13 January 2008

C (from a different perspective)

I made a pilgrimage to the eye doctor's recently, because my eyesight is diminishing, and reading "cheater" glasses just aren't doing the trick anymore.

The doc is one that I've seen before; someone I communicate well with. The vision problem that I've been having is that I can't see (well, duh, bright girl, call yourself a writer? Let's try that again.) Unless I really make an effort to focus, everything's gone all blurry. But I've had a hard time explaining that to anyone. I've always had good vision, not a problem seeing anything, near or far. So verbalizing what's wrong has been tough. Fortunately, the doc understood right away, and I've got a fun, funky pair of glasses ordered. In the meantime, he gave me contacts to wear so that I can see on a daily basis.

I hate them.

They're a pain in the ass to put in my eyes, and then I can feel that there's something that doesn't belong in my eye. I can't wait until the glasses get here so I can ditch the damn things. It is nice to see again, though. I'd been unable to spend much time on the computer, especially when I was tired, without the whole world going fuzzy.

On the way home from the doctor's office, I was listening to NPR as usual, and my local NPR affiliate is airing something called "Newslink" which is an English-language program produced in Bonn, Germany by Deutsche Welle Radio. They had a story on about Nicolas Sarkozy (the current French PM, in case you're clueless), or more accurately, the piece was about his current girlfriend, Carla Bruni.

The perspective of the piece was one that just infuriated me; by listing the entirety of Madame Bruni's conquests, the reporter managed to all but come out and say that "the lady is a tramp". I was gnashing my teeth about 3o seconds in to it, and it was made worse by the fact that he was oh-so-careful to point out that the legacy of the male leaders of France have been judged often by their virility or lack thereof; French PM's are just about expected to have a mistress or 3.

Urgh.

How is that just, reasonable? Obviously, unless you don't have more than 3 brain cells to rub together, it is dammed unreasonable. But it seems that it is perfectly acceptable to still bash a woman for the number of her conquests while venerating a man for the same. Are we still in the 1560s?

The really interesting thing, in the end, though, is the vastly different attitude (perspective) that the Europeans have about the whole thing; Sarkozy isn't being bashed for breaking up with his wife, he's being ridiculed mostly for taking up with a woman who has been around. Here, though, on this side of the pond, the problem would be that he had a mistress at all.

Ahh, humanity. Nutbags, the lot of 'em.

2 comments:

Dawna said...

About Sarkozy? Yeah, I've been pretty much thinking the same thing as you. I was all "WTF? Who cares about her? Honestly, as long as Monsieur Sarkozy (what kind of French name is that?!) does his job properly... no one should gives a rat's ass".

Lucy Arin said...

*nods*

That's my whole point. Keep yer nose outta bedrooms that don't belong to you. Right?

As far as his heritage goes...sounds far more Polish/eastern European than Francios to me.