Edgar came to live with us close to four weeks ago. I think it will be four weeks tomorrow, actually. It’s actually surprising how much about him has changed since we brought him home:
He will walk on a leash and not freak out.
He will go up and down stairs by himself, although he’s a bit clumsy.
Weighs 46 lbs rather than 42.
Is willing to walk past cars that are parked as well as cars that are turned on but not moving. Still terrified of moving cars though.
I have decided on the best way to draw him. As you can see in the comic above, there was some experimentation.
At first Edgar was very shy and stayed in his crate most of the time, even though we left the door open so he could come and go as he wanted. I think he appreciated having the little cave to hang out in, because re-homing is incredibly stressful and confusing. And that’s for people; imagine how the dogs feel. Anyway, Edgar is a rescue dog and he had spent a lot of his life in to a shelter before entering the foster care system and then coming to us, so we knew that it would take him longer than it took Maya to warm up to us. After all, Maya was 12 weeks when we got her, versus Edgar at six or seven months–much more life to have traumatized him thus far. However, I am happy to report that he is thriving. I drew this follow-up comic to demonstrate Edgar hanging out in the atrium every morning while I eat breakfast:
I’ll file this comic under SF427 .L86 2013 for Animal Culture–Pets–Dogs–Culture and care. Sadly, there was no entry for “doggy personal ads.”
And here’s a photograph of him I took earlier this afternoon:
And a picture of Edgar and Maya playing in the snow:
So the reason we were able to get another dog is that we recently moved to a new house. I think I may have mentioned this before. But the thing is that we have been slowly going through a lot of stuff at the old condo that didn’t get moved, stuff that we should probably throw away so we can get the house on the market. Earlier this evening while doing this, I came across this piece of paper:
If you can’t read, it says, “ทำงานทุกวันและเล่นไม่ได้ทำให้คุณจากคนไม่สนใจ,” which translates as “Working everyday and not playing makes Jack an uninteresting person.” Nowadays I would spell “Jack” as “แจก” rather than “จาก” I guess. But. I wonder what was going on when I made those notes? It also seems to say “Liz Bernstein–another Jew in Asia,” “มหา [maha] Ghosanada,” “CompLit,” and “No one is soverign [sic] in love.”
…It’s probably a good thing I’m finishing my thesis and graduating soon.
I should mention that the novella is due out at the end of the week. It will be available as a PDF and on all major ebook platforms (i.e., Kindle and Nook). So, uh, prepare to spend money on it? It should be pretty awesome. Here, in case you haven’t seen it yet, is the cover.
Oof. Remember when I used to have time to blog? Me neither.
Ironically, I finished this drawing almost a month ago, when we were visiting Baltimore. But I didn’t get it posted the week we came back because we were packing for the move, and then we were moving. After the move, first I couldn’t find the sketchbook. Then I found the sketchbook but I didn’t know where my eraser (the one surviving eraser at this point), so I couldn’t finish the sketch. Last night I decided to get my act together.
I’ll file this under: SF429.S63 L86 2013, which stands for: Animal culture–Pets–Dogs–By breed, A-Z–Shiba dogs.
I ran the Baltimore Running Festival half marathon on the 12th of October. It was fun. I was going to write a race report, but let’s face it: The chances of that happening are kind of slim at this point. I get up every morning at 5:30 to start work on my thesis, then I work out and do actual work, and after all that I have no energy left. So enjoy a few photos from the run:
My MTA ticket. I <3 public transit.Looking skeptical before the race.There was a goodly walk from where we lined up to the starting line, the last bit was uphill. It was a bit confusing. I bet people who actually read their race packet knew about this though.It’s the Natty Boh man. We’re in B’more, hon.I’d been reading _From Hell_, and this building looked strangely like some freemason business.
Running past empty rowhouses.Post-race. I finished in 2:00:07.
I know I have used a Daft Punk song lyric as a title before but I can’t find it.
I was going to write about buying the house (we closed about a week and a half ago) and all the stuff that has gone on (and gone wrong, but also gone right) since then, but I am frigging tired. I have been getting up as early as possible (between 5-6am) to work on my thesis too, and that isn’t helping. Yesterday I ran twelve miles, then spent the rest of the day painting with my very kind and generous friends. Then I fell into bed by 22:00.
The paint looks good. I still have paint in my hair.
Today: Utterly unable to accomplish anything. Well, I got some work done and made some phone calls, but it wasn’t a productivity-fest.
Tomorrow: Hopefully better.
Until then, dear readers.
File this one under HB501.L86 2013 for Economic theory. Demography–Economic theory–Capital. Capitalism.
I don’t think I’m spoiling anything (the plot, anyone’s perceptions of graduate school/me) to say that my advisor and I have a somewhat rocky relationship. It consists of him mostly ignoring forgetting about me and me alternately making desperate bids for his affection and raging about his inattentiveness. Super healthy. One learns so much about relationships and professionalism in graduate school. But on the plus side, things are getting better. He finished reading my thesis and made comments on it that were quite helpful. And we did actually have a nice (i.e. productive) conversation about some of my translation’s idiosyncrasies. So things CAN get better.
And I should add that my advisor is a really nice fellow. I’m also acquainted with his wife, who is wonderful, and I don’t wish either of them any ill.
I promise my next comic will not be a meta-mopey grad-school-is-hard feel-sorry-for-myself fest. Probably. We’ll file this one under LB2385 L86 2013b for Theory and practice of education–Higher education–Academic degrees-M.A.
What else can I blog about? I ran a 5k a few weeks ago. Despite my foot injury, I finished in 24:40, good enough for 4th place in my age group. Also, I had a lot of fun running with a family friend for whom it was her second 5k ever!
What else? Plantar fasciitis. It should I guess come as no surprise to anyone who has been on the internet that when you google something and you see five hundred potential cures, none of them work. That seems to be the case with PF. My foot is still about where it was when I posted the last comic several weeks ago.
I’m trying not to get too depressed about it. I have an appointment with a PT in a few weeks and in the meantime I’m still running three times per week. That’s okay. (Ok, it’s not something I’m okay with, but it’s something I have to do.)
I’m actually pretty frustrated and depressed. I’ve had to switch from doing the full marathon in Baltimore to doing the half. In the meantime, I’ve decided to pretend I’m training for a half IM, so I’ve been doing lots of bricks (or at least swim/bike days; it turns out that if you want to do a brick before work you have to get up at 5am).
So my past week looked like this:
Sunday: Swam 3550 yards/Biked 23 miles
Monday: Ran 7 miles (also lifted weights)
Tuesday: Swam 2500 yards/Biked 16 miles
Wednesday: Ran 9 miles, ellipticaled 2 miles (plus lifting and aikido)
Thursday: Swam 2550 yards/Biked 17 miles
Friday: Blerched.
Tomorrow is my long run (about 13 miles), then another brick on Sunday. I’m going to try to push the bike ride a bit longer, maybe to 25-30 miles.
I also bought new insoles and a Strassburg Sock in a desperate attempt to heal myself with placebos.
The past two weeks have been a bit stressful. At the beginning of the summer, when it became apparent that I was not going to finish in time to defend at the end of spring term, I set August 9th as my official personal deadline for completing the draft of my thesis. Around the same time, B accepted a role in a play (The Merchant of Venice) that was set to perform the weekend before my deadline, meaning that we had dinner with several relatives that weekend. I also went to the show twice. It was a great performance, but that’s still a loss of time.
We also passed an unhappy personal anniversary on August 3rd. And finally, for reasons that I swear seemed reasonable at the time, we decided to start looking for a house.
Anything else? Yes. I hurt my foot and had to take a week off running at the time I most needed to be able to run.
That’s actually the whole reason I drew this comic. I wanted to blog about my plantar fasciitis.
I’m not really sure what happened. My pet theory is that getting a huge bruise on my shin at Dances with Dirt made me roll in a weird way during aikido the next week. This probably put more strain on my plantar fascia and led to the injury.
After swimming seven miles per week for two weeks, I finally saw my sports medicine guy last Monday (the 5th) and got a diagnosis. The sheet the guy gave me said “limit running,” but not no running, so with the help of a pair of orthotics, I’ve been running about every other day since then, a total of maybe 30 miles last week. (That figure includes time on the elliptical, though.)
I can’t tell if my foot is doing better than it was last Sunday. I did just spend seven and a half hours over the past three days at an aikido seminar (my present to myself for finishing the thesis) and it didn’t fall off. Conversely though, it doesn’t feel amazing after all that. The weather changing a lot today was a confounding factor too.
I am trying to put into practice some of the zen techniques I learned at my seminar, but it’s hard. I have difficulty just relaxing and waiting until I get better. (Obviously, right? Because I am still running.) I think the problem is, you can’t just force yourself to be calm. You can’t force yourself to find enlightenment.
But, as they say, you can clean up your room. You can open the window and sit. And when the breeze comes through, you can notice it.
So I will clean up my room. Not just so I can sit, but because we have to sell the condo now.
This is wandering a bit. I hurt my foot but I finished my thesis. Yay.
I’ll file this one under LB2385 L86 2013 for Theory and practice of education–Higher education–Academic degrees-M.A..
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love(?) the Pain
So, begin at the beginning. Back in April I did a race called the Trailbreaker Marathon. While I was there I met this woman named Shannon who is a super-dedicated runner who loves to race. We hit it off, and she suggested we get the band back together for a trail race up in Merrimac, WI (about 55 minutes from here) called Dances with Dirt. After some discussion, we decided to do the marathon, and I thought no more about it for a while.
During May and June it rained most of the time, so I did only a few short trail run. This was probably, in retrospect, an error. But I’ve done a lot of trail races as a tourist–someone who runs trails infrequently.
Packet Pickup. Photo by Shannon.
Friday the 12th of July. I headed up to Devil’s Head Resort. Shannon and I ate a large quantity of pasta and picked up our race packets. Another friend of hers (Ruth) had come up from the Milwaukee area to do the 50k, so we all had a very early night. I unfortunately passed on the opportunity to sing karaoke to a bar full of intoxicated golfers. Next time. . .
The next morning, alarms were going off at various times. I tried resolutely to ignore them all, and I think I caught a few minutes of sleep between whenever Ruth’s went off (4:ohmygod) and mine (the much more sensible 5:35). I got dressed and put in my contacts. Then I decided something was wrong with my left lens and took it out briefly. Then I thought everything was fine.
Because checkout was 11:00, we would have to run a 4:30 or better to be back to the room by then. Since the course included about 3700 feet of elevation gain, we decided to err on the side of things taking a long time and packed all our belongings to put in our cars before the race. Then we had to jog to the starting line. (Call it a warm up.)
Just before the gun, when the announcer was saying “Thirty seconds until we start,” I noticed that my left contact was twisted. I have a pretty bad astigmatism in my left eye and need to wear special contacts for it. They’re called “toric lenses.” Anyway, when you wear this type of lens, if the lens is not properly oriented on your eye, things can look blurry. The clear vision in your other eye can compensate somewhat, but you still have a weird feeling of seeing…not quite double, but not quite single either. I tried quickly to fix the lens, but I didn’t have time (or clean enough hands) to take it out and inspect it. In retrospect, I should have MADE the time.
Hindsight is pretty much the only thing I have 20/20 vision on.
At the gun we charged off. The first half mile of the course was nice—flat, occasionally paved, and the weather was gorgeous. Then we hit the first hill.
I’ve mentioned before (I think) that I’m not a huge single track person, and this is why: As soon as we hit the hill, we started walking. The person in front of me (a guy in a green shirt and VFFs) controlled when I started jogging and stopped again, and he was in turn controlled by the person in front of him. In this configuration you can never feel rested from the breaks or ready to stop running because you’re not in charge of when you run or don’t run.
The hilly section didn’t last forever, though, and we settled down into some very runnable terrain, with the exception of a very rocky portion. I’ll get back to this later. At the time, I joked to Shannon that it was like running tires on a military obstacle course. There were some hills, but nothing seemed severe in light of what we had just traversed (everyone hiked that initial hill because it was steep).
The climb up to South Bluff. Photo by Shannon.
Just after mile 10, we began a climb up a section of roughly paved cement steps. There was a tall rock to our left and a drop to the right. Occasionally we could see Devil’s Lake peeking through the trees on the drop side. After about two leg-killing miles of this, we reached the South Bluff aid station—possibly the most magnificent aid station I’ve visited. From there, we had a view of the lake and the entire valley. Hawks (or vultures, I couldn’t tell) circled above us. I felt a wave of vertigo and edged away from the cliff.
About three quarters(?) of the way up. That’s Devil’s Lake behind us. Photo by Shannon.
On the way down the other side, Shannon said that every step of the last twelve miles had been worth it, just to see that view. I think about 80% of the steps were probably worthwhile.
The next part of the run, miles 13-17, were a very runnable bit of downhill single track. It was all firm dirt (with an occasional but not problematic mudhole). I celebrated by falling down. Actually I fell down three times between mile thirteen and mile fourteen. On the first fall, I bloodied my shin. The second and third falls just stung my pride, or so I thought. I think partly the problem was not seeing super clearly as I tried to make up time by flying down these narrow trails, and part of the problem was that as I become increasingly tired, I probably lift my feet less and less.The view from the top. Photo by Shannon. Or actually by someone she handed her camera to. But her camera.
Eventually we emerged from the single track onto a flat grass prairie area. I heard and then saw two sandhill cranes flying over. Then I realized we were going to have to go up the hill we’d just come down again. Only first we were going to have to run across the grassland to a turnaround (mile 16-ish) and back. Fun.
After the turnaround, Shannon started putting on the gas. I suddenly realized that my right hip—which had taken the brunt of the third fall—was hurting, and I couldn’t keep up with her. Eventually she said she was going to push the pace to see if she could get back to the hotel in time for a shower, and I let her go. It was not going to be a day for breaking speed records.
This would be the point where I realized that I don’t hate singletrack nearly as much as I hate two-way singletrack.
The hill really stood out over the grassy area; I could see it rising up on the horizon well before I reached it. Shannon was gone by this point, leaving me to hike back up the hill using a ten/ten pattern I made up: jog for ten steps (counting each step when your left foot hits, so really twenty step), then walk for ten steps (counted the same way). Eventually I got to what I thought was the top…only to find that it kept going. That hill was basically miles 17-20. I thought about Napoleon invading Russia. I thought about the Bataan Death March. I thought about how much it would suck to fall down again (I was running over big chunks of rock or shale at this point). I noticed that going down hills was becoming increasingly painful; something had gone wrong with my left knee. That was weird.
Then, a bit past the top, I fell down again.
I got up and cried a little. I was rude to some passers-by. And then. . .I kept going, shambling along at a steady run-walk. I think I was hitting about 12 min/mi, a bit faster on the flats. I had ten kilometers left to go. Any idiot, I told myself, can run a 10k.
I was back at the first major aid station (major means they have food). It marked the 20.5 mile point. I grabbed half a boiled potato, dipped it in salt, and scarfed it down. I would have had more, but I didn’t want to overload my stomach and cause myself even more grief. I dumped a cup of water over my head too, because it was getting hot out.
The last few miles of the course were the same as the first few miles, except backward. So remember that really rocky section I mentioned earlier? At full health I could probably have done that at a goodly clip, but this time I was reduced to hiking. A few people passed me, not many, and I watched the clock tick toward five hours, then past. I was pretty sure I was going to be the last one finished. How embarrassing.I rolled in the mud. Photo by Shannon.
At one point, a guy came up behind me. He crashed along for a while, slowing down when I had to slow down on the downhill. He said, “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Then he passed me. A few feet later he fell ass over teakettle.
He got up, laughed, and said it was the first time he’d fallen all day. Luckily he left before I could hit him.
At just about 26 miles, which is to say .2 miles from the end, I emerged from the woods onto a paved bike path. It looked flat, so I decided to make a concerted effort to hustle for the finish line and at least cross it looking strong. The bike path turned suddenly into a gravel road that went up a hill, and then halfway up it turned right into a thicket of bushes. I started into the bushes, pushing myself down the hill there, and suddenly I was airborne again.
I sort of rolled over in the dirt and cried. I was never doing any trail races ever again. I was never doing any marathons again. Obviously my ACL and my meniscus were probably torn or shattered. Nothing would ever be good again.
Then I realized that the 50 milers and 50k runners who were still behind me were going to find me lying in the dirt, and I had to go another hundred feet to finish. So I got up. I staggered, bloody and covered in mud, across the finish line in 5:18:42.4.
One woman, an older lady, looked at me as I shambled up and said, in the kindest possible voice, “Would you like some ice cold water?”
YES, I would. I asked about a first aid tent. But before I could hustle off, a woman with a clipboard asked my age group and told me I’d got fourth place.
I won a pint glass.
I won 4th place! First place was a bucket.
Fourth place! I’ve never placed at the marathon distance before. I felt perplexed, and somewhat better than I’d been feeling a few minutes before. I hazarded that if my knee survived, I would probably run again (a good thing, since I’m already signed up for The Baltimore Marathon).
The paramedics working the first aid tent sat me down on a cot. They carefully washed my legs off and diagnosed me with road rash. I got a big bandaid and some antibiotic ointment on the big gash on my shin and something called “chigger cream” on my other scrapes. The chigger cream had lidocaine in it, so soon I was able to hobble back to my car, free from the obnoxious grating in my knee. I still had enough water left to wash off my hands. Then, like Tricia McMillian, I finally fixed my contact lens.
I turned on the AC and played rock music at an unjustifiable volume all the way home. By the time I arrived, I’d recovered my humor. Also, Bryan was making brownies. He didn’t know they were post-marathon-for-Em brownies (he thought they were for some friends who were coming over). They were delicious.
A post-script on my knee: After our friends left and Bryan went to rehearsal, I looked up the symptoms of ACL tear (key words: knee instability, pain so bad you want to puke) and meniscus problems (key words: knee freezes or locks up) and realized I had neither of those problems. When Bryan came home, we determined that the problem was in fact my SI joint had got stuck. I probably jammed it when I fell the third time (a fall that left a lovely constellation of bruises on my right thigh). We unstuck it and my knee was back to normal the next day.
Finish: 5:18:42.4, 4th in my age group, 9th woman overall. 43rd overall in the race. What I didn’t realize—the fastest time was only 4:09. Compare to other recent, local marathons: Grandma’s was won in 2:11, Lakefront 2012 was 2:27, Green Bay was 2:18. This is the difference that 3,000+ feet of climb over rough terrain makes: about two hours.
I should note that when this happened, I was just walking around Memorial to return a book. The lady who stopped me probably didn’t realize who she was asking when she stopped me. During the same trip I also helped a former coworker figure out how to use a scanner, so I was all over helping people. Yesss!
I was thinking the other day how nice it would be to wear a hijab sometimes.
So when I was in about 8th grade, I got this truly awful haircut.* She just basically cut my hair straight across and I think chopped some layers in, which made it sort of triangular. She also didn’t give me any advice about products I could use to make it behave. As a result, I was teased pretty regularly about this for the rest of the year, or at least that’s what it felt like. Between that and a hundred other bad haircuts I have had the fucks beaten out of me when it comes to my appearance. I give basically no fucks what people think of how I look now. Sometimes I get to the gym before I actually look at my face in the mirror and notice that my hair (owing to the amazing humidity) is going to eleven.
The one exception to my zero fucks policy comes from work. I want to look at least a little bit professional for work. And with the humidity as high as it has been lately, that has been a challenge. But women who wear hijabs don’t have to worry about that. They just look super together all the time.
It might also be handy if I were the type of person who got shouted at on the street. But I’m not.** I don’t exactly know why–I’ve always considered that I’m not that attractive, and now I’m kind of out of the age range for being shouted at, but also I tend to walk like I’m going to stab anyone who talks to me (my friends politely say I’m a bit intimidating to approach). So maybe that’s it.
Anyway, it turns out that if you ask a librarian an open-ended question like “Where are the books?” you may get more of a reply than you anticipated.
We’ll file this one under PN56.L48 L86 2013 for Literature (general)–Theory. Philosophy. Esthetics–Relation to and treatment of special elements, problems, and subjects–Other special–Topics, A-Z–Libraries.
If you missed my last comic about Hamlet and existentialism (it came out the same day DOMA came down, so no one saw it), it’s here. Since I wrote it, I got a sort of remote talking to about modern dress Shakespeare, and also B and I went to see Joss Whedon’s lovely new version of Much Ado about Nothing. So I will try to write a bit more of my thoughts about that. I will say my opinion has been softened somewhat. I’m not totally convinced, but I’m willing to be convinced.
I have a marathon coming up at the end of the week. Bread consumption is up. Circus consumption remains the same. The weird aches and pains that come with tapering are coming and going. Other than that I’m tired and don’t have much to say, so here are some pictures of Mom’s kittens. Click to embiggen if desired.
* It turns out that many hairdressers don’t really know how to cut curly hair. I believe this is a remnant of racism in hairdresser training, because consider who typically has naturally curly hair: the Irish, Jews, and African Americans. Of course, the woman who cut my hair would never admit that she had no idea what she was doing. I got my first really good haircut about a year and a half ago. (That excludes the times my friends helped me out by buzzing it.)
** I’m actually a bit puzzled by this phenomenon, because I’ve read a lot of accounts from women who are. The best story I can muster is that when I was in Italy in 2003 someone shouted “bella!” at me. (Probably ironically?) Oh, the other day I was out running and a guy driving a truck shouted “woo.” I was at mile 9 of 10 and kind of dying, and also he was about a block down the street, so he could have been shouting at someone else.
We went and saw the new Hamlet out at American Player’s Theatre in honor of my cousin Keith graduating from his PhD program. It was a pretty good show–the fellow playing Hamlet reminded me of David Tennant’s Hamlet, to some extent, and the guy playing Polonius reminded me of Bill Murry’s turn at that role. Jim DeVita, who played Claudius, was quite good, and I was reminded of the first Hamlet I saw there, with Mr. DeVita in the title role then. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were good and not portrayed as idiots, for once, which was very refreshing.
There were some more interesting things about the casting this time–for example, Horatio, Fortinbras, and a few other parts were played by African American actors; I don’t recall seeing that previously. It does kind of raise some other questions about race in casting (like: Couldn’t you cast a Black Hamlet?). But it’s a step, right?
The costumes were sort of surprisingly loud–the ball gowns and capes were made from some shiny material, maybe taffeta, and there wasn’t any wind, so as the actors went sweeping across the stage, we could hear the silken, sad, uncertain rustling. (And it didn’t thrill me.) But I do like a period dress Hamlet. I’ve been trying to put a finger on why modern-dress Shakespeare kind of bugs me, and I think it has something to do with the fact that when the actors are in modern dress, we have to pretend that the plays themselves are modern. What do I mean? Well, of course the plots are incredibly dynamic and, with a few exceptions, speak to us as much today as they did four hundred years ago. But not every sentiment in them is exactly an upstanding modern sentiment. For example: “Frailty, thy name is woman.” “Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,/If with too credent ear you list his songs,/Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open/To his unmaster’d importunity.” Or how about Ophelia, speaking of the play, “Tis brief, my lord.” Hamlet: “As woman’s love.”
I could keep going, but I think I’ve made my point. I should add that I would rather see a modern dress anything than another “Hamlet wears tights and a dress tunic because that’s kind of like the way people dressed in the 1600s right?”
Interestingly, while I was drawing this comic, two people (neither of whom were aware of my researching J.P. Sartre) sent me the following joke:
Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”
Why is this funny? Because Sartre focused on the idea of choice. His thing about “authenticity” was that everyone should live the life that they want, so long as they do not negatively affect/exploit others, replacing ego with a “spontaneous selfness” he refers to as “ipsity.” As part of being in the world, we are free; choices represent a problem because they limit our freedom. But in order to really make a choice, you can’t just follow the path of least resistance–you need to actually make a choice. Since there’s no cream, he can’t really choose not to have cream, since he couldn’t choose the opposite (to have cream). (Quote from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Wikipedia also has a nice summary.) Anyway, Hamlet’s choice to either get revenge or spare his father is problematic in Sartre’s terms.
This one is filed under PR2807.A8 L86 2013 for English literature–English renaissance (1500-1640)–The drama–Individual authors–Shakespeare, William–Separate works–Hamlet–Criticism.
The process of choosing titles is a bit troublesome. I almost went with “Authenticity” (after a Harvey Danger song) but only my brother S. would have gotten it, since he and I are the only remaining Harvey Danger fans. As it is, perhaps he will appreciate this one.
Anyway, changing topics, here is the first comic I ever drew with Shakespeare in it:
This one I’ll file under PN56.H83 L86 2013 for Literature (General)–Theory. Philosophy. Esthetics–Relation to and treatment of special elements, problems, and subjects–Other special–Topics A-Z–Humor.
Also you should know that the Library of Congress has reserved the heading BF1311.S5 for Parapsychology–Spiritualism. Communication with discarnate spirits–Mediumship. Psychometry. Channeling–Spirit messages, inspirational records, etc.–Special, A-Z–Shakespeare, William. So. You know. That.
If you have read my comic for a while, you may have gotten the feeling that I am pro-choice. This is not something I have talked about much on the blog, because I think that it is a complex topic with many ethical gray areas that cannot really be well-discussed in a short amount of time. But recently, the republicans in the Wisconsin legislature began to push through some anti-abortion laws that made me very angry.[1]
I thought, when I was younger, that we lived in a pluralistic country founded on the principles of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Increasingly, however, that seems to not be the case. But passing laws based on evangelical Christianity to govern a diverse country just isn’t cricket.
I only want to protest if there are sock puppets involved.
That isn’t to say that I feel like abortion is a straightforward question. There are certainly arguments to be made that there is a point in a fetus’s development where the ethicalness of an abortion (in most situations, but not all) tips to the “don’t do it” side. But I want this debate to be played out by bioethicists.
After all, there are things that doctors can legally do but they don’t, because it would be unethical (like the kinds of experiments Andrew Wakefield did). And there are other things that actually are unethical (like promising someone that they can be cured by homeopathic treatments) that are also legal. So why should abortion be singled out as the medical treatment that the government decides to legislate on? And why should legislators, who are not by and large doctors, nor are known for the depth of their scientific knowledge, be allowed to pass judgment on this?
I do understand why they’re doing it, sort of. In theory, evangelical Christians believe that abortion is murder (which I think is mostly wrong, but I’ll let the point stand for the sake of argument). If I thought that people were being routinely murdered in the US, I would be against it (and I am–against the death penalty, and against uncontrolled, unregulated gun ownership). But laws like this ultrasound law don’t actually speak to the sense that murder may be going on–it just says, “There are reasons for getting an abortion, some of which are OK and some of which are not, and we want to police women’s sexual and reproductive agency by being the ones who get to decide what constitutes a reason.” It turns out that I have a problem with old white men telling me what I should do. In reproduction. In art. In life.
The problem is that the governor has repeatedly showed that he is motivated only by money, and is unwilling to listen to dissent or debate. There were protests about these laws, but–no one cared. Somehow during the 1960s and early 70s, there were enough people protesting the Vietnam War that the government had to take them seriously. But protesters in the US have not held that kind of sway since. In addition, Walker has been so outrageous on so many topics–busting collective bargaining, trying to disenfranchise huge numbers of voters, opening Wisconsin to environmental piracy and more–that most people are pretty tired of being angry. We’re just resigned. So I decided to write a letter to him to vent spleen.
Dear Scott,
I hope you don’t like me calling you Scott. I know it is not the preferred address for someone in your position, but I assume that because you feel it is acceptable to legislate about my internal organs, we must be on a first name basis. I also hope to come across as mildly condescending, because I believe that the recent bill requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound prior to receiving an abortion is predicated on the assumption that women are stupid, an assumption with which I take issue.
The bill, nicknamed the “Woman’s Right to Know Her Unborn Child Act,” seems to rest on the belief that women who go for abortions don’t really know that they have a fetus in their uterus. “So let’s show them the fetus!” the reasoning goes. But in fact, women who seek abortions are quite aware that there is a fetus in their uterus—that is why they are seeking an abortion. If there was ever a chance of there being something different in there—a new car perhaps?—I would not be as opposed to this procedure as I am.[i]
But in fact, the truth is that this bill is not designed to induce women to have fewer abortions. If you wanted to make it easier for women to raise children, you would consider projects that could reduce poverty such as making sure women get paid the same as men,[ii] increasing funding for daycare, or improving welfare payments for women with children. You could even offer a guaranteed paid leave for women and their partners.[iii] If you wanted to decrease abortions on the other side, you could increase funding for comprehensive sex education, make birth control more readily available, and offer family planning clinics to help women make informed decisions about when to have children.
I don’t believe the rhetoric about “every fetus is a gift” either. If you really believed that, why not move condoms behind the counter in the drug store or institute mandatory waiting periods for men seeking vasectomies? You could even require they undergo a trans-anal ultrasound to check the health of their prostates.
This bill is designed to shame women; that is its sole purpose. That is made clear in the exceptions allowed for cases of rape and incest. The truth is, they only make sense when you consider the bill in this manner. Perhaps a case study will further prove my point. Consider: Two women require abortions. Sally was raped. Molly had sex with her husband, but his vasectomy failed, and they have determined they cannot afford to raise another child (they already have two). Sally filed a police report and is as such exempt from the ultrasound. Molly is not—but isn’t she equally blameless for her situation?
Scott, I am tired of the rhetoric in the Republican Party that suggests that women are second class citizens who deserve to be treated as little better than gestational carriers who are capable of making sandwiches. I will not stand for such a message, and I hope that I am not the only woman who is hearing it. The next election is coming, and we will remember what you have done. 2014 is coming, and the people of Wisconsin will no longer tolerate your placing the “needs” of your rich donors above the well-being of our state’s people and economy. So enjoy your political career now. It is my dearest hope that it will not continue much longer.
Sincerely,
[i] That’s a joke. I would still be opposed.
[ii] You don’t care about this, either—remember when you repealed the equal pay act? I do.
[iii] Did you know that the US is one of the only countries worldwide that doesn’t require some amount of paid parental leave?
Walker is, for some reason, occasionally referred to as an up-and-coming republican wunderkind of some sort, possibly because he is good at 1) taking money and 2) kissing asses. I don’t really get it–he’s not presidential material (he didn’t finish college; even George W. Bush had a graduate degree), and he looks like a version of Paul Ryan where he slept on his face and it stuck that way, so he doesn’t have Dan Quayle’s reported appeal to FEMALES either. (Although, I just looked up a picture of Dan Quayle and all I can think is, maybe he looked better standing next to George H.W. Bush? Eech.)
Personally, I’m hopeful that someone even a little bit charismatic will come out of the woodwork for the 2014 elections and beat SW. In fact, I’m hoping to volunteer for whoever’s campaign that winds up being.
My letter was cosigned by nine people.[2] I was very grateful for the support. The letter is even now winging its way to the capital (well, it’s in the mailbox). I don’t expect a response, but writing it made me feel better.
Now to make everyone happier, here’s a picture of my dog being cute. Next time I’ll write about kittens.
When you’re made of pillow, who cares where you sleep?
[1] The article only talks about the ultrasound law. There was also one allowing religious organizations to opt out of covering birth control on their health insurance.
[2] I won’t list their names here, because I make it a rule to not mention people in Google-able ways unless they give explicit permission.
“Philosophy does not solve problems. The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems but to ridify problems–to show how what we experience as a problem is a false problem.” –Slavoj Žižek, Zizek! (dir. Astra Taylor, 2005)
I have been busy getting to know Slavoj Žižek. He is an interesting guy–looks like someone’s weird uncle, keeps his socks in his kitchen, talks about popular culture, and is extremely funny. It seems as though American intellectuals are in love with him because he hates Americans and he is very well spoken. Also he once wrote the text for an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog (NSFW).
The thing is, I’d guess, none of them read his actual philosophy, which tends to be very concerned with Hegel and Lacan. Which leads me to the question: Why is everyone in Continental Philosophy so obsessed with Hegel?
I will file this under N84.L86 2013, for Visual arts–Theory. Philosophy. Aesthetics of the visual arts–Theory.Philosophy. Apparently Žižek is not yet famous enough to have his own LCC number. (I just checked–Chomsky has one, but it’s Z8168.18, a bibliography heading).
I wanted to write a bit about the Syttende Mai 20-miler and the Ice Age 50k–my last two races. But it’s already 22:30 and I’m pretty tired and I have to get up early tomorrow. So for now, enjoy this awesome panorama Bryan took of me finishing the Syttende Mai. I’ll write something up later in the week.
Bryan took this awesome series of me finishing the race.
