I’ve been following the stories about the racist undercurrent at the recent McPalin rallies (from both the candidates and audience members). A week later, after universal condemnation from the media and a continued drop in the polls, McCain decided to do what he should have done instantly — ask for respect for his opponent as a human being and a candidate. But now he’s surprised by the response of his ignorant followers when they boo him. What does he expect after encouraging it for a week?

I’m ashamed of both McCain and Palin. I never agreed with them on the issues and I never planned to vote for them, but at least they did not thoroughly disgust me as human beings. In the 21^st century, two political candidates for president should not have tried to distract the public from a serious economic crisis (for which they have no plan to help) by insinuating and outright (and falsely, as proved) accusing their opponent of being a terrorist and allowing racist, dangerous, and murderous reactions from their crowds.

The socialist charge has been the most innocent, due to Obama’s plan for government-aided health care. Call me whatever you want but, as we can plainly see in Canada, making sure its citizens are alive and healthy seems like a pretty good move for any government.

Obama the terrorist. Is this the attitude a politician should encourage? That if he’s black, he must be a terrorist? If he has an unfortunate middle name (over which none of us have control and which is completely meaningless), then he’s a terrorist? If he is well traveled and educated, a terrorist?

And the William Ayers connection? Once again, proven to be exaggerated by the McPalin campaign and now irrelevant. From The New York Times:

"The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false," said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park….Since 2002, there is little public evidence of their relationship.

From CNN:

CNN’s review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved… There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.

Now, if we’re going to insist that past social associations have bearing on someone’s presidential abilities, let’s take a look at the new Salon article linking Palin with "violent…right-wing…successionists" of the Alaska Independence Party who were once sponsored by Iran. The AIP is described as:

…rubbing shoulders and forging alliances with outright white supremacists and far-right theocrats, particularly those who dominate the proceedings at such gatherings as the North American Secessionist conventions, which AIP delegates have attended in recent years. The AIP’s affiliation with neo-Confederate organizations is motivated as much by ideological affinity as by organizational convenience.

Apparently this isn’t the first time Palin has taken part in bigotry for political gain:

While Palin played up her total opposition to the sales tax and gun control — the two hobgoblins of the AIP — mailers spread throughout the town portraying her as "the Christian candidate," a subtle suggestion that Stein, who is Lutheran, might be Jewish. "I watched that campaign unfold, bringing a level of slime our community hadn’t seen until then," recalled Phil Munger, a local music teacher who counts himself as a close friend of Stein.

Nor was Troopergate the end of her ethics violations and abuses of power:

When Palin won the election, the men who had once shouted anti-government slogans outside City Hall now had a foothold inside the mayor’s office. Palin attempted to pay back her newfound pals during her first City Council meeting as mayor. In that meeting, on Oct. 14, 1996, she appointed Stoll to one of the City Council’s two newly vacant seats. But Palin was blocked by the single vote of then-Councilman Nick Carney, who had endured countless rancorous confrontations with Stoll and considered him a "violent" influence on local politics. Though Palin considered consulting attorneys about finding another means of placing Stoll on the council, she was ultimately forced to back down and accept a compromise candidate…

…Emboldened by his nomination by Mayor Palin, Stoll later demanded she fire Wasilla’s museum director, John Cooper, a personal enemy he longed to sabotage. Palin obliged, eliminating Cooper’s position in short order. "Gotcha, Cooper!" Stoll told the deposed museum director after his termination, as Cooper told a reporter for the New York Times. "And it only cost me a campaign contribution." Stoll, who donated $1,000 to Palin’s mayoral campaign, did not respond to numerous requests for an interview. Palin has blamed budget concerns for Cooper’s departure.

And this is not ancient history for her:

When Palin ran for governor in 2006, marketing herself as a fresh-faced reformer determined to crush the GOP’s ossified power structure, she made certain to appear at the AIP’s state convention. To burnish her maverick image, she also tapped one-time AIP member and born-again Republican Walter Hickel as her campaign co-chair. Hickel barnstormed the state for Palin, hailing her support for an "all-Alaska" liquefied gas pipeline, a project first promoted in 2002 by an AIP gubernatorial candidate named Nels Anderson. When Palin delivered her victory speech on election night, Hickel stood beaming by her side. "I made her governor," he boasted afterward. Two years later, Hickel has endorsed Palin’s bid for vice president…

…Just months before Palin burst onto the national stage as McCain’s vice-presidential nominee, she delivered a videotaped address to the AIP’s annual convention. Her message was scrupulously free of secessionist rhetoric, but complementary nonetheless. "I share your party’s vision of upholding the Constitution of our great state," Palin told the assembly of AIP delegates. "My administration remains focused on reining in government growth so individual liberty can expand. I know you agree with that … Keep up the good work and God bless you."

CBS News has also covered Palin’s association with the AIP. Less than 24 hours after the Troopergate verdict, Palin stoked another non-economic fire at a rally in Pennsylvania:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged into the culture wars Saturday in Pennsylvania, painting Sen. Barack Obama as a radical on abortion rights.

"In times like these with wars and financial crisis, I know that it may be easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life, and it seems that our opponent kind of hopes you will forget that," Palin told a crowd in Johnstown. "He hopes that you won’t notice how radical, absolutely radical his idea is on this, and his record is, until it’s too late." (Translation: "Gosh-darnit, I have no idea how to fix your economy, so I’m gonna stand here all folksy and talk to ya straight about the beauty of life, and repeat how wonderful America is, and how mean reporters are to me with their questions.")

Now she’s no longer claiming that Obama will let domestic terrorists blow you to East Chuck and dare to actually hold diplomacy talks with foreign leaders, but get this — the big scary black man will kill your babies!

You want to talk about radical:

Palin opposes abortion in all cases, including rape and incest, except when a mother’s life is in danger, and said she believes Roe v. Wade should be overturned and the decision given to the states.

McCain voted for the Prohibit Partial Birth Abortion bill in 2003 and "yes" for Prohibiting Funds for Groups that Perform Abortions amendment in 2007. He believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and also supports the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Palin also talked about a remark Obama made about sex education while campaigning in Johnstown in March, when he told a voter he didn’t want his daughters "punished with a baby" or "punished with an STD" if they were not educated about sex and made a mistake.

"So I listened when our opponent defended his unconditional support for unlimited abortions and he said he said that a woman shouldn’t have to be ‘Punished with a baby,’ " Palin said as the audience jeered at Obama. "Ladies and gentlemen, he said that right here in Johnstown. ‘Punished with a baby.’ It’s about time we called him on it."

I wonder if Bristol feels "blessed?"

I’m sure you all will soon hear about Obama supporting "infanticide" by voting against a bill that was supposed to protect fetuses born alive (a hysterical pro-life nurse and Fox News/Bill Donohue favorite, Jill Stanek, claimed, falsely, that late-term abortions were being performed at a Chicago hospital, and the still-living babies were left in soiled linen closets to die) but in actuality chips away at abortion rights. Obama’s reasoning for his nay vote — that sanity, common sense, and a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath dictate that A) obviously measures would be taken to keep any such fetus alive and B) if such measures are not taken, those actions violate already existing laws. He was backed by the Pro-Life-run Illinois Attorney General’s office.

Fun extra tidbits about Jill Stanek — she sponsors billboards in Africa that read: "Faithful condom users die." She posted, as fact, an urban legend about the Chinese eating aborted fetuses. "She works with Eric Scheidler and his father Joe Scheidler who [are] violent anti-abortion activist…" And she believes that birth control should be outlawed — not just abortion.

Eric Zorn of The Chicago Tribune and Obama’s website can provide further details. Or you can listen to Palin shoot her mouth off some more.

To all this, the ever-calm, thoughtful Obama responded:

"They can run misleading ads, and pursue the politics of anything goes, they can try to change the subject. They can do that what they want to do because the American people understand what’s going on — but it’s not going to work. Not this time."

I sure hope not.

Jennifer Leblanc

Ladies, come here for a minute. Let’s have some girl talk.

Remember last week, when I posted how proud I was of you for seeing past the Palin, past the Republican condescension? In light of the new polls showing white women flocking to McCain, I just have to ask, as the kiddies say these days: WTF? Thank God for the Women Against Palin.

There is no limit to my love of Le Fey (Tina, that is). If we’re going to vote in this election based on looks, popularity, and lack of political experience anyway, then I choose Tina Fey for president. Who’s with me?

The Women opened this weekend. I saw the original version months ago, and while I thought it dragged on a bit, I loved it. It didn’t have men, but it had heart. And real wit. I’m hearing differently about the new release.

Naturally, as I have not seen the new one, I can’t comment on it. But…it has Annette Benning (underrated genius), haughtily, confidently, bitchily refusing an offer for "a face lift in a jar" by responding, "This is my face — deal with it," which I would like to hear more women proudly declare, about various parts of themselves and their lives. As in, this is my chosen career — deal with it. This is my ass — deal with it.

Alas, The Women were trounced by the Coen Brothers. Oh, I can just hear it now: "See, women can’t sell a movie." "What do you expect from a chick flick?" (although I’d like someone to explain to me how pieces of garbage like 27 Dresses can be considered a hit). I would hate to see all future female-centered films (there have just got to be good ones out there. I mean, where is Allison Anders?) shelved or discounted on the basis of one bad box-office receipt.

Although I still have three volumes to go, I’m addicted to Y: The Last Man on Earth. Cinematical surprised me with the following news: "DJ Caruso Wants to Shoot Y." Oh happy day. Until my eyes reach the line: "As for casting, they still want Shia LaBeouf to play the title role of Yorick (the only surviving male mammal on the planet Earth)." Oh…just…oh — like he would survive the plague! If he would be the only one left, women would start to look pretty good to me.

Jennifer Leblanc

I was preparing to write a post begging American women to vote for the candidate (whomever it may be) they felt could best run our country, not just to see a woman in the White House. But — huzzah! — as occassionally happens, my fellow Americans have restored my faith in their intelligence and sanity.

From Yahoo!News:

Women voters remain unswayed by the Republican choice of…Sarah Palin for vice president, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

The poll…shows that 50 percent of women voters felt McCain picked Palin out of political expediency and not because he believes she has the experience to do the job.

Only 29 percent said he had picked her to run in the November 4 elections because he believed she was qualified to be vice president.

Only nine percent of Clinton supporters said they thought they would vote Republican because Palin was on the ticket.

Asked which ticket understood better the issues and concerns which are important to women, 53 percent opted for the Obama-Biden ticket compared to 35 percent for McCain and Palin.

The Republicans thought we could be satisfied with a token and a pat on the head. They thought we wouldn’t see the desperate, transparent attempt to win us over. They thought that, for us, gender would trump experience and qualification.
American women, thank you.

Now, please don’t disappoint me in November. Let me rephrase that — don’t disappoint the entire world in November.

Jennifer Leblanc

Pfft — diamonds.

There was a silly little girl in line behind me at Victoria’s Secret a while back who said to a girlfriend, "You know, it’s not even about him. I just want that ring on my finger." Ah, the basis for a long-lasting marriage.

Aesthetically, diamonds are dull. Clear, sparkly, round, blah, blah, blah. Historically, they were rare. But even before I read the 1982 Atlantic Monthly article, I suspected that if nearly everyone had a diamond in some form or another (not to mention the vaults full of them all over the world), they were not rare, not valuable, not special.

In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.

Oh no — you have a supply of junk but want the cash to keep rolling in? Well, just form a company and get a slogan.

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life. To stabilize the market, De Beers had to endow these stones with a sentiment that would inhibit the public from ever reselling them. The illusion had to be created that diamonds were forever — "forever" in the sense that they should never be resold.

But, how, oh how to convince gullible people to buy something they don’t need. Why, you need advertising professionals!

The appraisers at Empire Diamonds examine thousands of diamonds a month but rarely turn up a diamond of extraordinary quality. Almost all the diamonds they find are slightly flawed, off-color, commercial-grade diamonds. The chief appraiser says, "When most of these diamonds were purchased, American women were concerned with the size of the diamond, not its intrinsic quality." He points out that the setting frequently conceals flaws and adds, "The sort of flawless, investment-grade diamond one reads about is almost never found in jewelry."

But who cares — the masses have been convinced. Now, about those teeny tiny rocks dug up in the Soviet Union that are hitting the market: lather, rinse, repeat.

The diamond market had to be further restructured in the mid-1960s to accomodate a surfeit of minute diamonds, which De Beers undertook to market for the Soviets. They had discovered diamond mines in Siberia, after intensive exploration, in the late 1950s: De Beers and its allies no longer controlled the diamond supply, and realized that open competition with the Soviets would inevitably lead, as Harry Oppenheimer gingerly put it, to "price fluctuations,"which would weaken the carefully cultivated confidence of the public in the value of diamonds.

… De Beers devised the "eternity ring," made up of as many as twenty-five tiny Soviet diamonds, which could be sold to an entirely new market of older married women. The advertising campaign was based on the theme of recaptured love. Again, sentiments were born out of necessity: older American women received a ring of miniature diamonds because of the needs of a South African corporation to accommodate the Soviet Union.

Imagine — all this time you’ve been concerned about heroin and gas supporting terrorism. You never even thought that the "symbol" on your finger once funded those dirty commies!

Jennifer Leblanc

1. What motivated you to write The Boundaries of Her Body…?
A great many things, chief among them that we seem to be living in a time when women — as individuals — are being erased in the law. The language of many laws being enacted today speak specifically of "unborn children with freedom and rights." This is not a mistake. It is a calculated measure intended to put living women "with rights and freedoms" at odds with those of "their unborn children." Thus, when women make certain choices (i.e., birth control, the morning after pill, abortion, selective reduction) that are lawful but that others don’t like, they condemn women as "people who don’t care about children" or, worse, as "murderers" and "slave masters" as recently defeated Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum did in his best selling book.

I’m talking specifically of reproductive rights. But that attitude spills over to other areas, and that is the intent. It is about intimidation and a kind of intended (male) brutality. People often suggest that "feminism" is the problem. But the real problem here is that the world changed, and all of this is about a "way of life." Some people would say "the American way of life." Those people generally want the 1950s back. They want no busing, a heterosexual "family unit," and wives who serve their husbands and families. We know rationally that this picture is out of step with our times. But that doesn’t stop people from wanting it back.

What troubled me most when I wrote The Boundaries of Her Body… and what continues to trouble me today is that they are winning. An abortion procedure has now been outlawed by the United States Supreme Court. (I predicted that.) And last month, that same Court outlawed busing. Does that make any sense in a nation that was founded on diversity and whose Constitution speaks of equality and equal protection? Probably not. But it does get us closer to the 1950s.

2. Since Boundaries was published in 2004, Bush was reelected and Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban, among many other things affecting women’s health and freedom. Do you see yourself ever writing a second volume?
I do (after the current one I’m working on is finished). The problem I’m having is that publishers — perhaps reflecting America, perhaps reflecting Wall Street — don’t seem to care and/or to be invested in these kinds of books anymore. Generally, publishing seems to have followed the lead of newspapers. Once upon a time, the print media and many book publishers saw themselves as public services. They had to stay in the black. But they weren’t preoccupied with profits. If it happened, wonderful. But that wasn’t the absolute goal.

But these days, most publishers — certainly the big ones — seem only to want to publish a book if they can assure themselves that it will be a bestseller. And the way they tend to do that is by courting big names, Hollywood types, or (in one case), a porn star. To get those folks, publishers promise big advances (eight million dollars in the case of Hillary Clinton). That means people like me get squeezed. Our books are often assessed as "mid-list" works that "doesn’t sell." And they may be right.

People are reading less. But we also seem to have a problem with getting young women — even educated young women — to pay attention to their history. (You would be an exception.) This actually appears to be an American problem, generally. Somewhere in recent history, we became a culture that cares more about partying and "personal rights" than preserving the collective rights that allow people to party and make mistakes and to recover from those mistakes. That is what the politics of "choice" were once about. But we don’t seem to know that anymore.

3. Boundaries focuses solely on American women and American law, yet as a volunteer for Chicago Legal Volunteers, you handled civil-rights based immigration cases. Have you handled any cases where reproductive or domestic violence issues were present?
I tend to handle cases where women have been victimized. Domestic violence may be one aspect. But women need help in almost every context. People tend to think that immigration law only involves people who entered America illegally or who have nothing to offer this country. But immigration happens to be a complex and emerging area of the law. In terms of American history, the United States is a nation of immigrants. We have always embraced the skills and talents of immigrants.

I’m comfortable defending the rights of immigrants, largely because the picture is very far removed from the suggestions we see in the media. In the last two cases I handled, for example, the women were here legally. They came in search of education, something America has always permitted. Both were victimized in America. Horribly, that victimization rendered them "so damaged" that they would likely have been murdered in "honor killings" by family members in they were sent home.

Defending women in such circumstances is in accord with The Boundaries of Her Body… But even if it weren’t, I would do it. Civil rights issues — due process, equal protection, etc. — can arise in any context, including immigration. By the way, I don’t only handle cases for Chicago Legal Volunteers. I volunteer for other agencies as well, though at the moment, I’m just working on my next book. And on occasion, I defend men too. (I’m not sexist.) But my interest is in defending women and empowering girls. We are a fabulous gender.

4. In a previous interview, you were asked what we can teach our daughters. What can we teach our sons?
I think boys — our sons — are on their way. Part of this is our new history. In this "new America" of the last 50 years, women work (more today than ever, despite media reports suggesting that women are all "staying home to raise babies"). I have two nephews, for example, who have a mom who works, a grandmother who worked (hard), and aunts who work. We all do different things and we are all at a place in our lives where we have earned a few stripes.

Thus, they understand women as educated, generally equal individuals, because they are growing up in a society where – from their perspective — women are at least equal. And I say at least equal, because little boys fall in love with women who take care of them. Life hasn’t completely reversed itself on the home front. Thus, women are still doing a lot of the things at home that make their little boys fall in love with them. And though that is not quite equal, it is a wonderful thing.

It may be true that some of these boys will grow up to be "macho men." But I think the world is changing and I believe boys are changing with it. I think the last eight years have been tough on women. But I don’t think that is reflective of America. But maybe I’m just being hopeful, probably because I love the people my nephews are becoming. And I think they are pretty typical. They not only respect women. They adore women. They are thankful that we teach them things and that we help them. And that, I think, is how it is supposed to be: Respectful.

5. Boundaries is an extensive legal history meant to inform women of the facts. Instead of lawyer to client or author to reader, what would you tell your readers woman-to-woman?
Probably a joke. The Boundaries of Her Body…, is a serious book. I am a pretty serious person. But I’m also a goof. So, every once in a while, you might find a snide remark or a joke in The Boundaries… When I lecture, I tend to make lots of jokes. I think humor is important. But as to the question of what I would say woman-to-woman, it would probably depend upon the crowd.

Older women tend to want information. Young women tend to want guidance. If there is a universal bit of information I might offer to all women it is that we need to be more proactive and to organize! There is a "war" going on. Young women can and should use the internet to inform their "sisters" of issues and problems and events coming up. Older women should too. But they can also use their contacts in the world to boycott anti-woman corporations and to lobby legislators. We can change the world. We are changing the world. The problem is that others want very much to change it back.

Jennifer Leblanc

Dear older fascists — er, I mean feminists,

You will not make me your bitch. No one tells me who to vote for. I don’t care if she would be the first women president — no one wags their finger at me (we got you your rights, etc.) then tells me to fall in line with them or risk being called a misogynist, straw-feminist, etc. I’m voting for Obama. You don’t like it, I don’t care.

I’d like to thank Eve Ensler and Kimberle Williams Crenshaw for their Alternet piece:

Drawing their feminist boundaries in the sand, they interrogate, chastise, second-guess and even denounce those who escape their encampment and find themselves on Obama terrain. In their hands feminism, like patriotism, is the all-encompassing prism that eliminates discussion, doubt and difference about whom to vote for and why. Armed with indignant exasperation, this "either/or" camp converts the undeniable misogyny of the media into an imperative to vote for Clinton.

We believe we stand in unity with many feminists who will say, "Not in Our Name" will this feminism be deployed.
Young feminists have been vocal and strong in critiquing the claim that a vote for Obama represents some form of youthful naiveté, a desire to win the approval of men, or a belief that sexism no longer factors into their lives. While paying respect to those women who carried the banner for so many years, these young women have reminded us that feminism is not static but evolutionary, changing in content, scope and tenor as new generations elevate their concerns and aspirations.

For many of us, feminism is not separate from the struggle against violence, war, racism and economic injustice.
Experience and judgment go hand in hand, we are told, but one has to wonder how is it that so many ordinary citizens who were outside the beltway instinctively sensed what would come with the war, but the female candidate running for President did not?

Amen, girlfriends.

Seeing a woman president is not the goal of my life. I don’t believe that having a woman president will make life as a woman (or as anyone, and as a voter, a woman, a young feminist. And I don’t only consider women — I consider women, men, children, elderly, everyone that I share a planet with) better. India has had a woman president — but that doesn’t stop them from aborting female babies, from husbands and families setting the young wife on fire when her family does not constantly produce more and more of a dowry.

I’m not looking for a woman president — I’m voting for whom I believe would make the best president. A president who will restore the U.S. reputation, who will end the war in Iraq, who will not threaten to obliterate Iran by nuclear means (just to prove that, even though you’re a woman you have the balls to propose such a macho idea), who will help the economy and those who are losing their homes left and right, by installing sane, democratic-minded judges.

I’m still young, but I’ve never been inspired by a politician like I have been by Obama. I wasn’t born for Kennedy; I was only 11 years old when Clinton was campaigning; and Hillary strikes me as a typical bullshit artist who cannot admit that she was just plain wrong to vote for the war, who will call out Obama for something as trivial (yet fiery among wingnuts) as whether or not he wears a fucking flag pin, who, despite having other commendable achievements during her time in the senate, will use dirty tactics instead of her record to stand on, who will come out and say, during the fury, that she’s glad Obama gave his speech on race (a speech that will go down in history, a speech that made me cry twice, and I’m just a little white girl) even though she hadn’t even seen the damn thing, then two weeks later, instead of dealing with her own troubles, will revive the controversy about Wright to deflect from her own. Among many, many other things (her fear-mongering 3 a.m. ad, the gas tax fiasco).
It may be a few years old, but I still remember Lisa Jervis’s (yes, of Bitch Magazine) piece, "If Women Ruled the World, Nothing Would Be Different: The Biggest Problem with American Feminism Today Is Its Obsession with Women," in which she writes:

…Much of the contemporary American feminist movement is preoccupied with the mistaken belief-call it femmenism-that female leadership is inherently different from male; that having more women in positions of power, authority, or visibility will automatically lead to, or can be equated with, feminist social change; that women are uniquely equipped as a force for action on a given issue; and that isolating feminist work as solely pertaining to women is necessary or even useful.

…If women’s maternal instincts and natural compassion will bring about a kinder, more peaceful world, what’s up with Condoleezza Rice? (It’s also worth noting that Madeleine Albright didn’t exactly transform the Clinton administration’s foreign policy into a bastion of benevolence, either.) If women were truly sympathetic to and cooperative with each other, Ann Coulter’s journalistic achievements would have made the media less misogynist, not more. A woman was in charge of Abu Ghraib when Iraqi prisoners were tortured by American soldiers; three of the seven charged with perpetrating the abuse are female. Inherently nurturing? Sisterly? Yeah. Sure.

…having a woman in the White House won’t necessarily do a damn thing for progressive feminism.

And yesterday Jezebel pointed out Cynthia Ruccia and Kimberly Myers:

They got on "O’Reilly" last night to say that they’re so mad at the Democratic Party over sexism directed at Hillary that they’re going to vote Republican in the fall "if it comes to that." …Ruccia and the other members of Clinton Supporters Count Too have decided that not only will they vote against the Democratic nominee if it isn’t Hillary, they will actively campaign against Obama because, as far as they are concerned, the race is by no means over yet. In a press release yesterday, they stated: "We have a plan to campaign against the Democratic nominee. We have the (wo)manpower and the money to make our threat real. And there are millions of supporters who will back us up in the swing states. If you don’t listen to our voice now, you will hear from us later."

They believe that millions of other women will not only support them in their efforts to overturn the votes of millions of other Democratic voters (and women) who voted for Obama come the convention in August, but will also support their work to elect another (male) Republican President to spite the Democratic Party. A Republican, by the way who has no apparent problem with the misogyny directed at Hillary by his supporters.

OH. MY. GOD. How can I possibly respond to this with reason and sanity, when reason and sanity are completely absent from every syllable of their argument? Because some of us choose not to vote for a woman, these two are going to get together the "sisterhood" to destroy Obama’s chances, which will directly lead to a Bush puppet regime, which will see the continuation of the global gag-rule, pharmacists legally calling us whores, battered women’s shelters and Planned Parenthoods closing, continued funding for abstinence only, continuation of the Iraq war and even war with Iran, the death of Title 9 and civil rights, etc. (Yes, I’ve noticed that my capitalizing of letters, i.e. electronic yelling, has increased lately, but come ON).

Grow up, okay? Does this sound logical and mature, to stamp your feet and throw a tantrum because you didn’t get your way? You, sweetie, have no place in politics.

Yes, Obama called a female reporter "sweetie." Not a good idea. But, once again, I’ve got to quote Jezebel: " A guy that calls you ‘sweetie‘ is preferable to one who calls you a ‘cunt.’ " And if Obama can make life better for American women, and all Americans, he can call me whatever he wants. And so can you.

Jennifer Leblanc

There are so many things I don’t understand about other women. I’m not talking about wearing a prairie dress and handing your 12-year-old daughter to a 50-year-old man. Well, I don’t get that either, but who does? I’m talking about your everyday, mundane female good, bad, and uglies.

#1: It’s swimsuit season. That did not send me into a yogurt-binging panic months ago. In fact, I don’t do swimsuits. I have nothing against the swimsuit itself. Even if I weren’t translucent-pale (i.e., my sensitive Irish skin blisters without SPF 45) and even if I wasn’t terrified of large bodies of deep water, I’m completely turned off by the unbalanced approach designers and sellers take to it.

I see so much of American culture that is all or nothing: For instance, take young women — you’re either an evangelical virginity pledger or Paris Hilton. You either super-size the meal or go without. Hummers in one lot, SmartCars in the other. But the average person is so middle of the road, moderate, balanced. Try being one of these people shopping for a swimsuit. You will find one of two things: bikini made for only a supermodel or a young teenage girl who hasn’t developed yet, or something so big, so wide, so garishly patterned, scrunched, thick, and padded that even grandma would beg for mercy. And don’t even get me started on those full-coverage-fringe-Christian-early-20th-century-black things.

Then the retro idea came along, and I was rethinking everything — well, I can just constantly layer on sunblock. Well, I can bring a big beach umbrella. Well, I can just wade around or dip my toes. Anything just to rock the pin-up look, which I so can. But to my bitter, unsurprised disappointment, I’ve found the nobody’s gonna throw me a bone there, either.

Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, etc., all carrying the trendy 40s and 50s style…for no less than $300! And this is where I beg for moderation, because I don’t do the $20 Target rag that will fall apart after one lap, but it doesn’t make sense for Casper here to think, hmm, student loan payment or swimsuit?

So I went independent: pinupgirlclothing.com. How cheeky. But once again (sigh) I’m looking at the big and ugly or the teeny tiny. And, much as I love the modern pinup girl with her real body and tattoos, I’m not going to let it all hang out like that. I’m not going to pose, in good lighting, with red lipstick and heels, followed by some Photoshopping, on Narragansett friggin’ Beach!

The only thing I’ve found, as usual, is that I’m not alone. Today, my favorite Jezebel, Moe, posted about the "inherent evil" of the swimsuit, and she has opted out of the whole thing. So, yeah, what she said.

#2: Wedding loans. My general anti-wedding feelings are a whole other post (another thing to not ever, ever get me started on — Disney-inspired wedding gowns. Just grow up), but let me say this here and now: if you are stupid enough and immature enough to put yourself into deep financial debt for what is just…a…party, you have no business getting married.

#3: Flip-flops. That’s all.

Jennifer Leblanc

Like everything else on the interweb, this is probably old news to all of you. But I saw the "I Beat Anorexia" t-shirt for the first time last week.

Well, first I saw the slogan on a banner on a website, next to the story about France’s new law (making pro-ana anything illegal, from blogs to runways) and thought, I must have that. I’m a survivor and damn proud of it. Five minutes later, after a simple Google images search, I wasn’t cheering; I was crying.

This is what I get? Aside from an obese medical file, a lifelong medical condition which, without medication, would leave me paralyzed after three months and dead after six (the $200 co-pay stings a bit, too), and the possibility that I’ll never be able to have a child, this really adds insult to injury. Thanks a lot.

I’m not easily offended, but this one hurt, deeply. My years of pain and the permanent damage I’ve done to my body are not a joke. I survived, but so many others won’t.

Anorexia has the highest death rate of any psychiatric disorder (and the lowest health insurance coverage). While every other mental illness can drive a person to suicide, no other can kill a person on its own. The heart won’t stop, the organs won’t fail, infertility does not set in. So many more people (both women and men) struggle with it for years, the walking dead. There’s life, death, and the purgatory of living with an eating disorder.

Even though a person can never be "cured," it is possible to survive, to live healthier and happier than before. If I can do it, there must be others. There aren’t too many to be found online. On the one hand, this troubles me because maybe I’m that rare. But then I hope, however many of us there are, we’re too busy living our lives to go online and talk about our weight.

What I did find will have to be enough, for me and others looking for the same. "Life After Anorexia" yields the most results, mostly of memoirs and personal stories and websites. The story of Hayley Wilde from the U.K. stands out for me. The 20-year-old Wilde just gave birth to a son, three years after her skeletal frame hovered near death. Wilde, now so happy, so alive, should give everyone hope that they can recover too. She gives me the hope that motherhood is still possible.

If you are a survivor and you do want something with the slogan on it (in a triumphant, not cruel way), I found that too, on CaféPress.com. The only problem is, a few vaguely pro-ana products are mixed in with the others. You can boycott the site because of it, but then you’d also have to boycott Amazon and every other online retailer.

So many people walk around with clothing proclaiming that they survived cancer or even had abortions. Why not tell the world this?

As for the law in France, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. The same would be done to an advertisement or site advocating drug use, suicide, or murder. It’s no different — it’s still promoting the destruction of human lives.

Personally, I don’t believe the media and fashion industry alone are responsible. Too many anorexics and bulimics attack their bodies to cope with abuse, traumatic experiences, or other emotional problems, not to mention genetic predispositions. But the industries have to take some responsibility. Fashion, throughout history, has not just sold clothing but an image. Whether it’s a cinched waste, a hairstyle, tanned skin, or a hairless crotch, we model ourselves on the images they sell us. They take pride in their ability to make us want the hair, the makeup, the bag, the sunglasses, the dress, the shoes, and the nails, yet deny having any influence on how small we are willing to make ourselves to completely achieve the "look." The size of the model is specifically chosen by the agency, the casting people, photographers, clothing designers, editors, publishers, and advertisers. The consumer does not just want the dress or the shoes — they want thighs that don’t touch and ribs you can count.

I can’t tell anyone how to get past anorexia — I’m not a doctor, and my story is, of course, different from every one else’s. But I can tell you this: to get past it, you have to want to live more than you want to be thin.

I hope you all have the support, the professional help, and the will to live. I promise you — feeling alive beats feeling thin.

Jennifer Leblanc

Dear World,

Cokie Roberts does NOT speak for me.

The Bible is America’s favorite book, followed by The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. My head hurts. I suppose it could be worse. America’s favorite book could be Mein Kampf or something written by Danielle Steel.

First Lori Gottlieb got a book deal to expand on her article advising women to settle for whichever men they can. Now that book will be turned into a movie. I can actually understand this, too. The more outrageous your idea is, the more attention it gets. The more attention, the more views and hits. Then the more ad revenue, the more profit. This is a cash cow — of course they’re going to milk it. If any man or woman will take advice on something like whom they will vow to spend their lives with and create children with from a spoiled Beverly Hills dabbler, that’s their problem. Adults make even worse decisions than that everyday. But I wonder how Gottlieb, or anyone, would feel after finding out after a time that they had been the settled for — the person his or her spouse looks at and thinks, "Well, she’s all right enough, I guess."

Single people are being blamed for the bad environment. Because they cohabitate separately, they use more electricity than if they were in a single household. That’s the new theory, anyway. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that families now live in McMansions full of electrical appliances. Or that most households have more than one TV, including one per child’s room. Not to mention more than one computer, cell phones and iPods charging, outdoor lights lining the walkway, etc. It also wouldn’t have to do with the fact that there are now SIX BILLION PEOPLE in the world!

Six teenage girls and two teenage boys in Florida will be charged as adults after videotaping themselves beating a 16-year-old girl unconscious for insulting them online. Oh honey, you should see what they do to you in prison.

Cyber bullying is one thing, a whole other post, a separate crime on its own. But this was a single girl writing things online. As the police chief said, writing childish insults on MySpace does not justify being beaten unconscious, beaten again when you come to, permanently losing hearing and sight on one side, and having it all filmed for the entertainment of others.

I can actually understand the mothers who defend their criminal offspring. Think about it. They’re not defending their children — they’re defending themselves as parents. They’ve created the monster, much like Bush created the war; now they can’t admit that they’ve failed.

Consider the first thing the mother said in the Today Show interview, clarifying that she does have custody of her daughter. She wanted to clear up her own reputation first: she is not an unfit mother who has lost custody or would give up her daughter. She wants you to know that she alone raised one of these girls.

As for their kids, these parents cling to tiny details about the attack because they need to somehow justify having raised a pack animal, an adult-in-training, who plans, carries out, and participates in these uncivilized, illegal acts. That involves cruelty, apathy, a lack of self-control, and ignoring right from wrong. At the very least, you’ve raised a coward who would stand by and watch a girl get beaten unconscious.

Every parent involved will have an excuse: "My child didn’t hit. My child warned her not to come in the house. My child was insulted online. My son didn’t know what was happening behind the door he was guarding." Because to admit that your child did this, you admit that you failed as a parent. They can’t admit that to the world; more importantly, they can’t admit it to themselves. And if the parents cannot own up to their own mistakes, their kids never will.

Jennifer Leblanc

From Lunch Weekly:

Author of French Women Don’t Get Fat Mireille Guiliano’s guide for women in business, exploring issues of balancing career and personal life, risk taking, career advancement, leadership, branding, etiquette, mentoring, communication skills, and personal relationships…

Is anyone else tired of being sold the myth that French women are just perfect at everything? Don’t get me started, especially on Mireille Guiliano, who strikes me as completely full of merde.

From The New York Times—naughty fun with science: 

In her previous books, "Stiff" and a follow-up, "Spook," Mary Roach set out to make creepy topics (cadavers, the afterlife) fun. In "Bonk," she turns to sex, covering such territory as dried animal excreta used as vaginal "drying agents"; a rat’s tail "lost" in a penis; and a man named William Harvey, patent-holder for a rolling toaster-size metal box outfitted with a motorized "resiliently pliable artificial penis." In short, she takes an entertaining topic and showcases its creepier side.

And then she makes the creepy funny.

And guess what? It’s illustrated!

Also from PL:

Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s El Juego del Angel (The Angel’s Game), a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind set in 1920s Barcelona, combining a love story, a mystery, a fantasy and an exploration of literature…"

The Shadow of the Wind was incredible, so I cannot wait for this one.

From Boing Boing—the trouble with finding good occult materials (and getting the evil eye from a skeptical librarian): 

Cecile Dubuis wrote a master’s dissertation for University College London titled "Libraries & The Occult." I’ve only read bits of it, but the challenge she identifies is that occult books are, by their nature, anomalous and hard to categorize, much like the phenomena discussed in their pages. As a result, they are often unsearchable in the context of traditional library classification systems. From the dissertation: "The occult seems to be one of the least considered subjects when it comes to classification. This can often result in materials being divided among other subjects such as philosophy, psychology and religion. This can make it difficult to find occult materials."

I remember seeing something on Wit awhile back about the same subject, with some help from the New York Public Library:

The New York Public Library has an extensive collection of materials on the occult. The General Research Division collects a wide range of topics including esoteric magic… spiritualism and witchcraft. There are particularly strong collections on divination and Theosophy. The Science, Industry and Business Library collects materials on alchemy and flying saucers. Books on oriental mysticism and yoga are collected by the Asian and Middle Eastern Division. The Slavic and Baltic Division collects, in the original language, the works of Russian mystics, such as H.P. Blavatsky, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture collects titles on voodoo, santeria and related topics.

Parapsychology, the branch of psychology which deals with the scientific investigation of paranormal or psychic phenomena, is collected by the General Research Division.

It may not be the ideal collection, but it’s an ordered beginning. I’m sure scholars were already aware of it, but to the occult laypeople, dig in.

The U.K. Telegraph has an interview with Isabel Allende, my own personal Sheherezade, about her new memoir, The Sum of Our Days:

…she was once told by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda that she was possibly "the worst journalist in the country," incapable of objectivity and prone to invention. "Wouldn’t it be better to turn to writing novels?’"he suggested.

The rest of us will never be both insulted and set on the right path by one of the greatest poets. Our simple lives are so inferior.

Finally, a startling, upsetting, but eye-opening new nonfiction book. From Salon:

During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery for his new book, "A Crime So Monstrous," he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident. But Skinner, an investigative journalist, is most haunted by his experience in a seedy brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.

"There are more slaves today than at any point in human history," writes Skinner.

There’s just nothing else to say about that.

Jennifer Leblanc

There’s an amusing article in The New York Times about dating and book preferences — what titles/authors are the dealbreakers? Some say, as long as he/she reads…I haven’t dated too many readers, which makes me sad now that I think about it. But I can’t help but think of one particular dating experience I had a few years ago. At the beginning of the date when we were getting into the job discussion, I mentioned that I wrote book reviews. His horrified response: "Wait…you have to read the whole book?!"

It was a long night.

Jennifer Leblanc