The Other Boleyn Girl review

If my World History teachers would have found textbooks that were half as engaging as The Other Boleyn Girl, I would have aced he subject. Phillipa Gregory does a fantastic job of taking a very complex and potentially confusing period in Britain's history and completely sucking the reader in. I've never been able to follow the Tudor line until now, and it's because for the first time I can see them as people (or characters) instead of just names across a page. If only textbook writers could make history this compelling....

The novel follows Mary Boleyn, Queen Anne's younger sister, who at the age of about fourteen becomes King Henry VIII's second mistress. Although she is married already, her family (sister Anne included, as well as brother George) schemes to make her the king's favorite in hopes that she will provide him with the male heir that his wife, Katherine, has failed to do. Mary has two children, but when they are stripped from her, she falls out of love with king and court, leaving the opening for Anne, the more ambitious of the two, to step in. Obviously, Anne wins the king and displaces Katherine as queen.

The characterizations of the principals were beautifully done. The Boleyn sisters, Mary and Anne, remained sympathetic throughout the novel despite their wavering between petty courtier machinations and their desires for deeper meaning in their lives. I was never able to see Anne Boleyn as more than a conniving b***h, who stole the queenship, and she mostly was, but Gregory gives her some real heart and emotion. Anne experiences real love at one point and it is stolen from her because of her gender, her inability to decide her own destiny. Who wouldn't become a harpy after that? Mary is little more than a pawn for the majority of the novel, but manages to rise above the intrigue of the court at last in sharp contrast to her sister.

King Henry is given depth as well. Instead of just a fat, gluttonous tyrant, Gregory shows glimpses of him as a doting husband and father to his legitimate wife. Although he did have his mistresses, he did have a very high regard for Katherine, and even for Anne until she overstepped her bounds. He is a classic example of how 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

I listened to the audio of The Other Boleyn Girl and Ruthie Henshall's narration was lovely to hear. She kept the characters distinct and moved the story along as well as any bard of old.

I give this novel 4.75 out of 5 stars and recommend it as a great summer read.

The Liberation of My Head

Back in October I posted about having to get my hair done for a wedding. Reading back through it, I'm kind of laughing at myself. I had an almost identical experience this weekend, with a much different outcome!

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a while now - mostly out of a need for change, but also because my scalp has really been bugging me. It doesn't like being trussed up and usually responds by itching and being generally annoying. A few months ago, I had a minor meltdown and cut my dreds halfway, to about chin length. They had just gotten too heavy and I was sick of them being on my neck. It was a cute compromise and I was okay with it for a while.

Then another wedding came up, ironically, another of my husband's cousins. I made an appointment for Friday to see the loctician I finally found locally. Now, this appointment was a huge inconvenience, but I wanted to get my hair done - it was looking pretty shabby, I'll admit, and has been extra irritating because of the heat. I had told her I wanted to cut it, but she was trying to talk me out of it. Well, Friday came, I spent and extra hour of driving time (just try to calculate the gas costs on top of that!) and got there to learn that she was 45 minutes behind schedule. Now I'm not one of these prima donna types, but I did have a very small window to see her before I had to be home to get my son from the school bus. So I couldn't wait. And I couldn't reschedule for Saturday because I had to work in the morning. I was a little pissed off if for no other reason that they could call to confirm, but couldn't call to save me the trip?

Before I continue, let me just state that while I had issues relaxing my hair when I first decided to wear it natural, I'm pretty much over that. The relaxers had dried out my scalp and hair. But wearing the locs for the past almost-three years had done pretty much the same! It's sort of the same way that I stopped using antiperspirant for an all-natural deodorant and ended up having major burns under my arms from the natural product, but that's another post.

So, quite irked, I got my son, carted both kids to the beauty supply store, came home and chopped my dreds right off. I cleaned up the sides and back with the clippers I use for my son and husband, and evened out the top to make it a little longer. Then I relaxed it just a little (didn't leave the straightener in for the whole time) to soften the curls. My head feels lighter and cooler, and I look about ten years younger according to a neighbor. I feel pretty darned cute and I think I looked great for the wedding.

I don't know what I'll do with it in the next few months. I may keep it short and relaxed, or I may let it grow out. I plan to maintain it myself because I just have no patience, time or money for having to deal with days like last Friday. Is it me or do these weddings seem to have an adverse effect on me? Perhaps we should just start staying home!

10 Things I (Re) Learned About Camping

I consider myself a veteran camper. I camped as a child and my husband and I have been at it through the entire ten years we’ve been together. And yet, the first camping trip of each season inevitably reminds me of some things:

1. When your mother-in-law tells you that it’s going to be below 40 overnight, pack accordingly. Teenage-esque rebellion should be reserved for your own mother.

2. When you check the weather forecast, pay attention to the overnight temperatures. Then, when you learn it will be below 40, don’t pack short pajamas. You will freeze.

3. Obnoxious neighbors from other campsites are even more annoying than obnoxious neighbors at home.

4. Drinking 16 ounces of tea, followed by wine…not a good idea if you are afraid of the dark and don’t like to whiz in the woods.

5. A full bladder, cold and loud music make the night seem very long.

6. Forgetting things like food, lanterns and tent poles make for very amusing anecdotes, but aren’t all that funny in the moment.

7. Raccoons are not remotely afraid of people.

8. It’s harder to find the clean socks you’re looking for in your pack when you have to pee really badly.

9. A whole day of outdoors and fresh air is better than Benadryl for getting kids to sleep.

10. Open spaces make it much easier to get along with people.

On Going Green...ish

Our family has tried for a long time to be friendly to the environment, but I've been making more of an effort the past couple of weeks to do more. I'm quite proud of myself today.

We've had reusable shopping bags for ages. Unfortunately, they tend to sit in the closet because we always forget to use them. I always kept 2 in my car for those last minute jaunts to the supermarket, and sometimes I even remember to bring the into the store, but last week, I put a couple more in the car for the big shopping trips. So today when I went shopping, I was half done filling my cart when I realized that I had, once again, forgotten the bags in the car. Usually I would just leave them there and promise to do better the following week. But today I was determined! I finished my shopping, explained to the person at customer service that I had forgotten my bags in the car, and then left my full cart so I could go get the bags. I am very pleased to say that I got out of the store with only 1 plastic bag (for the meat). Yay!

I also got some environmentally friendly dryer sheets and dishwashing liquid to add to the Method products I bought two weeks ago. Method has a great tub & tile cleaner, by the way - just as good as Soft Scrub, which I also like a lot.

On the downside of my 'going green' dream, I also tried a Tom's deodorant. My armpits look like they somehow got sunburned. Aluminum-laden anti-perspirants have never given me a reaction, but the all-natural, healthy one did. If I had a dollar for every irony of my life, I wouldn't need to find a job.

Karate and Dance

I’m not one of those moms who has to have their kids in everything, but I do think it’s important to let them try different things that they show an interest in. So MM has been taking dance since September and both kids recently tried karate. We’ll be looking for a new activity come summer.

I had a few reasons for putting MM in dance this year. She wasn’t going to be able to go to school as much and I wanted something for her to do that would have her around other kids. Dance was about half the cost of her preschool, and it turns out that a few of the girls from dance will be starting at the same kindergarten next year, so that worked out well. She had also expressed an interest in taking dance. She’s a very girly-girl and is very much into princesses and twirling, etc. It was only when she got into actual dance classes and discovered there was oh-no-work! involved that she cooled to that idea. This is also a good thing. Why not test the waters even if they’re not the right ones? Now she really doesn’t want to continue, but we’re committed until the end of May, after her recital. I hate having to make her do something she doesn’t want to, but they’re good lessons to learn: finish what you start and be careful of the choices you make. The last reason for enrolling her in dance was because I was hoping to help the extreme turn in of her legs, but since she’s no longer falling over her feet, I see no reason to pursue that further.

A few months ago, she started asking to try karate. Gus had also been mentioning it, so when the opportunity arose, we went for it with some trial classes. It hasn’t been a complete disaster, but it didn’t take long to see that a year commitment would be a waste. By the third lesson, MM was complaining that she didn’t want to go, and Gus was being threatened by the teacher to not be allowed in class. That was the end of that.

I found it interesting and kind of annoying that we had explained in pretty good detail what Gus’s issues are and our concerns about whether he could manage himself in the class. We made it clear that he would probably need extra help, and the school assured us that they had worked with autistic children before with wonderful success. Whatever. The look on their faces when he was running back and forth or when he started talking loudly during meditation told me that they didn’t really get it when told them what they’d be dealing with.

It will be a relief to not have to drag kids off to an activity for a while, especially with the gas prices at $3.75 today. But I’ll be back to it by July when we start swimming. Fortunately, I’ve never had to push them to do that. And maybe by fall there will be a swim class that we can fit into their schedules.

Karate Lessons

Last week my son's school had a health fair. I stopped by because the flyer had mentioned that a karate school would be there. My daughter has been asking about karate lessons for a while, and I thought they might be good for my son who has Aspergers Syndrome (autism spectrum disorder). But my concern has always bee that the schools would all turn out like that school in The Karate Kid. Silly, of course. That was just a movie.

The guy at the fair seemed nice enough and I asked lots of questions about their ability to teach a child with special needs. He said that they do have some autistic students, but at the same time, he said that they tend to ignore inappropriate behavior. The rationale is that they want to reward appropriate behavior and not give attention for misbehaving. But, anyone who has been involved with autistic kids knows that they often need a lot of redirection. So immediately I wondered if my son would be running around the room, being ignored.

I also asked if the school was geared toward competition. That's not really the environment that I want either of my children in. I want them to have fun and gain confidence, even to learn a bit of self defense ( especially my son, who is at risk to become a target for bullies as he ages) but not to become obsessive with tournaments or winning. For one thing, we can't make the financial commitment that the tournament path can often require. Heck, I'm not sure we can afford to have them both enrolled at all. I'm not sure about this because they refused to give me any fees until AFTER my kids had their trial lesson. Then when he gave me the appointment card, there was no address. I'm also not interested in having a child so focused on winning at such a young age. They have plenty of time for that later.

There was a phone number, so I called to get the address so I could get directions online. Three calls and still no one has answered the phone and after 3 days, no one has returned my call. I'm not feeling so great about this place.

I went online to see if I could find anything and I did find a website (originally I had been told there wasn't one). The information I originally wanted about pricing wasn't there, but I saw some other interesting things.

There was a student featured and also a parent featured. Both were being lauded for their intense commitment to their practice and to tournaments! One parent brings his child to lessons every day! I may be overreacting, but that doesn't sound to me like the laid-back vibe that I heard about at the fair.

I'm going to keep the appointment, mostly because I already mentioned it to my kids and if we don't go, there will be major drama. But I don't have a good feeling about it.

I've done something right

It is very gratifying for me to know that I have two kids - five and seven - who can actually appreciate and enjoy April Fools Day without getting bent out of shape at being tricked or without becoming mean in their humor. They actually got me a couple of times! I can't remember the last afternoon I spent laughing so hard.

This is in direct contrast to some other people I've seen today on other sites that can't take a joke to save their clearly miserable lives. And what's worse, not only can they not enjoy the joke, but they feel the need to ruin it for everyone else. That's just more annoying than I can even express. I've gotten tricked a fair few times today and I'm laughing at myself.

It's not about being mean in the trickery. It's about being able to laugh at ourselves and our own silliness or gullibility. It's about lightening up for a day.

Craftiness

I have a formal wedding to attend in June and I really don't want to/can't afford to buy a new dress, but all the dresses I own are a bit too snug (meaning I can't breathe in them). So I've got a long black broomstick style skirt with a very pretty silver flowery print. I just need a top to go with it. So I've decided, since I have time between now and June, to make a top. This one in fact:

Lion Brand Elegant Shell

Instead of using the organic cotton, I originally thought to use Paton's Brilliant in Black Dazzle(on my good friend Griffinitter's suggestion), but then I thought the finished product might be too scratchy. So she suggested Lion Brand's Microspun in ebony, and wow! how soft! Then we determined that the outfit needed a bit more up top to balance out my sizable hips. So I'm making a short-sleeved shrug to go with it in the same basic pattern as the shell, but with the Brilliant.

I'm quite excited because I ordered 3 balls of the Brilliant and thought I would need more for the shrug, but so far, I've gotten 7 rows out of the first ball and I'm almost sure I can get 2 more. So I might squeak through with what I've got. If I can get 27 or 28 rows, I'll have a rectangle of about 31 inches by 13 1/2 or 14 inches. That should make a nice sized, summer weight shrug. I may even get fancy and put a little silver edging on the sleeves, but we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'll post some pics soon.

My New Zen

It's not the most up-to date MP3 player, but I just got the Creative Zen and I'm liking it immensely. I had an older generation Zen for about 2 years now and it never gave me a moment's grief, so I wanted to try upgrading. The newer Zen has a nice big screen, can handle video and pictures, along with all the other past features: FM radio, voice recording, etc.

Some cool new things: It has an organizer and alarm clock, and best of all expandable memory! With a standard SD card, you can have virtually unlimited memory. This is really nice because the software comes with Audible, so I'm pretty excited to start a new audio book library.

The controls take a bit of getting used to with this little cutie, but I was able to get the hang of basic operations without having to consult the user guide on my computer. The updated version of the Media Explorer is way easier to use than the old MediaSource. My playlists actually make sense now!

The sound is great, but I never had any complaints about the sound on my old Zen. I love the screen colors - bright enough to be very attractive, but easy on the eyes. The font is also a good size, so I'm not squinting to read what I'm doing.

Creative makes a reliable and cost efficient product. Definitely worth serious consideration.

And here's a pic of my new baby.

Video Games vs. Television

Let me start off by saying that neither is particularly good for kids in excess. That being said, I think I'd rather see my kids playing a game than staring at a television. Games can at least involve thinking and in some instances even moving (i.e. the Wii system). With television shows, even interactive kid shows like Dora the Explorer, they just sit like lumps.

I've been noticing this trend with my kids for a while now. On days when we can't get out to play (which has been most of the winter), and I have work to do at home, by the time I'm free to do things with them, they don't want to do anything. They get totally immersed in their TV shows. And mind you, they're watching semi-educational things on the Noggin channel. I literally have to wrench them away from it and make them do other things. And the most recent disturbing thing I've noticed is that my daughter suddenly seems to have forgotten how to play independently. If I turn the TV off she starts complaining about being bored and there's 'nothing to do' despite the hundreds of toys around the house. Yet, when the TV is on, she's still bored and listless.

There's a totally different phenomena when I let the kids play video games on the PC or on one of the consoles (husband's XBox or their V-Smile or their Gamecube which was just given to them for Easter). Even when they have trouble with the games, they're animated and playing cooperatively and having fun. With many of the games - the V-Smiles and PC games in particular, there's problem solving and learning happening. They've never played any of the Wii games, and I honestly refuse to spend that kind of money on a game system for 4 and 6 year olds. But possibly when they are older. Even a simple game like their new Mario Kart is helping their hand-eye coordination.

Now, I'm very picky about what they are allowed to watch or play. I avoid shows or games that are very violent, that have problematic language or behavior that I don't want my kids modelling. And when these things do come up, it is made very clear that the behaviors or language are not desirable. I mean, let's be real, our kids don't live in a vacuum and they will come across negativity. Just a couple of weeks ago when we had a warm day, I took my daughter out to play with a couple of her friends, and one of the little girls spouted about how her sister is an asshole. That's what she hears from her mother. Am I going to make my daughter avoid this little girl from now on? No. The other mom (not the potty-mouthed one) and I let all the children know that they should not repeat that word. I haven't heard it from my daughter's mouth yet. So I do know that parental involvement can mitigate what kids are exposed to.

Would my kids be better off playing ball? Absolutely. But with a high wind advisory, I don't think we're going out today. In the summer, they will have swim lessons, summer school or camp, almost daily visits to the lake, bike riding, roller skating, camping and as many activities as I can possibly squeeze in. But in the meantime, I think I'll just enjoy watching them crash cartoon cars into things. It amuses them greatly.

Steps to becoming a parent

A friend emailed this to me and I laughed so hard, I just HAD to post it! I don't know the original source, but it isn't my writing. I'm just passing it along.

How to become a parent in 15 simple steps:
Lesson 1
Go to the grocery store.
Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home.
Pick up the paper.
Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their:
Methods of discipline.
Lack of patience.
Appallingly low tolerance levels.
Allowing their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding,sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it, because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
To discover how the nights will feel...Walk around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
At 10PM, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
Set the alarm for 3AM.
As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink.
Go to bed at 2:45AM.
Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
Sing songs in the dark until 4AM.
Get up.
Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years.
Look cheerful.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make?
To find out...Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
Then rub them on the clean walls.
Cover the stains with crayons.
How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
Take an egg carton.
Using a pair of scissors and a jar of paint, turn it into an alligator.
Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper.
Using only Scotch tape and a piece of aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs.
Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van.
And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining.
Family cars don't look like that.
Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
Get a dime.
Stick it in the CD player.
Take a family size package of chocolate cookies.
Mash them into the back seat.
Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
There.
Perfect.

Lesson 8
Get ready to go out.
Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour.
Go out the front door.
Come in again. Go out.Come back in.Go out again.
Walk down the front path.Walk back up it.
Walk down it again.Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps.
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9
Repeat everything at least (if not more than) five times.

Lesson 10
Go to the local grocery store.
Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full- grown goat is excellent).
If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 11
Hollow out a melon.
Make a small hole in the side.
Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
Tip half into your lap.
The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month old baby.

Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon.
Watch nothing else on T V for at least five years.

Lesson 13
Move to the tropics.
Find or make a compost pile.
Dig down about halfway and stick your nose in it.
Do this 3-5 times a day for at least two years.

Lesson 14
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly.
Important:no more than a four second delay between each "mommy"; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required).
Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 15
Start talking to an adult of your choice.
Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the "mommy" tape made from Lesson 14 above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

You Know It Will Be An Interesting Day When...

1. You wake up in the middle of the previous night from a nightmare about a plane having to make an emergency landing. Oddly, only the back part of the plane, where you are sitting, is effected but the plane being tossed end over end.

2. Your comes screaming into your room at 3:30 a.m.

3. After getting him back to sleep, your son comes and tramples you when the alarm goes off at 5:30.

4. The downstairs toilet - the one that the family uses most often in the mornings - completely overflows.

5. Your DH forgets his wallet and then has to come home to get it, making him late for his train.

6. Your boss was supposed to take you out for breakfast, but forgot, so you end up going with her to walk her dogs instead.

Hm...this was all before noon. Would I be stupid to even think about leaving the house this afternoon?

No, You Can't Marry Your Brother

"I'm going to marry my brother. That's my choice."

"You can't marry your brother."

"But I want to."

"You can't."

This discussion in the car went on for a while and ended in tears. Apparently my almost-five-year-old wants to marry her brother because she doesn't have to move to another home. That was a new one.

"Well, you don't have to get married if you don't want to," I tried to console.

More tears. "Yes I do! I want to be a mommy and to be a mommy I have to have a daddy! And if I marry a daddy, I have to go to another home!"

How on earth do these ideas even get into a child's head before she's even in kindergarten?

Finally she got distracted asking questions about her friend whose parents are not together. The little girl spends half her time with the mom, step-father and siblings, and half her time with her father. My daughter was under the impression that she didn't have a father. I've come to the conclusion that five-year-olds should not have to think about these things.

Oh! And it got better - she thought she had to get married at twelve, when she became a grown-up! After I dispelled that little myth, she decided that she just doesn't want to grow up.

I think I agree.

However, if she does go ahead and grow up, I'm in the market for a nice tall tower.

The Real Failure of the Clinton Campaign (and it’s not that she’s a white woman, Geraldine Ferraro!)

Early on in the campaign for the Democratic nomination, I leaned toward supporting Hillary Clinton. I had previously been pleased with the direction that Bill Clinton took the country during his administration and had appreciated her strength in her own right. Her policies, while not perfect are more than acceptable to me, and the notion of having a woman president was an attractive bonus. Plus, at the time, I knew next to nothing about Barack Obama.

A short while back, two things changed my mind about where my support belongs. The first was, ironically, Bill Clinton. His comments after the South Carolina primary were a slap in the face to all the African-Americans who have stood behind him through the years. The Clintons seem to think that they are entitled to have it both ways: that they should be buddy-buddy with the African-American community when it is convenient, but that they can also marginalize those same ‘friends.’ Jesse Jackson was invaluable to the Clinton household when President Clinton was in need of marriage counseling after the Lewinsky scandal, but then was basically brushed off as ‘the black candidate,’ and of no real consequence when Senator Obama won South Carolina, “Jesse Jackson won here in ’84 and ’88.” In other words, no big deal, a black candidate won there. Were his comments blatantly racist? No. Did he minimize Senator Obama’s impact by linking him specifically to an unsuccessful (only in terms of the presidential race) black candidate? I’d say so. Thanks for that, Mr. Former President. Does the Clinton campaign think the African-American community is not paying attention or that we are just not sophisticated enough to understand what’s going on here? Or perhaps the campaign is banking on the fact that no matter what she says or does to get the nomination, African-Americans will usually and consistently vote against the Republican nominee in a general election.

The second thing to sway my support was that I actually heard Senator Obama speak. I’ve not typically been one to obsess over the political scene, and I generally can’t stand listening to politicians blowing smoke rings around people’s heads. Senator Obama was different though. He immediately captivated me with his calm, yet impassioned charisma and his idealism. I actually listened to him for a straight forty-five minutes, and I was sold – not because he is a black man (as Geraldine Ferraro’s comments would suggest), but because he is a candidate who can inspire not only a party but (I believe) an entire nation. When the man speaks, people want to listen; they want to believe in something and belief goes a long way toward making things happen. All Senator Clinton seems to inspire, sorry to say, is an almost maniacal hatred among Republicans, and I don’t think she’d have a prayer against John McCain.

This brings me to Geraldine Ferraro’s comments: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” First, wow, what an embarrassing disappointment for democrats and women! As someone, a black woman, who previously supported Senator Clinton, I feel the need to make something clear. I do not support Barack Obama because he is a black man, and the man has achieved his position through hard work. It is disgusting and offensive to imply that his campaign has been boosted by Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action, if you even believe in such a thing, may open the door for a minority, but it certainly doesn’t make that person graduate magna cum laude from law school? That is the result of hard work and commitment, just like the rest of Senator Obama’s successes have been in this race. I support Senator Obama because he has a vision for what this country can be, because he hasn’t been so jaded by the political arena that he sneers at the power of hope, and because he isn’t so ruled by an overinflated ego and sense of entitlement that he’d gladly drag the Democratic party through the muck for his own gain. Shame on you, MS. Ferraro, and double shame on you, Senator Clinton for allowing racism to overshadow policy your campaign for the second time!

And are we also bringing sexism onto the playing field? Well, perhaps the way to defeat sexism and to change minds about the perceived weaknesses in the female gender isn’t to play to those weaknesses. While Ms. Ferraro’s comments followed Clinton campaign’s wins in Texas and Ohio, those victories did not narrow the margin in the delegate count nearly enough to save their sinking ship. Such divisive comments and the timing with which they are released make Senator Clinton appear at once catty and desperate. Is anyone supposed to really believe that the former president and the campaign member are acting of their own accord and that Senator Clinton isn’t at least condoning the behavior? These tactics do not say, ‘strong leader,’ to a voter like me. They say something more along the lines of, ‘spoiled, snotty, and entitled.’

If Senator Clinton really cared about the country and about the Democratic party, she’d run a cleaner campaign, and save the big guns for the more important contest – whether she becomes the nominee or not.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

I had an interesting conversation on Saturday with some colleagues that covered several topics including the state of our American society. At one point, we half-joked that the country might be headed for another civil war. At the time I didn’t take it seriously at all, but then some other events have caused me to rethink. We probably are not headed for a civil war, but we may very well be headed for another revolution. As Gil Scott-Heron said, it will not be televised.

Friday while I was teaching my yoga class, I got a call from my ex-dentist pressuring me to make a payment of half the (very large) balance of our bill (which has been in dispute) or he would send the account to collection, generating more fees. He’s very smug about his position because we (my family) are basically poor schmucks who can’t do anything about the situation. We don’t have the means to fight him…yet. The full story of that drama will definitely follow soon.

Fast forward to Sunday night. A friend of ours is having some trouble with his business partner. All our friend wants now is to get out of the business amicably with the two going their separate ways. But the partner is a bit of a vindictive and crooked bastard. The partner has money and power and connections, How can a thirty-something year old guy with very limited resources hope to stand up to that? He’s going to do everything he can, but the odds are grossly stacked against him.

Do these situations ring a chime of familiarity? Probably more familiar than the average person would care for them to.

Now let’s take a look at history. There was an American Revolution where the colonists, tired of being taken advantage of by a king and country on the other side of the Atlantic, stood up and booted the British out of the Americas. Then there was a French Revolution where the poor French people got sick (literally and figuratively) of being stepped on by Louis XVI and company. The Russians did it, too. The little guys eventually got pushed too far to the wall and pushed back, encouraged and pulled together by the more educated members of their societies.

Which brings us back to modern times. We live in a society where more and more people are struggling to stay above the poverty line. And I’m not only talking about the really poor, I mean the two income, educated, professional families who are still having trouble putting food on the table and are avoiding medical care because the out-of-pocket costs are just too damned prohibitive. We’ve all heard this – the middle class is rapidly disappearing. That’s bad enough. But then when you have the small group of rich and powerful going out of their collective way to beat up on and bully the vastly larger majority of the population, someone is asking for trouble. How long do the powers that be really think this dynamic is going to last before people start to snap and organize?

So, no, the revolution will not be televised, most likely because the cable and satellite companies could easily just shut that down. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the revolution was to be Podcasted. I think it might just be coming.

Stephen King's Duma Key - a reader's review

“God punishes us for what we can’t imagine,” says Jerome Wireman, an ex-lawyer who's taken up caring for an elderly octogenarian named Elizabeth Eastlake in Stephen King’s latest horrifying tale, Duma Key. Wireman is grossly understating the situation. Duma Key is the story of Edgar Freemantle, who due to a freak accident, goes from a construction mogul to losing much of his memory, arm, wife and ability to control his insane rages. One of those rages leads him to try to strangle his wife and she divorces him. But the God of Stephen King’s world is not a complete bastard. Edgar gains some miraculous abilities, which right there should raise the flags and jingle the warning bells. At the suggestion of his therapist, Edgar relocates to Duma Key, a nearly deserted Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Horror and mayhem ensue. Of course they do. It’s not giving anything away to say this – in any Stephen King novel, you know there’s going to be a spooky Big Bad, and most likely one with lots of ‘teef.’ The book is a wonderful read, and whether he’s writing more deeply or I am reading more deeply with age, Duma Key feels more personal and real than ever, which is endearing and chilling all at once.

As the reader follows Edgar through his very strenuous recovery, it is impossible to miss the parallels to Mr. King’s own life. There are twelve short discourses on the artistic process: “How to Draw a Picture,” that could easily translate to (Mr. King’s) the writing process while at the same time delivering Elizabeth’s back story. But the real beauty is that Duma Key, more than any of his other novels, seems to give a little sense of Mr. King sitting down in a small room with Constant Reader one dark night, a small fire flickering lazily in a hearth behind him, perhaps after a couple glasses of wine or a few beers, and saying very quietly, very seriously, “so this is what it was like.” Mr. King has always maintained a tight relationship with his readers and Duma Key seems to have added a level of intimacy to the relationship that will certainly move the occasional reader as well as the faithful.

Without getting too tangential, a friend of a friend commented that she felt Mr. Kings last few releases have become violent in a different way that she’s come to expect. Well, honestly, my first thought was, he’s a horror writer – how can you not expect violence? But I think I know what she means. There have been some elements in the last couple of books that have seemed a bit more random and grounded in reality than in past works. Yet this does not distress me in the least. While I tend to avoid news stories of freak accidents and child abductions, these things do happen. They are true. And Mr. King tells the truth, even if it is surrounded by the supernatural and fantastical. He also likes the underdog, so whereas in real life the victim rarely gets avenged in any visceral and satisfying way, Kings characters have been getting to whoop the bad guys’ butts and hand them back on splintery skewers. What’s not to appreciate about that? I say: Bravo!

I’ll admit, I am extremely biased about Mr. King. I’ve been a Constant Reader since the age of nine when Christine made me wary of big car grilles. But that notwithstanding, I can still recognize the stronger vs. weaker of his creations. Duma Key is, no doubt, up there among the best. The writing is engaging, tense, sweet and elegant – Stephen King fully in the zone. This one gets a wholehearted recommendation from me.

Thoughts on: I Am Legend **SPOILERS**

I finally got to see I Am Legend last night. I was initially very impressed with WIll Smith's performance. I've been watching scary movies since the age of ten, but he still managed to have just the right amount of crazy glinting in his eyes to make me scared of what would be coming later. The movie made me jump several times, and the suspense was really well done throughout. I'd say the first half of the movie was great.

I was kind of ambivalent about the monsters (zombies? vampires? some weird hybrid?) The idea of them was scarier than the look. I know they made the choice to do CGI because someone thought that humans in makeup weren't quite cutting it, but I think that may have been a mistake. The CGI zampires went a step too far. The stretching maws brought me out of the reality that Smith's Dr. Neville brought me into. In my mind I was saying, "okay...scary...scary...pfft, stretchy-face, that's not real...not so scary." The moments of drama, where we see Dr. Neville's memories of the last moments with his family moved and disturbed me at once. I can't say enough what a fine actor Will Smith has grown into. Too bad he couldn't save the second half of the movie from bad writing.

**BIG SPOILERS**

The movie had me right up until the point where Dr. Neville got captured. I believed that he could free himself from the trap and then get injured when he fell out of it. But - and the headlights of the train coming through plot hole #1 are in sight - why the hell did he not get up and book it out of there? He started scooting backwards, slowly, on his butt because he presumable could not walk. First of all, if you're going to scoot, scoot fast if you know you have a matter of seconds before a band of creepies are coming after you. It made no sense that this guy, who has endure for three years could not push himself to get up or to move faster. And, quite frankly, if they'd stuck with that, I would have grudgingly accepted it. But then once he actually got attacked and his dog got bitten, suddenly, miraculously, he was cured, could stand, could hobble to his car, could shoot a gun and wrestly a zampire dog and could carry his injured dog. Well hell, Dr. Neville if you'd just done that ten seconds earlier, you could have kept the damned dog! I smell contrivance in the air.

So, Dr. Neville somehow managed to get home to find out his dog was infected and then has to kill said pup. Very heart-wrenching. No one ever wants to see the kid or the pet bite it. Of course this caused Dr. Neville to snap and go on a suicide run after the zamps. Listen! You can hear the whistle of Contrivance Train #2 in the distance. Seconds before he having his head ripped off, he was saved! By a woman and her son weilding a handgun and a flashlight.

...

Yeah, so he had to live in a virtual bunker to survive, but this woman and her kid could thwart an entire army of baddies by themselves.

The trains crashed, the movie derailed. I should have called it quits right then. It just got downright silly, and I won't even bother to spoil the climax, which was unimpressive at best. I will say this though, the zamps could apparently scale a building in a matter of seconds with no problem.

The movie ended with Superwoman and her sidekick, who, by the way was not given a single line, finding a survivors colony. They came upon a huge steel gate that was opened by armed military types. With a voiceover, the camera panned back and you could see this wall, very much like the Great Wall of China, around this big complex.

Umm...the zampires can climb the side of a three-story building; they can't get over a wall?

If you're someone who can be forgiving of plot problems and cheesiness, then you'll enjoy the movie. I, however, am a plot snob. Holes just ruin the overall package for me. It's like seeing a nice, shiny apple, picking it up and then just before sinking your teeth into it, you find a nasty, black worm hole. Yuck. I am so glad I didn't pay ten bucks for a wormy apple when it first came out.