Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - Posts
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Yes, Kim, it is definitely the Age of Entrenchment, and I don't think I'm pretending that schoolyard taunts of any sort are unheard of, or that what happened to my friend's child is any particular reflection on Obama's campaign. But I don't want to be among the entrenched, either; sometimes I am wrong, and if I'm giving my friend the impression that I am suspicious of recovering Hillary supporters in that way, then I'm not averse to looking at that and maybe rethinking both my assumptions and the signals I'm sending. If things had gone the other way in the primary, I'd need a minute, too. And to be perfectly honest, I'd be winking at the old guy myself.
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Melinda, I'm sorry your friend's son got tagged as a racist for supporting Hillary. But please: Let's not get it twisted.
My kids' school is almost a 50-50 split between black students (African-American, Haitians, Jamaicans, etc.) and white, with a smattering of Asians and Latinos, a good cultural diversity program and all the required social studies curriculum about "teaching tolerance" (a phrase I detest, by the way). Yet we've had incidents of name-calling and teasing and grief that involve race, perceived sexual orientation, body size, academic ability, religion (my friend's Muslim daughter was asked quite casually if she was carrying a bomb in her backpack), etc., etc. Is every other school in America such a bastion of maturity and civic-mindedness and tolerance (that word again!) and acceptance and understanding and full-throttle multiculturalism that these things do not occur? Wow! To pretend that this particular incident is a problem by and/or of Obama or his supporters and not instead another symptom of a far larger and far older American (and indeed human) problem is ridiculous on its face.
The problem is not this campaign. The problem is that we, all of us, remain essentially segregated in this society, not only by race but by class and religion and political views. We live in our own little enclaves, all of us, segregated and self-righteous and increasingly entrenched. The Age of Entrenchment, I call it, when for all the millions of people like me blathering on across the Internet, no one ever really changes her or his mind about anything, or indeed even hears any statement or argument or evidence or passionate plea except that which confirms what they already believe. Any surprise our children are picking up on this nastiness?
As for flirting with McCain, I have two things to say. One of them is this essay—and forgive me for always dragging Tim Wise (a man!) into this forum, but the dude speaks with such fearless clarity it makes no sense to try to replicate.
The second is this: Please, please, please, by all means, go ahead and vote for whomever you want, and let the chips fall where they may. Just stop threatening us already. In this heat it's tiresome.
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The problem with being a judge who loves to shock is that you're a flashy barracuda in a school of plain tuna, and you risk careening off into the high seas that are the province of public officials who are just too out there for their own good. Such is my thought after reading that Judge Alex Kozinksi posted porn on a web site he thought was private, but wasn't. The material included "a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal," we learn from the LA Times. We can't judge for ourselves anymore, because the site has been wiped clean, but if Judge Kozinski says that he found the porn funny, I bet he did--and it was probably offensive, too. Herein lies the Kozinski challenge. He is a transgessor, a flouter of boundaries, a man of many appetites. When he wrote a week-long diary for Slate in 1996, he told us all about going to a lingerie and pajama party. ("The Location: Gatsby's Rendezvous by the Sea, 'the house that all of Malibu deems the scandalous haven of sleepless nights.'") When I profiled him in 2004, the art for the piece depicted him as a circus master--and he liked it enough to ask for a copy. Plenty of other examples could be inserted here, and Phil Carter (on Convictions) has plenty of company in appreciating Judge K's quirks. Lots of reporters and court watchers have urged him onward with our appreciation. And now that we know that among the many things he appreciates are women painted to look like cows, how can we go all schoolmarmish? I know, I know, judges are supposed to be beyond reproach, and this is the opposite of that. And yes being outed for semi-public porn-sharing while trying an obscenity case is pretty rich. It's the sort of plot twist Judge Kozinski would write into a screen play. Maybe that's the answer: Toss the bench and move to Hollywood.
(Cross-posted on Convictions.)
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Melinda, George Will has a plan for how to bring Hillary voters back into the Obama fold - scare ‘em! On Hardball Monday night, George Will said he suspects that "three quarters of the country at this point does not know that John McCain is pro-life" and speculated that "once the Democrats make that known, as surely they will, [women] will come scampering back to the Democratic Party in droves."
Setting aside the light condescension of the word "scampering" (it's what furry little animals do) I wonder if Will's right - if the Democrats might actually benefit from a social issues flare-up. If NOW and NARAL start tearing away at McCain over abortion, aggrieved Hillary-supporting feminists will give up their flirtation with the Maverick. On the other hand, ending the abortion détente could galvanize the Evangelical Republicans that have been sitting on the backbench.
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Seconding Noreen's comments: If the Times wanted to be consistent with its gender stereotyping, the love-that-iPhone piece might have explored how surprising it is that MEN are using cellphones. You know, that men would want to acquire a technology that enables them to ... communicate. It has always seemed to me the obvious technology for women, at least according to accepted gender notions.
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But, back to living women who are entertaining the thought of McCain-ing. ...You know how during the primaries, we kept writing that supporting Obama over Hillary didn't make us woman-haters or even bad feminists? Belatedly, with the help of my McCain-flirting friend, it occurs to me that the opposite obvious point also needs to be spelled out: Supporting Hillary, or now McCain, over Obama does not a racist make, either. When I saw what my friend wrote about her son being branded that way just because his family supported Hillary, it kind of broke my heart and made me think about how I might not want to jump into Obamamania, either, if that had happened to my baby. For me, her perspective was a reminder that candidates are to some degree held responsible for the behavior of their supporters, so it isn't only Obama who needs to show those disappointed Hillary voters some respect. (And yes, I am looking in the mirror on this one.)
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Always liked that Ann Richards,
and am not exactly immune to Obama's charms, either. Yet I was
surprised when the governor posthumously endorsed the presumptive
Democratic nominee yesterday: "If she were still around she would suit
up and campaign for Senator Obama in the farthest corner of the
farthest state,'' her daughter Cecile Richards wrote
on the Huffington Post. "Mom would see in him a leader with a long and
consistent record for standing up for women's health care. ... She'd
see in him what we at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund see. ... Mom
would have said that women voting for John McCain would be like
chickens choosing to vote for the Colonel.'' And I would have said Ann
for VP! Unless Eleanor Roosevelt were available. Or my
across-the-street neighbor Clara Barton,
an Obama girl if ever there was one. And definitely not the sort who
might be flirting with McCain, like that recently deceased voter
Hillary kept talking about. But, what would Bella Abzug do?
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