I read White Men Hold Key for Democrats recently in the Wall Street Journal. I take the idea of pigeonholing people into powerful voting groups with a grain of salt (soccer moms, security moms, angry white males, anyone?), but this stuck with me:
It seems like someone else should be there. It’s like there’s someone missing.— Dan Leihgeber, a smelter in a steel plant in Youngstown, Ohio;Â he supports Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
That’s how I feel. Does that make me a blue-collar white guy?
I understand the whole we’re-making-history aspect of having Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., run for president. I feel as if I should be more excited about it than I am. I really, really, really want to get the shivers from “Yes We Can“Â or “We Are The Ones” and believe that Obama (or anyone) will wear a big S and a cape and fly in to save the day.
I’ll tell you how it’s different. At least I know where McCain stands. He says he won’t end the war, and I believe him 100 percent.
What’s the big deal about war anyway? Hasn’t it been tossed aside in favor of the bright, shiny object of the day — the economy? As if the war has nothing to do with the economy.
Well, it doesn’t … if you ask President George W. Bush.
But the American people — the ones who issued a mandate to end the war — aren’t that stupid. They’ve said that the way to fix the economy is to get out of Iraq. Gee, ya think?
Even though the economy is now our “No. 1 concern,” McCain apparently “doesn’t really understand economics.” Maybe he thinks leprechauns will replenish the pots of gold while he sleeps?
Oprah can set up a health-care system for Americans with 200-thread-count sheets on every hospital bed, yoga classes and manicures between doctor appointments and fireplaces in every ER waiting room. Oprah’s plan would simply require 1) All Oprah All Day Satellite Network (including Dr. Phil and The Color Purple) running on every television set and 2) patient-consent forms that say, “This procedure / examination / surgery / discussion between you and your doctor may be monitored for security and money-making purposes. If you choose not to sign this consent form, see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya and don’t let the door hit you on your way out, you greedy, lazy American fool” and 3) camera crews, makeup and a few “favorite things” thrown in for good measure and the promise of your malignant tumor showing up on prime-time television.
OK, so I joke. But Clinton and Obama’s ideas for health care have just about as much chance of succeeding as the Oprah Plan does. Why? Because they need to get rid of the elephant in the room first. (No, I’m not talking about race or gender or who’s wearing a turban … or whatever else they’ll come up with over the next several months.) And I just don’t see that happening. They haven’t done the jobs they promised to do as senators. What makes a blue-collar white guy like me think they’ll do what they promise as president?
CityMama at the MOMocrats accused Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., of leaking a photograph of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wearing a turban. Where did CityMama get her information?
The Drudge Report. (CNN editors: “No need for fact-checking. Get this published now!”)
Where did Drudge get his information?
An e-mail sent by “stressed Clinton staffers” “obtained by the Drudge Report.”
Really? Hmm.
I found the picture published by HAN-Geeska Afrika Online in September 2006. Anyone with a mouse and five minutes could have found it. It’s already been “circulated.”
This is why it’s a bad idea to mix politics and Saturday Night Live, unless you’re wearing a wig and makeup and pretending to be a politician. People who should know better start believing it’s true and not just a comedy show. According to Paul Bedard at U.S. News & World Report, a Clinton staffer actually said this. Out loud.
“I would encourage all to … continue the vetting process of Senator Obama, which has been woefully inadequate in my view during the course of this campaign, and I think that’s a point that has been certainly backed up by a Saturday Night Live skit.”
What’s it like to have a famous novelist as your neighbor? Do you hang out and drink coffee together? Do you sit there chatting and it suddenly becomes quiet, you look up and find him staring at you?
And then you say, “What are you looking at?”
And you don’t believe him when he says, “Oh, nothing.”
And then you say, “C’mon, Steve. Quit looking at me like that. Don’t be conjuring me up as some character in your next book. Especially if it has fangs and ghoul eyes.”
And then he grins.
And you get up to leave.
“Dangit. Why can’t you just have coffee like a normal person?”
OK. So maybe the folks on Casey Key don’t have coffee with Stephen King. Maybe they just wave when they see him strolling down the road reading a book. But they’re all excited about his latest book because its setting was inspired by Casey Key and … maybe … them.
Magpie Musing wants to know what’s on page 123 of the first book within my reach. I’m surrounded by books. I have books on the shelves in front of me. Books in stacks on the floor beside me. Books stacked on top of the shelves. While I’m not actually reading it, the nearest book, however, is one I bought in Norway for the kids, Jostein Gaarder‘s Julemysteriet (The Christmas Mystery).
I have read two of his books Sophie’s World (Sofies verden), which was made into a movie, and The Solitaire Mystery (Kabalmysteriet). Here’s a little diversion from the main topic at hand. It’s a trailer to the movie Sofies verden, which apparently isn’t available in English yet. I guess it’s not so easy to get the Norwegian version either. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’d like to.
I saw Gaarder at some literature festival or other several years ago. I thought it was Bjørnsonfestivalen, but I still have a tote bag from then, and it has Bokbadet På Tur on it. So who knows.
Anyway. Here’s what’s on page 123 of the book that’s closest to me, Julemysteriet by Jostein Gaarder.
— Joda, svarte pappa. — Men det har jo egentlig ingen betydning hva hun het.
Den siste som sa noe før de måtte skynde seg å spise frokost, var Joakim.
— Jeg synes det har ganske stor betydning, sa han. — For ogsÃ¥ damen pÃ¥ bildet het Elisabet.
Pappa doesn’t think it matters what her name is. Joakim, on the other hand, does. He things it matters a lot because the woman in the picture is named Elisabet.Â
If you want to know what’s on page 123 of books I’m actually reading, here are a couple of passages.
In the fall of 2004, when the kidnapping started, it became very necessary not to be publicly identified on the streets as a foreigner. I wear a scarf, I wear Iraqi-style clothing. I don’t go with the whole abaya [the traditional full-body garment for Islamic women] because I don’t walk like I’m an Iraqi that’s in an abaya. — Liz Sly, Chicago Tribune
I kept a blue Magic Marker with me at all times. My favorite tags were “Lady Cupcake, Slob Killer”; “Lady Cupcake, 60’s Killer” (to denote “60’s Killer,” I’d write “60’s” and then mark a giant X over the 60’s); or “Lady Cupcake — Gangsta Ca-rip Cuzzz.” Gangstas also taught me how to make money by “working a store.”
That’s from A Piece of Cake, a memoir by Cupcake Brown, who practices law in San Francisco. I’m almost halfway through her book. I just read about her third pregnancy/second abortion. Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage brought on by a severe beating by girls in her foster home … when she was 13. That was after turning tricks, a stint in the hospital for alcohol poisoning and running away repeatedly from the abusive foster home, where her biological father put her after her mother died when she was 11.
Even though I will eventually read about her graduating magna cum laude from college without a high-school diploma or certificate of General Educational Development and her other successes, I can’t help feeling she lives with her past as a big part of her present. And that makes sense, I guess. Most of us carry around a part of our 5-year-old, 10-year-old or 15-year-old selves, don’t we? When I was reading The Glass Castle, though, I felt the author was looking back on a much older story from a different time and place. Brown tells her story with such gusto and bravado that it seems she’s not as far away from her past. Two very different perspectives, yet the authors are about the same age. Maybe the difference is that Brown’s past is a big part of her current life because she uses “all of the years of negative experiences, coupled with the positives, to share with others how — even though it seems impossible — the hopes and dreams of anyone really can come true” to speak to others around the country.
I’d love to hear what Brown is reading, but I understand she’s incredibly busy. Oh, what the heck. I’ll tag some of my favorite authors. Let’s just see if they (or their publishers) ever check their incoming links.
Dad2twins honored me with the “This Blog is Rated E for Excellent” award. Wow. Thanks, D2t! (Is it just me, or does the award look crooked? I keep wanting to straighten it out. Nah. It’s straight. It must be an optical illusion with the crooked E and all.)
It took some time, but I found that the award originated with Project Mommy, a 23-year-old mother of two girls. She wanted to show her appreciation for the blogging community she’s found. She asks that anyone who receives the award turns around and gives it to at least 10 (or more) blogs, and it doesn’t matter if they’ve already gotten it. So now I need to pass along the award.
So, yeah. I’ve got some awarding to do. I’ll get to it, I promise. I just can’t guarantee that I’ll get it done before 2013. (What … am I running for president or something? More on that soon. Promise.)
