she's just saying...

Romneycrate

WWJD, with a gun and at least 750 live birds

This was almost too easy. When I opened this letter from Henry's adoption agency today, the blog post wrote itself. The event could only be in, where else, Texas!

Call me a bleeding heart Unitarian liberal atheist, but I don't think this is what Jesus really meant. In Matthew 6:26, he said: "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Not shoots them. Just saying.

 

 
 
 

No Joe for me

Really? That's all you've got? One suggestion? You guys would be duds at the Comedy Club!

But, one's all I need. I shall now riff on Trader Joes, since I don't have much more to say about rice than I said here. I never did buy the rice cooker, btw. I realized that my heavy faux-Calphalon does just fine. One more appliance not to store.

Now to my stand-up routine. Trader Joe's. What is it about Trader Joe's?  [Pause for laughs.] Do they slip drugs in their 2 Buck Chuck or something? The place is a cult. When I lived in LA, it was truly freaky. You'd compliment someone on their crackers and they'd get all excited: "I got them at Trader Joe's!" People would open their cupboards and pull out bags of food and say "Look what I got at Trader Joe's!" Weird. You never hear people say "Look what I got at Safeway!" Right? It's a store, people. You didn't have to brave the Amazon to get those Turkey Cilantro Mini Wontons and the Gluten-Free Flax Seed Toaster Waffles.

Bend got a Trader Joe's a few years ago, to much buzz, anticipation and excitement. I'm going to confess something here: I've never been to it. To me, the place is suspect. Weird private-label packaging, Hawaiian shirts, overly happy people, I don't know. There's something not quite right about it.

And about that Two-Buck Chuck. "It's just as good as the expensive wine!" No, it's not. You just can't tell the difference.

Thanks, I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip your waitperson.

The Lost Dogs

It must be dog week on this blog. Caution: this post is going to deviate from my usual light-hearted banter, so be warned.

I just finished reading "The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tales of Rescue and Redemption" by Jim Gorant.

It's a gruesome story, but also heartwarming and hopeful.  Much of the book focuses on the process the dogs went through to be evaluated, socialized and (most) eventually adopted. The dogs' desire to be "good" dogs, the work they did, the trust they gave and the love and joy they found is deeply moving, and highlights the rescue and redemption mentioned in the title.

The gruesome part is what the dogs went through at the Bad Newz Kennels. And who was involved, and how he's now celebrated by everyone from the Humane Society to NFL fans and President Obama. That would be Michael Vick of the Philadelphia Eagles, this season's "Comeback Player of the Year."

A USDA report stated that Vick personally electrocuted, strangled, drowned, and shot dogs. He wanted losing dogs killed rather than given away. He hanged dogs from trees, electrocuted them with jumper cables, held them underwater until they drowned in his swimming pool, and even threw his own family dogs into the fighting pit to be torn to shreds while he laughed.

psychopath
A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts.

Is he a psychopath, and has he reformed? I don't know. Michael Vick didn't stop fighting dogs because he saw the error of his ways. He operated his dogfighting ring for six years and only stopped when he was caught. He denied all involvement and confessed only after others blew the whistle.  His carefully-worded repentent statements certainly sound like the work of his p.r. team.

I would like to believe in second chances. But there's a difference between offering a second chance and a multimillion-dollar NFL contract. And now sportswriters and others are calling his standout playing comeback a redemption. If he never played after jail, would he not be redeemed?  And what does how well you play a game have to do with moral or ethical redemption?

I can't say if he's reformed or been redeemed. I can only look at what he was capable of and go from there. And on the positive side, having someone so high-profile involved in dogfighting and abuse has brought it into the national consciousness, and the results have redeemed pitbulls in some peoples' eyes.

It's complicated. However, this gives me chills:

In an interview with NBC News, Vick said he wants a dog. "I would love to get another dog in the future," Vick said. "If I ever have the opportunity again I will never take it for granted. I miss having a dog right now." What part was taking dogs "for granted?" And what part does he miss? 

OK: let the comments begin! Please know that I'll delete any racist, profane or just plain obnoxious ones. 'Cause it's my blog.

What's your state nut?

Why I enjoy living in Oregon

1. No valet parking in the entire state.
2. It's got ocean, mountains, desert, lakes, rivers and a cool city. And Bend, of course.
3. Tumbleweeds still roll through our airport parking lot.
4. The state schools' mascots are a Duck and a Beaver. Isn't that cute?
5. State motto: "She flies with her own wings." (Way better than WA: "Bye and bye.")
6. People are really chatty here (something that annoyed both sisters on visits).
7. It's the home of the hazelnut.
8. Only state with a trail named after it. Ever heard of the Ohio Trail?
9. No sales tax.
10. You don't have to pump your own gas:  it's actually illegal. 'Nuff said.

The Official State Nut. The only state with an official nut, actually.

I can't say it any better

From Forbes.com:

What's ironic is that I am an advertiser on NBC. Granted, I don't buy national airtime for a car brand - it's a museum in the Central Oregon market. But hey, I'm paying them money. And even as an advertiser, this total lack of respect for the viewers really pisses me off. I'm close to pulling my media buy but for the fact that I care about my local franchise and my reps. I've let them know how I feel, but I doubt it's going to get back to 30 Rock.

And yes, we're still watching the Olympic prime-time coverage at home - what choice do we have?

Oh wait: I take that back. I could be watching the Olympics right now (Sat. afternoon): NBC is providing live coverage. Up now:

Men's Hockey

Late round-robin action features the Slovakian men versus Latvia.

I admit: I'm a fanboy

Henry and I saw Avatar 3D yesterday, and I can't stop thinking about it.

The story is not really the point: it's your usual sci-fi evil earth corporation plundering beautiful virgin planet mixed with boy-meets-alien in a Lord of the Rings New Zealand forest. We inherently know the story arc and resolution, having seen this play out a hundred times in a hundred different time periods. James Cameron is not a great writer: that's not where his genius lies.

It's the cumulative impact of the filmmaker's vision, imagination and visual effects: breathtaking, mind-blowing, spellbinding. Think of when you saw  2001: Space Odyssey, or Star Wars (the very first one): suddenly there's a whole new way of telling a story with film. 

Yes, the blue aliens are a little goofy, the evil US military is still evil, the acting is non-nuanced and the dialogue is corny. Amazingly, it's easy to forgive all that, because the glowing forest, the floating mountains, the lithe creatures, the movement, the luminescence, the 3-dimensionality is frankly astounding. It's a 2 1/2 hour movie and I never wanted it to end. 

(The marketing is state-of-the-corporate-art, of course: twitter feeds, app downloads, interactive websites for the McDonald's toys, etc. What do you expect for a $300-$500 million budget [depending on who's counting]? And don't get me started on the morality (um, immorality) of spending half a billion on a piece of celluloid when so many souls could be saved with that amount. The reality is that no one is about to say "Hey, instead of making this movie, let's send the money to Unicef!" That's a topic for another more socially-responsible blog.)

James Cameron,Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg: all are committing to Digital 3D for their upcoming movies. It is the way image-making is moving, whether through the movie screen,  home TV or computers. Story-telling is still about the story, at its heart, regardless of the tricks. But this movie paints a world unlike one you've ever imagined, and that is its story.

Go see Avatar in 3D and tell me what you think.

Another random grammar rant - local dog version

Our local cable company has a pretty good reputation for customer service and innovative technologies. What they seem to be lacking is a sixth-grade grammar education.

Bend has the reputed highest per-capita dog ownership in the state, most of which are black labs, and they're smart and fast and loyal etc. so I get the visual and have no quibble with that.

However, though this will once again label me a grammar prude, the tagline bugs the heck out of me. "We better be good." It's just wrong. "We'd better be good" is the correct usage here. I know, I know, it's ad-speak, informal, colloquialism, etc. but it grates on me every time I see or hear it.

Of course, this time of year whenever I see that particular tagline I tend to follow it up with "We'd better not cry, we'd better not pout." And I'm telling you why.

An hour of my life I'll never get back, courtesy of Sprint and Palm

In June I did my early gadget adopter thing and bought a Palm Pre smartphone. I've always had Palms, and this one is supposed to be the iphone killer. (I don't know why Palm never got the credit for touchscreens, by the way. They've always had them, but now that Blackberry and iPhone do as well, they're "hot.")

The Pre is very cool, but there's a bit of a steep learning curve to it. Or maybe a slow one: I still hang up on people regularly when they call 'cause I'm not clear on all the "gestures." But it's FUN: you can teeny-tiny-fy an app card by squeezing it with your fingers, flick it away, use the gesture area, etc. And it looks great - all smooth, black, shiny and curvy. And you know I buy by design, so I had to have it.

I'm also a Sprint apologist. They've worked fine for me and are so desperate to keep their customers that they offer us stuff occasionally. Their customer service is okay, but there's a weird thing between Palm and Sprint about who's responsible for stuff. They tend to send you back and forth to each other, which is annoying.

Lately I've had problems with the Sprint/Pre accessories. My car charger died after four months, and today I bought the very cool "wireless" (although with a plug) Touchstone charger. Got it home and nothing. No charging. So I checked the website troubleshooter and went through all the steps, which ended up sending me to Palm via computer chat. Here is the transcript.

1:35 PM Connected to Rescue Gateway. A support representative will be with you shortly.

1:36 PM Support session established with Sergio.

1:36 PM Sergio: Hello.

1:37 PM Sergio: I understand that you are experiencing issue with Touchstone, as it is not charging. Am I right?

1:37 PM Melissa Hochschild: Correct!

1:37 PM Sergio: I am sorry to hear that.

1:38 PM Sergio: I will help you in this regard.

1:38 PM Sergio: Let me know, what happens when you charge the device with Touchstone?

1:38 PM Melissa Hochschild: Nothing!

1:38 PM Sergio: Is it not charging the device?

1:38 PM Melissa Hochschild: Correct!  [We just spent three minutes establishing the fact that it doesn’t work, which I told them when starting the chat. Was that unclear?]

1:38 PM Sergio: Okay

1:39 PM Sergio: Let me know, the version of Web OS that you are using on the device.

1:40 PM Melissa Hochschild: 1.2.1

1:40 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:41 PM Sergio: Just to confirm, whether the Touchstone™ back cover is installed.

1:41 PM Melissa Hochschild: yes

1:41 PM Sergio: Remove and reattach the Touchstone back cover to ensure it is attached securely at all points.

1:41 PM Melissa Hochschild: [mounting irritation as it becomes clear Sergio can't help] done

1:41 PM Sergio: Now try to charge the device again.

1:42 PM Sergio: Let me know the result.

1:42 PM Melissa Hochschild: nothing happens!

1:42 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:42 PM Sergio: Align the Palm logo on the Touchstone back cover with the Palm logo on the Touchstone™ charging dock. The phone will not charge if it is not centered on the charging dock.

1:43 PM Melissa Hochschild: I did that, and made sure all connections were tight. The charger works on the phone directly, just not through the Touchstone.

1:43 PM Sergio: Let me know, whether the charging dock is connected to a computer.

1:43 PM Melissa Hochschild: no

1:43 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:44 PM Sergio: Connect the AC adapter and USB cable directly to the phone and a power outlet (NOT to a USB port on the computer).

1:44 PM Sergio: Does the phone charge?

1:44 PM Melissa Hochschild: did that and the phone is charging via the USB, not the Touchstone.

1:44 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:44 PM Sergio: Connect the USB cable to the charging dock.

1:44 PM Melissa Hochschild: done

1:44 PM Sergio: Is it charging now?

1:45 PM Melissa Hochschild: NO. I did all this previously!

1:45 PM Sergio: Okay, I understand that.

1:46 PM Sergio: As you have run Interactive test on the device. Let me know, If the  device passes the test or does it produce any error codes?

1:46 PM Melissa Hochschild: It says it passes.

1:46 PM Sergio: That's good. [Why??? It doesn't work!]

1:46 PM Sergio: Are you using the  original battery that came with the phone?

1:46 PM Melissa Hochschild: yes

1:47 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:47 PM Sergio: Center the phone on the charging dock and to leave it on the dock for at least 5 minutes.

1:47 PM Melissa Hochschild: I did that before I contacted you.

1:47 PM Sergio: Okay. I really appreciate for explaining to me in a detailed way. [Is this Sergio's attempt at sarcasm?]

1:47 PM Sergio: Thank you very much.

1:48 PM Sergio: Let me know, the place and date of purchase of Touchstone.

1:48 PM Melissa Hochschild: Today at the Sprint Store in Bend Oregon.

1:49 PM Sergio: So, it is a brand new touchstone.

1:49 PM Melissa Hochschild: yes

1:50 PM Sergio: Okay.

1:50 PM Sergio: Give me a couple of minutes, while I work on the issue. [Right. He probably had five chats going at the same time.]

1:53 PM Sergio: Thank you on hold.

1:53 PM Sergio: Let me explain to you.

1:53 PM Sergio: As we have done the complete troubleshooting steps for the device and the issue still persist. It seems to be an issue with the Hardware of the device. As the device is brand new I suggest you to contact Sprint immediately, so that they can provide the replacement of the device. Also I provide you the chat session ID, which will be a reference for you, so that you can show to the Sprint retailer as a proof.

1:54 PM Sergio: Thank you so much for your patience and understanding in this regard. [More sarcasm?]

1:54 PM Sergio: Can I be of any other help today?

1:54 PM Melissa Hochschild: no [since he was of no help whatsoever]

1:54 PM Sergio: Thank you for contacting Palm and feel free to contact us for further assistance. We rely on your suggestions and feedback to help us provide the best support, so please take a few minutes to complete the customer survey that you'll receive via email. [Believe me, I will!]

You may now close the chat window. Have a great day! Take care. Bye!

1:55 PM Sergio has ended the session. [Twenty minutes later.]

 I won't bore you further with the Sprint phone call, but after another 20 minutes (during which I had to explain what the Touchstone was), they told me it wasn't their fault, it was the manufacturer's. I replied that their brand was on it, but that went nowhere. They finally said to return it at the store. Thank you, I think I figured that out myself.

Have you experienced that surge of anger, frustration and disbelief that occurs during Customer Service calls? Yeah - I had a few of those. I'm now cooled off and resigned, which is even worse.

Why does stuff that should work not work? Where's the problem: manufacturing, quality control, bad design, no one caring? And why is it so difficult to give feedback? How many of these defective things will they sell before they notice they're not working? Where's the satisfaction for the consumer???

Don't get me started again. I'm going to go pour another glass of Chardonnay.

 

Hmm. Where's the cord and plug in this shot? Deceptive marketing at its finest.

Top Ten Tuesday: phrases III

Current catchphrases that annoy me:

1. It's all good.
2. Not so much.
3. It is what it is.
4. For reals.
5. Good times.
6. No worries.
7. Chillaxin'
8. Cool beans!
9. My bad.
10. Woot!

And all that inane Life is Good crap stuff...

 

What are yours?

Top 10 Tues: social networking rant edition

So while I'm on the subject:

Social networking trends I don't much like:

1. Personal blogs that carry ads between posts.*
2. Calling your social networking followers your "tweeple." (OK, I liked it for about 3 days.)
3. Self-congratulatory Facebook updates.
4. Mom blogs that are actually about pushing product.
5. Flickr's latest homepage layout, especially as a paying member.
6. Facebook apps that are covers for crappy ads.
7. LinkedIn self-inflation self-importance.
8. Widgets that won't work.
9. Bit.lys, TinyURLs, is.gds, blip.fms, etc.
10. A list like this at the end of every post:

Addthis Ask Blinklist del.icio.us Digg Fark Facebook Google LycosMa.gnolia Mr Wong Netscape Netvousz Newsvine Reddit StumbleUponSlashdot Tailrank Technorati Wink Yahoo

*I defend your right to include whatever you want on your blog. I just don't like ads in the middle.

A twit no longer

I'm over Twitter.

I'm an admitted trend-follower. An early-ish adopter. I jumped on Twitter awhile ago, for work reasons, really. Turns out a lot of museums tweet about their exhibits and events.

So I got a personal account and started following/being followed, from locals to Obama. At the beginning it was cool -- you were supposed to answer the question "What are you doing?" I like the premise of brief broadcasts about what random folk are up to at a particular moment. Sort of like an in-the-present haiku. Almost zen, you could say.

But most tweets I receive now are not fun to read. In fact, they're pretty unreadable. Due to the limitations of length and the desire of most twitterers to promote something, most messages end up looking like a bunch of hieroglyphics. You can retweet, reply, hashmark, include shortened URL photos and links, all of which have their own code. So a typical message looks like this:

@jensmith RT @OR_150: Westward Oregon! A Sesquicentennial Celebration, comes to Bend May 29-30. http://bit.ly/zv3QL

This is one I actually sent the other day. Even I don't remember what I included here. [Note to Jen: I changed your last name to preserve your innocence. Ha.]

Here's another one from one of our local weathermen:

BMacNewsRT @AdamClark905: Detailed Bend Forecast is out: http://bit.ly/1os5n

From a local who shall not be identified:

excellent, r/t @turoczy Finally, trending by town. Here's Portland http://bit.ly/36s2qJ or follow @happn_in_pdx

From Major League Baseball:

MLB#Nationals just announced Grand Slam Flex Plan at http://is.gd/LJw6 as latest addition to MLB.com Fan Value Corner at http://is.gd/LJwJ

Who wants to read stuff like that?  Not me. I guess that actually makes me a trend-follower anyway, as there's a growing Twitter backlash abuilding.

Ignite yourself

[From Jen, a friend and fellow blogger:]

"If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 PowerPoint slides and they rotated automatically every 15 seconds?

 Around the world people have been putting together “Ignite” nights to share their answers. Visit the Ignite Bend website to find out more about local events. More information about Ignite Events held around the world can be found at O’Reilly’s Ignite website.

The local website goes on to say: "topics range from tech to gardening to current events. It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s theater/concert/stand-up all rolled into one! At Ignite Bend #1, speakers talked about Legos, social media, karma, acronyms, and more..."

So, there's the plug: it's June 4 for all you Central Oregonians.Check it out.

The concept is very similar to Henry's fourth-grade class assignment last week: Pick a topic of interest about an invention or idea and give a 3-minute speech with visuals. Henry picked the zipper, which meant that I've learned more than you can imagine about the history of zipper design. Fascinating stuff. Maybe that could be my Ignite Bend topic. Or maybe I should talk about chicken sweaters.Or how (not) to build a water feature by yourself with no skills or equipment.

What would you pick to speak about, if this was your assignment?

A lot of testosterone, and not just on the field

Am I becoming an old fogey? (Don't answer, really.) The Superbowl ads, with a few exceptions, struck me as gratuitously violent, demeaning to women and just plain incomprehensible. And I'm in the industry.

Women's clothes got ripped off on the street, they were spied on in the shower, they were verbally abused by flowers, they argued over their enhanced boobs, and Mrs. Potato Head's mouth was thrown over a cliff. Jeez. Of course, random men were hit by bats, snow globes (Henry's all-time favorite spot) and buses, skied into trees and got thrown out of windows. Oh, and a panda koala got repeatedly punched.

A lot of anger out there, folks!

Of course we had the Clydesdales, though they seemed a bit forced. The e-Trade baby came through again with a new friend (though I thought even he was uncharacteristically cranky in the golf spot), and the Dylan/Wil.i.am spot was truly a classic. A lot of imagery there - I need to find that one and watch it again.

The Ed McMahon and MC Hammer spot for Cash4Gold.com was horribly sad.

Meanwhile, I'm transferring my domain name from Go Daddy. They're just stupid.

 

And what the heck???

Two things about everything

There's a theory that for every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.

For an example, for trading, all you need to know is:

1. Sell high
2. Buy low

Of course, someone started a blog meme about this that I ran into recently, and I thought y'all would enjoy this little exercise. So, to get you started, here are my entries:

Two things about management:

1. Praise in public, critique in private.
2. Your job is to help them do their jobs.

Two things about client service:

1. Clients don’t like surprises.
2. Always tell the truth.

Two things about being a valued employee:

1. Make your boss look good.
2. Don’t blame others, but always give credit.

Two things about marketing:

1. Find the end-end-benefit.
2. Make it crystal clear. 

Two things about market research:

1. Identify the real objective.
2. Only ask the need-to-know questions, not the nice-to-know.

Two things about PR:

1. Perception is reality.
2. Perception is created.
   

Two things about single parenting:

1. You have to do it all yourself.
2. You can’t do it all yourself.

Two things about blogging:

1. It’s really not about you, it’s about your readers.
2. Don’t post anything you don’t want your mother or your next employer to read.

OK, your turn!

Words to live by

These are the guiding phrases at Henry's elementary school. They're posted everywhere, in various forms.

Complete with specific examples:

The one in the library says "Return your books on time," the music class has "stop playing your instruments when I ask" and the gym exhorts kids to "wear your gym shoes." (I guess that's the "safe" aspect.)

Thinking about it, I think these words kind of say it all.

Maybe we should expand the campaign to the general public, or the whole world.

Race, curtain fabric and the Campbell's Kids

Since Tuesday night, many people have been asking me what Henry thinks of it all; i.e. a black man winning the presidency. The answer is "not much."

We watched the returns together -- I figured it was more important than his grammar homework that night. They declared Obama the winner and started panning the faces of the huge crowd gathered at the park in Chicago. Just like Kathi D and so many others, I just burst into sobs and couldn't stop. Henry mistook my tears for sadness and sat patting my back, saying "It's OK, mom." I told him that I was crying with joy, and tried to explain the significance of the event. While I talked, Henry's eyes welled up and tears started rolling down his face. I asked him why he was crying, and he answered through his sobs, "I don't know!" When mom cries, kids cry.

The fact that Obama's win holds little meaning for Henry is understandable and certainly positive in many ways. He's only nine, and has no reason to believe it's out of the ordinary. In our little city, we have less than 1% black residents, many of which are, like Henry, adopted kids of white parents. He's had no significant exposure to black cultural or racial issues. But is that good? Or should I make him aware of the racial context he's certain to face?

I think it's naive to say his color doesn't matter and won't affect him throughout his life, and wonder how to best prepare him. Many experts say to wait until he asks about it, but so far he's never brought it up; it's always been me. From when he was a baby, I made a point of having black and African music, art and books in our home. I colored in the all-white faces in his books with a brown pencil, and scrutinized birthday cards, posters, curtain fabric, cartoons and decorations for multi-culti scenes. I wonder if I'm over-emphasizing the issue, and certainly it seems he couldn't care less. But you never know what messages are sent and received.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear.

Where's my brown pencil?

A Poly Sci perspective

I normally stay away from politics in this blog to avoid flaming spammers, and anyway, it's probably pretty obvious where my political philosophy lies, but I did want to share this editorial from the Harvard Crimson. (Note the author's name, hint, hint.)

Looking Backward and Forward from Election Day, 2008

by PROF. JENNIFER HOCHSCHILD

PUBLISHED ON 10/31/2008 3:09:03 AM

Most American voters appear to support Barack Obama for the presidency. The fact that the presumed winner is a young man with little national governing experience, a middle name shared with a notorious villain, and a last name only one letter away from that of the United States’ public enemy number one is extraordinary. Add to that, of course, that his mother is white and his father African, so our presumed next president will be nonwhite, or even “black.”

Unsurprising as these observations are, it still seems worthwhile to underscore just how astonishing this outcome will be if it occurs. Here are a few facts that might help those under age 25 understand better why those of us over age 50 are walking around with dropped jaws.

In my lifetime, blacks in some southern communities were in grave physical danger if they did not step off the sidewalk when a white person approached them. During my childhood, Virginia’s governor and many educators closed entire public school systems for years so that schools could not be desegregated. When I was in my teens, black and white activists were murdered for trying to ensure the franchise for black citizens. As recently as my young adulthood, three-fourths of whites agreed in a national survey that “blacks shouldn’t push themselves where they’re not wanted.”

The idea that a black man would within a few decades be elected president with strong white support would have seemed ludicrous to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. just as much as to Malcolm X or George Wallace.

Almost as astonishing to people of a certain age is the fact that Obama’s main rival in the Democratic primaries was a woman. Here too it is worth recalling a few facts to remind those under 25 how much the world has changed since their faculty were young.

In my teens, a best-selling book, “The Feminine Mystique,” amazed and shocked readers by asserting that women were not fully satisfied by submerging their identities completely in the wishes and actions of their husbands and children. When I entered college, women’s dormitories had housemothers, midnight curfews, open-door requirements for dorm rooms, and sign-in sheets for male guests. When I entered graduate school, the female students held their annual meeting to inform newcomers which male faculty could be trusted always, sometimes, or never (we took careful notes). Just a few years later, a prominent professor wondered in a faculty meeting if female graduate students were like the wolf children of Avignon, and never would overcome their unsatisfactory childhood socialization. Over a third of both men and women agreed in the General Social Survey as late as 1974 that “women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men”

No wonder that we cannot stop reading political blogs, obsessing about the newest poll, and struggling to find something in the political science literature to explain this election.

Questions remain, of course, about the long-term impact of Obama’s presumed election. Here are a few that will keep me busy in research and teaching:

How much of Obama’s ability to obtain whites’ support was due to his unusual racial heritage—the grandparents from Kansas, the father in the United States on a student visa, the visible and unembarrassed biraciality? Is it now possible that white voters will be equally enthusiastic about an African American candidate descended from slaves?

Will Obama be constrained to maintain a race-neutral political and policy persona in order to keep other minorities’ and whites’ support? After being elected, if he is, can he discuss illegal immigration, the achievement gap, black male incarceration, or affirmative action without alienating too many voters? More generally, can he talk openly about racism, nativism, and structural impediments to nonwhites’ success, along with talking about parental responsibility and personal excellence?

Might an Obama presidency “push the prospect of a Latino Democrat getting elected further into the future than it would have been otherwise,” as one scholar has observed in an e-mail listserv? More generally, how will political coalitions or, conversely, electoral competition among people of color be affected by an Obama presidency?

How will daily interactions between whites and nonwhites change? Will there be less discriminatory treatment in jobs, health care, education, or the criminal justice system? Conversely, will people of color see racial consciousness as more optional and less necessary, so that their identity as an economic conservative or stamp collector can come to the fore?

Might the worst-off blacks (say, young men in inner cities) be just as badly off, or even worse off in relative terms, under a Democratic administration that “spreads the wealth around?” That is, even if the top four economic quintiles, say, are made better off over the next few years, can those gains reach down into the few American communities that are deeply poor, dangerous, ill-educated, jobless, and isolated?

Even Barack Obama will not solve all of America’s problems of race, class, and gender in the United States over the next few years. Nevertheless, we can pause to savor how far our nation has come in recent decades, before tackling the huge and fascinating questions that lie before us as students, scholars, and citizens.

Jennifer Hochschild is the Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government , Professor of African and African American Studies, and Harvard College Professor.

Suburbutopia

[I suppose Bend isn't really the suburbs, but life sure looks and feels like it.]

We did our annual ease-back-into-school mode with the "Meet the Teacher" event at Henry's school this afternoon. The kids see their new classrooms, check out their teachers and eat popsicles from the PTA. We  catch up from the summer and plan playdates and carpools for flag football practice.

I enjoy the rhythms of life in this town. They're very pleasant and comfortable; like living here in general. I feel vaguely embarrassed that life is so easy for us, though. Must be my liberal guilt. Enjoy the benefits, but feel kinda bad about it. 

But boy, we're a white bunch here. Another transracial adoptive mom and I were looking around to see if there were any new non-white kids, as we know every one of the other eight black kids there, including our own. (This is out of an 800-student public school.) We got very excited to see a black mom - the only one I've seen in Bend. We're progressing!

Yes, I know, race doesn't matter, blah blah, but I can't imagine being in the one percent minority in grade school. Doesn't seem to bother Henry though.

Not much bothers Henry, except when they run out of popsicles. Hope it stays that way.

The Donation Olympics

As the Olympics medals count begins, I'm going to run a donation count, sending money to various organizations that support international human rights, ending hunger, the environment, the Tibet and Darfur struggles, The Sichuan earthquake victims and the Special Olympics.

Today's Olympics donation is to savedarfur.org.

The opening ceremony,which I normally find tacky and trite, was a mind-blowing mix of conceptual art, military-like choreography, film special effects, historical opera and patriotic pageant. I must admit that the spectacle of the 2000 precision drummers was a little scary. Hordes of mechanistic marching soldiers came to mind, but maybe that was just me.

Meanwhile, Henry has found the 100% 24/7 Olympics channel, so we're plugged in day and night. We just watched a badminton match. Now women's weightlifting. It's going to be a long month.

(image courtesy of www.brownielocks.com)