Lynn Hoffman

In Philadelphia, a lot of people get their news from a single, out-of-town newspaper. Those folks often turn to blogs or radio for their sports news and to The Broad Street Review for news of the arts. I've always been disappointed that the premier arts source in this town disdained news of Food and Drink as beneath its dignity and while I sympathized with the prejudices and insecurities that prevent the culture-vultures from talking about The First Art, I felt it time to protest. Here's what I wrote:

 

Dear Editor,

       Congratulations on the success of  Broad Street Review. It's a brave and wonderful thing you're doing. There is a certain pleasure in connoisseurship, in thoughtful appreciation of the good things, in studying and knowing something well enough to get as much pleasure from your knowledge of it as you do from the thing itself.    

    There's also a bit of cultural and political statement involved. In an age when mass pleasures like TV grow more feeble and homogeneous, the very act of discrimination becomes a form of protest. And so I am a bit shocked a publication so fervently dedicated to refined appreciation and support of the arts shows such cultivated disdain for the culinary arts. ...

 

 

To read more of my diplomatic, persuavive and gentle plea: go to The Broad Street Review itself.  For real inspiration on the topic, check out The New Short Course in Wine.

Like a lot of Democrats, I started out smug about our party's chances and now I'm nervous about the possibility of it tearing itself apart before Election Day. The debate between Clinton and Obama isn't much of a cause for worry: aside from some differences about health care and questions about who got on the anti-war bus first, they are pretty much in agreement on the issues. What difference exists lies in the degree of specificity that the candidates bring to their visions. Clinton is a policy wonk, Obama is a charismatic.
Unfortunately,  the debate has been hijacked by  folks on the sidelines.  We did have a few blissful months when the pundits were punditing that America had finally made it: we were now (mostly) over our racial peculiarities and willing to see each other as people. Some folks had even raised the question of why, in a post-racial America, a man who is half-white and half-black should be called black. There's certainly some history behind that way of categorizing people, but there's also a growing feeling that it just ain't right.
In fact, if we had primary elections based entirely on ideas, the whole issue of race wouldn't be raised at all. But there are observers-both white and black- who have something to gain from the preservation of the distinction between the races.

And so it's  impossible for  Clinton to  criticize  Obama  about his lack of specifics without African-American politicians characterizing the criticism as racial.  Obama, on his part, doesn't have to criticize Clinton; there are people doing it for him.  (It would be nice if older and wiser heads in the Black community could advise some restraint, but that advice doesn't seem either forthcoming or likely to be heard.)

So, instead of debate this year, we Democrats are likely to be treated to a sullen anger-fest. Either white or black voters get to feel bullied and somebody stays home on Election Day. President McCain, anyone?

I've been feeling pretty bad about this-feeling that entrenched interests fighting over their piece of the lifeboat were going to drown us all. Then this morning, I got an email from a fellow named Stan Spitzer. Stan is about a million and half years old and he builds sailboats for a living. His sailboats have proved to be about as durable as he is so even though he doesn't make many of them, you see them around a lot.
Stan's thinking on boats has been revolutionary for so long that radical thinking is almost a habit with him. He has a suggestion for Hillary. He thinks that she should take to the high ground. Stan thinks she should open the next debate with:

"...in the interest of what is best for the
 Democratic Party and, what I feel is in the best interest of the United
 States of America, that if by any chance I should be your nominee, I will
 ask Barack Obama to be my vice president AND, if Barack wins the nomination, and asks me, I will proudly be his vice presidential running mate.

  I think this debate should now be considered a press conference and we
 should take your questions.  I am going to let Barack do most of the
 responding since he says it so much better than I do."

Aside from coming out looking like an unselfish patriot, a move like this could secure both Obama's future and her own. With the sniping stilled, the Democrats win in a walk-look for at least 60% of the popular vote. Eight years of good governance on the part of either one of them could virtually deliver the nomination and the election to the other.

One of the things I like about Stan's saliboats -(it's called a Rhodes22) is that a person feels secure in them. They get you where you want to go. Wouldn't you love  to that feeling about the election?

Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG, a novel about another woman who does something audacious and wins and The New Short Course in Wine 

I just heard a review of my latest novel bang BANG on WPSU, an NPR station in Pennsylvania. The reviewer-a very kind man, apparently-described it as 'hip writing at its  descriptive best'. I wish he hadn't said that. Tomorrow, I'm having lunch with my daughter who is sure that I'm the least hip character in the world and that even being described as 'hip' is so unhip as to be, well, fatherworthy.

 Anyway, here's the review. Are you hip enough to listen?

 

Very Cool Review of Hip, if Aging Author

http://wpsx.ois.psu.edu/www/pspb.org/podcast/files/Bookmarks/BookMark_157_01-02-08.mp3

    In Utah earlier this month, Liquor control commissioner Bobbie Coray asked her colleagues to rule that bottles of liquor displayed at restaurants be covered because the sight of them might offend some diners.
        Current rules require a glass partition between bartenders and customers, but that may not be enough according to Coray.
The walls don't obscure the alcohol, Coray said, which makes the "atmosphere in a restaurant to more of a bar."(sic) She singled out a chain restaurant that opened on Nov. 1, because alcohol bottles are in plain view.
        "We have a dual responsibility," the commissioner said. "We are to make alcohol available for those who want to consume it and at the same time not make anyone uncomfortable."
    Of course, there are opportunities here. Enterprising Utahans will certainly come up with Bottle Burkhas in attractive designs that meet the requirements of the new regulation.
    There is no word as yet on what other offensive matters may be subject to obligatiory covering in the state of Utah, but a delegation from Iran is expected to arrive in Salt Lake City shortly to begin consultation. Watch this site for further news.
    
   
    (By the way, it’s also worth noting that, in spite of what your cardiologist and millions of grandmothers say, Utah law provides that publicity about wine “may not imply …..that consumption of the product will benefit the consumer's health…”)


--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG which appears in Utah wearing a conservative blue book cover.

Is it Hot in Here? Or is it Us?

    As the number of annual gun deaths in America surpasses 30,000, the gun debate has been getting pretty shrill. That’s shrill as in ‘sharply unpleasant’ and ‘tough on the ears’. In fact, the word ‘debate’ as in a discussion of ideas, hardly applies anymore. Somehow, the talk of guns has evoked such profound fears that we are reduced to childish screaming and name-calling.
    From where I sit, it looks like this: Gun owners say that gun control people are unpatriotic, hysterical wimps and maybe even communistic. Gun-control advocates hint that gun-owners are narcissistic neanderthals with sexual-inadequacy problems that they cover up with guns. One side warns of creeping tyranny, another brandishes pictures of  bright-eyed children killed by gunfire. If  you think I’m exaggerating the heat that this question evokes, do an internet search for ‘gun control’ or ‘gun violence’. The anger that you see doesn’t create much of a background for solving a problem. The confict is about what people need to feel secure and so the emotions are wild and high. It’s safe to say that there is more contact, both casual and constructive, between Israelis and Arabs than there is between the sides in the American gun debate.
    All this has the makings of tragedy, of a situation where two sides are equally sure of, and in a sense entitled to their own sense of being right, moral and visionary. In tragic conflicts, no one gives way and everybody loses.

    It’s tempting to think that we might just let this issue work itself out in fifty separate state legislatures and in the courts. After all, the abortion debate is just as hot, just as divisive and rancorous and while it’s not settled, we seem to be surviving as a nation in spite of it.

    Maybe a clue to an eventual solution lies in the nature of some of our other national debates.
    Abortion, for all its heat, is an issue that inevitably sheds a bit of light. Everyone who advocates free access to abortion recognizes that there is an awful sadness involved in it. Everyone who works to restrict the availability of abortion knows someone who has had one. Our antagonisms on the issue draw at least some of the people on either side together because we can empathize with the other side’s sadness.
The future of health care also gets people hot under the collar. To some it’s obvious that access to health care is a basic human right. For others, it’s just as obvious that government shouldn’t be in the health care business. For both sides, their opinion is on the side of the angels. But even here, there’s some common ground. Hardly anyone would want to see children go untreated and no one wants the government taking choice out of one’s personal health care.

So let’s try for a bit of common ground in the gun debate. First, let’s imagine that it’s possible for good and honest people to hold opinions different from our own How about starting with the language we use. I’ll promise to stop referring to ‘gun nuts’ if you’ll agree to give up on the ‘gun-control crowd’. After we stop the name-calling, maybe we can begin to recognize that the other side has some concerns that ought to be addressed.
Maybe we can ask ourselves some questions.

    A question for the gun rights people: What steps can we take to prevent the needless gun deaths of innocent people?

    A question for the gun control people: How can we reassure law-abiding gun-owners that keeping our streets safe doesn’t mean confiscating their guns?

    I wonder if a bit of serious thought about the other side’s concerns might slow us all  down enough to see that there are real people on the other side of the issue. I wonder if seeing each other for the first time might bring us a little bit closer to a solution to a grave national problem. Or shall we wait until another 30,000 people die and then start acting like grown-ups?

 

Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG a romantic thriller about sex, death and gun violence