b...b....b...baby

Like so many first time parents I use a totally unreasonable excess of “nicknames” for my baby. His name, Caleb, which we love and is the result of months of painstaking contemplation, is almost never heard.

I like to think these nicknames reveal themselves to me more than I come up with them. They really do just pop out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them. Lately it’s been a wellspring of “buh” sounds. My little man goes by “bubsieboo,” “boo bear,” “buster brown,” “bumble bee,” and (this last one is embarrassing, but I have no power to stop it) “boo boo.”

I guess he’s not quite a Caleb yet. He’s a round, soft, funny, toddling, ball of love, and apparently those imagines are neurologically wired with the "buh" sound. I guess that’s why our babies are called babies. I’m sure when he hears me finally call him “Caleb” he’ll look around and wonder who I’m talking to.

I’m currently reading a book, “Half the Sky” by Pulitzer Prize winning couple Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn on the plight of mainly poor women around the world. They make a compelling and often heart–wrenching case that issues affecting this demographic, like the sex trafficking, selective abortions, poor maternal health -- issues that often get little press – are the most pressing human rights issues of our day.


The stories they tell are unapologetically graphic and at times even turn my stomach. They tell stories of women in India being disfigured from acid thrown in their face because they’ve rejected an admirer; of women in Ethiopia being kidnapped and gang raped if a suitor cannot come up with her bride price, thereby reducing her worth and increasing his bargaining power (these women often end up marrying their rapist); of women being brutally stoned to death for alleged but unproven affairs; of a shocking number of women in the Congo being raped with knifes and sticks as a tool of war; of women let to die because of complications from birth which leave them incontinent, of women (girls really) who are promised jobs and then tricked into brothels to work as sex slaves; of girls who are sold for $10 to abusers, of girls whose brothers preferentially get medicine and education while they are left to wilt. As a reader, you are struck as much by the naked violence and brutality as by the gross injustice these women face.


The authors counter each horrific tale with another of hope. They talk about the valiant efforts of NGOs, survivors and courageous individuals to make positive change. But you are still left with an overwhelming sense of the profound injustice and cruelty that so many are left to endure.

I suppose I always knew about these issues in the abstract, but the authors do a remarkable job of making these issues deeply personal with stories and often pictures of the affected women and girls. If you are human, you will be moved by their accounts.


The injustices in “Half the Sky” infuriate me so much I can’t read it before I go to bed, and my husband doesn’t understand why I keep reading it at all. (Poor man has to endure my outraged tirades and sour moods.)


I guess I feel I have to learn about these things in all their raw and explicit detail to really grasp the reality that some women – who, lets face it, could just as easily be me were I born in most parts of the world – face. If my sisters around the world have to endure such sharp injustice and pain, the absolute least I can do is know about it. But after reading this book, I defy anyone to just “know” about it and not do more.

Martha Martha Martha!!!

I’m generally a cynical voter. When I do drag my butt to the polls, I do it out of a sense of duty not out of any fantasy that my vote might actually matter. Last night was different. I happened to be living in a solidly Democratic state holding a special election to replace Ed Kennedy, perhaps the most storied Democratic senator, and it looked like the Republican candidate was poised to stage a stunning upset. Massive health care reform, the first of its kind, hung in the balance.

Polls were close and, as someone whose beliefs and values more closely track with the Democratic agenda, I felt compelled to cast my vote. Driving home from the polling place, I heard a BBC World story on my small state’s election. In that moment, I felt at the center of not only history but the world. Turns out, my vote was not decisive.

So, we all know that Brown did, in the end, stage that promised stunning upset. Today brings the inevitable Monday morning quarterbacking. His election was the result of disapproval of health care reform, Coakley’s lackluster campaign, a general dissatisfaction with the “direction of the country” or the economy that often pushes in an outsider challenger.

I personally think Mass voters also kind of resent being taken for granted. Once the initial aura of inevitability around a Democrat taking the seat was punctured, I’m guessing voters felt a long awaited sense of empowerment. We all want to feel that our voice “counts,” and at the last minute Mass voters got a real race.

In reality, this race was about more than the state. Health care reform, some say, died with this election. If so, I want to mourn it. I believe in reform and it seemed the nation did too. Just a year ago, that people were dying and losing their homes due to lack of health coverage was a national outrage that cut across party lines.

Then, so much happened. Unlike Clinton era reform efforts, this time we tamed the then most effective opposition to reform – the insurance companies - by including them in the process. But conservative talk radio picked up where the insurance companies of the 1990s left off with fear campaigns featuring death panels and socialism that bore little resemblance to reality but gained impressive traction. Then, our Byzantine political process of deal making and horse trading got us a cumbersome 2000 page document that was difficult to explain much less defend and left lots of room for over simplistic criticism to flourish.

So, if it is dead, I’d like to mourn it, but I’m not even sure what I’m mourning any more. Even its supporters, acknowledging the bills’ shortcomings, launched defenses like, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.” And I do think that it could have done (might still do?) some good by insuring millions more, providing more choice and forcing insurance companies to take on those with pre-existing conditions. But is it too expensive to justify those improvements? Who knows anymore.

I think I’ll mourn it more for what it will probably do to a president I deeply respect and believe it. Obama has surely made some missteps his first year. But, he’s had a greater number and greater scale of problems to tackle than any president in recent memory, and I admire the way he’s tackled them – by attempting to make non-ideological and reasoned decisions. He's taken decisions knowing he would suffer a political hit because he thought they were the right course based best information available, and that shows a kind of integrity and courage you don’t often see in today’s politics. I’d hate to see a mess of a process at reform tipped over the edge by a special election upset help undo someone who I believe is doing an admirable job in a near impossible position.

"Mexican" vacation

Ahhh….. I’ve just returned from a much needed escape from the dreary Boston cold and snow. I feel a bit guilty complaining about the weather having just come from basking in the warm Mexican sun, but it somehow feels even more biting and miserable here in comparison. Anyway, we (my extended family) just spent a week in Mexico. But to be fair, our week was really spent in a resort that could have been just about anywhere in the sunny world. The only clue to our continent was the language spoken by most (but not all) of the resort staff and the stylized references to Mayan culture throughout the resort.

The Grand Mayan, where we stayed, is one of those colossal fabricated kingdoms of vacation fantasy that borders on distasteful. You are welcomed to the resort through an entrance I’m sure was described in some developer’s meeting as “creating a sensation of traveling to a faraway time, providing a separation between the every day and the experience of the resort.” The space is easily 3 stories high, lit with somber mood lighting and infused with the music of deep tribal base drums and subtle water features. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you are met at eye-height by a giant foot and look up to see eye-poppingly immense statues of gilded Mayan warriors. At all times, there is a local woman quietly mopping the marble floors as vacationers sully them with their sandy flip flops and who signifies that no expense will be spared to wipe your proverbial fat American bottom.

The resort itself is decorated in the contemporary spa style and you feel immediately ensconced in luxury. Out back, there are at least 8 or 9 interconnected pools accented with waterfalls, whirlpools and margarita bars, and surrounded by tropical vegetation worthy of a botanical garden. There’s a manmade stream encircling the whole campus of pools that serves as a lazy river for vacationers to innertube on.

But the piece de resistance is gigantic water slide built on – what else? – a mock up of the Mayan Pyramid of Kukulkan, just in case (and you can’t be blamed) you forget where you are. The resort lies just on the beach, but in case resort goers want to entirely avoid local riff raff, the Grand Mayan has constructed a “fake beach” literally 20 feet from the real one, complete with a graduated and sandy shore, and a wave pool. It’s all best described as ridiculously over the top.

My folks bought a time share here pre-construction and, they tell me, got a fantastic deal on the place. We’ve been going here for years now, and I spent most of those feeling consumed with guilt by being so surrounded by such superfluous luxury in such close proximity to real world poverty. I felt conspicuous in front of the ubiquitous Mexican staff and constantly worried how I looked to them -- likely out of touch and spoiled.

I’ve since made my peace with all of that. After all, it makes my family happy to have uninterrupted time together, and the tourism of Puerto Vallarta fuels a full 80%of the local economy creating endless jobs. I know my discomfort isn’t helping anyone and global disparities in wealth exist even when they aren’t thrust in my face. It’s not how I’d necessarily choose to vacation, but I’ll indulge my family…. And myself.