January 2008 – Page 13

Book Question

There was a comment on the Barnes and Noble thread about where one would go to find new books:

Where do you folks find out what is new in lit? I’m really curious as I don’t hang with literary types, so my reading is a lonely enterprise.

Also, I agree with Angi, my curiosity about the real world keeps me engrossed in non-fiction so much that my good intentions to dive into the world of lit, new or old is nothing but that; good intentions.

I tend to have too many recommendations on my plate rather than too few. When I need something new, I usually just check out the new acquisitions shelf at the library. I also check out Bookslut occasionally.

Where do you get your suggestions? Friends, family, the paper?

Yeah, happy new year.

Well, it’s that time of year again, for people who haven’t set foot in the gym all year to suddenly start showing up en masse so’s you can’t get a treadmill.

And then there’s this. Just what is it with mayors and governors who struggle with weight themselves deciding that everyone in their city or state needs to go on a diet? Especially, in the case of schools, when they don’t put their money where their mouth is and provide some funding for fresh, healthy food and exercise to the students.

How dare you mistrust our rich white gay men?

Guess what? Time for another post about ENDA, the bitter controversy that refuses to die! But first, let’s review, shall we?

A couple of months ago, the US House of Representatives passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would grant limited forms of protection to gay people… at least as long as they don’t “act gay.” As Jill noted at the time, it was a pretty Pyrrhic victory. Even the sponsor of the bill, veteran gay congressman Barney Frank, suggested that a presidential veto was likely, and that one of the real reasons to pass it was to try and soften up Congress — to get them used to voting for LGBT rights. Unfortunately, Frank also found it was necessary to throw trans people to the wolves as part of this effort to create a kinder, gentler, gay-friendlier Congress. Discarding trans rights into a pit full of rabid, conservative lupines is a habit Frank has acquired over the years by repeatedly talking about how freaky it would be if trans people and non-trans people had to share showers. (It’s worth noting that I’ve never actually heard any trans advocate suggest what Frank is so nervous about.)

Since then, there’s been a huge amount of bitterness over the decision by Frank and Nancy Pelosi, with the backing of the most powerful gay lobby in the country, the HRC, to go forward with the non-inclusive ENDA. Prominent trans activists working with the HRC felt compelled to resign. The HRC put out a jaw-droppingly tone-deaf PR plan to win back the hearts of the trans community. Pretty much every trans person who was paying attention to this debacle felt that it was far too little, far too late. Here in New York, HRC representatives were publicly excoriated at the local LGBT center by a crowd of activists, trans and non-trans alike, and picketed by a few dozen silver-haired veteran queer activists outside the heavily symbolic Stonewall Bar.

But now, apparently, a trans activist has really crossed the line, to paraphrase the headline of an editorial just posted by Kevin Naff. Naff is the editor of the Washington Blade, the nation’s second-largest gay paper:

The recent remarks by Meredith Bacon, president of the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality, denouncing the Human Rights Campaign’s handling of the ENDA debate, serve as a vivid and disappointing reminder of why the trans movement hasn’t progressed as far as the gay rights movement.

“[A]s the chair of the NCTE Board of Directors, I can assure all who read this blog that NCTE will not work with HRC in the foreseeable future, until the current leadership is completely purged, and until we are convinced that, unlike its predecessors, any new HRC leadership is totally committed to working for transgender rights,” Bacon wrote.

“As long as HRC is controlled by and is dependent upon white, rich, professional gay men, such collaboration may never occur,” she wrote.

Her comments are offensive, counterproductive and totally unacceptable. She should either retract those comments and apologize or be removed from her position post-haste if her organization is to retain any credibility whatsoever in the gay rights movement.

Now that… that is over the line! How dare she… how does she think she can get away with this kind of “name-calling,” as Naff puts it? You know, calling people nasty names lke “white,” and “rich,” and “professional gay men.” No wait, that can’t be what he means. Everyone KNOWS the HRC is beholden to affluent, mostly-white gay folks; they provide the money, they influence the agenda. Nobody even bothers to argue otherwise. It’s how most of the large non-profits in this country work.

Maybe the point is this: how dare Bacon claim that rich white men won’t eventually come back to help other oppressed people! It’s a totally offensive assumption, and wounds the sensitive feelings and dignity of rich white professional liberal dudes everywhere, whether they’re gay or not! I mean, the HRC and its overlords are totally liberal, I mean progressive, and will always fight for the little guy, right? It’s not like the HRC endorses Republican candidates who oppose reproductive rights, affirmative action, and perform racist caricatures of Asians. Oh, oops. They DID do that. But it’s not like the HRC supported the Bush Administration’s plan to privatize Social Security. Oh, oops. They did that too, in exchange for promises that gay partners might be able to receive benefits in a privatized program. Oh yeah, you can totally trust those Bush adminsitration guys. Just like you can trust the HRC, apparently.

How dare she say that her organization won’t trust the HRC anymore? It’s appalling, this lack of trust, and she ought to be removed from her position, or none of you trannies will ever work in this town again, I say! Harrumph, harrumph. Can’t have these people insulting the rich white professional men now, now can we? Absolutely improper. Totally unacceptable.

Raucus Out With Your Caucus Out*

The Iowa caucus has returned victories for Obama and Huckabee. And I couldn’t be more thrilled — on both counts.

I didn’t do a pre-caucus endorsement for a few reasons. First, there isn’t a single candidate who really excites me. None of them exactly match up with my views, and there isn’t anyone who really gets me going. Second, I’ve had a bit of feminist guilt for not being a stronger Clinton supporter. She’s a brilliant politician, and hands down the smartest person running. She’s hard working, dedicated, accomplished… and I’ve been stoking a little flame of hope that the Wellesley girl is still alive in her. But she’s just so… moderate. And, while I know it was her husband’s policy, I can’t forgive her for shilling for welfare “reform.” I can get over her vote to give Bush power to go to war, but I can’t get over her refusal to apologize for it and really take responsibility. I can’t get excited about her. I don’t feel like she’s the one for me. And the “inevitable Hillary victory” canard was getting really tired. If she wins the primary I will certainly back her whole-heartedly, but I do want to see her challenged. Third, other women who I really respect are supporting Edwards (Amanda isn’t the only one, but she’s the one who has blogged about it), and I feel like I must be missing something, because I’m just not seeing it with him either.

But watching Obama tonight, I was smiling.

There’s an excitement there, and it’s more than just charisma. Yes, he is a politician and yes, he has less experience than Clinton, but damn if he isn’t good. As cynical as I am, I don’t think his emphasis on hope is a schtick. I think he’s an idealist. I think that may be a problem for him if he gets into office, and I think it’ll cause him to stumble a little bit. But there’s something very human about him. Just listening to his speech tonight, and hearing him address, as one example, genocide as one of the problems facing the international community was striking. You didn’t hear that too often under Bill Clinton. You certainly don’t hear it from the Bush administration. There are numerous political and strategic reasons why that word doesn’t get tossed around lightly, why ongoing genocides are obscured as “conflicts” and “civil wars.” The fact that Obama would use it in such an important speech — the fact that he and his people deemed it crucial enough to name — gives me, yes, hope.

Throughout the whole campaign process, I’ve been telling myself that I’m not going to back anyone, and that I’ll wait to see what happens and then work very hard for whoever wins. That still holds true. But watching Obama tonight, I was excited. I always feel excited when I watch him; I’ve just moderated that excitement by reminding myself of his flaws (politically moderate, fairly green, etc etc). But you know, tonight felt good. And if Obama takes it, I’m pretty sure I will be excited to go work for him. I haven’t felt that way about a candidate in a while.

As for Huckabee, well, I actually am happy he did so well, for two reasons: First, because it really does show the deep corporate pockets backing the Republican party that there are some things they can’t control. Second, Huckabee would get slaughtered in a general election.

Although if a Republican were guaranteed to win the Presidency — and I don’t think they will, but Democrats are not exactly the most competent at winning elections — I’d want it to be Romney or McCain over all others. Giuliani is basically Satan walking the earth, and Huckabee is a fucknut. So here’s to them losing, eventually.

Tonight, I’m feelin’ good. And I don’t think that’s just the red wine talking.

Who are you all supporting? Who do you hope the other guys nominate?

_______________________________
*Title shamelessly stolen from Ann at Feministing.

2007 Redux

2007 sucked. I’m glad its over. Medea at Alternet gives us a few reasons why 2007 wasn’t all that bad after all, but I’m still pretty happy that 2008 is upon us. 2007, for me, started off really poorly but eventually went uphill. It began with Molly Ivans passing, inter-feminist fights, the conclusion of a bad semester, a shitty relationship, a back injury, sleeping problems, my first Christmas without my grandma, and generalized frustration and depression. It ended with a great semester in Germany, lots of new friends, a fabulous new apartment, many wonderful travels, amazing new co-bloggers, a new and exciting job (you’ll all be getting the details on this later…), and even a really good date. So things are looking up.

I don’t do resolutions, but as I am on a constant quest for personal betterment, my 2008 goals include getting my apartment fully decorated, going to the gym at least four times a week (including yoga twice a week and spinning twice a week), reading at least one non-law-school-related book a month, doing all (or at least most) of my law school reading, reading a wider array of blogs and being better about linking to other blogs, writing for HuffPo more often, eating more fruits and veggies, quitting nail-biting, being less self-critical, being more aggressive when I need something, recognizing that I cannot and will not ever make everyone happy, passing the Bar, and finally drafting that book proposal I’ve been kicking around in my head.

What will you not miss about 2007? And what are you looking forward to in the new year?

How exactly are we defining “racist” these days?

Because in my book, someone who meets with white supremacists, embraces them, sends them dog-whistle codes and accepts money from them is probably racist. According to Ron Paul fans, however, the information that David Neiwart and “zio-utopian wench” Sara have dug up doesn’t qualify him as a racist. Even this message from a white supremacist leader:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy.

For his spokesman to call white racialism a “small ideology” and claim white activists are “wasting their money” trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

I don’t know that it is necessarily good for Paul to “expose” this. However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable by denying it is outrageous — and I hate seeing people in the press who denounce racialism merely because they think it is not fashionable.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

But Ron Paul is most certainly not a racist! Even a racist in the comments says so:

I attend Ron Paul meetups and I keep my White nationalist ideology very quiet. There’s at least one confirmed jew there, a lesbian couple, a black woman, and some run of the mill hetero white folks. And it’s a very nice group. Nobody argues about anything, and we all desperately want Ron Paul to win. When there’s meetings without any children present, I make sure to say “fuck the Iraq war” and everyone agrees, even the jew.

But it made me realize — I’d settle for freedom, and so would these people. And I don’t think that my idea of freedom is so differnet from theirs. I just read an article in “The Occidental Quarterly” that there are plenty of black people that are against forced integration (and always have been) and are perfectly happy with separate but equal.

Ron Paul is not a racist, and the spontaneous movement he created is not racist. It brought people together who would never have known one another.

Well ok then.

Even More Questions for Pro-Lifers

This post has generated some confusion and a lot of questions from pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike. I have a bad habit of assuming everyone who is reading this is well-versed in feminist theory and pro-choice politics, and that simply isn’t true. So I’m going to back up a bit and try to lay out some of the issues.

There are a lot of different pro-choice arguments out there. Most of them revolve around the ideas of bodily autonomy and personal privacy — that is, a pregnant woman should be allowed to decide for herself whether or not she continues the pregnancy, and the government should not be empowered to legally compel her to remain pregnant against her will. There are a lot of moral, legal and ethical arguments as to why the government shouldn’t be able to do this, and why women should not be forced to sustain a fetal life. I’m not going to get into those here. Instead, I’m going to address the standard pro-life view that life begins at conception, and that we should invest every fertilized egg, embryo and fetus with full personhood rights. And I have a few questions about that.

The ultimate pro-life goal is the passage of a Human Life Amendment. The texts of such an amendment vary, but they generally include the basic idea that:

The paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health or condition of dependency.

In other words, life begins the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. Personhood begins here. Sounds simple enough, right? But I have some questions and concerns (numbered for easy answering from the multitudes of pro-lifers who I’m sure will be happy to address them):

Wow, look at you

First off, thanks to everybody for their concern about my Wayward Eldest Daughter issue. I kind of feel bad about plastering her mug all over internet, but she and the Skeptical Youngest are rather used to it by now. Kat knows I show off her picture to show how sweet she looks, so that you all can be doubly shocked by how very BAD she can be.

In answer to one of the questions in comments about bi-polar–actually she has been diagnosed. She just won’t stay in any one place long enough to follow through with either talk treatment or meds. That’s one of those things where she has a compliance problem.

On to other things–World of Warcraft is kicking my ass right now, y’all. I’m about to descend into mild geekiness, so if your eyes glaze over at the mention of games, you can skip this part. And if you’re a level 70 paladin with a zillion gold pieces and a hippogryph mount, bear with me here a minute.

I am a level 12 night elf. I am so low-level that killing crabs sometimes backfires on me. So I’m stuck in this ravine, dead, with bloodfeather harpies surrounding me, and every time I resurrect my body they attack me and kill me again, before I can use my hearthstone or teleport or even shadowmeld. And the spirit healer won’t talk to me.

Please, tell me it’s going to eventually make more sense. Please tell me that when I’m running around with a level 20 or more I’ll look back fondly on the days when death came sometimes every 5 minutes. Otherwise I’m gonna hurl this freaking laptop at the wall.

And with that, a link to a great post by Daisy about a subject dear to my heart: Where are all the old woman bloggers?

After turning 50 in September, I became somewhat obsessed with the age of bloggers. I discovered I could find a lot of male bloggers in the 50-and-older category. But where are the women?

I know, there are a few. And I am not talking about Arianna Huffington, who is 57 and a billionaire (and therefore looks 25), but about us ordinary bloggers, such as Raven, Jackie, Risa, JJ, Marion, Maitri and Shadocat. I try to find them and link them on my blog… they are like precious jewels.

I have wondered if the hyperventilating over WOMEN’S AGE might be the cause of this phenomenon; we might call it The Botox Effect. We cover up the “lines” in our writing, as we try to cover the lines in our face. We minimize that which makes us seem old. If there is something new we don’t understand, such as contemporary slang, we don’t dare ask for clarification and thereby give ourselves away. Perhaps, then, there are more of us than I realize? Many women pointedly do not provide their ages on their blogs, while men usually do; a silly, sexist and archaic cultural habit.

At times when I write about nostalgia, as I enjoy doing, I get replies from isolated people (who will not comment publicly, it is worth noting) thanking me for publicly remembering something that they agree needs recounting. But they say it in hushed, secretive emails, as if I have said something dirty out loud. THE PAST IS OLD, and therefore, not a good thing. NEW is good, new is revolutionary, new is a product that has been improved, reformulated, with all kinds of good shit added to it to make it a rockem-sockem, highly-evolved and BETTER thing… better car, better house, better suburb, better dishwashing liquid.

crossposted at superbabymama

Hooters for the kiddies

Spotted in LA by reader Leyla (click the photos for a bigger image):

“Hooters Girl (in training)”

“Hooters girls dig me”

Yes, those are toddler sizes.

Not Getting It

Anti-choice blogger Jill Stanek calls me a pinhead for saying, in an old post, that “I am pro-choice because I believe that if we outlaw a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, there is no legal argument against forcing a woman to terminate a pregnancy, or disallowing certain people from reproducing.” Here’s what Stanek says in response:

What Jill means is if we outlaw a woman the right to say yes or no to abortion, the government can force her to abort.

I don’t know any other way to say this. Jill, frankly my dear shared name, you’re crazy. You must have ventured too close at the Pro-Choice Carnival to the guy in the sideshow who sticks pins all over his body and yourself become a pinhead.

Outlawing slavery, the closest analogy, did not contradictorily give the government or anyone the right to own slaves, for heaven’s sakes. Outlawing anything for that matter does not translate into forcing what was outlawed onto the public. Get real.

But specifically, any and all plans to outlaw abortion are solely based on the fact that the entity being aborted is a human being, a legal person, eradicating the legality of a China abortion syndrome in the U.S.

As for forced sterilization, it was your side, the eugenics movement, that forwarded that during the late 1800s/early-to-mid 1900s, Jill. In fact, your heroine, Margaret Sanger, and her friends were proponents of forced sterilization. Thankfully, that was long ago outlawed and has nothing to do with abortion.

She also seems to dislike our banner.*