The Secretary of State is Not Your Nagging Mother

It is amazing. You are alive. Years of blundering through life, from tricycle to BMW, ignorance to awareness, you made it.

Conscientious people think about these things sometimes. They take a mental roll of all the stupid things they have done in their lives and come to the realization “it is a fucking miracle that I am here right now.”

How did it happen?

Best bet? It probably has a lot to do with your mother.

Remember your mother. Remember the times you called just to chat, talk to your mother, ask her advice. What should I do about my girl friend? Am I crazy, or is she? Remember asking your mother how long you could not pay the cable bill until they shut it off. Remember asking her what course you should take and (despite being your “own person”) end up taking that course.

Now remember the Secretary of State. Remember when she advised you to bomb Iraq when the scandals were touching a little too close to home. Remember when she called you from Putin’s office in Russia and got you to take your finger off the button. Remember, just this past year, when she told every one who would listen that you were not qualified for your job.

Wait.

What is that? Remember the Secretary of State? She?

Three out of the last four Secretaries of State have been women. Strong willed, high character women. Women who must have been frightening mothers.

By definition, a Secretary of State serves the President. Just like a mother does a service to her child by raising it and teaching right from wrong.

Bill Clinton had the first, Madeleine Albright, the tough old curmudgeon. She reminds me of a favorite aunt, the one you would not mind seeing on occasion, yet you pitied your cousins for having her as their mother. The one with the hunched back, the longer cigarette with plastic holder, the extra dirty martini and the cane to smack you when you got out of line.
Yet, she was a loving mother and aunt. She was sharp as a cleaver, she kept you in line, pointed you in the right direction, chastised you when you were insolent. You thanked her for it. You respected her as much as you feared her.

Clinton made a cameo on Family Guy not long ago and revealed the wild and crazy side that can only be Bill. . . “Hey, you know where I got that nipple ring? Old straddling Madeleine Albright gave it to me.”

Oxymoron?

Or just moron?

Then came Condi. Like Albright before her, brought into office in the second term of a president, in this case George Junior.

Condoleezza Rice seemed like she could have had a kind streak. Maybe. Yet, she also seems like one of those tough-as-all-hell African-American mothers who would bludgeon you from across the house to get off your lazy ass. Stop playing with your damned Play Station and do something.

Condi was what George Junior needed. Tough minded, smart (smarter than him, at least) and willing to work. She could take you to task as if you were an idiot or insolent and bully you into cooperating when you did not agree. What a perfect weapon to unleash on the world (and long overdue); The American Angry Black Woman. Junior, if you did something right your entire presidency, this may have been it.

Now comes Hillary. Confirmed by a margin of 94-2, she is President Obama’s blood hound. Mrs. Clinton follows the “Feared and Respected Elder” and the “Angry and Astute Black Woman” with her own special blend, power suits and all. We shall call her the “Classic New American Woman Power Broker Who Will Eat Your Soul.”

Admit it. Hillary scares you a little bit, doesn’t she?

Clinton is the last lady I would I would want to see as the Secretary of State if I was a foreign leader. Maybe the last person in general, except for the return of Henry Kissinger (I still might give Clinton the edge though). Smart, tough, crafty, devious even. She would wear a diplomatic smile as she signed your death warrant and present it to you with firm handshake and pat on the back.

It makes sense that the Secretary of State position should be now and forever dominated by woman. What better way to get world leaders to listen than to send over somebody who reminds them of their mothers, someone they cannot help but admire and respect, yet have a general, healthy fear for?

Now, remember recent history. Under which Secretaries of State did the two Iraq wars start?

Hint: They were not women.

Our presidents needed these women. Each president childlike and inexperienced in their own way, these women kept them accountable. They needed these women to keep them in line, needed them to fulfill their agendas, needed them to placate the rest of the world in a way that only a woman can do. Yet, they are not so much nagging mothers and caretakers as they are daggers that the presidents can throw. Sharp tools in the Cabinet.

World leaders, I warn you now. Watch out for our newest Secretary of State. Hillary will cut you, cut you deep if you do not fall into line.

Yet do not expect her to kiss your boo-boo, cotton swab it with hydrogen peroxide and make it all better with a band-aid.

Really, she is not that kind of Mom.

Just a Hook-Up

Charles Blow wrote an Op-Ed column in the NY Times on December 13 entitled “The Demise of Dating,” saying that amongst the younger generation, dating was a thing of the past and the hook-up was now the standard. The thrust of his argument is that the popularity of just hooking up has led to a decrease in our ability to establish and maintain one-on-one relationships; the emphasis on the group relationship has or is destroying the individual relationship.

Hold up a sec Chuck.

While I agree that the phenomenon of hooking up is seemingly replacing the old standard of dating, it doesn't mean that dating is dead. Relationships are not easy, and while the hook-up does simplify certain aspects of it, it also adds complications to others. The idea that hooking up “emphasizes group friendships over the one-pair model of dating" is only the surface of the issue. If people in a group friendship are hooking up, they are creating added layers to their specific relationship which creates one-pair interactions within the group friendship. On the surface, the hook up appears to only strengthen the group dynamic but it pushes the one-pair individual dynamic just as much.

Charlie also talked about how the hook-up is gender-biased toward men because eventually women want individual relationships and we, commitment-phobic, men only want to hook up. That's probably true. Still, I find it a bit silly to think that only women would want a hook-up to turn into a relationship. Hooking up is a two-way street, men get can get just as attached and begin to look for that individual relationship.

I take umbrage with the way Mr. Blow paints a picture of the future of social interaction as one that is solely a group dynamic with everyone hooking up with their friends and no one taking the time to get to know someone on an individual basis. Are we, as a generation, doomed to just move from one hook-up to the next with no real emotional foundation or attachment? I hope not.

A friend of mine told me "Love is important, it's what we live on, the delight we produce in others."

She's clearly smarter than me and I agree with her fully. I find it difficult to believe that through hooking up with someone you'll be able to make a connection that can lead to something deeper. The process of getting to know someone through hanging out with them is so integral to a relationship that skipping or holding off on that until after you hook up strikes me as backwards. If there is a connection, the intimacy will be there. It'd be good to know that the intimacy is just a part of a larger, deeper connection you share with someone.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, and need to get with the times, but I can't think of anything better than hanging out with someone I like and getting to know them... Then hooking up.

- Rick Dashiell

Reefer Madness

This article would have been finished sooner, but I got high. At the very least, thanks to the newly passed Proposition 2 law, Boston has managed to make this a relatively reasonable excuse (although it's always a valid excuse in my world). It gives new meaning to the phrase, as Brian Griffin puts it about the 1960s, "we've lost the values, but we kept the weed."

In my home state of the Bible Belt, conservative politics, pick-up trucks and anti-abortion protests, carrying a pipe could send you to jail for the night. Now I can wholeheartedly thank Massachusetts for becoming the 12th state to decriminalize marijuana: less than one ounce gets you a $100 fine instead of a night avoiding anal rape. Thank you, stoners, for getting off your asses in November long enough to vote. The new law (along with my newfound ability to find weed on Boston's craigslist) gives me faith in you as the nation's rumored #1 stoner city.

Seek out some stoners, break out the papers, attend a celebration event and load up the bong, because after all, and now officially, it's always 4:20 somewhere.

Stoner Ettiquete 101: 10 Rules to get you started on your degree in THC

1. Always share. Even if you have only a small amount of weed. It's the stoner way.

2. Be prepared. Take a couple of minutes to break up your buds by hand or in a grinder before you pack them or roll them up.

3. Pass to the left. It's the Indian way, dude.

4. Offer to a friend first. You don't have to do this every time, but it's a nice gesture and will always make that person feel special.

5. Puff, puff, pass is OK. puff, puff, puff pass? Not cool. Don't Bogart that joint, my friend. Keep it moving.

6. If you don't have weed of your own, ask politely. You're tapped out and find yourself with tokers who don't know you're dry. Ask if you can have a hit and wait patiently until it comes around to you. Don't jump into the stoner circle uninvited.

7. Don't scorch the bowl. When smoking out of a pipe or bong, make sure to light a corner of the bowl and to leave a little green stuff for the next stoner.

8. Watch the spit. Let's all keep our saliva to ourselves. No need to swap spit if you're not dating the guy or girl you're smoking with, right? A common (and much appreciated) technique: Use your fingers (or a fist, chillum-style) as a barrier between your lips and the bowl or joint.

9.Keep it clean. Clean out your paraphernalia often. Replace the bong water after several uses, give your glass a good pipe cleaning occasionally and, if you prefer joints or blunts, wash your hands.

10. Don't pocket someone else's lighter. Stoners love to (inadvertently) steal other people's lighters. No matter how high you are, try to keep track of whose lighter is whose.

- Desi Johnson