April 7, 1994
Whitewater, Whitewater, Whitewater! I am so goddamn sick and tired of Whitewater! I realize that I wrote about this same goddamn topic, oh, about 3 months ago, but apparently the press just can’t get enough.
It makes me so angry because the Republicans will use any tactic they can to divert attention from the real issues. Why is the country being held hostage by such bullshit? Let’s just drop the whole thing and move on. We have more important things to worry about.
I kind of liked Kelly Clarkson. Her songs are snappy. She didn’t have anything handed to her on a silver platter. She’s cute. She weighs a little more than your average lady pop star and when critics snipe at her weight, she ignores them. I find that very admirable. And then…
She said she loves Ron Paul.*
Why, Kelly Clarkson, why? She later defended her statement, noting that she doesn’t agree with everything Paul stands for. She said, “I do not support racism. I support gay rights, straight rights, women’s rights, men’s rights, white/black/purple/orange rights”. That is all very nice except that Paul kind of is adamantly opposed to all of those things (minus the men’s rights). Clarkson may like that he stands for less government interference, except that he stands for the highest levels government interference in the most private of realms. So I just don’t get it. It makes me think that Clarkson just doesn’t want to pay her fair share of taxes to support a fair and just society. If that’s the case, I’m super disappointed.
Once Ron Paul and his dangerous, fundamental-minded ilk are gone, I will breathe for the first time in a long time. Until then, Clarkson is gone from my list of neat celebrities.
*Although for a little while I was confused and thought she endorsed Rick Santorum, which would be even worse since we opposes all forms of birth control, but still…
From the AP Poli Sci journal:
Feb. 6, 1994
At the end of World War II, someone promised that “never again” would there be a holocaust like the one that just ended. At the end of World War II, someone invented the word “genocide” to describe what had happened. Yesterday, 68 Bosnians were killed and 200 more injured when a market was bombed. “Ethnic cleansing” the Serbs and Croats call it. Not very much is being done to stop it.
Steven Spielberg has come out with his masterpiece “Schindler’s List.” He said in an interview that he hoped that people would be moved to action by it. He said that what is happening in Bosnia now, this “ethnic cleansing,” is genocide. “Never again” doesn’t mean that we will never allow another JEWISH holocaust, it means that we should never allow genocide again. Period.
Someone – a priest I think it was – wrote a poem. He said, “When they came to take away the Jews, I said nothing.” It continues about how they kept coming back to take more and more groups, and still he said nothing. It ends with, “Then they came to take away me, and nobody said anything.” The Talmud says, “He who saves one life saves the world entire.” Spielberg said that he hopes that “Schindler’s List” would wake the world, or just one person eve. Because one person makes a difference sometimes.
When I think about what happens in Bosnia, I cry. I see my family’s experience. I see people in trouble and the world turning their backs on them. When I think about Bosnia, I get angry. There people want democracy. The world claims to fight for democracy. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, a NONDEMOCRATIC country, we wasted no time getting our asses over there to “defend democracy.” Huh?!? Nice try. We just needed to defend our oil interests. We then stood by as the Iraqis slaughtered the Kurds, even though we provoked it. Ah, but silly me! I forgot that oil means more than human life. (Where are all the “pro-life” forces now?)
Silly me! I forgot that some people count more than others. I forgot that “never again” meant, “Well, only if we stand to profit from it.” What a beautiful world we live in!
From the journal I kept for AP Poli Sci, and I am glad that my thinking is a little more sophisticated now…
Feb. 3, 1994
19 kids found living in horrible conditions, fighting for food with the dog, crawling with cockroaches, etc.* The DCFS did nothing. My [relative] is a teacher in [a low-income suburb]. She told me that she knows of other children who live in similar situations. She told me that it recently took DCFS over SIX MONTHS to get one of her students removed from the CRACK HOUSE he lived in with his crack-addicted parents. What is going on here?!?
I’m so angry. I am also very bitter. So many issues are relevant, even contributing to, this disgusting abuse and neglect of kids. My relative pointed out two things. First, she said, DCFS is stuffed with too many burned out workers and people “who just don’t give a shit.” Second, she thinks that many families are not adequately taken care of because they are black. She feels the DCFS lets more bad things happen because they don’t care what happens to black children. I think that a lot of the mistakes DCFS makes is due to the screwy philosophiy that some members hold. I read a quote from a DCFS caseworker in some magazine (for the life of me I can’t remember which one) a while ago. He said that they feel it is more traumatizing for a child to be taken out of an abusive situation than to leave him with the ones he loves and is familiar with. Hmmm… when people who are in charge of protecting children from harm think such perverse, backwards theories, it’s amazing that anything gets done!
What makes me angriest, however, is the so-called “pro-lifers.” If they are so concerned about protecting life, where are they when children are forced to live under the poverty line, in misery, surrounded by drugs, gangs, prostitutes, and god knows what else?!? Are they down there working to clean up the neighborhoods? Are they clamoring for more health care benefits for these kids, better schools, better standards of living? Are they fighting for day care so that the women forced to bear children they don’t want can go to work to earn a living? Do they want to provide welfare so that mothers can stay home and care for their unwanted children? Are they adopting every single child who is born unwanted? If so, why are there more than 500,000 kids available for adoption that no one is taking? If 1.5 more children, unwanted by anyone, hated by society, are born EACH YEAR, where are they going to go?
Yes, all of this ties in to the 19 children who were found in their own hell. Because until our society is ready to care for every child who is born, we have no right to demand that women bear them.
PS – let’s not forget that poor women should not be able to have abortion because they can’t afford it. After all, they are the least able to raise children – with no resources, no education, small housing, etc. Women who can afford abortions are unaffected by the Hyde Amendment are allowed to plan their families. They can stop having children whenever they choose. (They also have better access to birth control.) Oh, never mind! I’m so frustrated!!!
*http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1994/04/24/why-leave-children-with-bad-parents.html
From my AP Poli Sci journal:
Jan. 31, 1994
I am so damn sick and tired of reading about “Whitewatergate.” The whole thing is SO blown out of proportion that it’s not even funny. Yes, fine. Maybe the Clintons did a little financial dance or maybe they didn’t. I don’t care. I can think of many more people who screwed around with money in the ’80s and weren’t punished. The catch phrase of that sick and decadent ear was aptly coined by Michael Douglas in the movie “Wall Street”: “Greed is good.” A lot of people, then, deserve to be punished for the ’80s.
At any rate, this is nothing compared to the corruption of Ronald Reagan. This man is the ultimate evil.* If he didn’t have a role in the Iran Contras, my name is Bob Dole. This man is responsible for the bad shape of our country today. (Actually, I’m getting off the subject.) Why are there no special prosecutors investigating Reagan and Bush for their roles?!? Why are we wasting time on a stupid and annoying issue (Whitewatergate) when these people are getting away with murder? And good old Oli wants to run for Senate?!?! Excuse my language, but these crooks can just kiss my ass.
Another thing that annoys me about this whole every-scandal-from-now-on-must-end-in-the-word-”gate” thing, is that it really undermines what Watergate was about. It was about the President believing that he was above the law – he’s the President and can do what he wants. Nixon deliberately subverted the laws he was supposed to defend. How can one compare Clinton to Nixon? One (Clinton) works to make life better for people, while the other (Nixon) used his powers to make his enemies’ lives a living hell.
Clinton is a good, for the most part. This “Whitewatergate” (say in dumb guy voice) is just a pathetic effort by Republicans to discredit him. Truly, they’ve stooped to new lows by biting at every “scandal” that just suddenly conveniently pops up. If I were (stupid enough to be) a Republican, I would be quite embarrassed by my party’s desperate measures.**
*Oh man. If only I had known back then what was to come with George W. Bush….
**Ah, the good old days. I almost look back on that level of interaction with fondness. Yeesh.
I was not planning to attend any of the memorials or activities offered to “remember” or “honor” September 11, 2001. That day has been used in so many ways that it is almost meaningless. When I think about how much worse off we are now than we were then, it infuriates me. The gap between the rich and the poor has exploded. The Republicans (and yes, I blame them 100%) used Sept. 11 as a way to divide our nation rather than unite it. As the New York Times wrote two days ago:
“Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in an interview that the planned ceremony only proved that New York was the “epicenter of secularism,” out of step with the rest of America.
New Yorkers, you see, aren’t real Americans. Real Americans, it seems, embrace religion – their own religion, of course – above everyone else and have no respect for the beliefs of others. And yes, that is exactly what so many elected officials are pushing these days. Well fuck it. If that’s what a real American is, then I am proud not to be one.
So, no, I wasn’t planning anything special today. But when I went outside this morning to go to the gym, there was a patch of super blue sky sticking out of the clouds when I looked north up Amsterdam Ave. The first thing I always think about whenever I think about that day ten years ago was how amazing the sky was. It was the truest of sky blue skies. When I looked at that piece of super blue sky, I thought about walking home from work that morning, next to a freakishly quiet West Side Highway, with no traffic save for the occasional emergency vehicles.
Then, as I approached the gym, I heard bagpipes and drums. Under even regular circumstances, bagpipes are about the most mournful sounding instruments on the planet. These bagpipes seemed to be coming from 77th Street, where I knew there was a firehouse. The bagpipes took control of my legs, and I walked past the gym and up the block, following the sound. The street was blocked off and a small crowd had assembled. The firemen were outside in their dress uniforms. As I approached, the music had quieted and they began ringing a bell and reading names. I am pretty sure they were the names of the fireman who died from that station.
I stood on the pavement with an assortment of Upper West Siders, listening. Some of us were in gym clothes, some on bikes, some with dogs. Tourists from the hotel across the street from the firehouse spilled out of the hotel. We listened. I watched the firemen as they struggled to maintain composure. Two women near me, in heels and classy dresses, cried. My throat became itchy with my own unreleased tears.
The names were read – a blessedly short, but tragic, list – and the bagpipes played “Amazing Grace.” The firemen dissipated, shaking hands and embracing one another. The small crowd broke apart, too, and we went back to our regular lives. I headed to the gym, two people stopped into the fancy cupcake bakery that did not exist ten years ago, and the dog walkers walked their dogs.
Ten years ago, our lives were supposed to have changed. We take a few seconds to comment on it, and then we go about our business. Life, for better or worse, goes on in the city – a city that I am proud to call home, and one that, to me, represents the best of what America has to offer people from every walk of life, even if it is not perfect.
Tags: 9/11, sept. 11, september 11
It seems that there was a comedy festival at the Upright Citizens Brigade a few weeks ago. I love the UCB and have been to many, many of their shows over the years. As always with improv, you never know if you are going to get comic genius (“The Real Real World” – which had a cast that included Nancy Drew and Mayor Giuliani which I must have seen 6 times – and a fake wrestling show that I forgot the name of that I adored and also saw a lot) or serious dud material. Since the most awesome Amy Poehler, feminist extraordinaire, is a UCB founder, I would never expect a whole monologue about raping someone. Yet that is exactly what the audience was treated to on August 14.
This “performance” is on tape. I decided that I already hate people enough that I don’t need to watch it. (An excellent post by Balancing Jane has the link to it if you feel the need to see it.) I can’t even imagine what I would do if I were in the audience, subjected to his vile story told as a hilarious romp.
I went to an amateur stand up show the week after this incident. Some of the jokes were raunchy and misogynist. I didn’t say anything. Some were racist. I didn’t say anything. Some were anti-Semitic (told, of course, by people who claimed to be Jewish). I didn’t say anything.
Audiences are in many ways captive to the performers. Certainly it is possible for the audience to turn against the person on stage and revolt, as I read happened here. But there’s also a risk that if the whole audience is not with the objector, then the person who objects will get double the wrath.
I don’t know. The whole thing makes me sick.
For the last few years, I’ve meant to head out to Ft. Tilden, a former military base turned park in the Far Rockaways section of Queens. A friend at work highly recommended it. I finally semi-made it there today with Husband and some friends.
Since my preferred method of travel, subway and/or bus, would have taken us about 2 hours, we decided to drive. The park website had car directions, but when we arrived, we learned there was no parking without a permit in the summer. Then, after ditching Augustus Gloop (our car) at the parking lot for neighboring Jacob Riis and walking along the concrete boardwalk back to Ft. Tilden park, we learned you cannot have a picnic there without a permit halfway through our picnic. (The ranger let us finish, though.)
As came back from the trash after cleaning up, I passed by a woman sitting under a tree to my right.
“Hey hipster! Go to the beach,” she hissed.
I looked behind me to see who she was talking to. There was no one there. I looked to my left. Also no one there. I looked back at her. She had a straw hat pulled over her face so I could not see who she was looking at.
“Hey hipster!” She hissed again. “Go to the beach!”
I realized that she was directing her comment to me. This made me want to laugh, as I am about as close to a hipster as Snooki to a Greek scholar. I wondered if she thought of all white people as hipsters, although I thought she was white, too. She hissed at me a third time. Then I felt awkward and weirded out.
The day was not a total bust, though. After having our picnic rushed, not being able to use the hiking trail with the cool wood stairs, and being called a hipster, we headed over to the nearby Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. It was gorgeous and not even the osprey circling the air seemed to mind our presence. Or maybe birds of prey like fake hipsters.
Last year, not long before graduation, I went to a supplemental seminar at school. The topic was how to give good public readings, which for reasons beyond me, I always first thought of as how to give good head. That would have probably been a more interesting class.
The instructor began by telling us that we needed to know our audience. “A is for audience” he said, and I rolled my eyes. “U is for understanding,” he continued. “Who is in the audience? You should understand what they expect.” Clearly, he did not know his audience because as he went down the list (“D is for…”), we all tuned out and pondered what a class about giving good head would have been like.
However, the lesson of knowing one’s audience is actually important. I was struck recently by two ludicrous pieces of junk mail that I received. The first, and most pernicious, was from a crazy-town anti-choice group called Live Action. It was some nutso rant against Planned Parenthood and their abortion mills and blah blah blah. They sent me their ravings because they wanted me to write about them, their “victories” for the dead babies or whatever the fuck they think they are doing rather than harming the world. Their leader, Lila Rose, is a cuntface moron with her fake “sting operations” and heavily edited “undercover exposes.”
In a way, they did know their audience: here I am writing about them. I am pretty sure they did not intend for me to write something that calls their leader a cuntface moron, so in that sense, they probably should not have sent me anything demonstrating that she is, in fact, a cuntface moron. If there is anyone I hate in this universe, it is cuntface morons and their minions.
The sillier junk mail arrived via the postal service. It was an ad from Bank of America for a new Cubs credit card. “We know you are one of the Cubs’ biggest fans,” it said, or something like that. (I threw it out, so I’m paraphrasing here.) My first thought is that if I am one of the Cubs biggest fans, than the Cubs must have some extremely pathetic people rooting them on. Now, in 1984, I was a huge Cubs fan, and I followed them closely through the 1980s. But that was a long time ago, and I probably should not have had a credit card when I was eight. I seriously wonder what database the brains at B of A were using for that campaign.
Anyway, know your audience. I am pretty sure that the readers of CUSS will not mind me calling Lila Rose a cuntface moron or mocking B of A. If you do, tough shit – you are probably the wrong audience.
Tags: B of A, Bank of America, Cubs, Lila Rose, Live Action
Dr. H and I were walking up 8th Avenue, chatting about the high and low points of “The Hangover Part II,” which we had just seen. As we crossed 42nd Street, a bus shot in front of us. It had made a reckless left turn and almost plowed through a crowd of people.
“HEY! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?” I yelled.
“What are you fucking doing?” screamed the guy next to me.
All five of the people who were nearly mowed down made similar comments. The bus driver never even looked at us. It was scary.
As he sped west on 42nd, I made a mental note of the phone number written on the back door. (It’s 201.945.0556, in case anyone is interested.) Once I was safely on the sidewalk, I fished out my phone and tried calling the bus company to complain about their lunatic employee, but – shocking! – no one answered. Dr. H and I discussed how upsetting it was to nearly be run over and how little the driver cared.
A block later, I noticed two cops standing on the sidewalk.
“Maybe I should mention it to them,” I said to Dr. H.
“What good would that do?” she replied.
“None, but I want to anyway.” I thought I would feel better if I vented. And these happened to be super cute po-po. I felt that it might soothe my raw nerves to chat up some nice looking dudes. As expected, there was nothing they could do, but they weren’t surprised. They knew exactly what I meant.
When we walked away from the cops, Dr. H and I chatted about how hot they were. It made us giggle a lot and feel better.
Sad, I know.
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Name: Suzanne Reisman
Location: New York, NY
I'm a misanthropic humanist. While I'm a do-gooder by training and profession, I sort of also loathe people. Now I write, too.
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