Like Your Quality of Life? A Union Did That

Posted on February 21, 2011 by lisafindley

Even if you’ve never worked for a union in your life, they’ve worked for you. This nonsense about eliminating collective bargaining in the state of Wisconsin should be squashed–and fast–by the Wisconsin legislature, and condemned by politicians and media pundits alike across the country. We ALL benefit from the work of unions, and don’t think any differently:

Like having a weekend? A union did that.

Like having an 8-hour work day instead of 10 or 12 or 14? A union did that.

Like getting paid overtime on your non-exempt job? A union did that.

Like getting workman’s compensation when you’re injured on the job? A union did that.

Like your employer-sponsored health care as opposed to paying all out of pocket? A union did that.

Like your employer-sponsored pension, 401(k), or other retirement plan? A union did that.

Like your guaranteed break for every six hours worked? A union did that.

Like the safety provisions in place in your office/warehouse/job site? A union did that.

Like knowing that children under the age of 14 get to be in school and not a factory? A union did that.

Like being able to call in sick and not risk losing your job? A union did that.

These are NOT things that business owners granted to their employees out of their vision of a good workplace or the goodness of their heart. These are things that union members fought for tooth and nail. These are things that union members were intimidated, physically beaten, and in some cases, killed for fighting for. These are things that we all see as necessary components of a reasonable, pleasant workplace, but until the unions got involved, they weren’t a guarantee; hell, they weren’t even a possibility.

Say what you will about various mismanaged unions (aren’t so many organizations mismanaged and just in need of a shakeup?), but the fact of the matter is that the stronger unions are in a nation, the higher the quality of life is in that country, for union and non-union workers alike. Collective bargaining protects workers from employers focused more on profit than employee satisfaction and productivity, and it gives a voice to those who would otherwise be easily shut up and shut out.

“Good for business” shouldn’t mean “bad for workers,” but far too often it does. Choosing business bottom lines over the people who work hard for their employers isn’t a good business move, or the free market at work, or the American way–it’s cowardly, and it’s inhumane, and it has to stop.

Reproductive Rights Under Attack: Give Five Minutes Now, or They’ll Take Us Back 40 Years

Posted on February 15, 2011 by lisafindley

All right, dearest fellow travelers, let’s get real political. There are now bills actually under consideration in these United States that explicitly call for women to die, and the worst part is we as a country aren’t even paying attention. “Stop exaggerating, Lisa,” you may be thinking, but check out HR 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” the purpose of which is to codify the Hyde Amendment and make abortion access virtually impossible for poor women, or HR 358, the “Protect Life Act,” which intends to establish so-called “conscience clauses” in the case of abortions that would save the woman’s life. [By the way, if you are already convinced about this topic, skip to the end, where I list easy steps you can take to make your voice heard. As the blog post title says, you can afford those five minutes, because we can’t afford to go back 40 years.]

Click here for resources on how to fight this bill

You may have read about an earlier version of HR 3, which sought to redefine rape to mean only “forcible rape,” as opposed to statutory rape, rape of incapacitated or mentally handicapped people, incest, or date rape. So basically, the last forty years of feminists educating people about the many different and terrible ways men can force themselves upon women and other men without physically holding them down or threatening them with a weapon — those years of work were going to be swept aside and rapists, who already hold too much power over their victims, would now hold all of it. Thanks in large part to pressure from groups like the Feminist Majority, NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood, as well as the Twitter campaign #DearJohn, spearheaded by Sady Doyle and aimed at telling House Speaker John Boehner just how reprehensible the bill is, the forcible rape clause has been removed.

But sliding in right behind it is HR 358, which explicitly states that if a woman goes to a hospital in a life-threatening situation, and she requires an abortion to save her life, she can be turned away in order to salve the doctor’s conscience. Yes, you read that right: If a doctor decides that he is “pro-life” and it is against his belief system to perform an abortion and therefore end the life of a fetus, he can refuse to perform that abortion, even if that means that the woman carrying that fetus dies. Life-threatening situations aren’t exactly known for allowing a lot of time to find a different hospital with doctors who will perform the operation, and if you’re in a small town with only one hospital, you are out of luck. You are literally DEAD because the government has legislated your death.

How is this not front-page news? How are only progressive bloggers (and let’s face it, almost all of them women, at that) and left-wing websites the ones reporting on this clause? American women, wake up! Your government wants you dead. One hundred and twenty-one congressmen have co-sponsored HR 358. One hundred and twenty-one people in positions of power have outright said that your life does not matter. The best part is that it’s not as if the fetus is going to survive anyway, in these situations. So rather than save one life and unfortunately lose another, these people are encouraging doctors to step back and watch both woman and fetus (mother and child) die.

I know that abortion is an uncomfortable topic. Many women tell me they could never have one, and that’s okay. You have that choice. But it takes more than just telling other women they can have an abortion if they need to in order to truly be pro-choice; we need to support women in all of their reproductive choices, not just look embarrassed and turn the other way and say “oh Roe will take care of that.” Because the truth is that Roe is being chipped away into nothingness, and in its place we have ever more stringent laws put in place by lobbyists and legislators who take advantage of the fact that abortion is an uncomfortable topic.

If I want to have a baby, let me have a baby. If I don’t want to have a baby, don’t make me have a baby. Don’t hem and haw and hedge about which conditions are acceptable and which ones aren’t, or which women should have easier access to what they do with their own bodies. Don’t tell me it’s more complicated than that. It isn’t. I will do what I like with my body, and you will do what you like with yours. Too bad that you don’t like that I have multiple sex partners, but your religious beliefs about what that means for the state of my soul have nothing to do with me, and to force those beliefs on me in the form of law goes against American principles of liberty and independence, not to mention basic morals and decency. I may not like what you do with your body, and you may not like what I do with mine, but that is irrelevant. You’d think small government advocates, of all people, would be able to understand that.

A special note for my male readers: I get that abortion is a topic that makes you especially uncomfortable. It’s much easier to talk about revolutions and the politics of war and unions, since those are all things you can be a part of, whereas pregnancy is not something you are ever going to personally experience. If you’re a progressive man, chances are you’re pro-choice in the same general way that you’re pro-gay rights and pro-environment, but you don’t much go beyond that. Maybe you feel like you have nothing to add, since you aren’t a woman. Don’t take that easy cop-out! It is vital that we have male allies who take it as a matter of course that all women have legal, safe access to this medical procedure. Not to mention legal, safe access to the contraceptives that can prevent such procedures in the first place — as half of the equation that causes unplanned pregnancies, you’d better be campaigning for easier access to birth control (ahemover-the-counterECahem). Don’t kid yourself that women can be part of your labor movement, your environmental movement, your revolutionary movement if they don’t have access to reproductive health services. They can’t be there for you if you won’t be there for them. It’s in your own interest, if that’s the final push you need to get fully involved in this issue.

And if you’re not a man who is generally involved in political issues, well then, there’s this old chestnut: What if it were your sister/daughter/friend/wife/mother? Statistically, you know someone who has had an abortion. Statistically, you know someone who has been raped. Act according to how that makes you feel, according to how you want those women in your life to be treated.

I have followed the Egyptian revolution closely these past few weeks, and I have cheered for the Egyptian people as they have brought about democracy with perseverance, eloquence, and a unified will. Don’t think for a moment I don’t think their fight is important. But let’s bring our attention into a wider focus. Our domestic situation is dire, and we need our own perseverance, eloquence, and unified will to reveal the “culture of life” for what it is — a death sentence for American women.

TAKE ACTION!
I know we are all busy and have a lot to do in any given day, but this will take literally five minutes of your life, and as I said in the title of this post, they are forcing us back to days that are, frankly, unimaginable to me and most people of my generation. Give Five Minutes Now, or They’ll Take Us Back 40 Years.

Okay, so a thousand-word tirade has convinced you and you’re fired up. Now what? You know I wouldn’t leave you hangin’, baby. Here are some very simple steps you can take:

1) Write to your representatives. Everybody! If your rep is a co-sponsor of either of these bills, definitely write to them and voice your vehement disagreement. They need to know that a loud part of their constituency does not support their actions. If your rep is a strong pro-choicer, write to them and ask them to be loud in their opposition to the bill, rather than staying quiet on it. We need loud champions in the House and the Senate both. If your rep is somewhere in-between, write to them to urge them to vote against this and all anti-choice legislation.

2) Sign a few petitions opposing the bills. Twitter away about this with the #DearJohn hashtag to raise awareness; don’t let it all slip away under cover of the health care bill, the economic wrangling, or international events.

3) Get out there and march, old-school style! Walk for Choice 2011 is going on in cities all across the country (and even overseas in some places). On Saturday, February 26th, have a hearty brunch, then meet up for a noon walk to bring visibility to this issue in your hometown.

4) Write to your newspaper. Sure, this is about as old-fashioned as it gets, but the fact is that a lot of people still read the newspaper rather than the Internet to get their news, and a lot of voters read that Letters to the Editor section. Get their attention! Something like this: “The current attack on women’s lives in the US Congress is reprehensible and un-American. Rep. Christopher Smith’s (R-NJ) proposed legislation, HR 3, would make permanent a law that prevents women from using Medicare to obtain abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when their own lives are in danger. This bill clearly affects poor and uninsured women the most, and its passage into law would put an even greater burden on them when they are at their most vulnerable. The bill’s addendum, HR 358, goes even farther in devaluing women. It allows doctors to refuse to treat a dying woman if doing so would mean performing an abortion. We cannot allow the government to legislate the deaths of thousands of American women every year. Both bills are an attack on the American values of liberty, independence, and a dignified life. Our legislators must reject this legislation and introduce stronger protections for women’s health and their lives.”

5) Donate money to organizations that work full-time to ensure women, men, and children have safe access to reproductive health services no matter their income level. Title X organizations like Planned Parenthood are also under attack right now under a different bill, so they can especially use your precious dollars right now.

Here is a fantastic, comprehensive list of resources (scroll down a bit), including ways to donate money, scripts for talking to your congressperson, and how to sign various petitions.

FURTHER READING:

Fighting to survive: HR3, HR358 and the war on womens’ health by Sady Doyle (on how co-sponsors of these bills are literally killing their base, which seems a foolish move)

Denounce Republicans? When there are Democrats co-sponsoring HR 3? by Shannon Drury (drawing attention to the hypocrisy of the DCCC in this situation)

Meet the HR3 Ten: Heath Shuler by Sarah Jaffe (introducing us to the Blue Dog Democrats who co-sponsor these bills)

The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape by Nick Baumann (one of the original articles on the issue)

Abortion does not harm mental health, study says by Alicia Chang (so there goes that argument — spoiler: this is not the first study that has proven this, and not a single study has proven the opposite)

Chipping Away at Roe… and the Definition of Rape by Melissa McEwan (on how this gives rapists a road map on how to avoid conviction)

I used to be a pro-life Republican by Andrea Grimes (on how realizing that abortion could affect her personally changed her views radically)

What Would Shirley Do? by Linda Greenhouse (on Shirley Chisholm’s work to debunk the myth that abortion is “racial genocide”)

Nancy Pelosi brings it: “We have to make this issue too hot to handle.” by Maya (blog handle) (kudos to House Minority Leader Pelosi and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for starting http://www.stophr3.com/ and acknowledging that this is a serious fight that needs serious fighters)

Anti-Abortion Bills Surging Through Capitol Hill–and States, Too by Miriam Zoila Perez (keep an eye on your state’s legislature, too — denying women their right to choose isn’t just for Nebraska anymore)

The Anti-Choice Suffering Agenda by Thomas Macaulay Millar (if personal anecdotes don’t do it for you, this simple, logical breakdown of how all these laws are clearly about punishing women and not about saving babies will)

House Republican Spending Cuts Target Programs for Children and Pregnant Women by Pat Garofalo (once you are forced to have that baby, don’t expect any support to raise the child)

On Labor by Ta-Nehisi Coates (a heartbreaking story about just how real maternal death is and how fundamentally unfair it is to require women to undertake that risk if they don’t want to)

And finally, a bit of fun:

Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy sing a ditty from the perspective of a good, conservative woman — who still wants the government out of her underwear. Highly enjoyable!

AND MOST FINALLY:

If you’ve read this far, I hope you’re convinced that your action is needed on this issue. I encourage you to leave a comment saying what action you’ve taken, so that we can build a visible record of involved citizens. It’s so easy to say, “Well, other people are working on that,” but I think if we say it right here, we can see just how vital our own voice is in the struggle for human rights, and how simple it is to raise that voice.

Thanks for reading.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/02/labor/70976/

The Shooting in Tucson

Posted on January 12, 2011 by lisafindley

I don’t currently have anything to add to the national discussion about the shooting in Tucson this past weekend, but in case you are looking for a roundup of thoughtful, passionate, heartbroken pieces on the subject, I’ve rounded some up here. Feel free to leave other links in comments.

Shark-fu on continuing our work even in times of tragedy (with a great RFK quote)

Maya at Feministing on how we shouldn’t have to even wonder if high-profile politicians and media pundits influenced a man enough to mow down strangers with a semiautomatic weapon

Jill Filipovic on not using “he’s crazy” as an explanation for Jared Lee Loughner’s actions and again here on not curbing free speech even as we tone down rhetoric

Melissa McEwan with a thorough catalog of the violent, eliminationist rhetoric employed by the right

Latoya Peterson on calling this a terrorist act

Bob Herbert on the unlikely possibility that this tragedy will prompt real gun law reform

Melissa Harris-Perry on why we should still run for elected office

Much love to those in Arizona, especially the friends and family of those killed.

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on November 19, 2010 by lisafindley

The Good

When I heard that the fanatical and hateful group Westboro Baptist Church was going to picket my high school in Michigan, I was dismayed. What were they doing there and why? They still haven’t said why, although considering founder Fred Phelps’ daughter was in town for a panel discussion at MSU, it seems it was a protest of opportunity. The community of East Lansing really rallied ’round. Members of the local Episcopal and Unitarian Universalist churches held a joint meeting that all East Lansing High School students were welcome to attend rather than go through the protesters and hear their hate speech. Hundreds of counterprotesters lined the streets and held up signs advocating love. And turns out only THREE members of that so-called church turned up with their “God Hates Fags” and “America is Doomed” BS. Love wins again!

The National Labor Relations Board may be moving toward once again allowing graduate students to unionize. Collective bargaining for all!

As Mike, who passed on this link, said, “Every once in a while, some fraudulent asshole does get his due.” This is especially encouraging, since all too often organizations that are meant to monitor their professions just end up protecting badly behaved members of those professions.

The Bad

Earlier this month, the white cop who shot an unarmed, restrained black man at a train station in San Francisco was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison. The many people who found this a miscarriage of justice for the slain Oscar Grant led a peaceful protest march against racism and police brutality — and they encountered, whaddya know, police brutality. If you want to donate to the legal aid fund set up for some of those protesters, go here.

Washington State Penitentiary has hit upon a cost-saving measure: as Choire Sicha writes, lockdowns once a month drive home the point that prisons are increasingly being used solely for incarceration, and not for rehabilitation at all.

The TSA chief has been testifying in a Senate committee meeting this week that the new body scan machines or full-body pat-downs are totally worth it to stop terrorism — but as this Newsweek article points out, this doesn’t take into account the many survivors of sexual assault who want or need to fly and will find these procedures genuinely traumatic. The last time I flew, they had a regular metal detector set up next to the body scan machine but they were sending every passenger through the body scan machine, and when I asked the TSA officer if I could just go through the metal detector, he said no, he’d have to get someone to do a pat-down search of me if I wasn’t doing the body scan. Then why have the metal detector at all? Seems that actual policy is to only send some individuals through the body scan machine, so why didn’t a TSA officer at a major airport like O’Hare know that? None of this makes me feel more secure about flying. Does it make anyone feel secure? (Via Shakesville)

The Silly

Sessily sent me the link to this t-shirt, which shows the part of Illinois that is Chicago, and the part of Illinois that all the suburbanites claim is part of Chicago so that when they meet people they can say “I’m from Chicago.” Dig it! There should be one for Detroit too (Grosse Pointers, Bloomfield Hillsians, etc., I’m looking at you!).

VOTE

Posted on November 2, 2010 by lisafindley

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but on the off chance I’m not: If you’re a registered voter in these United States and you don’t want Tea Partiers running our country, please vote today. Here’s a way to look up your polling place. Or just Google “where to vote.”

Even in traditionally blue states -- so get at it!

Digby has a great piece up on why it’s important to vote Democrat this election, even though the Democrats are doing their damnedest to lose all the goodwill and progressive legislation they’ve actually gained in the last two years. Even though the Obama Administration is blocking measures to repeal DADT and carrying on with torture-as-usual established during the Bush Administration. Even though the health care bill fell far short of what it should have been. Even though we remain mired in war. Even though the White House is turning on its lefty allies in a gross misunderstanding of its base and a depressing unwillingness to see how we could all move toward the same goal (it is instead trying to get the nonpartisan vote from the Republicans that it ain’t ever gonna get).

Despite all that, the fact remains that it will be SO MUCH WORSE if the Republicans regain control. With the exception of a very few, they are eagerly pandering to racist, violent Tea Partiers who are literally up in arms about economic reform despite the fact that they are funded almost entirely by corporations with their own interests at play. People have been far too willing to dismiss the Tea Party as a bunch of nutcases, but they are getting the media coverage, they are getting their lies spread, and they are going to get possibly a frightening percentage of the vote.

But even if the Tea Party’s people don’t get all the seats they’re going for, rank and file Republicans aren’t looking much better. They’ve vowed to make “no compromise” in getting rid of the health care bill — which, flawed though it is, is still far better than anything we had before. They will block every progressive measure they can, and essentially they plan to wait til they can take the White House and Senate in 2012 and then seriously screw us over. They are anti-choice, anti-women, anti-people of color, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-working class, anti-middle class, and frankly, anti-all Americans who don’t fit a very specific picture. But they’ve scared enough people who would suffer under more of their policies into thinking they’re going to suffer more under Democratic policies.

The Democrats passed the health care bill. The Democrats passed a stimulus bill that is slowly making a real difference in regaining jobs lost in the recession. The Democrats at least half-assedly went after the banks who got us into this mess. The Democrats have let science back into the FDA’s decision making, resulting in things like the 5-day emergency contraceptive being approved. The Democrats have (not as often as they should, but fairly often) stood up against Islamophobia in places like Florida and New York. The Democrats are doggedly pursuing the DREAM Act, to open up citizenship to children of immigrants. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made huge gains in worldwide goodwill, and she has presented tough speeches and policies on the importance of women in the global economy, the autonomy of people in every culture, and the primacy of human rights on her watch.

In short, they aren’t perfect, but they are worlds better. Remove the Tea Party element and think of how the rest of the election season is being portrayed and perceived, even from Jon Stewart (damn it): That there isn’t much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. There is, of course, a huge and dangerous difference. Remember the last time the main theme of the election season was “there isn’t much difference, just vote for whoever”? That’s right, it was the presidential race of 2000. And we all know how well that turned out.

Don't let history repeat itself

Amsterdam: The Anne Frank House

Posted on October 26, 2010 by lisafindley

When I first read The Diary of Anne Frank, I was 12 or 13 years old, about the same age as Anne was when she started the diary. I had a completely adolescent reaction to the first part of the story; I was envious of how popular she was at school with all her friends, when I was pretty friendless at mine. By the end of the book, I liked her so much I wished we could hang out and be friends. That’s how instantly relatable Anne is — not a blandly “universal” character, but one with her own personality, dreams, and worries.

She had a great eye for detail, and had plenty of time to turn it to the hiding place she lived in with her family and others for two years. The result was a description so fine that one could sketch out an exact replica of the Annex (the hiding place), including all the furniture and odds and ends. When I was younger, I was into floorplans and the ways homes were laid out. I would sketch the grand houses of my imaginary characters and make up stories of them moving around those spaces. So I probably focused on that aspect of the diaries more than most kids, and tried to imagine just how small the Annex was and how all the beds and tables and sinks fit together.

a reworked version of the original building that housed the Frank family from 1942 to 1944

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam (photo by me)

This March, I visited a friend in The Netherlands and spent a few days touristing in Amsterdam. I stood in a long line outside the Anne Frank House on a rainy day, watching canal boats glide by and listening to the Westerkerk chime the hour. Once inside, I bought my ticket and selected an English pamphlet from the many language options. It’s a self-guided tour, and there’s a constant stream of people, which is a little unsettling in the building that once housed just a small office and a back room of people for whom every visitor meant possible discovery and arrest. I followed the crowd, reading the small placards placed along the way and peering at the photographs hung on the wall. I had forgotten that the Annex was attached to Otto Frank’s office, not to a residence. Much of the material at the front of the house focused on how the office functioned before they went into hiding, and how the “helpers” smuggled food into the Annex.

Otto Frank had requested that any museum made of the house not include the furniture; he said the emptiness of the place would symbolize how everything they had was taken from them. So I didn’t get to see all the pieces fit together as I’d imagined when I was penciling improbable architectural structures on my sketch pad. How that furniture would fit in there anyway, I don’t know, because these rooms were tiny. If you go to http://www.annefrank.org/ the museum has set up a neat 360-degree view of each room with the furniture intact, so you can get an idea of how everything was set up. Even with that guide, when I was standing in the rooms and looking around me, it seemed impossible. How eight people could fit into this small space (and a teenaged Anne sharing a room with a middle-aged man because there was no room in her family’s room, at that), I still don’t see, except that needs must. They had to fit, so they fit. They had to put their lives on hold for fear their lives would end, so they put their lives on hold.

It was such a dark place, too. They had blackout curtains drawn all the way down or almost all the way down in each room in the Annex, so you could get a real idea of how each day looked to the Franks, the van Pelses, and Mr. Pfeffer. It looked dark, and small, and dull. Anne talks about how bored she is several times in the diary, and it’s no wonder. She’s bright, young, and full of energy, but she has to be practically silent for two whole years, confined to a tiny space with her parents, sister, sometime boyfriend, and three other adults. Distractions are few and frivolity almost impossible. Long before her life was taken from her, her adolescence was stolen away, or at least forced into unnaturally cramped conditions.

At one point in the diary, Anne writes, “I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. ‘Let me out, where there’s fresh air and laughter!’ a voice within me cries.” In most other diaries of girls her age, this is usually teenage angst and hyperbole. The heartbreaking thing about Anne, and what visiting the museum made more real and terrible to me, is that while she felt the usual swirl of teenage emotions and conflicting desires, she did so within a fatally dangerous world that made her imprisonment all too real. And yet she never stopped writing.

bronze statue of Anne Frank near her house

Anne Frank memorial statue (photo by me)

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on September 17, 2010 by lisafindley

The Good:

Correct. (And good lord, why is Paglia still getting published?)

I wish I’d seen this published more widely. We need to hear Obama taking more stands like this, especially against Islamophobia. (Via.)

Lifesaving water missions aren’t a crime. No More Deaths (No Más Muertes) does incredibly important humanitarian aid work on the US-Mexico border in Arizona, and they’ve just won a small victory as one of their members won his appeal of a trumped-up littering conviction.

The Bad:

Okay, I know I get a lot of my bad news from Shakesville, but they really do a great job of pointing out and breaking down a lot of what’s going on around the country. Lately, the corporate takeover of America’s vote and the carte blanche on torture given to the CIA have really upset me.

These are an old pair of posts, but mind-boggling in what they reveal about the Republican party. I know and love many Republicans, but every time I see things like this, I wonder how they can vote for a party that officially wants to hurt so many people. I wonder if they still think of the party whose official platform once looked like this?

A major literary magazine in India publishes vile comments from the vice-chancellor of a prestigious university calling women writers whores. (Via.)

Yep, actually, “redistribution of wealth” sounds about right nowadays.

The Silly:

Hark! a vagrant is a delightful cartoon about history and literature and silliness. In this one, apparently the editor never heard the maxim “show, don’t tell.”

I love, love www.passiveaggressivenotes.com — straightforwardly!

Okay, what have you been reading this week?

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on August 20, 2010 by lisafindley

The Good:

Read this fantastic New Yorker article on Park51. I have yet to hear any arguments against the building of this community center that don’t come down to racism, unwarranted fear, and/or Republican politicking. Also, c’mon ADL, you’re better than that.

A lot of this piece from Ta-Nehisi Coates resonated with me (but don’t worry, darlings, I’ve only just started, I’m not leaving you yet).

A great look at what global feminism can mean.

The FDA approves ella, the 5-day emergency contraceptive. Now, I agree that EC is only partially effective, because you may be using protection that fails (e.g., a broken condom) and not know about it in time to take the EC. But for those who do know their original protection failed, or for those who weren’t using protection, or for those who were assaulted and had no chance to use protection, this is a crucial drug.

The Bad:

Well, crap. It’s all about the money, still.

A thoughtful, interesting look at racism in the anti-whaling debate in New Zealand and Australia

We’re sexualizing girls at younger and younger ages, yes, but their bodies are also maturing faster than ever before — and that is a problem we can, and should, do something about.

CSI is not ironclad — lab scientists in criminal trials all too often get it wrong, and real people are affected.

Why are people so willfully stupid? (And of course, if he were, so what?)

The Silly:

My dad sent me this link with the message, “Looks like you’ll be fine on your world trip….” Well… true! Thanks, Dad.

A cool gallery of color photos from 1939 to 1943 looking at rural and small town America — check out Chicago’s skyline and the newspaper headlines pasted to the window. A gripe about the presentation: in the captions, the only time race is mentioned is when African-Americans are depicted. Whites are once again the default. (Via my friend Mike.)

What have you been looking at this week?

ACAM: Indonesia

Posted on August 19, 2010 by lisafindley

I’ve been reading The Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics; ed. Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo, and so far what’s really standing out is neither deep nor original, but here it is: Indonesia is a collection of islands that has been inhabited for thousands of years. And in those thousands of years, never once has Christianity been the dominant religion. Hinduism, Buddhism, and for the last several centuries, Islam, yes, but not Christianity. This is true of most of the world, of course, but that’s easy to forget here in the United States. Here, in a country founded by Christians (not the land, which was inhabited by tens of thousands of people who were doing fine without Christianity, but the country the United States), we think of a mostly Christian nation as the norm.

There’s a giant, stupid political fight going on right now because some non-Christians want to build a community center and some Christians are really upset about it. While it’s natural to center your own experiences at the expense of taking others’ experiences and needs into account, it doesn’t make for good policy. There’s a whole lot more about this fight that I’m not going to get into, but I wanted to bring it up to point out just how ridiculously narrow this point of view is. There’s so much more to the world than those people are willing to admit, or if they do, it’s only because it scares them.

Indonesia is especially interesting to me in this respect, because so much of the spread of religion there was peaceful. Considering the violence religious groups perpetrate against one another, and the force with which many people are made to convert to various religions, this is rather remarkable. Hinduism and Buddhism arrived with Indian traders early on, and Islam spread mostly through Arab traders visiting the spice islands of Java, Sumatra, etc. Sadly, in the twentieth century, religion played a major role in some terrible, deadly conflicts in the country, and tensions remain high.

Okay, I realize both posts this week seem a bit preachy, but sometimes that’s how it goes. Stay tuned tomorrow for The Good, The Bad, and The Silly, which always includes a bit of preaching but then a good dose of fun or bizarre as well — that spoonful of sugar always helps.

Goodbye, “Wild Beasts and Dangerous Lunatics.” Hello, “Stowaway.”

Posted on August 17, 2010 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers! It’s time for a change in these here parts. Nothing too upsetting, I hope. But it’s time for a bit of rebranding, both political and aesthetic — a new name.

Political

I chose the name for this blog on a whim, picking a phrase uttered by a funny character in a beloved book (Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede). I was certain no one else would choose “Wild Beasts and Dangerous Lunatics” as a moniker, and more importantly, it met my strict requirement of not being sentimental or cutesy. It’s served its purpose quite well for the past several months.

But then I read this post on Feministe about how damaging it is to casually use “crazy” or “insane” or the like, and I decided it was no longer a good name. (Go ahead, read it, it’s real short and real good.)

Actually, I read that article once, said, “good grief, stop being so sensitive,” and carried on with my life. I figured, what’s wrong with saying those words? Everyone says it and no one means anything by it. You say “he’s insane” when the cute bartender doesn’t want to date your friend; you don’t mean that he is literally chemically unbalanced. It’s just an expression. If you start policing all your expressions, soon enough you’ll have none left. You can’t censor yourself into a box just because someone, somewhere — not even the person you’re talking to! — might be offended by it. This is a free country, for crying out loud.

Wait. Hold up. JUMP BACK. That sounds like… dear lord, I was sounding like people who tell me to shut up already about using “fag” or “slut” or any number of epithets. When you’re making that many excuses to simply not use a word that others find horribly upsetting, it’s time to take a closer look. What was going on here?

When I talk with people about calling some inanimate object “gay,” or making cracks about women being gossips/shoehounds/overly emotional, etc., I talk about the long-lasting harm done. You’ve probably noticed that gay people can’t get married in this country, and women get paid less than men for doing the same work, to use two examples out of a lot of possible examples. That’s not unrelated to the way we talk about gay people and women; it’s actually intrinsically linked. All of these little comments are part of a larger understanding that gays and women are less than. Of course we protest that we don’t believe that, we believe in equality; and of course we do, consciously. But subconsciously we see it as a known fact that gay men are effeminate, and that’s laughable, because who wants to less like a man and more like a woman? Gay men are lacking, our collective subconscious says, so our collective subconscious finds ways to treat them as less than. (We’re not talking about bigots and outright hostility here, because that’s a whole other thing.)

So even though you’re not talking to a gay person when you call your friend a fag, you’re making it okay to say that, to use people’s identity as an insult. This contributes to a culture that sees that particular identity as an insult and treats it as such, with legal, psychic, and all too often, physical punishment. (While we’re at it, using someone’s identity as an insult is the lazy way out, and it’s much more satisfying to pick on someone’s Backstreet Boys fandom or tendency to put their foot in their mouth anyway.)

What that is all leading to is this: I don’t understand how it feels to have a mental disorder and hear people casually talk about “lunatics,” but I bet it feels shitty. What’s more, someone’s written a piece telling me just how shitty it feels. In general, I don’t want to make people shitty, so I’m going to stop doing that. It might just be a quote from a YA book, but it says specifically “dangerous lunatics.” There’s plenty of cultural understanding of mentally disordered people as dangerous, unstable, volatile, literally “out of their minds,” rather than as human beings dealing with one more layer of living than non-disordered people live with. Stereotypes of “dangerous lunatics” just make it easier to stigmatize people, dehumanize them, shut them away in institutions and forget about them. I didn’t mean anything by it, but that doesn’t matter. Once you know the damage, fix it. For any readers I’ve upset with the title of my blog, I apologize.

I’ve basically tried to make the same points here that Cara’s Feministe post made, although hers is more succinct and coherent, so I strongly recommend you read it. She says at the end that you can continue using phrases you know others find harmful, but be aware that you’re choosing to cause others harm. If that’s a choice you can live with, carry on, but if it’s not, cut it out. Also, each and every one of the links in her post is worth reading, especially this and this.

Aesthetic

Once I knew I had to change the name, I had some trouble coming up with a non-“journey,” non-“life traveler” type name. But inspiration was right under my nose — the quote on the blog’s masthead, from the poet Roselle Mercier Montgomery. “Never a ship sails out of bay but carries my heart as a stowaway.”

Stowaway. It’s about travel, but with a sense of real adventure to it. Sneaking away from the life plan of career, domesticity, etc. Smuggling rough-edged politics into the stately ships of traditional travelogues. Finding the unknown corners of the usual modes of travel, approaching it from another angle. A stowaway is so eager to go someplace that they do whatever they can to get there. A stowaway doesn’t just yearn, she acts. I take that as inspiration and mission statement both.

So now I have a name much more in keeping with what I do here and what I hope to do all around the world. Join me!