Self-Inflicted Wounds

I wrote a blog post after I saw the documentary Weiner about disgraced politician Anthony Weiner and one of the things I wrote was something to the effect that Weiner was his own worst enemy. He wrecked his political career, his marriage, and his reputation. It wasn't the media or some other outside forces working against him. He did it to himself. (The call is coming from inside the house, Anthony!) I feel the same way about Donny T. and his growing troubles. If he'd only kept his mouth shut and stopped Tweeting, maybe his political career wouldn't be the failing pile of garbage that it is right now. (Then again, maybe not.) Still, the majority of Donny's political wounds, like Weiner's, were self-inflicted. Some people just sabotage their own lives for one reason or another. Maybe they secretly hate themselves. Maybe they're looking for a way out. Maybe they're stone-cold crazy. Maybe it's all of the above.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to the moms out there. I hope your day has been a good one. Mother's Day is bittersweet for me because my mother isn't alive. It's been more than twenty years since my mother was alive for Mother's Day and I still feel sad when the holiday rolls around. People whose moms are still alive should cherish the time they have with their mothers because life is short.

18 Percent

I read a story this week about a white police officer in Michigan who took a DNA test, found out he was 18% black, and claimed after he revealed his test results to his white coworkers, he was harassed on the job. He's also suing his employer for half a million dollars or something, citing racial discrimination. Seeing a picture of the guy, he doesn't look black to me at all so that 18% isn't exactly visible. I doubt anyone would have known the guy was 18% black (or any part black) if he hadn't opened his mouth and let that cat out of the bag. But he chose to share his DNA results with his coworkers. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't have been proud to share his roots with his coworkers, but I think it was naive of him to think he wouldn't catch some flack for sharing that revelation in a non-diverse work environment. It's not like this guy worked in big city with people of visible racial differences. He worked in a small Michigan town in a police force that, I believe, is 100% white. Part of me thinks the guy is just initiating a money grab with the lawsuit, but part of me believes he probably was called "Kunta" by his coworkers and harassed for being a mere 18% black.

PBS

In my efforts to block out the saturation of news about Donny T., I've been watching a lot of shows on PBS lately like Antiques Roadshow and Spy In the Wild. I've been telling anyone I know who cares to listen that I have to have a break from the 24-hour news cycle and PBS fits the bill right now. There's only so much bad news I can take. While some people thrive on news (and I used to be one of those people), I just can't do it anymore. I find that the local news is barely watchable these days too. When you just want to see the local weather and what's going on in and around the city, you still end up with national news about Donny and his minions or just one depressing story after another about violence in and around Chicago. Oy!

Thankfully, I have PBS to fall back on during these dark times. Of course, Donny T. will probably soon cut funding for that to reallocate the funds to some BS initiative brought forth by his daughter and/or son-in-law.

Present Laughter

I'm back home from my quick trip to New York, but while I was there I did have an opportunity to see the play Present Laughter with Kevin Kline. The play wasn't great, but Kevin Kline was great in it. Present Laughter didn't work for me because it came off as stale and dated. Noel Coward plays aren't really my thing either. The humor just didn't really translate for me, but Kevin Kline is such a gem that I was able to overlook a lot of the corny jokes and Katherine Hepburn-like pseudo-British accents in the play. I saw Kline in Ivanov years ago at the Lincoln Center and he was excellent. He's an actor's actor and seeing him again (even though the play was a disappointment) was still a treat.

New York...Again!

I'm back in New York for a brief work visit and the weather has been great although the bottom is supposed to fall out tomorrow as rain moves in. (Of course it would rain on my one day off!) Every time I come back to New York since I left in 2013, I feel like the population gets younger. So many hipsters in and around Manhattan. How can these folks afford the cost of living? I don't know. Maybe they're all trust fund babies or maybe they have multiple roommates or maybe they make a ton of money on their jobs.

School Lunch

I read a story in the NY Times today that outraged me about as much as the story a week or so ago about female prisoners being denied sanitary pads and tampons. Today's outrage story dealt with kids being denied hot school lunches because their lunch accounts are in arrears. I don't have kids and I'm not exactly a fan of many of them, but that doesn't mean I want to see kids go hungry. Denying a school kid a hot lunch because their parents owe money isn't right. I read about grade school kids having their hot lunch taken away and thrown in the garbage while a cheese sandwich was shoved on their food tray instead. I suspect most grade school kids and many high school kids don't control their own funds and have no way of controlling the funds set aside for their school lunch. Yet these kids are forced to be publicly humiliated and chow down on a dry cheese sandwich because their school lunch accounts need money added. It's humiliating enough to have to get a school lunch, I'm sure, especially one partially or fully subsidized by the government. But to have your meal yanked away from you and, in some cases, thrown in the garbage over a few dollars is ridiculous. For some low-income kids, a school lunch is the only meal or the only decent meal they eat during the day. It's a shame that children are treated so poorly in a country as wealthy as ours is.