I just watched an interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the outspoken feminist, and her daughter. Pogrebin is for Clinton, the daughter for Obama. Pogrebin seems to feel that we're so close to having a woman as president we must elect Hilary; the daughter sees, as I think many young people do, the emotional argument of hope and change. Pogrebin, like a lot of her sisters, has spent much of her adult life hoping to see a woman as president, and she's dismayed that it's so near and yet so far. There was a sentiment of "It's her turn; he should wait his turn." It reminds me of a friend who, with truly female logic, pointed out that he's younger, so she should go first and then he could have his turn and we Democrats would have the White House for 16 years. I told her I don't think it works that way. But Pogrebin made me think about my own stance, and I don't think the feminism angle enters into my support of the Clinton campaign. If I were thinking in terms of diversifying our government, I would be equally for either candidate (and truth be told, I will be happy with either). But my support of Clinton is based on the experience argument. I think I can say that honestly. It reminds me some of twenty years ago when a friend said you had to vote on a single issue--whether or not a candidate supported women's rights and abortion. I don't think government is that clear cut.
Hillary Clinton was in Fort Worth today, and Melinda really wanted to go see her. She said it would be impossible to park but we could take a bus downtown. I felt like a wimp who was letting her down when I said, "It's too cold to stand on a bus stop, and I don't want to be with thousands of other people." Well, of course, it turned out tragically. With the death of the Dallas policement who was part of her escort, Clinton cancelled the rally and went back to Dallas. That act--and her obvious distress--answered, to me, some of the critics who find her hard and controlled.
Yesterday, it turned so cold between the time I went to work and the time we went to lunch, that I got chilled and stayed that way all day. Today I bundled up in heavy clothes and was almost too warm. But sitting with friends from church in a restaurant, we got chilled again every time the door opened. This is Texas though--60s tomorrow and 70 by Sunday.
Grace & Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women was the lead review on the book review page of Southern Living--I picked up a copy in the grocery today. That's a real coup. The problem of marketing books is always with us. We haven't had time to post books on amazon's Search Inside the Book, and yet we all feel it's essential. Then today we got hit with a request to join Microsoft's Live Books Search program--to me, it sounds like their answer to amazon, but they're in partnership with the wholesale distributorship Ingram. So it too seems important--lots and lots of booksellers buy from Ingram. I remain baffled that the university wants us to increase sales but won't give us the personnel to do the necessary marketing.
We have an author who hand sells his book with a vigor that astounds me (especially since he's 80). But he's gone all over South Texas and also up into Oklahoma (where his memoir begins) taking the book to libraries, bookstores, and the like. When libraries say they've never heard of it or booksellers say our rep hasn't mentioned it, he thinks we not doing our part. In truth, it's not possible for us to give that kind of publicity to every book--librarians are overwhelmed with catalogs and mailings, reps have too many books to mention each one individually. The author is absolutely the best salesman. I think Ill write something on that, to be given to each author when his or her book comes out.
Enough. I'm going to see if I can play with Google Reader and figure it out.
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