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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Redstocking
Published Letters: 3
I want to comment about the brouhaha over the Oliphant cartoon about Hillary and the Bad Guys.In my high school NY Regents exams, we were always asked to interpret historical editorial cartoons in light of what we had learned about that period of American history. This would be an excellent one to use. Initially, my disgust with the cartoon was balanced by hilarity at the cartoonist's delusion that 60-year old women suffers from PMS. One of the great things about being 62 is that both PMS and menopause symptoms are a distant memory. Hillary is an excellent exemplar of the postmenopausal zest of older women that the anthropologist Margaet Mead spoke about. Free from PMS and the Menopause, women Hillary's and my age might be the safest guardians of the nuclear button, provided the country summon up the courage to watch us age.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the cartoon has been completely misinterpreted. According to Wikipedia, Oliphant's trademark is a small penguin character named Punk, who is often seen making a sarcastic comment about the cartoon. The PMS remark is an important clue. Hillary is depicted as an old women and people still rant about PMS.
In 2005, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee expressed concern that some of Oliphant's caricatures were racist and misleading. That is important to know. Oliphant is criticizing sexist media attacks on Hillary by equating them to the rampant misogyny in some of the Arab world. After all, the world leaders repeating the US media attacks.
The demand of some liberal bloggers for Oliphant's firing is far more offensive than the cartoon even it if was really as offensive as it had been misinterpreted. . Pat Oliphant, 72, has been described by the New York Times as the"most influential cartoonist now working." In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Oliphant won the National Cartoonist Society Editorial Cartoon Award seven times in 1971, 1973, 1974, 1984, 1989, 1990, and 1991, the Reuben Award twice in 1968 and 1972 and the Thomas Nast Prize.
The responsibility of political cartoonists is to offend us enough to shake up our knee-jerk assumptions and reactions. When a cartoonist with such a superb reputation produces something at first glance so offensive, we owe him the respect of thinking about it. My 31-year old daughter instantly "realized that it was completely tonguein-cheek and making fun of the idea that some people actually think this is what it would mean to have a woman president."
I am 62 and have shared housework equally with two husbands since I was 23. Over the years my attitude toward housework has changed dramatically. When I can do it on my own time (and not under a deadline because we are entertaining), I find housework relaxing, conducive to thinking, planning what to write in my blog, meditating, remembering, working through problems. Using my hands seems to liberate my mind. Gardening offers similar pleasures. My abysmal standards help greatly; I am talking about a relatively short period of time. When I was a mother of four daughters, taming the chaos was not so relaxing. Then my idea of a night out on the town was going to the supermarket by myself.
I am puzzled why people try to avoid physical labor at home and then go to gyms instead. I would rather spend three hours doing housework than one hour at the gym, whose atmosphere I hate. I do think we undervalue physical labor and the people who perform it. Neither my husband or I have any trouble getting laid:)
People seem to think Nancy Pelosi is younger than she is. She will be 72 in 2012, 76 in 2016--too old to be considered a viable candidate. It is hard to conceive of any woman as young as Obama being taken seriously.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
