Pseudonymous Kid is disruptive in school

It must be because he spent time in day care!

Great editorial in the LA Times today about the latest day care brouhaha. My two cents? Gimme a fucking break. Disruptive behavior in school isn't necessarily a negative, you know. Maybe it means the kids are more self-confident, more social, more creative, more comfortable in negotiating their individualism within an institutional setting.

Plus, 1%? Who gives a rat's ass?

What really gets up my nose is that apparently needing to take otc medication is "disruptive" these days. I just got a call from the school nurse (because our neighborhood school is the "rich" school, we actually have a school nurse, lucky us) telling me that despite my signed parental note asking her to please give PK the enclosed cough medicine at noon, she can't do it. No adult can. Nor can he take it himself. If I want him to take cough medicine at school, I need to provide a doctor's note. Now, in fact, I did take PK to the doctor a couple days ago, but generally no, I do not make doctor's apppointments for standard-variety viruses that can be treated with otc medication, strangely enough. And in any case, not knowing about this policy, I didn't think to ask him for a note about fucking cough medicine, nor am I going to bother the doctor to get one.

Luckily, it turns out there's another option. I can go to the school myself at noon in order to administer it.

Jesus fucking christ. It's all a big fucking conspiracy to make life as difficult as possible for working women, isn't it?

Bah

I'm in a mood of late. And my fucking Yahoo mail won't actually send any of the emails I write--it just grinds and grinds forever, *saying* it's sending, but the messages don't turn up in my sent folder. Maybe it's just having problems writing to the folder. I dunno. Has anyone gotten any email from me in the last couple of days? Or do I have to go rewrite every damn email from my gmail account? Grr.

Am still hung up on the mouse operation decision. Dithering. It seems so decadent, and yet at the same time, it also seems less decadent than spending an equivalent amount of money on crap we don't actually need, which probably we do every month between Target and grocery store snacks and bicycle shorts, etc. I hate making these decisions. I have a serious hangup about responsibility for pets.

Also PK's been sick for two days with a bad sore throat and much snuffling, and I'm probably about to start my period, which always makes me feel depressed and exhausted for a day or two.

Bah.

snippets

1. Damn Micky managed to get out of the temporary cage holding her while the permanent aquarium was drying off after cleaning, and somehow got down from the bathroom counter (poor mouse), squeezed her way under the door, and made her way into the study. Where Mr. B. found her last night while looking for an envelope. I shudder to think what would have happened if the cat had found her first, or if the envelope hadn't been needed. She is now safe and sound in her old aquarium, and will see a veterinarian--a specialist in small pocket pets! Whose office is an hour away!--this afternoon. Le sigh.

2. PK seems to be doing well--we dip into talking about Squeaky for a while, and then back out again when it becomes a little too much. He is very comforted by the idea that while she was dying, hundreds or even thousands of mice were being born all around the world.

3. Non-tragedy related PK hilarity: the other day he came in from the back yard to tell me that he'd just thrown a rock in the pond, something I keep asking him not to do. "But," he explained reassuringly, "before I did it, my ego and my superego had a real struggle about whether I should."

4. I feel guilty about not doing more substantive posts lately, but I am going off now to the bike shop to get myself a new saddle because I am damn tired of sore pubes. And tomorrow I have to go meet with the H&R Block person to tell her what my work-related expenses were for last year, what my blog income was, blah blah. Can I say, though, that hiring someone else to do our taxes = fabulousity? Way better than even a housekeeper, man, I'm telling you.

Pseudonymous Kid is sad

Today while we were cleaning out the mice's cage, we found poor Squeaky--PK's favorite mouse, because she was "stubbier" and "cuter"--dead.

Not sure what caused it; Mr. B. says he saw her last night when he fed the mice and she seemed fine, and she had seemed fine when I last saw her two or three days ago. Her rear fur seemed damp and messed, as if she'd had sudden and terrible diarrhea, which sometimes happens to mice, but we hadn't given them any special treats in several days.

Not that it matters that much what she died of. Pseudonymous Kid is very sad. (Although, interestingly, he "wants to forget about it" and is trying to distract himself and asks me not to mention it and "remind him." When I was a child and my pets died, I was inconsolable for days and refused any attempts to distract me as somehow failing in respect and propriety. I'm a little worried about his reaction, but am trying to be okay with it.)

Even worse, while checking Micky thoroughly to see if she had any symptoms of any communicable mouse disease (we also cleaned the cage thoroughly, with bleach, and rinsed it thoroughly afterwards), I found a tumor under her right foreleg. So we'll have to take her to the vet on Monday, but I think we need to prepare for her death as well. Poor Micky: she's in a strange cage waiting for her old cage to return to her without any of the familiar smells, her companion is gone, and we're going to have to take her to the vet. I'm sure all the stress is not going to help her.

Squeaky is currently in a box in the refrigerator, awaiting home cremation because PK "wants to keep her ashes with us even when we move." Here's hoping that Micky's tumor turns out to be benign.

One last thing: PK did say that "for some reason" he wanted "people to know about Squeaky dying, not just our family." Interesting instinct for public recognition. He is going to tell his schoolmates on Monday. I told him that many of you email or comment to ask how the mice are doing, and that you would like to know as well, so he said I should tell you all too.

RIP Squeaky. I will pass along condolence messages to PK when he is ready to hear them.

Girls in North Dakota = Chattel

Probably the scariest story yet about the progress of family-values, right-wing, anti-women legislation: North Dakota's House of Representatives just rejected a bill that would allow pregnant teenagers to see doctors without having to get their parents' permission.

Pregnant girls should get adult permission before they get medical checkups for their unborn babies, the state House decided as representatives defeated a proposal to allow teenagers to seek confidential prenatal care.

North Dakota law now requires a doctor to have permission from a parent or guardian to treat pregnant girls who are younger than 18.
...
[Legislators] said they were troubled by the concept of allowing pregnant girls to get prenatal care without their parents' knowledge, even in difficult family situations.

Holeey crap. Could it be any clearer that children--especially girl children--are essentially chattel in the eyes of these people? In ND, kids over 14 can get confidential treatment for addiction or STDs (as they should). But pregnancy, which specifically affects only girls? Nope.

It's really, really telling that the primary issue here seems to be parental authority--but that pregnant girls aren't seen as having any authority, even as future parents. And that the sole regret lawmakers seem willing to address is the effect that a lack of medical care might have on the fetus, rather than the pregnant girl herself:

"Vast generations have been born without the type of medical care and prenatal care that we have today," said Rep. Dan Ruby, R-Minot. "It's great that people get the treatment early, but we don't need to do something that is going to take away the authority of the parents, who are responsible for paying the bills."

For paying the bills?!?! Wow. Is this enough evidence that the "who's gonna pay for it?" philosophy of politics has gone too far? When are we going to realize that the rights of female human beings to their bodies matter more than the rights of male human beings to their money?

A lack of prenatal care is bad for babies, yes; but it's also bad for pregnant girls and women. Ectopic pregnancies, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced high blood pressure), and dangerous miscarriages are all killers, and none of them are uncommon. And what if a pregnant girl shows up in the e.r. after being hit by a car, or beaten by her boyfriend or parents? Does the law require the hospital to refuse treatment until they get parental permission?

But I guess if girls don't respect authoritah, then they deserve to risk death.

Heroines of the Week

Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican, the two bar workers who not only caught a guy slipping drugs into his date's drink--twice!--but were smart enough to swap out the first drink before the intended victim had touched it, follow her when she stepped out for a smoke to warn her, and keep the two drinks for the police to examine, thereby not only saving a woman from date rape but also ensuring that the failed rapist would be convicted.

Which he was this week.

This is how people can prevent rape; not by leaving the short skirts in the closet, but by intervening when something looks funny. It doesn't have to be drugs in a drink. It can just be a woman who's drunk at a party, a guy who's pushing drinks on a girl, or a situation where someone looks uncomfortable while someone else horns in on their personal space or doesn't take no for an answer. And you don't have to make a federal case out of it, either--just intervene with some excuse or other, and then check with the person in private, or call her a cab.

As Cormican (above right) says,

It's just the kind of place where everybody looks out for everybody. . . . I mean, people look out for me. I hope.

Behold the sublime

End of quarter? Drowning in grading? Or are you on the semester system and cursing the fact that you've still got weeks to slog through?

Take a deep breath, invite a favored colleague into your office, and read this. It is the most. perfect. student. complaint. EVAH.

Sample:

You do not seem to care about our grades only that they are up to your too high standards and I can not talk to you because you make me completely uncomfortable. For example, you say you will talk to us about our grades but you really will not because of how uncomfortable you make me feel with your words and what you say.

The recipient swears that the writer is "the student is, in fact, a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety." Given, however, that this is the same gentleman responsible (?) for the now-famous why are you having sex in my office?!? post, I'm beginning to think he just makes it all up.

Regardless, it'll cheer you right up.

Via A White Bear

A modern proposal

It's good to know that there's been progress in the last three hundred years. Back in 1729, Jonathan Swift lamented the fact

that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity.

But now Texas state Senator Dan Patrick has shown that where there's a will, American ingenuity will always find a way.

Patrick (R, as if you needed to ask--after all, they're the party of the free market and good strong capitalist values) is proposing a bill that would pay women $500 for their babies.

SB 1567 proposes to create an "Adoption Incentive Program" which would give

a $500 payment to each woman who is a resident of this state and a citizen of the United States who places a child for adoption rather than have an abortion.

Once you get over the "did they just say pay women for putting their children up for adoption?" shocker, the practical--and, sadly, probable--reasons this won't pass start to come into focus. Obviously--obviously--the state of Texas doesn't want to just throw money around! And certainly not to birth mothers. So the money is only for women who place babies for adoption instead of abortion. But how would you ensure that? Obviously women who put babies up for adoption are unreliable sorts--they might just lie and say that they had chosen adoption instead of abortion in order to get the money. So the bill goes on to declare that

The department may only distribute the application forms to abortion providers.

So you're pregnant, you decide you cannot keep this pregnancy, you make an appointment with an abortion provider and you show up and there's a parental consent law (if you're under 18) and a mandatory 24-hour waiting period just to make sure you've thought about this, missy, and now they're also going to try one last ditch oh, hey, but would you reconsider if we offered you $500?

Honey, $500 isn't even going to pay for the extra groceries you'll eat during a pregnancy. Let alone the prenatal care, if you're not insured or on Medicaid, or the cost of the birth.

Senator Patrick, would you agree to take care of a neighbor's dog for nine months for a measly $500? Where the fuck do you get the balls to offer women $500 to rent out their uteruses and sell their children?

Hat tip to Lorraine Berry and Moiv over at Culture Kitchen

More lies, and more pimping of my talented friends

Today instead of writing for you people, I ran exciting errands. BITE ME.

Luckily, however, I have many talented acquaintance who do clever and interesting things while I live my suburban mommy life. Today's is a friend who does an occasional and idiosyncratic radio show up at Stanford; some of his music doesn't do much for me, but this morning's show was uniformly fantabulous: music like someone running their fingers along the nape of your neck. You can download these (fairly large) mp3 links and check it out: part 1 and part 2.

So I lied

I'll do a book review tomorrow. In the meantime, however, a Frenchdoc sends me the following student anecdote, which is so gobsmackingly awesome that it makes up, I think, for the sad dearth of "the things students say!" type posts since I went on leave. And yes, my correspondent swears this is a true story.

Frenchdoc: Can I help you?
Student: yes, I need advising regarding a couple of sociology classes.
F: I can certainly help you with that. What were you looking for exactly?
S: I need to know the difference between soc 1120 and soc 2220.
F: Soc 1120 is about (follows lengthy explanation of what soc 1120 is about) and soc 2220 is about (follows lengthy explanation of what soc 2220 is about)
S: I need to take the one that's gonna help with my job and my problem
F: What's your job and what's your problem?
S: I'm assistant manager at a software company and I discriminate against women
F: That's a not a nice thing to do. Why do you do that?
S: Because other women discriminate against me: they won't date me. So, if women won't date me and discriminate against me, I have the right to discriminate the women I work with
F: you mean, because you can't find a date, you think you're entitled to take it out on the women you work with?
S: yes, especially since I can't make them date me either and if I tried to force them, then, they'd accuse me of sexual harassment
F: and they would be right
S: then I have a question: don't I have a right to sex as much as to food, as a basic human right?
F: no
S: but it's the same
F: no it's not, food and sex are different things: no food, you die; no sex, you might get grouchy but you don't die. Certain religious orders, as with monks or nuns, take vows of chastity and it doesn't kill them. Also, you exercising your right to food does not necessarily involve the exploitation of another human being. your supposed right to sex would involve the sexual exploitation of another person. You can't hurt another person in pursuing your rights or freedom
S: ok then, but we have the right to free speech, that means we're exposed to speech that hurts us.
F: another bad analogy: you can avoid speech that is offensive to you: stop reading, turn off the TV or radio, shut down the computer. There is no comparison between hearing stuff you don't like and being used a sexual object by someone else.
S: do you think 50 years from now, we'll have a basic human right to sex?
F: no
S: but black people used to be slaves here, and now they're not, so, things can change
F: this analogy is so wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start: you can't compare your situation to slavery. You're not being exploited by anyone, you're just not getting dates. On the contrary, you want the right to exploit someone else, which goes against the very basic notion of human rights. You might want to take an ethics class!
S: oh, ethics is my favorite subject!
F: Also, get it out of your head that you're being discriminated against, you're not. Not finding dates is not discrimination. If I don't like green beans, I don't eat them. That's not discrimination, just taste. Dating is a skill. In addition to certain physical endowments, social and interpersonal skills are necessary and can be learned. And as in education, some students are better than others. Certainly, proclaiming sexism and a right to sexual access is probably not an endearing trait on the dating scene! THe good news is that this stuff can be learned.
S: but learning takes time, what do I do in the meantime?
F: you can try dating men (smiles brightly, proud of herself here)
S: you're saying men are gay because women won't date them? Is that why some men are gay?
F: NO... (follows lengthy explanation on the state of biological and social research on homosexuality, none of which involves men being gay because of these nasty women who won't date them)
S: oh. ok. I have another question for you then
F: yes?
S: why aren't women successful?
F: one, you'd have to define success, and two, women ARE successful but (follows length cross-cultural explanation on ideological and structural sexism that limit women's achievements in education, the professions, politics, etc.)
S: is there a book you can recommend that would help me solve my problem?
F: I don't think there is such a book
S: can I come and talk to you again if I need to?
F: sure (sinking feeling)
S: thanks a lot for your time
F: you're welcome

Talentless Hacks

After only, what? Six months on leave? I've finally started . . . reading again. For (shh) pleasure! (Ah, academia.)

The result for you, dear reader, is a week (or possibly more) of reviews of Everything I've Been Reading. I must confess that some of it was sent me, uh, quite some time ago; my apologies to the authors and publishers who have surely given up hope of timely reviews. That's what happens when people work for free.

But of course you, the readers, don't care about timeliness, and spring is a nice time to start thinking of sitting outside with a book, or procrastinating on those damn seminar papers, or planning your vacation reading. So I shall, in my magnanimity, aid you with those difficult, difficult decisions.

Of course, some of you poor bastards live in climates where the idea of sitting outside with a book has not even begun to surface in your frozen little brains. So before before beginning the dead tree reviews later today, let me point you to a trailer for a different and edgy! new! form of fluffy entertainment, the YouTube serial. "Breaking In" is gonna be a serial comedy about another group of neurotic freaks (not bloggers or academics or new authors), i.e., actors and their ilk. As it happens, I know one of the writers, on whom one of the two main characters is based. And despite my lack of disinterest and the fact that the show is ostensibly about completely untalented losers, I bet you'll find that the gap between characters and creators is pretty wide; that is, the characters are assholes, but the creators are obviously pretty talented guys.

Not that talent and assholery are necessarily in opposition. But hey, if I can be a bitchy academic, I can be friends with talented assholes.

See if you can guess which "character" is a friend of mine.

The World's First Surfing Mice - The Radical Rodents

It's Friday, PK doesn't have school, and it's about 70 degrees here.

Time for some surfing rodents. (Though alas, the animals in the video aren't mice, as the title suggests, but rats. Still....)

Sisters Doing it for Themselves

And the rest of us, too. Dunno if y'all saw the NYT piece about Catherine Orenstein's Op-Ed writing workshops for women. It's a nice article, and I shall make a note to keep an eye out for her workshops if she ever offers one in this area. There's bitching about the old boys network, which is good fun, and then there's deciding to get in there and play the game, which is a credit to the race. Plus it pays better.

And on that note, Lindsay Beyerstein, who is probably the smartest, most even-handed, and best informed woman blogger I can think of, is having a fundraiser all week, as well as taking requests for post topics. She's working on building Majikthise up to being a self-sustaining blog same as the big boy political bloggers. Help the sister out?

Do as I say, not as I do

If you have children and/or aging relatives in ill-health, now or in the future, don't ever agree to drive with a friend nine hours to retrieve all your aging relatives' earthly belongings from a 10x10 storage facility, sort through all those belongings, decide what needs keeping, what needs donating, and what needs throwing away, load the first group onto a 14' U-Haul, sort the second group into boxes, deliver the second group to the school your aging relative was headmistress of, and then turn around and drive all the way back in only three days.

Especially don't do this if your childcare arrangements fall through and you're forced to bring along a bright child who is prone to carsickness in your friend's car and/or wanting to converse for hours and hours and hours at a stretch and/or boredom while you sort through dusty boxes for hours and hours and hours at a stretch.

Oh, and if you do have to bring a child along, make sure not to promise him that you'll take him swimming in the hotel pool no matter how late it is when you finish going through the storage space, or you'll end up in a hotel pool at 9:30 pm freezing your ass off.

And before the drive back, you might want to give your child Nyquil so that you don't end up discussing sexism, the history of feminism, Aretha Franklin, the ways that boys and men suffer from sexism, why the "grrl power" brand of feminism exists and why it creates problems as well as addressing them, the iniquity of gender roles, racism, why a lot of Americans right now don't like Muslims, 9/11, the political and theological underpinnings of Middle Eastern terrorism, the history of Soviet and U.S. involvement in the Middle East, creation myths, theology, literature, global warming, renewable resources, alternative energy strategies, the advantages and problems associated with living in America, being a super power, what a super power is, the relationship between global warming and the war in Iraq, the problem of sunk costs, whether or not it's possible to hang onto the advantages of industrialization and globalization while fixing the problems, and various other topics that come up along the way.

Plus don't forget that when you get home, you'll still have to whip together a quick dinner for your hungry child before driving your friend's car back to her place, husband following in your own car to drive you home, which means you'll all get in bed around midnight.

BUT. If you do all that? It's perfectly okay to decide that the kid isn't going to school the next day, and will instead spend the day at home making paper airplanes and watching Danger Mouse.

Greetings from Grading Hell

I'm sitting at my desk at work, so this is just going to be a word or two.

I'm a high school teacher, and my grades are due tomorrow, but I just wanted to take a minute to share some of my pain.

When did Americans kids stop knocking? Is knocking on a closed door no longer part of the curriculum in grade school?

When the bell rings, I close and lock the door to my classroom, that way, when someone tries to sneak in late; it eliminates the chances of kids blowing in and causing a distraction when I'm doing my oh so important oral warm ups (it's a Spanish class). Also, for those that come in late, it gives me a chance to greet them, ask them in Spanish if they're ok, if they know what time class starts, you know, give them the business.

Fine. The kids know the game. The odd part is that they don't knock! They either walk into the door, or jiggle the handle, shake the door, pout in the window... Don't we knock in our culture?

Hmph!

And another thing. When did my name become "Um?"

"Um, I was absent two days ago, so I didn't get the worksheet."

"Um, k'I go to the bathroom?"

"Um, this doesn't make any sense."

Oh my God, my name is not Um! We talked about this in August, my appropriate title of address is profesor, but if you are absolutely too cool for school, you can call me profe and I'll look. That's a huge concession right there. Do I really have to answer to Um?

Hmph!

One last thing; the word "wull."

"Wull, I thought we were supposed to write it in English."

"Wull, there's se in the example, so I thought all of the answers would have se in them."

Wrong. Due to your policy of not reading the directions, you have misunderstood the exercise.

Listen to me, children, I have an advanced degree in linguistics. The reason it's so easy to call bullshit on your tired excuses is because you always preface them with the bullshit excuse marker "wull." Any and every time you say "wull" I guarantee you, you are about about to make a bullshit excuse.

Hmph! Double hmph!

Don't even get me started on your "wait... what?"

Back to grading....

What rhymes with "equitable health care?"

What misogynistic distortion!
These lies have grown out of proportion!
So BitchPhd
Says, Repeat after me:
Plan B is not an abortion!

Post your own limericks at my limerick festival.

It's about time.

It's a proud day here in Seattle. After years of hand wringing, Dr. King County officials have finally unveiled a proposed new logo, an image of the man who reminded us that only love conquers hate, and that Non Violent Direct Action can change the world.

In other news, the Surgeon General of the United States has been ousted, this time for for more than a little remark about masturbation.

CLARIFICATION: Reader MackoUr points out that it was the Surgeon General of the Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley who was ousted, not the Surgeon General of the United States. Silly me; I can't tell my surgeons general apart.

Lofty Right-Wing lies

I saw this post over at "The Loft," which is the weblog of "GOPUSA, a company dedicated to promoting the grassroots conservative philosophy." Apparently that includes "promoting lies."

“Lower the risk of pregnancy” and “emergency contraception” is the sanitized language used by the mainstream media instead of “destroy the life of the fetus or destroy the egg in order to eliminate pregnancy.”

The post then goes on to describe Plan B as abortion twice.

Only, as we know, (1) Plan B is not abortion. (That's the SG link, in case you're squeamish about SG. A less complete description of how Plan B does and doesn't work is on this site here.) (2) "destroying the egg" (the egg?!?) is not what Plan B does; (3) your own damn body destroys eggs every month when you menstruate; (4) Plan B works within 72 hours of sex--when there cannot possibly be any fetus.

Of course their own site doesn't have comments, so I'm correcting them, for the record, here.

Feminism in Space

Are you writing limericks for me, or what? Post them at my limerick festival!
______

So I'm watching another TV show, and it's a good one. So far this just this season, the show has raised the issues of military occupation, civilian suicide bombers, collaboration and resistance, secret military tribunals, pandemic disease scare, genocidal biological warfare, re-integration of ex-POWs, nuclear negotiations, ethnic discrimination, an overburdened medical system, labor vs. management... there's a love triangle, actually a trapezoid.... and finally, the civil trial of a deposed dictator.

The show, of course is the new Battlestar Galactica, and I admire it for taking on my own personal big fat liberal agenda this season. I will forgive the conceit that there are apparently no Filipinos in space.

And to think, I was such a huge fan of the original series in the 70s, mainly for the robots and the recycled footage of aerial dogfights.

Anyway, this blog is about politics and feminism, so I'll get right to the point. Since the dawn of television, and film, really, science fiction has reflected contemporary American society's perspective on the role of women.

I'm thinking first of Lt. Ohura, the space receptionist in a mini skirt and go-go boots. Then, in the 70s and 80s, the spunky Princess Leia, whose character arc goes from revolutionary, to slave girl, to happily-ever-after. The 90s gives us Captain Janeway and Seven the Borg; one a Victorian matron, the other an untouchably intimidating robot lady in a silver body suit. Oh, you've come a long way baby.

And now, we have Battlestar Galactica, with a woman president, thoroughly gender-integrated military with female COs (who are called "sir") co-ed bathrooms, showers, even co-ed recreational boxing. And honest-to-gods sexbots; diabolical robots that look like supermodels who plot to destroy man and mankind with their dangerously sexy bodies.

Does this show reflect the progress of feminism? Or have the show's writers just found a new male fetish to exploit, the devastating black widow, who will have sex with you and then eat your head?

Hmm. Before I go too far, Dr. B, I do want to mention that they have also brought up issues like abortion, breast cancer, and day care. And that the male body is objectified plenty in this show.

But then again, that's for the male audience, too, isn't it.

Dr. B will be back in a couple of days, after her road trip. In the meantime, the question is this: what will we do first, fulfill the goals of feminism, or colonize space? What does feminism look like, in our post-apocalyptic, spacefareing future? Can we resist the diabolical sexbots?

Why are you tense?

I am watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern right now. I wish I wasn't.

We've all seen the National Geographic-style shows that are educational; where Masai tribesmen drink cows' blood, or people in the Andes roasting what we would call guinea pigs, or dog meat being eaten in South East Asia. Usually it's presented with some measure of cultural objectivity, acknowledging that Americans find some of these foods repellent, but that culinary tastes and customs are culture-specific and highly varied.

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is not one of those shows.

Here's the summary: Archetypal American tourist goes to the Philippines and eats things that would upset most Americans.

By 'archetypal American tourist' I mean this: the man wears a bright orange shirt, oversized shorts, and dark socks, yelling enthusiastically into a camera, mispronouncing things unapologetically, and generally being loud and jolly. His job is to find the all the foods those crazy Filipinos eat, and then shock you by eating it on camera.

This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. Ten years or so ago, on the the Fear Factor challenges was balut, a snack food so ubiquitous in the Philippines that you don't have to leave the house to get it; street vendors wander my cousins' neighborhood, pushing shopping carts full of it. My dad and I watched that episode together; I had to explain to him that these white people were going to get paid money if they would eat balut. "What!" he said, "Can I play?" Imagine, getting paid money to eat something totally normal. Well, normal to some...

Anyway, back to Bizarre Foods. Our everyman Andrew is eating bull penis soup, meal worms, whole deep fried baby chickens, even some wood pulp worms, which he ate happily. Now folks, some guys on a beach in Palawan eating wood worms doesn't mean that eating wood worms is Filipino food. Any more than Lewis and Clark trading rifles for dogs to eat, because they were so sick of salmon, means that dog meat is American food. But I digress.

Anyway, I see him trying to be culturally objective, explaining that all parts of the animal are used, nothing goes to waste, etc. But when the man goes off-script to talk to actual Filipinos, some ethnocentricity pops right to the surface. I just watched him pass off an ice cream sandwich that was too wierd for him. Yes, it was purple yam and cheese ice cream on a sesame hamburger bun, so not what he's used to, but the telling part is when he handed it off to a bystander and telling him, "This is unusual."

You know, he may not be used to purple yam and cheese ice cream served on a sesame hamburger bun, but dude, when you're standing in the Quiapo district of Manila, a purple yam and cheese ice cream sandwich on a hamburger bun IS NOT UNUSUAL. Especially since the bystander happened to be holding, in his hand, his own purple yam and cheese ice cream on a sesame hamburger bun. It's not unusual. YOU are unusual, Andrew Zimmern.

Is this the same Andrew Zimmern that just ate a foot-long wood pulp worm, and liked it? But an ice cream sandwich is too unusual?

Whatever, man.

Regardless, this post is not actually a review of Bizarre Foods; I just wanted to raise the issue of cultural objectivity when it comes to food. Food has meaning in different cultures, and JP's Law of Cutural Differences states "Differences in cultural norms are always surprising."

Ahem. Now is the time in the post where I bring up the American cultural blindspot.

So Americans travel the world, and discover ways of eating that are so exotic that they make it into a tv show. Well, guess what, there are plenty of American foods and eating habits that other people consider bizarre.

Ask your French friend what he thinks about peanut butter. Or root beer. Or better yet, a root beer float. The next time you're in Rome, go to McDonalds and eat fries with ketchup, and count the number of people walking by muttering "schifoso!" Offer your Chinese friends a tall glass of milk, that ought to be fun.

And now, the minority point of view. When I was in grad school, a friend of mine asked me gingerly how I ate my grits. Sweetheart, I'm from Olympia, Washington, have I ever had grits before? I don't know, what do you put in your grits? Hot sauce? Brown sugar? Fresh peaches? What? Why are you tense?

The correct answer was "With butter. Period." And she was tense because apparently it freaked her out that people put stuff in their grits.

I know that tense. That's the same tense that I get when my white friends put soy sauce all over their rice. Oh well, cultural objectivity....
______

Dr. B will be back on Wednesday, I'm just babysitting teh blog until she gets back. If you want, check out my blog. I happen to be holding a limerick festival in honor of my santo, St. Patrick (my name is John Patrick), please feel free to write your own limerick and leave it in the comments section. Here's a sample of what's going on, by Paradise Found:

Condolences dear Mr. Scooter
You gave your neck up for the Shooter
But soon the Decider
Ole Pardon Provider
Will be your number one rooter.

Pretty good, huh!

Look elsewhere for amusement

If, like me, you are a neurotic basket case, you might be interested in Claire's offer of free therapy. Plus, she's funny, which most credentialed therapists aren't.

On the other hand, if you are witty and have a touch of spring fever, head on over to JP's annual limerick festival and drop the man some rhymes. Kissing up to JP would be especially clever, b/c he's going to be guest-blogging for three days starting tomorrow--I have to run off to Tucson to go through the storage space that holds all my aunt's earthly belongings, and then haul back whatever my Tokyo cousin might want to hang onto in a U-Haul for our mutual friend and force of nature Julie to store indefinitely. The fun part of this trip is going to be that I couldn't arrange for either of my folks to take care of PK for a couple of days while I'm gone, so I'm going to have to bring him with me. Anyone who has clever ideas about how to get a six-year-old to entertain himself in a parking lot while the grownups move boxes all day, or who lives in Tucson and is willing to babysit for free, drop me a line.

I'll be competing for the annual Mother's Day Mother of the Year Award, in the "begging strangers to take your child" category. What do you think? Do I have a chance?

Zell Miller, Nazi

Okay, you sitting down? Of course you are, you web-surfing slacker, you. Okay, so, find a hankie or something to bind your jaw to your head (otherwise it's gonna end up on the floor) and then click over and watch this.

Shorter Zell:

Breed, you feminazi bitches: we need cannon fodder and white workers. None of those dirty Messicans.

Hey, isn't today International Women's Day?

I'm too tired to write a post. Y'all can read the opus I constructed (full o' links!) over at SG.

Hey, wasn't Tuesday "Alamo Day"?

Seems to have been a lot of interesting immigration news of late. First, the news that immigrants do *not* raise crime rates--in fact, they're less likely to commit crimes than those of us born in the States. Then, the next day, the release of a study showing that immigration has a positive impact on jobs and wages for native-born Americans.

Hopefully this work will put an end to anti-immigrant bullshit like Texas putting immigrants into concentration camps and trying to cut off entitlements to children who are U.S. citizens. Or Massachusetts (Massachusetts?)stranding children without anyone to take care of them.

The idea of PK waiting at school for me to pick him up, and my being physically restrained from doing so, is horrifying. Thinking of that happening if his father weren't around, and with the threat of being sent thousands of miles away without even being able to make arrangements for his care. . . . Jesus. What kind of country are we?

Some organization websites worth exploring, bookmarking, passing on:

Detention Watch Network
New York State Defenders Association Immigrant Defense Project
MAPA (Mexican American Political Association)
Hermandad Mexicana

Feel free to link to other organizations in comments--especially if you know of any that are particularly focused on the issue of separating American-born children from their immigrant parents.

Florida's thinking of making pregnancy a reportable offense

For girls' own good,, of course.

Doctors and nurses at abortion clinics, hospitals or even counseling agencies would have to report underage pregnancies within 24 hours of knowing about such a pregnancy or risk losing their state license.
....
When asked about the bill's effect on girls' ability to get abortions, both Storms and Baxley said the bill is intended to target sexual abuse of minors.

But Baxley added, "It doesn't make me unhappy that a few more children may live."

That pregnancy is evidence of a crime, missy. And if you try to hide or get rid of the evidence, you're a criminal too. Your body belongs to the state.

Shit, this motherfuckering cunt's so cocksucking proud I could piss my fucking pants. And y'all already know I've got tits.

A li'l while back, Mr. B. sent me over here, where I learned that I'm one of the most potty-mouthed liberals on teh internets! I seriously want to thank Mr. NewsBuckit for running his (admittedly ridiculously unscientific) results, and to point out to anyone and everyone that if you knock off the professional and/or group blogs, it's Atrios, Digby, Jesus' General, and me. If you include the "group" blogs that are really led by a single strong voice, it's Atrios, Digby, Jesus' General, Amanda, Shakes' Sis, and me.

And some people used to say that the ladies couldn't handle the heat. Suck it, fuckers.

Teh Carnage!

Above, my right shin; below, my right hip, below the ribcage and twisting away from the camera. I also scratched the shit out of my right forearm, but it doesn't look as impressive so I didn't photograph it. The shadow at the bottom of the second picture is buttcrack, just for the sake of orientation, and the view out back is through the sliding glass doors on the bathroom (!).

Mostly, as you can see, it's fairly superficial. But damn, it hurt. The hardest thing about the fall was that, having landed on my right hip in a goddamn five-foot wide border of brambly roses (note to gardeners: do not plant brambly roses by the curb, lest passersby fall into them), I couldn't put my hands down to get my feet under me (b/c of the thorns), so I had to kind of lie there explaining to PK that no, Mama's fine, I just have to figure out how to stand up without my hands, until a driver stopped and gave me a hand (in the course of which three more people stopped. Jeezameesus).

PK was very concerned and sweet, although on reflection once we got home he was a little hurt and angry that I didn't let *him* give me a hand. I pointed out that I weigh three times what he does, but he's sure he could have helped pull me out of the thorns. Instead, I let him help pull the thorns out of me before I took these pics and hopped in the shower.

I didn't write anything today

because I was too busy falling off my bike into a thornbush.

If the pictures of my torn and bleeding flesh turned out, I'll post some tomorrow.

The age of reason, part 3

PK, over dinner: 'Scuse me?
Me (to Mr. B.): . . . so they should be clean by tomorrow. Yes, PK?
PK: I didn't say "Mama."
Me: No, you said "scuse me."
PK: Oh yeah, right. Mama?

The age of reason, part 2

Me: PK, do you want some lunch?
PK: Yes. Only it has to be brunch, because I didn't have any breakfast.
Me: You did too. You had berries and cream.
PK: Oh yeah, right. Okay, lunch then.

The age of reason

Me: Pseudonymous Kid, did you leave your breakfast outside?
PK: No.
Me: Did you finish your breakfast, then?
PK: What? No, I left it outside.

That banner picture

Syd B. asks, in just the right tone, I want to know where that damn picture in your banner came from. And I want to know now. How could I possibly not fulfill a request like that?

So, Syd (and all the folks who email to ask the same question): I, personally, found it on the web while looking for a suitable picture over a year ago, when I finally decided to have the fabulous Lauren make me a nice site design. Like you, I love it; but I didn't know where in the world it came from. Everyone loved it, though, and I thought, "hey! Marketing opportunity!" So early last fall I asked Ann Bartow, who blogs with a group of other Feminist Law Professors and reads the site (and who I really like) if she would be willing to take the case and track it down for me, and she agreed.

Not too long after that I got an email from someone saying "I know where you got that picture!" "Where?!?" I wrote back. Turns out the original is hanging on the wall--near the women's bathroom, I understand--at a divey Hollywood place called Birds.

A lead! Ann emailed the owner to ask about the pic, and was referred to a gentleman named Sandy, who is the person who actually took it. Apparently the girls in the picture are his real-life daughters, and he gave the picture to his sister and her (then) husband, who used to own Birds, a long time ago.

Understandably, Sandy is not interested in me making money off his ass-kicking little girls. So, once he'd refused rights, I bit the bullet and emailed him myself: it seemed like the decent thing to do. I confessed that I'd been using the pic for a couple years or so, had found it on the web, and had been trying to track him down; gave him a link to the site; explained that I have a kid myself and perfectly understood why he didn't want to let me market the picture; told him that you and I adore those little girls; and asked him if he minded me just using it as the banner image.

Sandy, as you'd expect of a man who raised such darling hellions, turns out to be a decent guy. He thanked me for being honest, said go ahead and keep using it, and didn't say anything one way or the other about whether he wanted me to credit him as the photographer. So I haven't given his last name, though I've told Los Angelenos where they can make a pilgrimage to the original (I understand the restaurant sometimes has postcards available).

Come to think of it, we may have to have some kind of bitchy get-together there someday.

Pseudonymous Kid's first publication

When PK started first grade, he couldn't read--although he could write his name, or "mouse," and sometimes "Mama" and "Papa." Now look at him.

I asked if this was something his teacher told him to write, or if he made it up. He made it up. Hilarious.

Also, he was published today in the local paper: the question on the kids' page was, "If you could throw a party this weekend, what kind of party would it be?" Here's PK's answer.

I think I would like to have a mouse party. Everyone that came to my party would play with mice . . . at least everyone who likes mice.

Mice and mussels, mussels and mice.