Moira Manion

In Which Tea Baggers Make My Head Explode

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:02:00 +0000

"Say, do you want to make people's heads explode? Sure, we all do!"
Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu), Mystery Science Theatre 3000

"Sirs, when are you going to realize that when you kill each other you're only hurting yourselves?"
Joel (Joel Hodgson), Mystery Science Theatre 3000

I've intentionally avoided writing anything about the Tea Baggers. I encountered several at President Obama's Health Care rally in Minneapolis in September (http://minnesotaindependent.com/44606/fired-up-scenes-from-obamas-health-care-rally%20%20). After sincerely listening to their point of view, I decided that to think about them any further was to risk my brain foaming out of my ears as I sputtered nonsensically.

But... I gotta get this out of my system, and have done with it.

One of my definitions for insanity is to vigorously fight against that which is in your own best interest. The "Tea Baggers" embody this definition.

A Mad Scientist couldn't come up with a better scheme.
"Decades of undermining the public education system has created a populace that doesn't know how to question! They have the reasoning capability of Pet Rocks! We'll strategically place on TV and radio greedy pseudo journalists who only answer to their corporate masters, and have them spew paranoia! The poor, white underclass will become incensed about the uppity you-know-what-N-word who's moved into the Big House, and will take to the streets en masse! The mainstream media and their emasculated pseudo journalists who only answer to their corporate masters will eagerly report every thing the racist xenophobes say and do, with the exception of the truly egregious madness, thus granting the Tea Baggers more gravitas than they deserve as the fringe nutjobs they really are, and causing even more Americans to take them seriously! With the country thus distracted, I'll take over easily! Bwah ha HAH!"

Alas, no. It would be so much simpler if that were the case.

With Tea Baggers being the homophobes that they are, it's not shocking that they had no idea that the terms "tea bagger" and "tea bagging" already had definitions which, had Tea Baggers known them, would have made them rip off their t-shirts and set them ablaze. For those of you who may yet be unknowing: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger

Thus, dressing a toddler in this shirt qualifies as child abuse. Or a really tasteless joke. "Well, y'know, Timmy's at that age where he puts everything in his mouth..."

It's a pity Tea Baggers don't mean the "urban" definition. That definition refers to an act that involves consenting adults giving and sharing pleasure. The Tea Baggers I spoke with outside the Health Care rally don't want to share. They were of one mind: I don't want my tax money going to give others anything. Marc from Maplewood told me he worked hard, had four kids, and it was difficult enough for him to get by. He didn't want any taxes going to a program that provided health care for others; he couldn't afford it. He himself had no health insurance, but his wife did.

I pointed out that universal health care would cover not only his wife, but himself and his four daughters. He wouldn't be giving tax dollars and not benefiting from them. We'd all be in it, together.

Marc was having none of it. To hell with everybody else, he was looking out for himself.

One gets the sense that most Tea Baggers are working poor, some perhaps desperately poor. Yet they identify with the rich. It's as Dickinson says in the song "Cool, Cool, Conservative Men" in the musical 1776, "But don't forget, that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor."

It's the Tea Baggers' willful ignorance that makes my head throb. By "ignorance" I don't mean "uneducated." By that definition, I'm ignorant. My original Marketplace Commentary Editor, Elizabeth Tucker, and I laughed when a listener's email accused me of having a "higher education status," when I didn't attend college, except to take a class in WordPerfect 5.0 . What knowledge I have, I gained by reading, reading and reading, anything and everything I could get my hands on, even things with which I disagreed, and questioning, questioning, and questioning everything I read. Because I'm literate and articulate, I'm assumed to be an elitist snob.

Tea Baggers loved George W. Bush because they didn't feel talked down to. Bush attended Yale, and still couldn't form a coherent sentence. That proved to Tea Baggers that Dubyah was one of them, a regular, down-to-earth guy. He was "plain spoken," which is to say, dumb as a brick.

If you think I'm being unfair towards Tea Baggers, watch this video. Watch it to the very end. This isn't Tea Baggers being manipulated by the tricksy Liberal Media. This is how they represent themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

Points in the video I especially enjoy are:

*The signs that read Unarmed, this Time and Keep Pushing us-- find out what happens. Nothing like the threat of violence to get yourself and your cause taken seriously.

*Mohawk Man, who opposes Bills, but can't tell what Bills he opposes.

*The woman who wants to abolish Medicare.

*The guy holding the Joe Wilson for President sign, who, when the interviewer informs him about how Joe Wilson once voted on an issue, says he's not actually supporting Joe Wilson for President. Maybe he's just holding the sign for a friend.

*Woman: "I'd like to see a Christian in the White House."
Interviewer: "You don't feel that Obama is Christian?"
Woman: "No, I don't! He's a Muslim!"
Yes, don't let an insignificant thing like facts interfere with your reality.

*Teenager: "It hasn't even been a year yet, and he's (Obama) already destroyed, like, most of the country." Not that this kid has ever seen most of his own home state. Let's pray to various deities that the kid's infertile.

*The white man wearing the native American chief on his t-shirt, who states that, deciphered, "Barack Obama" means "Anti-Christ."

*Older Caucasian man: "His (Obama's) mother was white! So he's not African-American, but he's going that way because that's what works for him." Yup, being a Black Man in the U.S. is definitely the position of privilege. I'm thinking of pushing my Filipino heritage so I can get elected. My other heritage is Irish, and, well, we all know about them.

*The over-all lack of people of color. Claiming you represent America when you're standing in an ocean of white faces speaks for itself.

*The many comparisons of Obama to Hitler. Since the marchers were quite close to the Holocaust Museum, they should have gone there to ask for survivors' support. Oh, except then they'd have to talk to Jews. And the last time a white man claiming to be a Patriot protecting America barged into that museum, it was so he could murder people. Never mind.

*The group who were against Russian Czars taking over government. "Are they going to be given land, and power over the people?" When the interviewer informed them about what Czars were, that the first one, the Drug Czar, was appointed under Ronald Reagan, and that they have no executive powers, a man said, "You know this how?" If you didn't hear it from Glenn Beck, it ain't true.

Tea Baggers cling fiercely to their ignorance. They have no curiosity and no imagination. When faced with information which contradicts what they believe is true, they dismiss and ignore that information. They don't understand the word "evidence." They wave the "Don't Tread On Me" Gadsen flag, and claim kinship with the Founding Fathers, without realizing that they would have bored the Founders to death. George Washington's favorite play was Joseph Addison's Cato. No Tea Bagger would or could sit through a performance of it --men in togas, ugh!-- and hate the Arts in general as elitist and queer. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, and Paine would have seen the Tea Baggers as the worse sort of willfully illiterate, pathetic hicks.

Tea Baggers say "Don't Tread On Me," but they won't hesitate to tread on others. There's no "live and let live" in their philosophy. They want America, and the world, to be the way they think it should be. This puts me in mind of the Amish, a group of Christians utterly unlike the Tea Baggers. The Amish live their lives and don't go about trying to convert others. They don't knock on doors and harass people at bus stops. It's possible they might believe that non-Amish are going to Hell in a hand basket, but they politely keep it to themselves. They see violence and the threat of violence in order to get one's point across as wrong. They don't try to create discriminatory laws. They simply don't hang out with those with whom they disagree. The Amish even allow their teenagers to give the outside world a test run, to see how it compares. That's being civilized.

The Tea Bagger mentality not only hates, but wants to destroy everyone and anyone who doesn't believe what they do. They want gays gone, and people of other religions, and people with no religion, either converted or dead and sent to Hell. They have orgasmic fantasies about The Rapture, or just being in Heaven with Jesus, watching on a Big Screen TV as all those intellectuals and others who mocked them suffer for eternity. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" doesn't exist in their precambrian brain stems.

Unfortunately, at this point the Tea Baggers have to be taken seriously, if only because the media has launched them into the spotlight. But too many Americans refuse to educate themselves about political matters which directly effect their lives. One of my former co-workers told me, with pride, that she "hates" politics. "Politicians are all blah-blah-blah. I don't listen to the news or read newspapers!" She laughed.

This is the kind of indifference Conservatives are counting on. If people are ignorant, those in power can do to them whatever they please. Such as start wars and prevent national health programs.

A perfect example of what happens when an audience is ignorant or indifferent is the recent report that FOX News may well be "misusing" videos in order to mislead viewers. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts988 , and in the first incident http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20091111/ts_ynews/ynews_ts977 . Reality is what you're told, if you don't care enough to examine and question. Thankfully, someone did.

Ironically, it's my friends and co-workers who are immigrants who care about American politics. They came from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. They have first-hand experience in how politics can effect every day lives, with devastating consequences.

Thinking about the Tea Baggers makes my brain ache. I've got so many other things to think about: how am I going to stretch my paycheck; trying to start my own business; writing two books; winterizing the apartment; fixing the zipper on my coat before the cold weather really hits; what to rent from Netflix; what am I going to do if that molar gets infected and I can't afford antibiotics. I'd really rather not worry about people who don't have the intellectual level of a hair clog.

Then I see photos like the one below. And it's back to blogging....................

*~~*~~*

Need some entertainment with brains, booby? Try some Mystery Science Theatre 3000, from Netflix, your local DVD store, and Satellite News, the official website http://www.mst3kinfo.com/

And Cinematic Titanic, the Masters of Movie Riffing, their DVDs and their live performances http://www.cinematictitanic.com/ You're all but guaranteed to not run into any Tea Baggers there.

Quick Comment: We Need "Good"

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:13:00 +0000

On the topic of how people promote hate and violence while believing themselves "good" and "moral"

(http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/10/preserving-your-right-to-want-innocent.html), I wish Good was on DVD. I wish it were shown in every high school and college classroom to promote discussion. It's all very well to have films which show how people fought the Nazis after they came to power (Valkyrie, Defiance, Inglorious Bastards). More important are stories of how the Nazis came to power.

If nothing else, watch the trailer.

http://goodthemovie.com/

Preserving Your Right to Want Innocent People to Die Horribly

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Don't worry your pretty heads, Conservatives and religious groups who support them. The expanded Hate Crimes Bill won't criminalize your speeches declaring that millions of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, their heterosexual allies, atheists, people with religious beliefs different from yours, and feminists aren't human beings, like you and your children.

After the Bill becomes law, you can rest assured that you may stand up in your places of worship, and proudly and loudly confirm that those who don't think like you do should be deprived of the right to walk unassaulted down a lovely lane, inhaling the lilacs and closing their eyes to better enjoy the birdsong. You may openly say that they should not expect that they won't be thrown into the brush and beaten and kicked until they die, alone, and are sent to Hell to suffer even worse for all eternity. No no, please feel free to let your toddlers hear how the people who don't think like you do are animals, vermin, who threaten your pursuit of happiness by their false and evil insistence that they're your equals. It's not as if talking about your beliefs actually causes violence against the people whom you don't pity when they are violently attacked.

You also retain the right to tell your children that they should cheer when a doctor who legally performs safe abortions has her or his head blown off, because they, your dear, sweet children, were precious to you from the moment you learned that you or your girlfriend were knocked up.

Best of all, the expanded Hate Crimes Bill will in no way prevent the teaching that your dear, sweet, beloved children, the star football player, the beautiful Prom Queen, of whom you boast and brag, are to be thrown out of the house and called "sick, disgusting filth" when they tell you they're lesbian, gay, bisexual, have become atheists or another belief that isn't yours, or feminists. Sigh with relief, because the Bill won't impede your right to preach that those former loved ones should wander the streets, without food or money or a place to stay, and should be turned away by all who believe as you do. And if they should be raped, beaten and kicked and die alone, well, God wills disgusting perverts to pay.

I hope you feel safe now.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/22/hate.crimes/index.html

How to Compliment a Minnesotan

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:32:00 +0000

I am in Minnesota, but not of Minnesota. There are many things about native Minnesotans that drive me nuts: referring to casseroles as "hot dish;" ending sentences with "with" ("So, you going with?" "'With?'" "Yah, you going with?" "With what? With you? With the cat? With God? With an AK-47?!"); their passive-aggressiveness (if you step on their feet, native Minnesotans apologize, but when you cross a street, they speed up. Not letting anyone merge, even a 40-ton semi, is a point of passive-aggressive pride to native Minnesotans); and their obsession with all things Scandinavian (mix up Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and you are in for a lecture that you can escape only by admitting that you are Not From Around Here, and asking them how their mamas cooked Hoppin' John. Anything slightly Southern strikes confusion and fear into native Minnesotans).

That said, I have an affection for them. They really do try to be sincerely nice, and almost always have the best of intentions, even when offering lutefisk to a non-native (I once confessed that I thought lutefisk, lefse and gefilte fish were the same thing. I've never since insulted so many cultures in one sentence).

But there is one trait of native-born-and-raised Minnesotans that makes me barking mad. They are absolutely incapable of accepting a compliment.

Just today, two acquaintances who work at the airport --we'll call them L and B -- stopped into the shop where I work to say hello. With some arm twisting, I learned that L had bicycled from Florida to California. Eighteen miles a day. Just because he wanted to.

It's a miracle if I can sit on a bicycle without falling off. I can't even begin to imagine bicycling across the continental United States.

When I complimented L, he took on an expression of pained embarrassment and guilt. He looked as if he'd been caught farting or short-changing a clerk. My god, how awful it was that the man had accomplished something, and, worse, someone discovered it and thought it was cool. His eyes had a slight panic, as if he needed to run off and shower in boiling water to scour away my compliment.

B has the same allergy. The poor man suffers from handsomeness. As I've said in a previous post, I've known men who are literally film-star handsome, and 99.9% of them are shallow, vain jerks who never bothered to develop personalities because they breezed through life on looks alone. I confess when I first saw B, I immediately assumed he was an arrogant dunderhead. I only gave him the benefit of a doubt because he hung around with a transplanted New Yorker who's smart, savvy, and didn't appear to suffer fools. Over time, I observed that B is very intelligent, witty, wry, and quite interesting.

The one time I complimented B, I immediately regretted it. He looked as stricken as if I'd said he had a huge, festering zit on his nose and that he was as stupid as a sea cucumber. He scurried away into the dark labyrinth beneath the airport. I didn't see him for weeks.

This isn't modesty. It's shame. I've concluded that, in Minnesota, the doctor lifts the newborn as it takes its first breath, declares, "It's a fine, healthy girl/boy!" and then slaps it. When the baby takes its first step, a parent cries, "Come look at this! S/he's walking!" and wonks the kid. In kindergarten, when a native Minnesota child says the alphabet all the way through, correctly, for the first time, the teacher says, "What a clever child!" and beans the little one with a wiffle bat.

By the time they reach first grade, native Minnesota children have a Pavlovian dread of compliments. Minnesotans call this "Preparing children for real life." Life, they say, is full of sorrow, pain, loss, suffering, and disappointment. Joy and healthy pride will betray you. A compliment is only meant to soften you up so you'll lower your defenses so life can kick you in the groin.

When a native Minnesotan goes against this brainwashing, the backlash is horrifying. If a Minnesotan grows an ego, it goes berserk, a maddened Godzilla roaring and trampling in Jesse Ventura spandex and Keillor red sneakers. East Coast elites and West Coast Golden People wither in the laser of Minnesota snark, sarcasm and snideness. This is the Land of Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all. (Joel Hodgson called the robots "honey," and had a gentle, goofy grin. But you just know that off-camera he gave Trace swirlies and left Weight Watcher pamphlets for Frank, and cut off Special Education vans without signaling.)

There is no middle ground with native Minnesotans. They're either lowly worms or SUN GOD THE CREATOR KNEEL BEFORE ME. A few Minnesotans, such as a dear friend of mine who is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, can accept a compliment with a "thank you," a smile, and only a slight twitch. But then, I think she was actually born in one of the Dakotas.

If you want to tell a native Minnesotan that you think she or he is a keen, neato-coolly-wow person, and that you admire anything about them, don't. If you want to make native Minnesotans feel good, criticise them Minnesota style. "Oh, you'd think that dress was made for a person half your age." "Y'know, it's almost something that makes a person not seem dumb as a turd." "Well ................. that's different."

This will create in the native Minnesotans a warm glow of having known all along that they're undeserving scum. It'll be just like they're back in the bosom of their family.

Minnesotans: Call Out against Racism Tomorrow! (and update)

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:31:00 +0000

This was sent to me by writer Rachel Dykoski (that's her with Senator Al Franken):

This Saturday, October 3, 2009, the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) has threatened to demonstrate against an anti-racist workshop being held at the YWCA on East Lake Street in Minneapolis. The NSM has declared the anti-racist organizers "traitors" to white supremacy.

This provocation also has a wider goal: The NSM has been holding racist anti-immigrant rallies in southern Minnesota and now they are seeking to establish a presence inside the City of Minneapolis. For years Minneapolis has been a virtual "no-go" area for organized racist activity, due to efforts of young anti-racist organizers.

In the wake of the racist attacks in Brooklyn Park last week (http://www.startribune.com/local/61452677.html ), the nazis' threat cannot be ignored. They plan to bring their racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic message of division and hate right into the heart of the city. They must not go unopposed!

TIME: 10:00 am Saturday, October 3, 2009

PLACE: Lake Street & 22nd Ave. (outside the Midtown YWCA), Minneapolis MN

VIEW MAP: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Lake+Street+%26+22nd+Ave+%28outside+the+Midtown+YWCA%29%2C+Minneapolis%2C+MN

Unfortunately, I can't attend. But if you're able, show up and speak out!

UPDATE: 3 October

Only four of the "Master Race" slinked into Minneapolis, and were confronted with 200+ anti-racism supporters. The Star Tribune gave a brief report. http://www.startribune.com/local/63454237.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUjc7YUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs

For photos of the event, go to "Baron Dave's" Livejournal: http://barondave.livejournal.com/248888.html

Bravo to all of you who braved the cold and wet to show our communities' solidarity and willingness to take action!

R.T. Rybak's Petition for a Health Care Public Option

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:03:00 +0000

I support Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak because, in my opinion, Mr. Rybak, unlike Governor Tim Pawlenty, doesn't see himself as above and apart from his fellow citizens. Indeed, unlike Governor Pawlenty, Mr. Rybak views all of us as his fellow citizens. I've often wanted to shake the Gov's hand and say, "You've asked for my support. Yet you pass, or attempt to pass, legislation that doesn't support my GLBT friends, and you've acted to deny honest, tax-paying low-income people like me health care and human services, as well working to eliminate the renters' rebate many of us depend upon come each August. But you're happy to take my tax dollars to support yourself and your lifestyle. Doesn't that strike you as a bit, oh, I dunno...hypocritical?"

Mayor Rybak has given me another reason to applaud him. He's created a petition for a public option to health care reform. The following is an email from Mayor Rybak, dated Thursday, October 1:

To pass health care reform, President Obama needs a little help from us. Right now.

That's why I've started a petition for the public option. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/minnesotans-need-a-public-option

Simply put, in order to pass serious health care reform, President Obama needs to know we're ready to help him. And that's where you come in.

Minnesotans agree that we need a plan with what's called a "public option," a government-run health care choice that families can join if they're dissatisfied with the options the private health insurance market provides. A public option will help keep insurance companies honest by making sure Americans have access to at least one health care plan that has health care, not profits, as its central focus.

However, the resources and energy lined up against this vital achievement have never been more energized, or more prepared to do whatever it takes to beat it.

With everyone from talk radio shock jocks to Sarah Palin spreading outright lies about reform, and with politicians like Governor Pawlenty making bizarre threats (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/019885.php )to withdraw from any health care plan that passes, health care reform opponents have shown they'll say anything, do anything, and make up anything to keep health care reform from happening.

With all the attacks out there against him, and against health care, President Obama needs to hear from us that we're ready to help him pass real, serious, health care reform.

I need you to sign the petition. I need you to get all your friends and neighbors to sign this petition. I need you to get all your friends' and neighbors' friends and neighbors to sign this petition. We need to be as clear as day that the time for serious health care reform is now, and that we shouldn't back down or compromise in the face of Republican attacks.

Sincerely,

R.T. Rybak

P.S. As my friend Brad Swanson of Teamsters Local 120 says, "The time to make affordable, quality health care a reality for all Americans is now. Let's just pass it." I hope you'll join the fight by signing the petition.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Mayor Rybak on two occasions, once during the May Day parade last spring, and again during Senator-elect Al Franken's victory rally in St.Paul. ( http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/07/senator-al-franken.html ) Mayor Rybak was enthusiastic and, to use a good, old-fashioned word, affable, with the mixed and varied crowd (though he, like Franni Franken, needs to ratchet back the pressure of his handshakes). Those of you who may take umbrage with my accusation of hypocrisy in Tim Pawlenty might say that Mr. Rybak would be as hypocritical towards those who don't share his personal and political views (i.e. Republicans). But, as I've also said about Al Franken, I don't believe for a second that R.T. Rybak would pass legislation against a group of people simply for his own political advantage or "moral" compunctions (redundant). I can't say the same for the Governor.

I also briefly met and spoke with members of Teamsters Local 120 at President Obama's health care rally in Minneapolis on Sept. 12, one of whom -- I believe may have been Brad Swanson--- kindly answered my questions concerning the Employee Free Choice Act, and offered me a doughnut. (The doughnut was glazed and delicious.)

Now, if I were you, I'd sign that petition, no matter where you live. In case you missed it the first time: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/minnesotans-need-a-public-option

Al Franken, Norm Coleman, LBJ & the Doctor, on My Birthday

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:09:00 +0000

A personal blog is, by definition, personal, and therefore self-indulgent. So here's some self-indulgence.

On September 23, poet/editor Rebecca Marjesdatter and I visited Stillwater, MN, for an early celebration of my 49th birthday (which was Thursday, but I had to work that day). 49 is a somewhat frustrating birthday, because it's not half a century, which one can really celebrate ("Wow, I can't believe I made it this far!"), and it isn't the wake-up call that 45 is ("Holy f*ck, I'm almost a half century old."). But both Ms. Marjesdatter and I had the day off, it was lovely last-of-summer-fall-in-the-offing weather, so we drove down for a walk-about in Michele Bachmann country.

Granted, Stillwater is only one small part of Michele Bachmann's 6th district, and I don't know how heavily the town votes for her. But there is a Bachmannesque quality to the lanes of candy, craft, and antique shoppes. It's all very quaint and cheery and dear, clean and neat and well-run. And eerily devoid of people of color. Stillwater has the atmosphere of a Twilight Zone episode: "Hey, this is a neat little town, isn't it? Uh, except...ya notice everyone looks the same?"*

I feel it is my duty to walk about Stillwater and give the young people hope that there is something Other Out There, to remember for when they near graduation and are gathering the courage to escape.

I wasn't looking for a birthday present. A political friend in D.C. had given me two DVDs of the second Doctor Who (partly because my friend bears a startling resemblance to the late, great British actor Patrick Troughton, and likes to remind me of it), so I was happily satisfied for presents.

Ms. Marjesdatter and I were exploring an antiques shop, whose depth and layers were positively TARDIS-like, when I discovered on a dusty shelf, behind a scarred HAMMs Beer bear, a small, plastic LBJ. He wore a black hat and black suit, and was dated 1964. And he was affordable.*

I immediately snatched him up for my political collection. I think the poor dear thing gave a sigh of relief that he was no longer trapped among naked GI Joes and Smuf glasses.

In another antiques "mall," Rebecca and I squeezed our way through Victorian kitsch and examined tall, locked glass cases. At one, I literally gasped. Behind sports bobbleheads was a red, white and blue box that read "Recount Bobblehead." I squeed like a fangirl and startled Rebecca.

The price was rather high (working poor definition: 2 weeks worth of groceries & cat litter), but, considering I thought I'd never, ever get my hands on an Al Franken/Norm Coleman Recount Bobblehead, it was a price I was happy to pay.

So now I can proudly display on my bookshelf an Obama Action Figure, an Obama bobblehead, a John Kerry squeak toy, a George Washington bobblehead, a little LBJ figure, and, my most prized possession, a Franken/Coleman Recount bobblehead. I'm a pathetic geek, but a happy one.

........ now all I need is a Patrick Troughton Doctor Who action figure ...........

*~~*~~*

* It must be noted that, not long ago, there was a shop in Stillwater run by people from Tibet, part of whose proceeds went to funding to free Tibet. So there were a few people of color around. The shop has since closed. I don't know where the Tibetans went.

*I was broke that day, so Rebecca Marjesdatter fronted me the money until my payday, Friday. She also bought me lunch. Thank you, Rebecca!

Advice to Airport Travelers #1: Keep Your Personal Stuff PERSONAL

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Dear Airport Traveler:

Evidently many of you believe that once you've passed through Security, and TSA has determined that, at least on the surface, you're not a threat, the airport concourse is your living room. Public decorum and manners are left behind at the Checkpoints, if you ever had any at all. I've seen you reach into the back, and front, of your shorts and pants and scratch liberally. Yeah, even you in the $2000 corporate business suit. You walk around in pajamas, bare feet, and curlers. I've seen you remove your shoes, then socks, scratch between your toes, and then sniff your fingers, and not hurry to the nearest restroom to wash your hands.

Don't even get me started on the public restrooms. Except to say that apparently a lot of you were raised in barns.

Those of you who don't scratch or adjust your intimate areas in public often fill the air with your most intimate business. You seem to think that you're surrounded by an invisible bubble of privacy, through which your voice can't penetrate. Or you just don't give a damn if anyone else hears. In this Age of telling the world one's business, I'm inclined to believe the latter.

I have heard about openings and orifices and bodily functions that would make a proctologist retch. I know who's having an affair with his babysitter, who's bragging about putting one over on the company during the business trip, what's leaking from what and how it smells, and who really, really hates Aunt Audrey, that fat, lazy-good-for-nothing b*tch.

You don't whisper. You bellow. I have only 50% hearing. If I can hear you saying your husband has the equipment of a hamster, you must have your volume set on 11.

None of this is likely to come back to bite you in the rear --except the cousin who's also headed for the family reunion and you didn't see her standing by the pay phone, and she's gonna tell Aunt Audrey what you really think of her. But good behavior and manners shouldn't be dependant on whether or not one will be punished. Be considerate toward your fellow travelers. Some of them are actually decent human beings. Some of them don't want to hear the details of your operation or what you did with your coworker in the hotel hot tub last night. They have problems of their own, but they have the courtesy to keep them to themselves.

If nothing else, put a lid on it for the sake of we airport employees. We are beseiged by your "Goddammit, hurry up, we're gonna miss the f***ing plane," "Why the hell is this so expensive?", and "I hate all these immigrants, stealing jobs from Americans" all day long, day after day. At the very least you could spare us your vivid description of what you did in the restroom.

Sometimes There's God...in the form of an Underwood typewriter

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:23:00 +0000

On June 9, I came home after another delightful and soul-enriching day of having sun-burnt tourists spit in fury at my request to see their I.D.s with their credit cards, and found a large, perfectly square box at the foot of the stairs up to my apartment. It was addressed to me, but the sender's name and Utah address were unknown to me.

The box wasn't ticking, so I assumed it wasn't from one of my radio listeners. I lugged the surprisingly heavy box upstairs and set it on the living room floor. My flat-mate and I speculated on who could have sent it. I don't know anyone in Utah. A mutual friend of ours sometimes spends time in Utah, but I couldn't imagine him ever sending me anything.

The box was filled with styrofoam packing peanuts. I reached into them and felt something wrapped in bubble-wrap, something very large and very heavy. I lifted it out with both arms and thunked it on the table.

Even though the object was mummified in bubble-wrap, I knew what it was. I caught my breath. Surely, it couldn't be. It wasn't possible. I cut off the wrap with a mat knife. There it was, like a gift from the Writing Gods. I could almost hear the Halleluiah Chorus.

It was an Underwood Typerwriter, in perfect condition. I'd never seen such a beautiful model. It was far superior to the one whose loss I mourned in a previous blog post. (http://moiramanion.blogspot.com/2009/04/writers-self-indulgence.html)

It was an absolute work of art. It even had a ribbon in it.
I slowly sat down, my eyes tearing. Who could have done such a remarkable act of generosity and kindness? There was no note in the box. Why did the giver want to be anonymous?

The return address had a name and a phone number. Over the next few days I left my name, phone number, and email address on the person's answering machine. No one called or emailed in response. I was beginning to wonder if the person wanted to be left alone when, finally, an emailed reply solved the mystery.

I was no longer astonished, because for over ten years I've known David Bean, Esquire, late of Manchester, UK, (left), to be an enormously kind and generous soul. I met him through the Internet, as we were both fans of the musical Les Miserables. I'd thought at first that he was an adult, because of his maturity, intelligence, and talent. I was taken aback to learn he was in his late teens. Through the decade I've been flattered to be this young man's friend, and followed as he graduated university and is pursuing a career in politics. I've yet to meet him face to face, but hope to do so someday.

David can't have known the timeliness of his gift. It moved me so greatly that I haven't been able to thank him, until now.

In every creative person's life there are projects which are much hoped for, which never happen. I've had my share. They were almost all projects brought to me by others, in which I was to promote those people's ideas. I agreed because I was doing it with money in mind, not love. So when the projects faded away or were canceled, I was frustrated, but not heart-broken.

But I recently walked away from a project that had the potential to earn me a nice check...but only the potential. I'd devoted a year on the project, and I could see nothing but further frustration and interference if I continued. So ways were parted.

Being poor, walking away from something that might, might have worked out if I was able to not be who I am was not easy. I have no savings and no health insurance. One of my last two chewing teeth is loose, and I have no dental coverage. I can't even afford to have the tooth pulled...with novacaine, at least. (Yanking it out with a string is free.) I live meagerly, with no car, no cell phone, no TV, no vacations (my last vacation was in 2002). There are people who are far worse off than I am. But...money is always a subject gnawing at me. It's constant, like being aware that you're breathing, and not being able to stop being aware. I want money, I crave money, I lust for it, I toss and turn for it.

But not enough to sell my soul, or become a Hack. Which are the same thing.

Instead, I decided to pursue love. I've been working on a middle-grade children's book, off and on, for almost two years. I've written notebooks full of scenes. I know all the characters, some of whom I first created when I was 16. I've outlined the plot. I love the characters and the story deeply and enthusiastically. I'm eager to write it.

But..............

I'm an unpublished, unknown writer. Getting an agent and getting published are damn hard, even if you're good. Even if I'm lucky enough to be published, authors aren't paid much. Smart people know better than to go into writing children's books for money.

My heart told me to write my book, but my empty pocketbook was screaming at me to find something, anything, that would make money. The inner turmoil made writing impossible.

Then David sent the Underwood.

There's a moment in the film Ratatouille when food critic Anton Ego takes a bite of the "peasant dish" and is transported back to the warmth of his mother's love. The Underwood transported me to my 11th birthday. While my parents watched, I unwrapped my first Underwood, and three hardcover copies of Roald Dahl's books. It was my parents' way of telling me, "We know you want to be a writer. We want you to be a writer. We believe in you." Not a lot of people believed in me then, no teachers, no classmates (not a lot do now, either). To have my parents acknowledge and encourage my dream meant more to me than if my teachers and classmates had lifted me on their shoulders and given me three cheers.

The Underwood David sent me arrived just as I was despairing of ever scraping together the courage to write for love and not money. It reminded me of my dream, long denied.

So thank you, David Bean, for the great, good gift of your kind heart, with a gratitude I can barely express. The Underwood will sit in a place of honor in the library. And I will get down to the job of bringing the world of my characters to life. My book may never be published. But even if all it ever is is an unpublished manuscript, I'll send you a copy when it's done.

*~~*~~*

(above illustration by the late, wonderful children's book artist Trina Schart Hyman)

You can find David Bean on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Bean/37102084

Senator Al Franken

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:02:00 +0000

Live Al Franken was trumped in the news by dead Michael Jackson today. During my break at work at the airport, I checked the TVs carrying FOX News and CNN, and both were engrossed with the lamenting and gnashing of teeth over Jackson's 24 carat coffin. Who says you can't take it with you?

I hear C-SPAN2 aired Franken's swearing in as Minnesota's second Senator. Which means all of 50 people watched it.

I'm exaggerating, of course. I'm sure the C-SPAN2 viewership was closer to 12.

One would come away believing that Michael Jackson was a Man of the People, and Al Franken was an elisitist out of touch with every day folks, when just the opposite is true. More's the pity for the health and welfare of the American people that we have such a backward --- I beg your pardon: backassed--- view of reality.

Michael Jackson gave money to support children. But not for the right reasons.

Michael Jackson, dead or alive, ain't much help for you an' me an' the economy. Al Franken can be.

Victory Rally, July 1

I wasn't planning on being in the thick of things last Wednesday, July 1, when I got off the bus at the Capitol in St. Paul for Al Franken's victory rally. My plan was to observe from the sidelines, because then it's easier to escape the Fringe Lunatics who show up at every political rally. Unfortunately, everyone thinks you're with the Loonies if you're on the sidelines.

I arrived early enough to stand at the top of the steps before the Capitol lawn, where a podium was set up. A sound technician was skeptically eyeing his snaking electrical chords, and people in blue Al Franken for Senator T-shirts were here and there in small clusters, grinning and congratulating each other.

A young man in a white Franken tee politely shooed non-players from the area near the podium, including me. I was about to comply, when I decided to shove my hair, which was blowing in my face, under my black cap with the word Writer embroidered on it. Another man in a Franken T-shirt looked at me, paused, and said, cryptically, "Your hat gives you away." He invited me to stand with the Press. I had no press pass, and Franken's staff had every right to give me the heave-ho as a non-entity of the Media. But, for reasons unknown but very much appreciated, I was placed right in the thick of things.

I was standing among House Speaker Margaret Kelliher, Senator Larry Pogemiller, Representatives Keith Ellison and Leon Lillie, and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who all regarded me with momentary puzzlement, but smiled, nodded, and went about shaking hands, slapping backs, and glowing. A crowd of several hundred gathered before the steps, waving signs and saying, "Finally! Finally!"

A speaker, whose name I didn't write down, primed the gathering. "Welcome to the fight (Al)! Welcome to the battle!" Rep. Keith Ellison's speech was greeted with whoops and woofing, as he declared that Franken would fight for "real workers' rights...health care for all...fifty million hoping they don't fall off a ladder..." Rep. Leon Lillie stood behind Ellison, accompanied by his teenage daughter.

When a black SUV arrived, the politicians, by some instinct, went silent as one and turned as one, watching. Al and Franni Franken emerged on the sidewalk, Al buttoning his jacket and scanning the scene. He walked right by me on his way to the podium. Where the hell's security? I thought. Having grown up with the assassinations, and attempted assassinations, of many politicians, I'm a bit paranoid. The police were standing beside their patrol cars, parked at the bottom of the Capitol's steps. I didn't see any dark suits and sunglasses that would have grabbed me, if I decided to club Franken to death with my Moleskin. Perhaps invisibility is considered an advantage.

I was just to the left of Rep. Lillie and Senator-Elect Franken, all four-foot-nine of me, not able to see over the Representative's shoulder (he's a tall guy). I've scoured the Internet, but I can't discover a single photo where I, or at least the top of my cap, can be seen. This one comes the closest.

Several articles have already reported what Franken said that day, including his best lines. ("'Franni and I are running for Senator, and if we win I get to be Senator.' Well honey, I get to be the Senator. I get to be the Senator because of you. (Without you) I would have lost. By kind of a lot." "I wish I could take you all with me, but we cost it out. It's just too much. So I need you to (work) in Minnesota.")

What held me, and pleased me, was Franken's renewed vow to "rebuild our economy...put people back to work...improve the lives of Minnesotans...That is what Paul Wellstone said politics is about. Paul said politics is about improving (folks') lives." His voice caught as he said, "Franni and I were just lucky," and that they "wouldn't have had health care if I hadn't been a member of a union." Franken didn't back away from his embrace of labor and the working poor, which, I confess, I was afraid he might do, once he had won the Senate seat. I'm fully aware he can't control whether what he attempts succeeds, but his intention to make the attempt is what matters to me.

The second Franken ended his speech, the crowd swept around him, and me. I tread water in the ocean of people demanding Franken's attention. Rep. Lillie's daughter was stranded next to me, so I made chit-chat until the current freed us (she's a intelligent, charming, and talented young woman). The official Media moved with Franken, but Franni passed close by me. She had been extremely kind to me when I met her at the rally where Franken had announced he was running for Senator, having gone out of her way to help me find the Capitol's press room. I stuck my hand out to her and said, "Franni, Moira Manion. I'm so happy to---" She took my hand.

Franni Franken gives the appearance of a slight, possibly frail, children's librarian. Then you learn she has a handshake that could crack walnuts. Most politicians and their family members have nice, strong, self-assured grips. Franni's long, delicate hand could be used to force confessions or votes that cross party lines. ("I'll let go, Senator, the moment you see things Al's way.") If her enthusiasm could be harnessed, Minnesota would have all the renewable energy it needs.

"Oh, thank you!" Franni said, and mercifully released my hand.

Having not learned my lesson, I offered my hand to Speaker Kelliher and introduced myself. Both her hands encased mine. "I've heard you on Marketplace!" she cried, squeezing. "I love your work!" I blurted something inane about being happy to meet a woman speaker, and other idiocies that proved beyond a doubt that I'm absolute crap at making small talk.

The politicians and their staffs separated into small clutches as the crowd faded away. I sat on the Capitol steps and caught a few whiffs of conversation. "...he needs to clear his head..." "...Governor's race...?"

My second reason for coming to the Capitol that day was to go to the Senate Information Office to gather research for a children's middle-grade book I'm beginning to write. Inside, the Capitol was still. I was able, for once, to admire its breath-taking interior without herds of school kids and tourists in my way. It was in this quiet that I met, and had a great conversation with, Burt, the building's Plant Manager. He spoke of working in such a beautiful building, of enjoying fishing and camping, about belonging to a union and having health care.

Americans are misguided in watching Michael Jackson's over-wrought funeral instead of Al Franken's swearing in as a United States' Senator because Jackson didn't really give a damn about people like Burt and me. But Al Franken does.

Franken vs Jackson

Jackson "redefined" music, sold more music than anybody, inspired young performers. That's all he did. Don't get me wrong; I place a high value on entertainers. When you're unemployed, depressed, rejected, lonely, sick and tired, entertainers can make all the difference between whether you succumb to the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, or laugh, wipe your eyes, and decide to give life another chance. I know: I've been there.

But Michael Jackson couldn't influence how much you're paid. Or whether you're protected from dangerous chemicals. Or if the nation's banks collapse and take you with them. Or if you go to war. Entertainers like to flatter themselves that, due to their popularity and occasional wealth, they can influence policy. They give speeches at rallies, they appear before Congressional committees. But when it comes to votes from the Floor, to whose name is going on record for or against a thing, I don't believe politicians take into consideration what the stars of Twilight would do.

Most people don't know who their Representative is, and don't care. They couldn't say how their Senator voted on any topic that might change their lives. My coworkers couldn't care less who's in office, but they can tell me who was voted off American Idol.

This is why Tim Pawlenty can hack away at benefits for every day, hard-working people. More than half of the people who'll be affected by his unallotment cuts aren't even aware of what he's doing.

Al Franken's been an entertainer. Newspaper and Internet articles, radio and TV broadcasts, have all debated whether he can be taken seriously as a politician. Apparently a sense of humor has to be removed before working within the Beltway. Only Mark Russell and The Capitol Steps get Special Dispensations. Fellow Senators feel they have to assure the public, and the Hill, that Franken won't whip out a rubber chicken and Whoopee Cushion on the Senate Floor. Senator/Representative/Mayor [fill in the blank] confessed to cheating on his wife/taxes, but my god, Franken's been a satirist!

The difference between an entertainer like Jackson and an entertainer like Franken is, as John Adams sings in 1776, "Commitment!"

Franken proudly proclaimed himself a Liberal when it could have cost him an audience. If he was only trying to "build a brand," he was choosing the wrong ideology at the wrong time. Sure, his books sold. They were the only books we Liberals could find to read on the shelves choked with Limbaugh, Coulter, and O'Reilly. Franken weilded humor because it's the most effective weapon against demagogues.

All politicians are performers. Al Franken may be slinging the bull like so many others. Or he may be sincere now, but become corrupted in the rarefied atmosphere of D.C. But for now, he's at least singing the song I want to hear. If he doesn't deliver, he's easily removed.

Time will tell, of course, whether the public can take Franken seriously. But even if the public has reason to, will they? Or will the public be too obsessed with the latest useless celebrity who earns enough to feed Appalachia, and doesn't?

,

Al Franken Victory Rally at the Capitol!

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:08:00 +0000

I'll be there, the woman with the black cap that says "Writer," who'll be grinning to beat the band. Hope you can be there, too.What a great way to celebrate the 4th of July early!

http://www.dfl.org/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-franken1-2009jul01,0,1645485.story

Quick (somewhat snarky) Comment: Let's Go for Celebrity Death Number 3!

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett dying on the same day. It seems so.....appropriate.

The Myth has it that celebrities die in threes. David Carradine died too long ago to be included in this grouping, and wouldn't fit the Pop/Kitsch Theme. Liza Minelli or Elizabeth Taylor would complete the triad nicely.

It's not that I'm wholly insensitive. But Michael Jackson was a man of means beyond the dreams of Avarice, who faced the same demons hundreds of thousands of people without the same opportunities and financial resources battle and conquer every day, and yet some expect the public should feel pity for him. Sorry you had a messed up childhood, Michael, but you were hardly alone. And by some accounts, which may or may not have been closed with very, very large checks, you messed up the childhood of a few innocents yourself. Yet all the money, isolation, hyperbartic chambers and tabloid-reported diets didn't keep your heart pumping...if that is indeed what did you in. I'll reserve my empathy for the thousands of good people who've never been accused of hurting children who can't get chemo or by-passes because they can't afford health insurance.

For the next several weeks, it'll be bloody hard to escape your falsetto voice, even if I don't turn on my radio or TV. Every airport, gas station, and elevator will be shrill with your muzak. This is your legacy. Sorry, but I'd rather hear James Brown. Soon Broadway will do a musical of your self-created tragedy (I hear keyboards clicking already). A movie or movies are almost certainly in the works. Meanwhile, people of relative unknown who have wonderful talent are out there, doing good work and not self-destructing. Did you ever hear Norbert Leo Butz sing, Michael? Man, what a voice. He can act, too. Won a Tony for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, did a great job on a recent Law & Order.

Farrah had hair, a red bathing suit, and timing. It was 1977, America was trying to forget the violence of the 60s, the shame of Nixon, and was weary from idealism. America wanted mindlessness. Enter disco and Charlie's Angels. Forget Feminism and "Sisterhood is Powerful." Give us some T&A in high school boys' lockers. I was in 10th grade when Farrah invaded, her vapidity grinning at me from T-shirts and shampoo commercials. I thought, If that's what boys want, they're as stupid as I think they are. Farrah couldn't act her way out of a paper bag, but she was Rich and Famous. Meanwhile, Meg Foster, a very fine actress, was replaced after doing the pilot for Cagney & Lacey, because her character was "too strong." (She's fanatastic in PBS' The Scarlet Letter http://www.amazon.com/Scarlet-Letter-Josef-Sommer/dp/B00008DDS0 )

And even though Farrah never developed a speck of talent, she remained a "Star." It seems disproportionate. With the current historically inaccurate 70s nostalgia, no doubt Farrah's gormless grin will return for posters, t-shirts, and courier bags. And I'll respond by watching Meg Foster as Hester Pryne, having true, authentic, remarkable talent.

It's no wonder that children don't dream of being excellent, but of being famous.

ADDENDUM: Rachel Dykoski and Rebecca Marjesdatter have informed me that Ed McMahon completes the Celebrity Croaking Triad. I no longer have TV, being one of those people who obviously didn't panic sufficiently about getting a convertor box. With the exception of local news and a few PBS shows, I don't miss television. If I did receive digital TV, I'd turn it off, in order to escape the Jackson Tribute barrage. Even public radio has succumbed to reports of how people from Dubai to Dublin are mourning Jackson.

By the by, Rachel Dykoski reports that she "...Just had a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration." Yet she can still laugh. And here I've been complaining about the heat. My encouraging thoughts are with you, Rachel, for what they're worth! To read Rachel's work, click on the link to the left, under Cool Blogs.

.

Of Wolverines and Men: A Musing on Males

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:34:00 +0000

"Oh m'gawd, he's so hot!" sputtered a woman who works in the same airport I do, in reaction to various males who pass by. "Oh m'gawd, I mean, WOW, jeez!" She fanned her face, stuck out her tongue, and panted. "Doncha think he's hot, Moira?! Doncha?!"

I remained silent and focused on controlling my hands, which were gripped behind my back in order to keep them from throttling the woman. I'd told her several times that I didn't want to hear about her fantasies, but she gives me almost daily reports. This woman has a brain the size of a raisin. That is, she would if she had a brain.

Old School that I am, I don't consider my tastes in men any of her business.

I learned a long time ago that being attracted to a man who isn't attracted to me is a waste of my time. Of course it's a universal human experience to desire someone who wouldn't scrape you off the asphalt if you were flattened by a truck. Well, call me a fool, but life is too short to long after someone who doesn't long after me. If a man doesn't demonstrate that he's attracted to me, by asking me out for coffee, by a note or email, or by simply telling me, "Hey, I think you're attractive," I don't care how "sexy" or "hot" he may be. As George Wither (1588-1667) wrote (changing gender):

Be he fairer than the day
Or the flow'ry meads in May
If he think not well of me,
What care I how fair he be?

I've known men who were literally film-star handsome. With the exception of two, they had the personality and depth of wallpaper. Being able to get any woman they wanted, their attitude towards women who weren't beautiful was to treat them with condescension and contempt, or to ignore them completely. Thus my attitude towards handsome men is to assume they're assholes until proven otherwise. (One exception is a friend who resented having been judged by his good looks since he was a baby, and loathed the unwanted sexual attention he'd received, by woman and men, all his life. But he used his looks to make a career for himself and to support his family, and I admire that.)

I confess that I think it's Fair Play that America's obsession with youth and physical perfection is now putting pressure on men the way it has always done on women.

Look at this guy (actor Jason Isaacs, right). Great facial expression. He has lines and wrinkles, but they make his face interesting. He looks like someone with whom you could have a fascinating conversation and a great laugh. (Keeping in mind, naturally, that looks can be deceiving. He might be the biggest jerk on the planet, for all I know.)

A woman with the same lines and wrinkles would be sent packing to the nearest plastic surgeon.

Then there's this guy (actor Clive Owen, left). I love his face. It's rugged, it looks like he's lived a life and may have tales to tell about it. His face has personality.

Now look at what happened to his face when Lancome Cosmetics made him a spokesman (below, left).

They Photo-Shopped out all his personality, spackled and grouted his wrinkles, then covered him with a veneer of plaster, paint, and shellac. I've known drag queens who wore less makeup.

Apparently Lancome determined that women, or gay men, are attracted to robots.

Who decides this stuff? "Hey Marketing team, our polls show that heterosexual women want men with faces as smooth as babies' butts."

(I'm still furious with whoever started the "Hairless Men" fad, and brainwashed women into desiring men who look like models for Twink. There are those of us who love a thick carpet of male hair.)

Of course, women --some women, that is-- are happy to go for men who are, shall we say, slightly better than grotesque. That is, if their finances are virile.

I got to thinking about the media's definition of male attractiveness, and how too many women buy into it, when a friend invited me to the opening of Wolverine: Origins. She wasn't a fan of the comic books. Her entire motivation was to see actor Hugh Jackman with no clothes. "Isn't that reason enough?" she said.

I didn't tell her that yes, I think Hugh Jackman has a kick-ass voice (he's the only reason I've ever seen the musical Oklahoma!), and yes, he can actually act, unlike the majority of male movie eye-candy (if Daniel Craig ever developes a second facial expression, please, let me know), and yes, I'm a sucker for an Australian accent.

I also didn't tell her that, though People declared him to be "The Sexiest Man Alive," he's not my cuppa. (I'm waiting for People's "Sexiest Man Dead!" issue. I think George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant could be contenders.)

I did tell her that I was going to skip the movie for something that might actually be entertaining. Like Monsters v. Aliens. My friend was indignant. HOW could I NOT have the hots for Hugh Jackman?!

Oh, don't get me wrong. In the previous X-Men movies, I was very happy ignoring what passed, or didn't, for plot, and spent the two hours astounded and appreciative at how Jackman filled the screen.

But when the ads and stills came out for Wolverine: Origins, I saw ... the veins.

The veins in the arms.

You see the veins in professional wrestlers and professional body builders. They look like giant tapeworms crawling just under a man's skin.

They look like pneumatic piping.

I used to work out at a Gold's Gym, where I saw veins like that on the men who grunted like rhinoceroses while bench-pressing SUVs. I have no idea why some men develop engorged veins and some don't. But to me, they scream "Steroids!" And steroids means shrunken genitals, enormous zits, and mood swings that make menopausal women seem Zen.

That's another reason I didn't give to my friend about why I didn't want to see Wolverine. For as much as Hugh Jackman tries to give the character humanity and tenderness, and for as much as the script attempts to explain why Wolverine is the way he is, it all comes down to Wolverine being a psycho loner with rage issues.

It smacks of, "Oh, he's really a nice guy! He just occasionally eviscerates and beheads a few hundred people."

I don't find psycho loners with rage issues attractive.

It'd be nice if, like Hugh Jackman, Wolverine had a sense of humor, and was secure enough in his masculinity to mock his masculinity.

(Hugh Jackman in gold lame pants from The Boy From Oz, in which he played a gay man and kissed another man. How many straight men are that secure in themselves?)

And that's the problem with the majority of male images in the media. There's a homophobic need to pound the audience over the head with the male characters' HETEROSEXUAL MASCULINTY. This is achieved by having the male character blow up cars and buildings, thrash other men into bloody pulps, screw every female between ages 15 and 30, and blast entire populations into Hamburger Helper with gargantuan phallic guns that would give Godzilla Penis Envy.

There seems to be a belief that gay men would never do any such things. This belief is held by people who've never been to a leather bar. I mean a leather bar.

While I love a rugged, hairy man, rugged, hairy men with intellects seem few and far between. Men seem to feel they can only be one or the other: Rugged or smart. Smart boys get the crap beaten out of them by other boys --how boys treat boys growing up makes me wonder how the hell any of them survive to adulthood--- and rugged guys often get the girls. So the American media champions the rugged psycho loner who doesn't have time, or need, for books or philosophical discussion beyond, "Ya wanna die slow, or ya wanna die fast?"

The other side of the coin are the Men of Reason. While they may not look as good in the shower, intellectual men with humor and kindness beat out rock-abbed lunatics in my book. Very often, they've taken the time to learn what women enjoy and how to give it to them. They listen. A woman will come back time and time again to a man who makes her feel good, inside and out, no matter what he looks like. (If a man is gorgeous but a lousy lover, what's the point?)

Give me a choice between hanging out with Wolverine and the X-Men, and hanging out with the guys in the photo below, I'll pick Possum Lodge every time. (http://www.redgreen.com/ )

They're polite (OK, they're Canadian). They blow things up, but never in a way that damages property that wasn't already condemned (and I do enjoy a bit of explosives). They're creative (turning a refrigerator into a hot tub, economical and clever). They don't understand women --shoot, I don't understand women-- but they try to be sensitive (burying your wife's favorite area rug in the back yard because you accidently set it ablaze while trying to turn a lawn mower into a Go-Cart and you know its destruction will hurt your wife's feelings is an act of love, albeit a misguided one).

They don't do drugs, just beer (Canadian beer, which means they have taste). They're faithful, and have a keen interest in sex (though, with Harold and Ranger Gord, some instruction may be necessary, but you get the impression they'd be eager students, and with Bill it might be taking your life into your hands, but one hell of a hoot). Most important they make me laugh.

And they're cute. Damn, but they're cute. Hugh Jackman may have muscles, but Red is cuddly. His pillow talk would be more interesting. (I had the great good fortune of meeting Steve Smith when I created some Red Green art for WKAR's Red Green Show marathon's live TV auction in 1995. Steve Smith was ten times more talented, intelligent and sexy than the film-star men I knew at the time.)

I like guys who look "normal," if they have a brain in their heads, a bit of talent and some ambition.

But explaining any of this to the woman at the airport the next time she all but literally drools for a pilot or baggage handler would be like explaining Aristotle to a pig. I'll continue to ignore her, and keep my idea of who's "hot" to myself.

Now, if only I could convince the President to grow out his hair...

**~~*~~**
The Red Green Show
http://www.redgreen.com/

"The Lover's Resolution" George Wither
http://www.daypoems.net/poems/237.html

Tim Pawlenty, Dog in the Manger (or) Madness in Minnesota

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:39:00 +0000

On Monday, May 18, I'm told, a man, who had appeared calm and rational at first, suddenly trashed a lower level convenience shop at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He ran upstairs and through checkpoint security, and into the Northstar Crossing area of shops in the Lindberg Terminal. Outside the shop where I work (I hadn't come in yet that day), the man was surrounded by approximately six police officers. He, I'm told, dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his back. The officers demanded that he lie on his stomach. When he didn't, he was tasered. Repeatedly. This didn't stop him. He ran back through Checkpoint 3, and was eventually stopped by eleven officers. Eleven.

After being told all this by those who had witnessed it, I remarked, "Probably some state Rep. who finally cracked under all this budget business."

Most of you are probably unfamiliar with the nasty showdown between Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) and Minnesota's House and Senate. As background, the following is Rep. Leon Lillie's (DFL, District 55A) Legislative Update of Sunday, May 17, which I believe is an exellent summation of what was going on. (I post this without having asked the Representative's permission, and I'll remove it if he requests it. I support Rep. Lillie's work as a State Representative, but he may or may not agree with or like any of the contents of this blog) :

Dear Friends,

I’m sending this update from the House floor, as we close in on the final hours of the 2009 Legislative Session.

Thursday, Governor Pawlenty announced that he intends to unilaterally cut $ 3 billion from the state budget. Rather than continuing to engage in constructive negotiations with the Legislature to responsibly deal with the state’s unprecedented $6.4 billion budget shortfall, the Governor will use broad executive authority to line-item veto and unallot funding from the state budget.

A few hours later, the Governor started making deep cuts to health care, cutting $381 million with a line item veto of the General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) program. This is money used to treat veterans, senior citizens, the mentally ill and the poorest people in the state. It will devastate over 30,000 Minnesotans and the hospitals that care for them.

Earlier today, the House attempted to override this line-item veto to protect the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick and the hospitals that are first responders in times of crisis; however that attempt was unsuccessful when not a single Republican member cast a green vote.

Currently, we are debating an override of Governor Pawlenty’s veto of House File 885, a bill that would protect Minnesota schools, hospitals, nursing homes and jobs with responsible and modest on-going revenue. Without sustained new revenue, more than 20,000 jobs may be lost; schools will face certain budget reductions at the local level; several hospital and community clinics may close and more than 1/3 of all of the nursing homes statewide are at risk of closure.

These budget cuts are much more than words on a page – they will significantly impact the lives of Minnesotans in nearly every walk of life. The Legislature has already made significant compromise with the Governor, cutting the budget more than he does and introducing reasonable revenue that would impact fewer than 2 percent of Minnesotans. The Legislature’s proposal would impact the state’s highest income earners – couples with $300,000 adjusted gross income - at a rate of only $109 per year, or less than $9 per month, or less than 30 cents per day - for just the next four years. That seems a small price to pay to keep our schools, hospitals and nursing homes intact.

This is the most serious budget crisis in Minnesota’s history, and the next hours will shape our future for a generation. I’ll continue working to find a responsible compromise that protects schools, hospitals, nursing homes and jobs in the way that Minnesotans deserve.

(for more details:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/45224857.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUoaEaD_ec7PaP3iUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUr
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/05/15/scheck_capitol_pawlenty/)

I watched some of the House and Senate proceedings on Twin Cities Public Television. Yes, not only do I watch PBS, but I watch live government coverage on PBS. I am, indeed, a freak. And not only do I watch live goverment coverage, but I take notes. Among the things I observed:

*Finance Commissioner Tom Hanson and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL) --who looked like she hadn't slept in one or two years -- exchanging very tired, edgy pleasantries about the Governor wanting other budget ideas from the House, and the House having already sent him several. This included the Speaker mentioning something about the Governor's having sent a "snarky" letter saying something about having to get to some party or event or other.

*Rep. Mark Buesgens (R, District 35B) scolding his fellow members on the House floor, with a voice that made me imagine a nasal Sunday School teacher on a bad day.

*Rep. David Bly (DFL, District 25B) regaling with a anecdote about his Norwegian ancestors, which was entertaining, if not necessarily pertinent.

*Rep. Kent Eken (DFL District 02A) matching with an anecdote --or maybe it was a joke-- about an airplane whose engines have all gone dead.

*Rep. Mark Buesgens needing to hear the sound of his own voice again, even if no one else did.

*Rep. Tom Emmer (R, District 19B) being more bombastic and sweaty than Rep. Buesgens, but no less sanctimonious.

*Rep. Tim Faust (DFL, District 08B) pointing out that the Clinton administration had raised taxes on the wealthy, and had a good economy for 8 years, and the Bush administration had 5 tax cuts and 8 years of the worst economic decline.

*Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL, District 30A) quoting Isaac Asimov about something.

*Rep. Buesgens making sure those who didn't yet know his voice was irritating had the opportunity to experience it.

*Rep. Emmer working himself into a red-faced lather declaring that those who wanted to raise taxes were "sticking it to the working class of the state of Minnesota," and sprinkling an impressive amount of saliva over whoever was seated next to him.

This was early days. As the deadline closed in, there was (I'm told) banging, swearing, bellowing, and crying.

In the end, the result was what I, as a working poor person, expected all along. There would be no increased taxes on alcohol, credit card companies, and couples earning over $250,000 a year. Instead, Tim Pawlenty plans to cut millions of dollars from local government aide, health and human services, and higher education, as well as cutting renters' credit, rebates renters receive every August, and upon which many of the working poor depend to get through the rest of the year. These are programs which help those who earn at or below the minimum wage, and those which could educate us so we can get jobs which pay a living wage, with benefits.

Using his line-item veto authority, Tim Pawlenty eliminated full funding for "General Assistance Medical Care," a health care program that serves childless adults at or near the poverty level.

That serves me. That serves several friends of mine.

I work full time. I pay taxes. I can afford more taxes. What I can't afford is illness or injury, or the luxury of having anything but a charmed life.

I did a commentary for Marketplace about having insufficent dental insurance.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/10/10/pain_in_the_mouth/

On Nov. 5, 2006, I appeared live on Good Morning America in Washington D.C. to ask political representatives why America doesn't have affordable health care.

I am personally effected by this issue.

Of course I'm not shocked that V.P.-wanna-be Pawlenty was more than willing to behead a program that helps people who barely scrape by from paycheck to paycheck. We don't write big paychecks for him. Yet I have no skepticism that the Governor has more than a passing acquaintance with credit card companies and alcohol lobbies.

Except during election years. Then the Govenor is happy to shake the hand of a working poor person like myself, and to ask me to help him to help me.

He's willing to help me, that is, until I catch pneumonia. Or develop diabetes. Or if I'm hit by a car.

It's always astonished me, though it shouldn't, that so many of those in Tim Pawlenty's political party proudly declare that they have a personal relationship with Jesus, while apparently having no relationship whatsoever with Jesus' teachings.

I'm not an expert on the Bible by any means, but I can't find the verses that say, "Touch ye not the fruit of those whose tree bears heavily, to their richness and thine own, yea even though there be a wealth of harvest to share, but be thee certain that they who have not trees work their asses off reaping for thee and thy friends, but profit not themselves, because they are likely uneducated, unsophisticated, dressed in untasteful raiment, and do work thou wouldst not do unless a loaded shotgun were aimmed at thy head, yea even the making of coffee at Starbucks."

"The sky is not going to fall," Pawlenty is quoted as saying. "We can get through this."

We? We?

When was the last time Pawlenty was in a room like the one in this photograph?

When was the last time he worried that he had insufficient health coverage, or had to choose between going to work with a temperature of 101, nausea and dizziness --while still being expected to perform 100%--- or seeing a doctor and staying home in bed till he was well?

Pawlenty, like the fable of the dog in the manger, has no use for services that help the poor survive, so he denies those services to them. And worse, he claims to do it for their sake.

There's nothing I, one of the "working class of Minnesota" who Rep. Tom Emmer so fervently and moistly claims to defend, can do to fight Pawlenty on his turf, politics, which is apparently the only turf he's interested in. I didn't vote for him the last tim he ran, and I won't vote for him should he run again (which many believe he won't do, believing his eyes are fixed on a more ambitious prize).

What I can do is refuse Gov. Tim Pawlenty my services, if ever our paths crossed and he needed them. If he were in the airport, I would refuse to serve him. And I would refuse to service any of the Representatives and Senators who voted against overriding his veto.

I challenge all of you who earn near or below the minimum wage, or even more, to refuse to serve Gov. Tim Pawlenty. If he doesn't care about our health and welfare, let him make his own damn coffee, cook his own meals, clean his own hotel room. If you risk being fired because you won't serve Pawlenty, go to the press saying as much. The media doesn't care much for the working poor, but they might give some attention to a worker who is threatened with loss of income because she or he denied services to the Governor who has denied services to workers.

And, of course, for Minnesotans, call, email, and write your state representative and senator (oh yes; Pawlenty won't sign the certificate making Al Franken --DFL-- a Senator). Three members of our Congress voted against overriding Pawlenty's veto. I don't yet know who they are, but I'm trying to find out. When I do, I'll post their names. We all need to let them know we are here, and we will vote.

For now, I need to tread carefully. I'm not insured, and, come 2011, the cost of an accident or illness might be the death of me.

Norm Coleman, Deer Tick on the Body Politic

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:22:00 +0000

So, Norm --may I call you Norm?-- how do you want to be remembered?

Do you want to be remembered as the man who, on Election night, urged Al Franken to let go and move on, but who, when asked to take a dose of his own medicine, staunchly refused?

There's tenacity, Norm, and then there's pigheadedness. We Minnesotans are tired. We watched the recount. It didn't go in your favor, did it? We endured the wait for the judges' decision. That didn't give you what you wanted, either. We've gone from Thanksgiving to almost May Day, and you know how long that is in Minnesota. It's one long, hard, very very cold six months. And now, the flowers are tenatively venturing forth. Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre will soon cross from the island in Powderhorn Park; protestors sprout on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul. It's Spring, Norm. Minnesotans yearn for rebirth and renewel.

I know how hard it is to be laid off. They hand you a box stuffed with your things, and you stand there and babble, "But...but..." What will you do? Where will you go? Why does everyone avoid you in the corridors? Why do the receptionists and interns have pinched looks and duck into the nearest door as if you've got something contagious?

Think about your ex-coworkers. They've got business to get on with. Bills to bury in Committees, stories to snicker about in the back rooms, Blackberries to click, backs to pat, hands to shake, lunches and dinners and junkets to attend. You're no good for them, Norm. You've spent your career shifting whichever way the political wind blew, and you won't accept that the 2008 election capsized you. You've been dog-paddling for six months, Norm, and nobody's throwing you a Lifesaver. Can't you take a hint? It's embarrassing.

I was upset when Al Gore conceded to Dubyah in 2000. "Don't do it, Al! Keep fighting!" But the way Gore did it, when he finally did it, was done with such class, such elegance. He even laughed at himself. Look at this, Norm:

Good evening.

Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd President of the United States, and I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time.

I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we just passed.

Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you."

Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country.

Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.

Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, "Not under man but under God and law." That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.

I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new president elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends.

Let me say how grateful I am to all those who supported me and supported the cause for which we have fought. Tipper and I feel a deep gratitude to Joe and Hadassah Lieberman who brought passion and high purpose to our partnership and opened new doors, not just for our campaign but for our country.

This has been an extraordinary election. But in one of God's unforeseen paths, this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground, for its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one people with a shared history and a shared destiny.

Indeed, that history gives us many examples of contests as hotly debated, as fiercely fought, with their own challenges to the popular will.

Other disputes have dragged on for weeks before reaching resolution. And each time, both the victor and the vanquished have accepted the result peacefully and in the spirit of reconciliation.

So let it be with us.

I know that many of my supporters are disappointed. I am too. But our disappointment must be overcome by our love of country. And I say to our fellow members of the world community, let no one see this contest as a sign of American weakness. The strength of American democracy is shown most clearly through the difficulties it can overcome.

Some have expressed concern that the unusual nature of this election might hamper the next president in the conduct of his office. I do not believe it need be so.

President-elect Bush inherits a nation whose citizens will be ready to assist him in the conduct of his large responsibilities. I personally will be at his disposal, and I call on all Americans -- I particularly urge all who stood with us to unite behind our next president. This is America. Just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done.

And while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us.

While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America and we put country before party. We will stand together behind our new president.

As for what I'll do next, I don't know the answer to that one yet. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and old friends. I know I'll spend time in Tennessee and mend some fences, literally and figuratively.

Some have asked whether I have any regrets and I do have one regret: that I didn't get the chance to stay and fight for the American people over the next four years, especially for those who need burdens lifted and barriers removed, especially for those who feel their voices have not been heard. I heard you and I will not forget.

I've seen America in this campaign and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for and that's a fight I'll never stop.

As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe as my father once said, that no matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.

So for me this campaign ends as it began: with the love of Tipper and our family; with faith in God and in the country I have been so proud to serve, from Vietnam to the vice presidency; and with gratitude to our truly tireless campaign staff and volunteers, including all those who worked so hard in Florida for the last 36 days.

Now the political struggle is over and we turn again to the unending struggle for the common good of all Americans and for those multitudes around the world who look to us for leadership in the cause of freedom.

In the words of our great hymn, "America, America": "Let us crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea."

And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it's time for me to go.

Thank you and good night, and God bless America.

Al Gore - December 13, 2000
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/gore-concedes.htm

"...defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out." Norm, this is poetry. This is class and honor. And Al didn't do so bad after being downsized. Bush will be remembered for "Gitmo," and Gore will be remembered for the Nobel Prize. Who served the American people, and the world, better?

Look: If Al Franken will be as bad a Senator as you and and your supporters say he'll be, then give him enough rope to hang himself with. Craft as classy a concession as you and/or your handlers are able, then step aside and watch. If Franken implodes as you predict he will, then come the next election you can ride in on your white horse to save us. That is, if you haven't already alienated everyone in and out of politics who felt even the slightest twinge of support towards you.

Oh, I'm certain you have donors, bag-holders and allies who'll be extremely annoyed if you bow out now. But they don't control the voters, Norm. 60% of those voters say you're irritating them. Even if Hades freezes over and you end up back in the Senate in, say, September, that irritation won't heal any time soon. And that irritation is grist for your opponents' mills.

You might find the sidelines have more power than the spotlight. Give it a try.

And if Franken does a fine job, as I'm sure he will, maybe you'll be too busy doing something else to notice.

Give Up, Norm

(sung to the tune of "Sit Down, John"

from the musical 1776)

MINNESOTA:
Give up, Norm! Move on, Norm!
For God’s sake, Norm, concede!
You lost, Norm! The cost, Norm!
For God’s sake, Norm, shove off!

Someone oughta throw him out the window!

The election is through, and we’re so sick of you
You did your best, give it a rest, Norm, please!

Someone willya throw him out a window?

NORM:
I won! I won! Count them all, you’ll see I won!
I’m not done--

MINNESOTA:
No!

NORM:
--till I’ve won.

MINNESOTA:
Blow!

NORM:
Put me in the Senate now!

MINNESOTA:
Will someone please hurl him out the window?
Yes, yes, yes! Show him the door! Please, god, no more!
Pack up it all and leave St. Paul in peace!
(Then we’ll barricade the windows!)

Franken’s got the lead here!

NORM:
I won!

MINNESOTA:
Why won’t you concede here?

NORM:
I won!

MINNESOTA:
Oh for God’s sake, Norm, get lost!

NORM:
While I understand the frustration that Minnesotans have, it's important to get this right, so that we can all have faith in the accuracy of the final outcome, not the previous final outcome, or the final outcome previous to that---

MINNESOTA:
Norm, you’re a bore. We’ve heard this before.
Now for God’s sake, Norm, piss off!

http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/1776/sitdownjohn.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HD1x_kZRQQ

(I'm not comparing Coleman with John Adams, at all)

A Writer's Self-Indulgence

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:39:00 +0000

Be so good they can't ignore you. Steve Martin

Writing well is the best revenge. Kate Epstein, The Epstein Literary Agency

Kate, my agent, wrote the above to me in response to my saying that my current Place of Employment is excellent material for the book I'm writing, which she's representing. This is both good and bad. It's good that I'm getting a wealth of material. It's bad because what I'm experiencing which provides the material is not pleasant.

Today I tripped over the power chord of a laptop an airport traveler had strung across the concourse, from an outlet near the store that provides me with material, to the table where he'd set up a sizeable one-man conference. He glared at me for inconveinencing him by snagging my ankle.

As those who were disturbed by the smell and roar of the first automobiles tearing across the landscape had yelled at the drivers, "Get a horse!," I wanted to snap at the man, "Get a Moleskin!"

Moleskin notebooks are the most perfect things ever created for the written word. They're sturdy, practical, and portable. You don't need power chords, batteries, outlets, or Wi-Fi. You only need something with which to write. I've written in the rain in my Moleskin (with my coat as an umbrella). I've written in the dark in my Moleskin (using my fingertips as spacers, so I wouldn't scrawl over what I'd previously scrawled). I can use it anywhere there's a space big enough for me to open it.

While it's fun and amazingly easy to compose at a computer, I find the screen glaring after a while. And it's very...serviceable. It doesn't feel like writing to me. For me, there's nothing better than black ink forming thoughts on paper. It's drawing, illustrating, with strokes of a pen.

I miss my Underwood. There was an instrument of writing. Those thundering blocks of metal weren't designed for quick, flighty thoughts chirped speedily out with pattering clicks and clacks. When you sat down at an Underwood, you sat down to write. You couldn't tote an Underwood around; they stayed put. You placed them in a spot for writing, and writing alone, because of the effort necessary to move the things. If you just bought an Underwood, and thunked it down on the dining room table as soon as you got home, before your back snapped, well, the dining room table became your Writing Spot. Unless you had a really strong friend, relative or neighbor you could bribe or trick into hauling it to the place you'd originally intended it to be.

The Underwood made you work. It took pile-drive force to slam a key down hard enough for a black letter to be hammered onto the paper. You developed forearms of steel and tendons of titanium beating out a page full of words. If you weren't a writer, if you were only toying with the idea of writing as something to bring you fame, fortune and sex with admiring readers and ambitious editors, the Underwood chewed up your fantasy and spit it in your face. You'd get up, rubbing your arms and declaring it wasn't worth it. You had to burn to write, for writing's sake alone, to carve a story with an Underwood.

But my Underwood is long gone. Someday I hope to replace it. Till then, my Moleskin notebooks are a smooth, sensuous black on the outside, with inviting, creamy fields on the inside. I can almost fool myself into believing everything I scribble in them has significance.

If nothing else, the scribbles will add up to a book in the near future.

.

One Last Skaal for Bill

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:50:00 +0000

The day after Easter, a holiday about resurrection, plastered over an ancient, sacred time of renewel and rebirth, seems to me not an ironic moment to remember the recent and distant dead. My beloved mother died in Spring, and the 10th anniversary of her sudden Spring death is approaching upon me. Dying in Spring is, to me, the best time for those left behind, because the pain of the departure coincides with the earth shaking off the cold, blowing down the deadwood, and pushing forth in spite of it all. "Go on," it seems to say. "Build on what's gone, and go on."

John Calvin Rezmerski (the orange eater, left) has generously granted me permission to post his eulogy, a Spring eulogy, for Bill Holm (below, right). This is good reading at anytime.

*~~**~~*

Eulogy for Bill Holm, Mostly in His Own Words

by John Calvin Rezmerski

Once back in the 70’s, Bill complained to me about a job where he had to teach multiple sections of freshman composition with hundreds of papers to grade. It wasn’t reasonable, he said. When I pointed out that he’d signed a contract, and that grading papers was what they were paying him to do, he blurted, "I always assumed that somebody would pay me just for being me!" Last year, that wish came true.

After having spent forty-some years considering himself a failure, and preaching the music of failure, suddenly, through the generosity and wisdom of the McKnight Foundation, Bill found himself gripped by success. He was embarrassed. But of course everything he had said about failure was honest—however, on this matter, he had not yet acted on his frequently stated maxim, "At least two things are always simultaneously true in this world." He had not yet contemplated his own success.

One way of eulogizing someone is to tell the story of his accomplishments and to praise his virtues. But that has been done fully lately, so I’m not going to do it. I’m going to start with one of his favorite stories, from Iceland’s classic, Njal’s Saga:

Gunnar’s enemies decided to attack his house. Unsure whether Gunnar was at home, they sent someone to climb up to the sleeping-loft window to find out. The rest of them waited while Thorgrim went up. But Gunnar had heard them, and when he caught sight of Thorgrim at the window, Gunnar lunged out with his halberd and cut open Thorgrim’s belly, causing him to fall to the ground. The others looked at him, and one asked, "Is Gunnar at home?" Thorgrim said, "That’s for you to find out. But I know that his halberd certainly is," and died.

Bill prized that kind of understated wit in grim circumstances. His own phrasings are often more extravagant, but he could wield an ironic observation with the keenness of Gunnar’s halberd.

Bill Holm is not here today, but his words certainly are. I’ve gone through his books and selected what I imagine he might want to say to sum up his life and feelings and thoughts. From here on, except for a few transitions I’ve supplied, the words you hear are his. You’ll have to imaging his voice saying them.

* * *

My mother suffered a long and difficult labor to bring me into the world….My father [said] ‘Jesus,…that was awful for Jona. It hurt…I’ll never make her go through that again!’ …But whatever difficulties or pain I caused that August night, they loved and indulged me to a fault. I’ve had 63 years’ experience at being spoiled, and I’m almost getting good at it. [The Windows of Brimness, 110]

I discovered the imagination early, then fed it with books, music, and daydreaming…. I lived in a private mental world, sure that no other human… on the face of the earth had any remote notion of the strange goings-on inside my head….I would look in the mirror at my pink, soft, fleshy head, crowned with a mop of bright red hair, adorned with thick black plastic glasses and think: there is someone else trapped inside this body—another life, another possibility….[Eccentric Islands, 8-9]

I began to assemble my collected poems… a little premature in that…. Isolation breeds grandiosity….[Eccentric Islands, 11]

Despite inheriting [my father’s] size, I was a delicate moody boy—a mama’s boy—lost in books and music, lazy, willful, bored by the farm. My father loved me, though he must often have looked at me with a bleary eye and thought, ‘What creature have I hatched?’ [Eccentric Islands, 182]

Rock picking and hog-house shoveling made a poet—even an intellectual—out of me…. I wanted books and a one-way ticket out—to somewhere where the rocks could damn well stay where they pleased…. [Landscape of Ghosts, 91]

As for pigs, they were better in poems than in the hog-barn. [notes from conversation with Bill]

Here’s a little one I wrote:

I have lain in the mud all day

Softening the bristles on my back.

Combing my ears on the box-elder tree

Till they stand up straight and pink.

Now I am going into the darkness,

To prepare for love.

[The Joy of Memory, or The Pig in the Garden, 5]

At about 12, I publicly declared myself an agnostic and a socialist…. That loud-mouth 12-year –old still lives in a now-middle-aged body…. The real roots of [this] declaration come from what moves [me] still as a grown man, the perilous sloughs where reading might lead—to contrary thinking and to profound mistrust of any public truth presented as an incontrovertible fact. And if nobody has controverted it so far, then it is your duty to do so now before it does serious harm…. There is always one more idea. That’s the best thing the experience of books teaches us. [The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth, 153-156]

I am still a member in good standing of St. Paul’s Icelandic Lutheran Church… now a ghostly remnant of the congregation of my boyhood…but still alive…. It’s none of your business what I believe. …My business is tolerance, kindness, charity, and proper voice leading—in Bach chorales, for example. [Windows of Brimnes, 187]

I am…an evangelical literary fundamentalist. Stories are true. Poems are true…. Music is true. The impulses inside your own body and head are all true…. The sea never lies, and the thicker the…grass grows…the more truth in it…. But every word spoken by a government, a church, an army, or anyone who has any interest in selling you anything or giving you orders or who promises to make you rich or eternal is a damned, vile, rank putrid lie. So there. Would you let someone like me teach your children? [Eccentric Islands, 214]

I [was] raised listening to the rhetoric of American virtue, the brave, hard-working immigrants who, with God’s help…and the sweat of their brow, carved out this free and beatific place, stretching from sea to shining….blah-blah-blah….. There is nothing wrong with dumb luck…. but to assume the superiority of a civilization, a citizenry, and religion, an economic system, a racial stock, a "way of life," or anything else [that is] a result of [dumb luck is] sheer madness and arrogance…. [Coming Home Crazy, 242]

I have news for those who have a vested interest in maintaining the supernatural bureaucracy that services our well-defended capitalist commune here in America. The divine lives in all the human, and the human lives in all the world….Sacredness is unveiled through your own experience…, even… if it comes into conflict with the abstract received wisdom that power always tries to convince you to live by. One of power’s unconscious functions is to rob you of your own experience by saying: we know better, whatever you may have seen or heard…we are principle, and if experience contradicts us, then you must be guilty of something. Power—whether church, school, state, or family—usually does this first in a charming way, while feeding you chocolate cake, bread and wine, advanced degrees, tax shelters, grant programs, and a strong national defense. Only when contradicted does it show its true face, and try to kill you. Instead, kill it inside you fast….Next, put your arms around everything that has ever happened to you, and give it an affectionate squeeze. [The Music of Failure, 7]

[In Iceland], there is a [place], where below [a] small hill, lies all of Skagafjorthur, a wide body of water opening forty miles to the north, [with] islands…Tindastoll, a thirteen-mile-long slab of mountain,…the snow crags of …the highest and most rugged mountains in north Iceland,…Below you, a wide channel filled with green water meadows….You can see thirty or forty miles in all directions….an immensity of air, light , water, sky, mountain, and glacier, all populated by handsomely placed farms, rich grass, sheep, horses, cows, and a few thousand fortunate Icelanders. I cannot help myself. I burst into tears and blubber like a fool. Between blubbers, I begin laughing uproariously. What a world! What a universe! What a pleasure to be alive and sentient at such a place, on such a day. I could say—with my old Sioux neighbors from Minnesota—it is a good day to die. Which means, of course, that it is a good day to be completely alive. [The Windows of Brimnes, 29-30]

ADVICE

Someone dancing inside us

has learned only a few steps:

the "Do Your Work" in 4/4 time,

and the "What Do You Expect" waltz.

He hasn’t noticed yet the woman

standing away from the lamp,

the one with black eyes who knows the rumba

and strange steps in jumpy

rhythms from the mountains of Bulgaria.

If they dance together,

something unexpected will happen.

If they don’t, the next world

will be a lot like this one.

[The Dead Get By With Everything, 54]

We live on only in language and memory, the stories of us alive. [As the Havamal says,]

Cattle die, kindred die,

Every man is mortal:

But the good name never dies

Of one who has done well.

You gain immortality not by amassing money, but by some act or gesture that captures the imagination.[Eccentric Islands, 192-193]

As Whitman says, "To die is different from what anyone supposed…and luckier." [one of Bill’s favorite Whitman lines, which he often quoted.]

It’s hard business being a human …We haven’t yet penetrated the mystery of death…. Mystery remains mystery and wise philosophies acknowledge this….The old Lutheran liturgy…doesn’t try to explain anything. It makes metaphors and tries its best to tell some simple dark truth….Those old words …take on a shine like old leather or varnished wood. When you have said them, then the death is over—not your private grief, but the admission that this death is without justification, without rational cause, but that it has been registered in history….And that is that. Time for coffee and cake and the world...Sometimes I don’t believe that ceremony. And sometimes I do. Sometimes I change my mind several times a day. And so do you, and so do we all, if we stop fooling ourselves.[from an unpublished manuscript of essays related to the poems in the final section of Playing the Black Piano]

Let go of the dead now.

The rope in the water,

the cleat on the cliff,

do them no good anymore.

Let them fall, sink, go away,

become invisible as they tried

so hard to do in their own dying.

We needed to bother them

with what we called help.

We were the needy ones.

The dying do their own work with

tidiness, just the right speed,

sometimes even a little

satisfaction. So quiet down.

Let them go.

Practice your own song. Now.

[Playing the Black Piano, 128]

Delivered at St. Paul’s Icelandic Lutheran Church,

Minneota, Minnesota, March 8, 2009

National Poetry Month: Marjesdatter, Garey & Rezmerski

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:54:00 +0000

It's sounds like a law firm. If it were, it'd be a Poetry law firm. M, G & R, protecting your right to quality poetry, representing your case against brain damage caused by hideous rhyming celebrity children's books (ask any children's librarian, there outta be a law against Madonna and Kylie being allowed within ten miles of any writing instrument), and overly alliterated angsty poems ("o i am awash in agony & UR sew crewl 2 me").

April is the cruelest month, a poet claimed, which would make it appropriate that it's also National Poetry Month, if your only experiences of poetry are the twee and the deathly earnest. Though I'd grown up with books of Whitman, Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, etc., reading my father's students' papers scarred my opinion of poetry for, I thought, life.

When I came to Minneapolis, I stumbled into a nest of poets. I'm not quite sure how it happened. To my shock, they were benevolent and took in this weary orphan. I don't pretend to know a thing about the art of poetry, but I know what I like. And I liked what they wrote.

In the interest of full disclosure, I count Marjesdatter, Garey and Rezmerski as dear friends, and I'm biased in favor of their writing. One of my favorite things in the world is to collect interesting people, and to share them with the world, if it's within my power. So here's three short draughts to toast National Poetry Month.

*~~**~~*

Crystalline Love
by Rebecca Marjesdatter (c) 1998

Snowflakes flutter
under streetlamps,
in headlight beams,
shimmering like fireflies
in a passionate courtship dance,
breeding a blizzard--

until the generations
born between cloud and pavement
fall, like mayflies, lifeless to the ground
in drifts of shattered crystal,
or dive, in mothlike kamikaze passion,
into the burning heat
of the defrosted windshield.

Eating Rice
by Terry A. Garey (c) 1991

adventure sticks in the mind
like a stone in the rice

to crunch down on in the middle of a dinner
party making me cry out
unexpectedly

a woman feels sorry for me 'cause I didn't go to MIT
don't teach economics at Stanford
she means well

were you doing your statistics homework when I crouched in the
sage
hoped the cops wouldn't shoot
I want to ask but don't

I don't know if I should feel sorry for her or not
because I don't know her life
or her mother's

we leave it at that, changing the subject
but I'm not embarrassed
I'm alive and eating

I remember Maria's thumbs
and how they got that way
dirty Nazis, says her young German cousin
I eat my rice

I remember the scar on an older woman from the South
they didn't like niggers, she said when I asked
I eat my rice

Lou's famous son made fun of her in the papers
the cops laughed when her crazy ex-husband
broke into the house and threatened her
I eat my rice

a Laotian girl I helped learn to read
saw her father killed in front of her
now she plays Nintendo

I hope she goes to MIT
teaches economics at Stanford
has no more of that kind of adventure

and we all eat our rice

John Calvin Rezmerski was a close friend of poet Bill Holm for over forty years. His loss made me return to this poem.

Grave Thoughts
by John Calvin Rezmerski (c) 2000

Near midnight, three of us drive out to a country cemetary, to visit the grave of an old friend. We have soberly brought a pint of good scotch. We read names off tombstones and joke about the old characters whose lively flesh once kept all these bones upright. One friend clears encroaching grass away from the headstone while we laugh about good times together far away on a long boat at anchor under a diamond-sharp night sky. I remember lying on a deck watching a satellite streak across the starfield, pointing it out to our now-absent friend, and him saying, "If I were an astronaut, I would never need to touch earth again." No spacecraft is in sight for me to imagine him piloting over our celebration.

We have come to observe an old custom. The cap comes off the bottle and the bottle tips back into the lips of the master of ceremonies, who drinks and passes it to the grave-tender, who drinks and passes it to me. The taste of whiskey promises warmth in the chill air. I swallow, and the tickle of its bouquet rises from my gullet into my mouth and nose. It caresses my head from inside, makes me shiver. I pass the bottle back to close the circle, and my good friend drizzles the remaining whiskey over the grave. "Skaal, old sport. Drink deep," he says. It would be easy to imagine a sudden puff of breeze, a sigh coming from the grass. But it is a perfectly still night. The wet fire of the peaty malt we shared --now sinking into the earth where we know our friend is not, and filling the air he no longer breathes with its lingering perfume-- is a distillation of memory and longing and grief and love and dread. It comes to me why whiskey is called "spirits." What we have done is a holy thing, a piety older than the church, older than temperance. I cannot imagine anyone coming even to the grave of an infant to perform this ceremony with milk. This is no flippancy. Milk is for this life only. Milk is of the body, whiskey a taste of another world.

John Calvin Rezmerski will be participating in "The Friends of Bill Holm," a Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media tribute to and celebration of the late poet, at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, Tuesday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. For details, click here: http://fitzgeraldtheater.publicradio.org/events/

*~~**~~*
Rebecca Marjesdatter has been published in Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU), The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, the anthology Women of Other Worlds, and Asimov's. She is currently TOTU's Poetry Editor.

Terry A. Garey is a poet, prose writer, poetry editor, and author of the delightfully humorous and informative The Joy of Home Winemaking (see Buy! Read! on this blog's left-hand column)
http://www.joyofwine.net/index.htm

John Calvin Rezmerski is Poet Laureate of the League of Minnesota Poets, storyteller, and occasional actor. His poems have been published in magazines and anthologies as varied as The Wall Street Journal, Mennonite Life, New Letters, Chelsea, Nursing Outlook, Poems of Exotic Places, The Party Train, The Sumac Reader, and Tales of the Unanticipated. He’s author of What Do I Know? New & Selected Poems by Holy Cow! Press. http://www.bookthatpoet.com/poets/rezmersk.html http://www.holycowpress.org/Our%20Backlist7.htm

He was co-editor of County Lines, a poetry collection representing all 87 counties of Minnesota, published in celebration of the state's 150th anniversary. http://loonfeatherpress.com/_wsn/page2.html

All three of them are past winners of the Rhysling Award http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhysling_Award

and are regular contributors to Tales of the Unanticipated (TOTU). Check TOTU's website for back copies with their work: http://www.totu-ink.com/

Minnesota House: Federal Recovery Bill & Budget Deficit

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:42:00 +0000

I've lifted the text below directly from an email sent by State Representative Leon Lillie, district 38A. His mailing list is always helpful in keeping me up to date on State government goings-on when I don't have time to search it out for myself. I'm posting this text for Minnesotans, and others, who might be interested in the information, and haven't come across it elsewhere.

To receive these updates yourself, email "Announcements from Representative Leon Lillie" rep_leon_lillie_list@ww3.house.leg.state.mn.us

*~~**~~*
Rep. Leon Lillie
527 State Office Building
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-1188
rep.leon.lillie@house.mn
www.house.mn/55A

INDIVIDUAL BENEFITS FROM FEDERAL RECOVERY BILL

Minnesota is expected to receive more than $4 billion from the federal recovery package, much of which will be used for Medicaid payments, infrastructure projects, and education. The following is a partial list of provisions that will directly benefit individuals:

Making Work Pay Tax Credit
Individuals earning less than $75,000 will receive a $400 tax credit.
Couples earning less than $150,000 will receive an $800 tax credit.
Roughly 2 million Minnesotans are eligible.

First-time Homebuyer Tax Credit
First-time homebuyers are eligible for an $8,000 tax credit for homes purchased between 12/31/08 and 11/30/09.

Child Tax Credit Expansion
The federal bill temporarily expands the existing child tax credit that provides a partially refundable federal income tax credit of up to $1,000 per child under 17.

Car Purchases
A tax deduction is provided for taxpayers earning $125,000 ($250,000 joint) for state and local sales taxes paid on the purchase of new cars, light trucks, recreational vehicles, and motorcycles through 2009.

Higher Education Tax Benefits
The HOPE credit is increased to $2,500 and extends the credit to all four years of college. Taxpayers will receive a credit for $2,000 of qualifying tuition and 25% for the second $2,000 to the maximum $2,500.

Health Insurance Subsidies for Laid Off Workers
Recently laid-off families earning less than $250,000 or individuals earning less than $125,000, may be eligible for a 65% subsidy for COBRA premiums over 9 months (health insurance for laid off workers).

Unemployment Insurance Increase, Extension & Federal Tax Benefit
Roughly 330,000 Minnesotans will benefit from the unemployment insurance extension through next December.

One-time Check for Social Security and Disabled Veterans Benefits’ Recipients
A one-time payment of $250 will be made to Social Security, disabled individuals, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients.

Higher Education Affordability
Pell Grant awards will be increased by $500 and other federal financial aid programs will be expanded.

To find out more about the plan, visit: www.recovery.gov

Budget Deficit Grows to $6.4 Billion

Several weeks ago the Minnesota Office of Management and Budget released a revised – and sobering - state budget forecast. It showed state revenues have fallen an additional $1.1 billion since December, putting the current deficit at $6.4 billion. Resources provided by the federal stimulus package will soften the blow, but we’re still left to resolve a $4.6 billion shortfall by the Legislature’s constitutional deadline of May 18.

This is the most serious fiscal challenge in Minnesota’s history, and will require a carefully-crafted budget that asks all Minnesotans to share responsibility and sacrifice. The Governor is revising his original budget to reflect the larger deficit numbers and the federal stimulus money. The House will share its budget targets by the end of this week.

Find out more about the budget forecast online at: www.mmb.state.mn.us/forcast

*~~**~~*

Same Sex Marriage? Iowa??

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:27:00 +0000

In Michigan, I never thought about Iowa. I never thought about any place West of Chicago, for that matter, except California. No one I knew was from Iowa, or had been there.

It wasn't until I started listening to A Prairie Home Companion in the mid 90s that I became aware of Iowa as anything beyond being the state represented on the IHOP map as a big ear of corn. According to Keillor & Co., Iowa was flat and backward, and so were its residents.

Southern Michiganians think Minnesota is flat and backward, so I didn't quite get how Lake Wobegonians had the right to feel more sophisticated than Iowans. We had Motown and do-wop cool. Minnesota had Ole and Lena, who, judging from radio programs, were morons. Iowa had, well, corn. How Ole and Lena were superior to corn was beyond me. If Ole and Lena had visited Detroit, they wouldn't have lasted ten minutes. But an Iowan with a basket of sweet corn would've been invited to everybody's barbeque.

When I moved to Minneapolis, my cultural indoctrination included hearing jokes about Iowa, which consisted of showing how Iowans were straw-gnawing hicks. Iowans, it seems, are less violent than Southern hicks (Minnesotans, I've learned, know nothing about anything south of Madison, WI) , and far more dull. When I asked what there was in Iowa, I was told "nothing." Except, my writer friends conceded, the University of Iowa has an excellent writing program.

I was informed that, in contrast, Minnesota is Progressive, being the Land of 10,000 Liberals, the birthplace of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.

In a few years, through osmosis, I too believed that Iowans were straw-gnawing hicks. Ignorance, of course, is helped by complete lack of experience.

Now Iowa has become the third state in these United States to clear the way for same sex marriages. Meanwhile, Minnesota has a homophobic Governor, and is considering a Constitutional ban against same sex marriages.

Iowa may have decided that its future depends on attracting the "Creative Class," and that means tolerance of GLBT folks. Money is money. This may be inaccurate in its cynicism. But if it takes an eye towards improving the economy for a state to be progressive, that's fine by me.

I'd like to read a newspaper article that says:

No hail of leprous toads rained down, no vengeful tornadoes struck, nor did the earth split asunder and swallow whole Adam and Steve as they celebrated the third anniversary of their marriage in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Instead, the sun shone brightly, and a light breeze tousled their hair as they sipped cabernet with friends on the back deck. The only cause of consternation was a brief argument about whether to refinance the condo.

According to the Religious Right, the legal union of two people with the same naughty bits would lead to Death and Destruction. The timetable was unclear, but one would think that Death and Destruction would get their acts together by now and dispense some wrath already. Maybe they have more urgent business in the Middle East, aka "The Holy Land."

The frothing at the mouth concerning same sex marriage is highly amusing. I recall flipping through network news channels --I don't have cable, so I've missed the frothiest reactions-- and seeing a woman protesting somewhere. In a high, hysterical voice, she said in regard to same sex marriages' effect on society as a whole, "People will stop having children!"

I wish I'd video-taped that claim. I would love to identify the woman, set up an interview, and ask her to elaborate. How would the union of two women in Holy Matrimony effect fertility in others? Would the exchange of vows emit a shockwave of Evil that would collapse fallopian tubes and decimate sperm? How extensive would the range be? Would only people within a few yards of the couple be sterilized? Or the entire town? Or the entire state? Would anyone who encountered them at, say, the co-op or the dry cleaners, suddenly clutch their abdomens as their reproductive organs withered?

Some have said that homophobes can't accept same sex marriage because they don't want to think about what same sex partners do. Not "do" as in go to the grocery store, fix the plumbing, and pay their taxes. But do with each other wink wink nudge nudge.

I must be the only person in North America who doesn't think about what other people, gay, straight, and ambidexterous, do. Don't get me wrong: I'm an enthusiastically sensual woman. I've got references to prove it. Call me a prude, but I don't think other people's sensuousness is any of my business. As long as it's between consenting adults and doesn't raise the price of public transportation, I don't care. I don't think about the sex lives of others, because I have an EXTREMELY visual imagination, and I don't want those pictures in my mind forever and ever, thank you very much.

This apparently makes me unique. For some unknown reason of needy revelation, a former co-worker started telling me the intimate details of her unhappy marriage, until I abruptly informed her that I DON'T WANT TO KNOW, GOT IT? My co-worker was insulted and indignant, while I was the one with those icky pictures stuck in my brain with no mental Wite-Out.

Since my mother, Joan Manion, never had any prejudice, or, if she did, she never revealed it, I grew up believing that all people are equal. Some are evil (Nazis, the KKK), some are wacko, but all deserve equal rights and privileges under the law.

My opinion is, same sex couples should have the identical rights to an unfullfilled marriage, ungrateful kids, a nasty divorce, and vitriolic rants about the ex to friends who really wish they'd get the hell over it already as heterosexual couples have enjoyed.

Bravo, Iowa.

I Won't Cry For You, General Motors.

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, in the 60s, we kids were taught that we were the Center of the Universe. The Lansing auto factories we saw every day on the way to school, where many of our parents worked, provided transportation for the world. Everybody would still be using electric streetcars, horses and rickshaws if not for Michigan Ingenuity.

Henry Ford was God, having invented the automobile, the assembly line, the 5-day week and the 8-hour day, and, probably, Radio Flyers, baseball, and Pop-Tarts. School field trips took pilgramages to the Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, so children could be inspired by the authentic historic atmosphere.

Yes indeedy, GM cars were the best, and the GM car economy was the best, and it would always be. Anyone who said otherwise was a Pinko Commie Liberal Limp-Wristed Intellectual. Of course, no one ever said otherwise.

Except me. I had the bad taste to tell my class that my mother told me that Ford hadn't invented the automobile, that he'd sent Pinkertons to beat workers who were trying to unionize, and that it was the unions who gave us the 8-hour day and weekends. Oh, and Ford had liked the way the Nazis ran things.

My teachers didn't appreciate my contributions to class.

I was wise enough to not ask why, if GM was run by genuises, cars were recalled on a fairly regular basis. I didn't ask my classmates why their parents built cars that fell apart. If we can send a man to the moon, the saying went, why can't we build a car that doesn't have to be held together with baling wire, duct-tape and intense swearing?

Then my best friend in high school bought a 1976 Ford Pinto. Or, as satirist Mark Russell called it then, "The New Ford Hindenburg." The Pinto had the unfortunate habit of exploding in a collision. Not just bursting into flame. Exploding.

One would think that designers and engineers for the Best Automobile Makers in the World would notice such a thing.

"Wow, what a great car! Let's get this baby to the American People!"

"Wait a sec, Ted. Do you think we should do a crash test to see whether having the gas tank behind the rear axle, with only nine inches seperating them, plus bolts that might puncture the tank, plus a fuel filler pipe that looks like it might disconnect from the tank and spill fuel, might make it likely to explode in a fiery ball of godawful Hell in a rear-end collision?"

"Would it take more time and money to find out?"

"Yeah."

"Skip it."

Taking a summer road trip in my best friend's Pinto was only a tad nerve-wracking. We only panicked if other cars came within 100 yards of us, or if a squirrel jumped on the hood when we parked.

Michiganians were furious when, in the 80s, people, like my Pinko Commie Liberal parents, bought foreign cars. Worse than foreign: Japanese. It didn't matter that Toyotas and Hondas used less fuel, were reliable, and weren't recalled every Spring. ("It must be Spring, GM's recalling a car.") Honda owners would come out of the grocery store to find their cars smashed with sledgehammers and spray-painted with graffiti such as Jap Lover.

My parents would have been more than happy to buy an American car that used less fuel, was reliable, and was never recalled. But America apparently wasn't interested in building them. GM CEOs beat their chests and barked, "We put the world on the road! We have the best designers! We have the best engineers! We're the Best! We're always the Best! Electric cars? Never! We won't change!"

They didn't. But the world did.

It was during the recession of the 80s, when GM was outsourcing its auto factories to Mexico while earning record profits, that the Great Michigan Diaspora began. It's still happening. Even when I left, in 2000, I saw spray-painted on a bridge, Will the last person leaving Michigan please turn off the lights.

I've heard that nearly all the factories I grew up around are not only closed, but leveled. My childhood is now empty lots. Detroit was a ghost town way back when the Renaissance Center was going to resurrect it in March 1977. The only thing left to do in Detroit is to go Urban Spelunking: Breaking into and exploring the hundreds of abandoned stately homes and hotels.

Now GM and Chrysler are begging to be put on life support. But I haven't heard word one about their plans to build safe, reliable, fuel-efficent cars.

Those who are furious at President Obama and the current government for "taking over" the car companies either don't or won't remember that GM and Chrysler refused to change their ways after the Energy Crisis of the 70s, and after President Jimmy Carter's $1.5 billion government bailout in January 1980. (My father was always furious when Lee Iacocca claimed that he'd saved Chrysler. "Jimmy Carter did!" he'd yell at the TV.)

Michigan could be inspired by the one good trait Henry Ford had: Entrepreneurial spirit. Ford took a leap of faith that if Americans could afford a car, they'd buy a car. So he built a car they could afford. He wasn't stopped by the fact that roads were few, and in lousy conditions. He didn't care that there wasn't already a system of gas stations across the country. He knew, or at least suspected, that those things would come as soon as enough Americans got behind the wheel.

Michigan has the opportunity for a real Renaissance. They could scrap the gas-guzzlers and hire the truly best engineers, technicians and designers to create an affordable plug-in electric car. John F. Kennedy set a goal in 1960 for America to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. It happened. Michigan's car companies can meet the challenge, if they have the will. If they throw the ridiculous, antiquated belief of "How We Did It Is How We Should Always Do It" in the toilet and flush, repeatedly. Michigan can once again put the world behind the wheel, an electric plug-in wheel. Gas stations will become plug-in stations. New mechanics will be trained for the new technologies. If electric cars can't travel as far as gas hogs did, well, there's an opportunity for people to build a lot of plug-in motels and hotels and diners. Charge your car while you sleep or eat pancakes!

GM can do this, or GM can watch Mitsubishi's planned launch of its plug-in car in 2010. And watch as Americans once again buy Japanese cars over GM cars.

This is a good time for all Americans to watch Michael Moore's first, and best, documentary, Roger & Me. A slice of history, with a side of entertainment, might be good for us. Those who don't remember the past are doomed...you know the rest.

At least, I hope you do.

My Book's in the Library of Congress!

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:38:00 +0000

I come from a long line of librarians on my mother's side. Libraries have been my refuge, my Holy of Holies, my unlimited supply of information and inspiration. The Library of Congress is my Mecca. I watch National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets and squee while the characters are running through the L of C's stacks the way others geek out over James Bond blowing things up in slow motion.

I've visited Washington D.C. four times, but I entered the Library of Congress only once. I just had time to dash in to the Holy of Holie's Gift Shop and buy a mug. I didn't even get a glimpse of the entryway or Reading Room.

I'm returning to D.C. this year, to gather research for a children's book. Now I have even more reason to make the time to see the Library. The Vineyard Book by Jack Johnston, a children's picture book which I illustrated, is in the Library of Congress. It has its own LC Call Number! (SB388.J64 2005) It has its own Dewey Number! (634.8 22).

For me, this is a big deal. I don't care if my book might be stuck on some unlit shelf, gathering dust. It's gathering dust as part of the same Library which owns original letters by George Washington and Frederick Douglass, photos of Harriet Tubman, voice recordings of Mark Twain. It's great that my book is in any library. But... it's in the Library of Congress!

If you're in D.C., and a short woman with long black hair is grabbing random tourists and sidewalk T-shirt vendors, squealing, "I saw my book in the Library of Congress!", you'll know who it is.

http://www.marylandwine.com/mwa/winewares/vineyardbook.shtml

Rush Limbaugh & Baggage Handlers

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:57:00 +0000

An acquaintance invited me to criticise Rush Limbaugh's challenge to President Obama to debate him.

My response was to wonder why people such as Limbaugh (and myself) are paid ridiculous amounts of money for our opinions and criticism. (My amount is considerably less than Limbaugh's, but proportionately it's still ridiculous. Mind you, I'm quite happy with it.)

It's no strange thing to be paid for one's opinion. All books, essays, columns and commentaries, films, plays, performing arts, fiction and non-fiction, and politics, are really nothing more than forms for expressing opinions. But why are some people granted financial rewards for opening their yaps? Is it because we're more entertaining? Do we say things that have never been said before? Why do we receive attention, when colorful opinions can be had at any bus stop, cafe, and bar?

I've wondered this since I first stumbled into radio commentary. I'd never considered being on radio. It just happened that I told some people what I thought one day, and suddenly 8 to 10 million people across America and overseas heard two minutes of me blathering, and I received a check for more than any person should be paid for two minutes of blather, short of the President.

Well, depending on which President. Dubyah was paid god knows too much for his blather. But his was the blather of a man with influence.

I am not someone who should have influence. Neither is Limbaugh. As it happens, I have no influence. But due to the sheer number of people who listen to him, and agree with him, Limbaugh does.

I got to thinking about this today after having an enjoyable conversation with a woman originally from my home town of Lansing, Michigan, who's a Northwest baggage handler at the Minneapolis airport. She's in a "man's" job, and loves it. That alone impresses me. She works with three other baggage handlers, men, who, judging by what little I know of them, are also fascinating people. One man, quiet, who casts me with a wary eye, has a great dry wit, and hides his intelligence under a basket, for reasons I won't be rude enough to ask him. Another man has a professional life outside the airport which intrigues me. A third is a wry guy, a New York City refugee among Minnesota Nice, who occasionally will regale me with his cutting humor.

Perhaps because we're "entertainers," willing to make asses of ourselves in front of, well, millions, someone determined that Limbaugh and my hot air are worth money. To hell with people who are out on the freezing subzero or broiling 100F tarmack, lifting heavy bags hour after hour, day after day. Who cares what they think? We professional opinionaters are willing to criticize people we've never met! My god, that's significant!

Whenever my tiny little mouse brain starts squeaking that kind of clap-trap, I remember what food critic Anton Ego says in the movie Ratatouille:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.

I think of the Northwest baggage handlers I know, who are far more interesting than Rush Limbaugh and me. They might not believe it if I told them, so I don't. I just listen when they happen to find me interesting enough to talk to.

Mourning a Man I Never Met: Bill Holm

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:20:00 +0000

I've had a prejudice against male poets. Once upon a time, I was wooed by a state's Poet Laureate, until I discovered he'd neglected to inform me about his wife. All the male poets I ever met chased after svelte muses while their wives gave birth to and raised their kids, kept their houses, and paid their bills. Faithlessness, hypocrisy and lying are not exclusive to male poets, but having experienced it firsthand, I determined that they were of a kind, and I wasn't eager to pick up their books. I preferred poetry by women who'd divorced such men.

When I moved from Michigan to Minnesota, I befriended several excellent female, and Feminist, poets. They are women whose opinions about writing, and people, I value. So when they encouraged me to read Bill Holm's poems, I set aside my prejudice as best I could.

I am so glad I did. There is something about Bill Holm's voice on the page that pleases me deeply. I couldn't begin to express what it is without coming across as a pretentious Liberal Arts Major. I love reading his poems. I don't know why.

After reading The Dead Get By With Everything and The Music of Failure, I wished I could meet Bill Holm. My poet friends said he was funny, gentle, kind, and fascinating. But, unfortunately, the only time I ever saw or heard him is his all too brief appearance in a Twin Cities Public Television documentary about abandoned farmhouses, The Death of the Dream: Farmhouses in the Heartland. In it, Holm, handsomely cuddly in a thick sweater, with snowy hair and beard, with rosy cheeks and clever blue eyes, tells how farmers would go "visiting." I wished I could have sat by a fireplace, hugging a mug of hot buttered rum, listening to him, watching him.

At least, at least, those who never met him have his work.

Here is one of his poems from his book The Dead Get By With Everything, Milkweed Editions, 1990.

A Circle of Pitchforks

by Bill Holm

A Poem about the farmers' protest against a powerline through Pope County, Minnesota.

I

They used to call it a sheriff's sale.
Had one over by Scandia in the middle of the '30s.
My dad told me how
the sheriff would ride out to the farm
to auction off the farmer's goods for the bank.
All the neighbors would come with pitchforks
and gather in the yard -
"What am I bid for this cow?"
3¢. 4¢. No more bids.
If a stranger came in and bid a nickel
a circle of pitchforks gathered around him
and the bidding stopped.
even in the grey light of memory
the windmill goes around uneasily.
The farmer's overalls
blow into the fork tines -
the striped overalls look like convict suits.
A smell of cowshit and wet hay seeps into everything.
A stranger wears tweed clothes
and a watch chain.
The sheriff's voice weakens
as he moves from hayrack to hayrack
holding up tools,
describing cattle and pigs
one at a time.

The space between those fork tines
is the air we all breathe.

II

"Resist much, obey little,"
Walt Whitman told us.
To bring light!
That's the thing!
Somewhere in North Dakota
lignite gouged out of the prairies
is transformed into light.
But you are not in darkness, brothers,
for day to surprise you like a thief.
We are all sons of light,
sons of day;
we are not of the night,
or of darkness.
Let us not sleep, as others do
but keep awake and be sober.
Those who sleep,
sleep at night,
and those who get drunk
are drunk at night.

III

There is so much light in Minnesota:
the white faces brought here from Arctic Europe,
the lines of white birch in the white snow,
white ice like a skin over the water,
even the pale sun seen through snow fog.
White churches, white steeples, white gravestones.

Come into an old cafe,
in Ghent, or Fertile, or Holloway.
The air is steamy with cigarette smoke and frozen breath,
collars up under a sea of hats pulled down.
You can hardly see the mouths moving under them.
The talk is low, not much laughing.
Eat some hot dish, some Jello,
and have a little coffee and pie.
Those are the men wrecking the ship of state--
the carriers of darkness.
Up in the cities
the freeway lights burn all night.

IV

My grandfather came out of Iceland
where he took orders from the Danes and starved.
after he died, I found his homestead paper
signed by Teddy Roosevelt,
the red wax still clear and bright.
In the corner, a little drawing of a rising sun
and a farmer plowing his way toward it.
A quarter section, free and clear.
On his farm he found arrowheads
every time he turned the soil.
Free and clear. Out of Iceland.
In the thirties, the farm was eaten by a bank,
thrown back up when Olson
disobeyed the law that let them gorge.
In high school they teach
that Hubert Humphrey was a liberal
and Floyd Olson is a highway.

V

Out on the powerline barricades,
the old farmers are afraid their cows'
teats will dry up after giving strange milk,
and their corn will hum in the granary all night.

They have no science, no words, no law,
no eminent domain
over this prairie full of arrowheads and flowers,
only they know it,
and the state does not.

We homestead in our bodies too,
a few years, and then go back
in a circle
faster than the speed of light.

(c) Bill Holm

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/26/billholm_obit/?refid=0
http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2009/02/26/7010/minnesota_mourns_the_loss_of_author_bill_holm

A Valentine for Mark Russell

everything_column@yahoo.com (Moira Manion) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:42:00 +0000

While other kids wouldn't miss an episode of Scooby Doo, The Banana Splits or Star Trek, I lived for a PBS show starring a guy wearing huge black glasses and a bow tie, playing the piano and singing songs about Spiro Agnew.

Last week, PBS aired the series Make 'Em Laugh: 100 Years of American Comedy. The episode about parody and satire featured many of the favorites from my childhood: Mort Sahl, MAD Magazine, Alan Sherman and Tom Lehrer. To my disgust and chagrin, the program completely ignored the man with glasses, bow tie and piano: Mark Russell.

Actually, I was around fourteen or fifteen when I first saw Russell tinkle the old ivories and put new parody lyrics to old tunes. Under his influence, I'd hear "Speaker of the House" and rhyme it with "courage of a mouse." Whenever I heard the show's theme song, a clanky version of Yankee Doodle, accompanied by clanky animation of a Republican elephant and Democratic donkey dragging Russell, who wore an over-sized Uncle Sam hat, I rushed to the living room and applied butt to floor in front of the TV screen. Other girls had crushes on singer David Cassidy. I wanted to hear Mark Russell sing about House Doorkeeper "Fishbait" Miller and the Pentagon Papers.

As a child of the times, I admired the satirists who were breaking all the rules of what could and could not be said. I memorized George Carlin's seven dirty words, laughed like an idiot at Cheech and Chong's brain-fogged tokers, and listened with awe and admiring shock to Richard Pryor's hilarious and scathing routines.

But Mark Russell was my favorite. He never used profanity. He used wit. He suggested. While it was necessary and liberating for comics to speak the Forbidden and smash boundaries, Russell's brilliant skill with language revealed that the Emperors had no clothes, without needing to point out the anatomy thus exposed. Russell mocked the hubris and stupidity of the powerful who thought themselves superior to the rest of us. Hearing satirists say the F-word eventually lost its shock value (something Lenny Bruce could have foretold). But hearing an adult ridicule those who thought too highly of themselves became even more important. Especially when, during Watergate, I realized that these people did things which effected my life, the nation, and often the world.

During a very brief stint in college, I became an editorial and political cartoonist, who still rushed home to watch every Mark Russell Comedy Special. Stand-up comics came and went, but with every new President and Congress, Russell kept me up to speed on what was happening on both sides of the aisle, and made me laugh my head off. I even dated a man who bore a strong likeness to Mark Russell. He was an Economics professor. He was obsessed with golf. His likeness to Mark Russell was the only thing going for him.

In 1994, I had a syndicated comic strip, Franky & Ralph, my own small contribution to the world of parody. That same year, Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and Newt Gingrich became the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty years. Gingrich and the Republicans declared they would completely defund public television and public radio. I was outraged. Public broadcasting had been my university, my entertainment, and my escape.

My response was Les PBS, a "cartoon novel" parody. Inspired by the musical Les Miserables, whose 1996 10th anniversary special on PBS had been a smash hit, Les PBS cast public radio and public television stars such as Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor and Zoe from Sesame Street as the protagonists, and hardcore Republicans such as Tom DeLay and Dick Armey as the antagonists. Newt became The Speaker, a gavel-wielding Javert, hounding PBS (who was modeled after Colm Wilkinson's Jean Valjean).

And of course, Mark Russell was Les PBS' comic relief.

I mailed samples of Les PBS to several people in public broadcasting, asking for endorsements. I got them, from Derek McGinty, Diane Rehm, Ellen Hume (then Executive Director of PBS' "Democracy Project"), a producer of NPR's Whad'Ya Know?, Jim Lehrer, Terry Gross, and many more, including Les Miserables' Colm Wilkinson and Philip Quast. When Les PBS was finally finished after two years and two months of steady work, I found Mark Russell's mailing address at the library, and mailed him a copy of the manuscript.

Shortly after, it happened that Russell was scheduled to perform at the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts at Michigan State University. I snagged a ticket. When I arrived, I handed an usher a note for Mr. Russell, asking if I could impose on his time to meet him briefly after the show.

After, I was exhausted and sore from laughing nonstop for over an hour. I found the usher, and she told me that Mr. Russell was willing to meet me in the lobby outside the Green Room.

For me, this was meeting God. That's saying something, considering I'm an atheist. This was a man who'd had an enormous influence on my life, who seemed almost mythological, and he was willing to say hello. In a few minutes, Mark Russell entered the room. He looked tired, inquisitive, but cautious. I didn't blame him for his caution. Who knows how many wackos the man has encountered over the years.

I bowed in a "I'm Not Worthy!" manner. That shifted his expression of caution to one of mild alarm. I introduced myself, explained that I had already sent him a copy of Les PBS' finished manuscript, which I hoped he'd received. I handed him a photocopy of the cover art, and asked if he'd autograph it.

Mark Russell stared at my drawing of Mark Russell. He spoke softly, but I can't remember what he said. He seemed puzzled, but polite. He signed the art and handed it back to me. I thanked him again and left, afraid that I'd used too much of his time.

Despite enthusiastic praise from editors and publishers who saw the manuscript, Les PBS was never published. Its time had past. It was 1998, and Newt Gingrich was no longer Speaker. Republican determination to defund public broadcasting had dissipated. Newt & Co. were old news, therefore so was Les PBS.

Ten years later, I'm a Commentator for Marketplace, on public radio. Ironically, so is Newt Gingrich; We share the same Commentary Editor. Mark Russell hasn't been on PBS for years. I miss him. While I watched President Obama's Inauguration on TV, my face damp and snotty from tears of joy, a pile of used Kleenex beside me, I thought, Damn, where's Mark Russell? I want to hear his take on all this! It's a crime that there isn't a Mark Russell Comedy Special on PBS tonight!

So I Googled his name, fearing I'd discover the worst. Thankfully, Mark Russell is still making them laugh, in a synidcated newspaper column, on the road, with CDs and DVDs, and, best news of all, every Monday night at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

I'm planning to visit D.C. this 4th of July, to see friends, reconnect with political acquaintances, and do research for a book. But more than anything, I have to see the longest crush of my life, Mark Russell, in performance. It probably wouldn't be flattering to him to have a 48-year-old fangirl in the audience. But lordy, it'll do my heart and humor no end of good to be there.

I don't know if Mark Russell ever received or read the copy of Les PBS that I mailed to him. But his autograph on my book's cover art is one of my most cherished possessions.

If you're in D.C., go see Mark:

Mondays, 8:30 PM, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel

2700 Calvert Street, NW Washington, DC 20007

For more information, call 202-756-5210

http://www.omnihotels.com/Home/FindAHotel/WashingtonDCShoreham/MarkRussell.aspx

For CDs, DVDs, performance schedules, and more about Mark Russell, visit his website: http://www.markrussell.net/

and
http://www.answers.com/topic/mark-russell