There are moments when my freelance career and my life intersect.
It happened again last week when I was working on a profile of Bashir Suba for the @ Work section of the New York Post. The piece appeared today at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/jobs/some_good_medicine_NsMFE6xxOg6bv0QlJoNuON and I'm pretty grateful. I love being printed in that lively tabloid.
But it was weird to be writing about the independent pharmacy. And it got weirder when Suba told me about how mail-order prescriptions are helping to kill his business. He knew as he said this that I'm part of the problem, using exactly that method to get one of the drugs I wish I did not have to take. But I do. And I don't love hanging out at the pharmacy, even the small independent one where he presides. I also don't like paying more, and I catch a break from mail-order program I use. It's not fair to small independent businesses like Suba Pharmacy.
I'm the son of people who ran a small, independent bookstore back when such a thing existed. Now I have a Barnes & Noble card and think of it favorably, if only because it was (is?) New York based and the Amazon people are out west somewhere. It's weird the emotional connections we feel with merchants, and when we lose the real connections to our small-town businesses we go right on imagining some relationship with a mega-corporation.
There's a wrinkle, though, with the smaller-is-better theory. And it plays out in real life. Like years ago when the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side drove out an independent bookstore and the writer (and my future professor) Victor Navasky wrote about how he was treated better at the superstore. I had something similar happen in Summit, N.J., where I eagerly awaited the arrival of Starbucks, having survived the sloppy service of a small, independent coffee store for years. I still love Starbucks, God help me, and could not help but notice this morning that the service at the Upper West Side place I frequent is nothing short of terrific. Speedy, too.
I don't feel good about it, but I recognize that sometimes smaller is better. Suba should not be at a competitive disadvantage, playing by more restrictive rules than the mail-order companies aligned with insurance giants. But I have enough guilt in my life without feeling too badly about my Barnes & Noble card.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
The President Takes a Stand
I’m glad the President called out the Republicans today on their opposition to extending unemployment benefits.
Unfortunately, this is something I know a little bit about. I’ve lived it over the past year. I’ve also lived with the sometimes crazy rules that come the financial assistance, which is appreciated and much-needed.
The Wall Street Journal keeps telling me that I’m being a drain on the economy by taking the unemployment benefits, and that I have no incentive to go out and get a job. Wrong on both counts.
The nation needs me out there buying my Starbucks latte, and as more and more Americans lose the little financial security that comes with unemployment benefits, businesses across the nation will find themselves losing customers at a time when they are desperately needed. As for an incentive to work, I have it. That’s why I’m freelancing as much as I can. But whether I’m motivated or not—and I’m more motivated than the assholes at the Journal who do not respond to my phone calls and emails—there are precious few jobs out there.
It’s a scary time. And it’s easy for a lot of us to feel left behind. Because we have been.
The President was right to behave as though he is that advocate. He was right to take a stand.
Unfortunately, this is something I know a little bit about. I’ve lived it over the past year. I’ve also lived with the sometimes crazy rules that come the financial assistance, which is appreciated and much-needed.
The Wall Street Journal keeps telling me that I’m being a drain on the economy by taking the unemployment benefits, and that I have no incentive to go out and get a job. Wrong on both counts.
The nation needs me out there buying my Starbucks latte, and as more and more Americans lose the little financial security that comes with unemployment benefits, businesses across the nation will find themselves losing customers at a time when they are desperately needed. As for an incentive to work, I have it. That’s why I’m freelancing as much as I can. But whether I’m motivated or not—and I’m more motivated than the assholes at the Journal who do not respond to my phone calls and emails—there are precious few jobs out there.
It’s a scary time. And it’s easy for a lot of us to feel left behind. Because we have been.
The President was right to behave as though he is that advocate. He was right to take a stand.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Go Ahead, Make My Month
Clint Eastwood could make staying in the city in July seem like the smarter choice.
At least some of us were feeling better about being here after reading the lineup of films that are part of “The Complete Clint Eastwood,” a comprehensive series at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. It turns out that the Walter Reade Theater is playing host to all the films that Eastwood has directed (at least so far), starting last week and continuing through July 27.
I hopped onto my beloved M5 bus and went downtown a couple of hours ago to catch “Play Misty for Me,” which was the first movie that Eastwood directed and is basically an earlier version of “Fatal Attraction.”
This time around Jessica Walter got to play the crazy broad who mistook sex for love. Eastwood cares more for Donna Mills, although it’s hard to see why in this particular context. There are some fine performances by supporting players in the movie, which holds up during the scary parts as decent popular entertainment. The movie, though, is most interesting in the way it represents interests Eastwood would explore in different ways in the years to come, like music and how music plays, literally and figuratively, in the movies. It’s also fascinating to see that two of the African-American actors in the movie, playing smaller roles, seem more three-dimensional in their performances than Eastwood or Mills do in leading parts.
There’s lots more coming. I’m interested to see if “Unforgiven” from 1992 was as good as I thought it was back then. I remember believing it really deserved the Best Picture Oscar that the movie nabbed. Others worth investigating: “A Perfect World” on July 20 and “Million Dollar Baby” on July 25 and “The Bridges of Madison County” on July 21. In the latter, Meryl Streep gives a great performance. Which is not exactly breaking news.
It’s good to have Eastwood’s films on view, especially in such a comprehensive way and in such a respected forum. He’s been such a pop culture icon for so long that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s a filmmaker with such a stellar record.
At least some of us were feeling better about being here after reading the lineup of films that are part of “The Complete Clint Eastwood,” a comprehensive series at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. It turns out that the Walter Reade Theater is playing host to all the films that Eastwood has directed (at least so far), starting last week and continuing through July 27.
I hopped onto my beloved M5 bus and went downtown a couple of hours ago to catch “Play Misty for Me,” which was the first movie that Eastwood directed and is basically an earlier version of “Fatal Attraction.”
This time around Jessica Walter got to play the crazy broad who mistook sex for love. Eastwood cares more for Donna Mills, although it’s hard to see why in this particular context. There are some fine performances by supporting players in the movie, which holds up during the scary parts as decent popular entertainment. The movie, though, is most interesting in the way it represents interests Eastwood would explore in different ways in the years to come, like music and how music plays, literally and figuratively, in the movies. It’s also fascinating to see that two of the African-American actors in the movie, playing smaller roles, seem more three-dimensional in their performances than Eastwood or Mills do in leading parts.
There’s lots more coming. I’m interested to see if “Unforgiven” from 1992 was as good as I thought it was back then. I remember believing it really deserved the Best Picture Oscar that the movie nabbed. Others worth investigating: “A Perfect World” on July 20 and “Million Dollar Baby” on July 25 and “The Bridges of Madison County” on July 21. In the latter, Meryl Streep gives a great performance. Which is not exactly breaking news.
It’s good to have Eastwood’s films on view, especially in such a comprehensive way and in such a respected forum. He’s been such a pop culture icon for so long that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s a filmmaker with such a stellar record.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Does That 'Liberal' Label Scare Kagan?
Just once I would like a Supreme Court justice to get to the bench before she begins disappointing me.
Alas, Elena Kagan has already had her sad moment. It came last week on the second day of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Alabama’s gift to the Senate, Jeff Sessions, quizzed Kagan about whether she’s a “liberal progressive.”
Her amazing response: “I honestly don’t know what that label means.”
Here we go again. Back in 1995, Kagan wrote an article calling the confirmation process a “vapid and hollow charade.” This week she proved herself right.
Oh, she had some nice moments. In post-Bork America, we allow our judicial nominees to have a personality. So it was okay when Kagan, asked about what she was doing on Christmas Day, responded with a quip about how she, like all Jews, was probably at a Chinese restaurant.
Personality is fine, but philosophy is not. So when it came time to defend liberalism, Kagan punted. A woman who clerked for the late, great Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall went out of her way to tell us that she was a separate and distinct entity from her one-time mentor. No kidding. He would have answered the question about being a liberal.
How did we get here, to this weird moment in American political life, a time when nobody wants to be called a liberal, especially a liberal? It probably started around 1980, when candidate Ronald Reagan tarred Jimmy Carter as a liberal. Sessions tossed “liberal” and “progressive” together, a legitimate move since around the age of Dukakis the “liberals” started shying away from that term and moving toward “progressive.” And the trend certainly continued through last summer’s confirmation hearings, when Sonia Sotomayor steered clear of any such terms. Then she got on the court and began judging things just like a liberal. At the hearings, though, it's been like a book: Smart Women, Foolish Judiciary Committee Choices.
With Kagan, it’s worse. At least for those of us who spend our days on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Some of us are having a bit of trouble believing that Kagan, raised as a Jewish New Yorker in the age of feminism, never got around to defining the phrase “liberal progressive.” If nothing else, she could go back to the Latin roots of the word “liberal,” which would be “libera,” meaning “free,” and navigate from there. She might realize that a liberal is someone who believes in individual freedom and common purpose and the universal rights of men and women, pretty much as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights back in December 1948. That document was the crowning achievement of former First Lady and international heroine Eleanor Roosevelt. She was, in case Elena Kagan has forgotten, also a liberal.
Liberals are victims of their own success. Good liberal ideas have been so accepted in the culture that they’re considered mainstream, not liberal. But Social Security is a liberal idea. So are federally-secured student loans. Housing and food for people in dire need. Unemployment benefits. Overseas, it’s a liberal idea to give aid to our allies. At home, it’s a liberal idea that women should be as free as men to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, although it took the conservative Reagan to first make that happen. Liberals championed the idea that African-Americans should be allowed to vote without paying a poll tax and that gay people should be allowed to get married. Good ideas.
Still, liberals seem ashamed of their heritage or ignorant of it. Liberals should be explaining their successes instead of going into a kind of linguistic hiding. Cause the jig is up anyway. People tend to notice who’s a liberal and who’s not.
All of which makes Kagan’s dance this week so weird and depressing. This is a person who is going to do battle with Antonin Scalia? Granted, confirmation hearings are no longer the place for extended discourse on such matters. That’s how it is. But there must be some middle ground, some way to permit just a little candid talk about judicial philosophy before we hand over a lifetime appointment. Jokes about Chinese food are just not enough.
Alas, Elena Kagan has already had her sad moment. It came last week on the second day of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Alabama’s gift to the Senate, Jeff Sessions, quizzed Kagan about whether she’s a “liberal progressive.”
Her amazing response: “I honestly don’t know what that label means.”
Here we go again. Back in 1995, Kagan wrote an article calling the confirmation process a “vapid and hollow charade.” This week she proved herself right.
Oh, she had some nice moments. In post-Bork America, we allow our judicial nominees to have a personality. So it was okay when Kagan, asked about what she was doing on Christmas Day, responded with a quip about how she, like all Jews, was probably at a Chinese restaurant.
Personality is fine, but philosophy is not. So when it came time to defend liberalism, Kagan punted. A woman who clerked for the late, great Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall went out of her way to tell us that she was a separate and distinct entity from her one-time mentor. No kidding. He would have answered the question about being a liberal.
How did we get here, to this weird moment in American political life, a time when nobody wants to be called a liberal, especially a liberal? It probably started around 1980, when candidate Ronald Reagan tarred Jimmy Carter as a liberal. Sessions tossed “liberal” and “progressive” together, a legitimate move since around the age of Dukakis the “liberals” started shying away from that term and moving toward “progressive.” And the trend certainly continued through last summer’s confirmation hearings, when Sonia Sotomayor steered clear of any such terms. Then she got on the court and began judging things just like a liberal. At the hearings, though, it's been like a book: Smart Women, Foolish Judiciary Committee Choices.
With Kagan, it’s worse. At least for those of us who spend our days on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Some of us are having a bit of trouble believing that Kagan, raised as a Jewish New Yorker in the age of feminism, never got around to defining the phrase “liberal progressive.” If nothing else, she could go back to the Latin roots of the word “liberal,” which would be “libera,” meaning “free,” and navigate from there. She might realize that a liberal is someone who believes in individual freedom and common purpose and the universal rights of men and women, pretty much as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights back in December 1948. That document was the crowning achievement of former First Lady and international heroine Eleanor Roosevelt. She was, in case Elena Kagan has forgotten, also a liberal.
Liberals are victims of their own success. Good liberal ideas have been so accepted in the culture that they’re considered mainstream, not liberal. But Social Security is a liberal idea. So are federally-secured student loans. Housing and food for people in dire need. Unemployment benefits. Overseas, it’s a liberal idea to give aid to our allies. At home, it’s a liberal idea that women should be as free as men to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, although it took the conservative Reagan to first make that happen. Liberals championed the idea that African-Americans should be allowed to vote without paying a poll tax and that gay people should be allowed to get married. Good ideas.
Still, liberals seem ashamed of their heritage or ignorant of it. Liberals should be explaining their successes instead of going into a kind of linguistic hiding. Cause the jig is up anyway. People tend to notice who’s a liberal and who’s not.
All of which makes Kagan’s dance this week so weird and depressing. This is a person who is going to do battle with Antonin Scalia? Granted, confirmation hearings are no longer the place for extended discourse on such matters. That’s how it is. But there must be some middle ground, some way to permit just a little candid talk about judicial philosophy before we hand over a lifetime appointment. Jokes about Chinese food are just not enough.
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