Hamas Vs. Oprah
Yes, I know it's no contest. Oprah taking down a two-bit lying frat boy author is nothing compared to the results of this week's historic elections in Palestine. It's ridiculous to even think about discussing one over the other.

And yet I'm torn. I want to talk about both.

So I will.

As far as Hamas winning the majority in the Palestinian parliament, it's merely a question of "well, what did you think was going to happen?" The Palestinian people are understandably fed up with the widespread corruption of Fatah, the party of Yassir Arafat, in power for 41 years. Hamas campaigned on a platform to clean up corruption, to bring aid to the poor and provide education.

As a voter who is very unhappy with corruption in government, and is very much in favor of aiding the poor and providing education, that's a platform I could definitely support. Send them over here!

Unfortunately, Hamas is also considered a terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel. President Bush, while applauding the free and fair election, has said our country will not deal with the Hamas government unless they renounce violence.

Maybe they will. Perhaps carrots will outweigh sticks. And maybe being on the inside of government, they'll somehow be blessed with wisdom and truth and tolerance.

Who are we kidding? ABC news ran a story last night on one of the newly elected members, Miriam Farahat, known as "The Mother of the Struggle." Ms. Farahat sent three of her six sons out on suicide bombing missions against Israelis and says she'd sacrifice the other three for the cause.

This is the mindset that's in power. No tolerance, no wisdom, just blind rage.

All I can say is that it looks like very bad things will be happening in the Mideast.

Now to Oprah.

As you all probably know, Oprah brought James Frey on her show yesterday to come clean on his fabricated memoir "A Million Little Pieces," which he did admit was--was um, uh...

"Lies, James?"

Yeah.

Frey was like a fifth grader in the principal's office. He knew he was in trouble and he knew he had to come clean, but anyone could see that he wasn't the least bit contrite and wouldn't be admitting anything if he didn't have to.

When asked why he made up all those lies about himself, he said it was "a coping mechanism" to deal with his addiction.

Oh come on!

It was because he wanted to be a famous author, make lots of money, have legions of adoring fans and get movie deals. Publishers rejected the story as a novel, but loved it as a memoir.

It was a public humiliation and it wasn't pleasant, but he's still famous, his books are still selling and he gets to keep all the money. Not a bad deal.

At the end of the show, he was supposedly redeemed, having finally told the truth. Did he really? And who's going to believe him now?

Still, I'm glad Oprah addressed the problem. Just like I asked her to.

Now if she could only make Caviar Dreams the next Oprah book club selection.

Cleaning Up Corruption?

Guess what, guys! Congress is going to crack down on corruption. Yes, those hard working folks there in Washington really are going to clean things up. Representatives are falling all over themselves coming up with a plan to reform the nasty problem of elected representatives taking gifts and overly large campaign contributions from lobbyists.

Of course, these plans would have a whole lot more impact if they weren’t a painfully obvious attempt at damage control. Super Lobbyist Jack Abramoff had to get himself indicted and name names before anybody even spoke about the problem. The story of his dirty dealings with Indian tribes appeared two years ago and what did Congress do? They changed their ethics rules so that members could continue serving in leadership positions even if they’d been indicted.

What’s really annoying is that the Republicans don’t seem to be all that sorry about the mess they’ve made. Turn on the television and you’ll see Roy Blunt and David Dreier admitting there have been problems, but look at the big picture. The Republican record speaks for itself. They’ve accomplished a lot.

What they really need to do is come out and say “What we’ve done is wrong. It’s dishonest and it’s greedy and we will make sure that it stops.” And then find someone who’s never taken a dime of campaign funds from lobbyists to take the House Majority Leadership job.

Yes, I really am idealistic enough (or gullible enough) to believe that person might actually exist.

In the corporate world, if you take any gift from a vendor you could be doing business with in the future, you can lose your job. Why can’t Congress adopt the same rules?

Theoretically, we are their bosses and we can fire them. To find out the extent of your representative’s involvement with lobbyists, you can go to a new website run by Public Citizen Watch. It’s called Clean Up Washington and it gives details on who’s in bed with whom.

Might be something to look into next November.

Shame On You, Oprah!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost a huge amount of respect for talk show host and Book Diva Oprah Winfrey.

Her latest Book Club selection is A Million Little Pieces, a memoir of Addiction, Crime, Punishment and eventual redemption written by James Frey.

But according to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by The Smoking Gun, very little of the aforementioned substance abuse, crime and punishment was actually experienced by James Frey.

Frey claims responsibility for having caused a young girl’s death in a train accident in St. Joseph, Missouri. The truth is he hardly knew the girl and had nothing to do with the incident. He claims to have done three months time in an Ohio county lock-up. The truth is he spent a few hours in the Granville, Ohio police station waiting for a buddy to come bail him out for a drunk driving charge. He also claims to have been consumed with rage and the Granville Police charged him with trying to start a riot. The truth is the police remember him as polite and cooperative the whole time he was in custody.

These are not just exaggerations or embellishments. These are total fabrications. Lies, if you will.

For some reason, Oprah is standing by James Frey, calling these revelations “much ado about nothing,” and insisting the story still “resonates.”

Yo, Oprah! It resonates because readers believe all these things really happened! If it was presented as the work of fiction it really is, there would be no best seller list, no movie deal, no flocks of adoring fans at the Barnes and Noble book store. It would be just another novel about one man overcoming a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles then finally coming to terms with his life and himself. Big whoop.

I don’t begrudge Mr. Frey his success. What I find morally reprehensible is that with the help of Ms. Winfrey, he has been presented as an inspiration to people struggling with substance abuse across the country. His message is “If I can kick drugs with all I’ve been through, surely you can too.”

The problem here is that Mr. Frey sees addiction as a weakness not a disease. He is encouraging people they don’t need programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. They can get clean and sober merely by telling themselves “Hold on” whenever they feel like taking a drink.

Now that really can cause some major damage to someone.

I believe Oprah should apologize to her readers and remove it from her Book Club selection. I also believe the New York Times should move it over to the Fiction best seller list.

And when Mr. Frey’s next memoir My Friend Leonard appears, I hope the buyers stay away from it in droves.

My Tenuous Connection to Congressman #1
Many years ago, I worked for Republican Representative Bob Ney, the infamous "Representative #1," as he was identified in the court papers of Jack Abramoff's guilty plea to federal charges of conspiracy.

It was December of 1991 and I was on an unpaid two week vacation from my regular job as a substitute teacher for the Columbus Public Schools. I took a temp job at the state hourse for then State Senator Bob Ney, filling in for the office secretary while she was away.

It pains me even now to say that I aided and abetted the Conservative Right. but when your rent's due, you swallow your political pride and take what's offered. I sure as hell needed the money.

It was an eye-opening experience.

As far as I could tell, not much legislating got done. In fact, I don't remember seeing anybody doing anything. One of the handsome young aides in Ney's employ, told me they were kicking back after a long hard year. They'd worked their butts off, he said.

Sen. Ney was only in the office for a few hours. His biggest concern was the vacation he and his wife would be taking. (Even then, he liked to get away from it all. And I don't know who paid for that one.)

I took a lot of calls from the Ohio State Lottery Commision. They sent over many many large tins of delicious Danish butter cookies. I even got to take one home with me and it lasted for weeks.

It was my impression that the Lottery Commission employed a really nice group of folks. They loved giving out cookies and taking the handsome young aides to lunches that lasted all afternoon, involving, more than two or three martinis, judging from the phone calls back to the office.

I have to say it was an odd experience, being a "have-not" among the "have-a-hell-of-a-lots." I was furious at the easy arrogance affected by the men I worked for, and yet I was fascinated by the inner machinations of political power, although not much ot it was going on at the time.

Anyway, I can see how politicians can grow accustomed to gifts, not mention the deference and all-out awe. When that's how busines is done, the leap from Danish Butter Cookies and the three hour lunch with drinks included to the all expenses paid golf outing to Scotland is not that hard to make.

I’ve been silent these last few weeks. Just like any politician leaving in a cloud of scandal, I wanted to spend time with my family. Unlike the politicians, though, my family wanted to spend time with me. But I’m back now. And there’s plenty to talk about.

Lucky for Farris Hassasnthe mining disaster in West Virginia took him out of the media spotlight. No more of those annoying comparisons to the 1986 Matthew Broderick movie “Farris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Okay guys, it’s funny when a kid takes off a day and goes to Chicago. It’s not funny when a kid takes a day off to go to a war zone.

What irks me about this story is that it was so misleading. NBC made it sound as if he’d stowed away on a cargo plane and sneaked across the border. In reality, he used his own money to buy a ticket, his father and family friend helped him with getting into Baghdad.

Apparently, his father felt that going to a place where cars that blow up killing dozens of people are a common occurrence was an appropriate activity for a 16 year old. I’m hoping the US Government sent him a bill for the all he cost of the taxpayers. The 101st Airborne provided transportation and babysitting, not to mention the unnamed US official who accompanied Farris from Kuwait to Europe.

Not that I expect it from the media, but couldn’t they have presented this story in a more serious way, instead of the nod and a wink and “Don’t try this at home, kids?”

Anyway, let’s hope Farris goes back to a life of well-deserved obscurity.

Saying No

A government study has proven what moms have known for decades. Kids ask for the junk food (and everything else) that’s advertised on the television shows they watch.

This is nothing new. I grew up watching commercials for sugar cereals and candy. Trix are for kids! Sugar Pops are Tops! Cuckoo for Coco Puffs! I asked for all of those, but my mother never bought it for me.

There are calls by consumer advocate groups to limit the amount of food advertising aimed at children. It’s contributing to childhood obesity and causing health problems. We need to crack down on the Evil Junk Food Empire.

I disagree. I have seen those commercials and they are an assault to the senses. They definitely scream “You gotta have this stuff.” But in our house, I’m the one who buys the food and that stuff doesn’t get bought. Last I heard, mothers still had control over what foods their children eat. Unless you live within walking distance of a store (and most of us don’t these days) your kid can’t buy candy unless you’ve taken them someplace where it’s sold.

I believe that saying no to candy and sugar cereal at the grocery store is good practice. You have to learn how to stand up to your kid and you have to start early. With the Junk Food Empire’s powerful influence, you’ll get plenty of practice. My daughter asks for a candy bar or gum every time we get to the checkout line. I’ve always said no, but it doesn’t stop her from asking.

My feeling is that if you cave in on Count Chocula, how are you going to handle it when your kid asks to go to a co-ed slumber party given by the “cool mom” or asks to go on a group trip to Ft. Lauderdale with somebody’s 19 year old sister as a chaperone?

Now it’s a different matter when schools offer fast food in the cafeterias and candy bars in vending machines. Soft drink companies and fast food restaurants can provide much needed funds for cash strapped school districts. A lot of the soft drink companies are voluntarily removing the sugar sodas and replacing them with fruit drinks and bottled water.

And our school district has made a commitment to promoting healthy eating in the schools. Recently, the deep fryers were removed from all the school kitchens.

Children will always want candy and will always want what they see on television. It’s not easy saying no, especially when they don’t give up. But that’s part of the job of being a mom.

My Bit For AIDS Awareness
It was World AIDS Day last week, and here I am just getting around to commenting on it. Always a day late and a dollar short.

It’s a day set aside to remember those who died of the disease as well as raise concern for the millions of people around the world who are living with it.

I know AIDS well. I watched it devour my friend Steve Tracy. He went from a handsome young man to a virtual invalid in the space of three years. He died of kidney failure in September of 1993.

Steve had the misfortune of being young, handsome and gay in the late 70s and early 80s, long before anyone knew there was such a thing as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Nobody in 1980 had any idea there was a new disease out there that could wipe out the body’s natural immunity and that it was passed on through sexual contact.

What I remember most is how Steve became like an old man–weak, sick, complaining. Worse yet, he had to deal with losing friends. He was always going to funerals and memorial services. And he was only 33 when he died.

In one of the supreme ironies of the universe, my daughter Alysoun was born on the second anniversary of his death. It’s always a bit strange for me, every September for the last ten years, I’m planning a birthday celebration for one very happy and excited little girl, all the while reminding myself that Steve’s family is preparing to mark another painful anniversary.

I miss my friend. We both had a passion for movies and I’m sure we saw hundreds of them together. We were both writers and malcontents, and thought ourselves far more clever than we actually were. Even now, I wish I could talk to him about the current political climate and the latest highly acclaimed film.

There are so many things I’d like to tell him. What it’s like to give birth. What it’s like to finally find the right guy and have a life together. What it’s like being a mom.

After he died, I pretended he wasn’t dead, he’d just moved to San Francisco. But he is dead along with millions of other men, women and children all over the world.

These days, there’s the perception that AIDS is not such a big deal any more. There’s no cure, but it’s manageable. There are drugs to take care of it. Kind of like diabetes.

Except taking the drugs means following a strict regime, requiring dozens of pills taken at exactly the right time. It’s not easy and it must be done for life. Miss a dose and the virus becomes resistant to the treatment. Then there are the side effects, which include nausea, gastric problems, liver toxicity, nerve damage, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and unusual accumulations of fat in the neck and abdomen. It’s not easy and it’s not pleasant.

There’s also the problem of new strains of the HIV virus which are resistant to the current drugs in use.

Seems like these days, AIDS is a problem in Africa, not in the US. But that’s not true. It’s still here and people are still getting it. There have been at least 39,000 new AIDS diagnoses each year since 1989.
Whether it’s because of youth’s belief in its own immortality, or the misconception that getting AIDS is not a problem, young people are actively participating in behaviors that can lead to HIV infection, such as having unprotected sex with multiple partners. And yet we’re so worried about sending the “wrong message” that we refuse to teach high school students about condom use.

I don’t want to talk about the merits of teaching abstinence over practicing safe sex. I just wish that people who are so intent on holding the moral high ground could understand what it’s like to lose a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a father or a mother to a disease that can be prevented.

The High Cost of Being Poor

It’s really expensive to be poor. I know it doesn’t make sense to demand more money from people who don’t have much to begin with, but that’s what happens. Every day, poor people are charged extra because they are poor.

Take cashing a check. With direct deposit, that’s something I rarely have to deal with, but when I do, I can go to our credit union and cash it there. For free.

Poor people have to go to those seedy “Check Cashed Here” places and pay a fee or a percentage of the check. If they want to pay a bill, they either pay in person using cash or they buy a money order which also requires a fee. With our checking account, all the checks are free.

If the poor need to borrow money, they don’t have the luxury of going to the bank and working out the best deal. They go to pawn shops or payday loan outfits. The interest is outrageous. A payday loan can cost $15 per $100 for two weeks. That comes out to an annual rate of 443.21%.

If they want to buy furniture or televisions or appliances, they aren’t eligible for the “twelve months, same as cash” option like the rest of us. They have to buy from the “Rent To Own” stores, where after a year of paying $35.00 a week for a $500 television, they end up paying enough to buy three more.

Even buying food is expensive. There are no supermarkets where they live, so they are forced to shop in high priced convenience stores.

Part of it is the neighborhood. Not many banks open branches on the poor side of town. The same goes for large grocery store chains. The old smaller grocery stores that were in within walking distance for these people have closed down to make way for larger, more centrally located stores.

I believe the poor deserve a break. I believe banks should make low cost checking and savings accounts available to the poor. Grocery chains should open up at least grocery stores in poor neighborhoods. And all those Rent To Own places should have disclaimers on their commercials saying how much the television will really cost.

And let’s stop charging people extra for not having any money.

Give Up My SUV?


Wouldn’t you just love to be able to walk to every place you wanted to go? Imagine having work, shops, schools, libraries all just a few short blocks away. We’d not only have the good life in this lovely new development, we’d cut down on pollution and traffic because we’ll hardly use our cars at all.

This type of development is called mixed use, in which business and residential activity all takes place in the same area. And it also describes my hometown of Batavia, Ohio when I was growing up there in the 1960s.

My father walked to work. My sisters and I walked to school. (And despite what I tell my daughter, school was only three blocks away on flat ground, not five miles and uphill both ways) Before Kroger’s built a new store on the edge of town in 1961, my mother walked into town to buy groceries. We also walked to the drug store, the hardware store, the dime store, the shoe repair store, and the appliance store.

There was no master plan that ordained this mixed use. Batavia was founded in 1814, nearly a century before the automobile came into wide use. It was built with a main street straight through the middle of town and houses on either side.

Although nearly everybody in town owned a car in the 1960s, it was still more convenient to shop in town as opposed to driving the two lane highway to Cincinnati 45 minutes away. Going to the city was a rare treat. You dressed up, shopped all day and had lunch at Hathaway’s in the Pogue’s arcade.

That all changed with the construction of I-275, the ring road which made the trip into Cincinnati faster and easier. Shopping malls went up around the exits, including the one called Eastgate, five miles outside of town. Over the years, people stopped going into town for things like appliances and hardware, preferring to drive out to the mall to shop at Sears. One by one, the family owned business closed their doors.

But Batavia is no ghost town. As the county seat, the county offices have grown along with the population. Lawyers and county offices occupy many of the buildings now. The business that remain are the ones that office workers can go to during lunch or after work, like restaurants and hair salons.

My point is that this type of development can’t be replicated. The town had just enough people to keep its modest businesses going. And for a long time, there was no place else to go. These days, a business needs more than just the people in the immediate area to survive. They have to attract people from other areas and that means a steady stream of cars and big parking lots.

Americans love the freedom of movement their automobiles bring, but they don’t want to live with the urban sprawl and traffic the automobile has engendered. So they build their houses in one place and their businesses in another place, miles away.

Mixed use developments may take off, but I doubt it. There just won’t be enough people in the residential part to sustain the business part. You have to have people coming in form elsewhere in the city and they will come in their cars. Short of bulldozing every housing development and starting over from scratch, there’s not a whole lot you can do change that fact.

Except maybe move to Batavia. Buy a house in town, get a job at the court house, have all your meals at the Snappy Tomato on Main Street (sorry, Kroger’s moved to Eastgate a few years back) and you could probably get rid of your car all together.

Wouldn’t it be nice?

Remember Those Septuplets In Iowa?

The McCaughey Septuplets turned eight years old this Saturday. The event was noted in the Des Moines Register, but I don't recall seeing anything about it on the network news shows. I suppose that's good. Back in November of 1997, it seemed like that was all you saw on the news, some poor reporter standing out in the snow in front of the hospital in Des Moines, giving updates on the septuplets' impending birth.

Oh, the good old days of 1997 when the big stories were about birth not death.

My daughter was two then and quite enough for me. On Thanksgiving night in 1997, she threw up all over herself and her crib and as we cleaned her up, I thought about how awful it would be to tend to seven sick children instead of just the one we had. Even worse, being sick myself with seven well children running wild.

But there's more to deal with than just the normal childhood problems times seven. Multiple births are inherently risky. The babies are always low birth rate and will likely have serious health issues, requiring them to stay in the hospital for months before then can go home. (Two of the McCaughey septuplets have a type of cerebral palsy).

There's a dirty little secret in the fertility trade called "selective reduction." When the Pergonol does its job too well and the childless woman now finds herself pregnant with five or six embryos, she does have the option of reducing them to a more manageable number, like two or three. Many do it, preferring two healthy babies to six medically fragile ones.

Of course a fair amount refuse, saying they don't want to play God. To which I have to ask "Weren't you fooling around in God's jurisdiction already?" Yes, those embryos are living creatures, but they are a medical aberration, brought about by artificially stimulated ovaries. God never intended for woman to have litters.

It would help if insurance companies covered fertility treatments. They could allow women another go-round with the Pergonal if they release too many eggs in one cycle. It's certainly cheaper than covering the costs of multiple births and the longterm treatment all those babies will need for the first year or two of their lives, if not longer.

Then again, I'd skip the fertilty treatments all together and adopt a baby from Guatemala.