Feministaalheimurinn

Pinched

2008-08-19T22:08:52+00:00

Interesting essay on Salon. I stumbled across it via Jezebel, where there's a conversation going, as well (I'm actually enjoying the Jezebel discussion, which is touching on such glimmery niblets as the public perception of writers and artists, more than the original article -- oh well! C'est la vie). I probably would have missed it, otherwise, because I stopped reading Salon about a year ago. The quality of the articles had just bottomed out for me and the comment threads were unbearable.

This reminded me of a neat program called Food Not Bombs. There are at least 2 local chapters of FNB that I know of, one in Sacramento, and one in Davis. FNB is a volunteer group which serves a free vegetarian/vegan meal once a week in public parks. I love grass-rootsy projects like this.

Also, a lot of local shelters will accept fresh food donations. Good to know this time of year, when many home gardeners start to become inundated with more fruit and veggies than they can eat.

MSNBC Gives Maddow a Show of Her Own

2008-08-19T21:29:01+00:00

MSNBC does the right thing:

Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host –- and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.

The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.

About time. Maddow’s deserved a show for too long; getting rid of Abrams is a bonus. Indeed, I think MSNBCs karmic debt for continuing to employ Chris Matthews is almost — almost — balanced.

(Via ODub)

Obama Hits Back

2008-08-19T21:03:47+00:00

Obama hits McCain hard:

Money grafs:

One of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can’t disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America’s national interest. Now, it’s time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same.

Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country. I love America, so do you, and so does John McCain. When I look out at this audience, I see people of different political views. You are Democrats and Republicans and Independents. But you all served together, and fought together, and bled together under the same proud flag. You did not serve a Red America or a Blue America — you served the United States of America.

You know, America’s going to get the president we deserve here. If we go with Jaundiced McNasty, who’s running an ideology-free campaign based on smears and attacks, then we deserve him. For better or for worse, Obama’s running the type of campaign we’ve been claiming we want — one based on ideas and principles, not personal attacks. It would be easy for Obama to attack McCain as old, for example, but he hasn’t. He’s chosen to stay above it. It may work, and it may not…but it won’t be Obama’s fault if it doesn’t; it will be our own.

Goodbye To All That

2008-08-19T21:06:53+00:00

Somebody buy Barack Obama this book. I have a feeling that he needs it.

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.”--Thomas Jefferson.

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind.”--James Madison

“I doubt of Revelation itself.”--Benjamin Franklin

“My own mind is my church.”--Thomas Paine

The religious right is gaining enormous power in the United States, thanks to a well-organized, media-savvy movement with powerful friends in high places. Yet many Americans—both observant and secular—are alarmed by this trend, especially by efforts to erase the boundary between church and state, re-making the United States into a theocracy.

But most Americans lack the tools for arguing with the religious right, especially when fundamentalist conservatives claim their positions originated with the Framers of the Constitution. Until now. . . .

Did you know that:

• The Constitution contains not one reference to a deity--on purpose?

• Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence did not mention “endowed by the Creator”?

• “In God We Trust” was not on our currency, and “Under God” was not the U.S. motto, until the McCarthy-ite 1950s?

• The 15th-century Roman Catholic Church considered abortion moral?

• The Treaty of Tripoli--initiated by George Washington and signed into law by John Adams--declares: “The United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”?

• James Madison, “father of the Constitution,” denounced the presence of chaplains in Congress--and in the armed forces--as unconstitutional?

• Lincoln’s first drafts of The Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address made no mention of any deity?

In Fighting Words, Robin Morgan has assembled a toolkit for arguing, a verbal karate guide: a lively, accessible, eye-opening collection revealing what the framers (and other leading Americans) really believed—in their own words. She resurrects the Founders as the revolutionaries they were: “A hodgepodge of freethinkers, Deists, agnostics, Christians, atheists, Freemasons—and radicals.

The Ethics of Tourism: An Informal Poll

2008-08-19T19:00:26+00:00

Introductions aside, I want to start with an informal poll. Because I run what is essentially a blog for English-speaking queer and/or women travelers (and the occasional ex-pat) in Mexico, I want to ask people what they think about the politics of travel and tourism, specifically travel from the “first world” to non-”first world” countries.

What do you perceive are the ramifications of that type of tourism? (Broad question, I know.)
If you have participated in that kind of tourism, how did those potential ramifications affect the choices that you made as a tourist? What choices have you made to be a more “responsible” tourist?
Do believe there is such a thing as feminist tourism, and, if so, what does that look like?

And, finally, how do the politics of a country affect your desire/willingness to participate in that country’s tourism? What about their human rights record?

I’m interested in hearing about specific suggestions (like those Jill was receiving about not taking “hill tribe village tours” during her current trip to southeast Asia in this post), as well as more general strategies/analyses. Needless to say, comments are not limited to those who have had the economic privilege to travel, but to anyone with constructive comments and thoughts on the subject of ethical tourism.

I suppose it’s only fair if I try to answer my own questions, so here goes…

With regard to the ramifications that “first world” tourism can have on “second” and “third world” countries, I’ll admit that I am learning more about this with every trip I take, every conversation I have on the subject. A friend of mine first brought the issue to me when we were in college, when she questioned the ethics of the “junior year abroad” program in northern Indian that she had participated in, wondering what would happen to the local economy (that had grown considerably around the program site) when the program no longer existed?

I don’t know enough about that specific situation to know if her particular concerns were warranted, but at the root of her point was the fact that these types of study abroad programs, as well as other organized tours, guide books, and other tourist infrastructure, contribute to bringing a large influx of money and spending power into local economies. Needless to say, this has positive and negative effects. Positive in the sense that the money someone makes in an afternoon selling something to a tourist might put food on the table. Negative in the sense that tourist-driven economies are often unstable (depending on the setting of whatever Leonard DiCaprio movie has just been released, what exotic locale has just been featured in the New York Times travel section, the fluctuating strength of various currencies, where a natural disaster has just killed dozens of tourists) and have the potential to seriously disrupt local traditions, economies, land-use.

So then, what choices do I make as a tourist, taking all of this into account? I try to avoid staying at big hotel chains, owned by multinational corporations, and instead try to stay at locally owned hotels, bed and breakfasts, or casas particulares, so that at the very least, my money is going into the local economy. When shopping, I try not to haggle excessively over prices, especially when buying something that was made by the seller. The five dollars I am saving is the cost of a subway ride and slice of pizza in New York, but could feed an entire family in some parts of Mexico. I think alot of times we get over-invested in the “romantic” process of haggling over prices, especially when traveling on a budget, without really considering the other “budgets” involved. I always tip the housekeeping staff. Really, everyone should do this, no matter what country you are traveling in. And if you haven’t signed (or don’t abide by) the ethical travel pledge, please do.

But seriously, it’s a drop in the bucket to say, “I gave that woman an extra five dollars. I made a difference.” I’m not saying don’t give the five dollars; I’m just saying don’t stop there. In my own travels, I’ve tried to research ways in which my own country/government/lifestyle routinely fucks over whatever country I’m traveling to. Planning a trip to Cuba? Take the time to get involved (on whatever level you can) in opposing the Helms-Burton Act. The Latin American Working Group has a lot of information about the United States’ policies in Latin America and is a good place to start before, during, or after a trip to a Latin American country.

I’ll admit that I’m not 100% sure what feminist tourism looks like. I think when a lot of feminists and other progressives travel, we often don’t stay in large hotels, go on organized bus tours, and other mainstream modes of tourism. Instead, we seek out more “authentic” experiences. We want to talk to locals, we want to eat local cuisine. We have good intentions; we want to learn as much as we can about whatever culture we are visiting.

But the problem is, our good intentions usually stop there. We have these amazing experiences traveling that “change” us so much, but unfortunately, that’s all we change. What was the result of that last trip I took? I had these experiences, I have good and interesting stories to tell, I might even be a more interesting person. But if the only person benefiting from the tourism is the tourist, then I don’t think we can call that “feminist” tourism (outside of the idea that women traveling by themselves, un-chaperoned, is still a radical act).

I think what would constitute a more substantial feminist tourism is using the experience of tourism, of being in someone else’s country, as an opportunity to network with feminist organizations that already exist there, to ask them what kind of support a foreign tourist can offer. That support might be a donation of time, money, or expertise. It might mean setting up lines of communication between feminist organizations in different countries. It might mean publicizing their causes along the lines they deem most appropriate. Whatever form of support or networking the local organizations would find most beneficial.

In terms of the last question of my “poll”, I don’t yet have an answer. In fact, in terms of all these questions, I’m still forming opinions and strategies. I figured that since I participate in “first world”/non-”first world” tourism, and run a website that is (in its small way), part of that tourism industry, I would use this forum as a place to discuss some of the issues that have been on my mind recently. For that reason, I’m incredibly interested in hearing from readers about their thoughts on all these issues, and for people to help brainstorm different strategies around ethical tourism.

What Women Want This Election: Universal Healthcare, Comprehensive Sex-Ed, Federal Funding for Maternity/Paternity Leave …

2008-08-19T18:30:55+00:00

Wondering how we can be so sure? Easy. We're following the "speakouts" posted at ThisIsWhatWomenWant.com. The newly launched site, a project of the Center for New Words (which sponsors the annual WAM! conference), is open to all women who want to make their voices heard: This Is What Women Want is your ...

[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!]

Take Part: Egg Donors Survey

2008-08-19T18:30:55+00:00

Research and follow-up of egg donors has been pretty non-existent -- until now. The Donor Sibling Registry, which connects and supports donor families, is conducting a survey of egg donors for the purpose of qualitative research on the long-term health effects on women. DSR founder Wendy Kramer explains: We at the Donor ...

[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!]

Sex Work Activism: Topic One, Harm Reduction.

2008-08-19T17:58:43+00:00

Okay, so, since I set up my overview yesterday, I guess it’s time to get to the nitty. So, I’m going to start with harm reduction, which, yes, I advocate. Here is where I am coming from with the term, because it is not a solid thing that everyone sees the same way. So, here we go, this is my manifesto, I suppose you could say…

When taking on a harm reduction stance, one:

-Accepts, for better and for worse, that the sex industry is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.

-Understands the sex industry as a complex, multifaceted thing encompasses a vast range of activities, and acknowledges that some aspects of the sex industry are clearly more dangerous than others, and those working in the sex industry may have vastly different needs.

-Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who are involved in the sex industry and bases those provisions around the wants and needs of the sex worker/ prostituted person.

-Ensures that sex workers/ prostituted people and those with a history in the sex industry have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.

-Affirms sex workers/prostituted people themselves as the primary agents in setting the course of their lives, and seeks to empower them to share information, support strategies and resources which meet their actual needs.

-Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, education, abuse and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to harm and capacity for independent operation.

-Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real potential harm and danger associated with the sex industry.

-Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the choices and agency of those involved with the sex industry.

And there you have it, because simply put, I do not think the sex industry is going anywhere anytime soon, so thusly, I (personally, me here) think that focus should be placed on the people in it…and there is much that needs to be done and can be done from a harm reduction perspective. It is simple fact that prostitutes working in places like Chile have difficulty gaining access to something as simple and potentially life saving as a condom, and it is a simple truth that many of them will go ahead and work with or without them because they have to, so I figure it’s best to try and see that they have them. For me there is no moral or feminist thing here, it’s a matter health and welfare…I’d rather have that prostitute working with a condom than dead, or spreading potentially deadly diseases, and that is exactly what can happen when such basic things are denied. Yes, one should then go further and see that such people have access to other resources, including towards working to transition out of prostitution if that is their desire, but basic needs must be met first. And yes, it goes way beyond that, in every level of the sex industry.

I had the opportunity to attend a sex workers conference in Chicago this summer, one which had a wildly vast assortment of sex workers at it, from all aspects and levels of sex work, and two things became apparent immediately: we all have needs, and they are vastly different. The white, middle class professional domme working out of her home as a second job in Ohio is going to have vastly different needs and faces vastly different harms than the transwoman of color who works a stroll in Baltimore (and yes, I met several people that fit both those kinds of descriptors there). Male sex workers have different needs than female or trans sex workers. But, since we’re all…you know…working? Needs need to be met. And something I had always believed was proven as solid fact for me there…in the here and now, while there is sex industry, treating it or the people in it in a monolithic fashion does nothing to help anyone. Harsh? Perhaps. True, yes, I do think so. And I was not alone in that observation. The needs of a porn performer are not the needs of an erotic masseur are not the needs of an independent escort are not the needs of a street based worker are not the needs of a stripper are not the needs of trafficked person forced into an illegal brothel. But all those people are working, and it’s my stance that we should make that work as safe as possible, while helping those who wish to transition out to do so, hence, I embrace the harm reduction mode, because frankly, it seems to be what sex workers…and no, not just me…want in place. And yes, most harm reductionists seem to support decriminalization, but we’ll go there later today or tomorrow… ‘cause that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax and controversy, isn’t it?

Is harm reduction 100% effective? No, but nothing is. However, people involved in the sex industry are people, with different needs and concerns, pretty much like everybody else, and (to me) the harm reduction mode seems to be the one, perhaps the only one, that most recognizes that, especially in a time in the world where the elimination of the sex industry seems about as likely as the Stanley Cup being held in Hell. Also, err, ahem…with harm reduction, while some might see it a bit like putting a band-aid on a shotgun would, there is, at least…

…a plan.

At the end of the week, I shall be posting a list of Sex Workers Rights groups, many of which hold harm reduction stances, and why yes, I do encourage you to check them out.

And now, as I am wont to say, fin and fire at will.

Yes, schools cost money to run, and cutting budgets hurts students

2008-08-19T17:52:05+00:00

Over at Hit and Run, Nick Gillespie says “what, me worry?” to schools cutting programs and services in response to tightening budgets:

Jesus Christ, is this the worst of it? If so, please just stop. As someone who had kids in the Maryland’s Montgomery County schools for a couple of years, I can guarantee you that they could choose to cut something other than funds for “an award-winning” math team with ease. Indeed, the district seemed hellbent on calling three-day weekends whenever snow was forecast for a Friday morning. And where are the calls to make administrators ride their bikes or carpool to school?

Some of the cuts Nick do seem pretty trivial — switching from stop-at-every-home bus service to neighborhood bus stops, for instance. Others, however, are serious: Cutting school weeks from five days to four. Raising the costs of school lunches and charging parents for bus service (in one high school, they’ve cut out bus service altogether). Not being able to get up to date textbooks degrades the quality of education, and so — believe it or not — does cutting electives and math teams.

That Nick responds to these real problems with mockery — as if no reasonable person could possibly be concerned with cutting to a four-day school week, or updated textbooks — shows how irresponsible the idealogical anti-government tax-cutters are.

Meanwhile, Nick’s ideas on how to save money are ludicrous. Administrators typically use their own cars to get to work, so calls for biking or carpools for admins won’t save a cent. And snow days actually save money for school districts (as does any other method of cutting the number of school days).

Nick goes on:

Per-pupil spending is up over 300 percent in constant dollars since the early 1960s. You’d think somewhere in that increase, schools would figure out how to fund meaningful stuff and drop crap.

Of course, a lot of that increase has gone into special education, school breakfast and lunch programs, bilingual education, and computers. These expenses were all either low or nonexistent in the early 1960s — and yes, they are “meaningful stuff” and not “crap.”

The other thing to consider is that as long as we want students to have direct interaction with teachers, the costs of education will always go up, due to Baumol’s disease.

When Mozart composed his String Quintet in G Minor (K. 516), in 1787, you needed five people to perform it—two violinists, two violists, and a cellist. Today, you still need five people, and, unless they play really fast, they take about as long to perform it as musicians did two centuries ago. So much for progress.

An economist would say that the productivity of classical musicians has not improved over time, and in this regard the musicians aren’t alone. In a number of industries, workers produce about as much per hour as they did a decade or two ago. The average college professor can’t grade papers or give lectures any faster today than he did in the early nineties. It takes a waiter just as long to serve a meal, and a car-repair guy just as long to fix a radiator hose.

The rest of the American economy functions differently. In most businesses, workers are continually getting more productive and can produce a lot more per hour than they could ten or twenty years ago. […] Generally, productivity growth is a boon, but it creates problems for non-productive enterprises like classical music, education, and car repair: to keep luring talent, they have to increase wages, or else people eventually migrate to businesses that pay better. Instead of becoming nurses or mechanics, they become telecom engineers or machinists. That’s why teachers are getting paid a lot more than they were twenty years ago. (The average salary for an associate college professor has risen almost seventy per cent since the early eighties, and that’s if you adjust for inflation.) To pay those wages, schools and hospitals have to raise prices. The result is that in industries where productivity is flat costs and prices keep going up.

I have no idea if school districts really spend more (as a percentage of the total) on “crap” now than they did in the 1960s. But I’m skeptical, because Nick presents zero evidence to support his implication.

What I do know is that the amount of “meaningful stuff” schools are providing, and the legitimate costs of the “meaningful stuff,” have gone up significantly since the early 1960s. Too many libertarians, like Nick, act as if they believe in a free lunch; we can make HUGE cuts in education budgets and not suffer any pain at all, because there’s lots of unnamed “crap” to be cut! But it’s nonsense. Just saying “costs have gone up 300%” as if that alone proves there’s a huge amount of waste is economic illiteracy.

Whew!!!

2008-08-19T16:31:29+00:00

Playing catch-up -- why is it that I always fool myself into thinking I'm going to get a lot more work done while traveling than is actually possible? Oh well. Finished the last chapter in the 2nd Faerie Path book and delivered it to the TP editor on Monday. I practically wore the covers off of my copy of The Bard's English (thanks, Wayne! It was a lifesaver!).

So, back to work on the Marvel cards, and my project with Rachel. Wheee!!!

@_@

Can I has sleep now? No? Darn.

Cardboard jungle causes smoking

2008-08-19T15:45:17+00:00

Have you ever, while you were packing into cardboard boxes all your spinster auntly accouterments (I allude to the complete Proust — in French — that you keep on the mantle, as if ; ceramic baby-smoking-a-cig figurine; giant rubber toad; 80’s vintage 4-track w/ gazillion basement recordings on cassette) run out of newspaper? Requiring an emergency run to to the U-Haul depot on Ben White Blvd? On a Saturday?

Admittedly, you are between a rock and a hard place here. If you don’t replenish your packing supplies, your whole Ambitious Plan comes to a grinding halt, at which point all you can do is fester on the lime green recliner, surrounded by cardboard chaos, emitting muffled sobs.

But if you do go the the U-Haul on Ben White Blvd on a Saturday — which U-Haul is, you will discover, held in the highest possible esteem by all other South Austin residents as the most desirable Saturday destination in Central Texas — you will be 48th in a queue of sweaty truck-renters, few of whom possess magnetic personalities, and each of whom requires an extended period of personal quality time with the U-Haulist behind the counter.

To be perfectly accurate, there are two U-Haulists behind the counter, thus two lines of sweaty truck-renters. But, as is required by rent-a-truck law, only one of the U-Haulists possesses sufficient security clearance to operate the top-secret truck-rental computer. This slows transactions down to a maddening trickle, which has the effect of escalating the anxiety amongst the clientèle, who by now are packed in cheek to jowl like hogs to the slaughter. The interminable line, the incompetence of the customer service dudes, the overwrought frenzy of movers who see their security deposits slipping away with each passing minute — you get the picture. U-Haul on a Saturday is like the IndyMac Bank on Failure Day.

If you conclude from the above that I chose, last Saturday when I ran out of wrapping paper, to go to U-Haul rather than sit weeping in my corrugated prison, you are correct. After waiting 25 minutes to spend twenty dollars on two boxes of paper, I dropped one of them in a puddle in the parking lot and was nearly creamed by a speed demon piloting a 17-footer.

Well, my obstreperal lobe blew right then and there, all over the dented hood of some poor schlub’s eggplant-colored Saturn. On the way home, with no internal regulating mechanism to prevent it, an imp of the perverse caused my car to turn in at the Bluebonnet quick shop, where I grabbed a roadie* from the handy ice bin and heard myself utter the most beautiful words in the English language: “pack of Marlboro reds, and make it snappy.”

Four-and-a-half packs later, it is Tuesday, and the self-preservational blaming gas produced by my blown lobe (obstreperone), has begun to kick back in. I have called my oncologist and renewed my date with Chantix. I love Chantix. Apparently there are six or seven people in the world who are not transformed by this anti-smoking drug into homicidal maniacs, and I am one of them.

Meanwhile, did anybody happen to hear a piece on NPR the other day about some Christian weight-loss group’s vilification of fat, and obesity as a moral issue, etc? I can’t find it anywhere on the site now, or, indeed, on the entire World Wide Web, and I’m beginning to think I imagined the whole thing.

See, I was going to tie this all together with a big tirade on the bogus notion of health as a moral issue — how people are always yelling at you to quit smoking or quit eating or quit procrastinating when you should be packing or quit doing anything the doing of which is considered a moral failure, ostensibly out of their concern for your health, but in reality because “health,” in accordance with some convoluted Christian doctrine embedded in the cultural subconscious, has become a kind of yardstick by which conformity within the social order is measured, and how shaming people who are insufficiently obsessed with their cholesterol puts these concern trolls in a morally superior position and creates an underclass of “unhealthies” who have brought it on themselves through their blatant ingestion of Cheetos — but I’m too exhausted from all the delicious smoking. Let’s just say that if you ran into me at the coffeeshop and suggested that my self-indulgent punk rocker lifestyle caused my breast cancer, you wouldn’t be the first. The idea that you, through some assiduously applied, sanctimonious personal health program, can “prevent” cancer, or death, or whatever, and that such practices should win you higher status in your tribe, is a fucking load of crap.

__________________________

* A roadie is an extra-large can of cheap beer that all Texas quick shops stock on ice right next to the door, thus simplifying the important work of driving drunk.

Targeting South Dakota

2008-08-19T15:18:48+00:00

Nowhere in the United States* is it more difficult to obtain an abortion than it is in South Dakota. Women who are faced with abortion are also faced with a slew of regulations and restrictions. We are a state of parental notification, 24 hour waiting periods, women must be asked if they wish to see their sonogram, and they go through mandatory education about their options. A recent 8th Circuit Court ruling just changed that education to include a message from the doctor where he or she must tell the patient that she is “terminating the life of a whole, separate unique, living separate human being.” On top of that, the doctor must tell the patient that having an abortion will increase her risk of suicide and depression despite the fact that there is absolutely no proof to support this claim.

It’s no wonder anti-choice extremists chose South Dakota as their battleground, and South Dakota residents as their pawns.

There is no doubt there is a larger agenda here than merely a ban with so-called “exceptions.” These forces have their eyes on the United States Supreme Court. They’ve set their sights on overturning Roe vs. Wade and they think South Dakota is the place to make that happen.

Last Tuesday, national leaders from the organizations fighting this battle joined together in Washington DC to announce the fight against this measure. I think Cecile Richards, Executive Director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America said it best: “This law, if it was adopted, would be the most extreme anti-abortion law in the country… This ban would take the most important decision that a woman and her family can make about carrying a pregnancy to term – a complex, moral, very personal decision – and take it out of her hands and give it to Big Government. Make no mistake, this ban would not help the health care of a single woman in the state of South Dakota.”

*edited to include “United States”

Check this out…

2008-08-19T16:15:06+00:00

Michel Martin of NPR’s Tell Me More wrote a piece for The Root.com on the selection of three white men all over the age of 68 by the Commission on Presidential Debates to moderate the debates this year.

Something about this election year makes that move seem beyond out of touch. Not that the moderators were ever representative of the masses, but daaaaammn.

If a bitch didn’t know better I’d think the Commission was trying to send a message.

Blink.

Anyhoo, please take a moment to read Michel’s piece and let me know your thoughts.

Toodles!

Women’s Human Rights In China

2008-08-19T11:22:17+00:00

In writing this blog, I’ve become pretty adept at ferreting out news about women but it is still a very daunting task in some instances, notably countries where there is very little internet access and countries with repressive regimes, China is a notable example–a search on Google comes up with very little in terms of reports of rape or violence against women–search terms that would yield huge results in the United States. I was therefore very excited to see Marcy Bloom’s post on RH Reality Check about women’s human rights in China. Here are a few snippets, but be sure to click the link and read the entire piece.

“In January 2007, respected Chinese journalist Li Xing wrote: “I have been trying hard to help my readers understand that fact that discrimination against women and attitudes of male chauvinism are…continuing to hurt Chinese women.” She further declared that the general media have not been much help in getting rid of traditional stereotypes against women. For example, the January 2007 media coverage of a report from the State Population and Family Planning Commission indicated that for every 100 baby girls born in 2005, there were 118.58 baby boys. In some provinces, the gap is even more severe–130 baby boys for every 100 girls. This startling disparity is expected to widen, with serious concerns for the survival of girls, as well as social stability. However, according to Li, most of the Chinese media reports were concerned solely with the impact on men, highlighting the fact that by 2020, 30 million Chinese men will find it impossible to find a wife. Li questioned where the focus was for women’s lives, health, rights, and well-being because of this polarizing gender imbalance. She emphasized: “As far as the root of the matter is concerned, news media just stop short of condemning the traditional male chauvinism [and women’s inequality] entrenched in Chinese culture, as if it is something we can do little about.”"

“China’s growing gender-ratio disparity is a result of the restrictive implementation of its family planning policies and the deep cultural prevalence for male children. Some officials have admitted that the one-child policy has “aggravated the imbalance,” as the restrictions have led to sex-selective abortions that have overwhelmingly caused the abortion of female fetuses.

According to a United Nations official: “The shortage of women will have enormous implications on China’s social, economic, and development future…The skewed ratio of men to women will have an impact on the sex industry and human trafficking,” as well as family, societal, and regional stability.”

As Bloom notes in her post, the news is not all bad, pointing to the Care For Girls initiative and economic support for girl-only families, but clearly the human rights situation for women is a topic that remains far too firmly hidden in the shadows.

The hurricane that wasn't (by Suzie)

2008-08-19T12:20:01+00:00

You should never go shopping on an empty stomach -- or the day before a hurricane hits.

I braved the grocery store Monday, after taking stock of my cupboard, only to find one can of mushroom soup and another of cranberries, left over from Thanksgiving.

Later, as I filled containers with water, I sang to my Chihuahua: "Wasn't that a mighty storm? Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning, well? Wasn't that a mighty storm that blew all the Chihuahuas away?"* I like to personalize songs for her.

Staff at my apartment complex posted notices on all the doors that read: "REMAIN CALM," along with other helpful tips, such as: Get out.

Tropical Storm Fay made landfall in Florida again today, without ever reaching hurricane status. I'm glad I didn't have to huddle in the bathroom (no exterior walls), surrounded by canned goods.

*Folk song about the Galveston storm in 1900.

Fifteen days of blogging for health care reform: The opt-out crisis

2008-08-19T11:00:00+00:00

Guest post by Skylanda.

I was a sophomore in college, abroad, studying marine biology on a beach in Mexico, when my parents called me up to tell me my father was retiring. He wasn’t entirely too young for it, but neither was he quite old enough to qualify for Medicare. But he had worked long years of hard hours, and they chose together to enjoy the next couple of decades at a reduced income rather than merely endure through them with plenty of money. They were very lucky, and planned extraordinarily well; they will live out retirement with a level of wealth few Americans past the boomer generation will be able to expect.

And so, at age nineteen, like middle-class post-teens all over the nation, I got booted off my parents’ cozy medical insurance plan and out into the nebulous world of the marginally insured. They did their best by me for a year or two; they qualified for COBRA, and since I was in college, I qualified too. They quietly paid premiums that - had I had any idea what they cost - I would have refused their generosity for: some three hundred dollars or so a month for a perfectly healthy, low-risk teenager - at the time, I was paying less than that in rent. The only contribution they asked of me was that my father - ever the academic at heart - routinely quizzed me on the expanded meaning of the acronymn COBRA; to this day, I can still reel it off the top of my head: Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Of 1986, by the way. But eventually their COBRA coverage ran out too, and they could no longer afford me anyhow, and so I became uninsured.

This did not make me comfortable. I was never an unhealthy kid, but when I did get sick, it was always the weird stuff. I used go nearly anaphylactic to poison oak, and had been on steroids twice for it. In my first year of college half of my face froze up for a month, and I was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy - a sometimes reversible neurological condition that usually affects septugenarian diabetics. I had migraines and a persistent winter cough that turned out to be undiagnosed asthma. We all have a medical oddity or two brewing somewhere in our corporeal selves.

I searched for insurance, in earnest at first. I tried to find organizations to join to gain the advantage of group rates, looked into catastrophic coverage only, considered the university-sponsored insurance until I realized that I would pay through the nose for a plan that would cover about a quarter to a third of the daily cost if I ever did have to be hospitalized. I identified half a dozen sources of free care in the city (by then I had moved to San Francisco), including the clinic I volunteered at to provide free care to other uninsured patients. Every six months or so I would get on a kick about it, make a few dozen phone calls, search the then-burgeoning internet, give it a good try. After a week or so without success I’d give up again, buried in possibilities and paperwork but no actual insurance on the table. Eventually, when I went to work offshore, I signed up for a dirt-cheap maiming insurance policy (I kid you not, that’s what it was called): one million dollars cash if I was physically injured so badly I couldn’t work anymore. That’s the best it got until I started medical school and was forced to pay for health insurance out of my student loan funds. Three years passed during which I had no medical coverage at all.

For the generations known as “X” and “Y”, this is not an unfamiliar story. Most of my friends went uninsured for some period of time, some by choice and some because they could not find or afford coverage. For the most part, it’s a gamble, but a fairly safe one. I was young, healthy, strong, in excellent shape for the most part (putting my thirty-ish self to shame now), and unless I was struck down by a bus or a pernicious cancer, I wouldn’t be drawing as much off an insurance policy every year as I would be paying into it. If I had tried harder, I probably could have found something.

But I didn’t. Like many healthy young people, I faced some barriers, I gave it a good but not Olympic try, and then I opted out.

It worked for me. The worst upshot I faced was a foot fungus that raged out of control - gross, but far from dire in consequence. For the vast majority of the young, healthy, middle-class opt-outs, the outcome is similar: you skimp on insurance for a couple of years, you save yourself some money. Your career picks up, you get a job with benefits, by your mid-twenties you leave those uninsured years behind relatively unscathed.

Let’s set aside for a moment the disastrous consequence for the unlucky few opt-outs who get sick enough to go to the emergency department - even once - without insurance (mostly because the reverberating effect of a single ER bill on credit, savings, and ability to access future care for years down the line is topic for an entire other post). This is about the effect of opt-outs who successfully navigate the uninsured years without incident.

Let’s consider who they are: the opt-outs are the young and healthy. They pay into the system and draw very little out - particularly young men, who aren’t obligated to yearly visits by the need for prescription contraception and generally don‘t like visiting doctors. They form the low-risk end of total risk pool - in general, their premiums support the care of people other than themselves. No wonder so many maintain a certain disinterest in paying ever-increase premiums on services they rarely use: in an individualistic, every-person-for-themselves system, opting out is both feasible and reasonable.

In a sustainable, collective health care system, opting out is neither feasible nor reasonable. Everyone who lives long enough will eventually reach the age where they draw more benefits than they contribute in cash, and as long as the general pool of funds is maintained by a flow of people from all demographics, it’s a relatively stable system. But everyone has to contribute at any given point in time to maintain the system - young, old, sick, healthy, in the relative proportions that they are able - in precisely the manner that Social Security has historically functioned. If only the people that need health services are asked to pay into the pool, premiums become exorbitant; if you pay your own insurance premiums these days, you don’t need me to tell you this.

In America today, we’re watching the collision of two inexorable forces: the aging of the baby boomers out of their working years, and the normalization of the opt-out phenomenon among the young and healthy. The astronomical rise in premiums - twice the rate of inflation in recent years - can be attributed to a multitude of phenomenon, but this is one of them: at a time when a large proportion of the population is drawing heavier and heavier services, the young and healthy are contributing less and less to the risk pool. Not necessarily because they don’t want to (because really, who wants be to uninsured?), but because barriers are so high to entry into the pool. There is nowhere good this path can go.

The solution is thorny but obvious: we need to start treating health coverage like the public good that it is. Even private insurance works on a pooled risk basis, so that illness in the general population directly affects my premiums, even though I’m (still) a (relatively) healthy young person. Every person needs to contribute in the proportion that they are able, such that when the day comes, they will be able to draw what the need from the system. You cannot force people to buy health insurance (really, ask the couple of states that have tried), but you can use the good old IRS - from which no American can simply opt out - to collect, funnel, and redistribute funds through a single-payer system. Through taxes, everyone can be asked to contribute - in the proportion to which they are able, with the right to draw out the goods that they come to need - the same way that we way do for every other public good: education, roads, the national defense. We don’t question that it works - with all the requisite bumps in the road - for those collective efforts.

And if the thought of higher taxes makes you cringe just to hear the words, remember this: you’re either already paying those exorbitant premiums, or someday you will be, or someday you’re going to get one whomping medical bill that will make you wish you were only paying those premiums...eventually, one of these (or both, or all) will happen to virtually every one of us. Whether we choose to pay that into a sustainable collective system or a crashing individualist system…ah, that is the crux of the issue. And that is a topic for another post entirely.

Cross-posted at my blog, Loose Chicks Sink Ships. Please note that all references to patients have been altered and/or fictionalized to protect the identity of those individuals.

Pills of Great Price by Anthony McCarthy

2008-08-19T08:48:00+00:00

One of the fun gross-out facts of natural science a couple of decades back was the observation that in some preying mantis species, insufficiently careful males would die for love. You remember. The male would carefully, hesitantly approach the female. When he got close enough she’d pull off his head and eat it while his decapitated body jumped her bones. To the ....... spine tingling delight of many and, one suspects, the erectile dysfunction of some, the ways of nature were revealed to an avid public. I recall hearing it mentioned in some bit of nervous, male, anti-feminist bluster somewhere or other. Maybe it explains the rise of Rush Limbaugh.

You get used to filtering out commercials during the evening news but once in a while one breaks through your defenses. At the tail end of a Levitra commercial Sunday they included sudden deafness as a reported side effect. Sudden deafness now joins the list of announced effects of taking whoopie pills, which already include seeing blue and inconvenient, hours long, priapus. To anyone aspiring to enjoy the erectile state of a 16-year-old, the last one should come as no surprise. That is if their long-term memory of one of the more embarrassing parts of being an adolescent male is still intact.

There are so many sides to this, the lax standards of drug approval in the aftermath of neo-classical economics, the direct promotion of dangerous drugs to the public - thanks to the idiocy of a Supreme Court more wedded to legal theory than observation of real life, etc. But the most interesting question is how far geezers, themselves, are willing to go to achieve rock hard erections into their late senescence. Would they accept having their head fall off, one wonders? Would they miss it? I’ve got to listen more closely tonight to hear if death is a reported side effect of aphro-geeziacs, by name or not. The answer may have already been reported.

I won’t extend this parallel to the mating habits of the Mantidae and risk adding to the performance anxiety which is the root of the issue. And some readers of this blog might still have to get through breakfast.

Race and Biology

2008-08-19T04:19:56+00:00

Ridwan blogs:

Last year around this time Nobel Prize laureate, James Watson, shocked the scientific community with his ludicrous claim that race is a scientific category.

Watson, you may remember, won the Nobel Prize for his research that led (in part) to the ‘discovery’ of DNA.

So, it is October again. Now comes a report that Akhil Bakshi, a fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society and celebrity photographer, is pushing the preposterous claim “that blacks, whites and Asians have different ape ancestors.”

No, Not Black Leaf!

2008-08-19T01:55:41+00:00

Lieutenant John Martini: Mazes & Monsters is a far-out game. Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming… killing!

Daniel: Hey, it’s all imagination!

Lieutenant John Martini: Is it?

–Mazes and Monsters

So people have started noticing the unbelievably bizarre insult being hurled by McCain flak Michael Goldfarb:

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

The “Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd”? Pardon me, but what the hell is Goldfarb smoking, because I need to get me some of that.

Look, we all know that D&D is likely to make you go insane, seek out the World Trade Center, and try to jump off while casting a spell that will give you superpowers and allow you to avoid making the movie Joe vs. the Volcano¹, but frankly, I’m not getting why this is suddenly an insult. At least not in the year 2008.

John Cole has some idea:

Is it to build up McCain’s macho street cred by attacking the nerdy Obama and his supporters? Are the religious nuts still convinced D&D is a tool of satan? Is there some sort of anti-D&D demographic out there that is the new soccer mom? Or is Michael Goldfarb just an idiot and forgot to vary his schoolyard insults?

My guess is that it’s trying to insult Obama for not fighting for his country in Vietnam, when he was twelve, or in a war he could have fought in, like Grenada. Of course, we all know that not fighting in a war disqualifies one from ever criticizing anyone who has fought in a war, on any topic, ever. And nobody would ever question whether an inaccurately retold story about war disqualified someone for the presidency. So this is totally understandable.

And yeah, it probably has something to do with a shout-out to the Christian right, who cling bitterly to the belief that four guys role-playing an attack on a giant spider represents evil Satanism, when what it really represents is America’s best hope for an abstinence-based reproduction program.²

Nevertheless, I don’t think this is an attack that’s going to fly. Look, Jack Chick aside, nobody actually believes D&D is evil anymore, certainly not anyone who would vote for Obama. I mean, the game system is 34 years old at this point. It was last scary around the time Mazes and Monsters came out, which made fear of D&D too hilarious to be taken seriously. There are grandparents out there who played D&D as college students, and a lot of parents who played it as kids. Attacking the D&D-playing Obama campaign is like going after the Yahtzee-playing McCain set — it simply doesn’t make any sense to anybody, anywhere.

Which is why I strongly encourage the McCain campaign to stick with it.

It makes more sense than the actual plot.
My character was Elven, Neutral Good, and a Mage.

tigtog

2008-08-19T00:32:15+00:00

A few months ago I posted an events notice for a MichFest Women’s Festival event in NYC. I screwed up big time in that original post by not including any text noting the trans-exclusionary policy of MichFest, which has excluded trans women as festival participants for many years.

I apologise unreservedly for neglecting to highlight this as part of my original post. We did discuss the issue in comments, and I did amend the post after some prodding, but I should have challenged the trans-exclusion from the start, or better yet not promoted the event at all.

Here’s the promise: I will not give any trans-exclusionary feminist event any promotion here in the future. If I do unknowingly post a link to some event that is trans-exclusionary, I will delete it as soon as I am made aware.

I am aware that this decision is likely to affront some trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), but it must be said: marginalising trans women at actual risk from regularly documented abuse /violence in favour of protecting hypothetical cis women from purely hypothetical abuse/violence from trans women in women-only safe-spaces strikes me as horribly unethical as well as repellently callous.

I wish that I had fully realised the callousness much earlier instead of initially regarding the TERF position as simply a regrettably prejudiced yet rationally divergent opinion. I’ve also come to view the arguments put forward to bolster the TERF position as logically inconsistent.(I go into much more detail about this conclusion over on my primary blog, Hoyden About Town, please comment on that thread if you wish to discuss TERF arguments.)

I would prefer that this thread be trans*centred rather than cis*centred, so please leave links to your favourite trans*activist and trans*accepting blogs in comments below. Which blogs are safe spaces for trans* women and allies to discuss the trans* experience of violence and marginalisation? Let’s discuss the violence that is levelled at trans* women and how it intersects with misogyny, race and sex-work to cause people to murder them simply for being trans*, rather than discussing the politics of gender transition here (you may discuss the politics of transition on my other trans* post over at Hoyden if you wish).

If you are a cis woman with questions about the trans* experience either personal or political, you’ll probably find more and better answers by lurking at some trans* blogs rather than through asking trans*commentors to do Trans101 for you right here and now. If you don’t know the names Angie Zapata, Kellie Telesford, Rosa Pazos, Ebony Whitaker and Sanesha Stewart at this moment, I suggest refraining from discussion on trans* issues until you know about how they died and have read some posts mourning them as people, not just news reports that treat them as freaks.

Here’s a few links to start with:

An open letter to cis-feminists: a post about cis feminists overlooking violence against trans women in favour of arguing about gender theories
Radical Feminism and Cis Privilege: dehumanising trans* women is not a feminist act
Questioning Transphobia: a blog devoted to discussing hostility towards gender transition

Bill Donohue Still an Idiot

2008-08-18T23:34:29+00:00

So, what’s Bill Donohue up to these days?

Over 120 blogs have been credentialed as members of the media for the Democratic National Convention; those who have received credentials are allowed to cover the Convention at the Pepsi Center. While most of them offer legitimate commentary, some do not.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is protesting two of the blogs:

“The list of credentialed blogs include radical sites like The Daily Kos. Worse are blogs that feature anti-Catholic and obscene material. The two most offensive are Bitch Ph.D. and Towleroad.

“On the home page of Bitch Ph.D. there is a picture of two children: one of them is shown flashing his middle finger. Today’s lead post, which was written August 17, is called ‘Jesus Christ.’ It begins with, ‘I’m a really crappy Catholic who hasn’t been to mass in ages because most parishes around here ‘will’ insist on being aggressively anti-abortion….’ The writer then objects to some children’s toys on the grounds that they are more offensive than desecrating the Eucharist.

Ah, so the DNC needs to kick Bitch, PhD out because she’s not a good enough Catholic for Bill Donohue. Not because she’s anti-Catholic; because she’s not the sort of Catholic Bill Donohue agrees with.

Of course, one might say that Donohue is engaging in pure religious bigotry here; by declaring that only anti-choicers can be acceptable Catholics, he’s personally excommunicating over half of American Catholics from the church. One might suggest that this makes Donohue something less than a spokesperson for Catholicism, and instead more a man who uses the specter of anti-Catholic bigotry to advance a conservative agenda. Then again, if you read Bitch, PhD., you knew that last year.

Modern Surgery and Patriarchy

2008-08-18T23:32:46+00:00

Right now, JusticeWalks has a post on her blog called “Anxiety” where she discusses her feelings about an upcoming procedure she will be undergoing. In it, she makes a connection between the body trauma associated with surgeries and the experiences of those women of color from our past who have suffered under patriarchal systems. She writes,

I am concerned about people having access to my unconscious body - seeing it, touching it, judging it - when I am totally unable to defend myself against insult or violation, unable to cover my burns or hide my disfigured hands and feet, unable to speak back in my voice, which has always obscured my hurt, but which has always gotten the more important point across, whatever it was at the time. I am pretty sure I will be menstruating when I have the procedure, and I am especially concerned about people having access to my unconscious, menstruating body.

However, what really struck me was where she wrote,

It almost seems like blasphemy, for me, with my protections of intellect and eloquence outside of these finite circumstances and barring trauma, to feel so haunted by the thought of spending a few hours of my life as vulnerable and exposed as some women spend their entire lives.

That really hit home for me. It made me consider something that I have only discussed with less than a handful of people in my life. Every time I am anesthetized, I wake up feeling raped. On the one hand, I know that I’ve agreed to the procedure, but that doesn’t erase the body trauma that I feel knowing that I have been handled, examined, cut, and penetrated—all while I was completely out of control and unable to withdraw my consent. I remember when I woke up from my third surgery and there was a catheter that had been inserted into me. I suppose I should have realized they would do this but I do not like the fact that, when explaining the upcoming procedure on my back, my chest and my neck, nobody mentioned the fact that I my vagina would be partially shaved and penetrated. To me, that just seems like something that should be specifically pointed out prior to any surgery where this might take place. I mean, should we just EXPECT to be penetrated while we’re unconscious? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over that. Even though I will be eternally grateful for how they saved my life, I still can’t help but think about it all.

My first surgery was performed by a black, female surgeon. That procedure didn’t leave me feeling quite as bad as the third surgery would later on. I wonder if the differences in my reactions were related to the fact that I knew that it would be a woman cutting and penetrating my body, a woman of color, just like me.

Go To The Mat, Kadymae!

2008-08-18T22:58:17+00:00

Big big BIG thanks to kadymae who wrote up a wonderful editorial in Sequential Tart discussing Rachel Nabors's on-going problems with her jaw and teeth. Kadymae has made a really incredible offer: currently, Rachel has $7600 in donations toward procedures she will need to have done to fix her mouth. If people push the donations up to $8k by September, Kadymae will donate an additional $500!

Thank you again, Kadymae!

Remember. And, If You Cannot Remember, Invent

2008-08-18T23:43:16+00:00

Hurrah! I can post!

Max Daschu explains how women have been left out of history.

We can, of course, either remember our history or, in Monique Witting's words, invent our history. Daschu opts for "remembering." And expanding our vision of power helps.

South Central Farm to Forever 21?

2008-08-18T21:32:05+00:00

This just in: Turns out the former site of the South Central Farm - where low-income, indigenous/immigrant Latino farmers grew food in the midst of a toxic industrial area for 14 years before being evicted two summers ago in one of the saddest, most maddening examples of private business interests trumping community and environmental good that I’ve ever personally witnessed - is being developed as a Forever 21 warehouse.

You know, that clothing company that was the subject of a national boycott for exploitative labor practices a few years ago? Turns out LA’s supposedly progressive mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa - who campaigned at the then-flourishing farm several years ago and claimed to support it, only to fail to find a way to help save it despite massive community (and celebrity) support, clear social and environmental benefits, and his own celebrated promises to “green LA”–“has received nearly $1.3 million in contributions and commitments from Forever 21 and its executives over the past two years.”

The former site of the South Central Farm has sat vacant for the past two years. The South Central Farmers are now growing food at a new site about an hour outside of LA. They sell food at several farmers’ markets in the area, and they recently set up a CSA.

(Background: A few years ago, I wrote several articles about the South Central Farm for the late and lamented NewStandard, including this history of how the community has used the land since 1985.)

The Sex Workers Rights Thing: An Overview

2008-08-18T21:15:05+00:00

I am one of those people who often believes in “never say never”. So, as such, I can’t say that maybe, one day, there will be no sex industry. Could be in the future there won’t be one. Who knows? I do not posses the ability to gaze into what has yet to be. So, as such, I look at the here and now when it comes to the sex industry and the people in it. All of ‘em. And in the here and now sense I do what I can do, with other folk who do the same thing. Hence, that whole sex workers outreach thing. And yep, there is a lot to talk about here, and it is not something that can be done in one sitting, so yes, over the next few days I will be breaking it up and throwing stuff on out there for consideration and discussion. I do want to say now though, because as this topic is really near, dear, important, and personal to me, I really would prefer it if shit stayed civil? I know, fucking shock of shocks coming from me, but these really are emotionally charged topics with real people behind them, and I will go ahead and state a few things so people have a general idea of where I’ll be coming from and what I will probably be posting on, just to avoid as much confusion and potential strife as possible.

And oh yeah, I am pretty sure this sort of thing is why I was asked to guest blog here.

I come from a position of harm reduction.

I am for decriminalization.

I do not see the industry as a monolith, thus aid and activism has to work on a need based agenda.

I believe there are people involved in the industry both willingly and unwillingly; hence, there are both sex workers and prostituted people.

I believe keeping any aspect of sex work, which involves adults, illegal is dangerous to the people involved in it.

I believe there is a great need to address the underlying causes which lead to forced or unwilling sex work, including drug addiction, class and racial bias, poverty, lack of education and job training, adequate living conditions and child care, and access to other opportunities.

I do believe that the people involved in the sex industry are marginalized.

I do think it is important to listen to the voices of all people in the industry, no matter their experiences, and that no one of us ever speaks for all of us.

And I do think something needs to be done.

So yes, that’s where I’m going to start, and it’s also the overview of what I am actually here to talk about. Yeah, I’m open to questions and stuff, but there’s my basic guest-blogging agenda!

Greetings from Mexico City/Brooklyn!

2008-08-18T19:41:03+00:00

Hey, everybody. I’ll be guest blogging here for the next two weeks.

Coincidentally, the timing of this guest blogging stint will expose the somewhat fractured (maybe “varied” is a better word) focuses in my life right now, which currently span a time-zone, language barriers, and a wide array of interests.

For the next week I’ll be blogging from here in Mexico City, where I live for two months out of the year, and where my girlfriend and I write Macha Mexico: A Lesbian Guide to Mexico City. It’s an English language blog meant to provide a more indepth look at dyke life in Mexico City than Lonely Planet can provide and we try to grow it little by little each week. (We also have to update old entries constantly to note which of our favorite venues have been shut down as police crackdowns and gentrification change the queer landscape here in the Distrito Federal.)

After this week I’ll be back in Brooklyn, New York, preparing for my fourth year as a math teacher in a “small” public high school where I am also a “health resource teacher,” a college counselor, and the advisor to an ever-growing gay-straight alliance.

I’m also a burlesque performer, have taught several burlesque workshops here in Mexico City, and just got back from a mini-tour with the burlesque troupe that was formed out of one of those workshops.

The content of my own blog is rarely explicitly political, but I hope to crosspost some interviews I’ve been doing with some interesting queers, feminists, and activists here in Mexico City. (Of course, I have to transcribe and translate them first…) I’m a relatively recent reader of Feministe, so feel free to link to older posts that address similar topics. Also, I apologize in advance for my terrible spelling.

I’ll start by plugging Generación Y, a Spanish-language blog that my girlfriend referred me to and that I’m just starting to read. It’s one of the only blogs being written in Cuba, where internet access is severely restricted. The English language version can be found here, plus a short article that the New York Times did about the role of the internet as a political tool in Cuba.

WORD

2008-08-18T17:16:58+00:00

Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun! - A Serious Note

Good essay about sexual harrassment at Comic Con. I'll add that this was a big part of the reason I had such a fun time at Yaoi-Con last year -- it's a VERY femme-friendly convention.

Safety, racism and guilt (by Suzie)

2008-08-18T17:52:48+00:00

This is related to what I posted Friday about women’s safety vs. men’s feelings. I want to go back to a well-known anecdote about Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. In his memoir, he wrote about her being so upset by an aggressive panhandler that she didn’t want to take the bus to work. His grandfather accused her of being scared of the panhandler because he was black. Obama talked to family friend Frank Davis, a journalist and poet.

Davis told the teenager that his grandmother was correct to feel scared because she understood African-Americans "have a reason to hate."

   In Obama’s speech on race, he said his grandmother “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street.”
   Did she fear any black man who passed her on the street? Is it possible that she would have been wary of any man, no matter his race, who pursued her for money?
   First Obama, then others, have discussed his grandmother’s fears to illustrate attitudes about race. But her fears also speak to the harassment women (of all colors) face on the street and in public transportation.
   I understand that it’s incendiary to talk about white women and black men. I’m not saying white women should fear black men more than white men. In regard to violence, women are more likely to be victims of men of their own race whom they know than they are of a stranger of another race. Nevertheless, if a woman (of any color) is afraid of a guy on the street, I think she has the right to be heard. Also, if a woman (of any color) has no problem taking precautions against a strange white guy, she should feel free to do the same when confronted by a man of color.
   This dovetails with a fascinating series I’ve mentioned before in which a writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer talks about many issues connected to her rape, including race. Joanna Connors is white; the rapist was black. She encountered him in a theater, and he was the only other person there.

I ignored my instinct not to trust a stranger, because the stranger was young and black, and I did not want to look like a racist white woman who automatically does not trust young black men. If he had been white? I'm not sure -- but I think I would have left.

In another situation, a white woman might have trusted a white man, and still gotten raped. Or, a woman of color might have trusted a man of color. Or, she might not have wanted to look afraid in front of a white man. You can complicate the scenario with different ethnicities or different rationales, such as a woman needing to do her job. No matter what, women who get raped may still feel shame in a society that second-guesses their decisions. Connors continues:

   The rape made me fear black men I did not know, especially young black men. I hated this fear. I tried to reason my way out of it, and I spent a lot of my time in therapy trying to overcome it.
   Finally, a psychologist asked me the obvious, common-sense question: "But do you also fear and avoid strange white men?"
   My answer was yes, of course. The difference was that fearing white men did not make me feel bad about myself. It did not make me feel like a closet racist. It did not bring me shame.

As in the previous post, I’m not saying women have to live in fear of, or distrust, all men all the time. Nor am I saying that whites should not examine their feelings about race. What I’m saying is: As progressives, let’s not forget women when we talk about civil liberties.

Aldermaston: Woman To Be Prosecuted Under Anti-Terrorism Statute in UK For Sitting (Quietly) On A Fence Holding A Flag With A Peace Sign On It

2008-08-18T16:46:33+00:00

From the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp(aign):

“Juliet McBride of Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC), will appear before Newbury Magistrates Court on 20 and 21 August charged with trespass on a nuclear licensed site under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA). Mrs McBride was sitting quietly on a fence holding a rainbow flag with the word “peace” on it, when she was arrested on 10 March 2007. Her action was to draw attention to the new developments at AWE Aldermaston in the week of the parliamentary vote which approved the development of a new generation of nuclear submarines from which to launch Trident missiles. Work on the building of facilities to test, design and build new warheads for the Trident system had, in advance of the vote, already commenced at Aldermaston.

The government brought in s.128 of SOCPA 2005 in order to criminalise trespass on sites designated by the Secretary of State. However, this is the first case in the country to be brought under s.128 as amended by s.12 of the Terrorism Act 2006 which criminalises trespass on a nuclear licensed site. According to the MoD in 2006, the introduction of this “offence will therefore protect the general public’s democratic right to protest by ensuring that any such protests are conducted in a safe and controlled environment.”

In her defence, Mrs McBride (who despite over 20 years of protest has no previous convictions at Aldermaston) will assert that the prosecution of a peaceful protester under this legislation is disproportionate, and violates the right to freedom of expression.

“Successive governments have shown they are determined to stifle democratic participation in decision-making about Britain’s nuclear weapons”, said Mrs McBride. ” This prosecution is yet another strand in that story…”

She will also challenge the MoD’s interpretation of the legislation to apply beyond the boundaries of the Nuclear Licensed Site. During debate on the Terrorism Bill, the Minister who introduced the amendment to SOCPA stated that “there would have to be substantial entry beyond the fence”and that “the individuals concerned would physically have to go beyond the fence”.

Other anti-nuclear and anti-war protesters have been prosecuted under s.128 at Menwith Hill, the US spy-base; Faslane, from where Trident nuclear submarines are deployed and - still awaiting trial - at Lakenheath, from where US nuclear bombs were recently withdrawn.”

Issue Brief on Certified Professional Midwives, and Nationwide Launch of the Birth Survey

2008-08-18T16:34:50+00:00

Four organizations, the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC), and the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM), have collaborated to produce an "Issue Brief: Certified Professional Midwives in the United States" which was released earlier this month. CPMs ...

[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!]

Get It Straight, Sil Vous Plait

2008-08-18T16:20:18+00:00

What the deal with how Elizabeth Edwards is being portrayed in the reports about her husband’s philandering?

It might not seem like a big deal to other people but, I just want to yell into the television every time I hear someone refer to Elizabeth Edwards as “terminally ill”. This woman is not dying, at least any more than you or I or anyone else is dying. Edwards is still walking around smiling and talking and taking care of her children. What more does a person have to do to be considered among the ranks of those still living? Can we stop with the news reports calling this woman’s cancer “terminal”? Please? Yes, she does have cancer, but it isn’t terminal. It’s incurable. There’s a helluva difference between the two.

Oh, and would it be too much to ask for these two jerks to just shut up?