Commentary

Stimulate social justice

Ten ideas for putting your tax rebate check to good use.


InTheFray Magazine You may or may not think that the stimulus checks the government is sending out this month make good economic sense, but either way, you’ve got to decide what to do with the extra 300 to 600 bucks. You could buy yourself a bottle of 1980 Dom Perignon, for instance, or take yourself and 29 friends to see Speed Racer. But in case you want to put some of your windfall to work for a good cause, here are 10 specific, action-ready ideas:

1. Feed the grassroots.
Send your money directly to the people who need it by using the online system at GlobalGiving.com, which pairs "average Joe" donors with grassroots charity projects around the world. It’s eBay meets foreign aid, with projects searchable by topic, country, and a host of other criteria. GlobalGiving has just launched a resource page and a relief fund to help victims of the Myanmar/Burma cyclone, which has left up to 1.9 million people homeless, injured, or vulnerable to disease and hunger. www.globalgiving.com

2. Offset yourself.
Worried about climate change? Whether you’re reducing your own carbon footprint, you can use the cash to buy carbon offsets, which fund projects designed to counteract atmospheric pollution and global warming. Carbon Catalog provides a long list of providers and information about transparency and verification. www.carboncatalog.org

3. Help the troops phone home.
Think "support the troops" has become a platitude? Do something real to help servicemembers serving abroad by paying for their calling cards so they can keep in touch with their families back home. If you don’t have a person in mind, look at the bottom of this page for ideas: thor.aafes.com/scs

4. Fight poverty.
While the government has decided to give most people a tax rebate, families of few means will receive smaller checks, and sometimes nothing at all. You can make sure resources go to the people who need it most by making a donation to the Low Income Investment Fund, which helps low-income communities develop in a sensible way and avoid the poverty trap. www.liifund.org

5. Fight racism.
Want to do something concrete about racial injustice in the United States? The Applied Research Center advances racial equality through research, advocacy, and journalism. Their work helps to change both policies and minds. www.arc.org

6. Fight homophobia.
If you think that human rights should include the right to love, consider donating to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Astraea supports social justice in the United States, and organizations that benefit LGBTI communities worldwide. www.astraea.org

7. Don’t donate it … loan it.
Microcredit is a burgeoning field that fights poverty by making small, targeted loans in order to foster entrepreneurship in developing countries. Two organizations (one for-profit and one non) offer you the chance to personally finance some of those loans. Your investment may even make a little money at the same time. www.kiva.org / www.microplace.org

8. Do more than talk about Tibet.
Speaking out against China’s record on human rights is a good start. But why not put your stimulus check where your mouth is? A donation to The Tibet Fund will deliver needed resources to the educational, cultural, health, and socio-economic institutions inside Tibet and the refugee settlements in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. www.tibetfund.org

9. Nurture young minds.
Support the arts as a way to empower young people by giving your tax rebate to Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring organization for high school girls in New York. www.girlswritenow.org

10. Support independent media.
We’re not too proud to suggest it: Donate to your friendly neighborhood nonprofit online magazine! www.inthefray.org

Update: Another worthwhile use of your tax rebates would be donating them to help victims of the recent earthquake in China, which has left tens of thousands of people dead or missing. Consider donating to the International Response Fund of the American Red Cross (www.redcross.org), Mercy Corps (www.mercycorps.org), or World Vision (www.worldvision.org).

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World’s dumbest logic


When gay marraige was making headlines four years ago, some opponents suggested that gay marriage would justify humans marrying animals. So it was only a matter of time before the nonsense started again following yesterday’s California ruling striking down a ban on gay marriage.

 
In my inbox today was a press release with a subject line that read:

Courts Rule That Ramadan Shall Last Only 20 Days (re: Courts Rewriting Marriage Definition)

 

Naturally, I wasn’t sure what gay marriage had to do with Ramadan, so I decided to open the message. (Let this be a lesson to PR types: nonsensical or provocative subject lines can grab readers’ attention.) Here’s what it said: 

Courts Rule That Ramadan Shall Last Only 20 Days

·        The court has taken it upon themselves to interpret a covenant relationship that God ordained in two major religions and redefine the act of marriage according to today’s cultural standards

·        Why stop there? Why not force Muslims to cut short their practice of Ramadan because it is unequal protection for local restaurant owners. The court can prove that there is a compelling state interest to cut it short because it can be proven that a 40-day fast hurts the economy.

"Unequal protection for local restaurant owners"? That’s the best argument this person could come up with as to why the state would tinker with Ramadan next? Clearly, the person who wrote this is a. not an attorney (at least not one I’d want defending me) and b. never took a logic class.

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I don’t get it


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.

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All the white people, sing!


The day was a “Grid-Lock Alert Day” as if it was special or different from the traffic jams we get most days.

There are about six or seven of these Grid-Lock Alert Days throughout the holiday season in NYC. Some are understandable: the night of the Rockefeller tree lighting or Black Friday, for instance. But this day, who knew?

We were also getting a snowstorm with expected accumulation of about three inches in the city and up to six or seven inches upstate. In NY this didn’t faze us in the least. We were all at work and school and watching the snow come down outside the window. You cannot call out from work, or if you do, plan to use a personal day.

The Grid-Lock Alert and snow combined to make the subway much more crowded than usual. People who might normally drive or take the bus shuffled underground to avoid traffic snarls. On the 2 train we were smooshed together like a threesome in a twin bed, everyone getting a little feisty and irked.

So it is into this environment that a man walked onto the train car, complete with guitar and amplifier to spread some holiday cheer. I couldn’t see him, but he warmed up with some random chords. As soon as the doors close (it’s standard protocol to wait until the doors close), he launched into “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” but with his own twist.

“He sees you when he’s sleeping, little girl in the red coat. He knows when you’re awake, man with the big hat. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, Mr. Wall Street guy, so be good for goodness sake…

“Okay, you know how it goes. Sing along with me. White people, you join in, too!

“Santa Claus is comin’ to town. Oh he surely is. Santa Claus is comin’ to town. Right here to Brooklyn, USA…”

He finished that song and decided, apparently, that the people on this car were collectively not much into the spirit at this hour of the morning. Maybe The Jackson Five would help.

“This one is dedicated to the lady with the glasses.

“You and I must make a pact. We must bring salvation back. Where there is love, lady with the glasses, I’ll be there.

“Sing along with me, lady with the glasses. If you should ever find someone new, I’d know he’d better be good to you.”

The lady with the glasses was not singing along. No one was. But people were chuckling behind their newspapers and books.

“Now, all the white people sing! I’ll be there. I’ll be there. Just call my name, and I’ll be there.”

I left the train and the guy singing, feeling just a little bit better than I did about 30 minutes before.

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Crime and punishment


Two ladies near me on the Chambers St. platform were discussing the recent tragic events at a Nebraska mall.

They looked like they could be from middle America themselves. One was wearing a red beret and the other wore an oversized sweatjacket with glow-in-the-dark white sneakers.

“What is the world coming to? All those people.” The woman wearing the red beret shook her head.

“And they say New Yorkers are nuts. At least the shooter had the decency to turn the gun on himself. Spare us all some ridiculous alibi about his mental problems,” said pristine sneaker woman.

“Do you think he’ll go to heaven?”

A train on the downtown tracks squeals its brakes and I couldn’t hear the response. The woman in the red beret took up again. “But God forgives everyone who asks for forgiveness.”

The shooter indeed left a note behind in which, among other things, he apologized for what he had been about to do and wrote, “I’ve just snapped.” It made me think about how the word “sorry,” like so many others, has lost its meaning. I think this is due in part to the fact that as a society we seem to enjoy building our heroes up, only to tear them down. Then we expect them to repent, to offer up whatever lame-ass excuse they can find, so we can feel good about liking them again. I offer you a smattering of examples:

– Mel Gibson’s explanation for his anti-Semitic remarks in 2005: "That wasn’t really me, it was the booze talking, I have inner rage, I have a dark side, I’m in rehab."

– After a tabloid photo was published showing model Kate Moss snorting cocaine, she apologized to “all the people I have let down.” Moments it seemed after being released from a rehab clinic she signed contracts with Calvin Klein and Virgin Mobile.

– Years ago when Hugh Grant was caught with prostitute Divine Brown, he went on what many like to call his “mea culpa” tour of talk shows, classifying his cheating on then-girlfriend Liz Hurley as “disloyal and shabby and goatish.” His movie career continues to thrive.  

– Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, who resigned after having an affair with a gay man he hired to serve as the state’s homeland security advisor, at least used the word sorry in his farewell speech: "I am sorry that I have disappointed the citizens of the state of New Jersey who gave me this enormous trust." He went on to say that there is a climate in this country in which "we smile in person and then throw each other under the bus when we leave the room."

I don’t even pretend to know if, like the woman wearing the red beret on the train platform said, God forgives anyone who asks for forgiveness. That’s a topic for a completely different blog. It does suggest that we all crave a second chance. But I wonder if these people are truly sorry for their misactions or if they are just sorry they got caught. Maybe apologizing means never having to say you’re sorry.

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Photo Essays

Afghanistan

Best of In The Fray 2008. "The idealistic, feminist, American part of me wanted to think that something revolutionary had happened. That little by little, each woman student the teacher coaxed to the front of the room was changing Afghanistan. But later, I learned that many of them doubted they would pursue careers after their educations."


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