Category Archives: Politics and Culture

Response to Right Wingnut Bimbette

Politics and Culture, ,

So one of those blond conservative wingnuts with long tresses (not the crack whore with the big Adam’s apple, but a younger wannabe), wrote a column basically saying, “Oh my god, Jennifer Lopez and Sonia Sotomayor are both from the Bronx. Oh my god! And they’re both like uhm women! And uhm they are both Puerto Rican. So like THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME!”

I am not going to provide a link to this idiocy, but here was my response:

Do you get paid to do this? Because this is really some dumb, witless, idiocy. It reads like a joke-column in The Onion. I mean you really want to compare someone who got full scholarships to ivy league schools (Princeton and Yale) where she excelled, became the first Hispanic federal judge in NY state, and saved baseball in addition to making other decisions which clearly show her ability to put the constitution ABOVE her alleged political beliefs — to J Lo based on the fact that they both grew up in the South Bronx? The ONLY thing these two women are known to have in common is that they are Puerto Rican women from the Bronx and to imply that therefore they are exactly the same makes you sound kind of dumb or kind of racist.

One America? Oh really, Mr. President?

Politics and Culture, , ,

Over dinner the spouse and I were discussing a newspaper article about Obama’s having to weigh in on whether gay partners of federal employees should get health benefits. Thanks to the “defense of marriage act” signed by then-President Bill Clinton, the government opposes this, while the courts say yes.

Aside from generally being in favor of human rights, we watch this issue closely. Two years ago we got hitched. We love each other and all that. In fact, the marriage thing was probably the best decision either of us ever made, but it was a calculated decision. (I mean that literally. I used a calculator.) One of us is past the child-bearing years, and neither of us has any great desire to breed or adopt except possibly from the local animal shelter. We did not marry in order to raise a family.

After careful consideration, we married for the bennies. That’s benefits to my friends in more progressive places like, oh, CANADA. In the US there’s no national health and the cost of medical treatment is astronomical. Private health insurance is expensive and mostly doesn’t cover “pre-existing” conditions. I wanted to quit my job and knew that while I could afford to take lower paying freelance work, I could not afford to be without health insurance. The quickest and by far least expensive way for me to get health insurance would be by marrying which would enable me to get on my husband’s work-covered plan. There were other benefits as well. As a married couple, we could file a joint income tax and as I wasn’t making that much money, we would pay a lower tax rate. And then of course there’s stuff like social security and many other privileges available only to those living in wedded bliss.

As we waited for our food to arrive, we reflected on a recent fund raiser we’d attended sponsored by Garden State Equality in which the brilliant comedian Judy Gold did a slide-show about who can get married (Brittany and K Fed, Levi and Bristol, etc.) and who can’t (sane adults who happen to be gay, no matter how much they contribute to society, and not withstanding whether or not they are raising children together).

As the waiter arrived with our dinners, I made the following naive and foolish statement (I’ve gone kind of soft and idealistic since Obama was elected): “But if the conservatives just understood it as a rights and fairness issue. You can’t have some people getting these benefits and others not….”

My husband looked at me like he was seeing the first signs of senility. “But the religious right does get it. That’s the point. They don’t want gay people to have rights.”

“But we won the election. He can…”

“If he has the balls to stand up to them.”

“But they’re not the majority..”

“They are in Dixie.”

Then he went on his usual rant about how the cultural divide in the US could not be mended. Despite our President’s very appealing words, there are two America’s.

“The only solution,” my better-half argued, “is for the US to get out of Dixie. We should have let them go after the Civil War.”

“We’d lose New Orleans,” I said.

He pointed out that even the most backward nations have their points of progress and charming cities.

“Which city do you think New York has more in common with, Amsterdam or Dallas?”

“We’d lose Florida,” I pointed out, thinking about his mother in Boynton Beach.

“We could open up diplomatic relations with Cuba,” he countered.

He was tired of his tax dollars going to support energy policies that it made it possible for people in Houston to run their air-conditioners 365 days a year. He didn’t want to pay to bring water to the Arizona desert. He didn’t want to still be debating whether or not evolution should be taught in schools. Mostly, he didn’t want rapture-ready zealots getting us into stupid wars. He didn’t want to ever see Sarah Palin’s face again.

“There shouldn’t be a debate about what the founding fathers meant by the separation of church and state,” he said.

“Or about who can get married,” I added.

We sipped our wine in the Italian restaurant with its immigrant wait-staff and its multi-ethnic neighborhood clientele. Probably not one person in that room had voted for McCain or believes that god hates the gays. While the Obama presidency has made us all feel very good about ourselves, it’s not clear what can be accomplished if he has to kowtow to the South. I’m no great fan of partition – India/Pakistan and Israel/Palestine being two examples that didn’t work out too well. But as Craig points out, left to its own devices, the South would not be strong enough or powerful enough to be a threat. It’s far more dangerous to the United States and the world as a backward, racist, backwater of a superpower.

Everybody’s Losing It

Politics and Culture, true story

Recently, I went to an author talk/book signing at a New York cultural institution. The talk was in an auditorium and the book signing after was in the lobby. The books, however, were on sale at the institution’s bookstore which was down the hall, so first you had to shlep over to the bookstore, get on line (as we say in New Yawk), and wait till you get to the cashier to pick a book from the very limited selection available.

The line moved slowly, but amicably. There was some confusion with people occasionally stumbling into the store and asking, “Where are the books?” or “Is this line?”

I was with my friend Karen. When it was my turn I asked a question, “Is this all that’s left?” The cashier replied, “Just what you see here.” It was not a good situation. There was still a long line and there clearly weren’t going to be enough books for everyone on it. At that moment some confused soul sprang forward and asked the cashier, “Is this where the books are?”

She snapped at him, “Do not interrupt me!”

I explained it was where the books are. Karen, who has many of years of customer service experience, then said calmly. “He was just asking a question.”

“I’m stressed!” The cashier replied in a tone that I heard as a warning, not an apology or explanation.

Then Karen said something else. Maybe, “Okay, but you could have just answered his question.”

By now she was putting through my order and verbally attacking Karen, yelling loudly enough to silence all conversation in the store. “You are interrupting me while I am doing my job. You need to be quiet now.”

Karen was continuing to try to have a rational conversation with a woman who wasn’t. “I’m not keeping you from doing your job.”

The cashier threatened to call security if Karen continued to speak and did. The guard looked at two middle aged women in the process of buying books. He stood by with a neutral expression as the cashier told him. “Okay you know what to do.”

After completing our purchases, we walked past the line. A woman who’d been sitting in front of us earlier, said “I’m terrified to go up there.”

As bizarre as the incident was, it was also familiar. Four weeks ago at an airport, my husband and I had just gone up to the counter to drop off our luggage and the counter-agent said, “I was yelling for you to come. Okay, I guess you’re not in a rush.”

I started to explain, “We couldn’t hear you at all. I was looking at the counters. Finally I saw you waving.”

“Well I was shouting pretty loud!”

“They really should do something. Have lights and bells that you could see and hear from back there…

“People just ignore us! No consideration for the people working here. I guess you’re all too wrapped up in your vacations….”

“No really, they just can’t see…”

My husband by this time was already whispering for me to move on. He had visions of us both being tackled by airport security and permanently placed on a no-fly list.

It’s not just customer service people. It’s everyone. Most people I know have work situations where it’s known that so and so and such and such aren’t on speaking terms and this makes meetings either a little bit tense or totally absurd. The root of it all is a sense of powerlessness. The cashier was like the groundhog that bit the Mayor when he stuck his hand in its cage. She felt she was being attacked in the little bit of territory that was hers. Who knows what staff cut backs and other nonsense the woman at the airport was dealing was?

You can’t reason with irrational people. You can’t get them to see your viewpoint or make yourself any clearer. The best you can do is engage as little as possible and keep moving. If they happen to be co-workers you need to work with or heaven forbid a supervisor, you’re screwed — especially now with the job market that much tougher and everyone trying to hold on to what he or she has.

What’s the answer? Take care of yourself. Remember to pop those vitamins and the fish oil (flax seed if you’re a veg.) Get enough sleep. Eat right and exercise. Be extra kind to those you love, and remember the next time a cashier calls security or you catch your co-workers rolling their eyes at each other during your presentation, that it’s not about you, and it’s about as personal as being stabbed by a crazy man on the subway.