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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Take Back the Night
4/30/2008 10:08:00 AM So, last night I attended my first "Take Back the Night." I am amazed by women. I've never really felt like I belonged to a "community" of women, but last night I definitely felt it. I felt every woman sitting in that room. I felt their anger. I cried their tears. I felt the amazing outpour of compassion and support for eachother, and the strength that filled the room. The strength of women amazes me. I've always known the power and strength of one woman that is not only awe-inspiring, but life-altering and is the reason I am who I am today, but that collective strength of multiple women joinging together....was just...incredibly moving. At first, while listening to some of the speakers, I felt incredibly proud to have helped (what little I did) organize this years event, and couldn't believe that I'd never been to one before. Then listening to the final speaker, I was outraged. As she talked, it became so directly apparent that I wasn't happy to be there. I was pissed off that anyone was there. There is absolutely no reason why today, in 2008, such an event should even exist. How is it possible that we live in a society that permeates hate and violence toward women? We LIVE in it. Every second of every day, human beings are beaten, raped, and killed, undergoing some of the worst possible human rights violations, solely because they belong to a the sex that has been deemed (by men) insubordinate? What. The. Fuck. Who the hell do these people think they are, and why would ANYONE feel like they had the right to treat another person so badly? Never have I felt so affected by the oppression of women, in our society, and in societies all over the world, today and throughout all of history. After the general session was over, and the women and men (yes, there were men there, thank god. They need to be a part of this too. It is NOT a "women's issue". It's a women's problem, and men need to be involved in fixing it) broke out into confidential discussion groups. This was the difficult part. Sitting across from faces I see all the time on campus, even sat in class with, and hearing them speak about having had some of the most unspeakable crimes committed against them. Over 50 people attended (which is one of the best turnouts yet for this event), and almost 7 out of the 16 women who stayed to join the discussion group had a story that they shared. For many of them it was the first time they'd ever said anything to anyone, and I'm damn sure that there were more people in that room that could have shared a story relating to their own life, because I sure could have and I chose not to speak up. Not only was I in awe of the bravery of these women, sharing some of the worst possible moments of their lives, I was in disbelief. I go to school with these women, but I also go to school with their rapists and abusers. I sit in class with them as well. I interact with them. Daily. To sit in a room, and hear these stories from real people, people you've seen or talked to before sitting there in front of you, makes it all incredibly real. Unbearably real. Everyone could tell you a story about how violence has affected their lives. When you think about the fact that we are so conditioned to seeing and accepting violence in our society, that we hardly give a second thought to hearing statistics about it--let alone actually hear them at all, it only makes it even clearer how ridiculously prevelant and standard these acts are. This has got to stop. All of it. Women are the largest minority group facing discrimination. The fact that women are even considered a minority, when we in fact populate over half our species, is ludacris to me. It's only one night a year, but every second of every day people neeed to know that rape is wrong. Molestation is wrong. Domestic violence is wrong. Stalking is wrong. Sexual harassment is wrong. Street harassment is wrong. One of the speakers mentioned a recent study that was done among college age women and men, and 80% of the men who had committed rape, didn't actually think they did! How the hell does that happen? That people have no idea what constitutes rape or not? Let's make THAT part of our national dialogue. I don't care what Barack Obama's preacher said. I don't care what color Hillary Clinton's pantsuit is. However, I do care that John McCain voted against an equal-pay-for-women bill. Douchebag. Let's talk about that! Apparently the Missouri state legislature just got rid of an item in a bill that would provide $1 million to fund rape kits and counseling, instead offering a total ZERO dollars. A senator actually said, "You can't feed all the cows." Guess what, jackass, the money ISN'T for livestock, it's for human beings. Plus, I'm sure they spend at least twice that much a year on farm funding and actual cows. However, all that being said, no matter how infuriated I am, I am also encouraged. Encouraged by all of the strong women around me who know exactly what it is to know complete and utter hopelessness, but who are survivors anyway. Furthermore, don't take this as an anti-male, man-hating, feminist rant either. I love men. I'm sacrificing what may be my only opportunity to vote for getting the 1st female president in office, in hopes of getting who I think happens to be the right man for the job right now. I'm actually considering raising one eventually in the future (hopefully to be much less of an asshole than this generations average guy). There have been plenty of times in my life where I felt I could identify with them more than women. I was raised the total tomboy, and what women there were in my family were probably more masculine than than the dudes--which is probably why this community of women thing is so new and refreshing to me. Monday, April 28, 2008
Unfathomable
4/28/2008 10:08:00 PM http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3832842.ece?token=null&offset=0 Sometimes I feel about completely hopeless towards the idea of innate "humanity". Thursday, April 24, 2008
4/24/2008 02:48:00 PM There's this guy at work (Internship #2) that always greets me with "Hey, Young Lady" everytime I see him. Before, I just thought he didn't know my name, so 'young lady' was a substitute for that. However, today he came over whistling and walking by and said, "Hey, Lil Bit" which at first made me kinda laugh, because I swear it's something straight out of Laura Ingalls Wilder books...but then I was like....but there must be a reason that he nicknames me with the names he does... Do I look particularly young? Maybe. But I get that kind of thing alot from people. One of my friends often refers to me as "Little Fella" or "Little guy". Maybe it has something to do with my personality...that I seem so naieve or "young at heart". It's interesting to me, because it's something I got a lot when I was younger; but that's a little more expected when you're in 8th grade and 5 ft. & 100 lbs.
WTF!!!
4/24/2008 12:17:00 PM Sometimes I can't even believe some of the stupid shit I read. Take for example Jack Cashill at WorldNetDaily's comments about why feminism is bad for the environment. Wait for it...because... "equal pay for equal work also means equal commutes." "Indeed, stay-at-homes moms save the state's highway infrastructure from meltdown, especially since a "nanny" often drives to the working mom's house, putting three cars on the road where otherwise one would do. Cashill not only thinks that women should stay home (for gas conservation, he swears!) but he also thinks they shouldn't be allowed to get divorced. "...When not ignoring divorce completely, the media have done their best to trivialize it. PBS' "Sesame Street," for instance, offered a typically perky vignette on the subject, in which a cute little bird describes her home life. Jessica over at Feministing made this comment: "Uh...he knows birds don't drive, right? In any case, I've thought of a solution. Cashill drives America's working women around all day, that way they don't have to. (Also, he stops watching Sesame Street. Just because.)" Sunday, April 20, 2008
The KC sings "Ave Maria" for the Pope
4/20/2008 03:47:00 PM I love the bit in the middle where she starts singing in Latin. I kinda wanna see her do an opera or musical now. This makes me miss my classical music course. Oh, and getting to go to symphonies and operas...for free. Saturday, April 19, 2008
This weekend I finally watched "The Girl in the Cafe"
4/19/2008 07:17:00 PM It was awesome. And strange. I don't know what to compare it to, because it was very tender in the romance aspect, and odd to call a romantic comedy, plus it dealt largely with social politics. Political Romance? The two films that come to mind, based on the *feel* of the movie are 1) Crash...if there happened to be a couple that almost falls in love somewhere in there. 2) Closer. Only because there was a song in the beginning that I loved instantly, and sounded Damien-Rice-like, which was then also repeated at the end...similar to the way "The Blowers Daugher" was used to open and close the film Closer. Afterwards, I went crazy trying to find out who sang the song (of which, the bits they used were mostly female vocals) so imagine my surprise when I find out, the song in fact is by Damien Rice--which actually includes Lisa Hannigan, the woman who sings on both of his albums. I rememeber being confused one other time, by hearing a female singing a kick ass cover of "Sweet Dreams", and the artist credited as "Damien Rice", since you barely notice a male singing back-up vocals on the track. Though apparently Lisa has left "Damien Rice", so maybe she'll have some solo material to eventually look forward to. Friday, April 18, 2008
4/18/2008 10:57:00 AM Okay, I felt the 2nd one.
4/18/2008 09:54:00 AM So, this morning I learned I apparently sleep through Earthquakes... Not such a good thing. Thursday, April 17, 2008
Carry You Home - James Blunt
4/17/2008 12:15:00 AM So when I first heard this song a few months ago when "All The Lost Souls" came out, I definitely liked it, and knew it was about the end of one's life, etc. but didn't really think about it much. Then I saw this amazing dance to it on Dancing With the Stars, with James performing alongside two dancers doing all sorts of gorgeous lifts So then I of course had to YouTube the actual music video, and suddenly the lyrics totally changed, in the way that I heard them. I mean, "Carry You Home" before made me think...okay someone being delivered to heaven, or something similar. But when you hear "someone's little girl was taken from the world tonight, under the Stars and Stripes" the following lines "watching you breathing for the last time" become more literal, and "carry you home" invokes images of soldiers' bodies being sent back across the ocean, or soldier's promises to eachother to deliver letters/belongings to loved ones if they don't make it. I don't know, the message just struck me particularly hard this evening. Yeah, I totally cried while watching it. Twice. It's strange how even though I know Blunt was an officer in the British Army, I'm always slightly taken back by his songs about those issues coming from his shaggy-haired-skinny-songwriter body. This song seems like the counterpart to "No Bravery", one of my favorites from the first album. Tuesday, April 15, 2008
4/15/2008 04:01:00 PM Time is flying by. So much happening in the next 3 weeks. Friday, April 11, 2008
Speaking of British Imports...
4/11/2008 06:34:00 PM I'm addicted to this Duffy song right now. Wednesday, April 09, 2008
OH MY Global Market!!
4/09/2008 10:26:00 AM Yesterday Sam called me all freaked out to tell me that she had found a store that carried Pims. Which are a delicious snack from the U.K. But I wasn't that excited because I'd seen them in the U.S. a few times (Target started carrying 2 varieties I believe). THEN she told me they had Aero bars. My lid was flipped. The closest I'd been to Aero bars in the States wasn't even in the States, we were technically just across the border into Canada. So I was thrilled. After work I made her take me to this magical wonderland, where not only did I stumble upon some of my other favorite foods (and by foods I mean candies) like Double Deckers and Time-Outs, I began filling a basket full of goodies to mail to my friends Abby and Noel.....and then I saw it. LILT!!! Lilt is a sugary beverage---some would compare it to the Sprite/7UP/Squirt sodas we have here, but I would strongly disagree with those people. It's totally different. Plus it has Pinapple in it, not just grapefruit flavoring. So it really does taste different. Anyways. I about crapped my pants. The only thing that store was missing that would have made my life complete is if they had Archers Aqua in the foreign booze isle. Or even just a regular bottle of Archers Schnapps (which I've been trying to bribe Maggie in Poland and Kara in Germany to bring me). Alas, they did not. *sigh* I can't complain though. Now that I'm stuck here in St. Louis, at least I found a store where I can go to for some comfort purchases, instead of relying on my friends abroad to send me the random Aero bar to make my month (not that I'm complaining about that either, if you're abroad and you see one and think of me, by all means feel free to mail it ;) Saturday, April 05, 2008
BabyMammaMaker
4/05/2008 09:53:00 PM So apparently, if Tina Fey and I had a child, this is what it would look like:  Her name is Trixibelle (the first thing that came up, so I stuck with it).  Somehow the baby looks bi-racial..haha. I don't know what that's supposed to say about me--or Mrs. Fey. But I like it. AND, I love that it already has glasses. Poor kid already has my brother's bald spot though. I actually really want to see this film. Plus this tool is a fun web marketing idea. Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Clear the Way
4/01/2008 10:33:00 PM So I first heard this a few months ago when Mr. Mraz stumbled on stage (beer in hand) with Dawn Kinnard to duet on her song, and kinda fell in love with it--then forgot about it until I downloaded Jason's new EP, and Live London Sessions (only released on iTunes UK for now). Anyways, now that I've been reminded, I can't get it out of my head. I have yet to listen to the rest of Dawn's album, but if it's as good as this song, I'll probably love it. In addition the the EP I mentioned above Jason has 2 others coming out (the three EPs aptly titled "We Sing" "We Dance" and "We Steal Things") as the prelude to the new full album "We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things". So there's tons of fabulous new music from my favorite man out right now (currently I'm most fond of "If It Kills Me"). But wait! Also noteworthy: New OLD music from Jason. Mraz's "Live and Acoustic" is now available on iTunes. This was the one originally released independently in 2001, during the time Jason was a regular playing at Java Joes in San Diego, CA. If you don't have this live recording you are really missing out! Give it a listen here on iTunes. |
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