A Capital Idea

Our Capitalism Day Celebration was delayed by two months. December 25, 2015 found each of the six of us too busy to gather, so February 26th we did!

Younger daughter (AKA Auntie Sid) and her fiancé (AKA Uncle Mister Grady Pants) came up the coast from the wild environs of San Luis Obispo, while The Grandest Grandie in all the land and her Mama Mo came from twelve minutes away to our newish to us house on the hill for a weekend of play.

We took a field trip to Berkeley for lunch, and to a shop called Daiso, where items from Japan can be had for very few coins. Stationery, household items, sugary sweets whose ingredients are all written out in konji, which I cannot read, so the effects of the sugar don’t count and won’t hurt me, (right?). Art & craft supplies, and toys galore were bought and enjoyed by all of us. We brought back bubbles that, when you blow them on the wind, scatter, but supposedly can be caught and stacked if blown in calm air, and we blew it, then attempted to catch bubbles that mostly flew skyward so fast that we got stiff necks watching 'em!

Films were watched, games were played; plans were hatched, we’re so glad they stayed.


Now Oscar night is upon us. I’m feeling an Oscarly grouch and similarly blah about all the hoopla as I felt about Super Bowl.

Having watched a fair number of the contenders this season, I’m underwhelmed by the offerings. L.A. Weekly had a play on words headline: “Whites, Camera, Action.” The accompanying cover page cartoon showed half a dozen aging caucasian males with the same face, but with different facial hair and degree of recession of their hairlines, and different clothing - each caricature enacting a specific role related to making a movie: director, cinematographer, gaffer, make-up artist, editor, etc.

Where is the color? I don’t mean Technicolor. Where are the non-white actors, performers, writers, directors, editors, and set designers? How do we crack open the old-guard barriers to ensure advancement of all talented folks?

Well, it looks as if Chris Rock made an attempt - inane and unfunny as most of his efforts may have been.

For me, the biggest impact of the night was Lady Gaga’s song Til It Happens to You, a song about being sexually assaulted, and she had dozens of survivors stand with her. It helped that Spotlight won Best Picture. It helped that Vice President Joe Biden made an appearance and an appeal - ON the Oscars stage - that this country have a real conversation about stopping sexual violence against women.

Does it really all stem from the sexual repression brought to these shores by the Puritans who founded this land in the name of non-indigenous Europeans? Every repression has a reaction. It seems that we’ve been reacting and acting out for nearly four hundred years. (In 2020, we will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. May our vision be less myopic by then… sorta match the year… 20/20.)

Degradation of the feminine aspect has such a long history that her story is not even part of the contract or the conversation. Mama Earth’s degradation by those whose hubris is lots bigger than their prickitude is the final travesty. It may by the lynch pin that lynches us all. Bless his ego for using his Oscar win for Revenant as a bully pulpit to defend the environment. Leo DiCaprio did well. May we take to the streets and make a difference - not just nod politely while photos are snapped and and we appear to be on the right (uh, read that as correct) side of the current debate.

I think it a capital idea to take to heart our individual responsibility to promote our common welfare.