Porch Society vs. Backyard Society

As a typical Midwesterner, I'm a firm believer that if we have not had a long enough or hard enough winter, we will pay for it. But there is something about 80 degree weather in March that just brightens everything and makes me want to be outdoors as much as possible for as long as possible.

It also makes me miss having a porch. Sitting on the porch, watching the people amble by, dogs and babies in tow, in inextricably linked to my idea of a relaxing summer evening. One of the best things about living in an old brownstone is having a porch, and trading that for the modern backyard seems a poor bargain, especially in urban areas where green spaces are already limited.

Also, the main thing that I've noticed about porches instead of backyards, is that porches and people using the porches tend to promote a safer walking space for pedestrians. Research seems to back that up, but in a different way

"Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars."

Via The Atlantic, Broken Windows]

Urban areas are always faced with the challenges of maintaining a sense of security in a dense, populated region. One of the worst side effects of the warm weather, is that for the first few days, crime skyrockets. Yet, this article makes a lot of sense. When you see other people on the street, you are more likely to be out on the street yourself, and knowing that a policeman regularly walks the beat and knows the neighborhood, makes the neighborhood feel safer. If you called for help, someone would see and respond. This is something that I appreciate as a pedestrian - walking in an area where I am not the only person on the street.


Others claim that removing lead from the gasoline and housing is what caused the safety of urban neighborhoods:

Nevin acknowledges that crime rates are rising in some parts of the United States after years of decline, but he points out that crime is falling in other places and is still low overall by historical measures. Also, the biggest reductions in lead poisoning took place by the mid-1980s, which may explain why reductions in crime might have tapered off by 2005. Lastly, he argues that older, recidivist offenders -- who were exposed to lead as toddlers three or four decades ago -- are increasingly accounting for much of the violent crime.

Nevin's finding may even account for phenomena he did not set out to address. His theory addresses why rates of violent crime among black adolescents from inner-city neighborhoods have declined faster than the overall crime rate -- lead amelioration programs had the biggest impact on the urban poor. Children in inner-city neighborhoods were the ones most likely to be poisoned by lead, because they were more likely to live in substandard housing that had lead paint and because public housing projects were often situated near highways.

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, for example, were built over the Dan Ryan Expressway, with 150,000 cars going by each day. Eighteen years after the project opened in 1962, one study found that its residents were 22 times more likely to be murderers than people living elsewhere in Chicago.

Nevin's finding implies a double tragedy for America's inner cities: Thousands of children in these neighborhoods were poisoned by lead in the first three quarters of the last century. Large numbers of them then became the targets, in the last quarter, of Giuliani-style law enforcement policies.

[Via The Washington Post]

Whether its less lead or more cops walking the beat, I can support a safer urban environment.

The Neg: Models are People too

[Via xkcd.com]

Ever since The Game sent a press-release copy of their book to my alma mater's gender studies department, I've been intrigued by the whole idea that there are specific tips to be seen as an alpha male to Marialpha females. Moreover, the idea that women who are tired of compliments will respond positively to negs aka, back-handed compliments.

Personally, I don't find myself to be very fond of the idea of being preyed upon by men who have nothing interesting to talk about other than insulting me, but that might just be me.

I had a conversation over the weekend about the whole idea of negging a woman to get her attention. The couple was relaying how they originally met, and how the female was immune to being hit on, so once the guy played it cool and got to know her on a deeper level, she was captivated. One of the listeners took offense to this story, and responded that she and her friends (who were all 10s, according to her) were constantly barraged by men's advances and so she only paid attention to very assertive men. The male of the couple tried to explain that he hadn't done quite the same thing, but she responded to his assertions, calling them negs, when they appeared to be closer to a better grounding for her ego.


The whole incident brings me back to the idea that: Models are people too. In fact, one dear and beautiful friend was verbally assaulted on a movie set, when the director commanded her to take off her clothes, right there in front of everyone. She was an extra, quite literally the low-woman on the totem pole, but she refused. He told her that she wasn't professional and she left the set. As anyone who has worked in the industry knows, any sort of clothing removal would be explicitly negotiated in the contract prior to signing, and future contracts are always negotiated by the agency. What happened in this event was that a director got a big head and decided to verbally abuse an extra. I fully support the film industry, but I do not support this flagrant misuse of an actress.

She's an absolutely beautiful person inside and out, but would never desire to be seen as an object or less of a person. Which is the main point-  that regardless of your exterior beauty, your interior character is the means for which you will be judged.

So many men and women seem to hold models onto a pedestal, as if they can do no evil nor wrong. I find this to be very flawed logic.Perhaps I'm simply too much of a Midwesterner for this, but I was raised that one should be modest about your talents and abilities. If you truly have talent, then people will acknowledge this without your effort. Telling others that you are the simply the best will only lead to resentment. And hubris will only lead to disaster.

Which brings me back to the whole idea of the neg - men seeking to break through a woman's barrier by insulting them. It is so foreign to me.Why would you want a partner that is merely your prey? Why would you pay attention to a man who merely seeks to have you as his trophy for an evening? How is any of this the basis for any sort of a healthy relationship, much less a lasting relationship?

Marilyn Monroe seems to be the current diva-role model, but when I look at how troubled and sad she truly was, I have to wonder if all of the attention only served to dim her light before its time. People have criteria for who they would like to date, but the neg is not the best mating strategy to pursue a partner that you would like to be with for more than one night. It will tarnish your trophy, until the morning light seems to bring everything into a focus too clear for your eyes to stand.

The Followers Manifesto

 [Photo from goslinglindyhops.tumblr.com]

 I started swing dancing in the summer of 2007. It was a goal that I had set for the summer, along with an expansive book list, mastery of several languages, and solving world hunger. All totally attainable things, right? Of course, right!

I was on a temporary dance hiatus at the time. I grew up dancing solo and in teams, but outside of random musicals, had never experimented in partner dancing. But many of my feminist friends have trouble inhabiting a dance that came from a time when women had only just gotten the right to vote. They see taking on the followers role as being passive and not contributing to the dance itself.

As a dancer who gave up her ballerina dreams due to beginning at the ripe old age of 8, dancing had always been something that I did for myself, alone or with a team who danced the exact same moves to the music. It was cooperative, in a way that made you a team member not a spontaneous contributor. It was only much later that I began to learn dance as a conversation, instead of dance as a teammate.

So, to start off, let's consider a chart, that I believe to be remarkably accurate:

[Via Addicted2Salsa]

Leading is hard. Following is hard. But they are harder at different points due to the nature of the role. It just makes for a different learning curve, rather than assuming that one is inherently more difficult. Followers learn how to move themselves and listen. Leads learn to move themselves, and communicate their movements to their partners. But learning the opposite role has the potential to break through the plateau, which is especially valuable.

Which brings us to:

Le Manifesto

1. When not injured nor exhausted, I will do my best to say yes to every lead, regardless of skill level. When the lead vs. follower ratio is off-balance, I will seek out likely leads and ask for dances. Likely-looking leads are often easy to spot: shoes on, glancing around the dance floor, open posture. Inviting is part of the reciprocal nature of the dance, by making it more social. This exempts dancers who have previously caused injury. If you have hurt me physically or emotionally in the past, I have the right to refuse any dance.

This one is especially important when you're the newcomer to the scene. When I visited Dallas, it was interesting to watch the social dynamics, as the 'unknown quantity.' Having not set foot in the city's dance scene before, nobody who asked me to dance knew what to expect until they either danced with me or saw me dance with someone else. But being the unknown also gave me the ability to ask anyone. Being the unknown element gave me a chance to truly follow, instead of relying on a shared bit of choreography that we learned at a class together. It helped me learn different cues, and what they could mean in this shared time and space.

Yet, even though we encourage people to dance with all levels of dancers, injury lasts a long time. One of the hardest personal times came when during a theater warm-up game, a boy knocked into me, stepped on my foot and broke it, taking me out of the performance that night. And onto crutches for the next 2 months. Since most of my social life revolved around dancing and friends at dances (social and other), it was a very difficult time to simply get around. It is never worth it to dance with someone who hurts you.

2. During the dance, I will listen to the lead, and respond to their suggestions. I will take each suggestion and follow it to the best of my capability. If left room for improv and my own remarks, I will put them to good use, but the integrity of the following won't be changed. I may add movements inside the rhythm, but I will not attempt to establish my own rhythm, and will maintain the rhythm set by the lead.

3. After the dance is completed, I will always smile and say thank you. It's common courtesy, people. Yes, some people are intimidating, or you intimidate them. It happens. But being courteous and polite will go far.


This manifesto is open to change, depending on the circumstances and growth of said dancers. But it's a place to start.

"You can't tell people what they want to hear if you also want to tell the truth"

-Hold Steady, Soft in the Center

James Fallows recently did an excellent piece on President Obama, that explored a lot of the mindset behind much of his decision-making, one of the things that struck me is how miffed people appear to be because he is more reserved.

    It turns out that Obama is sufficiently aware of and sensitive about his Mr. Spock–like image to have called it the “biggest misconception” about him in a year-end interview with Barbara Walters on ABC in December. It was entirely wrong, he said, for the public to think of him as “being detached, or Spock-like, or very analytical. People who know me know that I am a softie. I mean, stuff can choke me up very easily. The challenge for me is that in this job … people want you to be very demonstrative in your emotions. And if you’re not sort of showing it in a very theatrical way, then somehow it doesn’t translate over the screen.”
        Whatever he thinks his real emotional makeup might be, the challenge of “showing it,” and translating it over the screen, affects his ability to lead. As an explainer of ideas through rhetoric, Obama has few recent peers. And at least twice in the past four years, he has changed national opinion, and politically saved himself, through the emotional content of his words and presence. Once was in March 2008, when the media storm about his radical-sounding pastor, Jeremiah “God Damn America!” Wright, threatened to end his candidacy. Then Obama responded with his speech in Philadelphia about the meaning of race in America—which at least for a while, and for at least enough of the electorate to let him survive, made his mixed-race heritage a symbol not of threatening otherness but of the country’s true nature. Then, in January of last year, his party’s historic rout during the midterm elections had made Obama seem as shrunken and defeated a figure as Bill Clinton had seemed after his midterm losses 16 years before. But even his usual opponents hailed Obama’s speech in Tucson after the horrific shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords and others, for its sober but healing emotional power. One conservative blog, Power Line, said it was a “brilliant, spellbinding, and fitting speech”; John Podhoretz, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, wrote in the New York Post that it was “beautiful and moving and powerful.” Politically, this is when Obama seemed to return to life after the midterm disaster.

[Via  The Atlantic, Obama, Explained]

I'm not sure that I entirely buy the idea of Obama as so cold. He has two healthy, loving daughters, and wonderful strong wife, and is the poster-family for the typical American family. No one who is that good with children is a cold person or could be emotionally dead inside. At that point, you'd have marital scandals and rebellious children. Thankfully, this administration has been free of such personal scandals, which is a bit of a relief. It's nice to have a president who is focusing on leading the country in an eloquent and intelligent way, instead of fraught with personal drama.

I also think that this is a catch-22 for the President, similar to the Queen Mother's response to Diana's funeral. Many argued that if she didn't cry, she would be seen as heartless and cold. If she did cry, she would be seen as too weak to be capable of running the country. In the end, her reserved dabbing of tears was seen as the only possible compromise.

But this story from Obama's childhood is very illuminating:

     Over lunch, Barry, who was 9 at the time, sat at the dining table and listened intently but did not speak. When he asked to be excused, Ann directed him to ask the hostess for permission. Permission granted, he got down on the floor and played with Bryant’s son, who was 13 months old. After lunch, the group took a walk, with Barry running ahead. A flock of Indonesian children began lobbing rocks in his direction. They ducked behind a wall and shouted racial epithets. He seemed unfazed, dancing around as though playing dodge ball “with unseen players,” Bryant said. Ann did not react. Assuming she must not have understood the words, Bryant offered to intervene. “No, he’s O.K.,” Ann said. “He’s used to it.”
     “We were floored that she’d bring a half-black child to Indonesia, knowing the disrespect they have for blacks,” Bryant said. At the same time, she admired Ann for teaching her boy to be fearless. A child in Indonesia needed to be raised that way — for self-preservation, Bryant decided. Ann also seemed to be teaching Barry respect. He had all the politeness that Indonesian children displayed toward their parents. He seemed to be learning Indonesian ways.
     “I think this is one reason he’s so halus,” Bryant said of the pres­ident, using the Indonesian adjective that means “polite, refined, or courteous,” referring to qualities some see as distinctively Javanese. “He has the manners of Asians and the ways of Americans — being halus, being patient, calm, a good listener. If you’re not a good listener in Indonesia, you’d better leave.”

 [Via the New York Times, Obama's Young Mother Abroad]

I think it's an important insight of how the qualities generally associated with masculinity (emotionless, strong sturdy oak) are much more constricting than the skills it takes to be a good father and husband, or even the skills that it takes to be a good President. When I envision an ideal President, skills such as intelligence, listening, eloquence and inner strength of character rank higher than those of being buddy-buddy with everyone.

Growing up in a cross-cultural home makes you question if any one system is the correct way of being, especially when it comes to gender roles. Obama's experience in Indonesia undoubtedly shaped his cool, calm and collected personality, but isn't that the sort of person you'd want running the country?