Beth Arnold

Fist Bump This!

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

It has been quite a surprise as well as a joy to watch the usually follow-the-crowd media take down one of their own and the right-wing attack machine in a series of televised sorties. Of what do I speak? Just the backlash against E.D. Hill (aka Edith Ann Tarbox) and the Fox Not-News Network for her inflammatory tease about Barack and Michelle Obama's loving little (what even the most boring grandpa in middle America now knows as) "fist bump."

I'm not going to repeat the comment here except to say the incendiary "terrorist" word was thrown as a bomb suggesting a possible ulterior meaning for this physical expression of buddyness that even a Budweiser commercial told us more than a year ago, already wasn't hip.  For God sakes, fist bump has already been wikied into Wikipedia: 

The fist bump (also called the fist pound, knuckle bump, and other names) is a type of friendly gesture similar in meaning to a hand shake or a high five. It is performed by two people tapping their fists lightly. A bump also can be known as a symbol of giving of respect. Fist pounds can also be followed by various other hand and body gestures, but may be part of a dap greeting.

Paris Anniversary!

Today, we’ve lived in Paris for four years. It’s crazy to think about that.  I live in the most beautiful city in the world, which is brimming with wonder for me.  It has a grand history and culture, which whole civilizations have admired and envied over hundreds of years. La Ville lumière is showered with luminous grace and a spirit of revolution in time that somehow stands still. Or the most Parisian grand dame can be cranky and stuck in her set ways (and drive the rest of us a little insane).

The Seine

Four years in Paris seems like a minute in which I have wandered along the Seine, watching green leaves flutter in the breeze of a sapphire blue sky—or a chunk of one of my cat-ish nine lives, the previous ones feeling long ago and so far away.  It is the city in which I feel at home and, in fact, want to say I need to live.

Saying Goodbye to Yves Saint Laurent

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

The Église St-Roch on the chic rue St-Honoré became the church of Yves Saint Laurent as the late designer's family, friends, and admirers made their final pilgrimage to the master--this one to say goodbye to him. Saint Laurent fabulously reinvented the way women dressed for a modern world. He created women's pants for day and night and made men's tuxedo jackets, called "le smoking" in France, a sizzling female statement. He put women in pea coats, trench coats, and leopard prints, and he designed beautiful evening clothes that made women feel they themselves were his divine creations. Most crown Saint Laurent as the Genius of His Fashion Generation and chi-chi women like Catherine Deneuve, Lauren Bacall, and Paloma Picasso -- the most stylish women around the world -- wore his sophisticated couture dreams.

A French flag drapes the coffin of Yves Saint Laurent

The Shadow of Obama's Smile

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

It should've been Obama's night for smiling. After all these long, hard, and acrimonious months campaigning, he'd finally won. He had the delegates to be the Democratic nominee in this unprecedented and historic race!

Then why was our man so subdued as he delivered his hell of a speech announcing this great news when gratitude and joy must have been surging through him? Because his sense of decorum and propriety wouldn't allow the slightest appearance of gloating about his well earned win. He was a gentleman--to Hillary, her candidacy, and her supporters. This is a sterling example of Obama's good sense, diplomacy, and world-class leadership and political skill.

Hillary's Eternal Last Gasp

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

I haven't cared that Hillary Clinton's last gasp of a campaign has gone on and on like a bad reality TV show. It was her democratic right to drag out the torment of her party, even if it was clearly not in the Democrats' best interest for her to continue the race. But I sincerely mean this: a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do -- which doesn't exclude the fact that the senator's blinding ambition won't let her or the rest of us rest. She has felt compelled to exhibit her death throes to the entire world as we all watch the now boring show.