The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed me yesterday for an article on Salt Lake Saves Darfur. The article was published today and I just finished reading it. And, you know, beggars can't be choosers. I feel very grateful that our organization is getting some press and some attention, grateful that people are taking interest and wanting to know more, hopeful that this article will bring a better turn out to our events. But damn. It was NOT a very good article. The facts were wrong, the misquotes were legion and the writing was subpar at best.
It's left me to think a little bit about miscommunication. There seems to be no escaping the fact that, more often than not, when two people are communicating, different things are being conveyed than either side means. In my case, it means that I was involved with the Darfur conflict before it even began (begging the question of whether or not my role has been entirely "on the level"), that I help these people to assuage previously dashed hopes of Peace Corps involvement, and that Salt Lake Saves Darfur began a full year earlier than our organizational records show. Since the news must be fact, I find myself questioning my formerly firm grasp on personal history. Maybe I did know about the conflict in 2003- which would make me some sort of international genocide psychic! How cool is that?!
Oh 2003 self, if only your psychic powers would have been used things other than predicting a genocide you could not prevent.....
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
For people who believe that misogny doesn't exist
Jezebel is reporting on the Del Mar Medical Spa's recent advertisement campaign.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Get it?!! Because if you don't get plastic surgery, you're a fat ugly cow! If you don't have Playboy Bunny boobs and a tight ass, you're "less evolved" than the rest of us.
Vomit.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Get it?!! Because if you don't get plastic surgery, you're a fat ugly cow! If you don't have Playboy Bunny boobs and a tight ass, you're "less evolved" than the rest of us.
Vomit.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Rape myths, take 1,089,398,123,302
International Planned Parenthood had this article about an 11-year old Romanian girl who is flying to Britain to get an abortion after being raped by her uncle. Romania has a 14-week abortion cap and this girl didn't know she was pregnant (or was too afraid to say anything considering she'd been threatened) until she had passed the time limit. The interesting point to me was the comment that one of the Romanian officials made about her case:
I think it's important to note that, even though the Romanian courts were not going to make any exceptions, the head of the Cuza Voda maternity section still felt the need to perpetuate rape myths as a reason to limit abortion access.
"The fact that the pregnancy stemmed from rape was not taken into account by the panel, for two reasons," explained Vica Todosiciuc, head of the Cuza Voda maternity section in the northeastern city of Iasi.
"One, because rape has not been proven. And two, because the penal code does not allow for any exceptions," he said.
I think it's important to note that, even though the Romanian courts were not going to make any exceptions, the head of the Cuza Voda maternity section still felt the need to perpetuate rape myths as a reason to limit abortion access.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
philos
So, I wanted to write a small bit today about politics today. Surprise, surprise.
I have a lot of close friends who are really invested in the concept of "going green." They grow their own food, work for green companies, patch their clothes, ride their bikes everywhere, plant trees, use cloth shopping bags, and basically do every personally empowering thing that they can think of to help reduce green house gas emissions. And I think this is really admirable, I do. The combination of these actions conveys a mindfulness and a sincere dedication to preserving things that matter; it shows a commitment to individual integrity and accountability that is oftentimes not seen in our society. I give props where props are due.
But none of them are interested in politics.
Oh sure, they'll give the occasional fist shake when George Bush, the GREAT EVIL ONE, is brought up in conversation. The Bush Administration has become this sort of Star-Warsian Evil Empire, dividing the world into cozy black and white geometrics that are so familiar, so comforting- especially when you are one of the good guys. But they don't keep up to date on local issues, know none of the local politicians, don't participate in rallies or citizen lobbying, don't write letters, don't follow specific bills or resolutions, and don't really read the newspapers.
I think there's a fundamental disconnect there. I mean, these incredibly caring motivated people are working their asses off to save the planet, one recyclable can at a time, and yet the area in which they would have the most power to affect REAL change, they shie away from.
It may be that they don't understand how powerful the political scene is. They see the Evil Empire and assume that all is lost on the political front and it's some sort of Orwellian everyman scenario where rag tags and rebels unite in grassroots struggle against the man, unified in one unspoken common desire for human betterment and global salvation. This may explain the overwhelming excitement about Obama (even though they have no idea what his positions are on any of the issues, much less the issues themselves). In posing as the opposition to the Evil Empire, Obama is a sort of political savior come during the apocalypse to save us.
Or maybe they are entrenched in post-hippy historical apathy toward anything political. They've heard myths the size of Paul Bunyan which posit that, no matter what you do, Big Oil or Big Pharma or Big Energy or Big Government will overpower any opposition movement with their money and lawyers and finesse. It's discouraging to listen to these myths (or actual stories), and one starts to feel completely disempowered and angry. The anger leads to apathy, the belief that we'd be better off without government all together and why can't we all just get along?
It may also be the fact that, up close and center, politics is a pretty boring business. Billions of pages of paperwork and minutiae, obtuse windbaggy senators obfuscating the benefits of this tort reform and that tax law until all the righteous energy is depleted by sheer boredom. Up close and personal, it's not a glamorous business.
It makes me sad though. Not sad in the, "kids these days just don't care" sort of way. These people care! They're just so busy searching for change that they don't see the $100 bill sitting in front of them. With all the brains and the motivation and the dedication directed in the right direction, we could really make a change. We could really get things done around here, do some clean up. It would take long-term commitment, and some boring afternoons, but we could really make things better. I keep thinking about this FISA bill that I've referenced in the prior post. If my friends were political, and they yelled and shook their fists at their elected officials (and their friends did that in their states, and their friends, and so on), all these Democratic lilly livers who are prepared to roll over and allow civil rights violations would be forced to listen. They'd be forced to stand up for the people they represent, the loud angry conscience in their ear, and do what's right...or else.
I have a lot of close friends who are really invested in the concept of "going green." They grow their own food, work for green companies, patch their clothes, ride their bikes everywhere, plant trees, use cloth shopping bags, and basically do every personally empowering thing that they can think of to help reduce green house gas emissions. And I think this is really admirable, I do. The combination of these actions conveys a mindfulness and a sincere dedication to preserving things that matter; it shows a commitment to individual integrity and accountability that is oftentimes not seen in our society. I give props where props are due.
But none of them are interested in politics.
Oh sure, they'll give the occasional fist shake when George Bush, the GREAT EVIL ONE, is brought up in conversation. The Bush Administration has become this sort of Star-Warsian Evil Empire, dividing the world into cozy black and white geometrics that are so familiar, so comforting- especially when you are one of the good guys. But they don't keep up to date on local issues, know none of the local politicians, don't participate in rallies or citizen lobbying, don't write letters, don't follow specific bills or resolutions, and don't really read the newspapers.
I think there's a fundamental disconnect there. I mean, these incredibly caring motivated people are working their asses off to save the planet, one recyclable can at a time, and yet the area in which they would have the most power to affect REAL change, they shie away from.
It may be that they don't understand how powerful the political scene is. They see the Evil Empire and assume that all is lost on the political front and it's some sort of Orwellian everyman scenario where rag tags and rebels unite in grassroots struggle against the man, unified in one unspoken common desire for human betterment and global salvation. This may explain the overwhelming excitement about Obama (even though they have no idea what his positions are on any of the issues, much less the issues themselves). In posing as the opposition to the Evil Empire, Obama is a sort of political savior come during the apocalypse to save us.
Or maybe they are entrenched in post-hippy historical apathy toward anything political. They've heard myths the size of Paul Bunyan which posit that, no matter what you do, Big Oil or Big Pharma or Big Energy or Big Government will overpower any opposition movement with their money and lawyers and finesse. It's discouraging to listen to these myths (or actual stories), and one starts to feel completely disempowered and angry. The anger leads to apathy, the belief that we'd be better off without government all together and why can't we all just get along?
It may also be the fact that, up close and center, politics is a pretty boring business. Billions of pages of paperwork and minutiae, obtuse windbaggy senators obfuscating the benefits of this tort reform and that tax law until all the righteous energy is depleted by sheer boredom. Up close and personal, it's not a glamorous business.
It makes me sad though. Not sad in the, "kids these days just don't care" sort of way. These people care! They're just so busy searching for change that they don't see the $100 bill sitting in front of them. With all the brains and the motivation and the dedication directed in the right direction, we could really make a change. We could really get things done around here, do some clean up. It would take long-term commitment, and some boring afternoons, but we could really make things better. I keep thinking about this FISA bill that I've referenced in the prior post. If my friends were political, and they yelled and shook their fists at their elected officials (and their friends did that in their states, and their friends, and so on), all these Democratic lilly livers who are prepared to roll over and allow civil rights violations would be forced to listen. They'd be forced to stand up for the people they represent, the loud angry conscience in their ear, and do what's right...or else.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Blood boiling
EVERY SINGLE TIME I think we might be heading for change in this country, I read some bullshit like THIS and immediately go get my head examined for feeling so previously optimistic. Earlier this week, I talked about the new TSA body scans that render all passengers essentially naked in front of security guards, and how this was an invasion of personal privacy. Well, my friends, THIS TAKES THE CAKE.
Let's talk history for a brief moment shall we? Venture with me, if you will, back to 1971, and the Nixon era of conspiracy theory, spying, wire-tapping, insanity. Nixon, complete and total power-hungry mental patient that he was, became convinced that people were out to get him (because, you know, they'd LIED about the war in Vietnam and he'd hidden the fact that he'd BOMBED Cambodia) and expose him for a the lying, murderous fraud that he was. So he took out hits on his "enemies," spying on them, listening to their telephone conversations, breaking into personal information in order to find any evidence to use against them. You know how that story ends. America was never the same and to this day, the view is that politicians are by and large corrupt and dishonest.
The Bush Administration, juxtaposed against Richard Nixon, is much smarter when it comes to political hits and personal invasions of privacy. Rather than go all underground, they'd much prefer to make it LEGAL for them to access the bank accounts, private email, phone records and LIBRARY records of private citizens. Which is exactly what they have just done. Mass surveillance with no checks and balances is now in place for at least the next five years. A big thank you to the Democratic party for their participation in the generalized rape of citizen privacy.
Let's talk history for a brief moment shall we? Venture with me, if you will, back to 1971, and the Nixon era of conspiracy theory, spying, wire-tapping, insanity. Nixon, complete and total power-hungry mental patient that he was, became convinced that people were out to get him (because, you know, they'd LIED about the war in Vietnam and he'd hidden the fact that he'd BOMBED Cambodia) and expose him for a the lying, murderous fraud that he was. So he took out hits on his "enemies," spying on them, listening to their telephone conversations, breaking into personal information in order to find any evidence to use against them. You know how that story ends. America was never the same and to this day, the view is that politicians are by and large corrupt and dishonest.
The Bush Administration, juxtaposed against Richard Nixon, is much smarter when it comes to political hits and personal invasions of privacy. Rather than go all underground, they'd much prefer to make it LEGAL for them to access the bank accounts, private email, phone records and LIBRARY records of private citizens. Which is exactly what they have just done. Mass surveillance with no checks and balances is now in place for at least the next five years. A big thank you to the Democratic party for their participation in the generalized rape of citizen privacy.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
It's a little late....
I just wanted to write a short review of Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy which, after years of hounding via Marty, I FINALLY picked up two days ago and finished yesterday.
I'm writing this because I'm about to go digging for reviews on it, looking for people to bring up the strengths and weaknesses of the book, to ask questions, to reveal more information. I do this with books and authors I adore. And I ADORED this book.
My background is a confusing amalgamation of conflicting stories. I was raised a devout, orthodox Mormon- a religion which socially (though, I believe is doctrinally conflicted about the subject) holds ultra-conservative ideas about women's roles. And yet, somehow, I emerged from my teenage years, a feminist. I'm not sure if it was a response to the church or because of it. Though I no longer affiliate in a religious sense with the LDS church, it's in my bones- most born-and-raised post-Mormons will agree with me that it just doesn't leave you.
So coming out of the church and into the rest of the world has been a bit of a difficult transition at times. Feminism was something I could get behind, something I could believe in, something that I was convinced was of universal value. But the concept of "raunch feminism" which Levy discusses in FCP, has always remained an uncomfortable enigma to me. I never understood the whole womenwanttobelikemenandthusmustbesexisttowardsotherwomen. Maybe it's due to the Mormon church's emphasis on the differences between men and women (I think I must have blocked the part about women being subject to men, and men getting all the power), but I've never wanted to be a man. Oh I went through a phase in high school where I wanted to be seen as one of the guys and reviled everything girly, but it was short-lived and in the end, I just emerged wanting just to be a woman, except, you know, with POWER. I fundamentally believe in the awesome beauty that is our sex. Not in a pretty way, a pink-dresses-tea-sandwiches sort of way, but I have always seen women as this strong amazing force to be reckoned with.
Raunch feminism has always seemed like a big fat lie, and Levy hits the nail on the head with this book. The most fascinating and pertinent part of all of it to me was her careful emphasis on the fact that women do not enjoy this type of flaunted sexuality, aside from the occasional milk-toasty power trip. Why? Because it's not real power and it's not real sexuality. It's not about pleasure- it's about sex and the connection of sex to money and the connection of money to power and the sad realization that, even today, women do not have access to power that works outside the rules men have created.
In an odd way, it reminds me of Queen Elizabeth I, the "virgin queen" who parlayed her sexuality (or rather, her status as a marriageable woman) to her own benefit by allowing herself to flirt with and be courted by the world's more powerful (and power-hungry) men. It wasn't about the pleasure, it was about maintaining her sovereignty over the most powerful country in the world. She had to use men, had to lure them with the possibility of marriage (and dominance, and power) in order to keep herself aloft. She used her weakness as a strength because she had to. Because it was the 16th century and women were still property. She had to act like a man and like a woman at the same time in order to achieve what she most wanted: power. And this raunch culture today, this ideology that somehow believes that women have got to be women acting like men but still being fundamentally women, is much the same. Except, Elizabeth's solution was genius- political survival in a world she was never supposed to inhibit. Women today have Civil Rights laws and independence and personal sovereignty- so why are we still acting like it's 1575?
Levy's theory is that it all comes back to the feminist split on sexuality- a divide that I am still trying to navigate personally. We still haven't figured out a way to negate power politics in sexuality and thus, sex becomes commodified and utilized and all the great amazing things about it are muted.
I would recommend reading it, if for no other reason than to identify the parts inside each of us that believe in raunch culture- the part of me that cringes when I go to a bar because I'm wearing more clothes than 3 typical bar girls put together and feel like an overdressed frump, the part of me that wants men, all men, to want me because that means I have some power, the part of me that still strives to appear unaffected and bored, rather than enraged when I hear misogynist comments from acquaintances and people I love. Who wants to live that way? Read it and let's make a change.
Monday, June 16, 2008
We might as well just start walking around naked
Read this crazy blog over at Pam's House Blend that talks about the new "body scans" in which security personnel are able to view a person's body minus clothing, etc. Meaning, they get to see you naked, all in the name of safety. (Talk about a job for closet pervs)
It's a creepy article and I highly recommend reading it, especially the note about the potential targeting of transgender individuals as terrorists, or "persons of suspicion."
The ACLU is, of course, fighting it. Thank god.
I've been thinking about why this bugs me so much. On our way to San Francisco, we were lucky enough to get the "red flag" on our tickets, which meant we were subject to additional scan. Airport security went through every item in my bag and screened it for bomb material, including every bra and piece of underwear. They opened my bottle of ibuprofen, they wiped my cell phone and took the back off, they even screened my fucking tampons. THEY WIPED DOWN MY TAMPONS PEOPLE.
I normally don't mind the hassle that is airport security. I can stand feeling like a cow standing in a slaughter chute. I can handle the slight feeling of insecurity that comes from standing barefoot and vulnerable as someone looks at my possessions via x-ray. But I felt truly violated by this security check. I was angry and humiliated. I felt like a target, not a potential victim.
Why do we treat people as guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around? In our desperation to find some semblance of safety, we compromise the thing that actually DOES make us feel safe: privacy. We've all heard the horror stories about mothers being forced to drink their own breast milk, minorities being targeted by their appearance, Muslim people being asked not to fly- gross violations of personal rights that wouldn't be tolerated in any other circumstance (can you imagine the day that some terrorist attack comes via automobile?) And for what? So some bureaucrats can cover their asses? Studies show that all this airport pomposity doesn't make a bit of difference in actual safety.
Frankly, I think I have a right to fly on a plane without having security personnel dump my underwear out for all to see. I have a right to go through an airport security check without wondering which security guards have seen my areolas.
It's a creepy article and I highly recommend reading it, especially the note about the potential targeting of transgender individuals as terrorists, or "persons of suspicion."
The ACLU is, of course, fighting it. Thank god.
I've been thinking about why this bugs me so much. On our way to San Francisco, we were lucky enough to get the "red flag" on our tickets, which meant we were subject to additional scan. Airport security went through every item in my bag and screened it for bomb material, including every bra and piece of underwear. They opened my bottle of ibuprofen, they wiped my cell phone and took the back off, they even screened my fucking tampons. THEY WIPED DOWN MY TAMPONS PEOPLE.
I normally don't mind the hassle that is airport security. I can stand feeling like a cow standing in a slaughter chute. I can handle the slight feeling of insecurity that comes from standing barefoot and vulnerable as someone looks at my possessions via x-ray. But I felt truly violated by this security check. I was angry and humiliated. I felt like a target, not a potential victim.
Why do we treat people as guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around? In our desperation to find some semblance of safety, we compromise the thing that actually DOES make us feel safe: privacy. We've all heard the horror stories about mothers being forced to drink their own breast milk, minorities being targeted by their appearance, Muslim people being asked not to fly- gross violations of personal rights that wouldn't be tolerated in any other circumstance (can you imagine the day that some terrorist attack comes via automobile?) And for what? So some bureaucrats can cover their asses? Studies show that all this airport pomposity doesn't make a bit of difference in actual safety.
Frankly, I think I have a right to fly on a plane without having security personnel dump my underwear out for all to see. I have a right to go through an airport security check without wondering which security guards have seen my areolas.
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