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A Beefcake Ruined my Workout

24 Oct

Today was the first day of my training for the New Orleans marathon which is exactly 4 months from today, on February 24th.  The plan I downloaded suggested that I run 5 miles at a 9:02 pace.  Okay, that’s not bad.  I decided to head to the gym and run on the treadmill because the idea of running the better part of a mile uphill to run a loop of the park (involving another hill) was just too much to handle.  I was feeling runner-lazy.  Obviously I am taking this process very seriously.  My goals are to make it to the start line prepared and injury-free and to complete the full 26.2 miles in under 3:45.  I think it’s possible.*

After my run, I decided to try and get into the groove of lifting weights, something I know is necessary but I hate with the strength of a thousand suns. (Did I get that saying right?)  I headed over to that weird dip thing and did some leg lifts.  Then I decided to do squats.  As I was walking towards the area with the body bars, dumbbells, and kettle bells I saw this rather beefy guy looking at me.  I half smiled at him in what I hoped was a dismissive yet friendly way, turned my music up, and grabbed a body bar to commence the squatting.  I could see him watching me in the mirror.  Then I saw it.  A little condescending smirk and a slight shake of the head, and then he motioned for me to take off my headphones.  I pretended I didn’t see him.  He did it again, this time in a more obvious manner.  I couldn’t ignore him.  I could have just shook my head “no” and went about my workout but I hate to be rude when I’m not (a) working and faced with some drunken asshole who I have to handle or (b) on the move, thereby escaping from the look of shock upon my response to the offensive cat calling or, my favorite, the “god bless you” whisper, I had to endure.  Shudder.  The conversation went as follows:

Beefcake: What do you do?  Run?

Me: Yup.

Beefcake:  Mind if I give you a few tips about that squat?

Me:  (Yes) Um…I guess not.

He then, without getting up, began instructing me on the proper approach to the squat which, I have to say, was exactly the opposite of how everyone else ever in the history of me has told me is the proper way to do it.  Whatever, I indulged him.  I just wanted him to stop talking to me.  He then proceeded to lecture me about the importance of working out my abs and back to make me a stronger runner.  I tried to explain to him that I already know all this, that I just hate the gym but that I am working on it but he was on a roll and wouldn’t really let me get a word in edgewise.  I figured it better to just let him run out of steam and move on.  And then,

Beefcake: I’m a trainer here, that’s why I was giving you tips

Me:  Yea, I figured.

Beefcake:  I’m really good with faces.  I haven’t seen you here in awhile.  You been going somewhere else?

Me:  A little I guess. I just really hate the gym.

Beefcake:  Really?  Why?

Me:  (Because I am stuck talking to people like you?) I don’t know.  It smells.

Beefcake:  Oh, well, do you remember seeing me?

Me:  No.  I don’t pay attention to people in the gym.  I just workout and leave and don’t look at anybody or talk to anybody. (Meaningful stare.)

I guess he got the picture because he walked away.  But then I was too self-conscious to do the rest of my squats because he was nearby, doing all his fancy pull-ups and shit and I knew he was watching and would swoop in and correct me at any moment.  And here’s the thing, I guess I wouldn’t have minded some tips if it weren’t for the following two things.  One, that smirk.  That cocky, rude smirk and that little dismissive head shake that communicated to me not concern for a possible knee injury, but a “you silly girl, let me show you how it’s done.”  And two, the obvious lie that he told me when he noticed me doing my squats ‘wrong.’  I saw him see me walking over from the dip machine, which is located behind a pillar.  He was just watching, and waiting.  I could have done a toe-raiser and he would have corrected me.  So, Beefcake at the gym, I write you this letter:

Dear Beefcake,

If you want to help someone out with something, kindly be a little less condescending and a little less of a liar.  You ruined my workout.  Please never talk to me again.  Ever.

From

The Runner with the Long Hair

*Just a little side note.  I will not, going forward, subject you, dear readers, to the ins and outs of my marathon training.  I might make reference to it here and there, but that’s about it.  So, worry not, details of my Yasso 800s will not take the place of my ranting about peeping toms, people making shitty comparisons to Hitler, or Donald Trump, who easily makes my top 5 least favorite people list.

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Money > People

23 Oct

If you haven’t yet noticed through reading this blog, or if you don’t already know about this through knowing me personally, I work in parallels.  I read things, I get upset about things, but sometimes the only way for me to make sense of it all is to compare the thing I am upset about — but that I lack the language to work through — to something else seemingly unconnected to it and draw a line between the two.  I guess I like to create an equal playing field within my mind and hold dissimilar things to similar standards.  That’s how I got from domestic violence within a human rights framework to trade agreements.  Onward.

This past week I had the pleasure of leaving Brooklyn and traveling, via Bolt Bus, to Washington, DC to visit a very good friend of mine who just recently started law school.  The timing couldn’t have been better.  She was on fall break and needed a small brain vacation from the stresses of the first year of law school which, as I understand it, is a torturous experience.  I needed a vacation from the stresses associated with the ridiculous amount of guilt I feel about avoiding my thesis.  It’s basically become a full-time job.  Anyway, one of the things we did while I was down there was attend a super interesting talk about the idea of domestic violence within the international human rights framework.  Yea, I didn’t really understand how that worked either.  So here is my very basic explanation of the things we learned about, lacking probably crucial details, because my memory just ain’t what it used to be.

So basically what I learned was that being a woman is a lot of times terrible.  And, not surprisingly, this is no different within the legal framework.  The professor and guest lecturer went over a number of cases over the past few decades within the United States that basically eroded the ability of victims of domestic violence (generally women and children) to bring charges against the state for negligence.  When someone takes out a restraining order, the idea is not that the state is in that person’s house, intervening at the first sign of trouble.  Instead, the police (or so I thought) have an obligation to enforce a restraining order if the holder of it calls them, reporting that the order has been broken in some way.  I learned that although one would think that a mandatory restraining order means that the police, an agent of the state by the way (until they are inevitably privatized which scares the shit out of me), are required to protect the holder of the order of protection from the person she took it out against.  That, oddly enough, is not exactly the case.  Mandatory, in this case, doesn’t actually mean mandatory.  The state is under no legal obligation to protect a victim from her victimizer even if she has gone through the appropriate mechanisms to seek guaranteed safety.  There were a few different legal avenues a woman could previously take to bring charges against the state for negligence.  All of those avenues have been systematically eroded, now leaving a victim without means to sue the state if, say, her children are murdered at the hands of her violent ex-husband from whom she is supposedly protected.  Scary, right?  So what is the next step?

This is where international human rights enters.  Human rights, or at least the way that I think about them, are based upon this moral and ethical understanding that all people are equal.  I know that is super simplistic.  What has happened in the US in terms of DV is that the state apparatus is protecting itself from the whims of its citizens.  Part of human rights is that they protect individuals from the whims of the state.  So, the next step could be that women, who have exhausted all domestic options in terms of holding someone accountable for the actions, or lack thereof, of the state or an actor of the state, bring their tale of violated rights to an international human rights body.    That body, in the case we heard about it was the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which then looks at the facts, looks at the legislative trail and comes to a decision as to whether or not an individual’s human rights have been violated and then sends that finding to the offending state, allowing the state in question to respond.  In the case of the US who, obviously if you know anything about our record on this sort of thing,* has not ratified whatever it needs to ratify to be held accountable by this organization and so whatever the IACHR might find in the case of the US basically holds no water.  It is an embarrassment to the US, sure, but there is nothing that the IACHR can do.  It has no power.

Part of the reason for this is that the United States, in all its exceptionalism and all its talk about holding other countries accountable for human rights violations, does not want to be held accountable for its own.  It does not want to give any other body jurisdiction over the affairs within its borders.  It’s like human rights isolationism.  So aside from a strongly worded letter, a victim has absolutely no recourse.  No wait while I blow your mind even more.

I just recently (as in about 20 minutes ago when I decided to write this blog) read this article in Salon by Matt Stoller.  It’s worth a read and contains a whole lot more about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) than what I am about to say.  Basically, the TPP, along with NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, gives foreign companies the rights to impact US law.  The WTO, for example, can put sanctions on the US if its domestic environmental, financial and social interest laws are too restrictive of foreign products.  Have you noticed that all tuna cans no longer have huge labels pronouncing that product dolphin-free?  That’s because it was negatively impacting companies exporting tuna to the US.  When we are dealing at an international level without standardization in regards to manufacturing and product safety, this is not something we can really afford.  And yet we do it.  Somehow it is reasonable to amend our laws to permit the sale of candy-flavored cigarettes but not to guarantee state-sanctioned protection of a domestic violence victim.  Abiding by international trade laws is more important than human rights norms.  Placating trade partners is more important than protecting our citizens.  Money is more important than people.

* The US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the landmine ban, among other things.  I leave you to imagine why that might be.

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Let’s Take Hitler Off the Table

12 Oct

I don’t think I can quite do justice to the point I am trying to make, but I will still try.

Act I

In the fall of 2010 I traveled to Montreal for an elongated birthday celebration for one of my graduate school classmates.  It was an idyllic weekend.  We met at Penn Station and rode an Amtrak train from New York to Montreal, taking a break from our studies to gossip, listen to music, and do some leisure reading.  Everything on that ride seemed quaint, from the verbal tour given the passengers by the conductor — and out the left side of the train a bald eagle! — to the request for the safe return of a copy of “The History of Connecticut” which inexplicably went missing to the visa checks by Canadian customs officials.  The weekend continued along in that vein.  There was the perfect bed and breakfast, the beautiful farmer’s market, the Owen Wilson sighting.  There was only one downside to the entire weekend:  the table we came across in the old city that featured a picture of Obama sporting a Hitler-esque mustache and a swastika on his arm.  This was not the first time I had come across such an image.  Walking to school a few months earlier I had seen the same doctored photograph holding court on a fold-out table in Union Square.  Those running the table handed out pamphlets.  I was enraged, insulted, and running late for class.  I scowled at them and hurried on my way, red-faced and breathing fire, trying to push the image out of my head while at the same time grappling with all the reasons it impacted me so severely.

Act II

Today fall appeared in New York City.  It was one of those days with a (mostly) blue sky and a strong sun but with winds that rip down the avenues and a certain damp coldness that pushes through layers.  I was sad I forgot my gloves.  After running a few errands I decided to finish my Friday evening over a glass of wine and last week’s issue of The New Yorker (I am behind once again).  In the section entitled The Political Scene was an article by Chrystia Freeland called “Super-Rich Irony:  Why do billionaires feel victimized by Obama?”  I had read a few other articles of a similar theme in The New Yorker, and elsewhere, in recent months.  One that comes to mind made mention of the super-rich who felt slighted because they never received a proper ‘thank you’ from Obama for previous fund-raising contributions.  (To them I say this:  boo-fucking-hoo.)  Freeland’s article was a little more specific, it revolved around an open letter to President Obama from billionaire Leon Cooperman, the founder of a hedge fund called Omega Advisors.    This letter went viral in the business community and accuses Obama of using language that has led to a class warfare in which the super-rich are the oppressed minority.  In it Cooperman says,

To frame the debate as one of rich-and-entitled versus poor-and-dispossessed is to both miss the point and further inflame an already incendiary environment. It is also a naked, political pander to some of the basest human emotions – a strategy, as history teaches, that never ends well for anyone but totalitarians and anarchists.

And then this,

You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be.

In follow-up interviews, as well as in a speech that addressed this letter and its impacts, Cooperman, Freeland reports, “has gone so far as to draw a parallel between Obama’s election and the rise of the Third Reich.”  Ugh.  Honestly, I have had enough.  There are a lot of infuriating things in this article about how the super-rich feel about their treatment, and how they think they are being singled out and blamed, and, honestly, I do not feel bad for them.  Maybe that makes me an asshole and maybe someday I will amend that feeling but today is not that day.  This post is not about that.  This post is about the parallel that I see drawn over and over again between Obama and Hitler.  It has got to stop.  Take Hitler off the table.  Comparisons to Hitler should not be allowed.  I am not saying we should alter the First Amendment to allow free speech up until the point that someone draws an erroneous comparison between someone who isn’t Hitler and Hitler.   What I am saying is that there should be some sort of moral stopping point in which we take a moment, look around and we think, “hey, you know what?  Actually, this not-Hitler is actually nothing like actual Hitler because, for one, he or she is not responsible for the deaths of some 11 million innocent people.  Also, this not-Hitler did not spawn the coining of the term ‘genocide,’ like actual Hitler.  This not-Hitler, no matter how much I dislike his or her actions or policies is not the epitome of evil because that position is already occupied…by actual Hitler.”

But jokes aside.  Seriously.  I have always thought about it like this:  as a person of Jewish descent, I find this comparison especially problematic and hateful and wrong.  But now, sitting down here at my computer and working some of these thoughts out, I think that as a person I find this comparison especially problematic and hateful and wrong.  Not only is it erroneous, but every time we draw a comparison between the policies and speeches of, say, President Barack Obama and the speeches and actions of Hitler, we are minimizing the historical significance of Hitler’s existence and actions.  We are minimizing the suffering and death caused so many people.  We are minimizing the essence of evil.  Comparisons to Hitler should be reserved for those heinous few that orchestrate the systematic killing of people based off their background, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other single characteristic used by horrible, yet somehow magnetic, people to dehumanize.  Last time I checked, Obama has not done any of those things. Sure, he is charismatic.  But for that charisma to lead anywhere close to where Hitler’s charisma led would take a number of characteristics – narcissism? sociopathy? – that I don’t think any of us have reason to believe Obama possesses.

Now listen, I know the comparison to Hitler is not so much about his concentration camp era, but does it actually matter?  When I think Hitler, I think endless train rides, I think gas showers, I think forced labor, I think shaved heads, I think starvation, I think horrific medical experiments, I think families ripped apart, I think a world that was never the same, I think groups of people dehumanized to such an extreme degree that even to this day it stings.  I could continue but I won’t.  I don’t think any sane person’s thought association with Obama bring up any of those horrific thoughts.  So, come on, people.  Let’s stop being assholes.  Let’s take Hitler off the table.

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Some (belated) Thoughts on the Debate and Politics

9 Oct

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction this country is going since the (embarrassing) debate last Wednesday night.  As I sat on my sofa, watching these two men vying for a job as President of the United States of America my stomach dropped.  To be entirely honest, the feeling in the pit of my stomach actually kept me from sitting through the entire debate and the residual discomfort will, very likely, keep me from watching any of the other three.  Maybe this feeling will pass and I will give it another go but I doubt it.  Anyway, here are some thoughts.

I am someone who believes in government, who believes that it is important for there to be some sort of check to business expansion, that there should be services provided for people who, for whatever reason, are unable to provide those services for themselves.  Yes, politics can be dirty.  Yes, politicians can be corrupt.  But I am entirely unwilling to write this entire system we have built off and characterize everyone that makes up our government, and the government of other countries, as clowns.  Perhaps I am idealistic but I do not see a better outcome if we scratch the whole thing.  I think the system needs changing, the rules of the game need changing, and the behavior of our politicians  need changing.  All this was very clear by the disaster that was the first debate of this election season.  But I do think the system can still work and, a lot of times, actually does.  I think the system relies a lot on those of us who spend the time reading and learning and take the time to speak out against things, or in support of things, and go out and vote.  Just vote.  As a good friend of mine said the other day, write someone into the ballot if you have to.  Make a statement.  Let people know what we have, the options we have, does not work for you.  That is how change starts.

But I am off track.  Back to some thoughts.

Thought #1.  How can two candidates spend the amount of time they spent talking about healthcare and never, not once, mention that women pay more than men do for healthcare across the board?  Our rates are higher.  We, ladies, are pre-existing conditions.  ObamaCare actually addresses this issue.  Obama never mentioned it.  Romney certainly was not going to given his new found distaste for women thanks to Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, et al.  So, Obama, let me say this to you:  think about us, like, really.  You did a great thing with ObamaCare.  You included us in there.  Flaunt it!  Women are watching, we are listening, and we care about more than just jobs and education and tax rates.  (Don’t get me wrong, we care about those things, too.)  We are smart, we educate ourselves, we know what makes us better off.  We vote.  God damnit, we matter!  We matter a lot.  We fight an uphill battle every day against things we might not even be able to articulate.  We are so immersed in a world in which we are undervalued, in which we are considered less than, that it makes a difference when a policy is written that actually takes us into consideration.  You did a good thing, Mr. President.  Own it.  Show that you care about women and that Romney and Ryan still think that our internal organs and lady brains somehow make us enigmas.

Thought #2.  Clean coal.  I’m sorry.  Really?  Clean coal?  There is nothing clean about coal, really.  And if you gut the EPA, as the plan is, then there is absolutely no incentive whatsoever for industry to try and make coal cleaner.  Here’s the thing about business.  Business wants to be efficient, and business wants to make money.  Profits.  Period.  Business doesn’t wake up one day and say “oh, hey, I feel like doing a good deed, let me go ahead and spend millions and millions of dollars to lower my carbon footprint.”  No.  If there are no regulations, business has no reason to clean up.  And who can blame business for that?  But guess what?  A few decades down the line when the earth is even more polluted than it is today, when polar bears don’t even have small bits of ice to depressingly float around on in all of those gloom and doom NatGeo specials, and most of the energy sources we rely on in the good old US of A are depleted, a lot of other countries will have come up with other ideas.  And they will have businesses that work on them.  And those businesses will be making money.  And we will have no EPA and water that catches on fire when you bring a match close to it.  Clean coal my ass.  That ship has sailed.  Actually, no, that ship tried sailing and instead sunk.

Thought #3.  Shut up about PBS.

Thought #4.  I think manners are really important.  One of the things that always gets me into hot water at the bar in which I work is that I really believe people should have manners and should respect those around them.  I consider this a high expectation when copious amounts of alcohol and late nights are involved.  I am going to go out on a limb and assume that there was no alcohol involved in the poor performance delivered by both the President and Mitt Romney.  It would be inappropriate and, besides, Romney is a Mormon.  Anyway, the smug looks they both delivered have got to go.  And the interrupting.  I’m pretty sure I learned to let people have their turn to speak in kindergarten.  Or!  Maybe we should institute a talking stick at debates.  Could you imagine?  It would go like this:

Obama:  So, if you look at Romney’s plan, he wants to cut 5 trillion dollars from blah blah blah blah

Romney:  That!  That is not true!  That is not in my plan!

Jim Lehrer:  Now, Mitt, do you have the talking stick?

Romney:  (looking down at his very empty hands) No…but..he started this round and…

Lehrer:  No talking stick, no talking.

Now that’s a debate I could get behind.

More thoughts undoubtedly to come.  But for now, dinner.

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Donald, Revisited.

20 Sep

As anyone who read my previous post knows, I think Donald Trump is a complete idiot and an embarrassment and someone who should just do us all a favor and shut up.  But apparently, Donald Trump just keeps talking.  So, as a follow-up to a tip from my friend Michael, I bring to you complete gender-bias, a la Donald Trump.

After his tweet regarding Kate Middleton sunbathing topless:

Kate Middleton is great — but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude — only herself to blame

he added these wonderful words of wisdom on, of course, Fox and Friends:

Who wouldn’t take Kate’s picture and make lots of money if she does the nude sunbathing thing. Come on Kate!  While we’re all fans of Kate, can you imagine why she would ever be out in the nude? Why would she be standing in the nude in a swimming pool or wherever she was. She’s Kate. It’s terrible what they did, it’s terrible to take pictures, but boy, how can you do a thing so stupid?

I just have to add here that me.  Me and all the people I know.  (I’m pretty sure.)  I wouldn’t take Kate’s picture and make lots of money even though it would really help me in paying off my annoyingly stressful student loans.  I would, personally, rather have debt and be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel good about how I didn’t violate someone else’s privacy and then make money off it.  Donald, obviously, even though he has a lot of money (I think?  Or is he bankrupt again?  Who can keep track?!) would take her picture and make lots of money, even though he is a “fan” of Kate, whatever that means in his fucked-up misogynistic Trump mind.  (Which makes me wonder.  Is he a fan of Kate all the time?  Or only when she gets caught sunbathing in the nude?)  But it gets worse!  He then said the following thing in regards to all the hooplah surrounding the sale of photos of Prince Harry’s penis to the tabloids (which, for the record, I also think is really morally wrong.  See?  I care about the menz, too!):

The Harry thing you can almost say he was less… his security did a pretty bad job. But to be outside at a swimming pool without a top on and you’re Kate… you know. Maybe they can stop it but it is a very, very foolish thing she did.

Harry’s penis?  Security should have stopped that!  Kate’s boobs?  Her fault!
I just…ugh.  I am going to sit in the corner and watch this until all the frustration goes away.
Copyright BBC and Urban Myth/Toto. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.
Also, I learned how to insert video into my blog.  Let the fun begin.

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Donald Trump is a Dope

18 Sep

There are very few people, famous or otherwise, that get my blood boiling quite like Donald Trump.  To me he is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the United States and at least some percentage of what is wrong with the world.  He is excessive.  He is greedy.  He is a total misogynist.  And good god that hair.  Seriously.  What is with that hair?!  I am so annoyed by Donald Trump, in fact, that I don’t even like to say things like “you trumped me” because there was a time in my life when I was fairly convinced that the word “trump” was actually Donald’s last name repurposed.  (That time was up until about 6 months ago when my mom assured me that the word “trump” actually predated Donald Trump.  I am still not fully convinced but I will give my mom the benefit of the doubt because she is really smart.)  I mean, let’s be frank, what could be more ego-boosting than having a word created using your very own last name?  (Get it?  Frank?!?)  So what has brought about this sudden Trump-inspired outburst?  No, there wasn’t an Apprentice marathon on TV.  No, I didn’t go to midtown to have my eyes assaulted with the myriad Trump-named properties.  No, I didn’t attend a beauty pageant.  I simply went online and noticed the following tweet, compliments of Donald Trump himself:

Kate Middleton is great — but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude — only herself to blame

Ugh.  Nothing like a little victim-blaming to get the heart rate up!  Way to be, Donald!

I actually had a conversation this past weekend with one of my customers in which he, also of misogynistic tendencies, said roughly the same thing as Donald but, being aware of his audience (read: me) attempted to tone it down a little.  He failed.  Basically he said that she is famous now and should know better than to go sunbathing topless to which I responded with strongly worded opinions.  And then I thought to myself, why should I waste my brain-space worrying about images of the breasts of famous people?  Well, here’s a little bit about why.

This issue is symptomatic of something way bigger which is that famous people and, let’s be honest, all women, are generally thought of as public goods — anyone can look, touch, snap pictures.  Famous people and women have no grounds upon which to object because we should know better.  Well, I am calling bullshit.  Just as I should be able to walk up a flight of stairs without a nagging fear in the back of my mind that some creatch is going to snap an image of my underwear, Kate Middleton should be able to sunbathe topless in an environment in which she has a reasonable assumption of privacy.  She wasn’t walking down Broadway in the middle of the day.  She wasn’t standing outside of the Palace in London.  She wasn’t on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.  She was in a private, isolated French chateau (is that what they’re called?) that she and her princely husband rented for the purpose of enjoying some peace, some quiet, and some not photographs.  So some asshat with a long-lens camera comes and takes some photos and suddenly it’s her fault?  At what point are we going to take the weight of responsibility and place it squarely in the hands of the person who made the immoral decision to violate someone else’s privacy rather than on the shoulders of the one with no actual control over said decision?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how I had been in my bed and some guy yelled at me through my window.  One of the first things I felt was the weight of responsibility.  It was my own fault that some guy noticed my open shades and, rather than avert his eyes, decided to look through my window and yell at me.  Upon further inspection, I realized how ridiculous my logic was.  Sure, it would have been better if I had remembered to close my blinds, but it is not my fault that this man watched me sitting on my bed.  I didn’t invite him to look.  I didn’t hold a gun to his head.  The only person at fault, clearly, was him.  There is no way in which my logical brain will allow me to see the situation any differently. That knowledge, however, doesn’t make me feel any less violated.  But the scope of my violation was so much smaller than Kate Middleton’s.  If I felt as strongly as I did about this one person I can’t even imagine what it must be like to know that millions of people are looking at images of your naked body that you did not approve, did not ask for, did not want taken.

Now normally, I think that talking about famous people is a colossal waste of time.  I think that people who make a living off of analyzing the lives of people they will never meet are lame.  This, I think, is different.  First of all, I am not making any money off my opinions at all (although I would like to say at this point that if someone would like to pay me for being me, that’d be awesome and I accept with a resounding YES!).  Second of all, this incident is something that I think a lot of women can relate to, even if it might not seem like it at first.  We’ve all been there.  We’ve all felt violated.  We’ve all read stories about women being masturbated to on trains, had photos taken of them, been touched inappropriately.  This, in my mind, is not much different than that.  Just because she is famous doesn’t mean she should be expected to give up her privacy, her rights, her anger.

Also, Donald Trump is scum and I wish he would go take a long walk in the ocean.

(I would  also like to add that I am annoyed that I spent any of my free time at all on Donald Trump.  He is a turd.  And!  Someone found my blog by searching “Rebekah Frank bartender” and it wasn’t me!  Rock!)

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Dear Senator Kyl, Please Stop.

13 Sep

So this is something I (surprise!) find annoying.  Annoying being an understatement, as it usually is, but I am trying this new thing that I call toning down my language.  I think that maybe if I explain things and think about things in a less anger-inducing way then maybe I will go through life being less, well, angry about things I have no control over.  Like the words that spew out of the mouth of Senator Jon Kyl.  (By the way, if ever life is getting you down, and the idiocy of our politicians seems too much to handle, please visit this sketch by the wonderful, the hilarious, Stephen Colbert and everything will regain a sense of normalcy, if only for a short time.) Most recently, the esteemed Senator from Arizona (poor, poor Arizona) decided to respond to a statement released by the American Embassy in Cairo which, in itself, was a response to understandably negative reactions throughout the Muslim world to an American-made movie that denigrates the Prophet Mohammed.  (Word to the wise:  comparing a very important religious figure to a pedophile is generally neither advisable nor received well.)  The original statement, released hours before an attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans in Benghazi, read as follows:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” (My emboldifying.)

Senator Jon Kyl, along with a lot of other politicians who seem to enjoy ignoring timelines — as in this thing happened, and then this other thing happened afterwards meaning that the first thing that happened could not be construed as an apology for the next thing unless people in the American Embassy in Egypt are actually time travelers in which case, can you guys be my friends? — have issued all kinds of misguided statements.  Mitt Romney said some stupid things.  Jon Kyl, however, probably issued my favorite statement of all (read:  If I ran into him somewhere I would totally push him down a set of stairs and not feel bad about it at all).  Just to be clear, this is a statement made by Jon Kyl criticizing the US Embassy in Egypt for their statement condemning the release of a hateful movie.  Here is the statement:

It’s like the judge telling the woman who got raped, ‘You asked for it because of the way you dressed.’ OK? That’s the same thing. ‘Well America, you should be the ones to apologize, you should have known this would happen, you should have done — what I don’t know — but it’s your fault that it happened.’ You know, for a member of our State Department to put out a statement like that, it had to be cleared by somebody. They don’t just do that in the spur of the moment.

Um, no, Jon Kyl.  Releasing a statement condemning a hate-filled movie is in no way like blaming a woman for her own rape.  You know what’s like blaming a woman for her own rape?  Actually doing that.  Actually blaming a woman for where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing, how much she was drinking, who she was talking to.  And you know what else Jon Kyle?  That happens a lot.  I think that generally when we make comparisons they should either be (a) accurate or (b) so inaccurate so as to make them funny.  This is neither of those things.  And, seeing as how women are blamed for their own assaults all the time by men and women alike, and that this is very well documented, maybe before you make a ridiculous and inaccurate criticism of a statement that was not vetted through the White House, you should get your statement vetted by your handlers.  Maybe then I wouldn’t think you suck so hard.  I mean, I probably would anyway, but whatever.

Also, while I am on the topic, I would like to propose the following thing.  How about, from now until the end of time, none of us ever compare anything to rape unless it actually was rape in which case you wouldn’t have to compare it at all?  Like, when you say “ugh, I ordered this thing from this place and it was totally overpriced and I feel like I got raped.”  No, you don’t.  You don’t feel like you got raped at all.  Because you know what?  You didn’t get raped.  And probably, if you are comparing price gouging to rape then you have never actually been raped because you wouldn’t trivialize that experience.  So, yea, let’s see if we can make that happen.

Thanks for reading.

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Pedestrians have Rights, Right?

11 Sep

I was a curious kid.  One day when I was little and in the car with my mom, I wondered aloud how all the port-o-potties got moved from place to place.  I knew they were temporary, but they always seemed to appear as if by magic.  More than likely, I figured to myself, they were moved around by cover of night because, really, who would want to be caught moving toilets around.  Embarrassing!  No more than 10 minutes went by when, in the right lane of a 2-lane local street, a pick-up truck lugging 3 port-o-potties in its bed went lumbering by.  Mystery solved.  It’s strange how things like that happen.  You puzzle something and <BAM> the world responds!  Likely it’s just that once a thought enters your head it awakens some passive awareness and you’re more likely to notice anything with relevance to that thought.  But then again, I am pretty sure whether or not I wondered about the method of transportation of port-o-potties I would have noticed 3 of them traveling by car down the street because, to me as a 9-year-old kid and also to me now, that’s hilariously funny.

This sort of precipitous presentation of information happens all the time.  For a recent example, fast-forward to yesterday.  I headed out for a run on the first real fall-esque day of 2012, feeling sad about the end of summer and the inevitability of fall turning to winter, and also enjoying the fact that I could, painlessly, go out for a run at 3:30 in the afternoon and return home only slightly wet with sweat, with a little water still left in my handheld bottle.  I also spent the majority of the run from my house to the park thinking about an incident that had occurred at work the day before when an especially problematic (read:  anti-semitic, racist piece of shit) customer called me a cunt about 15 times.  I was thinking about how I could write a blog post not about the experience but about the word itself.  What would be my angle?  Would I compare it to other words that drip with hatred and anger and violence?  Would I contemplate the use of gendered insults to convey ideas of power?  I was running through questions and ideas in my mind as I crossed 7th avenue near 16th street.  Seeing I had the light, I cut the corner a little in order to make it into the crosswalk.  There were no cars coming.  No bikes.  And then, a car came speeding down 16th street to make a left onto 7th, almost cutting me off, almost hitting me.  I was far enough into the intersection that the driver was forced to stop but I looked at him and lifted my arms, angrily cocking my head to the side as if to say, helloooooo?  He rolled down his window and screamed out the window

Get in the crosswalk, you prissy bitch!

And he drove off.  First of all, I was in the crosswalk. Second of all, I had the light.  And third of all, why’d he have to go there?  Clearly he was an angry dude and, in order to cool myself off, I tried to focus on the mantra that I always focus on in times like these:  at least I’m not that guy.  I think about how awful it must be to go through life that angry, temper flaring at the drop of a hat, feeling so put upon and at the same time so entitled.  It must be hard.  At least, I thought to myself, I don’t automatically assume the worst of people and yell at them at even the slightest imposition on the forward-moving trajectory of my day.  At least I won’t give myself a heart attack within 10 years.  And then I thought about the reality of the situation:  him in car, angry, me on foot, also angry.  Him controlling 4 tons of steel, me controlling very light running shoes and a 12 oz water bottle, good for throwing.  I think he probably wins.  But then I thought to myself, there are witnesses.  I am in the right.*  If something were to have happened, if he were to have hit me, he would be in the wrong, not me, because I had the light.    The law would be on my side.  Right?  Maybe not.  Today the answer came in the form of this article in the New York Times.

Apparently the New York City Police Department has an Accident Investigation Squad slated with investigating all manner of traffic accidents, both fatal and nonfatal.  That’s great.  The problem is there are only 20 people in the Squad.  Slightly less great.  And those 20 people, last year, were meant to investigate all 3,000 nonfatal accidents that occurred in the city last year.  Significantly less great.  In reality they really only investigate when a victim is considered likely to die.  So I guess if I got hit but it wasn’t life-threatening the angry man would get away scot-free? Hrm.  Also, “I didn’t see her” is a credible excuse in New York state. (I am left to wonder whether “I didn’t see the prissy bitch” would also fall under this theme.) According to Streetsblog.org, in many cases when drivers hit a pedestrian or cyclist and flee the scene, no charges are ever brought against them.  Not even a charge of leaving the scene of the crime.  I mean, I have never hit a person before but I have hit a squirrel and I noticed.  There was a bump.  I am unclear as to how you can hit a person and not realize you have hit something.  If I felt a person-sized bump under my tires I would immediately stop driving, pull over, try to keep myself from pissing my pants, and walk over to see what it was, hoping against hope that it was a garbage bag or a rolled up carpet, discarded on the side of the road.  In the case of Roxana Buta, a young woman whose death is highlighted in the aforementioned NY Times article, the driver of the DOT dump truck that killed her (and left the scene, it was all caught on video) was identified and, as of yet, no charges have been brought against him.  If past cases are any indication, charges will never be brought.  Now this is not to say that the knowledge of having killed someone isn’t punishment enough.  It isn’t to say that this man doesn’t feel remorse.  It clearly wasn’t intentional.  He couldn’t have known she would be there.  Maybe he really didn’t see her.  What I am trying to say is that, in my initial breakdown of my experience, I was wrong, the law is not on my side.  Apparently, as so often is the case, the onus to protect oneself lies in the hands of the party least able to do so.  Up against a car I am no match.  Up against a car driven by a man with an anger-management problem and a clear ax to grind, I am even less of one.  If he had hit me, I would have gone down in his memory as the prissy bitch who got in the way of the progress of his day.  And by the way, I am by no stretch of the imagination prissy.

*And yes, if you are wondering, I was still running at this point in the thought-process and was probably about 1/2 mile into the park loop.  I was also, completely absurdly, imagining what would happen if he was really angry and chased me down in the park and punched me really hard in the face, breaking my cheek bone and maybe even my jaw.  Then I would have a black eye and I would have to get a wire in my face and it would be terrible.  How would I work?  How would I finish my thesis?  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how the mind of Rebekah works.

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In Solidarity with the 22 Former Juventino Employees

30 Aug

I have been mulling over a number of posts this past week or so.  Mostly they are in draft form, requiring the kind of editing that I tend to be too lazy and too attached to specific sentences to really undertake.  I suppose it’s the difference I find between writing about a personal experience, or an issue that I have personal experience with, and those things I feel very strongly about but maybe don’t feel entirely qualified weighing in on.  It’s mostly a fear of misrepresenting an issue, coming across as an enemy rather than an ally due to a poor choice of words, or inadvertently insulting someone I care about because I lack the depth of knowledge I really need to adequately express myself.  My post on Chik-Fil-A met this fate, abandoned to draft status after being alerted by my wonderful sometimes-reviewer that one of my paragraphs could potentially be misread by someone who doesn’t know me and my liberal social leanings.  The topic today, however, does not fall under that category.  It is something I know very well indeed.

While perusing Jezebel this morning, I came across this article written about sexual harassment in the service industry.  (The complainants have a blog which you should check out.  Hopefully more hits will let them know they are supported.)  As I have written here before, I am a bartender and have been for the past number of years.  Ever since my senior year in college, when I was 21 years old, I have been working some sort of food-service job.  I was a barista, a hostess, a server, a cocktail waitress, a reservationist, a bartender, not necessarily in that order.  I have done it all.  Over the years I have come across all types of sexual harassment, usually at the hands of patrons, but occasionally by bosses and coworkers.  One specific instance I remember occurred when I was in my early 20’s working as a server at a crappy Irish pub in the West Village.  I was working 6 days a week — 5 nights and one lunch shift — for a man who, for lack of a better description, totally sucked.  He lived in Bay Ridge and had the entire restaurant outfitted with cameras that live-streamed to his television set at home.  He and his family would watch the non-events of the restaurant unfold while eating dinner.  We got admonished for wearing sweatshirts over our tops during a particularly chilly week and there were rumors that the wife and kids watched one of the male bartenders (women were not allowed behind the stick) change clothes in the basement.  I regularly came into work paranoid, afraid that an errant coffee ground would send my boss into an unreasonable abuse-session where he wouldn’t fire me, but would certainly point out my lack of intelligence and poor work ethic, making me aware that I was lucky he wasn’t sending me packing.  He, however, knew how to keep his hands to himself.  One of the bartenders — different from the downstairs changer, he was a standup dude — did not.  One instance during my weekly lunch shift I went to the end of the bar to get some sodas for my first table.  The bartender on shift slapped my ass to get my attention and when I turned around he shoved me against the wall, out of view of the cameras but not of the 5 men sitting at the bar, and kissed me, tongue and all.  I turned bright red and stormed off to calm myself down, chalking it all up to “industry culture.”  The men at the bar hooted and hollered.  The bartender was about 15 years my senior and expecting his first child.  After the attack, he routinely sent me text messages requesting we play a game of strip poker at my house.  I never reported the harassment to anyone.

As any regular reader of my blog knows, I am not one to keep quiet about harassment.  Currently, I work at a bar with incredibly supportive bosses who would (a) never behave in a manner such as Juventino Avila has been accused of and (b) are supportive of me when I call a customer out on inappropriate behavior.  It is a luxury in this industry to work in such an environment and I feel incredibly lucky.  That being said, the industry as a whole needs to change.  Inappropriate touching and comments should not be allowed and employees should be better protected when voicing complaints about the behavior of employers and coworkers.  The 22 former Juventino employees who wrote this blog should be commended for coming forward.  It’s a much overdue step towards acknowledging and challenging the overwhelming belief that sexual harassment is an inevitable, and acceptable, aspect of the industry.  I only hope their complaints get the attention they deserve and that residents of Park Slope and beyond hold Juventino Avila accountable for his abhorrent behavior and withhold their business from his establishment.  I know I won’t be eating there.

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On Todd Akin, this time with a little more anger

21 Aug

Okay.  So, as I wrote yesterday, I was done talking about the Todd Akin thing.  At that moment.  Well, that moment has passed and my anger has been renewed.  Partially that anger was renewed by reading Eve Ensler’s amazing post from yesterday on Huffington Post.  If you haven’t yet read it, get on it now.  It is so worth it.  It is worth it for so many reasons.  Here is one:

You used the expression “legitimate” rape as if to imply there were such a thing as “illegitimate” rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

And then there’s this:

Were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us?

And this:

Why don’t you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.

And so much more in between.  She says all the things that I could never articulate.  That it would take me a few days to really come to.  My initial reaction to his “gaffe” was an exasperated exhale, a violent roll of the eyes, and the need to slowly and methodically rub vertically between my hairline and the bridge of my nose, a habit I have developed in recent years at times of intense frustration.  I swear one of these days I am going to rub right through to my skull.  My initial reaction was full of disgust, but I honestly don’t think I fully realized the deep-rootedness of the issue associated with Todd Akin’s comments.  He was idiotic, sure, we all think that’s the case. Even Shawn Hannity thinks he should withdraw himself from the Missouri Senate race.  But the thing is, it’s not because many of these people disagree with what Akin said.  They disagree with the way that Akin said it.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a court of appeals ruled today that the state can withhold funding from Planned Parenthood clinics before the original case, in which Planned Parenthood sued the state of Texas for a law that violates their freedom of speech, goes to court in October.  (For a more eloquent and less confusing explanation of the pending litigation, read this Times article.)  These clinics provide health care for low income women for things from regular gynecological exams to cancer screenings, from maternal health care to contraception.  And yes, abortion services.  It is important to note, however, that no state or federal funds go to finance abortions.  They go towards helping poor women with no or insufficient health insurance obtain access to quality, and essential, services.  As Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said, this case

has never been about Planned Parenthood — it’s about the women who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, birth control and well-woman exams.

The reason I bring this up is that issues like the one in Texas have been cropping up with alarming regularity.  Todd Akin is not alone.  He has many, many people who agree with him.  Many people who think that women don’t know how to make decisions about their own bodies.  Many people who think that women cavalierly make the decision to have an abortion.  Many people who think that women will scream rape to obtain an abortion in places where rape, incest and the health of the mother are the only exceptions to an all out ban on abortion.  Don’t believe me?  Just watch this video of Eric Turner of Indiana.  As I said, Todd Akin is not alone and his ignorant statement was not an isolated opinion.  Let us use this moment of anger, and hurt, and disbelief to blow the roof off the party who, just today, the same day they were calling for Todd Akin to step aside, approved a party plank that would strive to outlaw abortion without any mention of exceptions for rape or incest.  This is our time, ladies and allies.  We are too smart for this and there is too much at stake.  We need to hold the Republican party accountable not only for the statements of Todd Akin, but for those of many others.  And, more important still, we need to hold them accountable for the anti-woman legislation they unceasingly push on us.  As Eve Ensler rightfully said,

I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.

Yes.

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