It is a time in history when you are better off ignoring the television news and reading that good summer novel instead of the newspapers.
The headlines only make your stomach clench: the roller-coaster stock market, just to name one. Others break your heart: the shooting down of that helicopter in Afghanistan and the loss of nearly three dozen American lives; a killer drought and famine in Africa that has killed almost 30,000 children under the age of 5 over the last three months in southern Somalia.
Other news stories simply make you see red: the nonsensical behavior of our elected officials, most of whom deserve to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Now that’s a tradition I’d like to bring back.
Then there are the headlines that make you see how absolutely absurd the world has become and how skewed our priorities are. There are two that have especially gotten my goat this week and both have to do with clothing.
One talks about Kate Middleton’s fashion repeats as recycled clothing. The other breathlessly reports that the First Lady REPEATED A FLORAL PRINT SKIRT. Newsflash! It seems that truly important people can wear each outfit only one time before it is reported as news.
As the kids would say, OMG, really? Have our priorities become so out-of-whack that the future queen of England repeating an outfit qualifies as a recycling story? I try so hard to be green you could call me Kermit. I recycle my cans and bottles. I believe in saving seals and other living things. I must be an exemplary world citizen because, goodness gracious, I actually wear most of my clothes over and over again!
Here is the story of Michelle Obama’s fashion faux pas as reported on the Huffington Post:
“Michelle Obama made a brief appearance on Sunday, walking across the White House’s South Lawn after returning home from Camp David. For her traveling outfit, the first lady picked a blue tanktop, short-sleeved yellow cardigan and a floral print skirt she debuted at Mumbai University back in November.”
She wore it in November and had the temerity to wear it AGAIN in August!
Here is more of the story behind Kate Middleton’s recycled garments: “After a recent pair of repeat sartorial performances, one at Zara Phillips’ yacht party and another at her wedding, we decided to take a look at some of the former-Kate Middleton’s favorite things.
“The Duchess of Cambridge hasn’t hesitated to shop her closet, bringing back oldies but goodies on the regular.
“Her Canadian tour gave us a previously unprecedented glimpse into her wardrobe, showing us just how much she loves a recycled outfit.”
Good God, she repeats her wardrobe, she wears recycled outfits; she’s one of us!
I can’t believe that this drivel qualifies these days as news. It may have great entertainment value, but at a time when the world is going all to hell, headlines such as these take away from the true suffering.
Who can look at the pictures of those dying Somalian babies and not think of the heartache of their mothers who have to watch them die and know they are powerless to do anything?
The heroes in that doomed helicopter were on a rescue mission to save other servicemen in trouble. What happened to them? What will happen to the families, especially the children, of those who will never come home?
As for the U.S. economy and the lack of leadership there, I understand that the very same elected officials who have tipped our country into economic disaster are heading off for a month-long vacation.
Who gets a month-long vacation these days? Most average Americans can’t afford to take more than a week or two because if they’re lucky enough to have a job, they have too much work to be away that long.
The American who does not have a job doesn’t have the money to go on any vacation at all so there is absolutely no break from worry and stress.
A vacation should be taken in the wake of a job well done. This Congress has failed in its leadership role and instead, has displayed incessant squabbling and bitter back-biting for all the world to see. Are they leaders or are they toddlers? I believe I am insulting toddlers with that question.
I am not diminishing the seriousness of this country’s problems or suggesting that the solutions are easy. But never has so much power been in the hands of a reckless minority of self-centered extremists more focused on proving themselves right than doing what is right for the country.
And frankly, much of this economic stuff makes absolutely no sense anyway. Here’s one anecdote that illuminates that all too well. Our daughter’s credit report just came back higher than ours.
This actually made me laugh out loud. Our 20-year-old is a full-time college student with no significant income. We pay her tuition. We pay her rent. We pay her living expenses. She does have a couple of credit cards we encouraged her to open in her name so she could build her credit history. I guess we’ve succeeded very nicely.
But the bottom line is that we pay off those credit cards too. So how does she get a better credit rating than we poor working schlubs who pay our mortgage on time, pay the bills, invest in our children and the environment, and donate to others whenever we can? It’s a topsy-turvsy world. Don’t you agree?
