International Women's Day Was Yesterday

Basically, I have no idea what is going on outside of my little sphere of work and thesis writing. I thought today was March 8th, which is International Women's Day, and was all excited to write about it. I understand now that March 8th was actually yesterday. I'm going to say some shit anyway.

I wrote a post for BlogHer about 30 Woman Making History, a campaign by the Woman's Media Center to highlight, yes, 30 women making history while also raising some dough to employ women to write about news and politics. Good idea. I picked five women that I thought were making history (Shada [Shatha] Nasser, Eveline Shen, Sindiwe Magona, Shirley Rodriguez Remeneski, and Alysa Stanton). Links for more info on each awesome woman is in my post at BlogHer if you want to know more, and yes, that's my way of getting people to click over there. Whatever.

Today I read a post over at another awesome woman's blog, Suebob's Red Stapler. She quoted a not awesome woman blogger who said that equality is stupid because it is about fairness and we all know that life isn't fair. "Fuck that!" was essentially Suebob's reaction, echoed by all the excellent people who left comments on it.

One comment in particular stood out: "Vagina's are wasted on some people I swear." This was written by Thordora, who totally made my day.

And now, back to my day.

Bye Bayh Repro Rights

Many of the bad things that are happening in the Senate today take me back to my earliest years in public policy. In the summer of 1995, the country was hotly debating welfare reform. I interned with the child care division of the Department of Public Aid in Illinois, and I followed the discussion closely.

By the time I returned the next summer, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) had passed Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton. States wrangled with how they could meet the welfare for work requirements and move people off of public assistance programs as soon as possible. Next door, the governor of Indiana, Evan Bayh, embraced welfare-to-work so wholeheartedly that I was certain that he was a Republican. I'm fairly certain that I even had an argument with Husband about it. I was wrong.

These days, over thirteen years after I first cut my teeth on public policy work, Bayh is still causing me to scratch my head. Evan Bayh is now a pro-choice Democrat in the Senate. Yet he voted for the Nelson/Hatch amendment that would have essentially forbid health insurance plans to cover abortion services. On the flip side, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is anti-choice, but voted against the amendment. What the fuck?

Sen. Reid showed great initiative in explaining his position, finding common ground and recognizing the need for health care reform to be passed. I commend him for taking the time to do the right thing for more people than himself. Sen. Bayh offered no explanation for voting against the women that he has courted for votes. It’s baffling. OK, it's more than baffling; Sen. Bayh's lack of courage on this issue is pathetic.

I learned in 1995-1996 that I really couldn't count on Evan Bayh to make sound decisions when it comes to the health and welfare of women and children. A lot of time has passed since then. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sigh.

It's No Accident that "Stupak" Looks a Lot Like "Stupid"

Two of my favorite organizations, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Planned Parenthood are holding a National Day of Action today to lobby the Senate for health care reform that ensures women’s access to reproductive health care. Right now, things are not looking good.

Basically, the House passed a horrible amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-choice douche bag. The amendment would prevent women who currently have health insurance plans that cover abortion from obtaining the same coverage if they buy it through an insurance exchange. This is a problem for me, but even worse is that private plans will likely drop abortion coverage in order to participate in the exchange. People who like imposing their religious beliefs on others are proposing the same thing in the Senate.

Planned Parenthood explains the situation (it's a long one):

The Bottom Line

• Under the Stupak amendment, millions of women would lose benefits that they currently have and millions more would be prohibited from getting the kind of private sector health care coverage that most women have today.


• Millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money.

The New Health Insurance Exchange

• The new health insurance exchange is intended to provide a new source of affordable, quality coverage for the roughly 46 million uninsured Americans and the millions more whose current coverage is unaffordable or inadequate.


• The House bill is expected to cover 96 percent of all uninsured Americans by offering subsidies for private coverage or the choice of a public plan. Depending on their income level and the final package approved by Congress, individuals would receive subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase private insurance through the exchange.


• Not everyone in the exchange would have subsidized coverage — a significant portion of people (for instance, those currently purchasing in the individual market and those working for small businesses) who would buy insurance in the exchange would not receive any subsidies, also known as affordability credits.

The Stupak Amendment

• The Stupak amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.


• The Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist.


• Women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy.


• Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.


• Example: Currently, a self-employed graphic designer or writer, buying coverage from Kaiser Permanente in the individual market, likely has abortion coverage. Under the health reform plan amended by Stupak, she would purchase that same plan from Kaiser Permanente in the exchange, but it would not include abortion coverage because it would be barred. This ban would be in effect even if she were paying the full premium. Similarly, a woman working for a small graphic design firm, who currently has abortion coverage through her company’s plan, would lose it under reform if the company decides to seek more affordable coverage in the exchange.

For more information on health care reform and the Stupak amendment, visit us at http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform.

End of Planned Parenthood info, and back to my ranting... If this pisses you off as much as it does me, call your Senator today. (Or email him or her, as I suspect the lines will be busy.) Perhaps yelling, "Stop the stupid Stupak amendment bullshit," is not the thing to say, but it does have alliteration, which is a good literary technique.

In all seriousness, something like this is NOT going to stop women from having abortions. Instead, it will force more women to wait longer for their procedure while they figure out how the hell to pay for it. If we want more late term abortions in this country, then by all means, support Stupak. But that would be stupid.

Publishers Weekly Best Ten Books of 2009 - 100% Male

The problem with feminism is that it makes women crazy. We seem to believe that our words and our stories matter, and that we are not only capable of telling stories, but that we can excel at it. Our voices and our story telling techniques may differ from what has traditionally been viewed as great literature, but we think that doesn't mean that they are not equally good.

Of course, these beliefs are silly, and Publishers Weekly took great pains to remind people that women's work is just not up to par with that of (white) men. Their list of the ten best books of 2009 includes ten dudes, nine of whom are white. Some people bristled at this. Kamy Wicoff at She Write - an online community of women writers that is free and you should join - wrote:

Try to imagine if they had come out with a list of the Best Books of 2009 and it had included ZERO MEN. Try to imagine if Amazon had released its Best Books of 2009 and it had included only TWO men. I know it's hard. But just try.

Wicoff asked the She Writes community to take action. To protest this ridiculous list, we should all buy a book published by a woman in 2009, take a photo of ourselves with it, and explain why we bought it.



Here I am with the 2009 paperback edition of American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. When the hardcover came out in 2008, it received glowing reviews. My friend Alex Elliot read it for her bookclub, and said that I would really like it. Sittenfeld and I are the same age, and I wish that I had an ounce of her talent.

I don't have pictures of myself with another two books that came out in 2009, but last night I attended a reading of A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein. I thought it was great. Deborah Copaken Cogan also read From Here to April, which came out in hardcover in 2008 and paperback this month. It was also excellent. Both works were funny and thought-provoking, as were their creators.

If you are also pissed about the Publishers Weekly list, join the She Writes community's protest. Once you post a picture of yourself on your blog holding a book you bought by a female writer that came out in 2009 (the deadline is Friday), send Kamy the link at kamy@shewrites.com. She Writes will send these links to the entire community (5000+) on Saturday. While the emphasis is on women writers protesting, I think anyone who cares about sexism should feel free to participate.

No Justice. Again.

The House of Representatives passed a shitty excuse for a health care plan. It includes no public option. (Sorry, I misunderstood the newspaper this morning.) It also gave in to fundamentalist religious groups and barred abortion coverage for anyone obtaining health insurance with government subsidies.

Some might argue that it is wrong to use taxpayers' money for things that certain taxpayers might object to. But we do that every day, anyway. I object to the death penalty, but every execution that happens in my state (which fortunately has been none) would be partly subsidized with my tax money. I object to Halliburton receiving no bid contracts to do nothing in Iraq. I object to hiring private "security" (paramilitary) firms being paid to "guard" stuff in Iraq. I object to the ludicrous idea that companies that are contracted by the US to work in Iraq are not subject to following US laws, so that women are raped by their co-workers and fired, the company has no responsibility. I object to using taxpayer money to build sports stadiums. The list goes on and on.

The problem with democracy is that sometimes you are stuck monetarily supporting things that you find morally reprehensible. If a person doesn't like it, too fucking bad. He doesn't have the right to impose his religious beliefs on me or other people.

Of course, not all religious groups are obnoxious fucking hypocritical assholes who insist on religious freedom for themselves but them force their beliefs down the throats of others. I know this. That's why, even though I don't believe in a Judeo-Christian God, I support the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I think they do important work reminding people that religion does not have to oppress other people. I suppose it will be hard to continue supporting them when I live in my cave, hanging out with bats and shunning humanity, but as I said, there's no justice. I don't even know why I expect it every once in a while.

Elections: Good and Bad News

For the second morning in a row, the day began with promise. I woke up early and with big plans. Then I picked up The New York Times.

At first I didn't understand what I saw. Why was that fucking anti-choice, social conservative idiot with no plans at all for how to govern New Jersey on the front cover of the paper? No paper puts a big picture of the loser, and as my friend said on Monday, a good sign that he is not intelligent is that his first and last names are more or less the same. (Maybe this would work in Scandinavia, but it is silly here, I agreed.) But no. The stupid fuck his his right-wing agenda and won. People in New Jersey chose a moron with no ideas other than attacking his opponent's plans to save their state from recession.* Good luck with that.

I was relieved, however, to learn that the Democratic candidate in a district in upstate New York won. For 150 years, this community was represented only by Republicans. (Of course, that meant something different 150 years ago when it was the party of Lincoln, but that's another story.) Crazy conservatives around the country banded together to smear the moderate Republican candidate because she had the audacity to support gay marriage and keeping abortion legal. She was supported by all the local Republican leadership. But it seems that what people want is not good enough for the fringe elements that control the Republican party, who know much better than everyone else what they want, and if you don't agree with them, you will be punished. After months of verbal assaults from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, who supporting a crazy right-wing third party candidate, the Republican dropped out right before the election and endorsed the Democrat. He won narrowly.

My interpretation of all this insanity is that people still do not want to elect hatemongers. Christie won in part because he hid his conservative agenda, and this is also true of the Republican who just won Virginia. They emphasized the economy, not hating gay people or women's reproductive rights. In upstate New York, when the candidate foisted onto the voters emphasized his intolerance of people not like him, he lost. See, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and the crazy bitch in the Times who praised the national coalition who imposed their will on a small area of New York, people do not embrace your so-called values. If you want to win and continue to oppress people with your evilness, you have to hide your agenda.

There may be hope yet.

*This reminded me why a story that we read in class that same night made me laugh. My classmate submitted a story about playing guitar in high school, and described his magnet school as offering an education to "the best and brightest of New Jersey." I thought he was making a joke about New Jersey's image as people with big bangs and a love of shopping malls, but it turned out he was serious.

The Squirrelly and the Acorn

It's been a bad morning. I overslept, then while eating breakfast, read several depressing stories in the New York Times. The one that upset me most was about a "sting" operation enacted by two ultraconservatives who decided that they would bring about the right-wing wet dream of destroying the community organizing group Acorn.

Acorn is not perfect. It has had a series of scandals involving its officers over the last few years. But it also has done legitimate work to empower and engage disenfranchised, low income Americans in politics and economic growth. In New York City, Acorn has helped families frozen out of the housing market obtain places to live through shrewd credit counseling, homeownership classes, and technical assistance. People who participated in Acorn's programs here are not losing their homes to foreclosure.

Conservatives hate nothing more than when low income people ask for their fair (or I should say, fare) share of the heaping American apple pie. Actually, forget the "fair share" - they loathe when people who have been locked out of the mainstream systems that benefit white, middle- and upper-classes as for even a crumb or two of what they deserve. These groups and people, many of which have engaged in questionable activities themselves (remember Rush Limbaugh's illegal prescription addition and how he blamed his maid?), thus must bring down organizations like Acorn that are successful.

Today's New York Times article explains that two squirelly right-wingers dressed up as a prostitute and pimp, then went to Acorn offices and asked for help acquiring a home that they could use a brothel for under-age El Salvadorean girls. Two Acorn workers didn't blink an eye, explaining not only how to obtain the property, but also how to hide their illegal activity from the government.

There is nothing excusable or OK about what these Acorn employees did, and they have been fired. As a result of disgusting actions, Acorn is losing federal housing funds. But here's the problem with these incidents: they were isolated. And we don't find that out until deep in the article. See, the Times notes that the filmmakers "spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for."

Why is no one demanding the rest of the tape? The evidence where almost everyone they came into contact to at Acorn did the right thing? It's like shutting down an entire hospital because of one awful doctor and a shitty nurse. Investigative journalism is NOT when you go out and do undercover investigations, find one thing that confirms wrongdoing, and then portray it as rampant corruption. YouTube may have made this video popular, but it certainly did not help tell the truth.

Between these squirrelly, unethical "truth seekers" and the fucking lunatics who protested in DC on Sept. 12, I really give up. Americans are not, as far as I can tell, interested in truth or justice. The sad part is this is what the real American way might be.

Remembering the Nutjobs on Election Day

The Democratic primary is today in New York. I am relieved. There's not one candidate that I am actually interested in supporting, but at least the junk mail will stop. For the last six weeks, my mailbox filled with campaign flyers. Between Husband and me, we received 12 to 15 pieces of candidate crap every day.

Then again, at least these candidates are not insane. When I received my voter's guide from the New York City Campaign Finance Board (my second employer after college!), one of the mayoral hopefuls submitted the following answers to the Q&A:

1. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE IN THE CITY YOU WOULD ADDRESS IF ELECTED? RENT Is Too Damn High there is nothing else to talk about. All poor people are being ran out of New York.

2. WHAT OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES WOULD YOU ADDRESS IF ELECTED? RENT is Too Damn High there is nothing else to talk about.

3. WHAT MAKES YOU THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THIS OFFICE? I am a Rent Activist with real solutions to the High Rent Crisis that is driving out of this City. That is what makes me the best candidate for this job.

Rent is too damn high for most New Yorkers, but maybe this is not someone who really should be in charge of anything. He's not the first "single-issue" candidate to run for mayor in New York City, either. In the 1997, I sat through a debate in which one of the mayoral candidates proposed clearing out the South Bronx and building a new Disney World location. He felt that it was critical to do so to increase tourism. Uh huh.

I'm off to the polls. As Husband likes to say at moments like this, vaya con pollos.

Burned

For the second time in three weeks, I felt the sun bore down on the back of neck and forgot that I had sunscreen in my backpack. My fried neck was a small price to pay for such a gorgeous wedding, though:


I know I am biased, but I love (liberal) Jewish weddings. The chupa (wedding canopy) is so beautiful, and since I've never been to Orthodox wedding in which strict gender segregation is practiced, I always am extra-touched by the equality demonstrated in the ceremonies. Other than the sunburn, the only downside of the wedding was the number of bees flitting about the lush landscape. Bees scare me shitless. Another guest assured me that these bees were friendly, though, and I will say that it was certainly friendlier than the one that chased me around the parking lot of an ice cream shack at a beach town in New Jersey. (I offered that bee my ice cream and wallet to make it go away.)

Other things that I saw on my trip that uplifted my spirit, were these murals in the Mission District of San Francisco:



OK, so the birthing mural freaks me out a little (but I overall think it is cool) and the sidewalk graffiti is not technically a mural, but whatever. It reminded me that I like humanity. However, discussions that I had with friends and Bob Herbert's column in today's NY Times brought me back to reality.

I am burning with indignation at the lunatics who live in this nation. Protesting Obama's speech to school kids about studying hard and respecting teachers as socialist brainwashing? Calling him a Nazi? What the fuck is wrong with people? Of course, these are the same assholes who insisted that I had no right to dislike Bush since he was our president and as president, I needed to respect him. Gah!!!!! I give up.

ENTJ

The fifteen second Facebook Meyers-Briggs personality test classified me as an ENTJ. ENTJ stands for extraversion, intuition, thinking, and judgment. Normally I am skeptical about personality tests in general, and even more so about ones that take less than a minute to complete, but I've taken longer versions of Meyers-Briggs at leadership conferences, and I always come out an ENTJ.

What does it mean to be an ENTJ? The Facebook fifteen second explanation says:

You are frank, decisive, and assume leadership readily. You quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, and develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. You enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. You are usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding your knowledge and passing it on to others. You are forceful in presenting your ideas

I agree that describes me well, particularly that last line, not the the title of this blog would illustrate that point or anything. There's a much longer explanation on the Personality Page (along with a longer quiz, I think). My favorite line from that is, "ENTJs want their home to be beautiful, well-furnished, and efficiently run." Ha ha ha! If "beautiful" and "well-furnished" means crammed with random used furniture, some of which was scavenged from trash, then certainly that is true, too. (Part of what freaks me out about the renovation that might one day finish if I am lucky is that it made the apartment too nice - I feel like I don't belong here.)

Anyway, an ENTJ is basically a pushy person with strong opinions who values planning and success, hates wastefulness, and tries to hide a sentimental streak as wide as the Mississippi River. (Not the Mississippi up north where it's narrow, either.) Yeah. How about youse?

Three Adjectives

My friend decided to join a dating site. One of the many irritating tasks to complete her profile involved filling in three adjectives to describe yourself.

"What do you think of whiny, judgmental, and anxious?" she asked me.

After I picked myself up from the floor of the Indian restaurant (I had fallen off my chair laughing - almost not an exaggeration), I told her that I thought it was brilliant. "It's honest - although I do not think you are whiny - and intriguing. It seems like only people who get it, and thus get you, would respond." (Incidentally, I initially suggested that she use generous, intelligent, vibrant. OK, I actually said zestful, but she pointed out that sounds like a soap commercial, and just thought of vibrant now. Lively could also work. I still sort of like zestful, even if it is sudsy.)

Then I thought about what three adjectives I would use to describe myself. I realized that I would have to steal two out of three of her words because they are so true for me - judgmental and anxious. My third would be petty. I could substitute spastic or stressed for anxious and mocking for judgmental if I was forced to, but anxious and judgmental are just so perfect. Obsessive could also be a good choice. (If also forced to choose three positive ones, I would opt for entertaining, wonky, chatty.)

I hate ending blog posts by posing a question, but what three adjectives would you choose?

Congratulations, You're a Book Winner Now!

Last year, Alex Elliot and I thought that the world needed an anthology of first period stories. We asked the blogosphere for submissions at Congratulations, You're a Woman Now!, and 38 women and one man heeded our call. The stories are all fantastic - Alex and I laughed, we cried, and, we checked the backs of our pants for leaks, and we doubled over in sympathetic cramps. We thought we'd be able to select a group of authors in December and reach out to publishers with the project in January. We were stupid.

In the meantime, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, a highly achieving 18 year old feminist, just presented her anthology of period stories,My Little Red Book to the world. It is a wonderful collection of short essays in which women of all ages from around the world reflect on their periods. Profits go to awesome charities supporting women globally. I was psyched that some publisher took on the book and that it would be doing good work in addition to getting women to share, but also sighed a lot. Sigh.

I had the chance to interview Rachel for BlogHer. She's just an awesome woman, and her book team rocks the house, too. In fact, they are offering copies of books to women who blog about their first period! Anyone who is interested in a copy can enter the contest by posting her essay, then linking to it in the comments of at my BlogHer post. I am beyond mortified that no one has yet done so, and I know that CUSS readers are brilliant, intrepid, and funny writers with great stories to share who also love free books. (Hint, hint....)

Stories should be posted by Friday, March 13 (somehow, Friday the 13th seemed like an appropriate deadline for stories about first periods). Spread the word...

Greetings, Not From the Machine*

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Is it just me, or is it extra resonant this year, knowing that tomorrow we will inaugurate our first black president? I'm getting choked up just thinking about it.

Also, I have been reading Dreams from My Father in preparation for my lit seminar this semester. (It's the first book on the reading list, which is awesome.) Although my life story is nothing like Barak Obama's except that we both worked in Chicago at some point and are both dedicated to public service, I've really identified with his quest for identity and place. Again, it is not remotely the same, but at the same time, I also grew up with a living family who wanted the best for me, not knowing a portion of my heritage and wondering what they were like.

Discrimination comes in many forms, and its effects are pernicious whether through racism or anti-Semetism. Many businesses in America displayed signs on their doors reading, "No Blacks, No Jews, No Dogs," although the order was sometimes changed, and sometimes Jews were allowed, but not Irish. One of the things that I am most proud of as a Jewish person is the role that American Jews played in the civil rights movement, and continue to play in social justice movements. There is a concept called tikkun olam, in which it is everyone's responsibility to fix the world. Of course, on the flip side, one of the things that most upsets me about being Jewish is how many Jews are slumlords and exploiters of low income communities. In many cases, these are the only Jews that ever come into the lives of disadvantaged communities of many ethnic groups, and it is no wonder that the view of cheap, miserly Jews continues to thrive in those cultures.

At any rate, it is my hope that we are entering a new era of honest dialogue between ethnic groups, genders, classes, and all the other barriers that prevent real progress. Shit, if we can make a machine that takes pictures, calls people, sends emails, and fits in my pants pocket, I'd think we could figure out how to get along.

*Since Blackberries seem to do everything except change diapers and wipe butts, I like to call them "machines." Husband has had a machine for a few years now, and while I coveted one every now and then, I realized that I didn't really want one. Too much stuff to manage. Really, I just like a phone that works.

I Just Wanna Celebrate

Theo and Barack Obama* share a moment of victory in my apartment in the wee hours of the morning/late last night.

Man, last night was exciting.

*Yes, that is really Husband wearing a 99 cent paper mask he bought at a costume/card shop down the street that is disturbingly realistic, causing people to do double takes as when they notice a neckless Barack Obama with white hands walking down the street/on the subway/at an election results party/etc.

What Would CUSS Readers Do?: Holiday Gifts

On November 3, I will be writing about great gifts for feminist bloggers on BlogHer. Since I seem to only want bizarre things (like a Jody Davis Cubs jersey) or charitable things (donations to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and/or National Network of Abortion Funds), I seek input.

What do you want for the holidays?

Leave me a comment, and when I write up the post I'll link to your blog, unless you ask me not to do so. Be honest, but also be warned: I probably won't recommend gift certificates to waxing salons, even if it is something you would adore. I might buy you one, though. :)

Jeez, I can't believe the holidays are right around the corner.

Worth 1,000 Words*

(Photo credit: Reuters)

*Some actual words: This photo appeared in The Age, a newspaper in Australia, with the following caption, "Slip of the tongue: John McCain reacts after almost leaving the stage the wrong way following his debate with Barack Obama. Photo: Reuters." (The full story is McCain goes for jugular, but misses.) I first saw the photo on the front page of google news, and thought it was linked to a story in The Christian Science Monitor. It is also on the Reuters website, with a slightly longer caption, "Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, October 15, 2008." Whew!

Theo Thursday: Stop Global Warming, Save the Poalr Bears

Theo is a Plush Animal Companion for Suzanne. His goal is to raise awareness of the plight of his cousins, the polar bears, whose habit is melting thanks to global warming. When he heard that Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin not only supports violating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to drill for oil, but also denies that human behavior impacts global warming, he became enraged. Fortunately, unlike John McCain, he has a good poker face and can hide his temper for the greater good.

Theo thanks his plush canine friend for rallying the support of sled dogs for his cause.

Is Sarah Palin a C Word? A Scholarly Consideration of the Issue

On one of the many sites on which I've been devouring political discussions lately, a self-identified PUMA* was irritated that no one decried an Obama supporter who wore a t-shirt that read "Sarah Palin is a cunt" to a recent rally. To which my first thought was, "Well, she is a cunt, so why would I get my knickers in a bunch?" Then I felt a little bad, since I would probably be furious if someone wore a shirt like that with Hillary Clinton's name. Except that HRC is not really a cunt, so that's why I would be so irate. (Bill Clinton, however, is another story.)

Perhaps, I wondered, was I being unfair because I loathe Sarah Palin's evil social policies? Only an impartial and wise source could settle the matter for me. I whipped out my trusty slang dictionary, Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Drug Talk, College Lingo, and Related Matters (2nd Revised Edition) by Richard A. Spears. ("College lingo?" Seriously?) It read:

cunt (see also c*nt, c**t, c***,****,----) 1. the female genitals, specifically the vagina. [said to be from Latin CUNNUS (q.v.)] 2. women considered sexually. 3. copulation [in numerous spellings since the 1300s] The word was banned from print in much of the British Empire until the middle of this century, and it is the most elaborately avoided word in the English language. There are numerous dimunitives: CUNNICLE, CUNTKIN, CUNTLET, CUNNY. Avoidances are: INEFFABLE, MONOSYLLABLE, NAME-IT-NOT, NAMELESS. Disguises are: GRUMBLE AND GRUNT, SHARP AND BLUNT, SIR BERKLEY HUNT, TENUC, UNTCAY. See MONOSYLLABLE for additional synonyms. 4. a rotten fellow; a low, slimy man. [colloquial, 1800s-pres.] 5. to intromit the penis. [attested in a limerick, late 1800s] See also DECUNT.

Whew! That didn't entirely clear the matter up for me, but I believe that she meets definitions 1 (she is certainly interested enough in what comes out of other women's vaginas, anyway), 3 and 5 (she is totally going to screw us if she gets into the VP's office). Hence, Sarah Palin is, in fact, a cunt, and the t-shirt is accurate. Perhaps, however, anti-Palinites might want to wear shirts reading, "Sarah Palin is a monosyllable" to confuse her supporters and avoid controversy. (Plus, "monosyllable" is a great double-entendre in this case.)

Wasn't this fun? Not only did I learn interesting facts about my grandmother's favorite word (I love that she hates the word "fuck," but will cheerfully spew out a word that is otherwise "the most elaborately avoided word in the English language"), but also that I run against popular sentiment in my embrace of the word cunt.


*A group of the Clinton supporters who are possibly the sorest losers in political history.

Theo Thursday: Who is a Terrorist?

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Theodore Roosevelt Reisman is a plush animal companion who wants to live with his human friend and her husband in freedom. He became an activist when he heard that his polar bear cousin's lives were threatened by the so-called "pro-life" governor of Alaska and Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. Theo believes that, although the Constitution does not seem to allow 20 year old stuffed animals to run for elected office, he is more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin.

Good Deeds

The fine people at BlogHer are participating in the DonorsChoose Challenge. Basically, because public education is grossly underfunded in communities across America, teachers often spend their own money on supplies for the kids. Since many teachers are underpaid, they often cannot afford the things that they need for special projects that enrich kids' lives and help them learn. DonorsChoose is a website that lets teachers tell potential donors about what they need for their classroom and why. If donors like the idea, they can give a portion of the project cost or the full amount. All the projects are awesome.

For the DonorsChoose Challenge, I decided to write about a project called Puzzling Diversity. Mrs. G teachers four year olds in a low income community in Oklahoma. She would like puzzles for her pre-k classroom that illustrate the different types of careers that people from various ethnic backgrounds and genders can aspire to. I believe that almost nothing is more important than quality early childhood education, and I also love that Mrs. G is working with her kids at a young age to see outside of restrictive gender stereotypes and dream about what they can be when they grow up. Puzzles are also critical tools to help children develop fine motor skills and develop a spatial reasoning. Puzzling diversity really touches me in so many ways.

To equip her classroom with puzzles illustrating positive behaviors, Mrs. G only needs $75 more dollars. If 75 people give a dollar each, that would do it. I know that these are terrible times economically, but I think most people can spare a $1 to help kids. If you give $1 today, research on the benefits of quality early childhood education indicates that you will actually save between $7 and $17 in future spending (i.e. - taxes) because these programs lower the rate of dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, repeated grades, and other social ills. So it's a double benefit to support Puzzling Diversity if you think about it.

When I was a wee lass, I wanted to be president when I grew up. I also, at various points, wanted to be Jenny Lind (aka The Swedish Nightengale; a singer who toured the world and charmed audiences with her melodious voice in the early 1900s), Florence Nightengale, a teacher, and/or a bank teller. Husband wanted to drive the bus to the zoo when he was pre-school age. How about you?