I’ve been having my own debate of sorts, internally that is, as I ask myself who in the heck does Sarah Palin remind me of? Sometimes I think, gee, is she a model for Lens Crafters? Nope, I say. Was she one of those coaches on the opposing side of my high school field hockey team? Nope, again. Well, shoot, it finally occurred to me: She’s Archie Bunker in drag! It all fits nicely together now. It’s true, Archie was no Joe Six-Pack, but that’s because well, shucks, nowadays Joe Six-Pack is usually gay, all that muscular flexing more about flirting than about bragging.

But in all other ways Archie is what Palin stands for: the lowest common denominator of our society—sarcasm, anti-tolerance, anti-intellectualism, unrepentant ego. Talk about twins separated at birth—it’s a scary match. But there’s a reason Archie was a cariacature and not a real person, although the brilliant actor Carroll O’Connor made him a Virtual Person via television. The fictional Archie the All-American bigot is the real life Sarah Palin the All-American bigot. Gender aside, is there any difference? And the fact that there isn’t, suggests to me that all these gee whiz, golly gee, gosh darn Palin performances are bogus. Come to think of it, even Archie would part company with the forced down-home mantra Palin spouts: “You dingbat,” he’d say, “get real.” Exactly my point.

I was dumbstruck when I first heard that McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. Or to quote Peggy Noonan, “a barnyard epithet” came out of my mouth when I heard this. Then I began doing a lot of reading and became increasingly concerned. And then I watched her last night, and when someone [a man] texted me asking if she seemed like “a Nazi,” I replied “yes.” At the very least, she comes off as a fascist. And is that any better or any comfort?

Apart from what Gail Collins in the New York Times calls our “internal plumbing,” Palin and I have zero in common. She preaches creationism; she wanted books of her choosing banned from the little library in her little town of pop. 7,000 where she officiated as mayor–and then wanted to fire the librarian who’d been there for 30 years and who had the good sense to resist; she was in favor of Stevens’s “bridge to nowhere” and took money from the Feds for it [and only suppressed her endorsement of Stevens right after the GOP made her the VP nominee]; loves drillin’ and huntin’ and sex without protection.

Hoo boy–that’s scary. Scarier still is her track record of firing people who don’t agree with her, cronyism [why didn't she recuse herself from Troopergate?], shooting wolves from the air.

And let’s look at her speech last night: she’s witty and poised. And very, very divisive. At least McCain is known for reaching across the aisle and being bipartisan. This lipstick-smeared Pit Bulless is hardly what I would call someone I can imagine as being “folksy” with any Democrat anywhere–whether in the House or the Senate. Can you see her squeezing the hand of John Kerry? I don’t think so. Her position on Iraq is that we’re fighting there because of God’s will. Oy. [Come to think of it, she probably doesn't like Jews, either, so maybe I should tamp down my Yiddishisms.] My great fear is that she will further divide the country and none of us can afford that. Sarcasm in someone 2nd to the highest elected position in this country is unacceptable. Any woman or man in this position should have better manners and elevate the collective good: the gauntlet she threw down was tantamount to a duel. The pettiness made me gasp–and despair. I can see it now: Palin vs Pelosi–a challenge from the Former Mrs Congeniality to do some wrestlin’ Alaska-style with Pelosi right there on Capitol Hill.

If Palin is against sex education in school for teens, if she’s anti-abortion, including cases resulting from rape and incest, and if she’s anti-stem cell research, what chance do women really have to soar to their possible best? How helpful will she be in reforming the draconian health care policies we have in this country for women with breast cancer? How tolerant will she be of mental health needs? Or of reconstructive surgery? She preaches No Big Govt, yet she wants Big Govt to weigh in on a woman’s right to determine the needs of her own life, including children. She doesn’t just want to have her cake and eat it, too; she wants you to eat it, even if you don’t want it.

What if Palin were to have breast cancer, require a mastectomy, and declare that it was God’s will to lose this breast and therefore she would never consider reconstruction. Does that mean, as with her values on sex education and abortion, we would have her make this a federal law against such surgery? Just how much tinkering do we want Palin to have with the only thing we share in common–that extra chromosone??

My heart broke looking at the newest Palin addition, Baby Trig–not so much as a one facial expression or cry or laugh from this baby with Down’s Syndrome. But Palin is happy to use her pregnant 17-year-old [how embarrassed this young girl must be!] and this baby as proof of family values. Since when is a parent’s failure to know that your daughter is having pre-marital sex without protection having such great family values? And yes, it is commendable that she chose to have this baby knowing it had Down’s, but does this mean that we should let Palin’s personal values become our governing values?? If you feel you can’t manage a baby with this degree of special needs, do you think Palin has the right to criminalize your decision to terminate? Can you imagine how many more women’s clinics will be blown up and doctors injured in the service of helping women because of how much this will inflame the Radical, Christian Right?? Oy. No, make that a Double Oy.

The bottom line is that Palin is indeed no Hillary Clinton. And she’s not me, either.

Years ago when a family friend was sick, his wife, Charlene, said to me: “Everyone is always asking about Richie, but no one realizes that when something happens to him, it happens to me, too.” Not long after that, my father (childhood best friend to Richie), was in and out of the hospital for heart problems, all smoking and diet related. I couldn’t help but recall what Charlene said and I started thinking about how it was impacting my mother. It’s going on 16 years since my father died; my mother has never been as happy as when he was well and they were living their lives together.

Which brings me to John and Elizabeth Edwards. His mid-life dalliance was an act of monstrously selfish proportions; he shifted all the responsibility of upholding his marriage and family onto Elizabeth Edwards’s already disease-fragile shoulders. She was in remission, ergo he could let fly a little testosterone? Bah humbug. As any woman with breast cancer knows, whether you’ve only had a safety-check biopsy, a life-saving mastectomy, or are dealing with terminal illness, as is Elizabeth Edwards, the breast cancer thing is always with you. You have to make room for it in bed, in the dressing room, in public, at the office, in all your hopes & dreams for the future.

I don’t aim to preach or moralize on adultery, per se, but on an action that is so patently selfish that it defies modest toleration. It is inexcusable. And no, Elizabeth Edwards not standing by her man. This is no feminist stance pro or con. She’s conserving her energy and making a decision based on what little time she has left: she’s making a decision how to live.

John Edwards has sure compromised his family’s sanctuary and I don’t have to forgive him. Nor do you. But his wife has chosen to accommodate this in their lives because she needs as much peace in her remaining time as possible. For a woman with terminal cancer, she has a knowing sense of the horizon.

You will be surprised to know that there is something even better than Oprah–and that’s being interviewed by Jeelu Billimoria for her annual special on breast cancer. This has been an amazing experience for me, talking with someone who is deeply intelligent and so empathic. I had a chance to revisit any number of features from my book project, and I came away again with the sense that I am blessed to have been able to do this–I expected to do all the giving, but in fact many rewards came my way. They were, in a word, unexpected.

Then again, isn’t that the beauty of life? When the joys aren’t searched but happen on their own? Reminds me of a Blake poem…

He who bends to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

I was thinking today that when you’re born, those 2 little dabs of pink on your chest set you off on a journey that doesn’t become clear til someone hands you a doll, or gives you a “play kitchen set,” or you get a box of kotex pads and have your first sex ed class. What I’m talking about here are breasts. And in this journey of Girlhood to Womanhood, from Pink Dabs to Big Bosoms, comes a load of hooey and innuendo, and messages, from within the home and on the outside–like movies and tv and magazines and fashion and what romance and sex are s’posed to be about. In other words, the message is that bosoms are good, whether for attracting boys, for being “womanly” or “sexy,” or as indications of pending motherhood. Bosoms are a franchise, that’s for sure.

So what happens when all of a sudden you and your natural breasts are parted, say by way of a mastectomy, or biopsies, or treatments such as radiation. What happens when from one stroke of the hour to the next suddenly all those bosomy girls on the covers of magazines are as foreign to your experience as lipstick is to dogs, or umbrellas to cats?

Where do you look for inspiration and dreams of attractiveness when you’re surrounded by glamshots of girls in bikinis, of pregnant women with swollen bellies and breasts?

I’m all for trying to look my best, but since my cleavage has been “cleaved,” so to speak, what should I be wearing? A turtleneck? In this heat?? And where do I look for my dreams and fantasies of being a woman? And yes, a mind is a sexy thing, but for now, let’s stay skin deep–an oxymoron that never fails to amuse.

I think women who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer migrate to web sites about breast cancer, or join support groups, or buy books on the subject because they don’t want to be among the disenfranchised. In a sense, bosoms are a franchise, and when you’re born a girl you have an automatic free pass entree into this industry, which in fact it does become. So if you are treated for breast cancer, you feel that you no longer fit the basic requirement of the Bosom Franchise: 2 bosoms, nicely natural, unsullied.

How incongruous that something so natural, once lost or tampered with, can suddenly make you feel so unnatural. What’s wrong with this picture?

My dear Oprah,

It’s that time again, when the queries from friends and families stack up and I’m left stammering a reply when they ask [again], “So, have the Oprah people noticed you?” or “You mean, you still don’t know whether you’ll be on Oprah’s show?”

I try to explain that while you might be my meal ticket, you haven’t room just now for the nutrition I offer: a roomful of healthy women who has each in her unique way dealt with the disease of breast cancer.

I try to explain that I have nothing to do with your producers, or with television programming, and what the heck do I as an editor of art books and now as an author of a serious women’s health book know what the world really wants to watch, anyway? I mean, you’re Oprah, and I’m well, you know, just Ruth. Four letters in my name to your five. You’re a planet and a star and a whole big universe; I’m just a little satellite that flies under the radar most days and nights. You’re big; I’m small. You’re famous; I’m not.

But I love you. And so do all the ladies in my book. When you have a chance, would you give me some tips on how to let them down, kinda easy like? I just keep saying maybe and let’s see and time will tell, and good things come to those who wait. Even 15 minutes of fame.

p.s. Did you hear that I’m going to be near Chicago March 13th? I’ll be at Wellness House in Hinsdale, and I could easily come into the city if you want, and bring some of the women with me to your show…

Many years ago when our father was having heart bypass surgery, my brothers and I went to see him in the hospital. It was early, maybe 6 am, and my father–a man who rarely showed much affection–told each of us that he loved us. But what set apart this moment for me was a conversation I had afterward with my brother Jim. We were saying how unusual it was to hear Dad say I love you, and then Jim said he made it a point to tell his daughter every day that he loved her. And I started thinking about the cycle of life, and then I thought about it some more when my grandmother died, and at the graveside my little 5-year-old niece sat on my lap. I looked from her to her parents, I looked from her to my grandmother’s casket, and then I understood the old prayer “Birth is a beginning and death is a destination. And life is a journey. ” It makes me deeply sad, but it also makes sense to me, because it’s so primal and so beyond our control, really, that we need to understand it as tidal as the waves. 

Tonight I was watching the Oscars and in their annual tribute to those who have died, I was shocked to see the face of an old and dear friend of mine, Robby Lantz. For about a year now I’ve had a manuscript from Robby. We’d had lunch at his usual stomping ground, Trattoria della Arte, and when I’d mentioned I was feeling the pinch of making it on my own, Robby had sent over a project he thought I might like. But I never really got to it, a typical case of Editorial Overload. But what made me think again tonight of that beautiful prayer is that I realized around the time that Robby died–October 18, 2007–I was knee deep in working on ways to promote my forthcoming book on breast cancer. So tonight I felt deeply ashamed that I’d missed all mention of Robby’s death while, ironically, I was hard at work on something to help women who were themselves fighting death and doing their best to live, and to live well. “Birth is a beginning…And life is a journey.”

I remembered too the first time I was to meet Robby for lunch–at the old San Domenico, on Central Park West. My boss, Paul Gottlieb, who has also since died, said to me: “Watch out, and don’t promise him anything. Robby Lantz is the most charming man you’ll ever meet.” (And this from a man who was the personification of charisma.) So I went to lunch, and I tried not to promise too much but I was captivated by Robby in a matter of minutes. I was in a swoon over this darling Austrian Jew, and that was over some 15 years ago, when, it seemed, that life was only a bliss-filled journey

I don’t claim to be a dog expert, but I’m one or two shades above the “I like what I like” way of thinking. And I was bewildered–truly–at the judging for the Sporting Dog Group last night at the 132nd Annual Westminster Kennel Club event. The scuttle-butt going around was that the English Pointer would take the group, with the English Springer Spaniel going second. What happened has left me bothered. The subjective nature of judging is, well, subjective, so to cry “Foul” or “Replay” or “Let’s check the video camera” at a dog show is wholly irrelevant. In tennis, the ball is in or it’s wide or long; if the player chooses to challenge that’s permitted. Even the chair umpire in a match can overrule a call. In football, either the guy has the ball in his arms when he crosses the goal line and thus scores, or he doesn’t–that is, either he has the ball or he doesn’t. There’s no maybe here. Just like there’s no maybe when you’re pregnant–either you are or you aren’t.

Alas, that’s not the case in the so-called judging of dog shows, figure skating, or gymnastics. Sure there’s the standard, and there are points and reputations, but humans are fallible, gullible, and sometimes full of guile. This is not the sort of tryptich you look for in a judge, esp. of dog shows if you happen to be a dog lover like me. 

So there I was, clapping for that little Springer, Madam, to take the Sporting Group–or at least get something, but Mr. Elliott Weiss didn’t even pull her out. And here she is, the #1 Sporting Dog in America at the end of 2007 and Weiss ignores her. Snubs her. Disses her. Does her wrong. And this to the #1 ESS, #1 Sporting Dog and #5 All Breed. Now I have to admit this confuses me.

Bless her, Madam doesn’t know she lost because her hugely gifted handler would never let dismay stop the wag of her tail; and her co-owners have the grace to admire what she has accomplished and not grouse about what she didn’t get; but me…well, either I’m a sore loser or I just hurt to see that little Madam, the dog who electrifies the ring with her perfection and happy nature, was denied her ribbon.

P.S. On the subject of winning and losing, one final comment: did anyone else disbelieve the “gee, shucks” comment made by the Dr. J. Donald Jones, who judged Best in Show, that he had no idea a beagle had never gone BIS at Westminster. I mean, he’s been judging shows for 30 years. Even my mother in St. Louis heard that Uno might be awarded BIS. Yet, as quoted in the New York Times today: “Jones had not been aware that his choice of a beagle was unprecedented. ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said.” To which even Snoopy might say, “Good grief, Charlie Brown.”

To all of you who secretly harbor wishes of writing, you could begin practicing by writing your impressions of my book on sites for amazon.com and bn.com. Would-be readers love to know what others think of a book, and since you women form the core constituency, why not flaunt your flair, pick up your pen, and show your solidarity by writing a little review of my book. It’s that simple: go online, look up my book, and then scroll to the bottom of the page where you too can be an author.

Once the weather turns cold and people start talking about Thanksgiving, kids invariably ask that nonstop question, “How many days until Christmas?” When you’ve published a book and it’s time to focus on the publicity, everybody asks, “Will you be on Oprah?” Oy. My oldest brother asked when it would happen (his fait accompli confidence in this event did not go undetected by me); one cousin expounded at length on why it would be a good idea for me to be on Oprah (no kidding!, I thought to myself), another cousin made it seem as though it was simply common sense for me to appear on your show (bless her); and the many women in my project and featured in the book have not only expressed to me why they want to be on your show, but did you know that they’ve written to the producers on your website about their desires too?

So Oprah, would you do me a favor–really, would you put me out of my misery–and just invite us to be on your show? That way, my family and friends, and my new friends among the women featured in my book will feel vindicated and I’ll feel relieved. For example, dear Oprah, did you know…

*that the material in my book was culled from comments made by women who come from every state in the country?  

*that the women featured in the book are just about every race possible, and that they’re as young as 25 and go all the way into their 70s;

*that some of them are waitresses and some of them are at-home moms (who doubtless are addicted to watching your show in the afternoon), some of them are nurses and teachers, some of them groom dogs and some of them lead corporations;

*that they form the collective face of breast cancer today???

You see, Oprah, you are a hero to these women because you’re in the business of making people feel good about themselves. I can’t promise you’ll love these women as much as I do, but I bet you’d warm to them in a nano-second, and so would your viewers. I think you’ll come to see that that the women in my book can make any woman with breast cancer feel less alone, more cared for, and more understood. Oprah, some of these women ride Harleys, some of them wear those pink ribbon pins as a badge of living with and conquering breast cancer, and some of them have what we call “chemo brain.” Now it’s true chemo-brain sufferers have memory loss, but one thing these gals will not forget is they they want to be invited on your show.

It’s several months until Christmas, Orpah, but you have a gift for making it snow in July. Won’t you please make their dreams come true now and let them tell you and your listeners their stories? They just want to talk about conquering loneliness and surviving, and they just want to tell you some of their hilarious stories about losing their hair (ok, not all of their stories are funny, but some are!), and they want to tell you what it’s like to be intimate again after surgery. Heck, there’s nothing they won’t share with you!

I know they have heart, Oprah, but what they really want is you.