Women in public space

One of the things I love about the United States is that there are so many more women in public space than where I grew up. On the street, in restaurants, in coffee shops, in bars. Everywhere I go I see young women, old women, fat women, thin women, beautiful and plain women. Black, White, Asian, and Latina. It's awesome. Every time I go back to Cairo, I start to feel very uncomfortable because I'm often the only woman around. It's gotten a lot better since I was growing up, but it's still a big difference.

But I still notice when I go into places that are primarily populated by men. One such place is the weight room at my gym. The rest of the gym has plenty of women in it, but whenever I go into the weight area (there are some other machines that me and my friend dubbed the "girl machines" that are near the cardio machines, like the ones that target just your inner thighs and shit), but it's like there's an invisible wall to the room that is only weights, through which no vagina can pass through.

But! Last night, when I was there, I was doing bicep curls when I noticed two young women standing near me. I looked around, and including me, there were a total of eight, yes, eight! women in the weight area. This pleased me greatly. I kind of wanted to go up to each of them and be like "hey, you look cool, let's be friends and lift together!" but I didn't. It made me happy. I like to see women in the the places I hang out. Woot.

Just ask Pseudonymous Kid

Is there a Santa Claus?

Every December, millions of kids write letters to Santa, go to malls and other places to see Santa, and discuss what Santa is going to bring them. Millions of adults use the threat of Santa not bringing anything (or bringing coal) as a way to induce better behavior in their kids. NORAD, the strategic air command for the USA, devotes at least some server-space to tracking Santa as he supposedly travels around the globe. And -- this is the most important thing -- every year millions of kids get presents from Santa on Christmas morning. A gift with a note attached saying "from Santa" strikes me as prime facie evidence of an action performed in the name of Santa Claus, and by social constructivist standards, that's pretty much all it takes for Santa Claus to exist as a social actor. Wait, you say: what about legitimacy? Think or a moment of the great lengths that people go through to make sure that their kids can't poke holes in the Santa Claus story: different wrapping-paper for the Santa gifts, modified handwriting for the Santa cards, and so on. And it's not just kids: think of "Secret Santa" activities in offices, at shelters, in churches. And why does the Salvation Army dress its collectors up in Santa outfits? Clearly, they're invoking a selfless giver in an effort to solicit donations for their own charitable work. "Santa" has wide popular cultural currency, and the idea of a "present from Santa Claus" occupies a distinctive place in the cultural resources that we use to make our lives meaningful. QED: Santa Claus exists. [h/t Robert Farley at LGM.]

It is true, though, that for about ten minutes this morning Santa existed slightly less than usual, since Pseudonymous Kid didn't even notice the brand-new eMac sitting there because he was too busy looking at what was in his stocking.

There are still two presents from last night--we do non-Santa presents on Xmas eve--that aren't even opened yet. We've been too busy playing multiple games of Blokus (thanks, Tante S!), playing with our new computer stuff (me: an iPod touch! PK: eMac! Mr. B.: usb stick, Leopard!), eating enormously rich foodstuffs doused in goose fat, agreeing that my mother is awful (not PK), and generally puttering about in our jammies all day.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Pseudonymous Kid, Cultural Critic

"Mama, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is both racist and sexist."

Merry Christmas!

New Theory: Malls are Hell

The missing potato is lost forever, trying to find parking at the mall.

Where, LIKE AN IDIOT, I went today in order to find, get this, *A* candy cane that doesn't taste like peppermint.

Why? The intelligent reader asks.

Oh, I reply, foolishly. Because Pseudonymous Kid doesn't *like* peppermint, but he likes the look of candy canes. And I remember seeing non-peppermint flavored candy canes--really nice ones!--in some shop downtown, but apparently it wasn't the shop I *thought* it was, since when I went there they did not have them.

So I get back in the car thinking, hmmmm. Where is there a fancy candy shop, other than the fancy chocolate shop that only sells chocolates? Oh! There's one of those candy-by-the-bin places at the mall.

Now, reader, I *hate* the mall. One always ends up going there, thinking, well, it's the MALL. They've got to have rainboots/a lunchbox/a warm shawl/non-peppermint candycanes *somewhere* in that place. Only, of course, they never do, and then since you're there anyway you sort of wander around in a bovine stupor for like two hours before getting yourself a coffee-flavored lollipop at See's candy and summoning what's left of your will to head home.

And so it was today. Only said bovine stupor was compounded by the fallacy of sunk costs: having spent *fully an hour* trolling around the parking lot trying to find a place to dump my car, I was not going to just up and leave! when I discovered that the stupid-ass-candy-by-the-bin shop had no candy canes. Oh no, dammit, I was going to buy SOMETHING.

So I got myself some new jammies at Old Navy, a couple of tshirts for PK, and a 10-minute acupressure massage from the Chinese accupressure massage place that's set up by the entrance. Which was nice enough and all, but not worth TWO AND A HALF hours of my time (including the half our to get *out* of the parking lot).

In the end, I found "Sweet Tart" flavored candy canes at fucking Target. Which was cool enough, since we needed toilet paper anyway.

Hot potato

I still haven't found the potato, by the way.

Goddammit

One of the mice is not well. It *would* be Shiny, too, who has always been a little on the weak side, and who I have always thought was just astonishingly pretty.

PK thinks she'll be okay, so I have to pretend not to be worried so I don't upset him. But she has something wrong with a back leg, and has lost a lot of weight.

And the worst part is, I saw her having trouble walking a few days ago and then didn't follow up. Shit, shit, shit.

Best Of?

Jon Swift, who by the way I totally adore--as what 18th-centuryist could not?--wants to know what, in my humble opinion, my best post of the year is.

Now as we all know, I have no humility whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, every post of mine is pure genius, and the man could randomly pick anything I've written within the last year. But apparently he has "standards" and "principles."

Sadly, we also all know that I am way fucking lazy, and I am not going to bother to poke around my own archives. And yet again, my vanity: no way am I just going to blow Swift off. Plus, you know, I really need to update my own "best of" links over in the sidebar.

Luckily, my third unflattering characteristic is incredible bossiness. So! Y'all tell me which post you think is the "best of bitch" this year.

It doesn't actually have to be by me. I'm quite as willing to be praised for having hand-picked the best co-bloggers in the world as I am to be praised for my own genius.

So, read anything you think was *particularly* brilliant or entertaining here this year? Leave a link (or even just a description) in the comments.

Pretty please.

Travel Advisory for the new Millenium

Dear Travelers of the World:

Hello! I applaud your decision to take to the skies in efforts to visit your loved ones, get some sun, get drunk, or learn something. Air travel is a delightful way to get from place to place, and I appreciate your supporting the world economy. Now, a few pointers:

1. You are not special. You have a flight to catch, you say? Huh, imagine that. So do I! We're like special lifelong twin soulmate bosom buddies! You, me, and everyone else in this airport. So shut the fuck up, and go to the back of the line.

2. I see you. You may think you are being inconspicuous, standing there trying to edge in to the side of the line. You may think that if you stand there averting my gaze and pretending like you totally belong there, I will not notice that you are attempting to cut in front of me. Unfortunately for you, you are incorrect. Don't play stupid with me, sonny.

3. Excuse me. Yes, that was my ass you just hit with your suitcase/bluetooth device/ugly-ass dog. I felt it, and I noticed that it was you. As a civilized human being who also noticed that you just hit my ass with your golf clubs/special ergonomic pillow/iPhone, it would do you well to acknowledge that fact by saying something.

4. Rules are not something only other people have to follow. So don't hold up the line arguing about your 3.5 ounce bottle of lube/not putting your laptop in a separate carrier/the fact that you are trying to check in 10 minutes before your flight. Yes, the rules suck. Some of them are arbitrary and others of them are downright foolish time and money-wasting black holes of inefficiency. I don't give a fuck. If you don't like it, maybe you should write your congressman or try and bomb the TSA. I don't care what you do, but right now you're not going to get anything done but annoy me.

5. Chill out. You know what? Even ff you miss your flight, the world will not end. You'll get on the next one. Buy a book or a magazine. Call the friend you haven't talked to in a year. Regard this as extra time you get to do whatever you want. People-watch. Plan your next trip. Watch the sun come up. It's beautiful out there, you know.

Pretty Bird Woman House

In 2001, Ivy Archambault was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a 15-year old boy who broke into her house while she was sleeping. Despite eyewitnesses, the boy has never been charged with the murder. He was eventually conviced in 2003.

In 2004, with the help of a grant from the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Archambault's sister, Jackie Brown Otter (pictured at left), founded Pretty Bird Woman House in her sister's (Lakota) name on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

According to Amnesty International,

High levels of sexual violence on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation take place in a context of high rates of poverty and crime. South Dakota has the highest poverty rate for Native American women in the USA with 45.3 per cent living in poverty. The unemployment rate on the Reservation is 71 per cent. Crime rates on the Reservation often exceed those of its surrounding areas. According to FBI figures, in 2005 South Dakota had the fourth highest rate of "forcible rapes" of women of any US state.

In 2006, a blog-led fund drive raised $27,500 to help support the shelter; that money constituted PBWH's operating funds for five months in 2007, at which time the shelter was given a federal grant to keep it going.

That money is now endangered, because Pretty Bird Woman House's very small shelter was burned down by unknown arsonists, and federal money requires that the organization actually have a space to shelter women.

There is a house available, across from a police station, for $60,000. You can see pictures of it here; PBWH will need an additional $10,000 for a security system and fence.

At the time of writing, Prety Bird Woman House has raised almost $50,000 towards the $70,000 they need to purchase that house. That's 70% of the total cost.

If you can help donate even a few dollars to help keep the women of Standing Rock safe, please do. I know it's an expensive time of year for everyone, but even $5-10 would help. You can donate by going to the Pretty Bird Woman House Blog, to the Pretty Bird Woman House Chipin page (get it? Chip in = Chipin?), or simply by clicking the widget below.


And thank you.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking

You may have noticed a dearth of political blogging lately. I do not want to think about Jonah Goldberg's dumb-ass book, Francisco Nava, the Clinton campiagn's shameful race-baiting, the ongoing sexist coverage of Clinton's campaign,
Ben Stein's stupid new movie, the fact that major league athletes are all on steroids, the fact that Chris Dodd's campaign hasn't gotten enough attention, even from the online nerds you'd think would be backing him (and yes, I include myself in that group), all the disabled folks whose Social Security claims are stuck in limbo, the Halliburton gang rape story and the government's indifference to it, or even the fact that many of you are probably gearing up for the academic interview season, you poor bastards.

All I care about is what an asshole I've been with my credit card this month, the fact that Mr. B. kinda sorta doesn't *know* what an asshole I've been, finding out that recovering my CV (and all of PK's baby pictures up to last year) from the hard drive that died a while back is going to cost us $900, and the reunion with my old friend anxiety, which is rearing its ugly head again since I've cut back to 75mg/Effexor/day. Even though every step down (and I've been going way, way, *way* slower than the docs tell you to) has meant my mood's dropped for a week or so and then recovered to the "new normal" just fine.

But until then, anxiety's reemergence fucks with my blogging. For at least a year this blog's been not quite so private as it used to be, so unlike the early days, I don't feel quite so free to just hang my dirty laundry out for a good airing. Even though it needs it, and even though I still believe that it does the world good to find out that the neighbors have stained undies, too.

I will tell you one secret. I'm not really quitting smoking this week. That was just a funny title, and I figured if I changed it to "cutting back on my meds" the joke would be lost. But I am already starting to rationalize breaking my promise to Pseudonymous Kid to quit by my 40th birthday next month. Bad, bad Mama.

Also, I just went to go fix myself lunch and got distracted halfway through by remembering that there was laundry in the machine. And now I can't find the potato I was going to cook. I have managed to lose a potato.

Pseudonymous Kid is adorable

Here's PK--no really, squint if you have to--playing on the beach about ten days ago.








And here's a little harmless graffiti he did on the fireplace bricks with a burnt stick. I don't even know when he did it--some time this weekend. Sniff.






(Come to think of it, I could probably use a new digital camera of my very own; these cameraphone pics are pretty crappy.)

Heroine of the Week

This story is getting linked all over the place, mostly lauding the seven year old who saved her mother's life by throwing herself in front of mama's murderous ex-boyfriend's gun as a heroine.

Which I guess she is, but goddamn, this is one appalling story to a mama.

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an "angel from heaven" and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother's life.

Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children's Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm. The girl's mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. . . . Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.

Just, holy fucking crap, you know? Mama and child got shot in their fucking heads by some motherfucking asshole. Thank god they're both alive. Seriously, thank god.

This entire story is so, so depressing.

Parker called (her friend Aisha) Ford and asked if she and Alexis could spend the night at Ford's home.

"She said she had no heat and they were very cold, and I said , sure I'll come and get you," Ford said.

Jesus christ. Mama with a baby and the fucking heat's been cut off, or maybe they can't afford to fix the furnace. That shit pisses me off, man. Yeah yeah, the utility folks want their bills paid, but you know, heat is a *necessary service* in Detroit in the winter. I mean, have some fucking humanity.

Ford said she drove her burgundy 1998 Ford Expedition to Parker's home on Dwyer. She said as Parker and Alexis walked up to her vehicle she saw a man on the porch, who she assumed was a furnace repairman. She said Alexis, who walks with a limp, slipped momentarily on the icy sidewalk and as she helped the girl up, she saw the man and recognized him as Tillie. He was holding a gun.

Tillie ordered them into the vehicle, cursed at the women and angrily told Ford to drive him to Six Mile Road, she said.

"He looked like he was enraged and didn't care what he did. I knew if we went to Six Mile, he would kill us," Ford said. Instead, she told him she needed gas and drove to the Fast Stop Gas station in the 5000 block of East Seven Mile Road, a station that requires customers to pay the attendant inside.

"I figured if he got out to pump the gas, I was going to take off," Ford said.

Smart, smart lady. Would that we all had friends like this.

Instead, Tillie gave her $10 and told her put in $5 worth of gas.

Ford said she dialed 911 on her cell phone as she walked into the station.

The first person I hear saying that poor people should be paying their utility bills rather than owning cell phones gets slapped.

"The first operator clicked off

The holy fucking what did you just say?!???

and I dialed again and told that operator a guy with a gun was holding me hostage with a mother and baby and threatening to kill us. I told her the name of the gas station and then she said they didn't have a unit to send."

Dear god in heaven. Let's assume that the dispatcher isn't just being an asshole here; let's assume that the problem is that the Detroit police force is seriously underfunded and undermanned. Still and all, holy crap, people: let's have some priorities here. How about some federal funding for cops when cities are too poor to fully fund their local police departments? Maybe our elected assholes will get on that now that they're done voting about whether or not they support Christmas.

Ford said she paid for $5 of gas and slowly returned to the vehicle, stalling for time as she handed Tillie the change. She said she kept stopping and starting the pump, hoping the police would show up.

"I told him I needed more gas and took money out of my purse and went back into the station," she said. The attendant, Mohammad Alghazali, 30, said he noticed Ford was crying and she told him what was happening. He called 911 as he heard shots coming from the vehicle.

Third time was the charm, I guess, since the cops will show up here in a little bit. (Btw, I was recently in a really bad accident--not my fault, and I wasn't hurt--and called 911. Five fucking times before I got through. So it's not just Detroit.)

"It was very scary. She (Ford) was scared and screaming when the guy was shooting. I was scared, too. I was on the phone talking to the police when he started shooting," he said

Parker told police that Tillie said Ford was taking too long

She said she pleaded with him but he pointed the gun at her and shot her in the side of the head. She told police she was shot in the arm as she lunged at Tillie.

Brave woman. But I bet almost anyone would lunge at a man with a gun if their child was in the car.

Before Tillie could fire again, Alexis jumped over the seat between her mother and the gunman and begged him not to shoot her mother.

Oh my god. That poor, terrified little girl.

The police report said Tillie "without hesitation" pumped six shots into the child.

As police arrived, they saw Parker, covered in blood, running from the truck, screaming, "He just shot my baby."

Gosh, it's nice that they finally showed up. Isn't it?

The officers said Tillie came out to the vehicle holding a blue steel 9 mm semi automatic and dropped the weapon when ordered to do so. Officers said they found Alexis huddled on the floor under the steering wheel, covered in blood, surrounded by spent cartridge casings, a spent bullet on the floor and teeth on the seat. There were bullet holes in the windshield and blood inside.

Alghazali said a police car on a street nearby arrived in less than a minute after his call.

I'm glad they arrived before he managed to run down the mama and execute her while the child bled to death on the floor of the car.

The little girl underwent six hours of surgery. She still can't speak, and has lost her right eye, though a medical supply company has donated a prosthetic eye for her. She already had epilepsy, which had given her a stroke and some resulting weakness even before the shooting.

Selietha Parker, her 30-year-old mother, stayed by her daughter's bedside until around 10 p.m., when numbness in her own left arm, which still had a bullet lodged in it, forced her back to Detroit Receiving Hospital's emergency room.

If you possibly can, it would be a mitzvah to try to help that little girl and her mother pay their medical bills, get the heat turned back on, and maybe even have some presents under the tree for Christmas. All About Race provides the address (and a phone number). Checks should be made out to the Alexis Goggins Hero Fund and sent to

Campbell Elementary School
c/o the Alexis Goggins Hero Fund
2301 E Alexandrine St
Detroit, MI 48207.

For information, call (313) 494-2052.

Congratulate me

By preordering the book in which an article of mine appears.

(For actual information about the contents, check the web site.)

Merry 2000!

This is apparently the official 2000th post of Bitch, Ph.D. Since PK was born in 2000, I'm going to claim that this picture is somehow relevant, but really I'm posting it because I think it's hilarious. (More hilarious Santa pics over here, if you like that sort of thing.)

Despite his expression, PK enjoyed his visit with Santa. After he climbed off Santa's lap, and while I was paying for the pictures, I asked him "so what did you tell Santa you wanted this year?" (Please, kid, help me out; you haven't expressed any burning desires lately, so I'm hoping you'll like the eMac Mr. B. found for $200 online, but if there's something else you're dying to have let me know quick, dude.)

PK was no help, though. "Oh, I told him that we're going to bake four dozen cookies for him, but he said that two dozen would be plenty. That's all we talked about, plus the mice."

(Santa "remembered" the mice after I mentioned, as PK was sitting down, that PK was the kid he gave the mice to a few years ago, but he might not recognize him now as he's gotten so big.)

"That's all?" I asked.

"Yes, I didn't talk to him about all the nice things he's going to give me this year. I only told him about the nice things we're going to give him."

I can't claim any credit for PK's generosity, as he's really quite spoiled. But somehow or other the kid's picked up the True Spirit of Christmas. What a sweetheart he is.


(Thanks to Orange for giving me the heads up on post 2000. I had no idea, actually.)

Quick links

1. Jon Swift kicks some conservative blogger ass:

Jamie Leigh Jones, a contractor for Halliburton/KBR, says she was gang raped by her co-workers, locked in a shipping container and threatened by her bosses. She was finally rescued by the State Department after she got word to her father who contacted Republican congressmen Ted Poe. If true, the story makes Halliburton/KBR look really bad and the fact that a Republican congressman and the State Department got involved lends some credence to her story. But Shackleford, Curt and Ace did not let that stop them from reflexively defending the military contractor and accusing this woman of being a liar in order to support the war effort. They saw that there was something fishy about the story, besides the fact that it is bad PR for Halliburton/KBR.

Read the entire link--do!--to find out just how evil and obnoxious some people can be.

2. Lawyers, Guns and Money reports that Bush vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Plan. Again. Please, guys, look to see how your representative voted, and if he or she voted against it a second time, *use their vote* to talk everyone you know into kicking them to the curb next year. You can look up your representative's names here. Senate vote here.

3. Apparently teh gays are not only undermining marriage, they're threatening world peace. Via Pandagon.

4. Need a Christmas gift for a cool chick? You could do worse than a snarky t-shirt. Via Feministing.

Too fat for my gay genes

My boyfriend is really smart. Last night, we were having an interesting conversation about fatness, homosexuality, bigotry, and the size acceptance movement, a conversation brought on by our discussing the episode which we referred to as "Dan Savage vs. The Fatties." He had a pretty interesting take on the comparison between fatness and gayness, which I think hasn't really been discussed much in the Fatosphere. Since he doesn't have a blog and I do, I'm pillaging his ideas and writing about them here. Hooray!

Both fat people and gay people who are trying to fight bigotry spend a lot of time arguing that their condition is genetic. It's pretty easy to see why: it seems like a very obviously bad thing to hate or discriminate against someone for something that is not within their control. So if you can just show someone that it's genetic, or "it's not a choice," then you will show that they are being an asshole for judging you on that basis.

The thing is, I think this argument is selling the concept of "acceptance" really short. What if there were someone out there (and given the vagaries of human existence, I'm sure there is) who, at some point, really did "decide" to be gay? Made a conscious decision to date and have sex with only people of the same sex? Would it be ok to discriminate against that person, or hate them, or deprive them of rights that other people have, because of that choice? Nope. What if there was someone who really was fat because they purposely ate 10,000 calories a day (which is about how much it takes to make a "naturally" thin person fat), would it be okay to say awful shit about and hate on that person? Nope.

Every trait we have is influenced in some measure by genetic factors, and some measure by environmental factors. People who asserted that fatness had nothing to do with genes would simply be regarded as poorly-read idiots. By the same token, people who asserted that sexual orientation had nothing to do with environmental factors would also be regarded as a little ludicrous.

The real question is, "how much?" How much of it is genes, and how much environment? If "choice" is the real way we determine what things we can hate people for, we're in a bad way. There will never be a way to make a determination like "fatness/gayness is 70% genetic, 30% environment." Even if we could make that determination as a general rule (and we can't)
, there would still be people for whom it was 90% genetic and people for whom it was 10%.

Arguing that things are out of someone's control, and thus beyond criticism or bigotry, is a seductive tactic because it mirrors the arguments that are used against race discrimination. But the problem is, it's the wrong metric.

"Choice" or "environment" is the wrong way to determine what reasons are good reasons to hate others. Discriminating against or hating someone for being fat or gay makes you an asshole because there's nothing wrong with being fat or gay. Not because it's not a choice.

We discriminate against people for things that are genetic, and don't discriminate against them for things that are 100% their choice. For example, someone might have poor impulse control due to a genetically-linked mental illness, and end up committing a crime. We incarcerate or otherwise incapacitate that person, not because of their choice, but because of their genetics, and we do it because we can't have people running around committing crimes. By the same token, we don't hate on or discriminate against people who choose to bite their nails or eat vanilla ice cream or go to graduate school because there's nothing wrong with those things.

There's nothing wrong with fucking people of your own sex, and there's nothing wrong with being fat. It doesn't make you a bad person, and it doesn't hurt anyone (spare me the line about how fat people are making insurance higher FOR EVERYONE unless you have some actual proof of that; anyway, even if that were the case it wouldn't make it wrong). It's just something you are. Chew on that.

P.S. In case anyone can't tell from the number of links in this post, I have a total blog-crush on Kate Harding. Her co-bloggers are awesome, too. Word.

Who, us torture?

Doubtless you've already heard that the CIA destroyed videotapes of them torturing people while because Congress was investigating torture.

Mr. Muller had told the lawmakers that the C.I.A. intended to destroy the interrogation tapes, arguing that they were no longer of any intelligence value and that the interrogations they showed put agency operatives who appeared in the tapes at risk.

Risk, that is, of being prosecuted.

Oh, and by the way, they also lied about the existence of the tapes.

“The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission.

Needless, to say, the CIA says that the tapes were benign--

General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with “established legal and policy guidelines.” He said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.

“The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages,” he said. He said they were destroyed only after the agency’s Office of the General Counsel and Office of the Inspector General had examined them and determined that they showed lawful methods of questioning

--while everyone with any brains in their heads is sure that's bullshit:

Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said General Hayden’s claim that the tapes were destroyed to protect C.I.A. officers “is not credible.”

“Millions of documents in C.I.A. archives, if leaked, would identify C.I.A. officers,” Mr. Malinowski said. “The only difference here is that these tapes portray potentially criminal activity. They must have understood that if people saw these tapes, they would consider them to show acts of torture, which is a felony offense.”

Kevin Drum explains that, in fact, we "have a pretty good idea" of what's on them.

Bush allegedly told Tenet, "Who authorized putting him on pain medication?" Not only did Tenet get the message — brutality while questioning an enemy prisoner was no problem — but Tenet also never sought explicit White House approval for permissible interrogation techniques, contributing to what Risen speculates is an effort by senior officials "to insulate Bush and give him deniability" on torture.

(From here, via Drum.)

"You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

(From here, also via Drum.

Of course, *that's* why the tapes were destroyed. Notice the lede to that first link, from the Times:

White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The tapes were destroyed so that the White House can continue to hide behind the tissue-thin excuse that it never authorized torture, since it made sure that it legally defined whatever methods it wanted to use as "not torture." If immunizing a few CIA torturers helps make sure that they won't be forced into court to testify, everyone's happy. And now the White House gets to Act Outraged, just like they did about the Plame leak.

We're shocked, shocked! to find that evidence of torture was destroyed at Rick's Cafe.

My baby's all grown up

Two items of note:

1. Pseudonymous Kid has started taking my New Yorkers away from me. He's been grabbing them for some time now to get a closer look at a comic he's spotted, but this afternoon he actually pulled the New Yorker from the pile of mail on the table, opened it up, and started reading all the cartoons.

I was amused, but also totally annoyed that he was reading the new New Yorker before I'd had a chance to.

2. What he was doing sitting at the table, besides reading my damn magazine, was supposed to be eating the chicken salad sandwich I, his mother, had lovely made him as a snack after school. Little brat didn't touch a bite.

However, he is now, entirely of his own initiative, making himself some scrambled eggs instead, since he decided that was what he really wanted.

Though he refused to agree that he'd clean the pan afterwards. And he just now came in and bitched at me that I'd "ruined his egg" because, finding that the flame had gone out, I turned it back on and told him to go keep an eye on it but instead he had to sit until "What's Opera Doc" was over. Ingrate.

Plan B Survey

Light Rail Coyote is an admirable grad student who somehow also works for the Academy for Educational Development and is therefore a better model for engaged academia than yours truly ever has been. In any case, she wrote me to ask if I'd ask you all to please take a brief survey about your use of Plan B if you've used it in the last year and are between the ages of 18-44.

Needless to say, the survey is entirely confidential.

AED, a nonprofit organization, is conducting an anonymous, on-line
survey of women in the U.S., ages 18-44 years, who took Plan B after
January 2007. This consumer survey will help us learn more about
women's experiences getting and taking Plan B. The results will be
used to help make the medication more accessible to women who need it.

Plus when you're done you can enter a drawing to win a $150 Target gift certificate.

(By the way, if you have a Target card and haven't signed up to have them give X% of your purchases to some local school, please do. If you don't have a kid, just pick a random school, preferably the poorest one in town.)

You're welcome, of course, to also post the survey link on your own blog, along with a handy-dandy little button, which is available here. The survey runs through March 31, 2008.


P.S. I have no idea why the entire blog suddenly wants to be in italics. I'll try and figure it out, but if anyone wants to look at the code and tell me, feel free.

Why I Love Hillary Clinton

Can a man represent women's interests as well as a woman? So asked the New York Times a couple of days ago, in an article about Obama's campaign for women's votes. It's the question at the center of all the arguments that come up any time someone says that women should support Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign--plenty of folks are quite happy to transform that claim into one that the *only* reason to support Clinton is because of her sex, or that the *only* women can represent women's interests. Plenty of folks are prepared to argue that it's just as sexist to support Clinton because she's a woman as it is to oppose her for that reason.

Those claims are obviously false.

So then, why should women support Clinton?

Here's why:

even as he pursues a first of his own — a black president — Mr. Obama, like the rest of the field, has little choice but to compete for women’s votes.

The reason Obama has to court women--in particular, feminist women--isn't just because women are 54% of the electorate, as the NYT explains. It's because for the first time in American history there's a candidate whose presence in the race makes women's issues and feminist issues a primary focus of the campaign. Women voters don't have to choose between two men who may (or may not) give a shit about women's issues based on their positions on everything else; we get a real choice between a candidate who, not coincidentally, is herself a woman and for whom women's issues are central, rather than peripheral, and male candidates who have not, to date, made women's issues central to their political careers.

The question, then, is this: does Clinton's candidacy make enough of a difference? If Clinton isn't the nominee, will Obama or Edwards or Dodd or Richardson continue to focus on women voters and women's issues? Or are they doing so now only in order to win the nomination, and will they, if they win, then go back to the old boy business as usual, in which women's issues don't matter as much as everything else?

Will they explicitly reject "absinence only" provisions in AIDS funding? Will they see an interview with the authors of Our Bodies, Ourselves as an important platform for their presidential aspirations? Will they insist that FDA nominations be held up until decisions are made about approving contraceptives? Will they introduce legislation to help caregivers access support services?

Clinton has a page on her Senate web site devoted to women's issues. Obama doesn't, nor is there one on his campaign website. Edwards has one on his presidential campaign site; his senate page no longer exists, so I don't know if he had one when he was a senator rather than a presidential candidate.

Yes, there are other issues. Yes, those issues matter to women as well as to men. But it also matters--a lot--that women stop being taken for granted because we don't have a real choice. Whether or not you ultimately decide to vote for her, you should know that Clinton's candidacy does give us that choice.

I'm still not planning to vote for Clinton in the primary. But by god, I'm glad she's running.

Cover your legs, by Jove, Lest I Get A Boner

Via Feministe, an LA Times piece about the "comeback" of pantyhose that is one of the first news articles I've ever seen about the "comeback" of a particular clothing item that isn't a very vaguely veiled PR piece for some company who just happens to be a purveyor of the clothing item in question.

The shocker?

The [anti-bare-legs] mother-in-law might find solace in the fact that her views are supported by the president of the United States. One of his first actions upon taking office was to reinstate the White House dress code requiring, among other things, that women wear stockings in the West Wing. Exhibit A, Condoleezza Rice, the fashionable secretary of state.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the President thought it very important that women in the office cover their bare, exposed, slatternly legs, I'm sure in some barely-concealed-misogyny attempt to increase "profeesionalism" in the West Wing. Because we all know that professionalism requires that you not show any skin. Of course, professionalism also requires that you wear skirts, to show your legs, but they can't be bare! Heavens, no.

Back when I was a second-year law student, and a gajillion law firms came to my campus to interview students, we got a little talk from the career services office about dressing for interviews. They recommended warily that to "be on the safe side" we wear skirt suits, with pantyhose. Being a good sport, I purchased some pantyhose for the first time in years.

I wore it for approximately an hour, before taking them off after my very first interview. That shit is uncomfortable, yo. I wear opaque-type tights under my pants sometimes in the winter to stay warm, but flesh-toned pantyhose? In August? Holy fuck.

You know, after all this porn talk, I'm relieved to discover that if I want to get off, I can just turn on ABC news and drool over Katie Couric's brazenly barren legs, and rub one out. The slut.

Pornography: An Exercise

I watch pornography. I've been a consumer of porn probably since I was about sixteen or seventeen years old; that is, when I discovered the internet. I think it also corresponded with my having a computer in my own bedroom. It provided a surprisingly good outlet for me as a teen; I was highly conscious of my sexuality, and wanted some way to express it, but wasn't quite ready to have sex with boys. At least, I couldn't find anyone willing that I considered suitable. I think I was initially looking for erotic fiction when I discovered that there was Free Porn On The Internet.

In my eight years of looking at porn, I've thought about it a lot, talked about it a lot with male friends and boyfriends (and sometimes with female friends, although there's usually less common ground), sworn off it a few times, read about it, decided that porn was truly evil and awful, and changed my mind to thinking it was mostly awful but not ipso facto problematic.

Lately, I've tried to develop some different strategies to deal with my appetite for porn, and it's opened me up to some rather surprising realizations. I want to talk about one in particular. A year or so ago, I realized that looking at porn was affecting my self-esteem. Just as mainstream "hardcore" porn affects how men view women and view sex, it affected me, in an even more profound way. Because mainstream pornography's portrayal of women causes a woman viewer's thoughts about not just women, but herself, the woman most central to her existence, to be altered.

Women in mainstream pornography all look surprising similar. Blond or brunette, they have medium-to-largish breasts. Their hair is long, usually a couple inches past the shoulders, and straight and smooth. They are thin, with flat stomachs and little visible cellulite, and they are basically completely hairless. They are white, and if they aren't white, they are very light-skinned for their ethnicity. They are, without exception, waxed almost totally in the between-legs-and-ass-cheeks region. They have no blemishes, no skin discoloration.

It will come as no surprise to you all that I look like the women in porn on basically no axis. I have long hair—that's about it. And I realized that after years of consuming porn, only one look was coded "fuckable" to me, and that was the porn look. I realized that the more I watched porn, the worse I felt about myself, the more I questioned my own attractiveness. My initial response to this discovery was to delete all the porn from my computer and decide not to watch it anymore. Of course, as with any addiction, this only lasted for about a month or so. More recently, I considered that maybe I should try to choose porn that contained women who looked more like me. Maybe I could have my cake and eat it too; that is, watch porn without suffering the attendant vague feelings of self-loathing. So I downloaded some porn featuring larger women, women thinner than me but significant larger than the porny ideal I'd become used to seeing.

And you know what? I hated it. I didn't find it hot and it didn't arouse me. In fact, watching it made me so uncomfortable that I couldn't even make it through the clip. I found my reaction disturbing. What did it say, that I found video of women who looked like me having sex so unpalatable? I thought it would make me feel better, sexier. No such luck.

Over the years, porn has distorted the visual-sexual chunk of my brain that decides what's hot. My fantasies have come to incorporate the hyper-feminine, uber-sterile blank sexuality so ubiquitous in mainstream porn. When I was a younger teen, before I started consuming porn regularly, masturbation was less about calling up "sexy" images in my mind and more about simply experiencing physical pleasure.

Most of the men I've talked to about this say that porn hasn't really affected their outlook on sex and women, and I call fucking bullshit on all of them. Porn expresses such a narrow view of what's sexy, what's arousing, and what sex looks like, that any regular consumption of it can not but creep into the mind. Maybe if one didn't start consuming porn until one's thirties, maybe then.

I want all of you out there who consume porn, or who are in an intimate relationship of any kind with someone who consumes porn, to challenge yourselves or that person to scrutinize how pornography has affected the way you think about women and sex. A good exercise is one like the one I undertook; try watching porn that features women different from the ones in the porn you usually watch, whether it's bigger women, black women, middle-aged women, women who actually have hair on their genitals. Examine how it makes you feel.

And then try to tell me that porn hasn't affected your brain.