the road ahead

i don't know if today's election results will enable anyone to bridge the gaps, but anyway i am breathing a sigh of relief today. i got up at 4:15 to watch the coverage. at 5:17 a.m. my time, CBS called the race for obama. CNN quickly followed. BBC seemed like they snapped out of a coma and called it a few minutes later. the new york times took nearly an hour. and despite the florida vote still not being in as i write this, obama was re-elected by a comfortable margin.

this whole race was ugly. and the aftermath, as it's played out on facebook at least, is even uglier. i saw some things written there today by bitter republicans that simply scare the hell out of me. the blatant racism and hatred in evidence is frightening. and the things with which they credit the president (the demise of their businesses, their cancer, their dog being hit by a car) are simply astonishing. i've been gone too long. i knew bush had destroyed my country and gave voice to all those extreme lunatics, but but i don't think i fully appreciated exactly how bad it was.

so despite being relieved that obama won, i wonder at what price?

rumors and randomness

i love the huffington post, they have the coolest rumors out there. like this:

caroline kennedy could potentially take hillary clinton's senate post.

and the fact that oprah is strenuously claiming she's not angling for a white house appointment surely means she is.  what will she be?

and tho' not really rumor, have you read the latest bob cesca column?

photographic evidence that the 90s are back. (that's a relief for me because i never really left them.)

and last but not least, hot pix of our coming president.

* * *

do you think that the people on CSI obsessively use flashlights because they're always wearing sunglasses?

so exciting!

it's just at the rumor stage at the moment, but reports are filtering in that barack obama is considering hillary clinton as his secretary of state! that would be so awesome, i can scarcely contain my glee!  she would be a great secretary of state. if he picks her, i think i'll love obama even more than i already do.

on intellectualism and feminism

i admit it, i can't stay away from the huffington post, even though the election is over. this morning, it was bob cesca's article on the madness of the far right in cyberspace. although some pretty wacky stuff is being said out there...he cites "impeach obama" groups on facebook (ahem, guys, can't really impeach a guy who hasn't taken office yet...) and some far out far right blogger who is actually claiming that bush made no verbal gaffes in the past eight years...we would do well not to ignore it, as beneath argument as it would seem to be. i think that's what got us into that anti-intellectual space in the first place. tho' it does seem pretty absurd to have to go head-to-head on issues like whether africa is a continent or a country or which countries are part of north america.

* * *

debi's comment on my quick michelle obama post yesterday has me thinking about feminism and what it means, at least to me. and although i posted the article link light-heartedly and more as a justification for my love of middle-of-the-road/pocketbook fashion, debi brings up a valid point about what feminism means today. i'm not sure that i really know because it's a word that gets bandied around quite a lot and used and abused by all sides.

when i was in college, i studied lots of feminist literary theorists--bell hooks, camille paglia, julia kristeva, to name but a few. i was, for a time, interested in the whole notion of "the gaze" and how it often objectifies women, especially on film. i read naomi wolf's the beauty myth and the classics by betty friedan and simone de beauvoir. but i had to admit that i was still hesitant to call myself a feminist. yes, i thought women should have equal pay for equal work, the same opportunities as men, control of their own bodies, but feminists just seemed so angry and strident and righteous. and i'm just not really cool with righteous.

i had this feeling that to be feminist, you had to forsake makeup and beaded cocktail dresses and i simply wasn't prepared to do that. i love high heels and eyelashes and mac paint pots and sparkly clothes. so, instead i embraced a strong woman like madonna, who is arguably a feminist, but one who someone like me could believe in. she was sexy, strong, determined, capable and successful. with her sex book in the early 90s, i felt she took that "gaze" by the horns and in embracing it, subverted it and made it hers, wresting it away from the male who would objectify her. i'm not sure now that it really worked, but for me, it worked at the time--i felt that was a feminism i could identify with.  frankly, madonna at 50 represents a feminism i can still live with (even if i wouldn't personally go there on the plastic surgery)...she's still sexy, feisty, successful and going strong. 

i was a little dismayed to read last summer that camille paglia was coming out as anti-madonna on her 50th birthday. although she's a bit of bitch (something a feminist is also free to be, so i mean it in a good way), i always kinda liked camille for her daring. it just feels a bit wrong for her to abandon madonna on the feminist front. 

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the label "feminist" has always been a bit problematic for me. it is a little too equated with bitch (in a bad way) and perhaps a bit too anti-man in its formulation for me to fully identify. i like men and i like being able to use my femininity in the very male world in which i find myself making a career. would a feminist do that? i'm not sure. they would probably castigate me for indulging in feminine maneuvering to accomplish my goals--like wearing my "audit dress," a grey suit with a short skirt, and sexy black wolford tights--on days when there's an audit. but isn't using your feminine side to be strong and achieve the upper hand also a form of feminism? or shouldn't it be? enjoying one's ability, even at 40-something, to possess a room full of men just by walking into it wearing the right clothes and makeup and then having the further satisfaction of sealing it when you open your mouth and they find out that you're smart on top of it! that's feminine power if not feminist power. and as i see it, the only way to achieve equality in paychecks and career opportunities.

i guess i don't think feminism has that much to do with the abortion issue. i can imagine that feminists think that women should have control of what happens in and around their bodies. and to believe that just because you believe in free choice means that you think everyone SHOULD get an abortion is naive. it's called pro-choice, because we think that people should have the choice to decide for their own body and their own life. although i used to provoke my mother by saying i wished i needed an abortion whenever we passed those clinics in wichita with all the protesters outside of them, i'm really glad that i never needed one. i'm certain it's a heart-wrenching choice for those who choose it. however, i would fight to the end for their right to do so and never imagine that i could make that decision for them (not unless i had already donated the kidney that i'm not using, in which case i could really argue that i 'm pro life...but i digress). 

i objected to sarah palin's citing to katie couric that hunting moose was a form of feminism, but if i reflect on it, perhaps it is. because it's about making your way on equal footing in a man's world--and hopefully transforming it to a more human world, without gender distinction. hunting moose is just her way of doing it and wearing my audit dress on audit days is mine...perhaps that's the beauty of feminism, it's what we make of it.

and me, i'm gotta go put on some of my new eyelashes because husband and me have a date night tonight..we're gonna go see the new james bond!

loving michelle obama

i just read this wonderful article on huffington post on why all women should love michelle obama and i had to share it immediately. it makes me want to dance around and sing for joy. and it makes me feel a little better about my abiding love for the gap. :-)

contrasts

just saw this on the front page of nytimes.com 

i believe i don't even need to comment, the contrast is so obvious.

and such a relief.

in every way imaginable.

teasing meaning and significance from the chaotic stream of daily contingencies

dear sabin,


you’re only seven and you’re growing up mostly danish, so i’m not sure that you understand the significance of this american election. you’ve watched with me on BBC and CNN, but i realize you don’t really comprehend it. i hope that one day you will. one of the things that i have worried about with you growing up outside the US is that you won’t be instilled with the good bits of the american dream...that part where you believe so much in yourself and your abilities that anything can happen.


for a long time now, i haven’t really believed in that...i’ve felt much more ashamed to be american than anything. although many cite sept. 11, 2001 as the beginning of the end, for me, it started with the whole clinton-monica lewinsky thing followed by the debacle of the 2000 election and the resulting eight years of bush. it hasn’t been good for my identity, nor has it been good for me knowing what identity i hoped you would have.


but now, with the election of barack obama, it all feels different. it feels like hope has returned to the world. and with it my pride in being an american. i haven’t felt proud of that for a very long time. it’s strange how pride comes back intact in one fell swoop. i literally no longer feel the need to hide my passport as i stand in line for passport control.


don’t get me wrong, those people who found their voices during the bush years...people who are hyper-religious, people who believe jesus was hanging out with the dinosaurs, people who think that evolution is just a fluffy science thing that masks the “truth” of the bible, and especially people who would compromise a woman’s right to choose what happens in and around her own body...they were always there. it’s just that bush and those who brought him to power...the aptly named (because it means ass in danish) karl rove and the dark lord dick cheney...made it ok for those people to speak up and be the loudest voices, spreading their bigotry and narrow-mindedness. those people who made sarah palin not only possible but logical as a VP candidate. those people who were afraid of other nationalities, didn't have passports and who weren’t really aware that there were other countries...those people were in power during your entire lifetime. and that gave me pause. because i wanted you to have the good parts of growing up american...especially the part about not believing there were any limitations if you worked for your dreams.


and i worried about you growing up danish, because the government that’s been in power in denmark since your birth has been equally if not more mediocre. no big ideas, actually not even any medium-sized ideas...only small minds and small thinking, anti-intellectualism..the ultimate in mediocre. not to mention afraid of the other. of which i have feared you would be classified with a foreign mother. so, what kind of world had we brought you into? i have to admit it has worried me. rather a lot.


but somehow, in my mind, the election of barack obama in the US changes everything. it’s a return to an intellectual politics. (at least it feels like that right now.) it’s a return to ideas. it’s a return to sanity. it’s a return to a world that acknowledges (and even just realizes) that there are a whole lot of other countries out there and holds a passport. it’s a return to thinking and logic. it’s a return to the silence of those radical right wingers (at least i hope it is), a space in which they don’t feel it’s ok to spread their hate and narrow-mindedness and try to force their version of god and their morality down everyone else's throat. it’s a return to the good parts of the american dream. and it makes me worry less about the world you will inherit and inhabit.


but for you to understand it, perhaps i need to share with you with some thoughts from the guardian weekend edition (8.11.08) on what the election of barack obama seems to mean for the world...


“when, at 8:01 p.m., pacific time, CNN called the race for obama, we collapsed...the champagne, whose presence in the fridge i had thought to be ominously bad karma, was opened. no toast. just ‘thank god, thank god, thank god’,’ spoken by four devout atheists.” --jonathan raban . (i took the title of this post from his article as well.)


“for the last eight years, it’s been hard to keep the flame alive. those of us who have admired america since childhood--seeing it as endlessly fascinating, brimming with energy and founded on the deeply radical ideal of self-government--felt increasingly beleaguered after 2001. how to admire the land of ‘you’re with us or against us,’ embodied by a president with a cowboy swagger, waging a fraudulent war and threatening to choke the planet by belching out a quarter of the world’s CO2 and damn the consequences? america became bush country, its national symbol no longer the statue of liberty but abu ghraib. the flame was sputtering out.” --jonathan freedland


“palin may despise the cities and the coasts, the new yorks and californias and the university towns--but that is the america that the rest of the world treasures. and now it is in the ascendant.” --jonathan freedland


i think through the election process, especially since the naming of sarah palin as mccain’s VP, she is what provoked me most. probably, if i’m honest, because she in many ways, reminded me of me...a failed beauty queen who hopped from one university to another before finally gathering a degree. although my geography is better than hers, and i did eventually complete more than one degree and earn a fulbirght, would i really have been any smarter? or less ambitious? or less anxious to prove my small town background was good enough? i was left with the overwhelming feeling of wanting more and expecting more. and hoping there was more. after all, i know i wouldn't make a good vice president. this self-knowledge seemed to be disturbingly lacking in her.


i was a hillary supporter, mostly because i have a soft spot in my heart for bill. i heard him speak at commencement at the university of chicago in 1999 and could understand why monica lewinsky did what she did. he is such a dynamic individual, and although weak as a person, an embodiment of the good parts of the american dream. in a way, i felt it was hillary’s turn. and i was heartened to think that along with hillary, we would get bill. but somehow it’s different with obama and it’s become ok for me that he ended up the candidate and that he won. more than ok, actually. it’s the beginning of something new. a sense of hope and a return to all that’s good about the american dream.


it isn’t going to be easy. the world you will inherit will be a different one. energy consumption will change, banking will change, the way you travel and how you spend your money will be different. but, i hope that you will be able to consider the entire world your home. but i also hope that you will feel a tie to a particular place that you consider your base...because a home is important. wherever it is, be that place denmark or the US (hopefully some of both, because you are the product of both). or perhaps it will be another place, should your parents choose to move you to norway or singapore. whatever the place, i hope that it will be a space in which you can be the thinking, intellectual being that i already see in you. i want so much for that space to be free for you to inhabit.


whatever may happen, i am more filled with hope now because of the election of barack obama. whatever he proves to do in the coming years, this moment of hope, this very one, is an important one. for us and for you and for the future. please treasure that and hold onto it for the future, no matter what else happens.


(composed on KL804 MNL-AMS, nov. 9, 2008)

they're even celebrating in boracay!

today, on the beach in boracay, i saw this:

oliver, who had made it, told me he had done it to show how happy he and other filipinos were that obama had won the election. what we did on tuesday was a profound and amazing thing and i'm not sure we adequately appreciate that. seeing this on a beach on a small island halfway across the world today gave me a small taste of the enormity of this. we did good, guys! and we turned the fake americans into the real americans again. i can't even express what a relief that is.

fake americans prevail!

i have never been prouder to be a fake american. ever since i heard the news, i have had a lightness in my step and a song in my heart. in a celebratory mood, i bought mathilde some shoes that are one pair of only 500 made in the world (some skater brand from LA, starts with an "s," escapes me at the moment, i'm lame and old, so sue me EDITED:  it's Supra). and i bought myself this:

is that not just so extra cool? it will possibly also enable me to connect with my home planet when i'm on the road. :-) it will no doubt be fantastic (i'm trying to get off fabulous, i know i overused it) at the tangobaby cabinet meetings, tho' now we may not need her to be president in 2012 quite as much, because obama (i get goosebumps just saying his name) will surely have two terms.

seriously, watching just pictures, without sound, on CNN across the room in the club floor lounge, i get goosebumps all over my entire body..like on my feet as well...i didn't even know you could get goosebumps on your feet. i loved when clinton was elected, but have to admit that the joy i felt then wasn't anything like this. this is the beginning of a whole new and exciting era. i actually feel proud to be an american for the first time in more than 8 years (more than 8 because it was bush + the monica lewinsky crapola, when frankly, who wouldn't have done what monica did, given the chance (sorry, hillary)). can you imagine, living outside your country and wincing a little bit every time your nationality came up? i had actually recently been mulling over applying for danish citizenship. now it looks like i won't need to. i don't have to hide my passport in shame anymore when i'm in line in the airport!

i've been overwhelmed today by congratulations emails and SMSes. it's so exciting and wonderful. it makes me so happy that both my in-person friends and my blog friends have been so kind and thought of me on this historic day! i wish we could all simultaneously raise a glass together, wherever we find ourselves in the world and toast in celebration. we did it, my fellow fake americans, and i am so proud of us.

p.s. i'm going here tomorrow morning and i might be offline...just think of me, lying on the beach with a cocktail and celebrating the triumph of the fake americans! catch ya on saturday if not before.