Saturday, January 31, 2009
Pancake Lady
One of the obvious hard things around here is the level and amount of suffering. We all know poor people suffer many types of pain without recourse. Without the experts and the systems and the channels of access and information and the, the --- I don't know, the language, perhaps, even? Whether that means fluent English or just not sounding crazy enough for long enough to present your position reasonably articulately to someone, to be unfreaky for just the required period and at least for the specified time, and then to understand sufficiently how to proceed from the plan the person suggests to you? And then attempt to implement those suggestions somewhat coherently, somewhat promptly, somewhat... sanely? It's just not possible, in so many cases.
We have one member of the extended community, a regular diner, a lady I am absolutely in love with. The last day she was here, Tuesday, she came in pretty early in the morning, still wearing her sleeping clothes. Which is to say her sleeping clothe - a long tee-shirt. I don't presume to know how much was underneath, but I suspect rather little, and appearances suggested the same. She had to have been thrilled not to have to wear 97 layers of clothing to sleep in, if only for one day: the weather had warmed up on the one hand, and she had asked us to give her a couple blankets the day before when she stopped by in the evening. We did, and even though one got stolen (or else someone asked her for it and she gave it to him because that is how she is and just thought that theft would be the preferred explanation), she still had a fairly serious blanket that had kept her warm. So she stopped for breakfast, coffee and conversation in her nightshirt and slippers. Just as it should be, in a civilized world: if we can begin the day naked, stripped of all our pretenses, emptied of all but our beautiful souls, then just imagine what we can do later.
And that is what she gave us. The ability to continue walking naked for a while. She is crazy, and she seems to be developmentally disabled, as well, and therefore in some sense she is always naked. And yet she further bared herself at breakfast time, her ruined legs, her bulging veins, her age, her sex, her whole history writ and lisible and palpable and plaintive on her broken, beautiful body - and this gift she freely gave first thing in the morning.
How crazy is she? So crazy that every blessing she so graciously offers seems like the first blessing I ever received, like I am new baptized. So crazy that no matter which version of her story of her life she tells I see equal parts Christ the priest and Christ crucified: what is true remains true, and what is extraneous falls away; what remains is her inner light, and her beautiful human dignity, the divine birthright that no one can strip away, regardless of the hour, or the day, or whether she slept by the train tracks or at the Hilton. Being crazy in the way she is crazy is her ministry: He is right there for us in her; of that I have no question. It is not symbolic, and it is not a stretch. She suffers so that the rest of us can learn who Jesus is through her; she suffers so that the rest of us can know what humility means. And if we don't learn anything from her, that is our fault. The amount of love she has for God - her father and friend and brother and mother and book and blanket and security while she endures the latest robbing or the most recent Sorry We Can't Help You - as she understands Him, and for any person she encounters any day, ever, in her life, is astonishing. --And she is such a piece of trash that more than 99 per cent of people would not even see her as they went through their day. She is not a blessing to them; she is either invisible or a hindrance to something or other. Some of them someday will speak to a poor person; others will continue to send 50 bucks every six months to United Way or the Red Cross; and some will always continue to believe that there is something special about them that keeps them rich and others poor. In my opinion, it is something nowhere near as special as the thing which keeps our dear lady of the pancakes poor, and keeps us all hoping she'll show up again soon for breakfast and bless the beginning of our day with all the reminders of God and love she keeps tucked inside her heart, her shoes, her pants, her head, her sweater, her jacket, her cart, her blanket, her plastic bags, and her diminished expectations. She already knows where God is: where you can't see him so easily. She already trusts all day, every day. If only we could trust that we could meet a lady like her today.
We have one member of the extended community, a regular diner, a lady I am absolutely in love with. The last day she was here, Tuesday, she came in pretty early in the morning, still wearing her sleeping clothes. Which is to say her sleeping clothe - a long tee-shirt. I don't presume to know how much was underneath, but I suspect rather little, and appearances suggested the same. She had to have been thrilled not to have to wear 97 layers of clothing to sleep in, if only for one day: the weather had warmed up on the one hand, and she had asked us to give her a couple blankets the day before when she stopped by in the evening. We did, and even though one got stolen (or else someone asked her for it and she gave it to him because that is how she is and just thought that theft would be the preferred explanation), she still had a fairly serious blanket that had kept her warm. So she stopped for breakfast, coffee and conversation in her nightshirt and slippers. Just as it should be, in a civilized world: if we can begin the day naked, stripped of all our pretenses, emptied of all but our beautiful souls, then just imagine what we can do later.
And that is what she gave us. The ability to continue walking naked for a while. She is crazy, and she seems to be developmentally disabled, as well, and therefore in some sense she is always naked. And yet she further bared herself at breakfast time, her ruined legs, her bulging veins, her age, her sex, her whole history writ and lisible and palpable and plaintive on her broken, beautiful body - and this gift she freely gave first thing in the morning.
How crazy is she? So crazy that every blessing she so graciously offers seems like the first blessing I ever received, like I am new baptized. So crazy that no matter which version of her story of her life she tells I see equal parts Christ the priest and Christ crucified: what is true remains true, and what is extraneous falls away; what remains is her inner light, and her beautiful human dignity, the divine birthright that no one can strip away, regardless of the hour, or the day, or whether she slept by the train tracks or at the Hilton. Being crazy in the way she is crazy is her ministry: He is right there for us in her; of that I have no question. It is not symbolic, and it is not a stretch. She suffers so that the rest of us can learn who Jesus is through her; she suffers so that the rest of us can know what humility means. And if we don't learn anything from her, that is our fault. The amount of love she has for God - her father and friend and brother and mother and book and blanket and security while she endures the latest robbing or the most recent Sorry We Can't Help You - as she understands Him, and for any person she encounters any day, ever, in her life, is astonishing. --And she is such a piece of trash that more than 99 per cent of people would not even see her as they went through their day. She is not a blessing to them; she is either invisible or a hindrance to something or other. Some of them someday will speak to a poor person; others will continue to send 50 bucks every six months to United Way or the Red Cross; and some will always continue to believe that there is something special about them that keeps them rich and others poor. In my opinion, it is something nowhere near as special as the thing which keeps our dear lady of the pancakes poor, and keeps us all hoping she'll show up again soon for breakfast and bless the beginning of our day with all the reminders of God and love she keeps tucked inside her heart, her shoes, her pants, her head, her sweater, her jacket, her cart, her blanket, her plastic bags, and her diminished expectations. She already knows where God is: where you can't see him so easily. She already trusts all day, every day. If only we could trust that we could meet a lady like her today.
Fr Tom's Funeral
Today I went to the funeral Mass for Fr Tom Kraft, OP (see his Caring Bridge page here and a lovely tribute to him on the Catherine of Siena Institute blog here) at St Dominic's in Benicia. The funeral was absolutely beautiful, and the great love which so many people from so many places have for this gentle and loving man was palpable. He will be missed terribly, but we can all hope that just a fraction of his generosity and loving kindness has rubbed off on those he touched. There was a lunch after in the parish hall, and the only people I knew weren't in there, so I was sitting by myself. An older, retired Dominican, Fr Vic, sat down by me, and we had the most beautiful conversation, and I hope I get to see him again around here! He was at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle back in the 50s or so, and he has retired three times so far, but it looks like this last one 'took.' He was a lovely man, and he also gave me a bit of Dominican history here, which was nice because it so easily gets eclipsed by the Franciscans'.
Before I left for the service, a guy, Eulices, delivered a washer for 50-. A couple weeks ago, our washer and water heaters stopped working in the same week. The dryer was already extinct by that time and, actually, one water heater was still functional, but our new volunteer, Terry, a retired union guy and still a card- (and hat- and shirt-) carrying Wobbly, told us it was a lost case, as well, and that we might only have a few more days of any hot water. We bit the bullet on the water heaters, as he said there was no point in buying used ones. He got a company to donate one completely and give us a reduced price on the second, and then he donated all the labor to move and install them.
That, however, allowed showers and dishwashing to continue, but none of our guests is employed, so using the laundromat is not feasible for them, and I've tried washing jeans and towels in a bathtub before, and let me assure you: it doesn't work. Enter me and Craigslist, and Eulices' ad wherein he mentions that he could deliver in the area! Thank God! So he came this morning, and he also said he would bring by a bike sometime for our earn-a-bike program for day laborers! It turns out he is unemployed himself, laid off three weeks ago from being a hotel manager. He has gone to many interviews with no luck, and now changed his resume (dumbed down, he called it) to sound less qualified - and therefore cheaper.
We also received an enormous TV yesterday out in Castro Valley, with two futons, a little table, lots of linens and various other stuff. The lady even rented a UHaul to move it in! Thursday happens to be our day to pick up at the food bank, and then after that our food-distribution day (we topped the last two weeks of 145 people with a total of about 160; last year at this time it was about 50 people a week), so we had extra volunteers around to help us move the stuff into the truck and then into the house. Michael set the old TV on the sidewalk, and it took about 30 seconds for someone to ask if they could take it.
All in all, yesterday was a long, busy day, but a great one. Today was sad buy joyful, and it was so good to see Fr Daniel and Jesson from Blessed Sacrament. Jesson is the amazing liturgist for the parish, but he also spent years working with the dying with the Missionaries of Charity in India, and he used that gift and experience to take care of Fr Tom in his last difficult weeks. Fr Tom's suffering is over, and he is gone, but there are many deeply, deeply beautiful people at Blessed Sacrament, and Fr Tom's charity, goodness, and profound gentleness of heart lives on in them. I hope they know how special they are, and how special a community they have made.
Before I left for the service, a guy, Eulices, delivered a washer for 50-. A couple weeks ago, our washer and water heaters stopped working in the same week. The dryer was already extinct by that time and, actually, one water heater was still functional, but our new volunteer, Terry, a retired union guy and still a card- (and hat- and shirt-) carrying Wobbly, told us it was a lost case, as well, and that we might only have a few more days of any hot water. We bit the bullet on the water heaters, as he said there was no point in buying used ones. He got a company to donate one completely and give us a reduced price on the second, and then he donated all the labor to move and install them.
That, however, allowed showers and dishwashing to continue, but none of our guests is employed, so using the laundromat is not feasible for them, and I've tried washing jeans and towels in a bathtub before, and let me assure you: it doesn't work. Enter me and Craigslist, and Eulices' ad wherein he mentions that he could deliver in the area! Thank God! So he came this morning, and he also said he would bring by a bike sometime for our earn-a-bike program for day laborers! It turns out he is unemployed himself, laid off three weeks ago from being a hotel manager. He has gone to many interviews with no luck, and now changed his resume (dumbed down, he called it) to sound less qualified - and therefore cheaper.
We also received an enormous TV yesterday out in Castro Valley, with two futons, a little table, lots of linens and various other stuff. The lady even rented a UHaul to move it in! Thursday happens to be our day to pick up at the food bank, and then after that our food-distribution day (we topped the last two weeks of 145 people with a total of about 160; last year at this time it was about 50 people a week), so we had extra volunteers around to help us move the stuff into the truck and then into the house. Michael set the old TV on the sidewalk, and it took about 30 seconds for someone to ask if they could take it.
All in all, yesterday was a long, busy day, but a great one. Today was sad buy joyful, and it was so good to see Fr Daniel and Jesson from Blessed Sacrament. Jesson is the amazing liturgist for the parish, but he also spent years working with the dying with the Missionaries of Charity in India, and he used that gift and experience to take care of Fr Tom in his last difficult weeks. Fr Tom's suffering is over, and he is gone, but there are many deeply, deeply beautiful people at Blessed Sacrament, and Fr Tom's charity, goodness, and profound gentleness of heart lives on in them. I hope they know how special they are, and how special a community they have made.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Monday, November 3, 2008
Fast Forward to Today
Well, that was a long time of no posting, but there were many reasons. One amongst them was my temptation to get lost in the overwhelming emotions of this political campaign season and say things in a tone I might later wish I had not used. However much we may disagree with the positions of certain (or all, for the more cynical among us) the candidates, and to whatever extent we may even find some of their actions, stances, or tendencies morally repugnant, they are, after all, humans just like us, however difficult that may be to grasp in soundbites and newschannel recapitulations of soundbites. A person who is a celebrity, or an ideologue, or a tyrant or a guru is still a person - with all the frailties and handicaps that ontological fact guarantees. I still regret that I am forced by political events to wear my hair in a ponytail or a tightly-wound chignon these days, but that is about as far as I want my snarkiness to take me.
What I will say about this race is that I cannot imagine how joyous it must be for the few surviving centenarian sons and daughters of slaves to see an African-American on the ticket for the highest office in the country.
I admit I became rather obsessed with the election. Then a sage coworker remarked the other day that what was weirdest about it all and most difficult to comprehend is that it will actually be over. And soon. No more heat, no anxiety, no minute-by-minute minute changes in arcs on graphs of Probable Iowa Voters. The end of a race, a change of face, and back to our lost jobs, wars, and debts. Put the party dresses back in the closet, and say a quiet prayer that at least something or other will change.
What I will say about this race is that I cannot imagine how joyous it must be for the few surviving centenarian sons and daughters of slaves to see an African-American on the ticket for the highest office in the country.
I admit I became rather obsessed with the election. Then a sage coworker remarked the other day that what was weirdest about it all and most difficult to comprehend is that it will actually be over. And soon. No more heat, no anxiety, no minute-by-minute minute changes in arcs on graphs of Probable Iowa Voters. The end of a race, a change of face, and back to our lost jobs, wars, and debts. Put the party dresses back in the closet, and say a quiet prayer that at least something or other will change.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I Dream of Obama
I have too much going on to do much blogging, but I needed a nap after the soup kitchen today, and since the debate was on after I got home, I had to wait until after that to go to sleep.
Timing being what it was, I dreamt of Barack Obama again. And, no, not that kind of dream. I dreamed I got him in trouble with his apartment managers while I housesat for him as he went out campaigning for a few days.
It turns out that (in my head) Mr. Obama lives in a large, average, stunningly bland apartment complex. He also has a very messy downstairs bathroom with ugly navy blue embellishments, including a shag rug and a shag-carpeted toilet-cover-thing on the seat cover and back of the toilet. The bathroom wasn't dirty, just crammed with stuff in the manner of a closet, since it was close to the door. The stuff included miles of audio cable of varying gauges, since (in my head) Obama also runs his own audio in debates and while campaigning.
Anyway, while there, I brought a couple dogs to stay with me, dogs I don't actually own in real life. And I and the dogs stayed downstairs on a couch, and in between shifts at work watched a lot of political news on the big TV and drank a lot of Diet Coke. The latter is relevant, as when Mr. Obama returned a few hours earlier than expected, I was still in the midst of recycling the bottles and newspapers in the recycling alcove of his place (known in other contexts as a 'bay window') (which also contained more boxes of audio cable).
He was very calm about it, but his place looked a bit trashed, so he helped me put everything into the right bins so that his wife wouldn't return to a messy house. He went out for a few moments and when he came back, he said in the manner of a disappointed (but eminently calm) father that unfortunately it turns out that something called the 'noise abatement' squad or committee had been turned to when a water-utility worker attempted to get in and do some repairs: the dogs, it seems, had become a bit proprietary about their temporary home and been rather vocal about their displeasure with the intruder. There was an official complaint, he said, and he disheartenedly lifted the official paperwork.
Of course, the problem with my dogs' enthusiastic protection of the Obamas' apartment would be all but irrelevant were he to win the Presidency, and in all likelihood workmen would abide by landlord-tenant law at the White House, but for the moment I figured that consoling him with potentials and possibilities was an imprudent tack, so I just focused on making the newspapers very geometrically arrayed inside the recycling bins. Mrs. Obama came home, in aubergine and a single strand of pearls, while I was compulsively re-arranging the audio equipment next to the bins. As she walked through the door I had the sinking horror of a teenage babysitter who's eaten all the crab and brie and hopes desperately not to get found out until money has changed hands and some days have passed, but after a quick look around, she didn't seem unduly disturbed by the apartment's (now vastly-improved) appearance. At that point the noise from the recycling truck outside my window was too great, and I woke up.
Timing being what it was, I dreamt of Barack Obama again. And, no, not that kind of dream. I dreamed I got him in trouble with his apartment managers while I housesat for him as he went out campaigning for a few days.
It turns out that (in my head) Mr. Obama lives in a large, average, stunningly bland apartment complex. He also has a very messy downstairs bathroom with ugly navy blue embellishments, including a shag rug and a shag-carpeted toilet-cover-thing on the seat cover and back of the toilet. The bathroom wasn't dirty, just crammed with stuff in the manner of a closet, since it was close to the door. The stuff included miles of audio cable of varying gauges, since (in my head) Obama also runs his own audio in debates and while campaigning.
Anyway, while there, I brought a couple dogs to stay with me, dogs I don't actually own in real life. And I and the dogs stayed downstairs on a couch, and in between shifts at work watched a lot of political news on the big TV and drank a lot of Diet Coke. The latter is relevant, as when Mr. Obama returned a few hours earlier than expected, I was still in the midst of recycling the bottles and newspapers in the recycling alcove of his place (known in other contexts as a 'bay window') (which also contained more boxes of audio cable).
He was very calm about it, but his place looked a bit trashed, so he helped me put everything into the right bins so that his wife wouldn't return to a messy house. He went out for a few moments and when he came back, he said in the manner of a disappointed (but eminently calm) father that unfortunately it turns out that something called the 'noise abatement' squad or committee had been turned to when a water-utility worker attempted to get in and do some repairs: the dogs, it seems, had become a bit proprietary about their temporary home and been rather vocal about their displeasure with the intruder. There was an official complaint, he said, and he disheartenedly lifted the official paperwork.
Of course, the problem with my dogs' enthusiastic protection of the Obamas' apartment would be all but irrelevant were he to win the Presidency, and in all likelihood workmen would abide by landlord-tenant law at the White House, but for the moment I figured that consoling him with potentials and possibilities was an imprudent tack, so I just focused on making the newspapers very geometrically arrayed inside the recycling bins. Mrs. Obama came home, in aubergine and a single strand of pearls, while I was compulsively re-arranging the audio equipment next to the bins. As she walked through the door I had the sinking horror of a teenage babysitter who's eaten all the crab and brie and hopes desperately not to get found out until money has changed hands and some days have passed, but after a quick look around, she didn't seem unduly disturbed by the apartment's (now vastly-improved) appearance. At that point the noise from the recycling truck outside my window was too great, and I woke up.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Both Kinds of Hacks
In news today, Blogrolling was hacked, and the NY Times is cutting out the IHT's Internet presence. I had no idea it was its readership was that small compared to the Times. It will be truly sad when its print version disappears in the next year or two, likewise assuredly not for any sort of financial reason.
In other news, people of all political stripes in all corners of the world declared that John McCain said 'my friends' 22 times too many in Tuesday's debate. Convenience stores predict a continued sharp decline in sales, with many customers so horrified at the price of gas they are no longer venturing into the stores after fueling, and C-store visionaries urge a change toward the European model of offering value on staples along with convenience to blunt the blow of gas costs. And apparently even the price of plastic is up 40% (from when exactly I don't know), further hurting soda pop sales.
Although the Seattle area has been less affected by the recession than most other areas, many industries have seen significant layoffs and restaurants from low to high end are feeling the effects. On the other hand, oil is below 88 dollars a barrel and expected to continue to decline. Until producers pout and cut production. It is also Fashion Week in Athens, where many of the clothes looked like someone's acid-trip version of Jacqueline Kennedy, and Zimbabwe's inflation is at 231,000,000 %.
Camp Pendleton, the only area on the California coast with a view of the sea not blocked by luxury condos and McMansions, and the site of the federal government's last brash land grab, is on fire, with 1000 acres already in flames, and the fire 70% contained by early Thursday. The national debt clock has run out of digits sufficient to display the full amount, so the dollar sign was replaced by a number when it hit ten trillion. Three hundred undocumented poultry workers were arrested in South Carolina for stealing crap jobs from Americans. Dowsing is up as drought continues to ravage the California agriculture industry, and here in Washington, many employers in the same industry, as well as state workers charged with connecting guest workers with employers, are protesting that new federally-imposed fact-checking strictures are impossible to comply with, and that were the federal government to cut funds as punishment for failure to comply fully, that would simply make matters worse for the state, its employees and their already-too-great workloads, private employers, the job-hunting guest workers, agriculture, and residents of Washington and the United States who rely on Washington agricultural products for eating purposes.
Also a photo on Seattlest was featured on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. Wild.
In other news, people of all political stripes in all corners of the world declared that John McCain said 'my friends' 22 times too many in Tuesday's debate. Convenience stores predict a continued sharp decline in sales, with many customers so horrified at the price of gas they are no longer venturing into the stores after fueling, and C-store visionaries urge a change toward the European model of offering value on staples along with convenience to blunt the blow of gas costs. And apparently even the price of plastic is up 40% (from when exactly I don't know), further hurting soda pop sales.
Although the Seattle area has been less affected by the recession than most other areas, many industries have seen significant layoffs and restaurants from low to high end are feeling the effects. On the other hand, oil is below 88 dollars a barrel and expected to continue to decline. Until producers pout and cut production. It is also Fashion Week in Athens, where many of the clothes looked like someone's acid-trip version of Jacqueline Kennedy, and Zimbabwe's inflation is at 231,000,000 %.
Camp Pendleton, the only area on the California coast with a view of the sea not blocked by luxury condos and McMansions, and the site of the federal government's last brash land grab, is on fire, with 1000 acres already in flames, and the fire 70% contained by early Thursday. The national debt clock has run out of digits sufficient to display the full amount, so the dollar sign was replaced by a number when it hit ten trillion. Three hundred undocumented poultry workers were arrested in South Carolina for stealing crap jobs from Americans. Dowsing is up as drought continues to ravage the California agriculture industry, and here in Washington, many employers in the same industry, as well as state workers charged with connecting guest workers with employers, are protesting that new federally-imposed fact-checking strictures are impossible to comply with, and that were the federal government to cut funds as punishment for failure to comply fully, that would simply make matters worse for the state, its employees and their already-too-great workloads, private employers, the job-hunting guest workers, agriculture, and residents of Washington and the United States who rely on Washington agricultural products for eating purposes.
Also a photo on Seattlest was featured on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. Wild.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
You, Me, Joe Biden and a Punt
Well, I tell you what.
I read a lot of different things. That separates me not only from Sarah Palin (stop, now, you: I mean because she reads 'all of them, any of them'), but also from people who recycle well, since because I hate to walk that far I try to read them all online (the rest I drive around with in my car until I can surreptitiously dump them in the appropriate bin at my favorite gas stations while the nice man is checking the oil over on the blind side of the hood). And from Madrid to Macchu Pichu, Ankara to Akron, and Birmingham to Bristol Bay, all of a sudden on that side of the political divide (which currently seems to be about 97 percent of the global population), Joe Biden is a lateblooming heartthrob.
Wow, eh?
'Joe Six-Pack' qua hottie. Who knew?
He has a nice smile, apparently. And something about masterful, or statesmanlike or manful manhandliness of taking things in decidedly masculine order or whatnot. At any rate, there are many ladies of a certain age worldwide who would, were he stranded in a punt on a slow-flowing river, not hesitate to request a row out in order to ask were he okay or not. And then offer him sandwiches.
Here's what I know: despite his years as an 'insider' (who is he expected to be -- as a Vice-Presidential candidate of a 200+-year-old republic -- Oscar Romero? Czeslaw Milosz? Deborah Harry??), he is not a billionaire. He's not a millionaire. He is not close even to the latter. In terms of financial planning, if nothing else, and for good or ill, Joe Biden is deeply representative of the Average American, few of whom, it seems, for the past thirty years or so, have managed to sock away anything of substance for the future.
What this means, for those nice older ladies with crushes, and for you and me and Joe Biden, too, is that when everything plummets to its most horrific nadir, our stocks will not be affected! Our mutual funds will remain unscathed! Our 401Ks will remain largely as they were: nonexistent. Our children will have precisely what we had bequeated them last year, and the year before: good wishes, much love, and a solid love of learning and of the world and their brothers and sisters in it. And an inherited stiff upper lip.
I'll tell you about investment: I just returned to working in restaurants. (It seems even the working rich can't afford a private chef.) Last night, the new dishwasher in the ill-fated (only at this place; it's not actually an endemic issue, so don't give up your career plans!) weekend dish shift gave (no) notice that he was leaving to pursue greater riches with a cousin in Brooklyn. Sadly, he wasn't going to receive a check from that workplace before his cross-country trip - but he did have a car to sell.
Enter real economics, real 'Joe Six-Pack,' real individuals controlling their own financial futures. The line cook, who had been bicycling to work happily for months through spring and summer had only recently begun to revisit his transportation priorities. (Seattle has less-than-ideal bicycling weather at times, noticeably at 12AM in January.) The dishwasher had a car and a concrete plan, the cook had money and a vague longing: move 300 dollars in one direction, and one person is on a plane to destiny and another in a heated car toward bed. One guy gets five or seven dollars more an hour, and the other guy gets, minimally, two hours more free time per day. And, if that's too much idleness to deal with, the opportunity now to cut it back a bit with the chance for a second job.
For me, particularly since I'm so terribly depressed about everything lately, it was heartening, even exciting. The grey market will endure, and at least that is something. I hold up restaurants, and particularly kitchens, as paragons of many things (some undeniably glorious; others less than stellar, but not least of which is as a bastion of concrete, visceral, sometimes aching reality in a postsurreal world), but what made this even more brilliant was that, at the finish of the night, the security guard who has been living in an unplumbed van finalized the deal with one of the salesmen (by then drunk) for the papers to the Class C motorhome, on the basis of which he can now finish selling his second van to a guy who wants to use it for hunting and camping, and at the end of the day (literally, or I couldn't bear to say it; it was 11 at night, we had our aprons off and were washing the olive oil and beef fat off our forearms; I am at peace in my soul calling that 'the end of the day'), at least four people were happy with the real transactions they had completed.
Unless of course the whole 'Dollar Up Euro Down!' storyline doesn't entirely pan out for the long term and we all, along with the purchasers in these happy narratives, end up pushing barrelcarts of ABD Yaşli Dolarlar through whatever 'Main Street' is handiest for the 'Joe Six-Pack' under question looking for the one Dollar Store left that will take 4 million $ for a 4-oz. tin of non-metric kippered herring.
I read a lot of different things. That separates me not only from Sarah Palin (stop, now, you: I mean because she reads 'all of them, any of them'), but also from people who recycle well, since because I hate to walk that far I try to read them all online (the rest I drive around with in my car until I can surreptitiously dump them in the appropriate bin at my favorite gas stations while the nice man is checking the oil over on the blind side of the hood). And from Madrid to Macchu Pichu, Ankara to Akron, and Birmingham to Bristol Bay, all of a sudden on that side of the political divide (which currently seems to be about 97 percent of the global population), Joe Biden is a lateblooming heartthrob.
Wow, eh?
'Joe Six-Pack' qua hottie. Who knew?
He has a nice smile, apparently. And something about masterful, or statesmanlike or manful manhandliness of taking things in decidedly masculine order or whatnot. At any rate, there are many ladies of a certain age worldwide who would, were he stranded in a punt on a slow-flowing river, not hesitate to request a row out in order to ask were he okay or not. And then offer him sandwiches.
Here's what I know: despite his years as an 'insider' (who is he expected to be -- as a Vice-Presidential candidate of a 200+-year-old republic -- Oscar Romero? Czeslaw Milosz? Deborah Harry??), he is not a billionaire. He's not a millionaire. He is not close even to the latter. In terms of financial planning, if nothing else, and for good or ill, Joe Biden is deeply representative of the Average American, few of whom, it seems, for the past thirty years or so, have managed to sock away anything of substance for the future.
What this means, for those nice older ladies with crushes, and for you and me and Joe Biden, too, is that when everything plummets to its most horrific nadir, our stocks will not be affected! Our mutual funds will remain unscathed! Our 401Ks will remain largely as they were: nonexistent. Our children will have precisely what we had bequeated them last year, and the year before: good wishes, much love, and a solid love of learning and of the world and their brothers and sisters in it. And an inherited stiff upper lip.
I'll tell you about investment: I just returned to working in restaurants. (It seems even the working rich can't afford a private chef.) Last night, the new dishwasher in the ill-fated (only at this place; it's not actually an endemic issue, so don't give up your career plans!) weekend dish shift gave (no) notice that he was leaving to pursue greater riches with a cousin in Brooklyn. Sadly, he wasn't going to receive a check from that workplace before his cross-country trip - but he did have a car to sell.
Enter real economics, real 'Joe Six-Pack,' real individuals controlling their own financial futures. The line cook, who had been bicycling to work happily for months through spring and summer had only recently begun to revisit his transportation priorities. (Seattle has less-than-ideal bicycling weather at times, noticeably at 12AM in January.) The dishwasher had a car and a concrete plan, the cook had money and a vague longing: move 300 dollars in one direction, and one person is on a plane to destiny and another in a heated car toward bed. One guy gets five or seven dollars more an hour, and the other guy gets, minimally, two hours more free time per day. And, if that's too much idleness to deal with, the opportunity now to cut it back a bit with the chance for a second job.
For me, particularly since I'm so terribly depressed about everything lately, it was heartening, even exciting. The grey market will endure, and at least that is something. I hold up restaurants, and particularly kitchens, as paragons of many things (some undeniably glorious; others less than stellar, but not least of which is as a bastion of concrete, visceral, sometimes aching reality in a postsurreal world), but what made this even more brilliant was that, at the finish of the night, the security guard who has been living in an unplumbed van finalized the deal with one of the salesmen (by then drunk) for the papers to the Class C motorhome, on the basis of which he can now finish selling his second van to a guy who wants to use it for hunting and camping, and at the end of the day (literally, or I couldn't bear to say it; it was 11 at night, we had our aprons off and were washing the olive oil and beef fat off our forearms; I am at peace in my soul calling that 'the end of the day'), at least four people were happy with the real transactions they had completed.
Unless of course the whole 'Dollar Up Euro Down!' storyline doesn't entirely pan out for the long term and we all, along with the purchasers in these happy narratives, end up pushing barrelcarts of ABD Yaşli Dolarlar through whatever 'Main Street' is handiest for the 'Joe Six-Pack' under question looking for the one Dollar Store left that will take 4 million $ for a 4-oz. tin of non-metric kippered herring.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Joe Six-Pack 4, Cunning Chinaman 7
'The Common Man' sounds too nineteenth century. 'Everyman' sounds too medieval. 'Working Class' sounds too Marxist, and 'The Average Man' sounds boring and vaguely insulting.
Enter 'Joe Six-Pack.' (And exeunt all those of us with weak stomachs.)
I reason that it's because there are not as of yet literal corporate Presidential Campaign sponsors; otherwise 'Willy Wal-Mart' would have been employed and a special logo created. But while I am uncertain as to how ballot-happy the Ralph Cramdens, Fred Murtzes, Hank Hills, and Stanley Kowalskis of the world (the nearly-extinct demographic of typical-blue-collar Americans I believe Ms. Palin is attempting to evoke) actually are, I do know that however few remain of their species, owning a foam-fronted John Deere cap does not perforce make one a beer drinker nor, conversely, is beer drinking diagnostic of familiarity with power tools.
This makes it a stupid thing to say.
Let us breeze through Prohibition and run headlong into the First Great Depression. In 1933 a grape farmer in the San Joaquin Valley, mired in debt and no longer able to sell his grapes, shoots his wife and then himself. Two of his sons, Ernest and Julio, with less than $6,000, rise from this tragedy, start a winery and change drinking in the United States. The Gallos were successful from the start, owing as much to their complementary skills and temperaments as to their mutual willingness to devote all they had to the enterprise.
The Depression ended, but the 'misery market' remained. In 1957, Gallo introduced 'Thunderbird,' a sweet, fortified, citrusy white wine sold at a low price and, at 17.5 alcohol by volume, rather more tailored toward rapid intoxication than slow savoring. Legend has it that after sales took off, Ernest Gallo, the business and marketing wizard of the pair, would assess the brand's fame and success in its target market by being driven to bad parts of town and yelling out part of Thunderbird's slogan to people drinking from paper bags on the street. 'What's the word?' Gallo would yell, to which the legendary happy hobo would shout back, 'Thunderbird!' 'How's it sold?' 'Good and cold!' And thus arose the first chink in the elitist-wine-snob vs. earthy beer drinker binarism: it doesn't get much more earthy than strong hooch with a screw-top in a paper bag being drunk by a guy with toenails longer than my hair.
But the Gallo revolution didn't end there. Nor were its effects confined to their brand. By the 1970s all sorts of jug red wines, and sweet wines like the Gallos' fruit-flavored Boone's Farm (with real plastic fruit around the neck!) and Ripple were drunk happily all over the US by millions of (often heretofore beer-drinking) middle-class citizens wanting something 'special' with dinner but fearing tannins, texture, and strong flavor. 'White Zinfandel' emerged, as did peach-flavored wines, strawberry-flavored wines, then 'wine coolers' in bottles, and the 'wine spritzer' in bars. Anyone could drink wine -- and it could go down smooth like a soda pop, too!
Meanwhile, as wine lost its elitist status thanks to the foresight and hard work of the Gallos, two other things happened: California emerged as a world-class center of serious viniculture and winemaking, and artisan beermaking took off. Most American supermarkets now have reasonable wine selections, and a US consumer can walk away with a brilliant bottle for under fifteen dollars (or stick with a Mondavi 'White Zin' at probably half the price). Likewise there are now millions of beer bores and beer snobs whose soporific conversational tendencies and level of affectation could rival that of any beret-wearing oenophilic epicure.
So: may we please let Joe Six-Pack rest in peace, along with Scarlett O'Hara, Rosie the Riveter, Ward and June Cleaver, the Femme Fatale, the Simple but Wise Peasant, the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, the Lazy Mexican, the Crafty Jew, the Cunning Chinaman, the Effete Englishman, and the Drunken Paddy? Please??? And someone hand me my Gueuze, please: I can't stand young hops, and I can't bear anything but wild-fermented beers, you know.
Enter 'Joe Six-Pack.' (And exeunt all those of us with weak stomachs.)
I reason that it's because there are not as of yet literal corporate Presidential Campaign sponsors; otherwise 'Willy Wal-Mart' would have been employed and a special logo created. But while I am uncertain as to how ballot-happy the Ralph Cramdens, Fred Murtzes, Hank Hills, and Stanley Kowalskis of the world (the nearly-extinct demographic of typical-blue-collar Americans I believe Ms. Palin is attempting to evoke) actually are, I do know that however few remain of their species, owning a foam-fronted John Deere cap does not perforce make one a beer drinker nor, conversely, is beer drinking diagnostic of familiarity with power tools.
This makes it a stupid thing to say.
Let us breeze through Prohibition and run headlong into the First Great Depression. In 1933 a grape farmer in the San Joaquin Valley, mired in debt and no longer able to sell his grapes, shoots his wife and then himself. Two of his sons, Ernest and Julio, with less than $6,000, rise from this tragedy, start a winery and change drinking in the United States. The Gallos were successful from the start, owing as much to their complementary skills and temperaments as to their mutual willingness to devote all they had to the enterprise.
The Depression ended, but the 'misery market' remained. In 1957, Gallo introduced 'Thunderbird,' a sweet, fortified, citrusy white wine sold at a low price and, at 17.5 alcohol by volume, rather more tailored toward rapid intoxication than slow savoring. Legend has it that after sales took off, Ernest Gallo, the business and marketing wizard of the pair, would assess the brand's fame and success in its target market by being driven to bad parts of town and yelling out part of Thunderbird's slogan to people drinking from paper bags on the street. 'What's the word?' Gallo would yell, to which the legendary happy hobo would shout back, 'Thunderbird!' 'How's it sold?' 'Good and cold!' And thus arose the first chink in the elitist-wine-snob vs. earthy beer drinker binarism: it doesn't get much more earthy than strong hooch with a screw-top in a paper bag being drunk by a guy with toenails longer than my hair.
But the Gallo revolution didn't end there. Nor were its effects confined to their brand. By the 1970s all sorts of jug red wines, and sweet wines like the Gallos' fruit-flavored Boone's Farm (with real plastic fruit around the neck!) and Ripple were drunk happily all over the US by millions of (often heretofore beer-drinking) middle-class citizens wanting something 'special' with dinner but fearing tannins, texture, and strong flavor. 'White Zinfandel' emerged, as did peach-flavored wines, strawberry-flavored wines, then 'wine coolers' in bottles, and the 'wine spritzer' in bars. Anyone could drink wine -- and it could go down smooth like a soda pop, too!
Meanwhile, as wine lost its elitist status thanks to the foresight and hard work of the Gallos, two other things happened: California emerged as a world-class center of serious viniculture and winemaking, and artisan beermaking took off. Most American supermarkets now have reasonable wine selections, and a US consumer can walk away with a brilliant bottle for under fifteen dollars (or stick with a Mondavi 'White Zin' at probably half the price). Likewise there are now millions of beer bores and beer snobs whose soporific conversational tendencies and level of affectation could rival that of any beret-wearing oenophilic epicure.
So: may we please let Joe Six-Pack rest in peace, along with Scarlett O'Hara, Rosie the Riveter, Ward and June Cleaver, the Femme Fatale, the Simple but Wise Peasant, the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, the Lazy Mexican, the Crafty Jew, the Cunning Chinaman, the Effete Englishman, and the Drunken Paddy? Please??? And someone hand me my Gueuze, please: I can't stand young hops, and I can't bear anything but wild-fermented beers, you know.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Politics for Grownups
This autumn night
Dawns, yet unaware
An insect sings on-
Just as am I,
Is he sunk in sadness?
Dawns, yet unaware
An insect sings on-
Just as am I,
Is he sunk in sadness?
Another thing that struck me in the brief Jon Stewart-Peggy Noonan interview was Mr. Stewart's visceral frustration at politicians' meretricious use of slogans, catch-words, and symbols as stand-ins for defined terms, argument, truth, or clarity. I believe two examples he gave were Conservative pack-mules 'legislating from the bench' and 'strict constructionist.' These could mean all sorts of things, but in practice are code for rather specific anathemas and goals. As Stewart pointed out, rather than risk alienating some groups of voters by railing against gay marriage, a candidate can remain in good stead with both his more Conservative core and moderate voters by espousing his distaste for the first and his fondness for the latter. A major point in Noonan's book is that the bulk of the American populace, regardless of political views, is as angry at being talked down to in this fashion as is Stewart.
And I think this is part of Sarah Palin's appeal. Unlike 'managed' and 'handled' long-time 'insiders,' she says what she thinks. She may get flustered, she may not always make sense, but until recently, when her logorrhea and lack of self-censorship became blunted by those same managers and handlers, she could be relied upon at least part of the time to say what she meant. I don't mean to say that she any more than the rest of us always acted in accord with her values, but she was largely upfront about them and the extent to which they informed her decisions. Nor do I mean that she was entirely unsophisticated politically or did not sometimes choose her public words judiciously, but her back-country candor, her physical expressiveness, and her fitted pink jackets undoubtedly do seem fresh, and more 'real' than the blandly and painstakingly contrived 'brands' of other national figures.
Perhaps tonight in the VP debate, with Palin's recent intensive training and the 90-second limit on responses, she will say as little of what she means as anyone else. She may even have a new more 'professional' haircut and style. Perhaps those ghastly faltering interviews with their exaggerated expressions and gestures and the incoherent strings of 'talking points' were a necessary intermediary step between her original shoot-from-the-hip/ take-no-prisoners/'Joe-Six-Pack' upfrontness, and she will now be ready to respond to any and all questions in a perfectly-clear and meaning-bereft coherent iteration of the same populist 'talking points' minus the nose-wiggle and the finger-licking, but with added 'y'alls' and more consistently dropped terminal G's. Should she remain on the national stage, whether the point is reached tonight or later, she will eventually be able to say as little in as many words as anyone else -- but succeed in doing so with appropriate punctuation and breath stops.
I enjoy subtlety in the right places as much as the next person. But this isn't Edo Japan, and foreign policy can hardly be confused with a lone heron on a foggy marsh. Evocation is not called for: clarity and direct speech are. I don't want synechdoche or stand-ins; I want facts, actual positions, and exposition! It doesn't matter to me in the slightest who pulled whom up by whose bootstraps -- or whether there were bootstraps involved in anyone's 'narrative' at all. I am not a medieval Japanese, and neither are you, so a symbol-ridden terse tanka is of no use to me whatever in parsing your actual stance on a specific issue. God help me, I, as much as anyone else, support 'freedom,' 'democracy,' 'democratic values,' 'rights,' and wish the best for the 'American taxpayer' and the 'American Dream' - but from my espousal of these abstract concepts here you still have no idea in what way I believe they are to be defined, pursued, implemented, or served. Like a bugling stag weary in the browned bush-clover, or a departing goose calling a distant farewell, the autumn mountains echo with my mournful cry: Say something, one of you, any of you, that isn't fully, patently, abhorrently inane!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Peggy Noonan and St. Paul
Well, my love affair with Peggy Noonan continues. She is that all-too-rare combination: a lady, a Conservative, a human, demonstrably non-insane, and a thinker (although I disagree, and quite vigorously so, with several positions she has held), something nearly as hard to find as 'small town values' in small towns.
Tonight Ms. Noonan was on the Daily Show to promote her new book, Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now. The title will be disturbing in some quarters for its inclusion of the term 'patriotic,' syllables which, when mispronounced, rhyme rather effortlessly with volk and kokutai (国体). I, however, would advise those naysayers to notice the second word, grace, and reflect on what our country, its politicians, and its political contests, might look like were grace, alongside its parents maturity and reflection, to be employed more widely.
Nor did Ms. Noonan's performance belie her espousal of grace as a virtue. She was calm, soft-spoken, persuasive, and did not once wink, wrinkle her nose, lick her finger and stick it in the air, or escalate her pitch to shrill or girlish levels. She spoke, reasoned, and comported herself like an adult, something which one should hope might pass unremarked, yet cannot for its rarity. And despite Ms. Noonan's recent still-on-microphone gaffe in which she used mild profanity and dismissed the wisdom of the Palin nomination, her ladylike demeanor and reasonable speech helped stifle almost all of John Stewart's customary swearing.
Part of Sarah Palin's gut demagogic appeal, I suspect, is that she acts like a girl. She is unintimidating, even when she resorts to the crudest, most puerile sarcasm. But girlishness, or childishness, does not engender respect, nor does it facilitate rational conversation or debate. I entertain grave doubts that the Corinthians wore red peep-toe pumps or bobbed their heads coquettishly while pursuing the Vice-Presidency, but Paul nonetheless saw fit to caution them thus: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me”(1 Corinthians 13:11). Would that the majority of American politicians follow Peggy Noonan and do the same thing.
'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;-this is knowledge.' -Confucius
Tonight Ms. Noonan was on the Daily Show to promote her new book, Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now. The title will be disturbing in some quarters for its inclusion of the term 'patriotic,' syllables which, when mispronounced, rhyme rather effortlessly with volk and kokutai (国体). I, however, would advise those naysayers to notice the second word, grace, and reflect on what our country, its politicians, and its political contests, might look like were grace, alongside its parents maturity and reflection, to be employed more widely.
Nor did Ms. Noonan's performance belie her espousal of grace as a virtue. She was calm, soft-spoken, persuasive, and did not once wink, wrinkle her nose, lick her finger and stick it in the air, or escalate her pitch to shrill or girlish levels. She spoke, reasoned, and comported herself like an adult, something which one should hope might pass unremarked, yet cannot for its rarity. And despite Ms. Noonan's recent still-on-microphone gaffe in which she used mild profanity and dismissed the wisdom of the Palin nomination, her ladylike demeanor and reasonable speech helped stifle almost all of John Stewart's customary swearing.
Part of Sarah Palin's gut demagogic appeal, I suspect, is that she acts like a girl. She is unintimidating, even when she resorts to the crudest, most puerile sarcasm. But girlishness, or childishness, does not engender respect, nor does it facilitate rational conversation or debate. I entertain grave doubts that the Corinthians wore red peep-toe pumps or bobbed their heads coquettishly while pursuing the Vice-Presidency, but Paul nonetheless saw fit to caution them thus: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me”(1 Corinthians 13:11). Would that the majority of American politicians follow Peggy Noonan and do the same thing.
'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;-this is knowledge.' -Confucius
Logovores Unite!
For various reasons I hate to make this blog a blog about Sarah Palin but, God help me, she is genuinely frightening as a candidate for national office. It is equally frightening that there are people -- millions, it would seem -- who find her not only not frightening but a good choice for the office. Millions who would put their lives and their futures partially (or fully, should McCain's age or health become relevant) in her hands. And, more shocking still, millions who find her inability to answer simple questions appealing, and comforting rather than disturbing.
I am currently obsessed with her refusal or inability to name which papers and magazines she reads, which periodicals she feels have helped to shape her worldview.
Katie Couric: ''When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this, to stay informed and to understand the world?''
Sarah Palin: ''I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.''
Couric: ''Like, what ones specifically?''
Palin: ''Um, all of them, any of them that eh, have been in front of me all these years.''
Couric one last time: ''Can you name a few?''
And Palin: ''I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, it seems like ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.''
Or, at least a microcosm of the part of 'America' that can't recall which newspapers, journals, or magazines it reads. My problem with this is that it sounds an awful lot like she doesn't read any. I can recall five titles for myself from yesterday, some local, some national, some international. Now, perhaps it is not true that Ms. Palin never reads any media at all, but that the reticence was a moment of panic: she simply wasn't sure if the Anchorage or Matanuska Valley papers would make her sound too provincial (although lack of worldliness, sophistication, or knowledge of foreign affairs has not seemed a concern thus far, so I find the theory not terribly plausible), whereas to quote national or international papers would endanger that same perception of provincialism and make her seem like an elitist egghead - -like the rest of 'em, sittin' up there in their political insider machine in Washington and readin' their elitist newspapers (through monocles, no doubt, while they sip espresso or sherry with upturned pinkies and debate whether the Camerata Fiorentina proves that Conservatism is either ultimately conservation or innovation).
But whatever may prove to be the explanation for her inability to be specific I am inclined to doubt that it will have anything to do with her being accustomed to reading 'most of them, any of them,' nor, assuredly, 'all of them.' I am fairly certain that, well-informed and well-read though he was, even the late Conservative William F. Buckley did not, in fact, come anywhere near to reaching Palin's claimed print profligacy.
She even had an easy out: she is an executive, as she repeatedly reminds us. As such, she could well have said that her position keeps her far too busy for as much reading as she might like and necessitates a focus on regional issues, such that much of her reading is taken up with official documents and Alaskan newspapers. Maybe she really can't see Russia from her porch, but she most assuredly can see Alaska, and simply asserting a single-minded focus on the concerns of her constituency would have saved her from the embarrassing absurdity of claiming to have read 'all' of the periodicals that 'have been in front of me all these years.' I don't even think it would have been a lie -- at least nowhere near as big a one as claiming to be the world's most voracious print consumer.
I am currently obsessed with her refusal or inability to name which papers and magazines she reads, which periodicals she feels have helped to shape her worldview.
Katie Couric: ''When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this, to stay informed and to understand the world?''
Sarah Palin: ''I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.''
Couric: ''Like, what ones specifically?''
Palin: ''Um, all of them, any of them that eh, have been in front of me all these years.''
Couric one last time: ''Can you name a few?''
And Palin: ''I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, it seems like ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.''
Or, at least a microcosm of the part of 'America' that can't recall which newspapers, journals, or magazines it reads. My problem with this is that it sounds an awful lot like she doesn't read any. I can recall five titles for myself from yesterday, some local, some national, some international. Now, perhaps it is not true that Ms. Palin never reads any media at all, but that the reticence was a moment of panic: she simply wasn't sure if the Anchorage or Matanuska Valley papers would make her sound too provincial (although lack of worldliness, sophistication, or knowledge of foreign affairs has not seemed a concern thus far, so I find the theory not terribly plausible), whereas to quote national or international papers would endanger that same perception of provincialism and make her seem like an elitist egghead - -like the rest of 'em, sittin' up there in their political insider machine in Washington and readin' their elitist newspapers (through monocles, no doubt, while they sip espresso or sherry with upturned pinkies and debate whether the Camerata Fiorentina proves that Conservatism is either ultimately conservation or innovation).
But whatever may prove to be the explanation for her inability to be specific I am inclined to doubt that it will have anything to do with her being accustomed to reading 'most of them, any of them,' nor, assuredly, 'all of them.' I am fairly certain that, well-informed and well-read though he was, even the late Conservative William F. Buckley did not, in fact, come anywhere near to reaching Palin's claimed print profligacy.
She even had an easy out: she is an executive, as she repeatedly reminds us. As such, she could well have said that her position keeps her far too busy for as much reading as she might like and necessitates a focus on regional issues, such that much of her reading is taken up with official documents and Alaskan newspapers. Maybe she really can't see Russia from her porch, but she most assuredly can see Alaska, and simply asserting a single-minded focus on the concerns of her constituency would have saved her from the embarrassing absurdity of claiming to have read 'all' of the periodicals that 'have been in front of me all these years.' I don't even think it would have been a lie -- at least nowhere near as big a one as claiming to be the world's most voracious print consumer.
Monday, September 29, 2008
I Can Has Cheezburger
But let me say this: whether it is McCain or Palin - de facto, de jure, (de la subida más alta es la caída más lastimosa, de haut en bas, de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum, or de gustisbus non disputandum, or de la O, the great mixed-martial-arts trainer and fighter) - who ends their arranged marriage, and no matter what I think of Mrs. Palin's political views, historical knowledge, or geopolitical vision, and regardless of how dirtydirtydirty I think it is to just plunk AWomanAnyWoman into a vacant hole,
Because I am a dork, and because I am a woman, and because I think that, whatever her weaknesses, she was used callously and nastily, and then left to the wolves like an overeager bush pilot in a moribund and cranky Land-O-Matic,
I do hope her exit or concession speech consists of this and nothing more:
All Your Bases Are Belong To Us.
[BTW: Fail.]
(As though 'women' were indeed the monolithic voting block some chucklehead McCain Campaign Advisor advised McCain.) (Or maybe one didn't; maybe these people do not consult the candidate but act unilaterally, in 'the best interests of the Party.' I really have no idea. I no longer understand any of this. Ever.) (Although I did make venison pizza the other day at the soup kitchen, which seems somehow postmodernly ironic.)
(And then, okay, that from that solipsistic defiance emerges someone on the conservative side who isn't totally ill-equipped to convince those legendary 'Bases' that it doesn't totally suck, or prove cowardice or a moral lack, occasionally to recall that the U.S. is situated on the same globe as {what should be} a rather cautionary amount of other more-or-less confirmedly sovereign political entities.)
(That would so rock.)
(And then we can forget that whole Paraguay thing. K?)
Because I am a dork, and because I am a woman, and because I think that, whatever her weaknesses, she was used callously and nastily, and then left to the wolves like an overeager bush pilot in a moribund and cranky Land-O-Matic,
I do hope her exit or concession speech consists of this and nothing more:
All Your Bases Are Belong To Us.
[BTW: Fail.]
(As though 'women' were indeed the monolithic voting block some chucklehead McCain Campaign Advisor advised McCain.) (Or maybe one didn't; maybe these people do not consult the candidate but act unilaterally, in 'the best interests of the Party.' I really have no idea. I no longer understand any of this. Ever.) (Although I did make venison pizza the other day at the soup kitchen, which seems somehow postmodernly ironic.)
(And then, okay, that from that solipsistic defiance emerges someone on the conservative side who isn't totally ill-equipped to convince those legendary 'Bases' that it doesn't totally suck, or prove cowardice or a moral lack, occasionally to recall that the U.S. is situated on the same globe as {what should be} a rather cautionary amount of other more-or-less confirmedly sovereign political entities.)
(That would so rock.)
(And then we can forget that whole Paraguay thing. K?)
Like Lipstick on Schadenfreude
I don't know how people like Andrew Sullivan or Ariana Huffington do it, how they write opinion about the state of politics day after day after day. I can still get my head around the idea of a print - including electronic print - reporter amassing and distilling facts from wire services and colleagues in the field to come up with 'Polls Show Prohibition Costing Hoover Crucial Votes' or 'Hearst Deal Likely to Solidify Roosevelt's Lead.' But as truly insane and lamentable as things (what things? nearly all of them! pick one, and just see if it's not insane and lamentable!) are now in this country, and this election, I am incredulous that anyone with an analytical, rational, or even humane bent can be calm enough to render opinion on all this obscenity. Admittedly, I don't get paid for it, which might well be a great tonic for wordlessness, but I'm verklempt. Vollständig. I can't begin to think about it properly in its entirety, let alone take an opinion.
That being said, as the Sarah Palin circus grinds on twenty-four hours a day, the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I feel sick for her, and I also feel sorry (although more mitigatedly so) for McCain. When her nomination was announced, my first reaction was that it was patently a slick and dirty tactical move: the Democratic Convention seemed very successful, galvanizing millions of exhausted and angry voters. So the Republicans timed this bizarre announcement to take a bit of that attention away.
And that succeeded. She was a crazy pick, an unknown who had figured nowhere on McCain's short list. Plus, unlike those (Above-) Average White Guys McCain was considering, she was a woman, a (rather fertile) mother, a hottie, an elsewherian, and politically quite distinct from McCain. Like Reagan or Bush II, and unlike McCain, for Palin there is a set of ideas on which she will not compromise, and which undergird all her opinions, and which must always be beyond discussion or negotiation. We have seen that there are plenty of voters who can relate to that, if, admittedly, sometimes in the 'I don't know nothin bout art, but I know what I like' manner.
My first reaction was that, being ostensibly a tactical move, it would be short lived. It would serve its purpose of notoriety, exultation, hairstyle commentary and scandal, and then when the attention had died down in a couple weeks, the McCain campaign would find a way to release her back into the wilds of Alaska and settle down with a more predictable, truly marriageable partner. Rural grassroots support for Palin would carry over to the new VP candidate easily, provided a convincing exit narrative had been contrived and managed adroitly. The new candidate would continue to mention Mrs. Palin and her values, and she would continue to be a presence in the campaign, heroic, lionized, as though she had actually died for the struggle. He would promise to uphold her - and 'the American Public's - ideals as he took up her mantle. She would live on as a Photoshopped patron saint, her all-too-human imperfections fallen away effortlessly in post-mortem hagiography and cable-news apathy.
But that didn't happen. Or it hasn't happened yet. And while I do not for a second believe McCain should have picked her (nor that it was McCain who did), nor that she should have accepted, her precipitous rise to stardom based, apparently, on looks, maternity, domestic oil production, and an antagonistic relationship to northern fauna, has, in addition to showing how little news is actually possible to unearth on a 24-hour news station, catapulted this very average madonna-executive into the vicious world of international sarcasm. Every aspect of Sarah Palin to which we have access has been vilified ad nauseum. Even her pregnant daughter and her jock boyfriend/sudden fiance are global laughing-stocks. I may find the boyfriend an atrocious little boy personally, but that is of course irrelevant for very many reasons (just to start, neither of them are running for anything except cover, and neither are responsible for the choices of their elders, let alone the Republican Party), and I would have known nothing about him, his (18-year-old's) stance on matrimony, his sporting preferences, his measurements, his academic record, his misogyny, or his apparent willful ignorance had McCain's handlers not proposed this wild scheme to Palin, nor she accepted. We are all idiots, sinners, bad friends, worse enemies, and only cautious good-doers: that two average rural high-school students are now in the position of being lampooned and excoriated globally for being two average rural high school students is disgusting, and something that should trouble us all.
***Break in the middle of this long post: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Atlantic said something similar and different here, so if you are tired with my position, or my crappy way of expounding it, you can go there, and have a different exposition of a different argument which comes out to a similar injunction: to not be so bloody mean. Or something. Close.
Part of my point is that we're all imperfect, and we all do stupid things, immoral things, and tasteless things. The majority of us are fortunate in that usually only about twenty other people know about them. And while I do not think Mrs. Palin is without culpability in any of this - she is an adult; she could have said no - whatever it is that motivated her assent does not mean that what she is experiencing now, as arguably the most famous person on earth, is to be relished. It is as lamentable as the rest of the heretofore unimaginable crap which daily assaults us.
For me, it was terrible to see her with Katie Couric. She looked at times like she was going to cry, and she was so nervous that even with her notes she frequently couldn't form complete sentences. Instead, she strung together repetitive dependent clauses and catch-phrases that had nothing to do with the question asked. For me it wasn't sport; it was rather like canned hunting. She may be a nice lady, or she may be an execrable human; she may be bright, and she may be utterly incurious; she may be both, always, at the same time. And it may be the case that it was nothing but hubris and a thirst for self-aggrandizement at any cost that drove her to accept the nomination. Manifestly, however, whatever her innate and cultivated aptitudes, and however much one agrees with or loathes her values, she is not ready for Vice- or real Presidency.
McCain is old enough to have said,' What, wait: --who??' and insist that the Party let Palin's family, her political experience, and her global curiosity mature a decade or so before inviting her into national politics. And McCain, as the Presidential candidate for the Party, the person who would have to work with the Vice-President for up to eight years, would, under ideal circumstances, have been able to, expected to, and insistent upon, personally vetting all potential candidates. She, likewise, could have reiterated the famous 'thanks but no thanks' and gracefully suggested that she had a few years more of study, and a few family matters to attend to, before taking the national stage. But, as fame now consistently outscores looks, smarts, and likability in polls of what Americans would prefer to have, her acceptance of the nomination is well within the bounds of normal American behavior. It may be sad, but it is hardly counter-cultural.
And it is because of that fact, the fact of her more strident, obvious, palpable, and less Photoshoppable humanity (especially as versus 30-year political veterans) - not because I agree with her on international or domestic issues, not because I see myself in her womanhood or motherhood, not because I, too, have a complex family, have made mistakes or misjudgments, have succeeded at some things at the expense of others, or have neglected to cultivate parts of myself - that I deeply empathize with her and her family right now, being the brunt of jokes no normal person (even a gorgeously postmodern, outlandishly cynical, Liberal one) could ever have never imagined, every detail of her life scrutinized in absurd fashion, her sartorial choices alternately mimicked and lampooned, her marginal, symbolic, token, silent role as envisioned, extrapolated to its (not entirely illogical) end as potential Ruler of the Last Great Empire.
I hate the whole thing. She shouldn't be there. She is suffering, her family is suffering, friends of friends of her family are suffering. And the country, all the millions and millions of us who are doing no-so-very-well-thank-you-at-the-moment-already will suffer tremendously should someone of so little curiosity and rationality end up as head cook, let alone Captain, of this blighted Narrenschiffe. -- Look, Margaret Thatcher was unique. Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto, Tansu Ҫiller, and Megawati Sukarnoputri were unique, and I'm only picking up the notable notables. There doesn't have to be a woman, or a black guy, or a gay guy, or an ex-bishop, or a prole, or relative of a prole, or a person with a disability, or a person with a large family, or no dependents, or a preference to baklava over awamat -- or a Poodle-studding business or a temporary obsession with lapidary. There just has to be a truly exceptional, historically grounded, ethically centred, utterly visionary, multiply capable, unfailingly prudential and unwaveringly calm individual of whatever genetic or gonadic makeup.
Do I think it was a brilliant cynical move? Sure: it got them what they wanted, which was attention. Do I think we all suffer when those in power think tactically rather than strategically, and of Party rather than country or world? You bet. And I'll see you in Paraguay!
That being said, as the Sarah Palin circus grinds on twenty-four hours a day, the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I feel sick for her, and I also feel sorry (although more mitigatedly so) for McCain. When her nomination was announced, my first reaction was that it was patently a slick and dirty tactical move: the Democratic Convention seemed very successful, galvanizing millions of exhausted and angry voters. So the Republicans timed this bizarre announcement to take a bit of that attention away.
And that succeeded. She was a crazy pick, an unknown who had figured nowhere on McCain's short list. Plus, unlike those (Above-) Average White Guys McCain was considering, she was a woman, a (rather fertile) mother, a hottie, an elsewherian, and politically quite distinct from McCain. Like Reagan or Bush II, and unlike McCain, for Palin there is a set of ideas on which she will not compromise, and which undergird all her opinions, and which must always be beyond discussion or negotiation. We have seen that there are plenty of voters who can relate to that, if, admittedly, sometimes in the 'I don't know nothin bout art, but I know what I like' manner.
My first reaction was that, being ostensibly a tactical move, it would be short lived. It would serve its purpose of notoriety, exultation, hairstyle commentary and scandal, and then when the attention had died down in a couple weeks, the McCain campaign would find a way to release her back into the wilds of Alaska and settle down with a more predictable, truly marriageable partner. Rural grassroots support for Palin would carry over to the new VP candidate easily, provided a convincing exit narrative had been contrived and managed adroitly. The new candidate would continue to mention Mrs. Palin and her values, and she would continue to be a presence in the campaign, heroic, lionized, as though she had actually died for the struggle. He would promise to uphold her - and 'the American Public's - ideals as he took up her mantle. She would live on as a Photoshopped patron saint, her all-too-human imperfections fallen away effortlessly in post-mortem hagiography and cable-news apathy.
But that didn't happen. Or it hasn't happened yet. And while I do not for a second believe McCain should have picked her (nor that it was McCain who did), nor that she should have accepted, her precipitous rise to stardom based, apparently, on looks, maternity, domestic oil production, and an antagonistic relationship to northern fauna, has, in addition to showing how little news is actually possible to unearth on a 24-hour news station, catapulted this very average madonna-executive into the vicious world of international sarcasm. Every aspect of Sarah Palin to which we have access has been vilified ad nauseum. Even her pregnant daughter and her jock boyfriend/sudden fiance are global laughing-stocks. I may find the boyfriend an atrocious little boy personally, but that is of course irrelevant for very many reasons (just to start, neither of them are running for anything except cover, and neither are responsible for the choices of their elders, let alone the Republican Party), and I would have known nothing about him, his (18-year-old's) stance on matrimony, his sporting preferences, his measurements, his academic record, his misogyny, or his apparent willful ignorance had McCain's handlers not proposed this wild scheme to Palin, nor she accepted. We are all idiots, sinners, bad friends, worse enemies, and only cautious good-doers: that two average rural high-school students are now in the position of being lampooned and excoriated globally for being two average rural high school students is disgusting, and something that should trouble us all.
***Break in the middle of this long post: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Atlantic said something similar and different here, so if you are tired with my position, or my crappy way of expounding it, you can go there, and have a different exposition of a different argument which comes out to a similar injunction: to not be so bloody mean. Or something. Close.
Part of my point is that we're all imperfect, and we all do stupid things, immoral things, and tasteless things. The majority of us are fortunate in that usually only about twenty other people know about them. And while I do not think Mrs. Palin is without culpability in any of this - she is an adult; she could have said no - whatever it is that motivated her assent does not mean that what she is experiencing now, as arguably the most famous person on earth, is to be relished. It is as lamentable as the rest of the heretofore unimaginable crap which daily assaults us.
For me, it was terrible to see her with Katie Couric. She looked at times like she was going to cry, and she was so nervous that even with her notes she frequently couldn't form complete sentences. Instead, she strung together repetitive dependent clauses and catch-phrases that had nothing to do with the question asked. For me it wasn't sport; it was rather like canned hunting. She may be a nice lady, or she may be an execrable human; she may be bright, and she may be utterly incurious; she may be both, always, at the same time. And it may be the case that it was nothing but hubris and a thirst for self-aggrandizement at any cost that drove her to accept the nomination. Manifestly, however, whatever her innate and cultivated aptitudes, and however much one agrees with or loathes her values, she is not ready for Vice- or real Presidency.
McCain is old enough to have said,' What, wait: --who??' and insist that the Party let Palin's family, her political experience, and her global curiosity mature a decade or so before inviting her into national politics. And McCain, as the Presidential candidate for the Party, the person who would have to work with the Vice-President for up to eight years, would, under ideal circumstances, have been able to, expected to, and insistent upon, personally vetting all potential candidates. She, likewise, could have reiterated the famous 'thanks but no thanks' and gracefully suggested that she had a few years more of study, and a few family matters to attend to, before taking the national stage. But, as fame now consistently outscores looks, smarts, and likability in polls of what Americans would prefer to have, her acceptance of the nomination is well within the bounds of normal American behavior. It may be sad, but it is hardly counter-cultural.
And it is because of that fact, the fact of her more strident, obvious, palpable, and less Photoshoppable humanity (especially as versus 30-year political veterans) - not because I agree with her on international or domestic issues, not because I see myself in her womanhood or motherhood, not because I, too, have a complex family, have made mistakes or misjudgments, have succeeded at some things at the expense of others, or have neglected to cultivate parts of myself - that I deeply empathize with her and her family right now, being the brunt of jokes no normal person (even a gorgeously postmodern, outlandishly cynical, Liberal one) could ever have never imagined, every detail of her life scrutinized in absurd fashion, her sartorial choices alternately mimicked and lampooned, her marginal, symbolic, token, silent role as envisioned, extrapolated to its (not entirely illogical) end as potential Ruler of the Last Great Empire.
I hate the whole thing. She shouldn't be there. She is suffering, her family is suffering, friends of friends of her family are suffering. And the country, all the millions and millions of us who are doing no-so-very-well-thank-you-at-the-moment-already will suffer tremendously should someone of so little curiosity and rationality end up as head cook, let alone Captain, of this blighted Narrenschiffe. -- Look, Margaret Thatcher was unique. Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto, Tansu Ҫiller, and Megawati Sukarnoputri were unique, and I'm only picking up the notable notables. There doesn't have to be a woman, or a black guy, or a gay guy, or an ex-bishop, or a prole, or relative of a prole, or a person with a disability, or a person with a large family, or no dependents, or a preference to baklava over awamat -- or a Poodle-studding business or a temporary obsession with lapidary. There just has to be a truly exceptional, historically grounded, ethically centred, utterly visionary, multiply capable, unfailingly prudential and unwaveringly calm individual of whatever genetic or gonadic makeup.
Do I think it was a brilliant cynical move? Sure: it got them what they wanted, which was attention. Do I think we all suffer when those in power think tactically rather than strategically, and of Party rather than country or world? You bet. And I'll see you in Paraguay!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
