Red Light District

Street Harassment

Great article.

Women Must Prevent Rape - NOT!!!

When it comes to popular messages about sexual violence, many of us are treated to a (un)healthy dose of fear – in the guise of awareness and self-protection. You know the drill: don’t walk alone; don’t drink too much; avoid certain streets; be wary of strangers. . . the list goes on. One of the troubling things about these messages is the way they imply that one just needs street smarts and savvy to prevent sexual assault. (Another problematic aspect of these messages is the way they shift attention away from the fact that the majority of assaults are perpetrated by a victim’s acquaintance, friend, or partner; these ubiquitous stay-safe tips don’t mean much when it comes to people you already believe you should trust. Then there’s the fact that plenty of folks don’t have the option of not, say, commuting to and from work late at night or avoiding areas where they might be vulnerable to crime.) Moreover, the notion that we can reliably prevent being assaulted dovetails neatly with victim-blaming after the fact: “she/he really shouldn’t gone out there without a friend”; “it probably wouldn’t have happened if she/he hadn’t been drinking to excess”; “what was she/he thinking, going to a party in that neighborhood”

"Protect Yourself?"

Sharron Angle UGH

Really?

Sharron Angle, the Nebraska Nevada Republican Senate candidate who recently made headlines when a radio interview was unearthed in which she opposed legal abortion even in case of rape/incest because "God has a plan" (and your assault is part of it), has caught media attention again for her advice to 13-year-old incest victims to just make lemons into lemonade.

The Huffington Post reports that, during an interview on the conservative Alan Stock Show, Angle was asked what she would say to a 13-year-old incest victim who became pregnant by her father's rape. Angle's response? She says she counsels teenagers facing "very at risk, difficult pregnancies" to just look about for alternatives, and when they do, "they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."

I don't think "lemon situation" accurately describes the unfathomable situation of a young girl who has been raped and impregnated by her own father — a situation that would be made even worse if Angle had her way and the girl was subjected by law to forced pregnancy. Angle's flippant, clichéd comparison shows how out-of-touch she is. You can survive a traumatic situation, move on with your life, but that doesn't make child rape a "lemons into lemonade" situation. There is no "upside" to being raped as a child, especially by your own father.

"Raped by Dad? Just Turn Lemons Into Lemonade!"

Effects of Street Harassment

We have recently moved to a big city. My sixteen year old daughter is afraid of taking public transportation, which I had THOUGHT would be so liberating for her after four years stuck in a tiny town, because of the way men treat her on the street.

And it is a big deal, it’s a big thing. Don’t minimize it. What, are we just supposed to accept that we have breasts and asses for the purpose of immature men to ogle at and touch without asking? Is that supposed to be something that’s just ‘okay’ with us because ‘that’s the way it is’? Fuck no. I’m not asking the moon and stars here.

"Why Even Street Sexual Harassment is Hard to Get Over"

Love This

Love this!

Via the Carnival Against Sexual Violence:

These are all fairly minor events but they each illustrate this assumption that men believe it is okay for them to touch a woman, to grip her hands, to pressure her into going with them to wherever they want to go. This sort of mentality, that of control, is the first step, the beginnings of the idea that men should be able to tell women what to do, they should be allowed sex, they should have access to women’s bodies whenever they want.

more at

"So I'm Pretty. That Doesn't Obligate me to Sleep With You"

Guess One Need Not be Too Bright to Get Into Princeton!

The real 'Sex on a Saturday Night' - The Daily Princetonian

Did she have the right to accuse the boy of rape? Before you say yes, think about this for a minute: Should the fact that she willingly got herself into an advanced state of inebriation prevent her from complaining about anything that happened to her while she was in that state?

She knew what would happen if she started drinking. We all know that the more people drink, the less likely they are to make wise decisions. It is common sense.

Therefore, the girl willingly got herself into a state in which she could not act rationally. This, in my opinion, is equivalent to agreeing to anything that might happen to her while in this state. In the case of our girl, this happened to be sex with a stranger.

This brings up another question: Why is the guy always to blame? Since the beginning of time, society has taught us that whenever a situation like this arises, the fault belongs almost entirely to the male participant.

Since the beginning of time, it has been the male's fault? ON WHAT PLANET, SISTER? No, blame has always been assigned to the woman.

Also,
girl drinks: expect to get raped:: boy drinks: expect to be assaulted or even murdered

Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl | Video on TED.com

Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl Video on TED.com

WONDERFUL, EVE!

Want!

Department of Book Reports: A Twisted Faith

Shakesville: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

Shakesville: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...:

"Twenty years ago today, a savage misogynist threw himself into L'école polytechnique de Montréal with a rifle, chose out the women among classes of engineering students, and shot fourteen of them to death. He also wounded fourteen others, ten women and four men, before killing himself. Twelve of the dead were engineering students, one a nursing student, the other an administrator.

While he was doing this, he shouted about how he was fighting back against feminism, saving society, and getting revenge for how women had mistreated him.

The long-range effects were also grim: several of the survivors have since taken their own lives, unable to cope with the events of the day, according to notes."

Racism on the Elevator?

I don't care for calling the woman "stupid bitch," (I don't think using sexism is good for fighting racism), but this is funny.

Payne

I'm not going to type his full name here (because it turns out he is now googling himself and getting off on all the attention he's getting in the feminist blogosphere), but most of you already know about he-who-will-not-be-named, he who spent much time masquerading as an anti-porn activist, pro-feminist, and rape victim advocate and has now pled guilty to the unthinkable. I was away from the computer for two months, so I am hearing about this late.

Years ago, I quoted to Mr.Me something a guy in one of my Women's Studies classes had said. Mr.Me was surprised that there were any men in such a class and told me, "He's just there to get laid."

At the time, I was furious with Mr.Me. Now I realize he was guilty of nothing more than telling the depressing truth.

I attended the Stop Porn Culture conference six months ago in Austin. I can not adequately express how disgusted I am - both because of Payne's behavior and my own utter lack of suspicion. I guess I should have known that Mr.Me knows all about these things from a male perspective and that somebody like Payne indeed was up to no good.

During that three day conference, we viewed graphic slideshows showing how women are depicted and exploited in pornography and in advertising. We had discussions that were rather personal in nature, especially outside the conference room. We hung out together in the hallways, outside the building late at night before heading back to our hotels, and during lunch and rest breaks. We discussed things like rape and rape prevention, protecting children, women and body image, and we brainstormed about activism.

There were only - I'm pretty sure - four men present.

Now I find out that one of them had child pornography on his computer and had - I believe before the conference - been charged with assault for touching and photographing an intoxicated young woman he had been asked - as a college R.A. - to escort safely to her dorm room (being the pro-feminist, anti-porn rape crisis counselor and oh-so sensitive truthworthy dood that he was).

Recently, as he prepared to plead guilty, he emailed his sick pity-party confession to hundreds of feminist bloggers, like he's apparently expecting - hoping - to someday possibly be welcomed back into his old clique again. For the record, Payne, if you and I end up sitting around the same conference table again, one of us is gonna end up gettin' shown to the door.

Then it turns out that he's reading over all the comments about himself at all these feminist blogs, spending hours doing it like the self-obsessed ass he is.

Dude, you really make me sick.

For some reason, this makes me remember a Roseanne episode in which Jackie's boyfriend Fisher had beaten her. Roseanne tells him, "You know, I'm a pretty good judge of people, which is why I don't like none of 'em, but you really slipped beneath my radar. I liked you. And that really pisses me off."

I remember standing outside the conference building talking to a woman who, like me, was married to someone who had used pornography but had eventually realized it was wrong and given it up. Like me, she had for years been okay with pornography until she saw what it was doing in her own life and began to understand what it was doing in others' lives. I actually stood there and told her, "If I end up leaving my marriage, I will never again be involved with any man unless he is truly a feminist activist. I mean, he would have to really get it. He would have to be someone so committed that he would decide to attend a conference like this - you know, like the couple of guys who are here this weekend."

I am an idiot. Somebody just smack me.

Now, courtesy of Payne, I'm revising that night's statement. If I end up leaving my marriage, I will never again be romantically involved with any male person.

That's it.

Even the members of dood nation who show up for anti-porn conferences aren't necessarily the real deal.

Even the guy I married wasn't necessarily the real deal (although he is doing some training with these issues, I don't trust how deep that really goes). He too has always been seen as oh-so sensitive and sweet by every woman he meets.

Individual members of privileged groups should never, ever be completely trusted by members of oppressed groups. Never - not even if they, like Payne, manage to talk a good game. Never.

And I say that as a white person too. I try my best when it comes to racism, but I, of course, always have the option of taking a break from that fight, of choosing not to fight if it's inconvenient for me at that moment. In other words, I am privileged, and because I am privileged, I can not, should not, be completely trusted as an ally.

I heard somewhere about a group of native American activists in Washington State who were mobiling around a particularly urgent issue and found that several white would-be allies were offering assistance and attending some organizing meetings. The original members of the group decided to tell the white attendees that if they really wanted to help, what they could do was provide free childcare so that 1) as many native Americans as possible could attend, 2) white allies could actually be involved, but by doing support work rather than leadership, and 3) native Americans would be in charge of their own activism.

Maybe this should have been the only role for someone like he-who-shall-not-be-named at a Stop Porn Culture conference. Instead of sitting at a conference table doing his oh-so sensitive pro-feminist male routine, convincing an idiot like me that he's the rare man who gets it (when am I gonna learn???), he should have only been allowed a support role, like making coffee and picking up conference room trash at the end of the day.

I had thought that having male allies against pornography was important, because, after all, when women make the case against pornography, we get called uptight bitches who just need a good fucking. Andrea Dworkin, in a speech to "men's movement" men said the following:

What's involved in doing something about all of this? The men's movement seems to stay stuck on two points. The first is that men don't really feel very good about themselves. How could you? The second is that men come to me or to other feminists and say: "What you're saying about men isn't true. It isn't true of me. I don't feel that way. I'm opposed to all of this."

And I say: don't tell me. Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the warmakers. Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues. Tell the novelists who think that rape is wonderful. Tell Larry Flynt. Tell Hugh Hefner. There's no point in telling me. I'm only a woman. There's nothing I can do about it. These men presume to speak for you. They are in the public arena saying that they represent you. If they don't, then you had better let them know.

Then there is the private world of misogyny: what you know about each other; what you say in private life; the exploitation that you see in the private sphere; the relationships called love, based on exploitation. It's not enough to find some traveling feminist on the road and go up to her and say: "Gee, I hate it."

Say it to your friends who are doing it. And there are streets out there on which you can say these things loud and dear, so as to affect the actual institutions that maintain these abuses. You don't like pornography? I wish I could believe it's true. I will believe it when I see you on the streets. I will believe it when I see an organized political opposition. I will believe it when pimps go out of business because there are no more male consumers.

You want to organize men. You don't have to search for issues. The issues are part of the fabric of your everyday lives.***

So, as Andrea said, it would, I knew, require men to convince men if they were to be convinced at all. As Andrea said, "I'm only a woman." And women in the patriarchy can't convince men ourselves - because we just get dismissed. No, I figured, we would need male allies in this fight.

But then look what happens when someone like a Payne does show up at conferences pretending to be an ally.

I don't know. Maybe they should attend if they want to and listen but not be allowed to speak - and this guy definitely did speak. Fucker.

I can't decide. I'm not even making any sense. I just know I'm pissed off because, as Roseanne put it, "You slipped right under my radar. I liked you, and that pisses me off."

Well, anti-porn conference attending doodz, as George Bush would say, "Fool me once, can't get fooled again."

***source: Take Back the Day: I Want a 24-Hour Truce During Which There is no Rape

Sunday Reading - the Serious Stuff

A great review of Congressman Wexler's new book "Fire Breathing Liberal" at Daily Kos serves up some great tidbits from the book:

First, on a childhood with which any political geek can identify:

Norman and I would play a game titled Mr. President. Other kids were playing All-Star Baseball or Electric Football. We played Mr. President for hours at a time, five days a week. I grew up believing this was the most phenomenal game ever devised, which in many ways describes me. The object of the game was to win the presidential election. How many nine-year-olds knew that New York State had 43 electoral votes? Norman and I did. That fact might well sum up my childhood.

On the disgusting cowardice of fellow Democrats who actually voted for a resolution condemning an ad by moveon.org:

Many Democrats voted for the resolution [against MoveOn] to distance themselves from MoveOn and the substance of the newspaper advertisement. Just imagine the furor that would have resulted had we proposed a resolution to censure the right-wing Christian Coalition or Pat Robertson for one of their more outrageous proclamations, such as blaming 9/11 on homsexuals. I voted against the resolution, but unfortunately many of my colleagues did not, and it passed. It was not our proudest day.

On his outrage over the Supreme Court selection of George Bush as pResident:

Every politician learns how to lose as well as win--and as a Democrat I had a lot of practice losing. Through most of my career I'd tried to salvage what was possible, stand up for my constituents, and use the influence I had as a member of Congress in areas where partisanship played less of a role, such as foreign relations and constituent services, where I could do some good. But this Supreme Court ruling infuriated me. I was just outraged by it. Like many of my constituents, I feel it is a wound that will never completely heal.

And on why impeachment of George Bush is still a good idea:

Certainly there were legitimate arguments made against these proceedings. Many people reasoned that we'd been through this gut-wrenching process with President Clinton and it had ripped apart the nation. I responded by suggesting that the worst possible legacy of the Clinton impeachment would be to discourage future Congresses from examining valid allegations of constitutional violations against members of the executive branch. Should that happen, the tragedy of Clinton's impeachment would be compounded.

I have to get this book (which is $30 for the hardback right now). I just checked and my library doesn't have it - although they DO have eleven titles by Bill O'Reilly. Geez.

A great diary on International Day of the World's Indigenous People, which is today.

While doing research for another story, I came across this film clip that every American should watch to see how our government today treats Americans. The film involves some of the Western Shoshone, who for years have been fighting our federal government's seizure of livestock and land for gold mining, water and nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, which is located within the treaty-recognized territory of Western Shoshone lands. There are 60 million acres of Western Shoshone lands located in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. The federal government claims 90% of the lands as public or federally-controlled lands, which are then privatized for corporate raping of our environment and degradation of spiritual lands. Greedy profiteering corporations then swoop in to stake mining claims in the "third largest gold producing area in the world."

The federal government has been doing the dirty work of corporations by assaulting people, seizing livestock, and privatizing ancestral lands for the sake of mining companies. Years ago, President Truman tried to seize the steel industry but the US Supreme Court held that was unconstitutional. Today, government seizure is permissible when done to enable, for example, mining in Mount Tenabo or storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

The diary refers to this film:

The film shows an armed, brazen cavalcade raid of agents in helicopters and jeep/semi truck caravans in the dark of night and in the daylight seizing the Danns' horses, wild horses and their cattle to enable corporate gold mines which are spreading through Western Shoshone sacred lands. It also shows the dead horses caused by the government's rush to roundup without listening to warnings that the cold and low food at this time of year would kill the horses. So, horses died on the range. And, horses boarded by BLM died of starvation. All so the government could privatize their range for gold mining. We hear about foreign governments seizing private land by force and raise our voices. But, the silence in America when our government does the same is almost deafening.

The federal government claimed that they lost their lands by gradual encroachment. After the US signed the treaty, it then obtained de facto "title" to the lands not by law, but by simply "treating" the land as federal land. When the Danns' case reached the US Supreme Court, the court did not even address how this title had been transferred from the Danns to the US because the Secretary of the Interior had accepted the money award on their behalf. The court concluded that the Danns had been paid, which took away their right to argue before the court that they had title to these lands. Thus, a shuffle of money between two federal agencies constituted the "sale" of the Shoshone land to the government.

Next, an interesting diary about what racism does to white people. I disagree with the author's claim that racism may be most damaging to whites, but I am 100% in agreement on the rest:

Bell notes in Silent Covenants, his recently published analysis of the context and consequences of the famous civil rights case, Brown vs the Board of Education, that "from the nation’s beginnings, policymakers have been willing to sacrifice even blacks’ basic entitlements of freedom and justice as a kind of political catalyst that enables whites to reach compromises that resolve differing and potentially damaging economic and political differences." In fact, "policymakers recognize and act to remedy racial injustices when, and only when, they perceive that such action will benefit the nation’s interests without significantly diminishing whites’ sense of entitlement." Landmark twentieth century works as Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma, Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Moment, C. Van Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow, and David Roediger’ 2005 study, Working Toward Whiteness, support this argument.

Simply stated, it would appear that white people have been offered supremacy among peasants in exchange for their passivity....

As it turns out, racism may be even more psychologically damaging for the social class that "enjoys" its benefits, than for the class victimized by it. Fromm and his colleagues argued that authoritarianism, the soil of racism, makes dominant white culture in the United States an easy pawn of fascism. Post Modernists such as Michel Foucault and Jacque Derrida fully agree. They perceive a citizenry rendered passive and ineffectual, incapable of effectively interacting with much less restraining a power elite grown less democratic and more corrupt in direct proportion to its immunity from real criticism. Jurgen Habermas, the least pessimistic of the Frankfurt School scholars, finds the situation to be less hopeless. With resolve and proper knowledge, people may be able to free themselves of debilitating mind-sets and beliefs systematically inculcated by the powerful, exactly as predicted by Antonio Gramsci more than a century ago.

A new blog called Inside Orwell has just begun that will reproduce, one entry per day and on the same days of the year as the originals, the diaries of George Orwell. It will be interesting to follow. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

A diary at Daily Kos on rape in the military illustrates what some of us already knew - that at dudely liberal places like Kos, the liberal dudes are still mostly typical dudes and they just don't get it, which is why I rarely read sites like Kos anymore. Of course 1 in 3 military women experience sexual assault. At Kos, a few male former soldiers deny the statistic, but I've never heard of a former female servicemember denying the figures. Why? Any woman who has ever actually spent time on a military base knows exactly why - the entire culture of misogyny, an entire ethic of warfare based on the "otherness" of woman. When I lived at a base overseas, there were lots of sexual assaults that were covered up (which I routinely heard about through a close friend whose husband worked at the command post). There was woman-hating behavior that was constant and crazy - strippers at every birthday, retirement, or promotion party; adultery by most of the married men I knew; crowds of British women sent to the base nightclub on buses every Saturday night (this club was once named by Playboy magazine "once of the top ten best pickup spots for American men worldwide"). And, of course, the entire carnival of misogyny was fueled by an endless supply of cheap booze. As I have often said, my mother raised me to be a liberal feminist, but it took four years on a military base overseas to make me a radical feminist.

Next, a very nice diary on the U.U. church shootings in Tennessee. I am a Unitarian Universalist and my daughter's naming ceremony was in a U.U. church. Unfortunately, when I heard, with the television on in the background while I was doing somthing else, that a man had shot in a church and had wanted to "kill liberals," my first guess was that we U.U.s were the target. It isn't the first time. It, unfortunately, won't be the last. The following refers to the Sunday service the week after the shooting:

In the homily, Buice laid a minister's stole, a strip of cloth showing the Celtic cross' motif of violence combined with the symbol of hope, the rising sun, across the ministerial pulpit and "gave" it to the congregation, to "a good church," as it had been given to him by the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, "a good man." He thundered, "Today, we are all Presbyterians. We are all Jews. We are all Muslims. We are all liberals. We are all conservatives!" If there is one hallmark of Unitarian Universalism, it is the thoughtful response to problems of great complexity. Buice's statements cut to the quick of divisiveness, hatred, and bigotry. The congregation roared back in approbation.

The ministers past and present then moved to the back of the church, where the shooter had come in and begun to fulfill his self-appointed mission to kill liberals until he was killed by the police (he reckoned, in error, that people who work for peace are too weak for war, so he never anticipated that he would be brought down almost instantly by brave members of the church who did not hesitate). Standing in the same spot, the ministers reclaimed the space for peace, for justice, for love, and for strength....

The tone of the service was one of bravery, of defiance, of the conscious choice of thinking people to choose peace, and of the importance of community. The shooter may have taken two lives, but he left without taking the spirit of the church, which, as was printed on hundreds of t-shirts sitting out in the fellowship hall for distribution, is "love."

I was reminded by the UUs that it takes the strongest kind of people to love by choice, instead of hating by default or in desperation.

It was pretty magnificent, all in all.

Finally, a very good - and quite long (although it gets better and better as it goes on) - article on John McCain by a Phoenix reporter who has covered him for years. The title is Postmodern McCain: The John McCain Some Arizonans Know and Loathe and it really is good - check it out (hat tip K).

2008 - Solidarity

released on February 14, 2008:

African-Americans to Conduct Citizens' Arrest in Louisiana of employer accused of modern-day slavery practices:

Today, a group of African Americans in Amite, Louisiana will stand in solidarity with about thirty Mexican farm workers who have faced an on-going situation of forced labor and indentured servitude, providing another example of temporary foreign workers enduring modern-day slavery in the US.

These men, originally from San Luis Potis, Mexico, are documented workers who came to this country on an H2A (agricultural) guest worker program. They paid recruiters in their homeland, were transported to Louisiana and delivered to a prominent farmer and storeowner whom they have been working for since September 2007. The delegation of African Americans, along with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ), will conduct a citizen’s arrest of the yet to be identified local farmer and storeowner....

The group of African Americans conducting the citizen’s arrest will seek to arrest this tyrant and interrupt the slave-like conditions in the undisclosed town close to New Orleans. Organizers will demand the return of the workers’ passports and seek the intervention of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Labor.

Louisiana has codified the citizen’s arrest, allowing private persons to conduct an arrest if they become aware of an ongoing felony. Citizen’s arrests were popular in the reconstruction era, when many Southern governments encouraged white and black citizens to act as law enforcement to stop groups from committing atrocities. Local organizers, in voicing their disbelief, have said that the proprietor is not only operating without a permit, but has been sued before by workers alleging violation of the federal minimum wage law.

Now if working class and even middle class whites would connect the dots, we would truly be a force to be reckoned with, all of us - at long last. It's several centuries past time for working whites to realize that our common cause is to be found not with white elites by virtue of a shared trait as illusory as "whiteness," but rather with all workers by virtue of our survival depending on our ability to organize in resistance to exploitation by the megagroupthinkcorptocracy.

Viva la revolucion, my white brothers and sisters. Tim Wise wants St. Bernard residents to march over to the Ninth Ward in solidarity, then for all to march together on Baton Rouge and the headquarters of the Corps of Engineers and places beyond:

Today, I was in a small town and got hungry very suddenly (the old hypoglycemia), so I stopped at a Taco Bell. I hadn't eaten there in a long time. When I lived up North, I would eat their tacos once in a blue moon because I liked them at least better than fast food burgers, but the last few years, I made sure to stay away because of the boycott and hunger strike against them. The action was started because the suppliers of Taco Bell's tomatoes were keeping the immigrant farm workers in slavery conditions.

So, woo-hoo, the boycott has been over for more than a year, and today I ate two tacos there. So, um, what's with the bell near the door, with the sign that invites customers to "ring the bell" if they've enjoyed their meals? So, what are we, Pavlov's dogs now? They're training us to train ourselves to associate that ringing bell with cornmeal shells stuffed with mystery meat and cheap tomatoes picked by underpaid migrant laborers? And I couldn't believe it, but several people rang the damn bell on their way out the door. Have we no dignity left whatsoever? We're doing their advertising for them now, in front of the other customers?

Then, an employee went from table to table offering people a coupon for a free combo meal IF they immediately took out their cell phones and called Taco Bell headquarters to answer their customer service survey. People seemed so thrilled to get their combo meal freebie, which has a street value of, I believe, about $4. They took out their phones mid-meal, calling as the employee stood guard and made sure they completed the corporate bidding before she would hand over the golden ticket. It was the middle of the day - don't they pay for their weekday/daytime minutes? I do. Also, no one questioned for a second what they were being asked to do, why, and by whom. I mean, I wanted to know, for example, would those bastards have my cell number for telemarketing purposes after this (in many cases, accepting a free offer of any kind does indeed give telemarketers a legal "in" to annoy you unlimited times in the future - that's why you see those ads for free ringtones; what they want is to get your cell phone number into their telemarketing database). Would they be asking for my name or address?

Why aren't more people skeptical about this stuff? Recently, I went to a website that sells women's clothing, a very reputable company. I wanted to track some items - you know, haul them around in the virtual shopping cart for a bit - and to do that, I had to register. I, however, believe in evading and sabotaging the information gatherers whenever I can. After all, Wendell Berry said so:

Manifesto:The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

To that end, I use made up names. Strangely enough, these alter egos of mine most often can be found at 555 Main Street (and they like the 90210 / Beverly Hills zip code). Every once in a while, I use my real name but with the wrong address, to throw them off in case they get close to pinning down the real me. Oh, and the woman who made my life hell at my previous job - I use her name for CVS cards, for Winn Dixie cards, all kinds of stuff. She's been places she doesn't even know she's been! Still, I figure, while I'm indulging my adolescent grudge I am also doing her a favor by confusing the information keepers about where she really is and what she's really buying - so, you know, it's a win-win.

Anyway, so back to the women's clothing company. On this occassion, I needed to give my real adddress - for some purpose that I can no longer remember - so I decided to name myself "Violet William" (there are Williams on the family tree, and I was kinda in a purple mood). Mind you, there was no reason for them to send me anything. Eight weeks later, I receive three women's clothing catalogues in the mail, all on the same day, all addressed to Violet William. And the first thing I thought was, "Who the hell is Violet William?" And then I realized, "Ooooh, right, one of my information-age alter-egos." And the second thing I thought was, "Those bastards sold my information to some database," and I was quite annoyed. Finally, however, I rememberd that the whole point of the consumer alter-ego is to try to keep the information gatherers off my trail, so, hey, let them try to compile their multi-source consumer profile of Violet William.

So, soon after having eaten at Taco Hell, I had to make a stop at Wal-Mart - NOT because I've lost the stomach for fighting the megagroupthinkcorptocracy but because my body was engaged in its own struggle post Taco Bell (TMI? Sorry, trying to give the context). This Wal-Mart was so rundown. The bathroom was all torn up, the stall doors scratched up and hanging crookedly. On the way past the makeup section, I saw a display for some cologne and on the display it said something like "That's why she's yours. Because you're the king."

We are such a nation of consumers. Consumers rather than citizens. I mean, someone offers a free coupon and people give up their right to privacy, since the data collectors are mining EVERY bit of information they can get on every one of us. You know what my brother-in-law's argument is in favor of the congressional telecom immunity law? "There is no point in lawsuits that award damages, because the corporation will just pass on the cost of the damages to me, their customer." Even if the guy is right and assuming a request for a rate hike from your phone company were immediately approved, it might be, what, thirty cents a month? A dollar? He can afford that; it won't mean his sweet babies will have to go to bed hungry. I was horrified by his point of view on this - his first thought is how will this affect me, the consumer rather than how will this affect me, citizen of the republic. Are your civil rights worth a dollar a month added to your phone bill, to make it clear to the telecomm companies that they are under no circumstances to cooperate with illegal government spying on citizens? This kind of consumer-think would preclude ANY corporate tort judgements, since, according to my brother-in-law, the corporations will just pass on the cost to him, so he doesn't want any judgements against big companies. Let Taco Bell enslave tomato pickers. Let the telecoms sell our private data. Let chemical companies pollute the groundwater. Let Wal-Mart engage in the most wide-spread sex discrimination yet documented. But no damages should be awarded, says the brother-in-law, because we consumers want our cheap shit as cheap as possible. No accountability please.

Meanwhile, back in the car, the only talk shows on the radio at the time were Dennis Miller and Rush Limbaugh. Nothing local. No signs of intelligent life coming through the airwaves. Limbaugh was bragging about the success of "Operation Chaos," which means voting for Hillary just to keep Democrats busy plucking each other's eyes out. Hateful bastards. I would never bother trying to screw up their primary - partly because it's just wrong and partly because I don't want ANY vote for a Republican on my soul when I die. They CAN NOT WIN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS and they know it, so they resort to distractions and dirty tricks.

Also in the car, I heard that a movie crew shut down the bridge so the city could serve as their Hollywood set and, as a result, there would be traffic jams. You know, finish filming, then come in and just tear the place down - it's all cardboard, right? New Orleans is the adult Disneyland, Hollywood South, JazzLand, GumboLand, yes ma'm, souvenire shop is up ahead to the left in what was once known in this neighborhood as Miss Riti's house.

I've been brewing this rant about tourism ever since Katrina and I think the brew will become a blog post very soon. Today I saw a book I REALLY want to get (next payday) called "Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, and Race in the Big Easy". I'd like to mix that author's academic insights with some of my own experiences and write about it. I'm pretty well fed up with putting the "New Orleans brand" out there for tourists. I mean, is this a city or a zoo? A home or a theme park? Let the tourists puke in their own backyards.

Viva la revolucion.

Access Denied

To whom it may concern:

I don't know if you still read this (and maybe you should, although it's not all about you as you probably think - typed with Carly Simon choruses of "You're So Vain" playing in my mind and remembering when we were teenagers and you actually broke the lock on my diary to find out what was in there about you and then, right now, thinking that I should have realized even then that you didn't understand how not to violate women's spaces and that it's all about you), but in case you do still read this...

It's true that I ache almost all the time, and you can keep trying with your bullshit manipulative massages, but the reason you are going to find that access is always denied is that you still can't enter where I am, even if you tried, and I don't think you really do try.

You've spent a lifetime colonizing women and now you actually wonder why once your exploitation is discovered, access to our womanspace is denied? Really?

"How much longer until I can be close to you again?" you had the nerve to ask me this morning, all little boy bewilderment, telling me about yesterday's behind-the-wheel hardon (from thinking about little old me - aw, geez, hold your breathe and wait for me to take that as a compliment; older and wiser now, I've learned most men just aren't that discriminating and their hardons are NOT to be taken as compliments) and bringing me roses and catching up my tuition so I can crawl out of the pit of depression you've dug and get back to my real calling in life (the tuition-paying is an act some feminist friends have pointed out is not deserving of my gratitude but is better viewed as a simple "asshole tax").

"How much longer?" Really? How about you listen to this dude for two and a half minutes and then ask yourself, "How much longer?"

How much longer? Take your time. My sisters and I - my spiritual ones plus the biological one you molested for years - we're waiting. Just fucking waiting. Just fucking, waiting.

P.S. Access is denied as long as my sister is in pain and maybe as long as my sisters are in pain. I have no idea how you can fix that, which is why it's wise to avoid breaking people to begin with. Not my problem. Figure it out. Access denied.

Wait, I'll leave you one more clue:
right here, with audio

Potpourri

LonerGrrrl explains the need for women only spaces. Just brilliant! (hat tip to The Burning Times)

What brings this subject to the forefront just now is the inclusion of men at a Sheffield, UK, "Reclaim the Night" rally. At rallies I've attended in the past, there was a "SpeakOut Against Rape" portion that was indoors and included men as well as women. There was a march in the streets for women only. While women marched, men held some sort of consciousness-raising discussions indoors. I would have been very upset had men been allowed in the march. The idea is for WOMEN to insist on our right to be in the streets, unescorted, after dark.

Another thing bringing this subject to the forefront just now is the inclusion of men on the York Student Union's Women's Committee.

The latest Carnival of Radical Feminists is up.

There is also the latest Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution.

Hillary Clinton keeps campaign contributions from a CEO with a brazen history of sexual harassment. It's as bad as the Jack Nicholson endorsement. It makes me wonder why these men donate to a woman candidate anyway. Guilty consciense? Cluelessness? With Nicholson, he does have a movie clip in his endorsement film in which he says, "There's nothing sexier than a woman you have to salute in the morning." Other than maybe repeatedly bashing a woman's head into the floor, I guess. What is it - some kind of domination fetish? Because we already know it's always about the sex. Always. Vote for Hillary because she's a member of the sex caste and it's sexy to pretend she's the boss. Pardon me while I barf.

The U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women is meeting this week.

On the American presidential campaign: "Leveraging the Power of Race and Gender".

Remembering Barbara Seaman

On the bus with Obama, in search of some Howlin' Wolf: here.

Leonard Sax and Michael Gurian keep pushing their gender stereotypes into public education.

Andrea Smith has been denied tenure - letter-writing campaign.

Linking misogyny and murder in the U.K.: here and here. (via feministing)

Charlotte Allen, who previously pronounced Katrina a good thing that happened to New Orleans now announces that women are really, really dumb (both stories at feministing). I realize I'm two years late commenting on her New Orleans column, but I must say that I would love to meet the local who told her Katrina had been a good thing for the city. I wish Allen had interviewed my grandparents, who are in their eighties, who have ended up spending these last years of their lives struggling to rebuild their home. I wish she could have seen my military veteran grandfather in the weeks after Katrina, driving dazed all over Baton Rouge, desperately trying to find new shoes to fit wide, weathered, eighty-plus year old feet, his eyes filling up with tears as he explained, "We try them out for a few days and then have to return them. Honey, when you're our age, you just don't go buy shoes at Wal-Mart." I wish Allen had met my mother-in-law, widowed just a year before Katrina, following forty years of marriage, gas mask on, trying to scrape mold off of things in her home; suddenly hearing every midnight noise magnified through the walls of her FEMA trailer; one night watching the police chase a man who jumped over her fence as she sat trembling in that little can of a building; suddenly realizing just how vulnerable she really was when she was sexually propositioned in her wrecked home by a contractor she informed about her recent widowhood; spending countless hours for more than a year calling government agencies, contractors, repair companies, delivery companies, utility companies, the mortgage holder, insurance companies, friends, family members. I wish Allen had talked to my mother, a schoolteacher who got transferred to a school 90 minutes and two toll bridges away from her home (without any compensation for increased gasoline costs), who lived in a rental property the owners refused to clean up (these owners threatened to double the rent when she complained), who slept each night for six months listening to the tree rustling inside of the ceiling above her bed, there where it had been lodged since Katrina, hearing critters scurrying around up there until she finally couldn't take it anymore, the nerve pills making her too dopey to work, so she finally moved 2400 miles from here. I wish Ms. Allen could interview everyone we know about now living under the threat of getting cancer as a result of exposure to the formaldehyde in their FEMA trailers.

Can I just say something to Charlotte Allen? Fuck. You.

(I know that last part wasn't especially well written, but I'm tired and that article really made me mad.)

Calling on Clinton to Reject and Denounce Nicholson

We know that this week Hillary Clinton was quick on the draw when Barack Obama said he "denounced" the views of Louis Farakhan. Senator Clinton wanted Senator Obama to "reject" Farakhan and the latter's support, which Obama agreed to do.

Today there is news that Jack Nicholson has endorsed Hillary Clinton:

Hillary Clinton supporters have been spot-on in pointing out that overt sexism is socially acceptable while overt racism has generally been forced underground. I hope they don't miss this one, because it really disgusts me. Support from Jack Nicholson, and nobody flinches? This Jack Nicholson???

In 1997, Nicholson was sued by prostitute Christine Sheehan, who alleged that Nicholson had refused to pay for services rendered and had instead assaulted her, and repeatedly smashed her head onto the floor of his Hollywood home. The lawsuit was settled with a substantial payment from Nicholson, but Sheehan later alleged that her injuries were worse than she had originally believed. At last report she was seeking an additional $500,000 from Nicholson.

Or, as another report puts it:

Prostitute Takes Jack Nicholson To Court... Again
12 May 2000 (WENN) Jack Nicholson is being sued by a former prostitute who claims she is dying after he allegedly beat her up. Christine Sheehan says she was invited up to Nicholson's luxury Hollywood house in October 1996, but when she asked for payment for her services, the movie star got angry and allegedly beat her head against the floor several times. Sheehan originally filed a civil suit in 1997, and received $33, 000 after the SHINING star settled out of court. But now the former prostitute claims the money is not enough - and after legal and medical bills, the cash has all been used up. Her lawyer IRA CHESTER says, "About a year after she received the original payment her injuries and the damage to her brain stem got worse than originally thought... Now the injury is actually killing her. She has no vision at times and finds it hard to cope with the pain... The medical bills have already reached $60, 000, but if she is to survive she needs an important operation that promises to set her back $500, 000 (œ325, 000). The original settlement isn't enough." The suit was filed at Santa Monica Court last week and Nicholson is expected to challenge the action. Nicholson's publicist refuses to comment about the case.

It is impossible to find in the American media just how the case was eventualy settled. A British friend and tireless advocate for women recently reported to me that she had been in England at the time of the Jack Nicholson case, where there was extensive coverage. Arriving at an American conference of feminists against pornography, trafficking, and prostitution, this friend anxiously asked everyone what they thought about the Nicholson case. No one knew what the hell she was talking about. There had been a virtual media blackout in this country, where sexist pricks who hire hookers and even beat them can still be Hollywood cool. This friend, who got her news coverage in England, reported that the verdict, which is NEVER reported on American websites, was that Nicholson has to pay for 24 hour nursing care all the rest of this woman's life.

Oh, and what about homophobia? Heeeeere's Jack!

...Another time, the issue was ... sexual politics, but Nicholson proved less than radical. When some Hollywood celebrities called for a boycott of Colorado, in 1993, because of that state's referendum law excluding homosexuals from civil rights protection, Jack announced his opposition. Any boycott of the state where the actor happened to maintain two hideaway homes was, he told the press, "rubbish."

As a woman and an advocate against violence and for gay civil rights, I demand that Hillary Clinton BOTH denounce and reject any support from Jack Nicholson.

U.S. Prison Population - We're Number One

I don't have a link, but I heard on CNN last night that the U.S. now has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any nation on earth, with China and Russia coming in second and third.

A full one percent of our people is in prison.

One in 36 Latinos is in prison.

One in 15 blacks is in prison.

We're number one! I hope Michelle Obama is finally proud of her country!

Oh, and five states are now spending more on prisons than on schools.

Sexually Harassed? Well, I Did Stay at a Holiday Inn Express Last Night

So imagine this. You are a woman travelling alone, staying at a hotel. Maybe while you're waiting to check in, a man who is also waiting casually asks you about your trip. If you do what I unthinkingly did recently, maybe you tell a bit about your business and then, as you insert the key into the door of your room, you realize too late that you have a big mouth and that now some dude in the hotel knows that you are here, all alone. Your heart starts to pound. Your breath quickens. You can't get the door open and then shut again quickly enough. You call home to be sure someone knows where to start looking, room number and all, just in case you are never heard from again. You check that weird metal arm thing on the door and wonder exactly what that does to keep an intruder out. You turn over the electronic key pass in your hands and hope it's true that the same pass is only good for a single stay.

So imagine my shock when the other day, I saw this new commercial (click "Bacon") for Holiday Inn Express. Showcasing the hotel chain's breakfast bar by playing it up as an actual bar, the ad involves several men standing in the dining area, ogling a woman alone, and discussing what breakfast item they should "send" her.

As BrandWeek describes it:

New work from Fallon, Minneapolis, cheekily calls attention to new hot entrees by positioning the breakfast bar as a nightclub. In one ad, co-workers mingle near the buffet while one guy tosses pick-up lines at his boss. Another 30-second ad shows men discussing whether it’s good form to send a cheese omelet, bacon or a cinnamon roll to a hottie they spot at in the buffet line. The effort also borrows nightlife elements like ladies night the designated driver and play up the free meal and breakfast to go service. Voice over mentions, “Check out the new hot bar in town.”

So, I went to Holiday Inn's web page and found the other ads, including this one (click "pick up") in which a male business traveller at the breakfast "bar" mindlessly attempts to pick up every woman in the place, including one who has to remind him that she is, in fact, his boss! Oh, ha-ha-ha. Sexual harassment is just so "cheeky," as Brandweek describes the ad campaign.

There is another article about the ad campaign at Hotel Resource:

The Express Start(R) Breakfast Bar relaunch coincides with the brand's newest series of TV commercials that began airing the week of Feb. 11. The new spots play off the idea of Holiday Inn Express offering the 'hot' new bar in town. The breakfast bar takes on a life of its own as the social scene for groups of business travelers who dine, flirt and socialize with colleagues in potentially awkward, yet humorous situations. The ads from Fallon Minneapolis have the unexpected, witty humor that is characteristic of the award winning Holiday Inn Express Stay Smart advertising campaign. The new spots can be viewed at http://www.hiexpress.com/, and will air on popular national cable networks like ESPN, The History Channel, Comedy Central, CNN and TNT. The ads also will air on CBS during the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

During basketball. Really? What, no "Lifetime?" As usual, we know to whom the pitch is really being made. And note the article's references to the ads' "potentially awkward, yet humorous situations," which leaves out the fact that the situations depicted are also potentially dangerous - at least for a woman who eats breakfast in the hotel lobby and then must return alone to her room before making several trips to load luggage into her vehicle.

Did no one at the ad agency or the hotel chain or in the t.v. production process ever think about the fact that being a woman staying in a hotel alone is somewhat frightening? Don't get me wrong - I loved my hotel room a few weeks ago. It was the first time in my entire life that I had ever had my own room and I loved it so much I threatened to never return home. Still, there were those moments, always that awareness inherent to living while female under the patriarchy. There was the guy at the desk to whom I accidentally implied that I was alone. Later, there was a man coming into the hotel some moments after me and I was terrified as I got my luggage to the internal staircase, brick, thick-walled, meant to be used in case of fire but also probably soundproof and a problem if I were attacked and needed to scream. My arms were full and as I waited for the stairwell door to click shut on its own, my heart was pounding even as I strained to listen carefully for footsteps. Then the door didn't quite click all the way, which meant the man in the hallway behind me could possibly follow me into the stair area. Scary stuff. A day in the life.

And Holiday Inn thinks it's oh-so innocent, safe, "cheeky" even to show men gawking at women and practicing their sophomoric sexual pitches right there at the hotel's breakfast bar.

Unbelievable.

Every space and every scenario in this country is seen as a potential venue in which men can objectify women - both in real life and in advertising.

Just to see if I was possibly overreacting (I have been accused from time to time, it's true), I did a quick google search of "hotel room rape." Of course, it's not overreacting when we women know we feel nervous about being assaulted a lot of the time, and that alone makes the Holiday Inn ads inexcusable, but I wanted to know if there is indeed a chance of a woman being raped at a hotel. And here is a sample:

"A Guest at the Plaza Hotel is Raped in Her Suite"

California Lodging Industry Association: "Hotel Not Liable for Guest's Rape, 7th District Rules"

"Safety of Hotel Employees: Rape at W Hotel New York"

"Hotel Guest Reports Rape by Security"

"Businesswoman Raped in Hotel Room, Jury Told" (the Hilton, Sussex, England)

tort case against Omni Hotels over rape of a woman attending a "Women in Steel" union conference in D.C.

more hotel torts, "Travel Abroad, Sue at Home"

It turns out there are even books on "Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Law: a Preventive Approach."

Here is a summary of hotel and related liability lawsuits ("premises security liability suits"). Who wins these cases?

defendants: 52% of cases
plaintiffs: 21% of cases
remanded: 19% of cases

I will be contacting Holiday Inn Express customer service about these ads.

5 dead in suspected murder-suicide

Five people were found dead, three of them children, in what appeared to be a murder-suicide in a home across the street from the Richard Nixon Library, police said Sunday. A 14-year-old boy called 911 about 11 p.m. Saturday to report that his father had shot him and his brother at their condominium, said Sgt. Peter Rodriguez..

read more digg story

(corrected headline: another man kills an intimate partner)