Russian Judge Rules Sexual Harassment OK, Since it Ensures Continued Breeding of Human Race
It's just too much. All in one article, a complete refutation by example of why Evolutionary Psychology is bunk. See, if every action we take doesn't answer to that highest value, being, men making more little men by any and all necessary means, that action just isn't worth it. But any action that does? Rape, war and Viagra? Go right ahead, sir.
It actually is weirdly reminiscent of the bizarre arguments all the McCain surrogates are trying to make for his position that health insurance should cover Viagra but not birth control. Because sex is a lifestyle choice for women, but a god-given right for men. Except when men want it from their subordinates at work, at which point it is a requirement for women. MY BRAIN, SHE HURTS.
In other news, we got caught in a torrential downpour at the beach last night, work is funny, and the fam is coming to town. All in all, life is good.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Sally Field -- Force of Nature
I don't have real things to say at present, but this was too good not to post immediately.
Damn right, it's better than yours.
Anywho, work is good. Summer is good. My back is bad, but that's boring. I could probably watch Steel Magnolias a hundred times and not get tired of it. All those women! In it together! Even the grumpy one! Movies like that and Mamma Mia that allow for that joy of female friendship to be seen and celebrated are the small revolutions, I'm telling you. Plus, you know, they get the best actors [Shirley McClain? Meryl Streep? Dolly Parton? Oh hell yeah].
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
And another thing
Sorry internet, today was just too full of wonderful, I can't keep it all in.
Sadie broke in to the super glue. She got it all over her tiny head, and managed no permanent damaged, but looks as if she tried to style her hair like the most tragic of Israeli teenagers. It is priceless and I love her.
Isn't it funny how we use the adjective "evolved" to mean opposite things for people and animals?
Ex. animal: My, that lizard is so evolved! He does whatever it takes to survive, often to the detriment of his less able compatriots!
Ex. human: My, that fellow is so evolved! His yoga mastery, radiant inner peace, and positive influence on those around him are astounding!
So in a sense, we have evolved past Evolution, in the derogatory Social Darwinism sense; if that turn of phrase is to be believed, actions of survival in the cut-throat, dog eat dog sense are to be discouraged in favor of a holistic understanding of the best interests of a long-term community. I realize this is three towns past Wishful Thinking-ville, but I do believe that language has an intimate relationship with societal values and I hope to my core that we'll see a shift to a kinder and, well, more evolved sort of thinking.
People who are clearly far past the making sense mark include: me.
So I will leave you with this: Even if it is only once in your young life that you get to sit in a lifeguard chair in your skivvies in the wee hours of the morning, taking in the lake sounds and cool breeze, you are a very lucky girl.
Sadie broke in to the super glue. She got it all over her tiny head, and managed no permanent damaged, but looks as if she tried to style her hair like the most tragic of Israeli teenagers. It is priceless and I love her.
Isn't it funny how we use the adjective "evolved" to mean opposite things for people and animals?
Ex. animal: My, that lizard is so evolved! He does whatever it takes to survive, often to the detriment of his less able compatriots!
Ex. human: My, that fellow is so evolved! His yoga mastery, radiant inner peace, and positive influence on those around him are astounding!
So in a sense, we have evolved past Evolution, in the derogatory Social Darwinism sense; if that turn of phrase is to be believed, actions of survival in the cut-throat, dog eat dog sense are to be discouraged in favor of a holistic understanding of the best interests of a long-term community. I realize this is three towns past Wishful Thinking-ville, but I do believe that language has an intimate relationship with societal values and I hope to my core that we'll see a shift to a kinder and, well, more evolved sort of thinking.
People who are clearly far past the making sense mark include: me.
So I will leave you with this: Even if it is only once in your young life that you get to sit in a lifeguard chair in your skivvies in the wee hours of the morning, taking in the lake sounds and cool breeze, you are a very lucky girl.
Here We Go Again (My My)
RE: the ad on the side of my facebook homescreen, offering me access to humorous Jewish video content -- Why does facebook know I’m Jewish? I’m very sure I haven’t told them, or if I did, it was during high school. My current religion is definitely listed as “tries not to be an asshole,” which, let me tell you, is a demanding spiritual calling. But really. Are they just guessing based on my last name? Are they triangulating from my high school and university to some sort of hypotenuse of Zionist privilege? It’s freaking me out, man.
I could continue about chosen versus assigned identities and the historical significance of OTHER PEOPLE DECIDING WHO IS JEWISH, but I’m just going to leave it there. I don’t know if this is worse than the relentless weight loss adds (THIS IS WHY YOU’RE FAT), but it is indeed unsettling.
Also, I just had the most incredible movie-going experience of my adult life, and its name was Mamma Mia. Whoever sat in an exec meeting and had the guts to pitch "Meryl Streep making fun of herself for two hours, wearing overalls, accompanied by muscled boys in flippers" should be given a medal. Full disclosure: I only saw the first hour. BECAUSE: the bulb burned out in the movie projector, resulting in a black screen and the blaring soundtrack and, I shit you not, an IMPROMPTU DANCE PARTY / FREESTYLE SESSION until they (very civilly) ushered us out of the theater. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been so thoroughly filled with joy. I’m also pretty sure that movie was the secret feminist triumph of our times, but that’s hard to say without the ending and a significant dose of sobriety on my part. Ask me again tomorrow, ok?
I could continue about chosen versus assigned identities and the historical significance of OTHER PEOPLE DECIDING WHO IS JEWISH, but I’m just going to leave it there. I don’t know if this is worse than the relentless weight loss adds (THIS IS WHY YOU’RE FAT), but it is indeed unsettling.
Also, I just had the most incredible movie-going experience of my adult life, and its name was Mamma Mia. Whoever sat in an exec meeting and had the guts to pitch "Meryl Streep making fun of herself for two hours, wearing overalls, accompanied by muscled boys in flippers" should be given a medal. Full disclosure: I only saw the first hour. BECAUSE: the bulb burned out in the movie projector, resulting in a black screen and the blaring soundtrack and, I shit you not, an IMPROMPTU DANCE PARTY / FREESTYLE SESSION until they (very civilly) ushered us out of the theater. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been so thoroughly filled with joy. I’m also pretty sure that movie was the secret feminist triumph of our times, but that’s hard to say without the ending and a significant dose of sobriety on my part. Ask me again tomorrow, ok?
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The presumption that women are idiots, part seven thousand
South Dakota Abortion Script Goes Into Effect
Place me somewhere around hopping mad. Hopping.
The legislation which goes into effect immediately, since its hold has been overturned, requires doctors to read a script to a woman seeking an abortion no sooner than two hours before the procedure. The script is intended to do nothing less than guilt, shame, and humiliate women who are already, doubtless, in one of the worst places in their lives. It includes passages about the "constitutional rights" and a "constitutional relationship" with the fetus that will be "terminated." Constitutional rights? Like, THE RIGHT TO YOUR OWN BODY? Because yeah, women have that still, despite your best efforts, you fucking bastards.
Defenders of the measure like the script because it provides women with a "broad spectrum of information." Including, you know, the wrong and unhelpful kinds.
Never mind that fewer than 700 abortions a year happen in SD anyway. Never mind that hearing this script after coming to a painful and difficult solution with one's doctor could send harmful mixed messages about what the doctor thinks is best. Never mind the blatant intrusion of the outside world into a privileged space, the doctor's office. Never mind that no woman on the face of this earth is stupid or reckless enough to not "understand" the consequences of an abortion (No baby. Ok, we get it.).
Can you imagine a law like this being passed and upheld if it had anything to do with men's bodies? If they were required to run the gauntlet to get their tubes tied or ask for a Viagra prescription? Absolutely fucking not. Because the assumption, as always, is that women are somehow deficient in knowledge, the ability to make rational decisions, and accountability. This shit is blatantly unethical and makes me physically ill. Excuse me while I skulk to the kitchen to nurse my crippling depression with something greasy.
Place me somewhere around hopping mad. Hopping.
The legislation which goes into effect immediately, since its hold has been overturned, requires doctors to read a script to a woman seeking an abortion no sooner than two hours before the procedure. The script is intended to do nothing less than guilt, shame, and humiliate women who are already, doubtless, in one of the worst places in their lives. It includes passages about the "constitutional rights" and a "constitutional relationship" with the fetus that will be "terminated." Constitutional rights? Like, THE RIGHT TO YOUR OWN BODY? Because yeah, women have that still, despite your best efforts, you fucking bastards.
Defenders of the measure like the script because it provides women with a "broad spectrum of information." Including, you know, the wrong and unhelpful kinds.
Never mind that fewer than 700 abortions a year happen in SD anyway. Never mind that hearing this script after coming to a painful and difficult solution with one's doctor could send harmful mixed messages about what the doctor thinks is best. Never mind the blatant intrusion of the outside world into a privileged space, the doctor's office. Never mind that no woman on the face of this earth is stupid or reckless enough to not "understand" the consequences of an abortion (No baby. Ok, we get it.).
Can you imagine a law like this being passed and upheld if it had anything to do with men's bodies? If they were required to run the gauntlet to get their tubes tied or ask for a Viagra prescription? Absolutely fucking not. Because the assumption, as always, is that women are somehow deficient in knowledge, the ability to make rational decisions, and accountability. This shit is blatantly unethical and makes me physically ill. Excuse me while I skulk to the kitchen to nurse my crippling depression with something greasy.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Oh hey July, where you goin?
Do you ever find, in the reading of a number of novels or stories or poems in close succession, that there is a theme you can't escape? I remember my roommate putting down God of Small Things and, despite our mutual affection for the book, sneering "Again with the incest? Really?" Recently, for me, it's been all miscarriage all the time. It's popping up everywhere and boy is it depressing, because I know my family medical history and I know enough math to not like my odds. It's an odd thing to read next to the news, as well, where we have plenty to worry about on the Abortion Rights front. To hold both things in ones head simultaneously: the necessary right to abort for any and every reason, and the desperate desire to stop the pain of women losing children, is very difficult. Enough with the cognitive dissonance, I'm ready for a new season of Project Runway or something, get me talking about concrete things again.
As for the life of Dinah Fay, things are slowly picking up. I got a neat internship with CURE, a small nonprofit which raises money for epilepsy research. It's a small office to I get to be a fly on the wall and see what these people do all day, while doing menial work for them, which is just fine. Better than just fine. I am productive and around folks who know what they're doing and I get to be helpful, so really it is great minus the fact that there's no money, but whatcha gonna do.
Other than that, the goal has been to get at least two things done every day. This doesn't sound like much, especially when things that count include "update the blog" and "change the cat litter" and "get out of the apartment," but really it's a vast improvement. This summer is floating by pleasantly, and I don't feel obliged to make it do more than it is. I am seeing friends, devouring books, exploring the city a little bit at a time. I think this is what a life not in the arts looks like, despite the fact that in the real world people work more. I sort of like it.
Also, call your senators. Especially if they are Repubs. They're threatening to filibuster the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this week, which is some bullshit. If you like getting paid for the work you do, this might be a piece of legislation you should defend.
As for the life of Dinah Fay, things are slowly picking up. I got a neat internship with CURE, a small nonprofit which raises money for epilepsy research. It's a small office to I get to be a fly on the wall and see what these people do all day, while doing menial work for them, which is just fine. Better than just fine. I am productive and around folks who know what they're doing and I get to be helpful, so really it is great minus the fact that there's no money, but whatcha gonna do.
Other than that, the goal has been to get at least two things done every day. This doesn't sound like much, especially when things that count include "update the blog" and "change the cat litter" and "get out of the apartment," but really it's a vast improvement. This summer is floating by pleasantly, and I don't feel obliged to make it do more than it is. I am seeing friends, devouring books, exploring the city a little bit at a time. I think this is what a life not in the arts looks like, despite the fact that in the real world people work more. I sort of like it.
Also, call your senators. Especially if they are Repubs. They're threatening to filibuster the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this week, which is some bullshit. If you like getting paid for the work you do, this might be a piece of legislation you should defend.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Nothing worse than an "I told you so"
Except maybe an "I told you so" that can now be recorded, free of consequence, by the government and used against me in some sort of criminal proceedings as a result of any one of several loopholes in the new FISA bill, which passed this afternoon.
Three guesses on which way the Senators from Illinois and New York voted, respectively. I'll give you a hint: if Obama ran towards the center any faster, he'd be legally required to proclaim a hardy "meep meep." If she even thinks about taking an offer for the VP slot I will pull my hair out, we cannot afford to lose her in the Senate if she is one of only 27 to vote nay on that steaming pile of legislation. Protection from illegal search and seizure isn't even one of those debatable privacy rights, it is right there in the Constitution, but who asked me. Between this and Obama's late term abortion horseshit of late, I am all geared up to vote Green and not lose a wink of sleep.
To try and temper bad news with good, or at least with amusing, I enjoyed the federal appeals court that cited Lewis Carroll in their decision in favor of the rights of Gitmo detainees. I haven't read the poem, although with a title like "The Hunting of the Snark" you know it's on my list. The citation, "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true," is a pretty accurate description of the current media climate, wouldn't you say? I employ this logic regularly in repeatedly telling my roommates I will do the dishes, and I will say that it appeases in the short term. There's something satisfying to the implied admission that the current state of our civil liberties can only be conceptualized by a NONSENSE POEM. But when a major governing body quotes your work, that's when you know you've made it as a writer, for sure... I'd give my left arm to be referenced in anything written by Ruth Bater Ginsberg (swoon).
Three guesses on which way the Senators from Illinois and New York voted, respectively. I'll give you a hint: if Obama ran towards the center any faster, he'd be legally required to proclaim a hardy "meep meep." If she even thinks about taking an offer for the VP slot I will pull my hair out, we cannot afford to lose her in the Senate if she is one of only 27 to vote nay on that steaming pile of legislation. Protection from illegal search and seizure isn't even one of those debatable privacy rights, it is right there in the Constitution, but who asked me. Between this and Obama's late term abortion horseshit of late, I am all geared up to vote Green and not lose a wink of sleep.
To try and temper bad news with good, or at least with amusing, I enjoyed the federal appeals court that cited Lewis Carroll in their decision in favor of the rights of Gitmo detainees. I haven't read the poem, although with a title like "The Hunting of the Snark" you know it's on my list. The citation, "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true," is a pretty accurate description of the current media climate, wouldn't you say? I employ this logic regularly in repeatedly telling my roommates I will do the dishes, and I will say that it appeases in the short term. There's something satisfying to the implied admission that the current state of our civil liberties can only be conceptualized by a NONSENSE POEM. But when a major governing body quotes your work, that's when you know you've made it as a writer, for sure... I'd give my left arm to be referenced in anything written by Ruth Bater Ginsberg (swoon).
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