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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (12594)	10/16/2003 9:25:07 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793592

Second Lady Cheney serves up tea, history MICHAEL KILIAN October 16, 2003 WASHINGTON -- While loitering about the White House briefly last week during Laura Bush's elegant state dinner for Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, I was struck once again about how little the place ever changes -- even when you're dealing with such opposites in taste as Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton. But that's to be expected. The public rooms and the formal family quarters of the Executive Mansion are essentially a national museum -- representing more than anything the decor of America's Federalist period -- and dramatic change would be inappropriate in the extreme. Not so the Vice President's House, a late-Victorian mansion built in 1893 that became the official residence of America's vice presidents in 1974. The occupants since have had fairly free rein to decorate the place as they wish, and the results have varied widely and wildly. Different tastes The Walter Mondales (1977-1981) hung boldly modern art. The George H.W. Bushes (1981-1989) lavished acres of chintz and Christmas-card Victorian decor upon it. I've no idea what the Dan Quayles (1989-1993) had up (something to do with golf?), but the Al Gores (1993-2001) went for brightly colored walls (yellow, green, etc.) and artworks from the turn-of-the-century period of the house's origins (i.e., paintings by Childe Hassam and Abbott Thayer). Knowing the Richard Cheneys' circumspect, conservative Republican bent, I've been immensely curious as to what they have done with the place and so was delighted to accept an invitation from Second Lady Lynne Cheney the other day to come over for tea and a chat about her latest literary project. The yellow and green walls are gone. The color scheme for wallpaper, furnishings and carpeting runs almost monochromatically from beige to gray. Some of the art is not surprising: American Impressionist John Henry Twachtman and Andrew Wyeth. Some is: There are highly contemporary works by Elaine Kurtz and Nancy Lorenz, and hanging in a place of honor in the drawing room, a huge painting by Helen Frankenthaler, queen of the abstract expressionists. And, despite their wide variance in period and style, they all fit within the beige-to-gray color scheme. "I wanted a Frankenthaler in the world's worst way," Cheney said. "I love it. It's invigorating." Another surprise was that Cheney is something of a feminist. As Barbara Bush's thing was literacy and Tipper Gore's was mental health, Cheney's cause is history and the restoration of it to its proper place in the American curriculum. "It got lost in the morass of social studies," she said, "a kind of social stew that includes geography, ecology, sociology and history -- and a lot of do-gooderism. These things are all worthy in their own way, but history, which I think should be the queen of the [education] discipline, gets lost." Cheney pushed history when she was chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1986-1993), but she probably has been most effective with her children's books, starting with last year's alphabetical "America: A Patriotic Primer," which compiled all the good things about the country -- "K is for King. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for justice with prayers, peaceful marches and some of the most powerful words our nation has ever heard." It sold more than 450,000 copies and reached the top of the New York Times children's book best-seller list, with the proceeds going to charity. "It's one of my goals to tell the story of the United States in the positive way I think it deserves," she said. That has led her to her just-published second children's work, "A is for Abigail." The "A" is for Abigail Adams, our second and most admirable first lady. "D" is for Emily Dickinson, "our country's greatest poet." "K" is for Mary Kies, who was the first woman to receive a patent, for an 1809 invention that weaves straw and cloth together for hatmaking. Cheney also included Marion Donovan, who invented the disposable diaper. Honorable mention Worthy women who didn't make the cut in the alphabet chapters are noted in a latticework of names in the front -- among them, the Stalinist playwright and nasty person Lillian Hellman; the non-commie and nice novelist Mary McCarthy; feminist Betty Friedan; and early 19th Century journalist Ann Royall, who once got a scoop from President John Quincy Adams by sitting on his clothes while he was skinny-dipping in a creek behind the White House and refusing to give them to him until he granted her an interview. "We often tell the story of women as a story of people who are oppressed and victimized," Cheney said. "It seemed to me the way to tell the story, especially to little kids, is of what's been overcome and how remarkable the achievements of women were even before they got their rights." She is considering a third book on the indispensable role played in the formation of this country by her hero, George Washington. "I've been thinking that contingency is one of the most important things that history gives us," she said. "There were times when Washington could have been killed. Without his leadership, we might not have won the revolution." True enough. But one might note that some of the walls at his Mt. Vernon plantation house are painted green and yellow. chicagotribune.com

To: KLP who wrote (12594)	10/16/2003 10:16:09 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793592

That squares with my experience. I've been in engineering in Silicon Valley for 35 years, through multiple ups and downs, and NEVER saw a job market to match the late '90s. And unemployment in the valley was never below 2% before. There were non-tech businesses (and some tech, I suppose) that simply shut down because they could not afford the cost of reliable labor and could not live with what they could get for what they could pay. Suzanne's Muffins was one. mv-voice.com And I just found that article via google; I originally got this story from Suzanne herself in late 2000. Epstein said also that her landlord, Jack Dymond Associates of Los Altos, had raised her rent more than 500 percent. As that indicates, rents also went berserk and that killed other businesses. A small grocery in Mountain View that had been in business serving its neighborhood for decades shut down because of a huge rent increase. "Fifteen months ago my baking supervisor, who had been here for 10 years, moved to Sacramento ... The employees who want to raise their families here have to leave the area to be able to buy a house," Epstein said. This is one of lizzie's favorite complaints. She wants to blame it all on Prop 13. Apparently she discounts supply and demand. Prop 13 has been with us since 1978. There have been a number of cycles since then. In boomtimes, landlords raise rents skyhigh; in bust, they beg for tenants, lower rents, pay moving expenses, and give a month or two free to get tenants. But it's all Prop 13's fault. Last I heard, Suzanne was still baking, but selling through retail groceries rather than her own stores.

To: KLP who wrote (12594)	10/16/2003 11:21:15 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793592

I agree with you that tech talent was overpriced in 2000. Personally I don't think it was overpriced in 1996. We want the best and the brightest to build products that we can sell to the world after all. But anyway today, in 2003 tech talent is underpriced and this is the worst job climate ever for professionals. People in the workforce know it and that is why the economic figures are suspect, at least to me. Unemployment claims especially, that metric needs significant retooling.

To: KLP who wrote (12594)	10/16/2003 11:48:31 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793592

We'd better all hope that the tax and spend folks don't continue doing that, or it will once again, stop new business growth. How do you feel about the current philosophy of "tax less and spend more"? Where do you figure that leads?

To: KLP who wrote (12594)	10/17/2003 2:23:47 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793592

Lizzy.......Wonder how many of the folks in the age group you mentioned realized they were WAY overpriced salary wise in a very permissive tech world prior to 2000??? Hear, hear. Outrageously inflated salaries for the responsibilities. Derek