On settling

Or, Marry Him Now, Woman, While You Still Have Your Looks, Because Who Will Want You When You're a Spinster Hag With Shriveled Ovaries and an Aura of Hopelessness?

Okay, so it was back in March of 2008 that Lori Gottlieb published an essay in The Atlantic magazine titled, "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough." One might imagine that, with such a title, the essay would advocate looking for more of a business partner than a romantic partner to share marriage and family. In fact, one would be correct, because that's precisely what she advocates in so many words and more.

I only mention it now because Gottlieb has recently released a book by the same name, expanding on her former advice to let go of all of your standards for fear of never finding a man who will love--scratch that, tolerate you enough to live with you, make a baby with you, and then disappear into the office for 80 hours a week to leave you to play with your baby. She now has new, fresh advice to let go of all of your standards for fear of never finding a man who will love--scratch that, tolerate you enough to live with you, make a baby with you, and then disappear into the office for 80 hours a week to leave you to play with your baby.

Gottlieb is a single mother. She conceived (in a "fit of self-empowerment") a baby from a sperm donor and now, in her mid-forties, regrets her decisions because all of the families in the park seem so happy and, hell, even her friends who are married to men they hate are better off than she is, because at least they're married. To men they hate. And she very much regrets not marrying the men she found intolerable when she was younger, because then, she'd have a husband. Not necessarily one she was in love with, not necessarily one she wanted to interact with, but certainly one to... be married to. I guess.

She's so secure in her fear of alone-ness and desperation to marry at any cost that she can't believe any woman of a certain age could feel any differently. In her essay, Gottlieb asserts, "[E]very women I know--no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure--feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried." Of course, it must be argued that she doesn't know me--and that I'm still ten months shy of the magic number--but I honestly don't fear eternal spinsterhood, despite my advanced age. Maybe I should enjoy my remaining 313 days before the panic sets in.

Or maybe I'm just "in denial or lying." Good call, Lori.

I will agree with her argument that the little annoyances--bad movie-theatre manners, lousy sense of style--aren't great standards on which to judge and ultimately chuck a guy. So many of my married friends are never able to say, "His video game habit/naugahyde beanbag chair/filthy car/inability to hit the hamper from a foot away bugs the crap out of me" without finishing, quite sincerely, "But I love him to death." Which is a pretty good sign that they've made good choices and done a good job of looking past the minor details to appreciate the whole man. Gottlieb seems to be taking a different approach; while she also would opt to overlook the ugly ties and inability to cook, her proposed alternative doesn't really address anything related to, say, love, or passion, or happiness.

"[I]f you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go."

'Kay. So when you say "settle," you mean settle... for any guy who's willing to marry and impregnate me.

Gotcha.

But yeah, that's pretty much her thing. She tells us, "Don't worry about passion or intense connection." "Settling will probably make you happier in the long run." "[O]nce you take the plunge and do it, you'll probably be relatively content." (Emphasis mine.) She says, "Marriage isn't a passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business" and refers to "uninspiring relationships that might have made us happy in the context of a family" (emphasis also mine). Because, by her reckoning, all of this beats the hell out of being by oneself.

"[I]f you rarely see your husband--but he's a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own--how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?" Yes, America, why should we give gays the right to marry when it could threaten the sanctity of unions such as these?

Gottlieb even goes so far as to bring up Mary Tyler Moore and Rachel Green (of Friends fame) and Carrie Bradshaw (Sex in the City). O how they could be married now if only they had settled! What if Rachel had just gone ahead and married the boring orthodontist? Why oh why didn't Carrie jump on Aidan while she had the chance (since Big will certainly never be seen with a kid slung in a Baby Bjorn)? After the newsroom goes dark, won't Mary find herself single, friendless, miserable, and alone? Why did these stupid women not settle?

I actually do know precisely why Ross and Rachel (and Carrie and Big) weren't settled and content. I also know why Mulder and Scully didn't hook up, why Burn Notice's Michael and Fiona keep coming together and drawing apart, and why Buffy and Angel struggled so much with their love: Because that's what it says in the script. If they put their inner children in time-out and settled down to make the relationships work, it would be boring, not in the sense that happy marriages are boring but in the sense that content people don't make good TV. Maybe, if they'd both gotten over themselves, Ross and Rachel could have found a relationship abounding in both passion and contentment. Yawn. Click. But that's what some refer to as television. If you're divining deep sociological truths and the secrets to eternal love in the 22 minutes of a sitcom, you're already twelve kinds of wrong.

I have a suggestion for Gottlieb and the many single friends to whom she constantly refers as anecdata to bolster her own otherwise-unbolsterable claims of single fortysomething misery: Maybe you're single because you're obnoxious. Maybe your superficiality glows off of you like a Byzantine halo. Maybe when you're on a date with a guy, he can tell that you're mentally listing his every fault and weighing them all against his potential to pay for your kid's soccer uniform. Maybe he sees you tearing up over the photos of happy families that come in picture frames and notices the way your fingers dig convulsively into his arm at the sight of a father carrying his son on his shoulders at the park. Maybe he saw your copy of No Time to Be Picky: Land That Pathetic Schlub Before You're Barren on your bookshelf. Maybe he saw the words "Last Resort" flash up next to his number on your cell phone. It's called desperation, Lori, and it smells like White Shoulders and prenatal vitamins.

I also have some words of advice for Gottlieb and co. And while it might be too late for them, they might be too far gone, others may be able to learn from it and avoid their fate.

(A disclaimer: My knowledge of relationships stems from a mere thirteen-ish years in the dating world, only two of which have involved blissful happiness, so it's entirely possible that, in thirty years (or ten years, or five) I will find myself proven horribly wrong. When I talk about satisfaction in marriage and happiness in the future, I do so as someone who has never been married and who (God willing) has a whole lot of future ahead of her. But I like to think that my past trial and error have given me at least a little bit of valuable perspective. I do invite the contribution of anyone with more experience to correct my assertions and assumptions where appropriate.)

When I started dating, I was looking for someone who was tall, handsome, smart, funny, looking to have a family, ambitious, and respectful of my desire to have a life and career of my own. This is because I was sixteen. I also was looking for someone who was George Clooney. Over time I dated a number of guys: Guys who were handsome but obnoxious, guys who were family-oriented but not terribly feminist, guys who were funny but not terribly bright, guys who were ambitious but not George Clooney. I put myself out there, tried a few things, and edited my list as I went--that's not settling, it's experiencing the world and learning more about myself and what I wanted, what I was going to hold out for.

After that experience and more than a few mistakes, my list had changed a lot:

- Someone who challenges me intellectually - because that will keep me sharp, and I'll never get bored
- Someone who loves exactly who I am without feeling the need to "fix" things about me, even little, tiny things - because that will make me feel comfortable and secure without fearing that he's eventually going to find me so hopelessly flawed that he has to bail. Besides, if I love and accept him and he loves and accepts me, I'll be far more inclined to try and adjust those little, tiny things myself
- Someone who doesn't just tolerate but actively appreciates my little quirks and foibles - because those are the things that make me me, and my idea of love doesn't involve anyone who merely tolerates me
- Someone who makes me shiver when he kisses me (and this one's my aunt's fault. Blame her)

And even if those standards were unrealistically high, there was no way I was going to back down from them, because I couldn't see myself possibly living my life any other way.

(Incidentally: Nailed it.)

So some hard-won advice to all who can hear (er, read) my voice (er, blog, or whatever):

- Don't lower your standards; just think about what's really important. Think about the things you value now and the things that are going to make you happy in the future. And you know what? If, in the end, you realize that you will never be truly happy without a man who will look good on your arm and make beautiful babies and enable a lifestyle that provides luxuries and puts you in contact with all of the right people, go ahead and hold out for that. I'm not going for that myself, and I sure as hell don't understand it, but I'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

- Decide for yourself what happiness in life really means. A husband and a picket fence and 2.5 children might truly be a priority for you, or it might just be societal pressure to live the cookie-cutter life that is everyone else's definition of success. If, on careful consideration, you find that's your definition too, hold out for it. But if you think about it honestly and decide that your definition of success doesn't involve kids, or it involves both kids and a career, or it involves a partner who loves you deeply but doesn't hinge on a ring, go for that. If you settle for the wrong guy out of desperation to satisfy some societal standard that doesn't actually appeal to you, you'll eventually find yourself unsatisfied with the life you're living and the person you're living it with. Are a blood diamond and a picket fence really worth that? Your call.

- Learn to love yourself. At the very least, learn to like yourself. Learn to enjoy your own company, and learn to recognize your traits that make you a good friend so you can find friends who enjoy doing things other than moaning about how single they are. If the only thing driving you is the fear of being alone, you're going to be searching for someone who will fill a hole in your life rather than someone who will complement it. Learn how to be a complete person on your own, and the addition of another person to your life will make it better, not good enough.

- Don't be afraid to make mistakes--because like just about everything else in life, love is a skill to be learned over time. Learning to ride a bike involves a few skinned knees; learning to play the piano involves some truly dismal performances (trust me); hell, learning to pick out your own clothes involves going out in some outfits that will make you cringe in retrospect. And those things pale in importance next to the concept of lifetime happiness. You're going to have crappy dates, you're going to have relationships that later make you wonder what you were thinking, you're going to fall for a guy/girl who ends up not loving you back. Chalk it all up to a learning experience and maybe figure out how to laugh at it later, because if you hold yourself back for fear of failing, you're never going to learn how to succeed.

- Don't fall for the old trope, generally delivered by older generations, that you can't really know what you want now and that in ten years, you'll regret your disdainful nonpursuit of the picket fence. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll chuck it all and follow their lead and be blissfully happy, and maybe you'll regret it and feel trapped. Hell, maybe they'll look back ten years from now and realize that they aren't really happy with the choices they've made. Scientists have yet to invent a way to see into the future, and making choices that seem wrong now in case they'll feel right in the future is a risky gamble.

Don't despair. Despair isn't attractive. Besides, I can't speak personally to the challenges of dating after forty, but I do know of a certain forty-plus who managed to find true love with a woman of stunning intelligence, sparkling personality, and timeless beauty, and I daresay he wouldn't describe the process using gory-drunk-driving-accident-resulting-in-full-paralysis metaphors.

And the greatest of these is love--of yourself. Don't be such a whiny, pathetic, desperate, needy little clinger that you can't even stand your own company. See yourself as someone worthy of actual love and friendship, not just a childcare-and-garbage-removal contractual arrangement. Or don't, and learn divide your time equally between bitching with your friends that at this point you'd be willing to marry the next solvent, fertile asshole who came along and wondering why you're still single.

On malice vs. stupidity

Okay, so stupid people ruin everything. I was all ready to run with a post in the wake of the ten Baptists in Haiti arrested on charges of child trafficking. On Saturday, news networks were reporting that the ten Idahoans had been stopped crossing the border into the Dominican Republic with 33 Haitian orphans between the ages of 2 months and 12 years, some of whose parents died in the earthquake and some of whom were abandoned by their parents before the quake. Laura Silsby, the group's leader, says the kids came through a Haitian pastor and that while they didn't have adoption papers for any of them, they felt they were doing the right thing and had planned to go back and arrange paperwork later.

Oh, it was a good post. It was all about "othering" and the way we look at people in developing and underprivileged countries. I was going to pull up the "animal shelters" bit from a while back. I was going to point out that if this were earthquake-flattened Salinas, there's no way these people would have been tooling around the city in their bus, scooping up wandering children and carrying them to safe, happy new homes across the border in Nevada, because Californian orphans are actual people, whereas Haitian orphans are cute little brown puppies who speak a cute, funny language and would look adorable in the stroller of any white American family that would have them and plucking them out of the rubble would really be doing everyone a favor. I would point out the dumbassitude of trying to carry children across a national border without thinking that any paperwork would be involved.

And then I watched the news today and cursed the gods that I was going to have to scrap that bad boy and start over.

As a group of American Baptist charity workers waits to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Associated Press has learned that not all of the children they were transporting were orphans.

"One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," George Willeit, a spokesman for SOS Children's Villages, said. SOS, an Austrian-based charity working in Haiti, now has custody of the children.

Willeit said the children arrived "very hungry, very thirsty." A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.

And thus the Americans' story begins to unravel and the "aw, shucks, were we not s'pose to do that?" defense becomes shakier.

"Our understanding is that they had lost parents in the quake or possibly some had parents abandon them before the quake," said Laura Silsby, a member of the group.

and

[Central Valley Baptist Church pastor Drew Ham] insisted the children had been verified as orphans and had come from established orphanage in Port-au-Prince, although he couldn't provide the name.

And yet CBS didn't have trouble at all finding the village full of (not-dead) parents who had signed their children over to the Americans, who had promised the kids schools and swimming pools and tennis courts.

Or they can just ask the kids:

Thirteen-year-old Chesner said his parents were approached by a pastor, believed to be a Haitian American, and some "white missionaries" who he later recognised on the bus which took the children to the border. Chesner said: "They told my parents that the environment and hygiene was not safe with dead bodies after the earthquake. They wanted to take me to a camp in Dominican Republic. I did not know how long I was going for, and I am happy to be back in Haiti because I want to see my mother."

And then there's Laura Silsby's confusion about paperwork:

"They really didn't have any paperwork ... I did not understand that that would really be required," the leader of the arrested group, Laura Silsby, told CNN.

Although human-rights activist Anne-christine d'Adesky might disagree:

Mrs. Silsby said her authorization to collect Haitian orphans and bring them to the Dominican Republic was from an unnamed Dominican official, according to Ms. d'Adesky's email [to U.N. authorities]. "I informed her that this would be regarded as illegal even with some 'Dominican' minister authorizing, since the kids are Haitian," Ms. d'Adesky wrote, adding that she directed Ms. Silsby to U.N. agencies helping the Haitian government handle orphans and adoptions. In a telephone interview, Ms. d'Adesky said she recalled Ms. Silsby's response: "We have been sent by the Lord to rescue these children, and if it's in the Lord's plan we will be successful."

So we're going to have to assume that no, it actually wasn't in the Lord's plan. The Lord's plan probably included trained, accredited, documented aid workers who weren't galloping idiots.

Arresting officials also note that Silsby told them that the group was taking the kids to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic--while in reality, the building is still in the planning stages and the plan was to put the kids up in hotel rooms until the facility was built. Complete with swimming pools and tennis courts, one can assume.

(Y'all, this stuff is all verifiable. If you're going to lie, at least lie about stuff they can't check.)

Now, I'm not going to try to figure out their motives here. I have no reason to think that Silsby and co. had any intention of selling the kids into slavery or as exotic pets to high-bidding Americans. But I feel perfectly comfortable raising an eyebrow at their actions after they started lying about them. In making the Heinlein's Law determination regarding stupidity and malice, lying about your actions offers more than enough reasonable doubt to start the needle swinging.

Yesterday's post was going to close with a comment about how it's important to follow your heart, but you have to let your head be in charge of it or else you find yourself in a Haitian jail on charges of child trafficking. Today, though, I can leave them with only this: You tried to smuggle undocumented children across a national border, you lied to officials about how and where you got them, and you lied to the parents about why you were taking them, where they were going, and what was going to happen when they got there. If it turns out that your motives were the tiniest bit ulterior, I hope they throw the damn book at you. And even if it turns out that this whole massive cockup really was some honest(ly stupid) mistake, I hope you all get at least a few months in jail for being idiots. At the very least, it'll make the streets safer for our children.

On Stuff White People Like #132: Ironic Self-Awareness

Okay, so as apology for the rather heavy post I just flung at you, I present a lighthearted romp following a recent visit to that blessed repository of Stuff White People Like. I actually found that site after following a link sent by a "friend" to Things Marketing People Love, at which I laughed and laughed until I got down to "Threadless t-shirts." ("But--but they're--It's not because--I don't--Oh, man, I suck.)

I had that same reaction running down the list at Stuff White People Like: "I mean, yes, but I'm not like that. The thing with Ed Hardy is--" "Yeah, but high school--" "I don't treat my dog--" But the fact is, there's no way around it: I am she about whom that Web site is written. It's terrifying. Nobody likes to think that someone else's utter stereotyping of your particular psychosocioeconomic group would so stultify your personal sense of individuality, but there you go.

So here, without excuse or explanation, without any further weak attempt at self-defense, is a list of Stuff that I, as a White Person, Like, whether I like it or not:

#128 Camping
#127 Where the Wild Things Are
#126 Vespa scooters
#124 Hating people who wear Ed Hardy
#115 Promising to learn a new language
#113 Halloween
#111 Pea coats
#109 The Onion
#106 Facebook
#104 Girls with bangs
#103 Sweaters
#101 Being offended
#99 Grammar
#97 Scarves
#94 Free health care
#92 Book deals
#88 Having gay friends
#84 T-shirts
#83 Bad memories of high school
#78 Multilingual children
#77 Musical comedy
#76 Bottles of water
#72 Study abroad
#69 Mos Def
#64 Recycling
#57 Juno
#55 Apologies
#53 Dogs
#51 Living by the water
#50 Irony
#49 Vintage
#44 Public radio
#40 Apple products
#39 Netflix
#35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
#29 80s night
#24 Wine
#19 Traveling
#13 Tea
#12 Non-profit organizations
#8 Barack Obama
#2 Religions their parents don't belong to
#1 Coffee

That gives me 43 items out of the current list of 131, making me 32.8 percent Stereotypical White Person. Give me a North Face jacket and a townhome in Williamsburg, and I'll get back to you in a couple of months.

I did it; now it's your turn. Run down the list, white people, and see how uncomfortably close to home it may actually hit. And POC, you might want to give it a try, too--it won't make you white, but you may discover you're actually a hipster and you never knew it.

On freedom of speach

Okay, so as soon as it was announced that Focus on the Family would be running an ad about abortion starring football-media-darling Tim Tebow during the Super Bowl, you knew there would be opposition from women's and/or liberal groups. And when that opposition arose, you knew there would be counter-opposition in the form of 1., "Tim Tebow is God's own anointed quarterback, so it's best to just give him what he wants," and 2., "FREEDOM OF SPEACH MOTHER EFFERS!"

And as soon as that popped out, you knew ACG was going to get that twitchy thing below her left eye, because she hate-hate-HATES that argument.

And it's not like I haven't made this point before, but obviously Practically Harmless doesn't have a voice loud enough to reach the whole world (or even the comments thread at SB Nation). And so I shall embark once again on what ma have to become a regular feature: Freedom of Speach Watch: This Has Nothing to Do With the First Amendment.

Because it doesn't. The question of the government's censorship of lawful expression isn't at issue here--and that's what the First Amendment addresses, your not-complete-but-pretty-comprehensive freedom from censorship by the government. But having the right to say something and having a venue to say it are two different things, and no one is required to provide you with the latter, regardless of how they feel about the former.

And that's what's at issue here: the venue. This is a particularly big issue because it's a particularly big venue--Super Bowl Ex Ell Eye Vee is expected to bring in 150 million viewers in the U.S. alone. That's $2.5 million for 30 seconds that will reach 150 million people live, plus the countless others who will be watching and re-watching the ads online. A study by Nielsen suggests that 51 percent of viewers will be tuning in to CBS just for the ads. So CBS has likely taken great care in the way they've sold and distributed ad space, and with a hot button issue like abortion, a lot of people are going to be paying attention to how they do it.

So how do they do it?

- In 2004, CBS turned down a Super Bowl ad from MoveOn.org that negatively portrayed George Bush. (They approved ad buys from Anheuser-Busch featuring a farting Clydesdale and a sexually aggressive monkey.)

- That same year, CBS (and partner UPN, as well as NBC) refused to run two ads from the United Church of Christ as being "unacceptable for broadcast" for highlighting the UCC's acceptance of gays, racial minorities, and people with disabilities.

- Last year, NBC declined to run a PETA ad that they deemed too racy.

- This year, CBS turned down $3 million for an ad from a gay dating site.

- It's CBS's air time, and particularly on an occasion like this, they have a vested interest in keeping things largely neutral and inoffensive to viewers--they have a right to ban controversial ads as much as they do sexually provocative halftime shows and spicy language by sideline reporters in the interest of keeping things family-friendly.

So that's what the issue is here: not whether CBS is bound by the First Amendment but whether they have made a wise choice in how they've distributed their ad space.

And when women's groups speak up against it, you know what? That is protected free speach. They have as much right to their opinion as Focus on the Family has to theirs, and they've managed to find a venue (in this case, several media outlets) in which to express it. And they aren't even questioning Focus on the Family's right to run the ad, merely CBS's choice to show it during the Super Bowl.

Once we get past the government's non-interference with Focus on the Family's freedom of speach, it all comes down to one thing: market forces. Capitalism at its finest. CBS chooses to run the Focus on the Family ad because they'll get money to do it. Women's groups choose to protest, since CBS has declined to run similarly issue-y ads in the past. CBS shrugs. Ain't no skin off their bottom line.

What if the women's groups decided to take it further? They could start going for the skin on CBS's bottom line by, for instance, organizing a boycott of Super Bowl fixtures like Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, and Doritos as long as CBS plans to run the Focus on the Family ad. Those companies could well go to CBS and saying, "This ain't worth it to us, CBS. It's us or Tebow." Forced to choose between Jesus and Benjamin Franklin, CBS would likely follow the money. And if (unlikely as it would be) that were to happen, it wouldn't be censorship--it would be business. Which is how the free market is supposed to work.

And thus I bring it back to me (because this is all, in the end, about me). How do I feel about CBS running the ad?

1. I'm agin it. If a network has a policy against running "issues" ads or "advocacy" ads, they need to stick to that policy and not run those ads--even if they come from a conservative politician or fundamentalist religious group.

2. I'm agin it. The "I'm glad my mom didn't abort me" argument always creeps me out anyway, but I also tend to raise an eyebrow at the "I could have had an abortion, but I didn't, and you can not-have one too" arguments. I'm glad that Mrs. Tebow was able to carry a very challenging--but very much wanted--pregnancy to completion, and I'm glad that she was able to make the choice to do so--but there are a lot of people who don't have the resources to do the former, and with Focus on the Family working hard to deny women the opportunity to do the latter, I have to call foul on this one.

3. I'm agin it. As sports columnist Gregg Doyel says, Super Bowl Sunday is a day for football, not pressing and divisive social issues. Eight o'clock Sunday morning is the time for moral and religious issues, and 6:30 (EST) Sunday evening is the time for athletic and officiating issues. Which means that I agree with Gregg Doyel. I'm agin that, too.

4. I'm agin it. Regardless of the subject, if you have an issue that's as significant and deeply felt as a woman's right to choose, it's certainly not best served shoehorned between a farting horse and a horny monkey.

On saving the tatas and/or, y'know, women

Okay, so maybe I'm just a particularly incurious person, but when a few of my friends popped up with Facebook status updates like "lavender lace" and "black!!!" I didn't immediately hop to Teh Google to find out what they were talking about. I figured that it was, like so many overblown Facebook security warnings and "tell me exactly what you think of me and then post this as your status IF YOU DARE!!!" memes, something that didn't particularly concern me. I certainly didn't receive any messages indicating that I should do otherwise. It was only when a few folks started posting actual links to actual blog posts and news stories that I understood the trend and why, purportedly, I was meant to care:

Just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men. ... It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status... Haha!

Now, far be it from me to discourage anyone from any kind of activism or raising of awareness, but... really? Is that going to do it? If I were to post "blue plaid" (really, it's totally cute) as my Facebook status, would my friends' minds fly immediately to the plight of women (and men) with breast cancer? Blogger Bilial Hameed said, "The campaign has marked the first successful use of Facebook status updates with very few words to send a powerful message across," but what was that "powerful" message? The status updates themselves don't include links to breast cancer sites, urge women to perform breast self-exams, or even mention breast cancer--or for that matter, even breasts, or even bras--at all. It strikes me that

1. it's the viral message itself, not the fun and naughty status updates, that spreads awareness, meaning that any woman who didn't receive the message would gain no awareness of anything from the statuses;

2. explicitly excluding men from the game misses a whole subpopulation that also can be concerned about breast cancer and supportive of breast cancer research; and

3. people who argue, "But it's obviously been successful! Look at how everyone's talking about it now!" fail to notice that all of the chatter and media attention is centering around the sassiness of the bra-color meme and still not around breast cancer awareness, fund raising, or research.

It also strikes me that this is another awareness campaign that puts all of the emphasis on the jalumbos and not the women behind them. I will admit to having--and loving--a bright-pink "Save 2nd Base" t-shirt with appropriately placed baseballs because I think it's funny. Its purchase also contributed money to breast cancer research, and the corresponding Web site (www.save2ndbase.com) is named on the back. This isn't to pat myself on the back for being super-duper generous and thoughtful (because the fact is, there's a lot more that I could do than wear a sassy t-shirt) but to point out that boobs are hardly the worst things a woman, and her family, can lose during her battle with breast cancer.

Blogger Kate Dailey points out, in a post about provocative, bikini-centric awareness ads, "While breasts can be sexy, breast cancer is a serious, sometimes deadly disease. And younger activists hoping to draw attention to the issue and recruit younger donors are not above using sex--along with viral video, catchy slogans, and stylish T shirts--to promote breast-cancer awareness. But are ads that play up the desirability of full breasts in a string bikini sensitive to cancer patients with mastectomy scars?" Bouncing melons certainly are a striking, attention-grabbing image--much more so than solemn talk about cancer screening and the impact of research dollars--but by emphasizing some sexual, sensual essentialism of breasts, what are we saying to women who have already given theirs up to save their lives, or to women who already fear the loss of their femininity and self-image as they stare down the barrel of a mastectomy? What does it say about us that we only think about saving women's lives if it's by way of saving their ladypillows?

The real importance of raising awareness isn't about the bra or the breasts inside of the bra--it's about the woman behind the breasts inside the bra. And in our effort to find a new, attention-getting, tittylating (couldn't resist) approach to increasing awareness, we need to remember that.

There's no real harm, in the end, in posting a mysterious and contextless color in your status--but there isn't really any benefit, either. It's fun and sassy, and all of the men wonder what naughtiness you're up to, but you aren't spreading a powerful message unless you're spreading a message. If you want to play the game, try adding a link along with your color; consider the American Cancer Society's instructions on performing a breast self-exam to remind women to check themselves monthly, their page about breast cancer in men to remind the men in your life that they're vulnerable too, or Think Before You Pink, a site to help you evaluate breast cancer charities and pink-ribbon campaigns to make sure your dollars are put to good use. Maybe make a donation to a breast cancer research charity and challenge your friends to do the same (awareness and screening are important, but let's not forget the importance of research in curing and preventing breast cancer). Draw attention to the numerous issues currently influencing women's health: new health guidelines that could ultimately limit women's access to cancer screening and information about self-exams, gender inequity in health-care coverage, commonly used hormones and chemicals that can contribute to breast cancer, and the best use for breast cancer research funding. So go ahead--e-flash your Facebook friends and confuse the guys. But don't forget that you're doing it for a reason.

On monkeys eating Jell-O

Okay, so by way of apologizing for exposing you to that... product, my gift to you: squirrel monkeys eating Jell-O.



We cool now?

On the plight of small-bootied women

Okay, so I thought it was a portent of badness when, on my first day of the new year, I got to mop up dog puke, thus nearly concussing myself on the inside of Dave's crate and missing the morning staff meeting. It turns out I was right, because I find, when I get to work, an e-mail directing me to a product that addresses that most vital of womanly concerns:



1. I can't really speak to the usefulness of the Booty Pop, because, as a woman with a sufficient abundance of booty, I'm not the target market. But the women in the video seem ready to weep in the ladies' room and cut themselves at their lack of booty, and they seem orgasmically elated at the new addition of booty, so I guess the product is a winner.

2. We all know how I feel about the word "booty." Shudder.

3. I'm concerned about the woman in the ad who is speaking animatedly with her friend as the third woman comes out of the dressing room to show off her brand-new ass. I know that my friends and I have been known to say to each other things like, "Wow, your ass looks great in those jeans," but it never really goes further than that. We certainly don't discuss it with a third party while the owner of the ass in question preens in the mirror. This woman may well be saying something like, "God, she's already such a slut, even without an ass. With that thing, she's going to be through both of our boyfriends by lunchtime. God help us if she gets a ShapeChanger too."

4. The popping sound as the women's butts go from flat to fabulous strikes me as unhealthy.

5. The whole thing makes me think about the scene in Bridget Jones's Diary where Bridget is deciding which knickers to wear on a date.

Major dilemma. If I actually do, by some terrible chance, end up in flagrante, surely these [lacy knickers] would be most attractive at crucial moment. However, chances of reaching crucial moment greatly increased by wearing these scary, stomach-holding-in panties very popular with grannies the world over. Tricky. Very tricky.

There's also the concern that, in the heat of the moment, when the Booty Pops come off, your male admirer will feel a victim of false advertising.

Use in conjunction with the Invisible Tummy Trimmer to completely disguise the shape of your shamefully natural body and cut off all circulation below the waist.

(h/t Holly)

On people who make the world better

Okay, so at the tail end of a year that's been liberally punctuated with stories of greed, infidelity, dishonesty, and flat-out hatred, it felt like a blessing this morning to hear a story about one anonymous stranger's kindness and generosity to some of the neediest people.

There was something special on the menu at a New York soup kitchen Thursday.

Those eating lunch at the Broadway Community Inc. facility in Manhattan got a taste of the luxury life, thanks to a gift of caviar from an anonymous donor.

...

Chef Michael Ennes of Broadway Community Inc., told CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallce when he heard of the caviar donation, he thought, "'Yeah, right.'"

But, in fact, it was an honest-to-God 500-gram, $1,100 tin of sturgeon caviar. Reactions at the facility ranged from "Holy crap, it's an $1,100 tin of caviar" to "What the hell are we supposed to do with an $1,100 tin of caviar?" But Ennes was resolute.

We're serving this bad boy, he said.

Of course, the challenge at that point was one of the fishes-and-loaves variety, making one tin of caviar go 150 ways. Ennes and crew served up sour cream and egg whites and yolks and chives on cornmeal blinis with a dab of $1,100 freaking caviar on top.

Diana Conyers, who received a meal at the soup kitchen, said, "I thought it would taste yuck because I never had caviar. It was surprising, it tasted pretty good."

Michelle Seliem and her 8-year-old daughter--who have been living in a domestic violence shelter for five years--loved it.

Seliem said,"It was delicious."

But what did it taste like?

"Fish," she said, laughing.

Though the $1,100 value of the caviar could have covered more meals for the needy, it was the experience that was priceless.

Hosna Seliem told Wallace, "I felt like a princess."

And I think that's kind of the point. These are people who, to put it baldly, eat at soup kitchens. Even at the most well-equipped shelters, they're likely to enjoy an appetizer of four servings of soup stretched six ways. The value of this anonymous gift was not the cash value of the caviar but the experience, for the diners at the kitchen, of setting aside five years in a domestic violence shelter, just for one day, and feeling like a princess. There seems to be a perception these days that if the poor aren't living in dark, squalid tenements and dressing in rags, they aren't truly poor or they don't deserve help. At least one person out there recognized that people who have nothing still deserve to have dignity.

George Evans, a diner at the facility, said, "Whoever donated this, maybe they woke up one morning and said 'I have a little more, let me give.'"

If you realize you have a little more, you can donate (and it doesn't have to be caviar) to Broadway Community Inc. or visit Feeding America to find a food bank in your area.

Happy new year, all. Stay merry and safe.

On protecting the drunks of New York from underpants bombers and masked bandits

Okay, so it's safe to assume that a holiday like New Year's Eve would be, if any day, one targeted for terrorism--there are a bunch of people wander the streets drunker'n hell, and an attack is likely to get a lot of attention and really stick in the minds of the attacked. Which is why New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is working to protect Times Square revelers from any threats nuclear, chemical, biological, or Gargamellical:

The NYPD will have radiation and biological detection devices deployed in Times Square, decontamination facilities set up, and sniper teams in position. Backpacks won't be allowed, garages will be searched, and surveillance operations conducted.

Plus, the mayor says, you too can help.

"If you see anything, they'll be plenty of police officers to talk to," Mayor Mike Bloomberg said. "Walk up and say, 'Hey, I may be wrong, but that guy looks nefarious.'" (emphasis mine)

So this Thursday, New Yorkers, keep your eyes peeled for mustachioed men tying women to subway rails, disembodied metal hands accompanied by fluffy white cats, or a short little guy with a head that looks like a football.

And if you see something shifty, don't be afraid to find the nearest cop and tell him, "Listen, I'm not sure exactly what's up, but there are some guys over there in t-shirts with snakes on them who keep yelling, 'COBRA!'"

I mean, they don't look like they'd be able to make more than a momentary stand before being soundly defeated despite their superior numbers, but better safe than sorry.

On Santa Claus (there is one)

Okay, so not that radio silence isn't an (unfortunately) increasingly common thing here at Practically Harmless, but I'm going to be taking the rest of the week off to celebrate Christmas with my family. But far be it from me to leave my reader hanging. My Christmas gift to you is not my usual dreck but, instead, the non-dreck of a newsman in 1897 and a little girl who wants very much to believe.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN it's so." Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O'HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and safe travels.

On unwed mothers, universal health care, and choice

Or, Sing of Mary, Pregnant and Uninsured

Okay, so I will never not be entertained by the fact that Chuck Norris (who has two speeds--walk and kill) has a column at WorldNet Daily. I believe that everyone is entitled to a voice, and I like the fact that Chuck Norris (who once shot a German fighter plane down with his finger by yelling "Bang") not only has his but has it endorsed by the fine and reasonable folks at WorldNet Daily. If there is anyone whose word should not only be considered but should, in fact, be law, it's Chuck Norris (who doesn't shower--he only takes blood baths).

This week, in honor of Christmas, Chuck (who does not sleep--he waits) takes on the question that's been on everyone's mind: What if the Virgin Mary had had Obamacare?

...[A]s we near the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary had been covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind if their parents had been as progressive as Washington’s wise men and women! Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn?

It's a reasonable question, of course. There are women all over the country who do end up giving birth simply because they lack the resources to terminate their pregnancy early on. And of the women who do manage to have abortions, whether by obstetrician or by coat hanger, any might have been carrying the next Einstein (or the next Hitler) or the next Fleming (or the next John Wayne Gacy) or the next Shakespeare (or the next John Stamos). So what if the Blessed Virgin had had full access to the range of medical services available to pregnant teenagers?

I seem to have a book here that talks a lot about Mary when she was pregnant. Let's open it up, shall we?

First, we have to consider the image of an unwed girl, fourteenish, who's sitting in her room in Nazareth, hand-weaving a nuptial garment and reading Twilight when a freaking angel comes down and says (Luke 1:28-38),

"Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Holy crap! Mary thinks. What is up? But the angel says,

"Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end... The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

which one could imagine is a pretty intimidating thing to hear from an angel. And yet faced with the heavy burden of gestating and delivering the son of the Almighty, this 14-year-old says,

"I am the Lord's servant... May it be to me as you have said.

Damn. Not exactly the words of a girl who's going to get rid of it using federal tax dollars later. (Also, fairly ballsy words for a girl who's going to be discussed as a mild little virgin for the rest of her life, but that's another post for another time.)

Now, Chuck (who once ate three 72-ounce steaks in one hour--and spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress) raises the entirely legitimate subject of the ostracism and persecution that would likely accompany her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And the Bible does say that Joseph's initial plan was to divorce her. However (Matthew 1:20-25),

after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, “God with us.”


When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

So it sounds like Joseph, too, was on board with God's plan and fairly excited about the prospect of being stepdad to the savior of the world. And we can also consider the fact that, had she changed her mind, even in that time Mary would have had several (not necessarily safe) options for terminating the pregnancy had she so chosen. So it sounds like Mary’s access to abortion coverage would have been pretty moot anyway, making Chuck’s (who once ate a whole cake before his friends told him there was a stripper in it) “what if Mary had been covered by Obamacare” about as valid a question as “what if the three wise men were actually space aliens.”

But that's not the real question. What Chuck (who can, in fact, believe it's not butter) entirely misses is that the wondrous thing about Christmas wasn't that Mary got knocked up and, for lack of health insurance, went ahead and had the baby. She was young and healthy and had the support of a fiance who was (with some angelic prompting) willing to stay with her and help her. The wondrous thing was that when Mary and Joseph were faced with such a formidable and awesome responsibility, they saw it as a gift from God and wanted it very much. Would that every child be conceived under such circumstances and that every pregnant woman have those options. And would that, in modern times, we are able to provide women like Mary all of the help and options they need.

On the wonders/hazards of technology

Okay, so quick survey of my reader. Wishlists on Amazon and other online retailers make things really easy for people who insist on buying us gifts at Christmas, whether or not that's a big deal for us, even if we swear quite sincerely that we don't need or expect anything at all, but the gift-giver insists that we make a list anyway because he wants to buy us something, but he doesn't know what we want, so it kind of feels like making a shopping list and sending him to the mall, but if it makes him happy we go ahead and do it because we love him and want him to be happy, The Boy.

Anyway, these lists frequently include an option to sort items by gifts purchased and gifts unpurchased. They question: Do you peek? Do you check back to the list and see what has already been purchased, or do you choose "purchased items" to sustain the surprise? For that matter, if you have kids, did you want to know the sex of the baby beforehand or wait until the doctor pulled it out and checked the undercarriage? It's kind of the digital equivalent to shaking presents under the tree, albeit a lot more accurate. (The Amazon wishlist is, of course, rather than the sex of the baby. One is discouraged from shaking babies.)

I'll admit: I was a checker. But at the same time, I was a sustainer. Having directed folks to my wishlist, I have gone back a single time with the intention of peeking. And when I did this, Amazon stopped me by hiding all of the already-purchased gifts. "Do you really want to know this?" Amazon asked. "Do you really want to ruin the surprise? You can click here to show the gifts that have been purchased, but if you do, they won't be a surprise." And facing that door, I chose not to peer through the keyhole to see what Godpapa Drosselmeyer had planned for Christmas. The promise of a surprise stands, and the delicious anticipation gets deliciouser and more anticipatory by the second.

Thank you, Amazon.

On a woman with her priorities straight

Or, Who's a Good Boy? Who Is a Good Boy? Is That You? Are You the Good Boy? Yes You Are. Yes You Are. You're the Good Boy. Yes Sir. Yes You Are.

Okay, so regardless of politics and my satisfaction with President Obama's performance thus far, I still have a hetero girlcrush on Michelle Obama. I like the way she dresses, I like her attitude, I like the way she is with her kids, and I like the way she manages to seem friendly and approachable while simultaneously non-shit-taking. I've long thought that I'd love to hang out with her for a day.

Now that's been amended to "hang out with her and let our dogs play together." I call this "'I think about how your life has changed, and you're managing a--' 'Whatevs Oprah puppypuppypuppypuppypuppy.'"



1. That is not a dog. That is a stuffed animal. I've seen real dogs, and real dogs do not look that soft and cuddly. They look soft and cuddly, but not that soft and cuddly.

2. Michelle Obama talks baby talk to her dog. I feel much better about talking baby talk to my dog.

3. Look at those paws. Just look at them. Are you looking? Don't you just want to take a bite out of those paws? Don't lie; you know you do.

(Also, don't miss Bo Obama's New York Times op-ed.)

(H/t my guilty pleasure LaineyGossip

On the various reasons for the season(s)

Okay, so during this morning's Wake Up Alabama on CBS 42 (don't judge me; it comes on right before the Early Show), our girl Shanisty Myers introduced a segment about Briarwood Church's live nativity scene (which is actually pretty pimp--they have live camels) thusly: "Now, we all know the real reason for the season..."

Now, while this particular segment would certainly be considered "Christmas-Friendly" (thanks for the link, Holly, and also, I hate you), it could also be considered "newscast-inappropriate" if only for the fact that its facts are questionable: We don't know that everyone does, in fact, know the reason for the season, partly because we don't, in fact, know exactly what the reason really is.

"ACG, you're just anti-Christian and anti-Christmas and you probably say Happy Holidays and you're going to hell!" The last part may be more or less accurate, as is the next-to-last, but the first two are absolutely untrue. I happen to be a Christian, and I happen to love Christmas. Love, love, love. Love the lights, love the music, love the wrapping paper, love the sudden attention to peace on earth and good will toward men, love Love Actually and The Muppet Christmas Carol and Mickey's Christmas Carol (now available on mp3 via Amazon.com), oh sweet baby Jesus do I love it so.

But that's just the stuff I love about the season. I also like the holiday itself in the sense that I do, in fact, know the reason for Christmas. And I love that, too. I love midnight Mass, I love advent wreaths, I love O Come All Ye Faithful and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and the high note at the end of O Holy Night (thank you, Beth Campbell, and may God bless you and keep you healthy for the coming Christmas Eve). I love both the solemn and the joyous celebration.

But I can hardly say that Jesus is the reason for the season, because there's a lot going on throughout the season that doesn't involve Him. In addition to Christmas, we have Hanukkah, Muharram, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, and even, if you like, Festivus during the holiday/Christmas season. And for that matter, if we're really interested in celebrating the birth of Jesus, we'll be doing it in late September, when shepherds would be watching their flocks by night and all of the inns would be full (check it). So Jesus is really the reason for the season of early fall.

The upshot is: Learn to share, people. You wouldn't expect the checkout guy at Target to acknowledge your birthday, so why expect him to wish you a merry Christmas when he has no way of knowing if you celebrate Christmas at all? Besides, Christmas is one day (two, if you make a big deal out of Christmas Eve, which I always do). If you choose to have happy holidays, you get 19 days of happy (21 if you count New Year's Eve and Pan American Aviation Day). If you're willing to turn down 17 additional days of celebration just for the sake of laying dubious claim to the whole month of December, you're probably the kind of person who isn't going to have a merry Christmas anyway. So lighten up.

In the immortal words of this year's Gap holiday commercial, "Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go without a tree... I mean, do whatever you wannakah and to all a cheery night."

That means all of you. Seriously. Relax and let it happen.



Happy holidays.

On an issue of safety

Okay, so past posts may have given the impression that I'm not crazy about kids, and that makes me sad, because it's entirely not the case. Parents frustrate me sometimes, though, and I do have one more message to convey:

Forget annoying; letting your kids free-range around a restaurant is dangerous. While your cute little queso-smeared angel is making laps around the tables, it would take a second and a half for some stranger to snatch her up by the armpits and carry her out the door. As much as I value a peaceful dining experience, I would rather be pelted with a thousand tortilla chips than see something bad happen to your kid.

Please, please, please look after your kids.

On the second verse (same as the first)

Okay, so I thought my faithful reader might be interested in an update on my recent hassle with Artur Davis in re: the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. If you'll remember, I sent him a sincere, deeply felt e-mail imploring him to sign Representatives Diana DeGette's and Louise Slaughter's letter of opposition to Nancy Pelosi. His reply went a little something like this:

Thank you for contacting me with your thoughts and concerns regarding abortion services within the health care reform package. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.

...

I have joined other members of Congress in urging Speaker Pelosi to include language in any final healthcare reform bill that makes clear that no federal dollars can be used to finance coverage of an abortion...

As you might imagine, I was somewhat... frustrated by his response. I promptly sent a response to his response, not unsimilar to the corresponding blog post (although somewhat less profane), expressing my dismay that he obviously didn't even read my previous e-mail, that his views and values on the matter were obviously in direct contradiction to mine, and that I obviously won't be voting for him in his future gubernatorial efforts.

It took him not a week to respond:

Thank you for contacting me with your thoughts and concerns regarding abortion services within the health care reform package. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter...

Dude. You have to get better interns. Also, fuck you, Artur Davis.

On Christian charity and good will

Okay, so in this holiday season, I think it would do us well to remember the words of Jesus when he said, "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you demanded two form of identification, established that my parents hadn't gone through the proper channels to immigrate from Bethlehem, and told me that Santa wasn't coming this year because I was a filthy criminal":

They don't claim to know who's been naughty or nice, but some Houston charities are asking whether children are in the country legally before giving them toys.

In a year when more families than ever have asked for help, several programs providing Christmas gifts for needy children require at least one member of the household to be a U.S. citizen. Others ask for proof of income or rely on churches and schools to suggest recipients.

The Salvation Army and a charity affiliated with the Houston Fire Department are among those that consider immigration status, asking for birth certificates or Social Security cards for the children.

...

The Outreach Program requires parents to show photo identification and birth certificates or Social Security cards for the children. [Lorugene] Young said she makes an exception if parents can show they have applied for legal status or that a child is enrolled in school.

Young said, "It's not our desire to turn anyone down. Those kids are not responsible if they are here illegally. It is the parents' responsibility.”

Um, yeah, Lorugene, you're absolutely right. It's not the kids' responsibility. And it would suck to deny them Christmas presents because of something that's entirely beyond their control. So why don't we try... not doing that.

This isn't the first time the Salvation Army has let politics and discrimination get in the way of good will and charity. In both San Francisco and New York, the S.A. has been willing to close shelters and cut programs for the needy rather than comply with legislation requiring that any businesses that have partnerships or contracts with those cities offer domestic-partner benefits. And they fought hard--successfully--to enjoy federal funds without sacrificing their policy that "unrenounced" gays are "ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership."

And now they want to deny Christmas to little poor kids. Wow. Nice going, there, S.A. Right Christian of you.

Commentary around the Web (and at the bottom of the linked article; never read the comments at the bottom of the article, never) seem to fall into the category of "WTF? What a bunch of douches. It's Christmas, ferfuckssake" or "There are too many Americans in need right now. These people need to just get Christmas presents from their own damn country." To the latter, all I can say is, "Poor children. Poor children, motherfuckers. Little poor children. Regardless of how they ended up in this country, they are poor children. It's not a matter of teeny little border-jumpers stealing teddy bears from the arms of good, clean-living American toddlers. It's a matter of not punishing little kids for what their parents have done and telling them they don't get Christmas because they don't belong here."

And what sucks is that a Salvation Army bucket may be the closest thing a person gets to charity the entire year. I know that personally, unless it's a collection plate or a ringing handbell, I frequently don't think about donating at all. And while I know so many people hate the incessant ringing outside of every store they visit at Christmastime, I absolutely love it and have always seen it as the ultimate symbol of what Christmas is supposed to mean: generosity, compassion, thinking about someone other than ourselves for one damn time in our lives. I don't know if I'll be able to look at it that way anymore, knowing that my handful of change wouldn't make it to some of the people who need it most.

Luke 18:16: "But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

We should expect nothing less from a Christian charity.

Little poor children, ferfuckssake.

On the land of T-bone steaks and unending tummy rubs

Okay, so UGA's beloved mascot, Uga VII, passed away Thursday morning from a heart attack.

As a Bulldog, I mourn the loss of our mascot, who was a big chunk of bulldog and a commanding presence on the sideline. As a dog owner, I feel awful for the Seiler family, who lost a family pet; those who have met him say he was a friendly, good-natured dog. The average lifespan for a bulldog is eight years, and the Seilers have seen the passing of six Ugas before, but I'm sure that doesn't make it any easier this time.

Georgia won't have a bulldog mascot on the sidelines this weekend against Kentucky, but there are plans to hang a wreath on his doghouse. The Seilers plan to have a dawg in place at next Saturday's game against Georgia Tech, although it won't necessarily be the next Uga.

Rest in peace, Uga VI's Loran's Best, and may you find mountains of kibble and bountiful bags of ice. You were a damn good dawg and a good boy.

On the stupidity inherent in the system

Okay, so it's no secret that I'm fairly exercised about the current health-care debate, particularly in re: the Stupak Amendment and reproductive rights. So when I got to a link from the Center for Reproductive Rights encouraging me to send an e-mail to my representative, urging him to sign Representatives Diana DeGette's and Louise Slaughter's letter of opposition to Nancy Pelosi, I was all for it. I sat down and penned an eloquent missive to my rep, Artur Davis. No form letter, this--I spoke of the plight of poor and middle-class women struggling for access to health care, the need for that health care to be comprehensive and address all of their needs as determined by that woman and her doctor, not as decided by a bunch of strangers in Congress or a bunch of fundamentalists behind a Web site. I implored him to be brave, to do what he knew was right instead of what would be expected of him from the Mountain Brook housewives in his district. God, it was a fine letter.

I shortly got an e-mail from Nancy Northrup with the CRR, thanking me for participating. "Thank you for taking action on this urgent issue," she said. "Every message sent will make a difference."

Maybe in a different district. Maybe in a different state. Maybe, certainly, with a different representative. But not with our buddy Artur Davis.

Artie writes:

Thank you for contacting me with your thoughts and concerns regarding abortion services within the health care reform package. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.

Well, y'know, it's what I do. I care.

As the health care reform legislation continues to take shape in both chambers of Congress over the next several weeks, I share your concerns about the use of federal funds to provide abortion services. I have joined other members of Congress in urging Speaker Pelosi to include language in any final healthcare reform bill that makes clear that no federal dollars can be used to finance coverage of an abortion-whether through a public option or through the direct use of federal subsidies to individuals. I believe this approach is consistent with the Hyde Amendment, a thirty year old federal prohibition on the use of Medicaid dollars to finance an abortion.

It's a big deal, y'know? Whether we like it or not, abortion services are an important part of comprehensive health care for women, so it's important to defend--wait, what?

I have joined other members of Congress in urging Speaker Pelosi to include language in any final healthcare reform bill that makes clear that no federal dollars can be used to finance coverage of an abortion...

Ah. Well, then, fuck you, Artur Davis.

He goes on to blah, blah, blah, and abortion is controversial and emotional, and tax dollars and an event that offends people's beliefs, and whatever, and I don't care, because fuck you, Artur Davis.

Please know that as this process moves forward I will continue to keep your thoughts in mind.

Why start now?

Again, thank you for contacting me, and I look forward to hearing from you in the future on matters that are important to you.

I'm pretty sure you won't. I'm not a fan of wasting my time. But I can think of a lot of people I can contact on matters that are important to me, and I've got plenty of time to do it between now and November 2010.

So to wrap up: Neither you nor any of your interns even bothered to read my e-mail, you don't share my concerns, you won't get my vote, and to sum up, FUCK YOU, Artur Davis.

Think you might have better luck with your rep? Check out the Center for Reproductive Rights.

On choices

Or, The Stupak, It Burns

Okay, so on Saturday night, the House of Representatives told the women of America to get comfortable under that bus, because universal health care is actually going to be defined as universal except for some women, because their ladyparts sometimes require procedures that we find icky. It may sound like I'm being dramatic, but I'll tell you, it feels pretty darn dramatic. It feels like our elected representatives are willing to screw over poor women and women who couldn't afford insurance without getting it through their employer and women who may get pregnant accidentally and women who may get pregnant intentionally--in other words, every women with a functioning uterus--in the name of affordable health care for the other 49.1 percent of U.S. citizens.

The Stupak Amendment to HR 3962 bans abortion coverage for any private or public health plan receiving federal subsidies--in essence every plan available on the Exchange. Not for any amount of money, not for any woman. Not even for a woman paying her entire premium herself. Not in a box, not with a fox. Thus women who depend on their employers for insurance or women who must pay for their insurance themselves will be left paying out of pocket for what can be a very expensive procedure. Exceptions will be made, of course, for rape, incest, and the life--life, not health--of the mother, so if you're lucky enough to have preeclampsia, you can just wait until the seizures start and then the government will take care of you.

For some reason, Bart Stupak and friends think it's perfectly reasonable that reproductive health services are the only ones that can be left completely out in the cold. They don't, for instance, try to explicitly remove heart disease from the bill, even though it costs taxpayers more annually than women's health services and usually arises from preventable lifestyle choices. Sorry, chubbo, you're paying for your angioplasty out of pocket! Next time you'll think twice before reaching for that rack of ribs. You should have coughed up for that extra heart-disease policy when you had the chance.

Three arguments that I will not entertain:

1. There are more important things to worry about right now! This bill would provide health insurance to 96 percent of Americans; can't you just compromise for their sake?

Well, no, I can't. Among those 96 percent are nearly 150 million women who may someday need reproductive health coverage. Congress would never try to pass a bill explicitly requiring insurers to deny coverage for obesity, and if they did, Americans would be up in arms. They would never try to pass a bill explicitly denying coverage for sickle-cell anemia. Yet when it's women getting the fuzzy end of the universal health-care lollipop, we're expected to sit back quietly, in the name of compromise, and hope that we'll someday get our chance to politely request the benefits that are offered to everyone else without thought or question. Hell, it's the sitting back quietly and politely that's gotten us into this situation.

2. The Hyde Amendment already says that federal dollars can't be used for abortions. It's not like women are any worse off.

First of all, let me note that even if women weren't any worse off, they'd be no worse off than a bad position. The Hyde Amendment was bad from the start, and women have been fighting against it from the start. It's like saying, "Oh, he's just trapped in the forest with a broken femur. It's not like it's raining or anything." No, it sure isn't raining, but that doesn't mean he's okay out there with his broken femur, and it doesn't mean someone doesn't need to go in there and help him.

That said, no, in fact, women are worse off. The Hyde Amendment, lousy as it is, only says that federal dollars can't be used for abortions. The Stupak Amendment extends that to all insurance sold through the Exchange, even to women who themselves pay their entire premiums without using federal dollars. Whereas before, it was only poor women on Medicaid who were left out in the cold, now it's any woman who can't afford to pay $1,500 for a D&E after her much-wanted baby is discovered to have hydrocephalus. Sure, she could have bought an abortion rider, but she probably didn't expect to ever need an abortion, any more than a person would buy a bus-hitting rider in anticipation of being hit by a bus.

3. I think that abortion is murder, and I don't want my tax dollars to fund murder.

Of course you don't. Neither does the pacifist who believes that war is murder--and yet still has to watch her tax dollars fund war. Neither does the person who believes that the death penalty is murder--and yet still has to watch his tax dollars fund executions. But in 1976, our government ruled that people who oppose abortion have the special privilege of dictating how their taxes are used. Since by current numbers, 57 percent of Americans oppose the Iraq war while only 45 percent oppose abortion, you'd think Congress would be rushing to shield tax dollars from the military rather than from reproductive health, but somehow that isn't the case.

The upshot echoes what President Obama said in an interview with ABC--"This is a health-care bill, not an abortion bill." On the surface, it sounds kind of dismissive, like we're discussing health care now and abortion will have to wait. But taken in context, it has meaning. It means that abortion isn't a separate issue. It means that health care isn't health care without care for every aspect of health, serving every citizen. Discussing abortion as a separate issue ignores the fact that, like diabetes and cancer, reproductive health is an integral aspect of health care crucial to keeping America healthy.

Okay, so I count myself lucky to have friends of a wide variety of personal conviction--Christian to Muslim to atheist, pro-choice to anti-choice and that nebulous in-between where you would never have an abortion yourself but you totally support other women's right to have abortions when please, if you're honest with yourself, you can't know how you would act were such a situation to arise but at least you're not one of those women who are totally anti-choice right up to the point where they find themselves pregnant but then they get to have an abortion because they have a good reason and everyone else just hates babies.

A friend of mine of the Christian, anti-choice variety (who is also generally a very nice and reasonable man, and he and his wife are currently housing a 20-week-old fetus in her abdomen, which they're very excited about, and thus so am I) posted a link on Facebook without comment: Why does Planned Parenthood need a restraining order against Abby Johnson? And my response to that is, well, because.

Let me disclose right away that I am not generally a fan of Double X (for all values of "generally" equal to "at all"). Their XXFactor blog claims to give voice to "what women really think," but its content seems liberally sprinkled with the kind of "just because I don't espouse any generally accepted feminist values doesn't mean I'm not a feminist" drivel that gives Sister F***ers something to link to approvingly in their blogs.

Another thing I'm not a fan of is intellectually incurious--to the point of suspicion--blog posts. Regardless of writer Rachael Larimore's stated intent to "kee[p] an eye on" the issue, she's gotten off to a weak start with a post that accurately parrots a local news story and goes into no further depth, accepting Johnson's accusations about Planned Parenthood's business model without question and speculating--entirely to PP's detriment--from then on.

I won't pretend to know anything more about the subject than Larimore does, and I hope that more information will be forthcoming, but if she's not going to ask questions, I will. If either of my readers has any informed, relevant knowledge on the subject, I invite you to fill in my blanks.

Three questions...

1. Larimore presents the news that Abby Johnson left her job as director of a Planned Parenthood health center (she doesn't say when, but it was October 6) after seeing the ultrasound of an abortion, which I'm sure would be rather a moment for anyone, regardless of value affiliation on the subject. But one has to wonder how Johnson managed to work for Planned Parenthood for eight years--two of those as director--and not know what was going on in those procedure rooms. Was she aware of how surgical abortions work? Did she never wonder what those bleepy machines with the little TV screens were for? What did she think they were doing back there?

Question 1: How did she go eight years without realizing how surgical abortions work?

2. Larimore also repeats without questioning a quote from Johnson:

Johnson says she became conflicted because “she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions,” and that the organization was “changing it's business model from one that pushed prevention, to one that focused on abortion.”

Johnson has said that she never received any e-mails or letters instructing her how to raise profits but that "Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming.'" (Larimore didn't provide that quote herself, but a quick Google search provided a Fox News interview with Johnson as its second result.)

So. In their 2008 annual report, Planned Parenthood claims that three percent of the services provided at their health centers are abortion-related, while 36 percent are related to contraception; they say that 82 percent of their clients received contraception services in 2007. And they say that less than 40 percent of their overall revenue comes from their health centers. And PP's health center in Bryan, Texas, is only one of 850 in the nation.

(If you have a minute, check out Johnson's KEOS interview six weeks ago where she repeated those statistics, talked about the importance of reproductive rights, and mentioned how dishonest and threatening the Coalition for Life were and how she considered the 40 Days of Life to be harassment. Funny, that)

Recognizing that one abortion would certainly provide more income than, say, one pregnancy test or one pack of birth-control pills (although less, potentially, than one IUD or one year of BCPs), how many more abortions would Johnson have to bring into her clinic to have a substantial impact on Planned Parenthood's business model? Would she be expected to go out and recruit new clients to come in and have abortions, or would it be more effective to convince current clients not to use contraception after all?

Question 2: How many more abortions would Johnson have to bring in to have an impact on Planned Parenthood's business model?

3. In that Fox News interview that Larimore never managed to come across in her research on the subject, Johnson says that a visiting doctor could perform "30 to 40 procedures on each day he was there," two days a month. How many could one doctor actually perform in a day? I have this image of a doctor scrubbing in, performing the procedure, scrubbing out, and scrubbing right back in for the next one, like a game of whack-a-mole that leaves him with no time for chart notes or lunch. Is this realistic, or might Johnson have been exaggerating and/or sensationalizing a bit to Fox News because Bill Hemmer is such a muffin?

Question 3: Does the Bryan PP health center force its visiting doctor to work through lunch, or is Bill Hemmer a muffin? (The judges will accept "both" as an answer)

Larimore does ask one question in her post. She asks, "Why does Planned Parenthood need a restraining order against Abby Johnson?" (and also, "Is Planned Parenthood going to such lengths to keep Johnson from discussing its 'business model?'" but that's kind of the same thing). She doesn't want to jump to conclusions. And neither do I.

... and an answer

I do have access to this mystical device called "the Google," though, and it reveals to me wondrous things. For instance, the Google tells me that Salon obtained a copy of Planned Parenthood's petition for the restraining order, which included allegations that the same day Johnson was put on a "performance improvement plan," she was seen copying files and "removing items" from the health center, and that Johnson herself told clinic employees that she'd passed information along to the Coalition for Life and that "something big" was coming up.

Now, Johnson denies the allegations, but considering the threatening nature of much anti-choice activism (which Johnson herself decries in the aforementioned KEOS interview) and the Coalition for Life's own tactics of, for instance, calling the homes of clinic patients to tell their families that they've had abortions, it may be a safer move to restrain now and ask questions later. Later, for instance, on November 10, when a court date has been set up so that both parties can ask questions, and if the allegations turn out to be unfounded, the temporary restraining order won't be extended. But I like to think that if I were a PP patient, my medical records would remain confidential and my family unharassed by anti-choicers even if the clinic director did have a "change of heart."

Anyway, that's one thing that might be an answer to the only question that Rachael Larimore bothered to ask. We'll see how this thing pans out. I'll be watching.

On fishnet Eskimos

Okay, so every reasonably sized non-Amish town will tonight be observing Halloween with that most holy of traditions: slutty costumes. I hit up B&A Warehouse last night for their annual party and found a veritable treasure-trove of slutty costumery--most identifiable, some not; some creative, most not. Some with pants, most--wait, no, none with pants. My bad.

Tonight, of course, women across the city will go all out, wearing clothes that would get them arrested on any other night of the year. Some will find couples costumes so that their significant others can play along--cop and slutty convict, convict and slutty cop, football player and slutty referee, referee and slutty football player. I've been trying to convince The Boy to go with me as doctor and slutty nurse, but he says he doesn't have the legs for fishnets.

Anyway, the most fun is always the people-watching, and people-watching is always more fun with a purpose. Tonight's purpose?

It's Slutty Halloween Bingo.

B	I	N	G	O
Slutty Pirate	Slutty Gladiator	Slutty Schoolgirl	Slutty Cop	Slutty Soldier
Slutty Farmgirl	Slutty Referee	Slutty Baseball Player	Slutty Native American	Slutty Construction Worker
Slutty Geisha	Slutty Rainbow Brite	SLUTTY FREE SPACE	Slutty Bunny	Slutty Angel
Slutty Little Bo Peep	Slutty Devil	Slutty Fairy	Slutty Nurse	Slutty Strawberry Shortcake
Slutty Witch	Slutty French Maid	Slutty Bavarian Barmaid	Slutty Sailor	Slutty Cat

All of these are, of course, actual costumes that I actually saw at B&A last night. Other costumes included Slutty Beach Volleyball Player, Slutty Eskimo, and Slutty Robin (a la Batman), but I didn't know how common those are in your area, so I left them off.

Print this bad boy out and get to checking things off! The first person to scan their winning card and e-mail it to me gets a Flying Spaghetti Monster t-shirt. I'll be posting my own updates on Twitter at #sluttyhalloweenbingo.

On overcoming fear

Okay, so I've got a couple of posts in the can right now (wow, sounds weird, but it stays) that I haven't gotten to because I've been on VACATION, BITCHES. I've been overcoming my fear of an entire week at a secluded beach in Florida with the boyfriend and the dog, far beyond any cell signal and out of reach of my bosses, with nothing to do but hang out on the beach and go for walks and chill out in the evenings with a couple of DVDs. I'm not afraid of you, delicious shrimp and crab cakes and both bay and sea scallops! I WILL EAT YOU!

Anyway, more to come. In the meantime, here's my intensely aquaphobic dog (no joke; he's terrified. Apparently it's fairly common among sled dogs) venturing happily into the surf in pursuit of a stick.



Still can't get him into the pool, though.

Laters.

On twits

Okay, so I have a Twitter account, and I've even used it--fairly consistently, in the beginning, up to the modest point of 100-ish posts and nearly that many followers. Recently, however, I've dropped off considerably, owing largely to the fact that I just don't have time to spend scanning Twitter to divine the meaning of life in 140 characters or less and to the concern that people, even those 89 people, probably don't care that much about what I say anyway. (It also doesn't help that, as a marketing/advertising person, I've been called upon repeatedly to trumpet the ineffable wonders of social media, and I'm just so sick of it. Social media is a tool, people. It only works as a component of a larger, coherent marketing plan. Simply having a Twitter feed is not going to drag in 10,000 new customers, nor is a Facebook page going to make you a millionaire. It's a tool, not an Easy Button, you lazy twits.)

Anyway.

There are people whose opinions on the meaning of life are closely followed. They are the ones we look to for 140-character strokes of brilliance. They are our modern-day philosophers, our reliable dispensaries of little wisdom-gelcaps. They are celebrities, and they always have something to say.

Tweets John Mayer:

You know who the most flamboyant crowd is? Straight, drunk girls. They're like a bunch of little Charles Nelson Reillys.

and Lindsay Lohan:

@samantharonson doesn't respond 2me b/c her family will cut her off if she contacts me...They control the one I love&im incapable of making

That damn character limit. Bring it home, Linds:

Any sort of difference. I'm in love with her, as she is in love with me....but her loved ones-hate her brilliance&resent her happiness

Convicted domestic abuser Chris Brown tells us:

IM SO TIRED OF LAME AZZ PEOPLE...UUGGGGGHHH>>lol

and then expounds with:

IM ALLERGIC TO LAMEZ..LOL...

One of the great questions of our time comes from Jessica Simpson:

Is "asks" even a word? If not, sorry 4 my layziness with grammar.

And one of the great answers of our time comes from P. Diddy:

BRAZIL!!!!! Ass! Ass! Ass! Phat round beautiful ASSES!!!!! Everywhere! Its a ASS suniami!!!!!!!! I think I like it here!!! Lol

But the problem with Twitter is that it's such a harsh, bland medium. The written word, pah--where is the nuance? Where is the emotion??!!? Where is TEH PASSION???!!//??!1!? Right here, says the Washington Post.



(Enjoy more dramatic tweetage hither and hither and hither and then keep going.)

None of this is to say that all celebrity tweets are incomprehensible Net-babble. Convicted domestic abuser Chris Brown, for instance, does have one nugget of true wisdom to offer:

IMA TALK ABOUT OTHER SH** FROM NOW ON.... ima fall back lol.. twitter will get u IN TROUBLE...lol

lol indeed.

(H/T Celebitchy)

On answering the call

Okay, so yesterday I ran into this guy I know. I wouldn't call him a friend; I'd call him a friend of a friend, an acquaintance, although Jesus would probably call him my brother (not to be confused with the guy my parents would call my brother). This Guy had just, he said, gotten rolled in Five Points and needed a ride to the hospital. And, in fact, he looked bad; he had a cut above his eye that would probably need stitches and one on his nose and one above his lip, his jacket was ripped, and he was wobbling around like a guy who'd had his head smacked against the pavement much in the way This Guy said his had been.

I lied and told him my car was broken.

Not that I'm trying to excuse it, but I've known This Guy for about three years, and I had my doubts that the real story was precisely as he told it. This Guy has been an alcoholic since before I met him, drinking away his wife and his two young children and his home and every job he's ever had. He's spent probably 85 percent of the last three years homeless, not counting the time he's spent in lockup. And the aforementioned Friend (of whom This Guy was a friend) had taken him in, through the goodness of his heart, to try to help him get his life back together. He'd tried to get This Guy cleaned up and sober, help him find a job, resolve legal issues, try to talk with his wife. My Friend had bailed him out of jail, helped him find a lawyer, driven him great distances, and even given him a place on his couch to sleep for a period of time as he tried to get things straightened out. And over and over, This Guy failed and came back--started drinking again, lost his job, and came back; got his girlfriend pregnant, lost the baby, came back; served time in jail on a couple of old warrants, came back; got another job, started drinking again, lost the job, came back.

Every time, My Friend took him back in. Good Christian and Democrat that he is, on matters like this, he tends toward a big heart and a small brain. Every time, he was convinced that This Guy was ready to get cleaned up and just needed to make the effort. Even when This Guy came back, even when he showed up drunk, even when he stole from My Friend, he was asked to leave and not come back--and when he came back, there was an open door and another chance.

All of this is by way of explaining, if not necessarily excusing, why my heart wasn't as big when This Guy approached me. His story was questionable, and the alcohol seeping from his pores made me wonder whether the wobbliness was due entirely to his head injury. And so when he asked for a ride, I lied and told him my car was broken. I called an ambulance and sat with him until they arrived. When they asked how I knew him, I said I was a friend of a Friend, and This Guy looked kind of stricken, like he expected me to identify him as my own friend. When the police officer who responded pulled me aside and asked me if This Guy had any "bad habits," I told him about his history, even knowing that it would probably have somewhat of a negative impact on the way he would be treated. When the paramedics asked if I would be riding along in the ambulance, I said no. And then I went home.

Last night, around 11:00, I got a call from the hospital. I recognized the number and let it go to voicemail; it was an ER nurse telling me that This Guy was ready to go and needed a ride. Half an hour later, another call, same number, and I let it go. No voicemail this time. At midnight, another call, and I denied him a third time. No more calls after that.

I could say that I had the best of intentions, that I was trying to teach him a lesson or trying to push him out of the nest or trying to give him a chance to sit in the ER and sober up, but I've done enough lying recently. I just didn't want him. He wasn't mine, he was My Friend's, and I didn't want him--not in my home, not in my car, not in a box, not with a fox. I didn't want him in my life, and so I left him in the ER, and I don't know what he did or where he is. And that doesn't feel good. It feels like I've abandoned a person in need, and while I know, intellectually, that there's nothing I could do or can do to change the way his life is going, my heart is telling me that I should have tried. And since I didn't, it's telling me I was wrong.

I'm not sure why I posted this. It might be that I'm begging people to line up in comments to assure me that I did the right thing. But I've already talked to two people about it, one of whom was the big heart with the small brain, both of whom assured me that I did the right thing. But conventional wisdom is that when you do the right thing, you know it because you feel good about it. Sitting there last night, watching the phone ring and not answering it, didn't feel like the right thing, and it doesn't feel any righter in the light of day.