Shades Of Grey

Sad news from Omaha

2007-12-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to everyone who has seen this report of the shootings in a mall in Omaha. Eight dead. Five more wounded. Fortunately, my family and I are okay. There was a nerve wracking hour where I couldn't get ahold of my wife, but it turned out she had a lesson to teach after she was done teaching classes for the day, so she was still at work and not out Christmas shopping like I was worrying. The wife of a friend of mine was right outside Von Maur, the store where the shootings occurred, when it happened. Scary stuff.

I've written in the past about working a second job at Radioshack several years back. That store is in the same mall that the shootings happened in. Scary stuff.

My deepest sympathies go out to the families who are missing loved ones tonight. Our thoughts are with you.

Charts and gaffes

2007-12-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Look quick, folks, because this gem from the Associated Press's Liz Sidoti isn't going to stick around for long. Nonetheless, I think it throws a light on the current state of the media, national politics, and the intersection thereof:

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Mitt Romney loves statistics. The former venture capitalist pores over charts and grafs. He analyzes situations and data from every angle. It's little wonder, then, that as he campaigns for president, the Republican sometimes shows his wonkish side.

He pours over charts and "grafs." Indeed.

I suppose the only consolation here is that for once this is happening to someone who I have no intention on voting for, but damn. From the same article:

Romney's style contrasts with that of his top rival in Iowa.

Mike Huckabee is the easygoing ex-governor of Arkansas who charms his audiences with homespun stories of growing up in a family of modest means while sprinkling in broad policy stances under the themes of patriotism and core values. The former Southern Baptist minister tends not to dwell on the details of policy matters, choosing instead to tug on his audiences' heart strings.

Conversely, Romney's pitch is heavy on policy — and details.

Can we get any more glowing praise for not knowing jack shit about policies? Because that is basically what the criticism is here. Sidoti seems to be saying, "Romney seems to know a lot about the job he is after, and I hate how stupid that makes me feel in comparison." This is the same kind of bullshit peddled about Gore that got Dubya elected the first time around.

You can find a screenshot here in case they've fixed the article.

Greenwald on Ron Paul

2007-11-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

Verbatim Glenn Greenwald:

I'm really uncomfortable with judging someone by the support they attract.

Wow. Really? That's a pretty major philosophical difference between him and me. In the very least it's a overly general principle that doesn't hold up well in practice.

Greenwald is responding to flak he's taking for a couple posts he has written about Ron Paul. His stance seems to be that he respects for Paul for being a principled conservative.

For a long time now, I've heard a lot of people ask: "where are the principled conservatives?" -- meaning those on the Right who are willing to oppose the constitutional transgressions and abuses of the Bush administration without regard to party loyalty. A "principled conservative" isn't someone who agrees with liberals on most issues; that would make them a "principled liberal." A "principled conservative" is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That's what Ron Paul is, and it's hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals.

Greenwald makes a good case that Paul believes in his principles. For what it's worth, I think Greenwald is right and Paul probably does really believe in the principles he espouses. But c'mon, just how much credit am I supposed to give a guy for doing what he believes is right? Shouldn't that be the baseline expectation? This strikes me as the same thing as congratulating a guy on helping his wife out with the housework. Perhaps most men don't, but we really shouldn't flip our lids when we find a guy who who takes out the trash every once in awhile. Really, that should be the baseline expectation. Glenn Greenwald is falling all over himself to point out how principled Ron Paul is without really considering for a moment just what Paul intends to accomplish with those principles.

Actually, that seems to be another problem that Greenwald has. He doesn't actually believe that Ron Paul is really as extreme as all that:

Part of the dynamic of an unconventional candidacy is that it can become a repository for a whole array of disparate, unrelated groups. The lack of ideological familiarity enables many people with unconventional (even extremist or bizarre) political views to read into those candidacies whatever they want to see -- even if it isn't really there -- and to use the candidate as a proxy for their otherwise ignored and stigmatized causes. That was true to some degree for Dean, and is probably true to a much larger extent with Paul.

As someone who grew up chest-deep in far right wing conspiracy theories, I'm pretty damn good at decoding their language. It frankly scares me Greenwald, as obviously smart and well read as he is, can't see it, but perhaps my experiences give me an edge. I actually met the Montana freemen and spent a few days with them. I shook hands with Bo Gritz. I knew Ron Greisacker. Though I've been thankfully far away from that scene for many years now, I know it when I see it, and what Dave at Orcinus reports is exactly in line with how it operates.

But if you run through the broad array of kooky theories about the federal government promoted on the far right, you can find any number of Ron Paul's positions -- particularly regarding the gold standard, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and the United Nations -- floating about there. Notably, Paul also played a significant role in Congress' ongoing failure to confront the growing problem of conspiracy-driven tax protests by diverting the blame to the IRS itself.

But that's who Ron Paul is -- a "constitutionalist" who deals in conspiracy theories and extremist anti-government beliefs. It's who he always has been, and who he is now. It isn't just an accident that Paul very recently spoke to a group with troubling racial ties, or that he attended a Patriot Network banquet in his honor in 2004, or that he gave an interview to a conspiracist magazine the same year. Hell, he's been operating within those same circles since 1985.

Absent in those quotes, but mentioned elsewhere in Dave's post, are references to the New World Order, the Trilateral Commission, and the European Currency Unit. To anyone who has spent some time in the company of conspiracy theorists, the language is unmistakable.

And yet perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that a lot of people don't see it. That's the thing about these conspiracy theorists. They don't come right out and say "I hate black people and Mexicans." At least, most of them don't. They tend to be really nice people. My grandpa was one, and if you'd read his letters to the editors ranting angrily about the Jewish Conspiracy, well, you'd be shocked at how many people loved the man for his deeply caring and generous nature. But just because he didn't call himself a bigot doesn't mean he wasn't one. The same goes for Ron Paul. Just because he's a True Believer doesn't make his policies somehow more admirable.

I suspect that Glenn Greenwald has trouble with the conspiracy theorists because the things they say can almost make sense when taken individually. Smaller federal sphere of influence in favor of states' rights? It sounds like something that reasonable people might disagree about. Ending gun control? Merely an extreme version of a popular idea. Shuttering the U.N.? People have been talking about this for years. Compounding the problem is that the worldview of a conspiracy theorist is quite a bit different than ours. Though we on the left often say they talk in code, the reality is they've been using these phrases so long that they have actually come to believe their own rationalizations. States' rights as an end is what many of these people actually believe in. They don't think of it as a means. If you ask them which rights they think the states would better represent, you'll get a litany of grievances committed by the federal government, and most of it vague. What you won't hear is anything about white power.

Given the language they use and the fact that they believe their own bullshit, I can see why someone who hasn't been around it a lot might have trouble with it. But that doesn't change the fact that the origin of these ideas came from racist and sexist ideas, and that those ideas are still at the core of the movement.

The real problem comes when putting all the conspiracy theorist ideas together in a big picture. These are people who really, truly believe that things were Better Back Then, that there was a time when the country was on the right track, but now it isn't and everything has been ruined. They want to dial back the clock and recapture the good ol' days. They don't use the words "racist" or "sexist" or "homophobic," at least not unless they are making fun of people who are being too "P.C." No, they just think of these as the natural order of things. And restoring that natural order is exactly what their platform is intended to do.

Margo Howard does polyamory

2007-11-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Margo probably isn't the first place a progressive thinks to turn to for advice. Or maybe it is; truth be told, it isn't exactly the kind of thing I keep in my RSS reader and I normally remain blissfully unaware of the world of bite-sized expostulation. But it was featured in the Most Popular section at Yahoo News, and since that is something I keep in my RSS reader, it so happened that an article titled Kind of Like Unofficial Polygamy made its way across my eyeballs. I'm a sucker for anything that hints at subverting the dominant monogamy paradigm, so naturally I had to read it. I must admit, I tend to shy away from the word "polygamy," but apparently so does Margo:

DEAR MARGO: I am a very happily married woman with a problem: well-intentioned friends and family. My husband and I are polyamorous and not ashamed of it. We have wonderful girlfriends who are special and a part of our family. The problem is that people assume we are on the verge of divorce, etc. Other than an indelicate "Butt out," is there any way to get them to see that we are really happy and stable? We've been married for five years.
--- HAPPILY POLY

(For square readers like me who might need a trip to the dictionary, I will save you some time. "Polyamorous" is the name for multiple sexual relationships within marriage -- in this case involving both spouses.)

DEAR HAP: You may not be ashamed of it, but you have to know that this arrangement would strike most people as being somewhere between odd and morally wrong, it being quite far from the norm. I am not sure why you felt the need to breeze it around that you and your husband have "wonderful girlfriends."

Because you have, however, essentially invited people to "butt in," you are a little bit stuck in terms of asking them to butt out. I guess the only way to prove yourselves happy and stable is for you two to continue to thrive with your, uh, wonderful girlfriends.
--- MARGO, BEWILDEREDLY

Hrm. Yeah. I mean, I have no idea why she would feel the need to talk about her life with her friends and family either. Clearly if she and her husband choose to live their lives differently than other people, they should at least have the decency to hide it from everyone. But no, HAP dares exit the closet, brazenly wreaking havoc on the normative model of monogamy. How dare she flaunt her happiness so? How dare she attempt to live her life free from jealousy? Thank the Christian god that HAP has friends who know how to put her in her place. And thank you, too, Margo, for reminding everyone of the most venerable of all American values: that it is shameful to be different.

I wonder whether Margo would give the same advice to a gay couple who was having trouble getting their family to stop telling them that they were living in sin. "You may not be ashamed of it, but you have to know that a lot of people find this arrangement morally wrong. You probably should've stayed in the closet. But since you chose to come out, you should expect to take a lot of flak. In fact, you probably deserve it. Fag." Since I don't read her column often, I don't really know. Perhaps Margo would say these things, or at least something very similar. Though surely if she did, it wouldn't be nearly so direct -- my guess is she'd use some well placed quotation marks to seed doubt as to whether the any gay relationship could really be so wonderful. Or maybe she'd opt for a few verbal land mines such as um or uhhh, as in "your, uh, wonderful boyfriend." Yeah. Right. *wink* *nudge* I bet he's real wonderful, right guys?

I've always been captivated by this kind of column. When I was ten, I read them avidly, and nodded wisely at the sage advice dispensed so succinctly. I grew up, and eventually I realized that most situations in the real world are never quite so simple. But for that very reason I never quite lost my fascination with the Ann Landers-esqe advice columns. I've always wondered what it is their authors get out of them. Surely Margo knows that she isn't helping the individual who is writing in. The paper doesn't get printed until well after the syndicate's deadline. In my younger days I resolved this apparent dilemma by imagining that Ann Landers must have also replied individually to the original supplicant. It bothered me to think that there were people so desperate for help that they were writing to a stranger for advice. Such a person must be at the end of their rope; I imagined them waiting weeks for a reply. It made me feel better to think that Ms. Landers would do everything in her power to hasten her answer back to them.

As an adult, I understand that columnists like Margo know full well that the person with the problem is almost beside the point. One of the keys to effective writing is to write to your audience, and Margo is writing to the vast number of readers of her syndicated column. Margo answers as the voice of our society. The point isn't to help an individual with their problem, but rather to reaffirm to the vast readership what kinds of things are -- and more importantly, are not -- acceptable behavior to our culture. In this case Margo makes it pretty clear. Polyamory is "unofficial polygamy," and polygamy is odd at best and probably immoral.

I find it fascinating that Margo felt the need to spell it out to everyone that 'polyamory' is just another word for 'polygamy.' Never mind that it isn't -- there are subtle distinctions that are important to the polyamorous community. 'Polyamory' means 'many loves,' and to them the emotional attachment is the difference. The terms "nonmonogamy," "open relationship," and "polygamy" are all commonly understood to mean relationships in which both partners are free to have sex with other people. But for a lot of these relationships, it is against the rules for either partner to forge a deep emotional bond with another person. Polyamory is different. Such bonds are permitted and even expected. But Margo chooses to ignore the finer points and focus instead on the sexual aspect of these relationships. She doesn't let HAP define the terms of her own relationship. Polyamory, the headline makes clear, is unofficial polygamy -- a word loaded with negative associations. Its very mention conjures up images of cult-ish Mormons marrying off preteen girls to men with multiple wives. This is why it is so important not to allow HAP to get away with calling her relationship 'polyamorous.' By re-framing the narrative as polygamy, Margo reinforces in the collective conscience of our cultural the idea that any kind of sex with multiple partners inside a marriage is immoral.

Once you understand how polyamorous people approach their relationships, it isn't so hard to understand why HAP has chosen to share with her friends and family that she and her husband have girlfriends. And even if you never comprehend polyamory, just a tiny bit of empathy goes a long way. If I were the cultural gatekeeper penning the reply, I might have written this:

DEAR HAP: You may not be ashamed of it, but you have to know that your arrangement with your husband is one that most people don't come across every day. It may take your friends awhile to understand that although your marriage is different than theirs, it is a positive force in your life. In the mean time, try explaining to your friends that you and your husband are doing fine. Tell them that if the situation ever changes, you'll be sure to let them know. You'll be politely sending the message that their friendship means a lot to you, but they have nothing to worry about.
--CHARLIE, SUPPORTIVELY

Yaaaaawn .... what time is it? Wha... ? Did I oversleep or something? Shit.

2007-11-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

So uh ... It's been two years and um... I'm thinking about doing this "blogging" thing again.

I really thought I was over it, you know? That I was a better man for having blogged, but that I'd had my say and done my part, and all without getting fired from my day job to boot. But see, lately I've been hearing The Voice again. I'm sure most bloggers probably recognize what I mean. It's how we perceive the world. Something interesting happens, or maybe something not-so-interesting, and The Voice automatically starts up in the back of your mind, framing a blog post. You hear The Voice write your introduction and you think Oooh, that's good. And then: I see how I could close the post strongly, and I could tie in to that other topic. But the transition is going to be tricky. And, Is that enough content? Gonna be a short post today. And when you're really crazy, you start thinking about how you already wrote two fluff posts this week, and damn it, your ten readers aren't going to give a shit about this, they want content baby, but where to find it? I ask you, where to find the damn content? And everyone else already said it better than I did, and I don't feel like writing today but *weeps* must ... post ... must ... write ...

And then somehow you manage to finish the post, even though The Voice is a fairweather friend who tends to wonder off right as you get to that tricky transition part. And what's next? Why, now it's time to find another idea for a post, of course! Because if there's one thing worse than having the entire world framed viewed through the lense of how you might possibly write about it later, it's feeding the beast that is your blog.

But I dunno, I dunno... It's been years since I had my fix, which is approximately infinity in blog-years, so I might have a thing or two that I want to talk about after all. A few things have changed here. I've had some experiences I might want to share. And also, it's getting nigh on election time, and that's always fun. So I dunno.

I might bring this thing back after all. See if I can shake the dust off the ol' text editor. See how long I can keep it going. Try to rekindle my feminism, which never really went away, but damn it, it's so easy to slip back into bad habits when you aren't constantly analyzing yourself and the world around you.

Okay, so here's the deal I'm gonna try to make myself: I might write a post every once in awhile. If I have something to say. When I feel like it. And if I don't, I'm not going to feel guilty about it. Did you hear that, My Guilty Conscience?! Neener neener neener! You can just fuck off, Guilty Conscience, okay? Okay. Okay.

Okay.

This feels pretty cool. I think I could get used to this. Again.

Happy Birthday Evan!

2006-05-31T21:57:00.000-07:00

Today was Evan's fifth birthday. Now I have a five year old. It sounds crazy to say it, but it's true. He's going to be going to kindergarten this year -- I can't say that without feeling both immense pride and trepidation.

Notice the strategy of grouping the candles. He certainly understands how to stack the odds in his favor.

This is the very first time he has ever put together a Lego set by himself. I had to leave the room because I just couldn't keep my big mouth from offering advice that he simply didn't need. Fortunately, Caren was there with the camera to document the process. He is very proud of this car. Also, you can't see it in these pictures, but he let his sister help open his presents.

It's the Red Ranger, need I say more? Yes? He's the Red Ranger from Power Rangers: Mystic Forces, because he has a cape. If he didn't have a cape, he'd be the Red Ranger from Power Rangers: Space Police Division. Yes, I know these things now*.

Happy birthday, Evan. I love you.

____________
* Actually, I thought it was "Special Police Division," but Caren has corrected me. Should I be ashamed or relieved?

With friends like these, who needs enemas?

2006-05-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Exhibit A. This Reuters article about a group of pedophiles in the Netherlands who are forming their own political party. I wish I had the energy to be outraged, but frankly I'm having trouble getting worked up over it. I'm quite disgusted with, you know, pedophiles. But insofar as a group of people I strongly disagree with forming their own political party goes, I'm finding it hard to care much when we can be pretty darn sure their group is going to be too small to make any significant difference. I mean, seriously, let's see where they get running on a platform of pedophilia. If anything, I would expect the outrage that will inevitably ensue to hurt the pedophiles.

So what does make me mad? Enter...

Exhibit B. This quote from the same article:

The Netherlands, which already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, was shocked by the plan.

Pardon me while I do a double take. Since when have liberals ever been supporters of sexual assault? In what world does gay marriage have anything to do with legalized prostitution?

Let's be clear. This isn't an opinion piece. This article is presented as an though it were an informative piece about an odd political party in the Netherlands. Unwary readers will be under the impression that it is unbiased. But make no mistake, this is a conservative piece. "Soft on drugs," indeed. You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

Where's the so-called liberal media when we need it?

Men in feminism: A followup

2006-05-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Punkass Marc disagrees with my last post that takes the position that men can claim the title of feminist. He lists several reasons. First, he thinks that men, accustomed to male privilege as we are, have such a strong desire to dominate any debate we enter that it is only natural for us to insist on being included in every group, including feminists. Second, he feels that by claiming full membership status, we are also implicitly claiming the right to serve in a leadership position in the feminist movement. Marc thinks it would be better if we called ourselves "pro-feminists," or perhaps "feminist supporters," so that we can indicate our support for the movement without also implying that we are qualified to lead it.

Regarding Marc's first point, I think it's true that men are used to dominating the debates we enter*. Insofar as we should be aware of it, I agree with him. No good can come from shutting out valuable participants in any conversation, and that goes double when it comes to men dominating a discussion about feminism -- a movement in which men's participation simply isn't as important as women's. However, I disagree that a man calling himself a feminist is automatically dominating the debate or making feminism about men. Calling oneself a feminist is dominating the debate, but calling oneself a "pro-feminist" isn't? Frankly, I don't see the difference. When it comes to turning a discussion about feminism into a discussion about ourselves, the labels we choose for ourselves and each other aren't nearly as important as how we behave when actually engaging in discussion or debate. As a precautionary note, Marc's point is well taken. But as a reason not to call oneself a feminist, I think it falls flat.

Marc's second problem with men calling themselves feminists is that by claiming the label, we would be claiming full status as feminists, and thus implicitly claiming the right to lead the movement. This strikes me as an odd argument. By registering in the Democratic party, do I thereby implicitly claim the right to lead it, too? I would say no, but even if your answer is yes, what does that really mean? I can't become a leader of the Democratic Party without a whole lot of other Democrats deciding that it seems like a good idea to follow me. Likewise, any man who is under the mistaken impression that he is going to take over the feminist movement by fiat is in for a rude awakening. Leaders derive their power to lead from the people they are leading. In my experience, clueless men who attempt to explain to feminists how feminism should work are quickly set straight. The idea that any man would be able to assume a leadership role that he hasn't earned is not only insulting to the autonomy of feminists, it also isn't borne out by experience.

Both of these arguments strike me as being somewhat anti-feminist. They both share the hidden premise that feminists just won't know how to handle men who are bold enough to call themselves feminists.

In addition, I'm not especially fond of the terms Marc puts forward as alternatives. The first time I heard someone call himself a "pro-feminist," what I heard was "I myself do not agree with the tenants of feminism enough to claim the label, but I support the gist of what they're trying to do." I suspect that this is how most people unfamiliar with the inner workings of the feminist movement would interpret the term, too. The only way most people will ever know that a "pro-feminist" or "feminist supporter" is the same thing as a feminist, only male, is if they end up in the movement. But as I said in my first post, what you call yourself doesn't matter to me nearly as much as how your words and actions support feminism.

On that score, from the little I know about Marc, he strikes me as a good ally.

* I am well aware of the irony of seeing two feminist/pro-feminist men trade trackbacks about what constitutes dominating the feminist debate.

Men in feminism

2006-05-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

I've had the seeds for this post in my head for a long time now. It wasn't until The Nut suggested I write about it that I actually got serious about it. The topic is Men in Feminism, and you'd think that as a man who identifies as a feminist, this would be an easy thing to write about. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Partly that's because any time a man writes about such feminist topics as the very definition of feminism, well, it's a narrow tightrope to walk. But it's also because the very act of addressing this topic seems to give voice to the idea that there is some question as to what men's role in feminism should be, and that seems a little ridiculous to me.

So let's get that out of the way up front. Do men have a role in feminism? Absolutely. Can men be feminists? I think so, and I consider myself to be one. Whether you agree with the former depends on what you believe the goals of feminism are. Whether you agree with the latter depends on what definition of feminism you are working with.

As for myself, I define feminism as a subset of humanism. Among other things, humanists believe that pursuit of happiness, freedom, and progress (including cultural, economic, and ethical progress) is the highest goal of all people. Feminism is the ongoing struggle against sexism in our culture. As a humanist, I believe it is my obligation and responsibility to also consider myself a feminist. Men's role in feminism, then, is largely the same as women's: we must identify sexism wherever we see it, and do whatever we can to eliminate it.

Ultimately, regardless of whether you are a man or woman, whether you identify yourself as a feminist is a lot less important to me than whether your words and actions support the goals of feminism, by which I mean helping women overcome the oppression of sexism. That's why Chris Clarke's statement that he is not a feminist doesn't bother me as much as it might. Before he disavows the label, he explains in detail exactly where he stands on various issues relating to sexism. As far as I can tell, if Chris were a woman, he would consider himself a feminist. But to him, feminism is a liberation movement. Because he's a man, he explains, that label isn't his to claim. I'm happy to accept Chris's support for the cause.

But I have to admit, although Chris's statement doesn't bother me as much as it could, it does bother me. It reminds me common disclaimer used to start so many sentences, "I'm not a feminist, but..." In fact, most of his essay could easily be rewritten to use that form. Chris explains his reasons for it, and I have no reason to doubt that he is sincere. And yet, I can't help but think of the different context in which I usually hear that phrase. Most of the time when a person starts a sentence with such a disclaimer, they go on to express a feminist idea. So why is the disclaimer necessary? Because "feminism" is seen as a dirty word by many in our society, including both men and women.

It's an odd thing, that. Feminism has been so successful that most people wouldn't dare to be caught being overtly and unapologetically sexist. It is only because it is so important to express feminist ideals that the "I'm not a feminist but" disclaimer is so common. And yet, its existence also reveals that it is widely unpopular to be labeled as a feminist. The very fact that the phrase is so common says a lot about how far we have to go in fighting sexism. It's one thing to be seen as overtly sexist, but it's another thing entirely to be seen as an active supporter of women's rights. When otherwise stellar supporters of feminism like Chris decline to call themselves feminists, I fear it only gives one more excuse to the men who routinely make it clear that they certainly don't wish to be known as supporters of feminism.

Of course, it's not like Chris just made up this idea that men can't be feminists. Unfortunately, there are plenty of feminist women around who agree. I'm probably lucky to have had my first contact with real feminists be Amanda, Bitch Ph.D., and Lauren when she was blogging at Feministe. These feminist bloggers didn't have any problem with Ampersand calling himself a feminist, which helped me realize that at least some feminists have no problem including men in their ranks. As to the ones that do, I'm perfectly comfortable agreeing to disagree. Still, when it's all said and done, it seems to me that by claiming men can't be feminists, the only thing that is accomplished is to waste a lot of energy arguing semantics. Assuming that we share the common goal of promoting equality of the sexes, it seems like a pretty silly thing to artificially divide an otherwise united group of people.

I said earlier that men's role in feminism is largely the same as women's. I believe that this is true on a large scale. But there are also many things that feminist men are uniquely positioned to do. One of those things is to actively speak out against the rape culture in our society. When men are talking amongst themselves about a rape, it is almost always the case that the character of the victim is questioned. This usually includes some combination of the details of what she was wearing, where she was at when she was raped, who she was with, and her sexual history. But none of these issues are relevant. The only thing that determines whether a woman was raped is whether the woman consented to sex. By speaking up against those conversations when we have the chance, we men can combat the idea that rape is a woman's fault and a woman's problem. Rape is crime almost exclusively committed by men. Only by speaking out can we begin to foster an environment that holds men accountable for their actions.

Update: Punkass Marc disagrees. You can read my response to his post here.

Monogamy and the Naturalistic Fallacy

2006-05-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Nut pointed me to this article on monogamy at Generative Transformation. In a lot of ways, Brandon Peele's blog reminds me of my own. Brandon's blog is a chronicle of his personal growth. I often think of Shades Of Grey in the same way, though when I write my posts, it is never with that purpose in mind. I consider myself a liberal, and so does Brandon. And apparently we write about the same subjects -- I've written in favor of nonmonogamous relationships here and here. While I really like Brandon's introspective nature and willingness to question the status quo, there are more than a few things wrong with his post on monogamy.

He starts by asking the question: What is the point of having strong urges, such as an "instinct to mate with virtually every female I see," if he is not to indulge them? It's already apparent from his phrasing that his exploration of this question and its related issues will be deeply entrenched in the Naturalistic Fallacy. Of course, Brandon believes in the existence of a higher power, so perhaps that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. It is very difficult to reconcile the belief that things are the way they are because that's how it is supposed to be with the observation that many people are hurt by the "natural order."

To answer Brandon's question, there is no point. Evolution, in the biological sense, does not have a purpose. True, if humans didn't have a biological instinct to mate, the species wouldn't propagate, but don't make the mistake of thinking that because we exist there must be a greater reason for it. Evolution is not directed. Just as there is no "Natural Law" stating that creating homo sapiens was the purpose of evolution, there is no law of nature dictating that a person should or should not indulge in his desire to have sex. It is fallacious to look toward one's biology for answers about one's morality.

Brandon also wants to know why having sex with multiple partners is incompatible with the norms of our society. This is a question that I am sympathetic to. In the past I've been an advocate of normalizing nonmonogamous relationships. My position isn't that I want monogamous relationship to disappear from our society, it's that I want to get rid of the assumption that every committed relationship must be monogamous. However, Brandon attacks the problem through the lense of naturalism.

My questions is, is marriage/monogamy natural? Is it a convenience of modern society put in place to counter streets full of bastards and orphans and provide for a stable, predictable and submissive populace? Is it an evolutionary imperative?

And again:

Men, much moreso than women it appears, are easily taken beneath deck to operate from their limbic or reptilian brain, not their neocortex or complex human brain. The limbic system is often called the reptilian brain because it first appeared in evolution in reptiles and is responsible for our emotional drives, especially relating fear and sex instincts.

You can probably see where this is going:

So what can we do? Is marriage as an institution doomed? We don’t have to do anything and no it’s not doomed. But feel free to join me in telling the world to fuck off with respect to how it thinks we should and shouldn't act. Let us obey only ourselves, our inner compass, our inner warrior. As men we need only keep in mind these things:
Hold our spouse's best interest in our hearts, aka Golden Rule. It would suck to have another dude put his dick in your wife. Guess what? She feels the same way.
...
This is all fine and good, but what about those marriage vows? Women are nuts for vows. Most men can't even remember them. We hate to give up our autonomy - to listen to anyone tell us what and what not to do once, much less let someone set the vision for the rest of our lives in this manner.
I don't understand why we need all these rules. It's not like they don't get broken everyday. Why set something up for failure? Why can't we just align intentions? Just agree to work towards a common vision for the world, your family, your marriage, etc. and see which actions, including infidelity fall within this vision.
...
Isn't a marriage about trust? Isn't trust the foundation of love? If there is trust, then there need not be a covenant. The desire to anchor and tie oneself down to an ascribed way of being is not an action of love, rather fear, the need for security.

These quotes certainly don't do anything to quell my suspicion that this entire discussion is a complicated way to rationalize cheating on one's spouse. Part of the problem, again, is a heavy reliance on the Naturalistic Fallacy. Brandon sees that we have a society that is structured around monogamy and assumes that because that's the way things are, that's how they should be. But he also sees that men in our society claim the right to play the field, and once again assumes that because that's how it is, that's how it should be. When he's being honest with himself, he knows that monogamy isn't the optimal situation for him. So the question is how to reconcile his observations with his beliefs. And he does it by blaming women for his problems.

To be fair, he doesn't actually blame women so much as the way women are. Women, according to Brandon, are naturally more interested in long term commitments than men are, it's part of their biology. But regardless of how you justify it, the net effect is the same: Brandon believes that he is being held back by womanly vows. He thinks we men should learn to be more manly by listening to our "inner warrior." We shouldn't feel it necessary to be bound by our promises, because that's against the natural order. But women should be bound by a different set of rules entirely, because "it would suck to have another dude put his dick in your wife," and anyway, they aren't built the same as us. Under the system that Brandon seems to be advocating, it's okay for men to be jealous when their partners sleep with other men, because men own their women's sexuality. But only because women want to be owned.

Creating different sets of rules for different classes of people is the classic recipe for oppression. And as Amanda recently pointed out, the Naturalistic Fallacy is a favored tool of oppressors everywhere. Brandon needs to get out more. Men aren't the only one who want the freedom of having multiple partners. The sooner our society stops oppressing women while simultaneously pretending that it is only natural that we should do so, the sooner there will be more women comfortable with admitting that they would like to have sex with multiple partners.

But the other thing about Brandon's post that makes me feel like he is rationalizing cheating is that, well, he pretty much says so himself: "Just agree to work towards a common vision for the world, your family, your marriage, etc. and see which actions, including infidelity fall within this vision." Far from condemning lying to one's spouse, he says that honesty in relationships can be optional. That's something I just can't get behind, and at times Brandon seems to agree: "Isn't a marriage about trust? Isn't trust the foundation of love?"

Of course, if you want trust, you certainly wouldn't condone lying to your spouse, which is what infidelity is.

Brandon ends his article with this:

To be in love is to be free. Are you free in your love?

After his admission that he would not like it if another man slept with his girlfriend, I must admit that this ending perplexes me. He wants the freedom to have sex with whomever he wants without granting the same freedom to his partners. It seems to me that if his girlfriend were to ask the same question, she would answer in the negative.

Excuses masquerading as an explanation, and an announcement of sorts

2006-05-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, until my weak offering at lunch, I hadn't posted since, um, the beginning of April. Inconceivable*!

My thanks go out to Orange, E., and Feral Mom for letting me know I'm missed. Thanks also to The Nut, who has continued to give me ideas to blog about even in the face of my extended absence, and who says I shouldn't feel the need to apologize. Well, I do, so here it is: I'm sorry I haven't been writing.

But to the excuses!

I moved. That's right! I live in a new apartment now in the appropriate part of town for my children to attend Crestridge Elementary. Huge thanks to my father-in-law, Dennis, without whom I never would have managed to move in just one weekend. The fact is we weren't planning on being completely moved until this weekend. We had planned on moving boxes and smaller items last weekend, and moving the heavy stuff this weekend. But as you can probably imagine, the whole "hey wanna use your three day weekend to help me move" line wasn't too popular with the relatives. So when Dennis let us know he was bringing his trailer up, we jumped at the opportunity. Trust me, it's much better this way.
I've been busy. Yes, that sounds like a pretty lame excuse. However, it is in actuality a pretty lame segue into my announcement. You see, I've been working on a project. Please indulge me while I tell you about it.

You know how sometimes you'll link to a news story, and after a few days it disappears? Yahoo News comes to mind. The stories at Yahoo stick around for two weeks, then they are deleted. If you link to them (as I frequently would, if they didn't disappear), eventually your blog's archive is full of dead links. Which makes your blog's archives considerably less useful.

Enter Long Lasting Links**, my project for the last few months. My site allows you to create an account and begin archiving URLs. When you archive a URL, it doesn't download every link on the page. It only saves a copy of all the same files that your web browser needs to display the site. Once a URL has been archived, you get a permanent link to that page in the archive. Unless you decide to delete a link, it won't ever go away.

I think this site will have many uses. Blogging is what I had in mind when I came up with the idea, but I think I'll be surprised to see how it gets used.

So that's what I've been up to. I know, I know, that doesn't mean I can't throw a blog post up every once in awhile. Mea culpa.

* "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

** I know, that link doesn't work yet. I just spent the last hour on the phone with GoDaddy.com trying to get my domain up and running. You want some advice? Don't register your domains at GoDaddy.com. They don't know basic DNS concepts, and for a registrar, that's unacceptable. At this point, I'm going to punt on getting it set up and try to get it fixed tomorrow. But I want to go ahead and make the announcement anyway. I'll let you know when there is more to see.

A weak offering after weeks of silence

2006-05-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

One could argue that is has been months, really. I'm going to make the obligatory excuses-masquerading-as-an-explanation later tonight, but for now, I'll beg my readers for mercy with some topical humor:

Oh, the irony! And from the very people who would see English become our national language, no less...

A poem

2006-04-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

In honor of Tom DeLay's decision to resign from the House of Representatives, and also because April is National Poetry Month, I thought I'd share a poem I ran across in The Guardian. It is, unfortunately, unattributed, and a quick trip to Google didn't turn up the author. But since it's such a good twofer, I want to share it anyway.

They buried the politician today
The crowd it jeered and rang.
But as for me, I wept
For I had hoped to see him hang.

An update on the situation with Unapologetic Atheist

2006-03-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

I have confirmed through someone who wishes only to be known as a reliable source that most of the allegations against Richardson as reported by the Lawrence Journal-World are true. (See my previous post for my initial reactions.)

My source has confirmed that Richardson was well aware of his HIV+ status. He has had it since 1995 and has most likely known since about 1998.

My source also confirmed that he was arrested in Louisiana, and that the arrest resulted in dropped charges. Richardson left the state as a direct result.

Finally, my source also says that there will probably be more charges against him, and explained to my satisfaction how the first woman to press charges found out about his HIV+ status.

There is no doubt left in my mind that he is guilty. I am very hopeful that he will be nailed on these charges, and I think that barring any stupidity with the judge or jury or whatever, such as people thinking that women who contract HIV just get what is coming to them, there is an excellent chance that he will be convicted.

Just, whoa.

2006-03-29T19:31:00.000-08:00

If you bother to examine my blogroll closely, you might notice that the entry for The Unapologetic Atheist is gone. There are several reasons for that. One of the reasons is because, well, he deleted his blog.

Another important reason is because he has been charged with two counts of knowingly exposing another to HIV.

It would be an understatement to say that I'm stunned. And furious. It's probably important to note that in our legal system, people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But it's also true that I never expected anyone on my blogroll to even be accused of anything like this. And I can't help but notice that his blog has been deleted, which doesn't make him look particularly innocent. His Yahoo profile is gone, too.

So perhaps Rob Richardson is innocent, and perhaps he isn't. Either way, I can't help but notice that at least one anonymous commenter associates my site with his. It therefore seems appropriate that I should address the situation.

It should go without saying that knowingly and intentionally exposing someone to HIV isn't ever, ever okay. I'm not saying that HIV+ people should never have sex. I'm saying that they have a moral obligation to inform their partners of the additional risk that HIV presents. A woman who doesn't know that her partner is HIV+ certainly wasn't consenting to what she thought she was. If her partner didn't know, it's a tragedy. But if he did, it's sexual assault.

Frankly, despite my desires to remain neutral about Richardson's particular case, I must admit that it's hard given the facts of the case. His HIV+ status is apparently not contested, or his accusers would have no case. Likewise, there would be no case if he could prove that he received the diagnosis after the sexual encounters, so I have to think that he must've known. And I find it extremely unlikely that two different women would both report the a nearly identical story. Take all that together with what many of the comments on the Lawrence Journal-World article that imply some very dodgy behavior on Richardson's part, and... Well, like I said, it's hard to remain neutral.

If the facts are what they appear to be, Richardson deserves strong condemnation. The damage that would be done to his causes -- to my causes -- is considerable. His actions, if the allegations are true, confirm all the worst stereotypes about atheists. He gives feminists a bad name. He gives liberals a bad name. Most of all, he provides fodder for the lie that atheists are incapable of being moral.

The worst part is that Richardson should have known better. About a year ago, he blogrolled Shades Of Grey. In a fit of morbid curiosity, I discovered that you can still see that post courtesy Google's cache, at the very bottom of the page. One post above that, he wrote this:

It really gets my goat when people who are notorious for their hard-line, unflinching hatred of those who are different (uh, I meant, those going against God's will) are coming off looking like the paragons of virtue, and the people who are supposed to be the progressives are lashing out like toddlers who didn't get their candy.

We're better than this. We're better than people like Coulter, Kristol, and Buchanan. Now start freaking acting like it, goddamnit!

...

What this boils down to is: stop getting mad and lashing out blindly. Start fighting rationally and thoughtfully.

Yes! I agree! It is sad when someone who should know better makes the far right seem like paragons of virtue. So it seems absurd that I should ever have to say something like "Don't knowingly expose others to HIV."

UPDATE: I fixed the link to the Lawrence Journal-World article. Also, I have an update regarding the status of the allegations. You can read it here.

And now for something completely different

2006-03-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

Have you been wondering how you could destroy the Earth? I don't mean with patriarchy or George W. Bush or nuclear weapons (and please, I'm begging a god I don't believe in, let those last two things remain unrelated). I mean actually destroying the Earth. Well, wonder no more!

It's true, I'm hard on teachers

2006-03-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

I want to pull out a recent comment that Angel left me on this post about an article in USA Today titled For once, blame the student. Angel thinks I'm too hard on teachers and don't give enough credit to students. (Her comment also touches on this recent post about picking up my kids from preschool.)

Angel writes:

OMG! I am so sick of this. Charlie, you get some kudos from me for your obvious thoughtfulness on women's issues, but you have a serious blindspot when it comes to teachers. What gives?

In one of your posts, you are unhappy with a teacher because she is not "acting like she wants to fix the problem" of your son's behavior. She shouldn't be expected to fix the problem. Your son is your problem. The way other people have raised their sons is their problem. Now the divergent views have collided and you blame the TEACHER? Out of anyone, she's the only one who is NOT responsible.

Also, you posted up an article written in USA Today about how kids do not have a strong work ethic. You comment that it's "teachers" who should "inspire a strong work ethic in the kids". WHAT??? You've got to be kidding. First of all, with that attitude, you pretty much prove what the author of the article is saying about how parents are enabling their kids to get out of doing work. If it's all the teacher's fault, then that lets both parents and students off the hook.

Second, these are high school kids the author is discussing. The Jesuits said, "Give me the boy until he is seven and I'll give you the man." The implication is that a person's character is pretty much set by the age of seven. Establishing character is clearly the PARENTS' responsibility not the teachers', especially not in high school. A high school class should be: kids come in, teacher teaches subject, kids walk out. Work Ethic 101 is not offered in school for a reason-- that's the parents' job.

I think Angel is right that I'm often too hard on teachers, especially teachers of primary and secondary education. It's a dirty secret of mine -- though considering Angel's comment, perhaps it isn't much of a secret. I try to be very aware of it and usually I tend to avoid writing about education issues because of it. She caught me on a week when I happened to blog twice about it without realizing it.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the difficult job teachers are tasked with. My wife teaches piano at Omaha South High School. I watch her constantly brainstorm about ways to improve her lesson plans. I see her agonize over her students almost every day. When she has students with who could be so good if they would just try, I'm the one who hears the too familiar refrain about them not living up to their potential.

I'm sure a large reason that it sounds so familiar is because I was that student in high school. I should've had A's, but I didn't work as hard as I might have, so I mostly got C's instead. It certainly wasn't that I was incapable. You'd think that would only increase my understanding of what teachers have to deal with, but apparently it isn't so. (It does, however, increase my embarrassment. The same lazy attitude continued for the one year of college I managed to complete, and truthfully that's being generous -- I'm can't remember my grades for that second semester, though honestly I'm pretty sure I don't want to. Sometime between now and then I realized that I should take every opportunity to learn as much as I can from every situation. Just imagine what I'd learn from an environment designed specifically to help me learn things.)

So perhaps it's bad form, but I'm going to call for a mulligan on the USA Today article that caused Angel to call me out. When I first commented that perhaps it is teachers who should work harder to inspire the students, I was thinking of my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Davidson. He was excited about chemistry and knew how to inspire students to try. I'll never forget his look of disappointment when we didn’t understand a concept. I remember him teaching us a particular way to line up electron shells using the periodic table. When we finally understood it, he laughed and told us that they didn't teach that until Chemistry II at Kansas State University. And a few years later, at KSU myself, I passed Chem I without cracking open a book.

In my mind, Mr. Davidson is the gold standard of teachers, and there are a number of reasons that that probably isn't fair. For one thing, I believe to this day that he had a gift for teaching that probably isn't very common. Also, science is one of my favorite subjects. He had an automatic head start with me that, say, my English teachers didn't have*.

But back to Patrick Welsh's USA Today op/ed. I think, having reread the article with Angel's criticism in mind, I can get behind a lot of what Welsh is saying. As I've tried to make clear here, I'm the poster child for failed work ethic in high school students. I wish desperately that something had managed to unlock the desire to learn that was finally unleashed a few years too late. A lot of my original criticism probably comes from that thought.

Having said that, I want to add a major caveat, or perhaps it's more of a word of caution. I firmly believe that to get good results, teachers must be allowed to hold students to high standards. One of the major problems with the No Child Left Behind legislation is that instead of encouraging students to learn, it encourages teachers to pass students -- at any cost. Even without NCLB, there is an enormous amount of pressure from administrations and parents for teachers to lower their standards to help students pass. So I am all for holding students responsible for their failures. But it does not good to "blame the students" without also making damn sure we are supporting the teachers. It seems to me that instead of looking for somewhere to lay the blame, we should work to create a supportive environment in which we identify problems and then try to solve them.

About the story of picking up my kids and hearing that Evan was fighting, I stand behind what I wrote. But when you think about it, it's a different situation for a number of reasons. For one thing, they're preschoolers. The teachers don't have a lot to work with as far as actually teaching goes. For another thing, perhaps I didn't make it clear enough in that post, but I'm trying desperately to be on the teacher's side on this one. It's just that I don't feel like they're really letting me. I need their help to be able to help them. And what is going to help me is to give me more complete information about the problems Evan is experiencing before they expect me to get upset with him.

Regardless, Angel's comment is still valid. I am very hard on teachers, often too hard. I will continue to try to keep a leash on that tendency. But it's nice to know that if I slip up, there are people out there who aren't afraid to point out my shortcomings.

* A story to illustrate just how pathetic I was in high school: In my senior year, I took Mrs. Stratton's newspaper class. She was another great teacher, one of my favorites, in fact. But for some reason, perhaps because it wasn't a science class, I didn't try especially hard for her. When my wife worries about students not performing up to their potential, I think back to newspaper class with Mrs. Stratton. I think I wrote three articles all year, and I'm pretty sure that caused her the same grief that my wife experiences. For the most part I completed my assignments, and I did a lot of other things for the newspaper, like layout work. But I did everything in my ability to avoid actually writing articles for the paper. Instead of, you know, using my ability to actually write. Ten years later, I write a blog and wish that I'd taken advantage of the opportunities that Mrs. Stratton tried to provide for me. I try not to think about what my writing would look like if I had approached my classes with the idea that I was going to make an actual effort to improve myself.

This is what eBay was made for

2006-03-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

Might I interest you in a new timepiece? (Be sure to check out the description.)

Anatomy blogging

2006-03-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

Evan: Mommy, do I have a spine?
Rosana: (answering Evan) Nope!

Watch as David Brooks stars in "Backhanded Attacks on Feminism"

2006-03-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

If you have a New York Times Select account, you can read David Brooks' latest, an article titled All Politics Is Thymotic. In it, Brooks makes a guise of arguing that the main driving motivation of politicians is Plato's thymos, the hunger for recognition. But much like John Tierney's promise to enlighten us about the desires of women, I'm suspicious of any article that opens with a promise to tell you "what men want." Brooks doesn't disappoint.

He writes ten paragraphs that say a lot of things that I can mostly agree with. I think he's right that men want recognition. (I'd argue that that holds true for women as well, but that's because I'm me and he's David Brooks.) Brooks says things like:

If I had the attention of the world's politicians for one afternoon, I'd lead a discussion on the nature of the thymotic urge. I'd point out that if politicians weren't consumed by a hunger for recognition, none of them would agree to lead the miserable lives they do. I'd point out that in the thymotic urge, selfishness and selflessness are intertwined. Men compete for personal glory. But thymos also induces them to sacrifice for causes larger than themselves.

I'd point out that if you see politics as a competition for recognition, many things become clear. The economic and literary backwardness of the Arab world has set off a thymotic crisis, as Arab men lash out to make the world pay attention to them. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not only a squabble over land; it's intractable because each side wants the other to recognize its moral superiority. Democracy still has good long-term prospects in that region because it's the only system that meets rising expectations about individual dignity.

There is something here that could be the foundation of a good point. Much like the idea of Richard Dawkins' memes, there are probably situations where it would be helpful to consider political situations as a series of interactions centered on thymos. And yet, much like Dawkins' memes, it doesn't really tell the whole story. Certainly a large part of politics is the hunt for personal recognition, but there are also times when politicians act according to their principles, whether that makes them popular or not. (See George W. Bush's entire second term as an example.)

But despite the title, all of Brooks' talk about the politics of thymos is really just a fancy way to tell feminists to shut up. In his last three paragraphs, Brooks writes:

If I had those politicians for an afternoon, I'd point out that even though the thymotic urge drives so much of public life, we really don't talk about thymos anymore. I'd add that when you read the ancient political philosophers on thymos, they treat it as a male trait. But over the past century women have been expressing their thymotic urges more and more, and people over 40 have a complex about female thymos that people under 40 generally don't have.

I'd ask them to read Harvey Mansfield's new book, "Manliness," which is two books in one. First, it's a subtle exploration about the virtues and vices of the thymotic urge. It's also a series of troublemaking generalizations about the differences between men and women.

Over the next few weeks, Mansfield and his feminist critics are going to brawl — thymotically — over his assertions. I'm not as impressed by Mansfield's generalizations as he is, but he'll have one advantage: he understands the nature of thymos, which shapes this fight, and so much of our political life.

Brooks first tries to cover himself by saying that he isn't impressed by Mansfield's "troubling" book and pointing out that popular support for women's rights has come a long way in the last 40 years. But the entire essay up to this point has been nothing but a defense of Mansfield's ideas. When it finally comes down to it, Brooks admits that half the book is worthless. But instead of resoundingly condemning the worthless parts, he excuses them and makes a preemptive strike against the feminists for daring to speak up.

I can't help but notice the irony that an essay about the destructive nature of the hunger for recognition is replete with stories of how much better the world would be if only Brooks had the ear of the politicians for a day. But when Brooks has an opportunity to do some real good by denouncing sexism on a national stage, instead he chooses to imply that any criticism of leveled at the theory can only be explained by the feminists' desire for individual accolades. In Brooks' world, there are no principled arguments against sexism to be found, only the thymotic pursuit of glory.

Brooks' essay would have benefited from a more nuanced discussion that admitted that sometimes the concept of thymos just doesn't apply. But of course he couldn't afford to make that admission. It would have destroyed his backhanded attack against feminism.

Thanks to Orange for passing on the article.

What's a little fighting among friends?

2006-03-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

Thursday night, Caren had parent-teacher conferences, so I had the rare opportunity to pick up Evan and Rosana from their preschool daycare. It's always a special treat. Usually Caren does the picking up, so when I walk through their classroom door instead, they are about as excited to see me as they ever get. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of Thursday's childcare transfer experience was marred by a report from Evan's teacher.

"Evan had a rough afternoon," she said in an oddly happy voice as I walked through the door. I sighed.
"Uh oh. What happened?"
"He started a fight. And he also threw some things." I sighed again. Caren gets reports like this at least once a week. Sometimes more.
"Why?" I asked. His teacher paused.
"Well, I think maybe some other kids were egging him on." I hesitated.
"Well, which is it?" I asked. "Did he start the fight, or did other kids egg him on?" She paused again.
"I'm not sure," she said finally. "I didn't really see it. But he was definitely throwing things. I saw that."
"Uh, okay. Thanks." Yeah. Thanks for nothing.

It doesn't help that I'm especially irritated by her tone of voice. She seemed all too happy to report that Evan had been acting up. Instead of acting like she wants to fix the problem, she seemed to be relish the act of telling me that my son was acting up. But when pressed for details, she had no idea what was actually going on. How is it that she admits that she's not really sure what happened, and yet she is very sure that it was my son who started the fight?

I can appreciate that she wants me to talk to him about not fighting. And I really want to be on her side and help make her job easier. But what I say to him is going to be different depending on the situation that led up to the fighting. If Evan hit someone with little to no provocation, that's one thing. But if kids were teasing him for ten minutes before he finally lashes out in frustration, that's quite another. The idea that the circumstances made a difference has obviously not occurred to anyone.

This is very frustrating. I suspect this is another case of "boys will be boys," and after all the time I've spent trying to get that idea out of my children's heads, well, I hope you'll understand when I say that it's pissing me off. I suspect that the teachers are letting the boys say and do whatever they want short of actually throwing punches. In fact, I know this is the case, because Evan tells me that one of their favorite games is "fighting." From his descriptions, it sounds more like it would be more accurate to call it roughhousing. But as anyone who has ever had little kids knows, roughhousing among a group of three- and four-year-olds can escalate into a brawl rather quickly.

The teachers are creating a no-win situation by allowing the roughhousing to happen. For one thing, the kids call it fighting. While I am in full agreement that roughhousing isn't actually fighting per se, I still find it hard to understand why you'd want to send kids the message that it's okay to "fight." The other problem is that when I've asked Evan to not participate in these "fights," the result is that he's singled out as the only boy who doesn't do it. He was starting to be teased by his classmates for being different. As a person who found it very difficult to make friends when I was little, that seemed to be leading down a path that I didn't want to see him go down, so I relented and told him it was okay to roughhouse as long as he made sure to stop if anyone was getting mad or sad.

Frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that Evan could really be giving them such a hard time. He's a sweet little boy, and it usually takes very little effort to get him to fall into line. I'm one of the lucky few parents who have a kid who you can simply ask not to do something. If you explain why, most of the time he'll agree with you and you'll see a noticeable change in his behavior going forward. When I asked him not to participate in the fights, I suggested that if the boys decided to fight he could say "C'mon guys, someone is going to get hurt. Let's do something else instead." Two days later, he came back to me and told me that when he'd tried it, they just ignored him and fought anyway. When I asked him what he said, he repeated what I'd told him almost word for word, and perfectly mirroring my pleading tone of voice. The fact that teachers are having so many problems with him leads me to suspect that they aren't trying very hard.

Though it's frustrating, I'm trying to keep in mind that he only has about two more months of preschool to go before we get to summer break. Over the summer, we're moving, and then Evan will start kindergarten and we will find a different preschool for Rosana. I'm hopeful that the greater structure of a kindergarten classroom will eliminate most of the free time the kids currently fill with roughhousing, and the problem will solve itself.

In the mean time, I guess boys will be boys, just as preschool teachers will be unwitting tools of the patriarchy. Whether I like it or not.

Call it anything but rape

2006-03-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday there was a story in the Omaha World Herald titled Omahan accused of sexual trickery. Because the World Herald doesn't keep their stories online for more than a few days, I'm going to reproduce it here in its entirety:

A 21-year-old Omaha man was arrested Tuesday after being accused of tricking a woman into having sex with another man.

The investigation began after 1 a.m. at Bergan Mercy Medical Center, where the 31-year-old woman sought treatment.

She told officers that she was in the dark basement of a northwest Omaha home having sex with a man whom she knew, said Omaha Police Sgt. Teresa Negron.

The 21-year-old man left the room and told a different man to return to the woman and pretend to be him, Negron said.

The woman had sex with the second man, not knowing that he wasn't her original partner, Negron said.

The woman came to realize that she was having sex with a different man, said something to him about it, and he ran away, Negron said.

The first man was arrested on suspicion of being an accessory to a sexual assault. The other man fled before police arrived.

Who the hell do these men think they are? This makes me so angry that I can't even write a coherent sentence. When a woman gives you permission to sleep with her, you don’t become the owner of her pussy. She doesn't become your property, some sort of fucktoy to share with your friends.

And since we're talking about it, what the hell, Omaha World Herald? "Sexual trickery?" No, these men are accused of rape. I'm beside myself with rage that you could write an entire article about two men who plot to sleep with a woman without her consent and fail to call it rape. If you want to know why rape is so common, look no further than this yourselves. You portray rape as some kind of practical joke, as though the two men should be patting each other on the back. "We sure pulled a good trick on her, didn't we? Too bad the old bitch doesn't have a sense of humor."

I'm tired of it. I'm so tired of feeling shocked and stunned every time I find out that one of the women close to me has been raped. I've lost track of the number of times it has happened, and every single time it is emotionally exhausting. Not a week goes by that I don't learn another friend was raped. I'm sick of everyone who enables it. I'm fed up with anyone who promotes this rape culture and then pretends that they aren't part of the problem. I'm tired of supposedly respectable organizations like the Omaha World Herald refusing to call rape what it is.

Rape is an ugly word. But it's an even uglier act. These men don't deserve to be branded with anything less.

Wherein I prod facetiously at Blogger

2006-03-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

Orange Tangerine must be extra spicy hot today, because everytime I try to go there, Blogger tells me that it's Forbidden.

An open letter to Shawn

2006-03-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

Dear Shawn,

I've been meaning to write this letter for quite a long time -- it's been many years now. You see, I owe you a long overdue apology for the way I treated you when I first found out you were gay.

I'm sure you remember being outted in high school. Michael was just getting comfortable with his sexuality as a normal part of himself. He was basking in the glow of being out of the closet for the first time in his life. He was so excited, in fact, that he dragged several of his friends out of the closet with him. And you were among them.

Looking back, I have mixed feelings about my memories of Michael. On the one hand, I completely understand his desire to bring people out of the closet with him. I bet he was excited. He was feeling how great it was to accept himself for the first time in his life. He knew how good it felt, and wanted his friends to feel it, too. He wanted you to be able to experience that excitement with him.

On the other hand, it was certainly not his place to make those kinds of potentially life altering decisions for you. We were living in Wamego, Kansas -- need I say more? The place was so conservative that I didn't believe that racism still existed -- seriously, I didn't believe it. But how would I know? There were no black people worth speaking of in our town. There were no atheists or gays or Muslims or hispanics or anyone except white Christians, really. Those words didn't describe real people. They were just abstractions. And it's easy to hate an abstraction when it doesn't represent a real person.

But for purely personal reasons, I'm also grateful that Michael let your secret slip. You see, Shawn, you were the first gay man I ever knew. Now, looking back, I realize that that probably isn't true. I probably knew lots of gay people without ever knowing anything about their sexuality. But you were the first person who was real to me. You were the first real person I knew who was gay.

I must confess that the intervening ten years have caused me to forget what it was that we said to you, exactly. But I'll never forget your reaction. I'll never forget the note you wrote to us; the one you wrote from your room shaking and in tears. I can imagine the kinds of things we had said. I think we wanted you to get checked for HIV or some stupid shit like that. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we told you that homosexuality was wrong in the eyes of the Lord. I remember that a couple of us acted particularly shitty, as though it was scandalous to have to change into our choir tuxedos in front of you. And I remember that when you heard us saying that, you spat back a stinging retort: "Do you think I'm going to rape you or something?"

You and I have been out of touch for quite some time. So I guess I can't be sure, but I know that if our positions had been reversed, I would have harbored a lot of resentment towards you and the other people who forced such a negative experience on me. It has occurred to me that I might have been a part of the first real hate that was ever directed at you because of your sexuality. The thought makes me sick.

Shawn, words cannot convey the shame I feel at these memories.

I want you to know that there is nothing you can say that will ever lessen my shame. Don't think I'm writing this to get your acceptance so that I can stop feeling bad about it. Your acceptance would be welcome, but it won't change what I did. Frankly, I don't ever want to lose that shame. It makes me a better person.

I'm writing because I want you to know that you made a difference in my life. I wanted you to know that the pain you experienced at my hands didn't amount to nothing. I can't speak for everyone else who participated in that nasty bout of bigotry, but for myself, I want you to know that you contributed to a sense of cognative dissonance that eventually helped me to realize how big of an asshole I'd been. You helped me see gay people as human beings instead of abstractions for the very first time. You helped me realize that the narrative that I'd been taught -- the nauseating story that gay people chose to live a life of sin because, I dunno, they preferred to be evil, or something -- was stupendously wrong.

So again, I'm sorry I reacted the way I did. I was a stupid little 16 year old who didn't have enough life experience under his belt to even know what he was doing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed, and I'm sorry.

It took a long time, but I'm happy to be able to say that I'm a different person now. Perhaps one you'd even like to get to know. A guy can never have enough friends, especially friends who accept you for who you are, and who know your secrets -- if indeed it even is still a secret.

With all my friendship (if you want it),

Charlie

It doesn't stop with abortion

2006-03-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Orange wrote a great post on South Dakota's attempt to ban abortion which inspired me to write this rather emphatic comment. I thought I'd repost a slightly revised version here.

Orange detailed several medical reasons why South Dakota's law would impact her were she living there, and then ended with this:

I know most of my readers are pro-choice, but there may be a few of you who don’t object to South Dakota’s abortion ban and its lack of an exception for preserving the woman’s health. Such a law sends the message that my life isn’t worth it, that my life and health don’t matter, that an embryo has more right to a full lifespan than I do. I beg to differ. If you don’t support a woman’s right to choose abortion, if you think preserving a woman’s health isn’t a good enough reason for abortion—tell me why you'd want me to die early.

Orange's conclusion got me thinking about the recent history of the women's rights movement. Women's rights in this country have generally been on a downward slide since Phyllis Schlafly and her cronies helped kill the Equal Rights Amendment, which read:

SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
SEC. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
SEC. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

It boggles my mind to think that standing in opposition to equality is a tenable political strategy, but there you have it.

We've probably all read state senator Bill Napoli's (R-SD) repugnant statement on just what it would take to warrant an abortion. If there is anyone reading this who is still anti-choice, here's another choice quote of his, this time in support of shotgun weddings:

When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.

You see, these people aren't content to outlaw a woman's ability to control her own body. They want to force your daughter to marry her rapist. They want to make sure she stays at home with her rapist's child. They want to take away her right to control how many children she has. Eventually, they'll go after her right to vote, and after that they'll clamor for the good ol' days when women were property owned by men. And if at any point you decide enough is enough, any more would be going too far, they'll call you a liberal and a traitor and say that you aren't a real Christian and quote 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

And when they've got women's rights under their thumb, they'll go after science education: first biology, of course, but also astronomy and geology and physics. And next up after science will be founding cities and even entire states on their particular conceptions of morality.

But you know what? That's not quite right. They won't go after these one at a time. There's no point in waiting when you can attack all at once. Which is exactly what we're seeing.

So you don't support a woman's right to choose? Well, first they came for women's rights...