Martha we hardly knew ye (Martha) 7.12.02

I don't know if you remember a while back I was talking about what I call "the tyranny of the nice" or not? Any way, what with Martha Stewart's fresh-baked cookies in the fire, I thought why not put all my good Council Bluffs manners to work and kick her while she's down.
This woman exemplifies the tyranny of the nice. She is the kind of woman who graciously let's guests use her bathroom and then immediately cleans the thing when they're done because the very idea of someone else's nether regions being near her porcelain gives her the creeps.
Kick, kick, kick.
Like most vampires, Martha Stewart won't be down for long unless we get a stake of imported Irish holy oak in her heart, stuff her mouth with roasted garlic from the garden and bury her in an elegant yet tastefully unmarked grave far from our villages and even then I have the strange feeling she would rise with the next full moon to show us all how to make our own Christmas wreaths out of cornstalks and pine cones.
Now don't get me wrong. I hate Martha Stewart and everything she represents much in the same way that I despise Michael Jackson, Pokemon and dessert forks. There is something wrong about all of these things, especially dessert forks. Do I really need a separate fork for cake?
Martha Stewart is Jersey social climber who has spent her life in search of what could be twistedly referred to as the American Dream, but what is actually just the bloodless pursuit of money and power.
How does a stockbroker become a maven of domesticity? Much in the same way that a twisted freak and alleged pedophile like the King of Pop gets to walk around free. Image control, public relations and a whole lot of cash.
Tight control of how one is perceived is the best way to worm your way into the hearts and minds of the nation. We all want a good life, decent food, that warm feeling that comes from doing special things for the ones we love. Martha Stewart gives us those things in tightly-controlled, anal-retentive, tasteful packages. She also has a media empire to dole them out to us at market rates.
She reminds me of the crocheted toilet paper covers my grandmother used to knit. It's like, if you don't want people to see your toilet paper, don't leave it out. If toilet paper is so disturbing to you, why highlight its presence in your toilet by giving it a sweater with ducks on it? And why take the time to knit a little sweater for your TP if any of the above is true?
Learning to string peppers, dry tomatoes, can, compost and preserve, all of these things make practical sense and enrich life, but why do I need Martha Stewart to teach me how to organize my kitchen the way she does? So she can sell me her line of K-Mart products? If I don't know how to use a doily by now, chances are I am not a doily kind of guy. In the time it takes to carve a turkey Martha-style, Thanksgiving is practically over.
I'd like to invite Martha over to my house for dinner some night and serve her one of my favorite dishes: turkey franks on slices of wheat bread garnished haphazardly with Heinz 57 Sauce and green onions served on a plate I am pretty sure is clean with paper towels I got from the men's room at work because I knew I had company coming over. Oh and chips.
Of course, the perfect vintage to go with this meal is diet orange Hy-Vee pop with lots of tap water ice cubes in plastic "Lord of the Rings" and "Batman Forever" collectible mugs. Now that's good livin'!
Martha won't hang though, don't worry about her. Even if the Security and Exchange Commission can get her dead-to-rights for trading on insider information, she walks with a different crowd than you and me. Super-rich New York socialites like Martha don't buy and sell stocks on Ameritrade. They aren't putting their financial well-being in the hands of some 25-year-old stockbroker who got his business degree from ISU, I can tell you that much.
The rigged game is a lot more common than most of us realize. Cooked books, insider information and accounting schemes are just the latest in the greed buffet. Dick Cheney is haunted by his Halliburton days as VP, Ken Lay conducted the interviews for the regulatory commission that oversees his industry, even the president didn't practice what he preached.
These things really shouldn't come as a great surprise to us. Government and big business have been in bed together for so long now that politics don't even matter. Wealthy corporations give to candidates of both parties because they don't care so much who wins so long as whoever wins is in their pocket. It was corporate sponsorship that kept the third parties out of the debates. Candidates are product. They want us to choose between Coke and Pepsi because RC and Dr. Pepper are too small, they might still have integrity.
Martha Stewart is not the root of all evil, though, just a good example of the modern symptom. She seems like a sweetheart on the face of things, but underneath the clean matronly image, she has all the cunning ferocity of a wolverine and all the moral rectitude and ethics one expects from of a social climbing stockbroker.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.