Thanksgiving is over, and in the interest of gearing up for the next holiday in the parade of things-to-do, I planned to jumpstart my Christmas decoration process by retrieving all my Christmas stuff from storage on Wednesday, and starting in on it today. That explains why I am currently sitting in a living room that looks like ground-zero at the North Pole after the explosion.
I have a lot of Christmas stuff--and that's like saying Barack Obama has a few problems, come January. I mean, A LOT of Christmas stuff. Maybe it's because I'm from Baltimore, the capital city of tacky. Maybe it's that we've downsized our house more often than our decorations stash. Maybe it's just that I like Christmas, and can't resist a reindeer or a Santa. Whatever the reason ("his heart or his shoes"?) I am fruitlessly engaging in the placement game at this point. How can I rearrange the furniture to fit in the requisite Frasier fir? If I pack the everyday knickknacks away, will I ever find them again? Where are the Christmas dishes? (I still don't think my son-in-law understands the concept of Christmas dishes. I think my sister and I invented it some years back...) How long must an object remain stationary before it should be decorated?
But enough lolly-gagging. I have piles of Santa Clauses and reindeer...and a sweet pair of baby ice skates I found not too long ago that need a place to hang. There are wreaths to hang and bells to jingle and Christmas songs to load on my Ipod. And of course, those Christmas dishes... Only four weeks to go.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Ladies of Liberty
We had the good fortune last night to attend a lecture by Cokie Roberts (sponsored by the U.S.Capitol Historical Society) on the role of women in government. Though there is plenty of grist for that particular mill in the recent presidential campaign--and now, Obama's cabinet selections--Ms. Roberts chose to speak about previous eras, where the role of women has been either overlooked or underplayed. Using primary sources such as previously unpublished letters and reports written by women in Washington, she amply illustrated her point that American women have wielded power and influence in government since before the Revolution.
I'm ready to seek out both her books at this point. I obviously have a lot to learn about the women who helped make American history.
I'm ready to seek out both her books at this point. I obviously have a lot to learn about the women who helped make American history.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Unexpected treasure
(1947 Deller reunion--click to enlarge) This week, when I went over to Baltimore to see my mom, I was surprised to find that she had visitors: two of my cousins (my Uncle John's daughters) whom I had not seen in at least 40 years.
Lest you think we have long-standing family feuds or something, let me say at the outset that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 first cousins--on my mother's side alone--so it's always been sort of difficult to keep up with each other. I, unfortunately, have always left that task to my mother, who has always been an inveterate letter writer.
We went to lunch and had a great visit before we all had to disperse for our assorted destinations. But this short encounter left me with an itch to look back at all my pictures and files and --in my most intrepid of excursions--into my own memories to see what information I had about my family.
The short answer is that the most rewarding stuff I found was the work of my mom. Letters telling about her childhood, written to granddaughters and nieces, and anyone else who asked. What treasures these pieces of paper are: all that's left of our family history. And my mom is one of the last of her generation who can tell those stories.
Looking at all this, I asked JC what we had to tell about what our lives have been like. His answer--as I'm sure many of ours would be--was that nothing much has happened to us that was interesting. Hmm. I imagine my mom didn't think blackberry-picking with her dad was earth-shaking either, but the window she gives us on what life was like then is wonderful and tremendously interesting to us city-dwelling couch potatoes who get our blackberries from Chile via the local supermarket.
It would be a great gift to our children to tell them where we came from and how far and fast we have traveled in our own lives. Maybe we should all start writing down our memories.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Responsibility
I am heartened by the outcome of our recent election. Not because of the Obama victory, though that is, I believe, a good thing. Not, in fact, because of the overwhelming landslide that carried Mark Warner into office, even though that restored my faith in the Virginia electorate. It was not even Virginia’s return to the Democratic fold that prompted my restored feelings of optimism, although that was long overdue. No. My uplifted emotional state is due to the return of responsibility.
Perhaps it is just me (and those of you who know me know that that prefix statement REALLY means that I don’t think it is) but there has seemed to be a slow and steady decline in any feeling of responsibility in any number of fields over the past twenty years. From students who were willing to blame everyone and everything but themselves for their failures to salespeople who met complaints with a smile and an indifferent shrug, America has been suffering from a severe case of not-my-fault-ism and unwillingness to expend even the slightest energy toward righting wrongs.
Since I seem to have an overdeveloped sense of guilt and/or responsibility (vestiges of my Roman Catholic upbringing) I have been exceedingly frustrated and disturbed by this trend, and have been only too willing to work overtime at assigning blame. I have run through the usual suspects over the years, with my villains running the gamut from too much TV, to not enough supervision, to parents more interested in money than kids, to lack of community due to air-conditioning and garage-door openers (don’t get me started—I’m not always rational)..to just plain laziness. I had stopped short of government, but then along came George Bush, who has proved a convenient and likely scapegoat for just about everything else, so why not pile on?
This presidential campaign exacerbated every scrape and scratch on my bruised and battered sense of what’s right and wrong. So much of what went on in speeches and campaign ads and even in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms (which now seem to hold only pundits and talking heads and their laptops) just seemed to be so…unworthy of our political process. While it was abundantly clear that the road across America was littered with policies and programs and industries that were seriously broken, debate centered around personal attacks and misrepresentations (on both sides) of what the other candidate stood for. Never before had I witnessed such a crying need for critical thinking skills among the electorate, skills that would allow voters to tease out the truth from statements that went wholeheartedly for the biased interpretation of just about everything.
Capping this assault on my own good sense and that of the American voter was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Instead of being greeted by a rousing country-wide tsunami-like bellow of “John McCain, what are you THINKING??”, this announcement apparently generated enthusiasm for the Republican ticket.
Now, in the interest of perfect honesty here, I will say that I could have voted for John McCain up to that point. He seemed to be a reasonable man, with policies as reasonable as much of his competition for the nomination. But someone somewhere at the Republican convention must have slipped something into his drink, hypnotized him into some sort of weird political trance, changed his reading glasses, or erased his conscious memory in some way…did the Vietnamese ever watch The Manchurian Candidate?...and he walked out on stage apparently convinced that Sarah Palin was the answer to the American voter’s prayers. I guess that assumes that we were all praying for Caribou Barbie, a woman as insular as they come, whose convictions vary with her location and current ambition, and whose inability to utter a complete and cogent sentence boggles the mind. Had John McCain teamed up with just about anyone short of the anti-Christ, he might have done better in my book. Unfortunately for him, the best speech I heard him make, the most heartfelt and honest look at the mind of John McCain, was his concession speech. Had he spoken that well from the beginning, had he ignored his handlers, had he run from his own heart, he might have been president today.
Which (sort of) brings me back to my initial statement. Responsibility is that quality that people hunger for. We want someone who will deal with us and the issues from a position of honesty and candor. We don’t necessarily want someone who will tell us it’s all right, or who will trumpet “Mission accomplished!” when it’s not. We want someone whom we feel we can trust, and that someone has to be a responsible individual: one who demonstrates-- and brings out in us-- our best qualities and our highest levels of patriotism.
I don’t know that Barack Obama has better answers for the problems that beset us. I don’t know if he can fix what’s broken. In fact, I’m pretty sure he can’t. One man, even with a Democratic majority in Congress, can only do so much, and we are in pretty bad straits. However, I know how he makes me feel, how he makes other people feel, how he makes the country and the world feel. He makes us feel that we are not going to be victims anymore, but will be active participants in rebuilding our own corner of the world, and our reputation in the farther reaches of it. He is treating us as the responsible people we can and should be, and once were. He expects us all to be more than we are, and he’s allowed us to dream again of what we could be.
I hope that none of us is disappointed.
Perhaps it is just me (and those of you who know me know that that prefix statement REALLY means that I don’t think it is) but there has seemed to be a slow and steady decline in any feeling of responsibility in any number of fields over the past twenty years. From students who were willing to blame everyone and everything but themselves for their failures to salespeople who met complaints with a smile and an indifferent shrug, America has been suffering from a severe case of not-my-fault-ism and unwillingness to expend even the slightest energy toward righting wrongs.
Since I seem to have an overdeveloped sense of guilt and/or responsibility (vestiges of my Roman Catholic upbringing) I have been exceedingly frustrated and disturbed by this trend, and have been only too willing to work overtime at assigning blame. I have run through the usual suspects over the years, with my villains running the gamut from too much TV, to not enough supervision, to parents more interested in money than kids, to lack of community due to air-conditioning and garage-door openers (don’t get me started—I’m not always rational)..to just plain laziness. I had stopped short of government, but then along came George Bush, who has proved a convenient and likely scapegoat for just about everything else, so why not pile on?
This presidential campaign exacerbated every scrape and scratch on my bruised and battered sense of what’s right and wrong. So much of what went on in speeches and campaign ads and even in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms (which now seem to hold only pundits and talking heads and their laptops) just seemed to be so…unworthy of our political process. While it was abundantly clear that the road across America was littered with policies and programs and industries that were seriously broken, debate centered around personal attacks and misrepresentations (on both sides) of what the other candidate stood for. Never before had I witnessed such a crying need for critical thinking skills among the electorate, skills that would allow voters to tease out the truth from statements that went wholeheartedly for the biased interpretation of just about everything.
Capping this assault on my own good sense and that of the American voter was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Instead of being greeted by a rousing country-wide tsunami-like bellow of “John McCain, what are you THINKING??”, this announcement apparently generated enthusiasm for the Republican ticket.
Now, in the interest of perfect honesty here, I will say that I could have voted for John McCain up to that point. He seemed to be a reasonable man, with policies as reasonable as much of his competition for the nomination. But someone somewhere at the Republican convention must have slipped something into his drink, hypnotized him into some sort of weird political trance, changed his reading glasses, or erased his conscious memory in some way…did the Vietnamese ever watch The Manchurian Candidate?...and he walked out on stage apparently convinced that Sarah Palin was the answer to the American voter’s prayers. I guess that assumes that we were all praying for Caribou Barbie, a woman as insular as they come, whose convictions vary with her location and current ambition, and whose inability to utter a complete and cogent sentence boggles the mind. Had John McCain teamed up with just about anyone short of the anti-Christ, he might have done better in my book. Unfortunately for him, the best speech I heard him make, the most heartfelt and honest look at the mind of John McCain, was his concession speech. Had he spoken that well from the beginning, had he ignored his handlers, had he run from his own heart, he might have been president today.
Which (sort of) brings me back to my initial statement. Responsibility is that quality that people hunger for. We want someone who will deal with us and the issues from a position of honesty and candor. We don’t necessarily want someone who will tell us it’s all right, or who will trumpet “Mission accomplished!” when it’s not. We want someone whom we feel we can trust, and that someone has to be a responsible individual: one who demonstrates-- and brings out in us-- our best qualities and our highest levels of patriotism.
I don’t know that Barack Obama has better answers for the problems that beset us. I don’t know if he can fix what’s broken. In fact, I’m pretty sure he can’t. One man, even with a Democratic majority in Congress, can only do so much, and we are in pretty bad straits. However, I know how he makes me feel, how he makes other people feel, how he makes the country and the world feel. He makes us feel that we are not going to be victims anymore, but will be active participants in rebuilding our own corner of the world, and our reputation in the farther reaches of it. He is treating us as the responsible people we can and should be, and once were. He expects us all to be more than we are, and he’s allowed us to dream again of what we could be.
I hope that none of us is disappointed.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Over?
Well, I've cast my vote and now, will be sitting back to wait and see what everyone else has done. If people hold to their previous statements, at least half the population will be moving to Canada (that seems to be the universal threat if either "that one" OR "that WOMAN!!!" ends up winning.) While I don't really believe those threats from either side, it is apparent that there will be at least a few highly disgruntled voters tomorrow morning.
The task at hand, then, for all of us, seems to be adjusting to the outcome. No matter who wins, it's going to be a rough year for all concerned. I cannot imagine taking on any task as gargantuan as the one that faces the winner. No matter how low the bar set by our current president, expectations will be high, and those expectations all hold a tinge of desperation. While I think the American public has a rather healthy attitude toward the value of campaign promises (summed up by "Yeah. Right...") all those words and all that rhetoric are bound to come home to roost some time.
So...to all the candidates, winners and losers, I will say, as someone once said to me after I lost an election, "I don't know whether to say I'm sorry, or to congratulate you." I think the real winners are those of us who no longer have to listen to campaign ads, or avoid proselytizing friends, or debate the merits of the candidates. My blood pressure is bound to recede a few points at not having to listen to inflammatory idiocies on a regular basis, and not having to defend my intelligence against the everyday spout of lies and misdirections that constitute a presidential campaign. I know there is more to come in the analysis and rehash of the actual election process and the endless electoral college explanations. I know I will see much more of the candidates and their reactions, more maps, more talking heads, and more laptop-wielding politicos on TV...but the end is in sight. Thank God.
The task at hand, then, for all of us, seems to be adjusting to the outcome. No matter who wins, it's going to be a rough year for all concerned. I cannot imagine taking on any task as gargantuan as the one that faces the winner. No matter how low the bar set by our current president, expectations will be high, and those expectations all hold a tinge of desperation. While I think the American public has a rather healthy attitude toward the value of campaign promises (summed up by "Yeah. Right...") all those words and all that rhetoric are bound to come home to roost some time.
So...to all the candidates, winners and losers, I will say, as someone once said to me after I lost an election, "I don't know whether to say I'm sorry, or to congratulate you." I think the real winners are those of us who no longer have to listen to campaign ads, or avoid proselytizing friends, or debate the merits of the candidates. My blood pressure is bound to recede a few points at not having to listen to inflammatory idiocies on a regular basis, and not having to defend my intelligence against the everyday spout of lies and misdirections that constitute a presidential campaign. I know there is more to come in the analysis and rehash of the actual election process and the endless electoral college explanations. I know I will see much more of the candidates and their reactions, more maps, more talking heads, and more laptop-wielding politicos on TV...but the end is in sight. Thank God.
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