TL; DR -- update from the Front

I used to love the internet.

I used to spend hours and hours... it was the most magical place to me.

Around about 2007, I joined some email lists that started as political but ended up (in the space of a couple of years) as entirely too personal. My experience ended badly, with all manner of bloodletting. Even after I left these lists, the bloodletting continued with the remaining participants. So, it wasn't me. It was the lists themselves; it seemed inevitable. Since 1998, I have participated in message/bulletin boards, email lists, google groups, all of that... and most have ended badly. I have witnessed this again and again and again.

Why? Real-life connections don't always end badly.

In fact, most just 'fade away'--in stark contrast to the vicious break-ups of the online groups.

On tumblr, this constant bloodletting and public evidence of following/unfollowing (constant measures of 'popularity') is standard operational procedure. I have been eviscerated publicly numerous times for (example) wanting to discuss whether "trigger warnings" are a good or bad thing (PS: they're bad) or why so many tumblrites seem to believe John Lennon is the worst white man to have ever lived. They trash Lennon far more than they do Ted Cruz, for instance.

My abject terror at what tumblr and Reddit says about the youth of today, has been a major aspect of my disillusionment with the net, since they are its primary users.

Baby-boomers' parents worried that we were insane radicals, but *I* worry that the kids of today are too afraid to leave the basement. They say they are "radicals" and actually believe they are more radical than we ever were, since they watch some wild-ass porn and purport to believe some wild-ass stuff, and perhaps on one level, that is true. But as we know, faith without works is dead, and most of these kids are dead. They have been brainwashed to think they are radical because they purchase 'alternative' brands, eat 'progressive' foods, wear 'edgy' clothing (often displaying provocative slogans), watch 'radical' TV shows or listen to 'radical' music, and in particular, think certain wayward thoughts. Since they believe they are radical by fiat (or something), they don't actually have to do anything, like vote. (And some even authoritatively counsel the other kids not to vote too!)

They have not even met each other; they don't even know the actual activists in their own communities.

Their radicalism is a role-playing game. That's all.

The simple curiosity that used to rate rolled eyes and whispers in a high school classroom, now warrants hundreds of young women calling me nasty names and instructing me to go away: old people "don't belong" on tumblr. The idea that the internet "belongs" to everybody is also a thing of the past. Now, "everybody" is supposed to go their own corners. The quaint 90s idea that the net would break down barriers and allow us all to talk to each other, regardless of differences? So dated, so 90s. One tumblrite snidely asked me, did I really believe that shit? I answered, not only did I believe it, I briefly experienced it... and if she had too, she might be bored and disappointed with the internet discourse she is currently stuck with, wherein everyone she talks to appears to be of her same suburban economic class (they don't dare even venture into the cities!) and obediently repeats the same dogma. Its like walking into a middle-school classroom, but: the kids are geniuses, the vocabularies are astounding, the knowledge is amazing. Imagine how effective they might be if they organized others, if they left their suburban basements and the echo chambers they now inhabit. Think of how smart they could be! Think of the progress we might make!

[Amusing aside: Interestingly, they often tell me to go away in the same post in which they proudly extol diversity and difference. Not kidding you one bit. The irony escapes them totally.]

~*~

OH COME ON Daisy! Somebody is yelling at me: what about the Bernie Bros? What about the Sanders campaign, Ferguson demonstrations, Black Lives Matter? There are lots of young people in all of these movements.

Yes... well, those are interesting, and I have decided, after much close analysis, they are not the same people.

The tumblr kids and the the Reddit kids are not the Ferguson kids and the Bernie Bros, although they echo the rhetoric (dogma). The kids out doing real activism are using Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and get reblogged/linked on the other platforms like Tumblr, Reddit, Google Plus. Actual activists simply don't have time for all the theoretical, nitpicky back-and-forth that the tumblrites specialize in.

Which brings me to the next problem.

The fakes.

The early internet, like now, was full of fakes, but the difference was that it was a basic one-line fake vs a full-grown, fully-imagined fake. Somebody might say they were married, then later completely forget who they had claimed to be and say they were dating some new person. Or somebody would claim to be male or female, and later mess up and complain about their period, their pregnancy, their old football injury or their prostate test. Busted.

Pretty simple though. People rarely shared their geographic location, and many refused to say what race they were. (If you guessed they were white, they might ask why you came to that conclusion, when they had never said what race they were. That was actually fairly common.) Asking too many questions about identity could get you banned on bulletin boards; it was considered rude and intrusive. ANSWER THE ARGUMENTS ON THE MERITS, moderators would instruct us repeatedly, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW *identity* TO MAKE THE ARGUMENTS. And I discovered that no, you don't. We started to think: Maybe it's better to get appeals to IDENTITY out of they way and get to the heart of the matter: civil rights for all people, fairness and justice for all people.

But... but... here's the thing: identity politics (what Will Shetterly has correctly and incisively named Identitarianism) tells us exactly the opposite.

In fact, identity politics is the flip side of the elitism it was born to counter: identity politics posits that some identities are sacrosanct. In short, some identities are simply "better" than others. It is basically the same as saying: if you went to THIS school or THAT school, you are smarter than regular people; if you are rich and well-traveled, you are a better class of person and more worthy of being taken seriously and listened to. ("when you're rich, they think you really know!") A staggeringly-rich idiot who has never held political office might well be our next president, while a poor idiot would be laughed at... in fact, a poor idiot would have more humility and never even attempt such a thing.

The online youth culture tells us that identity is the thing, they demand IDENTITY lists before they will interact with each other, or with you. They list their identity markers the way girls used to proudly point to their charm bracelets and tell us what all the charms meant.

I chart the beginning of the deification of identity politics as coinciding with the Advent of our first Identity Politics president, the one who duly mentioned the laundry list of identities in his presidential acceptance speech. This is the New Order, people, are you listening? I thought it was cool at the time, but that was before I realized identity would (once again) be used to shame people, only a different group this time; in fact, like shape-shifting, the shamed-group constantly changes.

And what has happened, in this toxic atmosphere that worships "identity"?

Well, what happens when one identity is considered superior?

I refer you to SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and similar stories. Ambitious poor folks have often claimed to be independently-rich white people, well traveled, good schools, all the stuff I just mentioned. Why? To be well-regarded, to have status and to be taken seriously. Your words take on GRAVITAS when your impressive identity backs your shit up. And when it doesn't, you might be told that everybody has opinions (just like assholes) and yours don't matter. But just re-invent yourself tomorrow as **worshiped IDENTITY** and write the same opinion, then watch everyone tell you how great and important it is.

This whole phenomenon used to make me mad. Then it made me laugh. Then it made me tired, weary. And finally: embarrassed. I am wholly embarrassed and disgusted with the Left. As I said once before (and I was right, so pay attention): if we can't change this sorry-assed state of affairs, we will LOSE, and LOSE BIG... and furthermore, if we are this catastrophically clumsy and pedestrian in our analysis: we DESERVE TO LOSE.

So, get ready for President Trump or REPENT KIDDIES. REPENT NOW or get used to it being far far far worse than you ever remember in your lifetime. The American Raj is over, but Trump is preparing us for the Last Gasp of the American Century. (As for me, all I have been able to think of, over and over, is the end of WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER by the Doors, when Morrison screams JESUS SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yes, please save us.

~*~

My advice, which may well be too little, too late... a day late and a dollar short:

Leave the basement and get out there with the Black Lives Matter people. Stop nitpicking with people on your same ideological side, and start fighting with the REAL ENEMY. How about you bring self-doubt, tears and weakness to the OPPOSITION rather than your own comrades?

And if you don't want to do this, as I asked once before, who are you really working for?

Tumblrites: for every argumentative post with someone on your own side, do one angry post addressed to the opposition. HOW?--they ask (they have never MET the opposition)... well, take a hashtag like MRA or BLACK LIVES MATTER or TRUMP and go find them. Then, pick a fight (i.e. criticize their posts, stay focused, no cussing) and preoccupy them for long periods and drain their energy. (Since that is exactly what they do to you, and you don't seem to realize it.) For every nasty insult you level at a fellow Leftist or sister feminist, make sure you deliver twice, three times that to the enemy, the Right wing. If you cannot argue with the Right wing, you are not a Leftist, you are engaging in Role-playing games and FASHION (identity politics) only.

[Amusing aside: A favorite reply when I argue with the identitarians is "I CAN'T EVEN" ... which obviously means that despite the fancy-ass schools they constantly brag about, they are too stupid to complete their own sentences. What is I CAN'T EVEN.... you can't even WHAT??? GO AWAY then and leave politics to the grown-ups who CAN EVEN.]

~*~

I recently ran somebody off tumblr when I found evidence of her fakery. I promised to print her name and elite college employer (hint: most elite college in the country and how did I instinctively KNOW that?) if she continued the lying bullshit about how oppressed and radical, etc, she is. I didn't hesitate for a second.

Later, I felt guilty, but then I realized that of course she will be back in still another (oppressed, ultra-PC) incarnation, and I probably won't even recognize her. Granted, she won't have the thousands of adoring-groupie followers that she once had; that will undoubtedly take some time to accumulate again, but I have no doubt she can do this. They loooove her. They dedicated posts to her and lovingly called her their "blog crush".

They love a fake.

Repeat: they love a fake.

And I would jeer if it not already happened to me too. Lisaquestions/Lisa Harney (one of the people who ran me off one of the aforementioned email lists) has also turned out to be a fake. They appear to be a tag-teaming, white, highly-educated hetero cis couple living in an amazing Seattle-area house priced at over a half-million... not the poor wittle disabled trans woman on a fixed income that they have always claimed to be. (And this is why nobody has ever met them in person!) In fact, this busybody couple proudly lists their brag-worthy running times on Facebook, so apparently, disability is another PC identity in lefty circles, even as real-life disabled people are systematically excluded and shit on. Adding descriptors such as "genderqueer" (nobody can agree what that means, but it means you are oppressed) and "disabled" (means you are on anti-depressants, good thing nobody can tell by looking!) to an already-privileged suburban background, guarantees that you will not be attacked as harshly.

[Amusing aside: Many of these same fake-disabled identitarians also refused to vote for politicians who accepted the Medicaid expansion in their states, thus guaranteeing that many disabled people will die, of course. In my local political work, I learned that people with actual disabilities, activists or not, were acutely aware of this issue and how it impacted them; South Carolina pointedly did NOT take the Medicaid expansion. Therefore, this issue and the discussion around it became one foolproof way I ferreted out the disability-fakes.]

~*~

What does it mean, that fakes are all over the discourse? How do they impact it?

What is their agenda? To look good to others, to feed their ego, or ... do they actually intend to engineer leftist concepts/theories in ways that will benefit them? How would they do this and how WOULD it benefit them?

It has been pointed out to me by interested parties (meaning: I didn't figure it out all by myself) that some of the most contentious crap on tumblr and Reddit, the source of so much ideological in-fighting, has started with the fakes. (This takes me back to my earlier proposition that provocateurs are the problem, or at least that they are successful in "pointing" the arguments in certain directions.) One activist pointed out to me that Lisaquestions' first (and very influential) blog, Questioning Transphobia, was the first place the "my penis is a woman's penis" argument was made. Before Lisa's QT dogma was formulated, trans women did not usually discuss their penises. After Lisa's proclamations, their penises seemed to be a major subject with them, just like when your obnoxious little brother discovered his and couldn't stop waving it around. Bloggers like Toni Dorsay took up the banner, decreeing that anyone who says trans women were socialized as male is a transphobe, anyone who says a trans woman has a male organ is a transphobe, any lesbian who won't sleep with trans women due to a dislike of (or no discernible reaction to) penises, was a transphobe. In fact, everyone is a transphobe; even trans people like my real-life friend SCBoy are screamed at for not getting with the dogma.

And now real life and the internet meet in strange ways. SC state senator Lee Bright, dangerous right-wing creationist crackpot and official Tea Party looney tune, has proposed a transgender bathroom bill here in SC, just like the one in NC. This has brought about the witty hashtag #peewithLee.

I do not want to pee with Lee, and in fact, I want nothing to do with Lee. Lee needs to disappear. (note: he once had libertarian tendencies and supported Ron Paul, but that didn't get him enough votes and he is now on the BIG GOVERNMENT, MORE LAWS AND MORE WAR side of the fence, with Ted Cruz and the whole Hee Haw gang.) Although I dislike the online trans discourse (much of which I believe is dominated by fakes--being a supposedly 'stealth trans person' is a perfect, airtight excuse to avoid meeting people in real life, isn't it?) -- I will NOT be agreeing with Lee Bright about shit. I once agreed with him about war and weed and Ron Paul, but this was way back in that exciting, hothouse year of Occupy, when anything seemed possible. We have gone our separate ways. Lee Bright sees trans people as an easy way to get votes in hyper-conservative South Carolina. The online-fakes see trans people as a way to needle feminists and leftists and handily bring us down.

Very similar isn't it? Using groups of unpopular people for political gain is the way Southern politics has always been played, but I never thought it would CATCH ON everywhere else.

Then again, I am reminded that this is how that famous German Chancellor was elected ... and don't ever forget that, yall. ELECTED. He was ELECTED.

I know, I have just ruined my endless tl;dr post with the Godwin rule, but sometimes, you just have to.

~*~

And what does all of this mean for me, my blog, my politics, yada yada?

It means I do not blog the way I once did.

It means I now keep my private life very private, when I used to broadcast my business all over creation.

It means I am suspicious of everyone online (including even Facebook friends), that I have not personally verified.

It means when I change my mind about something, I will often not be sharing that here.

I am hoping to get this blog started up again as an outlet for reviews, links, local news, etc... but I always wrote in a very personal, chatty, Good Housekeeping/hey-yall style, as if we were all just girls trying to get by. I honestly don't know if I can pull that off anymore; I am no longer sure that is who we are at all.

At least, I no longer am.

~*~

After 4 years of doing the radio show, I changed. My methods, my outlook, changed dramatically. For instance, I learned firsthand that there are rabble-rousers and other loud types who will categorically refuse to go on the air, refuse to publicly give their point of view, and even refuse to provide me with someone who CAN. And I would think, annoyed, WHAT THE HELL GOOD ARE YOU THEN? I became angry at inaction, angrier than I ever was before. I constantly heard complaining and pleas for help, and then... observed the learned helplessness as that individual would refuse any help I offered, such as... GO ON THE RADIO AND TELL US ABOUT IT, GODDAMMIT. This is what you do: tell the world. And you start with us.

Some would. Many did. Others? Ha.

And what was the difference between the people who would and the people who would not?

I finally figured it out: they did not take themselves seriously! And they seemed surprised when anyone else did.

Is this why we have the fakes? Because they feel like they can only take themselves seriously when they are someone else?

If only identitarians are sacrosanct, important, worthy of being taken seriously... it stands to reason that those who want to be taken seriously will invent identities for themselves, to join this rarefied, special club. Just like the talented Mr Ripley. They may even believe these fake identities are real, like the kids on anti-depressants who claim to be disabled, although no one IRL has any clue they are on anti-depressants.

Or they may just make up these identities wholesale, and pretend to be someone else entirely.

In any event, the internet and the political discourse have been irreparably damaged. I am looking forward to the day when we can track them all down, every single one, not just the ones who get sloppy and/or simply can't hide which elite college they work for.

I used to be afraid of that, but no more. As some famous, miracle-producing rabbi once said, the truth shall set you free.

Back in the day, at the Christopher Street Gay Pride March in NYC, we chanted, OUT OF THE CLOSETS AND INTO THE STREETS!

How about now?: OUT OF THE BASEMENTS AND INTO THE STREETS! OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET AND INTO THE STREETS!

Time to update the slogan, add your own, play along at home.

~*~

In the meantime, what will happen to us? Can we turn this around? Is Citizen Kane going to be president?

When the music's over, turn out the lights.

Winding up this year in Blogdonia

I had a lovely New Year's Eve lunch with my Cousin Bethie today. (At left: Me and Cousin Bethie at her son's wedding party in 2009.)




Time to look back at this Mayan year of 2012.

The newest, remarkable thing in Feminist Blogdonia this year, has been the wholesale demise of old-school blogs. Small blogs (one author only) seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur, and only stubborn hold-outs like your plucky narrator remain.

Where'd they go? Well, interesting that you should ask. They have all stampeded to Tumblr, that hip, young, visually-chic new net-destination. No room for grandma on Tumblr... as I said before (see link), I can't even figure out who is saying what. But even if I don't know who is saying what, I CAN read the basic messages... and damn. It's getting ugly over there.

The Tumblr feminists are identifiably young and post lots of cool graphics, videos and photos. They obviously come from affluent families and have advanced degrees; their education and experience can be quite intimidating. (I would not know what to say to any of them, which hardly ever happens.) I can understand why lots of people resent them. The Amazing Atheist informs me in one of his rants [caution, click that at your own risk; he can be pretty offensive to some folks... okay, most folks] that most of the Tumblr feminists do not seem to be into feminist theory or history or any of that boring, wonky political stuff. They mostly like to fulminate about pop culture, 'rape culture', trans women, men staring at them, and whatever else pops in their heads. (Typhon Blue, prominent female men's rights activist, did a funny bit about them also.) Their feminism seems to be a triumph of style over substance.

Clearly, the Tumblr feminists are on everyone's radar. Us Second-Wave ladies here on Blogspot are yesterday's news, the tired old-guard (yawns for emphasis).

But why have they all stampeded to Tumblr? What is it about the place that draws them? Is it inherently easier to post there than it is to post on Blogspot, Wordpress, Livejournal or Dreamwidth? I don't think it is. I think it's the fact that it's new and has an eye-catching layout (multiple publishing options and templates)... AND the fact that no comments are allowed. You can be as offensive as you wanna be, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. No screaming at you in comments. You do not have to BLOCK people, or babysit threads that threaten to boil over into major flame wars. You can say your piece and be on your way.

But of course, people being what we are, we always find ways to fight. What the Tumblrites do is REBLOG things, and start the fight that way. For example, here is what one such verbal-brawl looks like, an argument via Tumblr reblogging. (See how unclear it is, just who is saying what? Or is it just me?)

The biggest feud in Tumblr Feminist Blogdonia right now, is about transgendered people. I find this fascinating, since I thought the superior young feminists, who have preached to me incessantly since I first started blogging (and have painfully picked apart the comparatively harmless minutiae of my language) knew absolutely everything on the subject of transgender. I was assured they had all that shit settled, and it was only us old fogies who are always wrong every time we open our mouths. And they are still alluding to this, since the label "radfem" (originally designating Second Wave radical feminists; feminists over 40-45) is the word they repeatedly employ to describe women younger than my daughter, who could not possibly have been radfems. This is a creative way to insult young feminists by calling them old hags, without actually saying that... the fact that they might actually insult us older women, by appropriating a term describing us (radfem) and connecting that with something that does not describe our actual political position (transphobia)? Well, who cares, right? (You don't think they actually care about those women who made it possible for them to get those great educations, now do you?) Let's not allow concern over ageism to get in the way of a great feud, amirite?


At left: I finally figured out how to get a photo of my constantly-squirming cat, Cyril. Just in time for New Year's! (see, I can be as narcissistic and off-topic as any of the Tumblr folks)



All joking aside. What I think this tells us: even though the "big feminist blogs" have taken pro-trans positions and have tried to be progressive beacons of equality (and some have failed at that, even so) ... the rank-and-file young feminists have not signed on. Transphobia is rife among young feminists.

This should not surprise anyone. Their politics are mostly undeveloped, since real-life activism is virtually unknown and foreign to the majority of these feminists. They do not do coalition work; they have very little experience in dealing with people in real life who are not of their own social circle and class. Activism is where politics are forged and solidified, and where one quickly learns who one's friends really are.

Sitting around talking, simply isn't where it's at, as we used to say.

And so, on Tumblr, the kidz can air their provincial little prejudices in a safe place. They can raise hell and nobody can comment or object. It makes them feel powerful and it is addicting. Every man a king, as Huey Long famously said... and every woman a queen.

The initial strength of the internet was the free-for-all environment of its countless message boards, chat rooms and blogs... and yet, these seemed to create chaos. They WERE chaos. People became unglued; they got very freaked out and quickly demanded ORDER, and so Facebook and other gated communities came into being, to satisfy the need for cops and babysitters. And so, we now see another desire for chaos... but not GENUINE chaos. The narcissistic, play-acting chaos of yelling your opinions at 96 decibels in an empty room... with no reply and no interruption. The echo sounds nice. The fantasy that you are important is fun. And you can post photos and fancy wallpapers to match your fantasy-self.

And that seems to be where we are right now... or where Tumblr is.

Thanks, but I think I'll stay right here.

Happy New Year, yall.



~*~

PS: Our last podcast of the year! Have a great 2013.

Vegetarian intestinal distress leads to insightful thinking

I have discovered an excellent reason to stay vegetarian.

After a decade and a half, if you inadvertently eat anything made with meat, you barf your guts out.

I have been sick for several days... and my husband, who ate the same thing (and is not vegetarian) is just fine. It was not food poisoning... or rather, IT WAS, but not the usual kind.

For ME it was.

I guess there is no going back!

The item was already-prepared "chicken-fried tofu"--which I assumed (and you know what they say about that) was not actually fried in chicken. (After all, as Mr Daisy said, frying it in actual chicken fat kinda defeats the whole purpose of eating tofu in the first place, doesn't it?) It seems I have eaten it before (although hardly ever) and did not have this cataclysmic, days-long reaction... but I did eat a significant amount on this occasion. It has been horrific. I am genuinely surprised at my body's response.

It could also be that the person frying it, in this particular instance, went ahead and actually chicken-fried it and didn't consider trying to make it vegetarian. I have often tasted Chinese and other foods, duly advertised as technically "vegetarian" (as in, no meat in the actual recipe) but tasted suspiciously as if possibly dumped into the same wok as the chicken-fried rice, made earlier in the day... after a long time without meat, it jumps right out at you. But imitation-meat flavors are, admittedly, much harder to gauge... the whole focus of the flavor profile is the imitation-meat flavor.

I am not a purist, and I have eaten imitation-bacon-flavored potato chips and so forth, with no negative reactions. I read labels! (Of course, with prepared hot-bar foods, you can't do that.) A "flavor" is usually a chemical, and real meat is not the same as chemically-enhanced "meat-flavor" and never the twain shall meet. So, I assumed I was eating the equivalent of tofu fried in chicken flavors.

Wrong. My ailing intestines and tummy say otherwise.

As I said, sick for days. I even recorded my radio show while still suffering (the show must go on, and all that), so my pissed-off ranting came much easier than usual. Have a listen!

And pity the poor vegetarian who no longer has the 'choice,' as one always likes to think one does.

Perhaps this is a lesson about all such choices: after a certain point, you can't undo that choice, it is permanent. It is not simply a choice of the mind; the body, the life, is irreparably marked with it.

~*~

I have been reading Susan Sontag's diaries... and I am just so jealous of her brilliance. Her one-and-two-sentence observations, just while she is sitting on a beach or whatever, are far more brilliant, incisive, and genius than anyone else's (even as they congratulate themselves for their limited brilliance and clarity). My goodness, how I miss her. I always idolized her, and now I know why: this is the kind of public female intellectual that simply does not exist anymore. She was a pure product of her time.

One thing I did, was trot out to buy a little notebook and resolve to scribble my own (decidedly non-brilliant) observations in it. I can see that she would write lines that later ended up in her other books; ideas that would later direct her thoughts and passions. I can't tell you all how many times I have tried to remember what I was thinking back on Tuesday, only to forget all about it... one thing I have liked about blogging is how it is an accurate, uncensored record of our thoughts and feelings. I have decided keeping a notebook, even of one and two line-passages, is a way to make that even more detailed, more comprehensive, more precise.

~*~


Whilst recovering from my epicurean disaster, I watched TLC network, and although its hard to avoid the constant commercials for Honey Boo Boo (saints preserve us), I was very interested in the new show about conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel. The TLC documentaries about their lives were well-received and popular, and I watched them a couple of times; this show is not surprising. They are extremely likable, smart, capable... and they don't seem at all disturbed that other people are disturbed by them.

In a very real sense, their lack of being disturbed is part of their unique condition: they are together. They are not alone. A person defined as "a freak" by our society, left all alone and gawked at unmercifully (i.e. the Elephant Man), tugs at our heartstrings in an almost-excruciating way. That poor soul, we think, nobody will ever understand him. But Abby and Brittany have each other, and they understand what the other is experiencing. Their very difference itself, makes them strong together. They murmur to each other, they make inaudible one-word remarks and grin. They are able to make fun of us right back. Therefore, they plow onward, unperturbed and undaunted. You can't help but be drawn to them.

And you know, the fact is, it is going to be hard for these girls to make a living in the regular ways. It isn't like they are going to get hired for the local Burger King or Dairy Queen. They are very logical and realistic young women, and at some point, I can see them sitting down for the cost-benefit analysis: okay, how are we going to make money? The Salon article I linked above, asks the obvious question, IS THIS A FREAK SHOW?--but forgets an obvious historic reality: people went into freak shows to be able to eat and find a warm place to sleep. Many of the people in the shows took the proverbial bull by the horns and started running their own shows and were able to retire in relative comfort. Others were exploited by ruthless circus-ringmasters. It was not always obvious which was which, simply by looking.

To me, as in the prostitution business, the question is: who is making the money? The fact is the exploitation, not necessarily the "freak show" aspect. After all, people surround these girls everywhere they go. They might as well start charging. How to do that in a civilized fashion? Reality TV seems to be the ticket. After this TV-series, people will surround them as celebrities, not (only) as 'freaks'. Also, people will have heard of them. They will know who they are and not drop their iced tea in the mall, and start following them around to be sure they saw what they thought they saw, as some reporter did some years ago in Minnesota's Mall of America. (And then, writing a really rude, gee-whiz-guess-what-I-saw article about them, that of course, I cannot readily locate now to properly link.)

Instead, they might actually get some respect, since Reality-TV celebrity is one of the few ways physically-different people can get some respect these days.

And may I also say: Its also very nice to see a whole Reality-TV show in which so many young women are portrayed as decent for a change, instead of the usual nasty, mean-girl bitches. It is heartening to see Abby and Brittany's female support network; when the gawkers descend, they close ranks around them and don't allow them to take unauthorized pictures and videos.

Now, that's something to be proud of, too:

[The TLC show] is unrelentingly positive, and at times flatout heartwarming. In the documentary about them at 16, their mother explained just how protective their friends were, closing ranks whenever anyone would stare at them. In college, the twins seem to have duplicated this kind of sheltered social environment. Unlike so many TV shows — reality and otherwise — “Abby & Brittany” is a kind of soothing ode to the niceness of 20-year-olds, and especially of 20-year-old girls. The women who live with Abby and Brittany [in their college dorm] are normal in that explicitly Midwestern way, which is to say, normal to the point of notability, grounded, smiley, well-adjusted, well-behaved, just like Abby and Brittany. The roommates are a sort of Greek chorus, supplying the audience with the information it needs — about the girls’ physiological differences, how much tuition they pay (one and a half) and the differences in their personalities — and also expressing their endless, genuinely heartfelt admiration of the two and their astounding simpatico.

I won't be able to stay away from the show, and ain't ashamed to say so.

Note: In keeping with the disability-rights concept that disability is a social construct, as I believe it is, I am tagging this blog entry with "disability"--although it is pertinent to note that Abby and Brittany are not "disabled"--as dwarves also are not. But their man-made environment (car seats, college desks, etc) DOES disable them, as it does very small people. People are "disabled" by environments and their minority status, even if they are in perfect health. (i.e. Severely scarred individuals are disabled by other people's reactions to them, not usually by the actual scars.) Just wanted to do a quick commercial for this radical perspective, since Abby and Brittany are a perfect example of it.

~*~

Other links inspired by my new notebook habit:

The Death of Sun Ming Sheu: A Government Sponsored Assassination? Thanks to Onyx Lynx!

William Gibson on Punk Rock, Internet Memes, and ‘Gangnam Style’ Required reading!


As regular readers know, I am fascinated by the multitude of changes wrought by our relatively new internet culture. And so is Gibson:

WIRED: In your essay in the new book Punk: An Aesthetic, you write that punk was the last pre-digital counterculture. That’s a really interesting thought. Can you expand on that?

GIBSON: It was pre-digital in the sense that in 1977, there were no punk websites [laughs]. There was no web to put them on. It was 1977, pre-digital. None of that stuff was there. So you got your punk music on vinyl, or on cassettes. There were no mp3s. There was no way for this thing to propagate. The kind of verbal element of that counterculture spread on mostly photo-offset fanzines that people pasted up at home and picked up at a print shop. And then they mailed it to people or sold it in those little record shops that sold the vinyl records or the tapes. It was pre-digital; it had no internet to spread on, and consequently it spread quickly but relatively more slowly.

I suspect — and I don’t think this is nostalgia — but it may have been able to become kind of a richer sauce, initially. It wasn’t able to instantly go from London to Toronto at the speed of light. Somebody had to carry it back to Toronto or wherever, in their backpack and show it, physically show it to another human. Which is what happened. And compared to the way that news of something new spreads today, it was totally stone age. Totally stone age! There’s something remarkable about it that’s probably not going to be that evident to people looking at it in the future. That the 1977 experience was qualitatively different, in a way, than the 2007 experience, say.

WIRED: What if punk emerged today, instead of in 1977? How do you think it would be different?

GIBSON: You’d pull it up on YouTube, as soon as it was played. It would go up on YouTube among the kazillion other things that went up on YouTube that day. And then how would you find it? How would it become a thing, as we used to say? I think that’s one of the ways in which things are really different today. How can you distinguish your communal new thing — how can that happen? Bohemia used to be self-imposed backwaters of a sort. They were other countries within the landscape of Western industrial civilization. They were countries that most people would never see — mysterious places. You’d pay a price, potentially, for going there. That’s always cool and exciting. Now, where are they? Where can you do that? How are people transacting that today? I am pretty sure that they are, but I don’t have that much firsthand experience of it. But they have to do it in a different way.

He's totally nailed it... and I think this explains why I am so startled by the lack of "loyalty"--the lack of "investment"--that young people have in the ideas and lifestyles they adopt today.

That's because they ran across it on the internet, exactly as if they were leafing through a catalog.

I realize now, this is what is behind my constant requests for "cred" in young internet-denizens who challenge me... their challenges are just another fun thing to do, whereas I take them very seriously as challenges to my self. That's because I take such aspects of MY SELF seriously; I sweat for my ideas and experience. I didn't just thumb through some catalog and decide, "I believe/like this; its cool, so its me."

This may also be the reason they rarely ACT on their political ideas, since no ACT was required to gain the knowledge, other than sitting and clicking. Back in the day, you had to work hard for your counter-cultural knowledge, and thus, for some inexplicable reason, you therefore felt obligated to act.

Yes, I know, this whole post is "tl/dr"--as the kids say. (stands for "too long/didn't read"--you didn't expect them to read anything LONG, did you? Is it longer than a soundbite? Fuhgeddaboudit!)

The protracted length is precisely because: I didn't really write it for them. ;)

Date a geek today

Can I say it? I feel really sorry for people who are dating now.

A whole generation has gone by since I last shopped for males. (In November, we will celebrate our 24th anniversary.) And from the looks of things, it's gotten kinda ugly out there.

I think it must be terrible for people to look you up and down, talk to you for five minutes, then press the buzzer: NEXT. Back in the day, before the internet, things were slower. You usually didn't press the NEXT buzzer until you knew the person fairly well and were CERTAIN it was time to press the NEXT buzzer. And even then, you might keep that person around as a good friend, the way Chris Rock says women keep a man in the wings: "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass." (Yes, she admitted, head hung low, I did that for years. Because as Chris Rock says, you never know.)

This post was inspired by a geek-hating tirade, and I just had to say something.

As an old lady married to a geek, let me say, geeks are the greatest. AND the smartest. (I admit, being married to a genius is important to my self-image.) But I understand that not everyone feels that way. Big Blogdonia hoopla over this intended-humorous post over at Gizmodo. (I thought Gizmodo was a geeky-site, so I was surprised that they would run an anti-geek piece.) Trendy young woman dates a geek, and suffers extended apoplexy:

The next day I Googled my date and a wealth of information flowed into my browser. A Wikipedia page! Competition videos! Fanboy forums! This guy isn’t just some professional who dabbled in card games at a tender age. He’s widely revered in the game of Magic that he’s been immortalised in his own playing card.

Just like you’re obligated to mention you’re divorced or have a kid in your online profile, shouldn’t someone also be required to disclose any indisputably geeky world championship titles? But maybe it was a long time ago? We met for round two later that week.

At dinner I got straight down to it. Did he still play? “Yes.” Strike one. How often? “I’m preparing for a tournament this weekend.” Strike two. Who did he hang out with? “I’ve met all my best friends through Magic.” Strike three. I smiled and nodded and listened. Eventually I even felt a little bit bad that I didn’t know shit about the game. Here was a guy who had dedicated a good chunk of his life to mastering Magic, on a date with a girl who can barely play Solitaire. This is what happens, I thought, when you lie in your online profile. I was lured on a date thinking I’d met a normal finance guy, only to realise he was a champion dweeb in hedge funder’s clothing.

I later found out that he infiltrated his way into OKCupid dates with at least two other people I sort of know, including one of my co-workers. Mothers, warn your daughters! This could happen to you. You’ll think you’ve found a normal bearded guy with a job, only to end up sharing goat cheese with a world champion of nerds. Maybe I’m an OKCupid arsehole for calling it that way. Maybe I’m shallow for not being able to see past his world title. But if everyone stopped lying in their profiles, maybe there also wouldn’t be quite as many OKCupid horror stories to tell.

This post exploded onto several blogs, as the geeks and geek-defenders came out in force. Gizmodo even replied semi-officially and took the guy's name out of the piece. (But with the multitude of information the author has provided, it would be really easy to locate him and his name.) Sady Doyle takes up the charge and defends the initial poster and her account of the shitty date. (NOTE: Sady is far funnier.) Eventually THAT thread has to be closed down too. The whole thing has caused a near-riot in Blogdonia.

Meanwhile, I am rendered mute and remain utterly clueless about the whole thing. Really? A game? Really?

And what's wrong with goat cheese?

See there, I am already hopelessly uncool. I don't even understand the underlying premises of why this man is bad. As far as I can see, he didn't insult her or women in general, did not grab her tit or pinch her ass, was reasonably literate and dressed inoffensively. (She offhandedly says they discussed "normal stuff" and includes "college" as one of those "normal" things... obviously, a man who had not been to college at all would not have been regarded as "normal" or good enough, regardless of his interests or intelligence. In virtually all angry replies to the post, this casual elitism was unremarked upon.) Is it supposed to be bad or good to dress like a hedge fund guy? And why? Is capitalism considered an unbridled good by this person? If the guy had oodles of money (if his card-game-of-choice was the World Series of Poker rather than Magic: The Gathering), would she have been impressed?

Feminism is not just about women. Feminism is also about men. We cannot expect men to transcend their base desires and like us as people, if we are not willing to do the same to them. If we judge men solely by their wallets or their hobbies, we can hardly be angry when they judge us by our boobs or our weight.

Does it shock you when I tell you I married AN UNEMPLOYED PERSON? Of course, now, he has had his job longer than everybody, but when I met him, this was certainly not the case. Sady says there is no such thing as the Frog turning into the Prince and sees this as propaganda for girls to accept Frogs and to be happy with them:

We get a lot of sexist narratives about love, but none of them are more pernicious and subtle than this: The Frog Prince story. You could call it “Beauty and the Beast,” too. Or you could call it “Twilight,” or “Knocked Up,” or “Rory Williams Won’t Stop Whining;” it’s always the same story, anyway. Girl meets guy. On the surface, this guy is unappealing! Because he’s a frog! Or he’s not sexually attractive to her, or he treats her badly, or he’s immature, or he’s Rory Williams and he won’t stop whining; all of these are frog-like states, generally considered unkissable. But only a bitch would think that frogs don’t deserve our sweet, sweet kisses, so the woman doesn’t leave. Instead, she looks for the guy’s good qualities. She lowers her standards; she changes her expectations. She gives up on her silly little “ideas” about “attractiveness” or “compatible lifestyles” or “having fun with her partner.” Finally, she loses touch with her own desires to the point that she winds up making out with a fucking frog. At which point he becomes a prince. Or a loving husband, or a responsible person, or a whiny little Roman Centurion; the point is, in these stories, once you give up on wanting things from men, men magically become what you want.

Here’s the secret, though, if you are the girl in this particular story: That guy never became a prince. At all. He’s still the same guy; he still possesses all those qualities you initially found unappealing, for all sorts of valid reasons. People don’t go from frog to mammal overnight, and they particularly don’t do so because you ask less of them; you are still making out with a frog, in the long run. The only reason he looks like a prince nowadays is that you lowered your standards to the point that you literally could not tell the difference between frog and mammal.

First of all, I was an alcoholic very active in AA when he met me, a single welfare mother with a three-year-old child, so I was not free of my own amphibian tendencies. And maybe those flaws are pretty glaring, but you know, everyone has them. Everyone. But because mine WERE so glaring, I could not lie about them or hide them, and had to face them up front. I was not a terrific bargain, and I did not present myself that way. Perhaps everyone should consider that? (Aside: Working-class and poor kids are frequently asked by their peers, Who do you think you are?, and I often wonder if the middle-and-upper-class kids are ever asked that question, because they sure don't act like it. But I digress.)

And second, I find it interesting Sady thinks the Frog tale is a propaganda story for women... when I think women wrote the story, out of personal experience.

In short, we SAW the prince emerge, so we know. For sure.

As one who has been married three times, let me share something crucial: you do not know who men are until the shit hits the fan. (Yes, I'm afraid the military is right about that one.) Our characters are forged in crisis. Will this man stand by you when you go to court with the ex? When you are sick? Been fired? Lost your mother? How will he respond? What kind of father will he be? You don't know any of this ahead of time, even if you think you do. One of the worst things that can ever happen, is finding out that you married someone who can't deal with emotions or reality, who subsumes himself in work or TV or porn. When you are young and carefree and everything is fun, you can easily handle things. But the first time something HAPPENS (i.e. somebody becomes an alcoholic, okay: ME) and this person can't deal? They will cut you loose and move on. It turns out they are not someone cut out for the long haul, and you had no clue. (How could you have had a clue? Nothing BAD had ever happened before.) You could go years and never know this about a man. And it happened to me.

What you want is a man who understands what true partnership means. These men are rare, so rare in fact, that you shouldn't turn them away just because they play the wrong game. Really, that is the least of it. (Some hints I can offer in retrospect: during the dating period, does he keep his distance when you are upset or yowling? Does he say, "call back when you have calmed down"? Move on. When you have children together, he will treat them like shit and refuse to deal. Because as you probably know, kids yowl all the time.)

The secret to being married a long time is: Your souls merge. Your MINDS merge. You may not like his games, but you will learn about them nonetheless. Even more than that: you will learn what traits he displays while playing said game, and why it makes him so happy. Similarly, he may not like your stuff either, but he will learn the lyrics of Who songs anyway. Eventually, you hear him tell someone else that the Who was great, and you privately preen. Just to yourself.

At this point, we finish each other sentences, or don't even bother with whole sentences.

Example: TV commercial comes on.

Him: "That reminds me of..."

Me: "Yeah, but that was a different actor."

Him: "No, same guy."

Me: "You sure?"

Friends: stare at us dumbfounded, and we don't even know why, until they tell us.

And I like it that way. :)

So here I am, defending the geeks. Because I am happily married to one, and have been for a long time. And girls, if you overlook them as a category, you are cheating yourselves. You really are.

But then, I occasionally eat goat cheese too. You might want to disregard my opinion.

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Susan Jacoby

First of all, I want to make it clear that it is sheer coincidence that I am criticizing another atheist today; this makes two-in-a-row, and I realize that looks bad. As I have said many times, I love the atheists for keeping us honest and forcing us (okay: me) to cut the perpetual starry-eyed routine. However, I have just read a very good book by an atheist, but I'm afraid her atheism has compromised the book, so I have to say so.

Susan Jacoby's fascinating NEVER SAY DIE: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age, is one of those books I have been waiting for, and didn't quite realize it until I found myself hungrily turning pages and consuming it all in one afternoon. Interestingly, I finished it right after my doctor-visit and a lecture (not the first) about my cholesterol.

Do I see the numbers? Yes.

My weight and glucose are way down... but that damn LDL number creeps up and up. "If diet and exercise are not enough..." echo those damn TV ads from evillll BigPharma. Yes, they mean ME, now.

My 35-40 lb weight loss over the past 18 months, coupled with my devoted Swamp Rabbit Trail hiking, was supposed to magically make my cholesterol number go down and... (stares uncomprehendingly at the printed lab results that announce my HDL/LDL) well, it didn't work. I am pleased I am no longer a diabetes risk, but... well, shit, it's always something.

And that is a very good description of aging, "it's always something"... in this hard-nosed book that debunks and deconstructs the various Hallmark-greeting-card myths of aging, Jacoby plows right in. As one of those dedicated atheist-rationalists that takes no prisoners, she decimates several of the major aging myths, and not a few of the minor ones. For example, if you are an asshole in your youth, there is no reason to think you will age gracefully into a nice person with appropriate old-age "wisdom" -- and vice versa. As evidence, she offers (on one hand) Henry Kissinger, who is ancient but still defending genocide with aplomb. On the other hand, she offers Jimmy Carter, who continues to contribute to and enrich our world in so many ways. Certainly, these are excellent examples, and she has no argument from me. My grandmother always said old age simply made you "more of what you are"--and Jacoby seems to agree.

Jacoby is careful to use the terms "young old" (which would be me) and "old old"--which are people in their 80s-90s. She believes the "young old" are used for propaganda purposes, so that (basically young and middle-aged) people can point to them/us with relieved sighs and reassure themselves they can "stay active" while growing old and spry. By contrast, nobody puts the "old old" in TV commercials and nobody seems very glad to see them. They are carefully segregated from the rest of us. She writes at length about the problem of loneliness in old people, as their friends and loved ones die off all around them.

One thing I found disturbing in Jacoby's book, is the casual way she accepts this. She does NOT accept other states-of-affairs as unchanging (in fact, she tells us she intends to go out as an "angry old lady"), without thorough questioning--so why is this particular fact just offered as a given? Perhaps because she simply states that she would not change her life for her aging mother, just as her mother had not changed her lifestyle for her aging mother. However, she does note that her grandmother DID take care of her great-grandmother. Somewhere along the way, "we" (there's that famous punchline: "Whatcha mean We?") stopped doing that. We did? (Did someone mention economic class?) Actually, lots of people didn't. The professional classes, the educated class to which Jacoby belongs, people who have book contracts and write regular columns for the Washington Post, did that first. People with important careers found that they could not (would not) be bothered with aging relatives. That was a deliberate choice that Jacoby made, but it is in no way a given.

"Old old" people are more segregated than ever, and that is because advanced capitalism demands total mobility from everyone, so we end up moving all over the world to get and keep jobs. Of course old people are warehoused, who else is going to look after them? (A possible good side effect of the economy tanking, might be that fewer people are forced to move around so much, and old people might actually be able to stay in real homes.)

One of Jacoby's chapters is alarmingly titled, Women: Eventually the Only Sex. Women overwhemingly overpopulate the "old old" ... social and political concerns about aging are basically about the future of women and how we will live in our final decades; as we all know, the guys check out earlier. Jacoby echoes my own feelings in how modern feminism, profoundly uncomfortable with aging, does not see the economic debates over Social Security and Medicaid to be directly concerned with women, even though WE are primarily who these programs are about... young feminists are preoccupied with sex, reproduction and other youthful pursuits, and it is unlikely we will get them to understand that this is THEIR future too. And that reminds me of another thing I disliked in the book, Jacoby's request that we lay off older men who prefer younger women, using some half-baked pseudo-Darwinian excuse about how men are visual and require more and more to turn them on as they age. Excuse me, but so? It takes me more and more too. If I can refrain (as most women do) from pinching boys on the ass and/or asking them to get married, I think most older men can show some restraint as well. The fact that they don't is because men don't need to exercise restraint... RESTRAINT is not masculine, after all. I am not sure why feminist Jacoby found it necessary to cut men slack in this one area in which they decidedly DON'T NEED ANY, but ... (yeesh)

From Jacoby's website, a summary of the book:

The author offers powerful evidence that America has always been a “youth culture” and that the plight of the neglected old dates from the early years of the republic. Today, it is urgent to distinguish between marketing hype and realistic hope about what lies ahead for more than 70 million Americans who will be over 65 in just twenty years. This wide-ranging reappraisal examines the explosion of Alzheimer’s cases, the uncertain economic future of aging boomers in a shaky economy, the predicament of women who make up an overwhelming majority of the oldest—and poorest—old; and the absence of control over dying in a society that devotes a huge proportion of its health care resources to medical intervention in the last year of life—even when there is no hope that the person will ever recover.

One amazing fact she offers is that even among Catholics, a majority support assisted suicide.

Since I am giving this book a (mostly) good review, where do I think Jacoby got it wrong? Exactly where an atheist would get it wrong: In not covering the role of religion in the lives of very old people. ESPECIALLY when she discusses depression and loneliness and other negative emotional states. Does religion help with these? (they do in young people) She totally avoids the question. I realize the answer may well be "no"--but I would like to see an honest airing of the question, preferably accompanied by some stats (which I realize would be difficult to obtain; like a nice meal, religion is a subjective experience, pleasant for some and pure hell for others)... but I am intelligent and self-aware enough to know that *I* will become a religious fanatic of some sort in my old age. I am trying to work it out so that I will not be an annoying type of religious fanatic, but a benign presence or (at best) one that people might take some comfort from. But I know already, that religion is my opiate, and at the end of my life, I will be administering opiates (all kinds) in spades.

What does atheism offer? I think yall might consider "atheist congregations" of one kind or another, for the social needs of atheists. Sweet Mormon, Baptist and Catholic ladies will come to visit you when you are old... In fact, I visited the late Monsignor Baum myself, about a week before his death (he gave me a blessing in Latin, he seemed to have forgotten the words in English, which I actually found charming) --even though I barely had time to wipe my butt in those days. But I made visiting him a religious priority.

Question: Do the atheists have ladies with angel-food cakes standing ready to visit the old atheists? (If not, yall really need to get to work on that.)

And if the atheists say, fuck angel-food cakes, we don't need people to visit us when we're old, well, maybe that is the major difference between them and the rest of us. They expect us all to be as hard-assed as they are, and we just can't do it.

Does religion make old age better or worse? And I don't simply refer to the religious practices of the old person in question, I also refer to religion as a social force; do not underestimate the importance of hundreds of Sunday School classes going to visit the old people and sing them songs.

I know I'll just love seeing them, when it's my turn.

Betty Ford 1918-2011

I was 24 years old when I walked into my first AA meeting. Too young?

Certainly, I already looked like I belonged there, swathed in discarded old scarves like some pitiful hippie-ragamuffin. Although it was dark, icy and cold--January in Ohio--I had walked to the meeting at St Aloysius on West Broad Street. That fact seemed to impress the people at the meeting more than anything I had actually said, which was likely a jumble of drug-addled gibberish that made no sense.

I held onto the one hope I had: too young? Am I too young?

And then, she just sort of settled into my mind. Her presence. It was like she was with me.

The president's wife, you nitwit. It could be anyone. Anyone.
A-N-Y-O-N-E. Any age, any sex, anywhere; there is no membership requirement except the desire to stop drinking.

But... but...

Shut UP, said my conscience, eager to win one for a change. Shut UP. The president's fucking wife.

Anyone.

And she remained there, a presence in my consciousness, a presence occupying my head without my full realization... until now. And she is gone.

Betty Ford was crucial to me, to us. She was so important, possibly the most important person in the American recovery movement save for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because she was Anyone. She was the respectable person who passed out at a dinner given in her honor. She was a rich man's wife who started to drink to deal with social pressures. And she wasn't Dick Van Dyke or Robert Downey Jr, either, she was a WOMAN. A lady. She had been, after all, the First Lady.

If it could happen to her, it could happen to you. (And do you know how many times I have heard that phrase, in meetings, in monologues, in phone conversations? I have said it myself, and it has been said to me.) Why do you think it couldn't? Who do you think you are? Of course it could. Luck, goodness, intelligence, class, decency, none of that means squat: you can't handle it, leave it alone. Even she had to. It could be anyone.

Anyone.

And how many lives were saved, all because we could point to her and confidently announce, ANYONE? Her presence, her life, became an object lesson for millions... certainly, it was very important to me, to know that she was in our ranks. See? I'm not the only girl! (In 1982, it often felt like I was.)

My deep affection and love for this woman is hard to convey. Her simple honesty and her life lessons, helped so many of us. Just her presence, in our minds, meant so much.

Her legacy overshadows her husband's easily.

Rest in peace.

American Electra by Susan Faludi

The funniest aspect of the mass internet-responses to Susan Faludi's much-discussed HARPER'S article, is that young women already run the joint. Therefore, when blogs like Feministing authoritatively announce:

We mulled over how to respond most effectively here at Feministing, and have decided to publish a week-long series of responses from a diversity of young voices in our community

Say whaat?

Um, isn't that who ALWAYS writes for Feministing? How is this any different from business-as-usual? They write as if this week-long special event is somehow different from the norm, and of course, it isn't, which is the hilarity.

In truth, "a diversity of YOUNG voices" (emphasis mine) is the typical demographic for ALL of the Big Feminist Blogs. The fact that a tiny middle-aged squawk over at HARPER'S (a magazine you have to BUY to read; it isn't online for everyone's perusal and I still haven't read the whole damn article) can create such a fuss, is telling.

I long ago unsubscribed to HARPER'S, after their Andrea Dworkin hit-piece, which I didn't like (see comments here). However, Susan Faludi commands widespread respect, even from young feminists. She is likely the primary reason for the overarching concern this time; even Amanda Marcotte, major Youthquaker, notes that she was eager to read Faludi's account. (For my part, I have been howling non-stop about ageism within feminism since my arrival in Feminist Blogdonia in 2007... nobody cares, and in fact, I am usually shown the door for bringing it up.)

What is immediately striking is how this mass counter-attack would not happen regarding any other form of discrimination, except (as we have seen numerous times) for fat. I very much doubt that if this was an account about racism in feminism by Alice Walker (and she did write one), the response would be, "to present a diversity of white voices in our community." (Or would it?)

Yes, it is the same.

Maybe worse, since Faludi outlines the incontrovertible facts: Second Wave feminism gave birth to the Third Wave, and this feud tends to imitate the elements of a mother-daughter fracas. Since that's what it is. Basically, many Third-wavers are spitting in their feminist foremother's faces. Faludi writes: "The contemporary women’s movement seems fated to fight a war on two fronts: alongside the battle of the sexes rages the battle of the ages."

Yep. (NOTE: Sorry I can't provide "a diversity of older voices" to reply along with me, but there are EXCEEDINGLY FEW of us online... and the Third-wavers have banished even those few, in favor of young folks talking endlessly about Lady Gaga. Thus, it is very difficult for us to even find each other.)

I still can't find the entire text of Faludi's piece, so if you can find one online, please link here. But here are some excerpts from what is currently posted:

Why does so much of “new” feminist activism and scholarship spurn the work and ideas of the generation that came before? As ungracious as these attitudes may seem, they are grounded in a sad reality: while American feminism has long, and productively, concentrated on getting men to give women some of the power they used to give only to their sons, it hasn’t figured out how to pass power down from woman to woman, to bequeath authority to its progeny.

...

I’ve been to a feminist “mother-daughter dinner party” where the feel-good bonding degenerated into a cross fire of complaint and recrimination, with younger women declaring themselves sick to death of hearing about the glory days of Seventies feminism and older women declaring themselves sick to death of being swept into the dustbin of history. I’ve been to a feminist conclave convened to discuss the intergenerational question where no young women were invited. After the group spent hours bemoaning the younger generation’s putative preference for a sexed-up “girly girl” liberation, one participant suggested asking an actual young woman to the next meeting—and was promptly shot down. I’ve delivered speeches on the state of women’s rights to college audiences whose follow-up comments concerned mostly the liberating potential of miniskirts and stripping, their elders’ cluelessness about sex and fashion, and the need to distance themselves from an older, “stodgy” feminism.

Gee, she sighed, I wonder why no young women were invited? (I can't imagine.)

Interestingly, Faludi uses the word "handicapped"--the type of old-fashioned term that makes young women (and me too, and I am older than Faludi) wince. (I wonder how often our language-choices 'mark' us as older, online?) She writes at length about the stylistic differences in Second and Third Wave feminists, and I suddenly remember my recent post in which I exhorted women to sass back to fatophobic doctors, advice that came almost verbatim from early issues of Ms. magazine, as well as Our Bodies Our Selves. I was lambasted for expressing disgust that women so often act like victims, instead of paying customers, which we are. This is the kind of thing that got me lauded (as a writer) in the 70s, but now, I get excoriated for saying the exact same things.

How radically have our sensibilities changed, that what I say can be taken (by my generation) as a praiseworthy goal, but by the young women as somehow insulting?

Faludi writes about the recent NOW [National Organization for Women] presidential election:

The candidate who seemed to be in the lead was thirty-three-year-old Latifa Lyles, a charismatic speaker attuned to a youthful sensibility, a black woman who insisted on a more diverse constituency, a technologically savvy strategist who had doubled the organization’s Internet fund-raising and engaged the enthusiasm of a host of feminist bloggers. A feminist activist since she was sixteen—when she told her mother she was going on a “school trip” and ran off to the 1992 reproductive-rights demonstration in Washington, D.C.—Lyles had worked her way up the ranks in NOW, from chapter leader to national board member to youngest-ever national officer. She had spent the last four years as national vice president for membership under [Kim] Gandy, who championed Lyles as her successor. “It’s hard to ignore the fact there’s been a generational shift in this country, and an organization that doesn’t recognize that is living in the past,” Gandy declared. “Latifa’s youth is not a detriment but an advantage. She’ll take NOW to a different level.”

“I never paid attention to a NOW election in my life until I knew Latifa was running,” Jessica Valenti, the founder of Feministing.com, a leading young feminist website, told the Associated Press. “This could be the moment where NOW becomes super-relevant to the feminist movement again.”

What kind of Major American Feminist isn't paying attention to the NOW election? I had no idea you could be a Big Feminist Blogger and Big Feminist Author and not care about NOW. (shows what I know)

If anyone wants to know what's wrong with modern feminism, doesn't that sum the whole thing up in a nutshell? The young women don't give a shit about NOW, unless the prez is a young hipster like themselves. Can we be forgiven for thinking they might not be too serious?

The preoccupations of the younger side of the generational divide were on rampant display the next afternoon at the young feminist workshop, which included tips on how to recruit other young women (do not use the NOW logo when advertising your event) and a prep session on Twitter marketing, led by a young woman in stiletto heels—along with tirades on the transgressions of NOW’s elders, people “so grumpy and crotchety that as a young woman, you come into that meeting, you’re like, ‘I’m never coming back here.’ ” “Many a time I’d hear, ‘Oh, why are you wearing high heels? We fought for so long not to have you wear those high heels!’ ” “I’ve been in meetings where Seventies-ish women say to me, ‘Oh, we’re so glad to have some young blood!’ It’s creepy, and we don’t like it.”

Do not use the NOW logo?!?

(They won't use the NOW logo, but I betcha they DO take those extra salaries, birth control pills and legal abortions that NOW secured for them.)

Lord have mercy, what a lousy state of affairs this is.

One young feminist I respect a great deal, because I know she heartily works for the Forces of Good, is Natalia Antonova, who wrote:

Inter-generational conflict always exists, and it affects way more than simply mainstream American feminism. Faludi’s assertion though that there is a “nightmare of dysfunction” within American feminism is, well… funny. For me, “nightmare” relates more to systemic exclusion of trans people. Or, say, how the concerns of those who are not middle-class and don’t get invited to sit on panels can easily get lost in the shuffle. Is that too much theory, perhaps? Theory, of course, is another thing that Faludi says that younger feminists are too preoccupied with.

Indeed, I have to say that bringing THEORY into the mix is something I genuinely appreciate about the youngsters. Recently, when I commented on another blog that [Bourgeois Feminist] didn't speak for me as a working class woman ... well, they heard me. They got it. I admit, older feminists often didn't, and still don't. They still don't understand why we all didn't vote for Hillary.

So maybe I wouldn't like the whole article, even as I enjoy the relatively cheap shots that I have quoted here. Maybe I'll even get to read it one of these days.

In the meantime, I am very pleased with my own daughter, as Jessica Valenti is proud of her own mother. Maybe that is key. Generalizations are one thing, and I can relate to them. But how do we really feel?

I am personally proud of young feminists when they stand up to patriarchy (pardon old-fogie terminology) and pave their own way... and that will never change.

Slouching towards Tibet

At left: Authentic Texas goat attempts to eat my camera.



Father Conner grew up in New Orleans, and used to tell us that as a child, he earned extra money from plugging and unplugging various lights and appliances during the Jewish Sabbath. The Orthodox Jews in his neighborhood didn't want to break the Sabbath rules, but still needed the lights on. Tsk! I would think, self-righteously. What kind of hypocrisy is that?

Likewise, on one of those cable networks, I saw how (so-called) high-caste Hindus employ low-caste Hindus to do their killing for them: vermin, bugs, whatever. In this way, the high-caste family doesn't take on the direct taboo of killing or exterminating, yet they still get the job done and get mice out of the house. Hmph! I thought similarly.

And in my arrogance and egotism, I guess I plumb forgot the rest of Father Conner's instruction, wherein he explained that this kinda thing was the human condition, and we all do it. (This is the genesis of the expression: having your cake and eating it too.) Today, a humongous ugly bug was outside my door, still alive despite being trapped inside our apartment building all night... and like always, I flung it over to Cyril, who happily munched away on it. I'm giving him protein, I told myself.

Father Conner came floating back into my memory, and I realized that I have been letting my cats kill bugs rather than do it myself, because yeah, I am trying to stop killing beings and all that good Buddhist stuff. Thus, I am exactly like the Jews and Hindus in the above stories. I am technically not "breaking the law".. but... well, yes I am.

((shame))

Bob Dylan, one of many in my private Greek chorus, bubbles up in my brain:

Not even you can hide
You see you're just like me
I hope you're satisfied

...

Will I ever be able to let the creepy-crawlies roam about in my abode, without rousting some sleeping feline and pointing their snout in the direction of the 6-or-8-legged entity, knowing they will leap upon it in kitty-joy? Munch, munch.

Ohhh, what a thought. Yes, I can easily participate in vegetarianism, even veganism, but when I think of bugs, snakes, vermin and other such gremlins? Makes my proverbial skin crawl. I can't let them in here. What will people think of me? Better to let the cats do it, as a sort of half-assed solution.

Just like those folks that had serious paperwork to do, but still wanted to keep the sabbath, so they enlisted little Herb Conner to plug their lights in and gave him quarters for tips. And everyone was happy.

My self-righteousness in check, I get it now. And I laugh at our common humanity and accompanying dilemmas.

~*~

And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the waters of Blogdonia (nostalgic, summertime JAWS reference, for the baby-boomers in my readership)...

A comment of mine was pointedly not approved on a blog yesterday. Certainly, I'm not surprised, since the blogger's friends really dislike me. But it was a good comment; pertinent, polite, duly linked and on topic. It wasn't approved because I am still persona non grata. ((frowny-face))

Caution: Daisy climbs soapbox. (Last chance; leave now!)

The Tea Party reminds me of something... I stick my finger in the air, remembering that you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows... and I remember THIS MOMENT. I remember the eve of Reaganism and the highly-charged political atmosphere of 1980. History and politics are cyclical. Deja Vu all over again. (In fact, continuing the historical comparison, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama is a one-termer, as Jimmy Carter was.)

And I am here to tell you: We cannot afford to be divided right now. As we were before.

I say this now to the young people, who have only known (as adults) the whole "Hope and Change" Obama-mantra... young people who think Dubya was a real right-winger (and you ain't seen nothing yet): We must come together. We do not have to agree on everything, but we MUST put aside differences and make political alliances. NOW. And these kinds of internal squabbles and petty grudges (I include my own) are a luxury; interpersonal fallout from being on the ascent. In about 5 years, the arguments will seem, well, rather silly. We will wonder why we didn't seize the moment and unite when we had the opportunity. And that window of opportunity will close. People you love will become Republicans, if they haven't already. People will convert to strict, austere religious sects that don't allow popular music. Weird shit will start happening and you will get scared, wondering if everything is going to hell in a handbasket.

To guard against despair, you need like-minded friends. And I offer myself as one.

Because I was there before, and I remember.

Just letting you know. When everyone suddenly seems to be on the Right, you will be heartily sorry for every sectarian snub, every missed chance to make common cause with lefties. Please put aside this cool-kids-clique-mentality NOW, because later, it will bite you in the ass in various and sundry ways, seen and unseen. The more diverse your involvements, the easier it will be to PIVOT (for lack of a better word) to a politically-expedient position when necessary. And the better off you will be.

If you back yourself into a strict, sectarian corner, huddled with only people like yourself who AGREE with you, then you very efficiently cut yourself off. You leave yourself extremely vulnerable in virtually every way. I know this from experience.

Please don't. Reconsider. If it is impossible for you to embrace ME, due to my cantankerous hippie ways, I can dig that... but please find other elder leftists or feminists, who remember the Reagan era and who can connect with you, giving you perspective and helping guide you through it.

I come in peace. Namaste.

~*~

No, I haven't totally GIVEN UP. I am still rabble rousing on behalf of my candidates, still working for alla them good causes. But as I said, I feel the change in the air. Don't need no weatherman. Sarah Palin is the Paul Revere of the movement, and she has effectively crowned my next governor. I have no reason to doubt her resolve, or any of the rest of them. By contrast, the left is currently in shreds; bedraggled and beleaguered. We can't even sustain a real live antiwar movement. (THEY have sustained their PRO-war movement.) I think they will easily kick us to the curb, unless we all WAKE UP.

And I still hear snoring. Hello? Anybody listening?