politics Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Ann Hedreen, Writer Teacher Filmmaker | The Restless Nest Blog

Women Warriors

therestlessnest2013-01-29T15:04:12-08:00Categories: politics, Uncategorized, war, women's rights|Tags: draft, Gail Collins, Karl Marlantes, Obama, Roe v Wade, women in combat, women in the military|

I claim I want to better understand war. But my gut reaction to the news about women being allowed to serve in combat positions? Queasy. As if what the headlines are shouting is: “Hooray! Women will now be allowed to do the most dangerous, spiritually challenging, morally ambiguous dirty work on the planet!” New York Times columnist Gail Collins set me straight, reminding me that “They killed the Equal Rights Amendment to keep this from happening, but, yet, here we are. And about time.” Collins goes on to recall the words of retired Air Force Brigadier General Wilma Vaught, who once told her: “I think people have come to the sensible conclusion that you can’t say a woman’s life is more valuable than a man’s life.” The logic is clear: if we invest our nation’s security in professional warriors and if we believe women deserve equal access to all career paths, then women who make the personally huge commitment to serve in the United Sates Armed Forces must not be barred, on the basis of gender, from combat roles. So why my retrograde queasiness? Because, like any pacifist, I find it so difficult to turn my thoughts to combat at all, no matter what the context. But—as I learned from Karl Marlantes’ book, What it is Like to Go to War (see last week’s post)—I know turning our backs on war is not the answer. Especially the wars we support with our tax dollars. It has been 40 years this month since we ended the draft. [...]

My Viet Nam

therestlessnest2013-01-22T20:30:14-08:00Categories: politics, war|Tags: current-events, draft, Iraq War, Marlantes, peace, Selective Service, Viet Nam War|

Forty years ago this week, the Selective Service announced there would be no further draft calls. My brother, then a college student, had a dangerously low draft number. He and his peers hated and protested the Viet Nam war with a fervor that frightened me as much as the TV images of the war itself. But we who were young children in the 1960s grew up hating the war in a different way. We hated it the way children hate watching their parents fight. We hated it selfishly, because it was robbing our families, and therefore us, of playfulness, joy, innocence. Our older brothers and sisters had fifties childhoods; all Kick the Can and Leave it to Beaver. We tried to. But we’d seen things on television the Beav would never have been forced to see: kids our age aflame in napalm. Soldiers bleeding and screaming. By the time we were of protesting age, we were sick of it all: war and protest; fighting and shouting and political posturing. We turned away from community, from engagement. Remember the “me generation?” That was us. Isolationist, pacifist, devotees of meditation and marijuana; avoiders of meetings and causes. Most of us came out of our shells when we became parents. Having children of our own gave war a whole new meaning. When the United States went to war against Iraq in 1991, my husband and I carried our baby daughter in a march for peace on Capitol Hill. It was the first time I’d ever marched for anything. But [...]

Connoisseurs of Light

therestlessnest2013-01-15T09:57:43-08:00Categories: midlife, nature, politics, Seattle|Tags: gay marriage, Gingrich, Gregoire, inauguration, Obama, seasonal affective disorder, winter|

In January, we in the Northwest become connoisseurs of light. Gourmets who savor every spoonful. As the sun rises behind clouds on a Saturday morning, I lie in bed and study the bare branches of the old red oak in the park across the street and conclude: yes, they do look ever so slightly fuller. It’s the light, plumping the tiny buds inside each twig, like an artist going over his pencil marks with a black felt-tip marker. Later, we walk out of a matinee at 4:30 and are surprised to see streaks of light still in the sky. The next day, there will be a few more minutes of light. And each day after that. Every single day from now til the 21st of June! We who live nearer the poles love light the way babies love mothers’ milk. In winter, we turn our faces to the sun whenever and wherever we encounter it. This year, our New Year’s Day was dazzling, as drenched in light as Jan One can be in Seattle. My husband and I went for a walk at Alki Beach and everyone, everyone was smiling their most carefree, I’m-letting-my-inner-happy-baby-show kind of smile. It was as if the sun was granting us eight golden hours on the edge of the prism between the dark, exhausted old year and the beckoning light of the new. Talk and walk, the sun said; smile, breathe, drink in this light. You know it won’t last because this is the Northwest. But you live here, so you [...]

Goodbye, Oh-Twelve

therestlessnest2013-01-01T15:03:57-08:00Categories: politics|Tags: Election, Obama, Occupy, Richard Stengel, TIME Person of the Year|

What if our New Year’s Resolutions looked like this? One: Be kind to yourself. Two: Be kind to others. The end. That’s it. Saved again, by the Golden Rule! You could add a little fine print. For example, re being kind to yourself: you could vow to truly ban all trash talk, especially the real F-words: fat and failure. Re being kind to others, that tends to be a whole lot easier once you’re being kind to yourself. Although I have often found this to work the other way round: doing something kind for someone else can be the quickest way to distract yourself from self-trashing. Once you’ve enacted your Golden Rule two-resolution package, you’ll have so much more time to reflect on the ways in which 2013 is going to be way, way better than 2012. Not that Oh-Twelve didn’t have its high points. Election night, anyone? But with apologies to Republicans—especially those who might be feeling that their party has been hijacked by a loud and deluded minority—the biggest way in which 2013 is going to be dramatically different from 2012 is that there will be no election night hanging over our heads for ten out of the twelve months. I know, the Republican primaries had a certain amount of entertainment value, as did Clint Eastwood and the chair, but WOW: however you may have voted, aren’t you glad it’s all over? I am. Especially after traveling to France and Finland last spring, a trip that was one of the highlights of my year. [...]

On a December Day

therestlessnest2012-12-18T12:36:25-08:00Categories: politics, travel|Tags: Earl Blumenauer, gun control, Newtown, Obama|

One recent December day, my husband and I witnessed a rare event: a moment of silence on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. It was our first-ever trip to the visitors’ gallery at the Capitol. We were still trying to make sense of what appeared to be a gathering of 435 people engaged in animated speed-dating when the gavel thundered exactly twice and Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon was given the floor. The congressman spoke briefly of the Clackamas Mall shooting, in which two people were killed, three including the gunman, who took his own life. The moment of silence ensued. Then the speed-dating resumed. After a vote on something involving asthma inhalers and quips exchanged with the young intern next to us re Speaker Boehner’s strikingly varnished skin color, we left, assuming, without giving it much thought, that Blumenauer’s mild call for attention to the nightmare of gun violence would go, as per usual, unheeded. A day and a half later, I attended a poetry reading at a Seattle elementary school where I’d been an apprentice with Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program. Parents, grandparents and squirmy younger siblings crowded into the school library to hear the fifth graders read of their passion for the color orange, for football, for horses, dogs, cats, tropical fish, recess, hot chocolate. I listened a bit wistfully, nostalgic for my own days as an elementary school parent. But I left with a smile on my face: how could one not feel hope and [...]

Restless Brain Syndrome

therestlessnest2012-12-04T15:30:29-08:00Categories: brain, dementia, film, midlife, politics|Tags: 13th amendment, Civil War, Daniel Day Lewis, fiscal cliff, insomnia, Lincoln, Rustin Thompson|

Restless Brain Syndrome: I’ve had it bad lately. Typical onset: about five a.m. Starts with: review of dreams, none of which ever make much sense, but all of which seem to crescendo up to some cliff-hanger moment that wakes me up. I can’t keep swimming this river: there’s no more water! And wait: why am I wearing a slip? Who even wears slips anymore? From these traumas, my brain moves restlessly towards the saving light of consciousness, only to find a whole new casserole of dilemmas. My husband is right: we’ve got to get rid of that storage unit. It is ridiculous to have a storage unit. Speaking of Rustin, his latest film review ends with him saying he doesn’t think he’ll want to see Lincoln again. I couldn’t agree less. Speaking of presidents trying to work with congresses, what about that fiscal cliff? Speaking of fiscal cliffs, I fear our checking account may be approaching one… After enduring this for a while, I start bargaining with my brain. OK, Brain, you’re awake: so let’s stop tossing more leftovers into the casserole and address these food groups one at a time. How about we start by clearing the table of the stuff you can’t personally solve, like the fiscal cliff? In this phase, my restless brain tacks back and forth between wanting to get up and make a to-do list and wanting to cocoon deep into the pillow and see if I could somehow find another five minutes of sleep. While this Restless Brain syndrome is [...]

After Election Day

therestlessnest2012-11-13T14:51:16-08:00Categories: arts, politics, women's rights, writing|Tags: Election Day, Frances Harper, Obama, poetry, Walt Whitman|

On Election Day 2012, I woke up in Baker City, Oregon, reached for my phone and read these words: “Make me a grave where’er you will, In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill, Make it among earth’s humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves.” It’s the first stanza of a poem by a daughter of freed slaves who died a century ago, Frances Harper. I had never heard of Harper. I had never before read her poem, titled “Bury Me in a Free Land.” But there I was, on the morning of the presidential election, instantly connected by Harper’s words to the historic hugeness of the day. True nerd confession: I like to start my mornings by reading a psalm and a poem. I have the Book of Psalms and a few poetry anthologies loaded on my phone now, so I can stick to my ritual on the road. I’ve been reading poetry all my life, but I grew up a white girl who went to mostly-white schools and either we didn’t have Frances Harper in our anthologies back then or we never turned to that page. So I was honored to make her acquaintance, on the morning I woke up wondering whether we would re-elect our first black president to a second term. It seemed a good omen, somehow, that Harper’s poem was the one that happened to be waiting for me. I’m working my way through an American anthology and I’d just finished a few days of Walt Whitman, [...]

Ambivalent Politics: Guest Post

therestlessnest2012-11-06T08:30:50-08:00Categories: politics|Tags: Declaration of Independence, Election, voting|

Readers: I am honored to share with you this Election Week guest post by novelist, book critic and wise friend Isla McKetta: Why I’m Afraid to Talk Politics in a Free Society Election season 2012 is nearly over. Do you have any Facebook friends left? Regardless of where you live, I’ll bet there is a contentious race that is causing heated debate and if you haven’t unfriended someone for their beliefs (or been unfriended for yours), you know someone who has. Suddenly I’m afraid to share my political beliefs with my friends. Is this what democracy looks like? We hold these truths to be self-evident “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As a child in the US, I learned these words from The Declaration of Independence and to be proud of the men who stood up against tyranny to endow our nation with the freedoms of a democratic government. Hearing those words recited by teachers and parents, my young ears thought the world was a wonderful and free place. And then I moved to Chile. I was seven and Pinochet was in power. I learned that people can be rounded up and killed for their beliefs. As Americans, my family and I were safe during the year we lived there, but every American history lesson thereafter reminded me how privileged I was. I believe all men (and women) are created equal. Our two-party system [...]

Beyond Binders

therestlessnest2012-11-01T05:54:24-07:00Categories: politics, urban life|Tags: binders, Romney, women's rights|

This fall, I have had the good fortune to meet many memorable women. I met a physicist and computer science expert from the National Institutes of Health. I met an artist who transforms scientific data into stunning, wall-sized murals. I met a teacher librarian who has turned a cramped high school library in Yakima into the busy, beating heart of the building. I met a professor of Fine Arts and Engineering who has started an Art and Ecology program at her university. And a young woman who moved from Texas to Seattle with two suitcases to her name and is now a successful copywriter by day and writer of fiction and memoir by night. And a Somali immigrant, who brings her oldest daughter, a kindergartener, into our neighborhood tutoring center because she wants her to succeed. I am lucky to have the kind of life in which these kinds of encounters are possible. I wish more men did. I wish it wasn’t so hard for guys like Mitt Romney to get out of their mostly-male bubble and meet the dynamic women that are everywhere. I want to tread carefully here, because I realize I’m entering a minefield of stereotypes just waiting for me to take a wrong step. So maybe I’ll try the most positive route through this hazardous terrain: the route of utopian vision. Of “What if?” What if we lived in a world where everyone, regardless of gender, had time in their work week to volunteer for two hours? Tutoring the mostly African immigrant [...]

Binders

therestlessnest2012-10-23T08:00:10-07:00Categories: midlife, politics|Tags: binders, Columbia City, current-events, Lilly Ledbetter, Obama, Romney, women's rights|

By the time you read this, we will have survived the third and final debate and we’ll be in the final countdown to Election Day. But I can’t help it, people: I’m still shaking my head over Mitt Romney and his binders full of women. Of course I am thankful, along with so many voters, for the comedy it inspired. Yet at the same time, I’m saddened by what it says about how far we women have really NOT come since Virginia Slims launched its 1968 ad campaign with the catchy tagline, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Funny how that particular jingle should spring to mind, with its dark double message: hey women, now that you’re so liberated, you too can smoke all you want and die of lung cancer, just like men! When Mitt said it—it being, “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And they brought us whole binders full of — of women”—you could feel a collective squirm go through the Columbia City Theater, where I was watching the debate with friends. The squirm was followed by a collective head-scratch: did he really just say that? We all murmured. What century is this? You could argue that Mitt “meant well.” But what does it mean, to “mean well?” In this case, “meaning well” meant wanting to appear to be someone other than who he is: a guy, surrounded by guys, who—as the Boston Phoenix newspaper reminded us, contrary to the way he tried [...]

Noise Equals Hope

therestlessnest2012-10-10T09:01:41-07:00Categories: midlife, politics|Tags: business, economy, Election, hope, jobs, Obama, recession, Romney, unemployment|

Recently, a bulldozer showed up outside our house at seven a.m. and began backing up onto the vacant lot next door. I was trying to read. The noise was hard to tune out, especially when the bulldozer got to work and the whole house started to shake. I looked outside. Clouds of dust were rolling through the neighborhood. When one of the construction guys knocked on the door and asked if he could borrow our hose to keep the dust down until the water truck arrived, I was only too happy to say yes. And, believe it or not, I am thrilled this is all happening. This next-door project was one of those recession-reminder blank spots, another project that ground to a halt and left a gaping, weedy wound on our block; an everyday reminder that the economy remained in critical condition. The owners—who also built our townhome, right before they temporarily ran out of cash—finally sold the lot to another builder with a great reputation, and she (yes, she!) is breaking ground. Four more homes in south Seattle are on their way. And now the September job numbers are in: 114 thousand new jobs last month, the 24th consecutive month we added to, rather than subtracted from, the total number of people working. The unemployment rate is now below eight percent for the first time since President Obama was elected. Noise next door equals jobs equals hope. I know there are going to be times when the hammering gets maddening. But I’m going to try [...]

Becoming Obama

therestlessnest2012-10-03T08:22:16-07:00Categories: politics, urban life, writing|Tags: barack obama, Chicago, current-events, Dreams from my Father, memoir, Obama, race|

Barack Obama was 33 years old when he published his memoir, a fact often noted with the kind of wink that says, “Clearly, the man knew he was destined for greatness.” But that’s not at all how the book reads. Dreams from my Father is written with humor and humility. Graceful, fluent writing abounds, but so do the frankly self-conscious moments of a young writer who knows he’s still got a long way to go towards wisdom. Dreams from my Father is subtitled “A Story of Race and Inheritance,” and it is, but intimately so. When Obama describes arriving in Indonesia as a little boy, he resists the scholarly urge to set the scene and instead reveals the country as it was revealed to him, from the back seat of a taxi, recalling the “brown and green uninterrupted, villages falling back into forest, the smell of diesel oil and wood smoke.” It is in Indonesia, a country where almost no one is black or white, that Obama has his first realization of the deep racism of America when he comes across an article in Life magazine about black people who have tried to dye their skin white. Back in Hawaii, an adolescent at the fancy Punahou prep school, Obama quickly understands that in America, he is and will always be black. Through his high school and college years, he self-consciously plays the part he knows everyone in his life expects him to play, excelling as the young black man making it in the world of white privilege. [...]

Memphis and Mitt

therestlessnest2012-09-27T11:36:40-07:00Categories: arts, politics|Tags: Broadway, Memphis, Mitt Romney, Romneygate, segregation, Tony award, unions|

I’ve got Memphis on my mind, and I can’t think of a better week for it to be there. Not Memphis the city—where I’ve never been, though it is now officially on my must-visit list—but Memphis the show. I know, I’m a little late to this fan party, but I finally saw Memphis at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theater, where it is making a triumphant 3-week return to its pre-Broadway launching pad. In 2009, Memphis went from Seattle to New York, where it played more than a thousand shows and won four Tony awards, including best musical. What struck me as I watched, at the fevered height of this Presidential election season, was how much life in America has changed since the early 1950s. And how much it has stayed the same. Memphis tells the story of how Blues music crossed the previously un-crossable radio color bar, paving the way not only for the explosion of rock ‘n roll but for the beginning of the breakdown of segregation as a Southern American institution. How long ago it seems, this ancient time when mixed-race marriages were against the law in many states. How far away, this place where a white record producer could not have dinner with an African-American singing star at most Memphis restaurants. And yet: as those of us inside the 5th Avenue thrilled to the dazzling musicianship, dancing and acting onstage, many people outside that magical zone were glued to their screens, large and small, watching as Mitt Romney tried to explain what he meant [...]

Conned

therestlessnest2012-09-20T14:31:52-07:00Categories: politics, Uncategorized|Tags: Clinton, Eggers, Katrina, New Orleans, Obama, Zeitoun|

Seven years ago this month, much of New Orleans was under water. Hurricane Katrina remains the great before-and-after for that city and it is still making headlines. The latest big Katrina news: a lawsuit filed by homeowners against the Army Corps of Engineers and one of its contractors that is finally, after seven long years, getting its day in court. The suit asserts the Corps and the contractor were responsible for the levee failure that flooded thousands of homes. I just finished Dave Eggers’ fine non-fiction book about what one Syrian-American family endured after Katrina. It’s called Zeitoun, named for the title character, a father and business owner who rescues and helps people in the days following Katrina, only to be imprisoned on a bogus burglary charge. I was going to recommend this book to you. Now I’m not so sure. Turns out Zeitoun is in jail again, this time charged with assaulting and then conspiring to kill his ex-wife. They divorced earlier this year. I couldn’t believe it when I read it: the hero, the family man, who endured wrongful imprisonment and tried so hard not to let it enrage or embitter him, in jail on a charge like this? I felt so sad, stunned, angry. And conned. I know that wasn’t the intention of Zeitoun or Eggers (who is channeling book profits into a foundation to help rebuild New Orleans), but I feel that way just the same: like I believed one thing about a person, only to find out he was someone else. Just as [...]

Citizens

therestlessnest2012-09-12T15:07:21-07:00Categories: politics, Uncategorized|Tags: citizenship, convention speech, Lilly Ledbetter, Obama|

When you get up in the morning, do you EVER think, “Ah, what a great day it is to be an American consumer?” Who wants to be a consumer? Since when were we stuck with this label? Does what we ingest, what we purchase, what we acquire really define us? And if it does, how deeply sad is that? In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama used a different word, one that’s come to sound a bit old-fashioned: Citizen. Try that on. “Ah, what a great day it is to be an American citizen.” Maybe you don’t feel that way every morning of your life. But wouldn’t you rather wear the label, “Citizen,” with all it implies? A citizen sounds like someone worthy of respect. A consumer sounds like an appetite housed in a body. A citizen sounds like someone who cares what happens to our country. A consumer sounds like someone who cares what happens to him or her self. To be a citizen is to be a citizen OF a specific place. To care about a community larger than yourself. To live the belief that investing in the common good enriches our individual lives, too. It’s pretty simple. Citizens vote; consumers buy stuff. In his convention speech, President Obama called citizenship, quote, “a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations.” The “heart of [...]

FLOTUS

therestlessnest2012-09-05T14:32:29-07:00Categories: politics, women's rights|Tags: FLOTUS, Isla McKetta, KBCS, Michelle Obama, Peace Corps, Rustin Thompson|

My daughter just tweeted this: “FLOTUS is my favorite OTUS.” After watching Michelle Obama light up the screen at the Democratic National Convention, I couldn't agree more. Maybe I’ll change my mind Thursday night, when POTUS takes the stage. But for now, I’m grateful for FLOTUS—aka the First Lady of the United States—who sure washed away my GOP-red-stained blues. What a difference a week makes. This is a non-broadcast Restless Nest: typically I write on deadline for KBCS radio, but the conventions have given me a two-week break. I’m going to do some housekeeping—watch for some new pages on the blog and a new URL. (don’t worry: you’ll be redirected). Meanwhile, I offer you a very few of my own favorite blogs: A Little Elbow Room: I love this week’s piece, “Pass me my blog.” Love the idea that we bloggers are creating a new literary tradition. A Geography of Reading: if you want to go beyond the bestseller lists and discover the most provocative, beautifully written books in the world, Isla McKetta will take you there. You’ll get lost, happily, on this site. Matrifocal Point: after watching Lilly Ledbetter’s speech last night, I love Liza’s blog even more. There is still so much work to do towards equality for women and she is a font of inspiration. Peace Corps Gray: Ready for a challenge? How about joining the Peace Corps at 60? Marsha’s in Senegal for two years. Drop in on her now and then, via her warm, funny, honest, wise blog. Shoes on the Wrong [...]

First Class

therestlessnest2012-08-06T09:53:04-07:00Categories: politics, travel|Tags: airline, National Portrait Gallery|

Ah, the clink of the forks in First Class. From where I’m sitting on this plane, just three rows away, the sound is like wind chimes heard through a closed window, reminding us: we are here and not there where those pretty breezes are blowing. I’m in Economy Plus, where apparently there’s a little more legroom. I did not pay for or upgrade to this section; I think it’s a bone the airline threw me after my earlier flight was cancelled. Going through security at Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport, I noticed an express lane and signs urging me to sign up for a card that would give me the privilege of using this special lane, presumably after traveling thousands of miles or paying extra, or both. None of this is particularly new. But it feels just a little more—in your face than it used to. Pay for this card and cut in line! Pay for an Economy Plus seat so you can cross your legs! Pay Lord knows how much and eat real food with real forks! Here in Economy Plus, I’m sitting next to a blonde, sleepy teen in a hoodie whose suntanned and bejeweled mother, seated in First Class, just brought her back a chocolate sundae in a glass dish. After eating her ice cream, teen daughter popped her ear buds in and went back to sleep, leaving me to wonder about her mother, as I always do about people in First Class: what is it like to have [...]

Best Days, Worst Days

therestlessnest2012-07-05T10:51:52-07:00Categories: hiking, midlife, politics|Tags: Affordable Care Act, Nora Ephron, Pam Houston, Supreme Court|

“If I die tonight it will be with every single thing unfinished (like, I suppose, any other night), and yet, what a gift to die on the verge of tears.” I didn’t write that. I wish I had, because I find it so beautiful. It is a quote from Pam Houston’s autobiographical novel, Contents May Have Shifted. She goes on, in this one paragraph of speculation, to ask questions like “why my best days and my worst days are always the same days.” I read this book three months ago and yet my mind keeps returning to this passage. Because there’s something about these notions—our best days are also, often, our worst days; we feel most alive when we are on the verge of tears—that feels important to me. Especially after a week in which there were so many bests and worsts. The Affordable Care Act—upheld! Writer and director Nora Ephron—for 30 years one of my role models—dead of a rare leukemia. This verge-of-tears week started with a funeral for an old friend, Kathy. The opening hymn, which I’m sure Kathy selected, was “Joyful, Joyful We Adore You.” She wanted us to feel joy in the midst of our sadness; joy at the wonders of love and life, whether it ends with ovarian cancer at 55 or continues for many more decades. And I did feel it; I cried but I felt uplifted at the same time. It didn’t last. The day was dark, wet and cold, even for June-vember, and we had a nail in [...]

Apologies

therestlessnest2012-05-16T08:49:22-07:00Categories: education, midlife, politics|Tags: apology, bullying, Obama, Romney|

High School was a long time ago. And I like to think we’ve all grown up since then. But the story of Mitt Romney chasing down a classmate and forcibly cutting his hair gave me chills. And his so-called “apology” turned my stomach. “IF I hurt anyone,” Romney said. Did no one ever teach this man who thinks he’s qualified to be our next president that an apology that comes loaded with the word “if” is no apology at all? I wasn’t bullied in high school, but I always felt just a few missteps away from the nightmare of being targeted. After one of my best friends in junior high dumped me for not being cool enough, the popular girls mostly ignored me and I knew it was safer to keep it that way. Thinking about it now, a million years later, I can still feel the pain of being dumped and the humility of being invisible. Mitt Romney’s high school “pranks” may seem trivial to him, nearly fifty years down the road, but you can bet the living victims of those pranks have never forgotten how it felt. You can bet the “if” in the middle of his apology clanged like a high school fire alarm on their aging eardrums. George W. Bush was fond of high jinks too, back in the day. You have to wonder: did that make it easier for him to condone torture? Does the youngster capable of bullying grow up to be the president who says yes to waterboarding? Or [...]

May Day in Helsinki

therestlessnest2012-05-09T07:07:03-07:00Categories: midlife, politics, travel|Tags: education, Europe, Finland, May Day, Occupy|

“Demand less!” shouted a tall, stylish blond into a megaphone, right above my ear. “Love is free!” I spent this May Day in Finland, where there was no vandalism, no mayhem; just several thousand marchers strolling in the sunshine, waving signs and shouting the occasional non-threatening slogan. Occupy your mind. Demand life, not capitalism. Spring comes to everyone! Spring is a big deal in a country that straddles the Arctic Circle. May Day is as much about celebrating snowmelt and sun as it is about politics. In Helsinki, May Day begins the night before, with a giant celebration of education in this country with one of the most acclaimed public school systems in the world. High school graduates—of all ages, not just this year’s grads—don their traditional white, nautical-style school caps and throng the center of the city. A cap is thrown on the head of everyone’s favorite mermaid statue, champagne bottles start popping, and spring, graduation and May Day are all officially welcomed. The next morning, the party continues with the all-city May Day march, after which everyone adjourns to lavish picnics in the central Kaivopuisto Park. I marched and picnicked with my sister, my niece and my Finnish friend Kirsi. Kirsi and I met 25 years ago, when she was an exchange student in Seattle and an intern at the TV station where I worked. Now, she’s a producer of documentaries and TV programs in Helsinki. She credits that long-ago intern opportunity with launching her career. I credit her with giving me an experience [...]

Raised to Please

therestlessnest2012-04-03T20:12:48-07:00Categories: midlife, politics|Tags: feminism, self-esteem, VIDA count, women's rights, writing|

We are raised to please. We are raised to attract. We are raised to decorate, divert and delight. We are raised to invite attention, not to seek it. To never, ever risk rejection. And when I say we, of whom do I speak? It must be a group known to include me. Might it be… people over 50? Seattleites? Speakers of English? Of course not. You know who I’m talking about. Women. And what, you might ask, is so wrong with being raised to please? Nothing at all, if you are born and remain a lovely-to-look-at, ornamental sort of a woman. Nothing at all, if ornamenting the world brings you great joy. But what if what you long to do is build tall buildings? Play basketball? Conduct high-risk scientific research? Or—in my case—write? And in order to achieve that writing dream, you have to lob your precious words out into the world so they can be rejected over and over and over again until at last, you get lucky and what you’ve written is accepted and printed? Briefly, you are filled with joy—until your freshly published words are actually read. And not everyone likes them. And you want to die because you have displeased a few people. Men, on the other hand, are raised to risk rejection or die trying. They’re raised to understand for every ten girls they ask out, one might say yes and hey, that’s great! They grow up understanding they won’t get a good job unless they apply for 100. They learn [...]

Across the Fence

therestlessnest2012-03-28T12:23:39-07:00Categories: politics, Uncategorized|Tags: bill o reilly, contraceptives, current-events, feminism, MoveOn, Rush Limbaugh, women's rights|

Just as we have Mad Men to thank for reminding us of how casually men in power exuded sexism, racism, classism, anti-semitism and homophobia fifty years ago, now we have Rush Limbaugh to thank for reminding us: we still have a lot of work to do. But I’m thankful to Limbaugh. Really. Because that outrageous statement he made weeks ago—“If we’re gonna pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch”—well, it’s just not going away. And that may be bad for his show’s ad revenues, but in terms of getting people talking? It is good. Tricky, risky, sometimes inflammatory. But good. Have you seen that MoveOn ad in which five women repeat, simply and straight to the camera, Limbaugh’s notorious words, along with several statements by Rick Santorum and other conservatives regarding contraception? It’s in my email inbox and I expect it’ll show up a few more times, right along with the news about how our state’s proposed budget calls for cuts in funding for contraception and counseling. Also in the in-box: my friend Liza Bean’s insightful blog post about why conservative women believe liberal women don’t like them. There’s a conversation going on here. People are talking across the fence. The MoveOn ad is getting buzz not just on MSNBC, but on Fox News, where two Republican commentators, both women, tried in vain to explain to Bill O’Reilly why this all matters: why women across the political [...]

Thank you, Mary Margaret

therestlessnest2012-02-02T07:22:06-08:00Categories: midlife, politics, quiet|Tags: gay marriage, Gregoire, Haugen, middle age, Parker Palmer, Same-sex marriage|

Please help me in my campaign to prolong Mary Margaret Haugen’s moment in the spotlight. Already fuzzy on placing that name? She’s the conservative, church-going, democratic Washington state senator from cozy Camano Island who, like our church-going democratic governor, had the courage to change her mind. Thanks to Mary Margaret Haugen, gay marriage is almost certainly going to be legal in our state, very soon. How I admire a politician who thoughtfully and deliberately Changes. Her. Mind. This is not what we love to call “waffling.” This is the human brain doing what it does best: considering new ideas. Pondering them. Reflecting. Praying. Departing from long-unquestioned assumptions to ask and answer questions one might never previously have thought to ask. This is why gay marriage is such a linchpin issue: because it is getting rational, thoughtful people all over the American belief spectrum to think in new ways. To have new conversations. I’ve been reading a book by the Quaker writer Parker Palmer called A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life in which he talks about how damaging it is to live a life in which “soul” and “role” are kept firmly separate, our outer selves orbiting further and further from the compass of our true, inner selves. Politicians, perhaps more than any of us, are expected to wall themselves off in this way, keeping firmly out of sight any quirks or views their constituents might reject. Gay marriage has given them, and us, a chance to ask: OK, how do I really, truly [...]