Opportunity stolen

When I was a kid, I was spoon-fed the Myth of America. You know the one. It tells us that America is the land of opportunity. The land of the free. The place where anyone could become anything. Where a boy could be born in poverty in a log cabin, where he was so poor he had to walk to school barefoot, but where could still rise to be the leader of the nation if only he worked hard enough. That Myth. America was not perfect, we knew. We made some mistakes—slavery, for example. The long, dark period where women couldn't vote, for another. But given time, we always righted the wrongs, both here and abroad. Maybe it took time. Maybe it wasn't easy. But it got done. And anyone could be anything, if they were willing to work hard.

In a deleted scene from my currently on-query project, a character argues that America has become less a meritocracy and more of a feudal society, where wealth and opportunity is increasingly handed down from generation to generation, and people are more likely to become rags-to-riches stories by hitting the lottery or going viral (not always for the right reasons) than they are by studying and working hard. He points out the increasing entry of dynasties into politics (Kennedys, Bushes and, maybe, Clintons), sports (Hulls, Bonds, Mannings) and entertainment (Smiths, Coppolas), where wealth and power gained by parents have allowed the children to either pursue their dreams free of the fear of failure, or provide them with the leg up needed to succeed. Meanwhile, he notes, it becomes harder for others to gain entry into the club. Mobility, he says, is dead.

This idea seems to be in evidence all over. Statistics have suggested mobility in America has decreased over time. In his 2017 book, Dream Hoarders, Richard Reeves suggests that not only has upward mobility been stifled, so has downward mobility. Reeves argues that the top-most economic classes (in this case, the top 20%, not the fabled 1%) have constructed a glass floor to keep themselves—and their children—from falling out of the upper classes.That they are using their money and status and connections to engage in 'opportunity hoarding.'

After watching the 'college cheating scandal' blow up last week, this seems more evident than ever. If you have not been paying attention, a federal investigation turned up an operation in which parents paid a middleman to get their children into top colleges, either by cheating on college entrance exams or by bribing coaches into falsely recruiting the kids for their athletic teams. Said the mastermind of the operation, "I created a side door."

What boggles my mind in all this are two things: first, that the parents did not apparently trust in their own children's abilities to get into these schools (though after seeing the video made by daughter of privilege, Olivia Jade, maybe they were right not to trust her). Second, couldn't the gobs and gobs of money spent on getting their kids into school be better spent on, I don't know, tutors? Better prep schools? Test prep classes? According to a story in The New York Times, parents were paying between $15,000 and $75,000 per cheated test. Another paid $1.2 million—million!—to get their kid into Yale. Are these schools really that good? If you have that kind of money to drop on faking your way into school, does your kid really need that kind of education? Hell, if you're dropping a mil on Yale, why not set up an endowment or use it as seed money to outfit a residence hall with geothermal or something? Why not at least let that money benefit others as well as your own kid?

As a parent, I want my kids to have a better life than I had growing up (and mine was pretty good), and to be well-positioned for success as they enter adulthood. It is, really, what any parent wants. This cheating scandal, however, is a direct example of what Reeves called opportunity hoarding, taken to the extreme. We all recognize that wealth has its privileges. This is not a simple privilege. This is not just stacking the deck. This is outright thievery, thievery that denied actual deserving students of opportunity, an opportunity to be anything.

One of those moments

My boss is smart.

She has a Ph.D. She's done research in aquatic biology, conducted wetland restoration work, taught at the university level, and now she's running the premier environmental organization in my region. She's got a quick mind, strong opinions, and makes friends easily. Because she works in a field that has been traditionally dominated by men, and because she worked in a hypermasculine environment (the Department of Defense) where she was not only "the only girl" but also younger by 20 years than most everyone, she developed a thick skin. She's not one to cry "sexism" or "misogyny" at ever turn.

But she has her limits.

Last year, she was asked by the director of one of our region's chambers of commerce to serve on a committee that would look at the energy needs of our county and try to come up with some solutions. She came back from her first meeting knowing she was up against it: most of the business leaders who were on the community have no love for environmental organizations, even one like ours, which is generally not a lawsuit-happy, jump up and down and scream, anti-progress, trees are more important than people kind of organization. Over the course of 50 years, my organization has been pretty good at being reasonable and finding ways to work with all sorts of people.

Anyway, she started coming back from these meetings increasingly frustrated. She was not being listened to. She was not being taken seriously. Her ideas were repeatedly shot down. She was being patronized. The committee chairman said, "You're like my crazy little sister." My boss, who is not one to see sexism everywhere and has worked in hypermasculine environments, takes it as a compliment. Meanwhile, the other women on the committee, including the chamber's executive director, sit back and say nothing and contribute little to the conversation.

After a series of increasingly frustrating interactions with this committee, my boss told our board last week that she wanted off. She was backed up by a 20-year-old intern of ours, who attended a couple of the meetings and said she couldn't believe the way my boss had been treated. One person on the board suggested it was because she's from an environmental organization, but it was pointed out, by the intern, that the committee several times accepted and applauded ideas that were put forward by a man on the committee (one who is actually working as a subcontractor....for us!) right after they shot down the same ideas. From my boss.

This young lady was shocked and outraged by the behavior she witnessed. Good for her, and I hope she keeps that outrage whenever she encounters it. My board? Not so much. "Welcome to our county," said more than one--including several women.

It was a real eye opening moment for me. Not to hear about the crap my boss has been taking--I've been hearing about it for the last eight months or so. No, it was the way it was shrugged off so casually by men and women on my board. Men and women who should know better. Men and women who should not accept this with a shrug and an easy comment. "That's the way it is," as Bruce Hornsby sang so many years ago.

It's funny how it hits home that much more when it's someone you know, isn't it? We can read all the stories we want about casual or institutional misogyny, sexism, racism, every -ism out there, but until we see it in action, until we see it bite someone we know, until we see how it is so casually embraced, I don't think it's possible for many men to really understand it on a gut level. Those of us who think we are enlightened, who wonder how this sort of thing gets perpetuated in modern times only have to look at that "Welcome to our county" comment to understand how it continues. I can only hope our young, outraged intern isn't having this same conversation with her board when she's my boss's age 25 years down the road.

Another year, another post like this

I may have told you this story before. Perhaps not. Whatever the case, I'm not sure what it is about this time of year that seems to bring this sort of thing out. Last year around now, I was writing about Harvey Weinstein. The year before that, Donald Trump and locker room talk. Maybe it's something in the change of seasons that brings this all about, I don't know. At any rate, the stuff going on now serves to remind me of this.

For nearly the entire decade of the nineties, I worked for the Central Park Conservancy, a great organization that works with the City of New York to manage and protect and promote that fantastic greensward in the heart of New York City. For all of those years, I commuted to work, a journey that involved a minimum 40-minute train ride and two subway lines, but it was a good job with a good organization in a great location, and I've always liked trains so I tolerated it for quite a while.

Two of the years I worked in Central Park, we lived in southern Connecticut. Metro North took me all the way down to Grand Central. From there, I had to take the Lexington Avenue subway back uptown to 103rd Street (my office was just outside the Park at 103rd Street and Fifth Avenue). It seemed a bit of a waste, going all the way down to Grand Central just to have to come back up, and the Lexington Avenue line at that point sucked, to put it honestly, so I looked for--and found--an alternative: get off Metro North at 125th Street and walk 21 blocks to my office. And so I did.

I don't remember how I got to and from the station, to be honest. I think I got off at 125th Street, cut over to Madison, and went all the way down Madison to 104th, and vice versa, but I honestly couldn't tell you after all this time. When I walked (and in the winter, I did not do the walk if it was dark), I walked with purpose, fast but not running. I kept my head up and my eyes moving, but also tried not to attract attention. It was a little unnerving. Mine was pretty much the only white face on the street there, and the route took me through just about every kind of neighborhood: bustling commercial sections, upscale homes, bombed-out crack houses (it was the nineties, after all). It seemed quite possible that I could get mugged for money to fuel someone's crack habit, or mugged--even killed--simply for being the wrong race in the wrong neighborhood. Not once, however, did it ever enter my mind that I might be dragged off into an alley or wrecked building and sexually assaulted.

The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that surfaced last month have once again served to highlight the vastly different worlds men and women live in. When do men worry about being sexually assaulted? Never. For men of my generation, it's a "Dueling Banjos" reference when we go camping or find ourselves in some backwoods area. Maybe younger men joke about pawn shops and the Gimp. But that's what it is for men: a joke, something to laugh about. When do women worry about being sexually assaulted? All the time? Half the time? From the stories that have once again been shared in the wake of the Kavanaugh accusations, they'd certainly be forgiven for worrying about it all the time. It happens too damn often, and that's got to change.

Why did I bother?

I knew better.

I knew better, and I did it anyway.

Last week, a Facebook friend of a very conservative nature posted a graphic on Facebook. Unlike his usual postings, it wasn't even a share, it was a graphic he'd come across, downloaded, then posted. It was about Christine Blasey Ford.

If you do not know who Christine Blasey Ford is, look her up. Suffice to say, the graphic posted was not particularly complimentary, calling her an alcoholic, promiscuous and, possibly worst of all, a liberal activist. It then suggested that not only was her coming forward a desperate attempt to keep a conservative off the Supreme Court, but that Dr. Blasey Ford was looking for a book deal.

If they were making The Princess Bride today (heck, the way Hollywood is, they probably are), Vizzini might declare that the most famous blunder of all is "never get involved in a political discussion on Facebook." It's almost always a no-win situation for all. Most people have no interest in actual, informed debate about politics on Facebook. Most people just want to stake their position and fly their flag as high as possible for all like-minded people to see, and to piss off those who don't agree. The first time I saw this, I clicked in the comment box and was poised to strike, then thought better of it. It bothered me to pass it by, but it was sensible.

But two days later, based on whatever algorithms Facebook uses, it was there again, floating to the top of my news feed even though I am constantly telling Facebook I want it to sort by most recent, not what Facebook thinks is a 'Top Story' (why I have to change this every. Single. Time. I get on Facebook is beyond me). This time, I couldn't hold back.

All I wanted was an acknowledgment. What acknowledgment? This one: Dr. Blasey Ford may well be all of those things this Facebook graphic depicts her as. An alcoholic. Promiscuous. A liberal activist. Sure, maybe she's even an opportunist, hoping to catapult herself to riches and fame (though, please see this excellent post by John Pavlovitz about that). Yet, none of that precludes the possibility that Brett Kavanaugh did exactly what she says he did. Unsurprisingly, I got no admission of the sort. Instead, I got (and am still getting) the usual litany of Republican talking points, victim blaming, and straw men. In other words, pretty much what I expected. At least I haven't gotten any personal attacks. Yet. I haven't checked Facebook this morning. Meanwhile, I swear I'll stay out of it next time...

...maybe.

The Bee and the Barr

Late last night, I gave in to an itch and rubbed my eye. I knew it was a mistake, but the eye had started itching madly right around the time Last Week Tonight started. Twice during the program I dribbled a little cool water into the corner of my eye, but it did no good: the itch remained. And though I knew the itch was the result of an allergy (I had cut the grass earlier in the day, and it was raining, and it's spring/summer), and though I knew exactly what was going to happen if I gave in, I stuck my finger in behind my glasses and rubbed.
Ahhh, such sweet relief! There is nothing quite so satisfying as scratching as scratching an itch. It's so...so...so. It's just so.

Here's the problem with this sort of itch, though: while it feels positively orgasmic while you're scratching it, it doesn't solve anything. As soon as I pulled my finger out from behind my glasses, three things happened: 1) the itch returned, as bad and insistent as before; 2) it now felt like a lash or something was stuck beneath my eyelid, even though I didn't have to check in the mirror to know this wasn't true, and 3) the phlegm factory in my head went into full-scale production mode, churning out mucus like Soviet factories cranked out tanks in World War II. I ended up taking Benadryl, and while it did the job, taking Benadryl at midnight means waking from a bizarre dream at 5:44 with no recollection of the alarm having gone off and a tongue that feels about as moist as the Mojave Desert. My head is clear of phlegm, but my brain is rather sluggish, which might explain this post.

The sad thing? All of this was predictable. I've been here before. It never ends well. Experience tells me there are certain types of eye itches that I must absolutely leave alone, and last night's was one of those. I knew it, and I reaped the consequences. But it felt so good!

Last week, Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee both scratched some particular eye itch, Barr in her Twitter feed, Bee on her show, Full Frontal. (If you've been living under a rock, Barr's tweet was a racist shot at a former Obama administration official, while Bee dropped a C-Bomb on Ivanka Trump) Barr was fired from her show before the day was out. Bee is still employed, though she has lost a couple of big advertisers. She is supposedly going to address this on this week's show. At this point, I'm guessing she'll keep her job, since the network (TBS) joined her in falling on the sword. Unless there's enough of a backlash.

What was Roseanne thinking when she fired off her 2 a.m. Tweet? What was Bee thinking when she dropped the C-bomb on air? I can't say for sure, but I imagine it was a lot like me with my eye itch: it felt really good until the entirely predictable--and avoidable--reaction.

One of the big problems with this country, summed up in a single sentence

According to a story on CNN's website this weekend, during a 2006 meeting with employees angered over a new rule that would force them to share tips with their supervisors, casino mogul Steve Wynn said this in response to a woman who stated the rule would cost her fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year:

"If $15,000 to $20,000 a year makes that big a difference in your life, you're doing something wrong."

Steve Wynn is worth an estimated 3.4 billion dollars.

There's a lot of people in our government--on both sides of the aisle, but predominantly on the Republican side--who think this way. Back in December, while discussing the elimination of the estate tax (which only impacted individuals worth more than $5.5 million, or couples worth more than $11 million), Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it's on booze or women or movies." Nice. Oh, and by the way, Chuck Grassley has an estimated worth of 3.76 million dollars.

The attitude from the likes of Wynn and Grassley is that those who have wealth are deserving or more able than those who don't. I'm not going to doubt that these folks have worked hard, or that they're able. At the same time, as someone who would benefit greatly from an extra $15,000 to $20,000 a year, I'll readily admit to the mistakes I've made in my life that have put me, at times, behind the financial eight ball, starting with a career choice made thirty-plus years ago that set me on the road to being a person who is "doing something wrong." But I've also worked my ass off (and I'm good at my job, dammit) in a field that does not really reward its people with riches, and while I'd like to have a Scrooge McDuck money pit like Steve Wynn and Chuck Grassley and pretty much every appointee and "special advisor to the President" hanging around the White House, it's just not gonna happen. And I'm okay with that. Just don't say I'm worth less because I'm worth less.

***
On a different note, last night the wife and I went to see Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Very good film. Very much like a Coen brothers film, funny, but also very heavy, and unconventional. Great performances from all, especially Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson. I recommend it.

Thoughts on the Brexit

The Brexit frightens me.

(In the unlikely event you have no idea what "Brexit" is, it's the decision made by the United Kingdom last week to leave the European Union.)

What frightens me about the Brexit is not what it does to the stock market, or global trade, the value of the dollar compared to the pound, or the world economy in general. I admit to having little understanding of how all of that works, or how that impacts me on a daily basis. The Brexit may well be good for the UK in the long run, though I suspect it will not. But I'm no economist.

What frightens me is that it was a victory for racism and xenophobia. Much of the arguing over Brexit centered on the question of immigration. The UK has been hit over the last few years with a lot of immigrants from Poland and eastern Europe. And now, of course, there are all those Muslim trying to get in and turn the UK into the northwest corner of the caliphate. Pro-Brexiters like Nigel Farage skillfully played on the fears of UK citizens, with pro-"Leave" ads that bear a striking resemblance to Nazi propaganda (the black and white images are actual images from a Nazi film):

My apologies for displaying this vile stuff.

Much of the rhetoric from Farage's UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) was about preserving jobs for real Brits, about protecting borders, about "taking back control of the country."

Sounds a lot like what I'm hearing from a certain fur-bearing mammal on this side of the pond.

I'm not naive. Racism has always been a thing. It will always be a thing. We humans have a need to create divisions where they don't exist, and to carve  them deeper where they do exist. I've come to believe (and maybe it's because of my privileged position as a white, sort of middle class man) that it's gotten better over the years, and maybe it has. But lately? It's getting worse.

Some of it's because of the economy. Bad times lead to finger pointing, and fingers are much easier to point at people who look and act different, who speak in funny languages, who come from other places. And some of it's because of the times, which are troubled. But demonizing those people with the funny customs and clothes and accents is not the way to go. Pointing the anger and fear at one or two groups and releasing that pent up anger is a dangerous game to play, and it can all too easily end in some very bad places.

I'm hoping this is a blip, a hiccup, a momentary lapse of reason. And I hope we defeat it here.


Second image from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Poland

Super (Sneaky) Advertising

Crap, here I am, stuck again.

Some time yesterday I had an idea for a blog post, one that was actually about writing. Nothing huge, mind you. The way I envisioned it, it would be short and sweet, a couple of paragraphs at best.

I don't know what I was doing when it came into my head. I might have been actually writing, or we may have been driving the Magpie to the bus station (she came home for a visit this weekend; it's good to be a senior with no classes on Friday!), or I may have been doing something else. "I like that," I thought. "I may have to use that on Monday."

Yeah.

Except I didn't write it down.

And so, here we are.

I didn't watch the Super Bowl last night, but I looked at the boxscore when it was over, took a spin through the 'play by play' list, and all I could think was, "Wow, this looks like the most boring Super Bowl ever!" If you watched it, was it as bad as the recap made it look?

A lot is being made over Peyton Manning kissing the Papa John's pizza guy on TV, and at least twice telling interviewers, "I'm going to drink a lot of Budweisers." Questions of taste in beer and pizza aside, some vilified Manning for blatant, inappropriate product placement. Seems all the goodwill Peyton garnered for beating Tom Brady and the Patriots was immediately squandered.

I have to wonder, though: is it all that different from "I'm going to Disney World"? Maybe, in the sense that those commercials are commercials, and a post-game press conference or sideline interview isn't expected to be about product placement, right?

Oh. Hmm. Okay, then.

Granted, comparing a hockey coach's mid-season, post-game interview with a spontaneous, post-game event is a bit of an apples-to-oranges thing. The truth is, just about everything in sports these days, especially the big events, is about advertising and product placement. How many times did the announcers mention that the game was being played in Levi's Stadium? I'm willing to bet that, just before the opening kickoff, viewers were told that the kickoff was being sponsored by Met Life or Go Daddy or someone. And that half-time show, that was all Pepsi, right?

I wouldn't be overly upset with Manning. For all we know, he might just equate Budweiser with beer, the way millions of people think a copy machine is a Xerox or a facial tissue is a Kleenex or a can of soda is a Coke. Just wait--it won't be long until the team names in the end zones take up half the space they do now, with a sponsor name taking up the rest, or the uniforms the players wear are covered with advertisements. I'll be more upset by that then a throw-in plug that may or may not have been an accident.

That's it for me. Did you watch the game? What did you think?

Enough Already

I feel like I've used this title once already for something very similar. If so, that's sad--not that I'm repeating myself, but that I have to.

On Sunday, after watching a flood of anti-Obama memes fly across my Facebook feed, I posted the following (this is verbatim, except for one spelling error, and a link that was not in the original):

Since Thursday, my Facebook feed has been flooded with comments and shares and likes related to the terrible shooting in Roseburg. Unfortunately, most of these are not about the mass murder itself, but about President Obama's reaction and statement about it. Most of THOSE comments have been negative (which is putting it mildly).

I get that you don't like Obama, but here's the thing: THIS IS NOT ABOUT OBAMA. Put your hatred for the man aside and look instead at yet another pile of bodies—do you want to see that again? I get your concern about anything that may infringe on your constitutional right to bear arms, but don't you think this stuff has got to stop? Instead of firing off the usual, knee-jerk statements (you know how they go: "guns don't kill people..." and "when guns are outlawed..." and "It only takes one good man with a gun...", etc.) let me ask you this: WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? Because what we got? It's not working. Status Quo? Not an option. Archie Bunker-style "Pass out the pistols"? Not an option.

Stop making it about Obama and start offering up ideas.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that we should gather all the guns and melt them down--the vast majority of gun owners are, I'm sure, law-abiding citizens who would not take a life unless they felt they absolutely had no choice. And I don't know what the solution is. As I said, what we're doing now is not working.

I'm glad to say I actually got a couple of reasonable responses from people, one of whom is definitely anti-Obama (though he also pointed out his anti-Obama position is the result of what Obama as done, which is fair) and decidedly pro-gun. I didn't necessarily agree with all he had to say, but I respect the fact that he (mostly) kept to the issue, and that he didn't retreat to the "You'll pry my gun from my cold, dead hands!" position that so many others take. Let's hope more people in government can do the same. Something's gotta give.

Insensitivity

Years ago, when I lived here...

...we received permission to throw a party. We sat down to plan and arrived at the only weekend date between Thanksgiving and Christmas that was available. That day turned out to be December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, which commemorates those who died in the Japanese attack in 1941.

The people I lived and worked with at the big house there were all shaped to a certain extent by World War II. We all had relatives who fought in the war or grew up during it. My father was 5 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Two of my uncles that I was close to served in the US Navy; so did my grandfather. Another uncle flew combat missions in the Army Air Corps. I have three close friends whose fathers fought across France and Italy against the Germans. And, it turns out, my future father-in-law (though I did not know him at the time) was a Pearl Harbor survivor.

We knew our history, and we knew, at least on an intellectual level, the horror of Pearl Harbor. It did not stop us from capitalizing on the day. The invitations we sent out said "Come and get bombed at our Pearl Harbor Day party." We decorated the hall with cutout airplanes and falling bombs on the walls. No one complained. If they had, we might have told them:


There was no harm in it, as far as we could tell. We were young, and full of the insensitivity and tactlessness that young people can be famous for. The party was a blast, and that house was every bit as good for a party as you might imagine.

Flash forward 20-something years. On Friday, while Rapi-scrolling (TM) through endless images on Facebook of the Twin Towers intact and the Twin Towers burning; of dust-covered firemen, and flags tattered and whole; a post from my cousin caught my eye. It showed the Twin Towers, with the Statue of Liberty in the background. But what really got my attention were the words. Said my cousin:

"I was surprised, angered, and disappointed when somebody called out 'Happy Remembrance Day!' this morning. Before I could stop myself I blurted out 'What's happy about it?' Later on, driving through [town name redacted for privacy] I saw an electronic billboard that was listing all the victims 9/11 by name. Most appropriate."

Honestly, I had no idea what Remembrance Day was, or even if it was. In looking it up, I came across something I did not know: in December, 2001, Congress declared September 11 to be Patriot Day (not to be confused with Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, which commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775). Furthermore, each year since 2009 President Obama has signed a proclamation declaring September 11 as "Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance." I guess I'm just not up on these things.

September 11 was a world-changing day, our generation's Pearl Harbor, and needs remembrance. Ironically, as my cousin's experience indicates, giving it an official designation on a calendar may actually make people think about it less. After a while, it just becomes another blip on the calendar, like National Boss Day or National Frozen Food Day--or, worse yet, a day that everyone looks forward to because they get the day off work and stores are having sales. I can envision a cheesy animation of the Twin Towers falling while a Crazy Eddie-style announcer shouts, "Our prices are COMING DOWN!"

A story I heard on NPR on Friday afternoon made a surprising point. "9/11 is already ancient history on some level," said Alice Greenwald, director of the National September 11 Memorial Museum. The story noted that approximately 25% of Americans now living either weren't born yet on September 11, 2001, or were too young to remember it. Time marches on. And I suppose I have to get used to the idea that there will be those in the near future making jokes about September 11 because the impacts to them will not seem visible. It doesn't make them bad or wrong or stupid--it just makes them young, without the same frame of reference and emotional response that those of us who lived through it have. I note that for myself, my own level of respect and reflection for Pearl Harbor Day, Veterans' Day and Memorial Day has increased over the years; I suspect it will for them, too.

OMG! Look What Happened To....

Social media exploded this week when a Hollywood star stepped out on the red carpet for the first time in a while. I'm talking, of course, about Tony Sirico. Here he is in his most famous role, as Paul Gualtieri, aka "Paulie Walnuts," in The Sopranos:

Can peel paint from a house at distances up to 20 yards

I don't think anyone on that show could threaten with a 'look' as much as he could. Yikes. And here is Mr. Sirico recent--

OH MY GOD! WHAT DID HE DO? WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TONY SIRICO??? IS THAT EVEN THE SAME GUY???

Well, since we're on the subject of mobster types, we ran into another guy who was especially famous for playing mobsters. Look, it's Ray Liotta, star of that film I just can't get enough of, Goodfellas! Remember him?

HOLY SHIT! RAY LIOTTA! WTF??? YOU'RE ALL GRAY! YOU'RE WRINKLED! YOU LOST YOUR TEETH! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYES???

Okay, okay, maybe that's not fair--those pictures were taken some 20 years apart, so we'll just let him pass by. Hey, wait...I think I see David Duchovny! Duchovny's great. I was a big fan of his back in his X-Files days, and I loved the first few seasons of Californication. I'm not crazy about the last few, but Duchovny was always entertaining as Hank Moody. Here he is back in season 1, just seven years ago (you know, around the same time we last saw Renee Zellweger in public). I can hear the heart's a-thumping all across the land.

And here he is this year:

HOLY CRAP, DAVID DUCHOVNY--YOU'RE WRINKLED! YOUR HAIRLINE'S RECEDING! YOUR CHEEKS ARE SINKING!!! HOW DARE YOU AGE???

Okay. Chill. Take a deep breath. Here's the thing: these people? They're PEOPLE. Like me, like you. And one thing I've noticed about people as I get older is they age at different rates, and age faster at some parts of their lives than others. Go to a high school reunion and you'll see some folks who look like they did the day they grabbed their diplomas and walked off into the sunset. You'll also see some who look ten or twenty years older than everyone. And maybe ten or fifteen years down the road, those prematurely-aging types will look exactly the same, and Mr. Youthful will look about 108. As for Renee Zellweger? It really has been a few years since she's been out in the public eye--it's natural that we'd notice a difference (especially because it looks like she went out without a super-thick layer of makeup). Did she have work done? Maybe yes, maybe no, but who cares? It's her body, her choice, right? And aside from Bruce Jenner, why aren't we howling over male celebrities who have had work done--or haven't had it done?

The shame of it is, Renee Zellweger is a fine actress who has a new movie coming out next year and is in pre-production on another. Rather than wonder about whether she had work done or not, we should be celebrating her return to the screen (first film since 2010). And the question we should be asking is, why is it so hard for women in their 40s to get good roles in Hollywood?

That's all I've got to say about that--what say you? Thanks for reading, and have a nice weekend!

Emma Watson Tells It Like It Is

Emma Watson delivers a speech to the UN.

Emma Watson delivers.




I don't have much to say about this right now--I don't have much to say about anything right now, my brain has been kind of fried lately--but Ms. Watson is right on target: this is an issue for all, and we all benefit from gender equality.

That's all for now, have a nice weekend.

This is Plus Size?

This is the end of the second straight WEEK FROM HELL, which is at the tail of the MONTH FROM HELL. It's not that things have been bad, just...busy. Really, really busy. I've got to be out early today and tomorrow, and then things ease off a bit. I came downstairs, made some coffee and thought, 'what am I going to post today?' I've thought about things, but just haven't had time to really organize my thoughts. Then I saw a story scroll across the feed on my Facebook page, about Robyn Lawley, a 'Plus Size' model from Australia who has posted a couple of unretouched photos of herself online and become a sensation.

I looked at the photo (how could I not? It's not only right there on Facebook, it also turned up on my newsfeed on my home page), and all I could think was, "THIS is plus size???" (Yes, this gets three question marks; I almost used the dreaded interrobang)

Maybe she's really, really tall. Like Wilt Chamberlain tall.

We do have a serious issue with body image in this world of ours, don't we?

Have a great weekend, all.



Photo blatantly stolen from KTTV/Los Angeles, who likely stole it from Lawley's instagram.

Tipper Stickers

Some time ago, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Wiig appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch about two people carpooling for the first time. Their conversation starts out awkward, as can happen when people who don't know each other find themselves in a confined space. It quickly takes a turn for the worse:

Wiig: So, it looked like you were having words with your neighbor there.

Baldwin:  I'm sorry?

Wiig: When I drove up, he was ranting and raving—that must be fun, living next to a crazy old man.

Baldwin:  That's my dad. He actually lives with us.

Wiig: Oh, I'm sorry.

Baldwin: He's not quite right anymore. He had wandered into the neighbor's yard, I was trying to get him back to the house to, uh, put some clothes on him.

Things go hilariously south from that point on, as the characters, desperate to find safe ground, keep inadvertently opening up wounds they couldn't possibly know the other had. "It's all right," Baldwin's character says at one point, "you weren't there."

I think of this sketch (which is not available for viewing on line because NBC is rather fierce in defense of  SNL) because of Bonnee Crawford's post earlier this week. She's worried that the dark places her current manuscript goes might upset people, or impact her ability to get published down the road. Bonnee says, "WALLS is something I'm going to want to stick trigger warnings all over because of how messed up some parts are, even though I'd rather let readers go into the book without knowing what to expect."

The questions Bonnee asked in her post got me thinking about this subject. Here in the US, we have a ratings system for movies, parental guidelines for television shows, and 'Tipper Stickers'* on records (oops, showing my age there—music recordings). But we don't have them for books. Should we?

Would you want one of these on your book?

I can't remember a time when movies weren't rated. I do remember the contentious hearings that took place in 1985 when "Tipper" Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center pushed for a ratings system for music, and the seemingly-unlikely coalition of musicians--Frank Zappa, John Denver and Dee Snider—who testified before before a Senate committee against it. Ultimately the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) adopted a system of labeling music with explicit or profane lyrics. The television industry followed suit in 1997 with the system we currently see today. What surprised me is that all of these ratings are voluntary—there are no laws in the United States mandating ratings on movies, TV or music.

To date, I have never seen a book come with any sort of warning label. However, we live in highly-sensitive times, and the internet has an echo chamber effect. It seems much easier to rile up the masses, or at least make it seem like masses are protesting something. While poking around preparing this post, I came across articles from this springwhere university students—college students, for God's sakes—were pushing their respective universities and colleges to label some books. Could it happen? I expect so.

But should it? As someone who tries to read widely and is somewhat mature, and as someone who is trying to break into the world of the published author, I do object to Tipper Stickers for books, even voluntary ones. This is not just a case of me objecting to something that could affect me, I've always been much more sensitive to censorship and bans when it comes to the written word than other media, I don't know why. Maybe it's because I grew up in a world with R's and X's for movies, and the occasional 'Viewer Discretion Advised' warnings preceding certain TV shows. I do think books promote thinking more so than movies and TV in particular. The pace of reading, the ability to stop immediately, go back and re-read a section, or shut the book and our eyes while we deal with whatever is in the story allows us more time to process the unpleasant things presented within than the often graphic images flashing on a screen.

Do we have responsibility to warn people they might be upset or offending by the contents of our works? There is something in everything that is going to offend someone. Perhaps it's the use of the F-bomb. Maybe a scene brings back unpleasant memories of childhood trauma. We don't know who's reading our books and what they've been through in life. Some readers have serious scabs that might be scratched open by something we write. What do we label? Bad words? Suggestive or overt content? Rape scene? How can we honestly know what's going to set someone off? Back to the skit for a minute:

Wiig: It's okay, I'm, I'm just sensitive about it, y'know, she's always been there for me, y'know—she's, she's my rock.

Baldwin: Your rock?

Wiig: Yeah…what?

Baldwin: It's just that last summer my dentist and I were rock climbing, and he fell into a crevasse where he got his foot stuck. The coyotes were circling, so I did what I had to do and I chewed his foot off with my teeth. So you should be a little more careful with the words you throw around.

Yes, we should be careful with the words we throw around. But should we label them? What say you? Have you ever been so offended by something in a novel that you stopped reading or got really upset? Are you in favor of some kind of Tipper Sticker for books?

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

*Historical note: "Tipper" Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore, was the public face of the PMRC, hence the stickers are given her name.

Full transcript of 'Morning Drive' sketch here. Trigger warning: rape reference.

Beards

Hey, did you see this story make the rounds recently?  It seems that, due to a phenomenon known as negative frequency-dependent selection, the more common beards are, the less desirable they become. In a sea of clean-shaven men, the one guy with the beard is likely to get the positive attention, and when all the men are bearded, it's the baby face who stands out and is most desirable.

It's an interesting study, though I note their focus is on full beards and not outrageous mustaches. I suspect the findings would apply there, too, and since just plain 'staches do not seem to be as common as full beards, I guess I stand out in the crowd in a good way (though I sometimes look at myself in the mirror and think, "You really go out looking like that?" but a shave is not in my future).

It does make me wonder if NFD plays any role in the books we read. I certainly know that I sometimes browse bookshelves in the store or online, or look at a cover or book release on a blog, and think, "Ugh, not another [insert hot trend of the month here]." Of course, this could be due to the fact that I'm simply not the right audience for whatever's trendy. YA and MG seem much more beholden to the 'flavor of the month' effects than the adult market, though I can be way off base there, too.

Perhaps instead of following the trends, we would be better off bucking the trend. Vampires are in? Give us pirates! Pirates are super hot? Astronauts! Then again, maybe chasing the next big thing, or deliberately writing against trends, is just as bad as trying to jump on the moving train. Write what you want, write it as best you can, and don't worry about what everyone else is doing. Grow a beard if you want to.

Have a great weekend, all!

Bits and Pieces for a Friday

It's Friday morning, and I'm once more not ready with a well-organized, deeply thought out topic. I have ideas, mind you, but I don't have as much time during the week as I used to so it all kind of gets put off and we end up with this sort of loose collection of nonsense. Here goes.

-Well, it finally happened. The spammers, the bots, the spam-bots--they've gotten to be too much. This week alone, 8 Anonymous spam-bots tried to leave comments on the blog. They go in blogger's built-in spam filter, but they also come straight to my e-mail. I decided against 'no moderation' for a reason--I hate when I can't see the comments other people have made on a blog while I'm leaving my own--and I allowed anonymous posts for a reason, but no more. I suspect once the bots realize they can't leave their little self-promotions for virus inducing websites here, they'll go away, and the recent boom in visitation will come back down to normal levels. I hope the change doesn't cause any issues; if it does, leave a comment (hah hah!). Actually, if you want to leave a comment on this or other blog posts but can't, check my profile, my e-mail is there, and send me a nasty-gram that way.

Hoochie mama, that's a lot of spam!

-Interesting posts this week from Chuck Wendig and Stacy McKitrick on reviews this week. Now, if you've read this before from me, feel free to skip to the next block--maybe there's something new there. Everyone is free to make their own choice about whether to review or not, and how and what they review. It bothers me quite a bit, however, that people who do review feel like they can't always be honest in what they're saying. If you don't like a book, there should be no fear whatsoever that the author or their legion of fans is going to come after you, or launch a smear campaign against your own book when it comes out. As I said there, it's outrageous that people get outraged when their books (or their favorite books by their favorite authors) get less than four or five stars.

I find myself thinking of a routine I saw done years and years ago by comedian David Brenner. He was talking about mosquitoes, and how horrible it is to wake up in the middle of the night with that nasty little, whiny buzz in your ear, the sound that a mosquito is closing in for a bite. But, noted Brenner, it's the male mosquito that buzzes, to attract a mate. Male mosquitoes don't bite. "So," said Brenner, "if you wake up and you hear it--bzzzzzzzzz--just turn over, go back to sleep, it's nothing to worry about. But," he said, and paused. "If you hear nothing...."

I think you can figure out the implication of that.

-Jonathan Franzen made the news for a 5600-word rant against e-books, Apple, Amazon, and Jennifer Weiner in the Guardian this week. Ironic, considering his new book is available as an e-book from Amazon. See Porter Anderson for a great round-up on this.

-And for my own technology rant: yesterday I made a phone call for work, reached my target, introduced myself and why I was calling (the guy I reached is no stranger to my organization). He let me get through this spiel, then said, in a very impatient, snippy way, "I'll have to call you back. I'm in a meeting." This last was said in a way that made it sound like I had a lot of nerve, bothering him while he was in a meeting. I was properly apologetic and professional (I strive to be like Mr. Pink, if you know what I mean) and hung up without taking more of his time, but after I did, all I could was, "If you're in a meeting, why the f*** did you answer the phone?"

-I'm beta reading for a friend, and loving it. Not just the story, not just the fact that it's out of my genre (and, truth be told, I still struggle a bit to figure out what it is I'm writing), but the fact that I see things that will help me. Word choices, sentence and paragraph structure, pacing--once more I say, if you haven't beta read, you should. Help others while helping yourself.

-More on the writing front, I'm working on a short for the next anthology from Elephant's Bookshelf (and here's a great interview Matt Sinclair did with Richard Pieters, author of one of the stories in Summer's Double Edge), and, slowly but surely, I've been cracking into BARTON'S WOMEN.

That's it for me, how's it all going for you? Have a great weekend!


*Spam wall by Freezelight