You'd Think Saying "I Told You So" Would Get Old

Dear American Women Moderates,
I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the one who said that your lukewarm opposition/nonplussment/indifference to a woman's right to choose would have repercussions. I tried really hard to convince you it wasn't about the scarlet-A abortion, but rather about you, as a human being, getting to decide your own medical destiny. You didn't quite see it that way. You only saw abortion which you though was icky. And that is totally your right. Lots of lefter-than-you women think it's icky. You're the Tipper Gores if you will, the "it should never ever happen, but if it does, we should acknowledge the tragedy and work to prevent it" people. And with such a contentious issue, many on the lefter-of-you were content to let you think it was icky while you didn't press to make it illegal. That way no one had to have an uncomfortable conversation.

But somewhere in the liberal elite bunker, someone who looks an awful lot like I do (this was a while ago, so fatter), was saying crazy paranoid doomsday stuff like: one of these days some idiot is going to try to limit access to contraception. "Don't be ridiculous!" You ALL said, "that would never happen. They're two entirely different things. No one could ever think that contraception should be up for debate!" Both you middle-of-the-road Tippers and you coastal hedonists.

I am so, so tired.

It was too difficult for all of you to separate your personal feelings and choices from what the letter and spirit of law should be. Because you, personally, wouldn't choose to have an abortion, you thought it was important to tell people that, to get that moral superiority bump. You didn't think it was hurting anyone because you still allowed that other women, the morally inferior ones, could choose to do it, but an upstanding citizen like you wouldn't. And you needed everyone to know that. Otherwise we could have mistaken you for one of those abortion-happy 10-stamps-and-the-eleventh-is-free people. I hope you feel really superior. I hope you are pleased that you took the high road and didn't stoop to saying something like, "medical decisions are private regardless of gender." You know, the way we do for Seventh Day Adventists. You didn't see it as a medical issue because you were so concerned about what people might think of you.

Welcome to the slippery slope. Now you have people in nearly normal states like Virginia proposing that before you get an abortion, you need an ultrasound. You know, the same way as when you go to the hospital to get a nail removed from your foot, you need a chest x-ray; the way you need a prostate exam before you can get a scrip for penicillin for your strep throat. And, I mean, only a crazy tin-foil hat person could have seen this coming. To say nothing of the resuscitation of a fifty-year old argument that The Pill is only utilized by women of loose morals (who, by the way, need fewer abortions).

So, I kind of want to know: how do you feel now? Are you able to continue feeling morally superior because your abject laziness has permitted this? Do you feel any sense of responsibility for prizing icky over equality? I kind of hope you don't.

I know, you weren't expecting that. But I am so beyond apoplectic about this that I've gone in the completely opposite direction. Ban everything! Allow any state that wants to turn a tax-paying, voting woman into a second class citizen because she has a uterus. Heck, propose that a woman can't even see a doctor without a male family member (father or husband) present. We women cannot possibly be expected to make those kinds of decisions on our own. We might choose incorrectly. Much like the mandatory ultrasound, having dad or devoted partner come to the doctor with me will make sure that someone understands what is about to happen to me, whether or not it's cancer treatment or drops for an eye infection. Those are heady issues that are way too difficult for me, with my uterus, to understand. It's the chief reason I'm so glad to have a husband.

I don't know how many years it will take before you revolt - I'm guessing somewhere around a Qadaffi-number of years, but perhaps you've had it too good until now and you need some serious oppression to make you rethink your priorities. You didn't realize that every time you personally denounced abortion that you were arming the enemies of all women with the weapon of: "polls have shown that most women disapprove of abortion, so no one cares if we outlaw it." And you laughed in the faces of the people who pointed that out.

I look forward to laughing at you.

Yours laughing maniacally from a pharmacy in Montreal,

Yelena

Woah, Did You Miss Me?

I have no good excuse. Maybe sun affects my ability to type. Then there's the pressure of needing something really awesome to come back with (which I don't have). And I don't really think either of us wants a digest version of the last 2 months, so I'll merely report on things from the past 2 days or so.

Issue #1: Fine, uncle, I give. The Du-Yos have, in fact, produced a baby that is teh awsum. I will stop making it about me and how old childhood friends' babies make me feel and instead say that seeing childhood friends interact with their very own My First Spawn is frickin adorable. For anyone (Antonio) hoping this puts us on Baby Watch, sorry: I like that after I hold others' babies for a while, I get to return them and not worry about fevers and developmental charts.

Issue #2: How often does a Facebook friend have to say some totally wacked out shit before you drop him/her as a Facebook friend? I understand that a varied social circle may be a good thing, but sheesh. Maybe I just don't personally air my wackiest thoughts on Facebook so I am more sensitive when I see people that do, but my fear is that what I'm reading (which is wacked out to me) doesn't even scratch the surface of their crazy, meaning I am secretly friends with someone insane.

Issue #3: Devoted partner and Amy intimated (said outright) that I do not need a large gravy boat shaped like a swan. Thoughts?

Issue #4: I am a 1010WINS addict for no better reason than I cannot stand listening to NPR and FM radio is a wasteland of the same 20 songs. As a result, I do get a disproportionate amount of my news from a 22 minute radio broadcast. But I do feel like the coverage is about as neutral as possible. So when I hear 1010WINS referring to things as "tax hikes" I get concerned.

Devoted partner has long said that Israel just has better PR than the Palestinians which is why it is politically inexpedient to EVER be seen to sympathize. I get that. I think the political right in this country whups the ass of the political left in the PR wars. Because 1010WINS, a neutralish deliverer of news, refers to the removal of tax breaks as tax hikes. Whatever you think of the move, you must know that it isn't a tax hike. Think of it like the end of the introductory period of your credit card. Your APR at the beginning was 9.0, but you knew when you signed up that the ACTUAL rate for the card was 18.0. When your year of 9.0 expires, you're not experiencing a rate hike, you're experiencing the end of your promotional period. A rate hike happens when your APR goes from 18.0 to 21.0, And yet the PR machine of the political right has EVERYONE talking about tax hikes. I'd respect it, if it didn't twitch me so hard. Forget about how I feel politically about this, it actually pisses off my proper-word-use node more. See also: pro-life is the opposite of pro-choice.

Issue #5: I must now admit that I am totally crushing on the royal couple. Cannot seem to get enough of them. Want her hair. And all her clothes. And want to buy devoted partner a dozen navy suits.

It Gets Better

These days I spend a lot of time in front of the computer crying. If you know me, you know it sometimes doesn't take much: the At&T and Folger's commercials are perennial crying favorites. I like to think emotional freedom is a trait I picked up at home: my dad's a good crier. We're all good criers. Some would say it's an ethnic thing, some would say it's political, I don't know what to think. I just know that it's always been ok to cry and that empathy was never greeted as weakness.

Well, for several years now, the internet has been trying to compete with TV for my tears and I blame Dan Savage. A couple of years ago it was this which just reduced me to a blithering mess. Upon rewatching, nothing has changed.

Now, more recently, it's this, the It Gets Better Project developed by Savage after a spate of suicides by gay or perceived gay teens. In an effort to give these kids some kind of support, gay adults, and quite a handful of straight ones too, have been making videos trying to explain that as crappy as adolescence is, especially if you feel on the outside of your society, it gets better as you get older and get to make your own decisions about where you live, whom your peers are, and how you want to live your life. To say this stuff is heartbreaking is a massive understatement.

However isolated I have ever felt (and I'll lump you readers in here with me - we're all super lucky), it doesn't even register on the same scale. While my immediate reaction involves fantasies of firearms leveled against those who disagree with me AND SIMULTANEOUSLY act against children whom they perceive as threats, my second reaction is just a sea of helplessness: all I feel that I have to give is money, and while I know the money is useful (donate here), I wish I could DO something. But all I have is compassion. I have nothing meaningful on which to draw and my rage isn't something I think would be therapeutic to share with people in real pain.

I try to understand how some people can be so utterly invested in the thoughts, actions, and lives of others; how they can think it matters so much that they would actively interfere in a stranger's life - I still don't get it. I mean, I've heard the explanations, but it has never rung true for me and so I don't even know how (other than with cleansing fire) to combat it.

So I'd like to thank the people who are making videos, who are sharing their lives with kids who think they have no life left to live. While I know emotion is preventing me from being as cogent as I'd like, I'm going to try and take a quiet moment to believe that not only will it get better for individuals, but for all of us; that we'll reach a time when this sort of abject hate is the exception and not the rule.

Monday Nopropos

As we prepare for our slightly spontaneous must-use-vacation-days-before-September-1 vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains, I wanted to dispense with several items.

1. I'm not feeling a lot of love and support vis a vis this trip. To a person, everyone I have told about it, including my beloved sibling, has looked at me incredulously. "What are you going to do?" "Are you, um, outdoorsy?" "Why are you going there?" When I respond with the hiking/rafting/boating/riding we hope to accomplish, the stares become even more incredulous. Listen, I know that I take pride in my Gucci hiking slingbacks and in things like hot water and television, but I would like to remind ye of little faith and great mirth that devoted partner and I, despite our girth, are some pretty outdoorsy types. Offending one and all, devoted partner has been known to call me Action Jew (apologies to Eddie Izzard from whom we shamelessly stole), or if we are being athletic in France, Juif d'Action. In fact, if we can jump on a horse, get in a kayak, or get to the top of something really high, chances are we will. Now it's true, we will not be camping, and that was my decision, but it was prompted way more by the inconvenience of hauling camping crap on a plane than it was any abhorrence of outdoor sleeping. To say nothing of the fact that we have abandoned the sloth of the shore for the wet, oxygen toxicity of beneath the waves. In the future, perhaps a smidgen more benefit of the doubt would not be unwarranted.

2. While I still believe the best future for the MTA lies in Mayor Bloomberg buying it outright and running it like a business instead of a slush fund, I would like to commend the current thieves and criminals for installing, in some stations, the board that updates passengers on when the next train will arrive. Yes, other cities have had these for ages, but I say better late than never.

3. Devoted partner is a far better interweb miner than I, coming up with tons of funnies which he shares with me. I now share some with you and also a serious one courtesy of Antonio:
* Not about OJ Simpson, surprisingly
* Not statistically sound, but tee-hee
* Roger Ebert and I are mind-melding

Happy Monday!

Fundamentalism

Last night, devoted partner and I read the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yeah we knew what it said, just not the specific words it used to say it. After all, American history class is, sadly, eons ago, and I am an American, I get to take this stuff for granted.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Read it again to let it sink in.

This is truly the greatest gift we have given to civilization.

I might go so far as to say this is the greatest gift anyone has ever given to civilization, and you know how much I love the ancients, Rome and Greece.

So we've found something I'm a fundamentalist about. These words. All of them. Interpreted as broadly as possible. Forever.

People who attempt to abridge these words, narrowly interpret them, claim the authors of this document didn't really mean what they wrote? Those people are my enemies. And frankly, they are yours as well.

Messrs. Stewart and Colbert have done a much better job than I could hope to these past few weeks detailing exactly how preposterous my enemies are, but it doesn't blunt them.

We all poked fun at former president Bush the 2nd with his admittedly laughable you're either with us or with the terrorists because that's a binary equation that is logically unsound. But this one isn't: you either believe in every word of our first amendment or you believe in none of them. It's like being a little bit pregnant, it is simply impossible. Change, abridge, hem-and-haw, ignore, pass over, denigrate, disregard just one part of that comprehensive sentence and you negate the whole. The same sentence that allows you to loudly disagree with something someone else is loudly saying allows that person to say it in the first place. Opinions and feelings don't enter into it.

We, all of us, have these rights - even Scientologists and vegetarians - and if you're not willing to uphold these rights for everyone, to my mind, you're not really an American.

We as a country have made our fair share of mistakes, lo these 250ish years, but this one we got 100% absolutely right. Anyone who doubts that has completely missed the point. And while I will uphold his right to doubt, it's a pretty heavy irony; an irony that eludes so many (I have the right to say that this person doesn't have the right to say...wtf?!?).

Defending these words is the most important duty an American has and many Americans have died doing so. The trickle-down effects of its dilution are honestly too awful to imagine which is why I'll be sharpening my pitchfork for when the angry hordes collide.

I hope you'll be there too.

Speechless...Well, Not Really

I like to think of myself as having a thick skin. Yes, there's a lot of really really bad stuff out there in the world, but I find little of it truly surprises me. And when it comes down to it, if I'm not surprised, I can't really be all that up in arms. After all, my Hobbesian view of the world anticipates truly bad stuff and considers it normal. But once in a while, something gets through and after reading the incriminating piece, I stand up from the computer and actually pace, feeling tears of rage well up in my eyes and the tiny particles of idealism I have left rupture.

And this one almost didn't reach me, a fact that my conspiratorial side is going to repress because it's not germane to the story, though I find it interesting that this didn't warrant a passing mention in the paper of record.

Read this. (Think the folks at the Guardian are a bunch of dirty pinkos? Fine, read this.)

No. Really. Read this. READ IT!

Seriously.

Then come back.

...

...

...

Now for the only important part of this case. The only part it seems both parties agree on: there was sex and it wasn't forced.

She says it. He says it. There was consensual sex.

After the fact, when she discovered he wasn't what she thought he was, it somehow morphed into non-consensual sex. The kind that sends people to actual prison where they can experience the gamut of non-consensual sex.

Now, before you reverse the ethnic makeups of this story and decide whether or not you think this argument would hold water then, please try, as I am DESPERATELY TRYING TO DO, to think about examples where race or ethnicity have nothing to do with it and ponder the validity of the following claims. It was rape because afterward I learned he was:

short

an a$$hole

a scientologist

a vegetarian

a meat-eater

a wwf fan

a bmw owner

a republican

a communist

in love with someone else

homeless

missing a toe

missing a kidney

not a member of mensa

not a graduate of an ivy

not a doctor

an undertaker

a gas station attendant

your best friend's ex-boyfriend from high school

Yeah. I'm done. This list could literally go on forever.

And before we get all high and mighty that this kind of nonsense would never happen here in our land of the free, let's make sure we truly believe it (he didn't tell me he was muslim/an illegal immmigrant/in favor of Obama's socialist policies). Cause I can't say with any assurance that I couldn't see some judge, somewhere in our great country pronouncing the same verdict which, while striking a vomit-inducing blow against equal rights SIMULTANEOUSLY weakens the definition of rape and, when the blowback comes, will negatively affect the actual victims of rape.

Rape is serious. And perilously open to interpretation. After all, if you punch someone in the face and later on that person discovers something about you he doesn't like or realizes he had one too many drinks, the punch doesn't suddenly become attempted murder. And as pissed off as I am at this woman and this judge, I am equally pissed off at women's groups who, in order to preserve the rights of actual rape victims, blindly side with any woman who changes her mind after sex and chooses to call what happened rape. Bad decisions are not actionable offenses. And, for all parties concerned, consensual sex after a 10-minute discussion in a convenience store is a bad decision. Women who don't own up to their own bad decisions shouldn't complain when they're not treated equally in other environments; after all, they just said they couldn't be held responsible for their decisions - they made themselves unequal.

Frankly, I don't even know what to do with this information. Yes, there's a lot of horror out there, but I expect most of it. In war, there will be war crimes. It doesn't make them any prettier, but it doesn't shock me to learn of them. This: a woman accusing a man (and a judge convicting him) of rape because she later discovered she wasn't keen on his ethnicity? Never saw it coming. Cannot even conceive of it. Which is my fault and naivete. But, jeez, what do I do now that I have this information? It turns out I bitch and moan and conceivably make myself ineligible for any job in the future that would find my opinions on this matter questionable.

I can only hope that when the dust clears, Saber Kushour has the mother of all civil cases against, well, anyone involved in his prosecution. After all, that's the American way!

No Middle East After Midnight

I don't purport to know how all happy families remain similarly happy, but I do know that couples find personal ways to minimize needless relationship tension. Whether it's making sure sex is scheduled, having separate bathrooms, or never ever allowing your parents or in-laws to spend the night, we all arrange our neuroses such that their impact on our happiness is tempered. Which is how devoted partner and I established the rule: No Middle East After Midnight. Back when I thought giving a damn would do me any good, we would argue long into the night. On weeknights. When we should have been rejuvenating ourselves for the next day. Finally, the bleary-eyed and highly irritable pair of us decided that there are just some topics of conversation that should not be part of our pre-sleep ritual.

We have, for the most part, kept to this over the past 8 or so years. I think we ran over a couple of times, but we haven't been up until 4am arguing about it in recent memory. In fact, we haven't talked all that much about it at all. Which is totally attributable to my change of heart regarding Middle East politics. Where I once cared very very very deeply and equally as vocally, I decided after one of the many ridiculous failures of communication/negotiation/weapons discharge that I hoped everyone in the region, more or less, developed amnesia/ebola and we could try again in 50 years.

Recent events have been grappling with my resolve to not give a shit. Which is how we ended up yelling at each other (albeit well before midnight) yesterday evening. Because in the grand scheme of things what we should really spend our energy arguing about is a fight neither of us has any blood or stake in.

But, since I don't want to actually talk this particular breed of politics here (mostly because my opinions in my circle are deeply deeply unpopular and I think if I'm going to lose friends I'd like to do it in a less pointless way), I was trying to come up with some pithy parable that would express my views. And then I realized that was pretty ridiculous too.

So I'll say what I said to devoted partner because I think specifics, in this case, really really cloud the issue - and the issue is cloudy enough as is. I know that capital-J Justice and capital-R Reality are rarely the same. It is a personal failing of mine that I am so fixated on the capital-J Justice issues when I could be seeing how just I could make reality. I'm also hamstringed by a fundamentally Hobbesian view of humanity where, in the end, without threat of repercussion, we're all deeply evil animals of the variety we tsk-tsk at when they're called Hutus and Tutsis (while steadfastly refusing to get involved). Some cliches, such as absolute power corrupts absolutely, are cliches because they represent fundamental truths. It makes it difficult for me to subscribe to the many nuanced rationalizations thrown around because, to me, they're so pathetically transparent.

So while I don't believe in utopia or buying the world a Coke while it links hands, I also don't believe that some people are fundamentally better than others. I think reality shapes us all, and in periods of extreme stress, it shapes us like cancer shapes healthy cells.

Fundraising Opportunities

Back in the day, when I lived on 110th street, CNN was a part of my daily diet. I woke up, turned it on, went to the computer, and spent 20 or so minutes availing myself of information. Sure, Paula Zahn annoyed me, and the other guy, Blinky (I don't remember his name, I only remember that he has a serious blinking frequency problem) was distracting to watch, but I felt that it was the 1010WINS of national and international news: 20 minutes and you were pretty good to go for the day.

Then September 11th happened and, like others, I spent a lot of time watching television. But after two or three months, I became pissed off, "Man in Nebraska tells local radio station he is positive terrorists will next attack his corn field. We have him live in the studio to discuss his national security concerns." So then I stopped watching CNN. Apparently just in time. As the cable news wars heated up, the news became unrecognizable and the news I was interested in was replaced, a lot of the time, with missing white girls and tornadoes. I went back to reading my news.

But every now and again I'll tune in just for a quick refresher. And I'm so glad this morning was one of those days.

You see, fellow Nutmeggers, our esteemed Senator Lieberman has given me the greatest gift of all. He has said something so utterly preposterous as to make your donations flood my nascent campaign office. Our senator, the guy we keep electing despite compelling reasons not to, has suggested that citizens of this country, if arrested on suspicion of being involved with terrorists while abroad, should be stripped of his citizenship so that he would not be able to avail himself of our legal system and could, instead, be sent to military court. (And I'll link to the FoxNews story so that I can't be accused of unfairness and imbalance.)

Let's try that again:

Joe Lieberman has penned a bill that would allow the State Department to strip a U.S. citizen of his citizenship if it deems him affiliated with a terrorist organization (for the sole purpose of trying him without, for example, due process).

Lieberman claims that this is no different from stripping citizens of their citizenship if they serve in a foreign army (and I've never quite understood how the kids who go play soldier in Israel for a year get around this). But, as with many things, nuance is important. If you join, say, the Botswanan Army, there's probably a piece of paper that you signed somewhere pertinent to that assignation. If, on the other hand, you end up (stupidly, and possibly with criminal intentions, though I like courts and such to make those determinations) hanging out with some guys at a mosque in Pakistan, we don't really know what your intent is. Yes, the war of the future is not going to be between uniformed soldiers of sovereign nations, but might this not be getting a little out of hand.

I will freely admit that I'm one of those "100 guilty men go free so 1 innocent man isn't falsely imprisoned" kind of people, but let me be more bloodless for a second (and check out my logic, voters): if allegiance to a foreign terrorist organization (TO) is tantamount to participation in a foreign military (FM), don't we then need to extend Geneva Convention (GC) rights and responsibilities to our dealings with foreign terrorist organizations? If TO = FM and FM = GC then TO = GC. Idiots.

But we don't want to be bound by the Geneva Convention when dealing with terrorists - they aren't members of, say, a foreign army, whom we must treat humanely, they're, well, terrorists. And if you join up with them you will be stripped of your citizenship the same way people who join foreign armies are.

It is obvious that, contrary to perception, we are willing to sacrifice quite a bit of essential liberty for temporary safety, I just think the esteemed senator may have drunk an especially heady brew of Kool-Aid on this one. And that it's probably time for retirement. And that you'd be way better off with me as your senator. (Full disclosure: I am pro-Mexican and anti-"wo Sie Ihre Papiere sind.")

I know that terrorism is scary.

But Joe Lieberman is scarier.

Real Women

Recently there's been some brouhaha because ABC and FOX passed on a Lane Bryant lingerie commercial. Whether or not the whole thing was a publicity stunt or FOX and ABC hate fat chicks interests me less than the reactions it has produced, both on the anarchic internet and in my mother. To paraphrase pretty much everyone, "ABC and FOX would rather show stick figures with bolt on plastic boingboings than real women."

Far from cringing, this kind of sentiment causes my blood to boil.

What in the bleepity bleep bleep bleep is a "real woman?" Want to know why Hilary Clinton isn't president (aside from some personality flaws)? Because women like to take the piss out of other women. Hate your thighs? Console yourself by saying that real women have jiggly thighs. Ok, I'm all for lying to yourself in the interests of self-preservation, but what, oh, what, does that make women with non-jiggly thighs? Fake women? What is she's slim, has fake boobs, but also jiggly thighs? Is she half-real? Half-fake?

This fanatic need to diminish other women who, let's face it, look better than we do because THEIR JOB IS TO LOOK BETTER THAN WE DO, is ugly, childish, and just plain wrong. One of my least favorite things to hear from people, whom I know are saying it to be nice is, "oh, I'm so glad you have curves like a real woman." Ok, in fairness, I'm glad I have curves too. I wish they were less filled with butter, but I like that in the figure lottery, I got the basic shape I got. But I like it because I like it, not because it may make me better or worse of realer or faker than someone else. My mother, a diametric opposite of me in the figure department, is no less or more beautiful because of this. My mother is beautiful because she has spent a lifetime embracing what she looks like and I am an aspiring beauty because she taught me this lesson. Which may have been difficult considering she had to send me first bra shopping with my aunt because she herself didn't own one. But to say my mother isn't a real woman because she has been slim her whole life is offensive. Oh, but maybe because a) my mom is old and b) she doesn't have fake boobs, she might get grandfathered in to the real woman category. But if my mother had gotten a breast enhancement, I don't know if that should have catapulted her from the stratus of the real. (And by the way, my mother was solidly on the side of the ABC should show real women crowd...)

And when your jeans are too tight, when your bust isn't full enough to flatter you in that awesome dress, when your legs are too stumpy for that short skirt, or your arms to flabby for that tank top, do you really, honestly, care how flippin' real you are? At that moment wouldn't you, somewhere, kill a man to look like Cindy Crawford or Angelina Jolie, or Taylor Swift, even if only for the evening? When I hear someone talk about real women, what I hear is deep, ugly insecurity. Because I am not perfect, I must be something else that purportedly perfect women are not. And that something is "real." Now I can feel better about myself because while she's perfect, she's inauthentic.

If we, as women, spent, oh one-tenth the time improving both ourselves and our lots in life as we do disparaging other women whom we envy, whose successes we don't understand and can't seem to emulate, I think the life of a woman would look radically different. And I say this as someone who has written about watching the Oscars and wondering why all these young famous people have crows' feet. Now I'll try to walk it back so that I appear ever so slightly less hypocritical, but the urge is in us all. Just, please, stop it short of trying to compliment me (or any other non-perfect woman) by dissing another woman. I'd like to get to a point where that sort of behavior is beneath us. All of us real women.

Being Entitled

Yeah, this one crops up a lot, most likely because I catch myself feeling entitled to things, hating myself for these thoughts, and taking it out on people who are less self-aware in their entitlement. Yesterday, this manifested itself in my doing something I NEVER do: commenting in a very public forum on an article. I know myself. I know that I have the potential to be exactly the kind of nutzoid who becomes obsessed with being an internet know-it-all and trolls sites on whose subject matter I can claim vague expertise and becoming a general menace. I know this about myself and I steer clear.

But this article got to me. I know it's so incredibly insignificant. Perhaps it only pissed me off because The Boy works in the industry and would promptly fire anyone who acted this way, or perhaps it's that now, seeing exactly what exemplary service is and how relatively painless it is to achieve, anything short really really bugs me.

I guess, as a very very very brief resident of a kitchen, and in an apprenticeship role, I don't quite understand the griping of servers. Who make at least double what the people who actually made the food make. And who are the first to sue when a restaurant tries to tip out the back of the house. Yes, in the end, the restaurants are to blame (if we're handing out blame) because everyone should make a livable wage.

But this is besides the point. What really irks me is that entitlement seems built into our culture in a way that seems greater than at other times (I'm not going to say than at any other time, but I think it inside - take that, Cicero). On the news this morning I was treated to a crazyperson soundbite from the NJTransit hearings, some woman bawling that she did not agree with the fare hike. Wow, what a shocker! Just like you didn't agree with the increased price of gas, the increased price of milk or orange juice or tomatoes, the increased price of a movie ticket. We get it. Left to their own devices, people would rather not spend money. But, much like my extreme peevitude at Cablevision and the fairness of ABC raising its prices, I don't quite understand what is achieved by bitching about the rising cost of life.

There is an undercurrent of, "I'm entitled to only pay a buck for the subway in perpetuity." Now I don't like when they raise the subway fare, but I know what my choices are: pay or walk. Now I know I am a have, and the people complaining are have-nots (albeit, frequently have-nots with iPods; cost of iPod: $250; cost of fare increase $.25; if not iPod, then 1000 subway trips, also known as about 2 years of commuting). But if fifty cents a day, or frankly a dollar or two dollars, is going to so severely affect your ability to feed, house, and clothe yourself, doesn't it stand to reason that something much much worse is happening, and that perhaps you should direct your energies towards something more important than transit fare hikes? If you can't live on your wage, you should be working tirelessly to raise it. Whether that means lobbying for a minimum wage hike - which we desperately need - or coming up with some other idea (tax rebate for commuter costs, for example), I think that it's futile to think that prices will remain stagnant.

I listen to people I know, some of whom I agree with, and others of whom I don't, debate current public policy without addressing the core cultural obstacle to change: us. The ideal of the American Dream, however 50s and pollyanna-ish, has become something that gets handed to us, not something we have to do anything to achieve. And if that makes me sound more conservative than you're used to, it isn't, really. The minimum wage worker who busts his ass and still can't get ahead? I want to help him. Help him so that his kids might not need to work a minimum wage job. But the person who doesn't take the minimum wage job because it's not enough money for all that work. He can go pluck himself.

Whether or not I support public health care (which I think I do, just not this iteration), I HATED the rhetoric that health care was a right, an entitlement. It just isn't. Elevating something to the level of inalienable is a dangerous thing to do and it breeds complacency. It would be nice if everyone had decent health coverage, but it isn't a right. It isn't something that simply by being born one is entitled to. Something can be important, be the right call, be necessary, without having to be a gimme putt. I would say a better argument is that, having worked hard to make the nation great, we have EARNED a public health care system that can take care of all our citizens - that's how I would have spun it (let's, for the moment, leave aside the particulars as they are fodder for endless argument and think, instead, of the IDEA of public health care, not this particular implementation).

And, while I'm completely all over the place with this, it's what was the final nail in the coffin of my American Idol addiction. Choosing, and it's still a choice, to be a single mother at 18 does not, in any way, shape, or form, mean you deserve to be on television and get a record contract. You made a shitty choice. You deserve to live with the consequences, and no one owes you anything simply because the shitty choice you made is hard.

But I'm happy your kid will get to go see a doctor from time to time.

It's The Free Market, Stupid

Capitalism is one of those things I take for granted. Having never lived in a non-Capitalist society, I don't much think about it (also, I am no longer 16, and therefore deeply skeptical of Marxists). We can debate the finer points of how capitalism intersects with social policy, but for today, I'm more concerned with business vs. business/business vs. consumer, and not the oh-god-I'm-so-over-it capitalism vs. healthcare vs. socialist-fake-Muslim-presidents.

Over the weekend, while the TV was being used by devoted partner, cutting into my DVRed Olympic schedule, I took some time to answer a push poll sponsored by Cablevision, my utterly useless cable provider. How do I know it was sponsored by Cablevision? Because even neolithic man would have been able to suss out the subtle leading of the questioner. Over the new year, Cablevision caused me great personal distress by discontinuing HGTV. The company that owned HGTV wanted more money, Cablevision didn't want to pay for it, I ended up having free time and no Property Virgins. This matter has since been solved. To my satisfaction as now I have the channel back. Well, while I haven't been paying attention, apparently there's going to be trouble with Cablevision and ABC, who also wants more money for broadcasting rights. In an effort to shore up my support, Cablevision paid some company a lot of money to write and administer a survey guaranteed to raise my hackles and spur me into action against the evil empire of ABC.

Except for the itsy bitsy problem of my being smarter than, say, tree bark.

Question: "Don't you think it's unfair that ABC wants to charge 40 million more dollars for the right to broadcast it's channels on Cablevision?"

Well, that depends. How many Cablevision customers are there? Ok, a quick google tells me 5 million. So ABC wants 8 more dollars from me this year for ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, and whatever other channels they own that I don't watch anyway. Or 66 cents a month. Hey, that doesn't sound outrageous. Did you think I'd be tripped up by that very large 40 million number?

And wait a second, what's fair? ABC has a product. Cablevision's customers presumably want it (not me, of course, I am merely a cable customer because, when bundled with my phone and internet, it's literally like 10 extra bucks a month to get cable so I can watch Jon Stewart and the Olympics). So if Cablevision wants to continue to purchase a product on behalf of customers who want it, Cablevision will have to pay the asking price. It'd kind of be like my going into the Manolo Blahnik store and asking the salespeople if they don't think it's unfair that a simple pair of leather pumps costs $500. Maybe it is, but that's the price and if I don't like it, I don't buy the product. I only took one econ class in college and cut many of the individual lessons, but I think there's probably a word for this phenomenon.

Question: "Don't you think it's unfair that ABC will use the increase to bailout its failing holdings like Walt Disney World?"

Well, holy poop, you used the loaded word bailout. Since I might be deeply frustrated with the government bailout of Wall Street (sitting here on good 'ol Main Street), I will naturally hate any company that wants to bailout anything. Right? Ooooh, except, again, if ABC wants to use its profits to shore up a failing holding, while I might not agree that it makes good fiscal sense, seeing as I'm not a stockholder, I don't give a pluck. ABC, as an independent company, is pretty well free to use its earnings for whatever it wants, including magic beans. Fair doesn't even enter into it. And even if I was a shareholder, if I didn't like the magic bean buying policy of ABC, I could sell my shares.

Question: "How upset would you be to no longer be able to watch Oprah."

Well, now we've reached the crux of the matter, haven't we? It's not a question of whether or not I'd be upset, it's how upset would I be. Sadly, this is where the survey hit a dead end. While I could talk at length about how I thought ABC had the right to charge whatever it wanted for its goods and services, when it came to wondering about my upset threat levels vis a vis lack of Oprah...well, I'm sure you can imagine. Note: I have never watched an episode of Oprah. When the nice survey-lady asked me how often I watched ABC, I had to remember the last time I DID watch ABC - it wasn't until she reminded me that the Academy Awards are on ABC that I could tell her, yeah, I tuned in last year.

I don't like intellectual laziness, which is what this survey was hoping to capitalize on. The bottom line is that ABC would like 66 cents a month more from each of Cablevision's customers. Cablevision has every right to pass that increase on to me or absorb it at the risk of seeing people switch companies. I then can choose to pay more or choose to make alternate cable arrangements. This is how our system works. I never thought it mattered to me much until I was asked, in no uncertain terms: don't you think it's unfair for companies to charge money for their goods and services and to increase the amount of money as they see fit and as the market will bear?

What the hell have we become? I think it's unfair that money doesn't fall from the sky! I think it's unfair that devoted partner and I have to work to pay for the things we want as opposed to just being given them. I think it's unfair that I PAY FOR CABLEVISION AND IT STILL CAN'T RECORD A SHOW WITHOUT THE DAMN BOX RESTARTING IN THE MIDDLE. ABC raising its prices this year doesn't show up on my top 1000 unfair things.

Wednesday Nopropos (Political)

Perhaps it's that I went to bed at 9:15 last night, but I'm a little scattered today.

While watching Monday night's Daily Show wherein Jon Stewart lambastes the democrats for, well, being totally ineffectual, I confess I gave a bit more serious thought to challenging Joe Lieberman for his senate seat. Yes, let's all overlook the obvious for a second (I have barely managed to hold any job for more than a year, and not one of them has even been tangentially related to representing a state's concerns in congress to start), and talk about putting together my exploratory committee. I think one of the main problems with politics is the idea that our elected officials spend most of their time trying to remain our elected officials. A senate term is six years and my guess is, short of doing something actually illegal, they can't throw you out. I could campaign on giving free cookies to every Connecticut resident and then get into office and propose a bill banning cookies, and there's nothing anyone could do. I think the reason we don't see people taking chances or, frankly, calling out their colleagues for being spineless wimps who are afraid to take a hard position, is that they are all worried about getting reelected.

I wouldn't be like that.

Six years would far outstrip the time I spent at any other job and I am willing to be that I'd be bored by the end of it (or burnt out), so six years would be enough time for me to be a senator. This would give me the freedom to talk out of turn a little - like a Ron Paul with way better legs. I'd consider running as an independent so I could take both sides to task without worrying that Chuck Schumer wouldn't sit with me at lunch. Now, I realize that any rational person reading this (especially any rational person who may or may not have ever seen me act in a way that is not strictly "within the law") is worrying if I'm off my meds. After all, senatorial campaigns (hell the campaign for alderman) are incredibly expensive and I'm still paying off student loans. But isn't there still the useful fiction that in America one can lead a grassroots movement? I could be that grassroots movement! So, what I'm saying is, start seriously considering donating to my campaign.

One thing that might ruin my credibility with the left is a little disturbing tidbit passed to me by darling Antonio. He sent me a link to a brief segment on the O'Reilly Factor wherein (did I just use 'wherein' twice in one posting? It is a useful word when you think about it) it could be noted that Bill and I are in a kind of creepy agreement vis a vis Haiti. Now Antonio, who is hoping beyond hope that my senatorial campaign is more about shooting wolves from helicopters and less about, say, helping people, thought this would be an excellent springboard to convince me that Bill O'Reilly and I are more aligned ideologically than is actually true. One of the things I can't stand about modern politics, modern news, modern punditry, is the idea that all blanks think blank. Contrary by nature, this is grossly offensive to me. While chuckle-inducing in the short-term, I'm not super surprised that there is an issue, nay probably issues, where Bill O'Reilly and I can find common ground (I mean I would be willing to bet that both Sarah Palin and I think that intentionally poisoning retarded people is wrong - see we agree).

However, in the same clip, O'Reilly goes on to say something to the effect of, "see here's where the liberals blah blah blah." Wait a tic. I'm nominally liberal and we were right there together, Bill, why do you want to then make the discussion about how liberals as an undifferentiated group do/say/think/are anything? I know it makes for good television, I just wish our politics weren't so constantly televised that it became good politics as well.

So, creative types out there, start trying our slogans (it has been pointed out to me that, "Hey, I couldn't possible suck more than Joe" is not all that catchy). Together we can a) gainfully employ me for six years and b) change the face of American politics.

Cause Celebre

When cherry-picking culture and tradition as I do, one has the opportunity to craft a personal code that embraces only those things one deems important and worthy of dissemination. From all the years of indoctrination, the one principle of jewish tradition that resonated most strongly with me was the jewish attitude towards charity. I can think of a number of reasons for this, but the easiest one to point to is that I have been the frequent recipient of a very jewish form of charity throughout my life.

Charity is a very important part of traditional jewish life, some would argue it is the most important part, and not just any charity. A list making people (read the bible, it is full of lists) the jews of olden times made a list of ways to be charitable from least to greatest, and I am recounting them here:

1. Giving begrudgingly
   
2. Giving less that you should, but giving it cheerfully.
   
3. Giving after being asked
   
4. Giving before being asked
   
5. Giving when you do not know the recipient's identity, but the recipient knows your identity
   
6. Giving when you know the recipient's identity, but the recipient doesn't know your identity
   
7. Giving when neither party knows the other's identity
   
8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant

I like this list.

A lot.

And I'll explain why it is of particular significance to me. I was a scholarship student for all thirteen years of my Dalton education. I got a lot of scholarship. There would have been no other way for me to attend what is, I believe, the most expensive private school in Manhattan. I don't know whose donations put me through school, though I suspect that, through their giving, most of my friends' parents paid for my education. How nice it was, though, to be able to be a kid in a good school and not always know that it was by the grace of specific people. What a wonderful thing to not have that feeling of being beholden. I might add that this experience engendered two things: the first is that I give what I can whenever I can back to the school so that someone else can benefit and that both my brother and I have a lottery-winning pact that involves an immediate endowment of a scholarship fund.

Now what is not on this list, but is of importance to me, is giving without making a big fat deal out of it. Whether or not the recipient knows, if you are a person who gives and then broadcasts your giving in a self-aggrandizing manner (as opposed to broadcasting for the purposes of encouraging others to give as well), I find your giving to be somewhat tainted. As if you gave not because the giving itself was sustaining, but to be acknowledged for what a generous and selfless person you are. Yes, you gave, but I would call that giving grudgingly - as if the giving was a byproduct of your ego.

This little moralizing is a result of something that bothered me (I willingly admit it bothered me more than was strictly necessary) in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. There were two kinds of reactions to this tragedy (more on this later): the first was the "please donate to Haiti relief;" the second was "oh my god I am so sad about Haiti I have been upset all day my thoughts and prayers are with all Haitians we are all one planet today."

There is not a single Haitian currently buried under rubble who gives a shit about how YOU feel! This is not about YOU. Using a disaster to broadcast what an empathetic do-gooder you are is disingenuity at its worst. Shutup and pay the nice people at the Red Cross if you feel so strongly about it.

Now for the controversial part. WHY do you feel so strongly about it? An earthquake killing people in Haiti is the most normal way people have been killed in Haiti in ages. Haiti is a cesspool and has been for your entire life. Where was your sadness on Monday? Haiti is easily the worst country in our hemisphere - disaster relief isn't going to help that. Which is not to say we shouldn't contribute to disaster relief. But the outpouring of, frankly, crocodile tears over a natural disaster in a place that is a manmade disaster is unbecoming. Again, I am making a distinction between caring about the plight of the Haitians by making a donation and seeming to care about the Haitians while making it more about how much you care about Haitians.

The world can be a deeply shitty place most everywhere. The difference is that when an earthquake hits Northridge, California or Kobe, Japan, since neither of those places is a hellhole on earth, once the rubble is cleared, and the mourning finished, life in those places isn't unbearable. In two weeks or two months, once the aid agencies have left and the streets are free of rubble and body parts, Haiti will still rank among the places human beings would least like to be. I wish that we, collectively, could spend more time in between natural disasters donating our time, our money, and our well-wishing to making places like Haiti, like Sri Lanka (remember all the people who died there in a natural disaster? when was the last time you even thought about Sri Lanka?), livable. So that a natural disaster would be a temporary sadness in an otherwise decent place. We're not ever going to stop earthquakes or hurricanes or volcanoes; reacting to their impact and leading the victims to believe we give a shit on a grand scale when we only care for the duration of the news cycle, is, at best, unbecoming.

It's ok to be overwhelmed by the seemingly unsolvable problems of our age. I wish I felt there was a little more honesty in our reactions to these crises. It's ok to say, "jesus christ, I know I should do more all the time, but it's really hard. In the meantime, let's all pitch in and send a couple of bucks to the red cross. It must especially suck in Haiti right now." It's also ok to donate without fanfare, when you can, what you can, even when it's not a reaction to an immediate problem. Like I've tried to make clear, it's not like Haiti's problems are going away.

True Believers, Doubt, and Clubs I Don't Belong To

I watched Food Inc. over the weekend while devoted partner went to see Avatar (the key to a successful relationship is knowing how to consume media alone that your partner would sooner swallow his own tongue than consume with you and vice versa). If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma you don't need to see this film (and if you haven't read it, you should). I really liked the book. I mean really liked it. Liked it enough to change my eating habits. Really. And I liked the author, Michael Pollan, for taking the time to research and put together a compelling, intelligent book about an important issue.

Well that was then and this is now.

Remember that South Park episode where everyone gets a Prius and can't get enough of the scent of his own flatulence?...

Well Pollan has gone from someone who wrote a book I liked to someone I cringe at when I see on television. It honestly doesn't help that he looks like a proto-Trotsykite, but he comes across as someone who doesn't allow for modifications to his ideas. Like someone who is convinced that his way is the only way for everyone everywhere and that people who don't agree are not only wrong, but dangerous. He comes across like a...

like a...

like a conservative republican.

For my part, let me say that I don't want to eat cloned food or GMO food or food that comes from McDonald's. Some of these things have good reasons, others don't, but they're my reasons (which devoted partner is sadly subject to more often than perhaps he would like) and I'll live by them. Unless we are ok with the death by starvation of lots and lots of people (Indians, Africans, etc.), we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that GMO food allows us to literally MAKE FOOD WHERE ONCE THERE WAS NO FOOD. I'm sure if you ask a starving person to choose between no food and cloned food, the person will choose cloned food. Even if, ultimately, science points out that this was the wrong decision, for the time being, those are the choices. For poor people. Chalk up another win for being not poor. And frankly, it smacks a little of paternalism to tell poor hungry people that the food we COULD give them is bad and ruins the environment and causes a whole host of problems. That starving poor person DOES NOT CARE. Pollan's argument that we SHOULD pay more for better food is only compelling if you have that option.

So here's the problem: I am a pretty liberal person. I agree with Michael Pollan about a lot of things. But I am unwilling to blindly follow him when I disagree with some of his points. Furthermore my disagreement with some of his points does not mean I don't find MOST of his points highly agreeable. Yet my disagreement with some of his points can lead his opponents to show that there is dissension in the ranks. Dissension, even measured, open-to-debate, searching dissension is a sign of weakness. The traditional wisdom (or traditional politics these days) stipulates that unless you can get on board 100% with your talking head of choice, his message isn't strong enough. Any disagreement discredits him.

Which brings me to the clubs I don't belong to. Spend fifteen minutes with me and you'll probably come away from it realizing I don't like groups. In fact, you might determine that I hate groups. That I think groups are the root of most evils. That were we to come up with a Linnaeus system for culture, mine would look like this: Human -> American -> Dalton Alum. Those are about the only three groups I am comfortable belonging to (an argument could be made for New Yorker, but again, seeing as that, of necessity, includes people from the non-Manhattan boroughs - ok, so I could include Manhattanite, but that would, of necessity, include people like the characters from Sex & the City - see how it gets complicated?). I might agree with a majority of the democratic platform, I might be a registered democrat, but I would never define myself as Democrat. Because in doing so I am telling people something about myself that isn't true: that my identity is mightily impacted by participation in that group. That I see my identity through the lens of that group. See also: feminist, environmentalist, libertarian, jew, liberal, etc.

A lot of this is probably narcissism of the no group defines me I am unique and special unto myself variety, but I spent too much time growing up being part of groups without a choice and I saw exactly how much time was spent ensuring that members of said group remained members of that group. That the primary aim of the group was to remain a group. It didn't take long for me to call shenanigans on that. (It was the same feeling I got when I worked for a non-profit, but my boss refused to take public transportation and instead charged her cabs to the organization - another 30 bucks not used for its mission.)

And this pains me. It pains me because I think Michael Pollan is more right than wrong. Hell, I think President Obama is more right than wrong, but because I, knowing full well that my lack of full-throated support (on the macro level) is ultimately detrimental, can't seem to muster the strength to jump on the bandwagon, I fear that the things I believe in are destined to fail because the opposition is so incredibly willing to blind itself for its causes.

And just to go back to Food Inc. for a second. The moment that really got me, that really really made me shit-tossing mad was this: a statistic was quoted that in 1970 (or 1972) the USDA made something like 25,000 inspections of meat processors and in 2006, they made 9,000 something. In the VERY NEXT SCREEN, we were told that in 1970 (or 1972) there were over 1,000 companies processing meat and that in 2006 something like 98% of all meat was processed by 4 companies. Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Wait...

OF COURSE THERE WERE FEWER INSPECTIONS IF THERE WERE FEWER COMPANIES DOING THE JOB! I MEAN OF COURSE! IN FACT IF ONLY FOUR COMPANIES WERE INSPECTED 10,000 TIMES, THOSE COMPANIES WERE ACTUALLY INSPECTED MORE FREQUENTLY IN 2006 THAN IN 1970!

[end crazy]

Yeah, what I just said does nothing to excuse the meat companies from continuing to turn out tainted meat, but the statistic that was supposed to make me gasp in horror, was just plain misleading. The kind of misleading bullshit that the right uses ALL THE FLIPPING TIME. I just can't get on board with that. And the fact that a documentary whose sole aim was to say things I agree with would resort to such intentionally clumsy and lazy crap made me want to cram out of season strawberries down my gullet like they were going out of style just for spite. Counterproductive, I know.

So in short, my dear friends, and those new enemies I've picked up in the last paragraphs, I have a Caesar's Wife Should Be Beyond Reproach problem, and it prevents me from getting on board with groups, both formal and informal, whose platforms I agree with. And if I'm having this problem, I suspect others are too. It might be the reason why the left is always accused of being all over the place. We are. Nuance is our vice. Doubt our bedfellow. But I don't think the answer, the long-term answer, is to become as imprecise and disingenuous as the right can be. I'd like to posit an alternative, but I sadly don't have one at the moment. I'm working on it.

I Am So Pleased To Have Become Apolitical

These days, I get my news from Jon Stewart. I'm not going to be proud or ashamed of this, it's just the way it is. My general stress level is down, I think (I used to also get my news from Bill Maher, but we decided against premium cable in the new house because there was still never anything on). Oh, from time to time, I'll lazily scan the New York Times, but I feel like if anything truly important happens, someone will be sure to tell me. Crap, that's a lie. I listen to 1010WINS in the car but that is only because metro fm radio stations are such crap. If it's really important, I feel like 1010WINS might mention it.

I bring this up because, after his traditional holiday hiatus, Jon is back, filling me in on the things I've missed. The Daily Show pokes a lot of fun at Fox News and I generally laugh along, but it's the laugh of the uninitiated. Because, I've never watched Fox News. Never. To be fair, I've also never watched MSNBC. When I really need a fix, my channel has always been CNN, and one of the reasons I no longer watch television news is that CNN has turned into such utter crap, I no longer have the time to sit through the 55 minutes per hour of lame prattle in order to discover the 5 minutes of news. I guess if it was really important to me I'd watch BBC International news, oh, but wait, the Cablevision Suck Monolith does not think I deserve BBC channels.

I digress.

Sort of.

So, here's the thing. Do the commentators on Fox News actually behave the way they do in the Daily Show clips all the time? Does Glenn Beck make it a habit to fake choke up and cry on air when he laments the end of days we are living through? Really? That's almost commendable. Grown men crying is certainly entertainment. But, do the viewers who agree with him (for the moment let me not judge them) think he's real crying, or do they understand it is fake crying and are ok with that because it's fake crying to prove a point? Cause his acting acumen might be sub-Peter North (shout out to my college roommates - you know what you did).

I do have concerns, though, about my newspeople making a habit of ostentatiously emoting, though. Will this bleed into news I might watch? I can't really get behind Tom Brokaw or Brian Williams or, even Wolf Blitzer breaking down in the middle of a newscast. Now, if I understand correctly, Glenn Beck's show is not a newscast, more of a (hell, I don't even know how to categorize it - frankly all the cable "news" shows are confounding. What are they?) newsy program, so perhaps he can get away with things that anchormen could not, but then I guess I would ask for the cable news networks to hire, well, actors. My feelings on having actors be president (not with any decision-making power, mind you, just the speaking figure-heads for the shadow government; cause actors can read off scripts well, project their voices, seem interested and engaged) are well known, but perhaps we need them to deliver our news, commentary, and newsertainment as well because at least their feigned righteous indignation would seem real.