I've had this cartoon in some form or another hanging in my office since it first appeared in 1998. It completely describes my worklife... Except the 2 o'clock quitting time.
John got a full-sized, framed print for me for my birthday a few years ago. It's proudly displayed in my office.
Click HERE to see it. Large images screw up my site in IE
30 June 2006
28 June 2006
Check out this video
This is the video for a new song by a band called Gnarls Barkley. I like the song itself a great deal, but the video is fantastic.
27 June 2006
You know, the important stuff...
Here we go again. Election year brings out all of the really important issues facing our country and forces politicians to drop their selfish-partisan stance and their own re-election worries to focus on the common good of America...
And now back to the real world where our Senate wastes their time and our money debating (once again) the asinine flag desecration amendment.
Who cares? What does patriotism mean? Does it mean wasting time and resources debating the desecration of a piece of fabric while our government continues to dismantle all the laws and values that that fabric stands for?
Talk about hubris. Here's a picture from July, 2003: Yes, that's Bush defacing a flag with his enormous ego.
It seems the thing I publish most often is Jello Biafra's pledge of allegience - but, here it goes again because it's, well, really fucking relevant right now- even if it was written during the reign of George the First.
And now back to the real world where our Senate wastes their time and our money debating (once again) the asinine flag desecration amendment.
Who cares? What does patriotism mean? Does it mean wasting time and resources debating the desecration of a piece of fabric while our government continues to dismantle all the laws and values that that fabric stands for?
Talk about hubris. Here's a picture from July, 2003: Yes, that's Bush defacing a flag with his enormous ego.
It seems the thing I publish most often is Jello Biafra's pledge of allegience - but, here it goes again because it's, well, really fucking relevant right now- even if it was written during the reign of George the First.
I pledge defiance to the flag of the United Snakes of Captivity
And to the Republic for which it stands, I dip it in kerosene, and stick it up the ass of you know who and light it
One nation, under God--or else
One nation, under psychopath Pentagon gangsters, whose idea of democracy is concentration camps for the people who go and use the drugs that the government supplies themselves
One nation, under Wall Street:
If the cops and the President are all criminals, I might as well be one too, ha ha! 2
One Nation of tabloid robots who actually believe what they see on tv, but when ask about it say “I don’t care.”
One nation, drowning in its own garbage
Indivisible from the from the fall of Rome
With liberty and justice for all who can afford it
Burn, Baby, Burn
Old Glory
The Yankee Swastika
Burn, Baby, Burn
Burn, Baby, Burn
Whenever I see you I see red
Whenever I see you I see red
If the Communist countries can do it, why can’t we
Throw the bastards out and try some real Democracy
Run not by rich people
Not by Military people
Not by sons of senators sons of senators sons of senators sons
After all, have you noticed
The more they dole out Democracy over there
The more they take it away over here
Now, before it’s too late to even talk about stuff like this
Be a patriot, a good patriot
One who cares about their country more than forcing people to worship a flag
Take the Swastika
The Yankee Swastika
and let it
Burn
Burn
Burn, baby Burn
26 June 2006
Cell Phones
It's no secret that I have resisted the cell-phone trend as much as possible. Much to John's dismay, my phone is usually sitting on my desk at home or in my purse, with a dead battery. I don't even know my phone number.
The other day, I was on my way home from an after-work outing and was on the el. A woman (girl really) gets on the train and immediately gets on her phone. I have my headphones on and can still hear her voice. Forget trying to read at this point. The people across the aisle felt the same way I could tell and we all started flashing each other annoyed, amused looks and occasional eye-rolls.
We all got to hear that, and more... THREE TIMES. She told the story to one person, hung up, called another and told them. Called another and told them.
One of the guys across the aisle motioned as if to smack her with his umbrella (to which she was totally oblivious). She finally got off the train and one woman said "It was a bad enough story the first time."
My question is this:
Are people just so devoid of the ability to sit and read, or (gasp) THINK? Keep in mind - this is a 30 minute train ride. She couldn't wait a half hour to get home and tell this story in privacy. This is an increasingly common phenomenon on the train. The difference between cell-talkers and people talking to each other on the train is that the cell-talkers often talk louder. I don't want to hear someone arguing with their mother on the train. I don't want to hear the results of your colonoscopy. I want to read my book.
The other day, I was on my way home from an after-work outing and was on the el. A woman (girl really) gets on the train and immediately gets on her phone. I have my headphones on and can still hear her voice. Forget trying to read at this point. The people across the aisle felt the same way I could tell and we all started flashing each other annoyed, amused looks and occasional eye-rolls.
Like, see, like one of her roomates has two dogs and she doesn't take care of very well. They, like, don't get out often enough and end up shitting in the house. So like, they like, came to, like, and agreement that the dogs would be locked in their owner's bedroom when she's not home. But they get out sometimes. And there was shit on the floor today and she's really pissed off. So she text-messaged her roomate to tell her, and like, they got in an argument.
We all got to hear that, and more... THREE TIMES. She told the story to one person, hung up, called another and told them. Called another and told them.
One of the guys across the aisle motioned as if to smack her with his umbrella (to which she was totally oblivious). She finally got off the train and one woman said "It was a bad enough story the first time."
My question is this:
Are people just so devoid of the ability to sit and read, or (gasp) THINK? Keep in mind - this is a 30 minute train ride. She couldn't wait a half hour to get home and tell this story in privacy. This is an increasingly common phenomenon on the train. The difference between cell-talkers and people talking to each other on the train is that the cell-talkers often talk louder. I don't want to hear someone arguing with their mother on the train. I don't want to hear the results of your colonoscopy. I want to read my book.
23 June 2006
I wish
I wish I could be so important
that everyone around me
had to re-arrange their schedules
to fit my inability
to be on time
for anything.
that everyone around me
had to re-arrange their schedules
to fit my inability
to be on time
for anything.
20 June 2006
So Depressing
Last night as I was leaving work at 6pm, I passed a line of eagerly awaiting Radiohead fans in line for their will-call tickets to the show at the Auditorium Theatre.
John and I tried in vain to get tickets to that show. If the huge show in Grant Park a few years back sold out in a few minutes, imagine how quickly a 4,300 seat venue went. I even went so far as to ask one of our Executive Vice Presidents if we get any special comp tickets since our University owns the theatre. Nope. Apparently JAM Productions are very, very stingy about comp tickets.
I ran into an Auditorium employee in the elevator on my way out and asked if he could sneak me in. He laughed, and said "no, sorry".
So after another 10 hour work day, I hung my head as I walked passed these lucky, lucky people.
Another show tonight. Maybe I'll try to find the secret spot on the second floor where you can hear everything that goes on in the theatre.
I can't even imagine what a fantastic show it would be in this theatre. For all you unfamiliar with the Auditorium, it is one of the few acoustically perfect concert spaces in the world. It was once the tallest building in Chicago, and was the first public building to have air conditioning. See those metal half circles on the arches? Those are false arches - they're hollow and go to the basement, where they used to have blocks of ice that would carry the cool evaporating air through the arch and into the theatre.
Designed by Louis Sullivan in 1898, it is superbly decorated with classical murals and classic Sullivan decorative gold leafing. It's truly a stunning space.
John and I tried in vain to get tickets to that show. If the huge show in Grant Park a few years back sold out in a few minutes, imagine how quickly a 4,300 seat venue went. I even went so far as to ask one of our Executive Vice Presidents if we get any special comp tickets since our University owns the theatre. Nope. Apparently JAM Productions are very, very stingy about comp tickets.
I ran into an Auditorium employee in the elevator on my way out and asked if he could sneak me in. He laughed, and said "no, sorry".
So after another 10 hour work day, I hung my head as I walked passed these lucky, lucky people.
Another show tonight. Maybe I'll try to find the secret spot on the second floor where you can hear everything that goes on in the theatre.
I can't even imagine what a fantastic show it would be in this theatre. For all you unfamiliar with the Auditorium, it is one of the few acoustically perfect concert spaces in the world. It was once the tallest building in Chicago, and was the first public building to have air conditioning. See those metal half circles on the arches? Those are false arches - they're hollow and go to the basement, where they used to have blocks of ice that would carry the cool evaporating air through the arch and into the theatre.
Designed by Louis Sullivan in 1898, it is superbly decorated with classical murals and classic Sullivan decorative gold leafing. It's truly a stunning space.
19 June 2006
Gee, Thanks you guys...
So, I lost the bet... Of course, there was nothing on the line, but still. Only CilliC and Heathen, who I asked in person gave the answer I thought most people associated with Mt. Dew.
Nerd/Geek.
See, John loves it, and so does every other computer geek I know. And then, of course, there's the Summoner Geeks.
So I guess no one but me thinks of nerds when they think Mountain Dew.
Then, of course, there was the debate about the difference between a nerd and a geek. I know there's a difference, but aren't we splitting hairs here? Just because geeks are cool now, doesn't mean that a geek isn't a type of nerd. I can admit I'm a nerd. John, on the other hand, cannot. Even though CilliC said "Well, I'm a nerd, but John is my King!"
I looked up the words on Dictionary.com and here's what I found:
Geek: A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept
Nerd: A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept
I kid you not - same definition.
On to other things. Busy, Busy, Busy. I have a huge project due this week, that I brought home with me over the weekend. I rarely have to bring work home, but oh well, right? I was working on it when Heathen called me Friday and asked if I wanted to go out with her and CilliC, who happened to be in town... after 10 hours at work, and another 2 staring at Powerpoint at home? Um... YES PLEASE!
Then I cooked some ribs saturday for Sunday's father's day dinner. I finally perfected my dry rub, which is a combination of two Spice House rubs and some brown sugar. Ribs take too long to cook all so I cooked them ahead of time. So Sunday we had Laura's amazing 15 minute ribs!
We cleaned a little, & I did a little more work. Then our friend SecretRudy came around and we went to the little neighborhood Mexican place by us. Yummm. We called him because last week, John borrowed his projector (he was thinking about replacing the TV with an LCD projector - maybe someday, but not right now I said). John goes to the door, Rudy hands him the projector and a bunch of bananas. No explanation. So I made banana bread and wanted to give one of the resulting loaves back to Rudy.
Sunday we watched the weather forecasts very closely. We wanted to take the bike out to Oak Park (about a 10-15 mile drive, give or take). It was supposed to rain intermitently. We chanced it, and with the exception of a few drips here and there, we made it and the weather behaved. I grilled chicken & ribs - though keeping dad away from the grill was probably more work than actually cooking them. See, he won't not do anything. He put himself in charge of drinks because he can't bear to just sit and let someone else do something.
So anyway, it was a nice dinner and then we played "Catch Phrase" which is another good family fun game. You need an even number of people, 4 or more. You pass the device around and it's like timed password. You have to get your team to guess the word or phrase and then pass to the next team. Whichever team is stuck with the device when the timer goes off, loses the round.
Nerd/Geek.
See, John loves it, and so does every other computer geek I know. And then, of course, there's the Summoner Geeks.
So I guess no one but me thinks of nerds when they think Mountain Dew.
Then, of course, there was the debate about the difference between a nerd and a geek. I know there's a difference, but aren't we splitting hairs here? Just because geeks are cool now, doesn't mean that a geek isn't a type of nerd. I can admit I'm a nerd. John, on the other hand, cannot. Even though CilliC said "Well, I'm a nerd, but John is my King!"
I looked up the words on Dictionary.com and here's what I found:
Geek: A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept
Nerd: A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept
I kid you not - same definition.
On to other things. Busy, Busy, Busy. I have a huge project due this week, that I brought home with me over the weekend. I rarely have to bring work home, but oh well, right? I was working on it when Heathen called me Friday and asked if I wanted to go out with her and CilliC, who happened to be in town... after 10 hours at work, and another 2 staring at Powerpoint at home? Um... YES PLEASE!
Then I cooked some ribs saturday for Sunday's father's day dinner. I finally perfected my dry rub, which is a combination of two Spice House rubs and some brown sugar. Ribs take too long to cook all so I cooked them ahead of time. So Sunday we had Laura's amazing 15 minute ribs!
We cleaned a little, & I did a little more work. Then our friend SecretRudy came around and we went to the little neighborhood Mexican place by us. Yummm. We called him because last week, John borrowed his projector (he was thinking about replacing the TV with an LCD projector - maybe someday, but not right now I said). John goes to the door, Rudy hands him the projector and a bunch of bananas. No explanation. So I made banana bread and wanted to give one of the resulting loaves back to Rudy.
Sunday we watched the weather forecasts very closely. We wanted to take the bike out to Oak Park (about a 10-15 mile drive, give or take). It was supposed to rain intermitently. We chanced it, and with the exception of a few drips here and there, we made it and the weather behaved. I grilled chicken & ribs - though keeping dad away from the grill was probably more work than actually cooking them. See, he won't not do anything. He put himself in charge of drinks because he can't bear to just sit and let someone else do something.
So anyway, it was a nice dinner and then we played "Catch Phrase" which is another good family fun game. You need an even number of people, 4 or more. You pass the device around and it's like timed password. You have to get your team to guess the word or phrase and then pass to the next team. Whichever team is stuck with the device when the timer goes off, loses the round.
16 June 2006
Survey Says...
OK, help me settle a bet:
List three adjectives that describe the type of person you most often picture drinking Mountain Dew.
List three adjectives that describe the type of person you most often picture drinking Mountain Dew.
15 June 2006
Fighting for Human Rights
I rarely post anything specific about school or work, just out of privacy really. Not that I'm afraid that someone would object to my having a blog - since I'm not stupid enough to air my dirty laundry on the internet.
Anyway, this is an exception. There's a great article about two professors (the two who were doing the summer course "Cities at War" in London that got nixed) and their work on human rights. They're going to try the course again next Summer - keep your fingers crossed.
This work exemplifies the spirit of the institution I work (and study) at, and makes me proud to call it home.
(By the way, the author is not me. There's an awful lot of Laura's in this place).
Anyway, this is an exception. There's a great article about two professors (the two who were doing the summer course "Cities at War" in London that got nixed) and their work on human rights. They're going to try the course again next Summer - keep your fingers crossed.
This work exemplifies the spirit of the institution I work (and study) at, and makes me proud to call it home.
(By the way, the author is not me. There's an awful lot of Laura's in this place).
14 June 2006
A different kind of tax fraud?
I saw this article on CNN.com:
"FEMA cards bought diamonds, erotica: GAO finds $1 billion in potentially fraudulent disaster relief".
I can just hear Rush Limbaugh now saying that "those people," should pay all that back. (With what? I have to ask, since they started out with nothing to begin with).
Not that I'd disagree that misspent tax money should be paid back into the budget. I also wouldn't disagree that the method of dispensing funds to the needy needs some revision. Maybe a debit card system like the Link card, that can only be used for certain goods? i.e. not Girls Gone Wild videos?
But let's get real people. This $1 billion is the tip of the iceberg if we're discussing tax fraud. Tax fraud? You ask? Yes. That FEMA money came from the federal budget, and is paid for by our tax dollars.
How about the bloated, no-bid contract payments going to Bush's friends to rebuild New Orleans? Or the similar contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I saw a television commercial last night about how the IRS is cracking down on owed back taxes and if you owe more than $10,000, "we can help". I immediately thought of all those corporations with convenient PO Boxes in the Carribbean.
How about getting some of them to pay back taxes? Or pay taxes at all? We'd get a lot more than a billion dollars out of them.
Then there's all the rich, white-collar types who make questionable deductions or purchase personal items from their company funds so they can claim it as a "business expense". Yeah... sorry. A Cadillac is not a business expense. That should be paid back too.
With interest.
"FEMA cards bought diamonds, erotica: GAO finds $1 billion in potentially fraudulent disaster relief".
I can just hear Rush Limbaugh now saying that "those people," should pay all that back. (With what? I have to ask, since they started out with nothing to begin with).
Not that I'd disagree that misspent tax money should be paid back into the budget. I also wouldn't disagree that the method of dispensing funds to the needy needs some revision. Maybe a debit card system like the Link card, that can only be used for certain goods? i.e. not Girls Gone Wild videos?
But let's get real people. This $1 billion is the tip of the iceberg if we're discussing tax fraud. Tax fraud? You ask? Yes. That FEMA money came from the federal budget, and is paid for by our tax dollars.
How about the bloated, no-bid contract payments going to Bush's friends to rebuild New Orleans? Or the similar contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I saw a television commercial last night about how the IRS is cracking down on owed back taxes and if you owe more than $10,000, "we can help". I immediately thought of all those corporations with convenient PO Boxes in the Carribbean.
How about getting some of them to pay back taxes? Or pay taxes at all? We'd get a lot more than a billion dollars out of them.
Then there's all the rich, white-collar types who make questionable deductions or purchase personal items from their company funds so they can claim it as a "business expense". Yeah... sorry. A Cadillac is not a business expense. That should be paid back too.
With interest.
13 June 2006
Doggie crap...
So a couple months ago we took Annie for her yearly check-up and shots and stuff, and as usual, the vet told us she was a little on the chunky side. Not obese, but she could stand to lose a few. (So could everyone in our house). She's been that way a few years, but now it's even more important because her rear legs will depend on her being a good weight. Her weight is most likely what exacerbated her knee problem to begin with.
John is a sucker for a cute little begging face and gives her too many cookies and other such junk food. Here's some ideas for you pet owners who are looking for some healthier options for treats for your pooch:
Frozen vegetables. Most dogs like carrots because they're sweet, and they like cold things like ice cubes. So try a small piece of frozen veggie.
Three Dog Bakery Jump & Sit Bits: Not sure if these are available everywhere. They closed the little shop in Chicago, but they're still available online and they had them at Target last time we were there. Annie loves these things, and they're about the size of a nickel, so they won't fill her up.
Freeze dried beef liver: It sounds gross, I know. Annie goes nuts for these, and there's no carbs in it - just pure protein. They're in convenient little cubes, but sometimes I cut them smaller anyway.
Ice Cubes: Some dogs will eat them straight. Annie is more particular. What we did is we got a small ice tray with small cubes and crushed up some freeze dried beef liver and mixed it with water in the ice tray. Now she has doggie popsicles. It's only a fraction of the liver she'd get from a normal treat, the rest is just water. Few calories, and she loves them. John wanted to try them with chicken broth, but I don't know how well that would freeze.
Now we just have to get John to stop giving her all of the other crap. ;)
John is a sucker for a cute little begging face and gives her too many cookies and other such junk food. Here's some ideas for you pet owners who are looking for some healthier options for treats for your pooch:
Frozen vegetables. Most dogs like carrots because they're sweet, and they like cold things like ice cubes. So try a small piece of frozen veggie.
Three Dog Bakery Jump & Sit Bits: Not sure if these are available everywhere. They closed the little shop in Chicago, but they're still available online and they had them at Target last time we were there. Annie loves these things, and they're about the size of a nickel, so they won't fill her up.
Freeze dried beef liver: It sounds gross, I know. Annie goes nuts for these, and there's no carbs in it - just pure protein. They're in convenient little cubes, but sometimes I cut them smaller anyway.
Ice Cubes: Some dogs will eat them straight. Annie is more particular. What we did is we got a small ice tray with small cubes and crushed up some freeze dried beef liver and mixed it with water in the ice tray. Now she has doggie popsicles. It's only a fraction of the liver she'd get from a normal treat, the rest is just water. Few calories, and she loves them. John wanted to try them with chicken broth, but I don't know how well that would freeze.
Now we just have to get John to stop giving her all of the other crap. ;)
11 June 2006
Some stuff
We went to go see Cars last night. I always love Pixar movies, except a Bug's Life - that one was pretty lame. Toy Story 2 was not that great either. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't Pixar caliber.
Anyway, Cars, like many other Pixar movies, is fantastic. It's fun and witty, and the animation is like nothing else.
The story is that of a race car, Lightning McQueen, who dreams about winning the Piston Cup and becoming the new face of Dinoco. Right now, his sponsor is RustEeze, a rust treatment, and he loathes his appearances and having to deal with those rusty cars.
Anyway, he gets lost on his way to the big race and winds up in a podunk town in Colorado on Route 66 that is dying because the interstate built 40 years ago bypasses the town. He winds up stuck in this town having to repair damage he did to the road. He resists the charm of the town and people at first, but soon he comes around and makes new friends. It's really quite cute. I also love the fact that the bugs (like flies and other insects) are tiny, little VW bugs with wings. The old ones, not the new bugs. George Carlin makes an appearance as the VW bus stuck in the 60's who sells alternative fuels to fight the oil companies conspiracy.
Update: Nella found her owner. A guy was walking around our block calling and she started barking. Her owner (the guy's brother) moved in down the block a few days ago and didn't have new tags for her yet. So I chastised him, telling him to get tags as soon as possible. Then I gave her her rawhide chew and they were on their way.
In other news, we found a stray dog this morning. Well, I did. I went on my morning walk with Annie, and there's this dog just coming down the sidewalk. Annie is aggressive by nature and started a little tiff. I too her back home (this was about 3 doors down from our house) and went back to check on the stray. No tags. I hate people. I really do. Sure, dogs get loose - but get fucking tags. I bring her back to our place and give her some food. We decided that calling Animal Control is the best option since we can't take her in. First, Annie and the cats would have a shit fit. Second, we don't know if she's got anything catchy.
She appears to be in good condition. She's fairly docile and pretty well trained - she's definitely someone's pet. So I'm going to post signs saying to call Animal Control. She's very sweet. She's in our backyard right now (with me) laying down and chewing a rawhide.
I wish we could keep her, but I don't think we can realistically deal with two dogs, and I don't think Annie would want to share her house.
I hope she finds her owner - or a better owner that she's got now, actually.
All our pets are microchipped. It's low cost, and if they'r ever lost, they will be immediately identifed - with or without tags.
08 June 2006
Movie Review: War of the Worlds
(Note, I don't want to take attention away from the last post since I'd like to see what y'all have to say, but I had to post this and get it out of my queue)
Ok, so I finally caved and watched this on cable. At least it was sort of free.
This movie taught me several things:
Overall, the movie was fraught with plot holes. Tim Robbins character was interesing. The sappy 'everyone lives happily ever after' ending made me want to vomit. The only thing more sappy that could have happened was for the mother to leave her new husband and suddenly realize that Tom Cruise's character wasn't a complete dick. The special effects were very cool - but that's hardly a selling point for a movie anymore when it's more difficult to produce a movie with bad effects than with good these days.
It wasn't as laughable as Independence Day, but it was close. This movie tries to be too serious, and forgets that it's just a polished up B-Movie. Polish a turd and all you have is a nice, shiny turd.
If you want to see what a real modern-day take on an alien invasion B-movie looks like, don't bother with this and rent Mars Attacks!
Ok, so I finally caved and watched this on cable. At least it was sort of free.
This movie taught me several things:
- If you want to survive, stand next to the best looking man on the screen. Everyone around him will be vaporized, but his handsomness creates a protective sheild around him and anyone hanging onto him.
- Apparently a massive Electromagnetic Pulse that wipes out Tommy's cell phone, watch, and everyone's cars just happened to miss one guy's camcorder. During the first attack when the "tripods" are decimating Tommy's home town, one guy is filming the attack on his camcorder. Lucky bastard.
- Tom Cruise's ex-wife's parents just happen to live in one of three houses in Boston that not only survive the massive attacks, but seem practically untouched. That's a lot like the amazingly resilient palm trees in Independence Day.
- Dakota Fanning can scream real loud, repeatedly.
Overall, the movie was fraught with plot holes. Tim Robbins character was interesing. The sappy 'everyone lives happily ever after' ending made me want to vomit. The only thing more sappy that could have happened was for the mother to leave her new husband and suddenly realize that Tom Cruise's character wasn't a complete dick. The special effects were very cool - but that's hardly a selling point for a movie anymore when it's more difficult to produce a movie with bad effects than with good these days.
It wasn't as laughable as Independence Day, but it was close. This movie tries to be too serious, and forgets that it's just a polished up B-Movie. Polish a turd and all you have is a nice, shiny turd.
If you want to see what a real modern-day take on an alien invasion B-movie looks like, don't bother with this and rent Mars Attacks!
07 June 2006
the new breed
I found this article that I really liked in the latest issues of Bitch magazine. It's kind of long, but it's well worth a read. This is something I feel very strongly about - being someone who has chosen to be childfree. (A lot of childless people prefer the term childfree because the former implies a sense of loss or unfulfilled desire while the latter implies a conscious choice.)
the new breed
Defending the choice to be childfree
By Jennifer Liss
Bitch Magazine Summer 2006 (#32)
Jennifer Shawne balanced a baby on one knee and a small dog on the other as she read from the “Dog vs. Baby” section of Baby Not on Board, her humorous book about choosing not to have children. Neither the baby nor the canine are toilet trained, she pointed out, but only one can be left alone for up to eight hours. The cost of a baby, according to Shawne, is $1 million and your sanity. A dog? $10,000 over the pup’s lifetime. [I beg to differ on this point, given that Annie’s surgery was almost half that amount and she’s only four – but yes, les expensive than a child]. The baby gurgled. The dog yawned. And the crowd laughed nervously. Shawne and her childfree ways were tepidly received, even in an audience of mostly kidless, anything-goes San Franciscans. In fact, after the event, a friend said to me, “What is wrong with that woman?”
She meant: What is wrong with people who don’t want kids?
Why do we care if people don’t want children? Why do we feel offended if they love their beagles more than their video-gaming nephews? We all know there’s no shortage of bad parents, so you’d think we’d be handing out medals to folks as self-aware as Shawne instead of vilifying them.
Despite this kind of social judgment, more women are making the childfree choice. And in doing so, they are delivering another blow to the already wobbly notion of what makes a proper American family – simply by not procreating. Who are these rabble-rousers, the childfree?
The live in cities and the country; they’re coupled and single. Some have known their entire lives that parenting wasn’t in their cards. Others make the choice in the interests of independence and financial freedom. Some are politically motivated and proud to play their part in curbing population growth and environmental impact; some just aren’t sure they’re cut out to be parents. Some understand that, despite the emphasis on children and families in our culture, the corporate world has an antifamily infrastructure that makes balancing work and childrearing nearly impossible – particularly for women. And although there’s a vocal faction of the childfree who are actively antiprocreation and ridicule parenthood, calling children “fuck trophies,” there are many others who volunteer at after-school programs and have gaggles of nieces, nephews, and godchildren on which to dote. Some bemoan tax breaks for parents. Most avoid the family matinee. Many mind their own business.
Whoever they are, their numbers are growing: According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, 6.2 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age were voluntarily childless in 2002, up from 4.9 percent in 1982. (Stats on men are harder to find, perhaps due to the built-in societal bias dictating that because only women can bear children, only women can likewise by defined as “childfree.”) The childfree movement gained footing during the 1970s, when new birth-control technology (most notably the Pill) allowed childbearing to truly become a choice. But it was the last decade that saw a surge of childfree literature, with publication of books like Families of Two, No Kidding, and The Childless Revolution. The internet, of course, is rife with websites where the childfree can seek out advice on sterilization, meet sexy childfree singles, find childfree events, or peruse lists of the famous childfree – Dolly Parton, Julia Child, Maurice Sendak, and Ralph Nader, among others. Even family man Dr. Phil has weighed in on the discussion. On his website, he advises women: “Don’t feel guilty if the desire to have a baby isn’t there. A lot of women think there’s something wrong with them if they don’t want to have a family. There isn’t.”
These might seem like positive signs of a growing social acceptance of the childfree, but in truth, deep tensions remain between those with children and those without – especially when it comes to public policy and public places. Take one recent flare-up that made national news: When a Chicago-area coffee-shop owner posted a sign reading “Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices” in his establishment, he set off a hail of controversy, including a boycott of the café by neighborhood mothers. At issue was the perceived takedown of patrons’ parenting skills by café owner Dan McCauley, who has no kids himself. Many parents quoted in the flurry of news stories after the incident felt that the sign was an indictment of their ability to control their children.
Though childfree folks hailed McCauley’s brave move, and even some parents applauded his efforts at upholding manners and common courtesy, others lashed out at what they saw as antibreeder antipathy. Chicago Tribune columnist Dennis Byrne took a hard jab at the childfree. “Maybe they don’t intend to mean this, but the adults of the childless nation sound like having kids is just another lifestyle choice,” he wrote. “They seem bothered by the human and innate urge to have children, an urge installed in all of us by the process of natural selection. Maybe what they’re really fighting here is their own insticts.”
The criticism that people without children are actively repressing a natural urge is a common one, and it’s no surprise that it’s frequently directed at women, given our cultural perception of motherhood as the most sacred experience a woman can have. (As for fatherhood, it’s still portrayed as something men have to be cajoled or tricked into – but that’s a whole ‘nother article.) And there’s very little to counter this conventional wisdom, as Shawne found when she was wrestling with the decision to procreate or not. In the end, she chose the childfree life because she sees parenthood as severely compromising what matters most to her: preserving the sanctity of her daily routine and the ability to travel and write freely. But all the existing literature on choosing to be childfree, she recalls, was just too serious. “I’m not angry that society caters to children,” she said. “Children are the future. I don’t feel stressed or defensive about my decision. [Being childfree] is not the sum total of my identity, just a part of it. So I wrote a lifestyle book.”
Baby Not on Board, released in 2005, is an illustrated guide to the joys and freedoms of childfree living that, not coincidentally, makes parenthood look like life’s greatest drag. Would you rather have leaky, sagging breasts or wear tight-fitting cashmere sweaters? Juice box or chardonnay? Corn dog or Kobe beef? Shawne’s oversimplifications may seem crude, but her aim is to use humor to offer a sense of camaraderie to the childfree.
Other people, however, are taking it plenty seriously. During and interview on a morning radio show, one caller asked Shawne if she was a lesbian. Another caller told her she deserved to die alone. “I wasn’t prepared for that,” she says. “This is a personal choice that doesn’t affect anyone but me and my husband.” But though the choice may be a personal one, the public expression of it – especially a book that lampoons parenthood – is still fraught with tensions. By contrast, cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley was sure she was going to be attacked when she created her film The Stork. In the animated short, blessed-out storks drop baby bombs into a forest. In a apocalyptic fervor, deer run for their lives as the forest goes the way of suburban wasteland, dense pine trees replaced with mountains of diapers. Despite Paley’s concerns, The Stork was widely praised, even winning first prize at 2003’s EarthVision Environmental Film Festival.
And then there’s Adrienne Frost’s book, I Hate Other People’s Kids. Many people who describe themselves as childfree are quick to profess that they love children and are devoted aunts, godparents, babysitters or teachers. Frost is not one of them. From the very first sentence of her book (“I hate them with a vengeance… and I hereby give you license to hate them too”), Frost is unequivocal in her contempt not just for children but for a culture that increasingly resembles a vast Toys “R’ Us. And like café owner Dan McCauley, she speaks not only for the childfree movement but also for anyone who cares about manners and discipline. (And that goes not only for children: Frost aims much of her vitrol at parents themselves, as in the chapter “Have you Met My Vagina?” in which she berates new parents who force others into watching the “D-grade porn” of their birthing videos.)
Shawn, Paley and Frost represent a new guard of the childfree movement – snarky, outspoken, and motivated to share the sociopolitical underpinnings of their choices. But many other members of the growing group don’t necessarily want to take their lifestyles public – they just want to be understood. Patricial Robak, a 53-year-old eBay merchant from North Andover, Massachusetts, remembers having a recurring nightmare in her late teens: She was in a church, approaching an altar, moments away from being married because she was pregnant. This was the stuff of cold sweats for Robak. So she tied her tubes at 33 and never regretted her decision, and now has a family that includes her first husband, her current partner, a few close female friends, her nephews, and a dog and cat.
Thirty-one-year-old Monica Lightner knew at a young age that she didn’t want to repeat her family’s pattern of a “neverending stream of babies” and was relieved to marry a man who shared her feelings. Her decision was well thought out, but she encountered serious social stigma when it came to taking steps to ensure that motherhood wouldn’t be her destiny. At 24, Lightner began what she calls “Monie’s Tubal Saga.” For six months, she was passed from doctor to doctor: Some simply refused to perform tubal ligation; others first wanted her to see a psychiatrist; and still others were biased because she was young and Hispanic. Finally, by writing a lengthy personal letter, she convinced a doctor to perform the procedure. “Indeed, the thought of being pregnant equates me to the end of my life and my future,” she wrote. “I do not want to have to make the decision whether to keep a child and permanently alter the course of my entire life or to abort the child and live with the knowledge [that] I destroyed a potential life. Sterility would enable me to put this fear of pregnancy and abortion to rest.”
Lightner is far from alone in fighting for her right to sterilization. While some women find understanding and trustworthy doctors, others butt heads with those who hesitate or refuse to perform the procedure because they fear women will regret their decision, or in Lightner’s case, that they are too young to make the decision. One woman posted her story on Lightner’s website: “I actually thought getting a tubal would be a piece of cake, and free! Boy was I wrong. The doctors patently refused to do it until, get this “You have had at least one or two children.”
Women like Lightner may be the vanguards of a new movement toward increasingly intentional childbearing, where children are brought into the world because they are wanted, and where childfree families are valued equally as those with tots. It takes an unacknowledged bravery to fight against family assumptions, religious expectations, and societal scripts. The childfree face a long battle against labels like “selfish,” child-hater,” and “judgmental,” to say nothing of the insidious corporate policies that pit working parents against the childfree, resulting in an antagonism that obscures the bigger issues of workplace rights and benefits.
Even as the ranks of the childfree grow, the choice to parent continues to be idealized while the choice to be childfree is too often belittled and mocked. It is clear that this cultural rift is deeper than squabbling over coffee-shop etiquette and that it gets at a fundamental human right: Parenthood should be a choice.
the new breed
Defending the choice to be childfree
By Jennifer Liss
Bitch Magazine Summer 2006 (#32)
Jennifer Shawne balanced a baby on one knee and a small dog on the other as she read from the “Dog vs. Baby” section of Baby Not on Board, her humorous book about choosing not to have children. Neither the baby nor the canine are toilet trained, she pointed out, but only one can be left alone for up to eight hours. The cost of a baby, according to Shawne, is $1 million and your sanity. A dog? $10,000 over the pup’s lifetime. [I beg to differ on this point, given that Annie’s surgery was almost half that amount and she’s only four – but yes, les expensive than a child]. The baby gurgled. The dog yawned. And the crowd laughed nervously. Shawne and her childfree ways were tepidly received, even in an audience of mostly kidless, anything-goes San Franciscans. In fact, after the event, a friend said to me, “What is wrong with that woman?”
She meant: What is wrong with people who don’t want kids?
Why do we care if people don’t want children? Why do we feel offended if they love their beagles more than their video-gaming nephews? We all know there’s no shortage of bad parents, so you’d think we’d be handing out medals to folks as self-aware as Shawne instead of vilifying them.
Despite this kind of social judgment, more women are making the childfree choice. And in doing so, they are delivering another blow to the already wobbly notion of what makes a proper American family – simply by not procreating. Who are these rabble-rousers, the childfree?
The live in cities and the country; they’re coupled and single. Some have known their entire lives that parenting wasn’t in their cards. Others make the choice in the interests of independence and financial freedom. Some are politically motivated and proud to play their part in curbing population growth and environmental impact; some just aren’t sure they’re cut out to be parents. Some understand that, despite the emphasis on children and families in our culture, the corporate world has an antifamily infrastructure that makes balancing work and childrearing nearly impossible – particularly for women. And although there’s a vocal faction of the childfree who are actively antiprocreation and ridicule parenthood, calling children “fuck trophies,” there are many others who volunteer at after-school programs and have gaggles of nieces, nephews, and godchildren on which to dote. Some bemoan tax breaks for parents. Most avoid the family matinee. Many mind their own business.
Whoever they are, their numbers are growing: According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, 6.2 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age were voluntarily childless in 2002, up from 4.9 percent in 1982. (Stats on men are harder to find, perhaps due to the built-in societal bias dictating that because only women can bear children, only women can likewise by defined as “childfree.”) The childfree movement gained footing during the 1970s, when new birth-control technology (most notably the Pill) allowed childbearing to truly become a choice. But it was the last decade that saw a surge of childfree literature, with publication of books like Families of Two, No Kidding, and The Childless Revolution. The internet, of course, is rife with websites where the childfree can seek out advice on sterilization, meet sexy childfree singles, find childfree events, or peruse lists of the famous childfree – Dolly Parton, Julia Child, Maurice Sendak, and Ralph Nader, among others. Even family man Dr. Phil has weighed in on the discussion. On his website, he advises women: “Don’t feel guilty if the desire to have a baby isn’t there. A lot of women think there’s something wrong with them if they don’t want to have a family. There isn’t.”
These might seem like positive signs of a growing social acceptance of the childfree, but in truth, deep tensions remain between those with children and those without – especially when it comes to public policy and public places. Take one recent flare-up that made national news: When a Chicago-area coffee-shop owner posted a sign reading “Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices” in his establishment, he set off a hail of controversy, including a boycott of the café by neighborhood mothers. At issue was the perceived takedown of patrons’ parenting skills by café owner Dan McCauley, who has no kids himself. Many parents quoted in the flurry of news stories after the incident felt that the sign was an indictment of their ability to control their children.
“Maybe they don’t intend to mean this, but the adults of the childless nation sound like having kids is just another lifestyle choice,” [Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune columnist] wrote. “They seem bothered by the human and innate urge to have children, an urge installed in all of us by the process of natural selection. Maybe what they’re really fighting here is their own insticts.” The criticism that people without children are actively repressing a natural urge is a common one, and it’s no surprise that it’s frequently directed at women, given our cultural perception of motherhood as the most sacred experience a woman can have. (As for fatherhood, it’s still portrayed as something men have to be cajoled or tricked into – but that’s a whole ‘nother article.) |
|---|
Though childfree folks hailed McCauley’s brave move, and even some parents applauded his efforts at upholding manners and common courtesy, others lashed out at what they saw as antibreeder antipathy. Chicago Tribune columnist Dennis Byrne took a hard jab at the childfree. “Maybe they don’t intend to mean this, but the adults of the childless nation sound like having kids is just another lifestyle choice,” he wrote. “They seem bothered by the human and innate urge to have children, an urge installed in all of us by the process of natural selection. Maybe what they’re really fighting here is their own insticts.”
The criticism that people without children are actively repressing a natural urge is a common one, and it’s no surprise that it’s frequently directed at women, given our cultural perception of motherhood as the most sacred experience a woman can have. (As for fatherhood, it’s still portrayed as something men have to be cajoled or tricked into – but that’s a whole ‘nother article.) And there’s very little to counter this conventional wisdom, as Shawne found when she was wrestling with the decision to procreate or not. In the end, she chose the childfree life because she sees parenthood as severely compromising what matters most to her: preserving the sanctity of her daily routine and the ability to travel and write freely. But all the existing literature on choosing to be childfree, she recalls, was just too serious. “I’m not angry that society caters to children,” she said. “Children are the future. I don’t feel stressed or defensive about my decision. [Being childfree] is not the sum total of my identity, just a part of it. So I wrote a lifestyle book.”
Baby Not on Board, released in 2005, is an illustrated guide to the joys and freedoms of childfree living that, not coincidentally, makes parenthood look like life’s greatest drag. Would you rather have leaky, sagging breasts or wear tight-fitting cashmere sweaters? Juice box or chardonnay? Corn dog or Kobe beef? Shawne’s oversimplifications may seem crude, but her aim is to use humor to offer a sense of camaraderie to the childfree.
During and interview on a morning radio show, one caller asked Shawne [the author of Baby Not on Board] if she was a lesbian. Another caller told her she deserved to die alone. |
|---|
Other people, however, are taking it plenty seriously. During and interview on a morning radio show, one caller asked Shawne if she was a lesbian. Another caller told her she deserved to die alone. “I wasn’t prepared for that,” she says. “This is a personal choice that doesn’t affect anyone but me and my husband.” But though the choice may be a personal one, the public expression of it – especially a book that lampoons parenthood – is still fraught with tensions. By contrast, cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley was sure she was going to be attacked when she created her film The Stork. In the animated short, blessed-out storks drop baby bombs into a forest. In a apocalyptic fervor, deer run for their lives as the forest goes the way of suburban wasteland, dense pine trees replaced with mountains of diapers. Despite Paley’s concerns, The Stork was widely praised, even winning first prize at 2003’s EarthVision Environmental Film Festival.
And then there’s Adrienne Frost’s book, I Hate Other People’s Kids. Many people who describe themselves as childfree are quick to profess that they love children and are devoted aunts, godparents, babysitters or teachers. Frost is not one of them. From the very first sentence of her book (“I hate them with a vengeance… and I hereby give you license to hate them too”), Frost is unequivocal in her contempt not just for children but for a culture that increasingly resembles a vast Toys “R’ Us. And like café owner Dan McCauley, she speaks not only for the childfree movement but also for anyone who cares about manners and discipline. (And that goes not only for children: Frost aims much of her vitrol at parents themselves, as in the chapter “Have you Met My Vagina?” in which she berates new parents who force others into watching the “D-grade porn” of their birthing videos.)
Shawn, Paley and Frost represent a new guard of the childfree movement – snarky, outspoken, and motivated to share the sociopolitical underpinnings of their choices. But many other members of the growing group don’t necessarily want to take their lifestyles public – they just want to be understood. Patricial Robak, a 53-year-old eBay merchant from North Andover, Massachusetts, remembers having a recurring nightmare in her late teens: She was in a church, approaching an altar, moments away from being married because she was pregnant. This was the stuff of cold sweats for Robak. So she tied her tubes at 33 and never regretted her decision, and now has a family that includes her first husband, her current partner, a few close female friends, her nephews, and a dog and cat.
Thirty-one-year-old Monica Lightner knew at a young age that she didn’t want to repeat her family’s pattern of a “neverending stream of babies” and was relieved to marry a man who shared her feelings. Her decision was well thought out, but she encountered serious social stigma when it came to taking steps to ensure that motherhood wouldn’t be her destiny. At 24, Lightner began what she calls “Monie’s Tubal Saga.” For six months, she was passed from doctor to doctor: Some simply refused to perform tubal ligation; others first wanted her to see a psychiatrist; and still others were biased because she was young and Hispanic. Finally, by writing a lengthy personal letter, she convinced a doctor to perform the procedure. “Indeed, the thought of being pregnant equates me to the end of my life and my future,” she wrote. “I do not want to have to make the decision whether to keep a child and permanently alter the course of my entire life or to abort the child and live with the knowledge [that] I destroyed a potential life. Sterility would enable me to put this fear of pregnancy and abortion to rest.”
Lightner is far from alone in fighting for her right to sterilization. While some women find understanding and trustworthy doctors, others butt heads with those who hesitate or refuse to perform the procedure because they fear women will regret their decision, or in Lightner’s case, that they are too young to make the decision. One woman posted her story on Lightner’s website: “I actually thought getting a tubal would be a piece of cake, and free! Boy was I wrong. The doctors patently refused to do it until, get this “You have had at least one or two children.”
Women like Lightner may be the vanguards of a new movement toward increasingly intentional childbearing, where children are brought into the world because they are wanted, and where childfree families are valued equally as those with tots. It takes an unacknowledged bravery to fight against family assumptions, religious expectations, and societal scripts. The childfree face a long battle against labels like “selfish,” child-hater,” and “judgmental,” to say nothing of the insidious corporate policies that pit working parents against the childfree, resulting in an antagonism that obscures the bigger issues of workplace rights and benefits.
Even as the ranks of the childfree grow, the choice to parent continues to be idealized while the choice to be childfree is too often belittled and mocked. It is clear that this cultural rift is deeper than squabbling over coffee-shop etiquette and that it gets at a fundamental human right: Parenthood should be a choice.
06 June 2006
You sure you want to eat that?
I have to plug this for two reasons:
One, a friend of mine is a graduate student in Environmental Science who has been helping with this type of research.
Two, it never ceases to amaze me what the federal government and corporations get away with.
The gist of the story: There are higher levels of mercury and other pollutants in fish than the federal government has told us in the last 30 years. Commercial fisheries have been less than honest in reporting mercury levels and have been packaging types of tuna that are high in mercury as "light tuna" - which the feds have said is a low-mercury option.
This study found that even canned tuna - which the federal government said is OK for pregnant women to eat - contains mercury levels much higher than the feds disclosed and that pregnant women should probably NEVER eat it.
So much for the FDA/USDA huh?
One, a friend of mine is a graduate student in Environmental Science who has been helping with this type of research.
Two, it never ceases to amaze me what the federal government and corporations get away with.
The gist of the story: There are higher levels of mercury and other pollutants in fish than the federal government has told us in the last 30 years. Commercial fisheries have been less than honest in reporting mercury levels and have been packaging types of tuna that are high in mercury as "light tuna" - which the feds have said is a low-mercury option.
This study found that even canned tuna - which the federal government said is OK for pregnant women to eat - contains mercury levels much higher than the feds disclosed and that pregnant women should probably NEVER eat it.
The Tribune's investigation reveals a decades-long pattern of the U.S. government knowingly allowing millions of Americans to eat seafood with unsafe levels of mercury.
Regulators have repeatedly downplayed the hazards, failed to take basic steps to protect public health and misled consumers about the true dangers, documents and interviews show.
The government does not seize high-mercury fish that violate U.S. limits. Regulators do not even inspect seafood for mercury--not in ports, processing plants or supermarkets.
In fact, federal officials have tested so few fish that they have only a limited idea of how much mercury many species contain, government data show. For example, the government has tested just four walleye and 24 shrimp samples since 1978. The newspaper tested more samples of commercial walleye than the government has in the last quarter-century.
So much for the FDA/USDA huh?
02 June 2006
Book Review: The Trouble with Islam Today
I recently finished an excellent book that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in exploring current events, specifically involving the Muslim world.
The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith by Irshad Manji is written in a relatively simplistic, jargon-free, journalistic and conversational style. It is meant to be an open letter to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This is a drastic departure from many books on this and similar subjects that are written for a mainly academic audience. This book is accessible to anyone with an advanced high-school/basic college level reading ability. I think that is important since this is a subject that many people find interesting or have questions about, but cannot find enough reading material that is geared toward a public audience.
Manji was born in Uganda, the daughter of Southeast Asian Muslims who migrated to Africa. Her family later moved to Canada. There, in a free Western country, Manji slowly realized the juxtoposition of her conservative madressa (religious school) and the democratic freedoms of Canada. She began to ask questions like:
If the majority of Muslims in the world are not of Arab descent and do not speak or read Arabic, why can't the Koran be translated?
Where does the seemingly constant feeling of anti-semitism among even moderate Muslims really come from?
What responsibility do Muslims bear for their own current conditions and oppressions? Hasn't oppression come from within as well as from the West and colonial powers?
Why do Muslims protest laws in France barring women from wearing the hijab (veil) in France as undemocratic, but not the forceful imposition of hijab on women in other places? Is there really a difference between a secular government banning women from wearing hijab in public and a religious government imposing a law requiring it?
Is there a reason why more and more Muslims worldwide seem to be following a bedouin-style, tribal mentality?
In the concluding chapters of the book, she offers creative solutions that Muslims and non-Muslims alike can participate in reformation. First and foremost, this involves recovering the lost art of ijtihad, the Islamic tradition of independent reasoning. She argues that too many Muslims buy-in to the concept of the Koran as perfect and not in need of continuous interpretation to adapt to modern circumstances. This is, Manji argues, how Muslims seem to have gotten stuck in the middle ages. If the Koran were perfect, she says, it wouldn't contain so many blatant self contradictions. In order to reinvigorate the Muslim tradition of critical interpretation, we first need education and Korans available in many languages. How are women supposed to enact their newly granted rights, in Afghanistan for example, if many of them are still illiterate and dependent on being told what their rights are?
She draws on her own experience as a woman, a feminist, a lesbian, an Asian, a Westerner, and a "Muslim Refusnik" to ask these and other tough questions regarding why the larger Muslim community doesn't push for more reforms. She proposes her own ideas for reform in Islam using the Koran, Hadiths and other historical texts as examples of how Muslims once, and can again, peacefully exist with modernization. Unlike many other feminists, especially in the West, who throw out religion all together as a source of women's oppression, Manji looks within Islam's sacred texts and history as tools for reform.
Above all, Manji conveys a strong message that everyone should regularly engage in critical self-reflection. No one should ever be forced to stop thinking for themselves, or allow themselves to be convinced that they are not qualified to criticize the world, at the behest of any ideology, religious or not.
The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith by Irshad Manji is written in a relatively simplistic, jargon-free, journalistic and conversational style. It is meant to be an open letter to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This is a drastic departure from many books on this and similar subjects that are written for a mainly academic audience. This book is accessible to anyone with an advanced high-school/basic college level reading ability. I think that is important since this is a subject that many people find interesting or have questions about, but cannot find enough reading material that is geared toward a public audience.
Manji was born in Uganda, the daughter of Southeast Asian Muslims who migrated to Africa. Her family later moved to Canada. There, in a free Western country, Manji slowly realized the juxtoposition of her conservative madressa (religious school) and the democratic freedoms of Canada. She began to ask questions like:
If the majority of Muslims in the world are not of Arab descent and do not speak or read Arabic, why can't the Koran be translated?
When asking her madressa teacher why girls cannot lead prayer, she is told that "Allah says so" and to "Read the Koran".
"I tried, though it felt artificial since I didn't know Arabic... Most Muslims have no clue what we're saying when we're reciting the Koran in Arabic... Over time, this read-the-Koran response generated more questions: Why must we suspect that every English translation of the Koran "corrupts" the original text? I mean, if the Koran is as straightforward as the purists tell us, then aren't it's teachings easily translated into a thousand tonges? Finally, why should stigma stalk those of us who haven't been weaned on Arabic when the fact is that no more than 20 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arabs? Translation: At least 80 percent of us aren't Arabs. "Know your Islam" they say blithely. Whose Islam? Is this a faith or a cult?"
Manji then expresses thanks to the Western freedom to travel to the mall and find an English translation Koran - something her sisters in Islamic countries would not have the freedom to do.
Where does the seemingly constant feeling of anti-semitism among even moderate Muslims really come from?
Manji explores how the Koran simultaneously exhalts respect for fellow "people of the Book" (Jews and Christians) while giving contradictory permission to conquer and enslave 'non-believers'. She also details how her madressa instruction conveniently glossed over the lineage of Muhammed as a descendent of Abraham. Some (not all, but some) instructors in Islamic schools pick and choose which information to share with their students, and many choose to emphasize the tensions between Muslims and non-believers rather than the messages of peace and co-existence. Many students are taught that Islam spawned out of nowhere amidst a world of violence and corruption.
Well, technically, this is true only for the Arab people, whose history was filled with tribal violence before Islam. However, Manji argues in "The Hidden Underbelly of Islam" that for Muslims from other parts of the world have plenty of positive history. Yet, they are taught to discount their history as corrupt... can anyone say Buddhist statues in Afghanistan? This feeds into her later argument that all the worlds Muslims have been 'colonized' by what she calls the "Desert Islam" which is riddled with remnants of patriarchal Arab tribal culture.
What responsibility do Muslims bear for their own current conditions and oppressions? Hasn't oppression come from within as well as from the West and colonial powers?
In the chapter entitled "Who's Betraying Whom?" Manji does an excellent job of showing how Muslims throughout history were victims of their own despots just as often as they were victims of Western imperialism. In particular, she addresses how the political struggle of the Palestinian cause has taken precedence over the concern for the Palestinian people on the part of other Arab governments. Palestinians are used as political capital and barganing chips, all while the every-day people simply want peace. She also debunks myths that Israel is some sort of oppressive monster - noting that Israel has made many concessions in the fight for peace and is not the "Apartheid State" some Muslims accuse it of being:
"In a state practicing Apartheid, would Arab Muslim legislators weild veto power over anything? At only 20 percent of the population, would Arabs even be eligible for election if they squirmed under the thumb of apartheid? Would an apartheid state extend voting rights to women and the poor in local elections, which Israel did for the first time in the history of Palestinian Arabs?"
Manji asks, instead of constantly demonizing Israel, why don't Muslim activists fight for these kinds of rights and reforms for their own people? Why don't we in the West, who supposedly want peace, fight on the side of the people, not their oppressive governments, and fight for freedom of expression and dissent in the Middle East?
She doesn't deny that Arabs face oppression in Israel and she certainly doesn't defend the illegal settlements of Jews in Gaza or the bulldozing of Palestinian homes - but she does make a good case for closer examination of the entire situation from both sides - making neither side completely innocent or guilty.
Why do Muslims protest laws in France barring women from wearing the hijab (veil) in France as undemocratic, but not the forceful imposition of hijab on women in other places? Is there really a difference between a secular government banning women from wearing hijab in public and a religious government imposing a law requiring it?
Is there a reason why more and more Muslims worldwide seem to be following a bedouin-style, tribal mentality?
In the concluding chapters of the book, she offers creative solutions that Muslims and non-Muslims alike can participate in reformation. First and foremost, this involves recovering the lost art of ijtihad, the Islamic tradition of independent reasoning. She argues that too many Muslims buy-in to the concept of the Koran as perfect and not in need of continuous interpretation to adapt to modern circumstances. This is, Manji argues, how Muslims seem to have gotten stuck in the middle ages. If the Koran were perfect, she says, it wouldn't contain so many blatant self contradictions. In order to reinvigorate the Muslim tradition of critical interpretation, we first need education and Korans available in many languages. How are women supposed to enact their newly granted rights, in Afghanistan for example, if many of them are still illiterate and dependent on being told what their rights are?
She draws on her own experience as a woman, a feminist, a lesbian, an Asian, a Westerner, and a "Muslim Refusnik" to ask these and other tough questions regarding why the larger Muslim community doesn't push for more reforms. She proposes her own ideas for reform in Islam using the Koran, Hadiths and other historical texts as examples of how Muslims once, and can again, peacefully exist with modernization. Unlike many other feminists, especially in the West, who throw out religion all together as a source of women's oppression, Manji looks within Islam's sacred texts and history as tools for reform.
Above all, Manji conveys a strong message that everyone should regularly engage in critical self-reflection. No one should ever be forced to stop thinking for themselves, or allow themselves to be convinced that they are not qualified to criticize the world, at the behest of any ideology, religious or not.
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