It's a rather stupid contest, true, and his contest video (links found here) is dorky. But Bobby doesn't get paid that much - only $29,400! and the prize is $15,000. So let's help him out.
For a number of years afterward I told that story for laughs, or to bring home a point about the goofiness and weirdness of fundamentalist Christianity. But what I failed to notice or appreciate was that believing in the literal truth of a creation myth is only one way to have a relationship with the story - and it's only one way that the myth can have a profound effect on your life. There are many other ways that can happen.
]]> There are two creation stories in Genesis, but only one of them gets told, repeated, referenced, and alluded to over and over as an integral part of our cultural narrative - and it ain't "male and female he created them." In "The Beauty Myth" Naomi Wolf says:Western women absorb from these verses the sense that their bodies are second-rate, an afterthought: Though God made Adam from clay, in his own image, Eve is an expendable rib. God breathed life directly into Adam's nostrils, inspiring his body with divinity; but Eve's body is twice removed from the Maker's hand, imperfect matter born of matter.
How old was I when I first heard this story? Five? Six? Younger? I had a lot of ear infections as a kid; I remember having a favorite book in the waiting area of my ENT's office - a collection of retellings of Bible stories for children. My mother always seemed to be a little displeased at me reading it, but she never interfered with my choice of reading matter, then or ever. Like all good cultural Catholics, my parents dropped me off at CCD one night a week; I'm sure I heard and read the story many many times while I was still quite young.
I don't believe in a god or a creation; I no longer identify as a Christian; I don't believe in the divinity or resurrection of Jesus. But I've never bothered to excise those stories from the set of stories I use to anchor my thoughts and ideas, because until now I never saw the point. After all, some of them - particularly a few stories from the gospels - are quite useful in advancing the argument that it is immoral to shit all over the poor. And that's something I believe very strongly.
So I never asked myself questions about the set of stories I was raised to believe in, and thought I had rejected. It seems I only rejected them superficially; and I have a lot of questions, now. Such as:
1. When Gene Weingarten, humor columnist for the Washington Post, refers to his wife as "the rib," does he intend to denigrate her, to define her only in terms of her relationship to him, which must - if you follow the metaphor - be subordinate?
2. Is my unwitting "belief" in the story of Adam and Eve - not in its literal truth, but its appropriateness as commentary on life, the universe, and everything - a big part of the reason why, when I make arguments along the lines of, "Women are people too, ya know," I get that vague feeling of discomfort in the pit of my stomach that you always got as a schoolkid when you were doing something that really ought to have been a perfectly reasonable, normal, right and proper thing to do, but was against the rules, so if you got caught you'd get in trouble regardless?
3. Would it help to replace it with a different creation story that wasn't all MAN HAVE PENIS, HE MORE AWESOME?
4. WTF?
ANSWER KEY:
1. Probably not, but still, EW. Wouldn't that piss you off?
2. Yes. DUH!
3. Probably. Any ideas?
4. I blame the patriarchy.
On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.
Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. And he did something about it.
As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the general who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War II. And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end.
These presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this president to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.
And the room erupted. You should have heard them roar.
]]>"Good," said A., causing general surprise - she's not a Democrat, at least not publicly.
"Why do you want her to run?" asked C., her sister's boyfriend.
"Because!" A. answered. "We need a woman in charge of things."
"Not /that/ woman," came the immediate response from another of the guys, but C. was eyeing A. with a poisonous look. "Are you a lesbian or something?" he demanded.
A. was offended. "No. Why?" she shot back.
C. shrugged. "I'm just wondering what your big attraction is to women."
------------------
This is the problem I have, and probably will continue to have, with this upcoming presidential primary season. So much of the opposition to Hillary Clinton is rooted in outright hatred of women that I feel dirty just thinking about supporting someone else. (And I think about it a lot. I like John Edwards.) A lot of feminist bloggers oppose Hillary Clinton, but that doesn't help me out, because when their commenters agree, it's always with the same misogynist undertones.
]]>Item #1: The tallest man in the world saved the lives of two dolphins by sticking his very long arms down their throats and into their stomachs to remove some plastic they swallowed.
Item #2: A schoolteacher in Richmond, Virginia has been suspended from his job because... wait for it... he paints with his ass in his spare time. Seriously. I am not making this up.
He's slamming Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, long a favorite bloggers' punching bag, for her recent column in which she runs down the numbers of male vs. female columnists, as well as whites vs. people of color, and finds that the Post comes up wanting in the diversity department.
So how could The Post increase diversity as the staff and space for stories got smaller? It wouldn't be easy, but here are some thoughts. On the op-ed pages, don't run all the columnists all the time. Create some space for new voices. In Close to Home, make a point of seeking out more women and minorities. Outlook can also bring in more such voices.The Metro section needs a female columnist, and it also needs a columnist attuned to the region's burgeoning Latino communities. A Latino columnist could appear in the Extras since they are oriented toward counties and neighborhoods. Not all new voices have to be on the staff; they could be regular contributors. Metro's new Page Three could be used to bring in more female and minority voices.
The point is not to toss excellent white male columnists; the point is to add more and lively voices to The Post.
Kos quite rightly points out that adding women writers and writers of color, but banishing them to the "fluff" section(s) of the paper, is bullshit. I am confident that Howell means to say the Extras are "oriented toward counties and neighborhoods," and not that Latinos are. Still, it's a pretty insulting remark: it amounts to saying that gee, maybe we should add a Latino columnist to talk about stuff that goes on around here because a lot of Latinos live around here now. The unspoken assumption is that Latinos (and whites) won't be interested in reading a Latino person's take on national issues.
What's really interesting here is that Howell does seem to understand that the numbers point to a need for change - but she's extraordinarily unambitious, even defensive, in her prescription for change. Some of her caveats remind me of begging my mom to let me stay up past bedtime: "C'mon, mom, just ten more minutes? Five minutes? Pleeeease?" When Howell points out that NO MEN'S POSITIONS WILL BE THREATENED, and really we don't even have to officially hire these women and non-whites as actual staff members - they can just be guest writers or something! (Maybe they'll even be so grateful for the opportunity that we won't have to pay them!) ...it bears asking, who is she talking to here? Who is the audience? Is she really that worried that Joe PostReader will give two hoots and a holler whether the new female columnist is on staff or not? No. Remember the role of an ombudsman, abominable as Howell has been at the job. She's talking to the paper's management - and begging them to throw her, and us, a bone.
So it's the management who really has the problem - not that we didn't know that already. I have a proposition for these guys. The Style section is the only section of the paper where female columnists outnumber male columnists (seven women to three men). These include a TV column, a fashion column, several advice columns... you know, women's shit. So they should change the name from "Style" to "Women's Shit" - put it right up there in the masthead. That will dramatically reduce the likelihood that any man will accidentally pick up, read, or otherwise come into contact with the "Women's Shit" section and suffer the penis shrinkage that surely results. Then they won't have to expense any more male enlargement pills to reverse the damage - and with the money saved, they can hire another woman to write on national issues for the op-ed pages. That will make it 17 men to 4 women, instead of 17 to 3, and those darn women will stop complaining - and the real readers (the male ones) will never notice.
Oh, and as for kos - for all his protestations that diversity is not a consideration when he chooses his front-page writers, he seems to be doing a pretty decent job of achieving it anyway. Last year, two of four new co-bloggers were women. This year, it's two or three of four (I'm not sure if Devilstower is a man or a woman,) and two of his three blogging "fellows" are women as well. Kos can be an ass, but maybe he did learn something from the infamous Pie Wars after all.
]]>In November 1994 I was seventeen years old; I was a senior in high school. I woke up the morning after the election and ran to get the paper. My father was at the kitchen table drinking his coffee. I picked up the paper, took one look at the headline, and threw it across the room. I don't remember the exact words I used, but they were foul enough to draw a rebuke from my father. "It's not going to matter," he told me. "This isn't something that's going to make a difference in our everyday lives."
It's been a long twelve years.
During that time I've learned what it's like to be poor, to have to search through cushions for bus money to get to work - and on getting there to find that you didn't have a job anymore, so sorry, we did call you this morning to tell you, why are you here? I've been paid less than minimum wage and stuffed myself at events that offered free food so that I wouldn't need supper later. I've learned what it's like to have pneumonia and be turned away at the doctor's office because you don't have $90 cash to give them up front. I've seen bigotry against women, minorities, and gays enshrined in law and enforced through public policy.
It's been a long twelve years.
Politics is a ripe breeding ground for cheesy rhetorical imagery. I'm sure it's the emotion of the day and not the power of the words that burned Tom Daschle's concession speech of November 3rd, 2004 into my memory. He said that he'd seen the sun set over the mall in Washington, DC (I have too, and from a plane no less - a breathtaking sight) and that he'd seen the sun rise over Mount Rushmore - and that he liked sunrises better than sunsets. As I was telling a friend the other day, I like sunsets best: they're pretty, and you have to get up far, far too early to see the sun rise, unless it's winter, and in the winter it's too cold.
There is no sunset I've ever been gladder to see than the metaphorical one that marks the end of the rule of these Republicans who launched themselves to power by stomping on our best hope to bring healthcare to everyone, and whose latest electoral push has been based on the idea that people with accents and brown skin should be automatically denied the opportunity to participate fully in society. And yet I'm uncertain - it's hard to imagine what this new day will look like. It's been such a very long twelve years.
I'm daring to let myself hope that it's over now. But I know too that my work has not yet ended. This victory is a tool not an end; we will have to use it to further fight for justice and create the world we want. I'm ready to begin.
Oh, and thanks, D.C. United - I'd definitely rather have this than the MLS Cup.
]]>But tomorrow is Election Day. In a way, it's like that scene from the movie Fever Pitch, when the Hornby character consoles one of the students on the soccer team he coaches after the kid just missed a PK that lost the game for his team.
Paul Ashworth: If you had to choose between winning this afternoon and Arsenal winning tomorrow night, what would you go for?
Robert: Tomorrow night of course!
Paul Ashworth: There you go then.
Robert: What, you're telling me, Arsenal are gonna win two nil at Anfield?
Paul Ashworth: I can't promise, can I? Well, there's a chance isn't there? You've done your bit, you've missed the penalty. If that's what it takes then it'll be worth it.
Robert: Yeah, course.
If I had to choose between DC United winning the MLS Cup and the Democrats taking back Congress tomorrow, my answer would come just as easily - tomorrow, of course! And, United's done their bit; they got knocked out of the final, so...
So I'm going to go to bed, because I'll be up at 4:30 am tomorrow, if I sleep at all. My volunteers are all confirmed, the car is packed with all my supplies, and I'm jumpier than... something very, very jumpy. The jumpiest thing you can think of. I'm jumpier than that.
Election Day is tomorrow! And tomorrow, we shall see.
]]>Police hunt farting dissidentPolice in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president.
Hubert Hoffman, 45, was charged with "contempt for the office of the head of state" for his actions after he was stopped by police in a routine check at a Warsaw railway station.
He complained that under President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, the country was returning to a Communist style dictatorship.
When told to show more respect for the country's rulers, he farted loudly and was promptly arrested.
Well, great except for the whole being arrested part. But I suppose there are worse ways to get yourself thrown in jail and/or labeled an enemy combatant.
]]>It's a rather stupid contest, true, and his contest video (links found here) is dorky. But Bobby doesn't get paid that much - only $29,400! and the prize is $15,000. So let's help him out.
This is via Google Sightseeing, which is a cool site. Here are some stadiums, and there's lots of other stuff, too.
]]>It was a winter day, cold and clear, and I was on my way to work when I stopped and stood on the sidewalk of a Georgetown side street - stopped and stood still, my face upturned to look at the plane that roared overhead and away, higher into the sky. I felt a sense of melanchonly and of longing, and I knew that the sight of an airplane, in any time and any place, had power to tell me how happy I was with my life. The more miserable our circumstances, the stronger our desire to see and to go beyond, to surpass our limits and smash past the border gates that contrain us, as if they were only so much empty air.
-*-*-*-
It was a cool evening, approaching chilly, when I arrived at the airport in Baltimore. I'd packed light for my trip, and only chosen lightweight clothes - no jacket. Fortunately the cabin of the plane was comfortable during the flight, but I couldn't help worrying that I had miscalculated and would be cold during my stay. Then we landed in Houston and pulled up to the gate, and the flight crew opened the door. A sudden rush of hot, sticky, humid air flooded the plane, bringing wry laughter and murmurs of dismay from the passengers.
Flying can be a disorienting experience. We enter the plane and the door is sealed behind us. Then, after an interval of time, the door opens, and we walk out into something completely different. Did we change our location, or did the world change around us? The sudden shift brings with it a sense of unreality, just as when we experience a sudden break in our daily routines. For vacations, for short trips, this is all part of the adventure. But, the first time I moved cross-country, I shipped my belongings and travelled by plane. I felt disoriented and out-of-place for the better part of two years, until I finally had the opportunity to travel back to my old home by car, and see with my own eyes what lay between Here and There.
-*-*-*-
The most thrilling moment of flight is the instant the plane leaves the ground. The wheels thunder along the runway and the trees whip past the window with increasing speed. The seats and the floors and the windows and the walls vibrate around us; surely if it goes on this way the ship will break apart and scatter us on the concrete like fruit-borne seeds. But then, instead, everything tilts and the ground drops away, our stomachs with it. Freed of the bonds of gravity and our ties to our own innards, we float into the air.
Most of us have dreams (the night-time variety) of flying, though they take different forms. Some dream of falling, and fear the impact above all. Some dream of expanded horizons and the view from above, seeing all, touched by nothing. But my dreams have always been of floating -- just leaving the ground, slipping into the air, and with the slightest shift or twitch, moving in any direction I please. It's never a new ability in these dreams, but always something that I always knew how to do, even if I never knew I knew it. In my dreams, I've always been able to escape the restraints of gravity and venture wherever I will.
]]>There's only an hour between games, which is just enough time for your muscles to all stiffen up before you have to play again. You take off your shoes and socks and jersey and lay them out in the sun, hoping that they'll dry out a bit before the next game. You lie back with your head on your bag for a pillow and talk about nothing and everything with the guys on your team, or talk trash about the players in the games between your own.Sometimes -- far too often -- the games aren't pretty; a mad scramble after the ball, nobody seems to be playing their position, neither team holds onto possession for more than 30 seconds at a time. But then sometimes it all comes together -- a one-two down the line, a pretty passing move around the 18-yard box, a gorgeous goal -- and it reminds you that this is why you're playing.
Go, read the whole thing.
I'd give up my weekend for that if I could - one of these days, perhaps, when my foot that's been sore for over a month finally heals. (We'll see what the doctor says on Wednesday.) Meanwhile I've got the next best thing for this weekend, a road trip to Houston to visit my family and see DC United play. I couldn't talk my cousin into standing with us - "I'm not cheering for that team!" - but he may attend the game, and even tailgate with us, my aunt tells me. She said he wanted to know whether soccer fans drink.
Anna was very disappointed that she couldn't come to Houston with me, although she's still so enamored of kindergarten that preparing for school was enough to distract her. I set the Tivo to record the game for her, and told her that she should be sure to wear her Jaime Moreno shirt tomorrow, so that we'll win. "I will!" she promised. We're all counting on you, Anna!
UPDATE: While I'm linking to stuff, Soccer Dad of On the Pitch has a post reviewing various websites that you can use to find soccer games in your area. When my foot is better...
]]>But sometimes one discovers things from Sitemeter that are rather... disturbing. Someone found this blog by seaching for "girl sex soccer."
If anyone out there knows how girls - or women, for that matter - have sex while playing soccer, please DO NOT tell me. I really do not want to know. Actually, you know what? That goes for boys and men, too. I just don't want to know.
kthxbye.
]]>Dave walks over to me. "You know who that is, right?""Who? That guy?"
"Yeah, that's Bobby Boswell."
I stifle the urge to reenact a Jack Benny spit-take. "No shit, hey, you're right." It's a slightly awkward feeling, since a few minutes before I told Joanna of my plans to pick up a Boswell replica jersey when we head into RFK. Very close to the kind of fanboy behavior that invites William Shatner to ask about whether or not I am currently in posession of, as they say, a life. No, the important thing now is to just be cool about the entire thing. I turn to my drinking buddy who hasn't overheard the conversation with Dave. "Hey, it's Boswell over there." He picks up on the studied non-chalance, barely raising his eyebrows in response.
"Is it? Cool." There's a pause as we are earnestly aware of how forced the casual tone of conversation has become. "You know, I woke up with Heather Mitts in bed this morning..." Complete deadpan. A nice escalation of the mood.
"You too?" I offer.
"Who hasn't?" adds Dave, safely out of earshot of his girlfriend.
I can't be rude and stare at other people and not listen to the conversation that is going on right next to me, though. I turn back to D just in time to hear:
Still, now I've been challenged. It's important to establish alpha-male ultimate coolness at this point. "So, um... Jesus Christ came over this morning. Wanted to borrow a cup of sugar. I told him this was the last time..."
I'm a little confused, but I had some of that blue stuff which has vodka in it, so this is still a funny remark. I laugh. D seems to catch on to my confusion because he says something about Bobby Boswell. At first I assume he's still talking about going to get that jersey, but he points. I look. "That's him, right over there."
"HIM?! That guy?" I'm stunned! Because while Boz is cute enough in his photographs...
...they just don't really bring across the extreme hotness that we were all blessed to witness there in person at the tailgate. I think this is because Bobby squints in a lot of his pictures.
So I tease D (while surreptitiously staring at Bobby Boswell) that he ought to just go ask Bobby for one of his shirts. Then he'd have a real one instead of a replica, AND save money. "No!" D says. "I'm not going to be That Guy."
"I know what you mean," I say emphatically (while surreptitiously staring at Bobby Boswell). This response is a useful reminder that I had better not be That Girl either. Or else my new friends will think I am uncool and will not want to hang out with me at future tailgates. I'm on notice, so I'm careful (while surreptitiously staring at Bobby Boswell). It occurs to me that I could walk right up to Bobby, grin at him, and inform him that I'm lucky, and that if he kisses me, we'll win the game. I'm just tipsy enough to maybe pull this off without clamming up and standing there grinning mutely like a stupid idiot. And, with just a small bit of the luck I'd be claiming, I might be able to get him to kiss me on the cheek, which would make the thirteen-year-old in me happy for weeks. But I don't dare try this, because I've got to be cool.
]]> Instead I talk to a few other people (while surreptitiously staring at Bobby Boswell) and then D and I decide to go into the stadium early to buy shirts, because he wants Boswell and I want Gomez. Their names, that is. On our shirts. So we leave. (In order to do this, unfortunately, I have to stop staring at Bobby Boswell.)Oh yeah, and there was a soccer game, too. But during the second half someone points out that - look! Bobby Boswell is over with the Barra Brava banging a drum. Well, isn't that neat! Alecko Eskandarian (who I spent much of last week admiring) is standing next to him, and they look like they're having fun. Among other things I learned that evening was this: it is difficult, but not impossible, to watch a soccer game while at the same time staring at Bobby Boswell.
At some point, Real Salt Lake scores, which sucks (and I still think Troy wouldn't have given up that goal) and I'm trying to mentally will our guys to score again, or something - then I look over and notice that Bobby and Esky are standing in the aisle between 132 and 133. I'd just have to squeeze past half a dozen people to go talk to them. And I could try the line about being lucky - the score is 1-1, there's 20 minutes left in the game, we really need a bit of luck.
But the blue vodka stuff has worn off, and it takes me ten minutes to get up the nerve to do it. Finally I realize that I'll be kicking myself for a long time if I don't go over and say hello, and besides (I justify to myself) I'll be able to tell Anna that I met the players and she'll think that's really cool. Hear that, people?! Anna will think I'm cool even if nobody else does! So I go.
And it seems that the moment I get to the aisle is the moment Bobby decides it's time to leave - which makes sense. There are 10 minutes left on the clock and these two guys don't want to be caught in a swarm of people leaving. Someone grabs Bobby and convinces him to take one more picture. I'm waiting for him to finish, and watching, not surreptitiously now because I'm actually trying to get his attention and it's okay for me to stare look at him. He doesn't see me.
Eskandarian is leaving, too. He moves past some other people and when he reaches me, he puts his hand on my shoulder and is saying hello, but I can't really hear what he's saying. I grin at him (while staring at Bobby Boswell). There's noise, and drums, and a lot of people, and Alecko Eskandarian is talking to me and he has his hand on my shoulder and I can't stop staring at Bobby Boswell.
And then Esky smiles at me and goes up the stairs and Bobby goes right past him before I can say a word. So I didn't get a kiss from either of them. (It only occurs to me afterward that I could have just tried the line out on Esky while I was waiting for Bobby.) But Esky did touch my United jersey, which means I'm bound to score three in the next pickup game I play in.
In conclusion, I have just a few things to say (besides "How old am I, again?")
To Bobby Boswell: I'm lucky. Seriously. Once, a guy kissed me before he went to a job interview. He got the job which was a $12,000 increase of his present salary. Another time, a guy kissed me right before going out the door into a snowstorm to head to the airport. He slipped on the sidewalk and sprained his ankle and was in the ER for eight hours to get it X-rayed. You might think this is unlucky, but it's actually lucky, because the plane he was supposed to catch crashed through a fence trying to take off and caught fire. All the passengers burned up, and so did their luggage. So the point is that I'm lucky, and if you kiss me before our next game, we'll win. I know this comes a little late to make plans for tonight, but we could set something up for this weekend. In fact, if you wanted to meet up with me before every game, I'd be cool with that.
To everyone else: Please don't anyone tell Bobby I just made all that up.
To Alecko Eskandarian: I'm sorry I dissed you in favor of staring at Bobby Boswell. I didn't really do it on purpose, it's just that he had a booger hanging from his nose. I still think you're totally hot, although I do prefer you with your shirt off. If we meet again I promise I'll do my best to be tipsy enough to actually talk. By the way, did you know that I'm lucky...?
]]>