The Christmas Letter I'd Love to Receive

Dear Friends and Family,

Once again, here's our annual holiday update! Unfortunately, I must report that 2011 has been the worst year ever. I mean ever! And not because of the enormous bonuses the Wall Street bankers got or the huge profits the corporations made but didn't have to pay taxes on. Nope. Our family is just so ordinary and average it makes me want to cry. All the Cs and Ds the kids got on their report cards, (when they attended school), the premarital sex (and the blessed illegitimate children), and the fact that you couldn't pay my family to read for pleasure. Me, I devour those romance novels and love every minute of my special reading time. But this holiday update isn't just about me.

In February, our youngest, fifteen year old Tabitha, had her second child. I should say that little Tiffany is the most beautiful baby ever, but she isn't though she is most definitely a gift from God. And she is a perfect baby. She doesn't cry, she doesn't burp, and I don't think she ever has gas. In fact, she doesn't move a muscle. At first we were worried about crib death, but after a few months we got over that. She's simply a peaceful baby who isn't very active. Unlike Tabitha's first child, Charlie-- he's nearly two-- and he's into everything. His crossed eyes don't prevent him from doing a thing. We wish we could afford to pay for the operation to un-cross his eyes, but we can't. Since he is a handful, Tabitha had to drop out of school, and I'm so concerned about her future considering she has no high school diploma and two children. But God must have great plans for her.

In April, Angie, our sixteen year old, had her third child. Baby Jessica has a beautiful face, but she was born with six fingers on her right hand and seven fingers on her left. I believe she'll grow up to be a pianist. You can never have too many fingers for that, and she can have a glorious career playing the organ at church. Even so, Tim and I would like to pay for the operation to remove some of those extra fingers, but Tim's post office job is so iffy nowadays that we can't go spending money like it's water.

In June, Joey, he's now seventeen, was thrown in jail yet again. This time they found the tiniest bag of marijuana in the pocket of his computer bag. There was a gun in there too, but the Constitution says it's o.k. We're having a tough time paying for Joey's lawyer and are still accepting donations to help us out with this incident. It's easy to donate with Pay Pal!

Tim and I have been married 16 years, and that's a long time, but we've decided to call it quits. But since all of our money that's earmarked for "legal" is going to Joey, we just bought some of that yellow tape the police use for crime scenes and just split the house in half. Tim stays in his half of each room, and I stay in my half of each room. But I must say that we go on occasional dates, and Tim takes me to Denny's for a Grand Slam. It's like going on vacation.

Christmas is almost here, and I can't believe another year has gone down the toilet. Tim keeps telling me to get a job, but I tell him I work all day around the house. Even the Lutherans say so.  I read in the Lutheran newsletter that a stay-at-home parent is worth $50,679.20. Wow! That's a lot of money. But my friend Thelma told me that that's nothing. That the Lutherans have grossly underestimated what it costs to perform the services I do. You know, the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, chauffeuring, child care, and administrative support. I asked her what they meant by administrative support, and Thelma told me that means sex.

Anyway, to top off the year, the cat disappeared on Halloween, and on Thanksgiving Day the dog was hit by a truck. We could only afford cremation.

So another year is history, and we want to wish everyone a Blessed Christmas and a Healthy New Year!

Love,  Tracy and Tim

Obama & Plan B

By allowing the Health and Human Services secretary to overrule the FDA and refuse to permit Plan B to be sold over the counter, the Obama administration is perpetuating the second class citizenship of girls and women in the United States.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I've finally read The Help after a zillion people have already read it.  I won't go on and on because so much has already been said about it, and I don't feel like adding too much to the clutter. But I'll say this: I enjoyed it.  And I'll say this: I saw the movie before I read the book, and I didn't like the movie.  I wanted to read the book because I hoped that the book would fill in some of the gaps that were in the movie adaptation of the story. (The people involved in making the movie were most likely too close to the project to see these gaps. Of course, there could be other reasons for those gaps.) Anyway, I'm happy to report that those gaps were not in the book.

It Fell into the Ocean (a.k.a Paseo Del Mar Incident)

It's banal to say that California is going to fall into the ocean. But, you know, it will. Probably not all of it at once (some people's fantasy) but chunks of it have fallen in.  In fact, it has happened many times and is happening now, and it's happened most recently about a mile from my home.  600 feet of Paseo del Mar (across from the nature preserve that I've blogged about) fell into the ocean a couple days ago. There are great photos taken for the Daily Breeze:  http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_19378711

After several months of shifting, Paseo Del Mar in San Pedro slid into the ocean late Sunday afternoon, Nov. 20, 2011. (Chuck Bennett / Staff Photographer)

A Favorite Tree

This is a favorite tree of mine in the nature preserve near my home:

Here are some views from the preserve:

Celebrate Extinction

Let's hope that pantyhose disappear forever.  Pantyhose were awful for so many reasons, and I know exactly when I stopped wearing them.  July 1988.  I had just turned 25, and I had just moved to Los Angeles and decided never to wear them again. I didn't care if they came in a thousand colors and a zillion textures and were called tights.  A few of my employers (all men and lawyers) complained about my lack of pantyhose (the sheer, old lady kind) because they said I didn't look professional with bare legs.  My response to them:  you try wearing them.  They never mentioned the subject again. Below is a terrific example of advertising that no one could possibly believe:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

I’m sure many reviews have been written about Little Bee, reviews by professionals and by those who don’t get paid to review novels.  Nonetheless, most everything that can be said about this novel probably has been said, so I will only make two points.

The first one is about writing. I prefer novels written in the third person, and the reason is that characters written in the third person don’t think the way they think in novels written in the first person.  What I mean is that third person narrators can think poetically, but when first person narrators do, it comes across as contrived. Little Bee is written in the first person, and Little Bee (meaning the character not the title) is from a village in Nigeria who spends two years in a detention center in England, yet her imagery, analogies, and metaphors reflect someone who is educated in a very western way and who has mastered subtleties of the English language; perhaps she’s a linguistic genius, but it doesn’t work for me.

The second point is about the issue of immigration.

“It doesn’t matter how you talk, does it?” she [female police officer] said.  “You’re a drain on resources.  The point is you don’t belong here.”

“But please, what does it mean?”  I said.  “What does it mean, to belong here?”

“Well, you’ve got to be British, haven’t you?  You’ve got to share our values.”

Of course, the officer has no idea how ironic being a “drain on resources” is because she isn’t thinking about how Europeans are draining the resources in Nigeria, but she’s emphasizing belong, and to an American ear, the exchange above sounds very strange though Little Bee’s question is excellent.  Perhaps substituting British and American will reveal why the exchange is awkward from an American perspective:

“Well, you’ve got to be American, haven’t you?  You’ve got to share our values.”

I have no idea what it really means to be American, and I have no idea what American values are.  To belong in the United States doesn’t require us to be anything in particular. To belong to many Americans would probably mean to be here legally. But what about people who are here illegally?  How do they belong?  They belong because they’re human beings. (This is stated in Little Bee several times.)  We are citizens of the world, and as the 21st Century progresses we will understand that countries' borders are obsolete, and the British officer’s reply will be enigmatic and more than a little confusing.

Acupuncture as Prevention

Acupuncture for me is all about prevention.  I go for monthly tune-ups to keep my chi flowing.  As those familiar with Chinese Medicine know, if energy isn't blocked, illness doesn't occur.  Our society is big on detection--which means we're trying to find disease that has already set in-- but we should put a whole lot more emphasis on prevention.  The goal is not to have dis-ease.

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

I haven't read Alice Hoffman's new book The Dovekeepers, but I will after reading the review of it in the New York Times on October 23.  The review, written by Sarah Fay, wasn't a good review, and that's one reason I want to read it.  But what really made me want to read it is this: "Hoffman reminds us that she is neither a historian nor a religious scholar and declares that the novel is meant to 'give voice' to the women who participated in the Jewish struggle, whose stories 'have often gone unwritten.'"  There have been many women characters throughout literature, but throughout most of literature these women characters were written by men, and some of those men have written well.  However, there are some things that simply wouldn't occur to most men who are writers writing from a woman's point of view. There's a lot we haven't heard from women characters; there are many stories that have gone unwritten.

Changing course a bit:  I'm sensitive to unflattering book reviews. What does it mean when a book blogger, and not a professional critic, writes that a novel is "okay"?  (Besides indicating the very amateurishness of the book reviewer?) Okay is neither good nor bad, and I'm supposing that the reviewer either couldn't figure out what to say, or she decided to be polite. I'm in the process of learning about the book blogging world, but what should I realistically expect when a book blogger lists as her favorite  genres: paranormal, fantasy, romance, chick lit, contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and mysteries/thrillers?  Is it a mistake to solicit her review when I'm not sure exactly how a novel fits into her reading preferences?  (Probably) The only possible category of the blogger's that my novel could fall under is contemporary fiction.  But what does that mean when, according to Amazon, Nicholas Sparks' books fall into that category?

Changing direction again:  Here is some shameless self-promotion:  Momentary Mother by yours truly is a novel that gives voice to women whose stories are seldom written, and it gives a name to a common experience that has no name.

Update on November 6:  The Dovekeepers has been on many best seller lists for several weeks now, even with the lousy NYT review.  Hooray!

Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

Just spreading the word about the Geena Davis Institute.  What is it?  Read below.  It's from their "about" page:


What is the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media?

Founded in 2004 by Academy Award®-winning actor and advocate Geena Davis, the Institute and its programming arm, See Jane, are at the forefront of changing female portrayals and gender stereotypes in children's media and entertainment. The Institute is uniquely positioned to spotlight gender inequalities at every media and entertainment company through cutting-edge research, education, training, strategic guidance and advocacy programs. Our mission is to work within the entertainment industry to dramatically alter how girls and women are reflected in media.

Why Did Geena Davis Create the Institute and See Jane?

While watching children's entertainment with her young daughter, Geena Davis was astounded by the dearth of female characters. Fueled to take action, she commissioned the largest research project on gender in film and television ever undertaken, conducted by Dr. Stacy Smith at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. The research confirmed the disparity she observed: in family films, there is only one female character for every three male characters. In group scenes, only 17% of the characters are female. The repetitive viewing patterns of children ensure that these negative stereotypes are ingrained and imprinted over and over.


What Type of Work Does the Institute Do?

The Institute is the only research-based organization working within the media and entertainment industry to engage, educate, and influence the need for gender balance, reducing stereotyping and creating a wide variety of female characters for entertainment targeting children 11 and under. We have amassed the largest body of research on gender prevalence in entertainment, which spans more than 20 years. Our biennial symposium is the only event convening over 300 decision makers, content creators, and thought leaders to share best practices and create a blueprint towards establishing a gender-balanced media landscape.

Our three-tiered approach of research, education and advocacy has brought the Institute to leading media and entertainment companies, organizations, educational institutions and multinational companies such as the United Nations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center, the Wall Street Journal Women in the Economy Task Force and many others. The Institute's research studies are frequently quoted in major media outlets including the The New York Times, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, USA Today, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and MSNBC.

How the Institute is Making an Impact

• The Institute has amassed the largest body of research on gender prevalence in entertainment, which spans more than 20 years. Our research findings are in high demand by companies, NGOs and organizations interested in the empowerment of women and girls, leadership and entrepreneurship.
• The Institute is the go-to resource and thought leader on gender in media. We have effected change at major networks, studios, production companies, guilds and agencies. Our SmartBrief newsletter publishes breaking news, trends, research and insights on Gender in Media from around the world.
• The biennial Geena Davis Institute Symposium on Gender in Media convenes over 300 entertainment industry decision makers, thought leaders and content creators to work toward improving gender equality in children's media. In a survey following the December 2010 Second Symposium on Gender in Media, more than 90% of attendees stated that the information they learned will influence how they perceive gender balance and stereotypes in their work, and 98% will share and utilize our research findings with their peers and in their companies.
• The Institute continues to work on inspiring and sensitizing the next generation of content creators to focus on gender and equality in children's media through its partnerships with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences College Television Awards, student filmmakers through our "Guess Who" educational video series, and our educational outreach to middle school students through the Sarasota Film Festival.

http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/about/

Wonderful World of Disney

A Disney cruise ship blasting "When You Wish Upon a Star" passed through the neighborhood today:

Homeland on Showtime

After giving this series a try, I've decided that yes, indeed, it's boring.  It's been boring since the first episode, but I was hoping it would get better.  Why was I hoping this?  Oh, I dunno.  But it hasn't gotten better.  The conflicts are amazingly uninteresting, and the characters aren't complicated.  RIP.

Xena

A friend for Serena:

Isn't it Romantic? Part 2

As I said in my post on September 18, I was curious about the popularity of romance novels.  I read Janice Radway's Reading the Romance hoping to find some answers.

I imagine that some of Radway's conclusions might be different today given that her book was published in 1984.  (I think there was a revised edition in the early 90s.)  Nonetheless, I came away thinking that some (maybe many) women are very unsatisfied with their lives though they might not say so, and in order to find some kind of fulfillment and enjoyment, albeit temporary, they turn to romance novels.

What I find troublesome is that though these readers of romance novels find their lives somewhat unsatisfying, they persist in believing that they can find satisfaction in precisely what is making their lives somewhat unsatisfying.  What I mean is: these women believe that men can fulfill their needs exactly how these women want to be fulfilled. And what are those needs? They want to be nurtured.  That sounds reasonable; however, they want men to be nurturing in a specific way. What to make of this?

Radway calls romance novels compensatory fiction.  It is called this "because the act of reading them fulfills certain basic psychological needs for women that have been induced by culture and its social structures but that often remain unmet in day-to-day existence as the result of the concomitant restrictions on female activity." Radway further states that romance reading compensates women in two ways:

1.  "It provides vicarious emotional nurturance by prompting identification between the reader and a fictional heroine whose identity as a woman is always confirmed by the romantic and sexual attentions of an ideal male."

2.  "It fills a woman's mental world with the varied details of simulated travel and permits her to converse imaginatively with adults from a broad spectrum of social space.  Moreover, the world-creating and instructional functions of romances provide the woman who believes in the value of individual achievement with the opportunity to feel that education has not ceased for her nor has the capacity to succeed in culturally approved terms been erased by her acceptance of the less-valued domestic roles."

I believe more women are receiving the formal education they desire, and more women are traveling by themselves or with other women.  So perhaps that second way romance reading is compensatory is not as popular as it once was.  But it's that first way that romance reading is compensatory that is disturbing, and not because I don't want women to feel nurtured, but because I wonder how realistic it is to believe that men are capable of being the type of nurturer that many women desire.

It's also puzzling that in the world of romance novels, patriarchy is so supportive of women's desire for independence.  "In the utopia of romance fiction, [female] 'independence' and a secure individual 'identity' are never compromised by the paternalistic care and protection of the male."  But then again, "the romance fantasy is not a fantasy about discovering a uniquely interesting life partner, but a ritual wish to be cared for, loved, and validated in a particular way."  Put another way, "all popular romantic fiction originates in the failure of patriarchal culture to satisfy its female members.  Consequently, the romance functions always as a utopian wish-fulfillment fantasy through which women try to imagine themselves as they often are not in day-to-day existence, that is, as happy and content."

Radway also found within her sample of women who engage in repetitive romance consumption that "their favorite romances continue to advance the ideology of romantic love, insisting thereby that marriage between a man and a woman is not an economic or social necessity or a purely sexual affiliation but an emotional bond freely forged."  (N.B.  Even Sarah Palin has admitted that marriage is a business contract.)

Radway concludes that "this literary form reaffirms its founding culture's belief that women are valuable not for their unique personalities but for their biological sameness and their ability to perform that essential role of maintaining and reconstituting others."

Now I understand a bit better why my grandmother repetitively consumed romance novels.  Yes, her unhappiness with her day-to-day life had a lot to do with it, and because of the year she was born and that she was born to immigrants with little education, I believe she was caught.  Romance novels were indeed an escape.

Baseball, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, and Steve Jobs

From Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement address:

"Death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is life's change agent."

"The benefit of death is you know not to waste life living someone else's choices."

"Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do," Steve Jobs told Stanford grads in 2005. "If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."

Quote of the Day

This is the first time I've posted a quote of the day, and I can't promise I'll ever post another one. But here it is:


"I cannot understand a society that is more afraid of a man in a dress than a man in a soldier's uniform."

--Joan Nestle

Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV)

This is a story with a happy ending, so please continue reading!  One Sunday last November, my cat adoring partner, Brutus, and I went to a Los Angeles County animal shelter to adopt a kitten. When we arrived, there were very few people there, and there were very few cats though there were many cages.  We were told that most of the cats and kittens had been taken to an adoption fair at the La Brea Tar Pits, and they only had room for a certain number of animals.  So we looked at the cats and kittens that were left behind.

I was immediately drawn to a tiny kitten, a tuxedo kitty, making a lot of noise and who was very active.  She was around eight weeks old, and I requested to hold her. When I did, I could feel her ribs and spine, and she was covered with fleas.  I could also tell she was stressed because she had lost whiskers and eyebrows on one side of her tiny black and white face.  But when I tried to hand her to Brutus, she wouldn't let go of me.  When that happened Brutus asked me what her name is.  I named her Serena, and since Serena didn't weigh enough to be spayed, we were able to take her home right away.

The next day we brought Serena to our veterinarian who couldn't hide her lack of enthusiasm for this sickly kitty who weighed 15 ounces.  The vet wouldn't do the routine blood work on her because she hardly weighed anything and because Serena had started sneezing.  Yep, she soon developed a bad cold; she was breathing through her mouth, had a runny nose and discharge from her eyes. And she started coughing.  It was the first time I had heard a cat cough.  She also had diarrhea, and so she started taking antibiotics.  But for her cold, I also started giving Serena lysine.  Her cold didn't completely clear up until the beginning of January.

In January, she was well enough to have a blood test, and that's when a faint line appeared-- positive for FeLV.  They had done this test in the office, but then sent blood out to a lab.  That too came back positive.  So the veterinarian gave us a poor prognosis for Serena and told us there really wasn't anything that could be done.  I tried not to freak out, and instead I decided to boost Serena's immune system because I had read that there was a chance that she could fight off this nasty virus.  I kept giving her lysine twice a day but also added Omega 3 fatty acids, Probiotics, and Chinese herbs.  (I didn't choose the herbs to give her.  A doctor who practices Chinese Medicine did that for me!)  I took Serena to another veterinarian for another opinion, and he said that with kittens you can't tell if the virus has taken hold until they are around a year old.  He suggested we have her re-tested then.  So we made sure Serena had a very calm, stress-free environment, fed her high quality food, and kept giving her supplements.

When she was one, which occurred recently, we had her re-tested.  The blood was sent out to a lab, and it came back negative.  The veterinarian said he was pretty sure that she'll remain negative for the rest of her life. To say the least, we were thrilled.

Serena is strong and muscular with soft and shiny fur.  She has clear eyes and is  very playful! Please don't give up if your kitten has tested positive for FeLV.  Here's Serena:

Driving in Los Angeles

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles."  So says the narrator of Less Than Zero.  I recalled this famous 1980s line as I drove this morning from San Pedro to Beverly Hills and back and noted that I hadn't observed anyone having merging difficulties, even at that glommed up section of the 405 north near the Santa Monica Boulevard exit where they've been doing construction forever.  And although I didn't observe any fearful merging, I did get annoyed with people who didn't use their turn signals. I understand that being allergic to turn signals is a common affliction whose symptoms no pharmaceutical company has been able to suppress with expensive little pills; however, I would like to tell those who are ailing from this allergy that to let others know where they are going just makes sense when there are two trillion cars on the road.

Another freeway pet peeve of mine is when people drive too closely to the car in front of them.  How can being six inches away from the bumper of the car in front of you be good for your nervous system?  The strange thing is that when these impatient drivers change lanes when they become frustrated by the slow driver in front of them, they either end up far behind the car they were tailgating, albeit in a different lane, or they end up just one car ahead of the car they passed.  I don't understand.  Anyway, merging too slowly onto freeways is just plain dangerous, but the first line of Less Than Zero is a metaphor, my dear readers, and it works.

However, here's a peaceful scene of the Four Level near downtown LA in 1954:

Isn't it Romantic?

I'm curious about the popularity of romance novels, so I did a little searching and found Janice Radway's Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature.  I hope it'll help me gain a better understanding of this phenomenon.  I remember that my grandmother devoured this genre well into her old age, and I also remember that she wasn't a particularly happy person.  Anyway, I'll let you know what I discover!

Merry Christmas from Mother Jones

Kardashian Kollection

I didn't spell Kollection wrong.  That's the way it was written on the front page of yesterday's Los Angeles Times.  Oops.  I mean that's how it was written on the full page advertisement that was on top of the front page of the LA Times, but if you looked quickly or not carefully you might have thought it was the front page.  What was on that full page/front page ad?  In case you missed it, here it is:

Yes, I  heard a few LA Times readers, those who actually read the news on paper, heard some of them grumble about this front page double take on Thursday morning, heard some grumbling across the 502 square miles of the city (4083 square miles if I include the grumbles across LA County), but is this really surprising in our glittery City of Angels? Actually, on some days the sun is so glaring it's hard to see, and that may explain a lot.

Anyway, Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe have a new clothing line called the Kardashian Kollection, and this new kollection was kreated for Sears.  Kan it get more American? Kan those Kardashian women be more American?  They aren't just celebrities, but they're socialites, reality television personalities, entrepreneurs, models, actresses, and Khloe has been described as a celebutante.  Wow!  And to have a deal with Sears, Roebuck and Co, a store right outta America's heartland, means they've really made it. They've achieved the American dream.  And those of us who live in Los Angeles can see these three dynamos at the Sears in Cerritos this Sunday.  I can't wait!  Hope they show up!

Meanwhile, the LA Times is trying to remain in business, selling wraparound ads and succeeding in losing its dignity and so on and so forth.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Just finished reading this for the first time.  Beautifully written.  Painful.  The sexuality isn't controversial anymore.  However.  For anyone who has felt alienated or for anyone who wishes to feel what alienation feels like, highly recommended.

"The Americans have no sense of doom, none whatsoever.  They do not recognize doom when they see it."

"Americans should never come to Europe.  It means they never can be happy again.  What's the good of an American who isn't happy?  Happiness was all we had."

This post was carelessly uttered though respectfully well intentioned.  I don't feel that terrific today.

Regulating Reproduction

There's a healthy debate going on over at The New York Times about "Making Laws About Making Babies." Many people have opinions about this after an outrageous example of Reproductive Technology Gone Wild was reported last week:  one sperm donor produced 150 kids.

Beth Littrell, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, wrote about bias against gays and lesbians regarding fertility services. [Me: Of course there shouldn't be any bias against anyone seeking fertility services-- if they can pay for it, they can buy it-- and sperm and egg donors are presumably healthy individuals or they shouldn't be permitted to donate anything of theirs-- except money, of course.]  Ms. Littrell states:  "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people wish to have children and form families for all the same reasons that heterosexual people do."  I have no reason to doubt that statement, but I hope they don't want to start families for all the same reasons heterosexuals do because some heterosexuals have children for the wrong reasons.  It's the word "all" that's troublesome.

46.2 Million Americans

That's how many people live in poverty in the United States.  Shame on me for wondering in my previous post where my Twitter followers went.  Hopefully, they're tweeting the poverty news, spreading the word about the number of poor people who call America the Beautiful home.  What do the millionaires and billionaires in the United States think about those 46.2 million Americans? What are the people who run our government thinking?  What are we going to do?

Twitter

Blogging about Twitter.  Ten years ago that phrase wouldn't have made sense.  Now, well, there's no need to explain it unless you live in a place that is digitally deprived or digitally denied or digitally depressed.  Many, in fact, do live in parts of towns that have fallen into the digital divide.  Sort of like living in a grand canyon where not many people have access to the internet.  (There's a chunk of area in Los Angeles like that, by the way.)  Anyway, some of my Twitter followers have abandoned me.  Oh, I shouldn't say abandoned. Abandoned sounds too psychologically damaging.  I'll just sigh instead which, according to Chinese Medicine, means my kidney energy is stagnating or blocked or something like that.  But actually I don't sigh very often.  My liver is the organ I need to be more concerned about, being careful not to let the energy stagnant there.

Anyway, so I tweet things that apparently some people don't care for.  Perhaps I upset people with my politics or my sense of humor.  I just see how screwy many things are, and I like to point them out.  I also like to point out non-screwy things like Nissan's Leaf in my previous post.  Nothing wrong with not wanting to use gasoline, right?  So where are the people who are entertained by radical ideas, dangerous ideas, or downright logical ideas?  For instance, we can't have everything.  Pretty obvious, right?  Limits are imposed upon us, and we freak out.  Why?  Oh, yes.  The American Dream tells us we can have it all.  In fact, many of us believe we're entitled to have it all.  But does The American Dream really say that?  The stereotypical American Dream used to be to own a single family house with a white picket fence around the perimeter of the property that keeps strangers out and keeps the dog and kids within.  It says we can have a couple of cars in the garage too.  Probably gasoline powered cars.  What is The American Dream now?  But I digress, again.

Where did my Twitter Followers go?  What do they want to hear?  I'm an optimistic person, and I also have eyes and ears and a brain.  I question, and I wonder.  I care about the future, and I don't even have children.  However, I'm trying to be patient because we're in the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, and transitions can be difficult.  Blogs and Twitter are helping us become more Aquarian, and I think that's a good thing because if World Peace is ever possible, it will come about during the Aquarian Age.

Leaf: Zero Emission

I took my first ride in a Leaf, and it was fun!  Quiet too!  The ride was comfortable, and in addition to not spewing pollution everywhere, most of the car is made from recycled materials including home appliances, fabrics, bumpers, and plastics.  Yep, a lot of the Leaf is made from Pet 1 plastic which means it's made from soda and water bottles.  Hooray!  So here are some pics:

Monopoly of Desperation

News Announcement:  Humans aren't an endangered species!

This isn't news to doctors who specialize in reproductive technology.  What these MDs know is:  Reproductive Technology is Big Business.  As Debora Spar (President of Barnard College and author of "The Baby Business:  How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception") writes, "harsh as it may seem, we need to view reproductive medicine as an industry with all the commercial prospects and potential foibles that other industries display."  Oh, and what foibles there are!  Just this week it was reported in the NY Times that one sperm donor produced 150 children.  Wow!  What is our society doing?  We're crazy!

The NY Times also had an article in the Styles section recently that asked:  Are You as Fertile as You Look?  The answer: No.  Gasp! The effect: Millions of New Yorkers were compelled to make appointments with their gynecologists this week because being pregnant is in style, at least according to the Times.  But let's face it.  Being pregnant has always been in style though perhaps not quite like it is today thanks to Reproductive Technology.

Reproductive Technology is disturbing for many reasons, and Angela Davis has articulated one reason very well:  "The politics of reproduction hinge on the social construction of motherhood [and] the new developments in reproductive technology have encouraged the contemporary emergence of popular attitudes-- at least among the middle classes-- that bear a remarkable resemblance to the 19th Century cult of motherhood... it is as if the recognition of infertility is now a catalyst, among some groups of women, for a motherhood quest that has become more compulsive and more openly ideological than during the 19th Century... the availability of the technology further mythologizes motherhood as the true vocation of women."  Chilling and creepy.

So now we have many women who are in their forties and fifties questing after motherhood, feeling desperate to have a child.  This desperation is an important part of the reproductive technology equation according to Charis Thompson, author of Making Parents:  The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies.  She says that "a prominent aspect of the experience of reproductive technologies for infertility is their 'never enough' quality... this desperate, private compulsion to motherhood doesn't just propel activism but also plays a role in the market of assisted reproductive technologies in the United States.  That is, it imposes what I refer to as a 'monopoly of desperation.'"

How dare the marketers of reproductive technology encourage a "monopoly of desperation" among women!  How dare they use a marketing strategy that aims to convince women, in Victorian fashion, that to be a woman is to be a mother.  This message to women in general is contemptible, and to send this message to women who are infertile is cruel.

Although the article in the NY Times makes it clear that to get pregnant by conceiving naturally in your forties is very difficult and almost impossible in your fifties, the article doesn't address this desperation to have children after age forty.  It comes close to saying something about the psychology of this issue when the article mentions our society's fixation with celebrities who get pregnant in their forties, but it doesn't delve into why we're fixated.  Are we afraid to ask?

Many Supermoms are Sad

A Wall Street Journal blog reports that supermoms are sad.  I don't doubt that for a minute, and there are a million things I can say about this issue.  What I'll say for now is this:  society's structure needs to change.  The women's movement helped women change, but society's structure didn't change.  That's a problem.

The Great September 11 Novel

The title of David Ulin's article in yesterday's LA Times about literature after 9/11-- "A Compelling Narrative from an Unlikely Source:  Looking for the transformative literary work on the terrorist attacks?  Try the official government report"-- gives his story away.  Ulin says that the government's report "may be as close as we've yet come to the great Sept. 11 novel."  That doesn't surprise me.  I didn't stop writing fiction after 9/11, but until recently I hadn't been able to write a story that takes place after 9/11.   Anyway, Ulin asks:  "where, though, is the transformative book about Sept. 11, the one that, like Erich Maria Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried,' evokes its emotional resonance?"  Ulin goes on to say, "...it's useful to remember that both Vietnam and the Great War involved elaborate, if contradictory, narratives, whereas Sept. 11 seemed to defy narrative altogether-- just as it has defied perspective because it was without prior context in our lives."  My question is this:  Was September 11 really without prior context in all of our lives?  I don't think so.

Bougainvillea

The beginning of my bougainvillea effort:

Notre Dame Football

I was sure Tommy Rees would start because of the way he played last year, but as we know Brian Kelly had his reasons for starting Dayne Crist: mental toughness (but is he alert?), maturing as a player and leader (but does he win?), and he has a stronger arm (but he gets injured).  Notice how Brian Kelly didn't mention winning?

Listen up, Notre Dame Administration, here are couple things I'd do to fix your embarrassing football program:  I would start recruiting second and third tier high school kids.  Forget the ones who feel entitled to play at so-called "important" football schools-- because my feeling is that those second and third tier kids would play to win-- no matter what.   I'd also recruit the players from interhall football.  You'd get an excellent team.; they'd want to win, and they'd be smart.  You can't afford to laugh at my suggestions because the football program is too embarrassing.  There's a big problem.   Fix it!

Free Public Libraries

We need free public libraries.  If you're not sure why, you haven't been to one lately.  Please visit your local free public library and see what it has to offer.  You'll be amazed.

He that loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter

Major League Baseball Loves to Hate Pink

If you're wondering whether women in the United States are second class citizens, wonder no more. We are, and Major League Baseball is helping to perpetuate our second class status by sending a very clear message: it's humiliating to be a girl.  As reported in the NY Times, "Rookie relievers are being forced to wear schoolgirl backpacks-- gaudy in color, utterly unmanly-- to transport gear." Mets' pitcher Tim Byrdak said, "You have to walk all the way across the field to get to the bullpen, so you make the rookie carry this pink bag, and you can kind of humiliate him."  Oh, it feels good to be dressed in pink, doesn't it?

So how would these professional athletes feel if they wore a blue bag or a bag that boys would like to wear, such as an R2-D2 (Star Wars) bag?  Erik Hamren did have to wear an R2-D2 bag, and how did he feel about that?  "I've grown to love it." I'm not sure he would have grown to love a Hannah Montana, Dora the Explorer, or Hello Kitty bag.  Or the pink feather boa that Michael Stutes was forced to wear.  (Wouldn't it be great if he did love wearing that boa?)  Trevor Hoffman (retired relief pitcher) said, "I think it's amusing for the fans to see [the rookies wearing these bags].  It's kind of a way of pointing out who's the low man on the totem pole."

Yep, the low man on the totem pole is a woman.

Major League Baseball "has no issue with the bags, as long as they maintain a spirit of innocence."  Aw gee, it's so much innocent fun to be coerced into feeling like a girl!

Fig Update

They're ripening:

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Many articles have been written over the past week about Steve Jobs, and that's understandable. He's not an ordinary person; he's a risk-taker. Some of us jabber a lot about risk-taking and how the United States is a country that encourages it, but how many of us actually take risks? I suppose every time we drive we take a risk, especially in Los Angeles. But how many of us are curious? How many of us experiment? How many of us ask questions? How many of us are continuously learning and seeking real-life experiences? How many of us risk failing?

But do the people in power really want us-- their minions-- taking too many risks?

Anyway, our country is proud that we have the freedom to do almost anything we want, but I'm not sure how much encouragement there really is to do almost anything. Yes, Nike had an ad campaign that told us to just do it, but what that meant was just go ahead and buy our sneakers and then while wearing our sneakers you'll magically be able to try to do anything imaginable. (But the key is to consume our stuff.) But let's look at Dorothy, the young lady trying to get back to Kansas.  Yes, she's fake, but let's see what kind of risk taker corporate America really adores. Why didn't she stay in Oz and try living somewhere other than Kansas? Ok, she was supposed to be a kid though she looks a lot older than one. I wonder what would have happened if she did what Steve Jobs recommends-- that is,  what The Whole Earth Catalog's recommends: Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

How many of us will actually take this billionaire's/catalog's advice?

Who's in Charge?

While teaching at Princeton, Lisa Belkin was stunned by what she saw after classes: "In social settings and in relationships, men set the pace, made the rules and acted as they had in the days when women were still 'less than.' It might as well have been the 1950s, but with skimpier clothing, fewer inhibitions and better birth control." Belkin wonders why. How could this be happening now?

She asked her journalism students to interview other students to help her "explore this disconnect." Belkin wanted to know "How do these social norms look from within?" None of the responses were enlightening or new, and most agreed that the power dynamics are essentially the same as they've always been: "he chases, she submits" and "that the 'he chases, she submits' paradigm was no big deal." The old-fashioned phrase "boys will be boys" made its way into Belkin's article as well as that now standard post-feminist (read: not really feminist) rhetoric that a "kind of female power" is one in which a woman appears sexually available. It didn't surprise me that none of these college students said anything dazzling because the structure of our society has stayed firmly in place, and that structure is-- gasp-- patriarchy.

As reported by Lisa Belkin, patriarchy is successfully reproducing itself, and, by the way, when women repeat "boys will be boys" they are complicit in this reproduction. (Women are complicit in many, many other ways too.) Please note too that there's no "generational card" being played here; that little saying has been repeated generation after generation after generation, reproducing itself over and over so that it feels very natural, sounds so natural that we naturally accept who's really in charge. The boys, of course.

The Arab Spring

I read Vali Nasr's opinion "If the Arab Spring Turns Ugly" in yesterday's NY Times. Nasr explains that the optimism of the Arab Spring might not turn out so well "because throughout the Middle East there is a strong undercurrent of simmering tension between Sunnis and Shiites... the region's two main power brokers, Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, are already jousting for power." I'm not in any way an expert on the Middle East; however, when my family moved to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s when I was a teenager, one of the first things I learned--one thing I felt-- was this "undercurrent of simmering tension between Sunnis and Shiites." Quite frankly, it's hard to miss. Nasr also states that "the problem goes back to the colonial period when European administrators manipulated religious and ethnic diversity to their advantage by giving minorities greater representations in colonial forces and governments." It's good for us to remember that.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

So I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin--read it on my Kindle, by the way-- and I recommend it, the Kindle and the book. I know there's controversy surrounding the literary merits of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I say give it a try. About the writing: it's didactic, and preaching is just plain awful writing. The stereotypes-- the racism-- and the Christianity made me very uncomfortable (being uncomfortable when reading fiction isn't necessarily a bad thing when it isn't the actual writing that's causing the discomfort!), and I understand that Harriet Beecher Stowe had a political agenda.

Writing a story with a political agenda has limitations, but Harriet Beecher Stowe probably didn't care because story telling can be an agent of social change which was her goal. Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin in the 21st Century is, of course, a different experience than reading it when it was first published in 1852-- though I wouldn't know this first-hand but I imagine that it was a different experience because there were people in 1852 who defended the institution of slavery-- but no human being today can possibly disagree with her message that slavery is bad, evil, wicked, reprehensible, and immoral except those who currently engage in the buying and selling of people.

Breakfast Sandwich

Ciabatta, avocado, and mascarpone. Yum!

Parade Magazine Dinner

Last night's dinner was inspired by Parade Magazine whose dimensions shrunk recently and which has nothing to do with anything. I was inspired by the veggie stir fry recipe provided by Sara Gilbert. I made some changes because I didn't have broccoli-- which is a rarity-- and I added garbanzo beans (which Sara's kids probably wouldn't like and for whom her recipe was intended), and I substituted whole wheat penne for the rice. So on top of the penne were red and yellow bell peppers, zucchini, asparagus, onions, garlic, and garbanzos; all were sauteed in extra virgin olive oil. I also had a salad of red leaf lettuce, arugula, and carrots. A very simple meal which is one of the several reasons Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking wouldn't work for me.

Yes, Julia Child and her re-famous cookbook are old, old news, news full of backlash and complaints from our three-second-attention-span society. That cookbook was on my mother's shelf in the kitchen while I was growing up (and it's still there), and my mother did cook from it. Of course, my mother spent hours cooking everyday, something I've never done and most likely never will. Besides, for me to use Julia Child's recipes I would have to veganize her meals, and I simply don't feel like doing that. And I'm not disciplined enough to go through any cookbook front to back making each recipe--that and I get bored very quickly. I would simply get tired of using the same cookbook day after day after day. Anyway, I'm amazed I remembered what I made for dinner last night. Usually I cook, eat, and forget.

Uncle Tom's Cabin & Figs

I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for the first time. It's making me cringe a whole lot even though I'm acutely aware of when it was written, so each time I cringe I'm pulled out of the story, which you writers out there know isn't really a good thing. Anyway, I'm 70% through it. Yes, I'm reading it on my Kindle which I adore.

Yesterday I successfully transplanted the avocado tree, and I noticed that a raccoon is interested in the fig tree, but the figs aren't ready yet. I hope the raccoon forgets about the figs. Yeah, right. So after taking care of the avocado tree, I bought two Barbara Karst bougainvillea, and they came with a QR code-- everything has one nowadays, doesn't it?-- so I scanned the code, and there was a lot of good info about watering which is very useful because I've found that watering my garden can be tricky because not all of the plants in my garden have the same water requirements. I'm a novice gardener, so I still have a ton to learn.

Some figs:

Marine Layer & Avocado Tree

This morning I woke up to a thick marine layer. A seagull actually woke me up, and that usually doesn't happen. Last night I caught up on Weeds and The Big C. Today my plan is to transplant an avocado tree.

This fuchsia loves the marine layer: