Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"In coal blood" by Jeff Biggers

My sister's best friend's husband works in the mine in Princeton where the three miners fell to their deaths. There's a strip mine growing ever bigger in what used to be a corn field, about a mile away from my mother's house. I used to be able to see the lights from the Black Beauty mine from my bedroom window, when I lived there. I drive by the coal-powered electric plant in Petersburg every week. It's always going, spitting clouds of smoke out and up into the atmosphere.

Coal mining is dangerous and burning coal is dirty, and the fact that it's being spun as a "clean" alternative to oil dependency is just another black mark on the current administration.

What's so "clean" about a strip mine dug out of the side of a once beautiful mountain?

What's so clean about this?



I don't have any solution for our energy problem. But I'm from mine country. Not just once, but twice, because I lived in the thick of it in Kentucky, and I'm back in the thick of it, here. And whatever optimistic spin they try to put on coal power, it's all a fucking lie. People have died for our electricity. And land has been destroyed for it. And that will continue to be true, because nobody who can stop it really cares.

Friday, August 03, 2007

"Disaster Belief" by Garrison Keillor

If there's anything I find truly insufferable, freely admitting that there are many things I find insufferable, it's when an older generation finds it necessary to complain about a younger generation while never pausing for a moment to implicate themselves. Because if there's any cardinal rule that applies to human behavior and how one person can influence another person, it is this: if you reap it, you had better be prepared to sow it. To quote Stephen King, what a man owns will always come back to him. Be it a dead cat or a dead-beat child.

The best known parental truism is that parents want better for their children than what they themselves had. There's also another, less acknowledged truism. Once that parent realizes just how much better they've made it for their offspring, chances are, they are going to become a little jealous. Despite what we'd like to think about our best natures, we are fully capable of being jealous of the people we love. And if the people we love just happen to be sailing through an easy life based on the college education we're still paying for with money from a job we hate, that would make even a saint a tad bitter. This leads to complaint. And as anyone who's ever listened to anyone complain will tell you, people don't always realize the role they have played in events that vex them.

So, is my generation inherently irresponsible? Maybe. But ask this question. When, as a whole, were we ever required to be anything else?

I have a thirtysomething cousin who still lives with her mother. Along with all of her four children. And her almost-thirty younger sister. And her three children. At this point, most people interject with a "That poor woman!" That poor woman? Who do you think raised these girls to be such total failures as adults? Sure, at this point, they should be held accountable for their own poor decision-making. But, at fifty, shouldn't their mother also be held accountable for her position as an accessory? It's one thing to love your child and not want to see them suffer. It's quite another to always hold open the door to the escape hatch from adulthood. Especially if that escape hatch leads to your twice-mortgaged three-bedroom house in the suburbs, now currently housing eleven people.

By and large, people who are forced to grow up do. People who don't have a reason to don't. Some people know that reality is the job you don't like, the rent that's too high, the car that might fall apart, the bills that have to be paid. And some people know their parents basement, WoW, D&D, ten years in college trying to figure out a major, the part time job that's just enough money to buy new electronic equipment. There are different levels of reality. It's impossible to gauge who lives in which one from survey results.

It's possible that a creative job with flexible work hours that somehow manages to change the world is just our generation's version of the dream job. Everyone has a dream. Everyone. My dream is to be a personal shopper. My mother's dream job was to be an army nurse. I buy a lot of clothes. My mother is a hypochondriac. So close.

When I was still in high school, my dream was to go to college, get a creative writing degree, move to New York City, become a famous novelist. That's not a summary. I didn't leave out the logistics in order to streamline the dream. There weren't any logistics. I had a vague idea of the future. Life got in the way. I don't care about the Dow Jones index, either, but that's because I don't own any stock. It has nothing to do with me.

And, so, there's the thing. The real problem with people my age is not that we are irresponsible, or that we have no idea of disaster, or that we don't realize the value of hard work. It's that we don't care about things that have nothing to do with us. But why would we? We're products of the Me Generation. All of our parents taught us that we were special little rays of sunshine who could bend the world to our wills. Of course I'll be famous if I move to New York and start writing books. I'm me! I'm special.

And whose fault is that? Sure, I may have come out of the womb thinking the world revolved around me. That's what babies do. But someone, at some point, should have disabused me of this notion. Someone should have set me straight. That's part of growing up, too. Not just going to college, getting the dream job. But realizing that you're not entitled to these things simply because you exist. That the world is full of people who want what you want. And sometimes it's denied to you so that they can get it.

Parents, you denied yourself things so that your children could have them. Don't be bitter. Be grown-ups. Get over it.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Rasool and I went to see 300. The theater was full of teenage boys. Who acted like you would expect them to, when there were parts with fucking.

Eh, I say. To the boys. Not the movie. The movie was pretty decent. Too much eyeliner, maybe.

What I really want to know, though, and this is directed at all forms of entertainment, not just this movie, is why is that when the writer/whoever has gone out of his way to establish a kickass female character, eventually, she has to be sexually subjugated, so that we in the audience can be reminded through use of her vagina that she is, after all, only a woman?

Awkwardly worded, I know, but, seriously, why?

I don't recall the scene in Rocky where the Italian Stallion took it up the ass. I don't recall the scene in Die Hard where John McClane was forced to blow a terrorist instead of having the terrorist attempt to blow him up.

I do recall, however, season two of Battlestar Galactica ending with Starbuck saying, "We do what we always do, fight 'em until we can't." I also recall season three opening with her being held captive by a Cylon who had a crush on her, which meant she wasn't doing much fighting of any kind.

Because you can't fight robot crushes that are encouraged by your vagina.

This shit doesn't offend me just because I'm a woman. It offends me because it's lazy hack-job writing. It offends me because we don't need to be reminded of the vagina by having a penis stuck in it in some degrading fashion. We already knew it was there. If it's so important for you to humiliate your hero, then why not do it another less gender-specific way? Because that's the easy way. And being creative is not about finding the easiest way to express yourself or your idea. And if your idea is that, no matter how strong she is, eventually a woman is just a hole for being penetrated, then you suck, anyway.

Besides, having someone be awesome and victimized does not make them more awesome. I did not think that the Bride was any more awesome because she'd been fucked by Buck. I did not think that Starbuck was any more awesome because she'd been turned into a robot's pet girlfriend. And even though she eventually stabbed the guy in the gut, Queen Gorgo was not more awesome because she let him use her, sexually, in a degrading manner, in order to try and get aid to her husband on the battlefield.

Awesomeness is about what you do. Not how you react to what's done to you.

Eventually all heroes have to be reminded that they're human. That's the well-documented cliche. But a woman's humanity need not have its epicenter between her legs. It's not necessary. So move the hell along.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Why is it that if a woman doesn't wear Birkenstocks and a buzzcut and sport unshaven armpits then she's automatically open for comments about anti-feminism? Why can't a woman be a feminist in lipstick and mascara, in stiletto heels?

I get the point. All of these things are trappings forced upon us by the Man. We only wear them to look good for the Man. It's mindless and shameful, enslaving us to the patriarchy.

What about when there's not a man around, much less the Man, and I want to look like whatever I want to, because I find it aesthetically pleasing, not because I need to look a certain way for anyone else?

I just must not be thinking for myself. It must be the corset cutting off the oxygen to my brain.

Or not. My brain is working just fine. My brain says, "I like that, I want to wear it." It doesn't say, "Damn, I'll look hot in that and men will want to fuck me."

I thought the whole point of feminism was letting women make their own decisions. Not letting women make their own decisions as long as those decisions are approved by the standards of established feminist thought. What business is it of the militant if I want to jack my breasts up to Jesus and wear heels tall enough to help me look a man in the eye? Am I only politically correct when I don't feel like shaving or wearing anything besides t-shirts and tennis shoes?

I'm grateful to those women who burned their bras. But I don't think I should be criticized for wanting to keep mine on.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

If your penis turns funny colors, it's time to re-evaluate your sex life.

I hate Valtrex commercials. Everyone always seems so happy to have herpes. It's like the direction for the commercial is "Smile! You have an incurable sexually transmitted disease!" The point being, what? That if people take this medicine, they'll become joyous about their sexually transmitted disease because they can happily fuck with no one being the wiser, what with the decrease in outbreaks? And their irresponsible sexual promiscuity comes with no price, because they can pretend that there isn't a plague on the house of their genitals.

Sexual freedom is great and all, especially for women, because we were denied it so long, but like Uncle Ben always said, "with great power comes great responsibility". And using organs designed for reproduction for physical pleasure is a kind of power that most people are very irresponsible with. We're cheating our bodies, basically, using the mechanisms they developed to make us propagate our species while trying desperately to avoid the intended outcome. Which is great. Up yours, nature. But he who laughs last laughs best, and nature always gets the last laugh. Just ask global warming and AIDS. Which you can get from sex, by the way. Who knew?

When you get an STD because you had sex without trying to protect yourself, and that doesn't give you pause, doesn't keep you from going right back to having sex, and infecting other people as stupid as you, maybe taking a medicine that partially disguises your ailment isn't the best choice to make. Because those who take risks without considering the consequences are one thing, but those who have suffered the consequences and continue to take the same risk, while risking others, those people are kind of crazy. See also, assholes.

I would say shame on the pharmaceutical industry for aiding and abetting this sort of thing, but they have no shame. They'll do anything to make a buck, including give you the medicine to drug a girl into having non-consensual sex with you while you disguise your herpes with their smiley drugs.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

The story, according to my uncle, goes like this:

A woman is attacked by a strange man. Unable to defend herself, she is raped, killed, stabbed, shot, etc, etc, etc, the gamut run of things a big, bad man can do to a little, innocent woman. Upon lying in a pool of her own blood, or her attacker's semen, or, in the event that she has been killed, her own last thoughts, the woman should realize something. It's her fault that she's been attacked, because she, by asserting that it was okay to be alone, that she didn't need protection from a man, left herself open to such an occurrence. Had a man been with her, this wouldn't have happened. Men are impervious to bullets, to knives, and, of course, to rape. She emasculated men by refusing to need them to shield her from the world, and this is the consequence. Rape, injury, death. One can only hope she learned her lesson. The blame is on her, not on people who feel the need to do violence to the vulnerable. And only women are vulnerable. It's nature.

Whatever.

One of the effects of the empowerment of women, supposedly, is the emasculation of men. Men, bereft of their traditional roles as protectors, bread-winners, are roaming the earth, depressed and unsure of themselves, certain that the new minority is the man. When women refuse to need them, they lose their identities. There's no one following behind them except their own shadows, and you can't stick a penis in that, so, woe.

I could shed a tear.

If women are encouraged to think outside the wife/mother/nurturer box, why can men not also be expected to adjust their ideas of themselves, too? Is biology too powerful for men? They're going to let a thing like instinct defeat them? Women are supposed to squash the instinct to lay down in a field and be mounted until the babies start coming, so that they can go work and have lives independent of being incubators, but men can't suppress the urge to be hunters and club other men who look at their "property", so that women can finally have some freedom? Come on, guys, I thought you were the stronger sex!

It's not their fault, though, their inability to adjust to the changing face of male/female interactions. It's not even nature's fault. It's the woman's fault, for daring to change at all! Women should know better than to think for themselves, to try to take care of themselves.

And, if that daring gets them raped or killed, they'd better not come back to the man, looking for pity. The man will say, "I told you so." The man will feel smug and complacent, because he predicted that woman would be helpless without him. The man will hope this makes woman realize how lost she is without him. The man will pretend that, had he been there, nothing would have happened, because he would have protected the woman. How he would have protected her against a gun or a knife will remain unsaid, because, of course, the power of his masculinity alone would have scared off the would-be attacker. Forget about the fact that the attacker would, probably, have also been a man. Forget about all of that, and let the protection of the strong, strong man enfold you. While you're at it, get your ass in the kitchen and make him a chicken pot pie.

Are there people out there looking to prey on lone women? Sure. But there are people out there looking to prey on lone men, too. There are people out there looking to prey on everyone. A goat wandering the streets alone at night might end up on the end of some forced bestiality. Having someone around to be a "protector" doesn't make the world less full of predators. So, unless a woman's "protector" carries around an arsenal and is trained in martial arts, chances are, she's not really much safer because he's around.

But don't tell my uncle that. Because he wants his women to need him, and he wants his chicken pot pie to be hot and waiting for him when he gets home from work. He's sure that he's a minority. He's going to write about it to his congressman. You know, one of those rich, white men who, along with his fellow rich, white men, holds a position of power that most people in actual minorities can only ever dream of. You know, the women, the black people, the Hispanics, the homosexuals. Poor man. It's so hard, controlling the world. It's even harder when you're woman's not waiting for you at home, where she should be. Damn those women.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Gas. Gas. Gas. All I hear is "gas!" And it's making my head throb, like maybe it might explode. Because to point out that its citizens having to pay extra for gas is the least of our nation's worries right now might seem a little too obvious. Only, apparently, it's not, because everyone keeps complaining about the gas. The extra ten, twenty, thirty, forty dollars they'll have to pay in order to... In order to what? Drive Hummers?

We the people, we allowed ourselves to become dependent on fossil fuel. Allowed ourselves to be lured in by cars that don't get good gas mileage but sure look intimidating coming at you on the interstate. Allowed ourselves to be told that, every time the gas prices went up, it was due to some shortage or geopolitical something or other about which we were really kind of fuzzy on the details, but you have to have gas, because how else are you going to get anywhere, so fill her up.

So, now the big business of oil is taking advantage of yet another situation with fuzzy details, in order to tell us that we have to pay more money, and we're pissed off and complaining about it, but it's Labor Day, and we've got to gas up the Skee-do and go down to the lake. We're complaining about the extra ten, twenty, thirty, forty dollars, but still paying it, and elsewhere, people are dead, and people are dying, and what has happened to them is an excuse for money to be made, the money that we pay. The money we complain about.

It would be really easy to say something like, "The oil company is evil." Or the easier one, "Bush is a bad president." But that's the beauty of living in a republican nation with a free market economy. Bush is the bad president that at least half of us elected. And the evil oil companies can only charge us what we prove with our consumer dollars that we are willing to pay. Stop buying the Hummmers. Stop going down to the lake to jet-ski. Carpool. Ride the bus. Walk. Do everything humanly possible to make your gasoline use minimal. Stop buying. You think the prices will stay high, then?

The thing is, we, as a country, and I am guilty of this, too, we like to complain about circumstances, rather than work to affect change. Complaining is easy. You open your mouth and you say whatever negative thing comes to mind. Skimping on luxuries in order to try and make your point felt by the people providing those luxuries at costs you are not willing to pay? Not so easy. If you don't want to ride on the back of the bus, then you boycott the bus lines. In a society motivated by the acquisition of wealth and goods, if you hit someone in the pocket, you've usually dealt a death blow.

I don't want to hear another person complain about the price of gas. About how the country is going to hell in a handbasket because the gas price went up a dollar. Because, if anything happening this week is a barometer of our country's sinking in a southerly direction, it's the death and destruction and anarchy in New Orleans. Not the price of a liquid you need to make your car go.

Some links about the big oil companies and how much money they are making in this time of "oil crisis":

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0902-21.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0902-27.htm

Thursday, September 01, 2005

When The Dead (2) asked me how I felt about the disaster going on in New Orleans, I said I didn't care. Which is not exactly true. Because I've been reading, been keeping up with the news. And it is disturbing. But I also know that there isn't really much I can do. I have no money to donate. I certainly don't have a helicopter.

And, then there's the fact that, as bad a person as this may or may not make me, there's only so much pity that I can feel for people who live in a place where disaster can strike and then seem completely thrown off-balance when it does. It's a city below sea level. On the Gulf Coast. This thing can happen. It does happen. Would we feel sorry for the man who froze to death because he moved to Antarctica with nothing but a Speedo for clothing? You live in a place where this can happen, if it does, that's egg on your face. New Orleans is a beautiful city. But, evidently, like other beautiful dangerous places, Florida, California, Hawaii, living there comes with a price that you have to pay directly to Mother Nature.

And it's not even just that old bitch, either. Because a lot of the problems facing New Orleans were in the way the city was built. Which is the American way. To sink foundations in quicksand and then complain with the city goes under. And I can't sit around feeling bad for people because of that. I won't do it. If a tornado comes tomorrow and kills me because I live in a house with no basement in a place that's part of a swath of land affectionately referred to as "Tornado Alley", then I really hope that no one will feel sorry for me.

That said, I wish, like everyone does, that this hadn't happened. Like Gandalf told Frodo, no one wants to live through times such as these. But pity is not what moves us forward. It's momentum, and the grinding wheels of progress. We'll go in whatever direction fate propels us, good or bad. Because there is no stopping. Ever. Not even to mourn.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/socratic/335490.html

I didn't watch the VMAs this year because I found it hard to believe that they really would still do something as silly and frivolous as an awards show for videos in the middle of an ongoing natural disaster. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it, being so busy thinking to myself "Wow, I can't believe they're actually doing this..." Which is not to say that I'm making any moral judgments on the people at MTV or all the actors/musicians/other famous people who turned out for the event. I was just too surprised by the decision to want to tune in.

I just caught the last ten minutes or so, thanks to MTV's love of rerunning all of its programs so that everyone can have the pleasure of watching a show ten thousand times, and usually in random pieces. You know Kanye West is pissed that he lost video of the year to Green Day. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams? Muthafuckas, I rap about Jesus! Jesus, bitches!"

But that wasn't the part that sent me scampering to my computer to write. This scamper was induced by Kelly Clarkson's performance of "Since U Been Gone". I've got a question for you, Kelly Clarkson. That question is "What the fuck?"

I like Kelly Clarkson. I can't help it. I do. She could have kept on keeping on in the American Idol tradition of bland ballads, or headed in the Christina Aguilera-inspired direction of almost-r&b that was "Miss Independent". That would have been the safe thing to do. But she didn't. Kelly wanted to rock. And for those about to rock, we salute you. Sure, she's not any more original than your Avril or your Ashlee. But Kelly Clarkson can sing. She's got a voice. So, even if half of "Since U Been Gone" is a rip-off of "Maps" and it's written by the same Swedish dude that wrote half of Britney Spears' early hits, it's a great song. Just ask Ted Leo.

So, why the hell was I watching, in abject horror, as a blonde, bare mid-riffed Kelly dragged her mic stand around the stage with her as she alternated between prowling and pogo-ing all the while screeching, breathlessly, in between admonitions for the audience to "jump", the lyrics to a song that is great because she can sing? Kelly, I don't want to jump. I want you to sing the song the way that we all came to love it. You know, with actual singing, as opposed to vocal-chord-shredding wails that fit better on Courtney Love.

There's a reason why a lot of rockers are prone to wailing, screaming, whispering, etc. Because they can't sing. They want to. They try. But they can't. So they give up and resort to atonal vocal histrionics the likes of which you're not likely to hear outside of a rock show, or two cats mating. And that is what you, the lovely-voiced Kelly Clarkson are going for? For what? Cred? Let's face it, Kelly. You're an Idol. You'll never have cred. Donnie Wahlberg can be a scary ass junkie who murders Bruce Willis, but he'll still always be A New Kid on the Block.

So, Kelly. Do me a favor. Please, don't ever do anything like this again. Sing your heart out, because you can. Leave the rock-posturing for those who can't. They wish they could sing like you. They're just too busy trying to be cool to admit it.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Why is that, as a woman, I can't write about my own personal female issues without it being interpreted as a critique on the entire culture, some sort of grand feminist statement? I usually write about things that are intensely personal, so having my writing be co-opted and lifted up as speaking for other people irritates me. I'm not speaking for other people. My words are mine.

I am a feminist. Probably a reactionary one, considering my upbringing. I have the kind of father who thinks it's okay to brutalize women. Growing up a girl in that kind of environment gave me a healthy dislike for men. Whether they'd like to admit it or not, a lot of feminists come to their line of thinking not from a desire to take pride in womanhood, but from a desire to renounce man's power over woman, because they've been a victim of that power. I'm not different. But that doesn't mean that my personal experiences don't belong to me. That they should speak for a collective consciousness.

When Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton killed themselves, Adrienne Rich, a feminist poet, reportedly felt like their deaths were blows to the feminist movement. Because they gave up. Bad example. But whether they gave up or not, what happened to them should never have been viewed in the context of how it affected feminism. What happened to those two women was personal! They had problems. They couldn't handle them. They died. End of story.

Plath, especially, has been made some sort of feminist icon, due to highly confessional poems about her specific problems. A martyr. How can events that have nothing to do with a cause make you a martyr to it unless people are appropriating your message and dropping it into a context you never intended?

I rarely ever write in broad social terms because I'm uncomfortable with feeling like I am speaking for anyone but myself. Whatever I may have in common with other women, or other child abuse victims, or other cutters, etc, I can't claim that we all had a common experience that can be addressed by just one person's voice. Nobody can. I know me. I don't know Jane from Iowa who burns herself because her father molested her. I don't want to ever be in the position where I'm Jane's mouthpiece.

So why do people force this position upon me? Why do I continually get comments about movements and groups of people that I'm supposedly speaking for? Why is it that I'm always a woman or someone who was abused, or someone who injures, first, in the estimation of others, and an individual person with individual experiences second?

To quote Tori Amos, another woman whose personal experiences have been co-opted into feminist propaganda via her venting through art, "You don't need my voice because you have your own."

So let me have mine, and you do what you want with yours.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

When it was announced that Sandra Day O'Connor was planning on retiring, the reaction was almost immediate. Who would George Bush select to replace O'Connor, and what would effect would this selection have on the balance of power in the Supreme Court? Most importantly, to a lot of people, how would this selection affect a little decision called Roe v. Wade?

Because, when it comes to the Supreme Court decisions, there isn't one more polarizing. One side wants a rematch. The other side doesn't. And both sides are extra paying attention to the latest development in the situation, the nomination of one John Roberts. A man who doesn't have enough of a public record to give his opposition any ammunition to fire at him, but who has gone on record as opposing Roe v. Wade. "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

When it comes to abortion, there is no middle ground, seemingly. You're either for it, or against it. You either think that it's a woman's rights issue, and that taking away the right to chose is sexual discrimination, or you think that abortion is murder, because life begins at conception, and, therefore, a termination of pregnancy is the taking of a life. My view is that both of these stances are myopic, and should be reconsidered.

Is abortion a woman's rights issue? The Supreme Court decision was based on the idea that criminalizing abortion, absolutely, was a violation of a woman's right to privacy, which, in turn, violated a woman's 14th Amendment rights, making any laws that did so unconstitutional. As the motto goes, "it's my body, it's my choice." Which works, if you ignore the fact that there was a previous choice, the choice to engage in sexual activity irresponsibly, that resulted in the undesired pregnancy.

If women want to be treated the equal to men, then that means no special privileges should be afforded to either gender. If a man is irresponsibly sexual active and that results in a woman's pregnancy, there's nothing he can do about it. Be an absentee father, maybe, but, even if he never sees the child, he'll always be legally financially responsible. No man can say to a court, "I did not want this child" and have that court agree that, because he didn't want the child, he isn't responsible for it. If a man refuses to financially support a child that he helped conceive, he can be jailed, have his wages garnished, etc. How is it "equal rights", then, for a woman to be able to dodge the consequences of irresponsible sex?

Because it isn't really about the body, when it comes to the choice. A pregnancy may be inconvenient, but it only lasts nine months. A child lasts for at least eighteen years. That's a commitment not entered into lightly, but, unfortunately, it's one that many people, men and women, don't consider until it's too late. Enter the abortion. Which, legalized, and no longer as risky, has become a form of birth control. Didn't think about what could happen until it did happen? Don't worry. You can get an abortion. It's your body and it's your choice. No wonder there's such virulent opposition, when the pro-choice movement, at its core, seems so brutally selfish.

Of course, the other side is hardly any better. Abortion is murder, no way of convincing them otherwise. Even though, at the point when most abortions are performed, the fetus is incapable of sustaining itself without its mother's body as a host. Can something that cannot survive on its own really be considered a living entity? If something has no consciousness, is that a life, or simply cells multiplying, the potential there, but not yet realized. Should you be able to criminally penalize someone for disposing of potential?

That line of thought aside, let's say that it is a life, and abortion is taking a life. What kind of life would it be? A child born to a mother who didn't want it. Who may be emotionally, mentally, socially, economically unable to care for it. What kind of life would this child have? And, if the quality of life can be called into question, even before life begins, who's to say that it's a life worth living? Genetics may play a huge role in who we end up being, but it's our environment that most shapes us. Why assume that all human life is precious and worth preserving, when, in truth, a lot of people come into the world into misery and never escape it?

The most important question is, why place the value of something that's not really alive yet over the value of something that is? If a woman really doesn't want a child, she'll get an abortion, even if they are illegal. You're saying to this woman, the possibility of life inside you is more important than the life you have. Go do something that could be dangerous, could possibly kill you. Why, exactly, is a fetus more precious to pro-life idealists than a living human being? The idea of innocence? Most pro-life views are so intrinsically bound to religion that they view mothers seeking abortions as sinners. Does the absence of sin make one life more valuable than another? An unborn child could be a sinner waiting to be born. Would pro-lifers advice the mothers of Osama Bin Laden or Hitler not to get abortions, if they were put into that position? They certainly don't oppose the death penalty, in most cases.

Once, a girl who was a pro-choice vegan tried to justify her position to me by saying "the mother has a choice, the animal doesn't." Which totally misses the point, because the mother isn't the one who doesn't get to have the chance to live. But it illustrates my point, that people will believe what they have to, to justify their means to an end. Pro-choice advocates are going to wring their hands over John Roberts helping to take away what they view as a precious right, and pro-lifers are going to rejoice over someone helping to legislate the morality of America until it falls into line with their own. And the world's not going to be a better place for it, just like it has never been a better place with abortions being legal.

Nobody wants to look at anyone else's point of view, and when it comes right down to it, nobody cares about anybody but themselves. Mothers shouldn't have to raise children they don't want or be forced into seeking procedures that threaten their lives. But, at the same time, adoption is the better, less selfish solution to unwanted pregnancies, and there should be better sex education, so that abortion doesn't end up seeming like a birth control option, which it is not. It's life and death, and should be treated as such, not just an idealogical battleground for people to use in their endless attempts to point fingers at other people so they can feel better about themselves.

Me, I'm glad that I could get an abortion, if I needed to, but I've never had unprotected sex, either, because I know that I'm not ready to be a mother, and maybe I never will be. However, I would never get an abortion, because even if it's a choice that I appreciate, it's a choice I could never make. I wish that more people had my mixed views on the situation, instead of all the strongly divided black and white absolutes that don't help anybody out, when they're pregnant, and don't know what to do.

Monday, July 25, 2005

The first time I ever heard a Kanye West beat was during my first viewing of the video for "Izzo". Jay-Z's epic battle with the hood, his past as a crack-dealer, set against the Jackson Five's cheery plea for one more chance at love. Up until then, I'd always figured that Jay-Z was best when mixed with beats made by people like the Neptunes. Music futuristic and inorganic, perfectly suited to Jay's tales of drugs and money and sex. Kanye changed my mind with one song. Then changed it even more when I heard "The Takeover". West used a sample from the Doors as the backdrop to Jay-Z lashing out at Nas, Prodigy, and anybody else who'd underestimated him. The Lizard King helped make Jay the King of New York, and it sounded great. Go Kanye.

When Kanye later emerged as a rapper, with the much-hyped College Dropout album, I was among the faithful who thought Kanye to be one of the best rappers in years. He sported a conciousness about him that few rappers had. He admitted to a romance with bling, just like all the other young black men who had gone from nothing to something, via hip-hop, but he also acknowledged the pratfalls of that sort of materialism. Hell, he even rapped about Jesus! The thing was, the more famous Kanye got, the more Kanye knew how famous he was, and his ego grew in accordance. By the time he was throwing temper tantrums at the American Music Awards over being beat by Gretchen Wilson, you knew that Kanye had fallen victim to his own hype. He'd never be the same. There's no going back from hubris like that.

So, am I surprised by the fact that Kanye's first single from his new album has Kanye proclaiming himself as a man who has "the power to make a diamond with his bare hands" and the heir to Jay-Z's throne? Well, no. Am I surprised that the beat to this song is one of Kanye's best yet, an interpolation of "Diamonds Are Forever", with a video about the people of Sierra Leone, people who have been exploited by the diamond trade there, victims of the "blood diamonds"? Of course I was! Watching this gorgeous video, shot in black and white, produced by Hype Williams, one of the best producers of hip-hop videos, and with the incredible music as its backdrop, all I could think was "Wow, Kanye West is full of himself. And these lyrics are so incongruous with this song and video. How can a man rap about how great he is in a video about people dying because of diamonds? Especially considering that diamonds are the prime status symbol for rappers wanting to point out how great they are."

The most stunning parts of the video are the captions at the beginning and the end, which stress the importance of not buying "conflict diamonds". As though rappers desperate for bling are going to ask what country their diamonds came from. As though Kanye himself can account for whether or not his own diamonds are free from the stain of blood. Hip-hop may be a culture that takes pride in pulling itself up by its bootstraps, on how many of its stars have gone from having no money to mo' money, but its rampant materialism doesn't leave much room for charity. Most rappers are more concerned with the gathering of status symbols than they are with using their status to help others in any meaningful way. Sure, Diddy might run the NYC marathon to get school books for kids, but only after he outfits himself with every possible luxury. Kanye's video is supposed to help the people of Sierra Leone how exactly? By exposing the existence of a corrupt diamond trade to people who couldn't care less?

Maybe bringing attention to Sierra Leone in any form is a good thing. Even though it's in one of the most diamond-rich areas of Africa, it's one of the poorest countries in the world, due, mostly, to a long civil war, fought, for the most part, over control of the country's diamond fields. I wouldn't even know this if I hadn't watched Kanye West's video and been irritated enough to go to Google. That's just the thing. I don't even own any diamonds. What difference does it make what I know about Sierra Leone? What, exactly, is my attention worth to anyone living, working, or, most importantly, dying, in that country? Nothing.

Could Kanye West's video make a difference? Anything's possible. The thing is, if you're going to try and make a difference, why go about it in a half-assed fashion? If you're going to try and bring attention to injustice in the world, why not devote yourself wholly to it? Devotion is not making a video where you sorta kinda call attention to a subject, but not in any meaningful way, since the subject is overpowered by the omnipresence of another subject in which you appear to be more interested : your own greatness. So, in the end, Sierra Leone and blood diamonds look like nothing more than just another thing that Kanye West wants to run off at the mouth about in the pursuit of assuring himself and everyone else how great is. You know, kind of like Jesus. And materialism in rap. And workout plans. And Twista.

Which is much less than those people deserve. A token name-drop from someone who has more money than they could ever possibly even dream of. Someone who won't stop dripping in diamonds, conflict free or otherwise. Rich entertainers need to shut up about poor people already. Or put their money where other people's starving mouths are. I'm looking at you Kanye. It takes more than a snazzy video and a couple of captions to really make a difference.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

The only rock radio station that I listen to changed formats and is now a stupid hip-hop and r&b station. Like there aren't enough of those already in Philly. It made me so mad, when I changed to that station, hoping I might hear a song that I liked, maybe "The Widow" or "The Sweater Song", something, and they were playing Usher. Usher. Because there are never enough radio stations that play Usher. Usher is such an underrated young artist. He so very badly needs the exposure.

Losing a radio station is like losing a friend. If you listen to the radio, as opposed to just listening to cds, when you're in the car, you come to depend on whichever stations you like. Every time you get into the car, that's where you turn the dial. They're little musical sanctuaries. They keep you safe from all of the kinds of music you don't like, since, as you know exactly where to go, you don't have to scan through radio stations playing songs you can't stand.

The worst part was, I just lost another station, a few weeks ago, to latin music. One day, I turned, and everything was in Spanish. I know that there are people besides me who actually like rock music that isn't thirty years old or sung by Nickleback or Green Day. Why do they keep taking our stations away? Are we not good enough to have stations?

The first time I ever heard an Interpol song on the radio, it was on the radio station that just disappeared. It made my day. Hearing a band you've liked for years finally get played on the radio is great. It's a stamp of approval from the people who decide whether or not your band gets to keep making records. "We like this song. We want you to like this song. We'll spend money on this band if you like this song."

Where do I turn now? There's the college station for UofD. It plays songs I like sometimes, in between the classical and jazz they have to play to be democratic. There are a couple of other stations on the low end of the dial that play songs I like sometimes. I guess I'll be okay. I'll find a way to carry on. It's hard. I'll make it.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

I don't like Black History Month. Obviously, I have no problem with black people, so it isn't because I think black history is negligible or unworthy of recognition. I don't like Black History Month because it's not for black people. It's for white people to have the opportunity to wrap black history in a convenient little bow that makes them feel better about their part in it.

"The black people sat down at the lunch counter, and in the front of the bus, and we were just so impressed with their nonviolent protest that we said, 'hey, sure, you can have equal rights.'"

Whatever. They marched peacefully down the street so that you could beat them down and they could show the world what American "democracy" really looked like, thanks to the wonder of television. Public humiliation in the eyes of the world. "Communists are mean, don't be a communist. Go Democracy. Turn the hoses on the negroes. Oh, oops, did you hear that last part?"

In addition to being publicly shamed, America was afraid. Afraid that black people would resort to violent revolution in order to get what they wanted. Everyone remembers Dr. King as having said "I have a dream..." Want to know what else he said? "A riot is the language of the unheard." How many riots were there, in cities and towns all across the country, during the civil rights movement years? How many times did black people take to the streets in outrage over the crimes perpetrated against them by the white power structure? Enough to make the white power structure afraid of the black mob. Afraid enough to make concessions.

White people like to act like they were complicit in the civil rights movement in that they finally saw the error of their ways and realized that they needed to change. Bullshit. "Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power." That one was Malcom X. You get what you want when you take it. You never get it when you wait for someone to give it to you.

Black people took what they wanted, what they were entitled to, the right to be treated like human beings. They fought and died for it, a violent and bloody struggle that was not pretty. How do you wrap that up into a quaint fairy tale where the oppressors get to feel good about themselves as well?

You can't. So Black History Month is stupid.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

So, right after I vow to make regular entries in this blog, I exceed my bandwidth, thereby making neither another entry or even viewership for the previous entry possible. This is the sort of luck that I have, but I'm used to it.

The worst part is, the thing that made me exceed my bandwidth was mp3 files in the directory of one of my hostees being linked to by random download sites who don't host their own files, but, instead, search for the files on the internet and then link to them surreptitiously. I never noticed, because I didn't know that my friend had these mp3s up, so I didn't think to worry about other people downloading them, especially not dozens of anonymous internet thieves. Turns out, this has been going on for three months, and I had come close to exceeding my bandwidth in November and December, too, but I was never notified.

I bought a new domain, and I'm really excited about that. I haven't really liked the stillpretty one for a while, but it was easier to keep it. It's still easier to keep it, but it's not that expensive to move my stuff to another site, and just keep stillpretty.org for the old stuff and for other people's stuff. Because I agonized over that, whether or not it would be rude of me to just junk the old site and let the chips fall and leave people homeless.

I like new things, I have to say. I'm more excited about this than I have been about anything internet related in quite a while.

oh-stella.org

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Oh, blog, why did I desert you? Was it because I had nothing to say? Oh, yes, that was it.

So, since the last time I wrote in this blog, I started taking medication. Anti-depressants. Actually, the medication started shortly after the last entry. A week or two. Because I had reached the proverbial breaking point. The point where I knew that I was not able to function in adult society without some kind of medical help. Being a grown-up is hard. You can't curl up into a ball and be mental and expect someone to take care of you. You have to brush your shoulder off and go about the business of making money to support yourself. I couldn't do it, though. I was having panic attacks at work. Cutting myself in the bathroom at work. I got sent home a time or two. Called out another time or two. Couldn't force myself to do what was necessary, which was suck it up and try to act as normal as possible until I could go home and privately fall apart.

So I started taking pills. Skeptically. I didn't think they would work. No. I knew they wouldn't work. Because that was the thing with me. I was fucked up. Irrevocably. And no one could tell me anything different. You get that way, if you're mental long enough. It starts to feel like a part of you. An aspect of your personality. You don't have panic attacks. You don't cut yourself. You are the panic attacks. You are the cuts. They define you. More importantly, you let them define you, because it's easier to be what you do than to try not to do it. Who was I if not that, the dangerous type? It might not have been much of an identity, but it was one, and it wasn't faceless or mediocre, like the one I found myself wearing when I was "okay". Self-imposed blandness to prove that I could be "normal" like everyone else.

But the pills did work. The worked surprisingly well, and quickly, and in a couple of weeks time, I found myself questioning everything I'd ever said or done or felt. Questioning everything I believed to be true about myself. Questioning the irrevocability of my being a fuck-up. "Do I have to be a bad person, an insecure, unhappy, bitter, mean, and cynical person, or can I be better than that? Was the 'this is who I am' the illness talking? The brain chemicals?" It surprised me, the weight that was lifted. I really had always thought myself incapable of sincere happiness. Too much had happened to me. I'd seen enough to know that I had seen too much. Maybe I'd take the drugs and the chemical depression would be gone, but I'd still be me, and me was bad, tainted, and there was no coming clean. Or so I thought. I'm not always right. In fact, I've been very wrong about a lot of things.

I wrote this poem at the beginning of December:

If I put my hands against my chest,
I can feel my heart beating, insistently.
This is being alive?
The intake of breath, the expanding lungs,
the body a machine perfected, full of
purpose and knowing exactly what to
do with itself? I was young. I was dumb.
I never noticed. My tongue rattled in
my mouth like a pebble, making noises
about how the world made me weary,
broke down my machinery. Destroyed.
But life is not over if you're still living,
and nothing broken can never be fixed.
I'm not tired of the world. I don't know it.

I'm still sarcastic. Still cynical. Still insecure and prone to being unable to realize my own worth. But I'm not hating life, or myself, because it's a waste of energy, and I finally know that. I recognized that, before, but I didn't know it. You can recognize lots of things, because you're an intelligent human being, but not really know what they mean. I feel like a whole new person. Like I've shed a skin and become a more evolved version of myself. Better, stronger, wiser. Happier. More at peace with myself. Ready to be a grown-up and figure out a direction for my life. Alive. Not just existing, miserably, but living.

It's not perfect. There are some kinks. Being a new person means that you have to figure out a way to adapt some of the old things into your life. I feel kind of lost, when it comes to writing. Like I've lost my subject matter and haven't managed to think of anything else. And being in a relationship when you've changed so quickly that the other person hasn't had time to come to terms with dealing with the new you is hard. Then there's the fact that some people think I haven't changed, that I'm just the same person, addicted to a drug, but those people aren't around me much, can't see the difference that has been made.

I said once, in an entry in this blog, that I wasn't going to use this as an outlet for my mental ups and downs, that those were cataloged well enough in other places, and that's still true. I haven't ever made additions to this as faithfully as I could have, though, and I want to amend that. So I intend to try and do so, but I couldn't really start anew, not without explaining the radio silence. That's my life since November 8th, 2004. Broken down, but rebuilt in a new shape.

Monday, November 08, 2004

I hate feeling like I'm never going to not be disappointed with the direction of my life, but that's how I always feel. Like I won't ever know what to do. Instead, I'll just be waiting for things to happen, and nothing ever happens when you wait for it. I'm having bad times, mentally, lately. I always have bad times, mentally, towards the end of the year. It's like clockwork, autumn hits and I go crazy. It's the suicide season, the depression and the panic attacks coming like the leaves and the snow. Since I've been keeping journals, I can track it. If I went back to the fall of last year, it would be there in all of my journals. Girl interrupted by the tilting of the planet. Watch her as she spirals down.

Leah, your blog doesn't work. What's up with that?

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

I'm going to go vote later, but I have to admit, my enthusiasm for voting is a little dulled by the fact that everyone keeps telling me I have to do it or I could possibly die or not be cool. Maybe I've found the perfect way to off myself. I won't vote, and P. Diddy will come hunt me down and strangle me with a "Vote or Die" t-shirt, while Farnsworth Bentley holds an umbrella in front of him, in case there are any blood splatters. I understand that voting is important, but is it really necessary to try and trick all the youth of America into thinking that voting is edgey and cool in order to get them to do so? Okay, yeah, it probably is, but still, I find it kind of insulting that people my age are less being encouraged and more being pandered to. Vote and you get this nifty t-shirt that looks just like the one that Brad Pitt wears. Whatever. That's what happens when the entertainment industry gets involved with politics. They treat you, as a voter, just like they treat you as a consumer. Pander to your demographic and give you what they think you want, which they assume they know, because they're the ones who told you to want it. I guess this is what we have to deal with, until we get old and then they'll start telling us how they want to give us cheap prescription drugs. No t-shirt included.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Leah wrote this limerick about me:

There once was a girl from Kentucky
who had never even tried to get lucky
so she found a hot black guy
gave romance just a small try
and now lives a life not quite so mucky.

Not so bad for a first try.

I'm trying to get my "going to school" affairs in order so that I can go to school some time next year. How much trying this is going to take, I'm not sure. I e-mailed someone at UofD and she replied telling me I'd have to meet with a counselor and I hate meeting with people, so, I don't know. I can't do it any time in the near future, anyway, since Rasool and I are going on vacation this Monday, and I'll be away from Delaware for a week. Hallelujah. So, I have to, probably in the next month or so, meet with somebody and discuss my options for going to college next year. If I even have any options. I hope I do, anyway.

Saturday, June 26, 2004

No one ever writes anything about me. This bothers me. I don't know why. I write poems about my friends, people I love, can no one return the favor? I want someone to make me immortal. Is that too much to ask? The worst part is, I know some fabulous poets, a couple of really great song writers, so the means are there. I'm just not inspiring enough, I suppose. Not interesting. My name doesn't rhyme with anything. Maybe I should fuck someone who writes good poems. That would probably do the trick.