Digby's link to NYT magazine begins with...
“Our wallet is empty,” Schwarzenegger said in a speech a few days
before my visit. “Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.” He
called for cuts that would, among other things, eliminate health
insurance for close to a million poor kids, stop welfare checks for
more than half a million families and close 80 percent of the state’s
parks. Then he pivoted into empathy mode. “I see the faces behind those
dollars,” Schwarzenegger said. “I see the children whose teachers will
be laid off. I see the Alzheimer’s patients losing some of their
in-home support services.”
Then he finishes the interview with his inimitable esprit, “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie."
God. The State is broke and this provides comfort? Of what kind? And to Whom. And just because he's being such a brute I'm going to pick on his accent.
At least mio marito allows company to dictate his accent, out of respect. What say we're at a beer fest or pot luck, if multiple accents exist, my guy pulls several outta his sleeve, slang et al. Although, now that I think about it, he has two words that he can't say in American English, January and February, for whatever reason, but that's beside the point.
My father in law grew up not far from Arnold's birth place. He lived in the States for less time than Arnold but his accent isn't nearly as thick.
Kissinger and Arianna Huffington are similar in that they grip dearly onto their native accents even as they make money in USD, but maybe this is part of their marketing strategy. All three provide diplomatic, opinion driven news and governing skills respectively, but their accents are as thick as the day they arrived, actually, now that I think about it, Arianna's is sorta weird, difficult to define, let alone understand. Maybe this is her own special accent brand for vlogging and blogging internet news. She's just beyond, isn't she....
Accents are so unique and fluid, specifically at childhood, and they often morph through adulthood as well. Mine has changed only slightly and sometimes, but Muv always made me enunciate. However, I doubt I'll ever acquire a Maltese English accent. Odds are when I attend a Maltese party this weekend I'll still think fuckin A'' instead of "Oh my Gott!", in terms of astonishment or surprise.
Arianna is smart and savvy, opportunistic and canny but I imagine her accent worked well while both at Oxford and on the NY social circuit. As if she's forever playing the coy yet cunning foreigner, whether wearing her conservative stiff beehive as a conservative way back when, or like now, sporting her casual shoulder length mane, always just one brush away from her face. She's great, a woman that values and utilizes her femininity. Fine by me.
Kissinger, well he's another oddity but I have a sneaking suspicion his accent gave him just the right gravitas and provided great value ad while navigating the international chess game of his time.
But Arnie, well, California is my birth place, I am deeply fond of the state. I have many memories, many summer months spent in the north at the family ranch or south playing competitive tennis amongst Tracy Austin and that gang way back when.
Maybe California is too big to govern, maybe this, maybe that, but baby, Arnie's tone deaf today.
I can't believe California's broke, I just can't believe it.
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