Sunday, January 29, 2006
Houston, We Have Apartment
We have an apartment, wooo! On February 15th, Amy and I will officially be Hell's Kitchen residents, and I couldn't be more excited. The neighborhood looks lovely, the place is BEAUTIFUL, and there are tons of perks, such as a working fireplace, roof access, and a key to the wonderful garden down the block. All this is thanks to our awesome broker, Alex. If you're looking for a place in Manhattan, let me know and I'll give you his number/email. He chauffeured us to every apartment we looked at with him, and he has an EMT parking permit, so he can park anywhere. He also prescreened apartments after the first two, so he could tell us whether they'd be worth our time or not, based on how we'd reacted to other places. Two thumbs up. Anyway, when I go later this week to measure completely I'll take some decent photos and possibly post them. Our apartment. So hot right now.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The Defense
Well, I made #4 on The BEAST's 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005. I suppose we all did, but I feel I should at least answer the charges. Here they are:
The evidence: Nita Lowey, bitch.
Sentence: Yeah, I suppose I'll take it. But considering I'm not totally guilty on all the charges, and they really have no evidence, I think I'll instead take a deathbed realization that my live was only wasted opportunities and not stupid mistakes...I've made a few stupid mistakes, but I'm much more of a wasted opportunities sort of gal, wasting opportunities such as college. And I think I deserve befuddlement, not scorn, and, God no, not indifference. The cold, meaningless demise? Sounds about right. Although if, in honor of my death, we could keep the thermostat at 72 degrees for just a couple of days, that would be great. I'll let you know when I'm a few days from death and willing to use all my money to pay for the wasted oil that went into heating my final hours. But hopefully the price of oil will be down by then.
In other words, I'm creating a special circle of hell for incompetent and/or scheming realtors, along with blood-sucking insurance companies. A small, vaguely special place in heaven goes to the guy in the breakfast cart who knows my order and smiles when he gives me my coffee and to the young, upbeat cab driver who makes talking about the weather seem like something slightly more than smalltalk.
4. YouOK, let's start with my pleas to the charges, in order: guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty unless you count caffeine as an antidepressent, only slightly guilty, guilty, guilty. I guess I didn't do to well.
Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don't. Assuming that it's normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.
Exhibit A: You don't even know who your congressman is.
Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.
The evidence: Nita Lowey, bitch.
Sentence: Yeah, I suppose I'll take it. But considering I'm not totally guilty on all the charges, and they really have no evidence, I think I'll instead take a deathbed realization that my live was only wasted opportunities and not stupid mistakes...I've made a few stupid mistakes, but I'm much more of a wasted opportunities sort of gal, wasting opportunities such as college. And I think I deserve befuddlement, not scorn, and, God no, not indifference. The cold, meaningless demise? Sounds about right. Although if, in honor of my death, we could keep the thermostat at 72 degrees for just a couple of days, that would be great. I'll let you know when I'm a few days from death and willing to use all my money to pay for the wasted oil that went into heating my final hours. But hopefully the price of oil will be down by then.
In other words, I'm creating a special circle of hell for incompetent and/or scheming realtors, along with blood-sucking insurance companies. A small, vaguely special place in heaven goes to the guy in the breakfast cart who knows my order and smiles when he gives me my coffee and to the young, upbeat cab driver who makes talking about the weather seem like something slightly more than smalltalk.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Touching Base
Wow; it's been too long. As you can probably guess, this means I've been a busy, busy girl for the past three weeks. I am now officially "Staff Writer for the Web" for Seed, which means very little change in what I actually do and very much welcome change in what they pay me. Because I am now officially a working woman, I've started the apartment search with Amy (Greenwood...a good friend of mine from high school who just got back from touring The World). We've been casually looking for about two weeks and just decided to pick up the pace by calling a real broker and getting her to find us the best places the day they come out. Last Thursday we saw the best place yet: a two bedroom on 56th between 9th and 10th with enormous bedrooms, a nice bathroom, and a small-as-all-hell-assuming-souls-are-planck-length living space. The last attribute is why we didn't take it. We planned on going on an apartment binge on Saturday, but apparently nobody shows on Saturday, so we were only able to see one apartment. It blew.
Dating Mike again is going extraordinarily well. I feel totally at ease with him—mentally, physically and emotionally. I guess that's the big perk of dating someone you've already had an intense, long-term relationship with: You don't have to get past the awkward getting-to-know-you stage. I hate that stage...with friends, coworkers, teachers, whatever. I like to be free and easy with people. It's also great that Mike doesn't socialize much and doesn't socialize at all with people I know. I'm so much more comfortable one-on-one than in group situations...or public situations. Spending hours chilling in his (awesome west village) apartment is simply perfect. The time-limit looms (September, when he goes to some random still-unknown city to teach private school), but it's a ways off, and I'm happy to enjoy the time while it's here.
More thoughts later...right now I'm exhausted.
Dating Mike again is going extraordinarily well. I feel totally at ease with him—mentally, physically and emotionally. I guess that's the big perk of dating someone you've already had an intense, long-term relationship with: You don't have to get past the awkward getting-to-know-you stage. I hate that stage...with friends, coworkers, teachers, whatever. I like to be free and easy with people. It's also great that Mike doesn't socialize much and doesn't socialize at all with people I know. I'm so much more comfortable one-on-one than in group situations...or public situations. Spending hours chilling in his (awesome west village) apartment is simply perfect. The time-limit looms (September, when he goes to some random still-unknown city to teach private school), but it's a ways off, and I'm happy to enjoy the time while it's here.
More thoughts later...right now I'm exhausted.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Vacation Winds Down
For the last time for a long time I've spent 10 days lazing about, sleeping late, and hanging out with friends in restaurants and coffee shops. It has been a lovely 10 days, and I will miss them dearly as I return to 7 am wakeups, 9 hour workdays and a bare-bones social life. It took me until Friday to really drop work from my mindset. With a combination of evil hormones and worker's residue, much of last week was spent in a restless state of anxiety I couldn't quite shake. And then it shook, and I revived myself as I was from June through September. It's such a lovely, easy way to be.
I might as well chat about the cryptic comments from a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently dating—but not in a relationship with—my ex. He doesn't want anything serious, which right now I'm all for, but I'm of course concerned that will change over time. At least the lack of seriousness and future dampens the "crawling back home (without ever going abroad)" feeling that was initially pretty strong. As it stands, seeing him is just a nice way to pass time, and I'm good with that. The other concern is that I really like hanging out with him and flirting with him and looking at him, and I trust him and feel close with him, but those things don't necessarily add up to wanting to date him. I'm not sure I do. Hopefully this will all become clearer with time. Hopefully nobody will get hurt. Hopefully the whole world will eventually find love and happiness. It's a lot to hope for.
I might as well chat about the cryptic comments from a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently dating—but not in a relationship with—my ex. He doesn't want anything serious, which right now I'm all for, but I'm of course concerned that will change over time. At least the lack of seriousness and future dampens the "crawling back home (without ever going abroad)" feeling that was initially pretty strong. As it stands, seeing him is just a nice way to pass time, and I'm good with that. The other concern is that I really like hanging out with him and flirting with him and looking at him, and I trust him and feel close with him, but those things don't necessarily add up to wanting to date him. I'm not sure I do. Hopefully this will all become clearer with time. Hopefully nobody will get hurt. Hopefully the whole world will eventually find love and happiness. It's a lot to hope for.
Reading Kids' Diaries
I think we should read kids' diaries. I'm also just a little bit pro-Bush's-spying-program, assuming he really is just scanning for terrorist plots and not preventing robberies or extra-marital affairs or meetings where people get together and burn Bush effigies or anything crazy like that. But that's not today's topic. I'm not talking about violating civil liberties for the sake of security here, I'm talking about violating civil liberties for ART.
If there is one consistent problem with all fiction (and even non-fiction) it is the unrelenting portrayal of children as adults perceive them, never the portrayal of children as they are. Now, I can't capture children as they really are—at age 22 I'm hardly in that position, and I never was able to keep a diary as a kid—but I do remember thinking, when I was a child, that every portrayal I saw was horribly charicatured and never represented the world I knew.
Exhibit A: Bullies. Stories about children are rife with bullies, children who live to make other children feel bad, and that's fine, because there are plenty of bullies in elementary school and middle school. They were, however, never of the Malfoy-Crabbe-Goyle variety. Never one obvious leader with cronies who had no other friends who would show up just to torture people. As I recall, it was the legitimately popular kids who were bullyish. The vast, vast majority of boys, especially around age 13, are obscenely insecure. It's not like college (or even high school), where the secure crowd rises to the top and wins everyone's love, and an insecure minority are stuck being assholes whom everyone kind of hates but may have some power due to sheer force. No no no. In middle school, the entire popular crowd is insecure and generally takes it out on anyone they can. And they're less explicit about their bullying. There's no obvious building themselves up...it's just about shooting the other person down. It's about exchanging looks with a group of five that say "Wow, this person just made a really bad choice. Why would anyone do THAT?" It's not about shoving people into lockers. It's about subtle mockery and exclusion. It probably wouldn't look that bad if an adult listened to the whole thing.
I'm a little too caught up in exhibit A to run through other exhibits, but they would partially concern the inner life of children. What do they think about? I famously thought about my kindergarten teachers molesting miniature versions of the von Trapp children. What do normal children think about? The exhibits would otherwise concern the interactions between children. What do they talk about? What kind of signals do they give? I have relatively little recollection. I don't think TV shows, books, plays and other art forms portray these accurately, even when they capture something fundamentally true about people. They fail to capture childhood as it is, not how we vaguely recall it to be or see it in other children. I only know because I was overwhelmingly frustrated as a child by the innacuracies. I just didn't do anything about it.
Which is where the civil liberties violation comes in. Isolate children from portrayals of themselves. Force them to keep diaries under the guise of secrecy. But then read the diaries. Read them all, and from them get an idea of the collective experience of individual children.
Of course this is impractical, but we should find some way of getting the information from them without letting them just confirm our suggestions, without them just spewing back the portrayals of them they've seen. Save art! Help human understanding! Exploit children!
If there is one consistent problem with all fiction (and even non-fiction) it is the unrelenting portrayal of children as adults perceive them, never the portrayal of children as they are. Now, I can't capture children as they really are—at age 22 I'm hardly in that position, and I never was able to keep a diary as a kid—but I do remember thinking, when I was a child, that every portrayal I saw was horribly charicatured and never represented the world I knew.
Exhibit A: Bullies. Stories about children are rife with bullies, children who live to make other children feel bad, and that's fine, because there are plenty of bullies in elementary school and middle school. They were, however, never of the Malfoy-Crabbe-Goyle variety. Never one obvious leader with cronies who had no other friends who would show up just to torture people. As I recall, it was the legitimately popular kids who were bullyish. The vast, vast majority of boys, especially around age 13, are obscenely insecure. It's not like college (or even high school), where the secure crowd rises to the top and wins everyone's love, and an insecure minority are stuck being assholes whom everyone kind of hates but may have some power due to sheer force. No no no. In middle school, the entire popular crowd is insecure and generally takes it out on anyone they can. And they're less explicit about their bullying. There's no obvious building themselves up...it's just about shooting the other person down. It's about exchanging looks with a group of five that say "Wow, this person just made a really bad choice. Why would anyone do THAT?" It's not about shoving people into lockers. It's about subtle mockery and exclusion. It probably wouldn't look that bad if an adult listened to the whole thing.
I'm a little too caught up in exhibit A to run through other exhibits, but they would partially concern the inner life of children. What do they think about? I famously thought about my kindergarten teachers molesting miniature versions of the von Trapp children. What do normal children think about? The exhibits would otherwise concern the interactions between children. What do they talk about? What kind of signals do they give? I have relatively little recollection. I don't think TV shows, books, plays and other art forms portray these accurately, even when they capture something fundamentally true about people. They fail to capture childhood as it is, not how we vaguely recall it to be or see it in other children. I only know because I was overwhelmingly frustrated as a child by the innacuracies. I just didn't do anything about it.
Which is where the civil liberties violation comes in. Isolate children from portrayals of themselves. Force them to keep diaries under the guise of secrecy. But then read the diaries. Read them all, and from them get an idea of the collective experience of individual children.
Of course this is impractical, but we should find some way of getting the information from them without letting them just confirm our suggestions, without them just spewing back the portrayals of them they've seen. Save art! Help human understanding! Exploit children!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
A Childhood Memory...of Why People Suck
I just recalled an incident from when I was eight, which reminded me why I sometimes get really annoyed with people. It also reminded me that adults act like children, or children imitate adults, or people just maintain the same sort of irritating behavior throughout life and only seem more mature because they change their presentation. The memory:
I was in Mrs. Honig's Hebrew school class one evening in third grade. I was reading a passage (in English) and suddenly had the idea so pronounce the "c" in "scissors" when the word came up in the reading. To see if people were listening. To see how they'd react. Well, the decision was made in a split second, I pronounced the "c" and the reaction was incredible. The entire class JUMPED to correct me. Twenty-five eight-year-old Jewish kids, all trying to beat each other to be the first to tell me I was wrong. To look at each other with smug superiority.
I know I'm viewing this through the lens of the slightly socially awkward eight-year-old that I was, but I think that's a far fairer lens than seeing how an adult would have perceived the behavior of the children. They might have been glad the kids knew how to pronounce the word. They might have been glad the kids were listening. They might have been mildly perplexed that one of the better readers in the class had mispronounced a word everyone else knew, but they would have been glad that I had learned from my classmates. But adults seem not to observe the behaviors of kids as other kids do, and I think they therefore miss out on the subtleties of the exchange. Kids do have a pretty intricate social world, and they can be very cruel to each other. A child's comment that may seem innocent or just funny to adults may seem horribly demeaning to other kids. And I think those kids are the ones who get it. The adults don't. And the attitude I got from the other kids in third grade I've seen over and over again in every stage of life. People are incredibly eager to jump on each others mistakes, correct each other, win arguments for the sake of winning, not for learning or teaching or commonly arriving at truth.
If you don't find this story compelling, let me give you another:
I was seeing a high school show with my friend Monica in fourth grade. As we entered the high school she said to me, "Maggie, I think some of the more popular girls are here, so if I see them, can we pretend we didn't come together? I'm just becoming accepted by them, so, no offense but, you know..." And I said, "Oh sure, I understand." And I did.
Perhaps Monica didn't show great virtue, but her actions bothered me so much less than the attitude the third graders gave me in Hebrew School. Again, my perspective let me know where Monica was coming from and the attitude she directed at me. She didn't dislike me or disrespect me, life was just easier if the popular girls liked her, and being with me in front of them would make that a much more difficult goal to achieve. I thought I might do the same thing in her shoes. I actually give her points for saying that directly to me. I think that showed she respected me, that she was able to let me know exactly why she might not stand with me if they came over. She wasn't passive-aggressive. She was assertive. And I have to give it to her for that.
I was in Mrs. Honig's Hebrew school class one evening in third grade. I was reading a passage (in English) and suddenly had the idea so pronounce the "c" in "scissors" when the word came up in the reading. To see if people were listening. To see how they'd react. Well, the decision was made in a split second, I pronounced the "c" and the reaction was incredible. The entire class JUMPED to correct me. Twenty-five eight-year-old Jewish kids, all trying to beat each other to be the first to tell me I was wrong. To look at each other with smug superiority.
I know I'm viewing this through the lens of the slightly socially awkward eight-year-old that I was, but I think that's a far fairer lens than seeing how an adult would have perceived the behavior of the children. They might have been glad the kids knew how to pronounce the word. They might have been glad the kids were listening. They might have been mildly perplexed that one of the better readers in the class had mispronounced a word everyone else knew, but they would have been glad that I had learned from my classmates. But adults seem not to observe the behaviors of kids as other kids do, and I think they therefore miss out on the subtleties of the exchange. Kids do have a pretty intricate social world, and they can be very cruel to each other. A child's comment that may seem innocent or just funny to adults may seem horribly demeaning to other kids. And I think those kids are the ones who get it. The adults don't. And the attitude I got from the other kids in third grade I've seen over and over again in every stage of life. People are incredibly eager to jump on each others mistakes, correct each other, win arguments for the sake of winning, not for learning or teaching or commonly arriving at truth.
If you don't find this story compelling, let me give you another:
I was seeing a high school show with my friend Monica in fourth grade. As we entered the high school she said to me, "Maggie, I think some of the more popular girls are here, so if I see them, can we pretend we didn't come together? I'm just becoming accepted by them, so, no offense but, you know..." And I said, "Oh sure, I understand." And I did.
Perhaps Monica didn't show great virtue, but her actions bothered me so much less than the attitude the third graders gave me in Hebrew School. Again, my perspective let me know where Monica was coming from and the attitude she directed at me. She didn't dislike me or disrespect me, life was just easier if the popular girls liked her, and being with me in front of them would make that a much more difficult goal to achieve. I thought I might do the same thing in her shoes. I actually give her points for saying that directly to me. I think that showed she respected me, that she was able to let me know exactly why she might not stand with me if they came over. She wasn't passive-aggressive. She was assertive. And I have to give it to her for that.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger, Shrug of the Shoulders
Congratulations to Stephen Colbert for getting referenced in a post title. Bravo, Stephen. You have achieved the highest maggie-centric honor in journalism.
Tip of the Hat
To Judge John E. Jones III for his glorious decision in the Dover "Monkey" Trial. I would sum it up for you, but why should I give you the goods here when I've already done it here. Check out the article. I will give you one teaser quote from the judge:
Wag of the Finger
To President George W. Bush, not for spying, but for whom he's spying on. I have to say, when I first heard about the spying, I was nonplussed. If listening in on known Al-Qaeda operatives is going to help us prevent people from dying, I could see where "wartime exceptions" would be reasonable. I don't know if it's constitutional—I'm really poorly read—but it doesn't totally offend my sensibilities. However, this totally offends my sensibilities. Spying on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests? Really? Are those protests a "credible threat?" I vote no. They're generally angry but peaceful. I mean...a kiss-in is about as peaceful as you get.
I love when standards for these things sound like kids talking in a middle school English class...just throwing out creative ideas is good enough; the ideas don't have to be right. Which is really fine for middle school English...I'm all for rewarding free thinking. But it's not OK with logic like "well, clearly they don't like the military...and protests get people worked up, and sexuality gets people worked up, and they want to be allowed into the military, so maybe they're militant..and they'll kill us all!" Or whatever the logic there is.
Shrug of the Shoulders
To the Transit Workers Union, for being a huge pain in New York's ass for a cause that's probably totally reasonable. I haven't reviewed the specs much, and even if I did, I don't really know what's appropriate for them to be getting. So, fight the good fight, TWU; just don't fight the less-than-good fight. Because I was one of 4 people in the office until about 11:30 today, and I'd prefer if that didn't happen too much more. Thanks.
Tip of the Hat
To Judge John E. Jones III for his glorious decision in the Dover "Monkey" Trial. I would sum it up for you, but why should I give you the goods here when I've already done it here. Check out the article. I will give you one teaser quote from the judge:
The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.You tell them, Judge Jones. Also see my article for a doozy of a quote from Richard Dawkins, who never fails to take the appearance of level-headedness right out of his own completely level-headed conclusions. And that's why we love him so.
Wag of the Finger
To President George W. Bush, not for spying, but for whom he's spying on. I have to say, when I first heard about the spying, I was nonplussed. If listening in on known Al-Qaeda operatives is going to help us prevent people from dying, I could see where "wartime exceptions" would be reasonable. I don't know if it's constitutional—I'm really poorly read—but it doesn't totally offend my sensibilities. However, this totally offends my sensibilities. Spying on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests? Really? Are those protests a "credible threat?" I vote no. They're generally angry but peaceful. I mean...a kiss-in is about as peaceful as you get.
I love when standards for these things sound like kids talking in a middle school English class...just throwing out creative ideas is good enough; the ideas don't have to be right. Which is really fine for middle school English...I'm all for rewarding free thinking. But it's not OK with logic like "well, clearly they don't like the military...and protests get people worked up, and sexuality gets people worked up, and they want to be allowed into the military, so maybe they're militant..and they'll kill us all!" Or whatever the logic there is.
Shrug of the Shoulders
To the Transit Workers Union, for being a huge pain in New York's ass for a cause that's probably totally reasonable. I haven't reviewed the specs much, and even if I did, I don't really know what's appropriate for them to be getting. So, fight the good fight, TWU; just don't fight the less-than-good fight. Because I was one of 4 people in the office until about 11:30 today, and I'd prefer if that didn't happen too much more. Thanks.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Oh, The Inner Turmoil!
There is much. There is a reasonable quantity of outer turmoil as well (see the rather productive back-and-forth I've been having with a blogger on the "Inexpensive Indulgence" post. also see the article I wrote and the two I interviewed for today, coming out later this week.) Currently, I don't want to argue any more, please anybody, or redefine myself. And right now I'm being provoked by a guy on AIM (friend of a friend who wants me to rant about a kid he knows), scoffed at by my mother because I want time alone, and forced to redefine myself. Of course redefinition is a lifelong process...although it would be lovely if it ended at some point with me not defining myself at all. But I have way too much time on my mind, if not on my hands, and I can't help but dwell and wallow and ponder and think myself into DOOM. Which is what I've been doing this week. Worst/best of all is that recent events are so me and my life...they're just not me and my life right now. Bah. Sulk. Collapse on the couch. Read Narnia.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Good People, Good Art
After Friday evening, the weekend progressed into uncomplicated goodness (nice move, weekend). Yesterday I drove up to Wesleyan—my longest solo drive to date...yes, I realize it's under 2 hours—to see Chayes in "The Faculty Room." The show was lots of fun...in that hard-to-take sort of way. I may have mentioned I love theater/movies/books where you're transported completely into another world...a world that looks a lot like ours and could coexist with ours, but the people there just have slightly different rules for life. This was one of those shows, although it got kicked up a notch by being aware of its weirdness, and then laying weirdness over the awareness. Good stuff. Afterwards, I had Thai food with 3 Jesses (Chayes, Cygler and Kahn), which was lots of fun, and I livened up with some food in me. Food makes such a difference. Go food. On a brief walk afterwards, I chatted with Chayes about the events in my life. Was good to chat.
Today was "Brokeback Mountain" with V, which was, of course, amazing. He drove us in, mostly because he knew he could get a good, free parking space on a Sunday afternoon, and that opportunity was too good to pass up. We listened to showtunes. Need I have even written that? No. Brunch was at a trendy-ish Chelsea place, and we ate and chatted and such. Then came the awesome, awesome movie. Now, V said he'd rather see a movie with great projection than with a good crowd, but I think I may have proven him wrong with this one. The Chelsea crowd was priceless, even if they did interrupt a couple of good moments. One guy whispered "Oh, shit!" right after the cowboys had sex for the first time, as if he were surprised. Everyone cracked up. Also, I loved seeing a line out the men's room door and no line for the women's room. On the ride back I rediscovered exactly how much V hates traffic. He's a total taxi driver...can't stand people who are less able to maneuver than he. He kept saying "I hate people," which eventually caused me to break out into my once-improvised song "I hate people," written in the Best Buy parking lot on Central Avenue.
After the movie, V said this movie showed a good example of why gay men shouldn't get married. I paused. "...to women." Him: "Right." He said that he's seen 3 gay friends of his get married...in two of the occasions, he was left to comfort one of the groomsmen whose sexual relationship with the groom ended at the wedding. Oh, joy. And by joy I mean emotional hell. Also: V always smells good. It's a little weird. Actually, it's really weird. What the hell? It's like the glee club director who never sweats. Sick, sick, none-too-ethnic people.
Today was "Brokeback Mountain" with V, which was, of course, amazing. He drove us in, mostly because he knew he could get a good, free parking space on a Sunday afternoon, and that opportunity was too good to pass up. We listened to showtunes. Need I have even written that? No. Brunch was at a trendy-ish Chelsea place, and we ate and chatted and such. Then came the awesome, awesome movie. Now, V said he'd rather see a movie with great projection than with a good crowd, but I think I may have proven him wrong with this one. The Chelsea crowd was priceless, even if they did interrupt a couple of good moments. One guy whispered "Oh, shit!" right after the cowboys had sex for the first time, as if he were surprised. Everyone cracked up. Also, I loved seeing a line out the men's room door and no line for the women's room. On the ride back I rediscovered exactly how much V hates traffic. He's a total taxi driver...can't stand people who are less able to maneuver than he. He kept saying "I hate people," which eventually caused me to break out into my once-improvised song "I hate people," written in the Best Buy parking lot on Central Avenue.
After the movie, V said this movie showed a good example of why gay men shouldn't get married. I paused. "...to women." Him: "Right." He said that he's seen 3 gay friends of his get married...in two of the occasions, he was left to comfort one of the groomsmen whose sexual relationship with the groom ended at the wedding. Oh, joy. And by joy I mean emotional hell. Also: V always smells good. It's a little weird. Actually, it's really weird. What the hell? It's like the glee club director who never sweats. Sick, sick, none-too-ethnic people.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
And You May Ask Yourself...
Tonight my life took a turn for not-like-my-life. I'll chat on an individual basis...maybe...
But everything else paused when a series of likely coincidences took me to the very front spot of the subway. I was almost all the way from union square to grand central, when I realized that my back was immediately to the window that overlooks the track. I turned around and held the bars to either side of the window and just looked forward, a la Kate Winslet in Titanic. Without the imminent doom. So I got a great train's-eye-view of the subway. It's kind of great looking. I recomment riding at the front if you hav the opportunity. Pulling into a station will never be the same again.
Also, I was happy to read this post on my latest (and most creative) addition to the Seed website.
But everything else paused when a series of likely coincidences took me to the very front spot of the subway. I was almost all the way from union square to grand central, when I realized that my back was immediately to the window that overlooks the track. I turned around and held the bars to either side of the window and just looked forward, a la Kate Winslet in Titanic. Without the imminent doom. So I got a great train's-eye-view of the subway. It's kind of great looking. I recomment riding at the front if you hav the opportunity. Pulling into a station will never be the same again.
Also, I was happy to read this post on my latest (and most creative) addition to the Seed website.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The Downside of Vanity
These are the last three entries you get when you google my name:
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Yet, I still think it's a good idea to spend as much of my life as possible writing stories about monkey porn and broken virginity pledges. And making atrocious puns (see an article to be posted tomorrow). Hey, if a Salon journalist can write, "He attempts to answer the question, 'Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?' Dowd-ing Thomases might put it thusly: If men aren't necessary, should we care?" (my bold), I can pun as badly as I want to!
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lesbian gone wild
GIRLS GONE WILD - THE GREATEST XXX SITE . FREE GAY TEENAGER XXX
Yet, I still think it's a good idea to spend as much of my life as possible writing stories about monkey porn and broken virginity pledges. And making atrocious puns (see an article to be posted tomorrow). Hey, if a Salon journalist can write, "He attempts to answer the question, 'Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?' Dowd-ing Thomases might put it thusly: If men aren't necessary, should we care?" (my bold), I can pun as badly as I want to!
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
I've Got A Little List
Through a brief-ish but productive AIM conversation with Vaughan, I've started compiling a list. The document consists of "things I know little to nothing about, but should know about if I don't want to be an embarrassment to my family, my country, and myself." The working list is included below this entry. Feel free to suggest things I may not know about that I should investigate.
I also realized that I never talked about the real indulgence relevant to my post yesterday. While it's nice not to criticize harshly, it's really luxurious to praise unabashedly. Try doing it sometime. It's amazing! It has all the creativity of a good lambasting with none of the guilt. You can be even more creative, because the field is less explored (this isn't really the same as love poems and religious praise). Try telling someone they're so un-fucking-believably fabulous. It's stunningly good! "You just blew me right out of the water, like, dropped to your knees and took me from the pit of the ocean to fucking heaven. I'm pissing ambrosia on Zeus, that was so awesome." You know. Just ride with it. It's so amazingly satisfying.
OK, here's the working list:
Things I should know
Genocides
Rwanda
Sudan
Khmer Rouge
Serbia-Bosnia
West Africa?
Conspicuous Absences
Stalin
Pol Pot
Argentina
How Things Work
US
How a bill becomes a law
Constitutional amendments
SCOTUS, how a case gets there, what happens
Lower courts: who are they? how do they work?
Candidates for president
How presidential election works
International
The UN
How the EU works
WTO and how it interacts with the G8
How currencies fluctuate
How Canada and the UK elect their leaders
How the regions got their structures
How the EU was formed
Why africa is structurally fucked
Yugoslavia
USSR
The Koreas
One Germany
Northern Ireland/Ireland
Palestine/Israel
Individual mideast countries
Apartheid
OK, some of those I know more about than others (how we elect the president). But some I know absurdly little about. Feel free to add things along these lines, and for other categories, including "things that will kill us all, or at least tens of thousands of us."
I also realized that I never talked about the real indulgence relevant to my post yesterday. While it's nice not to criticize harshly, it's really luxurious to praise unabashedly. Try doing it sometime. It's amazing! It has all the creativity of a good lambasting with none of the guilt. You can be even more creative, because the field is less explored (this isn't really the same as love poems and religious praise). Try telling someone they're so un-fucking-believably fabulous. It's stunningly good! "You just blew me right out of the water, like, dropped to your knees and took me from the pit of the ocean to fucking heaven. I'm pissing ambrosia on Zeus, that was so awesome." You know. Just ride with it. It's so amazingly satisfying.
OK, here's the working list:
Things I should know
Genocides
Rwanda
Sudan
Khmer Rouge
Serbia-Bosnia
West Africa?
Conspicuous Absences
Stalin
Pol Pot
Argentina
How Things Work
US
How a bill becomes a law
Constitutional amendments
SCOTUS, how a case gets there, what happens
Lower courts: who are they? how do they work?
Candidates for president
How presidential election works
International
The UN
How the EU works
WTO and how it interacts with the G8
How currencies fluctuate
How Canada and the UK elect their leaders
How the regions got their structures
How the EU was formed
Why africa is structurally fucked
Yugoslavia
USSR
The Koreas
One Germany
Northern Ireland/Ireland
Palestine/Israel
Individual mideast countries
Apartheid
OK, some of those I know more about than others (how we elect the president). But some I know absurdly little about. Feel free to add things along these lines, and for other categories, including "things that will kill us all, or at least tens of thousands of us."
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Inexpensive Indulgence
The greatest thing I learned from my crazy mania professor Eric Schwab (I'll say 'hello, eric schwab,' because I'd put him just barely in the self-googling half of the world) is that it is legitimate, nay, desirable, even, to read a text and not criticize it. Just take from it everything you can. You don't have to endorse it or support it or praise it...just use the text to see what you can get out of it. Go on. Whatever you want. Be selfish. Take from the text. Perhaps this wasn't how he phrased it, but he did come down hard on the frequent practice of reading with a mind toward ridicule.
Why do people so frequently read this way? I understand you get something valid out of criticism; you practice discerning valid arguments and therefore practice forming strong opinions and arguments of your own. Plus one for critique. Fair enough. But you lose so much. You, number one, get really tense and have that insecure satisfaction of gossip, especially when you critique poorly. You (and realize, of course, that 'you' always means 'I') feel like a dirty, dirty, bad person. And that's not a good feeling at all. "Sure, religious people: there's an invisible omnipresent being pulling all the strings and setting the world up so science can explain everything, but really science isn't the way to answer our questions because he's just testing our faith. Like he is when he kills tens of thousands of people in Asia. He's not cruel. Noooooo. He's just got a plan!" See. I feel dirty now. That's not good. Whereas if I legitimately consider the opinion (unlikely at this point; I've done a lot of that already), or just try to see how the impulse to believe in God reveals something about what it means to be human (very likely), I feel good. And satisfied. Try it! I think you'll like it.
So it feels bad to ridicule and good not to ridicule. You also get much better reactions when you don't ridicule. When you argue with an attitude, people get defensive and it sucks. You wind up in one of those arguments where there's no aim to prove or disprove the original point, you just find an objection to everything the other person says. Those arguments are frustrating. If you remain amicable and ask the person to explain his or her thoughts, you can present challenges and get the person to respond to them thoughtfully. People are much more likely to present their opinions fully and be receptive to constructive criticism this way. If you take the conversation in another direction, they'll be happy to go with you.
And you just get more out of it. You have the power to make the reading of the text or the listening of the speech as useful to yourself as possible. You can use it to explore the topic that means the most to you and resonates most with what was presented. It's a great, open opportunity. Go for it.
If the argument or information really just blows? Ignore it. Move on. Find something else. If there's absolutely no entertainment value, humor, decent points, food for thought, cute facts or anecdotes, consider the time you've spent reading a sunk cost and do something else.
Some people think it's weak not to criticize harshly if something's bad. Why? I don't think it's weak. It's being the bigger, more selfish man. It's doing exactly what you want. It's putting your remaining time to use that works for you. Excellent.
Unsurprisingly, this post is spurred because every negative comment written about my work hits me hard. This is the problem with going public, especially with a poor sense of what should be censored, a creative mind, and relatively little experience in the field. I'm fledgling. I'm learning. I'd appreciate if people criticized constructively...and I'm not convinced they get anything meaningful out of doing otherwise. I know I don't get anything out of that except a quick, guilt-ridden high. But, in my little utilitarian scheme, if it actually benefits them, I can't stop them. I can't stop them anyway.
Why do people so frequently read this way? I understand you get something valid out of criticism; you practice discerning valid arguments and therefore practice forming strong opinions and arguments of your own. Plus one for critique. Fair enough. But you lose so much. You, number one, get really tense and have that insecure satisfaction of gossip, especially when you critique poorly. You (and realize, of course, that 'you' always means 'I') feel like a dirty, dirty, bad person. And that's not a good feeling at all. "Sure, religious people: there's an invisible omnipresent being pulling all the strings and setting the world up so science can explain everything, but really science isn't the way to answer our questions because he's just testing our faith. Like he is when he kills tens of thousands of people in Asia. He's not cruel. Noooooo. He's just got a plan!" See. I feel dirty now. That's not good. Whereas if I legitimately consider the opinion (unlikely at this point; I've done a lot of that already), or just try to see how the impulse to believe in God reveals something about what it means to be human (very likely), I feel good. And satisfied. Try it! I think you'll like it.
So it feels bad to ridicule and good not to ridicule. You also get much better reactions when you don't ridicule. When you argue with an attitude, people get defensive and it sucks. You wind up in one of those arguments where there's no aim to prove or disprove the original point, you just find an objection to everything the other person says. Those arguments are frustrating. If you remain amicable and ask the person to explain his or her thoughts, you can present challenges and get the person to respond to them thoughtfully. People are much more likely to present their opinions fully and be receptive to constructive criticism this way. If you take the conversation in another direction, they'll be happy to go with you.
And you just get more out of it. You have the power to make the reading of the text or the listening of the speech as useful to yourself as possible. You can use it to explore the topic that means the most to you and resonates most with what was presented. It's a great, open opportunity. Go for it.
If the argument or information really just blows? Ignore it. Move on. Find something else. If there's absolutely no entertainment value, humor, decent points, food for thought, cute facts or anecdotes, consider the time you've spent reading a sunk cost and do something else.
Some people think it's weak not to criticize harshly if something's bad. Why? I don't think it's weak. It's being the bigger, more selfish man. It's doing exactly what you want. It's putting your remaining time to use that works for you. Excellent.
Unsurprisingly, this post is spurred because every negative comment written about my work hits me hard. This is the problem with going public, especially with a poor sense of what should be censored, a creative mind, and relatively little experience in the field. I'm fledgling. I'm learning. I'd appreciate if people criticized constructively...and I'm not convinced they get anything meaningful out of doing otherwise. I know I don't get anything out of that except a quick, guilt-ridden high. But, in my little utilitarian scheme, if it actually benefits them, I can't stop them. I can't stop them anyway.
Monday, December 05, 2005
We Could Be Wrong
So, let's say there is a God. A likely situation? In my opinion, no. In the opinion of others, very. But, as pretty much everyone will concede, a possible situation. Not one we can ever conclusively say is untrue. That's the frustrating beauty of all the theistic arguments. So, anyway.
Given: ∃ God
And therefore everything we know is wrong. Of course, maybe everything we know isn't wrong, and God is one of those Gods who sparked the big bang and evolution and pretty much left the world to function given physical principles and He did so with infinite lovingkindness. Possible. But I'm not talking about that situation. I'm talking about any situation where everything we know is wrong. God created the heavens and the earth. God created man pretty much as he is.
So, IF this is the case. What is science? Is it still taking all of these testables and, well, testing them? Would we still go about our merry way, finding out what we could via these methods, hoping that the consistency we've seen in this world holds up a little more? Or would we claim that the answers to these questions, even if we couldn't test them, are ultimately the scientific answers, because they are truth? Or would science just be dead/useless altogether?
Of course there's always the question of how we know there's a God. So we have to assume it was revealed to us in some awfully convincing but non-repeatable way. Like the whole booming voice from the heavens, mountains lifted, every person told what he or she is thinking, and then nothing. Heck, I'd be convinced. But it's non-repeatable. OK, now that we have that out of the way...
Is the first priority of science truth? I think it's pretty clearly not. It's just that we're very convinced we can find truth through a system that makes a lot of sense and has some pretty remarkable successes in the past.
On a less extreme note than the "science fails!" scenario, what about the several times scientists have gotten it wrong...such as with the ether. I mean, the ether wasn't a horrible hypothesis. It's not immediately intuitive that light should be the fulcrum of the universe. So, in their science classes they taught the ether. Should they not have? I think they should have. So we kind of tacitly consent to teach untruths as long as they're arrived at via this tried-and-usually-true methodology. Seems mildly messed up. I'll ride with it, but I do kind of feel we should be qualifying everything.
I guess that's what I'll concede to IDers. Not that evolution should be singled out as being flawed, hell no, it's one of the theories with the greatest ratio of explanatory power to problems that we've got. But aside from repeating the steps of the scientific method ad nauseum, I think kids should be given a clearer picture of science: What it's based on, how it operates, what it will not answer, all the incredible things it's done, and how there may be things that are wrong and always will be uncertainties. And that's part of the discipline. The good news, you can tell them, is good science is set up so that it will seek out and find what's wrong. And that's it's greatest virtue. So take the answers as truth with only a small grain of salt.
Given: ∃ God
And therefore everything we know is wrong. Of course, maybe everything we know isn't wrong, and God is one of those Gods who sparked the big bang and evolution and pretty much left the world to function given physical principles and He did so with infinite lovingkindness. Possible. But I'm not talking about that situation. I'm talking about any situation where everything we know is wrong. God created the heavens and the earth. God created man pretty much as he is.
So, IF this is the case. What is science? Is it still taking all of these testables and, well, testing them? Would we still go about our merry way, finding out what we could via these methods, hoping that the consistency we've seen in this world holds up a little more? Or would we claim that the answers to these questions, even if we couldn't test them, are ultimately the scientific answers, because they are truth? Or would science just be dead/useless altogether?
Of course there's always the question of how we know there's a God. So we have to assume it was revealed to us in some awfully convincing but non-repeatable way. Like the whole booming voice from the heavens, mountains lifted, every person told what he or she is thinking, and then nothing. Heck, I'd be convinced. But it's non-repeatable. OK, now that we have that out of the way...
Is the first priority of science truth? I think it's pretty clearly not. It's just that we're very convinced we can find truth through a system that makes a lot of sense and has some pretty remarkable successes in the past.
On a less extreme note than the "science fails!" scenario, what about the several times scientists have gotten it wrong...such as with the ether. I mean, the ether wasn't a horrible hypothesis. It's not immediately intuitive that light should be the fulcrum of the universe. So, in their science classes they taught the ether. Should they not have? I think they should have. So we kind of tacitly consent to teach untruths as long as they're arrived at via this tried-and-usually-true methodology. Seems mildly messed up. I'll ride with it, but I do kind of feel we should be qualifying everything.
I guess that's what I'll concede to IDers. Not that evolution should be singled out as being flawed, hell no, it's one of the theories with the greatest ratio of explanatory power to problems that we've got. But aside from repeating the steps of the scientific method ad nauseum, I think kids should be given a clearer picture of science: What it's based on, how it operates, what it will not answer, all the incredible things it's done, and how there may be things that are wrong and always will be uncertainties. And that's part of the discipline. The good news, you can tell them, is good science is set up so that it will seek out and find what's wrong. And that's it's greatest virtue. So take the answers as truth with only a small grain of salt.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The World of the Post
I was riding home on metro north today, when I looked to my right and realized three men lining the aisle across from me were all reading the New York Post. I have a very serious love/hate relationship with the Post. The hate side is obvious: the paper is exploitative crap. It's filled with overblown, romanticized stories about killings, sex scandals and celebrities. It is always in the poorest of taste, and the news rarely has any relevance outside itself. It is a true tabloid, but it's reputation is better than that of, say, Star. It's, you know, not embarrassing to read on a train. Now for the love side: the paper is BRILLIANTLY HILARIOUS exploitative crap. I really feel I should be writing the tasteless puns that accompany every story as a headline. Seriously, Post folks, call me up. I'll do it in my spare time. It'll be awesome. They, apparently, don't deem a pun as making light of something (I remember seeing "Oh, God!" as the front page headline for a suicide bombing). Which is tasteless, sure...but I think you can kind of set your own rules that way. If they do it for everything, it's not so bad.
But anyway, what I've realized is that people read the Post. A lot of them. And they're all living in this bizarro world I know nothing about. Now, I'm not as much of a news junkie as some people are, but I, for example, know what case went in front of the Supreme Court today, and I don't know, for example, anything about the guy who killed a police officer this week. But lots of people know tons about this guy, just like lots of people knew tons more about Scott Peterson. I'm not saying these people are wrong for enjoying their Post...everyone who's anyone knows that personal stories are more compelling than tragedies and decisions that affect people on a mass scale. It's just strange that there's a population living in an entirely different world of news, even though they live within a two mile radius of me.
On a lighter (or darker) note, I'm not thrilled with the colors of my site. It's blatantly obvious that black is out and Mac white is in. However, I may just ride out the wave and wait for black to return when apple and google go under and, say, alienware rises to the top. Then I'll be SO in.
But anyway, what I've realized is that people read the Post. A lot of them. And they're all living in this bizarro world I know nothing about. Now, I'm not as much of a news junkie as some people are, but I, for example, know what case went in front of the Supreme Court today, and I don't know, for example, anything about the guy who killed a police officer this week. But lots of people know tons about this guy, just like lots of people knew tons more about Scott Peterson. I'm not saying these people are wrong for enjoying their Post...everyone who's anyone knows that personal stories are more compelling than tragedies and decisions that affect people on a mass scale. It's just strange that there's a population living in an entirely different world of news, even though they live within a two mile radius of me.
On a lighter (or darker) note, I'm not thrilled with the colors of my site. It's blatantly obvious that black is out and Mac white is in. However, I may just ride out the wave and wait for black to return when apple and google go under and, say, alienware rises to the top. Then I'll be SO in.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
She Was Asking For It
This post might offend you. No, really. It might.
I've been thinking a bunch about this post on the amazing blog feministing.com. Jessica, the smart and saucy head of the site, discusses a British study whose main finding was "one in three people in the UK believe that women who 'behave flirtatiously' are responsible for being raped." OK, that's pretty scary. But then she goes on to quote more of the study. I'm interested in this part:
Similarly, more than a quarter of people (30%) said that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk, and more than a third (37%) held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say “no” to the man. (bold theirs)
They clearly find this abhorrent. I'm not so upset, and it's mostly that "partially responsible" category that's doing it. Let's take another example. Say a rathepetitete woman is driving alone in her cute Porsche convertible and wanders into the South Bronx. She realizes she needs gas and hops out in her fabulous Prada heals and Gucci mini-dress. She goes up to the attendant and pulls out a wad of Benjamins and flips through about five of them before she finds a Grant, which she uses to pay the attendant. She wanders around the corner to use the bathroom and is accosted by a man who easily pins her against the wall, holds a switchblade to her throat and demands her money. Would you really say this woman was not "partially responsible" for the mugging? Of course the mugging was wrong. Nobody should mug somebody else. But when you do stupid shit that makes you substantially more vulnerable, I think most people would say you're "partially responsible" when something like this happens to you.
So how, if at all, is this situation different from rape? I have a couple of ideas, but first I'll chat a bit about what's not different. People can be bad and do bad things. We know this from a very young age, where kids talking behind our back preceded the "don't go anywhere with strangers" lecture. It is your job, as an adult, to do your best to protect yourself against this. I do think someone who doesn't say "no" when they mean "no" is doing something wrong. It is your responsibility to say no to salesmen who would con you into buying. It's even your responsibility to say no to people who come up to your car and start washing your windshield in hopes of getting paid. There are ways of forcefully saying no, and everyone should learn them. If not, people will make you do all sorts of things you don't want to do. Rape may be the worst case scenario, but it's certainly not the only scenario. You should also not get fall-down drunk without friends around. Again, people will mug you, mock you, and, again in the worst case, rape or kidnap you. It is your responsibility to care for yourself and to make sure you have trusted backup. If the woman in the car were with a 6'5", 240 lb. man acting as her escort to the bathroom, she wouldn't have had such problems. She also might not have had problems if she had hid her money well or made sure she was in a safe location before getting out of the car. So, that's how they're the same. If you can take simple steps to prevent harm, and you don't, there's some partial responsibility on your part.
It is important to note, however, that you having more responsibility doesn't make the other person any less responsible. This isn't a 0 sum game. Somebody who rapes someone passed out on the kitchen counter is just as morally abhorrent as someone who rapes a fully conscious, fighting person. "It was stupid of them to do this, so I have a right to" is bullshit logic. I believe that if you're hurting someone, if you're generating negative utility, you're being bad. Eso es todo.
Now for my thoughts on how these are different. The first thing that comes to mind, which I don't really believe to ultimately be the answer, is general vulnerability. Taking advantage of someone naturally weaker than you are or in a compromised state is worse than winning a fair fight. It's even worse than holding a gun to the head of someone in what otherwise would have been a fair fight. While I think this argument has merit in general, it doesn't seem THAT bad for someone to mug a drunk person. And raping someone who's you're own size is still abominable.
The second thing that comes to mind (all right, I guess it's actually the first) is the nature of the crime. But it's clearly not just the severity that's the issue. We can think someone who gets killed by doing something stupid is partially responsible. Is it that it's demeaning? That it's a violation? I mean, I think murder is more of a violation than rape. Here's what I think it is...thought 2.5:
I think a lot of it boils down to that age-old double standard of men-should-screw-like-bunnies-but-women-should-be-pure-and-virginal. Especially, it comes down to how people have historically (and, sadly, currently) reacted to rape. If the families and friends of the victims always reacted to rape that might have been prevented by smarter choices the same way they reacted to these other things—"I'm angry at you for not thinking and suffering the worst consequences, but now that it's happened let me hug you and do everything I can to make sure you're OK"—we might view it in a similar light as we view the other crimes. But when men in the Sudan find out the women in their lives were raped and blame them (completely unjustly in these circumstances: This isn't rape by an irresponsible, thoughtless date; this is usually rape by soldiers at gunpoint) they disown their daughters. They break off their engagements. They shun their sisters. They view the woman as unclean. When men rape in these kind of situations, they're not just giving the women a single traumatic, life-changingly depressing experience, they're also ruining everything they have and toppling their support network.
While, thank God, this doesn't seem to be the case in America, I don't think that frame of mind is totally absent. When people give women partial or total responsibility for being raped, they're not saying "you were thoughtless and could have prevented this," I really think the message between the lines is "you secretly wanted this at the time, and now you're just complaininbecauseue you can." I think that's where the problem is. And it goes a step further...even between those lines lies the message "And you're a slut because you wanted it. You're disgusting." That's very rarely, if ever, said (I believe...I may be totally wrong...In fact, there's a very good chance I'm totally wrong). But I think it's there, and I think women know that it's there. And I think that's why it's so, so offensive to say a woman was partially responsible if she put herself in a very compromising situation. Not because she didn't really forsake her responsibility, which she make have, but because the implication is that she was a willing participant. She wasn't.
Am I just spewing the obvious? Am I spewing crap? Am I spewing legitimate thought? I can't tell anymore...
I've been thinking a bunch about this post on the amazing blog feministing.com. Jessica, the smart and saucy head of the site, discusses a British study whose main finding was "one in three people in the UK believe that women who 'behave flirtatiously' are responsible for being raped." OK, that's pretty scary. But then she goes on to quote more of the study. I'm interested in this part:
Similarly, more than a quarter of people (30%) said that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk, and more than a third (37%) held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say “no” to the man. (bold theirs)
They clearly find this abhorrent. I'm not so upset, and it's mostly that "partially responsible" category that's doing it. Let's take another example. Say a rathepetitete woman is driving alone in her cute Porsche convertible and wanders into the South Bronx. She realizes she needs gas and hops out in her fabulous Prada heals and Gucci mini-dress. She goes up to the attendant and pulls out a wad of Benjamins and flips through about five of them before she finds a Grant, which she uses to pay the attendant. She wanders around the corner to use the bathroom and is accosted by a man who easily pins her against the wall, holds a switchblade to her throat and demands her money. Would you really say this woman was not "partially responsible" for the mugging? Of course the mugging was wrong. Nobody should mug somebody else. But when you do stupid shit that makes you substantially more vulnerable, I think most people would say you're "partially responsible" when something like this happens to you.
So how, if at all, is this situation different from rape? I have a couple of ideas, but first I'll chat a bit about what's not different. People can be bad and do bad things. We know this from a very young age, where kids talking behind our back preceded the "don't go anywhere with strangers" lecture. It is your job, as an adult, to do your best to protect yourself against this. I do think someone who doesn't say "no" when they mean "no" is doing something wrong. It is your responsibility to say no to salesmen who would con you into buying. It's even your responsibility to say no to people who come up to your car and start washing your windshield in hopes of getting paid. There are ways of forcefully saying no, and everyone should learn them. If not, people will make you do all sorts of things you don't want to do. Rape may be the worst case scenario, but it's certainly not the only scenario. You should also not get fall-down drunk without friends around. Again, people will mug you, mock you, and, again in the worst case, rape or kidnap you. It is your responsibility to care for yourself and to make sure you have trusted backup. If the woman in the car were with a 6'5", 240 lb. man acting as her escort to the bathroom, she wouldn't have had such problems. She also might not have had problems if she had hid her money well or made sure she was in a safe location before getting out of the car. So, that's how they're the same. If you can take simple steps to prevent harm, and you don't, there's some partial responsibility on your part.
It is important to note, however, that you having more responsibility doesn't make the other person any less responsible. This isn't a 0 sum game. Somebody who rapes someone passed out on the kitchen counter is just as morally abhorrent as someone who rapes a fully conscious, fighting person. "It was stupid of them to do this, so I have a right to" is bullshit logic. I believe that if you're hurting someone, if you're generating negative utility, you're being bad. Eso es todo.
Now for my thoughts on how these are different. The first thing that comes to mind, which I don't really believe to ultimately be the answer, is general vulnerability. Taking advantage of someone naturally weaker than you are or in a compromised state is worse than winning a fair fight. It's even worse than holding a gun to the head of someone in what otherwise would have been a fair fight. While I think this argument has merit in general, it doesn't seem THAT bad for someone to mug a drunk person. And raping someone who's you're own size is still abominable.
The second thing that comes to mind (all right, I guess it's actually the first) is the nature of the crime. But it's clearly not just the severity that's the issue. We can think someone who gets killed by doing something stupid is partially responsible. Is it that it's demeaning? That it's a violation? I mean, I think murder is more of a violation than rape. Here's what I think it is...thought 2.5:
I think a lot of it boils down to that age-old double standard of men-should-screw-like-bunnies-but-women-should-be-pure-and-virginal. Especially, it comes down to how people have historically (and, sadly, currently) reacted to rape. If the families and friends of the victims always reacted to rape that might have been prevented by smarter choices the same way they reacted to these other things—"I'm angry at you for not thinking and suffering the worst consequences, but now that it's happened let me hug you and do everything I can to make sure you're OK"—we might view it in a similar light as we view the other crimes. But when men in the Sudan find out the women in their lives were raped and blame them (completely unjustly in these circumstances: This isn't rape by an irresponsible, thoughtless date; this is usually rape by soldiers at gunpoint) they disown their daughters. They break off their engagements. They shun their sisters. They view the woman as unclean. When men rape in these kind of situations, they're not just giving the women a single traumatic, life-changingly depressing experience, they're also ruining everything they have and toppling their support network.
While, thank God, this doesn't seem to be the case in America, I don't think that frame of mind is totally absent. When people give women partial or total responsibility for being raped, they're not saying "you were thoughtless and could have prevented this," I really think the message between the lines is "you secretly wanted this at the time, and now you're just complaininbecauseue you can." I think that's where the problem is. And it goes a step further...even between those lines lies the message "And you're a slut because you wanted it. You're disgusting." That's very rarely, if ever, said (I believe...I may be totally wrong...In fact, there's a very good chance I'm totally wrong). But I think it's there, and I think women know that it's there. And I think that's why it's so, so offensive to say a woman was partially responsible if she put herself in a very compromising situation. Not because she didn't really forsake her responsibility, which she make have, but because the implication is that she was a willing participant. She wasn't.
Am I just spewing the obvious? Am I spewing crap? Am I spewing legitimate thought? I can't tell anymore...
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Best. Weekend. Ever.
And such a good change of pace. Well, the only bad non-change of pace was Yale losing the game (in triple overtime no less!). Five years in a row we've lost the game. How depressing. But everything else was just stellar. A review, more for my personal records than for public intrigue:
Friday: Got into New Haven around 7 after sneaking out of the office about 90 minutes early to catch my train. I dropped my stuff off at Caleb's room then met Caleb, Lori, Alexandria, Di Franco, Matt Lewis, Marty Rod and Lauren Burke at Neat lounge. I stayed for about 15 minutes and one glass of Pinot Noir and went to the glee club concert. I immediately ran into the '05 crowd, giving massive hugs to Meredith, Reiman and Haninah. The concert was great (I hate to admit it, but the harvard glee club sounded really, really good. Then again, they're all-male: a big bonus to my ears.), and we all went back to the reception for a little while before I was scheduled to meet Caleb at Yorkside. We met up at a very crowded Yorkside (Caleb and Di Franco arrived about 20 minutes late, damn them) and headed to "player Drew's" party in his apartment. BEAUTIFUL apartment. The kind of thing that would cost you 4 grand a month in New York but is probably a quarter of that in New Haven. Good time at the party. Caleb got massively drunk. I hate to say it...but sometimes I like people better when they're drunk. Sometimes I like me better with half a glass of wine slowly filtering through my liver. Here's a sample of drunken dialogue between Caleb and Marty on the way back...Marty's trying to get Caleb to remember some girl:
Marty: Oh, you know...the hot one.
Caleb: Can you be any more specific?
Marty: The one who smoked out of an apple. The hot one.
Caleb: Anything else? Anything about the way she looks?
Marty: Man, she's the one who smoked out of an apple!
Caleb: Right, because I saw her. Because I'm so fucking in touch with the world that anytime someone smokes out of an apple...I KNOW. Because I'm Johnny Fucking Appleseed.
That was about it. Still pretty funny, though.
Saturday: Game time. Woke up around 10:30 to a very unhappy Caleb. Gave him Tylenol. We went to Copper Kitchen, possibly the best place to get breakfast in New Haven. It was crowded as all hell, but the super-efficient waitress got us our eggs and hash relatively quickly. We went to the busses by the gym, and the line pretty much went to Hartford. So we walked the two and a half miles or so to the game. The day was actually pretty nice, and we got there much faster than we would have had we taken the bus. So, good choice, Maggie and Caleb. We found the Branford tailgate and met up with Alexandria, Roxy, Lori, Brad, Haninah and Andrew Korn. After much reuniting and being squashed into small spaces, we went into the game for the beginning of the second quarter. By a couple minutes into the third, Yale was up 21-3. It looked like smooth sailing.
A bunch of us cut out just as the fourth quarter began and Harvard brought the score to 21-16. We drove in Roxy's rented car to Atticus, where I stayed for a few minutes before heading to physics Yorkside. The only one to come reasonably on time was Meredith. Yorkside was packed, and we figured the others would still be at the game, so we just went to Koffee Too and hung out there, meeting everyone else at Yorkside around 5:15. A bunch of those people went to Harry Potter, so Reiman and I hung out a bit before I departed for India Palace. They took forever to seat us and longer to serve us, and our group of 12 had to split up (shocker), but oh did that Indian food hit the spot. And the company couldn't be beat. After Indian, sake bombing (or in my case, hot sake sipping) at Miya's. Good time was had by all. Eric Seymour also joined us at that point, and it was very good to see him. I heard all about the TFAers crazy experiences, and I, of course, asked all the guys whether their kids have crushes on them.
Brad - A couple seem to.
Matt Lewis - No, they're elementary school kids, and his life's goal is to never have a student with a crush on him.
Dave - Yeah, they do. (shocker)
Eric - No, but the captain of the basketball team sometimes touches him inappropriately. ("I was going to buzz the principal's office, because this was the third time he'd come in late without a note, and I go to reach for it and he hugs me. I was like 'WTF? buzz!'")
After Miya's some people went to Rudy's and I went back with a few other people to Caleb's room. They, too, left for Rudy's, so Caleb and I just hung out and chatted, which was great as always. I gave him a backrub I owed him and he desperately needed (what a self-sacrificing girl I am, giving a backrub to an obscenely sexy man...the pictures don't show his general awesomeness). When people came back from Rudy's, they played poker, and Haninah and I chatted on Caleb's bed, as he tried not to flirt with Matt Lewis's girlfriend's friend and instead redirect her onto Brad. It worked. After a while: sleep! And it was good.
Sunday: Woke up to Caleb's alarm, showered, dressed, woke up Alexandria, packed, and went with her and Caleb to Koffee Too for breakfast. Ate with them and the others. Brad drove us to the train station, and Alexandria and I got on the 11:57 to Grand Central, while Caleb waited for his Amtrak to Virginia (where he'll be spending the vacation with Leslie, his girlfriend). Departed from Alexandria at Stanford, where I took the local to Mamaroneck and waited for 35 minutes for a cab. Ah, well. And now I'm relaxing and cursing myself for not bringing the book I have to review for Seed home with me. I wasn't sure I was going to have to review it, and now the reviews are due on Wednesday. Which means I have a book to read tomorrow. Luckily it's shortish and fun. But it's still a book. I kind of miss that kind of pressured work, though. I'm a little excited.
CLARIFICATION (11/24): On the clause "as he tried not to flirt with Matt Lewis's girlfriend's friend and instead redirect her onto Brad. It worked." This is not to imply that this girl was going after Haninah all night and instead he pushed her onto Brad. I believe she was flirting with Brad earlier in the evening at Rudy's as well as before the card game got going. While Brad was playing, she was flirting with Haninah. She was looking for love (in all the...right places?)
Friday: Got into New Haven around 7 after sneaking out of the office about 90 minutes early to catch my train. I dropped my stuff off at Caleb's room then met Caleb, Lori, Alexandria, Di Franco, Matt Lewis, Marty Rod and Lauren Burke at Neat lounge. I stayed for about 15 minutes and one glass of Pinot Noir and went to the glee club concert. I immediately ran into the '05 crowd, giving massive hugs to Meredith, Reiman and Haninah. The concert was great (I hate to admit it, but the harvard glee club sounded really, really good. Then again, they're all-male: a big bonus to my ears.), and we all went back to the reception for a little while before I was scheduled to meet Caleb at Yorkside. We met up at a very crowded Yorkside (Caleb and Di Franco arrived about 20 minutes late, damn them) and headed to "player Drew's" party in his apartment. BEAUTIFUL apartment. The kind of thing that would cost you 4 grand a month in New York but is probably a quarter of that in New Haven. Good time at the party. Caleb got massively drunk. I hate to say it...but sometimes I like people better when they're drunk. Sometimes I like me better with half a glass of wine slowly filtering through my liver. Here's a sample of drunken dialogue between Caleb and Marty on the way back...Marty's trying to get Caleb to remember some girl:
Marty: Oh, you know...the hot one.
Caleb: Can you be any more specific?
Marty: The one who smoked out of an apple. The hot one.
Caleb: Anything else? Anything about the way she looks?
Marty: Man, she's the one who smoked out of an apple!
Caleb: Right, because I saw her. Because I'm so fucking in touch with the world that anytime someone smokes out of an apple...I KNOW. Because I'm Johnny Fucking Appleseed.
That was about it. Still pretty funny, though.
Saturday: Game time. Woke up around 10:30 to a very unhappy Caleb. Gave him Tylenol. We went to Copper Kitchen, possibly the best place to get breakfast in New Haven. It was crowded as all hell, but the super-efficient waitress got us our eggs and hash relatively quickly. We went to the busses by the gym, and the line pretty much went to Hartford. So we walked the two and a half miles or so to the game. The day was actually pretty nice, and we got there much faster than we would have had we taken the bus. So, good choice, Maggie and Caleb. We found the Branford tailgate and met up with Alexandria, Roxy, Lori, Brad, Haninah and Andrew Korn. After much reuniting and being squashed into small spaces, we went into the game for the beginning of the second quarter. By a couple minutes into the third, Yale was up 21-3. It looked like smooth sailing.
A bunch of us cut out just as the fourth quarter began and Harvard brought the score to 21-16. We drove in Roxy's rented car to Atticus, where I stayed for a few minutes before heading to physics Yorkside. The only one to come reasonably on time was Meredith. Yorkside was packed, and we figured the others would still be at the game, so we just went to Koffee Too and hung out there, meeting everyone else at Yorkside around 5:15. A bunch of those people went to Harry Potter, so Reiman and I hung out a bit before I departed for India Palace. They took forever to seat us and longer to serve us, and our group of 12 had to split up (shocker), but oh did that Indian food hit the spot. And the company couldn't be beat. After Indian, sake bombing (or in my case, hot sake sipping) at Miya's. Good time was had by all. Eric Seymour also joined us at that point, and it was very good to see him. I heard all about the TFAers crazy experiences, and I, of course, asked all the guys whether their kids have crushes on them.
Brad - A couple seem to.
Matt Lewis - No, they're elementary school kids, and his life's goal is to never have a student with a crush on him.
Dave - Yeah, they do. (shocker)
Eric - No, but the captain of the basketball team sometimes touches him inappropriately. ("I was going to buzz the principal's office, because this was the third time he'd come in late without a note, and I go to reach for it and he hugs me. I was like 'WTF? buzz!'")
After Miya's some people went to Rudy's and I went back with a few other people to Caleb's room. They, too, left for Rudy's, so Caleb and I just hung out and chatted, which was great as always. I gave him a backrub I owed him and he desperately needed (what a self-sacrificing girl I am, giving a backrub to an obscenely sexy man...the pictures don't show his general awesomeness). When people came back from Rudy's, they played poker, and Haninah and I chatted on Caleb's bed, as he tried not to flirt with Matt Lewis's girlfriend's friend and instead redirect her onto Brad. It worked. After a while: sleep! And it was good.
Sunday: Woke up to Caleb's alarm, showered, dressed, woke up Alexandria, packed, and went with her and Caleb to Koffee Too for breakfast. Ate with them and the others. Brad drove us to the train station, and Alexandria and I got on the 11:57 to Grand Central, while Caleb waited for his Amtrak to Virginia (where he'll be spending the vacation with Leslie, his girlfriend). Departed from Alexandria at Stanford, where I took the local to Mamaroneck and waited for 35 minutes for a cab. Ah, well. And now I'm relaxing and cursing myself for not bringing the book I have to review for Seed home with me. I wasn't sure I was going to have to review it, and now the reviews are due on Wednesday. Which means I have a book to read tomorrow. Luckily it's shortish and fun. But it's still a book. I kind of miss that kind of pressured work, though. I'm a little excited.
CLARIFICATION (11/24): On the clause "as he tried not to flirt with Matt Lewis's girlfriend's friend and instead redirect her onto Brad. It worked." This is not to imply that this girl was going after Haninah all night and instead he pushed her onto Brad. I believe she was flirting with Brad earlier in the evening at Rudy's as well as before the card game got going. While Brad was playing, she was flirting with Haninah. She was looking for love (in all the...right places?)
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
seedmagazine.com is live (and well)
I'll be sending out an email blast tomorrow, but to reward any loyal blog readers, you get to be the first to know that seedmagazine.com is up and running! Yes, this is The Site. Go! Enjoy! And click on the following link to help my personal mission of getting our site to show up when you type "seed" into google: Seed.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Indulgence
Today I made the most indulgent purchase of my life. Here, I'm defining indulgence as (price x emotional kick)/(market value x personal necessity). The purchase was the most beautiful copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ever. Really, ever. The price? $13...over my $50 of gift certificates. YEAH. So that was probably stupid to blow about 7 books on one. But it's great. It's beautifully elegant...just a white cover with the title and author in black type. No dedication, no annotation, no about the author, and most importantly, no introduction from Harold Bloom or Samuel Beckett or Pompous Schmuck-Jerkoff. It's just the text. Black on white, take it as you will, your imagination sets the mood. $63 isn't bad...for love! (as I hear, the going rate's about $200)
And in further news, Phase 1 of Operation Stealth Infiltration of the Adult World (yes, OSIAW's a crappy acronym) is complete, woo! Yeah, that was cryptic, but, like so many parts of this blog, it's public to everybody save one or two people in the world. More thoughtful things some other time...
And in further news, Phase 1 of Operation Stealth Infiltration of the Adult World (yes, OSIAW's a crappy acronym) is complete, woo! Yeah, that was cryptic, but, like so many parts of this blog, it's public to everybody save one or two people in the world. More thoughtful things some other time...
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Will You People Stop Banning Gay Marriage?
That'd be nice. Texas, I'm talking to you. No, not you, Austin. You just keep doing your thing.
Anyway, having just bounced off a blog post where I got a song that sounds like a combination of everything Jason Farago's ever played for me, I thought I'd do a music post of my own. So tonight I give you the songs of a playlist I created last week:
NB: These songs don't all have a literal relation to the Bush administration. They mostly just channel a certain je ne sais quoi that's part of today's zeitgeist...or some other...foreign...words...Anyway, if you think any songs should be added, let me know. And sorry about the running times. I'm copying and pasting from itunes; try to view them as hyphens.
1999 3:37 Prince
All You Can Eat 3:23 Ben Folds
America, Fuck Yeah 2:06 Team America: World Police
Big Yellow Taxi 3:46 Counting Crows
Can't Always Get What You Want 7:28 Rolling Stones
Easy Street 3:17 Bernadette Peters., Carol Burnett, Tim Curry
End of the World as We Know It 4:05 R.E.M.
Enormous Penis 2:45 Da Vinci's Notebook
Fake Plastic Trees 4:50 Radiohead
Fat Bottomed Girls 4:18 Queen
Gay Messiah 3:46 Rufus Wainwright
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next 4:52 Manic Street Preachers
Instant Karma 3:23 John Lennon
Is That All There Is? 4:30 Sandra Bernhard
It's Oh So Quiet 3:38 Björk
Karma Police 4:21 Radiohead
Livin' On A Prayer 4:10 Bon Jovi
Making Love Alone 5:54 Bernadette Peters
Mama, Look Sharp 2:25 Redhot & Blue 20th Anniversary Jam
Molasses to Rum 4:42 1776
My Poor Generation 3:59 Moxy Früvous
Never Been To Spain 3:47 Three Dog Night
Novacaine For The Soul 3:09 Eels
Plastic Jesus 4:30 Jello Biafra, Mojo Nixon
Psycho Killer 4:20 Talking Heads
Right Through You 2:55 Alanis Morissette
Say It Ain't So 4:18 Weezer
Selling Out 2:25 Tom Lehrer
Springtime for Hitler 3:23 The Producers
Sympathy for the Devil 6:27 Rolling Stones
Take A Letter Miss Jones 3:29 Blood Brothers
The Drinking Song 5:09 Moxy Früvous
The General 4:06 Dispatch
The Greatest Man in America (live) 3:09 Moxy Früvous
The Lees of Old Virginia 3:50 1776
The Time Warp 3:16 Stanford Fleet Street Singers
Urinetown 1:40 Urinetown
We Are the Champions 3:03 Queen
We Shall Overcome 5:26 Denver Gay Men's Chorus
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego (Full Version) 2:50 Rockapella
Won't Get Fooled Again 8:33 The Who
You're So Vain 4:18 Carly Simon
Your Redneck Past 3:42 Ben Folds Five
Anyway, having just bounced off a blog post where I got a song that sounds like a combination of everything Jason Farago's ever played for me, I thought I'd do a music post of my own. So tonight I give you the songs of a playlist I created last week:
2000-2008: A Bush Administration Playlist
NB: These songs don't all have a literal relation to the Bush administration. They mostly just channel a certain je ne sais quoi that's part of today's zeitgeist...or some other...foreign...words...Anyway, if you think any songs should be added, let me know. And sorry about the running times. I'm copying and pasting from itunes; try to view them as hyphens.
1999 3:37 Prince
All You Can Eat 3:23 Ben Folds
America, Fuck Yeah 2:06 Team America: World Police
Big Yellow Taxi 3:46 Counting Crows
Can't Always Get What You Want 7:28 Rolling Stones
Easy Street 3:17 Bernadette Peters., Carol Burnett, Tim Curry
End of the World as We Know It 4:05 R.E.M.
Enormous Penis 2:45 Da Vinci's Notebook
Fake Plastic Trees 4:50 Radiohead
Fat Bottomed Girls 4:18 Queen
Gay Messiah 3:46 Rufus Wainwright
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next 4:52 Manic Street Preachers
Instant Karma 3:23 John Lennon
Is That All There Is? 4:30 Sandra Bernhard
It's Oh So Quiet 3:38 Björk
Karma Police 4:21 Radiohead
Livin' On A Prayer 4:10 Bon Jovi
Making Love Alone 5:54 Bernadette Peters
Mama, Look Sharp 2:25 Redhot & Blue 20th Anniversary Jam
Molasses to Rum 4:42 1776
My Poor Generation 3:59 Moxy Früvous
Never Been To Spain 3:47 Three Dog Night
Novacaine For The Soul 3:09 Eels
Plastic Jesus 4:30 Jello Biafra, Mojo Nixon
Psycho Killer 4:20 Talking Heads
Right Through You 2:55 Alanis Morissette
Say It Ain't So 4:18 Weezer
Selling Out 2:25 Tom Lehrer
Springtime for Hitler 3:23 The Producers
Sympathy for the Devil 6:27 Rolling Stones
Take A Letter Miss Jones 3:29 Blood Brothers
The Drinking Song 5:09 Moxy Früvous
The General 4:06 Dispatch
The Greatest Man in America (live) 3:09 Moxy Früvous
The Lees of Old Virginia 3:50 1776
The Time Warp 3:16 Stanford Fleet Street Singers
Urinetown 1:40 Urinetown
We Are the Champions 3:03 Queen
We Shall Overcome 5:26 Denver Gay Men's Chorus
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego (Full Version) 2:50 Rockapella
Won't Get Fooled Again 8:33 The Who
You're So Vain 4:18 Carly Simon
Your Redneck Past 3:42 Ben Folds Five
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