doing my civic duty

My immediate family has a history of being politically independent. We vote third-party, and we're proud of it.

...Except that my immediate family's all in Massachusetts. In 2004 (my first presidential election), I voted for Nader. In the 2008 election, I also voted Green Party. I was in college in 2004 and in grad school in 2008, so I was registered to vote in Massachusetts -- which is going blue no matter what.

But I'm in Pennsylvania this year, which is suddenly a swing state. It hasn't been a real swing state for the past couple of elections, but this year the polls say that Romney and Obama are neck-and-neck.

I don't agree with everything Obama's done. I wish he'd shut down Guantanamo Bay, for example. Drone wars make my stomach turn, and while I'm in favor of reducing the number of casualties in war, I also realize that 1) we're really interested in saving American lives, 2) they're not as precise as they want us to believe, and 3) I'm pretty much a pacifist, which is sort of out of the range of normal politics. (Can you be the commander-in-chief and be a pacifist? I...doubt it.)

In 2008, when the recession hit, I was in grad school, living off of work-study, the dregs of my savings, and student loans. In a way, even though I was pretty much broke, I was lucky. I know people who weren't so lucky. And while I'm no economist -- far from it -- it looks like it could have ended up much, much worse.

For the record, I support marriage equality; I couldn't look my LGBT friends in the eye if I didn't. I support social programs through the government. I've worked in social services, and poverty is more complicated than private charities can handle.

Our healthcare system is screwed up and probably will continue to be screwed up, but I think that protecting people from getting screwed over by insurance companies (because of pre-existing conditions and the like) is a really good thing. And when I was 24 and didn't have health insurance, I really could have used the Affordable Care Act. My middle brother, at 25, benefits from it -- he works as a chef and can still be on my parents' insurance.

What I realize is this: no candidate is going to be perfect -- Democrat, Republican, or third-party. I'd rather have a multi-party system. But we don't have one. And I'm a pragmatist under all my cynicism and idealism.

I think four or five years ago, I was probably less pragmatic and more of an idealist. But maybe that's the price of growing up.

If I were registered in MA, I'd vote for Jill Stein, because her platform is most closely aligned with my opinions. Plus, her running mate is Cheri Honkala, who's from Philly and is kinda awesome

I'm not in MA, though. Since I'm in PA, I voted for Obama.

Also, John Scalzi nails my thoughts about the current Republican party:

Look: The modern national Republican party is a hot mess, a simmering pot of angry reactionaries driven by selfishness and willful ignorance, whose guiding star is not governance but power, and whose policies and practices are tuned to build an oligarchy, not nurture a democracy. Its economic policies are charitably described as nonsense and its social policies are vicious; for a party which parades its association with Jesus around like a fetish, it is notably lacking in the simple compassion of the Christ. There is so little I find good or useful in the current national GOP, intellectually, philosophically or politically, that I genuinely look on it with despair and wonder when or if the grown-ups are ever going to come back to it. Before anyone leaps up to say that the modern Democratic Party has problems of its own, know that I do not disagree. But if your practical choices for governance of the country are between the marginally competent and the actively malicious, you go with the marginally competent.

Go read the whole thing. In general, the Republicans scare me. Romney seems to have gone back on many of his pretty moderate views that he espoused while he was the governor of Massachusetts. And Paul Ryan? You're going to pick the guy who bases his political philosophy around Ayn Rand?

When it comes down to it, I trust Obama (albeit tentatively and with trepidation) more than I trust Romney.

So yeah. While the Democrats don't necessarily inspire confidence in me -- they're just as much corporate tools as the Republicans -- I'd rather have them.

Yes, I'm going with the lesser of two evils. I know that a lot of people would disagree with me on that, but there it is.

But! Just to make your day brighter, just to end this on a nonpartisan note, have a classroom of fourth-graders schooling you on your civic duty:

all right then.

I live in PA, not NC, so I haven't really been following the news about Amendment One. But I heard today that the ban on same-sex marriage passed.

My first thought was, "What the hell, NC?" But my actual thoughts are a little more complicated than that (uh, did you expect them not to be?), so here are some of the things that are running through my head. My head is a spacey, disjointed, chaotic place, so forgive me if my thoughts come out that way.

1. I'm a politically liberal and (probably) theologically orthodox Catholic. I don't think that's a contradiction, and just because a certain subset of voices speaks the loudest doesn't mean that we don't exist. (helloooooooo, Catholic Workers.)  When I became Catholic, my dad said to me, "But you're so anti-authoritarian." Yeah. Still am, a bit. And, frankly, the leadership of the Church has done almost nada to convince me that they're morally superior to your average Joe Schmoe (or Jane Schmoe) on the street. See: sexual abuse cases.

2. I don't think that religious beliefs about sexual orientation or marriage should influence how the state views them. And vice versa. And I think that married same-sex couples should get the same rights and privileges as, umm, non-same-sex (heterosexual? opposite-sex?) couples.


3. Marriage has not always been one man and one woman. If you want to make an argument based on history, that's not the way to go (and for years and years, women and children were considered property. Yeah, history: real moral).

4. Anyway, bullshit on the "marriage being redefined" thing. The Church isn't being forced to redefine the sacraments, is it?  And really, if your marriage is so weak that a gay couple getting married is going to screw it up...well, I really have nothing to say to you.

5. My God has much more to say about things like taking care of the poor and standing up to injustice than he does about sex. And if I'm wrong? If I stand before God one day and he looks down at me and condemns me for supporting marriage equality? Well, in the words of the immortal Huck Finn, All right then, I'll go to hell.

6. My life is not affected by this. Really. It's not. I'm a straight girl. Hell, I don't even know if I want to get married. So I don't even have a dog in the so-called fight. But...

7. Cliche of cliches: I have gay friends. I have gay friends who are couples, who are married. And this kind of thing? It hurts them.

There you are, darlings. Let me know if I used one of these, and don't do it yourself.

we are out of tune

Things of interest:

1. Look, ma, I wrote something!

2. It's Charles Dickens' 200th birthday! Everyone CELEBRATE! And have a dramatic reading of A Tale of Two Cities or something.

3. Have a classic:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God!  I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
(Wordsworth)

4. Things I've been reading:

At the slacktivist: Poor Women's Health as a Political Bargaining Chip
I was desperately uncomfortable at Mass on Sunday when they read the bishops' lettter, and the article that Fred Clark posted an excerpt of touches on (part of) what I felt:

I see being pro-life across the board and consistently as the defining characteristic of a pro-life Catholic.  And so as a pro-life Catholic, I find it incomprehensible--I find it outrageous and shameful--that my church's leaders are willing to ally themselves with political leaders whose goals are in no sense at all pro-life, except that these political leaders continue to promise to outlaw abortion if they're elected.  (But they haven't done so when elected and given a chance to move in that direction.)

I don't know what I'd call myself in terms of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. Probably somewhere in the middle--a hard place to be when the rhetoric on both sides seems so...vitriolic. But if you're going to talk to me about being "pro-life," I'm going to say this: okay, so are you willing to support programs for single parents and families who are struggling? Are you going to stand up and "this is wrong" when they cut funding for social services programs? And, hey, by the way, are you anti-death penalty?

(Sometimes, in my very bad moods, I'm tempted to move to a cabin in the woods. I hate politics.)

don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin

Oh, blog. I'm sorry for my neglect of you. *pets* Life's been a little crazy.

I've been keeping track, at least peripherally, of two different movements that have been going on: the Occupy movements, which (as I'm sure you all know) started fairly recently, and the Slutwalk movements, which have been happening since (I think?) this spring.

Occupy Philly is underway, with protesters camping outside of City Hall. Since the movement here doesn't seem to have a website, here's their Facebook page and the PW blog, which seems to be covering it pretty often.

I personally haven't checked out what's going on at City Hall, but it's pretty close to where I work. Last week I walked by and got a glimpse of lots of tents, but it was cold and raining, so no one was really out. I might go by later this week when things have slowed down for me.

In general, I'm interested more in the smaller, local movements than in the larger Occupy ones. If we're going to change things, I think we need to start in the places in which we live. I think if this had happened six, seven years ago, I might be more optimistic about larger structural changes. But bringing down Wall Street? The IRS? The Federal Reserve? Hmm.

I think this could turn into a solid movement, one that takes root in the US (maybe the rest of the world, too; who knows?). But I also think it needs concrete goals, which (from what I understand) are developing slowly. So we'll see. It might fizzle out, or it might burst into something wonderful.

If you asked me about what I'd like to see here in Philly, I'd say this: I want to see good schools. I want to see support for struggling families. I want to see neighborhoods revitalized from the bottom up.I want good affordable housing for every person who needs or wants it.

I think slogans are all well and good (I used to have shirts that said, "There's enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed" and "Live Simply" on them). But we need to think longer-term as well.

On the more meta-side, I've been reading a lot of interesting articles on the idea of occupation. It's a loaded word--and for some groups, it's a word that has a lot of history. (What does it mean to occupy on occupied land?) For Native Americans, the US is already occupied--by people like me, and probably, if you're not a Native American, you too, dear reader.

Here's some reading that I've done: A Letter to the Occupy Together Movement and Decolonization and Occupy Wall Street.

The Slutwalk movements started in Toronto, when a police officer, in giving a talk about safety, said that "women should avoid dressing like sluts" to prevent rape. The first Slutwalk was in direct response to his remark, but also in response to the larger issues: 1) dressing not like a "slut" does not prevent rape (there were women in the walks who were wearing pajamas and jeans and jackets holding signs that said, "this is what I was wearing when I was raped.") 2) rape is very, very under-reported, and most rapists don't even spend time in jail 3) and then this, which is from Slutwalk Toronto's website: "We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault."

To be honest, I don't really have a personal desire to re-appropriate the word "slut." It's not something I identify with, and it's not something that I really want to identify with. And, of course, let's look meta again:

An Open Letter from Black Women to the Slutwalk: If you're interested at all in the movement, read this. Sometimes--many times--we in the majority have to sit down, shut up, and listen. 

We are deeply concerned. As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it.  We are perplexed by the use of the term “slut” and by any implication that this word, much like the word “Ho” or the “N” word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress.  Much of this is tied to our particular history.  In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, “slut” has different associations for Black women.  We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label.

Here are the responses from the Slutwalk organizers: first here and then this longer letter.

There have been other responses as well that I think are worth listening to, and then there's this debacle, fiasco, something that makes me want to hit my head against the wall. Read that as well.  

So. Anyway. Movements and things being shaken up and I have no idea.I think, above all, we need to remember to listen to one another, really listen, because that's what solidarity is, at least in part. And really? If I, as a white, straight, educated, really rather privileged woman, want to make some sort of a difference, I think a lot of that will come through keeping my mouth shut and supporting others.

That's all.

this badland beyond my ken

Stuff I've been reading:

From Truth-Out: Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

From the Chronicle of Higher Ed: Let's Get Serious About Cultivating Creativity

From the Washington Post:  PAPA Festival highlights Christianity, anarchism and community spirit

From the blog Red-Letter Christians: Moving on the Block: What White People Can Do About Racism

Also:

Perdido Street Station, China Miéville: It's...fantastical. Weird. Bizarre. I read a review that says that one reads this book for the prose more than the plot. The prose is certainly kind of wonderful and voluptuous and a bit overwhelming--as is the world that Miéville builds. For example:

New Crobuzon was a city unconvinced by gravity....The city thrust upwards massively, as if inspired by those vast mountains to the west. Blistering square slabs of habitation ten, twenty, thirty storeys high punctuated the skyline. They burst into the air like fat fingers, like fists, like the stumps of limbs waving frantically above the swells of the lower houses (55).

Miéville weaves his story into this world, giving us flawed, sometimes despicable, characters. The main thrust of the plot is this: Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist who's something of a rogue. He is visited by a (half-bird, half-human) garuda, who has had his wings cut off as punishment for a crime. The garuda, Yagharek, enlists Isaac in his search to fly again, and in researching flight, Isaac accidentally unleashes a monster into the city. There's one main twist at the end that was surprising enough that I had to re-read it. Perdido Street Station is not a happy book. I wouldn't suggest it if you want something uplifting. But it's sure as hell worth reading.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler: Butler sets this story in a dystopian United States, in which the government has fallen apart and people live in walled communities that protect them from the outside. The protagonist, Lauren Olamina, suffers from a condition called hyperempathy, in which she feels others' pain. She's been raised Baptist--her father is a pastor of sorts--but she develops her own religion called Earthseed, in which the principle tenet is "God is Change." When her community is destroyed, she leaves and starts a journey north, picking up people as she goes and trying to convert them to Earthseed. 

Dystopian fiction's gotten bigger these days--we can see that in books like The Hunger Games and The Road. Parable of the Sower was written a bit earlier (1993). There's a second book, Parable of the Talents, and Butler had been planning a third book, but she died before she could write it (which is a shame). Butler was a pioneer of science fiction, especially as she was one of the few African-American women writing in the field.

I just started Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. It's a bit of a departure from what I've been reading.

Anyway, bits and pieces, hints and guesses, all that. I am happy for the sunshine after a week of rain.

among the gods, who brought this quarrel on?

To start, let me say this: I have no sympathy for Osama Bin Laden. I think anyone who plans the deaths of thousands and inspires others to kill is evil.


I think, though, that his death should not be a cause for celebration but a time to step back and reflect on the last decade. Because, really? Ten years and thousands of lives, military and civilian, have been lost. And it makes me twitchy to hear chants of USA! when I think about that. Is this the end (in the sense of purpose) of what we've done in Afghanistan? (Iraq, I s'pose, is a different ball game.) The whole thing seems a Pyrrhic victory.

And then there's the fact that I am, as a Christian, called to "love my enemies." Many other people have written about this. Surprisingly (because I am, at heart, a renegade), I found the response from the Vatican rather appropriate and thoughtful: ‎"Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices but reflects on the serious responsibility of each and every one of us before God and before man, and hopes and commits himself so that no event be an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but for peace." (Fr. Federico Lombardi)

Other voices that I've found interesting or thoughtful:

No Tears for Osama, No Cheers For US Imperialism:

Let me be clear: I shed no tears for bin Laden, whose murderous beyond-the-State reign, left nothing but death, grief and trauma across multiple continents. But the pursuit of bin Laden was not justification for what has been an escalation of violence and de-stabilization in the Middle East and Northern Africa, by two American Presidents. 

"USA! USA!" is the wrong response

This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory: He has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history -- the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.

Beyond Retaliation

Matt Daloisio, who co-coordinates the Witness Against Torture Campaign, sounded a note that we find far more authentic than triumphal celebration. “10 years,” Matt wrote. “Over 6000 US Soldiers killed. Trillions of Dollars wasted. Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. Tens of thousands imprisoned. Torture as part of foreign policy. And we are supposed to celebrate the murder of one person? I am not excited. I am not happy. I remain profoundly sad.”

Waking Up in a Post-Osama World

I hope that those who lost loved ones on 9/11 feel some sense of closure from the death of Osama Bin Laden.

I know I am supposed to feel like celebrating, but I just feel a deep sense of sadness as I grapple with a flood of memories from the day the planes flew into the World Trade Center and the events that followed.

So, yeah, I feel sadness, not so much at Bin Laden's death itself, but at the events of the last ten years. I, fortunately, didn't lose anyone in 9/11, but my roots are in New York, and we have family still there. 9/11 happened four years after we moved out of New York, but I remember the panic I felt at the announcement--I was a senior in high school, sitting in English class, and I ran down to the main office to call my mom to see if we knew anyone who worked in or around the Towers. My grandfather, who was a Brooklyn firefighter, lost people he trained. My aunt worked in the WTC for years; she moved in '92, but she knew people who still were there.
A year and some later, people yelled things about 9/11 at me when I said that I was against the war in Iraq. Half of those people had never been to the damn city.

Anyway. There's a sort-of "I don't really know what to think" thing going on with me. I've ended up with it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and lines from Wilfred Owen ("What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?") and Matthew Arnold (yeah, ignorant armies and stuff) going through my head. And then there's hold onto the good and love your enemies, which is funny, because I'm not one for quoting the Bible at anyone, including myself...

Now I'm rambling. I'd love to hear others' responses.

a couple of things, perhaps, of note

1. This made my day yesterday:



Slight correction to what the guy says: Victor Hugo did not, in fact, have much to do with this song, though I suppose you could argue that the idea is in the novel. Still, coolest flash mob ever. I really do hope, however, that the protests in WI do not end in the same way as Les Miserables. 

2. So a woman pitches to the Cleveland Indians during spring training. It makes news. Here's an interesting take on it. Here's something that I wrote last summer about being a girl and playing baseball.

And here's Justine Siegel's blog about her own experience.

3. It's March, which in Philly translates to weird weather. It was 55 on Sunday! 55! Best baseball weather EVER, but really weird for end of February. Anyway, I'm still a New Englander in that I feel that winter should last through April, but here's some Shelley:

O Wind,
if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

goin' to hell in a handbasket, that's what we're doing.

This makes me boiling mad. If you don't want to click on the link, here's a sample:

The top choices [in the federal budget] among evangelicals for the chopping block are economic assistance to needy people around the world (56 percent), government assistance for the unemployed (40 percent), and environmental protection (38 percent). In each of these categories, evangelicals were more supportive of decreasing spending than are other Americans. In fact, evangelicals were more supportive of funding cuts in every area except military defense, terrorism defense, aid to veterans, and energy.

I have a rant somewhere in me, but at this point, all I can say is "What part of 'for the least of these' don't you understand?"

Also, this is a sorta WTF on an otherwise okay morning: Georgia could potentially criminalize women who've had miscarriages.  Here's a snippet of this article from Mother Jones:

Under Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage. There is no clarification of what "human involvement" means, and this is hugely problematic as medical doctors do not know exactly what causes miscarriages. Miscarriages are estimated to terminate up to a quarter of all pregnancies and the Mayo Clinic says that "the actual number is probably much higher because many miscarriages occur so early in pregnancy that a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus isn't developing normally."

If that's an accurate picture of the bill...I just kinda want to splutter.

AND, also, Americorps and other programs could potentially be cut. I've participated in Americorps, and so have many people I know, so here you go: Save Service.

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

First off, I woke up yesterday with this in my head:



...which, in retrospect, isn't the worst way to wake up. However, waking up at 8:30 when you have to be at work at 9:00? Not great.

I watched the State of the Union last night (hurray for Emily's projector). I've been not-so-great at following politics lately, and I'll blame the increasingly vicious rhetoric for that (okay, that's just an excuse). As with any political speech, I thought some things were good and some things weren't.

Things I liked:
-Education. Innovation in education. Getting rid of No Child Left Behind. I live in a city that has a low graduation rate, and a lot of the students who come to me from the Phila. school district have a lot of trouble with writing and critical thinking skills. So, yeah, I think revamping our education system is necessary.
-Clean energy. 85% of our energy coming from clean energy? I like it, if Obama meant renewable energy. Also, getting rid of subsidies for oil companies (funny line: "I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own.")
-Ending tax cuts for the wealthy. Well, they better. That's all I'm saying. Frankly? I don't even need a tax cut (but maybe that's 'cause my living expenses are so low right now).
-Making sure the cuts to spending are not made "on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens." Right there? Really important. Really, really important.
-Railroads!

My main quibble with the speech, and this is philosophical, I realize, was the constant references to American exceptionalism. Let me be clear (to borrow one of Obama's phrases): I don't believe in American exceptionalism. What I do believe is this: we are a country that has done extraordinary things. We are also a country that has done extraordinarily bad things. In short, we are both good and bad, and so is every country on earth. And if that makes me unpatriotic or something, well, fine. But I don't think it does: I think I love where I live (although sometimes, I want to go back to England for a little while), but I don't want to whitewash our faults.
There's this great little hymn about this that I love. It's to the tune of "Finlandia:"

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

And here's Joan Baez singing it (I can't embed the video, for some reason)

...Because, when it comes down to it, we are interdependent. Or, as Mother Teresa used to say, "If there is no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

when I think of the road we're traveling on, I wonder what's gone wrong

So by now, everyone's heard about the shooting in Arizona. Six people were killed, including a 9-year-old, and 14 were injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

There's a lot that's been said about the shooting, much more than I can say. A sampling here:

Slacktivist: "Deadly Violence in Arizona"

Paul Krugman on the "Climate of Hate"

Gail Collins on guns

Feministe on rhetoric

Ta-Nehisi Coates's musings on Loughner

Whether or not Loughner was influenced by the increasingly vitriolic rhetoric over the past few years, and whether or not he saw Sarah Palin's map with crosshairs, let me state the obvious: words are powerful things, and we ought to think before we speak. Or write. Because, hello, language shapes the world. And once we start thinking that it's acceptable to use incendiary, violent language in our political rhetoric, we make it a little bit easier for things like this to happen.

It's also rather frustrating that so many people have jumped to the conclusion that the shooter is mentally ill. Slate has an article about this. (Full disclosure here: I've worked with people who were severely mentally ill, including a few with paranoid schizophrenia. And while they were...interesting...to work with, I usually didn't fear that they'd be violent.) And really, would it make it better to think that our mental health system has failed someone so, so completely?

In better news, this gives me a little hope.