Petition: Get Greg Stanton To Support Medicare 4 All

Rep. Stanton, Support Medicare For All 

'Women and Computers Have Wrecked This Country."

 With  all due respect to the latest Springsteen criticismh I should have been less surprised by the rise of Trump because Married With Children” became a hit while I was still in high school.

.I didn’t watch it a lot at the time, I think my early goals for entertainment were annoyingly high-minded(I was often looking to be Inspired) which left me unprepared to watch the Bundys take it in the skid- marked shorts on a weekly basis. At the time, I think I might have read the show’s determinedly scruffy smuttiness(In early seasons they are careful to add a last scene to remind us these people love each other, which reminds me of my mother’s reaction “Why do these people bother?  Divorce is a thing.”) as a reaction to the sitcom tradition of family perfection, with the wise, loving parents that say the right thing even if Wally and The Beaver or Denise and Theo aren’t ready to hear it, the comfortable, yet ill-defined job that meets all needs and more than wants despite never being enough to take parents from the domestic action, and all the rest of that stuff.  That ls true, but it could also be seen as rejecting the modern world…the Bundy teens are even shown as missing medical care and vaccinations from time to time, but that may be more of a combination of parental indifference and Al’s job not providing benefits than some concerted effort to not believe in science, but it did catch my attention given who’s currently in charge.

On a somewhat related note, if they bring achieving kids back to TV shows, will that be a sign that society's expectations are on the up-swing again? I've noticed since  Bud and Kelly it's become more acceptable for the children on family shows to be screw-ups or even have a diagnosis of some sort...given the preoccupation with representation here, I'm not complaining as such, but I'm wondering if that reflects greater acceptance of people who are not lettering in three sports or the prom queen, which might be good, or a resignation that people get what they get, even in America, which might be sad. I'm not sure. Thoughts? 

(I suppose that you could say “Married” is also the anti-workplace sitcom as well- Al has friends at work, but they are not a close unit that won’t turn on each other and they struggle with arbitrary demands from their female boss, Gary.) Al struggles with a modern world full out automated hold messages, cancelled television shows and tax and auto-insurance bureaucracy that won’t lead to the wide-open spaces no matter how often Al watches “Shane” and cries. Instead of the dad we wish we had, maybe Al is the id for the dad many of us actually got, which might be why my mother remains not fond of the show

Personally, I prefer the Rhodes are the neighbors, even though the D’Arcy relationship is somewhat fascinating both due to Marcy’s dominance and McGinley’s triumph overthe show-killing legend. But by the time the second marriage happens, the show is  well on the path that so many other shows take of becoming a sort of live-action cartoon. You might think Jefferson’s needy-gigolo act is funny, if somewhat contradictory, but I don’t think very many of us have really met that person in the same way we might have met Marcy and Steve.  (Maybe a lot of us have some Marcy and Steve in us, though I mostly don’t mean that in a dirty way.)

Marcy and Steve are fairly politically correct for bankers(“woke” wasn’t a thing for white people to say at that point, but they might have still loved to hear it about themselves someday. They are kind of the people that buy those signs that say  “In this house, we believe” but they are probably too distracted by their separate mommy issues to really be an effective ally for anyone, at least in the long-term. I think their biggest wish, more even than money or toys is to Get it Right. Steve spends a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a man, but for much of the series he uses that energy to go along with what Marcy wants, or play-acting that Al is a bad influence that he can’t ignore(Al is powerless in general, but has a lot of sway over both Marcy’s guys…probably from appealing to buried worst instincts. Steve later abandons Marcy to live out a boyhood dream to be a forest ranger, and for a while Marcy thinks that materialism will drive her husband back to her.

 

I Have Bigger Wishes...

 Don't worry, we don't have to talk about how they don't come true today, but rewatching The West Wing on streaming makes me wish I didn't show up after the party was over.  I wish that I could have heard about Bartlet's MS revelations in a way that provided real suspense--watching on cable or something after the first run takes suspense out of re-election too.

Politics has shifted a lot since that was on, too.  Trying so hard to distance the religious right from the impulse that creates terrorism in "Isaac & Ismael(AKA- Jossed by 9/11 attacks episode) feels particularly antique.  Most of that episode does, really, but since I've only watched it twice--once much closer to the events in question, I can at least remember some comfort from this awkward attempt at Larger Themes(Which is why The West Wing reminds me of MASH than any other show, really.) 

Links...

Free Ben And Jerry's! 

Irritate A Moderate, Support Abdul Al-Sayed and Win MI Senate 

Help Angie Nixon Win In Florida! 

Write a Letter,

Tell Congress We Can Party With The Haiti-ans 

(link opens to a letter you can fill in and add to. Please do--it's very easy)

I believe in immigration and human rights and Ayanna Pressley's petition would extend protections to people with nothing to go back to.

Also, if you care about restaurants or the caregiving crisis, as I do, you want these people to stay here whether you know it or not.

"It does not say RSVP on the Statue Of Liberty...Thank you." 

Poem-- If Attitude Counts...

 

If Attitude Counts

Maybe I can imagine, since there’s no definite place I belong.

I could pull up sideways to any table, and get exotic crumbs on floors that aren’t mine.

Maybe I can make the space inside my heart

That sometimes feels like a void

Into some death-defying canyon

That the nouveau put on their bucket lists,

And say there is a beauty there, call it “spare” or “harsh”

Does “It’s all in how you look at things?” have that kind of magic?

If it did, maybe it could change a blank page into my

Own personal tundra that’s just mine to explore.

Trying to think that doesn’t quite make it real

But I work better with big goals.

We've Done Worse, Obvs,

 and this is not why I wouldn't especially want him to be President, but Mark Kelly'sremarks defending his wife make me uncomfortable somehow. I don't think disability should be a "Touche" ever. Also, doesn't speaking about his wife while using latter-day Trump as an example...kind of make the opposite point about Giffords' skills? He's not doing a very good job.

Also, could we stop picking a leader like we're picking a stepdad? I mean, it's great that  the Kelly/Giffords bond is so unshakable and that he has been at her side so much, but they can afford it in a way a lot of people can't(So wish Kelly would get behind universal health care and stop voting for stuff  like the Laken Riley Act .)

And there seems like there is kind of subtext amid the Giffords/Kelly "Their love is so pure," that says he's a real hero for staying in a way that Gabby wouldn't get if she were the one that was uninjured. Society expect women to rise to the "sickness and health challenge" so much more than men, even though a study showing truly jaw-dropping gaps between the genders was recently retracted, I still think the expectation is vastly different. (I'm definitely not sure that AU!CaretakerGabby would be able to see that period of  faithfulness as, you know, good for her career, except in the sense that hanging out at home would look better than looking up old boyfriends-- not really like " I took care of him, let me take care of *you*, America!"