What makes me a woman?

Some good responses on the last post. Here's what I heard:

Men & women are defined by their socially defined roles, and partially by some natural, innate qualities. They're defined by their interests and their actions. They're defined by their relationship to one another. So I'm gonna copy the Zombieslayer's last post and use the 51 things about me to list some ways I think of myself as a woman (or not).

1. I don't like children.
2. I always consider others' opinions when making group plans.
3. I am very empathetic.
4. I can count on two hands the total number of people who have ever seen me cry.
5. Weak women annoy me.
6. I can use powertools (I didn't mean that kind, get your mind out of the gutter).
7. I have a dirty mind.
8. I love violent movies, the more blood and explosions, the better.
9. I am learning how to knit.
10. I like jewlery and pretty skirts/dresses.
11. But not pink ones.
    
12. I can't walk in high-heels.
13. I am self-consious about the way I look.
14. I take a lot of things very personally - but I hide that very well.
15. I deflect pain and criticism with humor.
16. I hate eating in restaurants alone.
17. I'm a daddy's girl.
18. I swear like a sailor.
19. I can't watch porn without laughing.
20. I can make a cake from scratch.
21. I also cook on the grill.
22. I still love Spaghetti-O's
    
23. I love heavy metal and industrial music.
24. but I also love Mozart.
25. I love having my hair brushed.
26. I don't like foot massages.
27. I am extremely stubborned.
28. But not enough to know when I need help.
    
29. I'll do it myself dammit.
30. I once had purple hair and combat boots.
31. I love the smell of new leather.
32. I wish I could do more with my hair.
33. I like dressing up on occasion...
34. but prefer to be in jeans.
35. I'm content with a bottle of Syrah and a box of dark chocolates.
36. I still find referring to myself as someone's "wife" strange.
37. but I loves my husband (that word sounds weird to me too).
38. He's the only one who can treat me like a "girl" and I like it.
    
39. I'm a cat and a dog person
40. I hate spiders and centipedes. I have been know to say "eeek!" on occasion when encountering them.
41. I'm not afraid of dirty jobs (like cleaning up cat puke or puppy poop).
42. I have a black thumb - the only plant I can keep alive is an Aloe, and that's just because John reminds me to water it.
43. I sing to my pets.
44. I can be nurturing when I need to be (John's a big baby when he's sick).
45. I am very impatient.
46. I'm better with math than I am with language.
47. I can read a map (and fold it).
48. I can be very passive-agressive.
49. I am not religious, but I am spiritual.
50. I can rotate visual images in my head.
51. I hold grudges for a long, long time.

A lot of these things I don't normally associate with women, or femininity. I used to not think of myself as feminine at all, because I bought into the notion that to be feminine was to be weak. And weak is something I'm not. I guess that's why I so hard o weak women - they make it that much harder for me to be taken seriously. I don't think men and women are essentially the same, I think there are some differences. But I also think that most of the behaviors we associate with a particular gender are so ingrained in society that they seem innate, but are in fact, learned.

This man is disgusting

I promise I'll get back to the woman question later but for now I have to comment on this fucker.

Former Education Secretary William Bennett under Reagan said:

"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

"That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down," he said.

Let's not explore the real reasons people turn to crime and drugs (Poverty, lack of a decent education, lack of access to social and political mobility) and why blacks in this country are disporportionately represented in the impoverished class.

What a fucker.

Finally! A name for what I be

So in our last class, we were discussing different theoretical frameworks for women's and gender studies and various forms of feminist theories. Though I never put my finger on it before, I think I've finally identified my world view: I am a post structuralist.

From Wikipedia (I love that site):

"Where structuralism attempted to find a level of generalizable and self-sufficient metalanguage capable of describing configurations of elements variably anthropological, literary, linguistic, historical, or psychoanalytic and analyze their relations without being mired by the identity of these elements as such, post-structuralism is said to share a general concern for identifying and challenging hierarchies implicit in identification of binary oppositions which generally characterize not only structuralism but Western metaphysics, see deconstruction."

HUH?

Simply put, the world cannot realistically be placed into binary (and by definition hierarchical) terms as is common in Western philosophy, science and religion. Good/bad, right/wrong, male/female, civilized/primitive. All of these words are embedded in a deep and persistent cultural understanding and do not exist free from that culture. These binary concepts were invented by humans to sort out the world in a way that is beneficial for those in power. What do they really mean?

"Fixed oppositions conceal the extent to which things presented as oppositional are, in fact, interdependent - that is, they derive their meaning from a particularly established contrast rather than from some inherent or pure antithesis... The Western philosophical tradition... rests on binary oppositions: unity/diversity, identity/difference, presence/absence, and universality/specificity. The leading terms are accorded primacy; their partners are represented as weaker or derivative. Yet the first terms depend on and derive their meaning from the second to such an extent that the secondary terms can bee seen as generative of the definition of the first terms" (Derrida, 1976)

Probably the most famous post-structural theorist is Michel Foucault (no, it's not pronounced not Foe-callt). Post-structuralists attempt to identify the ways in which our own cultural and historical context color the way we view the world and how meaning is acquired and attached to particular actions and words. There is no such thing as objectivity because every action and every word exists within the particular location of the person from whom it came. Taken to the extreme, some post-structuralists argue that every action of every person is socially determined by cultural norms and socially determined sets of rewards and punishments, and therefore free will is just an illusion. I do not, personally, take it that far, but there are many who do.

There is no such thing as objectivity because meanings are not 'normative' or 'constant' or 'true', but always changing. If there is no such thing as true objectivity, then there can be no such thing as "Truth" (with a capital T). In fact, you know you've spotted a post-structuralist when you see the word "truth" in quotations. "Truth" implies we know all the information we can possibly know about the world and that it is all objective. It implies an over-arching, universal, unchanging, and essential cosmology that applies to everyone, everywhere. Well, that's just not possible. There are partial truths, and each person holds truths about certain things in the world and in their life. And sure, there are specific groups of people whose "truths" are the same or very similar, but on the universal scale, I can no more generalize my "truth" to someone else than they can generalize theirs to me.

We each see the world in a slightly different manner, based in our own cultural specificity. The way we, as Americans (if you believe American is a heterogeneous group with a universal definition) view the world is very different from the way an Egyptian might view the world. The way a white, American woman views a situation is very different from the way a Kenyan woman would view the world. My truth is different from that of a Kenyan woman, which is different from that of a Saudi man, and so on...

Many of the things we take for granted as being the "natural order" are suspect and many of the decisions we make on a daily basis over the course of our lives are, whether we realize it or not, based not on free will but on the social order. For instance, girls are not "born" with the innate desire to fantasize about their wedding day from the age of five. But yet many girls do, and many people will see that as a 'natural' thing for girls to do - even though it must come from somewhere. But where? It's not like mom sits us down and tells us what to imagine. But think about all the cultural cues there are for little girls (and boys, but I'm using girls as an example). Think of all the things we do, maybe unknowingly that perpetuate the "natural" state of girls as quiet and passive. Think of all the fairy tales where the girl who is content to wait for her prince charming is rewarded with "living happily ever after." Think of the clothes you put on your little girls. Pink ruffles aren't exactly ideal for playing in the mud with boys. Think of the ways girls are derided for being assertive, while that same quality is rewarded for boys. None of this is "natural".

Which leads to post-structuralist gender theory: Gender is produced, not innate, not derived from biology. Gender is an active process in which we all participate, whether we know it or not. Those who "perform" their gender to the standards of their society are rewarded. Those who perform their gender incorrectly are ostracized, publicly shamed, denied privileges.

No one is born a "woman" or a "man", but they become these things through specific sets of repetitive acts. Now, you may be thinking "sure, we're born male and female" but those words have different meanings than woman and man, don't they? You wouldn't use "woman" to define a newborn female baby, would you? Or a female horse?

So here's my question for my readers. There is no right or wrong answer. Think about this for a while and tell me, what does it mean to you to be a man or a woman? How did you become that way? What things do you take as "natural" and which are "produced"? How do you know?


Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

ARRRRGH

Ok, I had this lengthy piece on post structuralism but my circuit decided to black out and my UPS didn't give me enough time to save it... so I'll have to re write the whole FUCKING thing. can you tell I'm angry?

edited to add: On a positive note, my boss is not coming in today which means I can actually get some writing done on this paper for the conference in November...

Weekend update

So I apparently invented a way to make alternating ridges parallel to the needle while attempting to master the stockinette stitch. It's sort of the opposite of the ribbed stitch. I still can't get the ribbed stitch though - every time I try the rows come out like mangled messes. I can, however, knit squares in the garter stitch now, which means I can donate squares to Warm up America. I finished my "potholder" last night. It's more useful as a trivet I think, since it's really not insulated as a potholder. Really, it's just a square, but I invented a purpose for it.

Also, while practicing decreasing stitches, I made something that looks sort of like a jellyfish (or if you fold it over on itself, a vulva). Anyone think there's a market for that? Yeah, me neither.

We went to see the Corpse Bride with the Emporer Fabulous this weekend. I enjoyed it, but it's no Nightmare Before Christmas. The characters were cool, the coloring and the story was great, but I kind of felt that Danny Elfman phoned it in this time. The music wasn't nearly as engaging as I expected. It's not as bad as James and the Giant Peach, but it could have been better.

Is anyone the least bit surprised at the no-bid contracts for the Gulf reconstruction? I swear, Bush seems to be running the GOP like the fuckin Mafia. "Yo Vinny, my cousin Guido is just the guy for da job..." That shit's only supposed to happen in Chicago and New Jersey...

In other news: I had this song in my head the other day. It's a parody song in a kind of folksy jig about the predatory towing that occurs in Chicago.

LINCOLN PARK PIRATES
Steve Goodman

The streetlamps are on in Chicago tonight,
And lovers a'gazin' at stars;
The stores are all closin', and Daley is dozin',
And the fat man is counting the cars...
And there's more cars than places to put 'em, he says,
But I've got room for them all;
So 'round 'em up boys, 'cause I want some more toys,
In the lot by the grocery store...

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
We plunder the streets of your town,
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy,
And no one can make us shut down.

We break into cars when we gotta,
With hammer and pickaxe and saw;
And they said this garage had no license;
But little care I for the law!
Our drivers are friendly and courteous;
Their good manners you always will get;
'Cause they all are recent graduates
Of the charm school in Joliet.

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
We plunder the streets of your town,
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy,
And no one can make us shut down.

And when all the cars are collected,
And all of their fenders are ruined,
Then I'll tow all the boats in Belmont Harbor
To the Lincoln Park Lagoon;
And when I've collected the ransom,
And sunk all the ones that won't yield;
I'll tow all the planes that are blocking the runways
At Midway, O'Hare, and Meigs Field*!

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
Now citizens, gather around,
And I think it's enough, let's call his bluff,
Let's throw the bum out of town!

*(Meig's field doesn't exist anymore. It's now a public park, since Daley shut it down in 2002)

Tolerance

That last post started to get into some great discussion in the comments, one of which really requires it's own post:

Bo said: "Speaking of loaded words, Laura, what kinds of ideas or lifestyles are you tolerant of?"

(Note: I'm not speaking of any particular bloggers here, this is generalities based on my personal experiences with Evangelicals over the years... So unless you've personally tried to convert me, don't take offense).

You're right tolerance is a loaded word. Many people confuse acceptance and tolerance. I tolerate mushrooms on my pizza, but I'd pick them off if I could. And only small pieces. Large chunks of mushrooms - sorry, I won't eat that. That's very different than accepting them as equally yummy as, say, pepperoni.

I could care less what or how you worship (or don't). I accept most of the belief systems of the world as equally valid, and having equal merit. I've studied a lot of them, and for the most part the major tenets are the same - "be excellent to each other." So unless you're sacrificing kittens or small children to Kali, I don't care if you dance around a bonfire naked singing May Day songs or cover every inch of your body from public view - as long as doing so is your own choice. It makes no difference to me, and it makes the world an interesting place. How boring would the world be if we were all like ants with the same outlook and purpose?

The problem is that certain religions purposefully proselytize and push their beliefs onto others. Again, on a personal and private level, this isn't that big of a problem. At most it causes a little eye-rolling at a family get together. However, where it becomes a HUGE problem and where I become the most indignant toward this type of religion, is in the realm of public policy. I am intolerant of proselytizers, especially those who try to blur the line between personal faith and public policy. And I'm sorry to say, the biggest culprits of this in the United States are the Evangelical Christians. Why? Because part of the main purpose of that general faith is to show everyone else why they are wrong and to find Jesus. Sorry. I'm not down with that.

If you want to teach your kids that sex is evil and wrong (unless you're making babies in holy wedlock) and to be ashamed of their bodies, fine. But don't force public health officials to teach abstinence only programs to ALL of our children when almost every public health study shows they are less effective in preventing teen pregnancy and STDs. People are dying of AIDS and Hepatitis, and I know, they're just dirty sinners who deserve their fate - but maybe if they knew how to properly use a condom they'd have 30 more years to live before they were sent down to eternal damnation for fornication.

If you want to teach your family that homosexuality is a sin and is unnatural, fine. But don't try to shove that view into a Constitutional Ammendment that is supposed to protect the rights of us ALL.

If you want to believe that tsunamis and hurricanes and earthquakes are signs of the apocalypse, that's great. But don't make public policies ignoring the things we can do to help preserve the environment just because you think the rapture is coming. Other people have to live here too.

If you want to believe that the sole purpose of a woman is to bear children, fine. Find a woman or a man that agrees with you and make some babies. But don't appoint someone head of an FDA panel on Reproductive Health who promotes prayer as the best solution for PMS, who won't prescribe contraception to unmarried women and who views women as nothing more than children in need of male guidance.

There are many more examples of this type of thinking throughout the realm of public policy, most (no surprise) revolve around the realms of sexuality. But there are other examples, such as global warming, support of Israel, displaying the ten commandments in a federal court, evolution, women's rights, etc...

If you want to talk about religion with me, that's great! I'm game. But don't talk as if I'm the child and you're the parent, and you're teaching me right from wrong. That kind of paternalism doesn't fly with me. And if this and Islamist nutbags like the Taliban are the only religious philospophies that I am 100% interolerant of, I'd say I'm doin better than most of this inhabitants on this fine rock.

How many times can I say this?

I love Katha Pollitt... Here's her excellent analysis of our current situation. There's something in it for everyone I think - give it a chance and read the whole thing...

Intelligible Design

[from the October 3, 2005 issue]

Sometimes I wonder if the future, in some strange metaphysical way, reaches down into our psyches and readies us to accept what is to come. Maybe we know things before we know them. By the time change is plain to see, we've unconsciously adapted to it and have learned to call it something else--God's will, human nature, life.

Let's say, for example, that the American Empire is just about over. Let's say China and India and other countries as well are set to surge ahead in science and technology, leaving reduced opportunities for upward mobility for the educated, while capital continues to roam the world in search of cheap labor, leaving a shattered working class. Let's say we really are becoming a society of fixed status: the have-nots, an anxious and defensive middle and what George W. Bush famously calls his base, the have-mores. What sort of shifts in culture and social structure would prepare us for this looming state of affairs? A resurgence of Christian fundamentalism would fill the bill nicely.

Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism--biblical literalism--is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true. But religious enthusiasm is not all bad. Like love or political activism, it can help troubled souls transform their lives. And if what we're looking at is an America with an ever-larger and boxed-in working class and tighter competition for high-paying jobs among the elite, fundamentalism is exactly the thing to manage decline: It schools the downwardly mobile in making the best of their lot while teaching them to be grateful for the food pantry and daycare over at the church. At the same time, taking advantage of existing currents of anti-intellectualism and school-tax resistance, it removes from the pool of potential scientists and other creative professionals vast numbers of students, who will have had their minds befuddled with creationism and its smooth-talking cousin, intelligent design. Already, according to a study by University of Minnesota biology professor Randy Moore, 40 percent of high school biology teachers don't teach evolution, either because it's socially unacceptable in their communities or because they themselves don't believe in it.

If you think of current behavior as an advance accommodation to what is on the way, some things make sense that otherwise are mysterious. Why, at the very moment that we are talking obsessively about academic "excellence" and leaving no child behind, are we turning our public schools into factories of rote learning and multiple-choice testing, as if learning how to read and count were some huge accomplishment? Well, if your fate is to be a supermarket checker--and that's a "good job" these days--you won't be needing Roman history or art or calculus. By the same token, cutting state university budgets, burdening students with debt and turning college into a kind of middle-management trade school makes sense, if shrinking opportunities for the professional elite lie ahead. Why create more competition for the graduates of the Ivy League?

Another mystery potentially explained: Government's determination to keep working-class women from controlling their fertility. Why does it set a biological trap that dooms them to years of struggle with repercussions for everyone around them, including their children? (It's true that teen pregnancy rates are going down, but they're still astronomical by the standards of any other industrial nation--six times the rate in the Devil's own country, France.) For all our talk about single-parent families--the reason for the terrible poverty of black New Orleans, if we are to believe right-wing columnists Rich Lowry and David Brooks--we act to bring about more of them, and of the most vulnerable, makeshift kind. Somehow single motherhood is supposed to be the fault of the left, but it's the right that has cut public funding for contraception, held up Plan B, restricted abortion, flooded the schools with useless abstinence-only sex ed and now even threatens to bar confidentiality to girls seeking birth control. If you wanted a fatalistic, disorganized working class, a working class too worn out by the day-to-day to do much more than get by, saddling girls with babies is a great idea.

Hurricane Katrina was heartbreaking--and it was shocking too. The realities it laid bare--the stark class and race divisions of New Orleans, the callousness and cluelessness and sheer shameless incompetence of the Bush Administration, the long years of ecological mismanagement of the Gulf region--show how far the process of adaptation to decline has already gone. Bush's ownership society turns out to be the on-your-ownership society. The rising tide that was supposed to lift all boats is actually a flood that only those who already have a boat can escape.

For decades the right has worked day and night to delegitimize concepts without which no society can thrive, or maybe even survive--the common good, social solidarity, knowledge and expertise, public service. God, abstinence and the market were supposed to solve all our problems. Bad news--climate change, rising poverty, racial and gender disparities, educational failure, the mess in Iraq--was just flimflam from liberals who hate freedom. Is there another world power that lives in such a fantasy world? Now, in old people left to drown in their nursing home beds, in police who reportedly demanded that young women stranded on rooftops bare their breasts in return for rescue, in the contempt for public safety shown by Bush's transformation of FEMA into a pasture for hapless cronies--we can all see what those fantasies obscured. A government that doesn't believe in government was a disaster waiting to happen.

That disaster was Katrina, and it's swept us a crucial political moment. It's as if we're being given something people rarely get: a chance to take a hard look at the future we are preparing for ourselves, an America that has used up its social and economic and intellectual capital and in which it's every man for himself, and every woman, too.

Is that the future we want? Because if we let this moment slip away, that is where we are heading.

Some progress

Evacuation orders have been issued for Galveston, TX and according to the Dallas Morning News:

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said residents who evacuate on city buses will be able to take their pets with them, as long as they are in cages.

"We found that so many people didn't want to leave New Orleans because they didn't want to leave their pets behind," she said.

At least some good can come of the Katrina debacle. Local governments in anticipation of Rita are trying to rectify some of the issues that caused Katrina to be such a human disaster. Those who aren't able to evacuate on their own are being paid much more attention as Rita makes landfall.

New Iraqi Constitution

Check out Riverbend's commentary on the new Iraqi constitution. Quite an interesting read.

You are in grave danger!

Did you know there's a new national security issue in this "Post-9/11" world that threatens the very fabric of our existence? The FBI is looking for a few good agents to help on the frontlines of this new battle. No, it's not Al Qaeda - they're so 2002. What is this new menace?

Porn.

Yes, you read that right.

"Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III."

Nah, we don't need more translators, or better border protection or more agents investigating terrorist cells. Your life is threatened by porn.

"The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults."

Ok folks. I agree that some porn is downright awful and some of it promotes violence and sexual dysfunction. But I also think that the people who seek out that specific type of porn have problems to begin with. I also think that the government has absolutely no business telling consenting adults how they can or should express their sexuality.

What happened to personal responsibility? Isn't that what the Bushies are all about? Individual freedoms? I guess that only applies to those freedoms that don't transgress our Puritanical views on human sexuality.

Give me a fucking break. Apparently my views are also shared by members of the FBI, who see this as a total mockery of the criminal justice system:

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Résumé, Volume Four."
"I already gave at home."
"Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves."

Bike Butt

This is my new term for the excruciating leg cramps I get when we ride the motorcycle for long distances. I thought I made up the term, but when I googled it, I found all sorts of seat pads made for "bike butt". Anyway, we took the bike down to Celtic Fest on Saturday, which was a nice ride. I bought a small watercolor Triskele painting. We sat around and listened to some music for a while and then went to Portillo's for lunch.

Sunday we were going to my little cousin's 9th birthday party. It was such a nice day, we decided we were going to take the bike out to my parent's house. They decided it would be fun for the four of us to ride out to the party -- in Batavia. That's about 35 miles from Oak Park, plus the 10 miles from our place to Oak Park. I was a little sore getting off the bike on the way there, but not too bad. The party was fun and my dad took Joey on a ride - can you believe my helmet fit that kid's head? He's HUGE for his age.

We left about 7:30 or so, it was starting to get dark, making the trek back to Oak Park. By the time we hit OakBrook, about 25 miles into the ride, I had an unbearable urge to stretch my knee out. It spreads from my butt, and from what I've read, pinches the sciatic nerve - which explains why my whole leg was on fire. It seriously felt like I had a giant charley-horse and someone was ripping my kneecap off. By the time we got back to Oak Park I was in so much pain that my poor dad actually had to drive me home while John rode back. I probably could have made it, but I'm glad I didn't try because Monday morning I woke up and my left knee was still a bit twitchy, maybe because of the rain. I gotta get me a butt pad for next year (this riding season is almost over).

So... ow...

Privilege

Along with being a word I often misspell, privilege was a topic of our Social Inequality class last Spring semester. After some discussion on the Pledge of Allegiance, we got into notions of how the "under God" clause might privilege certain groups. It reminded me of our discussion from class and a great article we read by Peggy McIntosh the Associate Director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women called:

"White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies"

I actually found a PDF copy online, so if you want to read the whole thing, go ahead. It's not very long and is fairly easy reading. In this article, she lists some of the privileges she enjoys by virtue of being White. Some are mundane, others hidden things we never think about and yet others fairly obvious. There are other forms of privilege in our society. Generally speaking, from a social inequality perspective the world is broken down into two groups the "A" and the "Not A." The "Not A's" have a hierarchical structure within themselves, but always come secondary to the "A" group. In my opinion, the "A" group in America is:

White
Protestant
Male
Heterosexual
Middle to Upper class

These people have access to most privileges in our society, whether they know it or not. In this context, a privilege is defined as an unearned advantage.

Below is Peggy McIntosh's list. What do you think? What are some privileges you have that you can think of?

1. I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be reasonably sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, fairly well assured that I will not be followed or harassed by store detectives.
6. I can turn on the television or open the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely and positively represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be fairly sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another woman's voice in a group in which she is the only member of her race.
12. I can go into a book shop and count on finding the writing of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance that I am financially reliable.
14. I could arrange to protect our young children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I did not have to educate our children to be aware of systematic racism for their own daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do will in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious to the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be reasonably sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of a nother race is more likely to jeopardize her chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be fairly sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my own present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative, or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader, I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institution that give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. My children do not have to answer questions about why I live with my partner (husband)
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. Our children are given texts and classes that implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I can travel alone or with my husband without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
51. Most people I meet will see my marital arrangements as an asset to my live or as a favorable comment on my likability, my competence, or my mental health.
52. I can talk about the social events of a weekend without fearing most listeners' reactions.
53. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
54. In many contexts, I am seen as "all right" in daily work on women because I do not live chiefly with women.
    

Celtic Fest

That's pronounced Kell-tick, I don't care what the basketball team calls themselves. Celtic traditionally refers to the ancient peoples of the pre-conquest British Isles.

I LOOOVE Chicago's Celtic Fest. I didn't get to go last year or the year before, but we're definitely going this year. It's this weekenend and they have little booths with stuff for sale, celtic dancing, music, etc. It was at Celtic Fest a few years ago that I actually found my family seal and had it etched into an actual, original cobble from Dublin for my parent's garden. The spelling changed when my family came to America, the original being Keough, so it has been hard to find the seal.

I am a sucker for knotwork. Hell, two of my tattoos are celtic knotwork. Rings, jewlery, necklaces, sweaters, anything. I love it. It's some of the most beautiful and ancient artwork from Europe.

The Celts have the BEST drinking songs ever. One of these days I'll get to the 'motherland' but until then, Celticfest will have to do.

Well a Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar on evening fair
And one could tell by how we walked that he drunk more than his share
He fumbled round until he could no longer keep his feet
Then he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
He stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street

About that time two young and lovely girls just happend by
And one says to the other with a twinkle in her eye
See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt

They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be
Lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see
And there behold, for them to see, beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth

They marveled for a moment, then one said we must be gone
Let's leave a present for our friend, before we move along
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon, tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show

Now the Scotsman woke to nature's call and stumbled towards a tree
Behind a bush, he lift his kilt and gawks at what he sees
And in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes.
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize

On Confirmation Hearings

This is a pretty good satire summation of the whole circus that has become the confirmation process...

AuntieHeathen also had good commentary on Roberts' confirmation hearings.

I'm a music lover, but...

Someone needs to bludgeon the Jazz band practicing above my office. It's fine when they play something coherent, but when they don't I feel like Jerry Mouse in the Tom & Jerry cartoon where Tom is playing "Is you is, or is you ain't" to his woman...

I am convinced I'm going to get a cold in the next few weeks. I always get sick when the weather changes, and this past week has been, well, psychotic. Tuesday and Wednesday it was about 90 degrees outside and today at lunch I was chilly with my sweater on. What gives?

I have a new favorite comment from the survey responses I'm working on: "I get to live among a bunch of kids who are all living on their own for the first time and the girls get real crazy like." I almost peed in my pants when I read that I was laughing so hard.

They're officially entertaining the possibility of a change of venue for our conference next June that was supposed to be in New Orleans. I hope they decide not to switch because if they do, it wouldn't go back to New Orleans again until 2012 with the way they have the schedule worked out. One of the cities they were considering: Chicago! A few weeks earlier than normal in May !!$%&*! Don't get me wrong, I love Chicago - but Mid-may is a bad time for Chicago. It could be 60 degrees, it could be snowing, it could be doing both in the same week. Plus Mid-may is a bad time for Higher Ed since it's just after graduation or just before (for schools that go later).

We shall see.

On the up side, I think I have figured out the purl stitch. Now I have to figure out how to hold everything so I don't keep dropping the yarn and or the needles.

Did you know...

A survey conducted by the National Constitution Center found that:

• 75.2% of respondents know what city the zip code 90210 is attributed to
• 25.2% of respondents know that the U.S. Constitution was written in Philadelphia
  

• 71.2% of respondents know that "www" is the first three letters of most web addresses
• 35.5% of respondents can identify the first three words of the U.S. Constitution
  

• 58.3% of respondents know that Bill Gates is the father of Microsoft
• 1.8% of respondents know that James Madison is the father of the U.S. Constitution
  

• 63.7% of respondents know that "The Club" protects against car theft
• 25% of respondents can identify the protection provided by the 5th Amendment

September 16 & 17 are Constitution Day in the United States now. Our library had these links on their website. This is an important step to bringing better education about our constitution to students, but it's not nearly enough. Go teach someone something about the constitution this week.

The United States Constitution
Text from the US House of Representatives Website

The National Archives Constitution Page
Includes images of the original parchment, resources for further learning, & much more.

Back to school

Ahhhh, the students are back. I know, I should be nice. If it weren't for them I wouldn't have a job. But let me tell you something. I have revised my version of hell. My version of hell now involves, at least in some form, being crammed in an elevator with 15 performing arts majors.

I just got back from getting a sandwich and, as usual, there was a line for the elevators. I really think this place oughtta invest in Disneyland-esque line management for the elevators. You know, like the kind they have waiting for Space Mountain. A crowd forms waiting for the elevators in the lobby and there's always some little bastard that makes his way around the crowd that's been waiting and cuts in front. RRG I hate people.

I also must wonder what kind of a world we live in where I can get better, cheaper coffee at a 7 fucking 11 than I can at our cafeteria? We used to have good coffee. Then they changed service providers, and I can only assume that what now passes for coffee is actually silt from the bottom of the Hudson River. I understand that 7-11 can be cheaper because they can buy in bulk, but there's no reason why the prices had to go up when the quality of the cafeteria went down. I can't help but think of Super Size Me when pondering this, and how healthy meal service doesn't cost much more than the crap that passes for food in school cafeterias lately. Again, our culture of profit.

Hopefully I can stay awake tonight, for my first class of the semester - Intro to Women's Studies. I'm not expecting this to be very difficult since, even though I've never taken an actual Women's Studies course yet, most of my courses have had a gender component to them. I suspect this is the intro graduate-level seminar where we explore different theories of feminism and gender relations. It will be interesting, and I'll be able to continue my research on Muslim feminism, so it's a win-win situation. I'm just terrible when it comes to concentrating on 'dry theory'. Wish me luck...

I'm taking bets

So Michael Brown resigned his position with FEMA and I'm taking a poll.

How many of you think he'll get a medal?

Where do you think he'll end up? I personally think he'll end up with some cushy job as a contracting consultant with Halliburton. Though you never know, his experience with Horse shit might make him a good candidate for the White House Press Corps.... Supreme court justice maybe?

"passive indifference is as bad as active malice"

From the Chicago Sun Times:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) linked the hot-button issue of race to the hurricane relief efforts in remarks over the weekend.

Obama was asked on ABC's ''This Week'' whether there was racism in the lack of evacuation planning for poor, black residents of New Orleans.

He said he would not refer to the government response in that way, but went on to touch on the topic.

''Whoever was in charge of planning was so detached from the realities of inner city life in New Orleans ... that they couldn't conceive of the notion that they couldn't load up their SUVs, put $100 worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water and drive off to a hotel and check in with a credit card,'' Obama said.

''There seemed to be a sense that this other America was somehow not on people's radar screen. And that, I think, does have to do with historic indifference on the part of government to the plight of those who are disproportionately African-American.''

He added that ''passive indifference is as bad as active malice.''
...

Sorry, no pictures

I know I said I'd take pictures, but since we went to the German fest at night it was kind of pointless and I didn't want to blind everyone.

I had no idea how huge this thing got. People were pouring over the boundaries set up, negating the 'open liquor' law on the street outside the festival. The thuringer sausage I got was very good (we went back Sunday for lunch and got another). I have no idea how many people were there, but there were tons. We finally found a spot to stand around and talk - in the middle of Lincoln Avenue. So, some highlights:

- $10 for a liter of Becks in a souvenier mug ($9 for refills) isn't bad when you think that you'd pay $4.50 in any local bar for an imported beer.

- At one point a crowd of drunks raised their glasses and started yelling - it spread through the crowd at a deafening roar. To which someone in our group said "and that's how it all started"... It was funny at the time, and probably somewhat true.

- We learned a liter of beer is a bit much for mom.

- Jasen bought a pinocchio hat off some guy after not finding a booth selling them. He truly looked like Adolpho Dieter.

So a good time was had by all. John and I went back on Sunday for lunch - after Jasen wimped out on me. We were gonna get sloppy at lunch on Sunday but nooooooo. Someone had to "work" ;-)

Say what you will

...about Michael Moore. But he has a way with words and he has a point:


To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

Knit one, Oompa...

So today, The Emporer Fabulous and the Queen of the Universe (it's good to know people in fake high-places) are going to attempt to teach me how to knit. I've been meaning to pick up something creative to do. The most creative thing I do is color - no not like Mickey & Minnie at the zoo, but geometric designs and such. I had one coloring book of ancient Indian idols with one Buddha I'm really proud of. But there's some satisfaction I used to get from making things. I remember when I was a kid and my grandma would do all sorts of handicrafts with us. I love that stuff, and I don't do any of it anymore. So we'll see how that goes.

After that, our place becomes ground zero for the German-American fest in Lincoln Square. Beer, brats (as in bratwurst not children, though I'm sure there will be plenty of brats too), oompa music, fun for all. I'll post pictures if I get any good ones. I don't think there will be any cute gyro girls at our fest though....

Damage Control

Now the government is set on spin cycle and tried to block the media from covering the discovery of bodies as the flood waters drain.

Some of you might think it morbid, and I, myself, do not want to see photos or video of bodies. However, the media have a right and a duty to report to us the toll of this disaster without spin or interference from a government that is now set on damage control.

That's what this administration is all about. Never admit a mistake and try to obscure the facts when you have.

This is about the amount of compassion I sense from our government

Public or Private?

So, a few years ago, Chicago spent tons of time and money creating a new park, Millenium Park, for it's citizens and tourists to enjoy.

or did it?

Yesterday, tourists and other visitors were turned away from Millenium Park because the Toyota corporation paid $800,000 for a private event.

Someone please tell me. Is this a public park or not? If not, why were taxpayers told it was? If so, how can it be "closed"?

To make matters worse, those turned away were subjected to a marketing ploy by General Motors:

GM reps in yellow T-shirts showed up Thursday morning on Michigan Avenue in front of the park, handing out plastic souvenir Fisher-Price slide viewers with 3-D images of the Bean and the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

General Motors also brought in some 40 "courtesy" cars, offering roughly 1,500 disgruntled visitors free rides and free admission to other Chicago destinations such as the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Contemporary Art, an effort they dubbed "Chicago for Everyone."

"I think it's a great publicity stunt," said Karey Kincaid, 46. She and Ric Amidei, 52, of Grayslake, came to visit the park. They had planned the day a month ago, and Amidei had taken a day off work.

They took General Motors up on its offer and decided to visit Navy Pier instead--at least they'd get to ride the Ferris wheel for free.

That's all fine and good, but who is going to provide free crap when GM decides to hold it's event there?

Corporations are taking over our sports arenas, concert venues, and historical architecture - do they have to have the parks too???

What Katrina Had Done To Us

Cillic, who rarely gets political on his blog, has written a very thought provoking piece on this...

Just things? I don't think so

For days, this dog has kept vigil near its owner's corpse at a gas station in New Orleans.


From CNN.com.

You can't read that and tell me that pets are just "things" and should be left behind by rescue boats.

The ASPCA and Humane Society of the US both have links to disaster funds aimed at helping abandoned pets and upkeep for shelters where people have been able to bring their pets.

I also heard someone donated a bus specifically for the holdouts who wouldn't leave because of their pets and that pet shelters are being constructed aside people shelters.

They should never have had to leave them behind in the first place, but I'm glad something is being done now. In the future, I think disaster policy should allow people to bring their pets with them. I'd no more have someone leave their dog behind than their child.

Where's that money goin?

Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash

by MAX BLUMENTHAL

[posted online on September 7, 2005]

Every cloud has a silver lining. Hurricane Katrina has devastated New Orleans, leaving thousands dead, hundreds of thousands homeless and plunging the entire city into chaos. In the hurricane's wake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its director, Michael Brown, forced out of his former job at the International Arabian Horse Association, with no credentials in disaster relief, have become targets of withering criticism. Yet FEMA's relief efforts have brought considerable assistance to at least one man who stands to benefit from Hurricane Katrina perhaps more than any other individual: Pat Robertson.

With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

Though Operation USA has conducted disaster relief for more than twenty-five years on five continents, like scores of other secular relief groups currently helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was omitted from FEMA's list. In fact, only two non-"faith-based" organizations were included. (One of them, the American Red Cross, is being blocked from entering New Orleans by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.) FEMA, meanwhile, has reportedly turned away Wal-Mart trucks carrying food and water to the stricken city, teams of firemen from Maryland and Texas, volunteer morticians and a convoy of 1,000 boat owners offering to help rescue stranded flood victims. While relief efforts falter in the face of colossal bureaucratic incompetence, the Bush Administration's promotion of Operation Blessing has ensured that the floodwaters swallowing New Orleans will be a rising tide lifting Robertson's boat.

Robertson recently ignited a media firestorm when he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez during a broadcast of The 700 Club. He has also blamed the 9/11 attacks on America's tolerance of abortion and homosexuality and declared the Supreme Court a greater threat to the United States than Al Qaeda. Robertson assiduously cultivates his celebrity with remarks like these, casting himself as a divisive bigot to his foes and a righteous prophet to his allies in Christian right circles. But there is much more to Robertson than the headline-grabbing hothead he plays on TV.

Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

After a lengthy investigation, Virginia's Office of Consumer Affairs determined that Robertson "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications." Yet when the office called for legal action against Robertson in 1999, Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, a Republican, intervened with his own report, agreeing that Robertson had made deceptive appeals but overruling the recommendation for his prosecution. Two years earlier, while Virginia's investigation was gathering steam, Robertson donated $35,000 to Earley's campaign--Earley's largest contribution. With Earley's report came a sense of vindication. "From the very beginning," Robertson claimed, "we were trying to provide help and assistance to those who were facing disease and death in the war-torn, chaotic nation of Zaire."

(Earley is now president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, an evangelical social-work organization founded by born-again, former Nixon dirty-trickster Charles Colson. PFM has accepted White House faith-based-initiative money and is currently engaged in hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana. Earley remains a close ally of Robertson.)

Absolved of his sins, Robertson dug his heels back in African soil. In 1999 he signed an $8 million agreement with Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor that guaranteed Robertson's Freedom Gold Ltd.--an offshore company registered to the same address as his Christian Broadcasting Network--mining rights in Liberia, and gave Taylor a 10 percent stake in the company. When the United States intervened in Liberia in 2003, forcing Taylor and the Al Qaeda operatives he was harboring to flee, Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country."

Robertson's scheming hasn't abetted one bit. He is accused of violating his ministry's tax-exempt, nonprofit status by using it to market a diet shake he licensed this August to the health chain General Nutrition Corp. (Robertson continues to advertise the shake on his personal website.) He has withstood criticism from fellow evangelicals for investing $520,000 in a racehorse named Mr. Pat, violating biblical admonitions against gambling. He was even accused of "Jim Crow-style racial discrimination" by black employees who successfully sued his Christian Coalition in 2001 (Robertson has since resigned) for forcing them enter its offices through a back door and eat in a segregated area.

The Bush Administration has studiously overlooked Robertson's misdeeds. In October 2002, just months after he denounced the White House's faith-based initiative as "a real Pandora's box" -- and one month before midterm elections -- Robertson pocketed $500,000 in government grants to Operation Blessing. Since then, with the sole exception of his criticism of the US intervention in Liberia, Robertson has served as a willing surrogate for the Administration. His Regent University gave John Ashcroft a cushy professorship to cool his heels after his contentious tenure as US Attorney General. And Robertson's legal foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice, is spearheading the effort to rally right-wing Christian support for Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s confirmation as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Now, as fallout from the President's handling of Hurricane Katrina threatens to derail the GOP's long-term agenda, Robertson is back at the plate for Bush, echoing the White House's line that state and local authorities--and even the disaster victims themselves--are to blame for the tragedy engulfing New Orleans.

The September 5 edition of The 700 Club included a report by Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent Gary Lane from outside the ruined New Orleans Convention Center, which had housed mostly impoverished black disaster victims throughout the weekend. "A number of possessions left behind suggest the mindset of some of the evacuees," Lane said. "They include this voodoo cup with the saying, 'May the curse be with you.' " A shot of a plastic souvenir cup from one of New Orleans's countless trinket shops appeared on the screen. "Also music CDs with the titles Guerrilla Warfare and Thugs 'R' Us," Lane stated, pointing out a pile of rap CDs strewn on the ground.

The 700 Club's featured guest was Wellington Boone, a black minister invited by Robertson to provide a counterpoint to the ubiquitous Rev. Jesse Jackson. Boone is a member of the Coalition on Revival, a Christian Reconstructionist organization that advocates replacing the US Constitution with biblical law. Throughout his career, he has distinguished himself from his black clerical colleagues with such remarks as "I believe that slavery, and the understanding of it when you see it God's way, was redemptive" and "The black community must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model."

Though Boone's appearance on The 700 Club consisted mostly of benign appeals for "laser-beam prayer," CBN featured a separate interview with Boone on its website in which he declared, "We need to consider the culture of those people still stranded in New Orleans. The looting of property, the trashing of property, et cetera speaks to the basic character of the people." He added, "These people who have gone through slavery, segregation and the Voting Rights Act are doing this to themselves."

Boone's appearance on The 700 Club had been preceded by an interview with Operation Blessing President Bill Horan. Horan discussed his group's activities in Biloxi, Mississippi, where it plans to set up a mobile kitchen, and in Houston, Dallas and Beaumont, Texas, where it is disbursing cash grants to numerous, mostly unspecified mega-churches, purportedly to support their work with evacuated hurricane victims.

As for the people still stranded in New Orleans who "are doing this to themselves," as Boone said, Operation Blessing has a special plan: avoid them like the plague.

"I've actually heard reports that they [the people of Mississippi] were in worse trouble" than those in New Orleans, claimed Gordon Robertson, the son of Pat Robertson and vice president of The 700 Club. "They were actually harder hit."

"Oh, absolutely," agreed Horan.

At the segment's conclusion, Gordon Robertson asked Horan, "What can people do today? If you were asking for help today, what's the number-one need?"

"It's cash. Cash is what we need more than anything," Horan pleaded. "The more cash we get, the more good we can do." And the Bush Administration, through FEMA, is doing its best to insure that Pat Robertson is getting that cash just as quickly as humanly possible.

Twat? Twat? I cunt hear you...

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)--this is working very well for them."

-Barbara Bush referring to how lucky the evacuees of Katrina are for having lost everything they ever owned.

I've heard anecdotal evidence that Barbara was a complete bitch, but this confirms that for me. I'll go beyond complete bitch and settle for soul-less cunt.

Horray! they'll say. Now we can be poor in Texas, collecting "handouts"! They really struck it rich! Who cares that they lost everything they owned, can't find their family and had to abandon their beloved pets to starvation and disease - this is their LUCKY day!

How out of touch with reality must you be to see ANY part of this disaster as a positive thing? Has anything changed that will lift these people out of a life of poverty? Has the minimum wage increased? Have their job opportunities suddenly improved? Have they magically now got access to good schools and nutritious, affordable food? No. So what kind of person would think that they would end up in a better situation?

I'll tell you who: people who see the poor as nothing but a burden to society, who are poor because they're lazy and "refuse" to work. Negating the plain and awful truth that poverty is perpetuated by our system of greed and middle-class, white privilege. They just needed something to spark them to get off their lazy asses and work. Fuck you and the high horse you ride on.

Happy Anniversary

Sept 6, 2003

Artwork by Mitch O'Connell
Ink by Miles Maniaci

It's been two years since we got married! I still think it's strange to celebrate this date since John and I were together since Nov 1997 and were 'shackin up' almost since then. But today is the day the State of Hawaii legally recongized that we can file jointly... ;-) It'll take a while for me not to think of Nov 1 as our anniversary I think.

We're just going to go to dinner, something simple. I'm not one for big celebrations unless it's a milestone.

Why some won't leave New Orleans

I just saw a CNN video clip of a rescue, rescuers attempted to get a man to leave his house and come with them. He refused. Why? They won't allow people to take their pets with them.

That is about the cruelest thing I've ever heard.

I treat my pets as my family, and I wouldn't abandon my family to die of thirst and starvation because rescuers are callous enough to think of them as "things". What happens to this man's dog when he finally is forced to leave? These people have lost everything they own, and for some of them, their pets are the only friends they've got left.

I tell you, this makes me cry more than the human tragedy, because the people can comfort each other. The pets are innocent and totally dependent on their owners for care. Humans can be so cruel in the name of "efficiency"... most shelters won't take pets, plain and simple, and the animal shelters are all full.

The ASPCA has temporary shelters. To donate to help them, click here.

Fuck 'em, right?

This is what I've been hearing from those defending the government's inaction to Katrina:

Those people should have evacuated.
They chose to stay.
They were told to evacuate.

OK... let's assume I agree with you. Then what is your solution to the problem I ask? I know!

FUCK 'EM - They deserve to die right? Natural selection, only the strong shall survive.

That's what makes this country great!

I'm sick of thinking about this now. Progress is being made finally. Now the ever larger question: where are these people going to live? and how bad are conditions going to get in the refugee "camps"?

Oh, and remember the two photos with different captions that were circulating? See my post on Looting... well the one of the black man "looting" is still available on Yahoo! news, but the one of the white couple "finding" has been removed... chew on that for a few hours.

I'm going to the beach with the Queen of the Universe today. I'm not going to think about this for a few hours.

**sigh**

What's with the looting....

I in no way mean to present myself as an expert on social psychology or the behaviors being exhibited in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. However, given my undergrad background in psychology and my general interest in social psychology and sociology I wanted to examine the looting behaviors that so many of my fellow bloggers have mentioned. Given the limited amount of time and resources I had to research, I yielded to the highly respected social psychologist, Albert Bandura, who has studied such subjects extensively as the theoretical basis for much of my reasoning. Anything taken from Bandura is cited as such, everything else is my own opinion.

A lot of people were surprised that violence and disorder broke out during the flooding. I was not, and this piece is about why.

This is focused on the looters only – not the armed gangs running rampant. I see those as two separate groups of people, with maybe minimal overlap. The armed gangs are not simply people overtaken by the moment – they are the bad guys who do bad things with or without a disaster taking advantage of a chaotic situation. The looters, while taking advantage of the situation, are mostly non-violent. I also want to distinguish between those looting necessities and those looting merchandise, a point I will return to later.

The first question I saw asked was “why?”. Followed closely by “what kinds of animals do such a thing?”. To this I always say the same thing: Never underestimate what horrible things people are capable of under conditions of chaos, stress, and groupthink.

Bandura (1999) states that “moral control operates most strongly when people acknowledge that they cause harm by their detrimental actions.” Plainly speaking – if the consequences or harmfulness of your actions are immediately known to you, you’re more likely to realize you’re behavior is immoral. Sometimes people are unaware of the full impact of their actions and sometimes they rationalize the impact to make it seem less serious. Either way, if someone doesn’t feel they’re hurting anyone, they’re less likely to refrain from whatever they’re doing. A simple rationalization of “taking a stereo isn’t hurting anyone” isn’t far fetched. This is exacerbated when the actions are “physically or temporally” remote from the effects. Plainly put, people are less likely to act immorally if they realize it causes immediate and direct harm.

Displacement of responsibility is another solidly supported social phenomenon. Collective action weakens moral control of individuals by diffusing responsibility to the entire group (Bandura 1999). Individual behaviors can be attributed to the actions of others in the group. “When everyone is responsible, no one really feels responsible” (Bandura 1999).

Bandura also suggests that social desensitization to violence and the lack of accountability for privileged members of society gradually erode the moral self-censure of the society as a whole. What makes something immoral is the transgression of social values. When there are repeatedly no consequences for immoral behavior, the behavior begins to seem less immoral. For instance, what’s worse: The looting of millions of dollars from Enron employees and stockholders or stealing a stereo in a flood? You may say there is no relationship and you’re partially right. But the relationship is the desensitization for both immoral behavior and the consequences.

That brings me to moral reasoning, something I’ve talked about before. Lawrence Kohlberg came up with stages of moral reasoning that he believed people progressed through as they age. Children adhere to morals that are tied with immediate rewards and consequences while most adults adhere to morals tied to concepts of (concrete) law and order or (abstract) universal ethics. Kohlberg argued that relatively few people progressed past the concrete phases of law and order – this is wrong because the law says so. Some people never make it into the adult stages. So if the vast majority of people look to social order as a gauge for what is moral, then what happens when that social order breaks down? Exactly what we saw in New Orleans.

So I stand by my original analysis of the situation that outrageous circumstances, chaos and a breakdown of social order can cause normally good people to do bad things. Yes, some of the people out there would be stealing and robbing anyway, and now they can do so with no consequences. But the vast majority, I believe, are normal people who are reacting to a chaotic situation and lashing out in unproductive ways.

Now the bigger question: What proportion of the looters are looting for survival and for personal gain? We really don’t know. Just because CNN keeps showing the same footage of the Walmart and the woman with a rack of Levis doesn’t mean that’s the whole story. We honestly don’t know and we cannot assume that the majority of looting is for personal gain and selfishness. Also, is there a double standard regarding the coverage of the looting? I think there is. I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher and Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek was on and he brought up a great point:

Who here remembers what Donald Rumsfeld’s reaction to the looting occurring in Baghdad after the invasion? I do:

“He said the looting in Iraq was a result of ‘pent-up feelings’ of oppression … ‘Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things’… Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. ‘Stuff happens,’. (Loughlin, 2003)

Well, the people you see on TV may not have experienced oppression like that of Sadaam’s regime, but given that they are poor and black, they have experienced the systemic oppression that exists in our country (if you want to debate the existence of that, we'll discuss that another time, I don't have the energy right now). Just like the LA Riots, I think many are reacting, albeit in an unproductive way, to their feelings of despair and helplessness regarding a government many see as callous and uncaring for their needs. If the social order is what defines morality, then wouldn’t it make sense that those already on the fringes of society, who are already marginalized by poverty and lack of opportunity, those with less to lose than we who are more invested and priveliged by the current social order would be the first ones to lash out given the breakdown of that social order? I’m not making excuses, and I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s not unheard of for people to lash out in this way, especially given that many don’t feel they’re hurting anyone except a rich corporation (Walmart) that exploits them anyway.

The other double standard is something that has been circulating on the web (Kinney, 2005). Consider these two pictures below.

1. “Two residents wade through chest deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store”

2. “A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in”

I know, I know. The black kid has a whole bag full of stuff. But we know it came from a grocery store, so it's not stereos and 18 pairs of Levi's. We don’t know what’s in them, but we know it came from a grocery store. It could be food for his sick grandmother. We just don't know. And who are we to assume? More importantly, why do we come to the assumption?

When is it looting and when is it finding? The meaning of the word ‘looting’ is illicitly obtained items or stolen goods. Whitey stole bread – it’s stolen. Just something to make you think about how language and euphemisms can be used to alter our perceptions of situations, very, very easily.

Like I said, I’m not making excuses, I’m not saying it’s right. What I am saying is that society is a fragile thing and it takes only a relatively small disaster to send the whole thing into entropic decay.

Sources Cited:

Bandura, A (1999). Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review. Vol. 3 (3), p. 193-209.

In addition to being useful for this subject, this journal article is also relevant to the current war in Iraq and Bush’s war on terror. The methods Bandura describes as being used to justify immoral behavior are the exact methods employed by conservatives in defending this war. It can also be applied to explain why some people choose to blame victims for their own plights rather than other factors. I have a PDF copy, I can email to whoever wants to read it.

Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C, and Pastorelli, C. (1996). Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 71 (2), p. 364-374.

Kinney, A. (2005). Looting or Finding? Salon.com.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/01/photo_controversy/index.html Retrieved 9/3/2005.

Loughlin, S. (2003). Rumsfeld on looting in Iraq: 'Stuff happens’. 'http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon. Retrieved 9/3/2005.

For those who want to help

This is from my Aunt's sister Diana. I've taken out the phone numbers. If you want to help, email me and I'll send you the info

Dear Friends,

As most of you may already be aware, my husband , Pat is an owner of a trucking company. In an effort together with community Christian Church, we have decided to take a step to help the astronomical amount of human beings directly affected by this natural disaster; to provide them the basic needs and comfort. We are trying to put together a drive so that two full size semi trailer trucks can drive to a specific refugee center in Louisiana that can and will save lives as soon as it is possible.

If you are in an industry or have a job that could provide boxes of any size, please phone me at XXXXX. Bags will due for transport, but as you well know, small cans in boxes go much further. Sheets, blankets, toiletries(soap,toothpaste,washclothes), bottled water, canned goods, dry cereal, medicine, suntan lotions of 45+, chapsticks, etc. are just a few ideas for the basic needs of these people.

Monetary donations can also be made to fund the direct gas costs to the driver(s). This money will go directly to the driver(s) to cover their cost(s) specifically for this drive only. As the truck sits for a few days, 0 dollars are coming in to their families.

We are scheduled to go out of town as many of you may well be; but you are welcome to phone my cell number at XXXXX so that we can connect our resources. We need to make sure that we have what is needed first, then I will put out another email as well as flyers to set days and times to accomplish the task.

Spread the word!

May you and your family have a safe holiday as we pray for those less fortunate.

Sincerely,

Diana

On a lighter note

I hang my head in shame... I actually said "eeeeeeek" when I saw a huge spider in our bathroom.

Fucktard is my new favorite insult word.

Just in case you hadn't heard - 1,000 people were trampled in Iraq after someone shouted bomb at a crowded religious pilgrammage to a Shia shrine. Can the world get any worse? Don't answer that, I know the answer is a resounding YES.

Tonight we're going to Ravinia to see Johnny Lang & Buddy Guy. Two great blues artists in one of the greatest venues ever devised. Ravinia is unique in that while it has a "lawn" section, the "lawn" is more like a park. Filled with trees and actual grass instead of some giant mound of semi-alive grass and dirt like most "lawn" venues. They have speakers wired in the trees, so no matter where you are, you can hear. This isn't the place you go if you want to SEE an artist, but for something like the Chicago Symphony or Blues, it's not about watching but about listening. A number of years ago I went with some friends to see John Williams conduct the CSO in playing his movie soundtracks. Lemme tell ya, hearing the Imperial March from Star Wars live and coming from the trees is something else...

There is a pavillion with assigned seats, but I prefer the lawn - it's more relaxed. The second unique thing about it is that you can bring in your own picnic. Wine, fried chicken, lawn chairs, candles, whatever. You just can't grill or stake anything into the ground. What place lets you bring your own food anymore? The third thing is that lawn seats, no matter who's playing, are only $15 - a rarity for any concert these days.

So I went and got my wine (A Reisling for my friend who drinks white and a Shiraz for me), some cheese from this cute little cheese shop on Western Ave and they're bringing fried chicken (how else would I lure John into going?). We borrowed this picnic backpack from my parents and I might just have to get one for us, it's SO cool. It's a backpack, but inside is service for 4, silverware, plates, corkscrew, cheeseboard and four plastic wine glasses.

So I'm gonna clean myself up and get ready to go to the Great White North (my nickname for the rich suburban area of Highland Park). Remember the garage from Ferris Beuller? That's Highland Park... The Great White North... So hopefully I can get this horror off my mind for a while and just have a nice evening.

Where is the plan?

Remember after 9/11 when all major cities were ordered to have a plan for a terrorist attack or disaster? Remember the creation of a new department of the government for this purpose? It's now been four years since then.

My question is simple: Where is the plan? If there was a plan, who dropped the ball?

It should not be such chaos in New Orleans. Imagine it HAD been a terror attack that took out the levees and even more people were trapped in their homes amidst the flooding because they had no warning to evacuate. It's obvious they have no plans because if they did, 60,000 people would not be stranded in New Orleans with no food and water, amidst garbage, feces and dead bodies. There would be enough supplies, and a way to distribute them, and enough troops to keep order and enough buses to get people out of the city.

The worst thing about it, the rest of the world, including Al Qaeda now knows that our "alert and readiness" plans are just a bunch of political doublespeak.

Some Things

Ben has put together a blog with links to resources for donating & finding information about Katrina. So if you're wondering what you can do and haven't done something already - tomorrow is payday for most people - donate something.

Apparently Chicago universities are getting calls from students who live in Chicago and who attend Tulane, U New Orleans, Loyola New Orleans and a few other Gulf Coast schools wanting to know if they can come in the fall since their schools will probably not open anytime soon. Weird huh? I bet this is happening all over - they've gotta go someplace right? So how does an institution get information to these students who are calling and others like them, without sounding like vultures? I mean, they are calling us...

Dbackdad posted a good article from the Army Times about the strain on the National Guard due to overdeployment to Iraq.

I'm glad to hear Bush has called for an International relief effort like the one put together for the tsunami. This is probably "the worst natural disaster in American history" he said. Bush Sr. and Clinton are going to work their international magic once again.

I do, however, get tired of people comparing this to the tsunami. Yes they are both natural disasters involving water. But the magnitude of the tsunami and the damage and loss of life is still far larger than Katrina. I understand the tsunami is still fresh in our memory, but it's really not right to compare them as apples to apples. Not to downplay Katrina's impact or loss of life in the Gulf, but we're talking a few thousand people dead vs. a few hundred thousand. A few hundred miles of coastline destroyed vs. thousands of miles. Days of warnings of the impending hurricane and people refusing to leave vs. having absolutely NO warning. This is nowhere near the magnitude of the tsunami, so please just stop.

As for the looting - I hope to do a longer post on that maybe this weekend if I have time. I have been looking at some of the literature on mob-mentality and diffusion of responsibility, which I studied briefly in undergrad. I can't say I'm surprised by it, but I am disappointed that this is the image we are projecting to the rest of the world, who already see Americans as materialistic and selfish... just what we need! Images of people stealing stereos just because they can! I mean, if Stanley Milgram and Phillip Zimbardo could get average, everyday people to do harm to others simply using the concept of authority then imagine what people are capable of with a LACK of authority. And it will only get worse in the "refugee" camps. Not like these will be anything like refugee camps in Ghana or something, but the lack of authority and social order and the amount of stress in refugee camps causes some pretty horrific behavior.

I'm more of a pessimist when it comes to human beings. We like to think we're special, just like we thought we were the center of the universe, but we're not. Humans are animals, and socialization makes us human. Without a social order to create humanity, some people revert back to animals. Maybe it's those people who are traditionally marginalized by the social order that revert more quickly, because they have less respect for the existing social order? I'm really not sure. But I'm sure there's literature on the subject.