Mark Bowden, author of the best-selling Black Hawk Down, was interviewed by Chris Matthews on Crossfire on Feb. 15, 2007. I worked with Bowden many many moons ago, when we were young.
I felt proud to have known him. Bowden pursued, without much support from his newspaper, the story of a Black Hawk helicopter that went down in Somalia during the Clinton administration’s foray, U.S. airmen dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The book also became a popular film, and Bowden has his pick of assignments these days.
He answered Matthews’ questions without the emotional histrionics to which TV news personalities are so prone – no shouting, no talking over the other person, but quietly telling his truth, refusing to be backed into corners or to allow what he had to say to be twisted and turned, exploited or misrepresented. He looked rather handsome (men age so much better than women), quietly confident, a man comfortable in his own skin.
Bowden’s view is that the Islamic terrorism threat has been overestimated and exploited by the administration. He was unphased by Matthews’ aggressive journalistic style designed to catch guests in the “crossfire,” as he styles it.
Bowden stayed in newspaper over decades when newspapers have continued to go out of business until finally, now, their existence is in question. Newspapers may not even survive the age of the internet. But Bowden survived the News American, where we once worked together, a newspaper that celebrated its 200-year run before being crowded out of the Baltimore market by the Sun. He went on to pursue his craft at the Philadelphia Inquirer. It can’t have been easy raising a family on a newsman’s salary. But he did, building his reputation word by word, lead by lead, story by story, mastering his craft the old-fashioned way. It is so gratifying to see a hard-working man achieve fame and fortune, and that it can come relatively late in life, after it has truly been earned. Success doesn’t seem to have turned Bowden’s head and that, too, makes me proud to have known him back in the day.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Galleria Go 'Round
After living in Fort Lauderdale for two years, I had not visited its best-known mall, the upscale Galleria on Sunrise Boulevard. I decided to talk a 30-minute mall walk there today. The reports of its attractions have been greatly exaggerated.
What can I say? It is a collection of national chains in one location, a round-up of the usual corporate retailing suspects, from Bebe to Victoria’s Secrets. The absence of J.C. Penney’s and presence of Neiman Marcus and Saks identify it as a mall for the moneyed.
I understood my wisdom in not visiting before now. I have been living on a tight budget. I find no pleasure in competing for parking places in order to ogle the perquisites of the rich that I cannot afford.
The mall was not as crowded as I thought it might be on a cloudy day after Christmas. Nonetheless, it was challenging to keep up a brisk walking pace in the best traveled corridors. Malls are for dawdling and spending.
Saks has the strangest design approach of any of the major retailers, at least at the Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale locations. The goal seems to be to create simultaneously grandeur and intimacy, and the two elements clash. Everything is beige marble, soaring ceilings, angular lines, and brilliantly shined glass showcases. The displays are minimalist. These elements suggest grandeur and modernity. On the other hand, various products are tucked away in nooks reminiscent of the small shops that once existed on every town’s main street. I find this juxtaposition of the grand and the intimate jarring and uncomfortable. I wonder if it appeals to Saks’ demographic.
In conclusion, a mall is a mall is a mall. You can dress it up in marble or dress it down in cement tile, but the same old retailers hawk the same wares. The food court may have the name of an Italian piazza and be decked in fancy letters, but the kiosks are still Italian pizza, salads and wraps, and Asian. Malls are predictable and fundamentally boring.
What can I say? It is a collection of national chains in one location, a round-up of the usual corporate retailing suspects, from Bebe to Victoria’s Secrets. The absence of J.C. Penney’s and presence of Neiman Marcus and Saks identify it as a mall for the moneyed.
I understood my wisdom in not visiting before now. I have been living on a tight budget. I find no pleasure in competing for parking places in order to ogle the perquisites of the rich that I cannot afford.
The mall was not as crowded as I thought it might be on a cloudy day after Christmas. Nonetheless, it was challenging to keep up a brisk walking pace in the best traveled corridors. Malls are for dawdling and spending.
Saks has the strangest design approach of any of the major retailers, at least at the Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale locations. The goal seems to be to create simultaneously grandeur and intimacy, and the two elements clash. Everything is beige marble, soaring ceilings, angular lines, and brilliantly shined glass showcases. The displays are minimalist. These elements suggest grandeur and modernity. On the other hand, various products are tucked away in nooks reminiscent of the small shops that once existed on every town’s main street. I find this juxtaposition of the grand and the intimate jarring and uncomfortable. I wonder if it appeals to Saks’ demographic.
In conclusion, a mall is a mall is a mall. You can dress it up in marble or dress it down in cement tile, but the same old retailers hawk the same wares. The food court may have the name of an Italian piazza and be decked in fancy letters, but the kiosks are still Italian pizza, salads and wraps, and Asian. Malls are predictable and fundamentally boring.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Downsize Christmas
Christmas is in need of serious downsizing. Political comic commentator Lewis Black asks, "When did Christmas become about shopping?"
Then there is the silliness: the war against Christmas by stores who asked employees to say "Happy holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, so not to Jews and other non-Christians. An airport took down its Christmas trees when a rabbi asked that a menorah be added. Then the airport put them back up when the rabbi backed down from a lawsuit.
Downsize the whole holiday. Take down the tacky Christmas trees. End the holiday shopping binge, the high expectations for perfect family gatherings in our dysfunctional families, and restore a quiet focus on religion, family, and community.
Christmas needs some serious downsizing.
Then there is the silliness: the war against Christmas by stores who asked employees to say "Happy holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, so not to Jews and other non-Christians. An airport took down its Christmas trees when a rabbi asked that a menorah be added. Then the airport put them back up when the rabbi backed down from a lawsuit.
Downsize the whole holiday. Take down the tacky Christmas trees. End the holiday shopping binge, the high expectations for perfect family gatherings in our dysfunctional families, and restore a quiet focus on religion, family, and community.
Christmas needs some serious downsizing.
Birds at dusk
Birds swoop and call
Caw and chatter and screen
Sweeping in kaleidescope patterns
Black wings against the cloudy gray dusk.
A busy intersection full of Christmas traffic
Irritated commuters and hurried shoppers
The birds above clatter and rise up from the trees and power lines in clouds of darkness. Big and small, round heads and crested, beaked and graceful.
I am glad that I am alive to see this.
Caw and chatter and screen
Sweeping in kaleidescope patterns
Black wings against the cloudy gray dusk.
A busy intersection full of Christmas traffic
Irritated commuters and hurried shoppers
The birds above clatter and rise up from the trees and power lines in clouds of darkness. Big and small, round heads and crested, beaked and graceful.
I am glad that I am alive to see this.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
More Nuggets of Wisdom: Life Lessons 6-10
Please see August 12, 2006 for Life Lessons 1-5.
LIFE LESSON #6
If you remember when a fashion wasn’t retro, don’t wear it.
What looks fabulously cutting edge on someone who didn’t see the style the first time around merely looks sadly out-of-date on YOU. Don’t try to relive your youth. For gawd’s sake, find something new to do.
LIFE LESSON #7
A guy who cheats on his wife will cheat on you.
There is absolutely no excuse for a woman over the age of 40 to believe a man’s lies. Don’t cry to your friends when he won’t leave his wife or, after leaving her, up and leaves you. If he says his wife doesn't understand him, laugh in his face. You don't really believe that, do you? At your age? Grow up.
LIFE LESSON #8
Don’t marry a back-door man.
Pussy hounds are not marriage material. If you want a life of great sex, betrayal and tears, go for it. If you don’t, find for someone nice and learn to appreciate him. He will mow the lawn, take out the garbage, balance the checkbook, and love you even when you look your worst. He deserves a good woman. Give him one – you.
LIFE LESSON #9
Always buy title insurance.
Title insurance is a policy offered at the time you close on any real estate sale. Even though you had a title search, sometimes a problem arises. For example, a former owner’s ex-husband who was missing dries out, returns, and announces he never signed off on the sale and, thus, has a right to an interest in your property.
In some states, including Florida, title insurance is required. In Florida, it’s customary for the seller to pay for it but not required. In Georgia, title insurance was completely optional was not required. As it turned out, the county appraiser’s office had wrongly recorded a power company easement as 50 feet when it was 100 feet. The only thing a person could do with the land was mow it; planting or building was not allowed. It cut the land I thought I’d purchased in half. I dried the tears of my disappointment with a check from the title insurance company when I discovered the error. My neighbors, who did not have title insurance, were so irritated they sold their home and left the neighborhood.
LIFE LESSON #10
No one can teach you how to write, but a good writing coach may help you to write better, and a good MFA writing program may help you make contacts that lead to publication.
I found it interesting to see a number of books to help writers generate ideas on the remainder tables at two large chain bookstores I visited today. I confess that I’ve used several of these books to generate fiction writing exercises for myself, especially early in the morning. But, I’m a lousy fiction writer.
As a journalist and essayist, I have more ideas than I’m ever going to need. If you need a book to generate ideas, perhaps writing is not the mode of self-expression that’s right for you. I recommend silly crafts projects as an alternative. (See my hand-crafted bricolage thank-you bookmark card with my Life Lessons post of Aug. 12, 2006.)
LIFE LESSON #6
If you remember when a fashion wasn’t retro, don’t wear it.
What looks fabulously cutting edge on someone who didn’t see the style the first time around merely looks sadly out-of-date on YOU. Don’t try to relive your youth. For gawd’s sake, find something new to do.
LIFE LESSON #7
A guy who cheats on his wife will cheat on you.
There is absolutely no excuse for a woman over the age of 40 to believe a man’s lies. Don’t cry to your friends when he won’t leave his wife or, after leaving her, up and leaves you. If he says his wife doesn't understand him, laugh in his face. You don't really believe that, do you? At your age? Grow up.
LIFE LESSON #8
Don’t marry a back-door man.
Pussy hounds are not marriage material. If you want a life of great sex, betrayal and tears, go for it. If you don’t, find for someone nice and learn to appreciate him. He will mow the lawn, take out the garbage, balance the checkbook, and love you even when you look your worst. He deserves a good woman. Give him one – you.
LIFE LESSON #9
Always buy title insurance.
Title insurance is a policy offered at the time you close on any real estate sale. Even though you had a title search, sometimes a problem arises. For example, a former owner’s ex-husband who was missing dries out, returns, and announces he never signed off on the sale and, thus, has a right to an interest in your property.
In some states, including Florida, title insurance is required. In Florida, it’s customary for the seller to pay for it but not required. In Georgia, title insurance was completely optional was not required. As it turned out, the county appraiser’s office had wrongly recorded a power company easement as 50 feet when it was 100 feet. The only thing a person could do with the land was mow it; planting or building was not allowed. It cut the land I thought I’d purchased in half. I dried the tears of my disappointment with a check from the title insurance company when I discovered the error. My neighbors, who did not have title insurance, were so irritated they sold their home and left the neighborhood.
LIFE LESSON #10
No one can teach you how to write, but a good writing coach may help you to write better, and a good MFA writing program may help you make contacts that lead to publication.
I found it interesting to see a number of books to help writers generate ideas on the remainder tables at two large chain bookstores I visited today. I confess that I’ve used several of these books to generate fiction writing exercises for myself, especially early in the morning. But, I’m a lousy fiction writer.
As a journalist and essayist, I have more ideas than I’m ever going to need. If you need a book to generate ideas, perhaps writing is not the mode of self-expression that’s right for you. I recommend silly crafts projects as an alternative. (See my hand-crafted bricolage thank-you bookmark card with my Life Lessons post of Aug. 12, 2006.)
Friday, November 17, 2006
Katie Couric: Must all news be fun?
Waiting for a prescription at the drugstore, I flipped through the latest copy of Good Housekeeping, where there was a story about ABC’s new anchor, Katie Couric, erstwhile of NBC’s morning smorgasboard of features articles. Couric says one of her job demands was that the job had to be fun. Couric was mocked on The Daily Show when host Jon Stewart ran on clip of her saying that her favorite story from the recent, heated elections was about one Congressman missing three fingers from an accident.
Ye gods and little kittens, as a favorite femme coworker used to say back in my youth. Is this the fruit of the women’s movement? A woman attains one of the three coveted news anchor spots in the U.S., and she turns it into gossip? Fun, my dear, is on MTV, HGTV, Food and Travel Channel. Cheerleaders,rock stars, and Paris Hilton make fun the bottom line.
Fun is diversion. Passion is intense feeling. Joy may well up from passion; it is a feeling of oneness, flow, completion. Happiness, on the other hand, is like fun – dependent on happenstance and diversion, fleeting, and without internal ballast.
I want my news anchors to be thoughtful, insightful, well read, immensely knowledgeable about world and national affairs. I want them to see past surfaces (such as missing fingers) to what’s missing from the facts, from the inner guts of the story or the person. This requires passion for the work, not a desire to slip away into the empty diversions of fun.
When I was a young reporter, I used to tell colleagues who grumbled, “They call it work because it isn’t play. If it was fun, they wouldn’t have to pay us to do it.” I had and still have a passion for good reporting and good writing. I am passionate about being an effective teacher of communication now. Sometimes, I have fun, but I do not seek it as what I’m looking for in life. Passion and joy come from fulfilling one’s inner purpose, not seeking after mindless diversions.
Lately, I often look at news anchors and think that Ken and Barbie are bringing me the news with mindless happy talk, chronic substitution of the word irony for circumstances that are coincidence, misuse of plural pronouns for singular referents, and a general dumbing down of information. Katie Couric appears to be a nice gal who was excellent at the providing light features for the morning program. As a new anchor, she embodies the Barbie image of the news anchor, at least for me.
Ye gods and little kittens, as a favorite femme coworker used to say back in my youth. Is this the fruit of the women’s movement? A woman attains one of the three coveted news anchor spots in the U.S., and she turns it into gossip? Fun, my dear, is on MTV, HGTV, Food and Travel Channel. Cheerleaders,rock stars, and Paris Hilton make fun the bottom line.
Fun is diversion. Passion is intense feeling. Joy may well up from passion; it is a feeling of oneness, flow, completion. Happiness, on the other hand, is like fun – dependent on happenstance and diversion, fleeting, and without internal ballast.
I want my news anchors to be thoughtful, insightful, well read, immensely knowledgeable about world and national affairs. I want them to see past surfaces (such as missing fingers) to what’s missing from the facts, from the inner guts of the story or the person. This requires passion for the work, not a desire to slip away into the empty diversions of fun.
When I was a young reporter, I used to tell colleagues who grumbled, “They call it work because it isn’t play. If it was fun, they wouldn’t have to pay us to do it.” I had and still have a passion for good reporting and good writing. I am passionate about being an effective teacher of communication now. Sometimes, I have fun, but I do not seek it as what I’m looking for in life. Passion and joy come from fulfilling one’s inner purpose, not seeking after mindless diversions.
Lately, I often look at news anchors and think that Ken and Barbie are bringing me the news with mindless happy talk, chronic substitution of the word irony for circumstances that are coincidence, misuse of plural pronouns for singular referents, and a general dumbing down of information. Katie Couric appears to be a nice gal who was excellent at the providing light features for the morning program. As a new anchor, she embodies the Barbie image of the news anchor, at least for me.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Do you like your doctors?
I don’t think much of doctors anymore. I’m pretty sure that each one will suggest doing things to me that I don’t want to do.
I had a doctor in Baltimore that I liked quite a bit. He dressed like Marcus Welby, a popular TV physician of the time, with wool jackets with patches on his sleeves. He was tall and good-looking like Robert Young, the actor who morphed from the reassuring dad on Father Knows Best into the reassuring dispenser of health. Dr. Feelgood wasn’t much good at diagnosing my back pain, but he was generous with the Librium scrips.
Today's television doctor du jour is House -- brilliant, unorthodox, arrogant, cranky, unshaven, and popping pills with the abandon of a hippie on the Haight. What does that say about the social condition of doctors today?
I took to spending increasing amount of time in bed due to excruciating back pain. One day my husband tossed a slip of paper across the quilt. “You’re not the same woman I married. This is my mother’s orthopedist. Call him.” My X did not think as much of Marcus Welby as I did. The orthopedist turned out to be a pretty good guy and hooked me up with an excellent surgeon.
I’m turning into my mother when it comes to doctors. I’ve laughed off my GP who is continually suggesting that he perform a breast exam, even though I have assured him that I consult a gynecologist once a year. She is female, she understands how the equipment works, and she is the first GYN I’ve had who can take a pap smear without turning it into small torture.
My GP suggested I have a nebulizer to disperse medicine like a vaporizer during a recent lengthy bout with bronchitis, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Maybe I wouldn’t have an ear infection now if I had taken his advice.
I spent a year seeing various doctor mengeles to find out that I might have lupus. Then again, I might not, according to a rheumatologist in New Orleans who said he’d run some more sophisticated blood tests. No one has been able to get those records since hurricane Katrina flooded that city.
I don’t want radioactive dyes shot through my body and to be plunged through a CatScan on a cold slab of steel. I don’t want ultrasounds, x-rays, blood tests, and I definitely don’t want to have my ear drained, one of the most painful procedures I have ever undergone. Ear docs tell you that it will pinch a little, but they are lying.
Occasionally my students want me to verify that they are really sick. One even asked me if I would tell her employer that she was ill on a certain day because she had not come to class. But I tell them I’m not that kind of doctor.
So, how's your experience with doctors?
I had a doctor in Baltimore that I liked quite a bit. He dressed like Marcus Welby, a popular TV physician of the time, with wool jackets with patches on his sleeves. He was tall and good-looking like Robert Young, the actor who morphed from the reassuring dad on Father Knows Best into the reassuring dispenser of health. Dr. Feelgood wasn’t much good at diagnosing my back pain, but he was generous with the Librium scrips.
Today's television doctor du jour is House -- brilliant, unorthodox, arrogant, cranky, unshaven, and popping pills with the abandon of a hippie on the Haight. What does that say about the social condition of doctors today?
I took to spending increasing amount of time in bed due to excruciating back pain. One day my husband tossed a slip of paper across the quilt. “You’re not the same woman I married. This is my mother’s orthopedist. Call him.” My X did not think as much of Marcus Welby as I did. The orthopedist turned out to be a pretty good guy and hooked me up with an excellent surgeon.
I’m turning into my mother when it comes to doctors. I’ve laughed off my GP who is continually suggesting that he perform a breast exam, even though I have assured him that I consult a gynecologist once a year. She is female, she understands how the equipment works, and she is the first GYN I’ve had who can take a pap smear without turning it into small torture.
My GP suggested I have a nebulizer to disperse medicine like a vaporizer during a recent lengthy bout with bronchitis, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Maybe I wouldn’t have an ear infection now if I had taken his advice.
I spent a year seeing various doctor mengeles to find out that I might have lupus. Then again, I might not, according to a rheumatologist in New Orleans who said he’d run some more sophisticated blood tests. No one has been able to get those records since hurricane Katrina flooded that city.
I don’t want radioactive dyes shot through my body and to be plunged through a CatScan on a cold slab of steel. I don’t want ultrasounds, x-rays, blood tests, and I definitely don’t want to have my ear drained, one of the most painful procedures I have ever undergone. Ear docs tell you that it will pinch a little, but they are lying.
Occasionally my students want me to verify that they are really sick. One even asked me if I would tell her employer that she was ill on a certain day because she had not come to class. But I tell them I’m not that kind of doctor.
So, how's your experience with doctors?
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Perfect Mornings, Thoroughbreds, and Students
It is a perfect winter morning in south Florida, with sky as blue as turquoise, the deep green fronds palm trees fluttering in balmy breezes. It is the kind of morning that makes one say – I will endure the heat of summer that makes me feel like my head is going to explode; I will endure hurricane season, the crowded highways, the high taxes and home insurance; I will put up with all of this so that I do not have to face the freezing cold and gray skies of winter.
It made me think of other perfect mornings, reporting to Pimlico Race Course on perfect spring days in Baltimore, Maryland, skies and breezes and temperatures much like these. Noted handicapper Clem Florio once said – you’d have to be crazy not to love this life. As I drove into the race course gate, thoroughbreds would race past the fences on their morning work outs. In some ways, I suppose, the students are like the young thoroughbreds – athletically and sexually frisky, ready to run into a bright future of endless victories – how could it not be a bright future of achievements? This is a good life, too.
It made me think of other perfect mornings, reporting to Pimlico Race Course on perfect spring days in Baltimore, Maryland, skies and breezes and temperatures much like these. Noted handicapper Clem Florio once said – you’d have to be crazy not to love this life. As I drove into the race course gate, thoroughbreds would race past the fences on their morning work outs. In some ways, I suppose, the students are like the young thoroughbreds – athletically and sexually frisky, ready to run into a bright future of endless victories – how could it not be a bright future of achievements? This is a good life, too.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Prez Gets the People's Message
President George Bush the younger led the Republican Party to defeat in yesterday’s midterm elections, as he led the country to defeat in Iraq. Citizens, apparently in trauma since the terrorists’ toppling of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and fueled by the continual fear-mongering of this administration, at last emerged from political catatonia to vote in a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and maybe even in the Senate.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one of the neo-Conservative architects of the pre-emptive military strike on Iraq that has turned into a bloody mess over the last three years, resigned. Or he was booted, but at any rate, the Prez announced Rumsfeld’s departure at a news conference this morning.
It’s not as if happy times are here, but at least we can look forward to getting our young people out of Iraq and a lessening of the constant fear-mongering that has been in play for the past five years
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one of the neo-Conservative architects of the pre-emptive military strike on Iraq that has turned into a bloody mess over the last three years, resigned. Or he was booted, but at any rate, the Prez announced Rumsfeld’s departure at a news conference this morning.
It’s not as if happy times are here, but at least we can look forward to getting our young people out of Iraq and a lessening of the constant fear-mongering that has been in play for the past five years
Monday, November 06, 2006
Rain like steam
A big truck laden with lumber
Spewing clouds of misty rain
Like an old-fashioned
Steam engine.
It is dark since the time change
When I leave campus
A long day
Busy bee Mondays.
Home I have two hours or so
To eat, shower, watch TV.
Then back to do it all again
Tomorrow.
Spewing clouds of misty rain
Like an old-fashioned
Steam engine.
It is dark since the time change
When I leave campus
A long day
Busy bee Mondays.
Home I have two hours or so
To eat, shower, watch TV.
Then back to do it all again
Tomorrow.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Karmic Symmetry
Karmic Symmetry
So here I am, fretting about how I miss Miss M., who stopped responding to phone calls, emails, cards, and even flowers. She represents a part of my youth, and that’s a lot of water under the bridge.
And while I am fretting, Miss N. sends me a note, through my mother, even though I cut off contact with her two years ago. Now I have to decide – what does one say when one has outgrown a relationship? Perhaps I am still angry. Stating my authentic reasons for not wanting to renew old lang syne does not seem helpful; it will only perpetuate a cycle I prefer to end. Not acknowledging the note seems the kind of passive-aggressive behavior of Miss M. So I have written a note thanking her for thinking of me and philosophizing that all things have a season, including relationships.
I recently heard a radio interview with Joanna Carson, who was a great friend of Truman Capote. She was asked if Capote has an eccentric way of being very enthusiastic about a new friend for a while, then creating a scene and ending it. Carson said that wasn’t true. She observed that some friendships last a while and then pass from our lives. They don’t all last forever. Perhaps the 30-year curve with M and the 20-year curve with N are all they were meant to last. Even long-lived trees and tortoises eventually die.
So here I am, fretting about how I miss Miss M., who stopped responding to phone calls, emails, cards, and even flowers. She represents a part of my youth, and that’s a lot of water under the bridge.
And while I am fretting, Miss N. sends me a note, through my mother, even though I cut off contact with her two years ago. Now I have to decide – what does one say when one has outgrown a relationship? Perhaps I am still angry. Stating my authentic reasons for not wanting to renew old lang syne does not seem helpful; it will only perpetuate a cycle I prefer to end. Not acknowledging the note seems the kind of passive-aggressive behavior of Miss M. So I have written a note thanking her for thinking of me and philosophizing that all things have a season, including relationships.
I recently heard a radio interview with Joanna Carson, who was a great friend of Truman Capote. She was asked if Capote has an eccentric way of being very enthusiastic about a new friend for a while, then creating a scene and ending it. Carson said that wasn’t true. She observed that some friendships last a while and then pass from our lives. They don’t all last forever. Perhaps the 30-year curve with M and the 20-year curve with N are all they were meant to last. Even long-lived trees and tortoises eventually die.
Friday, October 27, 2006
In Love with Lexus
The Lexus 330 looks like a sports car on steroids. Aerodynamic and glittering with chrome, the inside offers leather luxury. Best yet, there’s a Toyota engine. It has looks and muscle, and I want one.
Is the plural of Lexus Lexi?
Is the plural of Lexus Lexi?
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Letting Her Go
Have you ever lost a friend and not known why? Or, have you ever left a relationship without telling the other person why? Please share your thoughts.
Back in August, I wrote Tribute to a Friend to because I miss the Divine Miss M. I've known her 30 years. After many attempts to find out what's going on, and reassurance I will be here for her if she changes her mind, I am coming to the conclusion that I must stop even occasional "thinking of you" messages.
Yesterday, I read an article in the current issue of Yoga Journal about forgiving ourselves when another person will not forgive us and then moving on. The situation was a little different: the writer knew why the old friend has ended the friendship, but attempts to make amends were roundly rejected. In this case, I don't know what I did that offended, while indicating my willingness to set things straight.
On Sunday, in an NPR interview with Joanna Carson about her great friend Truman Capote, she was asked if he had a penchant for having an intense friendship with someone, then ticking them off or writing them off, in an eccentric pattern of terminal friendships. Carson didn't see it that way. In the course of a lifetime, she observed, friendships come in and out of our lives. They do not have to last forever.
I am very sorry that this friendship apparently is at an end. I believe information such as this comes into our lives for our growth, and my conclusion -- at least for right now -- is that I have to develop new friendships and move on.
Back in August, I wrote Tribute to a Friend to because I miss the Divine Miss M. I've known her 30 years. After many attempts to find out what's going on, and reassurance I will be here for her if she changes her mind, I am coming to the conclusion that I must stop even occasional "thinking of you" messages.
Yesterday, I read an article in the current issue of Yoga Journal about forgiving ourselves when another person will not forgive us and then moving on. The situation was a little different: the writer knew why the old friend has ended the friendship, but attempts to make amends were roundly rejected. In this case, I don't know what I did that offended, while indicating my willingness to set things straight.
On Sunday, in an NPR interview with Joanna Carson about her great friend Truman Capote, she was asked if he had a penchant for having an intense friendship with someone, then ticking them off or writing them off, in an eccentric pattern of terminal friendships. Carson didn't see it that way. In the course of a lifetime, she observed, friendships come in and out of our lives. They do not have to last forever.
I am very sorry that this friendship apparently is at an end. I believe information such as this comes into our lives for our growth, and my conclusion -- at least for right now -- is that I have to develop new friendships and move on.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Polyester Morphs to Microfiber
Do you have trouble finding age-appropriate women's clothing in your price range? I'd love to hear from you.
It is increasingly clear that there is an endless supply of polyester in the world, so much that my hypothesis is that the world is, in fact, made of polyester.
Since the 1970s when the polyester leisure suit was derided as apparel of the hopelessly square and outdated, polyester has become the predominant fabric for all clothing for the worker class and has even morphed into microfiber. Did you think that stuff that is supposed to magically “wick” sweat from your body was a natural substance? Think again. Wrinkle-free, travel-ready microfiber is the latest marketing ploy to push polyester.
My first requirement when looking for a business suit is to check the inside tag for fabric. Usually I can tell just by looking at a garment whether it is polyester; if I can’t tell at a glance, a brief fingering of a sleeve tells me whether it is polyester, rayon, silk, linen or wool. This is the legacy of a mother trained in fashion design, hours spent in fabric stores with her, and taste that exceeds my budget. Occasionally, a fabric fools me or the suit is so tempting, I take a quick peek at the inside tags.
The selection of suits from which to pick is slim pickings these days. In fact, in my last few outings, I could find a single garment in the $200 range that had any natural fabric content. We have lapsed, apparently, into an era when only folks who can afford designer clothing get to wear natural fabric business suits.
It is increasingly clear that there is an endless supply of polyester in the world, so much that my hypothesis is that the world is, in fact, made of polyester.
Since the 1970s when the polyester leisure suit was derided as apparel of the hopelessly square and outdated, polyester has become the predominant fabric for all clothing for the worker class and has even morphed into microfiber. Did you think that stuff that is supposed to magically “wick” sweat from your body was a natural substance? Think again. Wrinkle-free, travel-ready microfiber is the latest marketing ploy to push polyester.
My first requirement when looking for a business suit is to check the inside tag for fabric. Usually I can tell just by looking at a garment whether it is polyester; if I can’t tell at a glance, a brief fingering of a sleeve tells me whether it is polyester, rayon, silk, linen or wool. This is the legacy of a mother trained in fashion design, hours spent in fabric stores with her, and taste that exceeds my budget. Occasionally, a fabric fools me or the suit is so tempting, I take a quick peek at the inside tags.
The selection of suits from which to pick is slim pickings these days. In fact, in my last few outings, I could find a single garment in the $200 range that had any natural fabric content. We have lapsed, apparently, into an era when only folks who can afford designer clothing get to wear natural fabric business suits.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Ups and Downs
How do you deal with the a build-up of aggravations? I'd love to hear from you.
The 3-grand for the car repairs puts so many things in a new light. I thought I was making financial progress. I thought I would be able to whittle away the bills I racked up during the year I was sick and out of my mind after my life came crashing down and I was hardly employed for two years. I even dared to think I might be able to save money toward retirement.
I dreamed of having a few nice things. Might I be able to afford to have the moldy, outdated, 25-year-old bathroom redone? Was it possible I might be able to afford to travel in retirement or even before?
We are a materialistic society, and I confess my dreams were material in nature. Perhaps I could save money and have a really nice car, a car that wasn’t a compromise with what I can afford.
Now, reality has set in. I scrape by, like most Americans. Dreams crash up against the cold hard shape of a budget – one that is constantly squeezed by unexpected expenses. I know that this is not what gives life meaning and purpose, but I am feeling down about it.
The 3-grand for the car repairs puts so many things in a new light. I thought I was making financial progress. I thought I would be able to whittle away the bills I racked up during the year I was sick and out of my mind after my life came crashing down and I was hardly employed for two years. I even dared to think I might be able to save money toward retirement.
I dreamed of having a few nice things. Might I be able to afford to have the moldy, outdated, 25-year-old bathroom redone? Was it possible I might be able to afford to travel in retirement or even before?
We are a materialistic society, and I confess my dreams were material in nature. Perhaps I could save money and have a really nice car, a car that wasn’t a compromise with what I can afford.
Now, reality has set in. I scrape by, like most Americans. Dreams crash up against the cold hard shape of a budget – one that is constantly squeezed by unexpected expenses. I know that this is not what gives life meaning and purpose, but I am feeling down about it.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Sweating the Small Stuff
Mercury must be retrograde, or Mars in my planetary house of doom and small aggravations, or whatever. Rob Brezny predicts aggravation for the coming week, but it’s already happening.
First, there was the $2700 bill to fix the tranny, wheel drums, and a bunch of other stuff on the Toyota, a car I thought I’d been taking good care of. Okay, that’s not such small stuff, at least not to me. Not only was I just docked more than a grand for not infecting our students with my bronchitis, now I’ve got a huge payload just to keep my job. I commute 44 miles every day, and there is no public transportation that wouldn’t add a couple of hours, minimum, onto the trip each way. I’d have to take three buses to get to PalmTran, ride the commuter train, then take another bus to campus. I might as well set up a cot in my office and just live here. Of course, the a/c is out again, and there are no windows in my gray cubicle, so that’s a less than ideal plan, too.
Second, yesterday I got a $25 parking ticket because some moron misread the temporary parking hangar on the rearview mirror of the rental I’m driving. The parking permit clearly says “NOT VALID FOR MORE THAN 5 DAYS PAST THIS DATE: 10-10-06.” The ticket-writer apparently cannot read because the ticket was issued for “temporary parking expired 10-10-06.”
This is small stuff. But it is annoying. I’ve been embroiled for more than 2 weeks trying to get one stinking day’s pay for the online course I continued to tend during the five days I was out sick with bronchitis. You would think I was asking to refinance the war in Iraq for the red tape I had to go through. I’d like to spend some time teaching, for goodness sake.
I’ve also been trying to hook up with the representative for the retirement plan – and I’ve been trying to do that since early September. I’ve called both Valic and TIAA-CREF. It might be easier to negotiate a nuclear arms conference with North Korea, which upset world politics this week by what it claims was an underground bomb test.
Last, this morning, I come to my office to find a new sign: Dr. Eric Sxxxxxxx. It’s Enid. C’mon, y’all, we’re the intelligentsia, right? We can spell. I know Enid is a hard name. All my life, I’ve been called Edna and Edith because people can’t hear -- E – N – I – D – even when I spell it out letter by letter. I’ve also been called Ena and Nina. But Eric? That’s not even the right gender.
Why am I bothered by all this? Probably because of the money troubles. It intensifies everything else. Having a temporary 9-month contract does not help. I don’t like financial insecurity. I want to be toddling toward retirement, saving money, spending my summers blissfully in Taos or a small camper – a Scamp or Casita – seeing the country. Or I think I do, even though I’ve never, ever been camping and have considered myself a room-service kinda gal up til now.
But I digress. In the end, I went off to class. When calling roll, my students each gave one good thing in their lives recently, and that turned things around. They are delightful.
First, there was the $2700 bill to fix the tranny, wheel drums, and a bunch of other stuff on the Toyota, a car I thought I’d been taking good care of. Okay, that’s not such small stuff, at least not to me. Not only was I just docked more than a grand for not infecting our students with my bronchitis, now I’ve got a huge payload just to keep my job. I commute 44 miles every day, and there is no public transportation that wouldn’t add a couple of hours, minimum, onto the trip each way. I’d have to take three buses to get to PalmTran, ride the commuter train, then take another bus to campus. I might as well set up a cot in my office and just live here. Of course, the a/c is out again, and there are no windows in my gray cubicle, so that’s a less than ideal plan, too.
Second, yesterday I got a $25 parking ticket because some moron misread the temporary parking hangar on the rearview mirror of the rental I’m driving. The parking permit clearly says “NOT VALID FOR MORE THAN 5 DAYS PAST THIS DATE: 10-10-06.” The ticket-writer apparently cannot read because the ticket was issued for “temporary parking expired 10-10-06.”
This is small stuff. But it is annoying. I’ve been embroiled for more than 2 weeks trying to get one stinking day’s pay for the online course I continued to tend during the five days I was out sick with bronchitis. You would think I was asking to refinance the war in Iraq for the red tape I had to go through. I’d like to spend some time teaching, for goodness sake.
I’ve also been trying to hook up with the representative for the retirement plan – and I’ve been trying to do that since early September. I’ve called both Valic and TIAA-CREF. It might be easier to negotiate a nuclear arms conference with North Korea, which upset world politics this week by what it claims was an underground bomb test.
Last, this morning, I come to my office to find a new sign: Dr. Eric Sxxxxxxx. It’s Enid. C’mon, y’all, we’re the intelligentsia, right? We can spell. I know Enid is a hard name. All my life, I’ve been called Edna and Edith because people can’t hear -- E – N – I – D – even when I spell it out letter by letter. I’ve also been called Ena and Nina. But Eric? That’s not even the right gender.
Why am I bothered by all this? Probably because of the money troubles. It intensifies everything else. Having a temporary 9-month contract does not help. I don’t like financial insecurity. I want to be toddling toward retirement, saving money, spending my summers blissfully in Taos or a small camper – a Scamp or Casita – seeing the country. Or I think I do, even though I’ve never, ever been camping and have considered myself a room-service kinda gal up til now.
But I digress. In the end, I went off to class. When calling roll, my students each gave one good thing in their lives recently, and that turned things around. They are delightful.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Eternal Sale Time of the Witless Mind
Like prithee and thou, the words simple elegance seem to have vanished from American English. Excess is our credo. Spangles and glitter, breasts pumped too full of saline, belly shirts with necklines that are barely there, song lyrics that shock, bloated houses, sky-high debt – whatever we do, Americans do to excess.
I feel sorry for the young women of today. Who are their role models? Is it Pamela Anderson with breasts like a porn star and an online sex tape of her and ex-husband tattooed rocker Tommy Lee? Is it equally bosom Anna Nicole Smith, who wed a man old enough to be her great-grandfather and appears zonked out on her own reality show? Is it billion-heiress Paris Hilton, famous for being blond, rich, young, famous and raucous, showing her bare breasts on the cover of Vanity Fair?
My idol is Audrey Hepburn. She was always elegantly turned out in designer clothes. In her later years, she worked on behalf on UNICEF and the world’s children. Like Jackie Kennedy, she tried not ever to be photographed with a cigarette; it wasn’t ladylike. She fought a valiant death against cancer and died quietly in Switzerland with her husband, sons, and dogs.
Sophia Loren is a close runner-up. Like Audrey Hepburn, she does not appear in public in ripped jeans and sans-makeup. In a recent photograph in a hair-do magazine, she was elegantly suited and seated. In her seventies, she has gams to die for. I recall an interview in which she said she avoids appearing like an old woman by carrying herself erect and not making old-woman sounds.
The late Natalie Wood, who died too young in boating accident, was another graduate of the so-called Hollywood star system. She, too, never went to the supermarket without putting on make-up; she felt she owned it to her fans.
Now my lovely female students wear tops that make me wonder where to put my eyes when they come into my office cubicle. How must young men, with their raging hormones, manage the situation? They complained to me in my interpersonal communication class last year that young women get breast augmentation as a high school graduate present, wear plunging necklines, then give young men who stare dirty looks and ask snottily, “What are you looking at?” Neither do I enjoy the endless parade of women with beer guts and belly shirts who populate gas stations and supermarkets. Gals, this is not sexy.
Simple elegance is graceful, tasteful, esthetically pleasing, and respects the rights of others not to be confronted with one’s sexual allure when they’d rather not be. There’s a lot to be said for simple elegance, and I wish someone was saying it.
I feel sorry for the young women of today. Who are their role models? Is it Pamela Anderson with breasts like a porn star and an online sex tape of her and ex-husband tattooed rocker Tommy Lee? Is it equally bosom Anna Nicole Smith, who wed a man old enough to be her great-grandfather and appears zonked out on her own reality show? Is it billion-heiress Paris Hilton, famous for being blond, rich, young, famous and raucous, showing her bare breasts on the cover of Vanity Fair?
My idol is Audrey Hepburn. She was always elegantly turned out in designer clothes. In her later years, she worked on behalf on UNICEF and the world’s children. Like Jackie Kennedy, she tried not ever to be photographed with a cigarette; it wasn’t ladylike. She fought a valiant death against cancer and died quietly in Switzerland with her husband, sons, and dogs.
Sophia Loren is a close runner-up. Like Audrey Hepburn, she does not appear in public in ripped jeans and sans-makeup. In a recent photograph in a hair-do magazine, she was elegantly suited and seated. In her seventies, she has gams to die for. I recall an interview in which she said she avoids appearing like an old woman by carrying herself erect and not making old-woman sounds.
The late Natalie Wood, who died too young in boating accident, was another graduate of the so-called Hollywood star system. She, too, never went to the supermarket without putting on make-up; she felt she owned it to her fans.
Now my lovely female students wear tops that make me wonder where to put my eyes when they come into my office cubicle. How must young men, with their raging hormones, manage the situation? They complained to me in my interpersonal communication class last year that young women get breast augmentation as a high school graduate present, wear plunging necklines, then give young men who stare dirty looks and ask snottily, “What are you looking at?” Neither do I enjoy the endless parade of women with beer guts and belly shirts who populate gas stations and supermarkets. Gals, this is not sexy.
Simple elegance is graceful, tasteful, esthetically pleasing, and respects the rights of others not to be confronted with one’s sexual allure when they’d rather not be. There’s a lot to be said for simple elegance, and I wish someone was saying it.
Simple Elegance
Like prithee and thou, the words simple elegance seem to have vanished from American English. Excess is our credo. Spangles and glitter, breasts pumped too full of saline, belly shirts with necklines that are barely there, song lyrics that shock, bloated houses, sky-high debt – whatever we do, Americans do to excess.
I feel sorry for the young women of today. Who are their role models? Is it Pamela Anderson with breasts like a porn star and an online sex tape of her and ex-husband tattooed rocker Tommy Lee? Is it equally bosom Anna Nicole Smith, who wed a man old enough to be her great-grandfather and appears zonked out on her own reality show? Is it billion-heiress Paris Hilton, famous for being blond, rich, young, famous and raucous, showing her bare breasts on the cover of Vanity Fair?
My idol is Audrey Hepburn. She was always elegantly turned out in designer clothes. In her later years, she worked on behalf on UNICEF and the world’s children. Like Jackie Kennedy, she tried not ever to be photographed with a cigarette; it wasn’t ladylike. She fought a valiant death against cancer and died quietly in Switzerland with her husband, sons, and dogs.
Sophia Loren is a close runner-up. Like Audrey Hepburn, she does not appear in public in ripped jeans and sans-makeup. In a recent photograph in a hair-do magazine, she was elegantly suited and seated. In her seventies, she has gams to die for. I recall an interview in which she said she avoids appearing like an old woman by carrying herself erect and not making old-woman sounds.
The late Natalie Wood, who died too young in boating accident, was another graduate of the so-called Hollywood star system. She, too, never went to the supermarket without putting on make-up; she felt she owned it to her fans.
Now my lovely female students wear tops that make me wonder where to put my eyes when they come into my office cubicle. How must young men, with their raging hormones, manage the situation? They complained to me in my interpersonal communication class last year that young women get breast augmentation as a high school graduate present, wear plunging necklines, then give young men who stare dirty looks and ask snottily, “What are you looking at?” Neither do I enjoy the endless parade of women with beer guts and belly shirts who populate gas stations and supermarkets. Gals, this is not sexy.
Simple elegance is graceful, tasteful, esthetically pleasing, and respects the rights of others not to be confronted with one’s sexual allure when they’d rather not be. There’s a lot to be said for simple elegance, and I wish someone was saying it.
I feel sorry for the young women of today. Who are their role models? Is it Pamela Anderson with breasts like a porn star and an online sex tape of her and ex-husband tattooed rocker Tommy Lee? Is it equally bosom Anna Nicole Smith, who wed a man old enough to be her great-grandfather and appears zonked out on her own reality show? Is it billion-heiress Paris Hilton, famous for being blond, rich, young, famous and raucous, showing her bare breasts on the cover of Vanity Fair?
My idol is Audrey Hepburn. She was always elegantly turned out in designer clothes. In her later years, she worked on behalf on UNICEF and the world’s children. Like Jackie Kennedy, she tried not ever to be photographed with a cigarette; it wasn’t ladylike. She fought a valiant death against cancer and died quietly in Switzerland with her husband, sons, and dogs.
Sophia Loren is a close runner-up. Like Audrey Hepburn, she does not appear in public in ripped jeans and sans-makeup. In a recent photograph in a hair-do magazine, she was elegantly suited and seated. In her seventies, she has gams to die for. I recall an interview in which she said she avoids appearing like an old woman by carrying herself erect and not making old-woman sounds.
The late Natalie Wood, who died too young in boating accident, was another graduate of the so-called Hollywood star system. She, too, never went to the supermarket without putting on make-up; she felt she owned it to her fans.
Now my lovely female students wear tops that make me wonder where to put my eyes when they come into my office cubicle. How must young men, with their raging hormones, manage the situation? They complained to me in my interpersonal communication class last year that young women get breast augmentation as a high school graduate present, wear plunging necklines, then give young men who stare dirty looks and ask snottily, “What are you looking at?” Neither do I enjoy the endless parade of women with beer guts and belly shirts who populate gas stations and supermarkets. Gals, this is not sexy.
Simple elegance is graceful, tasteful, esthetically pleasing, and respects the rights of others not to be confronted with one’s sexual allure when they’d rather not be. There’s a lot to be said for simple elegance, and I wish someone was saying it.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Propositioning Pages-- Ho-Hum
I was thinking about the flashy Wilbur Mills drunk-with-a-stripper incident of 1974 and how dreary and Puritan the Mark Foley naughty-messages-to-pages scandal seems by comparison, when I found Wonkette’s comments. The level of media outrage is inversely proportional to the level of entertainment I feel.
Naughty emails? Good grief. Young women have forever been fending off naughty overtures of males in the workplace. It was a coming-of-age ritual. Sexual harassment laws have squeeze the juice out of raging workplace hormones, but it’s time that equal opportunity offered young males a chance to deal with ogling oldsters.
My first encounter with inappropriate advances was the New York University professor who singled out mini-skirted me to collect my work at a local bar, rather than after class with everyone else. An older girl in the dorm, larger than I and from the Midwest, dressed me in one of her old, shapeless winter coats, boots that were too large for me, and a dowdy babushka on my head. “What should I say?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about having to say anything,” she said. “He’ll get the picture.” Indeed, he took one look, handed me the essay, made no pretence of asking me to stay for a drink and that was that.
I frequently shunted aside naughty male comments with a laughing admonishment, “What would your wife say if she heard you talking like that?” An artless reminder from a young woman negotiating a workplace unregulated by harassment legislation, in hindsight it seems a prudent comeback, steeped in guilt with a mild edge of threat.
Men often tried, “I liked to get into those pants.” Such genius, such wit. My favorite retort: “They’re not your size, and I don’t think you’d look good in them.” I heard many a teehee from the sidelines.
On one occasion, a longtime married racetrack gambler offered me two tickets to the Preakness Stakes. I turned them down. He muttered, “So you don’t play the game.” I had no idea what he meant. Another gambler and friend explained, “The tickets are worth hundreds of dollars, He was propositioning you for sex without offering money. That’s the game.” Oh.
Asking me to plug in the copier and other equipment by crawling under a table was, however, a bit too much. The business owner’s mistress was never subjected to this indignity, and an unseemly audience of males who insisted on this uncomfortable ritual. Why the hell was the equipment always unplugged anyway? When I was fired for taking a sick day for cramps, a nice African-American case reviewer called it harassement, and I collected unemployment. By that time, the sexual harassment laws were newly in place.
The points made by Justin Zarkoff at Wonkette are well taken; there is no point in cloaking the Wilbur Mills era in fuzzy haze of reminiscence. It was a time when boys were men, and women were put upon. Still, it’s futile to try to choke sexuality out of human existence. It’s there, folks. Men and women are attracted to beautiful youth. Sexual innuendos and passes are made. I will probably be shot for being politically incorrect by saying, it’s fun to be young and sexy and desired. It’s good for young people to learn how to handle themselves in these situations. The Washington pages were not little girls, like the poor Amish children murdered in Pennsylvania. These were older male teenagers in the Big Bad City amongst legislators, as corrupt a group as ever gathered in a single location. American political history is shot through with scandal. I expect the public response is partly homophilia, partly outrage at Foley’s hypocrisy in shilling for legislation against sexual predators.
When I meet women my own age who were little Roman Catholic girls in the 50s and 60s, I find our mothers had a single response to any V-neckline that even remotely threatened to show cleavage. Out came two tiny gold safety pins and a ladies’ handkerchief that was pinned across the opening, to our humiliation. Today’s teens grow up in a media circus of salacious titillations. It’s time for parents to equip them with the moral equivalent of gold safety pins and handkerchiefs. After that, they have to find some an older wiser friends and mentors to coach them through the negotiations of sex and power. It isn’t as naughty as the media are making it out to be. Grow up.
Naughty emails? Good grief. Young women have forever been fending off naughty overtures of males in the workplace. It was a coming-of-age ritual. Sexual harassment laws have squeeze the juice out of raging workplace hormones, but it’s time that equal opportunity offered young males a chance to deal with ogling oldsters.
My first encounter with inappropriate advances was the New York University professor who singled out mini-skirted me to collect my work at a local bar, rather than after class with everyone else. An older girl in the dorm, larger than I and from the Midwest, dressed me in one of her old, shapeless winter coats, boots that were too large for me, and a dowdy babushka on my head. “What should I say?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about having to say anything,” she said. “He’ll get the picture.” Indeed, he took one look, handed me the essay, made no pretence of asking me to stay for a drink and that was that.
I frequently shunted aside naughty male comments with a laughing admonishment, “What would your wife say if she heard you talking like that?” An artless reminder from a young woman negotiating a workplace unregulated by harassment legislation, in hindsight it seems a prudent comeback, steeped in guilt with a mild edge of threat.
Men often tried, “I liked to get into those pants.” Such genius, such wit. My favorite retort: “They’re not your size, and I don’t think you’d look good in them.” I heard many a teehee from the sidelines.
On one occasion, a longtime married racetrack gambler offered me two tickets to the Preakness Stakes. I turned them down. He muttered, “So you don’t play the game.” I had no idea what he meant. Another gambler and friend explained, “The tickets are worth hundreds of dollars, He was propositioning you for sex without offering money. That’s the game.” Oh.
Asking me to plug in the copier and other equipment by crawling under a table was, however, a bit too much. The business owner’s mistress was never subjected to this indignity, and an unseemly audience of males who insisted on this uncomfortable ritual. Why the hell was the equipment always unplugged anyway? When I was fired for taking a sick day for cramps, a nice African-American case reviewer called it harassement, and I collected unemployment. By that time, the sexual harassment laws were newly in place.
The points made by Justin Zarkoff at Wonkette are well taken; there is no point in cloaking the Wilbur Mills era in fuzzy haze of reminiscence. It was a time when boys were men, and women were put upon. Still, it’s futile to try to choke sexuality out of human existence. It’s there, folks. Men and women are attracted to beautiful youth. Sexual innuendos and passes are made. I will probably be shot for being politically incorrect by saying, it’s fun to be young and sexy and desired. It’s good for young people to learn how to handle themselves in these situations. The Washington pages were not little girls, like the poor Amish children murdered in Pennsylvania. These were older male teenagers in the Big Bad City amongst legislators, as corrupt a group as ever gathered in a single location. American political history is shot through with scandal. I expect the public response is partly homophilia, partly outrage at Foley’s hypocrisy in shilling for legislation against sexual predators.
When I meet women my own age who were little Roman Catholic girls in the 50s and 60s, I find our mothers had a single response to any V-neckline that even remotely threatened to show cleavage. Out came two tiny gold safety pins and a ladies’ handkerchief that was pinned across the opening, to our humiliation. Today’s teens grow up in a media circus of salacious titillations. It’s time for parents to equip them with the moral equivalent of gold safety pins and handkerchiefs. After that, they have to find some an older wiser friends and mentors to coach them through the negotiations of sex and power. It isn’t as naughty as the media are making it out to be. Grow up.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Lugubrious Religion
After the cold-blooded shooting of six little girls at a one-room Amish school in Pennsylvania, I wonder anew what the self-denial and lugubriousness of religion achieves. Jews have just observed 24 hours of fasting for a high holiday. Muslims are in the midst of a 40-day sun-up to sundown fast, during which hours no food or drink, including toothpaste, may pass their lips. Roman Catholics give up pleasures and fast for Lent in the spring. Amish forego all modern conveniences for a life of denial of most pleasures.
What good does all this do? A stranger to their community enters an isolated, rural schoolhouse and slaughters little girls no older than 12 in gory execution style shootings, lining them up against a wall. I often think that the Dionysians and Sapphics are the only ones who got in right. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Yet, I take comfort in praying. It eases my guilt when I inadvertently do wrong or hurt someone. It lightens the burdens of being human. It soothes anxiety and brings a peaceful moment or two. So, why not?
What good does all this do? A stranger to their community enters an isolated, rural schoolhouse and slaughters little girls no older than 12 in gory execution style shootings, lining them up against a wall. I often think that the Dionysians and Sapphics are the only ones who got in right. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Yet, I take comfort in praying. It eases my guilt when I inadvertently do wrong or hurt someone. It lightens the burdens of being human. It soothes anxiety and brings a peaceful moment or two. So, why not?
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