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The obligatory year-end list

Here we are at the last day of the year and everybody is making a list to sum up the year that is quickly fading into history. Herewith, then, is my list - ten things that I would love to forget about 2009. They are in no particular order. Each is just as objectionable as the other. 1. The "Tea Partiers." These people couldn't even decide what they were against, but I strongly suspect what they were really against was having an African-American president. They were just a mindless herd being stirred up to stampede by the ranters on talk radio and Fox News. 2. Sarah Palin and her whole damn family - in-laws, outlaws, and hangers-on. When will these people fade into the anonymity that they so richly deserve? 3. The Houston Astros' season of ineptitude. Where have you gone, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio? 4. Birthers. These, of course, fit right in with #1. They are a subsection really. Their real problem, too, is race. 5. Joe Lieberman's whiney voice. ...

An alternative view of bodice rippers

My mother was a lover of romance novels, perhaps because there was so little romance in her own life. In her later years, when she finally had the time to do so, she devoured these stories of female characters constantly in trouble and usually rescued by some strong male figure. I think they gave her a lot of pleasure and entertainment. I, of course, disdained them. Romance novels, in my view, were for the unenlightened. Educated women and feminists most certainly did not read them. I thought that all romance heroines were weak and I wanted no part of that. The novels, I believed, were thinly disguised porn for women. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In view of a recent thoughtful essay on the subject in the Daily Kos , of all places, I may have to revise my view of the genre. The essay was written by Laura Clawson, obviously a very smart woman (with an Ivy League PhD) who says she is a life-long feminist - and she reads romance novels. One by one she debunks the myth...

Is Iran imploding?

One wonders what is really happening in Iran these days. Even though journalists, for the most part, are not allowed by the government to report from there, it is clear that massive demonstrations are continuing more than six months after what seems to have been a thoroughly fraudulent election. There are reports that more than 30 have been killed in the most recent demonstrations, although the official government count is "only" eight. The people of Iran - particularly the young people of Iran - seem determined to topple the authoritarian regime that has held their country in thrall for more than thirty years and to replace it with an Iranian brand of democracy. They have put their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the line and their bodies on the streets in that struggle. I deeply admire their passion and their dedication. More power to them. Perhaps 2010 will be their year.

My new Kindle

I love books. I love the feel of books, the smell of books, the heft of books, the look of books - their perfect symmetry. I am, as the phrase goes, an "avid reader." I've always got at least one book going and several waiting on my "to be read" shelf, so I consume a lot of books in a year's time. I am a fairly eclectric reader, although my favorite genre is mysteries, and specifically, historical mysteries, but I read a lot of other stuff as well, both fiction and nonfiction. My devotion to the printed page has been unwavering and I've never even considered getting an ebook reader. Until earlier this year. I got a Kindle for my husband, the technogeek, for his birthday, and after watching him use it and seeing his enthusiasm for it, I decided that maybe I should try it, even though I'm decidedly NOT a technogeek. I did try it and I was hooked. So, Santa, that jolly old elf, knowing that I had been seduced by the Kindle, stuffed my Christmas sto...

The woman's reporter

So, after forty years of reporting about women, Ellen Goodman is retiring. I guess she's earned a rest. It has been an eventful forty years. Ellen Goodman and I are contemporaries and I have spent much of those last forty years reading her columns and nodding my heading in agreement. Sometimes I also shed a tear or crumpled the paper in frustration, because a lot of what she had to report on was not progress. It was the story of the continued demeaning of women and women's concerns, "women's issues" - i.e., life, death, the bringing up of children, the dignity of work and the desire for equal treatment in the workplace, health care and the desire for equal treatment in that arena, as well. The list could go on and on, and it has, but it is a list that is too often overlooked by the mainstream media. We are lucky that we had Ellen Goodman there to kick them in the shins and sometimes in the seat of their pants and say, "Hey, fathead, you are overlooking ...

Christmas oranges

It is Clementine season and, daily, I gorge myself on these lovely fruits. They are sweet, luscious and tiny. One is just not enough, so I typically take four of them at a time from the fruit bowl. Their smooth, shiny orange skin is very easily removed, so peeling the four is fast work. Then they are quickly divided into their individual sections, fourteen or so to the fruit. Each section is just bite-sized, a sweet, tangy, seedless, juicy mouthful of citrusy goodness. They come to us at just the right time of year, from mid-November through January. At the darkest time of year, they are like a taste of sunshine. These small oranges are of the Mandarin orange family and it is really in fairly recent years that they have become popular and widely available - at least in the grocery stores that I frequent. But having once discovered them, I'm doing my best to increase demand and ensure their continued production and availability in grocery produce departments. Many fruits are n...

Quiet again

All the holiday company, including dogs, have left. The house is quiet once again, and perhaps my dear cat Nicholas can regain his equilibrium. He enjoys human visitors, but he wasn't too sure about those dogs. I look forward to this time of year and to getting the whole family together for the only time during the year, but, as my daughter said today, it is very tiring having to be so nice all the time, and it's a great relief to get back to our normal grouchy, grinchy selves. It is hard for me to be too grouchy though since I made out like a bandit with Santa. From yard sculptures and books to my piece de resistance , my new Kindle, Santa was very good to me. I must have been a better girl than I thought I was, or maybe Santa was easily duped. Now, with my Kindle and with all the other paper books I have on my reading shelf, it may get even quieter around here for the rest of winter. Who needs television, radio, DVDs, or CDs when you've got books to read? So, come o...