On the Road Again

We are heading out tomorrow for another road trip through the southwest. This year we are heading to St. George, Moab, Grand Canyon and Sedona. St. George is really just a stopover but because we spent a fair amount of time there the year our young'un went to school there, we have a few haunts we like to visit.

After St. George, we have three nights planned at a B & B outside Moab. We stayed there last year and loved the people and the resident deer. We decided we needed more time in the Moab area than we had last year to explore the natural wonders of the area. If the weather holds (unfortunately rain is forecast--we have to go on vacation to see rain), we plan to visit Arches and take a boat trip into Canyonlands.

One night we plan to spend on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Our motel reportedly has a view of the rim. I am mostly looking forward to seeing the sunrise and then having breakfast at the El Tovar Hotel, which has the rugged elegance to which I aspire.

Then we are on to our familiar stomping grounds in Sedona, specifically we have 4 days planned at the Enchantment Resort. We are hoping to take some hikes in Sedona this time if Paul's back holds up.

As usual, I cannot wait!!

Le Weekend

Today is Monday and back to the office after the weekend. Since I am not Jewish, I went to work today unlike most of senior management at the studio. It was a quiet day. But not as quiet as my weekend. I did almost nothing all weekend except lie in bed and sleep. And I feel guilty instead of good. Where does this guilt over not doing anything productive come from?

As far back as I can remember being a semi-responsible person--let's say starting in high school--I had work to do on the weekend. In high school and college there was always course work to do over the weekend. I can remember in college in particular always spending some part of Sunday in the library, even if I had gone away for the weekend.

When I moved to LA to attend UCLA grad school, the weekend was no different from weekdays. Grad students worked 7 days a week. I always went to my office in Franz Hall on the weekend to catch up on some research or writing or grading papers. That habit carried over during my time as a researcher at USC and an assistant professor at KU. Law school was also the same. Too much work and not enough time so I always wound up working on the weekend. By then I was married to a lovable workaholic who works 7 days a week almost all the time. I remember many Saturday nights at home with hubby working so I would try to work too.

Then I worked for law firms for almost 9 years. The life of a law firm associate is one of 7 day work too, particularly when you have billable hour targets to meet. And I had children, who also took up my time on the weekend. And I had to spend the weekends doing errands, filling the larder and cleaning the house.

When I started working at the studio 16 years ago I discovered that almost no one worked at the office during the weekend. The weekends really were your time although sometimes there was some work to finish at home. At that time, however, my children played sports on the weekends year round and one of them was on a traveling team for several years. And as if I did not have enough to do, since I still had to do errands on the weekend, I joined the board and eventually took over the job for two years of running our community's recreational youth soccer league (AYSO) --which serviced over 3000 players.

Even after the sports ended, I started scheduling hobbies on the weekend--piano lessons for 5 years, singing in choirs, gardening. This year, however, I have given up all the hobbies and activities. My weekends are tabula rasa. Most of the time I still have plenty to do--library, food shopping, walking on the beach, other errands. But recently I find myself sleeping most of the weekend. This past weekend I needed to get my car washed and pick up conditioner I left at the hairdressers. I did neither thing. I dragged myself out to Costco with my son but did not make it to the garden store which was our other planned destination. I had lunch with my husband but ate all my other meals in bed. I slept and read a little. Mostly I slept. And I felt completely  depressed that I had spent another "unproductive" weekend.

Habits of activity die hard so I attribute my guilt over inactivity to spending all those years overbooked. I also sometimes think that our time here is so precious. I should sleep when I am dead. But unfortunately once you take on the mantle of the sloth, as I did this past weekend, it is hard to shed it. And Catholics, even lapsed ones, find sloth to be a deadly sin.

From the Pocket Catholic Catechism: Sloth is the desire for ease, even at the expense of doing the known will of God. Whatever we do in life requires effort. Everything we do is to be a means of salvation. The slothful person is unwilling to do what God wants because of the effort it takes to do it. Sloth becomes a sin when it slows down and even brings to a halt the energy we must expend in using the means to salvation.

A Page from the Bush Playbook

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized this week reportedly in response to treatment for anemia. She has pancreatic cancer so one must believe that the anemia is associated with the disease or the treatments she is taking for the disease. As I have written before in this blog, I am very fond of Justice Ginsberg and although she says that she hopes to stay on the court for at least another 5 years, she may need or want to retire at the end of this term. Thus it is likely that President Obama will have to appoint another justice within the next year.

Obama is developing a reputation as a middle of the roader. See e.g. the Washington Post article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Obama's last choice for Supreme Court supports that reputation, as far as I can tell. However, he must break with this proclivity and appoint someone like Ginsburg to the next open seat. Obama needs to be more like W and appoint people with more definite values (this time left leaning) just as W appointed two (!) highly conservative justices during his administration.

Otherwise we will continue to suffer the fallout of the Bush administration. A May 2009 article in the New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin demonstrates why. As Toobin wrote:

After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

What that means for us is the potential loss of civil rights to which we have become accustomed. A Roberts dominated court could eliminate the following:

• rights of African- Americans-Roberts already signaled his intentions to cut protections to African- Americans in last term's case involving section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which the Court ultimately upheld but narrowed such that local governments now have the option not to obtain Justice Department approval before making changes to their election laws or rules. As Toobin points out, these rules include "from the location of polling places to the boundaries of congressional districts." Roberts also supported the overturning of the Seattle School District integration plan in 2007 and found that the rights of white New haven firefighters were violated under Title VII of the civil rights act.


• abortion- six of the current nine justices are Catholic, in comparison to under 25% of the American population. Roberts already supported the upholding of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2007.


• women's rights in employment- Roberts supported the decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear which imposed virtually impossible standards on those suing for discrimination. In that case the woman plaintiff was seeking equal pay for equal work.


• rights to pursue torturers- Roberts dissented in Boumediene v. Bush, which upheld rights of those held in Guantanamo to a "prompt hearing" on challenges to detention. If the AG ever decides to pursue those who justified and allowed torture in the Bush Adminstration, we can safely predict where a Roberts led court would come out.

So, if Obama must name another justice in the coming year or so, I hope he recognizes what is at stake and takes pains to find someone who is ideologically like Ginsburg. Otherwise Bush's legacy of conservatism will rear its ugly head for a very long time in the Supreme Court.

Come Together Right Now

Since I have been reading a lot recently about the Bush administration's isolationism, I am probably more sensitive to and interested in certain news the past few days.  Obama has supported and other leaders have agreed for a permanent shift of international economic discussions from G7 to G20.  In addition, Obama garnered support from other nations to confront Iran on its secret nuclear plant filled with Pakistani centrifuges and located near Yum in a highly protected area.  Here are two instances, thus, where Obama shows his global view  in contrast to the last administration's blinkered view of the world where our nation's perspective was the only important factor. 

The shift to G20 only reflects the reality of the world.  The 19 nation member plus the EU reportedly represent 90% of the world's GDP.  It includes the new rising economies and according to the NYT:  

The member countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States. The European Union is also a member, represented by the rotating council presidency and the European Central Bank.

It makes sense to have this group meet rather than the traditional big industrial countries of the G7, United States, Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Germany and Japan.  We need to adjust to the reality that growth of economies throughout the world affects us all.

The second event reflects Obama's desire to approach problems with multiple allies rather than the show Bush put on to justify the desire to invade Iraq. Obama is trying to enlist a number of countries including Russia  and China to put pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear capabilities and comply with international nuclear proliferation treaties. Hopefully the international community will respond and not be affected by its experience regarding Iraq.

Full Sail Ahead?

My oldest sister, a pioneering soul who got me started on Facebook, goes sailing every September on the Lewis R. French, "America's Oldest Windjammer". I am thinking about joining her next September. As part of the trip, the guests have to help with furling and unfurling the sails, working the ropes, etc. I worry about the lack of strength in my hands due to arthritis. But my sister has plenty of experience taking care of me on the water. When I was 5 and she was 18, I believe, she drove me across a lake during a storm by stowing me under the deck. I actually remember the feeling of safety which may explain why I sometimes crawl under my desk when events at work get too overwhelming!

Here are some photos of the schooner from its website. Tell me if you think I can hack this type of sailing.

A Brave New Film Distribution Model

I met Robert Greenwald, filmmaker, at a pilates studio several years back. Well, "met" is not exactly right. He was working out next to me with his trainer, who told my trainer and me to shut up because we were talking too much and disturbing his session. He was having back problems and trying to strengthen his core which apparently must be done in silence according to his trainer, who displayed the worst of certain eastern European stereotypic behavior. Robert, for his part, did not say anything so I do not know if he agreed (I like to think not but I understand noise can be annoying). In any event my trainer and I complied with his trainer's request-cum-command.

I have watched Outfoxed and parts of his WalMart film on DVD (until my DVD copy stopped playing which actually as I think about it may have been the player rather than the DVD--I should try again) with great admiration and interest. Robert may be further out there politically than I am but his documentaries are much more watchable for me than say Michael Moore's. Now Robert is making his films through his company Brave New Films and distributing them over the internet for free. I am not clear how he supports this endeavor, which includes paid staff but is classified as a 501(c) organization. He asks for donations and sells DVDs (which he also characterizes as a donation) but if you want to watch his latest film, Rethinking Afghanistan, you can see it entirely for free by linking from his website to Youtube.

I spent some time yesterday discussing film finance with two of my colleagues. I do not understand it well but enjoy learning about how we project revenues and how we finance films, although as my colleague said, these days you should have a big box of tissues handy when you discuss film finances. The home video market has gone to the dogs (no offense to the pups) and apparently the first affected were the direct to video movies which explains why no one in this country could feasibly distribute that new Darwin movie, a perfect candidate in years past for direct to video. So how in this marketplace does Robert Greenwald find the money to make and distribute his political films, particularly when he encourages people to share them and watch them for free? Is a mystery. But I am glad he does.

Listing Toward Bethlehem

I have written before about my love of books and libraries. One of my favorite libraries is in Delmar in the little town of Bethlehem. But this post is not about libraries.

In addition to reading books, I get a particular kick out of keeping a list of the books I have read. It probably all started when I was a nerdy child in elementary school spending my free time at lunch hour in the school library instead of playing games on the playground or in the auditorium if the weather was inclement. Our school library was not all that fancy. My favorite books were short, green bound biographies of famous people that I would whip through quickly. Then I could record them on the List of Books I Read which was some contest run by the diocese of Albany. For 25 books read you got a silver paper medal and for 40 a gold paper medal. I won the contest every year. I still shiver with pleasure from the thought of reading and listing all those books.

When my son was in elementary school, Pizza Hut sponsored a Books for Pizza contest where you earned a pizza for so many books read. And to think I was satisfied with paper medals! My son loved pizza so he met the target the one year the contest was held. Somehow, though, as life went on, his love of movies overtook his love of pizza and he has gone on to spend his spare time watching flicks rather than reading. So pizza did not even work all that well in his case.

For me the list itself is rewarding. For a few years, I kept on Myspace a list of books read and then transferred it to FB until I discovered that FB has an application that allows you to list and write reviews of books you have read. Oh boy! I can list books that I have started reading and check them off when I am finished. Today, for example, I am close to finishing Post American World so I expect to be on the FB application tonight listing and reviewing. I can almost taste it now.

What does this interest in listing books mean? I do not know. It is not a compulsion, just a pleasure. I do not like making lists of most other things. So maybe it is just the life long remnants of a wonderful childhood experience for a nerdy little girl who was always better at the books than the games. Nerd power!