Too Shrill a Mockingbird

Question put to me: why is it bad to make fun of Jane Hamsher's hair?

I was good, I waited patiently while various possible answers filtered up through my mind. Screaming, no. Swearing, no, but has possibilities. Mumbling incoherently about civilization, no.

Interesting that these are often the stages of reaction to crises at work, where I am an employee of this woman with the lovely hair. So here's what I ended up with:

Dear Friend,

It matters because it's making fun of someone for being sick. Cancer nearly killed this young woman -- again -- and she has gone through hell over the last year with chemo. Now her own hair has grown back in and she can get rid of the wig, and someone finds that worthy of scorn? ["Newly platinum blonde" is a slur about a low class dye job.]

What if it were a different kind of illness or injury that left her physically crippled, and she went through hell doing rehab every day for a year, and then someone mocked her because she walked crooked? [in fact one of our top writers is recovering from such an injury]

Now the one exception would be if you are very close to the person and they themselves encourage joking around about their condition. My mom makes fun of the way she walks "like a little old lady" but if some stranger said that, I might not see the humor.

We don't allow people on our blog to make fun of McCain's disfigured face which is from cancer. As human beings we have common enemies -- death and disease -- and we would do well do work together to fight them, not mock those who are the scarred survivors.

Love and homemade cookies,
egregious

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photo by Diane Newbery

"Will Blog for Food"

When I showed up at Plamehouse for the first time, I carried a sign that said "Will Blog for Food." Little did I know how ironic this would turn out to be.

I've been thinking about the support structures that we need as our political involvement becomes more complex.

I trust you have read my post on Plamehouse where I had to beg them to consider eating, and finally take action on my own. After about an hour of hinting about dinner, including putting a sign saying WE NEED FOOD in front of Jane and Marcy, I had to take action myself and go forth in search of pizza.

Today I watched people laying utility lines for some unknown future near my house. Investing in capacity for future use.

My own aha moment came when ordering another AC adapter and power plug for my laptop. I'm frequently running from room to room, one where I often work, the other where I sometimes work and where the electric connections exist.

What I thot I was doing was ordering was a spare set for keeping in my travel bag, to save time and mental energy when packing for my frequent trips. Just as I was about to push "order" I had the idea---get another set. For the other room here. So for a small additional amount I have solved the running back and forth problem. I can now work and post from either room.

We need to think about administrative support, and it can be as elemental as feeding Jane and Marcy in DC. How can we put together the people who must work to the exclusion of thinking about things like food with the people who want to support that work.

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Plamehouse! So...I'm the cook?

One of the funny things about Plamehouse is while it may be a Vonnegutian karass, it is not a well-ordered home.

Upon my arrival for the blowout Verdict Party yesterday, I took inventory: two over the top giddy bloggers---Hamsher and Wheeler; one enormous bottle of wine from looseheadprop; one regular bottle of wine; and not a damn thing to eat. I mean not a granola bar. Not a cracker.

Open the refrigerator, absolutely nothing. I've seen more food in bachelor apartments. What did these people have for lunch? Turns out neither had lunch. What about breakfast? One of them had no breakfast. [Wait, didn't Jane blog about coffee and pastry at the courthouse? Historians want to know these things. Maybe I’m remembering one of the Stoller DQ crowd who had no breakfast. In any case absolutely no one was interesting in procuring food.]

For the next couple of hours, we drank a wee toast or two to our combined efforts to make the law apply to the high as well as the low. It's been a long time working to understand the details of a complicated legal case. Finally: success. A toast to the hardworking bloggers. A toast to Fitzgerald and team. A toast to the faerie godmother.

I'm the daughter of a city prosecutor, who died exactly 17 years ago as of the verdict. I like to think he is looking down from heaven with a smile on his face. One of his HLS classmates, Kleindienst, was declared guilty in Watergate. He thought this was justice indeed, for the fellow showed up the last day of their group project and just signed his name. My father debated the real Paper Chase professor, Eddie Morgan, until the end of the class, leading to applause for this unusual feat. Should I wonder why my son can argue circles around me?

Perhaps I am just carrying on family tradition. In fact my Republican mother worked for the Boston law firm that took down McCarthy in the early 50's. She worked to register "Negroes" for the vote in the 40's and was surprised to learn that a woman could be fired as soon as she got married.

My mother left the work world when it was time for children, first my brother who died at age 3 hours, right in the middle of law school exams. Then a year later, me, who lived HOORAY! then my 3 sisters and 3 brothers. And you wonder why I work to save the lives of infants. So for the next 30 years my mother cooked three meals a day, tired or not. I felt this was a kind of slave labor and rebelled against this. For my own children, I only cooked them three meals a day until they got to the teen years, and then looked for relief.

So I had to laugh when I realized that these two blogger and media superstars were too absorbed in Verdict Euphoria to deal with such a mundane matter as food. And I, the feminist since 1968, the one who tried desperately to escape the cooking role near the end of my 15 years of full-time motherhood, here I was the one who was going to have to come up with some food.

So I walked out into the unseasonable cold and braved the two city blocks between Plamehouse and a rather decent pizza place. The two pizzas I brought back were the only food available until much later in the evening, when Pach and Stoller and other assorted lovely people assembled for a restaurant excursion. Since I had been up since bolting awake at 5am in verdict mania, it was time for me to sleep.

How I can contribute to the first feminist uprising: refuse to be the only cook. How I can contribute to this political upheaval: be the cook. We live not for ourselves alone.

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