Every Now and Then She Speaks

That's me...the every-now-and-then-online girl. Anyway, I recently came across a very interesting online magazine called Truthout. I'm sure many of you have already seen this but it was new to me so I decided to post a link here. The Web is really the only place to find real news these days. Most everything else is just blather from the corporate machine.

Why I Love the Olympics (smell the sarcasm)

The Guardian published this article in July of last year and, of course, things have only gotten worst since then...Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2m over 20 years.

If you didn't know already...

I like World Cup Soccer and even Speed Skating but Tennis is definitely my Favorite Sport so let me share my enthusiasm for the moment...

Venus and Serena rock! They are outstanding tennis players and I love to see them play.

And then there was that very long very exciting (read: close) Federer/Nadal final today. Wimbledon does not disappoint!

Victoria's Big Secret is Slave Labor

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/69022/

What are We Doing?!

Not only are we sending young people over to murder innocent people abroad but after they have done their "duty for their country" we treat them like shit. There was a story on the network news last night about medical malpractice within the military and the inability of soldiers to sue for malpractice. There is a law barring them from doing so. The reporters had come to interview an officer who was not told that he had skin cancer and so went eight years untreated. When the reporters arrived though, he was shrunken and all but withered away, bearing no resemblance to the loyal and robust officer in his late twenties that he had been. He died just minutes after they arrived. His son will receive only 55% of his benefits because he was forced into retirement by the condition that army doctors neglected to tell him he had, though the doctor made note of the melanoma in his records. This kind of medical malpractice is only part of the negligence the armed forces are guilty of with regard to their "employees". It is also clear that they show callous disregard (or worse) when it comes to mental health issues. Senator Barbara Boxer recently send this message to Army Chief of Staff George Casey about the sharp increase recently in suicides and suicide attempts among the armed forces:

I was alarmed to read in The Washington Post that 121 soldiers committed suicide and another 2,100 soldiers attempted suicide in 2007, the latter being a six-fold increase from 2002. Though I appreciate the efforts the Army has made to improve mental health care and services for our soldiers, I fear that the strain placed on our forces by frequent and lengthy deployments is simply becoming untenable for service members and their families. These tragic suicides and attempted suicides may be a terrible consequence of that strain.

I would also like an overview of what steps the Army is taking to address the increasing trend in suicides and suicide attempts. In particular, I would like to know:

· What action is the Army taking to reduce the stigma associated with soldiers suffering from mental health issues?

· How many mental health providers are deployed in support of our soldiers, and what impact has this had on the availability of mental health providers for our soldiers and their families in the United States?

· How many soldiers who have attempted or committed suicide have been under the care of a mental health professional?

· Does the Army need additional resources from Congress to assist in curbing the increasing trend in suicides?

Unfortunately, these terrible tragedies remind us of the grave consequences of sending our men and women into harm's way. But they also remind us that we can and should be doing more. As always, I remain committed to ensuring that our military has the best possible mental health resources and services in place to care for our men and women in uniform. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer

United States Senator

Returning Soon

Stay tune for the updated Alien Citizen...

New Orientalism, Feminists, and Presidential Candidates

A friend and I recently got into a discussion about Persepolis, Kiterunner, and the new orientalism. Well, really there is nothing very new about new orientalism. The orientalism today is simply a continuation of a long history of orientalism that goes back literally centuries. From Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz,

"Orientalism is a way of thinking about the world and the cultures that inhabit it. It acquires global significance by defining and presenting these cultures in ways that endorse, even reinforce, the political and economic supremacy of the West. Edward Said, the thinker who coined the term Orientalism, pointed out that the Orient was almost a European invention since antiquity as a place of “romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes.” In another sense, the Orient helped Europe to define itself, or the West, as its contrasting image in terms of people, ideas, experiences, etc."

My friend thinks that Persepolis is awesome reading and great feminist literature to boot. I don't necessary completely disagree but there was something about this sudden recent interest in literature like Satrapi's Persepolis and Husseini's Kiterunner that really bothered me. Here is what I wrote to said friend.

Dear Daniel,

Persepolis does have feminist sensibilities but it really stood out to me that the success of this book, like Kiterunner and other of Khaled Housseini's works, has been largely due to a predominant orientalist view of that part of the world. If we set the same story in the united states about a girl growing up worshiping rock and roll singers with a backdrop of, say, the fundamentalist Christian conservative politics of this country, then I wonder if it would have seen the same success. So, yes she seems to give a view of the Iranian as something other than the exotic but then her picture of the oppressed woman fits right into the orientalist narrative. Case and point: Gloria Steinem's glowing praise of Persepolis. Steinem is someone who makes her own extremely reductionist assumptions about the world, positing for example that sexism somehow wins out over racism as a "most restricting force in America". I agree with the author of the blog, Reappropriate, quoted below in her response to Steinem's most recent statements on the presidential race.

"We’ve heard many argue that it’s time for an African American president, and many more argue it’s time for a female president. But, nowhere in the race vs. gender frenzy that has swept the nation has anyone challenged the very validity of the question. How can one compare racism to sexism – and if one tries, where do those of us who are disadvantaged both by our race and by our gender fit in?"

Let me know what you think...

As Beautiful, As Soothing, As Kind, As Fleeting.

For a large part of my growing up, I dreamed of being an opera singer. I sang all the time, listened voraciously to classical music, watched what opera I could catch on Public Television, and tried composing my own music for the keyboard. I've tended to, recently, keep my love of the Opera under wraps...afterall, I've long since come to the realization that one does not become an opera singer without training since a wee age and afterall, I do not like all opera. The difference in quality between one opera singer and another can be so profound that to me their work sounds, at best, like two wholy different genres. But to listen to those who truly love what they do and who are not masters of the music but synonymous with it...The transformative quality of Pavarotti, Caruso, and Jose van Dam's voices have been called ethereal. However, I appreciate them more for their ability to ground me...to make me feel at peace with the earth. On a warm autumn day, I like to come back from the library, clean from top to bottom (okay, mostly just the bottom), fling open the windows so my mix and match lace white curtains billow in the breeze, put on a recording of Nessun Dorma and sit out on the front steps with a book. While we still have his recordings...I'll miss Pavarotti's presence in this shared universe of ours. He was an amazingly beautiful person, transforming the world (and not just the privileged) with his golden voice.

Why Bush should be the new Miss South Carolina

I'm going to assume everyone has seen Miss Teen South Carolina attempt to answer a question about why Americans can't find their own country on a map. She gave a really really really excellent answer in my opinion. They always say to teachers, "show, don't tell." Well, she was just demonstrating to the audience how Americans think or...don't think. Americans, she informed us, are just dumb.

Anyway, here is why I think Bush should be crowned the new Miss South Carolina...



That's right. He's got just the right amount of intelligence for the job. But how does he look in a swimsuit? *shudder*

On Senator Craig

I just wanted to put out there what the media isn't bothering to say: It doesn't matter whether he is gay or not. While the nightly news, newspapers, the Senator himself, and others are sounding more homophobic than ever in pursuing the question of whether he is or not, I don't give a hoot. It is completely irrelevant to whether he was propositioning people in a public bathroom or participating in any other lewd behavior in the same location. Being gay is not a federal offense, nor is it lewd and had he done the same thing in a women's bathroom to a female officer then we would not be discussing his heterosexuality, as if this was the problem.

Adult ADHD

If you like me, have ADHD then you'll appreciate how much harder it is to get information about this than getting information about childhood ADHD. There is a great deal more information now than ever before, books and such, but it was nice nevertheless to find this dated video on the subject.

Posted Feb 19, 2007

ADHD in adults and other important information

FedEx Sucks

This is just the second time that I've ordered something that was supposed to come via FedEx. The first time, I changed the address I wanted it delivered too shortly after placing the order and while the computer said that they had this information and it would be delivered by the end of the week to that location, the driver instead tried delivering it to the old address and then took two more days to figure out what the correct address was...the address I had given them a week before and which they had in their computers.

This second time, I was impressed that they deliver on Saturday since UPS doesn't and was happily awaiting my package at home. About 2pm and still no package so I decide to track it online. It says it was delivered to my front door not 15 minutes before (signature service not requested)! Now, there are several people here and none of us saw FedEx even drive by. I check the front door, no package. I consider asking the neighbors if they got it but going out and taking a walk up and down the street I see no package at anyone else's front door. So, I call FedEx and tell the lady who says yeah the driver said he delivered it to your address. So My 200 dollar package is AWOL but like before they say they will tell my local FedEx facility (who I was told customers I not allowed to call themselves) and they will talk to the driver and eventually, days later I should get my package. FedEx sucks.

Wise Words

I was watching the inspirational speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer, tonight. A quote from him: "It makes just about as much sense to me to have a smoking section in a restaurant as it does to have a peeing section in a swimming pool."

And from someone he quoted: "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything. And in between the two, my life moves."

The Pinker the Better

That last video was Pink. So is this one. An artist who sees the world with open eyes...

Dear Mr. President,

TwoCrows posted this on her blog and I love it so much that I'm posting it here.

iReading

I have something over 200 books in one small space...they always surround me but I like it that way. I've always dreamed of having a proper library or of living in a library, getting locked in a library, etc., etc. Anyway, these hundreds of books were more numerous in the past and I had to (painfully) pack some away because of allergies, etc. Books do unfortunately hold a great deal of dust and other allergens (incl. mold if there is enough humidity in the air) because they are made from organic material. Luckily, we live in a digital age and many of those books that I might have bought in a used bookstore, along with all the requisite nostalgia causing mustiness, I now own in electronic form. With a large enough screen and good backlighting, I have found reading text in electronic form to be quite rewarding. Recently, Sony came out with a nice reader just for this purpose. This may be a little reminiscent of those flat pads the crew used to read from on Star Trek: TNG but, even without being a fan of new technology, anything that allows me to carry around an entire library of books in my pocket is a winner with me. Note: I carry about 180 titles on my PDA and have had no difficulty reading from it, even in dimly lit environments.

I can't remember if I recommended it already or not but the Korean movie, Kim Ki-duk's film "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring", is a very good (Buddhist) tale. I think of it often. Was thinking of it while listening to an episode of Chinesepod today about monks (the movie is about a monk and his son/disciple and so is the children's story in the ChinesePod episode). I also highly recommend Chinesepod (did this already on my other blog, Yinyangwriter, last year.

Taking a Writing Break...

...that is, a break to do some writing. So, I'm back to blogging here every now and then (rather than daily) and will focus my blogging energies on Yinyangwriter as a complement to the actual writing of the novel. At Yinyang, you can even track my progress on the novel with the wordmeter. Hopefully, I truly do have something to say and I'm not just wasting my time ...writer's anxiety, writer's anxiety. I don't care so much that this particular book is published/successful. I think I just need to get it out of my system so that I can finally write something more commercial. I've learned a lot about writing already that I didn't know when I started, so this is certainly a learning experience. As everyone says...the only way to become a writer is to write. I'm considering simultaneously outlining something commercial...I have some ideas when it comes to the structure (and the symbolism to use, etc.) but not the plot itself so much. Or rather I seem to be drawn to ideas that require fairly extensive research and I don't want to go down that path with the next book either. Researching rather than writing is sometimes just plain annoying.

Addicted to Colbert: An Autobiography Part II

This one had me in stitches.

Addicted to Colbert: An Autobiography