Fran Lebowitz in Public Speaking: Catch If You Can

Over the weekend I watched Martin Scorsese's documentary Public Speaking on HBO. It's about author and magazine writer Fran Lebowitz, and I highly recommend it. She's smart (no duh!) and funny. Oh, wait. Maybe I mean "witty." I especially appreciated her commentary on race, gender, America's current disdain for intellectuals, and how much she procrastinates.

Of interest to people down here, Lebowitz says she once gave a lecture in New Orleans, and her curly hair went wild in our humidity. During the question-answer period, some smart-mouthed college frat boy (had to be from Tulane) asked her "Who does your hair?" She quipped, "Why? Do you want to meet him?" or something like that. The boy was later ostracized, according to his mother. Mortified, she wrote Lebowitz, blaming the writer for her son becoming depressed and dropping out of school.

Yikes! Now that's what I call hunting to place blame.

I also enjoyed the clips with Toni Morrison and others, such as James Baldwin debating William F. Buckley. Apparently Scorsese orchestrated having Morrison interview Lebowitz. In addition, Lebowitz tells a great story about sitting at the children's table when Toni Morrison received her Nobel Prize and being chided for standing up while the king was sitting. The woman's a great storyteller.

She appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week. Here's a clip.



Her remarks about her ignorance of Twitter and digital technology in general further amused me. She lives at a slower pace than the rest of us and says if someone told her you can send texts with a microwave, she'd believe them.

Lebowitz is one of those people I'd like to have lunch with but more than likely, she would find me incredibly boring.

Teens Allegedly Beat 78-Year-Old Woman To Death in Norco

The 17-year-old pictured here is Pauline Deese. Both the Times Picayune and WWL TV report that Miss Deese is one of four teens, ages 14-17, charged with allegedly beating to death a 78-year-old woman in Norco, La. St. Charles Parish authorities have not yet released the names of the other suspects.

News sources say that the teens allegedly convinced Mary N. Mulé Arico that they needed to use her phone. Once inside, they began searching her home for valuables. The Picayune says "two 16-year-old boys were booked with first degree murder and a 14-year-old girl was booked with principal to first degree murder on Sunday night," and St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne called the crime "horrific," reports WWL. Its news division (which has posted video this evening after this post) further reports that Ms. Arico died from multiple blows and stab wounds and that the teens bragged about the murder.

"The crime was likely committed on November 8, though Arico’s body wasn’t discovered until November 26 after deputies were asked by family members to check on the woman."

The victim lived alone and kept to herself, which is why her death went unnoticed. A neighbor called police after she did not answer her door.

Deese, per reports, has been charged as an accessory to first degree murder. The sheriff's office says she helped dispose of evidence and is related to one of the 16-year-old boys who's been charged in the killing.

Norco is about 32 minutes west of New Orleans on the other side of the Louis Armstrong International Airport.

View Larger Map
Everytime someone asks me what do I think of the youth violence in New Orleans and surrounding areas, all I can do is shake my head. If I had a solution or any significant ideas about how to prevent it other than parenting classes and a better education system, I'd be richer than Bill Gates. This murder also causes me to ponder the dangers of living alone as we age.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm with my dad and my adult children today. Helped a bit with cooking, but my daughter and son have the ball. I want to enjoy the day and not worry about tomorrow. I want to live and breathe gratitude, and that requires living in the moment.

North Korea and South Korea Make War Sounds Again: Do Americans Even Care?

I heard the news about North Korea shelling Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday, but I didn't have time to think much about it then. Now, reviewing the news, including how American officials "scramble to limit hostilities," I'm having trouble convincing myself that American citizens (many of whom didn't know the Republicans won back the House during our own midterm elections) even care about the potential for war between North and South Korea.

And maybe we don't need to be concerned. U.S. Envoy for North Korean policy, Stephen Bosworth, told reporters, “we regard this development with great seriousness ... we do not consider it a crisis.”

So, maybe we should ignore North Korea's recent attack on South Korea and chalk it up to Kim Jong Il's son Kim Jong Un showing off. However, I'm of the mind that we should never discount men in a pissing match. At least, be careful. They may have poor aim.



Back in May, I wrote a personal primer on North and South Korea's violent past and American involvement for a women's website. My take was don't look at North Korea's size. Look at how China holds its hand. Nobody commented. I wondered: Does that mean American women don't care about the saber rattling over there, or is it a sign that Americans in general don't care?

I see at that a Chicago Council on Global Affairs indicates Americans question U.S. involvement in Korea. The poll was conducted before Tuesday's incident.

If I had money, I'd bet that the people polled don't know the history of the U.S.A. and North and South Korea in relation to World War II. People today seem to live in a vacuum when it comes to history. Many of us know nothing about how the state of world came to be, and yet we eagerly oppose U.S. involvement in other parts of the world, weeping over our tax burden.

We close eyes to how often our America's earlier involvement contributed to a mess rearing its head in current news. It seems sometimes that we're a nation that loves to talk of accountability, but we don't really want to be held accountable for much, like cleaning up after our old policies backfire.

I recall that while we ran to Iraq, giving George Bush the thumbs up because he yelled about Arabs having "weapons of mass destruction," few people considered that North Korea worked away at growing its nuclear capabilities. And it's not like that country is America-friendly. Not important I guess. No oil.

And You Think What Song Is About Me?

Advice, ladies. If your current lover/spouse or your ex tells you that he always thinks of you when he hears Van Hunt's "Highlights," run to the nearest exit.

And the Crowd Goes Wild! Oprah's Favorite Things Show 2010

Some people find seeing how Oprah's audience goes crazy when she gives things away to be incredibly sad, demoralizing even, an illustration of America's decadence and zombie-like consumerism. While I think we need to not be so materialistic, I also say, "Lighten up. It's festival season." And so, I find these clips of her crowd going wild to be hilarious. She had medics standing by in case somebody's head exploded at her Favorite Things Show 2010. And the Huffington Post has a video, which you see below, showing the reactions.

Oprah said more than once that Friday's audience was comprised of people who were "known givers." They were people who volunteered their time in foreign countries, etc.

I watched the show, having been sworn to secrecy about a product she'd announce and give away, the Breville Ikon Panini Maker, one of multiple food-related items she touted. Come on! You know Americans love food stuff. I was tempted to order Beecher's World's Best Mac 'n Cheese after seeing it on the show, but at a $50.00 minimum, I decided not to. Plus, my hips don't need that cheese even if Thanksgiving and Christmas are around the corner.

Nevertheless, as would be expected, another blogger had a big problem with it and says Oprah's "keeping America fat." Really? Who is Oprah again, lady, a god or something?

As I looked on, I found all the people jumping and screaming with joy to be infectious. You can't watch all that cheering with smiles and feel sad, can you? And I remember a black couple that turned and kissed each other when Oprah announced she, via Sony, was giving away Sony's big screen 3-D television with blue ray disc player. Value more than $3600. I'm surprised there wasn't more kissing in that audience.

My question is how do these people get all this stuff home and where do they put it once they get it there?

Finally, I hear she's doing a Part 2 Monday. I hope I can watch as she tries to outdo herself in the show's last season.

Did Tyler Perry Fans Abandon For Colored Girls?

I just discovered film critic Scott Mendelson's blog, Mendelson's Memos, and this bit of information about a crash in box office sales for the second week of Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls. Mendelson writes:

Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls completely collapsed in weekend two, tumbling 66% (a record second-weekend drop for Tyler Perry) for just $6.7 million. Alas, the film apparently didn't expand behind die-hard Perry fans and fans of the original play, but lost both purists of the original show and Perry fans who preferred his lighter romps. ...

I called that in my review of the movie at BlogHer.com, not the box office crash, but the sense that Perry's movie did not suit the taste of his regular fans and also misses the mark with the more discriminating viewers the director hoped to impress, those who ardently oppose his work in general.

The original play to which Mendelson refers is Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, an iconic choreopoem in the African-American feminists/womanists community. He also says, however, that this money dip will not undo Perry financially.

Letter to a Young Black Woman: Don't Whine Over White Princesses

I am most definitely not a Pollyanna, always seeing the best in everything, but neither do I see the worst. I consider myself to be a realist who sometimes battles an inner pessimist. However, I think in order to maintain sanity that if you're going to be pessimistic about your prospects, then at least ground your pessimism in reality. So, when I read an article at TheRoot.com today by Helena Andrews that declares "There are no black Kate Middletons" and saw her go on all weepy about an absence of black princesses, my eyes crossed.

Andrews is also the author of Bitch is the New Black, but her article at The Root is the most tedious mash-up of whining over black womanhood that I've read in a while. "Dear Helena," I whispered while reading it, "please grow up."

I don't mean to give this one young black woman and writer a hard time, but as a woman who is probably old enough to be her mother, I am giving her the same advice that I would give to my 29-year-old daughter if she started spouting this nonsense. I confess that I'm developing a low tolerance for young, educated African-American women crying over their so-called horrible lives.

The article frames Middleton's recent engagement to Prince William in the context of the plight of black women and Disney's fictitious black Princess Tiana of all things. I responded at The Root, but I had to cut out some of what I wanted to say because of the site's word limit. Here is my response in full:

This lamentation concerns me because it's not grounded in reality. I hope the writer will consider the lives of the other real white princesses of Great Britain who captured the imagination of America not that long ago and grasp that their lives were not fairy tales. Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson married Prince Andrew and Lady Diana married Prince Charles (Prince William's father). Fergie and Andrew are now divorced, and her life was just this year sinking in scandal. But the greater scandal was how Prince Charles handled Diana.

Prince Charles cheated on his princess with the woman he really loved, the one who he was not permitted to marry the first time. He and Diana divorced eventually, setting Great Britain on its ear, and later Diana died being chased by paparazzi. So, neither of these British princesses knew the genuine love of a prince because their princes were human men, not fantasy men.

Furthermore, if we look beyond the Disney cartoon mentioned, we will learn that Princess Tiana of The Princess and the Frog is based on a real black woman in New Orleans, Leah Chase, the owner of Dooky Chase restaurant, whose life has been successful. She didn't marry a monarch in waiting. She married Dooky. Her grandchildren now help her run the restaurant. If she had spent her youth focused on what she couldn't have or how much better off the white women around her fared, I wonder if she would have achieved anything.

But why does this article focus on how white men portrayed a black female cartoon character anyway?

As others have told the writer, there are real black princesses in the world to compare to the real white princesses of the world. Oprah just had on Princess Akosua of Ghana, a princess by blood not marriage, who played Celie's sister in the The Color Purple movie 20-plus years ago. She is a beautiful woman who was once married to the director James Singleton, and now lives a productive life without him.

This article may have been written for the sake of drawing hits to The Root, but going for the hits at the expense of making black women sound like pitiful souls who can't live full lives without princes like those from white monarchies does us all, both black men and black women, a disservice.

I recommend that instead of looking at ourselves through Tyler Perry's lens, which distorted the affirming message of Ntozake Shange's iconic play, and instead of seeing a potential role model in Disney's fictitious and only black princess, that we reflect on the more empowering words of Zora Neale Hurston:

"... I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it. ... No, I do not weep at the world. I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Hurston lived through a historical period of oppression that far exceeds the kind of oppression black women face today in terms of white society vs. black society. She didn't spend a lot of time crying in her bed. Neither should today's young black women cry in theirs because their opportunities for greatness surpass Hurston's.

Black women should not view reality, as this article seems to suggest, as some dismal prospect over which they have little power. If you act like a queen, if you pursue the dreams, maturity, education, and wisdom of a queen, then you are a queen. Queens trump princesses.

Nordette Adams
Her411.com

Crazed White Woman Attacks Black Postal Worker, Says World is Against Black Men and Blames Them

I saw the video embedded below on TV talk show host Lisa Durden's Facebook page. A black postal worker filmed a white customer (with her permission in in 2009 he says), who, after signing for a letter, demanded that he take it back. Hugston Jean, 47 then, tried to explain to the woman that it was against USPS policy to take the letter back the person signed for it. She would have to take the issue up at the post office.

The woman, who Gawker identifies as "60-year-old Erika Winchester of Hingham, Mass." began cursing at him, calling him the "n" word, and ranting about the low intelligence of black people. She says in the video that black women are against black men and so is everyone else. Also, she warns him that when the white people find out how Jean's treated her, they'll beat him.

Generally, she portrays black men to him as having a hopeless existence in the world, and, of course, she tells him that black men's lowly state is their own fault. The woman was clearly projecting her fears and self-loathing onto Jean and black men, but she may have thought what she said made sense as she vomited onto the postal worker the negative image of black men from mainstream media that some whites and blacks have internalized. And we have only to listen to this Tea Party pundit on a news network speaking of African men working in the post office to see that this woman is not alone in her nasty attitude. (Winchester's older photo comes from Gawker.)



Through research, I've learned that the incident happened in 2009, but recently blew up on the Net with posts such as the one at Gawker and more at other websites, such as BlackAmericaWeb. The first Gawker has a headline calls Winchester "a Volvo-driving racist." The article says further that she is "a speech coach and citizen police academy graduate."

Some of her neighbors, according to Gawker, have come forward and called her "a nut." Well, she sounds like one in the video, right? So, maybe the mailman catching her on video can be seen as a kind of intervention from the universe, a shout to Erika to see herself as others see her so she will reform.

Whatever message a higher power may have for this woman, a Gawker update says that after the video went viral, people were so outraged that Ms. Winchester had to be put under police protection.

Per the Boston Globe, the police also took action against Winchester gone wild:

Peraino said Jean refused to press charges right after the video was recorded on Oct. 13, 2009. But Peraino said after seeing the video police went ahead on their own with a charge of assault and battery as a hate crime. Jean then wouldn't testify against Winchester at a probable cause hearing a few weeks later, Peraino said.

"I think he felt compassion for her, because he knew her as a regular customer on his route," Peraino said.

A magistrate decided that the charges will go away if Winchester stays out of trouble for a year.

Jean has reportedly said he was fired over the incident. The Boston Globe reports that the United States Post Office says, however, his dismissal was unrelated to his filming Winchester and his being assaulted.

Bristol vs. Brandy: Man Goes Against SWAT He's So Mad. Zombie Apocalypse Next?

I am surprised that Bristol Palin's beaten Brandy, who I thought was quite good even on the first show of this season's Dancing With the Stars. However, I've only seen DWTS that one time this year. (I prefer So You Think You Can Dance) Nevertheless, I can't escape DWTS news. Everywhere I turn, it seems, I'm hearing about possible Tea Party influence on Bristol Palin getting this far.

Really, who cares? If Bristol Palin winning a reality TV dance show is proof that America loves her mama, Sarah Palin, enough to vote the former governor into the White House, then we've have bigger problems. The zombie apocalypse is near.

And if it's near, then it's starting in Wisconsin. ABC reports that a man there was so enraged after Monday night's show that he shot his TV and had an "all-night stand-off" with SWAT? Steve Cowan's wife told police that he was drinking Monday night and that "he has bipolar disorder," reports a Chicago TV station, but he also has strong opinions about dance, apparently:

Cowan's wife says her husband felt that Palin was on the show because of her mother's political pull - and had no talent as a dancer.

What the hell is going on out there, America?



And do read Emily Zanotti (not a progressive) aka American Princess's funny commentary on Bristol's reign, "A Dancing With the Stars Pulbic Service Political Announcement." I had to add it.

Photo Credit: The NY Daily News, which reports that Brandy calls Bristol's advancing to the finals, "an outrage."

Eric Benet Got My Blood Going This Morning

My dog started whining early, a lab. He's outside these days but he used to be an inside dog, and even though he seems to like being outside, he's got this habit of barking and whining whenever the kitchen light goes on in the morning. Sort of saying, I think, "Hey, you people. I want in!"

Anyway, to drown out the barking, I grabbed my mp3 player. I accidentally clicked the wrong song, and Eric Benet was in my ear singing , "If You Want Me To Stay," an old Sly and the Family Stone song. I like Eric's version too.



The next thing I knew, I was bopping my head, and getting up. So much from trying to drown out the barking dog.

The Upcoming Royal Wedding: Will Americans Go Crazy Again? Are We in Love with Royalty?

Somewhat related, did you see how Oprah hugged real-life African Princess Akosua Busia recently? Do you even know who that is?

Let the pomp and circumstance begin. As CBS and many other news outlets, such as CNN, have reported, Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged:

It's official. Perhaps the most widely rumored wedding in recent times, and certainly one of the longest rumored, is going to happen. Prince William finally became engaged to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton, giving her his late mother's engagement ring and Britain the prospect of its biggest royal wedding since Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer almost 30 years ago.

I remember his parents' royal wedding in 1981. America went insane, causing observers to wonder whether Americans secretly long for a monarchy. I was a little baffled even then at all the attention, not to mention how the public obsessed over Diana. And yet, when she was killed in 1997, I remember having a sense of great loss.

The media mill is cranking out the stories already. People Magazine has a big spread, and the Globe and Mail's wasted no time in telling us what's really important, that this royal wedding " is anticipated to give a 620-million pound ($985-million US) boost to the British economy." And listen to the clatter of hundreds of cameras snapping pictures of the new royal couple in this CNN video. A little alarming in the context of the role paparazzi played in Lady Diana's death.

This first video below shows an interview with the engaged pair. It's sweet. They seem like nice kids, but my opinion falls in with some of the Australian blokes in the second video of this post: I'm just not that into the news.



The last man in the following video from Australia says, "I love a wedding, but yeah, I couldn't give a toss." The giddiness and apathy about the wedding breaks along gender lines, which is natural, I suppose. Women are all smiles; men kind of shrug.



I wonder will we learn again that American women and little girls are still fascinated by princesses and how many experts will trot out to tell us why this is so. I can relate a little to princessophilia. While I don't get all that excited about the British royals, I did find myself watching closely the real-life African princess, Akosua Busia of Ghana recently. I saw her on Oprah's big reunion for the movie The Color Purple, a beautiful woman, who used to be married to movie director John Singleton. Her clothes fascinated me, but I also wondered how being an African princess differs from being a European princess. In the movie, Princess Akosua played Celie's sister Nettie.

Literary vs. Popular Fiction: Mark Brendle Explains

I've been thinking about collecting different explanations of the difference between literary fiction or "high literature" and popular fiction and posting them to this blog as a reference. (Yes, I'm taking a class right now.) While looking up the concept of "thinning" in fiction, I came across a blog post at Barnes and Noble by Mark Brendle. While reviewing the work of Richard Russo, Brendle also gives a clear explanation of literary vs. popular fiction:

There’s no set-in-stone definition of what exactly separates “high literature” from “pop fiction.” But many would agree that the differentiation does exist and that it is an important distinction to make. To be very brief, so called high literature is “high” because it seeks to reveal some truth about the human condition. Its characters, plot and setting are all working to achieve some kind of epiphany on a greater level, to have some kind of social or psychological consciousness and to present the reader with existential issues of his or her own existence. It is “involved” rather than “escapist.” High literature typically deals with the form or style of writing as well, pushing the boundaries of the acceptable narrative to ever greater and innovative extremes. The purpose of narrative technique in high literature is to complement the themes of the book, whereas in pop fiction the narrative technique is designed to easily and quickly convey ideas to the reader.

You could learn a bit from reading his entire post, " * Walking a Thin Line: The Work of Richard Russo." Very thoughtful and informative.

I Wish I Could Take this "Spiritual Path"

A friend sent this to me, the "Fuck It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way." I wish I could adopt it because I honestly believe that sometimes no matter what you do, you can't change the outcome of a bad thing. The old way to say this would be "Let go and let God."

New Orleans Police Stand Trial for Henry Glover's Death

The video below is from the New Orleans Times Picayune and is an update of the Henry Glover trial. Today, according to reports, "Defense attorney admits New Orleans police officer burned Henry Glover's body, but says it wasn't a crime." Read more at NOLA.com.

Henry Glover trial video update: opening arguments

One-Letter Wonder on Wheel of Fortune

Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos coverage of woman on Wheel of Fortune who solved long puzzle with only one letter. People have accused the woman of being a witch or cheating. I don't think she did because it's possible. Years ago I used to watch Wheel and remember solving a puzzle with no letters. The answer was "Einstein's Theory of Relativity." I looked at the blank spots and that was the phrase that popped into my head immediately. If only I had been on the show instead of at home ...

Funny or Die Spoofs For Colored Girls: For Stuffed Girls

After seeing For Colored Girls and writing a review for BlogHer, I so needed this Funny or Die spoof with Wayne Brady of that Tyler Perry movie. Sometimes we have to laugh. This is the film based on "For Stuffed Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When Sesame Street Was Enuf." Below the spoof, I have the real trailer so you can compare the two.



Great lines:
"Ever since I realized there was something called being stuffed or a puppet, I've been trying not to be that."

"Being stuffed is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet."

Review: Tyler Perry Finger Paints For Colored Girls

My review of For Colored Girls, Tyler Perry's film adaptation of poet/playwright Ntozake Shange's iconic choreopoem, is now live at BlogHer.com. Read it please.

In the interview I did not comment the film's soundtrack, but I bought it yesterday and give it thumbs up.

Here is "Four Women," Nina Simone's classic song. In this movie's version of the song, Laura Izibor's and Ledisi's voices join Simone's.

I Blame Tyler Perry for My Funk of a Mood

My review of For Colored Girls is now live at BlogHer.com, "Tyler Perry Finger Paints Over Shange's For Colored Girls"


I'm listening to Joss Stone, who strikes me as an old soul--"What Were We Thinking" (video below). Ugh. What a mood I'm in! I blame it on seeing Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls Friday night and old baggage I wrote about under "Prose Poem for the Living Dead." I am supposed to be writing the review of Perry's adaptation of Ntozake Shange's play, which I saw performed in the 1970s (You can buy the 1982 DVD of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf directed by Oz Scott at Amazon). So, I am, in the throes of my strangeness, applying my personal process theory while I struggle with the movie beside Shange's work. When the review done, I'll post the link to the live BlogHer piece, assuming that I can write it.

Prose Poem for the Living Dead

Prose Poem for the Living Dead
By Nordette N. Adams

If you had written your name all over my body and sang to me the passion you claim in that song, then love may not have seeped away leaving cracked earth beneath us. If you had opened the spirit flesh of your heart like you claim you opened and had remained so--as unfurled as the lotus--then would I be here writing bitter syllables about a zombie? My mistake was that I expected you to save me because I was too stupid to know a woman can only save herself. The wise man slips the lifesaver over his head first in the ocean. He may hoist his lover on his back with good intention, but being not as strong as the ocean he must let her go, feel her fingers slip from his wet hands, watch her wrestle with herself in the ocean until she swims with her own limbs either to him or to that other shore. Sorry, I could not have been more of who you needed.
Sorry, we each needed so much more.

Keith Olbermann's Suspension: Is Liberal MSM on the Run?

And MSNBC says Keith Olbermann's out! At least temporarily. The network is concerned about his financial contributions to some Democratic candidates, and so they've suspended the anchor/pundit for a while without pay, report multiple news sources.

Are less conservative mainstream media outlets feeling heat with the big GOP/Tea Party win at the polls this week or just trying to distinguish themselves as not tolerating the blatant excesses Fox News tolerates from its anchors and pundits?

• Bloomberg: "Olbermann Suspended by NBC After Making Political Donations to Democrats"
• AP: "MSNBC suspends Olbermann for political donations"
• ABC: "Olbermann Sidelined for making contributions"
• From the Guardian across the pond: "US TV anchorman Keith Olbermann suspended for donating to Democrats"

I think we have to put Olbermann's suspension in context of the White House Corresondents Association forcing Helen Thomas to retire in June, NPR sacking Juan Williams last month, and the Washington Post dumping "conservative" blogger David Weigel in the summer. These are all outlets conservatives call "liberal" and "biased." They seem to be declaring "No, we're not! We won't coddle those who wave their bias flags in public or in private." *Sigh*

Portia de Rossi Tells Oprah, Ellen About Life at 82 Lbs., and BlogHer Urges Owning Your Beauty: Who Wants to Heal?

BlogHer.com, a women's blogging website, with help from OperationBeautiful.com, is running a series about owning your own beauty that features stories and pictures from ordinary women. That's a praise-worthy project. If I were younger, I'd ask to participate because I, like many other women, struggle with self and body image baggage, but who wants to hear about an older woman's emotional struggles with self-image unless she's saying she's fully recovered, right? People expect that with age comes wisdom, that some sagely magic overcomes you and you never ever again internalize self-destructive messages.

For a variety of reasons, I have trouble opening up these days publicly about inner turmoil with deep roots. You have to know when to risk facing darkness. For me, I have to choose a time when self-examination won't sink me, conjure my Sylvia Plath side, and since I'm in no position to take time off and spend weeks with a therapist, I'm disinclined to dig at the core of self-affliction right now.

When I was younger, I was willing to talk more about emotional pain. And make no mistake, to own your own beauty you must first wade through some emotional pain. If after being raised in a culture that values thinness, youth, and perfection over inner peace you have never, meaning not even once, experienced the prick of self-doubt about your looks, then I'll wager you're someone who is genetically predisposed to positivity or you have a knack for repression that's let you forget your awkward years. If not that, then perhaps you're attractive enough to have never been rejected based on your appearance. That's nice. Count your blessings.

As I was saying, when I was younger I was more willing to talk about pain, I think, because I was puffed up with idealistic dreams. I had higher hopes then for the 30-minute-sitcom solution to self-loathing--you know, just reveal the monster, laugh at it, and it goes away. But always I was more likely to address psychic slime from a safe distance, to speak to it in poetry, and even then I felt pressure to reveal less by putting a positive spin on the problem. See the poem "Fat Is." That's my issue, the shame of obesity, and so, I'm one of those people who feels sexy and pretty at a lower weight and like an ugly loser at a higher weight. Therefore, when I'm having trouble with losing weight the way I'm troubled now, I'm no damned fun. I can't play the role of the jolly fat lady.

I've also addressed these kinds of issues in fiction about childhood (Sunday Dinner), but the long, true personal narrative about how I feel about my physical appearance or a realistic picture showing my face and a belly of stretch marks? No. You might read this and think I'm sharing a personal narrative now, but I'm not. I don't have the courage for that. These are not the words that tell all and bare the soul. These are abstract, distanced blah blah words broadcast from the supposed cynic's cloak. These are what another writer I know calls "top of mind" words.

I'm reluctant to spill the deeper stuff because whenever I've broken down with a group in a face-to-face setting, my experience has been that people get all concerned, run at you with the hugs and tissues, but later, they go off and talk behind your back about your emotional instability. Someone describes you as "a drama queen" seeking attention. Others discuss your stupidity and the lameness of losing your head before a crowd, and they whisper buzz phrases such as "TMI," and eventually these opinions all come back to you by way of those gossipy "little birds."

Those birds tell a lot of people a lot of mean stuff when you're not around and if you put it in writing on a blog, God help you. You've archived the bird shit that pops up later and bites you in places like work or in a divorce hearing. I speak from personal experience here on the later, court. Being strong enough to share means being strong enough to take what people say after the sharing's done.

The fallout after sharing has never helped me, making whatever healing that reportedly comes through sharing incomplete. The aftermath of sharing has only made me feel more like I should climb in bed, turn off all lights, and pull the covers over my head. For others, though, sharing seems to work, to help. I'm in graduate school now taking rhetoric courses and reading theorists who swear the personal narrative works like Gilead's balm.

So, I applaud BlogHer and Operation Beautiful and the talented photographer Karen Walrond for trying to "change the conversation" about women and our perceptions of beauty. Part of their message is "it is never too late to learn to love one's self and influence the lives of those around us." Seems like that should be a message for me, and it is, but like I said, I can't do that publicly right now. Maybe I'll do those positive affirmations recommended by Operation Beautiful in a private space at a quiet time, but mostly I think I'll take heed of research on neurogenesis. I've been thinking lately that the better route is to reinvent the self, to take practical steps in raising up a new you and purge the demons that way and to do so without advertisement. I'll advertise the cure after it's worked because these feelings are like a long, love-affair where self-doubt, like lovers' passions, comes and goes.

But the rest of you, please go. Do. Get a healing now! Don't be like the me who writes in this moment.

I see that this pressure to look like a perfect dream rips through America and the world. It's a disease. It's a cancer eating its way from women to men. I've heard my son speak of being self-conscious about not having the buff male body promoted on television and in magazines. My daughter's self image is stronger, and I suspect her being hard of hearing (she wears hearing aids) may have helped there. Natural deafness has prevented her from hearing some of the crazy talk that makes us crazy.

It seems that to love our children to wholeness, we must work daily and desperately against Spiritus Mundi, praying that we too may be exorcised. In my son's case, I rage against rise of the Adonis Complex. After seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show episode of Glee in which the character Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) confronts his body-image issues, I know it's not just my son feeling this pressure. I doubt a show as successful as Glee would broach the subject unless they knew it would resonate with teen viewers. And I wish someone had raged against Madison Avenue's Venus for me when I was a child, a teen, a young woman.

Even the Beautiful People Feel Ugly These Days

The Glee episode brings me to one celebrity's story. While BlogHer and Operation Beautiful are giving ordinary women the opportunity to share their feelings about their looks, a chilling story runs in MSM news this week about actress Portia de Rossi, Ellen DeGeneres's wife, and her battle with a negative body-image and an eating disorder. The video below has clips of her talk with Ellen, whose love she credits with helping her heal.

The CNN report talks a lot about the actress emotionally telling her story on Ellen's show, but Portia was also on Oprah earlier in the week telling Winfrey and audience about how she was once 82 pounds and thought that was beautiful. When people who cared about her told her that she was too thin, she perceived them to be giving her a compliment, and happily considered, "Who can bee too thin?" But her life was at risk at that weight.

Featured in the latest edition of People Magazine, she says:

"But at the time, I thought, 'Okay, my arms look awful so I should cover them up, but my legs look pretty okay now," says the actress, 37. "I didn't think I was crazy to only eat 300 calories a day. That made perfect sense to me."

She says, according to CNN and the Daily Mail, that as she grew to feel more comfortable about herself with Ellen, she reached a weight of 168 pounds.

Portia connects some of her issues with negative self image, anorexia, and food to trying to hide her sexual orientation. She's sharing her stories on talk shows because she's recently published a book, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain.



Related at BlogHer and WSATA:

• "Own Your Own Beauty."
  
• "Can a Negative Body Image Keep You From Living a Full Life?"
• "Can You Change Your Life With Positive Thinking? Yes."
• "Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. Ugh."

CNN Debunks Myth of Obama's $200 Million Per Day Trip: Even Military Speaks Up to Say Rumor is Bunk

CNN's Anderson Cooper debunks the rumor about President Barack Obama taking a $200 million per day trip to Asia. Michelle Bachmann is one of the people spreading it. The ding bat! But it's gaining traction because we have too many people in this country who believe whatever they read online or hear a politician or pundit saying and they don't check facts. Rush Limbaugh and others are saying this nonsense too. That's not surprising.

The rumor is so outrageous that even the military is speaking up to debunk it. Cooper said twice that there are plenty of reasons to oppose Obama and ways to do it with facts, and so, you don't have to make up stuff.

Dear Lemuel Gulliver: We Still Worry About the Sun

From Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Book III, written in the 1700s. Gulliver is speaking of the science-obsessed Laputians, the people on the flying island called Laputa.

These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying a minutes peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes which very little affect the rest of mortals. Their apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy us. For if, in its perihelion, it should approach within a certain degree of the sun (as by their calculations they have reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand times more intense than that of red hot glowing iron, and in its absence from the sun, carry a blazing tail ten hundred thousand and fourteen miles long, through which, if the earth should pass at the distance of one hundred thousand miles from the nucleus, or main body of the comet, it must in its passage be set on fire, and reduced to ashes: that the sun, daily spending its rays without any nutriment to supply them, will at last be wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the destruction of this earth, and of all the planets that receive their light from it.

They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in their beds, nor have any relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life. When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the sun’s health, how he looked at his setting and rising, and what hopes they have to avoid the stroke of the approaching comet. This conversation they are apt to run into with the same temper that boys discover in delighting to hear terrible stories of spirits and hobgoblins, which they greedily listen to, and dare not go to bed for fear.

Do these people sound familiar? Can you apply these words to many of us today.

Drawing of Laputian with one eye turned inward and one upward comes from this PhotoBucket account.

Jon Stewart's Closing Message at the Rally to Restore Sanity, Plus Stephen Colbert Restoring Fear

I'm just getting around to looking at these Rally to Restore Sanity videos now. Some estimates about attendance say there were as many as 250,000 people there. If you'd like to read the transcript of Jon Stewart's closing message to the crowd, try this link. What do you think?



And here's the comedy portion with Stephen Colbert, restoring sanity and/or fear. But it's satire, and so there's a message.

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
Jon and Stephen - Formidable Opponent
www.comedycentral.com
Rally to Restore Sainty and/or Fear The Daily Show The Colbert Report

BlogHer's Melissa Ford attended. You may read her posted impressions here.