by the light of the moon...

I have so many ideas I want to blog about, and no time to do it. Rather than let the site languish without any changes, here are snippets of things that have caught my heart over the past week:

Went to see The Da Vinci Code movie:

* Was reminded of how much I appreciate the alternate media, where women have choices besides whore or wife (which apparently Mary Magdalene does not). It was so sad to see Audrey Tautou (from Amelie) spending a movie getting passively yanked around by Tom Hanks.

* It was also sad to see that Ian McKellen's character conveniently does not mention persecution of the LGBT community when he is describing the ways in which the church oppresses. I am guessing that that omission is a concession to ticket sales. I wonder if that was a painful omission for McKellen, out and proud as he is. It was painful for me.

* In this movie, I noticed that the fat person is evil; the albino is evil; the disabled person is evil; and I was only tracking race consciously for part of the movie, so I may have missed something, but it seems that only one person in all of France is a person of color. In Ron Howard's world, only the pretty white people have lines, and are good. It's the Amelie's Paris phenomenon.

Yet another English-only amendment:
As part of the new immigration reform bill, the US Senate passed an English-only amendment on Thursday, May 18th. If you think this is inappropriate legislation, call your senators.

Not crossing picket lines:
Al Gore, Howard Dean, State Assemblymember Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and State Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) have all refused to honor speaking engagements at Cal this month because doing so would require them to cross picket lines.

I am so impressed and thankful! How fabulous to see examples of people in the spotlight valuing workers and social ethics. Thanks you, thank you, Howard, Al, Fabian, and Liz. Thank you so much.

Allowing transgendered children to identify how they need to, and allowing their parents to support them
A five-year old with male genitals identifies as a girl and her parents are supporting her. O goddess, do my eyes deceive me and are my prayers answered? Can this be a trend? Can an increasing number of parents really be supporting their children who don't conform to societal gender expectations? I heartily cheer, cry, and holler for these wonderful people, and pray that their local (or national, for that matter) government does not interfere.

It is not usually so. Said government took Aurora Lipscomb away from her parents in 2000, and I have not been able to find out yet if she was ever able to return home, let alone attend school as the girl she wished to be. I have a call into GPAC; we'll see if they have any news of her.

image is the cover of one of my favorite books on transgender issues, She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I stumbled onto this article from last November on insidehighered.com.

It's a nice quick summary of many of the issues that are apparently facing Ethnic Studies departments, as they were discussed at a meeting of the American Studies Association.

I don't teach ES but these issues absolutely mirror what I've seen, working on campuses in diversity awareness trainings and discussions.

Two tastes for you:

"...When scholars at the meeting gathered in Washington Saturday to consider ethnic studies in the classroom, they talked about the need to rethink how their discipline fits into academe and how their courses reach students. Specifically, they called for more emphasis on teaching not one ethnic group, but on the way different groups interact and change one another. And they traded ideas on how to reach white students — many of whom sign up for their courses and are then stunned and angry to have their assumptions challenged."

..."AnaLouise Keating, an associate professor of women’s studies at Texas Woman’s University, says that a major challenge for her is getting students beyond a “monolithic, pseudoscientific” sense that racial categories are precise and unchanging. She wants students to realize that the status associated with various races is not unchanging — and she wants to do this in a way that makes white students truly examine themselves, but not just engage in “non-productive, navel-gazing guilt.” "

Would have liked to have heard more of the discussion. Enjoy the article.

image from One Drop of Blood by Scott Malcomson - a book on this topic that has been highly recommended to me, but I have not read it yet.

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hmmm... In checking with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (both their website and a representative) I have been assured that the air over the SF bay is currently pretty clean. Here is the five-day forecast that is updated every day.
The representative I spoke with (should have gotten his name!) even claimed that our air is currently "the cleanest it's been for 25 years."

Well, the cynic in me is trying to find a second opinion from a non-governmental agency, but until then, perhaps, indeed, it is not a new crisis in Bay Area air quality.

Meanwhile, here are ten tips on how best to spare our air with your personal choices.

Two that I'd like to highlight:

- 7. Refuse to use aerosol. I thought that the ozone depleting aerosols were banned - but apparently either I was in error, or they still emit VOCs even after being re-designed to not harm the ozone in whatever other way they harmed it. @#$%^. I need to do more research, but I am very frustrated to find out that a product I thought had been made environmentally safe, still isn't.

- 10. Do your garden chores gasoline-free. This one is a change I'd love to see - whether we do our own gardening or pay someone else to do it, I'd like to propose that it's just not worth the pollution to use a gasoline-powered leaf blower.

In my little utopian vision of the world, a little clutter/dirt/germs/stray leaves are a welcome tradeoff for cleaner air and a safer environment.

Thoughts?

photo from http://www.bigfoto.com/

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Has anybody else noticed that over the past few weeks, since the rain stopped, the air over the SF bay seems much more hazy than I expect it to be? It hasn't been scorching hot, but there are days when our cities can barely see each other across the bay.

I'm wondering if some new polluter has found a way to get around regulations, or if they've been gutted...I'll see what I can find out. Let me know if you have any info.

photo from http://enrin.grida.no/

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

...from NPR to 94.1 KPFA, an independent radio station here in Berkeley.

I've been an NPR junkie for years. Raised on Karl Cassell. And I don't think I'll swear off entirely.

But over the past few years I was spending more and more time annoyed or frustrated with the coverage I was hearing. Most of the voices I was hearing seemed to be American, white, and male. The business stories seemed to lean towards supporting the companies described...who were also sponsors. There was so little coverage of protests and liberal activities...and never, in my experience, an interview with a true left-winger, like Noam Chomsky or Dolores Huerta. And I'm always wondering what stories are not being told due to Republican pressure or corporate funding...

Even Car Talk, my beloved Car Talk...I'm just tired of hearing them quote tired stereotypes of women.

(BTW, FAIR.org has catalogued these phenomena, and more, in their studies of several center-to-right biases on NPR.)

So I'm taking a break and giving my ears, and my pledge money this year, to KPFA. I can get my center-to-right news from so many places, and I get enough of it, by golly! Let's hear what else is going on!

And if you're interested...KPFA's mission statement.

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry for the radio silence this week. I was traveling. Had an interesting encounter on the road with women's history...

In San Diego, I found myself in a model train museum, in front of a display about women working in railyards. It was a typical photomontage about how women had to fight, and sue, their way into these "male" fields, starting in the early 20th century. It had all sorts of inspiring photos of women in coveralls and engineer caps, doing hard physical work and, seemingly, having a lot of fun.

What struck me was that as a woman in my thirties, raised in a feminist liberal environment, I still felt awe and grief looking at these photos. I still feel cut off from that sort of world. I know that my experience is not everybody's, but I think it may still be typical for many women to feel Other, Not Good Enough, Second Best, and not free to pursue - and be respected - in non-traditional fields. I know that's what I feel.

That same day I randomly stumbled upon the May 16th, 1999 edition of the New York Times Magazine, and really enjoyed an essay within: "The Future is Ours to Lose," by Naomi Wolf. I love her passionate reminder that women need to know our history, to keep the stories alive of the paths we have already worn, and the places we have already fought to get - lest the next generation not know that it has happened, or at what cost. My experience in the train museum was just today's manifestation of how little I know of what women have already fought for. How little I have internalized of what we should already be able to have completed.

A second resource (and I know the list could be very long) that I have found useful in the struggle to learn of the history of women is Manifesta. The first chapter of this book was very eye-opening for me as a young feminist. It lists how things were for women in 1970, as compared to in the 90s, when it was written and when I read it. The differences were astounding.

So why don't we know these things? Why don't I viscerally know these things? Why did the photo of the women changing a track signal with a two-foot long wrench make me feel so sad? Why was I surprised, years ago, to read that the classified ads for lawyers were listed as "men's jobs only" as recently as 1970?

As a cynic, I already knew what Naomi Wolf is saying: society fights for us to not hear these stories, to numb us, and to sedate young women into thinking that we are "post-feminist."

I need to read more women's history, and I need to read it every day. We need to tell these stories every day. To ourselves, and to everyone else, of all genders.

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As to Naomi Wolf's article: I haven't been able to find a copy online so I can't link to it, but there seems to be a copy of it in this Columbia Press book, The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941.

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Laughing while the world burns... Isn't there something else pressing on his agenda? Hmmm...coulda sworn...Iraq or Darfur or...something...
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Beginnings of reports on what I hope are huge rallies today (and I also hope that they are well-reported in the media, but that's just crazy talk)

New York Times

BBC

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And while I kept thinking all weekend, "What more can I do about Darfur?..I need to look into that..." this happened. Woops. Woulda been nice to be there. I need to keep up better! Thanks to all who were there.

Posted by Lythande (formerly T) at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)