Meghan McCain vs. Laura Ingraham In The Weight Wars

DAHLINGS –

Your faithful correspondent generally avoids the topic of politics because:

a) they tend to be divisive and fights break out at cocktail parties (during the election, a food fight broke out at a soiree I was hosting that involved a large toasted Brie…I still shudder at the memory).
b) in my case, they cause Deep Thoughts, which tend to give me pounding headaches.

A disclaimer: some of my best friends are Republicans, and some of them are Democrats. And during my recent sojourn in Washington, DC (cf. earlier entries) I helped women of both parties get ready for the "new glamour"(sic) coming to the White House.

However, I am addressing the topic this morning because it involves one of what one might call one of my “causes,” which is loving one’s beautiful, bountiful body. Meghan McCain, Senator John McCain’s 24-year-old daughter, wrote an excellent column in The Daily Beast about that lunatic extremist Ann Coulter

(who has, by the way, used her physical image in no small way to get media attention) and how Coulter’s extremist politics alienated the people of Meghan's generation.

McCain was blasted by Republican “pundit” Laura Ingraham not for criticizing Coulter, but because she was "too plus-sized to be a cast member on the MTV television show The Real World." (Ingraham has also parlayed her physical appearance to become, as one website suggested, "an official Republican babe.")


McCain accurately characterized Ingraham’s response as petty, juvenile and off-topic, and asked the question: why are we still judging women by their size? McCain is voluptuous and extremely beautiful .




Ingraham, of course, did not answer, but instead lashed out on her radio station's website: "Now the Left is seizing on one satirical line from our show to paint Meghan as the victim of a right-wing hate crime."

Uh, no, Laura, you have gotten it all wrong. Judging women by their body size is neither left-wing nor right-wing, it knows no politics. It only knows convenience, hatred and opportunity.

To answer Meghan's question from a politically non-partisan view: because judging women by their size is more rampant than at any time your faithful correspondent can remember. The paparazzi simply cannot wait to publish pictures of celebrities sporting double chins, “baby bumps,” or being caught in the act of…gasp…eating.

There are entire ongoing feature columns on some websites devoted to showing how famous women have gained weight, and those columns are NOT meant to be flattering. Occasionally a man makes it into these columns, but only if he is a sex symbol who has happened to develop love handles. All famous women, on the other hand, are fair game. Look at the flack JLo had to take at the Golden Globes because of her supposed “back fat”!

Yes, I also confess that I comment on models and other gaunt women in a less-than-flattering way. I believe strongly that they are part of the problem.

At the Edward Steichen exhibit, the fashion models were real women, with real bodies, as were the movie stars. (These days "real women" is often used as a euphemism for "fat," have you noticed?) One could imagine them dieting and exercising, but hardly to the point of having colon cleanses and working out five hours a day, as Madonna does. And yes, some women are meant to be extremely thin. But not that many.

Characterizing us by our bodies removes our personalities, intellects and politics from the equation. Women become nothing more than those—pardon me for the vulgarity—but we become nothing more than full-page vaginal shots in pornographic magazines (yes, I’ve seen them).

Both celebrities and ordinary women in private life are affected by this obsession.
Yes, we have always expected movie stars to be attractive, but not to be perfect. This unreal, elusive and dangerous demand for “perfection” of size and appearance diminishes and distracts all women in America.

I think I might have been a size 10 once in my life (detailed in an earlier entry) through a combination of starvation and bulimia, so I like to think I have a wee bit of expertise in this area. By embracing the voluptuous body I was meant to have, and not the body society thinks I ought to have, I am free to concentrate on more significant matters.

Fortunately, not politics. This might sound mean-spirited, but I do hope Laura Ingraham chokes on the Splenda she stirs into her black coffee.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, and do have a green beer for me, dahlings!

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Sarah Palin's $150K Makeover: The Common Touch

DAHLINGS –

So, is this what would happen if a hockey mom won the lottery?

The newspapers have been buzzing with the news that the Republican National Committee decided to play Rachel Zoe with Sarah Palin to the tune of $150,000. Although your faithful correspondent feels that the RNC did a better job than Zoe would—one shudders to think of Palin giving her acceptance speech, hair parted in the middle, in a swirling tiered oversized chiffon maxi dress. (But on the other hand, the question of Palin’s credibility would have been instantly moot.)

Despite her beauty queen past, Palin was perilously close to frumpy in the months before destiny descended on her vastly unprepared shoulders. She favored a frizzy upswept hairdo with highlights that seemed meant to blind oncoming moose at night. (Those Alaska roads can be so treacherous.) The woman wore fleece, for pity's sake; need one say more?



Over John McCain’s squeaky objections, Palin was selected to be the Vice Presidential nominee, and instantly the image machine went to work. In September and October make-up artist Amy Strozzi earned about $36,000 and her hair stylist Angela Lew earned $19,000. There are moments when one thinks they are trying to remake her into a younger, sexier Elizabeth Dole. (Who, by the way, now has blinding blonde highlights of her own.) Department stores were looted for designer labels: St. John, my darling Oscar de la Renta, and Escada. Palin’s hair was darkened, smoothed, and she was even convinced to wear it down around her shoulders. (Cf. my earlier entry: "Sarah Palin - A Man Made Woman?")

Her clothing is carefully chosen to show off her trim figure, which GOP consultants feel “appeals to white male voters.” We already know she does not need to actually wear glasses, but without them she would look so generic one could not tell which politician’s fashionable wife she was.



For her acceptance speech she wore a beautiful silk shantung Valentino outfit. Many of her outfits feature belts around the waist or an hourglass cut, and she is often seen striding about in boots. Perhaps that appeals to “white male voters who long to be spanked.” Stranger things have happened in politics.



However, it does dent Palin’s image as a hard-working middle class mom (toting around her tot helps…personally, I think it is either kept heavily drugged or she is carrying a large doll. What sort of child never cries or throws up on the person carrying it? That is why I never handle children, myself).

She claims she will give the clothes to charity after she is elected. That’s a bit like saying vous donner la cher de vol de steak après avoir mangé, for lack of a better metaphor. The woman has even been reduced, in interviews, to cataloging what does and does not belong to her whenever she steps out fully dressed. (At least that way she doesn’t have to answer any hard questions about foreign policy or who Henry Paulson is and why she should care.

Now, a confession. I think the RNC does have quite good taste in clothes, if a touch bland. Certainly better than poor Cindy McCain, who always looks like she just put her finger in a light socket when she’s on the public stage.

Michelle Obama has beautiful taste in clothes as well and always has. For that she has been called “elitist.” Apparently it’s “elitist” to buy your own designer clothes, and “common” to allow rich white men to buy them for you.

Which, upon reflection, seems oddly appropriate, don’t you think? One supposes that appeals to "white male voters who wish they could afford a trophy Vice President."

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

A Letter From Some Colorado Doctors...

DAHLINGS -

At first I resisted, but then I felt I simply had to bring this letter to your attention. It is was sent to me by a dear friend from the past, and I have reprinted it from http://squarestate.net/diary/6932/#35532. Your faithful correspondent has never been in Colorado, nor does she ever intend to be in Colorado, but as the old saying goes, "it could happen here."

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A 62-year-old man, who we'll call Joe Smith, came to the emergency room for the third time in 2 weeks. He had no other place to go. Two weeks before, at another hospital, he had been diagnosed with cancer. Only he didn't have health insurance, because neither of his two jobs offered coverage.

Joe couldn't afford to buy an individual health policy and was too young to qualify for Medicare. Now, because of his cancer, no insurer would accept him. It was an all-too-familiar American tragedy. Joe needed his cancer treated, but without insurance the cost of treatment threatened to bankrupt his family. To date Joe's cancer remains untreated.

LindaB :: A Message from Colorado Doctors
As physicians in Colorado (see our signatures below), we see a case like Joe's every day. As doctors, we see it as our ethical obligation to advocate for the interests of our patients. In this year's presidential election, John McCain and Barack Obama offer two starkly different visions of what is wrong with our healthcare system and two different prescriptions for "change".

Sen. McCain's plan focuses on an unregulated market for health insurance, makes no commitment to provide insurance to all U.S. citizens, and doesn't address the health delivery system. His plan uses the $360 billion/year of new taxes generated by eliminating the current employer/employee pre-tax exclusion for health insurance benefits to create credits for buying individual health insurance in an unregulated market. The consequence for Colorado could be fewer employers contributing to health insurance, increased taxes on workers, fewer people able to afford insurance and growth in the number of uninsured.

Sen. Obama's plan provides access to guaranteed, affordable insurance. His plan allows those who like their employer based insurance to keep it. For those without good health insurance his plan creates new, affordable insurance options by pooling them into larger risk pools. In each case, premiums and direct costs will be made affordable, and people will not have to fear losing their coverage or entering bankruptcy if someone in their family becomes ill.

America's health care system is broken. A privileged few can get extraordinary health care. However, compared to most developed countries, the overall quality of our healthcare is poor; management of chronic illness is limited; and investment in health information systems that improve care is minimal. Our system is the most expensive system in the world, but in Colorado alone we have almost 800,000 men, women, and children living without health insurance. An additional 500,000 Coloradans are underinsured. This lack of insurance is associated with early death and disability. It leaves thousands of Coloradans one illness away from personal bankruptcy.

For Joe and all of our patients who are uninsured, underinsured or will become newly uninsured under McCain's plan we are speaking out. We believe Sen. Obama's plan can lead us closer to an affordable, equitable, and accountable health care delivery system that secures our patient's future.

Suzanne Brandenburg, MD
Laura Donigan, MD
Daniel Jamieson, MD
Danielle Loeb, MD
Joel S. Levine, MD
Judy Zerzan, MD
Agreed with and signed by an additional 96 physicians and 21 medical students from Colorado

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My goodness, I really have to stop this political jag I have been on, dahlings. I am actually starting to watch CNN over my assistant's shoulder, and after the season finale of Project Runway I watched the last part of the presidential debate!

Has anyone noticed how oddly assymetrical Sen. McCain's face is? His consultants should only have him photographed from the right, so that you don't notice that odd little bulge on one side. And besides, it's only fitting that he be photographed from the right, don't you think?

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog