Betty Mas Bonita

*Spoilers*
Ugly Betty is over. The show ended well, with a good finalization for most of the characters.

Betty moved to London to start a magazine. Daniel left Mode, and Wilhemena got the magazine, and a little bit of humanity.

The show was part sitcom, part soap, so it had trouble finding and keeping an audience. I still loved it though. But like most of the good television of the past four or five years, the writer's strike seemed to deal it a huge death blow. Television schedules weren't regular anymore. When the split seasons finally aired, who the hell knew when they were on?

I want to thank ABC for keeping the show going as long as they did. Hulu kept me in touch through most of my missed times and my TiVo conflicts.

In spite of it all, the show reached me. I loved its portrayal of social conflicts, corporate ambition, and body image issues. It had the perfect knack of getting to the heart of issues while keeping its audiences entertained.

I for one will miss the red glasses on my screen each week.

Remembering Dixie Carter, or Do You Know Who Shirley Chisholm Is?

As a gay kid growing up in a repressive conservative household, Designing Women was the technicolor heroin to my impressionable youth.

When I found out Dixie Carter died, I was sad. Even though Ms. Carter's personal politics were actually much to the right of her DW alter ego Julia Sugarbaker, she (or more appropriately the writers of Designing Women) still taught me a lot about the unspoken pieces of US History.

Dixie Carter reminded me of my oldest sister Katherine. Kath and I both seemed to view the world in a somewhat skewed perspective, both metaphorically and physiologically due to our shared affliction of astigmatism. Kath was brash, but well-meaning, and today she conducts Julia-style dressings down of social mores on her own blog.

I was much more the reserved type. I was much more akin to Annie Potts' MaryJo on the show. I was reasonably informed, but less daring. I often felt stressed and put up with a lot that I shouldn't have.

When I finally got the gumption to get out, I did. But my abiding love and affection for my family means that there's no remaining ill will, even though we rarely see eye to eye. Even Kath and I rarely meet on the political spectrum, except for social issues. In a strange coincidence, Kath moved to Tennessee, which is actually Dixie Carter's home state. Kath also started ascribing to the Libertarian point of view, which is very much in line with that of Ms. Carter.

I prefer the fictional side of Ms. Carter. I am an unapologetic liberal. I believe in a strong federal government, not a namby-pamby network of nincompoop state legislators. But that is a topic for another day.

I want to thank Designing Women. The actors, writers, producers. Everyone helped me learn about America. I first learned about great women through that show -- Eleanor Roosevelt, Emily Dickinson, and Shirley Chisholm, just to name a few. The show inspired me to learn more about these women.

A couple of years ago, I chanced upon a copy of a DVD documenting the life of Shirley Chisholm. It was a video store clearance item, so I picked it up for under $5. It was money well-spent. Not only were the people of Designing Women correct in idealizing her, they didn't nearly go far enough. With all of the polarized and hateful, racists pundits going around decrying the "tyranny" of Obama in 2010, think back to what the country was like in the spring of 1972. The Vietnam War was in its death throes, Watergate was still just a hotel, and a black congresswoman from New York decided to run for President, against all the insurmountable odds, just because she wasn't going to let America maintain the status quo.

Though Ms. Carter is gone, I want to thank her again for allowing me to grow up inspired and with hope. And Ms. Carter, if you see Ms. Chisholm up in heaven, I hope you give her a high five from me.

I'm allergic to Cashmere

Poor Lucy Liu. Cashmere Mafia had all the makings of a great series. But there's a reason it was held for mid-season.

The show was flatter than a pancake. The predictable plots were all very dreary and dull.

There were also scenes that had me leaping out of my chair to howl at the screen. First, the Caitlin character has had several failed relationships with men and she magically meets a woman who captivates her. I kid you not, the two women make eye contact and the soundtrack plays chimes. It was the cheesiest, most blatant pandering I've seen on a TV show in at least a couple of years.

That's when I said I was going to bed. I set the TiVo to catch the rest for me and I made time to finish it tonight.

The second howl-worthy moment came when the Juliet character learns that her friends saw her husband snogging another acquaintance. She launches into the speech of how she knew he cheated when he was out of town, but it was worse because it's someone they know. Then she justified herself for staying with him because the men who marry women like them give up the chance to have the ideal wife. To paraphrase, she said that because she makes more money and is more successful, her husband should be allowed to have an affair.

WAKE THE FRAK UP! What century was this woman from? First of all, if the man marries you, he should be faithful. That's kind of in the vows. Second, if he's cheating and you don't do anything about it, you are demeaning yourself by not doing something about it. Then later, instead of leaving him, she promises to him that she will 'take a lover' from their pool of friends to get even. If this is the way marriages operate in real life, something's definitely wrong.

The third character Zoë, is a hard-working mother of two with a working husband. She's at a crisis because she's in between nannies and barely has enough time for her kids. Bless her for trying to do it all, but the show made it look as though children were actually this woman's punishment for being successful.

The one redeeming quality the show had is that Mia, Liu's character, gets promoted to publisher over her fiancée and he breaks off the relationship because he secretly wanted Mia to be a stay-at-home wife. At least someone did something right. He was less than progressive for feeling that she should be for all intents and purposes barefoot and pregnant, but at least he didn't marry Mia under false pretenses.

At the end of the credits there was a shot of the familiar Darren Starr productions logo. He was behind Sex In the City, 90210, and Melrose Place. For me, the plots and characters were all just rehashed and mishmashed from those old shows. "Cashmere Mafia" is really nothing new.

Even though I consider myself amiable and open-minded toward entertainment, this is one show I really don't care for.