my dad, a christian pastor, and i have been involved in a war of words over the past two years because of george w bush. we've exchanged emails on gay rights, the environment and the war. he's always been conservative and patriotic and extremely cynical about politics, which makes him the perfect sounding board for Fox News.

when he returned from a christian men's retreat last weekend, my dad went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. this is what he emailed me (edited for spelling - my dad's not the best speller...):

Good morning D--. I went to see the 10PM showing in a packed house. I enjoyed the film. It made me laugh and cry, especially the poor ladies who wept for their dead. The best parts were when Bush lost his mind in front of people. I would just hope that no one would ever film me in my more horrible hours of being alive. But I know, you want me to address the facts that the film represents; I can't.

After seeing the film, I do not like GWB. As a matter of fact I do not like Moore. The movie is tearing my world apart. It was a sick display of all that is bad in human beings. It will prompt me to not even look at Bush anymore. I am getting out of the political thing altogether. I feel so poorly for the American lady who lost her son. The faces of the young black males broke my heart, I do not want to see them die. My 'son' Timothy is in the Navy stationed with the Marines ready to be shipped out to that death land in August. I want no part of any of this shitty situation. Hey, I thought that I'd send you the so called Christian response to the film. I read this article on "beliefnet.com" and could not believe it. What do we do with the facts that faced us in the film?

Lord Jesus help us, did you remember the scene of the lady from Afghanistan was crying out to God for help? I feel that way right now. Lord help us, we are living in terrible times. I have mixed emotions about the film. It is good for a person like me, who was looking for something to totally get me out of the mix, and then it hinders the good people that believe in what this country ought to stand for, and then on the extreme end, it prompts violence in others; I did hear a few outbursts in the theater last night. [edited - what happened at the men's retreat and how crazy some men are, blah blah blah...]

Love you. . .Daddy

my father still has the ability to stun me.

felt good doing it

cheney got booed. (here, too.)

classic.

will be going to ravinia tonight to catch lyle lovett. against my better judgment, i'm going to sit on the ground, submit myself to mosquitos and try not to be too critical of my girl friend's new boyfriend. salon had a hilarious article on the Unevenly Cool Couple - the couple wherein one person is unbelievably fabulous and her partner just makes you wince and think, Did he hypnotize her? Is he blackmailing her into going out with him? my friend is way cooler than her boyfriend.

it's not that he's awful. he's successful, well-traveled, dresses well, remembers names and is appropriately solicitous when we all meet for drinks. but there's this nagging sense of...him being an android, faking human life for the benefit of his girl. but he's not awful.

he's just...a pod person.

ouch.

New York's Premier Alternative Newspaper. Arts, Music, Food, Movies and Opinion

my boss walked in unexpectedly. i suppose some work should get done...

Nader's "illegal" GOP backers

Salon.com | Nader's "illegal" GOP backers

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- whose name sounds as if Nader could once have been its founder -- the Nader presidential campaign received illicit assistance for its petition drive in Oregon last weekend from two local conservative organizations, which were "encouraged" by President Bush's campaign committee.

Last election, a few friends voted for Nader said there was basically no difference between Gore and Bush. I guess the difference between Nader and Bush disappeared when Nader's campaign decided to get in bed with the wrong people.

we can build a fort with all the boxes stacked in the apartment.

but the apartment is taking shape and it's rather exciting. the whole place feels so different - more adult, somehow. our cable guy spent 4 hours at our place on friday (a cute little russian guy named bogdan who carried a photo of his girlfriend in his organizer) and our dsl is about to kick in at any moment. any moment... the floors are redone, the carpets are cleaned, i've feng shuied my bedroom, there's food in the fridge and we're marking space on the walls to hang the art. of course, we've come across more things the previous roommate left in the apartment. stumbling over her detritus is eroding any bland goodwill i may have had.

j-- and her boyfriend g-- stopped by on friday night to congratulate us and they brought wine, beer and pizza. the dining table was littered with cig butts and empty bottles all night. someone looking in our windows could have said we looked like a california wine commercial.

the move...

is over. roomie #1 has been displaced, after months of silent treatment, sullen packing, and furtive disappearing of furniture. (and no, we still don't know for sure where she is living...though we suspect she's next door. she's like a rumored WMD.) roomie #2 has taken her place and we look forward to a period of creative energy, fabulous food and much wine (and gin, vodka and scotch.)

long live A--, roomie #2!

the movers saw my photo on the wall. they looked at it, they looked at me (just rolled out of bed, in yoga pants and a work out shirt, hair in a bun and glasses on my nose. not wearing deodorant.)

"that you?"
"yes."
"really?"
"uh, yeah."
they look at it. they look at me. it's a black and white face shot. nothing particularly special, except my skin looks really blemish-free.
"really, that's you? how long ago was that?" nice.
"maybe two or three years ago."
they not and trudge back down the stairs.

come on - it's early! i'm not showered!
give me a few hours and you can see me dressed for work!

heh.
baby superman.

logan's run: not so crazy

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Zelikow Report

i was going to make a snarky comment about logan's run and people being sacrificed to the state after a certain age and then draw a certain line to a certain old mouthpiece for the administration, but then i changed my mind. it's too mean.

i'll just chalk up his column to senility or cognitive dissonance. yeah.

panopticon

AlterNet: Get Ready for PATRIOT II

will this crap never ever end? i have to say that NEVER in my life has one administration ruined my mood so consistently and repeatedly.

what's next? loyalty oaths, wearing insignia declaring one's agreement with the gov't?

unbelievable - the moonies in congress

i may be progressive and anti-fundamentalist, but i'm not nuts. and i think this qualifies as nuts.

(you'll need a salon day pass to read it in full. however, the photo is enough.)

cognitive dissonance

Newsday.com - Opinion

it was a word we used a lot in grad school - mainly, to sneer at professors who didn't make sense, but whatever. it's good to see it in political discourse. heh. makes me laugh.

snort

The New York Times > Magazine > Band on the Couch

why this made me laugh, i don't know.
but i need to see this movie.

brilliant.

Mistakes Loom Large as Handover Nears (washingtonpost.com)

heh.

BAGHDAD -- The American occupation of Iraq will formally end this month having failed to fulfill many of its goals and stated promises intended to transform the country into a stable democracy, according to a detailed examination drawing upon interviews with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and internal documents of the occupation authority.

failure, thy name is bush.

9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront (washingtonpost.com)

you know, this 'link' between iraq and al-qaeda would die if the press would refuse to recognize shrub's delusions. keep asking the administration if the link exists, of course they'll say yes. ask a different question - like, where's their proof?? aagh.

details details details

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Not So Frivolous

it's a cheap shot, i know. but it can't be helped.
...
roommate at large is still moving out. piece by piece. i can't tell if she's halfway finished or not. there's still stuff here. our 'divorce' proceeds amicably, and she has indeed moved next door.

very wakefield-ian.

The Black Bloc Vote

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Bush Shouldn't Write Off the Black Vote

What?!

I’m stunned.

Though Cole ends his column by saying Bush has a lot to say to black voters, he only mentions one: school vouchers. That’s it? We’re supposed to vote for another four years of this administration because of vouchers? I guess we’re also supposed to forget about the failure called Leave No Child Behind and forget that the Bush administration has cut funding for the most popular educational program that actually helps our community – Head Start.

And while corporations record increases in profits and consumer confidence slowly rises, our communities have yet to see jobs return and economic opportunities present themselves. Our middle and working classes hardly saw their quality of life improve over the past four years and I don't think we’re looking for four more of the same.

Rather than concentrate on actual policies that speak to black interests, Cole writes instead of the vehicle for Bush’s heavily reactionary agenda – black churches. Considering the homophobic social agendas the religious right pushes, this appeal is nothing more than an attempt to campaign on wedge issues rather than real policies that affect black lives daily.

And again, instead of offering real solutions from the Bush administration, Cole says black folk should be happy to vote for Bush because he hires other black folk—as if hiring practices can substitute for ideas. Are black people supposed to be this easily fooled? Is he serious?

Unless George W. Bush suddenly turns into someone else entirely, unless he says that he was wrong about everything (which he is), there is nothing he can say to independent black voters to win their votes that won’t smack of pandering.

His policies, both foreign and domestic, lack meaning and efficacy for everyone – black, brown, tannish, pink-like or white.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Travesty of Justice

and, in an example of how brainy people apply critical thinking skills, here's krugman. i love him. he's cranky, probably dresses poorly, and wields statistics and facts like a truncheon.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bitter at the Top

i was going to write brooks another of my 'you make my head pop off' letters, but i'm just too tired. so...the current political bifurcation of the country is the fault of the educated classes? not the actual fucked up policies of this adminstration? it's just the intellectual wrangling of people too dilettantish to deal with real life.

give me a break.

a little local fascism

This is how it starts: just a few nutjobs harrassing and assaulting people with dissenting views. It's sick. A SF gallery owner was assaulted when she displayed an anti-war painting in her gallery. Now, she's shut down and other gallery owners are being threatened - in San Francisco.

The blogger, Orcinus, has more.

V. Media Credibility Declines: News Audiences Increasingly Politicized

as exciting as rush limbaugh's third divorce is, i think this is much better reading. there is another poll out there that also looks at media credibility rates - like, which media outlets have a better factual record. i think that Faux News had one of the lowest, but I'll have to find it. paired together, they may explain why my conversations with conservatives make my head explode.

they overwhelmingly believe Fox News and distrust (almost to the point of paranoia) most other print and internet sources - despite the fact that Fox News gets the story right only half the time.

late to work

My first political allegory dream:

It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday late morning in Los Angeles. The grass has been watered, the weeds pulled and Ali and I share my father’s house. We’re standing on our porch smoking and chatting with the married couple who live next door. They’re blonde and qentle. I’m holding a clutch of flowers and am about to go inside to put them in water when a young guy, about 25 or so, ambles up. He’s in a yellow shirt, khakis and you can see that he wears short sleeve t-shirts under his buttoned-down shirt.

I think he’s a Mormon and I try to hustle Ali inside so we don’t get stuck talking about Moroni or something stupid like that. He has wavy brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses. A surprisingly dark growth of stubble and it’s only 11 am or so. The next door neighbors also think he’s a Jehovah’s witness or something. The nosy old lady on the other side of us calls out, “He’s one of those young kids from the Republican Party. They’re going door to door. He wants to give you a Republican sticker.”

Ali says, “Dammit, I wish we had a Republican sticker. Then he’d leave us alone.” We both look at our John Kerry sticker on our porch post. Our Vote John Kerry sign on the lawn. We’re doomed. But we hope that his youth will let him be easily intimidated and he’ll go away.

He catches us just as we’re about to go inside. He walks across the lawn to us between the two houses and just stands there, smiling up at us, slightly squinting, his shirt a little wrinkled. He’s a little soft around the middle. He looks like he’s been walking a lot. Our neighbors wait on their side of the lawn.

Ali looks down. “We’re Democrats, you know.”
“Yeah, I probably got that.”
“Whatever you say, it’s not going to work.”
He looks around. “Well, a sticker’s gotta start somewhere. All you need is just one.”
Ali snorts. “Good to know you have low expectations.”

But he just laughs and stands there, his hands in his pockets. Green chili peppers start to bloom out of my flowers as I’m looking at him. Ali starts talking about how Republicans are weeds in the garden of democracy and how it’s the Democrats job to do it. To demonstrate, she plucks the peppers from my bouquet and starts flinging them at his feet. They spread and lay down a chili carpet on the front lawn that’s not so bad looking. Our neighbor looks across and sighs, “Oh, Ali, you’re so good with plants. I wish my lawn would do that.”

But the young Republican just stands there smiling. He’s not moving. Ali growls and stomps off to the side of the house and back into the backyard. We’re actually about to have a barbecue and are expecting people – some friends, some from work. You know. People. The neighbors think the show is over and go back inside. I’m still on the porch frowning down at the young Republican.

“Aren’t you going now?”
He says, “Is she mad at me? Should I apologize? I think I should apologize.”
“Uh, we’re having people over and I don’t think you should--“

But he walks down the driveway toward the backyard. I can hear Ali laughing with some people already out there. He’s going to make her freak out. So I scramble off the porch and run down the long driveway and skid to stop in front of him. I lean against the fence and smile and say, “You wanna know why we’re not republicans here? It’s not the fiscal responsibility thing; I think that’s ok. It’s the social stuff. I look at the Republican Party now and see a mean white man who hates everyone. I actually grew up a conservative. I was Baptist. Southern Baptist. So I know how you conservatives think.”

He protested, “But that’s not really who we are.”
I shrug, “Yes it is. You guys are mean and small-minded and remind me of the angry white guy who was our pastor who told me I couldn’t wear lipstick. I was fifteen! That’s all fifteen year old girls do!”
“And if I told you that the party had changed, that we’re different now?”
“Then what would be the point? I’m already a Democrat.”

By this time, we’ve wandered into the backyard. It’s large and green and there’s a cool little white tent in the back of the lawn, where a small group of friends sit drinking beer and laughing. Ali sees us and stomps over.

“Ding, what the fuck?”
“He just followed me! I can’t shake him!”
He says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I wanted to apologize and then we were just talking and now we’re here and I totally understand if you want me to go – “
Ali snorts. “Yeah!”
He continues, “But if I could just give you the Republican blessing. Then I’ll go.”

Ali and I look at each other. We’ve never heard of a Republican blessing. What new-fangled election stealing trick is this? I can see that Ali is curious as all get out. She wants to see the Republican blessing so that she can totally make fun of it and spread it around. So she says, “Well, we don’t want to be rude.”

The three of us are standing in the early afternoon sunlight of Los Angeles so everything takes on a tangerine glow. There’s a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip. This boy comes from a cold climate if he thinks this is hot, I’m thinking. He’s squinting at me, he’s squinting at Ali. He’s awfully still, like a squirrel who thinks he’s hiding in the middle of an open lawn.

Then, he lunges across, grabs me by my shoulders and totally kisses me! I’m beating my arms against his chest, his arms, his chest, his neck, and he has me sort of twisted around. I can hear Ali totally guffawing in the background. When he lets me go, I smack him hard across the chest.

“What the fuck was that?? THAT”S the Republican blessing?”
And Ali is laughing her ass off. “Oh my god, oh my god, that was hilarious. He was totally eating your face. And you were squeaking!”
He’s looking all weird, then he’s like, “I gotta sit down.” Ali grabs me and takes me to the tent where everyone is sitting, also laughing their asses off. She’s totally like, “That was so funny!” and I’m like, “That was awful, I was kissed by a Republican!”

Ali says, “Oh, you know you liked it. You were into it.”
I say, “Ok he’s a good kisser, a really good kisser, but that was totally inappropriate. He has to leave – he’s nuts.” Then Andy, a coworker, winks across the table at me. I can’t really hear what he’s saying because the young Republican is coming up to the tent looking abashed yet determined. He creeps up behind Ali and puts both arms around her, pressing his cheek to her back.

She jumps. “Whoa, mister!”
“Everyone needs a blessing!”

Everyone scatters. It’s just me and him in the tent, warily circling the table. I try and fake him out, he blocks me. I try again. He blocks again. And now he’s chasing me around the table. “I have to give you the blessing,” he says.
“What is your deal?” I say.
“I have to give you the blessing!” He lunges across the table, knocks it down and I skip out of reach.

We’re running, we’re chasing, we’re out of the tent, I swerve onto the lawn (my father’s backyard has never accommodated a footrace before) and Andy starts giving a running commentary on the race: “the young Republican hangs in her left blind spot, just tracking her while Ding, faster than we thought possible, has trouble scaling the little garden wall…” Oh, it’s all so funny, isn’t it? But I’m running out of steam. I can’t keep running in little circles like this. And so I slow down, he leaps at my legs, I trip, I fall and he’s on me. It’s like gradeschool. The boy on top trying to kiss the girl on the bottom and she’s twisting away, kicking her feet up and down. And ok, it could also be like rape, but it wasn’t that dark. It was just annoying to have the kissing Republican wrestle me down in my own backyard.

it happens in threes

aw, man. ray charles is dead.
who'll sing 'america, the beautiful' on the 4th of july now?!

recovery? what recovery?

Yahoo! News - Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly

but i thought things were getting better!
(sarcasm)

on principle

The Gadflyer: Not So Keene

am finding it hard to read the news today with anything more than a heavy sigh. despite smart little things like this, the awful possibility of Shrub winning another term looms large in the imagination. because we're cursed like that.
...
and the reagan things? they have to stop. i'm already tired of it. more mythmaking and hot air blowing.

roommate at large has surfaced. she is living next door to our apartment, though her stuff is still in this apartment. i can't help but think of wakefield, you know? (a few weeks ago on npr, paul auster read wakefield and i just wanted to curl up and sleep in his voice.)

my erstwhile roommate leads a double life, i'm sure. by day, she's the hot networking babe at an international banking giant. by night, she's a cia spy, or counter spy, or jewel thief, or car thief, or just a plain old neighborhood drunk who needs a secret apartment in which to tie one on. she skulks around the firecracker warehouse holding a bottle of jameson's and one night, if she's not careful, she'll drop a lit butt into a pile of sparklers and jimmy the clown's apartment will erupt in fiery light.

or, she smuggled her boyfriend back into the city; he's squatting in an abandoned apartment next door that's due for renovation, and she goes to be with him every night, taking him beer, cigarettes and crackers. when she leaves, she has to lock him in, like the guy from the pianist.

these are the ways i try and justify my roommate's weird behavior lately. any rational explanation wouldn't fit quite right.

reagan

The New York Times > Obituaries > Reagan Had Long Struggle With Alzheimer's Disease

sort of sad. i was in elementary school when he was president, at least that's how i remember it. i suppose i could look up those dates right now, but i don't feel like it. what i remember most is that i didn't like him. not because i was, even then, a democrat. i didn't like that he had defeated jimmy carter.

jimmy carter was my favorite president ever, when i was a kid. (though not as handsome as pierce.) i had a dream once that he and i were having tea together. i laughed in my sleep, delighted that the president and i were so simpatico. my mother found me in bed laughing, holding my hand with my pinky crooked, as if holding a teacup.

and when reagan defeated him, i felt as if the universe had been destroyed. reagan was the man with weird black hair and a clown's face who had made a gentle-voiced man, who farmed a peanut (who can hate a peanut??), lose. and so, to me, based on a dream of tea with a president, reagan's two terms were hell.

irrational, but there you are.
it was the 80's. passions ran high.

The New York Times > Washington > Cheney Reportedly Interviewed in Leak of C.I.A. Officer's Name

isn't this a little circular? president shrub's answer about retaining a personal lawyer in the plame affair:

"In terms of whether or not I need advice from my counsel, this is a criminal matter, it's a serious matter, I have met with an attorney to determine whether or not I need his advice. And if I deem I need his advice, I'll probably hire him."

jon stewart...another love

COMEDY CENTRAL

so, if you weren't getting all your teeth ripped out yesterday, you probably noticed that our head cia guy resigned. (like, who couldn't see this coming when he stepped forward last summer and fell on his sword for the whole faulty intelligence thing?)

but who cares about all that - the daily show makes with the funny.
heh. hope the link works.

The Gadflyer: Partial-Truth Abortion

The Gadflyer: Partial-Truth Abortion

on my soapbox, with the vicodin...
but it's a good read anyway. amy sullivan - she writes about stuff i wish more women read.

hey, i'm working from home!

The Gadflyer: Fly Trap

gimme a break! all this time and i can't blog? no way!

anyway, this is a little morsel found on gadlyer; the capitol hill blue is an odd online washington paper. it's sort of nutjobby, but the fact that it totally called bush nuts the other day (or was it today?) and built a story around it made me laugh.

Abriendo Caminos - yeah, right

Abriendo Caminos

so, to be fair, i didn't originally find this - thanks will have to go to the blogger Atrios/Eschaton. But it's basically the web page on the Bush campaign site that they're using to reach out to latino voters.

under 'soy' (I am), you have teacher, student, elderly, veteran/military employee and farmer. that's it. you're a farmer, teacher, student, vet or old person.

guess i better tell my brother in law that he apparently chose the wrong open path...

they really are dumb. like, really really dumb.

i'm a cheap dental date. one minute watching the IV drip, the dentist says "You should start feeling--" and that's it. i'm out. gone. under.

i come to missing four wisdom teeth, two new root canals and a nice warm heavy feeling all over. and i'm singing along with lionel richie with a gauze-packed mouth.

the next 24-48 hours: vicodin, antibiotics, warm yogurt and fashion magazines. how wholesome.

a few months ago i blogged about the past coming back - old lovers and past objects of desire suddenly announced themselves again, throwing me into a slight disequilibrium. then i felt the past was a fruitless complication that either needed to be ignored or neutralized. and, for the most part, this happened. i ignored one and the other...well, relocating to korea has a way of neutralizing any need for immediate action.

but this past sunday at the bridal shower, ryan the astrologer looked at my chart and noted several events ripping the fabric i've worked really hard (like, with gritted teeth) to smooth out in my life. work: smooth. friends: smooth. lover: long-distance, but smooth. everything has its place and every place has its thing. nice. i fluttered my hand at ryan, positive that these little whatevers were insignificant.

i said to ryan, 'yes, i'm about to have a drink with an ex, but that means nothing. it's one drink; we don't even particularly like each other. and okay, i have a date with an older philosophy professor, but that doesn't mean it's going to go anywhere. he's old! like, really old! and yes, so the librarian may be visiting in august - he's a horrible trip planner, it might not even happen! these are not ominous events - they're coincidences that will simply disappear without much help from me.'

ryan just pursed his lips and moved on to the next chart. i am a firm believer that things are instrinsically simple; they have a way of working out without much input from anyone. they only get complicated when you make them so.

but then, last night on the el platform, the dry cool wind whipping at my dress, the trains clattering past full of Cubs fans, the Ex (el Equis) asking if we could start from scratch after two years, the afternoon's email from the Professor bright in my mind, the possibility of the Librarian visiting never far from my thoughts, everything got very very complicated and muddled.
...
oh, and my roommate seems to have relocated to an undisclosed location, sort of like dick cheney. from her undiscovered hamlet she sends out emails and requests, but her exact whereabouts remain a mystery.

ick

disclaimer: if girly topics make you squeamish, look away. it's a slow day at the office, i'm procrastinating about a conference in seattle, and i'm cramping. get over it.

i will be crabby and achy for 5-7 days. it's like the worst gas ever. like gas. it's not actually gas. and i just want to lean back in my chair, kick out my legs and put a hot water bottle on my belly and swivel back and forth. no midol. just hot water bottle and swiveling. (like being rocked to sleep.)

or, even better, stop holding in my stomach, let it all go and walk around chicago looking pregnant from all the water retention. yeah, waddle around chicago. niice.

hey, JP, my office phone just flashed spanish to me.
is 'explorando' a word?

The Gadflyer: Fly Trap

reaction from all over the place about the NYTime's lame-ass mea culpa. (the NYT reporter whose reporting was rather slipshod, Judith Miller's quote of the day in Salon is priceless. you'll need to get a free day pass.)

and now word the fbi is investigating a conservative think tank, making inquiries into who passed on classified info to chalabi.

those goopers and their willingness to traffic in top secret information...what do we call that? oh, yeah - espionage! ha ha ha!

dKos 8

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

this is the blog that has given me most, if not all, of my ammunition in my political skirmishes with my father, much to his chagrin. the writers for it are all unapologetic democrats, determined to win back the Senate from the GOP--and the White House - so if you like your rhetoric more centrist, well, this probably ain't for you. but check it out anyway. his blogroll is one of the most complete for progressive sites on the web: check out atrios and talkingpointsmemo (my personal faves.)

and i think the fundraising drive is a good effort. yeah, i know, throwing money at the DNC isn't the perfect answer, but do we have time to dicker about theory when the elections are a summer away? i'm sacrificing my netflix for a reason, dammit!

hairy fairy and dork love

last night i sat in the basement room of garrett ripley's with 7 other presbyterian women who read the worst poetry known to man. sure, 'hairy fairy' by wolferama was my contribution, but that was meant to be funny!

a dying 12-yr old boy featured on oprah who writes about dandelions and being an autumn leaf? this ain't art. it took all of A--'s willpower to resist snatching that poem out of that woman's hand and making her eat it.
...
at the end of colonial house, A-- and i watched avidly for don wood, our favorite colonist. 3 months after the project, what was his life? where did he live? did he have a girlfriend? (a plane ticket is, what, $189??) and suddenly, there he was, wearing a parka and camo pants, walking his dog henry. in the background i spied an awning with a partial address - 55th 33--. in anguish i tried to remember what i saw of brooklyn when i was there years ago, but who am i kidding? i saw nothing except so&so's ceiling.

A-- said, the show's been over for ages. he has to have a girlfriend by now.
i said, we are the only single women watching this dorky show.
but the possibility of another dorky girl winning the love of the wood chopping/flea eating/profanity spewing/beer stealing colonist made me slightly sad.

then, a shot of don wood, sitting on a crate while petting his dog, in an apartment filled with other crates, bricks, a weird looking sofa and surrounded by paint-cracked walls. an old stereo tilted on a milk crate.

this man has no girlfriend, i said.

Effing Brilliant

Exit Strategy - How to leave Iraq in three simple steps. By George?Saunders

Just read it for the last paragraph. I want to put it on a t-shirt.

(also to go on a t-shirt: "Anyone who wants to give you anal when you're sober does not love you." - Washingtonienne)

why colonial house rocks

Dreams like this:

I'm a professor at the University of Texas and I have a crush on a tall guy with a beard (hello, Don Wood). He's a student or something and I'm totally stalking him. I cut classes early to watch him cut down trees in the middle of campus. I am whipping myself into a froth over him. When I get the nerve to ask him to lunch in the University of Texas cafeteria, I'm walking across the quad, mumbling to myself, ignoring the students running after me. He senses something is about to happen; he drops his axe and watches me as I walk toward him.

Just when I get a few feet away UP pops JAMES who's in a tizzy: "I'm totally nervous about moving to Albion, what am i gonna do, and you know what tomas says? blah blah blah blah!" The moment is past, Don goes back to his chopping, I have to console James--aggh! So we're in the cafeteria and I'm listening to James and I keep looking out the window at Don Wood. Sigh. Then here comes a tornado!! Trees uprooted, black skies, rain, tidal waves, the campus is flooding - oh, where is Don Wood?? James is sucked away by a funnel, the cafeteria is destroyed, but someone grabs me and we're running and running. Is it Don Wood? NO, it's Mr. VOORHEES! Even better!

We find a cave to protect us from the killer tornados. In his slow low voice he mourns the definite death of his wife and child; I mourn the definite end of my job and Don Wood (wrong time to wield an axe, dude) and in our mourning we turn to each other for some grief cuddling. (I must have been tired if cuddling was all that I could muster.)

The sounds of destruction fade away giving rise to hammering and sirens. The worst is over but we don't leave the cave - the death outside is too much! We're cuddling, we're cuddling, a shaft of light pierces the cave - it's not Mr. Voorhees - It's Mark - my boss's HUSBAND! Groosss! He's middle-aged and gray haired and pudgy and wearing pleated Dockers and he's kissing me with too much saliva and it's so horrific I can't stand it. I try and wake up but I CAN'T! He's whispering in my ear with that IT architect voice of his and my skin breaks out in skeevies.

I yank myself away and hurl myself out the cave, saying something about helping with the relief efforts. He takes my hand, helping me over all the debris. Oh, there's James on a stretcher. And there's DON WOOD! Apparently struck by flying pieces of statuary and masonry he was crushed. I am heartbroken. NOT-Voorhees tries to hug me and I run away, screaming.

This is how I wake up. (all that aside, PBS' Colonial House is fascinating. Dorky dorky fun.)

so i may have stepped over a line. i may have finally given my father an aneurism. but it's totally his fault. he asked me what i thought about mensnewsdaily.com (ugh.) and so i told him.

the site's not as bad as i thought it would be; it's not a slobbering at the mouth 'keep all women barefoot and pregnant' kind of thing. but it's ... weird. there's something about it that makes me go 'euww.'

it's sad. that's what it is. i can smirk at the blustery testosterone thing going on at Details, FHM and Maxim. Yeah, ok, they're gross but at least there's some humor there - sort of a broad wink. "Hey, look at me, I can grill, trade online, watch porn AND know the 5 Cs of diamond buying! Look - I shaved!"

but this site is just sad. and the fact my dad is reading it is even sadder! here is a group of guys looking at the world around them and they don't quite fit into it anymore- oh, they have some wacky idea that women are at fault at the new victimized status of men, but i'm not buying that. so it was the end of the day and i'm tired and cranky and suddenly some things come out about evolutionary changes and women adapting to cultural shifts better, blah blah blah, adapt or fall off, change or die, blah blah blah, pendulum swinging to the other side, human development, the New Man...public health policy, yak yak yada yada.

yeah. i totally pushed my dad over the edge.
feminism, evolution and the new man?? his head probably exploded.

my father and i have been exchanging long emails about the War. (if i was from the south, or in the cast of 'cold mountain', i'd say it like waw-uh.)

our epistolary discussion began (this time) because of a particularly insane screed he had posted on his own site. apparently, my fruit doesn't fall very far from the patriarchal tree--except my fruit is right and his is just insane.

so i wrote a rebuttal to the insane article - a rebuttal which needs much editing, but i'm essentially right, and which he ignored. being ignored angered me so i sent another billet-doux, listing all the ways he and his ilk have been mistaken about the war (there are statistics and i thought i'd bolster my argument with some of those.) but his next message said that since he was on his way to church, he'd have to get back to me - he only wants, however, an admission from me that it's important to be loyal to our country.

this morning, when i read that, i gulped, chomped down a multi-vitamin and began another long letter that began with a quote from tom paine. one screedy nutbag deserves another, i say! anyway, my letter is finished and rests in the inbox of my pater familias.

i fear he and i will never stand on common ground on this matter and it pains me to lump my dad with the millions of those ignoramuses who watch Fox news and listen to Michael Savage. i'm sure it pains him, too, to have a daughter who can't see the world through a calm, conservative lens that efficiently bifurcates the world in to Good and Evil.

it would be useless of me to give him a fast tutorial on saussure, derrida, foucault, binary oppositions, hidden ideological values in language, etc., but i wish i could. ah, ucla. professor pecora...you've ruined me for my father. i have been tainted with critical theory.

hmm.
i changed the template for screed and now some of the fonts are funny. of course, i don't know how to change it. looked at the tags in the template, tried to figure out how to change font size, but alas--incomprehensible.

a mild annoyance.

oh, and it's so hot and muggy today, my hair has its own gravitational pull.

hangin' with the boss

last night i had drinks after work with my boss.
the following are the insights culled from the middle-aged male mind:

-mid life crisis: all bullshit, made up by women to keep their husbands repressed. you get married early, have no money, have a family and so you sacrifice and know you can't have that fast car you want; then years go by and you're making money and suddenly you realize that you can have the car! so you get the car! and there are all these other things you've repressed and now you can have it because you have the money to have it and you want it! not when the kids graduate, now! [and you don't consider that a crisis?] it's not a crisis! it's a car and now you have it! big deal!

-taxes: there should be a flat tax. this is the floor of how much it costs to run the government; tax me on that amount! not a different tax for every little thing! just take it! one tax!

-why men watch sports: men like to solve problems, you know? and with sports, you have easy solutions to complex problems. who's good up against a left-handed pitcher? who's great on defense? who sucks and is paid too much? it's like being the coach, like having all the decisions to make of a phil jackson and none of the risk. you know why people don't vote? sports. it's easier.

my boss. he's like, uh, buddha.

deeply deeply mortifying

so. that party saturday night. 'flirted like a sailor' i posted.

on my way out, at the end of the party, i fell into light flirtatious conversation with a guy who, through my gin-soaked eye, was giving me an oracular once over of his own. yum, i thought and began to spin a web of sparkly chatter - all to invite this guy and his friend over to 'teach me and my friends poker', and perhaps not spend spring/summer sighing fitfully over my lack of company. ah, what well-laid plans.

i gave him my card; he gave me a compliment; i accepted the compliment and touched his arm; he made with the funny; i laughed with appreciation and tossed back my head, leaning in a bit more. we all said goodbye; perhaps i kissed his neck. (damn you, gin!) i warmed myself with thoughts of follow up emails and more flirting.

at work, i found myself replaying our brief conversation, convinced that True Animal Attraction had howled between us. i found myself wondering why i didn't go to friends' parties more often if this was how simple it was. i found myself on the original evite, cleverly stripping his email and tucking it away, just in case too many days passed without an email from my late night party swain.

today i emailed the host of the party, thanking him for a fabulous time, wishing him well in his new city, then slipped in an inocuous "So...about that RG...I think we had a moment; what's his story?"

i obssessively checked my email, waiting for the Host to come back with the skinny--just any kernel of information, anything that would allow me to unleash my earthquake of lust.

imagine my horror when the Host very gently said, "Um, sweetie, he's my brother in law. Are you sure you had a moment?"

aaagh! with a bad eye for detail like this, how can i be sure of anything anymore?? aagh! did i see his ring? aagh! i wasn't expecting a ring! he looked my age! only old people are married! gaah! yuck!

there's no graceful way to recover from something like that, you know?

haven't had a night like last night's in a while - small, neighborhood joint on the northside, drinking till 3, smoking till 3, flirting like a sailor on leave till 3. the upshot: must organize poker party for mid-june.

must learn poker.

van helsing: too much of a good thing

there's something wrong with a movie when you can't even enjoy hugh jackman half naked writhing on the floor.

there's something wrong with a movie when you spend most of your time wondering where they bought kate beckinsale's corset (it's totally hot, looked complicated, and i want one.) and her boots - love the heel.

there's something wrong with a movie when it fails to deliver what most movies exist to deliver: catharsis.

watching this movie was like...well, it was like sex on ecstasy - bright lights, big sound, felt sorta good, but never seemed to end. it just kept going until it ground all those good feelings into the mattress and then you were left with a stiff neck, gritted teeth and a tight pelvis.

tense, man, tense.
...
rant of the week:

you know those people who arrive late to a show and then, when the movie has already started, stand in the aisles talking about where to sit, and then ask you to move your seat so they can sit together?

yeah, they need to go away and here's why:

1. you're a dumbass for being late. i was not late. not being late gives me the privilege of sitting where i want-especially when there are other seats for you, the late person, to choose.

that's it - that's the only issue. there's no list.
you were late, i wasn't, leave me alone and sit in the front where all the rest of the late people sit.
don't ask me to move, because i won't. everytime i do, i get angry and it makes me feel like a sucker--a sucker to your poor planning and/or inability to manage your time.

Music for America

a totally cool site.
music, politics and a way to mobilize people who weren't born in time to see star wars in the theaters.

now i know why people register when they marry: shopping for dinnerware and silverware is a pain in the arse.

i'm at work (barely) and my thoughts are wandering...should i go after the kate spade pink plates or should i go for something less expensive and more...humble, like this?

and flatware...i thought i was being clever, ordering a nice set of flatware on sale online. on further investigation i only purchased one placesettng. my domestic ignorance is showing, i know, but when june leaves, i will be left with a spoon and a knife.

Librarian update: he found a job!

why am i happy about this? we will never suit! never!

Office Wench, pt 2

I wasn't always an Office Wench. Sure, I did office stuff to put myself through college and earn summer cash in grad school, but that was all to fund the brain trust. (Actually, it was to give me cash to buy books that weren't on the reading list and to indulge in my newfound love of alcohol.)

But when I left grad school being an assistant was the thing I fell into - I was good at it, the perks were better than those found in academic life and I didn't have to sweat, wear a hairnet or a uniform. But I also didn't realize that an academic or humanities background seriously hobbled one's ability to deal with the real world.

For instance, independent thinking, while an asset in grad school just makes you a target in corporate hell - unless you're above middle management.
Critical thinking? Well, you're just an arrogant snob with a disturbing air of condescension, who doesn't know how to be a team player. (hah, and if you're a person of color, well, then you're uppitty on top of that.)
Questioning sources (i.e., authority)? Yeah, good luck with that. Guys with less education than you, and just a few years older than you, want you to bend over and pucker on their sphincter.
Make a few references to literature written before 1995? You might as well stand up naked in a conference room and admit you fellate homeless men for recreation, for the good that'll do for your corporate social life.

Working at a Big 5 made me realize a Gen X-er working in a corporate death star is a person just seething with rage. We work hard to tamp it down (we like to use humor - or sarcasm, whatever) but it builds. Really, the only thing that compensates for it is a big paycheck-and our sense of cultural superiority. Once that goes, well, look out. Explosive rage. Anarchic tendencies forced into repression have a way of leaking out in all sorts of inappropriate manner.

Some days I wish there was one day for bosses to hear what their assistants really thought about them. Everyone remembers the kid who was smacked around by Martha Stewart but that was nothing.

I've worked with some women who are poisoned with their own hate. They smile, get coffee and schedule your conference calls (the ones you never remember how to dial into), and in strides Bob - King of his Corporate Domain - thinking his assistant Cathy is like family, Cathy has been with him for years, Cathy is like his wife, but quieter and less expensive. Meanwhile, Cathy dreams of the time she enters an intersection on a rainy night, sees Bob, and her foot slips off the brake.

I know. It seems petty. But imagine spending 8 hours a day with a human being who refuses to learn anything; who refuses to care for himself; who can't remember things you've told them yesterday, this morning or whenever; imagine a whole day spent with someone who has no sense of porportion. It's not like having a screamer for a boss or working for a Republican, but it's just those moments, the ones that collect in your gut, when you look across the desk and you realize that you have to *serve* this pathetic corporate dweeb - he's boring, uninteresting, dull, myopic and cares about...crap.

It's like taking care of a baby.

what's that burning feeling in your stomach, that acidy taste in the back of your throat?

ulcer? heartburn? precursor to heart attack or stroke?

gaah. it's just noon and already my innards are about to explode.

relationship retard

just left the eHarmony site; they sent me a message that i was about to be deactivated so i logged on - heaven forbid i should be deactivated!!

like little clams, two matches waited for me. poor things, they've been stewing for about a month. i had no idea they were there! one, clearly impatient with my lack of response, closed communication with me. the other was still open, waiting patiently for me to read about his willingness to share with his partner.

if you haven't been on eHarmony, i think you should. it doesn't give you the sweaty, panting breath thrill that Nerve gives ('ohh, baby, let's play...') and it's not the immediate horror of match.com ('i'm an IT adminitrator in Palatine and I just want to make you groove!'). eHarmony is like a soothing, brainy doctor in a white lab coat taking your hand and walking you through every step of mating like you're a retard.

(the dorky photo of amy and greg on the home page, engaged 2003, only reinforces your Rainman feeling.)

step one: take a personality quiz that will put the Meyers-Briggs to shame.
step two: take another test that will pinpoint your social skills and general likes/dislikes.
step three: fill out a profile
step four: launch your profile
step five: wait. and wait more.
(note: you can't browse for matches; they will bring matches to you, thus removing your habitual bad decision making skills from the equation.)
step six: if you have a match: read the profile and choose 5 ice-breaking questions. you have now entered the Guided Communication Process.
(note: you won't really be allowed to have Free/Open Communication until much further down the road.)

this is what's so weird about eHarmony. it doesn't trust you. it won't let you browse, it won't let you view photos, it won't let you make direct contact with a person because it doesn't trust you to behave like a rational adult.

and while it kills me to say this, they may have a point. i've done the online thing for about 3 years now and, i have to admit, my online dating ritual goes through a predictable lifecycle:

*find the profile that doesn't make me gag (preferably a guy with a snarky personality, who just wants to 'play' and lives several states away.)
*exchange steaming emails for a couple of months that would put the brownings to shame (not to mention anais nin)
*engage in some sweaty naughty talk, thus ramping up quickly to the inevitable online/face to face hook up (which usually entails someone buying a plane ticket)
*stop emailing, feel weird/disappointed/indifferent, move on to the next one.

eHarmony puts the kibosh on all that dead end-action. they run your meyers-briggs profile through some kind of scientific whammo and out of thousands of profiles, they match you with one. ONE. and they won't let you step out of line - no dirty talk, no phone sex, no lubricious emails, no running straight to bed before you discover that you're totally incompatible and will only make the other person vomit.

so there you are, a relationship retard, wearing a paper gown with your ass hanging out, led by the hand by a guy in a lab coat through the labyrinth of love - gently, scientifically, reasonably guided down a shiny white corridor.

sad that it's come to this.

phone bankin' & bush whackin'!

total success, thanks to the friends who came over to burn their weekend minutes and call apathetic voters across the nation. sigh. it really is depressing - out of 525 phone calls, i think we got 15 email addresses. of course, the majority of those on our list weren't home because we called in the afternoon, but still.

and lest i forget...

the morning after pill - not gonna be sold over the counter. grrr. what is the deal??

and here's a post on dailykos about it (which also has a link to original article).

it makes me wanna holler, you know?

'friends'...lame

what a waste.

i missed the fireman 'reveal' on extreme makeover - home ed. to watch the weak, lame, tired, used up, retread, sorry finale of 'friends.'

was it just me, or was it painfully unfunny?

rachel dumps her fab job in paris to stay with ross?? why not go on sabbatical for a year, ross, and go to paris with your girlfriend and child? after all, you *bought the ticket*!! i mean, wouldn't that just be a better ending - better than having one last coffee at the cafe?

working out

i now belong to a gym.
it's not one of those testosterone-laden Bally's sweat tanks or one of those uber-hip gyms like Crunch or Sweat or Grunt or whatever they're called now. and it's not the quiet chic sophisticated kind of gym like East Bank or Holmes Place.

no, it's Slim & Tone. it's a girly 'gym' for girlies who hate working out and don't want anyone to bother them. if those other gyms are for people with celebrity personalities, my gym is for people who feel like they're in the witness protection program. S&T is strictly no-nonsense: a circuit of machines, a treadmill, a shower, some fruit, a scale, and a perky girl who follows you around, working out with you so you won't feel lonely.

i like lonely, lady. that's why i'm here at 6.30 am. so i can be lonely while i figure out how to clench my ass and squeeze my thighs to the thumping house beats of madonna. when i took my workout personality test, i'm pretty sure Fuck Off was my key trait.

i hate working out and i do it furtively - it's not because i don't like showing my body while it's sweating and grunting (i'm consciously NOT going to make a sexual remark here.) it's not because i hate how i look in my yoga pants and red lycra tank (i also have the cutest polo footies ever!!).
i scuttle around the machines and watch the clock like a hawk because i HATE being in a gym. i hate thinking about form, reps, cooling down, over extending, whatever. it's the most boring thing on earth - next to golf and listening to a fundamentalist drone on about the proper role of women.
i also hate the people who talk about working out: the guys who drone on about the burn (whatever), the girls who chatter about their awesome spinning class (eat something) or the couples who drawl about their yoga (it's not attractive that you can now lick your own butthole.) they can all shut up and go away. i don't want to hear about how many inches you've lost or how many carbs you've dropped or how ripped your guns are.

it's boring. shut up.

i'd rather smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in a dark old guy bar while drinking rotgut than be in a gym. i'd rather sit through a derrida lecture than go to the gym. i'd rather hook up again with IncognitoLatino and have him bite my neck than go to the gym. and yet - here i am. sweating, grunting, lunging, bending, heaving, almost vomiting (too much cardio, too much cardio).

heh - but irony rears its head and forces me to admit that it feels really good. dammit.

last night, exhausted by my political fervor and the ankle-grabbing day i had at work, i sat on the couch and ate cereal while watching 'unbreakable.'
this was a faint mirror of saturday night when i sat on the couch in my underpants, ate cereal, and read comic books.

more and more, my girliness is fading away only to be replaced by a comic book reading dork who blogs.
i am becoming a guy.

Office Wench

holy crap.
ass-grabbingly busy today.

the fallout from the cbs airing of the iraq prison photos is immense - if we weren't hated before, we are now. i came across this essay in mother jones; totally depressing.

a friend responded to all my posts yesterday and if he's reading, i'll unpack it as soon as i can--and thanks for pointing out the trap in front of me.
...
in other news, more lighthearted news, i'm hosting my first phonebank party for moveon next weekend. who knows if tons of people will come? but a few will and that's all we need.

it'll be like GEO all over again. but less stinky.

euww.

(can you tell it's slow at the office?)

this is disturbing. it's a story of how some of our GIs are treating iraqi prisoners. it's gross and took me by surprise.

last night i had a drink at the duke of perth with J. we talked, like always, about politics and the state of the war. i admitted that my sympathy for the muslim world slipped a bit after seeing and reading about the carnage in fallujah and reading about militant muslims in britain who've called for jihad and declared they won't rest until their flag flies outside 10 Downing Street. i admitted that i think they're anarchists and foolish and unworthy of the name civilized (hey, i also admitted that was a totally visceral reaction to recent events!).

but now my feelings grow more complicated because of photos like this and the story that followed this image. (i'm still unsure if this photo was faked, but the investigation that follwed wasn't.)

it's shaming.

in case you were wondering what the national republican party does to jab home its message, here's a memo. (with a handy dandy email included.)

who knew may 1 was loyalty day??

know what a gaggle is?

it's when the press gets briefed by the white house press secretary and they get to ask all sorts of questions...

like these.

priceless. you can find a whole bunch of them here.

shut up, maureen dowd, pt. 2

...and amy sullivan agrees with me.

and so does the daily howler.

it's good to be right. [updated 3.22 pm]

maureen dowd - why won't you shut up?

where to start?

where to begin to unpack another lame column from sloppy Dowd this morning in the times?

i've read other liberal criticisms of kerry in other papers and, so far, they've managed not to piss me off with their opinions. what is it about this woman that makes her so slappingly annoying? could it be her ability to reduce real ideological differences between bush and kerry to matters of style and comportment?

despite her snarky tone, there is a real choice to be made in the upcoming election. we have a chance to get rid of an administration that's light on policy and heavy on ideology (an ideology that has failed in all ways) and right now our only hope for doing so is Kerry.

if her criticism said Kerry's goals are undefined right now, that's perfectly valid; to call him a weird, smarty pants, flip-flopper without conscience...well, you may as well be Karen Hughes! the ease with which she repeats GOP criticisms of Kerry's character, criticisms that have no substance, makes me cringe and, quite frankly, stirs my ire.

if indeed Kerry 'mimed' throwing away his medals/ribbons (whatever), how is that worse than a president who 'mimed' having intelligence of WMD in Iraq, who 'pretended' there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Hussein, who 'lied' about funding for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and who 'feigns' compassion when his public policies say otherwise?

her columns are coy, fey and only cocktail party clever - when will they reflect the seriousness of our political moment?

god, dowd, SHUT UP.

when are we going to get angry?

this is an article forwarded to me from Salon re: the scrubbing of important information for women from the federal website for the Women's Bureau. it's in its entirety so it's lengthy.

Making women's issues go away
A damning new report reveals that the Bush administration has quietly removed 25 reports from its Women's Bureau Web site, deleting or distorting crucial information on issues from pay equity to reproductive healthcare.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Rebecca Traister
April 28, 2004 | If you'd logged onto the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau Web site in 1999, you would have found a list of more than 25 fact sheets and statistical reports on topics ranging from "Earning Differences Between Men and Women" to "Facts About Asian American and Pacific Islander Women" to "Women's Earnings as Percent of Men's 1979-1997."
Not anymore. Those fact sheets no longer exist on the Women's Bureau Web site, and have instead been replaced with a handful of peppier titles, like "Hot Jobs for the 21st Century" and "20 Leading Occupations for Women." It's just one example of the ways in which the Bush administration is dismantling or distorting information on women's issues, from pay equity to reproductive healthcare, according to "Missing: Information About Women's Lives," a new report released Wednesday by the National Council for Research on Women.
You've probably heard about some of the other examples in "Missing" -- for instance, the time the Centers for Disease Control removed an online guide to condom use and changed the fact-sheet language to indicate that studies on condom use were inconclusive, focusing instead on abstinence. But the power of "Missing" comes not from its dozens of individual examples, but from the depth and breadth of its findings about the small ways in which the Bush administration is draining the well of dependable public scientific and sociological information.

"When these instances are taken individually, perhaps we don't see the cumulative pattern of what's happening," said Linda Basch, president of the 23-year-old NCRW, an alliance of 100 women's policy, research and education centers, including the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Planned Parenthood, and the Girl Scouts. "But when we gather the information together, and see the distorted or disappearing information about the economic opportunities, the situation of violence against women, health and particularly reproductive health, it is a very distressing pattern."

Released just three days after an estimated 1 million people gathered in Washington for the March for Women's Lives, "Missing" exhaustively catalogs the ways in which government information about women's health, labor and education has been altered, removed or obfuscated during the Bush administration. "This is really undermining a nonpartisan legacy of government," said Basch, referring to a history of reliable dissemination of scientific data by the federal government. Of concern to NCRW researchers is the possibility that this morphed or absent information will hurt future researchers, policymakers and citizens who in the past would have relied on federal sources of information in their advocacy for women's equity and access.

In an e-mailed statement to Salon, New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney said, "I'm grateful to the National Council for Research on Women for confirming what many of us in Congress have insisted for years -- we can't continue to advance as women if the cold, hard facts of our status are unknown. We've seen a disturbing trend toward hiding the information that helps us improve women's lives. I hope that this is the beginning of a successful effort to uncover the missing data."

California Rep. Barbara Lee also sent a statement, saying, "This report outlines a disturbing pattern of decisions by federal agencies to close down, delay, alter, or spin data about what is happening to American women and girls. Science must not be sacrificed and silenced like this. We must take every opportunity to point out the Administration's attempts to twist, distort, and subvert science to advance its right-wing based political agenda."

Many of the shifts in federal agency information have been reported in the past, but, when seen together, look even more impressive -- or horrifying. Some individual examples -- like the observations about the DOL's Women's Bureau -- will look new.

The report notes that in 1999, the Women's Bureau mission statement, printed on its Web site, described its responsibilities "to advocate and inform women directly and the public as well, of women's rights and employment issues" and "to ensure that the voices of working women are heard, and their priorities represented in the public policy arena." Back then, the Women's Bureau claimed that it "Alerts women about their rights in the workplace, proposes policies and legislation that benefit working women, researches and analyzes information about women and work, [and] makes appropriate reports on its findings." The NCRW researchers noticed that by February 2002, the Bureau's mission statement looked very different. Its asserted goal was "To promote profitable employment opportunities for women, to empower them by enhancing their skills and improving their working conditions, and to provide employers with more alternatives to meet their labor needs." The 2002 "Vision Statement" reads: "We will empower women to enhance their potential for securing more satisfying employment as they seek to balance their work-life needs." In other words: less information about helpful policy and legislation, more potential-enhancing tips on balancing "work" and "life."

Then there are the missing fact sheets, and the popular handbook on the rights of women in the workplace, called "Don't Work in the Dark -- Know Your Rights," that's not to be found. The "1993 Handbook on Women Workers," which was available in 1999, is no longer. Though it is scheduled for rerelease sometime in the future, NCRW researchers who contacted the Women's Bureau learned that no publication date is set.

Irasema Garza, the director of the women's rights department for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, and the former director of the Women's Bureau from 1999-2000, had seen parts of the "Missing" report that pertained to her former department. "As soon as I saw the report, I went to my old Web site and found that the majority of all of our fact sheets were gone," she said. "In my old job, I traveled all around the country giving speeches -- but all the women wanted were these fact sheets. Women really used this information to protect themselves in the workplace."

Contacted by Salon for a response to the report, a spokeswoman for the Department of Labor said that the Women's Bureau director was traveling, but e-mailed a response to the queries about the changing mission statement and publication list. That e-mail said, in part, "Congress created the Women's Bureau in 1920 to 'formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.' Under that mandate, the Women's Bureau's focus, programs, publications and website are changed and updated periodically to reflect the priorities of the current Administration, the Secretary of Labor and the Director of the Women's Bureau. The Bureau continues to work with internal and external partners and stakeholders to develop programs to address the needs of 21st Century working women." The White House press office, contacted for comment, did not respond by press time.

"The fact that 25 reports on issues of equality and access have been removed from this website is enormously distressing," said Basch of the findings about the changes at the Women's Bureau. She pointed out that the public, as well as researchers, journalists and policymakers, turns to agency Web sites for information about rights and government policies. Basch claimed that last year there were over 250 million hits to government Web sites.

Those 250 million hits will have also turned up some changes in language at the Census Bureau, which reported on its Web site's "Facts for Features" page for 2003 Women's History Month that the earnings gap between women and men -- about 76 female cents to every male dollar -- means that women's salary are "at an all-time high." That's a considerably more cheerful outlook than the 2000 Census Bureau posting about an earnings gap figure that was only about 1 percent different than 2003's. According to "Missing," in 2000 the Web site told visitors that "Women have almost achieved parity in educational attainment ... but not earnings equality," and that "Men working fulltime, year round, consistently earned more than comparable women in each of the educational levels." According to researchers, the newer, more positive spin on issues like earnings figures is dangerous because it diminishes the notion that there are massive strides to be made before earnings parity is possible.

"Basically, the administration seems to have the assumption that there is a level playing field and that paying attention to a particular subgroup is divisive," said Martha Farnsworth Riche, a demographer in private practice and the Bill Clinton-appointed director of the Census Bureau from 1994-98. Basch noted the effect that changing information and modified spin could have on the future of advocacy for women. "When the information doesn't exist, when no one is there watching out for the interests of certain categories of populations, it's bad," she said. "There are still far too many gender-based inequalities for us to take our eyes off of what is happening to women."

Census Bureau Public Affairs specialist Robert Bernstein was unable to find the language quoted by "Missing" in the 2000 "Facts for Features" edition, though the page contains a link to a press release that is no longer available. Bernstein, who has been with the Census Bureau for 14 years, said that he doesn't believe there is any new spin on earnings information. "What we try to do is present data in a positive light about different groups. It was a fact that that ratio at the time did represent an all-time high." Bernstein also noted that the "all-time high" language would have come straight from the news release about the Bureau's annual Income and Poverty Report. And though he doesn't think that there's been a noticeable upturn in the language of the Bureau, Bernstein did confirm one of the fears of the NCRW. "The point of 'Facts for Features' is to give information to reporters, allowing them to do a particular feature story [pegged to] a particular holiday or observance," said Bernstein. "They're trying to do upbeat stories."

When it comes to issues of women's health, agencies like the CDC, FDA and the Health and Human Services Administration don't fare much better than the DOL or the Census Bureau with the NCRW researchers. One of their chief battle cries -- and arguments about why a study like "Missing" can be valuable in the future -- is over the changed language on a National Cancer Institute Web site. "Missing" cites the case of the 1997 New England Journal of Medicine study that conclusively proved that there was no link between breast cancer and abortion, a favorite claim of anti-abortion advocates. The NCI had a fact sheet with reference to the study posted on its Web site until November 2002, when the Web site was changed to indicate that studies about the link had been "inconclusive," an assertion that lent implied credence to the claims of the anti-abortion advocates. According to "Missing," members of Congress forced the convention of a panel of experts who reinforced the New England Journal's findings, and the NCI again posted information that there is no link between breast cancer and abortion.

Over at the Centers for Disease Control, the NCRW researchers claim, posted fact sheets were revised to suggest studies on the effectiveness of using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and other STDs were "inconclusive." Instead, the revised fact sheet focused on abstinence -- a favorite of the family values crowd -- as the only effective path to sexual health. As was reported at the time, the CDC also removed an online guide to proper condom use (replacing it later with a revised edition) as well as a list of successful sex education programs and studies that showed no rise in sexual activity among teens taught about condoms. "These are debates that scientific research has closed," said Riche. "The people who provide the information are now reopening those debates, taking away the scientific certainty. It's more subtle than putting out wrong information or simply removing all the information -- and, frankly, more effective."

According to the researchers behind "Missing," the pressure of right-wing ideology has also led scientists to stop using words like "gay," "sex worker," and "transgender" in their grant applications. This comes in the wake of the Traditional Values Coalition's very long and damning list of 150 researchers and 200 grants in the field of high-risk sexual behavior. Then there's the case of the morning-after pill, which has yet to appear as an over-the-counter medication, despite the two scientific advisory committees that urged the FDA to make it one. According to "Missing," it was pressure from conservative groups that led FDA commissioner Mark McClellan to postpone his expected February 2004 decision on the matter by 90 days.

"Missing" doesn't concern itself only with absent online information. It also lists some of the actual governmental bodies that have disappeared or been threatened during the Bush administration. In 2001, George Bush disbanded the President's Interagency Council on Women, a group appointed in 1995 by Bill Clinton to implement strategies developed at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, as part of the U.N. Platform for Action. The council was chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and then by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. "One of the things the office did was make sure the president's policies reflected women's issues," said Garza. "That office is gone. It was one of the first things that was done away with under this administration."

Reversals are possible. When the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality changed the wording in a mandated report on the disparities in healthcare along racial and socioeconomic lines, suggesting that "disparites" in the diagnosing and treatment of HIV, diabetes and hypertension among women of color were actually "differences," people noticed and complained. A spin like that could be very detrimental to attitudes and eventual action on behalf of women of color who are at a disadvantage. The document was restored to its original wording in February. "Missing" cites this example, and hopes that by getting people to pay attention to so many others, information will be restored.

"In my experience, I would say we are probably just seeing the tip of the iceberg with this report," said Riche. "If we know about all these examples, that means there are many, many more." To that end, the NCRW is establishing a Misinformation Clearinghouse Web site through which people can submit examples of information that is no longer available to them. The Clearinghouse will also collect and publish a list of sources for dependable information.

heh.

on why there's so much bullshit.

what do you call the thing you write at the end of a note, right before your name? the exit, the end?

the Librarian's notes are now full of quotidian details (i worked 60 hours this week, i'm about to start recording, i bought a book) and i've lost our ending. before, i could hug his 'ever' or 'yours' and get a little warm. now, it's just - the Librarian. plain, stolid. me.

not 'yours, me'.
just 'me'.

the roommate and i have seemingly solved all our issues - that is to say that we have gotten drunk together, avoided the sticky parts and pretended that all is well.

three bottles of champagne can smooth a long stretch of bumpy road.

am missing the company of The Librarian horribly would be loathe to admit it in any formal way since i've already decided that we wouldn't suit. this admission, of course, is the product of those three bottles of champagne.

implosion

so my roommate and I are breaking up. i think it was inevitable. i think i knew things would change the morning she woke me up at 6 am to show me the grout in the shower.

not even my mother (who grew up in a poor village in the philippines) did that.

so now we're caught in a weirdly tense, icy household. most of the furniture and dishware are hers, so when she leaves i will be left with my tv, books, cds, stereo, a multi pot, a knife, a painting, a wok, strainer, cheese grater, spatula, soup thing, can opener and everything in my bedroom.

another friend is moving in, one who will never show me grout (for god's sake, that's what the cleaning lady is for!). it may be too soon for optimism, but that's where i am for now.

of course, our habits being what they are, i'm sure she and i will turn into raging alcoholics and become a weird straight versiotn of toklas-stein.

huh.

look at this.

the other day, ali and i chased fog.

we came back from the burbs and saw a dark gray-orange, fast moving cloud of smoke moving through downtown chicago. it billowed, it rolled, it looked like something exploded on michigan avenue, off the lake or in the loop. hoping for news, we scanned the am stations; they only had news of the cubs game. we looked for panic in the populace; they shopped, clearly ignorant of the disaster engulphing the city. then, after chasing it for an hour, we asked a guy selling M&Ms on columbus drive if there was a fire.

he said, i wouldn't be here if there was!

as we headed north on lakeshore, i looked at the 'smoke' floating between the hotels on michigan avenue then i looked at the lake. i looked at the wall of fog rolling in off the lake. i said to ali, i think it's fog. look.

and we watched as a cloud of 'smoke' settled onto the drake hotel from the sky, shining with an orange glow because of the late afternoon sun.

we were silent for a while while we navigated lakeshore's traffic.
then i said, we chased fog.
ali said, we can't tell anyone this.
i said, we spent an hour chasing a weather pattern.
ali said, we cannot tell anyone this.

The Memo

wow.

oh, easter.

fourth pres was wonderful, if a bit...uh, white. i mean, it's handel's 'messiah' for chrissake! get happy! sing along! do something! don't just stand there and stare dumbly at the choir and breathe! sometimes i miss the sweat of gospel.

i miss the feeling that this is real, you know? not just a pretty show, but real. soul-shaking. not just intellectual.

anyway, easter services were followed with brunch at the four seasons. wow. talk about WASP. so glad i wore my hat. it was like eating with characters from a 30's novel. the american version of jeeves and wooster. cole porter? but drier. less gay. watching old money chicago eat eggs benedict and ham. fascinating. when you're with rich people you find yourself wondering what it is they do all day. do they worry about anything? i don't think so. they all had the sleepy eyed confidence of people whose money will never run out. they talked slowly, sauntered instead of walked, never made eye contact with anyone and ate methodically (if not thoroughly.) they were pink, wore blue blazers with striped pastel ties, and their loafers gleamed.

fascinating. bizarre.
but the food was fabulous.

*hic*

too much champagne. and wine. and cosmo.

my roommate and i, loathe to have a difficult domestic conversation, have blown each other off and are getting drunk in separate locations tonight.

update: the Librarian has not disappeared. he's just been depressed.

(oh, to find the guy whose first instinct isn't to scuttle sideways like a crab in the face of bad feelings...)

guess who hasn't done their taxes, yet?

of course, my ruminations about abortion and the bleak future for women if social conservatives win their arguments have depressed me.

i think i'm going to leave the apartment and catch 'hellboy.'

ass-kicking will always make me feel better.

the dangers of cold medicine

battling a cold (die, germs, die!) i'm sitting in my apartment on a dishwater afternoon, drinking tea and thinking about abortion.

maybe it's because of an editorial in the Times a couple of days ago that told the story of Portugal and its prosecution of a group of women, their family members and their doctors/nurses for getting/abetting an abortion (they even prosecuted the taxi driver.)

maybe it's because i just went to an anti-abortion site that said i can't 'have it both ways' and it made me angry. (and it didn't help they used abolitionist rhetoric as a parallel argument.)

in portugal, the prosecution lost their cases (except for the nurse whose 8-year sentence was commuted) and the trials so disgusted the public, opinion swayed against the law that has made abortions criminal. one woman interviewed said that when attention moved from the fetus to the women, the issue changed and the public became embarrassed and disgusted with itself.

the fight over abortion is so old hat the arguments are like a game of tennis: the egg at the moment of conception has a soul worthy of protection; the fertilized egg is a microscopic collection of cells; all life, born and unborn needs protection; all life, until it's expelled from my body, belongs to me and i can do with it what i want; this is against all moral law; this is my choice and leave my morality to me to deal with.

if it's about religion, not everyone shares the same religious standard; if it's about metaphysical arguments about what constitutes life, that differs, too, and can't ultimately be proven. viability, however, can be proven, and i'm comfortable with that standard.

chances are that i will never have a child-not that i was really looking forward to the event. i'm creeping up on 35 and i've toyed with the idea of permanent birth control, this medical procedure . it seems rather extreme to permanently destroy one's ability to have children, but one extreme deserves another, almost.

for i can almost forsee a nightmarish margaret atwood-like chain of events: eventually, abortion procedures are narrowed and limited so much they eventually topple and abortion becomes illegal; once abortion becomes illegal, the fight over birth control begins - who has access, how it can be practised, what types of birth control are appropriate and which are not; then, once a woman's ability to control her own cycle and fertility is taken away and given back to men, what then?

i sound like a paranoid feminazi freak but i think it's a valid question. let's give the right to lifers benefit of their vision: you eventually outlaw all abortion and put doctors and women in jail - what then? will you make birth control accessible to everyone in an effort to prevent the need for abortion? will creative methods of family planning, like essure, be included as part of a person's health insurance benefit? will health policy adopt ways of educating, and enabling, the public toward better family planning? will adolescents be taught proper sexual health so that one will never be in the position of needing an abortion?

or, more likely, will all control of a woman's body be channeled into one tiny little pre-approved patriarchal funnel? (yeah, i said patriarchy, so what?)

bachelor time

the best bachelor. ever. sort of. maybe.

but only if seeing 25 certifiably stupid women beg for attention from a 3rd-string quarterback qualifies as 'best.' (although the vomiting, crying, bitch-slapping and stalking pretty much guarantee i will watch this show to the very end, thus proving american culture has taken another step into the sinkhole.)

why do i watch this show? it could be boredom. it could be my secret passion for all things trash. i prefer to call it my deep devotion to the human condition. or just the icky thrill of seeing women do things i'd have to be drunk and/or high to do. guys have x-treme sportz; i have the 8 weeks of Bachelor-hell.

my predictions:

i bet the woman of color celeste goes only as far as the second round after getting stuck with only group dates. (they should name the second round Melanin Elimination; is it too much to ask that a brown girl/boy make it at least halfway?? come on, people! interracial dating is great! people do it all the time!!)
i bet he picks a blonde.
i bet they all lie about not having a one night stand. (no one's standards are that high - except, well, you know who you are.)
i bet the words 'awesome,' 'journey,' 'connection,' and the non-phrase 'as to what' get used waay too often and incorrectly.

i bet all their conversations are about nothing - don't these people talk about 'real' things? how about iraq? i'd flash my naked chest to my boss if, for once, the Bachelor asked one of those women what she thought about books, politics, culture or anything not pertaining to her psycho thirst for a rose.

i think i may have reached an all-time social low: i've wandered onto the eharmony site and taken their personality quiz.

apparently fire safety means a lot to me in a partner.

grr.

Like a dieter on a binge, I'm sneaking away from my work to blog a little. The air is too warm and the sun too bright to be concerned with expenses, presentations and keeping Madame on a tight administrative leash.

The news is, as always, depressing: more deaths in Iraq, the 10-year anniversary of the genocidal massacre in Rwanda, more weird economic news (less manufacturing jobs but corporate America is booming!) and David Brooks fails to be funny.

But there have been some bright spots:
1. Comic books: I've been reading these for the past four months and I can't tell you how wonderful they are (though E-treme X-Men really have to lighten up a bit. Too much chatting and not enough ass-kicking.) They give me the best dreams and satisfy my increasing desire to kick someone's ass. Anyone's. Doesn't really matter.

2. The Prince & Me: Yes, it's a film marketed for the pre-teen. Yes, no one is naked. Yes, it bears as much similarity to reality as The Bachelor. But, for some reason, I loved it. I loved it and so did the other 30-something single women and 13-yr old girls in the theater with me. Needless to say, when 13 Going on 30 comes out, I'll be there, too. (This may be a sign my brain is slowly melting.)

3. It seems the Librarian is ... gone. Or, if not gone, then rudely incommunicado. This is a dubiously bright spot (I can sense a stultifyingly LONG dry spell coming along) but at least now -- actually, there's no good way to end that sentence. It's over and that's that.

So. Two bright spots and a spot I'll just have to put on a good face for. Nice.

Femme-ing the Vote

i think i mentioned this before: unmarried women are a huge source of political power for progressives.

In 2000, there were 16 million unmarried unregistered women and 21,725,000 unmarried women who were eligible to vote who did not. These women, with their vote, could dramatically change the political landscape in America.

we won the vote only in 1920 - we shouldn't take it for granted.

so this is to remedy that.

it's easy and online.

winning

thoughts are generally muddled this morning (whoops - overslept) but just to hold my place, there's this from a friedman column today:

If Mr. Zapatero goes through with his troop withdrawal from Iraq, Islamist terrorists will attribute it to the Madrid bombing. This big picture will absolutely encourage them to try this tactic, perfected in Israel and now imported to Spain, in other European or U.S. elections — to tilt the vote one way or another.

"The Spanish Civil War tested only weapons," said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi. "The terrorism we have seen in Israel, and may soon see more of in Europe, is testing the fabric of democratic societies. What is being tested in Spain is this question: Does it pay for terrorists to try to hijack democratic elections? We have a clear-cut challenge here, and it must be met with an equally clear-cut response. Are leaders of Western nations going to reward the terrorists in their attempt to hijack democratic elections in a major European state or make them fail?"

still trying to figure out where my thinking is on this...

the news is depressing.

south texas town loses last factory jobs...shrub administration tries to rewrite history...us forest service discards public accountability for the sake of, um, streamlining - and hires a swank PR firm to spin itself in the process...stupid court case about 'in God we trust'...

and only 8 more months to go of ugly campaigning.

ASS.

it was a lovely morning - woke up early, dressed in a cute outfit, actually
combed my hair, felt all perky and happy (can't you tell something is
about to change this?) when i read an email from online museum guy who said he thought i was great, but wasn't expecting me to be so ... curvy.

he felt duped. (despite my ad and photos describing me as 'zaftig' . who the hell doesn't know what this means??)

you punk-rock posing-foucault reading-sawdust smelling-breadstick-bike riding arsehole.

mood is now murderous and dangerous.

reading of his weird offended feelings was like reading the sex & the city equivalent to the iraq WMD scandal: why was the intel so bad during the run up to their date with destiny??

because who knew that one's porportions would have to be disclosed like the warning label on a side view mirror: "Beware: Ass may be bigger than previously thought."

a new internet mag debuts this week: the gadflyer. progressives kicking ass without sounding lame and pretentious. (though i've never had a problem with the whole 'snob' label, myself.) already it's a fave. check it out.
...

oh, god, this week. so long. so lengthy. so interminable. so unending. so bleahhh. not even a pile of comic books could revive my ennui. yes, i've turned to comics, those crinkly leaves leftover from adolescence. no, they aren't preserved in plastic or arranged chronologically on a special shelf all their own. they're jumbled next to the latest phil rickman, trashy romance novel, victorian erotica and stanley elkin on my night table. that table is a symbol of my brain.

the elkin is taking some time to wade through - it's fun, but it's a hard-won fun. it's like the fun of drinking a bottle of whiskey on an empty stomach and then eating warm sushi. the drunken reeling is thrilling at first, but then the wet gurgle starts and, well, you know the rest.
...
life coach update:
i can't meditate for more than 5 minutes without falling asleep on the toilet.

another discovery - i'm too hung up on page count (thanks, grad school) and should really throw that over and just achieve getting some good words on the page. even if it's just five. it seems when i started treating writing like a job, i wanted to control it, instead of just letting it strike; i've been trying to apply the model from grad school and it doesn't fit my current schedule or temperament anymore, and so i've been stuck. and since i don't like my real life feeling like work, i'm avoiding writing because i've turned it into work.

thank god this is all free.

the coach said to me, "What's more important: writing or being a writer?"
and i didn't really have an answer to that.

(edited 3.23.04)

they always come back

when your past comes back it's a bit of a kick in the pants - one of those kicks that miss the meaty part of your ass and gets you right on the tailbone. and then the pain goes straight up and down your spine making your knees buckle. that kind of kick.

and when people talk about their past, it's always an ex-someone they're talking about, really. ex-lover, ex-fling, ex-boyfriend, ex-drunken reason why you don't go to a certain bar anymore. you think you know how to deal with it, even when you tell yourself they were inconsequential, but you don't really. how does one prepare themselves for a hard boot to the tailbone?

blah-di-blah-di-blah: yeah, a couple of old ones came back, fingering me over email, leaving voicemail messages that make my hands shake or rear back from the computer screen in horror - no!! i thought you were gone, buried in a cask behind a brick wall, chained and dumped in the north branch of the river! incognito latino found me on nerve again, despite my blocks, my deletions and refusals to be drawn back in to his lonely intensity. i immediately deleted his message without reading it; his is a place i don't want to revisit. i didn't behave particularly well and i regret that slightly.

i don't get particularly mushy-hearted over exes. they become such for a reason, and those reasons are usually good ones: boredom, sudden dislike, boredom, or the gradual dawning realization that this person will never be as fun as your girlfriends. and once you realize any or all of these things, you make a decision as soon as you can and extricate yourself as humanely as possible. (everyone has every right to leave everyone else, but it's not cool to be deliberately cruel.) once extrication has been achieved, whether neatly or sloppily, i don't think one should look back. the loop has been closed, the circle completed.

one girlfriend of mine was dumped years ago by a small-souled man named michael. it cracked her core and she took 2 years to recover. during those two years, she constantly asked, Why? i refrained from answering, Because. and during those 2 years she badgered him for an answer she could accept, tearing at him like a thistle. she said she was doing this in the service of some future closure but i disagreed: closure had already been achieved when he said those two words, 'it's over.' one might take issue with his timing and tact, but i'm pretty sure michael thought the door of that relationship firmly closed.

and even when those magical words aren't spoken, but acted, it's the same thing: someone suddenly disappears, drops from sight so quickly and thoroughly, you expect to see his face on a carton of milk. and so it was with MR. he's not technically an ex, but he is a past...someone. one day we looked around and we each weren't there. the loss was so clean, so fast, i barely registered it.

but now...he's back, even if it's just for a 3 hour stopover on his way to Korea in two weeks. this reappearance is more ... i don't know. bittersweet? no, not bitter.

it's more like...reading a novel, turning the last page and seeing a little epilogue where you find out what happened after all the main action's done. you see it, exclaim 'yay!' and when you're finished taking everything in, sighing, you put the book on the shelf until you need to read your favorite bits all over again.