The Brockovich Report

As familiar to us as the backs of our own hands, the little main street square lives in our minds as concretely as if we walked those streets, and jumped over the actual cracks not to break our mother's backs; you know, that cozy town square and all the homey penny candy dispensing shopkeepers who know our names--straight out of the collective unconscious--or some James Stewart/Frank Capra common mythos. But that's not really main street these days. Main street has gone the way of wall street--lost to power mongers who follow the path of corruption, otherwise know as corporate sleight of hand. All around us, the big packagers, the huge corporations are shutting down branches, laying off people, and the empty buildings stare at us through their empty-window eyes, making a mockery of yesterday's affluence. In many areas of the country, formerly thriving economic retail centers are starting to look like the abandoned tenements of Urban blight. And it is spreading.

How many power brokers are like Fred Smith of Federal Express, taking a personal 20 percent pay cut and freezing wages rather than putting hundreds--perhaps thousands--out of jobs?

No, it looks like most power brokers these days take multi-million dollar bonuses seconds before their corporations are liquidated, tossing millions of people out of work, out of savings, out of pensions.

What is happening to wall street and main street is happening to the environment.

Abandoned by the corporations who caused them, abandoned environmental hot spots are collected under the Superfundumbrella, with the optimistic mission "to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. . . . ensuring that remaining National Priorities list of hazardous waste sites are cleaned up to protect the environment and the health of all Americans."

It looks like Obama has plans to make a few changes. Obama named Harvard physicist John Holden as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology policy, and Marine Biologist Jane Lubchenco as National Oceanic Atmospheric Administrator. And also he's engaged other scientific leaders like Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander. These are leading thinkers of the green movement. Let's hope they can live up to their reputations.

It's a start.

I hope when Obama met with Al Gore and talked about global warming that they talked about how to clean up all the contamination. We are committing our own genocide and don't even seem to care. Does anyone care? How do I get someone's attention here? How do we get these sites cleaned up?

I don't really mind that the old town square is fondly remembered anachronism. There's a long history: the Roman Forum; the Italian Piazza; the French Grand-Place. Somewhere, sometime, towns and their squares will be rebuilt and be vital and live again. And if not, well, town gathering places are bound to grow and evolve just as people grow and evolve. I only hope that other things that we hold dear--like clean water, clean air, unimproved land in its natural state--will not become fondly remembered relics of the past.

I want to clarify a few things. To those of you who say I am endorsing Palin...

Where does it say that I endorse Sarah Palin?

Nowhere.

At no point in the September 8th blog did I say I endorse Palin. I said she is a strong women.

What is wrong with that?

Nothing.

If you pay attention to the words, you would see that the blog says nothing about endorsements. This isn't political. The blog says, "Whether or not we stand on the same side of the fence, she gives off the aura of being a strong woman...."

Let's face it. No matter what people read, sometimes they only hear what they want to hear.

Let's give Sarah Palin credit for what she has done to date in a hard and difficult world: Raising kids. Being a mayor. Being a governor. I admire that when she didn't like how things were getting done in Alaska, instead of griping, she did something about it. She had the courage to run for office. Good for her or anyone else that can do it.

I don't agree with everything Palin says. I don't agree with everything anyone says. I think for myself. Guess what? I think that Hillary Clinton is a strong woman too. To paraphrase something Maya Angelo once said, "I admire Hillary on the basis of her having the authority to be herself, a mother, and a politician. When a woman stands up for herself, she stands for all women."

We can all choose for whom we vote. We choose what we think and what we do. That is the beauty of America. The freedom of choice.

For those of you who disagree with me, I respect your right to your opinion. Just don't misquote me, or quote me out of context to make what you want out of what I said.

I don't agree with everything Sarah Palin does. I don't agree with everything
corporate America does. I don't agree with all candidates on all issues. I don't always agree with my husband or kids or friends but that doesn't mean that I don't give them credit where credit is due.

Just because someone is a Republican, Democrat or Independent doesn't mean
that I do or don't, will or won't look at their positives and their negatives. I make up my mind after I see and hear everything the candidates have to say.

Besides, how many times have we voted someone into office and they turned out to be different from what they promised?

As long as we're talking about endorsements, I am endorsing a local Senate candidate named Tony Strickland.

Tony Strickland is a friend of mine and a Republican. He is also for green energy and would make a great Senator.

The idea that we can't cross party lines is ridiculous.

I could sit here and say I am Republican, I live in this box. I could sit here and say I am a Democrat, I live in that box. I could refuse to extend my hand across the aisle for a common goal and cause. Then I could sit side by side--or back to back--with my fellow Americans, forever at a stalemate. Nothing would ever get done.

But I don't live in a box. I want what I think we all want--which is to help people over all.

Rather than only being one sided and part of the problem and getting nothing done, let's work to be a part of a solution. Let's reach our hands across the aisle to help negotiate so we can get to work and get this country moving again.

I was born and raised in a Republican family in Kansas. My father worked for industry and the government. He is a mechanical engineer. He is the very person who taught me the value of our land, air, water, health. And that the greatest gift we have is our family. Funny, he is a Republican yet taught me very fundamental Democratic ideals.

As an adult I have been a registered Republican and a registered Democrat.

Neither party has a patent on caring.

Neither party has a patent of caring for the environment, health or anything else. These are not partisan issues; these are Humanist issues. You will never convince me that just because someone is a Republican that they don't care about the environment or that their kids could be poisoned by environmental pollutants. You will never convince me that just because someone is a Democrat, that they don't care about money or the economy. We all care about the environment and our kids, and money and the economy.

I wish there were a "Humanist" party because that IS the party that I would join.

A recent blog post touched on a topic which gets me all worked up.

"America is in love--again. Remember how we loved Vivian Ward, the pretty woman in Pretty Woman? And who could forget Maggie Carpenter, the runaway bride in Runaway Bride? Or Tess Ocean, the twelfth ocean in Ocean's Twelve? But then there's my personal favorite: Erin Brockovich, who was Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich." Read the full post...

People keep confusing Julia/Erin. That's the first time I've ever seen "Erin who was Erin in Erin..." Excuse me, but there IS an actress in there somewhere. Doesn't an actor have to play a character for 30 years (like Captain Kangaroo) to become such an icon that they become their character?

And--Excuse me!--I'm not fiction. I exist. Julia can't be me because I am me.

"America is in love--again. Remember how we loved.....But then there's my personal favorite: Erin Brockovich, who was Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich." What is that sentence even supposed to mean?

I had to look up all of those roles...

Vivian Ward, (Pretty Woman)
Maggie Carpenter, (Runaway Bride)
Tess Ocean, (Ocean's Twelve)
Erin Brockovich, (Erin Brockovich)

... to figure out that ALL of them are Julia Roberts.

Maybe they can do a movie about Julia Roberts's life and I can play Julia. Then someone can write an erroneous blog ostensibly about me, that says "Julia Roberts, who was Julia Roberts in Julia Roberts."

That would really confuse them.