our fearless leaders

Rolling Stone : COVER STORY: Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever

a few things:
where is our national media? shouldn't THEY be digging around, telling us how much our leaders suck?
and, why do we to reward the most stupid among us so richly? the letter from randy (duke) cunningham will make you laugh your pants off.
and where are the moderates? where's their spine, their conviction?

and, lastly, i have to wonder, why is it a chronic habit of our macho progressive muckrakers to be sexist and homophobic when 'sticking it to' the GOP?

awesome!!

jet blue finally gets here!

it's about time, people! no more icky southwest! no more midway! yay!

blogging confessions

i'm at a crossroads, folks.

it's been fun having Screed, but what now? i've had these blogs for the past 4-5 years and it's time to move on, i feel. change things up a bit - get either more introspective or pack it in. but introspective about what? i started this blog because i needed a place to put all my ire. but ire ain't enough, is it?

and having a blog isn't the fun paradise it's cracked up to be: it's strangers stopping by calling you names (bastids), it's feeling the unconscious urge to be current, be funny, be snide, be snarky, be more ironically distant than the next - not to mention the unspoken urge to get to a certain level of production so that you become an even bigger blog. but it all becomes a bunch of noise after a while.

i want to cut through the noise.

and i miss my journals; i miss the physicality, the privacy and the intimacy of them. there's something about blogging that hints at intimacy - an anonymous kind of intimacy, like a really great one night stand - but because i know there's a reading public (albeit a small one), and i know some of that public, there's a veil over everything i write. i never wanted to write things that were veiled. i wanted it to be my truth. but that's not what blogging has given me: instead of truth, i have versions of truth. hints at truth. and trying to decipher which truth to use is a constraint.

i feel trapped by blogging sometimes. i'm trapped by the need to engage a vague public and the opposing need to say to that public 'i actually don't give a frak what you think. this isn't for you.'

my life coach and i talked about this once. she wanted to know what i loved most about journaling and i said the ability to capture and cultivate a moment that was as real as possible. not all moments are nice. they can be mean and hard and awful. but they can also be beautiful and difficult and funny and true. and we're not at our best all the time in those moments. but the best thing of all was that whatever public eye i was writing for was distant; it was an 'eye' i used to shape my voice. and it was comforting to know there was never going to be a response from that distant critic or audience unless i made a conscious effort to get one. here, there is and that's a big variable.

anyway, blather blather blather.

this is all to say that changes are coming and i have no idea what they are.

while watching PR...

you wanna know another reason to hate macy's?
their commercials.

i mean, my gawd.
how many un-rhythmic people can you have cavorting awkwardly to a lame cover of martha and the vandellas?

it's some serious ugly.

fascinating: black suppression of white votes?

U.S. Says Blacks in Mississippi Suppress White Vote - New York Times

totally fascinating.

my stars and garters!: BG night

Television Without Pity » Battlestar Galactica » Precipice

holy crap. who else was totally stressed out last night watching the double episode of Battlestar? it made me constipated. is starbuck really going to embrace her psychotic cylon lover of death? and who else was screaming at the screen, "kill the child! kill the child!"? oh, you weren't? well, we were. (what else to do? commit suicide? no! kill the half-cylon baby! push leoben over the edge!) and, come on, Chief! who *else* would be your cylon-colonial contact except gaeta?! get your head out of your frakkin' ass! and who in their right mind would sign the cylon order?? gaius, gaius, gaius! you could have been a hero after the fact *and* you would have been put out of your misery! so short-sighted. and is anyone else giggling over the fact that they made apollo look like the dead engineer who briefly commanded the pegasus? (poor john hurt.)

i like fat apollo; his waddle makes him interesting.

lock it down, folks.

i think i just got heartburn.

no longer just a hidden paranoia amongst the pro-choice, the new evangelicals' 'war' on contraception has finally broken the surface. i hate being right!

i love all the space given to the anti-family planning side while the pro-family planning side is given just a few inches toward the end, legitimizing the idea that people (mostly women) shouldn't have the right to use contraception.

Abortion foes' new rallying point | Chicago Tribune

so.
all those married ladies on the pill or using the sponge, diaphragm or IUD? forget it.
all those married guys who don't want to get a vasectomy and so use condoms? too bad.
everyone else who doesn't want to get pregnant (for various reasons) and who don't believe the same as others about the place of sex in a relationship (or out of one)? yeah, too bad.

sex is only for married folks, people. the fundies have said so.
and now they're going to FORCE you to be celibate.

whether you like it or not.

adulthood checklist

1. realize that in your new job you are fracking responsible for shit. realize that this is slightly different from just 'doing' shit. you're responsible for what gets done. you have a fracking budget, for frack's sake!
2. pay off that student loan, once and for all. they're getting impatient.
3. do something with that stagnating 401k. roll it over, cash it out - something.
4. plan now for whatever tax hell you're going to find yourself in next year.
5. get someone to prepare your taxes.
6. write your will.
7. decide who your medical proxy is (or whatever that's called - who will tell the doctors to shut off the machine?)
8. make a decision *now* about the whole essure thing. or the long-term, 'could possibly poke through my uterus' IUD thing.
9. get a check up and get those boobs checked, see if you have diabetes or any other family-inherited disease and get a whole STD/HIV screen. (drive up those insurance premiums for everyone! bwah ha ha ha ha! sigh. you have to read the whole comment string to get the joke.)
10. buy renter's insurance. (yeah, for *one* painting, the books and the old laptop...)
11. write your friends more letters.

Guy Gone Wild Gets Fined: heh.

remember the reporter who nailed the skeeviness of joe francis for all to see back in august?

she's back and this time, no complaints about 'objectivity'. joe gets nailed (sorta) by the justice department for violating federal laws protecting minors from sexual exploitation:

Maker of 'Girls Gone Wild' Runs Afoul of Law on Minors | Chicago Tribune

dammit! i'm a girl!

i'm in the middle of hastily cobbling together a GOTV project for NonProfit but i still have a few minutes to wonder about fashion...

what shall my new fall look be?
i've tried sexy librarian and failed...
what should my new staples be?

what are the rest of you wearing/shopping?

over in churchgal land, i'm losing my temper over the mommy wars.

i shouldn't have called Happy Mom bitchy.
but she pissed me off.

i'll be the first to admit that i'm not a child-friendly person. i was with old friends this weekend, and they have kids; we were looking for a place to eat and i suggested the food court. i said, 'it has wide aisles for the stroller, it has something for everyone and it's kid-friendly. affordable.' and my friend's husband said, 'wow, totally not like you at all. affordable, kid-friendly and accessible.' fucker.

but thanks to folks like bitch ph.d and orange (and the kick ass women they have at their own communities) and to my gig working to 'empower women and eliminate racisim' i've learned more about the connections between us single/childless women and women who care for kids. big epiphany: mommy issues *are* feminist issues and vice versa. i've learned a lot about the burdens that working mothers bear, the pressures on stay at home moms to be everything to everyone, the judgments that land on single gals like me who just may be indifferent to child rearing and create our worlds to make sure we remain childless. i've learned about these things and about how all our disparate issues aren't so disparate after all. again, mommy issues *are* feminist issues, even though i won't ever be a mommy.

(psst. it's all about the patriarchy.)

but i got a little frustrated over at churchgal with the whole 'bad mommy' blame game going on and i'm tired of churchy housewives stepping over who don't know how to look at things critically as a 'system' and instead take criticism of the system as some fracking personal assault. they ask the wrong questions, they jump to conclusions and they don't know how to stay on point. i hate it.

(yeah, i know. i may have learned a lot but didn't seem to learn humility. frack humility. where's that gotten us except where we are?)

the good thing, though, is that i found a cool website for mommies and social change. they write intelligently about mommy issues and sometimes they come down a little conservative and sometimes they're unexpectedly radical. it's a good read and a good resource.

(and for those critical thinking/social change writer-mommies out there, they want to publish your stuff.)

the times has an essay on interracial dating.
read on; i'll probably have more to say about it later.

(shh. i'm at work!)

Race Wasn�t an Issue to Him, Which Was an Issue to Me - New York Times

trickle down theory: breast feeding for the haves and have not so muchs

this is fascinating.

so what trickles down?
from the article:

For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.

It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.

On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System - New York Times

before i begin i must make a very strong suggestion.
you must watch bbc america's ShakespeaRE: Told's 'Taming of the Shrew' with shirley henderson and rufus sewell. it's brilliant, it's funny and now it's made rufus a lot more interesting than i would have guessed. i loves me some big, loud, bad, drunk, cross-dressing petruchio.

but now that the brutal summer weather has broken and fall really feels like it's breathing down my neck, i've been giving thought to, of course, boys. not crazy boys, like B- (whom i totally can't handle and who drives me nuts), but perhaps some friendly, fun boys like S-, whom i might visit very soon. you know, for the -uh - art museums. in boston. yeah.

i'm getting my hair done tomorrow (hello, mysterious egyptians who know how to do a blowout), i'm looking at airfare to boston, and i'm also talking to a guy who lives in michigan and, apparently, our paths have crossed without us knowing.

we were both on nerve and we're emailing; he's brown, i'm brown; he's slightly older, i'm slightly older; he likes camping and making furniture, i'm a die-hard city girl who likes sitting in furniture; we apparently lived in the same neighborhood at the same time in michigan, we hung out at the same places, used the same butcher - but we had never ever met one another. then he starts talking about a well-known music camp.

i chime in:
'yeah! i have friends who have family places up there! and a friend of a friend - her family is really involved on their board and she worked at [boop] then moved to new york where she's working for [beep]!'

he writes:
'yeah, E-! i know her - and i know her brother and i see her uncle around town all the time and i've known her dad and she and i used to date for a while!'

i respond:
'get OUT! you know E-?! i just saw her this weekend. how is this possible you know people i know? how could we live around the corner from each other and not ever meet and 10 years later we start talking on nerve?? you used to date??'

i recovered from the shock that sometimes this world is too freaking small and tonight he called. will he come out to chicago? perhaps. it's too soon to tell. but i like the timing. fall, cooler weather, no big hair, new clothes (which i have to plan out.)

hello, boys.

no wonder the good die young

while we were waiting for our flight to minneapolis, me and the girls caught up. it was my turn and i sighed over my snack wrap and said, 'being good is boring.'

and it's true. i've had about the goodest summer EVER and i'm libidinally bored out of my mind.
nothing has happened this entire summer and i'm pissed.

the highlight of my day saturday was the church garden picnic, which was really good, and then the walk i took down to the dvd store. lame.

(though not as lame as 'matchpoint'. watching rhys-davies and scarlett johannsen pretend to be thinking, scheming adults was so painful i had to do laundry to distract myself.)

why can't being good have the same frisson as being slightly naughty?

about 5 years ago i lost my mother. it was devastating.

and now, my best friend/roomie has lost hers. it's also devastating.
i'll be taking the next few days off to be with her and some of our friends who are flying out to join A- and her family for the services.

each parental loss i and my friends experience tells us how finite family is; our friends become our family.

look out iron john: the Brawny Academy

what. the. hell.
maybe i was tired, or bored, but i watched all 4 episodes and laughed my ass off.

Brawny Academy

(who cares that it's a total marketing ploy? it's men in the woods with the Brawny Man, learning to be 'sensitive'! snort.)

How To Become An Ally (Part 1)

i wanted to keep the joe francis link up at the top for a while but when i read this post from changeseeker i had to give it up.

THIS is the one post everyone should read about 'race', the construction of 'race', privilege and how a little hard work needs to be done. she breaks down the system of race in a way that a sociologist can - and that it comes from a white woman is doubly powerful to me.

but her post also prompts something for brown folk to consider. when we look at race, whiteness and blackness as a system and not as a personal thing, then i think that frees us. because 'blackness' is a construct, too. we are caught up in this system of racial oppression - not just as victims but also as people who have internalized these lessons. it's what makes it easy for us to call another brown person the n-word; it's what makes it easy for us to erect even taller walls of us/them within our own community.

what kind of liberation could we face if we, too, vowed to not participate in the maintenance of a racist system of oppression?

anyway, you must read it. she's working on a second part and i can't wait.

Why Am I Not Surprised?: For White Folks: How To Become An Ally (Part 1)

rather proud of this one

it's my alter-ego, ChurchGal, on joe francis, those soldiers accused of raping/killing a 14 yr old girl in iraq and what they have in common.

the guy behind 'girls gone wild': nutbag freak

the la times piece on joe francis is great.

talk about holding up a skeevy mirror to a guy who has a lot of influence in shaping young male sexual identity:

In short, Francis wants to insinuate himself and his view of the world into the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the vacations you take and the entertainment—filmed and glossy—that you consume. He sees "Girls Gone Wild" as the ultimate lifestyle brand. "Sex sells everything," he says. "It drives every buying decision . . . I hate to get too deep and philosophical here, but only the guys with the greatest sexual appetites are the ones who are the most driven and most successful."

if that's the case, and after reading this profile, you'll hope a flaming meteorite lands on joe and all that's left is a crater. his vision of the world is one that turns every woman into a pink hole.

why is it always women pointing out the total scary inappropriateness of guys like this? why aren't men the first to hold up the mirror and say, Dude - you're fucked in the head and have a serious problem with women.

follow the links in the feministing piece for more discussion and analysis.

[update: here is another really fascinating take on the times piece which says that hoffman is a bad reporter for doing it. read to the end when he wonders what kind of world we live in that a pig like francis won't get clocked by a woman he's just assaulted? i say that it's a world where women are afraid of the bastards who hurt them. the same kind of world where we force a rape victim to watch a videotape of her own gangbang and the kind of world that allows a man to make money coercing barely legal drunk girls to have sex with him and his crew.]

dude, wake the fuck up.

(note: let's not forget this is also the joe francis who was in court last year because some guy broke in his house and made him say/do something 'sexually humiliating' with a dildo. i remember writing that if anyone deserved a big bite of karma it was him. let's hope this expose is just the beginning.)