Dick Cheney needs your help

Just kidding. Not really.

Dick Cheney just signed a contract for the publication of his memoir, and while the Bush years will be a big chunk of it, the memoir will span his entire career in public, uh, service.

The Washington Post is running a contest for submissions of the first chapter of Cheney's memoir. The sample, on the Post's website, reads as follows: Undisclosed Location, Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009: Well, the baton is passed. Our work is finally done. Eight years, one devastating terrorist attack, two wars and one recession later, it's finally time to relax. It's been an amazing ride.

Submit your one-paragraph draft by July 2 to pagethree@washpost.com. The best entries will be published. Further details can be found at the contest entry page. Best of luck!

Shout Out to Zahra Rahnavard

A big Fringe shout out to bad-a** mother-feminist Zahra Rahnavard, wife to Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main competition in Friday's Iranian election.

After Ahmadinejad questioned Dr. Rahnavard's credentials during a televised debate with her husband, the spunky academe called a 90-minute press conference where she proceeded to excoriate Ahmadinejad for lying, humiliating women, and debasing the revolution.

"Those who made up this case against me wanted to say it is a crime for women to study, to get two graduate degrees, to become an intellectual or an artist," she said.

In addition, she threatened to sue Ahmadinejad for slandering her academic qualifications if he did not publicly apologize to her within 24 hours.

Dr. Rahnavard put on her feminist hat to woo young and female voters promising that, if elected, her husband will do away with the morality police, end discrimination, ensure that women are treated like humans, not second class citizens, and appoint women to cabinet posts.

For a woman in Iran (or anyone in Iran), this is ballsy busty styff, but because she's a woman, Rahnavard's been able to indict Ahmadinejad more strongly than any of his male competitors.

You can read more about her at the London Times, the AP, The New York Times, The New Internationalist Blog, and Wikipedia.

Poems for the first 100 days

If you are needing a healthy dose of current events, delivered via poetry, you might want to have a look at Starting Today: Poems for the First 100 Days. I am sad to say it has taken me until day 38 of the project (and, ergo, the Obama administration) to post about this. But here's to day 38! And here's to Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker for making the project happen.

All kinds of poets are up there--Major Jackson with some knockout couplets for day 22, Cornelius Eady considering the much-considered inaugural poem for day 14, Diane Wald with a "nonromantic valentine" for day 27. I have also in particular enjoyed days 2 (Matt Rohrer), 3 (Martha Silano), 4 (Aimee Nezhukumatathil), 19 (Laurel Snyder), 20 (Cate Marvin), 23 (Erin Belieu), 26 (Nin Andrews), 32 (Mark Doty), 36 (Lindsey Wallace).

There's a lot of funny bits, and some stuff that is convincingly sincere and moving. And they said that couldn't be done with "political poetry." Well, I have news for they, and the news is actually getting a little old, and it goes something like, "yes we can!"

Christmas For Christmas's Sake!

In the U.S., political correctness has steered us toward saying "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas" because not everyone should be assumed to celebrate Christmas. In the legal arena, the Christmas debate is playing itself out with lawsuits against placing nativity scenes on government property as well as petitions to do so, resulting with Christians, atheists, Jews, Muslims, etc crying "discrimination!" What a mess.

On the other hand, in Malaysia because I am Caucasian everyone assumed I was celebrating Christmas, and in almost every shop I visited this past week, I was wished a sometimes awkward "Merry Christmas," which seemed ironic given the turmoil of that phrase back home. I thought of the wish as an acknowledgement that I decorated my condo in red and green and was dreaming of a white Christmas. But on Dec. 23 I was at the gym making small talk with the Muslim woman on the treadmill beside me, and she asked me what I was doing for Christmas. I told her where my husband and I were thinking of going for dinner, and she said "Oh, and then church?" I was taken back. "No, we're secular Christians" I replied, pretty sure that I'd made the term up, although "secular Muslim" is a common phrase around here, so I knew she'd get the idea. But her assumption that I was celebrating this Christian holiday as a religious holiday wasn't unreasonable in context, since an atheist wouldn't celebrate Hari Raya, etc, so I asked myself if I am not celebrating Christ's birthday, what am I celebrating?

I have never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday, but I have celebrated it with a religious fervor. My family has long-standing traditions of homemade cinnamon rolls, opening gifts at 4:00 a.m., Christmas eve dinner with Granny, Christmas day dinner with Mamaw. Any deviation from our Christmas ritual would be treated as sacrilege. This year, however, I am away from home for the first time, and I didn't do any of those rituals. I put up a tiny tree and a wreath, wrapped presents for my husband and our cats, and we played the Starbuck's Christmas CD, but this holiday wasn't an orgy of desserts, shopping, and parties. There was really nothing to celebrate except my nostalgia for those things, and I think the Christmas crisis in the U.S. has nostalgia at its roots as well.

If you take out the sentimentality and nostalgia, you have a meaningless "Merry Christmas" which should cause no more offense than joy, a manger that should inspire no more loathing than love. Just something that some people do, that means different things to different people, a signifier that's lost its universal meaning but not its wide appeal. Perhaps Christmas can transcend its religious roots (which of course historically have pagan roots), making itself into another altar altogether, and to that I say "Cheers!"

California Dreamin?

Obama's victory wasn't the only landmark decision in last week's election. Here, guest contributor Kelley Calvert weighs in on the passing of Proposition 8 against gay marriage in California:

Standing before a crowd of thousands in Washington DC, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. told audiences 45 years ago: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

In what seemed to be the completion of Martin Luther King’s dream, Barack Obama was elected president in a landslide victory. Standing before a crowd of over 200,000 people in Chicago, President-Elect Barack Obama told the nation, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

For millions of Californians, his words already rang untrue.

Though Barack Obama’s election has created a sense of euphoria and a belief that all things are possible for all people, the passing of Proposition 8 by a 52%-48% margin has cast a doubtful shadow over our national dream of equality.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington in 1963, his dream had gathered inertia, but it was far from being realized. The Supreme Court had made school segregation illegal nine years prior, but overt and violent racism was still a norm. In a 1958 Gallup poll, 94% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage, a statistic showing the deep entrenchment of American Apartheid.

The President of the Confederacy during the Civil War, Jefferson Davis stated, "[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation.” Fliers distributed by the Yes on 8 Campaign brazenly declare that, “God himself is the author of marriage. Its meaning is written in the very nature of man and woman.”

Just as religion was once used to justify slavery, it is now being used to argue that gay people do not deserve the same rights as everyone else. The New American Apartheid again suggests that one group of people is somehow lesser than another and “Separate but Equal” has found its modern manifestation in Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships.

In an irony capable only in these times, the record minority turnout for elections which put Barack Obama in the White House served to perpetuate the persecution of another minority group. Exit polls show that Proposition 8 was supported by 70% of black voters.

The remnants of yellow ‘Yes on 8’ signs paid for by religious institutions that targeted and manipulated the black vote represent a massive failure of democracy. They represent not the triumph of tradition or God’s will, but the betrayal of the values upon which we Americans have built our country. In California, we realized the dream of Martin Luther King by a staggering percentage: 61.2% for Barack Obama. This historic occasion leads me to a simple question.

California, did you forget about us? Or, are we just not included in the American fairy tale that all men are created equal? Today, my well-meaning liberal friends assure me that, “We still have a long way to go on social issues,” and continue on their way, floating on Obama’s glory. Last night my fellow Californians voted to procure rights for farm animals. Yet, somehow, you have voted to take away rights from human beings?

How is this possible?

Yes, November 4th represents the culmination of a great dream and minorities all over the country are awakening today rightfully reinvigorated by the hope that equality has been realized. Nonetheless, millions of your separate but equal fellow citizens are awakening to a different dream, a nightmare that raises the exact question many Americans asked on the eve of September 11: Why do they hate us so much?

It certainly isn’t our freedom.

VOTE

Be a "real" American. Get out to the polls today.

The Relevance of Rexroth

Walking in Greenwich Village a few years ago, I saw a small historical plaque affixed to the building where Dylan Thomas died, having drank himself into oblivion. What was one poet's reaction? The poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill".

Has anything changed? Today Brooklyn, home to Whitman, is a bastion for writers. Denver, too, is home to writers and the magazines that promote them; no longer does it bear Ginsberg’s “Denver Doldrums.”

Chicago, too, is experiencing a renaissance--at least if one can measure it via the poets circulating through, orbiting poets like Joshua Marie Wilkinson whose Rabbit Light Movies film many of these poets passing through. Aside from Poetry magazine and Carl Sandberg, even beyond the Chicago Review and other presses, who knows the literary history of Chicago?

Read An Autobiographical Novel, a stunning text by Kenneth Rexroth and an invaluable document of the era just before the Depression in Chicago. Rexroth writes about the urban Midwest with so much detail, with such panache, it’s been said his book will make your own life seem morbidly dull.

In its heyday, Chicago was home to anarchists, communists, agitators, artists, and writers. Rexroth throws around names no one would recognize today. Sure, he lived in New York, too, and beneath Hart Crane’s apartment no less, where young “Rex” could hear Crane playing his blues records while writing White Buildings. But Chicago! Who would have known how much had happened there in theater, in painting, and in the response of labor movement crowds to poems read on street corners and soapboxes?

Jacket Magazine features a tribute issue to Rexroth, including an essay by Sam Hamill, a excellent introduction to a profound influence on an entire generation of poets, especially “the Beats” whom he had little patience for. Rexroth’s influence in San Francisco is what we generally attribute to him, especially acting as MC for the Six Gallery Reading, and also for his “basement readings” with Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Aside from a recent issue of Chicago Review devoted to him, and the release of his collected poems by Copper Canyon Press (edited by Hamill and Bradford Morrow), and even a website, the Bureau of Public Secrets, featuring generous portions of his work, is his legacy somewhat neglected? Perhaps not.

Having read nearly all of his books—which include not only poems but his magnanimous essays—I’d like to suggest a return to a deeper study of his formidable intellect, his model of the life well-lived, his astounding recollections of American history, and the deep and compassionate understanding of the human condition.

(See a video of Rexroth reading his poetry here and another blog entry here.)

Deporting the Bereaved

I just wrote a letter to my congress representative for the first time. What drove me to such action? The "Widow Penalty” was what did it. Yes, such a thing exists and is being enforced all over the country.

The Widow Penalty was brought to my attention by a friend whose brother died after being married for just under two years. In addition to the sudden heartache of losing her husband, his wife is now in danger of being deported because she was not scheduled for a green card before her second wedding anniversary. Her American-born son, however, can remain on American soil.

This is not a poorly written script of a made-for-TV movie—this is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service at work. Because of this obscure loophole in legislation, the courts are expending much time and energy to deport law-abiding, tax-paying women and men who have lost their spouses because the administrative process of obtaining a visa took too long.

Please visit the website for Surviving Spouses Against Deportation and call or send a letter to your congress representative (it takes less than 90 seconds). If you still can’t believe this is for real, or if you’d just like to learn more about it, there is a great This American Life interview with my friend’s sister-in-law. And 60 Minutes will be airing the story in the fall.

Digital Gandhi

For my final bit of promised subculture, read about performance artist Joseph DeLappe's piece on Gandhi.

DeLappe reenacted Gandhi's Salt March on a treadmill hooked into
Second Life.

DeLappe does a lot of digital art and digital protest, including his America's Army protest, where he signs into the first person shooter game the army uses to recruits new soldiers, and instead of fighting with the other players, he drops his weapons and types in the names of soldiers who died in Iraq.

Interestingly, DeLappe told me that reenacting older works has traditionally been a way that the art world explores the possibility of new spaces for art.

Photo courtesy of Joseph DeLappe.

Direct Democracy

I went on a road/ski trip to Vermont with my mama at the beginning of this week, and am convinced this state is doing something every single state in the country should be doing.

The first Tuesday of March is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. You don't go to work; you go to Town Meeting and talk about the small and large issues that affect your community. Nobody elected by a 51-49% margin is going to represent you: you're in charge of doing it for yourself.

And it coincides with Primary Day, encouraging people as both citizens AND voters to participate in the democratic process!

Wouldn't our country be so much less divisive if once a year, everybody sat down next to their neighbors and hashed it all out?

I found a terrific guide to Town Meeting Day for kids (but useful for all of us who didn't grow up in the Green Mountains) on the VT Secretary of State's website.

Hillary v. Obama - What Gives?

Am I the only one who notices/cares that when people refer to Barack Obama, they call him "Obama" but when they refer to Hillary Clinton, they call her "Hillary"? They don't call Bill Clinton "Bill" or John McCain "John," so what gives?

Super Tuesday

A reminder to everyone that this is Super Tuesday, the day that 24 states around the country hold primaries or caucuses. With enough participation, today could determine the nomination in one or both parties.

A MAJOR reminder to Massachusetts Fringe readers and voters: If you, like me, are NOT enrolled in a major political party, you CAN still vote in today's primary as long as you are registered to vote. You will be given the option of voting in either the Democratic or Republican primary. YOU CAN VOTE IN THE PRIMARY, EVEN IF YOU'RE UNENROLLED.

Fringe loves democracy! Woooo!

A Tale of Two New Yorks

It is a truly Dickensian tale.

This fall, I spent the semester negotiating both cities. Most mornings, I'd wake up on the well-to-do Upper West Side, grab a coffee on the corner, walk past the Gap and Banana Republic to the train.

A half hour later I'd emerge in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, where 45 percent of residents live below the poverty line (which is $13,167 per year for a family of 2), and 97 percent or residents are black or hispanic, according to the New York City Department of City Planning, roll up my sleeves, and start reporting for my classes.

I'm a student at the Columbia School of Journalism, where students are assigned a neighborhood in New York City that they report on all semester.

I wrote stories on hunger, crime, welfare, community health, the schools, and many other subjects, and what I found shocked me, not because I hadn't read about communities like Mott Haven, but because seeing and reading are two different things.

A few telling facts that I ferreted out:

• The principal of IS-162, Maryann Manzolillo, budgets money for graph paper, because there's no where to buy it in the community. She also opens the school library to parents, because there are few, if any bookstores in the community (I never saw one).

• Asthma rates are among the highest in the city and have been connected to the intense pollution and poverty of the area. As a result, the neighborhood's rate of asthma hospitalization -- meaning a person's asthma is so out of control that they might die -- is more than three times the rate for all of New York City, with 123.6 hospitalizations per 10,000 people. In contrast, New York City as a whole has only 35 hospitalizations per 10,000 people.

• I met a man, Anthony Ormas, who lived in a dilapidated apartment. In his bathroom, there is no light, and there hasn’t been for several years. “We live by candlelight,” Ormas said. Water drips continuously from a pipe in the wall where a bathtub faucet should be. The floor is rotted in places where steam from the pipes that feed the rusty old radiators has leaked out and risen up from beneath the floorboards. Many of the windows do not close at all, close poorly, or fit to the window frame a kilter, leaving gaps for cold air to come inside. Drug addicts and prostitutes gather on the stairwell inside his apartment, and on the roof.

• Sometimes, food stamps are not enough. The junior warden of Saint Ann's explained that $135.50 per week in food stamps goes fast for a family of four with growing children, and that parents often make choices between nutrition and quantity – unhealthy food like soda and white bread is cheaper than fresh produce. Ironically, one in four Mott Haven residents are obese, compared to one in five in New York City as a whole, and 17 percent have diabetes, compared to 9 percent of New York City residents, according to 2006 New York City Department of Health statistics, and 36 percent receive food stamps.

• On Labor Day, 2005, Naiesha Pearson, 10, was playing outside at a Labor Day picnic for children, when she got caught by a gunshot and bled to death in her mother's arms. During the murderer's trial, her mother said, "I ran to her and I called out, all she did was say mommy and stumbled to me. She stumbled to me and said mommy and fell into my arms." As bled to death, someone stole her new bike.

There is some light in the neighborhood -- there are numerous community groups, including churches, that are working toward positive change.

In reporting, the scope of the area's problems surprised me -- the area's issues are complex and interlocking, so that poverty, for example, often means that residents can't afford healthy food, which ups rates of obesity and type II diabetes, which can't be treated well because residents can't afford blood testing strips...

This is America at its most hideous.

We can afford to build new stadiums for the Yankees, but not to give families of four more than $135/week in food stamps, which is, of course, a gross-oversimplification of the situation.

So I'll say it -- shame on America for ignoring communities like this. It's inhumane, it's real, and it needs to change.

The People Spoke...and We Listened

Last night, I was lucky enough to be part of the audience for a taping of a segment for "The People Speak," a new production based on historian and social activist Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. An impressive cast of actors, writers, and musicians are involved with the project, which takes various speeches, poems, songs, and articles written by ordinary people and historic figures, and gives them new life. The miniseries will be split into four parts, according to the themes of class, gender, war, and race.

The War portion of the series featured Josh Brolin reading from Dalton Trumbo's 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun, David Strathairn as Henry David Thoreau, the poet Staceyann Chin as a Hiroshima survivor, Viggo Mortenson singing a stirring a capella version of Bob Dylan's "Master's of War," and Danny Glover reading a Martin Luther King Jr. speech denouncing Vietnam. And those were just a part of the evening. Marisa Tomei gave one of the best performances, as a convincing and heartbreaking Cindy Sheehan, railing against her son's death in Iraq.

The night not only shed light on a less familiar side of historic icons (who knew Mark Twain was an outspoken opponent of war?), but spotlighted the entertainers on stage as something more than the roles they are best known for. Mike O'Malley, best known to my generation as the host of Nickelodeon's test of adolescent endurance GUTS, gave a rousing rendition of a speech Abbie Hoffman gave at UMass in 1986; Darryl McDaniels (he puts the DMC in Run DMC) enacted a Danny Glover diatribe against the war in Iraq; and Josh Brolin dispelled his image as the older brother in The Goonies by giving some of the most passionate readings I've ever seen live on stage. The night even included a performance of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On" by piano virtuoso John Legend.

Perhaps even more stirring than the performers' renderings of the pieces was the eerie commonalities that ran through history's greatest wars all the way to our current administration and war. It's chilling just how little the culture and policies of this country have changed, from the time of Columbus enslaving the Native Americans to Abu Gharib.

Though the project hasn't been officially picked up by any major network, the producer (Chris Moore, best known for his collaboration with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on Project Greenlight) is optimistic that it will be broadcast in time for the election in November.

Thanks a lot, Dave Obey.

Full disclosure: I'm cross-pollinating. The publishing company I work for, Beacon Press, has a great blog (the Beacon Broadside) and a terrific and thoughtful blog editor.

I just do not understand why this country keeps throwing money at abstinence-only education. Clearly, it doesn't work; clearly, we don't have the best interests of our youth at heart if we refuse to give them scientifically based education that respects them as thinking, and yes, sexual human beings. So it is incredibly disturbing that abstinence-only funding is being used as a pawn on the Hill by a party with a so-called progressive agenda. I hadn't planned to mix work and Fringe, but today's post by Carole Joffe is just the kind of thoughtful whistleblowing we need in this country:

But Democrats supporting "abstinence-only," especially after the November 2006 election, when they regained control of the House and Senate?! A powerful Democratic committee chair proposing to give even more to these programs than the Bush administration has asked for?! No, this is not a Saturday Night Live or Jon Stewart parody. This is Washington politics. In a move that stunned advocates for "comprehensive" sex education—that is, programs that include discussion of both abstinence and birth control options—Congressman James [sic] Obey of Wisconsin, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, proposed increasing by $28 million the current abstinence-only allocation of $113 million. Obey made this move in order to lure Republican votes for Congress’s main domestic spending bill. (In fairness, an equal increase was suggested for Title X, a federal family planning program that has been consistently under-funded during the Bush years.)

This (mis)appropriation may not see the light of day, given the wrangling taking place on the hill, but whatever transpires in the next few weeks, reproductive justice advocates are deeply demoralized to see how casually an issue of such intense importance could be horse traded away.

Complete posting is here.
Good HuffPo article too.

Yikes, it's a whiteout in downtown Boston. Safe travels, everyone.

Leaving the Country to Give Thanks

Five years ago I met my Canadian girlfriend, M. I’d like to tell you that we met reaching for Adrienne Rich’s The Dream of a Common Language in our favorite independent bookstore, but we met in typical college fashion, in a gay bar across the river from campus. An athlete and later coach, M always worried about her visa status even though by the end of last year, she’d been living in the country and paying taxes for nearly a decade. Like other naïve Americans, I found it hard to believe that a successful and educated Canadian citizen would have problems immigrating to the United States. I would recall to M how easy it was for my friends and me to cruise beyond the Canadian border in High School to take advantage of the lower drinking age in Thunder Bay. That’s what the border had meant to me…that is, before meeting M.

The fluidity of the border also shifted dramatically post 9/11 as M left graduate school and entered the professional public, landing a coaching position at Harvard University. But even Harvard couldn’t provide visa security and despite having three job offers after leaving, M had to pack up and ship out because no one it seems could convince the government that M deserved working status in America. Of course, if I or M were a man, it would only take a trip to Vegas and a marriage certificate, to keep us together this Thanksgiving.

So, this year, I’m leaving the country to give thanks. Yet, it’s difficult to give thanks when your nation is tearing so many families apart.

What is Feminism?

What is Feminism? Can Christians be Feminists? Can Conservatives? Can “Pro-Lifers?” Non-white women have often been marginalized within feminist discourse; poor women are nearly non-existent as valiant voices. Also, many issues have divided feminists like sex work or lesbian rights. About five years ago, I listened attentively with my Intro to Women’s Studies class as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of Manifesta and leaders within Third Wave Feminism, preached to the choir at a neighboring university. Our class was trying to define feminism (so cliché right). We got as far as “feminism is the idea that women are equal to men and thus should be allocated equal rights and opportunities.” But, how do we define “woman?” Feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty importantly questions the overgeneralization of women’s experiences and the emphasis of placing gender at the center of oppression without complicating it with race and class. While working at a feminist magazine where all of the content was written by and for girls, I came across the same question when an intersex person sent in a piece for publication. What is a woman?

The existence of “pro-life” people who claim to be feminists, also begs the question of what is a feminist and what is a woman. I just had to ask Baumgardner and Richards: can you be “pro-life” and a feminist? Surprisingly, their answer that day was explicitly yes! They cited a list of ways “pro-life” and “pro-choice” people could work together to make a change in our world, like making education and contraceptives available. But, because the idea of personhood is the root conflict for “pro-life” and “pro-choice” people, a definition of feminism remains in limbo. In an age where technology proliferates and ideas over what is “natural” are debated, who decides what defines a person? Or more precisely, who has the power to decide?

Panties for peace

If you've already told the Postal Regulatory Commission you won't stand for a sellout to big media (and if you haven't yet, there's still time to weigh in before their hearings on Tuesday, October 30), perhaps you're feeling a little bored, a little blue.

Happily, there's a cure for such listlessness, and it even involves the mail. You can support the people of Burma by sending your panties to the SPDC! Dunno about you, but the image of hundreds of pairs of panties, lacy, frilly, variegated, winging their way through the postal system carefully packaged in envelopes and boxes, destined to freak out officials worldwide, just puts a smile on my face.

Andrew Buncombe writes in the Independent:

Activists seeking to pressure the Burmese regime are targeting the superstitions of its senior generals by asking for people around the world to send women's underwear to the junta.

In what may be a first, campaigners based in Thailand have called for supporters to "post, deliver or fling" the underwear to their nearest Burmese embassy. They believe the senior members of the junta – some known to be deeply superstitious – could be made to believe they will lose their authority should they come into contact with the lingerie.

"The Burma military regime is not only brutal but very superstitious. They believe that contact with a woman's panties or sarong can rob them of their power," says the website of the Lanna Action for Burma group, based in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. The group says that Burmese embassies have already received underwear from people in Thailand, Australia, Singapore and the UK.

Lanna Action for Burma kicked off this campaign on October 16. You can find the nearest SPDC embassy here. Read more about ongoing protest efforts here. Happy panty-flinging!

Mary Gordon and Speaking One's Mind

Deborah Solomon's interviewee in her August 5th weekly New York Times Magazine column was the writer Mary Gordon. When asked, "Are you a Hillary Clinton supporter?" Gordon replied, "I think no woman is electable in America." She kept going, but reading that line, I remember thinking, "Wow, this woman has guts. Thank goodness someone is saying it. " My second thought was, "I bet she gets trashed in next week's letters."

This past week, there was one response: I've quoted it in its entirety below; click the link for author info.

"Thinking (out loud, in a highly public forum) that “no woman is electable in America” is a sure way to help make it true. Mary Gordon is a role model for this country’s female intelligentsia. Her publicly defeatist attitude is deplorable."

Succinct, well-written, and a bit knee-jerk? If, when directly asked, Gordon states what she perceives to be today's truth, is that "defeatist" and "deplorable," or is it exposing a sickness and giving it the air to heal? Even if she supports the candidate's agenda, and still doesn't think she's electable, would it have been a better thing to say "Yes"?

No matter the issue at hand, I believe that any feminist who suggests another should keep her or his mouth shut plays a dangerous game. That's why I adore these fine people.

NARAL Debate 2008 Video

NARAL created this hilarious, if disturbing, video to discuss the 2008 republican presidential candidates' views on abortion. If it wasn't so true, I might laugh.



Meanwhile, in Ohio, legislators have proposed a bill which would make it compulsory for the "father of the fetus" to give permission for a woman's abortion. If he doesn't give permission she can't have an abortion. Check out the feministing.com debate on the issue, where some men weigh in to applaud the legislation.

What do you think? Do men deserve a say in reproductive rights decisions?