Monday, October 27, 2008

Madeline Kahn, You're On

I can often come across as disparaging of the average American, and their decision making process. And I am frustrated by it. But I do realize that it’s not wholly their fault. Americans are busy, they’re tired, and they simply don’t have the time to pay attention the way it’s needed.

Productivity increases occur year after year. Every new technology creates a new efficiency. My primary job over the last decade and more was in process improvement. My job was to increase efficiencies, both through human and technological processes, with reasonable but not barricading checkpoints to ensure a greater output. In short, my job was to increase productivity in the workplace.

What about increasing productivity in our lives? Where does that come from?

Over the weekend Sarah Palin tried to explain the wardrobe malfunction. The problem is, for those of us long opposed to her and to independent undecideds, it’s just not good enough. It’s not the clothes, stupid. It’s the disingenuousness that is Sarah Palin. She no more said thanks but no thanks to a $150,000 wardrobe than she said thanks but no thanks to the bridge to nowhere. She said bring it on until it became unpopular and then kept the money anyway. She isn’t against earmarks, she requested more per capita than Obama ever did. The problem isn’t her clothes, it’s her shallowness. She’s like the kid caught with the cookie crumbs all over her, but still refuses to admit she raided the cookie jar.

Everything about this woman seems perfect until you scratch the surface. That’s the problem with the clothes. Not that she has them, but that she wasn’t honest about them. If her consignment shop clothes are good enough for her now, why did she ever jettison them in the first place? I’m sympathetic, as I wrote here, about her need for the clothes. What I have a problem with is how it’s approached. She allowed herself to be packaged and when it didn’t work, she blames the gift wrapping. If she’s such a maverick and willing to take on her own party, why would she cave so completely on something as simple as a wardrobe?

Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman’s, etc. all put these big tags on the more expensive clothes so that people can’t wear them once then return them. Now the campaign is claiming some or most of them have been returned. Remove the tag and you can’t return the item. Returning them after they’ve been worn is tantamount to shoplifting.

The Republican Party has underestimated the power of Internet communications. They are campaigning as if blogs, YouTube, Google News, and The Daily Show didn’t exist. And it’s biting them. Just like the bridge lie, this is the clothing lie (not to mention the science lie, provided to me by a former classmate who I won’t name because I don’t have his permission). And all of them could have been easily avoided.

Wouldn’t this have been better? “I listened to the people and once they made clear we didn’t want that bridge to nowhere I instead put the money towards more worthwhile projects. I hate earmarks but had to work with the system as it stood because that was the only way to get what was needed to get done. Knowing how broken the system is, I’m in a strong position to change it. See here, here, and there where I made change where I could. Now put me in a better position to make change where it matters.”

Or this: “The clothes? You’re seriously talking about my clothes? Of course I needed new clothes. Didn’t you see what happened to Hillary in the primaries where Glamour and People and all kinds of fashion magazines picked her apart? Didn’t she herself say, near tears, that she needed a lot of help (referring to hair dressers, stylists, and makeup artists) to get through each day? It’s tough to be a woman in politics. Hillary knows what I’m talking about. Yeah, they bought me clothes and yeah, I’m going to pay the taxes on them. Nothing’s free and no one knows that better than women trying to crack that glass ceiling.”

And with the science lie, she once again proves her shallowness in thinking the American people will laugh at the concept of studying the fruit fly without really understanding what that science gains, for all of us.

The list just goes on. But it takes too much time to explain why her lack of intellectual appreciation of science or her skim-the-surface understanding of the earmark and budget system (and why it’s developed) so the wardrobe malfunction becomes what I—and the blogosphere—use to highlight her inherent problem. Which is her complete cynicism about what is really troubling America. She thinks a few folksy winks and stories about her earrings will fool people into thinking she “gets” the issues. But Americans have interesting instincts.

I’m a fashion-aholic and I have no problem with her wearing Valentino and Jimmy Choo. But as a political junkie, I have a problem with her trying to claim one status while portraying another. I have a problem with her attempts to snow the voters. Because Americans are busy, tired, weary, and over-inundated with sound bites. Here I am, with no kids and on a sabbatical from work and I can barely find the time to do all that’s needed to run a simple two-person household and keep up with election, war, and economic news. McCain and Palin are abusing that, and it’s going badly and I find it, as Bill Maher does, cynical; cynical to constantly think that the American people are so stupid as to fall for these tropes.

I can’t trust the American independent voter. I don’t believe they are applying any more judgment in this election than they did in 2004. But Obama is keying into what they want now and need in a way that Bush did in 2004 and in which McCain and Palin so spectacularly are not doing now. And at least Obama is trying to find a way to increase productivity in people’s lives. Worries about healthcare are a constant drain. Worrying about the wars is a constant headache. Worrying about the price of gas and how we can wean ourselves off of it are is nonstop acid reflux.

At some point Americans are going to have to start demanding increased productivity in their lives so as to better understand how they live them. And the only way to do that is to decrease the demands on our lives. I do believe this is a first step in this process, by shrugging off the politics as usual (Obama, no matter what you think of him, is anything but usual). The 30-second sound bite as the basis for a decision must die.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Virtual Reality: Fashion and Politics Activate!

When I quit my job this past June I had to quit surfing Bergdorf’s and Neiman’s web sites. I couldn’t trust myself not to just say “fuck it” and purchase the next great pair of shoes or coat I ran across. So when I decided to try and virtually spend $150,000 on clothes, shoes, makeup and jewelry, I thought I’d found the best of all worlds: indulge both my political and fashion manias.

This is hard! What’s wrong with me? I’m even being generous in understanding the amount and type of clothing that Sarah Palin needs!

Dear Helen can be dismissive, but she’s wrong. There is no way to dress a Vice Presidential candidate in $300 or less. You probably can’t even do it for less than $30,000. While I may be incredibly dismissive of Sarah Palin as a Vice President/possible President, I am incredibly understanding of what it means to be a woman on the national stage.

First off, she’s a woman. We all saw what happened to Hillary starting way back in 1992 when her hair, clothes, mannerisms, cooking was picked apart rabidly. In the Democratic primary, it was less so—because she’s such a known commodity—but it still happened. Ms. Palin was only going to get more picked apart because she’s new to the game. Plus, her appeal to men is based in part on her attractiveness so that has to be maintained as well. So she needs the clothes, hair, and makeup to keep her pretty and appear professional.

And the campaign trail is brutal. Multiple appearances a day, traveling by auto or plane across multiple locations throughout the day. She needs to have enough clothes to get through multiple appearances a day. As any woman knows, a cheap skirt looks like a wrinkled piece of rag after sitting in a car or on an airplane for 30 minutes, much less crisscrossing a state or several in one day. One outfit a day isn’t going to cut it. She probably has ten of those black pencil skirts (probably two or three per day as the rest get cycled through dry cleaning) and goes through at least two of those jackets per day. If she’s in a place like Florida, she’s going to go through three or four per day to avoid stinking up her rallies in that heat. Can you imagine what US or OK magazine would do to this woman if she showed sweat stains or creased front wrinkled skirts?

Not only does she need multiple skirts/pants of the same type, they need to be of good quality craftsmanship and material. A cheap JC Penney’s skirt isn’t going to last long under this type of wear. Better constructed fabrics—which cost significantly more—are needed in order to last out a week, much less months of this type of wear.

And to keep her from looking too repetitive (which would also get picked apart), she’ll need about 5 skirtsuits and/or pantsuits. She’s primarily a skirt lady, so I’m focusing the bulk of my shopping on that.

Shoes, so near and dear to my heart. And my feet. When I worked I usually wore heels. Not because it was required (I worked in the tech industry) but because I like to. So I know what it’s like to be in heels day after day. And if you’re going to wear high heels on the campaign trail, you need some serious shoes to get through it. Screw the Naughty Monkeys. Those won’t cut it. You need Choo’s, Blahnik’s, Louboutin’s, Alexander McQueen’s. You need what I call the six hour 3-inch heel. If anyone scoffs that it doesn’t make a difference, you’ve never put these babies on your feet. I have a great pair of Nine West heels that’ll keep my on my feet about 2 hours, but I can go eight hours in a pair of Manolo’s.

In short, I get her needing some seriously expensive shoes.

And she’s going to need some dressier, though professional, evening outfits for fancier and more intimate dinners. And she’ll definitely need at least four inaugural ball gowns if they win, though I certainly hope those haven’t been pre-purchased.

So all that plus accessories, under garments (hope those aren’t being donated to charity), makeup, hair pieces, handbags? It’ll be interesting whether even I can rack up that kind of bill. But I’ll give it an honest try.

So yeah, overall, I get that Sarah Palin needs good clothes. That doesn’t keep me from laughing at the pickle they’ve put themselves in. What they should have done was find a few Joe Designers struggling in this economy and chose them to design a Sarah Palin look. Then they could have been both populist and fashionable. But they didn’t, they went the easy designer route and created so much enjoyment for people like me.

Time to go shopping! If I’m feeling creative, I’ll showcase the collection.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

All In a Day's Play

My pilates instructor is an ethnic American. By that I mean that she looks ethnic, but is American born and raised. She is so scared by the rhetoric of the McCain/Palin rallies that she called the McCain campaign twice to try and let them know that what they were doing is scaring her. She’s an “other” by their own tactics.

Folks, do you have any idea what you’re doing when you call Obama as Osama? When you stress his middle name? Is this really how you want your country to behave? To be run?

Sigh.

I really can’t comment any more on this until/unless someone is hurt by it. Those of you who are perpetuating it by insinuating that Obama is an Arab, a terrorist, etc., I hope you are happy. You have descended to the worst of this country. Your candidate has no ideas so must resort to the most fearsome scare tactics. If someone gets hurt, it’s your fault.

In other, real commentary:

McCain wants to guarantee 100% of savings. What on earth does that mean? The Treasury dept. has already raised the FDIC insurance to $250K. Who on earth keeps more than that in a savings account? Who on earth keeps that much in one savings account?

  • Electoral-vote.com and fivethirtyeight.com numbers:

Electoral-vote.com:

Obama 357 McCain 181

FiveThirtyEight.com:

Obama 361.4 McCain 176.6

Keep it up Barry!

In completely other news, i.e. personal, here’s what I’ve been up to (when not blogging about politics):

  • Cleaning the basement, lamely.
  • Cooking (well!): You should try the lamb sausage sandwiches I made tonight and the beef stroganoff I’m making for the debate-watching party tomorrow night. Marjoram and caraway seeds are the bomb.
  • Hrm … blogging politics. I can’t wait for the debate tomorrow and the election so this CAN BE OVER!!
  • Culture, for what it’s worth:

Ah yes, the reading list. Latest include: Stephanie Meyer (had to see what all the fuss was about; she’s a terrible writer with a very engaging story); Our Culture, What’s Left of It; Jane Eyre (re-read); Wuthering Heights (re-read); finished the Merde series; Vanity Fair issues; and Barak Obama’s Audacity of Hope. About to start on: Gregory MacGuire’s latest, A Lion Among Men; and Candace Bushnell’s One Fifth Avenue (yes, I read stupid chick-lit). Currently reading Stephanie Meyer’s The Host (yes, I read stupid fantasy stuff too).

TV: Bones, Law & Order SVU; Smallville, True Blood, Dexter, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Fringe, Heroes, Desperate Housewives, the presidential debates, random acts of political stuff.

  • Web Sites:

Facebook and Live Journal

Pundit Kitchen, xkcd, and LOLCats

Google News, NYT, and CNN

  • Movies/DVDs:

Nada, nothing interesting.

DVD’s: Ghost in the Machine, earlier Bones episodes, Neverwhere; The Wire.

Otherwise it’s all in a day’s work. Except I don’t work. All in a day’s play then. ;-)

Monday, October 13, 2008

I Still Don't Get It

Using Biology, Not Religion, to Argue Against Same-Sex Marriage

“The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry,” he wrote, adding, “As many courts have recognized, the primary societal good advanced by this ancient institution is responsible procreation.”

I still don’t get it.

Legal marriage (not religious ceremony) has nothing to do with procreation. You can have a child without being married. You can be married and not have a child. You can be an excellent parent without being married. You can be the shittiest parent alive while being married. The legal definitions of marriage (which is all same-sex couples are fighting for) have absolutely nothing to do with having or raising children.

Culturally, marriage is held up to be the proper way to prepare for having children. It is generally thought to be the correct first step before throwing the pills out the window. Unless you’re Bristol Palin or Jamie Lynn Spears, but that’s another story (and one best told by Bill O’Reilly, he does it so well). But while that may be the cultural norm, cultural norms fluctuate. Which is why legal rights and protections cannot be tied too tightly to cultural norms. Legal rights and protection have to be expansive enough to accommodate changes in society. This is why marriage laws do not hinge in any way on having children.

Lesbian couples have no more barriers to having children than infertile hetero couples or single women do. They can go to their corner sperm bank and withdraw what they need to make baby. And nothing in the law can do diddly-squat to prevent them from raising it. All that the existing laws can do is make a mess of the situation if the women break up since there aren’t standard divorce proceedings available to them. So it follows that the only people opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to keep from raising kids are gay males. Can everyone just be honest about that fact? Can everyone just admit that for some unfathomable reason you aren’t opposed to same-sex marriage, you’re opposed to boy butt sex? ‘Cause given what opponents’ arguments are, that’s the only logical conclusion.

Get over it.