June 2006 (I): Wedding Bells

The pealing of the bells is preceded by the trawling for gifts. The e-mail from from Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant to the Department's womenfolk—

You are invited to a bridal shower on behalf of my future daughter in law, Elly May Xxxxx, on July 8, 2006 at 2:00 pm. Please see the flyer attached for further information.

Elly May will be registered at WalMart, Sears, and Jethro's * in the next few days.

[*Not the real name of this boondocks store, but it gets the feel. No doubt it'll be ideal for Elly May to get her some purty thangs, and pick up pig slopping supplies, in one easy trip.]

Your RSVP is appreciated to assist in planning for the shower.

I wanted to invite you as my friends, but understand if you are unable to participate.

I hope to see you there!

I'm forced to dignify this with a reply, as she seems not to have noticed in almost two years that I don't speak to her unless it is absolutely unavoidable.Does she think I am her "friend," because I'm forced into proximity five days a week? Or is she just dazzled by visions of Walmart bounty?

Clever Sister says

The registrations are open -- just go to the web page & look up the name. So we could have some fun.

Or, should I want to ingratiate myself, CS suggests giving the bride her very own Seen-On-TV non-stick JesusPan.

As to the sudden wedding preparations for Sonny, Jr. and intended, she had moved in with the family. Jesus' BAA had been home schooling Elly May for a high school equivalency—or, as Jesus' BAA put it—for her degree. Then the scholar became with child...

In the photo I've been shown, Elly May looked pretty lumpy even before the pregnancy. Certainly, nothing like the idealized little brides of Jesus' BAA's flyer. And that multiple bride clip art seems a bit kinky—perhaps even Mormon?

Ghengis' copy of Newsweek arrives. Only 20 years late—

Susan Faludi in Backlash (1991) cited the Newsweek story, both as spurious information used to manipulate women, and as example of how phony data is spread by multiple sources once it's been foisted on the public. On page 100—

...Maybe Newsweek was only trying to be metaphorical, but the terrorist line got repeated with somber literalness in many women's magazines, talk shows, and advice books...A former Newsweek bureau intern who was involved in the story's preparation later explains how the terrorist analogy wound up in the magazine: "What happened is, one of the bureau reporters was saying it as a joke—like, 'Yeah, a woman's ore likely to get bumped off by a terrorist'—and next thing we knew, one of the writers in New York took it seriously and it ended up in print."

Recalling this story over the last five years, I've been stuck by how in 1986 Newsweek used "killed by a terrorist" as shorthand for a statistically unlikely event. The magazine was selling fear, to be sure, but it was a very different fear from what's sold now.

After September 11, 2001, "killed by a terrorist" was made into code signaling the opposite of rarity—now, of course, we're meant to expect that a terrorist can lurk under any bed, and that the entire populace are potential victims.

And in a shotgun ceremony, the entire populace was joined together a union of fear with the political agenda of a radical regime.

Newsweek and the rest gave their blessings to that marriage. And continue to show make no show of saying, "we were wrong." Unless it will be a mild statement too many decades later to matter.