Tears For Obama?

The political cartoon that has probably affected me the most in my life was the Bill Mauldin drawing after the Kennedy assassination. As you can see, it shows the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial, with his face in his hands, obviously crying. In response to Barack Obama winning the Presidency, maybe an appropriate cartoon today would show Lincoln crying once again, but this time they would be tears of joy or amazement.

I'm not so naïve as to think, as Rush Limbaugh and others scorn, that Obama is "the one," the Messiah, the person who is going to single-handedly cure America of all of its problems. I don't even know if he's going to be a great President -- only time will tell. I'm also not so naïve as to think that his election means that bigotry is a thing of the past in the United States. I'm sure there are people who don't think Obama's election represents progress so much as a lucky Democrat who happened to be running at the right time. I disagree. There are several areas of real progress. Personally, I'm going to give Obama a chance and my support despite his rooting for the Chicago White Sox and my being a Cubs fan. I think you'll agree that's real progress.

Barack Obama and his family are now preparing to move into the White House – which was built with slave labor. That's progress, isn't it? Apparently, there was no "Bradley effect" in this election in which people claimed to the pollsters that they were going to vote for Obama but when they got into the voting booths, they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a black man. It's possible that some people did feel, "I hate voting for a black man, but this economy is killing me and maybe he can get us out of this jam better than McCain." If that's true, maybe it's not such a bad thing. It means that some people's self-interest trumped their prejudices. Maybe in a few more generations, their families won't have these prejudices at all. No progress?

Something that seemed to elude Sarah Palin and some of the Palinites is that while it's true that "Joe the Plumber" is a real American, he's not the only real American. The Muslim who became a citizen a year ago is also a real American. The rabbi with Russian parents who was born in Brooklyn is a real American. And the black woman whose great-grandparents were slaves is also a real American.

One thing the election seemed to do was repudiate fear of or hatred for "the other." It didn't represent a triumph for the stereotypical "typical American," but for all Americans.

Most of all, to many of us, it represented an enormous step forward in American history. Just like the elderly African-American woman crying in Chicago's Grant Park, I never imagined that I would see the election of a black or a multiracial President in my lifetime. I'm old enough to remember visiting Florida in the Fifties and seeing "colored" water fountains and bathrooms. I recall going on driving vacations with my family to Wisconsin, and not being able to stay at certain motels along the way because they were "restricted" to white Christians. I can certainly remember the killings, the lynchings, and the other violence associated with the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties.

Coincidentally, I was in Grant Park for the last big political demonstration there during the violent days of the 1968 Democratic Convention. (I wasn't a war protestor, I was a journalism student at Northwestern. I was covering the all-important delegation of Hawaii. They showered me with flowered leis, not tear gas – but I think I'm allergic to both). Even though there were many more people in Grant Park for Obama's acceptance speech, there was no violence. That's real progress, too.

Sex News

Obviously, most of what you've been reading, hearing and seeing in the media lately has been about politics. But that doesn't mean that nothing new has been going on in the world of sex. All the pesky Presidential press has just buried the sex news. So, in case you've missed these developments in the area that can get just as hot as a debate about banking regulations, I'm here to fill you in.

Perhaps making the biggest waves in bedroom science is a recent study that discloses that women have definitely made some progress towards sexual equality, at least in one area. The area is infidelity. Yes, in this dubious race for equality, the number of women committing adultery is catching up to the number of men. So not only are some women breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling, but I guess they are also breaking through the motel's cottage cheese-plaster ceiling with the water stains on it.

Of course, some wives aren't the only ones fooling around. According to studies reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, infidelity in general has been on the increase. I wonder if cheating is going to continue to go up in this bad economy. Affairs are not for cheapskates, so fewer and fewer people will be able to afford a double life. But maybe all the tension people feel because of money problems will push them away from their marriages, regardless of the cost. Or the opposite could happen. Sometimes in times of trouble, stress can bring a couple closer together. For years, there has been a theory that when women's hemlines drop, so does the stock market. Only time and future studies will tell how the stock market will be affected by underwear dropping on a motel room floor.

Marriage experts often point to poor communication as a cause for infidelity. There is a new invention that's supposed to help with this. It's called the SweetieDo. It's a "silent whistle," much like a dog whistle. I'm not kidding. The theory, supported by something called the NeuroImage Journal, is that it's a lot of work for a man to understand what a woman is saying, because the man first interprets the female voice as music. I wonder what music the researchers feel men are hearing instead of their wives' voices? The theme song for ESPN'S "SportsCenter?"

Anyway, they say that it's often difficult for men to understand what women are saying, because a woman's voice contains complex frequencies, like music. So, it's hard for a woman to get a man's attention.

As much as I'd love to use this as a rationalization, I'm not buying – either the theory or the device. If a wife has to blow a whistle to get her husband's attention, the problem's the guy, not the wife's frequencies. The music that will probably be playing in that marriage is "Taps."

In another ring in the circus of sex, there will soon be a musical, actually a "rock opera," about "Deep Throat's" Linda Lovelace. For those too young to remember, Ms.Lovelace starred in the most famous porn movie in history in which she, well, you know the title. Those involved in the new musical production say they aren't interested in the salacious aspects of the late actress' life. Instead, they see her as a tragic, exploited figure. They maintain, "This isn't about a porn movie. This is the story of a woman's life."

All of that may be true, and I'm sure this could be handled in a way to make it a play that's not about sex. I'm just not sure I'll be able to sit in the theater while the play about Linda Lovelace is going on without thinking about how she became famous. It would be like going to a musical about Sarah Palin without having a song about mooseburgers. However, I just noticed that there are 43 songs in the Linda Lovelace play. That's a lot of songs. with all that singing, they'll have to call it, "Sore Throat."

In a strange event, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was scandalized recently when he was found guilty of seven felonies. What's so strange about it is that none of the felonies has to do with sex. What kind of Senator has a scandal without sex?

Finally, it was announced that it's Viagra's tenth anniversary. I don't remember any other medication having an anniversary, do you? And what do they expect us to do because of it? Are we supposed to buy Viagra an anniversary present? I have no idea what to get a blue pill that has revolutionized sex for many people. Although I guess I do know how we're supposed to celebrate the occasion.

Check out Lloyd's new Bob Newhart video, "The Challenge" at youtube or at striketv .