Hightower Lowdown
"If ignorance is bliss, George W must be ecstatic." -- Jim Hightower
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The time is ripe for real electoral reform
December's Lowdown
The many REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL after Election Day 2008
After casting her ballot for Barack Obama, Amanda Jones said simply, "I feel good about voting for him." Ms. Jones, of Cedar Creek, Texas (a town just south of Austin), is African-American, and what gives her vote some historic punch is that she's 109 years old. Her father was a slave. Her mother was born right after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. She's been through it all--Jim Crow segregation, women's suffrage, the Great Depression, the poll tax, FDR, the civil-rights movement, desegregation, 13 years of George W (five as guv, eight as prez), and now: Barack Obama. This last change fills her with joy, she says.
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Love sponsors all
Getting married is all about love, right? Not any more. In these modern times, getting hitched can mean hitching your wedding to commercial sponsors.
For example, Natasha Allen, a 22-year-old financial broker in Cincinnati, says that you should treat your wedding as "a business endeavor." The New York Times tells us that Natasha sold her wedding to 15 businesses, getting a free bridal gown, wedding cake, and wedding rings, among other matrimonial products.
In return, the sponsors got a five-tiered "presence" at Natasha's wedding ceremony—including advertising in her wedding invitations, a formal thank-you in the wedding program, and the placement of company brochures at the ceremony itself.
A young Philadelphia entrepreneur who was getting married captured the zeitgeist when he said: "It occurred to me that a start-up company and a start-up couple both needed launch money"—so he sold his $30,000 wedding to 24 business sponsors.
This is all rationalized not only in terms of the gross commercialization of our culture, but also in terms of the internal social pressure that these people feel to have not just a marriage ceremony, but an extravagant, $30,000 Martha Stewart trophy wedding.
What's next, a Nike swoosh on the bridal gown?