From Silicon Valley
Monday November 01st 2010, 10:19 pm
Filed under: Politics

My hometown paper posted pictures of signs at the Stewart/Colbert rally. My favorite so far, having grown up in DC during the Vietnam War, was number 42, with the picture of a pepperoni pie: Give pizza chants.

Amen, brother.

And pizzan quiet at last when the phone stops ringing every five minutes come Wednesday.

Meg. We’ve heard all about your maid, endlessly; it’s not so much the is she legal/is she not, it’s, once you knew, how did you respond? Were you kind to the person who loved your children and you, too, enough to stay there for half of their growing-up years by then?

Or did you respond with vindictiveness?

Then how will you treat the rest of us whom you don’t personally know when you are in power over us?

It was not the taxpayers’ pockets that settled the suit when you lost your temper at Ebay and threw a dissenting underling towards the wall; I don’t want to be on the hook for your behavior when you find yourself thwarted in politics over and over and endlessly over again.  But see, there’s something you would already have learned a little of had you ever voted before deciding to run:

You don’t always get your way in politics. It’s worth trying, and then you just have to go and be gracious with the results.

And Carly? I remember friends who worked for HP singing in great glee, Ding dong the witch is dead! It was the unofficial company theme song across the headlines and in person–I bear personal witness–when you got fired by the board. You had no use for the egalitarian culture of a good company, one where by common consent when there was a downturn, everybody across the board from the top on down would take temporary salary cuts in order that there be no layoffs until the next business upswing. The focus was on taking care of each other for the good of the company that was creating new ideas and new products for the good of society.  It was a very idealistic place to work.

You killed all that. You bought yourself the corporate jet that Hewlett and Packard would totally never have done. (Bill Hewlett swam at my therapy pool. He was a sweet old guy.) You bought into the whole overprivileged CEO thing, spending millions and millions on yourself while firing competent workers and shipping their jobs away–HP nearly died of you. The HP Way, you thought, was archaic and quaint.

John McCain fired you too.

And tomorrow is my chance.


16 Comments so far
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Is it inappropriate to say I love you in blog comments? 🙂 Well said. I voted by mail and it felt good.

Comment by (formerly) no-blog-rachel 11.02.10 @ 5:50 am

Hah! You, my dear, are over-qualified to be a voter. They don’t want any of your kind showing up on election day…but I’m so glad you will!

Comment by Barbara-Kay 11.02.10 @ 6:45 am

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Those who would lead should first serve, and the idea of bypassing the standard training ground for government — local offices, consistent voting — heck, basic Civics! — have only themselves to blame for losing incredible amounts of money trying to buy their way into a top job. All politics is compromise, and, to quote Tip O’Neill, all politics is local politics. Neither woman has the word “compromise” in her personal lexicon.

The nicest thing I can say about Carly Fiorina is that I like her hairstyle. That’s it. As for Ms. Whitman, well . . . I worked for a woman who fired her nanny — who had essentially been raising her son — because she wanted her son to learn French and have cooking lessons (not home cooking) and art lessons. He could read; he spoke Spanish like a native and liked to bang on pots and pans; but haute cuisine was not in the syllabus. I can’t continue. I’m still steaming about it, and I hope little Ethan grew up to remember Elsie and is now giving his parents unholy You-Know.

Comment by Patricia Day 11.02.10 @ 7:54 am

I’ve been sulking since last night, when the wise man of our band of merry (female) shoppers pointed out that Nov. 3rd will likely begin the 2012 campaigns. Dang.

Comment by Channon 11.02.10 @ 7:55 am

I like your style.

Comment by Michelle 11.02.10 @ 7:57 am

amen sister! I did early voting here in our little village, and it gives me the willies to think what nastiness will ensure if some of the folks running here in Colorado prevail

and in response to “Give pizza chants” I would add “image whirled peas”

Comment by Bev 11.02.10 @ 8:43 am

Amen! I could not have said it better! I had already voted, and you know which way I did.

Comment by Don Meyer 11.02.10 @ 8:53 am

I couldn’t stop laughing at #42. Thanks for the entertainment!

Comment by Joansie 11.02.10 @ 10:15 am

What you said! (and so well, too 🙂

Comment by Sue 11.02.10 @ 10:32 am

Totally off topic-but any progress on the cashmere sweater?

Comment by LauraN 11.02.10 @ 10:53 am

I hear you on the phones. I swear we’re going to have to turn it off tonight at least until the polls close. Last election we had twenty zillion calls offering us rides to the polls or wanting us to take surveys.

I voted before work this morning. Now it’s all over but the waiting…

Comment by RobinH 11.02.10 @ 11:06 am

HP- took me reading further to realise you were not on about the UK’s favourite condiment: HP sauce (which, somewhat ironically here, stands for Houses of Parliament.)

Wishing you all across the pond the best of luck and lots of wisdom in exercising your democratic rights. From a citizen of a country that can’t get a government together (but bakes a mean waffle while counting the days since the election. 140 I think, and still not a record!)

Comment by tinebeest 11.02.10 @ 1:30 pm

Well said! Now it’s just a matter of time to see if smart logic will prevail. Peace and carrots.

Comment by DebbieR 11.02.10 @ 7:35 pm

Good luck to all of us.

Comment by twinsetellen 11.02.10 @ 9:03 pm

And thank goodness Meg and Carly were defeated!

Comment by Madeline 11.03.10 @ 4:37 pm

I got a final robocall from Meg at around 5:00 last night, begging for my vote. I let the message run all the way to the end in the hope that it cost her an extra five cents and told her, “dream on, sister.”

Comment by Virginia 11.03.10 @ 7:04 pm



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