Showing posts with label Michelle Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michelle Obama. Show all posts

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Idiotic Quote Of The Day

The NY Times has a nice, human-interest article about how Malia and Sasha Obama are spending their summers. Pure fluff. Guess what - Barack and Michelle Obama took their girls with them when President Obama went to foreign countries on state visits. This is called a "family vacation." Being the serious people they are, Obamas made sure that the girls got some educational value out of, for example, seeing slave quarters in Ghana. The Obamas will also be going to Martha's Vineyard. The Times, naturally, has to look for balance, so they found a columnist, Jonathan Baer, of The Philadelphia Daily News, who isn't happy with the Obamas' plans to go to Martha's Vineyard, which is a vacation spot fairly close to Washington, DC, and is much closer, and more convenient for a president to visit, than, say, Crawford, Texas. Nonetheless, Mr. Baer tells us that
“Those who view Obama as an elitist will have new ammunition,” Mr. Baer wrote.
I have to say that I agree with Mr. Baer that the Obamas are members of the elite. Of course, I happen to think that Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama are members of the elite of our society because Barack Obama is President of the United States of America. That tends to put a person - and their immediate family! - in rarefied company.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Michelle Obama in the garden

The new White House garden, that is. I think this is great, but I am really curious to see how conservatives criticize this.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Michelle Obama, Policy Wonk

Michelle Obama has been visiting government agencies around Washington. She is, of course, wildly popular. The NY Times, in its article, tries to find some kind of controversy or conflict, as is its wont as a newspaper. But this seems silly.

It is a notably different approach than the one embraced by the former first lady, Laura Bush,
Well, yeah. Michelle Obama is different from Laura Bush. Sort of like Barack Obama is different from George Bush.

Some observers praised Mrs. Obama’s foray into the legislative debate, saying the new first lady, who is a Harvard-educated lawyer and a former hospital executive, was eminently qualified to promote the president’s policies.
Which she is.

Others expressed surprise, saying they had expected Mrs. Obama to focus on her daughters and on the traditional issues she had emphasized in the presidential campaign, like supporting military families and working parents. Her remarks, they said, carried echoes of former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, though Mrs. Obama has said she will not become involved in policymaking as Mrs. Clinton did.
Why anyone expected Michelle Obama to be a "traditional" First Lady is beyond me. Michelle Obama sounds a little like Hillary Clinton. Gosh, that's certainly a surprise! Not.

“She went to some lengths to say she was going to be first mom in chief,” Myra Gutin, a scholar of first ladies at Rider University in New Jersey, said of Mrs. Obama. “I don’t think we ever really imagined her edging toward public policy like this. It’s not like she’s making public policy. But it’s a little less neutral than some of the other things she’s talked about focusing on.”
If you did not imagine Michelle Obama engaging in policy debates, then there is a problem with your imagination, not Michelle Obama. Welcome to the 21st century. Yes, the first First Lady with a Harvard Law degree has strong opinions. I don't normally associate the word "neutral" with Michelle Obama. And that's a good thing.

Of course, on the other side are women who see this as utterly normal.

Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center here, countered that Mrs. Obama was successfully balancing her ceremonial role as first lady, her role as a mother and her keen interest in public policy.
Keep it up, Michelle! You're doing a great job.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Michelle's dress

I liked Michelle's dress, I thot she looked great. It's from a designer named Isabel Toledo, who I have never heard of, but I think she has a great name for a designer. It's great that she went with an obscure designer (although apparently she used to work for Anne Klein), by which I mean "not Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein or Donna Karan." I hope she wears a lot of Narciso Rodriguez, because I love him, and apparently he could use some help.

I also liked Aretha Franklin's hat, even if it was totally ridiculous. She is Aretha Franklin, ultimate diva. And I bet she was one of the only people on that platform who was actually warm.

Update: The NY Times has a short interview with the now-famous Ms. Toledo. She didn't know until this morning whether or not Michelle would wear the dress.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Obamamania!

There are so many great articles about Obama all over the place that it's impossible to keep track of them, and impossible to read more than a handful.

But here are some of the ones that I liked.

From London, the FT has an article about the history of the White House.

In the LA Times, Meghan Daum writes about the poet who will read a poem at the Inaugural, Elizabeth Alexander. I'm looking forward to that.

Also in the LA Times, Obama is in the house - literally. Many people are putting pictures of Obama in their house. Once upon a time, it was JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr. Now it's Obama.

Barack Obama himself observed Martin Luther King, Jr. day as a day of service. Boy does that take me back. I was part of a "day of service" a couple of days before Clinton's Inaugural. A bunch of people decided to try and renovate a historic old theater in Northeast Washington, the Atlas Theater. I was involved with a group called Public Allies. It was a great day - 400 people showed up to paint and clean. I was supposed to find out what the local community wanted from this place. I walked around the neighborhood with an older African American man named Robert Jackson (I'll never forget him). He explained to me what the neighborhood needed, but I never had a chance to communicate to the other people involved. It was just too crazy of a day. Three US Senators showed - media was there by the truckload. Cypress Hill did a concert in the street.

But at the end of the day, it was boarded up, and everybody went home, to see what tomorrow would bring. Plans were a little unclear.

I went back the next day. I was the only one. I spent the day talking to a homeless guy, and he ended up trusting me. But nothing happened there for months.

That was 16 years ago. It was symbolic of the best and worst of the Clinton administration; a lot of excitement, but not a lot of focus. But the best part was that experiences like that trained a lot of energetic young liberals who are now in a position to take advantage of the lessons they learned. For example, later that year Public Allies opened up an office in Chicago, and hired, as the Executive Director, a woman named Michelle Obama.

She was recommended for the job by a member of the board of Public Allies - her husband.

So now we have come full circle - the enthusiasm of that day did not, in fact, dissipate with the lack of follow through the next day. There was follow-up. It took a while. But wow, what results.

I didn't start out this post planning to write about that day so long ago. But I hope I can be excused for getting carried away.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Happy Birthday to Michelle Obama

Today is Michelle Obama's birthday. Happy birthday to the next First Lady of the United States! I hope Barack gets her something nice. I think he's technically unemployed right now, so he should have lots of time to do some shopping for her.

I have a friend who, in one long weekend, graduated from college, turned 21, and got married. But this sure tops that - having your birthday, celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and then seeing your husband sworn in as President of United States.

Just three more days!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Grandma in the House - the White House

Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, Barack Obama's mother-in-law, will be staying with the Obamas in the White House, at least for a little while. I think that's great. She'll generate a certain amount of attention for that generation of older African American women, the generation who had so few role models of their own. This is real live history.

Mr. Obama felt that sense of history on election night when Mrs. Robinson squeezed his hand as the final results came in.

“You had this sense of, well, what’s she thinking?” Mr. Obama said on “60 Minutes.” “For a black woman who grew up in the ’50s, you know, in a segregated Chicago, to watch her daughter become first lady of the United States.”


I also noticed that Martin Luther King Day this year falls on January 19th, the day before the Inaugural. As an African-American woman in my office put it: "The Dream - realized."

Monday, August 25, 2008

Michelle's Speech

I just read Michelle's speech. It's really good. I also watched the last part of it. I read it before I watched it, which was a little weird (the text was posted before she gave the speech).

She was great. Just phenomenal. She's really one of the Obama's campaigns best weapons, particularly in contrast to Cindy McCain. The best possible argument against this absurd nonsense that the Obamas are elitist is just the simple truth: they were both born to middle- and lower-middle class families. Both of them worked their way up.

The best moment came at the end, when Obama himself was onscreen. He was in Kansas City, Missouri, with a family there. The Obamas' girls came on stage, and Michelle and the girls waved to Barack and chatted with him for a few minutes. Ridiculously charming. Talk about family values.

One reason I am a Michelle Obama fan is that she worked for Public Allies, as the Executive Director of their Chicago office. I got to know Public Allies when I was in Washington, DC. Public Allies is, hands down, one of the coolest non-profit organizations that I know of.

What's even cooler than the fact that Michelle Obama worked for Public Allies is that she was recommended for the position by Barack, who was on the board at the time.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Too many superhero movies?

Is it possible that we have too many superhero movies coming out this summer? This thot had not occurred to me until I read Rachel Abramowitz in the LA Times today. She is starting to burn out on the men of steel:
Sp far this summer, I've had my brain pummeled by Robert Downey Jr. flying around in a techno-suit, Adam Sandler as an invincible (and priapic) former Mossad agent, Steve Carell as a nerdy indestructible super spy, Harrison Ford as a Teflon 60-year-old archaeologist, Edward Norton as the incredibly angry green dude -- which I admit I missed but saw the ads. However, I did catch an early screening of Will Smith as a hung-over but still unbeatable superhero. And I still have "The Dark Knight" and "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" to go.

I don't know how many more superhero movies I can take.

Some were good superhero movies. Some were bad superhero movies. Yet, they're all beginning to merge together as a very long series of whammies, and fireballs, and ironic quips. In my mind, which might have been addled by the decibel level in the theaters, Hancock is taking down Indiana Jones. Zohan canoodles and karate chops Agent 99. My butt is kicked. Your butt is kicked. Sigh.
I can see where she is coming from: too much of a good thing, etc. Of course, she's not in the target demographic, as she realizes.
OK, MAYBE it's just me. I'm not a 14-year-old boy; so all this superhero firepower isn't hitting me in the solar plexus.
Looking for a hook to explain this sociologically, she tries out the idea that this is a sign of where we are now as a society.
Author Peter Biskind . . . assures me that superheroes return with bad times.
. . .
"Who doesn't want a superhero when the world is in trouble?" asks marketing guru Jane Buckingham of the Youth Intelligence Group, who studies young people. "Who doesn't want somebody to come save the day when the world is a mess?
Personally, I think this is a fun idea to play with, but I'm not sure I buy it. These movies have been in development for years, long before the subprime mess or exploding gas prices. Iron Man has been around in comic book form for literally decades.

But I'm also not that worried about too many superhero movies. I'm fine with all of them. Also, she blurs genres a bit - Zohan and Get Smart are about normal guys who are just a little special, but don't have any super powers. They're much more action/comedies than superhero movies. As a once-upon-a-time 14 year old boy, this is a key distinction for me. Maybe not for other people.

Going beyond her own lack of interest in any more instantiations of this genre, and refining the political connection, Abramowitz brings Obama into the discussion.
Like all caped crusaders, he is a mysterious cipher, and yet a reassuring figure, like Superman or Spider-Man. And you all know that beautiful, lanky Michelle Obama would look great in her own spandex.
Michelle Obama as a superhero: I am totally there. I'm not sure I want to go into Obama as superhero, because I don't want to be accused of drinking the Kool Aid, but I think there are some interesting ideas there. I will try to keep this in mind as I review more movies over the summer.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Fox News and the Baby Mama drama

I try not to write too much about Fox News, because I just have very little interest in paying much attention to it. But lately, they seem to be getting themselves in trouble. The latest brouhaha, over the use of the term "Obama's Baby Mama" to describe Michelle Obama, requires a response.


Here's a good description of the problem:
In addition to being insulting, the phrase "baby mama" is also inaccurate. The Urban Dictionary defines "baby mama" as"the mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved."
However, I should note that Fox has apologized. Credit where it is due.

“A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment,” Fox's Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said in a statement to Politico.
I'm a firm believer in applying the principle of innocent until proven guilty, so I try not to pass judgment unless the evidence is clear. But the evidence this time around is strong. This was not a slip of the tongue. Someone had to make a conscious decision to put this on the air. And they clearly thot that they could get away with it. I don't want to try and figure out what the rationale was. I do think, however, that there may be a generational divide:

A Fox staffer said that others internally were bothered by describing the potential first lady and very accomplished women — as the senator's "baby mama."
I'm going to assume that the people who were bothered by this were younger people, who grew up a little more sensitive to these issues. As an Obama supporter, I try to believe in the possibilities of forgiveness and understanding.

What I have not seen mentioned is that Fox seems utterly clueless about the double standard of applying this to a black woman. Would they ever use the term "baby mama" to describe Laura Bush? Or Nancy Reagan? Or Barbara Bush? Or Rosalyn Carter? No.

So here's a suggestion for commentators, conservative or otherwise: if you are wondering about the propriety of using a particular term to describe Barack or Michelle Obama, try to imagine using it to describe Ronald or Nancy Reagan. Then you won't be subjected to damning ridicule.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Report from UCLA

This is a couple of days old, and a tad outdated, now that California has had its primary, but I am still inspired by this.

I went to UCLA on Sunday to hear Michelle Obama speak. The first thing I would like to point out is that this is an example of the power of Barack Obama's message of unity: he doesn't just bring people of different races, classes and backgrounds together. He brings USC people to UCLA. That's powerful.

But about Michelle. Very impressive. You can see why they're married - she's just about as good of a speaker as he is. The other speakers were Caroline Kennedy, who was solid, and Elena Maria Druza, head of the LA County Federation of Labor, who was good, and then Oprah, was superb. No wonder that woman is a billionaire because of her ability to talk. I have seen few people as comfortable with a microphone as that woman - it's like the black plastic becomes an extension of her arm. Turn the thing on, and boom! she's off.

But as good as Oprah was, Michelle was even better. Tough, competent, and yet classy. A man married to this woman is a man who is not afraid of powerful women. A man married to this woman is a man who enjoys being in the presence of a powerful, brilliant woman. You can see why, when they met, she was his boss. In a close race to the Democratic nomination, Michelle Obama will make a difference. I can almost imagine her following Hillary's example and, in 2016, running as the Senator from Illinois (or whenever that opens up).

And then, as a surprise, Maria Shriver showed up. I've never heard her speak, but damn if she wasn't impressive too. She had decided to come to this event, she told us, just that morning. So she hadn't spent any time preparing. She hadn't, she also told us, even brushed her hair or put any makeup on (you could've fooled me, I thot she looked great). But, speaking without any preparation or any notes, she spoke as if she had been preparing for weeks. As if she had been on the campaign trail for months. She knew exactly what she wanted to say. She had the applause lines down. She didn't pause. And, interestingly, she had a good personal relationship with all of the other women: she is Caroline Kennedy's cousin, and she started out her work life at the same station as Oprah, so they have known each other for something like 30 years. And she knows Maria Elena Druza from being in politics in California. And she knows Michelle Obama from being involved in Democratic politics. It was one big party.