Second Acts (for non-politicians)

Whoever it was that said that there are no second acts in politics was generally correct (think Spiro Agnew, Ed Meese, etc.). What about the rest of us, particularly after losing a spouse through death or divorce? Obviously, divorce is easier because at least you can turn some of the anger into energy and find another person that suits you better. Death is harder, especially when the survivor is older and female and loved her deceased husband. There are fewer widowed older men out there than there are women and, at least for their generation, those men were trained to expect women to cook, clean and generally take care of most domestic responsibilities that didn't involve power tools.

But what about women between 55 and 75? Men their age - if they want a second act - seem to have no full-length mirror in their house but are looking for 30ish women who are a size 4 and started botox injections when they were in kindergarten. If they have a few bucks in the bank, they might actually get Malibu Barbie to spend some time with them.

Women tend to be more realistic and want companionship with someone who remembers where they were when JFK was killed, can stay up past 8:00 p.m., speak in complete sentences and don't take their dentures out in a restaurant, but don't care very much about whether the guy can still get into a 40 Regular suit or can read and interpret poetry. Unless living in a large city, even women who have managed to make it to late middle age/early old age as a size 10 and who continue to keep themselves looking younger than their true age are told to go to grief counseling or church-sponsored events to meet potential companions or even future husbands. Those who white-knuckle it and attend those events are probably greeted by a dozen other women of various sizes and shapes and two men, one hooked to an oxygen tank and the other wondering when Malibu Barbie will show up. Instead of getting a follow-up call from a guy, they'll get a call from a woman in the group who wants them to do whatever one does to become a "born again" Christian, notwithstanding their current religion. It doesn't sound like much fun to me.

This is patently unfair. There must be another dignified way for well-educated, good looking older women to have a second act even if they live in a smaller community and aren't interested in moving, don't want to change their religious affiliation and don't want to spend all of their time feeding a grown man once they find one. Internet matchmaking sites don't qualify. Anyone who has any constructive ideas on this topic is welcome to comment. In the meantime, I hope that all women in that boat don't give up. Not everyone is going to have a Diane Keaton/Jack Nicholson moment but you never know until you try.

A Wedding

I don't expect everyone to understand how important it was to be in Massachussetts to see good friends who had spent 22 years together get married over the weekend but, for me, it was magic. I remember marching around for many years in the 1990s (much more than I do today) which also included speaking out publicly before school boards and anyone else who would listen and support the idea that civil rights don't stop at a particular group of people. They belong - or should belong - to all of us.

I know the biases that many people cling to that get in the way of their better selves and their better judgment. (I'm sure I have plenty of my own on a wide variety of issues.) When it comes to opposition to same sex marriage, I am convinced that - at its root - is a range of misconceptions of how many of us live and what we really want.

I am already in a loving, 16+ year monogamous relationship. I don't need a legally recognized marriage to keep me from behaving any differently. I don't need wedding gifts. (Cards are nice, though.) I don't need a cake with two little plastic guys on top of it. I don't need my church to sanction the marriage. All I want is the same choices that you take for granted.

Years ago, I was asked by someone (I wish I could remember who but it doesn't matter) why I would ever want to "copy" what opposite sex couples have, particularly when 50% of marriages end in divorce. My general reply back then was that I had no interest in "copying" anyone. I was also asked if I would run out and get married as soon as it was available to me. I recall saying something along the lines of "no, but I wouldn't drag my feet for very long if my partner and I decided together it was what we wanted."

Back to the bias part. There are still a lot of straight guys (and a few women) who simply cannot get past the sex part because they believe that one person must be 'submissive' and believe that real men are never submissive or do anything that seems submissive. I'm sorry to tell you that if you have ever done anything off your wife's Honey Do List, you have been submissive. When I go to weddings between straight couples, I do not imagine what they are going to do on their wedding night. As far as I know, marriage does not come with a brochure with rules on how to be intimate. If it matters that much to you, consult your religious leader. I already know the answer that I would get.

In my humble opinion, you should all be honored that what you have is valued by those who cannot do what you can so easily decide to do. If the couple down the street gets divorced, I hope you don't sit at your kitchen table and say, "honey, the Smiths just cheapened our marriage. Maybe we need to get divorced, too." If the Smiths are gay and unmarried and decide to part ways, I hope you don't breathe a sigh of relief and say "thank goodness they weren't married. Otherwise our marriage would have been damaged."

I am pretty convinced that those conversations don't happen. Opponents of same-sex marriage think that they are protecting the institution of marriage, not their own. The "institution" of modern marriage as we understand it today is relatively new. In the 19th century and for a couple hundred years before that, single, unmarried women were largely doomed to poverty, even if they could own property in their own names. Back then, married women traded their independence (if you could call it that) for financial security and in the process literally became the property of their husbands and could no longer own anything in their own right. The term "rule of thumb" grew out of Western European common law that held that a husband had every legal right to beat his wife with a stick no larger than his thumb. Marriage between straight couples has obviously changed.

When I am feeling angry about this issue - pretty rarely but less rarely than 10 years ago - I actually value my own unsanctified 16 years as being superior in some important ways to a modern marriage. Along with marriage comes an expectation that the community around you should help to support your union. I have the support of family and friends even without marriage but we lack the support of our laws which are mostly designed to keep married people married.

Having none of that on my end and still having a relationship longer than almost all of our straight friends sometimes makes me feel superior to you. What would you do if you forgot your papers that permitted you to see your partner in the hospital? What would you do if your partner died and perfect strangers that happened to be related to your partner could decide how and where to bury your partner, enter your home and take things from it without your consent? I could face that someday, but it doesn't mean that I would or could walk away from my relationship to spare myself that kind of humiliation. I get fewer rights and much of what my partner and I have done has been on our own, without the kind of support you get. That is when I think (rightly or wrongly) that I'm tougher than you are and that the love I have for my partner is stronger because it has to be.

I remember being asked many years ago if there were a medical breakthrough that would make me straight, would I take advantage of it. I said "no". I still say "no". I am no less a person than anyone else. I am, despite what I have already said, no better, either. I would rather spend some time persuading others that I and people like me pose no threat to your religiously-based, state-recognized marriages. Jane Austen novels were never really my thing, but I have read all of them anyway to make sure that my mom thought I was well-read (go ahead, make a joke that I am a mama's boy - guilty as charged) and have seen the film versions. If I want to marry Mr. Darcy (why are they are always called Mr. Darcy?), and you weren't there to see it, how on Earth could it matter to you? It cannot be true that your devotion to your wife or husband is diminished one iota because of a choice I might make. If I am wrong, please tell me why.

Health Care Hypocrisy

Okay. Let's get this straight. When Hillary Clinton took on the project of getting universal health care to Americans in 1993-1994, she didn't include Congress in a way that was viewed as meaningful. (It happened to be my only criticism of her because it became an excuse to block reform and I thought she should know better.) Congress was livid. After all, how could an uppity Wellesley/Yale girl assemble a team with a representative of every interest group and come up with something that could have at least been a launching off point to reform?


The Obama administration has now elevated the issue again and has attempted to include everyone in its deliberations. Now, some critics are saying that we can't resolve the issue because too many people, including those in Congress, make it impossible to agree on anything that would pass.


Which is it? Do we want everyone to weigh in or only "experts"? Do they need to meet in an open tent on the White House lawn so it won't appear that the deliberations are "secret"? Frankly, I don't care. But to those involved with the issue now and who are bent on blocking any kind of reform, please don't ever tell us again that Hillary's approach to the problem lacked political savvy. Tell us the truth which, it appears, is that there were never enough elected representatives then or now who wanted any meaningful reform at all and will go as far as lying about the administration's outlines of a plan in order to kill any bill that comes before them.


I withdraw my criticism of Hillary on this issue. No matter which route she chose, she was going to lose. How depressing is that?

Joe the Heckler

Rep. Joseph Wilson has already apologized for his adolescent rant during President Obama's recent health care speech to a joint session of Congress. Apparently, the House is considering some sort of punishment for the outburst. It's not a great idea. At its best, such a move is a distraction when we can't afford any more distractions. At its worst, a "punishment" risks making Rep. Wilson a folk hero to people who will do anything to stop health care reform.

The truth is a great disinfectant. I would rather that the Obama administration organize volunteers to visit Rep. Wilson's congressional district and work door-to-door on separating fact from myth. That will keep Wilson pretty busy.

Republicans don't need this kind of publicity right now. They're too busy working to change the balance in Congress in the off year election. It certainly doesn't help to have a member of your party look like a badly-mannered clown.

We all need to move on and focus on ideas and the process of reforming health care in a way that people don't die because they don't have access to quality health insurance.

Obama's Message to Young People

While some of you keep your kids home today because the President might deliver a speech directed at non voting age kids, please understand that you are doing your kids a disservice. The message is mainly 'stay in school'. As radical as this concept might be to some people, it hardly warrants the frenzy of those who are afraid of "socialism".

In the early part of the 20th century, completing high school was considered a real honor and generally left many people prepared to get a good job at a decent wage. My maternal grandfather got a bachelor's degree in 1925, almost unheard of among the middle classes at that time. It made it possible for him to remain employed throughout the Great Depression. For women - even wealthy women - high school (and perhaps a brief stint at a "finishing school") was a ticket to a better life. Few women, unless they came from wealthy families, completed an undergraduate degree.

By the end of WWII, jobs were already becoming more complex and the GI Bill permitted hundreds of thousands of men to finish college. Unless they were wealthy, far fewer women (or their parents) saw the utility of completing college, much less graduate school. The three jobs that were considered appropriate for middle class women (unless of course they chose to have children) were secretary, nurse or teacher. Even with that kind of training, until the 1970s, most of the better educated women stayed home to raise their kids, at least until they were in school themselves. In 1960, fewer than 10% of women held a bachelor's degree. Most of them were teachers. Today, women outnumber men in undergraduate colleges and make up nearly 50% of law students. Not only did it permit women more career choices, it gave them the freedom to walk away from bad marriages and still feed their kids.

Let's face it. The world changed. Good manufacturing jobs began to disappear, so much so that by the early 1970s it became increasingly rare to see a one-earner household that was not struggling to make ends meet, especially if they stopped their education at high school graduation. One easy way to find out how important education became is to look at your own community. People who live in the nicest parts of your town are far more likely to have two parents who completed college. Frankly, it's because they are paid better, have more stable jobs and usually enjoy their work more. They may be no smarter than many people who did not go on to college but the fact is, it made a huge difference in their ability to live where they wanted to live and get prepared to give their children a chance to do even better than they did.

Barack Obama's message to young students is the best advice they could possibly receive. I will agree that it is both a practical and political message. It's practical because more education (except, ironically, those with PhDs) usually results in better pay. It's political because there are people who remain convinced that it is a waste of time and money.

Last year, I said a few words at my stepfather's wake. In my remarks, I remembered what he told me and my sister: "Stay in school as long as you can. You won't regret it. The adult world is tough enough as it is." My mother worked her tail off for 35+ years teaching English in a rural high school. She had a few terrible years, as many teachers do, but she stuck with it. Some of her colleagues were astonished that I was permitted to go to Cornell University, a pretty expensive proposition in 1983. I worked for several years after graduation and then completed law school in 1993. My sister, 15 years younger, just started her medical residency in pediatrics. We are not better than anyone else but my parents helped to buy me and my sister the freedom to be anything we wanted to be (except perhaps a pole dancer) and did not try to influence the decisions we made. I once apologized to my parents that we had drained a lot of their resources. My mother said at the time a fractured quote that Jacqueline Kennedy said over 40 years ago. The real quote is that "If you bungle raising your children, nothing else you do makes much of a difference."

If that is Barack Obama's message, he's doing all of us a favor. The next time you speak to a female friend who is stuck in a loveless marriage because she lacks the credentials necessary to take a well-paid job, go ahead and tell her that you think Barack Obama is a socialist. Then tell her to go back to school anyway.

What Happens Next?

If by some miracle the House and Senate can reach a compromise on universal access to health care, what should be next?

The last Democratic administration chose to focus on "welfare" reform as a signature issue - in my mind akin to Nixon going to China - and establish Bill Clinton's bona fides as a moderate. He lost some of his closest friends during that time, chief among them Marian Wright Edelman, the leader of the Children's Defense Fund, an organization that included Hillary Clinton as a board member for many years. That organization, among others, was angry that Clinton's effort demonized disenfranchised women and risked throwing more children into worse poverty than they already experienced. Some consider that legislation a real success because it reduced the number of people receiving benefits and ended up with many former welfare recipients in jobs. The real problem, though, is that the effort did not translate into better relationships with conservatives or other legislative achievements that made real differences in our lives. It's not a slam at Bill Clinton. His administration shares the blame with Congress.


President Obama has similar choices to make. He can tack to the right a bit and perhaps find some common ground on many economic and social issues. He could take a risk - if incumbent Democratic members of Congress will go along with him - to be bolder on public policy questions. I'm not sure I want to go through another off year election where Republicans take back the House or the Senate but if you had a choice, which agenda would you choose?