[Not my image, but I really love this and have seen it reposted everywhere]
Next, I fear that the rise of reality tv has left people with the unfortunate belief that these are appropriate standards for behavior. While I'm not sure I'd want all of the strictures of Austen's society, there was a real sense that when people behaved terribly, they were removed from polite society. Now, we pay them lots of money and attention to do their worst, and not rise above. This is why I don't watch the village idiots collect their dues. As much as schadenfreude is the most human of emotions, paying attention to Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo distorts our views of normalcy, and lets us think that if women can fight over The Bachelor, maybe it's alright to follow suit.
It's not, though unknown enough that you can buy books from Pippa on the topic.
More on the topic when I've sorted out all the things.
Shortly after my last post, a number of things happened.
1. I went on a cross-country road-trip with my boyfriend, all through the east coast, through way of the south, and Canada. We listened to all 20 discs of The Three Musketeers, only slept in a hotel once, reconnected and made some wonderful new friends, saw War Horse (aka, My Little War Ponies), and had a pretty epic birthday to say the least. Most of my trips are family or dance related, and this was the first of its kind since Europe. Scary and super refreshing.
2. I joined a dance team. No, not that kind of dance. Lindy hop and charleston, specifically.
We do things like this:
Due to the inoperativeness of the camera, I am occasionally cut off on the far right of the screen. Biggest accomplishment? Not clenching my hands into fists at the end of the baby doll. It is a trust fall.
3. I got a new job, which switched industries, professions, corporate culture, etc... and put me among the ranks of the train commuters. So while I now interact with strangers much more, I really look forward to not driving in the snow, even if it means that I'm the occasional Ikea Pack Mule. I can count my commute on Fitocracy, right? *cricket, cricket
It is a steep learning curve, which is good (long-term career development), but also intimidating and a little challenging. There are also random events where things go opposite to my expectations. For example, Le Ikea Pack Mule carried a homemade cake, homemade cookies and a store-bought bundt cake, convinced that the high powered professionals would go for the fancy bundt instead of my humble cake and cookies. Wrong. They saw me coming with the personally-frosted cake and followed me to the party. Only the bundt had a few pieces left, the rest were crumbs.
These next few weeks, with time to rest, recap, and plan will be a much needed break. I didn't take a break between jobs, except for Thanksgiving, and after the last few months' crisis:handled-overdrive mode that I've been in, I'm starting to stress because there isn't anything to stress about. Sigh.
There were many smaller things that happened, but these were the majors. Now, I'm off to dance on a weeknight thanks to tomorrow's holiday, saints be praised!
[Via The Onion]
Yet one more reason why I think that The Onion's satire is, at times, more poignant than the news.
I've traveled often, and as I've grown up in airports and around planes, I tend to agree with my mother that planes are safer than most other transit. There is a greater opportunity for error in hundreds driving their own vehicles, than hundreds in a plane, driven by one. One driver asleep at the wheel versus one person asleep on a plane, are two vasty different things. I'll stick with the plane.
Milos Forman pretty accurately sums up my feelings whenever I hear politicians and people call President Obama a socialist or a communist: They have no clue what socialism or communism looks like.
Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh
and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics
cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western
European-style socialism, and its government provision of social
insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It
offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and
continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.
Marx believed that we could wipe out social inequities and Lenin tested
those ideas on the Soviet Union. It was his dream to create a classless
society. But reality set in, as it always does. And the results were
devastating. Blood flowed through Russia’s streets. The Soviet elite
usurped all privileges; sycophants were allowed some and the plebes
none. The entire Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, followed
miserably.
As a second-generation immigrant, and one who studied her world history,
I'm well-aware that the wealthy kids wearing shirts of Che Guevara's
face had little idea of the destruction he later came to be a part of. A friend's mother had to coerce her way out of the Stasi (Romanian underground police) and could only claim asylum once on U.S. soil. The current tax code has nothing on the Stasi or the regime changes of Latin America.
Recently, I came across an article by a vehement conservative pro-life U.S. mother, who related her experience giving birth to two children under Canada's universal health care. She spoke about how she had initially opposed the idea on moral grounds, but when she was able to complete all of the pre-natal care, she found herself changed by the expectations of what a government should be to its people.
I started to feel differently about Universal government
mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had
avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. When I mentioned to
Canadians that I had been in a car accident as a teen and hadn’t gone into the
hospital, they were shocked! Here, you always went to the hospital, just in
case. And the back issue I had since the accident would have been helped by
prescribed chiropractic care which would have been at no cost to me. When I
asked for prayers for my little brother who had been burned in a camping
accident, they were all puzzled why the story did not include immediately
rushing him to the hospital. When they asked me to clarify and I explained that
many people in the States are not insured and they try to put off medical care
unless absolutely needed, they literally could not comprehend such a thing.
This is an important difference. Many GOP members have shaped it as a blight on your freedom to be forced to be healthy. Instead, this mother discovered that it gave her the freedom to have a child and get the necessary treatments without worrying about cost or debt. They're also able to do it much more efficiently. Unless you're part of the one percent, comprehensive health care is most likely out of reach.
Growing up in a family that had good health care provided by a parent's employer, I'm still shocked when people put off going to the dentist or the doctor. Health was important, and if you didn't prevent it now, you'd pay for it later. But, I was surprised to learn that my own policy covered chiropractic care, which would have been easier to obtain if I'd had all of the documents translated from legalese into English.
The scary thing for me was always the threat of losing health care. In the U.S., you might need to declare bankruptcy. In Canada, there's health care for you, regardless if you lose your job, have a baby, or get into an accident.
Making sure that all citizens have the ability to receive quality health care, regardless of their ability to pay, is a way to ensure that you're taking care of your entire population, not just the rich.
There's an absolutely fascinating book called, How the Irish Became White. Some people thank the civil rights movement, and the need for white supremacist groups to try and unite anyone who was not African-American. The roots of it go back much further, and contend with how the Irish began to systematically get work within the city structures - unions, police, firemen, etc... Once you can get into the system, you can begin to change it for your benefit.
In Slate's The Myth of Majority-Minority America, the author points out that many racial census categories have changed drastically since the inception of the census. His own grandfather is a pioneer of Hispanic Literature, but outside of census categories, he's essentially white.
If the government insists on rigidly applying the current scheme,
complete with its odd one-drop-of-blood conception of Latino identity,
then America will, indeed, become majority minority. But long-term
stability has never been a hallmark of official government thinking on
this subject. Everyone knows that a large share of the black population
is in fact partially white, while a smaller—but not entirely
trivial—share of the white population is partially black. The future of
American whiteness will likely evolve to include a larger share of
ancestry from Asia and Latin America, just as in the past it’s expanded
to include people from eastern and southern Europe. The idea that every
single person with a single non-white ancestor counts as non-white will look as ridiculous as Elizabeth Warren’s past claim of Cherokee identity.
This reminds me of an episode of PBS' Finding Your Roots, where Branford Marsalis confessed that as a teenager, he and his brothers used to track down white Marsalis families, claim to be distantly related, and watch them freak out. My only sadness is that they never captured this on film.
As someone who was white until she got to college, and with a full sister who considers herself white, its understandable that while Dad grew up on another hemisphere, its all a social construct. Heritage is important to me, as is knowing when my ancestors left Spain and Switzerland and what that means to my story. But what it taught me, to grow up in between categories, was to be cautious of how much I bought into the societal norms of happiness, success, beauty, etc... After that, you write your own story.
It does seem that Slate is right in positing that the GOP believes that "America's Women Can't be Trusted."
I am always, deeply worried about the attempt to pit women against women
for political gain. But I think we at least need to be honest about the
fact that so many of the current GOP initiatives that seek to free
women from the clutches of big government are rooted in the idea that
women are systematically trying to cheat the system to get free stuff.
You can argue all you want about whether it’s better for women to have
access to health care, child care, maternity leave, equal pay, and
preventive medicine. But when you base those arguments on rickety old
Elizabethan stereotypes about deceitful women and their lying ways, it
becomes harder to call yourself the party of women.
I always think its an interesting divide. Women have achieved equality in many areas, yet are still framed as 'Daughters of Eve' who seek to game the system.
Preventative medicine is an investment in the future, as it always has been. With the recent passing of Affordable Care Act, I think the conversation will shift to an emphasis on becoming healthier now, so that you save money later. And, that includes women's health care.
