forward.

a year ago we voted.  it was a day of celebration—celebration of the fading of america’s legacy of racism; celebration of a new, more hopeful chapter in american presidential history.  i watched obama and his family take the stage in chicago and teared up along with hundreds of thousands of other americans.  i teared up because there in front of me and millions of other americans was the evidence that what we have proclaimed for centuries was a little more true—all mankind was just a little more equal when america elected a young black man, the son of a mixed-race marriage which was not even legal in many states of the union when he was born.

i celebrated that night, but it was a bittersweet celebration.  while my presidential candidate had won, carrying his nation forward towards equality, my state voted against equality by passing prop. 8.  all night as i watched the presidential election results roll in, i kept tabs on the prop. 8 battle.  and all night, it kept a damper on my spirits.  i have no doubt that in fifty years, this nation will look back to the elections and laws regarding gay marriage and will see them as the shameful equal of laws and elections that denied african americans the right to vote and to receive an equal education and to marry where they loved.

tonight there’s a chance that this nation will start to move out of the shadow of anti-gay bigotry.  in maine, the electorate will decide whether to uphold the law passed by their duly elected representatives legalizing gay marriage.  and right now—right now they have upheld gay marriage 53% to 47%.  i can only hope that this slim majority will be as tenacious as the equally slim majority by which prop. 8 passed in california a year ago.  perhaps this small state will live up to its motto (dirigo) tonight and lead the nation another step towards equality.

waste.

let's talk about a monumental waste of money : hiring an aerial advertising agency to tow a huge image of an aborted fetus with the words "ten week abortion" in circles over notre dame's campus because obama is delivering a speech at their graduation ceremony.  i understand the complaint.  obama has made decisions that are pro-choice.  notre dame is a catholic university.  the catholic church is opposed to abortion.  result: conflict.  i'm not saying there shouldn't be some discussion as a result of this situation.  i personally think it's a bit silly to reduce obama to his pro-choice stance when he's clearly a much more complex character.  i also think people should recognize that he takes a principled stance in favor of life--through education, medical care, support for single mothers, etc.

but flying an aerial anti-abortion ad over notre dame's campus every day for two weeks before graduation? that's nothing more than a self-centered attention grabber.  and using an image of an aborted fetus is as manipulative and exploitative as it comes.  if you're really opposed to abortion, dear aerial-ad-flyers, might i suggest you find a productive way of spending that money?  you could help support single mothers who choose to keep their babies.  or you could provide contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies.  or you could support education programs meant to teach teens how to avoid pregnancy.  but i forget--that would contradict the basic hypocrisy of so much of the pro-life movement, the hypocrisy of declaring pro-life! pro-life! while simultaneously denying contraception and education.  the brilliance of humanity does astound.

bedtime.

i've been keeping late hours the last couple of weeks, thanks to the olympics and being on vacation with my family. last night my sister J and i spent our evening playing with her girls and watching the olympics (or at least i was ogling the beautiful men on the U.S. track team). which meant bedtime wasn't until well after midnight.

i climbed into bed about one in the morning but found myself tossing and turning a bit. so i pulled out my computer to read a few of the blog posts i'd not had a chance to read (due to excursions to the park to have a picnic and ride the horsies [i.e., carousel], playing princess dress up, swinging small girls by their ankles, etc.). maybe it was a mistake to try to pass a bit of time that way, because it got my mind whirring. again.

all day yesterday, my frustrations and tension and pain over the church's position on california's proposition 8 (which would amend the state constitution to prohibit any marriage but that between a man and a woman) bubbled under the surface. let me be perfectly clear: i find this proposition repugnant in every way. i believe it originates in bigotry. i believe it attempts to deny citizens of the state liberties that the government should protect and preserve, rather than remove. there is no question in my mind that every citizen should have the opportunity to enter into a civil marriage contract with another consenting adult and to therefore receive the protections and privileges governments grant to married couples.

the day i heard the news that the california state supreme court had overturned prop. 22 (passed nearly ten years ago) and therefore declared marriage legal for all california adults regardless of sexual orientation, i celebrated. and the day i learned the church planned to join in the effort to pass prop. 8, i mourned. on the day (coincidentally--coughcough--gay pride day) the letter from church headquarters regarding prop. 8 was read in church, i went to church wearing a rainbow ribbon and with a freshly buzzed head--two visible attempts to declare my disagreement with the church's actions without being too confrontational.

since then, i've continued to display my rainbow ribbon when i go to church. and i'll keep my hair buzzed through the november election. but it's not enough. last fast sunday, in the midst of incredible spiritual turmoil at least in part caused by this issue, i bore my testimony about what i believe is the true miracle of christ's atonement--that it teaches us to look past people's problems to recognize their beauty; to step outside of ourselves and extend love and compassion and understanding to all people, regardless of their gender or their race or their religion. for me the gospel of christ is a gospel of love and acceptance—one that requires that we stretch ourselves to understand how and why people think differently than we do. for me, the gospel of Christ is not one of imposing our own beliefs on others or of believing our job is to make everyone else like ourselves. but while i think i made that point fairly clearly, i did not specifically mention prop. 8 and gay marriage, in spite of a powerful desire to do so.

then last week a member of my ward called to confirm i'd received an email about the "prop. 8 walk." i hadn't, but rather than mentioning that, i immediately spoke up to explain my position. the conversation went something like this:

me: i think i should clarify that i will not only vote no on prop. 8, but i will also do everything i can to make sure it does not pass. and i will certainly not do anything that could be seen as support.

him: so you're going against the brethren on this. {definitely a statement, not a question.}

me: no, i’m going with my conscience on this.

him: but you’re going against the brethren.

me: no, i’m going with my conscience, which is what i believe god expects of us.

him: hey, i don’t want to argue with you—i’m just kidding around. {trust me, there was no hint of humor in any of this exchange.}

and that’s where the conversation ended. when this man’s committee chairperson—an old friend of mine—called a few days later to ensure that the first caller hadn’t said anything inappropriate, i explained what he had said. my friend apologized. i asked him for clarification on what the “prop. 8 walk” was and clarified my own belief on the issue. because i’ve decided that i can certainly speak up in one-on-one conversations with other church members, even if i haven’t quite figured out how to speak up in institutional church settings.

i still feel that what i've done is not enough. and last night that was causing me a great deal of angst. so much that in spite of being very tired, i could not sleep. so when i was still tossing and turning after three in the morning, i called j(wh) and we talked through some of what i was feeling. not only about prop. 8, but about the church more generally. i won't go into that here. i'm not sure it's something i want to put out into the ether. we'll see. but it was good to talk to him, to name my fears to someone else and receive in return unqualified love and concern.

and best of all, when we were about done talking he read me a bedtime story and encouraged me to hope for something that seems nearly impossible--because maybe, just maybe, the horse will sing. another reason i love my j(wh).

boyfriend.

apparently barack obama is the perfect boyfriend. just look here and you'll see what i mean.

he wanted me to have some cupcakes. and he gave me chocolates. and carried my bookbag. and picked me up at the airport. and lent me his coat. all of which j(wh) has done for me. (at least i assume j(wh) wants me to have cupcakes since he knows i love them.) and j(wh) is the most perfect boyfriend i've ever had (please forgive the sap).

but you know--j(wh) hasn't folded me an origami crane yet and barack has. nor has he built me a robot (although he owns one). and barack has. apparently barack edges out j(wh) in terms of perfect boyfriend-ness. which is precisely why we should all vote for him. don't you want the president of the most powerful nation in the world to be perfect boyfriend material?

update.

just read this, also on slate's the XX factor. it's a nice accompaniment to my post from last night. i'm all for recognizing the realities of sexism and naming them openly so we can try to change our society. but identifying sexism with such imaginative license? i couldn't agree more with melinda henneberger that it does far more harm than good--both by detracting from very real problems and by reinforcing stereotypes that lead moderates and conservatives to dismiss feminists as ridiculous.

identity.

i didn't follow last week's brouhaha over david shuster using the phrase "pimped out" to describe chelsea clinton calling superdelegates on behalf of her mother's campaign. i heard enough to know there was a brouhaha. and to know that hillary clinton threatened to not participate in the next debate NBC (shuster's network) sponsored and that the campaign called on NBC to fire shuster. but honestly, i think stories like this get overplayed.

i have encountered a bit of talk about it in the blogosphere. some people defending shuster. some praising clinton for her strong response. but what got me thinking about this long enough to actually care was a couple of posts at slate's blog, the XX factor. in his guest post at the blog, daniel gross briefly documents the clintons' long history of forgiving, including hillary clinton's forgiveness of her husband's philandering (for which i've heard other women criticize her). and then he asks why the clinton campaign would reject shuster's apology and suspension as sufficient recompense for his ill-advised choice of words on-air.

i found the post interesting, but i found gross's explanation (clinton is currently sliding; she's losing to obama; she's hurting financially) insufficient. the question itself was provocative. it seems to me that clinton has played the 'woman-as-victim' card on occasion and this seemed another such moment. stir the outrage. rile up the female vote. point to all the good ol' boys and how they couldn't possibly treat a woman fairly.

now i recognize that sexism remains a problem. and i see how sexism has colored responses to clinton's campaign. but i just don't believe that playing the victim is the best response. or even a productive response. i think strength and competence and intelligence and graciousness are much better responses. the moral high ground.

i think a couple of the XX factor's regular bloggers offer more interesting, if slightly tangential, answers to gross's question about the clinton campaign failing to "forgive" david shuster. clinton has siezed the opportunity for a little emotional blackmail--either of the female vote or of the sensitive aught guys (who are of course stereotypically liberal). and i really think there is an effort to "slap around" the female vote to make women feel like they must vote for clinton simply because she's female.

of course clinton's campaign has not wholly been a manipulative emotional appeal to women (and sensitive aught guys). no one could win with such a campaign. and i appreciate the good things about clinton. but i get frustrated by the attitudes i've seen about the "historic" competition between the first woman candidate and the first black candidate for president. yes. it's historic. i think it's fantastic. but beyond that it means very little when it comes time to walk into a polling booth. because identity politics should have little--if anything--to do with voting. to say that i should vote for clinton because the two of us both have vaginas is as sexist and backwards as saying men should vote for obama because they all have testicles.

vote.

4:00 on super tuesday and i've just come home from voting. our polling place is at the fire station only three or four blocks from my house. i always love going there to vote. they roll up one of the big doors on the front of the station house and voters line up out onto the drive way, chatting casually as they wait their turn to step up to one of the nifty electronic voting machines, scroll their way through the ballot, and, having confirmed their vote on the paper trail, push the bright red "cast vote" button. this time there was no line. i simply signed in and walked straight into a booth to vote. and since i'd done my ballot research beforehand, it was a simple matter of choosing barack obama (non-partisan voters can vote in the democratic primary in california), checking off yes or no for each proposition, and confirming my vote.

i love the feeling i get when i vote. there's a sense of connectedness at the polling place, of strangers participating in something larger than themselves. and this election has been particularly exciting (even if i've also been particularly irritated at how early the campaigning started--i'm all for severely limiting both time and funds a candidate can spend on campaigning). part of me wants to stay tapped into the news all evening so i can follow the results, hoping that obama pulls enough delegates to keep the race competitive. another part of me is too nervous about it to follow and so doesn't want to check until the results are all in and there's a clear-cut result. i honestly can't remember ever feeling this way about a primary election and only once feeling this way about a general election (2004--curses on george w. bush!).

oddly, although i've been following the campaign rather avidly and have supported obama from the get-go, i've resisted becoming involved. my friend george is a bit disgusted with my refusal to volunteer. and i've been a little at a loss as to how to explain my resistance. i spent an evening talking it through with her, but mostly i was making excuses, never quite able to explain more clearly than that it would make me feel yucky to try to campaign on someone's behalf, no matter how much i supported him/her. that's not to say i won't talk about the candidates and the issues--i've done plenty of that. but i didn't feel okay about volunteering.

after receiving three emails from friends imploring me to vote in the last 24 hours, i understand my own reluctance better. one of those emails was a simple plea to vote. no partisan element to it. no endorsement of one candidate over another. just a request that i vote. that didn't bother me at all. i think everyone should vote. but the other two offered unsolicited advice about their candidate, mitt romney--about his strength of character; about how he has what it takes to save us from the desperate straits in which we find our nation; about doing everything in our power to get him elected. one of these authors managed to write without presuming that all of her email's recipients would agree that romney is the best candidate. the other one simply assumed that everyone receiving the message would agree that romney (i refuse to refer to him as "mitt") is the man for the job, and this in spite of the fact that this particular friend knows that i'm liberal and disagree with the kind of conservative politics romney stands for. in spite of this difference in tone, i was pretty disgusted by both emails.

i admit that part of that disgust has to do with my opinion of romney. i think the best single word to describe his character is "smarmy," rather than "good" or "trustworthy." and (much more importantly) i not only disagree with most of his approach to policy and governing, i find some of his opinions frightening in the extent to which they disregard what i consider vitally important and basic principles and rights. but my distaste for romney, his persona, and his positions, isn't the only source of my distaste for these emails. i simply don't like receiving this kind of unsought petition for my vote--one which is, moreover, premised on fairly empty platitudes about character and inflammatory rhetoric about us needing salvation and romney providing it. it's precisely this manipulative over-reliance on the rhetoric of ethos or the rhetoric of pathos (which far too often excludes the rhetoric of logos, which should be the most important) that bothers me about campaigning in general. i certainly don't want to receive it on a personal level. and i don't ever want to be a purveyor of such campaigning, no matter how much i believe in the candidate or how successful the tactics may seem.

instead, i'll join in my other friend's plea: if you haven't yet and you still have the opportunity, go vote. if you've missed your chance today, don't miss it when the general election rolls around in november. i don't care who you vote for or what you think of the various candidates running; i just care that you exercise the right so many in this world don't have.

one.

think about a single day, what it might cost for you to live the way you do. and think about the hundreds of thousands of people who live on less than you do in your own country. and then think about the hundreds of millions of people who live on a few dollars a day, maybe even less. and then watch this:



and ask yourself what you would have done with those $720 million dollars spent every single day for nearly five years. even if you would have spent that money in iraq, think about the effectiveness of war as a means of transforming a society as opposed to humanitarian aid in its various forms.

is it worth it? that $720 million every single day? the $500,000 every single minute?

{thank you to j(wh) for sharing this video. and to the american friends service committee for making it available.}

taxed.

about a month ago, i heard a report on NPR regarding the possibility of economic recession in the u.s. that report included a recording of our dear president in which he argued that if americans will just keep spending, we'll spend ourselves right out of any possible recession.

this argument really bothers me. i have no problem with people spending money. i understand the desire for nice things and have no problem with indulging that desire within reason. but i do have a problem with the degree of consumerism i see in american society. i do have a problem with the extent to which americans willingly go into debt not for housing or education or necessities, but for luxuries. and yes--cable television and high speed internet are actually luxuries, not necessities.

hearing bush make the comment about spending our way out of possible recession reminded me of his similar response to 9/11. one of his responses was that americans should spend spend spend--rather than save their money and conserve their resources--to demonstrate our strength and to avoid economic collapse in reaction to the devastation of 9/11. i don't understand this response--that we'll somehow be stronger (both as individuals and as a nation) if we run through our money and consume our resources than if we save our money and conserve our resources.

the advice to spend to stave off economic downfall seems particularly ill-advised in light of the recent problems in the housing market which have contributed to our current economic situation--the problem of sub-prime mortgages which are caused precisely by americans spending more than they should, rather than carefully building and preserving a financial cushion even as they invest in real estate. buying more house than one can afford clearly has much more to do with consumerism and keeping up with the joneses than with investment. even someone as inexperienced in investment as myself knows you don't invest in such a way that you leave yourself no security if the investment fails.

given americans ever-growing tendency to over-spend, i'm interested in ways to incentivize savings and preservation of resources as opposed to spending and consuming resources. so as i've heard all of the post-iowa coverage today, i've been struck by mike huckabee's proposed fair tax in place of the entire existing tax code. in a nutshell, the idea is that the federal government only taxes people based on their consumption. no income tax of any variety. no capital gains tax. no taxes on inheritance. no payroll tax. just a tax on what people spend. you get the idea. here's huckabee's brief explanation:

The FairTax will replace the Internal Revenue Code with a consumption tax, like the taxes on retail sales forty-five states and the District of Columbia have now. All of us will get a monthly rebate that will reimburse us for taxes on purchases up to the poverty line, so that we're not taxed on necessities. That means people below the poverty line won't be taxed at all. We'll be taxed on what we decide to buy, not what we happen to earn. We won't be taxed on what we choose to save or the interest those savings earn. The tax will apply only to new goods, so we can reduce our taxes further by buying a used car or computer.

i like the idea of a tax system that rewards people for saving their money rather than spending it frivolously. i like the idea of a tax system that encourages investment and retirement planning. so i'm intrigued by the idea of huckabee's fair tax. but i'm also very leery of any proposed reform that includes the sentence "when the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness." really? really? a magic wand?

huckabee argues not only that his proposed fair tax would encourage savings; he further argues that the fair tax would immediately render american goods and businesses "12 to 25% more competitive because the cost of those goods will no longer be inflated by corporate taxes, costs of tax compliance, and Social Security matching payments." such an argument epitomizes the kind of political sleight of hand that leaves me disgusted. does huckabee actually think that the elimination of corporate taxes and the cost of tax compliance, etc., will result in american corporations dropping prices by 12 to 25%? perhaps what he means is that american corporations will have more flexibility in setting prices so they can be more competitive if necessary. that makes sense. but it would be foolish to expect that the elimination of taxes would automatically result in prices dropping across the board.

huckabee further argues that such a tax would remove the incentive to export jobs overseas. again, this seems nothing more than a pipe dream. even reducing the cost of doing business by 12 to 25% is not going to change the fact that labor is much cheaper overseas. or the fact that compliance with safety and other standards is more expensive in the states than it is in places where such standards are either non-existent or sub par. the fact of the matter is that as long as the bottom line drives business, jobs will keep leeching out of the u.s. as long as we continue to support double standards, insisting on one level of safety and health standards in the u.s. but turning a blind eye to exploitation overseas, no amount of tax reform will be a magic fix.

and then there's my concern over maintaining and bolstering social welfare programs. in many ways fiscal conservativism appeals to me. i think those in office and those who work for the government have a responsibility to do everything in their power to run government programs as efficiently as possible. but it doesn't make sense to me to cut just for the sake of cutting. i believe very much in the necessity of government sponsored programs meant to provide a security net for american citizens. and i can't help but wonder how much a program like huckabee's fair tax would tax such social welfare programs.

politics.
every morning i wake up to NPR. which means that every morning i get a dose of politics. did the clinton campaign leave a tip or not? what shall we do about the alternative minimum tax? what will happen in pakistan? and is bhutto in cahoots with musharraf? i like being well-informed. but i have to say, it can be disheartening. there's not a day that goes by that i'm not frustrated with the state of american politics.

perhaps the biggest problem we have in our politics right now is that members of both sides of the political spectrum engage not with each other (liberals engaging with conservatives; republicans engaging with democrats) but rather with stereotypes of each other. rhetorically flamboyant engagements with straw men of the opposing political persuasion tend to sell better—both on the evening news and at the ballot box—than actual conversation and interaction. i listen to the “debate”--whether presidential or issue-driven--and recognize again that our politicians do not actually talk to each other; they talk, through soundbites, to their perceptions of their constituents (they don’t even actually talk to their constituents; only to what their advisers tell them their constituents are like). and i am frustrated. because no policy, either domestic or foreign, will succeed in furthering liberty and equality when those policies are designed to woo voters rather than to address problems, whether the policy has to do with health care or tax law or waging a war (and i think this is true of the fighting the war as much as it is of the protesting the war).

anyway. i’m pretty disgusted with american politics on both sides of the spectrum. my personal convictions line up with the liberal side of the spectrum on certain issues and the conservative side on others and the libertarian side on still others. i try to vote for candidates and measures that seem in best keeping with my convictions. it’s all i can do. well that and ending my day with a healthy dose of satire. thank you john stewart (and may the labor gods resolve the current WGA strike; if i have to survive much of the current presidential campaign without the release valve of political satire, i may just go bonkers).

five.
questions from caroline, who in turn got her questions from jana.

1. who are your two favorite authors--one prose, one poetry, and why?
ah. the favorite author question which always stymies me. i can't definitively name favorites, but i'll give you two from my larger group of favorites. poetry: emily dickinson. she's always up there. because she packs a lot into a small package. because she's irreverently spiritual. because she has a slant approach to truth. prose: i really truly do not know. so i'll just say arundhati roy cause i'm looking forward to reading the god of small things again. it's a gorgeous, disturbing novel that completely entranced me on my first reading and about which i have written twice and about which i will undoubtedly write again. a fascinating examination of boundaries and identity in relationship to love.

2. what were the saddest and happiest moments of your day (friday, when caroline sent these)?
saddest: that's tough cause friday was all in all a very good day. maybe getting home from the arcade fire concert at 1 in the morning and realizing that i couldn't hear them live again. i quickly decided i should go to their show in l.a. next month. that's a pretty rare day for me; i usually have much sadder moments brought on by my own ineptitude or by the news. happiest: well, there was the post-concert euphoria that stayed with me all day. but a single moment? probably while i was looking at matisse's 'the black shawl (lorette vii)' because i had one of those moments when image and reality came together in a provocative way.

3. what is your favorite thing to do on a saturday?
getting out in the world to discover something new, whether it's a museum or other cultural event or a restaurant or a mountain trail. and preferably done in company with good friends.

4. if you were a congresswoman, what is the first thing you would try to accomplish?
well, there are a million things i'd like to see change. but highest priority in my mind is addressing international crises--first and foremost the situation in darfur. i don't know exactly what steps i'd take, but there are a few. divestment of any and all government funds invested in corporations that do business with the sudanese government. imposition of sanctions against the sudanese government. a more powerful mandate for the african union and greater u.n. involvement. there's a start.

5. what's your favorite flower?
another impossible question. there are just way too many. but i'm going with the predictable: roses. but not for the predictable reasons. i like hot house roses, but i prefer the more chaotic beauty of roses on bushes. there's just something so profligate in their beauty. that said, i have yet to meet a flower i didn't love.

{if you want five questions of your own, leave me a comment telling me so. you should include either an email address so i can send you questions. or you can leave a link to your blog and i'll post questions in a comment.}

moderation.
for the first time, i've been hit by a troll. my recent post in response to the supreme court ruling on the partial-birth abortion ban act of 2003 drew a rather vitriolic comment, which i deleted (although i preserved its only reasonable content). what ensued was ridiculous in the extreme. said troll (who posted the vitriol in the first place) commented on several of my posts from the last couple of months in an effort to insult me and some of the people who read and comment here. and he or she did so with very little imagination and a great deal of ignorance. so disappointing. if i must be insulted, at least he or she could have tried for some humor and intelligence in his or her insults.

as a result i've enabled comment moderation for the near future. so your comments won't be appearing immediately. hopefully this person will someday mature to the level that they understand that it's okay for people to have differences of opinion. but i'm not holding my breath.

in the meantime i'm simply looking for moderation. it's something i value, particularly in political discussion. most particularly in discussion of abortion, which discussion could desperately use a more moderate tone and rhetoric. please feel free to espouse whatever opinion you may have (even you m. troll). just use a modicum of respect and moderation.

alarming indeed.
alarming--that's how ruth bader ginsburg described the supreme court's decision to uphold the 2003 ban of D&X (dilation and extraction) abortion procedures, more commonly known as partial-birth abortion. and i have to agree with her.

now, please do not misunderstand me here. i do not think i would personally choose an abortion in any circumstance except pregnancy resulting from rape. and even then i'm not confident as to what my decision would be. and i find the D&X procedure troubling in many ways. what i object to is not the effort to regulate abortion or this particular procedure. i object to regulating it without leaving any room at all for an exception. i am not a medical doctor, so i cannot make medical arguments as to whether or not such a procedure is a necessary option in order to preserve the life or health of a pregnant woman. but my understanding of both justice and equity demands that there always be room for an exception to be made in exceptional circumstances. and this law denies the option of exceptionality, and therefore equity. to that extent i find it deeply troubling that the highest court in our nation would place justice above equity, implying that an unborn child's life is always worth more than that of its mother.

disgusted.
i'm using guernica tomorrow in my class--part of an effort to get my students to understand the multiple levels on which a work of art can be realistic. and as i was poking around, getting a little historical background on the painting, i ran across this tidbit:


"A tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room. It was placed there as a reminder of the horrors of war. . . . On February 5, 2003, a large blue curtain was placed to cover this work, so that it would not be visible in the background when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences at the United Nations. On the following day, it was claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Diplomats, however, told journalists that the Bush Administration pressured UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other U.S. diplomats argued for war on Iraq."


i'm not especially surprised that such a request (cough cough) would be made. i am disgusted. and it does confirm most of my opinions of the current president and his administration. i realize that some wars must be fought, but this one was not one of them.

barriers.
today i bought myself lunch. two pieces of pepperoni pizza and a drink from ray's for five bucks. i love ray's pizza. and i didn't feel much like making myself lunch. so i bought it and ate it while sitting in my car listing to PRI's news show "the world."

and while eating my $5 lunch, i heard this story about liberia's market women. in a nation with an 85% unemployment rate, these women are one small economic bright spot. working 12 hours a day, six days a week, they earn enough to support their families. and they're petitioning their relatively new president ellen johnson-sirleaf for help in improving the condition of their markets. so they don't have to work next to mounds of garbage. so they have bathrooms. so they don't have to work in waist-deep water during the rainy season. on a really good day they earn as much as 1,500 liberian dollars--the equivalent of 30 u.s. dollars (more than a school teacher earns in a month). one of the women they interviewed, who is saving money so she can put herself through college, got her start with just $5. when i heard that, i couldn't help feeling a twinge of guilt that my $5 could have helped a woman in liberia start on the road to self-sufficiency, rather than being used to facilitate my laziness.

tonight on my way home from fhe, i was listening to talk of the nation (more NPR?! what a surprise!). tonight they rebroadcast one of today's earlier shows--neal conan interviewing author ayaan hirsi ali, a somali-born former member of the dutch parliament. she's just published infidel, an autobiography of her childhood and youth in somalia, saudi arabia, ethiopia and kenya and her flight to the netherlands for political asylum. a victim of genital mutilation herself, she was asked by a listener why she (and others like her who oppose the practice of female "circumcision" or genital mutilation) do not make more of a concrete effort to change the practice. her response was that with 140 million women mutilated in this manner--one little girl every ten seconds--it would be "delusional" for an individual to believe that she could change this practice.

i sympathize with that sentiment. i often find myself feeling distressed by the prevalence of sorrow and trouble in this world and feeling frustrated that there seems to be nothing that i can do to change it. and to hear this woman--a woman who explains living with death threats as akin to living with a terminal chronic disease that could take your life tomorrow or next year or in ten minutes; a woman who has been named by time magazine one of the 100 most influential people in the world--to hear her proclaim delusional the idea that an individual can make a change in the face of such odds confirms the way i feel. but it bothers me. immensely. because i believe very deeply that if each of us would take our gifts and use them fully, if we would put to work even some of our surplus in order to make our own worlds a more beautiful place, then we could truly change our world. i think of muhammad yunus and the micro loans his bank extends which have changed the lives of millions of people who were able to get loans through the grameen bank when they couldn't get financing anywhere else. and i disagree. it is not delusional to think that one person can change the world. perhaps they cannot completely solve a given problem, but no problem is solved in isolation; they are only solved in process and in context.

if i made myself a tuna sandwich and gave my $5 to a woman in liberia, her life would change and with it the lives of her children and their children. the real problem is not whether individuals can change their world; the real problem is how do i get my $5 to that woman in liberia who could set up a market business with it? our problem is not ability to change, but rather isolation. boxed up in my world of fast food and materialism and luxury, i can't help someone in need. it is only when we find ways to break the barriers of our confined and anesthetized worlds that we can make a difference--if only for one or two or five people. so how do we break those barriers?

suffrage.
i finally watched iron jawed angels this weekend. i'd seen bits of it with caroline, but had never watched it all the way through. it tells the story of alice paul and lucy burns, who sought and were given control over the national american women's suffrage association's congressional committee and their later break with NAWSA and formation of the national women's party. it depicts paul and burns's efforts to push for an amendment to the consitution granting women the right to vote, including their picketing of the white house, demonstrations and parades, and their unjust imprisonment and the resulting hunger strike.

i was frustrated with the opening 45 minutes or so of the film. it felt too caught up in its snazzy soundtrack and its quirky camera work, both of which i felt detracted from the power and importance of the story the film was telling. and i have little patience for things like gratuitous lesbian kissing and masturbating scenes that do little if anything to develop character or story.

but. it is good. and worth watching, in spite of the weakness of the opening half. it brought to life the extremes to which these women were willing to go in order to make their voice heard. and it beautifully demonstrated the hypocrisy of the men who were willing to sacrifice human life in the name of preserving democracy even as they flatly refused to change laws in order to extend the rights and privileges of democracy to half of the american population. watch it. this history needs to be remembered and understood. and the film does present a succinct representation of that history.

perhaps the greatest praise i can give it is that it moved me to resolve to do better. to make use of the opportunities and rights that women who lived before me did not have. and to resist the myriad ways in which my own society confines, limits, and stymies women. i have watched commentary on hillary rodham clinton's upcoming (current?) presidential campaign with a mixture of interest and distaste. not because of any dislike for her on my part, though i think it would be a horrible mistake for the DNC to nominate her. nor because i have even one little tiny reservation about a woman's ability to fulfill the office of president, with all of its responsibilities. rather because of the kinds of criticisms i have seen of her. not so much by professional commentators; more from average, generally mormon, americans. she is criticized for wearing the pants in the family. for not leaving her husband when he cheated on her. i have heard her simultaneously criticized for betraying her sex by using domestic settings and for being a cold, unfeeling, unnatural woman--both criticisms coming in response to the same clinton statement, from the same person, practically in the same breath. when she makes a statement that, were it to come from a male politician would be lauded for its restraint, she is accused of being catty (the statement in question was "after six years of having bush in the white house"). but if she were to not level any criticism at all, she would be called weak. which is another critique i have heard--that she's too soft to handle the difficult foreign policy issues facing our nation. this in spite of her support of military action in afghanistan and her initial support for the invasion of iraq, two foreign policy actions supported by those who typically oppose her. and in spite of the fact that president bush, who most of her critics seem to support, appointed a woman to be secretary of state.

the long and the short of it is that this presidential campaign will throw into stark relief the ways in which women are held to standards radically different from those of men. that opinions of women are governed in large part by continuing stereotypes about which social realms they have the ability and right to influence. if anything can demonstrate the hypocrisy of our society's views on women, it will be a woman running for president. in my opinion the battle fought by women like alice paul will not be fully won until women can not only elect their representatives, but be their own representatives at every level of government.

epiphany!
this morning i started my day as i always do—with npr. after showering, i listened to "day to day" while moisturizing, styling, and toothbrushing. ambassador john bolton’s imminent departure from the u.n. robert gates upcoming senate confirmation hearings. the supreme court weighing anti-segregation measures in public school districts in st. louis and seattle. and lionel richie. that’s right. lionel richie. “lionel of arabia,” to be exact.

and then it struck. a bolt of insight so brilliant that i’m surprised i (and the bathroom i was in) withstood its incendiary power. clearly lionel richie is the answer—the best possible person bush could appoint as the next ambassador to the u.n. his lack of experience cannot be held against him. after all we don’t often require experience and knowledge of our national leaders—just check out such illustrious figures as jesse “the body” ventura and arnie, not to mention some of bush’s shining moments in the lead-up to his own first national election.

so much for dismissing his lack of qualifications. but if all it took to become ambassador to the u.n. was to lack all necessary qualifications, we’d have an entire nation of candidates. clearly there must be something that sets lionel apart from the masses of humanity who are similarly unqualified to act as ambassador to the u.n. and trust me, there is.

for starters, lionel is popular in the middle east, which is more than can be said for most americans who would only be identified as “american” (an open invitation to be kidnapped, shot, or mocked). according to lionel, when he goes to visit other nations he is not American, nor a man, nor even a black man. he is that nation. and how could the nations of the world not love a man who is their nation? not only does his aura allow him to identify as the nation he’s visiting, it’s got a magnetic pull powerful enough to bring together long-time enemies. as was the case when he visited some fancy-pants spa in sardinia and a high-level israeli government official and a high-level lebanese government official overcame their history of years of vacationing in the same place without once speaking to each other in order to bask in the glow of lionel’s presence, recounting stories of how their respective wives had come down the aisle to “truly” and sharing photos of their children. then there was the 20th anniversary of the american bombing of libya, on which lionel performed. at 2:00 in the morning—the anniversary not only of the bombing but also the moment at which gadafi’s infant daughter was killed.

clearly lionel has the necessary ability to bring together warring enemies. plus, if things were to get rough, he could just start singing in that silky smooth voice of his. and then his acolytes would parrot back his music (which according to him translates deep-seated anger into the mellifluous songs we all know and love [or not]; thus his universal appeal), as did “hundreds” of Libyan children when they followed him on a walking tour of the old city of Tripoli. he said hello, and they sang back to him “hello, is it me you’re looking for.” when he attempted to talk to them, he rapidly discovered the only English they knew was what they had picked up phonetically from his songs. just imagine the potential for captivating such world figures as hugo chavez, muqtada al-sadr, or jacques chiraq, and the subsequent parrotry. anytime the u.s. faced a difficult challenge in the u.n., lionel would simply have to write a song and sing it and before you know it, our perspective will be sung back to us by the masses. and isn’t that what we want of the u.n. after all? affirmation that everything and anything goes so long as it’s what we want?

i can’t believe the bush administration hasn’t struck upon this stroke of genius yet. clearly they should start paying attention to the world around them. had they been doing so, they may have noticed that baghdadis blared lionel’s “all night long” as American planes bombed the city in 2003 and they would have made this appointment years ago (but then, i've never accused the bushites of paying attention to realities on the ground in baghdad as they prepared their invasion).

and did i mention that lionel speaks of himself in the third person? if nothing else convinces you that he’s perfect for the job, that should do the trick.

entitled.
i was listening to NPR tonight (surprise, surprise) and they reported that vice-president dick cheney has asked (too passive) or demanded (too aggressive) or ordered (too militant; you take your pick of verbs) that his televisions be pre-programmed to fox news when he checks into a hotel room while traveling. i was horrified. not because i find fox news repugnant in every possible way. but because of the presumptuousness of demanding that a television be pre-programmed. we couldn't ask our esteemd vice-president to take five minutes and find the damn station for himself, now could we. it smacks of the kind of snobbery that leaves me disillusioned with the world. and it makes me feel better about disliking cheney (not that i needed more reasons...).

haze.
i feel strange in my world right now. i am emerging from the haze of doubt and confusion and sorrow i have been battling with my personal convictions, if not constantly at least consistently, for the last year and a half. this feels beautiful. i feel as if an incredible weight has lifted from my shoulders.

but my realization of how beautiful this world is stands in stark contrast to the ugliness i am seeing in the political climate. i am finding myself engulfed in a haze of rhetoric and intimidation and fear. i remember the day twelve years ago when the u.s. (i suppose it was really the u.n. but it seemed like the u.s. to me at the time) attacked iraq. i was so young and thoughtless. all i knew was that my great nation, which was of course right, had done something and i must support it out of patriotism. and i wondered why my sophomore english teacher wept while she talked about it. and now i find myself dazed at the thought that we may find ourselves doing the same thing twelve years later. except this time i do not have the excuse of youth and innocence to explain my lack of understanding. i have only the cloud of hazy rhetoric with which i have been bombarded for the last six months.

i do not object on principle to the idea of a military strike in iraq. perhaps it is necessary. i do not know. but i wish i could trust the leaders of my nation to act according to fact and truth and with integrity. i cannot. i have heard too much rhetoric. how can i believe that a government leader acts with integrity when he objects to the u.n. allowing a "rogue nation" (one of the horrible members of the "axis of evil") to not comply with its decisions but is willing to act in direct opposition to the u.n.'s decisions himself? in this scenario, might makes right and there is one nation who will rule the world, either through direct or indirect means. how can i believe that president bush actually agreed with the resolution to send inspectors into iraq in order to determine if they are or are not in compliance with u.n. requirements when, a brief four months later, he is willing to throw it all away in order to disarm saddam hussein? how can i see the u.s.'s agreement to the resolution in november as anything but one step among many necessary to achieve its end objective, which is not the disarmament of saddam hussein but rather the use of force to disarm saddam hussein. we are behaving as a child who has decided it knows exactly what it wants and will get it at any cost. or worse, as an adult who knows better, when they can be rational, than to bully those weaker than they into conceding but is doing just that even though they should and do know better.

i object to war on moral grounds. but i am enough of a pragmatist to know that moral grounds will not always solve problems; war is not always avoidable. but i object strenuously to fighting a war when every honorable effort to avoid it has not been made and when the rhetoric of fear is the primary tool for arguing for said war. and no amount of mis-named pragmatism will convince me that i am wrong.

i am afraid. not of terrorists or "evil" nations or the idea of war. rather, i am afraid of the lack of honor and integrity i see at the head of this nation. i am afraid of the thick darkness that comes with the use of rhetoric as a tool rather than the truth. i am afraid of the perversity that will spring from the rhetoric of fear.