tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65832740023886702842024-03-12T21:26:49.619-07:00Unstoppable Force, Immovable ObjectI've recently converted to being happy.
You're welcome to ride along. It should be a glorious train wreck.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-91134347355883999442013-03-15T18:26:00.001-07:002013-03-15T18:26:45.439-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqbbMJG9MdWR1keQlZxnW_27LVrWVwb5OLlUumURStRRv_j4cnNPaXn5tom6hIDYY0X2xtg5NYgWbpTbf6vM1IAOkhoFdsiIKW1XXG4eMax-r3HwqET27ZC3RqdHUch9pM89qBaJpD2Cw/s1600/flashyflaubert3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqbbMJG9MdWR1keQlZxnW_27LVrWVwb5OLlUumURStRRv_j4cnNPaXn5tom6hIDYY0X2xtg5NYgWbpTbf6vM1IAOkhoFdsiIKW1XXG4eMax-r3HwqET27ZC3RqdHUch9pM89qBaJpD2Cw/s320/flashyflaubert3.gif" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-31286610818125632522012-10-24T21:57:00.000-07:002012-10-24T21:57:03.631-07:00Forwarding Address<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.dvdizzy.com/images/nattygann2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.dvdizzy.com/images/nattygann2.jpg" /></a></div>
Holy crap, guys! Remember a million years ago when I said I was going to move this blog and do all kind of cool web site-y stuff? I almost don't either because it was a looooong time ago. <br />
<br />
But it's done (ish)! Behold the glory of <a href="http://www.meghanconley.com/">www.meghanconley.com</a>!<br />
<br />
The new web site includes this blog, drawings, and players featuring my band's music, with more pages and features on the way. I'll be honest, the site's probably nowhere near done, but it's serviceable and I'm impatient, so let's all head over there and get the party started.<br />
<br />
I'll leave this up for the time being as a detour sign, but all new entries will be on the new site. Thanks for reading! <br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-82938111627565022952012-08-30T21:52:00.003-07:002012-08-30T21:52:55.438-07:00Bullshit on ParadeRecently some coy, anonymous Occupy types got their knickers in a twist about the cover/content of a shitty, puerile comic publication called Vex. So they took all the papers from news stands, slapped stickers with a flower and a proclamation that Vex is lame and their position is awesome on the covers and inserted a rebuttal to Vex's position into the pages.<br />
<br />
Then it was Vex's turn to get pissed off and melodramatic, so they started loudly proclaiming that the vandalism was a violation of their First Amendment rights to anyone who would listen.<br />
<br />
All of which annoyed me in about a million different ways, so I started writing about it, but realized that it was actually so obnoxious that I couldn't even muster a real post, so here's what I have to say in lazy-blogger bullet-point-list style:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The cover was lame. In response to the city's decision not to sell Congress Square to the Eastland hotel, they made a typically barf-tastic comic illustration of a scale with a drunk homeless bottle collector on one side (the weighted side) and a carpenter, businessman, and waitress on the other with the headline, "PORTLAND POLITICIANS PREFER BUMS OVER JOBS." Maybe it's the nature of the format or maybe Mort Todd and company are just looking to get a cheap rise out of people, but it's pointless and reductive to pretend that anyone thinks Congress Square is just fine the way it is. It's gross and kind of scary sometimes, but giving up already-limited public space for a ballroom/convention center when we're already building a huge complex on Thompson's Point and renovating the Civic Center is one of the dumbest solutions to the problem. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The Occupy response was lame. I think it's awesome when people are passionate about a cause and take action in support of it, but not all action is created equal. What was the intended audience for this particular stunt? Presumably people who are either on the fence about the ballroom thing or think it's a reasonable idea. What was the intended effect? Presumably to sway those people to support your position. So did anyone involved really think that the punked out guerrilla 'zine approach was going to win friends and influence people? Anyone who thought the city missed an opportunity by denying the sale is way more likely to see it as a bunch of disgruntled, unemployed hippies trying ineffectively to stick it to the man, identify with the man, and become even less likely to support discussions about creative, progressive uses of the space. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Okay, free speech, for crying out loud? Nice try, but the argument wasn't silenced. The majority of the drawing and the headline remained intact and the argument easily identifiable. Vex got its point across. I'd be with them on this one if the issue hadn't been recirculated at all (they do allege that some number appear to have gone missing) but that wasn't the case. As Todd noted in this week's edition, the number "missing" would have marked a jump in circulation if they went out legitimately, which means they didn't expect that many to be picked up by readers anyway. It's likely that there was an issue, albeit modified, available to anyone who cared to have one. I worked at the USM Free Press when Sigma Nu followed the circulation vehicle and removed every copy of the paper from both campuses in order to suppress bad publicity for a sorority: that was arguably the squelching of free speech. As for whether you can steal something that's given away free, an argument people sympathetic to the vandals have made, the FP introduced language in the masthead limiting the number per "customer." It's virtually unenforceable, but it does offer protection if someone makes off with all of them. Which didn't happen here, but if I were Vex, I'd prepare for that possibility. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As I mentioned right out of the gate, no one's taking credit for these shenanigans. So again the question of intended consequences comes up. If you're trying to convince people of the righteousness of your cause, and insist that you've done nothing inappropriate, acting like furtive weirdos might not be the most effective route. I doubt very much that this was ever about the actual issue at hand. It looks very much like someone taking a swing at Vex because they find them intolerable and not very much like an earnest attempt to communicate. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As ludicrous as I find Mort Todd's free speech complaint, Rob Korobkin (author of the inserted essay but not, he says, the mastermind behind this escapade)'s attempt to claim that this wasn't vandalism is equally laughable. The aforementioned mastermind(s?) may not have obscured Vex's message, but they did mischievously and maliciously alter it. That's vandalism.</li>
</ul>
So that's that. The whole thing is just so riddled with petulance and buffoonery that I want to clonk all their heads together and tell them to spread out, Moe Howard-style. <br />
<br />
To be clear, I'm philosophically with the Save Congress Square crowd and was a believer in the Occupy movement. One of the most effective aspects of early Occupy was its insistence on making radical thinking and participatory, direct democracy accessible to people who might be alienated by the angry-punk image of G8 protesters: The message didn't change, the approach did and it succeeded in drawing a stronger, wider base than any protest movement in recent history. Watching that good will squandered on what appears to be a petty personal beef is quite sad. <br />
<br />
I think Vex's approach to the homeless, many of whom are mentally ill and/or badly substance-addicted is callous and inhumane. I find much of the content of the magazine at large childish and distasteful. It's unclear to me whether Mort Todd's intention is to talk meaningfully about ideas or just fuck around indulging a snide and vaguely fratty sense of humor. Hopefully it's the second, because at least he's succeeding there. Either way, I avoid it, because the result is distasteful to me.<br />
<br />
But in this case, everyone's behaving badly. As much as both sides want to pretend this spat is about some universal, more meaningful issue, it's just schoolyard dust-up that ends up making everyone involved look small. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-78290028651481605422012-08-18T23:32:00.000-07:002012-08-18T23:32:19.078-07:00Privilege DeniedHere is a sad statement, but true: When I cut my hair, I figured it was a matter of time before somebody called me a dyke.<br />
<br />
My best guess was that the person who did it would be male, young, and a stranger.<br />
<br />
So yesterday, when a teenaged boy came off the Maine State Pier fresh from a swim in the gritty, oil-slicked water of the near-shore harbor water, shirtless in saggy, soggy shorts, buzz cut, the chip on his shoulder visible, swaggering through the parking lot where I was driving the forklift and said, "Nice skills, dyke," it felt somehow expected.<br />
<br />
What I didn't expect, maybe because I'd braced for it or maybe because I'm straight or maybe both, is how really awful it felt. How personal, visceral, sickening it felt.<br />
<br />
I think most readers will understand implicitly that I wasn't offended by the suggestion that I'm gay, and they'll be right. But I've been catcalled and heckled and called a lot of names in my time, and nothing's shaken me quite like this and I've spent the past day and a half trying to figure out why.<br />
<br />
It's not unlike the effect of the mother of all cuss words, cunt, a word that gives even my foul-mouthiest friends pause. Unlike other slurs and swears that have been largely divorced from their literal meaning (the now ubiquitous f-bomb comes to mind) the c-word still links to a concrete anatomical idea. It feels filthy to me, because it makes me feel exposed, self-conscious as though my body is being scrutinized. Generally speaking I'm a confident gal, sure of myself in tasks intellectual and physical, content with my looks, and happy to live in this strong and healthy body. But that word carries with it a long, sad history of misogyny, the implication that a woman is defined by her body, that that body is inferior, that a woman is a sexual object, identified by and useful for her sexual organs.<br />
<br />
Do I overstate the case? I really don't think so, and definitely not inasmuch as I'm describing my own very immediate and very real response.<br />
<br />
So yes, I had a similar reaction to dyke-as-slur because it felt like someone was thinking intimately about my body and what it does in private moments. Which, what? That's some creepy shit.<br />
<br />
And it's heartbreaking that while this was a new experience for me, it happens to people all the time. Sometimes they're straight and that's hideous enough, but sometimes they're gay, and that's worse. Because I can take some weak solace in the fact that this little troll wasn't criticizing my actual identity. And it happened once (so far). How much deeper would the sense of violation be if he'd hit his target and if there were more like him enacting these verbal tyrannies on a regular basis?<br />
<br />
I've acknowledged my frustration with the use of "privilege" as a weapon for neutralizing discussion, but I will never deny that privilege is real. In this uncomfortable encounter, I glimpsed beyond the curtain of my straight privilege. I've been empathetic, but by necessity it's empathy based on imagination rather than experience.<br />
<br />
As we approach an election season with gay marriage on the ballot yet again, I encourage everyone not to let the strides we've made toward equality lead to complacency. In some sense I'm lucky to have a shove toward remembering that the personal is political and it isn't necessary for an issue to be personal to you in particular to make it one you ought to fight for. <br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-10989073307822751632012-08-13T18:37:00.002-07:002012-08-13T18:37:59.898-07:00Missed Opportunities and The Portland Press Herald<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Barter-Chickens_for_Subscription.jpg/773px-Barter-Chickens_for_Subscription.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Barter-Chickens_for_Subscription.jpg/773px-Barter-Chickens_for_Subscription.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">THE COUNTRY EDITOR -- PAYING THE YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION. Photo/Library of Congress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Okay, I'm going to make one more lap around the track and then cease beating the sorry carcass of the Portland Press Herald for the time being.<br />
<br />
The paper has removed <a href="http://lovelikesalt.posterous.com/sure-its-fair-but-is-it-right" target="_blank">Audrey's photo</a> and replaced it with a link to her Flickr set, put a check in the mail for use of the photo in print, taken down their <a href="http://freze.it/15Q" target="_blank">ridiculously insulting op-ed</a> on the subject, failed to make any meaningful response to the <a href="http://www.forceversusobject.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-portland-press-herald-is-bad-at-teh.html" target="_blank">lifted photo debacle</a>, and missed a genuine and valuable opportunity to raise their professional reputation above the <i>Podunk Weekly Bugle</i> (motto: Now with 30% more Weather Hamsters!) status they've recently enjoyed.<br />
<br />
All companies, newspapers and otherwise, have policies in place that sometimes seem opaque or unreasonable to customers. I sympathize. I spend an outlandish amount of time at work explaining to people why we do this or that thing, why something that seems simple and obvious to is, in practice, not feasible. There are very often factors operating behind the scenes that customers haven't considered. <br />
<br />
Even so, when dozens of customers all cite the same reasons that they find your policy problematic and those reasons are clearly stated and easily enumerated, it's in your best interest as an organization to consider whether they might be on to something. Even if you stand behind the position you've taken, it's absolutely worthwhile to consider that suggestions embedded in the debate that might help you clarify or improve the existing policy. And if you find that you have, in fact, substantively violated your own policy, the professional and responsible thing to do is acknowledge your mistake, examine ways to avoid that error in the future and let your concerned customers know that you have done so.<br />
<br />
<br />
This would be an excellent time for PPH editorial staff to clarify the procedure for identifying ownership of non-staff work. Perhaps they could outline a simple set of steps: 1) Attempt contact via messaging functions on the source site, if available. 2) Google any pseudonym associated with the material. By delineating and practicing a concrete set of best practices, they'd create a situation where a good faith effort at contacting a source is clearly defined and either did or did not happen. If there had been a policy like this in place, this recent debacle might never have happened.<br />
<br />
A much bigger discussion that the Press Herald should be having right now concerns their photo-crediting procedure in general. I might be inclined to be a little more generous about their failure to identify a non-professional photo by a pseudonymous author if I didn't know that they regularly fail to credit photos they receive through official channels, supplied to them by known sources who, if they aren't the artist themselves, know the artist's name.<br />
<br />
Currently if, say, a band provides the paper with a photo for a review or event listing, they credit the photographer only if the band explicitly tells them the artist's name. Yes, it would be nice if the band thought to do that anyway, but they're not in the publishing or visual arts fields and in many cases it probably doesn't cross their mind. A media company, one that publishes content <i>for profit</i> knows very well that this is an issue. The onus is on them to make sure their use of that content is appropriately credited. It should be part of the initial request: "Please supply a photograph of your band/event and the name of the photographer." If the photo is received unsolicited in a press kit or the like, there should be an immediate request not just for the artist's name, but permission from the copyright holder to use the image in that commercial setting.<br />
<br />
Here's a quick side-by-side:<br />
<br />
I work for a photographer. He did photos for a local band in advance of their album release. The Press Herald ran his photo in association with an item about the band uncredited. When he contacted them, they essentially told him to take it up with the band. They didn't volunteer that they would add the credit; He had to suggest it himself. <br />
<br />
He later did headshots for someone whose work appeared in Maine Magazine. When the magazine received the photo, they asked who took the picture and immediately contacted the photographer to request a release allowing them to run the photo. <i>That</i> is responsible behavior by a professional media organization.<br />
<br />
I understand that there are time constraints facing a daily newspaper, but "we were really busy" is a lame excuse for failure to meet basic industry standards. I recently read a comment by professional photographer Jay York on the facebook page of the Union of Visual Artists, noting that two of his photos were in the Maine Sunday Telegram uncredited this week and that this is a regular occurrence despite their purported policy of "making every attempt" to properly credit work. Here, again, a simple, formal, consistent policy of asking for artist info on receipt of art would do a world of good, both for stymied photographers for whom credit is key to their livelihood, and to the Press Herald's reputation as a serious and professional publication.<br />
<br />
At this point, Audrey still wants, but knows she's unlikely to get, an apology. I want that for her, even though I only know her in the context of our exchanges during this debate. And here's the thing: if they really believe using the photo falls under Fair Use, they shouldn't apologize for that. They shouldn't be apologizing simply to appease the crowd. What they do need to apologize for is their failure to do appropriate leg work upfront, their failure to respond to her reasonable request to remove the photo from the web site, and the bizarre attempt to paint her with the wacko brush in their op-ed. But that apology wouldn't be sufficient for me at this point.<br />
<br />
Audrey's case has cast a bright light on a long-standing, systemic problem within the newspaper. Professional photographers have run into this wall for a very long time, and I'm happy to see this issue playing out in front of a wider audience. But the only resolution that I would consider truly satisfactory would be for the Press Herald to do some real soul-searching, clean up their house, and reach out to their readership with solid evidence that they are working to make their product serious, professional, reasonable, and responsive. <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-50800452680298708692012-08-11T11:02:00.001-07:002012-08-11T16:05:47.827-07:00The Portland Press Herald is Bad at teh Internetz.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.pressherald.com/images/portland-press-herald_3668111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://media.pressherald.com/images/portland-press-herald_3668111.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: www.pressherald.com Permission: Copyright Holder </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here is a very basic summary of a thing that happened:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Reporter <a href="https://twitter.com/stevemistler" target="_blank">Steve Mistler</a> (and it bears saying that Mistler isa seasoned and respected journalist, a feather in the cap of the <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/" target="_blank">Portland Press Herald</a> which spent the better part of the past decade running its credibilityand relevance into the ground) got a tip for a story, along with a link to a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jadefrog01" target="_blank">Flickr account </a>that contained photographic evidence supporting the tip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s unclear how close to deadline he got thisinformation but <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/husson-let-chaplain-join-events-after-he-quit_2012-08-07.html" target="_blank">the story</a> ran in the August 7 edition of the paper along withphotographs from the Flickr account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The owner of the Flickr account, <a href="http://lovelikesalt.posterous.com/sure-its-fair-but-is-it-right" target="_blank">Audrey Slade</a>, was unaware of the use of her photos until a friend sent her a link to the article. So here's where the dispute starts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of Slade's main contentions is that the paper never tried to contact her prior to publication, a contention that seems reasonable given that she never heard a word about it until after the piece went to press. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The PPH has a rather more <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0" target="_blank">Clintonian approach</a> to the word "tried." Their position appears to be that they looked at the flickr page, didn't see a link that said, "This page belongs to Audrey Slade, click here if you're the Portland Press Herald and would like to contact her." That's maybe the snidest possible way to put it, but pretty close to the spirit of the paper's response which was that they were unable to figure out who the page belonged to and how to contact her by deadline, so they seized the photos marked "<a href="http://www.flickr.com/help/general/#147" target="_blank">All Rights Reserved</a>" (that, by the way, is the link for "how to request use of Flickr content) under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use" target="_blank">Fair Use</a> exemption of copyright law and called it a day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have zero interest in examining the Fair Use claim. I have no legal expertise and copyright law is an endlessly complicated field, particularly where the internet is concerned. But I do care deeply about journalism, and newspapers specifically, so I will take issue with the procedural and ethical questions at hand.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So then. The claim that it was impossible to determine ownership/contact info because of deadline constraints would be laughable, if the paper wasn't doubling down on that assertion, behaving as though the legitimate questions raised by the photo's owner and others aren't worth their consideration. In an op-ed response today, they let fly some of their pent up contempt. In response to criticism that they'd failed at a simple task: </div><blockquote class="tr_bq">"<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, we neglected to click the message button on Flickr, which presumably would have sent an email to the account holder."</span></span></blockquote>Allow me to translate, "Ugh, yeah, we GET it, there WAS an obviously marked link to contact the owner. You just can't understand how much BIGGER our concerns are than your stupid 'process.' 'Presumably' we could have contacted her by clicking the envelope on the Flickr page, but how could anyone know whether, 'send a message' would send her a message?" Riiiight. PPH is bad at teh internetz. Why don't you go write a twit about it or something?<br />
<br />
Welp, PPH, you may not have sent a message on Flickr, but your larger message that we should sit down and shut up is coming through loud and clear. But I just can't when you're being so all-fired ridiculous.<br />
<br />
Look, even if a message on Flickr went to an account the owner never checks, it would have constituted a reasonable attempt to contact her. But fine, let's suspend disbelief, pretend it's reasonable not to do that, and go back to examining the apparently inscrutable nature of identity on the internet. Let's point out that the pseudonym on the Flickr account, the one that apparently stymied them (I picture fact-checkers in the newsroom closing the phone book with a thump: "Nope. No JadeFrog_01 in here!") is the SAME AS HER TWITTER HANDLE. Close to deadline or no, Mistler wrote enough words to buy them time to send a tweet.<br />
<br />
But all of those are red herrings, because they absolutely knew who she was. They cited her by her job title while at Husson, "the former administrative assistant to Rodney Larson, dean of the School of Pharmacy," so the claim that they couldn't identify her is not only silly as noted above, but completely, utterly, unapologetically false. Unless they're as bad using Google as they are at Flickr...or, um, at asking that guy what his assistant's name was.<br />
<br />
The bottom line is that the Press Herald knew they were in the wrong but didn't expect any pushback, or, just as bad, it didn't cross their minds that this was an issue. Since they tell us they did try to contact her, it appears it was the former. <br />
<br />
What galls me at least as much as the initial breach has been their response. Their first response was to insist that they weren't malicious, just incompetent, and when it was pointed out to them that <i>no one</i> is that incompetent, they dropped the "aw, shucks" routine and went straight for the "you people just don't understand the importance of the work we're doing."<br />
<br />
From today's response:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lost among these comments is the media's obligation to inform the public on matters of vital public interest.</span></span></blockquote>Okay, fine. But let's get real about the burning importance and timeliness of this particular story. Rev. Bob Carlson is <i>dead</i>. If this piece had waited one day while they contacted the owner of the photos, it would not have meant that Carlson was free to roam the campus for another day. William Beardsley is now the <i>former</i> president of Husson. If this piece had waited one day while they contacted the owner of the photos, he would not have had one more day to make inept policy decisions. The only reason that this story worked to this deadline was for the gratification of the PPH breaking it. That they did it at the expense of reasonable, responsible journalistic procedure, made themselves look like incompetent buffoons in their excuses and continue to a) leave the picture up despite being asked by the owner to take it down (it's online, guys, you can link to the Flickr account if you want, but you can't pretend it's yours) and b) pretend that their position is reasonable is pathetic.<br />
<br />
Several years ago there was a quiet discussion among professional photographers I know about the Press Herald's tendency to use their photos, particularly in listings, without notice, compensation or credit, and I recall the paper's response being a similarly disingenuous, "Golly, mister, is that yours? I just found it on the ground on the internet."<br />
<br />
If the PPH wants to distance itself from its reputation lo these past many years as ideal for housebreaking puppies and wrapping fish and not much else, they're off to a rocky start.<br />
<br />
EDIT: Speaking of journalistic ethics, I should mention in the spirit of full disclosure that I did two freelance concert reviews for the PPH back at the dawn of time, which is to say in my early twenties.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-21333747921288995692012-07-31T21:23:00.001-07:002012-08-05T11:56:36.666-07:00Anywhere There's Oxygen<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6yGL3mINcok" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
A silly video for Phantom Buffalo's "Anywhere There's Oxygen"<br />
<br />
Today we think our car got towed for unpaid parking tickets and our savings are temporarily depleted because we made an investment in a really great piece of recording equipment and haven't yet sold the other equipment that will pay for it and I'm scheduled for some overtime this week but thanks to some one-time unexpected bills, very little of the surplus will end up in savings, most likely.<br />
<br />
So I've been thinking of this song by Phantom Buffalo. It's always been a favorite of mine, and I think there are very few people who can't relate or couldn't at some point relate to the desire to be free of the daily grind, the pressure of the grown up obligation to figure out how to "buy my food and stay alive."<br />
<br />
I <a href="http://forceversusobject.blogspot.com/2012/04/daydream-believer.html" target="_blank">wrote on this subject</a> fairly recently and mentioned that I was making a move in the direction of leaving my job and moving to something more personally fulfilling, but even those baby steps have been halted having collided head first with the hefty time commitments of working in a seasonal business. Only a year ago I would likely have folded up in despair and resigned myself to the high probability of being stuck indefinitely, but now that the ol' serotonin's flowing properly I see things in a different light.<br />
<br />
In the midst of a particularly stressful and soul-crushing weeks at work recently, I cracked. Sobbing in the bathroom at work cracked. And after several days of this, I had an epiphany while talking to the lumber delivery driver who's become my friend. "I'm going to go give my notice for the fall after this boat leaves," I told him. "Aw shit, girl, good for you. I wanna do the same thing. Good luck." And in a state of total insanity, I did. I walked into my boss' office just as he was reading a particularly defeated incident report I wrote that concluded, "Obviously I am a bad person," and I told him I was done after Labor Day. After talking with him about it for a while, I agreed to think about it and I've since rescinded my resignation. For now. That I'm on my way out is a "when," not an "if" proposition.<br />
<br />
Yes, I was acting rashly in an emotionally charged moment, but it wasn't completely irrational. Being extremely risk averse I've built up an unreasonably high tolerance for bullshit when the alternative is walking into the unknown. The safety of a job that pays well and offers health benefits is something I don't take for granted and I've been willing to work around the parts that don't work for me in order to hold onto it. But I never intended to stay there forever and I know what I'd rather be doing. So no, I'm not going to storm out the door in a fit of pique with nothing lined up, but I am going to have to make a bold move and possibly a leap of faith.<br />
<br />
In our household we're at a crossroads where we're confident in our strengths and eager to put them into service. We can easily picture a future in which we support ourselves by doing things that are deeply satisfying. In the short term, though, that requires taking scary and decisive action and doing some serious preparation to put some sort of safety net in place before we throw ourselves into the uncertain future. On a spaceship built for two going anywhere there's oxygen.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-9414984086049031972012-07-26T00:14:00.000-07:002012-07-26T16:26:22.487-07:00Probably the Most Depressing Post I'll Ever WriteSometimes my thinking goes to some really dark places, and a really weird thing happens: I recognize that I'm being grim and fatalistic, but it doesn't seem all that unreasonable. I think it's probably some kind of cognitive dissonance that allows me to think wild theoretical things without the emotional weight of real-life consequences, but knowing that intellectually doesn't have any practical effect.<br />
<br />
Here's a case in point: P.Z. Myers, a biologist and <a href="http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula" target="_blank">blogger</a> that I generally enjoy reading and often agree with posted<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/24/a-poll-on-kitty-experimentation/" target="_blank"> this</a> yesterday. In it, he discusses a medical science experiment in the U.K. wherein kittens' eyes are sewn shut in order to explore the relationship between the physical, structural growth of the brain and visual processing. The Mirror conducted a (typically useless, as public opinion polls tend to be) public opinion poll about whether this was an acceptable practice. For a number of reasons including the fact that kittens are wonderful and people love them and the decidedly inflammatory tone to the article, the poll was, at the time of Myers' post, roughly 92% against these experiments.<br />
<br />
The point of the post, to some extent, was to encourage readers to "pharyngulate" the poll, a process wherein readers of Myers' blog, Pharyngula, rush the polls to reflect the community's pro-science, skeptical values. When last I read the comments, the poll had been successfully pharyngulated to the extent that the numbers were closing on an even split.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in the comments section of the post itself, the chatter among Myers' readers departed from the typical script wherein fans agree and dissent comes from outrageous trolls and wingnuts. In this case the debate was, as blog-comment debate goes, fairly collegial and, with notable exceptions, civil. While a large majority supported the "necessary evil" of animal testing, there was a contingent of loyal opposition that just couldn't get behind it.<br />
<br />
The general consensus posited by supporters was that opponents found this exercise horrific because the animals in question were kittens, a species for which humans feel a particular emotional and often familial attachment. A portion of the naysayers agreed that they would feel differently about non-companion animals, and a tiny faction opposed animal testing full stop.<br />
<br />
Some way into the hundreds of comments, Myers' chimed back in to say that he found it disturbing that people would suggest that there was some inherent difference in using kittens, over, say, ferrets as the process was so mildly intrusive and humanely practiced that it should not be objectionable regardless of species. The implication from the pro-test crowd was that opposition was illogical and emotionally-driven at best and anti-science nut jobs at worst.<br />
<br />
You can probably guess that I, a person who just yesterday exclaimed over some delicious potato chips, "Wow! They taste like sour cream and onion, but no cows were raped to make them taste good!" oppose animal experimentation. And I KNOW huge advances in medical science have come from it. And I KNOW that even products labeled "no animal testing" contain ingredients that were likely tested on animals some other time by some other company. And I KNOW everyone's just dying to say, "If your mother/boyfriend/self/insert-loved-one-here had cancer/multiple sclerosis/insert-lethal-disease-here and animal testing could produce a cure you'd change your tune," but you know what? This is where shit gets really dark.<br />
<br />
Because while I've actually worked myself into full-on panic attacks thinking about the possibility of losing the people dear to me (Have you seen the movie "The Fountain"? I wept uncontrollably for nearly half an hour afterwards at the idea that I could easily lose my then husband to long disease or in the blink of an eye to a simple traffic accident or mad gunman) but I really just can't square the morality of torturing and killing animals (yes, they're "euthanized" afterwards... the silver-lining of which is it cuts down on the lingering psychological effects) in the name of possibly reducing suffering in others.<br />
<br />
This debate is one of those intractable ones like abortion and religion wherein arguments on both sides are familiar and heavily worn and generally ineffective in swaying the opposition. The comment-section debate was chock full of but-they're-not-sentient-yes-they-are-okay-maybe-but-they-don't-have-agency arguments with a heavy dose of sewing-their-eyes-shut-isn't-painful-sometimes-it's-used-therapeutically-and-you-don't-call-it-torture-then-plus-lab-assistants-care-for-and-about-the-animals-post-op.<br />
<br />
To which I say this:<br />
<br />
I feel bad when I step on my kitten's tail because I know she feels pain. I put the cats in a different room when I vacuum because they experience fear. They experience and remember and avoid recurrence of trauma as evidenced by their immediate flight at the sight of said vacuum cleaner or the grim cat Alcatraz that is the travel kennel. To the extent that they have preferences for what does or doesn't happen to them, however reflexive and instinctual those preferences are, they have agency. Sometimes, like children, their preferences are overridden for their greater good (going to the vet, say) but, as with children, we respect their needs and desires as members of the community that is our home.<br />
<br />
As to the relative lack of suffering involved in this procedure (compared to, I dunno...force-feeding poisons? putting chemicals in their eyes? vivisection?) I'll turn some smug chump's comment back on him: "I don't see anyone opposed to animal testing volunteering themselves." EXACTLY, you moron. You would not conduct this very "gentle," very "non-invasive" procedure on your child or yourself, so please spare me the argument that it's really no big deal. And there are a lot of cringe-inducing things we do to treat disease, things that are painful and difficult but which we deem a worthwhile trade off for the privilege of staying alive (radiation and chemotherapy come to mind) that we wouldn't dream of inflicting on a healthy person. Context matters in questions of morality.<br />
<br />
I can't think of any distinction between human and animal life that makes the sacrifice and suffering of the latter on behalf of the former acceptable. We've agreed that we ought not experiment on <i>any</i> humans regardless of their physical or mental capacity or their relative contributions to society so what makes similar considerations fair game when we're talking non-human animals?<br />
<br />
Down, down the rabbit hole (ha!) I go to a place where I just don't think humanity inherently deserves...well, a lot of the things we take for granted as a reward for being the smartest monkeys going, where I'm so unclear about what our end game is that I wonder why we play at all, where our similarities to parasitic organisms, propagating and expanding for the sake of it without regard for anything but basic survival are uncomfortable. Surely we've done amazing, wonderful things with all the gifts evolution has wrought, but to my mind our capacity to ponder and act on complex philosophical and ethical considerations is the characteristic that ostensibly sets us apart from the hoi polloi of critters scrambling to pass on genetic material.<br />
<br />
It's normal to want to protect the things closest to you before you extend care outside your personal sphere. In times of scarcity, a parent will feed his or her child before offering food to the neighbors, and help the neighbors before donating to a charity (mostly, maybe, unless they let their dog poop on the lawn). But we generally recognize (some more clearly than others) an obligation to the larger society, that despite our desire to take care of those closest to us, it's not acceptable to inflict suffering on others in order to alleviate our own. Unfortunately, this recognition is incredibly myopic. As the spheres grow larger into national and international human communities we become increasingly willing to overlook that moral logic, and when it comes to the place of humans in a global, ecological context, that sense of community obligations tend to break down altogether.<br />
<br />
I believe, on an individual level, in living while you're alive, making the most and best of every day because when you're dead, you're done. Ideally we would enact a similar M.O. as a species. Yes, we should strive to learn and explore everything we possibly can, make the most and best of our big brains, but conscientiously, with more respect for the world around us right now than for our theoretical future selves, because if we go the way of the dinosaurs, we're done. I don't wish ill on the imaginary future, but I think the greater responsibility ought to be to building for that future by creating the most just and sustainable culture possible in the relatively-controllable present<br />
<br />
It feels weird and kind of awful to think so bleakly, and I'm sure there's more than a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120724" target="_blank">little</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_shooting" target="_blank">news</a>-<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-romney-obama-spar-over-you-didnt-build-that-small-businesses-add-context/2012/07/25/gJQA6IN79W_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop" target="_blank">induced</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/after-night-of-protest-and-arrests-anaheim-vows-to-crack-down.html" target="_blank">gloom</a> in play, but it's also crushingly depressing that people can so easily rationalize cruelty from a position of incredible arrogance. I'm not giving up on humanity, I'm just doom-fatigued and disappointed in a thousand different ways.<br />
<br />
I'll be over here in my misanthropic cave eating twigs and dying of preventable illness if anyone needs me.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-6700931746741262262012-07-24T01:25:00.000-07:002012-07-26T16:27:03.055-07:00This Agression Will Not StandLet's set aside the obnoxious old saw that it takes more muscles to frown than smile and admit that, in situations that are frustrating or unpleasant, the path of least resistance is to be awful. It's a hard thing to admit and most of us have the blinders on when it comes to our own tendency to be ungracious, but it's true and human and something that requires vigilance instead of denial.<br />
<br />
The past few weeks at work have been particularly hellacious, an impossible numbers game wherein hundreds of people descend on our five-person operation with everything they own and, owing to a poor understanding of geometry, physics, and the notion that the world doesn't revolve around them, become enraged to find that we can't fit the astonishing pile of consumer goods they've deemed necessary for a weekend getaway on a boat immediately.<br />
<br />
Look, I'm no angel where this is concerned. No one ever thinks they're the one being unreasonable, and I'd like to imagine that I can claim the high road. Realistically, though, it takes an extraordinary amount of energy not to trade snark for snark, raised voice for raised voice, veiled insult for veiled insult. I try. Really hard. But while I'm mostly successful in not shooting first, I struggle not to fire back in kind and when I dig in for a fight, I am not fun.<br />
<br />
That said, being on the receiving end of these shenanigans and being responsible for young seasonal employees who are still learning the operation but who are smart, courteous, and hard-working, and watching bitter hags having a bad day just eviscerate these kids makes me realize what a lot of assholes there are in this world. And now that I'm more conscious of it, I see it everywhere that customer service happens: in stores, at the movies, in restaurants...Ev. Ery. Where. Customers are awful, entitled know-it-alls. Sure, sure, there are times when things are legitimately bad and someone needs to do a better job, but just look around and see how often someone in a line near you goes from 0 to subhuman because a grocery clerk needs a price check or won't accept their Canadian currency or asks them to wait a moment while they put out the fire that's just erupted in the trash can.<br />
<br />
So the thing is, it takes a little bit of decorum, a little bit of restraint to overcome the junkfood-style satisfaction of being awful in the moment but it's well worth it because in the long run it's kind of soul-crushing. Or it should be, if you're even kind of a good person.<br />
<br />
Am I a broken record? Maybe. But if the easiest way to be is awful, it's worth reminding myself and others to be diligent about NOT being so as often as possible.<br />
<br />
It's 4 a.m. and I'm about to go to work. Today I will behave as though every customer is an alien new to earth and in need of guidance. Today I will muster an appreciative laugh for lame jokes just to honor the spirit of positivity. Today I'm bringing cupcakes to work just because.<br />
<br />
Ready? Go!<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-7751711811486331272012-06-21T15:15:00.000-07:002012-06-21T15:15:59.445-07:00Kickstart(er) My Heart<br />
The other day on facebook I saw that a friend of mine loaned money to an El Salvadorean woman to help her buy spare parts for her bicycle repair shop. The woman and her husband started the shop when they were unable to find jobs. Their loan request, for $1200, constitutes approximately a quarter of their yearly income. They requested a similar loan last year and successfully paid it off.<br />
<br />
The loan was made through <a href="http://www.kiva.org/" target="_blank">Kiva</a>, an online micro-lender that connects entrepreneurs from around the world with the capital they need to advance their businesses. Each owner creates a profile describing their operation, the improvements the loan will fund, and the target loan amount. Individual investors contribute some portion of the loan until the requested amount is matched. Repayment is generally due over the course of two years, with interest and fees in place.<br />
<br />
Within the hour, the same person who made that loan noted that they'd contributed to a Kickstarter campaign for a friend's documentary and encouraged others to support the project.<br />
<br />
For people who've been living under a rock or maybe just don't know a lot of hipsters, <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a> (and the very similar <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/" target="_blank">Indiegogo</a>) is a platform wherein people create accounts describing a project -- movies, albums, and restaurants are pervasive, but ideas run the gamut -- what they need money to accomplish vis a vis the project, and an amount they hope to raise by a target date. Individual investors contribute some portion of the money until that end date. If they succeed in getting the full amount pledged, the project gets the money. If not, they get nothing. Incentives are offered at various levels of support, a la PBS. The rewards generally run from a warm thank you to a t-shirt to a copy of the product, official backer status, etc. These are not loans; the money is not repaid.<br />
<br />
What's that you say? These things sound very similar? That's <i>exactly </i>what I was thinking! I'm a little embarrassed that I've been aware of both programs for some time now and never really realized this.<br />
<br />
Here's what gets me in the juxtaposition of these two platforms:<br />
<br />
One of them procures money primarily for people in poverty-stricken regions, where it's unlikely that any of the contributions come from friends or neighbors, because, well, the friends and neighbors are likewise in some dire financial straits. These entrepreneurs are being offered old-fashioned loans through the banking establishment and are subject to the terms and conditions of old-fashioned loans.<br />
<br />
The other procures money primarily from the entrepreneur's friends and neighbors and their extended networks (there are, certainly, donations from strangers, but those are fewer and farther between than the others, celebrity Kickstarters notwithstanding). These are paid back in handshakes and tchochke.<br />
<br />
The bottom line is that people for whom this money has very serious financial consequences are taking out business
loans through Kiva and paying them back. The people whose friends and
larger networks have disposable income to help them make, say, a $3500
monster costume or acquire $850 for the world's largest jock strap are gifted
the money in exchange for a high five and a chuckle.<br />
<br />
Anyone currently
on Kiva would be better served setting up a Kickstarter, and obviously
they could. But I'm guessing that very few of the rural entrepreneurs
using Kiva have the internet access and savvy to compare their options and lack the
social networks that make it a breeze for a millenial Stanford grad to
raise $20,000 to fulfill his lifelong culinary-punk dream of owning a
food truck called "Blintz-krieg Bop." So the former follows a
traditional business model and builds their business the hard way and
the latter has the assistance handed to them on a silver platter, no
strings attached.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, Kiva is a really
wonderful and important idea, one that ought to have a huge base of
support and really, I'm okay with people helping each other out to
accomplish their dream projects on a donation basis. And I think that
people who give to either or both have their hearts in the right place,
but it's really unfortunate that in tandem they reinforce the bright
line in culture and class politics that separates how we as middle and
upper-middle class westerners approach giving as patronage, as charity,
or as business, to artists, to western businesses, to third world
businesses, to NGOs.<br />
<br />
It's not difficult to imagine that this formula puts a strain on the available resources. People with a limited amount of disposable income are more likely to fund projects by people they know over a third-world business start up despite the arguably more substantial social and economic return on the latter. Instant gratification is instantly gratifying. Playing that band's CD is a far more tangible outcome than the slightly ephemeral knowledge that somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa a farmer is able to meet the demand for amaranth in his village and provide security for his family. <br />
<br />
This is all just a lot of spitballing, but as I've been thinking about it, I've thought of a pretty awesome Kickstarter campaign: A request for money to travel and film Kickstarter videos for people seeking loans on Kiva, effectively giving them both means and access to the more forgiving platform. I think they'd do well in the short-term while the glow of the initial filmmaker's Kickstarter allowed them accesss to his or her extended network, but would likely peter out once awareness fatigue set in. I'd give, as long as I got a high five.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-75617306706457652642012-05-13T00:58:00.000-07:002012-05-13T01:03:15.556-07:00Here's the Beef: Where's the Beef?Know what's delicious? Bacon. Know what's a tasty addition to almost everything? Goat cheese. Guess what I ate a lot of in 2010. Give up? Pizza. And quesadillas.<br />
<br />
When I went vegetarian and eventually vegan, I didn't suddenly decide that these things don't taste good. I made a decision that my desire for certain flavors really didn't justify the death and suffering that comes with them.<br />
<br />
Within the realm of foods that I have no ethical objection to, I eat the ones that taste good when I can, the ones that taste okay when necessary, and avoid the ones that taste bad. Them's some pretty simple criteria. Using this program, I don't reject good tasting food because the ingredients aren't what I expected. I've never, for instance, thought, "Wow, this is the best blueberry pie I've ever eaten, but they thickened it with corn starch instead of flour, so I'll buy that blander one down the street where they use flour." <br />
<br />
Which is why, a few short weeks into baking for profit as well as fun, I'm feeling a little frustrated.<br />
<br />
I knew going into it that getting vegan food to the general public would be an uphill battle. "Vegan" is a word with a lot of baggage, conjuring images of asceticism and denial, visiting judgment on omni eaters, and linked to its extremist cousin raw foods with all the peculiar culinary acrobatics that go into crafting familiar-food analogs from walnuts and agave syrup. Going in, my plan was to make awesome stuff, send up the vegan Bat-signal to let them know it exists, but not market it specifically as vegan. I'm a child of the 80's and I've internalized the core lesson of the Pepsi challenge: what people like and what they think they like aren't always the same, and that gap is largely a function of ephemeral concerns like image and marketing.<br />
<br />
But as it happens, my first customer is a conventional bakery, and the fact that they carry my wares is specifically a function of the fact that I bake without eggs and dairy, an alternative option labeled accordingly. It wasn't necessarily in the original plan, but I'm grateful to have a steady outlet where my stuff sells well. And in the first batch, two sold to my friends, one to a girl whose vegan friend needed cheering up, and one to someone who made no mention of it being vegan. It's a small sample, but it leaves room to hope that I might still appeal to a wider audience even with the scarlet V on the label.<br />
<br />
Then I took some samples to a coffee shop. The owner knew before I arrived that the samples were vegan and after asking some questions about ingredients and process she asked, "But you only do vegan, right?"<br />
<br />
When I said yes, she got a far-away, disappointed look.<br />
<br />
"Okay...it's just that we're looking for someone who can do other things too."<br />
<br />
"Well, try the samples and see what you think. If you can taste the difference, more power to you, but I think you'll find they're not any different than conventional," I said.<br />
<br />
In the course of our fifteen minute conversation she mentioned that they wanted someone who could do "other things that aren't vegan" at least three times, always wearing a little frown and using that let-you-down-gently tone that says, "It's not you, it's me...no, actually, it's definitely you."<br />
<br />
And fine. It's her business, it's her decision, but it's dumb. Not just because I think I make a really great product (which I do), but because it was a decision that very clearly had nothing to do with the actual product and everything to do with her gut reaction to the idea of vegan.<br />
<br />
I have a tasting coming up with a large corporate concern to make a bid for snacks at their meetings, etc. I have not mentioned that I'm a "specialty" baker, nor do I plan to. More than one person has asked if I've told them, and to a person they've responded with surprise when I say no, as though I'm planning to scam the elderly out of their pensions.<br />
<br />
But I'm not tricking anyone into eating something they object to -- the ingredients are the same as most conventional items, and I'm fairly sure no one's looking to get their protein or calcium from the egg in a cupcake or the scant amount of milk in frosting, so I'm not depriving them of any expected benefit. I'm offering tasty treats. If they reject them because they don't like them, or don't like the price, or because I can't do the volume they need, I can accept that because those are reasonable, reality-based issues. But I won't put myself in a position to lose business based on vague ideas about what a recipe<i> should </i>be like instead of what the product actually <i>is.</i><br />
<br />
Someday I'll have a brick and mortar establishment, a little cafe with pastries and cakes and soups and sandwiches like any other cafe with pastries and soups and sandwiches, except there won't be any meat or animal products. I won't point it out, and most people won't notice. I'm not looking to proselytize, I just want to make awesome food consistent with my ethics and stand or fall on the strength of my skill.<br />
<br />
And as my semi-estranged father told me the other day in a moment of casually shocking intimacy, "That's what I've always admired about you...when you want something, you go to the mat to get it."<br />
<br />
Thanks, Dad, I guess I do. And I will, I just want a fair fight.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-27872733389444417532012-04-28T00:07:00.002-07:002012-04-28T00:07:46.038-07:00Rutabaga!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjctKx7NQQBFoCDnYfHTtyj3_A6rwuNqRJupYs7bUq-2XtXBesvhihWqUGlBxzffvsdxFLzTbb315D6rdNqzTlB3B0puTw6IhgENPjBepi-o7C7SwbVf4NQypYxKy24-TywOSoNazuXmME/s1600/Rutabaga+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjctKx7NQQBFoCDnYfHTtyj3_A6rwuNqRJupYs7bUq-2XtXBesvhihWqUGlBxzffvsdxFLzTbb315D6rdNqzTlB3B0puTw6IhgENPjBepi-o7C7SwbVf4NQypYxKy24-TywOSoNazuXmME/s320/Rutabaga+logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This happy l'il guy's gonna be the face of Rutabaga Baking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Good news, guys. The moment has arrived for me to stop being wistful and get busy.<br />
<br />
After lo these many months of mooning about, talking a big, vague game about Finally Doing It, allow me to talk a big, only slightly more specific game.<br />
<br />
I'm currently procrastinating on putting together a price list for Rutabaga Baking, for a customer who will receive delivery next week. Until the order's actually in I'll refrain from naming the venue, but that'll follow soon. I'm just too excited to keep it entirely under my hat!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-82370151586429845292012-04-19T21:21:00.000-07:002012-04-19T21:21:47.175-07:00Daydream Believer<br /><style>
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If wishes were horses than beggars would ride, and if I were
half as responsible to myself as I am to other people, I would be self-employed
doing awesome things all day. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to think that I’m a free spirit, but I’ve been made
to face the fact (over and over and over again, in fact) that my particular
spirit is rather like a small child:
It craves boundaries, direction, structure in which to exercise its
gifts in a safe and loving environment.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will take on an extra project at work, but fail to shop
for groceries until my third day of eating nothing but unadorned grits and
Bisquick pancakes with ground pepper (for real), help a friend move or paint an
apartment but leave my laundry until I’m channeling Pigpen from Charlie Brown.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ask me to do something and give me a deadline. I’ll do it in style, with gusto. I’ll dot
all the I’s with little hearts, wrap up the results in fancy paper and bows, and
deliver it to your door with a curtsy and a flourish.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m a diligent ditz, a spazzy robot. I’m a freight train making all its
stops, leaving the mangled corpses of a million grand schemes at every
crossing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because there are plenty of things that I do just for myself: I play
my ukulele, make songs, I sing, I sew, I write stories and essays, I walk, I
cook elaborate and not-elaborate meals, I bake and decorate and bake more, I
draw, I build simple electronics and modify the complex, I replicate (with
varying degrees of success) everything that
strikes my fancy from shoes to food to furniture. I MacGuyver the shit out of things. Our VHS library currently resides in a six-shelf condominium fashioned from packing tape and vintage Casio boxes. I build tiny
people in tiny dioramas because tiny things are just so, so satisfying. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there’s the rub.
There are so many things I want to do just because I want to that if you
put all of the tools for all of those activities in a room, I would end up
running from station to station, flailing my arms like the robot from Lost in Space and finally collapse like a birthday girl when the cake wears off.<br />
<br />
I'm heavily motivated by guilt, and I swallow my own excuses easily enough that I don't feel guilty when I let myself down. A friend pointed out today that my goal shouldn't be to make myself feel guilty for breaking promises to myself, but to recognize that my personal projects deserve attention as much as outside jobs do. It's two sides of the same coin, and she's right that the latter would be preferable, but I'm hoping for either at this point.<br />
<br />
More than hoping, I'm baby-stepping in that direction. In the past I've looked at this glaring flaw in my operations as something huge and wild and untame-able, something to be acknowledged with a sigh and shrug, but as I cruise into my "grown up" life still holding tight to teenaged optimism, I'm increasingly aware that that's both really counterproductive and ultimately soul-crushing. <br />
<br />
I like my job a lot as far as working for someone else goes, but as my ten year anniversary approaches, I shudder at the thought of another decade, or even another five years. <br />
<br />
When I started this blog I hinted at a big project in the works, and I'm happy to say that I'm actually working on it. This is in no small part thanks to the community of wonderful people around me, friends and family and co-workers, who nudge me when I'm flagging keep my alternately inflated and flattened ego in reality. In the end, it would be great if I could be accountable to myself, but I consider it a good start to be accountable to the people who care about and believe in me. <br />
<br />
In the very short term, I'm working on a web project, aggregating all of my projects into one space. It's a relatively passive endeavor, but it's useful for taking stock. In the next month or two my art, this blog, <a href="http://www.giantmarshmallowpillow.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Giant Marshmallow Pillow</a> (it's not dead, it's sleeping), and my first stab at a commercial baking endeavor will find a new home together. Like most things I do, it's happening in fits and starts because the ol' squirrel in my noggin keeps running off to check out other stuff, plus I decided to go all out and learn a little bit of WordPress coding just to make things interesting.<br />
<br />
So thanks to everyone who humors me and challenges me and keeps me on track. I'll be sure to give you all presents tied up in fancy paper with a curtsy and a flourish.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-81831725726333736822012-03-10T07:46:00.000-08:002012-03-29T09:03:27.439-07:00Queen Bee<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicY82MBxsP5tt6o4Urs8ENtrV99FlrcV70Vp8ug8_mMa5sHQbL_tXYyjS1WmnjBKBgH44OhKI2rVTHJ3noWzpr0iAW-ZcV40-qMtgZAS-1fEHpJuCzwH1NAWTtBsuzDngVhHT6kZnDrKY/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>[<i>I started writing this post on International Women's Day, but a) I'm slow and b) I'm note a huge fan of selecting a calendar date on which to "celebrate" a huge swath of the population. Anyway. Shout out to all my ladies.]</i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGFhWRm4rKKTuV9XAiWMJBC8RQjRUBW8SwVq38ckA_jn-ITPn3_22ihd4Tsr2FyTLJrBn2sIHmXOIsZ2b06pJLw3mZRBsO-R0cAB4hSLXSxLM1P78VHjNwWHZFK6oClZKWpYxegRwoDA/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGFhWRm4rKKTuV9XAiWMJBC8RQjRUBW8SwVq38ckA_jn-ITPn3_22ihd4Tsr2FyTLJrBn2sIHmXOIsZ2b06pJLw3mZRBsO-R0cAB4hSLXSxLM1P78VHjNwWHZFK6oClZKWpYxegRwoDA/s320/002.JPG" width="239" /></a>It's easy to lose track of the idea that the people who've always been your seniors were once young, or, even if you know the basic facts, to really imagine who they were. The pictures are so abstract compared to the complexity of a real person. Family stories fill in some blanks, but those too, get fairly static after a few listens and stop feeling connected to their subject.<br />
<br />
My grandmother is a great example. <br />
<br />
In family photos, she's child number 8 in a Von-Trapp-style line up. She's grinning and maybe a little mischievous. You can pair it with the stories of cramming her feet into her sisters' hand me down shoes or listening to her mother playing little tunes that she taught herself on the piano to cobble together the picture of a wholesome childhood light on material wealth but rich in resourcefulness and small pleasures. <br />
<br />
We've got pictures of her on the basketball court later, refereeing women's basketball games, a young woman in charge. We can put it next to the story of winning the Bausch and Lomb Science Award, an important moment for her, and here's a picture of a girl with talent and ambition. <br />
<br />
I know these pictures and stories, and plenty of others like a favorite book I've read a million times, but what I love best are the strange asides that come out from time to time: that her older twin sisters gave her her name, Rosalie, and that she didn't really like it. Some game they used to play with their dolls. The little stories that go nowhere: the way she and her friends used to horse around walking home from school, the hilarious nicknames that everyone in that generation apparently had. Hers was Diddy. A family favorite is Flubby (or Fluvvy...we're never sure) Cowan. I think I'm not making my point very clear, but it's essentially this: the illustrated book we use to describe our lives often only hints at our real experience, and not a day goes by that I don't find myself trying to imagine what happens on the pages of I can't see.<br />
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<br />
In my grandmother's case, there's one photo, a senior high school portrait inscribed to her future husband, that says volumes more that any anecdote. The inscription reads, "Too bad you're an English teacher. Diddy" <br />
<br />
Nana, you sassy thing! How bold and flirtatious! What a clever, demure and simultaneously forward way to go after what you wanted! This is the girl I want to know, whose brain I want to get inside.<br />
<br />
Of course to a certain extent, I do. That girl married the English teacher and when he passed away young, raised five children to be kind, funny, loving people. She raised them to be like her: resourceful, gracious, ambitious but easygoing, curious, open-minded, and tough-as-nails as the situation required. And while I think she'd balk at being called a feminist for dubious semantic reasons, I can't think of a better role model. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJT-Gr2pp_N0EqQBlXTF-oBZjUp8KEj5r_DNn_0VQ7s5zYJINImlPiBN72tvpAvJlm2jGXlW403YGYCUD-Pfv7v7viABzipDl651rGEOQRI0-KPFLFh_rwdfJe2DRUbW3-9aEa-fiS-0/s1600/003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJT-Gr2pp_N0EqQBlXTF-oBZjUp8KEj5r_DNn_0VQ7s5zYJINImlPiBN72tvpAvJlm2jGXlW403YGYCUD-Pfv7v7viABzipDl651rGEOQRI0-KPFLFh_rwdfJe2DRUbW3-9aEa-fiS-0/s320/003.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
And when I think of it that way, it occurs to me that I probably have a pretty good idea what she was like as a young woman because I grew up with her daughter and think to myself nearly every day what a lucky break was. She was a single mother who rolled with the punches, figured out how to make things work, and still managed to be sweet and silly and wonderful. She's still sweet and silly and wonderful and as I get older, I realize how difficult and rare it is to hold onto those qualities with the kind of responsibility she had. And I know my grandmother as a young woman because I know my aunt, my mother's sister and another really special mom.<br />
<br />
And I know my grandmother as a young woman because of all the children her five kids had, six of us are girls. Some of us excelled at sports and some of us are musical and most of us inherited a quick, dry wit. Some are mothers to little girls and early indicators suggest that we're right on track for another generation of awesome women. All in all, it's a pretty amazing group of hilarious, bold, pretty, talented gals. And we may not represent <i>exactly</i> who my grandmother was when she was young, but we are a testament to our matriarchal roots where the "Queen Bee" runs the show.<br />
<br />
So I'll keep listening to Nana, hoping to catch additional glimpses of what makes her tick, but ultimately the evidence is all around me in a family that forms like a feminine Voltron. I love you ladies!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-86196292390710375522012-02-25T08:08:00.000-08:002012-02-25T08:08:16.234-08:00We, The LivingHey, here's something to make the majority of readers break out in hives and gnash their teeth:<br />
<br />
I like Ayn Rand.<br />
<br />
Okay, now here's something to make Ayn Rand roll over in her grave while breaking out in hives and gnashing her teeth:<br />
<br />
I don't think you have to accept all of her ideas to find value in some of them.<br />
<br />
I read <i>Anthem</i> in 7th grade, which would have made me, say, 12. By the end of 8th grade, I'd plowed through the twin giants <i>The Fountainhead</i> and <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>, and by high school I was making my way through the non-fiction like it was my job. No, seriously, it was like a part-time job. It was a laborious slog through a forest of "epistemological" this and "metaphysical" that, and required some crash-coursing in works by Kant and Nietschze, plus economic theory, soviet history, etc. Looking back I can say with some certainty that I wasn't fully equipped to absorb <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra</i> at 14 but man, did I try. It was weird times.<br />
<br />
But anyway, like many a teenager before me, I got my knickers all in a twist about Ayn Rand. I won a couple of scholarship essay contests through the Ayn Rand Institute, then promptly used the money to pay for housing while I attended a tuition-free school whose founder promoted the very un-Objectivist notion that "education should be as free as air and water." Oh irony, you devil.<br />
<br />
In my experience, a lot of people loved Ayn Rand in their youth, and why not? She's just the thing for your teenagedly rebellious nerd. The conviction, the autonomy, the suave condescension, and oh man, the selfishness. You know, all the things you explore as a teenager, but tidy and controlled and attractively intellectual for kids who don't get off on piercings and Mad Dog 20/20. <br />
<br />
Usually it ends one of two ways: You get metaphorically punched in the face by real life, realize that the world is a nuanced and amazing and sometimes grossly unfair place, swing way to the left politically, and only admit to your Rand obsession as a sort of embarrassing folly of youth, or you're blessed with smooth sailing in life, vote for people who want to create a flat tax and keep a picture of yourself shaking hands with Alan Greenspan over your desk like some kind of Libertarian-leaning Bat Signal. (For the record, I enrolled as a Libertarian when I first registered to vote at 18. I did not, however, vote for Harry Brown that year).<br />
<br />
For my part, I still make a point of reading <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> every year, and it functions for me now in a lot of the same ways it did then as delicious, delicious brain porn. In the world of Dagny and Hank, and yes, John Galt, there is nothing sexier than being smart, talented, proficient. Well, actually, several passages suggest that a little light S&M might be sexier to them, but that's neither here nor there.<br />
<br />
In all seriousness, here are a couple of lessons that stuck with me, albeit somewhat altered or expanded, from those days:<br />
<br />
1. There <i>is</i> a value in selfishness. It's a particularly Rand-ish idea, but I think she had a fairly myopic view of what that means, or at the very least described it in such a cartoonishly flattened way that a lot of people did it wrong. We need to think critically about what that means. I'm talking real selfishness, the kind where you take the time to understand who you are, what you value, and what you need, both in the immediate sense and the bigger picture. We think of selfishness as inherently anti-other-people, but that's a pretty terrible piece of logic unless you're capable of compartmentalizing so severely that you barely have a concept of cause and effect. Here's an example: During the first snowstorm of the season, the city didn't call a parking ban because it was supposed to be a minor storm. It ended up being pretty significant. I depend on street parking, and live in an area where it's very limited. When snow doesn't get cleared, there's less parking. So while it's inconvenient to find a place to park off-street and conventional selfishness means not inconveniencing myself, in the big picture, doing right by everyone and moving my car benefits me the most. Here's a broader example: I'm not a sociopath, so I dislike seeing or making other people suffer. I have a selfish interest in living in a just world where people are well treated. Women who vote Republican, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/krugman-moochers-against-welfare.html">people on Medicare</a> who vote for politicians who promise cuts to entitlement programs, people who claim they love their children who deny climate change: these are people who could stand to be a little more selfish.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><br />
Which would require...<br />
<br />
2. Valuing thinking. No joke, the false dichotomy of being a critical thinker/educated/smart or being a "regular person" needs to be killed with fire. In the past year, the number of letters to the editor in which someone has <i>bragged</i> that they don't have some stupid <i>education</i> has exploded, and it's a real crazy-maker. <a href="http://www.forceversusobject.blogspot.com/2011/08/say-it-dont-spray-it.html">You don't have to be a super-genius to be a thinker</a>, but remember this gem from the NYT Magazine quoting Karl Rove?:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">[Rove] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN REGULAR PEOPLE ABDICATE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO THINK. Evil geniuses decide they can literally hijack reality. I think that's grossly optimistic, but it's been proven a bazillion times that they can hijack the popular perception of reality which is dangerously close. And if you think for even a second that someone who thinks like this is remotely interested in what happens to your life, you're not a "regular joe" you're a numbskull.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm going to create a feedback loop here and suggest that you read <a href="http://www.greatdoubt.blogspot.com/2012/02/iqocracy.html">this</a>, a blog entry by a friend and delightful thinker. It links back to here, but I promise it's not quid pro quo -- I just don't feel like doubling up the good work he's already done.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm a traitor by real Objectivist standards. It is, after all, an ideology that insists you take it whole or leave it, but I still credit Ayn Rand with sparking a lot of the big picture thinking that informs who I am now and giving me permission to have enough ego to survive my early teens with my self-esteem in tact. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-67291893921999945992012-02-18T19:37:00.000-08:002012-02-18T19:37:25.048-08:00War of the WorldsI submit for your consideration that not every disagreement is a war.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But let's indulge a little parable: One of the most adorable couples in my little burg we'll call Hank and Betsy. They're autistic and met while working in a hospital cafeteria. They've been married for roughly 20 years now and on their anniversary Betsy wears a taffeta prom dress for the day. Every morning at 4 a.m. they go to a popular local diner for breakfast.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ten years ago, they'd come in every morning and order coffee, then Hank would order a full breakfast. He'd eat in silence while Betsy lustfully watched every forkful go from the plate to his mouth. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One day the owner of the diner asked, "How come Betsy doesn't get breakfast? Aren't you hungry, Betsy?"<br />
<br />
Hank looked up. "We can only afford one." </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
"So why do you always get to eat but Betsy doesn't?" asked the owner.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Because I'm the man," answered Hank, and continued munching away. It was clear that in his mind, this was a perfectly reasonable, logical answer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"That's not very fair, Hank," said the owner. "Both of you work to get the money but only one of you gets breakfast. Next time, how about I make two plates and split the food so you both get to eat?"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This was an arrangement that hadn't occurred to Hank before. In his literal world, informed by the traditional culture he was raised in, the breakfast inequity issue was simply a non-starter. He wasn't crazy about the proposed arrangement, even though he rarely finished the whole meal. When quizzed, he liked the idea of being nice to Betsy, but the prospect of changing the established dynamic was unsettling just on the face of it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The million dollar question, then: Did the diner owner's proposal constitute a war on Hank's worldview?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For those of you on the fence, the answer is no. Come on, now.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Likewise, there is no war on faith in this country despite indignant cries to the contrary. This bears repeating: There is no war on faith in this country. <br />
<br />
People of faith are largely unaware of the extent to which their worldview dominates the discourse. God casually saturates everything: our money, our oaths, our sneezes. On the national "war on faith" stage (with "faith," by the way being code for "Judeo-Christian faith, preferably less Judeo but at least that Old Testament was a page turner") they like to point this out as though the rest of us haven't noticed, as though not complaining abut the little stuff somehow means that speaking up about the big issues is hypocritical. We have, and it isn't.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I am generally a laissez faire atheist. I don't believe in god and I find it difficult to understand how and why other people do. But they do, so okay. My grandparents were exceptionally devout and it brought them a measure of comfort, something I don't begrudge anyone. Where things start to get problematic for </div>
<div>
me is when religious dogma creeps into public policy. Thing is, it's been creeping (and occasionally crashing around like a bull in a china shop) for years and is currently manifesting in a particularly unsavory way. Protesting this is very different than executing an unprovoked assault. In fact, unlike, say, evangelical Christians, the opposition voices aren't arguing that people abandon their beliefs, they're asking them not to use their beliefs as a bludgeoning tool in the service of ulterior motives.<br />
<br />
Let's think of it in fun, retro-marketing terms: God-drunk politicians are all, "Hey, stop trying to get your peanut butter in my chocolate!" but everyone who doesn't share their faith is like, "Dude, your chocolate's been all up in my peanut butter for years now and I've tried to be accommodating, but dang!"</div>
<div>
<br />
Yes, for a lot of people their faith informs their ethics, but when you start applying your ethical guidelines to public policy, you best make sure you have a better reason for espousing them than, "Because a bunch of long-dead or possibly never-living guys wrote a book that told me so."<br />
<br />
As I watch the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Republican nominating process, it strikes me that the figureheads crying "War on Faith!" are purportedly acting on faith-based ethics, yet their positions are pretty wildly out of step with the ethics of many of the self-described faithful among the electorate. The question of whether that portion of the electorate is apostate is for that community to decide, but it's more likely that they find it reasonable to understand their faith in a contemporary context instead of blindly applying standards dictated thousands of years and half a world away.<br />
<br />
So what to do when you're a politician who's such a wackadoo that you're alienating even your usually conservative and agreeable base? Find a scapegoat and try to convince everybody to circle the wagons. Doctor up a false choice. Equate examined and thoughtful moral stances with godlessness. Make sure they have to choose between their identity as a believer and their dirty, dirty modern ideas. If possible, try to get people less polarizing than you to promote this idea so it has a patina of credibility and the debate winds up such a muck of hate and accusation that everyone's too tired to suss out who the real enemy is.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-87540215982144502392012-01-28T19:38:00.000-08:002012-01-30T14:36:14.513-08:00I Don't Want To Hurt You, But It's An Election YearThis one's gonna be quick and dirty, folks. <br />
<br />
Even before I got political and drifted so far left I fell off the map, I hated election years. I hate them. They are hateful. The are horrible and hateful and over long and I hate them. HATE THEM. But as I think of it, it actually has very little to do with the candidates themselves, who I just generally assume are disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. No, I hate election years because of the plague of outrageous stupidity the sweeps the nation, infecting even people I generally respect.<br />
<br />
If you would prefer that I don't lose my shit on you (at least not from a talking-about-the-election standpoint), keep these things in mind:<br />
<br />
1. <b>Party loyalty is for the weak (minded).</b> This is one of those things that I say from the bottom of my heart, and while I want badly to pull punches where dear friends who are party activists are concerned, I just can't. <br />
<br />
If you want to be an enrolled voter because you find yourself mostly aligned with their viewpoints, fine. But you have a responsibility to speak up when you disagree, and if you find yourself torturing logic to excuse the sketchy shenanigans of some slimy douchebag just because he's "on your team," you suck.<br />
<br />
By the same token, there are some parties that have more unpalatable platforms and attract a disproportionate number of bottom feeders, but they are not always evil, and they're not always wrong.<br />
<br />
Elections result in people <i>literally controlling our lives</i>. We're not picking the homecoming queen. Think a little harder than that, 'kay?<br />
<br />
2. <b>There's tons of egregious shit to criticize. Don't be petty. </b>You know how when people argue on the internet and one of them has a typo, the opponent inevitably responds, "Oh, you 'knoe' it's true? Guess you don't 'knoe' how to spell, though, huh?" This is not meaningful debate, this is elementary school. If you must bicker, even knowing that political debate NEVER results in people changing their minds, own your opponent on logical fallacies, factual errors and dishonesty. Otherwise you look weak and cheap and too poorly informed to win the debate on substance. Also, you make people who share your views look like morons, so stop. Please.<br />
<br />
3. <b>Single-issue voters can suck it. </b>Single issue voters love Ron Paul. I'm against U.S. military involvement overseas. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm a hardcore pro-lifer. Bam, Ron Paul. I don't think about issues beyond things that affect me in my dorm room and I'm a wicked stoner who wants to legalize. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm racist, sexist, and homophobic and want to see any protections for minorities thrown out the window. Bam, Ron motherfucking Paul. Ron Paul could get elected by single-issue voters, but I'm guessing that the hippies that wanted to end war and legalize pot are probably not really into the whole pro-life anti-already existing humans agenda. Dear Otherwise Sane People: Stop saying things like, "I like that Ron Paul is anti-war, but I don't agree with a lot of his other ideas," as though you're still weighing out whether he might be an okay choice. Thanks, The World.<br />
<br />
4. <b>Consistency is not necessarily a virtue.</b> Okay. Pandering is a bad thing. This is when someone says that they believe whatever will get them the most support in a given situation. This means they might be inconsistent in what they say about their position on a topic from campaign stop to campaign stop. Pandering is a bad thing. This person probably has a consistent opinion, but "flip-flops" out of political expedience.<br />
<br />
Open-mindedness is a good thing. That's when you espouse a belief in something, but you listen to other people talk about that thing and, when presented with compelling evidence, change your mind. Suppose you believe that car engines are powered by magical sprites on exercise bicycles, but then someone shows you the interior of an internal combustion engine and you now declare that you firmly believe the scientific community's position on what makes cars go. Your new opinion is inconsistent with your previous position, but the change represents new wisdom and growth as opposed to deceit.<br />
<br />
Suppose a candidate also believes in car engine sprites, and after being shown the same information you were, proclaims that the tenuous internal combustion "theory" is just some mumbo jumbo that scientists like to throw around and that he still believes in the sprites and furthermore thinks we need to spend more money on researching engine sprites. He's consistent, but he's fucking crazy.<br />
<br />
Alright, I'll stop now, but please. Don't let the internets and televisions whip you into the kind of berserker state that makes these behaviors and beliefs happen. Be sane. Be rational. Be skeptical. Of all of them. Groucho Marx famously wouldn't join any club that would have him as a member. To be honest, I don't really want to give the job of president, or congressman, or senator to anyone who would want it. Question motives and don't be an asshole.<br />
<br />
xo,<br />
MeghanAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-38847400729197204592012-01-25T11:45:00.000-08:002012-01-30T14:40:50.868-08:00My New Year Comes LateI'm not much for celebrating the change of calendar years, but I do like to take a quick inventory of the past year when I've successfully lived another 365 days. In other words, it's my birthday and amid the fun times with my awesome friends and family, I like to sprinkle in some thinkin'.<br />
<br />
<div>
Yesterday evening I had a lengthy and fairly intense conversation with one of my favorite people about depression, empathy, and general philosophy. Specifically, we talked about what it means to be smart and depressed, what it feels like to be "over" empathic in a culture that doesn't, despite its best intentions and platitudes, value empathy (and how it's often perceived as kind of creepy), the relative insignificance/importance of a single human being on macro- and microcosmic scales, and how we understand our personal context and the larger human historical context in the world within an atheist framework. And contrary to how that probably sounds, it was one of the most engaging, funny, uplifting conversations I've had in a while.<br />
<br />
I will mark this year as the year I got happy and the beginning of my radicalization (it's short way to radical in these gross political times, by the way). Strange conceptual bedfellows, a bit, but definitely symbiotic . Being happy means I have the luxury of engaging with the world outside in way that is vigorous and positive. Even when I'm seething with indignation about this or that injustice or ranting about letters to the editor, I know it's because I like life and it matters to me that this world is good. For the record, I recognize the nearly unbearable earnestness of statements like that and even that feels like a triumph, even if it makes you, dear reader, barf just a little. Take that, increasingly-marginalized cynical Meg!<br />
<br />
What cropped up over and over again in the conversation last night was the idea that being responsible for your own happiness is maybe the defining responsibility of a person's life. Complaining that things are terrible and vaguely hoping they spontaneously get better is a miserably inefficient solution, and one that has ripple effects through other people's lives. Prayer is complaining and <i>really</i> hoping things will spontaneously get better. Next week or next month or next year are not more magical than right now. Your future is happening by seconds, now, now, now, now, now, again now. Be kind now. Appreciate the good things now. I'd cite the Serenity Prayer, but I don't want anyone to wait for a god to give them serenity or courage or wisdom: Accept the things you can't change, change the things you can, take yourself off autopilot and figure out which are which. It sounds incredibly simple, to the point of being meaningless, but in practice those three tasks are very, very difficult. A lot of terrible things happen. A lot of frustrating things happen. Sometimes those things will happen continuously for kind of a long time and there's nothing you can do about it. I've let that stuff own me plenty and all it got me was a double dose of misery. Sometimes the bright spots to focus on belong to a friend or a stranger in a news story, but being happy for those bright spots beats wallowing, defeated, in a dungeon of suffering. It's easy to let yourself off the hook. Sometimes I have to remind myself out loud.<br />
<br />
Here's a useful object lesson: I started writing this post this morning before I met friends for lunch. I was supposed to go visit my father afterwards. I thought he was being impatient and calling me at 1 and again a half-hour later, but as it turns out it was his neighbor calling to tell me that Medcu was taking my dad to the hospital. I got to the building as they were leaving, gave them his basic info and told them I'd meet them at the hospital. The facts aren't in yet, but he probably had another in a series of seizures following a stroke more than 8 years ago. It's not serious in the sense that it's unlikely to be fatal, but it will quite possibly mean the end of his independence, something he's fought tooth and nail for over the years. We think this every time, though, and every time he manages a miraculous recovery, just slightly more impaired than before the latest event.<br />
<br />
What I've learned from doing this over and over and over again is that I can start fretting now about how this might all turn out, or I can take the simple steps necessary to ensure his care, check in with the hospital, maybe revisit some of the information from last time. I can go hold his hand and let him try to communicate using one or two words, which is usually what he's left with after these events. I can laugh at the very funny two-way text exchange I'm having with friends, take care of a couple of tasks for the part-time job I recently took on, be grateful for the flurry of birthday wishes on facebook, go to dinner with my boyfriend and consider what a really rich, loving, mutually respectful life we lead together and how excited I am about the plans we've put in action.<br />
<br />
I can't make my dad not sick, the best I can do is...well, the best I can do and falling down a rabbit hole of negative speculation won't do anything good for anybody.<br />
<br />
It's not quite where I thought I was going with this when I started, but I guess it's actually pretty close.<br />
<br />
This new year's off to a rousing start!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-27505849299384443542012-01-04T18:37:00.000-08:002012-01-25T07:39:19.207-08:00Giant Marshmallow Pillow -- Yeah!When I started this blog I was like, "Hey, everything's so awesome! I can't wait to see what awesome stuff's obviously just about to happen every second from now until forever! I'm going to document all that awesome here in this space, just watch! Yay!"<br />
<br />
Well, yeah. I <i>meant</i> to, and I really do, actually, experience the majority of my life as a series of awesome events. The things is that I'm also a little bit hermit-y and if I were to write about the things that make me the happiest and most excited on any kind of regular basis, what we'd have here would be a collection of adorable cat pictures and stories and a series of groaningly punny dialogues between me and my boyfriend and/or one or both of us talking to the cat.<br />
<br />
Also, for all the fist shaking and righteous indignation on the page, having the energy to invest in larger social issues is a luxury that depressed-me couldn't afford (or was too miserly to budget for). Despite appearances, it's a sign of mental health. But, depending on your taste, maybe less fun than the rainbows and unicorns I seemed to be promising in the beginning.<br />
<br />
And I like it. I like my over-long and thinky entries. I like my old smart friends who leave comments and the new friends I've acquired because they're smart and leave comments. I like that even though there aren't a ton of readers, at least some portion of my stats are actual human beings and not click-back bots.<br />
<br />
Now you say, "Get to the point, Ramblin' Rose!"<br />
<br />
And I say, "Right. Anyway, I'm leaving this business just the way it is, but for those of you with a taste for fly-by-night animation and the disassociative short fiction of dreams, I made a fun blog."<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_134070839"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://giantmarshmallowpillow.blogspot.com/">Go now, my pretties.</a><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-em4Xsd4EQmI/TwULdgZW4GI/AAAAAAAAAQw/VJqbaH4D2XQ/s1600/020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-em4Xsd4EQmI/TwULdgZW4GI/AAAAAAAAAQw/VJqbaH4D2XQ/s320/020.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously, though, how awesome is he?</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-78189190018326440732011-12-24T03:02:00.000-08:002011-12-24T03:08:14.563-08:00I'm In Love With the USPS And I Don't Care Who Knows It<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AXrvYJ0HMJE/TvWyeVV71PI/AAAAAAAAAPY/rKygu8jvNIk/s1600/025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AXrvYJ0HMJE/TvWyeVV71PI/AAAAAAAAAPY/rKygu8jvNIk/s320/025.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of several boxes of cherished letters.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My father was a carrier with the U.S. Postal Service for nearly 30 years before an early stroke forced him into retirement. It was a good job, and by contemporary standards maybe a dream job. Under a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by one of the largest public employee unions in the country, he took home a comfortable pay check, enjoyed substantial health benefits for himself and for me, and accrued a pension, something that's become something of a mythical beast of benefits. In exchange he reported for work before dawn in an atmosphere that was toxic (in part thanks to an extremely adversarial union/management relationship) and made his appointed rounds through rain and snow and heat and gloom of night.<br />
<br />
When my grandfather (himself a USPS veteran) suggested I take the civil service exam and go into the family business, my father told me he's never let me "work on the floor with those animals." I was willing to take his word on that. When a man who is himself crass, sexist and somewhat racist tells you it's a rough crowd, well, that's good enough for me.<br />
<br />
Ironically, one of the hats I wear in my current job is USPS contract employee, picking up and delivering island mail from the processing and distribution center in Scarborough. I love it there. The plant itself has a Rube Goldberg quality that I enjoy, and I've developed a jovial, affectionate relationship with most of the people who work there. At this point, starting pay as a carrier would be a significant pay cut and the grousing of my buddies there confirms that I'm better off where I am in a workplace where the culture is more like a family than a business, but there's a part of me that wishes I'd taken my grandfather's advice way back when.<br />
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Of course these days the postal service is considered a sinking ship. Facing an enormous budget shortfall, there's talk of cutting Saturday service and smaller branches exist under perpetual threat of closure. I can't even count the number of times I've heard the phrase, "No wonder the postal office is going under..." recently. This bothers me. A lot.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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In my teenaged years and early twenties I was an avid letter writer and sender of packages. I loved the excitement of coming home to see if any replies had come. I loved the peculiar glue and paper smell of the post office and the dignified quiet of Portland's Forest Ave branch lobby after hours. My father and I are estranged, so my romance with the mail was quite independent of the family connection and the dry mechanics of the organization. I just really, really loved the magic and intimacy of tactile, suspenseful communication.<br />
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Over the years I've used the USPS more for business than pleasure, a fact that causes a twinge of nostalgia and regret when it crosses my mind. Like many people, I pay most of my bills online and communicate by and large by email. My uncle likes to taunt me that I'm contributing to the demise of the organization. While the advent of email and online bill pay undoubtedly doesn't help, however, its effect on the business as a whole is almost certainly overstated.<br />
<br />
A month or two ago, I ran across <a href="http://politicalirony.com/2011/09/15/the-war-on-the-postal-service/">this article</a>, a short piece well worth reading and mulling over at a time when there's a national spotlight on inequity and corporate advantage. Seriously, have a read. It won't take a minute.<br />
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Fine. I'll assume that a lot of you won't bother. The gist of it is that the USPS had its highest volume ever in 2005-2007, years when email and e-bills were already heavily in use. When the financial shit hit the fan in 2008, the postal service suffered along with everyone else. It always surprises me when people assume the internet spelled the end of the mail, too, because online orders are often delivered by the post office and the profit margin is huge -- first class letter rates are kept artificially low by higher costs on packages. Even things delivered by UPS and Fed Ex often include return labels that go through the post office.<br />
<br />
Now here's the shocker. Remember how pension insecurity was a great huge deal when this recession began because companies were investing contributions in mortgage-backed securities? Golly, those companies sure didn't do a very good job of protecting their employees, and they sure didn't have to take very much responsibility when people nearing retirement lost big, did they? No. No, they didn't. The USPS, on the other hand, was meeting its obligations to employee pensions and retiree healthcare with aplomb. (I'll vouch for it. Since I filed the paperwork for my father's retirement he's required a lot of healthcare, all of which has been handled by his insurance). Seems like they deserved a pat on the back.<br />
<br />
Instead, Congress slapped them in the face, for reasons that unclear since, generally speaking, Congress has shown itself to be radically unconcerned with whether or not people have health care: They passed a bill requiring the postal service to fund its retiree healthcare 75 years in advance, to the tune of $5.5 billion a year. They're also required to overpay pensions by $57-82 billion a year. If this seems outrageous, that's because it is. It's probably worth noting at this point that, contrary to popular belief, the USPS is not a government agency. They're quasi-federal, which essentially means that while Congress gets to boss them around, they're required to fund themselves as though they're a private company. They receive no taxpayer dollars.<br />
<br />
The author of the linked article suggests a nefarious reason for heaping such punitive regulations on the post office without creating regulatory protections for private industry (or <i>any </i>other entity, including government agencies): Public unions are a pain in the ass. Kill the juggernaut National Association of Letter Carriers, and you strike a serious blow to their union brothers and sisters.<br />
<br />
Here's why this is kind of a big deal: It's very handy to pay bills online and send correspondence by email, but there are plenty of places in this country, believe it or not, that don't have internet access, whether because of geographical remoteness or income restrictions. That those people can mail their bills and letters for less than $.50 is something like a miracle in a time when inflation has rendered the price of virtually everything unrecognizably bloated. If you don't care about those people, ask yourself if you want to pay the Fed Ex envelope rate to mail your Christmas cards next year.<br />
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Oh, and that's another thing. The obvious replacements for things that absolutely must be transported physically are Fed Ex and UPS. That's great, but cost prohibitive for casual post. And if you're one of those people who doesn't have internet access because you're way off in the boonies, well, forget it. The two commercial couriers have no mandate to deliver to rural areas and often don't when the cost/benefit analysis deems it undesirable. And my near-decade of experience dealing with the postal service, Fed Ex, and UPS tells me that the USPS loses far fewer items and is about a million times more diligent about not doing so than its commercial competitors.<br />
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It's also worth noting that there's a symbiosis among these three that would potentially jeopardize the solvency of the courier services if the postal service tanks altogether. Guess who's the largest client of Fed Ex? Yup, the USPS. In the absence of its own airline, the service sends express mail on Fed Ex planes. Losing its biggest customer can't possibly be good for that company.<br />
<br />
The next time someone blithely cites email as the source of the malaise, fill them in. Aside from my purely emotional attachment to handsome stationery and hand-written letters, there are real, significant reasons to fight for the postal service. I'm writing a letter to my Congressional reps while I still can. (Zing!)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-16758578275908538052011-12-11T18:41:00.001-08:002011-12-18T21:50:23.475-08:00I Enjoy Being a Girl<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7GX_uwUxM_T_96ZtgSH4nt5BKkC7EBAvCi_9mw3zqryv_IZKZ6G6kRMM9x9kYGNGbo_su_M1BuCkra2cttCKLpmqWmFWxKhYl_NSQ0X22FLw0lQTra3LANMZcHVXOlf5YGrZVe3Pq3as/s1600/006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7GX_uwUxM_T_96ZtgSH4nt5BKkC7EBAvCi_9mw3zqryv_IZKZ6G6kRMM9x9kYGNGbo_su_M1BuCkra2cttCKLpmqWmFWxKhYl_NSQ0X22FLw0lQTra3LANMZcHVXOlf5YGrZVe3Pq3as/s200/006.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Facial hair=competent, right?</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
You know how sometimes you bump into someone and apologize and back up and knock something over and apologize and lean over to pick it up and hip check someone and pretty soon you're in this sort semi-comic nightmare vortex of apology? I think that might happen in a second. Bear with me.<br />
<br />
Some people will read this and think I'm an insult to feminism and its hard-won gains. Some people will think I'm being simultaneously a boring scold and a whiny, selfish baby and, on the whole, too sensitive feministy altogether. Some people will probably just think I'm a frivolous nincompoop who spends an awful lot of time pontificating on things that really don't deserve it. Oh, and let's not forget that I'll be using broad strokes and will undoubtedly be accused of stereotyping. As far as what I actually am, well, probably most of it's at least partially true. Except for the stereotype thing, where I hope you'll accept that I'm not speaking for all women, about all men in all circumstances. Call me out if I really hit a nerve, but I can almost guarantee it'll be something I'm shorthanding for the purpose of the discussion. So then: sorry for not being a credit to my gender, sorry for being so tetchy, sorry I'm a nitwit, sorry for extrapolating generalized scenarios from shallow experience pools. Sorry for apologizing in advance. I hate when people do that. Welcome to the nightmare vortex.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still as proud of bruises as I was at 10.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Anyway. As a kid I wasn't exactly the poster child for tomboys, but I was a
fairly sturdy kid with a healthy belief in my ability to do pretty much
what I wanted. I may have gone for Barbie over GI Joe, but I never felt
like it was inappropriate to climb trees or rough house or play cops
and robbers or [choose your own "non-girly" activity here]. I liked
hanging out with girls. I liked hanging out with boys. In short, I was
that lucky gal for whom gender politics didn't dominate my existence.
Even in the miserable years of early adolescence, I was more tormented
by a general sense that everyone thought I was a nerdy weirdo than by
body issues and sexuality, typical crushes-and-heartbreak type melodrama notwithstanding.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKs3v0G-ZSKvWyWH7ue8ZO6KTBoTXPBjWY-GLdqNrRVidUePd2Bb1qhlMAigUAPeDRnrP6VSLgv-UKerZ2QGv_3Fg0T5d-XgqAIguG81HiQS2Bjw1NS7uTUQ_DzqWEwMtugS0P-8Hx598/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKs3v0G-ZSKvWyWH7ue8ZO6KTBoTXPBjWY-GLdqNrRVidUePd2Bb1qhlMAigUAPeDRnrP6VSLgv-UKerZ2QGv_3Fg0T5d-XgqAIguG81HiQS2Bjw1NS7uTUQ_DzqWEwMtugS0P-8Hx598/s200/001.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For the record, this driver was NOT a girl.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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As an adult, I've spent a really long time working in traditionally male environments. I went to school for architecture, spent a lot of time in a shop using power tools and learning to weld and what have you. When I came home and went looking for work, I realized that the only job I'd ever had was waiting tables, a lucrative but to my mind loathsome activity so I took a job in a restaurant kitchen as a prep/fry/line cook. If this doesn't seem like "men's work" to you, take a gander at the gender lines next time you dine out (my experience was primarily in diners). It's not a hard and fast rule, but you'll usually find the ladies holding down the front end being sweet and friendly and demure (ish) and the gents in the kitchen where the customers can't hear the near-continuous yo'-mama-style banter that tends to flourish. From there I took my current job, which takes place in large part in the shipping department of a ferry company. While the company itself is quite progressive and the staff remarkably gender-balanced and largely over-educated, I spend a lot of time in the company of truck-drivers, contractors and other blue-collar workers who are for the most part male and at least initially skeptical (to put it mildly) of women running forklifts and giving them instructions. Again, there are plenty of delightful, enlightened exceptions to the rule (and plenty who've come around at least enough to keep the peace), but you get the idea.<br />
<br />
I tend to be a lazy feminist in these situations. I nodded politely when someone demonstrated a power tool I already knew how to use. For every off-color comment that came my way in a kitchen, I could give back tenfold. It wasn't hard: I come across fairly wholesome and naive so pretty much anything slightly ribald has the extra shock value of the unexpected. (Of course coming across wholesome and naive also ups the ante in terms of attempts to rattle you with off-color comments in the first place). These days I use my patented death stare for people who tell me, "I'm gonna need a guy to drive the forklift," or, "Are you sure, baby? It's awful heavy." Then I pick their pallet or lift their furniture or whatever silly thing it is that I've already done a million times that day and send them on their way. I have a deep and abiding hatred for passive-aggression, but it's become my go-to method for answering the implication that I'm in some way incapable of doing my job. On the occasion that I'm in a foul mood and raring for a fight, I occasionally recommend that they come back tomorrow if they want a man to help them, which I admit is an incredibly immature and ineffective way to address the issue.''<br />
<br />
As is my habit, I've just given you the longest possible exposition before getting to the subject at hand (I know, it totally seemed like I was there, didn't it?).<br />
<br />
I'll spare you the details, but the other day I had lunch with two friends (one female, one male) and the subject turned to a casual conversation my female friend had with an employee at a deli that morning. Long story short, they were talking about an imaginary scenario in which your boss hires a professional football player to give out high fives at the end of the day to boost morale. She answered, "Well, if it's a professional football player, he should slap me on the ass like they do." Our male friend shook his head. To his way of thinking, that comment opened her up to "being thought of more sexually."<br />
<br />
I said, "I hate that! I want to be able to make jokes like that..."<br />
<br />
He cut me off, "...And not pay the price?"<br />
<br />
We let the conversation drop there, but it started me thinking: Am I an unintentional flirt? Do I, contrary to what I've always thought, project myself in a sexual way as opposed to the wholesome/naive way I perceive? As noted above, I'm more offended by assaults on my competence than I am by general innuendo, but I consider the latter something I'm lax about protesting as opposed to something I invite.<br />
<br />
In my current situation there are a number of men, most of them in their 60s and 70s all of whom I've known for a decade or better who enjoy the old, "Boy, if I was younger..." schtick. Knowing them well (and having seen them rise to my defense in a platonic, fatherly way when someone treats me poorly), I don't have an objection. It's a performance. It's playing at flirtation with the mutual understanding that no one anticipates that it will come to anything or even wants it to.<br />
<br />
The situation is slightly more awkward when you take the above situation and change the age to 40 or 50, in part because these are people closer to my peer group and I consider them actual friends. Still and all, because they're friends, the terms of engagement have been discussed. I'm thinking of one guy in particular who I ran into at the grocery store early in my divorce. He started with the usual opening salvo of the routine, asking if I'd "dumped that bum yet," but when I told him what was going on, he became very serious, offered his support and told me that he had no doubt I'd land on my feet, that I deserved to be happy and that I'd be alright because I'm a good person. He told me about trouble in his own relationship. We talked in the aisle for about half an hour. At a time when I was discovering that there are a whole lot of slimeballs who consider divorced or divorcing women fair game and an easy target, this exchange confirmed for me that despite the sometimes near-obscene exchanges and vulgar one-upsmanship that characterized many of our conversations, my judgment that it was at heart not really sexual was right. Which is why my lunch friend's assertion that making off-color remarks in mixed company changes the tenor of an interaction bothered me: From inside my insular little world, I consider this type of thing a strange kind of tomboyish-ness, just locker room talk among friends.<br />
<br />
But the fact is, for a lot of people, my gender is a game-changer. You can be frank and inappropriate with friends of your non-preferred gender, but there's a sort of automatic weirdness to encounters between people who could, theoretically, be attracted to each other. Maybe because I'm in a long-term, monogamous relationship and, when single, never really actively seeking a partner, this literally never occurs to me. My friend's comment rattled me because I felt chastised for something I didn't consider a sin.<br />
<br />
It's insanely hard to get perspective on behaviors you aren't aware of, so I asked two trusted co-workers, one male and one female, whether they thought I invited the kind of flirtations above or if it was just something that happened. Both, to my relief, found me not guilty. My female co-worker suggested that some men have a hard time accepting straight up friendly behavior as something other than flirtation. My male co-worker assured me that to expect women to maintain a prohibition on "the football player should slap my ass"-type banter in order to avoid unwanted sexual attention was lopsided and unfair.<br />
<br />
That said, I acknowledge that it's risky behavior to normalize that dynamic once it's been introduced, and I take responsibility for any weirdness I bring on myself as result. To date, there hasn't really been any because, as I noted, I make a point of being upfront about the nature of the exchange.<br />
<br />
That's about as sophisticated as I get when it comes to matters of sexual politics. Obviously I'm a little savvier than I was in, say, middle school, but a lot of times it doesn't feel like it. This has been a fairly long and rambling post, but at the same time I feel like it didn't really have a coherent thesis, and certainly no real conclusion.<br />
<br />
I guess what it comes down to is that I realize I really ought to be more realistic about what my behavior signifies to people outside of the hermetic world I've created for myself and act accordingly. At the same time, suggesting that comments made innocently and in jest "invites" sex into a relationship feels a short hop from victim-blaming.<br />
<br />
As witnessed by the nightmare vortex at the beginning, I'm bracing for disagreement and strife, but let me add this: I'm genuinely at sea on this. I'm not looking for a fight, but I'd love insight from any comers, even if it makes me feel like an asshole.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-34210710446733299832011-12-02T22:49:00.001-08:002011-12-02T23:22:32.482-08:00Does This Urban Outfit Make Me Look Fatuous?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.theforecaster.net/files/imagecache/large/2011/07/15/Urban_outfitters_cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://www.theforecaster.net/files/imagecache/large/2011/07/15/Urban_outfitters_cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Urban Outfitters is putting on a crazy push to finish their store in downtown Portland, Maine.<br />
<br />
As I walked by tonight, it occurred to me that although having a national chain plunked down in the midst of the Old Port, our charming little enclave of locally-owned boutiques, feels a little yicky, it's actually a weird testament to the strength and success of our small businesses. Urban Outfitters isn't interested in atmosphere, it's interested in cash, and the fact that it made sense to them to take up real estate downtown instead of somewhere in the strip mall wasteland that is South Portland is kind of like a high five to the business owners who've grown the area over the past few decades. You know, the kind of high five you get from your mortal enemy who's super passive aggressive but who it's way easier to just make nice with than face their mean-girl vengeance if you snub them.<br />
<br />
If I were the kind of person who paid for clothes instead of scavenging cast offs from friends and making my own from bed linens, I'd think, "Ooh. Urban Outfitters' clearance rack is totally like retail junk food and junk food is so fun. But I'ma make a concerted effort to get my metaphorical fashion groceries at local stores too, because they're the reason there's even anything in this area besides rats and dive bars. And I'm never, ever going to buy anything from UO with writing in a foreign language I don't speak, because of that one time when Tricia used her Japanese lessons and realized that they had a T-shirt that said, 'I'm a stupid white person' and she splurged and bought it because it was so hilarious that people who <i>couldn't</i> read it were wearing it because oriental-fetishism was at its peak in the late-90's and it totally scandalized our friend Yuko and Tricia's Japanese hair dresser, both of whom assumed she'd misunderstood."<br />
<br />
That, friends, is <i>exactly </i>what I would think.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-30473869580512135962011-11-27T17:50:00.001-08:002011-12-11T19:39:28.709-08:00Do You Believe Everything You Read in Sketchy Online Publications?We are gullible people. This is, I realize, a sweeping and imprecise statement, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure quite who I mean by we, but I mean it and I consider it to be one of the most dangerous threats facing humanity. Wait, wait...do I mean more dangerous than nuclear armament, global warming and unrest in the Middle East? Why yes, yes I do. Because all of those by and large the physical threats to our future as a species are governed by people who make decisions about the stewardship of weapons and fossil fuels and rubber bullets based on their assessment of the information available to them. In other words, nuclear bombs don't kill people, people kill people, and if people run around just a-believin' every bit of crackpot data that crosses their path, we're some kind of fucked, gang.<br />
<br />
I've mentioned <a href="http://forceversusobject.blogspot.com/2011/09/tale-of-two-cities.html">journalism</a> and my previous life in the <a href="http://forceversusobject.blogspot.com/2011/08/say-it-dont-spray-it.html">profession</a> in passing a couple of times on this blog in some offhanded ways, but I've recently become fixated on some very specific and very pressing concerns regarding the fourth estate that bear examination.<br />
<br />
On my recent trip to New York, I was hosted by someone I knew only very slightly having met her and hit it off when she was a potential ferry passenger and I was stuck in the glass box of my ticket booth. When I got off the bus and she hugged me and gave me keys to her apartment, we'd spent a total of 45 minutes, tops, talking to each other face to face and exchanged a handful of delightful emails over the months that followed. She's a Columbia School of Journalism-trained professional and freelances for a number of papers including the Boston Globe, the Village Voice and the New York Daily News. On the second day of my visit, we had a lengthy and passionate discussion of the current state and future of journalism, including the advent of the citizen journalist. She feels strongly that there ought to be a distinction between professional reporting and crowd-sourced material. While I tend to be more willing to entertain the possibility that a layman might produce copy worth considering, I share some of her concerns in that I'm not sure that consumers are diligent enough to deal with the responsibility of sorting through the wealth of information reported by non-institutional news sources (or reputable media --cough, Judith Miller, cough-- but that's another story).<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>What brought this notion bubbling to the surface of my junkyard-style mind is the widely reported notion that recent crackdowns on Occupy encampments were the result of a conference call between municipal officials in major cities across the country in conjunction with federal agencies including Homeland Security. Let me say for the record that I find this idea entirely plausible and wouldn't be surprised to see real evidence surface that this was, in fact, the case, but as it stands now the story, which has been given play on Keith Olbermann and more recently in the U.S. edition of the U.K.'s The Guardian is unsubstantiated drivel.<br />
<br />
The story originated on <a href="http://www.examiner.com/">The Examiner</a>, a "news" web site that publishes unsolicited stories by all comers. Unlike professional news outlets, the stories are apparently unedited and unvetted (or, if they are either, it's not apparent in the error- and typo-ridden copy). On November 15, a writer named Rick Ellis published a piece citing an anonymous Justice Department source who purportedly told Ellis that federal officials had orchestrated a nationwide response to the Occupy movement culminating in the violent eviction of the Oakland and NYC camps, among others. The story grew legs and began clomping, Godzilla-like, through the Twitterverse. Professional gadfly Michael Moore appeared on Keith Olbermann's show shortly thereafter and likewise announced that the crackdowns were a federal/multi-municipal crackdown and Moore's stature lent credence to the notion. The only problem was that his source for the story was Ellis' Examiner story.<br />
<br />
The AP (generally a reputable news source) has reported with named sources that municipal leaders and police departments around the country have conferred with each other to compare notes on how they're handling the situations in their respective locations, but they explicitly deny making coordinated plans for eviction and there is no supporting evidence whatsoever for Ellis' most damning assertion -- that the feds orchestrated a coordinated national assault on the movement -- beyond his anonymous source in Justice.<br />
<br />
Many people, like me, don't find the idea hard to believe. Unfortunately, unlike me, many people have been willing to take the story on faith and declare it gospel throughout the great trash heap of the internet where it was devoured whole without a question because it was just such a deliciously juicy, damning tale. If it hasn't appeared in a social media feed near you yet, expect to see it in 3..2...1...any second now, because on Friday noted author/activist Naomi Wolf through her name and reputation behind the story in a melodramatic Op Ed piece in the very respectable U.K. newspaper The Guardian.<br />
<br />
To recap: An unknown author whose previous output was primarily pop-culture reportage and extended captions suddenly turns up with an anonymous high-level federal government source and self-publishes a highly explosive story of national importance on a web site that's the journalistic equivalent of Craigslist. Two celebrity activist repeat the story and a feedback loop is created in which their reporting of the story is deemed confirmation of its veracity despite the fact that their source is the shady article in question.<br />
<br />
So. This is a big deal, friends.<br />
<br />
For starters, it's a pretty egregious perversion of the ethical and professional standards of journalism. There's a reason that major news organizations hesitate to accept anonymous sources and will generally move heaven and hell to dredge up some kind of corroboration. Here's an excerpt from the New York Times' policy on anonymous sources:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Readers of The New York Times demand to know as much as possible about where we
obtain our information and why it merits their trust. For that reason, we have long
observed the principle of identifying our sources by name and title or, when that
is not possible, explaining why we consider them authoritative, why they are speaking
to us and why they have demanded confidentiality.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The Times, like many other otherwise reputable news outlets, has been burned by anonymous sourcing because, as the policy suggest, it's just really easy to for someone to make shit up and then ask for anonymity so they can't be debunked. In the case of the Examiner article, not only is the source anonymous, but there's no effort to give credibility to the source -- he could be a janitor at the Justice Department making assumptions based on things he overheard for all we know -- but there wasn't really a reason to, and Ellis knew it, which brings us to the the next problem.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Beyond the shoddy reporting of hobby-journalist Ellis, there's the issue of two reasonably well-respected media figures perpetuating the hackery. Maybe we can write off Ellis' sloppy work on the grounds that he's not a professional and the web site he wrote for being little more than a message board putting on airs, but it's hard to give a pass to Moore and Wolf who, despite being info-tainment fence-sitters definitely know how reporting is <i>supposed </i>to work. Of course the buck ultimately stops with the editors at the Guardian and the producers on Olbermann's show, who let the slipshod sourcing slide. In short, the whole thing is a mockery of journalism in which all parties, both dabblers and professionals simply failed to do anything even remotely like due diligence and subsequently unleashed a shitstorm of rage and paranoia across the country.<br />
<br />
What bothers me about this whole things more than the theoretical blow to the art of journalism is that it exposes how easy it is to convince people of things they want to hear and how lazy our facebook culture is. I've watched this thing travel around getting liked and re-shared like crazy, and I've watched people post it to bolster discussions of bad behavior by the government. And I've watched time and time again as someone with opposing views points out all of the things that I just did. We've been living in a world where making political opponents look stupid for believing misinformation is practically a sport for long enough that I have to cringe when I see otherwise smart, thoughtful people being made to look like wingnuts because they hit share before they checked sources.<br />
<br />
I have become extremely skeptical of pretty much everything that goes viral. My family no longer sends me forwards (no loss) because every time I got an email citing some incredibly insidious and sadistic threat to my security, I would reply with a link to Snopes debunking it. I got the distinct impression that I was hurting feelings by doing it and to some extent I understand -- no one wants to be a gull, but what amazed me, and what continues to amaze me in my social networking communities is how readily people continue to expose themselves in that way no matter how many times they get burned.<br />
<br />
As the focus of Occupy becomes evictions, the movement becomes less relatable to the public at large. Rallying around and perpetuating unproven conspiracy theories (no matter how likely they are to be true) creates a perfect opportunity for detractors. The success of the movement so far has been in the dedication of its participants to polite, reasonable discourse, a taking of the moral high ground that has made it very hard for opponents to paint them as a bunch of fringe weirdos to be written off. While there's an amount of sympathetic outrage directed at police misbehavior, the evictions look like the kind of anarchic chaos the public expects of protesters. Protestors and supporters alike need to stay on message and focus on facts (there are plenty of real, proven outrages to chose from), and continue to cultivate an image that is knowledgeable and relatable rather than reactionary and explosive.<br />
<br />
The Ellis story is gossip. It's exciting, intriguing, it may even be true, but it's based on information from a person who may or may not exist. Meanwhile the government has made and continues to make myriad decisions that create real hardship for huge swaths (say, 99%) of the American public. The celebrity reporters who picked up the Ellis story had a responsibility to due diligence before they breathlessly passed it along as gospel. The news organizations that gave them a forum likewise. But at this point in history, some of the responsibility belongs to the audience, at least if the audience cares to be respected.<br />
<br />
I let my schadenfreude be my guide: It's super fun to laugh at the opposition when they get all gaga about some "news" story that turns out to be utterly false so I try to make damn sure I won't be found on the receiving end.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-51369767051073923792011-11-24T16:18:00.001-08:002011-11-24T22:46:24.702-08:00Black Friday at the Church of Stop Shopping<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On the eve of the day known, depending on where your head's at, as Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day, and heading into a season that tries super hard to make shopping feel like a warm, sparkly, snow-dusted hug, I'm going to take a few loose ends that have been kicking around my brain, weave them into a scarf of a blog entry and give it to you as a gift.<br />
<br />
I've never been a huge fan of shopping, with the exception of groceries, which I love beyond reason. I do like looking at stuff, but somehow poking around with the intention of buying things is a special ring of my personal hell. <br />
<br />
Which is why the very concept of Black Friday makes my head spin. For a girl who likes to take late night walks because I can pretend
there's no one else in the city, being jammed into aisles with dozens
of other people is positively claustrophobic. I dislike being stuck in line with those radically inefficient types who sigh and shuffle and hurrumph at how long it's taking but begin the inevitably long, arduous search for their wallet only when they hear their total. I dislike cranky, snippy people. People in lines are cranky and snippy. I dislike being cranky and snippy. I become cranky and snippy. Enough. The particulars aren't important, but you get the idea. I'm petty and precious and sad, and I can't hack it in the fluorescent lit jungle of Retail Land. But actively seeking this experience on a day when you're <i>guaranteed</i> the biggest, most aggressive, adrenalized crowds of the year? How does anyone find that appealing?<br />
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Well, sales, stupid. Crazy sales intended to satisfy the already crazy and induce a sense of urgency and madness in those not yet over the edge. And in a bad economy, the siren song of the discount flat screen gets turned up to eleven.<br />
<br />
This is old news, but it's worth examining this year maybe more than others because of...yes, Occupy. I realize I'm probably starting to sound like an Occupy zealot, but bear with me here.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Maybe the most successful, concrete outcome of the movement so far was Bank Transfer Day, a direct action in which customers were encouraged to close accounts with corporate banks and move their money to credit unions and local institutions. It was hugely successful, with as many people joining credit unions in a single month as did the same number over the course of the entire previous year. It was easy logic to follow even for the apolitical: Big banks penalize you a lot and have crappy customer service. Take your business to a company that treats you better. Black Friday has the potential to be another moment like that (although I'm not holding my breath).<br />
<br />
Fans of Adbusters Magazine, a Canadian anti-corporate magazine instrumental in putting out the initial clarion call to occupy Wall Street, have long celebrated the day after Thanksgiving as Buy Nothing Day. It's not a particularly catchy name, but the premise is simple: Don't spend money on Black Friday. Because what was initially a big shopping day just because a lot of people had the day off has now become a kind of disgusting testament to impotent consumerism. Huge chains ring the bell and we come running, drooling over their table saws and flat screens. And in post-9/11, "the most patriotic thing you can do is go shopping" world, we've been made to understand that if we don't spend <i>enough</i> money on Black Friday, well, I guess we don't <i>want</i> the economy to rebound. But guess what, gang? Ain't nobody helping the economy by going further into credit card debt in the service of compulsory big-ticket purchases.<br />
<br />
There'll be some that argue that in a bad economy, the sales just make it the only time they <i>can</i> buy without going into debt for it, but I suspect they'd be hard-pressed to give a really good reason that they needed to buy most of that stuff in the first place. If people are actually getting poorer and are serious about turning their financial situations around, "Because I want it" can't be a good enough reason anymore.<br />
<br />
So yeah, Occupy and Black Friday. If a really significant number of people, say the number of people who've participated in any way in the Occupy movement, also participated in Buy Nothing Day instead of Black Friday, or at the very least, put their money into small businesses instead of Walmart-type (or Sears-type, or Best Buy-type) juggernauts, it would be a pretty clear and serious message that we, the general public aren't just kidding around. We're living self-imposed austerity measures and we're not interested in excuses from corporations and government about why they're not. Market analysts would freak. The media would be hard-pressed to spin it to seem like a bunch of disgruntled hippies in trees. If we, and by we I mean the general public expect to be listened to and taken seriously by the powers that be, speechifying and marching will only get us so far. Every now and then we're going to have to make clear, declaratory statements in the unmistakable language of commerce. When gas prices rose in the 70's, people bought less gas. When they went up last decade, people grumbled and kept on pumping. With a popular populist movement gathering momentum on the ground, we have a rare opportunity to make small sacrifices on the part of individuals resonate with the strength of that network and it would be a shame to squander it.<br />
<br />
But as we speak, people I know who probably consider themselves somewhat or quite progressive are entering stores in the thrall of Midnight Madness, camping out to go shopping for the silly irony of it. I don't want everyone to turn into a bunch of seemingly humorless ideologues like me, but man, if everyone could chip in a little smidgen of straight-faced resolve it'd go an awfully long way.<br />
<br />
End Part the First.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Part II: While We're Talking About Me Being Humorless...</b><br />
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I recently <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Your-Own-Shoes-at-Home/">learned how to make shoes</a>, which was a fascinating exercise and something I plan to do more of. If you have even the slightest inclination toward any kind of DIY endeavor and you haven't been to www.instructables.com, do it. Do it now. Even if it means you'll stop reading this post. I'm about to go full-on Andy Rooney here. (rest his soul)<br />
<br />
The inspiration for making shoes, outside of my penchant for taking up unlikely hobbies just to see if I can, was TOMS (see picture). Because they look easy to make. And they are. And they annoy the bejeezus out of me.<br />
<br />
Those of you who were kids in the 90's may recall similar canvas shoes that sold at Ames and Bradlees and other discount retailers (these may be regional, but anyway...the precursors to the modern big-box) for under $5. They were ugly and smelled of rubber and made in China, but they were cheap, so there they were.<br />
<br />
TOMS are also ugly and made in China, but for every pair you purchase, the company donates a pair to a poor child somewhere in the world. Corporate philanthropy is admirable and should be encouraged, right? Right. But that's not what's happening here.<br />
<br />
These shoes cost about $5 to make and sell for about $40. There's several ways to look at this. Here's two: Either the markup is 800% on the pair you bought and the company gives one away for free or the markup per pair is 400%, comparable to other similar shoes (retailing for $20) and you're buying one for yourself and one for a poor child somewhere in the world and the company profits on both and gives zero away. Neither scenario is nearly as warm and fuzzy as the "Chief Shoe Giver" seems to think.<br />
<br />
Forgive me if I'm coming off as a real killjoy here, but I can only hope that the CSG is just grossly naive as opposed to so baldly cynical as to exploit philanthropy to shill for his stupid product. From what I've read, the former seems to be true, but it's so hard to believe, because it means he's just sooo naive.<br />
<br />
For starters there's the whole "is it really a donation question," and we can follow that quickly with the made in China part. There are now operations in Argentina and Ethiopia as well, but it's difficult not to see those as a nod to critics of the Chinese operation.<br />
<br />
And then there's the fact that the corporate web page has a header for "Our Movement." It feels a little slimy for a for-profit entity whose marketing strategy consists almost entirely of aping an NGO to take it one further and self-describe in a way that muddies the waters further. Do I think anyone but a real lazy dope is going to be confused about whether this is a charity or a money-making operation? Probably not, but there sure are a lot of lazy dopes out there when it comes to consumerism and armchair activism. (See the first million words of the this post).<br />
<br />
End Part the Second.<br />
<br />
Phew. Probably should have just made two posts, but like I said, I was weaving a gigantic, ill-fitting scarf of anti-consumerist threads (Wait, <i>did</i> I say that? Who remembers?). There. Doesn't that just feel like a warm, sparkly, snow-dusted hug?<br />
<br />
xo.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377750317384479713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6583274002388670284.post-65684048029011209672011-11-15T12:39:00.001-08:002011-11-15T17:31:12.795-08:00Good Cop, Bad CopThe NYPD is bad news. The NYPD has always been bad news. Short of some cataclysmic change in city and police administrative culture, the NYPD will continue to be bad news.<br />
<br />
I lived in New York for a few years in the late '90s, when Rudy Giuliani decided to clean up the joint and set about cracking down on drugs, prostitution, and panhandling, among other things. As a friend and lifelong New Yorker recently told me, "It was good, and then it went to far." By her account, a new leader in the police department instituted some radical changes and made some really positive change in the city and police culture, but Giuliani got bitten by the green-eyed monster when that guy got credit for cleaning up the city. So he canned him, and filled the position with someone a little more militant and a little less forward thinking.<br />
<br />
By the time I arrived in New York, the police were, under the guise of cleaning up the city, busting skulls pretty much at random, treating drunk revelers talking loudly in nightclub lines with the same violent rigor that they treated armed drug dealers in a sting. They sodomized Abner Louima (a suspect arrested for accidentally punching an officer while attempting to break up a fight between two women at a nightclub) with the handle of a bathroom plunger. They shot and killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed and innocent man who they thought matched a suspect's description as he reached for his wallet to present identification. They fired twelve shots at a mentally ill Hasidic man who was armed <i>with a hammer</i>, and killed him as well. The response from the department to all of these things felt like a shrug. Shit happens, right?<br />
<br />
And so here we are, more than ten years later, watching the NYPD refuse access to credentialed reporters from organizations like the New York Times and Reuters as officers in riot gear evict the denizens of Zuccotti Park. Pardon me if this suggests that unnecessary force is not just likely, but probably part of the plan.<br />
<br />
The same New York friend I mentioned above, who is not a protester or a radical, told me, "I don't trust them. I try not to have to deal with them ever."<br />
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What I'm saying here, is that the NYPD is pretty far from the protect and serve ethos that was, once upon a time, a sentiment sacred to law enforcement officers who were justifiably proud of the work they did to keep the populace safe. And the public is far from holding in their minds the image of Officer Friendly, the approachable beat cop who's tough but fair and looks out for your kids.<br />
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I'm appalled by the way the NYPD has handled OWS. When we were there, there were officers stationed along the sidewalks telling passersby to keep moving, to keep the sidewalks clear as they tried to read the protesters signs on Broadway or watch the drummers at the other end of the park, and they were not nice about it. I do a fair amount of crowd control involving hundreds of people at work on busy summer days and I understand how easy it is to get frustrated when people just won't listen, but we're talking about a dozen people at a time walking by and slowing down to look. They <i>were</i> moving along, though slowly, but the officers were extremely loud and extremely aggressive shouting at what were mostly tourists to move along. Guess what, NYPD? There <i>were</i> a lot of people from elsewhere that were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, or maybe hadn't even heard about your terrible reputation. Way to spread the word that you're a bunch of power-hungry dickheads to every corner of the world. <br />
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And they're not the only department overstepping their bounds and generating a shameful public image across the country. Oakland, another department notorious for its aggressive and antagonistic behavior has showed their true colors, landing more than one veteran in the hospital with head injuries sustained from rubber bullets. And sure, in chaotic situations these types of injuries are not uncommon, but if there was any doubt the police were deliberate in their decision to inflict damage as opposed to controlling the crowd, <a href="http://informant.kalwnews.org/2011/10/who-threw-a-flash-bang-grenade-at-the-protesters-aiding-scott-olsen/">this video</a>, in which a group of protesters rushes to the aid of Scott Olsen, a young veteran who suffered a fractured skull and brain swelling after being hit in the head with a tear gas canister should put those doubts to rest. No one is behaving aggressively, or even looking at the police. They're attempting to address the needs of an injured man lying on the street. The flashbang thrown here reportedly landed only a foot or two from Olsen. You might also watch <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ty-alper/berkeley-protests_b_1087429.html">this</a>, in which students at Berkeley are beaten at length for refusing to disperse. Note in particular the three officers in riot gear in the lower left corner who separate a young man from the crowd and really put their backs into it, then slink off behind the bushes to disappear into a larger crowd of officers. That student was later taken to the hospital having been beaten extensively in the head and ribs.<br />
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It's horrifying. It's egregious. It's absolutely shameful. But I'd like to address the collateral damage, outside the physical wounds of protesters, namely the honor and dignity of police everywhere.<br />
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My uncle, William Baker, has spent a lifetime in law enforcement, starting as an officer in a small town force where he eventually became the chief. After a brief stint in the Department of Public Safety in Massachusetts, UMaine law, and Haiti doing police training under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, he returned to police work as the chief in Laconia, New Hampshire. Laconia, known for its down and dirty "Bike Week" had both some serious public safety concerns and a deeply antagonistic relationship with the police. A tremendously personable guy and a cop for all the right reasons, one of Bill's main goals in the town was repair the terrible community relations. He instituted a mentoring program pairing officers with at-risk youth and promoted other outreach opportunities in which community members got to know the officers on the streets and were encouraged to approach them not just in emergencies, but with their concerns and suggestions as well. To the dismay of motorcycle enthusiasts, he cleaned up some of the seedier elements of Bike Week (cole slaw wrestling, anyone) and went so far as to ban weapons in the tow during a year when several of the larger biker gangs in the country were publicly warring.<br />
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When he left Laconia, he decided to go back to his roots and took a job as a rank and file officer in Biddeford, then decided it was time to leave that type of work to younger men and became the chief in Westbrook. Like Laconia, Westbrook was a town with a number of chronic problems, most notably drugs, and he immediately began an aggressive campaign to curb that activity in the city. He also worked with his officers to improve the culture and morale of the department, promoting transparency and community outreach. Though, again, unpopular with people often engaged in less than legal activities, he was successful in creating community buy in and repairing the relationship of the community at large and the department. He now works as a consultant for the FBI.<br />
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There are two major reasons that people go into police work: 1) Because they want to give back to their community and help people and 2) Because they've got some power and control issues and enjoy working in a position that gives them both. Unfortunately, the former, like my uncle are increasingly a minority.<br />
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We live in a hyper-aggressive culture, and a lot people go into police work hopped up on adrenaline-seeking and unresolved anger, despite attempts by police academies to screen for and train out those tendencies. Plus, it's a job that, depending on where you work, can pretty easily cultivate a bad attitude. Imagine doing a job where most of the time, the fact that you were called in is a bad thing. Either someone has committed a crime and they're obviously not glad to see you, or someone has been the victim of a crime and your arrival is part and parcel of that negative experience. Police officers deal with people assaulting, insulting, spitting, vomiting and bleeding on them on a regular basis. That's a pretty tough gig. It certainly doesn't excuse the outrageous behavior we've seen across the country, but it's worth keeping in mind before we start painting all police officers with the same brush.<br />
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I have to admit that I cringe every time I hear or read, "Fuck the police," or hear them referred to as "pigs." Because I'm not sure, given the extreme situations in which those sentiments are expressed, that the people expressing them will ever be able to separate the heinous actions of those particular officers or departments from the badge in general.<br />
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And likewise, I feel deeply angry at the officers perpetrating these offenses, not just for the sheer inhumanity of it, but because they have betrayed the dignity and respect of their position. They've corrupted what ought to be a noble institution and rendered it infinitely more difficult for their more upright brethren across the country to the kind of good work that everyone in uniform should be known for.<br />
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I'm sad for the dozens of victims of police brutality these past few days. I'm sad for every officer who reports for duty with a sense of pride in their community and concern for the public and is met with disdain and mistrust. I'm sad that we live in a culture that has allowed this sort of behavior to escalate to such a dire, dangerous, monstrous state.<br />
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Don't fuck the police, fuck that. <br />
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