Colleen Taylor

Last week Time Magazine had a great interview with Michelle Obama. It's fun to read because it seems like Time just published the transcription straight from the tape recorder (the "likes," "I means" and "you knows" are still included in the final copy) and Michelle comes across as sharp, honest and open-- not like she's been media-trained within an inch of her life.

My favorite part was her response to a question about the criticism of a dress* she wore to a congressional speech. Of all things, I know, deep thoughts on clothing! But her attitude can be applied beyond fashion-- and I think it's a very relevant message, particularly for women, who often go along with a flow set by someone else rather than proactively make their own choices:

"In life you've got to make choices that make sense for you, because there's always going to be somebody who'll think you should do something differently. So you might as well start with what you like and what you care about, what your passions are, what makes sense.

That's my message to women, if anything, over the course of this, is, find your space. Find your spot. Wear what you love. Choose the careers that may have meaning to you, because there's always somebody who will say, 'I wouldn't have worn that color, or why didn't you work at that job.' But if you're comfortable in the choice and it resonates with you, then all that other stuff, it's just conversation. People have the right to have conversations.

But I think that's one thing we as women sometimes do; we don't make choices that have meaning to us. And then when those things fall apart, you have to have yourself to fall back on. You have to own the choices that you make, and hopefully they're yours to begin with."



*the picture above is the dress in question. The speech was in February in D.C., so people said it was a bit inappropriate for the First Lady to be bearing her arms given the time, place, and weather. Or something.

I hate to participate in whatever's left of the Web 2.0 echo chamber, but I couldn't hold myself back from commenting on the Huffington Post's most recent Julia Allison interview. 

I basically got all John Edwards in there, stopping just short of telling personal tales of helping my dad shop for steel-tipped work boots while growing up in Appalachia. (No, seriously, I could have done that. Red Wing Shoes in Monaca, PA, holler back!)

Normally it doesn't bother me when journalism is a bit elitist, because I understand the need for glamor and escapism. But sometimes it's just distressing how painfully out of touch some publications are from reality.

In the HuffPo interview, Julia dismisses jobs with the potential to pay "$50,000 a year" without directly mentioning how much she makes doing things differently. Well, it was reported earlier this month that her NonSociety venture pulled in net revenue of $60,000 last year. For those of you counting at home, that's $20,000 a year for each of her website's three editorial contributors, before paying for the site's programmers, hosting, servers, et cetera.

The elephant in the room, of course, is how she and her co-'Lifecasters' are really paying for their lifestyles.  I know there is a tiny, lovely, lucky group of people who, often because of a blend of familial support and a lack of student debt, don't have to pursue 9-5 jobs in their 20's. I think that's fantastic, really, and I can't knock them for it-- who knows, maybe someday my future children will be fortunate enough to be included among them. But I think it's strange for someone in such a rare and privileged position to publicly put down a certain occupation, or the kind of salary it can bring in.

What is even crazier to me is that reporters at publications like HuffPo are apparently also so out of touch that they don't call her out on it-- instead, they run stories about how Julia Allison is pioneering a new "business model" and a revolutionary form of "personal branding" or something. Um, what?

My alloted 250 words of real talk below (my comment is still pending, so I'm posting it here in case it doesn't make it past the HuffPo interns):

I have to say a highlight of my birthday was the McLaughlin Group's January 2nd episode**.  Well, specifically, John McLaughlin's "macro-prediction" for the year ahead:

"2009 will be the year when it will gradually dawn on U.S. policymakers that the cause of the global economic crisis is globalism itself. The premise that, as we shifted jobs to developing countries, new jobs would develop here to replace them is false. It is not possible to shift production jobs and service jobs to low-cost countries without hollowing out the purchasing power of the middle class."

My heartbeat actually sped up as I watched him say this, because I am so excited for this kind of real talk to be getting airtime and coming from such a respected person. I hope he's right that the next 12 months will bring a sea-change in way we perceive the pros and cons of our increasingly "flat" world. 

**I'm 25 now, which is safely and unabashedly grown up, so I am going to refrain from making any "Oh, ha-ha, isn't that so nerdy and boring of me" apologies/jokes. Because on the real, John McLaughlin is awesome, and is definitely on all my fantasy birthday/dinner/cocktail party guest lists.