Monday, 01 December 2008

Some things that I 'watch with horror'

First, a warning -- I've posted some disturbing images at the bottom of this post. They are painful to look at. If you wish to avoid them, do not scroll down!

Following up on my Sunday column, it occurs to me that it might be helpful to elaborate a little more on the proper meaning of "watched with horror." If you'll recall, the NYT used that phrase to refer to such practices as scanning telecommunications for terrorists without proper authorization, and imprisoning supposed terrorists at Guantanamo.

In the column, I gave examples from history of things that are more properly "watched with horror," if the words are to mean anything -- the Holocaust, the firebombing of Dresden, and the like. I included some from recent years -- genocide in Darfur and 9/11 -- but perhaps not enough. I can make it much more immediate than that.

The terror attacks in Mumbai are certainly something I "watched with horror," both from a personal and geopolitical perspective. Just days before it happened, my Dad had been reminiscing about having Shore Patrol duty in Bombay during his Navy career. That meant digging sailors out of some pretty sleazy dives, but it also meant staying at the Taj Mahal hotel. It was a shock to have that place suddenly in the news, and for something so horrific.

Two weeks ago, my brother was over there on business -- and of course, he would have been a target had he been there still. As my father would have been, long before. That was underlined for me in a sidebar piece the WSJ ran Friday, accounting for the employees of various international firms in Mumbai.

Stan Dubinsky from over at USC sent me an e-mail that had been sent out by Hesh Epstein, the Chabad rabbi here in Columbia, about the young Chabad rabbi and his wife killed by the terrorists -- presumably for the "crime" of being Jewish. I took a lecture course a couple of years back given by Rabbi Epstein (about Jewish beliefs regarding the Messiah, it was fascinating), and was deeply impressed by his devotion and scholarship. If it had been Hesh over there instead of that young man and his wife... the tragedy would have been far more personal. As it is, it's bad enough.

Too much personal? Then consider the overall death toll, and the geopolitical implications -- India is blaming Pakistan, and both countries have nukes.

I think what got me to thinking about the personal angles was Nicholas Kristof's column yesterday (beware the image if you follow the link!), which I chose this morning to put on tomorrow's op-ed page, and which started like this:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed.

Here in Pakistan, I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region...

This is something I "watch with horror," without even having to see it. Unfortunately, I DID see it, in a photograph with Kristof's column online. And it wasn't the first time I've seen such images. I had run across the ones you see below (with their original captions) a week or two ago when I was looking for something to go with a previous Kristof column, and had searched the AP archive for "Pakistan" and "women." The images all moved on the wire earlier this year.

This is the kind of thing that I believe the phrase "watched with horror" should be reserved for. And that's my point in posting these images. I almost put them in the paper, but I thought Kristof's column communicated the horror fully enough. As you know, one thing I use the blog for is to post things I don't put in the paper. Maybe I was wrong to balk at doing that. But as hardened as newspapermen are supposed to be, I hesitate even now to post them here. And yet, these pictures aren't as bad -- that is, the injuries aren't as recent -- as the cases Kristof wrote about.

Kristof and his wife received the Pulitzer for reporting on the democracy movement in China years ago. He deserves another one for telling these women's stories -- as he has done for the powerless (so often women) in Darfur and elsewhere. By horrifying decent people everywhere, he performs a great service.

Acidburns1

Irum Saeed, 30, adjusts her scarf as she poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burnt on her face, back and shoulders with acid thrown in the middle of the street by a boy whom she rejected for marriage 12 years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Irum is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Acidburns2
Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Three years ago three boys threw acid on her. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Shameem is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Acidburns3
Attiya Khalil, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. Attiya's face was burnt with acid thrown by relatives of a neighbor boy whom she rejected for marriage around 3 years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery three times to try to recover from her scars with the help of Depilex-Smileagain Foundation in Lahore. Smileagain is an organization that helps burn victims to reintegrate into society through medical and psychological support, sometimes employing them as beauticians at Depilex beauty centers. Attiya is one of the 240 registered victims of Smileagain's help list in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Posted by Brad Warthen at 06:58 PM in Columns, Marketplace of ideas, Media, The World, Women, Words, Working
Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Thursday, 06 November 2008

Does the gender of lawmakers matter to YOU?

Just got a post-election e-mail from the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics, which had also hit me with releases a number of times before Tuesday. Here's the gist:

Congratulations to all of the brave female candidates running in South Carolina and their support teams. Women made progress in the South Carolina House of Representatives, increasing their numbers from 13 to 17, though still down from a peak of 20 in 1992. Women were elected across South Carolina to local offices including solicitor and the first female mayor for Cayce, Elise Partin.

While South Carolina women offered for federal, state and local offices in record numbers during the 2008 election cycle, fewer than hoped succeeded at the polls in November.

The list of winners includes 10 incumbent representatives and 6 newcomers:

Candidate Seat Party
Anne Peterson-Hutto
Chandra Dillard
Deborah Long
Cathy Harvin*
Gilda Cobb-Hunter*
Jenny Horne
Joan Brady*
Nikki Haley*
Rita Allison
Shannon Erickson*
Vida Miller*
Wendy Nanney
J. Anne Parks*
Laurie Slade Funderburk*
Patsy G. Knight*
Annette D. Young*
Denny Neilson*
House District 115
House District 23
House District 45
House District 64
House District 66
House District 94
House District 78
House District 87
House District 36
House District 124
House District 108
House District 22
House District 12
House District 52
House District 97
House District 98
House District 56
D
D
R
D
D
R
R
R
R
R
D
R
D
D
D
R
D

The Challenges Ahead

No women were elected to the South Carolina Senate, returning that chamber to an all-male bastion not seen in more than 30 years. South Carolina is also the only state in the nation lacking women in its senate.

The Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics, a non-profit organized to attract, encourage and train women to run and win, delivered hundreds of thousands of email messages about available candidates in an effort to create visibility for female candidates. Biographies and responses to specific questions were posted on the Institute's website to help educate South Carolina voters regarding choices.

Members of the Institute's board of directors vowed to move into the 2010 and 2012 election cycles aggressively, beginning with recruitment and training as early as February, 2009.


Support the Institute. Become a member today.
Interested in future training events? Tell us about it.

And I find myself wondering. Does it make a difference to YOU that there are no women in the Senate, or that there are four more in the House? If so, why? If not, why not?

I ask because I just don't generally think in these terms. If the best candidate is a woman that's who we endorse. If not, we don't. We certainly wouldn't choose a candidate BECAUSE she's a woman, any more than we'd reject her on that basis. Nikki Haley was a stronger candidate that Ed Gomez. Margaret Gamble was strong, but not as strong as Nikki Setzler. Based on the evidence, I guess you'd say we're more likely to endorse a candidate on the basis of whether his/her name is "Nikki," rather than gender.

Gender doesn't matter any more than party, in terms of determining which is the better candidate.

Not that I don't believe men and women are different. I noticed a while back that they are. In fact, when folks try to equate gender issues to race issues, I tend to object by saying, "Boys and girls are different; black people and white people are not." I'm not arguing necessarily for doing like Will Stockdale in "No Time for Sergeants" and saying I don't notice whether it's a man or a wawmun; I just see a lieutenant.

But I'm not recalling offhand when gender ever caused me to pick one candidate over another.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 04:44 PM in 2008 S.C., Elections, Legislature, South Carolina, Women
Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Thursday, 30 October 2008

The Flame of Alaska?

The things you learn about candidates from reading their books. Despite the length of those columns I wrote after reading Barack Obama's and John McCain's chronicles of their early years, obviously there was much I didn't have room to get into, including a lot of stuff that each candidate's respective detractors like to point to.

Obama had his dope-smoking years, a period of rebellion in which I think he was self-consciously trying to emulate Malcolm X in his wild, self-destructive period -- although being careful not to go too far, of course. (We both read the Autobiography in high school in Hawaii. I found it interesting; Obama saw it briefly as a guide to being a "black man in America," something he had to practice to learn.)

John McCain, having been a Naval Aviator, was less inhibited. He had Marie, the Flame of Florida. And others; that name just stood out. She apparently was an exotic dancer who performed for the fliers at Trader John's, their favorite Pensacola after-hours locale. Ensign McCain dated her for awhile. She was "a remarkably attractive girl with a great sense of humor." He made the mistake once of taking her on an impulse to a party given by a married officer. (The single junior officers seldom socialized with the married couples. There was a good reason for this.) She was "a good sport" about it, but was clearly out of place among the Eastern Establishment-educated wives:

The young wives she was about to meet would be decorously attired and unfailingly genteel. Marie was dressed somewhat flamboyantly that evening, as was her custom.
... Marie sensed that the young wives, while certainly not rude to her, were less than entirely at ease in her presence. So she sat silent, not wishing to impose on anyone or intrude in the conversations going on around her. After a while, she must have become a little bored. So, quietly, she reached into her purse, withdrew a switchblade, popped open the blade, and, with a look of complete indifference, began to clean her fingernails.
... A short time later, recognizing that our presence had perhaps subdued the party, I thanked our hosts for their hospitality, bid goodbye to the others, and took my worldly, lovely Flame of Florida to dinner.

I like that line, "as was her custom..."

Kathleen Parker believes the crusty old sailor who once romanced the Flame of Florida had a similar motivation for choosing Sarah Palin -- another remarkably attractive girl with a great sense of humor -- to go with him to the party those Republican stiffs held up in St. Paul. Only this time, the date was the hit of the party. They particularly liked the part where she took out her switchblade and sliced and diced the Community Organizer with it.

But perhaps we're reading too much into this.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:50 PM in 2008 Presidential, Books, Character, John McCain, Military, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Women
Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack

Monday, 27 October 2008

Photos I did NOT use with 'Palin and sexual attraction' column

Palinsex1
B
eing a responsible editor and all, I resisted the temptation to choose any of these pictures when I was looking for art to go with Kathleen Parker's column on the theory that McCain picked Palin because... well, because guys can't think straight in the presence of a good-looking woman.

An excerpt from the column in question:

As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn’t mind having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palinsex2Palin tells crowds that he is “exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief.” This, notes Draper, “seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party faithful.”

It is entirely possible that no one could have beaten the political force known as Barack Obama — under any circumstances. And though it isn’t over yet, it seems clear that McCain made a tragic, if familiar, error under that sycamore tree. Will he join the pantheon of men who, intoxicated by a woman’s power, made the wrong call?

Had Antony not fallen for Cleopatra, Octavian might not have captured the Roman Empire. Had Bill resisted Monica, Al Gore may have become president and Hillary might be today’s Democratic nominee.

Palinsex3But they didn't -- resist those women, that is. Guys seldom do. Certain things make us stupid, and Kathleen maintains this was one of those things.

Hey, but at least I resisted using these pictures, right? That shows that there's still such a thing as decorum in a family newspaper.

Of course, I did save them, to share with y'all. Don't tell the ladies, though, guys...

Palinsex4

Posted by Brad Warthen at 03:50 PM in 2008 Presidential, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Science, Today on our opinion pages, Women, Working
Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 21 October 2008

p.m. is wrong about Tina Fey

Sometimes p.m. -- a.k.a. Weldon VII -- and I agree on things, but I've got to him he's totally wrong withFeytina this recent comment:

Palin is a lot better looking than Fey, bud, at least when Fey tries to look like Palin. I noticed that when they were on stage together briefly. The actress herself might not have wanted to face Palin alone.

No, this blog isn't going to turn into one of those that puts up pictures of babes from the pop culture in order to artificially inflate its traffic. But I thought someone should stick up for the lady in question, shown at right as herself. And yeah, I know you said "as Palin," but still. No doubt Ms. Fey is better-looking as herself than Ms. Palin would be as Fey.

You know what, I'm just thinking I'm going to get it trouble on this either way. Being gentlemen about it, let us just say they are both quite presentable.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 05:07 PM in Popular culture, Sarah Palin, Women
Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Holding my breath

Sometimes as I'm making my way through the scores, often hundreds, of e-mails I get in a day, I sometimes wonder who the people sending me some of these press releases think is going to be interested?

An example:

Economists Grade Presidential Candidates
A to F on 10 Issues Vital to Women

 
Audio Press Conference This Thursday, Oct. 23

A network of more than 40 economists from across America have graded McCain and Obama on 10 issues vital to women, from taxes to retirement security and pay equity. 

Noting the importance of economic issues in a time of financial crisis, the report finds the candidates’ stands on several issues give valuable insights into how they would handle the crisis.  The report card also gives an overall composite grade.

AUDIO PRESS CONFERENCE

Economists' Policy Group for Women's Issues

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23

1 PM EASTERN TIME

SPEAKERS
Professor Nancy Folbre, Chair.  University of Massachusetts Amherst; staff economist, Centre for Popular Economics; author Family Time: The Social Organization of Care and Who Pays for the Kids?; MacArthur fellowship for pioneering work in economics.
Professor Randy Albelda.  University of Massachusetts Boston; Vice-President, International Association for Feminist Economics; coauthor Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits:  Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty and Unlevel Playing Fields:  Understanding Wage Inequality and Wage Discrimination. 
Professor Robert Drago.  Pennsylvania State University and University of Melbourne;  co-founder and chair of Take Care Net; past president, College and University Work-Family Association; moderator, Workfam newsgroup; past Senior Fulbright Research Scholar; author of four books, including Striking a Balance, and over 70 articles.
Dr. Lois B. Shaw.  Senior consulting economist, Institute for Women’s Policy Research; previous research positions, U.S. General Accounting Office and Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research; co-editor Warm Hands in Cold Age: Gender and Aging.
     # # #

I mean, I saw the headline and actually scrolled down to satisfy my extremely low level of curiosity as to what a group of feminist economists or whatever choose to say in connection with such a publicity stunt. And if I weren't a blogger always on the lookout for the offbeat, I wouldn't even have done that.

Then I saw that they were merely trying to whet my appetite for something coming up on Thursday.

Come ON, people! Who is going to put this on a calendar and tune in two days from now??? Who is sitting there thinking, Golly, I wonder which candidate will get the higher grades?

Posted by Brad Warthen at 02:05 PM in 2008 Presidential, E-mail of the Day, Economics, Marketplace of ideas, Women
Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack

Friday, 03 October 2008

Sarah's gams, or, Our nation's descent into fetishism

Vice_presidential_deb_wart4

The last few weeks, I've noticed a kind of image moving on the AP wire that I don't recall having run across in the annals of photojournalism vis-a-vis presidential campaigns.

Each time I see one of these, I go, Vice_presidential_deb_wart2 "legs!," because, well, that's the sort of thing I notice. But then, trying to explain what on Earth caused a photo editor to post these (I understand fully why the photographer shot them, but it seems to me more like the sort of thing he would keep to himself, or just share with the guys), I think, "It's gotta be the shoes." I figure maybe there's a fashion angle to which I am oblivious. That would be acceptable to women, and therefore the sort of thing an editor might dare to post. I mean, I've read that Sarah Palin has had an impact on the eyewear industry; maybe there's something special about her shoes to which I am oblivious.

But nope; it's not about the shoes. In fact, no excuse is offered for shooting Sarah Palin in a way that it would never occur to the photog to shoot Joe Biden. Here's the caption:

Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, stands at the lectern during her vice presidential debate Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008, in St. Louis, Mo. (AP Photo/Don Emmert, Pool)

I guess, despite all these decades of being bludgeoned by the sensitivity crowd, boys will still be boys. I mean, I knew that, but most of us don't SHOW it show so blatantly.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 11:51 AM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, Media, Sarah Palin, Women
Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBack

Breathless over Sarah, but not the way Kathleen Parker meant it

Vice_presidential_deb_wart

You may recall that in my commentary on Kathleen Parker's "Palin-should-drop-out" column, I wrote:

Kathleen is able to cite her initial defense of Sarah, then her breathless tension watching her and hoping she wouldn't screw up. And that's something I can't possibly identify with -- worrying about someone's performance because I'm a member of the same demographic. Maybe I'm too self-centered. But I have had to accept that black folks do that with Obama, and women do that with Hillary Clinton and/or Sarah Palin, depending on their proclivities. When I see a white guy out there succeeding or failing, he's on his own as far as I'm concerned. I might agree with him or I might not, but it won't have anything to do with which restroom he uses or what boxes he checks off on a census form.

Well, I found myself breathless at times during the debate -- whenever Mrs. Palin was speaking -- and was really glad when the whole thing was over. But it wasn't because I wanted to see a woman succeed. And it wasn't because I wanted to see McCain's running mate succeed (his choice of Mrs. Palin is one of the few things about McCain I disapprove of). And it wasn't because she's a babe. (even though she was cute, when she wasn't grating.)

No, it was that phenomenon that comes over me when I'm watching a movie or a TV show, and something's about to happen that will be enormously embarrassing to the character on the screen, and even if you don't like the character (although it's worse if they're likable), you cringe, because you don't want to see it. You get embarrassed for the human race; you empathize no matter how much you try not to, and it's painful.

And the awful part is that you see it coming. Often at such moments, I leave the room. Life is painful enough without having your nose rubbed in contrived discomfort.

As I was typing the above, I was struggling to come up with an example, but one just hit me: I've never watched the American version of "The Office," but I'm a big fan of the BBC original. I say that in spite of the fact that the entire second season was just excruciating; David Brent got worse and worse. But in that case, I had to keep watching.

I had to keep watching the debate, too, on account of it being my job. But in the end, it went fine for all concerned. But I was tired, from all the breath-holding.

Vice_presidential_deb_wart3

Posted by Brad Warthen at 10:28 AM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, Popular culture, Sarah Palin, Women, Working
Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack

Friday, 26 September 2008

Kathleen Parker says Palin should drop out

I thought y'all might want your attention drawn to the Kathleen Parker column on today's page (our first syndicated column in the hallowed space previously reserved to editorial board members) in which she concludes:

What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

But you should really go read it and see how she gets there. Wanting to make sure readers did that, I didn't put the slam-bang conclusion in the headline. I DID put it in THIS headline, on account of the blog being all about provoking discussion.

An interesting thing about the column: Like Nixon going to China, you sort of needed a "conservative" (which I put in quotes because that oversimplifies Kathleen, but in this context it's about widespread perception) woman to say this, assuming it needed saying. Sort of like nobody but fellow veterans could have criticized John Kerry's service in the war.

Kathleen is able to cite her initial defense of Sarah, then her breathless tension watching her and hoping she wouldn't screw up. And that's something I can't possibly identify with -- worrying about someone's performance because I'm a member of the same demographic. Maybe I'm too self-centered. But I have had to accept that black folks do that with Obama, and women do that with Hillary Clinton and/or Sarah Palin, depending on their proclivities. When I see a white guy out there succeeding or failing, he's on his own as far as I'm concerned. I might agree with him or I might not, but it won't have anything to do with which restroom he uses or what boxes he checks off on a census form.

That's why it took Kathleen to write this piece. For my part, I haven't had any particular expectations of Mrs. Palin. Y'all know what I thought when I first saw her, and all she had to do was give a reasonably competent convention speech to exceed my expectations.

But that's me. What do you think?

Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:08 PM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, Marketplace of ideas, Sarah Palin, The State, Today on our opinion pages, Women
Permalink | Comments (60) | TrackBack

Thursday, 11 September 2008

Carol Fowler: An uptick explained

Before I left the office last night, I glanced at my stats page in Typepad and noticed something odd: I was getting a lot of hits from Google on a year-old post headlined "Carol Fowler and the Dark Side" (which, now that I look back at it, was an odd headline for the subject).

Later that night, I realized why -- the quote from Ms. Fowler on Politico. Sheesh. What a bunch of nothing -- my post last year was more interesting.

Folks, compared to the usual overheated rhetoric from Democrats of a certain persuasion about those ofFowlercarol us who oppose abortion, this was nothing. When I heard the quote on TV (my wife watches TV news, even local "if it bleeds it leads" TV news, usually when I'm not in the room; but there I was trapped in my recliner holding a grandbaby and begging somebody to pop in a DVD -- I ended up staying up way too late to rewatch "The Graduate"), I thought sure it would be something provocative. When I heard, "Choosing someone whose primary qualification seems to be that she has...," I thought the next thing would be a reference to some distinguishing feature of female anatomy. But when I then heard, "...n’t had an abortion," I could not freaking believe that someone was making an issue of it.

Come on, folks -- at least what Don said was offensive, and I was fairly dismissive of that meaning anything, either. As any rational person who knows the way human beings talk with friends would be.

Anyway, that explains the uptick in interest over Carol Fowler. Again, sheesh.

And again, I will urge the partisans: Get over it. Democrats, quit your whining about "Swiftboating," which, I'm sorry to tell you, is not a real word, much less something for you to keep wetting your pants about, expecting the GOP to do it to you at any minute. That "quit picking on me" pose doesn't work on anybody but your whiniest base. (And Barack, dismissing the GOPpers for acting hurt about "lipstick," then whining yourself about "Swiftboating" is about as petty as I've heard you get.)

And Repubicans, get over your crying about the lipstick and the Fowler remark and the mean media and the pregnant daughter and the rest.

And then let's try to have a grownup election, OK?

Posted by Brad Warthen at 09:55 AM in 2008 Presidential, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Kulturkampf, Media, Parties, Republicans, Sarah Palin, South Carolina, Spin Cycle, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBack

Thursday, 04 September 2008

The Hug

Hug1
Y
es, I know what you were thinking when John McCain and Sarah Palin hugged on stage last night: Does this mean she's got Bush cooties now?

That's not what you were thinking? Well, what then? Surely you were thinking something.

You say it didn't strike you as worth thinking about? Then you're just not trying. Someone on PBS last night -- I forget which of the talking heads -- DID see it as fraught with meaning. It was noted that Walter Mondale scrupulously avoided hugging Geraldine Ferraro during the 1984 campaign. The point being, apparently, look how far we've come, yadda-yadda...

Here's what I was thinking: I noted the expression on Gov. Palin's face. It seemed to say, "Yeah, OK, I've got to hug this guy; it's expected. But I don't have to like it. And don't get any ideas, buster..."

Or something along those lines. I admit, my ability to read minds isn't perfect. But I'm pretty sure she wasn't delighted.

In any case, it's an expression I haven't seen on her face at any other time, so far.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:30 PM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin, The Nation, Total Trivia, Women, Write your own caption
Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 03 September 2008

Please don't tell me there are people who think Palin's daughter is an 'issue'

A day or so after John McCain announced his choice of Sarah Palin, sometime over that long weekend, I remarked to someone that her great disadvantage was that she was a blank slate, and the Very First Thing she said -- that is, the very first thing anyone focused on -- would be blown out of all proportion and define her for the rest of the campaign, if not the rest of her life.

Joe Biden -- or Joe Lieberman, or McCain, or anyone we've known, or think we've known, for years -- can say something outrageous, and we'll set it alongside all the other things we know he's said or done, and it won't be a make or break thing (and the reason Joe B. came first to mind is that one of the things we know about ol' Joe, from long experience, is that he has a penchant for saying things that some regard as outrageous).

Not so with Sarah P. The first thing she says or does that makes an impression -- which hasn't happened yet -- will fill up the vacuum in her "conventional wisdom" dossier.

Therefore, the stakes for her speech tonight would be extremely high. And so it should be; we don't have years to get to know her.

Of course, I reckoned without the idiocy of the 24/7 TV "news" spin machine. It has to have something to masticate EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, and whatever it's chewing at a given moment is by its foolish definition THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD, so it couldn't possibly wait until her speech Wednesday night.

If she had made the mistake of saying sometime since Friday that she doesn't like the color blue, THAT would be the object of endless, fascinated conjecture, "analysis" and "judgment" by the talking heads: How could she not like blue? What sort of person is this? Everybody likes blue -- all Americans, anyway. And what hypocrisy to be running with a Navy man, not liking blue! Or will she now claim, implausibly, that it's only SKY blue that she dislikes? Watch for campaign releases claiming that she's always liked NAVY blue...

And so forth. The cable TV talking heads make me think of Ford Prefect's theory about Earthlings: "If they don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working."

So yesterday -- or the day before; I get all confused in weeks that contain holidays -- we heard that Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant. To which I responded -- to myself -- Uh-huh. Well, I'm sure that's been hard for them. And then I continued with my life, waiting for someone to say something that actually had any bearing whatsoever on this young woman's suitability to be vice president.

But, apparently because her speech wasn't until tonight, the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter, of all absurd things, was dubbed an "issue" worthy of discussion, and even more implausibly, sufficient grist for snap conclusions as to Sarah Palin's viability as a candidate. And yet it's not even anything that I had deemed relevant (OR appropriate) to discuss on the blog, and as y'all know, I don't have a high standard for such things.

Yes, I know; I should have expected this. Yet I was actually surprised when I picked up newspapers this morning and read that the McCain campaign (which had known about the pregnancy, the husband's DUI, etc., and didn't think any more of it than I did) was actually having to COPE with this "issue," that it was causing consternation throughout the GOP convention, yadda-yadda.

Oh, come ON, people! Get a freakin' life!

Get back to me when you have something of substance to say about this woman...

Posted by Brad Warthen at 09:58 AM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, Joe Biden, John McCain, Kulturkampf, Media, Parties, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Spin Cycle, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (77) | TrackBack

Saturday, 30 August 2008

You know who Sarah Palin reminds me of?

Palinbw

Those of you who did not like my referring to Sarah Palin as a "babe" yesterday probably won't enjoy this post, either. But I am honor-bound to be honest with you, my readers. Also, I have a journalistic duty to tell y'all as much as possible about a candidate about whom so little is known, even if it's based on nothing but my overactive imagination.

I had never before seen a picture of Sarah Palin, and yet from the first moment I saw her, she looked familiar. Did she to you? If so, you're dating myself. It's not so much that Gov. Palin looks like a particular individual. But she's a dead-ringer for a stock character that frequently appeared in sit-coms back in the '50s and '60s. If you're my age, you've seen that character dozens of times.

Here's a summary of a "Beverly Hillbillies" episode which featured that character (I've bold-faced the relevant part):

It’s Spring Tonic time, and Granny hands it around to the family, giving Jed a double dose because he made a mean comment on it. Meanwhile, at the bank, the secretary Gloria Buckles, who has worked on the Clampett account, has said she can take the paper work to Jed. When she gets up there, she transforms herself from a plain secretary to a gorgeous one, with her sights set on Jed’s money. She flirts with Jed, telling him that she needs a mountain man to make her happy. The family is worried about this young gold digger, and the fact that Jed has had a double dose of tonic. They call Drysdale and he rushes over, not recognizing Gloria. She reveals that her and Jed have discussed marriage, and when questioned, Jed says it is true. Gloria asks when they should set the date, and Jed says a few years, because that is when Jethro will be of marrying age. Jethro runs off with Gloria, and Jane runs after them to get her man back. Elly asks her father why he doesn’t want to marry her, and he says you have to start worrying when the bait starts chasing you.

Do you recognize her now? Yes, she's the frumpy secretary who first appears in a conservative business outfit, wearing glasses, with her hair tied up on top of her head, who, at a critical moment in the plot, suddenly removes her jacket, whips off the glasses and lets her hair come tumbling down, and immediately looks like Miss America.

Of course -- and this was the really cheesy thing about this plot device -- she looked like Miss America when you first saw her, just Miss America with glasses and her hair done up. I never could decide whether the sitcom writers really thought America was stupid enough to be surprised by this plot device, or whether we were supposed to see through it, and see the transformation-to-glamour coming -- you know, so that the folks at home would say, "I know what's going to happen -- watch this!"

That's what made me realize that's who Gov. Palin reminded me of. She IS beautiful, obviously so, and the specs and the tied-up hair are simply devices meant to say to us, "I'm serious; I'm not just a babe; you can vote for me."

The bad thing about this is that on some level, deep down, some of us who grew up on 50s and 60s TV are thinking, "This is gonna be good -- watch this!" (And subconsciously, we're expecting a scene in which she suddenly lets her hair down and removes the glasses, and of course, Cindy McCain walks in at that moment and says, "John! Who is THIS?" and a befuddled McCain goes "Hominahominahomina," and the laugh track plays.) Or maybe that's the GOOD thing, in terms of keeping voters interested in the ticket. I don't know.

By the way, I couldn't find a picture to illustrate what I was talking about, but here's video of the relevant part of the Beverly Hillbillies episode. The transformation of Gloria Buckles occurs toward the end of the first part:


LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

Posted by Brad Warthen at 07:49 PM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, John McCain, Popular culture, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Total Trivia, Women
Permalink | Comments (49) | TrackBack

Friday, 29 August 2008

Choosing Sarah Palin

Mccain_veepstakes_pal_wart

Folks, I'm absolutely swamped, this being Friday morning, but I thought I'd give those of you with the time a place to discuss McCain's choice of ... let me go check her name again... Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Here are some conversation-starters:

  • One thing's for sure, I don't have any video to share with you of Gov. Palin. Never met the woman.
  • For a brief moment this morning, I thought maybe Bobby Jindal was back on the short list, when I saw this piece by him in the WSJ. (I know that's not logical, but the human mind is susceptible to the suggestion of coincidences.) That would have been cool, because it would have made the two tickets perfectly symmetrical -- McCain playing the role of Biden on the GOP ticket, and Jindal (young, charismatic, ethnic) playing Obama.
  • Do you think McCain made a big mistake not beefing up his ticket's economic cred with Romney?
  • Not that I want to attach a lot of importance to her gender, but it would seem that McCain is really, really serious about going after those disaffected Hillary voters, the ones who took HER gender very, very seriously.
  • Where's Wayne Campbell when you need him for expert commentary on whether she, if elected, would qualify as the first babe to be a heartbeat from the presidency?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 10:22 AM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, John McCain, Parties, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Spin Cycle, Talk amongst yourselves, The Nation, This just in..., Women
Permalink | Comments (134) | TrackBack

Thursday, 28 August 2008

Robert's 'sexist' cartoon

Hillarys_delegates
R
obert's in trouble now! He mentioned to me a few minutes ago the negative attention his cartoon from yesterday about Hillary and Barack has garnered, particularly on a blog called "Feminist Law Professors."

That blog took time out from considering "Which Wine Should I Bring To A Party At My Dean’s House?," a post that demonstrates at least a sense of humor of a sort, to bristle over "Political 'Humor' in the South Carolina MSM," which features Robert's cartoon. It was filed under the category, "Sexism in the Media."

Key commentary from that blog:

That’s the same cartoonist that produced this and this and this and this.

Now I invite your commentary...

Posted by Brad Warthen at 03:57 PM in 2008 Presidential, Barack Obama, Blogosphere, Elections, Feedback, Hillary Clinton, Media, Talk amongst yourselves, The State, Women
Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

But I thought they were AGAINST brassieres (which shows how little I know)

Did anyone else do a double-take this morning upon reading the news about the woman who was extremely indignant about the scrutiny she received after the underwire in her full-figure bra set off the metal detector?

No, there weren't any pictures. And yes, I thought of Jane Russell, too, but that's probably unfair either to Nancy Kates (the lady in question) or Ms. Russell.... Anyway, back to the subject at hand... Hey! Boys! Over this way... Pay attention...

Ms. Kates said she would "talk to her family lawyer as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women and decide how to pursue the incident."

The ACLU I can understand. But isn't the NOW historically opposed to bra-wearing? Or am I remembering that wrong? Maybe so.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:36 PM in In Our Time, Rule of Law, Travelling, Women
Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Meanwhile, over in the Hillaryverse...


A
s the Clintons prepare to engage in catharsis tonight and tomorrow, it seems fitting to see what's going on over in the alternative universe in which the diehard Hillary supporters live and move and have their being. We've visited it before, but it remains a strange place to the uninitiated, a place where people can say the following without a trace of irony:

Open Letter To SuperDelegates:

Rarely is one person given the opportunity and the responsibility to make a decision which will affect the future of their country. This is indeed such a time. It is as important a decision as the decision that citizens of this country made to revolt against the British government. It is as important a time as the moment that John Hancock decided to prominently sign his name, knowing that his signature would be considered treason punishable by death. Soon, each superdelegate will make a decision that will irrevocably usher in a time of corruption and political cheating or prosperity and a stable productive government. Such is the choice you have before you: whether to nominate Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Barack Obama has no substantial experience in government, no distinguished voting record, and no history of patriotic service to this country. Further, he has no leadership experience, having accomplished little during his tenure in Illinois or the Senate. His only experience is as a community organizer, a woefully inadequate preparation for the presidency. However, due to positive exposure from the media and the DNC, he has managed to catapult himself beyond far more qualified candidates. Further, he won many delegates from caucuses, a troublesome sign given that widespread caucus cheating has been documented and caucuses do not fairly represent the will of the voters. He has alienated key groups of traditionally Democratic voters. Do not be lulled into thinking that new younger voters will compensate for such voters, as they represent a huge block of moderate voters who elected Bill Clinton president. Do not think that empty phrases of change and hope can substitute for hard-core experience and a love of this country. Barack Obama's only agenda is to get elected. He neither knows how to run this country or to be loyal to it. His loyalty is to himself alone, and to the goal of being elected president.

Hillary Clinton has substantial experience and a desire to do what is right and good for this country. While the media and the DNC abandoned her, she stood firm and strong, propelled by the loyalty and needs of eighteen million citizens. With her perseverance and policy knowledge, she demonstrated that she can lead this country while she weathered adversity and stood alone against the media and the political establishment...

Really. You can find that at justsaynodeal.com. But there is more. There is, as I say, a whole universe to explore -- a universe where IT'S NOT OVER:

  • You can, for instance, find that Obama "was registered as a Muslim in Indonesia" from the video above, at hillaryclintonnews.blogspot.com.
  • Or read denunciations of the "Democratic National Coronation" at hireheels.com (motto: "We adore shoes, but we love Hillary," which at least shows the ability to poke fun at oneself).
  • Or read that "McCain Gets It" at hillaryorbust.com.

Here's a longer list of such sites. Enjoy.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:48 PM in 2008 Presidential, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Kulturkampf, Out There, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

Friday, 15 August 2008

What the Capital City Club did for Columbia (column version)

Yep, once again, my column today was something you've read before here. In fact, the earlier blog version was more complete -- I couldn't fit all that into the paper today.

But there is something new to mention on the subject, which is to urge you to watch for Clif LeBlanc's follow-up story to the one he wrote that appeared on our front page Wednesday. The folo will be in the paper Sunday (or so I'm told), and it will address the question that  has occurred to me a number of times in the years since the Capital City Club opened Columbia's private club world to minorities and women:

Just how open ARE the rest of the Midlands' clubs today?

I look forward to reading it.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:31 PM in Columns, Coming Attractions, Leadership, Midlands, Race, South Carolina, Southern discomfort, The State, Today on our opinion pages, Women
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

My remarks to the Capital City Club

You may have read Clif LeBlanc's story today about the Capital City Club's 20th anniversary, and why that's of some importance to our community.

As, in Hunter Howard's words, "the unofficial chairman of the 'Breakfast Club'" -- and yes, I eat there most mornings, as Doug can attest from having been my guest -- I was asked to comment on what I thought the club meant to the community. That meant showing up at 7:30 this morning (WAY before my usual time) to address the rather large crowd gathered there to mark the anniversary.

Some folks asked for copies of my remarks. In keeping with my standard policy of not wanting to spend time writing anything that doesn't get shared with readers, I reproduce the speech below:

    So much has been said here this morning, but I suppose as usual it falls to the newspaper guy to bring the bad news:
    The Capital City Club is an exclusive club. By the very nature of being a club, of being a private entity, it is exclusive.
    There are those who are members, and those who are not. And even if you are a member, there are expectations that you meet certain standards. Just try being seated in the dining room without a jacket. And folks, in a country in which a recent poll found that only 6 percent of American men still wear a tie to work every day, a standard like that is pretty exclusive.
    But it is the glory of the Capital City Club that it changed, and changed for the better, what the word “exclusive” meant in Columbia, South Carolina.
    Once upon a time — and not all that long ago — “exclusive” had another meaning. It was a meaning that in one sense was fuzzy and ill-defined, but the net effect of that meaning was stark and obvious. And it was a meaning by no means confined to Columbia or to South Carolina.
    Its effect was that private clubs — the kinds of private clubs that were the gathering places for people who ran things, or decided how things would be run — did not have black members, or Jewish members, or women as members. Not that the clubs necessarily had any rules defining that sense of “exclusive.” It was as often as not what was called a “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which was the title of a 1947 film about the phenomenon.
    Forty years after that film was released, good people in Columbia were distressed to look around them and see the effects of such agreements in our community. A black executive originally from Orangeburg, who thought he was going home when his company sent him here, was unable to do his job because he could not get into a private club. It was noticed that for the first time in recent history, a commanding general at Fort Jackson was not extended a courtesy membership by a local club. He was Jewish. More and more such facts were reported in the pages of The Columbia Record in the mid-’80s. The clips I’ve read were written by my colleague Clif LeBlanc, who is here this morning.
    These stories mostly ran before I came home to South Carolina to work at The State in April 1987, so I can claim no credit for them.
    As editorial page editor of The State, I can tell you that the unstated policies of private clubs are an unusual, and even uncomfortable, topic for journalists. The reason we write about government and politics so much is that we feel completely entitled and empowered to hold them fully accountable, and we have no problem saying they must do this, or they must not do that. But whether a private club votes to admit a particular private citizen or not is something else altogether. You can’t pass a state law or a local ordinance to address the problem, not in a country that enshrines freedom of association in its constitution. (I hope the attorneys present will back me up on that -- we seem to have several in attendance.)
    But the Record did everything a newspaper could and should do — it shone a light on the problem. What happened next depended upon the private consciences of individuals.
     A group of such individuals decided that the only thing to do was to change the dynamic, by starting a new kind of club. One of those individuals was my predecessor at the newspaper, Tom McLean, who would be known to that new club as member number 13.
    I spoke to Tom just yesterday about what happened 20 years ago, and Tom was still Tom. He didn’t want anybody setting him up as some sort of plaster saint, or hero, or revolutionary.
    He wanted to make sure that he was not portrayed as some sort of crusader against the existing private clubs at the time. As he noted, he and other founders were members of some of those clubs.
    What he and the other founders did oppose — and he said this more than once, and I notice the statement made its way into Clif’s story this morning — was, and I quote:
    “Arbitrary, categorical exclusion based on race, religion or gender.”
    Yes, there was a moral imperative involved, but it was also common sense. It was also a matter of that hallowed value of the private club, personal preference. Tom, and Carl Brazell, and Shelvie Belser, and I.S. Leevy Johnson and Don Fowler and the rest all chose to be members of a club that did not practice the kind of arbitrary exclusion that they abhorred.
    And here’s the wonderful thing about that, what Tom wanted to make sure I understood was the main thing: By making this private, personal decision for themselves, they changed their community.
    Once one club became inclusive, other clubs quickly followed suit. Something that no law could have accomplished happened with amazing rapidity.
    The measure of the Capital City Club’s success is that the thing that initially set it apart became the norm.
    I’m like Tom in that I’m not here to say anything against those other clubs today, now that they are also inclusive. But the reason I was asked to speak to you this morning was to share with you the reason that if I’m going to belong to a club, this one will always be my choice:
    It’s the club that exists for the purpose of being inclusive, the club that changed our community for the better.
    I’m proud to be a member of the first club to look like South Carolina — like an unusually well dressed South Carolina, but South Carolina nevertheless.

What a written speech doesn't communicate is my efforts to punch up the recurring joke about the club's dress code, such as my lame attempt to do the David Letterman shtick where he pulls on his lapels to make his tie wiggle. I did that when citing the Gallup poll. Then, on that last line, I looked around at the assembled audience, which was VERY well dressed. It was a way of saying, "Don't y'all look nice," while at the same time gently teasing them about it.

After all, those of you who are in the 94 percent who have put the anachronistic practice of wearing neckties behind you probably think the whole thing is pretty silly -- a bunch of suits getting together to congratulate themselves on how broadminded they are.

But you're wrong to think that, because of the following: Such clubs exist. They existed in the past, and they will exist in the future. People who exercise political and economic power in the community gather there to make decisions. They have in the past, and will in the future. Until the Capital City Club came into being, blacks and Jews and women were not admitted to those gatherings. Now, thanks to what my former boss Tom and the others did, they are -- at Cap City, and at other such clubs.

And that's important.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 06:16 PM in Business, Ecodevo, Midlands, Race, South Carolina, Speechifying, Women
Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

Hillary's 'catharsis:' You mean she was SERIOUS about that?


A
couple of days ago when George Will made his snide reference to "what 'catharsis' is 'owed' to disappointed Clintonites," I thought he was just being, well, snide. It apparently escaped me at the time that the word "catharsis" was in quotation marks (meaning, to those of you who are punctuation challenged, that it was a direct quote).

Then, in the Maureen Dowd column I chose for tomorrow's paper, there was another reference to it. So I looked around, and sure enough, it seems that Hillary has been going around talking about how part of the upcoming convention should be devoted to letting her supporters vent about how ticked off they still are. And apparently, she has used the word, "catharsis."

This is needed, you see, to deal with all that "incredible pent-up desire" out there. See the video above.

They're serious about this, serious as a crutch. No sense of irony or self-mocking here. There's even a reference to "Greek drama," without any laughter or snorting or anything. Now, in perfect fairness, all this discussion arises from a fairly innocuous question about whether she could be offered, symbolically, as a "favorite daughter" candidate, as in days of yore. (No reference in the question as to which state might offer her thus. New York? Illinois? Arkansas?)

Well, we know there are some rather extreme feelings out there (is it sexist to say "feelings" in this context?) among her most ardent admirers. That's been documented here before.

But acting out at the convention? Couldn't they just have a VPS treatment or a Chill Pill instead? Or maybe a good, stiff drink?

This is weird, folks.

Anyway, Obama was asked about this the other day, and gave a pretty careful (as you might imagine), but pretty direct, answer, to the effect of "No way:"

“I’m letting our respective teams work out the details,” Mr. Obama said. “I don’t think we’re looking for catharsis. I think what we are looking for is energy and excitement about the prospects of changing this country, and I think that people who supported a whole range of different candidates during the primaries are going to come out of that convention feeling absolutely determined that we have to take the White House back.”

It occurs to me as I finish this post that maybe y'all have seen all this on TV "news," which I don't watch, because this is just the kind of pooge they really get into. But in case you were as insulated from the all the passion as I was, I share it now.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 04:20 PM in 2008 Presidential, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Parties, Women
Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Monday, 14 July 2008

'Member'-ship

My Sunday column was originally about 11 inches longer than the published form. One of the first things that went in editing it down was my parenthetical digressions, which are sometimes my favorite parts -- even though they frequently have NOTHING to do with my point.

An example would be the one in the original second paragraph of the column, to wit:

    You did? Are you sure? I just ask because, as a member of the U.S. economy (Can you be a “member of the economy?” I don’t see why not, since everybody these days refers to uniformed military personnel as “members of the military,” as though the Army were the Kiwanis Club or something), I’ve got to tell you that I’m feeling a little understimulated.

It's a little difficult for me to explain why, but this is a pet peeve of mine. I hate hearing of military personnel referred to as "members of the military." It's like calling soldier, sailors or marines fingers or toes (or some even less noble appendage), or comparing them to participants in some private club, which to me seems to denigrate their service in some undefinable way.

Those of you old enough to have a sense of perspective will realize that this is a fairly recent construction. I first started hearing it regularly in the 90s, maybe just after the Gulf War. It's basically yet another awkward attempt to be "gender-inclusive." You tend to hear it as a replacement for the traditional "servicemen." Why we can't say "servicemen and -women" when we mean to include both, I don't know.


Posted by Brad Warthen at 11:24 AM in Deleted Scenes, Kulturkampf, Military, Women, Words
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Monday, 07 July 2008

Apparently, Hillary supporters still really ticked

Of course, I could have written that headline a month ago, and I could probably write it five years from now, and it would likely still be true. Hillary supporters are not people with what we could call a forgiving nature -- even when there's nothing to forgive, let me hasten to add. (These folks have less of a sense of humor than our own Lee Muller, if you can believe it.) Anyway, it's a persistent movement out there.

On the front page of today's WSJ was this story, which contained the following lame attempt to explain just what it is that Hillary supporters are so ticked about:

    The Clinton holdouts are typically most angry about what they say was the media's sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during the campaign. And though few, if any, blame Sen. Obama directly, they fault the Illinois senator and other party leaders for what they say was failing to do enough to stop it....

    Last Wednesday, Daphna Ziman, a prominent Beverly Hills backer of Sen. Clinton, hosted a conference call of some 70 political activists from around the country, spurred by what she and others on the call saw as the media's sexism during the campaign.
    One high-profile example: pundits both on TV and in print referred to Sen. Clinton's laugh as a "cackle." Separately, a joke by comedian Chris Rock comparing the candidate to the knife-wielding madwoman played by Glenn Close in the film "Fatal Attraction" was picked up and parroted by others in the mainstream media.

Really: A "cackle." They're really worked up about stuff like this. For a moment, I thought, "These two WSJ reporters, who are both of the male persuasion, are trying to make fun of the legitimate concerns of the Clinton camp," but then I realized they were doing their best! What those folks are mad about is precisely stuff like this! And they complain about it without smirking or anything.

And poor ol' Obama is supposed to have made Chris Rock stop it. Or something. Don't ask me to explain.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 06:03 PM in 2008 Presidential, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Media, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

Thursday, 19 June 2008

Hillary's diehards: For them, fight goes on

Did you ever sort of suspect that the Hillary Clinton campaign would never give up -- that never-say-dieAp720125012_3 supporters would still be found 40 years from now holed up in a bunker somewhere, like those Japanese soldiers who still wandered out of the jungle on islands in the Pacific for decades after WWII? (Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi, right, was found in 1972 in a Guam jungle, where he had been living on shrimp, fish and nuts -- with the emphasis on "nuts" -- since 1943.)

Yeah, so did I.

Well, we were right. I got a release today from a group called JustSayNoDeal.com, to this effect:

June 18, 2008

MEDIA ALERT

Just Say No Deal Asks Obama Supporters To: “Show Some Class”

Tasteless Behavior Like the Booing of Public Officials Has NO Place in Our Election Process

- Online and Nationwide— JustSayNoDeal.com, a coalition of voters, individual activists, blogs, PACs and grassroots organizations, reacts to the scene on Monday night in Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena when Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm received a deafening chorus of boos at her mention of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Moments later former Vice President Al Gore experienced similar jeering when he referred to Senator John McCain.

Just Say No Deal Coalition members will not tolerate such offensive and disrespectful conduct from supporters of Senator Obama aimed at any individual— whether they be an elected official or a member of the community at large, and the Just Say No Deal organization will not align itself with any candidate that permits this shameful behavior to be exhibited in any forum.

During this lengthy primary process Senator Clinton and many of her 18 million supporters have endured pointedly hurtful behavior and vulgar attacks by unruly and inappropriate backers of Senator Obama in public arenas and in new media outlets. The most prevalent arena of these assaults has been on the most recognized sites within the blogosphere.

Concerned citizens continue to break their silence to express their dissatisfaction with party leaders and the short-circuiting of the nominating process. The Just Say No Deal portal offers those voters a plethora of voting strategies, calls-to-action and blogpostings to guide their general election decision-making. In doing so, they reclaim their voices and vow to Just Say No Deal!

You can, if you wish, take this group at its word that it's just about being fair and polite toward "any individual— whether they be an elected official or a member of the community at large," and believe it's not about Hillary. But you can't do that with some of the sites to which JustSayNoDeal.com provides links, such as:

  • hillaryclintonnews.blogspot.com -- "Want To See Hillary Run As An Independent? Sign the Petition for Hillary to run as an Independent."
  • clintons4mccain.com -- "Malik Obama confirms half-brother BHO raised Muslim."
  • hireheels.com -- "we adore shoes, but we love Hillary"
  • clintondems.com -- "a place where Democrats that feel the DNC and media have acted in bad faith towards the American people can gather to organize, share insights and have their voices be heard"
  • womenforfairpolitics.com -- "a grassroots organization that is reacting to the terrible treatment that Hillary Clinton has received during her historic run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States"
  • writehillaryin.com -- "a website created by Americans, for Americans who refuse to vote for Barack Obama in the General Election. We've had inadequate candidates shoved down our throats before, and we've often fallen in line. NOT THIS TIME. Our feelings may be hurt, but that's not the point. Our principles have been offended. Feelings pass. Principles do not."
  • hillaryorbust.blogspot.com -- "The left has totally become pornogrified and anti-woman. Do I really care that guys on the left want to save the spotted owl, when on the other side of their mouth they are telling me that I, as a woman, only have value to them when I'm wearing a negligee?"
  • typicalpawhitewoman.blogspot.com -- "This is the diary of a typical white woman in PA. I didn't know there was such a thing as a typical white woman or a typical woman, but apparently there is and I am it."

This rich vein just goes on and on -- dozens of such sites. Some of y'all who have more time on your hands than I do should browse through them and share some of the nuggets with the rest of us.

Nobody could make this up. And the thing is, you get the sense the authors of these sites are not really trying to be funny, although many succeed at being Hillaryous.

But don't tell them I said that. Some of these folks seem the type who don't appreciate a little good-natured ribbing.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 10:31 AM in 2008 Presidential, Blogosphere, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Media, Out There, Parties, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 04 June 2008

'Living the gender speech': More on Hillary and 'sexism'

Clinton_2008_wart1
T
his may come as a surprise to you, but there are women out there -- smart, accomplished women (just ask 'em; they've got a Web site and everything) -- who believe that the issue of "Sexism Went Unchallenged During Hillary Campaign."

Who knew? It seemed to me that it kept coming up whether it was relevant or not. But that's just me, and obviously I'm not qualified to judge (just ask these women, they'll tell you). I don't know whether anyone voted against Hillary Clinton because she was a woman. However, I've become convinced by pieces such as this one that there are people out there (generally of the female persuasion) who voted for her because she's a woman, so maybe that means the opposite is also true...

I sort of thought -- as, apparently, does Kathleen Parker, who as near as I can tell is a woman, and therefore entitled to speak on the subject -- that Hillary Clinton isn't getting the nomination because she's Hillary Clinton, not because she is a woman in the generic sense. Ironically, and let's just call this a mystery, she also got as far as she did because she is Hillary Clinton. There seems to be a sort of dynamic equilibrium in being Hillary Clinton -- you're guaranteed to go far, but not beyond a certain point.

But never mind me. Read this exchange in which Lesley Stahl welcomes Cynthia McFadden to "our lineup of wise women." Lesley and Cynthia chat about the previously unchallenged issue of sexism as it applies to Hillary, and then go on to empathize with each other about the ways in which they have been victimized by misogyny, and all sorts of stuff I couldn't possibly understand, being only a guy.

And now, while these ladies discuss such things as whether the media has called sufficient attention to how male candidates look in trousers, I'm just going to tiptoe out of the room, hoping my exit isn't noticed, and see if there's any more beer in the fridge...

Clinton_2008_wart3

Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:38 PM in 2008 Presidential, Hillary Clinton, Media, Women
Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

Monday, 02 June 2008

My wife says I'm a big, fat hypocrite (actually, to be honest, she didn't call me 'fat')

Sex_and_the_city

While I was driving us up to Greenville on Saturday -- meaning that I was a helpless captive at the time -- my wife mentioned having looked at my blog, something she seldom does.

I thought, UH-ohhh, but out loud, I said, "Oh, you did?" I could tell she was about to light into me for something.

Sure enough, she called me a hypocrite for having called "Sex and the City" "trashy," because I watch and enjoy "The Sopranos." (On DVD, that is.) She submitted that there had never been, and never would be, anything in any episode that was anywhere near as bad as the fifth-worst thing that happens in the most family-values-oriented "Sopranos" episode ever produced. (She didn't say it in those words exactly, but that's the gist.)

"Of course, you're right, dear," I said carefully, the way Tony spoke to Carmela at the end of episode 33, "Second Opinion." You remember -- Tony comes home to find Carmela curled up on the couch, and she informs him that they ARE giving $50,000 to Columbia, and he starts to lay down the law, and she tells him again that they ARE giving the 50 Gs to their daughter's college, and Tony wises up and realizes he's being made an offer he can't refuse, and starts try to think of what he can possibly say to get her to stop talking to him like this...

At one point, I did try to assert myself by noting that she watches "The Sopranos" with me -- it actually kind of surprised me when she started watching it with me; I think she got pulled in because she sort of identified with Carmela (and she leaves the room whenever violence seems imminent) -- but this was a tactical mistake on my part. It seems that that was neither here nor there; SHE had not publicly called anything "trashy."

So I thought hard about WHY I had written that post to begin with, and then I remembered, and it seemed exculpatory. So I explained that calling that lovely show with the nice ladies "trashy" had not been MY idea; I was simply reacting to a headline in the WSJ that raised the question of whether "Sex and the City" -- actually, the fashion inspired by "Sex and the City" -- was "empowering" or "trashy." AndLingerie I had just said, of course, it's trashy; isn't that the point? I mean, look at the title. (Extra points question for those who dare: With which program is the picture at right associated? Hint: This is not a dancer from the Bada-Bing!)

Yes, she understood that, but that was no excuse to go on and on in a holier-than-thou way about protecting children from "trash" like this, that a guy who watched all those naked women with their fake boobs at the Bada-Bing! doing nasty and degrading things in between the bloody murders had any room whatsoever to talk about such things. She explained that three of the women on "Sex and the City" are actually looking for love, that there was only one woman on the show who was an actual slut, and she recognizes herself as such, and that in any case sex was nowhere near as bad as violence, and for that matter the sexual content of "Sex and the City" wasn't nearly as horrible and twisted as the sexual content on "The Sopranos." All of which, I'm quite sure, is true.

I sort of tried denying that the dancers at the Bada-Bing! were attractive to me -- which they're not; they're too plastic-looking -- and talked about how necessary it was for the viewer to be reminded how sordid Tony's business was, so that we never start to think that the way he made a living was OK and start sympathizing with him too much, but I was not going to win this argument; it was fixed going in.

Then when we got to Greenville, I found out my sister-in-law had had a rare night away from the kids the night before -- she'd gone to see "Sex and the City." Then this morning, I see a comment from Laurin Manning back on this post, in which she noted with amusement that no women had been a part of the discussion of this year's biggest chick flick.

At which point, it's probably a good idea for all guys present to stick our hands in our pockets, stare at the floor, shrug and go silent. I mean, Whaddaya gonna do?

Sopranos

Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:05 PM in Blogosphere, Confessional, Personal, Popular culture, Women
Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Thursday, 29 May 2008

Of COURSE 'Sex and the City' is trashy; isn't that the point?

Just for a moment, I stopped to glance over this piece in the WSJ today, headlined "The 'Sex' Effect: Empowering To Some, Trashy to Others."

I guess you'd have to put me in the "others" category. What I have to wonder about is how any rational adult with the slightest trace of maturity or propriety -- or, to put it another way, anyone who has daughters -- could see that program (now, I'm told, also a major motion picture) as anything but trashy. (Of course, I have trouble following the reasoning behind a lot of elements of feminism, and "Do-Me Feminism" makes the least sense of all.)

It's hardly alone. On the rare occasions that I stumble across prime-time broadcast fare in recent years, I've run across programs -- from "Friends" to the one with the two gay guys and the woman, the name of which escapes me at the moment -- that seem to be largely devoted to sniggering about sex. (I once heard someone assert that Jennifer Aniston's character, supposedly a girl-next-door sort, had 37 sexual partners during the course of the show. I took the speaker's word for it, although perhaps he was wrong.)

But "Sex and the City" put the point right in the title. And nothing I have ever heard about the show has seemed to contradict the impression the title intentionally gives.

Mind you the point of the article that started me on this reflection was fashion, so it quickly lost me. But I got the gist -- it was about whether or not trashy fashion was a good thing.

We live in a trash culture. We have for a long time. We live in a culture that fights against parents every moment in the never-ending battle to try to raise children who respect themselves and others.

That's the way things are, and as near as I can tell, there are no compelling arguments for any alternative way of looking at it.

People don't usually say this, because they're afraid of being labeled prudes. To hell with that. The truth is staring us all in the face.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 11:24 AM in Media, Popular culture, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBack

Saturday, 24 May 2008

Are Democrats more sexist? Hillary Clinton seems to think so

Democrats_feminists3

Normally, I don't think very hard about things that make little sense, such as the claim by Hillary Clinton that her flagging political fortunes result from "misogyny." Since such claims are not logical, I don't bother carrying them to their "logical conclusions."

That's a mistake on my part, because such an exercise can yield interesting results. Check out this very short op-ed piece in the WSJ this morning, headlined, "Nothing but Misogynists."

It starts out by considering some of her statements along the lines of what I quoted earlier in the week:

"I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I've seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either.... But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists."

It then considers that at the same time she's blaming misogyny for her failures in Democratic contests, she asserts -- in practically the same breath -- that she's "the strongest candidate against John McCain."

So the op-ed piece arrives, quite logically, at this conclusion:

    This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?
    But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.
    It must be so. If American voters of all parties are as sexist as the Democrats, Mr. Obama would have a better chance than Mrs. Clinton of defeating Mr. McCain. The same misogyny that thwarted her in the Democratic primaries would thwart her in the general election. Only if registered Republicans and independents are more open-minded than registered Democrats – only if people who lean GOP or who have no party affiliation are more willing than Democrats to overlook a candidate's sex and vote on the issues – could Mrs. Clinton be a stronger candidate...

Who knew, indeed?

Posted by Brad Warthen at 04:00 PM in 2008 Presidential, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Marketplace of ideas, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Hillary talks about how beastly media men have been to her

Here's an audio clip of Hillary Clinton talking to a Washington Post reporter about the misogynistic treatment she has supposedly received as a candidate, and how "surprised" she was by it.

Mind you, in Hillary's defense -- if I may be so chivalrous without giving offense -- the reporter is really pressing this line of discussion on her, urging her to talk about this treatment that has "really pissed off a lot of women." So it's not like she brought it up. They refer to a column over the weekend by the Post's Marie Cocco detailing men's sins against Hillary, which I gotta tell you I had to go read, because I was really wondering what these two ladies were going on about... Ms. Cocco wrote that when this is all over, she "won't miss" all this misogyny. After reading the list of sins (ranging from Andrew Sullivan down to some unnamed sleazeballs selling tasteless novelty items), I must confess that I did miss them, mostly (I think I did hear the one about "everyone's first wife," secondhand). But then I wasn't looking for them. And I don't watch TV "news."

But given the opportunity, she complains that sexism has been way more of a problem than racism. That lucky duck Obama, huh? You would apparently have known all about this, but we men in the media have been covering it up.

Anyway, if you don't want to follow the link, here's a transcript:

Q. One of the stories that has been well documented over and over again is basically how you've been treated by the media. Can you talk about that a little bit, because I get the idea that it's really pissed off a lot of women.
 
A. "I think it has. I think it's been deeply offensive to millions of women. ... I believe this campaign has been a ground breaker in lots of ways, but it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes that have been forthcoming in the press, and I regret that because I think it's been really not worthy of the seriousness of this campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies that we have here. But I don't really stop to worry about it because there's nothing I can do about it."
 
Q. Are women going to be upset if you don't get the nomination?
 
A. I have more voters now than my opponent. I have more popular vote, more people voting for me.
 
Q. Counting Michigan and Florida?
 
A. According to ABC, and I think it's a fair way to total it up because my name was on the ballot they voted for me. But in any event, it's one of the closest races we've ever had and I think that a lot of people are deeply invested in their candidates, so there will probably be disappointment no matter which of us gets the nomination. And then it will be up to us to unify the party and make sure we are victorious in November against McCain.
 
Q. What's the scenario by which you could still win the nomination?
 
A. If people start asking themselves who's the strongest candidate against John McCain, because I believe I am.
 
Q. Do you think he can win?
 
A. Sure. I think he can win--I think I will win.
 
Q. But short of a scandal on his part do you see people coming to that conclusion?
 
A. I don't know, that's why we're not going to quit. We're going forward. We're going to give the people in the remaining elections the chance to vote, which I think is absolutely fair. And we're going to resolve Michigan and Florida, which has to be done sooner instead of later. And then we'll see where we stand.
 
Q. Do you think this has been a particularly racist campaign?
 
A. I do not. I think this has been a positive, civil campaign. I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I've seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either. The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable or at least more accepted. And I think there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when and if it ever raises its ugly head. But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists.
 
Q. Isn't that how it's always been though.
 
A. Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal. You can go to places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is joined together in their oppression of women. The treatment of women is the single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women, at it's base. The idea that we would have a presidential campaign in which so much of what has occurred that has been very sexist would be just shrugged off I think is a very unfortunate commentary about the lack of seriousness that should be applied to any kind of discrimination or prejudice. I have spent my entire life trying to stand up for civil rights and women's rights and human rights and I abhor wherever it is discrimination is present.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 05:54 PM in 2008 Presidential, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Media, Women
Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBack

Thursday, 01 May 2008

Talk about your cheap thrills...

Robert and I were just brainstorming about his cartoon for tomorrow, and we were looking for parallel phrases, different ways of describing the same thing -- specifically, the pandering proposal by John McCain (and now Hillary Clinton) to lift the federal gasoline tax for the summer.

One way of saying it was "Cheap tricks," and we were looking for another, and for some reason my brain kept going "Cheap tricks and other delights." I knew this wasn't right, but it seemed like it was close to some phrase I half-remembered from the '60s, and I was having a hard time coming up with the precise wording, which is unusual for me. I kept thinking, "Big Brother and the Holding Company," but I knew I didn't have it right. So I went to Google to try to figure out the correct wording for what I was thinking of.

Turns out I not only had the "cheap tricks" part wrong, I was confusing it with another, very different, album.

Of course, the Big Brother et al. album was "Cheap Thrills," with the classic R. Crumb cover. But I kept searching the illustration for the other part, the "cheap thrills and..." But there was no "and."

So I searched again, for "and other delights." Of course. Herb Alpert. Since I was in junior high at the time, this cover was burned pretty deeply into my subconscious. In fact, now that I realize it's that cover, I realize that the image is all tied up in my mind with the image of the "Take it off; take it all off" Noxzema girl (see video below).

But it's kind of weird that I couldn't conjure it up correctly without looking it up.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 03:01 PM in History, Media, Popular culture, Total Trivia, Women, Working
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Sunday, 20 April 2008

Waiting for Pennsylvania to buckle down and decide

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
LATE ONE Monday morning several weeks ago in a small-town diner in central Pennsylvania, I looked up from my paper to see that I was the last customer at the counter. Just the one waitress, the coffee pot and me.
    Filling the silence, I asked for a refill. Then I asked for her thoughts on the upcoming titanic battle in which she and her fellow Pennsylvanians would get to choose the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.
    She didn’t have any. Yeah, she knew there was something like that going on, and that some people were really excited, but she had made no effort to follow it. She wasn’t dismissive, and she was willing to hear me talk about it, but to her it was neither here nor there. Some customers want coffee. Others don’t. Some want to talk politics. Whatever.
    This was disconcerting. I looked around the way you do when you’re thinking, somebody back me up here. But it was just her and me. And there was something about the moment — she was so matter-of-fact — that made me feel like I was the one who had to explain himself.
    So I did, at some length. I even confessed that I actually made my living caring about elections and such, thinking and talking and writing about them, which as I said it sounded ludicrous. She just nodded. Some collect stamps; others watch birds. This guy’s into politics. Whatever.
    She even encouraged me, in a noncommittal way. She asked who was still in it. I explained that John McCain had sewn up the Republican nomination, and that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a tight battle on the Democratic side — one primary going to her, the next to him, back and forth, the suspense building. I told her how folks had come out in huge numbers in South Carolina to support Obama.
    So who will win? she asked, and I said the smart money at that point was on Obama, with more and more Democrats deciding they couldn’t support Hillary.
    She asked: “Why? Because she’s a woman?”
    The question wasn’t a challenge; there was no feminist defiance in it. She was just asking, the way you might ask, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
    Certainly not, I told her, and tried to explain about the Obama Appeal, about Hope and Change (capitalizing the key words with my voice), and how Sen. Clinton tended to appeal to folks who actually relished the partisan fight between left and right, and that many Democrats, and independents who had voted in Democratic primaries where (unlike Pennsylvania) that was allowed, were tired of the Bad Old Politics, so Obama was really catching on.
    There were, however, certain demographic tendencies to be noted, I said. For instance, quite a few white women over the age of 30 (realizing that I had just described the woman in front of me, I started talking faster to put that part behind us) did seem to support her because she was a woman, but the men and minorities and young people and women who favored Obama were, if they were turned off by Clinton, reacting more to the sort of campaign she had run....
    She nodded, and when I paused to take a breath, told me that the woman who owned the diner, and another waitress who wasn’t on duty that morning, were both Hillary supporters. Apparently, I had described them pretty well. Deciding I should quit while I was ahead, I paid my check, making sure to tip at least 20 percent, and headed back out into the cold March wind.
    And I thought about that woman, and how very normal she had been. She was no silly, apathetic fool, the sort that the passionately committed declare that Democracy Is Wasted Upon. She was intelligent — at least average, if not more than. She was sensible, and perfectly willing to care about things that should be cared about. She was earning a living; she was doing what needed to be done, and not wasting energy on anything that didn’t.
    Since that day, she has come to represent The Pennsylvania Voter in my mind. Down here in South Carolina we knocked ourselves out trying to make a difference, and we did — giving Sen. McCain the payback he had waited eight years for, giving Sen. Obama a big push forward.
    But it’s not over yet on the Democratic side, and it’s within the power of Pennsylvanians to make the final decision, and after the mad pace of having a high-stakes primary about every five minutes from the first of January through early March, nothing has happened for weeks and weeks while we all wait for Pennsylvania to do something, and the latest polls say it’s still a dead heat. Zogby reported Thursday that 45 percent were still for Clinton, 44 percent for Obama, 9 percent undecided, and 3 percent wanted someone else.
    Tied? Undecided? Someone else? They still haven’t decided up there! It’s like they haven’t been paying attention.
    The candidates haven’t helped much, what with Sen. Clinton making up Bosnia war stories (there I was, pinned down...) and Sen. Obama going all cold and detached (religion is the opium of the people...), to the point that you can see how a sensible person might be turned off.
    But I find I want to drive back up there before Tuesday, and go back into that diner, and convince that sensible woman that these are solid candidates, that one of them is likely to become president, that the rest of us took them seriously, so won’t you please just bear with us long enough to go out and vote, and settle this thing for the sake of the country?
    And then, once you do, we can all take a load off, order another cup of coffee, and think about something else until Labor Day.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:32 AM in 2008 Presidential, Barack Obama, Columns, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, The Nation, Women
Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Monday, 21 January 2008

Video: Obama, Edwards, Clinton at the State House

Brokaw

We had a long, cold wait for the candidates to speak at King Day at the Dome today, although it wasn't as long or cold for me as for some.

Barack Obama had met with our editorial board earlier (I'll post about that later today, or tomorrow), and I couldn't get away from the office for another hour after that, so when I arrived at the State House a little after 11, some folks were already leaving. One acquaintance told me he thought the candidates had been there and left. It seemed pretty clear that the candidates weren't up there on the steps, but I also surmised that they were yet to speak. The security was there -- a real pain, because they artificially compressed the crowd and limited movement so that it was difficult to get close to the steps, and impossible (as it turned out) to get into a good position for my camera. Wherever I stood, the speakers were in shadow, and worse, sometimes backlit. (NOTE: Because of the lighting problem, and the position from which I was shooting with my little camera, this is very low-quality video!)

So the security was still there, and the TV cameras were still in place. I ran into Warren Bolton who had arrived about the same time as I, and we were still wondering whether there was indeed anything to stick around for when Warren nudged me and pointed out Tom Brokaw a few yards away in the crowd (see photo above, which is higher quality than the video because he was in sunlight, and close by). We figured if the hopefuls had spoken before us, Brokaw would have left by now, so we stayed.

Speakers we could not identify from where we stood droned on, saying the things they usually say at these events, and I was beginning to resent the NAACP for letting all these folks (myself included) stand around waiting for what so many had come for. Remember, others had been there much, much longer. I was hardly the only one to feel the crowd was being abused. Warren overhead somebody leaving, muttering about it, and saying the NAACP was going to hear about this the next time he heard from them asking for a contribution.

Finally, just after noon, the main attractions came on. My wife, who was at home comfortably watching on TV, later said she assumed they had waited to go on live at the noon hour. Perhaps that is the logical, fully understandable explanation. Anyway, it was explained that the three candidates had drawn lots to determine their speaking order. Here they are, in the order in which they spoke. The videos are rough, incomplete and unedited, as I wanted to hurry and get them out (and the video quality wasn't that great anyway); I just provide them to give some flavor of the event:

Barack Obama:


John Edwards:

   

Hillary Clinton:

Posted by Brad Warthen at 03:50 PM in Barack Obama, Elections, Endorsement interviews, Hillary Clinton, History, John Edwards, Media, Race, S.C. Democratic Primary, South Carolina, Speechifying, The Nation, The State, Video, Women
Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

Crystal Pink Perversion

Which state agency head said the following this week?

"We do not believe the Constitution grants an inmate the right to publicly gratify himself and assault female staff in the uniform color of his choice. We are bound and determined to protect our female staff from perverts who commit this sort of act, and we believe it is our duty to do anything possible to convince these perverts to reform their behavior."

OK, I know how easy it is to cheat in a world with Google. Yes, it was Jon Ozmint over at Corrections. You can read about it at this location, where it was published in the Charleston paper.

And for those of you still trying to figure out the headline, yes, it was another pop song allusion.

Posted by Brad Warthen at 11:34 AM in Crime and Punishment, Rule of Law, South Carolina, Talk amongst yourselves, Women, Working
Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Monday, 28 May 2007

Another clueless man asks, 'How come ladies act like that?'

This one will really get me into trouble, but the trouble won't start until tomorrow, because for once, I'm not outnumbered by females at my house. I'm home alone at the moment, with one of my sons coming over later. My wife and daughters are all out of the state -- one's even out of the country -- so here goes...

The other night I was at this black-tie affair at which Darla Moore was being honored, which is only right, because she's done quite a bit for her home state in recent years. Anyway, when it was her turn to speak, she made a big deal about being a woman -- even though I would have known she was a woman right off, without her calling attention to the fact -- and that she was among the few ever inducted into the Business Hall of Fame who was not a white guy.

Which is true. OK, fine. Then she kept going on about it, telling an anecdote about a previous inductee -- it seems that somebody writing about over a century ago praised her for founding the indigo industry in our state in these terms: "Indigo proved more really beneficial to Carolina than the mines of Mexico or Peru were to Spain." That was fine, but then he made the mistake of adding, "was a result of an experiment by a mere girl."

Darla really teed off on that, allowing as how if she had been around when he wrote that, he'd have regretted it. She kept repeating it, packing maximum irony into "mere girl" each time she said it. The ladies in the audience seemed to like this, while the men tolerated it the way we always do when ladies go on like this. We're used to it.

Here's the thing: Darla Moore was there because of what she's done, not because she was a woman. Eliza Lucas Pinckney would also have been there for what she did. From a man's perspective -- and that's the only one from which I know how to write -- it seems to take away from the accomplishment to go on and on about gender. Like you're a token or something, when you definitely are not. Tokens don't found agricultural empires, or give their alma maters $25 million at a pop.

One other thing: Eliza Lucas Pinckney was born in 1722, and moved to South Carolina in about 1738. Her experiments with indigo took place "in the late 1730s." So she was what -- between 15 and 18? To me, that's a mere girl. And the fact that she was a mere girl, and her mama had died and her father had had to run off and leave her there almost as soon as they moved to the plantation (he's the one who sent her the indigo seeds, from way off in Antigua where he was serving in the British army), make her achievement all the more impressive.

I say all this not to put down Darla Moore. I'm just saying I don't think I'll ever understand the impulse from which such comments arise.

Oh, I can explain them intellectually. I can give the very same explanation most women would give about such things: It's a man's world, a woman has to work harder to gain acceptance, she has to overcome expectations and gender roles, etc.

But I still don't get it. It seems that once you've overcome such obstacles, long ago, and you've more than made it in this world, such things would lose their power, and it wouldn't occur to you any more to bring them up. The fact that she -- and so many other powerful women -- do bring them up, and often, just seems odd to me. Does it seem that way to other guys?

I think it's kind of a woman thing, like enjoying "click flicks" or something. And I don't think it arises from the ostensible causes. I think it arises from the differences in the way women perceive and interact with the world, as a result of physiological difference -- no, not those physiological differences, I'm talking about differences in the brain.

I think it's easier to see that with a related phenomenon -- the way successful women are always turning and helping out younger women coming behind them, and the younger women sort of seem to expect that, and it's a big social thing with lunches and mentoring sessions and seminars and so forth and so on. Nobody in the white-collar world makes anything of this, it's just so common and all very out in the open and expected. And it's very much a female thing.

Yes, I realize that the feminist explanation is that guys -- white guys, at least -- never needed such support system, and that's why it all seems a little odd, and even unseemly, to us that anyone would be reaching around them trying to boost up people like them instead of just people in general. We've been indoctrinated to know that we're not supposed to do that, and besides we don't need to do that, yadda-yadda.

But I suspect that while such causes are present, there's something deeper, something inherent, going on. It's the same thing about how when boys play games, it's all about rules and keeping score and competing, while girls tend to emphasize the social aspect, and want it to be about everybody having a good time and getting along. I've read about this, and I've seen it in real life. Guys tend to go out for a sport because they like it or think they're good at it (or because they think girls might see them doing it). Girls -- my daughters anyway -- tend to only go out for teams that their friends are going out for. It's frustrating to see a girl with ability quit a team because her friend quit a team, and it's very hard for me to imagine doing that. But on a when it's happened, after a debate or two I've just had to swallow and accept that.

And note that the reason it's frustrating is that I want the girls to do well; my raising this issue isn't some anti-female thing; it's just an I-don't-get-it thing.

I've probably made enough trouble now. I'll move on ...

Posted by Brad Warthen at 11:44 AM in Confessional, Women
Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

 
About TheState.com | About the McClatchy Company | Terms of Use & Privacy Statement |Copyright