RumourNation

Not Dead Yet.

Today just happens to be the 2nd anniversary of the day I had major surgery for cancer.  Rather than wallowing in introspection, I chose to honor the occasion with a date with a machine, pounding the shit out of fuzzy yellow balls on the tennis court.  Fuzzy yellow balls are a good metaphor for the cancer cells that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation pounded the shit out of in my body for most of a year. I hit them hard, and it felt good.

I've been making some major changes in my life since finishing treatment. Most of those changes are stressful. I go to a therapist to talk about it, to create a "safe place" where we can smooth out the rough edges and make sure that I'm kind to myself.  Therapy should be a requirement after you face a critical illness - I'm grateful that the medical community is acknowledging that fact.  And I'm grateful that the ACA has made mental healthcare a requirement for insurance policies. Guess those pro-Obama phone calls I made while fighting off chemo-induced nausea were worth something. 

It's funny, though, that when the therapist and I talk about one currently tough situation or another, when she asks me how it's affecting me, I have a stock response:  "I'm not dead." 

I'm not being flippant, it just happens to be the truth. Things like cancer change you. I hesitate to qualify whether that change is for the better, or for the worse - you will never, ever hear me say that I'm grateful for cancer or that it made me a better person. But it has made me more respectful of myself, more aware of what I'm capable of handling, and more greedy for a life based on joy. It's made me less tolerant of equivocation. (I'm talking to you, Tea Party.)  It's made me more clear about what I say, and what I want.

I have a beloved Labrador Retriever, and I feel like he wakes up every morning with that sentiment:  "I'm not dead!" (Followed by:  "Feed me now!").  When you greet each day with that kind of joy, it's hard to be dragged down even by massive challenges.  Instead of saving it for the therapist's office, I think I'm going to try it every morning and see where it leads me. 

Photo:  "Joy of the Chase" by E. Howe.

 

 

My Closing Argument for the Election

It's true, and atypical for me:  Rumournation has lain fallow, in the middle of an election year.  Usually full of rant, bluster and venting, this little space in the middle of cyberspace has been empty, no longer a waystation for friends who care about what I have to say and the random visitor brought hither by a misspelled Google search. 

The reason is simple:  I've been fighting breast cancer.  And that fight has turned me into a warrior, not only when it comes to hanging on to my life, but when it comes to my politics.  Because, suddenly I went from someone who was making it on her own, to someone who needed the social safety net.  And because politicians like Mitt Romney (born with a silver spoon in his mouth) and members of the Tea Party (born when their heads stuck in their butts) don't want to believe that I exist. 

But I do exist, in multiple dimensions:  The single mom-head of of household dimension, where I still had to raise my child every day, despite being ill and exhausted from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.  The suddenly not-able-to-work dimension, where COBRA became a lifeline, even with the $1200 a month premium to cover both me and my kid.  The pre-existing condition dimension, where despite the fact that I can actually make a good living doing consulting work, I face a gap in health insurance coverage during the months between the end of my COBRA coverage and the start of the ACA in early 2014 that is an enormous barrier to running a small business.  And, most of all, the American-working-woman dimension, where I've become used to the fact that, for me to succeed, I usually have to be better, smarter and more buttoned-up than my male counterparts because I am simply not afforded the same considerations and freedoms as they are, even after years of agitating for equal rights.

Case in point:  Reproductive issues are economic issues for women.  And yet, access to birth control is not universal, while access to Viagra virtually is.  Planned Parenthood is vilified as an abortion provider, rather than being valued for what it really does:  provides basic healthcare for free.  And despite the fact that the freedom to terminate a pregnancy is the law of the land, instead of hewing to policies that keep abortion "safe, legal and rare," there's a movement afoot to create what I consider real "death panels:"  juries of (let's face it, primarily men) who will demand that a woman prove she was raped, is ill, or otherwise incompetent, before she will be allowed to make a very personal choice about her very own body. 

I've tried to view Republican nominees without prejudice.  I really have.  I've read their platforms, looked at their economic plans (well, not Romney's plan, because I can't find it), tried to logic my way into their view of fiscal responsibility. 

But, I can't forget that George W. Bush did more to erode both our basic freedoms (Patriot Act, anyone?) and our economic well-being than the previous four presidents combined.  I can't ignore the fact that Romney, as a Mormon bishop, ordered a woman to give up her child because there wasn't a "proper Mormon father" in the home.  And there's Ryan's voting record in Congress, plain as day, where he turned out to be a defender of the "Protect Life Act," which permitted hospitals to deny women emergency abortions in ANY circumstance, and who authored a budget plan that his own church decried as viciously discriminatory.  

I am trying to raise my daughter to have courage and grace, to tell the truth, to respect others no matter what their skin color or economic status.  But how do I explain to her that, despite the fact that she's a living, breathing American with a brain, heart and spirit, when she needs support and healthcare, well, she's just not as valuable as a man, or as that fetus she might be carrying? 

I can't do it.  I can't tell her that.  And I can't support a party that cynically chose to conflate politics with religion in a bid for power, that thinks that eroding women's rights is a morally supportable position, that thinks empowering only a small sliver of the population makes economic sense. 

And please don't tell me that they're actually protecting women.  I have eyes and ears.  And I've fought cancer:  I can fight you. 

I've seen what Barack Obama has accomplished over the past three-plus years.  It's not perfect, but it's very, very good.  And it's meaningful to me that the first bill he signed in office was the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.   Apparently, he thinks I'm worth as much as the man I'm standing next to. 

And that, my friends, is what makes a leader and a President.  Vote Obama. 

 

Atlas Befugged

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 12.  Took me about five days.  I then proceeded to get into a big fight with my mother because she couldn’t understand why a 12-year-old should be allowed to go find a job, live on her own, and eschew dealing with her younger brothers, who “weren’t pulling their own weight".  (I still don’t know how my mother made it through my childhood.)

I’ve re-read Atlas Shrugged many times since then, although I usually skip the interminable “A-is-A” John Galt speech.  I always wanted to make it, and The Lord of the Rings, into movies.  Unfortunately, Peter Jackson beat me to the latter.  Some bunch of crazy people  beat me to the former, but I have no doubts the rights  to the book will be free again sometime soon, and I can hire Peter Jackson to make that movie, too.   Because that’s where Atlas Shrugged belongs:  in books, in movies, in your imagination … but not as the blueprint for your governmental policy.    If it is, can I ask you this:  does Sauron also figure large in your defense strategy?

My point:  There is a difference between pure intellectualism and pragmatism.   Between imagination and its application.  No one impugns inspiration, but it means nothing if it cannot solve the problems at hand, whether they are artistic problems, or problems in government.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is lionized as a “deep thinker” for having thought about the current Federal budget deficit and looming debt.  He has proposed an Ayn Rand-style budget to address the issue, one that reduces spending as a percentage of GDP and returns us to balance some time around 2034 – a generation away.   This ballyhooed proposal was symbolically passed by the Republican-controlled House as their “budget,” despite the fact that it has as much relationship to the real world as Atlas Shrugged.   And then used as the basis for grandstanding about the “do-nothing” Democratic members of Congress.   But isn’t doing something wrong, just to say you did it … just wrong?   Frankly, it even violates the core of Rand’s Objectivist principals. 

The fallacy in Ryan’s budget is similar to the fallacy in Rand’s book:  we’re not operating in a vacuum.   As much as we like to think success or failure belongs solely to ourselves, there are mitigating circumstances – including just plain old luck – and the inescapable fact that we live in a network of human beings who contribute in positive and negative ways to our well-being every single day.  Even small contributions on the positive side can add up to big wins.  In the book, the world collapses after all the “real” workers (all fabulously successful and wealthy) go hide in a 1950’s version of a Montana militia camp.   The book ends joyously as Dagny and John head back out the world to “fix” everything.  Rand cleverly omits the part where the lazy-asses who were left behind turn on these shiny smarty-pants and eat them, then take over their militia camp.  Humans just don’t give up that easily, and frankly, in harsh circumstances, the intellectuals are the first to be culled from the herd.   

Similarly, Ryan achieves his budget goals by slashing entitlement programs and severely reducing Federal support for the individual states, despite the fact that the state governments that are not wrestling with their own deficits are few and far between.  He also imagines that money will flow in, without actually creating any new sources of revenue – raising taxes is a non-starter for him.  Like Rand, he somehow assumes that the lazy masses who don’t deserve Federal support (including the states!) are just going to meekly go away.  When in fact, they’ll probably eat him, and his cute family, too. 

IMHO, Ryan would be a true hero if he actually looked at the facts  - there’s a chart of the impact of the Bush tax cuts here (although missing the resulting economic growth it generated, because there wasn’t any) – and then made a balanced proposal, acknowledging the fact that the “real” workers aren’t all confined to the moneyed classes.   You can still be a conservative and advocate for a progressive tax strategy, Paul.   You know Norquist is an idiot, stand up and tell him that.  Say it came from John Galt, who always spits the truth.   

Roman Catholic Ryan recently publically repudiated Atlas Shrugged after Catholic bishops called his budget “immoral.”  He did this after years of giving away the book as his standard holiday gift.   Maybe the ghost of Ayn Rand, who accepted help from Social Security and possibly Medicare near the end of her life, also got to him. 

Mitt Romney’s pick of Ryan for his V.P. has generated much hoopla from both ends of the political spectrum over the past 24 hours.  Conservatives view him as a hero.  Less-conservatives and liberals view him as an easy target.   Me, I view him as the smart 12-year-old who never really got over Atlas Shrugged.   Maybe I should have my mom call him.   

 Photo of Atlas from Natural History Museum, London, in honor of the Olympics.

The Politics of the Hunger Games: A Warning for 2012 Candidates

The LA Times ran a column titled "What The Hunger Games Means" a couple of days ago.  Among the POV's cited was one from fellow Duke alum and Angeleno Fred Goldring, who opined that The Hunger Games (THG) was a fable about this year's Republican Presidential candidates.  Given that the books were written four years ago, I think Fred was being a little tongue-in-cheek.

But I am not.  I think that the popularity of THG -- both books and movie -- represents a rising tide of female empowerment and resentment that can be turned towards government in a skinny minute.  And I think, by elevating recent discourse about denying access to birth control into a virtual party platform, various conservative pundits and wanna-be candidates are sticking their proverbial feet right on top of a proverbial landmine.  Or, to use another metaphor, putting themselves squarely in the sights of Katniss' very-accurate bow. 

Granted, the Twilight series, which in my mind is the antithesis of female empowerment, has also been very popular.  But THG blew away Twilight's opening-weekend records.  Which indicates to me that the normally-quiet swing voters (in this case, movie-goers) were moved to action by a tale that features a female hunter-heroine who sacrifices for her sister and ultimately takes down a repressive government. 

Katniss, the heroine, does not want children, because she doesn't want them subjected to the depradations of the Hunger Games.  If you've read the books, you know that she later changes her mind, after the Games have been eliminated.  She not only hunts, kills and defends her family like a wildcat, but she also exercises her right to choose her life's direction, without interference from the government.  This is a message that many of my female peers, as well as their daughters, understand completely.

I can't tell you how many of my distaff Republican friends are dismayed that rights that they thought were settled long ago are somehow now on the table, that a party that was built on individual accountability and small government now supports the idea that government should regulate your reproductive choices - mostly by denying the female half of the citizenry access to choice.   They feel that their party is failing them, and they have nowhere to go. 

If the dialog continues down this track, I wouldn't be surprised if the result is hundreds of thousands of Katnisses, ready to step in for their sisters and stick a few arrows in those who would oppress them. To quote President Snow (Donald Sutherland) from the movie:  "Hope.  It's the only thing stronger than fear."  

 

We Aren't Gonna Take It: Limbaugh & Social Conservatism Unmasked.

I've been a little silent on RumourNation, partially because writing about politics and pop culture is more fun during election years (I'm sure Jon Stewart would concur), and also because I've been dealing with a health crisis that is particular to women, and which is, sadly, becoming more common in the U.S. every year.   The side effect of the crisis is that I'm much more sensitive to my status as a woman, as well as to the drastic failings inherent in the U.S. healthcare system.  As if this were not rough enough, Rush Limbaugh and his posse of social conservatives have now awakened me to the fact that, really, I'm not a person at all:  I'm just a receptacle for Rush' desire to watch porn online, and for the Tea Party's desire to poke me with foreign instruments for my perceived moral failings.  

I'm referring, of course, to Limbaugh's recent rant about Sandra Fluke's appearance before Congress in support of private insurance-funded birth control, and to the recent attempt to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds prior to abortion in my native state - er, Commonwealth - of Virginia. 

Limbaugh is not alone, BTW.  He was followed quickly by fellow bully Bill O'Reilly, who repeated the fallacy that Fluke's request for support from private healthcare was the equivalent of stealing O'Reilly's 1-percenter money.   And Virginia, of course, is not the lone state (although it may be the lone Commonwealth) to try to stick things in women's private parts as punishment for wanting an abortion. 

Both situations have blown the covers off the motivations of the social conservative movement, which pretends to want government out of our lives.  Turns out that the pesky government is only a problem when it comes to money.  Government intervention is fine when it comes to things like religion and sex.  And, of course, when it comes to things like religion and sex, women are not fellow travelers on the path of life.  They are the enemy. 

There is a part of me that's cheering this reset in political discourse, because it's having the effect I want:  it's pissing off women, who make up more than half of the electorate.  Those of us who are under 50 don't understand why issues like contraception are even part of the dialog:  in our minds, our rights to these things were settled long ago.  However, older and wiser women are nodding their heads - they remember what it was like to fight, and they know that, in all likelihood, we are going to have to fight again.  As the mother of a teenage daughter, I am taking heed.

I think we should all take heed of what happens to civilizations that hate their women:  they may succeed for a while, but they ultimately break, because by nature, they have eliminated half their potential.   Nature abhors a vacuum.   Social conservatives who label women "sluts" for wanting access to birth control are, in actuality, operating from the same assumptions as groups like the Taliban.   Rick Santorum called Limbaugh an "entertainer."  Perhaps unfortunate, given that public beheadings,  hangings and maulings have all been called "entertainment" at one time or another.  Sometimes the line between religious doctrine and bloodlust can seem rather permeable.  Some will claim that I'm dramatically stretching the point.  They are conveniently forgetting the pogroms in our history. 

So, I'm encouraging my sisters and brothers, but especially my sisters, to stand up and push back.  Bullies like Limbaugh and O'Reilly need their comeuppance, and since we control the domestic pursestrings, let's give it to them.  Here are a couple of places you can go to get started.  On the political front, let's direct those social conservatives to the real issues -- the economy, employment, rebuilding our country -- and find out if they actually have any solutions.  If not, let's find some folks who do.  Here are a few more places where you might go. 

I'll tackle the healthcare system -- where you are clearly not a person unless you are employed -- in another post, perhaps one about the true meaning of "death panels" in the U.S.  And don't even get me started on "Citizens United."

Please note that I am registered as an independent, and do not belong to a major political party.  Maybe you'll take what I say a little more seriously. 

 

9/11: The Man in the Red Bandana

It opens today, the 9/11 Memorial.  I'm watching the opening service, where family members read the names of those who died, a liturgy made of missing lives and a mournful fugue by Yo-Yo Ma.   It's heartbreaking to see the kids, most of whom who are now young teenagers, who've been denied the love of their mothers and fathers for a decade now. 

The Memorial itself is breathtaking, an endless waterfall into a deep pool, surrounded by the nearly 3,000 names of those who died that day, who died for simply being American.  We see the families as they walk into the plaza for the first time, hunting for their loved ones.  They react, simply and quietly, when they find a beloved name:  they reach out and touch it. 

I'm struck, as the names are read, by how many family members are themselves New York City firefighters and police officers, by the depth of the bonds of honor, service and duty that exist in a city that many think of as being huge and faceless. Then I hear one father say " ... and my son, Welles Remy Crowther, the man in the red bandana." 

If you haven't heard Welles' story, watch this lovely short video by ESPN.  Why ESPN?  Because Welles was a lacrosse star at Boston College.  He was a securities trader who really wanted to be a New York City firefighter.  He always carried a red bandana.  And he was responsible for saving at least 12 people in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, despite the fact that he could have left the building at any time, and survived.   

When I hear Welles' story, and the story of Flight 93, the tales of the first responders who entered the buildings with no fear, who died while rescuing their fellow countrymen, I'm saddened. 

What did they die for?  For fights over the debt ceiling?  For a banking system that profiteers while denying working capital to small businesses?  So politicans could stand up and say that hurricanes and earthquakes are the result of sinful living? 

I don't think the men and women who helped each other that day gave a rat's ass about who had health insurance, who was married to whom, whether or not the person they hauled out of the building was a "real" American.  All they cared about was the fact that their fellow travelers, human beings who were attacked for simply being alive, needed help. 

I want to live in the country that those folks come from.  The one where we care about each other, where our differences are valued, not maligned, where (to paraphrase), a man is not judged by the contents of his wallet, but by the content of his character. 

We've blown it, my friends.  We squandered the chance to make ourselves stronger, instead opted for a catfight about meritocracy and special interests.  We can fix it, if we try.  But it involves calling our elected representatives -- and those who desire to be our elected representatives -- on their shit.  It involves not devolving to personal attacks on those who hold differing opinions, who worship different gods, who have more melanin in their skins.  It involves remembering the very words that our founding fathers (and mothers) adopted in an act of Congress in 1782:   E pluribus unum.  Out of many, one. 

Not one out of those who think like me.  Not one out of those who "deserve" it.  Not one out those who worship my god.  Out of many, one. 

I leave you with the words of the formidable Archibald MacLeish:

"There are those who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American Dream." 

Don't give up on the dream. 

Enough.

I've been crying all morning.  In anger and in sadness.   Because, as the grown-ups --a minority!--who populate our country have been predicting for some time, it's come true:  a non-Tea Party member of Congress got shot for doing her job.   It's impossible to glorify violence, and guns, and to talk about your political opponents as traitors deserving of death, without seeing your words come to life. 

And the objects of all this vitriol?  People who have voted for things like extending healthcare to more Americans, keeping unemployment benefits in place, allowing all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation. 

"But," Palin apologists protest, "Our graphics with crosshairs on them have nothing to do with violence!  And Sarah doesn't mean it when she uses words like 'bulls-eye'!  And she doesn't shoot those moose just for fun!"

"But," adds Michelle Malkin, "The Daily Kos called for Gabby Giffords' death just last week!"

"But," adds Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, "Giffords is a liberal!" 

Let's take a moment to look at some of those affected, and the losses, from yesterday's shooting.  Giffords is the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Arizona, a Democrat representing a staunchly Republican district, and a supporter of such decidedly non-liberal stances as strong immigration laws and, ironically, gun owership.  She just defeated a Tea Party candidate to keep her seat.  She's also a Fulbright scholar.  And her husband, Mark Kelly, is a freakin' astronaut.  An ASTRONAUT. 

Among those murdered:  Giffords' head of community outreach, who was a respected young social worker; John Roll, a highly-regarded Federal judge with nearly 40 years of government service; and a nine-year-old girl whose birthday was 9/11/2001.

Giffords and her Arizona colleague, Raul Grijalva, have been targets of violence for months, as had Judge Roll.  Vandalism, death threats, and guns at town halls had become a fact of life.  The reason:  because they held humanistic views on immigration reform.

Tea Party leaders, and those Republicans who have enabled them, are decrying any notion of a relationship between the deranged perpetrator of yesterday's shootings and right-wing political rhetoric.  Perhaps they are correct.  But I would bet my recession-plundered savings to say that the vandals, gun carriers and death-threat-issuers who have attacked Giffords, Grijalva and Roll over the past year HAVE been Tea Party members. 

Because here's the truth:  Tea Party rhetoric implies that it is right to employ violence against fellow Americans who hold different political ideologies.  Having a different opinion means that you deserve to be shot, just like moose, for simply existing.  

And "different" can be most anything:  if you're not white, and don't believe in a Christian god, you're different.  If you voted for Obama, you're different.  If you think religion has no place in government, you're different.  If you think I'm overstating the problem, just ask my white, Southern mother, who is now afraid to speak her mind in the city where she has lived her entire life.  Her compassion and capability for rational thought now make her "different."

The fact is, as the grown-ups have known for quite some time, Tea Party rhetoric is not about fiscal responsibility or patriotism or unemployment.  It's about fear, and hatred, and an unwillingness to accept the reality of living in a nation that, despite looking very different from the nation of 1776, has managed to survive intact, and make the rule of law and general civility the standard operating procedure, for all its diverse citizens.  It's rather a miracle.  And the supposedly spiritual Tea Party seems intent on destroying it. 

Perhaps Palin and her cronies do not advocate physical violence, but ya betcha, they're pretty good at invoking its imagery.  Makes it easy for some deranged 23-year-old to connect the dots between the crosshairs on a Facebook page and the crosshairs on a real gun, doesn't it?  And to think that he'll be a hero for shooting someone?

Like most of the people I know, I've had enough.  I'm not even particularly liberal, or a Democrat.  But I am an American.  I feel that we've worked hard for our particular miracle of a nation, and I'm not going to stand by and watch us lose it to those who seem to think that Fulbright scholars, astronauts, judges, social workers and schoolchildren are unnecessary frills in our society.  Or that political discourse free from fear is a luxury, not a right. 

I'm going to stand up and block their every move.  My weapons:  compassion, inclusion, love.  My invitation:  To come back from exile in the land of TeaPartania, fellow travelers.  Join us in America, at the grown-ups table.  We've had enough. 

 

The GOP (Grand Old Perjoratives)

I have to 'fess up to being on the fence about national healthcare.  I spent a fair amount of time working for a Canadian company, hearing on the sly about the underbelly of a nationalized system:  it was a little worrisome.  On the other hand, as a single parent who has had to scramble for coverage during a few periods when I've been doing consulting work -- funny how the lack of an outside employer does not relieve you of responsibility for a child! -- having some help with this would indeed be a relief. 

But regardless where I stand on healthcare, Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst last night during President Obama's address to Congress put a fine point on all the issues that have driven moderates like me far away from the Republican party over the past two decades.  Frankly, it's all about respect.  

Some time during the late eighties and the early nineties -- actually, right around the time I became old enough to vote -- rhetoric from the GOP started moving from the positive to the personal.  Folks like me who didn't hew to the party platform, became "unpatriotic."  And with the party's adoption of the evangelical community and the move to start legislating private behavior, the labels got worse -- what was merely "unpatriotic" before was now "destructive" and "evil."  Somehow, the party's agenda became the country's agenda, and the belief system of a few became standard issue for everyone. 

And the folks putting out this POV?  Well, they seemed to take it very, very personally.  To the point where a pasty white lawmaker with his hands deep in the healthcare industry's till would feel that it's appropriate to call the Constitutionally-elected President a liar before both houses of Congress, on national television.  Dude was wrong, BTW, but he did it anyway.

Now, I'm aware of the fact that there are many legislative houses in other countries where that sort of behavior would seem, well, rather banal.  Check out this punching match in India's Parliament, for instance. But hey, they owe their democratic structure to the UK, and we worked really hard to get away from their shenanigans.  

Look, I'll accept the fact that my choices may seem ill-considered, and maybe even idiotic, at times.  But I resent the fact that someone thinks I'm "evil" because I support gay marriage.  Or that I'm "unpatriotic" because I think it was idiotic to start a war in Iraq.

Here's the thing:  I try to do the right thing, by myself, my friends and family, my countrymen and women.  I'm also pretty smart, well-educated, and extremely skilled at researching information.  If you're going to call me a liar, you better have your facts straight, or I'll catch you.  And if you're going to keep calling me names, please make sure you're living a squeaky-clean life, because I'll find out when you're not.   There are approximately 250 million more people like me in these old United States, and we're sick of the disrespect.  You've made it personal, Messrs. Wilson, Cantor, Boehner and Rove.  (And let's not forget you, Ms. Palin!)  You've made it personal, y'all, when for us, it was strictly business.  Don't be surprised when we take you out, and go home with the cannoli.

On Vox: (Wo)Man in the Mirror: A Meditation on Self-Immolation

A moment of self-reflection.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that I’ve had a Michael Jackson song stuck in my head for the past week.   It’s not “Thriller,” despite the fact that I’m a card-carrying member of the original MTV generation.   It’s not “Beat It,” or “Bad,” or even some of my favorite earlier stuff, like “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” or “Blame it on the Boogie.”

The song?  “Who is It?” 

Who Is It?

It’s the one MJ song where I felt like he expressed real emotion.  We all knew that he wasn’t actually singing about a woman (is there anyone among us who really thought Michael was straight?  Did we really care, as long as he danced for us?).  But in the end, it didn’t matter: the anguish was there, the melody was great – it’s definitely a tune that makes you feel a bit anguished yourself, turns you a little inside out, makes you want to howl at the moon.   

But here’s the thing – read the lyrics from the second verse, and think about MJ’s metamorphosis from adorable kid, to handsome, charismatic young black man, to his final incarnation as a sexually ambiguous person hiding behind a surgically-structured mask:  

I am the damned.
I am the dead.
I am the agony inside
The dying head.  
This is injustice.
Woe unto there
I pray this punishment
Would have mercy on me.

I had dinner with some friends the other night, and found myself in the midst of the biggest collection of genetic lottery winners that I’d seen in a while.   All women, all tall and gorgeous, some with exotic accents and stepchildren visiting from far-away locations like Sweden.  

I sat there in my little linen shift and just felt … dumpy.   Felt kind of worthless, despite the fact that I have a master’s degree and a pretty serious job, have been successfully raising a child on my own for a number of years, and have been told more than once that I am beautiful.  

I will absolutely cop to suffering from body dysmorphic disorder.  I’m constitutionally incapable of looking at pictures of myself.   I hide from the camera, despite the fact that I’m a normal-sized person (actually, a slimmer-than-normal-sized-person, if you read the latest national health survey).  The funny thing is that, when I do find a picture of myself, usually years later, my general response is:  You look just fine.   What were you thinking?

It makes me wonder what I would be, if I had been turned loose into a sea of unending work, overwhelming adulation, and seemingly limitless resources … like Michael Jackson.   Would I keep hacking away at myself, trying to achieve an image that someone, somewhere at some point definitively convinced me was the right way to look?  Drown my pain in an eternal string of surgeries and procedures?  Dull it with drugs and alcohol?  Or would I find the strength somewhere, deep down, to accept myself as I am?

I remember what a friend said when Heath Ledger died:  “The business just uses them up.  Sucks the life out of them.”   We could see that something was draining the life out of Michael, as surely as we could see the changes in his appearance.  Why did we keep right on worshiping him? Why did we continue to reward his very public self-immolation?  Why would we take someone so singularly gifted and allow him to burn himself to a crisp?  And why do we repeat the pattern over and over, infecting our children – particularly our daughters?  

A few years ago, when I was going through a hideous divorce (is there any other kind?), I was under the care of a particularly amazing therapist with a Jungian bent.  I had this recurring dream where a thin, blonde woman would follow me around and yell at me, telling me what a failure I was.  Finally, in desperation, I would kill her, and bury her in the woods somewhere.  Then I’d wake up in a cold sweat, convinced that I was guilty of murder.  Instead of telling me I was a monster, my therapist pointed out that I was simply getting rid of my internal critic:  my soul was struggling mightily to set itself free.   Once I grasped her point, the blonde woman disappeared.   Although she still occasionally shows up, at dinner, with an exotic stepdaughter from Sweden.  And then, instead of killing her, I generally want to kill myself.  

Who was MJ’s thin blonde woman?  And did he see her in the mirror every day, telling him what a failure he was?  

I accept the fact that we live in a visually-centric media world, and that the camera is kindest to the thinnest among us.  But I also say this:  we created the camera.   That puts us in charge.  We should not, in turn, let it create us.  We are so much more than the two-dimensional images we leave behind.  Embracing that should be our life’s work.  

Now, please excuse me, I’ve got some moonwalking to do.  

Originally posted on rumournation.vox.com

Lost with Lost

Now that the Inauguration of the Century has finally happened, and I can put all the distractions of the election away, I've been able to return to my first love:  entertainment media.  (Well, it may be my third love -- after the wine and the LOLcats.)   In terms of television, I managed to keep up with some of my favorites even while the election was happening - the Daily Show comes to mind, as does Entourage  - and even adopt a couple of new ones, like the supremely awesome True Blood and its bevy of not-quite-human guy hotties.  I also ended up Blockbuster's perma-shitlist by repeatedly forgetting to return a season's worth of Battlestar Galactica episodes. (Needed to do some research to tell all those Cylons apart.  Wait, which one is Athena, again?  And why are there 3500 copies of her?) 

But sadly, there was one that got away from me:  Lost.  Yeah, I'm lost when it comes to that show.  And don't tell me that you're not, because I don't believe it. 

I can't say that I didn't try.  The Tivo was stuffed with episodes going back to late 2007.  My daughter and I would watch them with a pad of paper to keep notes.  "Wait, wait!" she'd holler, "What was that about?  What's going on in that cabin?  Who's that guy with the eyeliner?"  And we'd zip backwards on the DVR, watch the scene again, write a few notes.  Finally, we'd give up and decide to watch House instead, finding complicated medical mysteries a little easier to decode. 

A cottage industry has arisen around keeping track of Lost.  There are Wikipedia entries, detailed fan websites, even a guide in Fast Company.   I'm sure that if TV Guide still had a robust print business, they'd tuck a Lost primer into every issue, and make gazillions of dollars off selling ads around it.  (Are you listening, OpenGate? )   It was fascinating at first, but now it feels a little like that organic chemistry final I took sophomore year in college:  immensely complex, exhausting, and kind of pointless.  (I dumped my pre-med major after that wretched test in favor of Shakespeare, which I find complex, energizing, and continually relevant. If you need convincing, watch this.)  

I started lurking at the local farmer's market, hoping to spy JJ Abrams, whom I've seen shopping there once or twice.  I know he's not intimately involved in the inner workings of the writer's room, but maybe he could give me some clarity?  Tell me what happened to the smoke monster?  Whether Walt is now attending Harvard-Westlake?  After a while, I decided I was more interested in what Chris Pine's hair looks like in the new Star Trek move.  JJ, if you're reading this, give me a call, will you? 

So, I have to cop to losing interest in Lost.  I'm lacking the time or the brain cells, or both.  Instead, I'm filling the Tivo with back episodes of Big Love, the better to keep up with the convoluted familial relationships of a bunch of double-dealing polygamists.  They're easier to keep track of, frankly. 

If, unlike me, you still have some hope, New York Magazine has published an excellent list of the twenty questions Lost needs to answer before it sails off into the Island-inflected sunset.  Me, now that spring is in the air, I'm trading Locke for a couple of bottles of Loire Valley white, Mario Batali's asparagus risotto recipe, and an extra three minutes of American Idol.  Frankly, I find Paula Abdul easier to understand.