Marching toward Gilead, redux

From Salon, today:

February 23,2006 | PIERRE, S.D. -- South Dakota moved closer to imposing some of the strictest limits on abortion in the nation as the state Senate approved legislation that would ban the procedure except when the woman's life is in danger.

The bill, designed to spark a courtroom showdown over the legality of abortion, passed 23-12 Wednesday. On Thursday, it was headed back to the House, where lawmakers already approved similar legislation.

Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, a longtime abortion opponent, has said he would "look favorably" on an abortion ban if it would "save life."

Under the measure, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion. The only exception would be for women who need abortions to save their lives.

"In my opinion, it is the time for the South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the lives and rights of unborn children," said Sen. Julie Bartling, a Democrat and the bill's main sponsor.

The bill makes no exceptions for incest, rape, or the health of the mother.

South Dakota has tried to do this before, and the ban has always failed. Bitch, PhD has some powerful things to say about it--I'll warn my more conservative readers that she's fiercely pro-choice, and is much more passionate and vigorous in her arguments about the issue than I am.

Look, I understand what the anti-abortion contingent is about--I understand that women who advocate state control of women's reproductive decisions think that this is about saving a human life, albeit nestled inside a clump of cells that weighs around an ounce, about the size of my thumb, still without a complete and functioning central nervous system--a life the evil abortion-mongers want to snuff like a tadpole.

That really is not what access to safe and legal abortion is about, though.

It's just not.

Access to safe and legal abortions is about, in at least small measure, protecting the lives and health of women for whom pregnancy is simply untenable. Because, anti-choice propaganda aside, only someone deeply disturbed perceives abortion as a desirable birth-control strategy. This is very much part of a pervasive and misogynistic view of female sexuality that includes keeping birth control restricted and stigmatized; and keeping adolescent women uninformed and largely defenseless--only further increasing male control over female bodies.

Now, I do know I've more than one reader who feels very strongly about this--and we can talk about it, if you'd like. I also know that this is a hot button issue for people, but y'all have always shown yourselves to be intelligent and thoughtful, even when we disagree on something important. So I'll trust us to be kind to one another. I'll also promise to listen.

If this is the wave of the future for our country, I fear greatly for the women whose lives will be tragically affected by this trend.

A wire coat hanger in someone's basement is a really lousy alternative for everyone involved.

And now...

The llama song.

Snowboarders

I've been watching the snowboarders at the Olympics. I'm not a big sports fan, but I'm a long time snowboarder.

I keep hearing everyone scream about Lindsey Jacobellis hotdogging at the last minute and blowing her gold medal snowboard cross run. She's getting ripped a new one, by the press. Here's a pretty representative example:

BARDONECCHIA, Italy -- Lindsey Jacobellis had gold in her reach. Then she reached for her snowboard instead.

She had a chance to step on top of the medal stand, wrap herself in an American flag and hear "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Then she went for one last roar from the crowd, stupidly trying a flashy trick when all she needed to do was slide down the hill.

These guys don't know thing one about boarding.

I've been boarding nearly as long as this poor kid has been alive. My first board was one of the big Burtons that looked like a surfboard without the fin, with one flat end. Look down at the pic. See that 1989 board on the far right? Yep. My first board.

I've boarded a long time. I'm definitely not Olympic class, and never was. When I started, it was damned hard to find ski areas that even let boarders ride the chairs up the mountain. We perversely took pride in that.

So when I tell you what I'm about to tell you, understand that it's because I've loved this sport since its beginnings.

I respect Lindsay Jacobellis' attitude toward snowboarding much, much MORE--not less--for doing what came naturally and grabbing that edge, in the air, at the end of a terrific run. That right there gave her away as truly a boarder's boarder.

Way to go, Lindsey. Be proud of yourself, kiddo--I cheered when I saw you do that. I was frankly stunned and saddened that I hadn't seen a boarder do something similar until that point.
With that simple trick, you embodied what this sport is all about, and why I still love it.

Piss Off, Big Sports Media Guys. You have no idea.

Weird Things

Jill at Writes Like She Talks, and September at Midnight Writings, both tagged me for the five weird habits meme.

Since I don't follow instructions well, I've decided to put my own spin on the thing.

Also, don't we all have treasured weirdnesses? They mark our individuality in a context where conformity is rewarded, and noncomformity is idealized.

So I'll tell you guys about my weird habits, if you share, back. We can take turns.

I'll even go first: I daydream. Not just a little...I can be perfectly happy inside my own head, motionless or not, for hours and hours. On occasion, I'll daydream for days on end, taking only short breaks to answer direct questions like, "Have you eaten anything this week?"

See ya in the comments thread.

Just for fun

Because I never grew out of comic-kid geekdom. Via Writes Like She Talks--Which Superhero are you? Take the Quiz, post your answers--if you don't post here, give us a link, eh?

I'm 95% Spiderman, as it turns out:

"You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility."




Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Changing tastes

When I was a kid, I loved fig newtons. Really, really loved 'em.

I had a fig newton tonight, and it was sort of bland. Just...there. Where on earth did that fig newton template in my memory go?

Ditto for pepperoni. Something bad is happening to my palate.

There seems to be an entire class of flavors that exists only in memory--they're now unattainable in any kind of physical reality.

That seem terribly sad.

Can o' Worms

Don't feel obliged to flame, but I'm willing to talk about it, if you guys think this is as important as I think it is. I'll trust that if we choose to discuss the issue, we can remain at least civil to each other. I'll promise to listen, as best I can, even when I disagree--as long as you do the same.

The Kansas Supreme Court blocked the State Attorney General's access to records from two abortion clinics, to protect the patients' right to privacy.

One online report tells us:

Kline spoke to reporters after details of the secret investigation, which began in October, surfaced in a legal brief filed by attorneys for two medical clinics. The clinics argued that unless the high court intervenes, women who obtained abortions could find government agents knocking at their door.

The clinics said Kline demanded their complete, unedited medical records for women who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies in 2003, as well as those for girls 15 and younger who sought abortions. Court papers did not identify the clinics.

The records sought include the patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.

The clinics, which said nearly 90 women and girls would be affected, are offering to provide records with some key information, including names, edited out.

Today's Seattle PI says:

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The state's highest court on Friday temporarily stopped the state attorney general from looking at records from two abortion clinics, saying such a review could violate patient privacy.

The Kansas Supreme Court ordered a lower court judge to first make sure that Attorney General Phill Kline has the right to see the documents in his investigation of potential violations of state restrictions on abortion and suspected rapes of children.

If Judge Richard Anderson determines Kline does have that right, he must still ensure that the patients' privacy is protected, the court said.

I'm thinking about collective experiences, today. Sure, maybe we all read The DaVinci Code, but I'm not sure that counts. You know--the way communities bond, by experiencing the same things together. Do we do that any more?

I'm not quite sure how so many conservative-type folks ended up here in a blog-neighborhood somewhere near the intersection of Marxist Drive and Dogma Lane, but here we all are. I'm delighted you're here, too. You're a treasured part of the little community that this blog is growing into.

Comment thread Synchronicity

Jill said, in the comments thread:

What I would like to hear more of, and I do think some of it's getting out there, is how do Muslims around the world feel? Is this what they want Islam to be identified with by non-Muslims? I know they don't - I know that there are Muslims speaking out about how their beliefs do not support suicide bombing. But what hasn't that group taken hold? What is preventing their voice from being the dominant one inside the more radically religious and conservative Middle Eastern governments? I saw the picture on the cover of the NYT just after the election, and it was a sea of men and boys. Not a single female face. Doesn't that alone speak to scary?

In the NYT this morning, this article declares:

To a degree specialists said was new in the conservative Muslim society of the Gaza Strip, Hamas used its women to win, sending them door to door with voter lists and to polling places for last-minute campaigning.

Now in surprise control of Palestinians politics, Hamas can boast that women hold 6 of the party's 74 seats in parliament — giving the women of the radical group, guided in all ways by their understanding of Islam, a new and unaccustomed public role.

Now, understand that I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment, where some hard "truths" were stated pretty baldly. I clearly remember, when it came up that I was planning to pursue a college prep course in high school, one church elder bluntly said, "What on earth for? Women have absolutely no business going to college except to find a husband."

Higher education giving women all those uppity feminist ideas, after all.

I remember my mother ruthlessly repressing her own rebellious feminist urges to tell me that there was no good reason for women to vote; their husbands should speak for both of them. Don't judge her too harshly for that. She's the one who made it possible for me to leave and go to the aforementioned college. While I didn't notice at the time, she began much of the eventual deprogramming that would culminate later, after a handful of logic, philosophy and theology classes.

So I understand all too well about women participating in their own subjugation.

It does make me wonder about the moderate Christians, too. I wish they'd get a whole lot louder. They're out there, though. They are apparently Christians who struggle to reclaim their religion, and the perception of their religion, from the extremist Christian right:

I am a Christian. I also grew up in the American South. "My people" -- both Christians and Southerners, according to my friend and many Yale students -- are changing our nation with a conservative agenda. That agenda is not mine. Many Christians, like myself, strongly believe in separation of church and state; are Democrats and pro-choice; support women in ministry as preachers and teachers; and believe that God loves all people, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual orientation. It is possible for Christians to represent such God-like views and not be radical judgmentalists. It is possible for Christians to be loving, kind, conversational and respectful of persons of different faiths.

Despite my vote in the presidential election, my identity as a Christian became associated with Christian conservatism more than ever after Nov. 2. "My people" appear to be part of the Christian right because voices from the Christian left are often stifled or silenced.

I do indeed wonder about the more moderate Muslims, out there--because I'm not hearing much on either a local or an international level. Jill's question has certainly been asked before; there just aren't very many particularly loud public responses.

Turns out, according to Islam for Today, even the terminology is somewhat problematic:

American media uses the term moderate Muslim to indicate a Muslim who is either pro-western in her politics or is being self-critical in her discourse. Therefore both President Karzai of Afghanistan and Professor Kahlid Abul Fadl of UCLA wear the cap with felicity, the former for his politics the latter for his ideas.

Muslims in general do not like using the term, understanding it to indicate an individual who has politically sold out to the “other” side. In some internal intellectual debates, the term moderate Muslim is used pejoratively to indicate a Muslim who is more secular and less Islamic than the norm, which varies across communities. In America, a moderate Muslim is one who peddles a softer form of Islam – the Islam of John Esposito and Karen Arm Strong – is willing to co-exist peacefully with peoples of other faiths and is comfortable with democracy and the separation of politics and religion.

It seem like we never do hear as much from the center, though. While certainly some of that can be blamed on our own media--because it's so much sexier to report car-bombings that to report sane and reasonable people calling for peace--maybe those of us closer to the middle need to get a whole lot louder.

What about bridges between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, on a grassroots level; Christian, secular, other. . . How do we do that?

We know how war starts. Now how do we begin peace?

Think Pink

The breast cancer site has a button that leads to a page of sponsor ads. You can click the button, and the revenue from the ads goes to pay for treatment for women in need.

I'm seriously considering doing the breast cancer 3-day walk. Have any of ya'll done it?

Thus ends today's public service announcements.

This frightens me

Hamas' recent election win frightens me. I don't think it bodes well for anyone's future--not even Palestine's.

Probably because I'm currently reading Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, I'm feeling especially sensitive to the whole issue. It's almost certainly a holdover from my upbringing that I'm doggedly pro-Israel, as a default position. Certainly, as the Palestinian situation has smoldered over the years, there's been a great deal of pressure to understand and empathize with the plight of Palestine--pressure especially from the left and far-left, where I'm usually ideologically comfortable.

You know what, though? I find a curious blank wall in my brain, where those arguments just don't get through. I simply cannot bring myself to sympathize with people that view suicide bombing civilian targets as a viable diplomatic strategy--I don't care how goddamned desperate and hopeless they feel. At what point is doing wrong just...well, wrong? (Which is equally applicable to Israel's behavior toward civilians in the conflict, of course--but when civilians are the primary combatants, those lines become very blurry, don't they?)

From the Palestinian side of the ideological chasm:

There is no doubt that Fatah was entirely complicit in the game, to which it had become both a prisoner and an indispensable partner. Why else would the United States have desperately tried to shore Fatah up by spending millions of dollars on projects in recent months designed to buy votes, and why else would the EU have threatened to cut off aid if Palestinians voted for Hamas? Most Palestinians could see clearly that after years of negotiations and billions of dollars of foreign aid that they are poorer and less free than ever before as more of their land has been seized. It is no wonder that this kind of bribery and blackmail had no power over them and probably had the opposite effect, increasing Hamas support.

Hamas' victory pulls the rug from under the project of trying to deflect the blame for the conflict from Israeli colonization to Palestinian internal pathologies. The peace process industry will not give up easily, however, and will now urge Hamas to act "responsibly" and to "moderate" its positions -- which means in effect abandoning all forms of resistance and assuming the docile and complicit role hitherto played by Fatah.

The instant US demand that Hamas "recognize Israel" is like rewinding the clock twenty-five years to when this same demand was the pretext to ignore and exclude the PLO from peace negotiations. But as Hamas has observed, all the PLO's submission to these demands did not lead to any loosening of Israel's grip or any lessening of US support for Israel. Hamas is unlikely to do as the US demands, and even if it did, it would probably only give rise to new resistance groups responding to the worsening conditions on the ground generated by the occupation.

From the other side of the chasm, "Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

It is a sad day for democracy when a majority of Palestinians vote for the party that employs and glorifies terrorism to achieve its aim to destroy Israel. The empowerment of Hamas puts peace in peril and dashes hopes for a viable
Palestinian state living in peace and security with Israel.

History has shown time and again that extremist groups come to power by promising a better life for the people, but once governing, implement their extremist policies. As long as Hamas remains an armed terrorist group it cannot be a partner for peace or accepted as a legitimate government by the international community of nations.

What are your thoughts on this, folks? Is it something you're interested in talking about? Because even though I haven't perhaps said so, directly, I'm often stunned and grateful at the kind, smart, and reasonable discussion that results in the comments here, despite our various and deeply-held differences of opinion.

Thank you for that, all of you.

No Surprises, there

The State of the Union speech was pretty much exactly what I expected. GW said the same stuff he always says. The Republicans bounced to their feet, applauding, so often that they looked like a gallery full of jack-in-the-boxes.

The new Associate Justice, Sam Alito, doesn't look like Voldemort--actually, he looks good-humored and kind. I fervently hope he is. There's no question about his intelligence; only about his loyalty to the Executive branch, versus the Constitution and the people.

The Democrats didn't look quite like the pack of whipped pups that they often do. That's encouraging. Digby thinks the pendulum is beginning to slow, before its inevitable swing back the other way.

Cindy Sheehan got arrested for wearing an anti-war tee-shirt to the State of the Union address.

Does anyone else feel increasingly disconnected from all of this? Does it seem more and more like grand theater, designed to keep us occupied arguing with one another--while we drug our kids into submission, work our two (or three) jobs, hold our breath and clench our teeth while pay for this week's gas and groceries, and worry about whether or not we'll still have to work in our 70s else how will we live?

In point of fact, I believe we want the same things, most of us. We want the freedom to pray, when and where we choose, if we so choose. We want secure jobs, affordable health care, safe streets and schools. We want to hold our heads up and know that, as individuals and as a nation, we are behaving honorably. We are willing to work our butts off to achieve and keep those things.


Chop wood and carry water.

I love me my stereotypes

One of the things I decided early on was that I wouldn't try to tell you how to think, with this blog. I'll tell you how I think, and why I think that way--but, often enough, I'm not entirely certain about anything. I think the world is a complex and surreal place, with intricate interconnected dynamics of influence and cause-and-effect.

Certainty, that is to say, is either for those much smarter than me; or for those who have given up completely.

I happily encountered a kind philosophy professor, my freshman year in college, who took the time to essentially deprogram me from the fundamentalist religious upbringing I brought with me into his Technology, Society, and Values seminar. Frankly, I'm not even sure I'd have turned out quite sane, without Charlie's patient Socratic questioning about "truths" I was so certain of. *No comments from the peanut gallery about my relative sanity, either.

What part of your upbringing and education do you look at and think, "That. That helped define who I've become. That person (or insert other noun of your own experience) shaped how I think"?

That said, you should read Michael Bérubé's Academic Freedom essay (via Making Light.)

What animates the radical right, in other words, is not so much a specific liberal belief about stem-cell research here or gay civil unions there; on an abstract level, it’s not about any specific liberal issues at all. Rather, it’s about the very existence of areas of political and intellectual independence that do not answer directly and favorably to the state. So, for example (and this is my final example, chosen especially for you librarians out there), when in April 2005 Alabama state representative Gerald Allen proposed a bill that would have prevented Alabama’s public libraries from buying books by gay authors or involving gay characters, he wasn’t actually acting as a conservative. Real “conservatives” don’t do that. He was behaving like a member of the radical right. Indeed, his original intent was to strip libraries of all such works, from Shakespeare to Alice Walker; and as he put it, “I don’t look at it as censorship. I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.” Thankfully, relatively few public officials see it as their job to protect the children of America from the heritage of Western culture.

But some do, and that’s why academic freedom is so important. It may not be written into the Bill of Rights—you know, the real one, the one in the Constitution. It is far younger than the rights enumerated there, and more fragile. But together with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the freedom of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, academic freedom is an aspect of procedural liberalism that is one of the cornerstones of a free society. If you believe in the ideals of the open society and the intellectual legacies of the Enlightenment, you should believe in academic freedom—and you should believe that it is a freedom is worth defending.

Now--I admittedly associate anecdotes like the one above with southern and midwestern states, almost exclusively. Or I did, until the PA Intelligent Design case came up, and was so hard-fought.

Is there no sin in it? offers an interesting take on that snobbery and reverse-snobbery--which I'm as guilty of as the next guy or gal:

Those who would appeal to the uneducated hold that there is a coterie of liberal wealthy academics, atheists all, who spend most of a day out-laughing one another over dark witticisms in French while they rave over food that smells like old socks. The uneducated propose that, in private, these people must actually find bodily fluids funny.

Those who would appeal to the educated claim that there is a tragic sector of the population who are functionally illiterate, watch hours and hours of television, love killing things, and find nothing more wonderful under the sun than a well-timed fart. The educated assume that, in private, these people are deeply, solemnly at one with God.

I think those observations are true and important, because those stereotypes polarize the opposite sides of the debate about what should and shouldn't be taught; and about how things should or shouldn't be taught. Deep down, she's got me pegged. On some level, I believe that if parents wants their kids to hear about Creation--or Intelligent Design, because frankly, I believe it's the same thing--those parents must be mouth-breathing Nascar fans with GEDs, and living in a 1974 double-wide, thinking frozen tater-tots are a vegetable.

That is, of course, quite wrong. So how on earth did I develop that conviction? Is this a media thing? How did these careful constructs get built? How did I manage to be so susceptible to them? This isn't a product of how I was raised. We were hardly rich and intellectual liberals--my generation was the first on either side of the family to complete college. So where do these come from, these polarized constructs in my mind?

While we're at it, how do you perceive the state of academic freedom? Are we in danger? Or for the more conservative readers, here--you know who you are *grin*--do you have personal experiences with academic bias? Not stories you've heard, mind you; but things that happened to you or yours.

What is the single most important thing to teach our children?

Clap, if you believe!

Here's an interesting news item:

VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would “harm the fairies” living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again.

Marcus Salter, head of Genesis Properties, estimates that the small colony of fairies believed to live beneath a rock in St Fillans, Perthshire, has cost him £15,000. His first notice of the residential sensibilities of the netherworld came as his diggers moved on to a site on the outskirts of the village, which crowns the easterly shore of Loch Earn.

He said: “A neighbour came over shouting, ‘Don’t move that rock. You’ll kill the fairies’.” The rock protruded from the centre of a gently shelving field, edged by the steep slopes of Dundurn mountain, where in the sixth century the Celtic missionary St Fillan set up camp and attempted to convert the Picts from the pagan darkness of superstition.

Heh. Darned pagan darkness, bogging down good capitalist endeavors like that! I must say--I like that fairies are apparently anti-development. It sort of puts ELF in a whole new light, eh?

Shall we?

Let us speak of first love.

You know the one I mean. Whoever it was--his or her name sprang immediately into the front of your mind. No matter how long ago, how far away; no matter how very different you were, then.

For the most part, I think the notion of romantic love doesn't do us many favors. I'd like very much to say I don't even believe in it--that it's really a mixture of pheromones, chemistry, and youthful naivete. I'd like to say that . . . but I don't entirely believe it.

The really strange thing is that no matter how you go on--how well or how permanently you love, later in life--you never forget. Somehow, the memory doesn't detract from other loves, other places, either; rather, the memory only adds to who you've become.

For me, it was Nina. I think I was all of about 20 years old.

She lived in the room next to mine, my last year in the dorms. She played the strangest music, very loud, at the most ungodly hours.

She had thirteen piercings in her left ear, seven in her right. She wore a lot of black, smoked Virginia Slims, and drove this horrible and enormous green car that she had named; for the life of me, I can't remember what she called it, though. She piloted the thing very fast, and in highly alarming fashion--stomping the accelerator and laughing like a lunatic at the smaller cars and pedestrians scrambling to get out of her path. I mostly clutched the dashboard and the armrest, and tried to seem both relaxed and worldly-wise.

She got me drunk one afternoon, kidnapped me from my advanced symbolic logic class and took me to the mall where she had the top of my left ear pierced.

It was excruciating. I very nearly passed out in the chair right there in the earring kiosk, in fact.

But I still wear a discreet stud through the hole, even now, when I am closer to 40 than to twenty.

To my enduring regret, I never told her how I felt.

Your turn. Tell me about your first love.

Go, Google!

Let me preface this post by saying I'm not particularly an advocate of pornography. I am an advocate of free speech, however. Consenting adults, and all that--sure. It doesn't bother me except in mostly abstract terms about what it means to objectify and sexualize human beings into. . .errr. . .actually, that's another post altogether.

I am staunchly of the belief that child pornography is evil and indefensible. I suspect most of us are of the same mind.

However, does anyone honestly believe that the government really wants millions of records from Google, from two specific months, for the sake of a court-battle over a law struck down in 2004, as unconsitutional? I don't buy it.

Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek, as posted on CRN:

The government initially asked for two sets of data. First, a file containing all "URLs that are available to be located through a query on your company's search engine as of July 31, 2005." Following discussions with Google, this request was narrowed to "a multi-stage random sample of one million URLs."

Second, the government asked for all "queries that have been entered on your company's search engine between June 1, 2005 and July 31, 2005, inclusive."

The DoJ said in the filing: "The production of those materials would be of significant assistance to the Government's preparation of its defense of the constitutionality of this important statute."

In a statement opposing the DoJ demands, Google associate general counsel Nicole Wong said, "Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches. We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."

John Battelle, an online publishing entrepreneur and author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture," expects that the federal government will make more such requests of search engines.

More on the matter, here:

The case worries privacy advocates, given the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users.

"This is exactly the kind of case that privacy advocates have long feared," said Ray Everett-Church, a South Bay privacy consultant. "The idea that these massive databases are being thrown open to anyone with a court document is the worst-case scenario. If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives."

Everett-Church, who has consulted with Internet companies facing subpoenas, said Google could argue that releasing the information causes undue harm to its users' privacy.

"The government can't even claim that it's for national security," Everett-Church said. "They're just using it to get the search engines to do their research for them in a way that compromises the civil liberties of other people."

It might behoove us to remember the government--ANY government--exists to serve the needs of the people, and not vice versa. In the wake of the recent NSA wiretapping scandal, this seems indicative of an especially troubling trend.

But then . . . this administration has never seemed all that concerned about the Constitution, anyway.

Tough question

From a NYTimes item about the new Bin Laden tape, this morning:

Vice President Dick Cheney, asked by Fox News about the tape, said it now seemed likely that Mr. bin Laden, whom some had believed dead, was alive. But, the vice president said, Mr. bin Laden has clearly had trouble getting his message out and added, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"I think you have to destroy them," he said. "It's the only way to deal with them."

Mr. bin Laden offered the American people a vague truce, saying "both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan." Later in the statement he quotes from a book which calls for an end to what he termed "American interference in the nations of the world."

What do you guys think? What's the right thing to do? How do you interpret this new information?

A sad commentary on American post-secondary education

I offer Cheatingresearch.com, for your jeers, sneers, and general disapproval. These enterprising souls are trying to recruit papers-for-hire from at least one writer's board.

From their website:

There are a number of important steps you need to take in order to ensure that you don’t get caught when you buy a paper.
1. Never admit anything!
2. Only use a custom written paper, pre-written papers are easy for teachers to track down.
3. If you have gotten "D"s all semester, let your writer know. If you get an A+ on the final after a pattern like this, a red flag will be raised in the teacher’s mind. If the teacher does ask why this paper is so much better, just say that you felt badly about how you slacked off in the early part of the course, and really went the extra mile to make up for it with this paper.
4. If you are accused, offer to show the teacher a rough draft of your work. (Don’t expect to get away with it if you buy a paper from a site that doesn’t give you rough drafts.)
5. Only buy papers from companies that check their writers for plagiarism. Many supposedly custom paper companies will sell the same paper over and over, or copy it outright from somewhere else.
6. Make sure that you understand all the words in your paper. If you get a rough draft filled with words you don’t know, tell the writer.
7. Make sure you can briefly state the main argument of the paper and the conclusion.
8. Finally, hold your ground, if you follow all of these steps, there is absolutely no way anyone will be able to prove anything.

Lovely. Just lovely. They even offer a sample essay.

I especially like the way they check their writers for plagiarism. Cuz, ya know, that's just the kind of world we live in. People cheat, if they think they can get away with it, right?

When did students stop thinking of their education as an actual means of improving themselves, but rather an asset or a commodity, to be purchased?

And what the hell kind of unethical asswipes are writing these papers, in the first place?

Thursday's Child*

In honor of Dawno, I'd like to talk a wee bit about Star Trek. My mother was a hard-core fan of the original show, and my baby sis and I watched the syndicated episodes after school every day (at least until my mother gave away the TV set, because my baby sis was refusing to learn to read--but that's another story, entirely.)

My most fervent wish was for a working communicator. I suspect I wasn't alone--in fact, I think we can safely blame our fetish for flip-phones on the fact that we grew up on Star Trek reruns. As for me, I love my Razr with no apologies. It's black and sleek, and has bluetooth that usually works.

I found out too late about THIS; though, Dawno probably has one.

For a mere $25,000, an honest-to-god piece of Captain Kirk has recently...um... changed hands, too. (The proceeds went to charity--kudos to Bill Shatner.)

The coolest thing about Star Trek is the idealistic vision of an future society, constantly encountering quandaries while balancing its egalitarian principles with the realities of both small-scale villainy and large-scale tyranny--all without losing sight of those admirable goals of freedom and equality.

Every time we humans get something right, it gives me that same little surge of hope and optimism. So I was surprised and pleased to see the Vatican newsletter come out with a statement that ID is not science.

Oh, oh! And then there's the safe return of NASA's Stardust!

So we have quite a way to go, before achieving any egalitarian utopian vision. We do try, though. As long as we still try, there's hope, eh?

Happy Thursday, everyone.




* Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go. . .

Not sure what this little ditty says about Yesterday's Son, though.

Mixed Feelings

Before I forget, if you've a taste for the slightly skewed, and aren't following Emily Veinglory's Gay Zombie Penguins, you probably should.


I'm a bad lesbian. I have no real desire to see Brokeback Mountain, although I probably will go anyway because Annie Proulx wrote the short story.

I will admit that the apparently deep-seated appeal of slash fic is somehow lost on me. I strongly suspect the good looks of the two young actors in the movie, coupled with the novelty and promise of hot guy-on-guy chemistry, is boosting this movie's popularity far beyond what it might otherwise exhibit. Normally, I'd expect a movie like this to come out low-budget, with complete unknown actors, play a long weekend in the local art-house, then disappear forever.

I'm stunned and impressed that the story--it's a good story, by the way, published in The New Yorker, in 1997--managed to draw such big names.

I worry, however, on a couple of points. I worry that a queer lovestory going so mainstream will serve to create a tempest in a teapot with the idiot far-right, and distract from the fact that we can't marry our long-term partners, file a joint tax-return, or do any number of other little things that straight, married people take completely for granted. I worry that the backlash will serve to distract from the fact that in many states it is completely legal to deny housing or employment on the basis of sexuality. "Look, you got Brokeback Mountain, for chrissakes--you're getting your perversion flaunted right in our faces, so quit yer whinin'!"

I dunno. I could just be paranoid, too.

Then, there's the completely selfish aspect--I don't really want to let the idiot far-right in on queerness. I don't really want them to see the pain and the heart-breaking self-identification battles. I don't really want to share with them that rare, private moment of "oh, my god...this is why I've never quite fit in." It feels too personal. Too private. If I thought it would make a difference for one single second, then perhaps I'd feel differently. These people aren't even going to go see the movie, though--much less experience some sort of epiphany. They'll just use it as so much more ammunition about the "homosexual agenda"--which is not about rubbing anyone's face in anything, by the way; but rather, it's about being able to have a job and an apartment; and about not being beaten nearly to death, tied with your own shoelaces and left to die hanging from a fence . . . all just because you're queer.

I will say, after cruising a handful of message boards to see what was being said about the movie, I'm glad for the sake of the young and enthusiastic newly-gay*, out there. They seem to feel affirmed and, frankly, a bit giddy. As if this movie really is a triumph towards the greater goal of cultural acceptance.

In the long run, I'm afraid, it'll do no such thing.





*Newly-gay being the under thirty-five crowd. After a couple of decades, it gets harder to sustain that level of enthusiasm about your sexuality--probably regardless of gender-preference.

Not that it isn't still fun...

More Rain

26 consecutive days of rain.

There's inches of standing water covering everyone's lawns.
Mine, too.

The sun has gone. This is reality. It has always rained. It is raining now. It will rain every day, forever.

I can't even smoke, anymore. I tried to smoke a cig, and it tasted terrible--sort of like if you burned dirt, mixed with roofing tar and old newspapers.

This sucks.

My laptop is still broken, too. The repair guys are lying to me...I can sense it. "Oh! We were just about to CALL you!"

My ass they were. They weren't going to call me. They didn't even know which laptop was mine. Although, next time, maybe I'll just pay the bill on the one they try to give me, and take my chances...

Did I mention it's our 26th consecutive rainy day?

I feel my mental processes decaying. I don't remember what the sun looks like.

I've been staring at the wall beyond the desktop monitor for a long time. I think the pattern is moving. Now and again, I look away, and look back quick--trying to catch it happening.

I can see the difference. Sometimes I can detect the motion, from the corner of my eye.

Then I look directly at it, and it stops, immediately.




What was the question, again?

AGH! I missed a tag!

I always feel so guilty when that happens...
Sorry 'bout that, Tish!

The meme goes like this:

1. go to your archive
2. find the 23rd post
3. find the 5th sentence
4. post the text of the sentence in a blog entry along with these instruction
5. tag 5 other people

Unfortunately, there aren't five sentences in my 23rd post.

The entirety of that post reads: "No matter HOW bloody smart you think you are, it really DOES help to plot the damn thing first."

Now I'm tagging Jill, Ray, Unique (what the hell happened to your blog?!) Kira and Jason.

A Rant

Recently, an internet acquaintance said something I keep thinking about. Over at AW, HConn said: "I love how the term "PC" became a derogatory term for not insulting people. My father, a construction worker, taught me to be PC, but since the term hadn't been invented then, he called it "having manners," and it was usually accompanied by a dummy slap."

I've thought about that for a couple of days, now. Like you, I'm growing accustomed to the conservative backlash over political correctness. I wince every time I hear "PC" used to denigrate an idea or argument.

Even worse, the accusation that something is PC justifies people who immediately stop listening--do not pass go, do not collect your two hundred bucks. "Oh, that's just so much PC bullshit" is sort of the ultimate ad hominem--attacking not just one speaker, but an entire class of speakers and ideas.

Right over the fucking top is the way the other guys--you know, the ones who hate all things PC with a passion--keep making up bogus stories about imagined out-of-control PC tyranny. The so-called War on Christmas, or how Oakland Schools are going to teach Ebonics instead of English? Total scare-tactic crap, fabricated from bits and pieces lifted out of context and given a wild spin to the right, sent out into the news and onto the web to wreak whatever havoc possible, before finally blowing out.

Philip Atkinson, a UK writer, says of Political Correctness:

"The declared rational of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behaviour that may upset homosexuals, women, non-whites, the crippled, the mentally impaired, the fat or the ugly.

This reveals not only its absurdity but its inspiration. The
set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (those who fought the Second World War), which is why the terms niggers, coons, dagos, wogs, poofs, spastics and sheilas, have become heresy, for, in an act of infantile rebellion, their subject have become revered by the new generation. Political Correctness is merely the resentment of spoilt children directed against their parent's values."

Oh. Nice.

People who don't want to be called "nigger" or "coon" are really just spoiled and rebellious children. People who don't want to be called "faggot" or "dyke," ditto. Because the right to call people these names is a dearly-held value of the previous generation, we should all just grow up and accept our lot as inferior beings--subject to whatever derogatory language the more culturally powerful care to place on us.

Because, make no mistake, the act of such marginalizing and name-calling is a clear indication of where the power rests. Don't believe me? Think of three nasty words for people of color. Can you think of three equally familiar terms for white folks? I can't. How about the same experiment for queer and straight?

Don't for a moment think Mr. Atkinson is alone in this specific criticism of all things PC, either.

From a speech given by Bill Lind:

...For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic.

We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been the case. And we have always regarded them with a mixture of pity, and to be truthful, some amusement, because it has struck us as so strange that people would allow a situation to develop where they would be afraid of what words they used. But we now have this situation in this country. We have it primarily on college campuses, but it is spreading throughout the whole society. Were does it
come from? What is it?

We call it "Political Correctness." The name originated as something of a joke, literally in a comic strip, and we tend still to think of it as only half-serious. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious.

If we look at it analytically, if we look at it historically, we quickly find out exactly what it is. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.

First of all, both are totalitarian ideologies. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness is revealed nowhere more clearly than on college campuses, many of which at this point are small ivy covered North Koreas, where the student or faculty member who dares to cross any of the lines set up by the gender feminist or the homosexual-rights activists, or the local black or Hispanic group, or any of the other sainted "victims" groups that PC revolves around, quickly find themselves in judicial trouble. Within the small legal system of the college, they face formal charges – some star-chamber proceeding – and punishment. That is a little look into the future that Political Correctness intends for the nation as a whole.

(Trans: God forbid anyone marginalized should stand up for themselves and demand to be respected. In fact, should they dare to do so, we'll just lump 'em all together and marginalize them even further--plus, any weak-willed, lilly-livered, straight, white, liberals who want to side with 'em can go right on that same boat; we'll sink 'em all together, that way.)

The whole speech rambles on in that vein. Making wild assertions and spectacular and improbably leaps of, uh, "logic."

Interesting that in both of the above anti-PC rants, the group conspicuous by its absence from the list of the marginalized is straight, white, conservative men. With some consideration, I can think one apt pejorative for two specific individuals belonging to that particular class.

Dickheads.

/rant

Umm...well...Hiya!

My beloved laptop is still in the shop, which cuts quite egregiously into my blogging and recreational writing time. Which is just another way of saying I know I've been scarce, and thank you for your patience.

Meanwhile, we're having our 24th consecutive day with measurable precipitation. That's rather a lot, at one stretch. Even for Seattle.

What's up out there? What are you guys doing with your Januaries?

A favorite Christmas Story, a bit late

One of my favorite bits of history is the Christmas truce in 1914, when German and English soldiers climbed out of their trenches and met in no-man's land. The soldiers exchanged cigarettes, candy, and goodwill.

There's been at least one song written about it:

Christmas in The Trenches
Words & Music by John McCutcheonc. 1984 John McCutcheon / Appalsong
"This song is based on a true story from the front lines of World War I France that I've heard many times. According to a recent source, Ian Calhoun, a Scot, was the commanding officer of the British forces involved in the story. He was subsequently court-martialed for 'consorting with the enemy' and sentenced to death. Only George V spared him from that fate." -- John McCutcheon

My name is Francis Toliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.

'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold an rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound.
Says I, "Now listen up, me boys!" each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.

"He's singing bloody well, you know!" my partner says to
me.
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony.
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was
spent
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from
Kent.
The next they sang was "Stille Nacht," "'Tis 'Silent Night,'" says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky.

"There's someone coming towards us!" the front line sentry
cried. All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night.

Soon one by one on either side walked into NO Man's Land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand.
We shared some secret brandy and wished each other well
And in a flare lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from
home.
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own.
Young
Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once
more
With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"

'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of
peace were sung.
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of
war
Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore.

My name is Francis Toliver, in Liverpool I dwell,
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well,
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the
dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same.

May this new year bring true peace to all of God's children everywhere--regardless of the name by which they call him.

2006

A very happy New Year, everyone.

My life is richer for your presence.

http://www.hogmanay.net/history/auldlangsyne

Housekeeping

Heh--It's been quite a week.

Just a few loose ends to tie up. My dear friend, Ray Wong, is spilling all sorts of made-up secrets about me, on his blog. Something about a wild evening involving Chippendales dancers and Maker's Mark. I told him not to drink so much whiskey. Sheesh, can I help it if the guy is a total lightweight?

It's been meme-madness, and this is apparently the meme Ray is playing with:
"Monday Meme - December 19

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.

As always, I'd love it if you'd use the AWMondayMemes's tag."

Urm...Knowing the bunch of you that post here, I'm a tad bit hesitant, I gotta admit...

Also, the ever-lovely Unique tagged me to write to a photo prompt. You can see the photo on her blog, here.

I sort of cheated, and borrowed a couple of characters from the book-which-shall-not-be-named-lest-its-name-
summons-my-writing-buddies-to-nag-me.

So here goes:

Somehow, sometimes, storms cleanse the heart that holds them. From complete devastation, you find a place of serenity and simplicity from which you can begin again. Erin was like that, for Matt.

For the rest of his life, his loves would be defined by Erin. He felt certain of it, sitting alone, contemplating the ceiling of his apartment. He even found a small amount of satisfaction in the thought.

Last but certainly not least, go take the My Words Matter pledge. If for no other reason, take the pledge because you do know the power of words.

Holly and Ivy and Stuff

Dawno posts a regular Monday Meme, over at AbsoluteWrite, in the blogging forum.

"Dec. 12th AWMondayMeme

List the holiday songs you know by heart, but only the ones where you know more than just the first verse."

I'm not actually going to do that. I know an awful lot of holiday songs, though; so Dawno's challenge started me thinking about the Christmas songs I love the most, and thinking about Christmas carols, in general.

I love the old songs, like The Holly and the Ivy, probably circa the mid 1700s, but I've seen at least one suggestion that the origins of the song pre-date European Christianity.

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

Musical historian William Studwell classifies "The Holly and the Ivy" as a folk song, and traces its origins to the Gloucestershire region of western England.

The Coventry Carol is another fine old song, from the mid 1500s. There are differing versions, here's one collected from Appalachia, called Lulle Lullay.

Lullay, Thou tiny little Child
Bye-bye, lulle, lullay;
Lullay, Thou tiny little Child,
Bye-bye, lulle, lullay.

Oh sisters two, how may we do
To preserve this day?
This poor Childling for whom we sing
Bye-bye, lulle, lullay.

Herod, the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His soldiers in their strength and might,
All children young to slay.

Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say,
For at thy parting nor say nor sing
Bye-bye, lulle, lullay.

And when the stars in gather do,
In their far venture stay,
Then smile as dreaming, Little One,
Bye-bye, lulle, lullay.

Revelers going from house to house drinking, celebrating, and singing certainly seems to predate Christian traditions around caroling--after all, the Romans had Bacchus.

There are a number of wassailing songs and traditions. In my internet wanderings, I came across a modern version I hadn't seen, "Homeless Wassail":

"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
But huddled on the iron grate
we poor and hungry curse our fate.

cho: No wassail bowl for such as these
No turkey scraps, no ale nor cheese,
This Christmas Eve our heart's desire
Is a bottle of gin and a trashcan fire.

Good Christian, mind, as home you go
With dreams of holly and mistletoe
That the holly bears a dreadful thorn
For those who wake to a frozen dawn.

Oh, where is He, that holy child
Once born of Mary, meek and mild?
And whither peace, goodwill to men
Now and forevermore, amen?

All ye who dine with face aglow
In Reninensi atrio (in the Queen's hall---Latin)
Pray pause awile at pleasure's door
And sup some sorrow with the poor.

"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
This cold and hunger, pain and care
Sweet Jesus Christ, it's hard to bear.


Admittedly a bit far from the festivity of the more usual Christmas songs, but not far at all from the traditional charity associated with this time of the year.

The word "wassail" probably descends from an anglo-saxon "Wæs hal!"--which roughly translates as "be healthy" and resembles the more modern "to your health." (Hopefully I didn't muck that up too badly; I'd hate to make our redoubtable Dr. Nokes cringe...) I'm not one of those folks who needs to claim pagan roots for Christmas, though. I love how old it is, I love the centuries of weight of different cultures and traditions and ideas.

So Merry Christmas, my friends. I'm so very glad you're all here. I wish blessings and good health to you and yours in the coming year.




AWMondayMemes

December 7th, 1941

Photo of the explosion of the U.S.S. Shaw, from the National Archives.

A strange Pearl Harbor conspiracy site. Here's another one.

1177 souls died aboard the USS Arizona.

Here is a list of those killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, both civilian and military.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a defining moment in America's history.

I just wanted to take a moment, and remind y'all it happened today, in 1941.

Update: Jim Macdonald has a terrific post and timeline, and quotes FDR's post-attack speech, over at Making Light. The conversation in the comments that follow his post is fascinating and illuminating.

Terrorism or Free Speech

This is why the Bush administration is so desperate to curtail civil liberties. From today's New York Times:

In bringing the case against Mr. Arian in 2003, the department relied on the easing of legal restrictions under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act to present years of wiretaps on the defendants in a criminal context.

In the conversations cited by prosecutors, Mr. Arian was heard raising money for Palestinian causes, hailing recently completed attacks against Israel with associates overseas, calling suicide bombers "martyrs" and referring to Jews as "monkeys and swine" who would be "damned" by Allah.

There are things about our freedom of speech that I'm deeply uncomfortable with. I'm deeply uncomfortable with neo-nazi propaganda. I'm deeply uncomfortable with right-wing Christian condemnation of homosexuality.

What do you guys think? Here are some deeply, deeply disturbing links to aryan-power and neo-nazi sites. Don't click, if you're uncomfortable doing so. I read friggin' everything, and this stuff turns my stomach.

Have we passed the place in our cultural history where it is either necessary or wise to continue to allow this stuff? Does freedom of speech still have a place? Does it still need to apply to these extremes?

I would argue absolutely, yes. I'm curious, though, what y'all have to say about it.

Tagged for a book meme

Tagged by Ray with another book meme--list 15 personal facts and/or preferences about books.

I can deal with book memes, so I'm happy to play.

Here we go:

1--Eudora Welty's prose is so delicious I love to read her aloud, to myself or to others--doesn't matter either way.

2--I actually love to read aloud just in general, now that I think of it. Some authors are better for it than others, though.

3--If I particularly love a book, I'll buy extra copies so I have copies to force on give away to friends and acquaintances

4--My favorite childhood books were The Black Stallion books, and The Happy Hollisters

5--I discovered spec-fic when I found a tattered paperback copy of A.E. Van Vogt's Slan in a box of old books in my dad's auto-shop waiting area--I was completely smitten and besotted with the genre, by the time I reached the end. I promptly read my way through Heinlein and Asimov, that same summer.

6--I wrote my master's thesis primarily on Stephen King's Pet Sematary--much to the bemusement and grudging admiration of my faculty advisor, department chair, and thesis committee. They liked it.

7--I'd rather read than watch anything on TV.

8--I usually have more than one book with me, everywhere I go.

9--I read as much or more nonfiction as fiction.

10--I can't go in a bookstore without buying a book. Or twelve.

11--I'm particularly addicted to How-To sorts of books: How To Tile Your Kitchen With Coconut Shells...How To Make Goat Cheese With An Oversized Tupperware and a Crock Pot...How To Raise Bees In Your Garage Without Being Stung to Death...

You get the idea, I'm sure.

12--I adore reference books. Especially books about words. The longer, more detailed the information, the better. Etymologies are soooooooo sexy...

13--I have too many books. I have books I literally haven't handled in years, but I cart them with me from place to place, whenever I move--and I can't bring myself to get rid of a single one of them.

14--I periodically reread much-loved books because the sense of familiarity is like catching up with a dear old friend. I have books I've read ten or more times.

15--I'm always a bit afraid, when I start a new book by an author I particularly like. I'm afraid this book will disappoint me. I'm afraid this book won't be as good as the author's others, and the let-down will taint the joy I feel when I get the next. It hardly ever happens that way. Still.

My god. Reading the above sounds downright...dysfunctional. Heh.

Okay, I'll tag Medievalist (on her blog of choice)--just leave us a link
Jen, on Creatif
Amy on Ruining My Eyes, if she happens to meander by
and Coyote Beta at Coyote Wild

(hint, hint: Someone should tag Frank, at Remaindered Random Musings
I would have, but I didn't wanna tag everyone I knew, so y'all could spread the love! *grin*)

"Once upon a time..."

I love those words. I have, for as long as I can remember. The promise of a story, offered to the listener, given weight by the gravity of ritual incantation.

So here is an autumn tale, just for you.

Once upon a time, far to the north, far from any wide blue ocean, there was a place where winter lasted much longer than it lasts now.

My family lived there on a farm, miles from the nearest town or village.

Nights turned cold after the garden was harvested and my mother had finished canning the apples, tomatoes, at least four kinds of pickles and the green beans; after the potatoes, onions, cabbages, and winter-squash were all stored safely away in the root-cellar; the peas, corn, and carrots bagged and stacked in the freezer.

Soon the frost would come every night, growing deeper and holding the land more firmly with every shortening day.

When the days turned cold enough that meat would keep well in the smoke-house, and the neighbor's wood-stove scented the cold air in the mornings, then it was time to butcher hogs.

My father would choose a morning and wake me long before daylight. I'd help him drive a couple of hogs up the livestock chute into the stock-rack on the truck, and we'd drive the few miles to the neighboring Hutterite colony. The defroster in the truck didn't work very efficiently, and my father would scrape a hole just big enough to see through in the the thick frost on the windshield. He'd drive with his head craned down to peer through the slowly widening clear spot.

When we got to the colony, my father would find one of the men, and together we'd unload the hogs into the holding pen. My part was really done, then. I'd wait shivering with the truck. Sometimes there was snow on the ground already. Usually, heavy frost rimed the branches of the cottonwoods, glittering in the headlights of the truck and light falling from the windows of nearby buildings.

In the frosty pre-dawn, the colony women in their long black dresses, with a bright, print aprons and head-scarves were already at work in the communal kitchens, baking bread for the day and preparing breakfast. One of them would bring me a smoking chunk of spicy homemade sausage wrapped in a warm breadroll, and a mug of cocoa. She'd offer it with a smile, and a glance at my father for his permission.

I'd stand in the pool of light from the big flood-lights on the barn, waiting. A small girl, seven or eight years old, munching soft bread soaking up hot fat from the sausage, sipping steaming cocoa.
Gradually, the sky would lighten to winter-gray. My feet so cold I couldn't feel them, by then, my father would finally come back with the men to load the carcasses--butchered, cleaned, bristles scraped. We'd drive home to breakfast, and my mother would spend the rest of the day cutting up meat. Over the next three or four days, the hams and bacons would be injected with brine and packed in sugar-cure. She'd carefully weigh the scraps and trimmings, season them, and grind the meat into sausage.

If you've never been inside a smokehouse--it's the most remarkable mix of salt, sweet, and smoke smells driven deep into the walls, season after season. Loops of sausage in natural casing, hams, and bacons hung to smoke slow, until they're all salty and pink; then all of it wrapped in heavy waxed brown paper and packed into the big chest-freezer on the back porch, stored against the long winter coming.

I don't know how to describe that feeling--the feeling of the winter's food stored against the coming dark and cold. It's not something people often experience during these days of fresh tomatoes and oranges, year-round. It seems very much to belong to a different place and time.

Once upon a time.

WalM*rt Christmas Riots

I've been bemusedly perusing the news reports of Black Friday brawls breaking out in the local Evil Empire Retailer Super-Centers.

The Free Republic reported:

In scenes reminiscient of the Great Depression, Americans lined up early this morning outside stores across the country as word of shortages of Christmas gifts caused riots when the stores opened.

With the price of gasoline and heating oil having hit record highs this year, consumers waited in the freezing cold to be first in line when the doors opened at 5 a.m. to buy laptop computers and other essentials before supplies were exhausted.

Riots at stores from Washington, D.C. to Washington state and as far south as Florida were reported. Shocked mothers complained their children were traumatized by the violence. Many expressed fears their children would be afraid to open their Christmas gifts for fear of causing a riot.

What on earth?

From a Yahoo News story: "Tempers flared at a Wal-Mart in Orlando, Fla., where a man allegedly cut in line to buy a bargain notebook computer and was wrestled to the ground, according to a video shown by an ABC affiliate, WFTV-TV."

Apparently, some folks are blaming this behavior on the Bush Economy.

"George Bush has never had to get up at three in the morning to wait in line for Wal-Mart to open so he could get a $400 laptop for his children," observed Robert Rubin, former Clinton administration Treasury secretary. "Bush's irresponsible tax cuts have hurt working families. I haven't seen lines like this since the breadlines of Republican Herbert Hoover's Great Depression. The shortages of Christmas gifts at this time of year shows how much Bush has squandered the Clinton legacy of sound economic policies."

Okay, you know what? This is just appallingly bad behavior, economy or no economy. These are not people trying to get a loaf of bread to take home to feed hungry kids. These shoving matches are over cheap laptops and plasma TV sets.

What in the name of all the little green gods has come over us, that we'd act like this?

What is so important to you that you'd publically brawl in the parking lot of the World's Largest Retailer, just so you didn't miss out on the one-day bargain price?

I honestly can't think of any single material thing that I value that much.

The Holiday Season kicks off, TODAY!

HUZZAH!!!

And a very happy Thanksgiving, my friends, to you and yours.

Now I must go and cook stuff. *grin*

The Victorian era and my Varga-girl shirt...

My rather flippant comment about the Varga Girl shirt, at the end of my last post, led to an interesting response from Sour Duck--and a link to an excellent and thought-provoking article: "Vargas' Blonde Sambos".

Now, since I'm a sucker for links, and an even bigger sucker for googling, you can probably guess how I've spent the greater portion of the evening. Serendipitously, this all ties into the topic of how women are portrayed in the media--hence, circles right back to the deodorant-ad discussion.

Not that straying off-topic ever daunted me. Still, it's nice to at least pretend.

So come with me...this is interesting stuff.

Andrea Dworkin's article, "Vargas' Blonde Sambos", is fairly damning of the whole pin-up girl phenomenon--Varga Girls, in particular.

Among other things, she writes:

Vargas slimes women by trivialization or, perhaps more maliciously, by creating invisibility. The faces are all cosmetic, not a life line in them, the so-called women mostly blonde, with an emphasis in all the drawings on the breast or vaginal area. There are lots of bright red nails but no rib cages or muscles, no fat because there is no flesh; there are hard nipples, vacant smiles, painted toe nails, infantilization, hairless bodies; big eyebrows to designate the hairiness not seen; the blondes are good and childlike; the redheads are a little tougher; black hair is the sign of the wicked woman.

The drawings are propagandistic, fetishized "proto-porn", to Dworkin, and hardly even qualify as pop art.

My problem with this premise is that it takes as granted that pornography--or proto-porn, as the case may be--and art are mutually exclusive. I'm not convinced that's true. I'm also not convinced it is NOT true--but I'm not quite prepared to make it a gimme.

Ms. Dworkin also nearly ignores the historical, cultural, and artistic context of Alberto Vargas' work. Vargas' pin-ups follow a tradition of stylized--and yes, idealized--illustrations. I'm only going to drag you as far back in time as the end of the Victorian Era, and the famous Gibson Girls.

Everything you've heard about the Victorian era--the repressed sexuality, the strict adherence to conventions, the basements full of shocking sorts of sex-toys--lots of it's true, and probably more, besides. Charles Dana Gibson illustrated the end of this era, in the United States. Gibson also more-or-less defined the ideal picture of late-Victorian womanhood.

It's a picture American women have never quite escaped.

One writer (the article isn't bylined, or I would credit the author) explains:

'Many writers have attempted to describe the Gibson Girl, but Susan E. Meyer, in her book America's Great Illustrators did it best and most simply: "She was taller than the other women currently seen in the pages of magazines.. infinitely more spirited and independent, yet altogether feminine. She appeared in a stiff shirtwaist, her soft hair piled into a chignon, topped by a big plumed hat. Her flowing skirt was hiked up in back with just a hint of a bustle. She was poised and patrician. Though always well bred, there often lurked a flash of mischief in her eyes."'

Gibson Girls illustrated the idealized turn-of-the-century American woman, for better or worse.
Much changed with the end of the Victorian age. By 1930, America is in the middle of the Depression. We've seen the Great War. Prohibition is over, an abject failure. By the 1930s, one of Gibson's artistic successors was George Petty.


One biographical sketch of Petty notes:

After graduating from high school Petty travelled to Paris to study at the Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens. Petty then returned to Chicago, working as a photo retoucher for a local printing company.

By the early 20's Petty was working as a freelance artist, painting calendar girls and covers for The Household magazine. It wasn't until 1926 that Petty opened his first studio in Chicago, by which time his client list had grown enormously.

"In 1933, the depths of the depression, Esquire Magazine was started. At a time when The Saturday Evening Post was a nickel, The Ladies Home Journal a dime, and Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan a quarter, Esquire debuted at 50 cents. Only Fortune, started in 1930, just three months after the stock market crash, was priced higher at $1. And just as Fortune had confounded the prophets by being successful, Esquire's first issue sold out - even with a print run of 100,000." (source page)

By the thirties, Petty was doing freelance adwork illustrations, and cartoons for Esquire. The Petty Girl first appeared in 1933. Here's an early example of Petty's airbrush work.

Cheap, easily-reproduced, color printing was something of a novelty in the early 20th century--the Chicago Trib finally went color in 1936. Esquire's pin-ups (and the calendars, etc) were inexpensive, full-color art for ordinary folks living through the depression. Since calendars and magazines still have to be purchased, the images were specifically aimed at men--because men were the ones who controlled money, for the most part.

This, finally, brings us to Alberto Vargas. Esquire hired him in 1940.

A year later, America entered World War II. The Varga Girl went, too. Airmen decorated their planes with imitations, like the Glamerous [sic] Gal P-51 Mustang, pictured below, on the left.
Soldiers and Seamen plastered their walls and bunks with pin-ups. Masturbatory fantasy material? Sure.

Proto-porn? Oh, hell--I dunno as you can even call it "proto"--Vargas did illustration work for Playboy, later on.

Is it art?

Maybe.

An essay by Maureen Honey, argues rather eloquently that it is:

Alberto Vargas did not create the relatively narrow parameters for women’s ideal role after the war. As a commercial artist trying to survive, he excelled at picking up on the mainstream cultural trends flowing around him, and he was able to combine his talent for erotic art with wartime forces placing the pin-up in a central location. To appreciate the skill with which he did this is not to approve of the images themselves, however, nor to dismiss as trivial the impact they had on popular culture. Women’s opportunities constricted after the war in large part because representations of female strength were overtaken by those of sexual objectification. It may be possible to combine women’s sexuality with nonracist egalitarian portraits of female accomplishment, but the end result of World War II was to divide these images into contestatory domains even as they met on the common ground of women’s maternal destiny. Perhaps there is something inherently sexist in warfare, especially when erotic frankness is paired with conservative family norms, but the Varga Girl serves as a reminder that cheesecake is not on the margins of culture but rather is as American as apple pie.

She's right, of course. But she fails to ask the question we must ask ourselves: Do we want to participate in perpetuating that image?

Where is the line between art and propaganda? Where does the kitschy pop-art appeal separate from the overt sexualization and objectification of women, and become just kitschy pop art? Does it ever?

I'll freely admit, I'm troubled not at all by the idea of pornography being art--at least sometimes.
However, I'm deeply troubled by the notion of my beautiful Hawaiian shirt as anti-woman propaganda.

Art is disturbingly powerful as a propaganda tool.

Carnival of Feminists

The newest collection of excellent feminist blogging is out. Sour Duck hosts this round.

A really fascinating entry, over at Culture Cat, was this comparison of a 1973 deodorant ad with a 2005 ad. Fascinating and appalling.

Now, I will confess that I have a really stunning Varga-Girls-on-classic-cars Hawaiian shirt. A very cool designer friend of mine made it for me. I love that shirt.

I'm a chick, though, so it's okay, right?

I might as well warn you now...

The holidays are coming. I love the winter holidays, unabashedly. I'm sentimental and silly as a little kid about it, really.

Just so you have fair warning.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and I'm terribly excited. I walk around planning menus in my head. Not that I'm cooking for anyone. Still, one should give these things a great deal of thought.

Perhaps it will snow. *Happy thought!* Of course, it only snows about once every few years, here. Far more likely it will be partly cloudy, with highs in the 50s, and scattered showers.

That's okay. It will be Thanksgiving day. I will watch the Macy's parade, and cook delicious things for myself, and dig out the Christmas music, which will replace all the normal music in the house, until my housemates rebel outright.

And perhaps it will snow.

Democracy in Action!

So the Kansas School Board voted 6 to 4 in favor of including a prepared statement about Intelligent Design in high school biology classes. (A prepared statement? Perhaps to prevent those pesky science teachers from scoffing and jeering?)

Reporter John Hanna points out, in the linked AP article, "In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena."

In Kansas, "Science teachers will now be required to instruct their students that evolutionary theory is not proven, and will have to add that life is in fact so complex, it could not have arisen without the involvement of some external agent, or higher power."

At the same time, the Dover, PA trial winds up with closing statements: "lawyers for the defence argued that intelligent design is a 'legitimate educational objective', and described it as 'the next great paradigm shift in science'."

So what did the voters do in Pennsylvania, yesterday? They threw the bums out. All eight pro-ID Republicans were replaced by Dems who don't believe ID should be taught in schools.

Look, it boils down to this: I don't care if people believe in ID. They have no friggin' right to teach what they believe, their religion, to my kids--especially not using my tax-dollars to pay for it. They had to REWRITE THE DEFINITION OF SCIENCE to make it fly.

Guess we won't look for any great scientific minds to come out of Kansas.

On the Road...

Blogging this from the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, and my plane is boarding as I type. I'll be on the road for the next five days, so I don't know how much you'll be hearing from me this week.

I shall miss you all ferociously.