Category: Blog

Excerpted from “This I Remember” by Eleanor Roosevelt, published 1949.

“There are two kinds of snobbishness. That of the man who has had a good many opportunities and looks down on those who lack them is usually recognized by all. The other kind of snobbishness is rarely understood, yet it is real. It is that of the self-made man, who glories in his successes in overcoming difficulties and admires greatly people who have achieved the things he considers of importance. Governor Smith, for instance, had a great deal of respect for material success. He admired men who, like John Raskob, had made a success in business through their own efforts or who in some other way had made a name in the world in spite of modest beginnings. But he tended to look down on a man who had not met and conquered the situations he himself had – a man like Franklin, who was content not to make a great deal of money so long as he had enough to live comfortably. Franklin had always been moderately wealthy, but Governor Smith couldn’t believe that he could be as able as if he had been self-made. The fact that Franklin would spend money on a picture or on the first edition of a book but would economize on food and clothes and entertainment was hard for him to understand. Governor Smith always wore expensive clothes, because they indicated material success; he liked to eat in well-known restaurants; he liked good food and specially prepared dishes. When we went to Albany, [after Franklin was elected governor in 1929] the domestic staff in the Mansion was troubled because they felt they could not cater adequately for us. For instance, they had always had to make monumental desserts for the Smiths, and thought we would expect even grader dishes. They were greatly relieved when they learned that we ate very simple food- like our traditional scrambled eggs for Sunday-night suppers.

Franklin could see no sense in spending money in a restaurant when he had a home to eat in, and he had a lot of the little economies. For example, he never paid more than two dollars for a shirt, and boasted when he found he could get one for $1.50, and he never would buy more than two pairs of shoes, though he bought those and other things in England, as his father had. When we were first married, he asked me one day what I had done with a pair of shoes, and I said I had sent them to be soled. He thought I meant “sold” and was very angry. Not long ago, when I was cleaning out the big house after his death, I found a suit, which I gave to Jimmy, that his grandfather had bought in London and which had been kept all those years simply because it was ‘too good to throw away.’

Governor Smith did not understand that kind of economy. I always felt strongly that he had a defensive attitude, which arose, of course, from his consciousness that he lacked breadth of knowledge, for he was too intelligent not to know that he did not have a certain kind of cultural background. It often seemed to me that he said things which were contemptuous of academic knowledge simply to bolster his own sense of security.”

It often happens at the bar. A guy comes over to you and pays you a compliment. It’s a real honor; he’s taken time out from socializing with his friends to talk to you! Instead of understanding how much of an honor it is, however, you tell him that you’re not really interested. He informs you that you’re ugly anyway! He informs you, in so many words, that you’re a Nasty Woman.

 

I had the good fortune to grow up on one hundred acres of pristine, second-growth Illinois woodland with parents who allowed me to explore them freely, often to injurious end. Before the end of grade school I had visited the ER on a couple of occasions for legitimate injuries that were entirely my own fault as an adventuresome kid. In attempting to see how high I could climb a haystack, I fell and broke my leg. Later, I fell off my bike, chipping a tooth and permanently scarring my knee in the process. My parents gave me a lot of freedom to test my own boundaries, and when I pushed those boundaries too far, they would take me to the Emergency Room.

Many years later, my dad told me that during these ER visits, nurses would really pester him with questions about how this child became injured. He said that he felt the nurses were accusing him of something he did not do. I reminded him that nurses are trained to look for signs of child abuse, and he agrees that is a net good all around. He may not have enjoyed the moments when their questions were directed at him, but he recognizes that ER nurses having the skills and training to look for signs of child abuse, is ultimately a net good for society.

Earlier this year, I learned that ER nurses received training as a part of the implementation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. This federally-funded program was created to provide health insurance to millions of children in America whose families are ineligible for Medicaid, but whose incomes make purchasing private health insurance difficult. After then-First Lady Hillary Clinton was unable to pass universal health care in 1993, she was able to cobble together bipartisan support for the SCHIP program, which immediately provided health care to six million children. Since then, tens of millions more American children have received routine and complex health care through this vital program, and it was later expanded under Obamacare. While her role as First Lady prevented her from actually passing the legislation, she was its most vocal and active advocate. Most certainly, SCHIP would not have passed without her work. As a result of her work, ER nurses were given better tools and updated training to screen for child abuse. While my family was fortunate to have private health insurance and did not require the benefits provided by the SCHIP program, I still benefited from the program when those nurses made extra-super-sure that this kid who visits the ER with some frequency is not being abused by those who should be looking out for her.

So … basically, Hillary Clinton has been fighting for me since long before I knew it. She was fighting for millions of other children and families in America while I was learning to navigate a bike without training wheels. She isn’t an ideal candidate, and I sure do wish she hadn’t gotten so messed up with the Big Banks in the decades in between; but to say that she isn’t easily the most qualified person running, the best prepared to lead on day one, or an extremely resilient person who just refuses to quit fighting, would be flatly wrong.

She’s been fighting for me for my entire life, and I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton on November 8.

Where I took these photos, or when, is largely a mystery. These were all taken with a film camera sometime between 2007 and 2016. The film was very improperly stored and I don’t think my Minolta is exposing the film correctly. This does not exclude the possibility that the film is the problem, and not my camera. Further testing is required. Regardless, part of the fun of shooting with film over digital is that you don’t know what you’re getting. This time I got a whammy, but I’m kind of into the few highly abstracted things I did get.

August 19-21, 2016
Intermittent and strong sun showers all weekend made a misty, quiet and preferable option to the Air and Water Show, which is the worst.

Schlafling (verb) – Silently holding a reprehensible opinion, because you know that opinion makes you a garbage human and you don’t want anyone to know what a garbage human you are.

“I think my boss is voting for Trump, but he won’t admit it. He’s schlafling.”

Named in honor of the First Lady of Garbage Humans, Phyllis Schlafly. While Phyllis herself was never known to hold her reprehensible opinions silently, she did help to create a world where many people believe, think and vote for candidates who hold those same bigoted, xenophobic, racist views. She added legitimacy to racist and deeply sexist arguments that women belong at home, rather than the workplace, classroom, or wherever she pleases, and that minorities should sit quietly in awe and respect of the status quo. Without Phyllis’ hard work, women would have a constitutional right to equal protection and treatment under the law. Without Phyllis’ hard work, Donald Trump wouldn’t be a legitimate presidential candidate.

We don’t need a word for loudly holding a reprehensible opinion, that’s just being an asshole. We do need a word for a particularly noxious phenomenon, where 13.3 million Americans voted in the primaries for a man endorsed by David Duke, but the bulk of those people keep silent about it. When the KKK supports something, you can be reasonably assured that thing is reprehensible. But more Americans voted for a bigot running on a white nationalistic platform, than have voted in favor of any other Republican candidate in recent history. Most of those people are perfectly reasonable folks that you would meet in your every day life. They don’t let on they have a xenophobic, racist opinion. They don’t post “Make America Great Again” signs in their business windows or slap bumper stickers on their cars because they recognize that would invite criticism and disdain. They are keeping hush-hush about their racist viewpoints, because they know on some level what a failure they are of civilization.

They are schlafling.