Full of Wit

London Burning

2011-08-10T09:39:00.002-05:00

I'm torn about the riots in the UK, on one hand I wholeheartedly believe that they have a lot to be mad as hell about (and so do we in the UK). With the rates of unemployment and high cost of living, I'm honestly surprised that there wasn't rioting during the ridiculous spectacle/waste of taxpayer money that was the royal wedding. And much like the Sean Bell case in New York (which there surprisingly wasn't massive riots over), police shootings or possible police misconduct can be a tipping point especially if there's a larger unrest.

And while it's hard to know what's really going on from 3,000 miles away, it seems that the looting and protests aren't necessarily about government or police mismanagement or crimes, or even bread necessarily from the hopelessness of prolonged unemployment and poverty. While the may have been the catalyst, it seems more like it just about destruction which gets the entire lot labeled as thugs and discredits the real reasons for uprising in the first place.

Two opposing views that both have validity:

Bad Words

2011-01-05T16:41:00.004-05:00

The upcoming publishing of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with the words nigger and injun removed has been all over the news this week. The publisher (and professor and Mark Twain scholar) explains the change as a catering to 21^st century ears that (rightfully) are offended by the word and schools that (wrongfully, in my opinion) take the book off curriculum because of the word.

There’s a lot of discussion swilling around it: Those like myself view it as 1984’s history revision come frighteningly to life, and those that are made so uncomfortable by ugly things that they’d rather pretend they don’t exist all together.

One of the main arguments is that it’s awkward for white teachers to say “the n-word” in front of black students. But the undertone of this sentiment is troubling— if they would be fine saying it in front of a class of white students or calling women bitches and whores when out with the boys, that reveals more about their true thoughts than their refusal to say it in “mixed company.”

I’m disappointed to hear English teachers on the side of revising literature in order to avoid an awkward classroom moment. If you can’t guide a class of high school students in understanding the language, history and themes in Huck Finn, you shouldn’t be teaching high school English. And if you are a high school student or parent of one who can only have an knee jerk reaction to something without attempting to understand the context, then you lack vital critical thinking skills essential to the kind of education that we should want for students.

Aside from the point that Mark Twain was no hack, that he knew what he was writing, and isn’t alive to protest the revision of his word, changing the word changes the meaning of the book and the historical context.

As The Washington Post points out: “To remove it from this context is to strip it of its power -- and to needlessly whitewash a period that deserves no whitewashing.”

White people did a lot of really fucked up shit to people of other races in our history, to tiptoe around it doesn’t do anyone a service, nor does pretending that they used more polite words while they did it.

I’m reminded of my other favorite George (Carlin). In his famous 7 dirty words he said: "There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions, but no bad words."

Nigger is a “bad” word because we made it bad, we invented it and used it to mean horrible hateful things, but if we pretend that we didn’t, if we just don’t mention it, it doesn’t change the thoughts and intentions of the people who use it. I fully understand how uncomfortable it is to hear hateful words and I would never advocate slurs in modern communication, but rewriting the language of history to mollify our 2011 enlightened PC ears is a worrisome precedent. It’s double plus bad.

Why I’m Happy to be a National Novel Writing Month Loser

2010-12-01T12:26:00.002-05:00

As you may remember, a while back I proclaimed that, after years of putting it off, I was going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Part of my “I’m going to use turning 30 as an excuse to take up a lot of projects.” Well, today is December 1st, and I’m in possession of a 30-page, 17,899-word document titled “a novel idea.” Which means, by official standards, that I’m a loser. A National Novel Writing Month loser that is, as for being a loser in life, well…that’s kind of still TDB.

I knew from the start that writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days would probably not happen for me. And true to most things in life when you decide that you probably won’t reach a certain goal, you probably won’t. Reaching that exact number of words in the exact amount of days though was never what was really important to me, even though at many times it seemed to be the only thing that was important in the official NaNoWriMo company line –which was where I found the idea of the project a little failing.
Allow me if you will, to break down the pros and cons of my first experience with National Novel Writing Month.

First the good:

The biggest and best thing about this whole project is that I wrote every day (except Thanksgiving). Every single day, even if I had a shitty day, or a freelance article to write, or social plans, I made myself sit down and write. I didn’t pound out the suggested 1,677 words a day (most days it was more like 500). But for someone who spends 9+ hours in front of a computer working with words, sitting down in front of my computer at home every night and writing for an hour is a pretty big accomplishment.

I attended one of the New York City write-ins which was an interesting experience—imagine being in a room with a hundred other people all writing a novel, it’s kinda cool. And that’s the other good take away from this month and the whole idea of this project: feeling a lot of support and yes even that over used word—community from other writers. It’s always said that writing is such a lonely job (which is part of the appeal—as Mark would testify, I preferred to be alone in dim lighting with sad sack music playing when I write), but when you are part of NaNoWriMo, it’s like a month long pep rally of “you can do it!” with weekly pep talks in your inbox from actual published authors and forums filled with commiserating and idea sharing.

The other part of NaNoWriMo that really worked for me was the permission, or even commandment to just write, and stop thinking about it so much. I make a living as an editor, it’s my job to think about how things sound and question and correct. So a decree like this made the daily writing more liberating. “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

And now, the bad:

I guess I get that there needs to be an official goal to make it a cohesive project/idea. But the whole theme of “winning” seemed a little unnecessary to me (spoken like a true loser). You don’t actually “win” anything other than saying that you typed 50,000 words in 30 days. I appreciate the motivation, encouragement and permission to not over think, but the constant chatter around just seeing how many words you can produce was a little grating.

At the write-in they conduct “word sprints” where everyone is challenged to write as much as they can in 5 minutes, and there’s a “winner” (the person at the one I attended spewed out 750 words). On the forums people discussed “tricks” for inflating their word counts like not using contractions or spelling out numerals. As my old boss used to say: “that’s not writing, that’s typing.” And I have better things to do than participate in National Typing Month. On your author/participant page a running tally of novel stats tells you how many words behind you are –how much you should be writing. If I wanted a guilt trip I’d call home, thanks.

But none of it really matters anyways, the whole thing is indulgent, and no one walks away 30 days later with a best seller—even those who blow off all their commitments still have a lot of work to do to make a good book out of all those words. But to me it was worth it because it was a kick in the pants, and because I’m going to keep writing and imagining and being creative and creating. I didn’t write a novel in a month, but I did start writing a novel and I didn’t give up, and I’m not going to stop now just because it’s December.

In which I rant about commuting and attempt to fix transportation in NYC

2010-10-13T16:10:00.004-05:00

What’s wrong with commuting in NYC? The short answer: a lot. The long answer: it’s complicated. But with the third fare increase in as many years, it will now cost $104 to get to work each month, on increasingly crowded and late trains. A post of what’s wrong with the mismanagement of the MTA could easily run thousands of words and just scratch the surface but the fact remains that there is no way of schleping to and from your small overpriced apartment that is without its flaws.

Driving to work in the city is incredibly expensive, inconvenient, and impractical. Unless you live within a mile or two of your office, walking to work isn’t realistic. And biking in the city has it’s own set of problems:

Regardless of the miles of bike lanes that have been added in the last few years, New York City can still be a very unfriendly place to bike. A study last week of only 11 of Manhattan’s bike lanes showed what nearly everyone in the city knows: over 1,700 violations in 22 hours-- double-parked cars, delivery trucks, pedestrians and even police and city vehicles are clogging up the bike lanes, opening car doors forcing cyclists to swerve into traffic, and riders going the wrong way on way streets, or blowing through red lights, and though it all only two tickets issued.

Cops don’t care about cyclist safety—they are blocking the bike lanes – and drivers and pedestrians are hostile to cyclists and cyclists are hostile right back. Every cyclist has a story of a near miss with a car, but conversely every pedestrian and driver has a story of a jerk cyclist.

So here’s my solution to all of the city’s commuting woes:

1. Driving: Put congestion pricing into place—its main effect will be the final straw to force many people to not drive into the city during rush hours, making the streets less clogged and if it people still drive in the revenue can help improve the subway. Oh and save a few million by leaving inaccurate font on street signs and keeping the names of bridges.

2. Mass Transit: Make the subway and buses better. You can raise the fare without losing riders or pissing everyone off if people feel like they are getting what they pay for. Use the money from congestion pricing, cover everything in advertisements, then take the money and add more trains and buses to so it runs more regularly and isn’t so unbearably crowded at rush hours. What we can live without: wifi and cell phone service on the trains. What’s totally essential: electronic signs at on every platform that tell commuters when the next train in coming. The tube in London has it, the metro in DC has it, it is for me the most glaring common sense thing lacking in the NYC transit system. (it’s in the works for 75 stations currently, but it’s needed in every station and the city is decades behind on this)

3. Cycling: Everyone not on a bike stay the fuck out of the bike lane and all drivers and passengers, look twice before pulling out from a parking spot or opening a car door. There’s not two ways about it—it takes 5 seconds and ensures you won’t kill or hurt someone. If you ride a bike in the city, don’t be a jerk. When you are on a bike you feel like an odd cross between a vehicle and a pedestrian, and sitting for the duration of a red light when there are no cars coming and you know you you’ll likely get stuck behind a bus or other obstruction within in a block is frustrating. Most cyclists aren’t going to obey all the traffic laws (few drivers do and not all traffic laws are valid for cyclists), but if you are on a bike, you should at least do the following: a) wear a helmet b) have lights if you ride at night c) treat every intersection at least like a blinking red light; stop and look both ways—for cars, people and bikes-- before crossing d) have a bell but use your voice – so many times the polite “ding ding” work, so many others require a loud “HEY!” to be heard e) ALWAYS pay attention.

4. Pedestrians: Walk only on the sidewalk (see above re. stay out of the bike lanes), if you need to text/greet a long lost pal/look at a map/take a picture/read a book, etc. move to the side. Do not walk more than two people across, and look before jaywalking.

Yours truly,

Curmudgeonly commuter

Something Something Detroit

2010-10-06T11:28:00.002-05:00

I’m wary of sweeping trend pieces like the one in the New York Times a few weeks ago that described Bushwick in Brooklyn as having a “bohemian vibe” and tout that it’s at the heart of some sort of artistic revolution. A co-op or two does not a revolution make, and sure there may by a group of young white people making art and sharing stuff in part of Bushwick, but the last thing I got from the Bushwick in the past two years that I visited the neighborhood frequently was a “bohemian vibe.”

And that’s the problem with any urban area – there’s no one story. Detroit is the easiest example, and has been used as such exhaustively over the past couple of years. As Vice pointed out in it’s 2009 story called "Something, something, something, Detroit: Lazy journalists love pictures of abandoned stuff," Detroit’s decay became shorthand for all that is going wrong in American during the recession and abandoned buildings are as beautiful to photographers as sunsets (hell I love photographing abandoned buildings too). Of course there’s a lot of crime, tons of poverty, and LOTS of abandoned houses. But it’s not the whole story of Detroit and also far from one that should be used to illustrate the economic collapse of 2008-present day. News by definition should be NEW and there have been abandoned buildings in Detroit for decades.

And then there’s the other story of Detroit, one of its “creative renaissance” and this video is so interesting and encouraging, and such great PR for the city that needs it so badly. I’m glad they spoke to people who live there rather than just about them, but still why does Detroit need effing Johnny Knoxville to come in and tell the world about it? Yes there’s stuff happening in Detroit, but just like Bushwick, I don’t know that it can really be labeled as sort of trend in the same way that it’s not accurate to label the whole area as abandoned and hopeless. Both, as a woman in the video calls it, are “pick and choose journalism.”

Of course perpetuating a narrative of an artist utopia isn’t nearly as harmful as perpetuating one of hopeless blight, but my point is that neither is accurate, and that an urban area is complex and can’t be boiled down to a trend piece as simple as “Hippies now in Bushwick” or “Stuff is abandoned in Detroit.” To do so is just lazy journalism.

Complex reporting isn’t short and easy to digest, nor is it cheap and fast to produce, and no one benefits from some New Yorker dropping by a few abandoned buildings or hipster bars and proclaiming what a city he spent 12 hours in is all about. The last thing Detroit or needs is another journalist who is looking to make it a metaphor or someone like me who left for greener pastures dropping back in for a quick byline and then ducking back to an overpriced neighborhood on the East Coast to education everyone on what’s happening in the flyover states.

Those most qualified to tell the world the real story are the journalists who stayed –some of the reporting at publications like Metro Times Detroit and The Detroit Free Press is among the best I’ve seen. Let’s give them national attention rather than treating the city like an easy trend piece.

Commitment, Risk Taking, and Writing a Novel in 30 Days

2010-09-29T15:02:00.000-05:00

It’s clichéd to freak out about turning 30. But now, halfway though my 29th year, I am realizing the much about life is a cliché and rather than try to pretend that I’m above it, I’ll embrace it. So I’ve decided there’s a few things that I’ve long put off as “someday” projects that I might as well tackle this year. Will I still have a mini personal crisis in April? Probably. Oh well.

It’s with this in mind I mention that I have decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November, which is basically a project that gets a bunch of people to sign up to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Of course some of the basis of it goes against my editor nature, to wit:

“Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

The other thing holding me back: I don’t really have a solid idea and while writing a novel is something I’ve wanted to do since I was six years old, it doesn’t seem like something I’m qualified to do yet—I’m not experienced enough, smart enough, talented enough, worldly enough. The real reason: I’m not disciplined enough.

Sure I want to write a good book (OK I want to write an amazing Pulitzer winning book) but I think what’s important right now is that I stop making excuses, putting everything in the vague future and give myself a deadline to actually get shit done.

I have written 10 pages of a screenplay, I have started work on stand up and storytelling acts, I listened to my “Learn Italian” tapes once, I have a million art projects and ideas that I’ve given up on. It’s time for some follow through.

Ps. All of this is a long winded way of 1) saying I’m going to be blogging a lot more in the next month to get in the habit of forcing myself to write even when I don’t feel inspired. And 2) making myself a little more accountable to finish since I’m announcing it to “the world.”

Your voice is only as loud as the lazy media who covers it

2010-09-10T17:28:00.003-05:00

So there’s some crazy pants minster in some small church in Florida who wants to burn the Koran tomorrow. This isn’t news, or at least it shouldn’t be. But bigger and bigger spotlights have been pointed at Terry Jones in the past weeks and he’s been given a more and further reaching microphones.

The New York Times points out the he and other nut jobs have tried similar stunts in the past with little to no media coverage, and blame this partly on the end of summer slow news season/ 24-hour news cycle.

But I call Bull Shit. There’s no such thing a slow news days/season. Sure, there’s times when huge earth shattering or catastrophic events aren’t happening, and more people are on vacation. But newsworthy stuff is still happening—and this ladies and gentlemen isn’t it. This guy is no different than the religious wackos on the someway screaming about how the end is near. But we don’t put them on the Today Show, the President isn’t issuing statements about them. We recognize them for what they are: possibly in need of medication, but not worthy of debating or trying to reason with.

A person’s message is only as powerful as the platform it’s given. My platform is a blog that’s read by 3 people and the guy on the street who said “Preach it! Fight the good fight!” when he overheard me complaining last night. If anything Terry Jones should be preaching about it’s PR.

Potatoes, Racism, Mad Men and the “Ground Zero Mosque”

2010-08-26T14:30:00.003-05:00

It’s amazing how many forms a thing can take. Potatoes can be al gratin, baked, boiled, fried, mashed. The versatility of this starchy wonder is what makes them such a dietary staple. Potatoes are delicious, but their versatility and staying power is a trait that they share with something not so tasty—racism.

I’m in the middle of reading a book of historical fiction about the South in the 60s, filled with “respectable” white people who degrade their black help in ways both conscious and unconscious. And even though people of my generation and younger are aware of the kind of violent, overt, disgusting, senseless racism that prevailed during that time, it’s still chilling to be reminded of, even if it’s something we didn’t live though and will never be able to fully comprehend. And it’s easy and comforting to be self-congratulatory and view racism as a thing of the past. But that’s so far from the truth -- it’s here, it’s widely accepted, its just taking different forms.

Take for example the new view of “separate but equal” that is being debated in New York right now, and even the language used to describe the controversy conveys the bias: “The Ground Zero Mosque.”

First, the flaws in the argument:
1) It’s not a Mosque; it’s an Islamic Cultural center.
2) It’s not on “ground zero” (which is an odd term to begin with) it’s two blocks from where the world trade center used to be on the “hallowed ground” of a closed Burlington Coat Factory store one block from a strip club. (Although the WTC itself was built on a slave grave site, so hallowed ground argument has some weight just not the weight the argument makes)
3) There is absolutely no correlation to this building, or these people to 9/11.
4) There is a similar prayer room at the Pentagon (one of the other 9/11 sights) that no one seems to care to protest.

Those protesting the building aren’t simply wrapping themselves in the flag to justify their racist inclinations, they are helping to set a dangerous precedent: politicians (both democrat and republican) are fanning the bigotry for their own ends (many of them are the same people who voted against health care benefits for 9/11 first responders, btw). And everyone is leaving Muslims out of the conversation.

Whether the controversy has been manufactured as an election year tactic or not, the visceral hate and bigotry was all too easy to whip up. We’d like to think that we are a cosmopolitan and progressive city far from the backwoods lynching mentality of the South in the 60s (many comments on recent stories about the 51Park project have tried to dismiss protesters as being from “out of town”), but when you hear of cab drivers getting stabbed because they are Muslim , and a deluge of hate crimes all over the city it’s hard to maintain that bigotry is either a thing or the past or a practice exclusive to those in “fly over states.”

Viewing this community center’s construction as an affront to 9/11 victims (some of whom were of course Muslim themselves) is the equivalent to labeling all black men as criminals after one steals your purse. And proposing that it be built further away is equivalent to building a separate bathroom for the help.

On Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men, cosmopolitan Roger Sterling used his role in WWII to justify his unwillingness to work with the Japanese. He asked, “Since when is forgiveness a better quality than loyalty?” Of course, his internal conflict, just like this one isn’t one of forgiveness, or loyalty. It’s a matter of perspective. Because a country filled with this kind of hate, violence and bigotry is a huge terrorism threat.

Does Life in Fact, Go On?

2010-08-05T12:50:00.006-05:00

My book club had an interesting discussion about Zeitoun by Dave Eggers last week – a book focusing on the story of one family in New Orleans during and after Katrina. Aside from the rage about how our government can be so incompetent and how everything we believe about justice and law can be thrown out the window in a crisis, there was an overall feeling of amazement of the conditions and treatment that people endured.

We all saw the images of people floating down dirty flooded streets or sweating, crowded and hungry at the Convention Center in New Orleans, or the people trapped in rubble in Port-au-Prince, but that kind of devastation seems abstract when you are far removed—even though Louisiana is in America, once it’s not on the news everyday it’s not as urgent when you still have food, DVDs and AC and clean sheets.

We’d all like to think we could survive or even be heroes in a crisis, but very, very few can—most of us simply couldn’t make do. Perhaps more frightening then the very real chance that a disaster of some kind will strike much closer to home is the idea of living with the aftermath.

My BFF’s sister just started her year of doctoring in Haiti (amazing right? makes me feel like I’m not doing anything with my life). I know this blog post doesn’t have much of a point on my part, I really just wanted to share this snippet from her blog:

“With approximately 5,000 people, the GHESKIO camp is small relative to some of the other camps spread throughout Port-au-Prince but it was still overwhelming to see such density of misery and community in crisis and the unshakable boredom that comes with being fenced in on all sides. Tents are packed one on top of one another. At the far end of the camp, there’s a line of port o’ potties and outdoor showers, and a stagnant stream of filthy water carves out the spaces between individual domiciles. People were . . . going about their lives. Cooking, playing cards, sitting at the entrances to their tents. You could almost accept that for many of these folks life in the city would simply normalize, inevitably, given a long enough time scale; and you might even be able to imagine yourself making a stoic go of it under a plastic tarpaulin for nearly 7 months. But there’s no normalizing this bizarre and untenable situation on any time scale that doesn’t include the end of human civilization, itself. And, no, you’re not that much of a badass”

In Which I Rant About Garbage and Attempt to Save New York City

2010-07-15T16:27:00.007-05:00

The big event in my life right now is that my boyfriend is moving into my apartment August 1st, and my longtime roommate and good pal is moving out. With a move always comes the purging of many belongings from clothes and books to furniture and household goods and many things in between.

But what to do with all of this perfectly good stuff?

A) Spend the time and effort to hold a stoop sale hoping to make a little moo-la and find loving homes for your stuff
B) Donate it to a charity that will put it to good use
C) Put it all on the curb and hope someone takes it before it ends up in the trash
D) Throw it all away— the planet is already screwed and they’ll figure out how we can live on the moon soon enough!

At first I thought (A) was a good idea, but we are so hectic with the move, plus there’s not a lot of space or foot traffic on our street so I’d probably waste a lot of time to make $5 and still be left with tons of stuff. So I decided to opt of (B), which should be an easy enough thing to do right? Not in New York City.

Back in Michigan (and I’m sure in many other car-centric places in the US) when we wanted to donate things, we’d load up the car and drive to the local thrift shop where they’d always gladly take it. And here in the city there are plenty of places that will take your stuff but most New Yorkers don’t have a car (which is a good thing, right?!) which means in order to donate in person involves lugging bags and boxes of items and/or furniture on the subway or renting vehicle to haul it – both unlikely and totally cumbersome options.

So I searched for an organization that would come and pick up all of our great stuff. There were woefully few. I finally found one—the Salvation Army—after two days of trying to get through, I attempted to schedule a pick up for July 31, only to be told they are booked until the end of August.

Which means I’ll have to opt for option (C), which according to the city really amounts to option (D) in most cases. I hope that if someone does come to take our stuff they aren’t driving, because as came to light this week it’s illegal to pick up discarded items on the sidewalk if you're driving a vehicle at the time because once something is set on the ground it becomes city property. This has been in the news this week after a man is Queens was fined $2,000 and had his 73-year-old Aunt’s car impounded for attempting to take an AC some one was throwing out. Even the MAYOR of the city didn’t know about the law and thought it was insane.

(Image from NYT “freegan” article)

Recycling is not only mandatory in NYC because it’s good for the environment; it’s actually a revenue source for the city. And yes there’s a list of places to donate useable items on the Department of Sanitation’s site but again, good luck getting someone to pick it up.

And yeah there’s special events/locations/days when you can recycle un-useable hazardous things like electronics/light bulbs/batteries. But how realistic is it to expect people to store a bunch of old light bulbs and batteries for six months in their already cramped apartments and then remember which day and location to take these things?

Mandatory recycling is such a beneficial idea for all involved. (Speaking of Michigan, 95% of the people I know there don’t recycle because it’s not as easily available)
Sure people in NYC still throw out tons of easily recycled stuff, regardless of how required or easy it is to put glass/plastic and paper in separate bins. It’s impossible to make everyone responsibly dispose of items they no longer need, but the lack of options for passing along perfectly good stuff is a glaring opportunity for the city.

So here, free of charge, is my solution:

Once every other week, deploy a fleet of trucks to pick up useable unwanted items. Residents would put them on the curb just as they do now, but instead of the things that don’t get taken by passersby ending up in the landfill (which is totally costly for the city), they’d go to locations in each borough where they could be distributed to non-profits.

The same could go for hazardous/non-traditional un-useable items: every month (say on the 1st) there could be a collection of these items. Both of these options involve additional cost and infrastructure, but I think the benefits outweigh the costs, and with the right investment could turn into a program just as lucrative as the recycling program has been. Otherwise I’m just going to have to open that store that sells their neighbor’s garbage to yuppies that I’ve been talking about for years…

**Update: I put a bunch of clothes, jewelry, books, etc. out on the curb this Saturday and within an hour everything was gone, I was joyful...until I opened the garbage can and found all of my lovely and totally usable belongings covered in smelly trash--thrown there by the insufferable woman who lives in the front apartment of my building.

Best Friends For Now

2010-06-17T11:34:00.002-05:00

There’s a story in the New York Times today about how some parents, teachers and “experts” have decided that it’s unhealthy for children to have one best friend. It causes exclusivity, and could lead to bullying they say. Ugh. There are so many actual problems that kids have in school, and bullying can be one of them, but forcing close friends apart would just cause hurt feelings, isolation and resentment. Did these “experts” ever consider that close friendships might provide unpopular kids with an ally? Cliques will happen is schools and they can suck, but they also happen at work and in life in general. Sure, you should encourage kids to be open minded and relate to people they might not think they share interests with, but generally those kinds of things happen more organically.

As the article points out, “Many psychologists believe that close childhood friendships not only increase a child’s self-esteem and confidence, but also help children develop the skills for healthy adult relationships — everything from empathy, the ability to listen and console, to the process of arguing and making up. If children’s friendships are choreographed and sanitized by adults, the argument goes, how is a child to prepare emotionally for both the affection and rejection likely to come later in life?”

I question the motives of these best-friend busting adults in many ways, one of which being that they might not really have what even they believe is the child’s best interest in mind. It might be that the child’s choice of best friend isn’t what they would have chosen, that the BFF is undesirable in some way.

Anecdotally, I experienced some attempted Best Friend busting myself when I was in 3rd grade. My pal JJD (kind of her real name) and I were very close for many years, at one point we even invented our own code so if our notes were intercepted my teachers they would be indecipherable. But I suspect that I wasn’t viewed as the most upper-crust kid in town (remarkably I was the only one with divorced parents for the first couple years of elementary school) and JJD’s family was involved in town goings-ons and well-regarded. So one day our teacher held all of the girls in at recess and gave us a very pointed talk (as in she might as well have used our names) about how it’s good to have a lot of friends and not just one best friend.

That was all that ever came from it though, and our friendship continued much the same. We grew apart a bit through the years like kids do, and while we aren’t BFFs anymore we are still in touch. And we’ve both gone on to have other close friends (including my BFF since high school whom I remain close with) and relationships. I’ve had many close relationships in my life, some lasting for several years and some for less, and I’ve had many acquaintances. I’m grateful for all of them, but it’s the people who are both fair and foul weather pals that have contributed the most richness to my life, and I’m glad that some snobby teacher didn’t ruin that.

Another Victim of the BP Oil Leak

2010-06-14T15:20:00.003-05:00

The ongoing BP oil leak has many victims—the hundreds of dead animals, the lost of business for the already hard-hit Gulf Coast, the destroyed and polluted beaches, the devastating environmental toll. Add to the list BP gas station owners.

BP sold off its retail gas business, which means the people who own the 13,000 BP gas stations are generally independent franchisees. So the calls for BP boycotts and demonstrations outside of BP gas stations are misguided and end up hurting independent business owners who are locked into contacts with BP. Besides, as Consumerist points out when you choose another gas station over BP you may be giving your money to a wholly-owned BP subsidiary.

But what to do to show your disgust? It’s difficult as a consumer to take an action that will have an impact on the evils of the corporation and not the employees who are likely getting screwed over already. A single person’s boycott is just a drop in the bucket (I refuse to shop at both Wal-Mart and American Apparel because of their business practices as I’m sure many people do—yet not enough to make a noticeable difference in their bottom line).

A huge shift in public sentiment however (like seeing constant footage of spewing oil and sad dying animals) tends to motivate a more urgent need to take action. It’s a difficult line to toe, by no means should we sit idly by when corporations make huge mistakes and act poorly. Consumer boycotts sometimes do make a huge difference and force corporations into action. And voting with your wallet is often the best and easiest way to make an impact to a company, but we’d all be wise to use a more thoughtful approach to who is going to be most impacted by our actions and what better ways there might be.

This kind of limited thinking can be found at work in overtly brainless ways like boycotting Arizona Iced Tea (which is produced in New York) over Arizona’s eff-ed up immigration law. Or in misplaced good intentions like Michael Moore’s approach to shaming corporate criminals and fat cats.

The cornering and public/on camera dressing down of men like GM’s CEO Roger Smith would provide audiences with satisfying schadenfreude. Instead too often Moore goes for the easy showiness of storming the security guards at corporate headquarters (blue collar working dudes) These guys would probably be on his side of the issues, but a job’s a job and they don’t want to lose theirs so they follow orders and turn Mike and his cameras away and look like the bad guys while the criminals never have to leave their offices. Not that mid or entry level employees at evil places are without responsibility, it does raise questions about personal integrity, choices, and selling out, but these days it’s difficult to criticize someone who likely is grateful to have a job at all.

But like the ending to most of Moore’s movies, I don’t have the answer. Doing nothing isn’t good advice, boycotting BP and putting more small business owners out of work will hurt the wrong people, and pressuring law makers to regulate and penalize companies like BP seems like the best if not most frustrating means of action. That, and giving time and money to companies who are doing good and demanding more transparency and asking the right questions about the places you spend your money are probably the best actions we can take.

The Cougar Question

2010-05-21T14:09:00.003-05:00

Yes I will probably see Sex in the City 2, and I'll probably roll my eyes a lot and find many problems with it just like I did the first movie and about half of the episodes of the show. But whatever, I also watch awful shows like Tough Love Couples and enjoy eating ramen noodles, no one has "good" taste in everything.

That said, I clearly don't love everything about those four ladies and certainly not their characters. Kim Cattrell is really not a good actress and Samantha I could take or leave. But the recent hub-bub about a "significant magazine for women over 40" that pulled her as their cover model when she refused to pose with a cougar has made me like her a lot more as a person.

I've made mention of it before, but I am really irked by the prevalence of women over 40 being called "cougars" or "MILFs", but more so I’m annoyed by how much women not only accept it but embrace it—want to be called one of these horribly demeaning names or call themselves it.

I mean I get that getting old is scary and feeling like you are losing your sex appeal can be devastating for a lot of women. But instead of agreeing that you have to try to look like some 50-year old alien version of a 22-year-old, why can’t women get the hot older person labels that men get—“silver fox”, “distinguished”?

So kudos to Kim Cattrell (or her publicist) for not perpetuating the cougar label. As for the Women’s Mag the pulled the cover? I’d really like to believe there was more to the decision, magazines for women have so much potential and so many just need an editorial voice that isn’t condescending yet is still titillating and relevant (hee hee, titillating). It’s not rocket science and readers aren’t the crazy vapid creatures that many editors seem to think they are.

The Graduation Advice I'll Never Get to Give

2010-05-18T10:54:00.003-05:00

Since I didn't get into grad school, there's a strong chance that I might never take part in a graduation ceremony as anything more than a spectator. But ever since I auditioned (and didn't get selected) to be a commencement speaker for my high school graduation I've harbored the dream of one day being successful enough to be asked to speak at a graduation. I don't know if I'll ever get there, and there are certainly a large amount of celebrities and other notable persons who speak at college commencements and put graduates and families to sleep. (I don't remember a word of what my college commencement speaker said, let alone who he even was).

Some students are lucky though, (like my alma mater a few years before I graduated) get Presidents or other memorable persons to give a little value back to all that money they just dropped on a diploma.

If I ever become successful or notable enough to be asked to bestow wisdom and advice to 20-somethings in funny hats, I hope I can write a speech as perfect as the one that Rachel Maddow's to Smith College. It's a refreshing view, especially to graduates that "personal triumphs are overrated, and that some dreams are bad dreams." The idea being that instead of viewing life as short, and that you should try to live everyday, that hopefully life is long and you should endeavor to live a complete life that is worth bragging about instead of a selfish one that saw the most personal fame. To hear someone (given who is famous herself) denounce the value of fame and instead advise that people be "intellectually and morally rigorous in their decision making and surround themselves with people that do the same.

It's advice that's not really fashionable or popular, that you make wise decisions that may ensure you remain a small player that lives in obscurity rather than a big personality, decisions that may mean you are never rich, and never famous, and never get asked to speak at a college commencement, but that give you something to be proud to tell your grandkids you took part in. Maddow says to choose glory over fame, but in making the right and moral decisions, it's completely likely you'll never get either, but she's right in that you will be a better person to those around you and not bear the burden of having to justify your actions to anyone, most importantly yourself.

"Choosing" to be Homeless in Hawaii

2010-05-11T11:46:00.004-05:00

Today's NPR story about whites from the Mainland coming to Hawaii to soak up the benefits of being homeless in paradise misses the point a little. The story points to how cushy the homeless in Hawaii have it because of statewide free healthcare and $3 stays at shelters with free meals. The argument is that these non-native residents are putting a strain on taxpaying Hawaiians as evidenced by the state's $1.2 billion budget deficit.

It's a fair point, but I think there needs to be a little bigger picture thinking. Rather than blame the homeless for finding a state that offers the best resources (the two men they interview in the article were homeless in other states, and while "enjoying" the benefits in Hawaii work at either collecting cans or minimum wage jobs), why not turn the criticism to the other 49 states that don't offer any resources to the homeless.

In the story, the director of a homeless shelter in Honolulu suggests that there be different sets of laws for those that are homeless by choice vs. misfortune. While it's less painful and deadly to be homeless in a warm climate, this logic that people are choosing it seems a little off to me and the life of a beach bum may be romanticized a bit too much here.Besides, how can you really prove the circumstances of a person's homelessness, and aren't Hawaii's systems (like shelters and free health care) in place for this reason?

Rich white people from the mainland are a bigger problem to native Hawaiians than homeless white people; they buy huge expensive vacation homes drive up property values without contributing to the local economy and make homeownership for Hawaiians too costly. But yes, let's target the guy living on collecting and recycling cans for 5 cents a piece.

Getting Crafty

2010-04-28T14:44:00.003-05:00

I put together this photo puzzle tutorial last fall for photojojo. It ended up not getting published, so I decided that rather than just let it sit in a folder on my computer forever, I will share it with the world. It takes probably an hour to complete one puzzle (depending on the size and amount of pieces). I've given them as gifts and stocking stuffers.

Photo Puzzle Tutorial

I always love a good rainy day activity, and puzzles are a classic. But a 1,000 piece windmill puzzle isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Instead of putting together a puzzle, why not spend a rainy afternoon creating your own photo puzzle?

What you’ll need:

Blank puzzles (available at craft stores, in a variety of sizes with large or small pieces)
Printed photos (8x10 and 5x7 work the best)
Rubber Cement
Scissors
X-acto knife
Pencil and a marker

Step 1

Pick your photo to puzzle-ize, if it’s not exactly the same size; trim it to fit your puzzle. If your puzzle is bigger than your photo, mark the size of the photo on the puzzle and use the x-acto knife to cut off the extra puzzle. If you don’t want to trim your photo or puzzle, you can add a boarder with construction paper.

Step 2

Once your photo matches the size of the puzzle, flip your blank puzzle upside down, take one row of pieces out at a time and trace them with a marker. Continue until you have all of the pieces traced.

Step 3

Cut along the lines with the x-acto knife, and glue each photo puzzle piece to its matching puzzle piece.

Step 4

Mix ‘em up, and let your friends and family assemble the puzzle to discover your photo.

Big Girls Need Love Too

2010-04-27T16:02:00.005-05:00

Childhood obesity is a topic I keep coming back to and a topic discussed exhaustively in all forms of media right now. And while some lip service is also given to the super skinny skeletor models and the eating disorder other end of the spectrum, the obesity epidemic is still the most talked about problem. And yes lots of kids are too fat and lazy and eat junk and watch too much TV/play too many video games/never put down their cell phones, but what about the flip side? Especially for girls the message that they aren’t skinny enough is often the strongest and while it’s coming from magazines and TV and all that in a big way, for many girls being critical of your appearance is something they learn at home.

Peggy Orenstein pointed it out in her article in the New York Times magazine recently— while middle class and affluent parents obsess over organic healthy foods especially for their children, there’s also a strong possibility that they are giving them horrible body image issues at the same time. She uses the president and first lady’s public remarks about their daughters’ weights as an example. But it’s not the same for sons, like most things appearance related this seems to be the territory of girls only.

“Daughters understand that early: according to a study of preschool girls published in the journal Pediatrics in 2001, those whose mothers expressed “higher concern” over their daughters’ weights not only reported more negative body images than their peers but also perceived themselves as less smart and less physically capable (paternal “concern” was associated only with the latter). The effect was independent of the child’s actual size.

A 2003 analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, meanwhile, showed that mothers were three times as likely to notice excess weight in daughters than in sons, even though the boys were more likely to be large. That gave me pause. It is so easy for the concern with “health,” however legitimate, to justify a focus on girls’ appearances. For organic-eating, right-living parents whose girls are merely on the fleshy side of average, “health” may also mask a discomfort with how a less-than-perfect daughter reflects on them. “ ‘Good’ parents today are expected to have normal-weight kids,” says Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of the book “The Body Project” and a professor of history and human development at Cornell University. “Having a fat girl is a failure.”

Orenstein’s first solution was to opt out completely and have her husband be responsible for feeding their daughter, which isn’t a solution really—while mothers may pass their negative body image on, fathers and men in general aren’t outside of blame. There’s no question that there’s a huge beauty double standard, but an even bigger fat double standard. Unless a guy gets really big, a few extra pounds here and there are not even blink-worthy on men, let alone cause for most women to reject them. But over and over you hear the “no fat chicks” mentality coming even from fat dudes, helped none by the reinforcement that hot ladies go for slubby guys.

There is something totally off base when a gorgeous woman like Tina Fey is believable as a nerdy food-obsessed lonely heart and Kevin James can get a hot wife.

The conclusion to the article is that she decided to just not talk about looks or food in front of her daughter (of course a difficult feat) and while it would be ideal for weight and appearance to be as much of a non-issue for women (or at least a smaller issue) as it is for men, she acknowledges that her daughter will just get the messages elsewhere, which means not talking about it doesn’t really solve the problem. I realize that it’s an over-arching and vague statement but more than moms just pretending that they aren’t terrified of getting old/fat/unattractive, maybe we all should be more concerned with consuming good food and being cool with how we look, not criticizing women for things we tolerate in men. Pretending that the double standard doesn’t exist won’t make it go away, it will just make it grow.

Sidebar: My (15 year old) Little Sister keeps telling me that boys tell her that she must be having sex (she’s not) because she’s gained weight. Where did this flawed biology lesson come from, is this kind of teasing something kids have been doing for a while?

And another thing: Everyone needs to stop with this whole “cougar” and “MILTF” trend; 50 year old women should look 50 not 20, it’s just creepy.

The Fair State of the World

2010-04-20T21:54:00.005-05:00

It’s birthday week for me, and as such (especially since I’m unemployed) I’m trying to do something fun each day.

Today I biked from my apartment in Park Slope to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens (and back). The round trip was about 24 miles, but it was a beautiful day and although Google biking directions lead me astray a couple of times in Queens and a driver almost killed me in Brooklyn, it was a great trip.

The main appeal of visiting Flushing Meadow Park for me was to see the panorama of New York City (built for the 1939 World’s Fair) that includes (almost) every building in the city in tiny form (it’s updated from time to time), and the Unisphere (built for the 1964 World’s Fair). The Unisphere was cool and the disrepair of the New York State Pavilion was also worth seeing, and the park itself was beautiful and had a lot there (I saw a Bear at the Queens Zoo without even having to pay to go into the zoo!) Unfortunately the Queens Art Museum that houses the panorama was closed today. I’ll defiantly be back to see it, but in the meantime if anyone is searching for last minute birthday ideas for me, you can adopt a building in my name!

Visiting this former World’s Fair Site, reminded me of the other former World’s Fair Site that I’ve been to—one of the most beautiful man made spots I've ever been: The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Although World Expos (as they are now called) kind of still exist, the grandeur of the World’s Fairs especially from the Industrialization era where new technology and inventions (like electricity) were first shown off holds a certain excitement that can’t be matched today were everything is (and yes I am aware of the irony) blogged and tweeted and facebooked to death before it is even released. World’s Fairs of the scale that once existed aren’t practical in today’s world, and it might not even be something worthy of being nostalgic for (truly there were a lot of not so great moments) But it’s an interesting part of history to visit on a lovely spring day.

On fake meat and hexane

2010-04-15T12:09:00.005-05:00

If you read Food Babies, you probably also read other food-related things, or the news. And boy oh boy has the whole "veggie burgers are filled with toxic chemicals" story been all over the news in the last couple of days. It's great ammo for meat eaters to tell vegetarians to get off their health-conscious high horses. But I don't think everyone should be so quick to panic, and I especially don't think it should be reason to call it quits with soy all together. Yes, fake meat isn't the best for you food in the world (it is after all still a processed food with lots of preservatives, and processed foods are a little removed from being real food even when they aren’t pretending to be a “beef” burger or a “pork” hot dog.

First, the soy that’s in these veggie burgers is isolated soy, which processed in a different way than the soy that’s in soy milk or tofu which is whole soy. Whole soy, btw can actually be very good for you. Also, it’s unclear if hexane cooks off, or if the amounts in the products are large enough to be harmful or not.

I think there needs to be a whole mess of change and regulations in how our food (of the meat and non-meat variety) is produced. But I don’t know that raising the flag of panic around fake meat is necessarily a good way to go. For a lot of people just starting out with vegetarianism, or life-long meat eaters who need to cut their cholesterol after a heart attack or other life-threatening illness (like many in my family), fake meat can be an easy and tasty alternative. Not that we should tolerate anything hazardous in our food, but I’ll still take trace amounts of hexane over life-threatening amounts of e coli any day.

Mother Jones on the topic

Gothamist on the topic

(cross posted on Food Babies)

Paying to Work?

2010-04-13T13:00:00.002-05:00

Last week Atlantic Media decided to start paying interns , including retroactively paying last year’s interns. This is huge news for journalism interns. For college students (and graduates!) who want to get experience at a publication (and often more than one internship is necessary if you ever ever want to get hired anywhere) unpaid internships are de rigueur. And these aren’t coffee-fetching internships (do those even exist anymore?) These are (as many articles have been pointing out lately) what would otherwise be paid staff or freelance jobs. In fact, the students filling these unpaid positions are often in fact paying for the privilege since they complete the internship for college credit which even though the college isn’t providing the education or experience, they still must pay tuition for.

During my time at Popular Photography I was in charge of hiring and supervising (and assigning work to) several interns, all (but one who shall remain nameless, but she should know who she is) of these interns were incredibly smart and hard working, and I did my best to give them meaningful work that they could not only learn from but leaving with something valuable to put on their resumes and clips to show. They all interned for college credit and worked part-time around paying job schedules. But we never gave them a dime, and the work that they did was things that we didn’t have the budget to pay staff or freelancers for.

When I was in college I was an unpaid intern at Metro Times Detroit (and paid for the college credit to do it), I was there part time around two other part time paying jobs, but the experience remains one of my fondest journalistic memories (it was thrilling to feel like a real reporter and be sent out on assignment and pitch ideas, and work alongside and learn from some of the savviest journalists I’ve ever met). I did a lot of small work there for which I wasn’t paid, but when I pitched and wrote two feature stories I was paid (an albeit very small) freelance rate, and walked out with solid clips and experience. I have no doubt that internship helped me as I started my career.

While few publications (like Atlantic media and Mother Jones) offer paid internships, the competiveness of the publishing world (especially now when experienced journalists are working beneath their skill level) shows no sign of letting up, while paying positions (and entire publications) are becoming less available. So paying interns should be common practice, but unless it becomes illegal to hire people and not pay them (it should!) I doubt many if any publications will follow Atlantic’s lead. If fact some of the woman’s glossies seem to be going the opposite direction—auctioning off the privilege of working there; there is currently a $12,000 bid to work next to Anna Wintour at Vogue for a week. While that example may be solely for the morbid curiosity of working with the Devil Wears Prada, internships at magazines like Elle have also been auctioned off.

It’s a Catch 22 as a college student or recent grad; you don’t have the experience to get hired, and the only way you can get the experience is to work for free. While publications can’t (or won’t pay interns like they would real employees—and maybe that shouldn’t since there is often a lot of work teaching on the staff’s part—they could at least provide freelance pay for the work they publish.

Food for Change

2010-04-13T11:31:00.003-05:00

It’s a topic I’ve been a-blogging about frequently in the last couple of months, so it’s only appropriate that I follow up with these recent more hopeful stories on the topic of making healthy food more available in food desert areas of the city and country.

Yesterday New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand proposed $1 billion in loans and grants Monday to help build 2,100 grocery stores in areas around the nation that lack access to fresh food.

It’s estimated that the proposal would help about four million New Yorkers who live in areas like the Bronx and East New York, where grocery stores are few and far between by providing the funding for more than 350 stores statewide. This proposal has the potential to solve the problem of access to healthy food in low-income areas and that’s the first step, but as I’ve said before, the second (and perhaps most important) step is making those healthy foods affordable—more affordable than junk food. That’s a more complex step that involves our entire industrial food system, but no measure of availability or education/awareness will have complete results until people can afford to buy the food.

There’s been some good news (not necessarily NEW news, but more new-to-me news) in the education/awareness area of healthy eating and cooking. On the heels of the after school cooking program I volunteered at last week, I found this story about a professional chef teaching kids about healthy cooking. I know firsthand how engrained poor eating habits can be in kids, how reluctant they can be to try foods they think are “weird” or “gross” but I’ve also seen how much (boy and girls, small kids, teens) really get into cooking, creating, and learning about new foods. It’s not going to fix the problem or change the world, but it does give you hope.

An Egg-cellent way to make money?

2010-04-12T18:09:00.004-05:00

As a Lacto-ovo vegetarian, I’ve often said that I eat eggs because I believe in a chicken’s right to choose. (I realize that they are more chicken periods than they are chicken abortions, and that the chicken really has no choice in the whole matter anyway, but still.)

Being adamantly pro-choice however doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a lot of grey area for me on the subject of eggs and unborn babies. A recent post on Jezebel about person stories of egg donation got me re-thinking about the subject. One woman who wrote in called it “another side of being pro choice,” the thinking being I guess that if you support a woman’s right to choose to not have a baby you must support a woman’s right to choose to pay to have another woman’s eggs make her baby and the right of the other woman to choose to sell her eggs.

As most people know, donating eggs is much more difficult than donating sperm (the limited amount of eggs a woman has, the possible medical complications, the invasiveness, the recovery time) and thusly much more lucrative. But just like sperm donation values good looks (you can even get your sperm donor to look like a famous person), intelligence, health, etc., egg donation can be highly competitive. Many of the stories of egg donation involve prospective parents who want to design some “perfect” baby from thin, tall, blonde, high-SAT, scoring athletic, musically-talented eggs. Which is part of the reason egg donation has always turned me off.

Sure, you may similarly pick a mate that is smart and attractive, but without knowing the person you don’t know what kind of personality this Arian standardized test-wiz will have. The factors that are valued (race often chief among them) aren’t necessarily what makes a good person, and besides, should you really be designing your kid?

As a single woman, the prospect of making $5,000-$10,000 for something you throw away every month anyways can sound tempting, but invasive medical procedures and moral quandaries over having children in the world that you don’t know aside, it turns out that most women probably wouldn’t even qualify anyways.

So it’s true, being pro-choice means you must support a woman’s right to choose whatever she wants to do with her body, no matter if it’s something you feel is responsible or would choose to do yourself, whether that be aborting a baby they don’t feel they can care for, or having 19 kids like the Duggers, or paying to have bio-chemist Barbie’s eggs planted in her. But, the obsession with having your own (even partially) biological “perfect” child when there’s thousands of kids waiting to be adopted just seems like a waste.

New School

2010-04-08T22:50:00.003-05:00

I’ve thought about teaching for many years, although I’ve always wanted to be a writer and journalist, teaching is something that comes back into consideration over and over. I applied for both Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellowship at the end of college, I’ve substitute taught at a preschool, I’ve been a Big Sister to a teenager for 2 ½ years, I’ve volunteered with kids a lot.

But more and more I have so much disillusionment with the educational system. No Child Left Behind, the competiveness of NYC schools, teaching to tests, cuts in funding—hearing my 15-year-old Little Sister talk about school makes me wonder how much smart motivated kids actually learn, let alone those who need more help.

Which is why when you see a teacher or volunteer going the extra mile, when you see lives effected, it (cheesy as it sounds) gives you hope. I volunteered this week at an after school cooking program for special ed high school kids. The woman who runs it (a volunteer herself) has been there every week for three years, and the you can see how much these otherwise marginalized kids benefit from it (sure it probably won’t change their lives, but it’s a lot to feel someone cares, to have fun, and to have consistency in your life).

The most inspiring story I’ve read recently is about Catherine Ferguson Academy in of all places Detroit. The BBC mentioned the alternative school recently in reference to its innovative farm and gardens (in the middle of a depressing urban setting). But when I looked into it further, I found that’s only the tip of the iceberg. This from a MetroTimes feature on the school from 2004:

“While Detroit public schools are among the most maligned anywhere, with dilapidated facilities and failing test scores and a reputation that repels many families, there are diamonds in the rough and students who will succeed despite the odds. Amid the turmoil, the Catherine Ferguson Academy — an “alternative” school in the district that offers middle- and high-school courses — has quietly made a national name for itself.

This year the school was named a Breakthrough High School by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. One of 12 schools nationally to win the distinction, Catherine Ferguson earned it based on the following criteria: At least 50 percent of the school is minority; 50 percent of the student body qualifies for free and reduced-price meals; and at least 90 percent of students graduate and are accepted to college.

The academy had no problem meeting the requirements — with 94 percent black students and 5 percent Hispanic, and more than 90 percent eligible for free or reduced lunches, every year Catherine Ferguson achieves a 90 percent graduation rate; 100 percent of those who graduate (85 last year) are accepted to two- or four-year colleges, most with financial aid, says the school’s principal, G. Asenath Andrews.
“Kids transform themselves here,” Andrews says. “We’re just a pot and kids jump in and turn themselves from lead into gold.”

Every year, enrollment is first come, first served for as many as 400 students and 200 babies. There is no academic requirement; most of the girls are in the process of dropping out when they enter. As many as 20 percent drop out every year, Andrews says. (The 90 percent graduation rate is based on students who make it to their senior year.)

Andrews says the difference at her school is personal attention to each student. While Detroit public schools average 35 students for every teacher, Catherine Ferguson has an 18 to 1 ratio. Each student is assigned to a homeroom teacher whom she stays with until she graduates. The homeroom teacher is responsible for looking after the student, the “first line” before issues head to the principal’s office. When the kids don’t show up or don’t do their homework, a teacher asks, “Why? Where are you? What’s going on?”

The farm and the child care sound like a tall order for most schools, but they shouldn’t, and the personal attention shouldn’t either. I feel like there’s so much more we could be doing, I feel like schools like this should be the rule and not the exception. I feel like maybe someday in some way, even if I don’t become a teacher, I’m going to do something to help make that happen. I just haven’t figured out what yet.

To Please a Woman

2010-04-07T16:51:00.008-05:00

Jezebel pointed yesterday to a recent interview Cosmo’s EIC Kate White did with Media Bistro. In it she was asked about the reputation of the magazine being a little outdated with it’s approach to relationships. Here’s what she said:

"I think there are some people who think that it's still that retro magazine from the 70s, all about guy-pleasing. And it really is not that way at all. Certainly a big part of Cosmo — we're the relationship bible, and a big part is helping women navigate relationships and understand what makes men tick because they're so baffling! But we approach relationships with the idea of — we're teaching women and showing them how to please guys, but we're expecting that they're getting that back from the guys — that somewhere the guys are learning that information, maybe from their friends, or from websites, or other magazines."

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First I take issue with the whole “men are so baffling!” thing. The men are from Mars women from Venus thing is like the “white people be like this and black people be like this” jokes, it’s just a tired and lazy perspective based on oft-untrue or outdated stereotypes. Sure, there are a lot of differences between men and women, but I don’t think figuring out what a man is looking for out of sex or a relationship is really that difficult, especially if you, you know…ask them.

The biggest problem with her statement is that she expects that guys are magically learning how to please women somewhere. I’m not so sure. And granted men aren’t reading Cosmo, but that doesn’t mean the onus isn’t completely off women’s magazines like hers. More than 95% of their sex and relationship content is about what women are doing wrong and how to make sure he’s sexually satisfied.

What about making sure you are sexually satisfied (whether bestowing the knowledge of how to take care of business yourself or how to make sure that dude you’re so concerned about pleasing in the sack is returning the favor)? What about how to negotiate the tricky ground of equality in a relationship. It’s not news that many women’s magazines make women feel bad about themselves and many men’s magazines objectify women and promote some rather disgusting treatment of women (like how to trick them into sleeping with you).

Still after White’s comment about hoping that men are learning how to please women “from their friends (where’d they learn?), websites, or other magazines” I decided to see what about pleasing women is available for men. Below the cover blurbs from the January and February 2010 issues of both Cosmo and Maxim (what I deemed to be Cosmo’s male equivalent).

Cosmo January 2010 cover:

100% Hotter Sex: Thrill every inch of his body using a move no woman has dared to try on him before

50 Ways to have fun with your guy

The New Male Sex Habit that can hurt a relationship

Maxim January 2010 cover:

Swimsuit Bonus: 16 Pages of Miami’s hottest bikini girls

Double your salary in 2010

Wet and Wild Olivia Munn (with a spead eagle soaking wet photo)

Hangover survival guide

Cosmo February 2010 cover:

The Hour Men Crave Sex the Most

How to deal with a jealous Bitch…when that Jealous bitch is you

What makes a woman irresistible

99 Sex moves: sweet and slow, quick and dirty and everything inbetween

Maxim February 2010:

Amanda Bynes Grown up and uncovered

The 25 Best Beers

Tiger’s Texting Temptress Hot new Photos

The secret to no fail sex

What have we learned? Men drink a lot, like to look at sexy ladies (be they a golfer’s mistress or a barely legal Disney star), have the ability to advance in their careers and need help keeping it up (probably all that beer). Meanwhile, women need to stop being jealous bitches, must make themselves more desirable and come up with all kinds of different ways to have sex. Glad we’ve come so far Kate White…

Thank you for Pot Smoking

2010-04-06T10:15:00.005-05:00

I used to kind of roll my eyes at the “Legalize It” rastas and hippies. I viewed legalizing marijuana as a self-severing “never going to happen” non-political issue. But over the last couple of years I’ve learned more about why this maybe the single more obvious (and bipartisan) issue that if passed could have some of the largest and most wide spread effects.

The medical benefits: while there are lots of jokes about stoners faking glaucoma to get high, there are legit medical benefits to pot and 14 states have legalized medical marijuana, approved to treat a (yes a little suspiciously) long list of ailments including anorexia (it gives you the munchies), anxiety (it mellows you out) and even recently (albeit a little controversy) for ADD in kids. Yet this is an illegal drug. What would legal highs like booze or cigarettes ever be used to treat? Nothing, because they are actually harmful to health, yet still legal because the government has realized the tax potential. The other perhaps more compelling medical benefit of legalized pot is that it would loosen our growing dependence on pharmaceuticals. Legal pot would be cheaper and less toxic than pharmaceutical drugs, and would mean less pharmaceutical waste and residue in water and soil (good for the environment and for every living thing).

The fiscal benefit: I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but in the midst of the recession and huge state budget deficits, lawmakers have been looking high and low for things to tax (sugary drinks while misguided was one of the more logical suggestions). In California, where legal (non medical) pot is on the ballot for November, State-run studies have found that taxes on marijuana could raise as much as $1.4 billion in annual revenue (much needed in a state with a failing economy like CA’s). Legalizing pot and regulating it’s production, and taxing it like cigarettes and booze would not only bring new revenue streams (much larger than proposed taxes on other lifestyle choices or vices), but would save billions in arrests, court costs, and jailing minor "criminals" for pot possession and sales.

We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related. Cutting those criminals out of the system and giving them legit “green” jobs would not only save billions in the legal system, but help eliminate deadly drug wars with countries like Mexico. You want to help build American jobs? Why not pot farmers (unlike corn, it’s a crop that can be grown in even small urban spaces) or sellers (like the “coffee” shops in Amsterdam).

Why it’s not a liberal issue: As a political issue legal pot is not at all a liberal one, California voters don’t have a recent history of liberal voting (we all know they voted against gay marriage and elected a republican governor). The Netherlands, famous of their tulips, and legal pot and prostitution, has a very conservative government.

As for fears about a dangerous high nation of stoned kids and soccer moms, if the content of weed is monitored in the same way the content of other substances are and the laws in place are similar to the laws around alcohol consumption (age restrictions, intoxication limits and repercussions) then there is no longer an issue, so chill dude.

Now that Bees are legal (L magazine)

14 States with Legal Medical Marijuana

Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense (Time magazine)

Marijuana on the CA Ballot

Affordable Housing and Transportation

2010-03-30T10:57:00.003-05:00

Mother Jones’ blog last week pointed to the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s recent report on affordable housing and transportation. The traditional way to look at what makes housing affordable is if it costs less than 30% of your household income, but this new survey takes into account the cost of transportation as well (a combo which seems kind of arbitraly at 45%) which (because of the lack of public transportation in many parts of the country) changes the amount of affordable housing in the US drastically. Click here to look at the handy map and find your hood.

Looking at my part of Brooklyn and the areas around it the lack of affordable housing seems to predictably follow the lines of desirable neighborhoods (like Park Slope), and the addition of transportation into the equation makes little difference since most parts of the area are well served by public transportation. What’s interesting on the map to me is the blue areas (people who are paying more than 30% of their income for housing) are predictably in expensive neighborhoods, with giant yellow patches in less desirable places like Bushwick and East New York, there’s also giant blue patches in Marine Park and Bay Ridge/ Bensonhurst, I don’t know enough about these areas to say why, my guess is that more people there own houses and have to pay property taxes/ deal with foreclosures, etc.

As far as transportation equaling in on the affordability of these more far flung neighborhood I could predict that the recent MTA cuts could make certain places less affordable or that less access to public transit might drive down home costs, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in many other places.

What I’d like to see however is a neighborhood affordability index that took into account more factors about the neighborhood as a whole. The Median Household Income for New York City is listed as $41,053. Of course it’s impossible to live in these more expensive hoods on that income, the people who live there make well in the 100 thousands and above, which means there’s some pretty low incomes in those more affordable hoods drive the median down. While housing prices might change, I’d like to see a study of prices of the rest of costs of living by neighborhood and how much that changes. I think I could predict the results. Moral of the story: it’s effing expensive to live here, and “affordable” housing probably only exists if you have a rent stabilized apartment.

Boobs! In Public!

2010-03-26T18:41:00.004-05:00

In the past couple weeks there’s been a big hullabaloo about ladies putting up picture of themselves breastfeeding on Facebook, and Facebook getting all “Those are boobs and that’s obscene!” and threatening to delete the accounts of those ladies. And then as you do the ladies have blogged about it and wanted everyone to change their Facebook status and pictures, at all (you know, the type of lazy nothingness that passes for activism these days)

For the most part I am totally on their side, and Facebook’s argument that they want “ the site to "[remain] a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children.” holds no weight when those “children” are (according to Facebook’s rules) over 13 years old. Or when you take into account ridiculous FB applications like "Big Boobs" that lets users send each other cartoon drawings of breasts, or the “Boobs or Butt” application that makes users answer tough questions deciphering if a cropped image is cleavage or a butt, or "boobs" fan pages, or lots and lots of pretty sexualized cleavage shots in profile pictures.

Where these mommies lose me is when they start acting like having a kid is the pinnacle of human accomplishment. It’s a big deal sure, probably the biggest thing that will happen in your personal life, but it ladies have been doing it for awhile, don’t expect everyone to drop their bags and applaud when you whip your boob out to feed. Do I think women should be allowed to breastfeed in toys r us, or restaurants or anywhere else their babies are hungry? Yes of course. Do I think they should be able to post pictures of it wherever they want? Why not. What I disdain is the tone of their argument, like one mom who wrote an open letter to Facebook after they took down her boob pictures:
“That's right, Facebook. I grew two tiny people inside my womb, birthed them, almost died in the process, and then set my own needs aside to carry out the grave responsibility of sustaining those lives by creating nutritionally perfect food within my body and feeding it to them using my (GASP!) breasts.”
I can only respond with this fantastic Garfunkel and Oates song (yes I’m a little obsessed).

The overall issue I think is the odd values that Americans have on what is and isn’t offensive. I’ve never understood the lines of “decency” that we’ve agreed on as a society, like boobs are fine, but nipples aren’t, and butts are OK and long as there’s no crack. Sexual representations are sometimes OK, but sex isn’t. Objectification is funny and sells products, but representations of homosexually or things like breast feeding aren’t for young eyes and aren’t decent. You can call a woman a bitch on prime time TV, but you can’t call a man an asshole. I think I might start a Facebook group in protest of this.

Breastfeeding and Facebook the debate

Fashion Friday: Custom Keds

2010-03-26T14:49:00.002-05:00

Spring is finally in the air and thusly I've been on the hunt for new canvas flats. After not finding anything I like in any stores, I found the custom Keds site, you can design your own or tweak the colors on designs from actual artists. The flats I want are $60, which is about four times what I'd normally pay for shoes like this, but I'm obsessed and want about five different pairs now. Girls, Shoes, blah, blah, blah... Here are a few of my favorites. Votes on which I should get? Anyone want to buy me a pair (or 2)?

Origin by Yellena by Yellena
See more Shoes Keds Shoes

Simmer by Yellena
See more Art Keds Shoes

City Slicker by naduval
Browse more Kedscollective Keds Shoes

KEDDY KAT LADIES MINI SLIP by methane
Create custom Keds shoes online with zazzle.com

Health Care and Killing Babies

2010-03-24T11:56:00.004-05:00

Much talk about the health care reform bill, the comprise that’s left the country more divided and neither side getting what it really wants. For “liberals,” it’s a “something is better than nothing” reform that will still leave many uninsured, might not take care of the struggling working class enough and will take years to take effect.

For the tea party republicans it makes us a communist baby-killing country. The whole thing makes for an interesting case study in argument tactics. BBC World News put forth the idea that those opposed to the health care reform aren’t so worried about what the bill contains as they are about the implications that it threatens the idea of American Exceptionalism —that we are above the rest of the world and don’t need the same sorts of systems that other countries do.

After all, this new law is far from radical, and leaves a lot of payment on individuals. And as noted on NPR this morning, the first benefits of the bill even go to the groups that have been complaining the most: seniors with Medicare, will get $250 rebate this year to help fill in the gap in the prescription drug coverage, and small business owners will get tax credit starting this year to encourage them to provide insurance to their employees (which they are still not even required to do).

The other major sticking point is a “moral” one of course—abortion. The irony in the pro-life panic about tax money funding abortions is that the “baby killer” screamers aren’t prolife at all, they are pro-moral agenda pushing.

As George Carlin famously said, “Conservatives are all in favor of the unborn, but once you’re born, you’re on your own, they are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months, after that they don’t want to know about you—no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare —if you’re pre-born you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked. They are not pro-life, they are anti-woman.”

But the bill passed and it’s a law now, and I’m glad for some progress, even if it’s at the cost of a more divided country with knee-jerk flawed logic. As Joe Biden said, it’s still “A Big Fucking Deal”

Summary of Health Care Reform

Sex with Ducks and Health Care

2010-03-22T10:46:00.004-05:00

So the health care bill has passed and that's huge and all, but at the moment I don't really have anything insightful to add to the chorus of voices on the subject. However Mark and I went to see the very awesome Garfunkel and Oates this weekend. And I've have this song stuck in my head for two days. It's political and funny...you know like I try to be.

The Obesity –Hunger Paradox

2010-03-18T15:45:00.003-05:00

Along the same lines as my recent posts about poverty and obesity, is this recent New York Times article, The Obesity-Hunger Paradox which points to poverty riddled South Bronx (the most overweight and least healthy part of New York City) as one of the areas in America with the biggest hunger problems. Hunger defined not by starving, but by the lack of access to nutritious food, and an inability to afford the basics, being referred to as “food insecure.”

Families with not enough money to get an actual meal, and no grocery stores to buy real food at anyways, so they fill up on calorie-filled food from bodegas (check out this video)

In fact a recent survey by the Food Research and Action Center, found that nearly 37 percent of residents in the South Bronx, said they lacked money to buy food at some point in the past 12 months. The article points to some incentives that sound like really good ideas (encouraging farmers’ market patronage through food stamps incentives and attempts to lure grocery stores to poor areas with tax breaks.

The figures are showing that the programs aren’t working, most likely because they aren’t wide spread enough, and the healthy options still aren’t cheap enough. Even if it’s the difference of a dollar between a filling and tasty healthy meal that you have to prepare and a filling and tasty junk food meal that you don’t have to cook, the choice is obvious when you’re poor, stressed, and busy. These programs are good steps but their clearly not enough, the structure of the neighborhood, the structure of minimum wage, and the structure of the industrial food system all need to be changed.

Dating Advice From Disney

2010-03-18T12:36:00.001-05:00

From This Article

Fizzing Out

2010-03-16T14:59:00.005-05:00

Related to my previous posts on the misguided fight against fatties, The New York soda tax has “fallen flat” and “fizzled out” some may even say it’s “evaporated.” Aside from being ripe for puns for headlines, the soda tax was another government idea that seems to have been thought up by a 7^th grader (an oversimplified, not thoroughly thought through solution to a complex problem). Sure the money from adding a penny onto the price of every ounce of soda would get a lot of money and that money could be used for health care.

But therein lies the first major failing of the idea: you are taxing soda to discourage people from drinking it because it’s bad for them, but you’re making it low enough that you can still count on people drinking it. Adding a one cent tax to soda doesn’t make healthier options any more affordable, it doesn’t even close the gap in any noticeable way between a 99 cent two litter of soda and a $5 bottle of organic juice.

The other major problem with these and other similar “sin taxes” is the people that you are taking the money from are usually those who can least afford to pay it. Smoking, drinking and eating crappy food are vices enjoyed by all classes but are about the only luxuries the poor can afford. Similarly, if you are admitting that a product is bad for it’s consumers, simply charging them more money to kill themselves seems more like a way to capitalize on it rather than help fix the problem. In short, the argument just falls flat.

Soda Tax Plan Evaporates

Sprung!

2010-03-16T14:20:00.006-05:00

I realized something today, being unemployed has turned me into a bit of a housewife. I’ve been reading and writing more, thinking more. I spend hours in the drudgery of looking for and applying for jobs. But perhaps because I spend my days at home now instead of an office I’ve become more domestic. I cook and clean more, and I’ve started getting more into other things around the house like crafts and gardening. After this long harsh winter I’m more excited than usual for spring, so I had to take pictures of the first joyful little purple flowers in my backyard that I can see from my desk.

(pictured: a pillow I made recently and the first flowers in my garden)

Snow No! It’s Global Warming!

2010-03-16T13:19:00.004-05:00

The volume, frequency and devastation of earthquakes, tsunamis, snowstorms and rainstorms recently has had some calling it a sign of the end of world. While others are using it as proof that global warming isn’t real (in fact, a recent Gallup Poll found that 48% of Americans now believe that the "seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated," up from 41 percent last year). The truth of course lies somewhere in between, the world is going to end, but it’s not going to happen this year, these things take time. But Global Warming is real, the problem is in the branding. Logic would follow that if we’ve messed up the planet and ice caps are melting and everything is getting warmer than we shouldn’t have MORE snowstorms, we should we wearing t-shirts in February right?

Of course Al Gore the spokesperson for climate change awareness had to defend the idea that heavy snowfall is no reason to think everything is A-OK. In a recent New York Times Op Ed he wrote:

"The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm."

I read a little more about it and it turns out that as the planet gets warmer rain and snowfall get heavier (by about 10-20 percent) , with the more intense storms will most likely to happen in late autumn, winter, and early spring. Aside from the obvious problems like flooding, power outages, snow and down tree removal and the associated costs to already strained infrastructure. There’s the irony that more precipitation might actually mean less useable water. Basically reservoirs will fill earlier than normal, and snow will melt earlier in the year, which will put the water runoff all into spring rather than being able to draw it out through summer. The systems that can't hold an entire season of runoff all at once will be challenged to meet the demands of their water customers later in the season.

So maybe it’s confusing to call it “global warming” because the name only covers part of the cause and not the whole problem. But climate change by any other name still spells the same result.

Americans More Confused About Climate Than Ever

Snowmageddon Is A Sign Of Global Warming

Global Warming Water Shortage

The Story of Stuff

2010-03-10T16:25:00.004-05:00

The guest on the Colbert Report last night was Annie Leonard who created the awesome video “The Story of Stuff” (which you can and SHOULD watch here: http://www.storyofstuff.com/) and wrote a book of the same name. Both detail the production, consumption and disposal of the vast amount of crap Americans have and shop for.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Annie Leonard

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Skate Expectations

Some of the things she highlights are kind of no brainers (but need stating none the less), like advertisements make us feel like we aren’t good enough and need to buy more stuff, or that the government doesn’t take care of making sure products are safe for us because they are tied up in corporate interests, or that all the plastic crap we buy is kept cheap at the expense of the enviorment it destroys, the factory workers health, and the store employee’s wages and benefits. (She also points to how all the chemicals in everything we consume is making so sick that even breast milk is full of chemicals).

The 20 minute video also talks about how much (4.5 pounds per person per day) and how fast (99% of what is bought is trashed in six months) all the crap we buy is thrown out. And that after WWII our economy has been specifically designed to be one of disposable consumerism. One idea that I found really interesting was that of “planned obsolescence,” that most products are in fact “designed for the dump” that since the 1950’s manufactures have figured out how fast the products that they make can break and have to be replaced while still maintaining customer confidence (she points to that fact that happiness has been on the decline since the 50s as well and suggests the corrletion is the replacement of family time with “stuff.” The other piece is of course what she refers to as “perceived oblencence,” the “need” to keep up with trends or have the newest, flattest, shiniest update of something you just bought (I’m looking at you Apple).

The whole idea of her video and book is that this cycle is totally unhealthy for everyone at every step of the way and suggests ways to make changes (follow this link).

For me personally, this resonates on a variety of levels. Since losing my job, I’ve of course had to cut back my spending which has caused me to fist re-discover stuff I already had that I forgot about like clothes I had bought and never wore or books I own and never read. I’ve also looked at the potential of things differently (I recently turned an old scarf of Mark’s into a throw pillow). But I’ve always been thrifty (also known to some a cheap), which has caused me to make things last longer than they were meant to—like the jeans I patch up instead of toss and the goodwill boots that I redid the heel with a marker. Still, I come from a family of bargain hunters and yard salers, while we may not have to (or can afford to) have the newest and best of things, we did and do always have to have stuff and shop.

And while the new things I lacked growing up have led me to desire a life with a home with “nice” things, I have realized by way of the necessity of living a semi-transient life in small apartments, that I don’t NEED a bunch of stuff. I know that (especially in a place like New York where space is at such a premium) I am not willing to give up quality of life in order to have a bunch of things. In essence the old adage is true. I want to own my stuff, I don’t want my stuff to own me.

The Least Amount of Fun you can Have on Coney Island

2010-03-05T15:27:00.003-05:00

I've loved Coney Island as long as I've lived in New York, despite of and sometimes even because of it's past and problems. It's one of the most interesting places in the city. I naively thought biggest problems the neighborhood faced were poverty/blight vs. disney-fication and condos.

This essay about the squalor of "Surf Manor" adult home from Mother Jones, points to a whole other world just one block from the boardwalk.

A Place for Us

Three Things I'm Obsessed with Right Now

2010-03-04T13:23:00.003-05:00

It's time for the next installment of three things I'm Obsessed with Right Now:

1. Hawai'i: I just got back from an amazing trip to Maui (tsunami scare notwithstanding). The sun, the fresh fruit, the tasty drinks, the flowers and beauty of nature, the Aloha spirit. I've only been back for a day and I already want to go back. New York has never seemed so gloomy and depressing.

2. Freaks and Geeks: Now that I'm home at lunch time everyday I let myself take a more leisurely lunch once in a while, and I've been watching the series regularly and I had forgotten just how well done it was. By far the best thing Aptow has ever done.

3. Mac and Cheese: This has been my go-to winter comfort food for the past couple of months, and I've been trying it in many different versions at various restruants all over NYC. The best of which is at Cafe Moto in Brooklyn (it has potatoes in it!)

Today in Unemployment

2010-02-23T13:24:00.003-05:00

I've been mulling over a few things to blog about. But until they come together, here is a collection of the best articles and blog posts I've read recently about unemployment.

How A New Jobless Era will Transform America

Women Struggling to Stay Afloat in a Struggling Economy

The Ripple Effects of Unemployment in America

BMI BS

2010-02-10T14:11:00.005-05:00

In light of my recent post on fat people and America’s misguided attempts to “fix” the obesity problem, I’ve been thinking about one of the measures of being overweight, the Body Mass Index. It’s one of the most widely used and quickest/easiest ways to determine where someone falls on the fat to skinny spectrum. BMI is measured by calculating your weight against your height. The problem is, that’s all it measures- it is a very imperfect system that’s too widely used. In fact, Michelle Obama, in talking about her childhood obesity plan, cited that her family doctor cautioned that her daughter was overweight based on her BMI.

To give you a sense, I am 5ft 1in tall and weigh 110 pounds, my BMI is 20.8 (right in the middle of “normal” weight), but I could be as skinny as 98 pounds and still be considered “normal” (not underweight). If I was tipping the scales at a whopping 133, however I’d be considered “overweight.” Many take offence to the fact that there are two classifications for fat and only one for skinny. I take offence to the following:

BMI doesn’t take into account body fat or muscle. It also doesn’t take into account diet and exercise, or family history. There are plenty of unhealthy sedentary skinny people who eat nothing but junk food. While conversely there are plenty of healthy people with a predisposition to be larger than “normal” who are active and eat well.

Which is why it’s surprising the a company like Whole Foods would use employees BMI (along with better measurements such as low blood pressure, and not smoking) as a measure of healthiness and subsequently size of employee discount. The idea program of course is to encourage the employees to be healthier thus costing the company less in insurance costs. But shouldn’t a Giant Health Food Store give larger discounts to those that are the least healthy? Making those $10 strawberries affordable?

For a great illustration on just how crazy pants BMI classification is, check out Kate Harding’s BMI slideshow of women of various sizes with their BMI classification next to their pictures.

Giving more than Oprah

2010-02-09T22:21:00.008-05:00

It was a big to-do in the news today that Bloomberg was the fourth biggest charitable contributor in 2009. Call me cynical, but my first thought was, “nice PR” and my second “yeah but I bet the amount wouldn’t be as impressive if you compared it to how much he has.”

So like any good unemployed journalist, I set about finding the answers. Here, the 10 richest people in America and what they gave last year.

Who Net worth What they gave % of their income

1. Bill Gates net worth: $50,000,000,000 gave: $350,000,000 which is: 0.7%

2. Warren Buffett net worth: $40,000,000,000 (not on Philanthropy’s top 50)

3. Lawrence Ellison net worth: $27,000,000,000 gave: $46,907, 838 which is: 0.1%

4. Christy Walton net worth: $21,500,000,000 (no one in the Walton Family was in top 50)

5. Jim C Walton net worth: $19,600,000,000

6. Alice Walton net worth:$19,300,000,000

7. S. Robson Walton net worth: $19,600,000,000

8. Michael Bloomberg net worth: $17,500,000,000 gave: $254,000,000 which is:1.4%

9. Charles Koch net worth: $16,000,000,000 (both Koch’s were not in the top 50)

10. David Koch net worth: $16,000,000,000

So of the 10 richest people in America, only three are among the 50 biggest charity contributors. And of those Bloomberg is the highest at 1.4%, the other two give a generous less than one percent.

Which isn’t to belittle the important work and lives saved the their millions helps fund, I just wonder if we’d be doing so much ooo-ing and ahh-ing and back patting at a person of lesser means contributing 0.1% to charity.

Let’s put it in perspective shall we?

Net worth is simply assets vs. debts, so it doesn’t take into account how much you made that year. So say a person has a net worth of $75,000 (most of us should be so lucky), to be on par with the Bill and Melinda Gates (leaders in philanthropic giving), you would only have had to give $525 to charity last year. A nice gesture sure, but nothing worthy of a press release.

Put another way, Oprah Winfrey, a person synonymous with good will, is 141 on rich list, with a net worth of $2,300,000,000, meanwhile she’s an impressive #25 on the charity list, giving $41,404,281—that’s still only giving 1.8% of her money. Meanwhile, I’ll estimate my net worth at $20,000, and I spent $900 on charitable giving last year. That’s 4.5% of my net worth on charitable giving. Bam! I’m more generous the Oprah!

The Philanthropy 50

The 400 Richest Americans

I’d also like to note one more reason why Wal-Mart is evil. Notice top richies 4-7, all members of the Walton family and all nowhere to be found on the Philanthropy 50.

No Fatties

2010-02-05T16:56:00.004-05:00

Every body hates a fatty. Because really, why can’t they control themselves? They’re so lazy. Same reason why every one hates a poor person, it’s their fault, why won’t they just work harder?

Disparaging the fat and the poor (groups that overlap in a lot of cases) are some of the few bigoted views that aren’t taboo. Because after all, you can never be too thin or too rich and if you are thin and rich then it’s your moral obligation to point out the failings of those who aren’t. As highlighted in this pun-filled LA Times Health article, “Slim society's tolerance is wearing thin”, it’s a…wait for it…growing issue. Hi-Yo!

The idea behind the article is thin people are sick of footing the health care bill for fatties who just sit around watching TV all day and soothe themselves with food. This ludicrous notion exists in a world where:

1. We have national health care and our taxes are contributing to other people’s medical bills. (the article quotes that Obesity-related costs are expected to account for 21% of healthcare spending, but is this the obese individuals’ spending? Is it costs that uninsured individuals burden tax payers with?)

2. All people who are overweight are sedentary and/or eat too much or use food as a comfort/coping method

3. All people who are overweight are unhealthy.

These pissed off skinny people’s anger is misdirected, we market the hell out of junk food, remove consumers completely from the process of how food is produced, where it’s from or what’s in season, we make fast food that’s loaded with chemicals, fat, sugar and calories jumbo sized and one dollar and put it on every corner, especially in the poorest neighborhoods while fruits, vegetables and organics are sanctioned to farmers markets and posh grocery stores. If someone on a limited income can even find healthy food and the time to cook it, chances are they can’t afford it, because a bag of carrots costs at least twice as much as a fast food cheeseburger.

This is done of course because of the huge corporate and government interests in factory farming and commodity crops like corn and soybeans (which are then engineered into delicious things like high fructuous corn syrup)

Put more succinctly, “All those snack food calories are the ones that come from the commodity crops, from the wheat, from the corn, and from the soybeans. By making those calories really cheap, it’s one of the reasons that the biggest predictor of obesity is income level.”—Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”

The government is bought by the corporations that manufacture food to make us fat and sick and then the government tells us to stop being fat and won’t give us health care when we get sick. Our awful yet or so yummy diet of genetically modified food is the major reason that 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. And the food deserts in areas like the Bronx in NYC are a main contributing factor to the fact that among minorities, the rate will be 1 in 2.

Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity is another good idea that I’m skeptical will achieve its intended goal. It’s important to encourage and educate about finding making healthier choices, being more active, controlling your portions, etc. But If you don’t have access to and can’t afford health foods, don’t have safe places to exercise, and have to rely on thing like free school lunches and dollar menus that are laden with calories, salt and fat, “awareness” does you little to no good.

I’m the last person that would ever take personal responsibly out of the equation. Exercising, and making informed choices about the food you eat and how much of it you eat and not smoking or drinking too much, etc. are all things that individuals are responsible and no one should have to subsidize someone else’s poor decisions. But there’s a bigger picture and a bigger problem than people’s apathy and appetites.

Can’t Complain

2010-02-04T14:51:00.005-05:00

“Due to the difficult economic times” I have lost two jobs in the past six months. But even this, to people who have been unemployed for a year or more sounds enviable. Which is part of the problem. With unemployment at 10% and people in dire straits, the prevailing attitude seems to be one of “you think you have it bad, at least you aren’t XYZ.”

And it’s true, it’s hard to muster sympathy for someone’s small raise or lack of bonus when you’ve had your pay cut or lost your job (something I’ve been guilty of over the past year). But there in lies the problem. The job situation is so bad that no one can complain; if you have a job at all you should be grateful.

But it seems that companies are using the poor economy as an excuse to screw over workers who feel trapped and turn bigger profits. It’s no surprise then that more Americans hate their jobs now than at any other point in the past 20 years, with fewer than half saying they are satisfied.

Here, a few semi-personal* examples of employers taking advantage of the recession:

A large publisher continues to make profits in a recession. Using the rough economy as an excuse and undoubtedly safe in the knowledge that talented people are going to be hard pressed to find similar positions elsewhere, the publisher cuts salaries by 6% across the board, taking many who have been with the company less than three years the a wage less then when they started. Even if the standard “cost of living” raise of 3% is reinstated the next year, it will take two years to reach the rate that the employee was at when they started at the company (which at that point would have been five years prior).
A large entertainment company is bought by another large entertainment company both with huge profits. The employees raises and bonuses are held or cut.

A selective top public university continues to profit and expand during the recession due to increased applicants, yet uses the economy as an excuse to cut all employees wages by a mere 1.8% as well as cut back on benefits like comp tuition.

In all of these scenarios, the employers haven’t needed the money, they were all still profitable, and doing better even than in years past, but saw the recession as an excuse to profit from their employees who faced little other options to seek something better. Which is exactly why so many people are dissatisfied in their jobs—they are being screwed over and they just have to take it and not complain, because “at least they have a job.” The same excuse has been used to cut costs by laying off employees and making the ones that remain work longer hours without complaint out of fear of being the next to go.

Of course this environment of fear isn’t a sustainable work model, yet it’s working pretty well right now and the lack of job growth and increased job dissatisfaction are proof.

President Obama’s proposed plan to increase job growth would give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker they hire in 2010, while businesses that increase wages or hours for their current workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay. Incentives to increase jobs and boost stagnant wages or inadequate hours are ideas that I’m mostly behind, but I wonder how many larger employers would take Obama up on the offer.

A $5,000 tax credit may sound like a decent incentive to a small business owner, but to larger companies, it’s a drop in the bucket to what they can save by simply enlisting cheap labor. And these days, with so many so desperate for work, the labor is cheaper and more experienced. Many will work for free just to keep something on their resume, and those who won’t will take positions below their skill level or as “ permant freelance” or “long-term temps,” the financial benefit for employers (aside from paying lower hourly rates) is huge cost savings in relation to benefits like health care and paid time off—a savings of well over $5,000 per employee.

It’s not that I think Obama’s plan is bad, it makes sense, I’m just skeptical that it will work. And I honestly don’t know what will aside from employees and job seekers revolting and refusing to be taken advantage of, but we aren’t really in the position of financial power to do so.

*These three stories are accounts of employers of people in my life, and I’m sure are kind of easy to figure out.

Three Things I'm Obsessed With Right Now

2010-02-03T00:02:00.005-05:00

Like a lot of people I'm sure, I get obsessed for weeks at a time with certain music, movies, etc. Sometimes it ends up turning into a long-time love (like George Orwell), and many others fade. In what may become a semi-regular feature, here are three things I'm Obsessed With Right Now:

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz! I've been lukewarm about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for years, there are a handful of songs that I really like, but the rest kind of annoyed me. But then I fell slightly for the hypnotic songs of Karen O's music on the Where the Wild Things Are, which led me then to this CD, which I haven't stopped listening to for the past two weeks. All the songs are good, but there are a few stand outs, the best of which is Hysteric.

2. George Carlin. I've been reading his autobiography Last Words over the past couple of weeks, which has inspired me to re-vist a lot of his stand-up. Such a funny, insightful guy. It's also inspiredme to start thinking about going back to writing some stand-up of my own.

3. How I Met Your Mother. I had seen a few episodes here and there on TV or on a plane, and always thought it was pretty witty and not typical laugh-track sitcom triteness. It wasn't until I interviewed Alyson Hannigan in December that I decided to really get into the show. Mark and I got the DVDs of the first four seasons and have been watching them regularly over the past month. It's....wait for it....Awesome!

Dropping like Flies

2010-01-28T17:19:00.001-05:00

Dead today:

JD Salinger--“Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.”

Howard Zinn-- "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.”

Responsible Spending of NY State Government’s Money

2010-01-26T17:03:00.004-05:00

Well dear readers, after February 5^th I’ll be back living on the dole. My full time freelance job will be turning into a possible sometimes freelance job. Yeah, it’s hard out here for a journalist. And 2010 has yet to impress me.

The prospect of prolonged unemployment is depressing to say the least, but it has spurred me to make some belated resolutions. Aside from trying to find a job and all that, here are a few things I have planned for the duration of my re-unemployment:

Post on this here blog three times a week. I often have lots to say about stuff, but never get around to writing or feel that adding my voice to the din of others on topics like Haiti would be futile.
Restart my weekly cooking as documented here.
Overhaul the design of my website.
Make my gym membership worth it. (this is vague, but I think “worth it” probably means going about 3-4 times a week)
Work on all the performance things I’ve thought about doing but never get around to like maybe possibly stand up comedy.
Actually make some of the artsy/crafty stuff I have ideas for but never do, including taking more pictures.

Top 25 Movies of the 00s

2010-01-11T16:50:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine is putting together a best of the decade movie list and asked for my input. Here's what I came up with. Some of these I 100% stand behind as my favorite and the best movies of the last decade, others I really like, still more I could be swayed on and I'm sure there are ones I loved that I left off. But here's my top 25 movies of the 00s:

1.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): The one and only time I've not been annoyed by Jim Carrey, and probably the most honest portrayal of the post break-up desire to forget all your pain. At the same time heartbreaking and heartwarming notion that you’ll keep making the same mistakes in love, but that it’s worth it. Perfect.

2. Amelie (2002): Even though it's painfully cute, it's just so pure, funny and enjoyable.

3.Rachel at the Wedding (2008): I never thought much of Anne Hathaway until this movie, she totally transformed and not just because they game her an “alternative” eye make-up and hair cut. Scene where she gives the toast is one of the most painful and awkward moments on film I've ever seen.

4. Best in Show (2000): Hands down the best Christpher Guest movie, I could watch it over and over. So very funny.

5. Before Sunset (2004): To know me is to know my love of (almost) all things Ethan Hawke. This follow up to 1995's Before Sunrise probably only mattered to those who loved the 1st movie. Low on plot ( the whole movie is just two people walking Paris around talking), it's still has some of the best commentary of life and love, plus the ending couldn't be a better fit.

6. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Again, probably too cute for its own good, but it's clever and so re-watchable, plus the entire pageant part is so perfect, not to mention the song and dance number.

7. UP (2009): I laughed, I cried--really. both heart breaking and sweet and goofy all at the same time.

8. Brokeback Mountain (2005) The movie that made it OK to be a gay cowboy

9. The Wrestler (2008) Great portrait of a has been who is given a second chance to fix his life and still makes the same mistakes of his past.

10. Station Agent (2003) I started writing a screenplay years a go, then I saw this movie and realized what I had wanted to make had already been made in a better way.

11. 500 Days of Summer(2009) Best romantic comedy in years, great soundtrack, clever approach to storytelling.

12. Slumdog millionaire(2008)
13. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
14. The Edukators (2005)
15. Half Nelson (2006)
16. Coraline (2009)
17. Adaptation (2002)
18. Royal Tenebaums (2001)
19. Sideways (2004)
20. Precious (2009)
21. Hot Fuzz (2007)
22. The Hottest State (2006)
23. Hard Candy(2005)
24. Into the Wild (2007)
25. Waking Life (2001)

A Decade of Kate

2010-01-02T12:32:00.009-05:00

Oh year-end recaps! Oh decade rehashes! Oh listicles! Yes it’s that time of year and as lazy and self-serving as it is, I can’t resist the urge to look back on my own little life in the ‘00s. Unlike the two other decades of my life, this one seems like a decade without definition, I can’t really point to many cultural trends that tied 2000-2009 together except maybe the Internet and Reality TV. I graduated from high school in 1999, which means my entire adult life to this point has taken place in this odd ambiguous decade. So if you care to indulge me, here’s a snapshot of a 20-something in the 00s. (also stay tuned for a look at a decade of great taste, aka. my favorites in media and pop culture in the 00s, posting soon)

2000

I started the year and the decade off watching fireworks, police in riot gear, and the world not come to an end in Chicago’s Grant Park with my first love. It was really cold and kind of exciting. The year was all downhill from there. Chicago was thrilling to the 18 year old version of me who had barely been outside of her tiny home town, but several circumstances conspired to make me miserable there, and by March I dropped out of college and moved back home in what was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

That spring I had an extremely difficult break up, and that fall I swallowed my pride and started classes at the local community college. By the end of the year I was settled into life back at home: working at the mall, hanging out with my old friends, and going out flirting with dudes. I was moving towards being less depressed, but still felt like I was a million miles away from everything I had wanted for my life.

2001

The first few months of this year were an echo of the last few of 2000, I briefly dated someone a few years older, breezed though my classes, worked, and started to plan my next move. Shortly after my 20th birthday I went to work on Michigan’s Mackinac Island for the summer, even though the pay was low, and the conditions less than stellar, it was a fun escape that helped me to feel adventurous and less complacent again.

In the fall I moved to Ann Arbor and into what my family deemed a “hippie commune” (actually a co-op house of mostly privileged liberal University of Michigan students). Although I was nervous after my previous failed attempt, I dove head first into college life and quickly found a niche, joining several groups, writing for the college paper, going to parties, participating in poetry slams, and met a close friend, who eight years later I share an apartment with in Brooklyn.

Since you can’t mention the fall of 2001 without it, here’s where I was on September 11th: I was running late for my morning class, circling the parking lot looking for a spot when I heard what I first assumed was an odd morning radio show gag. I arrived to find classes cancelled and everyone gathered around TVs. It was an odd day that I felt pretty removed from.

2002
Again much like the last few months of 2001, I found myself enjoying college life and thriving in my classes and activities. Where I was a small fish in Chicago, I felt like a big fish at Eastern Michigan University. My passion for writing was renewed and I took comfortably to the role of overachiever. I also become dedicated to traveling more and went to work at a nature preserve in Florida during Spring Break. I followed that up with my 21st birthday, my brother’s wedding, and a cross country bus trip to work in Yellowstone National Park for the summer.

I long referred to that summer as life changing and while I’ve lived though a lot since then, it’s certainly still up there. The isolation and beauty of living in the wildness magnified the dramas of life: The over-the-phone break-up with my college boyfriend, the friendships formed and lost, the attack and rape of my roommate, the death of my father.

I came back to my college life in a much different place than I had left it three months prior. Still uber-involved, I began my school year as Editor in Chief of the campus magazine and capped it off with an honor from the Michigan Press Association, while being submerged in one of the darkest moods of my life.

2003
Thankfully this year worked the opposite of 2002; it came in on a low note and steadily improved. The first several months were spent again much like the ones before them; working hard and feeling low. But with the melting snow my mood and life started to change. I successfully completed my tenure as Editor in Chief, and decided to slightly delay my summer internship at Metro Times in Detroit to take a month-long solo road trip down south and then up the east coast.

It was just the freedom and head-clearing I needed, and the rest of the summer was among some of the best times in my life. While I interned and worked two jobs, I found my feet more as a journalist and found a powerful infatuation (that would end over a year later in another country). Reality set in that fall when that beau moved back to England, I moved into a not so collegiate apartment complex, started working full time, and in December, graduated from college. Still having never been on an airplane, let alone out of the country (except for Canada which used to not count), I got a passport, just in case.

2004
Now officially a college graduate, and not living the glamorous life I thought a 22 year old should be, quarter-life ennui started to set in. I was working a job straight out of Office Space. I started searching for anything and blindly and unwisely sent out over 100 cover letters and resumes to newspapers all over the country. I took my first trip on an airplane and visited San Francisco. I started working part time at night as a copy editor; I applied to a year long program in London.

Then just after my 23rd birthday I found out I had an interview in New York City for the London program and flew there the same week, I was told I might not hear for a month or more, but by the time I returned to Michigan I was accepted. That summer I prepared to make the biggest move of my life. Many in my life were sure it had something to do with a boy. It did not. Just before I left I revisited Yellowstone with a good friend, it was the same and very different at the same time.

That fall I moved to London. It was lonely and difficult and exciting and I loved every second of it, even when at its most thorny. I disliked my job (training and development at a large investment bank) but my devotion to the city never wavered. I traveled to Wales, Spain, and spent my first and only Christmas away from home in Hungry. My sister in law told me over the phone that she was pregnant. The British boy from the summer before broke my heart, a boy I had met very briefly came to visit me for new years and we foolishly decided to get involved across the ocean.

2005
I continued to hate my job and love London more and more, I traveled to France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and Scotland. I broke up with the boy back in American, I turned 24. My mom got engaged. I had an exciting romance with a co-worker. I met and became friends with a man whom understood me more than anyone I had ever met before; I made myself keep a distance because there were parts of him that scared me. I missed a train that exploded only minutes later on the morning for the July 7th bombings. I held on to every aspect of the city even as it slipped away and my visa expired. My mom put my childhood home up for sale, sold it and moved in with her soon to be husband, my brother became a father and I became an aunt.
In the fall I moved back to the US and into the house of my mom’s fiancé, a man I had met twice before. I met my awesome baby nephew, and saw all the people I had missed for a year. I started looking for jobs in New York City and ways to get back to London. I was miserable. I came to New York and slept on couches of friends for several weeks, turned down a high paying job I doing something I didn’t understand at an investment bank in Connecticut, I turned down a very low paying job as a copy editor at an Energy Trade publication, I took a job writing about things I didn’t understand for the communications department of a French Investment Bank. I found an apartment and roommate in Brooklyn and just before Christmas moved to New York.

2006
New York put me through the ringer. My drink was drugged at a party and I woke up the next morning in the hospital with cuts and bruises (and later a $1,000 hospital bill). I hated my job and started to look for a new one. I traveled back to Michigan for my mom’s wedding. The 3rd British boy in my life (the one I felt close to but tried to keep a distance from) visited me and I realized I loved him. I was hit by a car while riding my bike.

I turned 25. New York started to grow on me, but at the end of the summer I traveled back to London and (unwisely) decided to start a relationship (across the ocean) with the British man I loved who already treated me poorly (although I couldn’t see that at the time). I continued to hate my job, and looked for a new one. The boy and I made frequent trips across the ocean, I planned to move back to London in a year to go to grad school and be with him. A week before Christmas I was laid off from the job I hated, a few days later I was offered an Assistant Editor position at Popular Photography magazine, it was the type of job I had been waiting for since graduation. The boy came to visit for Christmas and it was clear I was going to delay moving to London, our problems increased.

2007
I started working at Popular Photography and loved it. My roommate moved out and my good friend whom I lived with in college in Michigan moved in. I continued to make frequent trips to London, the boy and I continued to have problems, we made plans for him to move to New York, but it became increasingly clear he wasn’t going to. I turned 26. The verbal and emotional abuse increased, I was miserable but in love in an intense way I never had been before. At the end of a horrible summer I traveled to London for the last time and we broke up.

I spent that fall angry, bitter, and busy. I did a 35 mile bike tour, I put myself on a strict regime to lose weight mostly to have something to do, and I signed up to become a Big Sister. I traveled to Michigan for my first Thanksgiving at home in years. My uncle was found dead in my grandparent’s basement a few days after I returned to New York. At Christmas my best friend announced that she was getting married to her long time boyfriend, I started helping her plan.

2008
I became a Big Sister to a 13 year old girl, my bitterness towards men softened a little, and I started dating. I traveled alone to Costa Rica and had an amazing time. I turned 27, and went on a date with a man whom I figured would be a summer fling. I had a fantastic summer and by the fall realized I wanted more than a fling with the man, and thankfully he did too. I did another 35-mile bike tour. My circle of friends in New York grew and I became for the first time happy and settled in the city, which made me fear that I was becoming complacent. My sister-in-law announced she was pregnant again.

2009
My sister in law lost the baby. My boyfriend lost a family member, my best friend lost her grandmother, and I lost my grandmother. I started having insomnia. I continued being a Big Sister. My boyfriend and I traveled to San Francisco together and I remembered how much I love everything about that city. I found out the magazine I worked for was being sold; our pay was cut 6%. I still liked my job, but felt like I was never going to advance in my career and was barely making any money. I turned 28. The man who I thought would be a fling turned out to be the most loving, caring and stable man I’d ever met. We fell in love. I traveled back to Michigan for my best friend’s wedding. My 10-year high school reunion happened and I didn’t attend.

My magazine was sold and our Editor in Chief left, lay offs began, we moved to new offices, we were told our jobs were safe. I was laid off two weeks later. I spent two months unemployed. I did a 55-mile bike tour. I started freelancing a lot, and took a full time freelance position at WomansDay.com (back at my old publisher). I had a wisdom tooth removed. I applied for Grad School for Journalism in both New York and San Francisco. I wrote a blog post about my decade.

2010-2019: TBD

Working Harder, Not Smarter

2009-11-06T13:40:00.004-05:00

I don't own a home to lose, I don't have a family to feed, my story isn't that sob worthy by any means. I realize this. But what it is, is demoralizing.

I lost my job, and so I started working exceedingly hard to find a new one. I've said yes to every journalistic freelance opportunity (even going so far as to try to write a press release in exchange for a haircut). And unlike many, I've been lucky to end up with assignments that will ultimately help my portfolio and perhaps someday advance my career. But as many will attest, the road of a freelancer isn't smooth, and often not well paid. Freelancing involves A LOT of hustling, and things I've never been that comfortable with like networking, being relentless in keeping yourself in someone's mind, and endless pitching ideas, most of the time with no results.

If you are lucky enough to get an assignment there's still the chance that you'll do all the work and then it will be "not exactly what they were looking for" in which case you have to go through sometimes so much editing and re-writing that it will be like doing a second article. Other times they won't use it. If you're lucky you signed a contract with a kill fee that makes all that work still somewhat worth your time.

The other piece to freelancing is the "free" aspect. As in working for. When you write a piece either for print or the web, you typically either sign a contract (with varying degrees of giving up your rights to the work you are producing for them), send an invoice for the agreed amount, or both. Sometimes there are tax forms involved. It's all very official seeming. What never seems to be official is the when you will paid. Which is why making a living as a freelancer can sometimes be next to impossible unless you have a million different gigs going at once, or a job on the side.

I've personally never been completely stiffed (yet), but I have waited over two months for a check from an assignment, and have dealt with freelancers who have waited six months or more. Gawker did a list twice of Print's Worst Late Payment Offenders (find that here and here). Some freelancers they talked to haven't been paid in 2 YEARS!

This in two words is fucked up. A freelancer can't afford to take a publication to court over a few hundred dollars, and many don't want to burn bridges in such a competitive everyone-knows-everyone industry. The publications know this, or more likely don't care. Freelancers are of course a dime a dozen.

So here's how it's been for me: I'm currently working as a freelancer for various publications in what amounts to well over 40 hours a week, in addition, I'm still looking and applying for full time work, and I'm in the middle of applying to Grad School.

I am currently making $40 a week more than I did when I was collecting unemployment. I have no benefits. When work stops for the holidays I won’t be able to collect either. When I have my wisdom tooth removed in a month, not only will I lose money by not working (the result of no sick time) but since the health insurance that I pay out of pocket for every month doesn't cover the full procedure, I will owe more than I make in two weeks of work. And I'm lucky. I'm working. I'm single, I can afford life’s necessities, I don’t have chronic or serious medical problems, and I am not unskilled. Things are a lot worse for a lot of people in America right now.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not horribly horribly flawed. Work should be rewarded with a living wage, and medical issues like an exposed sinus from an extracted wisdom tooth should be considered an essential and covered expense.

Just saying.

Maybe I should work in advertising

2009-11-05T14:27:00.002-05:00

Because I just came up with the best slogan. I offer it up to the Internets for free:

Rogaine: What do you have to lose?

pretty clever, huh?

watch out Peggy Olsen!

Hard Living

2009-10-21T22:33:00.007-05:00

I started a new full time freelance gig at WomansDay.com this week. So I've been knee deep in craft and recipe tips.*Which means I'm a little less than up to date on my full of wit-blog-worthy topics. However, I did come across this tonight and felt the need to share. Mark and I have been watching a lot of Mad Men the last month or so (I have lots of opinions on it, just see my post from last week). Regardless of all the other aspects, it is amazing how much they smoke and drink on that show, and it has crossed my mind that they'd look like hell 20-30 years later. Well, leave it to Jezebel to take the guess work out of it for me. Here's their version of Betty and Don Draper in 1983 (the Photoshop skillz could use a little improvement, but still, it's probably not that far off).

* For those of you paying attention, yes WomansDay.com is back at my old publisher, which means I'm freelancing in the same offices where I worked for almost three years. It's strange to say the least. But I guess it's a sign o' the times...

Looking back.

2009-10-13T20:14:00.007-05:00

I'm currently applying to two masters programs in journalism for Fall 2010.

A girl has to keep her options open afterall.

While starting work on my "Personal History" essays, I came across an essay I wrote several years ago when I first moved to New York from London. I usually have mixed feelings when I read things I wrote years ago. The edit

or in me is embarassed for my old self and wants to rip my former final drafts apart and totally re-write them. Once in a while however, they serve as a perfect time capusle for the feelings or views of that moment.

There's some things I would change about this, but f

or the most part, it's a rare piece I'm still happy with some four years later. It's served in part as insperation for me, so I thought I'd share this little never before published bit of my past.

You're Welcome.

The grass is greener where it rains

“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.” - Toni Morrison

When I moved to London at 23-years-old it was my first time out of the country. I did my best to hide it, but for the first month or so I felt like a country bumpkin. I was sure something I did or said would give away my small town roots. The truth was that I was no different than the people that I met who had traveled all over the world; I just thought that I was. Although I treated moving like an art form, up until that point I had always defined myself by the town I had spent my life trying to leave behind.

I never felt like I belonged in my hometown; Plainwell, Michigan. It was one those small towns that seem to exist only for the purpose of leaving, a place that you can’t imagine people actually living, a place met just for passing through. Like a lot of people I was convinced that I was destined for more. As an adolescent I felt like my home was a prison and I dreamed of escape daily. Life, it seemed, was happening somewhere else, everywhere else, anywhere else.

So when I turned 18, I left. And I have been leaving ever since. I transferred colleges three times, took summer road trips and jobs in other states, and when I was done with college I jumped at the opportunity to move to London. For the past seven years and counting I have distanced myself further and further from the place I grew up.

Of all of my adventures, my time in London ended up changing my life the most. There are the obvious reasons why, while I was there I traveled and saw places that I had always dreamed of, I met amazing people and explored one of the most diverse cities in the world. But it was more than that, living in London, I felt like I had finally found the place that suited me- the city that I was met to live in. The world though, seemed to have other plans for me. My visa expired and after a little more than a year after I first stepped foot on foreign soil, I was back in the states. The only problem was in the time since I had left, home had disappeared too.

While I was gone, life wasn’t just changing for me. The people that I left behind went on living their lives; relationships formed, babies were born and a distance of more than just miles grew between me and some of the people I had know for years.

My mother, who had lived alone since I left home at 18, sold the house and moved to a different city with her boyfriend, whom I had only met twice. She told me one summer afternoon on the phone from across the ocean, a few weeks before the move. I was devastated; it felt like I had lost a member of my family.

The thing about leaving is that you assume there is always the option of coming back, after all that’s why it’s called “going home.” What happens though when life decides not to play by your rules, when you move and the life you left moves on?

I would have never imagined that I could miss that home that I once hated so much. That I would find myself mourning it and having dreams about it. I didn’t think I needed to say goodbye until I didn’t get the chance.

I got the wish that had as a teenager- I got out- what I didn’t count on was that once I left I couldn’t go back again. I assumed that life in that town never changed- for the 18 years I lived in that house, it seemed as if it never would. Even though I didn’t want the place anymore I wanted it to exist just in case I ever needed it again. It is an arrogance that only the selfishness of youth can afford.

Which is exactly what I was, exactly what I am: selfish. Which isn’t always a bad thing. Traveling all over the world, moving to London, these are very selfish things. Things that changed my life, things that I will never regret, but they are selfish. And wanting things to stay unchanged for my benefit was perhaps to most selfish of all of them.

My mother has always been the strongest, bravest, most independent woman I have known. Hers was the strength of sacrifice, the strength to sacrifice every part of her life to give her two children a home, a life, love and the courage to be their own people. She gave the majority of her life to us, working and going to college for second degree to provide us with enough to get by. Sacrificing nearly two decades of a social life so we would have as much consistency and stability as she could provide. She taught me pride, she taught me hard work, and she taught me courage to do the things that the other women in my family never got the chance to do.

Ours are different kinds of strength however, mine has always been more selfish. My strength has been the strength to build and endure change, as much as I have feared change my whole life I have embraced it and built my life around it.

My mother made me strong enough to leave the home that she built for us and once I had moved on she finally took her chance to leave it too. Something I didn’t consider was that all those years that I dreamed of getting out, she was too. That home held my childhood; it held memories from most of the years of my life. But it also held a lot of pain and struggle, things that I was all too eager to escape when I first left at 18. The same things that several years later my mother finally got the chance to leave, when her son had a home and family of his own and her daughter was in London figuring out who she was.

I have been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to forgive my mother for selling my childhood home, for getting married, for thinking of herself first. But when I look at it objectively the things that I am mad at her for are the exact things that she gave me the courage to do myself.

I have spent most of my life dreaming of other horizons and most of my adulthood chasing those horizons trying to make myself happy. I shouldn’t begrudge my mother because she got there before me. After all, she had a head start.

Some people believe that who you are is constantly changing- that the person you are at 12 is not the person you are at 24 or 48. It is the one undeniable law of nature- change- everything, everyone all the time is constantly in flux. I, however, have always been a firm believer that some things last- no matter what you do. Beyond mere stubbornness, I think that some things get defined by the change that they endure and that after it- the new them that emerges, is the one that persists. If for no other reason than that the change was so great that no other change in life can alter it.

Growing up in Plainwell may have defined how I thought of myself and given me the eyes that I looked at the world with. But leaving it, and years later losing it, has made me into the person that I am, the person that I will always be, no matter where I go.

Sometimes though you have to travel a very long way to see where you come from, and sometimes you realize that the journey “back home” isn’t as simple as you thought.

Plainwell, Michigan is still on the map, still an easily overlooked speck. The simple two-story house on Florence Street where I spent the first 18 years of my life is still there too. The siding has changed and I think they might have carpet, but I have feeling the name of my grade school crush is still carved in the banister, and there are still water stains on the ceiling from my squirt gun. However small or however meaningful my family, that build most of that house, and spent almost 30 years in it, has left it’s mark. Now, its home to a new family now, and will be home to many new memories; crying, fighting, longing and hopefully, laughter, hope, love and courage.

It seems strange that I felt so completely at home in a place so foreign, yet at the same time could feel such a gaping whole for a place that I spent so long trying to leave. I had fallen head over heels in love with London, and for a location commitment-phobe that was a new feeling. Although I couldn’t stay there as long as I would have wanted, I now realize that just because you leave a place, that doesn’t mean it leaves you.

Wherever I go, there I am. Me, the little girl from the small Midwestern town, but at the same time the brave, well traveled woman that she grew into. I may never fully know who I am, but perhaps we aren’t met to.

Leaving home, losing home and forging to make a new home, I have learned that I am don’t have to be defined by the place I grew up. Maybe you can never go home again, but maybe that’s for the best. Perhaps life is met to be about finding a place that you can make into a home. When that day comes for me- when I master the art of staying in one place- be it London or somewhere else, I know just the type of home I will build for my daughter. The type of home that I grew up in, the type of home built to give her enough courage to leave.

No results

2009-10-07T14:08:00.005-05:00

Conde Nast the holy grail of glossy enviable magazine jobs, folded four of it's magazines this week, after closing two others earlier this year. For many in publishing trouble at Conde is a sign that things are really truly awful and don't look like they'll get better anytime soon. Another sign? This result in my job hunt today:

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The Rape Myth

2009-10-01T13:52:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it’s 2009, not because I don’t feel old enough to yet be this old, or because we are still living in a future woefully devoid of hover crafts, but because of the appalling discussions that take place by so-called intelligent forward thinking people whenever there’s a public case of rape or domestic abuse.

From the common cry of faking or “asking for it” or trying to make money whenever someone notable is accused of rape or assault, to the disgusting initial defense of Chris Brown, to most recently the concept of rape the doesn’t “count” as rape.

In the last week alone there have been two more cases of not calling a spade a spade, or in the case of John Phillips and Roman Polanski, calling a rapist a rapist.

An adult having sex with a 13-year-old is rape. An adult having sex with a drugged and drunk 13-year-old is rape. Period. End of Story. There should be no discussion over who was in the house, what was said by whom, and certainly none over what a great director they are. Even Whoopi (say it ain’t so!) is using made up terms like “rape-rape”, and Debra Tate saying “it was rape, but it wasn’t rape.” The fact that Polanski has still been able to make movies and live in relative freedom for the past 30 plus years, is upsurd, the fact that so many people agreed to work with him, defend him.

The judicial system already puts the burden of proof on the victim too many times and lets the rapists and abusers get off with small or often nonexistent sentences. What’s rarely considered is how damaging something like rape and abuse is to a person, how it’s something that can ruin a life, even after years, even after you “get over it.” Adding on a chorus of voices saying “oh, well it wasn’t really rape” is damaging not only to those who have lived through it, but those in the future who will question themselves if they are so unfortunate as to have something like this happen to them.

An Open Book

2009-09-30T21:33:00.009-05:00

I had written an exhaustive post the other week about my six-plus weeks (and counting) of unemployment. I wanted it to be a kind of an inside look at what being unemployed is like (i.e. it’s a lot of work) but it didn’t make for a very interesting read, and was probably more than anyone would really care to know. So instead I’ve decided to re-visit another post I started and abandoned:

My Top Five Books (in no particular order)*

1) 1) 1984 by George Orwell: To know me is to know my obsession with all things Orwell. I’ve read all of his books, several essays, and a biography or two. He is the kind of writer I want to be, both in style and content. 1984 is of course his most famous work, but it wasn’t one of the first I read by him, and it’s one of the classics that’s a classic for a reason. It’s a book that stays with you forever. I’ve seen the (US-banned!) film version and a stage production, and both were mostly well done, but nothing has ever compared to the way the book draws you in and changes the way you look at the world.

2) 2) Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg: Sure, she’s an Oprah Book Club alumni (but sometimes Oprah has really good taste) and maybe her books aren’t high literature and the target audience may be middle-aged ladies, but Elizabeth Berg knows how to write characters and dialog like few authors. She writes honestly and without pretension, and creates people that you actually care about living in a world that seems familiar even if it’s one you don’t live in. Her main characters are always women and in this book it’s a woman in her 60s alone on the road trying to find herself writing journals and letters to her confused husband she abandoned at home. I read it as a 19-year-old and knew just how she felt. That’s good writing. Plus I met Elizabeth Berg in Chicago once; she’s a wonderfully nice lady.

3) 3)The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath: This one goes out to my angsty 14-year-old self. I’m sure I’d feel differently about it now, but at the time it just all seemed so…deep. I remember sitting on the porch and in my bedroom reading Silvia Plath and all J.D. Salinger that spring and feeling so misunderstood.

4) 4) Without a Net edited by Michelle Tea: The only non-fiction book on my list. While some parts are more well-written than others, the message in this collection of essays by women who grew up Working Class articulates parts of my own experience growing up as well as issues such as racism, sexual identity and feminism, and the co-opting of downtrodden cultures in a straightforward and honest way that few books I’ve read have.

5) 5) Caucasia by Danzy Senna: Reading this book was the best thing to come out of my short lived time in a Book Club, and one of the most interesting multi-layered discussions about a book I’ve ever had with a group of people. On the surface it’s a book about race (in fact Borders seems to think it’s only for Black People http://fullofwit.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-borders-racist.html), but aside from racial identity, it was a beautiful and artfully woven story of a girl’s relationship with her father, politics, growing up.

Honorable Mentions:

· Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell : His best book about class and that’s saying a lot), I read it while I was living in London and it gave me a new perspective on the city’s history, plus this is actually the first Orwell book I ever read and your first is always special.

· A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: I was reading this book when I was in the process of moving to New York and several random people approached me while I was reading it to tell me how much they loved it. It was a memorable story and an interesting history lesson about the city I was moving to.

· Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: An epic story that covers the gamut from sexual and national identity, and a lot of history of my home state.

· Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss: Along with the Lorax, the best Seuss books, plus this one makes a perfect graduation speech.

· Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach: The best travel book I’ve read, it was particularly meaningful because I was reading it as I was moving abroad.

*Anyone who loves books or music or movies always has a hard time picking their favorites, and so there are tons of books I love that I didn’t think to include.

Never Forget to Remember

2009-09-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

While they say tragedy +time= comedy, there appears to be no such formula to figure out exactly how long is appropriate before it’s OK to joke about things. If there was it might be something like this:

Cultural impact of tragedy - amount of time that has passed = risk of “too soon” reaction.

Some examples:

Michael Jackson’s Death: Gave the World Thriller, but maybe molested young boys, happened 3 months ago= too late, most of the MJ jokes happened within the first week of his death and weren’t funny.

AIDS kills millions of people, but is no longer as big of a scare for middle and upper class people, and has been around for nearly 30 years. So an AIDS joke, while maybe not always in good taste, if done well is probably safe.

But what about 9/11? Less than 3,000 people died, eight years ago…. While people might not be ready to laugh about it, I do think it’s time we move on at least somewhat. After all, is suspending all other news coverage for a memorial service once a year a healthy thing as a nation? Is repeatedly wrapping ourselves up in mourning and tragedy productive? Is the constant coverage every year out of a sense of obligation, or just lazy journalism? A National Day of Service? A useful and noble idea. Not being able to get any other news once a year? The terrorists have won.

Halloween Ideas

2009-09-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. And while I have a bit of an artsy/crafty streak, I've never been one of those people who can make a really cool costume. My best work was probably when I was a box of popcorn in Middle School, of course I had to take the box off if I wanted to sit down.

Last year I kind of copped out a bit as was a flapper:

Here are a few of my ideas for this year. (if blogger had a poll feature that I could find/figure out I'd let you vote, instead leave your opinions in the comments)

Easy to do:

Rosie the Riveter

cotton candy: (my idea for this costume is not exactly the same, but along these lines)

Mark has already decided on his costume but before he did we thought about a few couples costumes including my favorite, Kermit and Ms. Piggy (again I'm not sure I'd do it this way exactly, but it's not bad)

And finally, we talked about being a monkey and a banana, inspired by this baby costume:

What I learned during my time as a magazine editor

2009-09-04T19:29:00.007-05:00

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of July 2009, the unemployment rate in the U.S. is 9.4%. (14.5 million people) Of that, almost tens of thousands of print journalists have found themselves out of work in 2009; well…add one more to that number.

In light of all this, it is of course it’s spectacular thing that I was laid off on last month. To me however, it is. I’m now competing for work with more talented and experienced journalists than the population of the town I grew up in, in what is probably the absolute worst time to be an unemployed print journalist.

Losing a job you love is like a bad break up. Except I was at this job longer than I’ve ever managed to hold onto any boyfriend I’ve had, and unlike after a break-up I can’t just swear off working for awhile.

Much like a relationship gone sour however, I’m looking for a lesson to be learned from all this. Is it, as so many are prone to say, a blessing in disguise? Should I serve as a cautionary tale for hopeful young journalism students? I worked extremely hard to get where I was, and worked extremely hard while I was there, to the praise of my bosses and co-workers. So what is this other than another unremarkable sob story? What did I learn during my nearly three years as a magazine editor?

1) I 1)It’s at all not as glamorous as TV and movies make it out to be, and that’s a good thing. And newsflash, living in NYC is nothing like Sex in the City or Friends. Maybe it is for some people, and it can have glamorous moments, sure. The swag is nice, press conferences and events can range from fun to unbearable. There’s a lot of smoozing and contact/relationship building, but really it’s not that much different from a million other offices. And really at the end of the day, I wouldn't want to work in an enviorment of impossible standards, lies, and snobery.

2) 2)Despite it all I refuse to believe that print dead or dying. Just like a tween, it’s in an awkward in-between phase. It’s not news that print media has been woefully behind on getting online, and still very few are doing it well. But they will, they have to, and even though a lot of magazines are folding their print publications and going online only, I don’t think people are ever going to stop reading things on paper.

3) 3)I don’t want to work in PR. Not that I ever thought I did, but man does the job suck. It’s like asking someone on a date and they keep saying no, but you have to keep asking. And the person you are asking out keeps wanting free stuff. That and I've never been able to just bestow the virutes of a product while overlooking its fallacies.

4) 4)Freelancing is harder than working full time. Now that trying my hand at freelancing more seriously than I ever had before I’m realizing how much effort it takes, writing, pitching, and still getting turned down (and most of the time it doesn't pay as well as having a full time job). As with almost everything it seems a lot more who you know rather what you know. As a magazine editor I know how many random pitches publications receive and how many they reject, sometimes with any acknowledgement. That and you never know when you’ll see the check once you do get work.

So I’ve been out of a job for a month now (for the first time in my life) and I’ve learned that it’s a bigger blow than I would have expected. And I’ve learned that I have to do all the things I’ve always hated: networking, asking for help and favors, shameless self promotion. I’ve yet to sleep in on a weekday, I’ve been working harder than I was when I had a full time job, but I’ve been also been taking one day a week to enjoy life, go to museums, parks, not be in my apartment in front of my laptop all the time. I’m not doing as poorly as I thought I would.

So what’s next? I’m really not sure, I know I’m not ready to give up on this print journalism thing. I know, at least I should start blogging more and maybe make this thing more cohesive. So there’s that upswing….

Hypocrisy Now!

2009-06-23T15:39:00.007-05:00

I became a vegetarian over 16 years ago, and it remains a decision I’m proud of and that I’ll stand by for the rest of my life. And while in recent years I’ve become more concerned with human rights, I will always think that animal rights are an important issue; far to often over looked.

However I think I officially hate PETA. I don’t want to, but they really make it difficult for anyone at all to take them seriously. Their ridiculous “Sea Kitten” campaign is just the tip of the wasted money and effort-iceberg that gives vegetarians and animal right supports a bad name. Last week was doubly embarrassing: first the most ridiculous non-story (the president kills a fly) becomes the most pointless offense PETA has ever railed behind.

Then the announcement that Che Guevara's granddaughter Lydia has decided to start a "vegetarian revolution" by posing for PETA with "the torso naked, covered only by a sling loaded with carrots as bullets."

Because nothing says a respect for the life of all creatures like a half naked lady co-opting the image of a man who led a very bloody revolution. (A man who said: “I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” And “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm”)

It all just so woefully misses the point, especially when you add on the reports that since 1998 PETA has killed more than 17,000 animals, nearly 85 percent of all those it has rescued.

I’d like to see an animal rights organization that can maintain a profile as high as PETA and put their resources to good use: finding homes for stray animals, aiding with controlling the pet population in humane ways, improving the conditions and treatment of animals used for food (as well as the industry’s impact on the environment) and encouraging people to choose vegetarianism in a more realistic way.

Just saying.

PS. Best thing I’ve read about the whole trend of hipsters (and their babies!!) wearing shit with Che’s face on it without knowing what they are saying:

“If you believe in the freedom of the press, the right to belong to a political party of your choice, the due process of law, and/or private property, then Che Guevara was a monster, plain and simple. These T-shirts send a message, which effectively boils down to this: I have vague left-wing sympathies but don't read history. I am educated enough to want nonconformity but not intelligent enough to avoid conformity. I believe in supporting the wretched of the earth but happily purchase products from multinational corporations.”

And dressing a child who can't even go to the bathroom on his or her own to align with your vague uninformed political leanings is even more offensive forcing them to wear your favorite band's shirt.

Wedded Bliss

2009-06-10T11:10:00.006-05:00

I just returned from a trip to Michigan for Hilary's wedding. Hilary has been my best friend for over a decade and she's been with her husband since they were 14. Their wedding was the 1st time I've ever been a bridesmaid, and while it was a lot of work, I honestly couldn't have been happier to be a part of it. I've never been to a more beautiful wedding so perfectly filled with love and happiness from everyone. I may in the next few days post my toast to Hilary and Kelly. But for now I just wanted to share how happy I am for them, and what a beautiful couple they are.

OK...here's my toast. I used to be such a good public speaker, but it was hard for me to hold it together to deliver this:

Hilary and I have been close since we were 16—just a couple of years after Hilary and Kelly met, so I’ve known them though almost all of their relationship and I’ve been lucky enough to watch their relationship grow.

At weddings there’s always a lot of talk of growing old together, and they surely will—we’ve all know for a long time now that they’ll be together forever.

But what I think makes their love story so amazing is that they’ve already grown together—think of how much you change from 14 to 27—not much stands the test of time, but they’ve managed to grown up with each other—their love matured with them.

Movies and music always talk about “The One” and for many of us it’s a lofty idea that sits somewhere in the future or forever remains fiction. Finding “The One” is always told as a perilous journey with obsciticals to overcome all culminating with a happy ending.

Which might make for entertaining romantic comedies, but a far more inspiring story for me is a love story like Hilary and Kelly’s—a story that isn’t about the pursuit of some perfect ending but rather about a life lived together in love.

It’s a truer love—more real, more honest. You can’t hide any part of yourself. They know it all—they’ve been there for most of your life. And still she loves him and he loves her because although they’ve changed throughout the years—Hilary is still Hilary and Kelly is still Kelly, and they are still each other’s partner.

So please join me in wishing them a future as inspiring as their past.

To Hilary and Kelly!

Let it Fall

2009-06-02T15:14:00.003-05:00

Went to the Lykke Li concert last night. It was totally awesome, especially from my dinner table perch above the hipster crowd. This is officially the most upbeat and danceable song about crying ever.

meanwhile, speaking of things falling, my magazine has been sold, my boss is leaving, things are stressful to say the least.

Metaphor?

2009-06-01T12:47:00.001-05:00

all kinds of wonderful:

Ooh, swish!

2009-05-26T14:31:00.004-05:00

"compartments for phone, coins and candies for cuties"? You mean, pockets?
A flash light in your hair and a glass wedding dress are totally dumb, but some of these outfits (like the convertible sleeve one) I would wear for sure.

It’s OK, I didn’t mean it

2009-05-26T13:23:00.002-05:00

So here’s an interesting discussion on “Ironic Racism.” And it’s a bit of a can of worms, because making a subject taboo to joke about gives it a special kind of power..yet there’s often a bit of truth in feelings behind even the tongue in cheekiest of jokes.

I’m a feminist, but I make “get in the kitchen” “math is hard” jokes. And I don’t believe that I can make them solely because I’m a woman. And while it’s true some of the “black people are like this” jokes that Chris Rock makes are jokes that maybe wouldn’t be AS funny coming from a white dude, what makes them funny is that they are not so much mocking the race in a hateful way as they are making a commentary on the absurdity of racism itself.

There’s a reason The Man Show was mostly not funny—they were supposed to be mocking sexism, but the ironic veil was too thin-it’s doubtful that any their audience was really only pretending to agree.

Satire is a tricky thing to pull off, and you do have to wonder if “pretending” to be the type of person who effects stereotypical accents and uses racial slurs is really a mask for saying what you really feel. Nobody thinks Stephen Colbert is actually an overzealous right wing nut job (except for maybe whoever booked him to speak at the 2006 white house correspondents dinner), partly because he’s so absurd that he has to be kidding and partly because he’s actually funny.

Which is part of the problem with comedians using so-called ironic rasism/sexism/homophoiba. Not only does the use of such biting words like nigger, chink, whore, etc instantly take the joke from funny to uncomfortable, they also take the relatability away. You aren’t laughing with people, you are asserting your superiority over them and laughing at them. And that just makes you an asshole.

The main problem with this brand of “ironic hipster racism” is the problem with doing anything ironically; it’s a cover for something you don’t want to admit you actually like/feel.

Take, for example, one of my personal pet peeves: “white trash” themed parties. The people throwing them are mocking a stereotype “ironically” but the place the joke comes from isn’t one of understanding or self deprecation, it’s an “I’m better than this, these aren’t real people.” But because they are liberal they would feel guilty saying such things so blatantly.

The bottom line is jokes about race can be funny, as can jokes about women, gays, class, and yes even rape. If told in the right way by someone who is actually funny. Take Wanda Sykes jokes about rape, a subject that most would be loath to find anything funny about.

There's Something Irresistible-ish about 'em!

2009-05-19T13:12:00.003-05:00

Got-damn the Muppets are fantastic! I was just reminded today how awesome this song is.

Taming of the Shrewd

2009-05-14T15:29:00.002-05:00

So, Obama is trying to hold back the release of photos of U.S. service members abusing Iraqi and Afghan detainees. Which, according to the “media” is either: A) a brave fuck-you to the left or B) another shrewd Obama rope-a-dope. Well I say it’s C) An attempt to not remind anyone of Bush.

Photos of the US torturing people are scary and awful and regardless of if the events took place before he was in office, it won’t exactly give people warm fuzzy feelings, something the administration thrives on (seriously? Did you see the press correspondent’s dinner? That shit was flat out charming!)

Calling this move shrewd and calculated is a clever spin, isn't really accurate. No matter what he does the Right isn’t going to think of him as “a judicious, troop-protecting president,” so if it’s true that with the Freedom of Information Act the ACLU will have the photos released anyways, than this is in fact not a cunning political move after all.

I do believe that the photos will be released, because the argument that they can be withheld because they "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual," has way too many holes in it.

Bad policy and bad move, especially for a presidency that claims to be all about transparency.