An administration where women count

The newest issue of Ms. Magazine is out, and it’s cover has created quite a stir. He’s one of the few men ever to grace its cover – with a Superman-esque pose, revealing a T-shirt proclaiming, “This is what a feminist looks like.”

In fact, according to Eleanor Smeal’s piece, “Visions of Change,” when she and the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation, Peg Yorkin, met with Obama, he immediately offered, “I am a feminist.” What a refreshing change – for years, the F word has been so demonized that pundits would hurl it as an insult designed to damage reputations.

While I’m not happy about Pres. Obama selling poor women down the river to get his economic stimulus package passed, I understand that he still has four more years to correct that.

I’m also heartened to see the direction First Lady Michelle Obama is taking a more Hillary-Clinton style of advocacy and leadership. According to Politico, she’s taking up the banner for working women by specifically addressing the issues contributing to the work-family imbalance that plagues working parents. Let’s hope with her strong leadership, we can start seeing some basic rights, like living wages, quality affordable childcare (as eloquently stated in Cornelia Grumman’s piece “Beyond Babysitting”)  and paid sick days, soon.

Musings on the Great Ice Storm of 2009

It has been an intense week. I’m in NW Arkansas, which was one of the many places hit by the epic ice storm Monday. Arkansas has been declared a disaster area – thousands of people are without power and our local schools have been out all week.

Ice storm damage

My street lost power briefly Tuesday, from about 8 a.m. till 1 p.m. Without electricity, I had no heat or ability to cook food, so I stayed with a close friend in a nearby trailer park. While we were in his trailer, we started hearing limbs breaking off all around us. Under the weight of some 1 inch of ice, branches as thick as a man’s leg snapped off. It sounded like gunshots followed by crashing. Several limbs fell on his roof, but luckily, nothing was damaged. His neighbors weren’t so lucky – several people had their cars, roofs and sheds crushed under the heavy limbs. My friend’s elderly neighbor died trying to flee his trailer for fear of being crushed.

Right about the time my power came on, his went out. Since I’m the only one of my friends who has power, my tiny little two-bedroom duplex has become a sort of temporary storm shelter. I have three people staying with me & my son who have been here since Tuesday. I don’t mind taking care of them; I know they’d do the same for me.

Hopeful

I am surprised at the depth of emotion that I felt during the inauguration. When Aretha Franklin sang “Let Freedom Ring,” I cried – not just a tear rolling down my cheek; I bawled out loud. Her beautiful, powerful voice, along with the soulful rendering of the music and inspiring lyrics, rolling across the great mall and through the mics of thousands of media into houses all over the world – it was a “glory, hallelujah” moment for me. And I’m not even a Christian.

Even though I was all alone in my living room, I stood with my hand over my heart when Obama took the oath. I must explain just how powerful this is: I have never stood with my hand over my heart for any civic ceremony. I have never said the Pledge of Allegiance – as a child, I was a Jehovah’s Witness, and they refuse to say the Pledge. As an adult, I refused to say it because the phrase “under God” offends me as a non-Christian. So let me repeat: for the first time in my life, I stood with my hand over my  heart to hear Obama be sworn in.

I will let all the other pundits and peanut galleries pick apart his speech, the invocation, whatever. I am still in shock as to why I had such a powerful emotional response to a totally secular ceremony. Usually, I don’t go in for large displays of patriotism or group pride. They actually sort of creep me out – I always sense a whiff of the Nazi rallys underneath mobs of people all chanting, marching, waving flags, and what have you. So how did I, the most wary of non-comformists, get swept up in all this pomp and circumstance?

Perhaps a little background info would help. Progressive, dare I say liberal, values have been a part of my family for generations. My grandfather protested segregation. My grandmother was an independent working woman for many years. My mother was a hippie and a feminist. As an adult, I have surrounded myself with friends who share similar values, yet I have always felt like I was swimming against the tide. When I turn on the TV or read a newspaper, there is no-one giving voice to the values I hold dear: equality and dignity for all people, compassion, diversity.

Once in a while, someone on “our side” breaks through and gets his or her time to shine in the spotlight – Michael Moore, for example. But mostly, our leaders end up on the other end of an assassin’s bullet. When was the last time you heard of a conservative leader being assassinated by a rabid left-winger or government agents?

But today, it felt like finally, the tide was turning. Like my values – and the values of a million other Americans – were being vindicated, shouted, held  high for the world to see: We will not be ignored. It felt like a revolution.

Localism

A friend over at Coming Home just started her New Year’s resolution: to shop only at locally owned stores for one year. It’s an ambitious project, and she’s started a blog about it. It’s sort of ironic, though, that because we live in Northwest Arkansas, Wal-Mart is actually a locally  owned store. But she won’t shop there; read her first post for her explanation – one that I totally agree with.

In discussing this project with her and some other friends, it brought up what a difference people can have in their shopping habits. When she was a child, Coming Home’s author shopped with her family and they used major credit cards for those non-essential shopping trips (like, for clothes).

For me, who was a child in the ’70s, I went shopping with my grandparents. We shopped at chain stores, but there were so many different ones: OTASCO, TG&Y, Sears, Montgomery Ward, K-Mart, and yes, Wal-Mart (before it became the Evil Empire). My grandparents didn’t have a major credit card, but they had a store card for just about every department store that offered them.

As for me, I had a major credit card (as well as a Sear’s card) years ago, but had to get rid of it when I declared bankruptcy back in 2001 (due to medical bills).

So I guess my  point is that it’s interesting that a decision about where to shop can lead into so many related issues, such as how we shop, and of course, why we shop. I understand that there are a lot of people in this country that shop as a sort of recreational pastime, and I just can’t get my  head around that. To me, shopping is what you do when you need something that you can’t otherwise borrow or find in a dumpster. As a kid, we didn’t go shopping for clothes every fall – we only bought clothes or shoes when the ones we owned were literally falling apart.

So hop on over and give Coming Home a read, and maybe it will inspire you to think about shopping in your own way.

Disposable culture

This is not a new concept – it was developed in the 1920s and ’30s, and people have been railing against it since the ’60s. And yet, it still exists.

It seems there has been a rash of CD and DVD players’ deaths lately, at least among my circle of friends and family. Even though they are all different brands, the failures are similar: CDs or DVDs begin to skip, and using a laser cleaner on the player doesn’t help. These players are not that old, either. My son’s (ironically named) “Durabrand” CD/DVD/MP3 player was manufactured in December, 2006. It went out six months ago.

The three of us are all faced with the same dilemma: we have to buy a whole new player, or else do without altogether. There is not one repair shop that fixes these things. I’m not sure that they are even designed to be able to be repaired.

This is, in my opinion, bordering on criminal wastefulness. I know that planned obsolescence was originally thought to stimulate the economy by essentially coercing people into buying new stuff. But in this “new economy” (i.e., the Second Great Depression), people aren’t going to buy what they can’t afford. Wouldn’t it be better for the economy if we built more stuff here, with higher quality, and instead had repair facilities with their “mechanics” and staff? At the very least, it would keep more stuff out of the landfill.

On sugar daddies

Over on XX Factor, there’s a great discussion about that old stand-by fantasy: the sugar daddy. Particularly, how young journalists, facing such brutal economic times, might be tempted into a sort of “accidental concubine” position. You know the story: the plucky, independent-yet-starving creative girl who gets “rescued” by the knight in shining armour, enabling her to continue her artsy-fartsy ways while still enjoying a middle- (or upper-) class lifestyle.

As a child of working-class people in the ’70s, I never indulged in that fantasy. My world was filled with adult women who worked -  mostly out of economic necessity, but the idea that a man would come along and “rescue” them from work was never an option. Working was just what adults did to provide for their families. And experience had shown that you can’t depend on a man, so you’d better have some job skills, sister. As a young woman, I was expected go to college – not to snag a man, but to get an education that would bestow better earning power than my foremothers before me had.

And yet I find myself in a strange situation. Since graduating with my master’s in journalism in May, I have not been able to find a decent full-time job, which left me pretty much dependent on my husband until he left several months later. With no other support, I burned through my savings to pay the bills while working several part-time and/or freelance jobs.

I’m in a very tough situation – because I have so little left in my savings, I may well end up homeless if my income doesn’t pick up soon. And I have no family to help me; my mom & sister already share a one-bedroom apartment.

Here’s where it gets weird: I just started dating again, and the man I’m seeing makes decent scratch working for the Red Cross. My die-hard feminist pride would never allow me to ask my new boyfriend to let me move in with him. But if I got to that point – where I could no longer pay the rent – I’m sure he’d ask me to. Which brings up the burning question: which is better – living in a car with my dignity intact, or moving into my boyfriend’s house and feeling like a concubine (or at the very least, a charity case)?

The funny thing is, I’ve usually been on the other side of this equation. Quite a few of my  past boyfriends came to live with me because they were out of work. I suppose if my boyfriend and I had been going out longer – in other words, had a more established relationship – I wouldn’t be so conflicted about it. But it is what it is, and all I can do is keep my fingers crossed while I scan the want ads.

Local recognition

It’s a bit late in coming, but local blogger (and long-time friend) Richard S. Drake has acknowledged my “discovery” that Hillary Clinton wasn’t the first woman candidate to run for president. He reprints my letter to Ms. Magazine here.

Bush’s new immigration laws

I just heard the story on NPR about still-Pres. Bush’s new rules for hiring foreign farm workers. American agriculture has for decades depended on immigrant workers, but recent laws to create a legal “guest worker” visa for them have been described as “a bureaucratic nightmare,” often creating delays until past the harvest, when it’s too late.

These new laws are the subject of much controversy – labor leaders and other critics claim that they will drive down wages and essential legalize exploitation of these workers. I think it’s a damn shame that when this country is suffering from unemployment levels not seen since 1994, any industry is hiring foreign workers. Under the new rules, farmers have to show that they have recruited American workers first before hiring immigrants. It’s a common – and likely true – argument that these immigrants are only taking jobs that Americans don’t want. An honest want ad for these jobs would look something like this:

“Workers needed for short-term, heavy manual labor. Pay is below poverty level, but overcrowded, unsafe housing is provided. Must be able to tolerate pesticide exposure and heat exhaustion for long periods of time.”

Gee, what American worker wouldn’t want such a great job? Is paying these workers a fair wage and protecting them from toxic chemicals really so much to ask of our agriculture industry?

Church & state

From an NPR story this morning:

“Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa. — Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s hometown — went further at the meeting. He suggested the bishops use ‘canonical measures’ — such as denying Communion — to make their point.”

But that’s nothing new – churches have been bullying politicians with that threat for years. Here’s where it gets scary:

“A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him ‘constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.’”

So now priests aren’t just bullying the politicians they don’t agree with, they’re putting the screws to ordinary citizens who chose to vote for politicians the priest disagrees with (note: this is only one priest. Other Catholic priests disagree with this stance).
I believe in freedom of speech and religion, so I say let the priest deny whatever rituals he chooses. However, I think this clearly violates the grounds his church stands on to claim tax-exempt status. More disturbingly, though, this also puts it closer to being a cult, where obedience to the leader is total and disagreement is forbidden.

It’s a new day in America

(note: sorry for the delay in posting – out here in “flyover country,” Internet access is less than dependable – DB)

Knowing how historic this day would be, I wanted to make sure I was fully present in a way I could relate to my grand- (and maybe great-grand-) children. I watched the election results on Comedy Central’s “Indecision 2008,” hosted by my favorite comedians/political analyists, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I knew I’d get coverage at least as accurate (if not more so) than the MSM, and a hell of a lot more entertaining. I was not disappointed.

When, at 10 p.m. CST, Stewart announced that Obama had won, it was a feeling I will never forget. Tears came to my eyes, and my heart was filled with joy, pride, and most of all, relief. After eight years of smirking fascism, it was like we had finally opened our eyes and sobered up.

Ruth Rosen posted that in California and other places, people were literally dancing in the streets. We weren’t so exuberant here in Arkansas, which went with McCain. But I am surprised that now, for the first time in my life, I am proud of my country.

Of course, Obama is only human. He’s only the president of the United States, not king of the world. I think many of us have made him into a sort of messiah who will fix every problem on earth. When he inevitably fails to do so, there’s going to be a let-down, perhaps even a resentful backlash against him. And yet, despite those limitations, the amount of respect and goodwill he has (both at home and abroad) will likely make it much easier for him to accomplish things.

I am positive that even though he might not be able to fix everything, there is a great change in the air. As Gary Kamiya writes at Salon:

“We have taken our country back.

We have taken it back from the mean-spirited demagogues who were willing to tear the American people apart to stay in power.

We have taken it back from the apostles of selfishness who pretend naked greed is noble individualism.

We have taken it back from the deluded hawks who cavalierly sent our youth off to die in a war that should never have been fought.

We have taken it back from the incompetent officials who lived up to their antigovernment credo by bungling everything they touched.

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We have taken it back from the reactionaries whose intolerance, xenophobia and religious zealotry have been encouraged by a distorted Republican Party for far too long.”

Blessings to all of you,

DB