UPDATED: actions speak louder than words

*The Times published a follow-up profile today of Mrs. Sanford. Read it here.

For once, I think I trumped the New York Times.

Check out this article about Jenny Sanford, wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, after his recent announcement of a year-long affair. The basic premise of the article is this: by not standing at the press conference with her husband, Mrs. Sanford stood up for herself and her own dignity and actually turned the media frenzy in her favor.

Ever since the announcement of former NY governor Eliot Spitzer to his involvement in a prostitution ring, I've been frustrated with political wives. We see it over and over: husbands who cheat, announce it in attempts to control a leak, and the wife standing next to him. I think a Newsweek columnist said it best:

"Yet another political wife scorned, somehow willing to put on a pastel suit and sob quietly in the background as her husband explains all the very good reasons why he had boinked a dear (tan) old friend, had an affair with a man, or spent good money on a tacky hooker."

Apparantly I'm not the only one who saw Mrs. Sanford's response as a sight for sore eyes. The Times article links to multiple other commentaries, including columns from Slate magazine as well as several marriage counselors and psychologists. Newsweek even turned the incident into a project called Scorned: a user's manual, including the experiences of Hilary Rodham Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards.

Thank you, Jenny Sanford, for finally acknowledging that support doesn't have to mean taking one for the team.

UPDATED: tv chocolate

*I can only hope that the filming hiatus announced by TLC on the show isn't just because they can't piece together enough fresh footage for new episodes.

It's official: I feel like a terrible person.

For anyone that's been around me in the past year, you know I've developed somewhat of an addiction to the TLC show "Jon & Kate plus 8." I started watching it last summer (thanks for nothing Kelsey), and was hooked after 5 minutes of those adorable small children. I knew at first that this was probably not a healthy marketing project to support. These children would grow up to have their friends know when they first took a poop in the laundry room, know every time they screamed on an airplane, what their first trip to the dentist entailed. It was clearly playing off the emotions of Americans, hoping to see that some other family was just as screwed up, and yet just as lovable, as the rest of us. I couldn't help myself, even though I knew with every episode I watched, I was supporting the show, and thus the commercialization of this family.

With this week's announcement, however, my guilt was officially solidified. This whole season has been painful, just because so much is happening besides what we see for half an hour on Monday nights. Rumors flew, tears were cried, and we watched a family disintegrate.

And TLC posted a "sneak peek" of their separation annoucement.

So I'm taking this opportunity to apologize, to the Goesslin family and to myself. I'm sorry that I let my affection for your small beautiful Asian children get in the way of my better judgment. I'm sorry that your kids are confused and tired and scared. Do I believe Jon cheated? No.Should my opinion matter at all? Nope. And hopefully I'll remember that in my inevitable future reality tv addictions.

the first week

- Baltimore is home to the first monument built to George Washington in the United States. It's located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood (not the mount washington neighborhood, ironically).

- The Book Thing is quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's a free bookstore. Free. As in you walk in and take whatever you want, and they never run out because people are donating so much stuff all the time. This week's trip resulted in copies of Ian McEwan's "Saturday", Mary Doria Russell's "A Thread of Grace", The best American Short Stories of 1993, and a copy of "The Miracle Worker".

- I saw my first firefly. He lit up green for a while, then yellow, then pink. Then Phin (a dog) ate him.

- You are friend or foe depending on whether you consider Maryland a northern or southern state. I haven't made my decision yet.

- The School of the Arts, the school featured in Step Up 2, is tucked in a corner behind the financial district.

- I have to learn to stop saying the word "pop" instead of soda, so people will stop looking at me funny.

- I ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the part of town where Hairspray is set. Yes, parts of the movie were filmed here. And the town still has a yearly festival called Honfest to celebrate the hairstyles, among other things.

- In church this morning, they gave all the kids shakers and instruments to play during the last song. It was quite possibly the most beautiful chaos I've ever heard.

If I learned anything from communication ethics...

This is more of a logistics post. I know a lot of you have been asking me to keep you updated about Teach for America and my adventures in Baltimore. However, as I have always tried to keep my work/professional life off this site, I'm torn as to how to approach this one. I've decided that although I will definitely include stuff about my experiences here (as it will be pretty much consuming my life from this point on), I want to be able to give those that want it a more in-depth update, but without the potential repercussions we've all seen with Internet information about work-related info.

So if you would like to get the email updates, either leave a comment with your email address, or you can email me directly at jbacon09@whitworth.edu and I'll get you on board!

if it aint broke, leave it alone

If anyone else listens to as much ridiculous radio-hit music as I had to at the skating rink the past couple weeks, you might have noticed a pattern: no one has an original idea. Songs are featuring recognizable pieces from older songs, and 99 percent of the time it sounds terrible. Take, for example, Flo Rida's "Right Round." It features a chorus that plays off the '80s classic "You spin me round", except his version includes the phrase "when you go down" (pretty self explanatory) and Kesha from "The Hills" screeching part of the lyrics. Gross. Countless other examples are bombarding the radio waves, from Kristinia DeBarge to Jay-Z.

But my tolerance for re-makes ended when I saw an ad for ABC Family's new series "10 things I hate about you." And when I say new, I mean completely ripped off. The show uses the same graphic title, the same characters and plot line, and even includes a girl band remake of the song "I want you to want me," a staple of the original movie. It's one thing to subject the tween crowd to another summer of dead end dramas based on fictitous high school experiences. It's a whole other level to base that dead end drama on one of the classic chick flicks of the '90s.

This movie is a staple of my DVD collection, and one of my favorite performances from Julia Stiles (Heath Ledger holds his own, too.) And even though the movie itself is a remake (it's based loosely on Taming of the Shrew), I still find myself cringing every time I see the ads for it.

So if any of you have loved ones ages 8-14, make them watch the first movie before they attempt the TV bastardization. Oh, and get them to stop listening to Flo Rida unless he's talking about the boots with the fur.

boobs and waffle patterns: the college years

So I've pretty much sorted through all my stuff at this point. I think my main conclusion is that I just have way too much crap, and an unhealthy affection for shoes. But the last of the bins and boxes contained mostly stuff from college, so here's some of my favorites from the college years:

• My pen from the PBS headquarters, which I visited in January of 2007. Each time you click the pen a new phrase scrolls through, and when I picked it up today it was on one that said "be more tolerant." Thank you, public television.
• My SAD (Singles Awareness Day) shirt from freshman year. My hall made the shirts to wear on Valentine's Day, and I still think of Katrina's shirt whenever I hear Destiny's Child "Independent Women," because she put phrases from the song all over hers.
• An affirmation sheet from Lutherhaven. Camp (summer 2007) was a crazy time, and I don't think I've ever had to spend so much time affirming people I couldn't stand. No matter how much you love Jesus, some people just shouldn't work with children.
  
• The card James gave me with my rain boots Christmas of last year. They are blue with white polka dots, and you better believe I jump in every puddle I see when I wear them.
• A CD of photos from the 2006-2007 Whitworthian editorial staff. Thomas, you need a life.
• The photo of me on the Rockin Rollercoaster in Hollywood Studios in Disneyworld this spring. Tied with sarah and I's photo from Tremors, circa 6th grade, for most epic photo taken on a roller coaster.
  

boobs and waffle patterns: part 1

Yesterday I started the tedious process of moving. Well, let me back up a step. Three weeks ago I moved back to the Tri-Cities from Spokane, at which point my parents sold our house and had already moved some items to our new house 5 minutes away. So in addition to sorting through all my stuff to take to Baltimore, I have to empty my current bedroom and set up my new one.

This process began with my closet. Thanks to Sarah, when I graduated high school we spent two days sorting through all my stuff and labeling/sorting it into manageable spaces. I'm a terrible pack rat, and thus have trouble parting with 8th grade Algebra tests or the pin I bought on an elementary school field trip. And despite our careful organization 4 years ago, I still had a lot of stuff that had just been chucked into the top shelf, or stuff that I want to take to the East Coast and thus had to be unsorted and repacked. In this process, I came across some pretty interesting items. Here are a few of my favorites:

• my Teen Girl Squad shirt from high school. Four of us made shirts based on the online cartoon. I was the Ugly One.

• old dance pictures. I must say, I picked some pretty decent dresses (save for junior year prom. woof).

• A CD someone made for me to accept my invitation to our senior year Sadies Hawkins dance. It also came with a life-size mannequin that was put in my car in the school parking lot, but I gave that part back.

• My WWJD cloth watch that I bought at a church concert. Purple band with black plastic snap. Priceless.
  

• A love poem written to me in the eighth grade, rhyming couplets and all.

• A card from Sarah that she gave me after a particularly nasty break up. On the envelope she promised that "the next set of pedicures and brownies were on her." Pay up, sister.
  

• My favorite yellow sweater with an applique teddy bear outlined in puffy paint, circa 1st grade.
  

• A print off of an AOL Instant Message conversation I had with a friend sophomore year. Why I thought I would need to remind myself of all that angst is beyond me.

• A document titled "Reasons why being boobless is awesome!" given to my by Alyssa.

-I think my favorites are #2: You can run without worrying about breaking your nose
because of floppage. And #40: You don't sink to the bottom of the pool since you don't
have those heavy weights.

• A card from Alyssa with this message inside: "Waffle patterns on your butt from lawn chairs fade. Friendship lasts forever." So true.

After almost 2 hours of sorting, I had the closet done, and unfortunately also developed a rash across the front of my chest, probably from some creature lurking in the closet. That, or I'm allergic to the past.