Or so sayeth Senator Grassley of Iowa, who the News affectionately calls a hick. Grassley contends that the aloof, fashion-forward “New York attitude” is what cost Giuliani votes in the heartland. Bollocks, says I. Explain the continued popularity of Sex and the City, Senator Grassley.
Rudy’s loss of course has nothing to do with the fact that he’s running as a conservative but has been married three times and occasionally wears dresses in public. Nor does it have anything to do with “Noun verb 9/11.” Nor does it have anything to do with what a colleague said to be the other day is Rudy’s whole schtick: That New Yorkers love him, despite the fact that almost every major New York publication has published editorials brimming with hate. Nope. Chalk it all up to a New York attitude.
I just realized that yesterday was the 30th. I dated everything I did yesterday the 29th. Whoops!
+ Also yesterday, Mental Floss put up a post about the Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee, which devised rules for subway racing. In said races, one must either ride the entirety of every line, touch every station, or pass every station. Wild, right? I always intended to ride the A train from one end to the other just to see what that was like, but… I’m a New Yorker. I don’t have that kind of time.
+ I don’t know how to feel about this this new reality show produced by Tyra Banks and Ken Mok, wherein publishing assistants compete to become assistant editors at a fashion mag. You know, rising the ranks in the publishing industry involves a lot of pain and suffering for not very much money. Why would anyone want to put themselves through a reality show in addition to that? So the prize is a 50-hour week and $30,000? Cuz that’d be accurate, at least. No, thanks.
Thumbs down. Edwards wasn’t going to win the nomination, but I had hope, you know? Does this mean I have to choose one of the other clowns to vote for next Tuesday?
Full disclosure: I wrote part of my thesis on the literature of Toni Morrison. So I’ve done my homework here, I guess you could say.
She’s back in the news because she endorsed Obama (and if I were swayed by endorsements, that’s a pretty eloquent one). And the right wing, predictably, flips right out. Amanda explicates. So does Jill. I don’t have a whole lot to add, beyond that this particular anti-Morrison rant is about the least-informed bit of knee-jerk tomfoolery I’ve seen in a while. I don’t make a habit of dwelling in Right Wingnuttia, but I want to defend Toni Morrison as a wise woman and a gifted writer who has had more to say on race and gender, and said it better, since The Bluest Eye was published in 1970, than this guy. (And, granted, Beloved is not even my favorite Morrison novel — that honor belongs to Paradise — but it’s still deserving of the accolades it got. This guy’s allowed to have his opinions, and I’m allowed to think he doesn’t get it, which he probably doesn’t if Tom Clancy is his idea of good literature.)
Ugh. Reading that bit of drivel leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yes, the government would never allow anything harmful to be in the market. Amanda says, “Planned Parenthood was always the home of real family values.”
+ There are some really interesting clips on the Root from an upcoming PBS special called African American Lives 2, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. I think I actually caught part of the first one on TV — it’s all about genealogy and mid-19th century history, two things I’m fascinated by. Clip highlights include Don Cheadle learning that his ancestors were owned by Native Americans, Morgan Freeman learning that his white great-grandfather and his black great-grandmother may have had a loving relationship despite the circumstances of their day, and a teary Chris Rock learning that one of his ancestors enlisted as a Union soldier during the Civil War.
+ Other Things I’m Reading: I spent a good chunk of yesterday reading Margaret Cho’s archives at HuffPo. I’ve seen her live twice, I think. She’s awesome, but you knew that. | I just bought this book at the Strand. It looks really interesting, thirty years of recent New York history. Plus, there’s a photo of my old block in Inwood on page 335, so I am already endeared.
+ Also just bought Lisa Loeb’s recently reissued Purple Tape. Am I the only one still listening to Lisa Loeb? The album is so deliciously early-90s New York, it fits pretty well with the new book.
I was thinking this morning that, when I first started blogging in August 2003, I was thinking that the blog would just sort of be a brain dump, a place for whatever I was thinking about to go. Then I started writing about politics and science, and it kind of evolved from there. If I start writing more often, it might go back to being a hodge podge of whatever, but either way, it’ll be fun, so I hope you stick around for the rejuvenated blog.
Spotted outside Heights Coffee in Prospect Heights Brooklyn. Two types of punctuation abuse: gratuitous use of quotation marks and gratuitous apostrophes.
And lo there was increased speed and portability. And then one humble blogger shall writeth with more frequency, from more locations, with more ease. Gone were the days of the eight-pound behemoth PC, gone were the Windows. Alas, there was no Vista to look over, but the future was bright.
I’m feeling punchy today, so I’ve got a wild idea for you. I wonder if it might be possible that individuals might vote based on, you know, policy and what a candidate stands for and not gender or skin color. I know, I know, I’m a white woman, my vote is pre-ordained practically. But just hear me out. Do you think that, maybe — just maybe — people’s future stake in the economy, health care, the environment, the war, domestic policy, reproductive rights, foreign policy, any of these things might possible influence people when they pull the lever in the voting booths? It’s a totally revolutionary concept, I realize, but just think about it for a moment. And think about how little progress we’re making towards our egalitarian utopia when you keep putting people — women and minorities in particular — into their little boxes and tell them how to think.
So, thanks, white male American news media, for helping me decide how to vote!
