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June 27, 2008
The North Pole, Neat
One of those things I didn't learn while I was still a practicing Mormon is that the opposite of "on the rocks" is "neat," as in, "I'll have a shot of herradura, neat."
Pretty soon, the drink (my favorite term, by far, for the sea) in general might just well be neat. As in, all the ice at the north pole just might melt this summer.
It's one kind of neat, but not another. In fact, this kind of neat in this context SUCKS, literally, in that it sucks heat into a dark liquid ocean and warms the planet up even more.
Yeah. That totally sucks.
Posted by Holly at 7:25 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2008
Someone Who Really Should Be Named Joy
I know I'm being the laziest blogger in the world lately, but hey, I'm busy. And at least I'm interrupting my laziness from time to time to bring you headlines and videos some of you might not have seen already. Like this. Which is awesome, and made me cry, with the discussion of looking at pictures of ourselves taken we were 13 years old:
Posted by Holly at 8:20 AM | Comments (3)
June 23, 2008
After the Deluge
Here's a great NY Times op-ed by Joe Blair, one of my friends my grad school, about the flooding in Iowa.
Posted by Holly at 7:44 AM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2008
More Proof That Sexism Is Tolerated in Political Campaigns and the Media, While Racism Is Denounced
The guy who created that horrible racist button I mentioned earlier has apologized and withdrawn it, and the Texas Republican Party is DONATING TO CHARITY (probably the only time in the history of the organization it has ever done such a thing) the money it collected by leasing a booth him at the party's convention.
But all his nasty pins insulting Hillary and her gender? Those you can still buy.
Posted by Holly at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2008
They're Voting Republican
In case you didn't see it:
Posted by Holly at 7:17 AM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2008
"Affectionate" Racist Toy from Utah Couple No Longer Available, But Maybe You Can Still Buy a Racist Button in Texas
Uh....
Well....
Turns out a couple in Utah created an Obama sock monkey doll, but these Utahns claim the doll isn't racist. No! Aimed at Obama supporters, it's "a charming association between a candidate and a toy we had when we were little," and something that helps us "really try and transcend still existing racial biases." They're shocked and hurt that so many people are REALLY offended by this horrifically offensive doll, and have concluded sadly that "there is an element of naviete [sic] on our part, in that we don't think in terms of myths, fables, fairy tales and folklore."
The one bit of good news in this particular story is that according to the company's website, they will not proceed with the manufacture of this toy.
I don't want to ignore the fact that this toy is REALLY gross. But I do want to point out that the reaction to the toy supports Katie Couric's contention that truly egregious racism against Obama isn't tolerated by the mainstream, while truly egregious sexism against Hillary is shrugged off as no big deal. (You paying attention, Mr. Nighttime?) As she says, if Obama regularly confronted attacks equivalent to those Hillary endured, "the outrage wouldn't be a footnote; it would be front-page news." Indeed the sock monkey story was the lead story for the ABC news station I link to, and at the time I'm writing, the video of the news clip is the website's most popular clip.
There is one, uh, mainstream-ish venue, however, where racism is tolerated: the Texas Republican party. At the state convention, you could buy a button reading, "If Obama is President... will we still call it the White House?"
The answer to the question, is, of course, obviously YES. I mean, despite all the blockheads who've worked in the Pentagon, it's still referred to by a name denoting its five sides.
Posted by Holly at 8:11 AM | Comments (1)
June 17, 2008
Wading Through the Flooding, and Blowing Off Steam
I have been obsessed with coverage of the flooding in Iowa, and every morning I look at photos of the damage and read news stories about the entire area and about my alma mater. Most of the images are very upsetting, and most of the news is devastating. I wanted to share this photo because it is not only upsetting, but witty and ironic, and I wanted to share this bit of information because it demonstrates a certain resilience and understated humor that reassures me that Iowa City will somehow manage to recover from this.
Posted by Holly at 8:18 AM | Comments (2)
June 15, 2008
The Easiest Targets for Violence
The easiest targets for violence are women and female children.
I don't know what to say about Nicholas Kristof's editorial on rape as a weapon. Of course I've known about things like this for ages; of course my understanding that this sort of thing happens is one reason I'm a feminist. I guess I'll quote a passage:
it has become clear that mass rape is not just a byproduct of war but also sometimes a deliberate weapon.“Rape in war has been going on since time immemorial,” said Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador who was the U.N.’s envoy for AIDS in Africa. “But it has taken a new twist as commanders have used it as a strategy of war.”
There are two reasons for this. First, mass rape is very effective militarily. From the viewpoint of a militia, getting into a firefight is risky, so it’s preferable to terrorize civilians sympathetic to a rival group and drive them away, depriving the rivals of support.
Second, mass rape attracts less international scrutiny than piles of bodies do, because the issue is indelicate and the victims are usually too ashamed to speak up.
I guess I'll say this:
Violence against women takes many forms. It is often deliberate. Sexual violence against women and girls has been used not only because it is so effective, but because it has often been seen as sex rather than violence. This attitude persists in our country--evidence of that is the frequency with which rapes aren't reported and the difficulty in proving rape: if a victim's unconscious, it's not rape, it's just a date; or if she was drinking, then it can't be rape, because drinking on a date is a way of consenting to sex.
Violence against women is a continuum. The treatment of Hillary Clinton in the recent campaign was not, of course, equal to a rape camp in Darfur, but it was born of the same hatred and contempt for women, as well as the belief that when sexuality or gender is used against women, it's not violence, it's sex: a Hillary nutcracker is appropriately funny, because it shows how Hillary is threatening or unappealing to men. Who cares about the fact that it actually involves violence against an image of Hillary, forcing something large and hard between her legs before you squeeze them as hard as you can? Men's sexuality and well-being is what has to be defended, and it's OK to attack women's sexuality in order to do that.
In fact, to some, it's OK to attack and/or exploit women's sexuality in order to give men anything they want: an orgasm, offspring, an income (WHEN did it become so cool to be a PIMP, for god's sake?), control of a particular region of the world. Women's sexuality is always fair game, and women's attempts to control their own sexuality must always be resisted, despite the fact that the world would be a better place for ALL OF US if women controlled their own sexuality and reproductive rights.
If you can't acknowledge that this is an attitude that persists in the world, you can't acknowledge something fundamental about the world we live in, and you're not really all that interested in justice or freedom or human rights. This is why I got so fed up when Mr. Nighttime (he of the endless ellipses........) discounted Katie Couric's pretty damn mild critique of the sexist treatment Ms. Clinton received from the media. (Every so often I wonder about when she stopped being Hillary Rodham, the name she went by until her husband began campaigning for president, and when she stopped being Hillary Rodham-Clinton, the name she went by when he was first elected. Obviously, our country couldn't even handle a female figurehead who didn't buy into all the trappings of conventional marriage, including giving up her maiden name.)
So the next time someone complains about sexism or misogyny, listen. Don't deflect the issue; don't try to discuss some other form of oppression. Don't be as slow on the uptake as the UN and its members, which are only now "recognizing the fact that systematic mass rape is at least as much an international outrage as, say, pirated DVDs."
Because systematic mass rape isn't some new invention or strange aberration. It's an extreme expression of an attitude towards women that exists everywhere on our planet.
Posted by Holly at 7:49 AM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2008
Windy, Soggy Iowa
It took me a long time to realize that I liked Iowa City. I was often very unhappy there, but eventually I figured out that had more to do with the fact that I was in a PhD program than with Iowa City itself, which, I eventually saw, was pretty cool and remarkably livable. (It also got cooler the longer I was there. It's quite hip these days, or was, before it started filling up like a kitchen sink.)
Not so much now. You probably heard about the terrible tornado that devastated Parkersburg, Iowa a few weeks ago. Or the tornado that killed four boy scouts two days ago (and would have killed more except that the other boy scouts knew how to do things like apply tourniquets or give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the 48 who were injured). Now there's terrible flooding in eastern Iowa; downtown Cedar Rapids, all of the Coralville strip (Coralville being a suburb of Iowa City, where I lived for a few years when I first started grad school because that was the only place I could find an apartment--Iowa City historically has a very tight housing market) and much of the University of Iowa campus--including, I would guess, my old office, which was in the basement of the English-Philosophy Building--are under water.
Iowa City was recovering from a terrible flood when I moved there in 1993. This flood is already much, much worse, and the river hasn't even crested. I realize it's not Katrina, the typhoon in Burma or the earthquakes in China, but it's still pretty awful, and it's hurting a place I care about.
Posted by Holly at 7:39 AM | Comments (3)
June 12, 2008
More On Why I'm Glad Hillary Ran, and Hope We Keep Talking About Gender
Katie knows what she's talking about:
Posted by Holly at 11:18 AM | Comments (11)
June 11, 2008
I'm Glad Hillary Lost, But I'm Also Glad She Ran
I liked this little editorial from Salon:
Posted by Holly at 6:48 AM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2008
A Pandora's Box I Wish I'd Opened Ages Ago
Recently someone was cool enough to tell me about Pandora, a website that lets you create radio stations--as many as you want--that (attempt to) play music you like. And it's freakin' awesome.
You go to the website, create an account, and start making radio stations. You plant "seeds" of songs or bands, and some program analyzes the characteristics of those seeds to find other songs and bands that share them. Songs get played, and you can tell the program that you like the song and want to hear more like it, or you can say you don't like the song, or you can say that the song is fine but being played on the wrong station, if, for instance, you get some mellow ballad on the station you've designed to play dance music so you burn a few extra calories while you wash your dishes.
The radio station doesn't just play your favorites; it tries to introduce you to new things, and if you hear something you really like, you can buy it from itunes. So it's a little more exciting than listening to your ipod, where you pretty much know all the songs or artists you've uploaded.
I have four stations so far. The first focuses on my standard listening material: Aztec Camera, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello, Joy Division, Lloyd Cole, New Order, Pink Floyd, The Real Tuesday Weld, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, The The, etc. (Yes, I like angsty British guy music, especially angsty British guy music from the 80s. I like other things too, but I really like that.)
To balance out the angsty british guy-ness of my main station, I also have a chick music station, which I am happy with because so far it has provided me with my most compelling new discovery: Jane Jensen. She's been around for years, but I managed to miss out on her, until now, and I totally dig her.
I also have a mellow station and a dance station. And the dance station provided me with my favorite, "Hey I do like this song!" moment: I seeded plenty of Prince and Madonna and New Order and random songs like "Rock Me Amadeus" and "99 Luft Balloons" and "The Politics of Dancing" and "Stacy's Mom" because they're all great to dance to. And I was jamming to some song I'd rather expected to here--Duran Duran or something--and all of a sudden, along comes "Free Ride" by Edgar Winter. I thought, I haven't heard this song in ages, but I do like it and it's pretty damn danceable!
I have a hard time turning it off--I just want to see what song will come up next. And if I am ambivalent about a song on one station--it doesn't quite fit my mood, or it's too familiar--I skip to the next song or switch to a different station.
The only thing I don't like about it is that every time I click on a button to say, "Hey, I do or don't like this song" I get a refreshed ad for Nashville Star with Billy Ray Cyrus, but I have figured out that ads are what make sites like this free, so I suck it up and deal with it.
If you haven't already played around with this, try it now--I really think you'll have fun.
Posted by Holly at 7:27 AM | Comments (2)
June 9, 2008
Queso Con Fresas
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years ago, I went to Mexico with a bunch of other teenagers. It was my first big trip and it was OK, though I have to admit that Mexico is not one of the regions of the world that speaks to me most profoundly--I'm not into all that Aztec stuff. (And I do realize that is not the sum of Mexican culture, but it's what we focused on that trip--actually part of what we were doing was looking at sites that might have had historical significance in the Book of Mormon.... Whatever.)
We spent several days in Mexico City, which is where I had what I guess I could call my first smoothie. Down the road from our hotel was a little stand that sold fruit whipped in a blender with milk. I thought it was really novel: a milkshake without ice cream! Fancy that! My favorite flavor was strawberry. It wasn't all that thick and it wasn't all that cold, but it tasted good. And I liked ordering it: fresas con leche, por favor! It was fun to say.
Recently I have been saying not "fresas con leche" but "queso con fresas," because of this:
It looks sorta like a piece of cheesecake, but it's not: It's a hunk of cheese, more specifically, Yancey's Fancy Strawberry Chardonnay. That's right: it's cheese, flavored with wine, and studded with strawberries. It's really good.
Just for the hell of it, I tried making a grilled cheese sandwich with this. I don't recommend it. It wasn't bad; the flavor just wasn't as good as when the cheese was still chilled or at room temperature.
If you can find this, buy it, and eat it with fruit or a little chocolate. You'll be glad you did.
Posted by Holly at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2008
Quote of the Day
"Conventional wisdom holds that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his mother, so why should Mother Earth be any exception?"
Judy Berman, a Broadsheet blogger, in Your fuel efficiency is so hot, commenting on research conducted by General Motors concluding that "88 percent of women would rather meet a guy with a fuel-efficient vehicle than a dude with a sports car."
Posted by Holly at 9:13 AM | Comments (3)
June 5, 2008
I Completely Agree with Gorbachev Right Now
One of the weirdest tourist attractions I've ever seen in my life is Lenin's body, and one of the scariest military rituals I've ever witnessed is the changing of the guard at his tomb. It was totally creepy to see these grim young men carrying rifles goose-stepping towards me--it was probably the first thing that gave me any inkling of what it would be like to live under military occupation.
Anyway, after the guard changed, we all got to file through the tomb and see the body. I got in trouble because my coat wasn't closed--the zipper was broken and I couldn't close it--and that upset one of the guards (actually more of a docent kind of dude; as I remember, the ones with the guns were outside the entrance); apparently you have to keep your coat closed so you are less likely to reach inside it and pull out a weapon. I showed the guard/docent that my zipper wouldn't work--which sucked, because it was February in Moscow, and I would have liked to be able to zip up my coat--and I guess he decided a 20-year-old American tourist wasn't that much of a security risk, because he let me trundle past the body with everyone else.
And I remember that I thought it looked waxy and green, and thought the innumerable statues and paintings and so forth EVERYWHERE YOU WENT were enough to let you know what the guy looked like--I certainly can identify him now. I didn't see why you needed to see his actual dead body, which, at the point I saw it, had been dead for sixty years.
I'm going to state the obvious: people deal with death in different ways. The Apaches used get rid of every last thing a person owned (including livestock), and bury the body out in the middle of nowhere (there are plenty of middles of plenty of nowheres out in the desert), or throw it off a cliff or something, so that the ghost would be less likely to return, drawn by a connection to the things s/he used in life. When the person who named you died, you had to get a new name. The dead person was erased from present life.
I'll continue to tell everyone what they already know and state that in general, we participants of Western culture prefer to remember our dead, but we still have to do something with the dead bodies of those we love, because (let me remind you, in case you somehow forgot) they decompose, and they stink, and they get all maggoty and moldy and gross. Completely respectable and legitimate ways of disposing of bodies include cremating them or embalming and then burying them (I think embalming is mandatory for burial, which I find too bad, because I think embalming is gross, and don't see why you need it if you're encased in an air-tight vault), or throwing them off the side of a boat if they die at sea. (I wanted to make sure that burial at sea still happens--turns out if you served in the navy, it will allow you that time honored method of being laid to rest, and there's also a company called Nature's Passage that will arrange for the rest of us to be returned to the earth that way, should we so desire.) As far as burying goes, you can stick someone in an unmarked grave, give them a fancy headstone, put them in a tomb, or build them a shrine.
But keeping their bodies on display? It's expensive, unhygienic, and weird. Lenin looks BIZARRE, and the bizarreness of his appearance has led some people to claim that he was buried long ago and a wax copy substituted. The state, of course, denies this. People started arguing in 1991, after the fall of communism, that he should be buried. But enough people objected that he stayed where he was.
Now, according to a story in the Independent, Mikhail Gorbachev has said, "My view is [that] we should not be occupied right now with grave-digging. But we will necessarily come to a time when the mausoleum will have lost its meaning and we will bury [Lenin], give him up to the earth as his family had wanted. I think the time will come."
The story also reports that
Mr Gorbachev also called for the creation of a memorial museum to remember the millions of people killed or sent to prison under Josef Stalin, whose embalmed body lay beside Lenin's for eight years until 1961. Historians estimate that up to 27 million people in the Soviet Union suffered from Stalin's repression but he is revered by many Russians for defeating Nazi Germany and building the USSR into a superpower.
Personally, I think Mr. Gorbachev is onto something, on both counts.
Posted by Holly at 9:37 AM | Comments (5)
June 2, 2008
A New Form of Piracy
Most days, I manage to love my country enough to be able to live in it, because A) even though it's done some really shitty things throughout its history (and especially of late), it's done some great things as well, and I keep hoping that the balance will be restored again; and B) it's my country, and loyalty works that way.
But this morning I read about these prison ships the government is doing its best to keep secret, and I don't even know how to feel or what to say about this latest atrocious barbarity, except OH MY GOD.
Posted by Holly at 8:40 AM | Comments (2)