Who Is Like The Beast?

Remember when Speaker Pelosi walked arm and arm in a Civil Rights March across Independence Avenue, from the House buildings over to the Capitol. In three years, I have never seen Nancy Pelosi cross the street the way that you saw in that picture. They deliberately went through that crowd, perhaps to try and incite something.

- Michelle Bachmann

If she was really worried about violence and she thought these people were violent, why would you grab a big hammer and walk into a sea of people?

Did anyone say to Nancy Pelosi, "You're inciting violence. You're slapping them across the face"?

- Glenn Beck

They faked - they were trying to provoke an incident. There's no reason to walk above ground to get to the Capitol building from their offices. There's tunnels underneath with trains, subways, and so forth. They're purpose - send the Congressional Black Caucus to walk over, send Pelosi over there with a big gavel, trying to provoke an incident.

- Rush Limbaugh

Listen, I know the three people listed above can in no way really be described as serious people in search of an honest debate on the issues. But one of the things I found so interesting in their various statements was how close these come to some classic rape apologia statements - you know, the ones that go, "She shouldn't have been there", "Did you see how she was dressed?" "She obviously wanted it", etc.

I especially find it interesting how the act of crossing the street, whether or not Speaker Pelosi does so often, is deemed indefensible here.

There is something happening in this vision of reality that seems to claim any and all negative actions taken against a person should be that person's responsibility. Even if all she did was cross a street when a bunch of protesters were out there showing their might.

There is something else that I find strange here as well, and that is this idea that not allowing a protest to effect your actions - or to not respond in the manner desired by the protesters - is suddenly a call to incite violence.

If Michelle Bachmann is right and Nancy Pelosi truly never has "cross[ed] the street the way that you saw" before, then what she seems to have been doing is creating a demonstration of her own. Not a show of force, no matter what Limbaugh and Beck think about her big gavel. But a demonstration of determination, a demonstration that she and those with her were not going to be bullied or be shamed for what they saw as a necessary vote for needed legislation - no matter how much they wanted/didn't want that was left out/put in the bill.

In effect, Nancy Pelosi seemed to be giving a clear message to the protesters, and to those people like Beck and Bachmann. That message was that she was proud of her accomplishments and her vote, and she was not going to be scared underground because there were people above ground who didn't like it and who didn't want to see her walk to the Capitol Building.

Frankly, it was a message that she deserved to walk up to that particular building in the light of day just as much as they deserved to demonstrate outside that building in the light of day. That she and her rights weren't dissolved simply because this group didn't like her and her ilk very much.

And if that very action was seen as a provocation, if hanging onto a giant gavel that was first used when Medicare was passed while walking was a horrible indignity those protesting and those commenting favorably on the protests, then the problem lies more with them than with her.

She was just, you know, doing her thing. Walking along. Being proud.

Too often, doing your thing, walking along, being proud, carrying a giant gavel is used as an explanation for someone else's actions.

Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when it comes to someone like Nancy Pelosi and the passage of healthcare, and think back on that giant gavel. Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when someone is walking down a street, and recognize that simply the act of living is in no way something that prompts an angry, violent response.

There are the things Nancy Pelosi talks about, when she brought up her experiences in 1970s San Francisco, that could be used, by some, as a balance, a sort of, "You're all hypocrites" and "the Left talks about provocations to violence too, so she shouldn't have walked there".

For the record, Pelosi has said, "I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance... ...But again, our country is great because people can say what they think and believe. But I also think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause."

And a person could claim that Pelosi is simply getting hit from the Right with essentially the same stick she advocates for here. I don't think so, though. Because there is a difference between walking to a place you have to go anyway, and speaking in such a way that could incite violence. There is a difference between carrying a comically large gavel, and, say, a blogger who urges his readership to break DNC office windows in an attempt to avoid a larger - armed - conflict.

I happen to agree with Pelosi's statement. I'm a free speech advocate, but I also believe in a speaker's responsibility - along with the responsibility of the rest of us to call out speech we find to be unsavory. I am a fan of verbal self-restraint, though that may astonish anyone who has heard me babble for any length of time. I'm a fan of recognizing the power your words hold, and realizing the effect those words may have on an audience. I'm not a fan of the government making that line, and forming those distinctions.

I started this out by making allusions between rape apologia and what these three right-wing people said about Speaker Pelosi's march on the Capitol Building. But what I find interesting is that in these cases, it isn't merely that there are more often than not marginalized bodies involved. It is the weirdly fatalistic viewpoint. In rape apologia, a lot of the criticism comes down to Doing Something While Female. And in this, there may be more than a little of Being Speaker While Female.

But there is also this idea that we should beware of waking the foul Beast. Because the Beast cannot be controlled, should not be expected to control the urge compelling violence. All we can hope to do is not anger the Beast, to not draw the Beast's attention to us, to creep around as quietly as we possibly can and make as few waves as possible, lest we attract the Beast's attention. And if you do? If you awaken the Beast, if you are attacked or hurt or raped? It is obviously your fault. Because the Beast is nothing but a force compelled to action. To hold the Beast accountable would be foolhardy, and besides, only those people stupid enough to not follow Teh Rules get attacked. There's never this compulsion that maybe, just maybe, we should do something about the Beast itself. That maybe walking to work, even if there are angry people afoot, shouldn't be something that can be used to scold someone for provoking some sort of negative action, should that negative action arise. But no.

Oh, Women and Their Emotionality!

"Look at Rachel Maddow. She comes at me on the basis of emotion. She demonizes me. I don't want conservatives to win on the basis of emotion. If we lower ourselves to the level they operate on, we hurt ourselves and our arguments."

-Tom Coburn.

I happen to think Rachel Maddow's initial response to this is top notch, that being:

I was trying to do my work. But then that pops up in my Google Alert, then I read it and I become alternately so blindingly enraged and then hysterically upset and then inconsolably morose and then hyperactively giddy and then happy and then sad and then mad and then happy again that I couldn't make sense of any of the facts that I was gathering. All of which I was trying to read through the tears of joy and anger and anxiety that I just can't control! Can't you tell I'm falling apart right now? So I promise - hold on, I'm getting emotional about this promise. I promise that tomorrow, I will gather myself and offer a full analysis of today's Tom Coburn news.

But, probably given that Rachel Maddow runs a newsish show where she discusses things that are actually happening out there in the world and then giving her opinion about that stuff, she didn't really delve into what the fuck just happened there. So, being that I don't have a newsish show and just this little blog, I'll do that.

First things first: there is the belief out there that women are emotional. I know, shocker. There is the belief out there that being emotional makes women less capable. Double shocker! There is this belief that by being emotional, women are therefore also irrational. Crazy, right? Who'd ever think that?!

Truth is, I think most people believe that. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not full on, full frontal "woman=emotional=irrational=unreliable=bad! men=logical=rational=reliable=good! men≠women!"

But it is there. And it is there because it is all around us. It is there when we talk about hiring a good worker, or hiring a woman. It was there during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, when someone made the comparison between having a heart surgeon who'd had to struggle to get where he is, or the best surgeon one could find, even if that surgeon had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The idea that the first (the guy (or girl) who had to work really hard) could beget the second (that guy could be the best because he had to work so hard) is missing.

There's this thing with prejudice - all kinds - that make it hard for those of us who consider ourselves to be good people to recognize it within ourselves. It isn't just that we cognitively know that prejudice is bad and we are good, and thus we can't be prejudiced, though that's definitely a part of it. It is that in order for us to recognize our own prejudices, we have to be able to recognize when our most reflexive thoughts contain prejudice. That's extraordinarily difficult to do. It is incredibly difficult to puzzle out if you find some woman emotional because she is, in fact, being overly emotional - or if it is because we are conditioned to see women as emotional, as attacking on the basis of emotion alone. And when we're confronted about our underlying assumptions, whether by friends or by articles or by blog posts, it is essentially difficult to accept that what this other person is saying may be correct. Because what we thought felt so natural and so right, and what that other person is saying - that calling women you don't know emotional and attacking on the basis of emotion - is both historically and inherently sexist - is so foreign and so obviously wrong. Plus, it probably feels like a personal attack, because you, good person that you are, would never say something prejudiced. Because doesn't that other person know this is just how the world is?

Because of that, I don't think Tom Coburn is consciously eliciting the dog whistle of "women, crazy, huh?" But that doesn't mean his remarks aren't fused with the premise that a woman's actions are borne out of emotionality, and that emotionality is bad. It doesn't mean that he is playing a really old hand of sexism, and it doesn't mean that because he's ignorant of that (because to him it is just true), his remark isn't sexist. It doesn't mean it doesn't play into the grander metanarrative about women, and their intellectual oomph.

How I Became Who I Am: My Most Influential Reading List

I'm totally stealing this from a friend of mine, but I'm going to do that whole shebang ten thing. I'm doing it because at first I wondered what books, if any, helped influence who I became - how I became who I am. As much of a bibliophile as I am (and I am), the writers who most influence my actual perceptions of reality tend to be on that TV machine. Books tend to be an enjoyable escape, because as much as I love Pride and Prejudice and James Thurber, I'm pretty sure they have not formed the very backbone of who I am. But then, I thought about the books I've read. And then I wondered how I would whittle that list down to ten. So, away we go:

1. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett. I found Waiting for Godot in high school. It was my first, aside from Whedony works, exposure to that wide world of existentialism. I loved it. There are lines in works, moments, that blow your mind. In the first act of the play, Vladimir's ponderings about the two thieves mentioned in the Gospels was that moment for me:

   VLADIMIR: But all four were there. And only one speaks of a thief being saved. Why believe him rather than the others?

   ESTRAGON: Who believes him?

   VLADIMIR: Everybody. It's the only version they know.

   The play wasn't necessarily introducing anything new to my life: I was already an atheist, I already was suspicious of metanarratives, I was already bemused and intrigued by the absurd. But it was the dream-like quality of the play, and the follies of the various participants, the obvious allusion to an absent, if not outright fictional, god, that really struck me.
   
   
2. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand. Now, years later (YEARS), I've come to the conclusion that I've read this book all wrong, that the philosophy Ayn Rand was expounding probably wasn't what I took out of it, and that all those people who were like, "Oh, The Fountainhead is awesome!" probably got the wrong idea about what I'm about, politically, ethically, and philosophically. And plus, there's that whole rape apologia thing surrounding Roarke and Dominique that makes the book fairly unsavory for me. Don't get me wrong, after reading The Fountainhead I had a period where I read up a lot on Ayn Rand. I knew she was a dogmatic free market capitalist, I knew she was all about the individual. I knew she was if not the than pretty close to it quintessential "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, cuz I'm not giving you one of my dimes" person. And yet. When I read The Fountainhead, I... ...not missed, but pretty much overlooked a lot of that. What I took from the book was, in no particular order, architecture=cool, selfishness=awesome, looking to society for vindication=stupid idea. All of that? I was totally down with. And then, no more than a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that the scene I'd always thought meant "to do charity work for society's praise is just stupid" probably was meant to be expanded to "to do charity work at all is just stupid". So, The Fountainhead influenced me greatly. But I took from the book, "Act selfishly. Actions solely to please others will end up, in the long run, being unworthy of your time and energy, and will get you down in the process". I took, "Do the right thing, even if others look down on you for it, even if doing the easy thing will bring you short term praise and success". But, for me, doing the right thing isn't really about a totally free market capitalist system. It may be about making pretty buildings. I'm not totally sure yet.
   
   
3. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys. I was going to put The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir here, because I love that book, because it intersected my feminism and my existentialism well, and because it was a lightbulb moment for me, a moment where what I had previously felt was brought into sharp relief via words on the page. But. The Second Sex, although I love it for articulating a matter that had long danced at the back of my skull, didn't really change who I am. It simply gave me another tool to utilize when I myself already knew and tried to explain to other people. Wide Sargasso Sea did something else. One, it made Jane Eyre, a book I have always despised, palatable. Two, did something The Second Sex did not. It took me beyond myself. It was like "The Yellow Wallpaper" in its gradual destruction of its protagonist. It taught me a new way to critique existing works. And, pathetically enough, it brought the issue of race in Jane Eyre into the equation. It was a book that was (I think) better written than the book it was inspired by, and it made me recognize other ways that original text failed, by fixing that failure. By illustrating the other voices in the world we would never recognize if we merely stuck to what is in the accepted literary canon.
   
   
4. A Wrinkle in Time (series) - Madeline L'Engle. I would be remiss if I were to leave this book, and the subsequent books, off my list. Much like The Fountainhead, it occurs to me years later that I again culled something from its pages the writer did not intend, though in this instance it was a bulwark for my atheism. A Wrinkle in Time, having reread it, is an extremely spiritual - and outwardly religious - book. You'd think I would have gotten that from Many Waters being about two characters meeting Noah and interacting with Seraphim, but my obliviousness (and the fact that a majority of my religious education comes from musicals) blocked that reading entirely. Instead, I took from it themes of interdependence, of looking at problems and people through love and not hate and fear, and that being weird was a pretty cool thing to be. That, and the knowledge and the first dimension is a straight line, and the second dimension is a square. Beyond that, Meg Murray was (and is) one of my favorite girl/women characters. She preceded Buffy by about a year. She was so awesomely real, strong and yet flawed, it was incredible. I should also mention that I could recite the entirety of the book A Wrinkle in Time until a couple of years ago, and I could still probably do a couple of the more major passages.
   
   
5. West With the Night - Beryl Markham. My father gave me this book when I was in 6th grade. My copy has the note he wrote to me, explaining why he was gifting it to me specifically, on the inside cover. That alone may explain why this book makes the list. My father introduced me to a lot of books - among those, The Fountainhead. And those all had personal reasons behind his love of them, and wanting to share them with me. But Beryl Markham and her story captured my dad, and made him think of me. So, I read it. And if this were merely a list about books that influenced me because of how well they were written, West With the Night would also make that list:

   How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. I should like to say, 'This is the place to start; there can be no other.'

   But there are a hundred places to star for there are a hundred names - Mwanza, Serengetti, Nungwe, Molo, Nakuru. There are easily a hundred names and I can begin best by choosing one of them - not because it is first no of any importance in a wildly adventurous sense but because here it happens to be, turned uppermost in my logbook. After all, I am no weaver. Weavers create. This is a remembrance - revisitation; and names are keys that open corridors no longer fresh in the mind, but nonetheless familiar in the heart.

   This book, and Markham, however, make the list because she is an inspiration. The first woman to fly east to west, from England to Nova Scotia. She is attacked by a lion as a girl. She is a one time (literally, one time) horse racer. She is the first licensed woman horse trainer in Kenya. And although I still have that note in the book, I'm in awe that she made him think of me, still strive to be as cool, as confident, as ground-breaking as Markham herself was.
   
   
6. On the Road - Jack Kerouac. Yes, it is enormously cliche. And yet. I loved the book. It probably helps that I read it on a long train ride, so it felt like I was actually a part of Kerouac's philosophy and adventure. On the Road is why I spent the summer and the semester of my '50s class obsessed with the Beat and the Beat Generation.
   
   
7. Redesigning the American Dream: Gender, Housing, and Family Life - Dolores Hayden. Every so often, a book comes along that makes me think, a la Chicken Run, "But we've always been egg farmers. My father, and his father, and all their fathers, and they was all..." And then the author fairly hits me on the head and says, "And wouldn't it be so much better if we looked at why, and what that's done for us, and maybe try to do X?" This book is that. This book is when I started thinking about how the structure of our lives and our environments shape our lives and our expectations. How we are, essentially, coveting little boxes on the hillside that are all the same. And how we can maybe go along making a different world, if we'd just change our expectations regarding neighborhoods and soccer moms and mini vans.
   
   
8. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge - Jean-Francois Lyotard. I don't mean to sound like a braggart, but I have an exceptional memory for words. Not names, and not faces, and definitely not tasks I was assigned two minutes ago, but words. Sometimes, that means I can quote what I want out of a book or television episode from memory alone. Sometimes that means I know exactly where to find the exact line I'm looking for in the book or episode. Believe me when I say, I can give you none of this work back. I couldn't even really remember the name of the book, just the author. Maybe it's because it was originally written in French. All I can say is that it has deepened my personal understanding of the world. Lyotard writes about the totalitarian nature of the metanarrative, and about the worth of the more democratic micronarrative. And, as I discovered in my quest to discover which book made the micronarrative something I believe in and agree with, I discovered something else. Before college, I was someone who believed in a reachable, objective truth. I hated anything that touched upon relativism with a passion (that may have been due to all of the moral arguments against my atheism starting with, "If you don't believe in God, there is no moral structure. And if there is no moral structure, then nothing can be immoral"; I'm just saying, those religious zealots trying to convert me kind of fucked me up). And yet, now I still despise moral relativism, and am passionately for micronarratives. Wha?! The answer, as I discovered, also lies with Lyotard. He postulated that there is an objective truth that we humans shall never fully understand. Which is basically my position. High five to Lyotard.
   
   
9. Full Frontal Feminism - Jessica Valenti. I was thinking about putting one of my favorite authors of all time, a Mr. John Steinbeck, on this list. But then I decided he is more of a Jane Austen type of person in my life: a writer I would not willingly live without, but one who has not had a profound influence on my being - aside from making me more of a snobbish reader than I was prior to picking up Cannery Row in high school. Instead, this spot goes to Jessica Valenti. It's like this: I was raised in a feminist household, so Full Frontal Feminism wasn't introducing me to anything I hadn't heard of before. But it was witty and well-written, and so not academic. And since I was reading Lyotard, I deserved some not quite academic-but-progressive reading. And if it had just been that, this book would not be on this list. But Jessica Valenti is the founder and an editor of feministing.com. And feministing led me to other, more substantial feminist sites, which then led me to womanist sites, which then led me to reading multiple blogs daily. And eventually, that led us all here. Without Full Frontal Feminism, I may never have gotten to this particular place.
   
   
10. The Short Stories of J.D. Salinger. I am one of the few people I know who did not appreciate the angst of Holden Caulfield in their own teenage years. One of those other souls is one of my 17 year old sisters, so maybe that inability to be charmed by him is genetic. Because of that, I avoided Salinger's short stories like the plague. I was wrong to (incidentally, my mother was the person who told me I would enjoy them). The first one I ever read was "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". From there, I was hooked. I quickly gobbled up "Franny and Zooey", and then moved on to the rest of "Nine Stories", and then to "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". I loved the style of writing, the restless and unsatisfied nature of it, the people populating these stories being genuine in a way I'd never felt was true for Holden, and yet all quietly broken. Perhaps more than the short stories and the people yearning to live a life of meaning within them, it was Salinger's ability to retreat from public life that makes these stories precious to me. Salinger managed to both give me, in all, 13 stories I prize. And then, he articulated my belief about writing when he said, "I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." I write, a lot. Some of that writing is here, the nonfiction stuff, the stuff that is separate enough from myself to share with both the people I know and potentially the people I don't who manage to stumble upon it. But my fiction is all my own.

And there it is: my list. Hopefully, in ten to twenty years, some of those books will have been bumped down the influence chain, with other books taking their place. I'm looking forward to the John Kenneth Galbraith memoirs possibly doing that.

James Thurber

I have a horrible habit of not listening to my mother's recommendations, of avoiding reading the things she says to read or watching the things she says to watch or listening to the things she says to listen to until I'm driven to doing it simply because I've gotten bored with the things I've been reading or watching or listening to over and over again. She is the person who first thrust The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler into my hands, the person who gave me The Secret of NIMH, the person who insisted I watch The Sound of Music and Dirty Dancing, the person who told me I'd really like Elton John and The Band, the person who introduced me to Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

And yet, with all of that, it still took me months before I read A Wrinkle in Time after she gave it to me and told me I'd love it. She gave it to me along with The Mixed Up Files and NIMH, in fourth grade, and it took me until midway through fifth to bother with it. It, and the other three books in the series, became my veritable Bible from fifth to eighth grade. It, among other things, gave my shop teacher a reason to not let me actually participate in shop class after a fairly harrowing experience with a drill, because he'd lived next to the author, Madeline L'Engle, while growing up and talked to me about this worn out book I insisted on carrying everywhere with me.

In eighth grade, I was spending the day with my father. We were driving around the state, visiting his various clients, talking, and listening to this book on tape he'd gotten out of the library, My Life and Hard Times. I knew of the book. A chapter had been in a compilation book series my parents owned and I'd poured over. Another chapter had been in my seventh grade Lit book, and I'd poured over that one as well. Listening to My Life and Hard Times with my father made me appreciate it, and the author, all the more. It was hilarious. And when I acquired the book-book, it took the place of A Wrinkle in Time as my new Bible.

I've been to the Thurber House in Columbus, OH several times. One time, my father got them to open the house early for us, because I loved it so much and because at some point we were going to have to leave Ohio, and he preferred that to be sooner rather than later. I have several James Thurber tee shirts, a lot of his books, and I still read portions of My Life and Hard Times on a weekly basis. James Thurber's Is Sex Necessary? is the book that I took out with my best friend and roomie's library card whilst in college, and then failed to return promptly (or rather, at all), and ran up a significant (around $200 or so dollars) late fee/replacement cost.

There are problems with James Thurber, as there would be with any white, straight, middle-class male author born in 1894. There are problems I've only begun to assess in my continued and continual rereading of My Life and Hard Times, with regard to race and gender and where the two meet. But his humor oftentimes comes from the ridiculousness of people, and more often than not from himself. And so, I was abso-freaking-lutely thrilled when Keith Olbermann professed to reading James Thurber to his father, because James Thurber is one of those authors who helped shape my life (and this whole beginning part is at least in partial reference to this meme), and who I feel is underappreciated - or at the very least, too much of an unknown. My happiness increased exponentially when the final segment on friday's Countdown was, in point of fact, Keith Olbermann reading a short story of James Thurber's, "A Box to Hide In". And because I love Thurber more than possibly any other author, I had to share. This story doesn't come from my personal Thurber Bible, but I do love it:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Letters to my Editor (Pt 2)

Another letter that kind of needs nothing but itself:

My US flag now flies upside down as a protest of unacceptable, unconstitutional injustice when representatives did not represent the people they were supposed to represent.

I kind of love the people who write to my paper.

Letters to my Editor

Just the letter, with minimal comment:

I have lived under 17 presidents, since Woodrow Wilson. I don't know that I will see anothe r [sic]. Our present president's style is to stride purposefully to the lecturn, jut his chin out, FDR style, and with much rhetorical skill, tell us what we want to hear but rarely see. This is proven.
Think of his campaign and presidential promises, not of his charm. I don't want my descendants to have to wonder at and ruefully pay for my mistakes.

One question: "proven", how exactly?

(Short) Saturday Sesame Street

Because I love Madeline Khan:

To Be Fair...

Here's a thing that's been bothering me for a while. It is the "to be fair" defense. I went off on David Brooks about the "to be fair", and I feel pretty confident that I was right and my righteous tone and angry face I was making whilst typing was totes justified.

But here's the thing about "to be fair". It either takes the place of an actual critique (instead of "that soup was horrid; why did they mix chocolate with salsa bits and a beef broth?", we get "to be fair, I've never had good soup here"), or it qualifies that critique and thus makes it less forceful ("that soup was horrid; but to be fair, I've never had good soup here").

There's another thing about "to be fair". Life isn't. Seriously now. Life isn't fair. Life is hard, life is not fair, and life sometimes kicks people in the gonads for things other people have done before and gotten away with.

My sisters and I played a version of the "to be fair" game throughout their childhood and my adolescence. One of us, it didn't matter who, would do something known as "starting shit". Needling the others, picking at old wounds or fresh ones, or just generally being a pain in the ass. The other person would retaliate pretty damn quickly, because we all had thin skins when it came to each other's needling. Because that is the power siblings hold - the knowledge of how a precise word in a precise tone of voice can wreak havoc with someone's emotional well-being. Anyway, this sniping would continue, consistently elevating in tone and in emotions, until one or both of my parents would become aware of it, and then try to shut it down - generally with a "That's enough!" directed at one sib in particular. It was our less deadly version of Russian Roulette. Someone was going to get a "that's enough". Someone would get some pretty serious yellage if they continued to pester the point (which, of course, we all did; cuz we were stupid). And that someone could or could not be the person who originated the circle of recrimination and doom. And the argument would be, from the person hit, "I didn't start it!" Sometimes, if the person did start it (or even if they didn't), the argument would be, "they were doing it too!"

Those arguments? Were true. Truly, we all three were responsible for the shit storm of badness that made dinner such a fun occasion in my house lo those many years. And for whomever was on the receiving end of of parental wrath, it was less than fun, even unfair.

But. We all played the game. We couldn't help ourselves, being sisters and knowing the most profound injury to hit. And having been hit, absolutely needing to hit back. And we all knew that at some point, the game would end and the arrow would be on one of us.

What does this mean, in terms of "to be fair"? Well, it means that life isn't. And if you're doing something that is profoundly unfair, it can't be mitigated by the defense that other people are doing it.

In other words, The condemnation of the action taken can be - and should be - separate from the condemnation of the system in which that action takes place.

In other words, it is perfectly reasonable to call someone out on their shit and then move on to calling everyone out on their shit.

And sometimes, there really is no "to be fair". Take things like racism. There have been claims of "reverse racism", and someone somewhere may try to take the mainstream approach to having a panel, and have someone who claims racism still exists on a panel with someone who claims that whites encounter "reverse racism" in order to make the panel "fair". The truth is, whites still, categorically, hold so much power that there is no real other side to that story in terms of race. There is no "to be fair" if someone says, "Hey, that thing you did/said/Digged? That was racist". Sometimes, fairness isn't possible.

I think oftentimes the "to be fair" is deployed by someone looking to be judicious, someone looking to be seen as impartial. It is a function employed within the lie of objectivity. I used to believe in Objective Truth, that we could someday reach it. I now believe that there is Objective Truth about certain things, and that we as imperfect beings with points of view that are skewed by the psychological things such as beliefs we hold and physical things like imperfect eyesight will never, ever be able to actually obtain that truth. The most we can do is recognize where we are blind. "To be fair"ers tend to try to obtain that objective stance. They tend to want to believe that they can be fair, that they can accurately assess the situation and impart unbiased understanding to the rest of us. I don't believe they can.

Instead of "to be fair", given those constraints to actual fairness, I would rather if we simply acknowledged that there were people we would like to defend, and give those reasons for defending them. It seems better than expecting impartial judgements from people who will never be able to deliver.

A Horrifying Tale of Parental Notification Laws

Read the whole thing. Please.

I Kind of Love...

...This tampon commercial:



It is the height of awesomeness (h/t The Sexist)!

Also, this print ad:



I kind of feel compelled to buy Kotex products now. Power of advertising, huh?

Be sure to read the backstory of the ad, and how three networks rejected it when it contained the word "vagina". Yeah, I know. How crazy to discuss the "v" word when you're advertising tampons. I'd totes reject that ad too, because I can't see the connection.

On pretty much the same note, these ads remind me of this Clear Blue Pregnancy Test commercial:


I, however, don't want to buy this one. Advertising (in general) still isn't that good.

Both the Kotex ads and the Clear Blue ad eschew what normally find their ways into tampon and pregnancy test ads. They're interesting. They're fun. They're engaging in a way women twirling around in white really very rarely are. And the tampon one even takes on the weird blue liquid factor.

Stamp of approval!

Playground Politics, David Brooks, and the Al Qaeda Seven

JIM LEHRER: Let's go to another dispute, the so-called Al Qaeda Seven. Liz Cheney and her group criticized some justice department lawyers, because they once represented some Guantanamo detainees. Where do you come down on that?

DAVID BROOKS: Ah, well, I think the ad, which sort of accused whose values do they have - do they have Al Qaeda or Taliban values, I thought it was tremendously unfortunate. I mean, it's just part of a long range of corrosive language. And to be fair to Liz Cheney, if you Google "Taliban" and "Liz Cheney", millions of people have called her a member of the Taliban and made similar charges.

PBS Newshour, 3/12/10

You know what mentality I have always hated? Since elementary school hated? The idea that just because someone once picked on you, once kicked your lunch box, once pushed you down, once cut you in line, once made your life hell, it somehow gave you license to do the same. In elementary school through high school, the idea was as soon as you got to the exalted grade of the kids who were picking on you, you could then pick on the kids who occupied the grade you were in now. It was, and is, a stupid idea. Picking on the freshman as a senior does nothing to the senior who picked on you. It just continues a cycle of meaningless and ridiculous abuse, for no other reason than because you had to deal with it and you refused to be the last one.

It is a simple-minded, mean mentality. It depends on making someone else a victim in order for the former victim to be the victor, to feel powerful.

It is an immature philosophy and displays a distinct lack of empathy. It is also what David Brooks suggests we use in order to "be fair" to Liz Cheney.

Brooks is probably right; any other week, if you were to Google "Liz Cheney" and "Taliban", you would probably garner a lot of hits comparing the two. Right now, though, most of the hits are about the ad itself and Brooks' defense of Cheney. In a normal week, a lot of those would be malicious. Most would be blatantly false. I'm saying "a lot" and "most", because I'm sure there are also pages ripping apart those other pages and defending Cheney.

You know what else? I'd bet my teeth that none of those people calling Liz Cheney a member of the Taliban are from the Department of Justice. You know, the people Liz Cheney is now directly comparing to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Funny thing, that. Funny how the school mentality can still be defended by those well into their forties when employed by people getting toward the middling of their own fortieth decade.

There is no "being fair" to Liz Cheney when she blatantly uses her non profit to disseminate the exact same tactic being so egregiously used against herself and her own father.

There should only be condemnation for so spectacularly failing to progress past the idea that passing along this sort of mean-spirited and completely baseless accusation to a whole new wave of victims. David Brooks thinks there is some sort of balance that has been reached here: Liz Cheney was attacked by someone, so she gets to attack someone else with that as part of her excuse. Sorry, but no. And that sort of rationalization calls Brooks' own assessing skills into question as well.

The other thing that gets me is how neither Jim Lehrer nor Mark Shields makes this argument; Shields should have mentioned that the DoJ lawyers probably weren't the ones slandering Liz Cheney all over the interwebs. And then he should have mentioned that even if they were, that still does not excuse Cheney's sinking to their level.

Because that is the other very real issue here. When has it become appropriate in the public discourse to pull what is essentially a "I know you are, but what am I?" smack down? This is beyond concerning. This says that somehow, no one progresses past elementary school (a thought I've often had and feared, and now discover may be the abject truth of the matter). And that? Is unacceptable.

Making excuses for Liz Cheney, calling an ad tremendously unfortunate instead of calling it out for what it is - a baseless, fear-mongering attack ad - does not make one a member of polite society. Couching one's statements and one's bets doesn't make one the better person.

And, no, the ad in question doesn't sort of accuse. It does accuse, full stop. The fact that Brooks can't even make that statement without waffling, and the fact that no one corrects him, makes me worry.

Chuck vs The Women

My monday evening routine is to wait anxiously for 8 o'clock to roll around so's I can watch some Chuck goodness on NBC. Typically, I then go on-line and look up all of the music I want to get that I heard on Chuck, get it, load it onto my Chuck playlist, and then stare and my iPod in confusion when, on shuffle, one of those songs is independently played. Because, sometimes, hearing Hall & Oats without any explanation is just odd. Actually, that should be an "always".

However. Loving Chuck is problematic. It's problematic for a multitude of reasons. Chuck had ten characters credited during the theme for its first two seasons, and then nine in its third season. Three of the ten were women in the first two seasons. Two of the nine are women in the third season. This isn't good. For me, and in general. Sure, one of the central three characters is a woman, and she gets a decent amount of attention focused on her. And yet, purely by the function of who she is and what her character brings to the series, we know very little about her. And so, we're left with 3 women who function as accessories to the male characters, as love interests and, for one, simultaneously as a sibling.

Because there are, at most, three women on the show, they don't often interact. And when they do interact, the moments don't typically pass the Bechdel Test. Sarah and Ellie discuss Chuck; sometimes, Sarah and Ellie discuss Devon (aka, Captain Awesome); Sarah and Anna discuss Morgan; a couple of times, Anna flips out on Ellie about Morgan. They talk about weddings and boys, and once, how Sarah had never been close to a gun before. But they don't talk about anything else, and thus we learn almost nothing about them. We know that Jeff and Lester enjoy playing in their band, Jeffster. We know more about Morgan than is necessary, including that he sleeps in the nude. But we don't learn much of anything about the women that does not in some way connect to the men.

But there is another issue with Chuck, almost a more serious issue. A lot of shows don't have great male-to-female ratios. A lot of shows don't have the women talking about much else but the men in their lives. It wouldn't be great, but I would be able to live with it. But Chuck fails women far more egregiously than simply not being able to pass the Bechdel Test.

Chuck, as a show, suffers from an almost chronic urge to delegitimize threats women face in the world and the workplace. It often uses stalking as an impish thing these specific guy characters do. And no other character calls these stalkers out on it. In Chuck vs Tom Sawyer, we (and Chuck) are given witness to Jeff's music video dedicated to Anna Woo, complete with stalker-footage from when Anna is leaving the women's bathroom. Later in the episode, Jeff's request that Anna fan him while wearing a hula skirt is granted. And both Chuck and the store's manager Emmett make no mention to Jeff about the completely illegal and inappropriate actions he has taken. No one mentions the tape to Anna, so she can press charges (not that she would, because stalking is totally cool!). Later in the season, Morgan begins stalking Anna as well, in vs The Best Friend. And although Chuck calls him out on it after both Anna and a group of mobsters discover him, Chuck's reasoning is less about shaming Morgan for his actions toward his ex-girlfriend than trying to save his life. Afterward, he even complains that he had to sacrifice Morgan's dignity in order to protect him. Chuck doesn't even begin to contemplate that stalking your ex is a pretty solid way to demonstrate you've given up much of your dignity anyway.

Stalking isn't just relegated to the creeps of the show, either. Chuck, himself, has been known to stalk his fake girlfriend Sarah. The one day she has off, he follows her as she goes to meet her father, because she had the temerity to not alert him to her plans. And when she discovers him, she doesn't yell at him or give him the cold shoulder. She doesn't discuss how following her is completely ignoring a boundary she has set for her own personal reasons. She invites him to stay.

And the stalking is just one part of the equation. From Morgan and Jeff and Lester using the store's electronics to get video footage of various (faceless) girls' butts and cleavage, to Jeff and Lester setting up a casting couch and then exposing various models to Jeff's penis, the show takes a light-hearted "boys will be boys" mentality when it comes to violating the various women who make the mistake of working, shopping, or knowing someone at the Burbank Buy More.

It is that light-heartedness that makes this all the worse. If the behavior was seen and treated as wrong, as being a violation of these various women's autonomy, if it were called out as being inherently disrespectful to women, then the show may be something other than regressive. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Morgan, Jeff, and Lester are seen as weird, losery guys, but they're also portrayed as lovable (in the case of Morgan), unthreatening (in the case of Lester), loyal (in the case of Jeff (and Morgan)) guys. These guys, the show demonstrates, are doing little wrong. After all, the women don't complain about it! These guys, the show demonstrates, are impotent geeks that girls don't have to worry about!

And then that is the other edge of this sword. There have been two girls who have been Nerd Herders (the Geek Squad of the Buy More). Both of them have been subject to sexual comments and what would be, in the real world, sexual harassment. They were Herders at two different times, so women have never made up more than 1/4 of the Herder staff. But what really seems to be happening here is the show doesn't only go for the "boys will be boys" and "stalking really isn't that serious" and "harassment is just playing", but is either negatively commenting on the nerdish men among us or - and I think it is the second one - giving one nerdish perspective on women and men. Perhaps it shouldn't be that surprising that only two of the nine writers are women.

A large portion of the Chuck series has been full of geekish and nerdy delights, too many to count. And that, along with Chuck being absolutely adorkable most of the time and zany writing, is one of the things that makes me love Chuck oh so very much. Well, that, and a propensity of the writers to rip off whole scenes from their other series, The O.C., and have those scenes play for more often than not comedic value. And that makes the marginalization of women within their world even harder to bear. Because it isn't just that women are absent, or that women get to discuss parts of their lives other than the men; if that were the case, this post could have (and almost was) been called Chuck vs The Bechdel Test. No, it goes deeper than that. It goes to having geeky guys consistently treat women as sexual objects, and as something other than the norm. As a girl, as a geek, and as a nerd, it feels less than welcoming to have that play out as a theme on this show that I love.

Saturday Sesame Street

I like how there were originally 1776 cherry trees in the orchard:

Rape & Sex Education, A Two-Part Rant

So, yesterday, at lunch, the women I work with were discussing their families. I generally like these discussions, since they so rarely veer off into political speak or declarations about how Fox News is just so unbiased. They're a bit on the boring side, but they also make my coworkers happy. And I'd rather have a happy coworker when I need help than the opposite. But every once in a while, a subject comes up that veers us close to the third rail of office discussion.

Yesterday was one of those days. A woman's niece, age 12, was staying after school to finish a test, and was left alone for a few minutes with two boys in her class - also age 12. One of the boys then said, "Let's rape _____". The girl asked the boy why he wanted babies (which seemed like an odd reaction to me, but wevs), and then told her mother after she got home.

Here is the first part of my rant. Everyone at lunch agreed that this was inappropriate. Everyone agreed that the mother, my coworker's sister, should report the incident to the principal. And I was one of those agreeing.

But at the same time, the incident was profoundly disturbing to me. Part of it is because in recent months, a 12 year old girl was raped, by a fourteen year old, and that rape was not seen as a serious matter by school officials. It was also because I happened to sit across from a jerk of an 8th grader at lunch, and his continuous barrage of sexual-type comments were not taken seriously by my school officials, up until I hit him with his own lunch tray. And then I was told "boys will be boys" (yes, seriously, that exact phrase was used). It is because when I was in high school, my regulation tank top was deemed as being "distracting and exciting to the boys" by my gym teacher. And it was only because I have a father who is actually pretty damn scary when he's pissed that I got an apology for that. In other words, we live in a world, even us in the liberaler states in the Union, where schools like to protect their own asses, and where the culture of boys will be boys and girls have to endure sexual comments doesn't stop at the doors of an educational facility.

It is terrible that my coworker's 12 year old niece was threatened (jokingly or not) with rape. On an individual level, it is horrible. Her mother should report the incident to the principal, to the teacher, and maybe calling up the boy's parent(s)/guardian(s) and telling them what their son said. But on a more meta and less micro level, shouldn't we be focusing part of our attention on why this statement could and is casually uttered? I know kids and teenagers and young adults say shocking and controversial things, sometimes in order to seem more sophisticated, sometimes to lash out, and sometimes simply to be seen as shocking and controversial. I'm Facebook friends with a large portion of my sisters' high school, and they have taken to FormSpring like ducks to water, so I know. Trust me. And that could segue into a post about how being gay (or bisexual, or assumed to be gay) is still ZOMG, the WORST thing to be EVER in high school, but I'll just restrain myself. The thing is, something must make it seem like it is okay for this 12 year old to talk about raping his classmate, and it isn't something that affects just this 12 year old. And we should prevent individual 12 year olds from saying such things, but shouldn't we impress upon everyone that rape isn't, actually, something to casually throw around? That it is, actually, a serious offense? That it isn't, actually, something that should be used as a threat, fake or not, faux-funny or not?

But instead, we switched over to sex education, where the second part of my rant comes in.

Mother to the 12 year old girl decided that her daughter's response to a rape threat should probably not be, "Why do you want babies?" So, she sat said daughter down for a sex talk. And talked about how much sex hurt. Always. And about how sex was bad, how sex was unpleasant, and how if you kissed someone, you were kissing every single person he ever kissed (being gay really isn't seen as an option in that house).

First my sister's reaction to the kissing line: "I would have said, 'Well, then I guess I've kissed a lot of people'". Which was, especially if you know her, hilarious.

Secondly, I understand the impetus to discuss sex and what sex is when your daughter is sheltered at age 12. I don't understand the impetus to discuss sex and not touch upon what rape is, why it is a horrible thing to say to someone. It seems that if your sex talk is happening because a kid in your daughter's class talked about raping your daughter, some discussion about rape would be in there. But, no, apparently not.

Third, though, is this: if you decide to have a discussion with your twelve year old about sex because you feel that she is sheltered and needs to have some understanding of it, what the fuck does telling her lies about sex do for her? Seriously now. And here is the crux of the post. As much as it isn't an aberration for a 12 year old boy to feel like joking about rape is acceptable, it is also not aberrant for people to not actually have solid, true information about sex. What benefit is gained from telling a 12 year old girl that sex always hurts, that sex is bad, that sexual contact is something to be avoided? None.

I'm not suggesting that parents should begin telling their children that sex is wonderful, is the best thing ever, and you should totes be open to it. What I am suggesting is that misinformation about sex is troubling, that painting sex as bad or dirty or a necessary evil is problematic, and that telling little girls that sex hurts always is wrong. Morally as well as factually.

This isn't just a problem for this specific 12 year old. This is a problem for all of the twelve year olds who do have parents who aren't open and honest with them, who go to schools where the answer to any sex question is "don't".

And that brings us to this question: is the problem teenagers having sex, or is the problem teenagers having sex irresponsibly?

I would prefer to think of my 17 year old sisters as 5 years old for the rest of their lives. I would prefer to not think about their sexual predilections or habits. But what I want is for them to have the information, to know about sex, to not feel shamed for having it or wanting it. I want them to know about contraception, and also more of the fun stuff. I want them to feel comfortable asking questions, and for them to have the reasonable expectation of honest answers. And I want that for their friends, and their friends' friends. I want sex to not be a mystery to them, not something their parents squick away from discussing, and their school refuses to touch. And I want that for my coworker's niece as well. I want sex education to contain some education about sex. And I don't think that's too much to ask.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 13th Anniversary

Thirteen years ago, I was eleven. That seems odd to type. Thirteen years ago, I was yet to reach actual teenage years. I was a preteen. My favorite shows, if anyone is interested, were Caroline in the City and Suddenly Susan. At least one of those shows were on at the same time a weird show about a teenage vampire slayer premiered. And my father made me miss whichever one that was, because he wanted someone to watch this new weird show about a teenage vampire slayer. That? Is probably a decision he's regretted for the full 13 years that have followed.

I've written a lot about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've written a lot about Joss Whedon. I've been profoundly, scarily, affected by both.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is probably one of the reasons some people in middle school and high school were under the mistaken impression I was a lesbian (note to any other 12-17 year olds out there: if you're going to wear shirts that are black and predominately feature women, even if those women are show-specific, be prepared for questions).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer may have skewed my perception of who and what is cool. For instance: like Joss Whedon? You're cool. Mock Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You're so not.

But Buffy the Vampire Slayer has done a lot more than that. And on this, its anniversary, I'm going to list some of those things out.

BtVS was a show that fully encompassed the geeks inheriting the earth thing. It was a weird show, in that the geeks and the losers seemed to not care that other people thought of them as geeks and losers. Sure, Buffy was bothered by it, from time to time. She had, after all, previously been cool. But Xander? When Rodney Munson beat him up every day for years, he hated Rodney Munson. This was a good thing for me, being that I have odd parents, an odd name, and am both geeky and nerdy. It was validation when I hated the kids who made fun of my name, instead of hating my name. And that was good, at eleven.

BtVS was a show that had tons (and I mean tons) of kick ass women, who were powerful and righteous and strong - and emotional and screwed up and flawed in a myriad of different ways. It was also a show that had a lot of kick ass men who were emotional and screwed up and flawed in a myriad of different ways - and who were also powerful and righteous and strong.

BtVS has probably shaped my philosophical outlook more than any other singular thing. It has done more for how I see the world than Alexander Hamilton, than Thomas Jefferson, than Sartre, than Steinem, than de Beauvoir. And on things as far ranging as friendship, militarism, the role of government, atheism, feminism, ethics, life, and family.

When I want to reference why I feel a certain way, I may break out a BtVS quote. I may - in fact - point to a certain scene. Which leave those around me who have not seen the show or who are not totes obsessed more than a little confused. And I'm okay with that.

Thirteen years on, I'll still cry when I see Becoming Pt 2. Thirteen years on, I'm still in awe of what the show is. Thirteen years on, I'll still spend a day watching season 1, and loving it.

And while it is a little pathetic to pull myself out of my blogging rut by writing about this particular topic, it is also a testament to the show that I still care this much about all of these characters, thirteen years down the road.

So, happy anniversary, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'll write about you again - next year.

Dear Blog,

Wow. It's been a long time. A long, long time. I have reasons! Reasons for my sudden and prolonged absence, reasons that would probably bore you and leave you feeling insecure about your place in my life. You're probably wondering whether I simply abandoned you like I did the iTunes/iPod Genius function, only without the part where I explained why and what went wrong.

As an aside, that function and I made up. I've been working through the fact that it likes to pick Conor Oberst songs for everything, and that one song from the Whip It soundtrack I don't particularly like, and it... hasn't made any concessions. It does have three or so playlists on my iPod at the moment, though.

No, blog! I have not! I have often thought about coming here, writing my thoughts, engaging with the world, and I am coming back. Seriously. I know, I've been a bad blogger. I know, I promised I'd be back about a month ago. I know, you have no reason to trust that I will remain true to my word.

I have, however, made a twitter account. For some indiscernible reason. But twitter is kind of confusing. There's the whole being pithy and witty thing, for one. I can be pithy, and I can be witty, but it turns out that it is exceedingly difficult for me to be both at the same time.

(Which, what a sales pitch, right? Aren't you just dying to go there now? Don't answer that. Unless the answer is yes.)

No, blog, we both know that I am at my best when I am allowed to ramble and rant at length (sometimes great length). We both know that I am to return to your familiar and helpful format, where there are no hashtags that rudely take up needed space to be both pithy and witty. Where an @ sign is more of a way to send a message to someone than a way to immediately get down to business. Where there are no whales being carried by little birds.

I am back. And I will post, and post again.

Yours,

petpluto

Quote of the Day

Hi! I have had a pretty full two or so weeks, what with life and work, and a document-management system that manages to not manage my (and others') documents all that well, so I've been pretty profoundly absent. That is sad for me, and I plan to correct it tout suite. Also, I have a post percolating in my head about militarism in the works of Joss Whedon, so hold onto your hats. Until then, QotD!

But language is a symptom, not the disease. Language is a product of thought, not the thought. Language is an act, not the motive underlying the act. Language is an effect of the structure, not the structure. And although language shapes thought, gives us the tools we have to understand the world and thus limits and informs what we can know – you can get all French-theory with me in the comment section – changing language isn’t going to take us anywhere unless we change the structure itself.

Via Sady. I love the post this quote came from, and I absolutely love the theory of language and the way words are used. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, and at some point my scanners at work will actually scan and separate documents, and I'll be able to think about something other than bar codes again.

Saturday Sesame Street: Birthday Edition

For John, because unlike Bert, it is his birthday:



Happy birthday, John!

Also, a virtual cake for you:
(Stolen from Cake Wrecks)

I also highly recommend checking out John's project, Operation Backlog Slog, Days 1-5, 6, 7-9, 10-16, 17-27, 28-30, 31-33, & (so far) 24-43. Check out his explanation for liking Lady Gaga on that last one. It makes me fully embrace my own love for her music, and feel more secure in my decision to not be embarrassed about it.

Dear Mr. Douthat,

You write,

I find it hard to believe that you’d be seeing this level of right-of-center enthusiasm if Obama had postponed cap-and-trade, avoided taking over GM, compromised more significantly on the stimulus, and taken the incremental route to health insurance expansion that Reihan Salam discusses here.

Really? Are you sure, Mr. Douthat? Because considering the amount of "Obama is gleefully bringing us to the end of the world!1!11!!1!!" expressed in some corners of the cable news channels and in the blogosphere, and how that has continually happened since the man first began making real headway in the polls en route to becoming president, I call bullshite on this. I'm not going to say that all of the right-of-center enthusiasm is due to race; I think a lot of it is due to fear of The Other - the same thing that made John Kennedy a suspicious figure in 1960.

In other words, what is energizing the Right and the Far Far On the Fringes Right isn't the fact that Obama is a liberal. It is that they perceive him to be an Ultra Liberal, one step behind being a socialist, Marxist, atheist; the truth of the matter is that Obama is left-of-center, but far more interested in reaching centrist solutions than he is in making the world in his Liberal image. The man is a compromiser. That is the reason the single payer proponents didn't even get a seat at the table when the healthcare discussion began. That is the reason he has tried to woo people like Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe. That is the reason he chose to simply bail out the banks, instead of using their teetering as the reason to break them into smaller entities; or initializing a government take over as liberaler economists like Simon Johnson (formerly of the IMF and current blogger at The Baseline Scenario) said was the only solution not guaranteed to fail (he later admitted his error on This American Life, after being called on it by one Adam Davidson). This could just be a crafty political move; but in truth, I think Obama hangs by the adage that the best solution is the one that leaves everyone at the table a bit grouchy.

So, what is energizing the Right isn't Obama, but the specter of an Obama that doesn't truly exist. For a long time now, I've pretty much thought that since Obama is going to be seen as Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal by swaths of those on the right and those who just don't like him very much (unless the reason for not liking him lies in the fact that he isn't, actually, Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal), he should have just gone hog wild and been that liberal hero of which the left has often dreamt. But that just isn't who he is; or, at the very least, it isn't how he has chosen to govern. And really, Mr. Douthat, if you think that Obama's liberalish impulses are what is causing the huge upswell on the Right, how do you explain this:

What’s really killing the Democrats, and what’s likely to hurt them the most come next November, is the growing enthusiasm gap — and its implications for candidate recruitment, fundraising, turnout, and all the rest.

If Obama really was the liberal candidate the left had dreamed of and the Right is using as a boogeyman, then there would be no enthusiasm gap. The progressive base would be just as enthusiastic about getting out the vote as the right is now. The problem is, again, that Obama just isn't that guy. He was never that guy. He is a capable guy; an inspiring guy; a guy who has acted as a change agent just by being elected, due to his heritage. I'll bet dollars to donuts he's going to be a great president. But he isn't the liberal's dream. And so, the liberal, knowing this, isn't too excited. The progressive isn't going to get comprehensive banking reform; isn't going to get a Public Option; isn't going to get a dismantling of a broken healthcare system; isn't going to get supports for the middle class; isn't going to get a bill that doesn't start out already compromised; is upset by the Stupack-Pitts Amendment; and is pissed that Don't Ask, Don't Tell still has not been repealed.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal or isn't liberal enough - though I would definitely prefer if the man were to enact policies that were inherently more liberal, myself. It is how the world perceived him, and how part of that world perceives him still.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal and if he'd only moved incrementally, he wouldn't have a backlash. It is that people like Sarah Palin are the idols of the Right; and their prescriptions tend to be, "Do nothing. Wait. Repeat".

Obama's problem is that the only people who seem to be riding high right now are those in banking, when the conventional wisdom is that banking is what brought the world to its economic knees, when banks are still foreclosing on houses and turning ordinary people out into the streets.

Mr. Douthat, you say,

I think it would behoove liberals to give serious consideration to the more direct explanation — namely, that some of the anti-Obama backlash has to do with Americans discovering, after an enormous Democratic sweep, that they preferred liberalism much more in theory than in practice.

I say, helping maintain the status quo, in terms of the banks especially, isn't a particularly liberal philosophy. You say some of the anti-Obama backlash is due to people figuring out they don't really like liberalism. I say the anti-Obama backlash is because the guy didn't turn out to be the messiah. I say, the anti-Obama backlash is because ordinary people still don't feel as if their interests are being served, and yet they see bankers walking away with million dollar bonuses. And what they see is the status quo in politics, the status quo on Wall Street, and the status quo in the big firms where the hot shots make the money. And the only people who are not reaching that status quo is what they see as the ordinary citizen.

Democrats were swept into Congress as much because they weren't Republicans as because they were Democrats. Democrats had to prove, and prove quickly, they were different than the Republicans, that they weren't beholden to the same moneyed interests, that they could make a difference and that they would make a difference for the average citizen. Democrats are, I'm sad to say, failing that test. More than not liking big proposals, I'm willing to wager the ordinary American citizen doesn't like big proposals that dawdle in the halls of Congress, not getting passed and then becoming progressively worse until they pass with absolutely no one happy, or just fade away.

But really, Obama's real problem, the real reason there is an enthusiasm gap, is because it is frickin' hard to govern. Especially when the other side won't play. And so, it is infinitely easier to work up enthusiasm when your side is out of power - because you don't have to make compromises and can tell tales about how much better your side would be handling things without having to offer proof. Meanwhile, the other side is stuck actively making and eating the head cheese. Which, honestly, is much, much harder to be happy about.

Chris Matthews Gets It Half Right

Well, maybe a quarter right.

First, I have to say that MSNBC's new feature on their websites to shorten video segments is brilliant. I love it (transcript below):

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CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know what, I'll tell you something, and we'll get to this over time. It came up in the Hillary campaign. And that is this: women in the workplace have to have what's called a professional manner. Men have a little more history in the workplace, in certain work places, and they have a little more, uh, range in the way they presents themselves. Women are expected to perform professionally. An attorney, a doctor, you want to see a game face to some extent, right? And now, when they get into politics, they're-they're expected to do a lot of grabbing and holding and baby kissing, and a lot of it, sort of - intimate exchanges with total strangers. An availability for intimate exchanges. Like, come up to me, grab me, you know what I mean? And if you show any kind of, uh, guardedness or what you call in the workplace professionalism, you're cold... ...So, what we're finding out now is it's harder!

Okay, so I'm not the world's biggest Chris Matthews fan. Scratch that. I strongly dislike Chris Matthews. I think the man is, simply put, an ass. Or, a jackass.

Which is why my first impulse upon hearing this was to say (to myself, while I was alone in my car), "REally, Chris? Women in politics are maligned for maintaining the professionalism they need to acquire in order to succeed and progress in a number of business environments? Who'd have thunk?!" The second was, "We're finding that out NOW?! You f***ing JACKASS!"

The "finding out now" part is where Matthews was downgraded from getting it half right to getting it a quarter right. Because, seriously, those of us in the know have known this for years. Hell, I'm 24 and I've known that for at least half of my life.

This whole post, actually, could be about how this remark may be Matthews obliquely offering contrition over his continually stated negative opinion about Hillary Clinton in during the 2008 presidential race, his remarks about how she was "cold", how she was "sharp", etc. And that would turn into a post about how much I ha... strongly dislike Chris Matthews. Especially when I get to the part where he's talking to Rachel Maddow as if this is some grand revelation he's letter her on, when I'm pretty sure this ain't news to her.

But instead, I'm going to talk about where Matthews got it right, and where he got it wrong.

He's right. He's absolutely right that women have to perform in a certain way, act in a certain way, in the work environment - especially certain types of work environments - in order to get ahead.

He's wrong if he thinks that is the only negative women face. If a woman isn't cold, then she is ineffective - in the workplace, and I'll bet on the campaign trail. Lest we forget the reaction Secretary of State Clinton arose from varied political corners when she had the audacity to tear up in New Hampshire. Some (Andrew Sullivan) called it a calculated, crass effort to gain voter sympathy. And anti-feminist to boot. Some asked if we wanted a woman who cried dealing with our enemies. There is very few ways women can win without being critiqued for how they express (or don't) their femininity.

What Matthews is also wrong about is why (white) men are allowed more expression in the workplace. It isn't because they have been there longer; it is because they are automatically seen as competent. Women (and let's face it, minorities of any stripe) have to prove they are competent. Them's the facts, Jack.

I'll give Matthews credit where credit is due: he's teetering on the edge of a rather big revelation, namely that there is actually sexism in the world and it affects women in politics - just like it affects women everywhere else. I'll give Matthews that credit because I actually think he's made a fairly large step. When he says, "we're finding out", I think he means "I'm finding out". Unless he thinks a lot of his brethren are on the cusp of this realization as well. I hope so.

Allies' Education: A Rant

After a couple of months of it hanging around under the Recent Editor's Favorites at Feministing, I decided to actually read Allies asking questions. And it wasn't exactly the post I was anticipating. I don't know what kind of post I was expecting with that title, but this far exceeded my meager expectations. It offered a measured, sympathetic look at why would-be allies ask the question, "How am I supposed to learn if you don't teach me?" It looked at how we are told throughout our lives there is no such thing as a dumb question. It delved into why someone of a certain group may not want to be on call to answer the would-be ally's question. And it talked about a better way to become not only better educated, but a path toward becoming a better ally.

And yet, the comments section was filled with comments that seemed to bypass the whole, "Here's a better way to handle this situation, person with a question!" and moved directly on to the "How could you suggest that the thoughts in my head, the very ones that have only now occurred to me, have been asked multiple times before? And even if that is true, how could I possibly know that? And if I don't know that, how could it possibly be my fault? Hmmm?!" A sampling:

Pantheon:
But the person asking doesn't know that you've been asked it over and over. If its been asked over and over on the same thread that the person was presumably reading, that's one thing, but if this is the first time they've thought of that question, they don't know you've answered it enough to be sick of it, or where to find the same kind of answer you would give.
Spiffy McBang:
when you say, if you're privileged you need to go learn, even though you may not know you're privileged, it sounds like you're throwing that out there at anyone who wants to ask something... but how is somebody supposed to figure that out if they don't see a post like this explicitly stating as much?
rebekah:
I personally would much rather have to take the two minutes to write a response to an honest question from someone who just wants information from the source than to have them google it and come across a site that is run by some ass hat and have them be misinformed.

There were comments that thoughtfully engaged with the post from the other side, like:

Flowers:
I feel a responsibility to answer Commenter A's questions, even though it gets very taxing and annoying. Answering privileged people's questions is a duty I owe to other non-privileged people, so that there will hopefully be one more knowledgeable person in the world, and our cause will advance just a little.

And I specifically do NOT want peple going to Google or Wikipedia to learn about an issue that I live out everyday, when they should be asking me directly. If I think that there is a particularly good article online, I will refer people to that. But so much of the internet is utter bullshit -- I would never just cite it as a general source.

But generally, a lot of the response was, "But why can't I ask questions?" and "But where else am I s'pposed to find the answers?"

Even though I think SociologicalMe's original post was fairly compelling and not out of the boundaries of the possible and the polite (and I wholly suggest reading it), I think s/he may have missed a few key points. Namely:

• Commenter B has already educated Commenter A. The post went into formal schooling and how blogging is not equivalent, but the analogy it didn't make was that of the research paper. As in, not all schooling is in the passive learning style. So, say would-be ally is on a site; would-be ally sees a term s/he has never seen before, or reads of a theory s/he has never heard of. S/he has already been educated. S/he has been educated to the fact s/he is entirely ignorant of a subject/subject matter. And, if would-be ally is truly interested in learning about the subject at hand, s/he now has something to go on, something to Google. And, like a research paper or homework, the would-be ally now has the ability to go off and do some of the hard work hirself.

• Commenter A may not be a known entity to Commenter B. rebekah made mention of writing an answer to an "honest question". The problem with blogs and with pseudonyms is that there is no interpersonal relationship between Commenter A and Commenter B. Due to that, Commenter A has no reasonable expectation that Commenter B knows the question asked has been asked in good faith. If the only people who ever stumbled upon a blog and asked a question were people who were honestly interested in learning, then perhaps the dynamic would be different. That is not the case. But even if it were, it doesn't change the fact that Commenter B owes Commenter A nothing.

• Commenter B owes Commenter A nothing because Commenter B has a life of hir own. Commenter B may have answered the question at hand a thousand or so times. Commenter B may be looking to get into the nitty gritty of a specific issue on a specific thread without the whole of the conversation being brought back up to a 101 level. Commenter B may have little interest in figuring out if this particular Commenter A is different from all of the others and really wants to learn, when Commenter B has other things going on - kids to play with, dogs to walk, food to eat. But mostly Commenter B may just not care about making the learning process extremely easy for Commenter A, because the living of it hasn't exactly been peachy keen for Commenter B.

• Commenter B may actually have been asked the same exact question a thousand times before. This goes to Pantheon's point, that "the person asking doesn't know that you've been asked it over and over". And that's true; no one can possibly know what another person has been asked before, let alone how many times. However, a person would have to be fairly obtuse to not even consider that the question s/he wants to ask has been asked before; possibly on that very site, possibly to that very poster, and possibly not that far in the past. Only a Very Special Snowflake indeed would assume the opposite, that this is an original thought only occurring to them. Which leads to the two last points, and ones I think SociologicalMe definitely should have mentioned.

• Many, many sites that encounter this problem have a handy-dandy search bar, or some other search tool to aid in the quest for knowledge. Feministing has a search bar, handily labelled "Search Feministing". Shakesville has one, helpfully labelled "Search: • Shakesville, • Google" with the option to search either Shakesville or Google. Feministe has both the option to "Search Feministe" or to browse the archives, category or tag. Many other sites employ the "cloud" technique of making available labels used on posts. So, if the would be ally wants to know about feminism, s/he could search that very site that prompted the question via search engine or tag. Amazing!

• Also, many, many sites have links on the side. So, if would-be ally has a question about, say, feminism, s/he could take a few seconds and scan the available blogs linked and take a gander at one called Feminism 101. Voila!

• In order for one to truly become learned in a subject, one cannot be spoon-fed the answers. One has to think, to work, to do a lot of the heavy lifting hirself. Commenter A denies hirself an education when s/he fosters all of the expectations upon Commenter B. Learning takes work. End of story.

In this time with more information available to each person with an internet connection than in any other time in history, with Google (kind of scarily) archiving all of the books under the sun, the idea that the only way we can learn is by getting the crib sheets from another in Real Time instead of actively reaching out to gain the knowledge ourselves is not only ludicrous but insulting. And the idea that others exist within cyberspace for the sole purpose to service our educational needs on the spot when directly questioned is also insulting, to both our ability to look into the problem ourselves and to the people upon which we impose.

In order for one to truly become learned in a subject, one cannot be spoon-fed the answers. One has to think, to work, to do a lot of the heavy lifting hirself. Commenter A denies hirself an education when s/he fosters all of the expectations upon Commenter B.

The Song Currently Playing Loop-De-Loop In My Head

So, for the Christmas before last, my mother got me a record converter. It seemed like a present more for herself than me; but since I do have a sizable record collection for someone whose buying power didn't come about until a while after the record was the convenient and popular way to store music, it wasn't a complete bowling ball moment.

Skip to this year. We've been slowly, stintingly, sputtering along with the record conversion process. Mostly, because it takes a lot of time and you see little results. So, this last time around, we broke out the 45s to convert between full length records. And that's when my mom broke out this song:

James, James hold the ladder steady

James, James I'm packed tonight I'm ready

James, James hold the ladder steady

I'm a'comin' down to your ar-ar-ar-rms

I'm a'comin' down to your arms.

Now James and I we went to mama and showed her my diamond ring

She said "my poor little baby, you must be crazy, to think of such a

thing"

So James, James hold the ladder steady

James, James I'm packed tonight I'm ready

James, James hold the ladder steady

I'm a'comin' down to your ar-ar-ar-rms

I'm a'comin' down to your arms.

Now James and I we went to daddy and said that we want to be wed

Daddy said "nope, you'll just have to elope" and laughed as he went to

bed

But James, James hold the ladder steady

James, James I'm packed tonight I'm ready

James, James hold the ladder steady

I'm a'comin' down to your ar-ar-ar-rms

I'm a'comin' down to your arms.

I'd hate to see 'em in the morning when they both completely flip

He'll be sayin' "they cain't", she'll be feeling faint

And I'll be kissing my husband's lips

So James, James hold the ladder steady

James, James I'm packed tonight I'm ready

James, James hold the ladder steady

I'm a'comin' down to your ar-ar-ar-rms

I'm a'comin' down to your arms.

FADE

James, James hold the ladder steady

James, James I'm packed tonight I'm ready

James, James hold the ladder steady

It has been going around and around in my head for, literally, the last day and a half.

Lesson learned: Never let my mother pick out the 45s to play.