Why I Could Never Run for President

I've talked before about why I could never run for president. There are some skeletons (and photographic evidence of said skeletons) that would come back to haunt me and destroy my candidacy. In addition, I'm just not smart enough to be president. I mean, trying to follow this economic crisis over the past several weeks has left me feeling like a first grader trying to read Anna Karenina. I would not be the person to make these crucial decisions about our economy. I can't even balance my freakin' check book.

Last night, though, I realized the most important reason why I could never be president. See, here's the thing. If I had been debating John McCain last night, I would probably be in jail today because I don't know if I could have refrained from punching McCain in the face. I'm not a particularly violent person, but McCain so riled me last night that at one point I yelled at Obama through my tv screen to punch McCain for me. He was so smug and dismissive and frankly offensive that I was enraged. Whether it was the air quotes around "health of the woman" when he talked about abortion policy or his continued push for school vouchers, I was just disgusted.

(Just one thing about school vouchers: I have a serious problem with the idea. The answer to a struggling school is not to pull students from said school and send them to the "better" schools. The answer is to help those schools to stop struggling by investing some money and recruiting teachers, providing resources, and breathing new life into these schools. At a later date, I'll share with you an "insider's" view to No Child Left Behind and the damage it's done to our schools and our students. Oh! And one other thing -- if Joe the Plumber is pulling in more than $250,000 a year, I have a hard time feeling a lot of sympathy for him when I'm struggling to make ends meet with the paltry sum I bring home every two weeks as a teacher.)

I was impressed by Obama's restraint last night. I was impressed by his cool and his intelligence. I was impressed that he didn't clean McCain's clock. Any guy who can keep his cool when faced with that kind of arrogance and condescension is a far better person than I am and is far better qualified to lead this country.

Friends Don't Let Friends . . .

Y'all, I'm having a crisis. I'm beginning to think I've made a huge mistake by making the choice not to watch Gossip Girl. I thought I was too old. I thought I wasn't hip enough. But this week, I'm not so sure.

First, there was this post from Mike that literally had me gasping aloud at the twist and turns of a show I've never watched.

Then, there was this .

I suspect my Monday DVR queue is about to become a lot more crowded.

Weapon of Campaign Destruction

A lot has been made about Barack Obama's alleged "relationship" with former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Sarah Palin and other McCain surrogates have argued that since Obama and Ayers were acquainted and Ayers has a "terrorist" history, that makes Obama a friend/supporter of terrorism.

First of all, what a ridiculous leap in logic. Disregard for a moment that the link between Obama and Ayers is maybe one step above "casual acquaintance" -- they served on a committee together and Ayers hosted a fundraising party for Obama. Even if their relationship was friendlier than that, the idea that Obama in any way supports or stands for what Ayers once did is completely faulty. First of all, Ayers committed these acts of "terrorism" nearly 40 years ago, decades before he even met Obama. Obama himself was a child when the Weathermen were at their height. Secondly, since when do the actions of our friends reflect on us? I have Republican friends, but I don't vote Republican. I have friends who practice different religions, root for different sports teams, and generally believe in things I don't believe in. Their choices don't reflect my personal beliefs just as my choices don't reflect theirs.

I also have a problem with the way Bill Ayers's name has been dragged through the mud by this campaign. Yes, he was involved in some pretty nasty business back in the 60's and 70's. His actions, though, stemmed from a belief that the government was involved in morally bankrupt practices and needed to be stopped. Ayers and his colleagues saw their actions as revolutionary -- just as a bunch of "terrorists" did back in 1776. When the Weathermen bombed buildings, they sent warnings that included evacuation notices, identification of the protest being stated, and gave details that would spare lives. They didn't fly airplanes into buildings. Their protests were violent but focused and stemmed from beliefs that were shared by a large number of people in this country at the time.

In the years since the Weathermen disbanded, Ayers has gone on to be a productive member of society. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, one of the top universities in the nation. He is involved in numerous charities throughout the Chicago area. Do the actions of the man not get to outweigh at some point the mistakes of the boy? Doesn't a lifetime of responsibility get to erase a few years of poor choices? The fact of the matter is that this man who has spent decades educating and giving to others and now has been turned into a weapon of campaign destruction.

The fact of the matter is that the McCain campaign has become convinced that the only way to win this election is to ignore the issues that plague the hearts and minds of America and is attempting to appeal to our fears by painting Obama as dangerous and evil. McCain had that moment where he tried to assure voters that there was nothing to fear where Obama is concerned, but he's done little to stop his supporters from shouting racial epithets or crying out for Obama to be killed. The nastiness that is being fostered by the McCain campaign is shameful and the fact that this seems to be backfiring on him in the polls gives me hope that American elections can become civil someday.

Baby and Me

Well, I'm back from my birthday weekend in Chicago. Talk about shaking off a funk! I had a wonderful birthday spent with great friends, great shopping, great food, great sangria, and more.

My sis and I caught the train Saturday afternoon and were in Naperville around 2:45. On the train, I finally had the uninterrupted reading time to read Dennis Letts's amazing August Osage County. You know, sometimes you read a script everyone is raving about and you're like, "Meh." The hype can kill the script because your expectations are so incredibly high. But then you get your hands on a script like this one and it's just like, "The praise isn't enough!" It was also the first time in a long time that I didn't read a script and think how I would direct it or think about how much I'd love to play a certain part. All I could think was, "I need to freakin' SEE this play!" It really is an American classic. Amazing.

After my friend Deb picked me up from the train and we dropped off my stuff and I changed from train clothes into theatre-going clothes, we headed into the city where we met up with my friends Pete and Bart and headed for some tapas. I'd never experienced tapas before, so let me just say, "YOWZA!" That stuff was incredible. We ate so much and drank so much sangria. I'm actually surprised I was able to handle seeing a play after drinking and eating so much.

But I was. Dirty Dancing was a lot of fun. It was a little different than I expected. I thought it would be more of a traditional music with the characters singing and maybe with the storyline even tweaked and streamlined for the stage, but it wasn't like that. A lot of the music simply provided a score for the action, and about 98% of the stuff on stage was right from the movie -- every scene was there with a few added that we wondered if maybe had been cut from the movie but a part of the original script. The show was a technical marvel with its use of projection and turntables. The dancing was incredible. Plus, for the uber-geek in me, it was cool to see Dr. Houseman played by John Bolger who has appeared on two different episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, an episode of Sex and the City, and has done plenty of time on soaps -- Guiding Light (he was a Phillip!), Another World, and One Life to Live. (Mike, I KNOW you know who this guy is!)

It did have its flaws. Sometimes, the score was a little too loud. The guy playing Johnny was really, how do I put this? . . . not good. His acting was very stiff and "acting-y" and it didn't help that he hadn't completely shaken his Australian accent. I'm sure that accent was fine in Toronto or London where they probably marveled over his "American" accent, but here in America, we know what Johnny Castle is supposed to sound like, and it's not like Crocodile Dundee's younger brother. Sorry, dude. You dance well, but keep working on that accent.

Johnny's deficiencies were more than made up for by the actress playing Baby. Recognizing that people seeing the musical pretty much wanted their memories of the film relived, Amanda Lee Cobb essentially channeled Jennifer Grey. She was the whole package -- the hair, the voice, the wardrobe. And her performance reminded me why this movie had such an impact on me when I sat in a downtown movie theatre on my 16th birthday seeing a movie I'd basically rolled my eyes about when I had first heard about it.

For me, Dirty Dancing had nothing to do with dancing or Patrick Swayze or the music. It was about Baby Houseman. Let's take a moment to go back and meet 16-year-old Mel. I was awkward and unsure of myself. It didn't help probably that two of my closest friends had moved away within the first two years of high school and the friend I had left was super smart and super beautiful and super talented (artistically and musically). I was smart and deeply into politics -- and just about the only person I knew like that.

For my 16th birthday, Caity (the super perfect best friend mentioned above) and I decided for a lowkey celebration. We decided to go see Dirty Dancing even though we'd both groaned aloud when we had first seen the preview. I thought (and honestly still do) Patrick Swayze was icky, and the whole thing just had seemed lame. When it opened in August, it was a definite "pass." By October, though, the phenomenon was growing, the movie had been playing downtown for months, and I'd heard enough about it that I thought maybe I wouldn't mind seeing it. Plus, there was nothing else playing that we wanted to see. (This was before a multiplex hit town.)

Sitting in that theatre, I suddenly saw "myself" on screen. Here was this awkward "daddy's girl", not what people would call "conventionally pretty" (although I would have killed to look like Jennifer Grey back then -- pre-nose job), politically idealistic, and completely real. Baby wasn't sure how to act in some situations (the whole watermelon scene is indicative of that). She can't control her giggles during the more sensual moments of her dance with Johnny. When Johnny rescued Baby from the corner, it sent my soul soaring, and again, it wasn't about Patrick Swayze. It was about this notion of breaking free to discover who you really are. Baby Houseman became an icon to a generation of awkward girls who were smarter than their peers, who wanted to make a difference in the world, and who wanted to break free. Baby made it okay to be different and told us that even if we were different, someone would find us special.

This weekend, all those feelings came flooding back to me as I watched this new Baby find her voice and her courage and follow her heart. And I have a feeling I wasn't the only person who cried just a little when she flew into her triumphant lift during the finale -- that symbolic moment where Baby breaks free and soars. It still moves me to this day.

The rest of the weekend went well -- good shopping, good times. And I came home from the weekend feeling particularly recharged -- and I think a lot of it had to do with reconnecting with the Baby Houseman I was, still am, and will always be.

I Carried a Watermelon!

I'm feeling very "blah" today. A lot of ennui. Maybe it's the quickly approaching birthday with which I am grappling and the constant questions that plague me around this time of year about what I'm doing with my life and whether I've done what I think I should have done by now. Maybe it's just my growing disillusionment with the direction this campaign has taken. The negativity in both the McCain camp and its supporters is just downright scary. When people in the audience are screaming "Kill him" about the opponent (particularly when it's in the face of lies and false allegations), it makes me more than just a little sick. Maybe it's that fall weariness that tends to set in right about now at work -- overwhelmed with the teaching and the lack of enthusiasm my students bring to the classroom. This week, I faced a group of incredibly apathetic seniors who see no value in reading the short stories we're reading in class, caught two plagiarists in my freshmen English class as I graded book reports, and dealt with a lead in the play who has skipped two rehearsals this week with no notification (and shaky cause). No doubt about it -- I'm in a bit of a funk.

I'm headed to Chicago this weekend to celebrate my 37th birthday in much the same way I celebrated my 16th birthday -- by seeing Dirty Dancing. However, while my high school best friend Caity and I merely walked to the downtown movie theatre to see Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze strut their stuff, I'm joining my dear friend Deb from college to see Dirty Dancing LIVE AND ONSTAGE! Yes, I'm seeing the musical inspired by the classic film that shaped my remaining two years of high school so clearly. I'm excited for the chance to shake off this funk and rejoice in the simple story of a brainy Jew who discovers love, sex, and back alley abortions while vacationing in the Catskills. If anything will make me forget aging, Sarah Palin, and apathetic teens for a few hours, it's Baby Houseman and the gang at Kellerman's.

Woo hoo!!

Debate This!

Like many of you, I tuned in nervously to last night's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. With the McCain camp becoming more and more negative in the past several days, I wasn't really sure how nasty McCain would get when Obama was standing right there.

Fortunately, outside of the "that one" bit which didn't really register with me as offensive in the moment, McCain kept the bile a little under control, but he still came across as a grumpy, petulant old man who was pissed to have to go through this. I don't get a sense of joy or passion from McCain -- and that's troubling. I don't want a President who doesn't have a passion for the job. We've all seen (or even worked with) people who hate their jobs. It's not pleasant -- the bitching and moaning and lackluster effort that often results makes everyone feeling lousy, even the people who DO like their jobs. Is that the guy we want leading us? The guy who'd rather be on the golf course than working on the big presentation? Or the guy who brings an intensity and excitement to the job and keeps striving to be better -- and encouraging us to be better, too.

I pick option #2.

Don't Know Much About History?

Last week at the debate, Sarah Palin tried to take a couple jabs at Joe Biden about his repeated references to history, particularly his repeated references to the failures of the Bush II administration. Biden's response was that "The past is prologue," a response I'm sure Palin didn't quite get. On Meet the Press Sunday, Peggy Noonan expressed her concern (and frustration) that all this focus on history and the past was clouding the real issues of this election -- namely the economic crisis and the TWO wars we're fighting. For a lot of us amateur politicos and the trained pundits, it does often seem a little counterproductive to hammer away on the mistakes of a past administration in an attempt to sell your own administration. I thought that way, too, until last night.

While flipping through the channels, I came across an installment of American Experience on PBS that dealt with the Carter administration. Considering the fact that I was 5 when he was elected and 9 when he left office, I admit I wasn't all that familiar with the Carter years. I knew some rough things; I remembered the Iran hostage crisis and Billy Beer and Amy and peanut farming and that was about it. I learned a lot last night, a lot that made me grab onto this notion of the past being prologue and hope that people in both the Obama and McCain camps were paying a little attention.

Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 by one of the slimmest margins in American electoral history. It was an election that wasn't called until 3 in the morning -- that's how close it was. He came into office following eight years of a corrupt, paranoid Republican administration that resorted to any dirty tricks it thought it could get away with to secure victory. Carter, a pretty total unknown prior to his out-of-nowhere victory in the Iowa caucus, ran as an agent of change, a folksy populist who was a Washington outsider and was going to ride into town and clean things up. He brought with him to Washington a smart, independent wife (who would sit in on staff meetings and just listen) and a cute, school-aged daughter who would attend public schools and become best friends with the daughter of the cook at the Chilean embassy. He inherited a battered economy, an energy crisis, and emerging powers in the Middle East that would not go ignored.

Sound familiar?

The Carter administration, which could be labeled as anything from a disappointment to an outright failure, can teach us many lessons, lessons which the Obama and McCain camps might want to note.

You can't govern this nation without participating in the actual government. Carter was an outsider and brought with him to the White House a staff of loyal but stubborn outsiders. These people had no clue how Washington worked, and as a result, they were eaten alive by a powerful and increasingly hostile Democratic Congress. Had Carter had some advisers who were familiar with the machinery of Washington politics, perhaps he could have navigated the shark-infested waters a little more competently and seen some of his policies enjoy more success. So while Sarah Palin continues to preach the gospel of the evils of "Washington Insiders," she may want to consider the fact that she may need those Washington Insiders someday.

Don't bite off more than you can chew. The first months of the Carter administration saw a flurry of attempted policies be put out there and rejected. Carter seemed to realize almost immediately that his administration would only last one term, and so he tried to cram as much as he could into those four years he had. It made his administration seem manic and unfocused. Good ideas were lost in all the noise.

The sad thing is that Jimmy Carter clearly had his heart in the right place and could have been a great president had he been more open to some compromise and adjustment. (One comment that was made last night was that although Carter was a man who typically relished any opportunity to learn, he stubbornly refused to learn how to play the Washington game.) He was perhaps our first green president -- encouraging people to take measures to save energy at home, canceling magazine subscriptions to reduce paper waste, riding in more fuel efficient cars than limos, and refusing to turn the air conditioning on in the White House. (Walter Mondale's comments on the summer heat of the White House were priceless.) He brought a good heart to the White House, a rarity then and now. Looking at Carter's life post-White House shows what a decent, visionary man he really was. The humanitarian he has become has overshadowed the disappointment he was as president.

Let's just hope we learn the lessons of that sad administration 30 years ago and don't end up with another disappointment after a campaign filled with such hope and promise.