Glamourous??

I don't subscribe to Glamour, though if I did, I'd be receiving their Michelle Obama cover story in a few days. Now, there is a lot to admire about our First Lady: she received her education, seems to be a pretty loving and loyal wife, and a great mom. But really, woman of the year?

For the first time in the magazine's history, a first lady appears on its cover. Somehow, I don't think Cindy McCain would have received a similar honor had her hubby won the presidency last year. Laura Bush was never honored, despite her commitment to education and literacy, just like her mother-in-law. Nancy Reagan never was featured, despite her Just Say No campaign that raised such strong awareness of the problems of drug abuse. That campaign transcended pop culture like few before or since. Not Betty Ford or Rosalyn Carter, or heck, even Jackie Kennedy.

What makes Michelle so unique? 'her "commitment to mentoring young women." Unlike the strong, successful women that Laura Bush raised?

I'm not belittling her commitment to mentoring; so many young women don't have positive role models to emulate. But sheesh, just like that infamous Nobel, why honor her now? She's been in DC less than a year, and she's not made that much of a difference (never mind her over-priced farmer's market). I think so many other strong women make a difference, in their own ways, in subtle ways, in ways that set a more powerful example than a First Lady ever could, a woman who really should be devoted to service if for no other reasons, she's unemployed and has the time, support, and profile to be of service.

Women's magazines are so hypocritical; I'm still contemplating whether to renew my Self subscription after Lucy's tales. Glamour, too, is off my list, but then again, I never subscribed. I actually had a bit of respect for it when it featured that normal sized model, the one with the bit of a tummy. But now--they are just the same as everyone else. Buying into what the MSM sells, without a discerning voice or contrary opinion. Too bad there isn't a market for a magazine for young conservative women on the market.

Give Michelle time, just like her hubby. Though I find it ironic that it is far too early to be assigning blame to the failures of Obama's presidency--Afghanistan, the failure to get any major piece of legislation passed--but not too early to honor them. While Bush is still blamed for every last flaw in this world, it's not too soon at all to bestow the accolades. Glamourous, indeed.

Good Stuff on Health Care Reform: I <3 Thomas Sowell

IBD/Investors.com is reprinting portions of a recent Thomas Sowell book with respect to the economics of medical care. As always, he is spot on with his analysis, whether it is recounting the pointlessness of bureaucracy, or well, basic economics:

Artificially lower prices, created by government order rather than by supply and demand, encourage more use of goods or services, while discouraging the production of those same goods and services. Increased consumption and reduced production mean a shortage. The consequences are both quantitative and qualitative.

Even the visible shortages that follow price controls do not tell the whole story. Quality deterioration often accompanies reduced production under price control, whether what is being produced is food, housing, or numerous other goods and services whose prices have been kept artificially low by government fiat.

I hate when people say "Oh, Canada has free health care! It's so unfair that we have to pay!" It is NOT free. There's this little thing called taxes that pays for this "free" health care that is often so much more inefficient than proponents claim. That is why Canadians cross the bridge to Michigan or New York to get elective procedures, or even non-electives ones, performed: because they don't want to be on a waiting list for eternity.

The Dems don't and won't see it this way. Thankfully, a few principled senators like Joe Lieberman won't let them get away with it.

Fifteen Years

I've facebook-chatted the last couple of nights with old friends from HS I hadn't seen or talked to in fifteen years. So strange...in some ways it feels like I was 17 years old just yesterday, and other days it feels like it was 150 years ago. Funny those connections of those who knew you then shape you as much, or even more, than those who shape you know. I don't know why their approval or interest is so very important, but I was one person then, elements of that girl remain, and new facets of me are even more present and critical to who I am now. Not as shy but still, not an athlete but someone who can knock out five miles after work on a treadmill, not fat but confident and strong and still smart.

And there are others from your past that you don't care to update with your life. Because they still cause nightmares. They still cause you grief, they still provoke tears. And does that make me a hypocrite? No. Forgiveness and distance cures much, but not all. Not all.

They Can't Give Them Away

So dad sent me this link this morning: Detroit House Auction Flops for Urban Wasteland. Basically, they can't give houses away in Detroit. A few amazing statements...

• Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

• Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days. (And most of those homes were from 2006, before the auto companies were at their lowest point!).
  

• Detroit has a $300 million deficit.
  
  
• Homes in Boston-Edison were going for $15K...or less!

The Boston-Edison District is full of beautiful mansions, once owned by historic Detroit leaders. Very depressing is that homes now are selling for practically nothing. For about $250K, you can buy one of the most expensively listed homes in the neighborhood:

LARGE BOSTON-EDISON HOME IN GREAT AREA. HUGE BEDROOMS, LARGE LIVING ROOM, DINING ROOM, FAMILY ROOM. HUGE FINISHED BASEMENT, SUPER LARGE DECK. GREAT 3RD FLOOR RETREAT INCLUDES OFFICE, BEDROOM AND BATH. COULD BE USED AS IN-LAW SUITE. SUBJECT TO SHORT SALE.

Yup, twice the size and half the price of what we have. Six bedrooms. A short sale...

For only $225K, you can get this:

A PICTURESQUE TREE LINED STREET IN THE BOSTON-EDISON DISTRICT PROVIDES THE SETTING FOR THIS 1919 GEORGIAN. FOYER W A GRAND STAIRCASE, LR WITH NAT FRPL AND DOORS TO A PRIVATE PORCH. KIT REBUILT IN 2008 CHERRY CABINETS, GRANITE, SLATE, BOCSH, DACOR, GROHE, RECESSED AND HAOLGEN LIGHTING, MBR WITH NAT FRPL AND TOTALLY REBUILT BATH WITH JETTED TUB AND WALK IN SHOWER. THIRD FLOOR WITH 2 ADDL BDRMS, FULL BATH. SIDE YARD W POND,WATERFALL,DECKS,PATIO...

It is gorgeous, and pictures show the beautiful kitchen and yard and the face that it has been maintained well. It would go for $1.5 million or more here. Easily.

I am not going to bother recounting the listings for places only $50K, $70K. They need a little improvement, but you could put $100K worth of work into them, and they'd be stellar. Hell, I'd buy a place and send the kids to Liggett or whatever. It would be a bargain. Even with higher heating bills!

But this is all so sad. And with more people fleeing the city, it's only getting worse.

Top Chef: Top Season

This season of Top Chef has easily been the best season with the best chefs, and last night's episode of the eagerly anticipated Restaurant Wars was my favorite episode yet. For chefs have established themselves as the likely final four, barring a major upset--Kevin, Jennifer, and the Voltaggio brothers of Michael and Bryan. Then there is Eli and Mike a step below, followed by Laurine and Robin. The top four divided into two teams in their challenge of Restaurant Mission vs. REVolt (awful name!!) left me on the edge of my seat. Kevin and Jennifer really slipped for the first time this season, Mike coasted as he usually does, and then Laurine just flopped as the front of the house for Mission. She was sent home. Robin had a surprisingly first-rate pear dessert, while the Volt brothers crushed and Eli proved far more adept than his counterpart as host for the evening. I was so nervous that Jennifer would have been sent home, but she survived it, as Tom's blog stated, justifiably so.

Top Chef definitely inspires me to cook more, though I'm still a little nervous about trying anything beyond my usual pasta dishes (chicken florentine, clammy pasta, farfalle and salmon, spicy shrimp--the usual rotation). So maybe I should attempt the corn chowder or the pumpkin or squash soup this weekend--yummy recipes from Shape and Cooking Light. I need to branch out, and at least I have a stellar enough kitchen to enable me to do that.

Writer's Block

I've been going through a (long) spurt on writer's block. I want to write more, think more critically, put pen to paper or keystroke to board, or whatever analogy you'd like to use. And I can't. I think being such a generalist doesn't help me, because there is never one singular thing to focus on. And unless you're a random columnist for some magazine or a style section, that's hard. For example, I care about:

• Politics and legal issues, particularly how Obama's policies or lack thereof (thank you, SNL) are affecting this country, impeding economic recovery, and contributing to a culture in which blame is used to rationalize progress, and not just "progressive" progress.
• Exercise, running, fitness, cooking, etc...the source of all of the health and fitness blogs I lurk at. But I have no desire to track my meals or offer nutrition advice or design recipes. It's a hobby.
• Entertainment, celebrity babies, discovering new music, etc. etc. All of which I consider a hobby.
  
• Detroit, how the state of Michigan is suffering economically. How the state can't create jobs, can't retain young college graduates, can't innovate, can't attract new residents. But Michigan has fantastic sports teams, the great up north, water and good people. What drives it?
• City and neighborhood politics and culture and discovering Capitol Hill and enjoying Washington, DC and H Street.
  
• The issues that every 30-something woman is worried about, children and home and working full-time and making time for friends and family and husband and house-wifery.
  
• Travel and seeing more of this country, visiting cities and connecting with members and having the freedom to go abroad.

I feel pulled in so many directions because I am, though I don't think that is a unique situation at all. I always thought I'd have more of a focus, and I'd fall into some certain public policy and be writing and participating in creating public policy as opposed to facilitating others' participation. I'm not sure what that means for me, career-wise. But I need to come to grips with my lack of focus and my writer's block if I want to be a writer. More to come...

Jury Duty

I was stuck on jury duty yesterday...luckily, I got out of it. Though in a way, I would not terribly have minded a few days on a jury, since after a decade of working with lawyers, I've never spent much time in a court room (thankfully, right?!).

The day was rather long and boring, though I did have plenty of time to catch up in my reading. In my current historical obsession with the antebellum period, I'm hoping to (finally) wrap up American Sphinx. I'm currently a few hundred pages into What Hath God Wrought, which I'm hoping will finally lead me to (re)read Waking Giant, which a year ago, amidst moving, I could never fully get into. I think the former will help engage me into the latter. And after this, perhaps the Civil War? I'd like to go find a short bio of James Madison, though he seems to be an even more neglected framer than John Adams.

The Peace Prize

Yup, this about sums it up:

In a stunning announcement, Millard Fillmore Senior High School chose Shawn Rabinowitz, an incoming junior, as next year’s valedictorian. The award was made, the valedictorian committee announced from Norway of all places, on the basis of “Mr. Rabinowitz’s intention to ace every course and graduate number one in class.” In a prepared statement, young Shawn called the unprecedented award, “f---ing awesome.”

At the same time, and amazingly enough, the Pulitzer Prize for Literature went to Sarah Palin for her stated intention “to read a book someday.” The former Alaska governor was described as “floored” by the award, announced in Stockholm by nude Swedes beating themselves with birch branches, and insisted that while she was very busy right now, someday she would make good on her vow to read a book. “You’ll see,” she said from her winter home in San Diego.

And again in a stunning coincidence, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar for best picture will be given this year to the Vince Vaughn vehicle “Guys Weekend to Burp,” which is being story-boarded at the moment but looks very good indeed. Mr. Vaughn, speaking through his publicist, said was “touched and moved” by the award and would do everything in his power to see that the picture lives up to expectation and opens big sometime next March.

At the same press conferences, the Academy announced that the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award would go this year to Britney Spears for her intention to “spend whatever it takes to save the whales.” The Academy recognized that Spears had not yet saved a single whale, but it felt strongly that it was the intention that counted most. Spears, who was leaving a club at the time, told People magazine that she would not want to live in “a world without whales.” People put it on the cover.

The sudden spate of awards based on intentions or plans or aspirations was attributed to the decision by the Norwegian Nobel committee to award the peace prize to Barack Obama for his efforts in nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world. (The committee said next year it will honor a Muslim who reaches out to the non-Muslim world.) Some cynics suggested that Obama’s award was a bit premature since, among other things, a Middle East peace was as far away as ever and the world had yet to fully disarm. Nonetheless, the president seemed humbled by the news and the Norwegian committee packed for its trip to the United States, where it will appear on Dancing with the Stars.

This is the final piece of proof, after the awards to Carter, Gore, and Arafat, that the Nobel Peace Prize is a joke, a parody, a worthless prize that is utterly discredited. You don't award the Nobel Prize for Peace to someone for "giving the world '"hope for a better future'" is "striving for nuclear disarmament." Twenty years ago, give it to Ronald Reagan for all of his work in ending the Cold War and limiting and halting nuclear weapons. Don't give it to someone who has done absolutely nothing. He's given some speeches, he's looked hopeful. It's a joke.

The London Times sums it up:

Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

And top ten reasons. My favorite: consolation prize for losing the Olympics.
Yup, this is the same week he won't meet with the Dalai Lama, because he might PO the Chinese.

Army Ten Miler

Yesterday, I ran my first ten mile race, the first time I've ever even run ten miles: the Army Ten Miler. I finished in 1:31:27, about a 9:08 mile. Considering my horrific cold and coughing, I'm pretty pleased. Still would have liked to break 9 minutes, but hey! It was so inspiring to be in the field of 30,000 runners, about 22,000 or so finished, and to be in the top 25% of women and in my age bracket. To see the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with only one leg, or no legs, still competing, and beating me at mile 9, was utterly amazing. The energy in the air at a race is something else, and I would like to try to do the half. I was feeling pretty sick around mile 9, but thankfully my body just lasted long enough to not start gagging until I crossed the finish line. You do dig to find that spurt of energy at the end. To cross the memorial bridge, to pass the Kennedy center down Independence, to the Capitol and then the 14th street bridge and back to the Pentagon is an amazing blur, and I am proud. But it was weird at the start, to hear us called athletes. It something I will continue to struggle to see myself as, because I've never been an athlete. And yeah, I was nowhere near the beginning of the finishers, but I was better than average in this field, and most people would never attempt that distance. So for me, it was my own personal victory.