A Letter to Grandpa

Way before there was blogging, I was a member of Wild Wolf Women of the Web, and we communicated via a listserv. I still get emails from one of the other former members. In the last one was a link to the following. It's a letter from a fifty-year olf woman to her dead grandfather. I think that it's worth sharing here.

Dear Grandpa,
I have been thinking about you a lot, lately, and so I decided to come by and sit at your grave. I know that you aren't in there; it's just a patch of dirt covering up some bones. But I have been wanting to talk to you, and this seemed as good a place as any. I'm sure that you will recognize me and come near.

I don't know for certain, but I wonder if you keep up on what is happening in this world? If you do, then you know that our country has gone to war.

War is a terrible thing, I don't know anyone who would disagree with that. You saw four wars in your lifetime, and you served in One. We never talked about that. I didn't even know that, until after you were gone.

I suppose it isn't unique at all, that a family might be divided about something so big and awful, yet I am confused by a couple of things. Two of my cousins served in Vietnam. I talked to one who told me, "This war is wrong!" He muttered something about how it is dishonorable, and an affront to his fellow veterans who served in Southeast Asia. He was afraid for the soldiers being exposed to more of our government's toxic chemicals, and about their loss of benefits when they return
.
I talked to the other cousin, and he said, "This war is necessary. And I am still a marine." (As if it was the explanation.) He muttered something about the protesters who dishonored the Vietnam vets in the 'sixties. It seemed like he was more angry with the ones who are against this war, than he was concerned about the war itself.

I know someone who participated in the demonstrations at Berkeley. She has told me about being tear-gassed and beaten, and chased by police on horseback. Protesting has always been a dangerous business, I suppose. It was in 1776.

I don't think I have much right to judge about Vietnam. I was just a teenager when it finally ended, and except for the horrible images on the evening news, and the "CARE" packages we made for the boys at Christmas, I wasn't very much affected by it. I remember how upset my mother was, when my brother's number was drawn third in the draft lottery. (He joined the National Guard.)

There were no protest demonstrations in our little town, except the secret wordless one, when somebody put a charge of dynamite under the draft board office one night. A lot of people snickered about it, and I don't think the crime was ever solved. Nobody got hurt, and the office never re-opened. Back then, they called it "mischief". Today, we call it "terrorism".

I was glad when the guys came home. I don't remember feeling anything but proud of them for their courage, and sad for the sadness that would never be far from their eyes.

I married two ex-marines who had each been wounded in Vietnam. A lot of the scars didn't show on their skin. Neither of them spoke to me about it much. Nobody wanted to talk about that war. Everyone seemed angry about it. I have read some things since then, and talked to others that were there -- but that isn't the same as being there, I realize. People are comparing that war to this one. I don't see very much similarity.

I got mail from a military wife, the other day. (She did not know I am opposed to this war.) Her post suggested that anyone who protests ought to be beaten until they change their attitudes. (We hear a lot of talk like that, nowadays.)

I wondered if those are the values she is teaching her children? That if someone has a different opinion than your own, you should "continue to punch them in the nose until they come 'round to your point of view"? I think this lady would be appalled if some kid brought a gun to her children's school and started shooting people (this happens from time-to-time, nowadays). And yet by the logic of her letter, the person with the biggest artillery is the true authority. "Might makes right."

I replied that I didn't agree with her opinion, and I thought it inexcusable that someone should advocate violence against other Americans -- their countrymen -- for voicing their opinions.

The lady wrote back to say that it's very hard, with her husband being in the military and "seeing so many people standing against them", while they are fighting to protect our freedom.

I told her that we who are opposed to this war are not by-and-large "opposed to the troops". Most people I know, regardless of their position on the war, do hold our servicemen and women in high regard. (There are women in all branches and occupations of the military, now, Grandpa. I bet that makes your eyes get wide!) We all know our troops are doing what they are trained to do, and what they are instructed to do.

Unlike the conscripts who were drafted and forced to serve in Vietnam, these soldiers are all paid volunteers. I suspect that a lot of these young people signed up after September 11, 2001, amid the wave of patriotism that washed over our country and united us all, then.

I understand that many who are serving now sincerely believe that what this country is doing in Iraq is "justice" --or vengeance -- for that single act of terrorism. What they don't seem to know, and their leaders are not telling them, is that this really has nothing to do with that. It seems to me that idea has been contorted to fit the schemes of our leadership. (We have a president who was not elected by the majority, now, Gramps.)

The soldiers are told that they are fighting to preserve our freedom. (Except, perhaps, our freedom to object to government actions we may believe are wrong, corrupt, or just plain stupid.) I don't know that I want to shatter their illusions. I do remember that about Vietnam: the sense of betrayal the veterans shared. Nobody talks about the insurrections among our troops then. Military secret. Maybe that's it, then? One cousin blames the government, while the other blames the protesters and the press which caused them to lose the respect of the American public?

I wonder if the new soldiers hear the news from home? Do they see that while they're "fighting for our freedom", that self-same thing is being stripped away? (They are building new internment camps, dear Grandpa, to keep dissenters in. Immigrants are being rounded up and detained without warrants. Anyone's vehicle may be searched without just cause. Yesterday, the president signed another bill that will make it acceptable to force people into quarantine. In your life, I'm sure you saw quarantines; malaria, influenza, maybe even the dreaded smallpox that our scientists wiped out, but now manufacture in laboratories to use against whole civilizations. Did anyone in your time ever have to be arrested to keep them isolated?)

People who support this war say that those of us who don't agree are betraying our country and "abusing" our freedom of speech. Not long ago, such accusations were pretty much reserved for hate groups like the KKK. (Most people of my generation have outgrown racism, mysogeny, and homophobia, Grandpa. That "radical", Dr. Martin Luther King, who was "stirring up the coloreds in the South" became a national hero. He changed the face of this nation with his brave speeches, and strong example of passive resistance. He was killed for doing that. Dissent is dangerous. Sometimes, deadly. I know you were a product of your generation, and perhaps held some of those beliefs, too -- You saw the restriction of Native Americans to squalid "reservations", and the "internment" of Japanese Americans -- and yet, I know you were a man of integrity, who never spoke ill of anyone. You were a citizen of both Canada and the United States, you spoke Mexican Spanish and Basque Spanish fluently, and probably some French, because you worked with people from those countries. I never heard you suggest superiority over anyone because of their race or creed. --Not even the Mormons, whose customs you found endlessly amusing.)

We have a new and wondrous "vehicle", now, Grandpa. It's called the Internet. It makes it easy for people all over the world to talk to one another. I have never been overseas, but I have friends in many countries. You won't be surprised to hear this, but a lot of us have discovered that most people, regardless of where they live, or the culture they come from, all want pretty much the same things. They want to be able to feed their families, and to have a few things that make their lives easier.

(I consider myself very fortunate to have been a witness to these changes in our country. You wouldn't imagine this, Grandpa, but your little "chiquita cucenero" is nearly fifty! It is already more than a quarter of a century since you went away. A lot of things have changed. Until about a month ago, I was proud to be a citizen.)

I had a chat with your daughter recently, Grandpa. (She is seventy, now, and a great grandmother.) I was upset, and I was talking about my sense of betrayal that all my life I have been told that my vote counts, and that everyone in this country has a voice in how the people are governed. Her response was a resounding GUFFAW! -- as if to say, "Silly girl! Has it really taken you this long to figure that out?" (That's the way it is here in the West, now, Grandpa. I was away for quite a while, and I didn't realize what was happening. People here have known for a long time that their votes are always overridden by states with more people and more money. You were a man of the earth, and I think you would be amazed to discover that now, people of the earth are not allowed to work their stock and trades, because other people who claim to be the real people of the earth have more power, and more influence ... and they think they know what is best for our land. They always win, Gramps. It's surprising that anyone here even bothers to go to the polls. You wouldn't recognize Nevada, now. Except for in the casino-driven border towns, the only jobs left are for the government. Your heart would break, I know.)

It bothers me a great deal that the decision to invade a country far away was made by a few men in Washington. They ignored the protests of the people, and by our trusted allies. (People here are refusing to buy things made in countries that disagreed with the decision of our leaders. Former friends abroad are refusing to buy American goods. You wouldn't recognize this country, Grandpa. We used to feed the world. Now, we produce almost nothing but "information" and weapons, and withhold food from hungry children in order to punish their governments.)

Grandpa, I don't know what it was that I was hoping to learn from talking with you, today. I keep thinking that it was you who instilled in me this wildly independent way of thinking... although I don't remember any specific conversations. Somewhere, way back in my memory, though, there are words and phrases -- important values I can't quite get a hold on -- and warnings to keep a vigilant watch upon those who govern this nation. Caution to not let McCarthy -- or Hitler -- return to power. (And maybe a conspiracy theory, or two .. and some skills and notions that would be labeled "radical survivalist", in these times.)

And love! Where you were, Grandpa, there was always love, and laughter, and kindness. You loved life, and the wide-open spaces, and people. You loved us -- my mother, whom you took to raise as your own, and those of us who issued from her. You loved fiddle music, whiskey in moderation, and good horses. And you loved freedom. I wonder what you would think about what this world has come to? I don't know whether you can let me know what to do, if there is anything that I can do to stop the world from imploding. I guess that I just felt a need to return to a long-ago time when my world was safe, and one of Grandpa's hugs was all it took to fix anything that was wrong.

Thanks for listening, Grandpa. I love you always.
Your "CC"

ghosts of war.

I can’t write about the war.
The words fail me and as soon as I start to take them out, I find I’d like to put them away again. Maybe it has to do with the isolation that I feel.
Recently, I moved to a small town in Wisconsin where the population is under 3000 and the ethnic makeup is just about 100 percent white -- 90 percent or so of one particular European extraction. Solidly Christian and God-fearing and anti-abortion and Republican. I stick out like the proverbial sore thumb here. You can already guess that there are no protests being conducted here. Instead, you see homemade signs in windows and on front lawns. “Support our Troops, Support our President.” “U.S.A.”
Looking down my street, which is the center of town, the American flags outside the houses and the handful of businesses are strikingly abundant. Our house, lacking a flag, feels conspicuous. Everything else looks just like the Fourth of July except for the bare trees and snow on the ground.

I need to tell you, I’m a sensitive person. A person who suffers from depression, a person whose defense mechanism often consists of shutting out painful truths. The war has been one of these painful truths. And so I don’t watch the news because of my fear of exposure and my vulnerability to internalizing it all.
I am feeling such heavy sorrow. Raging, when I let myself, against the injustice of this campaign. Remembering that my own mother lived through Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, and knowing that she is haunted by stories she would never dream of sharing with her daughters. Stories of seeing people in her town led away to public executions. Babies being bayoneted. Things she waves off in dismissal if I try to ask about.

“What is the use of talking about the past?” she says.
My mind travels tonight to a time I collided randomly with a stranger’s haunted past.

I was a DJ and music director at the time, for a community radio station in a college town. The SST band Das Damen was in town on tour, and as part of my job I had interviewed them on the air and offered them my apartment to flop for the night. The owner of a few local bars had provided me with some free passes to take the boys out after their show. Being a geeky social anxiety-stricken girl, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of entertaining these guys....in fact, I was slightly petrified. But they were nice and polite. And, beer always helps blunt the edges of my socially anxious tendencies.

We are hanging out in the Bluebird, in a narrow space between the bar and the wall, drinking and shouting above the music. I have been noticing for a while that a scraggly-looking, long-haired, forty-something guy in an army jacket is staring at me from behind our group. He makes his way over to us on wobbly feet, clearly smashed. His glassy eyes wander, looking for a place to land, until they look right into mine. He pushes his way into our circle, facing me. He seems to be whispering something and I can’t make it out and one of the guys in the band leans over and asks, “What.”
The scraggly guy hisses at me. I clearly hear the word. “Vietcong!” The nostrils flaring slightly, breath fouled by beer and whiskey.

I think no at first. That can’t be what he is saying.

I start shrinking inward. I can feel myself departing almost physically, but not quite...my mind starts to remove itself and the voices grow softer and more distant, but my feet remain rooted to the ground and the man and his rage are still right there, inches from my face. I can feel a sort of steam, a sweat wafting out of his pores, and breathing it, I start to gag.
The guys in the band still don’t seem to get what is unfolding, don’t understand what the messed-up vet is saying or what it has to do with me. The vet’s eyes widen and he looks wildly at the nearest guy in our bunch and grabs onto the shoulder of his leather jacket.

“Look at her, dude. Look at her. She’s hidin’ somethin’, man, LOOK.”

The guy from the band is nodding, he is trying to calm and soothe, smooth things over. He lets the vet’s hand remain where it is, gripping his shoulder. “She’s not hiding anything...hey. She’s not doing anything, she’s just fine, just a nice sweet girl not bothering anybody.”
The vet, agitated, starts to shout, in his Dennis-Hopper-in-Easy-Rider voice. “You look under her skirt yet, man?” I know I heard what he said, but I can’t quite believe it and so I continue shrinking. I try to inch away but there isn’t really anyplace to go. One of the other guys in the band is standing behind me and I’m pressing back against him, just trying to create some more space between me and this increasingly raving man. The guy behind me places both his hands on the outside of my upper arms, squeezing them reassuringly. I am holding my breath.

The Das Damen guy says, “Now this is no way to talk, is it? Isn’t it time that you just went on home and stopped bothering nice people who aren’t bothering you.”
That’s when the guy I am assuming is a vet snaps. And yells, “Pull up her skirt! I’m telling you, she’s the f**king Viet Cong, man! She’s got a knife up under there man. She strapped it to her thigh. She’ll cut your f**king throat!” And he starts, heroically, to lunge for me. But the guy from the band reacts quickly, inserting his body between us and pushing the vet back towards the wall so that he ends up toppling on his unsteady feet. He goes down. And that’s when I notice that the shoulder of the Das Damen guy’s leather jacket, where the vet had been holding onto him, is sticky and darkly stained. And I look down at the vet splayed on the floor, his eyes going in crazy directions, and his hands are smeared with blood. I don’t know from where. Maybe he was in a fight earlier, or maybe he fell and injured himself. I am not yet seething at the bartender who had gone on for who knows how long serving this guy who can barely even stand. At the moment I am still shaken and sorry to have been drawn into this man’s delusions and made into a spectacle.

Sorrier, though, for him. For the likelihood that he would not be able to remember anything the next day but some dread vision of a knife wielding enemy woman that he was unable to subdue. Sorry that demons were haunting him. Sorry that someone who had perhaps seen combat duty and horrors I could not begin to imagine, was so obviously suffering. Sorry for my own powerlessness. Depressed and guilty and feeling that the whole incident was my fault for looking like I do. For being a reminder.

We got the bartender to call the guy a cab. Went home to my apartment and broke out the sleeping bags. Everyone apologetic about what happened, talking about what a mess the guy was and how crazy it all was. Ensconced in my bed, I can’t wait for it to be morning, for the tears to stop falling, for the guys in the band to get out of my place and get in their van and get back on the road. Tears, thinking about war wounds.
This was three years before the Gulf War. At a time when I was quite certain in my brain that there would never be another American-instigated war. Firm in my thinking that the lessons of Vietnam had been learned and learned well. Sure that we would never revisit such horrors against another nation and another people, nor inflict the traumatic events of war on our own citizens, our own troops.

That’s what I thought to myself that night. How I comforted myself.
I was younger then, and hopeful.
[cross-posted at cocokat in slumberland.]

I think a roadtrip may be in order.

I am, to say the least, distressed at the state of my country. I don't know if I want to live here anymore.

I don't want to live in a country where a citizen who has been charged with nothing can be held indefinitely in a high-security federal prison. (Read the article from Wired News.)

I don't want to live in a country where so many people would agree with the hateful propaganda on this site and where this bill could be introduced and somewhat supported in our Congress.


I don't want to live in a country where New York City is so strapped for cash that it might start charging rappers for shout-outs by branding neighborhood names. The article's tone is insoucient rather than grave, but once the public sector is soured by the interests of corporate America, there will be no turning back. Wait a second. I think it's already too late.

I don't want to live in a country where citizens are not unilaterally outraged that they have been deceived into supporting a war that is being fought for reasons other than the ones the government chooses to share with us.

I don't want to live in a country where my views are not represented, my rights are not protected, and my future as an American member of the global community is bleak, at best.

Perhaps singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco said it best: "And if I hear one more time about a fool's right to his tools of rage, I'm gonna take all my friends, and I'm going to move to Canada, and we're going to die of old age."

(Cross-posted at Fire & Ice.)

Feminism and War

I do love it when I find support for my position among women a whole lot smarter than I am.
The war's consequences on feminism and the international community were the focus of a panel discussion held at Cornell University on March 25.

The opening speaker addressed the positions of organizations such as Code Pink, which confronts "war as a women's issue." Code Pink claims that current ideologies of international politics are poisoned because they are "dominated by testosterone and a military which engenders a culture of aggression."

[Pardon me, but wooo hooo. Wasn't that what I was just recently saying??]

The five panelists were Prof. Marcia Greenberg, law; Jane Marie Law, the H. Stanley Krushen Professor of World Religions; Prof. Andrea Parrot, policy analysis and management; Prof. Anna Marie Smith, government and Christine Cuomo, Society for the Humanities postdoctoral fellow.

Smith began the panel with her talk, "How to Be a Feminist in an Empire: Feminism and American Imperialist Expansion...." She suggested that .... "Women need to be un-American enough to shift the current dialogue. We have to suspect the empire will try to use us. Women on the periphery need our solidarity now more than ever....." Smith concluded, "This war will definitely not install democracy. It will either result in a puppet regime or a fundamentalist government. History will judge us by our un-American international solidarity."

The final panelist was Cuomo, presenting "Feminist and Women's Anti-War Activism...." She noted her own experiences in antiwar activism, saying that "we are in the midst of a moment with incredible potential to rebuild the American left...." She gave particular note to the organization New Yorkers Say No to War, a group created on Sept. 16, 2001, founded as "a Ground Zero peace movement knowing where the Bush-Cheney regime was going."

In the question and discussion section of the panel, Michelle Krohn-Friedson '05 asked, "Where could I go for unbiased information on issues such as these?"

Cuomo responded that the presence of independent media is especially noteworthy because "in order to get good information these days, you cannot be passive; you have to seek it out."

Speaking of Babies...

From Newsday:
FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- The Army has court-martialed a 36-year-old 10th Mountain Division soldier for refusing to be vaccinated against anthrax and influenza, Fort Drum officials said Friday.

Pvt. Rhonda Hazley, a wheeled-vehicle mechanic with 514th Maintenance Company, was convicted March 21 by a summary court martial of disobeying the orders of an officer and a noncommissioned officer, said Col. Robert Caslen, the division's chief of staff.

The court martial reduced her three grades in rank to private. She also was ordered to serve 14 days confinement, Caslen said.....

Hazley, of East Dublin, Ga., refused the shot because she is breast-feeding her child, friend Stephanie Ingram told WWTI-TV, a local television station. Hazley joined the Army in April 1999 and was assigned to Fort Drum six months later. ....

Meanwhile, Kamila Iwanowska, a 26-year-old reservist from New York City, also faces a special court martial for refusing to receive the anthrax vaccine, The Watertown Daily Times reported Friday......

Iwanowska, a recently naturalized Polish immigrant, objected because she feared the vaccination could have adverse effects on her reproductive system and her ability to have a baby, her lawyer, Lionel Hector, told The Associated Press.....

The military system is designed from a male perspective. I don't know how I feel about that. The system automatically limits choices that only women need to make. (So, knowing that, when a woman enters the military, should she do so only with the agreement that she turn her choices over to the power of the military?) On the other hand, are there other options for running the military that honors the choices that only women have to make because of their natural biology? If women ran the military, would the system be very different? (My assumption is that we need a military to defend our national boundaries from attack.)

she's not coming home to her babies

"Piestewa, 23, was the mother of a 4-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl and a source of pride in her Hopi community."

The damage of war ripples across so many lives. She looks so alive in this photo. It's the expression. It's the kind of face. You just know you'd like her.

I hadn't thought until I saw this story about Native Americans serving in the military, and how I find a kind of tragic irony in that. Maybe it's just me.

A Local Woman Speaks Out

This is a letter to the Editor published in my local paper. I don’t know Vida Wehren, but I’m sure she won’t mind my sharing it here:

The night the invasion of Iraq began, I was driving home feeling deeply saddened and anxious. In the evening sky, the almost-full moon hung in a veil of clouds, its reflection shining below like a double moon. It occurred to me that some Native American cultures call the moon "Grandmother Moon," symbolizing the wisdom of the grandmother, the much-respected "old crone."

The moon seemed symbolic that evening of the wisdom that is so desperately needed to direct America's path through this difficult time. We are now engaged in a war that continues to be opposed by unprecedented numbers of people the world over. Yet many believe that the only path open to Americans now that war has begun, and the only way to support our troops, is to follow our leaders without question.

The wisdom of the grandmothers leads us to another path, however, the path of seeking moral answers to the terrors facing our country and the world today. The wisdom of the grandmothers calls us, as citizens of this great country, to protect America's democratic foundations, her integrity and her honor.

Guarding America's principles requires constant vigilance, constant questioning and forceful opposition when we believe our leaders are taking us in the wrong direction. It requires citizens to gather the facts from a variety of sources, to actively seek to understand what is happening in this world and why, and to form an opinion based on critical thought, rather than political rhetoric and sensationalized sound bites on the evening news. This is not being unpatriotic; it is being quintessentially American.

A democracy cannot stand if its citizens refuse to question and, instead, blindly trust that the government is acting in the best interests of the country, rather than the best interests of those in government. Those of us who believe this war is being waged on false pretenses will continue to exercise our responsibility as American citizens to seek out the truth and question our government.

We will continue to support our troops while despising the war that put them into harm's way. We will continue to fight to protect our rights as American citizens and the rights of all people worldwide to live in peace. This is what democracy looks like.

VIDA WEHREN
Voorheesville
womenagainstwar@ureach.com

The War On Logic

For inscrutable reasons, the administration of my country, Australia, has decided to send troops to Iraq.
While millions of Australians attend anti-war demonstrations, still others remain at home. Perhaps the dread of grubby zealots with inappropriate piercings has kept countless cowards away from marches.
I don’t especially mind the noise, pamphlets or foul patchouli nimbus they produce. While I do take exception to specific hippie practises such as chanting, I absolutely affirm both the inalienable right to protest and freely wear unpleasant essential oils.
I have begun to suspect that my Government doesn’t share my respect for public demonstration nor cares to weave such views into policy. So, chanting and poor fashion sense aside, I cannot march because my intended audience has tuned out.
After the Prime Minister’s comments that reduced the monumental expression of sorrow by millions of Australians to the collective noun ‘mob’ –I just can’t be arsed showing up.
Whether one consents to the war on a pintsize despot or not, it is difficult to overlook the fact of an administration who has little respect for public opinion . Even those crisply laundered Christians, upright Professionals and picture perfect families in attendance consist in a ‘mob’.
My Auntie Margaret would rather petit-point than protest. Nonetheless she downed embroidery to march on a surface other than the Airofit Zero Stress Walking Machine. She wasn’t very happy about her chosen Prime Minister identifying her as part of a ‘mob’.
If Auntie Margaret can be construed as rabble then I, her least reputable niece, bear zero chance of maintaining respectability on foot.
So I choose to arm myself in the War Against Logic with my computer. I have been writing letters and I have been sending emails.
The Australian Prime Minister John Howard has a < a h ref = http://www.pm.gov.au/your_feedback/feedback.htm >page inviting email which I cheerfully used. (As you are no doubt aware Gee Dubya has one too.) I received an acknowledgement offering the half-promise 'you may receive a reply’. I had received no further riposte to my numbered questions.
As a charitable constituent, I conceded that the PM might be preoccupied packing his jammies for trysts at Camp David. So I resumed a rather one sided correspondence with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer.
Again, I posed questions, rather than opinions. I used the email address supplied to me on the Australian Parliament House website. Enquiry revealed that emails to this address do not reach Mr Downer unless he is in his electorate. ‘Send it to this other address if you like’ offered the representative, ‘but you could always call Stirling and attempt to track it down’. I did both.
Mr Downer’s Ministry did not acknowledge my email. His electoral office did not return my phone calls.
I did receive one acknowledgement that read “Your message To: Downer, Alexander (MP) was deleted without being read”.
I responded AGAIN asking why my email was deleted. From one Pam Mayer came the reply ‘Mr Downer does not reply by email and will only give a written reply if a postal address is supplied.’ I answered : How does Mr Downer determine if a postal address is included in an email if it is deleted without being read?’.
Do I need t tell you that this email was also Deleted Without Being Read?
I began to take Pam’s responses personally and thought it best we resolve the confusion. I managed to catch her on March 26. She informed that emails to the Minister were deleted if they were deemed ‘unsuitable’. I asked after that office’s feedback policy. ‘We kind of play it by ear’. I repeated the statement as I committed it to keyboard, thinking that I ought to record such strange advice. ‘I don’t want to talk to you!’ she insisted and terminated the call.
I called again, and Pam screeched ‘I DON’T wish to TALK WITH YOU.’ Trying for a hat-trick, I dialled and was rewarded with another hang up
Multiple calls to the Ministry resulted in a response just received. I am sad to convey that Alexander addressed none of my questions. I was, however, thanked for my ‘views’ which were ‘noted’.
Although, I did not HAVE any views, JUST QUESTIONS. Which were not, incidentally, promptly nor adequately addressed.
Hippies, Auntie Margaret and myself have tried different modes of inquiry and failed to have our distinct voices heard.
By email, telephone or on foot, it seems, we can not be heard above the noise of Federal self-congratulation. Whether query or protest, any sound made is just part of the mob’s din.

More on Chemical-related Gender Differences.

Got this as part of a advertising/newsletter email from here, so I need to explore the validity of the following statement and see if I can track down the referred-to report.

What makes women more vulnerable to stress?
The reasons stress affects women so negatively are both physical and situational.

Physical factors
Physically, when you're under stress, your body produces corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF), a chemical that triggers the release of adrenaline and other brain chemicals. Women under stress secrete more of trigger chemicals like CRF than males in the same circumstances.

A report from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), published in the July 2000 edition of Psychological Review, states that the "fight or flight" response applies to men, not women. Women, the study claims, exhibit a very different reaction, what researchers call a "tend and befriend" response.

The report analyzed hundreds of biological and behavioral studies of responses to stress by thousands of animals and humans. It concluded that women under stress are apt to spend time nurturing their children or seek social interaction, especially with other women.

The study also identified a hormone called oxytocin, which has a calming effect on both animals and people. Oxytocin, researchers believe, prompts maternal behavior and socialization. In men, testosterone counteracts the soothing effects of oxytocin. But women's estrogen is believed to actually enhance oxytocin.

Situational factors
In our society, women are expected to do it all: succeed professionally, maintain a comfortable home, and care for our spouses and children. Conversely, men often are able to relax at home, leaving their work problems at the office.

What's more, women typically fill the role of caretakers. As we grow older, we often find ourselves sandwiched between children and parents, doing double duty as caretakers for both generations. This added responsibility only intensifies a woman's feelings of anxiety and overload.

From Lysistrata to Anita Roddick

So, as I sat at my sewing machine making pillow cases out of old sheets for my mother (who can well afford to buy new ones but old people get that way) so that she can get on her sewing machine and amuse hersef trying to do machine embroidery along their edges, I'm thinking about women advocating for peace.

So, I tooled around the blogroll here at Blog Sisters to see how many of us are writing our hearts out about the problems with the reasons for this war and the problems that waging this war is causing here, there, and everywhere. From respected published Sister writers such as Anita Roddick and Natalie Davis, to the rest of them I've listed below, there are defnitely a lot us who really take this war personally and opt to act, at least in words. (I'm not saying that there aren't men who are doing that as well, but they're not on this blogroll and I don't have time to surf for them because I have to go cook supper for my mother.) I finally gave up looking at each Sister url -- there are just too many. But, here are some who are writing eloquently about their perspectives on war and peace, Constitutional freedoms, and the pain of watching killing done in their names -- just in case anyone feels like checking them out.

http://gratefuldread.net/fando/
http://weblog.burningbird.net/
http://rivervision.com/blog/
http://nonsense-verse.blogspot.com/
http://bittershack.blogspot.com/
http://buzz.weblogs.com/
http://www.katecohen.com/
http://betsydevine.weblogger.com/
http://www.surreally.net/fullbleed/
http://skyedreams.blogspot.com/
http://www.ruminatethis.com/
http://righton.blogspot.com/
http://caxton.stockton.edu/Distracted/
http://www.wampum.blogspot.com/
http://www.gamalei.net/syaffolee/
http://www.serialdeviant.org/
http://klondikekatesaurora.blogspot.com/

If you want to add your url to the list, please do so.

And, as I was checking Sister sites, I discovered that there are more than a few that are either not there at all any more or that haven't been updated for months. So, please check your name in the blogroll and email me corrections for your own or any others that you might know about. Thanks.

War Stories to Share

(double posted)
Thanks to my healer-friend Ed Tick for his link to a site that is chronicling the true stories of veterans (and others caught up in the ravages of war) and their experiences with warring and its aftermath.

The site, "Eleventh-hour Stories" explains:
When we sent the first two letters out to the global community asking for these stories of the last 100 years, we were primarily concerned with stopping the war planned against Iraq and also possibly against North Korea. Now we are concerned with the ongoing activity of peacemaking. We have found that time does not heal the kind of traumas that people have been suffering but consciousness can heal. So we will gather and tell theses stories so that we develop a culture of awareness that has the capacity to ethically modify our behavior in the directions of compassion and empathy.

It is our hope to bring some healing to the unprecedented traumatic experience of the last decades and to insure that such torture not be inflicted further. When such wars and violence repeat themselves they inevitably create new armies of torturers and countries of the tormented. The telling and the receiving of these stories are activities that say: This must stop here and now.

These stories contain the essential information and understanding needed by everyone in the world in order to know how to move forward at this time. These stories when we listen to them will provide the wisdom of healing and will inform us to take proper action.

We are asking you to tell the stories, to gather the stories, to bear witness to the stories, to send them here and to send them out yourselves widely. We are asking that these stories be gathered and told at public gatherings and peace actions, be read from podiums as well as shared in small groups and councils. Through these activities the truth of this century can become the compassionate ground from which wisdom emerges and an informed global society begins to act on behalf of life, peace and heart.

Read the stories here. And share them.

If you have a story to share, send it in

men bad, women good / women good, men bad, and other flawed arguments reinforcing partriarcy

In my opinion, the problem with Elaine's statement that "Women Have Always Stood for Peace" is that it simplifies the destructive powers of partriarchy into a "Women good" and "Men bad" gloss-over. It's one of the problems I have with the label of feminism and the cloudbursts of meanings and understandings attached to that word.

The truth is that men suffer just as much under partriarchy as women do.. Their kind of suffering is different. But not of less value. Not less in pain or consequences. Men and women pay for patriarchy with their souls, often with their lives.

And Matriarchy is no better. Get that idea right out of your head.

It's the "Archy" that's the problem. Not the mater or pater.

I generally shy away from gender discussions because there are so many more layers to humans than gender. I like to write *from* the place of being a woman/mother/40-something/writer, but not so much *about* that place. That I'm a women informs my voice, but it doesn't have to be my primary utterance.

Funny, huh? Me, the one with the big idea to start a women's weblog saying that she has problems focusing on gender?

Well not really. I never intended this blog to be a women's issues blog. It's cool that it has become mostly that. This blog is whatever its members want it to be. The life of the team weblog is fluid, this I know from experience. It winds its way through many voices over time, it's tenor rises and falls, sometimes it's all jokes, sometimes it's all serious.

The important thing for me was having a place where women could voice *anything* at all. Pets, sex, kids, jobs, dreams, fantasies, realities, and more. Not just writing about women, but writing from that place of being you, you who happens to be a woman.

I've been wanting to come on here for some time to shake things up. And I will have more time to do just that now that I don't have a job. And just for the record, I feel lucky that at least under patriarchy I'm not expected to want to be a CEO. Can't think of a worse job in the world!

Hey, there's one bonus!

more later...

Gender Wars Redux

(double posted)
I'm annoying some of my dearest Blog Sisters by asserting that men are more violent than women and it's the leadership of males that almost always is behind our marches into war and the destruction of cultures.

I really do believe that, until we confront the power that our hormonal chemistries have over our natures, we're not going to be able to evolve much futher as human beings. That doesn't mean we should be using other chemistries to neutralize that power; but it does mean that we have to become aware of our behavior patterns and work on some "personality" changes to diminish the insidious way that those chemistries effect our behaviors.

I posted the something close to following in a comment in response to a comment, but I'm repeating it here for broader consumption:

Been there, done that. The "change" has taken all my hormones away, so I can't fault them for my point of view.

Of course human beings are complex. But look at history as it documents the actions of males and the actions of females as they reflect manifestations of physical violence against others, aggression, extreme competitiveness. I think the males win in that category.

History, literature, mythology etc. also document problem tendencies in females (need to please others, emotional outbursts, over-protectedness, vanity, self-mutilation etc. etc.), but these are not actions that tend to initiate wars and mass murder. Extreme manifestations of our biological natures pose problems for all humans, but the male version is a killer.

Fifty years from now, look back and see if things are any better -- if men are still in charge and charging at others aggressively, if women are still defering to what men seem to want them to be or emulating men's aggression because they've allowed themselves to be convinced that that's the way to succeed. (Notice: I did not say ALL men and ALL women!)

How much better the world -- how much better relationships -- would be if each gender worked at eliminating those extreme tendencies that we've carried along in our genes and hormones from our more primitive ancestors?

But, like the process of any evolutionary-therapeutic journey, first one must admit that there's a problem. That's the hardest part, and it's even harder if what is our "problem" is also our source of power.

Women Have Always Stood for Peace.

This is the commemorative “First International Women’s Year” pin I bought in 1975. I just unearthed from the bottom of a desk drawer that I was cleaning out, and I’ve decided to start wearing it again. The peace dove, the female symbol, the red, white, and blue – together they have acquired new life and meaning during this time when so many Americans are succumbing to the ancient and destructive spirit symbolized by the ancient myth of Ares.

We women are life-givers. Most of us don’t want to be life-takers. Unlike many men, we tend not to be seduced by Ares’ warsong. We will fight to protect ourselves and our children when in immediate danger, but we tend not to enjoy the killing of innocents.

And so I’m wearing my IWY dove of peace. I found it at just the right time.

(double posted)

Waging Peace In the Middle East by Hitting Them Where It Counts

"If those were my kids? I'd put 'em on a frickin'(sp) time-out and take away their frickin' allowance."

The Alaska Pipeline delivers approximately 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, which is roughly half of America's daily consumption.

The other half we buy from the Middle East, and much of that oil is coming from our long-time and current enemies, like Iraq. (But, in all honesty: do we ever really know who our enemies are?)

We are paying them good U.S. greenbacks, which they are turning around and using to fund bio-chemical research, pay for tanks, planes, guns, bullets, and all those other fun, pesky, weapons of mass destruction.

This means: if we can figure out simple ways to reduce our dependence on oil by half and implementing these techniques into our daily lives, we could conceivably, painlessly ---end our economic-based relationship with our enemies.

I decided to take action, starting today.

Here is my Top Ten list of ways our household is going to try and bankrupt the enemy:

1. Schedule errands, dr.'s visits, and shopping trips to town on the same day, using the same vehicle, only once a week. Remember mandatory mid-day pit stop to refuel on a burger and a beer.

2. Switch to synthetic oil, keep vehicles tuned up for better mileage.

3. Bicycle, motorcycle during summer. (Gee, do I have to?)

4. Invest in hybrid electric car for the rest of the year (for me,) esp. when it gets down to -50. That number again is: minus 50. Below zero. Farenheit.

5. Save petroleum-based plastic bags from store; reuse till they disintegrate and fruit is escaping down driveway.

6. Turn down thermostat, put on sweats.

7. Fix broken stuff where heat leaks out.

8. Use mocha java latte money to buy municipal bonds: help build natural gas pipeline to North Slope.

(OK, this one isn't for everyone, but it will provide over half of Alaska residents with an alternative heating source, reducing the state's heating fuel consumption by half. See how easy this is, once you get going?)

9. Write board of directors of local electric power supplier to ask:
How's it going with that windmill turbine suggestion I made 10 years ago?

(At the end of our journey, moving up here, wind blew all my tupperware down the highway.)

10. Whenever possible? BUY GREEN, by limiting the purchase of products in plastic containers.

Unless it's milk. Then, you'd want to look for that waxed cardboard stuff. But not the recycled cardboard; you know, just the regular stuff.

I welcome any other suggestions! Kate S.

The Truth Shall Make You Sick.

This is a true report . It's the truth about how Americans fight a war that all those so-called pro-war patriots don't want to believe.

Here's a teaser:
Across the square, genuine civilians were running for their lives. Many, including some children, were gunned down in the crossfire.

'The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy,' said Corporal Ryan Dupre.' I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him.'

Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery. Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved. One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps.

Just imagine if all this were being done here, in America, to us. Yet, there are our "boys," doing it, doing it to other innocents -- becoming the evil that we so despise. War. What the hell did you think it would be like!

Voices of Peace.

Thank you Bunny Otter and Natalie Davis for the two previous posts. As our futures spin out of our control, all each of us can do is live our individual lives according to our commitment to creating peace. Unless, of course, we don't believe that creating peace is the only viable way to survive -- and there are Americans as well as Iraquis who don't. But, as you both pointed out, there are also many who do.

Natalie's friend Kara in Iraq asks a very very relevant question: ...if Iraqis had bombed our town, destroying our hospital, would we treat them with the same love and care? Or would we beat them to death in anger? I think we know that some Americans would do one and some the other. And so it is with people all over the world.

The Real Heroes

These are, of course, the people we really should pray for: the innocents of Iraq and the volunteer human shields and humanitarian workers in Baghdad to lend a helping hand. As has been reported, my friend and Soulforce colleague Kara Speltz has been in Iraq to work with Christian Peacemaker Teams. She is out of the country now; the Iraqi government demanded that a number of the peace makers leave Iraq. Here is Kara's report from Amman, Jordan:

We're back from Baghdad; five of our team stayed on and four have returned to carry the truth about this war to the American press and people. The trip to and from Baghdad was harrowing to say the least.

On our trip into Iraq, we crossed front lines twice. There were many burned cars, buses and trucks as we traveled. About 150 kilometers from Baghdad, we came upon a truck on fire. We slowed down and saw American troops on the hill above. They had their guns trained on us and motioned for us to stop. We did and waved white flags. Eventually they motioned us in the first car to continue on. The second van was still at the site and we waited for them to start up, but before they could, 4 Iraqi soldiers started running for the van, the Americans motioned for the second van to take off but the Iraqis were nearly up to the van. The van was able to get away, but as we watched from the first van, it looked like the Iraqis might actually catch up to them. We continued on past the Americans and shortly thereafter a station wagon passed us with its back windows shot out. We learned from them that they had not slowed down and the Americans had shot at them. We then came to an Iraqi checkpoint and were worried that some of the soldiers might consider confiscating our vehicle, but they waved us past, after reading the statement we had written in English and Arabic. The statement read:

"I am a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. We are against the war and all other forms of violence.

We are going to Baghdad to join other members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams who have been there, living among the Iraqi people since October. We wish to stay with them during this terrible war that is being waged against them.

We are trying to protect the Iraqi people and the institutions of health, welfare, and education that are important to life. We will visit
and support hospitals, water purification plnts, schools and orphanages.

We are with the Iraqi people because we know God loves them and weeps for them."

The looks on the faces of those who read our statement was one of awe and puzzlement. We arrived in Baghdad around 430 and got settled in at the hotel we were staying at. We met at 6 pm to worship together with the other members of the team who were already there. In the midst of the worship, the bombs began. Most were far off, but some felt near.

The bombing continued on and off during the entire time we were there. One of the most devasting things we learned was that the U.S. is using anti-personnel fragmentation weapons in Baghdad!!!!!! We visited a home and picked up several of the "pellets." Jim Douglass who is part of our CPT team, recognized them from his time in Vietnam.

We've met hundreds of Iraqis as we toured the bombing sights. Not one single person was anything but friendly and welcoming to us. It is difficult to sleep at night because of all the bombs. But amazingly, the Iraqis continue life, having birthday celebrations, planting seed, and just generally going on with life.

Because the Americans have destroyed all communications facilities, there now are no phones or emails out of Baghdad. The Iraqis, picked up six of our team members as they walked between the two hotels, but had stopped to see some of the latest damage from the bombing the night before. They were held for 6 hours and we had no idea where they were. Some of us feared they might have been picked up by hostile melitia forces who would hold them hostage. Finally, our "minder," the government official who was responsible for us, located them at a police station and was able to have them released.

The next day the 6 were given orders to leave Iraq. Since this was just a day prior to our planned return, and there was no telling when we might have an opportunity to leave, I asked to go with them. So 5 stayed and 4 of us left.

On our way back from Baghdad to Ammon, one of the cars we were traveling in had a blowout and ended up in a culvert. All 5 of them were injured, but our convoy was unaware until we got about a half hour away. Immediately Iraqi people stopped and transported our injured to the nearest town. This town had just endured severe bombing 4 days previous. The bombs had destroyed the hospital there along with a number of other buildings. But they brought them to the small building that was being used to replace the hospital and treated them with love and kindness, sharing the the few medical supplies they still had. I found myself wondering if the same thing had happened here in the states---if Iraqis had bombed our town, destroying our hospital, would we treat them with the same love and care? Or would we beat them to death in anger?

We are here in Amman, and leave on Tuesday for the states. But last night, as we drifted off to sleep, we could hear a B-52 bomber and each of us feared that the bombs would start dropping. Americans are being systematically lied to about this war, and I'm coming back to help spread the truth about this awful war that we are waging. Love Kara

Prayers and kind thoughts, please, for Kara's and her colleagues' safe return home. We would do well to listen to the stories and eyewitness accounts they will have to tell us -- theirs, unlike the Bushites', are the voices of truth.

Is this how we train our troops?? Shame, shame.

from this article in the NY Times:

They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill trained and cowardly.

"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."

and

But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down.

"I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way."

This is why I don't get involved in "support the troops" stuff, even though I have relatives over there. I hope they, indeed, behave with more moral conscience, that they do not get killed or maimed; and I feel badly for all of them -- that they have allowed themselves to be duped by this government and brainwashed by soul-less military minds.

P.S. However, I am going to join my cousin's campaign to get all the relatives to send his Army daughter sets of cotton underwear. (Clean underwear is a rarity in the Iraqi desert.) And she can share what she doesn't wear. But that's the extent of my "support the troops." Clean underwear for my activated Reservist female second cousin.

NO HOSE!

Wed., April 23, 2003 is Executive Admin's Day (Secretary's Day). This day is in the middle of Administrative Assistants Week, which also features Earth Day (22nd). If you are a woman, please help social change by wearing no hose, heels, or skirts to work on April 23rd! Political and social reformer Jennifer Schulz Medlock urges all women to “get back to nature”. This is a voluntary protest effort against society’s old-fashioned expectations of women to wear nylons, high heels, and skirts, especially in business, and especially within big corporations. Leave your suffocating nylons at home, as well as those painful high heels, and replace your skirt with pants! Be comfortable, be natural, and take control! On Executive Admin's Day at least, we will not let powerful men dictate what we wear. Let’s show these men we can “wear the pants” and create a better world. We Can Do It!

Please forward this to as many women as you know.
http://nohose.blogspot.com/

Hi, my name is Kate and I am a new Blog Sister. My new blog is: klondikekatesaurora.blogspot.com

I have been a fan of the Blog Sisters for awhile.

I visit everyday because there is such a mixed bag of issues and styles, all written with compassion, humor and intelligence; I mean, you people talk about everything under the sun! I never know what I am going to be stumbling into when I log on each day, but I know that the content will always be intriguing.

For me, it's like Christmas, every morning.

Did I mention that I live in Alaska? Right down the road from Santa.
***************


"Denali Sunset at Midnight"


Mt. McKinley

People are so nice. I wrote half a dozen requests for permission to use their photographs in exchange for a link to their website. You know, "Sitting on top of the world"? I do live only a stone's throw from the Arctic Circle. On a clear day, you can see "The Great One," and I wanted you to see what I have in my backyard.

This man, George Bell--mountain climber, talented photographer, adventurer--he wrote back immediately saying sure, go ahead. He actually sounded surprised that I bothered to ask for permission. He has many more pictures and adventure stories and when I learn how to link he will be a permanent guest of mine.

I can't tell you how awe-inspiring it is to be humbled by this great magestic treasure on earth. You stand there and look and watch, and finally the clouds part, the sun lights up the face, and majesty unveils itself before you. You look up and up, and it fills the entire sky, and all you can hear is the sound of your own breath being sucked into your lungs out of sheer wonder.

Thank you, George, for letting me share this awesome beauty with my friends.

Thank you for reminding us all, especially now, that there are still places of heaven on earth.

Love that woman!

"In the department store," by Marge Piercy from Colors Passing Through Us (Alfred A. Knopf). Featured today in The Writer's Almanac.

The women who work at cosmetics
counters terrify me. They seem molded
of superior plastic or light metal.
They could be shot up into orbit
never mussing a hair, make-up intact.

When I walk through, they never pester
me, never attack me with loud perfume,
never wheedle me into a make-over.
Perhaps I scare them too, leaking
some subversive pheromone.

I trot through like a raccoon
in an airport. They see me,
they look and turn away. Perhaps
I am a project they fear to tackle
too wild, too wooly, trailing

electrical impulses from my loose
black hair. They fasten on the throat
of the neat fortyish blond behind me
like stoats, dragging her to their
padded stools. A lost cause,

I sidle past into men's sporting
gear, safe but bemused, wondering
if they judge me too far gone
to salvage or smell my stubborn
unwillingness like rank musk.

War of Another Sort

For the record, I am a predominantly lesbian bisexual person (with an opposite-gender partner; funnier things have happened) who is out, is monogamous, socializes with mostly queer people, belongs to a queer church, works in GLBT media, is a veteran GLBT-rights activist and same-gender marriage advocate, sings that she's glad to be gay along with Tom Robinson (another out bisexual), is perfectly comfortable with being labeled gay or lesbian, and is HORRIFIED that columnist Paul Varnell would even suggest what he does in the following op-ed.

Do Bs really fit in 'GLBT'?

Most bisexuals aren't out, they socialize mostly with heterosexuals, and form longer relationships with opposite-sex partners. So are they gay?

By Paul Varnell

GAY MEN AND lesbians are far more likely to disclose their sexual orientation to their personal physicians than are bisexuals,
according to an online survey conducted late last year by Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications.

The survey found that 55 percent of lesbians and 67 percent of gay men said they had come out to their physician. But only 23 percent of the self-described bisexuals said they had done so.

But the headline on the survey press release, repeated in many gay newspapers, was to the effect that fewer than half of all "GLBT" people had disclosed their sexuality to their physician.

That was extremely misleading. It obscured the fact that a majority of the lesbians and (especially) gay men were taking proactive
responsibility for their health by dealing openly with their physician, and it equally obscured the important fact that bisexuals were not dealing well with disclosure that would help them obtain better health care and more accurate medical advice.

That leads to the conclusion that for some purposes, it can be important to disaggregate gays, lesbians and bisexuals (to say
nothing of transsexuals) and not talk of them as if they were a unitary "community" or have more in common than they actually do.

If we fail to separate them out, we will be unable to identify -- or even think to look for -- problems each group may uniquely be facing and solutions that may work better for one group than another. The amount of similarity and the degree of actual "community" depends on the issue.

AT THE POLITICAL level, grouping bisexuals with gay men and lesbians makes some sense. In almost every way, bisexuals face the same issues of discrimination and prejudice that gays face, and for exactly the same reasons:

Some of their sexual activity violates sodomy laws; they cannot marry if they fall in love with a person of the same sex; they cannot serve openly in the U.S. military; they may encounter problems with child custody and adoption, and so on.

In other words, bisexuals face discrimination only because they sometimes behave like homosexuals.

Beyond that, gay activists have always sought to include bisexuals as part of a broader gay community because it helps increase the number of gays to politically relevant -- and more recently economically relevant -- levels. That familiar 10 percent figure for the gay population includes a substantial number of functional, if not self-defined, bisexuals.

But despite the identity of interests, there are important differences at the psychological and personal identity level. It seems clear from survey research that bisexuals understand their sexuality far differently from lesbians and gay men, and handle disclosure and relationship issues far differently, as the medical survey mentioned earlier suggests.

In interviews conducted for the extremely interesting 1994 book Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality by former Kinsey Institute associates Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams, most bisexuals reported that they "were predominantly heterosexual in their sexual feelings, sexual behaviors, and romantic feelings" and socialized more with heterosexuals than with gays. So it was not so surprising that, for instance, only one-third of the bisexual men were out to their social acquaintances and fellow employees at work, whereas two-thirds of the gay men were.

THE QUESTION GAYS may then ask is how seriously these self-described bisexuals take their same-sex tricks, dates and relationships, or more fundamentally, how seriously they take the homosexual component of their sexuality.

No doubt there are vast individual differences. But the bisexuals Weinberg and Williams talked to "often said that the nature of
bisexuality had a negative effect on the stability of relationships over time. Some -- both men and women -- mentioned being unable to focus exclusively on one sex."

When bisexuals did form committed relationships, Weinberg and Williams found that those were "overwhelmingly" with opposite sex partners, and they were much more likely to be non-monogamous "because open multiple relationships are an important part
of their lifestyle."

Such findings suggest troubling obstacles for gay activists on a range of issues, from efforts to reach bisexual men with HIV
information to attempts to solicit bisexual support for same-sex marriage. They also remind us that in many ways the recently
coined "GLBT community" is more a semantic artifact or political term-of-art than anything like an actual community.

Paul Varnell is a Chicago-based syndicated writer and can be reached at pvarnell@aol.com.

I suppose there are bisexuals who fit Varnell's template. But not all. PLEASE if you believe in the integrity of each human being, our community as a whole, and about justice for all -- or if you, like I do, find Varnell's anti-bi prejudices shocking and disgusting and insulting -- participate in the following action, which comes from temenos.net.

Paul Varnell is a twit. The fact that he describes the acronym 'GLBT' as "a recently coined expression" shows how hopelessly out of touch he is with our community. The only reason I'm forwarding this is to encourage you to SPEAK OUT and voice your opposition.

Here's what you can do.

1. Send your letters to the editor about this article to: action@temenos.net and I will publish it on www.temenos.net.

3. This is a syndicated column, so look for this article in your local gay paper send your letter to them.

4. If at all possible, include the phrase "Paul Varnell is a twit." in your letter. (Ok, that last one is just for me, but it would make me terribly happy)

For the record, I won't call Paul a twit. As we often disagree, if I were to do such a thing it would be at least an every-week occurrence. But if you feel the need, feel free.

The saddest thing about this is that once again, we turn against each other and ourselves. That has to stop. The stereotyping, the identity politics -- they have to stop. Anti-bi and anti-trans gays and lesbians have to stop. Oppression is so ugly, so tired -- particularly when practiced by people who themselves are oppressed. Paul Varnell ought to know better.

Bottom line: I am keeping the toaster oven. I am a part of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community regardless of with whom I am sleeping (even if that person is no one, sigh). Deal with it.

An even older sister remembers the Yippies.

By the end of the 60s, I was married with two little kids and living in the rural town where my husband was teaching. I protested in what meager ways I could, but my heart was with the Yippies. Who were the Yippies? They're somewhat documented here, and what follows is excerpted from that piece.

The Yippies, who came up with the name first and the acronym "Youth International Party" later, pulled their first famous act at the New York Stock Exchange. They floated down dollar bills and then laughed hysterically as millionaire stockbrokers scrambled madly after the money. They wanted to celebrate the "death of money" and expose the greediness of American society. From then on, the Yippies would put soot bombs at Con Edison Headquarters to warn about pollution, plaster SEE CANADA NOW signs on Army Recruiting Booths and mail 3,000 marijuana joints to random strangers from the phone book. Abbie's antics made him a media celebrity along with the Yippies' other leader, Jerry Rubin, best known for dressing in a Revolutionary War outfit and blowing bubbles at a House Un-American Committee hearing. Many groups in the sixties were so earnest and self-righteous that the Yippies provided some of the only examples of radicals with a sense of humor.

Contrary to Abbie often being portrayed as a comic buffoon, ... he was a very serious, committed activist who gave away more money than he made. She had met him in New York, when Abbie had opened a "Free Store" for low-income people and set up a place for the homeless to come. He sold goods from cooperatives in the South who were trying to escape poverty.

As the Yippies gained more attention, however, the focus shifted towards pulling off even more outrageous activities rather than setting up "counter institutions" like the Free Store. Media dependency and addiction were setting in. Some began accusing the Yippies of provoking violent confrontations with the police, though others believed the police unleashed the violence. In October of 1967, in what would become one of the most important protests of the 60s, the March on the Pentagon mobilized 100,000 various anti-war activists.

At the protest, the Yippies had declared their intention to "levitate" the Pentagon, and to exorcise it of all the evil spirits that were killing Americans and Vietnamese women and children thousands of miles away. Roz put on the footage of the levitation and I could hear through the phone the chanting of "Ommmmmm." US marshals surrounding the Pentagon moved in and started arresting demonstrators. One famous photo shows a protester putting a daisy into the gun of a policeman. The March was only the prologue to what would become increasingly more violent confrontations with the police.

I think perhaps that, as much as we enjoyed the efforts of the early Yippies to draw attention to important issues through humor and satire, it became pretty apparent that those tactics were not going to result in real change happening. Frustration led to more confrontational behavior, as is also happening today.

As I sit here watching Baghdad being violently destroyed , live, before of the eyes of the whole world of television, I can't help see that the confrontation in which the anti-war protestors are engaging to make their points heard is nothing compared to the violence that we are inflicting upon the innocents of Iraq. As an American, I am ashamed of what my country's leaders are doing in my name.

(double posted here. And go here to read George Dubya Bush's War Prayer (a little satire in the Yippie spirit).

A grandma's question for young mothers

This is not the kind of issue I usually bring up here at Blog Sisters, but I need some input/advice/reassurance.

Have any of you done the "attachment parenting/co-sleeping/sleep-time ritual/baby-genius accoutrements" thing advocated by so many of the new books on baby-care and practiced by my daughter? I just don't remember caring for a baby being so complicated. I fed them when they were hungry and put them down to sleep when they got tired during the day. Sometimes I played with them and sometimes they amused themselves in their playpens. Bed-time rituals evolved according to what they seemed to need -- story time, lullabyes, stroking, etc. etc. while they lay in their cribs. I sometimes left them with baby-sitters and went out with my husband.

My daughter says she's read all the books and she knows what she's doing. Meanwhile, my grandson has a really hard time falling asleep and refuses to be separated from her (he's only 8 months and I understand that it's normal for him to have separation anxiety). She and her husband don't go anywhere; their lives revolve around the schedule she tries to set for the baby; she's tired and anxious and frustrated, and he's being a saint.

Have any of you young mothers gone through the same thing? If so, how long does it last? Do the kids eventually come through this and become independent self-calming sleepers and autonomous self-amusing kids?

She's pissed at me for suggesting that there are other less self-sacrificing ways to care for and nurture a baby. So, while my mouth is shut now, my mind is still wondering what experiences others have had using her modern baby-care methods. I figured that some of you modern mothers might be able to clue me in. I certainly am no longer going to butt in.

Gender and Achievement

My classes are focused on sociology of education at the moment, and one area we talk about that generates a lot of interest is gender and education. From literature, including 1991's Failing at Fairness: How Schools Cheat Girls and the more recent AAUW's Gender Gaps, we know that girls' learning problems are not identified, boys get more attention in classrooms, and girls start school testing higher in academic subjects but wind up achieving 50 points less on SATs. Finally, middle school is particularly troublesome.

At the same time, U.S. Department of Education data indicates that more girls than boys graduate high school, more women than men receive a bachelor's degree, and women now outnumber men in master's degree programs.

There is a dynamic in education, that achievement is impacted by social group, because while the returns to education are measurable across class, race, ethnicity and gender, as the outcome some groups benefit less than others, and as a result, are not as motivated to complete and excel. But this dynamic does not hold up between men and women. For example, compensation is not equitable between the genders. Yet females are high achievers. So why do women do so well when they receive fewer rewards? Some hypotheses are that women:

-are aware of the discrepancy but don't care
-are focused on the gains of feminism and so ignore the discrepancy
-have a traditionally dependent role which means economic returns are not the motivating factor (i.e. making a "good match")
-are socialized into specific roles in the early years
-value a private motivation (domestic life/home and family/community) more than a public one (economic/polity)

A complicating factor is that boys are disproportionately labeled as having special needs, perhaps because boys more often exhibit developmental delays, or are more likely to have their problems get attention, or because girls are more likely to display rewarded classroom behaviors (sitting quietly, raising her hand in turn).

Personally, I guess I do value private motivation, but at the same time, I see a lot of women in their 30s and 40s returning to college, and many are motived by economic reasons. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this fascinating subject?

Which side of the fence?

Unless you took this picture, or you happen to be the bird, you don't really know which side of the fence the bird is over. In other words, it's possible, and in all likelihood probable that we (blogsisters) don't all feel the same way about the impending war.

So what?
It would make me "unhappy" if this blog turned into a war blog, or should I say anti-war blog, but then that's me, and as I said we all don't feel the same even though we've got similar genitals.

in light of it all..

i posted the following in my weblog last night.

in light of it all.. being called idealistic, and a fantasizer. being told that i am not patriotic and i hate my country. having people say that i don't support the people that this government has sent to iraq. reading the comments placed here recently in an attempt to engage me in argument over war vs. peace. in spite of it all, i refuse to give up on my belief in peace and non-violence.

there are times when to let go and there are times when to hang on, this is one of those times when i choose to hang on to something i have believed in all my life.

i used to say that i wished i'd been around during the 60's, during the peace movement. i've got my own now. i've got a president who is off his rocker, a man who believes in holy wars, a man who claims to be the leader of this great country but chooses to forget the very tenants which he has been elected to move forward. i've got a country full of people who tell me how anti-american i am because i won't tow the line. i've got people who go for the quick fix of violence all around me. i don't need the 60's anymore, i've got the 00's. this is my time in the line and i will walk it proudly until the day i am told the line has finally reached the end.

there were hopes last week amongst the peace community. leaders of other countries saying that for once the world is not waging war, instead it is waging peace. there were reports that the father of this president, a former president himself, had joined with a bunch of plutocrats to say that this was bad. i was told that tony blair is under such scrutiny by his populace that if he supports this war he will be out of office in a millisecond.

but tonight the hopes have died down. the hopes of the millions who's voices people refuse to hear have been crushed. i found myself near tears. i found myself seeking out comfort, where comfort couldn't be found.

but i will tow this line. i won't let it go. in light of it all, everything i have known all my life, everything i have believed in, everything i have clung to and made a part of my heart-- that each life is a miracle, that no human being is worth more than another, that we should strive to love even our enemies-- has not left me. tonight, in light of it all, i refuse to give up my belief that peace and non-violence are the only answers.

Too Close for Comfort

I took these photos at a candlelight peace vigil that in which I participated tonight. It took place at the busiest intersection in the Albany area, less than 3 miles from where I live, and it was too close for me to be comfortable if I didn’t go over there. I sent the photos I took to moveon.org.

I stood between an elderly Quaker woman whose spiritual beliefs bring her to every peace rally in the area and a woman about my age who is a member of the Women For Peace effort. Next to her stood a distinguished sexagenarian in his old military uniform waving a large flag with the image of planet Earth from space. We lined up along the raised curb -- toddlers, students, dedicated activists, people like me who talk the talk and reached that point of discomfort where we felt we had to do more.

We were all handed a flyer:


War looms too close for comfort.

On Supporting the Troops

[an excerpt]

My friend Becky's eyes fill with light whenever she talks about her fiancé. Michael is a soldier, a new recruit (God only knows why) who just finished basic training. But now, Becky's eyes are filled with tears: Because the couple have yet to make their relationship legal -- thank heaven they are heterosexuals and have that right, although, thanks to the Shrub's rush to war, they lack the time -- Becky was not allowed to attend her beau's recent graduation. She was not even permitted to see him. And, she tells me, she won't get that chance, because Michael is being shipped out to goddess knows where to fight a war that even he questions. The last time we talked, a devastated Becky moaned that it will be at least two years before she sees her love again -- all because of a piece of paper and Bush's murderous grab for power and greed. How do we support Michael? Send him home to Becky's arms. NOW.

More of this commentary can be found at All Facts & Opinions.

War on Women

March is supposed to be Women's History Month. You wouldn't know that in the US Senate, which seems determined to do women harm. The Washington Post reports that senators rejected a proposal that would have expanded government health care for low-income pregnant women and would have forced private health-insurance companies to make contraceptives more widely available. Tuesday's 49-47 vote -- it was 11 short of the 60 needed -- came during debate on legislation to ban a procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion. The same vote also turned back a proposal to make emergency contraceptives (the morning-after pill) available in hospital emergency rooms for victims of sexual assault.

While we're busy trying to impeach the Shrub, we should seriously think about throwing some of the bastards on Capitol Hill out on their keisters.

hope for humanity

in his article the world after 9/11 arun gandhi, the grandson of m.k. gandhi, writes:

To begin with the communities in the United States can start a "Hope for Humanity Fund" - saving a coin every day to help a community in a Third World country. The reason why we need to save a coin everyday is because we must be conscious every day of the need to help someone, somewhere in the world. Writing a check at the end of the year does not create the consciousness that is necessary to build a relationship. Saving a coin everyday also gets children involved in the process and they learn early that life is about giving and helping and not just about amassing and consuming.

read more about hope for humanity in his article: hope for humanity: a new millennium role for the us?

so shrub spoke...

... and everything I wrote yesterday still applies -- you have to laugh or you'll end up bawling like a baby.

George W. Bush needs some new ideas, some new inspiration, perhaps a new job. In last night's televised press conference, a listless Commander-in-Thief gave us the same old-same old: that Iraq's a "direct threat" (which even many conservatives don't buy); that Saddam Hussein is delaying, "not disarming -- that's a fact" (let's see what Blix says); that Iraq's leader is thumbing his nose at the United Nations' authority; that the UN must support war; that the US doesn't need the UN's permission to attack anyway. Shrub says all of this twaddle makes his case, but last night, he did not appear convinced -- and he did not look particularly interested either.

But read this story of an encounter between a US military veteran and another man, chemist-activist Albert A. Hambidge Jr. Here is an excerpt from Hambidge's "The Wall," which chronicles a conversation between the author and the vet as they stand before the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in Washington, DC:

There weren't many people there; few visit during weather like this. As I walked by the panels, relishing the stillness, I came upon a man in fatigues. Though one of those floppy green hats covered his head, he seemed under dressed considering the cold. The area around him was devoid of wind and snow, as if the Wall created a sheltered harbor from the storm. He was staring at one panel, at a spot about chest high. Upon my approach, he said to no one in particular, "Goddamn bastards are doing it again." The sound of his voice startled me; I flinched, and stopped. He turned to look at me.

"We never learn, do we?" he asked. My quizzical look made him chuckle, and he continued as he turned back toward the Wall: "It never ceases to amaze me what we let ourselves be turned into cannon fodder for. We let ourselves get talked into all sorts of horror, and only after the body bags start piling up do we begin to wonder why."

We both knew he had my attention now. "Know how many names are here?" he asked. "Something like 50,000," I replied. "You make it sound like a goddamn statistic" he said, "There's Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine names on this Wall." He said the words slowly, enunciating each one. "Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine. Every one of them a son; a brother, or a father, a husband, a cousin, a lover, a neighbor, a friend. Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine boys brought home in boxes. For what? For fuckin' nothing. And now the bastards are gonna do it again."

A stronger case, n'est-ce pas? Read the piece in its entirety on the market-anarchy-themed site Strike the Root.

While you're at it, cyberpal and activist Lisa T. sent along a must-see op-ed that you, um, must see. Dig this bit about Bush:

He's clearly delusional.

The man who, through the country's apathy, ignorance, and blind trust, now wields the greatest power ever known to humankind, sees reality as a field of play where he is the biggest kid out there, or at least has the biggest stone to throw.

And part of the nightmare is that he is and he does.

Read the entire editorial by J. Rex Bounds & Lisa Walsh Thomas at resistance site America Held Hostile.

More ranting about the supposedly greatest nation in the world at All Facts and Opinions.

salem witch trials

there was a movie about the salem witch trials on cbs, here in the states, last night and sunday night. i've done some reading on the trials prior to the movie. the following is part of what i posted in my blog yesterday night:
i've done some reading about the trials. there are various theories about why what happened in salem, mass back then happened. the most plausible to me is ergotism poisioning. from the article by linda caporael:

Ergotism, or long-term ergot poisoning, was once a common condition resulting from eating contaminated rye bred.  In some epidemics it appears that females were more liable to the disease than males (19).  Children and pregnant women are most likely to be affected by the condition, and individual susceptibility varies widely.  It takes 2 years for ergot in powdered form to reach 50 percent deterioration, and the effects are cumulative (18, 20).  There are two types of ergotism--gangrenous and convulsive.  As the name implies, gangrenous ergotism is characterized by dry gangrene of the extremities followed by the falling away of the affected portions of the body.  The condition occurred in epidemic proportions in the Middle Ages and was known by a number of names, including ignis sacer, the holy fire.
        Convulsive ergotism is characterized by a number of symptoms.  These include crawling sensations in the skin, tingling in the fingers, vertigo, tinnitus aurium, headaches, disturbances in sensation, hallucination, painful muscular contractions leading to epileptiform convulsions, vomiting, and diarrhea (16, 18, 21).  The involuntary muscular fibers such as the myocardium and gastric and intestinal muscular coat are stimulated.  There are mental disturbances such as mania, melancholia, psychosis, and delirium.  All of these symptoms are alluded to in the Salem witchcraft records.
----------
It is one thing to suggest convulsive ergot poisoning as an initiating factor in the witchcraft episode, and quite another to generate convincing evidence that it is more that a mere possibility.  A jigsaw of details pertinent to growing conditions, the timing of events in Salem, and symptomology must fit together to create a reasonable case.  From these details, a picture emerges of a community stricken with an unrecognized physiological disorder affecting their minds as well as their bodies.
        1) Growing conditions.  The common grass along the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Newfoundland was and is wild rye, a host plant for ergot.  Early colonists were dissatisfied with it as forage for their cattle and reported that it often made the cattle ill with unknown diseases (22).  Presumably, then, ergot grew in the New World before the Puritans arrived.  The potential source for infection was already present, regardless of the possibility that it was imported with the English rye.
        Rye was the most reliable of the Old World grains (22) and by the 1640's ot was a well-established New England crop.  Spring sowing was the rule; the bitter winters made fall sowing less successful.  Seed time for the rye was April and the harvesting took place in August (23).  However, the grain was stored in barns and often waited months before being threshed when the weather turned cold.  The timing of Salem events fits this cycle.  Threshing probably occurred shortly before Thanksgiving, the only holiday the Puritans observed.  The children's symptoms appeared in December 1691.  Late the next fall, 1692, the witchcraft crisis ended abruptly and there is no further mention of the girls or anyone else in Salem being afflicted (4, 9).

the article goes on to talk about the geography salem and how there were more affected in one part of salem than the other. it is all quite interesting.

i personally am not that thrilled with this movie. witchcraft and witches are still misunderstood in this country, in fact bush himself does not recognize the practice of wicca or paganism as real religions. people who identify as witches still have to hide in this country under which "freedom of religion" was one of the tenants that we were founded. it is all very disturbing.

btw, one site that i've found to be pretty good as far as the facts of the trials, as they were then, is: salem witch trials page

Anita Roddick: We Need More Like Her

Well, I did get myself out in the rain and over to Russell Sage College in Troy, where Blogsister (and socially responsible corporate entrepreneur/founder of The Body Shop) Anita Roddick was signing her new book (as well as her other books) at the college's "Social Responsibility Fair." She is in residence there this week as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. (I signed a few petitions and picked up some info about the local "Women Against War" group that I've been trying to catch up with.

Anita Roddick is as impressive in person as she is in her tireless work on behalf of human rights, fair trade, the environment, peace, and any number of issues that specifically affect women. Luckily, I arrived early enough to catch her before the throngs beseiged her for photo ops and further discussions of questions that she stirred in her presentation earlier in the day. She welcomed me as a Blogsister, and I commandeered a passerby to take this photo.



Next to Anita, I look like something that just came in from the rain (which is exactly what I was.) I think I need to trek over to my neighborhood Body Shop and see what she's got there to help spruce me up. I did wear my Blogsister's t-shirt, though. My thanks to Anita's colleague, Blogsister Brooks Shelby Biggs, whom I finally thought to email in hopes that she would mention to Anita that I was going to show up -- which she was happy to do.

women call for peace in yachats, oregon

The letters SOS are understood worldwide as a call of distress. These letters, the O turned into the symbol of the peace movement, are composed of women who shed their clothing Saturday [22 February 03] in a grassy field near Waldport [Ore.] to express their views against war. Organizers of the event arranged for a chartered plane to fly over and photograph the peace message.

read more about the action, that i participated in, at women send SOS call for peace. and see even more pictures of women all over the world at baring witness.

Sign Emergency Petition to U.N.

Once, there was a bogus fwd-the-email petition going around that purported to be aimed at the United Nations. It was fake, false nonsense. Now, thanks to MoveOn.org, here's the real thing.

The emergency petition's going to be delivered to the 15 member states of the Security Council on THURSDAY, MARCH 6.

If hundreds of thousands of us sign, it could be an enormously important and powerful message -- people from all over the world joining in a single call for a peaceful solution. But we really need everyone who agrees to sign up today. You can do so easily and quickly at:

http://www.moveon.org/emergency/

The stakes couldn't really be much higher. A war with Iraq could kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and inflame the Middle East. According to current plans, it would require an American occupation of the country for years to come. And it could escalate in ways that are horrifying to imagine.

We can stop this tragedy from unfolding. But we need to speak together, and we need to do so now. Let's show the Security Council what world citizens think. Sign the emergency petition to the U.N.

Speaking of Anita Roddick!

So, I log onto Blog Sisters to sing the praises of Blog Sister Anita Roddick, and there she is, posting (below) about the virtual march that she is organizing for London. But I'm mentioning her for another reason. She's in my locality this week.

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop and international activist, is spending this week at Russell Sage College in Troy as this year's Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. She's here to show her support for the new bachelor's degree program created by Brownell and Ingraham -- business and organizational management with a focus on social responsibility.

For those of you who don't know about Anita Roddick, the local newspaper article goes on to say:

She opened the first Body Shop in Brighton, England, in 1976. Today, the skin and hair care company has nearly 2,000 stores in 50 countries and is a leader in the social responsibility movement. Calling itself a "corporation with a conscience," The Body Shop uses ethical, environmental and socially responsible methods to produce its products and conduct business. For example, the company promotes fair trade by working cooperatively with small producers and protects the environment by using minimal and recyclable packaging.

The corporation encourages these values outside the company's framework by campaigning for the protection of the environment and against animal testing within the cosmetics industry. The Body Shop supports human and civil rights actions -- from fair employment practices worldwide to volunteerism within local communities.

Roddick's activism isn't limited to business, however, or to one area of the globe. It extends to women's business cooperatives in Ghana, to safe sex initiatives in India and to London, where she is speaking out against a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq. (And organizing a virutal march, as her post below explains.)

I buy my cosmetics at our local Body Shop. If you never tried them, you should. Not only are they great products, but I love the fact that a company like Anita's is behind them and that she's a Blog Sister!!

I wonder if I show up wearing my Blog Sisters t-shirt at one of the events at which she's featured, if it will get me a personal intro.