My two little girls, now in college, used to read those American Girl books with their white shiny covers featuring snapshots of 'tweens in various decades of American history. I never bought my daughters the overpriced collector's dolls, dressed in period costumes, though the one who accompanied me tonight to a screening of "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" revealed to me my cruelty in the face of her friends' displays.
Kit (Abigail Breslin) and her parents plunge from upper-crust existence into poverty in 1934 when the depression busts the dad's (Chris O'Donnell) car dealership and forces him to leave their Cincinnati home to find work in Chicago. To pay the mortgage, Mom (Julia Ormond) takes in an assortment of boarders, including a magician, husband-hungry dance instructor, mobile librarian and a down-and-out classmate of Kit's, with his fussy mom. She takes pity on a teen and his quite-young sidekick who live in the community's "Hobo Jungle" by the railroad tracks. This motley crew, plus a few plucky friends of Kit's, populate a film punctuated by thievery, deception and the kids' miraculous solving of the who-done-it. It's no spoiler to say the film's loose ends get neatly tied in a single scene at the end.
Director Patricia Rozema has pulled together some sweetly evocative sets, costumes and scenes (the movie was shot in Toronto), though it's easy for adults to spot several distracting anachronisms that the target audience will miss. Much more disturbing, however, are some of the messages implicit in the movie.
First off, by 1934, unemployment had leveled off, after a peak of almost 25% the year before. That's one out of four otherwise employable adults out of work, at the depression's worst. The movie implies that few held onto their jobs, and that those who did--including the banker who puts foreclosure signs in Kit's neighborhood front lawns--became snickering denigrators of those whose fortunes were lost. A soup kitchen scene attempts to show a kinder side, though we have no clue who sponsors it, and when Kit's school class is given an assignment to volunteer there one night, she's shocked by the variety of clientèle. An aside: while the depression was certainly devastating, FDR's New Deal attempts to end it exacerbated the damage and hampered the recovery (as well-documented by Amity Shlaes in The Forgotten Man).
A second inaccuracy is the complete lack of any type of religious reference, even as Americans turned to religion as solace in a difficult time. There's not even a glimpse of a church during a street scene, and not a single character ever
murmurs even a word that could be taken as a thought toward the transcendental. By calling Kit "An American Girl," and placing her in Cincinnati, one might expect at least a passing nod to a centerpiece of life at the time.
In addition, the hobo encampment is shown via Kit's journalistic "investigation" to be a place of respectable people behaving only with honesty and goodwill. Perhaps at the time such upstanding tent cities existed, but the implication for modern viewers is that the homeless sleeping in shop doorways or populating cardboard lean-tos under freeways are somehow equivalent and honorable--rather than being mentally ill or alcoholics spurning shelters and assistance programs available to them. This is a misleading message for youngsters, almost the opposite of the "don't talk to strangers" safety rules we want them to internalize.
But this isn't a history lesson, it's a 9-year-old girl's perspective, and the film does address the hurt of her father's absence, and the indignities she turns into fun, in true Pollyanna style. There's also a touch of Nancy Drew as Kit, hoping to hit print in the Cincinnati Register, uses her field notes about crimes to help her figure out, far 
too easily, what the law enforcement offices of several cities can't. On the surface, it's a clean, family-oriented and enjoyable plot, but those deceptive underlying lessons are troubling.
And it's a bit ironic that a movie about poverty and the Great Depression is being hyped with so much expensive stuff for little fans to buy. I'm kinda glad my two girls only got the books.
It's not very often that I go to movies, as my criteria are so narrow (no violence, suspense or slapstick)--but attending an advance screening of "Wall-E" with my son and daughter seemed to offer a pleasant evening out with Rated G entertainment.
I'd loved Pixar's "Toy Story," "Cars," "Bug's Life," and "Finding Nemo" (though there was some uncomfortable suspense in that one), so I expected not just great effects but some upbeat music and a sweet ending. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that while most would consider the finale of Wall-E puckeringly sweet, I found it manipulative and unsatisfying. In fact, I found the whole film disappointing. I may be the only reviewer in the United States with that opinion.
I just finished reading the almost poetic praise of the film in the New York Times: "The technical resourcefulness that allows 'Wall-E' to leap effortlessly from the derelict Earth to the pristine atmosphere of the space station is matched by the rigorous integrity the film-makers bring to the characters and the themes." Gag me with a...tower of garbage? Toxic dust-storm? Rusty artifact?
How do you say "We are slothful despoilers of the universe, overcome with our selfish greed and laziness?" Here's how: Take a ruined, gray planet piled high, thanks to an eeeevil corporation, with mountains of rusty tin cans and garbage; plant a cute but lonely (thanks to an old "Hello Dolly" video) ET-guy to clean it up; bring in an advanced ovum-shaped alien searching for life, and in the midst of some irrelevant, bovine, devolved humanoids, have them save the day and at the same time fall in love.
OK, THAT might have had a spoiler or two.
The New York Times, in its barf-able fawning, says the cartoon people (not even slightly as detailed and artistically rendered as the shrouded planet or robots) are US. Grown so fat and lazy our skeletons have shrunk even as we sip supersized milkshakes with extra-long straws handed to us by deferent servants.
If space-station residents in the year 2700 are us, then Andrew Stanton (writer and director), sees the destruction of our humanity: the google-brained people lack all creativity, competition, craving for the transcendent, or connection to family. We are reduced not to mirrors of a movie audience (sunken into our comfy chairs equipped with soda holders) but creatures whose lack of initiative, complacency and carpe diem mentality are clearly inferior to the mechanical beings who wistfully yearn for love and collect souvenirs of a once thriving culture (complete with Rubik's cube).
And let's not forget that it was a corporation--named "Buy 'n Large" of course, in a stab at WalMart and perhaps even Costco--that herded humanity toward its willing demise.
The movie is riddled with logical lapses. Buy n' Large, after corralling the almost-all-racially white population of the entire world onto its space station, leaves only a few machines, clearly produced waaaaay before the capability to MAKE a space station, to box up all the detritus of an entire planet. With obviously uncharacteristic ingenuity, Wall-E is able to thwart his obsolescence to keep chugging along for 700 years.
Now, the corporation supposedly was not going to make good on its original pledge to return humanity to Earth after the place was habitable....and yet, inexplicably, a wildly futuristic probe containing the gendered EVE-A (subtle reference--get it?) arrives to look for growing life, prerequisite to man's re-population. Somehow, with her eerie magenta search-flashes, EVE manages to miss Wall-E's cockroach sidekick--HE doesn't count as life, but a withered seedling that somehow had germinated in darkness, DOES. The seedling manages to remain green t
hroughout lots of mishandling and a supersonic voyage; the cockroach, Wall-E's only friend, remains unacknowledged.
Enough. The film's a disappointment. Great effects, but to a depressing message. Yes, Eva and Wall-E fall in love, but for non-reproducing, un-marriageable robots, that's hardly a happy ending--when the rest of us remain such shlubs.
Last night I happened to drop in to my local Target store with my 19-year-old daughter, to buy a few toiletries. On the way to the checkstand, we passed the greeting cards, and a large section caught my eye, because it was separated and framed by a bright, oversized red-white-and-blue starred border shouting "Election 2008 cards!"
The first one I noticed, prominently displayed, showed the torso of a buxom young woman wearing a t-shirt (with wind blowing it enough to show her middle).
Across the buxom part was written "Obama" in a trail of stars and stripes.
Next I noticed a card with a caricature of John McCain, wrinkled and prune-y. The word balloon over his head said "I'm for CHANGE!" "Hmm," I thought, wondering why they'd scream Obama's entire platform on a McCain card. When I opened it I knew--this was a big dis: "Change my bifocals to trifocals! Change from blood pressure medication to Viagra! Change from a cane to a walker!"
So, I perused the fronts of the remaining two dozen cards, and opened most of them, growing more and more irate--ALL of them were pro-Obama and anti-McCain! Just about every card about McCain had some insult about his age, or called him "McSame." Every card about Obama, on the other hand, implied his physical strength and vigor. As I stood expressing my shock and outrage to my daughter, another shopper, a man I'd guess was around 40, overheard and, eyeing the selection, agreed with me, saying to my daughter, "Listen to your mom! Your mom's right! Listen to your mom!"
If we weren't in a rush, I would have sought out the manager and lodged a complaint. As it was, we headed to the cash registers to pay. After placing our few items on the counter, the young, clearly bored checker asked, "Did you find everything OK?"
I'm sure he regretted the question, as I shot back, "I found a lot MORE than I wanted to! I was highly offended by the political greeting cards that insulted John McCain and praised Obama!" The checker shrugged and said, "Well, I don't have anything to do with that."
And of course he doesn't. I did tell the president of our local conservative women's group, who put out an email alert to the 500 members on the list, and I 
plan to return to Target (tomorrow, I hope) and talk to the manager. I'll also try to write down the content of a few more of the cards, so you can share my angst at the one-sidedly mean-spirited attitude Target has embraced. I'm not going to lamely declare a boycott (I love their dollar bins too much) but I do think that even a handful of disgruntled comments will let the management see that even in liberal Seattle, McCain bashing just won't fly.
(Cards displayed here are from a site called Zazzle, not from Target.)
Tonight my husband, daughter and I were invited to dine at the home of a non-Jewish friend who had shared Shabbat meals here with us numerous times. Raised in South Carolina, she was taught to reciprocate when friends have you over, and had tried numerous times, with carefully handmade invitations (inserting photos, fancy fonts, etc) to cajole us to allow her that courtesy.
Trouble is, we keep kosher.
"Oh, no problem!" she chirped, insisting. Her elegant invitations of carefully constructed handiwork kept coming--offering many, many dates from which to choose.
Finally unable to keep inviting her to Shabbat meals without accepting her pleas, we chose a date. "But we don't want you to go to the trouble," we warned.
"I've already spoken to the Va'ad several times, and believe me, I've got it all covered," she responded. The Va'ad of Seattle is the Jewish regulating body that, among other duties, oversees kosher production and restaurants in our area. If anyone has a kashrut question, he just calls the Va'ad. Which our friend did. Over and over.
With some trepidation, we left tonight for our dinner. We'd had a previous experience with Jewish friends who assured us of their knowledge but, oops, made a big mistake that led to intense embarrassment. Would such a cringe-inducer happen again?
Turns out that tonight's host had gone to huge inconvenience to make sure that every jot and tittle was observed. Paper plates and plasticware. Food ordered from a certified kosher restaurant to be delivered and quickly served hot. An array of accoutrements (salad, fruit) all prepared by a certified outlet. Kosher, wrapped cookies. And as we sat down, she methodically showed us the heckshires (kosher marks) on every item put on the table. All with a pleased smile.
What a privilege to have such devoted friends. What a pleasure to spend time in the company of people who like you enough to make sure you're comfortable. "I figured it's a matter of trust," she exclaimed, "and I was not going to let you down." Wow. I was moved. Well, after such a lavish meal, I can BARELY move. But in this case, the complexities of keeping kosher didn't separate people of different backgrounds--they brought us together.
So last night, with my husband safely tucked into his red-eye flight to Dallas, and the kids zonked out in their various bedrooms, I had some private time to troll the blogosphere. I checked out my usual J-blogs and then it occurred to me to click on someone who'd left a comment or two recently on mine. This is significant, because most people who DO read this little stealth expression fail to respond (hint, hint).
And I was blog-agog. I knew there was a wider world of bloggers out there, but I'd never ventured into it. I started reading (http://optimistmom.blogspot.com/) the blog of Ruth Anne Adams, and was mesmerized...it was like reading a perceptive, articulate diary. And it hit me that 1) the world will never be the same as before high speed internet, and 2) it's actually GOOD that kids grow up with internet skills; just like other habits that can be deleterious if overdone, they just need to be taught how to manage them properly.
As the coauthor of a book that largely warns parents not to let kids watch TV, I've been in the habit of assuming that children should spend their time away from anything with a screen. While that's still true to a point--I still think TV is harmful, as the content is selected by the provider and not the consumer--I think there ought to be more considered comment not about how MUCH time kids spend on the computer, but exactly HOW they use it.
What this means is that anyone, including me, ought to think about WHY he or she is spending any given moment courting carpal tunnel syndrome. If I were honest, I'd admit that frequently, it's to avoid what I truly SHOULD be doing, like when I spent lots of (enjoyable) time checking out new digital cameras or editing my 28,000 photos. There's nothing wrong with relaxing, or with entertainment. And probably reading camera specs is better for my soul than watching some skanky t.v. offering. Still, it would be helpful to look at what I'm doing honestly, and allot a set amount of surfing time, rather than let it consume my evening and keep me from interacting with the real people in my home. All of whom are glued to their monitors.
Back to Ruth Anne's blog. Here is somebody whose insightful observations let me reflect on my own experiences. We share common interests, and yet our backgrounds are quite divergent. She's actively Catholic; I'm an observant Jew. She lives in a very different part of the country, amidst a different circle of friends...but by reading her blog, I am privileged to get to know them. I even met her mom, who wrote about meeting her recently-deceased dad...my world is expanded as if savoring a delicious novel, but this one is true.
I don't have THAT much time to surf blogs, or, frankly THAT much interest in most of them, but what a luscious little treat I can give myself to peek into some fascinating other worlds now and then. It's not the superficial "all about me" world of Facebook (yuk) but words written from the hearts and lives of people who are consistently fascinating and stimulating. I thank Bill Gates and Paul Allen...Al Gore? Well....
My gosh, I'm suddenly feeling prehistoric. Which is a propos, because I'm thinking about something that started before the earth cooled. Oil. More specifically, its derivative, gasoline, the kind that now comes out of the pump to shocked groans.
My last fill-up cost $75.
And the reason I'm feeling quite ancient is because I vividly recall, hold on to your yarmulkes--paying $3. Not per gallon, but to fill up the tank. OK, I was a kid with no car of my own, but my older boyfriend had a cheapo stick-shift, and I recall comparing prices in Los Angeles, stopping on Vermont Avenue where gas was 18.9 cents a gallon rather than 21 or 22 cents in West LA.
I played this game with my daughters, ages 19 and 21. One of them said, "I remember when gas was $1.50 a gallon!" The other one said, "I remember when it was $1.76!" They also remember the days before cell phones. They, too, are already dinosaurs.
And now, people just live with increases within a single week of 25 cents; between my last fill-up and this one, I spent an additional twelve dollars for the same amount of gas for my Honda Odyssey minivan. No, it's not a guzzler--it even has a nifty feature where it uses only three cylinders when there's no need for more; when that happens a little green light shows on the dash, with the reassuring message: "eco" for either "economical" or "ecological," either of which makes owners feel virtuous.
We've become resigned to this new inflation. I used to get spaghetti for about a buck for a pound; now it's fifty percent more (and still a great deal). When we recently spent, um, $5 in gas to go out to dinner, the menu was dotted with pen markings escalating prices by a dollar or two or three. I'm seriously worried about our local Dollar Store--one I used to frequent, called "Mighty Dollar" now has nothing for that sum, each being raised to $1.29 or $2.00. And from where I sit, it's all related to the price of gasoline to ship everything to our back doors.
Truth is, we've been spoiled. Inflation was so minimal for so very long that we began to believe prices should just stay that way. Gasoline isn't something controlled by some evil conspiracy; its price is determined by world-wide supply and demand. The problem is that salaries aren't climbing as fast as the prices at the pumps and at the grocery stores and the restaurants and all the other ripples high gas prices affect.
Am I complaining? Well, yes and no. I don't like that I have to figure whether visiting a particular friend is worth the gasoline cost to drive the hour each way to see her. I hesitate before volunteering to take my other friend to the airport, because now the ten dollars in gas I spend to do it figures in. I feel inconvenienced when the airline wants to charge $15 to check a bag, especially since a college daughter has to shlep a lot of her stuff cross-country for the summer and visits home.
Oh yes, remember those good old days when airlines used to provide hot meals? Pillows? Leg-room? Then again, I also remember, in the vast reaches of my childhood, when flying at all was considered a beyond-affordable luxury. When I had to type out my term papers on a manual typewriter and use erasers with brushes to correct errors (if I wanted a copy, there was carbon paper). Come to think of it, as technology has burgeoned, life's gotten amazingly easier, and better. I can snap photos unlimitedly on my digital camera and see them immediaely. I can store thousands of songs--well, my son can--on an iPod the size of a credit card. I can compare prices for anything--lawn furniture, batteries, kosher wine--and buy it from anywhere in the world while sitting right here in my pajamas. And I can research any topic--and even read original antique books-- on my wide-screen LCD monitor. For free. No less miraculous is that I can tell you this, all over the world, within a split-second of my thinking, in something as strange and wonderful as a blog.
When you balance the increases in the price of oil with the astounding advances that allow us not to need it, I think the weight falls to the side of our enormous benefit. Those who angrily blame profit-hungry oil companies, selfish politicians or evil car-makers pushing petroleum for victimizing them probably won't be happy even if the price at the pump did slump back to those of hazy halcyon days gone by.
Today's the first day that California has authorized an oxymoron: gay marriage.
The story on the front page of the Seattle Times (credited to the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle) included a quarter-page photo of the couple put forth as "poster children" for the gays of the Golden State: 87-year-old Del Martin and 84-year-old Phyllis Lyon, dressed in their leisure suits.
Given that the word "marriage" has always been the permanent uniting of a man and woman, putting the word "gay" in front--the binding of two of the same gender--creates a conundrum. Can you imagine: A caller to a radio talk show today was trying to argue that the California ruling didn't re-define marriage, it just enlarged it?
"Enlarging" the definition this way radically changes it--by loosening the meaning from something specific to something so generalized as to take away its usefulness. As I mentioned in my blog after the CA judges ruled, civilly joined gays in that state already had all the rights and obligations of traditionally married people, and the ONLY thing they got from those judges was the prize they treasured most, the word, "marriage." And why? Because they want two-of-a-kind to be exactly the same as two opposites. The impossible has occurred.
The effort to erase differences between the sexes started with randy baby-boomers forty years ago, and
despite only limited success, chugs along today. My fave Sunday read, the Styles section of the New York Times, is rife with approving stories on gender blur (in the midst of touting hyper-feminine fashions). Hmm, here on this week's page three, we have "No His or Hers, Just Theirs," about unisex clothes that sound just too chic: "shrunken jackets and drainpipe trousers." The decision of the paper to post gay marriage announcements always provides a few amusing moments, and this Sunday, the good-looking duo of William DeWitt and Ethan Philbrick, tousled and smiling, fits the bill.
And today I debated on syndicated radio another person who accepts smudging marital tradition. John Curtis, a family counselor with a doctorate from Barry University, was defending his light-on-content workbook, "Happily Unmarried: Living together and Loving It," and suggested that despite lots of studies showing the deleterious effects of cohabitation, folks who shack up should get respect--and means to basically make their live-in hook-ups into mock-marriages.
It's part of the melding of important institutions and traditions that, separately, brought life into sharper focus and allowed for the kinds of appreciation and analysis that the "not judgmental" faction eschews. When you don't carve precise distinctions between meanings, events and, in the case of "marriage," words, what you ultimately endure is the mushing of them all into a gooshy stew of mediocrity. And then, like so many of my psychology clients, you complain there's no excitement to life, no joi de vivre.
I don't think Californians will support same-sex marriage in November, but if somehow they do, it will be because they've boiled from the slowly-escalating heat of desensitization. And if we blithely dismiss the "enlarging" of terms and the amoeba-crawl of distinctions, we, as a society, deprive ourselves of useful tools to evaluate and enjoy our world.
murmurs even a word that could be taken as a thought toward the transcendental. By calling Kit "An American Girl," and placing her in Cincinnati, one might expect at least a passing nod to a centerpiece of life at the time.
too easily, what the law enforcement offices of several cities can't. On the surface, it's a clean, family-oriented and enjoyable plot, but those deceptive underlying lessons are troubling.
