Astrology

Okay. The time is now. I have been asked in class, I have been asked in the hallways (of life), I have been asked repeatedly: do I think the constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman will pass? I have avoided giving my opinion – possibly to make it seem like I have an inside track, or at the very least infinite wisdom on the matter. I have neither, but I will give my answer nonetheless (prompted in part by Ann’s blog, which gives the completely opposite answer): yes, if the amendment were to require a vote today, I think it would pass.
I don’t want to get into a detailed and terribly serious analysis as to why. Let me just keep it short and simple:

1. Ann (who speaks with a great deal of credibility here because she is, after all, a Constitutional scholar, and so I realize I am tip-toeing over terrain that is near and dear to her heart, whereas the Constitution is virtually silent on family matters, and the number of important Supreme Court cases addressing the family can easily be counted on the fingers of both hands, and that is only a slight, journalistic exaggeration) concludes that Americans treat the Constitution as an instrument that confers, and rarely (if ever) removes rights.

Answer: Maybe. But there are no words in the Constitution articulating a right to marriage (let alone gay marriage) and so we can’t really say that the amendment is “removing” a right. Only in 1967 did the Supreme Court even attempt to link marriage to a fundamental rights discourse. And, in subsequent decisions, it became clear that even though marriage is considered a fundamental right, the state may regulate it if it can demonstrate a compelling state interest. No one wanted to permit under-age kids, or fathers and daughters to marry with the state’s blessing. So, from day one, limits on who can marry have been acceptable. This train of thought is obviously not what the MA court chose to develop (in a split decision), but we are talking about the national read on the Constitution.

2. Many (including Ann) say that Americans are not that mean-spirited and they will not indulge this type of bigotry.

Answer: Americans are not inherently any more mean-spirited than anyone on the planet (except for a small contingency from some political... okay—off topic). But the reality is, I think, that Americans are made to feel that they are already giving in to things that run against their belief systems: they will feel themselves to be generous in granting same-sex couples access to some benefits. There are, after all, some 70 million Evangelical Christians in this country. Not to say that they ALL have uniformly strong feelings about gay marriage, but they certainly are under the influence of religious leaders who will not say kind things about this type of union. (n.b., did anyone read the story today about the woman in Texas who was arrested for having sex-toy Tupperware parties? The so-called "Christian" groups are a powerful force.) Can those that align themselves with the groups that repeatedly condemn same-sex marriage withstand the (almost certain to escalate) pressure to support the amendment?

3. One last point for now: there is the ever burning fear of the slippery slope. The perception is that the amendment is necessary so that other forms of marriage that are repugnant to our values wont also be pushed down our throats. Today = same-sex, tomorrow = bigamy. And why not (the argument goes)? The law is suddenly unstable here. Bigamous marriages based on religious beliefs have been rejected by the Court because of our adherence to a traditional belief system that favors monogamy. Oh-oh. That’s it? Gulp.

So, as of today, February 11, 2004, I am predicting that an amendment will pass. And, having said that, let me also say that many things can happen to change the mood of the country or to change my mind. Astrology is a tricky thing.

Now wait a minute...

Yesterday we got a really friendly call from a Clark supporter asking for our vote this coming Tuesday. Now what if that one call (and the fellow emphasized that he was NOT a recording, though our phone recorder recorded his call and so this then became an untruth, because he turned out to BE a recording – but I don’t think the misstatement is what caused Clark to withdraw), okay, sorry for the digression, what if that call had directed me to make up my mind once and for all, so that I was ready to throw away all literature on anyone else and plunge ahead in support of Clark? Where would I be now? It reminded me of the campaign requests you get from candidates AFTER the race, so they can better address their accumulated debt (and who is going to address MY accumulated debt?), though it is even more eerie to ask for my vote where there is no longer a "candidate" behind the name on the ballot.

Right on the heels of this I get in the mail a nice flashy card from Dean, all about how he and no one else is willing to stand up to George Bush. I liked the quality of the card, and indeed, in the photo, Dean appears to be standing, but I am thinking that my presidential choice wont have to stand up to Bush after next November because there will no longer be a Bush in DC. Instead he’ll need to be president. So I take the card to be a statement about what Dean can do in the next few months, that’s all. Interesting, but not persuasive as to ultimate leadership capability. But I will keep it in mind. I did like the fact that Wisconsin was the direct target for the card – the name of the state appears right there on the glossy front. State pride and all that. Also not dispositive, but very attractive.

Speed your way to bankruptcy

This, very buried in the paper today (buried, I suppose, because if you have stocks or caches of gold, you don’t want to give anyone on this side of the ocean legislative ideas):

Jussi Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a large sausage business, has been fined $216,000 for driving 50 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone in Helsinki, the police said. The fine is believed to be the largest ever given for speeding in Finland, where traffic offenders are penalized according to their ability to pay. Mr. Salonoja's 2002 income was $8.9 million, Reuters said. The Finnish Internet millionaire Jaako Rytsola held the previous record for a speeding fine: $101,700. Walter Gibbs (NYT)

I’m really all for this: I mean, imagine the wealth we could tap into. And the headlines this would generate. And the smug satisfaction all of us would get from seeing rich people zapped by radar guns and being made to pay, pay, pay. [BTW, how does a traffic cop know if s/he’s cornered a wealthy person?]

I can’t keep to my own schedule

Though in a previous blog I suggested (to myself) that I review readers’ comments on Sunday (that was because it was a particularly slow moving Sunday and I predicted many more such Sundays this winter given my work load this semester), I am now departing from my rule. Actually it never became a rule, because there hasn’t been a Sunday since I wrote that. Anyway, ANY day is reader-comment day.

To the reader who asked if I knew about the drug trade that went on at night on the hill where she found out I went sledding – the answer is yes, I remembered and left shortly thereafter. However, sledding at the local hill near the high-school is/was perfectly safe and so I took a handful of runs there. You see a lot of sky – it’s open and quite beautiful at night.

To the reader who had gone back to a blog from the early days of January and read about my warped floors, let me give you an update: the floor boards now are so separated that I could store enough winter provisions in the cracks and keep us going for a whole month. I will call my floor person for another conversation on this come Spring. Update will follow.

To the super nice reader (I’m not suggesting that other readers aren’t super nice, it’s just that this one lives far away and doesn’t know me and still took a moment to be super nice) with the preference for rats over mice, just a note of reassurance: though you may feel bad about neglecting and not challenging your favorite rat in the past and worry that this made her (him?) unhappy – actually you don’t KNOW that the rat was less happy being left alone. Maybe s/he liked retiring from cerebral maze games: maybe s/he had burnt out and wanted a hiatus from all that intellectual stardom. Maybe s/he had been faking enthusiasm all along. What do we know about rat feelings anyway. I mean, it’s not the same level of guilt as, say, I would have over not filling the bird feeder (update: it is now filled and I have attracted wood-peckers to it and so now we are in the next stage of the vicious orbit of neglect-entice-expunge-entice etc..)

Winter dreams, part 2

Later...(see post below)

If I wrote about sledding now, it would be as if I sledded just to write. It was, though, a perfect night to work the plastic on the snow. Not pink bird plastic, but a sleek blue strip, with the terrifying speed of someone who doesn’t really know what she’s doing and can hardly see where she’s going. Sublime.

Winter dreams

A colleague in Madison once told me not to make any important decisions in February. It’s like your car, which, at this time of the year, makes all sorts of odd noises that have little to do with real maintenance issues and more to do with the abysmal state of the weather. Don’t take your car to the repair shop in February. It may not need a fix. It may just need a new month. Winter at this point is never ending, the short day never appears longer, the groundhog deserves to be impeached for his inaccurate prognosis, etc.

At the same time, February takes up 28 – 29 days out of each year. That’s a lot of days to avoid making decisions just because they may be tainted by the cold.

So, Mr. colleague, I’m about to respectfully decline your suggestion and go forth with my decision, inspired by a reader who found my rhapsodizing about flamingos on a snow hill sweet but misguided: I’m taking a piece of plastic (they call this thing a sled?? What kind of cheap garbage do we give our kids anyway? When I was young…) and going out to look for a hill. Sledding in the moonlight sounds, at this moment, sublime.

How much power in cheese?

A lot. Jonathan Alter writes in this week’s Newsweek:

Kerry is Brie and crackers on a rugged picnic. Edwards is a slice of American on a hamburger at Wendy’s [no! take that back!]. Even beyond Wisconsin, politics is still about how you say “Cheese!”

Battles brewing on the home front

Does Wisconsin need this much attention? As of today, we have a proposed constitutional amendment in Wisconsin proclaiming marriage to be a union between a man and woman only (thanks, Rep. Gundrum, we really needed that), at the same time that we will have this week same-sex couples applying for marital licenses to underscore the state’s current discriminatory practices that preclude this form of marriage. On Thursday (February 11, just 5 days before the Sheboygan showdown – see earlier post today) there will be rallies and town hall meetings scheduled, just to add support for same-sex unions, and (simultaneously) a hearing will be taking place before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on the resolution to support the constitutional amendment.

It is, I think, rather sad but predictable that this has become a partisan issue. In Wisconsin, the constitutional amendment has 46 sponsors: 45 of them Republicans. A family law question hasn’t been in the media to this extent since the story of Elian Gonzalez from Cuba hit the press. One hopes that the public is looking carefully at the likely consequences of each legal step taken. A few words on paper can have far-reaching implications for the many different families affected by them.

So this is Henry…

A reader directed me to a review of Barfly, the 1987 movie referred to by Roger Ebert as “one of the year’s best films.” Thank you. I did not know about the screenplay. For those too young or too out of it (like me) to remember, Barfly was about a guy named Henry, described by Ebert in this way: “a drunk who is sometimes also a poet. The day bartender hates him, probably for the same reason all bartenders in gutter saloons hate their customers: It's bad enough that they have to serve these losers, without taking a lot of lip from them, too.” One day Henry hooks up with Wanda (Faye Dunaway), another time he hangs (well, rests in a reclining position) with a publisher. The two women meet each other in the bar. They don’t like each other. That’s basically it. The movie is not heavy on plot. But Ebert writes:

“The result is a truly original American movie, a film like no other, a period of time spent in the company of the kinds of characters Saroyan and O'Neill would have understood, the kinds of people we try not to see, and yet might enjoy more than some of our more visible friends.”

Yes well, in case I haven’t been all too obvious about it, Henry is really “Hank,” and “Hank” wrote the screenplay. About this, Ebert says:

“Louis Armstrong was trying to explain jazz one day, and he finally gave up and said, "There are some folks that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." The world of Charles Bukowski could be addressed in the same way. Bukowski is the poet of Skid Row, the Los Angeles drifter who spent his life until age 50 in an endless round of saloons and women, all of them cheap, expensive, bad or good in various degrees. "Barfly," based on his original screenplay, is a grimy comedy about what it might be like to spend a couple of days in his skin - a couple of the better and funnier days, although they aren't exactly a lark.”

BTW, Barfly did NOT come up on the list of movies I would most like to see (earlier blog today). You’d think the survey would have asked “is there any person you’ve come across recently whose work you find intriguing?” Instead, it asked about sleep. That’s too subtle. No point in beating around the bush. Might as well ask outright – what kind of movie do you have in mind for tonight? A brooding flick about a poet on skid row, or something set in Salzburg with a lot of music, tons of longueurs and costumes made of drape fabric?

Showdown in Sheboygan

Story titles ought not have unifying letter themes, but this indeed is what we are hearing about the forthcoming Wisconsin primary (contrasted with Dean’s Downfall in Des Moines, from same news source). CNN writes:

Much like you, we're nostalgic for the heady days of January, when this race was still a race, before the Kerry Comeback became the Kerry Coronation. So, like you, we look forward to the Showdown in Sheboygan, what Howard Dean vows will be the mother of all comebacks in Wisconsin.

I did think that we were no longer important, but CNN reassures Wisconsinites:

If Kerry does clobber Dean next week and the '04 Dem race unofficially ends (Dean says he'll keep running, but then so do Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton).

Letting the story fly a little into the terrain of lofty hopes and dramatic suspense, CNN continues thus:

Undaunted, we cast our gaze today upon Wisconsin, whose presidential primaries have served up high drama and sparked comeback dreams.

This is the challenge part. Again, from CNN:

Dean's Wisconsin press secretary, Mike Spahn, said their uphill campaign boiled down to a dare, issued to Wisconsin's traditionally independent voters: You're not going to let the rest of the country tell you what to do, are you? Are you .... ?

Hmmmmm. Sometimes, I would very much like to be told what to do. Not to trivialize this (oh no, I wouldn’t do that), but isn’t it sort of like playing Spider Solitaire? You know, where you have the feature that allows you to bring up the menu and undo your last move? So that when you are indeed stuck, with no possible move leading to a win, you can undo yourself to the point where your choice lead to this dim-witted impasse. And then you can actually pick another card, and eventually win. So if someone could please scroll forward and tell me what would happen were I to pick candidate number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 (are there still 6?), I would be a better voter come Tuesday. [For some of my options, this is just a rhetorical question; I know what will happen if I vote for Kucinich; nothing will happen. People will reflect how Wisconsin had this weird Kucinich contingency.]

Winners all

My colleagues,Tonya and Ann,have posted results of their own DVD rental survey (see post, February 9). Tonya states that the following picks were selected as matching her personality, taste, disposition, imagination, etc:

1.All About My Mother
2.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
3.Y Tu Mama Tambien
4.Secretary
5.Igby Goes Down
6.The Man Who Wasn't There

For Ann, the survey came up with these selections:

1.Being John Malkovich
2.Punch Drunk Love
3.Raging Bull
4.Magnolia
5.The Man Who Wasn't There
6.What's Eating Gilbert Grape
7.Cradle Will Rock

The pressure is on for me to state my own results. After all, I did admit to taking the survey… Okay, here’s the list:

1. Titanic
2. Artificial Intelligence
3. Pearl Harbor
4. Vanilla Sky
5. The Blair Witch Project
6. Batman & Robin
7. The Avengers
8. Battlefield Earth
9. Eyes Wide Shut
10. Highlander II—The Quickening.

And the sad thing is that, as you were reading it, so many of you actually believed this, indeed, to be the list that best matched my personality, tastes, disposition, etc. Even those who didn’t know me, just based on these blogs, I'm sure you thought – well that’s fitting.

Let me just say that any survey that seeks to determine my viewing preferences based on an answer (among others) to the question “how long does it take you to fall asleep?” is suspect. If I say 5 hours (and this has been known to happen, though not too often), does that make me sensitive, anxious, brooding, neurotic, prone to picking films from the “film noir” genre? If I say 0 minutes does it mean I need action, thrill, violence, because otherwise I’m likely to zonk out?

As I said, I did find the questionnaire to be a fun assessment of movie tastes and preferences. But as for “outing” my list here.. Naaahhh.. Or at least not this time around. I blog a lot, but there has to be some mystery left in life, some curiosity.

So where did the above list of ten come from? It’s the BBC’s top ten worst films ever. The comments are ones I have no problem agreeing with:

1.Titanic: It sank. There. I've saved you three hours of your life.
2. A.I.: Completely artificial but devoid of intelligence.
3. Pearl Harbor: It battered my intelligence with such ferocity I could barely find my way out of the cinema.
4. Vanilla Sky: The lowest point of my life so far.
5. Blair Witch Project: Two hours that would have been more profitably spent trying to staple my tongue to my forehead.
6. Batman & Robin: [my favorite comment] I wanted to sandpaper my retinas.
7. Avengers: As the film went silent before the closing credits I said aloud: 'That was ****!' and got a round of applause.
8. Battlefield Earth: A totally miserable experience shared with six other sad and bemused people and 120 empty seats.
9. Eyes Wide Shut: What the hell was that all about?
10. Highlander II: Breathtakingly stupid.

Ivan the Terrible (husband)

This week-end’s international headlines offered intriguing and – come on, let’s admit it –tantalizing material about the imminent (March 14) Russian elections. Putin is a front-runner, but there is a list of five challengers, and one person on the list, Ivan Rybkin (a vocal critic of Putin), disappeared last Thursday. Just like that. Gone. Albina, his wife, filed a missing persons report, convinced that her husband was at the very least kidnapped, or even worse, brutally murdered.

I want to know how many of us were thinking “boy, once a KGB-kind of nation, always a KGB-kind of nation” or “now, there’s a country with really vicious pre-election politicking!”

Albina now must feel quite mortified. Her “missing” husband had simply gone to Kiev (note story in the Times) for a “break” to visit “friends.” Didn’t want to be bothered, didn’t look at the press (he was having a “busy” week-end) until today, when he learned that there was a huge man-hunt going on (apparently their intelligence isn’t any better than that in “other” countries, though I dare say that one Russian man is even harder to find than WMD).

Or, maybe Albina is one smart woman: she probably knew all along and wanted to make a media show of her husband’s “disappearance.” And to think that our press made a big deal of Judith Dean being “unsupportive.”

Update on the pink birds:

Thirty hours later, and that errant flamingo is still resting upside down in the snow hill across the street (see first post today). There are 4 kids living in the house, along with two parents. They’re newcomers: they bought the house just this year. The moldy shingled roof didn’t make them back off and look elsewhere. He’s always around --they say he does film (?); the mother is an inside sort of person and so I don’t see her much.

Interestingly, neither adult has felt compelled to right the pink bird. It’s as if it offers a different perspective on things. An upside-down perspective. [We haven’t gone through an election season with them yet and so I can’t comment on their past or current leanings. I don’t know if a dozen flamingos in the front yard tells you much of anything about party affiliation. Now, if there had been green flamingos, that might be a hint.]

Today, while walking the dog, I almost said “say, that’s a cool upside-down bird..” A veiled question, if I ever saw one; comparable to “is anyone worried about the bird’s ability to breathe?” or “those pink toes look like they’re in for frost-bite, don’t they?” Just what they need – a neighbor on the prowl, posing nonsensical questions about plastic birds.

Working at home is not always such a great idea.

If you spend hours picking DVDs that then turn out to be duds..

My colleague Ann has posted a questionnaire, designed to help you select a movie to rent. This is great news if you’re like me and will actually ask the random Blockbuster clerk what’s good these days. As if they can figure this out for you. However incompetent the questionnaire is – it’s better than asking the clerk.

I, of course, filled out all the info on the site just to see if it was at all credible. The conclusion: Ann and I should avoid renting videos together. It’s not finessed to such an extent that it can really zero in on your taste, but it gives you a good stack to at least consider before you toss them all aside and pick out the usual dud.

Still on the Beatles..

It was on this day, then, that we listened, cried, screamed and went nuts. But I have to admit now, in retrospect, that I really didn’t get it. All the while that I worshiped the Beatles, I was a good 10 years behind them in age, and so their meaning was probably not my meaning. And I’m not even talking about the regular transcription mistakes. How long til I realized that they were NOT singing: “Trying to rule the days that are ohhhhhhh” (Across the Universe) or “Darling he sobs in the night when there’s nobody there” (Eleanor Rigby)?

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was probably obvious to anyone hearing it on the side of the ocean, but in Poland (I was back in Poland from ’66 onwards), it was just pretty and somewhat sexy. Good to dance to. With Bulgarian wine on the side rather than LSD. Or “Strawberry Fields” – tell us the words, tell us the words! --my Polish girlfriends would ask. And so I’d talk about how dreamy it was, you know, all that “living is easy with eyes closed …” And my absolute favorite “Fool on the Hill” (round and round and round and round and rooooound….) – I knew the words perfectly, but I had only a hazy understanding of what they meant.

I grew up with the Beatles. There is no question that they were the single most important, sustained musical force in my life. In my own quirky adolescent way, I imagined I was deeply immersed in their message. “I read the news today, oh boy…..” That is the power of song.

My vote seems to have been cast without my knowing it

Moments ago I got a call from a serious sounding John Kerry. He asked for my support in the primaries. Then he asked to please press “1” if I would vote for him. Multi-tasking is useful when you’re listening to calls from parents and politicians and so I leaned on the receiver and picked up my laptop. I heard a “beep,” and then an exalted Kerry telling me “great! I am so glad we can count on your support….. bla.. bla..” Oh no! That was a mistake! Please don’t count that in your score logs – I didn’t mean it! I mean, I’m not saying I’m NOT going to lend my support – anything can happen, we’re still a week away, bribes could start pouring in (see earlier post).

There’s no going back. I’m sure I’ll get all the letters, the calls, the solicitations; tomorrow I expect a Kerry sign in the front yard, and my name will probably appear on some massive ad taken out in the NYT. A technological snafu with a dose of human error has taken away my right to cast an educated vote.

Let them eat contracts..

GWBush has taken an idle comment heard on a plane ride and turned it into a political tool. Apparently he still wants the moderate vote badly enough to offer an alternative for gay couples: make a contract and then you can have all those nifty little rights like hospital visits, insurance, inheritance --that come with marriage.

But it's not that simple, even forgetting the intended slap in the face for the couples occupying this lesser status of "cohabitants." For one, those nifty little rights like social security or federal benefits cannot be passed on to even those occupying the Vermont category of ‘civil unions,’ thanks to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which, as we know now, is routinely being passed also by state legislatures (not Wisconsin: one vote short of a veto override).

And perhaps GWB should read a case or two coming from Illinois, or from a number of other states where courts have been extremely unhappy about enforcing cohabitation agreements (CAs), even between heteroseual partners, let alone between same-sex partners. Why? What else: for policy reasons. Because enforcing CAs is like giving a nod of approval to the unions. And because there are problems with CAs in general: when do they click into being? Commitment ceremonies. Okay. But when do they terminate? If there is no “divorce” does that mean that they are in place until the sexual relationship ends? And so are they really sort of like in exchange for sex? Meaning – when the sexual relations end, so do a partner's rights to shared property? Tricky tricky. You can write one, and many do. Then hope you’ll find a sympathetic court if there is a challenge. Not a family court – family courts have no jurisdiction over these private contracts. A regular court. Good luck!

Do your homework, GWB. Or at least call a family law prof. Wait til you get the bill!

Who IS the fat lady and why must we wait til she sings?

With respect to this question, posed in my Sunday blog on letting Wisconsin seal the fate of Dean, I can now some clarifications:

Thanks to the reader who, in answer to who she is, pointed me to viable contenders. In the first, I see the clear indication that girth may add oomph to a crescendo in a Wagnerian opera. In the second, I see that Brunhilde's girth may actually overwhelm anything and anyone who threatens to come close. I understand that both would indeed give finality to a crucial moment – be it in opera or politics.

Thanks also to the reader who suggested that I look to baseball for answers. Apparently the phrase itself is attributed to the great Yankee baseball catcher Yogi Berra, who likened a baseball game to an opera, noting, "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings..."

All very helpful. I did vaguely recall that the phrase got to be associated somehow with baseball, but I couldn't imagine why the game would be over at the end of the singing of the National Anthem, nor why the person singing it had to be of a large frame.

Oh ho the Wells Fargo Wagon..

A package from California came in the mail today. It was a book, along with the following note (literal transcription):

“Hi. I hope you take the trouble to vote in the primaries – for DEAN. Very important. He deserves every bit of support. He was first to oppose the war and was rewarded with a kick in the pants [I know her, she’s referring to the primaries]. That’s politics for you. Kerry has now shifted gears and blasts Bush but he’s been in Washington 19 years and has accomplished nothing [she’s listening well to the Dean ads]. I’m not enamored with him but, of course, I’ll vote for anyone against that maniac from Texas [for Berkeley, this is not strong language]. Love, H. P.S. Enclosed is a delightful book as a bribe for your vote.”

Well now, is this the same California that said “it ain’t over until?!” There are quite a number of voting members in this household. Any other bribes from readers in the Pacific time zone?

Herd animals

I know that some people go to see movies purely based on their assessment of the films’ worth. I know that. But the rest of us, the huge majority, maybe 99% of the viewing public doesn’t even consider a movie until it has something on its resume: like a credible review, or a recommendation from a friend, or an Oscar nomination. The NYT writes about this today in the context of nominations in the “foreign film” category. The nomination isn’t a guarantee of success, but it sure makes people wake up and take note.

People like success and they sniff it out and herd out to the movie showing the colors of victory. We move in packs, from one crowded movie house to another [and we’re disappointed when we go to see a movie and the cinema is empty, as in “hey, this is weird. Why isn’t anyone else seeing this? They’re all so stupid and unsophisticated! Or, maybe I’m stupid? WHERE IS EVERYONE??].

Of course, like others, I instantly became interested in all the films listed in the foreign film category when the nominations were posted. I mean, suddenly even the “Twilight Samurai” sounded just excellent, even though anyone who knows me would immediately say that this is the last film in the world that I would ever choose to see. And “Twin Sisters”? Sounds so great that I’m thinking, maybe we’re overdue for a week-end in NY – you know, fly out, visit the daughters, go see a movie – THAT movie, fly home… I mean, it’s not going to happen, but you can see my escalating desires: pick out the winners, get the tickets early online, because it’s SURE TO BE CROWDED when it opens, Yeah!, pack animals, following the herd to the next success, having our own opinion of it, but following the herd nonetheless..

Pink birds in the snow

The children from our block built a snow mountain in the front yard across the street. What’s a snow mountain? Just that: a hill-like structure made of snow. Perhaps it wouldn’t get top billing in a snow sculpture competition, but it is a remarkable piece of work, if only for its simplicity. I can see it at this second: it’s a bit lumpy, and some of the younger guys have placed destructive foot prints up one side. It also has a dozen of those plastic flamingos mounted in all manner of repose, one with a head and neck buried in the snow and the legs jutting in the air.

I watched them yesterday (from the warmth of our LR): they were having such fun with the project, much more fun than I was having with my stack of 60 Law School applications to read, a trip to the incredibly boring gym to look forward to, and some form of week-end house tidying to attend to. What the heck is the matter with us? What would it take to get a group of multi-age (discreetly stated, don’t you think..) people out there to build a snow mountain (lacking imagination, we might as well copy the kids)? Just to slap together some snow to resemble one of those burial mounds, and then stick in some flamingos, without order or purpose?

The kid mountain is unfinished: it’s a work in progress. It’s so brilliant in its imperfection, what with that upside-down pink bird, truly making me smile every time I see it. So who had the richer Sunday, me or them?

Sunday is….blog feedback day

A reader who had not been reading the blog got back to me tonight after spending a while looking over the posts. Me: “so, were you amused or entertained by any of them?” Reader: “Uh, yeah, I liked the one about California.” “What about California?” “It was cute.” “Cute?!!” “Yeah. I got kind of tired reading about that Bukowski person in the other posts.” “That was just a subplot; see it wasn’t really about Bukowski, it got more complicated..” “Yeah, but it was kind of like ‘enough already.’” “Like, I crossed the line?” “Hey, I didn’t say that!”

This was, n.b., not my mother. Had she read the blog, our conversation would have proceeded thus: Me: “so, where you amused or entertained by any of the posts?” Mom: ”Yes, well, I was wondering, are you sure you have the time for this?” Me “You know I tend to find time for things..” Mom: “Well, if you’re sure. I’d hate to think you’re not getting your work done. You know it would be terrible if something happened to your job right now.” Me “I’m still employed. So, which post did you find most amusing?” Mom: “ I found it interesting what you wrote about California.” [my mom lives in Berkeley] “Okay, California. Anything else?” Mom: “Well, I’m surprised that you assume Kerry will get the nomination. I just don’t like the looks of him. He’s not someone I would enjoy having dinner with.. And I’m worried that you’re neglecting things. Are you sure your family’s okay?” Maybe that’s just a touch too predictable.

A colleague reported that one of his students was writing a comment to the prof’s blog at the very moment that the prof was lecturing. This was, according to the colleague, a sign of the times: a GOOD sing of the times. Perhaps, my colleague speculated, blogging posts and responses will replace the need for some of the lectures. A win-win situation.

Sunday is a good day to mull over reader’s notes and comments. Please do send them along. It’ll be “cute” to address them here (without names, of course) or via email.

On to the next week.

Yet another Sunday of disenfranchisement

It’s bad enough to have just had a Sunday of Super Bowl [so what's an offensive pass interference?]. Now tonight I have to confront the Grammy Awards.

There was a time when music was more important to me than anything I’d see in the movies. I was the quintessential Beatle nut: I could sing all their songs backwards, I could make my voice SOUND like a Beatle – just ask me to do “Fool on a Hill.” And I was one of the 72 million that tuned in to the Ed Sullivan show 40 years ago. I was just 10, but I cried through it, I was that worked up.

I tried to keep current in music. Even when I returned to Poland in the late 60s, I found ways to tune in. And I was one of the lucky few to get tickets to the Rolling Stones when they “broke through” the “Iron Curtain” and traveled to Warsaw in March of 1967. I threw a bunch of flowers on the stage with a note for Mick: “call me: I speak English.” I was 13 and very naïve.

Then I lost it. I started experimenting with classical stuff, with women vocalists, with jazz, but any fool on the hill could tell that I was in the hinterlands and would never catch up. And now? Anyone who gets happy that Clinton won a Grammy because she wants to hear a familiar name does not deserve to watch the Awards.

Still, one Sunday on the margins is enough. I bought the Norah Jones CD, I know who the Sting is, and U2, and the sensual Celine, and my colleague keeps blogging about the Dave Matthews Band.. Sooo, I’m with the NYT reader from today (see post below) –it ain’t over til the fat lady sings (who is the fat lady, BTW?)!

P.S. Does Justin Timberlake always wear a suit and tie?

Give Wisconsin a day in the bleak winter sun

First they take the cheese, now they’re scoffing at Wisconsin’s role as the “sealer” state in the primaries (we seal the deal: Kerry in, Dean out). California wants it all. This from a reader of the Times:

“Re ‘Dean Says He’ll Quit if He Doesn’t Win Wisconsin’: For those of us on the Left Coast intent on keeping this democratic process alive, I’d just like to say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings – and that fat lady is California.”

You know, that just shows how it’s never enough. California: the state with the largest number of electoral votes BY FAR (55, compared to next largest Texas with 34, and Wisconsin at 10, and going down…), the state that is determined to snatch the cheese title from Wisconsin [the California Milk Advisory Board claims that California will surpass Wisconsin as the top cheese maker by 2005; California already is the No. 1 milk-producing state and California also has the most cows of any state in the nation], the state that has the wine, the avocados, the old trees, the ocean, the filmmakers, the Richard Nixon Library [hey, I’m looking at a list of 50 important assets—not my choice of “important”]. In other words, the state that has it all. Still not enough? A momentary spotlight for Wisconsin, a flicker, really. Dean sees it as defining the race. Let it go, California. One man, one race. You don’t need to have the last voice in everything.

Can’t shake this Rumsfeld thing

As Colin Powell met with the French foreign minister in NY yesterday over lunch, newspapers immediately picked up on the cordial nature of the encounter. Indeed, Powell and de Villepin appeared to go out of their way to emphasize their long-standing friendship and their desire to bring the two countries in closer political alignment.

Flip the channel, and we are in Munich, where Rumsfeld is at this very moment, facing the French and German delegations. The NYTimes reports: “Mr. Rumsfeld (answers)..a question, his voice rising, his hands chopping the air for emphasis… ‘There were prominent people from representative countries in this room that opined that they really didn’t think it made a hell of a lot of difference who won..[this is where he is ‘almost shouting’].. Shocking. Absolutely shocking.’”

Back at the Waldorf Towers, Powell and de Villepin beam at each other. In this story, buried more deeply in the paper, the Times reports: “(Powell) noted that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was in Munich talking to European leaders at the same time that Mr. Powell was meeting with Mr. de Villepin in New York. "So," Mr. Powell said, "we're reaching out."”

A hand shake here, a punch there, a reach is a reach.

Where Howard went, Nina soon followed

Well who would think that both Dean and I would lose it over Iowa? I want to appear on Diane Sawyer too, though like for Dean, I think it’s too late. Dean yowled, I commented on (okay, questioned, though inadvertantly) the pairing of a state license plate with the poet-writer Bukowski (see post, February 5, and many thereafter). I have a feeling if Bukowski wasn’t already dead, he’d die laughing at me. He’s the type who’d probably find humor in life’s bleak realities.

No apology on my part will suffice, I do understand that, even as a fellow blogger from across Bascom Mall writes stoically that Iowans are a resilient bunch and have learnt to adapt to the hostile words of their neighbors and countrymen and women.

But wait a minute – who is coming at this from a position of power? Suffering and down-trodden? Hardly. Iowa has single-handedly picked the democratic candidate for the presidential race this year. The Iowa Office of Tourism reports that 17 million people visit Iowa each year. In the first two months alone, I’m sure double that amount (candidates and press entourage) crossed the border into the hawkeye state.

Now Poland, there’s a country raised on suffering. Maybe I should save that one for another time though. One fall per week is enough.

Does anybody really like Rumsfeld?

It’s hard to believe that Dean the candidate got knocked down for his howl of enthusiasm, while Rumsfeld can get away with displays of anger on a fairly regular basis. The NYT describes Rumsfeld’s speech at the Security Meetings in Munich yesterday as “an impassioned defense of the American-led war against Iraq.” Impassioned? The man is terrifying when he loses his cool. Would you leave your children (let alone the national interest) in his care for even a minute? He sounds like he’d tear their hair out for not finishing their toast.

Only at the bottom of p.10 of this front-page article does the Times acknowledge that in his accusatory rant against those who continue to oppose the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld was “nearly shouting.” Oh, he was shouting alright, ending his comments with a lovely display of national pride: “I know in my heart and my brain that America ain’t what’s wrong in the world.” It’s people like Rumsfeld that make many countries think otherwise.

Late viewing of “Japan through the eyes of Sofia Coppola”

If Bill Murray gets an Oscar for Lost in Translation, it will be because the Academy likes him personally, or likes watching an actor having a good time keeping a lid on emotion, or because it dislikes the fact that Sean Penn (Mystic R) never shows up to claim awards. All good reasons.

But how would you explain a win for Ms. Coppola? I’m not saying it’s going to happen. But what if? Would it be to finally recognize that there are credible women directors out there? Or to offer a personal word of encouragement to SCoppola and reassure her that this has nothing to do with her father? Or to try and convince people about the pleasures of staying home and not crossing any borders except those between states? A hint that we all should forget about flying an endless amount of hours to odd places where we’ll be so freaked and jet-lagged that we’ll hardly ever be able to leave our American hotel or the American bar within?

I’ve become an almost annual traveler to Japan for work reasons, and each time it confounds me, more so than any other country. Pico Iyer (see post below) lived for a year in Kyoto and managed to actually say profound things about people he met there. And me? By the end of each trip I’m not saying anything profound about anyone, but I am talking to myself rather loudly on the streets and getting really anxious over the absence of raw fish on Starbucks coffee lists (figure that one out). I listen to professors of law sing Elvis songs in Karaoke bars while women in kimonos refill plates of nuts and sea weed chips (it isn’t really a sing-along, it’s a listen-along). I never meet their wives. Even when I whisper and use a lot of question marks, I know I am speaking too forcefully and that the questions are too intrusive. I carry a towel with me, as does everyone else, and I wash my face all the time along with everyone else, and I drink the tea, and I interview countless judges and I don’t really understand a word they’re saying, even though I always have at least two translators. Only later, when I am back home can I begin to pull out something useful. In Japan, everyone around me – all millions and millions of everyone -- fades into one ocean of well-intentioned faces, smiling, encouraging, always polite, always sympathetic, always incomprehensible.

It’s interesting that the Japanese took this movie in stride. Last I heard you could book a “Lost in T” stay at the Tokyo Park Hyatt, where you would be taken on a tour of places where Bill hung out, shown the room where much of the “action” took place, and charged a whopping small fortune for it.

But why was this movie rated R?

Following the fish

I’ve been a fan of Pico Iyer’s essays for a while now, in part because he is one of the most talented travel writers around (I think one of my first blogs was about him). He has a meandering, thoughtful style with words, and a history of travel of the sort where he becomes a resident, not just a visitor to a new place.
Reading his piece in the Magazine this Sunday (Net time is oddly out of sync with real time), I’m drawn into the speculative proposition that American movies have completely abandoned the happy ending in their portrayal of daily life, at the same time that politicians, in their speechmaking, campaigning, prognosticating, have embraced it.

He has, this year, lots of support for this, Mystic River being just one of a multitude of movies where bestiality gets compounded, never resolved, and no one is spared in the end. Contrast this, Iyer says, with the campaigning in Democratic primaries, or even speechmaking coming from the White House.

Okay, but has Hollywood gotten an accurate read on the American pulse? Or has it just been a momentary letting go of the cliché, almost as a eulogy to the tragedy that was September 11th, because at the time, who could even think of a favorable outcome?

The feel-good movie is, these days, not a very good movie (though the Academy is pretending that DKeaton really was superb in her role as the aging lover). And it remains cool to speak well of movies that offer a spiraling disintegration rather than a good resolution. Personally, I thought Mystic River was outstanding, but I also thoroughly enjoyed “Runaway Jury,” even though I admit, it was a bit of a packaged deal. I was pleased when a law prof, soon to be Dean at a top law school in the country showed it to his Civil Procedure class and said enthusiastically “wasn’t that great? I just loved that movie!” or words to that effect.

While we’re all trying to stay so cool and display our astute levels of awareness, Hollywood is watching. The good dramas that offer no hope have always been there, and they’ll continue. What’s missing now is the proliferation of antidote movies – ones that hold out the possibility of resolution, at least for that moment, while they have our attention. The politicians have long figured out that deep down, in the larger scheme of things, we are believers in justice, equality, love, fairness even if we’ve managed to encounter just the opposite in our lives.

It’s interesting that the one movie not dismissed by critics this year that offered hope, was one that took 90 minutes of anxiety and worry before it got there. Of course, the movie was “Finding Nemo,” brilliantly executed, down to the last flip of the fin. But only in animation is the best of the best backing exuberance over defeat, happiness over depression. I’m hoping Nemo will not be an anomaly. Great movies should span the range of emotions we’re capable of living with.

Nicknames for cities

Doug Moe (Cap Times today) has had it with the “Mad Town” nickname for Madison. He likens it to the days of calling San Francisco “Frisco,” or “Berserkley” for.. okay, how obvious can you get. He writes: “-- Can we knock it off? Madison doesn't need a nickname. Slogans and nicknames are for the Beaver Dams of the world. ‘Beaver Dam: Home of 15,000 Busy Beavers.’ No doubt.”

Moe says that only outsiders give cities bizarre labels and nicknames (he claims no one here would say “I live in Mad City”). But I think it’s the imagery that disturbs him most. He recalls the following exchange he had: "Where you from?" "Madison, Wisconsin." "Mad Town, huh? Man, I got knee-walking drunk there one time."

He’s wrong in thinking, though, that locals don't use city nicknames. I lived in the “windy city” for 6 years and heard those words over and over again. I had moved there from the “big apple.” Another city with pride. Perhaps a touch too much pride. Now I’m in the “cheese state,” logging in years in “Mad City…” The nicknames are not cool sounding. But face it, they’re kind of fitting.

What is a hamburger?

Any child can tell you a hamburger has nothing to do with ham. Most think it originated in Hamburg. It stands to reason. But at least two places in the States claim that they invented the classic hamburger: Louis' joint in New Haven, CT (it's still there), and the County Fair at Seymour, WI. The latter even has a “Hamburger Hall of Fame”.

We understand the hamburger to be ground beef, typically chuck, rarely sirloin or top round or top anything. Cheap, predictable, ubiquitous, served with a dollop of slow moving ketchup and snuggled into a white bread bun (let’s be purists here).

None of these descriptors can be applied to chef Michel Trama’s specialty: a foie gras hamburger with a cèpe mushroom-based catsup called "Ketcèpes" (c’est original!). Trama is chef at Les Loges in France. Today, the Red Michelin Guide released its ratings for 2004, and Les Loges (along with two other restaurants in France) joined the elite 24 eateries that are members of the three-star club. How significant is that? Last year, when it was rumored that the 3-star La Cote d’Or may have a star taken away, the chef committed suicide.

But what exactly is the definition of a foie gras hamburger? Is there a white bread bun? Does the Ketcepes pour slowly, just like the Heinz counterpart? Is it cheap? Served with fries that are “liberte”? Was McDonald’s even consulted?

Crossing the line

A day in the life of a wired person: a handful of quick email messages, a quick post, and another – the opportunities to say something stupid and potentially offensive are endless.

A London-based office of an American law firm is taking the rap for an email sent by one of its partners, where, in response to a request to adopt a puppy, the lawyer wrote “don’t let that dog go to a Chinese restaurant.” The firm and the partner are still apologizing. The Asian Pacific American Law Student Association and a large, wired legal community (the incident was posted on a blog) responded quickly, with anger and a determination not to let the matter go unnoticed.

I have heard many in other countries mock the American “obsession with political correctness.” It seems, however, that PC is only an unleashing of a freedom to finally underscore grievances that had been festering for years. There is the hope that truly offensive speech is going to be put to rest, and that by reacting to the “somewhat” offensive speech (representing perhaps buried feelings of racism or sexism or any other –isms), we will instill greater vigilance over what we say and do to others.

In my first blog post, I worried that what would seem an okay post at the time of publishing would not appear okay to the reader, and that I’d regret publishing it. Yesterday, I posted two things that I later decided were potentially offensive. Toward the end of the day, I pulled one off, just in case (and thanked the stars that only one reader had had the opportunity to read it), and left the other because the damage was done, and I already apologized to the slightly offended person.

Just in the last week, I have taken pot shots at Iowa, Fed Ex, Wisconsin, my mother, and countless people in government. I’m still not sure which of those, if any, might have touched a raw nerve. Clearly Laura Bush would have been offended (see post, February 6). Leno can test his jokes, a blogger cannot. That’s the down-side of self-publishing. And the fact is, sometimes you’re so focused on a theme [Bukowski was one weird dude], or on spelling [why doesn’t literati have two t’s?], and always, always on the clock [like right now: this is taking too long, I need to get back to work] that you completely don’t notice potentially offensive peripherals. After more than a month of blogging, I am still worried. But I remain cautiously optimistic that I can be sensitive to the known and unknown reader. And if I fail, I’m sure you’ll let me know.

For the “Pole” in you..

What historical circumstances account for the stereotypical caricature of the “dumb Pole?” I imagine much of it can be attributed to the large wave of immigrants that came to the States in the first half of the twentieth century. They were disproportionately from the south (every mountain family in Poland has a cousin in Chicago), disproportionately uneducated, deeply religious, and of course, poor.
If you ever pick up a thread with Polish jokes, they will always be of this type:

In America, they say it's 10:00 do you know where your children are?
In England, they say it's 10:00 do you know where your husband is?
In Paris, they say it's 10:00 do you know where your wife is?
And in Poland, they say it's 10:00 do you know what time it is?

The format almost never varies. There is a Pole, and there are others. The others act with logic and common sense, the Pole isn’t quite wired right.

Three guys are crossing the desert (or, “dessert,” as the “smart” English writer recorded). The Englishman brings a fan, the Italian brings a squirt bottle, the Pole brings a car door. When asked why, the Englishman says “when it gets hot, I can fan myself.” The Italian answers “when it gets hot, I can squirt water on myself.” The Pole smiles and says “when it gets hot, I can roll down the window!”

Or:

Three construction workers are eating lunch. The first takes out his ham sandwich and says “if my wife packs me a ham sandwich again, I’ll go out on a ledge and jump off!” The second one takes out his ham sandwich, groans in disgust and says “me too: if she packs me ham again, I’ll do the same.” The Pole takes out his ham sandwich and says “yeah, I’m with you guys.” Next day they’re out eating lunch on the site again. The first one takes out his sandwich, opens it up and finds chicken. He smiles and eats with relish. The second unwraps his sandwich, finds roast beef, grins and eats it up. The Pole opens up his, finds ham, gets up, walks to the ledge and jumps. “I feel sorry for him” says his buddy. “Why?” asks the other. “Because he packs his own lunch.”

And so on.

Even though the immigrant pool from Poland changed completely after the Second World War, the impact of this second wave on American humor was marginal. In Poland, on the other hand, humor absolutely burgeoned in this post-war period. But only for a while. Recently, Urban, a respected Polish journalist, observed that “free speech marks the death of humor.” He goes on to say that 30 years ago, all you had to do was stand up in a cabaret, do some imitations of a Russian, and you’d have the whole room rolling on the floor. These days, laughter doesn’t come easy. I’d have to agree with that. Jay Leno has a staff pulling out several hundred jokes each day for the Tonight Show. Leno picks out those he thinks have potential to amuse. Many are then coaxed to the max, yet they hardly produce even a ripple. I gave Leno a chance the other day. Here’s one from this past week:

Did you hear that Wisconsin has just passed a law giving a tax break to those who donate an organ [this is true, btw]? An organ? From Wisconsin? The cheese state? We want to use hearts with all those clogged arteries? That’s just what I would want if I needed a transplant!”

Like I said, humor meted out on a daily basis is a challenge.

Hello, Poland? Are you there?

One of the odd pieces of information available to the blogger is the language used by visitors. In other words, I can tell if a person using a Chinese program (for example) logs on. (That is, I can sort of tell: the stats have an error rate of I'd say 50%). It used to be that the Polish contingency was right up there, keepin’ up with the English and the Italian (the Berlusconi factor – see January blogs), with an occasional nod toward Hungarian (I have no idea where the Hungarian comes in). But lately – it’s as if all that bla bla bla about Kerry this and Dean that really was over the top. Either the Poles all went on a vacation last week, or they switched their computers to English (Hungarian?) programming.

It’s been a rough week here in Wisconsin, but tomorrow – I promise a snippet of something for the Pole in each and every one of you.

Such stuff as dreams are made on

A former student and a current good friend wrote today asking if I was okay. Apparently she dreamt that I was down in the dumps. She was also concerned that no man in my family should go near any church because she dreamt that a church had crumbled, taking my man (husband? father? brother? no, there’s no brother) down with the rubble.

I assured her that the men I knew were not likely to step into holy territory in the next 24 hours (so far as I know), though I admitted to staying up until 3:30 last night staring at a computer screen and reading movie reviews of films I’d never in my life want to see. I think she must have read that blog yesterday about the squeaky shoes and saw great meaning in it (I’m not denying that there was such meaning).

I’m one of those persons that is only very marginally interested in dreams. I have yawned my way through many a dream story told by pointlessly excited dreamers on the next day. I just can’t take the stuff seriously. But my friend reminded me of a dream in the past that had elements of reality and so brushing it off made no sense.

I’d be remiss not to suggest that if you’re a guy who is even half-way a good acquaintance of mine with some organized religion in your life, and you’re reading this blog, skip church this week-end. I mean, why mess with the heavens?

How low can you go?

Well now, this is exactly why I cancelled my subscription to the Wisconsin State Journal – for printing headlines such as today’s: “Two sides to minimum wage hike” No, Ms. Beth Williams of the State Journal, there are not two sides, no matter what you’re being told by the business community. The minimum wage in Wisconsin is insanely low.

I can understand, BTW, Ms. Jennifer Alexander from the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce attempting to articulate the “other side” at the public forum held here yesterday. She knows who butters her bread. Besides, no slander intended, but that is NOT a name I’d generally associate with one who gets her elbows dirty.

But Sandi Torkildson ( owner of “A Room of One’s Own”), how could you? Don’t you ever let us hear you say again that you need to keep wages low (and take away benefits) to keep that extra part-time employee. The problem of mega-bookstores swallowing the little guys is not going to be solved by your paying less than a living wage to your staff. Or, maybe you want to display the tip jar more prominently so that you could argue that they are only entitled to the tipped employees’ $2.33 (to be increased to $3.88) an hour? You do that, and A Room of One’s Own is going to become a Room of Your Very Own. To think I once liked hanging out there (before I switched to Border’s).

Literati schmati

Once again a reader wrote to let me know that she felt my blogging about European poets was pretentious and that it made her feel that there was something wrong with preferring to watch a DVD over reading poems about dead men (see blog, February 5). Some explanations are in order:

1. Bukowski, though born in Germany, moved to the States when he was a toddler, and so he doesn’t qualify as a European. Mary Oliver is, of course, beyond a shadow of a doubt American. Born in Ohio – how American can you get!
2. I didn’t put a Bukowski bumper sticker on my truck (for one thing the truck’s too dented and rusted, insofar as plastic can get rusted), I was just reporting on what I saw.
3. Anyone can find any info on Bukowski on the Net, which is the source of much blog wisdom after all. A reader would have no reason to suspect that I’d heard of "Hank" Bukowski [um, those in the know call him Hank] before yesterday, and few people know that I occasionally glance at small press literary journals – usually at the table of contents and at their submission policies should it ever strike me to write something good enough for their worth.
4. In order to pander to the odd person with a 4th grade reading level that would find my blog (I’m thinking of the one who found my blog yesterday by googling ha+ha+ha+ha), I make a point of avoiding words with more than three-syllables in all posts that have the possibility of appearing high-brow.

If you’ve nowhere else to go, look outside and watch the snow

Once you get your mind wrapped around this poetry thing (see yesterday’s morning and post-midnight blog), it’s hard to move away from the topic. Today, looking outside, I thought about the different ways to blog about what we in Madison are seeing. I went so far as to write a header for this post, just to show how bad a blog entry could be.

But if you want cadenzas that are more palatable, there are options. For instance, you can usually find something in the (Pulitzer Prize winning) poems of Mary Oliver that’ll give you an appreciation for natural beauty. Sure enough, the following lines are worth printing out. I think knowing that she was about 65 when she wrote it makes this even more "joyously unrestrained":

Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.
Oh, I could not have said it better
myself.

(permission from author to cite this was not available at the moment since she is preoccupied with feeding the homeless in Bethesda, but to avoid infringement on copyright, I want to link to a site available to the public which will bring up the same poem)

Ouch, that hurt!

According to CNN.com, Laura Bush says she takes political attacks on her husband personally. Note that we're talking about political attacks. Isn't it true that a person holding the office of president will always have dissenters who express opposition to administration policies? If the presidential spouse is personally offended by this, does that mean that political confrontation must cease? Or does Ms. Bush regard her husband as having a hegemony on political ideas? There's a frightening thought.

For Laura Bush, going through the political process leading to elections must be akin to rubbing coarse salt on bleeding, exposed sores. One has to feel sorry for her. Perhaps she should seek counsel from Judith Dean on how to get a medical degree and turn off the TV.

Ending the day with author-worship

A reader (I assume from Iowa) was surprised that I was surprised that Iowans are literate (see post on Charles Bukowski, February 5). Actually, I want to correct that: I did not intend to favor Iowans in this regard. Credit for lack of interest in esoteric indie-market poetry (I think they call it small-journal poetry but I’m not sure) should be extended way beyond Iowa’s rural borders. Most anybody would rather flip on a CD/DVD/TV than read about withered leaves, revenge-driven cats, and dying men. Except for the woman in the white car cruisin’ along University Ave this morning with that bumper sticker. Her man is the 73 year-old writer who drank away the first half of his life, and wrote, they say, some 60 books in the second. Amazing, on all counts.

Voting with reservations

Go ahead, ask someone if they vote strategically, or if they cast the ballot for their preferred candidate. It’s a question that guarantees fireworks.

I remember in the year 2000, sitting around with some of the pony-tailed waiters at l’Etoile, after the last dish had been plated and served (when they’d—ok, we’d—polish off uncorked bottles that hadn’t quite been drained by the night’s guests), explaining that to me, it was irrelevant that “Nader isn’t the sell-out to capitalist institutions that Gore is”. As to Nader’s Green policies (if he had policies, but that’s a separate issue)? Forget it, I didn’t care. I used the crude and simple slogan “a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Not to gloat, but I was soooo right.

I think these last three years have erased the phrase “they’re all the same” right out of our political discourse and this is a good thing.

Still, there remain the true believers who will only vote with their heart. You cannot sway them. They’re the types who have definitive answers to such questions as “do ends justify means?” or “is truth relative?” You can't reason with ideologues. Just remember, a vote isn’t a marriage proposal. It’s a political choice, rendered with an awareness of the consequences of making that choice. Frank at L’Etoile may hate me for saying this, but I'm convinced, now more than ever: you campaign and root for your hero, but vote for the one who may actually win.

Out to get you, for sure…

In an earlier blog (January 29) I wrote about the trials of mailing a grant proposal to a government agency in D.C. and about my fear of transmittal failure (given a suspected premature, off-schedule pick-up time by Fed Ex). My inbred distrust then of both FedEx and the governmental agency made me, on my own, chase down the last plane for DC at the airport (virtually), just to make sure that the grant proposal reached D.C. in time.

Well well well well, my skepticism about fair treatment by such stalwart institutions as Fed Ex and the US government (a skepticism that produced much laughter and ridicule from well-meaning but misguided people) has been completely vindicated today as CNN reports on the plight of the Fulbright applicants from Berkeley – all 30 of them. These guys failed to get their applications in on time because Fed Ex messed up the pick up and therefore the delivery schedule, getting the apps in a day late as a result. Even though Fed Ex took full responsibility for the mistake, the US governmental agency (the Department of Education in that case) said no, too bad: Berkeley should not have waited til the last minute: the applications were late and so their final destination will be the trash can.

Would the outcome have been different if the sending institution had been West Point? Or Bob Jones U? What makes me think that the top brass in DC probably felt just a touch smug as they were shredding 30 files originating from Berkeley?

Apparently, last year Berkeley managed to have a success rate of 50% in the application process. A student, interviewed on NPR, was asked if he would be happy with the Fed Ex proposal to pick up the costs. “No,” he said. “It’s just not the same. The prestige of a “Fed Ex scholarship” just would not measure up to the stature of the Fulbright grant.”

Poland water in trouble

Arguments over whether Poland spring water is true spring water always makes me think that the debate is misguided. The story in Fortune raises the following question: is Poland spring water from a spring? Call me Poland-obsessed, but whenever I see the bottle with the Poland sticker I think of THAT COUNTRY, not the technical merits of the “spring” issue.

Please, don’t bother reminding me that they mean Poland, Maine. That's deliberately misleading. How many people, when confronted with the words “water from Poland” conjure up an obscure town in New England?

Alright, deep down I understand it really is not water from the Polish Tatra mountains, not even close. Nevertheless, I feel a sense of loyalty to the product, just because of the name. I have been told by close friends (who should know better) that the taste is rather inferior – something about the water is a bit sweet, not appropriate to pure spring water. I grow defensive. I insist on a blind tasting test. I buy ten bottles just to show my allegiance. It’s Poland water, P-O-L-A-N-D, and if you use the name without mention of the country, be prepared for another class-action down the road.

If the shoe squeaks, wear it.

Having a shoe that squeaks gives you a new perspective on things. For example, if you leave a meeting while others remain, the others will watch and listen as you exit. If you pace during teaching, students will stare at your shoe rather than at something undefined, like the law. Squeaking makes you feel old-fashioned (do modern shoes squeak?), oblivious to life's details (can’t you get that thing oiled?), slow (so as to cut down on the noise).

Over all it is a good distraction from the obvious: the meeting was not to your satisfaction, you’re an impatient pacer, with an alarming tendency toward the old-fashioned, the distracted, the slow. Only the last is a point in your favor. The rest: best forgotten, blissfully out of mind because of the squeaky shoe.

Genius is the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way

I was driving in this morning behind a car with a license plate from Iowa (why do I find this relevant?) that had the bumper sticker: “I’d rather be reading Bukowski.” That’s pretty impressive. I’ve seen “I’d rather be dancing” “I’d rather be bird-watching” “I’d rather be surfing” – in fact, it seems people would rather do anything but drive. But reading Bukowski?

I have to think that the person picked up a tome of Bukowski at the writing program at U of Iowa. How else do you get from Des Moines to Bukowski? This is a guy whose books of poetry do not collect dust on your average shelf (including mine), even one with great literary aspirations (not mine). They’re not “pretty” poems, and his life was tough tough tough (apart from being beaten routinely by his dad, he had absolutely the worst case of acne ever seen by the medical profession), nor had he any connection that I know of to academia—that place where self-selected great thinkers determine what is literature and what is not.

But there he is, on a bumper sticker. Bukowski is credited with the statement that “genius is the ability to say profound things in a simple way.” It gives you hope, doesn’t it, that someone out there, every time she is driving her car, would rather be reading Bukowski.

A liberal dose of laughs

Michael Moore (winning the 03 Oscar for best documentary) says he almost did not deliver his anti-GWB political message during last year's ceremonies: too nervous, too much wanting to, as he puts it "just thank them, blow them a kiss and walk off the stage." (quote from today's Cap Times) Instead, as I recall, he got booed off the stage and everyone talked of how inappropriate he had been.

Is it wrong to use the Oscar stage for plugging away at a "Message"? Well now, I almost said 'no' and then I thought of the pleasure of watching Charlton Heston speak his bit. I take it back. All (especially the Charlton Heston part) = highly inappropriate.

Moore says that even if you don't agree with him, at least he tries to be funny in his messages. In truth, he claims, there are many more funny liberals than funny conservatives. This is a good point. Has anyone ever successfully made you keel over with laughter with their bashing of a social welfare program? "I know an old lady, she lived in HUD housing, she had so many children she didn't know what to do, so she had some more children and stayed out of work, and sent them to watch the big-screen TV and charged it to YOU!" Not funny. Not even remotely. In fact, anger-inducing, mud-slinging, cowardly and mean-spirited, but not funny.

On the other hand, try this:

Cheney gets a call from his "boss", W.
"I've got a problem," says W.
"What's the matter?" asks Cheney.
"Well, you told me to keep busy in the Oval Office, so, I got a jigsaw puzzle, but it's too hard. None of the pieces fit together and I can't find any edges."
"What's it a picture of?" asks Cheney.
"A big rooster," replies W.
"All right," sighs Cheney, "I'll come over and have a look."
So he leaves his office and heads over to the Oval Office. W points at the jigsaw on his desk.
Cheney looks at the desk and then turns to W and says, "For crying out loud, Georgie - put the corn flakes back in the box.

Or this:

One night, George W. Bush is awakened by George Washington's ghost in the White House. Bush asks: "George, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?"
"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises.

The next night, the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moves through the dark bedroom. "Tom," W asks, "what is the best thing I could do to help the country?"
"Cut taxes and reduce the size of government," Jefferson advises.

Bush isn't sleeping well the next night, and sees another figure moving in the shadows. It's Abraham Lincoln's ghost. "Abe, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" Bush asks. Abe answers: "Go see a play."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha, ohhhh, I can't stop myself, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (the two real jokes are courtesy of www.jokesnjokes.net).

Dean’s at the Majestic, I’m at home

I went to hear Nader, I listend to Gore, I got an eyeful of Clinton as he stood in front of the Capitol, right there where they sell cheese curds during the summer Farmer’s Market, Clinton the candidate, me listening (or, as I recall, waiting for hours so that I could sort of hear what I could otherwise read lucidly in the paper), taking it all in, watching history being made.

But Dean at the Majestic, tonight at 7? I’ll pass. I was in the Majestic a number of years ago when one still made the effort to search for parking downtown just to catch a run of an indie or a foreign film. I saw it close down as a theater, watched it wither into a ghost of a movie house, once so popular and funky and avant garde, now just an ikon from the past, struggling to reinvent itself (I hear it will open as a dance club later this month?).

Kind of makes you wonder—why DID they pick the Majestic to spotlight Dean? It can’t be a good omen.

Apocalypse charm

Newsweek (to Sofia Coppola): You’ve said that some of your happiest memories are of being a kid on the set of “Apocalypse Now.” That sounds a little weird.

Coppola: I had a great time. I had no idea there were problems. I was riding in the helicopters, and I had the costume department making stuff for my dolls.

[nc: maybe we should reevaluate the efficacy of “bring your daughters to work” day]

Potato, potahhhto, spaghetti, spaghettini..

Potato and orange growers, bread-makers, pasta producers, rice growers -- all are worried about the shifting tide of consumer preferences away from carbs (see NYT today). One frustrated spokesperson for the orange juice industry stated: “no one has EVER gotten fat from drinking too much orange juice.” He could be right, though the issue now is no longer what caused obesity, but how we should go about getting rid of all that accumulated blubber.

It’s interesting to go back to the land of dumplings and gnocchi and spaghettini and see what they’re saying about obesity and carbs. There appears to be an organization in Italy called the “Italian Society of Obesity.” I’m not sure if their goal is to eradicate it or support it, but it is presided over by Professor O.Bosello, a name that just looks fat.

In their newsletter, they talk about how Italy has one of the lowest rates of obesity in Europe (so maybe this group was formed to combat thinness…this sounds incomprehensible to us, I know, what with dried pork rind being an acceptable snack to buy at a gas station, but we have to have enough imagination to contemplate the possibility of an industrialized nation worrying about people not being plump enough). Moreover, though they acknowledge that some studies go so far as to claim that 14% of Italians are overweight, others claim that the figure is closer to 6 – 7% and FALLING.

Are we bored enough yet with the carb thing to switch our attention back to the “Mediterranean Diet?”

Betcha By Golly Wow

While listening to the debate on Public TV following the announcement of the primary results, I remembered a favorite song by the Stylistics. Sometimes a phrase out of a song from 30 years back will click with what is happening and you find yourself humming the accompanying tune until someone tells you to cut it out because it’s annoying.

The discussion was getting quite good – Congressman Clyburn was spectacular on the Edwards phenomenon [why isn’t Clyburn a contender?], and Senator Biden was positively beaming, because Kerry-Edwards were flickering a light at the end of this tunnel (this is what prompted the song lyrics). You could hear him thinking “don’t lose it, whatever you do, don’t lose it, we’ll all unite behind you, you’ve never seen the Democrats so willing to unite [this is true].” Biden worried only that Kerry would snap up the nomination too soon, leaving the Republicans with plenty of time to turn their multi-million dollar fireworks against him. Somebody remarked how interesting it was that Dean paved the way and legitimized a front-line GWB attack, without which this race would not have picked up its brilliant momentum, and having served that role, Dean is now expendable.

Throughout, I was (unbeknownst to me) humming what turned out to be “Betcha By Golly Wow, you’re the one that I’ve been waiting for forever..” (it had different associations back in the 70s) and so eventually I looked up the Stylistics to see what they’re up to. Did you know that you could actually hire the Stylistics these days for your own personal event? I don’t know if people now would appreciate the subtlety of song lyrics like “Betcha By Golly Wow,” but, oh could these guys sing!

With ZERO percent reporting, CNN is projecting Kerry the winner in Arizona

This reminds me of the election day party we had in 1980. It was to be dinner followed by a night of TV and rowdy comments of the football game type: “how about that Carter!” Dinner was over at 8, so were the elections.

The idea of an election day party ceased to be appealing after that: you never knew how long (or how short) they were going to be. Take the year 2000 – it would have been like the caricature of the never-ending Polish wedding. Would we have had to feed the crowd until the middle of December?

Tall and cuddly = a mismatch?

How can you explain the slanderous reporting that blasts away at the warm and fuzzy traits of tall people?? The NYT today says this about Kerry: “He will still never be cuddly. He is too tall, too gaunt, too lantern-jawed, too serious for that. His Iowa caucuses victory speech was solemn and windy, and he sat watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night with a band of firefighters from Fargo, N.D., whose union has endorsed him, tapping his right thumb and forefinger nervously against his teeth without making much effort to converse or connect.”

Is there an expectation that he should have been warm and cuddly with the firefighters?

Growing the pool of money

Krugman’s Op-Ed comment today is based on that tired but neglected truth: if you want something you can’t afford you can only hope for a sale or wait for an inheritance. Meaning: either the price has to come down, or the pool of money has to grow. The administration’s proposed budget relies, as we know, on cuts in discretionary spending. But think of it, what is the source of the deficit to begin with? Krugman writes:

The prime cause of giant budget deficits is a plunge in the federal government's tax take, which fell from 20.9 percent of G.D.P. in fiscal 2000 to a projected 15.7 percent this year, the lowest share since 1950. About 45 percent of this plunge can be attributed to the Bush tax cuts. The rest reflects the end of the stock market bubble, the still-depressed economy and — probably — growing tax sheltering and evasion...

So what will it take to get the budget deficit under control? Unless Social Security and Medicare are drastically cut — which is, of course, what the right wants — any solution has to include a major increase in revenue.
Many Democrats have called for a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts, preserving the "middle class" cuts… that would help, but one hopes politicians realize that it's not enough.

Another major source of revenue could be a crackdown on tax loopholes and tax evasion, which has reached epidemic proportions. In particular, what's going on with the tax on corporate profits? That source of revenue is down, as a percent of G.D.P., to 1930's levels. No, that's not a misprint. And receipts are not growing nearly as fast as one would expect, given an economic recovery that has bypassed workers but given big gains to their employers. An administration that actually tried to make corporations pay their taxes might be able to find $100 billion or more each year.

I don’t even mind that I can never ever find any tax loopholes at all ever when I fill out the IRS forms on April 14th. This is always a source of amusement for others: ha, ha, ha, she’s a lawyer and she can’t find the loopholes, ha ha ha. However, I do mind terribly that last little comment “an administration that actually tried to make corporations pay their taxes.” You mean it doesn’t? And they don’t? I mind.

Middle-of-the-night questions

The phone rings at 1 a.m. and the voice of a person whom I like very much says “there are two huge mice chasing each other around my apartment!”
“I’m so sorry” I tell her, meaning every word.
“What do I do?” she asks, genuinely wanting to know.

But the fact is, I don’t know. I could say “call pest control in the morning and hide all your food in the refrigerator” but that doesn’t address the issue of the mice having a rock’n roll good time right in the middle of her bedroom floor right now.
.
What to do…“Make sure they’re not rats” I want to say, but this seems mean and unhelpful.

Make a cheese trail to the door? Meow quietly and hope they’re mice of the low IQ type? Use a fly swatter? What? Really, nothing comes to mind.

Never assume anything

Today was “common law marriage” day in class. Typically this is a real breather lecture – the doctrinal law is vague and undefined, the cases are "sexy" and involve such notables as William Hurt, David Winfield (it took me years to learn that he was famous), Mick Jagger and Lee Marvin. What do they all have in common? Yes, okay, they’re all “has-beens.” But they also were in relationships where one person (always the woman) claimed a valid union (of sorts) and the other said no. All but Lee Marvin (do you remember “Cat Ballou” with Jane Fonda and Lee?? Crazy..) allegedly had components of a common law marriage.

So the class moved along in a fast and lively way (law students love digressions where you do Mick Jagger and Lee Marvin imitations—try it!), and we got through the boring and mundane as well (“what’s habit and repute and where did it come from?”), and I’m summing up with such terrific doctrines as the “putative spouse doctrine” and the “presumption of the validity of the later marriage” (can you believe how far courts will go to validate an absurdly defective if not outright bigamous marital relationship!), and it’s all cool, and I take my last sip of tea for the day (a must when lecturing first thing in the morning on a winter day), start gathering my papers and texts, and a hand goes up.
“Yes?” I ask with satisfied and confident smile of encouragement.
“What is common law marriage anyway?” she asks.

Stopped me dead in my tracks. I assumed we were all on the same page on that one. Doesn’t everyone know what a common law marriage is? Where was she in the 60s anyway? Oh, not born yet. That’s right.

Yes, well, I did then oblige with a definition, but after the Lee Marvin & Mick Jagger stunts, it seemed anticlimactic.

Assurances and Updates

1. No, I am not Kerry's speech writer, and the fact that the first words uttered by him today on the campaign trail were "how about those Patriots!" does not mean that he and I communicated in any way last night. Whether he blogged here -- that I cannot say.

2. From NBCNews I learn that one reason the FCC is responding to the halftime horror is that it comes at the tail end of a season of (NBC words) "potty mouth" television. Specifically, viewers had been horrified to hear Diane Keaton at the Golden Globes use the "s" word. Did I really miss this? I don't like to think that I tune her out every time she makes an acceptance speech.

The half-crazed halftime of the Super Bowl

A reader wrote: “don’t you wish you had tuned in to see the scandal?” Well now, I actually saw the moment now so richly discussed and savored, on this morning’s Today Show. I was flicking around looking for a weather statement (so how MANY inches of snow are we getting in the end?), and there was Ms. Jackson, only this morning it was with a digitally altered upper-body. Not that my wee non-Super Bowl voice matters in the least, but the pyrotechnics following the “moment” were equally, if not more disturbing.

But the reason I mention all this now is because I just read on CNN that the FCC is launching a “thorough, swift, and immediate” investigation of the incident. Will they hold hearings? Will we see somber politicians examining the garment in question to consider the credibility of the “we did not know” defense? Keep us posted, FCC, we want to read every word. Visuals, re-enactments, etc. would also be welcome.

Some musicians sure do know how to capture the spotlight. Must be in the genes.

The physical but not moral superiority of humans over birds.

In 1979 I bought a bird feeder.
In 1981 I learned that hanging a birdfeeder may 1. domesticate the birds and therefore render them incapable of surviving in the wild 2. spread bird viruses since the feeders are left in an unsanitary state by well-meaning individuals who nonetheless don’t relish the idea of scrubbing a birdfeeder with bleach at least once a month.
In 1982, therefore, I removed the feeder.
In 1999 I noticed that the Audubon Society was promoting bird feeders and I reasoned that they wouldn’t do so if the enterprise was more hazardous than beneficial to the bird population (unless the goal was to reduce the population of sparrows and humming birds, which I doubted).
Welcoming the new millennium with a warm human heart, in 2000 I contemplated buying another feeder (the human heart translates its impulse to the brain, leading to action, at very reduced frequencies come wintertime).
In 2001 I tabled the feeder idea since we were experiencing a severe woodpecker problem, with many holes in our wooden exterior to prove it and the last thing I wanted was to encourage any flying thing anywhere near the house, unless it would be a predator that would once and for all eradicate the woodpecker in a Darwinian, and therefore acceptable in Madison, manner.
In 2003 I was in the pet store buying dog things and once again I was drawn to the feeders: so many, so enticing, so noble. I bought a simple model that seemed never to require cleaning, having no perch, no plastic, nothing where excrement could accumulate. Up it went.
In 2004 I read about the bird flu in Asia; this made me wonder if perhaps birds should be further from, rather than closer to the houses of human beings. But the feeder remains suspended, and it will probably remain thus, until spring comes and I step outside again. It also has long lost its feed, and so the once hope-filled birds are now left to their disappointment as they read the writing on the wall: this house comes equipped with a cold human heart and a strong hand that wields favors in an arbitrary and capricious manner. One of the saddest of human traits is that guilt rarely spurs action.

Moving on, but not on your screen

On January 12 I posted a link to MoveOn’s contest for the best commercial, depicting failed policies of the current administration. It appears that the organization raised enough money to air it during the Super Bowl, but CBS said “no.” Read about it on MoveOn’s web site. Our resident legal expert on media law tells us that CBS was perfectly within its rights to do this. The fact is that CBS had already faced this issue in a law suit in the 70s when a group called Business Executives' Move for Vietnam Peace sought to force CBS to air one of their issue ads on the radio. The court ruled that nothing in the law compelled the station to run the ad.

Should charities feed the poor?

Ann’s blog , referencing my Sunday post on the Salvation Army (below) suggests that the answer is “not necessarily.” She writes:

Consider too that it is more centrally the role of government to provide the basic economic safety net. Government should not feel free to shift that responsibility onto private charities. And private charities are especially important doing what government shouldn't be doing, especially with respect to providing religion and similar spiritual support for people. Is it wrong to choose spiritual care over food?

This, of course, is true. The economics of life are not the sole determinants of peace and well-being. And if we hold the Salvation Army accountable for spending money on their support of “Christian virtue” (see post, February 1) then why would we not argue that donations to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra should be channeled for the care of the homeless that routinely gather outside the concert hall doors? The moral dimension may be suggested by rephrasing it into the following question: should every gift help feed the poor? I’ll accept a “no” to that.

But I don’t think this is the question that the SA article (spelling out plans for community centers that will refrain from giving out social services and concentrate on teaching the poor how to live moral, good lives) prompted. In my opinion, the difference in the SA case is that the organization holds itself out to also put food on the table and to shelter the homeless. Like it or not, many rely on those services. And, when most people slip that buck into the bucket around the holidays, they do so with the idea that someone will eat and sleep better as a result of their donation.

Though we are left with little concrete knowledge of the donor’s reason for picking the SA for her enormous charitable gift, we can’t help but think that the money MAY have been better spent on bread of the real kind, rather than on preaching about virtue and bread of the abstract sort. Not to suggest that the SA can be anything but a band-aid to a bleeding wound. On the other hand, band-aids can be a very useful thing: they can even stop what is turning out to be a hemorrhage. But that, of course, is just my take on it.

�Lord of the Right Wing�

A reader sent this link to give me a bit of cheer on a Monday morning. The worst thing you can do to yourself is minimize the link after the cartoon is done. The irritating voice wont go away. Ever. Like the real one.

I understand that LOTR fans will particularly appreciate the clip. Update: no, it's hopeless, couldn't get myself to see it, so it's a done deal: I will not have seen LOTR before Feb 29 and I will, therefore, not enjoy the Oscars.

The votes that could make a difference

If every registered Democrat was asked to bring one person who had never voted before to the polls, would that change the number of red v. blue states come November?

Bob Herbert, in his op-ed piece this morning, writes a heartbreakingly vivid picture of elections in a place like South Carolina. He comments:

South Carolina is a state with plenty of poor people. The Bush recovery went right by the Palmetto State without even stopping to wave. "It's like a depression down here," said Wilbur Collins, an unemployed factory worker. "The plants are closing so fast, the workers don't have no place to go."
Parts of South Carolina are economic wastelands. The jobless rate in some counties is approaching 20 percent. The median income for blacks, statewide, is less than $15,000, and for whites, less than $30,000.
The anxiety over the absence of work is pervasive, and in some cases heartbreaking. At a forum attended by all of the Democratic presidential candidates except Joseph Lieberman, a woman named Elaine Johnson told Senator John Edwards about her son, Darius. She said she gave Darius three choices: go to college, get a job or join the military. He tried college, but that didn't work out. "He wasn't ready for college," his mother said. He couldn't find a job. So he joined the Army and was killed in Iraq.

I was listening to the community forum attended by the candidates. Afterwards, off camera, some were asked what they thought of the contenders. There seemed to be the feeling that nothing would change much for the poor of S.Carolina no matter who was on the Democratic ticket. One woman said: “now Bill Clinton, there’s our man – he really understood poor people.”

Though it’s hard to forgive Clinton for the great welfare sell-out, I can see their point. All the candidates made a lot of physical contact with the audience – there were hands empathetically touching arms, hugs, that kind of thing. But you had to wonder how many will remember the forum once next November comes and goes. That, of course, is the cynical voice that keeps voters at home on election day.

The silent voice of poverty is, I think, the one troubling aspect of a political democracy. Still, Herbert remains guardedly optimistic:

The idea is to make low-income voters a force too strong to be ignored. A recent study commissioned by the center showed that small increases in voting by low-income people could be decisive in several strategically important states.
Most Americans are unaware of the extent of the suffering that has fallen on the bottom 20 percent or so of the population. Many low-income Americans are leading lives of grim and sometimes painful determination, struggling to survive from one day to the next. The contrast between the real lives of families sinking beneath the weight of economic distress and the headlines that continue to insist that the economy is doing famously is extraordinary.

To bring out the vote.. there is no reason why in November, S.Carolina should appear blue on the political map. If it does, we wont need to wait for post-election analyses; we’ll know that once again we’ve failed to convince enough people that there is purchasing power in a vote, with a higher probability of cash value than a lottery ticket. The affluent, disproportionately showing up at the polls, have known this for years.

An alternative evening with a groundhog

While 1 billion (world-wide, though I assure you, NOT in Poland) watch the Super Bowl, I'm here picking up tidbits about Groundhog Day folklore. By the time everyone is ready to turn off the set and give a sigh of satisfaction ("how about those Patriots!...") I will have compiled the following data:
- In the past 117 winters, Phil of Punxsutawney PA has seen his shadow 93 times. So Spring has been late more often than not. Charming.
- People come from as far away as England to watch the Phil phenomenon. This makes no sense, since weather is a very local thing.
- The official Groundhog Day website is frightening: the crowds sound like they're ready to lynch the poor animal.
- Jimmy, the Wisconsin groundhog from Sun Prairie, has moved to a new farm. This has caused him much consternation and anguish. Still, you can go to the community senior center for a 6:15 a.m. breakfast tomorrow and be there at sunrise an hour later to check things out for yourself. If you want more info, check this Jimmy site. I was the 2,129th person to visit it this year (the other 2,128 must have done so before the Super Bowl). We should elevate those numbers a bit or we'll lose our status as the 6th most important groundhog watching place in the nation.

Does the Ethicist blog?

I had a question for him, and though it’s too late to hope for a paper reply, maybe I could post it and eventually somehow, through the world of blog-degrees-of-separation, I could get my answer.

Here’s what happened: I googled the Super Bowl, because, in spite of the tone of a January 30th post (below), I do not want to go out today and align myslef with the odd assortment of anti-competitive-sport, or anti-technology-or-TV people who take the principled position of refusing to ever participate in watching something as "mindless" as the Super Bowl. Therefore I wanted to figure out who is playing tonight so I could throw around such comments at the grocery check-out as “Yeah, how do you like those Patriots…” You never really have to have any substantial knowledge of the game to talk sports in our society.

I came across the site where you can vote for favorite Super Bowl ads. That sounded exciting and fun and so I was wondering, is it unethical to by-pass the game and tune in only to the commercial messages? And can I vote, even though I am not really in the spirit of the game and my mindset may be somewhat warped and out of the norm? (I also will not have had 2 sick-packs under my belt and so my idea of what’s funny may be out of kilter). It seems wrong to just look forward to this year’s Bud or FedEx ad, but I’m thinking that if a company spends 2.25 million on a 30 second spot, the content must be worth un-muting your TV for.

Pointing with a nose

Recently, a pop-up appeared telling me that the message pointer that I am using is really boring. It proposed that I consider a FREE pointer, and it displays several intriguing alternatives: a face with a very long nose, a doggie, a candy cane, that kind of thing. I feel properly humiliated with my boring arrow, but I just want to respectfully suggest that if you want to appeal to my inner exciting person, you'll do better than propose that I track the Net with a hot dog, or a caricature of a guy with a deformed nose.