Joan Walsh's Open Salon Blog

Me on Open Salon

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:12:41 -0500

I read, I rate and I comment on Open Salon. I don't write as often as I think about writing. But I love it here, and many of you know that. I must also say: I don't check my inbox here as often as I should.

I did tonight, and I found a painful number of messages from people I care about -- some of whom I thought had my direct email -- messaging me with something important. And I found thoughtful messages from new members I wish I had seen sooner.

I have to be honest: I am drowning in email at work, I'm on Twitter and Facebook and Gmail as well as Salon, and of course I'm here too. I fall behind on everything.

But if you ever need to reach me quickly, I'm at jwalsh at salon dot com.

The truth is, I can't check out every Open post anyone wants to send me, and I would honestly appreciate it if people didn't use my Salon email that way. But if you really want to contact me about anything important -- about Open Salon or Salon or life in all its complexity! -- please feel free to use that email.

I will continue to check my Open inbox every week or so, but I'm getting alarmed at how many important messages are getting lost. If I haven't gotten back to you, I apologize. And if you have thoughts about better ways for me to communicate with you all, let me know in comments.

I keep getting more thankful

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:11:33 -0500

I'm sorry I've been away so long. But as I get Facebook and Twitter messages and personal email from my Open Salon friends, I have to check in to say I'm thankful for all of you, and the writing and thinking and joking and kvetching and helping and loving you all do, every day.

I started my Open Salon blog thinking I'd blog every day. That was silly, because I started my Salon blog thinking the same thing, and it's been the rare week (rare as unicorns?) that I've succeeded. But I read and rate and comment here every day. I watch frustrated and/or ambitious Salon letter writers turn into Open Salon bloggers (I'm not defending the things that frustrate Salon letter writers except...sometimes people realize they need more room, and Open provides a lot of room, and then some!) And I love it.

I'm sure some of you read my post on Ye Olde Salon, expressing my gratitude I'm not President Obama, given all he's up against, plus the lack of sticktoitiveness of so many Obama early supporters. I value Open Salon for the combination of integrity, snap judgment on inequity as well as the long, long view so many members correctly have about what it will take to change Washington -- and the media. And I value Open for people who take the short view, too, because change will require both.

But mostly I value Open Salon because of the people who take chances here, sharing their thinking and feeling and vexations in this time of peril, when we need new ideas about how to solve our problems. The number of people who open themselves and their ideas up to our readership continues to amaze me, and make me confident there are a lot of us who know that it will take a lot of conversation -- a lot of all kinds of work -- to get us out of this mess. Thanks for all of your conversation, and happy Thanksgiving!

Obama's lonely peace prize

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 22:10:12 -0400

It took me half the day to get over my surprise at learning our president won the Nobel Peace Prize, only nine promising months (with few concrete achievements) into his presidency. I did the same dance of cynicism as many people did, and I loved all the satire on here, especially Con Chapman.

But late tonight, after watching all the evening news shows, I changed my mind: I'm proud of him. I read a Christian Science Monitor piece laying out all the semi-hopeless, or early peace warriors who got the award -- Carter, Arafat and Begin for 1978; Rabin and Arafat in 1994; both dashed. I wound up comparing Obama to the "Peace Moms" of Northern Ireland -- a very personal award, an investment in their power and charisma years before the peace accords were signed.

I think it's comparable to what the committee is doing with Obama -- he's a promising young man with a different way of looking at the world who's inspired a lot of people, globally and at home. He's only taken some first steps - and those of us here know he's disappointed in the realm of torture, surveillance and state secrets -- but the rest of the world looks on him with longing, and wants to encourage his best self. The not particularly poetic Nicholas Sarkozy made my favorite comment of the day about Obama's prize: "The award marks Americans return to the hearts of the people of the world." I can live with that. They have been waiting for us.

Joan's book club: "The Clinton Tapes"

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 00:10:14 -0400

No, it's not a real book club. But I tried to make lemonade out of lemons in my intellectual life: A friend got me an advance copy of Taylor Branch's intriguing "The Clinton Tapes," but my life won't allow me to sit home, plow through 700 pages, take two days to write a big review.

So I decided to blog a review -- post my thoughts as I go, every few days. I'll crosspost here for a while, too -- which may be the place where the comments are most robust.

Here's my Salon blog post.

Let me know if you think it can work, and if you're reading the book, blog along with me! Comment here or there.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't make sure everyone saw Caroline Hagood's moving post about Open Salon on Media Bistro. It was perfect, thanks Caroline!

Second year of college?

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:08:42 -0400

I really expected the sophomore year goodbye to Nora to be easier, but I'm not sure it is. Partly that's because freshman year, Nora left for college from the Democratic Convention in Denver, getting on a red-eye after Bill Clinton's wonderful speech endorsing Obama. I was sad but distracted. I went to Fordham to say goodbye after she'd moved in and been there for five days. It was a rolling sadness.

This year, I flew to NY with her and moved her into Fordham this morning. I have time to feel it more, and it somehow feels even more real. I'll be fine but wow, this is really my life now.

The funny thing is, the one move I made to try to make myself happier, getting a puppy, might have backfired. In the last two weeks, Sadie has taken to sitting at Nora's bedroom door and crying if she hasn't seen her for a while. So what I got was a pal in mourning?

Oh, that's part of what life's about. I'll live, and thrive, and so will Sadie. And of course (especially) Nora will too. Here's my favorite picture of them; it's such a cute-off:

Oh, and back to the original cute-off (Mignon remembers!):

They both keep getting cuter.