Archive | |Things That Get My Hackles Up| RSS feed for this section

Ugh

15 Jun

As you can probably gather from the title, this is bound to be an especially well-written post.  So I apologize in advance if this is just a whole big page full of word vomit.

Have you ever had one of those days where you’re jut like, “ugh, everything is just stupid.”  Well I have.  And I did recently.  It was yesterday. I don’t know where exactly it came from but I was on a walk to visit a friend over in Ditmas Park where she was pulling pints at some event or another for some local New York City food truck vendor.  At least I think it was a food truck vendor.  They all have food trucks these days, right?  And actually, the event maybe wasn’t really for the vendor, the vendor was just included in it.  I don’t know, I didn’t really care about the vendor or the beer, to be honest, I just wanted an excuse to go for a long walk and see my friend.  So there I was, walking, listening to the same damn music I have been listening to on all my walks recently and it just hit me like a ton of bricks…

…everything right now is just sort of stupid.

And then I had this really strong urge to just punch a wall or something.  But not like, a hard wall, more like some sheet rock or something.  Or, better yet, maybe some sheet rock that has already been munched on by some termites, assuming termites even eat sheet rock, so it’s not really all that hard.  What I really wanted to do was punch a not-so-hard wall so I had the pleasure of feeling really tough when my hand came crashing through the other side but without the downside of (a) bloodying my knuckles, (b) punching the wall and not actually having my hand come through the other side or (c) some combination of a and b.  I actually thought about all that for a good five minutes.  And that, friends, is part of the reason why everything is stupid because rather than busying my mind with fun adventures, or like problem-solving or, I don’t know, coming up with some semblance of a plan for my life which is sort of a mess, I thought about the ideal way to punch a wall, or something resembling a wall, so that my hand would come through the other side and I would feel like a super hero.  I actually thought to myself…

…well, everything else might be stupid but the one thing that would not be stupid would be me punching my hand through a wall and not getting hurt.

And then I promptly thought…

…get it together, Frank.

Like, seriously.

So here are some of the things that are stupid:

(1) My cat, Clark, has now remembered how fun it is to knock things off the shelves and so last night, at around 2am, he took it upon himself to knock every single can of his food off the shelf, one by one.  Crash.  Crash.  Crash.

(2) The hand soap in the bathroom ran out so I decided to replace it with Dr. Bronner’s and now it sort of looks like someone peed in the soap dispenser which is both funny but also sort of unnerving.

(3) I need a vacuum.

(4) I had a conversation with my friend on the phone and we came to the conclusion that the economy sucks, that our field is a mess and I had a mini-panic attack that I am going to spend the rest of my life assembling storage racks in windowless rooms and avoiding getting stabbed with rusty nails while I break down crates for like $15 an hour.  It’s a long story.  The central message being that higher education is not all it’s cracked up to be.

(5) I wore my new sandals and ripped the top 4 layers of skin off my cute and tiny pinky toe.

There are lots of other stupid things that actually matter (well, number 4 matters and, actually a little bit number 2 also because urine in a soap dispenser…ew) but I don’t really want to write about them here because they are A Bigger Deal.  But suffice it to say that all the things that are stupid have brought me to the conclusion that I have been going about this whole life thing entirely incorrectly.  The whole thing, wrong approach this entire time and no one told me.  No one was like

Hey, Rebekah, I know you think you have it together but the thing is that you’re wrong and I just thought maybe you should know so you don’t continue on embarrassing yourself kind of like that one time when you went for a run and the string of your tampon was hanging out the bottom of your shorts.  Remember that?  Good times.

And then the other thing is this.  So I have been trying to amend my approach to things and sort of take the high road and as it turns out taking the high road sort of just sucks sometimes.  There’s no real satisfaction involved in the high road.  You have to be all, “well, this isn’t really worth me losing my cool over so I will just shrug my shoulders and sit over here and watch while you implode every so slowly.”  But the thing is that sometimes the implosion never happens, and the person goes through life sort of just being a dick and thinking they are right all the time and you have to know that they also think they are right vis-a-vis you and that one time (or maybe multiple times) they said something really sort of offensive and you knew if you called them out on it they would shrug their shoulders and then be all

whatever, bitches be crazy.

And I hate that.  It’s so…for lack of a better word, stupid.  And you know what else?  I really think I should be able to call dudes out on their misogyny without them then giving me the side eye and thinking I am a complete nut job.  Or like, I should be able to tell random dudes at bars that “accidentally” touching my leg 6 times is not okay when there is absolutely zero need for you to be standing that close to me in the first place without the fear that it will turn into A Thing and I will feel uncomfortable and like I did something wrong and that probably I should just leave.

And I just washed my hands with the pee soap again.  I really need to do something about that.

Okay, I am going to go for a run now in hopes that it will adjust the whole thing that is happening in my head.  Maybe I will come back from the run and realize that in actuality only like 50% of the things are stupid and that’s something I can maybe work with.  And then tomorrow maybe I will be back to writing about how the men’s rights movement is the most ridiculous movement I have ever heard of.  But not today.  Today is Father’s Day and so I will lay off doing the things that make my father worried about my safety.

Happy Father’s day to all the dad’s but especially to my dad, the second greatest dad in the world after King Tritan from The Little Mermaid.  That’s an old joke.  Don’t ask.

Tags: , , , , ,

Just a Few Words on Doxxing

10 Jun

So over the past 24 hours or so I received quite a number of nice comments from my friends on the internet.  So thank you all for sharing your opinions with me.  A special thanks goes to the individual who sent me a link to this article about a woman in Washington who was diagnosed with PTSD after experiencing extensive online bullying.  This Twitter user was concerned about the effects of online bullying on my delicate psyche and advised me to be sure to get to a psychiatric hospital stat.  See?  (Mostly I was hoping to show off the fact that I learned how to embed a Tweet in my blog.  I still have a few kinks to work out, clearly.)

I just want to let @QuayBangz know that here in New York we have access to all sorts of top of the line medical facilities!  That being said, I think I will be okay but thanks so very much for your concern.

I also was hoping to address a comment I received from Jonathan Taylor of the website “A Voice for Male Students.”  He pointed out a few concerns he had about my post so I was hoping to address one of them in particular.  In his well-organized list of points* he said the following:

Emma’s email address and picture were all publicly available before the AVFMS article. Doxxing is when someone exposes private information that others have taken pains to hide. This is not the case here, where she voluntarily and of her own initiative provided all the information to the world. Gathering information together that another person has given you is not the same as doxxing.

Actually, according to a Wikipedia entry on doxxing,

Doxing (spelling variant Doxxing) is an abbreviation of document tracing, the Internet-based practice of researching and publishing personally identifiable information about an individual.  The methods employed in pursuit of this information range from searching publicly available databases and social media websites like Facebook to hacking and social engineering. It is closely related to cyber-vigilantism, hacktivism, and cyber-bullying.

And then here from the Economist:

The term “dox” (also spelt “doxx”, and short for “[dropping] documents”) first came into vogue as a verb around a decade ago, referring to malicious hackers’ habit of collecting personal and private information, including home addresses and national identity numbers. The data are often released publicly against a person’s wishes.

So, providing her photograph and email address, even though it could be easily found on the internet, does in fact fall under the umbrella of doxxing.

So here’s the thing about it.  Doxxing is not illegal, at the moment anyway.  The law is always a few years behind technology so it will be interesting to see how we deal with these sorts of issues in the coming years.  That being said, even if doxxing were illegal, I doubt that Mr. Taylor’s publishing of Emma’s photograph and email address would make waves considering the extreme ways other people doxx those who they are intimidated by.  But I also think that most of us on the internet, and especially intelligent individuals like Mr. Taylor seems to be, are able to follow the potential chain of events through to their logical conclusions.  If we have been blogging long enough, we are more or less aware of who our audience is.  I don’t have a very broad readership so most of the people who consistently read my blogs are people I know, or people who know people I know.  (Except for all the people who read this post about my dad which I am still super perplexed by.)  Even still, I try to err on the side of responsibility.  What I am trying to say is that Mr. Taylor is aware of who his readers are.  He has a very detailed Mission Statement and explains in detail The Nine Values that all posts associated with his site will adhere to.  This is part of the description of those Values:

The goal of advocacy is not to win per se, but rather to win over. We do so by demonstrating to the world in our words and actions how our values differ from those with whom we disagree, and how our values make the world a better place to live. To that end, for those officially affiliated with this website, these Nine Values are not suggestions which we may accept or dismiss as the mood suits us, but rather a code of conduct reflecting the high standards by which the quality and integrity of this website will be maintained and the degree to which we will be successful.

The thing is that I have spent only the better part of the last week scrolling through various MRA (or MHRA as some prefer to call it) websites and on just about all of them have encountered a lot of hateful words and misguided articles.  I would bet a fair sum of money that Mr. Taylor is perfectly aware of the tendency of the more radical people associated with his movement.  He knows they read him.  He knows the opinions that they have and the ways they express them.  I think it would be safe for me to assume that, by posting Emma’s email address on his own website, he would inspire less “principled” people to respond in kind and I think that was entirely irresponsible.  By Googling Emma, I discovered her email on various MRA websites calling her all sorts of names that I prefer not to repeat here.  It is all well and good to adhere to your own standards, but that sort of goes out the window when you let other people do your dirty work for you.

I don’t know.  We’re all adults here.  Mr. Taylor and his supporters, as I have said before, are welcome to their own opinions and the nonviolent expression of those opinions.  I am guaranteed this same thing, as is Emma and her co-activists in Detroit.  But I also think there should be a reasonable assumption that people won’t hit below the belt, as it were.  That being said, feel free to email me at franklyrebekah@gmail.com if you feel so inclined.  We can engage in an adult conversation there.  I might quote you here, but no matter how available your email address, home address, place of employment or photographs are, they will never appear on this site.

*This was not intended to be sarcastic in the least.  He sent me a comment with numbered points which I really appreciated.  I love listing things.

The term “dox” (also spelt “doxx”, and short for “[dropping] documents”) first came into vogue as a verb around a decade ago, referring to malicious hackers’ habit of collecting personal and private information, including home addresses and national identity numbers. The data are often released publicly against a person’s wishes. – See more at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/03/economist-explains-9#sthash.NJlPdAi

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The Failure of Success

31 May

Okay, so back when I wrote this post about West Virginia that barely anyone read (and really, who can blame you?) I said that because of the nature of my new job, I would be writing a lot more about the environment.  Well, as bad luck has it (2014 is not the Year of the Rebekah as I had hoped) my job fell through.  Well, I don’t know if “fell through” is really the right way to describe it.  Maybe I’ll tell you the story when you’re a little bit older.  The reason that I mention this is that I have decided that, job or no job, I am going to write some stuff about the environment anyway so take that!

Also I am totally avoiding writing about Elliot Rodger and #YesAllWomen because every time I start to write about it (which now is three separate occasions and, likely, counting) I either end up feeling sick to my stomach or crying in the bathroom.  I am clearly not emotionally prepared for that whole thing.

So, right now I am reading Dan Barber’s new book The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food.  I am only about 50 pages in and already it is so good and I pretty much wish it was long enough that I could read it on and on and on for the rest of my life.  Seriously.  Has that ever happened to you?  It’s like, you read this book and it is so enthralling that you just want to read it on a continuous loop or else have it be like a million pages long and still somehow manage to be interesting?  Well, it’s happening to me now and I am really happy about it.  Do you guys know who Dan Barber is?  So he’s a chef and he owns Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns.  He also was an early advocate for the farm-to-table food movement that has become a central tenet in the whole locavore thing that’s been happening recently.  So the thing that is extra cool about Barber, I think, is that he is one of those people that is always looking to expand his knowledge and improve upon the way that his actions effect the world around him.  If you want to see what I am talking about, and also what got me interested in reading his book in the first place, you should read his New York Times op/ed piece from this past May 17th called “What Farm-toTable Got Wrong.”  It’s actually an excerpt from the book I am reading now! The basic idea of his article, and of the entire book, is that the locavore idea that “eating local can reshape landscapes and drive lasting change” is actually wrong.  Barber says,

“For all its successes, farm-to-table has not, in any fundamental way, reworked the economic and political forces that dictate how our food is grown and raised. Big Food is getting bigger, not smaller. In the last five years, we’ve lost nearly 100,000 farms (mostly midsize ones). Today, 1.1 percent of farms in the United States account for nearly 45 percent of farm revenues. Despite being farm-to-table’s favorite targets, corn and soy account for more than 50 percent of our harvested acres for the first time ever. Between 2006 and 2011, over a million acres of native prairie were plowed up in the so-called Western Corn Belt to make way for these two crops, the most rapid loss of grasslands since we started using tractors to bust sod on the Great Plains in the 1920s.”

What the hell happened?  I mean, obviously there are the social, geographical, economic (etc, etc, etc) constraints that impact most people’s abilities to eat the way they might like to.  And, of course, a lot of people either don’t have access to information, are not interested in making a fundamental change to the way they eat, or do not see a connection between what they buy and what impact that has to the world all around us.  (I know I am totally oversimplifying, and I know there are things that I am not delving into here, but I think maybe I will save that for another day since I think I might be writing about this stuff more often.  Oh, lucky you.)  But the thing that Barber points out is that the way that we engage with the idea to eat more local is fundamentally flawed.  In Barber’s words,

“The larger problem, as I came to see it, is that farm-to-table allows, even celebrates, a kind of cherry-picking of ingredients that are often ecologically demanding and expensive to grow.  Farm-to-table chefs may claim to base their cooking in whatever the farmer’s picked that day…but whatever the farmer has picked that day is really about an expectation of what will be purchased that day.  Which is really about an expected way of eating.  It forces farmers into growing crops like zucchini and tomatoes (requiring lots of real estate and soil nutrients) or into raising enough lambs to sell mostly just the chops, because if they don’t, the chef, or even the enlightened shopper, will simply buy from another farmer.”

So I read that and I had this moment of all these different thoughts.  I will list them here in no particular order:

(1) God damnit.  Seriously, Barber?  Sometimes it feels like no matter what we try to do we are still doing the wrong thing! (At this point I threw a pillow.)

(2) Well, duh, why didn’t I think of this before?  The entire system of everything is based on an understanding of supply and demand and so of course the farmer is going to try and figure out, based off the knowledge of people’s eating habits, what those people are likely to buy and then grow food accordingly.  It makes sense to plant nutritionally-needy plants if that is what people are going to purchase because it is better to actually sell things than to be that asshole farmer* at the farmer’s market with some cow peas or some shit** that no one wants to buy.

(3) What now?!

Luckily for us (or, I guess, right now for me and whoever else is reading this book) Barber does not just complain and act all gloom and doomy.  He (sort of) presents solutions.  The solutions, at least so far, are buried in pieces of information.  What is good for the environment and for agriculture is good for us. But the agriculture that we rely upon now is inherently flawed.  The idea that Barber seems to be espousing is that we work with nature, rather than making it work for us.

So the part of the book that I am reading right now is all about soil.  One of the ways’ that Barber gets into this discussion is a look at the way his own restaurant runs.  He put, over the years, so much energy into trying to run as sustainable and responsible a shop as possible (including eliminating menus and instead telling people of the ingredients available that day) and yet he completely missed thinking about one of the central ingredients in any kitchen:  wheat!  He discovered that every day he was using pounds and pounds of white flour in all manner of food preparation and that white flour has practically nothing in common with actual wheat at all.  It is so bastardized that to eat plain, white flour is practically like eating a handful of chalk.  It’s awful and gluey and flavorless.  But wheat wasn’t always this way!  It used to have its own unique flavor.  And not only that, it used to be perennial and have a super intense root system to match, a root system that more or less allowed the plant to take care of itself.  In its place we planted acres upon acres of the drought resistant “Turkey Red,” an annual with puny roots that need to be fertilized by farmers because the plant cannot feed itself.  Wes Jackson, one of the farmers whose knowledge Barber cites in the book, had this to say upon analyzing a life-sized above and below ground photograph of an old wheat variety versus the Turkey Red:

Pointing to the annual wheat, “Of course, this wheat won out.  Sixty million acres of puny roots that we need to fertilize because it can’t feed itself.  Puny roots that leak nitrogen, that cause erosion and dead zones the size of New Jersey.  This wheat won out, but what you’re looking at is the failure of success.” (Italics mine.)

You guys, that blew my mind.  That line “the failure of success” really summarizes so many of the things I have read about agriculture and the environment over the past 10-15 years.  Sure, we have figured out how to grow more, faster but at what cost?  This idea that, as Barber says, we set out to “conquer rather than to adapt.”  When Europeans came over to North America and violently took the land from those who had lived here for generations, the land they took boasted some of the most fertile soil in the entire world.  Fast-forward to the 1930s and we had one of the biggest environmental disasters in our history:  the Dust Bowl.  That is what happens when we completely denude the soil to the point that there is nothing to hold the topsoil in place.  It simply just blows away.  It’s also what happens when we bend the environment to suit what we perceive as our “needs.”  I am going to quote just this one last thing before I go back to reading the book because I am so incredibly excited to learn more things!  Nature has a way of taking care of itself and yet we fight against it.  We insist on planting monocultures, on developing these insane new weed and pest resistant plants that only, over time, require more and more chemicals to make them grow.  And all the while we ignore what nature is telling us: treat the cause instead of the symptoms.  Don’t spray plants because you see an infestation of beetles, figure out what caused the beetles to come in the first place because pests and “weeds,***” as I learned, tend to attack sick or stressed plants.  If we mother our plants well, they will not attack.  And that requires a certain kind of worldview.

“It helps if your worldview includes the belief that nature knows best.  A plant suffering from an infestation of pests is not a shortcoming of nature; it’s a plant you’re not mothering well.  Either the nutrient balance in the soil is wrong or your crops aren’t being rotated properly or the variety cultivated is wrong for the area — or any one of dozens of other possibilities.  Your job is to figure it out.  Since the chemical farmer has the option of spraying the problem away, he tends not to bother.”

Okay so maybe I am not quite done.  I know I’m not a farmer and I know that it is not an easy life and that figuring out problems and addressing them is difficult and expensive.  I am not judging.  But what I am doing is reading this book and thinking about my life beyond my own purchase of food (which, honestly, I am now feeling is not nearly as responsible as I had previously believed) and to include everything else.  The root cause of so many of our problems is that we are addicted to the quick fix but the thing is that, more often than not, that approach simply causes a higher number of even more complicated problems down the line, problems that we seem to completely ignore, maybe not as individuals but as a species.  Look at what we are experiencing now, environmentally.  The world is actually dying.  Years and years of doing things, and completely ignoring the impacts, have led us to where we are.  Beyond continuing this book, and hopefully writing more posts resulting from what I learned, I don’t really know what to do.  To be honest, I feel very tempted to buy some crazy weird (AKA naturally occurring, unadulterated) variety of wheat and try to make bread.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

*Environmentally speaking probably the smartest farmer of all.

** Cow peas are actually not “some shit” at all but you know what I mean.

*** I learned the actual definition of weed!  Well, according to this one farmer’s Agronomy 101 class: a weed is “anything that grows where you don’t want to it grow.”  Seriously, how ridiculous.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Goodbye, New York Road Runners

23 May

You know what I don’t like?  When people say “I’ve been doing _________ since before it was cool.” It’s like, okay great.  I’m happy for you.  Way to make everyone else feel like an asshole.  That being said, I do get some portion of the sentiment behind it.  And so, obviously and as I am wont to do, I started thinking WAY too deeply about the statement and have decided that it can be interpreted in a few different ways:

Way #1: When I was doing ______ there weren’t as many people doing it, so it wasn’t as crowded/expensive/over policed/over saturated.

Way #2:  Now that everyone is doing ________ I feel sort of like a poser doing it even though I have been doing it forever and that fucking sucks.

Way #3:  Some combination of the aforementioned two ways.

Okay, so, now that we have out of the way, I would not say that I have been running long distances since before it was cool because, really, running still isn’t cool exactly.  And I also haven’t been running for that long and I really think to even almost get away with such a statement you basically have to have started doing whatever thing that you’re complaining about everyone else doing for at least like, 75% of your life. I have only been running for just shy of 50% of my life and also I don’t take myself all that seriously so, you know, statement off limits.  Anyway, all of this being said, something has been happening to running and I do not like it one bit.

One of the things that I have always loved about running is that even though it is an individual sport, there is so much support amongst the running community.  This is part of the reason why that stupid viral Facebook letter to an overweight runner made me so darn angry.  I have just always found that more than anything else, runners want other runners to have good races.  We all know the work that went into training for endurance events and we all know what it feels like to have a bad day.  You know, for your legs to feel like led, to have to shit halfway through, to be sick, or crampy, or have an ill-timed injury.  You never, ever want to see a fellow runner limping through a race, or a training run, unaware of whether or not they will be able to finish or if the nagging pain in their hip, their foot, their quad means a few months off.  And this is not only true amongst us amateur athletes.  The pros in the sport are just as supportive of one another.  Take, for example, the support that Meb Keflezighi got from Ryan Hall and the other US runners at Boston this past year.  And that is only one example of many.  It was the loss of that sort of camaraderie among runners that made this year’s Brooklyn Half Marathon so…upsetting.

I had decided before running this race that it was going to be my last race with New York Road Runners (NYRR).  I’m not going to go into all the problems I have with this organization, especially since I have talked about the intense price increases over the past few years on this blog before.  I just think that in an effort to ride the wave of popularity that running has been experiencing over the last number of years, NYRR has forgotten about all the people who have kept them afloat for decades.  I don’t know, maybe I am just being grouchy but I really think that all the extra bullshit that accompanies a lot of the NYRR races these days really take away from what is so great about running:  it’s simplicity.

I guess it is partially that along with its new found popularity, running has been the latest to fall at the feet of Big Business.  People spend hundreds of dollars on watches that they don’t know how to use; they fall prey to ridiculous trends about appropriate sneakers without doing research into the benefits and possible problems of wearing them; they spend so much money on races just because the bib pick-up involves a “pre-party” AKA some lame music playing in the background and a bunch of companies hawking their wares.

The thing about it, and I suppose this isn’t entirely NYRR’s fault, is that capitalism does not bring out the best in people.  There is no “team” in capitalism.  It is every woman, man and child to her/himself.  Capitalism, to me, is largely what our national obsession with individualism is born from.  The attitude that goes along with people needing to have the newest gadgets, the nicest clothes, the trendiest sneakers is the attitude that leads to the terrible fucking race that I ran in Brooklyn.  Honestly, I have never seen so many people literally push through other people to get ahead.  I have never seen so many people cross in front of waves of runners to get to water stations without verbally letting people know or even checking over their shoulders.  I have never seen so many people leave water stations and drop their uncrushed cup in the middle of the road, a big runner no-no because it rolls around and can trip one of the thousands of people who come behind you.  When you run a race, you always check your surroundings, you always communicate with other runners, and you really always crush your damn cup and throw it off the course.  Sure, running is something that is individual.  You aren’t relying on other people in the same way as you might in a soccer match or a relay.  But you are not doing it alone.  You are running a race along with hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people and you have to respect that the race is not just yours, it is everyone’s.  All the other people running trained hard, paid the price, woke up at 4:30 in the morning and your pushing, your cutting off, and your not crushed cup could really make a difference not only in their time, but in their safety and their enjoyment.

Maybe I was just running around a shitty group of people but it really made me sad.  It made me remember when I ran the New York City Marathon, yes also organized by NYRR, back in 2006.  I was going through the Queensboro Bridge and there was a blind man running near me.  The bridge was dark so it became a little difficult for runners to see other people, especially if you weren’t running near the sides.  Without saying a word, a whole group of runners created a protective circle around this man, making sure that the darkness and other runner’s inability to see as clearly would not impact his race or make him unsafe.  It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and really made me proud of my community.  In that moment, it was like everyone was running the race together and our achievement was entirely dependent on the achievements of those around us.  At the Brooklyn Half this year, it was everyone for themselves.

Maybe part of the reason for this was that in an effort to, I don’t know, make more money, NYRR allowed way too many people to run the Half.  There were over 25,000 people that ran the race this year, meaning that for a lot of us, we were completely jammed up for the first 8 miles.  When you have a race of that size, you simply sacrifice some of the other things:  in my opinion the enjoyment, but certainly the speed.  (And don’t even get me started on the fact that they gave us half-filled dixie cups of water at the end of the race rather than full bottles.)

I just think that what NYRR is helping to usher in is a complete change in the attitude that surrounds running and that is decidedly not cool.  I don’t know.  I run races because it’s fun, it’s nice to have a goal and it helps me place my running squarely within an equally motivated and supportive group of people.  That feeling is gone from NYRR races and so I am bidding them a not-so-fond farewell, taking my $20 stopwatch and keeping my fingers crossed that those pushers, those cut off-ers, and those cup non-crushers don’t follow me.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Doc Says…

20 May

Alright you guys, here’s the thing.  I am in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment which means that what is going on inside of my head right now is something akin to a hamster running round and round on her exercise wheel.  She isn’t getting anywhere, isn’t really doing anything, just sort of trying to pass the time in her little glass cage until she gets the opportunity to run around the room in one of those awesome plastic balls.  Remember those?  I had a hamster when I was little and I was always sort of afraid that one day I would put her in the ball and she would somehow escape my room and go rolling right down the stairs.  Then the ball would pop open right in front of my cat, Sassafras, and bye bye hamster.  Anyway, I digress.  It’s really not that bad.  The holding pattern, I mean.  I have been spending a lot of time in the garden with my mom and have been reading the New York Times from cover to cover almost everyday.  I am pretty up to speed on the Times view of the world and what they think is worthy of their precious space and what is not.  I read about El Nino today so that was sort of a blast from the past.

Anyway, none of this is to the point.  The point is that since I am in a holding pattern I have decided to publish a comment I got back in the day when all that bullshit was happening on my blog.  Remember all that bullshit?  Well, I sure do.  Anyway, I got the following comment (posted here in italics) on the post called “Rebekah vs. Rob, (Documented) Battle #2”  I have changed nothing about the comment, nor have I omitted anything, so any spelling or grammatical errors are not, for once, mine.  Just keep in mind that the non-italicized part is just me adding my trademark snark which I am sure that this individual, who calls himself “Doc,” would have a thing or two to say about.  If he hadn’t unfollowed my blog promptly after posting this comment that is.

I’ve been following your posts for a couple months now, since I was told there was a blog that detailed my local watering hole. I’m not a regular but I do come in with some frequency so it is fun for me to read the goings on and see if I can picture who it is you’re talking about. I must say I’ve noticed the tone of your posts has gotten very snarky and downright mean. Are you sure being a bartender is the right career for you? 🙂

I very much enjoyed his use of emoticon.  Nothing breaks up criticism like a good, old-fashioned smiley face!

Your recent post regarding “Hal” however has picqued my psychological background radar.

Ooh! Psychological background radar!  Do continue!  (Also, for the record, I have changed the alias “Hal” to the subject’s real name, Rob, after he sent me various mean emails from anonymous email accounts.  I figured if he wasn’t willing to put his name on his behavior, then I would.)

This is, if I’m reading correctly and if this person is who I think he is (and I’m fairly certain it is) now the 3rd post he’s been prominently featured in. I’m reminded of that old adage, “There’s a thin line between love and hate.” Your borderline obsession with this man leads me to believe that there is more to your feelings than blind hatred. Honestly, I think I know who he is, and he’s nowhere near as bad as you paint him to be.

Doc has got me there.  I think that Rob WAS featured in a fair amount of posts.  There was his appearance in Tip #12 after he snuck his own booze into the bar  and then there was the following visit when I told him I wouldn’t serve him and he stayed at the bar for hours afterwards, trying to get other people to buy him drinks, and also asking my coworker out when his fiance was sitting like 4 barstools down.  I can’t actually find the third one because I don’t keep an inventory of my blogs like some anonymous commenters seem to.

When he’s in the bar by himself or with one or two friends, I’ve had conversations with him and found him to be perfectly interesting and charming.

Here’s the thing that I have noticed about misogynists:  they tend to be perfectly nice-seeming to other men, who they view as their equals, but when it comes to their dealing with women it is a totally different ballgame.  I would like for “Doc” to be called a cunt, a word that I find extremely violent, by the same person on more than one occasion, and to have that person attempt to physically intimidate him at his workplace, and then tell me dude is “perfectly interesting and charming.”  Just sayin’.

I have seen him act loud and start chants etc., but usually only when he was with a large group of men, and really, isn’t that how most men in a large group at a bar act?

I hate to break it to you but no, that is not how most men in large groups in bars act.

He’s nowhere near the devil you make him out to be. And you lose all credibility when you say he’s unattractive. He is, objectively, a very good looking man.

Personally, I think that levels of attractiveness are more a subjective, than objective, thing.  For example, Adam Levine was voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2013 and I sort of think he looks like a ferret.  And I do not like ferrets.  Also, what does my taste in men have to do with my credibility?  Nothing, that’s what.

In reading your posts about him, I notice the following keywords pop out at me when you’re writing of him: Wit, good looks, intellect, excellence, sexiest, awesome-est. All words used by you in your posts. Granted you’ll reply that this is how he thinks of himself, but it’s interesting how one’s psyche projects itself. Could it be that deep down you really have feelings for this man?

This, friends, is the result of pop-psychology 101.  I would very much like access to this person’s reading list.

This may be something you want to confront within, because otherwise your anger is irrational and concerns me.

I LOVE CONCERN TROLLING!

I’m sure that if you choose to reply you’ll merely launch into more vitriol, but to that I would merely reply, “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much” 🙂

Shakespeare quotes give everything validity! Also, emoticons!

And if he is who I think he is, wasn’t he involved with your good friend and boss for a while there? I could have sworn I saw them in an embrace more than a time or two. Cue the Gin Blossoms: Hey Jealousy….

Blog comments now come complete with soundtrack from the late 80s.

That’s the end of my comment analysis.  The thing is that I would have discussed this comment with the commenter had I known who he was but, of course, anonymous email addresses.  I wonder what his pop-psychology books have to say about that.  “This individual thinks his opinion is necessary but is not confident enough in himself as a critic to stand behind his words.  He is afraid of the social fallout associated with publicly, and confidently, airing his complaints.”

And, now I can send that comment into the trash where it belongs.  And this, friends, is the beauty of having your very own blog!  You can publish, and trash, comments as you see fit!  No democracy here!  This is a Rebekah-ocracy and thank goodness for that.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Timothy Egan: Do Not Silence the Students

16 May

Oh, Timothy Egan, what were you thinking?  Were you thinking?

Today in The New York Times, the regular columnist Timothy Egan wrote an op/ed called “The Commencement Bigots.”  He starts the piece out with this:

“It’s commencement season, cell-phones off please, no texts or tweets.  Even with a hangover from debt, alcohol or regret, grads across the land may be lucky enough to hear something on the Big Day that actually stays with them.”

I wish I had been so lucky.  The class who graduated before me got a rather amusing speech by Dr. Ruth (you remember her, right?) and we got stuck with quite possibly the most boring graduation speech in the history of graduation speeches.  It was Henry Kaufman who basically gave an economics lecture.  It lasted for the better part of an hour and I am pretty sure came straight out of a book. No preparations necessary, just grab a volume from your library and read about balance of trade, fiscal policy or some shit in the most monotone voice you can muster.  It was terrible.  I just asked my dad what he thought about it and he said,

“Oh, that guy?  That guy was an idiot.  I did not like that guy.  Not only was he boring and an idiot, but he was a has been!  He was big in the 80s!”

I don’t know about all that but I do know that I was bored to tears.  Egan documents a similar experience of the graduates of Stanford in 2009 who had to listen to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy give “an interminable address on the intricacies of international law, under a broiling sun, with almost no mention of the graduates.”  Much better, Egen thinks, were the addresses by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon in  2005 (“If you can’t learn to ‘construct meaning from experience, you will be totally hosed'”), Steve Jobs, also in 2005, at Stanford (“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”) and Stephen Colbert at Knox College in 2006 (“The best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show.  It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous.  And eventually, some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat”).  As much as I would have loved to have had Stephen Colbert speak at my graduation in place of Mr. Gloom and Doom, I wouldn’t exactly call his advice sage.  But I guess that’s not Egan’s point.  What is his point?  Well, basically that college students should shut the fuck up and appreciate who they get because the person could be, gasp!, boring.

Okay, that’s not exactly what he said.  What he said was that protesting college students are akin to censors who do not want anyone to come speak to them and “spoil a view of the world they’ve already figured out.”  He cites a few examples.  First up was Condoleezza Rice who was slated to speak at Rutgers University but canceled “after a small knot of protestors pressured the university.”  Next up were the bigots (his word, not mine) of Smith College whose concerns about the International Monetary Fund’s part in “strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems” caused Christine Lagarde, chief of the IMF, to cancel her prepared speech.  Egen opines about the loss these students will suffer by not hearing one of the “world’s most powerful women” share her insights over (and this he seems to spit) “concerns about the patriarchy.”  This was followed by my absolute favorite line in the entire piece:

“Evil men — we’ll show ’em.”

Here is the thing about it.  It certainly is a shame that students won’t get the opportunity to hear Rice and Lagarde speak.  I agree wholeheartedly with Egen when he says,

“Give me a brisk, strong, witty defense of something I disagree with over a tired replay of platitudes.”

But is the appropriate way to back up that highly logical statement to call those who disagree with it bigots?  I am sure that the people who heard Colbert and Jobs and Wallace speak, especially given that the latter two men are no longer with us, will remember those commencement speeches for a long time to come.  I am sure those graduates, and the attending staff members, friends and families consider themselves incredibly lucky.  But I also think that a person who holds the privilege of writing for a paper as respected as The New York Times should take a little more care before calling college students opposed to the legacies or the mechanisms through which university-chosen speakers make their mark a word as loaded as bigot.  That’s quite a punch to throw.  I also think that, perhaps, a privileged white man should think twice before he belittles a group of women’s concerns about the patriarchy – it is very real and is something they will have to contend with every single day of their lives.  This rings especially true for Smith students who are of color or are members of the LGBT community.

Egen urges these horrible censors to consult Rutger’s student mission statement which reads,

“We embrace difference by cultivating inclusiveness and respect of both people and points of view.”

Egen, perhaps, should have taken his own advice before writing this ill-conceived column.  It is true, that we should embrace inclusiveness and respect different points of view, but doesn’t that include respect for those who disagree with the appointment of certain speakers?  Doesn’t that include those who feel that by sitting quietly in an audience while someone who represents institutions or policies they find incredibly damaging and problematic acts as the exclamation point on their college experience makes them somehow complicit?  Shouldn’t we celebrate the fact that students in our universities are able to question these institutions and speakers and see results?  It is a shame that these women, and Attorney General Eric J. Holder who was also mentioned in Egen’s piece, did not get the chance to speak because of protests, but I do not think that means that we should shame and silence students.  Instead, we should encourage them to continue to protest because it is an active civilian population that is the best way to keep the government in check, to question policies, to support minorities and underrepresented groups, to fight voter fraud, to stop rape culture, to tell the IMF that we do not approve of the way they operate, to let Condoleezza Rice know that she will be held accountable by the population for her roll in the Bush administration, and so many other things.  We need this and by calling active student bodies bigots, we are telling them that their dissent is unwarranted, unnecessary and unacceptable and that is a real shame.  Isn’t it also possible that encouraging a more active population would result not only in better leadership, but also in better preparing our leaders for dissent and criticism?  The thin-skinned should not be in positions of power and, honestly, I am sure they have experienced far worse than some protests by a small group of soon-to-be college graduates.  Their ability to cancel in the face of such limited disagreement is a luxury that is silly.

So, let the students speak.  No, actually, don’t just let them, encourage them.  The best educations, I think, give us the ability to think critically and express our opinions and where is that more acceptable than on college campuses?  I think this country would be a lot better off if we all felt that our voices were heard and that our dissent did not make us bigots.  It’s just too bad that Egen felt the need to use his soapbox to shame a bunch of 21-year-olds.  But, that is his right and I support it, just as I support the university’s right to have Christine Lagarde speak at commencement and the right of the student body at Smith to protest the patriarchy.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Spill in West Virginia Speaks to Inequality

27 Apr

So I read this article in an old issue of The New Yorker the other day (okay, not that old…it was from April 7th of this year but they just arrive so damn fast!) that really struck a chord.  The article was by Evan Osnos and was “Letter from West Virginia, Chemical Valley:  The coal industry, the politicians, and the spill.”  It was all about this chemical spill in West Virginia on Thursday, January 9, 2014 near the Elk River in the city of Charleston.  It was a chemical called MCHM — 4-methylcyclohexane methanol — something that the mining industry uses to wash rock and clay from coal before it is burned for energy.  Apparently, it smelled vaguely of licorice and contaminated the local water source such that people were forced to purchase bottled water or else face the possibility of rashes, headaches, and other unpleasant side effects.  Of course, the long term effects of such a chemical on the human body has never been tested, despite the fact that the drums that hold this material can be found near water sources used by nearby localities for drinking, cooking, and bathing.  Smart, right?

There were a few different quotes in the article that really stuck out to me.  The first was a quote by West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger.  He said,

“Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  Why should anybody care about what goes on in West Virginia?  Because it’s the canary in the mine shaft.  If you ignore it in West Virginia, it’s coming, it’s going to continue to build, and the issue is:  Should our country have the debate about our rights to the very basic infrastructure that sustains us?  Or should we continue to ignore it?”

It seems like such a simple question, you know?  That we should be able to turn on our faucet and know that what comes out does not have the potential to cause us harm or death.  We should know that our water is free of harsh chemicals and carcinogens and whatever else could be in there.  In the aftermath of the spill, the former Governor (now Senator) Joe Manchin did not do right by the people of West Virginia.  He instead did right by who it seems everyone does right by these days:  business.  Rather than beef up the state Environmental Protection Agency and say enough is enough, we need to hold these companies accountable, he decided that taking the coal industry to task for lax safety processes was just too big a risk for employment in West Virginia, despite the fact that the coal industry employs merely 3% of the state’s workforce.  What Manchin cared about was not the health of the population or their employment opportunities, he cared about his own reelection.  Lobbyists are a bitch, you know?  And here’s the thing.  Not to get preachy but we, as a species and not just as a country, are so obsessed with our own self-preservation and with gaining more power, money and influence that we are completely incapable of seeing the forest through the trees.  Ignoring the canary in the mine shaft, as Unger described it, is as stupid now as it was 100 years ago.  And yet we do it, again and again.

So the question still remains, I suppose.  How dangerous is the MCHM leak?  Well, when asked by Osnos, Dr. Rahul Gupta of the local health department had this to say about the outstanding scientific questions surrounding the safety of the still licorice-flavored water:

“What is the metabolism and excretion of this compound in humans?  Does it accumulate?  Where does it accumulate?  What is the carcinogenic potential?  What is the teratogenic potential?  What does it do to home pipes?  How does it interact, if at all, with other compounds in water, such as chlorine?  Does it form harmful or harmless products?”

The state of West Virginia told the population that the water was “appropriate” to drink without having the scientific community answer all of the pertinent questions.  They decided it was safe and that if people wanted to buy bottled water, they could, but there was really no reason to.  But what about the people who can’t afford to drive for hours to buy pallets of water because it was all sold out in local stores?  What about bathing?  What about children, the elderly, pregnant women?  What about people who no longer feel safe living near Elk River but now, after this spill, are unable to sell their homes?

For Dr. Gupta, this spill seemed like a separation from the ideals that he thought America held, ideals involving equality, safety and expected standards of living.  He said,

“The 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act allows every resident of the United States to have access to safe drinking water.  So how do we say that, for three hundred thousand people in this part of West Virginia, it’s O.K. to have ‘appropriate’ water?  Do we understand the path we’re taking here, by defining two different classes of water, for two different classes of people?  Do we really want to go down that path?  In the history of this nation, it doesn’t end well when we go down this path.”

Sadly, I would say we have already gone a ways down that path.  The question I have is whether it is too late for us to turn back.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Letter to a Smoker on Seventh Avenue

24 Mar

Dear Smoking Man,*

Hello, remember me?  I actually ate dinner at your house about 5 years ago with my then-boyfriend.  And about a month and a half ago I served you a drink.  I thought about reminding you of that long-past meal we shared but decided that perhaps that would be too much.  It was only that one time, after all, and I don’t even remember your name, your wife’s name, or the undoubtedly pleasant, yet slightly bizarre, dinner conversation.

Here we are now, another chance encounter.  You walking, in a light trench coat, me running up to the park.  You smoking your cigarette, me breathing in air too cold for mid-March.  The fact that you smoke doesn’t bother me, it’s your right and besides, it can’t be any worse for me than the exhaust fumes I suck into my lungs mile after mile.  You take one final drag and, as I approach, you fling your cigarette to the right using your thumb and forefinger as a sort of butt-launcher, missing my by inches.

I imagine you are someone who does not simply discard his empty coffee cups on the side of the road rather than wait for the appearance of a trash can.  I think it likely that you bring your own reusable bags to the supermarket.  Maybe I’ve got you all wrong but, I have to ask, why is it that people who are otherwise responsible inhabitants of an overly shared space feel it is okay to drop their cigarette butts on the ground?  Why is this one form of litter still acceptable?  But even more importantly than that, can you do us all a favor and at least look before you flick a still burning object through the air?  Because, you know, I don’t care if you smoke, I don’t mind breathing the smoke in, but I don’t really care to be burned by your cigarette.

I’m glad we had this little chat, Smoking Man.  And, honestly, it was lovely seeing you again.  Maybe next time I will even say hello.

To future encounters

Rebekah

*The one smoking on Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn, not the creepy one from The X-Files.  By the way did I ever tell you guys I have limited edition Mulder and Skully Barbie and Ken dolls?  Well, I do.  But I won’t tell you where they live for fear you will try and steal them.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

To the jerk who wrote an “inspirational” letter on Facebook

13 Mar

You know what I am really good at?  Blogging as a procrastination technique.  Seriously.  I haven’t much felt like blogging recently because my life is slightly, shall we say, out of sorts.  Right now, however, when I have an article to write for a website that is not my own (and no I am not getting paid for it because, seriously, who needs money?) seems like a wonderful time to post something here.  Where, by the way, I am also not getting paid.  So, okay, let’s do this.

A few days ago, someone I went to high school with but haven’t spoken to since then (and, in fact, I am not entirely sure I ever spoke to her then either…social media is so weird) posted a link to an article called “To the fatty running on the track this afternoon.”  It was a link to some status message written by an anonymous Facebook user and then posted on a website called “Closer” which I have never read and, if this is a sample of the sorts of things this website has to offer I will never read again.  Anyway, the introduction to the post was as follows:

“The message begins in a typically condescending manner. It accuses the overweight runner of ‘footslogging in the wrong direction’, calls them out for wanting to ‘stop twice a lap’ and points out the ‘sweat’ that ‘drenches’ their body.

“But then, all of a sudden, the tone changes – and we find ourselves confronted with a seriously inspirational messages for all the would-be runners out there.”

So it leaves you thinking, how in the world could someone turn a post entitled “To the fatty running on the track this afternoon” into something even moderately supportive and encouraging?  The short answer is that they can’t.  Here is the full text of the original Facebook post:

“To the fatty running on the Westview track this afternoon:

You, whose feet barely lift off the ground as you trudge around the track.  You, who keeps to the outside lane, footslogging in the wrong direction.  You, who stops for water breaks every lap, and who would probably stop twice a lap if there were bleachers on both sides.  You, whose gaze drops to your feet every time we pass.  You, whose sweat drenches your body after your leave, completing only a single, 20-minute mile.

There’s something you should know:  You fucking rock.

Every shallow step you take, you carry the weight of more than two of me, clinging to your bones, begging to be shaken off.  Each lap you run, you’re paying off the debt of another midnight snack, another dessert, another beer.  It’s 20 degrees outside, but you haven’t let that stop your regimen. This isn’t your first day out here, and it certainly won’t be your last.  You’ve started a journey that lasts a lifetime, and you’ve started at least 12 days before your New Year’s resolution kicks in.  You run without music and I can only imagine the mantras running through your mind as you heave your ever-shrinking mass around the next lap.  Let’s go, feet.  Shut up, legs.  Fuck off, fat.  If you’d only look up from your feet the next time we pass, you’d see my gaze has no condescension in it.

I have nothing but respect for you.  You’ve got this.”

Oh god, where to start.  I am a runner.  I am a runner because it feels good, it makes me happy, it clears my head, and it is inclusive of just about anyone.*  I am a runner who is constantly impressed by the kindness and support shown by runners to runners and that is why this ridiculous “inspirational” message really made me mad.  Here’s what I want to say to the person who wrote that note:

The person to whom you wrote this does not need your approval or permission to do what they are already doing.  The person to whom you wrote this does not need you to tell them that their fat does not bother you because clearly, it does.  What you consider inspirational, drips with disapproval, judgement and, yes, condescension.  It is your attitude, and attitudes like yours, that make people ashamed of their bodies and afraid to start running, afraid to start doing many things.  Who cares if this runner stops for water breaks every lap? I do that.  And you know what?  Sometimes I also wish there were bleachers on both sides of the track.  You know why?  Because running is hard.  It is hard and it is tiring.  And yet I don’t see you writing a letter to me.  Ask yourself why.

Why is it that you feel the need to calculate how many times you would fit under this other runner’s skin?  Why do you feel the need to judge this person for how long it takes them to run a mile?  How dare you assume that this person is somehow paying off a debt for calories consumed.  How dare you assign mantras to someone else and assume to know what motivates them.  I said this before and I will say it again, it is people like you, and attitudes like yours, that make people ashamed of their bodies.  This is not inspirational.  This is called fat shaming.

Let me share with you something that is actually inspirational.  I wish I could find the direct quote but a summary will just have to do.  A few years ago I was reading the interviews of some of the elite athletes following the New York City Marathon.  A reporter sat down with one of the men who finished on the podium and said something along the lines of “you run so fast.  You are just such an inspiration.”  The runner, a man who was at the top of his field in an incredibly difficult and punishing sport said the following:

“I am not inspirational.  I am only out there on my feet for a little over 2 hours.  It is the people that are pounding away for 3, 4, 5, 6 or more hours that are the real inspiration.”

This runner did not need to point out how much more talented he is than the rest of the field, how much faster, thinner, more athletic.  This is a man who just achieved an incredible goal, and instead of making the moment about himself, he deflected it to include everyone who completed the race that day.  That is called grace. That is something that made me want to lace my running shoes up right then and there. It made me feel like what I do day after day, what so many of us do no matter how fast or slow we do it, is amazing.

Listen, I know the sentiment of this letter was not malicious but what came through was insanely unkind.  I am glad that you feel proud of yourself for being the bigger person and supporting a “fatty.”  I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.  But you know what?  You sound like a dick.  I hope you take a step back and really think about what your letter says about you and about the way our society treats people who are deemed to be “footslogging” their “mass” around the world, a constant reminder of the “debt” accrued from years of what you seem to think of as irresponsible overindulgence.  This is a person you are writing this letter to, a person who is deserving of respect and not judgement.  This letter is a perfect example of the fucked up way we think about bodies and what we consider supportive within the realm of fitness.  I don’t know.

It is things like this that make me doubt the way I feel about the running community as a whole.  For me, it is not about being better than others, faster than them, thinner.  It is about all of us being out there, propelling ourselves forward using only our bodies.  That’s an incredible thing.  We are all out there, we are all working, and we are all deserving of support.  Just hold the judgement.

Update:  My friend Julie just shared with me a blog written by a man speaking on behalf of the person to whom the Facebook message was directed.  His name is Tony Posnanski and he is awesome.  Read his blog.  It is WAY better than mine.  Keep on loggin’ those miles and sharing your journey, man.

*I know there are issues of safety, access and serious injury that do bar some people from enjoying the sport.  But by and large, I think that just about anyone who wants to do it, can do it.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Individualism and Abortion and Gun Rights, oh my!

4 Jan

Did you guys read this article in the New York Times from yesterday (January 3, 2014)?  It’s about abortion restrictions.  It’s basically like an abortion restriction round-up from the last two years AKA all the articles that made me and my friends REALLY mad (plus Wendy Davis!)* smashed up together into a two-page summary.  So, yea, if you need to be reminded of all the shitty things that happened in terms of women’s access to abortions, then read the article.  I mean, I know there is nothing I like better than reading about that shit first thing on a Saturday morning.  Anyway, I just have a few little things to say about it.

Just to get this one thing out of the way: it makes me so fucking angry.  I wish there was a way for me to record myself saying those words because there is an intonation that I think is incredibly important to really getting the message across.  You must seethe when you say it.

As one does, I have been thinking quite a lot about individualism.  I think this country has gone absolute bat-shit crazy about individualism.  God forbid you mention the idea of relying on others and you’re a communitarian, or, as some would say, a socialist (although the two words actually mean different things).  Personally, I wear the badge of communitarianism happily and proudly.  I like it because it doesn’t completely dismiss the importance of the individual, but it says that traits held by individuals are largely formed by the community that surrounds them.  So like, I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t grown up where I grew up and around the people whom I grew up around.  I think this is a belief that is held by most people if you ask them (as long as you stay far from words like ‘socialist’ and ‘collectivist’).  When you step up to the policy and governmental level, however, getting anywhere close to the idea of communitarianism is hugely problematic.  Remember the whole “you didn’t build that” fiasco with Obama and Romney during the 2012 campaign?  I think that Obama’s sentiment, that the business built by someone is reliant upon the foundation laid before them, is pretty much communitarianism.  It isn’t dismissing the importance of the individual’s contribution to society.  Instead, it emphasizes the fact that the opportunity to build the business wouldn’t have presented itself had the infrastructure — be that physical, political, or cultural — not been previously created.  We are all connected to what came before us and what comes after.  Basically, we don’t all start from scratch.  If we did we would just be running around and around on a defective hamster wheel, getting nowhere and seriously in need of WD-40.

This is all connected, I promise.  Just bear with me.  So we have, on the national stage, this ridiculous idea of the individual that is connected to the American Dream which, if you ask me, no longer really exists.  That unquestioned devotion to the boot-strappers mentality is part of the poison that has leached throughout our entire national conscience.  It’s like a fantasy to think that we live in a society in which someone can come and make something out of nothing.  And you know what?  Sometimes the fantasy is borne out.  But that story is becoming more and more rare.  Economic mobility in the United States is less likely than it was in previous generations.  According to a chart created by Miles Corak, professor of economics at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in Ottawa, among “developed” nations, the United States has the highest level of inequality and one of the lowest earnings elasticity (or the lowest intergenerational mobility).  And yet we still cling to this idea of individual opportunity, that we all have a chance to better our lot, without paying any attention to the role played by opportunity.  Our parent’s wealth, our geographic location, the color of our skin, the levels of education attained by those before us, our debt loads.  These things all matter.  We do not each exist in some weird vacuum, unaffected by what came before and yet capable of achieving our wildest dreams if only we work hard for them.  Other things, things beyond our control, matter also.

So, now here we go.  Now this is where it all starts coming together.  We have this idea that we love, as a nation, of individualism and opportunity, except for when it comes to social issues and then we think, or at least some of us think, that what happens inside the body or home of our neighbors is our business.  Many of those same people who got mad at Obama for suggesting that infrastructure mattered to the success of the Republican candidate also think it is their moral responsibility to regulate what a woman decides to do with her own body, with her own pregnancy.  Many, though not all, of them are also the same people who cling crazily to their guns.  Not even literally, in some cases, but what the guns represent.  This idea of the rights of the individual and the need that each person has to protect him or herself from the government because the government, in all its lumbering bureaucracy, is coming for them.  Seriously, people, if we couldn’t manage gun control after Newtown, and if we couldn’t all laugh Wayne LaPierre off the stage for his suggestion that “the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” AKA lets arm guards at all school to protect the kids (with no real attempt to explain who in the world would pay for it) then the guns are safe.  But that’s not even the point.  Here’s the point.

I see a serious disconnect, as many people do, between gun rights and abortion rights.  I know that maybe this is like comparing apples and oranges, but it seems to me that a lot of the states that are protecting their guns and limiting women’s access to abortions are, well, the same damn states.  So let’s take one second here.  I read this article in the New York Times a few months ago about this face-off in Dallas between a group of three women associated with the gun control group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America having lunch and talking about stricter gun control and a large group of men and women, members of Open Carry Texas, standing outside the restaurant strapped with shotguns, hunting rifles, AR-15s and AK-47s.  The Open Carry people had no intention of hurting the women physically, what they did want to do was intimidate them.  Which they did because there were roughly 24 of them with long-guns strapped to their backs.  I don’t know anyone who would willingly, and without fear, walk out of a lunch meeting and then through a large, intimidating group like that.  Both groups, it can be argued, were exercising their various rights, but only one group had the ability to kill members of the other.  This is where individualism, I think, should be curtailed.  When your individual choice has the potentiality of impacting the individual choice of another person.  My ability to choose to have an abortion in no way impacts another person’s right to choose not to, but someone else’s decision to carry a gun could potentially end my life.

I know, I know, people are going to say that I am choosing to end the life of whatever is growing inside my body. Honestly, I am more concerned with myself, or with other women, than I am with a ball of cells.  Maybe that is heartless but it’s true.  I am more concerned with the life that is as opposed to the life that may be.  I guess all of this is to say that I am confused.  Why are your guns okay but my morals are not?  Why can you build an empire without any consideration of those who paved the way for you because you are an individual and therefore the only unit of import, and yet you can regulate what I do within my own womb?  Why are you as an individual more important than me?  And how does my decision to end a pregnancy impact your life in any way?  The answer:  it doesn’t.  You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too.  You want to argue individualism and rights?  Fine.  But be consistent.  Don’t be so arrogant as to think you know what is better for half the population.  And while I am at it, if you are going to try and regulate abortion access, why do it across class lines?  The result of the way the “right to life” people have approached this issue is to make access more difficult for those women living in rural areas, for those with full time jobs, for those with limited money and transportation opportunities.  Jennifer Dalven of the ACLU said, “Increasingly, access to abortion depends on where you live.  That’s what it was like pre-Roe.”  I would argue that it also depends on what you have, or don’t have.

Listen, if people are going to argue that the American Dream is still around, that we all have the ability to achieve whatever it is that we want, stop erecting roadblocks for women, and specifically for poor women, and more specifically for poor women of color.  Either that or just come out and say it:  you want a country in which only people that look like you can achieve the American Dream because, from where I sit, that is exactly where we’re headed.

*Did anyone else stay up really late during Davis’ filibuster in the Texas Senate?  Seriously, having live feeds of Senate buildings is genius.  Also, I cried.  Just in case you were wondering.  I was so impressed by her and her colleagues, so speechless by the tens of thousands of people watching and so excited to be Twitter communicating with other people who were watching it I really just couldn’t even stand it.  Who knew government could be so engaging?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →