Re: Hillary

Two great articles on the Hillary/ Women in Power topic!

Although Maureen Dowd usually makes me sad to share a gender with her (youtube her appearance on Colbert for evidence of her gag-worthiness), this is a great article.

Also, here's one from Slate which is a really interesting read.

dunday sinners international

Saudi Arabia, one the the least democratic nations in the world, has a budding blogsphere. There are over 600 Saudi blogs, a relatively large number in a country where personal freedoms are strictly limited. The blogs are run by both men and women, although women are less likely to publish under their real names. This however does not stop women and men from writing about sex and religion, although often such blogs are blocked. One day, this very blog may be blocked and we'll all be killed by the CIA. Apparently, the Saudi government already had that idea. Recently, bloggers were sent to jail for rumouring that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was dead. They remain in jail. However, I pose this question: How long can even a government silence the youth who are desperate for a voice?

An excerpt from "Rantings of an Arabian Woman" by Saudi blogger Mystique:

I am born - a man chooses my name,
I am taught - to appreciate that he did not bury me alive,
I learn - what he wants me to know,
I marry - who he wants me to marry,
I eat - what he wants me to eat,
If he dies - another man controls my life
A father, a brother, a husband, a son, a man am born - a man chooses my name,
I am taught - to appreciate that he did not bury me alive,
I learn - what he wants me to know,
I marry - who he wants me to marry,
I eat - what he wants me to eat,
If he dies - another man controls my life
A father, a brother, a husband, a son, a man

(http://www.mystiquesa.blogspot.com/)

Too Much Information

We are too free. Our generation has choices, options, knowledge, access, and freedom galore. We are (generally) not predestined for any specific future (no arranged marriages or farms to inherit for us), and have been told since childhood that we can be/do whatever we want when we get older. The internet has opened our eyes to possibility, travel has allowed us to explore the world, education is available for everyone and gives us the opportunity to study any single thing we want. Literally ANYTHING, just think about those Gallatin kids studying puppies!

Our parents envy our freedom. Grandma bemoans our opportunities compared to what they were "back in her day." We have the chance to do this, to not do that, to do everything and nothing, and that is the problem: we are frozen in possibility. How are we ever supposed to choose anything? Especially knowing that whatever comes as a result of our choices, we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves. We can never say that we couldn't do something, only that we didn't do it.

Our freedom has taken away our purpose. We have nothing and everything to fight for. We have the luxury of thinking about everything, debating and discussing the world as a whole, and do not have to be preoccupied with ensuring our own survival and interests—after all, we don't really have to worry about starving to death or being shipped off to war. While our parents were united in protesting Vietnam, we have the option of protesting any one of the 30 wars that, according to Wikipedia, are currently taking place. We can click those little blue links and read up on all of them (drug wars in Mexico, civil war in Somalia, etc), but once again we're faced with the same issue: which one do we choose? Not one, even the one we're fighting, really effects us anyway.

So here we are: life is too good, and we’re left, like Xaté said, Jihad-less and lost in possibilities.

-Penamé

lose your luggage

Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage. ~Regina Nadelson

Mrs. Clinton?

William Shakespeare once wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Such is not the case for presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton. Throughout the extensive coverage of the presidential preliminaries, Hillary Clinton is referred to as “Mrs. Clinton.” Hold up. A prospective presidential candidate, not to mention first viable female candidate in history, is a Mrs.? In this, our post-women’s liberated world?
Throughout their lives, men are referred to as “Sir” and “Mr.” regardless of their age or martial status. Women, however, do not have the same simplistic luxury. Young girls are referred to as “Miss” and sometime between college and menopause, we graduate to “Madam.” However, there is an unappealing age stigma attached to “Madam.” For example, my fifty-year-old mother detests being called “Madam” by grocery cashiers, retailers, and the like. But can you really call a middle-aged professional woman “Miss” either?
During the after effects the 1970’s Women’s Lib movement, the prefix “Ms.” was born into the national dialogue. “Ms.” allows a woman of any age to remain ambiguous regarding martial status. For example, Ms. Melissa Robinson could either be single, or Mr. Robinson’s wife. Thus, women gained equal ground with men if only nominally.
Enter Hillary Clinton. This woman is perhaps the most prominent women in American politics to date. In the current presidential polls, she leaves misters Barack Obama and John Edwards in the Iowa caucus dust. The fact that Hillary is a “Mrs.” shouldn’t matter, right?
Clinton began her married life as Hillary Rodham. However, things changed for Ms. Rodham when husband Bill Clinton ran for office in Arkansas. When political advisors persuaded the new First Lady of Arkansas to take her husband’s surname, Rodham conceded and was addressed as Mrs. Bill Clinton. Wouldn’t want to offend the housewives of Arkansas with such progressive nonsense like keeping your name.
In her efforts to court the traditional housewives of middle-America, Clinton seeks camaraderie (read: votes) with the women she may have alienated during her quest for power in Washington and what these particular women feel is a departure of the traditional role of the First Lady (read: nothing). The title “Mrs.” is safe for Americans because we don’t want our women to be too independent or too successful. Simply, we want them to stand by their man, a lesson Hillary knows too well.
Hillary will continue to encounter criticism based solely on her gender. However, she is a Senator, a mother, wife, and now presidential candidate. A woman of that stature deserves to be addressed as Ms. because she embodies all opportunities and choices available to women today. Perhaps one day we’ll be calling her Madame President.

by elsa quaint

Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two
We are one

[the kinks]

Here come the poop jokes

I've been noticing that we're pretty whiny. Now I like to bitch and moan as much (well, probably even a little more) than the next person, but I thought I'd take a moment to acknowledge some of the good points of all this modern technology, and also have a little laugh at the same time. So here's a little something that I dug up from the archives of my gmail account. Just think of all the nonsense and weird stuff that's saved up from your past in e-mail archives. These are not the memories that will find their way into a journal or photo album (god, I hope it wouldn't end up in a photo album!), and yet it is a a part of our past, recorded in its real and original form. For example, here is an e-mail from my sister from 2003:

i just got back from an unserendipitous trip to the bathroom.

i was sitting at my desk, and just needed a quick pee. simple enough, you may think. not with my luck...

i walk into the bathroom and almost keeled over at the stench; someone had a little too much chow mein at the staff lunch....but my bladder was ready to burst so i just stopped breathing through my nose, and went in for a quickie. right away i knew i started having second thoughts. sitting in a stew of someone else's poosmell, i hurried as fast as i could, sensing that somehow things were about to go terribly wrong.

sure enough, just as i walked out of the still-stinky stall, my arch-work-enemy Katja walked in... DAMMIT! trying for a lastditch save, i said, "hmm, i wouldn't go in there if i were you...someone before us really ruined it." she laughed an evil laugh and is going to torment me for the rest of my days here because she thinks she has somethign on me. but i swear, that poo was not mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Penamé