The End of a Long Illness

• I was supposed to visit my favorite cousin last evening, but he wasn't feeling well, so we cancelled.
• I was supposed to have dinner with a new friend on Saturday last weekend, but she wasn't feeling well, so we cancelled. My husband and I did go, later on, to a second party we'd been invited to, and left early.
• My husband and I haven't been out to eat, except under duress, in months.
• I have begun exercise classes, and dropped out after one session.
• My best friend is working four hours a day, six days a week--not a killer schedule--but we have postponed a lunch date half a dozen times.
• My stepdaughter reconfirms each time we have a lunch date: I do always make it to those, but sometimes leave out a few errands I had meant to do on the way home.
• I haven't been impelled to call or see my brother for months. He lives 24 miles away. He's a funny guy, always amusing, and my sister-in-law is a great baker who stocks the house with delicious cookies and pies at all times.
  

This morning, I began to wonder what all this was about. I admit to having been alternately horribly depressed and heart-achingly frightened until Mr. Obama won the presidential election. My relief at the outcome of the election was enormous. As far as I can tell, most of the nation (and most of the voting nation, after all, did vote for Mr. Obama) was as relieved as I, at least on that score. Certainly, we are all still concerned about the financial future, and many of us are licking our wounds from a recent financial drubbing; a few of us still, sometimes, uselessly gnash our teeth at having let the scoundrels have free rein with our future for so long. A very few of us are hoping against hope that one of Mr. Obama's first acts will be the beginning of the restoration of the Constitution.

However, none of these musings begins to explain the weakness in the most basic threads of our social fabric, that of our relationships and interactions with our closest non-domiciled friends and family.

I think I have an explanation. After the first euphoria of hearing that there might, indeed, be a cure for our illness--which one might label Bellicositii ignoramicus fiducii (OK, some garbled pseudo-Latin for ignorant costly war, and I invite a Latin student to send me something better)--I think we are in 'bed rest' mode.

When one has endured a long illness, but has been told, "Just rest another week, dear, and you'll be fine to go about your business once again," one does just that. One rests. One avoids new opportunities for stressing one's body and mind. One adds some custard to the beef tea and toast diet, to build up one's strength for the marketplace once again. One works on one's wardrobe a little, making sure the outfits for the first days out will be clean and mended and attractive. One adds a small bit of difficult reading to the 'beach novels' of the worst part of the illness to attempt to gain enough knowledge of current events to re-enter the working world, if not also the world of work.

I think that's where we are, complicated by the fact that we are also, after such a long siege, a little incredulous, afraid to believe that our deliverance from this malady is at hand. Wanting it so badly, not wanting to jinx it. I think we are experiencing that last week of being housebound before being released into the big, wide, wonderful, exciting, demanding world again.

I am taking my Obama stickers off the car today, because my stepdaughter needs to borrow the car, and they would embarrass her. Yes, she was a McCain supporter; one cannot control one's own children, never mind a stepchild over 21. But then, my parents were embarrassed by my political choices, and I by theirs. So we'll let that ride for a bit, until she's about 35 and has been grappling with reality for a while. I don't like it, but I also believe the St. Francis prayer, and this experience calls for wisdom to know the difference.

But despite all these musings on my stepdaughter's incomprehensible political stance, I have been afraid to remove those darn stickers. I'm afraid of a jinx. I'm symbolically afraid that if I eat too much custard and too little beef tea, the disease will return. And I'll die. I have literally had to argue myself out of it, and succeeded, but only because I've already ordered some "We Did It" stickers in celebration, and they should be here by the time I get my car back. That's my excuse, and my band-aid for the heebie jeebies, and I'm sticking to it!

We do that when we are getting over an illness, also. We fear to jinx things; if we have always brushed our teeth from left to right, we aren't going to change it now. If we always wear our brown shoes on Mondays, well, the red ones just won't cut it until Tuesday. We maintain a steady state so that we can be receptive to the benefits on offer. The benefits of fresh air, new sights, pleasing sensations, mastery of our own fate once again.

We want so very badly to go out again, in health, that we hoard our small store of hard-won health against the greater health to be had very, very soon...if only....If only we adhere to doctor's orders. If only we do not tax our recovering system too much. If only we are brave enough to interact with our God again in some way other than begging, "Please, please, please....take this curse from me!"

So I'm not going to worry about it, which would tax my personal recovering system in any case. Soon enough, perhaps on January 21, 2009, we will all doubtless engage with the world again, stop walking on the eggshells of a fragile promised deliverance, and begin to enjoy the bounty we once had and can have again, enough and to share, if only....

If only we take care of our spirits, and make them loving, generous and kind.

If only we take care of our bodies, and enable them to endure the work of putting a fractured world back together again.

If only we take care of our minds, and see that we don't lose them again into a black hole of greed, cynicism and ignorance.

If only we relax into the hand of our God, whatever God that might be, and know that It Is Done Unto Us as We Believe...and we believe in God, the Good.

Repeat three times, and three times three times, ad infinitum.

How can we be doing this?

It is just barely today, October 31. I have been surfing YouTube for a couple of hours, bringing up favorite songs to cheer myself up after the horrors of the day, by which I mean the completely irrational, spirit-negative religiosity of Liberty University students working against Barack Obama and calling down doom upon him.

Even if only half of what Mr. Obama says is true, even if only one-quarter of what Mr. Obama envisions gets done, it is a start. And even if he were the worst of scoundrels, he would not deserve the ill will being pointed his way. In fact, if only half of his words are true, then he must be seen as the most humanitarian of the current seekers for public office in America.

To deny his vision is to affirm greed, avarice, exclusionary politics, segregated culture and a rubric of us vs. them.

So I simply must ask, if you deny Obama's vision, how can you live with yourself if you vote to exclude the downtrodden, to deny any human in this country, on this planet, the basic necessities of life? How can you live complacently when so many lack clean water, food, basic health care, shelter...whether they are sane, crazy,white, black, yellow, American, Latvian, Bosnian, Darfurian...anyone? How can you possibly cast a vote for a man (and unfortunately a woman) who sees everything in terms of us and them? How can you? How can you deny your own humanity so completely?

Please watch the video of Phil Collins singing "Another Day in Paradise." If you can watch it without at least a tiny movement of your heart outward, if you can hear it without your inner self being tugged to remember that all are not fortunate, cared for and loved, then stop reading. Go and cast your vote for doom.

If it touches you in the least, then please read on.

***

I lived in New York City for a good portion of my life, and it is my birthplace. I rarely gave money to panhandlers, but sometimes I did. I had a hard time making my way between my heart and the dictates of the limousine liberals I hung around with, some of whom were Rolls Republicans, in fact. Mea culpa. I admit that I was diseased with a relative lack of compassion. But I could not ignore the demands of the planet and its humanity totally. I channeled it through tithing to my church, granted a very liberal Episcopalian church, but still...I avoided contact. I avoided being upset in a very earthy manner by the poverty and disease and distress that surrounds every block of New York City, even now, even years after Rudy Guiliani made it a Disneyland for the well-heeled. (I don't mean to dismiss Guiliani's accomplishments, which were many, and his finest hour, which was after 9-11. But the city was sanitized, making life easier for the middle class and above, putting true poverty beyond their field of vision.)

There is a solution on this planet. Perhaps it begins in this nation; it has certainly almost ended here. We have no money for ourselves at the moment, or so it seems. We have given no care to ourselves. We have denied health care to the poor and broke, we have watered down education until we are raising a nation of morons, much to the distress of dedicated teachers caught in the need to teach and to make a living, and the knowledge that they are unable, by government mandate, to educate those in their charge. We have closed our borders to the needy; we have richly rewarded the rapacious. We have heaped calumny upon the head of those some consider "other" in futile attempts to make people see truth as lies, lies as truth. We, by electing and accepting leaders a pack of wolves would have justly torn to shreds as useless at best, harmful to the pack at worse, have put ourselves in harm's way, and with us, the rest of the world.

If we cannot help ourselves, we cannot hope to help others, the others who have come to rely on American generosity and innovation. We cannot help those we owe assistance by virtue of our great natural gifts; our melting pot of fine minds and vibrant cultural expression, our vast land area full of wealth of every sort. We must help ourselves. We must help ourselves to leadership that pays more than lip service to the word compassionate; we must help ourselves by educating our children, providing minimal sustenance at least for the unfortunate, and holding to account those whose greed has brought us all to the brink of disaster.

Vote your conscience, but please take care to educate that conscience first in what a conscience is there to do--keep up from doing harm to others no matter what the cost to ourselves.

What would Jesus do....about Liberty University?

This morning, the Washington Post ran a front-page article titled "God, Country and McCain." It was about students at Liberty University working to defeat Barack Obama in Virginia. That is their right, of course. What is not their right is to issue veiled threats on the life of the candidate they oppose. Within the article and also next to her photo at the top of the jump page is a quote the author attributes to student Meghan Allen.

Allen says, as reported by the Washington Post, "If Obama wins, I'm gonna want someone to get in there and reverse it ASAP."

If you do not have chills of fear running down your spine right now, check yourself for the following:

• Intelligence
• Humanity
• Spirituality
• Common sense

If you cannot find one or more of these, then go enroll as a student at Liberty University, or, if you have finished your schooling, see if you can get hired to teach. Apparently, the only requirements for either status is blind devotion to fundamentalist principles that include invoking the ultimate earthly punishment for those who do not share the same skewed vision of what Jesus would do.

Jesus, I dare say--at least the one I was taught about--would rebuke that girl. He would forgive her, of course, because clearly, she is a Philistine. She may not know what she does, but arguably, her teachers do. Her parents do. Every person who has poisoned this young woman's mind and spirit until she spews the worst sort of venom in the name of God (and make no mistake, those students believe they are acting in the name of God) is culpable.

John McCain is culpable. In 2000, McCain called the late Rev. Jerry Falwell one of the nation's "agents of intolerance." By May 14, 2006, McCain was delivering the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. Apparently, a visit to McCain's D.C. office eight months earlier, followed by a dinner invitation and a little sweet talk was all Falwell needed to get McCain on board the train to the Rabid Right.

Now, Falwell's son, the Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., who runs the school, has determined to see if his students (or you could use the term lab rats) can vote en masse (like so many little regimented pinko rats, one might almost think) to get McCain elected.

As detestable as it is in an institution that claims the title university to attempt to program student thought in that way, it is even more detestable that the programming has caused a young woman to spew such hatred, such ill-considered and ignorant wishes, in public. She must be very frightened. Remember, fear is the favored tactic of all despots, from Idi Amin to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Jr. While Amin caused his constituents (loosely defined) to fear for life and limb, Falwell's constituents are tutored to fear for their souls. And if the election of Barack Obama, a thoughtful, sane, judicious and generous politician, is viewed as a danger to their souls, then their souls are in danger very certainly. But the danger is not from Obama; the danger is from the worms of hatred, prejudice, fear, cowardice and arrogance infecting their poor, abused hearts and souls, placed there by the very people entrusted by society with educating them in their humanity and their spirituality.

When confronted with bigotry, hatred, and foul thoughts from the unthinking tongues of a spiritually abused population, I simply ask:

What would Jesus do?

What would Jesus do? Rebuke her, I believe. And I do rebuke her. But not as Jesus would rebuke her: I'm not that pure. I'm angry that so young a person could carry such venom and cast it abroad.

From all I've been taught, I believe that Jesus would also forgive her. I fully admit, I'm not there yet. Pray for me that I might be able to forgive her--and her ill-intentioned elders--before too long for the sake of my immortal soul.

If you wish to read the Washington Post article containing the above quote, please see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004757.html?hpid=topnews

The Most Ridiculous of a Bad Lot: Vice Presidents on Parade

In looking at the vice presidents over the past 40 years, one is struck immediately by one undeniable fact: very few of them were presidential material should the need arise, and one of them took a plea bargain over a slew of felonies while he was vice president. Also not surprisingly, that one was a Republican, Spiro T. Agnew. He was, however, a perfect illustration of the adage, “Birds of a feather flock together.” He was Richard M. Nixon’s vice president for the first four years of that presidency, and, as we know, Nixon bowed out a few years later, just before they rolled the political paddy wagon up to the White House gates.

Nixoniana forms the basis of my current cogitation on political uselessness. The first political memory I have is of my grandfather, a lifelong Republican accountant, watching Nixon in debate against Kennedy and saying that Nixon was the most reprehensible politician on earth, in itself seeming hyperbole. History, however, bore out my grandfather’s words, until now. It’s a good thing my grandfather died in 1969; this election would have killed him. He could not have tolerated the cowardice of John McCain, nor his ill-advised choice of running mate, nor his reprehensible—not to say vile—tactics in running that campaign. My grandfather was a Republican, not a scoundrel.

Of course, a look at history reveals a number of bad decisions concerning running mates. That same look also reveals the worst of a bad bunch were Republicans. Richard M. Nixon was vice president to war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower; from that platform, he launched his, thankfully, ineffective and unsuccessful first bid for the presidency against John F. Kennedy.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was Kennedy’s vice president. Nothing particularly heinous comes to mind about him. In fact, he had the good sense not to seek another term in the midst of the Vietnam debacle. There remains, however, in many people’s minds, the possibility that he had something to do with Kennedy’s assassination. I’m not sure I believe it. And it hasn’t been proven. So it’s a non-issue…but still, it does mean that Democratic vice presidents can be as problematical as Republican ones, if not quite as thoroughly unprincipled in general.

Gerald Ford, who became Nixon’s second vice president, wasn’t unprincipled, just dumb as a box of rocks. When he pardoned Nixon, it’s a good thing my grandfather was still dead. I was so upset, I almost joined Gramp in a fit of distress. I couldn’t believe Nixon was going to get away with befouling the office of the president as he did. I still can’t.

But worse, that entire incident seemed to pave the way for Republicans to take ever more liberties with both the U.S. Constitution and good sense until we ended up with George Bush the First. He picked a cipher as a running mate, Dan Quayle, and I cannot say his presidency even began to approach his son’s on the Distress Scale. The economy was lousy under Bush I; he had gotten a less vibrant economy coming in than the massively good one Bush II inherited from his Democratic predecessor. So perhaps that’s an excuse. Still, he and his nebbish veep did enough damage, what with Iraq I and various misadventures in the Caribbean. At least he wasn’t a moron.

The Democratic vice presidents during the period before and after Bush I included Hubert Humphrey, from all accounts a skillful and relentless political negotiator, but not a criminal in any sense of the word. Walter Mondale seemed a nice Midwestern guy; nothing much to report. Al Gore was a little pompous—OK, a lot pompous—on the presidential trail after his eight lackluster years with his larger-than-life boss, Bill Clinton. But of course, Gore did invent the Internet. (Couldn’t resist.)

Which leaves only Republicans, two of them before now, to consider; Nelson Rockefeller and Dick Cheney.

Rockefeller was so rich, he didn’t have to do anything else. He had been an OK governor of New York State. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t on the take, and I don’t think any sort of illicit activities (at least beyond private bedroom doors, as he supposedly died in the arms of his mistress) were ever alleged against him.

But Dick Cheney. There are not enough pixels on the Internet to describe the willful damage done by this man. He has single-handedly all but destroyed the U.S. Constitution. He doesn’t need to do more. That, if the union survives the current election, will be quite enough. Can the Constitution be repaired? Is there any will in a Congress divided by partisanship one can only describe, on the Republican side, as Born Again Fascism, to repair it? In light of the very palpable need to keep citizens from starvation in the aftermath of the destruction of our economy, will there be time and interest in repairing it? Or, if Obama wins, will he of necessity have to hand the nation on to the next leader lacking a viable Constitution? Correction: lacking a viable Constitution for a free people. The current one, decimated by the Cheney onslaught and hog-tied by Executive Orders and meatball interpretation, might serve well for a nation of debt slaves. But perhaps that’s as it should be: the economic juggernaut, sent tumbling toward the abyss by Reaganomics, has resulted in two to three generations of financial slavery for the bulk of U.S. citizens.

It is completely unthinkable that John McCain and Sarah Palin, about as prepared to serve in high office as I am to be the first black woman elected governor of Maryland, should be elected. (I’m not black.)

No matter what happens, however, we need to rethink the office of vice president. Fortunately, I have worked out a simple solution: eliminate the office. If a president dies in office, then the next in line to succeed would be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This has a great deal of beauty in it. First, that person was elected by his or her constituents on his or her own merits, not as a placeholder for the real deal. Second, the person is used to dealing in two-year terms, meaning he or she might be inclined and trained to get the lead out and push programs forward, rather than sitting on them for the better part of four years. Third, the House of Representatives is our lower house, roughly comparable to the House of Commons in England. Thus, those elected to it are more “of the people” than are the upper house, our Senate (comparable in a very loose way to the House of Lords, in which membership is hereditary. Still, in some cases, a six-year Senate term seems like a lifetime.)

Think about it. Write your Representatives and Senators about it. But most of all, think about it when you vote on November 4^th. Sarah Palin is already wanted for questioning in her home state about her potentially actionable activities as governor. She is a gun-toting, smooth-talking pseudo-soccer mom who wants, more than anything, to prove she is capable of serving in high office. She would prove the opposite, because her analytical powers are as lacking as her running mate’s good sense. And the entire nation, not just the few injured when Nixon and Agnew ignominiously stepped down, would suffer acutely, long after an impeachment proceeding—and certainly there would be one—removed her from the office in which she is so unfit to serve.

Obama: The first all-American candidate

Ever since I became a journalist, I've been offended by defining people by their presumed race. Thankfully, the practice has now disappeared from newspapers. We no longer see things like, "John Doe, a black man, was apprehended....." while never, of course, seeing "John Doe, a white man..."

So why are we talking about Barack Obama as the first black candidate? He's as much white as he is black. He is half white and half black. His black half is African, recently, not in the time of slave ships. His white half is Celtic, for crying out loud, a "whiter" race never having been seen on the planet. I know whereof I speak. I am a Celt myself, and the translucent white skin that runs in my family, not to mention all over the Republic of Ireland, is a shining beauty to behold.

So why, in heaven's name, do we not call Barack Obama what he is: the very first all-American candidate.

Moreover, and even better, he's a mutt, just like the rest of us. He has had to make his own way, just like the rest of us (except the Bush caste, of course, as their way was made by forebears whose gene pool degenerated with every passing inbred generation.)

I love mutts. Everybody loves mutts. They are agreeable, sturdy, usually intelligent. They have to be; they don't have a pedigree to hide behind. They are also, in my experience, undyingly grateful for the kindness they receive, especially if they were abandoned or orphaned mutts. Obama was raised by only one parent, giving him at least a toe into that particular special and greatly-to-be-praised area of mutt-ness.

So come on, people. Even if you don't like the mutt analogy (and there may be a few curmudgeonly people out there who don't know it is better to be a dog than any other mammal), Barack Obama is, without any shadow of doubt, the first totally American candidate, completely representative of the entire nation, that we have ever had. We have never had a better chance to heal this nation and make it what it can be.

Obama. Period. Obama.

Faux-Palin: The Devil on Horseback

I think I might have met Sarah Palin once. It was not Palin, of course, but the similarities between the dope I met 20 years ago at Columbia Horse Center and Sarah Palin are too cogent to ignore.
When I met her, the Faux-Palin had just bought a horse. The horse was too tough for her to handle, too strong, too young and untrained.
I was, at the time, an adult beginner. I was avid. I had found the best possible trainer, an Iranian man who is still my friend, who taught there. Generously, I might add, giving his students enormous benefit of his extraordinary knowledge and skill.
His generosity allowed him to let Faux-Palin, riding her new horse, enter the arena where he was teaching me. Ordinarily, a private lesson was a private lesson and no one else could use that arena--there were two others--until the private lesson was over. Faux-Palin had a crush on my instructor. Few women didn't, myself included. So she wheedled, and she won.
Before long, her horse got out of control, which frightened the school horse I was on. My horse, reacting, twirled suddenly on the way to a jump and launched me high and fast and hard through the air. I was powerless to stop it or to stay on; I was too new at the sport, had little experience, and had not yet developed much sticking power, all of which requires time and attention, and good lessons.
I landed on one hip with both heels dug into the footing, and both hands out behind stopping my head from hitting the ground.
My instructor ran to me, and told me to check out all the parts. I found that one elbow was jammed. I told him to take my hand, put his foot against my shoulder and pull my arm hard. He reluctantly did it, and I heard everything pop back into place. I don't know why I thought to do that. I just wish I had thought to keep Faux-Palin out of my lesson. As it was, my worst injuries were two sprained wrists and a mashed sciatic nerve, all of which healed themselves over the next month. Far sooner, I think than the country could heal itself after a round in the arena with Sarah Palin.
Faux-Palin, a vapid, selfish, and ignorant young woman to say the best of her, had a vanity plate on her car. It said MsPrez, because this airhead had decided to go to law school and become the first female president.
She'd be about 42 now, so she could be mistaken for the real Palin if Tina Fey hadn't already done such a darn good job of it.
I'm thinking maybe there's a monkey brain that is parceled out by whatever god there is and installed behind the unfinished faces of lower-class women with grandiose ideas and nothing--such as intelligence and/or experience--to back those ideas up.
MsPrez ended up selling the horse. It remained too much for her because she refused to actually take a lesson from someone who knew something about horses. She preferred to pose and be coquettish, just like Sarah Palin. She hurt people with her ignorance. She ruined a horse, a valuable animal, and a kind one in general, with her despicable overweening arrogance and pride.
Just like Sarah Palin.

Republican Women: Transgendered Men?

I like my chiropractor. He's a nice guy, and pretty smart. Witty. Likes red wine and loves his dogs. But for the life of me, I cannot see why he's voting Republican because he considers his practice a small business. Perhaps he needs to have a few things explained, such as:

• Since Daddy Bush, the Republicans have started wars, leaving the Democrats to clean up the mess and pay the bills. (I could go back farther, but I think that's sufficient in the current crisis.)
• To finance those wars, among other things, the Republicans cut services, such as education--particularly the humanizing subjects such as art, music, civics--stuff they, in their tunnel-vision march toward self-aggrandizement, don't notice. They also cut other programs, however, such as funds for environmental projects and assistance to nations that could be allies.
• When large corporations amass more power and more money, as has been abundantly true throughout the Bush administrations, they don't share it with people. They pay their own executives 1,700 times as much as a British nurse, a figure I recently read in a respectable--that is, mainstream--publication. If their much-touted trickle-down theory is supposed to work on that basis, look at it this way:

1. They pay an illegal worker a salary below minimum wage to clean the house. She gets sick and is rushed to the emergency room, where our tax dollars (as much as 27.5 percent of middle-class wages and less than one-half of one percent for her employer) pay for her inadequate care. Inadequate because, as a charity case, she doesn't exactly get Dr. HarvardMed on her case.
   
2. They buy things, but they don't pay as much as you and I do. Why? First, they probably pay cash and avoid interest on the charge card or loan. Second, since they pay cash, they can negotiate a much better price. So the trickle is cut down to a drip.
3. They invest, in such things as companies that are bolstered by subprime loans. A generation ago, it was savings & loans. Either way, guess who pays for it? Middle America, small businesses. Me, and my chiropractor.
4. They are also big enough to crush competition, so even if Dr. Chiro becomes the best-loved bonecracker in U.S. history, if he runs afoul of one of their sacred cows (and understand this: chiropractors are not beloved of the American Medical Association, so he's treading thin ice there), they'll simply crush him.

Republicans do not play well with others and they have never learned to share. The only reason they get away with their ignorant, selfish behavior is that Democrats and others who may actually acknowledge their human condition have been raised to play well with others and to share. Often, those two traits are so thoroughly ingrained that we cannot cast them aside long enough to treat the Republican cadre as it deserves to be treated, with the same lack of compassion, respect and generosity with which they treat others. And if you want to define "others" as a Republican might define them, I believe you would need a very narrow definition, extending no farther than the reach of one arm, and less if the Republican in question--whoever he* is--had to bend that arm to hug the ill-gotten gains more closely to their breast.

* I use the term he because it is inconceivable to me that any woman could possibly support the common (and I use that term advisedly) platform of Republicans. Even if a woman is anti-choice, presuming to force her beliefs on others seems to me to be at odds with womanhood, by nature an inclusive state of being. In my opinion, a female Republican might as well go and get transgendered; her brain already has.

Is the urge to puke evidence of the presence of a skank?

I debated whether to write this post for Skankbusters or Review of Applied Ethics. Actually, I shall put it up on both.

I didn't watch Sarah Palin's talent segment last night in her quest for the Miss Skank America crown...excuse me, the vice presidency of a very populous nation. I have read very little about it; there was no need. Her entire presentation, from the top of her bubble do to the tips of her peep-toe little girl high-heels, assures me that, inside, there beats the heart of a teenager who never got past dry humping under the bleachers. Perhaps, actually, she has morphed herself into her bleachers partner, the dumb jock who would now very likely espouse shooting bears from helicopters.

Katie Couric--who, if nothing else, finds it difficult to diss anyone--has damned Palin not with faint praise, but outright disdain. Katherine Parker, a conservative, has seen the light. It would be hard not to. Palin's orb of ignorance shines very brightly.

There is a web site called Women Against Palin, calling for her to step down for the good of us all. Gloria Steinem has rung in with a very reasoned plea for women not to vote for this woman. Steinem noted that feminists regard Palin as a shill meant to fool those women who do not understand the women's movement, a formerly successful movement involving improvements--equality--for all women, with justice and fairness. Nothing about the women's movement called for revolting displays of ignorance dressed up like the doggy's dinner and pandering to dunderheads, fools, and good ole boys. It still doesn't...and as far as I'm concerned, especially in this Era of Imbecility...the movement still isn't dead. See Women Against Palin as proof.

But the original question I posed, above, was this: Is the urge to puke evidence of the presence of a skank? I contend that it is. I say this having, within the past twenty minutes, been treated to a still photo of Sarah Palin 'winking' to the audience at her debate, so called, last evening. I read she also blew the audience a kiss.

After eight years of a smirking chimp, I wonder if we can withstand any years of a Winking Wonk, or Smoochy Sarah. I want to puke.

Alexander McCall Smith's French Equivalent, Muriel Barbery

One of my favorite quotations of all time is this one, by Sigmund Freud, about the Irish: "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
You may take it to mean whatever you like. I take it to mean that they are already mentally healthy, and why would they not be? They have a fondness of enough drink to take the edge off, a fatalistic attitude about life itself (in short, they don't get their knickers in a twist about much at all, at all), and they have a great time turning words to their advantage.
Ireland has produced platoons of great writers, usually ones who can turn a phrase to make one cry, or laugh. Even day-to-day life is full of the use of language to turn something nasty on its ear. Irony was made for the Irish, or possibly by them.
Not enough to eat? Make Nothing Soup and serve it up with Garbage Salad. (Cute, but real, recipes from an uncle of mine who raised four children in Brooklyn in the 1950s.)
Bloody Brits doing something bloody stupid again? Who bloody cares? They've been the butt of Irish jokes since long before 1916, the start of Irish independence.
Ireland overrun with swarthy foreigners? OK, OK. The Irish have been a little less tolerant of what EU membership has landed them with. But think about it; if they hadn't gotten so prosperous, the disadvantaged hordes wouldn't be seeking Irish jobs. If they're upset about anything, I'd think it was that the middle Europeans lack the finely tuned sense of humor that prevents depression from becoming pathos.
But that's not what this is about. It's about the French equivalent of the 44 Scotland Street series written by Alexander McCall Smith, and starring little Bertie, his horribly pretentious mother, Irene, and his adversary, a shrink named Dr. Fairbairn.
The book in question, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, has been on French bestseller lists for a year. I haven't read it, but I must. I must read it if for no other reason than this: The 12-year-old protagonist, Paloma, is sent to a shrink by a mother not unlike Bertie's. Alone with the shrink, Paloma says, "Listen carefully, Mr. Permafrost Psychologist, you and I are going to strike a little bargain. You're going to leave me alone and in exchange I won't wreck your little trade in human suffering by spreading nasty rumors about you among the Parisian political and business elite."
He believes her, and leaves her alone.
If one author's fiction characters could meet another author's characters, I'd introduce Paloma to Bertie. Bertie is only six, and hasn't yet figured out how to get Dr. Fairbairn to leave him alone...and he's been working on it for four books already.
But Paloma could tell him. Bertie has already pointed out that his mother's pre-session sessions with Fairbairn are longer than his own. And Bertie has announced that his new baby brother looks a lot like Dr. Fairbairn. But Bertie hasn't yet gotten the chops to tell the faker off. (And he is a faker; Fairbairn's most famous case, the one that made his name, was all a bit bogus, as it turns out.)
One really hopes poor, sweet, smart little Bertie will last long enough to tell the big faker off. Bertie has managed, in one book, to get lost alone in Paris for a couple of days and did just fine.
Maybe he ran into Paloma!

Queen of the Universe

Dear Ms. Rowling,

Perhaps it is lost upon you that when people purposefully do things that make them rich and famous, they are no longer the same sort of "private citizen" they were when they were penniless weasels.

Bad enough that you and your shill, Warner Brothers, won your scurrilous lawsuit against a fan (he may be a little over the top in his admiration for your derivative works, but that's another story); now, it seems, a Scottish court has done what a sensible English court refused to do. It has found that indeed, it is a violation of your son's privacy for those fascinated by your inexplicable fame and wealth to take photographs of him. I wonder: Do you believe, like the hill people of Tibet, that taking his photograph will steal his soul? I doubt it. I think, rather, that you wish to take all the photos yourself and then sell them so you can....hmmmm....make more money, some half of one percent of which you will then vociferously give to charity.

I just read some headlines in which American college students opined that you are a "flash in the pan." I truly hope they are correct. Your books are not great literature; they are children's books, for crying out loud, and not in the Newbury Prize vein, either. Your books are probably popular because of the dumbing down of most populations, most places. In fact, it gave me a great deal of hope to note the U.S. college students have seen through you.

I also reread a blog posted by an author of a computer game whose work was widely disseminated as you were writing your own derivative tales. He noted that he had not gone after you, when it appears he might have done and won. He also pointed out that a female author had lost a copyright suit you brought against her. Her work about a wizard named Larry Potter was on the market first, so I don't know how you won that one. Perhaps she is a wizard, and picked your brain before even you knew what was in it, and you were magically able to prove that to the satisfaction of a judge not unlike Judge Patterson of New York. Or perhaps she simply hadn't had Warner Brothers' skirts to hide behind, nor treasury to use against you.

Your behavior has been, in a word, despicable. I have written at some length recently over the desirability of living in a nation where noblesse oblige is still in force, making it incumbent upon the 'haves' to at least pretend to value and care for the 'have nots.' That place was England. You have moved to Scotland. I think I can see why.

Sincerely,

Laura Harrison McBride

JK Rowling Railroads Potter Lexicographer

Stanford University Law Schools' Center for the Internet and Society was on the side of the publisher who wanted to issue a lexicon of the convoluted--and mainly stolen from the writings of antiquity--universe in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. A judge in New York City has now put another nail in the coffin of free speech and free enterprise in the United States. In addition, while avowing the opposite, his knee-jerk (and I'm being kind here) decision has put the screws to most commercial criticism, the kind real people and not just academics, might actually buy and read.

The judge, Robert Patterson, said that the RDR "Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide". And he, I suppose, is the ultimate arbiter of how much is too much.

Even Rowling apparently has trouble with that concept. In 2004, Rowling herself had awarded the website on which the pre-empted lexicon was based an award for excellence. Worse yet, Rowling herself admitted that part of her reason for bringing suit (aided and abetted by Warner Brothers) was that now the author and publisher wanted to make money. When they ran the free website, of course, any money anyone wanted to spend went directly to Rowling, or perhaps Warner Brothers, which produced at least two totally execrable installments of the antiquities-laden supposedly original series.

It is, in a word, despicable. Here is a woman who, if you wish to believe her own backstory--and I'm not sure I do--was a welfare mom sitting in a cafe (Starbucks or similar, in which case what the heck on welfare was she using to pay for coffee there?) trying to pen a little story that would let her put better pablum in Junior Rowling's hungry little mug. So I guess she must have had all those classic writers committed to memory, or she'd probably have had to spend at least some of her time in a major academic library, stealing from the dead. The dead, one will note, cannot sue in a court in New York State, nor do they have the deep pockets and boundless greed of Warner Brothers to egg them on. They're dead. For a long time. But it's still their work. There was no such thing as copyright back then.

(To quote an old TV show, Car 54, Where Are You? "Oooh, oooh,oooh," what about writing a story about, for instance, Homer come back to life and pairing up with Warner Brothers to sue anyone who ever wrote any sort of story based, however loosely, on The Odyssey?)

Frankly, Ms. Rowling makes me sick. This former downtrodden welfare mom (snicker, snicker) has sold out so far that she now belongs to the "circle up those Cadillacs" crowd, using fair means and foul to prevent anyone profiting one nickel off her own ill-gotten gains. But then, honor among thieves is thin on the ground, still.

If I had ever entertained the thought of buying a Harry Potter book (and I hadn't; they are really sort of simplistic, a true dumbing-down of the material she used as reference material, although the better term might be template), I would not now. If I had entertained a thought of watching one of those "B" movies (particularly the buffoonery I admit to having watched once, directed by Chris Columbus), that is now firmly dead and buried.

I hope most writers are not cynical and rapacious; I hope, if I ever write anything with half the reach and income draw of the Potter books, that I will not begrudge someone else profiting by using my material as a base for their own, as long as they don't plagiarize.

I have been plagiarized, and it isn't fun. Maddening, really. My work for a niche publication was once lifted word for word by a national publication, and I had no recourse. But then, I also didn't have Warner Brothers to pay my bills and I hadn't based it on the classics. It was a story about bloodhounds.

But RDR and its writer did not plagiarize, at all. Even Rowling/Warner didn't try to send that balloon aloft. RDR and its writer simply researched Potter's work and wanted to issue a guidebook, if you will, to the world of Harry Potter. Such a work would be not unlike a Biblical concordance, although it pains me to put Ms. Rowling in the same sentence as the seminal religious work of the western world. I trust she will leave that work strictly alone, however; the Vatican is much more powerful than Warner Brothers and might have a go at her with Judge Patterson.

Christian behavior?

Most "good Christians" believe it is all right, apparently, to engage in very non-Christian acts in order to promote Christianity. This statement seems to defy logic.
Or does it, in today's old-time religion atmosphere? As far as I can tell, there are sufficient numbers of Christian clergy at least as virulent in their attacks on non-believers as there are Islamic idealogues of the same stripe. Often, they get at least some members of their congregations so agitated that they become the scourge of the unbeliever, the self-appointed "thought police" regarding any concepts not in accord with what they listen to on Sunday.
What got me started thinking about this was my inability to find Christopher Hitchens' book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, at my local Barnes & Noble. The in-store computer not only said the store had a copy or two; it pointed me to precisely where those copies should have been, in the Current Affairs section.
They were not there. They were not even in the Current Affairs section mis-alphabetized. That same branch is notorious, in my experience, for not knowing the alphabet, or at least, not knowing how to use it to shelve books. One day, I ransacked the place looking for Alexander McCall Smith's latest. When I looked under "M," I found it. Note: His name is not hyphenated. His name is Smith. "S" End of story. Well, end of that story. But mis-alphabetizing was not the case with the Hitchens book.
Anyway, I did the same sort of search for the Christopher Hitchens book, looking under "C". I even looked under K, for Kitchens, in case there was some dyslexia involved. Nada. Then I looked in Religion, then in Christianity, then in New Age. Again, I looked under C and K. Nada. I figure if I had looked in, perhaps, architecture or some other section few people frequent, I might have found it.
The reason I think it might have been moved to a spot no one would think to look is because, in that very store, copies of Science of Mind magazine are ALWAYS found stuck behind mainstream Christian magazines, and usually in some way that makes it incumbent on one who wants to read Science of Mind to have some minor acrobatic skills as well.
I do not for one minute think this is the policy of Barnes & Noble. I do think it might be the work of a zealot, on or off staff, who likes to hide information not approved of in his or her fundamentalist sect.
Which brings me to the point: Isn't it rather non-Christian to move other people's property because one disagrees with that person? This may not be the same as killing infidels because of one's interpretation (or some might say misinterpretation) of a sacred book, but I don't see it as much different. It is malicious by nature; unless such actions are those of a person of diminished capacity (intellectually or emotionally, although I think the latter is giving too much ground), then it is, pure and simple, theft. If you make something unavailable to a person that was formerly available, or meant to be available, then you have stolen from that person. In the case of moving products in stores, you've stolen from both the consumer and the merchant.
Is this Christian?

Speaking Ill of the Living

Ten days ago, my best friend's daughter's ex-boyfriend died. The young woman had dated the man for four years, and had only "moved on" about six months ago, remaining friends. Truly.
Worse yet, it is still not known whether the young man died by accident, or was murdered. He was found crushed to death under a service elevator in a parking garage a block from the White House.
No, he had nothing to do with the U.S. government, so it's useless looking to politics for an answer. Possibly it was gangs; the rise of indigenous gangs and branches of the Bloods and Crips has recently been well documented in Washington, DC.
The young man--who had danced at my own wedding three years ago, putting him slightly closer than "acquaintance" on two counts--was a legal alien from Peru, working as a manager at a major corporation, seeking U.S. citizenship. He had just gotten his master's degree, had decided to return to sports by joining a kickball team, and was altogether not someone who would ordinarily die as the result of misadventure. The D.C. police have, however, begun seriously to investigate and have made some noises that give hope that whoever did it will be caught.
Tomorrow night, the young man's interment service will be followed by a reception at his alma mater, and in lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations to a scholarship established in his name.
I write this not by way of causing referred sadness. I write it as an introduction, sadly come to hand, for a discussion of appropriate and inappropriate memorials.
The memorial for this young man is completely appropriate. It will offend no one. It will allow those who must to grieve; it will allow friends to comfort the grief-stricken. It will remember the man in a useful and generous way, a giving way.
Bogus Grief
Inappropriate are the tawdry flowers, scrawled messages on warping wooden sticks and molding teddy bears placed where unfortunate humans have run off an American roadway. Just this morning, where a young man had died in a single-car accident two miles from my house last week, I noticed a dumpster's worth of already-fading teddy bears, hearts drawn on the trees, "We love you!" signs and other detritus that will remain for years, since superstitious humans are terrified to desecrate what someone claims, licitly or illicitly, as a sacred site. Eventually, the so-called tribute to the dead driver will become an eyesore, if it isn't indeed both an eyesore and a heart-sore already to his true friends and family.
The Diana Syndrome
This sort of bogus show of sympathy first caught my eye some considerable time after the death of Princess Diana. I happened to be in Paris in early November of 1998. Hurrying back to my hotel one Sunday morning after the winter rains had set in, I saw a crowd gathered at the end of a street I hadn't walked down before. The journalist in me got the best of me, and I walked toward the gathering. It was quite large, perhaps 100 people, some of them in tears, others snapping flash photos in the gloom. I elbowed in. What I saw astonished me. There, around an "eternal flame" erected above the tunnel in which Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed had suffered the fatal crash, were probably thousands of rain-soaked silk flowers, teddy bears, collages, notes...god-knows-what about four feet deep and a few feet high.
I thought Princess Diana's death was a tragedy for many reasons, not least of which is the pall it cast over the Royals. I'm not a Royals fanatic, far from it. But I realized that the controversy over their involvement or lack thereof would go on for years, if not decades (although it's getting to be decades about now), and compromise the Royals, the government and the British people in subtle ways, not unlike the way the tragic deaths of two Kennedy brothers has compromised the U.S.
It would certainly never occur to me to enrich greeting card companies, stuffed toy manufacturers or the local supermarket flower stall by using their offerings to diminish and cheapen a tragic event. If I were truly upset by Princess Diana's death, then the proper course of action would be to make a donation to one of her causes, finding and defusing land-mines in Eastern Europe and so on. Or I might even to do some serious volunteering of my own, if her example meant anything. I admit that I did nothing, except feel sorry for her sons. But that was enough. I didn't know the lady; I only knew of her.
A Greeting Card Way of Life and Death
But that's not what Americans do these days. They wail and tear at their garments, so to speak, over the deaths of people they did not know and could not have loved in any way except as a fanatic. What, one may ask, is wrong with our society when Americans young and old engage in the particularly egregious expression of store-bought emotion that results in eyesores and no help to anyone? Are they convinced that wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and thus forcing their issues (whatever those might be) on others is a desirable action? Or perhaps they are begging for sympathy; if they can't get it for their own failed efforts at life's tasks, then they'll take it by referral when someone they know of dies. Maybe it's the greeting card industry's fault: It is no longer necessary to write sympathy notes to the bereaved. It is only necessary to spend $3.50 and buy some sentiments. It's just as easy, then, to create a pseudo-tribute, most often to someone not even close enough to rate a daily thought before their death, never mind after. For instance, for those of us not suffering mental illness, Princess Diana.
Back to Reality
I have no idea how many times I will think about Fernando Molleda in days, weeks, months to come. I know I have thought of him often this past ten days, also thinking about how his death might affect my friend's daughter, and offering her any solace from me she can use. My husband and I will go to the visiting hours this evening, not a pleasant task at the best of times, and even less so when it means four hours of driving in nasty DC traffic in 97 degree heat. I am not complaining. I am happy to do it.
But I will not send the Molledas a pre-printed greeting card. I will send them a handwritten note, and in it, I will enclose a donation for the scholarship fund. I'm not bucking for sainthood; I'm simply making a point about grief and remembrance. Grief is best dealt with in person, or in personal notes if presence is impossible. Using nothing but commercial greeting cards cheapens death and grief, makes it into nothing more than menu choices:
"Oh, I think I'll have the sadness, with a dollop of heartfelt concern on the side."
Or, "I'll have the didn't-know-your-Uncle Jake-but-he-musta-been-swell" with a side order of "Call me when you've finished weeping and we'll do lunch."
Even if the greeting card industry offers no sentiment that expresses exactly what one wants to say to express one's self, or needs to say to comfort a friend or relative, people buy the cards anyway. They make do with them, as they make do with bogus displays of funereal angst instead of living real lives and grieving appropriately for people they actually know, or who were beloved of people they actually knew.
Or perhaps the epidemic of laziness and low self-esteem that grips this country has helped to make ordinarily decent people chary of spending the time and effort to write what they just know (convinced by the greeting card industry that has usurped the role for profit) will be an inadequate or ungrammatical, perhaps, expression of their sincere feelings.
In building the instant memorial gardens, planted with faded ribbons and sad-looking stuffed animals, perhaps they are looking for some way to feel good about themselves. This is not it. Self-esteem comes from within, not from within the greeting card store. Indeed, the deceased are dishonored when their passing is marked with displays of insincere grief that attempt to arouse the same bogus sentiment in strangers. Worse still, those displays are left to molder and create eyesores that continue to dishonor the life that was meant to be remembered.

All This for a Bottle of Shampoo

I didn't buy shampoo the last time I was close to Beauty Farm*, a store where the brand I use is less expensive than anywhere else. I just couldn't face it. I didn't want to be pursued all over the store by the manager (a man) or by the latest sales assistant. (They have all been women--young, old, over the top, mousey, you name it. They are never there very long. I've never encountered the same one twice.)
I also didn't want to have to hear and feel compelled to respond to the litany.
"Do you have a Beauty Farm card?"
"Yes."
"May I see it?"
"No."
"If you left it at home, I can put in your phone number and find it."
"That's all right."
"You know, after you spend $100, you get ten percent off your next purchase."
"That's all right."
"Ten percent is meaningful these days."
"I really just want to buy the shampoo and go next door to do my grocery shopping."
What I really, really want is to go into a store, select an item I desire (and, if I'm having trouble, beckon to knowledgeable sales help), pay for it, and leave.
I do not want to enter into a "relationship" even for a discount with someone I'll never see again (especially in this or any store where employment longevity seems to be about a minute and a half, hardly time to become knowledgeable in the first place.)
I do not want to waste so much time that any monetary savings are eaten up in the process.
I do not want to give my name, address, phone number, or any other information about myself. As far as I'm concerned, when they have my money--via cash, check or credit card--that's all they need to know.
In fact, the prevalence of collecting data about me in the guise of 'discount' or 'membership' cards is getting seriously aggravating, and I wonder, actually, if it is not an imposition thinking people ought not to tolerate.
I did succumb, I admit it, the first time I entered the Beauty Farm and the manager prevailed upon me to register for their card. I didn't care about the ten percent off on my first purchase after spending that first hundred. I just wanted him to be quiet and take my money so I could--you guessed it--go next door and buy groceries.
The store next door is Trader Joe's. Good value, and they collect NO information about you, no matter how you pay. They even accept checks. Granted, they will put the check through a handy machine to see if the customer is in the habit of writing rubber ones. But that's simply prudent, and I doubt that they store the information on the check themselves. It resides, if it is retained, at some processing company's computer somewhere in cyberspace, or maybe California since those two terms are, in some universes, interchangeable.
However, here's the point: At a time when it was possible for merchants to actually get to know their customers, there was some point to it. The merchant could then assess the sorts of items a customer or group of customers preferred, and stock those. There was no discount attached to it all; the customer kept returning because he or she found the products of good value, and the help knowledgeable and professional. Some sort of relationship might develop over time, but it was one based on mutual benefit. It might well have included passing the time of day--asking about the children or whatever--between a customer and merchant who had been doing business together for a long time. But it wouldn't have been a sense of faux-community based on offering the customer a discount in return for loyalty...loyalty which would, moreover, be transferred to the next similar emporium offering similar products at perhaps a slightly larger discount.
There is no honor among thieves. So, if a merchant steals your loyalty by useless blandishments (offering ten percent on a hundred dollar purchase, spread over time, certainly strikes me as useless since you might move away or change preferences in products before you reached the magic number), then he should expect no better from you, or from his competitors.
I miss Mrs. Krause. I even miss Gretchen, her humongous Alsatian that would leap over her grocery counter if you said the wrong word auf Deutsch. I had no clue about anything else in her life, except she opened the store for two hours on Sunday afternoon, just long enough for my grandmother to pop in and buy a couple of my very favorite little cups of custard. No discount was needed, no card, and no false "relationship." Mrs. Krause made custard and sold it. I liked custard. My grandmother thought it a fine treat and gladly bought it, for the price at which it was offered, until Mrs. Krause retired and the world turned into so many facsimilies of Beauty Farm.

* Store name changed to protect me from lawsuits in a litigious society.