CatherineRhodes.com

The glass ceiling is a myth

Anyone who doubts the success of feminism hasn’t been paying attention to California politics. Currently, the two senators are women (Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein), my Congressperson in the 33rd District is a woman: Diane Watson, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, resides in my home state.

It’s an election year, and the challenger for governor is Meg Whitman, the nominee to fill Watson’s seat when she retires is Karen Bass, and there’s Janice Hahn running for Leutenant Govenor. Holly Mitchell wants to replace the speaker in the state Assembly. In the 36th district, it’s Jane Harman against Marcy Winograd.

On and on,  you get the picture. It’s such a girl’s club in California politics these days, makes you wonder what happened to the boys.

It is big and ugly — isn't that the point?

Why are people still interested in movies about the Holocaust? IMHO, it’s because the central question is still unresolved: How much did ordinary people know? How could they turn a blind eye? What is it in the German national character that made it possible?

Watched “The Reader” the other night on Netflix. The Kate Winslet character is on trial for having been a Nazi guard who allowed 300 prisoners to burn to death in a locked farmhouse. Her defense: If the doors had been opened the prisoners would have run everywhere. It would have been chaos.

Just doing my job. Just following orders.

Was in Berlin with my brother Stef a few years ago and three things stood out. First, the newly opened Jewish Museum, wherein exhibit after exhibit chronicles anti-semitism in Europe, as if to plead, “see, it wasn’t us, everyone hated them. We were just willing to take action.”

Then there is the so-called Holocaust memorial, a square block full of tombstones of varying height with corrridors that allow visitors to walk through. There is all sorts of symbolism, but the upshot .is that it is like a boot in the face, located across from the Reichstag, and is widely despised by Berliners They feel forced by outsiders to deface their lovely city with this monument to the past.

Ah, the power of a uniform

But my favorite was a temporary exhibit set up for the victims of people who died trying to cross the border from East Germany into West. There were about 700 victims over a 45-year period. The organizers of the memorial had a hand-lettered poster that read, “Why should the people who died in the Holocaust get all the attention? After all, they weren’t even real Germans.”

Could the Holocaust happen again? In my opinion, no. An operation of that size could not be hidden with today’s technology. The chimneys flaring at Buchenwald would be picked up by Google Earth and some dude with a flip video would upload the footage to YouTube where it would most likely go viral. I suppose the better question is, If they could get away with it, would it happen? Given who we are as a species, I think the answer is most definitely yes. Ask any Frenchman candidly if he would like to cleanse his country of the Muslim population (10 percent) and you see that it’s not just the Germans. The Germans just took their task seriously.

Day Seven Itnerary:
Versailles!
Boys to Musee d’Orsay and the Louvre
Dinner and Gelato

Our plan to be the first in line at Versailles was foiled when we got on the wrong train and ended up somewhere in the French countryside. We all assumed everything was ok because we got on the same train we’d been on the day before, except that for some reason this one took a different fork in the road. Note to self: watch for that deadly fork in the road!

We refused to allow our enthusiasm to be damped by a mere sidetrack. We returned to Paris and put ourselves on the right train, then arrived at Versailles, finally, three hours after we’d begun the 45-minute trip. But it was worth it. I got shivers being in the Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1918 ending the First World War. Sara, the girls and I all loved Marie Antoinette’s “Petite Trianon” palace, which was a small, less ornate mansion built about 30 mins walk from the main palace.

Thursday night we met up with the boys for dinner at a locally-owned small restaurant just down from our hotel. We heard their stories — they’d gone to the Musee d’Orsay and back to the Louvre. Since kids under 18 are free at museums in Paris, they had nothing to lose by hopping around. We went to our favorite gelato place where the server, who spoke five languages, scuplted the cones into roses.

The palace is massive

Love the topiary

Millions of steps

Marie's secret palace

Let them eat cake

It's so pretty!

The Sunday talk shows still lead the news cycle

BOTH MEN participated in the round table on “This Week,” George Stephanopolous’s show on the Sunday morning talk show curcuit. George Will presents the pure conservative position and Robert Reich the liberal. They were discussing what should be done about AIG specifically, and the banks in general that are being bailed out with TARP funds. Mr. Will said that AIG should submit to the discipline of the market by reorganizing under the appropriate chapter of bankruptcy. Mr. Reich said, “you’ll ge no disagreement from me there.” They both seemed surprised to find themselves in agreement.