Molly, Ralph, and me

A lot of feminist blogs are linking to my photo of the annoying bus ad (and others in its campaign, don’t miss this one!), and it’s getting me into an interesting segment of the blogosphere where I haven’t spent much time. In one of these spots, I hear that Molly Ivins is seriously ill. She’s had breast cancer on and off for years, I knew, but this seems pretty damn serious since apparently it’s metastasized enough that she had to stop writing antiwar columns to be hospitalized.

I’d come home from college for winter break, and after the first week of holiday madness I’d find myself at home with nothing really to do. So I’d read through my parents’ bookshelves, and one winter break my stepfather had some new books, compilations of Molly Ivins columns. This being the Clinton years, they dated from the Bush presidency up through the Republican takeover and the 1996 election. They had a big influence on me. They taught me how to follow the money, they taught me how to judge politicians by their records, and they analyzed events I remembered but had been too young to understand. And being teh hilarious didn’t hurt.

Fast forward to 2000. You may remember that there was a presidential election that year. As it got down to the wire, I realized that I would be out of town and would have to vote absentee on election day, which was worrisome because I was planing on picking Nader or Gore depending on how close Illinois looked to be (believe it or not, it was considered a swing state for most of that year). Try and put aside how ridiculous this seems in the context of modern politics and remember along with me how difficult a choice that was for a pragmatic progressive at the time. I could see the arguments on both sides and one day I thought — hey. Why don’t I ask Molly Ivins?

So I wrote a letter. It was long. (You’re shocked, I know.) It praised, if not fawned, and then it begged for guidance. I don’t know what I was expecting, I think in my irrational-est of hearts I was thinking she’d write me back privately and we’d chat and become great pals. Instead, a few days later:

Molly Ivins, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 Fort Worth Star-Telegram

My vote for Nader; your vote for . . . ?

AUSTIN — As Gen. George Patton said of war, “God help me, but I love it so.” I realize that the only people in America having a good time right now are political reporters, but we haven’t had this much fun since Grandpa fell in the fish pond. What could be more exciting than David Broder and Tom Oliphant trading thoughts on whether a heavy black voter turnout in north Florida will make all the difference? [creepy, no? -t.]

OK, Nader voters. Let’s talk.

I’m voting for Ralph. I’m voting for Nader because I believe in him, admire him and would like to see his issues and policies triumph in our political life. I’m also voting for him because I live in Texas — where all 32 electoral votes will go to George W. Bush even if I stand on my head, turn blue and vote for Gus Hall, the late communist.

I know that many of my fellow Nader voters are young people and probably don’t want to hear from a geriatric progressive. (We had to walk three miles through the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways.) But I have learned some things just from hanging around this long, and with your permission, I will pass them on.

When I was your age, I was, I suspect, far angrier than most of you. Some people I loved died in Vietnam — it was an ugly, bad, nasty time. We’ll not go into it again, but in 1968, I could not bring myself to vote for Hubert Humphrey. So I helped elect Richard Nixon president by writing in Gene McCarthy; and if you ask me, 30 years on, it’s hard to think of a worse turn I could have done my country.

Nixon was a sorry, sick human being, with a gift for exploiting lower-middle-class resentment, envy and bigotry for his own political purposes. This country remains a nastier place today because of Nixon.

None of that has any particular relevance to the election in 2000. Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, and George W. Bush is no Richard Nixon. [Double creepy! -t.] What’s more relevant here is my 40 years’ experience in Texas electoral politics.

Not to Texas-brag, but we are No. 1 in the art of Lesser Evilism. I have voted for candidates so putrid that it makes your teeth hurt to think about ‘em. Why? Because they were better than the other guy.

So here you are, trying to spot that fine hairsbreadth of difference between the sanctimonious Gore and the clueless Bush, ready to damn both of them in favor of a straight shooter like Nader. Here’s the problem: Government matters most to people on the margins. If I may be blunt about this, we live in a society where the effluent flows downhill. And the people on the bottom are drowning in it.

And it is precisely those citizens — whose lives sometimes literally depend on the difference between a politician who really does have a plan to help with the cost of prescription drugs and one who is only pretending that he does — whose lives can be harmed by your idealism.

The size of a tax cut doesn’t matter to people in the richest 1 percent. They’re in Fat City now; they don’t need more money. But the size of a tax cut makes a real difference to Bush’s oft-cited example of the single mom with two kids making $22,000 a year.

When you are barely making it in this society, hanging on by your fingernails, with every unexpected expense a crisis, it matters which is the lesser of two evils.

I know it’s hard for young people to envision age or illness, or the sick feeling of frantic despair when your old wreck of a car finally dies (it always does this in traffic) and will not start again. People who work two and even three jobs to support their kids get so tired — you can’t imagine how tired — and guilt and depression and anxiety all pile on, too. The difference between Gore and Bush matters to those folks.

This is an old argument between radicals and liberals; sometimes I’m on one side, and sometimes I’m on the other. In the primaries, I vote to change the world; in November, I vote for a sliver more for programs that help the needy.

I do not believe that things have to get worse before they can get better. I think you will find that most mothers object to the idea that you would deliberately do something to make a child’s life worse in order to bring about some presumed greater good in the long run. I believe that the best can be the enemy of the better. I believe in taking half a loaf, or even a slice.

And how do we ever change the whole rotten system at that speed? Brick by brick, child by child, slowly, toward liberty and justice for all. The urgent, crucial need right now is to fix the money in politics. It can be done, it will be done, it is being done, and we will get better politics.

In Texas, we’ll vote for Nader and a perfect world. You swing-state progressives need to make the hard choice — but you’re not making it just for yourselves. Good luck to you all.

I’d been lectured at about why it was dumb to vote for Nader by so many people by then, but nobody had said it this well. This was the first argument to actually give me a REASON, a logical and moral framework for making my choice — and not just that choice but many many choices to come.

(I’ve often remembered the bits in this about Vietnam and Nixon in the intervening years. They made me feel defensive at the time, although I could not deny it of course. How many people did I lose in Vietnam, after all? I have not actually read her column in a while, due to my outrage fatigue, but I wonder how she sees it now.)

Get well soon Molly.

hail to the end of January

UPDATED: added Liz’s recipe, so people can get it straight from their RSS.  It’s below.

ALL HAIL WORDPRESS: I’ve been Latest Obsession for a year. My anniversary passed in a whirl of family crisis and January has been so busy I haven’t yet processed a single photograph. (OK, I did take the breast cancer ad picture, but that was a cameraphone.) Let’s not discuss how depressing that’s been, although my eye seems to be too tired to see anything, so it’s not like I’m feeling pressed for time, just not all that creative. Despite last week’s post about the protest, when the day actually came I realized I didn’t want to go down to the Mall and deal with it. (I’d had about 7 hours of sleep over the previous 48.) “So you’re pro-war then?” a friend asks. Snicker. (I have to say though, of all the major protest actions around this war, this one felt the least useful. When a war is incipient, new or popular, marching aginst it seems more purposeful than when it’s unpopular. )

ALL HAIL BRAINPOWER: One thing I have been able to do is read. This is notable because my dissertation seemed to stunt my attention span so much that I didn’t even have the patience for a New Yorker. Yep, my dissertation, as in the thing I was working on TWO Januarys ago. My ability to read for pleasure has been growing back, it seems; I didn’t notice at first but I’m actually reading a NOVEL right now, and it wasn’t even written by Kim Stanley Robinson. For some reason I started keeping track of the books I’ve read this year, and I realized I was on pace for one a week. So I think I’ll make that a goal.

ALL HAIL SECOND-GENERATION ANTIDEPRESSANTS: In other happy news, my cat Sue is a lot better than he was last fall. My vet put him on Prozac and it is really doing the trick. He’s pleasant to have around, even, as he hasn’t been since he was an only cat. So he’s off the market, but thanks for your interest, everyone, and your help. Oddly now it’s T-Bone who is a little anxious. He does this thing where he’ll lightly claw me (to get my attention) and then act like he wants me to pet him, but when I do he merely tolerates it and then walks away. You’d think a brain my size could figure out what’s going on in a brain his size…maybe I should slip him a little drugs too…

ALL HAIL WHOEVER RECOMMENDS ME SOME GOOD NEW MUSIC.

ALL HAIL RESALE STORES: I need new clothes. The effects of last January’s Heartbreak Diet (main effect: size 4) are disappearing, and all the skinny-person jeans I had to buy for that are now a weeeeeeeee bit tight. And the stuff I’m growing back into, well…it was old when it fit me the last time, and is painfully unstylin’. I prefer in my sartorial life to be at worst wincingly unstylin’. So a two-pronged approach. 1: The HD weight loss came about through eating too little, not exercise: even well after the H was repaired, I had quite literally forgotten how to eat and shop for groceries. And then I went home for Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Family Crisis, all of which basically mean: carbs. So now if I want my skinny ass back I have to do it the hard way, by like, moving my body around, and stuff. I’ve been wimping out and waiting for the bus lately on my commute, so I’ll cut back on that. And I’m half-considering training for a long race, but considering how hard I find it to make time to run and how much I hate running in the heat, I doubt it will happen. Enter Prong 2: shopping. In my pursuit of Prong 1 today I was in Bethesda for a dance class, and stopped by Mustardseed on my way home, where I dropped over $100 for about 12 items of clothing. You gotta love numbers like that.

ALL HAIL DA BEARS: I may be having the world’s least likely Superbowl party. So: a Muslim, a Hindu and a Jew (2 of 3 vegetarians) are analyzing some genetic data. It comes out that they all have plans to watch the Bears in the Superbowl next week. We decide to watch it together, but all I can think about is: what the fuck are we gonna eat?? Is it the Superbowl without my friend Liz’s unbelievably yummy bacon dip? I don’t think so….speaking of which, hey Liz, how bout that recipe?

Liz, comin ‘through, posted this to comments:

Man, I’ve been outed.

The EVIL DIP – AKA BLT dip.

1 lb bacon (i like a good quality thick cut bacon, but use what you have.)
16 oz sour cream (yeah i use light, but if you’re hard core, don’t)
1 cup Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise (DO NOT SUBSTITUTE)
4 – 5 Fresh Roma tomatoes
1 tsp garlic powder
Fresh ground pepper

Fry the bacon crisp (i bake it on a jelly roll pan at 400 for 10 minutes and keep an eye on it). Drain on paper towels and chop up.

While that is cooking – slice the tomatoes on the y-axis in half and scoop out the brains. Dice those up into ~1/4 inch pieces. I somtetime salte and drain these in a sieve. soemtimes i don’t – it’s fine either way.

Mix the sour cream, mayo, maters, bacon and garlic powder in a bowl. Add a healthy grind or 5 of fresh ground pepper. Pop it in the fridge for an hour or two and serve with Ritz or Town House crackers.

Yes, I did have a post about family crisis-related stuff, but I pulled it to work on it some more. Of course, I haven’t had the time or desire, so I may just put it up as-was. The topic was what to say to newly grieving people, since I heard a lot of “I don’t know what to say” type comments, and it’s actually not as difficult as people think to say the right thing. (Hint: let THEM talk.)