Thursday, January 29, 2009
It's a Public Service, Really
Monday, January 26, 2009
GW Shout Out, Love NCIS
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Ain't That the Truth
Visitors, Don't Poke the Locals; Just Walk Left
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2009; C12
Please stand on the right.
It is hard to properly convey how important that will be for your time here for the inauguration, so please just comply. When you are on a Metro escalator, boarding a Metro train or doing anything remotely affiliated with the transit authority's symbol, then please stand single file on the right and pass on the left.
Please do not say you are visiting "The Smithsonian." There are 14 Smithsonian museums on or around the Mall. Each is a totally different experience. Saying you are visiting "The Smithsonian" is like saying you are visiting "The Sweater" at JCPenney.
Please do not purchase or wear a shirt reading "FBI" or "You Don't Know Me! (Property of Federal Witness Protection Program)." If you must, purchase said shirt from a street vendor instead of spending $24 --
Sorry -- you knew that one already, didn't you? You never ever would have done that anyway. Sorry, sorry.
We're just a little on edge. It's not that we hate tourists. Not like New Yorkers do, with their Born-Here-Die-Here possessiveness. No, far from that. We actually have affection for you.
Many of us Washingtonians are transplants ourselves. We, too, come from Iowa or North Carolina. We, too, were once excited to learn that D.C. has a Hard Rock Cafe. (We went! We liked it! Once.) We see you in your non-ironic Keds, struggling to find your white paper farecard because you didn't know you would need it to exit the station, and our hearts involuntarily beat, My people! My people!
We want you to do well here. We want you to represent.
Please do not stroll. Please do not mutter, "Whoa, where's the fire, Buddy?" when someone is walking faster than you. You do not want to be that guy.
Please do not think you saw Will Smith. Most of the time when you think you see someone movie-star famous in D.C., you are wrong. Most of the time when you think you see a retired principal, it is someone famous. Like this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Waxman. He is famous. His name is Henry Waxman.
(Note: For the inauguration, you may actually see someone movie-star famous. Just be careful.)
Hey, you say. These are the most pointless tips I have ever read. I only started it because I thought I was going to learn something useful, like where to get a burger at 2 a.m. (Ben's Chili Bowl) You are dumb.
Please do not judge the tips. The tips are here to help you.
Please do not take pictures of the Supreme Court. It will remind us of the time we took a picture of the Department of the Treasury, and also make us feel guilty for never going inside the Supreme Court like we'd planned. (Note: You used to be able to tell the difference between the two because people prayed the rosary outside the Supreme Court, but they might start doing that any day now outside Treasury, too.)
The tips are here to help us, too. Washington is an imposing place, with a wonky and complex culture that is hard to understand. We worked hard to assimilate, and have only recently adjusted. At chaotic times like this, with administration changes and party changes and an influx of a whole bunch of new guys, we are all a little off-kilter. We all feel a little like tourists.
Seriously, guys, on the right. Single file.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
And Over the Bridge From Flushing to the Capitol Hill Door
Give It to The Nanny: Why Drescher Is Better Than Kennedy
So it looks like Irish bootlegging scion Caroline Kennedy might have this New York Senate appointment all wrapped up. If you've been paying attention at all, you know this is a disaster, primarily because the only political thing Caroline Kennedy’s ever done is be conceived by one of America’s most beloved presidents.
With Kennedy as the probable pick, other Senate hopefuls must be dejected, none more than former The Nanny star Fran Drescher, who’d thrown her unlikely hat into the ring early last month. We're a bit disappointed, too. Franny may not have been more qualified than Andrew Cuomo, but she's definitely as, if not more, qualified than Kennedy. Don't believe us? Let us count the ways.
She beat cancer
In 2000, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer, which she eventually overcame and wrote about in her second bestseller Cancer Schmancer. One of the most important problems the government is going to have to address in the coming years is the health care dilemma. Who better to help broach this insanely complicated policy question than someone who’s traversed the Byzantine American medical system herself?
She’s a female celebrity, too
Not that that should matter, but some people are saying that Hillary’s replacement should also be a well-known woman, so we’re just putting it out there.
She's familiar with the criminal justice system
No stranger to hardship, years before she was afflicted by cancer, Drescher was raped at gunpoint in her Los Angeles apartment. Hurt but unwilling to shrink from fear, Drescher pressed charges and eventually saw her attacker go to prison. Despite having a law degree, the never-practicing Caroline Kennedy's not once seen the inside of a courtroom. Drescher, on the other hand, has been in the thick of American criminal justice and could address the system's woes from a fresh perspective.
She's written two books
Not sure why, but Caroline Kennedy mentions the fact that she's written books whenever she's asked about her political qualifications. Fran Drescher's not written as many books as Kennedy, but she's authored two huge hits. So there's that.
She started two nonprofits
After beating cancer, Drescher founded two nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping other women diagnose cancer in stage one, when it is most susceptible to treatment. She's now president of the boards of both, where she works in conjunction with a famous honorary board member you've perhaps heard of: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She's a born and raised New Yorker
Unlike Caroline Kennedy, who bounced around quite frequently after being born in New York, Fran Drescher was born in Queens and stayed there until her early 20s. After spending some time in LA, Drescher moved back to New York and has been here since. As for Kennedy, although she's now resided in New York for quite some time, she hasn't lived anywhere besides the luxurious Upper East Side, a locale both geographically and financially far away from the real ills of New York. Never trust a New Yorker who's never seen a man shitting in the street.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sisters Do As Sisters Should...
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Spend It While You Got It!
Recession offers bargains for young, employed
Reyhan Harmanci, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
(12-22) 19:21 PST -- Sarah Krasley, 29, a business management student at the University of San Francisco, is buying small amounts of low-priced stock these days - and advising friends to follow her example.
Planet Out writer Josh Rotter, 30, isn't rich by any means, but this November, he decided to splurge, purchasing heavily discounted tickets to travel around the East Coast during Christmas.
San Francisco couple Maria McKee, 29, and Stephan Tsochandaris, 31, took an even bigger plunge: The duo bought an Oakland condo early this month.
"We didn't really start looking until late September, early October," said McKee, who works as a program analyst for the San Francisco Superior Court's Office of Collaborative Justice Programs. Until housing prices tumbled this fall, McKee said, buying property in the Bay Area seemed impossible.
For the younger employed set who lack crushing debt, mortgages or families to support, the recession has a silver lining: Previously out-of-reach items are suddenly affordable. As consumer prices fell 1.7 percent in November, the biggest monthly drop on record, some have decided to take advantage of the deals - though not without caution.
"In a year where we would have expected the consumer to say 'no' to spending, this younger generation - the young adults who have not had to divert all of their discretionary spending to other family members - continues to self-indulge," said NPD Market Research Chief Analyst Marshal Cohen.
"It's not a new concept," Cohen added, noting that "mobile young adult consumers" have always wielded buying power. "It's just a surprise that people are doing it when they are told not to."
Assessing the effects of the current recession on the Bay Area's younger set is difficult, as the credit crunch extends into many facets of life, and the region's demographics vary widely.
But if any place has plenty of young people with discretionary income to spend, it's San Francisco. With a high percentage of adults between 20 and 40 (34.9 percent versus 27.5 percent nationally, according to a 2004 American Community Survey estimate) and 61.6 percent of the city' residents renting their homes, San Francisco ranks high in "creative capital," according to Richard Florida, author of "Who's Your City" and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto.
"Young people will be hit far less hard than other people, and San Francisco in particular will do OK - the population is highly educated and diverse," said Florida. "They're not older people on a fixed income. They still have time to make up ground."
Cynthia Jaspar, a consumer spending expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that although young people are vulnerable to job loss in a recession, they will continue to be an important retail sector. Indeed, both the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine have reported on the youth-driven bright spots in retail: American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and Buckle stores are some of the only clothing companies to see sales rise in November. Analyst Cohen points to the video game industry as a sign that young adult buying power remains strong.
"The fastest-growing market for video games is the adult man, 18 to 35 ... not teens or preteens. Even if they are living at home, they are the least likely to cut back on consumption," he said. "Whoever figured that was going to happen."
But just because young consumers may be able to afford holiday sales doesn't mean they are spending with abandon.
"It's all about cutting corners," said Rotter, who is using coupons for the first time in his life. Many are using the Internet to compare prices, and others, like San Francisco resident Michelle Quint, 24, want to simply focus on saving: Quint plans on making most of her holiday presents to her friends, even as she considers adding discounted stocks to her portfolio.
Keeping tabs on debt is a big concern. Web designer Omar Lee, 36, who bought a flat screen and Apple TV in quick succession this fall, made both of his purchases with an ATM, not credit, card. "I definitely felt the opportunistic window. Stuff is cheap. But after (the TV purchases), I felt a quick sobering," Lee said. His next concern was making sure he had a "cash cushion" going into 2009.
Certainly, the culture of excessive spending itself has been called into question by the current recession. Many report a newfound sense of guilt or unease about buying things.
"I feel like there is a model for how you're supposed to act in a 'recession' and that is, tighten your belt," said Quint. "But logically, that doesn't make much sense when you're not personally losing any money."
It may be gauche to admit, but the lack of hefty obligations, financial or otherwise, remains a perk of youth. "If I had kids right now, I wouldn't be thinking of shopping at all. I wouldn't be thinking about $500 shoes," Rotter said.
"But I'm young, single and don't have the burden of property. This sounds really sad, but maybe we're like the carpetbaggers of the horrible economic situation."
Friday, December 19, 2008
Jews Beware! Christmas, Straight Ahead!
Oy, Hark!
A Jewish parent's guide to Christmas specials.
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008, at 3:01 PM ET
If you are a little Jewish kid, Santa Claus does not enter your home via the chimney on Christmas Eve. Instead, he arrives in late fall, usually by way of the Target catalogue and the television set. And if you are a little Jewish kid confronting old St. Nick for the first time via Frosty, Rudolph, Charlie Brown, or the 1966 animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you may find yourself with a lot of questions. "Mamma, who is Center and where are my presents?" asked my 3-year-old, rather randomly, in October. "Mommy, is Santa real?" my 5-year-old asks pretty much daily. In the way of 5-year-old boys everywhere, he follows that one up with "Mom, if Santa and Judah the Maccabee got in a fight, who would win?"
One needn't be virulently anti-Christmas to experience the seasonal anxiety felt by parents who want their children to enjoy the winter holidays while avoiding religious indoctrination. That's what makes parenting Jewish kids at Christmastime such a fraught proposition. Jewish women who as children were whisked away to Jewish vacation resorts in Florida marry Jewish men who hung Hanukkah stockings next to a Hanukkah bush, alongside the plate of gefilte fish they'd left out for Santa. It's hard enough reconciling two deeply held versions of the Jewish holidays. Just try blending two deeply held traditions regarding the noncelebration of Christmas.
I, for instance, grew up in a household that viewed only How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas as acceptable Jewish holiday fare. My husband, on the other hand, tells me he grew up with unfettered access to the whole panoply of animated Christmas specials. When we discussed this for the first time last weekend, I gasped: "They let you watch Rudolph?" I confess that I spoke the words as though his family had permitted him to spend his Decembers camped out in a crèche.
Whether you are Christian or Jewish, come Easter and Passover, The Ten Commandments represents one-stop entertainment shopping. But there are few winter holiday movies that speak to all religions. So last week I sent out an e-mail and posted on Facebook asking Jewish friends how they decided on the permissibility of the Christmas television specials. The responses were amazing. And also bonkers.
Overwhelmingly, the consensus was this: Jewish kids of my generation were permitted to watch one or all of: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and The Year Without Santa Claus. Therefore, their children are also allowed to watch them. But ask them why these movies pass muster and prepare for whomping exhibitions of illogic as only the People of the Book can practice it.
I learned this week that there exists an unspoken "no Jesus" rule, a "no Santa" rule (thus no Rudolph), a "no saints" rule (thus no Night before Christmas), a "no resurrections" rule (even if it's resurrection by proxy; thus no Frosty), and also a "no bad music" rule (thus no Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special). Perhaps my favorite e-mail laying out a Unified Theory of Jewish Christmas Viewing drew the line thus: "claymation and puppets, esp. from Europe = yes; cheap animation and pop music, esp. from US = no."
All of these rules would make more sense, of course, were it not for the fact that, as I mentioned above, apparently all Jewish children are permitted to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. This despite the fact that the classic ends with Linus Van Pelt earnestly reciting from Luke 2:8-14: "Fear not: For behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you."
It nevertheless seems there's something about that poor schlump of a Charlie Brown and his inability to get into the spirit of Christmas (much less receive a single Christmas card) that speaks to the Jewish people. Indeed, if there is a more profoundly Jewish line than Linus' "How can you take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem?" I have yet to hear it.
Many Jewish kids I heard from were permitted to watch the Grinch every year, yet somehow nobody (including my parents) is able to explain why this is so. Nearly everyone who wrote to me explained that the Boris Karloff version of the Grinch was "a classic." OK. But dig a little deeper and what surfaces is a universal (and discomfiting) sense that the Grinch is a fundamentally Jewish show because the Grinch himself is a fundamentally Jewish character. I got one e-mail that concluded, "Who is more of a Grinch than a grumpy old Jew?" And a Jew with a heart problem no less?
A fair point, perhaps, but why do Jewish parents want to be pushing this peculiarly self-loathing vision of the bitter old Jewish man on their kids? Do we drag our kids to see The Merchant of Venice? If anything, the weird Grinch-as-old-Jew notion would seem to suggest that of all things Jewish kids should not be watching at Christmastime, the Seussian classic tops the list. But perhaps my colleague Emily Bazelon is right, and Jewish kids like the Grinch because "Without the ending, the movie is the ultimate fantasy for a Jewish kid with a case of Santa/tree/carols envy—Christmas, canceled."
To the panoply of Christmas rejecters and cancellers above, one can readily add the Heat Miser and Snow Miser from The Year Without Santa. Again, the show clearly violates the "No Santa" rule, and yet nearly everyone I spoke to grandfathered it in as Jewishly acceptable. Asked why, the response is that the sheer genius of the Heat Miser/Snow Miser musical rivalry redeems any sectarian message. Yet it's hard not to wonder again whether there's something about the grouchy, bitter misers—misers!—poised to wreck Christmas that seems to speak to Jewish parents.
Ultimately, most Jewish parents wrestling with what to let their kids watch at Christmastime seemed really to be coping with their own remembered feelings of exclusion. (That's why this may be the single greatest Jewish Christmas song ever written.) It may also explain why little Jewish kids get to watch so many shows in which Christmas almost doesn't happen—or about grouchy people who feel bitterly lacking in the Christmas spirit.
None of this solves any of my own questions about what to tell my children about the sudden appearance-but-not-acceptance of Santa in their lives. Perhaps it is instructive that my 5-year-old's Judah the Maccabee story is a seamless and lengthy narrative of Hasmonean warriors, light sabers, and the spiritually redemptive powers of heat vision, such that tossing a Rudolph or Frosty into the mix will hardly dilute its already syncretic spiritual appeal. This is not so much an argument for the great universalist Teddy Ruxpin Christmas display as a suggestion that the proper non-Christian response to Christmas joy is not to try to block, suppress, or hide from it. Or to limit our kids' Christmas viewing to movies featuring charming yet bitter protagonists bent on blocking, suppressing, or hiding from it.
In my research for this piece, I finally sat down and watched Frosty, Rudolph, and Pee-Wee's Christmas special. And in doing so, I came across a good deal of material that may well have been more familiar to the Maccabee brothers than to Santa. Indeed, Rudolph's immortal words to Hermey the Misfit Elf may be said to poignantly encapsulate 5,000 years of Jewish aspiration: "Goodbye, Hermey. Whatever a dentist is, I hope someday you will be the greatest!"
Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2206361/