To all the awesome mothers of color raising children of color (and every other mother, too!). I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day much since my mom died. But every now and then I do something to commemorate it.
This story is amongst those things. It is, for those of you keeping track, SF, with people of color, and, if I may say so myself, very good. And it’s about mothers and daughters and loss; three things I contemplate every year around this time.
Recently Al Robles, a figure prominent in the San Francisco Bay Area Filipino American community passed away. Here is a short excerpt from a post I did on him:
Manong Al was a native San Franciscan and fought for the rights of the poor and the elderly all throughout his life. During the 1970s he fought against the eviction of elderly Chinese and Pilipino American residents at the I-Hotel during which time the fight for the I-Hotel became a symbol of corporate greed and community solidarity across race and class. While the elders were evicted from their homes and the I-Hotel was demolished, creating a crushing defeat and feelings of despair for the Chinese and Pilipino community in San Francisco Manong Al (like many others as well) did not give up. He and the community continued to fight and kept the spot where the I-Hotel originally stood from being developed. Finally, around four or so years ago the I-Hotel rose from the ashes and became a center of housing for low-income senior citizens and a space for community organizers and the Manilatown Heritage Foundation.
Throughout the years Manong Al continued to be an advocate for the elderly and especially for the manongs and manangs of the Pilipino American community; those folks who immigrated from the Philippines to work, hunched over with broken backs, in the fields of California. As he would deliver meals to the manongs and manangs and provide other services for them he would collect their stories of joy and hardship, and he was ever the consummate oral historian, and in turn would put their experiences down in the form of poetry. He also became something of a father figure for many community artists and activists at the Kearny Street Workshop and imparted his wisdom onto the many folks who walked through those doors as well.
I don’t know Maryland geography well at all, but if you are anywhere near either of the places where I will be appearing, it would be lovely to see you there.
On Friday, May 15th, I will be reading from my book of poems The Silence Of Men at Coco’s Butter Cafe, which is located at 7361 Assateague Dr., Unit 1040, Columbia, MD 20794 (directions). From what I have been told, the cafe serves great chocolate and other desserts, great wine and lovely appetizers. Here’s the rest of the relevant information:
Doors Open/Open mic signup: 7 PM
Open Mic Begins: 8 PM
Feature Begins: around 9 PM
Cover: $10 general admission/$5 for open mic poets
This event is curated by Th3rd Avenue
On Sunday, May 17, at a meeting of the Iranian-American Cultural Society of Maryland, I will be giving a talk and reading from my translations of two masterpieces by the 13th century Iranian poet Saadi, Gulistan and Bustan. At the center of my talk is the story of a plagiarism scandal involving Benjamin Franklin that resulted from publication of a story that he claimed was a chapter of Genesis, but which had actually been written by Saadi.
When: 1:30-3:00
Where: Towson University, 7800 York Building, Room 121, Towson, MD 21252
Information: (410) 258-6651
Admission is free.
Who does she own? Jeff Rosen, that’s who:
Emily, you are so right that Jeff Rosen’s unsupported whispers about Judge Sotomayor have become the conventional media wisdom in three short days. But more troubling still, he seems to have been arguing that female jurists are by definition “mediocre” for more than a decade! Here’s a piece he did for the New York Times in 1995, arguing that President Clinton’s “single-minded pursuit of diversity, combined with an eagerness to avoid controversy, has kept him from appointing the best available legal minds to the courts.” He then names the many, many white men passed over for federal judgeships and contends that liberal judges lack the intellectual firepower to challenge brilliant conservative jurists because “nearly 60 percent of the Clinton appointments have been minority members and women.” (Read: mediocre.) His single data point to illustrate that mediocrity: Instead of appointing a serious intellectual heavyweight to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (a/k/a “The scholars Court”), Clinton tapped “Diane P. Wood, a little-known professor of antitrust law at the University of Chicago, who is currently an assistant to Deputy Attorney General Anne Bingaman.”
That same mediocre Diane Wood is not only on every shortlist for the Supreme Court today. She’s also widely regarded as one of the finest judges on the bench, to whom other brilliant judges turn for reviews of draft opinions.
I’ve been busy this week, so I haven’t had time to put together my thoughts on Rosen’s asinine article which, near as I can tell, said that Sonia Sotomayor was occasionally brusque, which would be great if she was Antonin Scalia, but alas, she lacks a penis, so she’s instead a raging bitch. Oh, and she’s dumb, because she’s a woman, and obviously graduated summa cum laude from Princeton (winning the highest award given to Princeton students in the process) because of afirmative action, probably at the cost of a more-qualified marginal white guy. And then she graduated from Yale’s law school, where she served as an editor on law review — again, probably at the expense of a connected white guy. And then she served as an Assistant New York District Attorney, probably just because she’s Latina. And then she ended up a partner at Pavia and Harcourt, which probably just promoted her because of PC whining.
Then, of course, she was appointed to the bench by committed lefty George H.W. Bush in 1991, in a move surely designed to get women and Latinos off his back. Then Bill Clinton appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 1997, again, clearly as a sop to minorities. I mean, obviously, this woman rose from the daughter of working-class parents, whose father died when she was nine, whose mother raised her and her brother to become a jurist and a medical doctor, respectively, only because those damn minorities and women get all the breaks that white guys don’t.
Needless to say, Judge Sotomayor would make an exceptional nominee to the Supreme Court. She’s everything we say we want in an American — someone who pulled herself up by her bootstraps, who lived the American dream. But she’s a woman, and she’s a Latina. In Jeff Rosen’s world, that’s clear evidence that she’s a step below her betters. That her betters are all white guys need not even be mentioned.
(Via Balloon Juice)
I don’t like the first part of two-part episodes. It’s fine when you’re watching them on DVD (unless it’s late and you know you shouldn’t watch another one, but you do it anyway and then it turns out to be a cliff-hanger so you have to watch the next one as well), but a week is a long-time between Echo walking out the elevator with Alpha and finding out what the hell is going on.
Or at least I don’t like the first part when I haven’t read spoilers, which has happened to me exactly once (I’ve been spoiled for every show that I was a fan of since 1995). I’m not sure that’s a good sample. But I’m sure I hate it.
But reviewing the first part of a two-parter is particularly difficult. So much of the meaning and point of this episode depends on what happens next. This episode raised far more questions than it answered, and while there is a lot to talk about, there’s a lot I won’t comment on (like who was Echo when Alpha left with her. We’ll all know in a couple of days, and speculating on it wastes precious review time that should be spent laughing at Paul Ballard). So consider this the first part of my review as there are many things that I am reserving judgement on, although my cliff-hanger won’t be as exciting as the show’s. Continue reading
Every time I see some homophobe say bigoted things, they always justify it the same way — they cite their beloved gay friends.
Who are these people? I can’t imagine there are many lesbian and gay people who are uncloseted enough to have come out to Joe the Plumber, yet self-hating enough to say friends with someone who says this:
Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.
(Boy, the Republican party sure knows how to pick spokespeople, don’t it!)
My theory is that it’s just, like, three or four gay people, who spend all their time jet-setting between dinners with Joe (at a restaurant, so they don’t have to meet his kids), hanging with Rick, helicopter hunting with Sarah, stopping by BFF Donny’s house for some showtunes, and then finally taking in a science fiction con with Orson Scott. (Maybe Orson could introduce them to Maggie Gallagher, who is seemingly the nation’s only prominent anti-gay activist not claiming close gay friends.)
That’s the only rational explanation. Because I’m certain that it can’t be the case that all these nice Christian people are lying.
Via You’re Reading Too Much Into It, The New York Times reports on a new trend: super-skinny male models.
Where the masculine ideal of as recently as 2000 was a buff 6-footer with six-pack abs, the man of the moment is an urchin, a wraith or an underfed runt. […]
Wasn’t it just a short time ago that the industry was up in arms about skinny models? […] The models in question were women, and it’s safe to say that they remain as waiflike as ever. But something occurred while no one was looking. Somebody shrunk the men.
“Skinny, skinny, skinny,” said Dave Fothergill, a director of the agency of the moment, Red Model Management. “Everybody’s shrinking themselves.”
The new male model is supposed to look younger, pubescent, rather than adult; and like with female models, that means casting them young and skinny.
It is disturbing that this is happening. I’d much rather see female models get more latitude; this is moving towards equality in the wrong direction.
The article makes a couple of “this was a big deal when women were thin, but no one cares that the men are now expected to be thin” comments. (“Far from inspiring a spate of industry breast-beating, as occurred after the international news media got hold of the deaths of two young female models who died from eating disorders, the trend favoring very skinny male models has been accepted as a matter or course.”)
The article should have pointed out that male models are still allowed to carry a lot more weight, proportionately, than female models. Which is probably why we haven’t yet had any young male models die of heart attacks (although if the thin trend continues, probably that will happen, alas).
According to the article, “Stas Svetlichnyy of Russia typified the new norm… about 145 pounds. He is 6 feet tall with a 28-inch waist.” Later, a booking agent says that a male model who is 6 foot one should weigh 155. Both of those work out to a BMI of 20, which is officially categorized as “normal” weight. But a BMI of 20 would probably make a female model unemployable:
Many suspect that some of the world’s top models, from Kate Moss to Jacquetta Wheeler, will be banned if a cut off BMI of 18 in enforced. […] The average runway model is estimated to be 5 feet 9 inches tall and to weigh in at 110 lbs.– resulting in a BMI of just 16, according to the British newspaper the Evening Standard.
According to the standard BMI categorization, BMIs under 18.5 are “underweight.” That doesn’t make what’s being done to the male models acceptable. But for people who aren’t naturally superthin, trying to maintain a BMI of 20 probably isn’t as unhealthy as trying to maintain a BMI of 16.
Finally, the article’s language sometimes seemed to suggest that thin male models aren’t male. Not everyone will see it, but comments like “underfed runt” and “chicken-chested” feel loaded with sexism, implying that the models are not only thin but also inadequate as men.
First, a video that made me cry. Philip Spooner, an 86 year old Maine resident, veteran of WWII, and lifelong Republican:
Next, a video that made me laugh. Roy Zimmerman and Laura Love, performing his song, “Summer of Loving”:
Finally, a question:
For those of you who oppose marriage equality, what would it take to convince you that your stance is wrong?
I ask because we’ve got Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and 5 US states. Same Sex Marriage has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000. We’re quickly nearing the point where appeals to how SSM will destroy society can be met with empirical evidence as to how it hasn’t. Bare appeals to tradition (in addition to being logical fallacies) hold less weight the more tradition there is behind SSM.
Because I’m serious about asking what it would take to convince SSM opponents that their stance is wrong, my normal comments policy is not in effect here.
Maine’s governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.
New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn’t indicated whether he’ll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region’s sole holdout.
The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who hadn’t previously indicated how he would handle the bill, signed it shortly afterward. In the past, he said he opposed gay marriage but supported civil unions, which provide many benefits of marriage.
Debate was brief. Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, turned the gavel over to an openly gay member, Sen. Lawrence Bliss, D-South Portland, to preside over the final vote.
Despite the temporary loss of California, this has been a good year for same-sex marriage equality. I swiped the “end the exclusion” title language from Freedom To Marry; that seems like a good way to put it.
UPDATE: As David reminds us, there is probably going to be a ballot fight over this — but maybe it’s one we can win.
UPDATE 2: The current message on the front page of the Maine Family Policy Council:
Maine’s Legislature will eliminate civil marriage by the end of May. We have started a People’s Veto. Please pray that God will intervene. He is our best hope. God has not forgotten about Maine. Even though things seem grim He may yet be gracious toward us. Senator Dennis Damon wants to eliminate Maine’s Defense of Marriage Act. It was created by referendum in 1997. 60,000 Mainers signed petitions demanding that Marriage be protected. Now, 186 politicians in Augusta want to ignore the will of the people … again. Maine people twice rejected “gay” rights in the past decade. Homosexuality is very sad, and sinful. Maine must not create a culture that winks at something so debilitating on so many levels. To present this “orientation” as benign to impressionable children is the height of arrogance, and surely qualifies as evil.
Where I work, our main obstacle to finding people to recycle our plastic is contamination by paper labels.
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