Category Archives: Zeitgeist

I like failure

January 12, 2008 TZT 2 Comments

Failure Magazine, that is. I guess an argument could be made that I also like actual failure, since I’ve worked in the volatile field of print media for the bulk of my career. I’ve been on intimate terms with layoffs and shut-downs far more often than I would have liked.

What I enjoy about the online magazine is that it reminds us how often scientists, artists, political movements, entrepreneurs and others failed before they made major breakthroughs.

One of today’s failures of the day is the reminder that the U.S. House of Representatives turned down a proposal to give women the right to vote on on this date in 1915.

Five years later, the 19th amendment was finally ratified, although it came fourteen years after the death of one of its best-known champions, Susan B. Anthony. Had she lived to see the day that her long life of work on suffrage finally paid off, she would have been 100 years old.

You never know what tenacity and a little faith might yield.

Life soundtrack: Beck, Mellow Gold, “Loser”

Oh My Ohio, Zeitgeist

A political post!

January 6, 2008 tinymantras 2 Comments

I started paying attention to the presidential debates pretty late in the game, mainly because they started so unbelievably early. But after perking up for the past couple of weeks, I’ve decided that virtually every television pundit is even more full of it now than they were last time we went through this. I’m especially tired of Chris Matthews and Cokie Roberts, who have incredibly myopic, insulting views of the Midwest.

Meanwhile, it is a compelling and historic democratic race. And while I will be one of the first to shed a tear of joy if there is first woman or first African American presidential win, I’m frankly not convinced that Clinton or Obama have the best political agenda for women or African Americans in this country.

I’m more interested in John Edwards, and I’m also bored with the passive-aggressive pundits who keep trying to rule him out. I share several of the opinions of the moms on independent web site The MOMocrats, where the catch-phrase is “Vote for John Edwards or you’re grounded.”

Check them out.

Notes of a She-Hack, Zeitgeist

Why Santa is real to me

December 24, 2007 tinymantras 2 Comments

When I was nine years old, my parents separated and my mother, brother and I moved from the east coast to Ohio. After living with cousins for one endless summer, we moved into a rented, red-brick house in a small suburban school district. A Doberman named Thor lived on one side of us, a family of five with a bespectacled patriarch who wore denim overalls and drank a six-pack of bottled Coca Cola daily on the other. Presumably, Thor didn’t live alone, but I don’t remember much about his owners.

I remember a lot of things about the year that we lived in that house. When mom signed the lease, our bedrooms were white, but by the time we moved in, mine had turned to yellow, my brother’s to blue, and my mother’s to a bright shade of lime green that she affectionately referred to as “pukey.” I remember lying in her window seat, listening to the radio news report that people had been trampled to death at a Who concert just down the interstate in Cincinnati.

Our pet German Shepherd was too big for our lives there, so she was passed on to a pair of farmers. I sobbed, standing in my roller skates as I watched the happy couple drive away with her in a boxy, powder blue pick-up truck after telling me how loved she would be in her new home, how thrilled she would be with all of that space to run.

I once got sick from eating too many mulberries from the neighbor’s yard. I met one of the only friends I still stay in touch with from childhood when her puppy, Satchmo, nearly knocked me off of the green, $12 bicycle that my mother bought me at a rummage sale in New Jersey a year before.

On Christmas eve that year – our first alone as a three person family unit – we were all winding down upstairs, getting ready for bed. My mom was in the bathtub and my brother and I were resisting sleep – bouncing around in the hallway together, too anxious to get to Christmas morning to rest.

Then we heard a rumpus of thuds and bells on the roof, followed by a man’s voice in the living room: “HO HO HO! Merry Christmas Turner family!” My mother scrambled for a robe and we all ran to the landing of the stairs together to look out the window. Santa ran up the driveway next to our house and waved at us cheerfully before disappearing into the dark. And, like any normal children raised on the threat of Santa, my brother and I sprinted to our beds and pulled the covers up over our heads, as though whatever gifts we had under the tree might disappear if we were caught awake. Mom acted concerned, even nervous. She went downstairs and found that the deadbolts were locked. She made a big deal of checking that the windows were locked too. Her only conclusion? “That must have been Santa Claus.”

In the years since, I’ve asked her several different times who that Santa really was. There were a number of uncles, neighbors, friends and co-workers who could have been candidates. Her answer usually goes something like “You tell me. If I was expecting someone to come into our house and play Santa, why would I have been naked in the tub? The whole thing scared the bejesus out of me.”

This year, like 1979, has been one of those upending, confusing periods. And this holiday season has been marked by stress, unreasonable expectations, health concerns and exhaustion. Yet somehow, I got the holiday cards out in time. I even made several of my gifts this year, and they are all wrapped and ready for the morning.

As I get ready to go to sleep tonight, I’m listening for sleigh bells.

Merry Christmas.

Keen Insights Into the Obvious, Notes of a She-Hack, Zeitgeist

Who on earth are these people?

December 15, 2007 TZT 12 Comments

A couple of years ago, my mother found an old roll of film in her house and developed it. She didn’t recognize any of the faces in the pictures.

Most of the guests that she and my stepfather have hosted in their home over the last 18 years have been family members. So she passed the pictures around at Christmas after she found them. Still, no one recognized the people, the flowers, the welcoming goose or the bell.

I found the pictures again today. I’ve been trying to clear a few of the stray boxes of random stuff I have around the house. My husband asked why I kept them, since no one knows who these people are.

The images are so methodical and symmetrical. They were taken with such clear intent, meant to be put in a multi-paned frame or photo album and passed through generations. It seemed callous to cast them, negatives and all, into the garbage.

I’m also fond of the weird and rosy glow that the aged film gave their earnest expressions. I like the hint of a ponytail that sits on the androgynous Hello Kitty child’s shoulder like three shoelaces.

I also love a mystery.

By the time that the fourth or fifth family member looked at these and shrugged in utter confusion, I laughed for an unreasonable amount of time. I imagined all kinds of scenarios that could land a stray roll of film at our house, by way of somebody’s purse, luggage or briefcase. I imagined family members with unknown second lives and science fiction conspiracies in which these important faces were zapped out of our memory through some unknown technology.

There’s only one image that’s incongruous with the others:

For the sake of de-cluttering my cluttered home, I thought I’d put out this last clarion call to more distant relatives and the winds of the Internet to see if I can find out their identities and deliver the photos to the appropriate hands.

Any clues? Theories? Face identification experts?

To find all posts related to this one, click here

Zeitgeist

Customer service stinks. Everywhere.

November 7, 2007 TZT 1 Comment

Here is an email I just sent to a local furniture company:

To whom it may concern,

I came to your east side store last night specifically because you offer next-day delivery. My mother is recovering from rotator cuff surgery, and I needed to buy a recliner for her in a hurry because she was having so much pain and difficulty sleeping in her bed. Her doctor’s office told us that she would have an easier time in a comfortable recliner.
I told a very kind associate about the circumstances, and she helped me to pick the right piece. I was then assured by the front desk that it would be delivered by this evening, and given a receipt with delivery dated for today that assured me of the same thing. Everyone involved was aware that I was buying this piece of furniture for a medical situation.
When I called to find out the approximate time that it would arrive, I was told that it was in fact scheduled to come out tomorrow night – a full day later than I had been promised. I was then told that there was no way to rectify this, or even to get it to her earlier in the day tomorrow.
While I was given an apology, the only recourse I was offered was to cancel the order, which seems a woefully inadequate remedy, given the circumstances. We obviously need the recliner and don’t have the help to move it ourselves or we would have done that this morning.
You still have our business for today, but I felt it was necessary to tell you formally just how deeply disappointed I am.

It felt more productive than crying, which I was before I wrote the email. We’re talking about my mom here, people. I walked out of that place feeling all warm and fuzzy about the experience yesterday. The sales rep even gave Declan apple slices to cheer him up because I made him mad by taking him inside through the cold air. If all had gone according to plan, I would have been singing this place’s praises to scads of other potential customers.

But really… no offer to even, like, waive the delivery charge? Why was I the one to catch their screw-up? Why has this kind of thing happened so much more frequently to me in recent years (although it’s usually been on the order of mere inconvenience)? What has become of customer service?

Update, Thursday, noon: Well, I guess that got their attention, after all. The chair was delivered today by 11:30 a.m. I also had a message from the original salesperson saying that she would try to get the delivery fee waived, although my mom said the form she signed when it arrived didn’t indicate that as the case. All of this, for a thing that looks like a gigantic baseball mitt, or, as my mother put it, “a bunch of big hot dog buns stuck together.” But, it fills the bill in all the important ways for now – puffy and comfortable, a decent place to rest, and easy to adjust with her good arm.

Om Mani Padme Hum, Zeitgeist

Surrounded by saints

November 1, 2007 TZT 1 Comment

Thirteen years ago today, Dan and I were on our first trip together, just a few short months after we met.

We both wanted to explore New Orleans. He thought Halloween would be fun. I agreed, but mainly because I wanted to be in the city on All Saints Day.

We spent the first five days at a guest house in Treme – an old downtown neighborhood between the French Quarter and the city’s impoverished 9th ward. We had to board a bus called Desire whenever we wanted to ride into the French Quarter. The streetcar had long since stopped running.

The fact that an area with such stunning poverty would be labeled with a name like “Desire” still strikes me as the heart of the city’s nature. It’s a place so well-acquainted with death and disaster, and so strangely able to burlesque tragedy, particularly its own.

Among the tourist attractions in New Orleans are its above-ground graveyards. Because of the high-walled, narrow walkways that the graves create, a few of the most famous sites can be ripe picking for armed robbers. Every travel book I read recommended that they only be visited with organized bus tours on any day of the year, save one: November first.

On All Saints Day, the city’s cemeteries fill with fresh cut flowers, handwritten notes to loved ones who have passed, gifts, sticks of burning incense, people whispering secrets into crypts. The chapels are warm with candles lit for the dead. The graveyards are so populated with people honoring loved ones that your purse and camera are more likely to be safe as you go searching through the outdoor corridors for the real tomb of Marie Laveau because you heard the locals whispering that the one that the tourists are shown isn’t real.

There are a few sights from that trip that have never left me: The glassy, yellow-red possessed eyes of the Voodoo priestess as she danced with a snake in Congo Square, and the way that they became pearly soft and kindly, like a schoolteacher’s, as she ate forkfuls of cake with pink frosting moments later. The houses on stilts as Dan and I drove out of town to Delacroix on a quest to see the End of the World together. (The adventure ended with little more than a painted sign: “The End of the World Marina.”) Dan decided to be a mime for Halloween, which was awkward not only because people really do seem to hate mimes, but because by total chance, we ran into a local musician who was walking through the Quarter with jazz legend Diane Schuur, who is blind. There were several moments of wild gesturing before Dan realized that this might be the one point in the night where breaking character would be best.

Above all, though, I remember the prosthetic limbs that lined the walls of the side room of the chapel at St. Roch cemetery on All Saints Day. The were crutches and braces surrendered to “the patron saint of invalids,” who was said to have miraculously healed Italian plague victims in the 14th century. The room also had a statue of St. Lucy, patron saint of blindness, holding two eyeballs on a dish. I remember how this cemetery, more than any other – and we went to five or six that day – swelled with colorful blossoms and banners and cards and people who flattened their palms against mausoleums, eyes closed, remembering.

I was raised protestant, so saints weren’t much of a part of my religious vocabulary growing up. And yet, somehow, it was my grandmother’s wish when she died that a brass band would play “When the Saints Go Marching In” as her casket was taken from the church to the hearse. We made that happen, and it was beautiful.

As I understand it, All Saints Day is about remembering the people no longer with us, who still live under our skin — the ones that we look to for guidance, even if we can only imagine what they might say to us now. I try to think of those people in my own life often, but work and trick or treaters and traffic and phone calls get in the way. Today, I will make a point to remember them, one by one.

Life soundtrack: Louis Armstrong, Live, “When the Saints Go Marching In”: Launch

Motherhood, Zeitgeist

Charming older homes: Make mine unleaded

October 15, 2007 TZT 2 Comments

The surface paint used on Thomas’ caboose, children’s jewelry or Baby Einstein color blocks for infants, has righteously given all mass-produced toys manufactured in China the stink eye lately. That’s because lead paint is dangerous stuff, especially to children under six.

It’s a substance that has the ability to kill when ingested in a high dose, but most often, it just does slow, sure, serious damage. For one thing, even low levels of lead impersonate iron in a child’s system, stubbornly blocking the nutrient, which is so necessary to their physical and mental development, from being absorbed. It can lower IQ, cause ADD or behavioral problems, stunt growth, cause hearing impairment, and more.

The fact is, we are all exposed to it constantly, in many places that aren’t as obvious or automatically alarming as Elmo’s friendly countenance. A pollutant that’s heavy, but able to reduce to very fine dust, it’s extremely difficult to get rid of. And it was extensively used to build and manufacture all kinds of things in America before (many would also say well after) its risks were understood. It’s embedded in soil close to major roadways where millions of cars and trucks cruised through, fueled by leaded gasoline, for decades. And if you live in a house built before 1978 (especially if it was built before 1960), there’s a good possibility it’s in your home, water or soil. If you’ve had your children tested for lead, you likely know that most of us have some amount of it in our blood because it’s everywhere in varying degrees. The danger lies in how much of it you are in contact with.

Since we faced a brief (and thankfully now past) situation with this, I’ve walked through the lovely older homes of many of my fellow parents and realized just how common this toxin is. It’s important to know what to look for. Risky houses exist in upscale suburbs of a town like mine as well as the inner city.

If you live in an old and charming place, as I do, and have a young child (or even one who visits you regularly), consider having a risk assessment or inspection done. Know that older doors and windows are a common source for lead chips or dust, because they can release it into he atmosphere every time they are opened and closed. Only wet dusting and/or using a vacuum with a HEPA filter can effectively eliminate the dust.

Other things I suggest for prevention at your home, or whenever visiting an older home, based on experience:

Make handwashing a regular routine for yourself, and your children, from the moment that they begin scooting around on the floor.
There’s a good reason that pediatricians want you to give your baby those awful-tasting vitamin drops for the first two years. It’s important that that infants, toddlers and kids have the right amount iron and calcium in their diet. A full store of iron in the body can help prevent the lead from being absorbed long-term.
Wash toys regularly, particularly during the early developmental phases when babies and toddlers constantly put things in their mouths.
If you can’t afford to replace windows and doors that may have coats of lead-based paint, they need to be repainted every couple of years. (Note: you risk poisoning yourself and everyone in your house if you try to scrape the paint yourself.)
Make lead safety a consideration in any home improvement project you do.
If you suspect old pipes in your wall, use filtered drinking water if you can, and let the tap run for 30 seconds before using water for cooking.
Don’t buy cheap ceramic and painted plastic items from discount and dollar stores (Walmart and Target included). Products marketed to adults seem to go through even less rigorous screening than those for children, even though many are going to homes with children in them.
I love antiques, but be careful with those that are painted/distressed. Consider having them tested.There are many more suggestions here.

Today’s post is in honor of Blog Action Day.

Notes of a She-Hack, Zeitgeist

If a merchant of death can promote peace…

October 13, 2007 TZT Leave a comment

In all the years that I’d heard the winners of the Nobel Prizes announced in my life, I didn’t know what motivated its patron and founder, Alfred Nobel, until they happened to cover it in a high school class I sat in on last year. And that, my friends, is exactly what the man hoped for on his deathbed.

The inventor of dynamite, his obituary was accidentally printed in a French newspaper eight years before he actually died. It said “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (The merchant of death is dead). Rather than wag his finger at the paper and bluster about “typical liberal publishers” or try to get the editor fired or something, he decided that he wanted a different legacy. A few years later, he willed the bulk of his fortune to the establishment of the international prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and, of course, work done in the name of peace.

I realize that there probably aren’t many multi-millionaires reading this blog, which is okay, because I don’t think you have to be one to make a difference. I believe strongly that we all have the ability to transform our legacy as Nobel did, whatever our economic status. In the case of healing the ecology of our earth, a lot of personal, daily choices we already make have a bearing on the legacy we will leave.

Just days after Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were announced as the recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, over 12,000 bloggers will turn their thoughts toward the environment. On Blog Action Day (this Monday, October 15), blogs that ordinarily carry posts about make-up, photography, news about company x, auto repair, motherhood and who knows what other topics will all share their own perspective on the environment. Since this is blog is largely about things domestic, I’ll share some things about a household pollutant that we have some personal experience with.

If you’re a blogger who hasn’t joined, there is still time. Just click on the banner above and sign up. And if you are a blog-reader, be sure to click the banner on Monday and do some surfing to read a variety of perspectives on one day of global conversation about this one important issue.

Life soundtrack: The O’Jays, The Essential O’Jays, “Love Train”

I Enjoy Being a Girl, Motherhood, Zeitgeist

Bye Bye Bill Maher

September 19, 2007 TZT 2 Comments

I felt pretty betrayed at the end of “Real Time with Bill Maher” last weekend. Being one of those people who has actually done things like written to Sinclair Broadcasting in protest of their censorship practices (they were the galvanizing force that got his network show cancelled a few years back), I’ve always found his understanding of gender politics awfully limited, but I was glad he was out there, shaking the trees for free speech.

But his “New Rules” chastising breastfeeding moms that held a “nurse-in” at Applebees restaurants across the country, just came across as petty, unfair, and a clear case of the “look-at-me-ism” he absurdly accused these women of. I know journalists like this – people who go off the rails on a topic that they know will stir things up because they just aren’t getting enough hate mail lately, and hate mail is something that they’ve come to rely on to validate their celebrity. If it wasn’t deliberately disingenuous, then it was certainly horribly, horribly researched.

First, there were some facts that he just got wrong. He said that the Applebees nurse-in was the “world’s first,” when, in fact, these kinds of formal protests have been going on for some time. Wasn’t it only last year when a bunch of moms held one outside the studio where they tape “The View”? There have also been protests of Delta airlines, Starbucks, even hospitals. The purpose of these protests certainly isn’t vanity – it is the raising of awareness of a public health issue.

Maher is one of the only pundits out there who routinely addresses environmental problems created by our food supply, the toxic nature of additives like high fructose corn syrup and the nationwide health problem of obesity. So it’s baffling to me that he knocks the promotion of a health choice that is well known to reduce the risk of childhood obesity and a variety of illnesses, has health benefits for women, is completely ecologically sound and could have far-reaching economic benefits if it were promoted more effectively (over infant formula, which is often the product of behemoth drug companies).

The events are also an opportunity to re-acquaint business owners and the general public about the breastfeeding laws in our country, many of which protect a woman’s right to feed her child anywhere she deems necessary. In other words, companies should thank “lactivists” because they typically get so much media attention, they make managers revisit laws and policy, hopefully to the point where they make sure everyone who works for them realizes that it’s illegal for us to them to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave even if they are offended by a naked breast.

Lastly, his suggestion that women just “cover up” is basically moronic, and only forgivable in that he has clearly spent no time around infants. Hello Bill – babies have arms and hands, and it doesn’t take long before they begin to figure out that they can be used to pull blankets and things off of their faces. They also don’t have the cognitive ability to understand things like “but the people around you will be uncomfortable if you do that here” or “you’ll have to eat later.” Incidentally, the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with any number of national health agencies, recommend that mothers breastfeed for a year. The World Health Organization recommends two years. So yes, in a healthier world, babies would have teeth and the ability to say words before being weaned, and after the first 2-3 months, a blanket on the head is not going to stay there long.

At any rate, I certainly don’t have any problem watching and listening to a person I disagree with. I’ve watched Bill Maher for years (since his days on Comedy Central) and liked and disliked lots of the things he had to say. But in this case, his ignorance was personally insulting. If he doesn’t do any mea culpa on this, I definitely won’t watch him again for a while, if at all.

Add this to what I read about Facebook and MySpace at IzzyMom today (namely that breastfeeding images have been removed as “obscene” even as hundreds of pro-anorexia groups are free to give women directions about how to starve themselves), and I’d say it’s been a pretty depressing news week for chicks.

Keen Insights Into the Obvious, Motherhood, Oh My Ohio, Zeitgeist

Don’ts and dos of running a “family” festival

September 17, 2007 TZT Leave a comment

We decided to brave the city-sponsored “Family Fun Fest” on the waterfront over the weekend. We ran into a couple of people we knew who were leaving as we arrived and asked them how they had liked the event. Their response? “It’s kind of… a mess.”

And it was. I wonder why events supposedly designed for families with children are so often unoriginal, even a bit unfriendly towards the audience they seek? When corporations decide to sponsor these events and have an on-site presence, is their goal to actually offer a fun experience for kids, or simply to dole out logo-covered junk? If it isn’t the former, it should be. Your frisbee may or may not give me a lot of joy, but providing an authentically fun memory for me and my child will. You may not think so, but the experience is more important than stuff. And if you give me a bad one, I’m really really going to remember that.

Here is my free advice:

Rule #1
DON’T hold these events without providing a space or fun activity specifically for children under the age of five. Things that they are supposed to sit still and watch don’t count, because people under five, who are often members of families, are generally incapable of sitting still for very long. If you can’t do this, advertise that the event is for kids of a higher age.

DO come up with something specifically designed to engage the youngest people. It’s not hard. Throw down a big mat inside of some gates with some colorful pillows and balls. Get some bigger kids to volunteer to play with the little ones, because no one loves big kids as much as little ones do.

P.S. While you’re at it, make sure you also provide a space for nursing moms and babies. A tent with a few changing tables and rocking chairs will do. This isn’t progressive, it’s just logical and babies, it should be noted, are also often members of families.

Rule #2
DON’T give kids pre-drawn pictures to color. Or at least not only pre-drawn pictures to color.

DO try and inspire them to come up with some ideas on their own. Instead of giving something you think is “fun” laid out in factory form, give them a blank page and ask them to draw something they think is fun. Then praise their brilliance and ingenuity. A big open patch of road where kids could draw whatever they wanted with sidewalk chalk was one of the best things at the festival.

Rule #3
DON’T put any giveaway items out in public view that you do not actually intend to give away. This should be your rule at every event, but when children are the ones you are marketing to, the penalties for breaking this rule double.

DO try and make sure that the people who work at your booth like children and parents, and put them on in shifts, so that they aren’t worn out and disgusted by everyone as it gets later in the day.

Note: When we visited tent for the Columbus Crew – a soccer franchise that isn’t exactly burning up the ticket lines – the woman in it actually pulled a bunch of small soccer balls off of the table when Dan approached, saying “sorry, we’re putting these away, we have to save them for other events.” I’m only grateful that my two-year-old and I were far enough from the table that he didn’t quite clue into the fact that he was being denied a cheap promotional ball, especially since balls, spheres or globes are the most important things on earth. A toddler meltdown was narrowly averted by our parenting reflexes and the fact that he had a healthy nap that day. Bad form, Crew!

Rule #4
DON’T insist on having those infernal bouncy contraptions at every single event where kids may show up. If your goal is for a family to have fun together, this doesn’t cut it. It’s just a dangerous, temporary babysitter. But if you have to have it…

DO make sure that who ever runs the thing does so in shifts with big kids and little kids, or make sure that there are two of them – one for big kids and one for small ones, because small ones can get seriously knocked around just being in the proximity of a fourth-grade jumper. At least put the thing somewhere far enough away from the center of the event that it’s not there, torturing the children of parents who don’t want to either pay $1 for every three minutes of jumping or to watch their child narrowly avert death with every 11-year-old you allow in there with them.

Really, it would be better just to hire more strolling performers. Musicians, clowns, whatever. Seriously!

Rule #5
DON’T think of a family festival the same way you would think about a county fair or an amusement park.

DO try and be creative and considerate of your audience. Parents are dying for more events where the objective isn’t just a bald-faced sales pitch for stores and services. If you’re a corporation, consult educators about the activities and gear you provide.

What would you add?

Life soundtrack: Sly and the Family Stone, Anthology, “Family Affair”

Tiny Mantras

Category Archives: Zeitgeist

I like failure

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Why Santa is real to me

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