Electioneering

So today is the Chicago municipal election. I go to my polling place to do my civic duty on the gigantic Fisher Price ballot and as I'm connecting the dots the man challenging our Alderman comes into the place, introduces himself to the election judges, gives them candy and leaves.

Isn't that electioneering?? I mean, I guess he didn't say "hey everyone! Vote for ME!" but come on... I like our Alderman, he throws one hell of a good Oktoberfest every year and seems to keep up with various problems in our area.

Another funny election story that I forgot about until I overhead John relaying it to someone on the phone last night:

So, everyone knows Rahm Emanuel now, right? Because of his efforts to regroup the democratic party, etc. Well, we live in his district and so does my co-worker. You may also know that he countered a GOP attack last summer regarding his position on conservation, by showing the press his transit card. Yes, he does take public transportation. Here's how I know:

A few years ago, my co-worker, we'll call him J, was standing on the "L" (elevated train for all you non-Chicago folks) platform and seems Rahm Emanuel. J walks up to him and says "You know, I'm a big fan of yours" and Emanuel turns to him very intensely, pointing and says extremely enthusiastically: "I'm a big fan of yours!"

I nearly died laughing when I first heard that.

Needless to say, Daley will undoubtedly win an historic 6th term as mayor. You know, because of his successful gentrification development plan...

Inked

For the past couple of years I've been struggling with what to do with the kind of random patchwork of my tattoos.

I just felt that the one on my back was kind of lonely and really looked weird all by itself.


Around Thanksgiving I finally decided what I was going to do and with what artist. I fell in love with plumeria flowers when we were in Hawaii and so I wanted something with plumeria that was fluid enough to fill the gaps. I met with the artist in December for a consult and she drew a custom design for me with different kinds of plumeria flowers and some orchids.

This past Thursday was the first of two appointments, for the outlining. The outline took about 2 hours. To answer the obvious question: No, it didn't hurt at all, it felt like kittens dancing on my back. Obviously in these photos I still have stray ink all over me and my skin is irritated as hell. I'll post some post-healing pics in a couple weeks.





I go back in mid-March for the coloring. It hasn't started itching yet, though I tend to heal very quickly and with very little irritation. The first couple of days felt like I had a bad sunburn, but now it's fine.

Pictures, Pictures.

I am feeling extremely disillusioned with the human race right now, so rather than spend more time lamenting our slow, collective circling of the drain of the cosmos, I'll just post some pictures.

For some reason we thought it would be funny to put John's t-shirt on Annie.


As much as I hate shoveling or trudging through snow, Annie is a pure-bred snowbeast. She was even able to find her ball in the yard under 3 ft of snow.
The snow was so deep last week that we had to dig little canals through the yard for her. Otherwise she had trouble getting around because the snow was up to her shoulders in some places.

Generally, Annie's toys last about an hour or two at most. Here is the demise of Tigger, a toy my sister brought for her back around Christmas. This one lasted about 3 hours before she found the weak spots. What she'll do is find a seam and pick at it until she makes a hole. Then she proceeds to disembowel her "kill."

"What? Me? Spoiled?"

Of Blizzards and Booksignings

As most of you are already aware, I was a co-coordinator for an event that brought Irshad Manji to Chicago to speak on two college campuses. This happened last Tuesday, the 13th. Yes, the day the snow rolled into Chicago - with a vengeance. Irshad called herself a "bad Canadian" because she was just amazed at the amount of snow. It was a very good thing she arrived Monday night, otherwise, she never would have made it.

Traffic was horrible, cars were sliding around despite the fact that the MinuteMen plows and salt trucks were out en masse. It's just our luck that snow has defeated at least one Chicago mayor - so Daley wasn't about to let the snow fall without a fight this close to the city elections.

In the afternoon, Irshad met with students, faculty and staff of both institutions on my campus for a small group meet & greet reception. We had about 30 people RSVP, and were pleasantly surprised that despite the weather, most of them showed up. Our security people were very well prepared, we had a plainclothes officer in the room and a security guard outside the door. Like I said before, we didn't expect any difficulties - especially with the weather - but it's better to be safe than sorry. So all in all, it was a nice time. Everyone got a chance to talk to Irshad about various issues, we had some pastries & coffee and everything pretty much turned out according to plan.

We left there on our way to dinner, in Greektown over by UIC, and man was traffic just obnoxious. We made it in one piece, and went to a very nice Greek-Cypriot restaurant called Venus. I definitely will have to go back there again. I wish I could have tried one of everything on the menu. So we talked at dinner and everyone went around and told their 'how did you meet' stories about themselves and their partners. There were 7 of us at dinner and it was a nice, quiet, relaxing time.

John was unable to make dinner unfortunately. He couldn't leave the house before 4pm because he had a teleconference that afternoon, and he couldn't get a cab at all. All of the cab companies were just not taking calls because of the snow (I guess they figured they'd make their quota just driving around and picking up stranded passengers at Ohare). So he hopped on public transportation and 2 hours later, he made it the 7.5 miles to UIC. Yes folks, 2 hours for less than 10 miles total. Anyway, he made it, which is the important thing.

When we got to the room, we were expecting that maybe 20 people would show up. Irshad was pretty much ready for anything. She said, hey, if there's only a few, we pull the chairs up in a circle and just have a talk. I loved her energy and her outlook. She's probably used to events not turning out exactly as expected and has learned to just make what you can out of it. Something I need to work on...

We look in, and there are at least 50 people there already and more filtering in. Even in the snow, which in some drifts was as much as 3 feet high, people came. We were all delighted. I estimate there were about 100 people, give a take a few because I'm terrible at visual estimates.

Her presentation is about why we cannot be afraid to ask questions - out loud. And for us (Muslim and not) in the West to recognize our privilege of living in a part of the world where we can criticize and question the way things are without fear of reprisal. That privilege, in many ways, obligates us to not stay silent. She is a reform-minded Muslim who believes that the ambiguity of the Qur'an allows for many different interpretations and that Muslims can use this to reform some of the problems that exist in the Muslim world for Human Rights causes. I once heard her say in an interview that Salman Rushdie once told her that books are more important than people. People die, but a thought, once it's spoken or written, can never be unthought. How true that is. Some of her critics claim she's a Zionist spy because she doesn't agree that Israel is an apartheid state (if you want to see her reasoning, get the book). She does not give Israel a free-pass by any stretch, and takes them to task for many things regarding the Israel/Palestine issue. But she also does not place all of the blame on Israel either. She's an amazing speaker with a lot to say.

One thing she talked about at both sessions that I was unaware of was that just over a year ago, in March 2005, the first mixed-gender Friday prayer - (men and women praying side by side, not with men in front and women in back behind a curtain) - and it was led by a woman. Imagine that - in 2005, the first ever Friday prayer led by a woman. Where did it happen? New York. In a Church of all places, because the mosques got threats of violence.

The question and answer session went well, and despite the fact that the bookseller couldn't make it because of the snow, the reception and booksigning portion went off without a hitch. There was one debate that got a little heated, but nothing major. John and I trudged our way back to the el and took it downtown in the hopes that cabs would be around the theatre district. They were. We got home just before midnight.


So here's pictures: I have others, but I don't want to post pictures of people without their consent, so this is what you get on the blog.

The afternoon meet n' greet reception in our very nice lounge room. The building used to be a hotel, and this room was the "Gentlemen's Lounge" where the men would retire to discuss politics over brandy and cigars. You know, stuff the girls wouldn't be interested in...


This is a shot during the presentation in the evening. This shows how full the room was, despite the snow.

Of course, the gratuitous photo op. I still hate pictures of me, but that's OK.

A bunch of hoohah

Seriously folks, can we just sell Florida to Cuba?


This is a picture taken from the marquee of a Florida theatre where they are showing the Vagina Monologues. Now, for those who don't know, the entire purpose of the Vagina Monologues is to help remove the taboos from talking about sexuality in general, and women's sexuality in particular, as well as to draw into the spotlight the abuse and double standards women around the world are forced to endure.

So what's with the picture? Well, some lady was offended when her niece saw the marquee and asked her what a Vagina was. Seriously - just answer the question - in terms a child can understand of course. You can even imerse it in your ideological language about how you should never, ever play with it by yourself (or with others) until you're bounded in holy matrimony. That's your bag. So a whole bunch of people complained that the word Vagina was inappropriate for the marquee - so the theatre changed it to "HooHaa".

Doesn't this just defeat the purpose of the play?? To remove those negative taboos from not only sexuality but from a completely sterile, medical term?? It just goes to show how repressed as a culture we still are. When we're unable to bring ourselves to explain to a child what the medical term for her own body parts are? This still shows that we, as a culture, buy in to this Judeo-Christian notion that somehow everything associated with the body is perverted. This woman needs to be strapped down ala Clockwork Orange and forced to see the play in its entirety. I bet she'd have a coronary over the monologue entitled "Reclaiming Cunt".

New blogger help

OK, since I am sort of an e-tard and also because I'm paranoid that I'll lose all my template customizations, I haven't looked at any of the new fangled templates yet.

I'm wondering, how you all (those who have it) get the little drop-down bullet points for your archive? Is that part of a new template?

I know I could simply save my old code in a text file and then go back and put things back the way they were, but who has time for that??

Just curious, how big a pain was it to switch templates? What other kind of doodads do they give you?

Also, anyone else having issues with email notifications? It seems I get only about 1/3 of the comment notifications that I should - therefore I apologize if you commented on an old post and I don't know about it...

Movin on...

OK, I'm finally going to update to the new version of blogger. I like some of the features I've seen on other sites, and really, they're going to make me do it eventually.

Hopefully it won't blow up in my face...

Some funnies, some not so much

So as many of you know, I'm organizing an event to bring Irshad Manji to our campus to speak. All is going fine on that front - I've stopped having nightmares about things going wrong. Anyway, I'm chugging along at work and I get a phone call out of the blue from the Chicago Police Anti-Terrorism unit wanting to know if we expected any trouble. I was stunned, literally I had no idea what to say. I simply said that the particular event in question is a small group, RSVP only discussion group not open to the general public. I asked "should I be worried" and he said no, generally the first reaction is the correct one and if it's small and non-public, then you're fine. He gave me his number just in case we should need their services - whatever those might be- I started to wonder.

Then I talked to our PR person and she wigged out. Are you sure? Do we need extra security? Should we check IDs when they come in? She got ME in a tizzy and I started to flip out a little. Then, at the opening for the photo gallery (see last post) I bumped into my old Sociology professor and told her about this. She's a natural cynic, always questioning the motivations behind things. Her first reaction was, don't buy into it, they're just legitimizing their own jobs. True to a point - but I do think it's nice of them to offer help - and he did it in a nice way that was not fearmongering (but notice how it sparked fear anyway). She and I started discussing all the ways we could have fun with this. She said "call them back and tell them you need snipers on the roof and a SWAT team on call. You could really toy with them." I said I didn't want to end up at Gitmo. We started joking about maybe we should collect students' passports as they enter and do a DNA and fingerprint check at the door...

Seriously though, it was a little freaky. We will have extra security on hand, since, well, she does draw some crazies, but I don't think we need the bomb squad.


Secondly - this weekend we had to take the puppy to the vet. She has spurts (literally) of, well, of the runs and it usually ends up as a bacterial imbalance. This has been going on for years - every couple months we'll have a spell, sometimes antibiotics are necessary, sometimes just bland diet clears it up. Finally, we're going to get her some blood tests so they can try and rule out some causes. The vet seems to think she could just have chronic colitis or something of that nature - since she's eating normally, not losing weight and not vomiting.


So we borrow my dad's car and take her in Saturday morning, only to discover that the blood test they wanted were fasting tests - so she shouldn't have eaten. Way to let us know!! I was not happy. Given that they're usually very good about things, I'm not about to go find another vet or anything, but still, I was not happy. They decided to do one of the tests - and the tech couldn't find a vein. Poor puppy got stuck like 8 times and they still didn't get blood. So we left, and are going back this coming Saturday - I have already requested that the vet do the blood draw herself. She's so good with Annie. So wish us luck there.

The human faces of war

I went to the opening of an exhibit here on campus in an art gallery housed in one of our buildings. The exhibit was photographs taken by Canadian photojournalist Farah Nosh of Iraqi civilians who have been wounded in the war. Her impetus for this project was seeing photographs of wounded US soldiers coming home and thinking to herself that, while that was awful, why was no one showing the other side? The Iraqi civilians, caught in the crossfire, innocent victims of a war that is being fought on their doorsteps. They have no system, not even our crappy VA system, like our wounded GIs to help care for them. They spend the last of their money and sell the last of their possessions to pay medical bills and maybe get prosthetic limbs. She found, interviewed, and photographed ordinary people while living with her family in Baghdad.

Photo by Farah Nosh/Getty Images

Also present was New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks who was present during the early days of the war in Afghanistan after 9/11. I got to talk to him during the reception about his experience of the the days shown in the photos linked above. He traveled with the Northern Alliance and was there when they found, dragged, beat, and executed a wounded Taliban soldier. He told us about being chased by the Taliban, walking 2 miles in the dark back to his camp through mine infested fields, an Italian photojournalist friend of his who was shot in the back by the Taliban (and had the dent in his flak jacket to prove it). That was a pretty intense discussion.

The exhibit also included photos from a project that provided every-day Iraqi civilians with disposable cameras. Since our news outlets are only showing one side, they asked these Iraqis to take pictures of what they wanted the world to see. There were photos of every-day life, like a photograph of someone's living room that did not look very different from my own. There was a coffee table with a bunch of remote controls, a newspaper, and a laptop cluttering it. There was a picture someone took of the TV their family bought. They had no other conveniences, but felt they needed a TV to "know what is happening to our country." There were photos of gravediggers and funeral processions for civilian victims of both US military and insurgent violence. There was also a man standing in front of a banner that read (in Arabic) "Yes to Peace, Yes to Democracy. NO to Terrorism, NO to the occupation."

Farah Nosh is a Canadian of Iraqi descent and she also showed us photos she took before the war, when she went to see her family there for the very first time. Photos of everyday life. Of her Aunts and cousins, who are now afraid to walk to the market to buy food for fear of being shot or detained. Two of her cousins are forced to move around from relatives houses because they are being stalked by insurgents. They have no idea why, but they suspect it is because they speak fluent English and are therefore suspected of colluding with the Americans. She showed a photograph of her uncle who died this past year of a heart attack. They couldn't get him to the hospital because it was after curfew and the police escort wouldn't come because it was too dangerous.

She spoke to many people when she returned just last year who are now referring to Sadaam as "the good old days." As absurd as that sounds, we have to realize that even though there was no democracy and no political freedom, at least the people knew what behaviors and activities would be met with discipline and opposition. Now, they have no idea from one day to the next if they will be detained or shot by insurgents (or Americans). There has been a major shift toward religious conservativism - which did not exist before. Parents have stopped sending their children to school. Now, there is no security, there is no order. Stop and think for a moment at how bad things have to be for people to refer to Sadaam's regime as "the good old days."

Someone in the audience asked Ms. Nosh if she thought Iraqis knew about the massive opposition to the war in the US. She was very frank in her answer. She simply said it doesn't matter to them at all. Why would it bring them any comfort to know that we oppose the war when the war is happening. It doesn't help them, it doesn't bring any comfort, it doesn't make their lives any less dangerous.

We have the benefit of turning this war on and off in our heads and on our televisions. I've heard people say "I don't want to see images from the war" without realizing what a privilege they have in being able to say that. To be able to choose to ignore it. These Iraqi people have no choice in the matter. They live it. I honestly think that if more people saw these images and allowed themselves to really think about what is going on, that it would be much harder for them to simply say "it is what it is." War is violent, and it's ugly and we should NOT be sheltered from these facts by our spineless media and the cabal in the Whitehouse. We should NOT be given the privilege of simply living our daily lives without having to confront these images being created in our names. If we cannot stomach the images of war, then perhaps we should not be so quick to enter into one.