May 2013
2 posts
April 2013
8 posts
My neighbors just got roosters...
Yep, that’s right. I guess it’s my fault for moving into an apartment where I thought, “Hey! A backyard! For relaxation! Parties! Sunshine!,” but instead got neighbors who have taken over every square inch to plant zucchini and patience (thanks for placing your gardening table RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY KITCHEN WINDOW), host skill-sharing shibori sessions on Saturday mornings, and loud soirees on Tuesday nights. And now, the roosters…
I’m reluctantly living on an urban farm.
“Roger Ebert, 70, who reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, and who was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic, died Thursday in Chicago.”
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Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer - Chicago Sun-Times
You will be missed…
“Why is everyone so afraid of being alone in their 20s? What better time to be alone could there possibly be? I felt exactly the same way when I was younger, but now I don’t get it. I look back on my twenties and all I can think about is how much happier I would’ve been, if I had just been willing to pack my shit and walk out the door the second I started to feel disregarded or disrespected or compromised. The danger, for a woman who settles for too little, isn’t that she’ll be alone forever. The danger is that she won’t be alone for long enough. Instead, she’ll leap into the next thing before she figures out just how strong she really is.”
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Polly/Heather seriously gives the most amazing advice. This is the advice column I needed in my 20s, and also in my 30s, and will possibly need in my 40s.
Preach
(via semperidem)
March 2013
8 posts
Save 92Y Tribeca
A call for the 92nd Street Y to reconsider its decision and maintain 92Y Tribeca, from Richard Brody: http://nyr.kr/11jvrZi
Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr: I am not your wife, sister or daughter →
motherjones.tumblr.com
One of the most incisive responses to some of the rhetoric we’ve been hearing in the wake of the Steubenville rape verdict is this blog post over at The Belle Jar. It articulates a discomfort many of us have with the sentiment (invoked in many contexts), “Imagine if the victim was your sister, or your daughter, or your wife.” Read the whole piece. This is what impassioned cultural criticism can do.
Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt:
The “wives, sisters, daughters” line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying,
“We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.”
This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.
Women are not possessions.
Women are people.
I seriously cannot believe that I have to say this in 2013.
On top of all of this, I want you to think of a few other implications this rhetorical device has. For one thing, what does it say about the women who aren’t anyone’s wife, mother or daughter? What does it say about the kids who are stuck in the foster system, the kids who are shuffled from one set of foster parents to another or else living in a group home? What does it say about the little girls whose mothers surrender them, willingly or not, to the state? What does it say about the people who turn their back on their biological families for one reason or another?
That they deserve to be raped? That they are not worthy of protection? That they are not deserving of sympathy, empathy or love?
And when we frame all women as being someone’s wife, mother or daughter, what are we teaching young girls?
We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men.
Read the whole thing at The Belle Jar.
Photograph of Gloria Steinem and Flo Kennedy.
“For readers interested in learning more about how not to be labeled as registered sex offenders, a good first step is not to rape unconscious women, no matter how good your grades are. Regardless of the strength of your GPA (weighted or unweighted), if you commit rape, there is a possibility you may someday be convicted of a sex crime. This is because of your decision to commit a sex crime instead of going for a walk, or reading a book by Cormac McCarthy. Your ability to perform calculus or play football is generally not taken into consideration in a court of law. Should you prefer to be known as “Good student and excellent football player Trent Mays” rather than “Convicted sex offender Trent Mays,” try stressing the studying and tackling and giving the sex crimes a miss altogether.”
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Mallory Ortberg, laying waste to fools on GAWKER, today, regarding CNN’s offensively lovey-dovey coverage of the two high school football stars who were convicted on Sunday of sexually assaulting a blacked-out drunk 16 year old girl from a neighboring town at a party, and then sharing pictures of her on the internet.
More details HERE.
I think it’s reasonable to say that, given the football culture of Steubenville, OH and the notorious difficulty of proving sexual assault even when the victim REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED, it is likely that what these jocks did to this other human would have become simply a dark part of Steubenville high school folklore, were it not for the digital trail of photos, tweets, and texts that the bystanders and assaulters themselves put out into the world.
SO THANK YOU, NERDS, FOR INVENTING SOCIAL MEDIA.
And thank you, Mallory and Manhattan snark-media for reminding some people—including CNN, apparently—what personal responsibility actually means.
That is all.
(via areasofmyexpertise)
