Thursday, July 30, 2009
Art embellishing life leaving room for art
The Form and Function Side of Design
from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072901170.html
by Nora Krug
"Daddy has a furniture problem," Lupton later explained to her children. But if it's a problem, it's one he shares with his wife, a curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and director of the graphic design master of fine arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where she lives. She's also the co-author of the new book "Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things" (St. Martin's Griffin, $23.95) and a blog (http://www.design-your-life.org) with her twin sister, Julia Lupton, a professor of English at the University of California at Irvine.
Ellen, 45, explains that for her family, "moving the furniture has become a way of pulling happiness and sociability . . . out of ordinary situations."
The book, a glossy paperback punctuated with colorful, painterly illustrations by Ellen, examines the highs and lows of everyday design, such as the pitfalls of the modern toaster, why porches are making a comeback and what's wrong with rolling luggage. It also offers tips on how design can make your life not only more visually appealing but also more efficient, even happier.
If this sounds like self-help hooey, never fear. "Design Your Life" is brainy and irreverent: "Design has psychological as well as mechanical functions," Ellen writes.Even "an ordinary toilet paper holder can instill feelings of security, freedom, and restraint in addition to keeping the clean roll off the dirty floor." In a phone interview, we asked the authors to elaborate.
How do you define good design?
Ellen: We think design is not just objects but what you do with them, and that if you can arrange them in your life so they work for you, that's good design. Good design gives you pleasure and efficiency. When you start to become aware and pay attention to the details and habits of your day, then you start thinking like a designer.
How can you spot poor design?
Ellen: One way to know an object is badly designed is when cleaning and taking care of it outweigh the pleasure and value of using it. The chocolate fountain is an example of this. . . . Another example is the toilet paper dispenser in America. Most are spring-loaded, and they require two hands and multiple arm motions to remove the core and put new paper on them. Therefore, in households around the land, you see people not putting new paper on them. This can make people angry, but it's a design problem.
Can you explain how, as you put it, you can "control the actions of those around you by placing objects carefully"?
Ellen: Flat surfaces invite people to pile things: keys, paper, coffee cups, etc. We all want to keep these surfaces clean, but when you clean them off, it entices people put things on them. So when you want to deter that, put a beautiful object on it, like a vase or a bowl of sea shells. You should then have places where you allow people to put stuff, where you create a space and an opportunity so the clutter doesn't go everywhere else.
Among the rooms you analyze is the living room. Is there something fundamentally wrong with the living room? Do we really need it?
Julia: The living room keeps coming under attack as wasted space. Yet it keeps reappearing. . . . We seem to need a space that is largely uncluttered and somewhat formal as a breathing space. . . . Even as we want to use every inch of the house productively, these more formal spaces keep getting taken back to be what they are: beautiful, empty places where activity is not -- a visual moment of rest in the house.
What is the most recent gadget you bought?
Ellen: A Kindle. It's my love object. I bought it because I travel a lot and love to read. I have thousands of books in my house, but I don't want to have to own everything I read. . . . I love the experience of the Kindle. It is truly a different experience of reading and not just a poor substitute for print.
Julia: A Flip video camera . . . It's become an extension of our household: a light, easy-to-use, personalized tool for documenting and for creativity.
In a few words, how can good design help make you happier?
Ellen: So much of our experience every day is affected by light, temperature, the comfort of our furniture and by what we can see when we're sitting in it. Making those things pleasurable, beautiful and functional instead of ugly and dirty and oppressive really does, for me, create happiness.
How can a toilet paper holder make you feel happy or secure—or not?
Ellen: The reason that most people have spring-loaded toilet paper holders is because it feels secure, that the paper's not going to fall off the wall. The open-ended holder makes you feel like you won't have the paper when you most need it. People should ask themselves which is more important: the security of a spring-loaded design that traps paper in a space or the ease of use of an open-ended design -- or no toilet paper holder at all.
What kind of toilet paper holder do you have?
Julia: We both have open-ended holders . . . Other people notice flowers; we notice the toilet paper.
by Nora Krug
When Ellen Lupton was recovering after the birth ofher daughter, her husband's eyes strayed from the beatific scene of mother and child to something less palatable: the poor design of the hospital room. Unable to stand it, he decided to reconfigure, fashioning a new seating area near the window beside Lupton's bed rather than at her feet.
"Daddy has a furniture problem," Lupton later explained to her children. But if it's a problem, it's one he shares with his wife, a curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and director of the graphic design master of fine arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where she lives. She's also the co-author of the new book "Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things" (St. Martin's Griffin, $23.95) and a blog (http://www.design-your-life.org) with her twin sister, Julia Lupton, a professor of English at the University of California at Irvine.
Ellen, 45, explains that for her family, "moving the furniture has become a way of pulling happiness and sociability . . . out of ordinary situations."
The book, a glossy paperback punctuated with colorful, painterly illustrations by Ellen, examines the highs and lows of everyday design, such as the pitfalls of the modern toaster, why porches are making a comeback and what's wrong with rolling luggage. It also offers tips on how design can make your life not only more visually appealing but also more efficient, even happier.
If this sounds like self-help hooey, never fear. "Design Your Life" is brainy and irreverent: "Design has psychological as well as mechanical functions," Ellen writes.Even "an ordinary toilet paper holder can instill feelings of security, freedom, and restraint in addition to keeping the clean roll off the dirty floor." In a phone interview, we asked the authors to elaborate.
How do you define good design?
Ellen: We think design is not just objects but what you do with them, and that if you can arrange them in your life so they work for you, that's good design. Good design gives you pleasure and efficiency. When you start to become aware and pay attention to the details and habits of your day, then you start thinking like a designer.
How can you spot poor design?
Ellen: One way to know an object is badly designed is when cleaning and taking care of it outweigh the pleasure and value of using it. The chocolate fountain is an example of this. . . . Another example is the toilet paper dispenser in America. Most are spring-loaded, and they require two hands and multiple arm motions to remove the core and put new paper on them. Therefore, in households around the land, you see people not putting new paper on them. This can make people angry, but it's a design problem.
Can you explain how, as you put it, you can "control the actions of those around you by placing objects carefully"?
Ellen: Flat surfaces invite people to pile things: keys, paper, coffee cups, etc. We all want to keep these surfaces clean, but when you clean them off, it entices people put things on them. So when you want to deter that, put a beautiful object on it, like a vase or a bowl of sea shells. You should then have places where you allow people to put stuff, where you create a space and an opportunity so the clutter doesn't go everywhere else.
Among the rooms you analyze is the living room. Is there something fundamentally wrong with the living room? Do we really need it?
Julia: The living room keeps coming under attack as wasted space. Yet it keeps reappearing. . . . We seem to need a space that is largely uncluttered and somewhat formal as a breathing space. . . . Even as we want to use every inch of the house productively, these more formal spaces keep getting taken back to be what they are: beautiful, empty places where activity is not -- a visual moment of rest in the house.
What is the most recent gadget you bought?
Ellen: A Kindle. It's my love object. I bought it because I travel a lot and love to read. I have thousands of books in my house, but I don't want to have to own everything I read. . . . I love the experience of the Kindle. It is truly a different experience of reading and not just a poor substitute for print.
Julia: A Flip video camera . . . It's become an extension of our household: a light, easy-to-use, personalized tool for documenting and for creativity.
In a few words, how can good design help make you happier?
Ellen: So much of our experience every day is affected by light, temperature, the comfort of our furniture and by what we can see when we're sitting in it. Making those things pleasurable, beautiful and functional instead of ugly and dirty and oppressive really does, for me, create happiness.
How can a toilet paper holder make you feel happy or secure—or not?
Ellen: The reason that most people have spring-loaded toilet paper holders is because it feels secure, that the paper's not going to fall off the wall. The open-ended holder makes you feel like you won't have the paper when you most need it. People should ask themselves which is more important: the security of a spring-loaded design that traps paper in a space or the ease of use of an open-ended design -- or no toilet paper holder at all.
What kind of toilet paper holder do you have?
Julia: We both have open-ended holders . . . Other people notice flowers; we notice the toilet paper.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Rape culture
When sports culture meets rape culture
by Kate Harding
from http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/07/24/roethlisberger_rape_culture/
Friday, July 24, 2009 06:25 PDT
On Wednesday evening, 36 hours after the Associated Press reported that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of rape in a civil suit, "world leader" in sports news ESPN finally decided to mention it. Prior to that, says USA Today, "ESPN instructed its employees not to report the Roethlisberger news, based partially on the fact that no criminal complaint had been filed. Said ESPN news director Vince Doria to the Wall Street Journal, 'We don't think it meets our standard of reporting.'" I'm not too good at impressions, but here's my best Seth Myers/Amy Poehler for you:Really, Vince Doria? Really?!?
Mike Florio at the NBC Sports website comes right out and says it: "[W]e're convinced that the Roethlisberger story initially was ignored due to concerns that ESPN would be jeopardizing its access to the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, who also happens to play for the team with the most loyal and rabid fan base in America." In a must-read post, "This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like," Jaclyn Friedman, co-editor of "Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape," explains how that decision is one of many examples of how our culture fails to discourage rapists or support victims. "When our media won't talk about rape, people think it doesn't happen, and the rapists face no consequences. That emboldens rapists."
Want some other examples? This case provides a sickening number of them, and Friedman lays many of them out. According to the suit, when the plaintiff, Andrea McNulty -- an employee of a Lake Tahoe Harrah's casino hotel where the rape allegedly took place -- reported the crime to Harrah's security, she was told not only that they wouldn't be investigating, but that "most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger." (Yeah, maybe they would. That's one of the reasons why we angry feminists are always pointing out that rape is not sex.) Says Friedman: "That's rape culture. When people in power refuse to take women's rape charges seriously, it means there are no consequences for rapists, which makes them more free to rape."
And later, the same security chief who told McNulty she should feel lucky allegedly got her keys from her parents so he and other Harrah's employees could enter her home without consent and erase files from her computer. Friedman: "That's rape culture. When authorities use their power to deliberately silence rape victims instead of helping them find justice, it not only leaves rapists free but intimidates other victims from coming forward."
Ostensibly, ESPN's decision not to report on the case at first was because no criminal charges have been filed -- and indeed, when they did report on it, they led with that point. Never mind that "Her lawsuit says she didn't file a criminal complaint because she feared Harrah's would side with Roethlisberger -- a friend of the hotel-casino's regional president John Koster -- and she would be fired." (Psst, that's rape culture.) Or that 60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported, in part because if they are, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network estimates, only about 16 percent of reports will lead to a conviction.
Meanwhile, Friedman notes that the ever-charming Perez Hilton has already put forth the theory that the alleged victim might just be a lying golddigger, an assertion we're likely to hear many, many more times as the story unfolds. No doubt that's the reasoning behind zeroing in on the lack of criminal charges; instead of trying to put the rapist in jail, she went after his money? But here's the thing: Regardless of whether or not she's lying, this whole story is still a nauseatingly perfect illustration of all the ways in which real victims are silenced, intimidated, smeared, disbelieved and bullied, while men accused of rape are given the benefit of the doubt at every turn. Again, Friedman nails it:
As this woman's case proceeds, her body, her actions, her mental state, motives and her history will be put on public trial in a way that would never happen if she were accusing someone of kidnapping or attempted murder. That's rape culture. When women are too afraid of being re-victimized by the courts and the media to come forward, and when the public gets the message that women who accuse men of rape are lying or did something to deserve it, the cycle continues.
Meanwhile, Roethlisberger's lawyer is telling journalists, "Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone; especially Andrea McNulty." Especially her? How the hell do you especially not rape someone? "These other women, I merely did not rape, but that one I extra super double did not rape!" Huh? Oh wait, I think I get it. I've got a dollar that says we're about to find out that he doesn't deny having sex with her, but she wanted it. And we all know most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with Ben Roethlisberger, and men totally only rape when they can't otherwise get laid, so why would he need to rape this one? Another dollar says the "especially" means we're also about to hear that dude, she's not even that hot -- the same defense Kobe Bryant used -- and nobody ever rapes ugly women, so there you go. It's her word against his, and really, who are you going to believe? The guy's a national treasure. The woman's just somebody willing to subject herself to public humiliation and intense scrutiny of her entire life in order to hold a man accountable for allegedly raping her. I think we can all agree it's obvious who's got the greater motive to lie -- that golddigging bitch! Case closed.
Say it with me, folks: That's rape culture.
This is what rape culture looks like
by Jaclyn Friedman
from http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/this-is-what-rape-culture-looks-like/
Thursday, July 23, 2009
I often get asked what the phrase “rape culture” means. And while, honestly, the answer is no further away than wikipedia, it’s sometimes easier to grasp a concept by observing it in the wild.
Ben Roethlisberger is the Super-Bowl-winning QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last summer he was in Lake Tahoe for a celebrity golf tournament. While there, he flirted up a female host at Harrahs, the casino hotel where he was staying. Whether or not she voluntarlily flirted with him is unknowable – as a rich, high profile celebrity, he knew that it was her job to flirt with him, and so did she. That’s rape culture. When men make choices about what women do with their sexuality, that strengthens the idea that men can control women’s bodies.
The following night, he called her to say his TV wasn’t working – would she come take a look? She couldn’t find a tech person to do it, so she went herself, knowing that she had to do everything possible to keep her celeb guest happy. Once up there, she discovered a perfectly functioning TV. And then, allegedly, Roethlisberger blocked her exit and raped her. That’s rape.
When she reported the attack to Harrah’s security chief Guy Hyder, he declined to investiage and allegedly told her that she was “overreacting” and that “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.” He also told her to either keep it from their boss at Harrah’s, or to tell their boss they’d had sex voluntarily, in order to keep everybody happy. That’s rape culture. When people in power refuse to take women’s rape charges seriously, it means there are no consequences for rapists, which makes them more free to rape.
Later, while she was hospitalized for depression as a result of the assault, Hyder convinced her parents to give him the key to her house. He and other Harrah’s employees used it, allegedly, to enter her home without permission and erase information from her computer. That’s rape culture. When authorities use their power to deliberately silence rape victims instead of helping them find justice, it not only leaves rapists free but intimidates other victims from coming forward.
And now, as these details emerge, ESPN has instructed its entire team of reporters to not report any of this information. [Update: ESPN may be easing its ban, but it's still unclear how much and what will be reported.] Yes, the same network whose sideline reporter is currently being exploited all over the ‘net in a peeping tom video. You’d think that would make them more sympathetic to the sexual exploitation of women just trying to do their job, but they’re too focused on protecting access to the star athletes who are their cash cows to even do their basic job as journalists. That’s rape culture. When our media won’t talk about rape, people think it doesn’t happen, and the rapists face no consequences. That emboldens rapists.
Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is already suggesting she may be a lying golddigger. That’s rape culture. As this woman’s case proceeds, her body, her actions, her mental state, motives and her history will be put on public trial in a way that would never happen if she were accusing someone of kidnapping or attempted murder. That’s rape culture. When women are too afraid of being re-victimized by the courts and the media to come forward, and when the public gets the message that women who accuse men of rape are lying or did something to deserve it, the cycle continues.
There is only one rapist alleged here. But there are so, so many participants. That’s rape culture, and it has to stop. In this case, let’s start with holding the media accountable for their role. Contact ESPN here.
[UPDATE #2: Read NBC Sports' spot-on takedown of ESPN's excuses for their "do not report" policy here. h/t Anna Clark]
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A petty theft
stolen from dear LW's blog:
So Henry Louis Gates, professor of African American studies at Harvard, was arrested in his home for calling cops "racist."
Gates was coming back to his home near Harvard after a trip and was having trouble with the front door (sticky lock). Someone saw this, decided to call the police, and the police came to his house. Gates showed them his driver's license, listing the home as his address. But as the cops were leaving, Gates was yelling at them and calling them names. So they came back and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
Geez. Couldn't they just apologize and leave? Gates may have been obnoxious, but it's not against the law to be obnoxious. And he had reason to be pissed---it's not like he was randomly ranting with no context. More and more stories of coming to light of police using their powers in a punitive manner; I'm thinking of the grandmother who got tasered recently. She also was pretty obnoxious, but the police officer was in absolutely no physical danger. He was sick of her foul mouth and decided to give her a good shock.
Police have a tough job, but their behavior must be completely above the fray. It may be a lot to ask, but that's the price of being granted weapons and the authority to arrest. I'm also reminded of the police officers who broke into the house of mayor of Berwyn Heights, shot their family pets, and then held the family for hours while they searched for drugs. A delivery of drugs had been made to their house, but the Prince George's count police KNEW that drug dealers were having drugs delivered to the houses of innocent people and then picking up the box after delivery. They couldn't have taken a few minutes to find out who lived in that house and make some sort of preliminary judgment about how likely it was that the resident was a drug dealer? As they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and there's room for improvement here.
Gates was coming back to his home near Harvard after a trip and was having trouble with the front door (sticky lock). Someone saw this, decided to call the police, and the police came to his house. Gates showed them his driver's license, listing the home as his address. But as the cops were leaving, Gates was yelling at them and calling them names. So they came back and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
Geez. Couldn't they just apologize and leave? Gates may have been obnoxious, but it's not against the law to be obnoxious. And he had reason to be pissed---it's not like he was randomly ranting with no context. More and more stories of coming to light of police using their powers in a punitive manner; I'm thinking of the grandmother who got tasered recently. She also was pretty obnoxious, but the police officer was in absolutely no physical danger. He was sick of her foul mouth and decided to give her a good shock.
Police have a tough job, but their behavior must be completely above the fray. It may be a lot to ask, but that's the price of being granted weapons and the authority to arrest. I'm also reminded of the police officers who broke into the house of mayor of Berwyn Heights, shot their family pets, and then held the family for hours while they searched for drugs. A delivery of drugs had been made to their house, but the Prince George's count police KNEW that drug dealers were having drugs delivered to the houses of innocent people and then picking up the box after delivery. They couldn't have taken a few minutes to find out who lived in that house and make some sort of preliminary judgment about how likely it was that the resident was a drug dealer? As they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and there's room for improvement here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
National heritage
Tracking Michelle Obama's Slave Roots
from http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/16/michelle.obama.slaveroots/index.html
GEORGETOWN, South Carolina (CNN) -- In many places across the South you can walk in the footsteps of slaves, and if you understand the history, it is not a happy journey. The same is true at Friendfield Plantation outside Georgetown, South Carolina.
It's not exactly "Gone With the Wind," but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this: The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields.
It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude. It's the symbol of something that's never happened before: One important segment of an American family's journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation's ruling class.
CNN recently was the first television network allowed to visit the plantation and shoot video. It's not a museum. It's just private land, still with shadows of its past.
Friendfield's most distinctive historical feature, perhaps, is the dirt road known as Slave Street.
Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters, even though rows of these houses once stood on the property. About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century.
The houses are nothing special -- no plumbing, of course. The wooden walls are paper thin in places. It would have been hot and humid in summer, and most certainly cold in winter, although the shacks had fireplaces.
They would have been crowded: probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage.
The White House is some 472 miles from Georgetown, South Carolina. But long before Michelle Obama was born, her great-great grandfather, Jim Robinson, likely toiled in the fields here six days a week, from sunup to sundown.
The place he probably called home was a little white shack smaller than -- by comparison -- a Secret Service security shed on the grounds of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
All told, hundreds of people lived like this, on this one plantation alone.
"Anywhere between 200 to 500 at different times," said Ed Carter, the property manager. "The older the plantation got, they kept adding on more cabins. [Some] cabins are 1847.
"There was some on the other street that were about probably 1820s. And when they added on, got a bit more wealthy, they just kept adding on more slaves, more cabins."
The shacks probably weren't much refuge from the vicious clouds of mosquitoes, chiggers, fire ants, and other pests that still impinge on a person's every move on the plantation. Then, consider the dangers of the alligators and snakes.
There was also the oppressive heat and humidity of South Carolina. And on the day CNN visited, the skies opened up in a violent rainstorm.
Add up all of these factors and you begin to get a picture of what life probably was, and was not, for the slaves on Friendfield Plantation. Workers on the rice plantation -- and Friendfield was one of the largest in these parts -- faced all these elements, plus the threat of disease, including malaria and yellow fever. And unlike the CNN crew, the slaves were not free to leave.
Even in death, the slaves stayed. Three cemeteries are on the Friendfield grounds. The one slave cemetery CNN visited had mostly unmarked graves, but Jim Robinson -- who was born into slavery and died a free man -- is believed to be buried there somewhere.
The cemetery clearly has been segregated from the rest of the property. Slave cemeteries were typically situated on land unsuitable for any other use.
Surrounded by trees, it might have been a beautiful place. Now, it is hard to tell that you are standing in a cemetery -- except for half a dozen grave markers, some made of wood, bearing no names.
All that's known about Jim Robinson's life comes from the few remaining records that mention him. Slaves weren't documented as individuals in the census, nor in life and death certificates. They were property, not people.
But Michelle Obama's great-great grandfather was a teenager when slavery was abolished, so as a free man, he started to leave a paper trail.
The 1880 census shows he was born about 1850, in South Carolina, and that his parents were born in South Carolina as well. He married a woman named Louiser, and in 1880 they already had three children, two boys and a girl, ages 1, 2, and 3.
The son that would become Michelle Obama's great grandfather was not born yet. The census lists Jim's occupation as a farmer, and Louiser's as "keeping house."
They are both recorded as unable to read or write. It's good fortune to uncover even this much information; the original handwritten census got wet, the ink ran and it is nearly illegible. Proof of life, nearly washed away.
There are a lot of unknowns concerning Michelle Obama's ancestry -- how many generations of slaves there were, or what route they took to this hemisphere.
The Obama election campaign commissioned a study of Michelle's genealogy by the research group Lowcountry Africana, but they couldn't make the link back to Africa. As with so many African-Americans' family histories, the paper trail runs dry.
"I don't think that that sort of information is available for anyone from Friendfield Plantation at this point," historian Tori Carrier, of Lowcountry Africana, said. "Very, very few, if any, of the Friendfield records actually survived except in public records: wills and estate inventories. ...
"There's not a real Friendfield Plantation records set, or plantation journals that have been preserved ... and there's certainly not a shred of documentary evidence right now which would even suggest to us what the African origins would be," Carrier said.
In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Michelle Obama talked about learning her family's past and understanding the history of slavery.
"A lot of times these stories get buried, because sometimes the pain of them makes it hard to want to remember," she said told the Post for an October story. "You've got to be able to acknowledge and understand the past and move on from it. You have to understand it, and I think a lot of us just don't have an opportunity to understand it -- but it's there."
Back in Georgetown, South Carolina, Margretta Knox remembers attending the Bethel AME church with the first lady's grandparents -- Jim Robinson's grandson and his wife -- when she was a girl. The couple spent many of their years in Chicago, but returned back South after they retired.
"My father knew that Fraser Robinson's father sold newspapers," she recalled. "He made his kids read them. Mr. Robinson was very, very smart, he could recite poetry. ... Their grandfather could recite poetry and that kind of thing. ... Her grandfather and her grandmother, they were both very smart people."
But the family ties to the old plantation just got lost. "We let our parents die before we really thought about asking them questions," Knox said.
"We didn't think about it until much later, and then it was too late. They were already gone. So there was no history after that. ...
"Because we live here, we don't think about it. It's just like, you've been around it all of your life, it doesn't cross your mind. You're just living for today."
In that same way, it probably never crossed Jim Robinson's mind, as a slave in a white-washed cabin, that one day his great-great granddaughter would be living in a white house so very, very different from his own.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Cassandra can suck it.
It's hot! It's sexy! It's . . . marriage!
from http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/07/15/traister_marriage/
Am I the only person who actually enjoys being hitched these days?
By Aaron Traister
July 15, 2009 | Amid all the bad press marriage has been getting recently -- from Sandra Tsing Loh's admission of adultery and refusal to do the "work" necessary to keep her marriage together, to Cristina Nehring's dismissal of boring companionate marriages in favor of rash flings, to the very public ruin of the marriages of every governor ever elected, to Caitlin Flanagan's flaccid defense of marriage as something to hang onto for the sake of the kids -- I'm starting to feel like there is something wrong with me, because I actually enjoy being married.
My wife and I have been married anywhere from seven to 150 years (I'm not good with dates). During those years we have moved six times, and each move was like an exotic gift that happened to be covered in shit. We have each had multiple jobs, and multiple uniforms with name tags. We've been broke, we've been well off, we've been broke again. We've bought our first house together, and it has a giant hole in the kitchen ceiling and sparks come out of the third-floor outlets if you hold anything metal too close to them. We have fought, raged, nearly cheated, and been totally out of sync with each other during chunks of our time together. We've also produced two enormous redheaded babies who are as terrifying to us as Mothra and Godzilla were to Japan in the '60s. We have been depressed, we have wanted more, we have wanted different, we have wanted out. The years since we got married have been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life.
They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.
When I met my wife she was a tough and self-sufficient 25-year-old bartender working in lower Manhattan. When she looked in the mirror she saw a beautiful young woman with a rock-solid personal-trainer sculpted body and a collection of lingerie that would make Fredrick of Hollywood himself go cross-eyed.
I was a 22-year-old slow-getter navigating the medium-paced world of entry-level positions at failing entertainment companies. When I looked in the mirror I saw someone who looked like a cross between Wallace Shawn and Koko the sign language gorilla. (Yes, I know Koko is a lady ape, but the resemblance is uncanny.) I saw someone who hadn't quite gotten comfortable with the fact that he wasn't 14 anymore, but who had endless amounts of time and energy for being as selfish as possible and enjoying every possible instant life had to offer.
The world was our oyster, and we slurped it. We slurped it often. We slurped it hard.
We had so much fun slurping with each other that we thought we should make a life of it.
Nowadays when my wife looks in the mirror all she sees are stretch marks and soft spots. I don't see these things with the clarity or critical eye she does; if I do notice changes in her I chalk them up to a life full of laughter, good food and fat babies. In my mind, my wife wears those marks with as much style and beauty as she wears everything else. In her mind it is a different story.
When I look in the mirror I see pretty much the same thing I've seen for the past 17 years: I still see a big hairy monkey smiling back at me and grunting, and I still feel like I'm 14, even if the energy and time aren't necessarily there anymore. Sure, I notice the effects of ape pattern baldness slowly ravaging my once glorious mane, and perhaps I've eaten one too many bananas and slurped one too many oysters.
But these maladies that my wife and I face when we look in the mirror are not symptoms of a crappy marriage. They are a symptom of getting older, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they would not be worn as gracefully if we were not a part of each other's lives.
And while I have many daydreams regarding me and Tina, the 20-year-old soccer-playing sophomore who serves me my ice cream and indulges me in my forced attempts at conversations about her school and career goals, I know that ship has long since sailed. I had my time with the Tinas of the world. I married one. I don't want to think about getting hair plugs and a Camaro in order to keep up with the new batch.
My lack of hot Tina action doesn't eat away at me, nor does it act as some sort of wedge issue in my life or marriage, because I know a secret.
As hard as marriage can be, it only really sucks if you don't love the person you're married to. If you don't love the person you're married to all the other crap seems insurmountable -- the scary large children, the lack of money, the fantasy sexual partners (who I like to imagine was wearing a particularly low-cut top today in my honor but, in reality, was not), the falling-apart house, the weeks where you just don't click, the ridiculous arguments about nothing, and most important, the fact that you're getting older and still haven't magically achieved your life goal of becoming Randall Cunningham or Patti Smith or whatever.
If you love the person you are married to then all the stuff that's your problem and not actually a problem with the relationship, stays your problem (for the most part), and you can focus on what's great about marriage.
At 8 p.m. on the 4th of July my wife and I found ourselves with two sleeping children and an unusual amount of energy for that time of night. We capitalized on the opportunity by having sex on the couch (we are usually relegated to quickies in our pantry/coat closet during episodes of "Dora"). We were enjoying this moment of sexual liberation from the tangling tentacles of the jackets we still haven't put away for the summer when we realized that the music coming from the TV had changed, and we were suddenly working in time to a particularly jaunty instrumental rendition of "You're a Grand Old Flag" (not exactly Marvin Gaye). In my compromised state, the song crossed with "Stars and Stripes Forever," and I found myself singing that line about "a duck being somebody's mother." It's hard to overstate the absurdity of the moment, as I whispered poultry origins from the wrong patriotic anthem to my incredibly sexy wife during intercourse.If you love the person you are married to then all the stuff that's your problem and not actually a problem with the relationship, stays your problem (for the most part), and you can focus on what's great about marriage.
Everyone has laughed so hard their stomach hurt, but I don't know how many people have had that opportunity while they are inside someone else who is laughing that hard too. It is sort of like riding on the teacups at Disneyland during an earthquake. It's an unusual sensation and one that I'm not quite sure I'd describe as sexy. It certainly shares little in common with the urgent and dramatic gymnastics of our youthful physical relationship, but it was fun, it was intimate, it was something that I'm glad I had the chance to do, and it was something I would only feel comfortable sharing with my wife of 150 years.
I'm sacrificing our privacy on the altar of public opinion for a simple reason: We talk about our marriages so seriously and with such reverence; we talk about our sex or lack thereof in the same way. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't treat the institution and its dirty little companion as some sort of precious Fabergé egg that is either shattered and worthless or pristine, untouchable and priceless. Maybe it's more like Silly Putty and the plastic egg it comes in. Sometimes the egg is open, allowing for hours of stretchy, flexible fun; sometimes the egg is closed and kind of boring, but as long as the Silly Putty remains inside the egg it's still full of as much potential as your imagination allows, and the value of the egg is not diminished no matter how often or vigorously the egg or its contents are fingered or played with. (And yes, I was staring at a Silly Putty egg on my dining room table when I came up with that extended metaphor.)
Maybe if we all had a better sense of humor about our relationships, our sex, and most important, getting older, our marriages wouldn't be in such crisis. As appealing as doing tequila shots with out-of-work strippers sounds sometimes, the reality of it (for more than an evening) would probably not make me any happier than I am curled up on the couch with my wife drinking watered-down Scotch and watching TiVoed episodes of "General Hospital."
I'm not arguing that people shouldn't get divorced. I'm all for it. What I'm sick and tired of is divorced people speaking as though they are oracles from the future who know how the rest of our unions will turn out. All the marriage bashing going on out there feels like a way of shedding a certain amount of personal responsibility. By telling the world the institution is flawed, or that we've somehow outgrown it, nobody has to own up and admit that it was their interpretation of it that was screwed up.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Glory
the other day, impatient for caramelized onions, i added a few glurgs of balsamic vinegar to the pan. results? lip-smackingly good in much. less. time.
"Will you let me be your servant?"
CEDRIC: harry, take my body back. take my body back to my parents.
HERF: *with nervous energy* um, hey, i can take care of that! harry! no need to, ah . . .
MULTIPLE HEALTH CODES: *are violated*
Friday, July 10, 2009
En route to the train station this morning
caro sposo:
dj:
*confidentially* honey, i think we should make a real effort to get to ArtScape this year, because it's something your little husband would enjoy. *beat* and because i would like to see dionne warwick.
dj:
*loses control of car*
Irony: I read this while sipping my Starbucks latte
my friend 'drea linked to this excellent article on her Facebook page; the author spanks what i've been flailing to express for some time now. thanks, A.
--
Talkin' 'Bout Real
posted by M. LeBlanc, Thursday, July 09, 2009
I have something to get off my chest. I would be blissfully happy if I never have to hear the phrase "Real Americans" again. There's been a lot of talk about "Real Americans," both implicitly and explicitly, on this blog and almost every other blog I've been reading this week. Not to mention the newspapers. Reading it all day after day, taking it in, I've seen a common thread everywhere that I'm going to try and delicately extract. And then eviscerate.
(I know I'm mixing my metaphors).
It all sort of started with Douthat's column in the New York Times last Sunday about Sarah Palin. Douthat argued that the failure of Sarah Palin's political career was a failure of the "democratic ideal," which is apparently that "anyone can grow up to be a success story without going to Columbia or Harvard." I don't know if I can make a pithy statement about what the "democratic ideal" is, but whatever it is, it sure as hell ain't that. Yglesias pointed out why Douthat's asserted class divide didn't make sense (with bonus charts!).
Douthat's view of class is an incredibly simplistic one where the name of your Alma Mater is apparently what matters most. Where you can position Barack Obama in a higher class than Sarah Palin because of where he went to school. Sure, education matters. But Douthat wants to think it matters the most because, like many east coast conservatives---surprise!---he's the recipient of an Ivy League education himself. Hell, he parlayed his experience at Harvard into a whole book. But by his own description, then, Douthat is not himself a Real American, because the Real Americans are the ones whodidn't go to college went to community college went to college in Idaho.
Liberals have tried to take back the Real American label from the Republican rhetoric of white populism, and I'm sorry to break it to you guys, but we failed. We'll continue to fail. I objected to Taddy's post the other day which talked about Real Americans. As long as we're bickering over who is and who is not Real Americans, we're fucked. Because the rhetorical history of "Real Americans" is white people. It has always been a dog whistle for talking about white people, and we can not change it into a dog whistle for talking about something other than white people. What else is it? Real Americans = people? No, it is far too loaded to be something as simple as that.
Besides, even if we could construct something nonracist about what constitutes a "Real American," it would inevitably exclude people who are not actually Americans. What about the people who just immigrated? What about people with dual citizenship? Our government should stand for and protect all the people living in this country.
If you make an assertion about what a "Real American" is, you are implicitly making an assertion that there is a group of people who are not "Real Americans." And you're wrong. I don't care who it is. People with stable jobs, rich people, white people, people who drink lattes, people who live in New York City, people who have no education, people with every degree in the book, unemployed people, welders, college professors, and CEOs. Even Sarah Palin. All real Americans.
Any concept you can envision about what a Real American is, unless you mean it to mean "every single person in this country" (in which case it's a pretty meaningless term) is going to leave out huge swaths of people that you actually might give a shit about.
I want to draw your attention to two particularly excellent posts on this subject. The first is from Ta-Nehisi Coates. You've got to read the whole thing, because it's great, but this part is particularly excellent:
The second post comes from Amanda Marcotte, writing from a totally different perspective than Coates, but with some great observations about how white populism isn't even really about white populism. It's not even about identifying with middle-class white people in the South, because if you are a middle class white person in the south and you are a feminist, or a liberal, or you think being gay is okay, you're automatically disqualified. "Real Americans" really means "other people who are also bigots." She says:
A lot of people call this identity politics. But is isn't really identity politics. For a long time, I instinctively got my back up every time I heard that phrase, because it's got very negative connotations. Identity politics is bad, right? Republicans say that the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor was "identity politics" because she wouldn't have been nominated if she weren't a Puerto Rican woman. Same with Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and and and.
Usually our response, as non-bigots is "no, [the person] is very smart and has accomplished this and this and this and this." But I propose another response:
So what?
Would Sotomayor have been nominated if she weren't a Puerto Rican woman? Probably not. If Sonia Sotomayor's name was really Joseph Miller and she was a white guy? No. Because Barack Obama was specifically looking for a highly qualified female judge, and if he could get it a highly qualified female judge of color, to put on the bench. And that's okay.
Let me repeat it: that's okay. Because it is good to have diversity on the court. It is good for the court itself. It is good for the decisions that that court hands down. It is good for the people who share a gender and/or ethnic identity with that person. This is what they mean when they talk about identity politics: picking someone because of who they are, what they look like, where they grew up. That's not only okay, it's essential in a multicultural society like the one we have. Because whites get to have one of their own on the court. Hell, they get to have eight of their own. Latino(a)s say, well, we want one of our own, too. And they should get it, if not all the time, at least once in a while, don't you think?
Identity politics shouldn't be a dirty word. I want there to be some identity politics. I want for African-Americans, and Latinos, and Asians, and gays and lesbians and people with disabilities to get one of their own up there sometimes. If people aren't qualified, don't pick 'em. It should be plain to everyone by now that there's more than one qualified person for any job, and you can't always just pick the best person. There's rarely any obvious best. So, sometimes, one of the things you consider in who you pick among all the people who have crossed the qualification threshold is race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation or disability.
And that's okay. That's good.
The "Real Americans" nonsense that the Republicans trot out every time there's an election and, well, any time they open their mouths, that's not identity politics. Because as Marcotte so ably argued, how you look and where you're from doesn't make you part of the tribe. It's whether you're a bigot (but you also have to be white/not-urban/Christian too).
So let's just stop with the those people aren't Real Americans bit. Even if the those people are racist populist assholes. Just like when it precedes any other noun, "real" just serves as a way to us-and-them. Just like "real women have curves!" doesn't do anything to fight the absurd cultural beauty standards we inflict on women (people without curves aren't real women?), "real Americans" only serves to divide us. And we are divided, yes. But real and not-real isn't where the division lies. It's fear of change against embracing change. It's exclusion against inclusion. It's bigotry against tolerance. It's hate against love.
--
Talkin' 'Bout Real
posted by M. LeBlanc, Thursday, July 09, 2009
I have something to get off my chest. I would be blissfully happy if I never have to hear the phrase "Real Americans" again. There's been a lot of talk about "Real Americans," both implicitly and explicitly, on this blog and almost every other blog I've been reading this week. Not to mention the newspapers. Reading it all day after day, taking it in, I've seen a common thread everywhere that I'm going to try and delicately extract. And then eviscerate.
(I know I'm mixing my metaphors).
It all sort of started with Douthat's column in the New York Times last Sunday about Sarah Palin. Douthat argued that the failure of Sarah Palin's political career was a failure of the "democratic ideal," which is apparently that "anyone can grow up to be a success story without going to Columbia or Harvard." I don't know if I can make a pithy statement about what the "democratic ideal" is, but whatever it is, it sure as hell ain't that. Yglesias pointed out why Douthat's asserted class divide didn't make sense (with bonus charts!).
Douthat's view of class is an incredibly simplistic one where the name of your Alma Mater is apparently what matters most. Where you can position Barack Obama in a higher class than Sarah Palin because of where he went to school. Sure, education matters. But Douthat wants to think it matters the most because, like many east coast conservatives---surprise!---he's the recipient of an Ivy League education himself. Hell, he parlayed his experience at Harvard into a whole book. But by his own description, then, Douthat is not himself a Real American, because the Real Americans are the ones who
Liberals have tried to take back the Real American label from the Republican rhetoric of white populism, and I'm sorry to break it to you guys, but we failed. We'll continue to fail. I objected to Taddy's post the other day which talked about Real Americans. As long as we're bickering over who is and who is not Real Americans, we're fucked. Because the rhetorical history of "Real Americans" is white people. It has always been a dog whistle for talking about white people, and we can not change it into a dog whistle for talking about something other than white people. What else is it? Real Americans = people? No, it is far too loaded to be something as simple as that.
Besides, even if we could construct something nonracist about what constitutes a "Real American," it would inevitably exclude people who are not actually Americans. What about the people who just immigrated? What about people with dual citizenship? Our government should stand for and protect all the people living in this country.
If you make an assertion about what a "Real American" is, you are implicitly making an assertion that there is a group of people who are not "Real Americans." And you're wrong. I don't care who it is. People with stable jobs, rich people, white people, people who drink lattes, people who live in New York City, people who have no education, people with every degree in the book, unemployed people, welders, college professors, and CEOs. Even Sarah Palin. All real Americans.
Any concept you can envision about what a Real American is, unless you mean it to mean "every single person in this country" (in which case it's a pretty meaningless term) is going to leave out huge swaths of people that you actually might give a shit about.
I want to draw your attention to two particularly excellent posts on this subject. The first is from Ta-Nehisi Coates. You've got to read the whole thing, because it's great, but this part is particularly excellent:
For most of this country's history, being black and brilliant was not something that set you a part from other black people---it was something that could get you killed by white people. A study of this country's history reveals to not be hyperbole. This notion that white people of medium talents could rise to rule the world was not simply "the democratic ideal," it was the tyranny of our lives---with depressing, disastrous effects. The idea that mediocre white people could rise to incredible levels of power was not so much an ideal for us--it was the whole point of white supremacy.So you can see here that the idea that average folk should be able to rise to the presidency isn't just weird and insidious, it's actually racist.
The second post comes from Amanda Marcotte, writing from a totally different perspective than Coates, but with some great observations about how white populism isn't even really about white populism. It's not even about identifying with middle-class white people in the South, because if you are a middle class white person in the south and you are a feminist, or a liberal, or you think being gay is okay, you're automatically disqualified. "Real Americans" really means "other people who are also bigots." She says:
I know how to two-step, and can probably sing every word to "The Chair". I’ve shot beer cans off fences, slept on trampolines, and I've had friends that don’t have indoor flushable toilets. I use the phrase “pepper belly” without a trace of irony. I was born in Texas, and have lived my whole life in Texas, and the two months I spent in small town Virginia drove me nuts in no small part because I thought most people put on too many airs. [...]You should read the whole thing; it's really great. Read it and tell me that this fetishization of middle America or red states or salt-of-the-earth-people or Average Americans or, finally, Real Americans is not anything but a lie. It is a political tactic used to rally other people who are 1) white 2) afraid that giving rights to anyone who's not white/male/heterosexual might mean that mediocre people don't get a pass anymore just because they look like Everyman.
Despite possessing all the stated markers for being a member of the salt-of-the-earth tribe, I doubt Douthat would consider me a member like he does Sarah Palin, even though I think I beat her on many counts, including the fact that neither my parents nor some of my exes even have college degrees. [...]
The reason is obvious, if politely unstated: I’m not in because I’m not a believer in sexism, racism, or American imperialism. I don’t believe white people are better than everyone else, I don’t think that it’s such a great idea to force women to bear children against their will, and I don’t rally round the flag when some politician starts coming up with excuses to invade another country to steal their resources and/or start a libertarian experiment.
A lot of people call this identity politics. But is isn't really identity politics. For a long time, I instinctively got my back up every time I heard that phrase, because it's got very negative connotations. Identity politics is bad, right? Republicans say that the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor was "identity politics" because she wouldn't have been nominated if she weren't a Puerto Rican woman. Same with Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and and and.
Usually our response, as non-bigots is "no, [the person] is very smart and has accomplished this and this and this and this." But I propose another response:
So what?
Would Sotomayor have been nominated if she weren't a Puerto Rican woman? Probably not. If Sonia Sotomayor's name was really Joseph Miller and she was a white guy? No. Because Barack Obama was specifically looking for a highly qualified female judge, and if he could get it a highly qualified female judge of color, to put on the bench. And that's okay.
Let me repeat it: that's okay. Because it is good to have diversity on the court. It is good for the court itself. It is good for the decisions that that court hands down. It is good for the people who share a gender and/or ethnic identity with that person. This is what they mean when they talk about identity politics: picking someone because of who they are, what they look like, where they grew up. That's not only okay, it's essential in a multicultural society like the one we have. Because whites get to have one of their own on the court. Hell, they get to have eight of their own. Latino(a)s say, well, we want one of our own, too. And they should get it, if not all the time, at least once in a while, don't you think?
Identity politics shouldn't be a dirty word. I want there to be some identity politics. I want for African-Americans, and Latinos, and Asians, and gays and lesbians and people with disabilities to get one of their own up there sometimes. If people aren't qualified, don't pick 'em. It should be plain to everyone by now that there's more than one qualified person for any job, and you can't always just pick the best person. There's rarely any obvious best. So, sometimes, one of the things you consider in who you pick among all the people who have crossed the qualification threshold is race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation or disability.
And that's okay. That's good.
The "Real Americans" nonsense that the Republicans trot out every time there's an election and, well, any time they open their mouths, that's not identity politics. Because as Marcotte so ably argued, how you look and where you're from doesn't make you part of the tribe. It's whether you're a bigot (but you also have to be white/not-urban/Christian too).
So let's just stop with the those people aren't Real Americans bit. Even if the those people are racist populist assholes. Just like when it precedes any other noun, "real" just serves as a way to us-and-them. Just like "real women have curves!" doesn't do anything to fight the absurd cultural beauty standards we inflict on women (people without curves aren't real women?), "real Americans" only serves to divide us. And we are divided, yes. But real and not-real isn't where the division lies. It's fear of change against embracing change. It's exclusion against inclusion. It's bigotry against tolerance. It's hate against love.
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