Julie Pippert: Using My Words

The other day I listened to one of the most brilliant modern satirists, David Sedaris, talk about his new transition into fictional stories, where the main characters are animals ( David Sedaris, Anatomizing Us In 'Squirrel' Tales ). These aren't fables nor are they for children. They are instead modern Grimm's Fairy Tales of a sort -- although Sedaris claims they have no moral to them (I think they do, in fact -- any satire of a culture includes a lesson, if you think on it). Sedaris said: "Fables have morals, and not all of these do," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do." In contrast to classic animal fables like Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare," there are few identifiably good characters in Sedaris' stories. "I don't think our world is as black and white now," says Sedaris, who consciously avoided Aesop and La Fonta...

Teaching my girls how to pull the rope for themselves. It was a pretty innocuous mother's club meeting, and we were talking about babysitters. I don't even recall why it came up, the talk about babysitters. Conversation unrolls so organically in these meetings, these times we get together, without children, and get to just talk. But sitters came up in conversation and the turn of that conversation surprised me. Greatly. Apparently around here it's bad manners to quote an hourly rate for one's babysitting services. "You know what gets me?" a mom said, "You know what sitters I prefer? Who I pay the most to? The ones who say 'oh just pay me whatever.'" She went on to explain that (and this is my paraphrase not her exact statement) to her, it came across as very forward, rude even, when these sitters said they charged X dollars per hour. My mind rolled that concept around for a minute: it's cheeky and rude to state upfront how much you charg...

I? Have been busy. But at least when I'm busy I'm troubled with but one devil (versus the thousand that would plague me if I were not busy...allegedly.) What makes me saying that any different from everyone else who says it, and what makes this week noteworthy versus others? This week has been truly busy and absorbing, but it's not been all about me. In fact, I've felt like more of an instrument---which feels more powerful than you might think. My house is a mess, my kids have gotten away with murder (of two rolie polies, as a start), my hair hasn't been out of a pony tail in five days (other than to be washed, which YES, I did wash), I made three innocent children tardy because I forgot my daughter's bike at school, and we've subsisted on starchy dinners all week (mac-n-chz for the kids and loaded potatoes for me and the hubs---have you ever done a Tex-Mex potato, with sour cream and salsa and black beans and cheese? YUM!). But I'm happy. This week I...

Bursting beyond the boundaries When she rides her bike, she'll amble along for a bit beside you, but then she'll thrust forward in a burst of speed, eager to be independent and out front. Her legs pump furiously, her bike a blur of pastel, the pink and purple streamers straight out from her handle bars. Her world is one of rules: stop and wait, look for cars, stay with us, don't get too far ahead, need to leave on time, sit quietly at your desk...a seemingly neverending list. But in that moment, she is motion and air and nothing more, boundaries are falling as far behind her as her parents. She already dreams of the day when she has her own house. She aches for the time that she owns her own life, and her mother aches to never tell her that this time--childhood---is the best she'll get of that. The freer you are, the more you owe elsewhere. Irritating injustice Her teacher says her greatest asset is her sense of fairness, and that this normally quiet child will speak ou...

We are all operating under some informational delusions, and they are affecting how we vote. We're letting the very people who have a personal agenda tell us what to think; that's called a conflict of interest and unreliable resource in my book. So let me clear up a few things and express my largest cultural concerns along the way: * we're in an economic crisis and a stimulus package isn't going to fix it. Stimulus packages are for the short term, and we have a long-term problem ahead of us because the cost of living and big business interests are dangerously outpacing earnings. (Not to mention big business practices---such as those evil Adjustable Rate Mortgages---which benefit business at the expense of the people, economy and country at large. Banks, mortgage lenders, speculators and so forth who perpetuate this shouldn't just be ashamed, they should be fined and jailed. And politicians who enabled and supported it---including our President---should be ousted fro...

A long time ago in blogging time (a year and a half ago) Jozet at Halushki shared with me an email she'd gotten about "everybody DRESS ALIKE on Friday to show support for the troops." I'm enough of a Cynic and a Realist to think the troops don't give a rat's rear about how we dress here. Not while checking the ground for bombs and so forth. I figured they care about (in no specific order) (a) care packages, (b) getting home alive, in one piece, and (c) doing their job to the best of their ability. So, while they might get a brief second of joy out of seeing a sea of red shirts in a photo or something, I felt pretty sure a better way to support the troops was to (a) send a care package, (b) pressure politicians to get our troops home, alive, in one piece and (c) find ways to enable them to succeed (so they could do their jobs to the best of their ability). I got so caught up in doing that I forgot to remember to definitely not wear red that Friday. I did, howe...

This is Keira Knightley in a Chanel perfume ad campaign, featured prominently in a number of places, places anyone with eyes could easily see: These are apparently acceptable breasts. Replace the bowler hat with a baby and these are apparently unacceptable breasts. The photo moves from "artistic, sells product well, exactly the image we want" to "obscene." You explain that to me because I do not get it. The above ad was at the beginning of the current issue of Town & Country magazine. There has been no outrage. No outcry. No demands that it be removed and never again shown. What a contrast to this image... ...which provoked an intense outcry , including demands that the cover be changed, similar images be banned, and a large protest from subscribers dropping their subscriptions in outrage. And so began the War of the Breast. Since then, MySpace, Facebook, Applebee's, and more (as you've all heard) have all protested "offensive" breasts: nursin...

Edited to say: In my busy-ness I have been thoughtless. I owed Liv a big THANK YOU for sending my post 'Is The Internet The Rainbow Connection?' to Jen for the Just Posts. I'm so appreciative, Liv, and I want to say it publicly too. I had so many different ideas mashing about in my mind for how to introduce the July 2007 Just Posts. Then I read Jen's introduction , and I forgot the rest of my ideas. My mind congealed into one hot question: can people simply be evil? Or do they lack ability to know how to productively manage their emotions? How do their circumstances matter within assessing this? In my life, I've known a large number of cruel people, thoughtless people, people who perpetuated some of the worst kind of harm there is...people who hurt children and created the opportunity for harm to perpetuate through another generation. It may be compassionate, it may be crazy, but I don't necessarily run from people who are doing or who have done what we might c...

Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. --- Thomas Paine, December 1776 I've made very plain my feelings about the injustice inherent in a punitively-oriented society. By merely focusing on the negative and punishing rule/law breakers, we do not offer enough deterrents or incentive for many people to operate within the system. A successful society is a two-party contract that requires total buy-in. Society leaders (by which I mean government) not only must offer a legal means that is reasonable, but also must provide guidance and direction to how to legally work towards the desired end. This requires two key things: trust and fulfillment of guaranteed rights. If this sounds vague and confusing it is because I'm trying to apply a general moral/ethical principle to the rule of law. Bring it down to a specific case: the right to vote. This right is an evolving one. Here's a ...

Pope Benedict succeeded in rallying the troops to assail Rome in protest of Italian legislation to provide rights to unmarried but committed couples, including homosexual couples. The 1.5 million people who packed into St. John Lateran piazza exceeded Catholic hopes that 100,000 would come to support the Pope's protest of the legislation. "Living together is not family," said Anna Manara, 58. "A commitment such as marriage cements the bond, while other models make it easier to be together and therefore end up making it less valuable." Here we are again: your life makes a statement about my life. I live a traditional life. I'm heterosexual, am married to my husband, live in the suburbs, and have two children and two cars. Oh, and we're white. What do I know of bigotry? I confess: I haven't walked a mile in shoes that face true prejudice (outside of a few incidents due to my gender). However, I can understand and sympathize. Also, I don't think th...