Blyth Times

Memories of Mumbai

Like many other past visitors to India, I watched with horror as flames leaped from the top floors of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. It was set afire during the terrorist attack on the hotel and its guests. I stayed at the Taj last year. I was heading a delegation of White House Fellows, a group of outstanding young Americans, who spend a year working in the executive branch of the government.

The Taj is a historic hotel, with more than a thousand rooms, which opened in 1903 in the days of the British Raj. It stands opposite the famous Gateway of India, Mumbai's most famous monument News reports say that the terrorist bands that attacked several hotels and a Jewish center landed at the jetty at the Gateway. Altogether ten sites were hit. Latest news reports say that at least 125 have died and more than three hundred have been wounded in the attack. The gunmen are still holding hostages at the Taj which is making fire fighting treacherous.

Anyone who ever stayed at this beautiful hotel, rich with the complex history of India, is especially touched by this tragedy. In India our group met with many leaders from social workers, who were trying to help girls from low caste learn a trade, to heads of call centers who were proud of India's new technological skills. After a dinner in an elaborate hotel one night our group visited the Gateway of India. We sat looking out over this city of eighteen million, filled with dramatic contrasts. It is India's financial center and home of Bollywood but it also has the largest slum in Asia. India is a country where millions are deeply spiritual yet still believe in the transforming power of modern education to give themselves and their children better lives. How tragic those terrorists filled with hate have tried to harm India and inevitably scare away the international tourists the country needs.

A Different Sarah

I know many of us are convinced that only today could a woman over 40 reinvent herself and become a big nationwide success. But it isn’t so. And since it is Thanksgiving week I want to tell you about a forgotten but extraordinary Victorian woman named Sarah Hale.  

Born in 1788, she was left a widow at 34. Penniless, she had five children to raise and so she supported them by sewing and writing poetry. At 39 she wrote a novel called Norwood, the first novel about slavery that was a big bestseller. She then became the editor of the Ladies’ Magazine in Boston and wrote successful collections of poetry, called Poems for Our Children, which included the poem “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”  

Some S.I. Newhouse of the day lured her to Philadelphia to a bigger and better job on a magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book which was the largest and  most successful publication in its day. It may be the fashion to sneer at women’s magazines and women magazine editors these days but Sarah at that time, through her publication’s pages, became the most influential woman in America. She was the first to advocate equal education for girls, start day nurseries for working women and suggest public playgrounds. She also supported American women writers and published them in her magazine. And the S.I. Newhouse of the day supported her. She remained the editor until she was 90.

Pretty impressive, right? But what she is remembered for, when she is remembered, is her promoting Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It was her idea. She wrote, “We have too few holidays. Thanksgiving, like the Fourth of July, should be a national festival and observed by all people.” She thought such a holiday would have a positive effect on our country. She wrote, "There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing, in which whole communities participate. They bring out … the best sympathies in our natures."

As the nation hurtled toward the Civil War, she felt such a holiday was especially important. In 1863, in the darkest year of the conflict, Lincoln did issue the proclamation that established Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Sarah had spent 40 years and written thousands of letters to achieve this goal. It is interesting in these troubled times to read Lincoln’s proclamation (www.historyplace.com). In, perhaps, our country’s darkest hour he still wrote of the blessings and the bounty of America.

Yes, the middle-aged Sarah Hale — tough, smart, determined — was quite a woman. Maybe she proves that women today are not different than American women in the past.  But, rather, we are lucky to be their descendants.  

Marina Oswald: Forty-five Years Later

‘I still don’t believe Lee was the lone gunman,” says Marina Oswald Porter, the widow of President Kennedy’s assassin. She talked to me on the 45th anniversary of Lee Harvey Oswald’s being gunned down in the basement of Dallas police headquarters. Marina, now 67, says, “I don’t know if Lee even shot the president.” Was he part of a conspiracy? “I don’t know. But he said he was a ‘patsy.’ It was an odd word for him to use. I think he realized he had been set up.” first spoke with Marina 20 years ago, and am one of the few journalists she has talked to in recent years (she was on Oprah in ’96). Twenty years ago she had already begun to have doubts about Oswald’s involvement in the assassination. Right after JFK’s death, she had been a persuasive witness against Lee, in fact, the star witness, during the Warren Commission hearings. “I was led,” she says. At the time, she was a naïve 22-year-old, a Russian, who spoke hardly any English. “I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to lead a witness.” She acknowledges, “I couldn’t say that Lee was wonderful. But it would be easier for me if Lee had gone on trial. If that was the end of it.” Although Marina is uncertain of the details of a conspiracy, she has believed that Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald, was part of it and that crime figures might have been involved. She also questioned why Oswald was taught Russian while he was in the military and was able to enter and leave the Soviet Union so easily, taking her with him to America, at the height of the Cold War. Raised under Stalin, Marina feared that after the assassination she would also be imprisoned. After Lee’s death, she once told me, she believed the FBI kept her under surveillance and that some of the men she met might have been FBI agents. In 1965 she married a Dallas carpenter, Kenneth Porter. The two divorced in 1974 but reconciled and have lived together for years although they never remarried. They have one son. She had two daughters with Oswald. “I have a grandchild who is already in college,” she says. She leads “a very quiet life” in a Dallas suburb and became an American citizen several years ago. She still doesn’t drive or use a computer. “How could I? I misspell too many words in English.” She worked for years in a friend’s Army surplus store where, no, they didn’t sell guns. She told me she has visited Russia several times to see a friend and stay with her aunt before she died. “It is better there than it was. Putin has done good things for the country.” She has never visited Lee’s grave or gone to the museum in the Texas School Book Depository (where Oswald worked) that is focused on the assassination. She explains, “I can’t live in the past,” although she says she is often reminded of It., especially when the anniversary comes around. She does not read the books or watch the television shows about the assassination that debate Lee’s role. “All the books and programs are just trying to convince a new generation of their theories.” “The more I learn the less I know,” she says, “and that isn’t exactly pertaining to Lee.” But she adds, “I try to weigh this and weigh that. It is an enigma but I know there are too many coincidences, just too many coincidences.”

Talking Turkey

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Amaze the crowd at the Thanksgiving table with your knowledge of the holiday. 

 

Here are five things you will know (and they probably won’t!)

v     The main course for the Pilgrims at that first Harvest feast wasn’t turkey but was probably venison, supplied by their Indian guests.  And the meal definitely didn’t include pumpkin pie, bread rolls or stuffing.  The Pilgrims had no ovens to bake and very little sugar for sweets. Yes, it was a hard life! 

v     The Pilgrims didn’t use forks so it was knives, spoons, and fingers only for the first Thanksgiving.  

v     Each year, the President pardons a turkey, and nobody knows exactly why.  Some say it happens because Abraham Lincoln pardoned his son Tad’s pet turkey.  After President Bush pardoned a turkey in 2005, the gobbler, like a Superbowl champion, was flown toDisneyland  to serve as Grand Marshall in Disneyland’s Thanksgiving Parade.

v      In case you ever wondered, the average American consumes on average, 4500 calories, at a Thanksgiving dinner, but then who really cares?  Just  pass the mashed potatoes.  

v     And, remember, it was Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, who made Thanksgiving Day a national holiday to be celebrated every year on the last Thursday of November. You can find his declaration at www.historyplace.com/lincoln/thanks.htm.   It  is interesting to read because even in the middle of that terrible war, he rightly saw that there are always reasons for Americans to be thankful and optimistic about the future. 

             

Obama, Hillary, and The West Wing

Is President-Elect Obama reading Doris Kearn Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln or is he watching the boxed set of the seventh season of The West Wing ? Why do I ask? Because in one of the final episodes of that show, the President-Elect — a Hispanic Congressman who reportedly was based on an unknown Chicago politician named Obama — asked his defeated Republican opponent to take the position of Secretary of State in his new Cabinet.

   The Republican, a Senator named Vinick, was older, wiser and had a lot more foreign-policy experience than the TV president-elect — who was practically an unknown before the race. Though the two disagreed during the campaign, the president-elect is shown as wise and self-assured enough to tap into the older candidate’s greater knowledge and broader relationships. Okay, okay — I know it was just a TV show. But if the offer is really made and Hillary really accepts, there is an uncanny similarity — even though they were rivals during the primaries and not the general election. The fact is, Hillary was probably tougher for Obama to defeat than McCain.

But why would Obama want the Former First Lady in the role? Well, she is scary, isn’t she? She certainly seemed to get Obama off his game in the primary debates more than McCain did in the presidential round. As Secretary of State she could easily play Bad Cop to Obama’s Good Cop on the world stage. And she would probably love it. Yes, American could agree to meet with Ahmadjinejad or Chávez if it would mean those guys would be sitting across from tough-as-nails Hillary. I bet some folks would be willing to order that on pay-per-view.

Hillary would solve another big problem for Obama. As Secretary of State, she would be in control of the two most gaffe-prone senior Democrats, our new Vice President—-Elect Joe Biden and her own dearly beloved. By the way, wasn’t Biden picked because of his foreign-policy experience? Yes, he has had a multitude of goofs in that area, which the press conveniently ignored. But I wonder how he is reacting to the talk of Hillary at State. Well, Biden did acknowledge during the campaign that Hillary would have made a better vice-presidential candidate. If he complains to his new boss, I suppose Obama could tell him coolly that he was just trying to rectify the mistake Biden had already pointed out.

And wasn’t there talk of Bill Clinton becoming some kind of official envoy solving the India-Pakistan conflict? Bill, as always, might be a bit of a challenge for our girl. One wonders how she would handle Bill’s messy foreign entanglements. I don’t mean the rumored one with an attractive female Canadian politician but rather that really questionable deal in Kazakhstan that even bothered those perennial Clinton apologists, the New York Times. Perhaps having Hillary in charge would be the best way to keep control of those two.

Why would Hillary want the job? Well, being senator is nice, but she is one of a hundred — and still fairly far down in the pecking order. Though there have been two female Secretaries of State before her, she would be the only one who had also been First Lady and Senator — a hat trick that no other woman has scored. And if Obama picks her it would be a big positive to start his administration — because it would make him look as smart as a character in a television show, and what could be better than that?  

Age Wars, Anyone?

         Which is the only  prejudice  that remains acceptable.  It is ageism.  Voters in the  recent election said that age was more of an issue than race which means, of course, that more voted against  McCain because of his age than voted against Obama because of his race. And nobody seems to think this is a prejudice that even deserves much comment.

     Pundits keep lauding Obama’s victory not only because of its inclusiveness but because it is a generational change.  Obama, though technically a baby boomer, is being touted as our first post-boomer president.  He comes in after two leading-edge boomers who both had seriously flawed presidencies.

      It is Obama’s youthful telegenic appearance, his coolness, his understanding of the power of the Internet that are important parts of his appeal to the public and, especially, to the media which need the young, the hip, the photogenic.   There is very much a sense of out-with-the -old and in-with-the-new, and in this case the old seems anything or anyone fiftyfive plus.  In fact, one wonders if in the future fiftyfive plus will be the sell-by date for any Presidential candidate. 

      This election also seemed to reinforce what we already know, that we now live in a society where experience doesn’t matter very much.   Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain went down claiming experience counted.   It didn’t.  Hillary’s harking back and McCain’s reference to even fairly recent history turned people off.  

        Americans have had great affection for “the greatest generation,” the generation of Obama’s grandparents, those who grew up during the Depression, and fought World War II.  Their sacrifices and their selflessness are still admired.    But there is a lot less affection or respect for baby boomers, especially leading-edge boomers. McCain’s defeat was the final shrugging off of the sacrifice of the Viet Nam vets.     

       Add to that baby boomers tend to be as full of ageism as anyone younger.     It is boomers who , while still humming “  Forever young”  reach for the Botox, the  Restalyne and the Viagra.   They have tried, somewhat desperately, to stay ageless rather than become mature.    Part of the problem with ageism now is that not only do the young not respect their elders any more.    Those who are older do not respect themselves

       In a way, ageism is not different from racial prejudice. African-Americans always  acknowledged  that they  internalized the negative attitudes society had about them and their physical appearance.  It is the same way boomers feel about their wrinkles and themselves.  But in the last years the media have helped change the image of black Americans.   Karl Rove was right.   The Huxtables of the Bill Cosby Show helped prepare the mindset for Obama’s election.   But the media, which does not even measure the appeal of their shows to viewers over 49, has no interest in creating  flattering portraits of older Americans.          

       This young-old divide can become a major problem for the future.  Boomers are still the largest segment of the population.  And, they are the ones whose  401(ks) have been decimated.   Part of our economy’s two-decade dizzying  growth spurt was fueled by the free-spending two-income boomers.   Now they will become the major recipients of government programs.  During the next decade more and more of them will be getting Social Security and Medicare.   More and more of them will be dealing with serious or chronic money-draining illnesses.  

       How will the public react if this generation, for which there is little fondness,  becomes our society’s greatest financial burden?    And how will the Democratic party that owes its recent victory to its enormous appeal to young voters deal with the increasing needs of the boomer generation?   Perhaps that depends on whether ageism, the prejudice we don’t even have be embarrassed about, becomes even more pervasive.

Desperately Seeking Housewives

I loved the first season of Desperate Housewives .   When certain prissy types were criticizing the show for having the leads parade around too often in revealing lingerie, I defended them.     I even played defender once on a TV cable news show against some woman who was complaining that the women of Wisteria Lane  were leading us straight to hell.  I didn’t think so.  In fact, since the show launched during the campaign of 2004 and I was sure that at least three of the four leading characters were typical “Security Moms,” the kind who would have voted for George W. Bush.

 My, my, looking back, weren't those innocent days and innocent housewives?  Certainly the television reality shows about the real housewives of Beverly Hills, Manhattan and Atlanta  portray a far more unsavory bunch than the characters played by Marcia Cross, Terri Hatch, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria. 

But sometime in season two or three the "Housewives," lost me as well as a good segment of their audience.    The show just wasn’t very good any more.  It seemed like an over-complicated and kind-of-dumb soap opera, too hard to follow and not worth trying.  And the real sub-text of the show, about the friendships of women and the concern mothers have raising kids in challenging times seemed to disappear with the Byzantine plot lines.

 But for some reason I have wandered back.   Maybe because its nine to ten time slot was a perfect lead-in to “Mad Men,” the only show I have considered “appointment TV” for the last couple of seasons.  Unfortunately “Mad Men” was a lot weaker this season than last.  It became so languid that the series’ story line and its main character, the extremely dishy Don Draper, both seemed to fade away. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis , the background to several episodes, didn’t energize ”Mad Men” very much.    While “Housewives” have come roaring back. Its ratings have zoomed up.   Heck, even my husband has started watching. 

The trick of the show is that it has moved ahead five years and the women are dealing with the problems of teen-age and adult children, which-- take it from one who knows--- is much more complex than dealing with younger  kids, no matter how bratty they can be.   Biggest change is the character Gabrielle, the super-attractive Eva Longoria plays.  In the past, she  was gorgeous and greedy.  Now, without make-up and with padding--- though red-carpet rumors has it she has really  packed on a few pounds---   she is a dumpy, bedraggled mom, saddled with two kids, a disabled husband, and a lot of money worries.   In a way, she was always the most interesting character on the show, as she reflected those shopaholic times. Now she, scrounging for cash for the grocery bills, reflects these times.   Rather prescient of writer and “Housewives” creator Marc Cherry who conceived of this season’s episodes last spring when the economy still seemed okay.

All the actresses in the show seem better than ever and each has a more interesting story line.   The show has also added some supporting characters including the very appealing Dana Delaney and, this season, Lily Tomlin   Edy, the witchy girl-next-door,  played by  Nicolette Sheridan  was the divorcee among the housewives. She was always on the look-out for a guy, even a neighbor’s husband,  but  now, poor Edy, is far more victimized than victimizing.   She has returned to town with a new husband, an absolute sociopath.  Through this season’s first episodes he has stalked the housewives’ elderly neighbor, the crotchety Karen McCluskey, a personal favorite.  Heavens knows,what he will do next.   That guy is dangerous!  Okay, okay, I didn’t say it wasn’t a soap opera but it is back to being a top-notch one. 

Americans have always needed a Sunday night show to end the weekend and to talk about at the office on Monday morning.  During these stress-filled times don’t we want something to distract us?   Rumor has it that Sarah Palin may even appear on an upcoming episode. So we’re back to watching “Desperate Housewives,” and its sweeps month.  I am glad the women of Wisteria Lane once again are  giving us something to talk about. 

 

Happy Birthday, Charley

Prince Charles is sixty today.  Does that make you feel old?  I doubt it.  Because whether you are younger or older than Charles he has always been able to make other people feel young because, in comparison, he seems so old-fashioned and stuffy.  At the moment,though, Charles is more popular than he has been in quite a while  especially since those dark Diana days.  In fact, a new poll found that more people (42 per cent) were in favor of him succeeding the Queen rather than his photogenic son William (35 per cent.) 

At sixty,  Charles, although he remains awkward and often petulant,seems to have finally come into his own.  He is married  to Camilla, the woman he always loved.   One of his longtime interests, organic farming, has proved prescient. And his countrymen  have some sympathy for the Prince who has waited years and years and years to become King. He is the longest serving king-in-waiting in British history. 

But, oh, remember, the intrigue, the drama of his marriage to Diana, the fairy tale that turned into a soap opera and ended with a tragedy.  She was a world-wide superstar, beautiful and fascinating to the media.  Charles, who , by all accounts,  is a very ordinary man, was made even more ordinary by her style and personality. 

I met Diana twice.  Once, very early in their marriage at a dance at Apthop, the house in which they spent their wedding night.  She was very young, very beautiful in a silver one-shouldered dress and seemed to be trying so hard to please her Prince.  I met her again years later, just a few months before her death.   She was a self-possessed woman then, giving a speech about the dangers of land mines.   The lovestruck young Princess was long gone

Camilla is giving Charles  a birthday party at High Grove and Rod Stewart is entertaining, which seems sort of approoriate.   The Brits say the Queen , who is eighty two, will never abdicate for her son.   She likes being Queen.   Her mother lived past one hundred.  And so Charles, with a stiff upper lip, may continue to wait for many more birthdays.    

Good-bye to Shopping

I am not a particularly acquisitive person but I used to go shopping a lot.  Didn't you?   I live near a Filene's Basement, a bargain store, so I thought there was nothing wrong with checking it out a couple of times a week.   Just in case they had reduced the Tahari jacket even more.  And, maybe, I needed a cut-rate cashmere in yet another color.

I used to go window shopping, too.  Walking up Madison Avenue I would check out the jewelry stores and the shoe stores.   I might even go in and try something on.  Maybe even buy something. ( I am talking about the shoe stores not the jewelry stores.) No, I never shopped till I dropped or longed for bags with four-figure price tags. But like everyone in America I did indulge in bouts of retail therapy.

The pollster Madelyn Hochstein once told me a couple of years ago that what made rich people feel rich was not watching their mutual funds grow but going to the mall on Saturday and spending a few hundred dollars on something they didn't really need, like an espresso machine or a cashmere sweater that wasn't cut rate.   But that has all changed.  They are looking at their diminishing mutual funds and have stopped shopping. So have I.

Last night a friend told me that three boutiques where she had always shopped had called her and offered her 50% off on anything she wanted.  She said thanks, but no, thanks.  Another told me she always bought nice clothes for her daughter. Now her daughter is wearing Old Navy for the forseeable future.  Another confessed she went to the mall last weekend.   She came home with two T-shirts, five dollars each. Hardly worth the trip.

The other night I pulled out of the back of the closet a dress I hadn't worn in years. It was so old that it didn't have shoulder-pads because it was probably made before we started  wearing shoulder pads. Yes, that old, and  It looked fine. I am pulling more things out of the back of the closet. We all have a lot and need very little. So what we will miss will not be the things we won't buy.  But, maybe only the careless, carefree experience of shopping  that we all indulged in for so long. 

Need A Smile ?

Yes, there will always be an England.   Check out this video and you will see why.   

Three cheers for Kate and  Gin, The Dancing Dog.  And maybe Gin is the perfect pet for the Obamas.   She certainly could give  the President some comic relief even on the days when the Stock Market falls and Iran, Russia, North Korea and everyone else is trashing us. Hope Kate agrees. 

Diamonds Are For Sharing

Read a terrific story in Reader’s Digest that is a condensation of a book called The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis published by Ballentine.  It is about a woman called Jonell McLain who saw a simple but gorgeous diamond necklace in a jewelry store window in Ventura, Calfornia.  She tried it on.  She loved it.   She knew she could never afford it.   But it got her wondering why are  personal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if we found a way to share them?
And that is exactly what she did.   She managed to find other women to join with her to purchase the necklace—and at a bargain price.  The jewelry store owner agreed as long as his wife could also be part of the sisterhood of the traveling  jewels.   The women shared the cost of insurance and each got to keep and wear the necklace for a month.   But the necklace was more than a fabulous accessory.  It became a catalyst for each of them to change.  For although diamonds may be some girls’  best friend, for these women their shared necklace  encouraged them to work together on a variety of causes, encouraged them to have more  fun, and rewarded them with several very special friendships.  Yes, a shared diamond necklace and new friends really did add great sparkle to their lives.    

Visiting the Newseum

Just went to visit the Neweum in Washington DC, the world's largest collection of journalistic memorabilia. Closed six years, the museum’s new home  has been built at a cost of $350 million and is now located in the center of Washington.  The site, itself, cost $100 million and has a view of the Capitol, the National Gallery and the Supreme Court.

The first thing that greets visitors to the museum  is a massive fifty-ton marble tablet etched with the words of the First Amendmentwhich has protected the American press for more than two hundred years. Once inside you do a lot of walking.  There are seven floors, covering 250,000 sq ft., 14 galleries. one of which is devoted to thousands of years of newsgathering, 15 theaters, two television studio, thousands of Pulitzer Prize- winning photographs and walls covered with the front pages of hundred of newspapers, which are changed daily.

In the gallery that is devoted to journalistic history, the first English “paper” tells of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. (There is also a German paper with the Spanish version of the Battle that does not mention the loss of Spanish ships.)    There is also reports in other British periodicals of their time about the  Salem witch trials and  Blackbeard’s last stand.  Plus a copy of “The Daily Courant”  of 1702, the first daily. 

The Newseum also has on display such contrasting historic items as a section of the Berlin Wall including the guard tower that loomed over Check Point Charley, the bullet-riddled van used by Time magazine reporters during the siege at Sarejevo, the pencil of the reporter killed in the Battle of Little Big Horn, which was Custer's Last Stand in 1876,the lap top used by Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was murdered in Pakistan.   Also on display, there is the telephone that Rupert Murdoch used to run NewsCorp between 2002 and 2006, complete with management and editors’ speed dials 

Currently there is an exhibition of The FBI and the Press which includes the bleak cabin in which the Unabomber lived and the ladder that the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby climbed.    Other exhibits highlight coverage of the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.   It includes the mangled TV and radio transmission tower that stood atop the Twin Towers. There is a long, very moving  video about the experiences of journalists and photographers who covered the attack. The Newseum attendants even hands out tissues to the viewers.

There is lots of razzle-dazzle throughout.   There are booths in which visitors can pretend to be a TV reporter with the White House or Capitol in the background. They can read from a teleprompter or give their own report which can be taken home for a fee 

Expensive in a city where many museums are free—admission is $20 –it is proving to be highly popular.  Still there has been some criticism over its costs, especially at a time when media is going through such hard times.    Some also think that it is all a bit overblown, making it seem as if the press is the news rather than the means of reporting it.  And walking through  during this time of financial crisis, it struck me that  there seemed  to be so little devoted to financial and business coverage.  After all the business of media  and its future  is the issue that right now has become so important to journalists and journalism.

About that dress!!!!

What’s meaner than negative campaign ads?  Fashion reporting!  Here's some dish.  Oprah Winfrey, Obama’s earliest superstar supporter, already knows what she'll be wearing to the Inauguration Balls. She bought it last February.   And she was so confident of the election's outcome she said,  “Last week I said to the stylist, ‘Take it out of the closet. Let’s take it out. Let’s hang it up, and let it air out.”

Another fashion note: What exactly was Michelle Obama wearing on the night of the election.  No matter how happy one was with the election's outcome even Obama's supporters must have thought her red and black dress and black cardigan  was a little strange.  The blog Wonkette dubbed it “hell-colored” and declared the color combination was  “Red, the blood of angry men!  Black, the dark of ages past!” referencing a rousing battle song  from the score of “ Les Miserables.” Another fashion commentator said it looked like a lava lamp.

The dress was designed by Narcisco Rodriguez, who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s favorite designer. It was based on a design from  his Spring 2009 fashion show.    A bit pricer one assumes than the simple $160 cotton dress in which Michelle appeared  on The View or the J Crew outfit she wore on Jay Leno.  

She was also bedecked with bling including $10,000 diamond earrings and several diamond bangles.  Were they a gift from Oprah?  Or from the President-elect ?

Now that Sarah’s back in a parka and on ice for awhile, Michelle will be in the view finder  for exactly this kind of analysis from on.  Women’s Wear Daily is already reporting that  Vogue editor Anna Wintour is trying to get her to pose for the magazine’s cover.    Be assured,  fashion reporting can be every bit as mean as a negative campaign ad.  Maybe even meaner.     

 

Save Yesterday's Papers

Want to leave your great-grandchildren an heirloom that will be worth something on a next-century edition of Antique Roadshow?  Then save yesterday's newspapers .  People already realize their value.   So great was the demand for newspapers reporting the election victory of Barack Obama that copies of the New York Times - which quickly sold out - were  already being offered on eBay at $100 each.

"Own a piece of history" - called out one street corner vendor who hawked 90 copies of the Baltimore Sun in a matter of minutes. Both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune decided to reprint their election editions when they heard of the demand. The Times printed an additional 75,000 copies, The Tribune printed 200,000. The Washington Post printed 250,000 copies of a special slimmed-down commemorative edition.

Newspapers all across America had crowds outside their offices clamoring for copies. At one  store in Washington customers after The Post and Times sold out snapped up copies of out-of-town papers.  Even foreign papers. And in Miami one news dealer, who was late opening his shop, feared customers were about to break down his door.

One news store in North Carolina reported that customers actually came to blows over its last copy of the local paper. Some American newspapers devoted their entire front page to a blown-up picture of Obama. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, which was one of them, went one better than most. It offered high-quality reprints of its front page for $50 (the equivalent of more than 25 pounds). 

And the beat goes on. USA Today,is planning to sell computer reprints of its front page online. And the New York Post has a special section on President-elect Obama in today's edition.  

Heavy Medal: Stories of Our Heroes

Are the kids feeling patriotic after yesterday’s historic election?  Well, build on their love of country by watching “Medal of Honor,” a PBS program (check your local listings) which tells the inspiring stories of 13 recipients of America’s highest award for valor. 

The program is full of interesting facts about the Medal, which only one woman has ever received.  She was Mary Edwards Walker, a doctor in the Civil War. Only 3,473 medals have been awarded and since the Vietnam War just seven have been given, all posthumously.   Among the heroes featured are Sgt. Paul Smith, the first soldier to be awarded this great honor in the Iraq War and Tibor Rubin, a Korean War vet who had to wait fifty years for his Medal.

Watch it with the whole family and feel proud once again during this election week of America and Americans.  

What's Next for Sarah?

Even though the McCain-Palin ticket has gone down to defeat, the future still looks promising for Sarah Palin.  Remember in less than three months Palin has become one of the best known women in America, if not the world, with hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic supporters.   On SNL on the Saturday before the election Tina Fey,in her memorable impersonation of the former Miss Wasilla ,held up a Palin 2012 T-shirt and also declared "I'm not going back to Alaska."   She  predicted "I'll run again or become a white Oprah." Even though Senator McCain was really on the program, even an imitation Sarah stole the show.

Palin has been both a terrific candidate and a terrible one.   She wowed everyone with her great speech and flawless performance on the night she accepted her nomination for the VP slot on the Republican ticket.  But she flopped during her interviews with Charley Gibson and, especially, with Katie Couric.   At the same time she drew enormous crowds who share her values, consider her honest and down-to-earth.  Even women who may not share her pro-life views admire her as the mother of a special needs baby for walking the walk as well as talking the talk.   And lots of guys, let's admit it, consider her quite a babe.

What will Palin really do next ?   Tina Fey might not be wrong.   Palin could mobilize for that 2012 campaign. She has proved to be a formidable fund raiser among Republican loyalists. She also could run for Senate or write a book or start that talk show.  You betcha, people would tune in.  But no matter which she chooses she will remain on the national scene.  Not only because of her style and personality and beliefs but because the press needs her.

Just think of all the print and airtime in the past seven weeks that has been devoted to praising  or attacking  her looks, her hair, her wardrobe, her family, her background.   Tina Fey got her Emmys for 30 Rock but she got her big ratings because of Palin.     So Sarah Palin will stay around because , to some degree,  because of her ambition .  But also because the media needs Caribou Barbie.  

Took My Husband 2 Vote

For the last six months I have been trying to encourage parents to take their kids to vote on Election Day. The news reports I've been listening to all day tell me it is working.  I know my son and daughter-in-law have taken my almost four-year-old grand daughter with them.  In fact,  I've been hearing that more children than ever are going with their parents to the polls and that this time around democracy really is a family affair.

For the first time my husband, who became an American citizen just a couple of years ago, voted as well.  My husband is a British journalist and always felt he should not become an American.  But because of both practical and patrtiotic considerations, he finallly decided to apply for citizenship.    Believe me, it wasn't easy for him to "forswear all foreign princes and potentates" on the day he took his citizenship oath. Especially since the official in charge asked him if the Queen knew what he was doing. 

Our polling place was crowded.  One of the poll workers told us crowds had started lining up before five a.m. and stretched for at least two blocks.    Since  my husband  only registered a couple of months ago, he couldn't vote in a booth but rather had to use a paper ballot.   I wanted him to have the  fun of pulling the lever.  Still some Americans still do vote the old-fashioned way with pen and paper.  It is warm bright day here and everyone seems excited and expectant.  Election Day seems what it should be, not the end of a long sometimes ugly political battle but rather the joyful celebration of our freedom. 

Take Your Kids 2 Vote

Check out this TV show on which Myrna appears to encourages parents to take their kids to vote on Election Day.  http://www.aarp.org/aarp/broadcast/Take_Your_Kids_To_Vote/