Category Archives: Politics

Dear Mom

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Recently, I have welcomed some friends to the unfortunate club of children who have lost parents.

The finality of it all.  And the guilt that life must go on.   I remember how hard it was to breathe sometimes.

What I don’t dare tell them is that after 7+ years, the snapshot I hold of you in my mind — white-haired wig, tennis sneakers, slacks, blouse (Dad didn’t like you in turtlenecks) and an Eddie Bauer or J. Crew woolen zip-up sweater — is getting a little vague and dimmed as time goes by.  I have razor-sharp memories of many, many things — throughout the years and especially during the month before your death — but the sound of your voice, Mom, the sound of your voice, exists only in my imitation of what I remember of it. Has that become the memory and is your voice lost to me?

You are still a force in my life. I was recently at a company retreat and there were over 300 people I didn’t know.  I just pretended to be you — the way you would walk into a room and find ways to meet and really talk with — well, up to then — strangers.  My mantra, “just be Mom,” enables me to work the room but never like you, the master.  You had a way (mine is diluted with Dad’s bluntness) of making people feel, as if when talking to you, no one else in the world existed and you had all the time in the world to chat.  And they were right, you remembered everything and you were interested in them and what made them happy or sad and, if they seemed lonely, then — whether they liked it or not — they had to come to every holiday at our house.  I feel that way, too, about people I meet, but sometimes my directness (ok, Dad’s genes again) turns them off.

To be fair to Dad, life in the fast-paced world of corporate law (and its diminishing economic rewards) make bluntness a relevant and useful tool.  I try to do it á la Larry King (I know, I know, you stopped watching him once he started interviewing headline catchers and hangers-on), with a directness that is a little self-effacing but gets the point across.  You see, Mom, I realize that since you died at an age a full 25 years younger than when your parents died, that I cannot rely on the fullness of time for people to come around.  In truth, that is a cop-out.  I am not as patient as you.  And although I believe in the goodness of people and their senses of fundamental fairness, I have a more cynical streak.  Since you died before the invasion of Iraq, you are just going to have to trust me that some Republicans and those who are leaders of the military-industrial complex are beyond redemption.

But then again you missed the heady days following Barack Hussein Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States of America.  That would have lifted your soul.  The sheer promise of America in those moments would have made your eyes well with tears.  He has been attacked and stymied at every turn, but, Mom, he is a transformational leader for our country and our generation.  When I see the political machinations going on, I have to dig deep and believe as you that what is true and right will prevail.

Wow, after all of this, I guess you’re not so fuzzy after all.  Even though the picture of you is getting fuzzy, you live on in my mind, my heart and my soul.

I really appreciate this talk.  And I appreciate your stopping by in my dreams.  When I am sick, could you remember to say, “my poor tsakele, if I could have it for you I would”?  That always helped.  Even your grandson needs to hear me say it “just like Grandma would’ve” when he is sick.  And I totally get it.  You never want your child to hurt even the teensiest bit.  Maybe that is why you hang around, to ease our pain.

Ok, I am not ready to dive in the with the “G-d thing” but I believe that your life force abides.  That’s as far as I am willing to go on the “everlasting” subject.  You are going to have to win me over on that one.  This is going to test your patience.  (I was never the easy child.)

I love you.  Now I am remembering that you did have a few cashmere turtlenecks, notwithstanding Dad’s preference otherwise, under your sweaters.  (We still wear them.)

Love,

Me

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I know why Cheney never uses his given name, “Richard”

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“Former Vice President Dick Cheney has told conservative political activists he thinks Barack Obama is a ‘one-term president’.”

Gee, Dick, you were a two-term VP but you were only popularly elected once.  Ok, you were not popularly elected because everyone hates you.

You harangue President Obama over his handling of terrorist trials and yet it is exactly how you handled.

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Gay Marriage

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Someone very dear to me mentioned that something was glaringly missing on my blog — my views of gay marriage and my response to all the current strides and defeats.  My response was that I couldn’t be funny or amusing about something that core to me.  But, I guess I need to vent.  So here goes.

I have had the many privileges of being raised white and upper middle class in this country.  Even in my lifetime being Jewish was only an issue at “elite” social levels (and I didn’t like those people anyway).

But I am gay and I have less civil rights than others because of it.  If I didn’t live in New York City, being gay could be dangerous.  We are well-educated, well-to-do and resourceful so we have created a legal web of “equivalents” so that the inability to marry does not affect our day-to-day lives.  Still, it does make me feel like a stranger in my own land.

Those against gay marriage hide behind the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the social fabric arguments.

First, if marriage were so sacred, the self-proclaimed family values politicians wouldn’t be crashing and burning in adultery and gay sex scandals every month or so.  Frankly, heterosexuals are destroying the sanctity of marriage.  Gays in long-term committed relationships would probably lower the divorce rates.

But all this obscures a central truth:  Marriage is not a religious law.  Civil law decides the rights of married people in the course of the marriage and its dissolution by divorce or death.  Therefore, all married people have civil unions.  Some of these are “consecrated” in religious ritual and clergy have the power to officiate pursuant to civil law.   Sometimes, a couple gets married in a judge’s chambers.  Sometimes, you read about a non-clergy, non-civil servant getting authorization to marry a couple.

Why is this important?  Because clergy are not necessary to create a “marriage” under civil law.  So, let’s fix the nomenclature and call everything a civil union — whether it is a heterosexual or gay couple.  Let religions call their rituals “marriage”.

The social fabric argument really riles me: my life with my partner and our son is destroying the social fabric of our country.  We pay more in taxes in any year than the average American family earns in a lifetime, we give to charity, we support universal health care, we help the elderly and the needy and we host all family holidays — civil and religious.  Nevertheless, the fact of our lives is why Bubba and Jolene  — who live in a rented trailer in some trailer park in Mississippi, who don’t have health care, whose children work at WalMart, run a meth lab or fight on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — can’t get ahead.  It isn’t because we have a broken public education system, non-existent health care, faltering manufacturing industries and young men and women who come back from (at least one unnecessary) war broken inside and out.  Clearly, Bubba and Jolene and their children won’t have a future if the states recognize our lives as a family.

Ok, I vented.

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Why is Sarah still in my life?

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How does a woman deride hope and faith in our democracy and receive standing ovations?

I am going out on a limb here, but not everyone can be president of the United States.  Neither Joe Six Pack nor Joe the Plumber can run a nuclear superpower.  Also, not every opinion is worth as much as any other.  To think otherwise is ridiculous.  One may have a right to one’s opinion, but if it is illogical or ill-informed, it should be ignored.  Remember how much flack then-President Carter got when he said he asked his daughter Amy what she thought of nuclear disarmament?  Because we knew that a 13 year-old is not an expert (to be fair, he was making a point about that younger generation’s desire to live nuclear bomb-free).  The GOP lambasted him.

Now, the GOP thinks that every stupid idea based on half-truths and discredited sources should be held as on par with those of the President of the United States and his cabinet and advisers.  That is just mean-spirited, corrupt and disrespectful.  [Now, I didn’t think much of the ideas of GWB, his cabinet and his advisers, but I certainly agree that they knew more than most people and that the relevant opinions were those of experts who thought the Bush doctrine and the Cheney secret police were ill-conceived and ignorant.]

Sarah Palin has some great one-liners but a stand-up comic is not good training for president.  Also, other than one-liners, she cannot put together a string of words to make a coherent sentence.

Ok, I am going to pretend I am a GOP operative and Sarah is a Democrat (G-d forbid).  Here is my theory:

No matter how many times she makes mistakes or shares her baseless views and ideas, there is this invisible machine that rehabilitates and spins the mistakes and idiotic policy statements into victories for the true America.  Any ordinary candidate — especially a female candidate — would be left to tend the embers of her political career after the various Sarah fiascoes.  But there is an invisible force that will not let her fail.  Why are people so invested?  Well, I just keep thinking of that cold war movie about a sleeper mole who is in line for the presidency . . . . maybe . . . naw . . . yes? . . . Is Sarah Palin the real Manchurian Candidate?

Hey, according to the GOP, my opinion is as important and valid as that of any politician or commentator.  So, my opinion is that Sarah Palin is the Manchurian Candidate and she was sent to the US to ruin us.  In your face, lady in the McCain town hall who believed that President Obama is Arab (and so what if he was).

But Sarah was right about one thing:  “President Palin” breeds fear in my heart AND, I hope, all those who love their children and want the world to survive for a few more generations.

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Tea Party-ers in Revolutionary Get-Ups

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Ok, I don’t get what was so great about the pre-Revolutionary War period.

Milk and water had deadly bacteria, “medicine” consisted of bloodletting and leaches, and the economies of the colonies went through more boom and bust cycles than we have in the 20th and 21st centuries combined.

Also, women didn’t vote, slavery was legal and an education was a luxury.  Life expectancy was short and infant mortality high.  You were either born into poverty or great wealth — no in-between.  There was war and its unspeakable human carnage.

In case the tea party-ers are not students of history, they are in the costumes of either the unofficial American aristocracy who made incredible fortunes from smuggling and the slave trade or those who were the impoverished masses and were controlled by that unofficial aristrocracy.  And the Boston tea party was a Samuel Adams’ instigated mob riot intended to rile everyone against the king of England.  All engineered by the wealthy colonials, not the “common people”.

If you are looking for grass roots democracy, try the Native American tribes on which Jefferson based his vision of government.

So, tea party-ers, what is your point?  If you want to go back to that time, well, have fun but count me out.  I would rather deal with a spoiled society on the verge of global devastation, but with the brain power and ultimately, I hope, the conscience and the technology and intelligence, to figure out how to save our earth and our humanity.

But if you just want to dress in knickers and wigs, then knock yourselves out.

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Racism in America

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Harry Reid is an ass for saying what he said but, unfortunately, I can’t imagine that he is alone in thinking this way.

And we should talk about it.

President Obama is a transformative figure in so many ways but right now, most minority candidates don’t have a credible chance at national elective office.  Not even a wise Latina.

And we should talk about it.

But let’s not confuse Harry Reid with Trent Lott.  Trent Lott, when toasting segregationalist and white supremacist Strom Thurmond, told an admiring crowd that life would have been a lot different if Thurmond were elected president in the 40s and 50s when he ran for the office.  Harry Reid was talking about Barack Obama’s appeal to the electorate; Trent Lott was talking about the continuation of Jim Crow.  The comparison is made only for political gain.

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Oy

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Oy.

It is more than a word; it is an emotive state, conveying sadness or disgust and sympathy, even empathy, with those harmed by the event all in one syllable. You can even understand it in a flat, toneless medium such as an email.

Compare that to “oh” or “wow”.  You need context and knowledge of sender in order to decipher the intended meaning and, even then, still not clear.

Don’t get me started on those emoticons. Although I have used them, I do so sparingly and with a requisite ooky feeling.

Let me use it two sentences:  Sarah Palin signed a contract with Fox News.  Oy.

‘nough said.

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Weave these threads into your reality

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In one city, Costco takes tomatoes off its shelves because Sarah Palin is scheduled to appear.  I am sure that Costco wanted to protect the tomatoes from an ignoble end.

In Copenhagen, 193 nations are trying to agree on something — anything.  When was the last time you got consensus in a family of three members? 

Did you know that the food industry is responsible for 1/3 of all of the world’s carbon emissions?  Give up grapes in winter and the save the world.

We are trying to agree with China on important things — North Korea, carbon emissions, sanctions for Iran.  How about we start with something small, like, “it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

Now, no one likes the health care reform bill.  The Congress behaved so badly, but of course it is Obama’s fault.

A Republican senator wanted to run out the clock on health care by requiring the reading of a laborious and largely symbolic amendment to the health care legislation.  Debate, I get.  Screaming and yelling, sure.  Stonewalling?  Outrageous.  That senator ought to be in the penalty box for the rest of his term.

I can drive my Hummer, but Obama, Obama, needs to save us from Waterworld (I really can’t handle that horrible 1980s/90s movie turning out to be prophetic).

If Obama doesn’t fix health care, lower carbon emissions, balance the budget, reduce the deficit and increase jobs, ALL IN ONE YEAR, he will have failed.  If I remember my anniversary, I am golden for 12 months.    Wow, his job really sucks.

Being a pundit or a talking head must be great.  Sanctimony with no responsibility.

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The Worst Job in the World goes to . . .

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President Obama.  Poor guy.

Imagine if the size of your ears were scrutinized. 

Imagine if the guy who had your job overspent, took too many vacations, broke the law, got some of the neighbors’ kids killed, made all your lenders angry and now some are threatening to come after you with a shot gun.  Oh, and he forgot to tell you, the building is in foreclosure and the vending machine is busted.

Imagine if your words parsed for meaning.   A mere, “Good morning,” could cause hours of “news” commentary on your inflection, your eye contact and whether or not you smiled.  Hey, with such tough audiences, I would read from teleprompters, too.

Imagine if you couldn’t take a walk without it being, literally, an issue of national security.

Imagine if every morning you had to deal with two wars, bankers, a psycho in Iran building nuclear weapons, Israeli settlements, global warming, souring health care reform, joblessness and an economic crisis du jour.

Imagine if everyone feels entitled to have an opinion on your private life.

Imagine if you could never make a mistake.  EVER.

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Afghanistan

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WAR.  We are a nation at war.  We forget that because, since September 11, 2001, no bombs have fallen on our cities.  WAR. 

WAR.  Everyday some of our children go to war and die for our collective safety.  WAR. 

WAR.  Our representatives in Congress voted for two wars.  So, these are our wars.  We own them.  Don’t look away because it is too ugly to watch. WAR. 

WAR.  You cannot turn it off like the TV.  It keeps on even when you cannot stand to hear another word about it.  WAR.

WAR.  The real enemies are not as easily vanquished as are TV villains.  The real enemies want to kill our soldiers and defeat us.  WAR.

WAR.  And they and we have more and better weapons to inflict wounds than doctors have resources to heal them.  WAR.

WAR. Even if soldiers come back in one physical piece, they have sacrificed their minds and happiness to the memories of war that time cannot erase.  WAR.

WAR.  We didn’t think long enough when we sent young people to die in Iraq.  President Obama thought long and hard about Afghanistan, as he should, because this is WAR.

WAR. If my son goes, then I go, too.  If there is a cause for which he should risk his life, then it is a cause worth risking mine.  WAR. 

WAR.  I pray that lives lost in Afghanistan are not lost in vain, as they were in Iraq.  Let us never be so easy about sacrificing lives again.  WAR.

WAR.  It is a small word.  It is a great tragedy.  WAR.

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