The V-word

One of my favorite shows ever was "Tales of the City." Whenever I need to escape, TOTC is one of my go-tos, along with "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Manhattan." Sometimes all three at a time, when I've really got the mean reds. To say TOTC is a series about a bunch of goofy characters in late 70s San Francisco is accurate, but it just doesn't do it justice. The series combines disco culture and Hitchcock's "Vertigo," old-money San Franciscans and a little girl from small town Ohio's infatuation with the City, and it all makes sense. Or at least enough for me. And what's not to love about Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney?

A memorable scene is when a main character, Mona Ramsey, is doing an advertising pitch for an underwear company. The old guys from the undies company object to the phrase "cotton crotch." She is visibly annoyed. What other word to replace crotch? She ends the meeting--and her career at the agency--with "You don't like the word 'crotch'? Well, I'll give you crotch! Crotch, crotch, crotch!"

Mona's travails remind me of Michigan Rep. Lisa Brown's. Yesterday Rep. Brown was barred from speaking on the floor of the Michigan House for comments she made about a pending bill that would restrict access to abortion, ""I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. [Rep. Brown is Jewish.] Why are you asking me to adopt yours?"

In her own "crotch, crotch, crotch" statement, Rep Brown spoke the words that got her into trouble with Republican leaders: "And finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no.'"

Saucy, yes. But barred from speaking worthy? Uh-uh. No state legislature is a family viewing zone. Everyone doing business there is an adult over the age of 18. As Rep. Brown stated later, at least she had the courtesy to use the anatomically correct word. Not crotch, or the other c-word, but the Latin-derived word for part of the female anatomy.

Now if this was 1912, right at the tail-end of the Victorian era, this wouldn't surprise me. But's it's 2012, for crying out loud. The 60s and 70s happened. If you're talking abortion on the floor of a state legislature, I hate to tell you guys, you're talking vaginas.Vagina, vagina, vagina. There. I said it. Three times. Maybe people all across the country should link hands and sing a happy vagina song to demonstrate the ridiculousness that this is 2012. 2012!!!

These so-called House leaders need to put on their big boy pants. My kids are Love and Logic raised, so I'm a big believer in natural consequences. So I've got a natural consequence for the guys who barred Rep. Lisa Brown to watch a performance of "The Vagina Monologues," preferably starring Jane Fonda, Janeane Garofolo and Eve Ensler (no doubt their favorite liberal women). They'll hear the word vagina, and the various indignities vaginas suffer, more than they ever bargained for.

The Fourth Estate

I was part of a discussion where someone was arguing that the media is most responsible for what ails our country. He cited Geraldo Rivera--Geraldo!!--as one of the culprits. Finally! Something we could agree on, that Geraldo is a joke.

But seriously. Anyone who would mistake Geraldo for a journalist has already disqualified himself from continuing to argue in good faith. But he was determined to make his point.

"Well, what about Columbine? Those kids learned everything they knew about guns from what they read in magazines and saw on TV."

OK, I can go along with that. There's a lot of stuff in the media that is simply out there, like how to build a nuclear bomb, that is lethal when combined with mental illness and an axe to grind. There's also the issue that guns are too readily available, sanctioned by a permissive government hiding behind an archaic interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Nor do I buy the argument that media makes people mentally ill. The proclivity is already there. The "news" is fuel for mental illness, just as somebody looking at them the wrong way is.

And besides, if I were, God forbid, one of the parents whose kid had died at Columbine or any other school shooting, I'd want this horror to be discussed in the media. That's why there's a Holocaust Museum--to make sure people remember.

Whether people like it or not, the Fourth Estate serves a useful purpose in U.S. democracy, or what's left of it. People complain about the "liberal media," while me and my liberal friends bitch about FOX News. If you want to watch real journalists practicing their craft--and btw, you can catch Geraldo's show on FOX, just sayin'--look to Jim Lehrer's and his cohorts weekdays on PBS' "The Newshour." These journalist know how to ask questions and actually listen for the answers.

Freedom isn't free redux

In Longmont, the town where I've lived for the past twelve years, the City Council has been grappling with the issue of whether to allow hydraulic fracturing, more commonly called fracking, to take place within city limits. The predictable arguments have already begun: Do you heat your house or drive a car? Then you're already pro-fracking, because being against it makes no sense. Do communities want to risk groundwater pollution and other unknown effects of the practice of fracking? Then let municipalities, rather than state and federal governments, decide if and how they want to proceed with fracking.

Last weekend the fracking debate literally came to my door, or rather, the door of my current workplace, Cheese Importers. A local group was collecting signatures for an initiative they seek to put on the November ballot that would ban fracking. One of my co-workers argued that these people are stupid.

Now I do have some questions about the wisdom of fracking in urban areas like the one where I live, so I might very well be one of the "stupid" people who signs the petition. I may even vote for a continued ban on fracking in Longmont, if enough stupid people actually sign the petition. I''m also trying very hard to reverse a lifelong tendency to personalize everything that is said and done in my presence.

"They do have the right to petition. It's a First Amendment right." (Pretty smart response, huh? I'm still drafting off my trip to Washington.)

"Yeah, the right to be stupid," he said, before walking away.

True enough. Everyone risks being stupid when they take a stand, especially when opponents are at least as equally convinced that their viewpoint is correct. I also wanted to laugh, because that's a funny thing to say. But I have to be honest, I was also personalizing. I flinched at the thought that he might think I'm stupid.

Just so you know, I have a lot of respect for this guy. He served in Afghanistan, and the dude knows how to work. He doesn't think anything's beneath him. One thing I'm wondering, though--isn't one of the things he served for was for peoples' right to petition, even to be stupid?

Or is the freedom isn't free argument really about ensuring that everyone sees the world in the same way, i.e., that every military action that our country takes is morally sanctified? I won't be coy about stating my opinion--freedom of speech trumps a country's freedom to make war against any other country it pleases.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori?

Translation: "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country." (Horace's Odes)

I accompanied my eighth-grade son's class to Arlington National Cemetery the Sunday before Memorial Day. I am not known for my pro-war credentials, so I expected to feel uncomfortable at the least, and downright annoyed at worse. Memorial Day Eve is a special time to visit Arlington, where 300,000 American flags graced every grave. I appreciate that act of devotion. I like to think that each of the people who placed the flags said a little blessing as they worked. As we walked along the pleasant grounds of what was once Robert E. Lee's home, it struck me that the tombstones were themselves an ode to the armed services' devotion to bringing order of chaos. As a poetic device, I appreciate that. Order is good. It doesn't erase the fact that legions of war dead, and those who suffered through yet survived the brutality of combat, lie beneath the ground.

We went to the Kennedy family's plot. John and Bobby died so long ago they might as well have lived at the same time as Horace. But I was surprised to find myself moved to tears when I came to Teddy's grave. There's no denying that the man was an old sinner, but I ended up respecting him for his ability to get things done in our national legislature, a feat that appears to have died with him. There were several medals from labor unions atop his grave, and a St. Christopher medal, and some coins and other tokens people had left behind. Maybe I had such a strong response because he died almost three years ago. I don't know. But like I said, it surprised me.

The brother of a seventh-grade student from the middle school had been recently buried in Arlington, and she had asked us to visit his grave. All 45 of us walked to the recent graves. That was also very moving.

So back to what Horace said. I'm always put off when I hear people say that freedom isn't free. To me, that means that somebody else's child or spouse or close relative or friend has had to give their lives so we can be free. Wars keep getting more and more expensive, literally and figuratively, and less and less do they serve the holy purposes stated by our leaders. How many wars have we had to end all wars, and yet war still rages in Afghanistan and Darfur and is brewing elsewhere?

We behave as if someday we're going to get the whole war thing right, when only God has the power to make all things right. Because we as a species seem to be almost incapable of it. The best we can do is to stop making things wrong.

The Stew of Time

Author Robert Caro has published the fourth volume of his biography of LBJ. The first volume was published in 1982. In an interview on NPR, he speaks of his writing process:

CARO: Well, I write in long hand. You know, my first three or four drafts, you can see, are on legal pads in long hand. And then I go to a typewriter, and I know everybody's switching to a computer. And I'm sort of laughed at. You know, everyone says you could do it faster. However, I'm not sure that in my case that faster is better.

I highlight the first and last lines because both are true for me, and go to the truth that slow and steady is my mode.

Who knows how I got to be this way, in this go-go country where I was born and raised, where stopping at traffic signals is widely viewed as an affront to forward progress. It's not just because of my advancing age. I've always been drawn to doing things my own way, in my own time. Caro's comments points to committing oneself to the stew of time. Time is the main ingredient in a stew, where flavors and textures influence each other. Richer flavor is the result.

Speaking of rich flavor, Mahalia Jackson's "I'm Gonna Wait Until My Change Comes" played on my MP3 today. What a voice. What a teacher, through this song, of the benefit of waiting--again, that ingredient of time--for the best to come to you, rather than pushing through the red lights.

Thoughts on Leadership

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, a friend preferred Hillary Clinton to him because he was "too preachy."

"Like Martin Luther King, Jr., preachy? That's not a bad thing."

"If you're standing in front of a congregation, it's not a problem. But a country?" She shook her head. "I want people to be effective."

I chalk it up to a difference in the leadership styles we prefer. After eight years of George W. Bush, I for one was ready to be inspired. To listen to a president who knows how to use the English language elegantly and effectively, passionately and convincingly. To teach. All things a preacher does.

I follow Newark mayor Cory Booker on twitter, and he posted a list last week I find inspirational:

1. To create wealth: give more than you get
2. To obtain freedom: adopt discipline
3. To gain tomorrow: sacrifice today
4. To be secure: take risks
5. To lead: serve
6. To get up: lift another
7. To get revenge: forgive
8. To win: find the lessons in loss
9. To fly: fall often
10. To change the world: change yourself

I can hear my friend saying, "Save it for the pulpit." But I get jazzed hearing talk like this from politicians. As a leader with serious responsibilities, he's on the lookout for the best thinking, which often leads to the best doing and feeling.

Any thoughts on leadership styles?

Candidates Chase Skirts

And no, I'm not talking about bimbo eruptions and Secret Service prostitution scandals. I'm talking about the presidential candidates duking it out for the female vote in November.

I've admired Ann Romney since the 2008 presidential campaign. She is well-spoken and genuine. I've long wondered why she isn't the presidential candidate. She might have a real shot at winning.

So I didn't find it funny when a Democratic strategist said that Mrs. Romney had "never worked a day in her life," intimating that she couldn't therefore understand the economic pressures other mothers face. I was a stay-at-home mom for almost ten years, and I know what people in the world of productivity and commerce think of us. We're soap-opera addicted slackers who have let ourselves go, eating bonbons and whatnot. This attitude is what got me fired up to write this blog in the first place, to give voice and value to people who are doing the non-flashy work everyone depends on. When I was at home with my kids, I was a working mom, and I'm quite sure that although Mrs. Romney had help raising her kids, she too was a working mom. A functioning mom, who was emotionally involved with each of her five children. Just because I didn't get a paycheck for my work didn't make it any less valuable. My husband's paycheck was--and still isn't--anywhere near as large as Mr. Romney's, so I do know what from economic pressures.

What is laughable about this is how the Republican candidates and strategists have jumped on Hilary Rosen's foot-in-mouth statement as a sign that Democrats and by extension President Obama are out of touch with moms, wherever they work, and women in general.

I still think Obama and the Democrats have the advantage. One unfortunate statement from a strategist does not undo the fact that Republicans, led by Gov. Rick Perry, and shutting down Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas, and national Republicans are calling for cancellation of government support of family planning. The consequence is that women who live paycheck to paycheck and depend on free birth control and women's health screening will have access to neither. More women are going to get pregnant and have babies they can't support. And the fathers of their children are likely struggling, too.

Who's going to pay for this? The high-minded right-wing politicians and activists who are high-fiving each other for destroying Planned Parenthood clinics by a million cuts? Taxpayers will fund these stressed families, at a likely higher cost than supporting the services family-planning clinics provice, in the same way that taxpayers pay for health care for the working poor, the underinsured and the uninsured.

Some say it's a moral issue--that people who can't afford birth contol shouldn't be having sex. Please. Since when has poverty been equated with vows of celibacy? I work with a young man from Mexico who pointed out to me that in his country, people who are too poor to go out or can't afford a TV have the largest families. " 'Cause what else is there for them to do?" Oh, yeah, they could read the bible together, skipping the sexy parts, of course.

So it bears repeating: keeping Planned Parenthood and other family planning services strong is the best use of taxpayer money. I'm betting there will be a lot of other women who vote accordingly.