Belly Busting

This story caught my eye because just two days ago, Spousal Unit and I were walking around at the local shopping mall when we happened upon a small kiosk offering belly-dancing accoutrements for sale. It was wonderful: There were sheer scarves that felt so soft to the touch, a collection of instructional videos (which I want for my upcoming birthday), even those marvelous brass finger cymbals known as zils or zagat. SU made a comment about how cool it would be to sit in an Egyptian or Moroccan club to watch a bevy of gorgeous exotic women twirling around. I had to agree wholeheartedly.

Well, if we ever get to Egypt, it appears we may be limited to gawking at local talent. The Associated Press reports that the Egyptian government has banned all foreign belly dancers.

The government says it wants to protect homegrown practitioners of the seductive Middle Eastern dance form and is no longer granting new work permits to foreign dancers or renewing existing ones.

The victims, who include Europeans and Americans, say it's unfair and illogical, and they are backed by one of the Arab world's most respected dancers, Nagwa Fouad, who is urging the government to reverse its ban.

"There is not enough Egyptian talent, so obviously people need foreigners," says Palestinian-born Fouad, who retired from dancing in 1997 after a career of four decades.

"There has always been a mix of Egyptian and foreign belly dancers here. Why should this change?"

What makes the move particularly curious is the fact that Egyptian society is growing less comfortable with the idea of scantily dressed Muslim women gyrating in public. That being the case, it does not make sense to boot willing non-Muslim performers.

But government officials say morality is not the issue. "Belly dancing is an Egyptian thing and is not a hard job," Nawal al-Naggar of the Ministry of Labor and Immigration told AP. "It is not hard to find belly dancers from Egypt. There are too many foreign belly dancers in Egypt working at nightclubs."

Hassan Akef, a leading dancers' agent, agrees. A supporter of the ban, Akef says the job market has been flooded with foreign performers, who mostly hail from Russia and the Ukraine. "They don't give the Egyptians any chance," he said.

Some foreign performers are fighting back. Two belly dancers, one from Russia and one from Australia, are taking the matter to court -- according to them, the new prohibition is unfair. And a French performer has asked her government to try and convince Egypt to reconsider.

from all facts and opinions

Are we not pus-- oops!-- women?

There's weird and there's weird. Ms. Lauren at Feministe turned me on this bit of weirdness, courtesy of weirdo Kim du Toit.

The Pussification of the Western Male

Now, little boys in grade school are suspended for playing cowboys and Indians, cops and crooks, and all the other familiar variations of "good guy vs. bad guy" that helped them learn, at an early age, what it was like to have decent men hunt you down, because you were a lawbreaker.

Now, men are taught that violence is bad -- that when a thief breaks into your house, or threatens you in the street, that the proper way to deal with this is to "give him what he wants", instead of taking a horsewhip to the rascal or shooting him dead where he stands.

Now, men's fashion includes not a man dressed in a three-piece suit, but a tight sweater worn by a man with breasts .

Now, warning labels are indelibly etched into gun barrels, as though men have somehow forgotten that guns are dangerous things.

Now, men are given Ritalin as little boys, so that their natural aggressiveness, curiosity and restlessness can be controlled, instead of nurtured and directed.

And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified fighter pilot, lands on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like "swaggering", "macho" and the favorite epithet of Euro girly-men, "cowboy". Of course he was bound to get that reaction -- and most especially from the Press in Europe, because the process of male pussification Over There is almost complete.

How did we get to this?

The idea is not as new as he likely thinks it is. Far Right pundits, including gun research fraud John Lott, have been making the argument that troublesome women (along with uppity Negroes, of course) have been the ruination of America for quite a while.

You can read the rest of du Toit's Ode to Retrograde Masculinity here.

Note: This entry is an excerpt from Silver Rights.

Harmonic Concordance

In 1987 the Earth saw the first astrology-based global celebration of our era, the Harmonic Convergence. In two days we will have the chance to be a part of another landmark cosmic event, the Harmonic Concordance. "Harmonic convergence" describes the coming together of a group of energies to create a common tone. The term "Harmonic concordance" describes a group of energies in unison and resonance with a common tone.

Potential For Healing: According to astrologer Karen Steen, "Certainly, the chart indicates an opportunity to integrate greater emotional, spiritual, and ecological awareness into our personal lives and political and economic structures – if only that we all tune in together to such shared thoughts and feelings....

An expanded awareness now, as indicated by the Concordance chart, can assure real progress in our individual endeavors and progressive options for addressing global crises...."

What should you do?: Join together on that day with others in your community to focus on what you want more of in the world. Meditations visualizing a peaceful world, prayers of affirmation regarding harmony and global prosperity, and other such celebrations of the positive will have a far reaching effect. Remember, spirit work done alone makes a difference but that effect is multiplied (not added) when you join with others to do it, so organize a meditative get together with a friend or two or find a community gathering in your area. Spread the light and share the love.

On November 8-9, release what you no longer need with the total lunar eclipse, and open to the global energies of the Concordance. Finally, with the total solar eclipse of November 23, ground your expanded awareness and creative capacity, and begin anew to implement your intentions and plans."

-- Excerpted from full article at http://www.blisstherapy.com/news.html

POLITICAL LEANINGS?

Utne Magazine reminds us that the reality of today's political landscape is a bit more complex than the labels "right" or "left" and that political identities like "green," "communitarian," and "populist" don't easily fit the traditional left-right dichotomy.

So if you're as lost as I am, these quick quizzes may sort through your "real" political orientation, or if give you something to just want to waste your bosses time.

PoliticalCompass.org

AmericanChoices.org

The More Things Change...

If you haven't been keeping tabs, there has been a controversial tiff surrounding Condaleeza Rice and a cute little comic strip called "Boondocks."

Boondocks, a very popular, very cool Black, comic strip with militant overtones, kicked off the drama when the main character stated that Condeleeza Rice might not be so intent on destroying the world if she had a man. Ever since then, the character has been devoted to finding the perfect mate for this "weapon of mass seduction."

Oh Boy. Now don't get me wrong. I have a lot of respect for the strip's creator, Aaron McGruder, and I really wouldn't care so much about the comment...if it just weren't so darn take-me-back-to-the-1950s-= chauvinistic.

First of all, those types of comments are demeaning. Haven't we gotten past the whole idea that a woman's value is determined by the size of her...man? The answer is "No." Men are forever making lame comments like, "Someone needs to give her some" in response to some woman who just didn't feel like putting up with their B.S. that day.

Women are just as guilty. I was at a party once attended by a few women who were there with their men. They weren't just with them...they were glued to them. You know, the type of women who wouldn't be caught dead without a man. When I and my dateless self went up to greet these women they all instinctively gripped the arms of their men like I was going to grab one of them and run like the wind.

I could care less if Condaleeza Rice has a man, wants a man or really is a man in drag. But I do think if she had one, the press would be so heavily involved in her relationship that it just wouldn't work.

Second of all, how easy can it be to find a man when you are one of the most powerful women in the world? You have men who can't even handle a woman making a few thousand dollars a year more than they make. This woman is a top adviser to the most powerful man in the world. It's probably kind of hard to "push up" to a woman like that.

Third of all, if she was public about her relationship the media would spend all their time talking about whether or not she was going to get married and when she was going to have a baby. Society has a tendency to place women in one of four roles: wife, mother, fashion maven, sex object. Sooner or later, all public female figures get dragged, kicking and screaming, into one of these categories.

I'm sure Jackie Kennedy only wanted to be remembered for wearing nice dresses. I mean really, did this woman ever say anything? You wouldn't think so the way folks obsess about her style.

Condaleeza needs to be taken seriously for as long as this farce will hold up. Mark my words, the minute she goes public with a relationship people are going to be like--"Did you see what she wore when she was at that benefit with her man?"

http://sweetcity.blogspot.com.

Blogging for a Cure I

This marks the first of my November Blogging for a Cure postings. Throughout this month, I will attempt to post two or three times a week on the subject of diabetes. As will many Internet scribes: Blogcritics, Blogger, and individual writers throughout cyberspace will devote time and effort to spread the word about this insidious killer and about the work of the American Diabetes Association. The idea: to let people know the facts about diabetes, to encourage people to get tested and to monitor their disease, and to urge everyone to help involved in the effort to find a cure.

The issue is a personal one for me. My father, who died in September, had diabetes, and the disease played a contributory role to his death. My maternal grandmother is one of the 16 million Americans fighting the disease. So am I; dealing with this chronic illness is a constant struggle. And I have two children: My constant prayer is that they will be spared, but genetics puts them at a disadvantage. My responsibility, therefore, is to help them make positive health decisions that may protect them from ending up like their mother.

The kids are my number-one concern, of course, and recent news shows that this worry is justified. When we think of children, we tend to think of Type I diabetes, which is known as "juvenile diabetes." This develops when the body's immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells, the only cells in the body that make the hormone insulin, which regulates blood glucose. This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults, who need several insulin injections a day or an insulin pump to survive. But the American Diabetes Association reports that up to 45 percent of kids newly diagnosed with have Type II, and young girls are more at risk than young boys.

Type II diabetes usually begins as insulin resistance, a disorder called "borderline diabetes," in which a person's cells do not use insulin properly. As the need for insulin rises, the pancreas gradually loses its ability to produce it. This form of the disease is associated with older age, obesity, family history of diabetes, prior history of gestational diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, and physical inactivity. Doctors say some people classified as African-American, Latino-American, Native-American, Asian-Americans, and Pacific Islanders are at particularly high risk. And increasingly, children who are overweight and lead sedentary lives -- perhaps because they spend too much time in front of video games and computer screens -- are at risk too.

Diabetes educator Lynn Baillif, M.S., R.D, operates Fit Kids, a program that teaches at-risk children healthy eating and exercise habits. She tells Medstar.com, "The best thing that we can tell parents is to get your kids to be more active and help them to pick healthier foods."

Here is where the difference between the two types of diabetes comes to the fore: In Type I or "juvenile" diabetes, the pancreas is unable to produce insulin. In Type II, it can, but can't process it properly. While there is no cure for diabetes, recent studies suggest that body fat interferes with the ability for cells to use insulin correctly. Meaning, reducing body fat can improve a Type II diabetic's health.

As more and more children are diagnosed with the "adult" version of the disease, it becomes increasingly important to urge parents and schools to serve healthier foods, to teach children to make wise dietary choices, and to promote the importance of fitness and exercise inside and outside of phys-ed classes.

Parents and guardians can help kids by presenting a good example: Whether you have diabetes or not, make sure your kids see you eating a balanced, low-fat diet. And drag your children away from sedentary activities -- get them involved in sports leagues or dance classes. Better yet, join them for a walk or run occasionally, take them swimming, and play physical sports with them. With luck and consistency, this can provide all kinds of benefits both for the children's physical and emotional well-being -- and for yours.

For information on what you can do to live a healthier life and to help spread diabetes awareness, visit the American Diabetes Association Web site. And become a Diabetes Advocate -- get involved in the cause.

from all facts and opinions

Hairy Women

That was the title of a show I watched last night on channel nine, staying up way past my bedtime because I was so curious after seeing the promos. It was a documentary-style look about the cultural perceptions of women and their body hair. It looked at all types of situations: women who went to great lengths (and expense) to remove hair from all over their bodies (except for eyebrows and scalp), men who were obsessed with dark thick body hair on women (one somewhat humorous segment involved a man who was searching for his perfect "hirstute" bride-to-be in Europe, disappointed to find that they all pretty much shaved, tweezed, plucked and waxed as frequently as most American women). They introduced a woman whose high testosterone level caused her to grow a small but noticeable moustache and beard. She had spent most of her life shaving the hair off, but consciously made the decision to grow it out and "be herself," because she wanted to see how she'd be treated.

The show was good in the sense that it got me to thinking about my own notions of beauty and body hair and cultural convention. I have quite dark hair, and have always been a bit on the hairy side. I remember sometime around 6th or 7th grade, sitting on the bus, quietly minding my own business when a boy began to taunt me about having "gorilla arms." I remember when I first started to hit puberty and my mom lectured me about the faintly noticeable hair on my upper lip, that I needed to start bleaching it. I remember how much that bothered me, because in so many other ways my parents encouraged me to just be who I was. Wasn't that hair on my lip just part of me, my body, who I was?

I've shaved, tweezed, plucked, waxed, and done the whole routine. I put up with shaving my underarms and legs because I like the feeling of smooth skin there-- no other reason, particularly, and I often let my leg hair grow long in the winter when I keep my legs covered up anyway. I tweeze away my unibrow. But I think of one of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo, and how she exaggerated her own facial hair in her self portraits. She identified her body hair as a part of who she was, and unashamedly, or maybe defiantly? portrayed it. I'll have to think more about it. Why has body hair on women become so taboo?

Blessed Samhain

Some call it Halloween; others call it Samhain (pronounced "SOW-in" in Ireland, SOW-een in Wales, "SAV-en" in Scotland or "SAM-hain" in non-Gaelic speaking countries). The Pagan sabbat was the first observance of this day. The present holiday of trick or treat and costumed kiddies was inspired by this contemplative time, which was intended to mark summer's end and to honor those who have gone before us.

Celtic Spirit offers a fascinating look at the tradition; here is an excerpt:

Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.

The following is from "SAMHAIN, Halloween, & the Day of the Dead," the author's note from MYTH*ING LINKS: An Annotated & Illustrated Collection of Worldwide Links to Mythologies, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Sacred Arts & Sacred Traditions by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

This season was the beginning of the New Year (and winter) in many rural areas of Europe. The actual time of transition, from sundown on Samhain to sundown the following day, was a "thin place" in the Celtic world, a place between-the-worlds where deep insights could pass more easily to those who were open to them. In addition to inspiration, through the portals could also pass beings of wisdom, fun, and play (and some of these played rough, requiring common sense and real caution on the part of mortals).

Christianity would declare that these creatures of "otherness" were evil, but that only reveals how clumsy is the relationship between the West's monotheism and much older, archetypal realms of the "imaginal." The creative impulse is inherent in life. In humans, only when it is repressed by too many narrow minds full of rigid "do's and don't's" does it rebel and re-direct its power into malice and violence. At its worst, monotheism impoverishes the creative juices within us, demonizing them, closing us off from multi-dimensional realms all around us. Then we wonder why children use guns in schools which have been starved of the imaginal by the forced withdrawal of the arts, theatre, and music.

In this season of Samhain, we are reminded of other wondrous worlds existing side by side with our own, and we are invited to play, laugh, don disguises, delight in small miracles of human friendship, use common sense, and free our hearts to explore who and what we truly are.

From the inbox, I found this piece from the Goddess Tara. It is part of her sales pitch for spells and such, but the message was so lovely, I wanted to share it for the benefit of my Pagan and Wiccan readers, friends, and loved ones:

Blessed Be!

The wheel has turned, and the New Year is here. Now is the time for remembering those who have gone before us. They can once more come across the veil, letting their presence be felt. Do you have a dream to share, or a question to ask of them? Now is the time. A celebration of the beloved dead - they are never forgotten, as they are always with us. As the old year dies so the new year is born. This is the way of the universe.

"The song of the heart is always heard."

Be true to yourself, love and do not fear the process of your life, let it unfold, for love is true freedom and power. Remember, love is a pure energy, and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can simply be transformed, as it is eternal. So whomever you have loved can never truly die in your heart.

From October 31st through November 2nd is one of the holiest of sabbats. People all over the world will be celebrating this High Holy Day of the Dead. I will be performing my own ritual on the night of October 31st, at 12 midnight PST. My sister has flown in from across the country to be with me on this special night, as we will attempt to communicate with our father, who entered the Summerland earlier this year.

"I know there is NO death, only transformation."

So on this night we will celebrate life, and we will feel with the heart. Go into the mysteries, cut open the veil in the West, and invite the ones we remember to be with us in the sacred circle - between the worlds. We will be together again for a time, between the worlds, coming together again once more.
"Feel the winds of change, let yourself fly free. Remember you have the power to create your dreams."

Moon Times for October / November

Samhain / Halloween All Saint's Day Full Moon (The Mourning Moon) Lunar Eclipse Veteran's Day Waning Moon Sun enters Sagittarius Solar Eclipse New Moon Thanksgiving

Oct. 31 Nov. 1 Nov. 8 (8:13 pm ET) Nov. 8 (8:20 pm ET) Nov. 11 Nov. 16 (11:15 pm ET) Nov. 22 (12:43 pm ET) Nov. 23 (2:30 am ET) Nov. 23 (4:02 pm ET) Nov. 27

In closing, remember that we are changing the world, and that everything She touches changes. May we have peace, harmony, love and abundance for all.

To all, a happy Halloween and Samhain. Blessed be.

from all facts and opinions

Identity Crisis

The Right Christians points to a very interesting game: Gender Genie, inspired by an article in The New York Times Magazine, uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author. You plug in text you have written -- it works best, it says, with pieces of 500 words or more, hit a button, and then tells you whether you are male or female.

Well, I tried it three times, and each time, the finding was that I am a man.

Leaves me with quite a lot to think about...

from All Facts and Opinions

One Short Thought

George W. Bush is a miserable failure.

It's a Google project by a bunch of lefty bloggers. Try putting that phrase and link into your site, if you like. It will be neat to see those connected terms -- "George W. Bush" and "Miserable Failure" -- get major search-engine hits. Could be fun.

Blogging for a Cure

I have diabetes. It is very possible that this disease one day will kill me. Not having health insurance, I do what I can to manage the illness through diet, but it is taking its toll. And I am one of the lucky ones. At least I know my condition and can take some steps to preserve my health.

There are at least thousands of people walking around who have diabetes and do not know it. Not knowing can be deadly. And far too many people don't have knowledge of the disease -- the fact that it is on the rise; that it can be managed, and not necessarily through painful insulin injections; that being overweight can play a crucial part in avoiding the disease or in lessening its complications.

Next month, Blogcritics, Blogger, and individual blog scribes will devote time and effort to spread the word about this insidious killer and about the work of the American Diabetes Association. The idea: to let people know the facts about diabetes and to encourage people to get tested so that they can live healthier lives.

If you have a blog or web site, please help the Blogging for a Cure effort. Recruit as many people as you can who have diabetes, know someone with diabetes, or who care about public health to volunteer to write something about diabetes daily, three times a week or once a week on their blog and/or on Blogcritics throughout the month of November. Working together, we can all make a positive difference in helping to cure diabetes and to raise awareness about this terrible disease. And we can do more: fight for increased federal funding for diabetes research and prevention, improved health care and insurance coverage, and an end to discrimination based on a person's diabetes.

If you have any questions, ask away. As more details about the event are confirmed, I will pass them along. And more information can be found at the American Diabetes Association's Action Center.

Cannot find Second Half Recovery - Second-Half Recovery Explorer

Cannot find Second Half Recovery - Second-Half Recovery Explorer

This is priceless...

Unwanted Snail Mail

The previous resident of the apartment forgot to cancel her catalogue subscriptions so for the past couple of months, we've been getting tons of clothing magazines. They've been piling up on the coffee table next to the door and the corner of the living room. We haven't been reading them (let alone ordering from them) and I've been thinking of chucking them into the recycling bin, but what's the point when we've been using them as placemats for hot pots and trays from the oven?

What pisses me off the most about these catalogues, though, are the pictures. Normal people don't look like these models. The clothes are not going to look the same on me as they look on them. I suppose the goal is to make the buyer think that she will look like the model if she wears those clothes. Or if the buyer is like me, she would know that she would never look like the model. Do advertising agencies want to make half the population neurotic and insecure? There's already enough in the world to make one worry. It's like those catalogues just want to add insult to injury.

And I absolutely despise those pouty expressions the models are made to mimic, especially on those underwear catalogues. They're marketing their product to the wrong demographic, that's what. Maybe a better home for all these magazines is a needy frat house.

(cross-posted at Syaffolee)

A new book focuses on women writers in southern Africa

Margo Jefferson, writing for the Books section of The New York Times, recommends a new anthology of writers.

Sometimes literature itself puts a country on our internal map. At about the same time the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize, Oprah's Book Club announced that its next selection would be another South African novel, Alan Paton's 1948 book, ''Cry, the Beloved Country.'' To learn more about South Africa, I turned to the Feminist Press's rich new anthology ''Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region.'' It's an amazing resource, close to 600 pages, and it's a true collaboration, the work of seven editors from four countries. The 20 or so original languages include English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa and siNdebele. The traditions are oral and written: there are poems and folktales, stories, diaries and political documents starting from the 1830's.

An anonymous widow's chant from Lesotho (first collected in 1836) has the ring of Greek choral poetry.

Would that I had wings to fly up to the sky!

Why does not a strong cord come down from the sky?

I would tie it to me, I would mount,

I would go there to live.

And here's the black South African journalist Marian Morel describing, with sardonic brilliance, a 1959 Capetown beauty contest:

''The girls -- colored, Indian and African -- had to provide their own dresses. Factory workers, domestic workers, waitresses by day. Now with a dab of powder, a secret twist of their dresses, they were trying to become the Princess for the Night.

'' 'Gonna, I feel like a baggage of nerves,' one girl told me. 'I wish I wasn't competing. I wish I was just spectating like you.' . . .

''The band swung into 'Anchors Aweigh' and the girls sailed in. . . . A fellow in an orange shirt posted himself behind No. 19, and every now and then licked her left ear. She didn't blink an eyelash. I gave her 10 out of 10 for poise.''

I've been a fan of South African literature for as long as I've been politically conscious. When I consider how much my life has been enriched by Nadine Gordimer, Athol Fugard, Bessie Head and other writers of the country, I am amazed. Amid its political strife, southern Africa has produced a wealth of observers of what it means to be human in the twentieth century. If the new anthology from the Feminist Press is a guide, that legacy will continue into this one.

Note: My blog is Silver Rights.

After my own... brain?

Way at the top of Blogdex this (Sydney) morning is misbehaving.net, a group blog including some of our fellow Blog Sisters talking about women in technology-- a topic after my own, er, brain!

Looks to be an interesting place already! I'm excited to see where it'll go. And I do hope it keeps going. As one of two or three girls in all of my comp. sci. classes in college, I do strongly believe there isn't a lot of support/ discussion for women in at least that technological area.

Edit:
After reading all the comments about feet getting stepped on in regards to who gets to post on misbehaving, I'm not so enthused about that, so I hope I didn't put my foot in it by my hasty endorsement. But I have liked the published content so far, and I hope that keeps going in a good direction-- whatever I do or don't know about personalities/ relationships behind-the-scenes.

The Spiritual Path of Honesty

When people think of meditation they often think of concentration practices. That is one form of meditation practice, but not the only type. I generally like to follow extremely structured meditation practices, called sadhanas, with a period of mindfulness meditation.

In concentration meditation practice we learn to regain control of the mind enough so that it is sufficiently calm to allow meditation to take place. The practice is not the meditation, but rather the process that creates auspicious conditions for meditation to arise.

In mindfulness meditation practices the goal is to become familiar with the activity of one's mind. What is your mind usually up to? I find mine to often be engaged with attempts to establish the concreteness or importance of my existence. It is of course a goal that has no culmination since it pursues the confirmation of a falsehood, but still my mind seems pretty good at keeping itself busy with the attempt.

In mindfulness meditation practices we don't try to control the mind, we just watch. We say to mind, "I won't try to hold you here. Go ahead and run around all you like. I will just watch." The key thing that makes it meditative is that we do not follow after the mind, letting it drag us around as if it was in charge not us. Instead we center ourselves in spirit, our true identity, and watch the mind the same way we might watch our hands move as we type on a keyboard.

Becoming familiar with your mind is a key step on the path of truth and honesty, enlightenment. In enlightenment we see things as they really are, not as we have been conditioned to see them, not as we have agreed to pretend life is. We are rigorously honest in thought, word and deed. Watch your mind and you will begin to learn the truth of your experience and the nature of your being.

[orignally published at www.blisstherapy.com/news.html]

Margaret Cho on Ann Coulter

All this and she isn't even hot. If you are going to be wrong, at least be hot. I am guilty of some of the biases that Ann is, but in reverse. My prejudice and hatred of the establishment, the judicial system, anti- abortionists, racism, misogyny, the integration of church and state - can spiral downwards out of control, and maybe my facts could be discounted and I could be called a liar as well. But I don't give a shit, because at least I am hot. I know I may not be traditionally pretty, but playas line up around the block to make some time with me, and they aren't even getting it right then. The line is just for the wristband, yo. The hotness is not about age, looks, body type, race - it is about honesty, knowing who you are and being who you are, without trying to front like you are better than you are. It is about the down deep authenticity of self, then living it, loving it and looking it.

Margaret Cho has a blog. I dig this woman. But what's up with no permalinks?

Google

Google

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

I adapted this text from one of the sites to Impeach Bush. I sent this to the Presidential Candidates and to my representatives. Feel free to copy the text and do the same.

Please register my strong support for the Campaigns to Impeach George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld.

I believe these men have overstepped their authorities, and have exceeded the powers granted their offices by the U.S. Constitution. Further, they have broken international treaties such as the Geneva Convention, and this increases the danger to our own troops in the field. More of our soldiers have died since the end of our invasion of Iraq than during the operation. It has been proven that the case made before Congress was false. There was no immanent threat. There was no connection to Al Queda. There were no weapons of mass distruction. No elected offical can be allowed to lie to Congress and to the American people with Impunity. No one should be able to put our young men and women in uniform in harm's way under false pretenses. They deserve better, and so do the rest of us.

For the first time in history, the Administration has interfered with the content and the dissemination of scientific information in order to further its extreme ideology. Public money is being used to fund religious organizations in a direct affront to Constitutional principles. Judges and Federal prosecutors are being bullied by the executive branch of government. American citizens are being held without the basic rights of representation and habeus corpus.

These men may have committed War Crimes by ordering the carpet bombing of areas of Afghanistan, in attacking Iraq without provocation, in detaining prisoners and suspects without respect for the Geneva Convention's specific guidelines for the treatment of Prisoners of War. The "Bush Doctrine" of "preemptive" war is illegal under the Nuremberg Charter, and is the same thinking that the Nazis employed sixty years ago.

Their assaults on civil liberties in the United States are unconstitutional, and they directly violate the guaranteed rights of American citizens. They have used lies about dangers which did not exist to justify breaking the social contract between this government and the American people.

The Bush Administration's decision to ignore Freedom of Information Act requests is clearly illegal under that Act. The Bush Administration's obstruction of investigations into the events of September the 11th, 2001 and of investigations into the Osama bin Laden family prior to September the 11th, may warrant Obstruction of Justice charges. Evidence has come to light that the Administration ignored warnings about a planned terrorist attack involving the use of planes as missiles. They failed in their most important duty- to protect the lives of American citizens.

Now, we have learned that during the days after September 11, members of the Bin Laden family were allowed to fly arround the country while our public airlines were grounded, and finally to leave without allowing the FBI to question them. This may have been an act of treason, and I strongly urge you to challenge the administration on this grievous breach of basic investigative procedure.

The exposure of a CIA operative in an apparent attempt to intimidate political oppenents must be the last straw. Partisan politics must not be allowed to endanger the American people by compromising national security. We, the People, will not rest until the source of this leak is exposed and prosecuted.

America has seen nothing like this in her history. The Nixon administration's crimes were minor in comparison to the behavior of these men. They have foresworn their oaths of office and should be removed.

Sincerely,

Loving Google

I'm loving Google's toolbar, which I've just put on my computer here at the office and which Robin is installing on my home computer. As Google owns Blogger, all I have to do is press a button to instantly get to my blogging edit function. Way cool.

Undead: Horror for the rest of us?

While I'm sure it'll always be a cult flick, Australia's latest zombie movie Undead has a lot of things going for it that other horror-type films lack. In the campy, self-mocking tradition of the Evil Dead movies, this film takes horror movie subversion to a new level by presenting us with a female beauty queen protagonist who, although screaming and scared as fellow town members start being gored by flesh eating monsters, still has what it takes to pick up that shotgun and start kicking undead booty.

Rene, desperate for cash to keep up the family farm, enters small town Berkeley's local pageant and wins the vaunted title of Miss Catch of the Day. But despite her small success, it's not enough to save the farm from foreclosure, and she's about to head off to the big city for a new start when mysterious meteors start falling from the sky. She's stopped in the midst of her flight by a car accident on the road. It looks like everyone's dead... or are they? But her true spirit shines through as she picks up the steering wheel lock and swipes it through her first zombie.

Not long after, she encounters Marion, the town crackpot who claims he was abducted by aliens. He thinks the aliens are behind the strange meteor shower and the zombification of the town's residents. It's the end of the world, he declares, and only the strongest are left to defend humanity in this final battle. Certainly, it does seem like something supernatural is going on: there's a giant spiky wall surrounding the town and trapping everyone in with the zombies. And why does the rain start to smoke when it hits the few humans left? And what are those weird lights beaming down from the sky and making things disappear?

The zombie invasion turns out to be something quite different in the end, but Marion does get something right: only the strongest are left at the end. Rene is the only one who learns the truth about the meteors. Earlier in the film, someone tells Rene that as Miss Catch of the Day, it's her job to look after the best interests of the town. And in the end, it's the Beauty Queen standing between humanity and a brain-sucking, horrible undead fate, with cowboy boots and a giant shotgun. Rene is a survivor, and in the end it's not her looks that keep her alive.

I know zombie flicks aren't for everyone-- many can't stand the gore, cheesy special effects, the absurd situations, and find the action predictable. And in the case of Undead, there are also plenty of inside Aussie jokes that might pass most moviegoers by. But it also shines as a gem among the throng of Hollywood Night of the Living Dead knock-offs, and certainly there's something compelling about a gutsy feminine hero who subverts the horror genre's female stereotypes.

The "Super Bowl of Debates"?

That is how wannabe California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger labelled last night's lively forum featuring the so-called top candidates vying for Gov. Gray Davis' job in the re-rescheduled Oct. 7 recall election. ABC News reports that the debate was quite lively:

The moderator at one point said he was dizzy from the quick, loud and aggressive banter.

Schwarzenegger was criticized for supporting a divisive ballot initiative nine years ago that would have prevented services for the children of illegal immigrants.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, came under fire for taking millions of dollars in Indian casino money. Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock was told he had the facts backward on the economy, and independent Arianna Huffington was hit for barely paying income taxes.

Meanwhile, Green Party candidate Peter Camejo stayed above the fray, saying, "I'm trying to be respectful to everyone here."

The debate ranged from questions on balancing the budget, whether the car tax should be repealed and what to do about health care. The answers provided few surprises since the candidates have all staked out positions on the major issues.

But the diversity of views among the major candidates was amply displayed from Camejo's demands to tax the rich to McClintock's pledges never to raise taxes; from Bustamante's plea for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants to Schwarzenegger's insistence those licenses endanger California because they don't include background checks.

You can read a transcript of what what was said, courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.

To many, the fun -- or frightening -- part of the event was Schwarzenegger's attack on Independent candidate Arianna Huffington. As ABC News reports:

At one point, Schwarzenegger took a shot at Huffington for targeting the Bush administration as the source of the state's problems.

"If you want to campaign against Bush, go to New Hampshire," Schwarzenegger said.

The tension between the two peaked when Schwarzenegger began to cut Huffington off and she said, "This is the way you treat women, we know that. But not now."

Schwarzenegger replied, "I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in Terminator 4," getting laughs from the audience but a rebuff from the moderator.

After the debate, Huffington said the "Terminator 4" comment was an offensive reference to a scene from "Terminator 3" in which Schwarzenegger's character stuffs a female robot's head into a toilet.

"That was such a clear and ambiguous indication of what he really thinks of women," she said.

At Blogcritics, filmmaker, playwright, and former California gubernatorial candidate Brian Flemming (rightly) takes issue with Ah-nuld's scary show of misogyny:

I'm on record as not being too terribly concerned about Arnold's past orgies with men and/or women. As a former candidate for governor, I wouldn't want people to hold my past sexual excesses against me, either. Some stuff I don't even remember, but I'm pretty sure someone took pictures, so there's a glass-house thing going on here.

And in fairness, I'm sure lots of people at one point or another have wanted to shove Arianna Huffington's face into a toilet. And I'm not saying these private fantasies are, per se, wrong, in one's own head. There are no thought crimes. Whatever floats your boat, as long as it stays in your boat.

But this guy wants to be the governor of California. And he said this during a public debate.

Even if you find Arnold Schwarzenegger's casual misogyny amusing (I personally find it frightening), isn't there a fatal judgment problem here for a would-be governor?

I surely do. More frightening is the notion that this revolting movie star is one of California's top candidates for its top political job. My respect for Maria Shriver is at an all-time low.

"Super Bowl of Debates"? Nah. But let's hope the event brings some Californians to their senses. (NO on recall! NO on 54!)

from all facts and opinions

Binding and Beautiful, if Not Legal

Mazel tov and infinite happiness and blessings to singer Melissa Etheridge and her longtime partner, actor Tammy Lee Michaels. Earlier this year, the couple announced their engagement, and unlike Bennifer, they actually made it down the aisle. On Sept. 20, Etheridge and Michaels tied the knot, exchanging vows in a California ceremony.

The official statement from the brand-new Mrs. and Mrs.:

"We are so grateful for the blessings from our friends and family as we commence our vows, and begin the rest of our lives together."

Sounds like love and commitment to me. (Paying attention, Ben and Jen? How 'bout you, reality-show knot-tiers?)

A wee bit more on the star-studded nuptials from RainbowNetwork.com:

The ceremony attracted Hollywood`s A-list. Guests included Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Al and Tipper Gore, Jennifer Aniston (Brad was invited but is on location with Troy in Malta and couldn`t make it), Helen Hunt, Mike Myers, Sally Field, Ellen DeGeneres, Sheryl Crow, Christina Applegate and Kathy Najimy.

Etheridge wore a "candlelight pantsuit of a linen jacket with beaded accent and crepe trousers," while Michaels was attired in a lace coat "crystal embellished scalloped trim over a white matte jersey gown."

The duo exchanged matching, custom-made platinum and diamond bands designed by jeweller to the stars Rafinity.

Because Etheridge and Michaels got married within the US, and despite the fact that California now has a domestic-partnership law in place (which still denies "marriage" to queerfolk), the union means nothing in the eyes of the federal government. True romantics and decent humans have got to be happy for this terrific, loving pair, who indeed call themselves "married." After all, when two or more are gathered in God's name, there is love -- whatever the 'phobes and supremacists have to say about it.

Still, I would love to see them make it legal. Perhaps their next stop will be Canada... But whether the Etheridge-Michaels family takes a trip to the Great White North, ultimately, one of our best defenses against opponents to marriage equality for all is to ingore 'em and, if we so choose, to get married anyway.

from All Facts and Opinions

Labels

Did I ever mention how much I hate terms like 'depressive'? As in 'she's a depressive'? No? Well, consider yourselves told.

I have a disease called depression. But I am not that disease.

Let's imagine for a moment that I do accept the label of 'depressive'. There is something that acceptance which implies that I am my state of depression. The sentence 'I am a depressive' becomes as fundamental a statement about myself as 'I am a woman'. My depression becomes not a disease that I have or a state of mind, it becomes me.

I bought a book about depression yesterday with the intention of releasing it through BookCrossing. It was written by a doctor as a self-help book; something for people who are depressed to use as a guide when they are lost and in pain and unable to work out the first step to obtain help. Most of the information in it was well-written and would be helpful to the people it is trying to reach. But (and it's a big but!) there are 3 or 4 instances in the book where people describe themselves or others as 'depressives'.

Alison: My mother was a depressive. She was always, always in a bad mood. She was always snapping at us kids, always irritable... When I started developing symptoms... I finally understood what my mother had gone through, but at first I thought, 'Oh, no. I'm turning into that grouch.'

'Depressives' are grouchy, irritable and self-absorbed. They don't do anything to help themselves. They are miserable, and misery loves company. They are going to be depressed and miserable forever. They make the lives of those around them hell. 'Depressives' hang their head in shame, because they know that they have a character flaw. 'Depressives' use anti-depressants as 'crutches; if they really wanted to, they could pull their socks up, change their attitudes and get on with life. 'Depressives' are hopeless cases.

Depression is a difficult enough disease to cope with, without lumping all that shit on yourself. Why do it? Why allow yourself to be weighed down by labels?

I am not my depression. You are not your disease.

Depression is not a character flaw. Depression is bloody hard. Seeking help is not a weakness. Depression is not forever; it can be treated. Depression can be a hard slog. Living through depression takes endurance and strength.

update

Yeh, I finally deleted that rather unsightly post about me. I was going to leave it. I left it for a while so I could give it some serious thought. On further reflection, I decided to delete it. And so I did.

Jenna turns six in a week.

Onward.

McEwan's In Between the Sheets: Short, but strong, stories

The title of Ian McEwan's collection of seven short stories can be interpreted two ways. 'In between the sheets' could refer to what goes on between lovers or people involved in some other form of sexual congress. But, a writer almost automatically thinks of another kind of sheets -- paper. The title can also evoke what writers put on and between the sheets that lurch or pour from our computers. The book supports both interpretations.

Several of these short stories feature writers involved in the fight to write. One of the oddest is told from the perspective of the pet ape and former lover of a woman writer. She has achieved the kind of notoriety that sometimes strikes once for mediocre writers of pedestrian fiction. Her novel gave voice to the timely issue of infertility among otherwise healthy, middle-class couples. It became a flash-in-the-pan success in the market for commercial fiction. Her challenge is to write another book without the help of exceptionally good luck. As she slouches toward a return to obscurity, the writer briefly attempts either a diversion or the embrasure of a different kind of muse. She has a sexual relationship with her chimpanzee. The episode lasts only a week, but is the most important event in the intelligent animal's life. His inability to give voice to his desires becomes as suffocating as hers in "Reflections of a Kept Ape."

There isn't a writer in one of best of the seven selections, "Two Fragments: Saturday and Sunday, March 199-." However, the story is revealing of what a virtuoso like McEwan can do between the sheets. An unspecified apocalype, perhaps a nuclear war, has occurred, leaving British society bereft of housing, transportation, food and even water. Henry, the narrator, has managed to retain a low-level job as a government functionary, but society is degenerating into mayhem all around him, as people struggle to survive. Among his experiences is observing a man exploit his teenaged daughter to earn a few coins. Himself the father of a toddler, he is forced to consider just how far he will go to keep bread on the table and a roof over their heads. But, McEwan is too fine a writer to focus exclusively on the bleakness of life in a post-apocalyptic setting. He dares consider what people can risk doing for each other even when there are few resources and little chance of recompense.

In "Psychopolis," we are in the head of another writer. The British narrator is visiting the United States. He decides to explore what he has heard is one of America's most fascinating cities, Los Angeles. He lives a borrowed life there, from the flat he sublets to the friends he acquires, but feels ambivalent about. He finds the metropolis an exercise in excess and boredom. However, some of the people he observes and associates with catch and hold his attention. There's Mary, his immediate lover, who insists he chain her to his bed and not let her go for a weekend. George is the manager of the shop across the street, which specializes in party goods and rehabilitative care items -- wet bars and bedpans. Relationship-obsessed Terence is so malleable he will do anything to please the women he pursues, including urinate on himself in a public place. The protagonist decides L.A. is a city that represents the contemporary psyche gone awry. He experiences an epiphany -- rather than allow his life to become mired in the illusions and delusions he is observing, he must break away from the pattern of avoiding change he has fallen into.

Ian McEwan won the Booker Prize for his novel, Amsterdam, in 1988. His longer fiction benefits from the same unblinking observation of not so much what people say as what they do, that makes In Between the Sheets a book a reader will think about long after she has finished it. McEwan offers us a smorgasbord of stories that shows his range as a writer and whets one's appetite for more. His works are sometimes described as dark or even freakish because they intertwine the stuff of nightmares, daydreams and reality. McEwan is a British heir to Sherwood Anderson. If you find grotesquerie disturbing, he is not your cup of Earl Grey.

I acquired this book in one of the best ways possible. A pal who had read and enjoyed it passed it on. However, even if it means parting with a few dollars, I believe you will find McEwan's short stories worthwhile.

My civil rights blog, where I write about some of the books I've read, is Silver Rights.

the way I see it.

The legal disclaimer on this blog is good. You know? It's a good one. Elaine and I got feedback in developing it. We thought it spoke well to our mission while giving us some legal protection. We felt good that it protects children and minors most of all.

What it doesn't account for are those other areas, those greyer areas, like online harrassment.

Those essentially fall on our shoulders, and I guess ultimately my shoulders.

So this post is about me.

It's my responsibility to keep this blog a place safe for voice.

Safe. Huh. Talk about grey areas!

Does that mean we don't argue? Hell no. Does that mean it doesn't heat up? No way.

But it does mean we don't slander or harrass. Period.

When you know the laws, and when you know factually that someone posting here has violated those laws and seems to be making inroads toward re-violating them, you have to make a decision. You'd like everyone to think you made the decision not based on your own experience, but in regard to the bigger picture. The truth is, most will think what they want to think.

Ultimately, that's not the point.

The point is that I do care about this blog, and I do care about protecting my own ass legally as best I can out here in the land of little-knowns-for-certain.

That's the way I see it. And that's the way I'm making decisions on posting-privilege haves and have-nots on this blog.

Hope that sits well with the sisters.

Take a deep breath; exhale slowly; let it go.

Some people take to each other like oil and water; some like oil and flame. Even here on Blog Sisters. I've had a few conflagrations and confrontations myself. I'm a scrapper at heart and tend not to run from a good fight.

But sometimes it gets to the point at which I take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and re-read my favorite translation of #8 of the Tao Te Ching:

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep into the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.

No fight. No blame.

I don't practice Zen or anything close to it. But sometimes you just gotta let yourself exhale and let it go.

Eldest Williams sister murdered in California

The oldest of the five successful sisters from Compton, California, has been shot to death. Her two youngest siblings, Venus and Serena Williams, are known world-wide for their exceptional skills as tennis players. The older three girls, also tutored in tennis by their father, Richard, chose other professions.

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) - An older sister of tennis stars Venus and
Serena Williams was shot to death Sunday following a dispute in
suburban Los Angeles, authorities said.

Yetunde Price, 31, was with a man in a sport utility vehicle
shortly after midnight and ``somehow they had become involved in a
confrontation with the local residents,'' said Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Deputy Richard Pena.

Sheriff's deputies searching for three people believed to be
involved in the shooting surrounded a house in Compton at about 6
a.m., but it turned out to be empty.

No arrests had been made by midday.

WTA Tour spokesman Darrell Fry had no immediate comment.

Price was shot in the upper torso. Deputies on patrol heard the
gunshots and found Price, who was later pronounced dead at a
hospital. The man who had been with her in the SUV wasn't injured
and was being interviewed by authorities, Pena said.

Price was one of five Williams sisters who spent their early
years in Compton, a crime- and poverty-ridden community where gang
fighting has claimed many lives. Serena began playing tennis at age
5 1/2 on the neighborhood courts in Compton, coached by her father
Richard.

The family later moved to Florida, where Venus and Serena live
in Palm Beach Gardens. Richard and their mother Oracene are
divorced, and Price used her mother's maiden name.

Just last month, the young female African-American murder victim being discussed across the country was one of poet and critic Amiri Baraka's daughters, Shani. Deaths like these invariably send a chill through me because they remind me of the low value placed on the life of a woman of color in America. That includes the lives of women of color from prominent families. So far, none of my siblings have died violently. But, I know it could happen any time.

Note: My blog is Silver Rights.

Dear Lindsay,

oh, baby sister, i read your blog today.

fired from your job for your voice!

no one told you, did they? a clear, powerful, female, voice, is a threat to the status quo. and the status quo has a rather large army.

lemme tell you a story.

this is the story of a grrl who wandered onto a list called the EGR-Irregulars-she's pretty sure she got the address from 'The Cluetrain Manifesto.' she was shy, passionate, intrigued, invited, and naive. at first, her posts were timid; she was so afraid of her own voice. then, she started to laugh and cry. then, she left her job before she was fired for the fun she was having on her company's website, inspired by Mr. Locke's EGR list, and by Mr. Locke, and by her own sense of truth.

she fell in love. she took exotic trips to distant islands. she played, she wrote, she broke free of all the restraints. her posts became like gasoline, at times, with matches in the attachments. some loved her. most hated her. she didn't care. she had a voice.

she took another job. menial, some would say, at Walmart. she still had no idea that voices carry. management at that job read her postings regarding her new position in the toy department. they didn't know what to do with her. she summed up the corporate situation rather quickly and signed a forbidden union card and hell was unleashed on her.

of course, originally, they only knew of her union affiliations because of her postings to EGR-Irregulars. after they knew, she figured it didn't matter who knew, and she went on a full blown campaign to bring Walmart to the union.

somewhere in the middle of this, i remembered something Chris posted about having made his own mistakes and...'you have to make your own..." and then much later, on the phone, (how i hate the phone!) he said, "i can't help you."

he was correct; he couldn't help me. only i could.

now, where was i going with this, Lindsay? oh, yes. so far, i haven't made any mistakes out here on the net, despite what it may look like on the outside.

but you have.

in your blog you said, "Good bye."
++

While Waiting

Except for books and maybe music, I don't like shopping for anything. One reason for my dislike is the fact that I have to carry everything back home. Even if I take the bus (only run on the weekdays, darn it!) I have to walk several blocks. It wouldn't be so bad if the buses ran on the weekends and after 6 PM and if I didn't have the penchant for shopping in bulk--but there it is. Out in the middle of nowhere with the threat of winter hanging over your head (I saw an ominous sign proclaiming "Prepare for winter!" outside one of the newer grocery stores even though everything is still quite green) it's quite foolhardy not to be stocked up with the necessities.

"Not having a car sucks," commiserated a fellow bus passenger. He's absolutely right--with the way cities and towns are planned, everything spreading out thinly like an oil slick on water, it's impossible to get anywhere without some sort of vehicle. I could mooch off somebody else and hitch a ride with a friend but that strikes me as too dependent and freeloading. So I use what's available to me.

But cutting out the bus waiting would also cut out something else that is perhaps more important than convenience. Waiting is a forced time-out from the rest of the hectic world and for a couple of moments, I can take stock of myself and watch the world go by. Necessary stuff for the soul.

While I was waiting I observed some interesting people. There was an older woman dressed in trendy teeny-bopper clothes which exposed her midriff--tanned, wrinkly, fatty. A rather large young woman in a red blouse, black skirt, and blue shoes came by asking if the bus had passed by yet. She sat down on a bench and took out a wad of bills and began counting it with her brightly colored (and sharpened) nails. When she was finished, she showed pictures of her seven-year-old brother to the chain-smoking employees of the nearby store who were on break.

I saw two military men. Soldiers or marines or another division, I wasn't sure. They wore white caps and navy pants with a red stripe running down the sides. Their jackets were of a darker hue with gold buttons on the front. A white belt cinched the waist and yellow chevrons (denoting their rank?) decorated the arms. They looked so out of place in the busy parking lot with harried mothers, bouncing children, smirking teenagers, and old men carting out the latest power tools. Then I remembered there was a veteran's hospital nearby--ten, twenty minutes--and some news on public radio. An unscrupulous man had conned the hospital using someone else's identity, the identity of a man who had served during the Vietnam War, a man who was already dead.

Riding the bus isn't "cool", but then I would have missed overheard conversations. Another man lamented about his crumbling love life to some of his friends. His former girlfriend had taken up with a rival. "I think she's falling in love with him." Cynicism, dejection, resignation laced his voice. "But at least I get to see my two month old daughter whenever I want."

Cross-posted at Syaffolee.

DiVERSiONZ: Dionysus Jagger--It Has A Certain Ring To It

DiVERSiONZ: Dionysus Jagger--It Has A Certain Ring To It


There's a great story at Diversionz about Mick Jagger comparing himself to Dionysus. The Goddess is not surprised...she knew it all along!

In memory.

sex and the signifier

The slender Girl Power so agreeably shrink-wrapped by the Sex and The City phenom isn’t exactly the latest news. Since Candace Bushnell’s virtuoso dish debuted in 1994, gals in strappy sandals have wrecked a million bachelors and at least as many critics have popped their corks to toast this fashionable froth. Sex scribe Carrie Bradshaw, her genuine mink eyelashes and ravenous friends have fluttered into plain view and show every sign of remaining at least as culturally relevant as the Atkins Diet.
Scheduled to visit my country this month to promote her latest work “Trading Up”, Connecticut-bred Bushnell hit an eager feminine nerve when she began journeying through heartbreak, celebrity and uncomfortable footwear. Her clubby New York Observer column spawned both a book and an award winning television series. Candace and Carrie had the first, and arguably the most definitive, word in a feminism that waggled its hips to a mambo rather than a manifesto.
The Girls’ Own Manhattan described by Bushnell is burlesque, cheesy and broadly condemned by serious critics who own less than ten pairs of kitten heels. It is of course, not difficult to find fault with Sex and its satellites. Carrie, Ally McBeal or Renee Zellwegger’s recent turn as a Helen Gurley Brown type in Down With Love are well-dressed heroines who might do well to wise up just a little. How these uber waifs manage to hold down a job when each of them spends so much time hunting for shoes and unsuitable men is anyone’s guess.
If one uses popular culture as a guide, it seems that the aughties girl like to collect men, money and Manolo Blahniks. The post-modern Miss is shallow, neurotic and buoyed only by her attachments to other shallow and neurotic women. The new sisterhood is one entirely staffed by petty princesses with platinum credit and is really not the kind of female bonding you might imagine the suffragettes originally had in mind.
Surely all that marching, bellowing and brick throwing generated more than a woman’s right to whine.
Despite accusations that Sex and sisters is feminism turned bad, the sassy new man-eater has developed from fiction to fact.
An armada of “self help” books for women has followed in the wake of Ally, Carrie, Bridget et al. Sex and The City’s Executive Producer Cindy Chupack has her “Between Boyfriends” book of comic essays just released in the US. Publishers clamour to sign works with a similarly sassy failed-relationship edge.
Reality TV Programs like The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire and Australia’s own fabulous dorm room disaster Single Girls are all driven by the anguish of gorgeous girls who fail to find and please their Mr. Big. It’s the disasters in love, not the heartening successes, which entice a large, primarily female audience to tune in and, presumably, gloat.
The spectacle of couples breaking up is now used to market everything from noodles to furniture to the yellow pages. The message is clear: getting dumped or staying single sells. Particularly to women.
The Fashion-forward, elegantly unhappy sexpot crawled out of early nineties newsprint and now, it seems, she is everywhere. She can be easily viewed as a stubborn challenge to feminism and as one who inanely measures her self-worth by proposals of marriage and Balenciaga gowns.
Bushnell’s creation has often been called post-feminist. It is also possible to view Sex and co as a retort to other forces entirely. Rather than post-feminist, the momentum and success of the series could be equally viewed as Post-Meaning, or even Post-Prozac.
Carrie Bradshaw is wildly materialistic and boy crazy. That’s not her problem. Her real flaw, and her real appeal, is her melancholy.
Carrie displays problems with intimacy, hostility without reason and the inability to concentrate for a period lasting longer than fashion week. If Vogue Living selected a poster-child for mild clinical depression, it would be Carrie. Bushnell seized upon all the symptoms for which anti-depressants were devised and has transformed them into a heroine for our chronically cranky age.
In the bleak Bradshaw Manhattan as in a great deal of current pop culture, sign-posts are regularly upended. There is no reliable road-map to happiness and a boyfriend has as little chance of surviving a season with his status intact as any other trophy.
Everything is disposable, everything is interchangeable and everything is destined to leave the new Heroine relatively unmoved.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie may very well spend most of her screen time chasing men, alienating men and flouncing about in brief tulle outfits that men might find appealing. The true Carrie aficionado knows, however, that no man can boast an appeal or longevity that beats a pair of new season Jimmy Choos.

Study shows environment trumps genetics for poor kids

George Kelly of All About George, a supporter of Silver Rights from its very first week, alerted me to some good news this week. New research reveals poor black children are impacted more by their environments than by genetic endowments, something I've believed all along.

Back-to-school pop quiz: Why do poor children, and especially black poor children, score lower on average than their middle-class and white counterparts on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive performance?

It is an old and politically sensitive question, and one that has long fueled claims of racism. As highlighted in the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve, studies have repeatedly found that people's genes -- and not their environment -- explain most of the differences in IQ among individuals. That has led a few scholars to advance the hotly disputed notion that minorities' lower scores are evidence of genetic inferiority.

Now a groundbreaking study of the interaction among genes, environment and IQ finds that the influence of genes on intelligence is dependent on class. Genes do explain the vast majority of IQ differences among children in wealthier families, the new work shows. But environmental factors -- not genetic deficits -- explain IQ differences among poor minorities.

Eric Turkheimer, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, decided to look beyond the conventional wisdom and lack thereof. He wondered if the bleakness of many poor children's environments might need to be addressed before jumping to conclusions about their innate ability -- a rather obvious inquiry if one is not blinded by bias. He concludes "the influence of genes on IQ was significantly lower in conditions of poverty, where environmental deficits overwhelm genetic potential." The study will be published in the November edition of the scholarly journal Psychological Science.

A colleague of Turkheimer's explains why this research matters.

"This paper shows how relevant social class is" to children's ability to reach their genetic potential, said Sandra Scarr, a professor emerita of psychology now living in Hawaii, who did seminal work in behavioral genetics at the University of Virginia.

Specifically, the heritability of IQ at the low end of the wealth spectrum was just 0.10 on a scale of zero to one, while it was 0.72 for families of high socioeconomic status. Conversely, the importance of environmental influences on IQ was four times stronger in the poorest families than in the higher status families.

"This says that above a certain level, where you have a wide array of opportunities, it doesn't get much better" by adding environmental enhancements, Scarr said. "But below a certain level, additional opportunities can have big impacts."

Those of us who grew up among the disadvantaged already know that neither poor children nor low-income adults are stupid in general. Instead, their skills tend to fit their surroundings and what society suggests they are capable of. A boy who could just as easily have become an engineer with adequate educational opportunities and encouragement sets his eye on the unlikely goal of basketball stardom instead. A girl of modest vocal ability develops an unrealistic notion of becoming the next pop diva, though her real strength is empathy for others and she would make an excellent nurse or social worker. Many of the people in the demographic simply become inured to academic failure early and stop trying, as Dr. Benjamin Carson, one of the most respected neurosurgeons in the world, says he did for a time.

Fortunately, most people in Bloggersville are not so insecure that they run screaming from the thought of black people being just as intelligent as any other group.

Tapped gets it:

Stated simply, the study found that environmental factors loom much larger in the development of children when they have a low socioeconomic status, and much smaller when they have a high one. What this suggests is that for people on the lower end of the totem pole, a bad environment -- that is, high rates of crime, concentrated poverty, crumbling schools -- can overwhelm those otherwise predisposed to high achievement, while people born into a more positive environment, with a wide array of opportunities, are more likely to get a chance to express their natural gifts and abilities. This makes sense intuitively, but it also has some precedent in the natural world.

Rick Heller of Smart Genes, also a strong supporter of this blog, suggests additional reading on the topic of heritability, H. Allen Orr's review of Matt Ridley's Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human.

Part of the significance of Turkheimer's study is that it will lead to others which will hopefully bolster the realization that tangible intervention in the lives of poor children can improve their lives for the longrun. Contrary to the delusional thinking of white supremacists, a child who reads well at seven will not have forgotten how at 27 because of the melanin content of his skin. When I was a poor child in Lumbee land, my third grade teacher, Ms. Ross, took it upon herself to supply me with books for the rest of my elementary school career. Though I learned to read at four and had jaw-droppingly high IQ scores, our home held little that was stimulating for bright children, as all five of us were. I believe that kind of intervention, on a large scale, and not out of a schoolteacher's wallet, can make a difference. If real reform comes, the entire society will reap its rewards.

Note: A longer version of his entry originally appeared at Silver Rights, a weblog focusing on civil rights and related issues.

I Kissed a Girl

A wee bit belated, to be sure, but family matters have kept me occupied of late.

All around the blog world, folks expended much energy commenting about the display of three pop divas -- one mature, the others comparative young'uns -- at the recent MTV Video Awards. Apparently, a lot of people were grossed out, amused, and/or turned on by the sight of Madonna snogging Britney Spears and "Dirrrty" Christina Aguilera. Frankly, I found the Madge-Brit kiss pretty hot; the other liplock less so. Whatever, it was harmless -- harmless, people! A kiss is just a kiss, you know.

But a couple of thoughts:

1. Can you say "publicity stunt"? Shame on MTV for exploiting the God-given beauty and dignity of women-loving-women for filthy lucre, ratings points, and media mentions.
   
   
2. Real women don't kiss other women for the purpose of arousing men.
   
   
3. That said, I loved the stony expression on Spears' ex Justin "No comment!" Timberlake's face. Didn't he cry himself a river? Isn't he over Britney and rocking his body with movie star Cameron Diaz now? Man, was that funny.
   
   
4. Did I mention that the Madonna-Britney buss was hot?
   
   
5. Next time, I suggest JT and Nelly pucker up. Now, that would be must-see teevee.

But good old-fashioned ignorance and squeamishness motivated many of those who freaked out at the "shocking" sight of the internationally broadcast girl-on-girl smooches. Case in point: The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The Associated Press reports that the AJC is now apologizing for running a tiny photo of the Britney-Madonna buss on its front page. Sounds like a combination of right-wing sucking up and homophobe coddling to me.

The picture, not much bigger than a postage stamp, was near the top of Friday's front page. It showed Spears and Madonna in an open-mouth kiss they shared at the MTV Video Music Awards the night before.

A larger version of the picture appeared in the Living section.

The sloppy kiss picture elicited a deluge of complaints to the newspaper. In Monday's editions, managing editor Hank Klibanoff apologized and said the picture should have run, but not on the front page.

Klibanoff compared the picture to graphic images from the war in Iraq and said sometimes the significance of an important event can justify publishing a photo that may offend some readers.

But Klibanoff said the kiss photo did not meet that standard.

I agree, the MTV awards are not significant. But thumbnail photos are often used on front pages to tease feature and entertainment stories contained within the newspaper. Fact is: The MTV broadcast was news. The prime interest in the story (even for homo-haters) was the kiss (lord knows MTV shows precious few videos anymore), so teasing a much-talked about story using the story's main "grabber" makes sense. As for editor Klibanoff's comparing two women kissing and Dubya Bush's murderous invasion of Iraq in terms of gross-out quotient, well, this embarrassment to journalism and humanity must be losing his flippin' mind. I'd rather my kids see love rather than "war" any day of the week.

I wonder: Would he have made the same move had the kiss photo featured Britney and Justin or Madonna and spouse Guy Ritchie? I doubt it. So again we see a media outlet singling out same-sex-issues for separate-but-unequal treatment. Now, that's sick. Agree? Send a letter to AJC's editor.

appeared in slightly different form on all facts and opinions

Freedom and Safety

In a neighborhood near you, Attorney General Ashcroft preaching the virtues of fascism. Well, not exactly, but might we say the march towards fascism?

Follow this link to read more then draw your own conclusions.

Buy Drugs, Get Deported

slide

after a week of playing like children, and eating like children, and crying like children, giggling like children, and kissing behind doors like children, they were alone.

he extended a glass of champagne to her, offering, "salut. you survived the playground."

she reached for the flute as the little strap on her shoulder slid down close to her elbow before she caught it, knowing that in a moment, her clothes would be quickly undone by those masculine hands.

she stopped him, "you know, you have never removed my clothes, proper."

"'no, i haven't," he laughed, "and i am not about to start now."
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Laptops: The best of the batch

I purchased my first laptop, an Apple PowerBook 165c in 1995. I moved to laptops full-time in 1999. Except for a brief romance with an iMac, I haven't been tempted to return to the ball and chain known as a desktop computer. During that eight-year period, I've usually had two laptops at a time, often a Mac and something Wintel.

As a somewhat petite woman, I found early laptops heavy and sometimes developed an ache in my shoulder. However, current models, which can weigh as little as four pounds, have solved that problem, along with backpack and shoulderbag carrying cases that are more ergonomic.

Currently, forty percent of purchasers of new computers buy notebooks. Laptops constitute the only growing segment of the market. If you are interested in scoring a first -- or second or third -- laptop, now is as good a time as any to buy.

This month's edition of Laptop Magazine rates the top WiFi embellished notebooks, i.e., those that come ready for use away from a phoneline out of the box. The winners are:

Apple 12-inch PowerBook G4

Averatec 3150P

Compaq Business Notebook nc4000

Dell Latitude D400

Fijitsu LifeBook P5000

Gateway 200XL

IBM Thinkpad T40

Sharp Actius PC-MV14

Sony VAIO PCG-TR1A

Toshiba Portege M100

The Dell Latitude D400 and the Gateway 200XL were selected as best buys. There is considerable variation among the computers, though most boast large hard drives and reasonably fast CPUs. Some are the current standard 802.11b compatible. Others, such as the Dell Latitude D400, come with 802.11g. Since most access points have yet to be updated, bleeding edge WiFi users will often find their speeds throttled back to 802.11b's. I was pleased to see the Apple PowerBook G4 included on the list, since Apple products are often overlooked in the general technology press, though it is lauded mainly for style, not utility.

Note: A version of this entry appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.

funeral for a friend

in approximately seven days it will be September 11, 2003. two years ago, on that day, a wife lost a husband, two boys lost a Father, and i lost a life long friend.

his name is Christopher Newton.

today, i finally did it. i searched google for Chris. i searched once before, but couldn't bring myself to read what i found. today, i read. today, i mourned. just like i mourned on this day in 2001, knowing what was coming down. oh god. why didn't my government stop it? why didn't their government stop it? if i knew it was coming, why didn't they? ask anyone around on the net. i predicted it with horrifying detail. ask Bird. ask Lars. ask ChrisJ.

i am still so devastated because i knew and no one would listen and it could have been prevented and Chris would still be alive. i have nightmares about him on that plane. i knew him. he was only helping other people. he was holding their hands and praying and 'loving them home.'

god this hurts. goddam motherfucking moronic governments! i no longer believe in you. democracy is a school child's fable.
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p.s. to President Bush and his allies in this treason against humanity, i forgive you. i hate you, but i forgive you. FWIW-i call myself a Christian. what global law will eventually do with you is out of my sphere...
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

this is an excerpt from the first novel by Mark Haddon. he is fifteen years old. he is an autistic. he is 11th on the NY Times Bestsellers. he really gets inside my head. if you're interested in the life and times of an autistic, i have a new blog-smartretards.blogspot.com. i also highly recommend the current issue of Newsweek regarding autism.
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AND ONE DAY Julie sat down at a desk next to me and put a tube of Smarties on the desk, and she said, “Christopher, what do you think is in here?”
And I said, “Smarties.”
Then she took the top off the Smarties tube and turned it upside down and a little red pencil came out and she laughed and I said, “It’s not Smarties, it’s a pencil.”
Then she put the little red pencil back inside the Smarties tube and put the top back on.
Then she said, “If your mummy came in now and we asked her what was inside the Smarties tube, what do you think she would say?” because I used to call Mother Mummy then, not Mother.
And I said, “A pencil.”
That was because when I was little I didn’t understand about other people having minds. And Julie said to Mother and Father that I would always find this very difficult. But I don’t find this difficult now. Because I decided that it was a kind of puzzle, and if something is a puzzle there is always a way of solving it.
It’s like computers. People think computers are different from people because they don’t have minds, even though, in the Turing test, computers can have conversations with people about the weather and wine and what Italy is like, and they can even tell jokes.

But the mind is just a complicated machine.

And when we look at things we think we’re just looking out of our eyes like we’re looking out of little windows and there’s a person inside our head, but we’re not. We’re looking at a screen inside our heads, like a computer screen.

And you can tell this because of an experiment which I saw on TV in a series called “How the Mind Works.” And in this experiment you put your head in a clamp and you look at a page of writing on a screen. And it looks like a normal page of writing and nothing is changing. But after a while, as your eye moves round the page, you realize that something is very strange because when you try to read a bit of the page you’ve read before it’s different.

And this is because when your eye flicks from one point to another you don’t see anything at all and you’re blind. And the flicks are called saccades. Because if you saw everything when your eye flicked from one point to another you’d feel giddy. And in the experiment there is a sensor which tells when your eye is flicking from one place to another, and when it’s doing this it changes some of the words on the page in a place where you’re not looking.

But you don’t notice that you’re blind during saccades because your brain fills in the screen in your head to make it seem like you’re looking out of two little windows in your head. And you don’t notice that words have changed on another part of the page because your mind fills in a picture of things you’re not looking at at that moment.

And people are different from animals because they can have pictures on the screens in their heads of things which they are not looking at. They can have pictures of someone in another room. Or they can have a picture of what is going to happen tomorrow. Or they can have pictures of themselves as an astronaut. Or they can have pictures of really big numbers. Or they can have pictures of Chains of Reasoning when they’re trying to work something out.

And that is why a dog can go to the vet and have a really big operation and have metal pins sticking out of its leg but if it sees a cat it forgets that it has pins sticking out of its leg and chases after the cat. But when a person has an operation it has a picture in its head of the hurt carrying on for months and months. And it has a picture of all the stitches in its leg and the broken bone and the pins and even if it sees a bus it has to catch it doesn’t run because it has a picture in its head of the bones crunching together and the stitches breaking and even more pain.

And that is why people think that computers don’t have minds, and why people think that their brains are special, and different from computers. Because people can see the screen inside their head and they think there is someone in their head sitting there looking at the screen, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” sitting in his captain’s seat looking at a big screen. And they think that this person is their special human mind, which is called a homunculus, which means a little man. And they think that computers don’t have this homunculus.

But this homunculus is just another picture on the screen in their heads. And when the homunculus is on the screen in their heads (because the person is thinking about the homunculus) there is another bit of the brain watching the screen. And when the person thinks about this part of the brain (the bit that is watching the homunculus on the screen) they put this bit of the brain on the screen and there is another bit of the brain watching the screen. But the brain doesn’t see this happen because it is like the eye flicking from one place to another and people are blind inside their heads when they do the changing from thinking about one thing to thinking about another.

And this is why people’s brains are like computers. And it’s not because they are special but because they have to keep turning off for fractions of a second while the screen changes. And because there is something they can’t see people think it has to be special, because people always think there is something special about what they can’t see, like the dark side of the moon, or the other side of a black hole, or in the dark when they wake up at night and they’re scared.

Also people think they’re not computers because they have feelings and computers don’t have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.


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From “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon, Copyright © 2003 by Mark Haddon. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

Learning from our elders

I had something of an epiphany today when following a link from sysrick.com that led me to a post on Italian living.

You must read the article to be able to put this post into context, but it makes me realize that 1) America does not have a monopoly on escapism; and 2) it actually could get worse here without life on Earth coming to an end.

It could just get worse, and worse, and worse, for thousands of years. We could just stay in an ever more drunken stupor, with more alcohol and heroine and crystal meth, plus think of all the new drugs we will create to soothe an ever more despairing public. We will get TV that is even more flashy, more exciting and violent, with quick cuts that only require we be able to follow a thought for 1 second instead of 3. We could ...

Oh, gee. Please people, let's not. Let's figure out a new way to combine the tribal wisdom of community and present-centerdness with an expanded modern appreciation for planning ahead. Let's wed peace of mind with running water. Let's balance individual freedom with collective responsibility and its cousin self-restraint. Having done this, let's create a revolution without guilliotines in which the regal sovreigns of the invisible global wealth "nation" are finally removed from power and the will of we common people guides our destiny.

that man pleasing siren!

today i tuned in again to The View with Barbara Walters et al. I've been thinking alot about Elaine's comments regarding male beauty ideals and her opinion that Ms. Walters serves to fulfill them.

i just don't see it. Ms. Walters is dressed conservatively, albeit prettily. certainly she has the right to choose colors that flatter and please her, just as a man chooses his ties for the same reason. for a person on television, she doesn't wear very much make-up; there are younger women on news shows wearing far more paint and far less clothing.

nor do i see that she rivals Joan Rivers for...facelifts or whatever. i see a woman who takes good care of herself, seems to be in great physical health, and is an example of the energy and vitality a woman is capable of at any age.

if i look that good, stand up as straight, and carry myself with such dignity when i am seventy years of age, i will no doubt be taken to task for my man pleasing ways, and happily so! if i do fulfill a male ideal of beauty, it is only because i please myself first.
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