FRIDAY FROTH...

A good friend (and fellow Southerner) with a knack for picking books that you are sure to be seeing on all the best beaches, recently recommended Kathryn Stockett's fiction debut, The Help.  The "help" in the title refers to the household variety, and, because this book is set in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi, the help is black.  My friend promised me that this book was not a white bashing, southerners-still-want-slavery book, and that in fact, it takes a fair and honest view of blacks and whites and their relationship during the time it was set--and it does, for the most part.  One of Ms. Stockett's main characters is a woman that is hell-bent on making sure that all of her Jr. League friends have separate bathrooms in their homes for their "colored" help.  The problem for me with this book is that this character is more "mean girl" than she is racist.  She treats her mother as badly as she does her black maid, and she browbeats her white friends into submission.   The Jr. League girlfriends go along with varying degrees of malice toward their help to keep in good standing with Miss High-and-Mighty League President.  I might have enjoyed this book more if memories of my daughter's Jr. High school run-ins with mean girls wasn't so freshly splattered across my mind.  Mean girls are still aplenty in our society but thankfully we've made some inroads on racism.  If I had ever suggested that our "help" use a separate bathroom the "help" would have spanked my bottom, but not half as hard as my daddy would have when he found out.  Pick up The Help-- while it's neither profound nor poetic, it is a quick and entertaining read for the beach or poolside.

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Robin Hood could have been a great movie.  Its star, Russell Crowe, and its director, Ridley Scott, have made beautiful music before:  Gladiator was an award-winning work of art.  But alas, Robin Hood could not keep me from constantly moving my legs around--the more my mind is engaged, the less my long legs move around looking for a comfortable place to rest and vise versa.  You would not have wanted to sit in front of me during Robin Hood!  It's not that the movie was bad -- it was an okay to good film; however, I expected better from the talent involved in its production.  Surprisingly, Scott's new movie has caught some criticism because it's a prequel to the story that we are familiar with.  This current version of the story shows the events in Robin Hood's life that eventually led him to his mission of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor--I liked seeing the forces that motivated the man.  The essence of Scott's Robin Hood is that the former king has spent the nation into poverty with foreign wars, and the new king wants to tax everyone into poverty to restock the coffers -- sound familiar?  Robin Hood knows that taking from the rich and giving to the government, um, I mean king, never works -- a concept that clearly makes me very uncomfortable as well.  Now that I think about it, maybe my flailing legs were more of a reaction to the idea of wealth redistribution than boredom.

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My fall fashion prediction is that over-the-knee boots will be a must-have come September.  This ever-so-sexy footwear is showing up more than traditional boots.  There are lots of styles to choose from so don't be afraid that you can't make tall boots work for you--you can, just keep everything else simple.  Above:  Manolo Blahnik's lattice-top boots would look great with a grey wool sheath and pearls or black tights and a slim tunic.  Ralph Lauren's flat brown boots would make a great statement with jeans and a t-shirt or cords and a sweater.  Come on...don't be shy!

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They've arrived!  College students are home for the summer and they are tired and hungry.  If you have the male variety then you're exhausted from shopping and cooking (and let's face it, you're still cleaning up after him) to keep the poor baby from starving.  If you have the female variety your clothes and shoes are disappearing, or either dirty when you want to wear them.  With either variety your car and credit card are being requested daily and cash evaporates from your wallet.  They like to go out when you are going to bed and go to bed when you are getting up.  Hang in there.  September will be here before you know it and someday they will have their own teenagers returning from college for the summer and you can laugh out loud with delight when they complain about them.

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And now for a non-frothy item (because there are some plain-old black coffee drinkers out there):

What do you think about Joe Sestak being offered a job by the White House to not run against Arlen Spector?  It's all very fishy isn't it?  You can bet the administration's delay in talking to the press was so they could all get their stories straight.  While what went down may be illegal, it's probably nothing that hasn't been done by both parties many times before, but the bottom line is that people are tired of this type of shenanigans in government and Mr. Obama said that he was going to change things--he hasn't.

FRIDAY FROTH...

As the end of the school year approaches we can expect our kids to come to us with ideas for graduation/end-of-the-year trips.  If they suggest Mexico you should think long and hard before saying yes.  Its warring drug cartels have made Mexico a very dangerous place--I'm sure you've read about the murders, kidnappings, and innocent people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  What you may not know is that Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users.  Roughly speaking, legally you can have four marijuana cigarettes, four lines of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.  Maybe you are confident that your child won't be tempted by the legality of drugs while they are in Mexico--I'm sure they won't--but what about all of the other people that your child will be partying with in the clubs or on the beach?  Scary!

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Some of my favorite books are fiction with a strong historical component.  I've just finished The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff.  Mr. Ebershoff entertains as well as illuminates in his intertwined stories of polygamy.  In one story, Ann Eliza Young, 19th wife of Brigham Young, tells of life growing up in a polygamist world and her eventual apostasy from the Mormon Church.  This is not a love story.  Ann Eliza was at times in awe of Brigham as a leader, but most of her time as his wife was titular. The modern-day story,within-the-story, also involves polygamy, as well as being a murder mystery, and has its own apostasy--not regarding polygamy but gays, and the Mormon Church's rigid stance that has caused them to leave the church, if not the religion.  I like books with interesting finales and this author has a unique and clever way of integrating the two stories at the end.

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The recent gubernatorial debate between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner offered little in the way of new information.  However, it did confirm that negativity is alive and well in politics.  Mr. Poizner came out slinging and Ms. Whitman found herself on the defensive, but she managed to throw a few feeble punches of her own regarding Mr. Poizner's flip-flopping on issues. Pundits quipped that Meg might not be tough enough to govern.  Tough may not be what we need.  Arnold is tough, yet he has had a hard time making an impact.  We need someone who can make Californians understand that we are in deep trouble and that it is not going to be pretty or fun getting out of this mess.  We need someone to instill pride and a sense of duty in Californians--not a sense of entitlement.  We need a leader.  Right now we have a state that is covered in a security blanket that has become threadbare by pensions, labor unions, and illegal immigration.  Our politically correct, freewheeling attitudes have taken us down the road to ruin.  The "right" candidate for California would be running ads of Greece's current nightmare with a voiceover saying, "California will be the next Greek tragedy unless we all pull together for the greater good."  Too many politicians cater to special interest instead of dedicating themselves to making tough choices.  They make promises to get themselves elected or reelected: solving problems is a distant second on their agendas.  I'm not optimistic--feta-stuffed grape leaf anyone?

PS--If you think Greece is not our problem think again.  The trillion-dollar bailout will be partially funded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the largest contributor to the IMF is yes, you guessed it, America.  This  means Mr. and Ms. American taxpayer will not only be paying for health-care and other social services for Americans, but also Greeks.

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It was just me and my sometimes snuggly, always feisty, 16 year-old daughter on Saturday night so we went to the Jennifer Lopez movie, The Back-up Plan.  Ms. Lopez is not a great actress but she looked fabulous strutting around (pregnant, no less) in her five-inched Christian Louboutins.  And to be fair, her co-star, Alex O'Loughlin looked great too.  Mr. O'Laughlin doesn't need $1000 shoes because he has million-dollar abs that he flaunts while driving a tractor shirtless.  The movie opens with Ms. Lopez being artificially inseminated because she desperately wants to have a baby but has not met anyone who can fill the bill as father.  She leaves the doctor's office and meets the man of her dreams before you can say baby-daddy.  This is not a great movie--it's predictable, silly, overly sentimental and at times, gross.  However, if your daughter is in a snuggly mood it's a perfectly fine way to spend an evening.

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It would not have been hard to miss the news that there was major flooding in Tennessee earlier this month.  Even if you heard there was a flood, chances are you are not aware of how catastrophic it was.  The flood has gotten short shrift by the news media and the White House.  With few complaints about being over-shadowed by terrorist attempts in Times Square and an oil rig horror in the Gulf, the good people of Tennessee have pulled together to take care of themselves.
Check out this video:  YouTube - Nashville Tennessee Flood 2010