.. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
[I'll try and post my thoughts about his speech and the kerfuffle around Jeremiah Wright at some point this week. Internet issues at home are putting a serious crimp in my blogging style. But, for now, share your thoughts about this speech.]
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday: what i'm reading today (between meetings)
Where Does Society Stand on Gender Matters? - Eliot Spitzer - Hillary Clinton - New York Times (vaguely interesting but they never seem to go deep enough, do they?)
Tracy Morgan on SNL. (a little rough? yeah, but thems the dozens, baby.)
Economic straits 'trickle down' to state budgets. (bad bad bad news for non profits.)
The end to blogging anonymity? (or, who cares about constitutionality?)
Tracy Morgan on SNL. (a little rough? yeah, but thems the dozens, baby.)
Economic straits 'trickle down' to state budgets. (bad bad bad news for non profits.)
The end to blogging anonymity? (or, who cares about constitutionality?)
JP's Annual San Patricio Limerick Contest! (you know you want to show off your versification)
Website I love: See Jane Work, for all the tax/life/financial organization doodads. (I bought the Financial Organizer and the Captio Taxcase. They're so pretty, I've been fondling them at my desk. Will they help me survive tax season? They frakking better.)
...
and, in other news, i had a date saturday night. it was ok. every date i go on just depresses me.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Shocking, yet not really: the Spitzer thing
The Eliot Spitzer Stuff - New York Times
On the way home yesterday as we were listening to NPR run down the whole sordid Eliot Spitzer scandal, Roomie and I were wondering why public officials just can't keep it in their pants. Or, rather, why male public officials can't keep it in their pants. What is it about a lonely hotel room, solitary hours and public scrutiny that leads to really ill-advised phone calls to sex workers?
This profile seems to lay it all at the feet of being 'reckless.' Perhaps. Maybe it's the high pressure of being a guy with power. But weird how we don't see scandals about women in power getting caught in sexually compromising positions. Or maybe not so weird. Their scandals are about illegal nannies or covering up hubby's bad business practices or tax evasions. Interesting how women in power have scandals still linked to domestic disturbances while men in power seem to get in trouble for making public service a libidinal pleasure dome.
On the way home yesterday as we were listening to NPR run down the whole sordid Eliot Spitzer scandal, Roomie and I were wondering why public officials just can't keep it in their pants. Or, rather, why male public officials can't keep it in their pants. What is it about a lonely hotel room, solitary hours and public scrutiny that leads to really ill-advised phone calls to sex workers?
This profile seems to lay it all at the feet of being 'reckless.' Perhaps. Maybe it's the high pressure of being a guy with power. But weird how we don't see scandals about women in power getting caught in sexually compromising positions. Or maybe not so weird. Their scandals are about illegal nannies or covering up hubby's bad business practices or tax evasions. Interesting how women in power have scandals still linked to domestic disturbances while men in power seem to get in trouble for making public service a libidinal pleasure dome.
Update: more on the gendered ways this scandal is playing out here.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Dear Clinton Campaign, you are making this harder and harder!
The Swamp: Clinton aide: Obama unqualified for VP
well. i know surrogates don't 'count' but, really. i have to record my displeasure.
way to go, Clinton camp. way to just give the big finger to the many people who happen to support Obama and are trying to come to terms with voting for *you* if it comes to that in the general election.
way to just lean over and fart all over your opponent, who hasn't done anything wrong except run against your candidate, and show how frakking petty your campaign is.
nice. well done. good god! do you want me to stay home on election day??
[cleaned up a bit to make the focus the campaign and not HRC]
well. i know surrogates don't 'count' but, really. i have to record my displeasure.
way to go, Clinton camp. way to just give the big finger to the many people who happen to support Obama and are trying to come to terms with voting for *you* if it comes to that in the general election.
way to just lean over and fart all over your opponent, who hasn't done anything wrong except run against your candidate, and show how frakking petty your campaign is.
nice. well done. good god! do you want me to stay home on election day??
[cleaned up a bit to make the focus the campaign and not HRC]
monday morning dyspepia
a morning commute that should have taken 30 minutes by bus took one frakking hour, i'm under caffeinated and that movie, Margot at the Wedding? total trash. we saw it at a friend's house over the weekend and we all hated it. at the end, we all sat in silence with little frowns on our faces. it was dark, unpleasant and pointless. why this became a critical darling, i don't know.
i just had to get that off my chest. it was giving me gas.
i just had to get that off my chest. it was giving me gas.
Friday, March 07, 2008
hats off, Miz T!
so...at last, my friend has launched her hat blog! see it here: tonya gross millinery
wait, it's more than hats - it's millinery! her hats are all hand made, creative and rock.
(i love her cashmere slouch winter hats - plenty of room for girls with 'fros!)
needless to say, check her out.
wait, it's more than hats - it's millinery! her hats are all hand made, creative and rock.
(i love her cashmere slouch winter hats - plenty of room for girls with 'fros!)
needless to say, check her out.
shrub: still an idiot
last night, on The Daily Show, they showed a clip of our President who said he hadn't heard that gas was approaching $4/gallon.
clearly, the man is living in a bubble because, this morning, Roomie stopped for gas and it was $3.90-something for a gallon.
i think we should flood the White House postcards or photos of our current gas prices because it's criminal that a President (lame duck as he is) should be so ignorant of real life.
frakking clueless tool.
clearly, the man is living in a bubble because, this morning, Roomie stopped for gas and it was $3.90-something for a gallon.
i think we should flood the White House postcards or photos of our current gas prices because it's criminal that a President (lame duck as he is) should be so ignorant of real life.
frakking clueless tool.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
now this is activism!
Minnesota Bars Beat Smoking Ban
Well, I love this story of normally reticent Minnesotans putting on drag and 'acting' in bars just to have a cig. Kudos, my friends from the great white north, kudos.
on the couch
Dr. C-: so, it's been a while. tell me what's going on.
Me: well, i had a date. in february.
Dr. C-: exciting!
Me: it was fine. ok. whatever. it didn't lead to a second date and that's ok. but it made me weird for a couple of weeks. there wasn't any chemistry but, for some reason, i felt bad about that.
Dr. C-: well, that's to be expected. you haven't done this in a while. have there been other dates?
Me: i keep putting them off. i think i'm ready to go but then i just get all stressed out and then i put it off.
Dr. C-: talk about that.
Me: there's two guys. perfectly nice guys. they aren't the type i usually go for but that's ok. they're in the burbs, they're single dads, they have some college but they aren't grad school types. they ask me out, we're in the planning stages - logistics, you know? the plans are very low-key. movies or something. but then i find a reason to back out - oh, it's too far, my schedule is too busy, blah blah blah.
Dr. C-: what are you afraid of?
Me: well, i don't know that it's fear, it's anxiety. stress. i think about the travel, the dressing up, the effort of getting to know another person, and then i start thinking about if this person is going to fit into my life, my friends, my routine and i suspect that they aren't because i'm not that into them in the first place, and they're probably looking for a mother for their kids and i'm not that - i can't be that - and then i think that i'm going to start resenting them the way i began to resent B- and then i am relieved when the date plans don't work out and i think, 'whew! dodged a bullet on that one!'
(silence for a minute)
Dr. C-: that's a lot of thinking. before you even go on a date.
Me: i know. it happens instantaneously.
Dr. C-: you know, in our field, 'anxiety' is very often 'fear.'
Me: oh.
Dr. C-: so it's like you're expecting the same issues that you had with B-, you start feeling the anger, fear and stress that you felt when you were with him and you're basing your behavior with these new men on it.
Me: interesting.
Dr. C-: well, i think you need to go on more dates.
Me: jesus.
Me: well, i had a date. in february.
Dr. C-: exciting!
Me: it was fine. ok. whatever. it didn't lead to a second date and that's ok. but it made me weird for a couple of weeks. there wasn't any chemistry but, for some reason, i felt bad about that.
Dr. C-: well, that's to be expected. you haven't done this in a while. have there been other dates?
Me: i keep putting them off. i think i'm ready to go but then i just get all stressed out and then i put it off.
Dr. C-: talk about that.
Me: there's two guys. perfectly nice guys. they aren't the type i usually go for but that's ok. they're in the burbs, they're single dads, they have some college but they aren't grad school types. they ask me out, we're in the planning stages - logistics, you know? the plans are very low-key. movies or something. but then i find a reason to back out - oh, it's too far, my schedule is too busy, blah blah blah.
Dr. C-: what are you afraid of?
Me: well, i don't know that it's fear, it's anxiety. stress. i think about the travel, the dressing up, the effort of getting to know another person, and then i start thinking about if this person is going to fit into my life, my friends, my routine and i suspect that they aren't because i'm not that into them in the first place, and they're probably looking for a mother for their kids and i'm not that - i can't be that - and then i think that i'm going to start resenting them the way i began to resent B- and then i am relieved when the date plans don't work out and i think, 'whew! dodged a bullet on that one!'
(silence for a minute)
Dr. C-: that's a lot of thinking. before you even go on a date.
Me: i know. it happens instantaneously.
Dr. C-: you know, in our field, 'anxiety' is very often 'fear.'
Me: oh.
Dr. C-: so it's like you're expecting the same issues that you had with B-, you start feeling the anger, fear and stress that you felt when you were with him and you're basing your behavior with these new men on it.
Me: interesting.
Dr. C-: well, i think you need to go on more dates.
Me: jesus.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
aagh, don't make me
Obama Regains Ground in Texas Caucuses but, overall, the Texas primary may have gone to Clinton.
(groan)
You know, if I absolutely have to, in order to stop another four years of a Republican president, I'll vote for whoever becomes the candidate on the left. But, jeebus on a stick, do we really think that Clinton is going to be an electable candidate against McCain?
For the Obama supporters who read Screed, what would you do and how would you feel if Clinton snapped up the nomination?
Updated: ok, I went to the folks at Kos and their soothing, Spock-like numbers crunching has brought me down from the ledge, reminding me of the big picture. Big picture, Ding, big picture.
Update on the update: However, it's stuff like this that makes me get all angry again about Clinton tactics. Would it be inaccurate to say the Clinton camp used this falsehood about Obama's campaign contacting Canada to unfairly stir mistrust of Obama and give her campaign a boost?
(groan)
You know, if I absolutely have to, in order to stop another four years of a Republican president, I'll vote for whoever becomes the candidate on the left. But, jeebus on a stick, do we really think that Clinton is going to be an electable candidate against McCain?
For the Obama supporters who read Screed, what would you do and how would you feel if Clinton snapped up the nomination?
Updated: ok, I went to the folks at Kos and their soothing, Spock-like numbers crunching has brought me down from the ledge, reminding me of the big picture. Big picture, Ding, big picture.
Update on the update: However, it's stuff like this that makes me get all angry again about Clinton tactics. Would it be inaccurate to say the Clinton camp used this falsehood about Obama's campaign contacting Canada to unfairly stir mistrust of Obama and give her campaign a boost?
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
election '08: pout
watching the mid-returns from the primaries and the CNN projection that Clinton will win Ohio.
it's totally unfair but i found myself thinking that ohio has consistently chosen the wrong people for the past three elections...
thanks, ohio.
it's totally unfair but i found myself thinking that ohio has consistently chosen the wrong people for the past three elections...
thanks, ohio.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
while phonebanking for obama
earlier today...
ding goes to the unisex bathroom after a couple hours of solid phonebanking and a large coffee.
she's in her stall, finishing up some feminine business (ahem) when she hears the door open and someone enters the stall next to her.
the stranger pees and ding thinks, 'hm, that's got a little distance.' she flushes.
at the sink, she hears the other stall open and the asian campaign guy walks over. he gives her the chin up greeting.
'hey,' he says.
'hey,' ding says. there are no paper towels so they stand there, shaking their wet hands dry.
then they both go back to the phone banking room.
this is obama's america - a place where men and women can pee next to each other and go back to the job at hand.
heh.
ding goes to the unisex bathroom after a couple hours of solid phonebanking and a large coffee.
she's in her stall, finishing up some feminine business (ahem) when she hears the door open and someone enters the stall next to her.
the stranger pees and ding thinks, 'hm, that's got a little distance.' she flushes.
at the sink, she hears the other stall open and the asian campaign guy walks over. he gives her the chin up greeting.
'hey,' he says.
'hey,' ding says. there are no paper towels so they stand there, shaking their wet hands dry.
then they both go back to the phone banking room.
this is obama's america - a place where men and women can pee next to each other and go back to the job at hand.
heh.
Friday, February 29, 2008
work vent, friday edition
Here's the perfect way to lose respect in an office. Say these words:
"That's not my job."
When she said this, the very young woman blinked at me like a doe and crimped her lips a little.
I clamped down hard on my temper. "This is exactly your job. If it's not yours then whose is it? It's about the whole organization and staffing so this falls under your area. That's your job."
She tried again. "Well, with everything else on my plate I've just sort of pushed this back on the backburner." She said this while sitting on top of her desk, after having finished chatting with a coworker. Her laptop was dark.
"I suggest you move this up to the front burner. I just gave the ambassador incorrect information based on this." I shook the paper in my hand. "That's unacceptable. How long do we have to wait until something comes from this office without mistakes on it?"
She sat on her desk. "I'll fix it. I'll post the revisions on the shared drive so everyone can access them."
"Thank you. I appreciate it." To take the sting of this encounter away, I will probably have to find a way to make this a coaching opportunity, but for now, I'm still frustrated.
(Yes, I have officially become my mother. And now I understand all those women who rode me hard when I first started working in corporate environments. To those women I say this: I'm sorry for every bitchy, ignorant thing I muttered under my breath when you walked away. You were right.)
"That's not my job."
When she said this, the very young woman blinked at me like a doe and crimped her lips a little.
I clamped down hard on my temper. "This is exactly your job. If it's not yours then whose is it? It's about the whole organization and staffing so this falls under your area. That's your job."
She tried again. "Well, with everything else on my plate I've just sort of pushed this back on the backburner." She said this while sitting on top of her desk, after having finished chatting with a coworker. Her laptop was dark.
"I suggest you move this up to the front burner. I just gave the ambassador incorrect information based on this." I shook the paper in my hand. "That's unacceptable. How long do we have to wait until something comes from this office without mistakes on it?"
She sat on her desk. "I'll fix it. I'll post the revisions on the shared drive so everyone can access them."
"Thank you. I appreciate it." To take the sting of this encounter away, I will probably have to find a way to make this a coaching opportunity, but for now, I'm still frustrated.
(Yes, I have officially become my mother. And now I understand all those women who rode me hard when I first started working in corporate environments. To those women I say this: I'm sorry for every bitchy, ignorant thing I muttered under my breath when you walked away. You were right.)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sick Days Access: Call to Action!
My agency is part of a coalition, led by Women Employed and including Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and Heartland Alliance, working with lead sponsor Rep. Julie Hamos to change the fact that 3 million private sector workers don't have the right to a single sick day.
Our basic bill proposes a way for these workers to accrue just 7 days of paid sick time over the course of one year. (For every 30 hours worked, a worker can earn 1 hour of paid sick time.)
The bill, HB 5320, has been introduced. There's support for this in the legislature but to move the bill out of Rules, through Labor, and towards a vote on the floor, we need more.
So we need stories.
We are looking for stories from people who can talk about the need for paid sick days—either you used to work somewhere that didn’t have it when you needed it (and what happened), or you are currently working and don’t get paid sick days.
We’re looking for brief summaries that we could turn into a letter, use as part of legislative testimony, or perhaps include on a fact sheet.
If you have a story, email takeastand@ywcachicago.org.
You can, of course, request your story to be as anonymous as you want it to be (first name/age/industry/city, if you like.)
[edited to remove Chicago Coalition for the Homeless as a coalition partner]
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
asshat: graeme reeves
Clit Bandits: Evil Gyno Graeme Reeves Brutalized 800 Women Before He Got Caught
i think this goes beyond being an 'asshat.' asshat implies that one, if they tried hard enough, could reflect and reform their asshattery.
reeves, however, has transcended basic sexist asshattery and entered a new category: Mutilating Misogynist Mengele.
and the man isn't even in jail! i haven't read anything about charges being brought against him at all! nothing about criminal liability. he's on the run and all those women (one of whom had her labia and clitoris removed against her will) are left without recourse.
what's even more stupefying about this story is the lack of oversight and action. reeves wasn't exactly alone while he was cutting off clitorii, sexually abusing and mutilating women. there were other people in the room who presumably observed and assisted his mutilating surgical procedures. there is currently a 'task force' in place to investigate how reeves could have gotten away with this but i think all you have to do is look around at his coworkers, his nurses, and fellow doctors.
i think this goes beyond being an 'asshat.' asshat implies that one, if they tried hard enough, could reflect and reform their asshattery.
reeves, however, has transcended basic sexist asshattery and entered a new category: Mutilating Misogynist Mengele.
and the man isn't even in jail! i haven't read anything about charges being brought against him at all! nothing about criminal liability. he's on the run and all those women (one of whom had her labia and clitoris removed against her will) are left without recourse.
what's even more stupefying about this story is the lack of oversight and action. reeves wasn't exactly alone while he was cutting off clitorii, sexually abusing and mutilating women. there were other people in the room who presumably observed and assisted his mutilating surgical procedures. there is currently a 'task force' in place to investigate how reeves could have gotten away with this but i think all you have to do is look around at his coworkers, his nurses, and fellow doctors.
Friday, February 22, 2008
No, really. Shut up.
So here's an open letter to all undergrads everywhere, particularly on campus newspapers:
Dear Undergrad Writer,
For the love of Polyhymnia, just stop.
We, your former and current college and university English instructors, have endured an endless supply of undergraduate compositions and we are happy to do so. This is, after all, our job. With varying degrees of success, we have introduced you to the best of Western literary tradition as well as the brightest new additions to the literary canon from women, people of color and across the globe. Though other disciplines certainly have the right to say the same, we English instructors think that ours is a calling that can best equip a young person to be culturally literate and we are grateful we have had a role in your intellectual maturation.
Like a Crusoe with his Friday, (you did read Dafoe, didn't you?) we encouraged you to fill pages with your inner thoughts, your ideas, your theories and we reluctantly approved them, as long as there was a shadow of an argument. The writing was the thing, not necessarily the matter of your writing. We overlooked your problematic arguments against reproductive choice, papers agreeing with the internment of the Japanese, and your wrong-headed ideas about Shakespeare's Viola being a victim of incest. Lest we be accused of liberal bias, as long as you wrote, and relatively well, we smiled. (It was a strained smile, but it was there.)
Well, now you can stop. Stop writing.
Your failure to understand the most basic literary devices is starting to make us and our profession look bad. Clearly, when we assigned you Swift's A Modest Proposal, you didn't read it closely enough. You didn't study, did you? When we assigned you Milton's Paradise Lost and reviewed his rhetorical devices you zoned out, didn't you? You didn't pay attention to Twain, you didn't 'get' Dickens, you forgot to read Heller and you just skimmed the Cliffs Notes for Vonnegut. In fact, if Twain took a page from your book, poor Jim would end lynched and Huck would have joined the White Knights.
We implore you - stop writing. In particular, stop calling your work product satire. It's not satire! It's not even a jeremiad or a good parody! It is unfocused, poorly conceived, shabby, mean and clumsy. Your writing has nothing to do with social commentary or criticism because you don't have the mental will to poke your finger in the eye of Power and you just don't have the intellectual heft to carry it off.
Moreover, before you can write well you must be able to read well and, apparently, you've burned all your books - with the possible exception of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Before your lack of education becomes too embarassing, just put down the pen. Close the laptop. Be silent.
Best Regards,
The Faculty
[h/t Alas, A Blog]
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
something about obama
Small Donations Add Up for Obama - New York Times
i just made a donation this morning (not as large as i would have liked, but it's something.) the story of how regular, private citizens are giving directly to candidates is amazing. i don't know about any of my five regular readers, but i haven't given a donation to the main Democratic party since that crushing Al Gore defeat. why give my cash to them when they FUBAR things so completely?
while the obama 'juggernaut' continues i have to admit that i feel a little bad for clinton. i'm sure that feeling of momentary pity will pass soon.
in other obama news, just came across this blog, Think on These Things, that does a pretty good job of delineating the difference between Obama and Clinton - their policy stances, the arguments about 'experience' (hey, guess who's actually passed major legislation and who's just named a post office?) and the sneaky media attacks on Obama.
particularly good is this video of a young black guy laying it down about Obama and healthcare to a pushy interviewer in L.A. Think of These Things is pretty up front about being pro-Obama, so make of that what you will. S/He's laying out a comprehensive argument in favor of a candidate and it's convincing to me.
and, via that clip, here's another blog i stumbled on - Jack & Jill Politics - that looks pretty cool, mixing bougie-ness and political wonkiness all in one.
(what's Jack & Jill? where i come from, if you were black, lived in Baldwin Hills and your parents were of the professional class, you probably participated in J&J. if , like me, you lived below the Hill, your parents were lower middle class and didn't know about such things, then you didn't.)
have i wasted enough time at work?
i think so. back to the grind, folks.
i just made a donation this morning (not as large as i would have liked, but it's something.) the story of how regular, private citizens are giving directly to candidates is amazing. i don't know about any of my five regular readers, but i haven't given a donation to the main Democratic party since that crushing Al Gore defeat. why give my cash to them when they FUBAR things so completely?
while the obama 'juggernaut' continues i have to admit that i feel a little bad for clinton. i'm sure that feeling of momentary pity will pass soon.
in other obama news, just came across this blog, Think on These Things, that does a pretty good job of delineating the difference between Obama and Clinton - their policy stances, the arguments about 'experience' (hey, guess who's actually passed major legislation and who's just named a post office?) and the sneaky media attacks on Obama.
particularly good is this video of a young black guy laying it down about Obama and healthcare to a pushy interviewer in L.A. Think of These Things is pretty up front about being pro-Obama, so make of that what you will. S/He's laying out a comprehensive argument in favor of a candidate and it's convincing to me.
and, via that clip, here's another blog i stumbled on - Jack & Jill Politics - that looks pretty cool, mixing bougie-ness and political wonkiness all in one.
(what's Jack & Jill? where i come from, if you were black, lived in Baldwin Hills and your parents were of the professional class, you probably participated in J&J. if , like me, you lived below the Hill, your parents were lower middle class and didn't know about such things, then you didn't.)
have i wasted enough time at work?
i think so. back to the grind, folks.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
glen beck to progressive women: 'eww, you're ugly!'
(video clip can be found at Feministing)
Mr. Beck,
I'm sure you're tired of all the email you're getting in response to your 'ugly women=progressive,' but as with Jello, there's always room for a little more.
Aren't you tired of being a stereotype?
Aren't you weary of that Neanderthalic exterior of yours preventing you from stepping into the 21st century?
Aren't your knuckles a little sore from being dragged on the ground so often?
Isn't your arm a little tingly from holding the banner of 'Conservative Blowhard' so high?
Aren't you a little bit afraid that you're becoming a little bit of a caricature of yourself?
I mean, really. How many tired stereotypes of progressive women do you really need to roll out every time you open your mouth? We're ugly, unshaven, emasculating, humorless, shrill, emotional, too sensitive, butch, dykes, smelly, scary, or the Bogie Man/Loch Ness Monster combined. Yawn.
At least think of something new, you unoriginal, sexist, 'scared of Mommy,' hack.
Best Regards,
Ding
(screw politesse. that asshat needs some vitriol. email him at me@glennbeck.com)
Mr. Beck,
I'm sure you're tired of all the email you're getting in response to your 'ugly women=progressive,' but as with Jello, there's always room for a little more.
Aren't you tired of being a stereotype?
Aren't you weary of that Neanderthalic exterior of yours preventing you from stepping into the 21st century?
Aren't your knuckles a little sore from being dragged on the ground so often?
Isn't your arm a little tingly from holding the banner of 'Conservative Blowhard' so high?
Aren't you a little bit afraid that you're becoming a little bit of a caricature of yourself?
I mean, really. How many tired stereotypes of progressive women do you really need to roll out every time you open your mouth? We're ugly, unshaven, emasculating, humorless, shrill, emotional, too sensitive, butch, dykes, smelly, scary, or the Bogie Man/Loch Ness Monster combined. Yawn.
At least think of something new, you unoriginal, sexist, 'scared of Mommy,' hack.
Best Regards,
Ding
(screw politesse. that asshat needs some vitriol. email him at me@glennbeck.com)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
how a book gets born
an author walks home on 9/11:
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? - New York Times
we're not only hostile to knowledge, if we saw it, we'd light some torches, chase it though the streets and then tar and feather it. then we'd go home and drink a beer.
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? - New York Times
we're not only hostile to knowledge, if we saw it, we'd light some torches, chase it though the streets and then tar and feather it. then we'd go home and drink a beer.
smackety smack?
(and isn't using the word 'incendiary' a bit strong? i mean, i hear that and i think the clinton camp is going to kidnap the obama girls and hold them for ransom, or something.)
...
i'm working from home this morning, waiting for the hottie plumber to fix Roomie's sink. in the meantime, i'll fantasize about a sweeping Obama delegate victory.
oh, happy v-day.
an out of state fan sent me a comic book sprayed with cologne and a superman card that, despite myself, made me laugh. i guess that counts as a valentine.
...
i'm working from home this morning, waiting for the hottie plumber to fix Roomie's sink. in the meantime, i'll fantasize about a sweeping Obama delegate victory.
oh, happy v-day.
an out of state fan sent me a comic book sprayed with cologne and a superman card that, despite myself, made me laugh. i guess that counts as a valentine.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
glamour corrects 'oops' moment...and other things
Your race, your looks: Fashion & Beauty: glamour.com
remember that kerfuffle when a Glamour staffer went to a law firm and told the black women that 'ethnic' hair was a fashion don't? yeah, good times.
well, to Glamour's credit, they turned that misstep into a learning opportunity.
(as for me, today my hair is straight because it's the only way it can fit under my frakking snow hat. once it's warmer, back to big and curly.)
...
today at the office made me bleed from my ass.
i haven't eaten lunch all day and i'm exhausted.
but i've had time to look at interracial romance novels on amazon. question: why are their covers so beat ass ugly?
(yeah, no deep thoughts from me today. i'm too tired.)
remember that kerfuffle when a Glamour staffer went to a law firm and told the black women that 'ethnic' hair was a fashion don't? yeah, good times.
well, to Glamour's credit, they turned that misstep into a learning opportunity.
(as for me, today my hair is straight because it's the only way it can fit under my frakking snow hat. once it's warmer, back to big and curly.)
...
today at the office made me bleed from my ass.
i haven't eaten lunch all day and i'm exhausted.
but i've had time to look at interracial romance novels on amazon. question: why are their covers so beat ass ugly?
(yeah, no deep thoughts from me today. i'm too tired.)
Friday, February 08, 2008
black history month: a case for voting black
My aunt's apartment was stifling hot and smelled strange but I tried to ignore it.
"Our people took the name of Mr. C-, you know. He owned our family and when the war was over, we just kept the name," my aunt said.
"I don't know anything about that time. I mean, no one's told me stories about it," I said.
"Well, it's here and there." She thought a little. "You know, there is a story about a relative of ours. The rest of the family kept the C- name and stayed in Alabama. But one left. He came up North and disappeared."
"Disappeared? Why'd he disappear?"
"Because he passed."
"No!"
"Yes. He was white. Real white. Your great granddaddy passed for white for a while; his wife could pass, too.” She paused again. “I don’t know how your grandfather got so dark. Anyway, he came up to Chicago and the story is that he worked in a store and started a business. But he never got back in touch with the rest of the family. He's just lost."
She said this like he just wandered into State Street and just couldn’t find his way back.
"I have never heard this story!"
My aunt sighed. "There aren't that many family members left who know it."
"Huh. Fascinating."
Unfortunately, I have totally forgotten what my passing distant relative’s name was.
...
The new Skip Gates special on PBS is full of these stories of passing, diaspora, disappearance and reinvention. (But sometimes I wonder if my own family's narrative is real or just patterned on other stories of black family lines whose origins are just as murky or tangled.)
What strikes me about some of these early stories of lost family members reclaimed is how prominent black-owned land figures into them and how crucial the land is to forming early black identity as well as ideas of freedom and citizenship. The program begins with Gates visiting the land his family has owned for 6 generations and passes by a parcel of land his family had owned but had to sell. Since part of their own genealogical story is lost to them, their farm acts like an anchor for their identity. In subsequent conversations with celebrities like Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle or Tom Joyner, Gates reveals that their families had once owned land - 40 acres, 62 acres, 65 acres - donating or selling some of their land to build schools or churches. The revelations about property and land ownership become a source of pride in their family.
What is it that Rock says – If he had known this before, it would have taken away the inevitability that he would be nothing. And property is usually the vehicle for these stories to come to light; they act like a bracket around early black families: you were property and now you have property.
At the turn of the century blacks owned between 12-15 million acres of land; by the 30s and 40s that number shrinks to just a little over a million. For many of these black families the land is a foundation to build their newly acquired identities as freed people that suddenly disappears, forcing their story to jump, only to be picked up further down the line. What happened? What happened in those intervening years? Did African Americans just suddenly decide, "Hm, you know, owning land sucks. Let's pick up and go north"? Usually something else happened to make a family, or even a whole black town, disperse.
Tom Joyner's family story is a good example; Gates finds his great grandmother but her paper trail ends somewhere in late 19th/turn of the century Carolinas, only to pick up again several years later in the north. Joyner has no idea why she left home or what the story of his family is but Gates and his team discover the reason: His family owned a substantial parcel of land but when his two great uncles are accused of murder and executed, the family sells their land to pay for legal fees and the remaining family flees the area. But Gates' team also uncovers that the accusation was probably false, specifically targeted at the two great uncles because they were part of a black landowning family.
Chris Rock asks how his own ancestor could go from slave, to soldier, to legislator, to landowner, to sharecropper all in 10 short years; Gates simply answers, 'Reconstruction ended.'
We're left to conclude what happened to Julius Caesar Tingman's land on our own.
...
Three years ago the exhibit "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" came to the Chicago Historical Society and it was a hard exhibit to walk through. Again, I noticed stories of black land ownership (or burgeoning private enterprise) running alongside the photos of ‘extra-legal deaths at the hands of unknown persons' (which is how the Society described the lynchings that spread throughout the country from Reconstruction to roughly 1965 or '68.)
In 2001, the AP ran a series called 'Torn from the Land' that researched and confirmed claims of widespread land theft - claims that are crucial to the reparations movement. Opponents of the reparations movement say that it's a fallacy to punish or extort money from people today for events in the past; slavery is over. I counter that the cost of these past events is still felt today through procedures that, are legal and that still disproportionately affect poor communities of color, i.e., partitioning, rezoning, ‘revitalization’/gentrification, and eminent domain. These legal maneuvers aren't 'extra-legal' or as extreme as lynching but they sure do have the same result – displacement, dispersal, diasporas.
Personally, I'm sort of neutral about the reparations movement. Do I want my father's family to be paid money because of slavery? Not really. What I want is a deeper, more public acknowledgment of how slavery impacted and drove our capitalist system, and how our nation's participation in the slave trade laid a foundation for practices, industries and institutions that not only continue to have an adverse affect on communities of color today but still provide the elite in this country with wealth and prosperity. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Land is at the bottom of our American imagination and mythology. The land was the lure and the land has allowed us Americans to earn our claim to citizenship - we stole it, settled it, colonized it, killed for it, and exploited the shit out of it. American land is a metaphor for our political and national identities at home, as well as a justification for our acts abroad.
As an African American, though I am a participant in (and benefactor of) this American history, I am distant from it because of how the land figures into our own fraught, black history: we were counted with the land, we worked on the land, we fought and were killed for the land. More acted upon than actor, we have seen our roles in history marginalized or elided, but now we approach a moment where, at last, our acts can be writ large and with boldness.
I say we owe a debt to our ancestors for the sacrifices they were forced to make – if we have the chance to take a firm step toward repaying that debt, toward reclaiming the lost land of our identities as black Americans, then we should take it now.
"Our people took the name of Mr. C-, you know. He owned our family and when the war was over, we just kept the name," my aunt said.
"I don't know anything about that time. I mean, no one's told me stories about it," I said.
"Well, it's here and there." She thought a little. "You know, there is a story about a relative of ours. The rest of the family kept the C- name and stayed in Alabama. But one left. He came up North and disappeared."
"Disappeared? Why'd he disappear?"
"Because he passed."
"No!"
"Yes. He was white. Real white. Your great granddaddy passed for white for a while; his wife could pass, too.” She paused again. “I don’t know how your grandfather got so dark. Anyway, he came up to Chicago and the story is that he worked in a store and started a business. But he never got back in touch with the rest of the family. He's just lost."
She said this like he just wandered into State Street and just couldn’t find his way back.
"I have never heard this story!"
My aunt sighed. "There aren't that many family members left who know it."
"Huh. Fascinating."
Unfortunately, I have totally forgotten what my passing distant relative’s name was.
...
The new Skip Gates special on PBS is full of these stories of passing, diaspora, disappearance and reinvention. (But sometimes I wonder if my own family's narrative is real or just patterned on other stories of black family lines whose origins are just as murky or tangled.)
What strikes me about some of these early stories of lost family members reclaimed is how prominent black-owned land figures into them and how crucial the land is to forming early black identity as well as ideas of freedom and citizenship. The program begins with Gates visiting the land his family has owned for 6 generations and passes by a parcel of land his family had owned but had to sell. Since part of their own genealogical story is lost to them, their farm acts like an anchor for their identity. In subsequent conversations with celebrities like Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle or Tom Joyner, Gates reveals that their families had once owned land - 40 acres, 62 acres, 65 acres - donating or selling some of their land to build schools or churches. The revelations about property and land ownership become a source of pride in their family.
What is it that Rock says – If he had known this before, it would have taken away the inevitability that he would be nothing. And property is usually the vehicle for these stories to come to light; they act like a bracket around early black families: you were property and now you have property.
At the turn of the century blacks owned between 12-15 million acres of land; by the 30s and 40s that number shrinks to just a little over a million. For many of these black families the land is a foundation to build their newly acquired identities as freed people that suddenly disappears, forcing their story to jump, only to be picked up further down the line. What happened? What happened in those intervening years? Did African Americans just suddenly decide, "Hm, you know, owning land sucks. Let's pick up and go north"? Usually something else happened to make a family, or even a whole black town, disperse.
Tom Joyner's family story is a good example; Gates finds his great grandmother but her paper trail ends somewhere in late 19th/turn of the century Carolinas, only to pick up again several years later in the north. Joyner has no idea why she left home or what the story of his family is but Gates and his team discover the reason: His family owned a substantial parcel of land but when his two great uncles are accused of murder and executed, the family sells their land to pay for legal fees and the remaining family flees the area. But Gates' team also uncovers that the accusation was probably false, specifically targeted at the two great uncles because they were part of a black landowning family.
Chris Rock asks how his own ancestor could go from slave, to soldier, to legislator, to landowner, to sharecropper all in 10 short years; Gates simply answers, 'Reconstruction ended.'
We're left to conclude what happened to Julius Caesar Tingman's land on our own.
...
Three years ago the exhibit "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" came to the Chicago Historical Society and it was a hard exhibit to walk through. Again, I noticed stories of black land ownership (or burgeoning private enterprise) running alongside the photos of ‘extra-legal deaths at the hands of unknown persons' (which is how the Society described the lynchings that spread throughout the country from Reconstruction to roughly 1965 or '68.)
In 2001, the AP ran a series called 'Torn from the Land' that researched and confirmed claims of widespread land theft - claims that are crucial to the reparations movement. Opponents of the reparations movement say that it's a fallacy to punish or extort money from people today for events in the past; slavery is over. I counter that the cost of these past events is still felt today through procedures that, are legal and that still disproportionately affect poor communities of color, i.e., partitioning, rezoning, ‘revitalization’/gentrification, and eminent domain. These legal maneuvers aren't 'extra-legal' or as extreme as lynching but they sure do have the same result – displacement, dispersal, diasporas.
Personally, I'm sort of neutral about the reparations movement. Do I want my father's family to be paid money because of slavery? Not really. What I want is a deeper, more public acknowledgment of how slavery impacted and drove our capitalist system, and how our nation's participation in the slave trade laid a foundation for practices, industries and institutions that not only continue to have an adverse affect on communities of color today but still provide the elite in this country with wealth and prosperity. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Land is at the bottom of our American imagination and mythology. The land was the lure and the land has allowed us Americans to earn our claim to citizenship - we stole it, settled it, colonized it, killed for it, and exploited the shit out of it. American land is a metaphor for our political and national identities at home, as well as a justification for our acts abroad.
As an African American, though I am a participant in (and benefactor of) this American history, I am distant from it because of how the land figures into our own fraught, black history: we were counted with the land, we worked on the land, we fought and were killed for the land. More acted upon than actor, we have seen our roles in history marginalized or elided, but now we approach a moment where, at last, our acts can be writ large and with boldness.
I say we owe a debt to our ancestors for the sacrifices they were forced to make – if we have the chance to take a firm step toward repaying that debt, toward reclaiming the lost land of our identities as black Americans, then we should take it now.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
spin
The Swamp: Post-Super day, GOP race has clarity Dems lack
this headline is a perfect example of 'framing' or spin.
true to the GOP-lovin' Trib's form, the GOP is sure, decided, firm. Dems are just all over the place, like a sloppy sock drawer.
but who's really in trouble?
i'd say that what this headline calls 'clarity' is actually the GOP 'painted into a corner.'
this headline is a perfect example of 'framing' or spin.
true to the GOP-lovin' Trib's form, the GOP is sure, decided, firm. Dems are just all over the place, like a sloppy sock drawer.
but who's really in trouble?
i'd say that what this headline calls 'clarity' is actually the GOP 'painted into a corner.'
not like last time
wow. last night was awesome; we stayed up until 2 am watching the returns but we didn't care that we'd pay for it this morning.
12 states for obama; california breaks for clinton (grr - but that's ok!); huckabee makes a surge; romney totally wipes out; mccain takes the lead for the GOP.
we finally have an exciting election cycle.
my favorite line from last night came from paul begala on cnn:
"No one's more conservative than Huckabee! He doesn't believe in evolution, gravity or photosynthesis!"
totally hilarious; we even wrote it on our quote board.
...
i dreamt that california eventually went to obama with 91% reporting, but alas, that didn't happen. maybe that's why i was so slow in waking up and rolled into work today at 10.
(and, at last, D- has finally brought himself to the point and asked me out. i will allow myself a tiny smile of satisfaction.)
12 states for obama; california breaks for clinton (grr - but that's ok!); huckabee makes a surge; romney totally wipes out; mccain takes the lead for the GOP.
we finally have an exciting election cycle.
my favorite line from last night came from paul begala on cnn:
"No one's more conservative than Huckabee! He doesn't believe in evolution, gravity or photosynthesis!"
totally hilarious; we even wrote it on our quote board.
...
i dreamt that california eventually went to obama with 91% reporting, but alas, that didn't happen. maybe that's why i was so slow in waking up and rolled into work today at 10.
(and, at last, D- has finally brought himself to the point and asked me out. i will allow myself a tiny smile of satisfaction.)
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
reading Hillary and her haters
All You Need Is Hate - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog
Over at my other blog, Church Gal, I was having an interesting exchange with an anonymous commenter about my post poking at the Clinton campaign for beating the 'experience' drum so hard. What made this exchange interesting was the cloudy, shifting view of Hillary Clinton the commenter had.
Anonymous' Quote:
"Hillary is strong, very clever. She reminds me of Meryl Streeps' character in the Machurian Candidate. Hillary put up with Bills cheating ways for way too long. Why would a strong woman like that put up with nonsense? More then likely it was because at the end of it all, his presidency that is, something was in it for her. Bill and Hillary have a political relationship. They have mastered the art of lying to win. She is using Bill every step of the way. I wish she would come out and say just what you wrote. Interesting, and she will still win because so many men do not have the balls to stop her."
It begins with a positive: Hillary is strong, very clever.
But then comes the less than flattering comparison where a positive figure merge swith a character who is dysfunctional, manipulative, deceitful and ruthlessly cunning: She reminds me of Meryl Streeps' character in the Machurian Candidate.
And then the comment changes again, this time turning Hillary Clinton into the 'woman wronged' who stands too much by her man: Hillary put up with Bills cheating ways for way too long.
Her strength, previously praised, is in doubt: Why would a strong woman like that put up with nonsense?
The answer is her cunning and grasping nature - her (dare I say it?) ambition: More then likely it was because at the end of it all, his presidency that is, something was in it for her. Bill and Hillary have a political relationship.
The Clinton's ambitious partnership is a vehicle for another accusation of deceit, though the worst that they could be accused of is playing semantics: They have mastered the art of lying to win.
Then, erasing the picture we have of compationate ambition, we have another nod to Hillary Clinton's singular agency (manipulative as it is): She is using Bill every step of the way.
And here is where things get interesting and the comment seems to be at war with itself. Anonymous says: ...she will still win because so many men do not have the balls to stop her.
What I like about this part of the comment is how everything sort of falls apart: Hillary will win but her victory is because men fail around her. It makes me ask: If men didn't fail, would Hillary still win? Do I hear grudging respect from Anonymous toward Hillary? Or is it fear? Is Anonymous gloating? And who is the object of derision? Men?
For these readers of Hillary, especially those mentioned in Fish's column, she becomes a comic book superhero, like the Scarlet Witch or maybe even Dark Phoenix - able to change reality around her, or at least prompt those looking at her to dip into some shapeshifting realities of their own. She can be read as an aspirational stand in (like Wonder Woman) for women who see themselves in her and her life's narrative; she can be the shadowy council that makes men afraid or women secretly proud; or she is the sinister shapeshifter who will do what she must to further her own desire for world domination (like Mystique.)
It's all rather silly when you see it like a bunch of comic book characters.
Over at my other blog, Church Gal, I was having an interesting exchange with an anonymous commenter about my post poking at the Clinton campaign for beating the 'experience' drum so hard. What made this exchange interesting was the cloudy, shifting view of Hillary Clinton the commenter had.
Anonymous' Quote:
"Hillary is strong, very clever. She reminds me of Meryl Streeps' character in the Machurian Candidate. Hillary put up with Bills cheating ways for way too long. Why would a strong woman like that put up with nonsense? More then likely it was because at the end of it all, his presidency that is, something was in it for her. Bill and Hillary have a political relationship. They have mastered the art of lying to win. She is using Bill every step of the way. I wish she would come out and say just what you wrote. Interesting, and she will still win because so many men do not have the balls to stop her."
It begins with a positive: Hillary is strong, very clever.
But then comes the less than flattering comparison where a positive figure merge swith a character who is dysfunctional, manipulative, deceitful and ruthlessly cunning: She reminds me of Meryl Streeps' character in the Machurian Candidate.
And then the comment changes again, this time turning Hillary Clinton into the 'woman wronged' who stands too much by her man: Hillary put up with Bills cheating ways for way too long.
Her strength, previously praised, is in doubt: Why would a strong woman like that put up with nonsense?
The answer is her cunning and grasping nature - her (dare I say it?) ambition: More then likely it was because at the end of it all, his presidency that is, something was in it for her. Bill and Hillary have a political relationship.
The Clinton's ambitious partnership is a vehicle for another accusation of deceit, though the worst that they could be accused of is playing semantics: They have mastered the art of lying to win.
Then, erasing the picture we have of compationate ambition, we have another nod to Hillary Clinton's singular agency (manipulative as it is): She is using Bill every step of the way.
And here is where things get interesting and the comment seems to be at war with itself. Anonymous says: ...she will still win because so many men do not have the balls to stop her.
What I like about this part of the comment is how everything sort of falls apart: Hillary will win but her victory is because men fail around her. It makes me ask: If men didn't fail, would Hillary still win? Do I hear grudging respect from Anonymous toward Hillary? Or is it fear? Is Anonymous gloating? And who is the object of derision? Men?
For these readers of Hillary, especially those mentioned in Fish's column, she becomes a comic book superhero, like the Scarlet Witch or maybe even Dark Phoenix - able to change reality around her, or at least prompt those looking at her to dip into some shapeshifting realities of their own. She can be read as an aspirational stand in (like Wonder Woman) for women who see themselves in her and her life's narrative; she can be the shadowy council that makes men afraid or women secretly proud; or she is the sinister shapeshifter who will do what she must to further her own desire for world domination (like Mystique.)
It's all rather silly when you see it like a bunch of comic book characters.
Friday, February 01, 2008
superbowl friday: glad to know the senate's on it
Senator Asks Why NFL Destroyed Tapes
aww, arlen specter plays squash. (that's what a john updike character would play.)
...
anyway, we're buried in snow and Roomie and i are supposed to go to a formal benefit tonight. have a good weekend, y'all.
aww, arlen specter plays squash. (that's what a john updike character would play.)
...
anyway, we're buried in snow and Roomie and i are supposed to go to a formal benefit tonight. have a good weekend, y'all.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
goodbye, edwards; hello, obama
Obamas Million Haul - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
my guy pulled out of the race. bummer.
(moment of silence)
but now i can support obama!
i've been having an exchange about hillary's 'experience' over at ChurchGal, if you want to check it out.
my guy pulled out of the race. bummer.
(moment of silence)
but now i can support obama!
i've been having an exchange about hillary's 'experience' over at ChurchGal, if you want to check it out.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
the Black Girl Network.
you know what i'm talking about. it's in almost every corporate entity in america. a subset of the hidden assistant network, it's an even more subterranean network that shares information and usually knows before HR who's good to work with and who's a secret, abusive, alcoholic, sexually harrassing nutbag. like the masons, the BGN could be anyone or everyone. you don't even have to be black. but you can't be management.
you wanna know what's really what in your firm? you gotta find the BGN.
so, from the BGN (via my very minnesota Roomie!) to you, the new BGN motto for 2008:
you know what i'm talking about. it's in almost every corporate entity in america. a subset of the hidden assistant network, it's an even more subterranean network that shares information and usually knows before HR who's good to work with and who's a secret, abusive, alcoholic, sexually harrassing nutbag. like the masons, the BGN could be anyone or everyone. you don't even have to be black. but you can't be management.
you wanna know what's really what in your firm? you gotta find the BGN.
so, from the BGN (via my very minnesota Roomie!) to you, the new BGN motto for 2008:
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
well, i've *been* to Canada
Southern racists adopt "Canadian" as a euphemism for "black" - Boing Boing
are you really frakking kidding me?
NOW what will i say when i don't want to tell people i'm american???
are you really frakking kidding me?
NOW what will i say when i don't want to tell people i'm american???
Monday, January 28, 2008
SOTU: perfect way to spend a monday
The State of the Union Address Drinking Game 2008
don't blame me if you show up to work totally hungover.
blame the president.
don't blame me if you show up to work totally hungover.
blame the president.
it's your alderman's fault, you know
ever curious about your neighborhood's totally out of control development? wonder how the hood could sustain so many butt ugly condos? or wonder how your cute little tree lined street suddenly has a Players on the corner or some other massive suburban sports bar? the Trib finally takes a page from the Sun-Times and investigates something: Community input an illusion -- chicagotribune.com
the Eckhart Park mentioned in the article is adjacent to my old apartment and this piece totally explained why everything just seemed to spring up like weeds in the past 4.5 years - Walter Burnett!
and don't forget to vote next Super Tuesday!
the Eckhart Park mentioned in the article is adjacent to my old apartment and this piece totally explained why everything just seemed to spring up like weeds in the past 4.5 years - Walter Burnett!
and don't forget to vote next Super Tuesday!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
blogging miss america
Yeah, you read that right.
I'm blogging the Miss America pageant. Not the South Carolina Primary.
Because the pageant show numbers keep tanking, the show, contestants and the pageant itself are undergoing a 'radical' makeover. It's on cable (TLC) and now Miss America is supposed to embody 'America's It Girl.' I don't know how much of an improvement this is supposed to be. The Miss America reality show took the 52 contestants, gave them makeovers, including 'tips' on how to be more 'accessible' and less 'Barbie.'
What a great marketing ploy. Give us the competition in a language we can understand (reality makeover/competition) and market the actual pageant as the finale to the pageant's commercial, uh, reality show. Brilliant. They wanted to make Miss America more 'relevant' but showing them how to become a tabloid-worthy celebutante is the best way to do this? And who was going to show them how to do it? A Hollywood stylist, an editor from US magazine and a fashion photographer I've never heard of (but he had a British accent so he must know what he's talking about.)
It's good to know the people who trade in image, superficiality and total vanity are now the arbiters of 'relevance.'
let the blogging begin:
the parade of states
I'm blogging the Miss America pageant. Not the South Carolina Primary.
Because the pageant show numbers keep tanking, the show, contestants and the pageant itself are undergoing a 'radical' makeover. It's on cable (TLC) and now Miss America is supposed to embody 'America's It Girl.' I don't know how much of an improvement this is supposed to be. The Miss America reality show took the 52 contestants, gave them makeovers, including 'tips' on how to be more 'accessible' and less 'Barbie.'
What a great marketing ploy. Give us the competition in a language we can understand (reality makeover/competition) and market the actual pageant as the finale to the pageant's commercial, uh, reality show. Brilliant. They wanted to make Miss America more 'relevant' but showing them how to become a tabloid-worthy celebutante is the best way to do this? And who was going to show them how to do it? A Hollywood stylist, an editor from US magazine and a fashion photographer I've never heard of (but he had a British accent so he must know what he's talking about.)
It's good to know the people who trade in image, superficiality and total vanity are now the arbiters of 'relevance.'
let the blogging begin:
the parade of states
-Wow, they've gotten rid of the yucky state themed dresses and kept them in the reality show 'teams' and there isn't a big teased hairdo among them. And what perky little factoids. (Oklahoma has a nut you can't eat??)
- North Dakota just broke out a Fargo accent. Excellent.
- Miss Washington is an early favorite; she has two gay dads and asked how we like them apples. We like them fine!
- I also like Miss Utah; she's military, tough and doesn't care about makeup - and she's one of the older women. And she just took a potshot at the Osmonds! heh!
- Miss Alaska is cool; she's Native American and doesn't really mess around.
- Holy crap. They have a DJ. A DJ to entertain the women who are eliminated. How...relevant.
- wow! jackie joyner kersey isn't dead! (Why did I think she was dead?)
Semifinalists!
Michigan, Iowa (she can juggle fire), North Carolina, Tennessee (she hated Miss Alaska and I didn't really like that), California (typical - Roomie just said they're choosing the regular pageant types), Indiana, South Carolina (tall, dark, woman of color with great presence - and very faith based), Georgia, Washington (yay!!), Arkansas (wow, there are a lot of blondes), Virginia, Texas (she adores Kelly Ripa), Wisconsin, Florida (yawn), Mississippi.
- Dammit! I wanted Miss Utah in the semi finals!
- They do look better in the jeans and t-shirts, though.
- Wait. America voted for one more semi finalist! UTAH!!! YAYYYYY!
- Clinton Kelly, from the loser bleachers with the DJ: 'Just because you've become eliminated does not mean you are not FIERCE!' (Then he feeds them carbohydrates. Not problematic at all.)
- Hey, the big innovation in the pageant is the way the new Miss America walks...less robotic and more 'free.' Apparently female empowerment begins with your strut. Who knew?
The swimsuit competition:
- There's really nothing to say here; who needs to judge women's bodies anymore than they already are?
- Good thing they have a DJ...
- OK, ok. one comment - they are really fit. like, toned.
- Love it. Miss Utah breaks out the black one-piece, in a sea of bikinis. Love her.
- Losers: Tennessee (was she related to Al Gore?), Arkansas, Florida (wow, didn't see that coming), Mississipi (boo), Utah (Dammit! Oh, awesome - she's doing pushups! And now she has the whole line doing pushups! It's the best elimination ever), South Carolina (that's it for the black women in the competition)
Evening wear:
- Love: Virginia (a stunning black ballgown); Wisconsin (like a classic red Valentino); North Carolina (simple and elegant)
- Hate: Washington; Iowa; California (looks like a walking Oscar, according to my Roomie); Michigan (showgirl, anyone?); Texas; Georgia; Indiana (oy, a beaded breastplate)
- No evidence of any stylist 'tips' so far; almost everyone is wearing a dress studded with beads or sequins. This is modern how??
Talent:
- Michigan, singing Over the Rainbow - geez. Kill me.
- California - She's running onstage! Opera! She's a soprano! Roomie has identified it from Faust, the Jewel Song. My Roomie is good. It's killing me. I like her dress, though. Interesting, she looks like my boss.
- Indiana, singing Bandido - She's wearing a big flower in her hair. OMG - the song is in Spanish! She sounds like Cher singing in Spanish. Factoid: she's lived in South America. Too bad this song is from Mexico. Everyone in the audience is totally WTF??
- Virginia, ballet from The Nutcracker - I've always liked this part of the ballet...I love The Nutcracker...it reminds me of Christmas...oh, she's done?
- loser: Iowa (Hey! We didn't even get to see her baton throwing! They always get rid of the fun ones!)
Talent, part 2:
- Washington, singing Angels - Please don't suck....please don't suck ...She picked a song that's actually been played on the radio. Good for her. No Fliedermaus or weird tejano for her! Man, I hope we get a Miss America with two gay dads.
- Texas, wearing a top hat and white gloves - I sense jazz dance...gick. Way to ruin Bob Fosse choreography from Sweet Charity; let's bring back clog dancing! (Roomie would like it.)
- Wisconsin, violin - She has a degree in music and a minor in voice and went to Vanderbilt; love her dress. Real talent makes us feel better about the competition
- North Carolina, dance to a Muzaked Four Seasons - what's the point?
- loser: Georgia (hey, we didn't even get to see her perform!)
The questions, asked by ordinary folks in Las Vegas (heh):
- What would you do to improve America's image? Wisconsin says we need love for America by volunteering.
- Does someone with HIV have an obligation to tell their fiancee? Michigan says yes, if they respect their partners.
- Should celebrities promote their religious beliefs? Virginia says they have that right to voice their opinions.
- Low youth voting patterns and what could be done about it? Washington says there's a disconnect b/ youth and political process and more should be involved with Rock the Vote programs.
- Thoughts about Paris Hilton and culture of celebrity, where people are famous for nothing? California blames it on materialism and wrong priorities and Miss America is great!
- Binge drinking and 8th grade girls? Texas blames it on Lindsay Lohan and she'd tell them Lindsay sucks!
- Country is headed in the wrong direction, what to do? North Carolina blames the media and Lindsay Lohan! As Miss America she'd have the chance to be the right role model, not Lindsay Lohan!
(wow, Lohan is as big an enemy to the United States as Osama bin Laden...)
- Brittany Spears' sister is pregnant so should she be fired? Indiana says, no. Lots of girls are pregnant but they're not bad, they just made stupid mistakes; we all make mistakes and she needs to keep her job.
Finalists:
4th - North Carolina!
3rd - Virginia!
2nd - Washington! (dammit)
1st runner up - Indiana! (totally called it)
(come on Wisconsin...)
Miss America...
Michigan?!?
What the fuck?? She sang Over the Rainbow! Dude.
There goes relevance.
Final Grade: B+ (for the new streamlined show, the genius in marketing and the lack of pouf)
Relevance: C
(Oh, and Obama kept Clinton at 27-29% all night. Yeah, buddy.)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
what??
i should be blogging for choice today (later, later) but instead i'm completely floored at this: Heath Ledger found dead in apartment -- Newsday.com
if there's an oscar telecast, the death montage will at last have someone we recognize in it.
(hey! i'm not the only one thinking it!)
if there's an oscar telecast, the death montage will at last have someone we recognize in it.
(hey! i'm not the only one thinking it!)
Blog for Choice: there's no right without access
Let's talk about a great big elephant in the room before folks start celebrating the decreased need for abortion: access. From the Chicago Tribune article:
What Beckman calls an 'enhancement', I call 'building a financial box around women to make sure they're forced to give birth.'
Clinics offering abortion services are in a decline all over the country; in fact, since 2000, 77 clinics have closed and only 29 have opened. For some women in urban areas - with private doctors and access to a wide range of family planning options - access might not be such a hardship (yes, I know there are other circumstances that could slow down access to abortion in urban areas, like cash, but let's just deal with this.)
But for women in rural areas, travel could mean driving up to 50 miles to get to the nearest abortion provider. To get there and back, that woman would most likely have to schedule time off work taken as a sick day (perhaps an unpaid sick day and perhaps more than one day, particularly if that state requires a nonsensical 'waiting' period), loss of wages, perhaps arrangement of childcare for her other children (which adds to that woman's economic burden), increased travel expenses (i.e., gas) and just the physically wearying fact that she is driving to another county or state for a doctor's appointment.
I don't know about you, but I get pissed off if I have to go outside of my area code to see my ob/gyn, much less another state. And what does it cost me? A walk down the street from my office for a few blocks or, at most, a $7 cab ride if I take a cab from my house.
It is an undue hardship for a woman in downstate Illinois, or another rural area, to take two days off work for her abortion. Roadblocks to access basically put a woman needing an abortion between the proverbial rock and financial hard place. I think it's neat how the anti-choice folks have cut off a woman's reproductive rights from other realities in her life, like the economic ones. For them what's important is the unborn child; nevermind that there is a material cost to a woman's life if she has a child her life can't support (for whatever reason that it can't.)
In this next election there are some things to think about, the most important of which will be deciding which candidate will be able to ensure women have access to full reproductive health services. A lot of my friends are comfortable if Roe v. Wade stands, but can we rely on that? Speaking with a lawyer friend tonight, she said that Roe v. Wade is probably one vote short of being knocked over in our forseeable future. We can probably anticipate 2-3 Supreme Court vacancies in the immediate future. Which Presidential candidate will have the best chance to appoint Supreme Court justices willing to uphold Roe v. Wade? Can we safely rely on a Huckabee, a Romney, an Edwards or an Obama to act in women's best interests? Or can we only rely on a Clinton?
And action on the SCOTUS isn't the only thing to worry about. At the state level, over the past decade, states have become more aggressive in introducing legislation to limit, if not outright ban, access to abortion; states like Kansas, Missouri, The Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Iowa, Colorado, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas either already have, or are in the process of introducing, some of the most restrictive laws to affect a woman's right to control her own fertility. States aren't backing away from this fight; anti-choice grassroots lobbying has proven most effective at this level, while we scramble to keep a fricking clinic open in Aurora. (You can check out the states with the least access to abortion at the Abortion Acess Project website here.)
What will happen in Illinois if our next governor is Republican? (Not so inconceivable, considering how Blago is alienating absolutely everyone.) Will the women of Illinois still enjoy access to birth control without the interference of pharmacists? Will we be able to rely on timely access of Plan B birth control? Will we be able to rely on the shrinking number of clinics that offer a wide range of reproductive health services to women? Or will we suddenly have to familiarize ourselves with the days of the underground Jane network, like back in the day? Will we find our family planning needs taking a back seat to a man's outdated, patriarchal ideas of female sexuality and autonomy? Will we suddenly find ourselves planning group trips to Canada or New York or California for a simple doctor's appointment?
The right to control our fertility does not exist if we do not have access to those services that allow us to control our fertility. Access isn't just for the women, like me, who have good medical benefits and live in a city and can rattle off where the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is; it's for women who make barely minimum wage and live in places like Bloomington, Alton or Aurora and there's no one around to help them. And that's what the issue of access means to me: helping women get over the situation they find themselves in, not making them stew in it for months or years because it justifies a stranger's religion. How does it help that woman to wait days to get done what she already decided days ago? How does it help a woman when we make her empty her wallet to visit a doctor? How does it help a woman when you force her to give birth and take away her ability to control her own fertility?
Bill Beckman, director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, said he sees the national decline in abortion numbers as a victory for anti-abortion efforts."A number of states over the last five or six years have enhanced their pro-life laws, such as requirements for informed consent and parental notice," said Beckman. "When those laws take effect, the rate of abortion drops. I think the data they're getting is reflecting that change."
What Beckman calls an 'enhancement', I call 'building a financial box around women to make sure they're forced to give birth.'
Clinics offering abortion services are in a decline all over the country; in fact, since 2000, 77 clinics have closed and only 29 have opened. For some women in urban areas - with private doctors and access to a wide range of family planning options - access might not be such a hardship (yes, I know there are other circumstances that could slow down access to abortion in urban areas, like cash, but let's just deal with this.)
But for women in rural areas, travel could mean driving up to 50 miles to get to the nearest abortion provider. To get there and back, that woman would most likely have to schedule time off work taken as a sick day (perhaps an unpaid sick day and perhaps more than one day, particularly if that state requires a nonsensical 'waiting' period), loss of wages, perhaps arrangement of childcare for her other children (which adds to that woman's economic burden), increased travel expenses (i.e., gas) and just the physically wearying fact that she is driving to another county or state for a doctor's appointment.
I don't know about you, but I get pissed off if I have to go outside of my area code to see my ob/gyn, much less another state. And what does it cost me? A walk down the street from my office for a few blocks or, at most, a $7 cab ride if I take a cab from my house.
It is an undue hardship for a woman in downstate Illinois, or another rural area, to take two days off work for her abortion. Roadblocks to access basically put a woman needing an abortion between the proverbial rock and financial hard place. I think it's neat how the anti-choice folks have cut off a woman's reproductive rights from other realities in her life, like the economic ones. For them what's important is the unborn child; nevermind that there is a material cost to a woman's life if she has a child her life can't support (for whatever reason that it can't.)
In this next election there are some things to think about, the most important of which will be deciding which candidate will be able to ensure women have access to full reproductive health services. A lot of my friends are comfortable if Roe v. Wade stands, but can we rely on that? Speaking with a lawyer friend tonight, she said that Roe v. Wade is probably one vote short of being knocked over in our forseeable future. We can probably anticipate 2-3 Supreme Court vacancies in the immediate future. Which Presidential candidate will have the best chance to appoint Supreme Court justices willing to uphold Roe v. Wade? Can we safely rely on a Huckabee, a Romney, an Edwards or an Obama to act in women's best interests? Or can we only rely on a Clinton?
And action on the SCOTUS isn't the only thing to worry about. At the state level, over the past decade, states have become more aggressive in introducing legislation to limit, if not outright ban, access to abortion; states like Kansas, Missouri, The Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Iowa, Colorado, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas either already have, or are in the process of introducing, some of the most restrictive laws to affect a woman's right to control her own fertility. States aren't backing away from this fight; anti-choice grassroots lobbying has proven most effective at this level, while we scramble to keep a fricking clinic open in Aurora. (You can check out the states with the least access to abortion at the Abortion Acess Project website here.)
What will happen in Illinois if our next governor is Republican? (Not so inconceivable, considering how Blago is alienating absolutely everyone.) Will the women of Illinois still enjoy access to birth control without the interference of pharmacists? Will we be able to rely on timely access of Plan B birth control? Will we be able to rely on the shrinking number of clinics that offer a wide range of reproductive health services to women? Or will we suddenly have to familiarize ourselves with the days of the underground Jane network, like back in the day? Will we find our family planning needs taking a back seat to a man's outdated, patriarchal ideas of female sexuality and autonomy? Will we suddenly find ourselves planning group trips to Canada or New York or California for a simple doctor's appointment?
The right to control our fertility does not exist if we do not have access to those services that allow us to control our fertility. Access isn't just for the women, like me, who have good medical benefits and live in a city and can rattle off where the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is; it's for women who make barely minimum wage and live in places like Bloomington, Alton or Aurora and there's no one around to help them. And that's what the issue of access means to me: helping women get over the situation they find themselves in, not making them stew in it for months or years because it justifies a stranger's religion. How does it help that woman to wait days to get done what she already decided days ago? How does it help a woman when we make her empty her wallet to visit a doctor? How does it help a woman when you force her to give birth and take away her ability to control her own fertility?
I guess it doesn't.
ugh. the economy
yuck.
checking out today's business pages is a depressing act. so depressing that i'm looking at the phone number for my Fidelity guy and wondering if i should give him a call. not that there's anything he can do about my teeny tiny retirement fund, but dude! is my fund going to completely tank??
checking out today's business pages is a depressing act. so depressing that i'm looking at the phone number for my Fidelity guy and wondering if i should give him a call. not that there's anything he can do about my teeny tiny retirement fund, but dude! is my fund going to completely tank??
Sunday, January 20, 2008
better than 'our bodies, our selves'
last night, we were hanging out with some friends for game night and, when we got tired of games, we went on YouTube. they found this clip and i was stunned.
first - what in the holy deep fried hell?? (thanks, Sid, for that.)
second - what man was this alexyss dating to make her so crazy?
third - she said all this in front of her mother??
anyway. watch and marvel.
first - what in the holy deep fried hell?? (thanks, Sid, for that.)
second - what man was this alexyss dating to make her so crazy?
third - she said all this in front of her mother??
anyway. watch and marvel.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
i'm heartbroken. really, i am.
i just have to share this, a message i got when i told a guy on BP that we didn't have enough in common to date - which was an understatement:
sigh. i'm sure that there's a perfect woman out there for him.
i think your stuck up and the way you come off makes you lest than a woman, i was not trying to hook up with you , i was trying to take you out on a
decent date, how you miscontrue the two with your itellingence level makes
me wonder, and as for you being mean to me you might want to stay in your
place as a lady and a preacher daughter, no matter how much education you
have it doesn't put me on a lesser level than you, if had of known you was
like this i would have never aprach you, be sure that i want bother you
again, and i reiterate please don't call yourself getting mean with me.
sigh. i'm sure that there's a perfect woman out there for him.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
illinois is in the dumps
the ctba released a study on illinois' economy in december and here it is. (well, the executive summary, anyway.)
don't you think?
major findings:
job creation in the state lags behind other states
wages are declining
low wage jobs are replacing good ones
there are real differences in workforce populations, skills and experiences (race is not unimportant here)
don't you think?
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
i'm sorry, what?
a Star Wars TV show??
how the hell did i miss that?
Star Wars: Live-Action Star Wars TV Will Satisfy Your Boba Fettish
how the hell did i miss that?
Star Wars: Live-Action Star Wars TV Will Satisfy Your Boba Fettish
soo...about that free ride for seniors...
i had a call at the office yesterday from a Gov staffer who tried to get us to go to a press conference this morning, geared to drum up support of Gov Rod's free ride for seniors. on the surface, i'm all for it. why not give seniors a free ride on public transportation? but then (and the Gov never seems to do this) i started to think about what a free ride will cost. (because there's never really a 'free' ride.)
dude. the trib estimates that this could cost around $19 million; yesterday, i was in a policy meeting and all the folks there (who've been around springfield a long time) rolled their eyes and scoffed. 'what's next,' some guy said. 'lollipops and clowns for everyone?' to me, that meant the governor is on crack.
i can't wait until the governor is up for reelection. let's hope the dems have some other kind of candidate waiting in the wings.
i had a call at the office yesterday from a Gov staffer who tried to get us to go to a press conference this morning, geared to drum up support of Gov Rod's free ride for seniors. on the surface, i'm all for it. why not give seniors a free ride on public transportation? but then (and the Gov never seems to do this) i started to think about what a free ride will cost. (because there's never really a 'free' ride.)
dude. the trib estimates that this could cost around $19 million; yesterday, i was in a policy meeting and all the folks there (who've been around springfield a long time) rolled their eyes and scoffed. 'what's next,' some guy said. 'lollipops and clowns for everyone?' to me, that meant the governor is on crack.
i can't wait until the governor is up for reelection. let's hope the dems have some other kind of candidate waiting in the wings.
it had to happen eventually: now hillary's a bad date
articles like this are eventually going to make me vote for hillary, if this crap continues much longer.
i can't help but regret the moment that happened in journalism when it suddenly became ok to make really weak (and problematic) pop cultural references when it came to serious politics.
this is not to say that no one should be talking about the dynamics of race and gender in this election. we are at an important moment in our history where a woman or a person of color stand a very good chance of becoming the most powerful person in the country. it is a moment important for us as well as for those who are watching this election process. (i can't help but remember the time i was helping a friend run focus groups in amsterdam on black political identity and meeting afro dutch students who told us they looked to the political success of black americans to show them how to reach the same level of parity in their own country. i was humbled at how closely, and hungrily, we are watched by others internationally.)
but a column like this, comparing our reactions to hillary clinton to 'dating' or bad chick lit, only trivializes how important this election is. i understand daum is trying to dismantle and critique the sexist overtones of our election coverage but there has to be a better way of doing it; there has to be a way of opening a dialogue about our national resistance to a woman in power without replicating those same sexist patterns.
i wonder if i can lay the fault of this unfortunate tripe at MoDo's door?
i can't help but regret the moment that happened in journalism when it suddenly became ok to make really weak (and problematic) pop cultural references when it came to serious politics.
this is not to say that no one should be talking about the dynamics of race and gender in this election. we are at an important moment in our history where a woman or a person of color stand a very good chance of becoming the most powerful person in the country. it is a moment important for us as well as for those who are watching this election process. (i can't help but remember the time i was helping a friend run focus groups in amsterdam on black political identity and meeting afro dutch students who told us they looked to the political success of black americans to show them how to reach the same level of parity in their own country. i was humbled at how closely, and hungrily, we are watched by others internationally.)
but a column like this, comparing our reactions to hillary clinton to 'dating' or bad chick lit, only trivializes how important this election is. i understand daum is trying to dismantle and critique the sexist overtones of our election coverage but there has to be a better way of doing it; there has to be a way of opening a dialogue about our national resistance to a woman in power without replicating those same sexist patterns.
i wonder if i can lay the fault of this unfortunate tripe at MoDo's door?
Monday, January 14, 2008
stupidity, crappy article: which is more annoying?
Sexism, Racism: Which Is More Taboo?
because, you know, the two are TOTALLY separate. no intersections at all. no intertwined histories. no complex negotiations of privilege or anything.
thanks, AP, for adding so much to our national discourse on race and gender.
(on that note, i'm going home.)
because, you know, the two are TOTALLY separate. no intersections at all. no intertwined histories. no complex negotiations of privilege or anything.
thanks, AP, for adding so much to our national discourse on race and gender.
(on that note, i'm going home.)
the wilds of online dating
so how are things on the 'dating' front?
well, there was a brief setback last week when i discovered that, horror of horrors, B- is now in a relationship. my horror and dismay was not from jealousy; there was no regret that things hadn't worked out between us. (though there is much evidence of my inconsistency here.) no, my dismay and shock came from an irrational sense of competition.
"how dare he, the most lonely and dysfunctional of men, have a relationship while i don't! at least i'm working on my issues, dammit." i'm not proud of my pettiness; i just acknowledge that it exists.
anyway, a friend reminded me of my many vows to leave B-'s eeyore-like specter behind and so, finally, i am. (it helps that i'm confident B-'s inherent lack of generosity will doom his relationship in a few months no matter how often he goes jogging.) as i leave the weirdo behind, i look to the future and what do i see?
i see more weirdos.
i'm on blackplanet and, lord help me, it's sort of depressing. it's almost as bad as those christian dating sites i tried years ago. my kingdom for a man who can spell and use punctuation correctly! i'm tired of telling black men no, i don't have kids. make of that what you will.
are the men i've met there weird because they don't use standard english? no. most of them are weird because they live in the burbs and can't say anything that doesn't sound like a R&B cliche. i'd also give my left nipple for a little bit of banter.
(there was this one guy who thought he was being funny when he said that he'd buy me dinner, drinks and give me a warm place to stay for folding his laundry. it took everything in me not to get snippy. enough women have been snippy to these guys, it seems but, lord, trying to communicate with these guys is drying up my very small well of patience!)
i'll keep looking, though. there's gotta be a black/brown equivalent to me out there, somewhere. right?
well, there was a brief setback last week when i discovered that, horror of horrors, B- is now in a relationship. my horror and dismay was not from jealousy; there was no regret that things hadn't worked out between us. (though there is much evidence of my inconsistency here.) no, my dismay and shock came from an irrational sense of competition.
"how dare he, the most lonely and dysfunctional of men, have a relationship while i don't! at least i'm working on my issues, dammit." i'm not proud of my pettiness; i just acknowledge that it exists.
anyway, a friend reminded me of my many vows to leave B-'s eeyore-like specter behind and so, finally, i am. (it helps that i'm confident B-'s inherent lack of generosity will doom his relationship in a few months no matter how often he goes jogging.) as i leave the weirdo behind, i look to the future and what do i see?
i see more weirdos.
i'm on blackplanet and, lord help me, it's sort of depressing. it's almost as bad as those christian dating sites i tried years ago. my kingdom for a man who can spell and use punctuation correctly! i'm tired of telling black men no, i don't have kids. make of that what you will.
are the men i've met there weird because they don't use standard english? no. most of them are weird because they live in the burbs and can't say anything that doesn't sound like a R&B cliche. i'd also give my left nipple for a little bit of banter.
(there was this one guy who thought he was being funny when he said that he'd buy me dinner, drinks and give me a warm place to stay for folding his laundry. it took everything in me not to get snippy. enough women have been snippy to these guys, it seems but, lord, trying to communicate with these guys is drying up my very small well of patience!)
i'll keep looking, though. there's gotta be a black/brown equivalent to me out there, somewhere. right?
Friday, January 11, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
to white folks: shuck & jive is NOT 'bob & weave'
Pandagon :: Andrew Cuomo on Obama: ‘You Can’t Shuck And Jive’ at a press conf :: January :: 2008
dude.
really?
that's like the time my white, liberal, lesbian (i.e., 'should have known better') dissertation chair said to me (while i was helping her carry some things for our seminar): "Ding, thanks so much, but I really can't have you be my step and fetchit."
oh, yes, she did! Step 'n Fetchit.
i suppose, nowadays, that would be synonymous with, um, 'helpful grad student.'
but, boy howdy, i sure am glad racism is dead, though.
dude.
really?
that's like the time my white, liberal, lesbian (i.e., 'should have known better') dissertation chair said to me (while i was helping her carry some things for our seminar): "Ding, thanks so much, but I really can't have you be my step and fetchit."
oh, yes, she did! Step 'n Fetchit.
i suppose, nowadays, that would be synonymous with, um, 'helpful grad student.'
but, boy howdy, i sure am glad racism is dead, though.
politics, lube and motorcycles
last election time, my dreams got really weird. last night was no exception:
i was a junior level person in a big chicago ad agency. every friday, the whole agency got together to screen a few inhouse commercials created by staffers from old or lost client pitches. i worked for one of the big creative guys but secretly dreamed of striking out on my own. i give him his coffee one day and he says to me, 'hey, the next screening is yours. see what you can do with this lube client we never got.'
the friday morning screening arrives. the office is packed and chaotic. i'm losing my mind, organzing the logistics and freaking out that these very mean people are going to look at a commercial created by a glorified executive assistant. the woman who owns the agency (who looks like my old boss) snits at me and steals my seat. the lights lower and the commercial begins. it's dirty and funny, a weird piece of animation about a middle aged boss, his brown secretary and a bottle of lube, set to the Lily Allen/Mark Ronson song 'Oh My God'; the lady CEO and the creative guys want to know who made it, they're demanding who made it, they're clamoring for it then -
the dream changes and i'm in iowa, hanging out with a very angry michelle obama. barack is still out on his motorcycle and hasn't come back from the caucuses. his entire team is there and they all look like roadies for a jam band - bearded, sort of beer-bellied, older and boozy. the wife is angry, there's a strange woman no one wants to talk to hanging out with a cute young guy who's clearly biracial, and i have no idea what i'm doing there. barack comes back, looking very un-political in a leather motorcycle outfit and birkenstocks. he's smoking a cigarette.
he wants us all to come out riding with him, michelle is still angry (though she gives in later), the roadies/team love it, i don't have a motorcycle but that's ok. obama says i can ride with him. so off we go, blazing down a dark road, a political motorcycle gang. then barack drives his bike over a freeway, we dive into a pile of corn, and have an impromptu barbecue with some corn farmers and drink a load of Rolling Rock. while obama is off chatting with farmers, i'm hanging out with the cute mysterious biracial guy, michelle, the bearded campaign manager, and the strange woman in a nearby pub. in a gravelly voice, the campaign manager is about to reveal a big, serious, election damaging secret when -
the tension is just too much and i force myself to wake up.
i was a junior level person in a big chicago ad agency. every friday, the whole agency got together to screen a few inhouse commercials created by staffers from old or lost client pitches. i worked for one of the big creative guys but secretly dreamed of striking out on my own. i give him his coffee one day and he says to me, 'hey, the next screening is yours. see what you can do with this lube client we never got.'
the friday morning screening arrives. the office is packed and chaotic. i'm losing my mind, organzing the logistics and freaking out that these very mean people are going to look at a commercial created by a glorified executive assistant. the woman who owns the agency (who looks like my old boss) snits at me and steals my seat. the lights lower and the commercial begins. it's dirty and funny, a weird piece of animation about a middle aged boss, his brown secretary and a bottle of lube, set to the Lily Allen/Mark Ronson song 'Oh My God'; the lady CEO and the creative guys want to know who made it, they're demanding who made it, they're clamoring for it then -
the dream changes and i'm in iowa, hanging out with a very angry michelle obama. barack is still out on his motorcycle and hasn't come back from the caucuses. his entire team is there and they all look like roadies for a jam band - bearded, sort of beer-bellied, older and boozy. the wife is angry, there's a strange woman no one wants to talk to hanging out with a cute young guy who's clearly biracial, and i have no idea what i'm doing there. barack comes back, looking very un-political in a leather motorcycle outfit and birkenstocks. he's smoking a cigarette.
he wants us all to come out riding with him, michelle is still angry (though she gives in later), the roadies/team love it, i don't have a motorcycle but that's ok. obama says i can ride with him. so off we go, blazing down a dark road, a political motorcycle gang. then barack drives his bike over a freeway, we dive into a pile of corn, and have an impromptu barbecue with some corn farmers and drink a load of Rolling Rock. while obama is off chatting with farmers, i'm hanging out with the cute mysterious biracial guy, michelle, the bearded campaign manager, and the strange woman in a nearby pub. in a gravelly voice, the campaign manager is about to reveal a big, serious, election damaging secret when -
the tension is just too much and i force myself to wake up.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
here is my navel
you may have noticed that i haven't been posting as much lately and what i have posted isn't exactly good. i don't know what it is. it's not that i've lost the juice for this blog but there just isn't much to say right now.
about politics? i'm marginally hopeful about the dems' progress though i'm pretty sure that, in the end, the great machine of our society will continue to roll over the marginalized people who live in it.
about sex? i'm not having any.
about gender politics? patriarchy still sucks and stupid stupid men make me want to smash their scrotal sacs with a hammer.
about pop culture? i can't look at another headline documenting the lengthening downward spiral of our celebutantes.
about religion? blick.
about my life? actually, things are going pretty good. i like where and what i am right now.
do i want to continue to contribute to the babble/babel out here? i don't know. i think i want to write other things now, while still interacting with an audience the way i have here, but what that'll look like, i don't know.
oh, i'm not bowing out. i'm just reconsidering things.
about politics? i'm marginally hopeful about the dems' progress though i'm pretty sure that, in the end, the great machine of our society will continue to roll over the marginalized people who live in it.
about sex? i'm not having any.
about gender politics? patriarchy still sucks and stupid stupid men make me want to smash their scrotal sacs with a hammer.
about pop culture? i can't look at another headline documenting the lengthening downward spiral of our celebutantes.
about religion? blick.
about my life? actually, things are going pretty good. i like where and what i am right now.
do i want to continue to contribute to the babble/babel out here? i don't know. i think i want to write other things now, while still interacting with an audience the way i have here, but what that'll look like, i don't know.
oh, i'm not bowing out. i'm just reconsidering things.
Monday, January 07, 2008
my obsession: weddings in the times
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Overheard in the Loft, New Year's Edition:
(Roomie and Ding, sitting on the couch, dressed in stretchy pants and sweaters, totally hungover, with heartburn from the night before.)
...
(Last night, Roomie and Ding are drained after their first day back at work, sitting on the couch, watching Make me a Supermodel.)
Ding: Oh, look. Buckaroo Banzai.
Roomie: I loved that movie.
Ding: Me, too.
(watching movie...)
Buckaroo: ...because no matter where you go...
Ding/Roomie (intoning): ...there you are.
(staring at each other in horror)
Roomie: We just turned a page, didn't we?
...
(Last night, Roomie and Ding are drained after their first day back at work, sitting on the couch, watching Make me a Supermodel.)
Ding: He looks like a belltower sniper.
Roomie: Ohmygod! I *just* thought the exact same thing! I thought it and then it came out your mouth! Ding, we're too creepy!
Ding: It's true. Our minds have finally melded.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
got some post-holiday cash? shop here:
figleaves.com - Bras, Panties, Swimsuits, and Full Figure Lingerie
since i bought stuff for everyone else but me this year, i'm treating me to some new underwear.
they are having the most kick ass sale ever! the site carries high end and affordable brands - from Wacoal to Felina to Playtex - and i just bought three really cute bras for under $100!
but why should you really check them out?
because, unlike some other places (ahem), they actually carry sizes for women whose tits can't fit into a teacup.
since i bought stuff for everyone else but me this year, i'm treating me to some new underwear.
they are having the most kick ass sale ever! the site carries high end and affordable brands - from Wacoal to Felina to Playtex - and i just bought three really cute bras for under $100!
but why should you really check them out?
because, unlike some other places (ahem), they actually carry sizes for women whose tits can't fit into a teacup.
Friday, December 21, 2007
toward the end of our last session, Dr. C- said, 'in order to address what triggers your resistance to intimacy we need to see you in a relationship. so you need to start dating.'
gack.
she recommended i go back online since the normal places people date each other (work, social circle, church, extra curricular activities) are, for me, completely estrogen-filled. but this was her caveat: 'you must be honest about what it is you want and try to avoid men who just want to fool around. you said you wanted companionship, so look for qualities that would make for a good companion.'
i complained, 'that means i won't get laid until well into 2008!'
she sighed. 'ding, if all you want to do is get laid, go out and get laid. but you said you don't want to do that.'
'i know.'
'that's why we're pretending B- has moved.'
'i know. you're right. companion. ok.'
so where am i going to find this companion?
i can forget about nerve; the only folks on there are erectile dysfunctional one night stands. i've done that, already, thank you very much. match was horrific; eharmony sent me youth pastors from lombard and sad, divorced dads living on the illinois-wisconsin border. where can i go next?
chemistry. i think it's supposed to be eharmony-lite. no 29 dimensions, but still a really long personality test (i'm a Director/Negotiator, heavy on the Director bit) and incremental communication steps. the good thing is that they send you matches right away; none of eharmony's esteem-killing, months-long waiting to see a profile. but, again, my honest needs are resulting in suburban divorced dads. i don't know what it is going on. is my inner self suburban? is there a Willow Creek, twin set housewife inside me, just waiting to wander out?
i shudder to think.
anyway, i'll keep all 5 of my readers posted.
...
on the B- front, i've been fairly successful in pretending he lives in another state. at this time of year, i'd usually be planning how i could convince him to spend a long weekend with me in my neighborhood. (such planning would meet with staunch resistance and i'd spend christmas seething silently about why he won't cross town on a bus to see me.) this year, i'm completely uninterested. i mailed him one very impersonal christmas card and, yesterday, when he dared to bait me by saying 'maybe if you got in shape you wouldn't need therapy' and you could think clearly' i politely ignored his rudeness and just said back to him 'i guess we all get in shape in different ways. my therapist is helping me see things a LOT more clearly, thanks.'
yes, i could have called him an asshat, but what would that accomplish?
gack.
she recommended i go back online since the normal places people date each other (work, social circle, church, extra curricular activities) are, for me, completely estrogen-filled. but this was her caveat: 'you must be honest about what it is you want and try to avoid men who just want to fool around. you said you wanted companionship, so look for qualities that would make for a good companion.'
i complained, 'that means i won't get laid until well into 2008!'
she sighed. 'ding, if all you want to do is get laid, go out and get laid. but you said you don't want to do that.'
'i know.'
'that's why we're pretending B- has moved.'
'i know. you're right. companion. ok.'
so where am i going to find this companion?
i can forget about nerve; the only folks on there are erectile dysfunctional one night stands. i've done that, already, thank you very much. match was horrific; eharmony sent me youth pastors from lombard and sad, divorced dads living on the illinois-wisconsin border. where can i go next?
chemistry. i think it's supposed to be eharmony-lite. no 29 dimensions, but still a really long personality test (i'm a Director/Negotiator, heavy on the Director bit) and incremental communication steps. the good thing is that they send you matches right away; none of eharmony's esteem-killing, months-long waiting to see a profile. but, again, my honest needs are resulting in suburban divorced dads. i don't know what it is going on. is my inner self suburban? is there a Willow Creek, twin set housewife inside me, just waiting to wander out?
i shudder to think.
anyway, i'll keep all 5 of my readers posted.
...
on the B- front, i've been fairly successful in pretending he lives in another state. at this time of year, i'd usually be planning how i could convince him to spend a long weekend with me in my neighborhood. (such planning would meet with staunch resistance and i'd spend christmas seething silently about why he won't cross town on a bus to see me.) this year, i'm completely uninterested. i mailed him one very impersonal christmas card and, yesterday, when he dared to bait me by saying 'maybe if you got in shape you wouldn't need therapy' and you could think clearly' i politely ignored his rudeness and just said back to him 'i guess we all get in shape in different ways. my therapist is helping me see things a LOT more clearly, thanks.'
yes, i could have called him an asshat, but what would that accomplish?
Thursday, December 20, 2007
there's nothing going on here at the office so i'm online looking at smartphones.
i have a regular palm pilot but i don't get email on it; it means i'm juggling between my work laptop, palm and mobile phone. it's not like i'm some high-powered consultant, but it would be nice to have everything in one place.
(and, frankly, if i make my professional move in the next year or so to a bigger agency or a faster environment, then i'll need a phone/PDA option with more oomph.)
i kinda like the Treo 680 and i like the Centro (but the Centro looks a little light to handle some of my work stuff.) the Curve is gorgeous. so is the Pearl, but it looks a little cold to me. it's important to have a smartphone with some warmth.
slowly, i'm making my way into the digital age. i tiptoed over to look at an ipod the other day and looked at the cute little shuffle; i'm afraid that owning anything created after 2001 may break my laptop. is that irrational? it seems irrational. i even pondered getting a new laptop (but then what will i pay for italy with?) it would be great to be completely digitally upgraded.
i should go home, shouldn't i?
i have a regular palm pilot but i don't get email on it; it means i'm juggling between my work laptop, palm and mobile phone. it's not like i'm some high-powered consultant, but it would be nice to have everything in one place.
(and, frankly, if i make my professional move in the next year or so to a bigger agency or a faster environment, then i'll need a phone/PDA option with more oomph.)
i kinda like the Treo 680 and i like the Centro (but the Centro looks a little light to handle some of my work stuff.) the Curve is gorgeous. so is the Pearl, but it looks a little cold to me. it's important to have a smartphone with some warmth.
slowly, i'm making my way into the digital age. i tiptoed over to look at an ipod the other day and looked at the cute little shuffle; i'm afraid that owning anything created after 2001 may break my laptop. is that irrational? it seems irrational. i even pondered getting a new laptop (but then what will i pay for italy with?) it would be great to be completely digitally upgraded.
i should go home, shouldn't i?
dammit. i knew it was getting harder for me to string more than two complex thoughts together.
[thanks, Orange!]
merry merry!
i'm back at the office.
is there more to be said?
...
plans for the upcoming holiday break:
a slumber party for me and some girl friends at my place
volunteering at church
the carol service at church
a party
hanging out with a friend and his partner after a conference
greedily watching the 3rd season of Dr. Who all by myself
catching some movies (Juno, Margot at the Wedding, Sweeney Todd)
reading comic books
drinking
oh, and maybe adding another section to the Worst Romance Novel Ever.
that's a pretty cool holiday plan, if i say so myself.
is there more to be said?
...
plans for the upcoming holiday break:
a slumber party for me and some girl friends at my place
volunteering at church
the carol service at church
a party
hanging out with a friend and his partner after a conference
greedily watching the 3rd season of Dr. Who all by myself
catching some movies (Juno, Margot at the Wedding, Sweeney Todd)
reading comic books
drinking
oh, and maybe adding another section to the Worst Romance Novel Ever.
that's a pretty cool holiday plan, if i say so myself.
Friday, December 14, 2007
when will i learn? never ever eat vegan. never. not even non-vegan fare served from a vegan kitchen.
i went to therapy today (rough) and went to a local cafe to decompress and read for a bit (it gets really lonely in the loft during the day). atomix. they're nice. the space is nice. the coffee is ok, i guess. (sort of gritty and burnt tasting but, whatever, it's coffee.) twice i'd been grossly disappointed with their muffins, which could be used for doorstops; so this time i went for the non-vegan peanut butter cookie.
grossly disappointed again! it was as big as a saucer, a half inch thick, and hard as a rock. i needed two hands to break that fucker into adamantine pieces so i could dip it into my coffee and gnaw on it. no flavor and utterly unappetizing as either a cookie or anything resembling a sweet snack. dude. i made better peanut butter cookies when i was in grade school.
i want to support indie cafes, i do. but only if their food doesn't translate into 'inedible snackage only a person with dead taste buds could love.'
...
as for therapy, issues covered today included: dead mom (the rough part), dad, hating the church of my childhood, dating, and finally moving on from, uh, B-. (the exact words Dr. C- used were "In order for you to grow, we have to pretend that B- has moved.")
i went to therapy today (rough) and went to a local cafe to decompress and read for a bit (it gets really lonely in the loft during the day). atomix. they're nice. the space is nice. the coffee is ok, i guess. (sort of gritty and burnt tasting but, whatever, it's coffee.) twice i'd been grossly disappointed with their muffins, which could be used for doorstops; so this time i went for the non-vegan peanut butter cookie.
grossly disappointed again! it was as big as a saucer, a half inch thick, and hard as a rock. i needed two hands to break that fucker into adamantine pieces so i could dip it into my coffee and gnaw on it. no flavor and utterly unappetizing as either a cookie or anything resembling a sweet snack. dude. i made better peanut butter cookies when i was in grade school.
i want to support indie cafes, i do. but only if their food doesn't translate into 'inedible snackage only a person with dead taste buds could love.'
...
as for therapy, issues covered today included: dead mom (the rough part), dad, hating the church of my childhood, dating, and finally moving on from, uh, B-. (the exact words Dr. C- used were "In order for you to grow, we have to pretend that B- has moved.")
Saturday, December 08, 2007
the good parts
I've been reading the 'good parts' since going to church, during the old pastor's sermons in my childhood. I wasn't allowed to sneak in my own books anymore ("You have to be an example, Ding.") so I'd take my mother's white leather bible and look for the good parts: the fornication, the adultery, the incest, the Song of Solomon. ("tee hee, he said breasts!")
My sister wasn't so into the good parts, but I was; it was like they had a secret to whisper to me. But at the time, all I ever learned was never bathe openly on a roof so the king can see you (David/Bathsheba), don't make cakes for your drunk brother (Absolom/Tamara), and don't get caught in a cave with your dad after a cataclysm (Lot/Daughters).
On the bus the other night, I thought briefly about my lifelong attraction to the 'good parts,' the erotic or the downright naughty bits of literature, or anything, really. It seems that was my childhood bent - to touch my nose to the faintly oderous drawers of Sin and then put them away for a while until I had to sniff again. Why did I think about this on the bus? Because it was dark and the snow was falling and my eyes kept going to a very young thing across the aisle from me. He was talking to a friend and every two stops or so, I'd find myself glancing at him. It got to a point I just contented myself with watching him avidly through the window's reflection.
For the past weeks, I've been weak, drawn, muffled and startled by pain as my guts knit themselves back together. But now, as the pain recedes, strength returns and so does a particular alertness. On the bus, as I took in this very young thing with my eyes, I finally understood the corny romance novel phrase he drank her in. I felt like an alcoholic finally allowed one glass of wine or a vampire guzzling the contents of a vein. (Actually, I also felt like a dirty old woman. Bah.) Then, when he was gone so was my itchy, uncomfortable thirst. I was able to eat dinner with friends and gave the short bus ride no other thought.
Until now. I'm looking out at the gray afternoon, watching the smoke rising from chimneys. Everything looks cozy and snug, like a Dickens scene. The cold outside creates a desire for warmth inside. I've been reading all day and there is something so pleasurable about spending the day bundled up with a book that other pleasures also come to mind.
How twisted is is when these thoughts all come together inside my head: church, bible, reading, lust, prohibition, discovery, restraint, pain, pleasure.
My sister wasn't so into the good parts, but I was; it was like they had a secret to whisper to me. But at the time, all I ever learned was never bathe openly on a roof so the king can see you (David/Bathsheba), don't make cakes for your drunk brother (Absolom/Tamara), and don't get caught in a cave with your dad after a cataclysm (Lot/Daughters).
On the bus the other night, I thought briefly about my lifelong attraction to the 'good parts,' the erotic or the downright naughty bits of literature, or anything, really. It seems that was my childhood bent - to touch my nose to the faintly oderous drawers of Sin and then put them away for a while until I had to sniff again. Why did I think about this on the bus? Because it was dark and the snow was falling and my eyes kept going to a very young thing across the aisle from me. He was talking to a friend and every two stops or so, I'd find myself glancing at him. It got to a point I just contented myself with watching him avidly through the window's reflection.
For the past weeks, I've been weak, drawn, muffled and startled by pain as my guts knit themselves back together. But now, as the pain recedes, strength returns and so does a particular alertness. On the bus, as I took in this very young thing with my eyes, I finally understood the corny romance novel phrase he drank her in. I felt like an alcoholic finally allowed one glass of wine or a vampire guzzling the contents of a vein. (Actually, I also felt like a dirty old woman. Bah.) Then, when he was gone so was my itchy, uncomfortable thirst. I was able to eat dinner with friends and gave the short bus ride no other thought.
Until now. I'm looking out at the gray afternoon, watching the smoke rising from chimneys. Everything looks cozy and snug, like a Dickens scene. The cold outside creates a desire for warmth inside. I've been reading all day and there is something so pleasurable about spending the day bundled up with a book that other pleasures also come to mind.
How twisted is is when these thoughts all come together inside my head: church, bible, reading, lust, prohibition, discovery, restraint, pain, pleasure.
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