class wars. also family histories.

One of the nice things about spending so much time with family friend Bill these past weeks has been hearing little stories -- beautiful little fragments -- about my father.

As you may have gathered by now, family friend Bill was one of my father's best friends. The two Bills, if  you will! (Though thinking about it now, as an adult, I am sort of amazed that they became such close friends. They are very, very different in so many ways -- my father the westerner, rugged, a little ragged, a country mouse in the big city.  Bill comparatively sophisticated, in touch with his feelings, urban and urbane, well-versed in cosmopolitan living.)

Somehow last week, during our weekly get-together, we ended up talking about money. Specifically, we were talking about how some people just seem to have too damned much of it.*  Suddenly Bill said, "Now, your father, his politics were good of course. But he wasn't by any means a radical when you guys first got to New York."

He went on to tell me how, not too long after we moved here from the west coast, Dad had taken Mom out on the town.  Part of their wanderings that day involved a leisurely stroll down 5th Avenue, and this leisurely afternoon stroll led to some surprising results.

"After that walk," Bill said, "he came to the conclusion that it was time for a revolution."
 
*When there are hotel rooms that go for tens of thousands a night, and hamburgers in the hundreds, well, clearly some people just have too much money! But on a more serious note, this is of course a real and growing problem here in America. Check it out.

thank you, mister president

My boyfriend finally got around to signing up, via Obamacare and the great state of Washington, for health insurance yesterday afternoon.

He's generally remarkably healthy these days -- in the four and a half years we've been together, I've seen him get maybe two or three colds and some nasty springtime allergies and that's about it. But he's also a cancer survivor and lost a brother to suicide, and it's weighed heavy on me over the years that he hasn't had health insurance.

We joked about getting married for it because my employer-provided insurance is pretty good, as far as these things go, but it seemed a weird reason to do that whole tying the knot thing when neither of us is much interested in marriage.

Last night we were catching up on each others days, me telling him about the inherent sadness of my dinner with a grieving friend, him telling me about how relatively simple the insurance sign-up ended up being. And I can't tell you the relief that just immediately seeped through my body, both my physical and mental being, when I heard this. It felt like a previously unknown weight had been lifted, and that I maybe don't have to worry so much about him -- about whether he can afford to visit a doctor, a specialist, a shrink.

The GOP can try to paint this however it likes, but I can't help but believe that there are millions of people across the country this winter feeling this same sense of relief, this same letting go of fear, that I felt last night. And that's a wonderful, a beautiful thing no matter how you look at it.

maternity care & men

This whole debate about men being forced to pay for maternity care in their health insurance plans has me in such a rage that it feels like old times (you know, now that I'm not quite as generally rageful as I have been in decades past).

Here's the thing. Or a couple of things. You don't get to pick and choose what's in your insurance plan. You can probably pick another plan if you don't like the one you've got, but you don't get line-item veto power with the plan you have. You're not the fucking President. If your insurance covers a certain number of therapy sessions per year, just for example, and you are lucky enough to be in pristine mental health, you don't get to say, "Oh hell no, I'm not paying for that!" Or if you're lucky enough to have insurance that includes dental but all you need is an annual check-up because your teeth are made out of goddamned diamonds, well, you're still stuck with cavity coverage. But no one's forcing you to use it.

So there's that.

But even more enraging is that many of the people who are all up in arms about men never having babies and still having to pay for maternity care (Republicans) happen to also be the same people all up in arms about women controlling their own fertility (Republicans).

You know what's cheaper than maternity care, foks? Contraception and abortion!

That's right. By tens of thousands of dollars per pregnancy. On average, maternity and newborn care in the United States costs $30-50,000. The average abortion, on the other hand, runs you a mere $400, give or take. You want to put your money where your mouth is, than make sure those two things are covered and you won't have as many freaking pregnant women to pay for. Or babies, for that matter. Because clearly they're a burden on society.

So there's that.

But even more infuriating to me than that is this: every single man had a pregnant mother. That's right. Every single man has quite possibly ALREADY BENEFITED FROM MATERNITY CARE. But that's the thing about so many of these so-called conservative Christian attitudes. It's all, "I've got mine, so screw you." And where exactly is the Christianity in that, I ask you?

So there's that.

But there's even more! There's this: basically these up-in-arms-about-the-horrible-injustice-of-having-to-pay-for-maternity-care-folks are saying that women alone should be financially responsible for the FUTURE HEALTH OF THE HUMAN RACE. By dint of biology.

So then let us fucking run the human race for awhile, why don't you.

at jfk, or, the things we lose in the name of safety

There was an old man a few people in front of us going through security the other evening at JFK. He could barely get out of his wheel chair, the poor skinny old guy, let alone walk, but they made him walk through the metal detectors anyway. Someone lifted him up by his elbows from behind and sent him tottering through to someone waiting on the other side to catch him.

Of course he set off the alarm. So they took off his watch and sent him backing through unsteadily to our side. The someone on our side caught him by the elbows and sent him through again. He set off the alarm again so they took his belt and backed him over to our side. Again. He stood there looking forlorn as we all grew restless. He started forward again, got half way through the detector, lost his pants which crumpled and ballooned around his knees. The alarm went off. They took something else from him and sent him back to the our side. He clutched at his pants, seemed to tremble -- with rage or humiliation or mere very-old-person weakness or confusion, who knows? I know I was close to tears, afraid I might say something to get us in trouble. Managed to keep quiet. Still hate myself a little for this.

It took two more times before they deemed him not a terrorist, and I've spent the last two days wondering how in the world this keeps us safe? And even if it does, how in the world is it worth it?

the dark ages, or, out of the mouths of playwrights

I constantly check myself for when my love of New York becomes smug. New York is great, but it's not the world, and it's alarmingly easy to be provincial here. But when I read about the backwards hate-mongers who are trying to stage a comeback for The Dark Ages in North Carolina, I consider myself lucky to live among even moderately enlightened people. The Dark Ages were never built to last. There's too much light. And intelligence, creativity, and a sense of justice are never regional attributes. "The people have the power / to redeem the work of fools" -Patti Smith

(L. Kunofsky)

from the brooklyn bridge, 11.17.11

Occupy's "Day of Action"

occupy new york (signs, gardening, tent city), 10.28.11

occupy new york (general assembly, people's library), 10.21.11

One of the things that struck me last night, as we wandered through and around Zuccotti Park, was how peaceful it felt, and how strong in its simplicity. The few minutes of the nightly General Assembly that we listened to, shouted in stilted phrases from one round of voices to the next because the NYPD has forbidden the use of megaphones and speakers, was about how to deal with the laundry. A woman was frosting cupcakes with chocolate frosting for a group of children in the designated children's area. Two men, one with an accordion, wandered the square like minstrels of old, singing The Occupy Wall Street Song. The ground was swept clean, and people's belongings were safely tucked away under tarps and roped off from pedestrian traffic. Most of the milling, massing people -- scruffy teenagers, seemingly homeless folks, mothers and fathers and toddlers, well-dressed elderly Upper West Side dames, and everything in between -- were polite and friendly and smiled back whenever I smiled at them.

I wished, in those moments of grinning with pride for these people, for this city, that my father were here to see this, to wander Liberty Square with me, to perhaps lend his oh so powerful voice to the goings-on of the General Assemblies. It might have assuaged some of his anger, calmed his percolating dissatisfaction with his government, with his country.

smashmortion & television, or, yet another reason i love friday night lights

Show me a woman who has never endured a moment of panic at the thought that she might be pregnant and I'll show you a virgin or a liar.

I've been thinking a lot this week about abortion.  My own.  Others'.  All those millions who have had one, or who have chosen not to. I've been thinking about the beauty of choice, and how that single word carries within it all the myriad decisions women make.  How sometimes it carries within it motherhood. How sometimes it carries within it death. How sometimes it carries within it an inarguable sense of freedom tempered perhaps with grief. How always it carries within it responsibility: for ourselves, for all that comes from us, and for all that does not.

Planned Parenthood is in danger of losing its federal funding, and this, I can tell you, is a travesty.*  Planned Parenthood was the place I turned to when I found myself trapped in that moment of panic, but it was also the place that made sure, afterward, that I went back for check-ups, for better birth control, for counseling, for a clean bill of health.

Planned Parenthood has been and will continue to be a voice of reason in the face of ongoing attempts, both culturally and legislatively, to control women's sexuality and reproductive freedom.  Bombastic? Perhaps.  But also true.

In Georgia there is legislation pending that would require that every single miscarriage in that state be fully investigated to see if it was actually (as they ever so delicately put it) "prenatal murder." The language of this bill is horrifying, and worth the reading.  It lays out an argument that Supreme Court decisions don't apply to Georgia in this case. It lays out what is to be done if the fetal death takes place in a hospital, in a home, in a moving vehicle, across state lines.  It explains that prenatal murder "does not include a naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a 'spontaneous abortion' and popularly as a 'miscarriage' so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event."**  Which of course does nothing to allay my perhaps overblown fears that any behavior a woman commits could potentially be construed as human involvement in her miscarriage.  A fender bender.  A fall down the stairs or trip on the sidewalk. Not eating enough vegetables during her pregnancy. Smoking. Exercising too much.  Exercising not enough. Having a glass of champagne before (or after) knowing she was pregnant. And so on and so forth.

In Kansas, George Tiller, a longtime abortion provider, was assassinated in the foyer of his church in the morning of May 31st, 2009.

In Ohio in 2007 legislation was proposed that would require that any woman seeking an abortion first get permission from the father of the fetus.  No matter the circumstances.  No matter that the Supreme Court already found in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that a woman doesn't even need her husband's consent, let alone anyone else's consent, to obtain an abortion.

Legislators in South Dakota recently attempted to pass a bill that could be interpreted as allowing for the murder of abortion providers.  (It has since been shelved, at least for now.)

And then there was Justice Kennedy's disturbing justification for banning some types of abortion procedures in Gonzalez v. Carhart also back in 2007: that women are sometimes so traumatized by choosing to have an abortion that we need to be protected from our own poor decision-making skills.

And then there's abortion in popular culture.  Party of Five almost got us there, but our heroine conveniently miscarried on her way to the abortion clinic.  Felicity did get us there, but the girl in question turned out to have cheated on her boyfriend so it was okay that she decided to abort her pregnancy: she was bad already anyway.  Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, while coming from a self-proclaimed pro-choice liberal, avoided the word itself like the plague.

Which brings me, in my ever roundabout way, to Friday Night Lights.  I don't get football but I freaking love Friday Night Lights.  It's got not only great characters but also wonderful character development.  It's got some fun songs. And it's dealt, over the course of its five seasons, with lots of prickly issues from serious football injuries to drug-addled parents to teen sex.  Becky, one of our small town high schools girls, finds herself in dire straits after a romantic night with one of our intrepid football players.  Miraculously, the show not only lets her have an abortion, but also lets her continue to be a decent and normal teenager after the fact.

And made a big splash in the process.

I just started the no-longer-quite-new fifth season this evening and it's looking good for our Dillon, Texas friends so far.  And oh how I still adore those opening credits.

Oh, also, please please please take a moment to write to your congresspeople and tell them not to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood and all the much-needed services they provide.  Abortions, STD testing, contraception, cancer screening, and information on everything from pregnancy to quitting smoking to getting the flu vaccine.

*To put this loss of funding in perspective: Planned Parenthood is already committed to not spending federal funds on abortion services, but rather uses this money for its many, many other services.  And while abortion makes up a sizable portion of what Planned Parenthood does, this is largely because abortion services have been segregated from all other health care services and organizations such as Planned Parenthood have had to pick up the slack.  So all the conservatives hellbent on punishing Planned Parenthood aren't stopping abortions, they're cutting funds to services that help to prevent more abortions and more unwanted pregnancies.

**Italics mine.  Creepily enough this section contains the only mention of the word "woman", except where the bill states that it repeals the Woman's Right To Know Act which provides that all women seeking an abortion must be offered the chance to see their sonogram and listen to their baby's heartbeat.  Now that all abortions and possibly miscarriages are to be criminalized, the Woman's Right To Know Act is, of course, no longer necessary.

interloping, or, thoughts on revolution and not having a place in it

Evan and I went down and over to the United Nations area on Saturday to see what we could see in the context of the Egyptian protests (dare one say revolution? probably not -- at least not yet).

I don't wander to the far east side very often, and was reminded again as we walked towards the East River along grandiose 42nd Street (oh how I love Grand Central Station, nestled there all gorgeous and ornate and low amongst the ugly, big and tall of the modern era) of that odd feeling of being a foreigner in my own hometown.

There were probably close to a thousand people gathered across the street from the UN, fenced into a holding area, armed with signs and megaphones and more headdresses than I've seen gathered in one place.

I felt out of place.  Too pale, to red-headed, too mono-linguistic, too (let's face it) ignorant to fully understand the proceedings.  I was anxious abut the people with microphones wandering the crowd looking for a quick sound byte.  I was ready to confess that I was there only to be another body; a body to be counted but a body without a voice in all of this.

It made me feel detached from history (my own and the world's) in a way that was new.

I've been to protests before, have marched on Washington in support of women's reproductive freedom, have marched up 8th Avenue past Madison Square Garden in protest of the Republican National Convention, have stood in the winter cold on the eve of our Iraq invasion, shouting for peace.

But this, this felt different. The people gathered there, wrapped in the colors of Egypt, holding aloft between them the Egyptian flag, carrying drawings of Nefertiti and Cleopatra and signs of Mubarak crossed out in decisive unwavering red, belonged to a history I could only dream of as a child, obsessed as I was with both Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game and Lloyd Alexander's tales of violent revolution in Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen.

What struck me now, as a grown woman with no ethnicity to speak of, no heritage but that of this infant country of ours, no real connection to another land or another people, was a certain wonderment at what it must be like to have such a vested interest in somewhere else.

It made me feel unanchored in ways I had not expected, but also a little bit grateful to not have to absorb this complicated and probably at times heart-wrenching duality.

at the United Nations, 1.29.11

in the mailbox tonight

(or, yet another reason to laugh and cry at the state of New York politics)

infrastructures

I have always believed that it goes without saying that we should know the infrastructures of our jobs.  I expect my staff to be comfortably familiar with the ins and outs of our library and any questions pertaining to it:  its policies, its hours, its floorplan.  I expect that I and my colleagues know these basics and more:  the ins and outs of Columbia's 20+ libraries, the ways in which we interact with other library systems (NYU, New York Public, the other Ivies, etc), the Library of Congress cataloging system.   I know that DS557s are books about Vietnam and that DS557.7s are about the Vietnam War and that the HV6400s have exploded since 9/11 (no pun intended) because this is the category for books on terrorism. I know that GNs are anthropology and HQs (rather humorously) encompass queer and gender studies and PSs are fiction and BSs are bibles and dictionaries tend to be in reference collections but you can almost always find older editions that circulate.

I do not know how Congresspeople get picked for all the various committees that (theoretically) help to run our country.  I have not memorized the Constitution and all of its amendments in chronological or any other order. And I definitely do not understand how it has come to pass that the Pentagon has leap-frogged ahead of the White House in regards to Don't Ask Don't Tell and is now instructing its recruiters to recruit openly homosexual men and women.

But I do expect our politicians, the people we elect to represent us and to govern this vast and sprawling country, to know and understand these things with the same familiarity that I have developed within my own job of choice.

I do not expect my fellow Americans to send to Congress people like this.  And I do not understand how this woman can even hope to be on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when she does not have a clue about the intricacies of our own government, let alone anyone else's.

comics & tweets

Evan and I headed to midtown yesterday afternoon in search of the perfect bowl of ramen, and came pretty close to finding it at Menchanko-tei.  But just as we were getting ready to head back out into the light of day, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour set in.  Luckily for Evan, Midtown Comics just happened to be literally next door to where we had been slurping up our noodles and Japanese picles.  Not so luckily for me, though:  at first because I was bored, and then eventually because I found such wonderful things and what I need just about as much as a kick in the head is something else to start spending my hard-earned money on.  Like the Walking Dead (only $38 for over 1000 of yummy zombie badness? How can a girl say no to that?).  And Buffy.  And more Sandman.  And this stunning little number.  And the lushly gorgeous comic-book rendering of the Dark Tower series, which I have been reading this summer in its original novel form.  Oh the temptation...

In other news, friend Zak posted this fascinating (and infuriating) Salon article yesterday explaining how the so-called "ground zero mosque" has been trumped up into a false scandal to win over votes in an election year.  All the controversy aside, I can't help but find it disturbing to think that we live in an era in which our politicians 'tweet' at us.  As in, "Sarah Palin had tweeted her famous 'peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate' tweet."

Headline I would like to see?  Sarah Tweets Her Last: former half-term Alaskan governor and failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's twitter feed canceled permanently by order of defenders of the English language everywhere.

article of the day

And so hilarious I'm stealing it outright, courtesy of the UK's The DailyMash:

OUTRAGE OVER PLANS TO BUILD LIBRARY NEXT TO SARAH PALIN
19-08-10

Plans to build a state-of-the-art library next to Republican catastrophe Sarah Palin are causing outrage across mainstream America.

Campaigners have described the project as insensitive and a deliberate act of provocation by people with brains.

The issue is forming a dividing line in advance of November's mid-term congressional elections with candidates being forced to declare whether they have ever been to a library or spoken to someone who has books in their home.

Meanwhile President Obama has caused unease within his own Democratic party by endorsing the library and claiming that not everyone who reads books is responsible for calling Mrs Palin a fuckwit nutjob nightmare of a human being.

But Bill McKay, a leading member of the right-wing Teapot movement, said: "Sarah Palin is a hallowed place for Americans who can't read.

"How is she going to feel knowing that every day there are people going inside a building to find things out for themselves and have thoughts, right in the very shadow of her amazing nipples."

He added: "Our founding fathers intended for every building in this country to be a church containing one book, written by Jesus, that would be read out in a strange voice by an orange man in a shiny suit who would also tell you who you were allowed to kill.

"Building a library next to Mrs Palin is like Pearl Harbour. Or 9/11."

And Wayne Hayes, a pig masseur from Coontree, Virginia, said: "I is so angry right now.

"It's like something is on fire right in the middle of my head. Like I've eaten a real hot chilli, but it's gone up my nose tubes rather than down my ass tubes."

He added: "Would these library lovers allow me to set up a stall next to the Smithsonian Museum and start selling DVDs of bible cartoons as long as it was in accordance with local regulations?

"Oh they would? I see. So is that why they're better than me?"

down the rabbit hole

It's funny how you can think you know someone, even minimally, and then be surprised to the core when you discover that there are fundamental differences you just can't seem to get your head around.

I have a policy of not being "Facebook friends" with my student employees.  It doesn't come up often, but inevitably a couple times a semester I get such a friend request.  There ensues a slightly awkward conversation in which I explain that if they still want to be "friends" once they've graduated, that would be lovely, but in the meantime we'll stick with our working relationship.

This happened with one of the best student employees I've had in the eleven years (yes, eleven years!) I've been working here at Columbia, and I was and am tickled pink that we remain in touch even through the nebulous connection that is Facebook.

Yesterday we got into a discussion about Judge Walker's ruling that Proposition 8 is in fact unconstitutional (see Rachel Maddow's bit on putting minority rights up for a vote) and I was taken aback at the outpouring of anti-gay rhetoric.  As a New York City girl, as a Barnard graduate and a Columbia University employee, as a child of an incredibly liberal and progressive family, I forget sometimes that there are real people -- people I know and respect -- who talk in the vein of Maggie Gallagher and other faithful NOMers who come up with brilliant little logical nuggets like this.

I don't know anyone else, at least not personally, who puts marriage in quotes when talking about same-sex couples.  I don't know anyone else who talks in terms of same-sex newlyweds infringing on parental rights across the land, or speaks of elementary school teachers "degrading themselves" by reading aloud to their students books like King and King or And Tango Makes Three or Heather Has Two Mommies or uses this mother* as an example of the horrors parents will endure should a first-grade teacher (God forbid) mention her fiancee in class.

Ultimately this friend did say that he has no problem with the legality of same-sex marriage (though I don't entirely buy that), but the language, the context, out of which that statement finally came was a context of judgment and disapproval -- an inherent belief that same-sex couples, though they must be tolerated because they are not criminal, should still be tucked safely away out of the light of day (and away from the eyes of innocent children).

I like discussion and argument, as anyone who knows me knows all too well, and I can (usually) see the value in other people's opinions even when I disagree with them.  But I'm honestly having trouble with this one and don't know where to go from here.  Nowhere, probably.  I don't want to isolate myself from such alien ideas, but it's strange to be friends with someone whose understanding of equality is so fundamentally different from my own.  When he speaks of indoctrination and protecting the children, he is speaking of an attitude he harbors towards people I hold dear, towards myself and feelings I've had for several beautiful and amazing women over the years, towards a sense of fairness and justice on which I do not wish to compromise.

All of that said, what better way to keep an eye on the enemy (and I use that term with a certain wry smile rather than a serious hard stance) than to keep an eye on his status updates and throw in my two cents now and again.

*I spent a little while perusing the comments on that article about the traumatized mother and came across two that jumped out at me.  First, commenter ACG remembered her own teacher's announcement that she was getting married, and imagined one possible scenario for the current situation which struck me as right on.  Second, and this may be my favorite put-down of all time, was commenter ACG's response to this drivel from TownCryer:

TownCryer:  This country has allowed ‘Civil Union’ for gay people … they can marry and put their partner on their insurance or pension etc. …. they have an option …

ACG:  This is… not true. It’s just incorrect, in the sense that your facts are wrong. If you look at facts that are correct, and then look at your facts, you’ll see that they’re different.

ACG, of Practically Harmless, may just be my new favorite blogger.

nyc in dc

Assuming Elena Kagan is confirmed (and chances are she will be), New York City will have its very own voting bloc on the Supreme Court. Awww yeah.

quote of the day, or, animal metaphors gone terribly, terribly wrong

“I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?"
(Pat Bertroche, GOP candidate for the 3rd District, Iowa)

Between this creep and this other creep, the GOP is a little too preoccupied these days with animals for my taste.

quote of the day

"The difference, of course, between Joe Biden's folksiness and Sarah Palin's is that sometimes Joe Biden knows what he's talking about."
(Joan Walsh)

in which emma becomes a troll

I lay the blame at the feet of Pam's House Blend, purveyor of leftist/feminist/queer politics and one of my favorite blogs, and a recent post there that linked back to the black hole, the moral void, the horrifying vacuum that is the blog of the ironically-named National Organization for Marriage (which, contrary to its title, exists solely to fight till its last dying day to prevent people from marrying).

I've been trolling*. I can't deny it. I've been trolling, though I like to think not (exclusively) in the antagonistic, argumentative, pointless way that is the common understanding of trolldom. I've been reading NOM's blog, and the comments therein, and feel like I'm stuck in quicksand, entrenched in a quagmire in foreign, in alien, territory. I've been trying to defend my truths, and question theirs, without being wholly difficult, but rather with calm and reasoned statements.

What I really want to shout (type) is, of course, "You're all going to die some day! And younger people are more and more tolerant, more and more supportive, of equal rights! And your grandchildren will discuss you and your homo-talk in the same hushed and embarrassed tones my generation uses to discuss how some of our grandparents used the N-word!"

It's like a scab.

It's like a scab, an inescapable itch, a cut on the inside of my cheek that I can't stop poking at and prodding at and cringing with a certain satisfaction at every moment of jagged sharp pain.

It's a group of people, a world view, that I just don't understand, and I feel like I'm venturing behind enemy lines, even safely ensconced in my office behind closed doors on my lunch break, even hunched at my desk at home when it's late enough that I should be in bed.

There's a whole other world out there, a world I sometimes forget, or only understand and think about in the abstract, and now that the curtain's been lifted I just can't seem to stop staring at what's underneath.

*Trolling: the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards. When done in a moderated internet community, this can result in banning. When done to uptight people such as fundies, this can result in hilarity. (As taken from Urban Dictionary)