politics

It's a stage-managed set-up, choreographed down to the hand-selected crowd of diverse-as-we-can-manage teenagers told to wear church clothes-- whatever that means-- to an assembly in an unnaturally empty high school they don't attend.

I don't care.

Because despite photo op, despite fund raiser (the true trip agenda), despite political push that just needs a live audience, the fact remains that the President is coming- the President!- and a Haitian boy four months out of a now-crumbled orphanage will be there.

"It's like a dream," he really said, and though I expect some teenage shade of he-just-talked-he-didn't-see-me-it-was-boring disappointment on Thursday, the fact remains that this brand new American is going to see his President, and he's excited. So am I.

I'm told that plenty of students were irked at not being chosen: the usual StuCo Honor Society suspects are too many in number-- and largely too pale in complexion- to be selected by default. Instead, the administrative viewfinder widened- by order, it appears- and through a little affirmative racial profiling action a few equally upstanding but lesser known kids appeared on the schoolwide radar. So be it: from the purely artificial something genuine has sprung.

as a picture

The outfit was merely the era: some polyester print--wagon wheels, maybe?--blouse with a blue spread collar that matched the skirt. It's the countryside background, hands posed on a rail "fence", and the unfocused expression that make the photo unmistakably a school picture. That and the bangs climbing across my forehead at a steep though unsteady angle-- an unfortunate home haircut (not by me, but my mother) that would never otherwise have been recorded. For years I cringed at that portrait, hid the christmas ornament on which it was pasted on the back of the tree, but at least it clearly showed a moment in time.

My soon-to-be-seventh-grade daughter has had her share of "We paid for this?" pictures; I expect nothing different tomorrow. I will not, for one thing, be ponying up twelve extra dollars for Premium Retouching, or even eight for Basic-- yes, there are two levels of photoshop available for the middle school set. And again I say, "Seriously?" According to the graphic on the flier, Basic will remove what appear to be felt-tip pen spots added to the sample picture, while Premium "whitens teeth, evens skin tone, and removes blemishes, scars, and fly-away hair." And again I say, "Good grief." It's almost tempting, though. If the cleaned up packages weren't all near fifty bucks, I might buy one just to see if I recognize what I bet more closely resembles her future, post-middle school self.