I am tired…

 I am so tired of every election being portrayed as the ultimate battle between good and evil, the last, best chance to save the world (or the country, or the state, or the universe).

I am exhausted by the constant need to hate the other side.

I have been beaten down by the defeatism.

For over five decades, I have been repelled by the media’s insistence on handicapping the next race from the very instant the current race is run. Handicapping political contests long ago replaced meaningful discussion of candidates’ positions.

Everytime my folks won, society’s problems continued.

Everytime the other guys won, the world continued to spin on its axis.

After all the thunder and lightning, winds and rain, fire and smoke, this time feels like every other time.

I miss the friends I lost along the way.

I am so tired.

Good night.

First Lady is One Tough Gig

 They said Jackie Kennedy spent way too much money refurbishing a sadly down-at-the-heels White House. They thought Lady Bird Johnson was just kidding about beautifying America (and yet she did!). Pat Nixon was too mousy. Betty Ford shared too much information - opening up about her bouts with breast cancer and substance abuse - turning the taboo into a serious conversation.

Rosalyn Carter’s insistence on being well informed about current events and her influence on her husband were characterized as unsuitable for a First Lady.

Nancy Reagan, who had an impeccable sense of style and a love for high fashion, was raked over the coals  for wearing a fortune on her back. She also was castigated for her devoted protection of her husband.

Barbara Bush was thought too remote from everyday Americans.

Hillary Clinton was cast as too involved in her own law career until she was recast as too influential in her husband’s administration. Her critics ultimately settled on portraying her as the ball-busting, drab, arch villainess of an evil feminist and/or Democratic conspiracy to take over the world.

Surprisingly, Laura Bush was treated pretty well despite her husband’s controversial time in office.

When Michelle Obama entered the White House as our first African American first lady, things quickly got nasty and racist. Her degrees from Princeton and Harvard were sneered upon as the results of affirmative action. Her sense of style, which rivaled Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, was slammed as somehow “inappropriate.” Racist, sinister memes of her and her family flooded not only the Internet, but even some mainstream media outlets. Her major initiative as First Lady was children’s nutrition, promoted with a White House vegetable garden. Opposing media characterized it as her tyrannically forcing Americans to eat a specific diet.

Melania Trump has been ridiculed for her modeling background, being an immigrant, and her design choices for the White House and its grounds, not to mention her decorations for the Christmas holidays.

Now it is Dr. Jill Biden’s turn. The Wall Street Journal Opinion Page has kicked off the First Lady bashing season with a badly written, misogynistic assault on her University of Delaware Ed.D.giving her the right to the honorific of “Dr.” Evidently the author perceived Biden’s degree as meaningless because her study field was Education and her school wasn’t Harvard. But wait. Wasn’t Michelle Obama’s Harvard Law Degree problematic too?

It would appear that to a deeply misogynistic component of America’s literati, no list of qualifications and accomplishments is sufficient to allow any First Lady a role other than wife and mother and, even then, no doubt they can be gleefully denigrated.

It is time to cut the spouses of our presidents some slack!

I want America to have:

a State Department staffed by strong, well-trained professionals equipped with the knowledge, understanding and experience to play a strong hand on the world stage;

an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that possesses the tools that enable it to protect our water and air;

a Justice Department dedicated to protecting the life, rights and liberty of ALL Americans;

a Judiciary dedicated to safeguarding our precious rule of law;

a Civil Service selected by qualifications and protected from the vagaries of would-be tyrants;

Intelligence Agencies unfettered by political priorities;

Hey, it’s a start.

11/1/2020

Commandments from the Mediocre Manager

 Introduction: I wrote this in 2000 after a good friend was summarily fired for obeying the law instead of her supervisor. It seems even more valid 20 years later.

The Mediocre Manager’s Commandments

1.     I am thy Supreme Commander whom thou shalt esteem above all others. (Have no independent thoughts, exercise no responsibility and do not dare to demonstrate initiative before me.)

2.     Thou shalt not labor in vain. (I shall take full credit for any of thy accomplishments.)

3.     Thou shalt remember to keep holy thy Supreme Commander’s day. (Wholly uncluttered by management problems for which I can blame you later.)

4.     Thou shalt honor my decisions. (Thou shalt frequently kiss my buttocks.)

5.     Thou shalt not commit violence against me. (Suppress all evidence of your own intelligence and competency in the presence of any visiting dignitaries or representatives from home office. 

6.     Thou shalt not screw with thy Supreme Commander. (Take the blame for my mistakes or else.)

7.     Thou shalt not steal credit for thy subordinates’ accomplishments. (The credit belongs to me.)

8.     Thou shalt not bear false witness about thy subordinates. (Never defend them against my spite.)

9.     Thou shalt be not covet the accomplishments of others. (These are for my greater glory and so I claim them.)

10.  Thou shalt  not covet my superior judgment. (Keep your mouth shut. Your input is not relevant to my agenda.)

7/12/00

RIP John Lewis

I see ancient black and white photos of a serious young black man leading a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. His tread is firm; his resolve stalwart. His eyes reveal conviction “good trouble” awaits him. My heart aches in awe and sympathy for his bravery, his unwavering dedication to his holy cause. RIP John Lewis.

The Tonys - In Memoriam

As I watch the names of theatre greats who left us this year flash across the screen, I pay homage to friends, mentors and family members whose lives pay unsung homage to the arts. Their passion, drive and love might never tread the boards of Broadway; nevertheless it nourishes the essence of their communities, their intimates, their humble fans.

I remember my mother’s lifelong passion for theatre; my cousins who strove with mixed success to “make it” on Broadway or in Los Angeles; my daughters who shined in high school musicals to their parents’ delight.

The Arts. They lend color to our lives. I celebrate their partisans living and passed.

Signs of the Times

You judge by the times you live in. My mother and I once had a talk about how it was for her during World War II. Casualties touched every family and every family had members on the front. She confided she could not bear to watch movies about that time because they brought back too sharply her memories of Dad overseas and her trying to prepare a home for my older brother, herself and him for his return, while terrified he wouldn’t make it back. Too many of her friends had received notice their spouses were never coming home.

Many who did return went on reserve status for the extra money and then had to do it all over again in Korea.

I remember: the attacks on civil rights protesters in Alabama; the protests and sit-ins against Vietnam; The murder of Kent State students; The militarization of the Black Panthers; the assassinations (JFK, King, RFK, Malcom X); the bombings. It didn’t seem like this country could ever return to an even keel.

The millennials have their own set of challenges. They are an interesting generation. I hope they have the opportunity to  produce the truly great things of which they are capable.

Just a few thoughts.