Thursday, October 19, 2006

Monday I went to the Ani DiFranco concert in Lawrence. It was amazing! I've wanted to catch her live since I bought Living in a Clip, my first Ani cd and a live double disk. She did not disappoint. Even (at least) six months pregnant, she played for hours, ethusiastically and energetically. She was terrific. Until last month, when a co-worker loaned me her Ani collection, I had only heard her two live doulbe disks. Needless to say, I didn't recognize as many of the songs as I would have liked, but on the other hand, that does drive me to really check out more of her disks. The song below was one of the first she sang and it is amazing. I really love that last line about "Integrity winning out over desire." I hope there comes a day when I can say that. My mom accompanied me to concert. It was a fitting end for her birthday weekend. She had taken Monday off work so that she had a three-day weekend, and, even though my emotionally ignorant step-father went out of town for the weekend to help his brother put in a part for his refrigerator, I still think my mother had a good time. She did a little shopping on Saturday, then I took her out for dinner and a movie (The Departed, which was excellent, in spite of its stars). Monday, we spent the day shopping and then going to the concert. Even though she might not listen to Ani outside of that, I think she really had a good time. The only thing I didn't like was seeing this woman that I had kinda tried to date a few years ago but probably really let down since i was stuck on someone else at the time. Her and her wife were there. I went up and talked to her, after my initial shock and a moment of hiding in my seat. I got her number, on the pretense of inviting her and her wife out with my friends, but I'm not sure if I'll ever call her. She had lost a lot of weight (while I've gained a lot since we last saw each other) but I actually find her less attractive than I used to. Weird, huh? Oh well. Without further ado, the great song I heard.

Manhole- Ani DiFranco
I'm holding here a book
Notable, but not the greatest
Stolen for me by the latest
In a long line of thieves
And I'm just about to drop it
Down that manhole of memories
When I realize it doesn't bother me
Like love's mementos usually do
And I look up to see who's different here
The latest me or the latest you

Course, you're the kind of guy who doesn't lie
He just doctors everything
Chooses some unassuming finger
And quietly moves his wedding ring
Who rewrites his autobiography
For any pretty girl who'll sing
But you can't fool the queen, baby
Cuz I married the king

And maybe it was I who betrayed his majesty
With no opposite reality
Like a puddle with no reflection
Of the sky or the trees
But after my dreaded beheading
I tied that sucker back on with a string
And I guess I'm pretty different now
Considering

I kissed you on the street that night
On the far side of four
But I didn't like the taste
In my mouth or yours
And ignoring the persona you wore for my benefit
For once I had the balls to call it
Just call it
But a lesson must be lived
In order to be learned
And the clarity to see and stop this now
That is what I've earned

And maybe it was I who betrayed his majesty
With no opposite reality
Like a puddle with no reflection
Of the sky or the trees
But after my dreaded beheading
I tied that sucker back on with a string
And I guess I'm pretty different now
Considering

I'm holding here a book
Notable, but not the greatest
Stolen for me by the latest
In a long line of thieves
And I'm just about to drop it
Down that manhole of memories
When I realize it doesn't bother me
And heartache not so dire
Cuz I looked up to see integrity
Finally won over desire

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Diets

This is my sixth week on Weight Watchers. I decided to do something drastic (by which I mean do anything at all to loose weight, other than talk about it) after going to the doctor for that skin thing and found out I weighed alot more than I thought, at least according to the wonderfully callibrated doctor's office scale. In addition to just being horrified at my real weight, I have to deal with feeling uncomfortable in my skin, asthma, acid reflux, and a complete lack of self-confidence, especially when it comes to flirting and dating. And I'm happy I started this. I have learned a good deal more about portion size and tracking what I eat. It has gotten me more motivated, so that I will continue on with this. While I haven't lost much weight, definately not as much as my mom, but I have lost 5.5 pounds, as of the week before last, and a couple pairs of pants that were very VERY tight before I started this are now very comfortable. This encourages me to continue with this and to ramp it up by exercising.

But as I have been paying more attention to what I eat, I have also been thinking about food, dieting, etc, and how those things effect my life and society.

My mother and I don't always go to the same meeting. A few weeks ago at her meeting, the meeting leader stressed how important it was for everyone to realize how little room they would have in their daily diet for extras once they got down to the weight they should be and that it would not leave them room for much, if any junk food. I think this was to stress that one needs to change what and how they eat for the rest of their lives, not just while they are IN Weight Watchers and coming to meets and still have weight to loose. I had realized this in the first week or so of being on Weight Watchers. They have a points system (the point value of each food is based on dietary fiber, calories and fat) for you to evaluate what you eat. As you loose weight, the points you are allowed per day goes down. In my first week, as I was struggling against constant hunger and craving sugar and grease, I realized that, if I wanted to keep my weight down once I lost the weight, I would have to keep my food intake about the same, monitoring myself occasionally to make sure I was still sticking to it daily as much as I thought I was. I couldn't just loose the weight and then live however I wanted to, eating whatever I wanted to after this period of deprivation. What I was then thinking of as deprivation would have to be my way of life, forever, if I wanted to keep my weight down.

Thursday I went shopping for some new bras (since the first place I lost weight was my chest) and workout gear that I hadn't stolen from (now ex) boyfriends. Once again, as I had a hard time finding clothing in my current size, I was reminded of even more reasons why I should be loosing this weight and keeping it off. Then, this weekend, my mother went shopping at several department stores at our local mall. One department store only carried casual knit separates in plus sizes, nothing appropriate for business attire, and another didn't even have plus size clothing!!! Recent studies have shown just how much of our population is overweight. It is not as if there are not overweight women who need plus size clothing. So why are plus sizes increasingly relagated to botiques or crappy selections? I'm not saying it is a conspiracy but more a matter of our culture. With each decade, it seems our ideas of beauty become narrower and further from what most people actually look like. But since that is what we are told we are supposed to look like, we'll struggle to become that, so that we can fit into the clothes we are told we are supposed to wear. If our bodies will never naturally and healthily (?) conform to that narrow definition of beauty, we feel like failures and use unhealthy behavior as a substitute for our lack of self-esteem, including over-eating and/or unhealthy eating, which takes us even further from that ideal. Shopping, buying, consuming, is about attaining more and more of what is culturally desirable. Being overweight is not culturally desirable, so buying comfortable, appropriate, flattering clothing designed especially for overweight people doesn't fit well into that mold. Also, ill-fitting, inappropriate, unflattering clothes then only solidify overweight people's idea that they are unattractive and will always be unattractive as long as they stay overweight. So then they spend money on the diet industry, which is just that, an industry. An industry that wouldn't exist without fat people wanting to loose weight and willing to try anything to do it. But DIETS don't work. As soon as you go off them, you will regain the weight. And them some. There are few profitable American industries or even companies that are based on giving people only what they need to live a continously healthy life. The most profitable American industries are those that help us life unhealthy lives or provide quick fixes to our unhealthy lives. The whole thing is depressing. I also have to remember that, even when I was a healthy weight, "regular" size clothing was often ill-fitting, uncomfortable, and unflattering for my body. This wasn't because of my weight, though I thought so at the time. I now think it has a lot more to do once again with those narrow definitions of beauty and how fashion is designed for that. In Spain, they (whoever THEY are) are not allowing models with an unhealthily low BMI to walk the runways during their fashion week. Many designers cried foul, saying that their clothing is designed to look best on those thin "gazelle-like" figures. So, if the top designers in the world are designing their clothes (which will be copied by designers lower on the rung), who is designing clothes for real people, even people who are just average?

So, what am I getting at??? Well... it is all fucked up. Everything is fucked up. I guess I feel it is better to think about these things, even as I'm feeding the beast. Also, maybe I can work to fight this in my children, if I have them or adopt or foster them. Maybe I can use this to influence people that cross my path. Maybe I can use this to be less hard on myself for my "shortcomings" and focus more on truly healthy living, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But no matter what, at least I'm having thoughts. That's something.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Friends Or Lack Thereof

Last night I was reading David Thomson's The Whole Equation, which looks at the history of Hollywood more as a function of movies AS A BUSINESS than film as an art. And there were several really interesting passages that I am just busting at the seams to talk about. Especially his discussion of how film as a form of mass media (one of the first forms of mass media, maybe the first true form of mass media) and an alternative to novels/reading that did not require participation or effort, was ephemeral and communal, and how that has changed America. He also touched on how method acting and that frame of mind that comes from it and filtered to the larger population has given us the feeling that we have a RIGHT to a constant malaise which leades to more people acting out their lives actually just living them, being.

What actually really got me going is that I was bursting to talk about all of these things and what it means for how we currently act, how I act and what, if anything, should be changed (in myself and in the larger culture). I really feel like, in addition to his profound message about American society, there is also a message for my life, though I'm not sure what it is.

This is when I realized that my MO is to bring this vague idea to others, bounce it off them to come up with something. That is why I am so ssad that I can't share it with anyone right now. Then it makes me wonder where this collaborative process comes from. Is it part of that feminine collaborative instinct that I'm always hearing about? Or is it just that I'm not smart enough or self-confident enough to trust my own instincts and extrapolate for myself? I'm not sure what it is- a strength or a major fault?

But it also got me wondering what other people do when they hae these kinda thoughts (or read other interesting thoughts they want to share). Do they keep them inside? Do they journal or write poetry? (I'm guessing not since, among people I know/have known, it isn't all that common.) Or do they just not have those thoughts? Do they not get blown away by the new thoughts of other people? the thoughts that other people's thoughts provoke in them? I wish they would tell me so that I could do what they do.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Emergency Contraception

About a month ago, in discussing current political issues with a close friend who is fiscally conservative but pragmatic in his morals, we got into an argument about emergency contraception and the news that it would finally be availble over-the-counter (though only to people 18 and over). Since this incident, I have decided that he was "in a mood" and that he might not say the same flippant things he said that night, but that night he towed at least part of the Christian conservative Republican line, saying that easily available OTC EC would only lead to more and more people having unprotected sex, knowing that they can just get EC the day after at their local Walgreens and not have to deal with getting pregnant, that it would lead to more people making bad decisions and then covering it up afterwards. There are several very logical and reasonable counterpoints to this, which I gave him, to no avail that night. Tonight I am reminded about why EC over-the-counter, to all ages, without pharmacists being given permission to deny people OTC EC for "religious reasons". About a month ago, a popular feminist blogger told her story about being denied EC. She has been with her "boyfriend" (I'd prefer to say partner) monogamously for several years. She has three children already that she takes care of. She cannot take birth control pills and her and her partner have been relying on condoms for quite some time. The condom slipped off. When she went to the pharmacy to buy EC, she was informed that it would not be available until after the New Year. She called her regular physician, but, as it was over the weekend, she only got a call back, saying that she should go to the emergency room to get it. She did. The nurse told her that there was only one doctor of the three on duty who would even consider prescribing EC, but only if she was raped. When she continued to push, the nurse said the doc might prescibe it if she was married. She was neither. She was denied EC during the period when it would be effective. Upon her posting of this story which most liberal bloggers found absolutely horrible, she recieved hate-mail/comments and e-mails masquerading as helpful herbal remedies that could help her induce a miscarriage but would probably kill her if she took them. One particularly aweful person said that if they ever met her they would savagely rape her several times before killing her. Now she is pregnant. (From her current post and some of the blog comments, it seems she was prescribed EC later, but after it would have been effective so, surprise! it didn't work.) So, in addition to being shocked and appalled about how hard it is for many people (normal, responsible, middle-class, insured, unafraid adults) to get EC, I am also despondent over these comments. I recognize that there are people on the internet who are just crazies, but most plain crazies are more interested in conspiracy theoried than death threats to liberal feminist bloggers. These people making these comments are "pro-life". I have to say that I've never heard any of this level of vitreol from pro-choice advocates. I'm just so sad over all of this. And I'm just as sad thinking that I might have been wrong. That in the clear light of day, my friend might side with these crazies, instead of looking at all the reasons couples and women should have as many options as are safe and viable. Fuck.

Here's the most recent post from that blogger, who I am keeping in my thoughts. Take care all.
http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/2006/10/hiatus-will-start-after-this-post.html

Monday, October 02, 2006

Foley

As I watch various television news programs, visit liberal blogs, and listen to conservative talk radio hosts, I have a hard time taking a firm stance on this controversy. There are several issues that contribute to this.

1.Previous Political Sex Scandals
Mostly I am thinking of one similar incident that many conservatives are bringing up. They keep mentioning Democrat Gerry Studds. I had no idea who this guy was so I looked it up. It seems in 1983 two congressmen were given slaps on the wrists by the Ethics Committee for having affairs with under 18 pages. One of them had an affair with a 16 year-old female page and he was very remorseful and didn’t run again. The other was Gerry Studds who had a sexual relationship with a male page, who I think was 17 years old when they had their affair in 1973, ten years before the actions were made public. Unlike the other congressman, Studds did not apologize. In fact, he held a press conference with that page standing by his side in which they both claimed that the affair was completely consensual and no one else’s business. Studds was re-elected several times. In fact, it seems that he is better known as a hero in the gay community. The conservatives who bring up the Studds incident are pointing out that Studds was still well regarded even though what Studds did was worse, yet he did not resign (as Foley had done) and was re-elected several times (as Foley will not be). They believe that this shows how Democrats are treated differently than Republicans.
I have to agree on the face of it with what the conservatives are saying. Studds and Foley seem to have been treated differently, though I was not able to find any press from the time of the Studds incident to show me what happened to him back in 1983. Also, on the face of it, what Studds did was worse- he had a sexual relationship with a page, while Foley only had sexually suggestive internet conversations with a page. (Whether he would have walked the walk if given a chance is up to debate.) On the other hand, consent and mutual involvement is another matter, as the page in the Studds incident was, at least by his own statements, a willing participant in what happened while the page Foley was conversing with seemed, at best, ambivalent about what was happening. (While he continued to chat with Foley, he also forwarded e-mails Foley sent him to a superior of the pages, calling it “Sick, sick, sick.”) If two congressmen, on Republican and one Democrat, were caught tomorrow doing the same exact thing, both on the committee for Missing and Exploited Children, I would hope that both of them would resign and that both would be judged just as harshly. If they were not, I would jump on anyone treating one less harshly, whether the congressman given the pass was a Republican or a Democrat.
What gives me pause however is that these incidents happened at two very different times. In the 70s, many people still married young. My own mother married in 1975 (or so) at 17 years old. Unless you were wealthy and went to college, when you graduated high school, if you graduated high school, at 17 or 18 years old, you went to work and were an adult. Also, The Graduate, was released six years before the Studds event happened, making it seems en vogue for older married women to do what some of their husbands had been doing for decades, have affairs with younger people. (Though in the movie, the younger person was a recent college grad, not high school grad.) Also, the affair was not publicly revealed until 10 years after the fact, plenty of time for the page to get over the thrill of being desired by an older mentor and start to realize that they may have been taken advantage of by an authority figure. (Though it is also plenty of time for them to reap the benefits for being on the good side of a powerful figure, giving them more incentive to possibly lie to keep those benefits.) There also seems to be little paper trail pertaining to this affair, or at least little that became public, that could dispute Studds and the page’s claim that the affair was consensual, or to give tantalizing or disgusting details to the press.
On the other hand, 16/17 year olds are not judged as they used to be. After high school, many teenagers are expected to go to college. Even if they have full-time jobs right after high school, most teenagers are expected to get either further education or further training in a field before starting “real adult life.” Few 17 year olds are getting married these days. They might have a child, but few will get married until later in life. Among teenagers that do go off to college immediately after graduating high school, many of them remain close to their parents, relying on them for not only financial support, but also emotional support. I’ve read several articles in Newsweek alone in the past year about how parents of college students talk to their children every day, calling to wake them up for class, contacting professors that their children are having problems with. Several colleges are offering parent orientation with tips on how to maintain contact with their children while also pushing them to be responsible for their own life and problems. This is vastly different from the 70s when many college students broke off from their parents, visiting on holidays and over the summers, calling sporadically, dealing with their problems on their own, using college as a stepping stone into adulthood instead of a furthering of their adolescence. While older people (both men and women) may have affairs with younger people, they usually face harsher consequences, more public admonishments, and fewer of these affairs are kept private and swept under the rug. While we might make light of these affairs in personal and private conversations, the public morality is strongly against them, backed a general feeling that these young people are always taken advantage of by the older participant, that these young people are always hurt in the long run by these affairs, and that the older participant should have better judgment than to get involved in these affairs. This is also a time in which the internet provides both the means for older people to maintain contact with younger people and the means to expose the relationship and the details of the relationship. Nearly every Friday night, NBC runs footage of another sting operation where men are arrested for soliciting someone they think is a teenager (usually 13 or 14 years old) over the internet and showing up for sex. These men are then confronted by the NBC reporter about why they are there, who they intended to meet, how old that person was, and what they had planned to do. Then, they are arrested. One of the nation’s leading conservative hosts, Bill O’Reilly, is a major backer of laws for mandatory minimums in cases involving child molestation, coming down on states that do not pass this law. Also, the congressman involved in this controversy is a member of the committee dealing with missing and exploited children, the co-sponsor of bills that make soliciting a minor for sex over the internet illegal.

2. Consent
In DC, the age of sexual consent is 16 years old. Assuming that this law was the same in the 1970s, Gerry Stubbs did nothing illegal. If Foley had slept with this page in DC, he also would not have done anything illegal. However, Foley did not sleep with him. He discussed sex and seems to have made attempts to solicit someone under 18 for sex over the internet. That is covered by a completely different set of laws. I will be the first to admit that I am NOT well versed in these laws. But if these laws say that it is illegal for someone over 18 to solicit someone under 18 for sex, then what Foley did would seem to be illegal, even if it would be legal for him to have sex with said minor.
Of course, while legal consent is determined fairly strictly by the law according to age, full mutual consent is something different. Especially in feminist circles, full consent usually relies on both (or all, if there are more than 2 people are involved) parties to be on equal footings with no major power differential. Even if nothing illegal happened, both Studds and Foley are swimming in murky ethical water. Can someone so much younger than you, who you have authority over, who may be dazzled by your wealth, power, and prestige, and who could benefit greatly their whole life by staying on your good side truly step away from all those things to rational and independently give consent? Or will the older authority figure always be taking advantage of the younger one? To be wholly ethical, I believe the authority figure should always turn down romantic relationships with younger people they have authority over, no matter how much the younger person seems to be a willing, consenting participant, even if only until that person is no longer under their authority. They should always follow both the rule and spirit of the law. Unfortunately, few people always act ethically, especially where romance and sex are involved.
I have to admit that I have rarely acted ethically in romantic and sexual matters. There were even more times when I WANTED to act unethically, especially with older authority figures, but was never given the chance. I have been lucky in the fact that most of the older authority figures I was interested in were either completely uninterested in me (most likely) or wiser and more in control of themselves, never allowing us to become entangled in a romantic or sexual relationship. On the few occasions I found myself pursued by older authority figures, or at least felt they would not have turned down a romantic or sexual relationship, I was only once faced with someone that I had any interest in. While his interest in me was at first very flattering, I quickly began to feel less than comfortable during our interactions. Despite knowing how inappropriate our interactions were, I did not feel comfortable telling him to stop, especially since I was flattered by someone like him being sexually interested in someone like me. My line of thinking at the time was, If I was flattered by his interest, it must not be so wrong and my discomfort must be caused by something else, perhaps my own immaturity and nervousness. Years later, after getting to know him better, his history, his opinions, and hearing several accounts of his similar behavior towards other females under his authority, I see that I was not special for catching his attention. Anything with breasts and a vagina caught his attention and he pursued anyone he thought might have low enough self-esteem to be receptive. This is why I plan on acting as ethically as possible, in spite of any romantic or sexual feelings I may have, if I am ever in a position of authority over anyone, especially someone significantly younger than myself. I’d much rather someone look back on me as the older mentor they wanted but never got than the person they wanted to be their mentor until that person creepily came on to me.

3. Hypocrisy?
On his program today, Rush Limbaugh said that Democrats accept bad behavior from members of their party because, unlike their Republican counterparts, Democrats believe that everyone has serious flaws that preclude them from acting in a moral way and that we should just strive to help and understand them. Republicans, while they may believe that humans are all flawed, expect everyone to act morally and do not coddle people when they have acted in immoral ways, especially serious immoral ways. Basically, only Republicans can be accused of hypocrisy because only Republicans have values that they stand up for that they may violate. Which, on the other hand, means that he thinks that Democrats cannot be accused of hypocrisy because they don’t have values, or at least not ones that they stand up and talk about. I’m sure T would agree fairly whole-heartedly with that. Limbaugh asserted that the only reason Democrats were really angry was because he was a hypocrite and that there may have been a Republican cover-up, but NOT about what Foley really did.
While, as I stated above, if two congressmen did the same thing at the same time while on the same committee but were on different sides of the aisle, I believe they should both be looked at and treated the same way, but, while the Studds’ controversy and the Foley controversy appear similar on the face, there are many ways in which they are different and either case could be looked at more harshly in the other, depending on how one looks at it. But, both as a liberal myself and from the liberal blogs I read, it seems to me that most liberals are truly mad about what Foley did. They do not think that it is acceptable to an older person in a position of authority to attempt to engage in a sexual relationship with an underage subordinate. They think this guy is a pervert and it is amazing that the guy who helped write the law on internet predators is caught violating it. His position on that committee makes him even more repugnant in their eyes. The only thing that seems to have enticed them into calling him a hypocrite is his statement about how disgusting it was for Bill Clinton to engage in a sexual relationship with an intern. In addition to this, they are upset that there may have been a cover-up by the members of Congress who knew about these e-mails and instant messages. I do not think I’ve read a single post saying that what Foley seems to have done is acceptable in any way shape or form.

Conclusion: The Studds and Foley controversies have many similarities and many differences. Both men acted unethically and immorally, even if what they did was not illegal. Anyone who knew of their actions should have stood up and said something to protect these boys who were both minors and subordinate to these men. I don’t know if Foley is being treated differently than Studds JUST because he is a Republican. I’d like to believe it is because of the different times these actions occurred in. Please feel free to comment with your take on this story.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Nine Years Old

As I was driving by my old apartment complex last night, passing what used to be my friend Brandy's apartment, I realized something. Her daughter just turned 9 years old last month. 9. Wow.