All posts by Jennifer Leblanc

 

Telling it like it is

Overheard today by me:

Woman to friend: "I just can’t vote for someone with the name ‘Hussein.’ I know it’s simple-minded of me, but I can’t help it."

Not only is it simple-minded (your words, honey, not mine), it’s ignorant and racist. It’s just no way to pick a president.
Nevermind his education, his experience, what he has devoted his life to, what he stands for, what he could do to make the lives of Americans better. Nevermind all that it’s the middle name that decides it!

But then again, I suspect it’s an excuse, a polite way to say, "I just can’t vote for a black man."

And from the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll: 13 percent believe that Obama is Muslim. (He is not. Warning link is a pdf. This particular stat is on page 26.) Oy.

Dr. Laura believes that Silda Spitzer drove her husband Elliot, the governor of New York, to spend $80,000 on prostitutes because she wasn’t a good enough wife. It’s the woman’s fault. What else is new? please.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headline: "Device helps fat kids cut TV time." Article: "A monitoring device that cut TV and computer time in half helped young, overweight children eat less and lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

And it worked without creating a lot of conflict between parents and their kids, they said.

"It reduces all of those battles. The parents have to make one decision. After they make the decision, the device does the rest," said Leonard Epstein of the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, whose study appears in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine."

Did you hear that? Another way for parents to do even less the device does all the work! I mean, we don’t want conflict between parents and children. Because we know parents now don’t have the ability to put their foot down anymore. And even if they did, why bother the device will do it for you!

Fear-instilling piece from The Daily Mail in the U.K.: "Single and cohabiting women are increasingly much more likely to commit suicide than married women, a Whitehall report showed yesterday.

Here’s the catch, ladies before you go out and rope yourself a husband to save your life, read more of the article, which clarifies: "Single males are around three times more likely to kill themselves than husbands." So it makes perfect sense to create a headline and opening lede stating that single persons are more likely to kill themselves. But why do that when we can wag the old finger at the girlies.

This piece by Steve Salerno from Skeptic saved me from going bald this week. In fact, I think I want to have this man’s babies.

"We have a fanciful metric that’s just a compilation of opinion, which is layered with further opinion from passersby, and then subjected to in-studio analysis (still more opinion). All of which is presented to viewers as … news. The problem for society is that giving headline prominence to meaningless or marginal events exalts those events to the status of conventional wisdom. "Reporting confers legitimacy and relevance," writes Russell Frank, Professor of Journalism Ethics at Penn State University. "When a newspaper puts a certain story on page one or a newscast puts it at or near the top of a 22 minute program, it is saying to its audience, in no uncertain terms, that ‘this story is important.’" The self-fulfilling nature of all this should be clear: News organizations decide what’s important, spin it to their liking, cover it ad nauseam, then describe it without irony as "the 800-pound gorilla" or "the issue that just won’t go away." This is not unlike network commercials promoting sit-coms and dramas that "everyone is talking about" in the hopes of getting people to watch shows that apparently no one is talking about."

 

 

 

Sex, life, and death

A new report this week tells us that "1 in 4 teenage girls have STDs." Let’s all take a moment to reflect on the continuing, life-altering, life-endangering consequences that abstinence-only programs continue to have on teenagers (you know, those future adults).

I like being thorough having articles and links ready to make my point, laying it all out. But on this topic, at this point in time, is it really necessary for me to provide links to the countless articles and reports that have been done throughout the years that prove that abstinence-only education is a waste of time? Do I really need to tell you about the jump in teen pregnancy since Bush took office? Do you really need to be told that, even if teenagers delay having sex, eventually they need facts about their bodies, birth control, diseases, prevention, and consequences?

Last year a report came out that the rate of teen pregnancy had gone up for the first time since 1991. Does it take a genius to think that, gee, when Clinton was in office and high schools were giving out condoms for free, the teen birth rate went down, and with Bush in office tossing off the same old "just-say-no-condoms-don’t-work" crap, the teen birth rate has gone up? Are you seriously going to argue that?

Then came Harry Waxman’s comprehensive government report showing that abstinence-only teachings have cost 1.5 billion dollars and not had a single positive impact on teen sex lives.

Now we’re learning just how prevalent sexually transmitted diseases are among the teenagers who are going through life without medical facts, being told to not do it, yet battling their raging hormones, extremely sexualized media bombardment, and what they feel they want or need to do in their relationships. Some of them may in fact be technically virgins, but they’re performing other sex acts that expose them to diseases. And imagine this report does not cover other, more serious diseases like gonorrhea or syphillis. This study also did not include teenage boys. And above all, this study did not cover the scarlet letters, the disease to end all diseases AIDS. I truly do not want to know what such a study will show. And the next stop is AIDS. The diseases that they found in this study are either treatable or curable. AIDS is not. Even with all the medical advances that can prolong or improve life with HIV, there is no cure. It will kill you. It will affect your relationships in the future. It will endanger the life of the baby you may want to have. There’s no going back. Do we want to wait until we get to that point? Parents can you hear me?

Do I sound angry? I am. I’m not a teenage girl. I’ve never had an STD. But damn it, this is an epic disaster in all our lives. A) Teenagers are being lied to or having facts withheld from them, facts that they need to lead stable, healthy, happy, responsible lives. B) This does not just affect teenage girls; it affects everyone teenage boys, parents, their future children (if the STD does not rob them of their fertility first). C) This affects healthcare in our nation negatively. D) This shows the irresponsibility and carelessness of our government, which continues to naively or cruely deny a thorough, comprehensive education. Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic, sex education we use them all. Every day.

Do something about this. If you have a teenager, however uncomfortable, miserable, embarrassing, unpleasant it may be, it is your responsibility above all to educate your kids about sex. Hell, at the very least, if you cannot bring yourself to talk to them, give them books or printouts from legitimate sources, take them to doctors, something.

For those who do not have parents who care enough, know enough, or even exist, it then falls to our government and our teachers to give kids the facts they need all of them. Yes, teach them to hold off nobody wants young teenagers having sex. But if they cannot or will not abstain (and they won’t forever they will reach adulthood, they will have relationships, they will get married), they need to know the facts to make the best decisions.

Everyone, with or without kids, can do something, too: contact your representatives. Tell them you think our children deserve better. Specifically, for those is Rhode Island, take action on Wednesday, March 19 at the state house. From the Planned Parenthood email:

Please contact the House Members of the Health, Education and Welfare committee to tell them that we need education programs in Rhode Island Schools that will keep teens healthy and safe by including information about abstinence as well as contraception, healthy communication, responsible decision making and prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

Join us at the Statehouse! Show your support for Comprehensive Sex Education and join us at the hearing.  Please contact Kristina Diamond or Jennifer Brister if you have an interest in preparing testimony for the hearing.

Health, Education and Welfare Committee Members:

Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, Chair
401-941-8319
mcnamara@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Peter T. Ginaitt, Vice Chair
401-732-2695
rep-ginaitt@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Arthur Handy, Secretary
401-785-8996
rep-handy@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt
401-766-1679
rep-baldellihunt@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Grace Diaz
401-467-8413
rep-diaz@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Deborah A. Fellela
401-231-2014
rep-fellela@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Robert E. Flaherty
401-737-9385
rep-flaherty@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. John J. Loughlin, II
401-625-9889
rep-loughlin@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Patricia A. Serpa
401-828-5687
rep-serpa@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Agostinho F. Silva
401-728-5473
rep-silva@rilin.state.ri.uss

Rep. Susan A. Story
401-245-5083
rep-story@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Raymond J. Sullivan
401-828-9207
rep-sullivan@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Peter N. Wasylyk
401-272-1854
rep-wasylyk@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Thomas Winfield
401-949-3356
rep-winfield@rilin.state.ri.us

The abstinence-only debacle has gone on long enough. It’s up to us to let our government, both local and national, know that it has to stop.  

 

Witches and demons

Catholic Europe is seeing a Vatican-backed resurgence in exorcisms. The brothers and father of the church, with their good book, believe that demons or the Devil are possessing people. Literally. A few bits from the Washington Post article:

"…people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult…internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk [for possession by the devil]."

Oh no, anything except Christianity will make you evil!

"According to what I could perceive, the devil was present and acting in an obvious way," he said. "How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?"

You, sir, have never been married.

"More recent horror stories have also taken their toll. In Germany, memories are still fresh of a 23-year-old Bavarian woman who died of starvation in 1976 after two priests thinking she was possessed subjected her to more than 60 exorcisms."

Well, I’m sure she’s in a better place now.

This is the 21st century, right? Didn’t we all get tired long ago of the church’s glory days of burnings at the stake? Didn’t we have these centuries in which things like science, reason, and common sense show us that burning people at the stake was rather silly and cruel? But I know, I know science, reason, and common sense don’t put a dollar in the collection plate on Sunday.

In another related story:  

"The Saudi government is set to execute an illiterate woman for the crime of "witchcraft." She "confessed" to the crime after being beaten by the religious police and then fingerprinting a confession she could not read…Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent."

I guess Western Christianity and Eastern Islam aren’t so far apart after all. When weak, corrupt, mortal men take the power of God into their hands, the innocent everywhere suffer.

 

Nothing better to do

Vanity Fair‘s new issue features a big, glossy spread about famous funny women. A year ago this same magazine ran Christopher Hitchens’ piece about why chicks aren’t funny, in response to which women with nothing better to do stood up and proclaimed that they, too, laugh at fart jokes (I don’t) or proved Hitchens’ point by acting, you know, humorless, and even suggesting censorship.

Now the funny females are getting their due in what is essentially another celebrity rag. Except, I never cared in the first place. So a bloated Brit had an opinion why should I care? The last line of the article, provided by Tina Fey: "[She] says that there are people who continue to insist that women are not funny. ‘You still hear it,’ she says. ‘It’s just a lot easier to ignore.’"

This from a woman who did not whine about Hitchen’s piece nor make an ass out of herself at a public event. She went about her life and her work, raised her child, created a new TV show, wrote another movie script, and won a bunch of awards. This is a woman who has better things to do. Imagine what female bloggers could do for the world if they could just ignore the Hitchens types.

 

 

Marilyn Monroe spins in her grave

marilynmonroe.jpg lohan.jpg 

Bert Stern has recreated the famous shoot with Marilyn Monroe with…Lindsay Lohan. Yes, firecrotch, Lilo, I-know-who- killed-my-career, cocaine-video, thinks-she-is- worthy-of-stepping-into-the-photographs-of-a-Hollywood-legend Lindsay. Self-delusion is funny.

A few years ago I went on one of my book binges and read over a dozen Monroe biographies. They all have radically different theories about her love affairs and cause of death, but they all agree on a few facts.

Marilyn Monroe was extremely intelligent. Not many people know this, but she was well read and took courses at UCLA. She devoted herself to studying at The Actor’s Studio, making life-long friends with the Strassburg family. Lindsay Lohan’s education, however, is merely…adequite.

Marilyn Monroe bared all for the camera, but she had enough to class to keep her legs closed in front of the paparazzi. Unlike sad Red, Monroe was on the first Playboy cover. Almost a half century later, she was voted the "Number One Sex Symbol of the 20th Century" in the magazine. Lohan was named Maxim‘s hottest woman this past year. But the magazine’s young male demographic preferred the cover model, geeky-sexy comedienne Sarah Silverman.

Monroe was also nominated for many distinguished awards, such as Golden Globes and a BAFTA award, and after Bus Stop a New York Times reviewer announced, "Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself as an actress." She won the Italian Oscar equivalent for The Prince and the Showgirl. Lohan also won many acting awards this year two, in fact, for worst actress. She also served time in prison and made three trips to rehab.

Whatever her relationship with either of the Kennedy brothers, Monroe was not stupid enough to expect either of them to help her career. But Lohan, after her first rehab stint (first of three in six months) enthusiastically emailed to a friend, "Al Gore will help me." Because that’s what former Vice Presidents and Nobel Prize winners do help drunken starlets who are videotaped snorting cocaine.

Monroe had her infamous drug problem, but it was her problem. She did not rack up two DUIs, chase down a former employee, and then claim "the black kid" had been driving when she had just run over his FUCKING FOOT." (Quote borrowed from Jezebel.)

Monroe struggled throughout her career for respect as an artist. She never got it, but it wasn’t for lack of trying she studied the craft, she battled the studio over bimbo roles, and she was the first actress to ever form her own production company. Lohan is struggling for attention and thinks the rest should be handed to her.

Back to this new photo shoot. Back in 1962, Monroe was drunk on champagne but looked damned good for 36. Lohan, for once, was sober, but at 21, physically, she cannot hold a candle to Monroe. She shouldn’t be caught passed out drunk in that white wig, either.

I read that, aside from Jesus Christ, there are more books written about Marilyn Monroe than any other single human being in history. Decades after her death, she still fascinates us. She is respected as the icon of the 20th century and, to those who see her movies, as a real actress. I’d bet that Lohan won’t be remembered as anything other than an embarrassment.  

 

 

Dexter

Don’t want your child to see Dexter on CBS? Shut the TV off and put your kid to bed.

A few days ago I noticed in a local newspaper that Marcia Weedon, the director of the Rhode Island Chapter of Parents Television Council got both her logic and panties twisted in an op-ed about the show Dexter. The children will see the show! Think of the children!

I would like to ask Mrs. Weeden a question: don’t you have anything better to do with your life?

You talk about keeping children safe. What about children who witness (not on TV but in real life) domestic violence? What about children who don’t just witness but are victims of domestic violence? Sexual abuse? Neglect? Do you care about any of this?

You claim that hundreds of thousands of children see 10 p.m. shows. First of all, this is on the parents, not the television networks. I know you don’t want to hear that because that means you actually have to take responsibility and act, and we can’t have that now. Afterall, the TV is your favorite babysitter. Also, I know parents don’t believe in bedtimes anymore just let your kids fall asleep to cartoons or run around till they cry and pass out but that sure would fix this problem.

Second, Weeden seems to think that children somehow cannot see shows that air on cable, but have 20/20 vision for broadcast stations. What is the difference between airing Dexter at 10 p.m. on Showtime or at 10 p.m. on CBS? Not a damn thing.

Third, you really need to let go of Janet Jackson’s nipple. Just. Let. It. Go.

I’m not going to get into the plot or character analysis for Dexter because I haven’t seen it. I want to, but I did not watch last night. I’m waiting to watch it on DVD. Also, I may be 27 years old, but I’m in bed by 10 p.m. on a Sunday night I have to work in the morning. Twenty years ago, I would’ve been in bed long before that I had to get up for school the next morning.

It’s so simple: children should not be seeing even half of what is aired on television (but I didn’t hear anyone complaining whenever Jack Bauer cut off an extremity). Here’s the solution to that shut the damn thing off. Take the remote. Move the TV to your bedroom. Act like a parent. Act like an adult. And quit whining about this nonsense. Do something real to help children.

 

Michelle Obama lives in the real world

Finally someone who lives in the real world.

Katie Couric interviewed Michelle Obama this past week and asked her: "First Ladies have adopted causes…Have you thought about what cause you would really like to adopt and pursue and push into the forefront?

Mrs. Obama’s response was, for me anyway, a blast of fresh oxygen after years of old men blowing hot air and noxious gas in our faces:

…I am a mother and a professional and a wife. And I know the struggles of trying to balance work/life/family. And I know that it’s something that every woman that I know is struggling with, and every family in America is impacted by the challenges that we face when we try to do it all without resources and support … informal structures of support.

The only way that I manage every day is because of all these informal support structures in my life, whether it’s my mom or a set of girlfriends or the flexibility on a job because I’m a vice president and I can set my hours when I need to. I’ve managed because of that. But how on Earth are single-parent mothers doing it, nurses and teachers and folks who are on shifts?

People who don’t have access to decent childcare. You know, folks who don’t have good health care and where the school systems aren’t where they need to be, so they’re worried about whether their kids are getting a good education. You know, all of this takes an emotional and psychological toll on women and families. And the truth of the matter is that we are only as strong in this society … as the health of our families and the people who head them. But we haven’t talked enough about that in just real practical ways. I mean, up until this point, as a woman, I’ve been told, "You can have it all, and you should be able to manage it all." And I’ve been losing my mind trying to live up to that. And it’s impossible. It’s impossible. We’re putting women and families in a no-win situation.

Couric: Especially if they don’t have the flexibility that you …

Obama: …Which the vast majority of women in this country don’t. They’re not earning enough to cover childcare. They don’t you know, I met … a woman … she’s working two jobs: a full-time job and a part-time job. She has two kids and a husband. They don’t have healthcare. You know? She has a seven-year-old and a three-year-old, you know? I mean, you know she’s not healthy. You know she doesn’t have time to get mammograms and Pap smears. You know that she doesn’t feel secure about what kind of mother she is.

And she’s not fully invested in any of the jobs that she has because she’s trying to do it all. That’s how women are living in this society. And that transcends race and socioeconomic status and political affiliation. I can go into any town, anywhere in this country, and I can spend hours talking to women about this impossible balance and the toll that it’s taking.

So we have to talk about that. And we have to design policies that have meaningful impacts on the quality of life of women and families. And that’s something that I know I can speak passionately about because whether I’m in the White House as First Lady, as long as I have kids and I’m trying to have a life, I’m gonna be trying to make this balance work, wondering every day whether I’m being a good enough mother, whether I’m spending enough time with my kids.

What happens when they have a crisis and I’m flying around somewhere? My challenges are much more public, but they’re the same as most women. And we need to figure this out. And how do we define roles for ourselves as women that are healthy and balanced and make sense?

 

Finally, we get to hear from someone who will not tell us A) women need "get back in them kitchens and raise them kiddies"; B) feminazis ruined our lives as "having it all" was not the point of any wave of feminism, nor was the "no-win" situation we are in now; C) the usual about family values, and then turn around and make excessive, damaging domestic budget cuts that make it impossible to survive alone, nevermind as a family; D) while pointing her finger at us and instigating another BS mommy war, that we either need to dump the kiddies off and make a living, or forget our intelligence and future accomplishments and spend our days cleaning and watching Elmo.

When Obama talks about not having time or money for essential medical tests for women, I imagine funds going back to Planned Parenthood locations that usually don’t even conduct abortions but simply provide low-cost healthcare. I imagine funds going back into family-planning programs and birth control so that married couples do not have to deny their basic human need, and right, for physical affection to avoid making another hungry mouth to feed. I imagine funds going back into day care (like progressive, happier, saner European countries that give a shit about their citizens). I imagine a better life for women, children, men, families, America.

We need a First Lady with a brain, a heart, and opinions. We don’t need an educated woman married to an illiterate who believes in one thing but stands by smiling as her husband ruins the world. We don’t need a First Lady who will go to underdeveloped countries, where girls and women are raped systematically during wars or contract HIV from their husbands only, and condescendingly tell them to practice "abstinence."

We need a government that will not do this:

"Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support: The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children."

Women will not stop working. People will not stop having sex. This is the 21st century, not the rose-colored 1950s. We need people, men and women, in the White House who will stop wishing for the good old days and start making our present life better.

 

The wit of the blog

Theresa Duncan, a glamorous 40-year-old artist and writer, killed herself last summer. Her soul mate, Jeremy Duncan, also an artist, followed her a month later. They were art pioneers, lovers, intelligentsia with blue-collar backgrounds, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and too young to die for nothing.

I’m aware that animated films and CD-ROM games made Duncan famous, but I’ve never seen them. Instead, I’ve been obsessed with her blog for the past three weeks. I’ve read every word, studied every picture, clicked every link, and I only wish there was more something, anything. She called it "The Wit of the Staircase" or, as she explained:

"From the French phrase ‘esprit d’escalier,’ literally, it means ‘the wit of the staircase’, and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended. ‘Esprit d’escalier,’ she replied. ‘Esprit d’escalier.’ The answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till afterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late."

To honor her, someone created a tribute blog, "Children of the Staircase," but it’s not even good enough to share a title. "Wit," in my opinion, is one of the best blogs ever created (and prolifically maintained). The layout is simple three narrow columns, black background, tiny white font, very few links, simple author photo. Every post is topped by a stunning photo, usually a high-fashion portrait, and sometimes a quote or line from a poem or song. She did not personally write many of her posts; she chose to quote, at length, from whichever fascinating article or site to which she was linking. She blogged about the most fascinating things: an article in the U.K.’s Telegraph: "How the Nazis gave us Disco;" from The Independent in Ireland: "Revealing Photo Album of Ireland’s Wildest Women"; Dispatches from a female Iraqi blogger, with a rare personal photograph from the 50s of Iraqi college girls, looking so ordinary, so every-woman, in suits and pumps, smiling together in the sunlight. Beneath that, a recent picture of women in Iraq dutifully marching, every inch of them covered, hidden, denied.

My personal favorite: From "Today in Literature," the time Carson McCullers, Isak Dineson, and Marilyn Monroe had lunch together, discussed literature, and then danced on the table (even if the last part is not true, it’s too cheeky to not imagine).

When she did write the posts, she kept it short and went for the jugular. Unless she was writing about perfume. She deserved a book deal for this alone. Very few people can appreciate a variety of scents, nevermind write about each one so passionately.

She idolized Kate Moss like a teenage girl, calling her "the bride," convinced that Moss and Pete Doherty (the walking syringe) were a classic love story, instead of a couple of undernourished drug addicts.

The definitive article written about the couple in Vanity Fair explains how, unfortunately, Duncan’s extreme political beliefs contributed to her unnecessary end. When Beck (yes, of "Devil’s Haircut") backed out of her movie Alice Underground, she and Blake became convinced that Scientologists, all the way up to Tom Cruise at Paramount, were out to end their careers and destroy them. After moving back to New York and into St. Mark’s Rectory, they came to believe that the CIA was after them, too. This stemmed from their new friendship with their landlord, Father Frank Morales, a noted activist and conspiracy theorist who runs Episcopal St. Mark’s. During their friendship with Morales, Duncan and Blake were publicly adamant that 9/11 was "an inside job," claiming "they are even running ads on the Cartoon Network recruiting people to be in the CIA!" and that (metaphysically, anyway) Dick Cheney is the devil (well, most ordinary folk believe that anyway). I’m not saying that Morales has any fault in the story he is who he is. But the coincidence and timing of encountering Morales’s controversial views must have exacerbated their paranoia.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this story so many weeks back. I remember a blurb somewhere about a young couple who were harassed to death by Scientologists. I don’t doubt any negative claims against the Hollywood cult, but in this case, there’s not even a hint of Scientology involvement. Even their closest friends didn’t believe their harassment claims.
If you omit the conspiracy theory posts, it’s hard to believe that "Wit" was created by Duncan during her turbulent last years. She still found so much beauty in the world. Her intellectual curiosity certainly wasn’t suffering, nor her ability to expand upon any subject. This blogger was bold, articulate, confident, and eclectic. Duncan was a woman who fully understood herself. It’s just not clear when she stopped wanting to understand how to live in the world. After reading every post, following every link, you become haunted by esprit d’escalier  what would Duncan say about this or that. What would you say to such an artist now that she’s gone? Nothing good ever comes of suicide.

I have a favorite post, entitled "Who the fuck is we?" It was written in response to Dawn Eden’s plea for our half of humanity to keep our knees together or risk every emotional ill known to us. Coincidentally, I found it just when Lori Gottlieb decided to "we we" all over single women in Atlantic Monthly. Also, Thursday was Valentine’s Day, and this year I was in a particularly hippie-peace-love mood. A close friend found a good man the first one ever! Another spent this Valentine’s Day with his newest and dearest valentine his new baby daughter. And every fiber of me wanted nothing more for this phony holiday than for the people I love to feel love. So I couldn’t muster up a pissy response to "just settle down and get married," nor do I see the point. Having someone tell me what to do with any part of my life (nevermind with whom I will or will not choose to create a human being and spend every moment of my life) doesn’t make me angry. I simply don’t care. I will do as I please, just as others will continue to wag their finger at me (even when they’re no different at all). But I can’t resist lobbing the delightful phrase, "Who the fuck is we?" in Gottlieb’s direction. I’m going to let Duncan wrap this up for me:  

Sisters of the Staircase, take a moment to reflect on how often some insipid book or article by and about an individual woman’s unique experiences overuses the word "we."

…To which Wit replies "Who the fuck is we?"

Whether I agree with her or not, I don’t like the automatic assumption that I think like the writer because we accidentally share a gender. It’s a kind of insidious hypnosis this "We…We…We" directed at women.

The author describes her sexuality as swinging from promiscuity, which she seems to think Germaine Greer somehow told her to do, to complete chastity because in her opinion that’s the fastest way to get a husband. She also frets, just like so many brainwashed magazine propagandists before her, because she is unmarried at 37.

There’s a ton of talk like this from even smart women, I’m sorry to say…It is sad that our culture encourages this helplessness and lack of differentiation in women.

Wit encourages the author to learn to say "I" so that she can finally take responsibility for herself and figure out what her real problems are aside from the stupid false measure of how much or how little she is fucking. This will help her realize who she wants to be absent some propagandizing internal voice that tells her she isn’t anybody if she’s not attached to "us" whether that means a gender, a Mommy, or a man.

And that’s not what "we" think, sweetheart, that’s what I think.

 

The Namesake

If you’ve read any of my other pieces, you know how I feel about turning books into movies. With a few exceptions, it’s usually disaster, a crime against literature. The Namesake is one of those exceptions.

Screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala and director Mira Nair were ideal for this project because, as the finished product shows, they both share author Jhumpa Lahiri’s gift of subtlety and a less-is-more approach. In fact, I’ve never seen a movie in which one line, tenderly spoken, can express so much of a character’s inner life. That is also where gifted actors come in. Kal Penn, Tabu, Irfan Khan geniuses.

Take note everyone this is how you make a movie out of a book.

 

Absurdity in the new year

I’m feeling pretty sick of the world right now.

There is the post-holiday barrage of gym-weight-loss-remake-your-body-and-life ads that people will buy into temporarily, half-heartedly, and fully drop at the first sight of Valentine’s Day candy. I love watching people stock up on yogurt and have fast food for lunch anyway.

Which leads me to the new Burger King commercial. Some shaggy loser responds to the news of the Whopper’s demise with a demanding, "Get me a Whopper, now!" Cue the minimum-wage uniform behind the counter to suddenly produce all 670 calories, 39 grams of fat, and 1,020 mg of sodium, saving the day. People in the background clap. And I’m ashamed of my fellow Americans. What’s that you say the NSA is tapping my phone? Well, I have nothing to hide (oh look, Survivor is on). The news there’s a second genocide occurring in Africa right now? Well I could go for a burger right now. Hmm? Low-income children still going without insurance? Meh. Burger King stopped selling the Whopper? Hold. The. Phone. This is an outrage, I am pissed the f*** off. How can they do this? I mean, I want a Whopper, get me a Whopper, now!
That’s what you’re willing to fight for? Are you KIDDING ME?

Next up, the Iowa caucuses, specifically, Mike Huckabee’s minor win. First of all, in 1992 I was 11 years old, and even I knew how you could and could not contract AIDS. The entire world did, and so did Mike Huckabee. Quarantining the homo-plague carriers was not about a lack of expert information about the disease; it was just plain ignorant and bigoted.
Next, call me crazy, but I don’t know how well I’d sleep at night knowing that more and more rapists/murderers/pedophiles like Wayne DuMond were out of prison instead of serving their just life sentences, thanks to Mike Huckabee. I’ve read the details of the DuMond debacle. His first murders were committed (or so he bragged) with the "slaughter of a village of Cambodians." His second, or first legally documented murder, was in 1972, when he helped beat a teenager to death. He molested an underage girl for the first time a year later. In 1978 he committed his first rape. The 1984 rape of a teenage girl was the one that stuck in the justice system. Life sentence plus 20 years. Huckabee commuted the sentence to time served in 1996. After that DuMond was convicted of murdering a woman in 2000. If he hadn’t dropped dead of cancer in 2005, he would’ve been charged with the rape and murder of a pregnant woman. Pro-Llfe indeed.

The good people of Iowa voted for Huckabee above all the other Republican candidates. They say the evangelicals were responsible for his victory. Well, that’s just fantastic. My only hope is for New Hampshire, up here in my corner of the world, to show a little more common sense and intelligence.

Don’t even get me started on that con-artist and cult leader Joel Osteen and the "Gospel of Wealth."

Last, but not least, the new article today about how much the cervical cancer vaccinations hurt the poor wittle arms of girls. Shut it, princess. I had the first shot a month ago, and the ache was gone after an hour. If you experience more, say a day or two of pain, deal with it. Am I supposed to break out my violin because for the first time in history you are privileged enough to receive a simple shot that can prevent cancer? Oh I can just hear it now from the pro-lifers: "Do we want our daughters’ arms to hurt? This is what liberals and feminists and devil worshipers want for your little girls’ arm to ache for 24-72 hours so that they can freely fornicate with the devil starting at age nine! Jesus does not want your daughter to feel the sting! Can I get an Amen?!"  

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

 

His Dark Materials

Why is it that only Catholics are complaining about this movie? Or, really, any movie? Where are the other Christian denominations? The evangelicals (oh, that’s right electing politicians), the Protestants (oops splitting from the church over gay tolerance), Baptists, Unitarians, Methodists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons? I guess they have better things to do than stand outside of movie theaters stamping their feet and whining about a box office bomb.

Yes, The Golden Compass is a sinking stone, but I highly doubt it’s because of Catholic protestors (all nine of them outside one Florida cinema and Phil Donohue, the lone gunman). As some learned with The Da Vinci Code movie (another dud), protesting does not work (students of the 60s should’ve also figured that out after a while). It makes a lot of noise and ultimately draws more attention to the boycottee.

I’ve heard the little tummy rumblings about the controversy on the Web all week, but what spurred me to write this was a small editorial in The Providence Journal. I’ll post most of it:

Anti-Catholic Bigotry as Art
Surprise, surprise! Hollywood has done it again. An anti-God, anti-Catholic film is about to hit the big screen just in time for one of the most sacred holy days for Christians, the celebration of the birth of Christ.

The movie, The Golden Compass, directed by Chris Weitz and released by New Line Cinema, has hit theaters. The film is based on Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials. In this film the good guys are witches and the bad guys are an evil group of people in power, called The Magisterium. There is no other definition for the word Magisterium than the teaching authority and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.

I would argue that if a script for a movie were presented to Hollywood that had as its villains an evil ruling class called The Homosexuals or The Feminists it would be branded homophobic, a hate crime or sexist, and never see the light of day. Yet, when Catholics are targeted and maliciously portrayed, Hollywood applauds and calls it artistic, enlightening and inspiring. What’s wrong with this picture?
The Rev. Giacomo Capoverdi 

I love how the italicized hatred just drips from his words. A man of God indeed. Too bad The Golden Compass does not target Catholicism but God (author Phillip Pullman is an atheist) and all religion. Too bad the U.S. Conference of Bishops gives the film two opposable thumbs up. And movie critics for the Catholic News Service have judged the film to be "lavish, well-acted and fast-paced." Aside from that, every other critic has dismissed the film completely, as well as moviegoers (it cost $180 million to make, and earned a paltry $28 million this weekend). The only applause seems to be coming from some of the Catholic community. That is, those have seen it anyway. And really, shouldn’t viewers be the only ones to label it good or bad?

There’s more. There’s always more. From Family Life Center (via Salon): 

"An Urgent Warning for Parents" cautioning that, after seeing the film, children "will rush out to buy and digest Pullman‘s God-hating and Catholic-bashing books. Philip Pullman’s work is about to bring millions of children into contact with the demonic."

After Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, the Dark Materials, books and now the movie, you’d think that by now kids would be walking around foaming at the mouth, growling, fornicating in day care and hexing us all. But in the real world, children are simply innocent and beautiful and capable of all that is good. If parents of any religion or denomination could believe in honest education and faith in their own children and parenting skills, maybe they’d stay that way, too.

Some Catholics apparently do exactly that. Much like the many clergy who came to promote Harry Potter, Catholic Digest, the nation’s largest magazine for Catholics, suggests parents use the film as a springboard to “encourage your children to reflect about the issues the book raises in a thoughtful and intelligent manner." But sadly, most are incapable of this. As Stephanie Zacharek writes, "The idea that children might actually think for themselves is still too hot to handle. These Christian groups fear that, if children see the movie, they may want to read the books. And we can’t have children reading now, can we?"

I haven’t seen the movie. Not for any particular reason other than it just doesn’t interest me. I’ll get around to reading the books one day. In the meantime, despite being raised Catholic, I can think for myself and I do have better things to do with my time.

The Catholic protestors, however, obviously do not. Take the nine cinema protestors, including a mother and son. She thinks God will look kindly on her for holding up a sign and yelling, "Do you love God? No Golden Compass!" Her son went there straight from school because "I love God, I think it’s the right thing to do." Meanwhile, my atheist uncle accompanied me to the local food bank the other night to volunteer. Just sayin’.

My favorite piece in all of this was written by Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Catholic mother of two writing about allowing her daughter to see the film. Sanely, she does filter things she thinks will be inappropriate: "My only objection to the film isn’t philosophical, it’s practical: The movie is pretty damn intense." Williams knows she is the parent she has the power to say, "No you can’t, you’re too young," rather than a hysterical, "NO, you’ll end up worshipping Satan!"

I love a writer who can be both cheeky and dry at the same time: “As far as I know, Bill Donohue has not yet seen The Golden Compass. I have. I suspect it would piss him off.” Someday, I hope to follow her parenting philosophy: I want my children to understand that human beings and institutions are fallible. That sometimes those who claim moral authority can traffic in corruption and abuse. I want them to be angry at every wrong perpetuated in the name of God. To question authority. To be feisty troublemakers for positive change. I’ve told my daughters that no one knows for certain that there’s a God or a heaven. I always thought that was the beauty of faith that it rests on our willingness to believe in the things we can’t prove…But I would rather they grow up to be kind, generous unbelievers than sanctimonious, blindly dogmatic Christians.

Now, to my fellow human beings: quit whining and go make the world better!

 

Are you a Christian?

Recently I did a minor good deed for a complete stranger, and after thanking me he said, "You must be a Christian." I’ve been told that before, and it always irritates me. The next time I’m going to say that no, I’m actually Jewish/Hindu/Buddhist/Muslim/Atheist. I’d like a reaction to that. Would you still invite me to the church you created in your basement? Would you throw my five dollars back at me? Were you mistaken?

Technically, I am "Christian." But that’s not what makes me a good person (at least I try). You’d think the world could tally up the pedophile priests and figure that out for themselves. You’d think we could look back on the Nazis, the witch-burners, and the Spanish Inquisition, which basically introduced systematic torture and fascism to the world, and come to the conclusion that Christianity does not equal goodness, kindness, giving, or peace on Earth.

My brief Sunday school education did teach me that the basis of Christianity is good deeds, charity. A collection plate to benefit the leaky church roof means nothing to me. Preaching charity once a week does not erase the history, the past two millennia, of Christianity’s flaws, and actions speak louder than words. No one and nothing is perfect. And the next person out there to give their time or money really will be a non-Christian. And what will you say then?

I believe in being good, doing good, for the sake of it. I believe in genuine charity and karma. I don’t do it to get me somewhere better in the afterlife or the next life I do it to make this life better for the people I share it with and for myself. I’ve been the person who needed the help. Now I’m the person who can give it. So the next time someone wants to thank me, I don’t want them to ask if I’m a Christian. I want them to know I’m just a fellow human being.