Becoming Auntie Mame!

I'm your Auntie Mame!
 
Usually when people hear or see that statement they think of Mame the musical play and which was made into a movie staring Lucille Ball.  But that's not the Auntie Mame of which I speak.  No, no, my Auntie Mame always will be Rosalind Russell in the film Auntie Mame which also star Peggy Cass and a young Roger Smith.

For those who have never seen it, the movie focuses on Mame Dennis, a free spirit who becomes the guardian of her nephew, Patrick Dennis, son of her only brother.  The movie opens on an image of a Will with someone reading it aloud. It is Mame's brother, a staunch conservative, who is providing for his son and who expects to live quite a long time because he exercises everyday at his athletic club.  Then we see a newspaper headline a stating that Mr Dennis, prominent businessman, dropped dead at that same athletic club the day after signing his will.

Patrick and Norah Muldoon, his father's housekeeper, arrive at Mame's apartment in New York City as she is in the midst of a great big party with almost 100 people in attendance. It's October 1st in the year 1929. (History buffs may remember that October 29th of that year was the day of the Stock Market crash starting the Great Depression. But more on that later.)  After Mame flies (almost literally) down the stairs and sees Patrick and Norah she mistakes Norah for a maid come to help and Patrick for Norah's son, but Norah corrects her.  As Mame sets the facts right in her mind she turns to young Patrick and loudly declares, "I'm your Auntie Mame!"  For Mame it's love at first sight and she works to do whatever she can to help broaden Patrick's horizons beyond the narrow confines of the conservative life Patrick's father wanted him to follow.

Mame is a true character who fights to survive rather than letting life run roughshod over her. When the Great Depression hits Mame is suddenly penniless.  She tries a variety of jobs to make ends meet and fails miserably with every one.  At her last job is as a sales lady at Macy's during the Christmas rush she meets her future husband, a millionaire oil baron from Georgia named Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, and it's love at first sight.  Beau opens even more doors for Mame.

After Beau dies suddenly Mame takes on another project.  Patrick arranges for her to have a secretary and a co-writer to help her write her memoirs.   It's at this time when when Patrick finally announces to her that he has found "The Girl" to marry and introduces her to Mame.  The girl, Gloria, is a vain, empty-headed snob who affects posh airs but is no better than the very people she snubs. After meeting Gloria, Mame decides to meet her parents who live in a restricted community in Connecticut.

Gloria's parents are among the nouveaux riches, the new money, those who through luck and happenstance find themselves very rich and who put on affectations of being rich which only serve to annoy the old rich.  Gloria's parents don't understand that those who have had money for several generations don't throw their money in people's faces.  Her parents don't realize that to act rich is to act no different than a person who has less money.  Acting rich is to act as if money doesn't matter.  The old rich know they have money, they just don't trumpet it around.  It's just a means to an end.  The newly rich think they have to flaunt their money to prove others they're rich.  When Mame meets Gloria's parents she realizes that Patrick's trustee has orchestrated the marriage and works to undermine and unravel the trustee's plans.

When Mame's secretary suddenly finds herself pregnant and alone in an era where the unwed mother is scorned and stigmatized, Mame takes her on as another project, encouraging her to take care of herself and her baby.

In the end everything works out and Patrick goes on to marry his true love instead of Gloria the empty-headed blond "with braces on her brains" and Mame goes on to mold a new generation of free thinkers when she takes Patrick's 10-year-old son with her to India for the summer.

I have often said that I wanted to be Auntie Mame; to be that free spirit that helped open doors for young people and help them see that there was more to life than just those things their parents told them.  My favourite line from Auntie Mame is this, "Live!  Live!  Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"  I may be an aunt, but I'm no Auntie Mame.

Keith Olbermann Suspended

Because I do not always get to control what we watch on TV, I missed the following report on The Rachel Maddow Show last night  (5 Nov 2010).





For those that don't watch MSNBC, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are two of the most refreshing and insightful voices on news television today.  They look at what is happening around them in politics and the rest of the world and give us the the clearest most concise assessment they can.  Sometimes they mess up so they offer corrections and apologies.  But always their honesty and integrity are out there for the world so see.  But today Keith never got the chance.

During the recent election cycle Keith is alleged to have given donations to 3 different campaigns.  If the accusation is true, the problem is NOT that Keith gave these donations.  No, the problem is that he did so without getting the okay from Management.  This action resulted in Keith being suspended from his position at MSNBC.

Apparently NBC has a policy prohibiting any staff member, whether they be an on-air personality or someone behind-the-scenes, from contributing to any political campaign or organization.  This the policy apparently says that employees must let management know when (and presumably how much) they plan to donate to candidates, who those candidates are, and then management must approve the donations being made. Not to censor but merely to make sure who donating to whom, should they be called out because the donation.

This is a good policy that has its roots in the Newspaper industry.  In order for the press to be taken seriously as non-partisans, various newspaper publishers imposed that rule, or something similar.  If the paper endorsed any one candidate it was made through the editorial page, the only page of a newspaper were you should find Opinions.  Reporters need to be impartial, whereas editors do not. 

Many people, including myself, were shocked to hear of Keith's suspension and now there are rumors flying across the internet about what really happened.  Personally I will wait until Keith returns to find out the real story.  In the meantime I will have to suffer through whomever MSNBC picks to fill in for him since I do not know who that person will be nor how long Keith's suspension will last.  And my advice to Keith Olbermann?  Next time let the bosses know because next time they might not be so nice.

Katie Makkai - Pretty

This video is very intense and I strongly urge every woman watch it with their daughters, their granddaughters and every other woman in their life.  I also think this video needs to be seen by the men in our lives. 

This poet, Katie Makkai, delivered this amazing poetry piece at the 2002 National Poetry Slam as a member of the Denver, CO team.  In this poem, she takes the word "pretty" to task in a way that makes one think about how we perceive the word.  This then reveals how our use of  the word places pressure to conform to an unrealistic ideal which we place not only on our daughters, but also on ourselves. 

So what is the word "pretty"? What does is denote? According to Dictionary.com, pretty is a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and has 14 different definitions.  The definition we most associate with the word is the first one: “pleasing or attractive to the eye, as by delicacy or gracefulness.”

Pretty, for me, has always been part of a back-handed compliment which I call "If Only" statements.  I’ve heard these statements throughout my life.  Many's the time someone would say to me, "You have such a pretty face, if only ____________," you'd cut your hair or get contacts or change your attitude or whatever, just fill in the blank.  Though the most used phrase was "... if only you'd lose weight."

Watching and listening to this video brought tears to my eyes.  It reminded me of many painful aspects of my life, places I don't want to remember.  But the memory is there and a part of who I am.  And though I'm older and beyond all the "Pretty" parts of life, there's a part of me that still want to have that label, at least until the people that matter most in my life call me "Beautiful", and then who cares about being merely pretty.

I'm glad I'm not in Nevada! Or any other state with a Tea Party candidate!

My fiance was reading some of the headlines aloud this morning and he got to one story about Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada who is running against Democrat Harry Reid.  Ms. Angle has made her mark in this years set of political loonies in all sorts of wonderful ways. She has done many unintelligent things, but the weirdest was holding a Press Conference then refusing to take questions from the reporters and then not just leaving but running away.  This morning's report stated that in a new video Ms. Angle is seen making the remark to a group of Hispanic high school students that some of them looked "a little more Asian" to her.  This happened as Ms. Angle was defending a recent campaign ad blasting rival Harry Reid's record on illegal immigration.  The ad showed images of dark skinned men.  Her defense was that she didn't know the people in the ads were hispanic. Really?!  Really?!  Ms. Angle, are you really that color blind?? Or are you just plain stupid??

Frankly, I don't think Ms. Angle very bright and I pity her poor spokesperson who daily has to try to clean up any hornet's nest Ms. Angle has stirred up just by opening her mouth.  This is not the first such remark Ms. Angle has made, and I doubt it will be the last.

Ms. Angle is a Tea Party candidate and is one of 10 candidates that party is standing for office, the others being Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, Joe Miller of Alaska, Jesse Kelly of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Dan Maes of Colorado, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rick Scott of Florida, Raul Labrador of Idaho, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Mike Lee of Utah.  Much has been made of these candidates, but to my mind the one thing that unites these candidates is their lack of common sense.  The Tea Party is working hard to polarize voters to keep them from making an informed decision.   

Politics has always been a forum for debate with the winner of the debate being the one giving the most well informed arguments.  Debate is something missing from the Tea Party.  The members of the Tea Party are appealing only to emotions which can lead to angry shouting matches that can become full fledged fights if those involved are not able to check themselves.  Anyone who has ever fought with a sibling, a spouse, a significant other or another family member knows that emotional arguments never have a winner.  They just raise the blood pressure and can hurt the relationship.  Healthy debate means that afterward you can still shake hands and be friends.

My little blog will not change anything in today's political climate, so I will not presume to tell these candidates how to run their campaigns.  All I can do is hope that cool and wiser heads prevail.  All we can do is cast our 1 vote and hope for the best.  I wish the voters in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Utah, Nevada, Delaware, Alaska, and Arizona good luck because, if their Tea Party candidates win, those states are going to need it.  And so are we.

Responsibility and Respect

My friend D just called to rant about a classmate.  She's in the small ensemble choir at school and the only real bass they have is being an absolute idiot.  To the point that it looks like the choir director Dr. T will be asking him to leave the choir.  D says that this guy is a wonderful singer but that he has this condescending attitude which is rubbing everyone the wrong way.  Even the person who gives him a ride to school is seriously considering making him walk to school.

This just makes me think that there is a serious flaw in the thinking of many students going to college today and it doesn't matter if they are going to a 2-year or a 4-year school.  Pretty much every college freshman, and a good majority of upperclassmen, believes that college is an extension of high school.  This is especially true of the men. 

  Back when I first started going to college 37 years ago it was to a community college in Upstate New York.   The party attitude prevailed then, too, because the majority of students still lived at home.  Only those whose family lived more than 25 miles away or had to drive more than an hour one way took apartments in the area.  And those students were a little less into the party scene.  But there were parties every almost weekend.  How anyone managed to actually managed to graduate was beyond me.  Even I had that attitude.

At the time I was there in the mid 70s this college did NOT have this nasty thing called "Academic Probation".  That's when the college won't let you participate in extracurricular activities if your GPA goes below a certain level.  So I enjoyed myself and my grades suffered.  After attending this 2-year school full-time for 3 years I had only 30 credit hours (I should have had 90) and had a GPA of 1.37.  That's a D+.  So as you can probably guess, I didn't graduate.

I did eventually go on to get a BA, but it took two more colleges and 3 1/2  more years to do so.  And my GPA at graduation was barely a 2.35.

Colleges cannot check the maturity level of their students.  They can only hope that the students realize and understand that college course work requires them to be adults and to behave like adults, not petulant children that act out, are condescending to other students, or think they are a Diva.  Once a student starts to behave like that that student needs to be called out on their actions.

Responsible adults are just that, responsible.  They are also respectful of others no matter whether they agree with that person.  It is the hope that if one is being respectful to a person it means that one also respects that person, but that's not always the case.

D's classmate proved himself to be a spoiled, petulant Diva who was disrespectful not only to the choir director, but also to the accompanist and the rest of the choir. One can only hope he gets his comeuppance.

Update: Well, it looks like Dr. T did give the Diva a talking to because D told me that he came into choir and apologized to everyone.  He also got kicked out of the choir. Yay for Dr. T!