I am the Lizard Queen!

Movin' on up... well, movin', anyway...

2006-12-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

In honor of the fact that I'm moving in real life, the virtual queendom shall be moving as well. (Also, I'm kind of perplexed by this whole Blogger Beta thing, and I've been getting a ridiculous number of spam comments, so I thought I'd give Wordpress a try.) So, please change your links and/or bookmarks to http://iamthelizardqueen.wordpress.com . Added incentive to keep reading: the new place has high-speed internet, so odds are I'll be posting more in the new year. Hope to see you around the blogosphere!

Kids and sex part two: a thirteen-year-old in Utah

2006-12-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not even sure what to say about this one, except that you'd think getting pregnant at 13 would be punishment enough...

Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old Ogden girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend.

The girl was put in this odd position because she was found guilty of violating a state law that prohibits sex with someone under age 14. She also was the victim in the case against her boyfriend, who was found guilty of the same violation by engaging in sexual activity with her. ...

The comments came in oral arguments on a motion asking the high court to overturn the finding of delinquency - the legal term in juvenile court for a conviction - against Z.C., who became pregnant after she and her boyfriend engaged in sex in October 2003.

State authorities filed delinquency petitions in July 2004, alleging that each had committed sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony if committed by an
adult.

The girl appealed the petition, saying her constitutional right to be treated equally under the law had been violated.

Her motion noted that for juveniles who are 16 and 17, having sex with others in their own age group does not qualify as a crime. Juveniles who are 14 or 15 and have sex with peers can be charged with unlawful conduct with a minor, but the law provides for mitigation when the age difference is less than four years, making the offense a misdemeanor.

For adolescents under 14, though, there are no exceptions or mitigation and they are never considered capable of consenting to sex. ...

Randall Richards, the girl's attorney, argued that prosecuting children under a law meant to protect them is illogical.

Okay, I do have a couple of other thoughts: first, the idea of being thirteen and having sex with a twelve-year-old gives me the heebie-jeebies (and yes, that's the technical term, thankyouverymuch). I know some of my peers and even friends were having sex that young, but... eew. Second, I wonder what kind of sex education these children received, if any? Finally, what possible purpose can prosecuting these children--adolescents now, I suppose--serve? It's not going to prevent other adolescents from having sex with one another. I doubt it's going to prevent Z.C. from having sex with an adolescent again, because, as I mentioned before, if anything were going to do that, it would be the fact that she got pregnant at 13. I agree whole-heartedly with Richards's Spock-like statement: this makes no sense.

Kids and sex part one: a four-year-old in Texas

2006-12-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Before I get into this, I'd like to mention that I'm absolutely in favor of women standing up for themselves when they've been sexually harassed, and I feel that children should be held accountable for their actions (meaning they should be disciplined, reasonably).

That disclaimer aside, I'm a rational person, and I understand that both claims of sexual harassment and disciplinary action can be taken too far. Here's a case in point:

BELLMEAD [TX] -- A four-year-old hugged his teachers aide and was put into in-school suspension, according to the father. But La Vega school administrators have a different story.

Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee.

The prinicipal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment."

Blackwell says it's ridiculous that the aide would misread a hug from a four-year-old. Blackwell wrote to administrators demanding that the whole incident be expunged from his son's academic file because his son is too young to know what it means to act sexually. ...

Blackwell got a response from the La Vega administration. The sexual references on the discipline referral were removed. But the thing that makes Blackwell most upset is they told him "your request for an apology by the aide and removal of all paperwork regarding this incident is denied." Now the young student's file will refer to the incident as "inappropriate physical contact." And Blackwell says he will continue to fight the district.

I'm absolutely willing to believe that the child rubbed his face in the female employee's chest. I've had young children do that or similar things to me before. I've babysat older children who were overtly fascinated by the fact that I was on the opposite side of the puberty line from them. I don't have children, and I'm by no means an expert in early childhood education, but it seems to me that a more appropriate response would have been to tell the child that he shouldn't do that, and why, or else talk to his parents. Putting him in in-school suspension (which seems to me to be unnecessary in general when it comes to pre-K students... but maybe I'm being naive) and putting a note in his file (makes me think of Violent Femmes: "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record...") strikes me as complete overkill. Somehow I suspect there might be better things for the school to be concerned about... but maybe that's just me.

"If you're not going to vote for us, then we don't want you voting at all"

2006-11-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Fun from the Land of Enchantment (yes, that really is the nickname of the state I currently call home):

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - The Democratic Party of New Mexico is accusing Republicans of providing voters with incorrect information on polling locations in Albuquerque in an effort to cause confusion, but the GOP calls the allegations "preposterous."

The Democrats claim they have learned of several instances in which voters have received phone messages providing incorrect polling information from people who identify themselves as workers at GOP headquarters.

The Democratic Party said in a statement issued Sunday "all voters should be warned that false information is being spread in an apparent desperate attempt to win the election through confusing and potentially illegal actions."

The party plans to seek a restraining order Monday that would prevent the GOP from contacting voters who are not registered Republicans, according to Matt Farrauto, the party's executive director.

Maybe the allegations are false... but when this was mentioned on my local NPR channel this morning, it didn't sound like it. Argh.

If you don't know where you're supposed to vote, here is a good place to start.

Gina asks, and I obey...

2006-11-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, that's obviously an exaggeration. However, she asked that we readers post this piece, written by Dr. Patty at Dolitter, everywhere we can, and I'm only too happy to oblige. Excerpts:

The scene: Two techs vigorously trying to stimulate respiration in two recently extricated newborn pups. A German Shepherd bitch anesthetized on the surgical table, all four legs akimbo. One tech busily manning the anesthesia and instruments. The vet, my colleague, fully gowned and sweating over an open abdomen. And finally, the stunned owner standing nearby, hands over her mouth, looking for all the world like someone who’d like nothing better than to be anywhere else.

Great. Another one. Here’s where backyard breeders and I usually intersect—always under unpleasant circumstances, usually over a disaster C-section.

My colleague is like me. He likes to make them watch the fruits of their irresponsibility. While that might sound cruel—it usually works. ...

The pups were huge and their lungs fluid-filled. They’d been overcooked. This bitch was probably due three full days ago (a very long time when gestation is only 63 days). This owner had completely missed the due date, signs of distress, etc.

By far the biggest mistake inexperienced breeders make is to assume nature will provide. This bountiful life force, she’s always in control and knows just when the little darlings will come into the world, right? Think again. After you breed a seventy-pound bitch to a hundred and ten pound male you’ve just offended Mother Earth. And she’s not so forgiving as the vets you desperately need when it all goes to hell. ...

The bitch's uterus was fluid-filled and unresponsive to oxytocin—it had clearly been over-used and less than cared for. In its current state it was a perfect candidate for pyometra (an overwhelming infection of the uterus). The owner did not, however, grant permission for the recommended spay.

After an hour of working on the pups it became clear we couldn’t maintain their hearts or respiration in the presence of all that fluid. Suction, oxygen, drugs….and then nothing. Yet this owner was undeterred. (Next time I’ll have to keep her inside when she starts to look big.) Great. You do that. We’ll look forward to your next visit.

You’re thinking: There should be a law against that! Nope. That’s not negligence in the eyes of the law. Nor is it considered animal cruelty. If you overstuff your fridge and it breaks that’s your dumb luck. While in Miami-Dade County (where I live) breeders have to obtain a license and fulfill some basic puppy care requirements, no pre-birth regulations are included in the legislation. Dogs are your property. You can f--- them up any way you like as long as you don’t actively do them violence. ...

Until backyard breeders stop doing their thing and until laws can be installed and enforced to make them stop, I’ll have to keep doing these disaster C-sections. There’s no point in denying any animal a life-saving surgery. But I will continue to make those responsible observe the outcome of their ignorance and arrogance. I want the "miracle of life" to be at least a fraction as painful and uncomfortable for them as it was for their pet.

This breaks my heart, and I know that it's the kind of thing that happens all the time. Mohandas Gandhi said that the greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated, and the idea that there are people in this country who force their animals to have litter after litter of babies without adequate veterinary care simply so that they can make some extra money, or to show their children "the miracle of birth," or simply because that animal is their property, horrifies me.

In somewhat unrelated news, if you haven't done so already, PLEASE GO VOTE!!

Depression in schools

2006-11-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

I came across this article on CNN.com the other day, and it concerned me. Here are the pertinent details (with emphasis added):

A former student who was barred from the campus of George Washington University and threatened with expulsion after checking into a hospital with depression has settled a lawsuit with the college, both sides announced Tuesday.

The school told Jordan Nott his 2004 hospitalization violated the school's code of conduct because it demonstrated dangerous behavior. He said he hadn't tried to kill himself before the hospitalization, but had been thinking about it because of the suicide of another George Washington student.

He was barred from campus and threatened with suspension or expulsion unless he withdrew. He decided not to fight the charges and transferred to another school a few months later. ...

The Bazelon Center [for Mental Health Law, which represented Nott] is also representing a student at a Connecticut boarding school who was placed on a mandatory leave after seeking treatment for depression.

What bothers me about this is less that it demonstrates the othering of the mentally ill that is all too prevalent in this country--though, of course, that does bother me--but that Nott and the unnamed student in Connecticut are being punished for seeking treatment for their depression. Depression is far from unusual in adolescents and young adults, and I feel that the message that's being sent here is that students should keep their depression to themselves. Nott recognized that he had a problem and took positive action to alleviate that problem, and he was punished for it. I think of the mention of "the suicide of another George Washington student" and wonder what GWU's administration would have done had they known ahead of time that that student was suicidal. Would they have simply threatened him with suspension or expulsion, as they did Nott? If Nott had killed himself after the events of 2004 took place, would the school have felt justified in barring him from campus? The more I think about this, the more it bothers me. While I don't expect universities or other schools to be babysitting their students to watch for signs of mental illness, I think that if a student is willing to seek help for their illness, the university should be supportive, rather than wanting to rid themselves of that student.

You can't be serious

2006-11-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I think this is the worst attack ad I've heard of thus far:

It's an ad that could break your heart.

A sad little girl is sitting on the curb holding an empty leash.

"Where's my dog?" she asks.

The answer, according to a campaign mailer from the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania, is: Larry Glick probably stole it. ...

Glick said he never stole a dog. He said that 29 years ago, he and his wife were hired as caretakers of a Bucks County estate. The only dog frolicking around the grounds was their black Lab, Magic.

Nevertheless, shortly after they moved away, a sheriff showed up at the door with a lawsuit alleging that Glick made off with Wrango, a pedigreed springer spaniel worth $450.

"We didn't, but we hired an attorney," Glick said. "We never heard anything more about it."

Just when I think attack ads can't surprise me anymore, I'm proven wrong...

(Tipping my tiara to Gina Spadafori)

Government money well spent

2006-11-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Abstinence message goes beyond teens:

The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health." ...

"The message is 'It's better to wait until you're married to bear or father children,' " Horn said. "The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence."

Better how? Better why? What about people who are in committed relationships but choose not to get married? What about single women in their 20s who are financially secure, have a great support network, and simply want a child?

Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, says abstinence programs are among many messages that have helped reduce teen pregnancy rates. But "the notion that the federal government is supporting millions of dollars worth of messages to people who are grown adults about how to conduct their sex life is a very divisive policy," she says. ...

For last year's state grants, Congress appropriated $50 million. A similar amount is expected for 2007, but the money has not yet been allocated, according to the Administration for Children and Families.

I recognize, of course, that in terms of the federal budget, $50 million is not much money at all. But still, isn't there something better that could be done with that money than telling 20-somethings not to have sex?

Tiara-tip to misty over at Shakespeare's Sister.

A neurologist discusses Michael J. Fox and Rush Limbaugh

2006-11-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

I have a few clear biases here: first, I was utterly in love with Michael J. Fox in the mid-80s (come on, who wasn't?). Second, I've disliked Rush Limbaugh since I first heard him in the late 80s or so. Third, my father wrote the following. Still, I found his analysis of the current Fox-versus-Limbaugh debate (which is, of course, much less a debate than a bully picking on a disabled kid) interesting, and thought some of my lovely readers might as well.

As a neurologist it’s been easy for me to recognize Mr. Fox’s states on TV. Once I saw a reporter catch up with him on the way in to speak. Fox was shuffling with a hand tremor typical of Parkinson’s. When speaking he always has the opposite symptoms, the dyskinesias that are side effects of medications that loosen up the Parkinsonian symptoms. It would be typical of patients to take their medications minutes before they need to walk or talk. Apparently that’s what Fox does. For that he’s being attacked?

Several days after saying Fox was putting on an act, Rush Limbaugh said on his show he had received many messages telling him that he had it wrong, that Fox’s symptoms were from too much medicine, not too little. But Limbaugh couldn’t just say he was wrong. Instead he then spoke as if Fox had been manipulating the audience by taking too much medicine. No, Fox does what patients with Parkinson’s have to do to function. They suffer the side effects of medication that allows them to move rather than the Parkinson’s that keeps them rigid.

Some conservative bloggers and commentators are parroting Limbaugh’s recent position. Some are still stuck on Limbaugh’s initial contention that Fox was faking or like Sean Hannity pretending that putting on “an act” is different from “faking”. What power Rush has over Republicans to follow him in ignorance and arrogance.

Then Laura Bush chimes in about manipulating people’s feelings. Strange she wasn’t criticizing her husband’s party for that.

Many politicians are scum when it comes to lying about people. My own observations are that Republicans are worse than Democrats at this, but how can such a thing be quantified? I’m sure it’s a human capacity for arrogance and ignorance, for partisanship and denial that drives this, whoever is the most under that spell. I understand that better than I understand why more people don’t see this. If they did, negative ads would kill a candidate rather than boost a candidate despite some negative backlash as it seems to be now. People either don’t mind the partisanship or they really believe the attacks on others, such as when Republicans imply that voting for Democrats will get you killed or when Democrats suggests all Republicans are scumbags. That’s what I don’t understand. Why is this OK with people? Why do people listen to Rush? Why do they find simplistic and fantastic bombast worth their time?

I've asked those same questions myself enough times that I don't expect I'll ever come up with an answer.

Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools, part two: examining their recommendations

2006-10-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Ah-ha, I bet you thought I was never going to get back to this, eh?

There is a petition that appears on the Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools' website that asks that fourteen books be removed from the curricula of Blue Valley schools. Their argument is that these books "do not pass the selection criterion of Blue Valley policy 4600 which states: 'The absence of vulgar language, sexual explicitness, or violent imagery that is gratuitously employed.'" The books they would like removed are the following: All the Pretty Horses, Animal Dreams, The Awakening, The Bean Trees, Beloved, Black Boy, Going After Cacciato, Hot Zone, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Lords of Discipline, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Song of Solomon, Stotan, and Boy's Life (I think perhaps they mean Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life). They suggest the following "educationally rich replacements": The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, The Good Earth, Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, The Mill on the Floss, Moby Dick, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Return of the Native, Robinson Crusoe, Silas Marner, Treasure Island, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.

There are some interesting connections in each list. Of the twelve authors in the first list, that of challenged books, there are four women, eight men; three African Americans, nine Caucasians. With two exceptions, these books were all published in the last half of the twentieth century. By contrast, of the fourteen authors in the second list, three are women, and the cynic in me can't help but wonder how many of the parents in question realize that George Eliot was a woman. There is one (cynic: "token") African American. All but two of the books were published in the nineteenth century or before. All of the challenged authors are American; only four of the recommended authors are, the rest being European.

Perhaps more importantly, I can't help but see a thematic link in the first list: most of these books challenge the status quo of America (and perhaps western civilization in general) in some way. I've read a handful of the books on each list (and I've written a 12-page paper supporting the use of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in schools, so I have an obvious bias, if you haven't already noticed), but I was perhaps most interested in the review of The Awakening, which is a book I have a great deal of admiration for. When I first read it in high school, I hated it. I thought it was boring. I don't think I even finished it, and I don't think it's much longer than 200 pages, so that's saying something. So, I'm not entirely sure it should be used in high schools, either, but that's only because I'm not entirely sure a 16-year-old can necessarily appreciate its complexities, as I'd be afraid a teacher would present the feminist and anti-feminist angles but wouldn't touch on the novel's naturalism, which I think gives the novel its most compelling reading. But, I digress. The CLSS's complaint about the book is that it contains "content such as adultery (with no remorse), suicide, and extreme sensuality. It is another dark, depressing book." They're careful to point out that "The book was widely criticized for its frank, open discussion of the emotional and sexual 'needs' of women"... and, of course, the use of quotation marks there jumped out at me. Emotional and sexual "needs"? Hmm. The review goes on to quote Lewis Leary, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who states that the novel is "one of Mrs. Chopin's more successful examinations...whether marriage is or is not 'a wonderful and powerful agent in the development and formation of a woman's character" and that "the submission of women and their struggle against submitting is a theme which pervades much, perhaps all, of Mrs. Chopin's fiction." Set beside other quotations, such as the notation that the protagonist's "awakening, only vaguely intellectual, is disturbingly physical," the previous quotations seem to be warnings to parents. I'm sorry, but I fail to understand why questioning the value of marriage and depicting a woman's struggle against submitting to the men in her life are presented as negatives. The Awakening was published over a hundred years ago, and yet its themes remain quite current. We all know today's divorce statistics, and the fact of the matter is that roughly half of our nation's high school students come from divorced families, so it's more than likely that they're already going to be questioning the institution of marriage, so why not address that in an academic setting? Why sweep it under the rug? That, ultimately, is my argument against keeping most of this material out of schools.

My hometown in the news

2006-10-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

From the CNN.com article St. Louis named most dangerous U.S. city:

The safest city in 2005 was Brick, New Jersey, with a population about 78,000, followed by Amherst, New York, and Mission Viejo, California.

Go Mission Viejo! What amuses me is that we moved to Mission Viejo from St. Louis...

Adopion issues

2006-10-28T12:04:00.000-06:00

So... why, exactly, do people say that same-sex couples aren't as qualified to adopt children as heterosexual couples?

From CNN.com: Mother guilty of killing, abusing boy, 7

LANSING, Michigan (AP) -- A mother who claimed that her missing 7-year-old son had run away was found guilty Friday of his murder.

Lisa Holland cried quietly as jurors found her guilty of first-degree felony murder and child abuse in the death last year of her adopted son Ricky. ...

Her husband testified that on July 1, 2005, he came home from an errand and found Ricky dead in bed, with vomit and traces of blood around his mouth, and his wife screaming she "didn't mean to do it."

He said that a week earlier, he had returned from military training in Virginia to find the boy with a cut on his head, listless and unable to walk. He said he didn't take him to a doctor because he didn't want a confrontation with his wife and thought his son would get better. ...

The prosecution said Ricky likely suffered a brain injury a week or more before he died, and his parents let him die a slow death.

The Hollands became Ricky's foster parents in 2000 and adopted him in 2003, the year after the parental rights of his biological parents were terminated because of neglect.

The couple also adopted Ricky's three younger siblings and in addition had a child of their own.

Now, this is obviously an extreme case, and I know that for every horrible set of adoptive parents you hear about, there are thousands of wonderful, generous, loving adoptive parents. Still, how would it be harmful to increase the pool of potential adoptive parents such that parents (of any sexual persuasion) that might ultimately do harm to the children they adopt might perhaps, just perhaps, have less of a chance of getting to adopt children? Maybe I'm being too optimistic. Maybe 99.9% of adoptive parents who end up harming the children they adopt seem heaven-sent right up until they're arrested. But I can't help wondering...

Pirates!

2006-10-28T11:38:00.000-06:00

Yar. You know I couldn't pass this up...

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

I just couldn't resist...

2006-10-28T11:24:00.000-06:00

I'll get back to the politically-motivated posts in a bit, but I couldn't resist posting this. Those who know me personally will likely recognize why I'm so incredibly amused by it.

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

A personal post: Never trust a fellow with a helmet on his head...

2006-10-26T20:21:00.000-06:00

Recipe to alleviate depression, anxiety, and general physical malaise:

1. Remember when looking for a CD to listen to in the shower (you music addict, you) that you have a DVD that you've never watched of your favorite band in concert.

2. Put said DVD on.

3. Fantasize about running your hands through your favorite band member's long, flowing locks (mmm, hockey hair...).

4. Get misty when they sing that romantic song that involves what is possibly your favorite city on the whole damn planet.

5. Lament that you didn't drive to a nearby state to see them on their last tour. Vow to do whatever it takes--up to and including maxing out credit cards and/or flying to Atlantic Canada--to see them on their next tour. Life is just too damn short not to experience that kind of joy in person as much as possible.

6. Wonder how there are people in the audience who are standing still. Swear that you spot a contemporary version of Lurch out there.

7. Ignore wooziness to dance goofily with your puppy--until she jumps up and tries to give you a kiss, which is much more likely to give you a fat lip and/or bruised cheekbone this time around.

8. Wonder for a moment if perhaps Shanty Man is, in fact, your favorite band member. Notice Hockey Hair's grin and become re-smitten with him. If worries about your love life, capacity to love and/or be loved, or tendency to crush on people you've never met start to seep through, resolve not to think about them. Or maybe to become a Buddhist nun. Whatever works, really.

9. Get back to just enjoying the music and energy.

10. Repeat as necessary.

Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools, part one: responding to some of their complaints

2006-10-10T12:09:00.000-06:00

If you haven't yet noticed, the banning and challenging of books is a major interest of mine. So when Evil Bender wrote a post about a group called Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools, I naturally had to check out their website. And then I naturally spent much of Saturday reading their reviews of a number of books, their reasons for objecting to those books, and their suggestions for replacements. And so now I naturally would like to respond to their statements and ideas. In the interest of keeping my posts to a manageable length, I'll be parcelling my thoughts out over a handful of posts, which will probably be spread out over a couple of days. I'll begin with some somewhat general thoughts.

The idea that a book is boring comes up in several reviews. I'd be tempted to think of that as sour grapes, but I don't think it is--I think the adults reading these books genuinely find them boring. I don't begrudge them their opinion on that point; I can think of a number of books that I found boring in high school--though I often ended up loving, or at least appreciating, them as an adult. I'm able to recognize that "boring" is an extremely subjective term; just because I find something boring doesn't mean that other people might not disagree and even very much enjoy that which I don't.

Another frequent complaint is that a book is depressing, dark, etc. Maybe it's just me, but I think any adult who believes that life is 100% sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and kittens smoked too much dope (or maybe not enough) in the 70s. Even the most well-adjusted adolescent from the most stable background is going to experience difficult times. Maybe it'll be as basic as being dumped by a girlfriend or rejected by a college, but we all experience pain, and it's generally our painful or unpleasant experiences, much more than their opposites, that shape us into interesting and capable human beings. Also, disagreeable experiences tend to make much more interesting stories--traditional plots center around conflict, so if there's no conflict, there's no story. (Furthermore, they seem to have no problem with Dickens, who I think often presents a vision of the world just as bleak as any other writer, save probably Toni Morrison.)

One specific complaint as far as a book being depressing goes is directed at Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato: "Truth, hope, and meaning in life are nonexistent: For teens who are contemplating suicide, this book sends a deadly message: Life and choice are meaningless anyway; go ahead and end it." As a person who dealt with depression as an adolescent, I can say with certainty that nothing I read in my high school English classes made me feel any worse than I already felt. There can even be a certain comfort in reading about someone else's troubles; you can think, "well, things are shitty, but at least I'm not in Vietnam." Finally, if a parent thinks their child is depressed to the point of being suicidal, then they should not be wasting their time trying to get books banned from the school's reading list or library; they should be focusing on their child. (But hey, I'm not a parent, so I could be wrong.)

Another complaint about Going After Cacciato that I think demonstrates a larger problem: "Fact and fiction are confused: This book is especially unsuitable for readers who are not already well acquainted with the subject of Vietnam." This tells me that these parents have no faith in their children's teachers to explain that a work is, in fact, fiction, and to explain a book's context and subject matter for those students who might not be familiar with such things. I can't help but wonder how many of these parents took the time to schedule a conference with their child's English teacher to go over their concerns about the book and ask why the teacher feels the book is important. Unless that teacher is woefully unqualified, which I doubt is the case in the Blue Valley school district, at any rate, he or she will most likely have a good number of concrete reasons for using the book.

On that note, here's a closing thought for this segment: isn't part of the basic rationale behind sending your children to school instead of homeschooling them the idea that a professional educator would be better trained and equipped to educate your children then you are?

Banned books update

2006-10-02T12:49:00.000-06:00

A Caney Creek High School dad is fired up because the Conroe Independent School District uses the book "Fahrenheit 451" as classroom reading material.

Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book. His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language.
"The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."
Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.
"It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."
He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God's name in vain. He said the book's material goes against their religions beliefs.

The fact that the man hasn't read the book but instead went through it looking for things to complain about makes me so angry. And of course there's the added irony that this sort of attitude--this makes me uncomfortable so I want it removed from my sight, and I don't want anyone else to see it, either--is very much what Farenheit 451 is arguing against in the first place.

I should add, I think, that the young woman was not by any means forced to read this book. She was offered--and selected--an alternate choice.

Finally, my favorite passage from the article: "Alton Verm's request to ban 'Fahrenheit 451' came during the 25th annual Banned Books Week. He and Hines said the request to ban 'Fahrenheit 451,' a book about book burning, during Banned Books Weeks is a coincidence."

My brain hurts.

Hat tip to Misty over at Shakespeare's Sister.

Torture/detention bill passes Senate, 65-34

2006-09-29T14:33:00.000-06:00

More info here, here, and here.

Of note: I had to go to a foreign news site to get a story to link to. CNN and Yahoo didn't have anything.

I came across the following NOFX lyrics, from the song "Regaining Un-consciousness," a little while ago. They struck me as apropos:

First they put away the dealers,
keep our kids safe and off the street.
Then they put away the prostitutes,
keep married men cloistered at home.

Then they shooed away the bums,
then they beat and bashed the queers,
turned away asylum-seekers,
fed us suspicions and fears.
We didn't raise our voice,
we didn't make a fuss.
It's funny there was no one left to notice
when they came for us.

Those lyrics seem to be heavily influenced by the poem "First they came...", generally attributed to Martin Niemöller:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

In short, I'm worried about the direction in which the government is taking the U.S. Anyone with me?

Fun with toiletries

2006-09-29T13:58:00.000-06:00

From CNN.com: 'Idiot' barb gets passenger detained...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Wisconsin man who wrote "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat.

First of all, who in their right minds thinks that someone calling someone else an idiot is a threat?

Secondly, can anyone really blame this man, who "said he feels the TSA is imposing unreasonable rules on passengers while ignoring bigger threats," for his statement? Allow me to digress for a moment: I had a storybook when I was a child whose title escapes me now, but it involves a young man whose mother sends him into town to fetch something for her every day. One day he picks up butter, and it melts on the way home. His mother tells him that he should have carried the butter under his hat to keep it from melting. The next day she sends him into town to pick up a cat to catch the mice that have gotten into the house, and the boy, remembering his mother's advice from the day before, plops the cat onto his head and tries to pull his hat down over it, and naturally arrives home covered in scratches. The book continues like this: every day the boy follows his mother's advice from the previous day, only to discover that he's done the wrong thing yet again.

I thought of that storybook the last time I flew. A few years ago now a man got onto a plane with a bomb in his shoe, so now we all have to put our shoes through the x-ray machine when we go through security. Now because someone snuck liquid explosives, or was perhaps allegedly thinking about doing so, onto a plane, we all have to be extra careful about what liquids we bring on board a plane, and how we package them. (I flew in that several-day window in which I couldn't even bring a tube of lip balm on board... that was fun.) I sincerely doubt this reactive security is preventing all that much, because who now is going to be stupid enough to try putting a bomb in their shoe, or substituting liquid explosive for the hair gel in a bottle in their carry-on bag? In that respect the TSA is consistently at least one step, and probably more, behind terrorists.

At the same time, though, the idea of more proactive security worries me, given that it would most likely consist of barring people of particular ethnic or social backgrounds from flying. Still, it's not my job to think of a better solution; it's Kip Hawley's, and to get back to my original point, I can hardly blame the man in question above for being frustrated with Hawley.

Book meme 2

2006-09-28T20:01:00.000-06:00

In honor of Banned Books Week, which ends on Saturday, I put together this little meme... if you like it, feel free to use it!

What I did: I winnowed the following list from the American Library Association's Top 100 Most Challenged Books of 1990-2000. I removed picture books and other books aimed at the under-8 crowd (Where's Waldo; Bumps in the Night), along with Sex Ed books (What's Happening to My Body?; Asking About Sex and Growing Up -- no answers for you, you naughty puberty-stricken heathen!).

What you'll do: highlight in bold the books you've read; comment as desired; look into reading more banned books!

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz (read the first one, anyway...)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry (Again, read the first one, at least...)
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) (Huh--are we seeing a pattern here? I read the first one...)
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education [a novel] by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Book meme 1

2006-09-28T19:37:00.000-06:00

I was tagged by Evil Bender... I'm not all that into the whole tagging thing; I would love to see the answers of anyone who's interested.

A book that changed my life: The Fifth Life of the Catwoman (Kathleen Dexter) was the book that made me decide for certain that I would apply to grad school.

A book I’ve read more than once: Ditto what Evil Bender said: Lots of books. I'm currently rereading Bill Bryson's travel books in my free time (which pretty much means when I'm in the bathroom).

A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: Echoing EB again: I'd like to have a nice, annotated edition of James Joyce's Ulysses. That ought to keep me occupied for a good long while...

A book that made me laugh: I just re-read Bill Bryson's I'm A Stranger Here Myself. I first read it while working at Borders, and I would sit in the cafe and read it on my breaks, and people would stare at me because I was laughing so hard.

A book that made me cry: It's interesting: movies make me cry relatively often; books much less frequently. Still, there were two that got me over the summer: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I knew someone was going to die, and I even had suspicions that were ultimately confirmed as to who it was, but I was still devastated) and The Sandman trade #9, The Kindly Ones (which caught me entirely off guard--they're the Endless, fer crissakes!).

A book that I wish had been written: This is a bit of an odd question, since if it doesn't exist, how would I know I want it to be written? I can think of several books I'd like to be published, though: An Atlas of Desire, What the Dead Want, Gifts from (er, for?) the Dying, etc....

A book that I wish had never been written: Hmm... generally I wouldn't wish for books to be unwritten, but if James Ellroy hadn't written The Black Dahlia, then Hollywood wouldn't have made a movie out of it, and thus I wouldn't have lost my will to live after seeing said movie (so, so terrible!) nearly two weeks ago...

A book I’ve been meaning to read: Heh--there are so many... James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room is one.

I’m currently reading: Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies; Robert Coover, A Night at the Movies

Today's horrifying Iraq news

2006-09-28T17:07:00.000-06:00

Iraq police college a symbol of failed U.S. plan

It was intended to showcase U.S. rebuilding efforts in Iraq, but instead Baghdad's new police academy was declared a health hazard by U.S. inspectors who found human waste dripping from the ceilings.

Friday Catblogging: Köchel come home!

2006-09-22T14:11:00.000-06:00

Köchel
Originally uploaded by Bassclefgirl.

We had to have our kitchen floor replaced because of a leak in our (crappy crappy and now replaced) dishwasher. The men doing the work left one of the kitchen windows--neither of which have screens--open last Friday, and we didn't realize it until Saturday morning, at which point Köchel had already made use of it to go on an adventure. (Both our cats are normally indoor-only.) We haven't seen him since. (He'd actually gotten out the day before as well, but came right back, and seemed annoyed that we weren't there to open the door for him immediately.) I still have hope that he'll come back in spite of the weather and the fact that there are coyotes in the area, but it's beginning to wane...

Friday Random Ten: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't I?

2006-09-22T12:14:00.000-06:00

I would totally go to PZ Myers's party...

My list:
1. The Cure - A Letter to Elise
2. Great Big Sea - Lucky Me
3. Nick Drake - Clothes of Sand
4. They Might Be Giants - I Can Hear You
5. Kim Scanlon - River
6. Indigo Girls - This Train Revised
7. Dave Matthews Band - Captain
8. Dar Williams - Flinty Kind of Woman
9. Simon & Garfunkel - Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall
10. Voices on the Verge - Didn't They?

I might post commentary on these songs a little later... or I might not. We'll see.

Trivializing rape?

2006-09-11T17:54:00.000-06:00

Last night I caught the season premiere of "Family Guy." The show has irritated me before, generally because the title character, Peter, has a tendency to be misogynistic. Most of the time its humor overshadows that irritation, but last night, one of the story lines really got under my skin. Peter went to the doctor for a flu shot, and the doctor noted that he was 42 and had never had a prostate exam. He administered one--and Peter thought he had been raped. He was traumatized, and ultimately decided to sue the doctor. Every other man in town, including the judge, agreed that a prostate exam was a form of sexual assault, and the doctor lost his license.

First I was incredulous--any woman who's had a pelvic exam (and that's pretty much all of us who have gotten past adolescence) knows that a finger in the rectum isn't much to cry about. (I have one word for you: speculum. Look it up.)

More seriously, though, I felt that the episode trivialized actual victims of sexual assault. I can't help it; there are certain things I don't think are funny, and rape is pretty damn high on the list. Of course, Peter learned his lesson in the end: he developed an enlarged prostate and had to beg the doctor to give him an exam. But is "learning a lesson" enough in this case, even considering Peter went back to court, recanted his version of the story, and got the doctor his license back? What about all those people out there, both men and women but perhaps especially men given that people still often don't believe a man is capable of being raped, who never get their day in court?

Of course, perhaps this is small potatoes compared to ABC's 9-11 documentary, but I refused to watch that... and on that note, my heart goes out to all those affected by the events of September 11, 2001. You're in my thoughts today.