cam is so wise.

this is something that's going right up there with "there are many different ways to be a woman" - and it's from bones. yeah. in a conversation about dating and what women like, cam says, "'women' is not an acceptable generalization."

AHA. that's what i've been wanting to say.

in which i, once again, confuse the west wing with reality.

everyone i love [oh, that's a lie, but you know] loves rachel maddow. right?!

anyway, she interviewed megan mccain and pilgrim soul at harpyness blogged about it. [and linked to the video.]

We were all 24 and opinionated once! Many of us continue to own “serious hair” flatirons out of sheer professional necessity!

hahaha. that's kind of unrelated to the rest of my point, but that's the first reason i loved this post. see how serious my hair is! i am a serious adult!

well, after watching - yes, ms. mccain does sure take herself seriously. she does seem a little naive. but i kind of like her. and here are my reasons.
1. i tell my life story to strangers too! YEAH. we'd be BFF, probably.
2. i'm no politician - but i LOVE how she admits she doesn't know the answers to the economic questions. i mean, her whole "i'm curious about politics!" is a little strange from a supposed voice in the party, i think, but she's not running for office and i appreciate her honesty.
3. she's ainsley hayes! only not as brilliant and incisive.

do you all remember the ainsley hayes storyline from season 2 of the west wing? she was a "blond, leggy, republican" who went against sam on a political show and got a lot of anti-feminist [and anti-republican] flack for it - and i really liked how the show handled the story. she got some lines to explain her positions [most interestingly, i thought, about how she thinks the ERA is patronizing because the 14th amendment gives women rights already], and she got CJ to defend her.

cj: [everyone hates her] because she's a blond republican woman, and i think it's prejudiced in a bad way, and i'm coming down on her side.
toby: by the way, you are a beautiful woman, and nobody ever assumed you were either ambitious or stupid.
cj: toby. it took two years.

right. don't tell me that there hasn't been any prejudice against me, guys. in the same way you don't tell other races that racism's over.

anyway. related in politics!

this whole thing about putting up a billboard in rush limbaugh's hometown. [in response to how he hopes obama fails.] here's the email i got from the democratic party.

Last week, I asked if you had a message you'd like to send Rush Limbaugh. The response was overwhelming. We received tens of thousands of submissions, and we picked the top five:

• "Americans didn't vote for a Rush to failure"


• "Hope and change cannot be Rush'd"


• "Failure is not an option for America's future"


• "We can fix America, just don't Rush it"


• "Rush: Say yes to America"

Now, we're putting it up for a vote. Decide which slogan Rush will see in his home town.

The slogan with the most votes will be put on a billboard where Rush can't miss it.

It's up to you to let Rush know that Americans reject his desire to see President Obama -- and our country -- fail.

i mean, how is this useful? according to the donation website - "Americans know that when President Obama succeeds, we all do. It's time to leave behind partisan attack politics and stand behind the policies that will strengthen and renew America's economy."

and putting up a billboard in rush limbaugh's hometown is TOTALLY NOT partisan attack politics. because, see, this time our side gets to be mean! seriously. this is what you want my money for? because it seems like it could me more cost-effective to, i don't know, send him a telegram. and then we could use the rest of our money for CHANGE or something.

also, all those suggestions are really, really not clever. puns on his name? seriously? and we've always seemed like such a funny party, in general...

fame!

everyone, please check out claire's gawker artists page. she's a rockstar and has some interesting stuff about the female gaze - yeah. nice. she gets points [or whatever] for hits and comments, so click away!

genderize!

remember when i didn't want to get mad at freakonomics? right.

so they want to know whether mcdonalds asks you if you want a boy or girl toy.

How do you feel about these questions? McDonald’s has to balance giving detailed information about toy promotions that change every few weeks against the difficulties of training and wanting to keep the line moving. But the lawyer in me also notes that several states prohibit sex discrimination at public accommodations.

lots of comments. some of them upsetting. sigh. first of all, yes, you are discriminating if you define "girl toys" and "boy toys" [and it's easy not to], and the fact that there are girl and boy sections in toy stores and clothing stores doesn't prove non-discrimination. it proves that discrimination is pervasive.

sure, many girls want the doll and many boys want the hot wheels. but that's not all it is. i worked in the baby section of a department store, guys, and the only things that might pass for gender-neutral, even for INFANTS, were the winnie-the-pooh line of sleepers. so, people who shopped there were gender-izing their babies. probably not because the babies liked it. seriously, people would come in and be like, "umm. we don't know the sex of the baby yet." and i'd be like, "have you considered the winnie-the-pooh sleepers? otherwise, decide if your fetus likes flowers or trucks."

possible reasons for this: 1. people want strangers to know if their baby is a boy or a girl. 2. retailers want people to buy new clothes for their opposite-gender future babies. but still, how can you define what girls should be and what boys should be and then claim that you're not discriminating? how can you say that it's fine for you, or for your kids, and so it has to be fine for everyone?

sigh.

and, hey. speak from the i. and i will say, now, that i like to eat happy meals, and i've never been asked what kind of toy i want. as a child, i liked both barbies and ninja turtles, and mom usually asked for two different toys so brother and i wouldn't steal each other's... [that is, so i wouldn't steal his when mine broke. sigh.]

i'm also mad that people [again, commenters] think questions on the citizenship interview are funny. sigh. it's hard to get citizenship here, guys. and it's all so odd, anyway. it's easy to be born here [you know, for me] but hard to get in... it's easy to have a baby, but not so easy to adopt one...

anyway, i've worked out my issues. i'm mad at the commenters. freakonomics is apparently ready for all kinds of comments, but then, i guess that's the process...

"in the he said, she said sometimes there's some poetry..."

"I didn't join Facebook, after all, to be anonymous, incurious or left alone." you know how i feel about the article that starts snarky and becomes poignant. yeah. it's something like blogging, too. or twittering. it's like, people are kind of scornful and all, "why would you want to read someone's random thoughts and activites?" but it's kind of beautiful, in the end, to see into people's lives. [i know, i know. sometimes.]

also, this:
b: anything happen while i was gone, except things on the internet?
k: hahaha, SO much on the internet! but not much else.

and also: "When you get out front with the "meta" what's left to say??" [says a commenter.]

today i got a good laugh by saying, "i will now use something a student said to tell a funny, poignant story with a point." do i do that too much?

saw he's just not that into you last night. didn't like it as much as i thought i would. everyone was very cute and mostly very funny. [except jennifer aniston was NOT rachel green. i thought i loved jen. i think i just love rachel.] i appreciated how some women were not that into men, too, and all this advice stuff happened, and some people ended up in relationships and some didn't. but i feel like it wasn't really long enough for all the stories they tried to put into it, and then it wrapped up really fast. so obviously it seemed unrealistic when people fell in and out of love in like thirty seconds.

but here's my real problem - TWO of the previews before the movie were about crazy obsessive women. i was not amused. one is with sandra bullock, and it's one of those "sandra bullock is awkward" movies, i guess? only she, like, follows this guy she's met once all across the country. then he finds out she's some kind of free spirit. i mean, an OBSESSIVE free spirit. and one is called "obsession" and is about this girl who's all going after her boss and then all this weird shit happens and it gets super, super scary.

all stories are true. even the ones that shouldn't be.

okay, i'm really excited about this article. but you all know how i get excited about myth and fact. i've written about judith warner's stuff on this before, and again, it's very, very cool.

In each of these examples, real problems – that some girls are engaging in too-young, risky and degrading sex, that some children are being stressed excessively and stifled by nonstop structure, that some boys (poor and minority boys) are doing badly in school, that some children are getting really reckless mental health services – are grossly simplified and, via the magical thinking of dogma and ideology, are elevated to the level of myth.

and then, the magic psycho-analysis. what's this really about? oh, judith warner knows.

All the examples of child myth-making that I’ve mentioned here have to do, at base, with the perceived corruption of childhood, the loss of some kind of “natural” innocence. When they depart from kernels of reality to the level of myth, they are, I believe, largely projections that enable adults to evade things. Specifically, the overblown focus on messed-up kids affords us the possibility of avoiding looking inward and taking responsibility for the highly complex problems of everyday life.

what do you think? i'll buy it.

here's a thing on peta and "intersectional exploitation," which i didn't even know was a term. but it's definitely a thing that peta doesn't seem to get [or care about]. and, below it, a cool piece on how the patriarchy hurts men. this one's for all my male friends who don't think it's cool to be all genderized, either.

"so you agree? you think you're really pretty?"

really liked this jezebel post about how to respond to a compliment. i, personally, prefer the enthusiastic thank you with unnecessary details. por ejemplo, in a recent conversation about my new earrings - "THANKS! they were a dollar. at the target dollar spot! you know, right when you walk in the door? i bet they're still there. you should TOTALLY GET THEM."

i once had a conversation with a guy about sports. i mean, about talking about sports. i don't remember what the conversation was about initially, but i suspect that i was worried about guys who don't like sports. especially in the particular corner of middle america where i was living at the time - how must that feel when someone mentions a sports statistic or piece of news that you're totally supposed to know, and you can't respond? girls tend to be able to laugh it off. you know. double standard.

but anyway, the guy i was talking to said that talking about sports is a polite way to guys to make conversation. like talking about the weather. [as my brother would say,] oh yeah? and women talk about their respective appearances?

i bring up the gender issue because it's in the article - and in several very interesting comments. i recommend.

--

have you ever noticed how much "bullish" looks like "bullshit"? as in, "The titans of corporate America were glorified on the covers of Forbes, “trickle down” economics justified obscene wealth, and a bullshit Wall Street gave even working stiffs a piece of the action." i was like, whoa, catholics in alliance for the common good blog. wild.

i got two amaaaaazing voicemails in the past two days.
1. "i'm just calling because right now... i'm watching a movie about the font, helvetica?"
2. "i think of you whenever i hear this band... hang on, i don't know the words... YOU CAN'T COUNT ON ME."
it's almost like my interests are predictable. fonts and counting crows, guys. that's what i like.

twice, writing this post, i've tried to link to previous posts that don't exist. one's about the movie helvetica and the nytimes article about obama's "change" font. [well, here's part of it, actually.] the other is about the time a stranger asked to kiss my shoe. stay tuned.

generational feminism.

i know, i know, i'm all posting-insane lately. but lots of stuff has happened! and i'd rather not grade my students' essays on human suffering! [really.]

this 23-year-old feminist just died - and her stuff's everywhere lately, and awesome.

Most young women said that their first strong role model was their mother, whether she was feminist or not. If not their mother, it was a teacher, an artist, a musician, but always a tangible woman who made strength and creativity seem possible.

this is the experience of feminism, not the word - and she points out that many younger women reject the label of, for example, "feminist artist" while still exploring gender in non-traditional ways. it's a very cool article. she seems cool. sad.

and, a related memory - my female, older-generation relatives telling me that a vote for obama in the primary would be throwing away everything they worked for. wait. i thought feminists worked for our freedom to choose. the best candidate. despite gender. right?

1. has a feminist agenda.

from feministing, mccain on palin - "she is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for america." i mean - what? "vote for me, i'm against women's rights"? i know it's old news, but i canNOT get used to feminism being used as an insult.

also, if you really want to feel some impending doom, check out mccain's use of air quotes when he talks about women's health. i mean, he has a point that, if you're hardline anti-abortion, "health of the mother" is kind of a trap. perhaps people who are talking about the health of the mother might trick you into being secretly pro-choice in some cases. that is true. however, you can NOT AIR QUOTE things like women dying in childbirth. i would never air quote "military service," you know? it's a real thing that people go through. and also, you try getting pregnant, asshole.

okay, so then, the ad on the top of the page said, "your life is all over the place." i was like, WHAT? so you KNOW? then, it was all, "luckily, so are we." it was for a doctor's office. i looked them up, though, i'm not going to lie. might as well go to a doctor who KNOWS me.

i let a relative stranger listen to my ipod, and he was all, "hey, this is really loud." i wanted to be like, my LIFE is loud. i feel like i often can't really hear my ipod, even when it's turned up all the way. anyone think it's a metaphor for my life?