December 22, 2003
Fire and Water
I finally have a credit up for the painting that graces this blog. (Thanks, tech guy!) "Fire and Water" is by the abstract expressionist Johanna Boga, who has graciously granted me permission to use her work here. I'm a huge fan, and I intend to own some of her work one day. For more samples of her work, check out her website. Ms. Boga is also a peace activist and writer.
His Dark Materials
They're currently staging an adaptation of His Dark Materials at the National Theatre in London, and Christian groups are upset by the timing, claiming that the books and the play mock Christianity, and that this is a Christian season. Philip Pullman, the books' author, responds:
The play's director, Nicholas Hytner, says:
I've only begun the second book, and as far as I can tell, the books do offer a refreshing and creative criticism of patriarchal Christianity as a dying religion. This is a criticism that has arosen within the Christian church, as well as without. But it's worth noting that, in the books, the character who most hates the Church, Lord Asriel, hates with a power and fury that replicate, rather than challenge, the religiosity coming under critique. Right now my interpretation is that the books challenge certain values and approaches to power, rather than challenging religion per se - although it's true that the Church is portrayed as institutionalizing those (corrupt) values.
(Do comment if your interpretation varies, but don't give away the plot yet!)
(link via Bookslut)
December 21, 2003
December 19, 2003
Our responsibility to students
For a few years I taught at a women's college that has a program for non-traditionally-aged students. Some of my students were my age or older than me; some of them were raising children. I was delighted when two students - both mothers - in my Intro to Women's Studies class designed a website for feminist parents as their final class project. (Unfortunately, the site no longer exists.)
Once at a student/professor forum, a student - a single mother in her 30s - said that she needed professors (a) to acknowledge that she had responsibilities other than school, and (b) to work with her if parenting came into conflict with school. I'm not a parent; nor do I take care of my own parents. It had never occurred to me that students might need me to recognize and even accommodate their parenting. I learned an important feminist lesson that day.
Since then, I have always included a sentence or two on my syllabus requesting that students let me know at the beginning of the semester whether they have significant family caretaking responsibilities and letting them know that I will work with them to accommodate those responsibilities. Once or twice a student has had to miss class to care for a sick child, and I excuse such absences. Once a student had to bring her 7 year-old to class. She contacted me in advance, and I granted permission. I got to meet her lovely son.
The women who return to college while raising children have been among my most dedicated and responsible students. I don't worry that they will take advantage of my offer. Indeed, I consider it my responsibility as a feminist to be flexible for these students. Women ought to be able to pursue their education and raise their children; they shouldn't have to choose. In a better world, mothers (and fathers) would have co-parents and excellent, cheap childcare. They would have professors who respected their whole selves, not just the selves shown most often in the classroom.
It disgusts me to read stories like this.
December 18, 2003
We have met the bichon, and she is "Molly"
Thanks to those who entered the name-that-bichon contest, especially since I didn't offer a prize. As it turns out, I went with my dad yesterday to pick up the dog, and it was clear to us that her name ought to be Molly. Not as clever as many of your suggestions, but what could we do? She's clearly a Molly.
That means no one won.
December 17, 2003
Suburbia
Perhaps I flatter myself, but I think I'm really Canadian, despite having been born a few hours' drive from the border on the U.S. side. A Canadian friend of mine flatters me when he says, "you've already 'crossed over' in your mind."
Here, then, is a fellow Canadian reporting on life in the vast wasteland of U.S. suburbia. Sure, he's in Virginia and I'm not, but the whole point is: it doesn't matter; it's all numbingly the same.
All these are stores that could be of help for a stupid urban creature trapped in suburbia were they not repeated so often, in a well-groomed landscape that is uniformly flat and new and in the main treeless and always the same, that they are rendered utterly useless.
Not reading
What haven't you read this year? Kieran Healy gives his list, and much boasting ensues.
(Confession: I still haven't read The Poisonwood Bible.)
Plan B
Yesterday, those advisors did the right thing and voted 24 - 3 to recommend that emergency contraception ("Plan B") be made available for purchase in drug stores, without a prescription and without having to ask a pharmacist. This story was on every hourly update of the news on every station (NPR stations as well as AM talk radio stations).
Those who testified opposing Plan B were infuriating. Some gave the usual (and empirically disproven) argument that access to contraception will increase teenage promiscuity. Some argued that women who become pregnant unintentionally are acting irresponsibly. And the anti-abortion folks said that Plan B can act as an abortifacient because it interferes with implantation of a fertilized egg.
I don't understand why some people fetishize the fertilized egg. Eggs get fertilized and pass from women's bodies all the time. Most of the time we don't know when this happens, because the egg passes with regular menstrual bleeding. Often, a fertilized egg will implant in the uterus, but the body still decides to shed it; if this happens after four weeks of pregnancy, we call it a miscarriage. I didn't know how common miscarriages were until my friends started to get pregnant (and given my demographic, my friends are having babies in their 30s). Miscarriages happen all the time. They're normal. Pregnancies end all the time; that's normal, too. When a woman wants to have a baby, the passing of a fertilized egg is disappointing (again, if she even knows about it). When a woman doesn't want a baby, the passing is a relief. But these aren't deaths. While we may suspect that women who miscarry pregnancies did something wrong (sexism is alive and well, after all), we don't accuse them of murder. The fertilized egg - the blastocyst, the zygote, the embryo - is not itself a living being. If we mourn, we mourn what might have been, not what was.
Plan B can prevent ovulation, reduce sperm motility, and prevent implanation. Those are reasonable, safe, and easy ways to prevent a pregnancy. Every woman who has or may have intercourse with a man should keep Plan B in her medicine cabinet and should be able to run to the drug store or the all-night grocery to grab some. Every man who has or may have intercourse with a woman should do the same. It's that simple, and it can be such a relief.
No comment
"If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman."
President George W. Bush
December 16, 2003
Would you like Jesus with your fries?
I'm visiting a Midwestern city that's home to a "multipurpose ministry center" called Praise Place. Praise Place has a nightclub section with a restaurant called Jacob's Well. At Jacob's Well you can order the Garden of Eden (a salad) and Smothered Sancti-fries. The Testimony is a turkey club, and the Beatitude is a hamburger (menu: "blessed is the burger that is grilled to perfection"). For dessert, you can order the Promise (peach cobbler) or the Rapture (German chocolate pie). The manager says, "we're catering to people who want Christ with their meal."
Mmm, sancti-fries. I totally have to go.
Rush report
Some things are so sexist, you have to laugh.
Yesterday Rush Limbaugh was talking about Saddam Hussein's capture, of course, and giving the usual bluster about "liberals" wanting to go soft on Saddam (e.g. by having him tried at the Hague). Reaching for a metaphor that would appeal to "liberals," Rush said: “Lets pretend that Saddam Hussein is a late-term fetus and we're just going to abort him. Does that make it easier for you liberals?” (You can find this quote here.)
A man called to say: "If Saddam is really a late-term fetus, then we'd have to put him back in the hole and kill him on his way out."
