Behold my Bracket

Entirely for use with my post on WeLoveDC 

On Politico's "Female pols in 2010" article

This morning, in the elevator on the way up to the office, still in a post-oscars sleep deprivation stupor, I glanced at the front page of the office subscription of Politico. 

"Female Candidates Line up for 2010" reads the head of the story which goes on to state, "A slew of formidable female candidates, mostly Democrats, are lining up to run for the Senate in 2010, enough to raise the prospect of a surge of women into a chamber that currently has just 17 women senators." WOW, a SLEW! A great SURGE! I grew excited enough to continue reading despite my bleary-eyed Monday stupor. 

How many, exactly, is "a slew"? If you stand by the oxford english dictionary definition, you would expect it to be "a very large number, a great amount." Sweet! So, like, at least 30 women in 2010 races. I mean, come on, there are like 500 reps in Congress (453 in the House and 100 in the Senate, to be precise. Plus non-voting reps). Reading about this amazing slew of female candidates stepping into the spotlight, I lapsed into a pre-caffeinated dream of a country where representation reflected the population. 

Turns out, this prediction of a "landmark year" for women candidates has been triggered by the presumed intentions of 12 women. TWELVE.  That, Josh Kraushaar, is a "slew" I can believe in. 

The tremendous in-depth reporting about women in Congress by the journalistic masterminds at Politico continues from there. (Side note, my roommate and I are convinced that the 30 Rock joke where Alec Baldwin goes "Thanks for telling me what I already know. You should work for The Huffington Post" should sub in Politico.)

Maybe I should check the sarcasm here. But, let's think about this. Currently there are 91 female members of congress. That constitutes a whopping 17%, up from 16% last Congress. We picked up 2 new female senators and 10 new female reps for the 111th. If all 12 of these proported candidates run and win, and all the female incumbents up for reelection retain their seats, that will constitute 103 congresswomen, 19%, less than one-fifth. Less than one in five. 

Of course I'm happy that our country is inching closer to demographic representation in terms of gender (let's not get into how many black men and women, latino men and women, gay men and women, single and unmarried men and women are reps). However, I'm not convinced that a percent a year constitutes impressive progress on this front. At this rate, maybe by the tricentennial 50% of our elected officials will be women. 

If the statistics alone were what irked me, I probably wouldn't be writing. It was more the after-the-jump business that got to me. Politico interviewed Karen O’Connor, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University (no relation), for the piece. Now, Karen O'Connor sounds baller, generally speaking. For better or worse, however, she delves into answering the "why" regarding the recent rise of these candidates. She points out that "female candidates have a better track record in elections where economic issues are at the forefront, which makes the current political environment especially alluring." Also: "In the post-Sept. 11 climate...women were vulnerable to perceptions that they weren’t as tough on dealing with terrorist threats." 

These observations, while evident, are heartily disappointing. One can't help but feeling, well, so these extremely qualified and ambitious women are pushing through, largely because the economy and Main Street are in the shitter and women are Queens of their domain, the home. It's like playing with a handicap -- does victory feel as legitimate when you're getting a bit of a head start?

Maybe I'm wrong and the path opening up for a handful more women is an incredible thing we should all be psyched about. It's politics, which everyone knows is 90% manuevering and misdirection and capitalizing on an open door. Maybe we should be thrilled  and grateful to the American people and the machinists of the political machine that now there is, as O'Connor described, a "farm team" of female pols. 

Maybe. 

I can't get one thing out of my head. It's the title of a book by, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY),also mentioned in this article, entitled "Rumors of our Progress Have been Greatly Exaggerated." 

Monday Morning Work Haiku

Because they all won't fit in my G-chat status box...

monday work haiku: 

too tired, brain not functioning;

why aren't I in bed? 

   

beige, tan, off-white, white

these colors together make

an office rainbow

-c.q.

if print is so dead
why must i still go to work?
ugh i hate the web

-m.f.

Boss not in office

But so much work still to do

There is no escape

-s.t.

Post-Inaugural Recap for Family, Friends, and any others who for some reason read this blog

(because I'm too lazy to do both a post and write an epic e-mail)

FROM: Acacia O'Connor

Date: Jan. 22, 2009

SUBJECT: "THE LARGEST EVENT EVER IN THE WORLD"

...or so said an FBI agent. I'll let you debate the verity of that claim, and the broadness of the definition of "event". World War II, anyone?? The Police reunion tour??

This is a dispatch from Washington DC, now that the party is finally over. Let's start from the beginning. 

The city began prepping for Jan. 20 as though it was bracing for a tsunami. Which, in fact, seeing people walk through the streets and on 395 on Tuesday, did seem more accurate than one might have first thought. (Digression: you know you're a tourist when: you walk towards Anacostia on 395 south) Don't drive anywhere. Don't take the metro anywhere . Buy bread and milk now, there won't be anything later. You won't have a ticket , it will suck and be freezing. Don't plan on using your cellphones . Don't make any quick movements with your hands - you will be sniped.... et cetera.

In the end, we had a house of 7 - Vassar friends Aapta and Alithea came down for the weekend from New York, Alex Sheff, who recently moved back here from Uganda, stayed with us, and Hobie, who was technically at a conference for the Global Young Leaders Program, spent most of his time with us, as the conference was overbooked 5-fold and full of overachieving egomaniacal toolbags, essentially. (Global young leaders like to talk about themselves? Who would have thought...) 

Friday and Saturday were essentially excitement build-up days, and influx of unwitting tourist days. Sunday the real party began, with the We Are One HBO-ified super concert at the lincoln memorial. After donning a variety of spandex and fleece layers, we had a pre-concert breakfast as a group, including all the essential body-warming vitamins and minerals (mimosas have vitamin C, not so sure about the whiskey..) We had a sweet little spot between the Washington Monument (which we affectionately refer to as the phallus) and the WWII memorial, meaning that we could see the show on 2 huge jumbotrons directly in front of us, and could claim to "see" the concert. Bruce Springsteen is an especially formidably tiny dot, let me tell you.  As we had roughly 2 hours to wait before the show started, we entertained ourselves by singing all of the verses of American Pie and hoisting Alithea onto our shoulders - all things that the people around us duly appreciated, let me tell you.  They can talk all they want about the spirit of love and unity this weekend, but my impression is still that crushing crowds brings out the worst- not the best - in human nature. 

My favorite moment of the concert had to be when they brought out the great symbol of America - a bald eagle named Challenger. Challenger tried to break free of its chains to the sound of "oooh" from the audience. They appeased it by bringing out a second eagle, Challenger's friend - i wish i were making this up - Mr. Lincoln.  The music was pretty sweet too. We felt quite validated when a truncated version American Pie was sung and the people around us turned to see our reactions. 

Tuesday was, as expected, in many ways a giant clusterfuck (pardon the phrase). We were out of the house and on our way to the Mall by 8:10, by which time others had already been on the mall for a couple of hours. In trying to find the entry points, we passed by several lines of people who literally had no idea what they were doing. We also were pushed aside to make way for Samuel L. Jackson to walk through the crowd -- baller! Sam, Alex Sheff and I had silver tickets, which meant we were in a gated-standing-room-only area that I've indicated on the satellite map image. We were smack dab in front of a jumbotron and in full view of the capitol. I could see the red outline of the door from which the cool kids were entering the stage. The weight of being in the mass of Americans waving their little obama american flags and chanting o-bam-a (something that, somehow makes me feel strangely uneasy) did a passable job cancelling out the frigid cold. The exodus was a bottleneck, squeezing us next to the Native American Museum. In an act of poetic in-justice, impatient inauguration-goers broke through the chain link fence and trampled through the Native american wildlife sanctuary that flanks the museum. Oh dear. 

I went to 2 inaugural balls - the first being Tuesday night: the Bytes and Books ball for Education and Technology in the Folger Shakespeare Library. Essentially, a gathering of fancy people whose age rivalled that of the copies of Henry IV on the shelves of the library reading room. Ball gowns and real diamonds and a serenade by a perceptably drunk American Idol Reject in a sparkly suit. We (Heather and I) felt like posers, faking being important, fancy and schmoozy. George Lucas had come and gone by the time I got there. There were rumors Chris Noth would show up, but after about 3 hours of wandering around in unfortunate footwear, I decided it would be more worthwhile to go watch some Law & Order CI instead.

I felt much more at home at last night's unexpected ball - the Obama for America staffer Ball at the old Armory. The girls in line were wearing cocktail dresses and headbands from Claires, holding heels in their hand while they walked in Target flats. Let me just say that I can die happy now: I was in a crowd of some 1000-2000 people who saw Joe Biden and Barack Speak and jammed out to Jay-Z. JAY-Z! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE JAY-Z?! Some of you do. Barack's speech was funny, understated and appreciative of all the kids my age who pulled more than their weight to get out voters and win counties.  I felt cynicism dissipate: maybe the hope would carry on. 

It was truly something special to be a part of - something I wish you all could have been here to share, but really you just missed a lot of watching TV outside and open bars. 

America is ours again! Huzzah! 

Now if you don't mind me, I need to take a nap for about 4 days. 

all my love,

Acacia

From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story

Oh MacMillan Digital, ya'll are funny.

On the NYTimes front page ads

This week marked the debut of front page display ads on the New York Times A1. CBS was the first to pony up for the ads, which reportedly run at around 100,000 a pop and are supposedly going to help rescue the Times in these bad *ahem* times. I get it, Times, you need the dolla bills - print is dying (Just ask the Atlantic, psht.) I can't blame you. 

I can, however, blame CBS. The ad which ran yesterday, a prime-time show pimping disguised (very poorly) as faux-world summit announcement, was painful. One would think that if you're going to shell out a hundred grand for advertising on the New York Times, even if it is below the fold, you would put a little more crafting into it. 

Mainly it's a font issue, which I realize lumps me into a small niche group of individuals who have inexplicable rage caused by poor font placement. In this case, a slightly italicized block sans-serif. Underlined. Excuse me, I feel queasy.  It looks like an ad I would have hated to have in my section of the Vassar college paper because of its awkwardness and ugliness. Though the block of ugly does, probably, achieve its advertising goal of grabbing my attention, CBS is now even further away from convincing me to watch "World Comedy Leader" How I met Your Mother (as if that were possible). 

Greatest (some may say Nerdiest) thing I've seen today

If I came away from my survey of British and American Literature course at Vassar (R.I.P. ENGL 220-221) it was a healthy fascination/slight love for Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Not altogether surprising, considering one of the lecturers was Bob DeMaria, who loves Johnson more than Johnson loved his cats (coincidentally, it's unclear who loves their cats more, Sam Johnson or Paul Kane...). 

As strange, erudite and seemingly grumpy - I mean, have you seen this guy? - Johnson was, his dictionary is awesome. I have an 1833 edition - it was a gift. It's like the OED, but tangible, older, somehow more.. crafted. Imagine deciding to catalogue the words of the English language and selecting the best literary uses for said words. And spending 9 years of your life to do it. That's dedication, Sammypants.

Second-best to the real thing, is what I discovered today: the dictionary, in blog form.  Brilliant. Instant addition to google reader.