@GOP: Taxes are Not a Punishment

They are a responsibility. They are a means of collecting money from the people in order to turn around and provide said people with a functional nation.

Tax money is used to maintain the roads that your donors' corporations haul their products around on, ensure that their private jets are built properly, provide them with an educated and healthy workforce, sustain oil wars for the sake of maintaining their extortionate fuel costs (though, to be fair, it is their privately-funded lobbyists who stand in the way of widespread adoption of ecologically-friendly and inexpensive fuel sources, not the state directly), and continue to create and uphold laws that ensure that life-saving drugs and treatments never go generic so their profit margins never falter. Your donor base benefits from taxation every day--indeed, far more in fact than most middle-class consumers who even now you're trying to screw in the face by replacing their Medicare and public education with vouchers so you can fund fundamentalist churches who will give that money right back to you.

Your donors are the people who most often use the tax-funded court system, trying to prevent each other from making money. They're most often protected by the rigorous enforcement of laws against vandalism--without which I'm confident far more disgruntled employees would cause damage to their factories and offices. They're most often bailed out when their decades of illicit activity and irresponsibility finally catch up with them. Not us.

Not us--us middle class goons and others who don't qualify for state assistance and never will, even if we hit rock-bottom. Not us consumers who you've turned a blind eye to when we've cried out for release from the crushing costs of insurance and debt that your donors turned toxic. Not us for whom cars are a taxable expense, not an itemized deduction. Not us who don't have a choice of what country to do our banking in.

We the middle-class are sick of paying for the lifestyles of your donors while receiving nothing in return. The intellectual elite that you seek so vehemently to silence are aware of the necessity of reasonable taxation on all sectors to maintain functional domestic infrastructure and healthy global trade relationships. Appropriate taxation is the only way to keep our roads in shape, as South Carolina's rutted tracks attest to. It is the only way to maintain a trained and honest police department, as Chicago's bribe-funded force can attest to. It is the only way to educate our youth, as the evolution-denying home-schooled kids who will never benefit your science-industry donors clearly demonstrate. It is the only way to equip our military, as Boeing is quick to remind you.

So seriously, enough is enough. Stop trying to distract your hot-headed voter corps with meaningless fights over whether-or-not churches should get state power or brown people should be allowed to immigrate. The answers are clearly established in the Constitution (no and yes, respectively) and are not up for debate--if you'd like to debate them you can do so we're not in an economy-crushing crisis. Stop prodding the powerless into attacking each other so they forget to hold you accountable for your jobs. Stop wading around in fluff legislation, waiting for the emergency imperative that you're clearly holding out for, and draft rational tax increases for the wealthy so we don't fall into the abyss that you, through your neglect, excavated.

Social Security did not cause this. Medicare did not cause this, except inasmuch as you've kept drugs extortionately expensive for the elderly so as to keep your pharmaceutical donors smiling. My grandma's pain pills are not expensive to make, distribute, or regulate. (Speaking of which, my grandma has never asked for nor received a $50,000 toy aeroplane.)

What caused this was three simultaneous wars, massive loopholes in tax laws that only the wealthy can exploit, free trade agreements that have allowed American companies to dump domestic employees because they want a fair wage, and freewheeling banking and insurance systems that ensure that unwealthy people are screwed if they get sick or their jobs get outsourced by your donors.

Those "job creators" you keep harping on haven't 'created' any substantive employment opportunities yet, despite enjoying the lowest tax obligation in our nation's history. Those "job creators" are in a prime field to put Americans to work right now--there's 14,100,000 unemployed people right now who would very much appreciate a reasonable income and group health insurance--nothing fancy. They don't want gold plated toilet seats, butlers or Bentleys--just enough support to live with dignity. Everything is in place right now for them to create those jobs you keep talking about, but they're not doing it.

Would you reckon they're waiting to create all those promised jobs until those fourteen million people and their peers drop the "with dignity" clause? Are they planning to bring their production lines back to the US the second we disband OSHA, or do we need to obliterate the pathetically inadequate minimum wage, open up our ecosystem to even more dumping, agree to pay for the injuries and illnesses we develop from from our now-unsafe workplaces and toxic food ourselves, and promise to not make them pay any taxes at all too? Are they expecting us to re-instate the Antebellum South to lure them back? Is that the trigger?

The problem is not us.

It is you.

Another Note I Sent to my MP

You'd think I was retired, the amount of time I spend harassing my poor elected representative. Next I'll be writing terse letters to my local newspaper about disrespectful youths and how I've grown so fearful I don't let my corgis outside any more. Nevertheless:


Dear Ms. Ruddock,

Frank Field and Nadine Dorries' recent underhanded moves in regard to women's safe and timely access to abortion services have just come to my attention and caused me considerable concern. No doubt I'm preaching to the choir here, but I nevertheless wanted to reaffirm that your constituents will not stand for any more gross attempts on women's rights by religious fanatics and misogynists. If you can do anything at the legislative level to prevent their “little modifications” from being introduced into law, please nip this in the bud as soon as you can.

I moved to Lewisham in 2009 from South Carolina, an impoverished wasteland of Bible Belt Americana. While I would not describe myself as a refugee, my partner and I did very deliberately choose to move me here instead of him to the US simply because the UK did not appear to be teetering on the edge of a catastrophic Christian takeover at the time. So when I saw that LIFE ousted BPAS on the sexual health council a few months ago I greeted the news with dread—I knew more Fundie garbage would be dumped in our laps in time. And sure enough, now MPs Field and Dorries are seeking to sneak new regulations into the healthcare bill that will at once require women to receive unnecessary counselling and prevent abortion providers from offering it, a measure which would place private organizations with private motives between women and their reproductive rights. This, I'm confident you'll agree, is an outrage.

This sort of twelfth-century legislation crops up in the US all the time—most notably in South Dakota. There women must receive counselling from an independent “crisis pregnancy center” at least two weeks before receiving an abortion. All of these centres in the state are church-run, anti-choice, and make a point of misinforming women—from lies about cancer risks to fibs about complications, infertility, and God's Wrath, they'll make up anything. Then, of course, they don't stamp the necessary forms to prove that advisees came in—they just cheekily refuse to allow women to meet that requirement. Not that this matters—the state has driven out all abortion providers, even for when a woman's life is in jeopardy. Distressed women now have to cross to Wyoming to receive treatment--a trip of hundreds of miles, followed by weeks of paying for accommodation while they wait.

It is vital for the health, safety, dignity, and personal sovereignty of all women that these outrageous attempts are stopped in their tracks, and for the perpetrators of this attempted crime against women to be reprimanded. These scum have seen the “perforate and tear” approach crush women's rights in backwoods America and figure it is worth a shot here. It ain't. Please help them see that what they're attempting is unacceptable in any decent society.

Warm regards,

Ms. KG

P.S. Oh cool--I just discovered that a group of choice supporters will be rallying on the 9th of July in the Old Palace Yard, Parliament Square, from 13:30-16:30, over just this issue. I think I'll join them.

---And she replied!

Thank you for contacting me about your concerns over the amendments to the Health and Social Bill tabled by Nadine Dorries MP and Frank Field MP. I agree with your comments and please be assured that if the amendments are selected for debate or brought to a vote I will be opposing them. If there is an attempt to introduce them without debate I will certainly oppose that as well. Yours sincerely, Rt. Hon. Joan Ruddock, MP

And her assistant tacked on a reply too:

I hope you don’t mind me adding to Joan’s letter. I don’t know if you attended on Saturday – I was there and thought it was a very good event. Best wishes, Ms. Senior Parliamentary Assistant

The Yokel Effect

Joe is ignorant.

Kate tells Joe something he didn't previously know.

Joe is embarrassed that he didn't already know that.

Joe resents Kate for inducing this embarrassment.

Joe rejects anything else Kate may have to say.

Joe remains ignorant, but on purpose this time.


Michele Bachmann will try to make her religious dogma into law.

Joe wants religious laws, so he likes Michele Bachmann.

Michele Bachmann is wrong about US history and state policy.

Kate the News Anchor reveals that Michele Bachmann is wrong.

Joe is embarrassed that he didn't know she was wrong.

Joe resents Kate for making him feel embarrassed.

Joe rejects what news anchors say about Michele Bachmann.

Joe votes for Michele Bachmann.


(A Summary of Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone.)

A note I just sent to my MP

Dear Ms. Ruddock,

This letter is intended to share with you my views regarding the Shoreditch High Street Overground "toll booth" and its impact on Lewisham residents. I don't know if you're aware that Shoreditch High Street Station was moved into Zone 1 in 2009 thanks to pressure from National Rail over concerns that the Overground would hurt their ticket sales. Because of this, your constituents must pay £11 extra every week just to pass through this station to get to our offices--a charge which commuters from other areas of zones 2 and 3 are not subjected to.

As the Shoreditch Toll Booth only affects commuters coming into town from our neck of the woods, I believe this is a regional equality issue that warrants your concern. We've been monopolized by National Rail for too long--and now rather than force it to compete with the less-convenient but lower-priced Overground as intended, TfL has caved to financial pressure from this for-profit enterprise, prevented the people from having a money-saving option, and undermined their own initiative to reduce traffic.

For every other region, the Overground costs £21 a week, but for us it's £32. If we didn't pay London taxes maybe a surcharge to get into town would make sense, but since we do, pricing us out of the Overground network is clearly unfair.

When the Overground was being built we were told that it was intended to help reduce congestion in the Tube and the central stations by providing an orbital service for the outer zones. But because of National Rail's shady dealing it's the same price for me to get to my office in Angel via London Bridge as Highbury & Islington, so I squeeze onto the Northern line every morning. We have no option but to pay for Zone 1, so we might as well use the faster routes straight through it. The few occasions when I've had cause to catch the Overground it's been practically empty--and rightly so.

Once construction begins in earnest on London Bridge Station rail travel in our region is going to be a nightmare. Surely TfL can see wisdom in keeping as many people as possible out of that! And with the Olympics coming up it seems contradictory to our city's best interests to Not offer a real incentive for locals to stay out of the city centre. We're all used to overcrowding--avoiding the tourists is not an effective incentive!

A solution that has been proposed to mediate the conflicting interests of National Rail and southeasterners is Shoreditch could behave like Zone 1 if you enter or exit there (the City is technically within walking distance, so fair enough) but if you only pass through without getting off your train, it remains Zone 2 as originally intended. This would not be difficult to programme, and it would encourage Zone 2 workers like my partner and I to go out of our way to lighten the load on London Bridge.

Moreover, Ben and I don't earn much, so the £1,000 per year this small change could save our household is significant. And as I'm well aware of National Rail's pay and neglect scandals, regular price hikes and service cuts, and the fact that they get our tax money regardless of the quality of their service, you'll have a hard time convincing me they deserve that grand more than we do.

Please help your constituents make ends meet and unclog the Tube by making the Overground serve its purpose. The Shoreditch High Street Toll Booth extorts the South East and should be eliminated.

Thank you for your time.

It's About Balance

Public. Private. Who decides? Who pays? What is appropriate? I'd like to touch on a few big industries that have a lot of leeway in modern Britain: the publicly funded, publicly run Arts Council, the publicly funded, privately-run Rail Union, and the privately-funded, privately-run pain in the ass that is Big Telecom.

I am a theatre professional. Well, I would be if I was employed. I am a highly educated theatre-y person. (An MA in theatre and a sockful of nickels might get you a loaf of bread.) Maybe my opinion on this matter has the potential to be modified by employment, but for now, I have a thing or two to say about state-funded art.

It's a bad idea.

The UK government established the Arts Council in 1940 to try and give artists an income--to keep the vagrants off the streets, essentially. The arts council was founded on the notion that artists are otherwise useless to society and it would less unsanitary to fund them to do something than to have them begging. (Okay, I'm making some of that up. The arts council was developed to preserve and promote British culture, which is a valid enough enterprise, 'cos let's face it, the British don't have a whole lot else going for them now that all their primary industries have moved to countries that don't get their panties in a wad about workplace safety and living wages. And unlike Hawaii, British tourism can't just sustain itself on sunshine and pretty women.)

Back to the point. Many theatres in the UK would collapse if state funding was pulled from them. Tourism would be threatened. Culture would be compromised. An entire generation of artists would fade into obscurity. It would be a catastrophe.

This is unfortunate, because honestly the last thing art needs is tax money, and the best thing for the industry is for the state to turn away from it.

(You traitor! Arrrrg! No wonder no one will hire you!) What tax funding has done to theatre is allow the general population to have a voice in what types of arts programming get funding. And guess what. 90% of the general population does not think that "art for art's sake" is a worthwhile use of their money. I for one don't. You want to take my hard-earned (non-existent) cash and give it to some idiot so he can poop on the floor? Film herself scraping off her fingernails and soaking her bleeding fingers in milk? Tie herself into an awkward position and paint the walls with her teeth? No. That's a waste of money. Tax revenue must be used for the public good.

So the opposite has happened. The only theatres, music groups, and art programmes that get money are ones that have some sort of outreach motive. At-risk youth theatre. Music therapy for the mentally ill. Art in hospitals. History museums.

This is fine. No, really. Well, sorta. I have no particular beef with nice people providing art-based social services. I would never do it myself, as I've only ever seen it backfire, but surely some good has come from bringing a joyful noise into classrooms and shelters. Sure, half the time the troubled teens are just shouting "fuck off, little miss do-gooder" and it's impossible to quantify the effectiveness of cello music on coma patients, but I'm sure that on some level it's all making life a little bit more liveable for someone (and not just the bleeding-heart practitioners themselves).

But the availability of free money for the right kind of art has crippled arts development in every other sector, because every organization that could be doing something cool is instead flopping around like sun-baked fish, desperately modifying their programming and mission statement in the hopes of getting picked up for funding. People and groups that have no business influencing children and prisoners are out there, compromising their vision (and distressing toddlers) because there's no other money available to support creative expression.

The private sector may call for a commission occasionally--a new sculpture for the lobby, a cubist portrait of the founder--but because of the pervasive influence of the Democratised Aesthetic, unless a submission can demonstrate its Community Outreach potential, very few corporate managers will risk investing in art. It's just bad PR.

Back in the day--long before my day--artists sought patrons. Wealthy individuals and companies paid artists to be their entertainment-on-demand. Yes, the artist had to produce work that the patron appreciated, but these sorts of relationships were varied and could lead to quite interesting, diverse outcomes. The upshot of all this was that exceptional artists could create art that pleased the aesthetic and interests of their particular niche, and if nobody else liked it, it didn't matter. Consider the Shakespeare histories that made sure to portray ancestral competing claimants to the throne as evil, or the architects who told George IV that the onion-domed And crenellated Royal Pavilion he wanted for Brighton would be just beautiful (and very accurately Chinese).

But time has moved on, expectations have been raised, and theatre has gotten more expensive to produce. Meanwhile companies have merged and streamlined, grown and expanded until entire industries have come to exist under one corporate umbrella. The only companies that can afford to sponsor arts organizations are such high-profile institutions that they can't risk being too controversial. Even innocuous, good-idea helpful patronage, when it reaches the ears of the wrong community, leads to boycotts and protests in the streets (or did no one else notice the Teabaggers flapping their arms around outside Home Depot for supporting GLAAD?) Big corporations that decide to support the arts have to be very, very careful that they are investing in programmes that make them look good across the board.

Theatres that already are big corporations have to make shows that will please everyone, or at least not offend anyone.

Which results in porridge. Bland, colourless, gloppy, saccharin sweet porridge.

Germany does something different. In German culture banks, investors, and huge monolithic corporations have adopted a fashion where it's hip to fund a theatre. They still have something resembling that patronage system, and in a lot of cases, the money that it takes to run an arts organization is hardly a blip on the corporation's ledger--at least, it's not a big enough concern that the funding body takes any great care to monitor the theatre's output. This occasionally leads to them paying performers to masturbate onstage to a house of empty seats, but it allows for funded creative experiment--artists getting paid a living wage to try new things, develop new ideas, and push the envelope without worrying if their actions promote awareness of Sidcup's recycling programme.

It's like that terrible waste of beautiful puppetry that's gone from nauseating the West End to annoying Spielberg's viewers: when you burden a show-horse with a plough, you wind up with both a broken horse and a poorly turned field. Art has been crippled by its failed attempt to Do Good. Art is not good. It is not bad. It is art, and if you try and give it a social purpose, you wind up with the abomination that is War Horse.

----

But let's look at the flip side for a second. What happens when publicly-funded organizations get to do whatever they want with no accountability to anyone but themselves, despite the fact that they affect everyone? When they don't have to do good, even though they should? I am referring, naturally, to the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union.

The Tube. It is London's life force--an arterial system that provides almost every neighbourhood with workers, taxpayers, and the occasional vagrant. Like theatre it is also paid for with a combination of tax revenue and ticket sales. But unlike theatre, in the past year transit prices have gone up twice, services have been reduced, and the union has gone on strike at least four times, effectively shutting the system down and putting an undue burden on the separate unions of the buses, suburban rail, the Overground, the river, taxis, and the highway. Theatres tried that--nobody showed up and eventually the theatres closed.

RMT are striking for what at first sounds like reasonable causes--safety, hours, wages, job security. Fair enough, right?

Except. Except they don't really have a leg to stand on. Tube employees' base salary is £15,000 higher than any other transit workers'. More money is sluiced by the state into the Tube than into any other system--into maintenance, employee benefits, maintaining jobs, and line development. Particularly now that the Olympics are rapidly coming closer, ensuring that the city has a safe, reliable, attractive public transit system has been declared utterly vital. They are getting as much money as anyone can afford.

And we live in the Future. The city also has a lovely train service called the Docklands Light Railway, which is every four year old boy's favourite thing on earth for one very important reason: he can sit up front and pretend to drive. The DLR is essentially a large network of robots that functions quite well almost entirely without human involvement. It's on time, it's safe, and it runs itself.

Sure, in the evenings it's a good idea to have transit employees on board to ensure that when drunks fall onto the tracks, the machine doesn't carry on without heeding their plight. But under daily circumstances, drivers, door operators, and signalmen are more trouble than they're worth. Unfortunate to employment rates? Sure. But what is better for commuters--employing train employees to do an okay job, or having machines do a very efficient job?

This kind of gimmick of course makes transit employees very, very angry. And to an extent I understand them--why should people lose their jobs to machines, just because machines do them better and without needing to buy food or nappies or pay mortgages or take sick days? We've had to face the crushing truth that computers and machines work better than we do since the industrial revolution. As we innovate ourselves out of usefulness, we must take a moment to ask--why do we cling to the notion that a task that is better and more cheaply performed by a computer programme should still be a career? No one seems to mourn the obsolescence of the scullery maid or the lamplighter. And while home-made cakes do taste better, I have a hard time believing that the DLR is somehow inferior without that human touch. If a machine has been made to streamline the inefficiencies of human performance at any task, surely this is an indicator that the best human operation leaves room for improvement.

So far, the rail unions have kept the machines from completely eliminating their jobs, but this success has empowered them to take more bold moves, which may get them into trouble. Their regular, crippling strikes over ticket office layoffs (the computerized system works better, faster, more fairly, speaks 17 languages, doesn't yell at you for waking it up, and doesn't pull the shade at 4:45pm) and their planned strikes over the legitimate firing of two employees have endeared the soulless DLR to Londoners more and more over the past year.

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But what about private companies who have never done good, have never had to do good, but keep getting in the way regardless? I'm referring, of course, to phone companies and net neutrality.

Why does the phone company think it is owed something in this digital age? We have always paid for phone service--it's not like the entire history of telephone operation has been some sort of philanthropy on their part--but now that a video phone call can be handled for free and with minimal bandwidth occupation on the Internet companies like BT are determined to get their just deserves. Courts are filled every day with phone lawyers and lobbyists doing whatever they can to prevent companies like Skype from letting people circumvent their communication toll. Just because it Can be done for free doesn't mean it Should, surely.

The problem is the people who would add a surcharge to free services so as to hold onto their profit margin are convinced that the Internet is a closed system with a speed limit that can and should be enforced. Despite the truth that the interwebs just expand as new information enters them, and so long as people keep buying servers there's no reason the net won't just grow indefinitely, they are trapped in a 1980's version of the world where a town's long-distance jacks were limited and had to be handled by an operator. The extents they're going to now to impose their analogue fees on the digital world are akin to priests raving that, despite all evidence that a skilled surgeon removed your infected appendix safely, prayer actually saved your life. Get with the program. Manual telephone operation and religion have been dead for years, but for some stupid reason they won't stop kicking or demanding our money. You've had your day! Just let go already! Better, faster, smarter and cheaper systems have replaced you--namely computers and soap. The reason we're not paying you is because you shouldn't be paid anymore. You want a job? Invent a new service we can't live without. Don't demand that we keep paying you for a service nobody needs that you don't even provide.

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So. I think it comes down to: art should not be public, transit should not be private, and anyone who tries to force consumers to pay twice for internet and internet services should be shot. I already pay my monthly net subscription to BE AND a trumped-up "line rental" fee to the privately-owned BT--don't try and charge me for using Skype because I'm not paying your free-money long-distance fee for a piece of software to automatically connect me to my mom. I'm paying you for internet access. What I do with it is my business.

Ancient Wisdom, or Fear of Change?

Why do people feel the need to justify the actions and attitudes of the present against documents from the past? The Bible, the Qu'ran, the Constitution, the company mission statement...all referred to constantly by people to prove that they're right, that they're good, that they're striving to attain some well-established ideal. I don't understand.

The Constitution is a big one for me. I don't understand the reverence afforded the Founding Fathers, a bunch of frustrated men whose primary goal was to set up a country that would be Not England after years of colonial oppression. I don't get why people hold up the Bill of Rights as though it's some sort of scripture, perfect and unthinkable to modify, despite the fact that it is comprised of the first ten corrections to a distinctly flawed original document. Why do we hold old writings and rules in a better light than contemporary? Why do we convince ourselves that the values of the ancients are somehow superior, nobler, despite the fact that society has been constantly progressing since the time of writing?

I think the Constitution should be reviewed every year by a randomly selected body of poli sci professors. Once a year they sit down and read the rules and say "okay, does this one still make sense? Is this still a good idea? Could we rephrase it to be more clear? Could we replace it with something more applicable? Should we change this to something that more accurately reflects the best interests of everyone in the nation, not just the white christian ones?" The good ones, keep. The ones that have already been amended, or the ones that are discriminatory or perpetuate inequity get struck. Like the 18th Amendment--it was repealed. Surely that means the 18th should be kicked out and women's suffrage should move up a space. Indeed, why can't women's suffrage just be added to the 15th? What's wrong with modifying the document itself, instead of eternally adding to it? If you're amending it, clearly the document is not sacrosanct. Why do you wish only to fill in the white space at the end? You can keep the first one on file, but don't use it if it's no longer useful.

As for laws that may suck, why should people have the right to wave guns around or not have to give evidence against themselves? Why should the government reserve the right to quarter soldiers in people's homes in wartime? Is it really a good idea to not re-try acquitted cases if new evidence comes to light?

(I'd like to take a moment to consider the right to bear arms. Regardless that its original phrasing intended to state that the people have the right to form militias and defend themselves from tyranny, the right to have a weapon doesn't actually give you the right to use it. If you use your gun on someone in a non-defensive act, it's a crime. Likewise, if you use your gun on someone in an act that you believe to be defensive but turns out to be unnecessary, it's a crime. The only time it's okay to use your gun for its designed purpose is if someone else is using their gun for its designed purpose on you and you'd prefer they didn't. That's just weird and pointless. Kinda like the christian "god is three distinct people at once while at the same time just one dude" argument. Weird, bullshit, and pointless.)

But why do we constantly re-interpret the presumed-noble intent of the written edict, when we could just write something better? We give new meanings to the Constitution and scripture all the time to reflect current thinking, despite what it actually says. Like the current dispute between godbotherers and halfway intelligent people over the first amendment. The godbotherers like to construe it to mean that the government won't dictate religion, but may still behave in a religious manner. Whereas sane people figure it means that the government is a secular body that must not have anything at all to do with religion. If the law as written can be misconstrued, and in particular if it may be misconstrued to repress people or impose discriminatory values on them, it must be re-written. More specifically, if circumstances progress and the world grows up and we realize that a particular law is outdated or represents a view that is no longer universally viewed as just, laws must be updated to reflect--not just the views of the vocal, but the logical, objective truth.

As logic stands now, so long as adults of sound mind consent to an action, provided that action does not affect non-consenting parties, it is no business of anyone else to intervene or even regulate it. But back-assward busybodies nevertheless believe it is their right and obligation to impose their narrow world views behind everyone's doors, so laws remain on the books--some of them utterly unenforceable because federal laws contradict them--that ban perfectly reasonable behaviours because religiosos are holding out for the day the federal ban will go away.

Just as it is unacceptable for religion to control private behaviour and thought by scaring children into believing they are always being watched and their minds are always being read, it is not acceptable for the state to pass laws against doing as one pleases provided it doesn't harm anyone else or break or take their stuff. This is reasonable and just and appropriate. But it would require a complete re-write of everything. I'm okay with that. I don't hold the law as sacred. I believe history is recorded to be learnt from, not to be repeated or maintained. Yes, we know how things were 200 years ago in this country. That doesn't indicate that that's how we need to stay. The People at large don't give a whoop what we used to be. Standing up in front of Congress and saying "well for 200 years the US was ruled by and for christianity so we better keep it that way" is akin to a representative in Israel standing up and saying "well for the past thousand years we didn't have a country here so we better give it back." History is not a mandate. What things were is not necessarily what things oughtta be.

The decline of the prevalence of religion in the developed world (i.e. Europe) crossfades clearly with the advent of useful medical science. Religion has been steadily losing its grip on government, education, nursing, and daily life ever since the discovery of penicillin. As soon as it was discovered that antibiotics and sanitation were far more reliable than prayer people became disillusioned, and rightly so. (Every time someone's life is saved by a complicated surgical procedure and it's called a 'miracle' a skilled surgeon sheds a tear.) It's downright rude to attribute to your imaginary friend what was clearly the work of human beings--human beings who, incidentally, only became able to develop surgical techniques and medicines by disobeying the directives of the church. Indeed, George Eliot mentioned in Middlemarch that even at her time in small country towns the populace was disinclined to trust a religious doctor.

But it goes beyond that. Now that we have video and audio recording technology, quick and easy transport connections around the globe, and instantaneous news coverage of all planetary events which affect people, it's become incredibly difficult for anyone to insulate themselves from the fact that bad shit happens everywhere. How can a sensible person thank Jeebus for curing them of a nasty stomach bug while simultaneously aware that 28,000 people were wiped out by a tsunami--some instantly, but many slowly and in pain, while others are now left to deal with the loss and the battered survivors? Who besides a narcissist can honestly thank god for curing them of anorexia while millions starve due to farm subsidies and trade agreements on top of changing weather patterns? What arrogant freak still thinks there's something out there, in control of the universe, who loves them and gives a flying shitball where their puppy is? How Dare you be religious?

Every catastrophe, every plague, every public outcry is not a time to question the motives of your imaginary friend of choice, but an opportunity to fix something--namely, the structures, traditions, and protocols that were in place that allowed this to happen. Religion exists to restrict the functionality of the state, education, love, science, and medicine and its finally dawned on people that it's costing lives, jobs, equality and happiness. Government is likewise hobbled when its base laws, which may have appeared clear, fair, and appropriate in the religion-crippled culture of 200 years ago, were written for a different, larger world--a world where you could pretend that your way of life was the best and didn't need to change the rules just because they were wrong.

"Because that's what the ancients did" is not a justification for any action. "Because we've always sold Walkmen" does not keep your electronics shop open, even if it was founded in 1987. "Because they thought it was a good idea in 1787" does not justify the US's continued use of the inherently-undemocratic electoral college voting system. Times Change, and old documents and old ways of doing things must be respectfully put aside. Filed, stored, not lost, not forgotten, but not perpetuated. That which we do must be tailored to the world we live in Now, and when what we're doing now is no longer relevant, it too must be archived.

If it's old enough to be sacred, it's clearly out of date.

Notes from a discussion; A letter I sent to my senator

I can honestly say I've never had a worshipful attitude toward science. I recognize science for what it is--the process of trying to figure out how things work. That's it. Its not fickle--it grows and changes as researchers continue to think they've figured things out. There's no central hierarchy, it's just an ever-growing body of knowledge. Some published papers are bullshit, some may lead to helpful technologies. Conceptual science rarely sticks its nose into my daily life, though if I'm seeking medicine for a gastric ailment I will seek the advice of a qualified pharmacist.

I don't think I understand your sentiment regarding love's enslavement. I certainly don't allow my behaviour, wants, needs, or opinions to be dominated by the people I love. If we differ, we discuss. Frequently we agree to disagree and leave it alone. We may try to persuade one another to conform to our thinking, but we are free to refuse. If we come across an insurmountable, relationship-ending difference, we're free to leave. That's one of the great things about being an adult--you're not bound to places and people that make you unhappy, and you're not required to do things that make you unhappy to please others. If you choose to...well, that makes me sad, but it's your choice.

Religions are not like this, however. According to many sects and theocratic governments, if your wants and needs do not conform to established teachings, you must change. Even if they are not harmful to yourself or others, your views and behaviours are not to be tolerated. And according to their beliefs, you can't get away--if you reject your religion to pursue that which makes you happy, you'll be punished--either after death or by your state. There is no room for the self in religion. If that makes me selfish. . . good. It's not anybody else's job to give a hoot about my distinct individuality.

The thing that is so different between mortal love and holy love, though, is that if you stop believing that an omnipotent supreme being loves you--not because you've done something wrong, but because you can't believe it exists--it disappears as though it never was. This is not so for another human being. I can't decide that Ben doesn't love me. Even if I try and convince myself he doesn't, my disbelief in it won't change it. Likewise if he stops loving me but I continue to believe that he does, that won't make him start again. But as soon as I realized I didn't believe in holy love, it went away and I felt fine. No grieving, no sense of loss. Quite the opposite--for the first time, things made sense and I felt whole.

I didn't have a gaping hole in my psyche or emotional needs that I had to turn around and fill with something else--physics or what have you. The desire to worship is not inherent. That's where a lot of people get lost, and where a lot of people try to interject their own Ism-bound interpretation of simple atheism. Atheism is not a belief. It is a concise declaration that you have an absence thereof, because "sansbeliefitude" sounds funny and custom decrees that you can't get away with saying nothing. Many people, particularly in the UK, are able to, one morning, state calmly, "I have no need of faith-based belief" and never think about it again. They go on with their lives completely unperturbed by it, without a need to justify it, mull over it, or even occasionally sit down and wonder why they're here at all. If someone asks them what the meaning of life is without belief, they can easily say, "it doesn't matter, and I'm happy with that."

I don't believe people are endowed with certain inalienable rights. I recognize that established societies tend to adopt a responsibility for the base-line well being of most of their populace. The fact that most Britons aren't huddled starving in the streets attests to England's general success in that pursuit. But it is a pursuit, not an inherent responsibility. No geographical region Has to have defensible borders, nor does it have to establish a system of governance that looks out for the well-being of its inhabitants. And a lot don't.

But spiritual rights and privileges are immaterial. Yes, every believer has equal access to their god, but that does not fulfil their physical needs. Among those who believe, they will always believe that their deity is on their side, regardless if they are in direct conflict with another believer. Right and wrong, good and bad, are still just as contentious within the religious world, and the winner is not always the most good. Because being convinced that something is god's way doesn't make it right, or good, or useful. And being convinced something is evil doesn't make it bad. That's why institutions schism so frequently. Then of course one is invited to align with a belief structure that suits their principles, but where does that land them? If enough people don't agree with it they can change it? That means mortals are calling the shots. The fact that religions disagree, in my mind, undermines the entire concept. And as everyone believes that their sect is the most right, the Real One, the one everyone else should drop what they're doing and join...impasse, again. It's funny, really--or would be if it didn't make people so angry.

But I think that's my trouble with it, in a nutshell--it doesn't make people happy. It does not placate, it does not comfort, it is not an opiate. I broke through religion because I found it was an undue burden. I didn't like the way it told me to view myself, others, the church, or the functionality of the world. Indeed, the fundamentals of nature had nothing to do with it--it was me. There it was, in black and white, submit to, get down, obey men--I couldn't. I wouldn't. I knew it was wrong. I realized then and there, age 12, that this set of moral absolutes was a construct of mankind intended to suppress the individual from within. No matter what it says, even if I got to write the rules of my own religion according to what makes me happy it wouldn't work. I can't accept that any set of absolutes or free-standing instructions on how to live are anything more than one person's way of controlling the minds of others.

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I realize that Fort Mill and the surrounding area are full of fundamentalist Christians, and you'll of course make plenty of them happy by trampling on the rights of women and severing our access to birth control and cancer screening, but believe it or not, it is not your job to protect evangelical Christians from being offended by the existence of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood does not proselytize, it is not out to get you, and it is not staffed with baby-haters or rampaging atheists bent on world domination. They're there for the poor, the helpless, the scared, and the overwhelmed. They're there for women--a group it IS your job to protect. Your job is to ensure that people who are not causing harm do not come to harm. Not to ensure that the will of the mob is enforced on the maligned minority (or in the case of women, the traditionally abused majority).

You want to help prevent abortions? Ensure we have free, no-strings-attached access to contraception. Planned Parenthood provides this to women who can otherwise not afford it. Planned Parenthood gave me my IUD for free when I was broke, and it is to Planned Parenthood that I owe my freedom, my safety, and the fact that I've never needed an abortion. No one else in South Carolina offered me this. Nowhere else, aside from USC's student health center, could I find contraception I could afford.

You have to give us something. I don't care if contraception goes against your moral code--if you're not going to help poor women to have abortions, at least allow us to prevent unwanted babies. You will not make a woman want a child by taking away her ability to get rid of it. No woman seeks one out for fun. No woman thinks of abortion as a form of birth control. It's a last resort before your life is ruined. Before your Fundie parents begin beating you or throw you out of the house. Before you starve. Before you lose your job, your home, and your future.

You cannot force women who don't want children to abstain from sex. Sex is normal, natural, and important. Regular, satisfying sex is a vital component of mental health. Women enjoy it and should be proud of the fact that they do. Any religion that tells you otherwise is dangerous. Abstinence is not the solution. Psychological research has beaten this archaic notion down again and again. People don't, they never have, they're not supposed to. Give it a rest.

I've been in a monogamous relationship with the man I love for six years. I have always used protection, and I count on the IUD Planned Parenthood gave me. I've donated what I could to them every year since because I appreciate what they did. My friends' lives have been saved by the early detection Planned Parenthood cancer screening provided, both of the breast and the cervix. A PP practitioner even patched me up when I was injured.

By offering Prevention, Early Detection, and Termination Planned Parenthood has saved the USA millions, possibly billions of dollars on cancer treatments, complications of pregnancy, and legal fees. Planned Parenthood has made your job easier, and empowered women to live their lives without fear. If you kill Planned Parenthood, you know good and well that fear, abuse, and poverty will take its place.

Face it. The only reason to de-fund Planned Parenthood is misogyny. Do you hate women, sir?

Still Waiting

I'm into week 12 of my long, lonely wait for UKBA to tell me...anything. Anything at all. A uni friend came over yesterday to use the phone (certain numbers can only be called from a landline in this country--it's weird) and discovered that she'll probably have a faster and easier time of getting the visa we both need if she goes back to New York and applies to the embassy. The New York UK Embassy is notorious for its impenetrability--you have to pay $12 to call a private company which will speak to you on their behalf, they don't allow in-person applications, you can't ask questions, and they don't answer emails. I had to send them my student visa application registered mail--from less than 12 blocks away. That said, they did turn the visa around in under a week, so maybe they know what they're doing.

Ben has contacted our MP to ask if she can shed any light on what the problem is. With all their recent and upcoming changes and the current downsizing kerfuffle I'm convinced my application has been misplaced, as surely after 3 months, when they claim their wait time is 3 weeks, I would have heard Something. By this point I should have either gotten a decisive No or a request for more information, or a request for me to go register biometrics or information on how I can go fuck myself. I imagine that when I call them in two weeks to ask what's going on the very curt receptionist will confirm that they received my application 29 November and I'll just have to be patient because frankly all hell has broken loose behind her and a pack of velociraptors has just eaten the mail clerk. Except she'll pronounce it clark.

Erm. Yes, MP. I sent her assistant information regarding my application--what it was, when I sent it, the weird bits that didn't make sense (it asking for a card I was forbidden from having) their stated wait times versus how long I've been waiting, the fact that all of my information is clearly valid and uncomplicated, and the recent announced changes. Hopefully she can ask someone if anything weird is going on, like how come all the biometric appointments are booked until the end of April, when the Tier 1 post-study work visa ceases to exist.

My American friends and I feel...hmm, what would be the most appropriate term? Fucked with. Yes, I think that sums it up nicely.

What it works out to is this. The UK is tired of non-English speaking foreign nationals coming in under student visas for dodgy or non-existent schools so they can get unskilled jobs that pay more than they would earn in their home country. I don't know if they're sending money back, as people claim Hispanic foreign nationals do re: the US, but they are seen as a problem. But rather than tackle the problem head-on and say "we've been having trouble with This country, This country, and This impoverished region and people are going to This fake school and This fake school and This school which turned out to be a Nike sweatshop," in all their well-meaning egalitarianism they've decided to turn out Everyone, including highly-educated English-speaking Americans.

Whenever America is included in the "other" category I get this sort of swell of imperialist outrage. How Dare you include me with those ruffians?! I'm not Foreign, I'm AMERICAN. *begin frothing at the mouth like the Gungan king in The Phantom Menace* I don't actually believe in American Exceptionalism at an intellectual level, but the US school systems do a pretty good job of ingraining the sentiment into one's very core. But I mean c'mon, if you have to call us Foreigners, at least make an exception for the Good foreigners... Who am I kidding. I don't care how they change their minds in the future just so long as they keep their word regarding what they said in the past. I paid a lot of money--more than I'm inclined to argue it's worth at this stage--for UKBA to do what they said they were going to do. And they haven't. At this point I'm beginning to want a visa And a refund, or a settlement for wages lost due to their negligence. I could be employed by now. Paying taxes. Paying off loans. Not just waiting to hear that my passport was accidentally shredded by Jeff the Neanderthal while he was wetting the plug to create sparks so he could burn my degree confirmation letter to stay warm.

Yes, I assume UKBA only hires extinct personnel. It's either that or believe members of my own species can be this incompetent, and I just can't bring myself to do so.

Undirected Impatience

As of two days ago I'm officially in limbo. My student visa has expired, but UKBA still has my passport and my post-study work visa application is "processing" (e.g. collecting dust in a locked filing cabinet shoved in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard.") I submitted my form just under 10 weeks ago, but they say they are currently reviewing applications submitted 3 weeks ago. Without my passport and a valid visa of some persuasion I have no evidence of my right to work in this country. I also have no idea if I have, or will have the right to work in this country. They have changed the application criteria but will not attempt to impose them retroactively, so at least I have that.

Since November I've painted two rooms of my house (both including baseboards and trim, one including ceiling), volunteered on 4 shows, graduated, fixed a silly little computer, installed new taps in the bathroom, applied for 10 jobs (just for fun, really) been rejected from 3 jobs (no surprise there, Ms. Dubious Work Visa), had some work done on the house, doodled a lot, fixed and made a few pieces of jewellery, and spent the rest of my time reading, staring at the wall, and kicking things. I've also tried to encourage my neighbours' cats to let me pet them when they play in my back yard (so far...no) and cleaned everything far too thoroughly. In short, if it weren't for the fact that I've been alone, I've been behaving like I'm on vacation. Except without the fun or the relief.

Two days ago a Royal Mail special delivery guy parked his van right in front of my house. He withdrew about a dozen small parcels from the back, checked his list...and then proceeded to efficiently deliver them all to twelve houses near mine before driving away. I was incensed. Wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Surely you see this is not fair! Jerkface.

Worried worried worried. I bet my passport made its way onto the black market and is currently being used by a Ukranian drug mule. My application is not remarkable, so why is it taking the same amount of time as the really complicated, distinctly dubious ones? Y'know, like the application submitted in Swahili for a completer of Oxford Street Unn-Iveristy so she may immigrate with her 9 children who are all men and older than her. Is Central really that unheard of? Laurence Olivier went there. As did Dame Judi Dench, all of the Redgraves, and Catherine Tate. It's not some mob-run diploma mill! What's wrong with my credentials? Why am I on the back burner? Did you find traces of LSD on the envelope? What else are post office employees supposed to do all day?

Erm..

sorry.

It's been too long for me to feel comfortable or safe. But I accidentally painted the cabinet that contains my suitcase shut and I'm not sure if I'll ever get it open again. Maybe it'll be fine. Maybe it really did fall down behind a cupboard, or Daisy Mae spilled her coffee on it and they've had to ask the US embassy to print me a new passport.

Yeah right. They'd totally make me pay for that.

Interesting Changes at UKBA

So UKBA's website has undergone some heavy information updates in the past month, changes which would invalidate my application if they were retroactive. For sanity's sake I can't believe they would try it, as I submitted my form a month before they told anybody anything about them, but the office trying to learn the new criteria and evaluate applications differently based on their submission date could delay things. I'm trying to keep a cool head. I still have 8 of 10 fingernails.

As of December 22, everyone who is applying for Tier 1 and Tier 4 visas must have a biometric residence permit. This is a big change, as when I applied for my Tier 4 (Student) in 2009 I was told not only that I should not apply for one, but that I couldn't have one. Moreover, only Tier 1 (General) applications needed one at the time, and my application is under Tier 1 (Post-Study Work), a completely different form and set of criteria. I mentioned a few posts back that there was a weird confusing page on the application regarding BRPs, and now I see why.

I've read news that UKBA seeks to do away with the post-study work visa, which exists to provide a route to work for non-EU graduates, but that they haven't done so quite yet. One of their representatives was quoted recently saying "The fact that you've taken a class here does not give you the right to settle here" which makes me feel all warm and cozy. The message to graduates is clear: we want your obscenely-inflated tuition fees. We don't want you. I feel used.

The thing that really irks me about this is that it is pathetically inconsistent. A high school dropout from Poland who speaks no English and only understands the rudiments of lawnmowing has more of a right to be here than a native English speaking American with a Master's degree. Under current laws no one from the EU has to do anything at all to get a legal job, settle his or her family and put the kids in school, or even claim unemployment benefits in the UK, but Americans who paid for the right to even apply to be here, were subjected to intense scrutiny and prodding as to the validity of their identities and courses, paid extortionate tuition fees contrasted with their EU classmates, worked hard to earn a high qualification, and clearly had to be able to afford to fly here 'cos we sure as hell couldn't pack grandma in the Chevy and drive across the Atlantic are told clearly and flatly, "get out."

I know there are jerks out there who make up phony universities to provide an entry route to otherwise-unqualified migrants who just want to loaf around here. I realize that every country has its fill of useless freeloaders and shouldn't be obligated to take on other countries' bums. I know the standard of living is pretty attractive here, but the country can't afford to pay for every Joe Blow to mooch off its socialized services. I'm not that obtuse.

But eliminating the Post-Study Work Visa won't help you whittle down the number of bums who wind up here. Indeed, the whole reason the visa programme was developed was to ensure that only useful, qualified graduates could stay. I had to provide detailed letters from my school to prove I'd earned a real MA from a real, accredited university while here on a valid student visa. If a certificate of completion from Joe's Diploma Mill is making the cut it is a sign that you need to perform some internal corruption sweeps, not take away career opportunities from the highly-educated graduates your business community needs and your internal revenue service would appreciate. There are probably some highly-educated foreign graduates of British universities who could help you make them.

I'm not going to try and tell anyone what their laws should be, but I do believe the laws a country creates must be enforced fairly. If I'm not welcome, then Piotr shouldn't be either.

Republicans and why I'm not going back (Incoherent Rant)

You have got to be f'ing kidding me. You can't f'ing hold the f'ing congress hostage like that--saying you won't vote for necessary social progress until you let the wealthy have unnecessary increases to their wealth contrasted with the rest of the population. This is Nonsense. What the hell is going on?

Why aren't people rioting?

Get it together, middle class! The American Aristocracy is working very hard to take your rights, your health, your food, your jobs, and your freedom away, and yet you're not gathering stones? There is no more room for debate. There is no more room to let the wealthy and their doting pawns laugh at you while trampling over your votes, your liberties, and your self-interests. They have never listened to you, they will never compromise or consider reason, they don't give a wet slap about equality, the Constitution, or civil liberties. START THROWING THINGS.

Oh middle-class Republicans. They're stupid enough to believe their representatives when they tell them continuation of tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting services to the poor will help them in the long run. They think Wall Street deserves every cent it earns, despite Everything, as they hope to one day enjoy a portion of that money if they play by the rules. That they will one day fulfil the American Dream and be one of the wealthy fat cats at the top--and gee, when I'm rich and famous, I sure won't want to pay taxes so the poor can survive the winter! These hope-blind sheep are proud enough to think that the poor don't deserve anything, and ignorant enough to disregard simple truths about poverty.

Being poor and living like you're poor are only likely to continue your poverty, and the poverty of your children. It is very difficult to pull yourself out of poverty, particularly when you're born into it, regardless of how many or few government handouts are available to you.

Poor people toe a fine line between fed and housed and hungry on the streets. The difference between 'sandwich' and 'no sandwich' is the difference between 'law-abiding citizen' and 'violent criminal.' Ask Haiti. You can't starve people, offer them nothing, keep them unhealthy, and prevent them from providing for themselves and expect your society to survive. Ask South Africa under Apartheid. Y'know, all those nice lovely middle-class homes surrounded by chain-link fences and razor wire. That's what happens when the difference between the rich and the poor becomes too skewed. The poor become, not angry, not insubordinate, but Desperate. Desperate enough to break, to steal, to cause great harm in order to find something to pawn.

Providing for the poor--keeping people housed, fed, educated, and healthy--benefits everyone in very direct ways. It is not philanthropy to provide Medicaid and unemployment benefits--it is national and personal security. But these projects do require money in order to function. Wealthy individuals and corporations should Gleefully allow their Bush tax cuts to expire, happily pay an extra million or so per annum, because it means they can lay off a few of their security guards, and maybe even defuse the land mines in the croquet field. Perhaps go outside when the weather is fair, and open the windows in the armoured car.

Because fed, sheltered, safe, and educated people don't break into houses. They're comfortable enough in their lives to not need to, and they're smart enough to recognize that they have something to lose if they get caught. If your life has value to you, you protect it. You don't improve the value of your own life by devaluing others'--you just make them more likely to try and take yours off you.

These same gun-waving "Christians," these same people who continue to insist the President's birth certificate is fraudulent and support senators who refuse homosexuals the right to love while leading the most pathetic lives of (white) adultery, money laundering, and graft need to just come clean about what they are. They're bigots. Bigots who do what their politically-bankrolled preachers tell them to do in their neon-lit mega-churches. Bigoted idiots who have been lied to time and again--and been present, but not paying attention, when those lies have been exposed--by mouthpieces which avow that social and fiscal conservatism are not only linked, but appropriate for all.

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Homosexual marriage does not harm, undermine, de-value, or threaten heterosexual marriage. It only increases the number of marriages per year.

The function of marriage is not to make babies. People's reproductive systems can do that regardless of marital status, and married people are not legally obligated to have kids. Neither are unmarried people forbidden. That would require quite invasive government, and would get real ugly, real fast.

The function of marriage is, however, to ensure shared financial responsibility, and the right to make choices for your spouse in the event of his or her incapacitation.

Guess what--that's not even me being uber-liberal and progressive and minimalist. Read any novel written before 1900--over and over the story is "wealthy woman marries wealthy man, her estate passes to him, he squanders it and abuses her, she runs away a pauper, without claim to home or stock, she falls in love with a poor man, her wicked husband dies, she and poor man take the house back." (Okay, well that's essentially the story of the Woman in White, and bears resemblance to Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice) Marriage is nothing, and Never Has Been anything, but a financial arrangement.

Or an immigration issue.

You can love without marriage, and marry without love. You can equally replace both words 'love' and 'marriage' with 'sex' and be equally right. It is pretty much indistinguishable from any corporate merger, except somewhat less binding.

It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, holy.

Marriages are worth exactly the paper they're written on. Nothing more, nothing less. They have no intrinsic worth, no spiritual elevation, no super-duper special Us-Only-Because-We're-Chosen properties that can possibly be undermined by opening them up to homosexuals. Fundies like to say that marriage is a super-sacred covenant between the couple and their deity, but it doesn't upset them that Hindus, Taoists, or Buddhists are allowed to wed. (For the purpose of clarity I will acknowledge the shared god of Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Rastafari, and Christianity) It Does annoy them that Atheists, Wiccans, Feminists, contraceptive-users, and poor people can share their visitation rights, but they can grudgingly say "land of the free, I guess" and get back to the serious business of chewing their McBurgers. But when it comes to gay people having the ability to co-sign on a mortgage or help each other's credit scores?!

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I'm really just writing for the sake of venting frustration. This probably doesn't make a heap of sense. I'm just sick and tired of America embarrassing me--not just the Fundies, but the government and media run by the greedy wealthy who are determined to find a way of milking money from absolutely every aspect of life. People who won't perform medical procedures on the customers they insure--not because it's hopeless, but because it's expensive. People who demand you pay a fee for the right to use your internet connection how you want to, to use the products and services you choose. People who lie about matters of significance and aren't fired or even made to apologise when they're caught. People who make the system of checks and balances necessary.

Because that's how it's designed to work--both parties take the most extreme version of their wants to the floor, and through a system of compromises, come to a liveable middle ground. Everyone is dissatisfied, but nobody is beheaded for having a beard. Nobody starts with a reasonable middle-ground, because where's the fun in that? Nobody starts with what is actually best for everyone, because you can't froth at the mouth about reasonable taxation or the notion that everyone is different and that's okay. Politicians must come to the lectern with an all-or-nothing scenario so they have somewhere to haggle from. Which wastes everyone's time and gets everyone upset. Why not just start with the idea "everyone is different, and as long as their differences don't actually cause physical, financial, or psychological damage to others, they should be allowed to live life the way they choose?" What is Wrong with that? What? what...

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As to why I'm not going back, I have a wonderful boy and I'm happy in London. I've submitted my work visa application and hopefully will have the right to get a job around here in the new year. We're about six inches deep in snow right now, but it's a good opportunity to snuggle up and waste time blogging.

No Holds Barred

Beautiful.

VAT

Value Added Tax. This tax increases the price of goods and services.

The Department of Redundancy Department strikes again!

Better Wording for a Controversial Policy Change

I am responding to recent news reported here

It is imprudent to remind readers and viewers that their hard-earned money is being taxed to support large families--that just opens the door to people saying "but families need that money to support all their children--if you take it away, the children will suffer!"

No. Put it simply. "The current system gives families on Benefits more money for every child they have. Working people don't get a raise every time they have a child--even folks with below-average incomes. Indeed, it is the children with working parents who suffer in this system." Or, to make it personal, "I don't get more money for having more kids, so why the hell should you?" Controversy obliterated.

Maybe some prudent people only decide to have another kid after they've gotten a raise, but that's entrusting a lot of responsibility in your average parent. Some people do check their finances before trying for a child or additional child to ensure that they can still live comfortably with the new addition. Some people think they've got enough, then find out they don't and have to find a second job to feed a second mouth. Point is, some industrious (and frequently religious) people have 8 or more children and work their asses off to afford them, frequently getting by, or even thriving, on far less than what they could receive from the State. For some people this is an issue of pride, but for many it's just considered normal. One parent leaves the home to earn money and the other minds the kids. Some people put their kids in day-care so they can go work (mostly to pay for the day-care, but whatever) which offers children an opportunity to socialize.

I guess...I have several points, some of which are reasonable, and some of which are not. People do what it takes to make ends meet in order to provide for their families. Most people have the number of kids they want and can afford. (for me both columns are marked 0) If big families, like anyone, temporarily fall on hard times I am okay with the government supporting them until they get on their feet--provided they're trying to stand up--and hopefully allowing them to keep their home, neighbourhood, and dignity. I think reasonable limits must be kept in place regarding duration and extent of Benefit allowances, and after a while, if it hurts the community to keep paying for big houses or expensive private schools, everyone should have to take things down a notch. I don't think big families typically have enormous houses or send their children to expensive schools though, so this is largely moot.

But when it comes to people having more kids than they give a hoot about or can reasonably supervise and raise; people having kids for the sake of getting more money (I recall one memorable exchange between two teenage girls with screaming, ignored strollers, waiting for an A train at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, "Of course I'm looking for another baby-daddy! I need that check, and that child support. By the way, you like my new nails? I got the Works. It was only fifty dollars more than usual.") I have one simple phrase to utter, one that would piss many people off to hear.

There are people out there who would love to raise all those kids.

Of course, in all social service issues the best interests of the children involved must be the first priority. I think giving money to parents to sit around and not contribute meaningfully to their society or family, thereby teaching their kids that this behaviour is acceptable, is not in the kids' best interest, but there aren't really better options available--the foster and hostel systems routinely turn kids to crime, drugs, and violence; you can't always get kids adopted young enough to not screw them up mentally; if you interfere in every failing family there probably won't be enough hopeful adoptive parents around to take care of all the kids; the list goes on. But Actively Rewarding layabouts for making more kids? That's an insult to society. That undermines every teaching of state, church, and scout troop--and as "sit back and let the government pay you to do nothing" involves much less work than effort, study, and responsibility, it is a much easier and stronger lesson to learn. Laziness and a sense of entitlement are natural, but useless, components of the human condition. If we all did that, we'd all starve. No. Cut people off at the level that most people have to live on, regardless of family size. That teaches kids, "if you want more comforts, you're gonna have to earn them."

Thank You, Daily Show

The BP Cock-Up, the Korean Cock-Up, the Gaza Cock-Up... we're getting all the news here, but I've been having a hard time gathering what real people's opinions are about these events. It's hard to discern what sane people think when the only views you hear are the rantings of lunatics in "have your say" bits and the carefully chosen really extreme views of a few noisy morons on the tv and radio. I know what the defence ministers are saying, I know the President is angry, and I know that Julie Smith from Biloxi is annoyed at all the tree-huggers for rescuing birds when they should be putting that money into saving precious unborn babies, but do any people without a political agenda, a conspiracy theory or an IQ below that of a cabbage have any views?

The next time I come across someone saying "Stop it! Leave my gulf alone!" or "Bad Israel! Just free Palestine!" I think my heart will give out from the sheer futility of modern education. Have history and philosophy told us nothing? Do people genuinely think that Israel is peopled with evil automatons with no concept of the hardships that surround them, or that BP isn't currently trying to rectify the problems their negligence has caused? "Just stop leaking oil! What's wrong with these people that they can't put a stupid lid on the pump?" Believe it or not, scientists don't actually have that many opportunities to do research on the structural integrity of hastily-welded, purpose-built emergency blowout protector caps under a mile's worth of water pressure. Yes they've failed, but it's certainly not for want of trying.

BP is not actively seeking to ruin the ecosystem of the gulf coast, and neither is the President. What would you have Mr. Obama do? Throw money at it? Send out the National Guard? The rig companies have the know-how to repair it--yes they're out of their depth, but they're better prepared to tackle the problem than an armed SCUBA team. This isn't the kind of thing that people outside of the field have any competency in, and it's ludicrous to think that "if we all come together and put our collective minds to it" we'd have any more luck than people who have maintained and repaired ocean floor pumping equipment in the past. Do You know how to fix it? Do I? No. We will get in the way.

There Will be an inquiry into the decisions that led to the explosion and the deaths of the rig workers, and into what could have been done to ensure the pipeline failsafe actually activated. There Is an inquiry into why the aid ships were boarded by soldiers armed with paintball guns and real guns. People are trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong.

But it is important to remember that Israel is surrounded on most sides by countries who wish more than anything for them to be wiped off the map. While their military leaders have made numerous dangerous blunders, we can't refuse them the right to defend their borders from real threats to their people. Just as any aid to Israel is a threat to Palestine, any aid to Hamas is a threat to Israel. It's not a question of good and evil. And 1 in 6 pension plans in the UK is directly linked to BP's stock market value. "Kick them out, Shut them down, they're bad" is not the helpful suggestion in this case as millions of elderly people would then be put in harm's way. "Hold the responsible parties accountable" is more useful, and "have a contingency plan in place for the failure of any company or governing body that cannot be allowed to fail" is even better.

Companies, governments, religions, borders...none of these things are absolute. None of them are right or wrong--but they are inherent to our species. Most of them exist for or through greed and power-lust, but any attempt to detach or distance anyone's nature from greed is an act of naivety or a lie. The same area of the brain that seeks the key lime pie with extra meringue is accountable for encouraging inspectors to overlook half-assed safety equipment. You can call it evil, I'll call it typical. The only way to change the behaviour of governments and corporations is to change what it means to be human.

So thank you, Daily Show. Thank you Jon Stewart, for keeping in mind that truth is never unbiased and what is appropriate is not always what we want. Thank you for reminding me that we're not all simple, shouting apes with no long-term memory. Thanks for giving me hope for America.

Welcome to England. Here's your fee.

I've made it to London safely, and have been settling in for about a week in my temporary residence in Greenwich. The Boy and I visited Cambridge over the weekend and found it lovely, if a bit too familiar--neither of us had been there before, but thanks to its age and geographical similarity to Canterbury we both felt automatically as though we knew our way around.

The Cam narrows to a stream around the city and over the weekend it is completely rammed with puntfuls of happy tourists being shoved along by ropey-muscled puntsmen, which was quite pleasant to watch from the apexes of Cambridge's many bridges. We thought it likely that the puntsmen are on the school rowing teams during term-time and probably just do this for extra cash in the summer. The more experienced punters went unshod and wore thin, lightweight, and quite obviously old clothing in the style of a man who is quite confident that he'll fall in at least once today. Several had dapper, buoyant straw hats that they clearly wore in preparation for a comic plunge. While we never felt the urge to take a ride on the river, the boats, surrounded by massive weeping willows, ancient halls of academia, and acres of neatly trimmed lawn made for two beautiful days of relaxed sightseeing.

And then...tragedy struck in the form of a bank card. Visa, in a disgusting foray into additional extortion, has found a new way to painfully fuck every young person who crosses the Atlantic. It's called a transaction percentage fee, and it hurts.

Back in the US I went down to my local Wachovia branch and asked what the word was on international transactions. I was told, and I quote, "if you withdraw cash, you'll get a $5 loyalty fee from Wachovia, and an additional charge of 2% of every withdrawal from Visa. Your best bet is to use your card, which has no fee, and take out as much cash as you can from the outset in order to avoid paying out too much."

What that actually meant when I got here was, "yes, there's a $5 loyalty fee for using other banks' ATMs even though we're positive there's no Wachovias within 5,000 miles of you, and on top of that, Visa charges 3% on every transaction INCLUDING withdrawals. No matter what, every time I spend a cent, Visa takes a nibble. By the time I'd figured that out (because the fees didn't show up on my statement until about four days after the transactions) I'd given Visa $20 of my hard-earned low-value savings. (the pound is sitting at about $1.60--quite nice compared to my undergrad average of $1.97 but it still means my money is cheap).

Now, fun thing. When I found this out I ran to my nearest British bank and said "account me now" and they said "oh, actually, we need a letter from your school, written to our bank, saying that you're a student and confirming your address." "But I have two letters here from my school that the border agency accepted, and my passport, which has a shiny year and a half student entry clearance in it that even has my picture on it, and on your website this was all and exactly what was required for the type of account I want." "well, sorry, but these are the rules." "not according to your website. I would like to formally request that you update it to reflect your actual policy." "I'll see what can be done." "I'm positive you won't. But never mind. You want me to write a letter to my school telling them my address so they can write a letter to you with the same address on it." "Yes." "That's moronic."

So I went and got a letter written, then went up to school the following day to pick it up. It had been left at reception and the whole process of getting it took about eight seconds. Thank you Central. I then enjoyed a one-hour wait at the bank to be seen at all, then an additional chunk of waiting after I began my meeting with a bank representative who wasn't at all sure if the letter, the passport, the visa, and my presence in the bank were sufficient proofs of ID for their purposes.

Now I'd just like to establish that my first week of my undergraduate career put a foul taste in my mouth for banks and credit companies' student-geared promotional materials. Thousands of my classmates were roped into signing up for credit cards with eye-crushing interest rates by smiling, pretty girls who handed out free* t-shirts emblazoned with funny slogans, cell phones, pizza discounts, beer, bottle openers, beer coozies, and chances to win big! in raffles for cars, vacations, and cash prizes. Thousands of these ignorant kids then found themselves drowning in debt within months to companies that were suddenly short on smiling pretty girls after they failed to realize that credit is not free money, or even cheap money. After years of paying off one card with another and spiraling into alcoholism-inducing poverty many students dropped out of school, signed up for credit counseling, managed to consolidate and pay off their debts, only to find that their credit score was still so low they couldn't even find an apartment, much less a new student loan, and moved back in with their parents. All for free t-shirts that brandished cute sayings like "chick magnet" and "my other ride is your sister."

I don't trust free shit for students.

So imagine my distaste when I discovered that the only account for which I qualify is one that smells horribly of student rip-off. It has a fee, has no financial benefits, but it offers me great perks like 2 for 1 movie tickets! (i hate the movies), 25% off big shows! (like Madonna concerts...right. yeah, I'll use that. Willingly.) cell phone insurance! (why on earth are you offering that? Don't trust it.) Gadget cover! (yeah, I've gotten tech replacement policies before. The ones that end on "if technology has moved on since you bought it and it's obsolete by a month and it's not really easy for us to replace you can buy a new one for $700 and we'll give you $50 after a few years and consequently repeal our gadget cover policy." After reading the fine print I typically opt out.) and a variety of other pointless bells and whistles that have nothing whatsoever to do with banking!

So, can one opt out of the pay-for-play bells and whistles? No. And to add insult to injury, not only did I have to concede that I'd pay £6.95 a month for the honor of a UK bank investing my money as they see fit, but I had to go through a form with an accounts manager while we discussed which of the perks I would find most valuable. I said none, seriously dude, I don't want any of this, I just want a safe place to put my loan disbursements, and still he persisted. What about the mobile phone cover? You could lose it, break it, have it stolen, doesn't matter... I picked up my 6 year old green-screened torchphone that I've been borrowing from my boy. "There is no point in insuring an object that has no value." "Well if you get a new phone?" "I'm happy with it." "But if." "But if. Fine." "Great! See, for just 6.95 a month you'll get this and all these other features--2 for 1 cinema tickets--"i hate the cinema." "Oh come on, everyone loves the cinema!" "I hate it. I can't justify to myself paying $10 for 3 cents worth of popcorn just to sit in a sticky seat and watch a brainless sequence of explosions." "Naw, everyone loves the cinema! You can take your boyfriend!" "My boyfriend is too smart to drag me into an expensive, foul-smelling crowd." "See? That's worth £72 over the course of a year! So I'll just tick that off." "I said I didn't want it." "You'll want it." I then punched him in the ear.

Okay, well, maybe I didn't quite punch him in the ear. I did remind him that I'd looked through the perks online and did not find myself wanting any of them. He eventually lowered his voice and said "Look, I know, and I'm sorry, but I'm contractually obligated to go through this form with you and check off a few things that you value, for the marketing department." "That's dishonest." "It's just part of it. You have to pay for the account anyway because you're international. I'm not saying its right or fair, but every bank does it and this is among the cheaper ones. It's still cheaper than paying Visa every time you need money." Just now I pay you.

Defeated, I signed the forms. A tiny demon danced across the desk, giggling and gyrating its pelvis at me.

Looks like I'm sold. Alas. On a brighter note, my southern reserve and sweet tolerance when it comes to imbeciles and dishonesty have fallen off, the upshot of which is that I've been feeling better about myself after my encounters with bureaucracy. I've come to feel far more comfortable calling shenanigans, declaring the unacceptable, and standing my ground than ever before. I'm so tired of being taken advantage of and kicked around by the sweet-sounding mouthpieces of big business and big government. You ain't so innocent, sister--you work for these people, you know exactly what you represent, so when you lie, I'm going to call you on it. I am done being patient and courteous. That route has gotten me nowhere.

Asshole time it is.



*to qualified applicants (not first-time applicants with no credit rating) for the first 3 months, then 17% APR compounded monthly thereafter. Maximum credit begins at $2,000, with the option to extend after the first 3 months. Any balance of greater than $2,000 after the first 3 months will be considered an informal credit limit expansion request and the APR shall be raised to 19% . . . .

On Righteous Indignation

I was born in the mid 1980's to a card-carrying member of NOW and an absent-minded engineer. I was raised not believing, but knowing I was equal in every value to boys, but also knowing that stupid boys might try to harm me if I reminded them of that fact. From that I grew to understand that I was equal in value to smart, worthwhile boys, and was actually worth more than stupid rednecky ones. I knew that I had every opportunity to be as smart as I possibly could, pursue any career I wanted, and that I had the right to say no, or yes, as the spirit moved me.

I also knew that when I reached adulthood I would be held responsible for my actions and choices, that my self respect and sexuality were mine alone, that a woman was prime minster of England and there would soon be a woman President, and that I had a personal responsibility to maintain my sense of self-worth in the face of all that might oppose me because I was a girl.

It was a lot to absorb before 1990.

But absorb that I did, and I think that may have harmed the feminist movement in the long run. See, I grew up under the very erroneous assumption that my rights, responsibilities, and opportunities were a given. That they were not something I would be called upon to fight for, because that fighting had been done for me. All I was asked to do was maintain it, and not waste it.

Which is why I was a bit shocked to learn, upon leaving Fort Mill, that the oppressed women we'd glossed over in social studies were actually real people, and the institutionalized rape, murder, and imprisonment of forward-thinking women was actually going on outside of the protected bubble I called home. I got through the chunk of my education in which my teachers focused on making us appreciate what we had, but before they could get to the point where, I think, they were going to tell us to help others attain it too, 9/11 occurred and the message of "promote women's rights in the Muslim world" was trampled by the much louder, "kill all brown people."

The hoopla did die down a bit and more recently our politial sights have returned to the plight of women living under the Taliban and other Back-assward regimes. I think the reason Western women have a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that women haven't en masse risen up against institutionalized rape, honor murders, punishable education, and forced marriage is that we really don't understand how they can feel powerless. Our reeducation in the 1960's was pretty damn thorough--girls do feel empowered, women know we have rights, and we know when they're being infringed upon. We do get angry when our neighbors only pay for their sons to go to college. We do get upset when jackass old men leave their wives of 40 years for teenage gold-diggers. We're saddened to see the ghetto produce teenage baby-mamas who erroneously believe that having kids of their own will free them from the abuse they receive from their families. And people do work to help women break free of these patterns of male-dominance, or at least sue the bastards for everything they've got. People do go into the schools to try and help teenage girls see that college, not babies they can't handle, will help them break free of poverty and subjugation by men. We do try in our own communities because we know that the overall sentiment among women here is that we are equal, and we deserve our equality.

In the West we are shocked and horrified to read inquiries into the institutionalized beating, rape, and neglect of children by religious schools in countries we call our own--especially when we know that something could have easily been done to stop it at the time. I think the abuses perpetrated by the Irish Catholic Church against the children in their care are identical to the abuses against women in Saudi Arabia, in almost all ways. The children were captives, raised in the abusive institutions, understood that they could be abused at any time for any reason, and that if they spoke up about it or even cried that the pain would be worsened and they would be isolated, called liars, shunned, sent away, or killed. Many had never known any other way of life, and they inherently knew that fighting would get them nowhere--they were smaller than their captors, and in many instances kept weak and on the brink of starvation partly to ensure that they would never effectually fight back. Indeed, they also knew that complaining would get them nowhere--even if they sought an outside authority, such as the police, the adult in the confrontation's word would always be taken more seriously than theirs, even if their bones were broken and their bodies clearly violated. If you were raped by a priest it was your fault for reaching puberty in his presence. If you were beaten senseless by a nun it was for your own good because otherwise you'd end up like your mother, who was a prostitute and the spawn of Satan. You are alone, you have no recourse to aid, and you have no rights at all--not even to your life.

I have never lived in this world. I don't ever want to. I have felt victimized and have occasionally feared for my life, but I have never been made to feel utterly helpless for any sustained period. I've always had the right to leave, the ability to seek help, the right to a grown-up or a lawyer or a jury of my peers. No one's authority over me is absolute, and I always have the right up to stand up against what I perceive as injustice. I have stood up against what I perceived as injustice. It got me nowhere, as the last time I did was during the Bush administration, but I was not harmed or punished for doing so. I have petitioned, written my senator, peacefully protested, and voted again and again. I have taken my side up in court and won with the validity of my argument. I've been intimidated by cops but only in one instance have I ever felt that they were twitchy enough to abuse their authority or harm me. I have said no, and been respected for it. I've also said no and been told to fuck myself for it, but I've still had the confidence to uphold my dignity that I believe must come from the inner knowledge that if this punk tries anything, I'll totally bring the law down on him.

But that's the difference between me and girls my age living under oppressive states, with oppressive religions and oppressive parents. They don't have that confidence. If punks try something against a girl in a community where she is repeatedly told she is worthless, she is browbeaten and will not find anyone sympathetic to her plight, where even the nice people say she probably asked for it, she'll probably find herself raped and beaten by a man, then beaten or killed by her family, the state, and the church for allowing it to happen to herself.

Where's the strength to stand up for yourself? Where's the self-assurance that comes with knowing this is wrong? Feminism is Western and the West is Satan, so Feminism is satanic, therefore many men are working very hard to convince women that they are worthless and might as well like it that way. How many women in these communities genuinely believe that rape is the fault of the raped? How many mothers feel a strong responsibility to raise their daughters to submit? How many mothers felt that their forced marriage to the douchebag that fathered their children was appropriate? Why?

It's this aspect of the mindset that baffles today's Western woman. It is one thing for a mother to impress upon her daughter that yes, this sucks, and I'm sorry for bringing you into this horrible world, but if you don't marry your cousin willingly you'll just be beaten senseless and married to him by force so you might as well deal with it like I did--but when a mother says "this is what you must do, this is my will, you may not marry the man you love because your father and I want your money" to her daughter without a shadow of empathy or yearning...it just doesn't make a damn ounce of sense. That seems contrary to every basic instinct that makes up the female condition. How can adult women willfully suppress love for the sake of money or propriety? How can fathers so deliberately sacrifice their daughters--entities deemed sacred by their own endocrine systems--to lives of misery and servitude for the sake of their own finances or reputations? How can this behavior continue through the generations? How can parents defeat biology?

Love is not an abstract entity--we know that. It's a huge and complex network of synaptic responses to stimuli that demand we protect our offspring and those with whom we mate. In my culture people who deliberately harm, or appear to not have good intentions for their children are considered insane. Assault and battery are one thing when it comes to strangers, but if you hurt your own kid, prevent her from going to school, make her marry a man she detests, or refuse to let her go outside unattended by a male relative the police inquiry will probably include some Rorschach tests. Child abuse is a sign that there's something terribly wrong going on.

So what does it mean when a culture institutionalizes it? Condones, encourages, even demands it? What we call catastrophic human rights abuses, brainwashing, and the subjugation of over half of the population, Saudi Arabia calls "Thursday." The small clusters of women that do feel inspired to start grassroots equality campaigns are choked out early before they spread, and are often publicly raped or stoned until dead to serve as examples to everyone. These displays don't prove rightness or wrongness to anyone--they just remind everyone that violence will always defeat pacifism. The Westerners who manage to get in and start talking to people are imprisoned for espionage, or simply disappear. These are countries that don't want their people to want life to improve. They'd rather blame the West for their horrible lives than take the initiative and improve them for themselves. It can't be this repressive religion or culture we've built around ourselves that makes us so unhappy, that makes our finest minds escape to America at their earliest opportunity to pursue respectable careers and send their daughters to school, thereby leaving us devoid of modern healthcare or access to legal representation. They appear determined to make a bad situation worse even though they can easily see that their goals are not realistic and their ideals are intolerable. All for what? Spite? God? Didn't they say their god was benevolent? What idiot worships a god that she believes hates her? Why is the pursuit of happiness a sin?

This is the problem. We don't get it. We don't understand. The misery of these women's lives doesn't make sense to us, because to the empowered mind it doesn't seem possible. And it's because we're a little bit empowered. We're not on top, we're still struggling for our own voices to be recognized as true authority and not merely conciliatory authority permitted and supervised by nice men. (Between two equally awesome hypothetical candidates, a woman and a man, I'll vote for the woman out of a sense of "it's about damn time.") Western women have a sense, fulfilled or not, of ideal equality. We seek it, we crave it, sometimes we even feel it. Do oppressed women know this feeling? Do they get the urge to fight? Do they want to?

In our idealized eyes we know that if we could simply get all repressed women to stand up as one and throw off the shackles of their government they could succeed in overthrowing their way of life. Sadly revolutions must have a starting point, and it is pretty easy to stamp out little fires of revolt. Moreover, even if they did really all stand up as one and demand their government and religion be restructured to include them as equals with rights to themselves, i'm pretty sure they'd be attacked, as one, and wrestled to the floor by their husbands, fathers, brothers, and community men who flatly refuse to allow women to consider themselves people, even if every single one of them demanded it. Because it's not just a small group in the government controlling the masses--the permeation of culture through religion and education allows the masses to control the masses. Just as American education and a lot of Western religion does in favor of women.

Our idealized notion of empowering the women themselves is not going to work because a large portion of their culture was established to prevent them having power, and to prevent the men in their lives from wanting them to have it. Even the men who genuinely do love them. Look at how much American men fought against women's suffrage, for centuries, and came up with a host of bullshit excuses why they shouldn't--excuses as far-ranging as "women don't need to vote because they can't hold land--oh what, now you're going to tell me you want to do that too?" and "women shouldn't have say in what the country does--it's not like it affects them." and "frankly my dear, you're just genetically stupid." Love or no, if you convince a person he or she is better than another flavor of person, he or she is going to have a hard time granting that flavor of person the same rights and privileges he or she enjoys. (for a list of flavors, allow me to direct your attention to the Anti-Discrimination Policy included in most American corporate models. Baskin-Robbins ain't got nothin on it.)

America as a nation is still pretty bad at the whole "live and let live, everyone is equal--yes, even Transvestites, Mexicans, and Mormons, so knock it off" thing, and we claim the greatest Human Flavor Diversity Index of any country ever. (The combinations! The mix-ins! The subtle hints of mocha!) Imagine the difficulty of convincing people who's lineages determine what they eat for breakfast of the equality of all people. (My heritage recall gets hazy beyond my grandma, and in my country that's a-ok--even desirable, as I'm not entitled to anything, but I don't have to apologise for anything either.) Plenty of Americans' backgrounds are so diverse it's easier for them to just mark "yes to all" on the survey sheet. Our ethnic diversity is so great that equality is paramount among all lessons taught in public schools...in our urban centers. In states that turn red on election maps...that tends to be glossed over.

To diverge from my topic (further), I just want to ask Islamic Nationalists which chunk of America they find more despicable--places like New York and San Francisco, urban centers of diversity and typically peaceful interaction among races and cultures, or places like Oklahoma and Nebraska that have reputations for promoting and wishing to impose upon the rest of the world their homogenous race, religion, and ancestors?

I don't know what type of intervention into repressive religious government is appropriate. How was denazification so successful? I guess we...bombed Germany into a pulp and then rebuilt it as the global community saw fit. Somehow, though, I don't think the same technique would be effective in an area we've been continually bombing for decades for no readily apparent reason. I think the trick is to covertly re-write the laws, and when somebody notices, just point at the humanitarian re-write and the Qu'Ran and say "oh, but look--it totally fits! It must have said that the whole time."

Seriously, I don't know how Western women managed it, rising up and demanding to be respected after lifetimes of repression. It's been a gradual process and we're not there yet, but we're the closest we've ever been in centuries, and sadly as our culture has filled in behind the waves our foremothers made we've lost the fire, the spark, the anger that got us here. We have no reason to fight for what we have, and have a hard time doing it when it is asked of us. (Prop 8's success startled many people.) What we have, instead, is a sense of cultural identity built upon the understanding that we are in fact equals, always have been, and always will be. I was born knowing that, and as such can't genuinely fathom an existence without it. I don't know how to fight for the right to self-respect. I sadly feel like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake" simply because I'm truly so far removed from the matter that I don't get it. I don't know how to help.