Pure Guesswork

Recent news about the rescue of a young boy who had been kidnapped in Missouri, along with the rescue of a young boy who had been captive for 4 and a half years, has got me thinking.

First, yeah, fuck all of you nitwits who ask "why didn't Sean run away?" What part of child abuse do you not understand? I am completely ignorant on the latest data about child psychology, but I saw that kid on TV. Did you not see his deference? Did you not see how he kept his eyes low and kept glancing around, making sure to notice his environment and keep track of the dangers around him? Did you not see the difference between Sean and Ben, who had only been gone a few days? Did you bother to watch?

But what's really made my mind turn lately is the missing child activist community. I've had the pleasure of meeting some local activists and they are just awesome people. This is what group of activists who are aware of the need and importance of community. As a result, their model is entirely different from the law enforcement model.

They depend on and promote community organizing. They manipulte the news media for their own purposes. They provide support for each other because it isn't coming from anybody else.

Activists need to learn from these people and adopt some of their valuable tactics.

The other day, I watched as a woman from Chicago talked about her two missing daughters on one of the morning network shows. She made the point to mention both the abducted and the runaways. It was clearly a tactic on her part. Her missing daughters were quite young and incapable of running away. But she knew enough to support the parents of runaway children as well the parents of children who've been kidnapped or worse. She stepped up to the plate and she was just awesome.

January 27 protest

I made this yesterday for the January 27 protest. Part of a national call by ANSWER

Some links I've enjoyed

Soviet Roadside Bus Stops

December 29-31, 2006 Ice Storm

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Major suckage

Amidst the joy of an awakening anti-war movement and the thrill at helping in the publication of a literary journal, I am facing a disturbing dilemma.

Yesterday, I attended an event put on by a dear friend of mine. My belief was that she was presenting some new products to be sold in a local co-op for which she volunteers.

Instead, I was treated to a sales pitch from a shyster organization called Young Life Essential Oils.

I cannot express how sad this makes me. This woman is a dear friend who helped me through difficult times. I have respected her for years. And yet, she invited me to this event and pressured me to expend major funds to become a distributor of said products.

She knows me better than most. She understands my anti-capitalist ideals. And yet ... she sat across from me and explained to me how spending enormous amounts of money for an unproven product would transform my life.

I do not know how to handle this. I have respected this woman for years for so many reasons. She is beautiful, creative, intelligent and has taught me so much about life.

I'm not angry at her for trying to sell me snake oil. I am pissed as hell that some shyster can convince this amazing, beautiful, intelligent woman that she should sell this nonsense to her friends.

If anyone out there has had a similar experience and has valuable advice, I'd be happy for suggestions.

We're not buying it

Well, Bush spoke last night. I didn't listen. I was with a group of activists putting together a mailing for a local literary journal. Lots of fun and interesting conversation.

This morning, we went to the first scheduled demonstration. This one was called by a member of Friends for a Non-Violent World and took place at the office of Senator Norm Coleman. The office is near an intersection over the interstate, so there was lots of traffic. About 200 people were there while we were there from 7 to 8:15 a.m. At 8:30, some of the protesters planned to enter the Senators office and express their demand for immediate troop withdrawal.

Among the attendees were 20 students from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa who got up at 4 a.m. to make the trek to the Twin Cities. These people were simply awesome. I heard one young woman talking to a NBC cameraman. She said, I watched the speech alone and felt so bad that I called a bunch of friends. We all decided we had to take action and that's why we're here this morning.

There were two protests scheduled in the afternoon. One was called by neighbors for peace with about 100 protesters in St. Paul during rush hour. The other was at the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. I saw a clip on the news tonight and it looked like about 100 people attended.

Every media report I saw of activists' protest against the war followed up with confirmation that the majority of people in the U.S. and Iraq oppose the government's policies.

Tomorrow there is another demonstration at the Federal Building at 4:30. The slumbering movement has reawakened. Who knows what might happen?

Counter Propaganda Tactics

For weeks now we've been hearing about the President's plan to put more troops into Iraq. Anti-war activists have been seeing this as an opportunity to promote the immediate withdrawal argument.

So last Saturday, when it was clear the Prez was going to speak this week, the local antiwar coaltion, Iraq Peace Action Coalition (IPAC), met and discussed how to respond.

The antiwar movement contains groups with different goals and agendas. There are groups based among students, among the faith communities, pacifists, radicals, neighborhoods, veterans and others.

At this point in time, however, there is increasing activism among the families who have relatives serving in the war. There primary slogan is "Bring the troops home now and take care of them when they get back."

As it happens, the local chapter of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) has their regular meeting on Wednesday nights. When it looked likely that the Prez would speak on Wednesday, they agreed to invite the press to their meeting and express their viewpoint.

In addition, two emergency demonstrations were planned, one tomorrow morning at Senator Coleman's office called by Friends for a Non-Violent World, and one on Friday afternoon called by IPAC. These demonstrations are a chance to get the word out, to allow activists to vent their frustration with the government's plans, and to put pressure on Congress.

So the last few days we put together a flyer for the demo and wrote several press releases. Tonight we found out that all four local network affiliates took us up on the offer to visit with MFSO. Most of them wanted footage before the speech, so MFSO members got together this morning and afternoon to meet with the press and present their viewpoint.

We just watched the 9 a.m. FOX news. The report was awesome, with the reporter emphasizing and supporting MFSO's mistrust of the President and his plan.

It's amazing what three years of ineffective war can do to the prestitutes. We'll see what happens at 10 o'clock. We heard from a member of MFSO that three local network affiliates were there to watch the speech with them.

Helveticafilm blog is live

At TypeCon in August, I met Gary Hustwit, the director of Helvetica A Documentary Film. Now he's blogging and can be found here.

Here's a still from the film (see if you can spot the Helvetica):

Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's

From an old article at the Wall Street Journal

He, Once a She, Offers Own View On Science Spat

By SHARON BEGLEY
July 13, 2006

Ben Barres had just finished giving a seminar at the prestigious Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 10 years ago, describing to scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and other top institutions his discoveries about nerve cells called glia. As the applause died down, a friend later told him, one scientist turned to another and remarked what a great seminar it had been, adding, "Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's."

There was only one problem. Prof. Barres, then as now a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, doesn't have a sister in science. The Barbara Barres the man remembered was Ben.

Prof. Barres is transgendered, having completed the treatments that made him fully male 10 years ago. The Whitehead talk was his first as a man, so the research he was presenting was done as Barbara.

Being first a female scientist and then a male scientist has given Prof. Barres a unique perspective on the debate over why women are so rare at the highest levels of academic science and math: He has experienced personally how each is treated by colleagues, mentors and rivals.

Based on those experiences, as well as research on gender differences, Prof. Barres begs to differ with what he calls "the Larry Summers Hypothesis," named for the former Harvard president who attributed the paucity of top women scientists to lack of "intrinsic aptitude." In a commentary in today's issue of the journal Nature, he writes that "the reason women are not advancing [in science] is discrimination" and the "Summers Hypothesis amounts to nothing more than blaming the victim."

In his remarks at an economics conference in January 2005, Mr. Summers said "socialization" is probably a trivial reason for the low number of top female mathematicians and scientists. But Prof. Barres, who as Barbara received the subtle and not-so-subtle hints that steer smart girls away from science, doesn't see it that way. The top science and math student in her New Jersey high school, she was advised by her guidance counselor to go to a local college rather than apply to MIT. She applied anyway and was admitted.

As an MIT undergraduate, Barbara was one of the only women in a large math class, and the only student to solve a particularly tough problem. The professor "told me my boyfriend must have solved it for me," recalls Prof. Barres, 51 years old, in an interview. "If boys were raised to feel that they can't be good at mathematics, there would be very few who were."

Although Barbara Barres was a top student at MIT, "nearly every lab head I asked refused to let me do my thesis research" with him, Prof. Barres says. "Most of my male friends had their first choice of labs. And I am still disappointed about the prestigious fellowship I lost to a male student when I was a Ph.D. student," even though the rival had published one prominent paper and she had six.

As a neuroscientist, Prof. Barres is also skeptical of the claim that differences between male and female brains might explain the preponderance of men in math and science. For one thing, he says, the studies don't adequately address whether those differences are innate and thus present from birth, or reflect the different experiences that men and women have. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who defends the Summers Hypothesis, acknowledges that the existence of gender differences in values, preferences and aptitudes "does not mean that they are innate."

The biggest recent revolution in neuroscience has been the discovery of the brain's "plasticity," or ability to change structure and function in response to experiences. "It's not hard to believe that differences between the brains of male and female adults have nothing to do with genes or the Y chromosome but may be the biological expression of different social settings," says biologist Joan Roughgarden of Stanford, who completed her own transgender transition in 1998.

Jonathan Roughgarden's colleagues and rivals took his intelligence for granted, Joan says. But Joan has had "to establish competence to an extent that men never have to. They're assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise. I remember going on a drive with a man. He assumed I couldn't read a map."

Actually, Ben Barres says there may be something to the stereotype that men are better map readers. The testosterone he received to become male improved his spatial abilities, he writes in Nature, though "I still get lost every time I drive."

Still, there is little evidence that lack of testosterone or anything unique to male biology is the main factor keeping women from the top ranks of science and math, says Prof. Barres, a view that is widely held among scientists who study the issue. Although more men than women in the U.S. score in the stratosphere on math tests, there is no such difference in Japan, and in Iceland the situation is flipped, with more women than men scoring at the very top.

"That seems more like 'socialization' than any difference in innate abilities to me," geneticist Gregory Petsko of Brandeis University wrote last year. In any case, except in a few specialized fields like theoretical physics, there is little correlation between math scores and who becomes a scientist.

Some supporters of the Summers Hypothesis suggest that temperament, not ability, holds women back in science: They are innately less competitive. Prof. Barres's experience suggests that if women are less competitive, it is not because of anything innate but because that trait has been beaten out of them.

"Female scientists who are competitive or assertive are generally ostracized by their male colleagues," he says. In any case, he argues, "an aggressive competitive spirit" matters less to scientific success than curiosity, perseverance and self-confidence.

Women doubt their abilities more than men do, say scientists who have mentored scores of each. "Almost without exception, the talented women I have known have believed they had less ability than they actually had," Prof. Petsko wrote. "And almost without exception, the talented men I have known believed they had more."

Which may account for what Prof. Barres calls the main difference he has noticed since changing sex. "People who do not know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect," he says. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."

Write to Sharon Begley at sharon.begley@wsj.com

LOLOL

Also from the Casbah (see below). Stop the Catbox!

Your Drag Queen Name Is:

Creme BruLay

Drag Queen Name Generator

This has gotta be a mistake

Found this at My Private Casbah

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Seriously, I didn't take much science. In fact I think I got credit for classes I never took in high school. Then when I got to college and took Intro to Biology, I was saying stupid things like, "Wow! You mean we know what goes on inside a cell? Amazing!"

New flyer to respond to Bush's expected speech calling for a Surge in troops to Iraq:

Feminist blogosphere wars

For background, just click on any of the links in the right-hand column of my website.

Over the last few months there have been several intense discussions among feminist bloggers. They have since become known as "wars". We had the blowjob wars, which I pretty much avoided. Then we had Burqagate, which was the first time I really threw myself into the discussions. Then there was the FireDogLake racist/feminist "your betters" battle. The latest has to do with a dust-up between radical feminists and transgendered people.

First let me note that it’s been a long time since I’ve felt part of an internet community. I was involved in TV fandom when I first came on the internet and I got into some spectacular dust-ups. I became associated with a particular message board that specialized in discussions between people who disagreed with each other. We became famous for challenging the "in-group" of the fandom; the people who ran the conventions, those with connections to particular cast or crew members, etc. Friendships were formed and broken. It was a good place to be for quite a while. But then 9/11 happened and I returned to more activist politics. My activist self and my internet persona were at such odds that I finally had to break away.

So I’ve spent a few years using my blog to track local activist efforts. Blogging is a great for this. In the 80s and 90s, we were too busy to keep track of our work, so a lot of what we did is lost to history. I appreciate a place to post an on-going scrapbook of our activities.

Lately, however, I’ve begun to get more involved in the internet community by reading and commenting on blogs by women and men whose ideas challenge and intrigue me. It seems to be a bit unfair of me to do so, however. Most of these bloggers produce a tremendous amount of thoughtful and well-written commentary on their own blogs. I have not returned the favor here. There is a wonderful method of communication on the internet in which an idea begins in an essay on one blog, then is quoted and expanded on at another blog, then another. To fully track the progress of an idea or an argument becomes a dance of clicking from one blog to another and back again.

That is what happened with the transgender discussion. For background go to Bitch|Lab and follow her link to the SmackDog Chronicles roundup. A heated discussion began on Twisty’s blog that included some virulent anti-trans comments by a radical feminist name Luckynkl among others. All of a sudden the years-long discussion between radical feminists, lesbian separatists and some members of the transgender community exploded all over the place.

Now I need to explain something about myself. I’m a mixed up bastard child. I grew up in the country and in the city and in the suburbs. I grew up upper-middle class, and lower-middle class and poor. I was brutalized by one parent and adored and supported by another. I was intelligent and well schooled and naïve and ignorant. I crossed boundaries and was totally accepted and was totally ostracized. It was both wonderful and bewildering.

Above all, I have had the benefit of awesome friends and family. I have had the benefit of people who saw a needy, confused kid and decided to reach a hand out. Because of that, I will forever be an activist. I will do whatever small thing I can to make the world a better place. I will believe that making the effort to form a community can make a difference.

At one time I was at the very pit of despair. That helps me recognize when I am relatively safe, relatively secure and therefore capable of reaching out to someone else who is not so safe and secure.

This seems important in the current discussion. Because the political differences between radical feminists and transgendered people has immediate and profound effects on individuals who have a lot to contribute to the world but are feeling less safe and secure.

First, let me speak to the radfems. I discovered radical feminism when I became involved in local Take Back the Night marches and also when I attended the Michigan Women’s Musical Festival. It was a life-changing experience for me. I had been involved in the Central America movement, the labor movement and the abortion rights movement. But entering into women-only activist spaces taught me something precious.

It was a space in which I didn’t have to explain. It was a space where my particular experiences were neither shocking nor unbelievable. Although my childhood sucked in many ways, there were people who had it worse who had also survived and made a place in the world. And there were others who did not have to experience the horrors in order to understand and give support and believe the unbelievable.

So I have a certain soft spot in my heart for these people.

Plus, I’ve had to experience activism in sexist environments. I’ve experienced activism in racist environments. I’ve experienced activism in classist environments. And I watched my mother suffer discrimination her entire god damned life. So I understand frustration.

I came to know what does work and what doesn’t work. And when it comes to finding ways that do work, the radical feminist community has done more than most to provide creative and positive solutions to difficult problems. I owe them a lot for that.

The transgender community, on the other hand, is something new to me and they challenge my assumptions. Transgendered people understand what it’s like to be an outsider and have chosen new and interesting ways to deal with outlaw realities. I’ve been incredibly lucky in that I have spoken my ignorance and been aided toward understanding.

In all of this, I’ve accrued a bit of currency in the blogosphere. I’ve seen myself quoted and linked. I’ve seen my comments picked up and repeated. This has real value in the internet world and I am definitely digging on it. Darn it all, I like that people seem to like me.

OK. Call me Sally Field.

Next post, I promise I’ll destroy all this sweet talk and mention what drives me crazy about radical feminists and transgendered people. Meanwhile, I’ll just don my flying nun hat and float on out of here.

I'm gonna be lazy and not do all the proper coding, mostly because I just need to get this down. First, I cannot express how much I am going to miss reading both Brownfemipower and Black Amazon (Having Read the Fine Print). See my blog roll for links. Both have chosen to take a break from blogging, I'm not trying to suggest they don't deserve a rest and some major pampering. They have been expressing themselves eloquently on issues that tend to make a lot of people uncomfortable. I'd come to rely on their common sense and straight talk. They have renewed my faith that there are intelligent, militant and awesome women in the world willing to take on major challenges. I'm sure they are still kicking ass. I'm just going to miss the privilege of having a window into their worlds.

I comment a lot on other people's blogs, but this blog I use mostly to help keep track of the activist work I do. In the past, I always felt too busy to keep track of all the work that gets done locally. At the end of the year I would be exhausted, but never remember all we had done. The internet and blogging is making it possible for me to look back over time and see that, yes, Virginia, there really is an activist movement and I really am a part of it.

You only have to look back at activist movements of the past to see how much progress has been made. In the anti-Vietnam War movement, there would be major conferences bringing together activists in Cleveland and San Francisco and New York. Then snail mail would go out and local activists would post notices about upcoming activities in local bars, bookstores and on college campuses. But unless you already knew about those spaces, the odds an individual person who opposed the war would actually hear about an event were very small. Today, you can Google "anti-war" and find a gazillion people doing activist work of all kinds. Today, a decision made by national organizations for specific actions around the world can be communicated within moments. And being able to track that movement has been a valuable tool for me.

However, I don't have a practice of posting my political opinions and concerns in the way that most of the people on my blog roll manage to do. Lately, that has seemed like a cop out. I comment on other blogs, but I don't place long opinion pieces here so that people made curious by my comments can learn more about where I stand.

It seems especially weird now, since the discussions at Twisty's and at Brownfemipower, have made clear some major divisions within the feminist blogosphere. I consider these latest conflicts different than Burqagate and the Fire Dog Lake blow ups because in those cases, the posters were liberals and Democrats, not leftists. I didn't believe we were involved in the same struggle.

The conflicts lately are between groups of people who want a total break from the status quo. And so the pain is a bit deeper, the bitterness a bit more intense.

In Minneapolis, divisions between revolutionaries of all persuasions have been confronted and ways of working together have been developed over the years.

For instance, the local anti-war coalition, the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, made several decisions from the beginning in 2001. First, they would not take a stand on Saddam Hussein. This isn't because some of us thought he was a great guy. Instead, it was because most of us thought that it wasn't up to U.S. citizens to decide who should lead Iraq.

Second, we agreed to not take a stand on which political party to support. For some of us, there was no difference between the two capitalist parties. More importantly, some member groups were 501c3 organizations that are legally barred from taking a stance on political parties.

Third, we agreed to make connections between the war abroad and the war at home. Issues of welfare reform, affordable housing, money for education, racism and sexism were included in our events. Some activists see this as a way of diluting the antiwar message. But our experience has been that people who begin to become politically active because of their opposition to the war are in a space that allows them to start questioning the system as a whole.

Fourth, we agreed that individual groups should be supported in the various ways in which they choose to oppose the war. Visiting anti-war speakers would be shared among different groups: religious, academic, spiritual, student. Our skills would be shared and our various groups supported in their efforts. Some groups do rallies. Some groups do educational events. Some groups do civil disobedience. Some groups do regular vigils. Some groups do agitprop. Some groups do cultural events. Some groups do work in the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) party.

Some actions became widespread. Anti-war lawn signs were a new and important part of the movement this time around. Thousands of signs were produced and displayed by individual home owners throughout the area.

A weekly anti-war vigil that occurs on a bridge across the Mississippi River between the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul became a safe space in which newbies to the anti-war movement were able to feel safe and comfortable in expressing opposition to the war. They could learn about other antiwar activities, and they could realize they were not alone by meeting antiwar activists of all persuasions. They could hear the supportive honks and see the thumbs up signals from people driving across the bridge.

Local e-mail lists collated activist activities into calendars that gave each of us numerous opportunities to become educated, activated and rejuvenated.

So I have to say that I believe we are making progress. Things still suck. Soldiers continue to die. Iraqis are suffering tremendously. And yet progress is being made. Or as Willy Loman's wife said, "Attention must be paid."

All of us need to give ourselves props for doing good work and making a difference in the world. Sure we have problems, disagreements and irritations every single day. But we are also blessed with amazing tools to bring us together, to educate ourselves and to help one another in our work to make this world a better place.

I'm gonna stop here for now. Happy New Year to one and all. May you and your loved ones be happy and healthy and may the new year bring all of us a better world.

What I am saying in my very long-winded way is that we can have different goals, different definitions of what is wrong in the world and even different views of who is the main enemy and we can still work together. I've experienced it. I treasure it. I believe it can happen even on the internets.

All we need do is make the effort. My experience is that it is definitely worth it. Won't you join me?

300 Minnesotans protest the war

Our story and Bert Kayakbiker's images can be found here. It's been a holiday tradition for many years to protest on one of the pre-Xmas shopping days. It's a great time and rejuvenating for the movement. These days, the support from people walking and driving by is almost unanimous. Santa came to visit, the Counter-Propaganda Singers sang anti-war carols and toy soldiers with the message "bring me home" were hung on a pine tree in the park.

Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, And Became a Feminist Rebel, by Bettina F. Aptheker, Seal Press, October 2006, 549 pp, Paperback.

I read this book over the last few days and it's been weighing heavily on my mind for a number of reasons. First, a summary from Publisher's Weekly:

"Now professor of feminist studies at UC-Santa Cruz, Aptheker was an activist participant in some of the major events of the '60s and '70s the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, the antiwar movement and the Angela Davis trial. As the daughter of U.S. Communist Party leader Herbert Aptheker, she was virtually a red-diaper princess, only to 'fall from grace' with the party in her late 20s. Her highly politicized New York City upbringing was one of middle class comfort, although sorely affected by McCarthyist persecution as well as sexual abuse by her father, deeply repressed memories of which she uncovered in adulthood. The author, who taught her first women's studies course in 1977, describes herself as a latecomer to the women's movement (the Communist Party considered it 'petit bourgeois'). A personal transformation paralleled the political, as her repressed lesbianism also surfaced and gradually culminated in a fulfilling long-term relationship. Though pedestrian prose and prolix detail obscure what ought to be a compelling account of events with powerful social as well as personal meaning, Aptheker's memoir (after Tapestries of Life) is a significant document for students and historians of feminism, communism and the '60s." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

A digression:

The Seal Press was one of the first truly successful feminist presses, supporting independent booksellers throughout the country. It was sold to Avalon Publishing in 2002 and it is greatly disappointing to see that their website connects directly to amazon(cough!)megacorporation.com for details on any book they publish. That sucks! Wilson donated the records of Seal Press to Oberlin College and you can read more about it here.

Aptheker's memoir has sparked a couple of controversies. Fellow red-diaper baby now right-wing attack dog David Horowitz has a long attack that serves to further his own agenda rather than provide an accurate portrayal of the book.

The defense of the memory of Herbert Aptheker, Bettina's father, is very interesting. Herbert Aptheker is a noted historian who dispelled the myth of the compliant slave by collecting the stories of heroic revolts by black slaves in the south. For some, the thought that this admirable historian could have been flawed in some way is anathema. And this disbelief gets expressed in some of the most condescending and sexist blather as excellently shown by this post by DeAndra found via Feral Scholar's thread about the memoir.

That's the background. Now for my own responses.

Aptheker's tales of being an activist in the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at Berkeley resonated deeply with me. Activist politics can be an amazing, invigorating experience, with moments of incredible highs and lows with bizarre twists that challenge our expectations. For instance, Aptheker was worried about coming out as a member of the Communist party during the FSM struggle so soon after the era of witch hunts which destroyed her own father's career:

"Everyone knew that I was a member of the party. I thought that perhaps it would be best if I took a less conspicuous position in the movement. These thoughts were interrupted by Mario [Savio]. Slapping his knee with glee, he said, "I've got it! Bettina should speak at the noon rally on Monday!" It was typical of Mario's tactical humor to fling the one real Communist defiantly into the administration's lap."

Aptheker was extremely active, and yet she maintained her class schedule and plowed through battles of deep depression. I also dealt with depression throughout my most activist years. I recognize that need for constant activity in order to avoid dealing with psychologically destructive thoughts and moods. It is an effective technique for postponing a confrontation with a profound medical crisis.

The memoir describes Aptheker's marriage, the birth of her two children and her participation in the upper echelons of the Communist Party, as she avoided major contradictions in her life. She found herself falling in love and having affairs with women. She found herself chafing at the Communist Party's critique of the feminist movement as "petit-bourgeois". Over time, she found the courage to come out as a lesbian and to leave the Communist Party. She met and fell in love with a woman who continues to share her life. She discovered a spiritual practice, Buddhism, that helped her live a more centered and productive life.

After many years, she recalled memories of incest that she had repressed. Some of her critics pretend that she is describing the de-bunked "recovered memory" field of psychology. What has been debunked has been the malpractice of some shitball therapists who convince people that they had been molested when they have not. This is completely different from the reality that we human beings repress memories if they are too violent or emotionally damaging.

This is another way in which I identify with Aptheker. My father was nowhere near as successful as Aptheker's. Nevertheless, dear old Dad was a college professor and administrator with power and privilege. But to those of us who had to live with him, he was a psychotic and viciously self-centered person who used whatever means necessary to achieve his goals. My mind has done me the favor of hiding some of the most unbearable aspects of dealing with his psychosis.

In particular, there is one night from when I was 13 years old that leaves a gap in memory. I was visiting my father and his third wife in upstate New York over the Xmas holidays. The three of us had gone out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. My father made a huge scene out of the fact that I had eaten my (inexpensive) vegetables while not finishing my (expensive, and therefore better) steak. I wasn't the real target of his anger. Rather, I was an excuse for him to make an obnoxious scene in public and to shame the two females accompanying him into embarrassed silence.

We left the restaurant and started the drive home when he decided he needed to stop off at the house of a "colleague." In fact, the "colleague" was a graduate student that Dad was coercing into giving him sexual favors in return for good grades. Or they were just having an affair. I don't know which is true. What I do know is that Dad decided to punish his wife by having us wait in the car while he indulged in a quickie with his latest conquest.

After a half hour or so, my stepmother told me to get out of the car and to demand that my father come out and return with us to their home. This is where my memory goes blank. Next thing I know, the three of us are driving home, my stepmother at the wheel driving excessively fast on icy roads. My father repeatedly reaches over and turns off the key to slow the car down as the two of them scream at each other.

Once we arrive home, Dad goes upstairs and gets his gun, then proceeds to tell us how we must behave in his presence. When his wife doesn't immediately approve, he beats the shit out of her. I stand in the kitchen doorway watching him crouching over her body and swinging his fists into her face. Right. Left. Right. Left.

The night seemed to last forever. To cope, I swallowed dozens of pills I found in the bathroom but managed only to make myself vomit repeatedly. The next morning, my stepmother took me aside, her face swollen beyond recognition, and apologized for her behavior and explained it was because she was having her period.

The only real clue I have to what happened during that memory lapse is my over-the-top reaction to a movie-of-the-week I watched a couple of decades later. In the movie, two children kill their father after he viciously attacked their mother. My response: guilt and nonstop tears. I suspect I somehow convinced myself that it was my responsibility, as a 13-year-old child, to incapacitate my father in some way so that the rest of that horrifying evening would never have happened.

To this day, though, my memory is blank. And I have always considered that a blessing. There are some things we just don't need to know and I give thanks to biology for allowing amnesia to protect me from whatever the hell happened that night. What I do remember is bad enough.

In this way and in others, I can identify with Aptheker and her experiences. Yes, it's true that successful men can be deeply flawed. Yes, it's true that these memories can be repressed only to be revealed later in life.

But, but…..

As Aptheker talks about her healing process, she discusses Buddhism and her process of adopting its practices. She talks about attending events in which the Dalai Lama appears. She learns from the process and admires the person, while acknowledging the sexism in Buddhist practices that consider women as second-class citizens.

What amazes me is that she never mentions that fact that the Dalai Lama was a slaveholder in Tibet before the Maoist revolution in 1949. The omission of this fact seems especially obscene given that Aptheker's father specialized in the study of slave revolts. It is inexplicable to me that Bettina acknowledges the sexism of the religious practice of the Dalai Lama but ignores the slavery that existed in Tibet right up until the middle of the 20th century.

As far as I can tell, this aspect has not been addressed in the various reviews and criticism of this memoir. I suppose I will have to get my act together and send a letter to Professor Aptheker about this subject.

Twin Citians denounce ICE raids

I missed it. Worked 12 hours yesterday to finish up enough to be able to take the rest of the week off. Which is ludicrous, I know.

Meanwhile, local labor activists (including Ravenhub) rallied at Sen. Coleman's office to denounce the recent raids on illegal immigrants working at the Swift meat packing plant in Worthington, as part of raids all over the country. Here's the article from today's St. Paul Pioneer Press:

______

Immigration arrests denounced at rally

20 from Minnesota indicted; charges include identity theft

BY JOHN BREWER

Pioneer Press

They came to tell the stories they say aren't being told.

In the wake of last Tuesday's raids at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Worthington, Minn., and five other states, a group of about 200 people gathered Monday afternoon outside the St. Paul offices of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman to condemn the federal action and demand immigration reform.

After a 40-minute rally, a smaller group walked into the Republican senator's office and read stories about families affected by the Minnesota roundup of more than 200 workers on alleged immigration violations.

"One woman is pregnant and is terrified to leave her home. She'll only communicate by telephone," said Patrick Leet, an activist who collected stories last weekend in Worthington. "She's psychologically devastated."

The stories were told to Coleman's staff members; rally organizers were informed that the senator is out of the country. A few of the people visiting the office said the storytelling was necessary because the government is using accusations of identity theft as an excuse to round up undocumented workers.

"The only identity fraud that's going on here is people having to leave their countries" and their families to find work in the United States, said Eduardo Cardenas of the Center for Labor Rights.

The assembly came the same afternoon the U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis announced the indictment of 20 of the 230 people detained in the Worthington raid.

According to prosecutors, a federal grand jury indicted 19 of the detainees on charges of use of an unlawfully obtained document for employment and use of a false document for employment eligibility verification.

Fifteen of those people also face an additional charge of aggravated identity theft.

Authorities said the 19 defendants used the Social Security cards and numbers of other persons to gain employment at Swift. They also used Minnesota ID cards, driver's licenses and other forms of identification to satisfy employment requirements.

A 20th person was charged with re-entering the United States after being previously deported.

Bruce Nestor, a Minneapolis-based immigration attorney, said 21 detainees are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis at 8:30 a.m. today. He reported that 15 other detainees had bond hearings Monday in immigration court. The timing wasn't coincidental, he said.

"The government is feeling pressure to file criminal charges because of the condemnation, the bad publicity that they've gotten because of this," he said. "They want to try to portray this as an identity theft crackdown. It's an attempt by the government to shift focus back to what they want the focus to be on."

A call to the U.S. attorney's office for comment was not immediately returned.

Despite the criminal charges, activists at the rally called the raids unwarranted and demoralizing. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement action netted 1,282 arrests at six Swift meatpacking plants across the country.

Mike Potter, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1161 at the Swift pork-processing plant in Worthington, said he had no words to describe how the ICE sweep damaged his southwestern Minnesota community of 11,000.

"This can never happen again," he said through a bullhorn. "Never."

The crowd held candles against the cold wind on University Avenue as cars passed; some honked in support. A few people held banners. The largest read, "Reunify Families; No More Raids."

The Rev. Grant Stevensen, with St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in St. Paul, called on politicians to take a moral stand on the immigration issue.

"We need our elected officials to step forward with a sense of decency," he said.

As the light faded, the crowd chanted.

"¡Sí, se puede!" they said, repeating a slogan made famous by the late labor organizer Cesar Chavez: "Yes, it can be done!"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---------

Notice how the forces of power have bought a PR clue and called this "identity theft" rather than drastic economic need. As if these people are common criminals trying to steal directly from the earnings of hard-working white people. Bullshit.

Unfortunately, some folks will be fooled by it. Which means we have some more educating to do.

Lebanon is suffering under ... rebuilding?!?

Today's USA today article on Lebanon is a lovely example of the sort of thing that makes sense only to journalists and cynics.

The poor Lebanese people are having to suffer from groups of volunteers cleaning up and rebuilding after a major disaster. Gee, that really sucks, eh? Wouldn't want to be doing that sort of thing in our country, now would we? Or in Iraq, for that matter.

Here are some of the horrible things Hezbollah has done to Lebanese, snipped from the article:

"...plans to complete repairs on damaged homes in three months and replace homes that were destroyed within a year. "

"...deployed a force of about 1,000 volunteer engineers, architects and contractors. ... to survey and catalogue damage to homes and businesses in Shiite areas that Israel bombed."

"...distributed $12,000 — almost double Lebanon's $6,200 per-capita income — to each family that had lost a home so they could rent elsewhere for a year. "

"...has hired local contractors to redo bathrooms, fix elevators and replace kitchen appliances."

Of course, I've edited all those comments out of an article whose entire tone is that Hezbollah's only reason for action is to make the Lebanese government look bad.

It reminds me of an article I read back in the 80s when Reagan was bombing Libya. A reporter asked a member of a London group that was hoping to overthrow Qadaffi and take power, why they hated his regime so much. The man said Qadaffi was evil because he had eliminated land speculation and given equal rights to women.

That bastard! Heh.

Fun videos

I've received these two videos in the last few days. Silly and fun.

Bunny letter opener

Panda Sneeze

Blogroll Update

I finally got around to updating my blogroll to include folks I'm actually reading these days. Check them out!

How Hard Is That?

Little known fact: I was a professional sports writer for several years in the 1970s. I covered high school sports, which was like covering religion in rural Minnesota. But I burned out on sports several years ago and I barely pay attention now. I usually pass over the sports on TV. However, while flipping through channels I stumbled on this quote:

"I really screwed up," Mora said at a news conference from Blank's office. "Any criticism I get, I deserve. I couldn't feel worse about letting people down with my poor judgment and that's what it was."

Source: Mora regrets comments/Coach says he was joking about leaving Falcons for college job

In light of several racial dust-ups in the blogosphere, plus Michael Richards and Rosie O'Donnell fucking up royally, I wonder why it is that a football coach is the only person able to get it right. There's more:

Talking about his boss, Mora said: "He's disappointed in me and he should be," Mora said. "I'm more disappointed in myself than he could ever be in me. I assured him my intent was not to say I don't want to be here. This is the job I want. I'm lucky to have it and as disappointed as he is — and he should be, and I deserve it — I'm more disappointed. I opened my mouth and let people down."

It's back!

"I remember back in the 1970s we literally took weeks pirating unwanted strokes."

"Everybody knows the Chinese first started commissioning Inscriptional beziers."

"Last year's Typophile Film Festival had a remarkable short film about typesetting bitmap matrices."

Check out the updated Typophile Smalltalk Editor. A very limited audience.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm   You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

TeleWORDS

'Truthiness' and 'Wikiality' named Top Television Buzzwords of 2006 Followed by 'Katrina’, ‘Katie,' and ‘Dr. McDreamy’

The Annual Survey by the Global Language Monitor

Released in Conjunction With the Prime Time Emmy Awards

San Diego, Calif. August 27, 2006. ‘Truthiness' from the multi-Emmy nominated 'Colbert Report' was named the Top TeleWORD of the year in The Global Language Monitor's (HTTP://www.LanguageMonitor.com) annual survey of words from television that profoundly influenced the English Language. In an unprecedented move, 'Wikiality,' also from the Colbert Report was named No. 2. Closely following were ‘Katrina’ referring to the on-going stories about the hurricane's devestating destruction, ‘Katie' in regard to Katie Couric's move into the top seat at CBS News, and 'Dr. McDreamy' from the break-out drama, 'Grey's Anatomy'.

Rounding out the Top Ten were ‘Bush's War,' heard often on the News, 'Man of the Hours,' citing '24's' Keifer Sutherland, 'Tourette's,' from 'I have Tourette's but Tourette's doesn't have me,' 'Dysfunctional' from 'The Office,' and 'Falling Starr,' referring to the 'View's' embattled Starr Jones.

This year's Bonus Phrase is 'You're going to Hollywood!' from Simon Cowell's wunderkind 'American Idol'.

"Television, once again, has helped to define our culture and its impact upon spoken English is profound,“ said Paul JJ Payack, President of the Global Language Monitor. "Some of these buzzwords will quickly pass, while others will be embedded in the language for years to come." "Though 'truthiness' in some form has existed in the language for centuries, it could not have been revived in more relevant times than the early 21st century; while 'wikiality' can be observed even today, where Pluto has been voted out of the Solar System by a convention of Astronomers," Payack concluded.

The San Diego-based media metrics and analysis company, The Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.

The Top TeleWORDS are released in conjunction with the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, to be broadcast from Los Angeles on Sunday, August 28th, at 8:00 pm Eastern on the NBC Television Network.

The Top TeleWORDS for the 2005 - 2006 Television season with commentary, follow:

1. Truthiness -- (Colbert Report) Truth unemcumbered by the facts.

2. Wikiality -- (Colbert Report) Reality as determined by majority vote. See Pluto, the former planet. First time ever with two words from the same show.

3. Katrina -- (The News) First hit of the 2005-'06 season; unfortunately a direct hit on New Orleans.

4. Katie -- (CBS Evening News) Did we ever refer to Walter Crondkite as Wally or Dan Rather as Dannie? Will Katie help us redefine the term, gravitas?

5. Dr. McDreamy -- (Grey's Anatomy) Patrick Dempsey follows in a long line of television 'dream-boat' physicians dating back to 'Dr. Kildare'.

6. Bush's War -- (Heard often on the News) Echoing the label bestowed upon Mr. Lincoln (Mr. Lincoln's War) two centuries past. After his assassination and the end of what we now know as the Civil War, Lincoln rose steadily in stature.

7. Man of the hours -- (24) Keifer Sutherland finally gets the nod.

8. Tourette's -- (I have Tourette's but Tourette's doesn't have me) Replaces Tony Sholub's OCD as the lesser known disease going mainstream this season.

9. Dysfunctional -- (The Office) The office as family, dysfunctional family that is.

10. Falling Starr -- (The View) Starr Jones that is, in her battle with BaBa Walters.

Bonus Phrase: 'You're going to Hollywood!' -- (American Idol) Simon Cowell's wunderkind might actually win an Emmy this time around.

Last year: 'Refugee' from the on-going coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina topped 'Desperation' from Desperate Housewives and 'Camp Cupcake' from the on-going Martha Stewart follies.

The previous year "You're Fired!" edged "Mess O' Potamia" followed by "Girlie Men," "God," and "Wardrobe Malfunction".

The 25 Funniest Analogies

Here. Found via Presurfer.

The 25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)
I have to share these “funniest analogies” with you. They came in an e-mail from my sister. She got them from a cousin, who got them from a friend, who got them from… so they are circulating around. My apologies if you have already seen them.

The e-mail says they are taken from actual high school essays and collected by English teachers across the country for their own amusement. Some of these kids may have bright futures as humor writers. What do you think?

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Fast Food Nation

Through a connection with an animal rights activist, I was able to attend a free showing of the new movie, "Fast Food Nation" last Thursday. First off, I want to say that the book is fascinating. I learned so much from reading it. I did my stint of working for the fast food industry before I got a job as a sports writer at my local newspaper. So I appreciate the thorough investigation of the industry presented in the book.

But the movie ... um, well. I don't know. Between growing up on a farm and working to defend the rights of workers at Iowa Pork and Hormel, I'm fairly familiar with the realities of slaughtering animals for food.

The movie, however, seems to assume that the viewer is completely unaware that their food comes from actual animals and that these animals need to be killed in order to become food. We are supposed to be appalled by the sight of skinless disembodied cow heads.

I suppose the there are people who really don't get it. But what about all those people who understand completely and say, "yeah, so what's your point?"

This movie assumes people are stupid. And maybe they are, but I think we can do better than that. Because the fast food industry does suck. But it's not because animals die for our food. It's because they do so much more to fuck us up in the pursuit of the all-mighty profit.

In explaining that, this movie failed.

Have some "pop"

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
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Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Oldies

Some holdiay antiwar event flyers from the past:

Movie at Mayday Books

First draft of a new flyer.

Things I've Done

Seen at Kate's.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.
42. Had amazing friends.
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe.
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing.
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving.
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken.
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently well enough to have a decent conversation
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Book review

I stopped by one of my favorite independent bookstores, Once Upon A Crime, and checked out the book they are reading for the monthly discussion at the store. This time it is Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman. I read it once quickly and I'm reading it a second time to clear up some of the confusion from the first reading.

The main story revolves around two adolescent girls who are sentenced to prison for the murder of a baby. The girls had discovered the baby in its carriage in front of a house that appeared to be deserted. They took the baby and after a few days one or both of the girls murdered the baby. The book begins as both girls are released from prison after seven years. No one other than the girls, seems to know or understand what really happened to the baby and this mystery and fear affects the actions of several of the main characters. And then another baby disappears. It is time to clear up all the mysteries.

Lippman fills the book with a bunch of female characters and that becomes unweidly at times. Each of these women is flawed, some irrevocably, and yet not one of them acts with evil intent. Class and race are prominent throughout the book.

Although the plot kept me interested, I've got to say that almost no one in this book held my interest for long. Lippman made the decision of granting each of her characters some serious flaws. In the end, it was hard to care for any of them.

Author event at Mayday Books

First draft...

For me:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 15 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

For Ravenhub:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 40 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

More Burqa Information

I bought a new book from Seven Stories Press called Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence by Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls. They have an entire chapter devoted to the politics of the burqa called: "Liberation" Rhetoric and Burqa Obsession scare quotes in the original.

Here is a great quote from an interview with Kolhatkar on from the Afghan Women's Mission website:

SK: I think the main thing that they've missed is that most Afghan women live in grinding poverty. What good is a right not to wear a burqa if you can't put food on your table? Many people still wear the burqa for a lot of reasons, but a lot of women wear it out of shame to cover their rags that expose how poor they are. They have no jobs, no literacy. Between 4 and 10 percent of Afghan women can read and write.

There are some really, really extreme issues like honor killings, women being jailed because of adultery, women burning themselves to death. There was a woman last year, Amina, who was stoned to death. Boy, did the media miss that one. There was no uproar.

The poverty issue is not a sexy issue. It's not dramatic; it's more abstract, more elusive and there's no easy fix to it. Afghanistan was one of the world's poorest countries before 9/11 and it is still one of the poorest countries.

The book also refers to an Amnesty International Report called "Afghanistan 'No one listens to us and no one treats us as human beings': Justice denied to women" which documents that the abuse of women has continued under the puppet regimes the U.S. "liberation" put in place.

Bummer sticker thingy



I wanted to use the silhouette image that was used on the "America Stands With Cindy" flyers from last year along with the headline chosen for this event. I used compacta for the letter one and Mistral for the words. I think I like it, but I may fuss with it some more. Hm.

Leaflet for Sheehan event

First draft:

A Memory seems apropos

In the mid 1980s I was involved in political activity against the U.S. invasions in Central America. I helped to build several very large mass demonstrations in St. Paul. Local activists worked with the Catholic church to hold memorial services on March 24, the anniversary of the assassination of Archibishop Oscar Romero by death squads in San Salvador. We'd have an inter-faith service at the Cathedral and a march down the street to a political rally at the Capitol.

One of the traditions in the movement was to carry several hundred white crosses with the names of the dead and disappeared in El Salvador. Sometimes we would pound them into the soil outside the Cathedral of St. Paul. Sometimes we would carry them on our marches. Often we would read the names and shout, "!Presente!" in unison to honor their lives.

One year it was particularly cold and dark due to clouds and an impending snow storm. Somebody got the idea of bringing those tiki-type burners to the rally. They would provide light and keep us warm on a freezing day in Minnesota.

I swear, it was not until we saw a couple of thousand people walking down the streets of St. Paul with flaming torches and white crosses that we realized what a colossal error that particular image presented. Some of the Episcopal preachers leading the march had long flowing white robes as well.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

No, we had not meant to be racist. And we certainly weren't opening a new branch of the klan in our state. Perhaps if we had more black people in on the planning we could have envisioned the outcome better,. But we didn't.

We created an incredibly racist image. Hell, I'm a white northerner and I saw it the minute I stepped out into the street.

Any one of us can inadvertently create a racist image. There is something wrong if we can't acknowledge that. We are wrong if we can't listen to people who have responses that differ from our own. We must try to avoid such mistakes in the future.

I know I will never combine white crosses and torches in a mass demonstration ever again. I feel awful for having done it only once.

And, no, we did not get any blowback from that march. Not one complaint. It was still wrong. And we were lucky we didn't get our asses kicked for allowing it to happen.

Attack of the Hillary Clones



I did a really crappy quick-ass job of it, too. But I think it tells us what Clinton really wanted from the event.

Lucy? You've got some 'splainin' to do!

My stat counter says I'm getting hits from my recent comments, so this is a bit of an explanation of where I'm coming from.

That title has a zillion self-references. To old folks like me, that's a well-known line that Desi Arnez used on the show "I Love Lucy" whenever his wife did something utterly whacked and inane. Because, of course, women are illogical and silly and need to explain their actions patiently to their husbands.. The Cuban accent is emphasized and meant to be highly comical. So we've our sexism wrapped up in a racist accent in order to make white people (the only people who owned TVs at the time) laugh.

I haven't posted on the blog lately, which is primarily a place where I post the fliers and posters I make for activities I'm involved in, because I've gotten wrapped up in an internet discussion occurring over at Pandagon.

For some reason, I just love the heck out of this shit. I am fascinated by exploring issues that contain multiple meaning. I can go on and on about it. I can devote hours of time dissecting and picking out more and more meaning from the subject at hand. It's like those pictures from children's magazines that are ostensibly pictures of children at play. But the artist has inserted other images into the drawing and the contest is to pick out the bird, the hammer, the baseball bat, etc. Or like Hirschfield's caricatures of stars that always contained the letters of his daughter's name, NINA, somewhere in the drawing. I enjoyed looking for Hitchcock's cameo appearance in each one of his movies. I enjoy those pictures that look like a vase when looked at one way but look like two faces when viewed the other.

I used to be involved in TV fandom on the internet and I was always the last poster commenting long after everyone else had given up and said "I don't care about these details any more, Ravenmn. I just want to enjoy the show."

I enjoy books like "Wrapped in Plastic" that examines various aspects of "Twin Peaks". I have books examining the social implications of the OJ Case, Madonna's use of sexuality, the role of women in feminist science fiction, the rise of the female lesbian detective genre. All of these are significant cultural trends that affected people differently and had profound impacts on people's outlook and choices in life.

I like detail and I like the different meanings we take from life and in culture. Also, I'm a white, feminist, anti-imperialist woman engaged in political activism. So this current discussion seems to have met all the criteria to keep me interested long after almost everyone else has given up and gone to bed or back to enjoying the show.

The background

For a good introduction into the controversy that is Burqagate, read Bitch|Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/09/30/bfp-nails-it/#comments.

Then you can head over to the http://pandagon.net/2006/10/02/wasnt-trying-to-take-a-cheap-shot-though-i-can-see-how-it-came-across-that-way/ I seem to be prolonging into infinity at Pandagon in which Amanda apologies for the image and a circus ensues.

Go and read more

I'm not going to turn this blog into a discussion blog, because it is done much better in other places. So go forth and learn my new visitors. There are valuable lessons to be learned. We are indeed fortunate that this information is being freely shared and available at the click of a button.

http://brownfemipower.com/ Woman of Color Blog

http://blog.pulpculture.org/ Bitch|Lab

http://bintalshamsa.blogspot.com/ My Private Casbah

http://lecolonelchabert.blogspot.com/ Le Colonel Chabert

http://www.slanttruth.com/ Slant Truth

http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/ Having Read the Fine Print

http://fetchmemyaxe.blogspot.com/ Fetch Me My Axe

Another net bruhaha

Former President Clinton meets with a bunch of Democrat-friendly bloggers in Harlem. A picture is posted. Guess what? Let's meet in Harlem with a bucnh of white people. One of the bloggers who attended is questioned about it. Said blogger goes on the offensive against the blogger who questions him.

Some good posts about it:

the internet, racism and women of color by the Brownfemipower.

Bill Clinton Lunches With Whites. Also, Firedoglake sucks. by Ampersand.

Sometimes It's The Best You Can Do by Bint.

On being Electra or why the Democratic Party continues to suck by Black Amazon.

Diversity in the Blogosphere by Pam’s House Blend.

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I can't saying anything better than these posters have, except that, man the Democratic Party really really sucks at PR. I've been doing political work for over 20 years in one of the whitest states in the nation, and I can't remember the last time I participated in an all-white forum. It's just a stupid thing to do. If it looks like you're going to an all-white event, the thing to do is cancel the event. At the very least, don't take pictures.

The discussion is, however, a good way to view all the different ways we white people react badly to charges of racism and how easy it is to focus on ourselves rather than the issue. I hope to hell someone is listening.

Draft number 2

Not sure of the place as yet. Plus got some suggestions from the committee.

More flyers

Not as busy as usual, but here are a couple of flyers I've done recently.

Jackson Pollock

Turn your internet browser into a Jackson Pollock painting. Got to the web site, move your cursor around. click the mouse to change colors. Have fun!

Activism

On Labor Day, I participated in a rally in St. Paul of a couple of thousand people supporting Immigrant Rights -- both legal and illegal. The rally was a wonderful event.

Last Saturday, I attended a forum on the history of Lebanon and the Israeli occupation that began in 1982 and has yet to end.

Today I went to an anti-war rally on the anniversary of 9/11.

Yet I feel as if I am taking a vacation from activism. The trip to Boston and the focus on typesetting and printing has kept me wrapped up in thoughts and activities on the creative side of my life. The activism has significantly decreased as a result.

I've also read a lot of books lately without blogging about them. None of them were particularly good although all of them were on somebody's recommended list.

My youngest daughter turns 24 on Saturday. Does that make me old?

Nah!

Epiphany

I had to work late tonight because a particular project had to go to the printer, no deadlines allowed. So I hung around waiting for the final OKs from everyone involved. And I mentioned my recent run in with the evil bicylicst that has left me battered and bruised.

And I realized what a tremendous benefit I have been to a complete stranger. After all, this bicyclist could have been seriously injured by running into an innocent pedestrian walking on the green light. Instead, she had the benefit of falling on top of my pleasantly plump body, thus protecting herself from the harshness of pavement.

See? I can be an unwitting benefit for complete strangers. How fulfilling!

Boom!

So there I was walking across the street in front of my workplace on the green light and "walk" sign and the next thing I know, I'm flat on the pavement with a bicycle and a woman on top of me.

Apparently, this twit was so intent on crossing on the red that she didn't bother to see if there was a pedestrian in her path. As far as I can tell, her HEAD hit my head first and then the rest of her came tumbling down on top of me. Several strangers helped me up and to the curb. I was basically in shock. And TwitWoman .... loser that she is ... took off! Hit and run with bicycle!

Apparently, I have a very hard head. I stepped into a nearby Starbucks where I got an icepack for my head and the bruise on my leg. Then I sat waiting for my bus for a half and hour and went home.

Ravenhub was here when I got home and immediately began pampering me. He made me call the nurseline so now I know what symptoms to watch for in case I have a concussion.

Who's the President? Abraham Lincoln!

I can't take painkillers -- it would mask the headache that would be a warning of a concussion. So I'm achy and cranky. What a lovely combination! And very pissed.

Lost Access

I think Blogger has finally upgraded enough and my computer at home has NOT been updated enough so that I no longer can access blogger from home. Thus the lack of posts.

Today I am at work, continuing to work on my Mom's multi-volume book. We're planning on self-publishing this fall. It's a ton of work, but it's good work. I have so much grunt work to do on it, that I haven't had a chance to think creatively. Fortunately I have a good friend with experience in book design who is willing to take a look at it and help spark some ideas. I'm really looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, I'm just formatting, paginated, laying out the illustrations and checking line endings through the first 100 or so pages of copy. Good for me.

There's a ton of things I've been meaning to post about and I'll try to list a few:

Blackademic has a great post critiquing the new "I am African" campaign by the Keep a Child Alive campaign.

Also, check out her post about the Sorry Ass Baby Dadies website in which she questions whether blaming is effective. Of course, many commenters discussed WHO they blamed whether than whether blaming was worthwhile. Nubian should get some award for commenters ignoring what she's actually saying. She's a wonderful writer, so there must be something else going on there. Hmmm.....

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Now I have to confess to a really odd habit I've gotten into lately. There have been extremely long, involved, multi-site discussions in the feminist blogosphere over the last few weeks and months. I often get into them late in the game and I find myself reading every one of the 600 plus comments, trying to get my mind around all the opposition and anger going on.

There have been discussions of blowjobs and of high heels and of pro-sex versus anti-sex feminists and pro-porn and anti-porn feminists.

The latest one has the interesting feature in that a relatively unknown blogger, Random Bird. I first noticed it via BitchLab who directed me Pandagon's post which is as good as any place to start.

An odd thing that occurred in that debate, which is now at 335 comments, is a dust-up that occurred betwen two of the commenters, KH and Delphyne based on a quote about, of all things, Willy Loman.

First, my love of Willy Loman and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is off the charts. I am continually reminded by the "attentionn must be paid" speach by Linda Loman, that even the lowest among us are important:

I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy... no, a lot of people think he's lost his... balance. But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.

But, back to the discussion at Pandagon. Apparently KH used this line in a discussion:

"more Willy Lomans have died slowly in front of their customers than all the hookers in the world"

Delphyne proceded to use this quote as proof that KH was fundamentally flawed and that was the ONLY possible interpretation of that quote. KH proceeded to put the quote in context and to explain her reasoning.

But Delphyne was relentless. KH was wrong because of that quote, the quote could only mean what Delphyne decided it meant and no one could disuade Delphyne from explaining the point of view of KH, least of all KH herself.

Bi-zarre. But familiar. I used to be part of an internet community in which I was known for various harsh viewpoints. But at some point it was decided that I believed X and my whole goal was to be Anti-Z Nothing I could do would change that false belief of me or my goals. It got so that if I even dared to comment in certain places, it was assumed I was there to attack someone or something. I had ceased to be a person and had become an Enemy and every word I wrote was suspect.

Seeing the same thing occur from the outside, I have to wonder what the hell people like Delphyne think they are doing? Do you really think I'm going to believe you have a better interpretation of somebody's point of view than the person herself? Even if you convince one or two people, what kind of morons have you now got lined up as friends? And how long before they do the same to you?

That was my final conclusion about my old hangouts. If people were going to take someone else's word for what I believed, then what was the point?

So here are a couple of feminist places I've been hanging out lately and enjoying. I don't agree with everything said there, but I like the way the discussions are handled:

Bitch Lab "where lefties and feminists have dirty minds, too".

Fetch Me My Axe by BelleDame who also posts at BitchLab.

Woman of Color Blog by Brownfemipower.

Blackademic by Nubian.

I'll be back when I get a chance!