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Helen Thomas, Like Many Others, Missed Her Exit : NPR

Helen Thomas, Like Many Others, Missed Her Exit

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June 11, 2010

There’s a virulently popular video of Poison performing at the 2009 Tony Awards. After the rock band finishes playing, the two guitarists step back upstage near the drummer. Lead singer and frontman Bret Michaels, however, lingers out front a little longer, playing to the crowd.

Helen Thomas, at the White House in 2008.
Enlarge Alex Wong/Getty Images

Helen Thomas, at the White House in 2008.

Helen Thomas, at the White House in 2008.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Helen Thomas, at the White House in 2008.

As he turns to leap onto the riser and join the rest of the band, a heavy backdrop lowers from the rafters and Michaels runs right into it. Boom! He is leveled flat and pinned beneath.

Just because he missed his exit cue.

Knowing when to leave is an important part of success. Michaels learned that lesson in a painful way. So, apparently, has Helen Thomas, the nearly nonagenarian White House reporter who said in an interview last month that Israel should get out of Palestine and its people should "go home" to "Poland, Germany ... and America." Video of Thomas' comments surfaced last week. A few days later, bowing to the pressure of criticism from many corners, the Hearst News Service columnist announced her retirement.

There was an immediate chorus of people who suggested that Thomas — who before joining Hearst was a UPI correspondent for nearly 60 years — stayed too long.

Thomas is not the first person to overstay her welcome. In just about every walk of life — in theater, in sports, in politics — hanging on too long can be hazardous. Some people just don’t know when to fold ‘em.

Exeunt Omnes

Botching an exit cue in a stage production can result in dramatic disaster, says Sara Freeman, a professor of theater history at the University of Oregon. Unless a show is fluid in its staging and actors are told that there can be some leeway in their various comings and goings, staying onstage when you are supposed to exit is considered “very bad etiquette or an act of outright aggression or disrespect” in the theater world, Freeman says.

“At the very least, it alters the circumstances the actors remaining onstage need to play in,” she says. And, “at the worst it ‘upstages’ them and upends planned narrative or visual effects. It distracts attention from what the focus is supposed to be in the story.”

Freeman says she has a million stories of actors who missed their entrance cues, “but missed exits are rarer because they usually have to be chosen. It’s far harder to not exit by accident.”

Going Long, Too Long

Similarly, superstar sports figures who stay in the game longer than they should can keep a team from flourishing. There are a few very famous examples: After two stints — adding up to more than a decade — with the Chicago Bulls, which included six NBA championships and five MVP awards, Michael Jordan retired in 1999. He was at the top of his game.

Muhammad Ali, carrying some extra weight, in 1979.
Enlarge Evening Standard/Getty Images

Muhammad Ali, carrying some extra weight, in 1979.

Muhammad Ali, carrying some extra weight, in 1979.
Evening Standard/Getty Images

Muhammad Ali, carrying some extra weight, in 1979.

Unfortunately, Jordan returned to the NBA in 2001 to play for the Washington Wizards for two less-than-remarkable seasons.

Other superstars who perhaps should have hung it up earlier than they did include major league baseball greats Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds, pro football legends Franco Harris and Joe Namath and history-making boxer Muhammad Ali.

NFL quarterback Brett Favre, formerly of the Green Bay Packers and now of the Minnesota Vikings, “doesn't know how or when to leave,” says USA Today sportswriter Christine Brennan, “but so far he's still winning when he comes back. He's a winning laughingstock. You don't see a lot of those.”

Professional bicyclist Lance Armstrong also has retired from, then returned to, competitive racing. Armstrong, Brennan adds, is one of those jocks who are “tempting fate.”

Past-Their-Prime Politicians

Perhaps no stage has seen more missed exit cues than the halls of Congress. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), who first came to the Senate in December 1954, shuffled through his final years in office. He served almost continuously, and to the age of 100, until leaving office in January 2003. He's the only centenarian in Senate history. (Thurmond died in June 2003, six months shy of turning 101.)

Sen. Strom Thurmond in May 2001.
Enlarge Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sen Strom Thurmond in May 2001, when he was 98.

Sen. Strom Thurmond in May 2001.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sen Strom Thurmond in May 2001, when he was 98.

Years before Thurmond stepped down from office, there were people in South Carolina who thought he should hang up his spurs. In 1996, the Hotline political newsletter quoted Charlie Thompson, a Republican, as saying there comes a time "when even the most honored and skilled of a profession must pass the baton on to others. ... One doesn't need poll results to know South Carolina wants Strom Thurmond to retire."

There have been other examples in the Senate of people wearing out their welcome, says NPR Political Editor Ken Rudin. “Republicans, for example, were begging Delaware's William Roth to step down in 2000, so Mike Castle could run.” But Roth refused, ran one more time and lost to Democrat Tom Carper.

Sometimes, Rudin says, “you can overstay your welcome and be only in your first term ... like Gov. Jim Gibbons in Nevada. Republicans pleaded with him to drop out of the race but he insisted on running again. Fortunately for the GOP, he got creamed in Tuesday's primary.”

Of course, Rudin adds, there are those who argue that Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia “has long overstayed his welcome. And while he is more alert than Strom Thurmond was, it's pretty sad to watch him out there.”

Byrd, who will be 93 in November and with his 51 years in office has surpassed Thurmond as the nation’s longest-serving senator, might stay on the stage a little longer. He is up for re-election in 2012.

 

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Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

Oh by the way, got another one:

FU*K THEIR HOLOCAUST lol.

They have been moralizing us with that one for 60 years, it's about time they get that one right in the face too.

Plus, as if those Aipac Jews and supporters of Jewish Israeli terrorism with their little nazi-style death camps ever genuinely cared about their Holocaust in the first place. For them that's just a pile of dead bodies they brandish in front of you screaming to intimidate you.

Yep:

F*CK

THE

HOLOCAUST :)

Anybody got a problem with that one too??? I'm still here :)

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:43:42 PM

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

Now go claim a small minority of Aipac Jews--and yep, I say Aipac JEWS, not Israelis-- do not control what can and can not be said in America and are not attacking our American free speech.

Anybody got a problem with that? I'm here :)

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:40:42 PM

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

NPR's idea of courageous journalism consists in interviewing an Israeli government flack to give him a tribune for spreading lies without even anyone in front of him to debunk his spin lol.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:38:16 PM

Trixie McGoodwell (Trixie25)

Trixie McGoodwell (Trixie25) wrote:

This is so wrong. Helen Thomas was still on her game. She asked questions that should have been asked when others weren't asking them, and did so recently. She was an inspiration and reminder that while the body may age, the mind doesn't necessarily have to.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:37:35 PM

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

The title itself and the obvious sarcastic joy of NPR's "reporters" at this would be enough to prove that NPR is just a bunch of sold-out, rampant Israeli Aipac agents.

Please stop insulting our intelligence by pretending you are "independent American journalists".

You don't have a shred of credibility left on mid east "reporting", whether it's Israel, Gaza, Iran or anything else. We will take care of posting the real news here no matter how hard you are tying to censor and suppress the free speech of anti-zionist pro-Palestinian posters to help your little Israeli buddies.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:36:42 PM

Jo Lee (Jo8)

Jo Lee (Jo8) wrote:

Yasser:
Let's hope one day Helen Thomas will be remembered "as Eisenhower". How?
This NPR title will be remembered with a special place in history--- the way many history shows love to show--- the Tribune announcing Eisenhower's defeat in the Presidential election because they printed it before the votes had been counted. Another iconic piece in history!

Helen Rosa Parks Thomas! next to Eisenhower! Can just picture it!

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:35:51 PM

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:34:04 PM

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

BrandX: ha ha...

Oh, did you see that in addition to my posts, yesterday their Jewish zionist "moderator" Eyder Peralta ALSO deleted all of EasyTarget's comments and canceled his account as well? They're all gone without a trace.

They are clearly trying to prevent as many anti-zionist posters from posting.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:33:04 PM

Joseph Tracy (jonabark)

Joseph Tracy (jonabark) wrote:

Wrong, wrong, wrong. NPR is so profoundly unqualified to criticise Helen Thomas. Where were you when the hard questions needed to be asked? Helen showed courage while apart from the good work of Daniel Zwerdling you got a consistent failing grade, excelling at covering second rate pop musicians while a million people died in a war built around nothing but lies. As far as Israel, it is not anti-Semitism to ask that moral standards be equally applied to all nations. You have failed in this regard also, and the cost in human suffering is enormous. You make harsher judgement of a few angry words than the ruthless killing of unarmed people seeking to bring food and medicine. Shame on you. I rarely listen to NPR anymore and this is why.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:32:31 PM

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate)

Yasser Brokovich (Israelisthemiddleeastbiggestterrorstate) wrote:

"Israel": we only block material that Hamas can use to attack us.

Let's give that a reality check and see how those "Jews", who are strictly forbidden from lying by the Torah, take their own religion and "Jewishness" seriously:

As even Americans now know and as has been recognized by the Israelis themselves, here is SOME of what they had included in the ban lol:

chocolate
butter
sodas
fruit juice
cookies
pasta
spices
fruit
soap
hygienic products, lots of them
drugs, lots of them
toys
musical instruments
books
etc. etc. etc.

The lists of food items, hygienic products, and drugs is pages and pages long. See Easy target's longer though still partial list below.

So, everybody:

When the Israeli Jews claimed they were only blocking things that Hamas could use to make weapons or rebuild shelters, how seriously were they taking their own professed religion and how seriously should we taken THEM???

Liars, liars, pants on fire...

Saturday, June 12, 2010 8:30:54 PM

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Another potent reminder of our discussion: is it better to go out in a blaze of glory or quietly fade away?

The Writing Style Of 'Twilight': We Kick Off The 'I Will If You Will' Book Club - Monkey See Blog : NPR

Monkey See

Monkey See

 

The Writing Style Of 'Twilight': We Kick Off The 'I Will If You Will' Book Club

9:59 am

March 22, 2010

comments (92)

Recommend (31)

The cover of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.

Twilight has, it's safe to say, pros and cons. Into which category does the actual writing fall?

by Linda Holmes

In considering topics for the kickoff of our Twilight discussions, it occurred to me that since I don't know how many of you have entirely finished the book, we should start with something you can have an opinion about from the early chapters: the writing style.

There's also no better way to kick off a discussion than with a discussion, so I'm going to seed our conversation with an exchange I had with frequent Monkey See contributor Marc Hirsh. We raise a bunch of different things here, and in the comments, you should feel free to energetically agree, disagree, create entirely new tangents, or quote your favorite and least favorite lines to illustrate your point. Our discussion does not include significant spoilers, with the exception of things that you knew before you read the book if you have any understanding of the phenomenon. But FYI, as of the time we had this talk, Marc had read about half the book, and I'd read almost all of it.

My general plan is to start off modestly, with this post and your comments, and if it goes well and there's enough interest, maybe we'll actually do a live chat or two later this week or next. And, of course, if there's more interest, we'll pick a new book after that. Because, often, I will if you will.

We were discussing differences between book and movie, and wound up here, having a conversation about what I would personally say is the weakest thing about the book, which is ... the writing itself.

Linda: Edward, in the book, has a sense of humor. Edward, in the movie, does absolutely nothing but scowl miserably the entire time with his bright red lips.

Marc: You mean the chiseled lips on his perfect face?

Linda: Beneath his topaz eyes, yes.

Marc: How many times does she describe his face? And how many of those times does she fail to venture beyond "perfect"? There's no charm to it. It's tell, don't show, over and over and over. She just leans on repetition until her readers finally scream "Uncle! He's beautiful! I want him!"

Linda: The entire book is "tell, don't show," yes. Not just regarding his perfect face.

Marc: Right. I'm 220 pages in, and so far Bella has moved to Washington, started school, been saved from an accident, gone to the beach and gone to Seattle. How is that 200 pages of content? It would be fine if she had an interesting internal life or if Meyer were a perceptive observer (or a sharp describer). But none of these things are true. She is spinning her wheels like a car stuck in mud. (See what I just did there?)

Linda: Well, and here's my other thing -- it has this tone like it's written by an old lady, because it's stodgy and dry. But she doesn't have an old lady's sense of perspective on her situation. So it just doesn't work.

Marc: Right. And as for the little mocking I did there of Meyer's previously-discussed tendency to pick the bluntest, least-interesting analogy, allow me to quote the following, from page 190:

"I quickly rubbed my hand across my cheek, and sure enough, traitor tears were there, betraying me."

That's like saying, "I took a bite, taking some of the food in my mouth." Who writes like that? Who edits and leaves that in?

Linda: TRAITOR TEARS! You know what traitors do? They betray you.

Moats, creaky old vamps, and other marvels, after the jump.

Marc: Right. That's why you call them traitor tears. YOU DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN THAT THAT THEREFORE MEANS THEY BETRAY YOU. Somebody's stupid here, and I think she thinks it's me. (Also: "traitor tears" is walking the line as it is.)

Linda: TRAAAAAAITOR TEARS.

Marc: It's just this wildly florid prose that's wielded with the subtlety and repetition of a jackhammer, all in the service of a story that's going nowhere being told by a girl who seems to be fighting me for the gold medal in a not-liking-her contest.

Linda: Hee.

Marc: I have also discovered, which is annoying me, Meyer's propensity for inserting clauses, where they will dangle, in the middle of sentences.

Linda: This is quite true.

Marc: Almost halfway done!

Linda: And loving it!

Marc: Also. Also! She wrote the reveal that Edward is a vampire in such a gradual, drawn-out manner that there was no impact whatsoever when it's finally confirmed. She might as well have learned that he once lived in Toronto but moved to Forks when he was about 4. That's about the impact that it has when it finally comes out.

Linda: Yes. It is a very slow reveal.

Marc: I kept on thinking about Ebert's criticism of A Few Good Men, which is that Tom Cruise's character tells us what he's going to do in court, does it and then tells us what he just did. Bella gets an idea that he might be a vampire, then she looks it up, then she thinks he might be a vampire, then she confirms it. The collective response is, "Ah." It really should be "Dun!"

Linda: I did kind of like that she Googles vampires. Which, after all, is what you would do.

Marc: Yes. And then she settles on the single entry out of hundreds that fits what she wants to believe. Which is, sadly, also common.

Linda: WIKIPEDIA FTW!

Marc: It's just very badly written on many levels.

Linda: Yes, it is.

Marc: Maybe Meyer's like the guy from Memento. Maybe that explains why she constantly repeats herself, why she describes Edward's face over and over again, why she says "the boy named Jacob" a page after she introduces him by name (meaning that she could have just said, you know, "Jacob"), why she keeps changing his eye color and why she writes "traitor tears were there, betraying me." Because she can't remember what she's already written.

Linda: "Happy tears were there, being happy."

Marc: "Green leaves were swaying in the wind, greenly."

Linda: "He took me in his arms, and we embraced, and he hugged me, and we put our hands on each other's backs."

Marc: "I raised my hand, putting it into the air, holding it aloft as I lifted it and reached skyward."

Linda: Well, this is what I was getting at when the very first sentence from the book that I called out was "The tall one was statuesque." They don't exactly mean precisely the same thing, but there is enough overlap that it is not a good use of words.

Marc: Well, I thought it was dumb on account of "statuesque" not being a destination descriptor. You can use it, but you need more than just that or you're lazy.

Linda: Well, once you get used to the fact that "statuesque" really sort of encompasses "tall" (it's very rare to hear short folk described as "statuesque"), you just have a sentence reading, "The statuesque one."

Marc: Right. And then you have to keep writing, which is, like, hard and stuff.

Linda: Honestly, there's part of me that blames, among other things, wretched editing. Because what sold the book was the story, and they could have created a MUCH more palatable book with proper editing.

Marc: Well, this is what I've said. That "statuesque" sentence is followed by: "She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue." A good editor should have told her, "That is not sufficient. You have to actually write something. You can't just leave it at 'She was as attractive as something that society has deemed attractive.' You really need to push a little harder on that."

Also, in an incident that damns both Meyer and her editor, there is a line about "dust moats" floating in the light. ...Moats. Of dust.

Ah, here it is: "I ate breakfast cheerily, watching the dust moats stirring in the sunlight that streamed in the back window." I think she was going for "mote": "a small particle; speck."

Linda: Dust moats! Dusty moats! Moaty dust!

Marc: Keeping out the dust barbarians!

Linda: "If you want my daughter, the princess, you shall have to cross this MOAT OF DUST!"

Marc: "Lower the lint drawbridge!"

Linda: "Sic the bunnies!" Hee hee, "moats."

Marc: RIGHT?

Linda: "Stay outta the castle!"

Marc: "Or fear the wrath of my poor housekeeping!"

Linda: And like I said, I don't understand why parts of it are written like Ye Olde Magick Tale, like it's written by an ancient professor. But the content is still very immature. It's like, "Nigh on two weeks ago, yea did I have pizza." There's no distance from teenagerhood in perspective, but there is in tone.

Marc: Maybe it's meant to be a direct analog with Edward. Maybe the only way it wouldn't be creepy for him to have a century-old mind in a teenager's body, she has to have the same.

Linda: Wow, that is ... a good observation. If she talked like any kind of credible teenager, it would seem way weirder that he's a hundred years old.

Marc: Holy [bleep], did I just stumble into actual analysis of this thing?

Linda: DUUUUUUUUN!

Marc: Now I'm scared.

categories: Books

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This re-post is 100% for K. Chisolm & A. Ostrander, and the remainder of the vocal women in 4B who vehemently decried Stephanie Meyer's dreadful writing style. Men, you are remembered for your eye-rolling and wishing the whole Twilight conversation would just disintegrate. . .like an old-school vampire in sunlight.

Now, an invitation for your next writing venture. . .why not write a parody of her style, taking care to exaggerate the flaws you find?

Or would that ruin the appeal?

Dear Disney: Boys Aren't Stupid, But Renaming 'Rapunzel' Is - Monkey See Blog : NPR

Monkey See

Monkey See

Dear Disney: Boys Aren't Stupid, But Renaming 'Rapunzel' Is

11:21 am

March 9, 2010

comments (26)

Recommend (14)

Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

Disney has reportedly decided that what Rapunzel (right) really needs is a brigand named Flynn Rider. ( / Disney Enterprises)

by Linda Holmes

There's a story in The Los Angeles Times about how Disney is renaming its version of Rapunzel -- and retooling the story, too, to focus on a young man named "Flynn Rider." Aside from the fact that they seem to have borrowed "Flynn Rider" from The Bold And The Beautiful, we could talk about the depressing implications of another boring swashbuckler, or lament the fact that even a princess movie can't be named after the princess, but I have another issue.

This is a moronic decision, it seems to me, based on a complete underestimation of the varied, complicated cultural tastes of boys.

The Nickelodeon Counterargument, plus the 'Tangled' trailer, after the jump ...

Disney's argument, distilled to its essence, is this: The Princess And The Frog did poorly at the box office. It failed to attract boys. This is because boys don't go to princess movies. Thus, we have to add a swashbuckling male protagonist to Rapunzel and conceal the fact that it's about Rapunzel by renaming it Tangled.

So now, instead of sounding like a princess movie, it sounds like a Lifetime movie about a murdered salon owner. Fantastic.

Here's my counterargument, in brief: iCarly.

While I don't have kids, I'm very well acquainted with three boys who are currently 8, 9, and 11. Only one of them is a big Harry Potter fan. One likes The Amazing Race. Two like baseball, one likes maps, two are currently growing their hair out, and one can beat me at Scrabble. Three very, very different kids.

All three love iCarly.

iCarly is a Nickelodeon tween show that is not only about a girl; it's really about two girls -- Carly and her friend Sam, who make an online TV show together, and who go off and have various adventures. Carly has a brother, and they have a friend who's a boy, but mostly, it's the Carly And Sam Get Into Scrapes show, and all three of these boys who allegedly won't go near Rapunzel without Flynn Rider absolutely love it, and have since it debuted almost three years ago.

And why do I believe they love it when there may be some truth to the fact that they wouldn't all run out to anything marketed as a princess movie with quite this eagerness? Because iCarly's main characters have characteristics that, unfortunately, traditional kids' movies usually assign to boys and not to girls. In other words, any aversion they have to princess movies has nothing to do with needing the movie to be about a boy, or even, to be honest, needing the movie not to be about a princess. I believe it comes from what they have been trained to believe princesses will be like -- and they will not be like Carly.

Carly isn't really into her love life; she's really into her friends and doing her show. She dates, but it's not her main focus. She gets in trouble, she hatches plans, they go awry, she has slapstick confrontations, and she basically behaves like a goofy Nickelodeon protagonist. And these boys like her just fine, because she's funny and smart and independent. They're just as happy to watch her as they are to watch the boys on Drake And Josh or The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, because honestly, they don't care that it's about a girl.

I believe that Cinderella isn't problematic for them because it's about a girl, or a princess: it's problematic for them because it's about getting a makeover. They hear "princess" and, I can't help suspecting, their minds hear "prince-ess," like an auxiliary attachment to a prince, and who really cares?

Keep in mind that The Little Mermaid did just fine, and while it does contain a plot about the quest for a prince, it also contains lots of other things. Ariel is the rebellious one of her sisters, and she has adventures, and she has a singing lobster for a friend, and she makes the choice (to trade voice for legs) that drives the movie. She's not inert, or literally defined by her unconsciousness like Sleeping Beauty. There are princess characters who do just fine with boys, but I think the word "princess" now carries an implication of passivity and romantic fixation and therefore a lack of interest that Disney has created, not discovered.

Oh, and I might mention that Alice In Wonderland recently made a fair amount of money on its opening weekend as well, despite not being called Hatter!

I do not believe Up would have failed if Russell had been a girl instead of a boy. I don't think boys have, on that broad a level, an actual revulsion to main characters who are girls. (Don't get me wrong -- I'm sure some do, just as some girls are only interested in princess movies.) I don't think Rapunzel needs to be made about -- and marketed as if it's about -- Rider Flynn Bullet Puncher McGee in order to appeal to boys. I think it just needs to be about a girl who has an interior life and some spark beyond "I want to get married," which, honestly, does not mean a whole lot to an eight-year-old.

Is all of this insulting to girls? Oh, of course, sure. And I still hold out hope that Pixar will pick up the slack and start the girl-movie revolution, just because I think they could. But in the meantime, I would ask Disney not to throw boys onto the fire as well, projecting onto them prejudices and limitations that their tastes in other kinds of culture -- like television -- demonstrate that they don't necessarily have.


Rapunzel and Flynn Rider


Disney has reportedly decided that what Rapunzel (right) really needs is a brigand named Flynn Rider. ( / Disney Enterprises)



-->

categories: Movies

 

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George Craig (geo3)

George Craig (geo3) wrote:

Why even bother with what stupid moves that disney makes. I am young/old enough to remember disney of the 70s and early 80s. They made quality live action films, even the goofy original Witch Mtn. movies had to be better than what Eddie Murphy or the Rock have done for disney.
Disney also did a great job of re-releasing their classics from their library to be seen on the big screen. As great as it is to see these at home, I would love to see the earlier films in the theater, and would rather expose children to these rather than 80% of anything marketed for kids now a days. In that same vein, the baby talking Falsetto Elmo was worse than the death of Mr. Hooper or Jim Henson. Sure it made $ but at what cost. Same across the board.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 6:20:00 PM

Jeremy Levin (jlevin83)

Jeremy Levin (jlevin83) wrote:

As a boy who watched "Clarissa Explains it All" and "Blossom" I can attest to the fact that simply having a female protagonist is not sufficient to deter the interest of young males.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 6:17:00 PM

Margaret Leafe (poetmaggie)

Margaret Leafe (poetmaggie) wrote:

The Disneys are dead and Disney is dying. They are in it for the money not the entertainment. I have been mad at the company since Walt died, for things like Splash. However I really enjoyed Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 6:15:02 PM

Steven Luce (pakk99)

Steven Luce (pakk99) wrote:

Tangled is a great name. Get over it.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:54:03 PM

Meghan Potts (mpotts)

Meghan Potts (mpotts) wrote:

My question is what else was Disney supposed to do? I suppose they could have left the name as "Rapunzel," but really, the whole plot of the story is that the girl is locked in the tower for eight years. Somehow I doubt watching her sweep her room four times a day and name each brick in her wall would be very interesting to watch.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:19:11 PM

boulder dude (BeeDeeToo)

boulder dude (BeeDeeToo) wrote:

Also, Studio Ghibli films (because of Miyazaki) have generally always had had stong female protaganists, which makes them rarities in the Disney System.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:04:01 PM

Chris Harlan (CJH)

Chris Harlan (CJH) wrote:

Jennifer, I don't think it's about being unisex at all. It's about using very narrow, ill-fitting stereotypes of boys and girls to determine what their entertainment should be, and doing so in the face strong economic arguments against the use of those stereotypes.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:52:20 PM

Eugene Carroll (Eugene_C)

Eugene Carroll (Eugene_C) wrote:

Dang, that's what I call some good critical writing.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:51:55 PM

Chris Harlan (CJH)

Chris Harlan (CJH) wrote:

Another question to ask might be why we are making Prince and Princess movies at all. It's really interesting that our children are constantly bathed in memes that belong to a political system most of us, in actuality, despise. The Lion King has always vaguely troubled me, for instance, in that it seems to be an ode to an monarchical/oligarchical structure that the rest of us willingly feed ourselves to because, well--that's the circle of life.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:44:58 PM

Henry Parker (Afroman)

Henry Parker (Afroman) wrote:

I'd have to disagree on one point- I would definitely see a movie call "Ridger Flynn Bullet Puncher McGee". Quite simply because of the name.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:42:52 PM

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via npr.org

What do you think? Can simply changing the sex of the protagonist/title character increase the "boy appeal"? Or is there something more substantial, like gender roles, at work in boys' revulsion at The Princess and the Frog and now this proposed Rapunzel remake?

Angels Over America - The Poem

Angels Over America
by Carolyn K. Long

[Send a Friend a Link to This Site]
[Preview the DVD NOW!]

 

TITANS
Two gallant towering Titans gleamed
In morning's early light,
With a welcome to a working world
In the Land that hope unites.

Their myriad eyes looked on like ours
Transfixed with disbelief
As flaming arrows struck their sides
'Till even steel felt grief.

The raging fires recalled the time
They first were forged to be
The stalwart standards of New York,
Two pillars of Liberty.

What forger called the furnace hence?
What next were they to be?
No time to think of the afterlife,
  Or the pain of this savagery.

They awoke to their call in this perilous fight!
 For, you see, they had oft heard the song
Of "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air"
And knew they must still be strong.

The twin sentinels held firm as long as they could
To protect each fragile ward,
Though the fires that ripped through their very bowels,
Left them battered and shattered and charred.

And if hearts they had, they surely broke,
As they watched their dear charges fly
From the shoulders of those who were tasked to protect;
The whole world heard their audible cry!

But as their eyes dimmed, they were let to behold
What no others on earth could yet see
The angels who caught every soul ere it fell,
Which on wings of its own, then flew free.

At that they each gave a wrenching sigh;
They had no more left to give.
Their shame evoked one humble prayer:
Forgive!  Forgive!  Forgive!

Then one by one, those warriors brave,
Sank as nobly to the earth
As tons of concrete, steel and glass
Could, to still prove their worth.

And as molten steel passed each undaunted heart
Of those heroes who'd all come to serve,
It captured a beat from each precious one
It so valiantly hoped to preserve.

Does a tiny heart of steel still beat
Beneath the rubble deep?
And will those Titans be recalled,
Or will they forever sleep?

BATTLE
Then we learned that our greatest bastion was hit
By a vessel of unwilling souls,
And the walls had been rent and the citadel breached;
In a moment, a young nation grew old.

Smoke clouds rose to the skies with dashed voyagers' dreams,
Parents' promises, patriots' plans,
And hopes of star students to learn of the world
They now the subject of the world's study of man.

In a farmer's green field one evil scheme failed,
Though the story may never be told,
How a wife's calm assent launched a fight to the death
By a band of the free and the bold.

Those heroes who fell had saved countless lives,
And the shrine of the free and the brave.
Because of their courage, freedom's home stands today
Where the Star-Spangled Banner yet waves.

PRAYER
From far and from wide to the ends of the earth
We watched those beloved Titans fall,
Again and again, all the day and all night,
'Till horror numbed our souls,

And we breathed the smoke, and we felt the heat,
Though across the world we dwelled,
And with tears on our cheeks and prayers on our lips
We kept vigil as though impelled,

As though somehow by holding them all in our thoughts
We were helping the lost ones hold on,
And by praying as hard as ever we'd prayed
We could comfort some lost mother's son.

But as days wore on, and hopes grew dim,
Our prayers took another bent;
After shock, rage and pain had wrung our hearts dry,
We prayed, "God, make us more reverent."

"Let us hold life more dear, those both far and near,
Let us truly bring peace to Your earth,
Let us show all the world that we cherish each life,
Let our actions prove every soul's worth.

"Grant us courage to be strong amidst a world of formless fears,
And reclaim our hopes and dreams, our joy and fun;
Grant us strength to keep our faith in higher powers, Yours and ours,
We who wield the power of the sun.

"Help the angels of our better natures rise to freedom's song
And lead the charge of justice on her path,
So our own avenging angels do not strike in blind revenge
And wreak unbridled ruin with their wrath.

"And show us how to honor all the souls we lost that day
From the Towers and our Fortress
and the Farmers Field, we pray,
So the anguish that unites us as one people to the core
Rises as an anthem we'll hold sacred ever more."

ASCENSION
Looking up to the sky once brought moments of joy:
Trees and sunrise and birds overhead,
And cloud-touching skyscrapers, steeples and planes.
Now I scarcely looked one step ahead,

For our once gleaming cities were now dimmed by tears,
And the soot turning day into night, 
And our great silver birds were abducted with force
And hurled back at us like dynamite.

The silence of fear held me tight in its grip;
I lived grieving in war's aftermath.
I heard no birds sing, saw no planes overhead
Though I lived in a major flight path.

Then one day when my heart couldn't hold anymore,
I sat out in the sunshine to pray.
My heart stopped at the sound of a roar overhead;
I looked up %u2014 Just a plane on its way!

The most beautiful plane that ever I'd seen,
Glinting silver and white in the sun.
My heart leapt with joy at the glorious sight!
In some great battle, Freedom had won.

As I looked a while longer I saw all around
Something helping the plane in the sky

And then tumbling and playing

The Heavens were filled
With new angels just learning to fly!

 

via angelsoveramerica.org

As I'm sat in class, watching the video of this poem, I am reminded of Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade"--its rhyme, its rhythm, and its sentiment. What do you think?

A second thought, particularly the last section, very much put me in mind of Dr. Seuss.

Radiolab: Why Is It So Hard To Do The Right Thing? : NPR

Willpower And The 'Slacker' Brain

A slice of yummy chocolate cake
iStockphoto.com

text sizeAAA
January 26, 2010

This time, you say to yourself, this time I will do 50 chin-ups every day or skip dessert or call my mother every Friday. It's time to do those things that I know, I really, really know I should do.

And then you don't.

According to British psychologist Richard Wiseman, 88 percent of all resolutions end in failure. Those are his findings from a 2007 University of Hertfordshire study of more than 3,000 people.

How come so many attempts at willpower lose both their will and their power?

In our Radiolab excerpt on Morning Edition, with my co-host, Jad Abumrad, we propose an answer ...

Jonah Lehrer, one of our regular reporters (he writes all the time about the brain), told Jad and me about an experiment involving the prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead. It's the brain area largely responsible for willpower. This hunk of brain tissue, he says, has greatly expanded over the last few hundred-thousand years, but "it probably hasn't expanded enough." The reason our willpower is so often weak, he suggests, is because this bit of brain lacks a certain (how shall we put this?) ... muscularity.

The Thinker by Rodin
innoxiuss via flickr

The Experiment

In his book How We Decide, and in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Jonah writes about an experiment by Stanford University professor Baba Shiv, who collected several dozen undergraduates and divided them into two groups.

In the WSJ article, Jonah writes:

"One group was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second group was given a seven-digit number. Then they were told to walk down the hall, where they were presented with two different snack options: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad."

Cake and fruit
iStockphoto.com

And then he writes:

"Here's where the results get weird. The students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as students given two digits. The reason, according to Professor Shiv, is that those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain — they were a "cognitive load" — making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert. In other words, willpower is so weak, and the prefrontal cortex is so overtaxed, that all it takes is five extra bits of information before the brain starts to give in to temptation."

It turns out, Jonah explains, that the part of our brain that is most reasonable, rational and do-the-right-thing is easily toppled by the pull of raw sensual appetite, the lure of sweet. Knowing something is the right thing to do takes work — brain work — and our brains aren't always up to that. The experiment, after all, tells us brains can't even hold more than seven numbers at a time. Add five extra digits, and good sense tiptoes out of your head, and in comes the cake. "This helps explain why, after a long day at the office, we're more likely to indulge in a pint of ice cream, or eat one too many slices of leftover pizza," Lehrer writes.

You can hear Shiv describe this experiment (and listen to our unique dramatization of cortexes fighting pastry) by hitting the "Listen" button up above on this page.

Radiolab is produced by WNYC in New York and distributed by NPR. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich are co-hosts. Jonah Lehrer describes the Shiv experiment in much greater detail in his latest book, just out in paperback, How We Decide.

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Jeremy Snyder (Charles_E_Snodgrass_IV)

Jeremy Snyder (Charles_E_Snodgrass_IV) wrote:

Did they just prove that Freud was actually right with the id and ego?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 4:43:57 PM

J S (sheaffer)

J S (sheaffer) wrote:

Mark Knight - Good points and the sampling error/biases you mention are typical of limited studies. Another classic critique is that the students participate to earn credit for classes, not of their own volition.

I would also challenge that saying a 'extra bits' of information is misleading. If I could use a computer analogy, it is like the computer has 80 windows open, crunching away, and the next 1 or 2 will be really slow to load.

How does a "busy brain" correlate to food choices? I offer that it is the perceived 'convenience' factor rather than good or bad choices. How long does a bowl of chopped up fruit survive vs. a slice of sumptuous chocolate cake :)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 4:42:33 PM

Amy Chesbro (achesbro)

Amy Chesbro (achesbro) wrote:

Hardly good research design, but you have to admit they've got something here!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 3:53:40 PM

Mark Knight (Atarimark)

Mark Knight (Atarimark) wrote:

And what about the people in that study who just did not like chocolate cake or could not stand the taste of kiwi (or some other fruit in the mix) in those cases your numbers are skewed. Not to mention a few dozen grad students actually being a diverse enough of a test group.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:54:34 PM

Richard Yhip (Yhippa)

Richard Yhip (Yhippa) wrote:

Intuitively this makes sense to me. Despite my best efforts I tend to go for the bad foods at home if I'm overloaded with things in my head. I know these results probably aren't scientifically verified but maybe these hypotheses can be put to good use.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:38:27 PM

A H (Viajero)

A H (Viajero) wrote:

I want to enjoy Radiolab's offbeat, fun sonic offerings. This was a long piece, somewhat clever, to make a smallish and not particualrly deep point. Edit it down and ramp it up with more concision and depth and it will be more compelling in my opinion. Looking forward to hearing more.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:27:55 PM

G N (owyheekid)

G N (owyheekid) wrote:

I'm curious if this has any connection, even a remote one, to the experiment the Mythbusters did on driving while talking on a cell phone.

It goes something like this... While just having random chit chat, the driver didn't really have any problem driving and talking. But when asked questions that made them think, their driving became pretty terrible - like drunk driving terrible.

Maybe there is a connection between the imparied judgement and workload, or how many things you can do well at one time.

I'd have taken the chocolate cake by the way.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:20:30 PM

Joshua Wilson (porterwilson)

Joshua Wilson (porterwilson) wrote:

So people prefer chocolate cake to fruit salad? Scientific. Give me a break. This is a great example of people doing whatever it takes to not be responsible for their choices.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:39:44 PM

andrea Bahamondes (abahamondes)

andrea Bahamondes (abahamondes) wrote:

This explains why I can't control my voluptuous eating desires, when I am anxious or overloaded with info.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:30:46 PM

Eugene Carroll (Eugene_C)

Eugene Carroll (Eugene_C) wrote:

The fruit looks better to me than the cake. The cake looks too rich.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:22:19 PM

View all comments (47)»

via npr.org

Wow! Who knew that my predilection for chocolate or other salty snacks could simply be a reflection of my overstuffed lifestyle!

Is it any wonder that Americans--and especially those of us who live in the Northeast--have some of the most appalling eating habits?

Mind - Research on How the Brain Perceives Time

Lou Beach

 

That most alarming New Year’s morning question — “Uh-oh, what did I do last night?” — can seem benign compared with those that may come later, like “Uh, what exactly did I do with the last year?”

Or, “Hold on — did a decade just go by?”

It did. Somewhere between trigonometry and colonoscopy, someone must have hit the fast-forward button. Time may march, or ebb, or sift, or creep, but in early January it feels as if it has bolted like an angry dinner guest, leaving conversations unfinished, relationships still stuck, bad habits unbroken, goals unachieved.

“I think for many people, we think about our goals, and if nothing much has happened with those then suddenly it seems like it was just yesterday that we set them,” said Gal Zauberman, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business.

Yet the sensation of passing time can be very different, Dr. Zauberman said, “depending on what you think about, and how.”

In fact, scientists are not sure how the brain tracks time. One theory holds that it has a cluster of cells specialized to count off intervals of time; another that a wide array of neural processes act as an internal clock.

Either way, studies find, this biological pacemaker has a poor grasp of longer intervals. Time does seem to slow to a trickle during an empty afternoon and race when the brain is engrossed in challenging work. Stimulants, including caffeine, tend to make people feel as if time is passing faster; complex jobs, like doing taxes, can seem to drag on longer than they actually do.

And emotional events — a breakup, a promotion, a transformative trip abroad — tend to be perceived as more recent than they actually are, by months or even years.

In short, some psychologists say, the findings support the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s observation that time “persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.”

Now researchers are finding that the reverse may also be true: if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.

In a study published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science, Dr. Zauberman led a team of investigators who tested college students’ memory of a variety of news events, including the appointment of Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve (33 months before the study) and Britney Spears’s decision to shave her head (20 months). On average, the students underestimated how much time had passed by three months, the study found.

This was not entirely a surprise. In one classic experiment, a French explorer named Michel Siffre lived in a cave for two months, cut off from the rhythms of night and day and manmade clocks. He emerged convinced that he had been isolated for only 25 days. Left to its own devices, the brain tends to condense time.

But the way it fixes the relative timing of events depends on memory, the new study found. To the extent that the students in the study remembered developments related to the original event — Ms. Spears’s complicated love life, say, or Mr. Bernanke’s interventions in the economy — that event seemed farther away. In a series of experiments, the researchers tested personal memories and memories of film clips seen in the lab. The pattern held up: the more intervening related developments came to mind, the longer away the original event seemed.

“People have a hard time understanding the passage of time,” Dr. Zauberman said, “and in order to understand it latch onto something we do understand” — the unfolding of events.

His co-authors were Jonathan Levav of Columbia University, Kristin Diehl of the University of Southern California and Rajesh Bhargave of the University of Texas, in San Antonio.

In earlier work, researchers found a similar dynamic at work in people’s judgment of intervals that last only moments. Relatively infrequent stimuli, like flashes or tones, tend to increase the speed of the brain’s internal pacemaker.

On an obvious level, these kinds of findings offer an explanation for why other people’s children seem to grow up so much faster than one’s own. Involved parents are all too well aware of every hiccup, split lip and first step in their own children; whereas, seeing a cousin’s child once every few years, without intervening memories, telescopes the time.

On another level, the research suggests that the brain has more control over its own perception of passing time than people may know. For example, many people have the defeated sense that it was just yesterday that they made last year’s resolutions; the year snapped shut, and they didn’t start writing that novel or attend even one Pilates class. But it is precisely because they didn’t act on their plan that the time seemed to have flown away.

By contrast, the new research suggests, focusing instead on goals or challenges that were in fact engaged during the year — whether or not they were labeled as “resolutions” — gives the brain the opportunity to fill out the past year with memories, and perceived time.

Finally, the mind is perfectly capable of interpreting a fast-forward year, or decade, as something other than a frittering away of opportunities for self-improvement. In another series of experiments published in Psychological Science, psychologists found that when people were tricked into believing that more time had passed than was really the case, they assumed they must have been having more fun. The perception heightened their enjoyment of music and eased their annoyance at doing menial tasks.

“One thing that social psychology taught us over and over is that the mind is a wonderful sense-making device, that it takes ambiguous or confusing information and simplifies it according to rules of thumb,” said Aaron M. Sackett, a psychologist at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota who was the study’s lead author.

“In this case, feeling time is shortened but knowing that it’s inflexible, we have to rely upon our own beliefs to make sense of the difference. And one of those is ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ ”

A year like 2009 surely wasn’t all fun. But some of it surely was — and what better excuse for neglecting the dreary demands of self-improvement?

Sign in to Recommend Next Article in Health (3 of 37) » A version of this article appeared in print on January 5, 2010, on page D1 of the New York edition.
via nytimes.com

Check out this article in its original context at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/health/05mind.html#

Ever wondered what happened to the time? This study might shed some light on the matter.

Invitation to writers: what if the actual passage of time, and not simply the perception of time's passage, were altered by memory? You might explore this idea in a short story.

'Selfish' Giving: Does It Count If You Get In Return? : NPR

Enlarge Mark Von Holden/Getty Images

In time for the holidays, Starbucks launched its "Red" campaign to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa. A portion of all sales are contributed to the Global Fund to Help Fight AIDS in Africa.

by Tovia Smith
December 22, 2009

It's been taught to generations that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." But how blessed is it when you give in order to receive?

This time of year, charity is everywhere: Starbucks is helping to fight AIDS in Africa. Macy's is giving to the Make A Wish Foundation. And Toys "R" Us is giving to Toys For Tots. Clearly, 'tis the season for giving — but it's also clear that there is many a reason for giving.

"Companies engaged in social issues have gained tremendous benefits," says Carol Cone, the chairwoman and founder of Cone Inc. who is considered by many to be the mother of cause marketing. "It's absolutely magic."

These days, she says, companies have to be seen as giving in order to succeed.

"Businesses must show their humanity," she says. "It's no longer a 'nice to do' — it's a 'have to do.' "

 

It's a little like high school kids signing up for their community service trip — the summer before their college applications are due. It's simply what they have to do to be competitive.

Experts call it "selfish giving" — when givers are looking to get back more than just the joy of giving. But where do you draw the line? When givers are giving in order to sell more lattes or enhance their resumes, is it a win-win — or is something else lost?

"I do feel like, as a country, we have lost a sense of morality for its own sake," says Harvard professor and psychologist Richard Weissbourd, who teaches about moral development. "You should just be generous to be generous. You should do what's right because it's right, not because of what you get back."

Motive Matters

Weissbourd is troubled by what he sees as a growing trend of "conspicuous compassion," where giving is the "new black," and a ribbon pin, a rubber bracelet or a family foundation is the new "must have" accessory. It brings social cachet to you, or cash to your company. Weissbourd says so much of that kind of giving sends a really bad message — especially to kids.

"I worry that that's what kids begin to think giving is — serving your needs and other peoples' needs. And they don't have an image in their head of another kind of giving: a tenacious, low-profile kind of altruism that's really just about the other person, and not about you," he says. "And I think we're in really deep trouble as a society if that sense of morality for its own sake evaporates."

You should just be generous to be generous. You should do what's right because it's right, not because of what you get back.

- Richard Weissbourd, Harvard professor and psychologist

 

But how pure does giving have to be? If there's anything in it for you — like a tax break or your name on a building — dwelles that automatically diminish the gift?

"That's a deep issue that philosophers have debated for thousands of years," says University of Massachusetts philosophy professor Lawrence Blum, a specialist in the notion of altruism. In the purest sense, he says, motive does matter. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is not really charity.

"If it results in something positive, that's great," he says. "But that's just a different question from whether the person who is doing the giving is doing something that you admire or not."

A Focus On The Net Benefit

To others, however, such a purist view misses the point.

"This is not one of those places where you stand on principle, where you say, 'Oh! If it's not from the heart only, don't do it!' " says Kevin McCall, president and CEO of Paradigm Properties, a real estate development company in Boston that is involved in philanthropy and community service. "My attitude is, if the net benefit to society is positive, go for it!"

McCall founded Building Impact, a nonprofit sister organization to Paradigm that promotes community involvement, and his staff uses paid company time to run it, as well as to volunteer for outside organizations.

"There's a huge return in it for me," McCall says. "I get happier employees. My CFO feels great about doing the books for this cool nonprofit, and that makes him want to stay with us. We get all sorts of props around town for starting this cool nonprofit. That's great. I love that. Does it help us get business? It probably has helped us get business. There's no shame in that, either."

McCall says givers should expect a return on their investment. It's kind of like a teenager who volunteers at church and knows it's also a good way to meet girls.

 

"The opportunity is to be honest about that, to recognize that, and to positively exploit that," says Jeffrey Solomon, president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and author of The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan. In the best case, Solomon says, the reward for giving would be a nourished soul, rather than increased shoe sales. But if you want folks to give, he says, you have to show them what's in it for them.

"We live in a society where it's increasingly about 'me,'" he says. "You ignore your market at your own peril."

'Once They Do It, They Get Into It'

The real issue becomes not what givers are getting back, but how much they're actually giving. Is the company that is painting pink ribbons on rain boots really sharing the profit? Is the high school senior who is volunteering in Costa Rica really making a difference in the life of sea turtles?

"If you are a strict utilitarian on this and you only care about whether there is good produced on the ground from the gift, then it becomes very important to make sure that the benefit from the gift is a large and substantial one," says Robert Reich, associate professor of political science at Stanford University and co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

It may be increasingly hard to fool both consumers and college admissions officers, but what starts out as giving for the wrong reason may not end up that way.

Rory Morton, dean of students at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Mass., says he sees it with his students all the time.

"If I walk into the cafeteria and I say, 'Who wants to go do some community service?' they don't all necessarily jump for joy," he says. "But once they go do it, they get into it. And that's good enough for me."

via npr.org

View this story in its original context (to cite it properly) at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121718372&sc=fb&...

Girls Gone Mild--reflections

As I was driving in to work this morning, whom should I hear featured on NPR but the poster child of exploitation, Lady Gaga herself? Apparently, the 23 year-old performer has made her way into Barbara Walters' list of the year's most intesting people, this dubious honor qualifying her for inclusion in a notably high-brow morning broadcast.

NPR's music commentator, herself a younger woman, highlighted some of Lady Gaga's more--ahem--avant garde performances, including setting alight her grand piano onstage and donning dresses more reminiscent of gyroscopes than attire. Such outlandish behavior, combined with Lady Gaga's start in university coffeehouses, led this commentator to suggest that the pop star's antics are more performance art than performance.

But most disturbingly, this young commentator seemed to admire the figure she deemed, "one of the most powerful women in what is still a male-dominated industry."

If Lady Gaga is indeed so powerful, what is behind her characterization in many of her music videos? Is she subtly criticizing the system? Is it even possible to do so from within?

On Hunting and Gathering

This week, our asssignment was to " 'prepare and eat a meal [that allows] full consciousness of what is involved,' and to reflect on the experience, including a discussion of how far into the food chain you could actually look." What follows is my own foray into hunting and gathering:

Menu for Friday, October 30   Saturday, October 31   Sunday, November 1?

Hemlock Lane Venison
Marinated in red wine and cider vinegar, pan-seared and served with a wild mushroom and thyme pan sauce

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Homemade Bread with Baugher’s Cherry Jam

 

Hunting the Meat

        I never liked the movie Bambi—I think I’d always intuited that Bambi or his mother would end up between Elmer Fudd’s crosshairs. So when I first heard that our social studies department chairman, a spry African American gentleman in his late 50s, enjoyed frequent hunting (and fishing) trips, it was not my first inclination to ask if I could tag along. It’s not that I have any real objections to eating venison; in matters of gastronomy, egalitarianism reigns supreme. All the same, I couldn’t help being just slightly suspicious of the mysterious brown parcels that would periodically appear in the social studies office freezer and could not imagine myself asking for one. That was someone’s mother, after all.

        When charged with sourcing my meat, however, I could think of no better person to approach than this outwardly-curmudgeonly figure, clad in a tan leather jacket (buckskin would have been going just one step too far).

        “Lamont,” I inquired, as I ran into him in the hallway before school, “Do you have any venison that you’d be willing to share?” There. I’d said it. Bambi be damned. “See, I have this assignment for class, getting close to the source of my food, and I thought, how much closer is there than talking directly to the hunter?”

        As it turns out, Lamont had just been hunting the previous weekend, and agreed to let me have a few steaks, enough for my husband and myself. So the next day, my very own brown paper parcel awaited in the freezer.

        According to Lamont, our deer was shot on the 22nd of October, sometime around 6:30 in the morning. He and his 76 year-old father, his usual hunting buddy, had driven up to a smallish patch of private land behind the DMV in Westminster. After parking his pickup, Lamont hiked out into the property to a tree stand he’d erected, a veritable treehouse some twenty feet in the air. He said he felt a tree stand was safer than a blind on the ground; there is less risk of a stray round finding him there, I suppose.

Since deer are nocturnal, it pays to rise early and wait patiently for the twilight grazers to straggle past. Lamont described the ideal hunting excursion: “It’s not about the game or the sport. I can go out and be satisfied, even if I don’t hit anything.” For him, it’s the utter tranquility of the forest, observing its rhythms and rituals, from a hawk plunging for its catch, to chipmunks engaged in an endless, neurotic foraging for nuts

That morning, however, luck was in his favor, and he brought down the doe, dressing her in the field before taking her home to process. The “backstrap,” as he called it, or tenderloin, is one of the choicest cuts, but our little cubes of sirloin would be perfect for marinating and then pan-frying in the recipe Lamont provided, originally courtesy of another colleague of ours who is part Cherokee: Attuck-Quock (Venison). According to the narrative which precedes the recipe, “a Native hunter who kills a deer must thank it reverently. The hunter must return to the place where the deer was felled to bury its heart, and pinch his sides to show the deer’s spirit how fat—and grateful—he’s become from eating the meat.”

I can only hope that my culinary skills, and our grace, may do the animal justice.

 

Gather Some Fungi

        After the trouble I’d taken to source our protein, it seemed a shame to be reduced to store-bought mushrooms. I must admit, I’d initially harbored some hopes of foraging for wild mushrooms in the wooded area across the street, but after a ten minute foray into the online fiefdom of fungi, I found that my best bet was a grey or brown monstrosity called a Hen of the Woods—not exactly the sort of unwieldy beast I wanted to tame into a risotto or pan sauce. What’s more, that ten minute internet adventure was also punctuated with its fair share of cautionary titles: “2 sickened after meal with wild mushrooms,” “Wild Mushrooms and Poisonings: Dos and Don’ts,” “Man, 82, dies from eating wild mushrooms.” Perhaps this one was best left to the professionals, at least until I could get in touch with my very own mycophile.

        Unfortunately, supermarket foraging, even at a local higher-end store catering to “foodies” and the organic movement, is not as enlightening as going directly to the source. The best I can do for my crimini and shitake mushrooms is that they were packed in Needham, MA. But what sort of a place is Needham? A miracle mushroom mecca where such fungi grow year-round? The home to several medium-sized mushroom farms? A packing plant?

        My dried porcini package was a shade more enlightening: these out-of-season morsels hailed from either Italy or China. It’s not like there is a huge difference between those countries, right? Suddenly, my foraged meal was looking less rustic.

 

In the Kitchen

        So it’s Friday night, rounding six o’clock, and I’ve finally returned from my various foraging adventures. The venison is thawed, but not marinated—and it requires an overnight or 12-hour marinade. I could have begun the marinade this morning, had the red-wine swilling member of our family not had to give up alcohol for the next several months, leaving us with nary a drop of Merlot or Shiraz to be found. The bread hasn’t been started, and even on a good day it takes about three hours from start to finish. And I just glanced at the risotto recipe again and noticed that I still need vegetable or chicken stock, neither of which happen to be in my pantry (and I certainly do not have a day to make my own).

        To be perfectly honest, this meal is not at the top of my list of priorities tonight. Tomorrow evening is Halloween, and we are once again hosting our annual neighborhood chili cook-off. I’ve worked five 12-14 hour days this week, graded 40 essays, driven 35 minutes (both ways) to class, called four or five parents of recalcitrant children—and still managed to get all (ok, most—I’ve been rather forgetful lately) of the ingredients needed for my dead cert turkey chili, not to mention the real prizes for the winners, a personalized apron and the coveted “golden spoon.” I certainly will cook my intended meal, maybe even for tomorrow’s lunch if I can manage it and don’t have to chain myself to the 120 tests & corresponding essays I must have corrected by Wednesday. But not tonight.

 

The Meal

        Dinner tonight will instead be stuffed jacket potatoes and grilled chicken sausages with jalapeno (store-bought) in store-bought rolls—because it’s Friday night and, unlike Pollan, I do not have the luxury of devoting an entire week to the preparation for one meal. A rather unkind thought crosses my mind as I write, waiting for our potatoes to bake and my husband to finish clearing the leaves in our front yard and begin grilling the sausages: how likely is it that Pollan fixed the remainder of his family’s meals that week, as he was faffing about with collecting his own wild yeast and foraging for his usufruct cherries? No doubt his wife—herself a career woman—continued to “hold down the fort” while he perseverated over his own stock pot. It’s easy to play in the kitchen or commit that kind of time when the chef has only one meal to prepare. Try doing it every night, week in and week out. Is it any wonder so much of the double-income world consumes predominately prepared food? But perhaps this is just the low blood sugar speaking.

        In any case, tonight’s dinner will be fine: not remarkable, but fine. With luck, I’ll be able to whisk together a green vegetable to accompany our protein and starch (there is some kale/collard greens/chard mix still left in the fridge) and manage to pull together a reasonably-balanced, mostly home-made meal. Quite frankly, I’m counting it a victory.

 

Final Thoughts

        The Hunter-Gatherer food chain is simply antithetical to life in a post-industrial society, as Pollan himself conceded. As a professor and journalist, either on sabbatical or summer break, Pollan had weeks at his disposal to forage for each piece of his “forest meal.” Lamont, with his retirement looming ever nearer, has the luxury of taking off several days at a time for his hunting and fishing expeditions. The rest of us, however, work five or six days a week, for the better part of our daylight hours, leaving little time for the kind of investment needed to source our food directly. We delegate the responsibility of providing food to a specialized group within our society because the majority of us cannot do so for ourselves; since we are capital-rich but labor-poor, we use our capital, rather than our time and energy, to feed ourselves. Our trade-off, of course, is that in relegating food production to an increasingly smaller segment of the population, further and further removed from our own neighborhoods, we become less and less able to trace our food to its source. Consequently, we view our dinners as consumers do, rather than as members of a food chain—to the detriment of our nation’s livestock, farmland, and farmers. Food production, then, becomes answerable to our wallets and to its profit margins rather than to a code of ethics.

        Pollan’s conceit, evoking the glory days of yesteryear when hunter-gatherer man spent proportionately less time and energy in feeding himself, is a journalistic ploy, nothing more. We can no more recapture them—if, indeed, they ever existed in the way Pollan imagines—than we can salvage Victor Davis Hanson’s raisin farm. Our best hope is to make wise decisions in our food purchases, demand a higher standard from our food producers, and, if so inclined, use some of our leisure time to garden or forage so that we do not lose sight of our food’s actual cost.