A Piece of Good News from Texas

Any word from Texas, good or bad, reverberates. Most states south of the Mason Dixon line look to the Lone Star State as a model, from textbooks to abortion laws. So this nugget of good news in the 9th largest county in the U.S. is significant: the Dallas County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 along party lines last week to add transgender protections to the county’s employment nondiscrimination policy.

Dallas County is no Austin-like bubble; its voters and reps tend to be extremely conservative. It also includes more than 2.4 million people. This is a major nudge toward acceptance of transgender identity outside of well-known progressive cities--which, all too often, don't bother to wield their influence elsewhere.

The most important line of Obama's address

Right after I watched Obama's 9-minute address to the country about bin Laden's death, I knew immediately which line was the most important:

"Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims."

The intense Islamophobia this country has experienced--from the blatant racism in public places after 9/11 and beyond, to the antics in Gainesville this past year, to the mindbogglingly popular belief that Obama himself is a Muslim (and...not in a good way)--needed a swift kick in the ass. The phrase is the tip of the iceberg. And it's purely symbolic, like much of what's happened since yesterday. But it's crucial, not only for positioning our place in the Middle East, but for Islamic-Americans who have squirmed in their seats for the past decade.

Starbucks Caves to Middle America

Starbucks has the distinct honor of evoking both a strip mall chain joint ...and an overpriced elitist coffee shop. I'll admit it--I refuse to say "venti" when I really mean large, even as I'm scolding myself for being a bad liberal by going to a Starbucks instead of Cafe Pick-Me-Up down the street.

Starbucks is attempting to mend at least half that problem with a new line of coffee marketed to people who would never set foot in a green mermaid cafe. The new, improved, down-home line of Seattle's Best (which was acquired by Starbucks eight years back) doesn't have hoity-toity names to please the coffee-philes. It has just five blends, which are labeled simply 1 through 5, from mildest to strongest. Perhaps the coffee giant is trying to please the anti-latte-liberal Tea Party set?

This is a fascinating development in the midst of major corporations like McDonald's, Wendy's, and Perdue trying the "green aesthetic" on fer size. Doesn't Starbucks realize that everyone's copying them? Apparently there's some sort of sweet spot between appearing healthy but not too snobby--like saying you got those calf muscles by climbing trees rather than running like a gerbil on the treadmill?

It's now officially impossible to tell by the packaging whether a product 1. is green 2. tastes "sophisticated" (read: lowfat/pungent/complex/all of the above) 3. is owned by the company under which it's advertised. The McDonald's Green Initiative Team is about to get mighty confused.

It would be nice if we could finally get past the equation that green=elitist. Or alternatively, if we didn't always have yuppify (marginally) healthy food with a supersleek style. I wish Starbucks would stand their ground, because there seems to be a lot of jealous competitors out there, not to mention people pushing them to practice what they preach.

That said: I could totally live without Starbucks' bullshit size names.

The Cost of our Weddings: A Little Reality Check

If you thought the attention on the royal wedding was a little crazy, especially given what most young people's lives are like nowadays, and light of what's happened in the last 24 hours--just check out little Gracie, who seems to understand.

Many of us, including Cord at GOOD, were particularly pissed at the price tag, both conceptually and actually. But what do we spend, as opposed to the purported billions spent (and lost) altogether after Kate and Will's fiesta? The average American couple spends about $18,050 to $30,083 on their wedding. This, of course, doesn't factor in any losses--like unpaid vacation for our honeymoons or what our guests spend on our wedding presents.

At first: Phew! A dose of reality. Then: whaaaat? According to the Social Security Administration, the average U.S. salary in 2009 was about $40,000. So given the fact that normal people are spending up to 3/4 of their yearly income (or their parents' income) on weddings--in a friggin' recession!--do we really have a right to be outraged?

What Would 9/11 Have Been Like with Twitter and YouTube?

News of Osama bin Laden's death broke last night on Twitter, when Keith Urbahn, chief of staff to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted, "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."

This was before the White House confirmed it, before TV reporters went on the air, before Obama's address to the nation--which was immediately YouTubed, of course. Endless jokes ensued--including a crop of death certificate cracks. Facebook pages went viral. Even though I'm a journalist, I don't love to record my very first feelings on the Internet...yet I felt obligated to, lest my kids ask me in 20 years, "Mama, what did you first tweet when you found out bin Laden was dead?" ("I tweeted 'Not sure what to tweet,' honey.") Last night and this morning are reminders not only of a long-lingering collective breath-holding, but an utter media makeover.

In 2001, there was no YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, smartphones, camera phones, or all that many blogs. How would our memories be different? With the advent of GoGo, there would have been tons of tweets from flight 93--including, possibly, useful slipups or throwaway comments from the suicide bombers. There would be visceral, heartbreaking goodbye letters posted right from the plane--videos even. At ground zero and across the country, there would have been terrified tweets and camera phone clips.

Everyone now has a public contribution, forever Google-able gut feelings. We now see the conversation unfolding in front of us, which is, I guess, weirdly satisfying. Also: embarrassing. "Obama bin Laden is dead!" I shouted as I shook my friend awake. (Seems like I wasn't the only one with this problem--and unlike me, someone over there hit "publish.") As I write my second post today on bin Laden at 9:15 a.m., here's hoping we'll take more than 140 characters to revisit our first assumptions.

This Is What An Osama-Is-Dead Party Looks Like

via MSNBC

Within minutes of the news that Osama bin Laden was dead by the U.S.'s hand in Abottabad, Pakistan, the Internet was flooded with first reactions that have continued into the early morning. The media is jumping on burning questions: Is this victory symbolic or tangible? What does this mean for Obama's re-election (I'd say it's pretty damn good, if not definitive, news)? Many asked, including GOOD: does bid Laden's death make the world safer? What happens with Al Qaeda? With the U.S. and Pakistan? With oil prices?

While the pundits scrambled, crowds rejoiced around the world, with a special verve, of course, in the United States. Thousands gathered outside the White House and at Ground Zero. Frat-tastic scenes like the above at the University of Missouri formed spontaneously around the country. Everyone from birthers to Rachel Maddow have been going on a tweeting spree. We haven't seen this kind of happy fervor since...well, Obama was elected.

The country is enjoying an uneasy moment of unity last night, but let's be real about what's going on. It's surely a rush of relief and closure for those directly affected by the 9/11 attacks, and of hope for those overseas in uniform. But it's also laying bare how hungry we are for validation--a modicum of comfort that our trillion dollar war machine actually does something. bin Laden's death is validation for conservatives who backed George W. Bush and liberals who were waiting for Obama to step up his game. It's validation for a nation that was beginning to doubt whether its famous arrogance was actually deserved. It reassures us that the PATRIOT act took away our right to privacy for a reason, that those maddening hours in airport security weren't all for naught. It justifies the trauma, the fear, the sheer panic that the nation felt after the worst terrorist attack in our history.

This is, at bottom, an American reaction: uncomplicated, compensatory, combative, and optimistic. And yes, totally natural. Feminist blogger Jill Filipovic--skeptical as they come--posted, "Tomorrow I will go back to being a thoughtful and generous-hearted person. Tonight? Fuck that guy, get your air horn out."

Fair enough. But before we jump from party to punditry, we should be honest with ourselves about our country's deep-seated desire to show the world who's boss with a decisive victory, no matter how symbolic.