Flustered & Filibuttered

It’s official: the thin line between news coverage and parody of news coverage has been erased. If my letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to today’s “top story” about last night’s debate doesn’t get used, I’ll post it here soon enough. Until then, I’d like to note my two favorite moments. When only one candidate was tested Trivial Pursuit-style by being asked to name Putin’s hand-picked puppet, a rarely flustered Clinton struggled to spit it out—Medvedev—and then used the comeback my twelve-year-old uses and for which there is no comeback except to laugh: whatever. And while both candidates took long turns in speaking and frequently interrupted each other, Obama’s slip of the tongue (verified by the New York Times transcript) may have produced the best new word in the English language this election year when he said, “I’m going to get filibuttered—I’m getting filibustered a little bit here.”

What Disturbs Us Most

The 1st draft of this essay is no longer available (developed & submitted for publication).

How to Silence a Nation

RE: “Clinton’s Gradual Education on Issues of Race” (New York Times 2/2/08)

Mark Leibovich’s article offers an excellent example of how the American media too often discourages us from looking at our individual and collective ignorance in the areas of racism, sexism and classism—to name only a few of our “isms.” The fact that Senator Clinton grew from being an oblivious child to a committed champion of civil rights for all does not make her less reliable. It makes her a model. Leibovich’s claim that Clinton’s “first 25 years were arguably more central to shaping her views” than her last 35 in public service suggests that we are each held captive by our youth, our potential fated accordingly. Articles such as this silence us all by discouraging dialogue about where we come from and what our experiences have been. We need media that cultivates—rather than inhibits—our national conversation. Show me the male candidate for president that has not had a “gradual education” on the issue of sexism. Is he to be trusted?

(Letter to the editor, which the New York Times did not choose for publication)

(Thanks to “The Laundry Room” for inspiring this musing)

What We Demand of Her

Can an American top-ranking female political leader in 2008 speak as passionately & forcefully as Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy & get away with it? Why is it that Obama can follow in those remarkable footsteps but every time I hear Clinton speak–she’s softer? During their last debate, Obama’s most consistent expression was a serious & thoughtful one while Clinton smiled–and even beamed–throughout most of the evening. With every public appearance, it seems that Obama becomes more aggressive while Clinton becomes “warmer.” Would we even want a constantly smiling, “soft” Obama or a serious, unsmiling Clinton? I dare say this has something to do with us—the American people—& our struggle to embrace the idea of a profoundly powerful woman leader. Had Benazir Bhutto (related to a powerful male leader, like Clinton) been American, could she have achieved her political success and survived her political failures, staging a comeback against all the odds? Or would we have assassinated her long ago? Let her formidable oratorial style speak for itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-8M9759sGg.  

Obama & Women’s Issues?

Why is it that Senator Obama’s website does not address women’s issues? I’ve read & reread his ISSUES drop-down menu & don’t see any comments on the topic, not even regarding the endlessly-debated and challenged issue of a woman’s right to choose. The only place that one finds “Women” is under the PEOPLE tab, where we are offered this quote by Obama:

“Women have always made the difference in every election, and this year, your voice, your hope will be the deciding factors in forging a new future for America.”

~ Barack Obama
Launch of California Women for Obama
September 7, 2007

However, when reading about the issues on Senator Clinton’s website, the drop-down menu features a “Champion of Women” choice, under which she makes a clear statement regarding her work & stance on various issues including the most controversial of them.

A strong supporter of Senators Clinton & Obama who plans to vote for Clinton in tomorrow’s primary, I’ve stayed very open-minded to Obama all along.  However, I wonder if his has been a “gradual education” in the area of women’s rights, and if he’s truly up-to-speed today.

Undiscovered

for Opal

Thick walls of red sumac thrive, hiding the well your hands once worked. A six-pack’s worth of broken beer bottles litter all four rooms but your mother’s kitchen wall-paper—so intricately stained it’s hard to read the buds and blooms—still hangs, or should I say peels like bark where the cast iron stove lived, bubbles like skin where the sink still stands, where you stood staring out the window while scrubbing pans, trying to catch a glimpse of Dad playing in the wide, fenceless backyard that flowed into endless fields you and Grandfather farmed. That land, all your Daddy had to his name, still sleeps, undiscovered by a new century, empty as ever, loudly buzzing under cicadas. Give me your palm—feel how this old paper wants to crumble like dried leaves beneath your fingers. No, I didn’t get chiggers. Recent fires blackened the fireplace. Yes, just kids from the next farm, I bet. Besides me, they’re probably the only ones to walk in that house since the war, since the women left for the city–working in factories, making bullets. Do I have it right: electricity for the first time? Your mother died in that back room? Then she couldn’t see the storm cellar from her little window, didn’t know my father was sneaking down to sip moonshine and put his fingers in the cool butter, safe under straw.