Racing for governor. . .

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article (at least to me, as a woman who votes) called, "A Tug of War for Women's Votes in Race for the Governor." It details the rise of Women Power in Virginia politics since the 1980s.

1989 was when gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell wrote his master's thesis for televangelist Bob Roberts' Regent University stating basically that women should confine their power to what...powering their dust cloths? He was 34 at the time, already married.

Twenty years is a long time in a person's life. I, personally, have changed drastically in how I act, relate to others, and go about my business in the last two decades. I like to think that change has been for the better. I'm not sure, however, that I've changed how I think all that much. Or that I've changed my core beliefs and values.

As the Post article points out, Bob McDonnell has not refuted the beliefs he expressed in 1989, but rather sought to distance himself from them. To me, as a life-long professional woman, there's a worrisome difference between refutation and distancing when it comes to someone telling me what I should and should not be doing because of my sex.

This thesis-business has set me to wondering what should matter and shouldn't in a political campaign. Virginia has so many pressing problems in the here and now--transportation, transportation, transportation, to name three. Should we be worrying about what a twenty-year-old master's thesis says about a candidate's core beliefs? Or should we just stick to reading position papers that address our state's current difficulties?

Anybody got something to say about that?

Programming note: For those who read this blog regularly, I wanted to let you know that Jessica Penner's story will run tomorrow. (I wish there was more than one of me, but there just isn't!)

Aye me, as Juliet said on her balcony. So much interesting stuff here in WMRA Land, so few hours in the day.

The end of a useful life and addressing my only shortcoming. . .

Distinguished U.Va. scholar and Jefferson historian, Merrill Peterson, has died.

On a personal note, he's a big part of the reason I'm in Virginia, for my first husband came to U.Va. to do graduate work in history. And Dr. Peterson's work on Jefferson--or Mr. Jefferson, as was really de rigueur in those days--was the maypole around which history scholarship danced at U.Va.in those days. I can remember going to Monticello for the first time, and, thanks to Merrill Peterson, feeling that I inhabited the place rather than visited it.

It's interesting for me to think about one person's professional life pretty much being dedicated to the study of another person. It seems, somehow, the essence of humility.

To change subjects completely, a listener I know only as Paula sent a nice note in response to the general e-mail Tom DuVal sent out about this blog. Paula, who said she doesn't usually have anything to do with blogs, had given this one a try and found it pleasant reading. She then, in polite and gentle parenthesis, had this to say:

(One small suggestion--in the interest of protecting the written language from "confusing convention chaos" (my term for the clash of old habits and spellings with newer or simplified codes)--plurals should not be indicated with an apostrophe plus s -- i.e. lose the apostrophe, save it for possessive case only)

I wrote Paula back immediately to say that although I know better, I can never quite get my mind into exacting enough gear to catch all my own miss-types. And could I use her e-mail as a way to admit this publicly? She graciously said yes, and so I hereby publicly acknowledge what Paula recognized as my great need for an editor.

By the way, my mother, who taught English at UNC-G, began pointing out my need for an editor to me as soon as I could write. I just wanted to let you know that Tom DuVal now has the means to go in behind me and clean up my blog posts. If you read a post that has typos in it (despite, I assure you, my own best efforts), it's because Tom has had other things to do and hasn't gotten around to WMRA blog housekeeping as yet.

Indeed, public radio is a team effort. In all its aspects. Thanks, Paula, for the push to address what I'm sure is my only shortcoming. . .