Dreams of a Bosnian Pancake Bleg

My coworker has been regaling me with tales of a pancake-frittata-type-thing made for her by a Bosnian woman one day for lunch.

Apparently, it had egg, flour, heavy cream, and was fried in a pan. There was also spinach and chicken atop it (and sour cream for garnish). My friend has become obsessed with this thing, because it was extremely delicious. I must admit that I am intrigued by such a dish, that could make her search high and low on the internet for recipes. Okay, the truth is, I'm salivating right now.

However, we haven't been able to figure out what the hell it was. Anyone with knowledge of Eastern European Cuisine have any assistance for us? If I find something, I'll try to make it and tell you whether it was all worth it.

Yet another story of why we need universal health care

Read this.

A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved. After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Mrs. Shank's care.

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Mrs. Shank's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care.
....
"Employers are trying to make sure these plans run as efficiently as possible," says Jay Kirschbaum, a senior vice president at global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings. "They also have a fiduciary duty to the plan and the entire group of employees that are covered by it."
....
In August last year, U.S. district judge Lewis Blanton sided with Wal-Mart, ruling that when Mrs. Shank signed on to Wal-Mart's health plan she was obligated to abide by its terms.

The ruling came six days before the Shanks' 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in September last year in Iraq shortly after he arrived in the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division.

"I wanted to give up at that point, tell Wal-Mart they won," Mr. Shank says, but his lawyer, Mr. Graham, said he'd continue with appeals.

Mrs. Shank went to Jeremy's funeral. But because of memory problems due to her injuries, she gets confused about what happened. On a recent morning, she cried several times and asked what had happened to her middle son. Mr. Shank says that he obtained a divorce from Mrs. Shank this year, partly because of advice from a health-care administrator that she might be more eligible for public aid as a single woman. Mrs. Shank, who has been declared incompetent by a court, hasn't been informed of the divorce by her family.

They were just doing their fiduciary duty. To their other workers, you see. Because they're so noble and upright.

The contemptible motherfuckers.

late, but still timely. or no wait, i mean early. whatever.

1. The third (and final) part of my Clinton conversation with Courtney and Wendy is up over at Jewcy. Bizarrely, though I wrote it a couple of weeks ago, it now seems more timely than ever.

2. Orange informs me that our Jewish friends now have Peeps for Passover. I heartily approve: Peeps should be for everyone.

Girlcrush o' the week

Meghan McCain is kind of kickass:

“You want to hear a hilarious story?” she asks. “I guess you can print this if you want, but it’s not my finest moment. Once, this guy at Columbia was talking to his friends. He was like, ‘Meghan McCain this’ and ‘Meghan McCain that,’ going on, saying that he’d slept with me and that it was great. I just happened to be walking by at the time. I was like, ‘Hi, I’m Meghan McCain. I didn’t realize that we’d met.’ He turned ghost white, so I showed him my ID, and I was like, ‘I’m glad you were sharing our passionate love story.’ ”

Okay, she's kickass, except for this whole part:

“I’m an Independent. Socially liberal, economically conservative. I believe in a lot of Republican ideals, with the war being the number one thing I completely agree with my dad on.”

Come on, Meghan, if you're going to disagree with your dad about one goddamn thing, the war would be an excellent choice.

Anyway, I think McCain's kind of terrible at campaigning, but he sure is smart about letting his daughter be a part of his campaign, and making us momentarily forget that he's 900 years old.

Amor y pesetas

Y'all might have noticed that little "learn Spanish" button over on the ads bar the last couple days. And if you've been around longer than that, you might also remember JP, who did some awesome guest posting here once upon a time, though at the moment I'm too lazy to go find those posts.



Anyhoo, so JP has up and moved to China, because he doesn't care at all if I ever get to see him again, and he's got a new job teaching people Spanish on the internet with the people in this video. Which is a very noble pursuit, I think, since Spanish is an awesome language and the internet is a great teaching tool and everyone knows that the best way to learn a language is to use it, but if you don't live around a bunch of Spanish speakers and can't afford to travel, then the second best way is to listen and speak it as much as possible, even in a somewhat artificial situation. So! Even though I *do* live in a place where there are a lot of Spanish speakers, I'm still relatively new here and don't have a big social network yet, and race relations being what they are, the people I do know all speak English. But because race relations are what they are, I really want to develop a broader network of friends and acquaintances *and* improve my Spanish (and make sure PK learns it, too), so I've been downloading the SpanishPod broadcasts onto my iPod and trying to remember to listen to them and hopefully I'll start practicing them with PK at some point soon if I can just get him to stop playing stupid computer games for a little bit.

And because I've been listening to the podcasts, and because JP is a friend, and because he and I actually really do think that SpanishPod is a pretty good project, I agreed to put an ad up on my blog in case any of my readers also would like to practice their Spanish. The company also has ChinesePod podcasts in Mandarin, btw (which JP is learning, which is why he went to China in the first place and how he first found out about the company--by using their product). Full disclosure: I get paid if you click on the ad and sign up for a free trial. On the other hand, you don't have to join/pay money in order to listen to or use the podcasts. But I admit that because I am a greedy bitch, I'm not going to put a free link in this post--you'll have to click the button in order to go find out if Spanish/ChinesePod is something you wanna play around with.

(More full disclosure: I first met JP through Bitch co-blogger Ding. More more full disclosure: I'm now sharing ad revenues with Ding and LeBlanc, so they each get paid off every click too.)

Prostitution: How does it affect you?!?

Ugh.

Unlike the Clinton-Lewinsky liaison — which may have introduced many children to the idea of a man having extramarital sexual relations — the Spitzer scandal involved prostitution. Racy pictures of the prostitute have surfaced in news media, heightening the chance children could be exposed to the images and ask questions.

Parents should be ready if children ask what a prostitute is, said Judy Kuriansky, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Teachers College.

"If they ask," she said, "You say, 'Sadly there are some women who feel that when they have an intimate experience with someone they need to get paid for it. This is something that is not healthy and I don't accept it or condone it.'" (h/t Pandagon.)

NO. YOU. DO. NOT.

First, I do not think that it is appropriate to tell children that you "don't accept or condone" people's feelings. Hello? The primary rule of parenting young children is teaching them that there is No Such Thing as unacceptable feelings. There are unacceptable actions, and there are people, yes, who are very very screwed up and have desires or feelings about wanting to hurt other people. That is the sort of thing that is "very sad," and those people should get help.

Second, we do not lie to children. The cause of prostitution is not "women who feel they need to get paid" for sex. The causes of prostitution are poverty, addiction, trafficking, abuse, and (arguably) teh Patriarchy.

Third, jesus, social awareness much? You want to teach your kids that you disapprove of women who prostitute themselves without implicating, oh, say, the men who hire prostitutes? Ostensibly the entire reason this question is coming up (according to the article, at least), is that your kids have seen a news story about the Spitzer scandal. Which is scandalous because of what *he* did, not what she did. Let's stay focused here, people.

So. Here is the official Bitch PhD Good Mama answer to the question, "omg, what do I tell my children about prostitution?!?" (One of these days I am going to write a book about how to explain grownup things to kids, I swear.)

As in answering all children's questions, the basic rules are simple:

Tell the truth.
Tell it in a way that models empathy to others.

When I explained to Pseudonymous Kid what prostitution is, which happened several years ago for I no longer remember what reason, I told him "well, there are a lot of people in the world who are very very poor. And when people are really poor, they'll pretty much do whatever they have to to feed themselves. Some women will have sex for money, and that's called "prostitution." A lot of women who end up working as prostitutes are doing it to make money to feed their children, or their families, as well as themselves. It's a really dangerous and terrible job, and it's really sad to have to do it, but mamas will do whatever they need to do to feed their kids."

Is this a complete answer? No. And the bright or curious child may well ask follow-up questions. Is prostitution only something women do? No, sometimes men do it too, but it's mostly women--"why?"--at which case you can get into the "it's the patriarchy, stupid" explanations if you want to, Why are some people that poor? Here is where you can mention addiction, or global poverty, or homelessness, or inner city/rural/reservation joblessness. Shouldn't people just *give* those poor women (or men) money instead of making them have sex with them? Yes, probably, but a lot of people don't think about that, or are kind of mean, or are themselves so very lonely that the only way they can get another person to have sex with them is by paying for it. Why is sex so important? Well, it's something you'll understand better when you're older, but basically it's a way for grownups to be together and feel good, and people sort of need it the same way children need hugs. Etc.

Now, you can adjust the answers to these questions according to your kid's attention span (first) and your own ideological preferences (second). E.g., you might believe that the "some people are very lonely" explanation for why men hire prostitutes is a poor one. However. I think it's really important, when explaining things to kids, to be truthful and empathetic, even to people and ideas you disagree with, so I really do try, when answering PK's questions about Social Issues, to offer him as many possible reasons as I can think of, *regardless* of whether or not I, personally, think those reasons are adequate.

It is, of course, okay to say "I don't think that's a very good reason, but probably some people do X for that reason, yes." You do want kids to learn, after all, that sometimes people have bad reasons for doing things, and that you can disapprove of someone's motives without necessarily thinking that person is a Bad Person.

And finally, I, personally, think it is kind of important, whenever possible, to bring the "kid angle" into these explanations--like the idea about mamas prostituting themselves to feed their children, etc. In *my* opinion and experience with PK, this sort of thing helps sort of "balance" explanations which often make him feel quite sad with implicit reassurances that mamas always take care of their children. Which I know is also not true. And so does he; we have had explanations of abuse, addiction, mental illness, etc., and he in fact has friends at school who were adopted because of pretty awful situations in their original families. But it is *generally* true that mamas do the best they can--even if their "best" is often pretty crappy--and certainly it is true that *his* mama will always take care of him, come hell or high water.

Because he is one lucky kid.

Looking for kick-ass feminist heroines?

You might find some over on Salon.

Elmo, Oscar, or Ernie?

Check out this bizarrely fascinating new blog that appears to be nothing but random snippets of IM conversations. Sort of like eavesdropping, with all the boring shit cut out.

in which I say very little about things that matter, and way too much about things that shouldn't

Via Unfogged, two things I waited to post about until all the Peeps were gone, because I just couldn't bear it.

On reviewing this post before putting it up, I realize that the relative weight I've given to points 1 and 2 pretty much reproduces the stupid-ass priorities of the mainstream media. Let's not talk about the way that the lack of regulation of private financial corporations and the government's incredible indebtedness to same are making government "by the people" into a hollow mockery! Look, there's a scary black man! So please, click on the Krugman link and read that before you go on to read my blatherings about the ongoing media obsession with scary black men. And I promise that in the future I'll try to be better.

1. Krugman's "concisely and effectively" explains why we are fucked.

2. Glenn Greenwald links to some truly atrocious racist bullshit (there's more, in the guise of a response to Greenwald, h/t LGM). (I suppose it's true that in order any "conversation about race" is going to involve resentful racists expressing their anger and frustration about it no longer being okay for them to say heinously racist things, combined with legitimate--if irritating--frustration at not understanding why complaining about how unfair it is that rap artists get to say "nigga" is, in fact, racist, yes. And that part of getting past that kind of crap is always going to involve someone being willing to explain it, repeatedly and in good faith, to the aggrieved doofuses, since the racist manipulators will always use bad-faith arguments to try to get the doofuses on their side.)

What those links--and the videos that I'm hearing from Mr. B.'s laptop, as he obsessively follows media coverage of the election--have convinced me of is that this is going to be the main Republican campaign angle against Obama (if he wins the nomination): Obama hates America. It's so perfectly Republican: obviously stupid, on its face--he hates America so he's running for president? yeah right. But underneath, the subtext appeals very cleverly to some real fears and anxieties that people don't want to actually acknowledge or face, and some things that they suspect may actually be true: Obama (who is black) hates America (because really, if you were black, wouldn't you?).

Maybe it's just the Peeps talking, but I really think that this is a big part of why the Crazy Black Preacher meme seems to have legs. It makes no sense--white preachers, and much more politically influential and famous ones at that--have said things that are far more offensive. Most churchgoers don't personally subscribe to every damn thing their pastors say from the pulpit. There's a long--and honorable--Christian tradition of criticizing society from the pulpit (is that not, in fact, one of the major purposes of sermonizing in the first place?). And regardless, Obama made a really really long speech in which he did, in fact, say in no uncertain terms that he disagrees with what Wright said.

But still, people are obsessed with it, and they're obsessed specifically about the "god damn America" part, which is getting linked, with the excuse of "you wanna talk openly about race? Okay, I'll tell you what I think of black people," to a lot of really heinous crap about how unfair it is for black people to be so angry.

Seriously, you don't need to be Sigmund Freud to sense that there's a certain return of the repressed going on here, a little projection, maybe. Why are black people so angry? Why are *you* so angry about black people's anger--or, for god's sake, spinning rims?

So yeah, that's my theory. That "Obama hates America (because he's black)" is going to be *the* stupid-ass Rovian negative bullshit with which we're going to have to contend until November, and that the reason for that is that the people for whom it has traction suspect, deep down, that black people *should* hate America.

Which is an awfully depressing thing to believe, so I guess on some level you can't blame people for feeling like they'd rather just be mad. But y'know, speaking as a depressed person myself, at some point you really do just have to ask someone to help you deal with your shit if you want to be able to function.


P.S. On that subject, btw, I don't know which of you all sent me George Lipsitz's The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, but thank you. I've got a pretty major backlog of "things I must read immediately!" on my bedside table, but I promise I'll get to it soon.

Easter 1973

Hapeepy easter

Because Psycho Kitty loves Peeps so very, very much, it has become a tradition here at Bitch PhD to do an annual Peeps post. I myself cannot abide the delicious adorable cheerful sugar-crusted marshmallowy blobs, without which it wouldn't be spring millions of children would have stronger teeth.

So despite my own strong--nay, overwhelming--love of aversion to Peeps and all they stand for, please enjoy, if you can, the Chicago Tribune's Peeps diorama contest along with that of the Denver Post.

Orange and Psycho Kitty herself--aka "the other PK"--sent me the links.

Pharmacological

A couple hours ago, I set out on a little jaunt to pick up some things and get some fresh air. I learned a few things: first, that the French apparently do not produce popsicles. Second, that the United States is massively fucked up in the way we think about medicine. Like, pills and syrups with stuff in it to treat our many, many ailments.

Let me explain. My sweetheart is quite sick, you see, after an ill-fated eating adventure. Thus, we have spent the day inside, with him lying about being miserable, and me trying to be helpful and blogging (it's ok, you guys, you can comment on my Iraq post without reading the whole thing; I know it's long). I finally managed to take a shower and put on a bra and stepped outside into the cold air. We have not really been blessed with great weather on this trip; it's been alternately 50s and rainy, or 40s, windy, and rainy. But the clouds had cleared, and the sun was setting and the buildings were gleaming with reflected silver-orange at their tops, as I sauntered on down to the pharmacy.

The nice pharmacist didn't speak much English, and my French medical vocabulary is limited to "I have a tummyache", but I managed to explain to her my sweetie's problems. She reached to the shelf behind her and picked out a couple of things, all of which would have required a prescription in the United States. After paying the grand sum of 10 Euros, I strolled out to go get myself a sandwich and started thinking.

This wasn't the first time I'd been faced with a pharmacy that would give out any old thing without a prescription. In Egypt, where I grew up, it's much the same. I obtained my first pack of birth control pills, at age 17, by walking in and asking for them. But that's a developing country, right? One that probably can't afford a complicated regulatory scheme. One where there aren't sensible rules, only arcane bureaucratic rules that slap you in the face when you want to do something like, say, file a case in court.

But here I was, in France, surely one of the most modern countries in the world, where the government could certainly regulate pharmacists' ability to give drugs without a doctor's authorization, if it wanted to. They have all kinds of taxes and rules and regulatory schemes. They have a city-wide competition to determine which boulangerie will supply the prime minister's baguettes. And I could still walk into the pharmacy and demand drugs that weren't even for me without so much as a stinkeye.

In the good old United States of America, you have to have a prescription for every goddamned thing. For birth control pills, for the Nuva ring, for Plan B. For antibiotics, for pain medication that doesn't totally suck, for a cough suppressant that's not intended for children, for a pill to treat yeast infections, for an anti-fungal cream, for anything with any potency that might actually work.

I thought about this, as I flopped one foot in front of the other on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. And then I thought about what would happen if all of a sudden, there were no more prescriptions, except for really serious stuff like chemo drugs or morphine or whatever. In America. What would that be like? Ignoring the fact that that would be incredibly unlikely to happen, I imagine tat people would be flocking to pharmacies, picking up medications for all kinds of ailments we didn't have or didn't need to be treated for. Everyone and their dog would be popping klonopin and prednisone for a nightcap.

But hey. Why don't they do that here? Why do I assume that Americans are hungry to get their grubby little hands on as much medication as they can, unlike the French or the Egyptians? They are, aren't they? Why?

Oh yeah, it's called advertising. The realization hit me like a brick that the don't seem to advertise medication in countries without strict regulatory schemes. Is there a law against it? I don't remember ever seeing medication advertised growing up, and although I haven't watched much TV in France, I have looked at papers and magazines and I don't think I've seen medication advertised there either. Whereas in the US, as you all know, you can barely turn around to take a shit without running into one of a hundred "it" medications that are being heavily marketed right now.

So why are they advertising? Because the pharmaceutical companies exist to make money, and they can make a lot, because prices for brand-name prescription drugs are 35 to 55 percent lower in other industrialized countries than in the United States. Also, given the fact that you can't just walk into a pharmacy and get the drug you need, they have to advertise, so you can have the bright idea to "ask your doctor about cialis/wellbutrin/yasmin/whatever."

And when you advertise on television, in magazines, and in newspapers, day in, day out, for drug after drug, in language and images designed to help the viewer self-diagnose with a problem to be served by the medication you're hocking, people are going to want your drug. Even the ones who don't need it. So we have a nice cycle: high prices --> advertising --> high demand --> need for regulation --> expensive regulatory scheme --> high prices...

Or maybe it's just all about American paternalism. People can't be trusted to know what's wrong with them and what they need! Well, yeah, when you fuck with their minds by selling health care and medication as a product, at a profit, it warps people's desires, just like every other consumerist aspect of this culture.

The Trouble with Terrorism

As ogged so succinctly asserted in a post about the bombing in Times Square a couple of weeks ago:

Could it be more clear that an essential characteristic of "terrorism" as its defined in the US is that it be perpetrated by muslims? It literally isn't terrorism unless the guy who set off the bomb in Times Square is muslim.

Read the post; it's short, and demonstrates the extent to which we've come to mean "Muslim dudes with bombs" when we say "terrorist." And once we exclude, unless we make that exclusion with great explanation and caveat, any non-muslim person from the elite hated, feared, and ass-kicking-deserving group of people we call terrorists, it's a precipitous slide into a world where we can't distinguish within that group at all.

Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent, in a piece responding to another piece by Jeffrey Goldberg at Slate, drew my attention to this report by the Joint Forces Command analyzing documents seized in Iraq, trying to make the case that Iraq, and Saddam in particular, was a supporter of terrorism.

I was intrigued by Goldberg's brazen declaration that the report proves exactly what it set out to:

I believed that Saddam was a supporter of terrorism. The report on Saddam's terrorist ties released last week by the Joint Forces Command confirms this (not that you would know it from the scant press coverage of the study). The study, citing captured Iraqi documents, indicates that Saddam's regime supported various jihadist groups, including Ayman al-Zawahiri's, and including Kurdish Islamist groups, about whom I have reported.

and further intrigued by Ackerman's counter that no, in fact, it didn't:

What [the Kurdish operations] [were] obviously not [was] a collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Rather, it was a campaign conducted by Saddam's own operatives. Goldberg says Saddam was "a supporter of terrorism." What he's hoping you're too half-awake to realize is that there's a difference between generic "terror" groups and Al Qaeda. The report, as I wrote in my piece, does not say, at all, contra to Goldberg's misleading implication, that Saddam collaborated with Ayman Zawahiri. It says that around 1993, a memo from one of Saddam's apparatchiks noted, "In a meeting in the Sudan we agreed to renew our relations with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt."

So I went looking. I skimmed through most of the report, looking carefully at the section Ackerman cites (I would have looked at the sections Goldberg cited, but for the fact that he cited none) and performing a few searches. I found, first, that the report is not particularly well-done. The organization, if there can be called one, is designed to be obfuscatory rather than clear; it is organized around sections like "Managing Relationships [with terrorist groups]." If I was truly ambitious, I'd try to obtain an editable copy of the report and reorganize it in a sensible way, which would lay bare the report's utter failure to prove what it sets out to prove.

For instance, the report could be organized chronologically. This would demonstrate how laughably many of the documents cited come from 1993 and other times nearly a decade before we began to wage war in Iraq. It would demonstrate how few of them come from the period leading up to September 11 and even the period following it, exposing as hollow the report's true aim, which is to provide a post facto justification for the war, after the collapse of the WMD arguments, based on the idea that Saddam was somehow to blame for 9/11.

As yet another possible organizational structure, the report could be arranged by reference to links to various terrorist groups. This structure, however, would lay bare the fact that there would be no documents to put in an "Al Qaeda" section. There were no documents showing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, not even back in 1993 at what seemed to be the height of Iraq's symbolic-networking-with-terrorist-groups-a-thon. This structure would also lay bare the fact that the document providing the closest thing to a link to Al Qaeda is a 1993 memo stating that "In a meeting in the Sudan we agreed to renew our relations with the Islamic Jihad Organization in Egypt." How is this a link to Al Qaeda? Well, the fact that the Iraqi Intelligence Service met with some representative from a group which several years later merged with Al Qaeda, without any evidence that the Iraqis and the Islamic Jihad actually cooperated on anything, is apparently a link to Al Qaeda.

I'd like to pause in my analysis here to note that many of the Islamic Groups cited in the report are either small, disorganized, or pretty impotent at actually getting stuff done. Groups like the Islamic Jihad at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the groups with which I am most familiar, wile away years at a time trying to figure out what their political program is or should be. State repression of these groups makes it difficult for them to cohere. And these are the types of groups whose possibly one-off meetings with members of Saddam's government in 1993 are being used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq as necessary to protect American lives. Worse, the extremely attenuated links to Al Qaeda, implied only by meetings at which no actions were resolved to be taken by a group who only later became an Al Qaeda affiliate, are used to justify the invasion as retribution for the 9/11 attacks.

But the really damning analysis comes from my search of the document for the words "bin Laden." His name appears on five pages of the forty-six page report, in service of the following points: 1) Both Bin Laden and Saddam had interests in Islamic movements in Somalia (p. 18-19). 2) Though Bin Laden and Saddam had similar practical goals (the removal of American influence from the Muslim world), they had different ideological goals, Bid Laden's being a worldwide Muslim regime, with sharia law applied to all, and Saddam's a pan-Arabist utopia, with Iraq at the center (p. 21). 3) The Iraqi Intelligence Service noted that the Army of Muhammad, in Bahrain, was affiliated with Bin Laden (p. 35). 4) Again, that Bin Laden and Saddam had similar short-term aims, but different long-term goals (p. 41). 5) Saddam "supported" the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was directly associated with Al Qaeda (p. 42) (see above paragraph for why statement is a false representation of what the evidence shows).

That's it. If there was any evidence whatsoever that there was ever a meeting, money exchanged, solidarity expressed, or any other kind of connection between the Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden, you can bet it would have been highlighted in the report in three different colors. The only conclusion that can be reached, then, is that there is no such evidence.

One final note about chronology—the fact that so many of the documents are from 1993 is significant because it shows that most of Iraq's contact with radical Islamic groups was in the wake of the first Gulf War. If you look on page 13, where there is a memo detailing Iraq's relationship with a host of different Islamic groups, it's clear that the research is done in service of a "who's with us?" investigation in case of another military engagement with the United States. The report itself acknowledges this, saying "one possible reason... Saddam kept contact with [those terrorist groups] was that he might use them in the future" (p. 23). However, reading over the documents, it's clearly the kind of symbolic contact (like, a periodic, "you and I, we're cool, right? Cool.") that doesn't even come close to constituting cooperation.

Finally, it's important to note that huge swaths of the report focus on Iraqi meetings with and intermittent financial support for Palestinian groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Front. But these groups pose no direct threat to the United States; they pose a threat only to Israel. I doubt that the Joint Forces Command wants to paint the Iraq War as a proxy-war against Palestinian operatives, on Israel's behalf.

It's shoddy, shoddy work attempting to shore up support for the continued expense of American funds and American lives for a war that was wrong at every turn, and the report should be exposed for the miserable failure it is to do so. If we want to actually fight terrorism, which is a real and important and poorly-understood threat, we can not risk our safety by refusing to explore, recognize, and emphasize the difference between not just the stated objectives of terrorist groups, but their capacity, their funding, and their record of actually engaging in terrorist activity. This report does an almost laughably bad job of recognizing those difference, in service of a bitter "I-told-you-so" partisan aim.

fear of a black preacher

Kotsko sums it up:

white preachers obviously believe all kinds of crazy things -- for instance, that political events in the Middle East should be manipulated so as to conform to some kind of magical heavenly code that will set off the end of the world

Not to mention that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans, that America is "no different" than Nazi Germany, that we should rewrite the Constitution to "god's standards", that America deserved 9/11.

And no, the powerful white fundamentalist nutjobs are not marginal figures: Bush, McCain, and Reagan all had close ties with him. Bush has been more than happy to give federal jobs to graduates of Pat Robertson's law school (see also here. McCain, as we all know, actively courted Hagee's endorsement.

The fact that anyone is fooled by this obvious double standard along the axis black/white (not to mention the axis left/right) is disgusting and shameful.

Update--see also this post over at PostBourgie. With bonus video.

on a lighter note: bush flak says girls don't know missiles

Sigh.

The Bush Administration still has the ability to depress me.
Thankfully, there is Jezebel .

Wednesday links

The United Nations: U.S. racism is a serious problem for women.

Bush administration flunky: American College of ObGYns is wrong to expect doctors to prioritize patients' health over doctor's "consciences."

33% of American women get hysterectomies before the age of 60. Newsflash:
most women don't need their uteruses removed.

fear of an angry black man

Rather than spend my time creating talking points for an upcoming lobbying campaign at work, I'll jot down some random questions in the wake of the speech Obama gave today (which were in reaction to the public reaction to some old Jeremiah Wright comments.)

Primarily, my questions are about mainstream (i.e., white) reaction to black anger and I'll try to keep these as succinct as possible.

Why, whether expressed in the way that Wright had done, in the comedy of Dave Chappell or the comic strips of Aaron MacGruder, do folks have such strong reactions to black socio-political anger?

What, and who, is served by the public pressure for Obama (or any black person) to distance himself from the problematic comments like the ones Wright made (or even the ones made by Farrakhan)?

What fears are assuaged once this distancing has happened and, conversely, what fears are stoked when a black person refuses?

What allegiances are being sought through this kind of pressure?

Why must people of color perform this kind of dance when individual white people don't? (For instance, we have yet to see any kind of thorough, well-wrought distancing from Hillary Clinton after Ferarro's avowedly pro-white comments were made.)

And why does the word 'minstrelsy' come to mind?

Secrets, revealed

Y'all wanted to know who I voted for in the end?

The answer, and my reasons why, are part of a "trialogue" at Jewcy.com. (Love their graphic.) For the next few days, Courtney E. Martin, Wendy Shanker, et moi will be talking about whether feminists are "obligated" to vote for Clinton, media coverage of the campaign, and whether or not our own writing is part of the problem.

Check it out.

city mouse goes to italy and needs advice

Inspired by the hotness of a Shakespea(re) Told episode where Rufus Sewell, in drag, woos uptight MP Shirley Henderson, at the end of May Roomie and I are going to Tuscany with a group of girl friends to hang out at a villa and have a real, honest-to-goodness vacation.

We imagine the kind of holiday where the most strenuous thing on the schedule is readng by the pool or riding a bicycle into the village.

So, what would people advise for a trip like this?

To date my European travel has consisted of a research trip to Amsterdam and a Paris elopement where other folks made all the arrangements - nothing like this and the sheer number of logistical details is sort of overwhelming.

Lay your well-traveled expertise on me - anything from flight/airline advice, money tips (the exchange rate is going to kill us, let alone the cost of renting and gassing up a couple of cars), how to pack, what to pack, how to get around, finding a hotel in Florence, what to see, what to eat, safety, handy phrases, your best 'can't-travel-without-it' gadget, insights on how the kind folk of Italy treat people of color, footwear, whatever.

(Even the pros and cons of those dorky money belts Rick Steves seems to love so much.)

zomg, it's holy week

A friend of mine, whose stupid LJ is always locked so I can't link to it, posts the following exchange:

Still a Bad Person
Missionaries at my front door - Hi, we're here to talk about how you can be with your family forever
Me- no thanks
Missionaries - Don't you want to be with your family forever?
me - Oh hell no.

Also, tomorrow's St. Patrick's day. (Which is a totally ridiculous and overrated holiday in the US, but, hey, whatever.) IN ANY CASE. Go post your limericks--good, bad, and ugly--over at JP's annual limerick festival.

It's not like you've got anything better to do; you weren't going to be spending all week in church or anything.

Small Spaces

Now that I have figured out how to change the keyboard settings so that I can type like an American (although, of course, the letters on the keys I hit don't match what comes out, so I have to touch type), I can blog! Trying to type when all your w's come out z's is rough.

Paris is, of course, grand. Our apartment a few blocks from the Bastille is spacious without being unnecessarily big, warm (once I figured out how to work the heaters) and has a great little kitchen with an espresso maker that I am going to attempt to use. If I fuck it up, though, it'll be hard to justify drinking bad espresso when every little corner has things that are so delicious. We're still getlagged, and my body is used to sitting at a desk for 8 hours, not standing up and walking around for 8 hours, so I'm fucking tired, y'all. Also, I fell down on the Metro steps, and am developing a giant bruise on my thigh from said fall. I'm kinda limpy.

But none of this matters, because I've been grinning from ear to ear from the moment we stepped off the plane. Charles de Gaulle airport is really a fantastic way to welcome you to the city, with its boldly modern design that lets you know what you're in for. So much of Paris is incredibly old, so when they're going to do something brand-new, they do not fuck around, y'all. And I say this having gon today to the 'Centre Pompidu' today which, if you haven't seen it, look it up, because it's the awesomest and most bizarre building I've ever seen. It screams "the future"! And then we went and ate in a restaurant that opened in 1892, which wasn't even a selling point.

Speaking of which, at that very same restaurants, I saw many pairs of adults, working people, taking an hour or an hour and a half to eat. Why don't we do that? it's silly that I grab my lunch, which is invariably some overprocessed crap, and sit and eat it at my desk. In just two days, I have become convinced that the reason so many Americans end up getting fat is because we try to eat healthy. That's right. We try to eat stuff that tastes good, but doesn't have much fat or too many calories. Sorry kids, can't have it both ways. If you want something without fat or calories, eat fruits and vegetables. But for the rest of your food, if you use stuff like full fat butter and milk, you're actually going to be satisfied a lot quicker, and for longer, because what you ate actually tasted good. And I bet you'll end up eating less overall. I know, I know, this is that silly book "french women don't get fat", but it's true, people.

Eat good food. And now I'm off to the market to buy cheese and butter for tomorrow's breakfast.

lighten up, people

Jeez. We've got the "let us judge the candidates by their merits, not their mothers" tightassery, the "makeup is evil!" hangup, the "my feelings are hurt by you people talking about the unnecessariness of cosmetics" complaint, the "by saying 'old white women,' you are being prejudiced" silliness.

Remember when this blog used to be, you know, *bitchy*? And irreverent? And sometimes amusing?

You people, I swear.

Also, speaking of lightening up, should I henna my hair? Actually that would be darkening it up, but you know, I needed a clever segue. Does henna fade in the sunlight the way red dye does?

Obama's mama

You know, there's something to be said about a presidential candidate who was actually raised by a feminist (and a damn impressive one, at that).

I consume, but then analyze!

I take time out of my busy schedule of doing laundry, packing, and frantically looking around for my headphone splitter so me and my dude can watch episodes of the second season of The Wire on the plane to Paris, to blog for you. About more frivolous shit!

Yesterday, I went shopping for a new suit. You see, I was conducting my first hearing in court today (with witnesses and everything!), and the bonafide suit I have is too small, and I am tired of faking it with separates. I was nervous, and excited, and I wanted to look good, damnit. So I hied myself down to Nordstrom, where I tend to never ever shop except for when I want to purchase a suit, because so far they haven't failed me. And again, I was not disappointed. I can't find the exact item for the life of me on their website, but this is the same brand and is very, very close: pretty! Except I got it in navy. Like, so dark you'll think it's black navy. It's my first navy suit, in fact my first solid-color suit of any kind, and I am quite pleased with it.

But that's just bragging. I really came here to talk to you about what I did after I purchased the suit, which is that I swung into Sephora. Hooboy that place is weird. I usually buy whatever kinda beauty/hygiene/grooming products I need at places like the grocery store, or Walgreens. I am not used to people talking to me while I am thinking about these things, not or shit costing a whole hell of a lot.

I actually went in there to see if they had any empty little plastic bottles that I could use for travel purposes. They did not, so I strolled around. Three different people tried to assist me. Are you sure you don't need help? Yes, lady, I'm sure. I know I look confused, but that's because your fucking store is insane. So, I'm looking at face products. I'm thinking, you know? Maybe since I am grown up and like, a Professional Adult now, maybe I should use some shit on my face that I don't buy for $3.64 from the Jewel on my lunch break. You know? Hey, Clinique! People were really into that shit for a while, weren't they. The three-step thingy? Oh, it's on sale! Hmm.

So I look. I look at this product:

Looks good! Face wash, toner, moisturizer. I like all those things. So I go to pick it out and my two options are "Very Dry to Dry" and "Combination Oily to Oily." The fuck? That can't be right. I look again. Nope, that's what there is. I call the extremely eager saleslady over.

"Hi. So, I want to buy this product. It seems that there are options "Very Dry to Dry" and "Combination Oily to Oily". Is that right? I don't think any of those apply to me. Is there a "normal skin" option?"
"[looks at me, puzzled] No, there is no normal."
"There's no normal."
"No."
"So what should I get?"
"Is your skin more dry, or oily?"
"It's neither! It's just, you know, normal."
"Do you get dry patches or oily patches?"
"No. I don't think so."
She looks at my face. I think she might want to diagnose me with oily or dry skin, but she can see that I am not going to react kindly to being told there is a problem with my face.
"Well, I'd just get the milder one, then. Dry to Very Dry."
"Ok."

I stand there, staring at the box, thinking about blogging, feminism, and the patriarchy. "I am so going to blog this," I think to myself. I mean Jesus Christ, talk about problematizing women's bodies. WHAT ARE YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM AREAS, SLUT?! There is no normal. There are only problems to be fixed, and those problems are fixed by buying shit. Expensive shit, that runs out quicklike.

So I take my Clinique box of Very Dry to Dry up to the register. I'm confused. Is there a line? There are beautiful perky women all around me analyzing shit. I step up to the cashier and he takes my product.

"Are you a Beauty Insider?"

I pause. I pause for a long time. Whatever he's asking, I'm quite sure that the answer is No. I say so.

As you might imagine, "Beauty Insider" is Sephora's "rewards" program. You spend money, you get free shit. Well, hey, I'm down with that. And I get a free gift just for signing up! Do I want the liner, brow gel, or face mask? Wait, what's the second one? "Brow gel." "Brow gel? What is that?" "You know, to keep your brows in place."

I stop myself from saying "I don't know about you, buy my eyebrows stay above my eyes just fine thanks." I choose the face mask. I fill out the form, which ask me what my skin problem is. Dry, Acne, Oily, Blackheads, and Other Shit I Can't Remember. There is an "other" box. There is no "none" box. I check nothing. What's my hair problem? Frizzy, Oily, Dry, No volume, Split Ends, and Other Shit. There is an "other" box. There is no "none" box. I check nothing. Again, I have no hair "problem." Yes, my hair is frizzy sometimes. Hell, sometimes it looks like shit. But doesn't that happen to everyone? Is that a "problem"? Or is it just, you know, having hair and living in a world where the weather isn't the same every goddamn day?

And guess what! Now that I'm a beauty insider, they are going to send me emails, with tips on "how to take care of myself better." I like the cheerful effeminate salesboy, but this is really too much. Really, I take care of myself just fine. I try to eat foods that nourish my body, I get out for some exercise every now and then, I bathe daily, I sleep at least eight or nine hours a night. I'm taken care of, motherfuckers!

But maybe when all this Beauty Insider knowledge comes flowing down to me from the beauty professionals on high I'll see the error of my ways. If I learn anything, I'll let y'all know.

As long as we're on the subject of beauty products, I am sad to report that the bottle of straightening "balm" I purchased approximately three years and six months ago has finally run out. This is it:


When I was packing, I thought, do I really want to take this whole bottle when it's about to run out, there not much left, and it tends to leak all over the goddamned place? Well, I though, I'll put what's left in a smaller container.


So if I don't post within the next forty-eight hours, let everyone know that I've been detained for questioning on suspicion of attempting to smuggle semen into France.

I hope the little guys make it.

Can we just not?

As y'all know, I've been really wanting to give Clinton, and the older women who support her, all the credit I can: white women of that generation have meant the world to me my entire life. Some of my best friends are old white women.

But jeez louise. I mean, I really really want to love Geraldine Ferraro. I worked for Mondale's campaign when I was 16, in part because she was on the ticket. I put up with all the press guys on the van I was driving to the airport flirting with my 16-year old self for that campaign. I got to have my first "you kids today" moment when I mentioned Ferraro once in a class, only to have all the students go, "huh?" except one young, smart, ambitious woman who knew that Ferraro had been the first major-party woman VP candidate.

So I was dismayed to read this post over at Edge of the American West just now. Eric's been pretty pissed off about the subtle and not-so-subtle racism of some Clinton supporters (and the Clinton campaign) towards Obama for quite some time now. He and I have talked about it. I've said "yes, but. . ." and done the lame "oh, but they can't really mean that" thing a couple times. And even reading this--

"It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign. If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position…. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept"

--I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, to say oh jeez, she can't possibly realize the irony of contrasting the "sexist media" with a claim that "if Obama was a white man he would not be in this position." She can't possibly mean it.

Only, see, other people, with more courage than I, gave her crap about that statement. So she defended it.

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up," Ferraro said. "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

Aw, crap, lady. You did not just say that. Come ON. You should damn well know better.

I don't know whether to be pissed off and disappointed, or grateful to her--for making me realize that my desire to qualify or minimize this kind of crap has just. Been. Wrong.

Abortion Rights and Social Justice

From Abortion Rights to Social Justice:
Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom
April 4-6, 2008
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA

A project of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program

* Come to the FREE conference on April 4-6 2008 and be part of building a unified movement for social justice!

* Register online.

On April 4-6, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program of Hampshire College will be hosting its 21st Annual From Abortion Rights to Social Justice Conference. We anticipate that over 1000 activists from around the nation and the world will attend this conference, and over 40 workshops will address reproductive freedom as it relates to a broad range of social justice issues, including health care reform, economic justice, racial equality, climate justice, and LGBTQ rights, among many others. There will also be an abortion speak-out on Friday night, which provides a safe space for people who have had abortions to tell their stories. The conference is FREE (including free meals, housing, and childcare) and open to all.

Over the weekend, you will deepen your understanding of issues you already know about, make new connections, and unite with others who are passionate about working for social justice.

For more information, please check out our website or contact us at (413) 559-6976 or via email.

Consumer Sunday

For reasons I can't exactly articulate, I've been overcome lately with the urge to look at Stuff I Want On The Internet. Namely, apartments, and cars. Real estate is, in my opinion, one of the best reasons to live in Chicago--if you take a special pleasure in an apartment that's just so, and aren't rich, it's the place to be. Back when I was living in Texas, I spent hours and hours salivating over apartments on Craigslist and The Chicago Reader, dreaming about my future life in Chicago. You see, in Central Texas, apartment living is all about apartment complexes. And carpeting. Two things I hate. It was virtually impossible to find a place to live that had hardwood flooring, had anything approaching personality, much as I desperately wanted one. But in Chicago, you are literally tripping over these kinds of places. Hardwood flooring and shit like oak molding and interesting doors are archways are totally unremarkable. My boyfriend's apartment has a decorative fireplace with a wall of built-in bookshelves that weren't even mentioned in the ad, that's how unremarkable this kind of shit is.

And so I am planning on moving in June. I like my apartment, but I've been living here for two years, in the building for three, and I am ready for a change, although my current location really can't be beat (I live in a mixed commercial-residential building that's right on a major commercial street). In all probability, I won't move more than 3 or 4 blocks from where I currently am, but to a bigger place. And maybe somewhere with a garage, because I really want to buy a car. And street parking in this neighborhood sucks.

I know. I know, ok? I know that cars are awful for the environment and expensive and a pain in the ass. But I've basically been without a car, well, always. I briefly had a car in college that punked out on me before too long. I sold it for $200 when I left Texas, and I've been carless since.

But people, Chicago is So. Fucking. Cold. I really actually like taking public transit in the summertime--it's pretty outside, the buses and trains are air-conditioned, the city has a very leisurely feel. But I have really, really had enough of standing outside for twenty-five minutes waiting for a bus that will never come while five buses go the other direction, with my eyes watering and the half-frozen denim of my jeans sadistically battering against my legs. I have had enough of doing this multiple times a day, to go to work, to go to court, to go back to work, to go home, to go out with my friends, to go grocery shopping.

Anyway, I'm getting out of this cold for a short spell and going to Paris in a couple of days. Thank god.

Happy International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day.

In other news, Mr. B. bought a flat of strawberries from a field stand the other day. I have made

1. strawberry lemonade

1 cup sugar
6 juiced lemons
8 cups water
half a pint of blender-pureed strawberries

2. strawberry pie

pre-baked pie crust--TJ's sells frozen rolled pie crusts all ready to go
fill it with about a quart of halved strawberries

glaze:
1/2 - 1 pint of smashed or pureed strawberries (more for "jammier" pie; less for a more "strawberries piled in a crust" pie)
3 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup of water
1 c sugar
heat on top of the stove (stir the damn thing already; you don't want it to burn) for like 5-10 minutes until it's thick. Voila.

And today PK and I are going to make ice cream, using this recipe (the blog itself looks quite worth bookmarking, btw). Plus more strawberry lemonade. Because SOMEONE named GREEDY PAPA drank the last of it last night, and PK was very upset when he found out today there was no more.

Coming off the fence

I'm sorry. Intellectual honesty--and the fact that the Democrats need to win the fucking election this fall, goddammit--compels me to say that this is just fucking unacceptable.



And so is comparing Obama to Ken Starr.

You DO NOT say that the competition is the same as--or worse that!--the opposition candidate. Not if you actually think that there's anything at stake in this election other than your own victory.

I've defended Clinton quite a lot in the last year. Partly we need to support whoever wins the primary, and doing that is going to be a fuck of a lot easier if we're not on the record tearing down the potential nominee. The only reason to say this kind of shit is if you think that *your* victory is more important than a *Democratic* victory. And if that's what you think, you shouldn't be the Democratic nominee.

Laugh all the way to the bank

Dahlia Lithwick is smart and funny.

the Five Universal Commandments of Writing About Women:

1. It’s not sexism if it's women trashing women.

2. Writing by women about women need not be held to the same critical or analytical standards as writing by men because—I suppose—we really are as stupid as Allen suggests.

3. No need for originality in pieces by women about women. Oprah, Celine, and Grey’s Anatomy never get old. Good times.

4. When all else fails, say the piece was meant to be funny. Then you can say that anyone who didn’t like it has no sense of humor.

5. Laugh all the way to the bank.

Via Scott Lemieux at LGM.

Pseudonymous Kid is the future of America

I've been reading Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. Which is an excellent book and deserves a more thorough review than "if you have a son, you should read this," but unfortunately PK has a half day at school today and I have to hop on the bike in about twenty minutes to go get him.

Anyway, if you have a son--or, y'know, if you have a daughter but care about how boys are raised--you should read it. Even though it made me feel really really guilty for having ever spanked PK. (I'm not proud of having spanked him occasionally, in any case.)

But Mr. B. just found a little piece of paper, on which I jotted down something PK said in the car on 29 June 2003--apparently for future blogging purposes. Obviously it got lost. But its reappearance has made me dare to hope that maybe I haven't doomed him to a stunted emotional life, or beaten into him the idea that Manliness is incompatible with expressing emotion. It says,

Mama, I want you to teach me to be a man so I can play pool. Because you are my cute little mama.

I should have that tattooed on my arm in anticipation of the next time I'm tempted to lose my cool with the poor kid.

Post-Primary Petulance and a What If?

Obama Regains Ground in Texas Caucuses but, overall, the Texas primary may have gone to Clinton.

(groan)

You know, if I absolutely have to, and in order to stop another Republican president, I'll vote for whoever becomes the candidate on the left. But, jeebus on a stick, do we really think that Clinton is going to be an electable candidate against McCain?

For the Obama supporters here, what would you do and how would you feel if Clinton snapped up the nomination?

(Updated: OK, I went to the folks at Kos and their soothing, Spock-like numbers crunching has brought me down from the ledge, reminding me of the big picture. Big picture, Ding, big picture.)

Fake Memoirs: A Dialogue

Maybe we should start a series. We could even get a chat room up with all three Bitches together. I will write more about this later, when I'm not swamped, but now I bring you some quick thoughts, in the form of a very slightly edited chat transcript (i.e. putting in punctuation) from Bitches D both Ph and J.

bitchphd: at some point i'd love your input on the fake memoir thing
m. leblanc: i actually have been thinking about it since this morning.
bitchphd: yeah, it's interesting.
m. leblanc: i guess i really don’t understand why people get so upset. obviously if it's fake, it should be known; but there's this odd sense in which people get so angry when they've been fooled, that i don’t understand.
bitchphd: i wonder if, in this case, it doesn't have a little bit to do with the race/class stuff.
m. leblanc: yeah but people were all up in arms about the james frey thing, too.
bitchphd: yeah, agreed. but again, that's a drug memoir. so at least the class stuff's relevant.
m. leblanc: i guess i don’t get angry because i just find it so delicious, people willing to go to those lengths to make themselves someone fascinate me. them and the sock puppeteers.
bitchphd: i think people really want to read "gritty" stories? but i think it's also weirdly related to the way that people will jump all over your shit in a blog post, if you post something personal that they disagree with, ideologically. it's a weird rush to judgment thing.
m. leblanc: maybe it doesn't bother me because i get to hear real gritty stories every day.
bitchphd: maybe. in any case, it's historically an ongoing problem: people want to read stories about things that are "exotic" to them.
m. leblanc: maybe people get upset because they rely on the writers of those books to tell them truths about the world.
bitchphd: and can, of course, be very gullible, precisely b/c they don't really know what the truths are.
m. leblanc: and when they find it's an unreliable narrator, those truths are suspect.
bitchphd: and being fooled forces you to face your gullibility, your lack of sophistication?
m. leblanc: well also i think some of these books get used as evidence for social problems, so they become very important. like "there are no children here."
bitchphd: absolutely.
m. leblanc: have you read that book?
bitchphd: i have, yeah.
m. leblanc: i haven't, but i swear it was assigned in 8 different law school classes.
bitchphd: heh.
m. leblanc: if it came out that it was made up, people would lose their shit.
bitchphd: true. it's very moving.
m. leblanc: but the thing is, seltzer's book didn't even have a chance to become important. all it got was a favorable nyt review.
bitchphd: i think, though, that using things like that in school courses is still part of the same problem. people rely on books to tell us about "others." when, you know, we could find out about ghettos, bad schools, etc., simply by going there.
m. leblanc: well it's a very safe, non-threatening way to learn.
bitchphd: exactly.
m. leblanc: unlike, say, yeah, going there. one of the most educational things i ever did was when I interviewed kids at the cook county juvenile detention center. i learned everything i know about drugs, gangs, and the street from those kids. and i wasn't even asking them about those things, i just had to come to understand them in order to communicate with them.
bitchphd: yeah. and that's a pretty minor interaction, if you think about it.
m. leblanc: yeah. i was asking them about jail conditions. not even about their criminal cases, although it usually came up.
bitchphd: right
m. leblanc: it was interesting reading that article, where seltzer was like "i just thought i could do some good"
bitchphd: yeah.
m. leblanc: and i bet she really thought that.
bitchphd: i'm inclined to believe her, in a way. and i really do think that those issues--both the naivete of some girl from sherman oaks saying that, and the anger of people at this naive white chick--are very interesting.
m. leblanc: well because if her book was believed, it could do good. since people rely on these texts to tell them about the world.
bitchphd: yeah, i think that' s basically what it boils down to. people are mad because we do rely on books like that. so we take out the naivete of that position on her. if that makes sense.
m. leblanc: yeah. well it's almost like people think there should be some kind of gentlemen's agreement about the sanctity of "memoirs."
bitchphd: well, yeah. which is dumb.
m. leblanc: and we agree to take these things as empirical fact to influence our thinking about policy. which is nonsense.
bitchphd: now why do you say that?
m. leblanc: why do i say it's nonsense? because i think it's intellectually lazy.
bitchphd: expand?
m. leblanc: they don’t want to go to the trouble of finding out whether something is an accurate representation of "life on the street" , for example. they want it all to be perfect and accurate, so they can use it as the basis for their opinions, rather than reading something boring like reports or studies. or, like we said earlier, going into those communities or schools.
bitchphd: right. good point.
m. leblanc: it's like.. here's an analogy: if there was a peer-reviewed journal, they would want authors to submit everything with an affidavit that says EVERYTHING IN HERE IS COMPLETELY ACCURATE. instead of reading it, using critical thinking and saying, "does this go along with what i know?" they want a seal of "authenticity" so that they can trust it completely. which, of course, is a completely foolish desire, because there is no authentic memory. there are degrees of lies, yes, but every sense, every memory is put through an intellectual filter of what we want to say about ourselves and the world.
bitchphd: right. and! we want to believe that reading this kind of thing makes us Better People.
m. leblanc: well, hell, we can just put this up on the blog.

I STILL maintain that europe > US, sexism-wise

Via flea at Offsprung.

Maybe I don't want to be her after all

Damn. Turns out that Margaret B. Jones, who I admired a few days ago, isn't actually a former gang member and foster child; she's a privileged upper-middle class girl from Sherman Oaks.

Ms. Seltzer, 33, who is known as Peggy, admitted that the personal story she told in the book was entirely fabricated. She insisted, though, that many of the details in the book were based on the experiences of close friends she had met over the years while working to reduce gang violence in Los Angeles.

It's too bad. The publisher has recalled her book (dang it! I was going to order it this weekend, and decided to wait until I'd paid the bills.), but as the editor says,

“She seems to be very, very naïve,” Ms. McGrath said. “There was a way to do this book honestly and have it be just as compelling.”

Indeed. If her current story is true, though, there's certainly still enough there for a semi-fictionalized narrative; even if it's all complete nonsense, it sounds like she's written a novel worth reading.

I'm always sort of fascinated by these "scandals" where someone writes a good book and then it turns out omg, they weren't who they said they were! It's kind of odd. If the work is good, the work is good; the author's identity really shouldn't matter.

Of course, in cases like this--where part of the interest in the book is based on its claim to represent a particular point of view--people can feel betrayed when they find out that the pov being represented is fictional (or fictionalized). But. I would be very interested in reading the book anyway, and I hope it doesn't disappear completely. The problem of authors writing fictionalized (or partly fictionalized) memoirs/history is as old as literature itself, and runs the range from pure fabrication to metaphor to generic embellishment to the inevitable fact that narrative shapes experience. Aphra Behn really did go to Surinam, and may very well have witnessed or heard a story about an impressive and rebellious Coromantian slave whose life ended tragically; but it's also undeniable that the love story of Oroonoko and Imoinda is shaped according to the romantic conventions of her day. Olaudah Equiano may not have been born in Africa (though this argument is still being debated), but his autobiography is nonetheless historically and formally important.

Nonetheless, of course we *are* interested in divining the facts and fictions in stories like these, even after their topical interest has faded. It's a complicated, central, and fascinating aspect of how we read. It's been a problem for us at least since Cervantes, Behn, and DeFoe invented the novel--poor Quijote, driven mad by not being able to distinguish fact from fiction. Made aware of it, we can trace it back further; look at how Augustine claims that his life revolves around the meaningless boyhood theft of some pears. The stories behind the story end up being part of what's fascinating about these books, just like the question of how much of Seltzer's "memoir" is true and how much isn't is surely going to remain part of what's intriguing about hers.

I don't envy Seltzer's position right now. But obviously she's got some writing chops, and clearly she can make up a damn good story. Once the scandal fades away, those two things will remain.



(I just clicked over to Amazon; they say they still have the book in stock. I ordered it. Here's hoping they ship it tomorrow, instead of sending me an apologetic "this book has been recalled" email.)

Are Americans stupid?

I'm afraid I can't find the comment thread in which a couple of people took umbrage at my saying that, by and large, Europe is less sexist than the US.

Here's a little bit of evidence.

For the American side, we have today's WaPo editorial about what's wrong with women--basically, we're stupid. A parallel piece, arguing that women, as a voting bloc, seem to be splitting along class lines, was somewhat better* (though it seemed to forget, once again, that sometimes "blacks" and "women" are not separate groups)--but alas, it too relied on sexist stereotypes, beginning its argument with a description of Maria Shriver "tossing her tawny tresses" and concluding that the real problem is "the fickleness of the female voter."

For the UK, a couple of articles about misogyny and violence against women. First, a discussion of the Suffolk murderer, who was convicted last week of murdering five women. The Guardian explains that

public attitudes to women in the sex industry have changed, as the press quickly discovered. In Ipswich and elsewhere, people were outraged by TV and radio bulletins that baldly announced five "prostitutes" had been murdered in Suffolk. Many people are uncomfortable when the word is used in headlines as though it's no different from "teacher" or "dentist"; the dead women were daughters, mothers and girlfriends but their whole lives were being defined by something they had embarked on out of absolute desperation.

Try finding a U.S. paper that understands that distinction--hell, I started this paragraph myself by saying that the articles were about "prostitution," which manifestly they aren't. The piece goes on to explain that

a south London GP, Dr Brenda Mosdale. Writing in a medical journal last year, she observed: "All the women I met who were both sex workers and misused drugs told me clearly that the drugs had come first ... Sex work was often seen to be preferable to shoplifting or mugging to get money."

These studies are illuminating in the context of the debate about whether selling sex is a genuine choice or driven by economic necessity

--again, is this something you'd expect to see written in a major U.S. news article?--and concludes by explaining that the police response to the murders was, in part,

The authorities also recognised the need to come up with a swift, effective exit strategy from prostitution, and 14 months later the situation has been transformed. The women have been offered as much methadone as they need and they've been given cash to cover essentials and rent flats, with the result that only one or two are still selling sex; the rest do not appear to have been displaced to other towns, with drug outreach teams confident that they know the whereabouts of almost all of them.

How enlightened. How humane. How completely at odds with U.S. "get tough on crime" arguments and "don't waste the taxpayer's money" prejudices.

Then there's the second Guardian piece, which discusses another man's conviction that week for murdering women, by pointing out how acceptable it seems to be for men to express violent intentions towards women, or even act on them.

he past week has brought us not one, but three horrific cases of misogyny-inspired murders, which have ended in the convictions of Bellfield, Mark Dixie and Steve Wright. In each case, what comes through most strongly is just how open, violent and persistent the killer's misogyny was, and how they were allowed to indulge it, and even boast of it, for years. The reports paint a picture of a society in which misogyny is taken as a given, in which someone can crow to his friends, without fear of redress or chastisement, as Bellfield did, that he had shaved himself from top to toe to ensure he didn't leave any DNA behind at a crime scene.

Yes, there's obviously heinous sexism in the UK, too--that's the entire point of the article. But at least the major newspapers occasionally recognize this as a fact to be reported on and condemned, rather than perpetuating it as if doing so counted as legitimate political analysis.


*OTOH, see this article, also from the WaPo, about the shocking fact that not all black people are voting for Obama.

While Phonebanking for Obama

Earlier today...

Ding goes to the unisex bathroom after a couple hours of solid phonebanking and a large coffee. She's in her stall, finishing up some feminine business (ahem) when she hears the door open and someone enters the stall next to her.

The stranger pees and Ding thinks, 'Hm, that's got a little distance.' She flushes.

At the sink, she hears the other stall open and the Asian campaign guy walks over. He gives her the chin up greeting.

'Hey,' he says.
'Hey,' Ding says. There are no paper towels so they stand there, shaking their wet hands dry. Then they both go back to the phone banking room.

This is Obama's America - a place where men and women can pee next to each other and go back to the job at hand.

Heh.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. . . . Get your ass in that stable.

The NYT can't decide if the worst thing about little girls getting pedicures is that it's teaching them to be consumers, or that it's hypersexualizing them.

Look at the picture below, and tell me: can you see what it is they're missing?



I've gotten pedicures myself from time to time. And I've paid people (usually friends) to clean my house and nanny my kid.

But I will be goddamned if I *ever* pay a poor woman of color to literally sit at my child's feet.