In other news, last night I read the most recent “Proust Questionnaire,” which is always the last page of my fave periodical, Vanity Fair. This month the interviewee was Jane Fonda. I really have no special affection for Fonda, though I must have seen On Golden Pond and 9 to 5 1,000 times a piece growing up. I mean, I think she’s a pretty neat lady and all, but she’s never really been one of my faves. I was really moved and heartened by her answers to the questionnaire, though. As you know (or are about to), the questions asked range from “How would you like to die?” (to which many smart-alecky respondents say, “I wouldn’t”) to “What’s your greatest extravagance?” to “On what occasion do you lie?” While her answers weren’t shocking or anything, I found them quietly moving and highly relatable. For example, in response to some question regarding what she dislikes most about herself, she replied, “Seeing myself naked in an overhead light.” I HATE overhead lighting. This started because my mother taught me overhead lights are the devil at play, but now it’s just something that I truly can’t stand. Overhead lighting should be used in common spaces only in one of three circumstances: (a) skylights are great; (b) in chandelier form with dim or dimmable lighting and then only in grandiose entryways or over a dining table; and (c) if you lost something that you simply cannot see without flipping the dreaded overhead light switch. And simply no one should be allowed to be naked under an overhead light. I could not agree with Fonda more on this point. Ok, I realize that probably sounds trivial, so I’ll move on. When asked what she’d like most to change about herself, she said it would be her inability to sustain a long-term intimate relationship. That just about broke my heart. Weren’t there some recent rumors that she and Ted would reunite? Anyway, another sweet response was that she loves to plant trees around her house — and mature ones, because she feels she’s too old for saplings — and that she was at her most happy when she had scaled a 14,000 foot mountain. So, there you have it, folks. I just like that Jane Fonda.
Posts Tagged 'politics'
Building — sort of — on my last post, I am again perplexed by The Right. I really am not trying to be partisan here, but what the hell are people talking about? The latest: this brouhaha over whether members of the Bush administration should be prosecuted for advocating, apologizing for or carrying out torture. I think that it’s probably a reasonable question about which reasonable people can disagree. But this is ridiculous.
Peggy Noonan, on Meet the Press this past weekend said, about the so-called torture memos, “Some things in life need to be mysterious,” and” Sometimes you need to just keep walking.” Additionally, “It’s hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that.”
This is insane. At a time when the GOP is struggling to remain relevant, I would think the last thing that you’d want to advocate would be for less government accountability and transparency. Whether or not you are proprosection is beside the point. Open records laws are at the very heart of our government. There is little, really, that I consider more American than being able to publicly investigate our government’s goings-on and to take them to task for their actions. Her position is unreasonable and unAmerican, really. And it also just seems like dumb strategy.
Of course, Russ and others are already all over this.
life and puppies 