Like Rebecca Traister, the author of this Salon piece on Hillary v Chris Matthews, I too am not a Hillary supporter. But last night I was glad she proved the pundits wrong. I don’t have cable but, surprise surprise, I read the play-by-plays on what they were saying about her on Twitter.
As a woman wants to be taken seriously, I was annoyed at how the final word on Hillary the other night at the debate was about her wardrobe. But I also didn’t like her girly response to the likability question, “Well, that hurts my feelings…” I haven’t seen the video of her tearing up, but that’s no reason why people, even her fellow opponents, should gang up on her.
The Salon essay is great, so I won’t blather on anymore. Go read it and let me know what you think.
See also the links Jill points us to in her post on the matter.
I’ve been wide awake since 4am and thought about blogging the whole time but wanted to will myself back to sleep. For the past week I have barely gotten more than 5 hours of sleep each night and when I took something for my headache, it just made me a”medicine head” all yesterday. Now that I’ve had to call in to school to cancel my Expository Writing class, I thought I’d put a post up before I take a Benadryl and really try to get rid of this sinus pressure, slight fever, AND SOME SLEEP!
So here’s just to say GEAUX NEW ORLEANS SAINTS AND MINNESOTA TWINS! You’ve made mine a very happy household, despite the lack of sleep. Too out of it to link properly, just go to ESPN.com to see what I’m talking about!
I love this commercial anyway and can’t imagine being the actor or so-called “real person” who had to sit at the same table as Little Richard and keep a straight face! However, it is all the more funny with W superimposed. Thank you Jon Stewart!
OK I know that the Today Show is hardly the place to turn for hard news, but I’ve often listened to the first 15 minutes or so to get the headlines since I don’t have cable. Sometimes when I sleep late, I turn it on only to find that last hour of fluff (concerts, cookouts, etc) and no news at all. So imagine my surprise this morning when I saw in the first fifteen minutes of “top stories” a report on Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn being engaged. And the key source of this news: an editor or reporter from US Weekly. What the hell?????? Sure, I can see why some might find that story to be vital to the start of one’s day, and I love me some Vince, but since when are gossip rags called in as credible sources? I even read something the other day on MSNBC that referenced another gossip site TMZ.com. Sad sad sad…
I’m going back to my academic reading and pretend none of this happened…
You have to check out this PDF which is a photo essay of soon after Katrina and the most recent return to campus. I’ve walked through or taught in several of those buildings and it is amazing to see the devastation and renovation both on the same page.
Found this blog via Metroblogging New Orleans and find its video post to be yet another wonderful example of the truth: what people in NOLA are facing as well as what the places look like, even those places nearby folks who have started rebuilding. Everything is so scattered and the binary that exists nowadays is optimism and harsh reality.
Nola.com reports the latest numbers of Katrina-related deaths. Here’s a passage I find most interesting:
…weeks after it made landfall Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina kept claiming Louisiana victims, often in more subtle fashion and often in other states: elderly and ill evacuees too fragile for grueling trips on gridlocked highways, infants stillborn to mothers who were shuttled to other cities when they should have been on bed rest and residents overcome with anxiety by 24-hour television broadcasts of the devastation back home.
The last part of this is fascinating and links to the work I’ve read of Bessel van der Kolk [see page 5 of the PDF “The Limits of Talk”]. Being left helpless in a strange city and separated from where the trauma occured can be more mentally devastating than being there, evacuees want nothing more than to physically do something. They don’t want to talk or reflect; they want to move on, check on their homes, rebuild, save pets, find tangible memories…unfortunately, as this article reports, many lives were lost to such anxiety.
As you know, my focus of study is, what about those who went online to try and do something? How did that inform the traditional media’s reporting of the hurricane? How can trauma theory be used to articulate and analyze those moves?
I can’t wait to start writing! I ordered several more items from Amazon today to keep my work up-to-date and comprehensive: Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge : A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival and the 2005 Complete Guide to the Hurricane Katrina Disaster – Federal Reports, Government Response, Science Reports, Devastation to Louisiana, New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama dvd. It’s been pretty difficult to read about the goings on of that week in late-August, but I have to make sure that I contribute something, even if it is in dissertation form rather than physical labor.
Gavin Mahlie, one of New Orleans’ most active and popular actors, died in his sleep Tuesday morning. He was 42.
The only actor to have appeared in all 12 seasons of The Shakespeare Festival at Tulane, he had acted in more than 60 local theater productions at virtually every stage in town. His “Richard III ” and Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” were but two of a gallery of his celebrated Shakespearean portrayals. He was also a regular in the political plays of local playwright Jim Fitzmorris.
His last performance was in the title role of “Uncle Vanya” for the Red Noses theater company, which he helped found. He was to have reprised his baggy-pants comic version of Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for school audiences this month and was set to star in “Kimberly Akimbo” next month in Southern Rep’s first post-Katrina staging.
I think tomorrow’s paper in New Orleans is to have more information. I am still finding out information and have spent all day remembering Gavin’s performances and quirky personality. I’d never have thought he would be a fan of the Black Eyed Peas, but he was. That still makes me smile.
Although people who are related generally disagree….
Here’s the deal: I had the same thoughts as Bob years ago when I heard about the money being spent on a Mars mission. I have nothing against NASA or other scientific powers that be. My father made pieces of the external tank of the Space Shuttle at Martin Marietta for 30 years. But I cannot understand why the government would fund space exploration at a time when, as Bob Schieffer puts it, “We can’t figure out how to get those thousands of trailers standing empty in Arkansas down to New Orleans down to house the people who lost their homes during Katrina, but we’re designing housing for the moon?”
While I am not a basketball fan, you can’t help but watch a few seconds of March Madness while channel surfing. Yesterday we watched a full game though, that being the NCAA Division II championship game. The winners, Winona State! Just a hop, skip, and jump away from AC’s alma mater, St. Mary’s. Here’s a link to the Winona Daily News story, although I think the headline should read “Reaction in Winona huge” rather than “hug.” You tell me…although they are a friendly people!
We’re gonna call AC’s friends to see if there was crazy partying in the streets last night–first round of cheese curds is on me!
I had visited CBSNews.com looking for the text of the interview I saw on Anne Rice this past Sunday, but instead came across these two: Unearthing Pompeii which discusses natural disasters, and “New Orleans Mayor: Rebuild Anywhere.” The latter doesn’t restore my faith in the current mayor, but the Bring New Orleans Back Commission report looks hopeful. I want to help them achieve their recommendations, “from revamping schools to consolidating some city offices. The wish-list of projects included new light-rail systems, more farmers’ markets, new riverfront development, job-training sites and better flood protection.”
