Bitch. Ph.D.

The (wo)man behind the curtain

2010-12-28T18:09:00.004-08:00

There are a lot of things being written about me on the internet, so I guess it's time to resurrect this blog just for a minute to put some stuff out there. This deserves more than just a few tweets. In the interest of full disclosure and honesty.

On December 17, my friend Gayle and I wrote this post. It was about #mooreandme and the discourse around the allegations of rape against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. It included, among three other arguments, this bit from a chat conversation:

silvana: i dont even know what to make of sady's last post
"It is very, very low. Because Michael Moore’s actions indicate that rape survivors just don’t mean as much to Michael Moore as Julian Assange getting bail. They just don’t. He has assigned a demonstrable, monetary value to these two causes, and as far as we know, Assange is worth $20,000 and providing necessary aid to sexual assault survivors is worth $0."
i find this to be shit
me: i find this to be UTTER SHIT
there are no zero sum games like that in life
silvana: moore doesn't have any obligation to give any money to anyone
silvana: As far as the world knows, going out for french food is worth $100 to silvana, and helping rape survivors is worth $0
like
FUCKING SERIOUSLY
FUCK YOU
i am so mad
me: i just went out for dinner and paid for pizza. I VALUE PIZZA MORE THAN RAPE PREVENTION.
AHAHAHA
i love our examples
written at the same time
silvana: hahahahhaha
me: OUR FOOD: MORE IMPORTANT THAN RAPE SURVIVORS
silvana: and starving children
and people who have been the victims of landmines
me: and rape epidemics in the congo!
or liberia!
silvana: and women held as sexual slaves in thailand
me: sady doyle gave $50 for rape survivors. why does sady doyle hate starving african babies?

We used crass words, yes; it's pretty par for the course for me and especially for the feminist blogs. I admit that I hesitated about posting the words "fuck you," I didn't want it to sound mean. But on review, I assumed it would be taken in the crass, flip, somewhat humorous way it was meant. This is, after all, the internet, and if there's one thing internet feminists know how to do, it's swear.

I didn't mean to hurt her. When I found out that I did, I apologized. But it has nevertheless blown up.

Sady Doyle has taken issue with what we wrote. Here's what she has written about it so far. She also left this comment on our post.

I'm not going to quote all of it, because it's a lot, but here are some things I found particularly troubling:

"I'm sad that (if I'm recalling correctly, if you're the same "Gayle") you wrote me an e-mail saying that you'd started a new blog because you liked mine so much, I'm sorry I promoted that newborn and relatively readerless blog on Tiger Beatdown when it had very few posts and no comments, and I'm sorry that, now that you have readers and are receiving comments, you're trying to invite those comments by posting that I'm "UTTER SHIT" and shouting "FUCK YOU" at me. I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not sorry I helped you out, but I am sorry that it meant so little to you, and that you don't see me as a person deserving of basic respect."

"It’s just: Now that I’m getting all of these messages about the “enemies” I’ve made, for pointing out how even idealistic activist left-wing types will dissimulate and back-stab and attempt to promote themselves at your expense and without respect for you, I think it’s time we all get a brief crash course in How Things Work. If you’re a friend of one of these women, will you find a way to be nasty now? Yes, quite possibly you will."
(ed note: If someone can figure out what those last two sentences mean, please tell me; I am genuinely baffled.)

"It’s OK, Gayle. You did a bad thing. You were purposefully hurtful to someone who’d never done anything to you, and had in fact helped you in the past. You don’t have to post anything on your blog that you don’t want to; you just have to think about what sort of space you want your blog to be."

"But always look at the man behind the curtain. That’s my advice to you. The next time something seems to come up out of nowhere, somebody falls out of favor or becomes subject to hostilities, always look behind the curtain. You don’t know what’s back there. And I, personally, don’t care if there’s a chance that I’ll get in trouble if I tell."

"First I heard $10K, then I heard that someone had donated $2K on top of it, which I think means they have about $14K with the matching in place. That's a lot of money for them. That's a lot of people being able to call and deal with their rapes with qualified professionals.

$14K. That's a big number. For helping survivors.

Would you prefer that we didn't raise it?"

"If folks really want the link, I’ll send it, maybe. But this isn’t feminism. This is pretty clearly personal. This is someone getting all “FUCK YOU” over I am just not sure what, after I’ve done everything in my power to re-affirm that I like her and don’t need her to agree with me. So, yeah. It doesn’t have to be a spectator sport. I just mention it because, wow. Shit got pretty real these past two weeks. But this?

This was officially the lowest blow."

Those quotes are only a fraction of what's she's posted, which you can read in the links above. So, in response to these four words, we get a half-dozen posts in which she says that we are craven, self-promoting, backstabbing, disrespectful, purposely hurtful, venomous, using Sady as a way to get comments, and that we don't care about rape survivors.

You can decide for yourself what you think about this. But from where I'm standing, it looks like, apparently, because we posted the words "FUCK YOU" and called her argument "UTTER SHIT" in a chat where we were clearly making jokes and being crass, we are now getting the responses you see above. There is nothing else. There is no other objection. All the things that Sady has written about how she is upset at us, is about those four words.

Apparently, the fact that we disagree with her arguments means we don't want money to go to rape survivors. But it's not clear what her raising money for rape survivors has to do with the quality of her arguments, or somehow bears on the question of whether we should agree with her.

I still maintain that her argument as quoted in the chat above boils down to an assertion that anything that you have spent money on, you value more than all the things you haven't spent money on. And it was the argument that was used, again and again, to raise money for RAINN. I think raising money for rape crisis centers is great. But that doesn't mean I think every single thing that's said in support of the fundraising is correct. I still believe that what she said about the fact that Assange is fighting extradition suggests his guilt (as I quoted from here) is wrong and dangerous. I still believe that in the course of promoting #mooreandme, Sady made some disingenuous and problematic arguments, more than just these two.

I still haven't gotten any response to the arguments themselves. And that's fine--Sady isn't obligated to respond to me or anyone. But I would have liked to engage about them, rather than have this discussion about four words I used in a blog post.

Hasta la vista. Bitches.

2010-10-13T13:44:00.003-07:00

So what happened?

From where I sit (pinned down by a cat), honestly, the title and raison d'etre of the blog really no longer apply. I've been out of academia now for something like five years--long enough that I'm not actually sure how long it's been. I still have strong opinions, but the severe unhappiness and depression that were, to be honest, major drivers of the urgency and bitchiness of the blog are also things of the past. For now anyway, and I hope permanently. And most importantly of all, my primary purpose in starting the blog has, I think, been met: there are *tons* of people out there who are also depressive/bitchy/feminist/mama/academic/anxious/funny/cynical/etc. types, who experience at least some parts of the world in ways that are congenial to me, and I to them, and the blog has, I think, been a successful part all of our discovering that the internet is a really awesome way to ditch the facades and talk, honestly, about our experiences. Even the pseudonymous part of doing so feels almost like an afterthought: it's been quite some time since Bitch was a fairly transparent (though still quite enjoyable) nom de plume, rather than a proper mask.

That plus it sort of feels like Bitch PhD is a more or less complete body of work. Not that we don't/won't continue to have things to say on the blog's topics--feminism, politics, society, recipes, even academia--but we, the various Bitches, have each reached a kind of closure of the parts of our lives that the blog served. Sybil has a job she's happy with, but it's not blog-friendly. Ding has switched jobs and found a man, for god's sake. LeBlanc got MARRIED. Taddy claims he hasn't changed, but he got cancer, recovered, is returning to his real life and (most importantly of all) has realized, I think, that he is a damn good writer. I'm a housewife, and Pseudonymous Kid is old enough now (10 next week!) that he has started to censor what I write about him, the little shit.

We may not all be living happily ever after, but I think we're all at transitional stages and ready to move to something new.

But as I said, that doesn't mean we're, like, dead or anything. Ding and I are both thinking of starting book blogs; LeBlanc may be getting annoyed by DC blog politics, but she's nonetheless become Somebody among the big boys and girls; Sybil may be blog-free for a while but she seems to have become a semiregular twit. Taddy, well, you guys gotta talk Taddy into starting a goddamn blog of his own.

For now the blog will stay exactly where it is. Lauren at Feministe has offered to archive some "best of" posts, and I may get around to taking her up on the offer. If/when I get my own domain (which I'm totally going to do with the next blog; some asshole has been squatting on bitchphd.com for years now) I'll try to figure out how to move everything over there. In other words, stuff will still be around, hopefully to be occasionally discovered by new readers as well as fondly printed out--EVERY SINGLE PAGE--and bound in gold leaf by each and every one of you.

I shall forever remain your humble servant.

Bitchphd

Everybody's So Different I haven't Changed

2010-10-12T09:28:00.002-07:00

In my family we hate to be parted but we love to say goodbye. We love the weepy, beery farewells, the exit calls to have one more drink, one more bite, to stay just a little longer. The grown ups embrace and the little kids cling to each other, screaming as we pry them apart. You'd think they were being sold into slavery. We each press each other as if ...we may or might never all meet here again.

And we press a sack lunch on the departing, something for the road. Frequently, there is a bale of hand-me-downs the children of the hosting house have outgrown but which will do just fine for the children of the departing. We slip dollar bills to the little kids and tell them to buy themselves a treat. We slip a ten or a twenty to the older kids and tell them not to spend it all in one place.

I guess that's why the wake is our clan's supreme expression of solidarity. We love to say goodbye.

Its too bad the internet won't support a wake. Or maybe I just don't know how to have one on the internet. There's a lot of things I didn't know about the internet until I came to BitchPhD.

In fact, this blog has been a revelation to me, one revelation after another. I came here following a recipe search for pan de dulce and was introduced to a sweetness I never imagined. A complicated sweetness, one requiring a palate sophisticated and discerning and learned. This is, after all, BitchPhD, not SweetHoneyintheRockPhD.

I thank you for being so sweet to me. Thank you for many kindnesses. Thank you for giving me time to become a little learned and listening to me while I struggled to express what I've learned. Being invited to join the bloggeen of the Sisters Bee has been a great honor. I will never forget it. I will never forget you.

My time posting here has coincided with one of the most tumultuous phases of my life. Shortly after I started posting, I left my little home on the mountain to work in Wisconsin for what I expected to be a few months. Nearly two years, six months of chemotherapy, one ghastly surgery, two hospital stays, and several months of physical and mental therapy later, I'm back in my mountain croft. I never, ever, ever, want to leave again.

Not sure what I'm going to do from here on. I've got a lot of catching up to do. I need to find my place, again, among the members of my household and among my friends. It may or may not be worth writing about. The Great Recession has caused much dislocation for our people. My experience is unique to me but has probably been repeated, in similar form, millions of times over the last couple years. Just look at the BitchPhD staff. No one of our bloggeen is in the same place and situation they were two years ago.

Except me. I'm back where I started. Mostly, I want to play my guitar and have a drink with my friends. And wake BPhD.

Dr B said the internet is a big place and it is. The world, however, is really a very small place. Who knows where we might run across each other again? Anywhere people crowd in for a drink and a dance and a bit of a joke, that's where to look for me.

I'm the guy at the end of the bar, chatting up your sister.

The Social Network

2010-10-11T13:31:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure what I ever hoped to accomplish by blogging. I think it was more a compulsion than anything. I had stuff to say, damnit, and I wanted to know if anyone would listen. I needed more, always more social interaction, especially when I started blogging, which was when I was in law school and dealing with a lot of isolation and not having enough fun. I figure there were people on the Internet who wanted to have fun conversations and shoot the shit. I would have always said that I was trying to do some kind of public service. I still think that's true. I think blogging can be incredibly important to people who feel isolated or alone, people trapped in bad relationships or shitty towns or a dead-end job. In some sense, I became a feminist blogger because I felt trapped in the activity of being a woman in patriarchy, which is a real pain, and I wanted to reach out to other women in a similar position and see if we couldn't come up with something good that made sense of it all.

And we did.

Moving to DC made me like blogging less and less. I met a lot of people who are journalists and writers and bloggers and it seems that so many people are connected intimately to this internet, more so than they are to each other. I got tired of vitriolic comment threads where it seemed like everyone was itching for a fight. I get enough fights off the internet. I got tired of people trying to score points. And I can blame bloggers and commenters all I want, but let's face it, the truth is this: I don't have as much to say any more. I have less patience for trying to convince people who disagree with me. I don't find it fun anymore.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I blog. People change, circumstances change, and again I'm sure I will be moved to say something, to get it off my chest, to vent, to write it out and pull things together and make something coherent out of living, in words. When I do, it will probably be at Tiger Beatdown, where Sady has kindly offered me the space to do it when I feel like it.

Thank you all for reading.

More than that, thanks to Bitch for asking me to blog for her, which at the time and for several years after was huge for me. What an honor. Thanks to all the rest of the crew for entertaining me and for being my friend.

Until then, I hope I see you all in the real world, and we can emphasize with hand gestures instead of html tags.

Fireside chats

2010-10-07T18:28:00.004-07:00

When I was a grad student, I TA'd for a professor, now a friend, who liked to say, "The best thing about semesters is that they end." He had the right demeanor to pretend he meant it cynically, but I heard him weave it unto an undergrad lecture once and know he had a whole Benjaminian kind of thing going on (that and he is more earnest than he let on). Semesters are great like stories are great like novels are great like movies are great: they have a beginning, a middle, and an end and in giving us a narrative to inhabit from start to finish, they give us the sense of experiencing the only thing we all really want to know about but can't: how the/our story ends. "What draws the reader to the novel is the hope of warming his shivering life with a death he reads about."

So you can see where I'm going with this: closing down Bitch PhD is like dying.

Not that. But it is something I'm trying to feel satisfied about, something I want to let be an ending in the best narrative sense of the world. This blog was an important part of a narrative for me. It was the first blog I ever paid real serious attention to. It informed so very many of my opinions while I was a grad student. On things like this and this and this, just to name a few. It was through this blog that I met my first ever internet people in real life. And hey, remember when we did this? Ah, the times.

This blog was important to me long before I wrote on it and B's voice was probably the first feminist voice in my adult life that really resonated with my concerns, my glibness, my anxieties, my ambitions. I am sure the story is the same for a lot of you. And a lot of you!! You've been so great to me since I have been writing here, making me feel so sure that my stories were interesting, funny, and really worth all the space they get in my head. And that my recipes are sometimes good. And the lovely fellow bloggers, with their complicated lives and fierce commitments and sharp brains and short short tempers with trolls.

It's a love fest, the whole thing.

And now everyone gets a chance to put, if not a period, perhaps a semicolon or maybe even a comma on the story [Confidential to my students: the latter two of which continue to NOT be able to be used interchangeably]. Which is a comforting luxury, in its own way.

I doubt I will blog again somewhere else. Clearly, my momentum of late has petered. Moving, new job, family back together, 5 yr old, 30 Rock, it all takes a lot out of me. I got to do the thing I never imagined would happen: I found a tenure track job in my field in the town where I have the most friends and where my husband's career is solidly planted, where we can afford a house and like the school district and the weather and the restaurants. I am not sure that the academic blog world needs my story, that anyone is really served by having this story told. It's happy making, which is a service, but you know what I mean.

It would, in some ways, be good for me to be writing about the job. There are a lot - and y'all, I mean a lot - of things about this institution and the the way the place works that make for SERIOUS blog content. But for a variety of reasons I feel that it's likely I would be un-anonymized by someone there, sooner or later, if I blogged regularly, and for a variety of reasons I feel like I would likely get fired if I were found out while doing a lot of unsavory blogging. It's just not a good idea. And neither is glib happy blogging.

So for now, my blog story ends with what is probably a period. The Vane family is back under one roof, LV is happily-ish ensconced in a new school where she is not being secretly taught about Jesus. Instead she is mixing up other traditions and came home a few weeks ago announcing that on Eid, a person gets to stay home and eat apples and honey all day. She is planning a vampire faerie costume for Halloween. I am reading wikipedia articles on chemotherapy (seriously) and visualizing clumps of hair on my beautiful wood floors in an attempt to psych myself up for the Next Great Smoking Cessation, to begin when the weather gets genuinely cold. I am comfortably in the midterm mode of my teaching performance and my students seem so far to respond in the ways I expect them to; they like me, for the most part. Mr. V and I are remembering how to share parenting during the weekdays; the inevitable quibbling that results is nothing in comparison to the luxury of having someone else to pack lunch and do end of day pick up. The CAT has settled on her favorite sun spots on the back porch and the front porch. She never kills songbirds, despite all that you readers gave me to look forward to. I miss football this season, but I can't root for Ben. I made amazing manicotti last weekend. And sweet potato pie with vanilla whipped cream. And the bakery down the street sells amazing baguettes.

You can imagine the tedium that kind of material would produce, as far as posts go.

Thanks so much for talking so much with me. Thanks to Delia, to Silvana, to Taddy, for being allies and for being so goddamned smart. Thanks to B for hosting for such a long time. If I make my way back somewhere, you'll be the first to know (so I should get your numbers. So we can text. Or something).

ETA: Also, I forgot to note that I do wonder if B is really shutting down the place because I did that fucked up thing where I made the comments go backwards-wise and I never figured out how to fix it and everyone just hella hates it still. My bad, y'all. I broke the place.

The elephant in the room

2010-10-07T08:42:00.001-07:00

We, the Bitch Collective, think it is past time to acknowledge an unfortunate fact: this blog has withered on the vine. There are various reasons for this, and some of us will write closing posts in the next few days which may address them. But in any case we will be putting Bitch PhD out of its misery in the next few days.

That said, most of us will continue to blog elsewhere, under our real names or other noms des plumes. It's a big Internet. We'll see you around....

...and, farewell.

2010-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

It's been loads of fun, poppets. But I gotta go.
Life is calling and I've been postponing it a bit with all my navel gazing, jeremiad-ing and general bitchiness.
But don't worry; I have not been tamed. Me and my afro, we're in the dulcet-toned environs of philanthropy and I expect several apple carts to be overturned over the course of the year.

Maybe you'll see me again. Maybe I'll be the woman to throw a pie in Rahm Emanuel's face.
Whatever the case, catch me over at Screed. Or on the Twitter, @DeliaChristina or @DeliaC.

Ciao, bellas!

Delia Christina

hello, again.

2010-09-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I resigned from my position with the Large Women's NonProfit to join the Large Statewide Philanthropic Organization. My last day is tomorrow.

What am I feeling? Relief.

Relief that I'm no longer behind the Illinois state budget 8-ball, working for a direct service organization. I know my coworkers are looking for some signs of sadness but I can't help it if indecorous spurts of glee leak out of me.

Relief that I networked my ass off, lined up my champions, searched strategically and interviewed smartly (after that initial phone interview that caught me unawares. Preparation, always preparation!)

Relief that I bumped my salary by $11k and can perhaps afford a new couch to replace the secondhand Ikea couch with the big dent in it, where my butt busted the springs after a frolic with M-.

Relief that, in such a tough, competitive environment, I bore down, concentrated and won what I wanted. Did I do this alone? Nope. I had a whole team of people supporting me: my boss, my COO, my mentor, my contacts, my friends, my M-, and I thank god for all of them. But ultimately I'm proud of what I did and how I did it.

I'm so relieved it's over. Maybe I can breathe now.
...
Where else have I been over the summer? Oh, you know. Introducing the boyfriend to the family in LA, hanging out with the Head Bitch and discovering the gay gene gallops through the family.

If You Don't Stand for Something

2010-09-06T09:21:00.008-07:00

You'll stand for anything.

The ascendance of capital over labor has reached its highest point since the Great Depression. The portion of workers covered by collective bargaining is at its lowest point since that same time. Coincidence? Hardly.

Our nation aspires to democracy but its workplaces are hostile to worker's democratic participation. This basic contradiction hardens all other inequities in our communities and renders even elementary political conflicts nearly intractable.

Top management of the nation's economic enterprises would not dream of working without a contract. Workers are subject to employment at will and fired if they seek a contract.

Workers had no hand in fomenting the current crisis but we are made responsible for solving it. We had to bail out Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citigroup, and the rest. We've had to give back wages, benefits, and whatever value we managed to accumulate in our homes and 401K's. We are told we must accept cuts in Social Security although no one can explain how that will close the operating deficit in the Federal budget. The goddamned GOP is actually campaigning to repeal national health care for workers and the spineless Democratic Party may just let them do it.

Capital is organized and can make its demands stick. Workers are not organized and can only hope for the best.

Its my hope that the current crisis will reveal the extent of the divide between those who work and those we work for. The ones we work for are well organized. Time for us to get organized, too.

Solferino

2010-09-02T10:01:00.001-07:00

Through the clear transparent water
He could see the fishes swimming
Far down in the depths below him,
See the Yellow Perch, the Sahwa
Like a sunbeam in the water
-Song of Hiawatha

Eagle and Osprey each hunt the perch of the Flowage. Each depends on the perch catch but each employs a different method for bagging the meaty piscine.

Osprey loiters at great altitude, orbiting in the high eddies until spying the sunbeam in the water rising towards the surface to slurp some floating bug or waxworm.

Its easy to tell when Osprey has fixed a perch in its sights. Its staccato call comes faster and faster, rising in frequency and urgency. It interrupts its orbit to hover above the spot where it expects the prey to breach and, at the psychological moment, folds its wings and drops from the heights, hitting the water like a sack of hammers.

I can't say Osprey never misses. I can only say, I have never seen one miss.

Invariably, Osprey rises from the eruption of its strike, beating the air and fidgeting with the catch, kneading it with stilleto talons, aligning it head to tail to reduce drag and laboring low over the water to gain speed and altitude. Two laps around the bay is usually enough for building up the velocity needed to climb back to altitude and turn for home.

Where Osprey operates like a dive bomber, Eagle flies under the radar cover. Slowly unwinding from the heights till it reaches the lake's surface, Eagle skims just above the wavetops at speed, broad wings outstretched, coasting as if it had thrown the clutch out, one eye cocked on the water, orange feet relaxed and dangly to entice the perch to rise and then, BAM! Talons rotate into the water, the luckless prey is seized insensible, its back broken by the shock of the attack, and borne away to a fate not worth thinking about if you have tender feelings towards Yellow Perch.

At least, that's how Eagle operates when it's hunting Perch. Most often, its hunting the Perch that Osprey has just caught.

Eagle, you see, is a thief and worse. Eagle is an eater of carrion and roadkill. Eagle is a bully who shakes down raptors for their lunch money, who rifles the bags of more effective hunters. Eagle hunts only as a last resort, when there is no escape from honest work.

Except on the Flowage. Eagle and Osprey have lived in an uneasy detente along the Flowage for as long as I've been here and for generations of raptors before I got here. The geography of the Flowage and the fact that its brimming with Perch have facilitated this cold peace.

The Flowage runs from northeast to southwest and forms a series of deep basins flanked by shallow bays and sloughs and channels. A narrow strait about a mile and a half south of the head of the Flowage divides it into upper and lower portions of more or less equal area. Traditionally, Osprey hunts the upper basins, Eagle hunts the lower, and there is more than enough perch for all hunters of the Flowage, even one as lazy as Eagle.

Sure, there has been the occasional provocation, the isolated border incident.

There is a pair of juvenile Eagles, for example, that, from time to time, hunt the southernmost bay of Osprey's territory, even harassing Osprey hunters in the bay to relieve them of their catch. I've never seen Osprey retaliate for this effrontery.

Likewise, there are, sometimes, Osprey overflights of Eagle's hunting grounds. A pair will loiter at maximum angels, not bothering Eagle or doing any hunting themselves, just demonstrating they are able to come and go without Eagle's by-your-leave. I've never seen Eagle rise to challenge the intruders.

Lately, though, foreign relations between the two have broken down.

Yikes! I'm late for a luncheon date. Try to understand. I don't get many luncheon dates. Or any.

Got to go! To be continued!

Added to her tab

2010-08-21T05:43:00.004-07:00

Hey there! Good morning! Let me tell you what happened last night!

11pm, LV is asleep, she hasn't been feeling well. Had the pukes on Thursday at school, off and on nauseated and feverish since then, throat pain. Mr. V and I have finished our nightly whining about how all this sickness is dragging us down (we both had strep over the last two weeks, he never really got better and has some sort of gross tonsil abscess now) and we go out on the back porch on the way to bed to feed the CAT [it's sort of touching how this was a team activity, right?] [I definitely moved the fucking CAT with us, by the way]. We turn to go back inside and realize the door is locked. Of course, so is the front door. Most of the windows in this place are 10ft or more off the ground and are locked anyway.

So, to recap: 11 pm, sick kid locked inside, house dark, raining, Mr.V and I outside with CAT. I spend 10 minutes making the case that we should break the glass door in the back, Mr. V spends 15 minutes pretending he can figure out how to get in with a screwdriver, then pulls his blackberry out of his pocket (the only part of the story that involves improbable luck) and looks up 24 hr locksmiths. They tell us someone will be there in 15 and I continue wandering around the house pressing my ear to walls and windows to hear if LV is either screaming or choking to death on her own vomit. 45 minutes later, a 22 yr old kid rolls up in a BMW SUV, house music bumping. He gets out in a billowing cloud of cologne, apologizes for being stuck in traffic, mentions that he learned how to do this in the Israeli army, and, with his Ed Hardy underwear 2/3 of the way out of his stylish jeans and with his hair product glistening in the moon, he inserts some air bladders in the door jamb/way/whatever, inflates them and pops open the back door. I run in and verify that LV is breathing then immediately open a beer and sit on the floor, defeated. Mr.V pays him $75 and says, "Have fun tonight."

A careful reader of this story will recognize that it's all the CAT's fault.

The Crisis of Overproduction

2010-08-20T12:10:00.005-07:00

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.
-Communist Manifesto

I dreamed I had a good job
And I got well paid
Blew it all at the penny arcade
-Riding with the King

Got my unemployment check today. First time I've been on unemployment since I was discharged from the USN.

That time, it helped me fund the transition from military to civil living; find an apartment, get a job, decode the bus schedule, generally adapt to living on the economy like a regular citizen. I was 28.

Now I'm 58 and it feels like a buy-out. I don't expect I'll have as good a job as I had before I went out on disability. I was being paid at the rate of a master electrician. I don't expect I'll ever make a wage that good again. I mean, except for the princely wage I earn here at BPhD.

I'll get other jobs, of course. In fact, I started a new job last week. Three days a week, I drive a shuttle for an outfit that rents recreational machinery to daytrippers; kayaks, canoes, bicycles, solar-powered picnic baskets, that sort of thing.

I transport renters and rented from the concession stand to the boat landing or river crossing or beach or wherever it is they're going. At the appointed interval, I pick them up and return them to the concession stand and, ideally, collect a fat tip.

It's an OK job. I get paid each day. In cash. Plus tips which are also in cash. In the Great Recession, cash is King.

It's the best job I've had lately.

A couple months ago I started working at the local hippie food co-op. I sweep up the store, stock the bulk food bins, and keep the panhandlers away from the loading dock.

It's interesting work, in a way, and my co-workers are very nice. It's not actually a paid job, though. Not in money, anyway. For my labor I receive a sack of dried legumes and whatever type granola is not selling. Last week it was Funky RainForest Crunch.

Strangely, Funky RainForest Crunch is not accepted as legal tender for debts public or private. It's harder than you might think to buy a round for the lads with stale granola.

Last month was the month of Parish Festivals and, on different weekends, I worked the beer tents for St Casimir's, Our Lady of Sorrows, St Bridget's, and St Stanislaus' Mission in the Valley.

Again, interesting work and my co-workers were super nice but the toilers in the vineyards were paid in beer tickets.

I saved them up and tried redeeming them down at the local. They wouldn't take them. Anti-Catholic bastards.

This month I came closest to striking gold. I'm working at a Blues festival.

During August, the local brewery sponsors a blues festival throughout the month. Each weekend, they erect stages and seating and dance floors and beer tents and brat grills in a park adjacent to the brewery. Bands fill the stages and rock the blues till your back ain't had a bone.

My excellent references and experience working the Parish festivals got me employment in one of the beer tents. Again, the pay was in beer tickets but I've got used to that. I was able to pour out a lot of free beers for my friends. That disposed of a whole lot of incurred obligations.

Plus, you know rhythm and blues. I danced for the first time since I had the procedure.

Oh, yeah. Had some big fun. Doesn't pay the bills, though.

Last weekend, a silent auction was included with the festival. I placed the winning bid on a weekend for two at a bed and breakfast on the harbor in Bayfield, Wisconsin. I'm hoping they take beer tickets.

Next month, I'll return to my little farm in East Needle range. It's been a long time since I've been home and I don't think I'm ever going to roam again. Since I left home in January of '09 it's been pretty much one god-damned thing after another. The urge to walkabout has left me, entirely.

More to the point, though, I'm going to see if I can support myself in the manner to which I have become accustomed strictly on ag income.

It might could work. Moya thinks it will. Even though the wage labor market has collapsed, the market for ag commodities thrives. Moya says we can make yards of money.

Beef, for example. Beef on the hoof is going for a dollar a pound. We've got 32 plump Shorthorns coming off the grass in October. Figure 1000 pounds each. Now that's a payday.

5x5 round bales of #2 Colorado Red Clover are going for $75 dollars a bale, in the field. Sold 70 bales in June, 130 in July, and, if the weather holds up the rest of the month, we'll sell another hundred by the end of August. September's cut we'll keep for ourselves.

Milk prices have never been better. We've settled the argument over whether to upgrade from a Class C to a Class A dairy. We'd have to take out a loan to do the upgrade and Moya agrees we don't want to take on a note in the middle of the Great Recession. Selling milk for cheese and yogurt and suchlike is worth a thousand a month in net proceeds.

We board some livestock, too. Outfitter's horses, mostly. Right now we're boarding a four-pony string at $250 per pony per month. They're contracted through September and week-to-week after that. For a thousand dollars a month, I can shovel a lot of shit.

I'll still have some deferred wages coming in. I'm eligible for a pension from my old employer. I've got checks coming from Veterans Affairs for PTSD and Agent Orange. Dept of Def considers me 25% disabled from the PTSD and compensates me accordingly.

Moya thinks that figure can be jerked upwards a few more points. She views my infirmity as an ore deposit to be mined for royalty checks.

There's a few other little sidelines that can turn a dollar. The band, for example. We mostly play for beer money, anyway. Or beer tickets. And, like I said earlier, there's the handsome stipend from BPhD.

So, for now, anyway, I'm leaving the world of regular jobs and regular wages. They can't fire me.
I quit.

By the Rivers of Babylon

2010-08-19T03:48:00.008-07:00

The evacuation to Kuwait of the the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Division, USA, brings to an end the leading role of American military power in the unlawful occupation of Iraq. A praetorian detachment of 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq for another year.

This is not the swift end to our Mesopotamian misadventure I expected when I voted for President Obama but, at least, the end is in sight. One more of the cowpies left behind by the dubya regime is on its way to being swept up and that will have to be enough for now.

Whether the Iraqi people will take advantage of our exit to establish a self-governing state remains to be seen. The Iraqi state is a colonial construct confected by the British from provinces they seized from the Ottomans in World War I. The separatist tendencies that have dogged its efforts toward national unity have only been strengthened by the aggressive war launched against Iraq by Bush. Integrated communities have been ethnically cleansed, communal divisions hardened, and the whole country, particularly the south, moved more closely into the orbit of Iran.

Everyone who opposed this aggression was right. Everyone who promoted it was wrong.

I want the occassion of the 4th Brigade's withdrawal to be marked by speeches and editorials and encomiums from those who were wrong apologizing to those who were right. I want to see video replay of the massive anti-invasion demonstrations that took place in 2002. I want the right wing's absurd theories of national security to be discredited for generations.

I want the destruction of more than 4300 American soldiers, sailors, and marines and the grief visited on their families to be hung around the necks of the GOP and their traveling warmongers for all time. I want American plutocrats taxed heavily to support their dependents and those thousands invalided by Bush's criminal adventure.

I want the armed forces of the United States returned to their proper role of Shield of the Republic, safeguarding the nation's lines of communication and defeating our enemies.

I want an end to this colonial buccaneering.

And I Ain't Namin' Names

2010-08-13T11:56:00.005-07:00

For best country-western-male-female-singing-duo, I would name and nominate these two. I know, its a crowded field but I stand by John and Iris.

If I was to nominate the best-country-western-male-female-singing-duo that have never sung together, I would nominate him to sing with her.

Only You Know and I Know

2010-08-06T08:20:00.016-07:00

Other than checking the baseball standings, the weather report, and cattle futures, I've pretty much given up on news reporting. TV news I watch not at all.

I don't even check the internet news sites I used to follow. It cuts into my already abbreviated porn downloading time.

I read the New York Times on line, of course, because they have Paul Krugman and foriegn bureaux and I always wanted to use the word, bureaux, in a sentence.

I read Hullaballoo and Media Matters for America. I read Informed Comment. When I get around to it. And that's about it.

The enormous amount of time saved and confusion avoided by not paying attention to the barking media has freed me up for a lot more loafing and fishing and drinking than ever before. For news of daily events, I rely mainly on the crowd at the Possum Eaters Inn. I may get the news late but it always comes with a cold one and an analysis simultaneously cruel and hilarious. Its a fair tradeoff.

So, although its news to me its probably not news to you that the goddamned California Proposition 8 has been overthrown by a U.S. court.

Praise the Lord! When will the right wing parasites understand they don't get to vote on other people's rights?

They claim to believe that human rights are endowed by the Creator. It would follow, then, wouldn't it, that these rights are no one's to give or to take but are inherent to our individual existence? The mot juste is, I believe, inalienable.

Plus, why should straight people be the only ones burdened with in-laws? Is that fair? Is that equitable? Is that just? I ask you.

I always have said and I always will say that the widest possible distribution of in-laws is the most crucial element to making the world a happier and a quieter place. Very wide.

Wider. Ever wider.

"This is a big inconvenience for me."

2010-08-05T15:36:00.005-07:00

May be that nothing brings me out of blog hiding quite like the opportunity to shame a celebrity. Naomi Campbell, you might be the worst person alive this week.

Decent background on the whole thing here.

To sum up: Naomi Campbell, whom you might be familiar with as a supermodel who abuses staff, had dinner in the late 90's with Charles Taylor, whom you might be familiar with as a mass-murderer responsible for war crimes, mass rape, and crimes against humanity. Taylor, it seems, was smitten with Campbell and sent his men with "blood diamonds" to her room in the middle of the night. This event is confirmed by Campbell's assistant and her companions, to whom she desribed the encounter and the diamonds.

As it happens, this event is one of the few verifiable links between Taylor and the diamonds, a necessary link for the prosecution at the Hague. And yet Campbell has been unwilling to testify, going so far as to claim the whole thing never happened, until she was subpoenaed. [To be as generous as I can, I will note that her excuse was actually as follows: "This is someone that I read up on the Internet that's killed thousands of people, supposedly," she said. "And I don't want my family in any danger in any way."]

In her testimony this week, she noted that she was extremely "inconvenienced" by having to be there and went on to disavow any knowledge that the "dirty stones" she received were either diamonds or from Taylor (claims that is contradicted by both her assistant and Mia Farrow). She further claims that when she got wind of the possibility that they might be diamonds, she immediately gave them to Nelson Mandela's charity (a claim that Mandela has proven demonstrably false).

To recap: you are the person capable of providing the testimony that convicts Charles Taylor of war crimes and for years you refuse to appear, nominally out of safety concerns but, let's be serious, because of the bad PR associated with your having received a blood diamond. When you are forced to show up, you note your status as inconvenienced and you claim total ignorance of the origination of the stones as well as of their precious nature and further claim to have given the stones to Nelson Mandela when you really didn't? You both demur from giving decisive evidence against Charles Taylor *and* throw Nelson Mandela under the bus? Worst person alive.

(apologies for the silence. have moved. unpacking, prepping for new job, orienting, feeling mostly really happy.)

High Summer

2010-08-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know if mass layoffs have struck BPhD or everyone's gone walkabout cause its high summer.

Probably the latter. I woulda heard about the former. Last hired, first fired. You know how they do.

Well, if they want to lay me off, they going to have to take it up with the Local. I got a contract. I got recall rights. And I get severance pay.

Its High Summer on the Flowage and a more fecund summer you will not find. Everything is ripening and reddening and gestating. The very air seems fertile as if vines could sprout from the clouds and the fog could bring forth honeyed fruit.
The crops look stupendous. Thick stands of rye and oats are marshalled across the county. Even a slight breeze casts them into motion, the grain rocking in slow rollers from fenceline to treeline.
Fields planted in corn and beans crowd the horizon. Field corn is already seven feet tall and the beans; Great Northern, Pinto, wax, and soy, are keeling over from the weight of their beany bounty.
Two crops of alfalfa have been put up already and the third crop is mowed, raked, and drying on the hillside. If the rain holds off for a few more days, it will be in the barn by the end of the week. There's plenty of time for a fourth crop. Nothing makes a country boy content like an overstuffed haymow.

The critters are thriving, too. I can't tell you how many sets of twin fawn Whitetail I've seen this season. I even saw triplets the day before yesterday browsing with their mama on an island in the Flowage. Its not unusual for two or three fawns to be born at one time but its unheard of they should survive this long into the summer. Tells you how rich is the browsing this year.

There's a merganser in the backyard on her third crop of offspring. She burrowed into the shoreline in the spring and has been here ever since raising babies and eluding Fox. She's had a couple close calls but Fox keeps falling for the broken wing ruse. He must see through it by now. I suspect he's so well fed he harasses the merganser strictly for amusement.

The boys are thriving like little idjits. I don't know if I told you but there's three boys spending the summer here. They range in age from eight to eight. It took me two weeks to learn how to tell them apart.

How they all ended up here is another post but suffice to say, one is the son of my stepdaughter, one is the cousin of the son of my stepdaughter, and one is the son of my niece, Moya. We call him Poco. You've heard me talk about him before.

Anyway, they're all here and carrying on like so many cocker spaniels. I admit to a moment of panic at the beginning of summer when they all parachuted in. I even tried giving them away to my blogging sisters. No joy there. They all had thin excuses.

Now, though, its working out pretty well. They go to a day camp four days a week and spend the other three days roaming the Flowage on their own.

I've got an old aluminum canoe they've commandeered to sail about in. Venturing out onto the broad waters on their own is forbidden but there are lots of sloughs and channels and shallow bays for them to reconnoiter. From time to time, they've even brought home nice fat perch for our supper.

I'm thriving, too. Its been six months since my surgery and I had my 5000 mile checkup last month. Three days of intensive poking and prodding and prying and sticking me with needles and examining my various fluid outputs have resulted in my being declared a cancer-free zone. I'm clean. I'm not sober but I'm clean for the first time in a year. My strength is just about back to form and my stamina is right where it should be.

I still have a little problem on my left side. After the operation, my remaining parts were reassembled into something of a loose confederation. Due to some mashed nerve bundles, my left or southern flank did not immediately join in the new regime with enthusiasm. The next six months were taken up with restoring central control over all constituencies of the taddyporter body politic.

Restoration is nearly complete but it turns out laying on my left side for the nine hours of the procedure tore the rotator cuff in my left shoulder. Surgery is the only way to fix it but, you know, its enough already with the surgery.

I'm just going to put it off for awhile. The shoulder can't get any worse. Who knows? It might get better on its own.

It could happen. Its High Summer.

Securities and Exchange

2010-07-16T06:11:00.003-07:00

I've reached the point in this (second consecutive) summer of upheaval where I'm starting to feel unhealthy. Not been sleeping very well for a month; I drop off fine usually but wake up a million times. The packing has me mired in stirred up dust and fleas, probably, so I'm sneezey and my eyes itch. I've been drinking more beers/wine than what is my standard routine, smoking more cigarettes. And not sleeping. Plus, eating down the pantry is anti-healthful. I'm scared to buy any produce because of an overdetermined sense of the move being imminent. Pasta, quinoa, black beans, beer beer, rice, can of soup, beer, rinse, repeat. my god, we wouldn't want to have to move with this *vanilla*! Better use it up! More peanut butter cookies; in my weakened state I tend to bake only half the dough and just straight up eat the rest. Further, like all good hells, the eating down the pantry hell is all the worse because it is a hell of your unique making. I, for example, have a grocery store weakness for two-for-one specials, for boxes of rice/herb combos, for cans of refried beans, for on-sale granola bars, and for oversized bins of risotto. This is my processed carbs hell, for now.

I cleaned out the last bits of stuff in my office yesterday. Something I love about myself is the way I invest in a place and develop a relationship with it, but yesterday that investment, only a year long, felt like more than I had room to indulge. I felt exhausted and sad in my empty first office. I walked down the hall to drop off my key and three of the offices I passed, colleagues, have my kid's artwork taped on the doors.

I don't feel like I've written much about this job over the last year and now I don't know how much I trust myself because I feel weepy effusive. It would be, I imagine, for me, much easier to leave this job if it were a traditionally "really good" job. I know, y'all, its a tenure track job, it's a really good job. Just like the one I am going to, which is a 4/4 with tons of comp and a new institutional structure, is also a good job. I do know. But y'all know what I mean: the kind of job that my grad program trained me to think of as aspirational. R1, 2/2, minimal comp teaching. That scenario presents a clear dichotomy: privileging family togetherness over career ambitiousness, without entirely sacrificing the latter.

Instead the situation is this: my job, my first job, was a 4/4 with constant comp responsibilities and a spartan upper-level rotation that had me in my speciality only once every 3 or 4 semesters. I had weighty service responsibilities, very little funds for conference/research travel, and a very small salary. My colleagues have pursued relationships with my daughter and played with her feverish self while I taught. They hang her art in their office. They have hosted my family for bbq's and riverside crab eating. My chair, when I called her in June to say I was leaving, spent 20 seconds being sort of shocked and then 20 minutes assuring me that I was making the right decision and she was so proud of and happy for me. She also began scheduling meetings with me 2 months into the job to discuss things like my 3rd yr review file, how to think about the committees involved, how to game my committee responsibilities. Maybe most importantly, I am thinking, is that my colleagues here have worked so hard from the day I arrived to convey that I was the best fit for the job, that I was an asset to the department, that I made the school better. The did this because they are decent and because they meant it all, but also, I expect, because they knew how much it meant for a first year assistant professor - any first year assistant professor but especially one struggling with some single mothering and an absent partner - to be reminded of herself as a competent professional with an identifiable career trajectory. That is, at any rate, the effect it had on me. I feel, as I'm sure is clear by now, very sad about leaving these people and this job.

I was skimming archives and noticed that here, last summer, pre-move, I observed how sad people seemed for us when I told them I got a job, but Mr. V hadn't yet and we were shifting to a commuter marriage. This year, with this move, people seem so happy for us. It's much easier to react in an unambiguous way (especially to a woman) to positive family news than to positive career news. Even my colleagues are thrilled for us. And mostly I absorb that and it guides how I feel about the move: incredibly happy for us. But it's more complicated. Always is.

["Everyone wants to] fuck young girls."

2010-07-12T07:24:00.002-07:00

Judges. Juries.

Everyone.

Good news for everyone then.

ETA: added missing preposition in title and added patented academic flair brackets to more precisely convey bottom line.

Still Eating My Sandwich

2010-07-08T06:28:00.003-07:00

The last thing this whole Daily Show/Jezebel fracas need is another linkfest, so I'm going to (sort of) abstain. I thought the Jezebel piece was basically reasonable. Everything that has gone on thereafter (with much of it being extremely well-written and reasoned, other parts less so) has seemed to me like such total insidery inside baseball as to be a little cringey. But I will say this" I read Olivia Munn's interview at Salon today. Uh huh. So, yea.

This is not a woman I had heard of prior to the aforementioned fracas (Munn suggests in the interview that various articles about the dust up are attaching her name in order to get page hits. I wonder, can that happen? Does everyone else know who she is?]. Now that I am acquainted with her, I have this to say: Feminism is for everyone. I think you, Olivia Munn, should benefit from its paradigm, its achievements, its humanistic hope for the world. Etc. I understand that you feel like the forces of feminism often work imperfectly (and even self-destructively) - a true fact - hence your statement that, "this [Jezebel] article was picked up and pushed out and these women sit behind this very thin veil that I can see right through, this idea that "we stand up for women." If you stand up for women, then don't bash me." Hmmm. I feel doubtful about the notion that because one is a feminist, one cannot critique other women or reflect on antifeminist forces that may be at work in their career trajectories, but maybe it really became a cabalistic sisterhood when I wasn't looking. Also, were you "bashed"? Hmm. So then, as I continued to read the interview, I thought, just who *is* this Olivia Munn and what has she been doing that is so insulated from feminist analysis?

A bit further down in the interview, re: people who had negative things to say about her Maxim cover shoot or her relationship with the new Captain Kirk: "And I really still believe that anybody who's sitting there judging my relationship does need to get the shit fucked out of them." Hmmm.

And then Lindsay Beyerstein [so, ok, this post is linky anyway] showed me the moving images I needed to see to complete my picture of Olivia Munn's contributions to the representation of women within dudely geek culture. Lindsay writes:

[T]he least Munn can do is stop acting all butthurt when feminists call her out. We geeks are not renowned for our social skills, but there's one thing we do know: You can't suck up to the cool people and dump on the other rejects and expect the rejects to like you. A corollary applies to women who ingratiate themselves to men while tearing down other women.

True. I mean, talk about manufactured outrage. Or, at the very least, total lack reflexive awareness. And, also, this "I'm easy to hate" and "expect them to like you" language is precisely the problem: this is, or was anyway, actually not a middle school catfight. Things - shows, public personae, career trajectories, workplace sexism - exist in real life. They are scrutable, legible, analyze-able, potentially educational. Introducing the language of petty jealousy is what turns it into a middleschool catfight.

All in all, in conclusion and since the beginning of time, the whole thing is wicked less soothing than packing and I am sorry I spent any time with it.

Abusus Non Tollit Usum

2010-07-07T07:30:00.005-07:00

Cannabis advisory for Denver Colorado: this summer's most popular flavors are as follows:

ICE - named for la Migra

PurpleXTrainwreck - named for the trainwreck

Western Buddah - named for the satori of sativa

Fayaka - named for the Steel Pulse lyric

Rey and Angie came to visit for the week of the Glorious Fourth and brought this news. They tell me marijuana dispensaries in Denver County now outnumber Starbucks.

And the most unlikely suspects are getting into the business. A guy we know, a fucking teabagging Republican who used to run a private security firm, has gone totally hydroponic. The warehouse he formerly used for housing the tools and implements of the private police business has now been given over to tanks and grow lights and bags of vermiculite and long tables of fragrant budding indica. The minions who formerly jiggled doorknobs and bounced revelers from rodeo beer stubes now patrol the dress-right-dress ranks of hemp stalks for aphids and cutworms.

There may even be some commercial opportunities for old school growers of customary Conejo county Verde Sol, cultivated, in the ancient way, broadcast along the arroyos and canyon watercourses of the Four Corners and dried in adobe sheds that reek of chiles and alfalfa and the earthy tang of Dineh ponies.

Makes my eyes red just thinking about it.

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Move

2010-07-06T12:34:00.003-07:00

Moving itself is a bitch, but I rather like packing. It appeals to the frenetic organizer in me. Also, if there is anything better than organizing, it is throwing away/donating. So liberating! I am ruthless and have very little sentimentality when it comes to this sort of thing. Eating down the pantry is goddamn awful, but other than that, reducing inventory is fabulous-feeling.

I have tended to have one major weakness in this process and have finally, in the last week, overcome it. I am here to share my enlightenment with you. If you are reading this blog, there is a strong likelihood that the insight is one you need. Here it is: your books do not love you. They are objects, and not morally superior to any other object in your house. Again, books are not morally superior to any other objects. They are just heavier.

you want my contacts, too?!?

2010-06-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve been fielding calls from recent college grads (or their family friends) for informational interviews and I don’t quite know how to feel about it. Ambivalent about my own professional standing and trajectory, I don’t quite know what insights I’m supposed to give these young people. Sure, I have a solid list of contacts (not as fabulous as some, but it’s still a good one); but informational interviewing should be about more than just a polite way to demand names. I see it as a mini-mentoring opportunity.

And since I’m big on mentoring folks who look like me, I was doubly ambivalent when the two people I spoke with this week didn’t. Their accumulated gender, race and class privilege outweighed any contacts or leads I could give them in a lifetime, though there is a lot to say about life experience.
The thought crossed my mind, “Shit, why should I waste my time and so-called insight on these two when I could be giving them to other women of color?”

But I tamped down my impatience and made the appointments with them – because that’s what you do when you’re a professional. You realize that the job search is a dance and these sorts of interviews are part of the choreography. Also, there was no way I was going to look bad in front of the people who referred them to me. So on Monday, I met with a very nice college grad who’s earnestly interested in women’s advocacy – or law school – and today I met with a guy who’s been interning at our org at a long-term research project.

The recent grad was a dream. She was prepared. She came with a list of orgs she was interested in; she had already met with a couple other advocates I knew and she had a couple of career trajectories in mind by the time she sat down with me. We spent 30 minutes talking about the non profit sector, women’s advocacy and why direct service in Illinois is not likely to be a good bet for the next 10 years. I gave her a few names of other women to reach out to and shook hands with her on the way out. What a nice girl, I thought.

Then I met with PolicyDude. Unprepared, vague about his plans, unable to say what he wanted or why, he made my head hurt.

“PolicyDude,” I said. “Here’s a tip. When someone asks you what you’re interested in, saying ‘social justice and progressive movements’ isn’t going to cut it. It’s too vague. That could mean anything and everything. You need to be specific enough so that I know how best to recommend you to someone.”

He scribbled in his pad.

“So…let me hear it. Give me your 5 minute pitch: why do you want to be in policy and where do you want to end up?”

“Um…is that really necessary?”

Tip Number 2: When you’re asking someone to help you find a job, don’t be bitchy.

“Ok…who has the job now that you envision having?” In the past, I had always found this exercise to be helpful in helping me focus on my own professional ambitions; I thought this would work for him, too. But, no.

He looked at the ceiling. “Um, well….policy think tanks…social movements for women…maybe an international organization…”

Sigh. “What about title? Who has the title you want?”

“Um, well…maybe Director of …policy?” Never let it be said that men don’t dream big.

Tip Number 3: For the love of god, be prepared ... and brief.

We spent an hour trying to eke out what it was he really wanted. Did he want to stay in Chicago or go elsewhere? Did he want to try women’s advocacy or poverty work? Did he want to stay in non profit or had he thought about the private sector? (I gave him the name of a blue chip consulting firm in Chicago with a non profit practice and, swear to god – if he finds a job with them, I will lose my shit.) Which foundations or research orgs was he thinking about? Why was he interested in this work? What did he want to do? How could I refer him to anyone I knew (and foist this disaster on them) when he couldn’t answer any of these basic questions?

Before you chastise me for being a chauvinist bitch, I have to say that this guy is a grownup and should know better – he's in his 30s, for god's sake. He had already done some little work in the field but basically expected me to open my contact list and read off a bunch of names and emails for him.

Tip Number 4: Don’t be so overtly greedy.

When I reviewed his resume, I discovered that this guy had never gone through a traditional job process. Through the kindness of teachers and friends, he’d jumped from this random post to that.

“So you’ve never formally interviewed for any job before? You’ve never had to compete for a job?”

“Not really. Isn’t it …um…all about who you know?” Somehow, he managed to maintain a puzzled look of cluelessness as he said this.

Tip Number 5: Don’t let your white male privilege hit you on your ass on the way out my office.
...
Note: Though I was mentally over this conversation halfway through it, I stuck with it and gave him some tips on being a little more strategic about his interviewing: stop mumbling, rewrite your resume, have your pitch ready and ask your contact for more than who they know. I gave him some homework and we’ll talk again in two weeks. But jesus on the cross – really??

Note: What’s Tip Number 1? Don’t be lazy!

(incidentally, that @princessding twitter feed over there isn't mine. if it is your wont, you can follow me @DeliaChristina)

Unbecoming an Officer

2010-06-22T16:13:00.016-07:00

Stanley McChrystal, General, United States Army, has offered his resignation to the Secretary of Defense.

Please, Mr. President; accept it.

General McChrystal made clear in this article he does not understand how to maintain good order among his subordinates. He made clear that he does not appreciate the role of a flag officer in a self-governing, democratic state.

Most significantly, he fails to grasp that a general officer of the United States does not have political standing to criticize the President of the United States if he does not prevail over the enemies of the United States!

Today, I have heard comparisons made to the confrontation between President Truman and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. This comparison is ignorant. President Truman was, of course, absolutely correct to sack General MacArthur and bring the Army to heel. The difference is, MacArthur's views were buttressed by the fact that he had actually defeated the enemies of the United States in the field. When he complained that he was being denied the means to destroy the enemy, he was taken seriously because he had, in fact, led the forces of the United States against our enemies and destroyed them.

McChrystal has failed to destroy the enemy. He is a whiner and a careerist. His anti-democratic attack on the civil authority must be suppressed and his commission must be terminated.

He serves at the pleasure of the President. I can't imagine the President is pleased with his service.

The Sex Which is Not One; or, Holy Shit This Made Me So Sad

2010-06-21T07:06:00.004-07:00

Several days ago, LV opened up a fortune cookie from the previous night's takeout and asked me to read it. The paper read something like, "A person who trusts himself will always have a ready confidant." When I read it aloud to her, I changed the pronoun to "herself."

She looked up and said, "Why doesn't it say 'himself'?

Dear Prudence, You are Fired

2010-06-19T09:45:00.006-07:00

I've just read the worst advice column, ever. To the editors of Slate Magazine, I suggest you offer me Prudence's job. Because she is a terrible, terrible advice-giver. If you like, you may hire me, or any other non-asshole person of your choosing. Because Prudence is an asshole.

A reader writes in with a pretty nuanced question:

Dear Prudence,
I have been married for almost a decade to my high-school sweetheart. A few years into my marriage, I had an affair with a colleague. My husband found out, and we decided to work things out and stay together. Then I found out I was pregnant. As hard as it was to know I was carrying another man's child, my husband stood by me, and he's been an amazing father. My question is, do we ever tell our son, now 3 years old, that my husband, his "daddy," isn't his biological father? His biological father has kindly always offered to do whatever I wanted in terms of what I tell my son. I worry constantly about my son growing older and learning of his paternity in some way. Are my husband and I better off with a lie of omission or telling a terrible truth?

Fascinating. First, kudos to all parties involved, because that is awesome. There is a way to make this situation good. But what does Prudence do? She basically says that you should lie to your kid, and hope the kid never finds out:

But as I imagine you one day having the "I have something to tell you" conversation with your son, I wonder what for. Sure, he would be finding out the truth, but it's such an undermining and unnecessary truth that I don't see the point.

WHAT? Excuse me, WHAT?! Dear lord, people. You think that you know what your kids need, but you don't. And you think that telling them some truth is going to undermine everything so much, when if it's never presented as a shameful thing from the very beginning, it doesn't matter. Do you know that my mother was married before she met my dad? I didn't. Until I was twenty-three. Isn't that stupid? Because they kept it a secret for so long and no one could figure out how or when to tell me. A STUPID THING THAT DOESN'T MATTER like someone having been married before (which, of course, to them is super shameful because blah blah blah divorce whatever). Do you know what sucks? Secrets. Do not lie to your kids.

Dear Reader:
You have an opportunity here. A great opportunity. Kids flourish the more loving, stable adults they have in their lives. Don't exclude your friend from your kid's life. Your son may end up benefiting in untold ways from having his biological father around--ways you can't even imagine. You don't know what could happen down the line. You and your husband could divorce. He could die. He could have a falling out with your son for whatever reason. You need to provide your son with all the love he can get. And he is already getting a ton from you, and from your husband. I suspect that his biological father will have some to give as well. This could provide some love security. And your son, like everyone else, needs back-up. Here's what you should do. Bring your friend around. Have him be involved. You can call him "Uncle" Steve or whatever. Tell Uncle Steve you want him to spend time with the kid. As your kid gets older, you can explain to him what's really going on. That parenthood isn't just about biology. I am sure your son will learn about these things, because he will have a friend who is adopted, or a friend who has a stepparent, or a friend with two mommies. And, depending on his development, when he is five or six or seven, you can can explain that there are different kinds of dads, and Dad is the person who has chosen to raise you and live with you and me. Uncle Steve is the person who is related to you by biology. We all love you and we will all be a part of your life.

This is not an undermining truth. This is a strengthening truth. Because your son already has another adult beyond his two parents, not to mention all the relatives, who love him deeply and will be looking out for his well-being. This is good for him. Don't lie to your kid. You don't need to explain everything right now. But don't lie.

Jesus, Prudence, you suck at giving advice.

still on vacation

2010-06-17T20:43:00.004-07:00

So, we have this CAT. I might've mentioned. And LV named it Sofia. And fairly quickly, that turned into the cat's being addresses as "So" or "so so: (appropriately enough) or "soey-so." LV, she likes the nicknames.

And that was it for awhile until she watched some cartoon or something where some character greeted another by saying "Hiya dodo." We can't put our fingers on it, but we have a vague memory of hearing that phrase coming from the TV whilst we were in the other room doing something, not parenting clearly. So from there, she started saying "Hiya dodo" to the CAT. Or at least thats what we were hearing. What she was hearing was more like, "Hi ya-dodo." Like, "ya dodo" was Sofia's new name. She explained as much. And from there is quickly turned into, "Yo Do" (rhymes with "mofo") as the new name for the CAT.

[Where is she going with this weird narrative? Is it going to be some interesting and insightful observations about kids and the pliability of signifiers? It is not, I assure you]

So, here we are in this vacation house in a place that is lousy with lizards. Every time we walk outside we see 4 at least. And Vee, she loves them. And one morning, she saw one scamper away really quickly and announced, "It runs like Yo Do!" So then immediately lizards became "Yo Do"s. And every morning she opened the door to look for "yo-do"s. Improper noun, now. And one day we were yo-do spotting and we saw a particularly gorgeous one with a puffed out red neck and I said, "Wow, look how pretty." And she goes, "Oh, it's a yo-pretty!"

From there, lizards were only "yo-pretties." And over the subsequent 48 hours, "yo-pretty" became a term of endearment for mom and dad as well. Within 2.5 days, we were all walking around referring to each other and getting each other's attention with, "Yo-pretty." A day after that, it had been shortened to "yo-prid" (rhymes with "whoa, kid"). And was being used constantly as a generalized noun.

[Seriously, the fuck? Is this what happens to academic brains in the summer?]

Tonight, we went to the home of some distant relatives who live in this town. I've never met them before. They are significantly older. They cooked a lovely meal that we ate on their lovely lanai as we listened to the sounds of the water feature in their pond. And my kid ran around all night yelping about yo-prids in the grass and running up to Mr. V and me, addressing us as yo-prid. And when we go to leave and remind Vee to say her thank you's, she formulates them as, "Thanks, yo-prids!"

[This used to be such a great feminist blog. I wish B would write more. I sympathize, I do.]

And throughout this dinner, I see the weird look the relatives get everytime she says "yo-prid" but I can't bring myself to offer any explanation, because seriously. You just read the explanation. Not only is it long and tedious, it is lame. And it occurs to me as we are leaving that this, the weirdness of inside jokes/language that are basically inscrutable, semiotically completely illegible, but leaving very legible traces of the fact that their weirdness comes from a mutually constituted formative process - a person has no idea *what* any of you are talking about, but is very clear that you have formed this weird language trough your collective weirdness - this is maybe in fact just what family is. A group if weird yo-prids.

[Maybe there's a new post at Jezebel.]

naptime = burning questions*

2010-06-17T12:58:00.004-07:00

How does true love work?
How do they get the color into pencils and crayons?
Can you find me a video about that?
How do our eyes get their color?
How will I learn to drive?
What if the oil spill gets to the road by the time I want to drive?
Did you ever have a scientist for a teacher?
Do not all the scientists live in space then? Just most of them?
How many stars can you wish on a night?
Does it have to be the brightest?
Who makes people?
No, I mean who *really* makes them?
No, I mean really.
I mean, it's God, right?
Oh, because God isn't real then?

*3 more days of full on mommyblogging, bitches, before I get lost in the details of house buying, closing, packing, new job, blerg. If you don't like the current content here, hold on to your hats cause it's gonna get wicked more boring soon.

Children are people too

2010-06-17T04:39:00.001-07:00

LV, holding somethng behind her back and with a whiny sort of tone: "So, I'll show it to you once you say the magic word. Do you know what the magic word is?"
Mr. V: "Usually it's 'please'."
LV: "This time is starts with fffffff......"
Mr. V: "fffffuckingshowittome."

Check Please!

2010-06-16T15:12:00.010-07:00

Nice going, Mr. President! Thanks for grabbing BP by the short hairs. Thanks for making them put Gulf Coast restitution and restoration on the lay-away.

In a half-hour meeting, President Obama got the BP buccaneers to plunk down a $20 billion deposit against liabilty claims. He also squeezed them for $100 million against lost wages.

The GOP has spent weeks throttling a bill to raise oil drillers' liability to $10 billion. The president ran the table on BP and their GOP button men in a thirty minute meeting.

Now that's Large Dee Democracy for ya.

Thanks, President Obama!

So much for feminist parenting

2010-06-15T08:47:00.001-07:00

Pseudonymous Kid, on the way to school this morning:

Mama, you're so lucky. Papa has to go to work and I have to go to school, but you get to stay home and do whatever you want.

Natural Resources, Waste and Abuse

2010-06-14T05:42:00.004-07:00

We spent a day at the Gulf this weekend, mostly in St. Pete. I hadn't been to this side of the Gulf coast in years and years, and LVee had never been. My god it is so beautiful. And so very quiet in St Pete (but maybe it always is? I don't know what it's usually like as a summer town). It felt like elegy, being in that clear water.

*******

Yesterday we had this plan. It was Mr Vs plan, not mine, so the logistics were poorly considered and lazily implemented. After breakfast we drove north for awhile to go to a state park that has natural springs that flow down into a lovely cool pool of cold freshwater. We stopped and rented some tubes on the way and pulled into the park to find a line of cars and a sign saying the park was filled to capacity; no one else in for 4 hours. I nodded knowingly. LVee whined. Mr. V grumbled. We fiddled with Blackberries and navigation tools and drove to another park 10 minutes away, where tubes would be irrelevant but where there is a natural spring fed pool for swimming. There, we were greeted by another line and a 'overfull' sign. Vee became despondent. Mr. V and I adopted the "goddamnit this is a vacation and we WILL have fun," attitude that has driven so many movies to box-office success.

We returned the tubes (nice guy gave me a refund) and drove around aimlessly for a bit until we came to a canoe rental "operation." Guy tells us how much to rent a canoe, that it will take 4 hours to "canoe" (which he assures us can really just be floating) down the river where a bus will pick us up and bring us back to the car.

Fine. Ok. Canoeing. We have minimal water and sunscreen and no bug spray but THIS WILL BE FUN.

I've never been in a canoe before y'all. I shouldn't have been in front really.

So, there we go. This was not a river one "floats" down. 85% of it was incredibly narrow and full of "s" turns. We had to paddle pretty much the whole time. It took us 5 hours, more or less constantly paddling (someone, in fact, someone who can't use internet resources well enough to plan a trip to a tubing park by finding out that you really have to get there by 9am, seems to think that part of our problem was due to my over-paddling; it's my way). And I don't know how much fun it was for Vee, who went from mentally prepared to tube and swim all morning to sitting in the middle of a canoe and getting snapped at when she jumped around too much lest she capsize us.

However, hooboy the nature. We were 5 feet from 6 foot-long alligators in the side of the river at several points (which made for some *real* nervous getting out to pee in the river moments), right next to grazing deer, gliding by families of turtles, and following blue heron. The water was crystal clear and cold. It was beautiful, even if I can't move my arms today.

********

When we got to the marina, we had to wait for about 30 minutes for the bus with other river-tired canoers. I immediately got out and made my way over to the bathroom area (there hadn't been any certifiably gator-free zones for awhile). A woman was in front of me, sort of trotting, and the guy she had been canoeing with, who was behind me, whistled and said, "Woowhee, look at that! Is that ass mine? Holy shit!" She turned and giggled, and I nearly stepped in my own sick.

5 minutes later, this same guy, a really big guy, started fighting with his kid, maybe 16. He was screaming at this kid, right up in his face, really aggressive and threatening. Everyone stared. The kid tried to talk once in awhile but got shouted down. He had tears, his face was all blotchy. I watched, glad that Vee was off by the water's edge throwing pebbles with her dad and wasn't seeing this. As he got closer and closer to the kid's face I got more enraged. I walked off to an area where I had seen park security standing and explained that a man was being incredibly aggressive and verbally abusive to his kid, it was a real spectacle, I was worried for the kid's safety, etc. The "cop" came over and quietly talked to the douche, who quietly talked back. My sincere hope that he would hit the officer did not pan out. After 5 minutes, the security guy left and the asshole went back to getting in his kid's face, this time more quietly. The boy looked so desperate and so filled with hate and humiliation. I felt stupid and helpless and useless. We all sat on the bus staring at each other and I knew I would spend the rest of the day thinking about what happened when they got home.

**********

I have been circulating an email to some people asking for help thinking of people who might be in a position to take a one-year position at my school to fill my classes for next year (is this you? Email me). One of the emails went to a person who had been on my committee and contained, naturally, an update about why the classes needed filling, where I had taken a new job, when we were moving, etc. This former mentor wrote back, beginning the email with the observation that I would be "wasted" at this new school, but that wanting to have my family together is "understandable." This was, I've no doubt, intended as a compliment.

So, What's New with You?

2010-06-10T05:37:00.005-07:00

As per the schedule laid out here, we have embarked on our first 2 weeks in a vacation location. We've been here since Friday. Mr. V is going to work, Little V and I are biking to the park and sweating. Little V watches a lot of TV, I stare blankly at my computer thinking of things I should do.

I did, however, also per that schedule, get a chapter revised and sent out before we left and have written a lot of words for this introduction thing. So I did some shit. The cigarettes? Don't ask. Not just yet.

It's hot enough here to have melted all the good neural links. I just graze over the internet, not really seeing or thinking anything much, just kind of floating like a tar ball. I blame the humidity. And also the home of All the Licensed Characters a Little Girl Loves (Despite Her Mother's Best Efforts), a place whose gravitational pull is so strong that I found myself there on Sunday, taking fucking photos and buying shitty ice cream and putting the kid on a fucking flying carpet ride. You need the perspective as a kid, right? To really be able to marvel at how garish it all seems as an adult?

I'm taking her to the Gulf tomorrow. I'm hoping it makes a bigger impression, given it's as likely that, when she's an adult, it will seem just as different and cheapened as the former Place Which Shall Not Be Named.

Anyway, it all means I don't have much to say about things in the big wide world. I watch videos. Pace Sady, the new Gaga video is weak tea, which is not good for my grand plan to scrap all the stuffy scholarship and go full in on Gaga studies. I think about the Peruvian justice system, where apparently a "crime of passion" (umm, really?), like, say, murdering some woman on the anniversary of when you murdered some other woman, gets you 7 years, but robbing the same woman before you murder her gets you life. I think about how much I hate the HuffPo.

And there you have it. Well, except for this one development I've been coy about but I should just bring you into the circle.

You'll never guess.

I got a job offer. In the town we used to live in and where Mr. V can work full-time and where we've put a house with a wraparound porch under contract.

I've got feelings about this development, internet. Big ones. Some of them are sad ones about leaving a job that I like with coworkers and a chair whom I adore and new friends who have been so good to us. But most the big feelings involve total relief. That we can be still for some time, that I can go to yoga on Tuesday nights again, that I can worry about other ways we are fucking up our kid beyond the missing-daddy-so-much routine, that I will have my partner back around for average nights of the week. I also have some minor nagging feelings about, oh, starting a new job with new classes and new preps and moving, again, and having to pack up and organize despite being in this ridiculous town where I don't live for the next 1.5 weeks and being committed to a vacay with Mr. V's family for the last week of June. I can keep that to a dull roar mostly, but, as I said, not the time to ask about the cigarettes.

So there's my news then. I am happy-feeling. Just wanted you to know.

What It Don't Get I Can't Use

2010-06-03T19:19:00.001-07:00

Whilst honoring the Sacred Dead, I drank a lot of beers with my weekend guests. Also, many cups of wine. Pinot Noir from the Williamette Valley, if you're taking notes.

Naturally, we considered the great events and issues of our time, among them the hardships of the current and protracted Great Recession.

There was widespread agreement that the single greatest hardship was the shortage of money.

Several of our number are unemployed and have been unemployed past the 99 week mark, the point at which unemployment compensation ceases. We discussed the chances the Congress would extend eligibilty for unemployment comp, given that half the unemployed have been unemployed for over a year. We rate those chances low.

There were those who missed their jobs, of course. Any group will contain its percentage of fanatics. Waddya gonna do?

Mostly, though, it was the money from the job that was missed. Jobs will come and jobs will go. The need for money, though, that persists through good times and bad.

The discussion turned to the need for music for hard times. Where are the pop songs that capture the spirit of the Great Recession like Billie Holiday captured the spirit of the Great Depression?

So, after a few more beers and a few more cups of Pinot Noir, we started nominating tunes for these times. We only came up with a few as, by this time, we were pretty deep into the Pinot Noir. Still, I offer them for your consideration and invite you to nominate your own recessionary anthems in comments.

For the Love of Money - I mean, if you're going to list songs about money, you better have this one on the list. It better be number one. Plus, is there a more instantly recognizable bass line anywhere? No, there is not.

Everything Going Up - This was my nominee. I love Mel Waiters. He's got a real Old School sensibility. And I'm the Old School Fool.

Money Too Tight to Mention - Nominated by one of my brothers. My favorite English band after the Beatles. And before the Specials. And neck and neck with UB40.

Money Money - Again, how you can have a list of songs about money and not have this on the list? You can't. Plus, the Beatles.

I Need Some Money - I might have linked this in an earlier post. That's cause Eddie Harris is one my favorite artists. Moya's caught the Eddie Harris bug. She nominated this one. And she doesn't even drink wine.

Dad gets another lesson in feminism: on raising strong daughters

2010-06-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

Talking with my dad allows me to say some things children and parents normally don't have a chance to say to one another unless one of them is on a deathbed. So today, I told him how his and mom's messages about our bodies basically created some of the issues my sister and I have with intimacy. And his brain exploded.

"What did you expect, Dad?" I said. "We grew up in a religiously strict Baptist home, we were taught Satan was real, we were going to hell if we touched ourselves, our bodies were dirty, sex was bad and that boys were rapists. So, yeah - we're gonna have some issues with men when we grow up!"

"Ahhh, well. I don't know," he stammered. "I don't know if I agree with all of that. But we can talk about that later."

"Dad, L- and I still talk about how traumatized we were when you told us about sex. It was graphic!"

"I was just trying to protect you from the little knuckleheads down the street!"

"We were eight! Don't tell us about being snatched off the streets, thrown on a dirty mattress in a van and having some little boy put their fingers in our bodies! That was terrifying!" (And nevermind where a little boy would get a van in the first place...)

"I was being a father! We lived in South Central - not some fairy land."

"Well, congratulations, Dad! You told us our bodies were fodder for rapists - who, apparently, lived down the street, went to school with us and walked the sidewalks! Nice going." I said. "We were EIGHT! Dude, didn't anyone back then read books about child development? Didn't you guys have Good Touch/Bad Touch?"

"What's that mess?"

And so on.

Anyway, things are not going well with my sister's marriage; she has admitted to Dad that she has hated how men look at her, which has prompted Dad to ask where her attitude comes from.

"Are you kidding me?"

"I'm serious, Delia Christina. I don't understand it."

I tried to explain how oppressive it is growing up a girl where you're taught that Bad Things will happen to you because of what's between your legs, how this reduces a girl to an object and tells her that SHE is the cause for a man's violence and perversion; but he didn't get it, quite. I told him it was like being under surveillance, all the time.

I said, "You raised us to be afraid, not strong. See the difference?"

My sister and I heard the same messages growing up. But I know what made the difference for me. Feminism. If that kind of awakening hadn't happened to me, I would still be struggling with my body, my value, my worth. I know that I've had a reputation for being a ball-busting man-hater, but I'd rather be a so-called man-hater than a woman afraid of her own body and desire.

But this, I think, is the conundrum of raising daughters. If you know that this world is full of violence against women and girls (which it is, in horrible, horrific ways) then how do you prepare your daughter to face it? And then, how do you raise them to face it without making them afraid of themselves, their bodies - how do you raise a daughter to live without shame?

Mothers and fathers raising daughters, I'd love to hear from you on this one.

Happy Memorial Day!

2010-05-28T13:32:00.001-07:00

Kind of an oxymoron, I know but, still, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Its a nice long one. You can stay out late. You can sleep in late. You've earned it.

At the little house on the flowage, we're honoring the Sacred Dead in the customary American Way. Water balloon fights in the morning, softball in the afternoon, booze-up, BBQ, and karaoke in the evening.

Summonses for violating county noise ordinance Tuesday morning.

The house is crammed. Friends and relatives have homed in across a three state area. Presently there are eleven adults, two teenagers, seven kids under the age of nine plus the regular household staff.

I'm not exactly sure where everyone is sleeping. All I know is my entire well ordered routine is undone. Entirely.

This morning I woke up with two little boys curled up next to me and I know they weren't there when I retired for the evening. By the time I got their tooths brushed, faces scrubbed, and butts parked at the kitchen counter for breakfast, there were three more shorties, mouths tipped open like house finch nestlings, chirping for the morning worm or, in this case, fried egg, to be flung into the gaping maw.

Once I had them egged and juiced and corn-flaked and packed off to back yard with blistering admonitions and dark threats of severe punishment if they didn't stay 20 or 30 yards back from the shoreline, another squad, like a third hockey line, had filled the benches along the kitchen counter and were shrieking their breakfast orders.

Not all our time has been spent breaking the night's fast. Several of the young persons accompanied me to a nearby cemetery where we helped to flag veterans' graves. On the way over I talked a little bit about what we were going to do and why we were going to do it. I warned them to behave themselves and show respect for the people laid to rest.

I was, nonetheless, worried about their deportment but, you know, they acquitted themselves soberly and (relatively) quietly. When one of their number did forget him or herself, hollering or capering about, the others shooshed with authority and restored the gravity of the undertaking.

There was not a lot of chatter on the way home.

Well, that's not true. There was the usual amount of chatter but none of it really penetrated my reverie without the chatterer raising the volume a goodly bit and repeating the query, Uncle Taddy, are you listening to me?

I wasn't. I was thinking of my buddy Spoon and how he would have loved messing around with a pack of kids. How he would have had so much fun with them and how they would have had so much fun with him. The way I remember Himself, he was a half a kid anyway.

Of course, he had only just emerged from kidhood when he lost everything in Thua-Thien-Hue province.

When we lost him.

And that's what I was thinking. Spoon should be here. That's the way to honor our Sacred Dead. Keep them alive. Keep the country out of these useless, endless, pointless, colonial wars.

Then we can enjoy our beers and BBQ on a beautiful Memorial Day Long Weekend. With Spoon and the rest of them.

Here's to you Spoon! Slainte, brother!

It's the money, stupid

2010-05-26T12:05:00.003-07:00

Sigh.

Take it from this former-professor-turned-stay-home-mom-with-gardening-aspirations: "feminists" didn't "denigrate foodwork."

Nor are "untold generations of men" to blame for "not getting into the kitchen." If you want to blame untold generations of men, blame them for creating capitalism, dammit, not for refusing to cook.

The real issue for modern feminisM is, and always was, the social and economic s tatus of women *as a class*. Housework comes into it because housework, in a capitalist society, is unpaid--which means that "women's work" makes "women" both economically vulnerable/dependent and socially inferior. Housework, in fact, doesn't count as "work" because it doesn't generate income.

THAT's the issue. And that's why all the locavore / slow-cooking stuff, at this point, is associated with the upper middle class: because it only "counts" socially if it generates money. Reduce/reuse/recycle, same thing: sure, poor people have done this all along, but no one's writing about that shit: it's only important socially if it can somehow be monetized, either in terms of savings or by getting consumers to purchase recycled goods (which, like organic / locavore food, bizarrely cost *more*--and yes, I understand why, but again: not when poor people do it, it doesn't).

Which is why, although I liked Lindsay's take on this NYT article, I ultimately wasn't entirely comfortable with it (and hence started and abandoned a blog post about it back when it was published a couple of months ago). Being a stay-home-mom is *not* an economically sensible move, no matter how much damn money you think you're "saving" by growing your own vegetables and keeping chickens.

But it is--or at least, has the potential to be--a kind of critique of capitalism, if not an actual political movement. To fulfill that potential, urban gardeners and (shudder) "femivores" would have to start recognizing and making common cause with farmworkers and domestic workers. Envirohipsters would have to start forming alliances with the poor people they shop alongside at Goodwill.

I wonder, though, if it works the other way (and I'm hoping Taddy and Delia, specifically, will comment on this, as the bloggers who work in farming and political advocacy, respectively). I don't see that farmworkers and domestics, who already have political organizations and representation, need to do any kind of "outreach" to suburban gardeners in order to establish themselves *as* political players--though I wonder if that kind of move might (or is, for all I know) generate new donors. And while I think that educated, environmentally aware urbanites are fairly likely to be politically active, and even to think of themselves as poor, I don't think that that young, dumpster-diving urbanites, as a group, are particularly likely to actively support, say, the Southern Poverty Law Center or the Children's Defense Fund. (Although even as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that in fact most of the poor young people I know are extremely involved in local organizing, so I'm quite likely wrong. Still, what I'm trying to get at is the kind of duality that The Onion mocks here, where young, single, educated, white folks organize "for" groups that are often older, parents, less educated and browner. Or am I stereotyping?)

In any case. My point is that it irritates the hell out of me when I see an argument about feminism in which neither side seems to actually remember that feminism isn't about what women or men "choose" to do: it's about the way society is structured.

We Gonna Shake that Wang Dang Doodle or The Fetish of Commodities

2010-05-23T03:56:00.002-07:00

Each time you think the GOP has finally perfected its stupidity, that it has reached the uppermost Everest of stupidity, that there is no summit of stupidity to overtop the height of stupidity it has currently attained, that it has ascended the last ridge of stupidity and now overlooks the broad plain of human ignorance and stupefaction, observing, with a certain smugness, the exhausted forms of the ideological sherpas and porters littering the wake of its traverse, it flings a grapple over a rocky spire rising up from the tower of stupidity above which you thought nothing could tower and begins, anew, to hoist itself to higher heights of cognitive austerity from which it may fling itself into the void of its own drooling dumb-ass-ness.

I speak, of course, of Dr. Rand Paul, GOP nominee for the United States Senate for the state of Kentucky.

Now, I've been out of range of civilization for about a week. One of my brothers and I have been floating the Chippewa River for that period, coming ashore only to revictual and refresh and barter with the locals for marijuana, whiskey, corn meal, and deer-fly repellent.
You may judge of my surprise when, upon landing for good, we discovered the political debate had been carried back to Ole Kentucky of 1964 and the re-animated ghosts of Jim Crow and the Night Riders were rallying the GOP behind the late, lost, cause of segregating the lunch counter at the Woolworth's Five and Dime.

Its enough to revive my faith in the two-Party system. No matter how inept and incompetent is my beloved Democratic Party, no matter how cynical, expedient, feckless, corrupt, and cowardly its leadership, I can always rely on the good old GOP to save it. I can always count on the GOP to demonstrate to the voters that, no matter how fucked up things are with the Democratic Party in charge, they will only get worse if the mandate of Heaven is passed to the GOP.

Thank you Republican Party. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I wish I could buy you a drink or something.

I almost feel like sending a donation to Mr. Paul's campaign.

Almost.

Apparently, it was this interview of Paul by Rachel Maddow that kicked over the beehive.
I'm sure you've seen it. Hell, even I have seen it. And if I've seen it, you have sure nuff seen it.
So, I won't go into it. There are so many things wrong with his assertions that you greatly overestimate the analytic ability of taddyporter if you think I can unwind them all. And its ground that's been covered and re-covered so many times you wouldn't think it necessary to cover it one more time.

Not that the outrages defined by Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act have been disposed of. Not by a long shot. But the notion that defiance of Title II has some basis in principles of individual self-determination or free speech (!?) has been disposed of. Many times. To the satisfaction of all except those yearning to revive the Confederacy.

Defiance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is recognized as the act of a splitter and a scofflaw. There are no defenders of Mr. Paul's position. Not even the usual suspects among GOP deep thinkers have come to his aid. Well, almost none. I believe Mr. Paul has, himself, blithered something meant to be a repudiation of his defense of Jim Crow.

He continues, however, to mingle the concepts of personal and private property, injecting confusion into the public discussion. He wants to revive the old arguments about so-called rights of property that were marshalled against the enemies of Jim Crow in the first place. He thinks he can trick voters into believing GOP opposition to desegregation isn't violent or racist or anti-American but based on defense of some abstract and mistaken belief in the rights of property.

Even when property is employed to harm citizens, the GOP will defend the right to do damage; I disagree with your destruction but I will defend to the death your right to destroy.

Here's the deal; personal property is a thing, a possession. Private property is a relationship, a concept of ownership that treats an enterprise as if it were personal property.

Even if the enterprise is organized as a for-profit business subsisting on the labor of thousands of workers and the savings of thousands of investors, the convenient fiction of private property permits treatment of the enterprise as if it were the creature of a single proprietor, subsisting on the labor and savings of a single individual. Absurd, I know, but there it is.

Confusing the two categories, personal property and private property, leads or rather, misleads, to the error that the owner of private property may dispose of it as she or he desires. The owner may serve who they want and may exclude who they want. It is, after all, their property.

But, you know, it tis and it tisn't, as my grandmother would've said.

Any profit making enterprise depends on the wider community for its profits. Even if you believe the capitalist mode of production is the highest form of human economic organization, it must be understood that no profit making enterprise stands on its own.

The enterprise depends on the fire and police protection provided by the public organs of order. It relies on commerical codes to regulate its transactions. It relies on courts to enforce its contracts. It relies on public thoroughfares to carry on its commerce. It relies on public utilities to provide heat and light. It relies on public sewage and water treatment systems. It assumes that clean air and water and soil will be guaranteed. It relies on a standard system of weights and measures. It relies on a public currency into which all commodity values can be translated.

Private property is embedded in a vast web of goods and services provided by the public and its agents, without which, profits would be impossible. No business could carry the expense of providing all the services required for its operation and many of those services are simply beyond the reach of a single private property enterprise, no matter how vast.

The public provides these goods and services for the consumption of all because we know a well ordered community provides a living for us all. We do not begrudge the private property owner's profiting from the public goods. We encourage it.

However, having benefited from the public's largesse, the private property owner may not exclude custom from their property for any reason other than ability to pay.

After forty-five years, you think the GOP would have learned this. Its the salvation of the Democratic Party they do not. Or will not.

Against the Name Change: a Polemic

2010-05-21T10:20:00.007-07:00

By popular demand! A couple days ago, I was having a conversation with a few Twitter friends about name-changing. As most of you know, I'm getting married soon--only a couple months now! But I'm not changing my name. I think the last time I seriously thought that I would change my name upon getting married, I was in high school. I've been pretty unswervingly anti-name-change for quite a while, and I didn't seriously consider it for even a moment after I got engaged. So, while it seems obvious to me, I guess people are hungry for a post about it, since when I said "obviously I should blog about this," I got many tweets, direct messages, and even emails telling me that I really should.

I know I will get a lot of flack for this. I know I will offend readers and upset them. Even ones I really care about (sorry, guys. I really do love you). But, you know, I gotta be me. I'm not going to go and criticize women who changed their name ten years ago. What's done is done. However, I will continue to encourage any woman who has not already changed her name to NOT DO IT. To that end, I want to first debunk all of the arguments I've seen in favor of the name change.

First, a CAVEAT: I know there are men who change their names to their wife's name after getting married. However, the number of them is so small that, for all practical purposes, they might as well not exist. The existence of occasional exceptions does not prove the absence of major cultural phenomena which, face it, we can all agree on: the vast majority of women change their names when they get married, and the ones who don't either keep their birth name or hyphenate. For the most part, I would guess at least 90% of the time, men keep their own names. I would provide statistics, but I can't find any, because people haven't really studied this issue.

Now, to the arguments!

1. It's my father's name. No it's not. It's your name. It's the name you were given at birth, and the name you have had and pronounced as yours for twenty or thirty or forty or however many years now. Let's say you were named Shannon, after your father, who was also named Shannon (it used to be more popular as a man's name). Would you just give up your first name with no protest, because hey, it's your father's name! No, when a name is given to you, it becomes yours. I don't care whether the name originally belonged to your father, your grandfather, or fucking Adolf Hitler, it's yours now. You can tell this argument is bogus because it's almost never used in service of men changing their names. Funny how that works. Also, it doesn't make sense. Yes, taking your father's last name is a patriarchal naming tradition. But taking your husband's name upon marriage is a way more patriarchal tradition that is based on the notion that women belong to their husbands and give up part of their identity when you get married. Whereas, when you're born, you don't really have an identity. The two things are just not in the same league.

2. I'm not that attached to my name. That's because you were born into a culture where women are expected to change their names upon getting married, where an unmarried woman is regarded as an incomplete person who hasn't really grown up yet. Ever heard a man say "I'm not that attached to my name"? Maybe, but you don't see them saying that and then deciding to just give it up. No, what you are doing is you are using this as a justification for a default rule which, as we all know, is bogus.

3a. I want to have the same name as my children. Assuming this is a reasonable goal, that's not a justification for choosing the default of changing your name to your husband's. Just as easily, your husband could change his name to yours and you could name the kids after you. But, once again, we hardly ever see this argument used toward this end--it's another justification for the default rule, which really means "I don't want to make waves."

3b. I want to have the same name as my children. I actually don't think this is a valid reason. Why is it necessary to have the same name as your kids? No one has ever been able to give me a straight answer. Where I come from, which is a culture way more patriarchal than this one, kids don't have the same name as their fathers OR their mothers. A child takes his dad's first name as his last name. And yet! There is no family destruction! Somehow, everyone knows who is related to who. The schools do not implode because they can't figure out which parents and which kids go together. I think this need is an excellent demonstration of burgeoning American anxiety about the new cultural reality: there are many different kinds of families, lots of step-parents and divorces and legal guardians. Thus, people want to have the same names to reassure themselves that they belong together. No, unlike all those other things, this is real. It's a way of signaling that your bond with your kids is biological or "real" in a world with a lot of fluid families. But when you support the notion that biology is the most important factor in forming a family, you are supporting a harmful status quo that privileges heterosexual, married, biological families. I want all kinds of families to get social, political, and economic support and validation. Don't you?

There also seems to be this bizarre aversion to answering questions. "People will be confused," the name changers say. So what? It's a confusion that is really easy to clear up. If you are named Mary Smith and your daughter is named Candice Jones, and someone cocks an eye at you, you just say "I kept my name when I got married." EASY. Or whatever short explanation applies to whatever you decided to do. See how easy that was? The world did not fall apart. You are going to get questions that are way more annoying that that from the kid that you just had. Frankly, I think that a lot of the reason that women who changed or are planning to change their names get angry at people who are anti-name-change, like me, is because they picked the choice that they thought they would never have to defend, and not having to defend it was a major draw. It seems like the easy choice. I get that. But that doesn't make it the right one.

4. I want to change my name to show my husband that I love him. I don't even know what to say about this one. I don't understand why you need to change part of your identity, the name you are known by, how you think of yourself, for love. Aren't you showing him you love him by getting married, by agreeing that you want to spend a non-insubstantial part of your time, energy, and money for your entire life on him?

5. I want the world to know that we're a unit. Great! I don't see why you're going to need to change your name for this. Once again, him changing his name would accomplish the exact same thing, and I don't see this argument being used to support men changing their names. But, to be honest, I think having the same name is kind of a ridiculous litmus test for people being a unit. People are going to know you're a unit, no matter what you are named. Because you are going to show up at a party, or a family reunion, or at the parent teacher conference, and you are going to say "This is my husband, Joe." Done! Everyone knows. How you act, what you do together, and the fact that you love each other is going to be way more important than what you're named. As I explained about, the notion that you need to have the same name to be regarded as a unit is an improper, illiberal, unjust privileging of married heterosexual families and partnerships over all other kinds of families and partnerships, a privilege I reject.

6. It reminds me of my commitment. This is another one I don't get. Do you really need a reminder? Are you going to forget that you are married? Are you that worried about your ability to stay monogamous (if, indeed, monogamy is your goal. It isn't mine, but I realize a lot of people prefer it)? No, again, this is another bogus reason that is used to support the default. Men do not need to change their names to remember that they are married. Why do you need to?

7. It's easier. Actually, as far as I can tell, it's not. Look, for example, at this helpful list of things you should do to change your name. Does that sound easy to you? It sounds like a real pain in the ass. I guess the "it's easier" part is that if you call the credit card company and say you are someone's wife, they'd be more likely to believe you if you have the same last name. But in this age of pre-authorizations and security, how often do situations like that come up? Also, if the credit card/bank account/insurance/car loan isn't in both of your names, then it's in his name, which means he should be taking care of his own damn business anyway. Problem solved!

8. It's tradition. This is the real reason, that's at the bottom of most of these reasons. It's usually more than enough for people who don't think about gender a lot. But liberal women and feminists have spent most of their time arguing that tradition is stupid, and so that's why they have to resort to the reasons above. But the fact is that women changing names at marriage is one of the most traditional traditions of all. And it's a bad one. It's based on the idea a woman goes from belonging to father to belonging to husband, that regards the man as the head of the family, that regards women as inferior to men, that assumes that the public sphere is for men and the private sphere is for women. And when you decide to change your name, you are supporting and enforcing that tradition. You just can't make this choice in a vacuum.
-------------------------------------

Now that I've sufficiently demolished the case for changing one's name, which I must confess, I find to be a very flimsy case indeed, here's the case for keeping one's name. It's a sign of autonomy in a world where women are still regarded as inferior and are expected to defer to their husbands. It requires that you do no paperwork. It requires that you make no announcements about your new name, or that you ever have to visit the Social Security Administration related to your name. Your old friends will still be able to find you. All the work that you've already done under your name will continue to be identified with your current self. You will be, in your small way, working to change the culture of male-dominated families and male-dominated societies. Even those dreaded questions, that people will ask you, will give you an opportunity to present a different model and advance the cause of gender equality.

Plus, you'll be kind of an iconoclast, until everyone else starts doing it. And who wants to follow tradition? Come on, we all know tradition sucks.

silence.

2010-05-17T17:38:00.002-07:00

"the police threw a “flash bang” through the front window. it blinded everyone inside; it lit aiyana on fire.

the news reported a tussle with the grandmother, during which the firearm discharged. everyone in the family says there was no tussle, that the grandmother was throwing herself over the baby when aiyana was shot in the head.

what do you call the blinded, terrified groping of a grandmother who knows her grandchildren are in the room, blasted from safety and sleep into chaos and danger, whose granddaughter is on fire? how do you comfort a man like aiyana’s father, which was forced to lie face down in his daughter’s blood by the same police officers who killed her?

the police shot and killed aiyana. they shot her in the forehead. her family saw her brain on the couch. by accident, perhaps. which doesn’t even matter to a 7-year-old. you don’t get let off any hooks for your intentions in this case, officer." (source)

I want all of us to think about how often these 'accidents' happen.
I want all of us to think about where these 'accidents' happen.

Because they aren't happening in New Trier.
They aren't happening in Westwood.

Then I want you to think about those to whom these 'accidents' occur.

And that's all I want you to do. Think.
No talk. No discussion.

Because I am too goddamn angry to say another word about this.

Bad Feminist

2010-05-14T10:46:00.002-07:00

Thank god for this must-read piece in IHE today. I very seldom keep up with academic news any more, but an old Internet friend posted the link on FB. It happens that she herself is also an unemployed adjunct, but I probably only clicked it because in my head she's filed under the category "mommy" rather than "academic"--I met her online via a mommy forum--and "mommy" is where most of my identity lies these days.

Which, you know, I'm not all that thrilled about. I'm quite happy with my actual *life*. More so than when I was an academic. But it bugs me that my public identity is so limited. PK will be off to college in 10 years, and what the hell will I do then? I'm fairly happy channelling my training and skills into supporting the teachers at PK's school, but it's K-8; I don't see myself hanging around on the PTO once he's off to high school.

On a day-to-day basis, though, that stuff doesn't worry me much beyond hoping I don't sound like an asshole when I use the phrase "as an educator" during a PTO meeting, or feeling embarrassed when the guy at the plant nursery asks me about the title "Dr." on my debit card. What bugs me more is the feminist problem: having no money of my own.

That and the exchange I had yesterday with Pseudonymous Kid, who wants to be an amateur scientist--ie, to do pure research without being beholden to a university--when he grows up.
PK: But how can I do that?
Me: Well, you can get a different job for money, like working in a restaurant.
PK: But how would I get people to give me money for a lab, or fancy equipment? It seems like the days of the amateur scientist are over.
Me: Well, that's why most researchers work at universities these days. You get a lab and you can do research, but you have to teach.
PK: But that's not an amateur like people used to be.
Me: No. Back during the Renaissance, amateur scientists were usually people who had inherited money. But nowadays, you need to get a job. Unless you want to marry someone rich*.
PK: No way. That's for lazy people. I want my own job.
Me (slightly stung): Well, wait? I don't have a job. Am I lazy?

He's right, though. Amateur educator I may be, these days, but it boils down to the money, which for most of us means a job. Which more and more seems to me like THE modern feminist problem. We live in a capitalist world. With money of one's own, one can buy not only a room, but solutions to most "women's problems." Abortion access? Not an issue if you have money. Political influence? Write a fat check, or several; hell, start your own news outlet (just please make it better than HuffPo). Work/life balance? Hire a housekeeper and a nanny. Domestic violence? Move the fuck out of town, and/or hire a private detective and a good lawyer, even a bodyguard.

But like I said, most of this stuff doesn't bug me in my day-to-day life. Because in my day-to-day life I have a husband with a good job; I married rich. Which is great, for me. But it doesn't quite solve anything on a *systemic* level; after all, if he gets sick of me, or I him, there goes that. I might be able to get alimony and PK (along with child support), but only if he were generous, or if I went through long and ugly court bullshit (and how would I pay for a lawyer?).

If you were thinking, a couple of paragraphs ago, that domestic violence is a little trickier than that, or that having money might solve most of A woman's problems, but that Feminism is more about systemic injustice than whether or not a small group of individual women can buy their way out of (or into) Teh Patriarchy, well, of course. But like I said, on a day-to-day basis I'm good; it's only when I think more broadly, about my public and social identity, that I start to feel like being a housewife, rather than a professor, is a problem.

Of course, even with a job, one ultimately depends on The System, as a hell of a lot of people have been finding out lately. The article above is pointing this out, too: like the newly laid-off middle class, adjunct faculty have been confronting the fact that the personal ultimately depends on the political for a while now.

Which, as I started off saying, is a thought that makes my own personal situation feel a little better. At least in the sense of assuaging my guilt about having "chosen" to leave academia--which I didn't. I just chose to leave a single job. The fact that that decision jettisoned my career? I blame the system.

As another FB friend--in this case, also a mama-academic I met online, but differently; she's a blog reader who, it turned out, was also a buddy of one of my underemployed local PTO mom friends--also pointed out today via a link, the system makes bad feminists of us all.

So, ok.

2010-05-12T05:50:00.012-07:00

This is going to be long.

No lie, the thread on that post below about friends and their relationships to one's kid made me feel crazy. And it's come up again enough that I want to take a few to revisit, revise, clarify. In a long and intertextual way. I didn't give that much space to the claims about kids and bigotry in the original post because, frankly, I didn't think they were all that controversial. They are, in large part, rehashes of shit B has written here for years. Some examples ...

From this post:

Why do we take the institutional status quo as authoritative, as normative even, and NOT take basic facts of human biology as authoritative and normative? Yes, individuals can choose not to have children. More power to them. But collectively, on both the social and species level, we cannot make that choice. Being living creatures and all. Moreover, the economic disadvantages of having kids pretty much accrue because we've all agreed to alienate our labor. Ok, fine, but let's don't pretend that it is the children, rather than the social structure, that is the "choice."

From this post:

[Children] are human beings. Actual members of society. Who, yes, happen to be in a dependent position. Nonetheless, inasmuch as they are members of society, they have a claim on society to help care for them in their dependence so that they do not starve. Now, since they have parents, there are many aspects of their dependence that society needn't bother with: y'all don't have to wipe Pseudonymous Kid's ass, you don't have to give him his bath, you don't have to read him mouse books over and over and over again. [...] But yeah, goddamnit, you do have to deal with his presence in public spaces, even if he's acting like a little turd; you do have to recognize that because I have all that other stuff to do, I might be slightly less at the disposal of my employer for a few years (then again, no one should be at the disposal of their employer 24/7 anyway); you do need to deal with the times when I bring him into work because there is work I can't put off and there is no one else who can care for him on that day; and you do, I think, have an obligation to figure out social and economic policies that take into account the fact that this is not only my life, but the life of most adults at some point sooner or later. And in exchange, my friends, I and he have an obligation to deal with you when you have had a shitty day and are being a turd in a public space; or when you have to leave work early to pick up a friend at the airport or because you have opera tickets or a hot date; or when you have to call in sick; or when your illness turns out to be acute and far more expensive than any individual can afford; or when you get old and need to retire, and yadda yadda yadda.

And note this: I am not saying you have to deal with children because someday they will deal with you; or that other people have to deal with you because you have dealt, or will at some point deal with them. I am saying we have to deal with each other because refusing to do so is wrong, anti-social, anti-human. Everything else comes after that.

And then this one:

[T]his "children are okay, as long as I never have to deal with them" thing--including the resentment of people who get "more" resources because their health insurance covers their family, or because their kids get tuition breaks at the colleges where they teach, or who breastfeed in public, or whatever. Children are part of society. They are human beings. They are not exotic pets. They get to go into restaurants; they get to eat in places other than public bathrooms; they get to have bad days; they get to have their needs met, too.

Yes. Kids have certain needs that are specific to being kids. [...] Admittedly, other people are inconvenient sometimes.

Now, to what I wrote. I want to pull out the paragraph, the one of thirteen, that everyone responded to:

Now, maybe I meet someone who doesn't necessarily dislike Little V in a personal way but who is "not really a kid person." And here I mean not necessarily someone who doesn't want to have kids or who doesn't have any experience being around kids or someone who lives a lifestyle that doesn't produce any exposure to kids. I mean someone who is expressive about a "I don't really like kids" attitude or a "I hate going to restaurants or museums where kids are making noise" attitude or a "of course it's fine for other people to have kids but I don't want to be around them" attitude. This sort of thing is a deal-breaker for me. I've gotten pretty rigid about it in recent years as I become more assured in my certainty that it's an anti-feminist attitude and you suck if you hold it. Kids are a vulnerable, disempowered, inevitable portion of the human community and you do not get to "not like" them or to wish that weren't a part of your public space. Not allowed. I invite you to swap out "kids" for any other disempowered community in the above phrases ("women," "schizophrenics," "hispanics," "the blind") and notice what an asshole you sound like. If you are the type to espouse this position, you and I are never going to be close.

There were several comments I made that I feel like expand on this helpfully, and there were lots of comments by readers, both helpful and not, that nicely illustrate some of the problems here, but the post is getting way too long, so I'm gonna not pull them. Instead, I will condense and reiterate some things -

I do know that my rhetoric got increasingly polemical as the thread went on, but seriously, y'all, that is a way measured contention up there from the original post. It would be a measured thing for my real-life self to say, let alone for Sybil Vane to write on a blog called Bitch PhD.

I understand the extent to which people understand their 'I don't like kids" attitude as connected to their feminism. One of the very important works of feminism has been to authorize non-child-bearing/non-maternal subjectivites for women, and that has only been shakily accomplished. I understand, or know of and intellectually understand at any rate, the cultural pressures for women to be mothers and to feel maternal. I endorse wholeheartedly the rejection of those pressures. I reject the naturalness of maternity or maternal feelings.

I also understand that the deployment of an analogy about hatred of other marginalized groups was problematic for people. And I understand why - an analogy implies equation or comparison, it makes a rhetorical gesture that seems to level differences and eliminate nuance. There is, of course, a reason that some people ban analogies. It's rhetorically cheap, I concede. But listen: the way I deployed it in the first place was to ask people to think about how it sounds when they say, "I hate X people." And then, by extension, to think about why it is that it sounds assholeish when they say such things. In other words, it was with awareness of the progressive sophistication of my audience (or hopefulness of it anyway), that I used the device. With awareness that bigotry and stereotypes emerge from unexamined privilege and assumptions, that the presumed sensibility of this blog's readers is such that they know enough to be too damn embarrassed to ever say something like, "I really hate it when there are a ton of deaf people at the store," and that a quick examination of the reasons *why* they would feel shameful about saying such a thing should reveal that those same reasons apply to a statement that places "kids" in the same spot.

I never anywhere suggest that the struggles or lived experience of children are equivalent to or look like even the struggles of gay people or Arab Americans or the blind. I took care not to. I can understand why the rhetorical gesture seems to veer close to this, and again, I concede it was a kind of shock tactic, but really, this is not something I suggested. I do in fact continue to think that it's intellectually credible to think about why some biases are stigmatized and some aren't. In that service I deployed the analogy.

Ok, so. Some people have pointed out that I am being an asshole by accusing people of being bigots when bigotry against children is not an actual thing that exists. In some cases, people compare the non-oppressed status of children to the actually oppressed status of gays/Jews/the disabled/whatever. This oppression Olympics game is not interesting to me. "I am actually oppressed, and any discussion of this bigotry offends me." Just not interested. Until the oppression gold-medal winner is raised up we aren't allowed to think about the runners-up? Good luck with that. Or with thinking in any way about your oppression as you use a computer and the internet and communicate in English.

Does bigotry only exist if we can measure oppressive effects? That is, if you are a bigot alone in a forest, are you still a bigot? People remind me all through the comments that they are never mean to women and children, they do their best to be civil, they just don't enjoy the time. And as I say repeatedly, whatever. I don't care what you feel really, insofar as I can't ever really know how you feel, just how you act. Act decently, that's really the baseline. But there's really no reason why I oughtn't have an opinion about the feelings you feel authorized to express. And to attach values to the source of that authorization.

Certainly no one disagrees that children are a vulnerable and exploited class. Not up for debate. And we know they are more vulnerable to all sorts of things (poor nutrition, economic disadvantage, laxly enforced regulations about product safety, insular individualistic behavior) than their adult counterparts. I don't know, as I asked in a recent comment, what precise data you would want to see if you wanted to see information about the systemic and institutional implementation of anti-kid bigotry. I assume you want to know that children suffer as a result of your hating them before you feel compelled to modify your attitude, yes? Is that a good-feeling position? Obviously, employment stats, earning potential, imprisonment rates, these are not the right metrics. I do think this should be legible to everyone: when you drop a friendship with a person because he has become a parent, when you roll your eyes or make a shitty comment to a parent or kid about that kid's (not pathological or destructive) behavior in a public place, the kid may not experience what you are putting out there, but you alienate/isolate the parent. You do. And that sense of alienation/isolation trickles down to the care the kid receives and to the messages she gets about her role in the world the role of parenting in society at large. It does.

People repeatedly justified hating kids on the basis of kidness being temporary. Those unlikeable behaviors are the result of incomplete socialization, they say, and will eventually be left behind. I will treat, this logic implies, that creature as fully human when she leaves behind her partiality. The silliness of this should be apparent - firstly, because while each individual kid may grow up, kids as a class will always exist (I think I ripped that line from Twisty but I can't look for it); secondly, because it full-on admits the figuring of childhood as something to be gotten over, a handicap to be cured of, a regrettable but necessary stage on the way to full humanity. Which, I assume, is again relinquished once one enters a stage in life, either by virtue of age, disease, or accident, when one is not capable of fully autonomous and self-contained existence. This is - and here is my most basic point - the thing you are supporting when you say, "I hate kids," and then insist on claiming it is just a social preference, a little personality quirk, perhaps one you even feel proud of, and one that no one has any business assigning a moral value to. You are contributing to the discursive reduction of children to sub-human status. Childhood is not a bad smell you get to hold your nose around until it passes. It is an iteration of humanity.

When I called this attitude antifeminist, I didn't even originally mean the thing some readers mentioned, which is the extent to which kid hatred tends to disproportionately isolate women and/or be a veiled discursive gesture towards critiquing mothering. What I mean is that as an intellectual/activist sensibility, feminism (and so here I guess I mean something more like radical feminism than cultural feminism - terms that may not really work as oppositional, but for illustration's sake ...) is fundamentally opposed to patriarchy. That is, to systems that are based on oppression/pathologizing of the powerless by the powerful.

[ETA: I just noticed that blogger published this without my final concluding paragraph - it had FLOURISH!! - which I can't find the energy to remember/retype, so I will conclude with this instead.]

Happy fucking mother's day

2010-05-09T18:32:00.002-07:00

So I just got around to reading the comment thread to this post. Jesus fuck, no wonder I hardly blog any more.

I hope Sybil is having an awesome fucking day and that all the kid-haters get therapy.

The Groove Slightly Transformed

2010-05-07T05:53:00.006-07:00

The general discourse surrounding the end of the semester is one of exhaustion. People talk of wanting to slump on their couches for days after frantically grading the last exam, or of taking 3 days to just sleep and do yoga after the last paper is commented on. I approach the end of the semester the same way I approach all transition periods: with a manic burst of organizational energy and ambition.

My opinion about whether or not you should go to grad school notwithstanding, and the puniness of my paycheck also notwithstanding, and the dehumanizing components of the profession even more notwithstanding, living life on a school schedule is sweet. Not in the "oh my, how terribly tiring it must be to spend 12 hours a week in the classroom and grade while sipping mint juleps' bullshitty kind of way, but in the 'semesters always start and end' kind of way. Everything about my person loves inhabiting rhythms. And while the manic transition is part of my own personal version of the rhythm, it probably emerges as a partial response to the part of the cycle that is more free form: a month in December/January and 3 months of summer with relatively minimal structure.

So anyhoo, I am planning a lot of shit these days, as I do in any transition. [This applies to thing like moving as well. Years ago, Mr V and I were moving overseas for a bit and needed to put a bunch of shit in storage. So we did those pod things, and they like you to be able to give a rough inventory of what's in each pod for insurance purposes. And I think most normal people interpret this as, "pod 1 has clothes and boxes, pod 2 has furniture, pod 3 has all the electronics." The end. I spent a week taping notecards to every single item in the house - "microwave"; "box of silverware"; "office supplies"; "sofa"; "bed frame." Then, when our friends came to help us move, I taped 4 gift bags to the front porch in a configuration that mirrored the configuration of the 4 pods in the driveway. As you moved your item to a pod, you simply removed the notecard and dropped it in the corresponding bag. It is no exaggeration for me to call the effective execution of this process one of the most serene and proud events of my life.] So far, here's how the vision for the summer looks:

- We are spending 5 weeks on vacation. Gah, what assholes! I know. But really: for a 2 week stretch in June and for a 2 week stretch in July, Little V, Mr V, and I are staying at rental houses in/around the town Mr. V works in M-Th. So he will still work for 4 days each of those weeks, but we will have lunches together and dinners together and much sleeping together. So, those are versions of vacation, but, I mean, I'll be spending 4 weeks in rental houses with Little V all day and not a super clear sense of what we will do with ourselves. They are definitely vacation-y locations though, so.

- We are spending 1 week at the beach with Mr. V's whole family. Yes. Yes, we are.

- This leaves me with, starting next week, 8 uncommitted weeks before school start, 5 of which I have childcare for. During those 5 weeks I want to accomplish:
- Writing the introduction to a special issue of a journal I am co-editing with a friend.
- Turn 2 diss chapters into something resembling articles and send off
- Revise an article that I sent off and had rejected in December
- Put together 3 syllabi for the Fall. All 3 are new preps.
- Read something.
- Quit smoking.

Can I do this internet? Probably not. But it makes me feel so peaceful to map it all out and fill in my google calendar with different colors. Got any good summertime plans? Are you psychic and aware of where I am spending 4 weeks of family time and aware also of nonobnoxious things I can do there? If so, call me.

policy camp day 2: when you're not a leader but ok with it

2010-05-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

It's not that much of a loss, really. I've always known that being a number 1 makes the goosebumps rise, and not in that good way. This is not to say that I am crushed or abashed. It's a confirmation. And it's not to say that I am the one who follows. The pleasant surprise in this whole day was that it confirmed that I am...uncomfortably neutral about control.

The day started with our policy elevator speeches; I was paired with the NJ Supreme Court law clerk who frankly said, "I don't think these work. But go ahead." And I laughed. Then she laughed. I got what she was saying. When she said it in the larger group though, you could feel the room pull away from her. But she stood up there and just shrugged. 'I've worked on staffs,' she said. 'And these are nice, but they don't remember these. You have to build the relationship and negotiate.'

It was a pragmatic view of the political process and the room full of advocates didn't really shine to that. For most of us, we like to think that if only folks knew the extent of the issue, that's all it takes. But it doesn't. It takes politics. And I admired her guts for saying that, for injecting an element of real politik into the morning. It was a lesson for me:

Don't get so caught up in your issue that you forget you operate in a very real world where having the facts and telling the story isn't enough.
Being the smartest girl in the room is not enough.
Being the smartest girl who knows the right people sometimes is.

I hope I stay in touch with her after this; in a few years, this woman will either be a very good, and very connected, lobbyist or a very good, and very connected, state senator, congressman or judge for New Jersey.

How was my elevator speech? Ah, it was serviceable; it won't set the world on fire but no one called it crazy.

And that's another thing; it is so incredibly nurturing here! I imagined a policy shark tank, a boot camp of sorts. But while the group discussions get heated, and positions are strenuously defended, there is always consensus to make us whole again.

Consensus. A word that used to make me itch in impatience. But now I see the use for it. In our session about Effective Teams, we had to agree on what helps or blocks teams; we couldn't take a simple vote and any disagreements had to be resolved through consensus. I found that I'm mostly ok with switching my vote. Oh, I'm wed to my position but often I will see the value of another person's view and give way. But only if their view is valuable and they made a good case for it - or if there was a greater good that could benefit and didn't depend on my position.

What was also surprising was figuring out what each of us valued in our teams. Half of us wanted everyone to contribute; the other half, only if the contribution was value-added. Most felt that conflict was a block to progress, but ok if framed as debate; most required structure and felt that personal feeling talk could be a slippery slope for losing focus. Above all, we felt it was important, no matter individual positions, for the team to enjoy working with one another.

Of course, when we compared our findings with actual research about effective teams, we discovered that some of what we preferred wasn't supported. Fascinating. Who knew conflict was a boon? Who knew that assuming equal competency levels was a block? (Lesson: always identify your weakest link and allocate resources appropriately!) It definitely made me stop and evaluate my current team and how I work in it.

Which brings me to the FIRO-B test. We all submitted an assessment before we arrived and received the results. Wow. It measured on Inclusivity, Control and Openness, on a 54-point range. (You can look up the FIRO-B to see how it works.) Spookily accurate.

I had an overall score of 14 - out of 54!! My Inclusion score was low: I prefer being alone vs. interacting with others. My Control score was also low; I like little structure, don't care about controlling others and don't give a shit about you trying to control me, because you won't. (I paraphrase.) And my Openness score was medium; I prefer some but not a lot of warmth and closeness in 1-1 relationships. Again, spookily accurate.

In other words, I'll be part of your team but only as long as I agree with the direction; as soon as my and the group's interests diverge, I will bounce. Interesting, isn't it? (Perhaps I should warn M-.)

I don't think I was the only one struck with their results. Perhaps it was seeing ourselves rendered in print that made us all head for the bar immediately after the session.

A Love Bizarre

2010-05-02T12:42:00.001-07:00

We all want the stuff
That's found in our wildest dreams
-Prince
Before chemotherapy and psychotherapy and physical therapy and presurgery and surgery and postsurgery, I had a pretty rich dream life.
There were several recurring themes.
There was taddy and the lady barber. There was taddy and the woman who worked Wednesdays at la Panaderia de Guadalajara. There was taddy and the lady letter carrier. There was taddy and Dr. Michelle, the horse vet. There was taddy and Mrs. Ibarra, Poco's first grade teacher.
There was taddy and my buddy's wife. I'm not proud of that one but, hey, I don't plan 'em, I just dream 'em.
Still and all, as you can see, a pretty diverse somnambulant universe. One had only to tuck the covers under the chin, wade through the previews of coming attractions, settle on the night's soporific stanzas, and wiggle into the downy bower of my very own fantasies.
After a couple weeks of chemotherapy, though, the whole dreamscape business went to shit. My waking hours flattened out, divided into those hours I spent dreading the approaching drip, the hours spent enduring the drip, and the hours following the drip during which I watched stuff drop off my body.
Sleep was no longer a distinct state, merely a deeper form of blockheadedness. Dreams disappeared along with my hair.
I have never slept the same since. After a few weeks to recover from chemo, I went into surgery which recreated the previous appalling conditions, only at a single shocking strike instead of over a period of a month or so.
Following surgery there was a period of intense withdrawal and self-pity, neither of which really feeds the imagination. Then there was therapy to deal with the withdrawal and self-pity. Time spent with the therapist should have given me material to deposit into my fantasy bank but only increased my appreciation for self-pity.
In the last couple weeks, my physical strength has begun to return. That has been the most important thing for improving my mood, just like I told the therapist. I have a regular physical therapy routine which used to be torture but is now paying dividends. Healthy mind in a healthy body and all that.
In another month, I should be able to go swimming and a month after that, start a weight lifting program. Once that happens, stand back, world!
My dreams have returned but not in the way I hoped. Gone are the soporific afternoons with the lady horse doctor. The happy hours spent trading lesson plans with elementary teachers have been, apparently, sent to detention.
No. Now I have spooky, demented dreams. In my dreams, I argue with myself about the dream I'm having.
The other night, I dreamt I was coming out of a building, a bar or somewheres, and I walked to the spot where I'd parked my SUV. The SUV was gone. I experienced great anxiety and, for the next hour or so, in dreaming time, I hunted all over for my SUV before concluding somebody boosted my SUV.
At this point, meta-taddy appeared and reminded me that I didn't own an SUV. Regular taddy replied that, of course I didn't own an SUV in real life but this was a dream and maybe in dreamland I owned an SUV since I always wanted an SUV but never was able to justify buying one and it could be important to the integrity of the dream to find or, at least, to believe in, the SUV.
Meta-taddy sneered (there's a lot of sneering in my dreams, too, lately). He said only a chump wants to drive an SUV, especially now. Hadn't I heard about the deep water wells blowing out and fouling hundreds of miles of coastline? Not to mention that the national appetite for petroleum is driving our whole foriegn and national security policies.
Then regular taddy says, look, its a fucking dream you fucking fuck; do we really have to have this fucking argument again for the chrissake and at that point I wake up with a pounding headache. I mean, what fun is that shit? No wonder I can't get more than two hours sleep at a time.
Send for Mrs. Ibarra. Rapido.

Mayday

2010-05-02T11:52:00.002-07:00

Dear Democratic Party:

You are in trouble.

At my local May Day pro-immigrant rally yesterday, run by the UFW, the rally leader finished up the speechifying by thanking the Anglos who had turned out, pointing out to the small and mostly Latino audience* the various white organizations/allies that were represented.

The woman representing the local Democrats had to announce her presence. "And the Democrats!" Apparently the rally leader didn't recognize her.

His response? "Yeah, well, they gotta start doing something."

When the local Democratic party rep has to announce her own presence to one of your long-time core constituencies, and the rally leader is unimpressed, you might have a problem.

*Local politics also has a problem when the division between Latino activists, in a community with an enormous Latino population, and white activists, is so strong that most of the Anglos clearly know each other from their previous campaigns/activism, and the Latinos clearly know each other from their previous campaigns/activism, but the two groups clearly don't recognize each other at all.

Other unpopular opinions I hold

2010-04-29T07:18:00.003-07:00

With credit to leblanc, who I am sure did a post like this not long ago, but I am too lazy to find it.

In addition to feeling that dogs are more valued than women and that kid-haters are bigots, I am of the opinion that:

- 7:15 is the right bedtime. Not a minute later.

- Barry Bonds is the legitimate record-holder.

- Shrimp are disgusting.

- Vincent is an incarnation of Jacob.

- Having already made a probably bad decision to write a dissertation in literature, the worst thing you could do is write an interdisciplinary one.

- Cinnamon-sugar toast only on the weekends; cinnamon-honey toast on school days.

- Chewing your toothbrush helps clean the teeth.

- Star Wars films, including originals, are in every way inferior to Star Trek films.

- The Picture of Dorian Gray is a snooze-fest.

Lets Stay Out Tonight

2010-04-27T18:07:00.036-07:00

Not since Little Richard had anyone flipped the Rock and Roll script like David Bowie.
For a fellow set as firmly in the customary Rock and Roll script as myself, Bowie was, to say the least, upsetting. He crashed into my world like the Mystery Grandfather and his two brindle hounds, Whiskey, and Bad Cocaine.
And not the good Mystery Grandfather, either. Not the Mystery Grandfather who roamed the sky before the dreamtime, back when the earth was still a human being.
No, this was the dangerous Mystery Grandfather, the one who counted coup on Rabbit Woman. The one who loosed the Shore People. The one who set free Windigo to make the spring season equal parts hope and dread.

But that's the nature of visions, isn't it? Terrifying and seductive. Repellent and irresistible. Breathless and asphyxiating. Furious and soothing.
If we are open to the visions Mystery Grandfather sends us, we know life is a gift from one minute to the next. Nothing is for sure. There's more danger than safety. There's more danger than we realize. Everything is a risk. Its possible to defer risk. Its not possible to escape it. Well, maybe there is a way to escape but that's not living.
Anyway, that's why I found David Bowie upsetting. Little Richard had been upsetting too, of course. I mean, that lipstick, the eye shadow, the bouffant hair. The flamboyant mannerisms. The screaming. Very disturbing to a nice Irish boy who wanted to play like Mud.
But even if Little Richard was hollering about Tutti Frutti, he always sang about his gal, named Sue, who knew just what to do.
Mr Bowie, on the other hand; man I didn't know what he was singing about. OK, I knew what he was singing about but who was he singing about? Who was he singing to? He flipped the script. Got your mother in a whirl? Not sure if you're a boy or a girl? Of course I loved the Hot Tramp with the cue line and a handful of ludes. But I didn't like the uncertain identity of the adored object. How could they know? Looky here, now, I got to know.
To a guitar player, though, his riffs were from heaven. Listen to two bars of any Bowie tune, and you know exactly what song it is. Hell, listen to two notes and you know.
And they weren't terribly complicated. Listen to this. Its just an open D followed by an open E, the third and fourth strings held down by the same finger, stumbling at the first then run through the humbucker with the gain turned up halfway. And its got to be one of the most instantly recognizable riffs in all of Rock and Rolldom.
The only time I ever saw Bowie perform was in Dublin on the Reality tour. Hadn't even planned to go. Tickets were a ghastly price, enough to rent a house on the beach at Youhgal for a week.
I'm not sure how my brother got a hold of them, probably better not to know. Don't know what we ended up paying but it was worth it.
He did all his classics and flipped the script again. Each one was pared down to its basic structure and performed in an austere manner, the way Dexter Gordon might have done on the first run through. The audience filled in the crashing riffs out of their own memories, like in this one. Again, one of the most powerful riffs in Rock and Roll, surgically removed and then tacked on like a vestigial tail.
So, I've learned its good to break out of the script. If we like dancing and we look divine, then the Mystery Grandfather teaches us that nothing else really matters.
Still need a good riff, though.

Insanity Defense Isn't all it's Cracked up to be

2010-04-27T10:00:00.003-07:00

Yesterday's Washington Post had an excellent piece on John W. Hinckley, the man who attempted to assassinate President Reagan.

Hinckley "lives like a kid on perpetual spring break" and "fills his free time strumming on his guitar, crafting pop songs about ideal love, or going on supervised jaunts to the beach or a bowling alley."

Some people might be outraged that someone who attempted to murder the president is living such a jaunty, care-free life. But when I read the piece, all I can think of is how our cultural conception of the "insanity defense" is grossly inaccurate. Although Hinckley's life may seem quite pleasant compared to that of your average felon in state or federal prison, he lacks the certainty of a determinate sentence. In fact, he doesn't have a sentence at all. If you win on an insanity defense, you actually aren't "sentenced," you are committed to a psychiatric facility. This commitment is indefinite. Like thousands of other mentally ill individuals across the country, Hinckley's fate is not up to him, not up to a parole board, but in the hands of a single person: the judge.

If anything, Hinckley demonstrates that "getting off" because you successfully argue insanity can often be worse than taking a plea or getting convicted at trial. Sentencing guidelines vary state by state, but in many states, individuals who are convicted of murder end up serving far less time than the 28 years that Hinckley has thus far been held. In Oregon, for example, the presumptive sentence for murder for someone with the most serious criminal history, "three or more juvenile or adult person felonies," is 225-269 months, or about 22.5 years, at the upper end. In Florida, the average time served for murder is 19.1 years.

Many states have abandoned indeterminate sentencing schemes, where an individual can only be released at the discretion of a parole board, in favor of sentencing individuals to a certain number of months or years. The theory is that this provides more structure and makes rehabilitation more likely.

This may explain why use of the insanity defense is so rare, put forth in less than 1 percent of all cases despite the fact that up to 16 percent of individuals in state prison have a mental illness. Even in the extremely unlikely scenario that the defense is successful, the accused may end up doing more time than if he'd been convicted.

dear fellow white people who think the new Arizona law is hunky dory

2010-04-26T18:05:00.003-07:00

Just because the person at the next table in that restaurant has blond hair and blue eyes doesn't mean you ought to assume that they think the same things you do, or that they are, indeed, the same version of whiteness that you are.

Where your grandfather came over here as an immigrant "and obeyed the rules," maybe mine was born in Mexico. And maybe his ancestors (and therefore mine) go back on this continent a hell of a lot longer than yours. Maybe that blonde woman at the next table traces her family ancestry back to the goddamn American Revolution via the surname "Lopez", on both sides of the now-border.

So maybe, you know, there are people within earshot who might take some of your anti-Mexican bullshit kind of personally.

And even if there aren't? You're an American, goddammit. Read your motherfucking constitution and stfu.

My classes must be over because this post is damn long.

2010-04-26T06:06:00.007-07:00

I have a friend here in this town, a dear sweet friend whom I was very close with during my MA program 10 yrs ago. We fell out of touch as I moved on to the PhD program in another place and somewhere along the way she moved to this here town where I now find myself. We've picked back up where we left off and I'm so happy for her being around. Not least of all because she loves my kid. She is, herself, childfree but maybe sorta wants to have a kid one day. But she's one of these grown-ups who is just excellent at recognizing kids as humans and assuming that they are interesting in the same ways that humans are. She takes care of Little V when I need help, solicits random solo playdates with her, and has become one of Littlw V's favorite persons.

She, my friend, we'll call her Sue, is also always curious about the experience of mothering and its various highs and lows. Last night, a few hours after the Vanes and Sue + fiance had spent the afternoon having a walk together, Sue called with a random question:

"I was just thinking abotu how much I love Little V and how I am so glad you guys are here since I would be nearly just as happy to spend an afternoon with her as I am to spend it with you. And this made me wonder: if you moved to a new place and you met someone who you thought would be a great friend, you really hit it off, etc, but it turned out she really didn't like your kid, what would that be like? Would it be a deal breaker? I am just really curious about what mothering is like in that capacity."

I've thought about it and come up with a 3 part answer that I think is sort of interesting (insofar as anything that goes on in the realm of PERSONAL WEBLOGS/MOMMYBLOGGING is actually interesting; it is, by default, more interesting than CAT BLOGGING):

1) An actual new friend who didn't like my kid: I feel like this is sort of a non-scenario, as it's hard for me to imagine a new person in my life both ingratiating herself to me and simultaneously making it clear that she doesn't like my kid on the level of discreet interpersonal relations. Because that would be really rude, right? Like, how would that become clear? Would she be mean to my kid? Or ignore her if asked a question? Or just flat out tell me, "Little V is sort of obnoxious." Would she roll her eyes and change the subject when I tried to talk about anything that had to do with my kid? All of those things, from a new acquaintance, would strike me as rude and would likely undermine the possibility of my really thinking I could be close with her.
I have relationships that don't have much to do with my kid, of course, but increasingly few. It seems to be the case that once you have a kid, and once you start a new portion of life with that kid, you really don't make the friends you used to in a way that doesn't involve the kid. When we are out on weekends as a family, the people who tend to chat us up are people who have kids around Little V's age, at the park, at a restaraunt, at the library. I consider some of my work colleagues friends; some of them have kids, some don't. But here, even those who don't are really kid friendly and the specifics of my situation have involved my asking for accomodations to manage my single-weekday parenting. So my colleague/friends watch Little V while I teach if she is feverish or invite her to department functions or entertain her during faculty meetings. I do have an old and childfree friend here - Sue - with whom to go out and do non-kiddie things, and I do that from time to time. But even the people she hooks me up with and lays friendship groundwork for are people who have kids Little V's age because she (rightly) assumes this would be a big help. So, for these reasons, it's hard for me to imagine even starting a relationship with someone in any substantive way if that person was aggressively not into my kid.

2) "Not kid types": Now, maybe I meet someone who doesn't necessarily dislike Little V in a personal way but who is "not really a kid person." And here I mean not necessarily someone who doesn't want to have kids or who doesn't have any experience being around kids or someone who lives a lifestyle that doesn't produce any exposure to kids. I mean someone who is expressive about a "I don't really like kids" attitude or a "I hate going to restaraunts or museums where kids are making noise" attitude or a "of course it's fine for other people to have kids but I don't want to be around them" attitude. This sort of thing is a deal-breaker for me. I've gotten pretty rigid about it in recent years as I become more assured in my certainty that it's an anti-feminist attitude and you suck if you hold it. Kids are a vulnerable, disempowered, inevitable portion of the human community and you do not get to "not like" them or to wish that weren't a part of your public space. Not allowed. I invite you to swap out "kids" for any other disempowered community in the above phrases ("women," "schizophrenics," "hispanics," "the blind") and notice what an asshole you sound like. If you are the type to espouse this position, you and I are never going to be close.

3) Pre-kid friends who don't like your kid: So, this is the tricky one. And the one most likely to happen. Maybe your pre-pregnancy friends are, unfortunately, people to whom #2 applies, which is to say, bigots. They don't like kids. 1 of 2 things happens here: you realize what a dick position that is and stop being friends with them in a gradual way (in part because they no doubt think you are a less interesting human for having made kids) or because they love you, they gradually soften on the "don't like kids" stance, not necessarily because your offspring is so charming but because they see you, the mommy/daddy as human and they realize that your offspring is also human and therefore not-cool to be bigoted about.

Maybe your pre-kiddo friends have their own kids and maybe your kids don't get along which kind of necessarily means they don't like your kid so incredibly much. This hasn't happened to me yet, but I suspect it will. What I imagine happens in my version of this scenario is that the parents in question realize the kid relationship isn't really gelling so they do less kid-things together and more kidd-free things together. Because, I'd like to think, if the relationship predated the kids there is sufficient motivation to not let the kids and their personality squigs muck it up.

Then there are the childfree friends who you just beat to the baby-having who genuinely love you and who genuinely intend to love your kid (and who do love your kid, obviously) but who kind of apparently on a number of occasaions don't so much like your kid. This is hard. And inevitable. Inevitable because no one really likes other people's kids all the time (to say nothing of how frequently a person doesn't like her own kids). I, for all my righteousness about kids as humans, am not all that good at engaging children who are not mine. And I tend to find the quirks of children who are not mine not especially endearing. And I certainly do not seek out opportunities to have children who are not mine in my house, under my care.

Which is to say, I understand how this reaction works. But I also understand that I work pretty hard to not make this reaction legible. Because it's not polite, expecially not in front of the other kid's parents. If a kid is just being a kid (and not, say, sticking forks in the eyes of the dog or something), it's rude to be all transparent about being uninterested in or irritated by that kid.

That said, transparency is at time inevitable if you are close enough. I have people who I have seen on many occasions kind of snap at my kid or grow impatient with her or correct her for things I wouldn't snap about or correct about. I have watched people we are close to evidence their 'not liking you this precise moment' attitude about my kid. And I embarrassed to say I have a shit emotional response to it. I KNOW it's normal, I KNOW it's healthy, I KNOW it's a component of human relationships. But when a friend reacts negatively to my kid (particularly when the reason is something that is a non-issue for me) it feels exactly and precisely like a judgment of/reaction to me.

This is an uncomfortable thing to realize. I wish it were not the case. And yet. To the extent that 'it takes a village,' it also takes accomodation of that village experiencing the entire range of emotions that a parent experiences with respect to a chaild, a range that certainly includes sheer and pointed irritation and disdain at times. Again, I am aware of the uncoolness of this reaction. It's like a heightened version of the reaction when someone doesn't like your partner and it feels like a referendum on yoru choices. Except when I see someone not liking my kid, it feels like a referendum on not only my parenting but on my actual personality. It's heinous.

I am curious about how common this is or whether many of you are more sanguine than I am about realizing that your kid is sometimes as asshole (and believe me I am well aware that mine sometimes is) and sometimes people don't like her. No big.

Jesus, this is a lot of words. Someone doesn't want to grade.

Lookin Good on the Soul Train

2010-04-24T14:16:00.012-07:00

Saturday nights used to be a big night for me. Looked forward to them all week.

There was usually a house party going on. There'd be barbeque por supesto. There'd be coolers of beers. There'd be tequila, whiskey, and vodka on the kitchen counter with all the set ups.

There'd be arguments. There'd be a lot of boasting and bragging and out and out lying.

And dancing. Always dancing. And then there was after the dance.

Its not quite the same now. Mostly cause I'm not in shape for dancing. Or after the dancing.

But I'm getting there. The desire has returned. Like it says in Shakespeare, I forget which play or was it one of the sonnets, The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Well, according to latest reports, I've got another three months to go on the present recuperative regime. And then, I'll be ready for after the dance, no matter who said it.

Los Tigres del Norte

2010-04-24T09:18:00.008-07:00

In the long run, the wasteful, disgraceful, anti-Mexican, anti-American, and anti-democratic Arizona law that orders the search and seizure of its Chicano residents may be a good thing. If not the last nail in the GOPO coffin, it might could be the second or third to last.

I mean, are there any American constituencies left for them to harass? Between this hateful police state Act and their defense of oligarchy, are they, once and for all, revealed as the party of totalitarianism?

Of course, the long run is not where we live. We must suffer the here-and-now. Or the there-and-now, depending on whether or not you live in Arizona.

I have two beautiful, brown, nieces living in Phoenix presently so I take this shit seriously. One is doing her medical residency at Maricopa County General and the other is doing baseball players' hair while she apprentices for her cosmetology certificate in that city.

Both are more hip-hop than Hispanic but you couldn't tell that by looking at them. I gather that's what Arizona law enforcement is supposed to do; eyeball the parade of residents and make a judgement as to which ones should be challenged for proof of citizenship. My nieces' granddaddy walked to this country from Guadalajara and married a woman from Catulla, Texas so, you know, they probably look, to an Arizona peckerwood, like they just strolled across the Sonora.

The fact that they are 100%, bona-fide, true blue, red-blooded Americans, who do not suffer fools lightly, means they are likely to crack wise the first time they are stopped by Arizona's newly deputized la migra. I'm not worried about them being deported. I'm worried about them being convicted of contempt of cop. Deportation has to be run through some sort of sketchy, half-assed, due process. Contempt of cop is a drumhead charge, subject to summary punishment.

Funny thing is, the people most likely to have proper documentation, whatever it is, are the undocumented. In my little, rural, Four Corners, county, I could direct you to a half dozen bars where you could buy any identity document you want. I have a friend from San Luis de Potosi who has I don't know how many Social Security numbers. Same with his wife. I've lived in this country all my life and I only have the one.

You want a driver's license? You can have it in an hour. For any state in the Union. You want a green card? By the time you finish your drink you'll be fully authorized, sanitized, and legitimized. You want a passport? Step into the parking lot of dos Hermanos. The State Department should be so efficient.

People have raised the question, and rightly so, about racial profiling; how do you know what an immigrant, an illegal immigrant, looks like?

I have a different question.

What does an American look like?

Internalized Misogyny 101

2010-04-22T07:00:00.004-07:00

I never wrote about the Amanda Knox trial when it was going on, mostly because I don't really know anything about the Italian judicial system and I didn't want to seem like an asshole. But I was riveted and disturbed. My reading of what happened at that trial and in the media coverage surrounding it (and again, don't know shit about shit), was that the evidence presented against this young attractive woman was largely that she was a young attractive and possibly slutty woman and that the apparent deviance of her sex life should be read as very clearly implicating a much more dangerous potential for deviance/violence/cold-hearted sociopathic behavior. I'm sure a lot of you (and some Italian jurors) think that is a really willful reading, but, whatever, it's mine.

So I was intrigued by the headline on this Salon piece titled "I Could Have Been Amanda Knox." What I expected was a piece premised on the notion that 'I could have been Amanda Knox' because I was once a young traveling attractive woman who engaged in what is coded as "risky behavior" for women and one thing the Amanda Knox case makes clear is the extent to which we are wedded to a good girl/bad girl dichotomy for women. Thus, I could have been her in the sense that I also could have been held accountable for crimes I didn't commit on the grounds that I like to fuck, maybe in weird ways.' Instead, the piece was more of a ' I could have been Amanda Knox insofar as i traveled as a young attractive woman and was sort of turned on by being a 'bad girl' and was a cock tease here and there and one time skinny dipped with some wackadoo Brazilians and such deviance, well, it's a slippery slope to stabbing one's roommate, that.'

Lest you think I exaggerate:

On my high school senior trip to Orlando, Fla., I snuck into a bar and flirted with a 23-year-old blond professional golfer. When he invited me back to his room, I went without pause. A virgin, it never occurred to me that this might be a bad idea. I'd broken up with my high school boyfriend the summer before, and since then had kissed plenty of boys on beaches and in convertibles, behind the shopping mall and in basement rec rooms. The golfer had more than kissing in mind, however. I drank the Michelob he offered me. I kissed with abandon. But when he took my hand and pressed it against his hard-on, I headed out the door.

"Cockteaser!" he yelled. "Bitch!"

I did not learn my lesson.

and

For most of the time, I was a good girl. But spirited. Straight A student. Yearbook editor. Student body treasurer. A sorority girl who often had a handsome boyfriend from a good family who dreamed of being a lawyer or a politician. [...] I also found myself drawn to sexy guys with something dark lurking behind their eyes. Looking back, I see that those guys and my attraction to them were fueled by being far from home, where I knew no one. There, I could do things, try things, unnoticed. I was a good girl with enough of a wild streak to make foolish decisions.

and

In the past, I had shown only passing interest in sensational murder cases, but none had felt so strangely personal. Unlike Natalee Halloway, I was not a girl who would vacation in Aruba. Unlike Chandra Levy, I was never a striver on Capitol Hill. But to live in Italy? To date foreign, exotic men? To be both a good girl and a reckless one? The beautiful young faces of Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher haunted me.

ohmygod, really? Salon, you are publishing this? Virgin/whore dichotomy much?

What if it had been us? We were foolish and naive and young. We had close calls and bad drugs and roommates who disappeared for a night with dubious strangers. But nothing bad really ever happened to young pretty girls who were basically good girls, did it? For us, that door always eventually opened and that roommate always returned, a little hung over or weary or in love. But just as we shaped the story we might have to tell the police or her unaware mother, she came home.

What if it had been us is the right question. It is us, is the answer. I don't know what Amanda Knox did, but I know the conviction of her guilt was based primarily on the exposition of her as a sexually active/aggressive woman. And I know this entire Salon piece is predicated on the idea the because the author has also been a sexually active/aggressive woman, but for the grace of god did she not commit heinous acts of depravity. 'I touched that guy's hard on once, it could've been ME crushing my roommate's windpipe!" Christ this article pissed me off. I may start using it in classes as an exercise in identifying internalized misogyny.

Away Sweet Away

2010-04-20T05:16:00.003-07:00

Though I moved into this house on the Flowage at the end of September, I haven't really got to know many people around here.

Not that I'm unsociable. No, no, no. No.

Its just that, since I got here, its been one goddamned thing after another.

In the last week or so, however, the strength of my organism has reached the point where it can support the longings of my spirit. A bout of fair weather struck this weekend, without warning, and I was able to toodle down the road, a half mile or so, to the local public house for a jar and a bit of conversation.

I repaired to The Possum Eater's Inn and managed to fall in with a bad crowd, which is to say, a good crowd.

I met a fellow devotee of Dexter Gordon. I met the neighborhood cannabis hook-up. I met the local sports book. I met a guy who has over 120 quarts of canned bear meat in his cellar. And I met the lady who sells black market food stamp cards.

So, you know, I've arrived.

the limits of the single story

2010-04-19T11:39:00.001-07:00

This is so perfect, I don't want to ruin it with my prattling: People of colour are not a story of suffering . . . Or resistance. « Restructure!

We should be familiar with the 'single story' told by our most familiar -isms: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, cisism, etc.

But these are some questions this prompted for me:
What is the 'single story' that feminism tells?
What is the 'single story' of our national identity?
What is the 'single story' of your city or town?
What is the 'single story' of your religion or political party?
(Even the Tea Party has a 'single story' being told by the MSM and others.)
What is the 'single story' of your work - especially if you work for a non profit human services organization?

This last is not a weird question: the 'single story' most orgs tell is of the broken down - nevermind the agency that these populations have shown, or that these populations very well might have their own stories to tell. But the 'single story' we tell about these populations is a direct product of the racial/class power and privilege of those of us who work in these orgs.

A friend of mine recently confronted this single story issue when she was preparing a proposal for a large corporate donor for one of our service areas. She was in the middle of writing it when something began to niggle at her. The whole thing felt wrong. The women we were purporting to serve weren't in it at all. It was all stats and 'statements of need' that made it seem like the west side of Chicago was just a bombed out crater, where women wandered the streets begging for bread and children lived in boxes. It was a standard grant narrative that painted the worst picture, without any room for self-determination, agency or stories other than the one we told of poverty levels, literacy rates and lack.

So my friend retooled her proposal to make that niggling itch go away.

It's significant to note that my friend is a woman of color and when the proposal was reviewed by a non person of color, the shift in frame was immediately noted - and instantly edited. My friend was told that the single story of women's experiences on the west side is the preferred story to donors - this is the reality that needs to be made even more starkly solid, and repeated everywhere we go, and to everyone we solicit.

The voice of our org, therefore, must reflect "No possibility of feelings more complex than pity." We must reify, no matter how problematic, unfair or racist, a power and privilege that has "the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person."

As a writer I know that I've been guilty of telling only one story. It's an easy shorthand to fall into, especially if this is the way one's sector works. I don't quite know how to end this post except to hope that those of us who are privileged to be in the position to tell the stories of others take our stories seriously - and resist the impulse to tell them singly.

[originaly posted at Screed]

Off-season Trades

2010-04-18T05:59:00.004-07:00

Even in the off-season, I can't help but think about football on Sundays. I think my allegiances are well-documented.

However.

Some lowlights:

"And a friend of [the victim's], Nicole Biancofiore, claimed that a third woman was "taken away by a bodyguard of Ben's" when she tried to open the locked bathroom door."

"Mr. Roethlisberger is said to have exposed his genitals in the nightclub hallway, ordered a woman to be ejected from the club's VIP section and made "crude, sexual remarks" to his accuser."

"Hey, I need to talk to you guys," Sgt. Blash reportedly told Officer Barravecchio, the off-duty Coraopolis officer.

"We have a problem. This drunken bitch, drunk off her ass, is accusing Ben of rape," Officer Barravecchio said Sgt. Blash told him. "This pisses me off. Women can do this. It's[bull] but we've got to do this, we've got to do a report. This is BS. She's making [stuff] up."

"On the way back to his home in Reynolds Plantation, the quarterback called his lawyer."

And while I appreciate the sentiment, I guess, telling him he ought to "Grow up," doesn't really cut it. He didn't leave his fucking bike out in the rain.

A friend ruefully said to me the other day, "Well, at least it's not dogfighting." Good point, at least it isn't. Because you got to fucking PRISON for dogfighting. This was juts some lacerations on a vagina and a woman walking out of a skanky bathroom with tears on her face and walking immediately to a police car. To talk to an officer who didn't want to file charges because she was drunk. I mean, jesus, it's not like fucking DOGS got hurt.

Here's a fun game to play: what if Mike Vick had raped a girl in a bar bathroom in Milledgeville GA? No charges filed? It's like a perverse game of rock paper scissors, Privilege Edition. White man beats white woman, but white woman definitely beats black man.

I assume Roethlisberger gets a 2 or 3 game suspension. And I assume when that's up, they go right back to starting him. At which point I don't watch the games.

So, the upshot is I'm taking suggestions for a new AFC team to pull for this season. Ravens are out, all other suggestions will b considered. Please present your case in the comments.

Poetry Friday

2010-04-16T04:30:00.002-07:00

When I was 14, I thought about what it would take for them to 'tell the truth about me.' It's a thing about this poem, I think, is the way it knows that for a lot of us, at 14, have a sense that we can't tell our own selves, that we need to be told, seen, noticed, and can't have any agency in the process. I am so often so happy to not be 14, and all week I have had another line from another poem stuck in my head: "All childhood is an emigration." ('Originally,' Carol Ann Duffy)

Hanging Fire
by Audre Lord

I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his tumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I de before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

two steps back

2010-04-13T16:48:00.004-07:00

I don't know shit about Sigourney Weaver, but I know that Dana Barrett was a cool working woman living in the city and that while the second film as a whole exhibited some pretty overt anxiety about the maternal/reproductive body, Ripley in general is kick ass.

But this is fairly insubstantial in comparison with this comment:

She said Jim Cameron lost to his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, because she's a woman--who became the first ever to take home the Best Director Oscar.

"Jim didn't have breasts, and I think that was the reason," she told told Folha Online, a Brazilian news site. "He should have taken home that Oscar."

Unbecoming, Ripley. Grantd, it must sting when an itty-bitty flick like Avatar sneaks in and out of the box office without really getting the attention it deserves, and with such a low box office take too, but the identity-politics-backlash pandering is really well-beneath a chick who faced-off against a chest burster. Maybe it let you win because of your breasts.

Because you're worth it

2010-04-12T10:56:00.005-07:00

I am lucky in a lot of ways, but one of my favorite ways is that I have a lot of people who are willing to listen to me talk. Some of them are my students, obviously, but they aren't all captive audiences. I have a lots of good listen-y friends. And usually I am aware of the different types of responses I am going to get from different audiences.

Lately though, if I have more than 10 minutes to get going, the narrative I go into always elecits the same response: "You really are being so hard on yourself." "Why can't you see this is harder for you than for Little V?" I am on repeat it seems.

The semester is almost over, which is a place I didn't think we would get to in this absent/present marriage situation. The routine is there and we all find the predictability narcotic enough, and even though the kid is doing well and her vocalizing about daddy-missing and evidence of any anxiety have tapered off, the mental space I devote to worrying has gone up. I worry nearly constantly about her happiness/stability, about the story she will tell herself about this. We all do this, right?

Mr. V hates the idea of my quitting my job so we can all get back together more nights a week (he will still travel a lot). I sort of hate it too. No one is unhappy enough for us to think about his quitting his job to be here; he can't find anything else and I don't make enough because we are spoiled assholes. Yadda yadda.

Lately he wants to buy a house here, in this beautiful town than I live in all week and he lives in sometimes. He seems to feel like the mental overhead of "transition" is what is doing the most stressing, and that a feeling of throwing in will change things. Like the difficulties are at least known quantities and who knows, maybe they will go away?

Now of course it's one thing to feel like the overhead of "transitiony-ness" is the biggest burden when you aren't the one managing dinner, bath, and bed on your own every night. But, I don't know. I like buying houses. I like owning a house. I like not always feeling in flux and I like having a partner who wants to embody commitments in very particular ways. These are useful things for me.

And yet I can't bring myself to throw in and I can't sort why. First I thought it was about weekends: we play all weekend these days. We never do any home improvement, any landscaping, no nothing. But, I dunno, I think we could still regulate that even as home owners. Then I thought it was the particular houses Big V liked: they were missing the right kind of porch, or the bathroom was not in the right place. But I can't convince myself of that entirely either.

When I hear myself talk to all of these good listeners, I realize I am lately always setting up one of two stories, and they both eleicit the same response. And which story gets told (and, yea, they are partly fictionalized and mostly exaggerated and have all sort of empirical problems, but they are my stories and come in my head and then try to tell me they aren't there) depends on which thing, on that day, I feel like I will have an easier time forgiving myself: having fucked with my kid's emotional stability and comfort for the sake of two careers, or having given up a hard fought career for the sake of my kid's stability.

I mean, fuck, right? It's ridiculous and so total first-world feminist mommy banal and overwrought, which of course adds to the nausea.

Should we buy a house then?

I can't bear to end it this way, so please to enjoy this video compilation, which resonably approximates many conversations in my own bourgeoisie home.

The Flight of the Earls

2010-04-11T17:46:00.001-07:00

The countryside round here is thickly settled with the descendants of the Polskie. If they were Irish, the Irish would say, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. But they're not Irish. They're Polish. I'm not sure what the Polish would say.

The Irish and the Polish have many national traits in common. Chief among them, calamitous national history. One tragedy crowding on another, coming so quickly, so thickly that, well, you can't hardly swing a dead cat...

Both nations have the geographic misfortune of sharing the neighborhood with powerful, covetous neighbors. Both nations have been submerged for centuries, their powerful neighbors planning to drown dreams of an independent existence in a colonial sheepdip. Both nations have nourished the hope of independence through war and famine and diaspora. Both nations have surfaced, gasping for air and buoyed up by the decline or defeat or exhaustion of their imperial overseers.

Both nations have worked to take their place in the world as it is. Neither nation has forgot the world as it was, the world that had no place for them. Each nation has tried, in fits and starts, to cauterize the festering wounds of the old order.

Now, a new tragedy has been visited on the Polish nation. Providence will have its cruel joke. Its not enough that Poland was beheaded at Katyn in 1940. The fearful loss must be re-enacted. The airliner bearing the political and military and commercial leaders of the state to a Katyn commemoration must sail through fog and treetops. It must strike the earth at top speed. It must be a flight of the earls, carrying the leaders away from the homeland and never returning them.

Its a mark of the terrible outrages endured by the Polish people to say they will endure this because they have endured worse. Much worse.

The folks round here fly the Polish flag with the Stars and Stripes on most patriotic holidays. Today, the bicolor and the tricolor fly from many porches but with a bit of black bunting on the good ole Red and White.

At Mass this morning, there were prayers for Poland and for the Polish people. On the side of the High Altar there's a portrait of the Black Madonna. The frame was draped in black.

A banner over the doors of the church proclaimed Wiwat Polska! And that's what I say.

Wiwat Polska!

If there Be any Sorrow Like Unto my Sorrow

2010-04-09T18:28:00.025-07:00

Remember that old chestnut about paranoia? It's from the Book of Proverbs, I think; just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not really out to get you.

Or was it Lamentations? I don't know. I can't be expected to remember everything.

Anyway, its also true that, just because you're feeling blue, it doesn't mean that the shit isn't really tragic.

Lately, I've been feeling pretty blue.

You need reasons? I'll give you reasons.

I can't give you reasons. I have to justify? I have to justify the blues?

Alright, alright. You're entitled to reasons.

My mother is slipping away. They tell me there's nothing to be done about it. She's very composed about it. Serene. But I could lose the best thing I ever had. I am not serene.

My recuperations are dragging on and on. And on. Nothing hurts real bad. Everything hurts a little. Nothing is terribly wrong. Nothing is quite right. I'm fucking fed up.

I'm babysitting two shorties over spring break; an eight year old boy and a seven year old boy.

I want them each drafted into the Army. Not our army. Like, the Belarussian Army. Or the Serbian Army. A really harsh Army that's a really long ways away and serves really bad food and pays really bad wages.

You may have better reasons for being blue. I'm sure there are better reasons. These are mine. Let me wallow in them.

Better, let me wallow in Stevie Ray. That suits me. Suits me down to the ground.

This morning, I watched two bald eagles shatter a convoy of mallards paddling from the south shore of the flowage to the north shore. The eagles wheeled and dove and stooped and strafed them and just massacred them. Whenever a duck tried to rise from the water, an eagle would hit it, hit it so hard it made my teeth rattle. The ducks were absolutely paniced, right up to the end.

So, shit could be worse. I guess.

People Before Profits

2010-04-06T15:28:00.019-07:00

Pray for the dead and fight like Hell for the living

-Mother Jones

If any of you have been asked...to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal.

... coal pays the bills.

-Don Blankenship, Massey Energy Capo di tutti Capo

The handsome gent at the center of the photo on the left, the one with the impressive soup strainer, is Bennie Willingham, a coal miner at the Upper Big Branch coal mine and an employee of Mr. Blankenship.

Mr Willingham has been swept away by the gigantic methane explosion at the Upper Big Branch. He is lost to family, gathered around him in the photo, and friends.

Mr. Willingham regularly worked 12 hour shifts 1000 feet below the ground at the Upper Big Branch. He moved tons of coal for the Massey Energy Company.

We don't know what Massey Energy paid its miners since it is not a party to collective bargaining with the United Mine Workers of America. If it were a party, Mr Willingham would have been paid $22.42 per hour in the final year of the contract, 2014.

Mr Blankenship, who, so far as anyone can tell, hasn't dug a teaspoon of coal for Massey Energy, was paid $40 million dollars for the two year period ending 2007, the last year for which I've been able to find any figures for his wages. I'm not sure what that comes to per hour. Its clearly a better deal than he would have got from the UMWA contract. And, he works in a nice office, ten stories above the ground. So, you know, its a good deal.

Still, you have to wonder who is more valuable to the shareholders of Massey Energy; the people who actually dig out the commodity that pays the bills or the bosses who run up the bills? Apparently, there is an inexhaustible supply of the former and a nearly pinched out premium supply of the latter, if we assume that the vaunted free market in coal determines wage costs in the coal fields.

These explosions have got to be damned expensive. The order to focus on nothing but running coal has resulted in an absolute halt to running anything. It turns out that protecting workers, operating a safe workplace, mitigating hazards, is good business. Who knew?

After the Sago mine outrage, the UMWA investigated and released a report on causes and corrections. You can read it here.

We won't know for some time what caused the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine but the UMWA report gives some items to look for. The top three conditions I'm looking for in news reports are as follows:

1) were the abandoned areas of the mine sealed off with permanent bulkheads or temporary foam barricades?

2) were lines of communication between surface and underground armored or were they run through plenum?

3) is the mine's safety and rescue team an outsourced contract team, unfamiliar with the Upper Big Branch operation or is it a standing team of workers who know the Upper Big Branch mine?

Its reported that when Mr Blankenship visited with miner's families and loved ones Tuesday morning, he was escorted by more than a dozen police officers. Evidently, no expense public or private, is spared when it comes to Mr Blankenship's safety.

Perhaps this principle could be extended to the operations of his mines. What if Mr Blankenship's office were located 1000' under the roots of the West Virginia mountains instead of ten stories above the commerical district of Richmond, Virginia? What if Mr Willingham and Mr Blankenship shared the risks of their business, even if they didn't share the rewards?

I bet you if that were the case, you could eat off the floor of that mine. And Mr Willingham would be home with his family, right now.

Why PK is never going to serve

2010-04-06T09:05:00.001-07:00

Everyone should watch the (very upsetting) video at this link: http://mobile.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/04/05/iraq/index.html

One thing Greenwald doesn't mention is that the video shows, not only what we're doing to civilians in Afghanistan (& every war)--which is certainly bad enough--but what we're doing to our own young people. Yes, they sound callous in the video. Imagine the effects of that job on your psyche. Even those who don't give two shits about Afghans or reporters with funny names ought to be appalled by that.

Quick Hit: No Homo

2010-04-04T06:19:00.002-07:00

I know these videos are really old (where "really old" is, in internet world, more than like a month), but I figure if I hadn't seen them until this morning, perhaps a lot of you hadn't either.

Bryan Safi has a hilarious video about "no homo."

And then Jay Smooth breaks down the issue of whether non-homophobes can use "no homo," like, ironically.

PS I love Jay Smooth a lot.

This is what we're afraid of

2010-04-03T17:53:00.003-07:00

Most of you have probably already heard that Scott Roeder, the man who killed Dr. George Tiller, was sentenced to life in prison last week.

He will have his first eligibility for parole in 50 years. Roeder is 51. So, you do the math.

Most of the news coverage gave some indication that Roeder gave a long, hate-filled diatribe during his sentencing hearing. At sentencing, defendants typically have an opportunity to speak to make their case that their sentence should be lighter than the maximum, if they want to. I've seen sentencing hearings, and usually, defendants keep it brief. Remorse is the name of the game.

As I read all the accounts of Roeder's defense of his cold-blooded murder of Tiller, I couldn't help laughing a bit. Roeder, and all the terrorists who are like him, are pretty pathetic. They are held hostage by an all-consuming desire to control others, to elevate themselves by committing violence, and by impotent rage at their sense that they have been deprived something to which they are entitled. It's sad, how desperately they want attention, fame, to be someone who matters, even at the expense of ending their own lives, either literally or figuratively.

I'm reminded of the hysteria from conservatives and democrats alike when it was announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried in a civilian court. People were concerned that giving KSM a real trial would offer him a "platform" for his "ideology," whatever that is.

Krauthammer said, "KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable — a civilian trial in the media capital of the world — from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America."

You can find dozens of similar examples. A google search for "give KSM a platform" returns 32,000 results.

Any "platform" that KSM would have in his trial would be almost exactly the same as the "platform" Roeder had, which was the ability to spend a couple of hours putting his pathetic hatred on display for a roomful of reporters. And this is what we're afraid of? The rantings of a man consumed by his desire to matter, to mean something? A desire so great that it trumps all human decency and reason, trumps the most basic human impulses toward goodness and kindness? And self-interest?

Yeah, color me unafraid.

A Whisper of a Wince

2010-04-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

First, the links:
Jill Scott says something.
And Ta-Nehisi Coates says this.
Then Racialicious said some other things.
And then Coates had a PS.
And then we wrap up the week with Kevin Powell writing all us black folk a letter.

And now, the stories (which aren't prescriptive, merely illustrative):

When my friend Prof. L- sent me the Coates link I wrote him back. 'When ppl open their mouths and tell me how they 'feel' when they see another person's relationship choice I want to tell them to keep their personal issues to themselves. If they aren't about to say 'I hope they're happy,' then folks need to STFU.'

And Prof. L- replied,'Is there much of a distance from discomfort to disapproval?'
...
Here's another story:
When I was in therapy, my therapist (a WOC) started to dig deeper into my family background when our sessions began to concentrate on intimacy and relationships and why I felt I was such crap at them. She wanted to know about my relationship to my father; what it was like to grow up in my old Baptist church; how I felt growing up in such a patriarchal and religious environment; what I really needed in a relationship.

My relationship to my father: I love the man, and I'm his 'duffle bag' (don't ask) but he was/is also the only man to make me ramp up to rage in under 10 minutes when the subject is women, men, politics or women in the bible/church.
What it was like growing up in my old Baptist church: it was like being a visitor from the future and you landed in 1898. BC.
How I felt growing up in such an environment: I was angry at all the bloviating old black dudes who were traditional, controlling, bullying, manipulative, insecure, and completely transparent with their greed and ambition. I hated that I had to compete with them for my father's attention. Because I was better than they were, I had contempt for them.
What I needed most in a relationship: Safety; recognition; personal integrity; comfort; to be taken care of; trust; mutual, unconditional support. Acceptance.

Dr. C- would ask, 'And you can't find this in black men?'
I'd say, 'I probably could, but I don't give them the chance to show me. I am so angry, I can't see straight. All I can think of is those men in that church or I'm anticipating how they are going to turn into those types of men.'
Dr. C- would ask, 'Those men in the church. What was your primary method of dealing with them?'
I'd say, 'Competition. I had to beat them. I had to be smarter than they were, than their children were. I had to be a better church person than they were. Understand the bible better than they were. Even if they didn't let me preach, I had to be better at preaching.'
'Why?'
'So my dad would tell me 'good job,' or something. They didn't think a woman could be a leader in anything and I had to show them I was better than they were.'
Dr. C- (who was married to a very nice black man) would say, 'What do you think about trying to date a black man?'
I'd say, 'Well....ok. If you think that will help.'
And she'd say, 'It always helps to challenge our fears.'

And I tried. But every conversation I'd have with a black man would either remind me of a tired R&B song or fill me with such panic attack anxiety I took a break and fell back into a liaison with B-, which was even more unsatisfying because it was finally clear to me that he was utterly incapble of giving me the things I needed most.

But at least he didn't remind me of that old Baptist church.

Then, when I was at the point of letting my Match.com account expire, I met M-. A white guy. Who didn't graduate college. Who worked blue collar most of his life. Who wouldn't know Foucault if Michel bit him on his ass. Who, when he drove me home on our first date, said he wanted to make me a mixed CD and cancel his Match account the next day. And I never spoke to, or saw, B- again. Because of a white guy. The Other.

This month marks our 1-year anniversary. It is the most emotionally satisfying relationship I've had since grad school.
...
A third, and final, story (which long-time readers may have already heard):
When it was time for me to go off to grad school, my cracker barrel, deeply southern godfather pulled me aside after evening church services. I was leaving for Michigan in a couple of days and I was excited. Scared, too, but excited. In my imagination, Ann Arbor looked like Boston. (Yes, I was completely inaccurate but the main point was it was 2000 miles away from my provincial church.)

It was clear my godfather was trying to do the avuncular thing and this was the sterling piece of advice that he gave me:

'Don't jump the fence.'

What kind of backwoods, country folk-ism was this? I was blank-faced for a few seconds until his fierce gaze and the eventual, firing synapses in my brain made me stiffen. Don't jump the fence. Don't leave your side of the social divide. Don't get involved with a white guy. Don't sleep with a white guy. Don't have sex with a white guy. Don't betray your people. I wanted to slap his southern face.

'My father 'jumped the fence,' James.'
'Well, now. That's a little different. You just be careful. Don't jump the fence. Stay where you belong.'

I stomped away and seethed for hours. That was the last time I spoke to him.

Just this past year, my father told me that old James had died and it was revealed that he had had an affair with a married woman in the church for years. My old anger at his goatish hypocrisy rushed back at me and all I could do was sputter over the phone about that 'fucking old man.'
...
The 'heart wants what the heart wants' and it's usually because of something pushed so way down deep, you can't even recognize it. So I get Scott's wince. I do. (I'm a student of African American history and literature; I've read the same history books and wondered why everyone gets play but a black girl.)

But I've got a wince of my own and the whisper of it makes me almost ashamed; I almost want to hand in my own Black Card of Racial Solidarity because of it. Almost. This is not to say that my triggers are the fault of others. It's not all black men's fault that I have this whisper of a wince. But I have it. It has caused me to close one type of door between me and black men. Other doors (filial, platonic or professional ones) remain open; just not intimate ones. In this regard, the man who has given me what I need is a white man.

Not all white men. Not every white man. A white man.

When we are together, the looks or stares (or whether someone may or may not have a wince) people send us don't register with me. He is more aware of it than I am. And he is now more aware of the complex ways that our being together works as a kind of social shorthand in different parts of the city. (He'd never say it that way; he just tells me, 'My Mexican neighbors like me better now because of you.') But shorthand or not, when he looks at me he tells me that he has been waiting his whole life for me and I know that because of him, my heart is bigger.

So wince away, you Scotts of the world. You can't help it. It's not your fault.

[originally posted on Screed]

Poetry Wednesday

2010-04-01T07:02:00.001-07:00

A day late. April Fool's.

This entry inspired by my deeply thoughtful reflections on my mothering for the last 4 days.

This Be The Verse
Phillip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Your Place in Hell

2010-03-31T12:33:00.003-07:00

I don't believe in hell, actually. But Bill Donohue makes me wish so badly for it. See his recent full-page ad in the NYT claiming that what the church is dealing with always has been, and continues to be, not a pedophilia crisis but a "homosexual crisis." Note that this ad takes as its primary purpose the attacking of the NYT as anti-Catholic.

What we have here, in other words, is a failure to communicate,

My god, how lucky we are that someone is around to stick up for the poor disempowered Catholic church.

Sometimes I ask my students in 100 level classes to discuss the extent to which we are living in a patriarchy. I do the thing where I say, 'if an alien came to the planet and look around, would it conclude as much?' And while most of them realize, yes, it would, always a handful of students (always male) want to talk about how if the alien could somehow look at how far we've come, the progress we've made, could compare our enlightened culture to the barbarians in the middle-east, well, surely then the alien would realize how commendable we are! Just happened yesterday, in fact. Always someone is unwilling to look at the actual unflattering thing I asked him to look at, asks us to avert our eyes for the sake of context or comparison.

I'm with Amanda on this: what we have here is actually a rape crisis, and more exactly a crisis produced by rape culture.

And Im with B, who announced via FB or twitter or something last week that she is probably done identifying as a Catholic. I think I'm done, too. The points I made in this post still hold and are still identification points for me. But the dogma, the actual belief-system, the ideology - all the abstractions - are too irrelevant to my own paradigm for me to continue to claim any connection to what remains. The culture, being culturally Catholic, is too poisoned. Probably has been for a long time, but I am looking hard this time. The culture is poisonous and it wants no redeeming from me. And so, fight the real enemy, I now feel sure. (goddamit I wish I could embed that)

Dr. Vane Goes Nowhere Exciting Becuase Her Workplace Isn't That Flexible Or Lucrative

2010-03-30T11:10:00.003-07:00

I'm often enough feeling the Get Disappointed By Someone New vibe, but today am feeling psyched about mommy-bloggers at the White House. Even if I wish she would throw us a "Ms" in the title there. I mean, jeez. But still, workplace flexibility, holla!

Do your research

2010-03-30T08:03:00.003-07:00

The women who wrote that Newsweek article about sexism at Newsweek, which is getting a lot of pub, have started a blog. Which is awesome. It seems to be aiming to be kind of a feminism-101 thing going on over there, which is great, because a lot of feminists simply don't have the patience for that shit. I certainly don't. But come on, even if you're doing 101 stuff and not getting into deep analysis, you've gotta be accurate, people. From this piece on Sexuality at work, comes this bizarre quote:

On the other [hand], any subsequent promotions or success will be poisoned by self-doubt: was it because I deserved it or because my boss likes the way I look?

Once upon a time, working women hid all semblance of feminine attractiveness for purely this reason. But as young women, we balk at having to subvert our sexuality. Which is fine when we’re roaming the halls of the high school cafeteria, or out at happy hour, but when we’re hunched over our cubicles in a male-dominated workplace, its easy to spin into a paralyzing cycle of self-doubt.

Huh? When was the time that women in the workplace "hid all semblance of feminine attractiveness"? I don't even know how that's possible, since widespread rejection of grooming and beauty rituals isn't even happening now, much less in some halcyon back-in-the-day.

Also relevant: Jill at I Blame the Patriarchy:

Fear of retribution (ridicule, ostracism, harassment, abuse in the workplace) — and by extension, guilt and the imperative of self-sacrifice — is why the overwhelming majority of Vagina-Americans own mirrors and buy carcinogenic products that supposedly make them “shiny,” “radiant,” “glowing,” “pouty,” “smoky,” or “baby-fresh.” Fear of retribution is why even those women who identify as feminists cling with Revlon-coated claws to the “right” that us man-hating feminazis would take away from them: the right to be pretty (or sexy or fuckable).

She goes on to some conclusions that are certainly controversial, but that paragraph is pretty much spot-on.

Open Marriage

2010-03-24T02:02:00.003-07:00

Oh my god, CNN has an article about open marriage. Guess what? It's terrible.

I really wish people would stop writing about marriage using their own experiences as universal truth. There is only one universal truth: communication and honesty are good. Everything else is up for grabs. For a good example of this principle, I refer you to the great Megan Carpentier.

Don't want an open marriage? Don't have one. And definitely don't write crap like this:

In my opinion, open marriage is pretty much the opposite of marriage. It seems to be about avoiding commitment -- one of the cornerstones of a happy marriage.

I don't know how you could possibly think that open marriage was about "avoiding commitment." After all, you're still getting married, sharing a house, having kids. It doesn't affect your commitment. It just affects your monogamy.

I think it's funny that Ms. Salmansohn fails to realize that there might be--gasp--women who want open marriages, too. There are two of them on this very blog. But that would get in the way of her judgy-mcjudgerstein take, which is "men want open relationships because they are 'self-indulgent' and 'reckless'".

So let me set the record straight a little, shall we? It's got nothing to do with being reckless. In fact, it's less reckless than the alternative, if you happen to have a real, occasional desire to have sex with someone else. Your options: try to repress the desire and hope you don't screw up, or cheat. Both suck. (Now, of course, I'm not talking about people who have desires that they never intend to or really want to act on. Those people are fine being monogamous and good for them).

The bottom line is, different things work for different people. There's nothing wrong with wanting an open relationship, and there's nothing wrong with wanting monogamy. What's wrong is assuming that your desires represent some kind of universal truth. Why do people do that? It's so obvious that there's a range of human behavior. For example, I have a mild-to-moderate desire to have sex with other people. It's not something that would be a requirement, that I have an open relationship. I would do just fine at monogamy. But I happen to like this better. I'm well aware that there are people who have both less desire than me to do those things, and much, much more. If I don't think there's something wrong with people who want monogamy, then how could there be something wrong with the people who not just prefer, but require non-monogamy?

It's like that old saying. If you've slept with n people, anyone who's slept with n+1 people is a slut. Everyone thinks their own personal boundaries form the outer limit of what's acceptable.

I guess I should have expected as much from a woman who compares men to dogs and think that women "soothe themselves with chocolate". But still. Honestly.

(Via Feministe).

No Child Left Behind

2010-03-23T16:59:00.003-07:00

Some (not all) of the things my 4.5 yr old kid has learned in Montessori school this year:

The world used to be all stuck together and called Pangaea.

Baby Jesus once walked on water to make a point.

Romeo kills Tybalt and everyone gets flat on the stage at the end to show that they are dead. And also BOYS used to play the parts of GIRLS. And also, as part of this lesson, all the words and choreographed hand motions to Taylor Swift's "Love Story":

Martin Luther King Jr was shot in the back.

One planet is named for a guy with flying shoes, while another is named for the Little Mermaid's dad (who has several aliases). Also, she most definitely learned there are 8 planets.

Dinosaurs are extinct.

A very short man named Zacchaeus stole a lot of money from a lot of people, then climbed a tree and got to be friends with Jesus.

Lilly is boring because she always tells the same story about her mom's birthday party.

Just a little snapshot for y'all.

Back Stabbers

2010-03-20T08:57:00.007-07:00

Digby passes on a report from National Review Online, for whatever that's worth, that talks between Speaker Pelosi and Mr Stupak have ended.

What is the real reason for Mr Stupak's opposition to the Health Care Reform bill? It can't be his stated reason. I mean, why is he even in the Democratic Party if he can't support the Party's fundamental legislative positions?

What could it be? What could it be? Can you protect an abstract notion of motherhood by denying health insurance to real mothers? Something is not right here.

Feminist Pop Culture Friday

2010-03-19T07:58:00.002-07:00

In no particular order, things that I have seen/heard/read recently that make my feminist brain go "YESSSSSSS!"

1. Parks and Rec. This Amy Poehler show is awesome, and Poehler's character is a feminist. A funny feminist! Her character is simply awesome. She manages to make fun of herself without making a laughingstock of herself. It's great. Bitch Magazine gets the feminism angle exactly right by saying the show is "chocked full of awesome feminism, and in a way that was never preachy and did nothing to take away from the comedy." In my opinion, it adds to the comedy. Because, you know, feminists can make fun of themselves.

2. Will Forte's song celebrating Women's History Month on Saturday Night. I wanted to write a big post about how awesome this was, but time got away from me and now I just want to make sure y'all see it.

There's a transcript here, but if you can watch the video you really should, because it's a song and as we know, singing always adds to hilarity. (Also, yes, there is a crappy ablist joke in the song. Sigh. But the rest of it is good).

3. Here's Roger Ebert's review of the new swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. How awesome is it that Roger Ebert is clearly a feminist and gets feminism? Really awesome, but probably not even as awesome as the movie will be. I'm going to see it tonight.

4. LADY FUCKING GAGA. Oh my god, how have I not discovered her before this? If you haven't watched the Telephone video, you need to.

The video is incredibly visually and thematically dense. It's already spawned a bunch of great textual analyses/deconstructions, so if you're interested, here are some of them.

Also, I love the song and video for "LoveGame," which is about as unapologetic a representation of female sexuality and desire as I've ever seen in something so popular.

5. The new Kotex ads. The premise? Menstrual-products ads are dumb. I think it's a little too heavy-handed (for example, did they really need to end the ad with a screen saying "Why are Tampon ads so ridiculous?" Come on. Leave a little interpretation to the viewer. But otherwise excellent).

There's also a New York Times piece about the ad campaign. Fun fact: apparently you can't say "vagina" on television. Even in a tampon ad.

5. More companies should really start using feminists as consultants. I'm telling you, this is a really good way to sell products/television/music/movies. They've just got to figure it out. But women like me and the readers of this blog and all the other feminist blogs are dying for content like this, and when it comes we will promote it heavily.

Take note, people holding purse strings.

i went to grad school and all i got is this lousy non profit job

2010-03-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Is a College Education Essential for Americans? PBS NewsHour March 17, 2010 PBS (exerpt)

Education & the Economy, Miller Ctr of Public Affairs (full debate)

When my father received his Masters, the whole family was there. He was the first in his branch of the family to graduate college, much less receive a Masters degree. When my sister and I graduated college, both our parents were proud, confident our college degrees would mean we wouldn't suffer their childhood troubles. When I went off for my doctorate, my parents were even more thrilled.

But what do we have to show for it?

My dad became a pastor for a small/medium congregation; now he teaches ethics and philosophy for a city college. My sister is an AP Spanish teacher; I aggravate Springfield for a large non profit.

Should we have even bothered?

I caught the excerpt of the debate on PBS last night and the argument against an essential college education made me really uncomfortable. Utilitarian arguments often make me uncomfortable. Those who will make use of their education and become part of the professional class will, and should go; but those from the 'margins' won't and should not. (Unless I'm being too reductive with what dude was saying.)

I guess I'm uncomfortable about the prospect of our country becoming a place with a teeny professional, skilled class and a massively undereducated 'servant' or service class.

Thoughts?

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

2010-03-17T10:47:00.001-07:00

Anahorish
Seamus Heaney

My "place of clear water,"
the first hill in the world
where springs washed into
the shiny grass

and darkened cobbles
in the bed of the lane.
Anahorish, soft gradient
of consonant, vowel-meadow,

after-image of lamps
swung through the yards
on winter evenings.
With pails and barrows

those mound-dwellers
go waist-deep in mist
to break the light ice
at wells and dunghills.

the lottery

2010-03-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

In my efforts to be a well-informed citizen of Illinois, I read this blog every day. In today's post, it poses an interesting question (which I'm reframing slightly here to be a series of questions):

What are the merits of a randomly selected general assembly made of ordinary Joes/Janes vs. a two house structure with one chamber (House) being randomly selected and the other (Senate) being elected?
What would make either of these ideas practically or theoretically feasible?
How do you think it would work?
Could a randomly selected group of citizens govern better than the folks we have now?

You folks are smart. I'm curious to know what you think.

Go!

Tuff Titty Rap

2010-03-15T19:10:00.006-07:00

Want to do some temperature taking. Just finished reading this piece about extended breastfeeding. Coincidentally, I also had a conversation about same with some womenfolk this weekend.

Now, maybe I am doing some compensating. I admitted, ages ago, on this page a tendency I had right around when I stopped breastfeeding (8mths) to react in a judgmental way to women who were beastfeeding way over a year. I knew, as I then avowed, that this reaction was *not* about an actual tendency toward sacrifice or martyrdom on the part of the mommies and was instead about my own insecurities about having stopped when I did (because for me breastfeeding was largely coded as sacrificial, something which I am still sad about). So maybe I am trying to make myself feel better about what I know was a wrongheaded reaction, but at this point I genuinely feel none of the weirdness that I take it I am supposed to feel about someone breastfeeding a 4, 5 or 6 yr old. Is it for me? No. Do I feel like there is anything ick about it? No. Further, the ick reactions are so transparently emerging from irrepressible needs to sexualize both breasts and the mommy/kid relationship, combined with culturally proprietary feelings about tits, that I cannot for the life of my imagine how intelligent thoughtful adults (like my two women friends with whom I was discussing this) justify in non-emotional terms their objection to the practice. How, I ask you, is it possible that extended extended breastfeeding is viewed as more deviant than spanking? Is that not fucked up in the extreme?

Cultural norming, yadda yadda. Please explain it to me in a way that does not involve a patriarchal take on women's bodies, a puritanical repression about bodily functions, or a draconian illusion about childhood autonomy and independence. I genuinely would like to know.

No "s" on Saving.

2010-03-14T06:55:00.003-07:00

Piss, I'm cranky.

Is there anything worse than this: last day of spring break, during which I did very little breaking, an hour of my life lost to a questionable manipulation that sucks once you have a kid and that is always incorrectly pluralized, struggling over a conference abstract about something I don't really understand while the less encumbered Vanes bustle around getting ready to spend another day in the parks?

Yes, there are lots of things worse. But none of them are what I am doing.

It is my belief that 'spring forward' day should be a day when, in protest/acknowledgment of the artificiality of the whole time-keeping endeavor, we do things in an utterly unscheduled way. We eat whenever we want, we sleep precisely when we feel tired, we do not make appointments or engagements and we do not look at timepieces. We try not to know exactly how much time we have spent not writing this abstract (about Lyell, ironically) since we sat down at the computer. Doesn't that sound fun?

It makes me want to barf actually, so bad am I about being unscheduled, but it's a good exercise now and again.

The other day I was getting the little V ready for a bike ride. In so doing, I filled up her sigg bottle with water. I handed it to her and she asked, "Is this juice." "No," says I. "But I wanted juice," says LV. "Tough business," says I.
She looked at it for a moment, looked back at me, then shrugged her shoulders and said, "Ah, fuck it," before taking a healthy pull of water. I took a moment to think about the magic of idiomatic expressions and decided to let it roll. That's the kid of day I am working up to on this one. Happy Sunday.

Taps

2010-03-13T21:33:00.004-08:00

In a letter I sent to my folks from Vietnam, during the period of hostilities there, I used a racial epithet to refer to the citizens of the host country.

This drew a red hot reply from my father. He dressed me down in the harshest terms. He reminded me that I had not been raised with that kind of language and if he ever heard me talking like that, Hell wouldn't have it.

He said that it was a matter of personal shame that he, himself, had used that kind of language while campaigning in the Pacific in World War II. It was only later that he realized terms of racism and hatred were part of a deliberate program of brainwashing, intended to dehumanize he and his shipmates so they would do any damn fool thing they were told to do.

War was brutal enough, he said, but there's little you can do about that. What you can do is not take it into yourself, make yourself brutal and coarse.

It was the first time my Dad ever talked to me about his experience of war. And one of the few times.

Not that I didn't try and draw him into discussions. I was dying to exchange experiences and feelings and observations. He just didn't care to discuss.

Oh, he would talk about wild nights in Perth or getting into bar fights with Marines or crossing the equator and being initiated into the Order of Neptune; goofy stuff like that. But to talk seriously about the tedium and terror of hunting and being hunted? No. He would bat those questions away with some bit of stirabout and wax eloquent about cocktails made from torpedo fluid.

Only two more times did he share any thoughts on his experience.

One time, apropos of nothing that I can remember, my Dad started talking about Okinawa. It was late at night, we were each in our cups. Without any prompt or cue, he began talking about cruising off Okinawa.

He was a signalman, a radio operator, on a submarine, stalking Japanese shipping across the Pacific. By the beginning of 1945, there was not much Japanese shipping left to stalk and he was transferred to a destroyer/minesweeper.

At the invasion of Okinawa, his ship was one of the radar pickets screening the invasion fleet. They were flung out 50 to 200 miles in the direction of the Japanese air bases. They scanned the sky to give the fleet early warning of Japanese air attack.

The Japanese gave special attention to sinking the picket ships. The kamikaze were employed in their greatest numbers for the Okinawa campaign and took a heavier toll of the picket ships than of any other US Naval units engaged in the campaign.

My Dad spoke of the terror of kamikaze attacks against the ships of the picket line. He talked about how they couldn't be driven off like other attacking aircraft. They had to be shot down.

He spoke of the clever tactics used by their pilots. Some aircraft would come across the water just above the wavetops at the same time their comrades were diving out of the clouds. The effect was to divide the attention of the anti-aircraft gunners and gun directors, reducing further the low odds of shooting down the attackers.

The pickets were were small, unarmored, and lightly armed ships. They did not mount massive batteries of anti-aircraft guns like the cruisers and battleships of the main fleet. They were not protected by fighters swarming overhead in a combat air patrol like the invasion fleet. They were far out to sea and isolated from the rest of the fleet.

They were expendable. The Japanese were implacable. My Dad said that, at Okinawa, for the first time, it occurred to him that he could get killed.

The only time he ever responded directly to a question I asked him about his experience in the war was when I asked him about the atomic bomb. I asked if he remembered where he was when he heard an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. I asked him if people understood what had happened, what it meant.

He said he was in a barracks in the Phillipines when he heard the news. His unit was training for the invasion of Japan. It was expected there would be a million US casualties. It was expected the fighting would go on for years.

He said neither he nor his shipmates knew from atomic bombs. They knew it was a weapon of great power. Scuttlebutt was that the entire city had been obliterated in a flash.

He said his first thought was that there would be no invasion of Japan. It occurred to him he just might make it out of this thing without getting killed.

I'm thinking about this now because I've been seeing promotions for the series Pacific over the last couple weeks. Its going to be on one of the cable channels, I couldn't tell you which one.

I'm not really a fan of war movies but I'm going to make a point to watch this. See what its about, at least. Its put on by the same people who did Band of Brothers and I hear good things about that series. If I can get some sense of what was happening with my Dad back then, I'll be content.

I'd like to know how he was able to move through brutality and not take it into himself.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-03-12T18:15:00.009-08:00

Do not adjust your screen.

We will return you to our regular programming for discussion of issues that really matter momentarily.

But first - taddyporter's latest Hair!

People, not systems

2010-03-12T11:58:00.003-08:00

I have a confession to make: I'm horrible at networking. I've realized over the past few months that it's really my achilles heel. But I'm not just talking about networking like, oh who can I meet that can get me a job? Networking isn't about that. Networking is about realizing that people are what makes the world go around, people make social change happen, people make the rules, enforce the rules, and decide when the rules deserve to be broken.

I've noticed this gap when I deal with older, more experienced lawyers who've been around the block a few times. It didn't really make sense to me at first, and it's just started to creep into my consciousness and really take hold. They always want to know "who," not "how." Who works in the clerk's office? Who is the judge? Who is the lawyer on the other side? Who does the defendant know? Who do I know who might know someone who might be involved?

Someone told you no? Who is that person? Who do they know? Do I know someone else who might tell you yes? Do I know anyone who's done the thing that you're trying to do? Who? Who is it?

I don't know if it's an artifact of my personality, or an artifact of the kind of lawyering they teach you in law school, but my approach is too formalistic. I'm too focused on the rules, the system, the procedures, how things are "supposed" to work. I rarely regard people, the people that I know, as resources. I think part of it is arrogance. I think a bigger part of it is timidity, fear, fear of asking for help, fear of seeming weak. Maybe those two parts are part of the same thing. The law is a system, yes, but it's a system made of people trying to abide by a certain set of rules that were enacted by yet more people.

And I think coming to terms with this is a big part of growing up for me. Learning how to ask for help, learning how to reach out to people without pride, turning to others as my first resource rather than trying to do everything myself. This will be better for me. This will be better for my clients. This will be better for everyone--not duplicating efforts, not wasting time, sharing knowledge. It's an important aspect of the kind of community I want to be a part of.

I have a lot to learn.

Life of the Mind

2010-03-12T05:17:00.003-08:00

Nobody wants to turn into the person who just writes about being busy.

Do you want to know something, internet? I grow tired of my commuter marriage. Perhaps a phase, perhaps not. Perhaps I am thinking for the first time in a serious way about the possibility of quitting my job because perhaps it is increasingly the only plausible and financially sustainable way we can get back together. Perhaps I am losing my goddamn mind perhaps caused by the preceding an evidenced by the fact that this sort of reads like asking the internet for advice. Hell.

Likewise, I don't want to be the blogger who only writes about her own damn self. I still read things, internet. I am irritated about this, I am amused by this, I am wondering why I don't see more people responding to this (myself included I guess).

I try to always write about being happy when I am. I felt certain that this first year on the t-t would give me tons of blogging material and impetus. But between the tired and the kind of amorphous impulse towards self-protectiveness I feel, I have trouble knowing what I want to get out.

Circumstances have changed just a little here but enough. Mr. V's commute has shifted such that instead of going between here and the place we used to live, he has to go between here and a place that sort of sucks and where we don't know anyone and which is lonely and lame. This makes the commuting harder. For sort of complicated reasons that are dumb so it hardly matters if they are explicable or not, if I am not in this job we will be able to arrange it (we think) so we move back to the original town. But as long as we are doing this, he is doing that. And I have little overheard capacity remaining, for my kid's missing of her dad, for his loneliness, so my own tiredness.

Does it read like I am trying to convince myself? I am. It would be one thing if I felt disappointed by my job; I'm not. I'm not at all. And my colleagues, boy howdy. Last month Little V was wicked sick with a nasty virus, out of school for nearly a week. During that week, I had 1 to 4 colleagues calling me daily to check on her and to decide who was best equipped to cover my classes, whether it meant proctoring or leading discussion. When she was better enough to be out of the house but not quite in school all day, I had colleagues bringing pillows and colors into their offices to set up a little spot for her while I went to the classroom.

But increasingly it is clear that if I want to have this job with these colleagues (I do) and live in the place I want to live with respect to both mine and Mr. V's commutes (I do) and have a working spouse with an income that keep us able to focus on our first world problems (I do), then I need to commute 2 hrs daily, he needs to commute 10 hours weekly, the kid and I are on our own for most of the week, and he is on his own.

I really hate the idea of quitting my job. Because I like it and because it feels defeatist on so many levels. But I really hate the idea of this being the new normal.

Wait a Minute Mr Postman

2010-03-11T18:17:00.020-08:00

I hear the United States Postal Service is considering eliminating six-day-a-week delivery. Drastic cost cutting steps are, evidently, called for to bring expenses into line with revenues.

If carried out, this would be the second major retreat from customer service by the Post Office in my lifetime. It will come as a surprise to many here but there used to be twice daily home delivery. In many cities, small towns too, an intracity letter or package, handed in before noon would be delivered in the afternoon. The person who, not finding an eagerly anticipated communique in the morning post, could appease their anxiety with the hope it would arrive with the afternoon deliveries.

Its a cliche to say that the revolutionary development of the internet and other forms of digital transmission have rendered obsolete the old pulsing postal forms of of personal communication but I'll say it anyway. Well, I guess I did. I'm not proud of it but then I'm not one to leave a handy cliche just lying around, idle.

But its sad, too. I'm a paper and pen man, myself. I like sending cards and letters and I like getting them. I like the scritch of pen across ecru stationery or card stock. I like holding a letter in my hand, running my fingers over it, knowing it was touched by the correspondent. Try doing that with an email.

Since going through this cancer bullshit, my affection for the handwritten word has only increased. I have dozens and dozens of cards and letters and drawings wishing me well and bidding me good health and they mean more to me than I can express. I have them on display all over the house, everywhere I'm likely to see them and everywhere visitors are likely to see them. I'm that proud.

My nephew Poco has sent me a series of hand drawn, uh, caricatures of every creature on the home place. I have his artistic interpretation of both dogs, each cat, every cow, the fox that lives under the pump house, a trout he caught out of the reservoir, his mama, his great auntie, my guitar, and several fantastical critters not belonging to any known phylum or genus.

A text accompanies each drawing. Sometimes it explains the subject of the composition, usually it tells me what he's been doing in school and which cat used to belong to pirates. The narrative always ends with an exhortation to GET WELL! and I LOVE YOU!! and COME HOME SOON!! and sincere wishes for a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! The lad is very economic minded. He'll not lavish postage on a message unfreighted with the fullest supercargo of sentiments.

I have a few people I regulary correspond with in the old way. I send a card to my mom just about every day. I think she enjoys getting them, its hard to tell. Anyway, I send them more for me than for her. She may not remember me but I remember her.

I correspond with Poco just about every day. Its important to me he not forget me. So far it seems to be working.

I correspond with my stepdaughter's little boy, Ch-. He's seven and writes me pretty regularly. He recently sent me a drawing of a six armed robot warrior. Ch- says this robot can fight and defeat anything and should he turn him loose on my cancer?

I wrote him back to let him know I think I've got the problem well in hand and he doesn't need to spend any time worrying about me. Kids.

I have a friend, Miguel, in Denver and we correspond regularly in Spanish. He's helping me to keep up the minimal fluency I have already and, hopefully, expand it. I suppose we could do it more efficiently by email but this is more fun.

There is a risk to history in relying on digital communications. I don't suppose I'm the first one to notice that emails and IM's and others of that species don't leave much in the way of an artifact that can be archived.

This was brought home to me last week when my Auntie Jean sent me a box full of penny postcards that had been sent to her Da, my grandfather. Not only did they give me an entirely new insight on my grandfather but also on my grandmother.

You see, the cards were all from young women of my granddad's acquaintance, sent to him in the days before he courted my grandmother. Most of the cards are postmarked from 1915 to around 1918, the year he married my grandma.

And let me say, any notion that young ladies of the day were inhibited by Victorian strictures or conventions should be lowered over the side. Beguiling doesn't half cover the blandishments offered my grandfather in these incandescent communique. Bewitching, maybe. Behubba hubba, definitely. Oh You Kid!

So, its fun to see my grandfather as one of the lads, cutting a dashing figure across the social scene of rural St Croix County Wisconsin and wartime Washington state. But it also revealed my grandmother as a bit of a sport, too. She outlived my grandfather by nearly thirty years. It was not Himself that preserved these postcards for posterity. It was Herself.

The rather stern, parsimonious, and austere figure that I'd always known to be my grandmother turns out to be much more romantic than I could have imagined. A shoebox full of postcards knocked a lot of the rough corners off that flinty old woman and gave me a grandmother softer and more indulgent than I knew.

Try that with a box of emails.

Thank you, abortion providers

2010-03-10T09:08:00.002-08:00

Today is the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers.

If you know someone who works in an abortion clinic, take them out to dinner, buy them some flowers, or just sit them down and tell them that you appreciate what they do. If there’s a clinic that performs abortions near you, drop in and say a quick thanks. And if you’re online reading this right now, head on over to the National Abortion Federation website, and write a note of appreciation.

If you’re able, today would also be an excellent day to financially support those organizations that make abortion access possible. The National Abortion Federation (NAF) is a professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada, that offers training for abortion providers and referrals for patients. The National Network of Abortion Funds helps women with limited funds to afford their abortions. And Medical Students for Choice work to destigmatize abortion care and make it a regular part of medical training. They would all be worthy of any donation you could give.

Fake

2010-03-10T08:02:00.007-08:00

If I can, I'm going to get a hold of the most recent photos of my shaggy pate and post them. I think you'll get a kick out of them. My hair has moved right past wavy and is now positively nappy. I crap you negative.

My stepdaughter took some photos of this curiousity last weekend. I haven't seen them yet but I know she showed them to my friend T-, the snowplowing man, cause he sent me some hair care items he had left over from the eighties. I think that's when he last had hair.

So, I call him to thank (?) him for his thoughtfulness. We naturally fall into a discussion of how things were back in the day. He asserted everything was better then.

I respond he only thinks that cause he was younger and had a full head of hair and no responsibilities. I remind him that he's forgotten Ronald Reagan and the awful music of the era.

He concurs re the ghastly Reagan regime but dissents about the music. I challenge him to name three decent tunes from the eighties. He rattles off about two dozen. Most of his choices, I agree with as being tunes that can either stand the test of time or stand for the best of the era's musical expression.

I'll list some of his choices here, omitting the Michael Jackson and Prince selections only because they have mostly entered the canon of American pop music.

Poison - Bell Biv Devoe
Fake - Alexander O'Neill
Ain't Nobody - Chaka Khan
Word Up - Cameo
Give Up the Funk - Parliament/Funkadelics
This is How We Do It - Montell Jordan

I'm not sure that last one meets the timeline criteria but it is a pretty danceable song, so what the hell.

There are probably plenty of other candidates that could go on this list. Feel free to add your own nominees. I've learned my lesson about making sweeping generalizations for an historical epoch.

Oh, the particular hair care item that prompted the call to T- and the subsequent intense discussion about the music of the era bygone was a half used up bottle of jeri curl. He thought I could use it and he thought that would be hilarious.

I told him I was holding out for dreadlocks. He said that would just be stupid.

I will never understand the African-American sense of humor.

if only the poor were more like me!

2010-03-08T14:41:00.000-08:00

If only poor people understood nutrition! The Fat Nutritionist

That post up there, btw, is brilliant. Unfortunately, she had to shut down comments because some folks were deliberately misreading her thesis, which I will repeat and clarify for you:
You want people to eat better? Give them enough money, a place for cooking and storage, and access to a decent variety of food.

There. That's her thesis in a nutshell.

I'll boil it down even further:
So, if we want other people to shop and consume like us, in our hip, healthy, and globally conscious ways, then they're going to need what we have.

What do I have that most really poor people (earning less than $16k/annually) do not?

I have a properly operating kitchen, with counter space and lighting.
I have a gas stove that lights when I turn it on. (And all burners that work.)
I have a large refrigerator that freezes the things that need to be frozen, and a fridge that keeps my butter from melting and my food from spoiling.
I have a pantry that is free from bugs and mice so I can store dry goods there.
I have a running sink with water that isn't all gunky or rusty.
I have a mexican mini-mart, a walgreens, AND a large, clean Dominick's all within short walking distance.
I have a dude who sells fresh fruit/veg from the back of his truck during the spring/summer.
I also have about a $50/week grocery shopping allowance. Sometimes, I go over my allowance and buy $100 in groceries/week.
I live in a part of town that does not have slum landlords.
I have a few bus lines within walking distance and a train line.
I work in a part of the city that hosts farmers markets during the summer that I can visit on my lunch hour.
I have Bon Appetit, Saveur, Cook's Country Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated and a stack of other cookbooks from Borders and friends in my kitchen.
I have internet access to Epicurious.com.
I have a wok, pots, pans, serving platters, mixing bowls, forks, utensils, measuring cups, cutting boards and towels.
I have a place to store them.

I also have a job, no kids, healthcare, access to public transportation, flexible work hours, and adequate housing.

Basically, I am middle class, with typical bourgeois middle class tastes and habits.
...
Here is a completely irrelevant personal story (irrelevant because personal stories, while illustrative, are not prescriptive):

My parents were poor before they were middle class; the clothes I wore were not my own but hand-me-downs from another family. We received bags of groceries from anonymous church members - there would be a package of Peppridge Farm cookies in one of those bags. Or a bottle of Tang. A block of gov't cheese could last a really long time - for tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, ham/cheese sandwiches, on crackers, in the toaster oven slapped over white bread.

We were poor but we ate dinner every night: chicken, pork chop or steak, a salad, rice and a desert (jello or ice cream). A glass of whole fat milk. In the morning, it was a hot cereal, orange juice or toast with butter and then to the bus.

Eventually, our meals got more complicated - coinciding with my mom going back to work and my dad getting a better job. Then we were shakily middle class.

There was a Chinese supermarket two blocks away for emergencies (we didn't trust their meat after one bad incident), and if we had to drive to a supermarket, there was a Vons or Ralphs only 15 min away by car. I remember going with mom every week after she got home from work to do grocery shopping. I hated unloading our 10 or 12 bags of groceries, my arms held stiff, the plastic handles making red rows in my skin.

Think of that. 10-12 full bags of groceries. Every two weeks. For a family of four. Without fail.

Whether we want to acknowledge it, this is the middle class standard most of us have running in the backs of our minds when we tell poor people to eat, or grocery shop, better. We never have their memories in our heads. We don't think about how the hell they're transporting 10-12 heavy shopping bags from the supermarket 2 miles away from their house, on foot, with only a couple small kids to help them.

Much less from organic farmers market to farmers market.

...

Do you know where poor people live? Oh, not your hipster living in Ukrainian Village in an apartment no bigger than two cubicles at your office. Real poor people. Like, over in Greater Grand Crossing or Austin. Or Lawndale. Or Chicago Heights. Like, in those places you can see from the Green Line headed toward Cottage Grove. Or those places you see if you take the #66 bus all the waaaay west to the end of the line. Ever check out the apartments in that neighborhood that always sees the police action? Or the 'hood that always gets the helicopters hovering over it? Do you know how really poor people live?

I've only been in my Aunt D-'s apartment two or three times. It is so stuffy, I want to gag. Incense smells try to cover up other smells, but don't. And in the hallway outside, that splotch is either shit or vomit. I won't go in her kitchen. (I have never been invited to see her kitchen.) I don't dare ask to use the bathroom.

Once, when I dropped off some clothes and extra pots/pans/cooking pans, she kept us standing in her living room. There are only two bedrooms in this 'garden' apartment and I think she sleeps on the couch in the living room, giving the bedrooms to her daughter and son. She complains about the landlord who won't fix anything; he just collects the reimbursements from the gov't for providing Section 8 vouchers. She says, though, that once my cousin reaches 18, their rent is going to double or my male cousin will have to move out. (18 year old black boys, it seems are a threat to building.)

Down the street from Aunt D-, there is a KFC, McDonalds, a fried fish shack, a Chinese joint and a couple of gas stations, where you can buy cigs, bottled water or soda pop. The nearest real supermarket is in Hyde Park which is about a couple of different buses away. That's where the Walgreens is, too.

She doesn't have bus cards, so I gave her a few with $10 on them. In Chicago, one bus ride is $2.25. How far can she get on that? And how often? You do that math.
...
At my very tony Presbyterian church we once had a social services program to help provide healthier meals to really low-income neighbors. (You'd have to find these neighbors with a magnifying glass and move a few neighborhoods over, but they're there.) A friend served on this task force and they were told to help develop and test cook menus for this project.

But there were rules:
Think healthier ingredients, not necessarily 'healthy'.
The meal's ingredients couldn't cost more than $10, total.
It would have to be enough to serve at least 4.
Meal preparation couldn't involve more than 1-2 utensils.
The meal had to be cooked/served in the same dish.
It had to be able to be cooked on a hot plate.
Task force members could not assume refrigeration was available.

When you or I are cooking 'healthy' how many of these rules do we break?

It isn't class warfare to point out that the poor live differently from us. To ignore that fact maintains our caste system rather than demolishing it.

So until we are prepared to solve the 'problem' of their poverty first, perhaps we should keep mum with our 'advice' to poor families about making better nutritional 'choices'.

(And that means you, Jamie Oliver.)

I'd Horsewhip You If I Had a Horse

2010-03-06T14:13:00.023-08:00

Boom Boom Boom Boom
I like the way you walk
I like the way you talk
That baby talk
How How How How
Boom Boom Boom Boom

The right wing assault on the US Court system and American values of justice continues. How they wrangled President Obama to aid the attack is beyond me but, if reports from the barking media are correct, they have done.

The decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) in a so-called military tribunal is a disgraceful decision. It insults our Republic and our people. It shames us in front of the world. It betrays our history and dismisses two hundred years of jurisprudence, of experience in dealing out justice to spies, pirates, rebels, saboteurs, traitors, assassins, terrorists, bandits, brigands, and every kind of foul excrement masquerading as a human being.

Worse, it turns the job over to flag officers of the United States Armed Forces, a group of people I wouldn't trust to babysit my Australian Cattle dog. These fools would fuck up a two car funeral. Lets see, in the nearly nine years since the September Attacks, this brilliant corps has not only failed to successfully conclude two campaigns against inferior opponents, they have convicted, what, eight accused terrorists? In the same period the US Courts have convicted and imposed justice on over 200 captives. I rest my case.

Further, the decision elevates the creature, KSM, to a status he has not earned and does not deserve. He is not a warrior. He is not a soldier. He is not even a criminal. He is a pitiful, wretched, being who commits a crime each time he breathes in air that could be used to sustain more delightful portions of creation; the Norwegian Rat, for example. Or its fleas.

So far as I can tell, he is Snuffy Smith in a bedspread, pretending he is an Ikhwan fighter when he is merely a coward who flim-flams confused young men into dying for him.

But I digress. I think m. leblanc is preparing to address the issues of this decision. She is better suited to it than I in every way. There is only one aspect I would like to address.

That is the thesis put forward by the barking media and their right wing masters that the US Court system is too cramped and legalistic to deal with these insidious al-Qaeda critters. All this concern with due process and Miranda rights and fair treatment and the right to confront witnesses, etc., is so, what's the word; archaic? Quaint? It may be OK for dealing with jaywalkers and folks who hold up gas stations but it will prevent us from dealing effectively with these enemies of the state. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and so on and so forth.

What they are trying to say but are to chickenshit to come right out and say is they want these people tortured. Hell, they want us tortured. But the US Courts and the Constitution, finicky as they are about these things, won't permit it. So, bye-bye Courts and Constitution and let that be a lesson to us.

Which only reminds us how far removed from reality these millionaire pundits are. Its hard to believe they are the ones charged with explaining the world and its events to us when it is quite clear they inhabit some different world. The Upper West Side. Martha's Vineyard. Saddle Ridge.

I don't know where it is but its not our world.

Let me explain with a little story about my friend T-.

T- is a working man in his late 40's, a father with three kids. He lives on the north side of Milwaukee, with wife and kiddies in a well maintained brick house in the working class neighborhood of Sherman Park.

To maintain home and hearth and feed three healthy teen agers, T- works more jobs than you can count.

He has a first shift job in a stamping plant on Milwaukee's South Side. After that, he goes to work cleaning offices in downtown Milwaukee. He runs a big floor buffing machine, looks kind of like a zamboni. He does this until 10 or 11 at night.

On weekends, he works at any number of sidelines. He has a snow plowing business. He details cars. He drives taxi. He cleans beer lines (a very lucrative craft, I might add). He mows lawns and does landscaping.

The point is, he is a solid citizen and works all the damned time.

In mid-January, there was a big snowfall in Milwaukee. To T-, that's money in the bank. Around midnight of a Friday, he was sitting in the cab of his Ford F-250, idling at the curb in front of his house, waiting for his helper to show up so he could get started plowing out his clients.

While he waited, he blew himself a big spliff.

At the psychological moment, an MPD TAC Squad cruiser rolled by. The TAC Squad are the heavies for the organs of public security in Milwaukee. They patrol the city late night to suppress threats to the public order. They observed a nimbo-cumulus cloud emerge from the passenger side of T-'s pickup and investigated.

The upshot was that T- was busted for smoking a joint.

The TAC squad lads bundled him into the back seat of the cruiser, wedged between a beefy Polish sergeant on one side and a beefy African-American sergeant on the other. For hours they drove him all over the county while they tried to persuade him to fall in with their plans as follows: they wanted him to make some crack buys for them. At the end of their shift, they would pay him $1000 for his troubles and release him without a stain on his character. It was their assumption, I guess, that any Black person knows where to buy crack. T- is Black and, so, ipso facto, just the man for the job.

T- declined to participate. First, he knew the offer of $1000 was bullshit. Second, he had no fucking idea where to buy crack. He's a working man. Third, he would not have gotten involved even if he did. These crack dealers tend to be bad hombres and its a smart fellow that steers clear of them.

None of this made the least impression on the TAC squad boys. They rode him around till sunup, denying him any contact with his family. In the morning, they took him to jail.

He did not see a magistrate until Monday morning. When he was brought before his honor, it turned out there was no charge or, at least, no charge paperwork, so he was released.

The point of this amusing anecdote is that, for working people, the requirements of the 14th amendment and other pertinent protocols are more often honored in the breach than as a matter of routine. So we don't appreciate being lectured by Mrs Greenspan and Chris Matthews and the rest of the millionaire gasbags on how the minions of the law are tied down like Gulliver by the uncallused wonder that is American justice.

Law enforcement will find a way to make its case, don't even trip. If they would go to those lengths with my friend just to turn over a few penny ante drug-dealers, imagine the schemes they can employ to convict Snuffy Smith. I mean KSM.

We got him. He's not going anywhere.

The idea is to punish him, not the Constitution.

Everybody's Got a Thing

2010-03-05T17:46:00.028-08:00

60 days ago, almost to the minute, consciousness was seeping into my organism and rousing me to a dazed appreciation of my surroundings which I subsequently learned were the Intensive Care Unit of Froedert Hospital.

I was sore, I was babbling, and I was, by turns, pissed off and demanding to know who the fuck was in charge around here, and laughably flirtatious, encouraging my attendants, of both genders, to join me in my scantily clad state. Cooler heads prevailed and both moods were medically ignored.

Its been a long sixty days and it will likely be another long sixty days before I start feeling like my old self. That means the trip to Fairyhouse is out. Horses and riders and turf accountants will have to get along without me for one more year.

I've learned not to be impatient. I've learned not to be angry.

A week after being discharged from the hospital, I was readmitted for two nights for failure to thrive. My weight had dropped 25 pounds, all my blood counts were fucked up, my kidney was on the verge of failure and I was, overall, a hard case.

The root cause was diagnosed as clinical depression.

I told them I wasn't depressed, I was pissed off. Same-same, so far as they were concerned. Either way, I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't following the regimen laid down for me and I was driving my dear caregiver, Meche, out of her mind.

So, I've had a couple three therapy sessions since then. The doctors have peered into the dark recesses of my soul and flushed various critters from the garret of my brain. Its fun. But its not that much fun. It would be a lot more fun if they would break out the medical marijuana but I suppose they're doing the best they can.

Not that I haven't learned a lot. I have. Some stuff I'd rather not get into here. Drop me a line if we've corresponded before and you're all that interested. We can discuss.

Some stuff was already apparent to me but deeper, more intense than I realized. My Dad, for example.

I hadn't realized just how much I miss him. The therapists picked up on that right away, I don't know how. They just did. And they made me cry about it, too. A lot. A whole lot. I don't know why I cried as much as I did. Its just that he...Its just that I...and we never...OK, I need a minute, here.

I have a lot of anxiety over my Mom and taking care of her. That unmoored my psyche from time to time. All my life, no matter how bad things were with me, my Mom would always pat my hand and pet my brow and murmur, there, there darlin, everything's going to be alright.

I could really use a little petting now but its beyond her powers. She's the one who needs reassuring.

I also learned that a lot of my anger was over my fear that I was not going to be able to do all the things I'd done before. That I was not going to be the man I was before. That I would not be a whole man, if you take my meaning.

And I was afraid my rascally, irresponsible, Rover days were over. That I was doomed to be a solid citizen. Which, lets face it, is only a little better than a death sentence.

I mean, sure, you're not dead and that's not nothing, but really, what's the fuckin point?

But they showed me how those fears were misplaced. In every way. If you know what I mean.

So, there's a sort of peace has settled over me. Its unlike anything I've experienced before. The closest I've come to it before was an age ago in Thua Thien Hue province when I realized the ground had stopped reeling under the weight of Soviet splosives.

One of the therapists told me that for all the bad things cancer does, there is one good thing that almost cancels everything else out. Almost.

They claim it's a sure cure for neuroses.

And you know what? I'll be damned if they're not right.

I Just Don't Know What to Say

2010-03-05T10:26:00.003-08:00

Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to write something elegant and coherent. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to write a better defense of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed than I wrote back back in November, a more persuasive one. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to breathe and engage in a cool, calculated discussion about where individuals charged with committing terrorist acts should be tried.

Not today. Today, I'm too angry.

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

They do one, one thing right when it comes to the detainees in this whole year, and then they're ready to backtrack. There is no credible opposition to trying KSM in a civilian court. Cost is not a sufficient objection. The fact that he will have an opportunity to speak is not a sufficient objection. The publicity is not a sufficient objection. The possibility of acquittal is not a sufficient objection.

All these things together do not even approach a sufficient objection.

They do not deserve special treatment. They deserve the treatment of common criminals, which they are. Common criminals, common courts, American justice.

They are not that powerful. We give them too much power, by fearing them so.

ETA: Read Serwer and Ackerman for something with a bit more information and a bit less frothing at the mouth. I can't give you that today.

where have you been all my life?

2010-03-05T09:32:00.004-08:00

This is the blog I've been dying to find: American Indians in Children's Literature. The author, Debbie Reese, teaches at the University of IL-Urbana-Champaign and is a member of the Nambe Pueblo. Her blog aims to help teachers and parents be responsible educators by providing resources and information about American Indians, kids' lit, history, and pedagogy.

Research shows, however, that it is not enough to provide children with better information. Teachers must also actively work towards helping children develop an ability to identify racist, biased, and outdated information about, in this case, American Indians. These depictions—whether they appear in children’s books, television programs, movies, as school mascots, or in products at the grocery store—far outnumber the factual and realistic portrayals of American Indians. For decades, Native scholars have addressed these problematic images. . . . The content of the website is designed to help people develop a critical stance when evaluating American Indians in children’s books. This means recognizing negative and positive stereotypes, both of which stand in the way of seeing and accepting American Indians as people of the present day (from her about page).

So, so awesome. Definitely going to Pseudonymous Kid's schools and finding its way into the teacher library...

Time + Someone Smart = Money

2010-03-04T10:15:00.004-08:00

I'm kind of seething a little bit over this Washington Post story talking about their comment section. Post reporter Christian Davenport basically acknowledged that the Washington Post's comment sections are terrible. Despite the fact that they claim to moderate them, it's obvious that they're doing a terrible job. The Washington Post, like the comment section of every other newspaper in the country except the New York Times, clearly doesn't understand moderation. What's their moderation strategy?

The Post uses automated filters to screen out some offensive language from comment boards; in addition, reporters and producers check the comments and take down posts that they find to be unacceptably abusive or tasteless.

Dear post: no wonder your comments suck. Here's a tip: you need to hire someone. Websites with a much smaller and more homogenous (and thus, less abusive) readership, like Feministing and Jezebel each have people whose specific job it is to moderate the comments, because moderating is hard work. It takes time, and it takes expertise. Especially when you've got a site with hundreds and hundreds of comments with people just mouthing off.

They don't seem to get it. When you don't effectively moderate comments, you might as well not have a comment section at all, because it is unreadable. And it chaps my hide that they're just now realizing that it might affect the quality of the journalism, because sources are reluctant to talk to them for fear of the WaPo comments treatment. Even if there's not a source out there who does this, it already affected the quality of your journalism, because the racist, sexist, incoherent, trollish, offensive comments were appearing right there on your pages alongside the things that your writers painstakingly reported and wrote.

Hire someone. You could even hire me. There are a ton of knowledgeable people who understand comment moderation. Look, for example, to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has one of the best comment sections on the internet. You know why? He worked on it. He was in the comments, banning, deleting, cajoling, steering the discussion and responding to those who were on the fence of trollishness. Now, the comments are an absolute pleasure to read.

That's probably too much to hope for from you, Washington Post. But you could at least make it so the comments don't send your sources running scared and your readers turning away in disgust. But you have to spend some money. Comments may seem free, but no truly good content is ever free.

More on Men and Sex

2010-03-03T12:34:00.003-08:00

Via Feministing comes a new PSA from Sex Really which is one of the worst PSAs for safe sex I've ever seen. (Note: video contains graphic language).

If you don't/can't watch the video, Feministing has a transcript at the post I linked above. The upshot is: men are assholes who don't respect you and say gross things when talking to their dude friends about sex, so practice safe sex. The video is a conversation between three guys who are making a variety of remarks about sex. Some are banal but explicit: "And I'm able to grab one titty as I'm doing it and I grab the other titty this way and I was very happy." Some are offensive and rape-y: "I know, if she's gonna wear a dress like that who's not gonna lift that shit up."

Jos at Feministing and Shelby at This is Misogyny have already covered the basic ground: this video is misogynist, offensive, and trafficks in tired and harmful stereotypes. But there's something I find more insidious about this video, and about the wider narrative of men talking about sex, that I want to address.

There's this notion that men discussing sex is disrespectful, period. If you've ever heard the phrase "kiss-and-tell," you know what I'm talking about. The principle is that boys and men aren't supposed to talk about their sex lives with their friends, because...I don't know? They aren't supposed to acknowledge that they have sex with their girlfriends/lovers/wives because then everyone will know that the woman is.. a slut? I really don't know what it is.

This video is choppy--not a narrative conversation--so it's clear that what the video is conceived of as a bunch of choice lines picked out from a longer conversation that are supposed to make the (female) audience think: wow, what an asshole. And some of the lines are assholish things to say. But a lot of them aren't, they're just explicit.

I deeply resent and reject the idea that men aren't allowed to have explicit conversations with their friends, or it makes them disrespectful of women in general, and the women in their lives specifically. Some of that "what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom" mentality spills over to women, too. Some of my best conversations with friends have been about sex. Whether it's talking about some great sex, or talking about contraception, or bad sex, or sex problems, or telling funny stories. It's fun. Sex is a part of the human experience, and it's ridiculous to think that we share that with our partners and our partners alone.

The prohibition on adults talking about sex with people other than their partners is a huge contributor to the problem of sexual violence, domestic violence, emotional isolation within relationships, a cocoon of shame that surrounds sex and sexuality and our bodies, and sexual dissatisfaction. I have always told my partners that they are free to talk about their sex lives with anyone they trust. Frankly, if the thought of your boyfriend talking to his friends about having sex with you makes you feel unsafe, your boyfriend needs new friends, which means you need a new boyfriend.

After making this clear, I sometimes check back in to see whether they actually have. To a one, none. Because of this narrative, and men's emotional discomfort with one another, "good" men are unable to have conversations with other men about sex. Some do with their female friends. But with other men? Rarely. That's because of the idea that talking about sex in a way that is respectful doesn't exist. Men don't know how to do it. So they don't.

This puts huge pressure on women. I don't want to be the only person in the universe that my partner has frank conversations with about sex, but I think I probably am, and I think most women are.

So, "sex really"? Your PSA sucks. Your representation of men is wrong, your representation of women is wrong, and your encouragement of the narrative that men talking about having sex with women is disrespectful is actually harmful to the cause of safe sex that you claim to promote. Get a clue.

Pleased as Punch

2010-03-02T10:06:00.010-08:00

This study has been making the rounds. It's by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and it produced the somewhat surprising result that when you ask couples who are trying to avoid pregnancy how they would feel if they did get pregnant, men reported almost double the frequency of being "a little pleased" or "very pleased." Men were at 43% for those two categories, women only 20.

Jill at Feministe calls this "kind of terrifying." Amanda Hess at the City Paper says "So, politely, what the fuck is going on? How many women out there are having sex under the assumption that their male partners are invested in teaming up to prevent pregnancy, only to discover that the guys are privately ecstatic about the idea?"

But is this really surprising? I think there's something less sinister going on here. And I also like this study, because as Amanda notes, this completely debunks the notion that men don't want to have babies and women do, and so women are constantly angling for pregnancy/sabotaging birth control/under the influence of a raging biological clock. It's funny that that myth persists. Anecdotally, I know quite a few women who are in the "I do not want kids period" category, but every dude I know is in the "definitely" or "maybe" category (yes, of course, I know there are men who don't want kids. I just don't know them).

And why shouldn't they? In a patriarchy, having kids is basically a net plus for men. They get a lot of approval, social status, pleasure, and benefits from having children, especially children that they parent. Of course it bears costs for them, but far fewer costs than it does for women.

[ETA: Now I see that Kate Harding basically made the same point in her piece at Salon: "[I]s it because of the cultural reality that women are still most often the primary caregivers and more likely to have to put careers and dreams on hold when a child comes along, so men might not feel they have as much to lose?"]

Hess formulation that they are "privately ecstatic about the idea" rings true for a lot of women, too. I'm ardently trying to avoid pregnancy, and have been for the last ten years, because I don't feel ready for a kid yet, even though I do want to have a kid/kids eventually. So if I were to get pregnant right now? Yeah, in a sense I would be happy. I think my partner would too. But for me, the negatives would be higher than for my partner, and certainly would have been a lot higher several years ago. The physical toll, the impact on my life, my ability to work or go to school during pregnancy, my health care costs (AHEM, I am currently uninsured), my entire future. For my partner, those costs are just less. It makes sense that men would be more positive about an unplanned pregnancy because, across the board, even in the most egalitarian relationships, the costs are just lower for them. Much lower. And the benefits higher. Men who have kids are seen as more responsible workers, and women who have kids are treated poorly. It's a double standard and it sucks. But, naturally, it affects men's outlook on the prospect of having babies.

I also think there's something positive about this result, that isn't just a reflection of patriarchy, or increased social benefits for men who have kids, or the natural impact of increased costs imposed on women's bodies and lives by pregnancy.

More and more, I see my generation of men becoming really, truly conversant with the language and philosophy of reproductive choice, and realizing that they should try to limit the extent they try to influence women's reproductive choice. I've discussed pregnancy with every guy I've dated seriously, just because a) it comes up, when you're having sex (or it should, anyway), and b) I like taking temperatures on people's attitudes, because I think it says a lot about how they'll be in a relationship. To a one, even the ones who were kind of jerks in retrospect, they all seemed to understand that were I to get pregnant, the decision as to how to address the pregnancy would be my decision and my decision alone. They knew that they would be called on to talk things through with me, comfort me, support me, but never, never tell me what to do.

Now, I'm not sure that all of the guys would have or would now actually do that were the situation to arise. The prospect of being a parent can, I'm sure, make people behave poorly. (See, for example, how often the first incidence of domestic violence occurs during pregnancy). But at least they all knew what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to feel.

And so I see this group of men, who are pleased with their partners unintended pregnancy, not as engaging in some private sabotage, but as recognizing that the choice is not theirs to make, and so defaulting to a relatively neutral position. Being displeased with someone else's unplanned pregnancy isn't a neutral position. Given all the possible outcomes of an unplanned pregnancy, I think being "displeased" is a worse outlook. Being displeased can mean you encourage an abortion when your partner might not want one. Being displeased can mean you tell your partner that you're not willing to provide support for the child, emotional, financial or otherwise. Being displeased can mean that you don't help your partner during the pregnancy. Being displeased can mean a lot of bad things. Whereas being pleased can mean that you support your partner in doing whatever she wants to do, whether it's going forward with or terminating the pregnancy. I suppose that being pleased can also mean that you pressure your partner to continue the pregnancy when she wants to terminate it, but it also seems likely to me that you will be able to share whatever grief your partner might have about terminating (if she does, which of course, lots of women don't.)

This is all very nebulous. Am I totally off base here?

but the important thing is they pay for my hotel

2010-03-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome the newest member of the National Women's Law Center's Spring 2010 Policy and Leadership Institute - better known as PLAN!

Public office plans or no, the opportunity to participate in this makes me shiver. How cool is this to me? It was a national competition and only 20 women were chosen - and I was one of them!! Jesus, I haven't gotten this excited about an offer since grad school!

(And let's be honest; my excitement about grad school was more about moving 2000 miles away from Los Angeles than setting the academic world on fire. This, what I'm feeling right now, is like having a hand reach down from the sky and pat me on the back. It's huge validation for me.)

If you haven't checked out NWLC's policy work, you should.

Sigh. The espresso bean-like mood (dark and bitter) I've been in for the past few weeks has begun to dissipate. This is exactly what I needed to hear.

(Oh, and the White House Project is coming to Chicago in May. I'll be checking that out - and y'all other like-minded women out there should, too.)

Know what else is weird? On the registration form, I listed M- as my emergency contact. Huh.

Don't Get Me Wrong

2010-02-27T14:14:00.006-08:00

The top photo was taken today.

The bottom photo was taken at Thanksgiving.

Where the waves came from, I can't say.

Landmarks in child development

2010-02-27T11:33:00.002-08:00

Everyone "oohs" and "aahs" over stupid bullshit like "baby's first steps" and "first day of school." Some of the traditional Big Moments actually are important, like "sleeps through night." But there are some vital rubicons that get no attention, and I am here to tell you, they are huge.

For instance. Potty training is nice and all? But what really matters is the day the kid starts to wipe its own ass. No longer having to get up in the middle of every damn meal to the cry of "Mama! Come wipe my butt!" is the moment when you've really transitioned out of babyhood.

Next up? Either "reads for pleasure" or "can make own lunch." Of the two, "reads for pleasure" is a much bigger deal. Being able to tell the kid to make his or her own damn sandwich is pretty fucking sweet, but nothing beats a kid that will sit quietly for hours on end without the accompaniment of that insidious music from the Mario games.

Another nice one is "bathes self." No more aching back from bending over the tub. No more having to share your shower with someone who thinks it's fun to spray you in the face with the detachable showerhead. Having to wipe up the bathroom floor with the mat is a small price to pay for an hour of the kid playing in the bath while you read a book.

"Bikes to and from school" is a little anticlimactic. While it's awesome to be able to kick the kid out the door in the morning and go right back to your coffee cup without having to do the roundtrip drive, it's really annoying to realize that you're the only parent who thinks her kid is capable of navigating the big bad world on his or her own. While the kid gets a big boost of confidence from being the first in her or his class to do this, we all know that developmental milestones are really about parents regaining our freedom step by step. I can't wait until Pseudonymous Kid's peers also have permission to transport themselves around town and I'm freed from the burdens of "schlepping kids to and from playdates" and "mama, I'm bored, there's no one to play with, let's DO something."

This post brought to you by my having solved PK's boredom problem by reading him half of the first chapter of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book aloud, then handing him the book and telling him I wasn't going to read him the rest of it.