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Alanna in Afghanistan? Girls Raised as Boys Taste Freedom And Sadness.

September 21, 2010

The Shield of "Boyhood"

Today’s New York Times has a fascinating and rather sad article by Jenny Nordberg about families in Afghanistan raising a daughter as a son to cope with the pressures of a society in which boy children are incomparably prized.  The reasons for raising a girl as a boy differ – in some cases, the “boy” is the only one who can work in the world, providing support for a family of females who are not allowed to earn their keep; in others, it is to provide some protection from the rebuke and ill fortune deemed the lot of a family solely of daughters.  The selected girl (usually a youngest daughter, chosen when hope of a boy child wears thin) is raised as a boy till puberty or beyond (sometimes even till marriage) , despite the risk of the girl’s body betraying her.  The “change back” to traditional female comes as a brutal shock to women who have been used to the freedom–societal, mental, and physical–that only “boyhood” allows.  Such women have difficulty not only in assuming their circumscribed feminine lives, but also in relating to other women.

How do you regurgitate a taste of freedom?  Some women (such as one of the main mothers interviewed) hope that that the experience of boyhood will enlarge the ambitions of their daughters, empowering them even after they are forced to revert.

Obviously, the article–the phenomenon–raises lots of questions, many of which can be summed up by the word “how”?  But one obvious point is simply the difference in Afghani culture from the mainstream West.   This is the stuff of fantasy in the West  (setting aside transgender girls and boys, which are a somewhat different phenomenon).   Alanna!  The wonderful/horrible series of children’s  fantasies by Tamara Pierce about the girl who disguises herself as a boy to train as a knight.

It’s also the stuff of history–those ages in which women could not own or manage property.  (In the children’s book area, this territory has been beautifully mapped by Phillip Pullman in the Sally Lockhart series.)

Okay, I’m not saying that everything is so clear and straightforward for girls in the West now.  Factors in Western culture push girls to all kinds of self-distortions–i.e. anorexia, cosmetic surgery. I recently received an Urban Outfitters catalogue in which all the female models look like underage prostitutes on quaaludes.

Oddly, many of these distorted means to power have a stereotypically feminine aspect in the West.   Girls who can only roam with relative freedom when they can pretend to be boys?  Girls who shield their whole families through such conduct?   This is something apart.

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Pauvresse Oblige

September 20, 2010

It sounds paternalistic; it is paternalistic; but the concept of noblesse oblige, or as Sergeant Colon of Terry Prachett’s Discworld calls it – nobblyesse obligay–used to make the wealthy and/or aristocratic feel guilty enough to do the right thing, at least some minor sacrifice which passed as the right thing.

The “right thing” in this paternalistic, but noble, world meant something that was fair-minded,  generous (i.e. not greedy).  This seems to have been a little more clearcut in times before trickle-down economics or of  ‘get as much of it while you can’ economics (the system we seem to have now.)

As Paul Krugman points out in today’s New York Times (“The Angry Rich”), many of the rich in the U.S are hopping mad.  They feel absolutely entitled to  (or perhaps psychotically defensive about) their hundreds of millions and are really really worried about a return to a tax system that was in place a mere ten years ago.   An especially angry billionaire, Steve Schwarzman, has compared President Obama’s proposals to tax the earnings of hedge fund managers as ordinary income to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.   (I’m not completely sure who is more injured by this type of statement–Obama or the people of Poland, whose suffering in World War II seems horribly demeaned by such an idiotic comparison.)

What’s crazier, and sadder, is that so many ordinary Americans are caught up in the defense of the rich and super-rich.  Such Americans, angered by the more visible entitlements of the poor (which in the big scheme of things are pretty paltry–that’s why they are poor). give the rich a free ride.   Many of the working and middle class seem to view the rich as a parallel (if luckier) group to themselves; hard-working folks who deserve to keep absolutely all of what they have.   They don’t seem to ask if the rich are really thousands of times more hard-working or deserving than a poor guy or gal with two low-paying jobs.

The idea has been spread that protecting a billionaire’s billions from a pre-George W. Bush level of tax is somehow incremental to protecting a middle or working class person’s thousands (or hundreds); the fact that it’s the Republicans who are holding tax reductions for the middle class hostage has also been obfuscated.   What’s saddest is that many of the working and middle class do not seem to recognize that by fighting any return to the former tax regime for the rich, they are unknowingly offering to make big sacrifices for them–sacrifices in safety, public services, decent schools, a civil society.

A not so minor sacrifice.

Pauvresse oblige.

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Missing New York Storm Draft Sonnet (From Florida)

September 17, 2010

Windswept, wind-littered

Missing New York Storm (September 16th) Sonnet  (From Florida)

September storm in New York hustles through
in one or two, at most a scant fifteen,
New York minutes, and I, the professed New
Yorker, wasn’t in it; I who would have been
proud to complain of the urban canyon wind,
to bemoan felled branches, the wild thwacking
of the flag outside my building, send
this poem from a far place lacking
in tall, grey, and even, it feels to me, speed,
where everyone seems required to beam
in public, but some with stern primness (no need
to bring up politics)–I miss my home!–
its nitty-gritty, windswept, wind-littered, stone.

(Karin Gustafson – suggestions welcome.)

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Ocean/Overmedication

September 13, 2010

One good thing about these days in Florida–the ocean.

One bad thing about these days in Florida–overmedication.   (Thankfully, not of me.)

I am recovering my “sea legs.”  I use the term in a completely made-up sense which has nothing to do with walking up and down the deck of a ship.  (The problem with me and ships is not my lack of sea legs, but “sea stomach.” )

I’ve gotten completely furious at doctors here.

My sea legs are legs that are willing to rush into the surf and dive below the next incoming wave.  This can be dangerous–not so much because of the force of the wave–but because, lately, my determination to achieve the sense of freedom the dive imparts has led me to take it at a depth of two feet.

I am more and more convinced that many of them (doctors) substitute treatment for attention.

I’m still not as brave as I once was.  Years of having my mother trail out to the beach after me shouting fearfully “you have children!” have taken their toll.

By that, I mean that they (doctors) often seem not to review cases or listen or attend to patients, but to simply prescribe tests and medication.  Loads of tests, loads of medication, for years.

But my mom stays at home these days, and I swim!  (Not just wade.)   And I’m often the only one–the only sea-borne human on the entire horizon!

One question that arises is whether doctors are more likely to overtreat the heftily insured. .  And what happens to patients who don’t have an advocate?   Someone to say, for example, “gee, if his blood pressure is 65 /42, maybe he shouldn’t be on two separate types of blood pressure lowering medication.”

So strange–the waves are not large this time of year, the jelly fish are not bubbling, the water temperature is pretty perfect (cool on initial entry, then immediately comfortable.)

Can the over treatment actually be intended to protect the doctor?  Document attempts to try everything (whether needed or not)?

Is it the school schedule?  The fact that this is the opposite of Spring Break?

Or, maybe…maybe… it has something to do with the big black fin I saw both this morning and yesterday, that dark rhythmic curve above the waves?

I hesitate to call them sharks.

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Religious Outrage – Elephant Dung

September 10, 2010

We live in a country where you can use the Bible as toilet paper.  You can even post a video of this use on youtube.  (I hope not.)

It’s a country where you are allowed to draw horns on the President, a country where you do not generally have to memorize poems for fear that your scribbles will be discovered by the local police.  (The downside of this is that no one is much interested in poetry.)

It’s also a country where silly self-promoters, like Terry Jones and several other copycat “ministers”, have a right to do silly self-promoting symbolic things.

Of course, the rules that allow for Jones are also the rules that allow for artists and writers, museums and collectors, many of whom are also self-promoters, some of whom are also foolish.  (Some not.)

Remember Chris Ofili and the Virgin Mary painted with Elephant Dung, part of the Brooklyn Museum’s 1999 show Sensation, which exhibited works from the collection of Charles Saatchi.  Ofili’s Virigin Mary caused such a….sensation that it inspired then Mayor Giuliani to start a lawsuit to evict the Museum, the Museum to countersue Giuliani, and all kinds of politicians, artists, religious groups and concerned citizens to speak out.  The U.S. House of Representatives (typically!) passed a nonbinding resolution to end federal funding for the Museum, the City of New York actually stopped the Museum’s funding; a federal judge restored it.

I am not sure that people around the world, Muslims particularly, understand this aspect of our culture.

I’m not sure that many of us always understand it.  Especially some of the ones doing silly symbolic things.  (And why do so many have to center on 9/11?  Ground Zero?  Do these people even like New York?)

But what do you do?  We live in a country (thankfully) where people do not have to swallow their poetry, but can post it on the internet.  Even though no one is terribly interested in it.  With or without elephant dung.

More tomorrow.

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The Media – Jonesing For Controversy

September 10, 2010

A bunch of thoughts rush through my still very tired head tonight, many of them focusing on the idiocy of Terry Jones and the U.S./global news media.  Then, sneaking in, comes a sense of the real lack of understanding between Islam and the U.S.

The media make me maddest–so busy jonesing for drama and controversy that they bloat the ambitions of an attention-seeking idiot.   No, Terry Jones makes me maddest, for being an attention-seeking idiot.  No, the media for absolutely fanning the flames of the controversy; no Jones himself (idiot) for threatening to light those flames…

And then I think about the part of Islam in this story.  Certainly, Muslims are entitled to be enraged by idiots like Jones, but there is also something extremely unsympathetic in the idea that Islamic outrage at the insignificant, if idiotic, Jones would be so extreme as to genuinely put lives at risk across the world

A lot of anger, a lot of attention-seeking, worrisome.

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Foregoing Fear of Big Brother For the Fast Lane

September 6, 2010

I’m thinking again about Orwell today, in part because of a comment received setting forth a particularly dire quotation from him.

I confess to being, well, too optimistic a person to be terribly comfortable with Orwell’s dire quotations.  I do have great admiration for Orwell;  his ability to distill political phenomena into both momentous narrative and an original and precise vocabulary–newspeak, groupthink, Big Brother, thought crime–may be unparalleled.

And (though some readers may doubt it), I do have some understanding of the fear of governmental/official power and legally tolerated unfairness.  Official power, unfair laws, a lack of economic and political clout, are things that have oppressed my sex (female) for centuries, and still oppress women (as well, of course, as many others) throughout the world.   Ironically, I just finished reading a decidely pre-Orwellian novel, Wilkie Collins’ 19th century mystery, The Woman in White, in which one of the heroines (the beautiful one) is dispossessed of her identity and her estate by a fraud, supported by legal authority, that is only finally reversed by her bearing a son.  (The novel’s other heroine never actually has a chance to be so oppressed due to her physical ugliness.)

So. As any reader of novels (much less history) knows, abuse of individuals and groups by statute and authority is not particularly new, not only a product of totalitarianism, and something of which to be wary.  That said, it seems as if Orwellian ideas are frequently trotted out and then turned on their head in today’s media and political speak.  People adopt the idea of conspiracy at the drop of a hat (the sleight of a hand).  Glenn Beck traffics in this readiness with crazy illogic:  see e.g. Lewis Black’s Glenn Beck’s Nazi Tourettes–“Glenn, get a grip — they came for the Jews to kill them; they came for the banks and car companies to give them 700 billion dollars!”

My most recent experience with this kind of Orwellian mood came a couple of days ago in the person of an upstate New York car service driver who, grumbling about Big Brother, characterized EZ Pass as a government conspiracy designed to know exactly where he was at all moments.  I was a bit concerned about his vehemence against EZ Pass since we were on our way to JFK (on various toll roads) with very little time to spare.

Still, I was (sort of) sympathetic.  It’s very possible that EZ Pass evidence has been admitted in criminal prosecutions. I’ve also heard that some jurisdictions use it as a tool for dishing out speeding tickets when drivers cover distances in times that are not possibly legal.   (I have not researched these issues.)  Even so–and I may be naive–the only conspiracy I can see in EZ Pass’s original conception and in the way it’s generally administered in today’s world of strapped state governments seems to be to relieve the State of a certain number of low-paying toll jobs.  (And possibly to earn revenue in speeding tickets.)

I pointed out to my driver that people who were concerned about being tracked on EZ Pass could simply pay for their tolls in cash.  And then, watching the clock, I immediately bit my tongue.  Maybe he was one of those truly principled types who would steer us into one of the long slow lane of other principled (or disorganized) non-EZ drivers.  Maybe I was even encouraging him to do that.

But, for all the grumbling, the driver drove straight into the EZ pass lane, then, when the light went green, sailed on through.

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R U Really Talking of Orwell This Labor Day Weekend?

September 5, 2010

Some Animals Are More Equal than Others (And Some Don't Want to Hear About It)

Sarah Palin tweeted, after Obama’s Iraq speech, something to the effect that ‘u should get out ur old Orwell books.’  She was implying, I guess, that Obama was trying to steal Bush’s credit for the invasion of Iraq.

I, for one, am happy to give Bush credit for Iraq.  If Obama was trying to claim credit for anyone else, I think it was mainly U.S. troops and commanders.

But my real interest in Palin’s tweet–aside from the “u’s” and “ur’s” (how can someone make any claim to thoughtfulness with “u’s” and “ur’s”?)–is the mention of Orwell.

On a Labor Day weekend, the Orwellian phrase which most comes to my mind is the modified commandment from the Stalinist-type commune satirized in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

We live in a society that is increasingly stratified.  While equality is touted, and each human life is (on a speechifying level) deemed equally priceless, the fact is that some people’s lives are valued exponentially much more highly than others.  Some people’s work, for example, is deemed to be worth millions, others less than minimum wage.  These values don’t seem to always correlate to talent, effort, difficulty==sometimes they simply arise from the luck of being in a job that generates cash.

The ability of certain people to make stupefyingly large amounts of money in our culture seems to be viewed by Palin and other Tea Party types as a sign of our freedom.  But it’s unclear to me that the rank and file American, especially those angered by what they view as handouts to the poor and underserving, fully understands the level of wealth of some in this country and the increasing disparity between classes.   It’s also unclear whether the damage such disparity inflicts on both a society and an economy has been much thought through.  (Both Robert Reich and Bob Herbert have interesting articles about this in the last day’s NY Times.)

Another new mantra appears to be “Taxes Bad–Any Business Good”.    People seem to forget that taxes fund street lights, firemen, schools, police, our national defense–all those troops everyone wants to support–parks, clean food, clean water, help for the handicapped, Social security, Medicare;  taxes also give people access to such services.     And, of course, a progressive tax system is one means of redressing some of the issues of wage and access imbalance, i.e.  the differences between the equal and more equal.   But woe (or should I spell it, WO) to any politician who dares mention such an idea – U R risking instant Orwellization.  (Or worse.)

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More on “Ground Zero” Mosque – CBS/New York Times Poll, Goldman Sachs building, that guy with the flag draped on his car, Cherries!

September 3, 2010

More on Park51, the mosque and Islamic Center proposed to be built two blocks from Ground Zero:  a CBS/New York Times poll says that a substantial majority of New Yorkers feel that the statement: “it should not be built because, while Muslims have the right to do it, they should find a less controversial location” comes closer to their views than the statement ”it should be built because moving it would compromise American values.”

The poll also finds that many New Yorkers (of the whopping 892 randomly asked) oppose (rather than favor) the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero.

Boy, do I hate polls.  They carry the aura of science–black and white data–when in fact they are often reductive, self-fulfilling, and manipulable.

I’m not saying that the findings of the poll are inaccurate–I’m quite sure that many New Yorkers would just as soon (i) that the controversy would go away, and (ii) that if Muslims have to build a mosque, they budge it over a bit.

But one problem with the poll – despite the self-fullfilling terminology- is the fact that the questions had no control, no placebo, as it were–no context.  (No one was asked, for example, if they were actually familiar with the topography of Ground Zero.)

Here are some other questions that were not asked:

Which of the statements below reflects your opinion about construction at Ground Zero?

1.  Yes, Burger King has a right to have a franchise at the corner of the site, but they should move large outdoor pictures of Twilight’s vampires, such as Robert Pattinson, to a less morbid location.

2.  Yes, shoppers have a right to get great discounts on designer goods at Ground Zero,  but the huge “SALE” banners should be draped more decorously.

3.  Yes, N.Y. Dolls can have a strip club two blocks away, but they should drape some banners (maybe from Century 21–oops, maybe not) over the outlines of naked women.

4.  Yes, that guy with the big U.S. flag with all the stenciled names of victims can hang out, but he should not scam tourists on Sundays.  Ditto the people with all the burning WTC postcards.

5.  I don’t love Jeff Koons, but his balloon-flower sculpture looks like cherries.  (Who can can argue with cherries?)

6.  Okay, Silverstein has a right to some bucks, but should he really construct an office tower on a de facto burial ground?

7.  Yes, Goldman Sachs can (even perhaps should)  build its $2.1. billion headquarters just across West Street, but perhaps, after getting over $115 million in NYS and local tax breaks PLUS the use of $1.65 billiion in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds, it should not have been so active in the collapse of the U.S. financial system.

8.  Yes, the 9/11 attackers were Muslims, but they do not represent all Islam.

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Beck, Spirituality, A Rose By Any Other Name?

August 29, 2010

At the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, Glenn Beck said it was the day America will turn back to God.

Turning back, Glenn says.  Yet, there seems much more talk of God in America (at least in the media and politics) than I can ever remember.  When I grew up, neither ordinary people nor politicians wore religion on their sleeves (unless dressed in a habit.)

Prayer seemed different too, in those days.  In my memory, people prayed for fortitude, strength, patience, wisdom, God’s Will being done.   The idea of praying for various specific victories (as in a football game) would have seemed sacrilegious (at best, wasting the Almighty’s time.)  The notion that collecting a number of prayers–i.e. getting a whole bunch of people to pray for you or your cause–would be more effective than a single heartfelt prayer – was not common.  Prayer was your personal plea, not a lobby, and too, not a petition you got others to sign on to.

Putting all the religious sleevery aside, I, like Beck (I guess), certainly wish that our culture were more spiritual.   But it is worrisome (i) when people look to God to save or punish a nation; and (ii) when spirituality is irretrievably hooked onto the iconography and doctrines of a specific religion–when, for example, a prayer of “may all beings be free from suffering,” might not be deemed valid without adding “in Jesus’s name.   ( I have nothing against Jesus, but my notion of spirituality is more Shakespearean –  that a God by many other names might smell as sweet.)

And then, there’s the incipient link Beck makes (even as he denies it) between God and his political viewpoints.  But for Beck to blame a “turning our backs to God” on government when we live in a culture of mass consumption (in all senses of the word but the Catholic one), and too, a culture that seems to view any idea of sharing wealth as a mine shaft to Hell (should I say a “It’s mine!” shaft to Hell?) is more than naive.

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