Before and After

I’ve recently found myself– quite accidentally!– un(der)employed and suddenly, for the first time in a while, with LOTS of free time on my hands.  I thought I might spend my time reading or going to free museums during the days, and rest assured, I will do plenty of that, but I thought a good use of my time might be to build this blog into what I thought it might be when I started it.

Let’s see…a year ago today, I was probably in either Iowa or Chicago.  I had just spent a week in Ames hanging out with one of my favorite people in the world (Alex!) and I was about to make an unexpected extended layover in Chicago.  This is when I first found out that my beloved Granny had Cancer.  I knew it was something serious, but I never figured what would happen next.  Sometimes I see my life as “Before” and “After” huge events– I think everyone has the tendency to do this, but this one has particularly affected me.  Before sometime in early August 2008, I had no idea that people close to me would Die.  Obviously, I recognized that they would die, in a lowercase and abstract sense, but death was still a concept that was very foreign to me.  Besides a couple of distant relatives and my uncle when I was too young to realize what was going on, the closest I had been to Death the proper noun was my dog Taylor, who died one morning in the summer after I turned 21.  I had known Taylor since I was 10 and we moved to our new house on Quincy Street, and the two of us were quite the partners in crime.  My life before my Granny died was quite a different thing– I was a lot more sheltered and fearful of showing my feelings.  I was comfortable in some sense of the word, but I know there were always things holding me back.  Now, though, I realize the importance of telling people how I feel the moment I feel it because before you know it, there may not be enough time.

I don’t know if I can properly convey the difficulty of knowing that the words you say to someone may be the last you can ever say to them, but I know it was hard for me.  What can you possibly say?  ”I love you” is a cliché and besides, everyone knows you love them and it’s nice to hear it, but what about something with a little more feeling behind it?  I remember the last words that my Granny ever said, and that’s something special.  The nurse at her bedside asked her if she knew who I was (lucidity was not taken for granted at this point) and she said “of course I do, that’s my baby.”  God, I can’t tell you how that felt.  I’m not a very good writer, so really, I can’t even begin to describe the emotion that welled up inside of me.  (That’s another thing: Everyone always talks about these emotions that you can’t possibly know until you go through it.  I never understood that until After.)  These were my Granny’s last words– I was her baby.  It’s just an understanding that we came to somewhere along the way, and I think that was the way we liked it.

I read a bunch of things about death when my family was going through this.  I guess it was some sort of morbid curiosity, but I remember devouring Wikipedia articles about near death experiences and about what physically happens to someone when they die.  That’s the part I am still afraid of.  I wasn’t afraid to talk to my Granny in this state, but I was afraid of seeing her body or being all alone in her house as it happened.  I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to do, true enough, but the biggest fear came from me not knowing how to see a woman who was so vibrant and full of life the entire time I had known her suddenly…After.  So I did things any normal person would do:  I remember going about my life in the house with her when I was there, and taking care of her cat and dog and watching Judge Mathis and listening to music, not quite in denial, but also not quite wanting to acknowledge the severity of the situation.  I think this may have been a common theme in my family during this time.  Suddenly our matriarch– the woman who had taken care of each and every one of us– needed to be taken care of.  I think most of us half expected her to leap out of bed at a moment’s notice, feisty as ever, and get up and work in the yard.  So we went about our business, trying to restore some sense of normalcy to our lives, which had been turned upside down in the most unimaginable way possible.

Granny loved cooking, and was especially famous for her 7Up pound cakes.  These were creations that she had gotten so good at making that she would sometimes spend entire days in the kitchen churning them out, and she barely needed to measure the ingredients as she baked.  This is especially special because baking is an exact science, known for being a particularly difficult art to some precisely because of the need to measure in order to attain the desired consistency.  Like any good scientist, she sometimes carried out experiments, conducting research on subjects who most often turned out to be my mother and myself.  Most of the time it turned out fine:  Making green “slime” frosting for me because I loved Nickelodeon so much?  THAT was cool.  But I distinctly remember drawing the line at substituting grape soda for 7Up.  Anyway, these cakes were always delicious, especially when she let me eat the batter or let me eat the freshly baked cake residue that had been left on the bundt pan after prematurely placing it on a plate to be frosted.  The smell of baking was always something that made me feel like I was at home.

My mom decided to bake a cake on the last day I was in Chicago, a couple of hours before I was to return to New York.  I think it gave both of us comfort to take part in this activity in the house that we had both known so well as we were growing up.  I have to say, there was something poetic about it, something that writers a lot cornier than myself would belabor explicitly, but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.  But I remember my mom taking more pride in making that particular cake on that particular day than I had ever seen her investing in a project in my life.  She still needed to measure the ingredients because her eyes had not yet seen as much as Granny’s had, and so weren’t yet adjusted to such fine details, but there was every bit the amount of love placed it in that I know Granny put into it.

That was the same day that the social worker came to Granny’s house and told me that I had very little time to say the things I needed to say.  Something that adds to the difficulty of talking to someone in that state is not knowing if they hear you or not.  Toward the end of your life, a lot of times people lose the ability to speak, but oftentimes they can hear you, even if they can’t show it.  But still, I wondered if what I was saying was relevant, and another thing that I was overly concerned with was not speaking as if she was going to die.  Obviously this was the elephant in the room.  We ALL knew what was going on, but I thought about how I might feel if people were suddenly saying their farewells to me.  I knew she would probably be concerned about my well-being and my family’s ability to cope with losing her.  If there was anything she instilled in all of us, it was a sense of perseverance that frankly often manifests itself as stubbornness.  Still, we were all human and none of us are immune to feeling profound senses of loss and as a health care professional, she probably knew that we would go through a lot of things after losing her.  They told me that I was supposed to give her permission to leave us, to tell her that she could let go because we’d all be okay.

So I ended up thanking her for all the things I probably didn’t elaborate on when it mattered.  Thank you for beating me at Scrabble, because now I win nearly every game of it that I play.  Thank you for taking me to Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid.  Thanks for playing Redd Foxx records for me when my mom said I was too young to listen to it.  Thank you for slipping me sips of scotch when my mom wasn’t looking.  Thanks for that time I saw you and ACORN at City Hall speaking out against the Big Box resolution in Chicago.  Thank you for letting me read medical books at your house and telling me scary stories and giving me candy and giving me manicures.  But most of all, Granny, I think you should know that Mommy and I baked a cake today and it’s gonna be okay, because she’s teaching me how to make it and I’ll make it for my kids and they’ll make it for theirs.  I am going to miss you a lot because I love you, but I want you to know that it’s going to be okay and I will always remember the things you taught me.

A few hours later, my life officially made the transition from Before to After.  Before, the cakes my grandmother made were just a hobby, something in the background that made her happy and was delicious, but wasn’t as special as it is to me now. Now I try not to take things for granted.  Even the little details in life are important these days.  I plan to use the days that I have in New York to try to stay in touch with myself and let people know I care and live life to the fullest.  I made a vow sometime After that I wouldn’t spend time with endeavors that made me unhappy and that I would try to seize the moment whenever I could.  I’m still working on the latter, but I’m so grateful that I found meaning through such an uncertain time in my life.  I’m hoping I can keep that lesson at heart for years to come.

Home Sweet Home

I like Brooklyn, but Chicago is and always will be my first love, as far as cities go. I grew up there and every time I approach it from the air, I get this little jolt that goes all over me…I can’t really describe it, except to say that it’s kind of like when you see someone you’ve had a crush on since third grade. I get all nervous and excited and it’s really a wonderful feeling.

I love Forgotten Chicago because it examines and explores my beloved city in ways I haven’t seen. For instance, the article about Chicago’s Public Bathhouses

weaves together the rich architectural history of the city while paying close attention to the sociological and economic factors that influenced their existence. It’s like looking at the city with new eyes; taking a walk through Chicago with your mind squarely fixed in the past that helped it become what it is today.

If I were in Chicago right now (and boy do I wish I was), I would definitely go on the FC Tour of the near South Side. It’s an area of town I really don’t get to much, but also, damn, how cool would it be to tour the remnants of an old hospital, especially around Halloween.

(courtesy Forgotten Chicago)

I think something about old municipal buildings gives me the warm and fuzzies, and if you’re like that too, you should definitely check out Forgotten Chicago.  It’s a great venture run by a great group of people who love our fair, fair city.

I definitely haven’t seen this kind of reverence for New York.

Mavericks Vs. Elitists

Last night was the big face-off: The Mavericks vs. The Elitists.

I admit that my mind is already made up– I know who I’m voting for and I know where he stands on the issues I care about. But I watched last night’s Vice Presidential Debate mostly to see how Sarah Palin would hold up. Would she freeze like a deer in the headlights when asked the really tough questions? Would she “get back to” the American public regarding issues she had no clue about? Or would she use her good looks and charisma to win our hearts?

I was secretly hoping that she would come across as naive and unprepared as she’s been in the press lately. Oh, let’s be honest: I was hoping that Biden would rip her to shreds.

Instead of a good, old fashioned blood bath, however, what I saw during last night’s debate was a woman who has been groomed and prepared exactly for this night. Within the first 60 seconds of the debate, she endeared “Soccer Moms and Joe Six Packs” by asking Biden if she could call him Joe. If that isn’t adorable, down home folksiness, then I don’t know what is.

As predicted, there were lots of mentions of the GOP ticket being chock full of straight talkin’ mavericks. But Biden did a great job of debunking that well-worn myth, demonstrating time after time that McCain’s partisan voting record on issues like renewable energy and health care speaks for itself. Good. Let’s put this rumor to bed once and for all:

“Let’s talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives,” Biden carefully explained. “He voted four out of five times for George Bush’s budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he’s got there. He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against — he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate. He’s not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college. He’s not been a maverick on the war. He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table. Can we send — can we get Mom’s MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can’t — we can’t make it. How are we going to heat the … house this winter? He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter. So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.”
–The Nation

A critical moment for me came when moderator Gwen Ifill asked about the responsibilities of the vice president. Palin seems to want to follow Dick Cheney’s path by blurring the line between Executive and Legislative powers, exactly the kind of abuses of office that Biden thinks make Cheney the most dangerous VP in history.

This was Palin’s time to shine, and I think that her supporters were probably re-energized by last night’s performance. But what about the people Obama and McCain are still struggling to get, the independents and the undecided voters of America? Who did a better job of not only addressing the questions in a convincing way, but convincing the electorate that their ticket had their interests in mind? It’s a tough call. Palin did a great job of speaking in complete sentences despite what we’ve seen in her earlier performances, but she still appeared to be reading her responses at points, and got away with dodging questions. I was worried about Biden’s ability to let himself be more knowledgeable than Palin about issues of foreign policy without playing into (misguided) criticisms of being “too harsh” on the self-proclaimed Washington Outsider from Alaska. But as it turns out, he was extremely adept at both being a gracious opponent and emphasizing his experience over Palin’s.

Undecided voters might be impressed that Palin didn’t stumble over her own low expectations, but they should realize that they should judge her by the same standards as any other politician. Just because she’s an outsider doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t know her stuff. And being a maverick doesn’t even come close to qualifying you for the second-highest office in the country.

Thank You, Sarah Palin!

From The Indypendent

A month after Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin trashed community organizers as a way to attack Barack Obama, activists and individuals around the country have responded by raising more than $7,500 for the “Community Organizers Fight Back Fund.” The Chicago-based Midwest Academy is managing the fund and will use the money to train future organizers.

During her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention Sept. 3, Palin remarked that being the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, was “sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” Former New York Governor George Pataki chimed in as well, saying, “What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

Read the rest of the story here

Doublespeak

I knew something was wrong with this McCain ad, but I just couldn’t place it. Brent Staples, though, explains it perfectly in The New York Times:

In the Old South, black men and women who were competent, confident speakers on matters of importance were termed “disrespectful,” the implication being that all good Negroes bowed, scraped, grinned and deferred to their white betters.

In what is probably a harbinger of things to come, the McCain campaign has already run a commercial that carries a similar intimation, accusing Mr. Obama of being “disrespectful” to Sarah Palin. The argument is muted, but its racial antecedents are very clear.

The thinly veiled racial undertones in this election are hitting some voters loud and clear, even though some may not recognize it. Staples also talks about other members of the GOP are characterizing Obama with antiquated racial signifiers like “uppity” and– maybe even more appallingly– “that boy.”

I’m hoping these instances will be fewer and farther between as we near November 4, but something tells me that the opposite will be true. Meanwhile, in our so-called “post-racial” society, Obama will have to continue to be conciliatory where other candidates might be downright indignant, a throwback to the days where black men had to avert their eyes from a white woman to avoid retaliation.

The way that Republicans have attacked Obama are disgusting, but not surprising. They have placed him in a particular quandary wherein he is ridiculed for being too soft-spoken and passive to be an effective president during this time of war, yet his image is hardened when it’s convenient to characterize him as the bad guy, just like in this modern Willie Horton ad (Daily Kos suggests you watch it without sound for the full effect):

It’s tough to see Obama have to tiptoe around things that candidates don’t typically have to avoid, but if it gets him into the White House, do we have a choice?

R. Kelly Doesn’t Know What a Teenager Is

This is a clip of R. Kelly’s first BET interview since his trial, and I have to say, it’s certainly nothing less of wildly entertaining

Clearly, R. Kelly needs to fire his publicists and other handlers, like he’s fired his brother “a thousand times.”  Couldn’t someone have spent a little more time prepping him for this?  Furthermore, how could he have spent SEVEN years as a defendant in a trial centering on underage sex without being clear on what a TEENAGER is?!

Come on, R.  You must have a lot of hubris to pull something like this.  You might as well come out with a video reenactment of the whole ordeal and call it If I Urinated.

A Merck-y Situation, Indeed.

Given the United States’ murky history of codifying eugenics into law and authorizing controversial studies on underserved populations, you would think that The USCIS would have thought twice about adding a new stipulation to US Citizenship: fully going into effect this past August, the latest measure requires all female residency applicants to be vaccinated for Human papillomavirus, or HPV.

This can be read one of two ways: Either the Bush Administration is placing yet another unfair (not to mention sexist) barrier on immigration by making such an expensive shot mandatory, or it’s an example of savvy pharmaceutical lobbying on Merck’s behalf to both stimulate their bottom line and do more extensive testing on a population that has no choice to opt out. (Merck also lobbied states to give mandatory vaccines to schoolgirls. Virginia now requires all sixth grade girls to be vaccinated, but there is an opt-out clause.)

I find this to be flagrantly abusive on both counts, and I tend to think that a little bit of both motivations affected the decision. At least one CDC doctor disagreed with the decision toward the beginning, on the grounds that HPV shouldn’t be treated as a communicable disease the way, say, meningitis is. There’s no disputing that Gardasil has some very promising effects, but there have also been some severe problems associated with the vaccine. Now that every woman applying for residency in the US has to take the 3-shot series, they have no option but to expose themselves to the risks associated with a drug that they might not have wanted to take in the first place.

Reproductive freedom is something that a lot of women, including myself, take for granted, but it’s something that should be extended to every woman who enters this country. It’s simply not humane to take away that choice in exchange for a chance to live in America. As a woman of color, I am constantly reminded of how little the US cares about black and brown people, and this is just the latest example of a long history of state violations against females who look like me. WOC PhD has more on the legacy of reproductive violations on our bodies, and talks more about why the vaccine is a bigger deal than you might think it is.

McCain Photo Mixup

Pig in Lipstick

Well, as Gawker and others reported on Monday, it looks like Jill Greenberg is in a bit of a sticky situation with The Atlantic after she posted some rather unflattering retouched images of the outtake photos she did for McCain’s cover shoot.

Personally, I didn’t think the actual cover was all that flattering in the first place, and it’s no surprise that apparently Greenberg wanted it that way. I think that The Atlantic’s backpedaling is nothing more than a fantastic example of cowardly journalism. Yes, you hired a photographer to do a cover for your magazine. But no, you definitely don’t have the right to defame said photographer for manipulating her own images– especially if a few minutes of Googling would have been enough to vet out any potential pesky liberals.

Of course right-wing hatemonger and all-around nasty human being Michelle Malkin weighs in on the issue, and this might be the one time that I will ever, EVER even remotely agree with anything she says…and even in this case, it’s just the line where she says that The Atlantic should have, you know, actually vetted their vice presidential candidate cover photographer.

Not that I think all this “outrage” is in any way justified.  Journalism and photography…they’re all about taking risks.  If The Atlantic didn’t want to take a chance with a potentially “controversial” photographer, they should have done their job.

Disgusting 9/11 “Tribute”

The Boston Globe posted the following obituary in response to the RNC’s overzealous use of 9/11 imagery:

ST. PAUL — One of the most enduring taboos in American politics, the airing of graphic images from the September 11 attacks in a partisan context, died today. It was nearly seven years old.

The informal prohibition, which had been occasionally threatened by political ads in recent years, was pronounced dead at approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers’ subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

The September 11 precedent was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos. It is survived by direct comparisons of one’s opponents to Hitler.

Here’s the disgusting video, in its entirety, courtesy of MSNBC.com.

What’s So Bad About Community Organizing?

I woke up early Thursday morning with an urgent message staring back at me from my inbox: It was from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, who sent a mass email out to all of Barack’s supporters and allies admonishing both Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani for openly mocking community organizers. “Let me clarify something for them right now,” Plouffe sternly upbraided, “Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.(emphasis his)”

Since I don’t have a television, I’ve been waiting until the day after to catch up on convention news, when everything is neatly available on the internet. And I have to say, after watching both of their speeches, I really don’t know what they were thinking by making fun of community organizing like that. I know that Palin’s comments were meant to shed a negative light on Obama’s lack of “executive experience” compared to hers, but come on…what she said (a quip about how “[Being] a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”) was just generally confusing, not to mention baseless. I’m sure that being a mayor of a small town of 6,000 people is challenging– nobody ever argued that– but I would suspect that in her case, it seems like it was nothing more than being a glorified high school principal. Even Palin herself quipped in 1996 that being the mayor of Wasilla, AK was “not rocket science,” which leads me to wonder just what sort of rocket scientist she would deem worthy of the executive experience necessary to lead a country. What “actual responsibilities” didn’t Obama have as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago? Organizing is hard work– especially with the constituency that Obama was charged with– and it’s insulting and alienating for the GOP to single out community organizers as not worthy of their party, despite all of their pandering to the common person. Palin’s attack was misguided in that it wasn’t critical of Obama personally so much as it was a sweeping, misguided blast on an entire segment of the population, akin to condemning truck drivers or computer programmers.

Giuliani’s comment was a bit more off the cuff, but nonetheless baffling. How could the former mayor of New York City– a place where community organizing has produced considerable changes that government entities could never hope to replicate– demean something so integral to maintaining the city? I could almost understand Palin’s misdirection, since she’s from small towns that might not see the direct benefits of organizing efforts, but everywhere I look in my own Brooklyn neighborhood, I see signs of development and progress that wouldn’t be possible without organizing efforts.

Plouffe forgot to mention former NY State governor George Pataki who quipped, “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

Really, Pataki? I mean, are you serious? Maybe do a little homework and you’ll find out about community organizations all across the state that YOU governed. Jeez. Yes, community organizers do real work, and it is definitely a real job (though typically an outrageously underpaid and overworked one). Community organizers have even started a blog to counter these attacks. They work to confront issues like affordable housing, poor health care and environmental concerns. I have never once questioned the legitimacy of nonprofit community work, and I don’t see why anyone in their right mind would.

What bothers me most about these comments is that there’s a clear lack of forethought going into them. Say “community organizer” to the people who say these things and the people who respond with raucous applause and you’re likely stirring up images of liberal college students, protesting this or that, holding clever signs and clipboards and making trouble for people walking down the street. They don’t recognize that community organizers are the ones trying to solve the problems that they preach about and can’t fix through government bureaucracy. You would think that the Republicans, for all their crowing about how big government can’t solve anything and how power should be given to the real people, would welcome community-based organizations the same way they acknowledge the faith-based ones. Not to mention the fact that Palin, who proudly boasts of being in the PTA, might do well to take note that Parent Teacher Associations could very well be lumped in the same category as ACORN or Make the Road.

I wish more politicians started out as community organizers, and indeed, that is one thing I like about Obama’s resume. Every other politician who works their way in through military experience (I’m looking at you, McCain) or legal expertise is just business as usual. Could it be that the GOP is afraid of change coming from a real leader who is in touch with real people? I recognize that the types of people who are outraged about their comments aren’t very likely to be the top priority for the GOP in terms of voters, but since there’s been so much empty rhetoric about uniting America across party lines, I’d like to see Republicans start tackling some real issues and stop attacking people who can affect real change in the streets.