Thursday, January 10, 2008
Social observations on post-New Year partying
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Damnation on the Michiganders for deciding to cash in on early primary gold and influence in national elections, and taking an act that made Iowa move its event to January 3 and New Hampshire to January 8, giving the greedy Detroit seekers of a national voice the spot on January 15th, and, as a punishment from the NDC, a reduced vote in the national primary. All this nonsense has moved the election campaigning to be an all year event, or actually two-year event, in the process feeding the purses of such useless creatures as campaign managers and pollsters and former politicians turned news analysts.
All this became evident in a post-New Year’s party, when some ten archetypical New Yorker neighbors (that means none were New York born), gathered to celebrate the marriage of two men, faithful companions for 40 years, who had just returned from their marriage in Vancouver, Canada, and a honeymoon on a cruise liner traveling down the shoreline of the Pacific Northwest. Would you think that, mixed with a series of toasts, the immediate topic of the conversation would be the unusual action they had just completed?
No, my dear, the celebrants’ minds immediately turned to Mike Huckabee, the ex-Governor and Senator of Arkansas, particularly after a member of the group, all neighbors in a coop building, expressed some admiration for the charm and graciousness of the Baptist minister turned politician who offered reconciliation of the parties. The speaker was a sophisticated person, and his choice of topic only underlined the popular bitterness with politicians and their mutual accusations that have turned campaigns into reciprocal smear attacks, leaving all participants dirty, and the voters unhappy with their choices between lesser evils. He was immediately verbally jumped by a few participants, which changed the conversation into an attack on more Republican candidates. It turned out that all present were unabashed liberals, and the commonality of the GOPers’ religious undertones in their campaigns and courting of the Silent Majority was upsetting to them.
What an antithesis of a “normal” cocktail party! Only a few years ago politics and religion were taboo at social gatherings, sometimes enforced by the hostess in the interests of avoiding controversy and preserving friendships. But then, have not current events turned the entire world upside down and changed the nature of our daily thinking, by turning us to considering the global consequences of, say, shopping for food and household items? In buying a light bulb or an appliance, is not part of the act awareness and bitterness over the fact that nearly every manufactured item comes from China or another foreign country, robbing some Americans of the opportunity of earning a livelihood? Likewise, does not every tank of gasoline purchased, relentlessly more and more expensive, brings on the thoughts of dependence on foreign resources and oil politics, and need for greenness? Just entering Warshaw’s hardware store starts the conversation about how by 2010 the ordinary light bulb will be gone, replaced by a twisted fluorescent that saves energy, at which point another customer jumps in, observing that incandescents waste 80% of the energy used by turning it into heat.
Enough globalize woes. Getting back to the party, the group conversation quickly swung into abortion (“It’s my body,” with reservations), mercy killings (“the civilized thing to do”), returning to politics when someone observed that we had been skirting the really important topic, a female President vs. a Black one. That brought on a brief flurry of observations about how the entire country was getting to be less racist, given Senator Barack Obama’s victory in the Midwestern nearly white Iowa, which quickly turned to a condemnation of the unjust caucuses, which favor the young and healthy voter, demanding a day’s worth of physical activity, leaving the infirm and wheelchair bound unable to express their choices. Hardly a word about Hillary, the preference of several participants, whole loss in Iowa left some of participants silently woeful of the future.
Finally we got out into something more real – how does a nice Jewish girl find a proper partner in New York - and the movies. I had been at an office luncheon, where movies and trade chitchat were the only topics discussed, affirming my belief in the old norm about avoiding election and faith talk whenever people meet socially. Oh yes, we also bashed incomprehensible television commercials that have no bearing on the product advertised – a nearly universal complaint.
Our East Midtown cocktail party also eventually turned to movies, to my surprise concentrating on a bloody West Texas murder mystery with social implications that several members had liked – No Country for Old Men, a Coen brothers’ creation, with no star actors. Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the other movie topic, comparing it to the original Steven Sondheim stage musical, with some words about Johnny Depp’s weird characterizations. We were together for three hours plus, and loathed to break. Oh yeah, what do liberals drink and eat for New Year? Well, we destroyed at least a half-dozen bottles of Roederer’s 25th Anniversary champagne, and ate lox canapés, with dips of green and red vegetables, both fresh and broiled.
Happy New Year to all readers and their families, from the T&V staff.
Damnation on the Michiganders for deciding to cash in on early primary gold and influence in national elections, and taking an act that made Iowa move its event to January 3 and New Hampshire to January 8, giving the greedy Detroit seekers of a national voice the spot on January 15th, and, as a punishment from the NDC, a reduced vote in the national primary. All this nonsense has moved the election campaigning to be an all year event, or actually two-year event, in the process feeding the purses of such useless creatures as campaign managers and pollsters and former politicians turned news analysts.
All this became evident in a post-New Year’s party, when some ten archetypical New Yorker neighbors (that means none were New York born), gathered to celebrate the marriage of two men, faithful companions for 40 years, who had just returned from their marriage in Vancouver, Canada, and a honeymoon on a cruise liner traveling down the shoreline of the Pacific Northwest. Would you think that, mixed with a series of toasts, the immediate topic of the conversation would be the unusual action they had just completed?
No, my dear, the celebrants’ minds immediately turned to Mike Huckabee, the ex-Governor and Senator of Arkansas, particularly after a member of the group, all neighbors in a coop building, expressed some admiration for the charm and graciousness of the Baptist minister turned politician who offered reconciliation of the parties. The speaker was a sophisticated person, and his choice of topic only underlined the popular bitterness with politicians and their mutual accusations that have turned campaigns into reciprocal smear attacks, leaving all participants dirty, and the voters unhappy with their choices between lesser evils. He was immediately verbally jumped by a few participants, which changed the conversation into an attack on more Republican candidates. It turned out that all present were unabashed liberals, and the commonality of the GOPers’ religious undertones in their campaigns and courting of the Silent Majority was upsetting to them.
What an antithesis of a “normal” cocktail party! Only a few years ago politics and religion were taboo at social gatherings, sometimes enforced by the hostess in the interests of avoiding controversy and preserving friendships. But then, have not current events turned the entire world upside down and changed the nature of our daily thinking, by turning us to considering the global consequences of, say, shopping for food and household items? In buying a light bulb or an appliance, is not part of the act awareness and bitterness over the fact that nearly every manufactured item comes from China or another foreign country, robbing some Americans of the opportunity of earning a livelihood? Likewise, does not every tank of gasoline purchased, relentlessly more and more expensive, brings on the thoughts of dependence on foreign resources and oil politics, and need for greenness? Just entering Warshaw’s hardware store starts the conversation about how by 2010 the ordinary light bulb will be gone, replaced by a twisted fluorescent that saves energy, at which point another customer jumps in, observing that incandescents waste 80% of the energy used by turning it into heat.
Enough globalize woes. Getting back to the party, the group conversation quickly swung into abortion (“It’s my body,” with reservations), mercy killings (“the civilized thing to do”), returning to politics when someone observed that we had been skirting the really important topic, a female President vs. a Black one. That brought on a brief flurry of observations about how the entire country was getting to be less racist, given Senator Barack Obama’s victory in the Midwestern nearly white Iowa, which quickly turned to a condemnation of the unjust caucuses, which favor the young and healthy voter, demanding a day’s worth of physical activity, leaving the infirm and wheelchair bound unable to express their choices. Hardly a word about Hillary, the preference of several participants, whole loss in Iowa left some of participants silently woeful of the future.
Finally we got out into something more real – how does a nice Jewish girl find a proper partner in New York - and the movies. I had been at an office luncheon, where movies and trade chitchat were the only topics discussed, affirming my belief in the old norm about avoiding election and faith talk whenever people meet socially. Oh yes, we also bashed incomprehensible television commercials that have no bearing on the product advertised – a nearly universal complaint.
Our East Midtown cocktail party also eventually turned to movies, to my surprise concentrating on a bloody West Texas murder mystery with social implications that several members had liked – No Country for Old Men, a Coen brothers’ creation, with no star actors. Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the other movie topic, comparing it to the original Steven Sondheim stage musical, with some words about Johnny Depp’s weird characterizations. We were together for three hours plus, and loathed to break. Oh yeah, what do liberals drink and eat for New Year? Well, we destroyed at least a half-dozen bottles of Roederer’s 25th Anniversary champagne, and ate lox canapés, with dips of green and red vegetables, both fresh and broiled.
Happy New Year to all readers and their families, from the T&V staff.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 7:28 AM 
