Mad About Mad Men - 2nd Season July 27th

My mom would have loved this show. My aunt, her sister, and my uncle and I enjoyed sharing bits and dialog. So many great scenes - the extended office party scene from the night of the 1960 election; the episode where Don got his boss drunk and then arranged for him to have to walk up 20 flights of stairs - all in revenge for the pass his boss made as his wife; the roof scene with Rachel; Betty shooting the birds in the backyard and manipulating her psychiatrist once she discovers he ratting on her to her husband.

The settings and clothes and language all create a completely foreign world. The misogyny and anti-antisemitism, the homophobia, the drinking - all seem shocking.

Mad Men won the Golden Globe for best drama and best actor for Jon Hamm, who plays the riveting, tortured, mysterious, dashing Don Draper. It's my favorite show and the second season starts on July 27th, Sunday nights at 10 pm, on AMC. Can't wait. I still have the first season on my dvr. AMC is even issuing a music cd.

Here are some clips.....

Mad Men on Nostalgia (from the excellent episode, The Wheel:


Mad Men on the Past:


Mad Men on Women:


Mad Men on Sex:


Mad Men on Love:

FM & Sex

Here's another thing, to quote George Clooney, that just really depresses the shit out of you: Chronic Pain and Sex: a Couple's Gentle Battle with Fibromyalgia from ABC News. Just horrifying.

The husband says:

"You really have to focus on the non-physical aspects of love when you're in a relationship with a person in chronic pain," says her partner, Sam Chupp, 40. "You have to concentrate on the mental and spiritual bond in order to carry you through times she has a flare [the worst period of pain]."

Men like that are very rare. This couple became a couple 10 years ago and he's decided to stick to it. The better or worse part of the vows.

What it means:

Armistead does everything she can to feel good on their scheduled nights. She refrains from shopping or going to appointments on those days (that would make her too tired), and her teenage daughter (from a previous marriage) goes out with friends.

The challenging part is that even though they can schedule time for each other and stick to it, there's no way to schedule random flare-ups. The key, Chupp says, is not to set specific goals for the night.

"We just say we are going to enjoy each other, no matter what it turns out to be," he says. "Cuddling is a wonderful thing and can happen a lot more often than sex."

"I'll put it this way. Sometimes you want to share a big fancy dinner with her, but it turns out you just have to have a sandwich by yourself," he says.

Reading about this couple just depresses me. She has a daughter and obviously a very sensitive husband.

Not even this ending redeemed the horror of the rest:

"You have to scale back your expectations from high school —, but high school was never this good," he quips. "When you are in love with someone and she is in pain all the time, when she wants to have sex with you in spite of it, it means she really wants to have it. You feel chosen and special."

Clooney - Why 35 Pounds Makes You Sad

My other favorite line from the George Clooney profile, which I highlighted the other day and finally finished late last week -

One thinks of him jammed into the trunk of a car with Jennifer Lopez, in “Out of Sight,” directed by Steven Soderbergh (who became a friend and a producing partner); or, some years later, in Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana”—Clooney slowed down by thirty-five extra pounds. (He told me that Matt Damon, his co-star, did not immediately recognize him after a month spent stuffing himself with tiramisu and beer in Italy: “It wasn’t just that I was heavier and I had a beard, and shaved my hairline back. Matt said, ‘You just seemed so fucking sad.’ Because it’s not just about being heavier, which is a drag, but it’s also about not being active at all—that just really depresses the shit out of you.”)

Yeah, Clooney has got it exactly right - it's the inactivity that really depresses the shit out of you. The weight is a drag - literally and figuratively. But don't being able to be active is what really sucks and weighs you down - in body and spirit.

Words for Father's Day

"Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child." - Barack Obama June 2007

"Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad." - Anonymous

And this poem intertwines the work ethic ingrained in so many dads and their love for their children.

Only a Dad by Edgar Albert Guest

Only a dad with a tired face,

Coming home from the daily race,

Bringing little of gold or fame

To show how well he has played the game;

But glad in his heart that his own rejoice

To see him come and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,

One of ten million men or more

Plodding along in the daily strife,

Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,

With never a whimper of pain or hate,

For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,

Merely one of the surging crowd,

Toiling, striving from day to day,

Facing whatever may come his way,

Silent whenever the harsh condemn,

And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad but he gives his all,

To smooth the way for his children small,

Doing with courage stern and grim

The deeds that his father did for him.

This is the line that for him I pen:

Only a dad, but the best of men.

Tim Russert, R.I.P.

Sad news today. Condolences to his family, both personal and professional.

Admittedly, lately, I've come to disdain Russert - not because of his bemoaned "gotcha" questions, which bothered me not at all. (Though I must say I did agree with this opinion piece, Tim Russert: Stop the Inanity, from The American Prospect). But because I often found myself screaming at the TV a follow up question when Russert was off to his next question. I've heard it said that his staff had low turn over. That speaks well of him as a boss, but it may be why freshness was often missing in the questions.

I was also troubled my his insufficient response to Bill Moyers in Moyers' important program about the role of the press in the run up to the war. People like Russert have a lot of power and he could have done more. His answer to Moyers' appropriate challenge just struck me as sad and an indicium of what's broken in our public discourse.

BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.

BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?

TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-

BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?

TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't have the-- This is, you know-- on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

BILL MOYERS: BOB SIMON (of 60 Minutes) DIDN'T WAIT FOR THE PHONE TO RING.

But though I recently began to add again This Week (I stopped after Brinkley died), I still recorded Meet the Press and watched it every week, even if I was screaming at the television with frustration. I always watched.

I enjoyed, much more, and recorded every weekend his cable show, The Tim Russert Show. His engagement was much more freewheeling and more real. In other words, I felt like he was listening to the answers. Most recently I enjoyed the program he did with Doris Kearns Goodwin on the 7 qualities a president needs (withstanding adversity; diverse perspectives, loyalty, admitting mistakes, managing emotions, defining goals, knowing how to relax) and the fascinating discussion with Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens - two great, fascinating minds really butting up.

I also remember being surprised, being reminded, that he was Chris Matthews' boss in the recent profile of Matthews that was in the New York Times Magazine. Russert as NBC News Washington Bureau chief was the boss of all the NBC political reporters. I think of Matthews as some one who was more politically astute than Russert, so that was a bit disorienting to read that Matthews looked to Russert for approval.

Finally, on a personal note, I used to see him in a favorite restaurant all the time, Cafe Deluxe, back when I was working and well and able to go out. He was always friendly and expansive.

It is a sad day and a big loss for those who love politics, and for his family. His wife Maureen Orth, a reporter for Vanity Fair, is a DC figure in her own right. I'm sure Sunday will be hard for them all. Prays for all.

Tim Russert, a week ago, on Obama's historic win against the Clinton machine:


A month ago, declaring in early May the Democrat primary campaign over (finally declaring what had been obvious since March 4th to anyone familiar with Slate's delegate counter:


From his weekend cable show a great discussion 2 months ago with Hitchens and Sullivan (Again during his weekend show, I often felt Russert listened more and therefore asked better questions):



In one of the most awkward recent moments (from this past Mother's Day), Terry McAuliffe mentioned in passing Russert's "dead" father. Only Russert's dad is very much alive, bless him, as Russert riposted:

In perhaps one of the more uncomfortable moments in recent Meet the Press history, Clinton campaign co-chair Terry McAuliffe insinuated on Sunday that host Tim Russert's father was dead. He isn't.

Expounding -- for the tenth time during the interview -- the virtues of Hillary Clinton's political tenacity, McAuliffe suggested that both his and Russert's dad would be watching her admirably from heaven... perhaps drunk.

"But it's not impossible for Hillary Clinton to win," said McAuliffe. "A lot of people have said that. Big Russ, if he were sitting here today -- nothing's impossible. Jack McAuliffe, if they were with us today, they're probably both in heaven right now Tim, probably having a scotch, looking down saying, you know what: this fight goes on. It's good for the Democratic Party. Millions of people coming out to vote, it's exciting."

Not missing a beat, Russert quickly corrected his always genial guest.

"Big Russ is in the Barcalounger still watching this," he said. "God bless him."

But Russert had come under such criticism in this campaign that recently even the Columbia Journalism Review started a Russert Watch a few months ago, to monitor tone and errors. Here's the most recent, remarking on last weekend's weekend's show.

A week ago, on the last night, Russert commented on the effect of Obama on the campaign, specifically on how the campaign is covered. And he suggested that Obama's campaign and its ideals may even alter how he and his news colleagues do their job. That was shocking to me, because to my mind, he was one of the ones who perpetuating the sound bite politics. I can't find the exact quote; but I'll continue to work to do so. Here a blog, live blogging that night, that is close to what I recall he said:

Russert thinks if Obama can convince people that he can “exercise good judgment, he’ll win the White House.” Russert also thinks it’s important for Clinton not to validate people who might want to vote against Obama. If she does, “she’ll risk her own future in the party.”

And though Obama did well on his show (I watched every one of Obama's appearances, including the one when Obama opened the door to his candidacy in the fall of 2006), I do think Russert dropped the ball, and doing Obama a disservice by not asking Obama on his last appearance these two questions:

1. why did you join Trinity Church in the first place?
2. why did you stay at Trinity Church for 20 years?

This week, I just remarked to a delivery guy (during a 45 minute conversation on my front stoop, this kind of thing can happen in DC) that those questions still needed to be asked most likely and that I was hopeful that Russert would do so in a future debate.

I just hope David Gregory doesn't replace him. I find him unreflective and smug. I didn't like his response to Scott McClellan's book. And I often didn't like Gregory's responses to criticism when he has been a guest on The Diane Rehm Show's Friday round up. He is dismissive and arrogant in the worst way. And I don't like his new MSNBC show, preferring the more thoughtful canceled Tucker show. But I'm afraid Gregory is the likely, most obvious replacement.

Chuck Todd - the political director of NBC, the geeky guy who has to be convinced to loosen his tie during the After Hours show hosted by Dan Abrams late, late night on the nights of the primaries, a guy who KNOWS facts - would be a decent replacement.

Lord, just the thought of who might and could replace him makes me realize he is irreplaceable.

The NBC family and fans have lost an authoritative, informed figure and a political guru.

Satirical Video: Why Vote Republican

This is fun. On why you should vote Republican. The irony is dripping:




Check out www.imvotingrepublican.com

Paul Newman Gives Fortune to Charity

My mom LOVED Paul Newman. Newman and Joanne Woodward married just weeks after my parents did.

News of his lung cancer and his donation of $120 million to charity, made me think of her.

Movie star Paul Newman has quietly turned over the entire value of his ownership in Newman’s Own — the company that makes salad dressing and cookies — to charity.

Completed over a two-year period in 2005 and 2006, the amount of his donations to Newman’s Own Foundation Inc. comes to an astounding $120 million.

Some specifics:

in Botswana, the Newman name is known not for being a movie star. It’s known for his famous Hole in the Wall Gang camps. The camps go to Africa every summer to run programs for impoverished and ill children. It’s the same program they run in dozens of similar camps all over the United States.

The Hole in the Wall camps are just a few of the places the hundreds of millions of dollars have gone that Newman has raised since he got the idea to bottle salad dressing for charity.

I still remember watching Exodus with her - great film based on a Leon Uris novel (one of Obama's favorite novelists). It wasn't until then that I understood his appeal. Before that, he was just a guy who was in The Sting.

Obama's VP Short (rather long) List

Apart from this list below, I heard suggested….Al Gore! (That would really be sticking it to Hillary)

16 names (not in this order of importance or likelihood; and notably with Chuck Hagel not on the list)

1. Hillary Clinton,

2. John Kerry,

3. John Edwards,

4. Evan Bayh,

5. Kathleen Sebelius,

6. Ted Strickland, Ohio, Clinton guy (lengthy discussions)

7. Mark Warner,

8. Tim Kaine,

9. Jim Webb,

10. Bill Nelson,

11. Jack Reed,

12. Joe Biden, (lengthy discussions) oh I would love this.

13. Chris Dodd,

14. Tom Daschle, not going to happen

15. and Sam Nunn.

16. Ret. Gen. James Jones (lengthy discussions)

So here's the link to MSNBC's First Read

So you think you know who's on Obama's veep short list? Well, think again. According to sources on the Hill, Obama veep vetters -- specifically Jim Johnson and Eric Holder -- have been asking Dem members of Congress this week their input about potential running mates. The conversations are free-flowing but one name the vetters are inserting in the conversations is one that is not a household name... Ret. Gen. James Jones, the former Marine-turned-NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

Ambinder offers some caveats to Chuck Todds list at MSNBC-

I trust Chuck Todd's sources better than my own, but I'm hearing that the list of names he's floating is a bit narrow... and that Johnson and Holder discussed a variety of different names.. at least three former military officers, one of which was, as Chuck as, Ret. Gen. Jim Jones.... Also, several of the names on Todd's list were brought up by the Democrats who were asked, not necessarily by Johnson and Holder. One Hill source who has been reliable in the past says that his/her boss was specifically asked about Sen. James Webb. In general, I shouldn't, and you shouldn't, read too much into this early Galivanting-Sans-Caroline Kennedy. If history is any guide, most of the names floated are courtesies, and a large number of short-listers don't show up in the first round.

To participate in a fun, you can complete a VP Madness bracket and make your picks here at Congressional Quarterly. I've made mine!

My Missed Vassar Reunion

My 20 year Vassar reunion was this past weekend. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but that didn't stop me from reminiscing.

I heard from many friends and I thought of all of those from those special years who are still in my life and well loved - Anita, Christina, Dan F., Emily, Jen, Liz, Luke, Mike G, Noelle.

And those not so much in my life as I would like, but are still there, known and loved - Anne, Alex, Bonnie, Bill G., Bill H., Dan S., Alex L., Dan B., Josh N., Greg, Caroline, Paul J., Doug, Anna, Marc, Scot O, Kristen, Vanessa, Lisa F., Scot S., Gisele, Matt B., Jeff, Mike K., Gokhan, Terry, Alex N., Jason, Martin, Andy, Catherine, Cindi, Wendy, Ken, Burke, Todd, Kimathi and Peter.

And recently I enjoyed a very well done online tour of the beautiful campus. And I saw some special personal pictures of campus on an iphone.

I used to tell people I decided to go to Vassar because of the tea, the parlors, and bathtubs (a dancer needs to soak). Secretly, it was also because a dearly loved fictional character went to Vassar (Carney from the Betsy-Tacy Series' Carney's House Party; out of print then, but reissued in 2000).

I loved so much, so well. Most of all, I had fun. More fun than a body should have, as I used to say.

I have a hand out from either my 10th or 15th, not sure which - I attended both, entitled Are You a Real Member of the Vassar Class of '88?

200 questions to answer to discern the answer and the scorecard is as follows:
150-200: BP
100-149: Mug Rat
50-99: Nerd
Less than 50 : You should have gone to Wesleyan

Some of my favorite questions:

1. I wanted to form an inter-mural sports team only because I thought up a good name with an obscene double meaning.
2. I went to Vassar because I'm a guy and thought I would be surrounded by easy women.
3. I used stolen bathroom tissues as napkins while eating Napoli's pizza.
4. I read the graffiti in the women's restroom in the Library, and I'm male.
5. I remember those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
6. I ignored those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
7. I defaced, damaged or destroyed those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
8. I've been on the Main catwalks.
9. I've been on the roof of Rocky.
10. I've been on the roof of Walker
11. I've been on the roof of the Library tower.
12. I've been on the roof of Jewett Tower
13. I moved to Main just so I could go to the Retreat and check my mail without shoes and/or a jacket.
14. I know what "BP" stands for.
15. I was a BP
16. I denied being a BP
17. I denied being a BP, even though I was.
18. I engaged in long conversations trying to define what a "BP was.
19. I smoked clove cigarettes while at Vassar.
20. I only ate on the left side of the left.
21. I lived in Raymond and never went to ACDC in a group of less than 10.
22. I tried shouting from that "echo point" in front of Noyes.
23. I didn't hear an echo when I shouted from that echo point in front of Noyes.
24. I participated in Airband.
25. I've been in that weird basement-like room that was on the second floor of Blodgett above the arch.
26. I snuck into a filled movie through the basement of Blodgett.
27. I remember the time Ivor gave the pre-movie announcement in Blodgett in the nude.
28. Someone pulled cards for me at registration.
29. I pulled cards for someone at registration.
30. I remember that time when a guy climbed hand-over-hand on the sprinkler pipes above the heads of the crowd in order to get to the head of the line at registration.
31. I cheered for that guy.
32. I waited in the Mug line.
33. I waited in the Mug line for more than two hours.
34. I waited in the Mug line for more than two hour, but didn't go in.
35. I got into the Mug with someone's else's I.D.
36. I can't read my diploma.
37. I have to explain to prospective employers whey I have an "A.B." instead of a "B.A."

So perusing that list made me remember some other things...

1. I remember pulling up to Joceyln and that the soundtrack from the Big Chill was blaring from Marion's boom box.
   
2. I remember I forgot to ask my parents for money and my sisters ran back from main gate to give me some.
   
3. I remember Emily's 18th birthday and having a hard time getting past the tennis courts when trying to replenish the champagne on Raymond Avenue.
4. I remember making our Apple computers talk dirty and giggling because it sounded Swedish.
   
5. I remember the boat in Jocelyn.
6. I remember the coed bathrooms completely freaking out my father, and his mother.
   
7. I remember "backrubs"
8. I remember THE water bed.
   
9. I remember Mr. Egg on all our doors and then the mysterious Christmas ornament.
10. I remember my crazy freshman roommate.
    
11. I remember discussing Luther with Emily on the fire escape in Jewett.
12. I remember Bill D. serenading with his guitar
13. I remember dashing out of Jewett with Liz.
14. I remember dancing with Marc.
15. I remember Greg and mine combo birthday parties.
16. I remember being not legal, legal and then not legal, then legal for good with respect to drinking.
17. I remember lines at Pete's place
18. I remember watching Body Heat at Blodgett.
19. I remember watching Fatal Attraction at the Galleria (and Alex predicting the rabbit).
    
20. I remember recruiting the guys for the synchronized swimming team who came up with the "boat float" move.
21. I remember the boys from Laguna.
22. I remember sunbathing on Jocelyn's "beach" with the red phone strung out through the open window.
23. I remember Vuarnet sunglasses and Miami Vice jackets
    
24. I remember volleyball.
    
25. I remember Luke breaking his leg skiing.
26. I remember Evan's not so funny April Fool's Day joke.
27. I remember Evan's chicken stickers.
28. I remember Vanessa hiding in a closet.
29. I remember Wednesday nights, after soccer games.
30. I remember going to away soccer games when the team was in the finales.
31. I remember Chris getting a card, when he was a rabid fan.
32. I remember making up and serving "Cassandwiches" at the Retreat (turkey on the grill, with melted provolone cheese, cucumber, red onion and honey mustard on a toasted onion bagel).
33. I remember starting water fights while closing up the Retreat after I got soaked washing dishes (those darn bowls).
34. I remember feeling the grease on my skin after a shift in the Retreat.
    
35. I remember checking out the couples who came through together on Sunday afternoon and seeing who had hooked up.
36. I remember causing trouble by asking him as I rang the food up, Is this together?
37. I remember going to Mass on Sunday at 4 pm only so I could see my crush with his girlfriend.
38. I remember staking out an English History classmate's dorm room in Main because she'd taken out every single book on Lady Jane Grey from Thompson, effectively prevent me studying and writing on my chosen topic.
39. I remember our teacher told us we had to sort it out.
40. I remember she eventually caved.
41. I remember the masque balls.
42. I remember the 5:15 parties.
43. I remember Heaven and Hell
44. I remember the formal dance in December 1985.
45. I remember signing up for Italian because Latin was full (but I dropped it eventually).
46. I remember that girl who fell out of the third floor bathroom window in Jocelyn.
47. I remember the girl who fell from the catwalks.
48. I remember ringing the bell in Main.
49. I remember throwing the chairs into Sunset Lake in protest for our graduation being inside Walker on a perfectly sunny day.
50. I remember turning all the furniture over in Martin and Pete's TA and nearly peeing in my pants I was laughing so hard.
51. I remember Winter Weekend 1988.
    
52. I remember hiking around Lake Mohonk with Scott.
53. I remember countdown nights at Joe's (150, 100, 50, etc.).
54. I remember diving and rolling on that cruddy floor in order to sneak in, with Anne and Bonnie.
    
55. I remember shooting pool at McAuleys.
    
56. I remember the Aula opening.
57. I remember nearly getting caught with alcohol in the Aula and lucking out because I'd used an emptied bottle of apple juice, which vodka resembled when held above candlelight. Sheer luck, I could have easily had a cranberry juice bottle.
    
58. I remember modeling vintage clothes in a fashion show at the Aula - I wore a beautiful blue dress I still have - and being asked to NYC (but lets go do drugs first!)
    
59. I remember being in a wheelchair.
60. I remember being asked to borrow my wheelchair that Halloween so a group could tastelessly dress up as terrorists and Leon Klinghoffer, who'd been killed that month.
    
61. I remember being asked by people I didn't know for my painkillers.
62. I remember resting on the grass on my way back from dinner because I hadn't realized that ACDC was farther than 25 feet from my dorm room in Jocelyn.
63. I remember buying knee pads to protect my knees, because crawling was faster than that wheelchair or the crutches.
    
64. I remember Alex N. picking me up, expectedly, and carrying me to my room.
65. I remember Sweeney doing the same thing when I needed no such aid and scaring me.
    
66. I remember being given keys to the elevator in Main because I was in a wheelchair.
    
67. I remember how that access made it possible for me and 10 friend to cut the Mug line.
68. I remember getting caught by the manager of the Mug cutting the Mug line with the help of 10 necessary friends.
    
69. I remember after hours at the Mug.
70. I remember trying to down as many shots as Marion did in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    
71. I remember that gorgeous guy who changed my life trying to get me to down my first kamikaze shot without telling me first what was in it.
    
72. I remember Smavis (and I pretty sure I have the recipe somewhere! - does any one know it by heart - Scot?)
73. I remember when the Cafe opened.
    
74. I remember that snow day when Anita, Alex and I went drinking at Pete's before noon and I tied a cherry stem into a double knot in my mouth after Alex dared me, wining us all a free round for my achievement, and then going to ACDC and being confused by the fine spread of food (the CIA was cooking), stealing whole loaves of bread and then hearing about how I'd missed sledding on ACDC trays down path to the TH's because I'd passed out too early.
75. I remember Hurricane Gloria and how the school canceled classes and opened the Mug and we had over 12 straight hours of fun, while it only rained.
    
76. I remember the time I had tickets to the Cosby show and we got lost in Brooklyn and missed the show. Half of us stayed in NYC, and half returned to campus early
77. I remember an unhappy discovery upon my return.
78. I remember when a Vassar student's video made the final 10 for a Madonna video contest.
79. I remember the endless debate contest.
80. I remember that joyful Blues Band air band performance in the Villard Room.
81. I remember the poster up on the wall in my TA 19 with the funniest phrases and pithy remarks.
    
82. I remember climbing the trees in the center of the quad and scaring people as they walked underneath.
    
83. I remember when a strange Irishman walked naked through Jocelyn.
    
84. I remember the pine forest up there somewhere.
    
85. I remember hating T.S. Eliot's Wasteland because I didn't understand it and I had a rotten teacher.
    
86. I remember being scared of Prof. Day and his Greek class and having to memorize all those Greek islands.
87. I remember loving Shakespeare class. Professor Gifford. Wasn't that his name?
    
88. I remember doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with Annie during Intro to Art History senior year and not even having to buy it because that cute freshman always gave us his third section.
    

I did that list without opening my yearbooks or scrapbooks or files. Those of us who gathered the summer of 2006, the year we all turned 40, know how fastidiously and earnestly I collected mementos of that time. (I have my original packing list - red pumps, blue pumps, black pumps, cream pumps! - thanks Jen, yes it sounds like Dr. Suess!). I think I even have every Miscellany News too.

What do you remember? Go ahead and comment below. Perhaps we could get a fun discussion going here. I'd love to hear from you. (especially if you have the Smavi recipe).

If any of you are in DC, through DC, please stop by and I'll serve you some tea in my parlor. (No bathtub though!).

George Clooney - About Those 70 Virgins

Funny quote for the day:

Clooney, in 2005, speaking about suicide bombers: "But, really, who wants seventy virgins? I want eight pros."

I'm catching up on old New Yorkers. This from Clooney profile, Somebody Has to Be in Control; The effort behind George Clooney's effortless charm by Ian Parker.

Also found interesting that Clooney is so busy he doesn't have time for anything. Rande Gerber (Cindy Crawford's husband) redecorated Clooney's LA home without any apparent direction. Parker:

I saw a row of tall glass jars containing packaged candies, which I took to to be a personal quirk until I read that Rande Gerber keeps packaged candies in tall glass jars in his offices in New York and Malibu. This all surely points more to pressures on Clooney's time than to a weirdly unformed sense of sel, but it was nonetheless curious to hear Clooney joke, when we were standing in a leathery side room where his friends are allowed to smoke, "I suppose I have a flask collection" - pointing to a line of hip flasks on a shelf.

I've not finished it yet, but it's interesting.

Hillary's Debt Could Burden Her for Years

This should make me feel better but it doesn't really.

New York Times today: For Clinton, Millions in Debt, Few Options. She is thought to owe between 25 and 30 million dollars.

What makes Mrs. Clinton’s situation unusual is the combination of unpaid bills and her own personal loan. Records show that other unsuccessful candidates owed less than half to their vendors than what she owes to businesses. “It’s unprecedented,” said Jan Baran, a campaign finance lawyer with Wiley Rein.

Memories of John Glenn:

And in one of the more memorable cases of debt, former Senator John Glenn of Ohio ended his 1984 Democratic presidential bid with nearly $3 million in debt. He struggled for more than 20 years to pay it off until the Federal Election Commission issued him a reprieve.

Obama can't simply transfer money from his donors to her coffers - a misapprehension so widely pervasive that even Brian Williams asked that question. (I thought he was smarter than that). In early May, May 10th to be exact, bloggers made clear there was no way legally for that to happen, even if Obama was willing.

But what he can do is do some joint fundraisers with her. McCain offered to do that for Guiliani but that hasn't been going so well.

Plus, as the New York Times notes - the DNC needs money; it's way behind the RNC. Elsewhere, it's being reported that the committee for the convention in Denver needs funding; it's behind in its fundraising goals (the Republicans are not). These weeks, since March 4th, have been an ego trip. As far as I'm concerned, it's her problem.

Ironically, she has to return about 23M raised for the general election. With written permission from each individual donor, she can transfer the $2300 each gave to her Senate fundraising election committee, but opinions are mixed if she can use what is retained to pay off her presidential campaign debts.

Talking Points Memo noted:

And Hillary could end up spending a long time raising cash expressly for the purposes of paying off old bills, not financing a current or future campaign.

I hope Bill is forced to take speaking engagements in really ugly, hard to get to places, with inhospitable audiences.

If they don't raise the money to pay themselves back the 9.5M they loaned to the campaign by the convention, all but 250K is forfeit. A provision of McCain-Feingold to discourage self-financing of campaigns.

I made my view on this subject clear a month ago.

4 Reasons for Obama Landslide in November

Here are 4 reasons why Obama will win in the fall:

1. His oratory vs. McCain's. Enough said.
   
2. Obama will make inroads with religious and evangelical voters, while McCain uninspires them.
   
3. The increased number of registered new voters, Democratic voters, puts more states in play and completely transforms the electoral map. (Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado)
4. The internet - both as a constant source of funding for Obama and because of the way it's changed campaigning (use of social network) as well as reporting on the campaign (YouTube and Mayhill Fowler), which McCain and his people simply do not grasp.
   

Let me note that 1,2, and 4 did not apply to Hillary.

My Country & Obama

Obama also makes me feel good about being an American. Because of his face, because of his life story, because of his name, because of his understanding of the world. A respected friend who is living in London wrote me this last month: Being overseas, we are the scorn of the world.

I had some sense of this, from February, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

I don't think many Americans have fully absorbed yet what the Bush administration has done to America's soft power abroad, to the moral reputation of America, to the respect that many around the world once had for America's democratic institutions, even if they differed from U.S foreign policy. Bush's torture and detention policies, his cringe-inducing diplomacy, his proud lack of interest in other cultures and societies has deeply weakened this country's international clout. Electing a half-African president, with Hussein as a middle name, who attended school in a Muslim country: it's almost a p.r. agent's dream for America. It would instantly give this country a fresh start in the world after the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years. It isn't enough: Obama will need skills and determination in the terror war. But soft power helps; and Obama would put it on steroids. As for youth, Tony Blair was 43 when he became prime minister; Obama would be 48. What's the problem?

I agree with Sullivan. He also wrote about this soft power and Obama in his widely wide article Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters.

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power. We have seen the potential of hard power in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen its inherent weaknesses in Iraq, and its profound limitations in winning a long war against radical Islam. The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in.

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

And so Andrew Sullivan has peppered his popular blog, The Daily Dish, with stories from around the world. I remember one from last year - I think it was on his blog - I can't exactly recall, but it probably was - a story about an American walking into a restaurant in Dubai or one of the other small countries on the Arabian peninsula (again I can't remember which one), who when he entered wearing an Obama t-shirt was welcomed with a standing ovation.

Here's another Sullivan post from February:

My wife and I are serving overseas in Yemen and I wanted to share a quick anecdote with you about Obama-buzz here in Sanaa. While getting my haircut several weeks ago, I was surprised when my barber Mohammed drifted from his usual aspersions about George Bush to suddenly inquire about Barack Obama. My Arabic is fairly limited, so it took me some time to understand that Mohammed and the other Yemeni patrons had seen Obama during an appearance with Oprah on Al-Jazeera. All of them agreed that of the people seeking to become President, Obama offered the only redemptive option for America.

After my haircut was nearing an end - a nearly 60 minute process - Mohammed said that "if a black man can become President, then maybe the story of America isn't a lie after all."

And another overseas story from Sullivan:

I am an American who is a graduate student in the UK, and I have been congratulated by people from around the world over the past couple of days for the Obama nomination. Strangers hear my accent, and want to talk about Obama. One British person said, "America didn't become the nation it did with guns and tanks; it became the nation it did with ideas. An Obama presidency represents everything that America has told the world about itself in the past century--and what the rest of the world wanted to expect out of America. The idea that you talk before acting, the idea that you make friends, not enemies, and the idea that anything is possible."

Another Italian told me, "Obama will cause my country to fall in love with America again."

Soft power?

NPR's Talk of the Nation did a great overview last week, which you can hear here. Featured are interviews with Gary Younge, columnist for The Guardian newspaper in London, Masha Lipman, political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Center and Rami Khouri, editor-at-large for The Daily Star in Beirut.

For an overview of world reaction (compiled by the BCC) click here. Uganda stands out:

Uganda's government-owned paper New Vision says the country should learn from US democracy, both in its electoral process and how it treats immigrants: "In Uganda, the manner in which political parties select candidates often isn't transparent and this is why these candidates are often out of touch with the aspirations of the electorate...African countries must accommodate social minorities, as well as immigrants, no matter their race or colour. America is a country of immigrants and it is a great multiracial nation."

From The Times of India (hat tip, again Sullivan)

But here's a trivial observation that suggests why Obama, because of his eclectic and unusual upbringing, may be different: He's the only American leader who has been heard to pronounce Gandhi and Pakistan correctly — just like it's pronounced in the subcontinent (Gaan-dhi, not Gain-dee; Paak-isthaan, not Pack-is-tan). In other conversations, Obama has also referred to Indian success in technology fields, and drawn comparisons between his father (who came to the US "without money, but with a student visa and a determination to succeed") and the experiences of Indian immigrants.

From France via Euractiv.com:

In France, Segolene Royal, President Sarkozy's rival in the presidential elections last year, stated that "Obama embodies the America of today and tomorrow". As for Sarkozy's camp, the head of his UMP party Patrick Devedjian called Obama's candidacy "a very beautiful image of America".

Pakistan via the New York Times:

“It should bring a good change in relations with Pakistan” should he win the presidency, said Munaway Akhtar, a prominent lawyer specializing in international arbitration in the capital, Islamabad. “Pakistan has always been friendly to the United States, but the people have never benefited, the rulers have always benefited. Hopefully, that would change with Obama.”

Wamiq Zuberi, the editor of The Business Recorder, the country’s biggest business-oriented newspaper, said he believed Pakistanis were pleased. “Everyone is in fact impressed with the historical moment, that it is the first time an African-American has won the nomination of a party.”

Lebanon (with a mention of Iran and Al Jazeera poll) via YaLibnan.com The same report, exactly, appeared in the LA Times.

"Obama's America on the doorstep of history," said a headline on the front page of As Safir here in Lebanon.

Obama remains intensely popular throughout the world. According to a poll released this week by the pan-Arab Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel, more than half of those interviewed in 22 countries preferred Obama over Clinton or Republican John McCain, who was the least recognized and least preferred presidential candidate.

Even in stridently anti-American Iran, state-controlled television showed video of Obama making a speech behind a lectern bearing a placard reading "Change."

"It's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of affiliation," said Radwan Abdullah, a professor of international relations at the University of Jordan in Amman. "He's a minority African American from the Third World. He was the underdog. People identify with his type."

And Frank Rich observed in One Historic Night, Two Americas:

When the world gets a firsthand look at the new America Mr. Obama offers as an alternative to Mr. McCain’s truculent stay-the-course, the public pandemonium may make J.F.K.’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” visit to the Berlin Wall look like a warm-up act.

When I see reports about this, about how Obama's nomination has altered the view of my country, I am moved and also begin to believe.

If you're living abroad, here is Obama's official site for you.

My Religion & Obama

For me, in addition to bringing home values of my generation to my political party, Obama has also brought religion home to my party and it's just as moving for me. And also contributes to my sense of unreality.

Yesterday Obama announced his Joshua Generation. As it's pretty brilliant foray. Joshua DuBois, Obama's Director of Faith Outreach, has done a terrific job, and Newsweek offers a bit of background on him, Obama's New Gospel. (from mid-May)

The most interesting and thoughtful reporter on Obama and religion is David Brody, of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who previews the project here.

The Brody File has learned that in the next two weeks Barack Obama's campaign will unveil a major new program to attract younger Evangelicals and Catholics to their campaign.

It's called the "Joshua Generation Project." The name is based on the biblical story of how Joshua's generation led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

To me, this thinking never mind doing, by a Democratic campaign is just jaw dropping. It has the potential to change things for a generation.

This was the 11th reason (of 11) I set forth as to why I supported Obama back in early February. But I'd read this great piece (cited in my post), called Teacher and Apprentice by Marc Ambinder from the print issue of The Atlantic back in November. (It's fascinating to read again, about Clinton and Obama, in hindsight).

And let you you think Obama's ability to conversant in religious language and values is incidental, the Washington Post reported an interesting tidbit about the now infamous (and wonderfully named) Mayhill Folwer -

Fowler was an unlikely recruit, if only because her mother -- "a typical Southern iron-fisted matriarch" -- banned all talk of politics at home. That was because her dad had spent 14 years as mayor of Memphis, and "she felt politics had destroyed her family," Fowler says.

Politics played no role in Fowler's life as she settled in Oakland after earning a master's degree in English literature at the University of California's Berkeley campus and spent most of her time raising her two daughters. She knew little about Obama and had not even seen his famed 2004 speech to the Democratic convention. But when Fowler, a religious Presbyterian, discovered online a speech the Illinois senator had given at an evangelical mega-church, she was astounded. "It broke me down," she says.

Yeah, he breaks me down too. I'd bet money the speech she was talking about was this one.

Another interesting piece on Obama at religion is by E.J. Dionne, who wrote Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. Dionne writes for The New Republic, and called this essay Full Faith. I designated this essay a must read back on March 22nd and offered some highlights. The best line is "whole bird Christianity" - i.e. not just left wing or right wing but both left and right wing.

My Generation & Obama

In a story yesterday posted on Politico McCain and Obama: The Odd Candidates which surveyed their different methods of campaigning, relating and interacting.

Much has been made, for example, of the different ways of functioning, reflected by not just the candidates physical age, but the age in which they came of age.

Last week it was this, as reported on Politico's blog:

Obama aide Bill Burton, a campaign source says, went downstairs in their Chicago offices just now to collect a hand-delivered copy of John McCain's invitation to Goldwater-Kennedy-style debates with Obama.

"You know, you could have just emailed this," a somewhat puzzled Burton told the middle-aged messenger.

Last night Jonathan Alter focused on another change of the how the media landscape had changed with Youtube and how John McCain didn't seem to get that as he protested to a Newsweek reporter he didn't do something he quite clearly did and it's on video:



Okay, so clearly manifestations of their difference come out in their style and perhaps even the manner they decide to campaign, but I sense there is another manifestation of age as well, that affected why Obama won - against all his other Democratic competitors who were all baby boomers with the exception of Mike Gravel.

So another aspect of the town hall discussion caught my attention from this piece, McCain and Obama: The Odd Candidates:

If McCain is more freewheeling, Obama prefers order.

At town hall events, the Illinois senator can resemble a teacher in a classroom, occasionally encouraging better manners and dispensing rules on how the question-and-answer period will go down. Questioners must not shout, he says, but raise their hand, wait for a microphone and introduce themselves. He goes boy, girl, boy, girl, “so that nobody thinks I’m biased,” Obama says.

Now, that different could be animated by personality, but I suggest something else might be at play here that animates Obama's support for those of us 45 and under.

My generation prefers order. And optimism. As children, teenagers, then as young adults we looked on in abject horror at the convulsions of our society, politics and civic life.

Whether it was "Swingtown" antics of the 70s or the selfishness of the 80s or the misbehavior of the 90s or the exploitation of division of this decade.

Or the crime of a cover up of a break in during the 70s, the crime of a selling arms to fund rebellions in the 80s or the crime of lying under oath in the 90s or the ginned up war in this decade.

We all yearned for some order and to be able to witness things getting done. To be a part of a good time in America. For us, Camelot really was always, just and forever a myth.

And I submit that this is precisely why Reagan and conservatism was so very appealing to people my age when we were young.

But it's seemed that those yearnings of mine were ceded to Republican causes. That the other party, whose values I disagreed with, owned the sense of offering order and optimism.

Obama brings that home. He's a Democrat who values order and is optimistic.

For the first time in my life, those values are unified in him and his message. I think, too, that is why his nomination feels so unreal.

To be fair, McCain is not a baby boomer, he's of the prior generation. But in those swinging days of the 70s, he obviously wished he were of that younger generation, as evidence when he discarded his first wife who recently said (in a widely link report from Britain's Daily Mail), My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.

My Mom & Obama

With Hillary's belatedly departure from the race, and her inability to admit that she lost fair (i.e. and admit she didn't "win" the popular vote), and her 45 minute delay to start her speech on Saturday, I have had a hard time over these last few days believing that Obama had won. Has won.

I've just been numb. Numb and scared, waiting for that arm to reach out from the grave to remind me that the horror is not quite over.

There seemed still to be an unreality about the facts - perhaps an effect of so much reality being unrecognized these many weeks.

But late yesterday afternoon I watched Bill Moyer's, which I had recorded on Friday night. And watching this, I wept and started to believe:



As Michelle Obama once said, I'm more proud of my country in my life.

I'm more proud than I have been in my conscious political lifetime (which began at about age 5, thanks to my mother).

I can still remember her explaining to me the Saturday Night Massacre, drawing the figures and their relationships on a white piece of paper. And a joke - how do you draw a crooked man in a crooked house in a crooked city with only three lines? The three lines added were straight simple ones and what emerged, spelled out, was the word Nixon on the page.

My first political memories are of political shame - the Watergate hearings (why were my parents glued to the television, when we were on vacation in Vermont?) and the resignation of the President. I watched sitting on my parents bed, thinking I'd never see such a significant event regarding the US Presidency again in my lifetime. I was an 8 year old with a sense of history. I was an 8 year old also with a vivid sense of imagination, but I did not imagine Bill Clinton when I was 8.

I remember helping a Vietnamese family of refugees settle in this country, working with the church to paint their house, befriending the kids, and my sister throwing up the multicolored rice chips.

I remember a bag my mother gave me - blue, with off white lettering: "Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman." I asked her again and again what "estimate" meant. And t-shirts my 3 sisters and I wore that read simply, Vote Democratic. Some of us had blue lettering and some of us had red lettering.

I remember gave my first political speech in a mock election when I was 14. Though only a freshman, no one else in my high school wanted to speak up for President Carter. And I remember I wrote an essay about the hostages taken the year before. And I remember Ted Kennedy's speech that summer and laying on the floor of the kitchen, watching the television that sat in the low cabinet and really catching the bug.

And I remember I was not alone in disbelieving my political science teacher when he informed us that the profits of Reagan's sale of arms to Iran had been given to the Nicaraguan Contras. We'd all rolled out of bed for our 10 am class on Congress and not yet read our New York Times. He walked out of class to retrieve his paper from his office came back and showed us the headline. Well, he was a sarcastic guy.

I remember all the politics and history I studied at Vassar and in law school. I remember that all the glorious and good came well before my time - not just the facts of those subjects (even at Vassar historical facts were not much valued in those days) but the mode of study - social history, identity politics, deconstruction et. al. - averted me from becoming an academic.

And I remember the last 7 years of shame.

When Gerald Ford was sworn in, back when I was 8, he remarked,

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

That nightmare was nothing compared to this one. And I am beginning to be able to believe that this long awful, dishonorable, criminal, dark, national nightmare is almost over. That yes, here the people rule - can change who rules and governs our nation with the help of the changes the internet has wrought. And maybe, just maybe, God really can and does ordain love and mercy.

Those moments, those notes of politics and history are ingrained in me. It's why I live in DC, where politics permeates every particle and cell - whether at the dry cleaners, in a cab, at a restaurant.

And with the sense of shame over that history, there is also a sense of failure. Every single political campaign I worked for and cared about lost - Kennedy, Hart, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry.

(No, I never worked for either Clinton, though I did attend his first inaugural in 1992; but I thought then he was a sell out and because of him, I witnessed the House go to the Republicans for the first time in decades at a time when I worked on the Hill).

I wish my mom, who instilled the importance of those moments, were alive to witness this, this moment.

But this moment seems so foreign, it can't quite be apprehended as real.

I wish she were alive not just see the altered political landscape - with an African-American as the nominee, with the conservatives out of ideas, and with the Republicans lowering their sights to simply being able to have enough numbers to filibuster the Senate.

I wish that she could have seen and heard Obama's oratory skills and the rhetoric on our civic life. She would have appreciated and relished those abilities and their role in this campaign. She had been the first in her family to go to university, and she did so on a scholarship to study speech and debate. She'd been a champion debater in high school.

My mom, the debater and speech maker, and lover of politics would have loved to have witnessed the events of the past week, months, year.

Miss you...Maybe, Mom, it doesn't seem real because you're not here to share Obama's remarkable triumph with me, with us. Maybe it doesn't seem real because you're not here to talk about his win, to dissect it, and figure out what it means. But maybe it doesn't seem real because, most of all, you're not here to relish it.

Why Obama Won

Not rhetoric but management style.

Andrew Sullivan posted this 13:39 segment on his web site with the caption "A new generation, a new model of viral campaigning, a new mode of discourse, a new moment:"




Having watched it I have to agree. At about 8:43, Obama makes a funny comment about the fist bump. It also brings home the observation from this commentary by Daniel Pinkwater from NPR last week about how Obama talks in public as if he's in private, which Hillary Clinton does not.

With the likes of Steward and Colbert, candidates have to be more real or they'll get skewered. Obama knows this. His supporters know this.

Also in the age of "citizen journalists" like Mayhill Fowler - who caught both Obama's bitter remarks in San Francisco as well as Bill Clinton's rant against Vanity Fair, candidates have to be more genuine.

It is a new age.

And it brought to mind as well Karen Tumulty's great piece from Time How Obama Did It, which is worth a full read.

Obama laid down three ruling principles for his future chief operating officer: Run the campaign with respect; build it from the bottom up; and finally, no drama. Myers was struck by how closely Obama had studied the two campaigns of George W. Bush. "He said he wanted to run our campaign like a business," says Myers. And in a good business, the customer is king. Early on, before it had the resources to do much else, the campaign outsourced a "customer-service center" so that anyone who called, at any hour of the day or night, would find a human voice on the other end of the line.

I can testify to that personally. I got a person on the phone and explained what I wanted - to have my dad's written check count on my Barack Obama page. And a person called me back and answered my question and did it for me. I've worked with a lot of campaigns. That has never happened before. I was shocked. It also just contrasts to calling (fill in your utility here) and having to deal with either a computer or someone who doesn't understand your American accent.

More to the points that Obama was making in his talk to his staff:

Obama's is watertight. Leaks are rare, and for all the millions Obama has raked in, Plouffe keeps a sharp eye on where it is going. Consider the salaries: Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson was paid almost twice as much in a month — $266,000 went to his firm, according to her January campaign filing — as the $144,000 that Obama paid Gibbs for all of last year. Obama staffers are expected to double up in hotel rooms when they are on the road and are reimbursed by the campaign if they take the subway (about $2) to the downtown-Chicago campaign headquarters from O'Hare International Airport but not if they take a cab (about $50). Volunteers are asked to take along their own food when they are canvassing.

Makes me want to move to Chicago and go to work for him tomorrow.

New Theories on Stonehenge

The current issue of National Geographic Magazine features an article on new archaeological findings related to Stonehenge. I read it in a doctor's office this week (an upside to my down time??) with keen interest, because I had heard this 17 minute discussion about the project on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

National Geographic Channel aired a 2 hour special on the subject as well. Stonehenge has always fascinated me, being both interested in history and Britain. And now, in the last 4 years some new discoveries provide new clues and treasures and filled in parts of the story of Stonehenge.

My first view of Stonehenge, I believe came in high school when an English teacher showed us Roman Polanski's Tess (based on Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles) with Nastassja Kinski. Tess flees there and is found at Stonehenge, which is beautifully filmed by Polanski, at dawn as I recall.

Mike Parker Pearson and he theorized that if Stonehenge is a temple to the dead (instead of a temple to the sun), then maybe there is a temple to the living. And so he began to look.

Stonehenge was built around 2,500 BC and is 4,000 years old. Each stone weighs 45 tons. The monument is made of sarsen stones, one of the hardest and coarsest stones, and the closest source is 25 miles away in Marlbourgh Downs, north of Stonehenge. Note that transport of these stones, predate the invention of the wheel and there are no domesticated animals to help with the pulling. The rocks are vested with meaning, perhaps even soul and spirit.

There is another related site, called Durrington Walls, a mile and a half away, across the Curcus. The Curcus is a road that is about a mile and a half long. Burial sites are on the south side, the side toward Stonehenge. But there are none to the north. Which led archaeologists to believe that the land around Stonehenge was considered sacred and related to the dead.

Durrington Walls is a vast circular earth work, known as a henge. Durrington Walls is twenty times the size of Stonehenge, and is surrounded by a circular ditch that is 18 feet deep and 30 feet wide. It is basically the site of a wooden henge, the other half of an extraordinary ancient complex. A complex including roads, burial sites, as well as the two henges - one of stone and one of wood.

Durrington Wells as a henge of wood is thought to be a temple to life, as wood doesn't last forever. Evidence of this structure was discovered in 1967, but it assumed to predate Stonehenge, a sort of pre-trial run. But in fact, they co-existed at the same time.

In 2004, archaeologists began to dig and in 2005 began to find houses, well preserved, unlike anything otherwise found in England. the remains indicate a large village, with well over 1,000 houses. It is the lost city of the builders of Stonehenge.

This is the largest stone age village found in northern Europe, with a population in the thousands. The team finds thousands of human remains; they are not finding of farming activity which indicates something unusual about the community - that it's not a permanent, full time settlement.

They are believed to have gathered to mark the longest day of the year - the summer solstice. The henges are aligned to the sun, and mark the seasons.

You can see a bird's eye view of the Salisbury Plain including Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, the Curcus and all here. Here's more on Stonehenge, the cemetery of cremation burials, over 240 remains, buried over a period of over 5 centuries, an average of one person buried every 2 years. That suggests that those honored with burial there were royalty or ruling dynasty class.

National Geographic Channel rebroadcasts Stonehenge Decoded on June 12th at 5 pm.

The recreations are stupid and distracting - grunts masking as language, complete with subtitles. The acting ancients' painted faces evoke Mel Gibson's bravehearts - not quite, but nearly (faces painted white instead of blue). The producers create false drama by having one of the 45 stones slide down an incline during one of the recreations, and the ancients are depicted mercy killing a crushed man.

And, of course, they all look like Anglo-Saxons, never mind that the Angles and Saxons didn't invade and enter Britain until the 5th and 6th centuries B.C.E. (They came from what is now Denmark). What should they have looked like? I don't know, but that's the point - we don't know what they looked like or sounded like.

The show could have been down in closer to an hour without the recreations and repetitions (there are too many of those too). Not how I would have done it, but the information underlying is fascinating nonetheless.

Post Modern Love

Wow, a soccer punch Modern Love column this week: Let's Not Get to Know Each Other Better.

The New York Times is running a series of winners from a contest. They're all from people 20 years younger than I, but I'm struck by how much resonated (resonates) with my own encounters with love.

College is much on my mind as this past weekend was my 20 year college reunion. And in reading these wistful pieces, I feel a bit sicken to think they have no idea that it's not likely to get any better...I know 40 year olds, 50 year olds who think casual is sexy and caring is creepy!

Here are some excerpts that jumped (emphasis added):

With so many avenues for communication, one might expect an onslaught of romantic soliloquies, but that isn’t the case. Casual is sexy. Caring is creepy. You don’t want to show your hand, and you certainly don’t want to fall in love. At least until you do, and by then it’s too late.

Planned romance is viewed as nothing more than ambition, so it’s important that things be allowed to happen naturally. Sex is great, and so are some relationships, but not to the point that they should be actively pursued.

And then these pithy, evocative observations

• the big wet kiss that changes everything and nothing.
• the perfect hookup, a pressure-free surprise. With a stranger, everything is new and acceptable. Her quirks are automatically endearing. This first encounter is the perfect place, but where does it lead? In the best case, nowhere at all.
• If it continues, you have an understanding, physical chemistry and great conversations. You meet two or three times a week for no-strings sex and long-winded philosophical talks.

Body and mind intercourse does not a relationship make. You'd think it would, but it doesn't seem to turn out that way.

Most importantly, you aren’t lonely. Maybe deep in the recesses of your mind you think about possibly loving this person. What’s the standard response? Nothing. If she asks, “How do you feel about me?” you answer from the heart: “I see you as an unexpected treat from the heavens. I don’t know how I deserve this.”

Your relationship is good. Your relationship is strong. But it isn’t a relationship, and that’s the key.

I laughed aloud at this. I learned a long time ago never to ask such questions because I got such elliptical answers. Or maybe because I never had the courage to ask ever, or ever again after such a response, while I would admire the cleverness.

The effect of a bookcase:

A friend of mine, a normal girl who is neither especially social nor aloof, engages in hookups unabashedly — she’s just doing what she wants and doesn’t regret or overthink it. Except for one time when she woke up in some guy’s embrace, got out of bed and noticed his bookshelf.

I’m not sure what it was about the contents that impressed or moved her; maybe the books suggested a gentle soul. All I know is what she told me: “I only felt bad after seeing his books.” The books had made him a real person, I guess, one she liked. Or pitied. Because then it was on to the next.

Yes, the disconnect has long existed. My generation had too many options. The generation of the 60s had too many options. The utter lack of protocol is systemic and problematic and has been true since the 60s busted it all up - another reason why I don't particularly appreciate that decade.

Maybe this disconnect has always existed. As one of my classmates, a genteel 60-year-old, said to me, “Every generation thinks they discovered sex.” Which might be true, but I’m not sure any previous generation has our plethora of options and utter lack of protocol. This may reflect how our media obsession has desensitized and hypersexualized us.

But I think it goes beyond that. Our short attention spans tend to be measured in nanoseconds. We float from room to room watching TV, surfing the Internet, playing Frisbee and finding satisfaction around every corner, if only for a moment.

Out of fear, we shrink ourselves. There have been many times I should have cried but stifled the tears. Instances where I should have said, “I love you” but made a joke instead. Once, a girl dumped me and it nearly ruined me. How bad was it? I ate nothing but Wendy’s for an entire week.

I’m fairly certain I could have saved the entire endeavor with a soul-baring soliloquy of what was true and what mattered to me, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I don’t know many who can.

We’ve grown up in an age of rampant divorce and the accompanying tumult. The idea that two people can be happy together, maturing alongside each other, seems as false as a fairy tale. So when a relationship ends, it isn’t seen as bad. It’s held as evidence that the relationship was never any good to begin with.

MAYBE it’s just that we have learned nothing can compare to the perfect moment of the unexpected hookup — wet lips on the beach, lying in the sand — and so we aim to accumulate as many as possible. Or maybe we’re simply too immature to commit. That has been the rap against guys forever, but now women think the same way. With the world (and the world of sex) at our fingertips, it’s difficult to choose, to settle, to compromise.

But I do occasionally wonder: If we can’t get past ourselves and learn to sacrifice to be with another, then what is in store? A generation of selfish go-getters fueled by nothing more than our own egos, forever seeking that rare dose of self-esteem? An era of loneliness filled with commercial wants and mate selection based on the shallowest of criteria?

Yeah, not much good is in store.

Regarding Guilt, Anger and Bill

James Fallows (Atlantic) on why Hillary behaved as she did - post titled, "How Hillary Lives With Herself:"

The Clinton team doesn't worry about hurting Obama's prospects of winning in the fall, because they assess those prospects at zero. Always have. Obama might not win if he leads a bitterly divided party, but (in this view) he was never going to win. Not a chance. He would be smashed like an armadillo in the road* by the Republican campaign machine, and he would be just about as ready as the armadillo for what was coming.

When Clinton still had a plausible shot at the nomination, this assumption removed all guilt from beating up on Obama. As in: "I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002." By whittling Obama down, the Clintons were saving the party from a suicidal mistake.

John Harris, Politico, compares Gore and Hillary, both working in Bill's shadow:

Gore believed Bill Clinton’s personal scandals were a headwind and banished him from his campaign. Why, critics taunted after the 2000 election, would you sideline the most popular Democrat and most talented campaigner of the age?

Hillary Clinton believed Bill Clinton was a political asset and made him her most prominent public surrogate. Why, the critics now taunt, would you allow your unruly husband to hijack your campaign and make your message all about restoration at a time when the electorate is hungering for change?

And reports on this not surprising tidbit:

David Maraniss, a fellow Clinton biographer, reported the story of Hillary being driven home one night by a mentor, Bernard Nussbaum, when they were both working as staff lawyers on the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate inquiry. With earnest intensity, she made a prediction about her then-boyfriend: “He’s going to be president of the United States." Amused, Nussbaum replied, “That’s silly and ridiculous.” Before slamming the door shut, Hillary Rodham seethed: “I know this guy. You don’t. He is going to be president. You think it’s silly. Well, someday you’ll eat your words.”

And then this observation, which strikes me as about right:

During the early Clinton years, political adviser Paul Begala, who had spent countless hours on the road with the couple during the 1992 campaign, told friends he had discovered the secret of their relationship: Both looked at each other in mystery at how the other person had married someone so undeserving.

This was why they survived the Lewinksy scandal, and other indignities. Each saw their marriage as the world’s most exclusive club — a bond strong enough to handle all manner of stresses.

Finally Harris asks:

Now what?

For Bill Clinton, the supreme challenge will be to face what is clearly his anger over the outcome of his wife’s campaign and the way they both were treated by both their party and the press. His worst moments in both private and public life have always flowed from his sense of grievance.

Speaking of Bill's anger The New Republic points out two very separate accounts (not counting his explosion over the Vanity Fair article.

No Feminist Icon, She

My first grade teacher had on the front of her desk a poster with four rows, head shots of men. There were a few blank spots at the of the last row in the far right corner. Why are there no women, I asked my teacher. Mrs. Molnar answered that maybe, one day, there would be.

But not this woman. Thank God, not this one. I don't yet feel the breath of relief. I know we escaped a narrow catastrophe, because I have no doubt in my mind a Hillary Clinton presidency would have set the cause of women back decades. She was too much like George Bush in privledging loyalty over competence, fantasy over reality, lies over truth. And because she ran her campaign as a referendum on women power (as opposed to the power of her ideas), her failures would be chalked up to her lack of a y chromosome as well. Margaret Thatcher she is not.

I am deeply disturbed that this woman has become a feminist icon. To me it's emblematic of all that's wrong with the feminist movement in general. This women had no scruples sliming the women, the many women, that her husband preyed on. Stay in the marriage - fine - her choice. No one knows what goes on in a marriage but the two people in it and sometimes not even them. I do not begrudge her staying with that pig. But don't defend him at the expense of other women. Don't deny his nefarious, selfish actions as the imaginings of a conspiracy. Don't degrade the women who had to deflect and defeat the predatory actions of her husband.

For that I will never forgive her and for that I will never accept her as a feminist icon.

God has blessed America by saving us from more of the Clintons.