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A Response to Newtown

17 Dec

I have really been trying to avoid writing about this because, honestly, what can I say about it that hasn’t already been said and thought about countless times over.  But after spending yet another hour in front of my computer, reading article upon article about the horrible tragedy that occurred in Connecticut this past Friday, I just can’t help myself.  Personally, I am not really sure how to deal with all the feelings I have been having over the past few days (including crying myself to sleep two nights in a row) so I figure I will work it out here.  You can either choose to go ahead and read or spare yourself…the latter would be beyond justified.

I found out about the event via a New York Times emergency update on my phone.  Pretty much nothing good ever comes from seeing that little script “T” appear on the top right hand side of my screen.  I opened it and read the headline and my immediate response was

What the fuck is wrong with people?!

I realized the carnage had happened in an elementary school.  I logically understood that many of the victims were children.  I just think my brain was literally incapable of understanding it.  My brain just rejected the information.  I ate lunch.  I drank some more coffee.  I took a shower.  I got the laundry together.  I went down to the Clean Rite to throw the pounds and pounds of dirty clothes, sheets and towels in the wash and was surrounded, literally surrounded, by televisions on different news stations – 2, 4, 5, 7 — all reporting on the events in Newtown.  My boyfriend was there and so, to avoid allowing the reality of it all to crash down on us, we chatted, joked, and divvied our laundry into three different washers.  While the clothes were washing, we ran some errands and then, while he showered, I went down to change the laundry into the dryers.  I couldn’t avoid listening to the news, the interviews with children as they left the scene, with parents who’s kids were spared, to newscasters who were literally unable to keep it together (and who can blame them?).  I got teared-up in the Clean Rite.  My eyes and my lower lip burned.  I kept it, at least right then, to a minimum of tears.  The rest of the evening, spent largely alone with my cats, was spent trying as hard as possible to avoid the news.  I knew what I would find there and I know myself.  I would spend all night, into the wee hours, scouring every news site in an effort to understand something, anything.  I did a relatively good job but still, lying in bed by myself, I couldn’t help but think about the parents who were missing children for the first night, families who were missing those who worked at the school.

I woke up the next morning and walked to work.  I wrote a message on the outside board about the need to discuss gun violence in wake of this most recent tragedy.  There were a few conversations about it during the day but I think, mostly, people just couldn’t deal.  I think they went to the bar to get away from the news and the wondering and the thoughts and the tears and I certainly wasn’t going to take that away from them.  When work ended and I arrived back home I, stupidly perhaps, turned my computer on and there was the New York Times website, my home page.  And there on the first page was an article that revealed that the shooter’s mother didn’t even work at the school.  I had been sad and confused about this event before but for some reason this made it all worse.

But why?

The result was the same.  The kids and the educators were dead.  I guess there was some part of my brain that had previously believed, taken some weird form of comfort in, the fact that maybe this guy went to kill his mother and got carried away.  That despite the incredible amount of fire power he brought with him that maybe he snapped in that moment, that people got in the way, that he got scared.  Something.  Anything.  I wanted to believe, even though I think logically I knew it wasn’t true, that it was an accident.  That he didn’t mean to kill all those kids.  To think that he killed his mother at home and then drove to an elementary school and opened fire on a group of mostly first graders just…I don’t know.  To think of walking into a school full of young people who are still more or less unaffected by horror and tragedy and to massacre them is just unfathomable.  To think that that was the point of his journey there.  The point was to go in and destroy the lives of countless people.  The point was to look at these little guys that weight 40?  50? pounds and rip their bodies apart with not 1, not 2, but up to 11 bullets.  The point was, what?   I doubt we’ll ever have an answer to that.

In the aftermath of all this I have seen a lot of people talking about gun control.  A lot of people talking about better care for the mentally ill.  A better infrastructure to identify and treat, or at least help, those who are risks to themselves and others.  I’ve seen people warn that by focusing on the mental state of this particular person risks further stigmatizing a group of people who, for the most part, are not violent.  I think these are all valid points.  I think we need to talk gun control.  I think we need to talk about not shutting mental illness up in a closet because it is too sensitive to talk about.  But I also think we need to address our culture’s ideas about masculinity and power and privilege.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that almost all of the mass shootings that have occurred recently, and in history, have been perpetrated by men.  And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that more often than not those men have been white.  I think we need to talk about how we raise our boys.  We need to talk about the way we advertize and how we define what makes a person “manly.”  We need to realize that the shifting demographics in this country not only make it increasingly difficult for any candidate to run on a ticket geared only to white men, but also represent a challenge to our carefully constructed reality.  We need to shift our norms.  We need to shift our values.  When we spend a good deal of our time – in television shows and movies, in commercials, in conversation, in classrooms – putting white men on a pedestal and then they go out in the world and their privilege is challenged and maybe their opinions don’t matter more than everyone else’s solely because they have a white penis, well, what do we expect?  As a woman, yea, society has told me that I am worth less, that I deserve less, that my body is not mine, that I am the cause of my own abuse.  But also as a woman I was taught to fight back, to answer these attacks with reason and truth, to join together with other women and allies, to not allow words and actions to define my worth.

I guess what I am saying is what if I expected everything?  What if I was born and the world was mine and, although life wasn’t easy, things were designed and created with me in mind?  How might I respond to others questioning my power?

I think our boys lack tools to deal with adversity.  I think we, as a culture, build them up so much and at the same time infuse them with an unattainable, and oftentimes violent, idea of what manhood is.  It’s not sustainable.  It’s like a child whose given everything he asks for, and even things he doesn’t, and all of a sudden hears the word “no” only rather than throwing some toys he shoots some guns.

I am certainly oversimplifying.  I will certainly think more about this in the coming days, weeks, months.  I guess the thing is that I don’t think it’s just access to guns, or lack of access to proper care, although those are certainly part of the problem.  I just really think we need to start talking about how we prepare our boys for the world.  Obviously not all of them go out shooting.  Not even most of them.  But it would be nice if none of them did and I strongly believe that an honest and open dialogue about cultural norms, power, privilege and masculinity is in order.  It might actually help more than a reevaluation of the second amendment or  better and more affordable mental health care.  We need to better prepare our boys for the changing world.  We need to teach them to respond to adversity not with anger and violence but with information.  Just a thought.

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Imagination Games Gone Sour

4 Dec

Disclaimer:  The blog to follow is in no way intended to belittle the tragedy that spawned the authoring of this particular post.  It is based on an actual fear that I have, however unlikely it is to come to fruition.  I choose to approach it semi-humorously because, in my experience, that’s usually a good way to approach things that are uncomfortable to talk about.  Also, I know that even though this fear sometimes comes true for some people and that is totally tragic and awful, it will likely not come true to me.  That, however, doesn’t mean that I (a) can’t still be worried about it and (b) can’t be sad for the people it actually happens to.  Disclaimer over.  Actual blog beginning.

Throughout this blog I have mentioned the imagination games that I play to pass the time.  I play them while I am running.  I play them when I think about winning the 550 million dollar Power Ball.  I play them pretty much all the time.  As I have gotten older, though, I have noticed that my imagination games have become slightly scarier, slightly more sinister.  They have become, as one of my old co-workers used to say, more akin to ill-fantasies than fun goals and aspirations.  Here’s an example.

When I used to play imagination games back in the day they always went like this.  I wrote this thing, said this thing, or did this thing that people thought was super great.  Then I became famous and people were talking about me enough that Ellen took notice and invited me on her show.  Then I would imagine whether or not I would have to pick my own clothes or Ellen’s dressing room people would help me think of something to wear because nothing, and I mean nothing in my closet is good enough to wear for an interview with Ellen.  Also, I don’t really know how to use make-up other than eye liner and mascara so I would wonder whether or not Ellen’s make-up people would help me with the other things that I might need to look good on camera.  You know, because in my imagination game I really would not want to have a shiny forehead.  Even though, for the record, shiny forehead is something I actually never worry about in real life.  OR!  I would write this thing or say this thing or do this thing that people thought was super great.  Then I would become famous and people would be talking about me enough that Larry King would notice and invite me on his show.  Then I wouldn’t worry about outfits or make-up or shiny forehead but would instead only wonder how much trouble I would get in if I were to lean over Larry’s desk thing and snap his suspenders.  It has been my dream to snap Larry King’s suspenders far longer than it has been my dream to be interviewed by Ellen.  But things have changed.

Now I have ill-fantasies as opposed to funny and neat fantasies.  One of my most reoccurring ill-fantasies is being pushed into the subway tracks by a stranger.  I don’t know exactly when this ill-fantasy started but it has been repeating itself for a few years now.  I will be waiting for the R train, looking down the tracks expectantly, seeing the progress of the train and all of a sudden

<BOOM!  ILL-FANTASY!>

A crazy person comes from behind me, shoves me on the back and I go tumbling onto the tracks.  In my ill-fantasy, that’s usually the end of the story although come to think of it sometimes I imagine the broken bones and the bleeding face but I always manage to scramble back out of the tracks before the train arrives.  In real life, as in the life that takes place outside of my mind, I look around the subway for crazies and slowly inch my way closer to the wall, safe from a random shove.

Now that I think back, I’m pretty sure it all started this one day when I was waiting for the R train and all of a sudden I saw this man in the darkness of the subway tracks.  He wasn’t on the tracks, he was to the side of the tracks, on the walkway set up for MTA employees.  He was thin, of average height, with a crazy head of blondish-brownish-grayish hair.  He came running down the side of the tracks, train horn blaring behind him as the conductor wondered whether the man would continue on the walkway or jump down onto the tracks without warning.  He ran and ran and then as he approached the divider between where straphangers wait and MTA employees walk he hurdled, like how Olympic athletes do, easily clearing the blockade and went running through the entire waiting area, with all the commuters taking a step back towards the wall to let him pass.  He then re-entered the walkway area on the other end of the subway station and continued on his way.  I’m pretty sure in those tense momenst as he made his way across the platform we were all thinking the same thing.  No one wanted to be shoved and if I were to imagine someone who was likely to shove someone randomly, it would be this man with the crazy hair and the vacant eyes that seemed as though they hadn’t seen the light of day in months.  Now on a weekly basis I have a moment of ill-fantasizing while waiting for the subway where I worry that I may or may not get shoved into the path of an oncoming train, or at least onto the empty tracks to be bruised, bloodied and bitten by rats.  Until yesterday I thought I was being crazy.  But then it happened to this guy.  And then!

I went online and I discovered that this is not the first time this has happened!  Last year I found out this other lady who is in the fashion industry in some capacity also got pushed onto the tracks!  Also by a stranger!  She broke some ribs and her lung got punctured and everything.  Not dead but I bet she doesn’t ride the subway anymore.  So, while I fully realize that the odds of me getting pushed down into the subway tracks are slightly better than me winning the 550 million dollar Power Ball, being interviewed by Ellen or snapping Larry King’s suspenders I am still nervous about it.

So for the foreseeable future, I will be the one hugging the wall of the subway station until the approaching train comes to a complete stop.

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The day after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball

29 Nov

So last night my boyfriend and I went to two different stores that “felt right” and bought $10 each worth of Power Ball numbers.  Each $10 purchase came with a free set of numbers.  That meant 12 chances in all.  Despite the fact that I was told I would be more likely to either get attacked by a shark or contract a flesh eating bacteria than win this particular Power Ball drawing, I was still fairly convinced I was going to win.  I started thinking about what I would do with the money.  Donations!  Real Estate!  Traveling to all the places!  A new pair of sunglasses since I broke the ones I found last year!  So, so many possibilities.  Needless to say I did not win $550 million.  After the shock wore off I went to sleep.  And now here I sit, at my computer, the day after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball and you know what? Despite the huge shock and letdown of last night, I feel basically the same as always.  I will tell you about my morning.

First, I woke up in my normal bed with those comfortable flannel sheets and a $45 Bed, Bath and Beyond comforter that should have been replaced about 2 years ago.  There was no Egyptian silk. There was no expensive leather headboard.  Just the unadorned metal bed frame that I inherited from my sister-in-law in 2005.

Second, I looked down the bed to find my two cats lying there, sleeping.  The same old striped cats I’ve had for two years.  No fancy hairless cats.  No trained lion cubs.  Just Clark and Grete, snuggling with the free straw that came with a soda last week that they fell asleep playing with at 4am, approximately 5 hours after I didn’t win the 550 million dollar Power Ball.

Third, I poured myself a cup of coffee from my BRAUN coffee maker with the beans I bought last week.  No special Fair Trade beans flown in specifically for me from a farm in Honduras after paying a more than fair price to the farmer herself.  There was no fancy Italian espresso machine equipped with my very own Barista where my coffee maker used to be.

Fourth, I made myself a piece of toast and I ate it dry.  Dry toast.  No caviar.  No butter directly from the Hudson Valley.  No compote.  Just bread that I toasted too long so it was more like a dry rye-flavored cracker.  Again.

Fifth, I sat down at my computer and started reading the news.  I Googled myself just to make sure that the internet didn’t know something about my 550 million dollar win that I did not.  No such luck.   As usual the only person by my name that came up was the much-cooler-than-me designer of really crazy looking metal jewelry that looks more like torture devices than anything else.   I looked at pictures of lion cubs and thought about what could have been.  I read a depressing article about Courtney Stodden and felt happy I wasn’t her.  Then I started writing this blog post.

The following is what I did not do this morning because I did not win the 550 million dollar Power Ball:

1.  I did not pay off the mortgage on my parent’s house.
2.  I did not pay off all my school loans in full with a little note enclosed that said “if you thought you were going to charge me $20,000 in interest over 10 years you thought wrong.  SUCKERS!”
3.  I did not buy my friend Clayton an apartment complete with a private karate studio like I promised to do if I won the Power Ball.
4.   I did not buy new sunglasses to replace the ones that I found for free at the bar but which cracked in my bag last month.  I will just continue feeling thankful that I have dark brown eyes and therefore am not as sensitive to the sun as my blue or green-eyed brethren.
5.  I did not contact a travel agent to figure out exactly how I could travel to every single place.  Every.  Single.  One.
6.  I did not plan how to take 10 of my closest friends out to a really nice dinner instead of working my bar shift until 4am.
7.  I did not hire someone to write my thesis.

So, I guess today, the day I am still not a multi-millionaire is basically the same as every other day in which I am not a multi-millionaire.  I’m procrastinating, same as always.  I’m drinking too much coffee, same as always.  I’m playing imagination games, same as always.  I’m warm and happy and have all the things I need (except sun glasses) even if they are maybe a little bit rattier than I might ideally like, same as always.  So, I guess it’s not so bad.  Until the next time the Power Ball gets really big.  Next time I am totally going to win.  Next time I will write a blog post called “I totally won the Power Ball” with no content at all except maybe something that looks like this: skdjfblksdfhkhsfd!!!!! because that’s what it looks like in my brain when I get too excited to string words together into a sentence.  Just wait.  It’ll be totally fantastic.

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A small ‘Thank You’ to some of my public school teachers

24 Nov

While “watching” the University of Michigan vs. Ohio State game on television because I am a good and dedicated girlfriend, I read an article in The New Yorker all about education policy and specifically what one woman, Diane Ravitch, sees as the unfortunate effects of No Child Left Behind.  I don’t know too much about this, although obviously I have my opinions, so without more independent research I really don’t want to go on a whole rant-like analysis of the goods and bads of No Child Left Behind and the rise of Charter Schools.  Perhaps I will leave that for another day.  I do, however, want to say one thing:  thank you.  As a product of public education in New Jersey, I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few of the teachers I had growing up who really left their mark.  So, here goes.

Thank you Mrs. Early, my third grade teacher, for showing me that learning can be fun.  Although you were demanding, you made everything interesting, teaching us the importance of art and science in every day life.  And I wrote my first published book, The Attack of the Friendly Aliens, under your tutelage.  It’s destined to be a classic.

Thank you Mrs. Murphy, my 5th grade teacher, for showing me to never judge a person by her reputation.  I was scared when I found out on my last day of the 4th grade that you were going to be my teacher, I even tried to switch out of your class, but I soon learned that being tough is not necessarily a bad thing.

Thank you Mr. Piza, my 7th grade social studies teacher, for teaching us about Africa.  Leading up to your class, and for many years after, the history and relevance of that entire continent was taught as an afterthought.  If it wasn’t for your desire to share with us your interest in African history and current events, I don’t know that I ever would have started thinking about what it said about us in the United States that Africa was not deemed relevant enough to be a focus of our education growing up.  I don’t know that I would have become interested in the things I am interested in today.

Thank you Dr. Jooma, my 9th grade English teacher, for showing me how amazing Shakespeare can really be when you take time to read it and really think about it.  And thank you for giving me a lifelong love of MacBeth.

Thank you Dr. Miron, my 11th grade Algebra II teacher for listening to me when I talked to you about the importance of having a lower level Algebra II class for those of us who just couldn’t keep up.  And thank you for letting me take the class pass/fail after seeing how hard I worked and understanding that without the option of a slower paced class I simply could not do well.  Thank you for your compassion.

Thank you Mr. Palladino, my 12th grade elective teacher, for putting an exclamation point on my interest in the world.  It was you who really taught me to question what I read in the news, to try and see all angles, to think about the possible reasons behind the actions.  It was you who taught me never to point a finger because things are always more complex than we know.

Thank you Mr. Fox for taking the time, even though you weren’t my teacher, to re-explain math concepts to me over and over again even though it probably seemed like I would never understand them.  I am still terrible at math but I know that with a patient instructor I can enjoy it, even if the answers never seem to be right.

I’m sure I missed a few along the way and as they come to mind I will add them to the list.  The point is that these are all people who I think of fondly, if not often.  People who did their jobs with passion, skill and a love of teaching.  People who listened to their students and learned from them.  I don’t know whether, with the new direction of public education, these teachers will be as appreciated in the future as they were in the past and that would be a damn shame.

And also, to all my friends who teach:  thank you for the time, the energy, the work.  I’m sure things are heard right now.  I’m sure it’s not fun being stuck in the middle of this national debate, as you see the federal money to your programs decreasing and people wondering why our students seem to be faring worse.  But if you love it, keep at it.  Who knows, maybe you will be the one to influence a student’s future.

And…cheesiness over.

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Romney’s Logic, or lack thereof

15 Nov

I’m having a very hard time today.  Sometimes I feel like there is this thing called logic, and then all of a sudden something happens and I think that maybe my logic isn’t the right logic afterall because someone who is someone in the grand scheme of things, and not just in a little corner of the internet, says something that is so contrary to my logic that it’s like, wait, what?  Confused?  Let me explain.

I just read this article in the Times that has been going around in different forms about a conference call that Mitt Romney had with his donors and fund-raisers.  In this conference call he accused Obama of winning the election by giving “gifts” to different minority groups.  Okay, so when I see the word “gifts” I think Christmas, Channuka, birthdays!  Last year for my birthday I got this amazing new lamp shade* from Anthropologie (don’t mock me) and a great cherry red stock pot from Le Creuset.  So, did Obama run around giving people fancy new home accent pieces?  Perhaps some useful, and colorful!, kitchen items?  Maybe a sweet new pair of kicks?  No.  Here’s what Obama “gifted” the “minorities”** of this country:

“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people.”

And then there’s this.  Romney was very concerned that the president used his healthcare plan as a tool in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters:

“You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge,” Mr. Romney said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals,*** the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

So now I am going to think back to when Bush did that stimulus plan.  Remember that?  When all of a sudden we all got a check for some money that we were then supposed to spend out in the world to stimulate the economy?****  A lot of people thought that was  good idea.  A lot of people might have called that a gift.  Same goes, I think, for the money a family is “gifted” through access to healthcare.  All of a sudden here is this money not being spent on incredibly costly healthcare that can be repurposed.  It can go towards buying a car, saving to send a child to college, starting a business, or any other number of things.  Or! That family that now has been “gifted” healthcare has healthcare for the first time and is able to seek preemptive medical care rather than relying on emergency room visits or costly procedures to take care of something that could have been avoided.  Now people who previously had to suffer unnecessarily with treatable ailments can get the needed, and widely available, treatment.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

All sarcasm aside.  Here’s the thing about all of this.  I find Romney’s comments to be amazingly condescending and rude not only to the man that bested him in the election, but to all of us who voted for that man.  By using the word “gifts” Romney was intentionally playing into an understanding of the word within the political realm as equivalent to a bribe.  There were no bribes involved.  Romney lost the election because while he was yammering on about non-specifics concerning job creation, foreign policy and military strategy, Obama was listening to people and trying to figure out what would actually make this country a more reasonable place to live.  Lack of equal access to birth control and concerns about unwanted pregnancies?  Here, free contraception (not to mention a continuation of Roe v Wade).  Concerns about pre-existing conditions and sky-rocketing healthcare costs?  Here, the Affordable Care Act.  Children of undocumented immigrants not getting a fair shake at the American Dream?  Here, the Dream Act (co-written by Republican Orin Hatch, by the way).  What Obama did was present himself as a man capable of leading this country.  What he did was he listened to the people, and he came up with, or supported, feasible solutions.  That’s not called giving people gifts, Romney, it’s called governing.

So here’s maybe an idea, rather than trying to make up ludicrous, and inaccurate, excuses for why you lost the election, why don’t you look actually at why you lost.  You lost because you were non-specific about things that mattered.  You lost because you listened to the party establishment and aligned yourself with the uber-conservatives rather than the majority of the country.  You lost because you failed to realize that things have changed and you have to convince more than just the white men of your ability to lead.  You lost because you erroneously believed that the person who raised the most money would win the biggest prize.  You lost because you dismissed so many of us.  It sucks, Romney, because like John McCain pre-2008 I always thought you were one of the good guys.  One of the listening guys.  I don’t know, maybe my logic is all wrong.  To me, the logical thing to do would be to bow out gracefully and go back to the drawing board.  Rather than calling sound policy ideas gifts, why don’t you and your party think about how to answer the people’s needs using sound conservative principles.  The Republican party, as far as I know, isn’t about hanging people out to dry.  It’s about a much needed alternative to the Democratic approach to governing.  Although I am a lifelong liberal, I honestly believe that the only way to make this country work better is having a healthy debate.  It’s like an athlete.  An athlete uses the talent, drive and abilities of her biggest opponent in order to become better.  For the Democratic, or Republican, party to live up to expectations and possibilities, for this country to live up to expectations and possibilities, there needs to be drive.  The Democratic party can only be its best incarnation when it is striving to be a better alternative to the best incarnation of the Republican party.  The opposite is just as true.  Unless we have two (more would be better) healthy and functioning parties, we can not have the best governing strategy possible.  For this country to get on a better road, we need some good debate and some healthy competition, not a bunch of blamers and a party-wide abandonment of the needs of the majority of the country.  It’s called logic, Romney.  You should try using it.

*My lamp shade looks sort of like this only significantly more awesome.

**Sometimes use of the word minorities annoys me because it’s not accurate.  Rather than an explanation of numerical fact, it’s more like a forced state of being.  I, as a female, am not actually a member of a group that makes up a minority of the population but am still considered a minority.  Why don’t we call a spade a spade.  We “minorities” are not necessarily the “minority.”  We are the oppressed.  The overlooked.  The intentionally ignored.  The annoyance.

***I despise, I mean despise, the term “illegals.”

****This girl totally took that check and put it straight in her savings account.  Totally against the rules.

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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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Cosmetics and Ice Cream and Morals, Oh, My!

24 Sep

In doing research for my thesis — which I have been working on forever it seems like oh my god when is it going to end! — I came across this quote:

Americans spend more on cosmetics than it would cost to provide basic education to the two billion people in the world who lack schools, and Europeans spend more on ice cream than it would cost to provide water and sanitation to those in need… – Richard Peet with Elaine Hardwick, Theories of Development

Now I like ice cream as much as the next person (my stomach, sadly, is not a fan), and cosmetics less than your average woman but perhaps more than your average man, but, wait, what?  Really?!?  That’s crazy.  Okay, so usually I don’t like to put up quotations that are intended largely for shock value.  I always have this nagging feeling that there is something misleading in the comparison.  That somehow numbers on one end were inflated, and on the other deflated, in order to make a point.  I get nervous that a little Micheal Moore-ification (of the post-Roger and Me version) has occurred.  Also, it’s not like someone is gonna be like “oh, hey, rather than buy this $25 mascara I am going to donate it to the creation of primary schools in Liberia” or “Cherry Garcia ice cream?  Hell no!  More toilets in India!”  But then I shook my head and thought, whatever, stop being such an over-analytical, judgey cynic.   Just go with it.  So here is what I have been thinking about.

We are going through a campaign period here in the good old US of A and we all know what that means:  lots of money is being spent!  Especially now that Citizens United happened and now corporations* and unions can make all sorts of ENORMOUS donations.  Also, SuperPACs!  Scary!  And so here we are, listening to two presidential nominees talking about this big debt we are in and how it’s Obama’s fault!  No, Bush’s fault!  No, social spending!  No, the defense budget! No, because Romney didn’t pay enough taxes!  No, the old people!  No, immoral women wanting to abort their babies!  No, the immigrants!  No, that dead panda cub!  (I’m really sad about that, actually.)  And then I read about the amount of money Obama and Romney, and their supporters and detractors, are spending on their campaigns and I’m like woah.  I know that however much they spend would only be a drop in the bucket, but still.  One of these guys is going to lose and what will he have to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars he spent to try and get elected?  This?  This?  A scrapbook?  Sadly, no.  One of them will be happy and the other will have a giant sadface surgically implanted where his old face used to reside.

But then I’ve also been thinking about this other thing which is the way that we all live our lives, myself included.  We live in a world where there is this overwhelming pressure to do well financially, to make money, to be “successful.”  As much as I personally try and fight against assessing my life in those terms, I still religiously squirrel money away in lieu of going to that BBQ, that birthday party, that camping trip.  There is something alluring about that sort of quantitative success.  I can track my progress.  But the question is, am I actually better off** than I was 7 years ago when I started saving?  I mean, sure.  I’m happier, I’m more educated, I have more concrete goals and interests, I’m a faster runner.  None of these things, however, are connected at all with the fact that I have more money in my savings account.  I mean, it’s great that I have the option to buy $25 mascara (or a new pair of running shoes) without doing too much “creative accounting,” in the words of a good friend of mine, but probably I would be better off with less defined lashes and a more defined sense of moral responsibility.

Or, I could just drive down the BQE and look at this billboard because, funny:

photo
*Corporations do not have blood and therefore are not people and therefore should not be afforded first ammendment rights.  QED.
** I am reading too much Amartya Sen.  Help.

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