Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Joan Kennedy: She Drank and She Lost - So, what else is new about alcoholism

BOSTON Magazine is reprinting its May 2008 about Joan Kennedy's relapse into alcoholism.  Obviously, that publication is desperate.  Otherwise, why would it rehash a problem she seems to have dealt with and such a cliche of a problem it is.

There is a saying in Boston-area Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, or at least there was when I was attending Harvard Law School: We Drank And We Lost.  Joan Kennedy drank and she lost.  She did that several times.  Relapse is not uncommon with the disease of alcoholism.  For just that reason, AA recommends constant watchfulness. 

As her son Patrick Kennedy escorted a healthy-looking Joan Kennedy to Saturday's funeral mass, both appeared to be in remission.  Let's hope it stays that way.  And let's also hope BOSTON Magazine didn't get too many clicks on its reprint of "The Fall of Joan."  Saturday we bore witness to the comeback of Joan and her son Patrick.

For one month and one month only, you can get "Hubby Hubby" Ben & Jerry's ice cream

The folks at Ben & Jerry's in Vermont put their labeling where their values are.  During the fight in the legislature in VT for marriage equality, the company aggressively campaigned for same-sex marriage - as a good business idea.  Pass that bill and the state would be able to attract the best and brightest to work and consume, Ben & Jerry's argued.

The bill did pass.  To celebrate that, reports Michael A. Jones at change.org, the ice-cream company has re-labeled the flavor [vanilla malt with fudge-covered pretzels and peanut butter] "Chubby Hubby" to "Hubby Hubby" for one month, starting September 1st.

Want Gig in TV? Be a President's Daughter

Like Prince Hal from Shakespeare's history plays, Jenna Bush Hager grows up - and takes over.  After already proving herself as an author, she now takes on a gig as a correspondent on NBC's "Today."  Her beat will be education.  Every month she'll contribute a story on that.  Meanwhile she will also be a reading coordinator at a school.

Self-Important Writers, Editors, and Publishers

"Why do you think you're doing so well?  That's what some friends, a former therapist, but mostly enemies ask me.  To me that's obvious.  The era of citizen journalism, as political analyst Dick Morris predicted in 1999 in "Vote.com," is a time when anyone could make it.  All it really takes is the courage to develop a strong idiosyncratic voice on a niche subject, care about your audience more than yourself, and be totally OCD about creating value content on the web. 

That's not difficult for outliers like myself who are, well, accustomed to being different, not high in the self-esteem category, and ruthlessly hard-working.  The first canary in the mine on that was maverick Ana Marie Cox, former Wonkette for Gawker.com.  In THE NEW YORK TIMES Magazine article, she was described as having been fired from just about every position she had held.  Those had to be fewer than the ones I had lost since she was about half my age.  I was a serial job-loser.  Those who followed Cox into the mine such as Shel Israel, co-author of "Naked Conversations," had lost his business.  The new space was one in which we who hadn't fit now were perfect fits.

Meanwhile, the old guard looked like the creatures they were: Self-important writers, editors, and publishers.  Just take a gander at the layout, tone and rhetoric of old-line NEWSWEEK.  And that's the result of much much re-invention.  They own the media, or assume they do, and let us know that.  At Conde Nast, McKinsey and Company has been called in to clue the white middle-aged men like Graydon Carter that we ragtag guerrilla forces have already taken over the fort.  It's only a matter of time until they surrender their power and perks.

What amazes my watchers the most is that I haven't become puffed-up, a bully, or even materialistic [in 2003 I took a vow of poverty and have stuck with it] as my digital brandname flourished - here and here are the other two sites.  I could have, they assumed. 

They assumed wrong.  They don't understand misfits.  We are incapable of ever morphing into infits.  We are outside and outside means not lusting after the conventional goodies, e.g. getting away with grandiosity, pushing around people, and earning tons of money.  Get this: We love to work, to create something new, to not be tormented by The Establishment.  That's plenty.

Actually, there's more.  The digital ethos is here to stay.  I will continue to make a living being who I am, doing what I do.  That adds up to a sense of safety and security.  We outliers never had that and will do whatever it takes to hold onto it.

Here is a complimentary ebook on how the tribes at NEWSWEEK, VANITY FAIR, et al. might find redemption Download SavingSoulsJaneGenova.

Kennedy Rhetoric Goes Conversational, So Does Presidential

The sweeping grand speechifying by Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy has been replaced by the next generation's conversational rhetoric.  Yesterday the eulogies delivered at the funeral mass in Boston for the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy by sons Ted and Patrick had the tone and content of, well, Everyman.  Unlike their father and uncles they did not assume the voice of leadership or authority.  It was just two guys talking about their dad and themselves.

President Barack Obama's eulogy echoed that simple tone.  It was, of course, on a plane a bit higher than the other orations, but not by much.  The speech in America, even in such heady settings, has gone from eloquence to an attempt to connect, one human being to another. 

Here is a complimentary ebook focusing on how digital technology has been a prime mover in that shift Download SavingSoulsJaneGenova.

Question:  Will the old-style fire-eating rhetoric of the Southern Church also cool down?

Making a list, checking it twice, nuns who have been naughty and nice

Here in nowhereville Connecticut where a condo can go for as little as $60k, a mini inquisition seems to be going on. 

Mother superior Mother Mary Clare Millea in Hamden, reports Ed Stannard in the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, is conducting an investigation of the 59,000 American nuns.  It is on behalf of the Vatican.   The grapevine has it that the powers-that-be in the Roman Catholic Church have issues with what nuns believe and their lifestyles.  The investigation, says Stannard, began earlier this year.  It has garnered growing media attention, including by the influential THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Yet, as it classic in inquisitions throughout history, those being investigated don't know why they are being targeted and who's funding it.  In addition, they won't be able to review what that investigation will say about them.  The Leadership Conference of Women Religious has objected to all this, particularly its lack of transparency.

Meanwhile, down the line a bit along I-91, then cutting off into I-95, the Diocese of Bridgeport has its own struggle with lack of disclosure.  Four newspapers, including THE HARTFORD COURANT, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to unseal documents related to the settlement of 23 lawsuits in the clergy sex-abuse cases.  Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the Diocese's request to dismiss the lawsuit.  Here is the Diocese's point of view on the matter.

As a legal blogger, I predict Big Bangs from this secrecy by the Roman Catholic Church which could blow the institution into a million pieces.  Martin Luther's revolution could seem like small potatoes.

"Without a Trace" - Jack Malone's father dies

It was a repeat but a key one.  On "Without a Trace," FBI agent Jack Malone's father dies.  But that doesn't happen before Malone tries to make an end run at a relationship with a man who wasn't there for his wife and Malone's mother.  She committed suicide.  The father was not around for Malone either, not before that tragedy and not after.

It's typical of Malone, who looks for love in all the wrong places and then can't even handle that, to attempt to "save" his father.  The man is suffering from declining kidney function and impaired cognition.  Malone wants to force him into treatment, even offering to take a leave of absence from the job he can't manage emotionally without.

On this episode the central plot line was of a daughter who loses her memory from trauma.  Unlike Malone, she has a family who rushes to her aid. 

Had "Without a Trace" not be canceled, we might still have hopes that Malone could somehow fix himself or, like in "Seabiscuit," have a group come together and fix each other.

Going Off to College: Another rite of passage web kills off

Whoever thought it was an educational experience to throw thousands of adolescents together might look like a damn fool today.  The web is making that rite of passage of going to college unnecessary.  For free or a pittance of the $200,000-something it costs to matriculate at Harvard or MIT, those of all ages can get a college degree or the equivalent in education on the web.  In the current edition of FAST COMPANY, Anya Kamenetz chronicles how.

This concrete documentation that going to college isn't required either for intellectual development or a career might finally burst the higher-education bubble.  And a bubble is just how Columbia University's Chairman of the Department of Education Mark C. Taylor describes the situation in THE NEW YORK TIMES.  Taylor also notes, "education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble."

The same bursting of the bubble occurred in glossy magazines, book publishing, advertising, and legal services.  This week parents moved their offspring into the Yale dorms here in New Haven, Connecticut.  It made local television.  It should have.  It was like bearing witness to seeing a Model T tool down the Boston Road.

Kennedy Funeral: Musings of a Recovering Catholic

One thing was obvious during the Ted Kennedy Funeral Mass: You can't beat the Roman Catholic Church for mystique and ritual.  I felt great nostalgia for the days that the myriad priests, incense, clerical garb including the Cardinal's hat, and the sacrament of the Eucharist brought me comfort and made me feel safe.  Isolated and insecure as a young girl, I spent plenty of time at the parish church St. Boniface in downtown Jersey City. 

I wish that I still could find refuge in the sanctuary of Catholicism.  But I can't.  Ongoing exposes of embezzlement, sexual indiscretions, and alleged cover-ups in the Roman Catholic Church keep me far away. 

August 2009 - November 1963

Today's memorial for U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy provided the same transcendence that his brother's did that otherwise shattering November.  The Kennedys have a talent for representing hope. 

The widow Victoria communicated the same dignity as did the widow of the our former president.  Sons Ted and Patrick spoke with the voice of their generation rather than echoing the public speaking conventions of their father and two uncles.

May the family be spared more tragedy, at least for a while.   And may this be a new beginning for a nation which has suffered untold economic hardship.