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New Hampshire Sheriff, Mad with Power

Illegal immigration is an explosive subject in America, a land that had declared it no longer has room for poor and huddled masses unless they can program Java. Though it is actually the foreigners who stay in their countries who take (or are given) our jobs, many Americans are enraged by the Federal government’s inability (or unwillingness?) to act decisively to curb illegal immigration, resulting in innate xenophobic fears that 9/11 has only intensified.

The nuts who do border patrol in their spare time are strange enough, but here’s a sheriff in New Hampshire who has began charging illegal immigrants in his town with criminal trespassing… as in trespassing in the United States of America. Live free or die… or go back to where you came from.

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By Meredith – May 23, 2005

The Waitress

She started waiting tables after dropping out of college, because that’s what a year of pre-Psychology could do for her. An initial liability: She despised people as a concept. Her forehead was chronically knotted with silent rage as she poured beers, served food, delivered condiments, fumbled with plates, silverware, and napkins, and uttered pleasantries and small talk. But it was an uncomplicated relationship: Here’s the food, here’s the drink, leave the tip on the table and go someplace else.

She liked staying up late and sleeping while the insane people of the world bustled to and fro school, the office, the store. Blah. She’d see them when they sought escape over plates of fried food and pints of Irish stout. She played off her surliness as spunk and believed customers liked it, that it awakened latent memories of their mothers. Because after birth, except for the near-extinct June Cleaver types, most mothers grow resentful that they really only function as a food source.

Despite her unwillingness to indulge customers, and though she was not attractive, she would often cash in more tips than her friend Dora, a wispy doe-eyed blond, or Gina, a lean big-breasted brunette, both of whom smiled and bowed to every customer no matter how much of a jerk they were. She developed strong bonds with her co-workers and spent her non-working hours talking with them about work, either over the phone as she padded around her apartment in pajamas, or over meals at other restaurants. They’d bitch and speculate about customers and about each other, and she was good at this. She was a popular and feared person with whom to work.

She’d cash in her tips to the nearest twenty and collect huge wads of ones and bowls full of coins. Though she was chronically in debt to credit card companies, her family, and the IRS, she was comforted by possessing a large amount of petty money. Some days, she’d eschew her friends in order sit in her room and count her tips, sliding the one dollar bills rapidly between her hands, then piling identical stacks of coins all over the bedspread of her twin-sized mattress with a wobbly frame that collapsed the last three times she had sex. She was really good at simple math.

She was a waitress, and that was life. It was her life, clattering in a jar like a handful of pennies.

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By Meredith – May 21, 2005

Leading the Blind

One day in college, I learned a very important lesson, one that was worth twice the tuition of most of my classes. I was relaxing outside of Bartlett Hall between English classes when a tall, hulking blind man neared my bench with his cane. It was obvious he had lost his direction. His cane got closer and closer to my feet, and I watched it with silent dread until it smashed into my shoes and I shifted audibly. “Sorry,” he muttered, turning around. “It’s okay,” I said, embarrassed. A girl I knew from one of my classes approached him and said in an assertive voice “Would you like a sighted guide?” He took her arm and they walked away.

Sometime later in the semester, the same girl revealed in a class discussion about some book that her mother was blind. I forget the specifics, but I remember clearly she said “I’ve seen people on campus ignore blind people who were lost, as if they weren’t there!” I felt unjustly reprimanded, because it’s not like I was an unkind person, I’m just shy. I thought offering assistance would be subjugating or belittling, as if to say “Hey Mr. Blind man! You’re failing miserably at independence!”

Today, I got off aT stop early to buy some flowers from my favorite sidewalk vendor, and I was walking through the corporate area of Kendall Square filled with harried commuters. Approaching an intersection, I saw a blind man standing in slow-moving traffic, trying to feel his way around a huge, stationary SUV. The driver, a suave-looking stuffed shirt, eyed him helplessly, perhaps wondering if a good horn-honking would make the blind man fly away like a bird.

A group of pedestrians at my intersection looked on worriedly. The light changed, the traffic stopped and everyone looked relieved as they hurried across the intersection, past the blind man still trying to find his way. I stopped next to him. “Would you like a sighted guide?” I asked clearly, and he turned towards my voice and said “Yes, thank you!” He took my arm and we walked across the intersection.

“Where are you going?” I asked brightly. “The Kendall Square T stop,” he said, which was not only in the opposite direction but a good five minute walk behind me. “Okay, let’s turn around then.” “Oh, I was going the wrong way? Huh!” He seemed amused at himself. “Your flowers smell nice” he said as we walked. I could have sent him the rest of the way on his own, but he seemed to enjoy having someone to walk with, and honestly, so did I.

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By Meredith – May 20, 2005

One Paragraph Book Reviews

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Pondering this collection of Hornby’s columns for the Believer, I felt skeptical. Hornby’s books are like 80s music: Comforting, enjoyable, but rarely substantial. But I devoured this book in one sitting on an airplane (and then re-read the extensive select bits), and fell in love with his non sequitur witticisms weaved together with unfettered opinions about the books he’s read or purchased. He is the Lester Bangs of literary criticism. A choice excerpt: Even if you love movies and music as much as you do books, it’s still, in any given four week period, way, way more likely you’ll find a great book you haven’t read than a great movie you haven’t seen, or a great album you haven’t heard: the assiduous consumer will eventually exhaust movies and music.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Knowing full well that this 2000 novel was about angst-ridden college students in love, I don’t know why I started reading it. And after an overly-profound first chapter in which the narrator Toru frolics in a meadow with his adored Naoko, I don’t know why I kept reading. And when I finished reading this sad but strangely uplifting story, I don’t know why I liked it: It was predictable and at times boring. Murakami’s prose is compelling; even though I ceased to care what happened, it was still a good read.

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

A savory guilty pleasure. A beautiful young woman marries her way into the highest echelon of British society and purposely mucks it all up. Some of the pleasurable guiltiness was assuaged by the fact that Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park, narrates with full knowledge of the absurd rules of aristocratic life. Couldn’t put it down.

The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Even people who hate reading will love this book about a French hitman who must shoot his way to a new career. It’s 150 pages of sparse, clean, direct prose that will explode in your brain like a hollow bullet filled with pulpy fiction. Manchette’s ironic and sexy story hits the target again and again.

Old School by Tobias Wolff

Set at an elite boy’s New England prep school in the 1960s and told from the point of view of student who aspires to be a famous writer, this book was boring. The unnamed student is desperate to win a yearly contest in order to have a private audience with one of the luminous visiting writers to the school, who include Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and Ayn Rand. Though the writing was clean and these cameos are entertaining, I was aggravated by the pointlessness of this self-indulgent book that is ultimately about teen angst and rich brats.

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By Meredith – May 19, 2005

A Toast

When regaling co-workers about my vacation, I’ve been embarrassed to express enthusiasm about my trip to the Napa wineries. It feels unladylike to admit that I enjoy getting slightly tipsy on a glass or two of yummy wine. And after living with Sally Six-Pack and Barbara Boozehound (*not their real names) for four months, I concur that not all female drinkers are alluring, slim, witty, sexy pictures of robust physical and mental health, as vodka ads would have us believe.

But in moderation, anything that makes women fun, carefree, and flirty as opposed to our usually neurotic, nagging selves has got to be healthy. And the perils that drinking does to our delicate constitutions, reproductive organs, and feeble brains are often exaggerated in the media, as Ann Robinson argues in the Guardian.

So bottoms up, ladies.

(In researching this post, I happened upon this shortlist of alcoholic slang (here), and saw that one of those slang words is a complete non sequitur. What in the world does the fifth word have to do with alcoholism?)

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By Meredith – May 18, 2005

Where Would Jesus Shop?

America boasts two types of Christians. We have the god-fearing social conservatives that blindly vote Republican, rally to uphold the innocence of their children through censorship and fear-mongering, and believe that gay marriage is ripping our already-anemic social fabric to shreds. After the ascension of George W. Bush, the world is very familiar with this family-values-cherishing American Christian.

But less attention is paid to the Christians whose religious beliefs reinforce a more genial view of society, who believe that over-consumption in a land riddled with poverty is wrong, who truly love their fellow Man, and who do not twist the tenements of the Bible to support hatred and ignorance.

I like those Christians. I like these Christians here who are rallying against Wal-Mart and its corporate practices, calling them “evildoers” and “immoral,” and citing actual scripture to base their judgment, like Malachi 3:5, where the Lord rebukes “those who defraud laborers of their wages,” and James 5 denounces those who have “failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields.”

See, the Bible isn’t all holy-rolling doctrine and fodder for hate groups. There’s PETA-like environmentalism (Jeremiah 12:4: “How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end”), anti-war slogans (Proverbs 4:14: “Seek peace, and pursue it”), and anti-racism (Jeremiah 13:23: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?”)

Check out the Atheists for Jesus website here. No it’s not a joke. It’s for people who “find Jesus’ admonition to Love Your Neighbor to be more important than the idea that his death was a sacrifice made in order to get you into Heaven.”

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By Meredith – May 18, 2005

Back in Black, I Hit the Sack, I Been Too Long, I’m Glad to Be Back

Sitting on my Boston-bound plane yesterday, I picked at my United Airways Jumpstart Snack Pack ($5 for a variety of “healthy” options like Wheat Thins, biscotti, and trail mix), tried to rouse interest in the in-flight movie (In Good Company, starring an extremely grating Topher Grace), and flogged my brain for a clever way to start this first post after a 10-day hiatus. Cause I’m all about the gimmicks.

My vacation soothed me to the point that my writing adapted a dull gloss. Emails and postcards barely scratched an eighth grade reading level, and employed rampant use of all conjugations of “is” (San Francisco is great! The people are nice! The weather was bad, but now it is good! Phoenix will be hot!) I finally excommunicated myself, fearing I’d pick up vacation habits worse than relaxing and purposeless wandering.

But nothing shocks reality back into one’s core quite like coming back to an apartment several notches above “squalid” on the cleanliness scale. I hadn’t cleaned before I left, hoping one of my roommates would realize that they are wallowing in their own filth and take the initiative. But my absence inspired the urge to mark their territory in exciting new ways. Like the leaky takeout container of Chinese food in the refrigerator that’s dribbling red sauce all over my milk and yogurt. Or the piled of wet, used Kleenex surrounding the trash can in the bathroom. Or the baffling appearance of a fourth toothbrush, my first clue that they missed me so much that they replaced me with an out-of-town guest who is sleeping on my couch. Ladies, I cannot thank you enough for showing me why my vacation was so very necessary.

Anyway, right now I feel like a kitten who fell out of a tree: I’m on my feet, but still trying to find my footing. Pictures and stories to come…

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By Meredith – May 15, 2005

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking. ~Earl Wilson

So for the next week, I will be gone. I am getting on a plane and fleeing the East Coast. I don’t have to go to work, but they are paying me anyway, as if I am there. I am not bringing my laptop with me and will not be making an inane daily public declaration on this website. I will not set an alarm, though my biorhythms are so tuned I’ll wake up at 5:30am anyway. I will not engage in purposeful exercise and will eat ice cream for breakfast if I feel like it. I will not go through Monday wishing it was Friday. It’s this crazy thing called a vacation.

First, to San Francisco, to finally check out this place out. Then, to Phoenix, to watch my sister graduate with a Masters of Social Work.

(Laurie, I am so proud of you. You excel at everything you do and I’ve always looked up to you for that. I remember playing softball at the ARA fields, and we were on the same team and you batted cleanup every game. You were number 4, I was number 11, you played infield, I played center field… but I didn’t care how much I sucked because my older sister was the best player on the team. I remember Orchestra, when you were First Chair and Miss D’uloise or however her name was spelled talked about how talented you were on violin, and I meanwhile I was struggling to make non-irritating noises out of my viola… but I didn’t care, because my sister played like an angel. And now you are graduating, making me the least educated person in the family, but I don’t care because I am so proud that my sister has her Masters Degree.)

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By Meredith – May 5, 2005

Movie Review: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

When future Enron President and CEO Jeff Skilling was at Harvard, he was asked by a professor: “Are you smart?” He replied, “I’m effing smart.”

Even if you are not familiar with the intricacies of the Enron scandal or are quickly bored by tales of white-collar criminals cooking the books, you should still see this stylish documentary to reflect upon the weaknesses of this system called capitalism under which we all labor. Yes, capitalism is great when it works, but only if everyone plays by the rules. As the movie is quick to point out, Enron is not a tale about creative accounting. It’s about the people, and these people are some of the most evil and greedy people to ever be in charge of a publicly-traded Fortune 500 company. (That’s pretty evil and greedy).

Let the California energy crisis be a lesson to all of us: The power industry should not be deregulated. There was enough power in the grid to prevent any of the blackouts that occurred in California, but Enron’s traders took advantage of the free market by ordering blackouts at whim, just to line Enron’s coffers with more sorely-needed cash. It was perhaps one of the most vile, reckless moments in 20th century business. (The movie also seems to connect Enron with Arnold Schwarzeneggar, but this is hazy at best).

The movie attempts to explain the behavior of Enron’s traders, who we hear joking and laughing about the blackouts in phone conversations. It showed footage from the famous experiment in the 1950s in which half of the study’s participants administered what they believed to be a lethal electrical shock to another “participant” because the scientist in charge told them to do it and took all responsibility. In other words, the traders and other criminals at Enron did what they knew to be unethical and illegal because their macho, Darwinist corporate environment permitted it. Hell, with everyone at the company focused on nothing but the stock price, and with Enron’s practice of regularly firing 10% of the lowest-performing employees, unethical behavior required.

If you do know a little about Enron, this movie will rehash what you know. I had read Pipe Dreams a few years ago, so I already knew about most of the story, but really dug the footage and the way the movie was edited. This wasn’t a Michael Moore-style skewing of the facts. The history of Enron and its bankruptcy is presented as it happens. There’s plenty of footage from company meetings (during which employees are urged to buy more stock by the very same top executives who are dumping theirs), taped interviews and news conferences full of boldfaced lies, creepy pans of the empty Enron buildings, the Senate hearings, and even taped message of thanks from Bush Sr. and Jr. to Ken Lay for helping with their campaigns. Things that make you go hmmm.

One thing that this movie made clear to me: The Internet Stock Bubble was not only fueled by the greed of some, but a basic ignorance about technology. All Jeff Skilling had to do was throw around talk about trading broadband and swear they had working technology, and the stock price quadrupled. I assume most serious investors understand the fundamentals of trading traditional commodities like pork bellies, but how many people really grasped what Enron was proposing to do? I found this interesting, having been on technology projects that have basically been proposed and specified by the good old boys in Sales and Marketing who like to sell what looks good on paper.

On the way home from the movies, my iPod shuffle once again showed its uncanny ability to be the soundtrack of my life: “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones came on. Very fitting, because Enron had nothing but red balance sheets and they painted them black. I listened to the song twice just to relish in its appropriateness, and dreamed of the day that Skilling and Lay have to face the facts and account for their white collar atrocities.

Is this movie good? It’s effing good.

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By Meredith – May 3, 2005

Pat Robertson

Yesterday George Stephanopoulos’s talk show played host to Pat Roberston, a man who considers overthrowing the judical branch of the government a religious crusade because they are liberals who are dismantling our nation’s Christian values. Why do people listen to a man who obviously un-American? Poor George. It’s impossible to argue reason wit super-religious people.

Apparently at wits end, George asked Pat a curious question that often stumps religious people for a concrete answer, about how he can reconcile the idea of a loving and mericful God with the tsunami disaster. Pat started by avowing his blief in God, but stressed that God does not control nature and believes in plate tectnics and earthquakes as being real natural phenomonen. Kinda a surreal moment.

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By Meredith – May 2, 2005