure of my future insurance prospects thanks to the previous administration's negligence and that Obama's administration was trying to help that situation. But a combination of ingrained politeness and distaste for public confrontation (I know you are shocked that I avoid confrontation, but bare with me), led me to just stare straight ahead, ignoring him and stewing. Obviously saying something to someone like that would solve nothing and most certainly not change his mind. Maybe it was weak of me to not address is misinformation and blatant racism, but I also couldn't help being amazed at the sheer gall that this man thought it was not only appropriate to say that sort of thing to a stranger, but that I would agree with him.

And of course it reminded me of the incident on the highway. We really seem to be regressing as a society. I don't have an answer for this, but I am certainly in possession of a full cup of outrage and I guess that will have to suffice for today.

An Elegy for Elegance

Lo these many years ago, 13 to be exact (my how the 'ole broad is aging . . .), I was privileged enough to land a job at Elegant Bride magazine. It was not located in New York, as it is now, nor was it like the depictions of magazine publishing you often find in entertainment today ala Ugly Betty or The Devil Wears Prada. But it was thrilling. There is something thrilling about magazine publishing in general in my mind. In my career, I have done just about every kind of magazine publishing there is, newsstand, business-to-business and custom, and who wouldn't be excited to see their name on the masthead of a magazine that can be found in Seattle or Topeka or Boston?

What did I love about Elegant Bride? I loved learning the rules of getting married, my anal retentive soul gobbled up the do's and don'ts, the etiquette for how to be an elegant bride like a drunk on a bender. To this day I can still tell you how to properly address an envelope to a household with two last names or what time of day requires formal attire, not that many people care any more about such rules, much less obey them.

I loved seeing my name of course, but what I loved more was the idea that thousands of people were reading my words. Since first grade I knew I wanted to write, and although writing about how to handle including step parents on your invitation may not have been my seven year old self's dream, these were still real people reading my writing.

But most of all I loved the people I worked with—they continued my education on how to be more of a girl, adding how to be a lady and how to be a professional. That is not to say that I achieved those goals while working there. Nor have I necessarily achieved them at this current moment in time, but those women (and man) gave me the ideals I will forever strive to obtain. They showed me style, savvy, fortitude, humor, compassion, adaptability, charm, grace and that sometimes it is best to quit while you are ahead. I was honored to work with them and grateful that I still call so many of them friends.

Several years after I left the magazine, things were changing and not looking promising for me career-wise (and as I mentioned my co-workers did teach me to quit when I was ahead), the publishing company who owned it sold it to Conde Nast. The publishing giant already published Brides and Modern Bride so I never quite understood why they would want a third magazine, although style-wise Elegant Bride was head and shoulders above those two books, and apparently I was right. It would appear that in a recession one does not in fact need three bridal magazines. So Conde Nast is shuttering both Modern Bride and Elegant Bride (apparently we no longer need to distinguish between brides, just any old bride will do during hard times), as well as the parenting magazine Cookie and the venerable Gourmet.

I don't like change and I most certainly don't like goodbyes, but then I guess most don't. And while no one I know works for Elegant Bride any longer, it is still a prized part of my past that is being razed due to the almighty dollar. I wonder what else I love will be lost because of the transgressions of men in suits who control the purse strings?

Atonement

You know how it happens, you get busy and distracted and the next thing you know weeks have gone by and you meant to call that friend, clean that closet or finish that project. But it doesn't happen, it slips through the cracks and then you start to get to the point where so much time has passed it almost seems harder to do that thing than to just continue on and pretend that it no longer exists.

Unfortunately that is just what happened to me and the blog. It isn't that I haven't had ideas, I have steadily accumulated a stack of magazines with pages dog-eared with topics I wanted to expound on. And yet.

I am consistently amazed at how easy it is for the day to slip away when you are unemployed. Mind you, I have been somewhat busy with some freelance work, possibly something that will even turn into more of an ongoing, long-term gig (fingers crossed), and I am extremely grateful, but that is no excuse. I have been out of the work force for almost six months now and in that time my book shelves have not been alphabetized like I have dreamed of (I blame the spouse who helped me move in low these many years ago—10 to be exact— and who put the books on the shelf with little rhyme or reason), the spawn's toys have only been organized once, months ago, and now the blocks are living with the toy people and the trucks with the puzzles and in my head it is a mighty clash of civilizations that keep me up at night (okay not really, but it does bug me to my anal retentive core), and that dream of scrubbing the baseboards is still just that. And yet.

I do dream of suit shopping with Bill Maher (paging Freud for the meaning of that one), I did a marathon nine hour day of proofing and I attempted to run a 5K. So I have not been idle. And yet.

Earlier this month, one idea I dog-eared corresponded with my boyfriend Jon Stewart mentioning on his show Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham wrote his weekly editor's letter back in the September 28 issue (told you I was thinking of you gentle reader, all along . . .) about the consequences of words. I know the power of words to wound and heal and yet I am endless careless with them, waving them about like a cocked and loaded gun. It is shameless really, so that is why Meacham's essay struck me so I think.

Meacham talks of how we delude ourselves when we think that there was once a golden age of bipartisanship. Like the unicorn and yeti, bipartisanship is a myth, a fantasy that we delude ourselves with when times are particularly hard like they are now (despite those bankers on Wall Street raking in their millions). But where I felt truly called to the carpet was when Meacham talks of Obama supporters saying the hostility towards our President is unprecedented. And he is right, my hostility to Dubya was legendary (at least in my own mind) and was, dare I say it, wrong and misguided. The people who demonize President Obama are just as wrong as I was to demonize Dubya, doesn't mean I like him or that my opinion of him has changed or will ever change, but I should have been able to keep my level of discourse on a more civilized plane. And yet.

The level of hostility and hatred that is leveled at President Obama does strike me as different in tone than that aimed at Dubya. Our current president is being judged, by many, for the color of his skin. In my opinion, George W. Bush was being judged by his lack of intelligence and his gung-ho, cowboy attitude toward diplomacy. Many may think I am splitting hairs, but that strikes me as apples and oranges.

So while I am a tad behind, today I will celebrate my own day of atonement and I will try to do better in the future—not only in keeping a civil tongue when it comes to my disagreements with the conservatives in politics, but I will not let things slide in my life. Like this blog.

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.'