When I first moved to the United States as an "adult," in 2000, I subscribed to the New York Times. How could I not? I think that for the first few weeks or months I also subscribed to the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was either free, or deeply discounted, and I felt the urge to get a local perspective on things. Whatever. Needless to say, my priorities quickly changed and reading the paper was no longer on the top of the list. I went through periods of full subscription, no subscription, weekend subscription, and as of late, a Sunday subscription.
To be frank, I am still too lazy (hey, this is a new paragraph!) to read the entire paper, and in most cases, as I indicated in my first post (probably still my best one; check it out!), I typically read only certain portions of the New York Times Magazine. Though the Op-Eds are often worthy of my time too.
Now nobody wants to read my critique of the Times' writers' critique of the world. But here's something that's been bugging me for a while. I really want to like Maureen Dowd. Can't really put my finger on the reason. Maybe because she's a woman with a regular, serious column in the NY Times. Perhaps it's the brevity of her column (it's actually a column, not four or five). Or could it be her somewhat literary style of conveying the same ideas other writers express in their dry, journalistic, unengaged jargon. Or maybe it's just something about the ring of that name: Maureen Dowd. Sounds like a good name to drop at the brunch table with my more sophisticated friends and colleagues.
At any rate, Dowd writes from Washington. I may have even read that she lives in Georgetown. And if I haven't, that's where I imagine she lives. Having lived in the DC area for two years, I find it unimaginable that she would live in Silver Spring or Alexandria. She's gotta be a District gal.
Like everybody who's anybody this week, she's picking on Nancy Pelosi. Of course, she also accuses Dick Cheney of having "done many dastardly things," but that's like accusing a cow of mooing, as Simon Cowell so eloquently put it a couple of weeks ago when one of his colleagues had criticized Adam Lambert of being "too theatrical."
It's hard not to agree with virtually everything Dowd writes this week in her column. But her language, her style, really got on my nerves and reminded me of that DC-insider lingo and behavior that can take away much of the fun of living in Washington.
Dowd cannot find it in her heart to stick to just one signifier for each signified. "Nancy Pelosi" is also "the liberal speaker from San Francisco," "[t]he stylish grandmother," "the glossily groomed speaker," "the woman who's making Joe Biden seem suave" and "one ambitious congresswoman." And all this, mind you, in a single one-columned column.
Other DC characters each get fewer signifiers, but the ones they get are nauseatingly Washingtonian:
"The Bushies," I believe, refers to the collective of Bush administrator insiders, starting with "W." himself, and going down the chain of command to "Condi Rice," "Rummy," and my biggest pet peeve, "Vice." I admit, Had I not seen Oliver Stone's docudramedy "W," in which the title character often addresses his vice president simply as "Vice," I probably would have gone back to the beginning of Dowd's column to look for a name whose last name is Vice.
I also dislike Dowd's chummy reference to "Osama" and "Saddam" by their first names only, although she is not the only one in public discourse to be guilty of such conduct.
The final, and possibly most telling, insider lingo in this column is "State." That one actually bugged me last night too while listening to Dr. Shirley Anne Warshaw of Gettysburg College speaking on WITF's (the Central Pennsylvania NPR affiliate, based in Harrisburg) "Radio Smart Talk." It brought back memories of Georgetown University professors trying to sound like they're more governmental than the government itself. Oh, and "State" means "State Department," in case you were wondering.
My next post will be about "being 'a gay activist'." I think.
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