L’s 2011 Doofus Awards

 

The Year of the Dumbass has almost ended, thank the Fates. 2011 has been a year of bountiful idiocy, served up in every category of life on Planet Earth.  Never in history has the list of laughable lunacy competed in length with the laudable and annually lauded achievements of homo sapiens.

Though it was extremely challenging to winnow this list of moronic behavior down to a manageable number, listed below are my picks for my First Annual Doofus Awards:

Although there were some high-profile criminals     such as Casey Anthony, Florida’s young mother who killed her three-year-old daughter (acquitted by a boneheaded jury), and Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s physician who administered the lethal dose of Propofol that took the pop star’s life (convicted and sentenced to four years), the Doofus Award for Crime must go to Tawander Simmons, the 35 year-old woman of Stone Mountain, Georgia who checked her 17 year-old son, Benny Brice and two other boys, out of Stephenson High School one Friday morning. The four then robbed a Wells Fargo bank in Lilburn, GA, 20 miles outside Atlanta.

There was no shortage of nominees from Hollywood, God knows.  Is there ever?  Kim Kardashian, of the Hollywood Kardashians, moguls of the famous-for-doing-nothing industry, was certainly top of mind at the time of these award considerations.  Public opinion has deemed her infamous 72-day marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries an $18 million publicity stunt, while she plays victim and he gets booed at the arena for nobody-knows-what.  But nothing holds a candle to the web-based meltdown of bad-boy Charlie Sheen.  What fool who stars in television’s number one show gets on the internet and brags about his live-in goddesses, his tiger blood and his “winning” ways?  All while looking like a drugged out mad man who is ultimately fired from his lucrative job and stages a poorly executed one-man show.  Charlie Sheen, the Doofus Award for Hollywood goes to you, Bubba.

The winner in this category is getting the award solely for being the media person who I find unbearably irritating.  You might be thinking Glen Beck or Bill O’Reilly or Howard Stern or even Piers Morgan – and each of them is surely a doofus.  But my choice is a person who is really known mostly for writing memorable lines like “Read my lips, no new taxes” and catch phrases like “a thousand points of light.”  I’m sure the Elder President Bush appreciated her admirable ability to turn a phrase, but the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan is the worst political pundit on television.  Her patrician, over-enunciated whispery speaking style makes me want to slap her when she finally manages to get a sentence out.  Peggy, it gives me considerable pleasure to present the Doofus Award for Media. And yes, I know (or at least as FAR as I know) you haven’t done anything particularly stupid.  You are just irritating.

This category is a veritable cornucopia of possibilities.  Given my political leanings, one might expect this award to go to any one of the current crop of Republican Presidential hopefuls.  Rick Perry’s “oops” moment was unfortunate; Herman Cain…well, pick one, I suppose, but his brain blip on Libya made him look even stupider than his arrogant assumption that his 13-year “friendship” with Ginger White would escape undiscovered; Mitt Romney’s $10,000 wager… But no, this year’s award is going, with “certitude,” to the Peter Tweeter himself, Democrat Congressman Anthony Weiner.  Sending a snapshot of one’s junk into the perpetuity known as the internet is a boneheaded move that assures his presence on the list of all-time doofuses.

This one is no contest.  The biggest sports doofus in the land today has to be Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers.  The affable NBA phenom has reinforced the “dumb” in “dumbass” as late as today, the day after Christmas, when he is reported to be trying to save his marriage to the beautiful Vanessa “for the sake of the kids.”  Since when did bank accounts count as kids?  We first learned that Kobe was a doofus when he was accused a few years back of assaulting a hotel employee on a road trip. A $4 million ring eventually patched things up with Vanessa, but nothing was done about the fact that Kobe had no pre-nuptial agreement to protect his hundreds of millions in the bank. And Kobe continued to drop his drawers with women apparently too numerous to count.  Now that Vanessa has not only had it up to here with his philandering, but has also allegedly found another strong shoulder to lean on which is attached to boxer Victor Ortiz, Kobe is scrambling to avoid losing half his fortune.  When are these numbnuts going to understand they will have to pay to play?  Kobe should have had a tête-à-tête with Tiger.

‘Twas Three Nights Before Christmas

 

‘Twas three nights before Christmas, with time running out;

And the Congress was deadlocked, resolution in doubt.

The plane rides were ordered, the Christmas break called.

The Senate was screaming that they were appalled.

 

The people were jumping right out of there skins,

While visions of income cuts entered their noggins.

Mom sits in her jammies and Dad in his Snuggie

Crunching the numbers and going quite buggy,

 

When out in the great room there arose such a ruckus

That Dad said “Don’t tell me they’ve come HERE to f**k us!

Away to the closet he crept on his toes

Pulled down his rifle and with it some clothes.

 

The blaze in the fireplace was casting a glow

On the ceiling and walls, on the presents, their bows.

When, who to Dad’s shock and dismay did appear

But John Boehner himself, through the window -- with beer.

 

With the nose on his kisser so red and so lit

Dad knew in a moment that ol’ John was blitzed.

More swiftly than magpies his cronies did follow

To repeat his mantras and remind him to swallow.

 

“Where’s Santa?” asked Dad, where’s Prancer and Vixen?

Where’s Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen?”

Why are you here, and who are these clowns?

Why aren’t you working to bring them around?”

 

And then, in a sudden, Dad heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As Dad lowered the rifle, his mouth all agape

Santa entered the room through the fire escape.

 

He was dressed for the evening in his usual duds,

And he looked like he and Boehner had been sharing the suds.

The humungous bag he had flung on his back

Was as empty as the souls of the Tea Party quacks.

 

His ire – how it bristled! his temper how nasty!

His cheeks were on fire, his nose wanted rhinoplasty!

His droll little mouth was drawn taut like a bow,

And he spoke in a voice that was scary and low.

 

“Boehner,” he rumbled, “you fools are quite done.

You’ve lost control of your people. Dad, give me that gun!

Your minions are crazy and don’t care a whit

About children and elderly; you are all full of sh*t!”

 

“Now give me that bottle, you drunk knucklehead!

And get your ass back to D.C., not to bed.

The children are waiting for me to show up

And you need to agree to free that cash up!”

 

Dad nodded profusely, while Santa just glowered.

John Boehner pulled up and looked less like a coward.

He turned to his cronies and called for a huddle,

Their hearts started melting; beneath them a puddle.

 

They sprang through the window, Nick leading the way

And away they all flew to catch a ride on the sleigh

They got back to Washington and called for a vote

They strong-armed their holdouts; an agreement they wrote.

 

Santa backed from the room and walked back to his sleigh

The reindeer were ready to be on their way

And John Boehner heard, as they drove out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

 

Note from L:  I was crafting this poem when the bulletin from the Washington Times hit my email saying the House had reached an agreement to go ahead and approve the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and the unemployment payments recommended by the Senate.  I would like to think of it as a Christmas miracle, but we all know it had more to do with political pressure and the looming elections. Whatever the reason, there will be a little more breathing room for parents who are scrambling to make sure Christmas happens for their kids.  Alleluia! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Intrepid Mr. Cooper, the Amazing Ms. Streep and Foreclosure in Cleveland

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Kim Katches a Klaim to Fame

Well praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!  Some scientist has finally put a label on a Kardashian that we can all grasp.  No, it’s not “annoying!” Well, yes it is, but that’s not the word I’m going for here.

Kim Kardashian is a poster child for a phenomenon called vocal fry.  As reported in today’s (12/15/11) Time.com Healthland, vocal fry refers to the low, guttural vibrations that sometimes occur in speech, often appearing at the end of sentences. Listen here.

Now this is something to celebrate.  Just last night, Barbara Walters, on her annual 10 Most Fascinating People broadcast, told the viewers that she had never, in all the years she has done this program, had she had so much bitching and moaning about her selection as she has about Kim Kardashian.


Jerry Seinfeld got rich and famous for creating a hit television sitcom, literally about nothing.  Jerry Seinfeld is a hilarious stand-up comic, so his fame and fortune is most definitely talent-based.  Kim Kardashian and her K-obsessed mother and siblings, on the other hand, have done little more than embarrass each other in public to earn their obscene number of millions dissing the intelligence of the American voyeurs known as reality show addicts.

Now Ms. Kim has a claim to fame.  She will be forever identified with the latest language fad which I will now officially dub The Kardashian Effect.  I wonder how much Mama Kris will get when she cashes in on that!

Photo from Wikipedia

Christmas is the Same but I’ve Changed

The act of brushing my teeth triggers some of my most interesting thoughts .  I’ve always been rather bored by the task, standing there gazing into the mirror, trying to remember not to skip the lower molars my dental hygienist nags me about.  So I allow my vagabond mind to traipse at will.

This morning it dragged me into the hackneyed but timely territory of The Holidays. This is my 68th round of the most redundant set of annual celebrations known to humanity.  Everything about it – from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day – defies change.  Sure the various accoutrements  have varied over the years.  One year our family Christmas tree was pink fiberglass hung with hot pink ornaments and illuminated by a tri-colored rotating disk lit from behind.  Then there were the aluminum years.

Mostly, though, every effort has been made to preserve the traditions that have spanned the generations.  Variations on the Thanksgiving and Christmas menus are not welcome and they are not allowed.  Recipes for the side dishes have been handed down as if by law.  For instance, the stuffing, which my family calls dressing. The only thing about the dressing that has changed in the nearly seven decades I’ve been around is the oysters.  Ever since I made the mistake of biting into one and glancing at the remaining portion on my fork, I have demanded that at least half of the dressing be mollusk-free.  (Only vegetables should be green!)

As children, my sister and I lived for Christmas.  The biggest stress we had  was caused by the endless days and nights that preceded the big night.  Everything about the season was magical.  The feast on Thanksgiving produced a table laden with scrumptious dishes and surrounded by people we seldom saw.  And the smells!  Turkey roasting in the wee hours of the morning, sugar cookies and gingerbread baking in an oven that never rested. The sweetness of candy ribbons and peppermint canes as we passed the verboten-before-dinner candy dishes on the cherry wood buffet.

My grandmother was the kind of woman who couldn’t just sit and do nothing.  Her hands, if not busy making something, would itch with restlessness.  One year she took up creating elaborately sequined and beaded Christmas tree ornaments.  Every year each grandchild received about a half-dozen new, stunningly beautiful baubles for their trees.  Today I have around fifty, lovingly wrapped and stored every New Year’s Day, ready to eventually hand down to my son.  Just as the lights and the smells of the season resurrect my childhood memories of the winter holidays, those handmade keepsakes represent my young adulthood.

When I think of my holidays as a young mother, the tone of my memories and imagery begin to change.  Stephen was only one year old when his father and I divorced, so for the next seven years creating memories for this, the next generations, was entirely my responsibility.  With a child so young and a demanding, full-time job I became physically run down and susceptible to every virus making the rounds.  If I had to describe that period with just one word, that word would be exhaustion.

I remember one particular Christmas Eve when he was three or four and asking Santa for things that required assembly.  I had a virulent sinus infection.  I sat crying in the middle of the living room floor struggling to read the instructions and put together that year’s construction project.  But my tears evaporated when, at 4 a.m. on Christmas morning I was awakened by the squeals of my delighted little guy.

As my son grew up and I grew older, the magic of Christmas gradually faded.  Anyone who is of a certain age knows that our perception of passing time speeds up exponentially.  Whereas as a child, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed an eternity, now it doesn’t seem like enough time to get ready, and I don’t even have any grandchildren yet.  And didn’t I just put all those decorations away a few weeks ago?

This year is different.  My life has calmed down almost too much.  I have time to get things done.  I am 100% debt-free for the first time since I was 21 years old, and I have the money to buy the few gifts I’m giving,  Yet most people would say I’m broke. Yes, the world is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket, our government has lost its way, and the future can sometimes seem bleak; but I am personally at peace.  My heart and spirit have opened to the things in life that have the most meaning: good health; adequate food and shelter; the beauty of nature and its ability to endure our pillaging; kindness to and from others; and the hope that resides in the faces of every little child whose laughter tickles my ears.

Something tells me this is the way it should have been all along.

Wanna Bet?

As entertainment goes, Saturday night on TV has become the epitome of an oxymoron.  If one is not in possession of the pair of chromosomes that makes a person amenable to watching gigantic men run, jump, pass and collide in a sporting event, the menu on the boob tube on Saturday night justifies in spades the old vast wasteland moniker.

I had no date (hah! as if I needed to write that) and a dull throb behind my eyes was making reading too difficult, so I honored my commitment to stay abreast with what the other side is saying and tuned in to the 176th (that’s right, right?) Republican Presidential Debate on ABC. 

Here is my review of the debate in a nutshell: I laughed, I cried, I almost puked.

Observations

Frontrunner of the week Newt Gingrich got off the best rejoinder of the evening – heck, of the loooooong campaign cycle -- in response to main rival of the week Mitt Romney’s assertion that “I am not a career politician….”  In that feisty, reedy voice that literally trilled with self-satisfaction, Newt quipped “The only reason you aren’t a career politician is because you lost the election to Teddy Kennedy in 1994!”  I laughed aloud along with the studio audience, and continued laughing while watching Mitt Romney sputter through a retort.

Speaking of sputtering, Romney looked a little green around the gills when called upon to elaborate on his “obvious differences” with Gingrich.  For a minute there, he appeared to morph into his fellow good-haired opponent Perry, comically unable to come up with a single example for what seemed like a full minute.  I don’t know.  I think I would be able to tick off those kinds of things without missing a beat.  Maybe he’s tired?

When Texas Governor Rick Perry successfully misquoted something from Romney’s book and refused to capitulate, Mitt extended his un-calloused, elegant hand and offered to bet Perry $10,000!!!!!!  The late, great Ann Richards could be heard paraphrasing her old George Bush line:  “Poor Mitt.  He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”  I mean who the hell do you know outside of Las Vegas who pulls ten grand out of his…um.. back pocket as a casual wager?  Nice, Mitt.  Way to get down with your peeps.

Then there is Ron Paul.  Now there is a guy who makes all kinds of sense, but does so in such a style that makes him seem like a composite of Pee Wee Herman, Gilbert Gottfried and Casper Milquetoast.  The word charisma has never been uttered within a country mile of that guy.  He holds steady with 18% of the votes in polls, but even the Sunday morning gab gals and guys keep forgetting to mention him.  Paul is about as Presidential as I am, which does not bode well for his election to the White House.  But when I listen to the things he consistently says – there will be no flip-flopping in the Paul campaign – he says it clearly, with total conviction and with what is commonly recognized in regular conversations as common sense.

As a woman, I found myself inwardly cheering for Michelle Bachmann last night.  Let me be clear; I do not agree with any of her thoughts, ideas or statements.  What I found myself admiring, though, is her steely ability to think on her feet, to articulate her point of view with quantitative supporting facts (at least I assume they are facts, which…well, you know), and her resistance to resorting to the Palinesque employment of her feminine wiles.  I would just love to see a debate between Bachmann and Hillary Clinton.

Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman were there, allegedly, but neither said much.  They might as well have stayed home and watched it on TV with me.

After watching for almost 90 minutes, I have to admit my mind began to wander.  I think I might of gotten weary from hearing about how President Obama is responsible for everything bad that has happened in the last century.  Diane Sawyer’s measured delivery of anything she has to say has always had a Sominex effect on me.  So, I didn’t make it to the end.  But based on the talking heads and their repetitious coverage of the debate, I didn’t miss anything. 

Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground

Jorelys Rivera, age 7

Her mommy had to work the night shift at the Canton, Georgia chicken processing plant.  It’s the only work available for the young mother of three. A teenage family friend was the babysitter who watched little Jorelys and her two younger siblings.  On Friday afternoon, around 5 p.m., the teen watched Jorelys leave the River Ridge apartment complex playground to return to their apartment to get a soft drink.  She never returned.

Jorelys’ mom, Joselin, hadn’t seen her since Thursday.  By the time she returned home from work Friday morning, Jorelys had left for school. After school, Joselin was sleeping while the children played outside.

A huge search ensued.  For reasons not immediately revealed, the police quickly began treating the case as an abduction.   And Joselin’s two younger children were removed from her custody by authorities who cited her for negligence in supervision.

All weekend, searchers went door to door in the huge apartment complex searching and questioning residents.  Every registered sex offender in the area was questioned.  Police searched the complex grounds and the trash dumpsters outside the buildings in the complex. Nothing turned up. 

On Monday, December 5, someone discovered the trash compactor on the grounds had not been searched.  Why?  It was an oversight, they said.  Apartment residents interviewed on the news said they had put trash in the machine several times during the weekend and hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

There she was.  The little angel, as described by her mother, appeared to have been severely stabbed, beaten, raped and murdered and thrown into the compactor.  Perhaps the killer expected her lifeless body to be compacted with the trash.

Look at that child’s face in the picture.  Imagine how that smile must have changed when she realized her abductor meant to harm her.  She was naïve, even for seven, her mother says, but eventually she had to have become terrified.  How much did she feel?  Did he knock her unconscious before he violated her innocence?  Or was he more interested in her suffering?  

Or was it even a he?  Has the world become so alien that we now must consider that a woman could commit such a heinous act of violence?

This writer is haunted by this child’s fate.  That she is dead before she even had a chance to live is a travesty.  But the images that cross my mind as I contemplate the hours that followed her snatching are nauseating.  

A Fly on the Cains’ Wall

I happened to have flown into the patio door at the Cain’s suburban manse and was hanging out on the wall above the fireplace when the Pizza Man finally made his appearance.  Being a fly and all, I’m not very tuned in to  politics, presidential campaigns and such, so  what happened next came as a bit of an unexpected melodrama.

To the best of my ability, I have tried to recall what I witnessed in the family room of Gloria and Herman Cain.  Fact-checkers can go ahead and kiss my thorax now.

Gloria looked up from her needlepoint  when she heard the sounds of her returning husband struggling to push his luggage through the door from the garage.

“I see you finally dragged your sorry behind back here,” she said without looking at him.” Her Southern drawl was even stronger than usual.

“Hi, Sweetheart.  I’m so glad to see you.  I’ve had one helluva bad week.  Damned media!”

“Damned media?!?  So now it’s the media’s fault that your little bimbo spilled her hideous guts?  Don’t try that crap with me, Buster.  You are home now, where everybody in the house knows your trifling ass.  Save that disingenuous BS for your misguided “faithful.”

“Baby, I know you’re upset.  I can explain.  Just let me go upstairs and catch a shower and change my clothes.  Then I will tell you everything.”

“Why, so you can wash the stench of whichever skank you had with you in the hotel before you left?  No, let’s hear it right here, right now!”

Herman Cain ran a sweaty palm over his bald cranium.  He threw his black fedora onto the granite countertop that divided their gleaming stainless steel kitchen from the spacious living area where Gloria Cain sat, strangely calm.  I played dead, hoping nobody decided to take a swat at me before what promised to be a brouhaha began.

Herman Cain sat in his recliner, next to the sofa where Gloria sat stabbing the needlepoint project with her sharp-pointed needle – down…up…down…up – with a wild-eyed smirk adorning her pretty face.  He cleared his throat.

“The woman is lying, Glo.  I never touched her.  You know how good-hearted I am.  I saw a person who was struggling and I wanted to help.  So I let her have a little money every now and then to keep her and her kids from being out on the streets.”

Gloria Cain laid down her work, threw her dainty head back and howled with laughter.  She laughed so hard and so long, tears began to stream down her face.  Then, without warning, her laughter changed to sobs.

“How dare you try that garbage with me, you sorry piece of shit.”

“Gloria!  You never swear.  What…”

“Oh, shut up!  And don’t try bringing up God, the church or anything resembling a lecture on being a lady.  It’s just you and me in this one, and I have had it with you and your foolishness.  Now spill it, do you hear me?”

“Honey, I think somebody is paying that woman to say those things.”

“Really, Herman?   You mean the way you were paying her up to two grand a month to, what, just be your friend?  For 13 freakin’ years, you were worried she would be evicted?  Even after you paid her rent…over and over and over again?  Puh-leeze.”

“Well, I…"

“What the hell do you want from me, Herman?  You know I’m not buying your lies.  You know I never have.  You have screwed up big time this time, and I’m done with you embarrassing this family.  As far as I’m concerned, you can turn around and put those bags right back in the trunk of your car and get the hell out of here. And don’t forget to call your lawyer.”

“But, Baby, I need your help.  I need you to stand with me at the press conference.  If you want me to pull out of the race, I will, but I need the public to believe you and I are okay.”

Gloria Cain rose from the sofa and leaned into Herman Cain’s face.  “Have you lost your goddamned mind?  I don’t even want to be seen with you in this room.  Why would you think I would help you mislead the public any more than you already have?  Honestly, Herman, you are a piece of work!”

Herman cradled his face in his two hands.  His shoulders heaved as he stifled his own silent sobs.  And Gloria realized those sobs were not for what he’d done to her and their kids.  She knew his despair was all about him.

After a long silence, Gloria grabbed Herman’s chin and lifted his face to hers.  A sinister smile crossed her face.

“Tell you what.  I’ll stand up there while you lie your way out of your campaign.  I’ll even stand behind you a few steps and smile up at your lying face adoringly.  But it will be the last time I ever do it.  And it will cost you.”

Herman Cain was taken aback.  He didn’t recognize this woman who was clearly seizing an opportunity.
“Wha…what do you mean, Gloria?  Are you asking me for a divorce?”

“I’m not ASKING you for anything, Herman.  I’m TELLING you.  You will never be able to write another check to anybody ever again.  You will sign over 100% of your assets to me.  Today.  And, no.  There will be no divorce.  Ever.  But you will move away from this house into a condo that I will own.  You will be given an allowance for food and gas. Everything else will go through me.  Take it or leave it.”
“Oh, and Herman.  On your way out, take that stupid-looking hat off my counter!”

Doctor Murray Catches a Break

He took the oath they all take.  First, do no harm.  He spent a minimum of 14 years after high school earning the right to practice cardiology, the most demanding specialty in medicine.  He can’t be stupid, so he must be seriously flawed in character.

Judge Michael Pastor sat seething on the bench as the principles in the case of the State of California versus Conrad Murray, M.D. presented their arguments to persuade the court in the sentencing of the convicted cardiologist who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of pop star Michael Jackson.

When it was his turn to speak, Pastor’s disdain for the defendant was palpable.  For three full minutes, he revisited the numerous ways the physician had failed to comply with the basic standards of care:

• Exchanged medicine for $150,000 per month and willingly complied with the patient’s wishes without regard for the patient’s best interest
• Administered a dangerous anesthesia outside a properly equipped hospital environment
• After delivering the anesthesia, left Michael Jackson alone for a short period of time during which Jackson stopped breathing
• Failed to call 911 immediately
• Failed to tell emergency personnel that the patient had been given the anesthesia
• Lied to emergency room doctors about the drug
• Showed absolutely no remorse or sense of responsibility for the death of Michael Jackson

And then Judge Pastor threw the book at Murray.  He sentenced him to four years in the Los Angeles county jail.

Say what?!?

Judge Pastor’s obvious pique was not just because he loathed the doctor and his obvious lack of character.  He was livid because he couldn’t even send the man to the state prison to do his time.  California law, recently revised, limited the penalty for involuntary manslaughter to a maximum of four years in jail.


But it gets worse.  California’s jails are filled beyond their capacities.  The only solution to that condition is to shorten the terms of inmates to make room for the newly convicted.  So, Conrad Murray, in all likelihood, will serve no more than 2 1/2 years and even less when time served and good behavior are factored in.

In the meantime, people are going to notorious places like Folsom and Pelican Bay state prisons for non-lethal crimes such as possession of illegal drugs and burglary and serving out their terms.

There are times when the justice system in our country makes very little sense.  This is one of those times.

What Do We Do About Santa Claus?

The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy entered the restaurant together.  They figured the Big Guy was already seated at their reserved table, digging into a pile of Toll House cookies, a gallon jug of ice cold milk at the ready.

This was a meeting that probably should have happened centuries ago.  These three timeless characters found themselves the objects of both adulation and scorn, year after year, while children around the world continued to have all sorts of cockamamie expectations about the fantastic feats each one could perform.


EB had never had much luck explaining to eight year-olds who have just had a science class how a mammal like him went about laying eggs.  Little Johnny was confused by the long-eared hopster’s gender and his species. A little book knowledge plays hell with a guy’s credibility.

The Molar Pixie was plagued by her tendency to have lapses in memory.  Try as she might, every night she was bound to forget to nab a fallen tooth or two and replace it with whatever the going rate for that decade was without waking the little snaggle-toothed darling.

Santa’s problems were becoming monumental.  Literally.  His legendary girth was the kind of problem even accomplished liars like parents had trouble explaining away.  While his belly expanded by inches each century, modern chimney flues were getting narrower, not wider, and way too many of them had blue-flamed furnaces at the bottom, not hearths.   Add to all that the recent collapse of the world’s economies, and Santa was having a tough time getting the investors he needed to keep his operation, er, flying.

This summit meeting of the world’s three most cherished pipe dreams was being held in the North Pole, hosted by Nick himself at the new Igloo Grill.  A haughty elf dressed in an emerald green tuxedo led the two shivering visitors to their seats.

“Ah, you made it,” boomed Nick.  “Forgive me for not standing.  I seem to be stuck between the table and the back of my chair.  Please…sit.”

As several waiters bustled about, tending to the wants and needs of EB and Pixie, Nick collected his thoughts.  He wasn’t feeling his jolly old self.

“I asked you both here because I have serious concerns about the children in America,” he began. 
“Yeah, I know,” said the bunny.  “Things have gotten so tough in the States, people are starting to burst their children’s bubbles at every turn.”

Pixie shook her tiny head in agreement.  “I can’t tell you how many kids I had crying just last night because their parents couldn’t afford the dollar I needed from them to put under their little heads.  In desperation, their mommy’s or dad’s broke down and told them I wasn’t real.” Nick thought he heard a little sniffle come from Pixie’s direction.

“Last Easter I had to spend about a month going through landfills searching for those old-fashioned L'eggs pantyhose containers to color because nobody could afford to buy the eggs and dye them for me,” EB concurred.

Even though the entire world was struggling, the trio worried most about America’s children, because they believed in the damn-near miracles they performed more than any other kids on Earth.  Over the centuries, these were the children who were taught by their parents to expect to receive more gifts, more treats and more money than all their friends.  These were the ones whose families went to incredible lengths to prolong the belief in impossible dreams.  And now their dreams were vaporizing as quickly as the bubbles that were blown by the electric machines at their latest, lavish birthday parties.

“So, what should we do?” asked Nick.  “Unlike the two of you, I have a huge business to run here, with many little mouths to feed.  Without the investment of the parents of the earth, I cannot continue to keep the reindeer alive and fueled for the annual flight.  I cannot get the materials I need to create the toys.  And Mrs. Claus is not getting any younger, so who knows how long she’ll be able to help?”

Just then, the maître d’ walked up and whispered something in Nick’s ear.  As he listened, his cheeks began to pink up and that legendary twinkle started dancing in his beautiful eyes.

“Well, well, well,” Nick said to his companions.  “It seems the Americans had something called a Black Friday last week.  It’s hard to understand, quite frankly, because some 14 million of their people remain unemployed, but apparently those parents found a way to drop nearly 18% more money for holiday gifts on that one day than they did a year ago.  As a result, their stock market soared 300 points on Monday and from what I can understand, people are practically dancing in the streets.”

EB looked confused.  “But wait a minute.  How many people went back to work since this time last year? It must have been a lot to make that big a change.”

“On the way up here I read the October 2011 unemployment rate is still at 9,0 percent.  That doesn’t sound like that much of a change,” said Pixie.

“There was a  .7 percent change since October 2010,” Nick told them.

They sat in silence for a few moments, each staring at the contents of their plates.  How did this happen?  Have the American parents learned nothing from these last several years of decline?   Have they who have been lucky enough to either keep a job or secure a new one gone right back to their old habits? 
Nick slammed his meaty hand against the tabletop and struggled to his feet.

“ ‘Ours is not to wonder why.  Ours is just to do or die.’  Or something like that.  I don’t know about you two, but I’ve got to get to work.  Christmas is coming!”

Alfred Lord Tennyson was heard spinning in his grave.

Less on Thanks, More on Taking

It is with deep sadness that I report the passing of the last family-focused American holiday.
Thanksgiving, the annual gathering of families to celebrate the gifts of bountiful harvests, blessings of the heart and the prosperity that enables a sumptuous feast for both the eyes and the body, was killed Thursday evening by America’s corporations.

My sister works for one of the major retailers as an office manager.  Four of her grandchildren, ranging from age 5 to 18, look forward for weeks for her annual effort in the kitchen to turn out traditional Thanksgiving fare with their finicky palates well in mind. 

Because she was scheduled to open the store at 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, everything had to be moved to an earlier time so that she could take a brief nap before heading in for a 10-hour shift.  She would be in charge of crowd control this time.

As anyone who cooks these major holiday meals knows, many hours are needed to turn out those spreads.  After working all day Wednesday, my sister spent most of the night cooking. By the time we started arriving around 2 p.m. Thursday, she was already exhausted.  Offers of help from me had been declined.  (Probably because I won’t cater to the whims of my grandnieces and grandnephews as much as she will) 

Retailers interviewed about the resistance to this intrusion on their employees’ family time claim customer demands as the reason for their decisions to open on Thanksgiving Day.  I call B.S. on that.  Customers pile into those stores for the price bargains – period.  The so-called Black Friday could start on Saturday or Wednesday or any other day; it is the deal they are seeking.  Corporations have created the Black Friday phenomenon to suit THEIR own need to turn red ink to black in one fell swoop. 

Bereaved survivors of the deceased include after-dinner conversation, football game banter and turkey sandwiches to go.

Another Lobbyist Running Amok

 

“Today's Republican Party may revere Reagan as the patron saint of low taxation. But the party of Reagan – which understood that higher taxes on the rich are sometimes required to cure ruinous deficits – is dead and gone. Instead, the modern GOP has undergone a radical transformation, reorganizing itself around a grotesque proposition: that the wealthy should grow wealthier still, whatever the consequences for the rest of us.”
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone

Americans who actually listen to the empty words spewed by politicians, in this case of the Republican variety, often hear the name of Ronald Reagan invoked as the grand poobah of anti-taxation conservatism.  For many of the GOP faithful, that’s all they need to hear to feel all warm and fuzzy about the state of the nation as soon as their guys and gals “take their country back.”

Other Americans, like me, pay very little attention to what is being said by either side, mainly because no one is saying anything particularly coherent.  We are numbed by the failure of rhetoric and party-line catch phrases to move us out of the deep muck we slipped into in 2008.

This morning, however, the spectre of another critical deadline in Washington has gotten my attention, and for the first time I can recall, I actually listened to Candy Crowley interview members of the Deficit Super Committee.  That’s when the name Grover Norquist penetrated my political brain fog for the first time.  This is the guy who convinced the majority of the Republican members of Congress to sign a pledge written by his lobbying tool, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR.)P

^{photo by Gage Skidmore from Flickr}

The ATR web site describes The Pledge as follows:

In the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, candidates and incumbents solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases. While ATR has the role of promoting and monitoring the Pledge, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge is actually made to a candidate's constituents, who are entitled to know where candidates stand before sending them to the capitol. Since the Pledge is a prerequisite for many voters, it is considered binding as long as an individual holds the office for which he or she signed the Pledge.
Read more: http://www.atr.org/taxpayer-protection-pledge#ixzz1eGPKi4Rb

Norquist claims he was asked by Reagan himself to form ATR in 1986.  Apparently, there is no term limit on that pledge, no opportunity for renewal or  a decision NOT to renew.  The Huffington Post reported on November 9, 2011 that a growing number of House members want out of that pledge, but Norquist refuses to remove their names from the published list of signers.

In the meantime, Norquist’s pledge keeps coming up as a major reason the Super Committee cannot reach an agreement.

 [The players:  Sens.Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).]

“The difficulty we find is that every one of these discussions, Grover Norquist seems to be in the room,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters last week. “I am hopeful that the Republicans on the super committee will break away from this.”

The idea that one man, not an elected official, but a powerful Washington lobbyist, can effectively bring the nation to the brink of yet another failure to do the jobs for which they were elected, is frightening to me.  Even Republicans who believe it is time to take a look at forcing the rich to pay a more reasonable share of taxes are finding it impossible to circumvent the pledge they might have signed several campaign cycles ago, because “the voters don’t want any tax increases.”

I think it’s time for us who see things differently pay more attention to what the other side is saying and doing.  I may be one of the few who, until this morning, was unaware of the name Grover Norquist or his organization, but I doubt it.  If you, the reader, needs a concrete reason for my concern, see the chart below from the November 24, 2011 edition of Rolling Stone:

Measuring the Worth of My Words

 

Do I write because I’m a good writer, or am I a good writer because I write? Am I even a good writer?  Am I a writer at all?

Writing, to me, is like fine art.  The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I like it or I don’t.  I “get” it or I don’t.  Matters of technical execution on a piece of art are important only to those who make a career out of judging such things.  Technique is a collection of motor and contextual skills, put together to create a work of art.  And art is to be enjoyed, even by those of us who wouldn’t know an Impressionist from a cartoonist.

For me, the answer to just about all the questions posed above is: Who cares?  But that’s just me.

People write for so many different reasons.  Some are enamored of books with pages to flip and margins to write in and they imagine their own names on the cover of one.  Others have received positive feedback on their efforts for so long, they see writing as a possible way to make a living.  And others have a lot on their minds, things they want to say and they choose writing as the way to communicate. Of course, there are people motivated by some combination of them all.

So how do we know if what we write is good?  The easiest assessment, or at least the base line for all assessment, is the mechanical:  things such as spelling, grammar, use of literary tools like alliteration, onomatopoeia and repetition of words or phrases. Anyone who aspires to be considered a writer in the eyes of others is going to need to deal with the mechanics of writing.

And isn’t that exactly what we mean when we question our own abilities?  How others receive what we write will be the accelerator for our trip to what we consider to be success.

I am always amused by the discussions I observe about the quality of writing.  There is little agreement, if any at all.  What seems to be the common criterion about what makes high quality is one’s own writing.

For example, I am a fan of writing for understanding.  I prefer simple sentences with accessible vocabulary.  I’m not the biggest fan of adverbs and adjectives, although I am capable of employing them when required.  For me, lots of what my parents called 50-cent words strung end to end are not necessary when fewer 25-cent words accomplish the same meaning.  Whether or not my preference for writing that way is based on my preference to read others who write that way is not clear.  It’s possible.

Does that mean I cannot appreciate the work of writers who can wrap a sentence filled with descriptive prose around column inch after column inch?  On the contrary.  I am a fan of William Faulkner.  Enough said? 

But when I read writers like that, my reason for reading is completely different.  Instead of being satisfied with getting the message the writer is imparting, now I have the added challenge of simply navigating the prose in order to unravel that message.  It is a distinctly different process with distinctly different motivation on my part.

When I first started blogging, my only objective was to get some of the clutter out of my brain and onto something hard, as in paper or drive. Having no one at home with whom to converse about all these things, writing it down does the trick.  The only person I knew for certain was reading what I wrote was the person who persuaded me to start blogging.  So my writing was purely a heart and mind dump, meant mostly for myself.

But when I began to write on a writer’s web site, where competition for recognition was added to the mix, I  was temporarily derailed by what just happens to be two of my most prominent personal values:  Achievement and recognition.  These were formally determined by a series of personality tests I’ve taken in my lifetime.  Suddenly, I was writing, not for me, but for the editors who had the controls over which posts were selected for recognition.

In order to satisfy only two of my personal values, I found myself searching for things to write about that had a better chance of being selected.  Why? To gain the approval of a single individual who is marching to a set of drums that have nothing to do with my own cadence?

I have come back to home base.  I don’t want to whine about the relative quality of writing or the topics people choose to explore.  There is really only one set of eyes  I need approval from:  my own.  My currency, my payoff for any effort I put in at the keyboard, is in the form of reader’s comments.  I live for the “conversations” that take place in the comment strings.  I learn from the points of view offered in response to my own. 

It is nice – very nice—to be told I am a good writer.  The thing is, when I ask myself what that really means, I get no answer.

Sandusky Sinks His Own Ship

Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State dirt bag accused of sodomizing a ten-year-old boy in the locker room shower, is one sick puppy.  And by sick I mean the lowest form of human detritus roaming the globe, a predator masquerading as a tender-hearted do-gooder.

Bob Costas reportedly learned of his bluebird interview with Sandusky just 15 minutes prior to airtime of the new NBC newsmagazine program “ Rock Center” Monday night.   Costas was originally scheduled to interview Sandusky's lawyer, Joseph Amendola.

The first version I heard of how things went down Monday night said Sandusky himself had called in and volunteered to be interviewed.  I thought: "Woo Boy, I'll bet his lawyer is pissed at him!"  I mean, I'm no lawyer, but even I knew Sandusky was flirting with disaster.

Now that I know it was Amendola who set it all up, all I can say is "bravo, Bob Costas,"  and hasta la vista Sandusky.  Costas was golden in that interview, launching direct questions with no wiggle room, time after time after time.

On the outside chance that a viewer tuned in to that interview who had somehow managed to know nothing at all about the Penn State scandal, said viewer might have been convinced by Sandusky's denials of wrongdoing.  Maybe said viewer would find some unconscionable way to give Sandusky a pass for "horsing around" -- IN THE SHOWER, BUTT NAKED -- with a ten-year-old!  

So, just to make sure there were no suckers out there falling for Sandusky's pitiful I'm-a-good-guy act, my local TV station hired a voice analysis expert to take a listen to the taped interview.

According to the results, Sandusky was lying his frequently bare behind off. 

TV shrink Dr. Drew Pinsky has gone on record predicting that Sandusky is so trapped by his own words in the interview, he will attempt suicide.  Just the admission of "horsing around" in the shower with the boy is enough to convict him.  But I’m wondering if this monster is in such denial about his own behavior he can’t accurately process the gravity of the case against him.

The 23-page transcript from the Grand Jury investigation was reviewed by the Daily Beast on Tuesday against the assertions of innocence Sandusky made to Costas.  Eight pre-pubescent victims testified to everything from inappropriate touching to oral sex in that probe, and two adult eye-witnesses described seeing Sandusky perform oral sex on one and forcible anal intercourse on another.

Sandusky's dissembling performance on the Costas interview was both fascinating and disturbing.  As I listened to his soft voice delivering lie after lie, it was easy to see how Sandusky slowly and deliberately persuaded his innocent victims to do his bidding.  And, of course, he sweetened the deal with gifts of computers, sports equipment, clothing and outings to football games.

Jerry Sandusky's admission to horsing around in the shower with a young boy can and most likely will be used against him in court.  Either  his lawyer is convinced the evidence against his client is overwhelming and he's trying to build an insanity case or he is the poorest excuse of a defense attorney to come down the pike.

Penn State Matter Triggered Motherly Panic

 

I felt the unwelcome signs of impending panic.  It wasn’t rational.  It certainly wasn’t timely.  But there it was.

As often happens when I watch the news, I became emotionally involved as the details of the Penn State molestation scandal were slowly revealed.  Disgust.  Anger. Horror. Empathy. Questions. 

As I put the pieces together, I realized the victim in this matter was a ten-year-old boy, and the alleged perpetrator was a Penn State football coach.  That’s when the overwhelming, heart-stopping, breathe-impeding sense of utter fear swept over me.

My son, my only child, is 42 years old.  He was a professional athlete who began taking instruction from coaches at the tender age of 5.  As I sat there staring at the sportscasters debating the fate of veteran Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, I tried to count the number of men I had entrusted with the most precious part of my entire life. I stopped when I reached 25 and I had only gotten through his high school career.

Over the years I asked my son questions designed to produce answers that might alert me to inappropriate touching or time spent alone in suspicious places.  There were no alarms, no alerts.

Curious, I did a computer search of the local news station I watch here in Atlanta.  I found the following headlines:

^{BARTOW: Mayor accused of attempted child molestation}

DECATUR: CDC Deputy Director arrested on child molestation, bestiality charges

^{CANTON: Former sheriff's deputy arrested for child molestation}

^{SANDY SPRINGS: Preacher charged with child molestation}

All of these people, some men some women, are in positions of power we would teach our children to respect.  And these were only the local incidents reported within the past three months.

I couldn’t shake the panic I was feeling.  What if I had unknowingly exposed my son to one or more of the same kinds of people who were described in the news stories I found?  What if he had been to afraid or too ashamed to tell us?

I picked up the phone and called my son.  “I was lucky,”  he said.  “I only had good guys as coaches.  I can honestly and gratefully say no one has ever done anything out of line to me.”  

As parents, we can’t lock our children up and protect them from the dangers that exist outside their homes.  All we can do is teach them what is appropriate and what is not, make them feel they can tell us anything, stay vigilant for signs of trouble and keep them as safe as possible.  Child predators do not wear identifying badges.  They look like the local coach, the neighborhood cop, the minister that delivers the Sunday sermon, the scout leader and the next door neighbor.

All I Want to Do is Read a Book

 

Like the majority of the people reading this post, I love books. I devoured as many as I could carry from the public library as a child.  I actually read the classics assigned in American and English literature classes; no Cliff Notes for me.  In adulthood, when I started earning my own money, I purchased and read a minimum of a book a week, sometimes more.

Often around the lunch table in the company cafeteria, the discussion would include the best-seller of the moment.  We would swap paperbacks and hardcovers, argue about their relative merits, then move on to movies, my other passion.

Sometime in my mid-forties, I started experiencing wild mood swings, outbursts of temper, crying jags, night sweats and depression. I thought I was either losing my mind or I had an exotic disease transmitted by some insect I encountered in the mountains of California or the sandy beaches of Mexico, where I had recently vacationed.

It was perimenopause.  I was going to be one of those women who goes through the “change of life” -- as it was whispered by the older women in my family, as if it were an even worse form of “The Curse” than the womanly secret it follows and halts – rather early.

According to a web site I found on the subject, there are 34 separate symptoms one can experience in menopause.  By the time I was 50 I had wrestled with at least 19 of them, but a tiny maroon pill called Premarin seemed to be all I needed to keep myself reasonably comfortable.  But there was one symptom at work that I neither noticed at first nor had ever heard about from anyone.

In retrospect, I realize there was a gradual change in my ability to concentrate, especially when trying to read anything longer than a few paragraphs.  Whereas in my prime my memory was as close to photographic as one can get without actually being one, little by little, I was having to reread sentences or paragraphs in order to retain the meaning.

If I was reading a book, instead of picking it up where I left off the last time, I might have to backtrack in order to refresh my memory of the plot.  Unless the plotline and/or the dialogue was particularly exciting (or salacious, I must admit)  I found my mind wandering into completely unrelated territory, losing complete focus on the words on the page. 

According to my doctor, some women’s menopausal symptoms come to a complete end at some point after they began.  Others, like me, have lingering, sometimes lifelong, side effects.  In my case, the one that lingers and drives me up the wall is the inability to sit still for long periods reading a book.  I also have a difficult time staying awake in a dark theater for an entire movie.  The only exception, lately, has been a movie in which my son has a role.  That seems to be enough incentive for my hormone imbalanced mind to stay alert for the entire length of the film.

I have tried all the remedies suggested to rule out other culprits that could be causing this troubling change.  I sleep an average of seven hours a night.  I eat a healthy diet rich in brain-friendly nutrients like omega-3 and omega-6.  And I take my little maroon pill religiously.

In the meantime, I buy the books my blogging friends write because I want to support their work and because they are excellent writers with points of view I can learn from, or senses of humor I can laugh at and enjoy.  I have dutifully read at least the first chapter of each.. but little more.

I have come to terms with the other 19 symptoms.  I have finally let go of my dream of returning to my pre-menopausal weight and figure.  I have resigned myself to the fact that, like my mother and grandmother before me, my thinning hair is going to keep on thinning and I’ll just have to get used to seeing my pink scalp through what remains of my variegated strands.  Or invest in a good wig.  And I’ve had enough brain freezes of my own to find a smattering of sympathy for Rick Perry and his oops moments.

But the last book I was able to read from cover to cover was The Di Vinci Code.  That was what, eight years ago?  This is a symptom I’m never going to be able to accept.  Suggestions are welcome.

Will “White Folks” Come Between Us?

 

Children choose their friends mostly by happenstance, I think.  They have no say in where they live or who moves in next door.  They are confined by vigilant parents to their front yards or, as they gain some years, to the block on which they live.

Their schools are populated mostly by the children who live within a few blocks or maybe a mile or two.  There is no Match.com (yet) for four-year-olds to mine for play dates or “besties.“

Tommie and I met like that.  Named after her father, who apparently was hoping for a male heir, Tommie and I were born six months apart and lived less than two blocks from each other.  Her mother died when she was quite young, so her dad was left to raise Tommie and her older half-brother and half-sister.  He did his best, but a mother’s touch was visibly missing.

Tommie is very dark.  Her skin mimics the texture of silk velvet and the blended colors of piano-key black and Belgian chocolate.  Her fine features suggest a family tree populated by the handsome and elegant people from Somalia, with their aquiline noses, smaller heads and bright, white smiles.  She had a curvy figure long before I developed anything resembling a curve.  The boys seemed to be drawn to her like metal shavings to a magnet.

My mother wasn’t usually crazy about dark people.  In fact, the more my little friends appeared to be NOT dark, the better she seemed to like them.  For me, her biracial child, that point of view was deeply confusing and I instinctively rejected it.  I’m sure to Mama it seemed as if I deliberately sought out dark-skinned friends just to challenge her.  Perhaps I did.

But Mama felt sorry for Tommie, being motherless and all, so she took her under her pale white wing and allowed us to be friends.  Mama treated her to an outfit that matched mine for the first day of high school.  Before that she had helped us both understand the meaning of the booklet “You Are A Woman Now,” and schooled us in the selection and use of feminine hygiene products.  And she tried her level best to convince us that all boys were evil sex fiends who had  nothing on their minds except getting into our day-of-the-week panties.

We couldn’t have been more different.  I loved school and excelled.  Tommie liked the hallway and lunchroom camaraderie of the school experience, but she had little interest in the words that filled the spaces between the brown-paper-bag-protected covers of those text books.  With a lot of help from me, she managed to graduate with me and the rest of our class, never to set foot in a classroom again.

Life took us our separate ways – I went to college, got married, and had a baby; in that specific order.  Tommie got a job, has never married, had a baby and stayed in the Chicagoland area for all these years, while I lived in Milwaukee, Chicago, San Francisco and now Atlanta.  We were on different paths, but, thanks to her, we never completely lost touch.

Yesterday, Tommie called to wish me a happy birthday.  Whenever the caller ID displays her name, I have a concurrent assault of conflicting reactions.  I don’t want to answer because I know the call will take longer than my stamina will endure.  At the same time, I feel guilty for being such a bitch, for who else has put up with my aversion to phones and my failure to ever reach out to friends just to say ‘Hi.? Tommie has remained loyal all these years, in spite of my trifling ways, as she calls them.

This time I took a deep breath and answered.  Tommie was unusually hyped, even for her.  She was watching MSNBC, indulging her drug of choice – politics.  During the 2008 presidential election cycle, she would have me on the line for hours railing against her favorite target:  White folks.

There was a time when Tommie would remember to watch her mouth around me, in deference to the “white folks” who happen to be my immediate family members.  Not any more.  She even refers to white folks in disparaging terms when she calls my mother!  But of course, instead of my mother letting Tommie know how much that hurts her feelings, she complains instead to me.  Neither of us can bring ourselves to call Tommie out on her blatant prejudice.  We make exceptions for her because of our history with her.   And I feel extremely conflicted about that.

Yesterday’s subject was how “the white man” at Morgan Stanley ignored her documented self-classification as a risk averse investor and lost $200,000 of her rolled-over 401(k) in the recent economic calamity.  She insists he wouldn’t have done that with a white investor’s money.  My attempts to explain that it was her responsibility to monitor the investments this guy made on her behalf make her angry.  She has never been big on listening.

The final straw followed the conversation’s shift to Herman Cain.  Although she allowed as how she would never vote for Mr. Cain, she believes he is being unfairly targeted over the sexual harassment claims because, and I quote:  “Back in those days everybody was doing that sort of thing.  Those white folks were notorious for it and they are still doing it.”

“My problem is the way he has handled the situation since it was leaked,” I responded, biting my tongue.  “He should have told the truth from the beginning.”

Her response?  “The white folks lie all the time!”

Recently I wrote about some time I spent with old friends who happen to be white and Republican.  I hadn’t seen them for many years and was somewhat shocked to learn of their membership in the Tea Party. Whereas early in our friendship, it was easy to accept our political differences and move along with the fun and games, this time it was not. 

Something has changed, and I think it is me. 

I, Scorpio

 

So, today’s my birthday – again!  I don’t mind telling you I am pretty sick and tired of getting older.  But, considering the alternative, I have decided a good use of my time would be to analyze myself.  It’s okay.  It’s what I do.  Cuz I’m a Scorpio.

We Scorpio’s are well-documented and apparently well-known.  If I get sick of talking to a new stranger at a party, for instance, all I have to do is mention  I’m a Scorpio.  His eyes widen, there’s a quick intake of breath and the barely perceptible movement of his entire body backwards. Before I know it, he’s checking his watch and backing away toward the door.

Oh, yes, everybody seems to have been warned of the nasty sting we November women are capable of delivering.  What they don’t seem to understand is we don’t just run around stinging people unprovoked.  It’s only when somebody asks too many silly questions.  Or when they make some kind of backhanded insult they think is so clever.  Or when they act as if they don’t know what we’re talking about.  Or…

Well, let’s move on to another trait.  Intense.  Everything we do we do with every ounce of our being.  It sure is true of me.  I don’t know the meaning of giving up when I’m trying to solve a puzzle or figure out a mystery.  And when I’m in love, I love so hard I can barely stand myself.  It is all-consuming, ever-present and – regrettably – a bit unreliable.  It sometimes only takes one complete night of sleep for me to wake up having lost that lovin’ feelin.’ Intensely.

According to Linda Goodman and the rest of the star-gazers, Scorps are usually rather bright and more than a little curious.  My brightness is clearly a matter of opinion – ask my ex – but no one will deny the heights to which my curiosity rises. I seem to want to know everything for no particular reason.  I wear out the word “why” in a conversation, causing some to feel as if they are being interrogated instead of engaging in a friendly chat.

Tenacious?  Giving up is not something I do easily, if at all.  Long after everyone else has thrown up their hands and gone to bed, I will be up trying to assemble that piece of furniture I bought in a box, or rebuilding my entire hard drive on my computer because it has crashed with a virus.  The idea of calling someone in to do either of those tasks is morally repugnant to me.  So, people shake their heads at me a lot.

What I didn’t know before I did the research to write this post is Scorpios generally prefer to be alone or in very small groups.  They seldom seek out the company of others, although they do well socially when they have to.  Damned if that isn’t exactly the way I am! 

I used to think that astrology stuff was mainly for flower children and people who go around talking about karma, feng shui and such.  But everything I read today about the personality traits of a Scorpio sounded like a detailed description of me.  No wonder people regard me with skepticism.

The one trait that every article I read mentioned is contradiction.  Yes, I am secretive, stand-offish on occasion and a bit of a hermit; yet I was once elected Miss Congeniality in a beauty pageant.  You might think that was just a consolation prize – and maybe it was, because I sure didn’t win the pageant – but it was the only prize that was determined by votes of the contestants and not the judges, so I must have been considered personable.  I am an introvert, but I also enjoy assuming leadership roles in group projects.  I am outspoken and extremely direct – never ask my opinion if you are not ready to hear the unvarnished truth from me – but I am also sensitive and easily hurt.

I am delighted and relieved to say, however, there is one common Scorpio trait I don’t have:  revenge.  There are three types of Scorpios when it comes to revenge.  The first two will exact revenge on someone who offends them if it takes them the rest of their lives to do it.  My type, The Grey Lizard Scorpio, believes that others who offend them will be “gotten” by the fates, or the gods or whatever other forces there are that take care of the what-goes-around-comes-around duties.  Revenge is not my job.

One last thing.  I also figured out why I have been such a flaming failure in the marriage department.  Scorpios are least compatible with other Scorpios, Tauruses and Aquarians.  My first husband was a Scorpio.  The second is an Aquarius.  Who knew?

Cain Has Been Thomasized

 It was bound to happen.  Herman Cain was getting too popular.  He was showing some cojones when he aired one of the dumbest campaign ads of all time and succeeded in having every talking head on North America scratching his or her head, true, but talking about Herman Cain nonetheless.

Even after he had what I consider a faulty outing at the most recent Republican free-for-all debate, Cain’s popularity continued its baffling ascent.  Something had to be done to stop this outsider, this “Oreo” with a coating of smarm charm.

Monday morning’s lead news report on NBC was “Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Scandal.” zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  What took you so long, Mitt?

When Cain was the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 90s, at least two female employees complained about alleged inappropriate, sexually charged behavior from the pizza man.  As was the norm back in the day, the women were paid to leave their jobs after signing agreements barring them from talking about the circumstances of their “resignations.”  Cain, of course, kept his position.

Why am I not shocked and dismayed?  Please.  I entered the work force in 1966.  A not-too-ugly black and female college graduate with oh-so-much potential for curing what ailed corporate America.  I was subjected to so many sexual innuendos and forms of flat-out harassment based on gender, I thought  it was another form of the hazing I had recently undergone to gain access to a sorority membership.  It became the stuff that spawned hit TV shows like Mad Men.

Thirty years later, with all the laws and corporate codes of conduct in place, women were safe from the leering and groping, the cartoons and the lunch-table jokes, and the unspoken but loudly clear suggestions about loss of jobs and such.  Right?  Hah!

I was a young divorced mother of a three-year-old son when I was lured away from my prestigious public relations job at the University of Chicago by a suave and reasonably handsome executive director of a community organization.  He offered to practically double my salary if I left and became the PR director at his non-profit. Where do I sign, was my only response.

How was I to know that the man was staffing his entire organization with young single woman with children?  All the executives, however, were men – younger, ambitious and too-busy-to-be-bothered-with-women men. 

It wasn’t very long before he started making, shall I say, unusual requests. “Let’s meet over breakfast at 7 a.m.“ “We’ll go over those press releases at dinner tonight.”  “Close the office door so we don’t get disturbed.”

The day he decided to make his move, he literally chased me around the desk.  I kept running and said something like “Whoa, Mr. F.  I don’t play that.”  Later that day, I made an appointment to take the management test at Illinois Bell Telephone Company.  When I was ultimately hired in their sales and marketing department, I gave Mr. F two weeks notice. He asked where I was going.  I refused to tell him.  He had already sabotaged a new job for my predecessor in retaliation for spurning his advances.  No way was I going to aid and abet my own demise.

When the courageous Anita Hill blew the whistle on her own sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas,  the good-old boys in Congress decided to give him a pass and confirmed him anyway.  A black Republican got a job for life, whereas any ordinary black man would have been vilified by the same crowd simply for being married to a white woman. One can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Anita Hill was white herself.

It is not clear what the race of Cain’s accusers might be, but I don’t think it will matter much this time.  I predict there will be no pass for Cain.  Instead, I think he has just received his ticket out of the race.  If I am right about suspecting Romney’s camp as the source of this revelation about Cain’s indiscretions,  Herman Cain will be slinking off into the sunset wearing that black cowboy hat we saw him in last week.

What's the difference?  Expediency.  Clarence Thomas was used by conservatives, in spite of his obvious flaws, to fill a diversity void on the Supreme Court  without having to add another liberal justice.  Herman Cain is in somebody's way.  He is blocking the yellow brick road to the White House, AND he doesn't play by the rules.  He's gotta go.  Whatever his allure is to the right -- and I still believe it is the prospect of pitting one black man against another -- this indsicretion and subsequent coverup is too much to overcome.