A Family Matter (Not Mine)

A pretty low-key day yesterday. A lot of reading -- I finished off a New Yorker and caught up with newspapers and blogs. I also potted up some cuttings of "wandering dude" that I found while walking the dog recently. Someone had tossed a whole pile of it in their yard waste bag and we didn't have any, so I took a few bits and rooted them. Now they're in a pot next to the purple heart plant, one of their Tradescantia cousins.

Maureen Dowd's column about Hunter Biden's daughter has caused a bit of a stir. The right-wing media has been harping about this story for months, and some people think Dowd crossed a line by giving it prominence in the mainstream press. (For those of you who don't know the backstory, four years ago Hunter Biden, while in the depths of his drug addiction, fathered a child with a woman from a Washington, D.C. strip club. She was briefly on his payroll while pregnant. Although paternity has been proven and Hunter is paying child support, he has never met the girl and the Biden family doesn't publicly acknowledge her existence. The child now lives in Arkansas with her mother.) Dowd says the situation damages Joe Biden's pro-family message, but many commenters think it's a private matter that the Bidens should navigate themselves, without public intrusion.

I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I think the right-wing media's obsession with Hunter Biden is tiresome and cruel. They hammer him because he's an easy target, having not been his best self during the years of his addiction, and they use him to hammer Joe -- and Joe is not responsible for Hunter's behavior. The family has been through one tragedy after another and as we all know, different people cope in different ways. I agree that broadly speaking, Hunter Biden's private life (including his stupid laptop, which is another matter) is none of our business.

But I do think it's odd that while Hunter has supported the child, the Bidens publicly pretend this girl doesn't exist. I hesitate to draw any judgments or conclusions, given that I'm not a family member and I don't know the details from within the inner sanctum, but I question what I would do in this situation. I don't think I would do that. Granted, there are also bigger issues here -- the girl's mother has received support from Biden's political opposition so I can see why they might be suspicious of her and want to steer clear. But it's hard to argue with Dowd's conclusion that the Bidens' view of family appears "dated and inauthentic."

Should the story matter in the public sphere? Is it even a story? Only within the context of the Bidens' emphasis on the importance of their family life. And it's an interesting column from a journalistic perspective, treading the line between what's public and private. I understand people's distaste for it, though, and I wouldn't want it to change anyone's vote.

In the afternoon, I walked the dog. She was happy to go but she wasn't exactly brimming with energy. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. 

Isn't the ragwort beautiful in the cemetery? (That's the yellow flowers.) In past years we've had some in the garden but I haven't seen any this year.

Last night Dave and I watched Netflix's new documentary about Wham! I really enjoyed it. Of course it's hugely nostalgic for me, as Wham! became famous just as I was graduating from high school and starting college. Their songs were the soundtrack to my early college years. I think I've written before about what a huge impact George Michael had on me. I remember first seeing him in the "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" video and thinking his double hoop earrings -- which no man had at the time, at least not that I'd ever seen -- were so sexy, even though he looks laughably blow-dried by today's standards.

Oh, and I am frustrated to find that I'm still having trouble commenting on some blogs. I publish a comment and when I refresh the screen, it has disappeared, evidently into spam. This happens on blogs written by Debby, Boud and Andrew, and probably others. Why me, I wonder?! Anyway, if you write a Blogger blog and you regularly comment here, and you're not seeing comments by me, check your spam folder!

(Top photo: A hoverfly on a hydrangea in our garden.)