Observe as I gradually start to suck less at photography!

OK so I'm in the market for a new camera (mine broke) and I need some advice. Any camera lovers among my readers? The first set (sexy punk girls) here I took with my friend's little Casio point and shoot, and they came out great because the light was good and I was super close (and I'm getting better). The second set (grr metal guys) taken with a borrowed Canon G10, and are nice and sharp BUT with some seriously wierd light effects going on. What is that sort of misty white haze in some pictures? I'm thinking/hoping it might just have been me not knowing how to use the settings, because if so that camera might be an option.

Suggestions? Feedback? Since it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot more photography over time I really should try to get better at it...

(Canon G10)

(Also note how the wierd blurry white mist thing is worse in some pics than others - anyone have any idea why? If I could solve that problem this camera might work, because the detail is good, see how you can actually see that bass dude HAS NO FUCKING EYEBROWS, SERIOUSLY MAN, WTF WERE YOU SMOKING WHEN YOU DID THAT TO YOURSELF? But yeah, detail is fine for web, but the wierd fuzzy white light thing is a problem. Anyone now how to tweak the settings to fix it?)

This is horrifying

As a person who's not religious, and one with a strong belief in personal autonomy, I'm not against suicide. Each individual's body belongs to them and them alone, and what they choose to do with it is their decision.

However...that's not what this is. This is an attempt to rid society of people deemed "defective", and it's very wrong. The fact that it seems to be in part motivated by the desire to save money and maximise profits on the part of providers of managed healthcare, as in the Hawaii example? Disgusting.

Our elderly deserve better than this. They took care of us when we were children, fed us, wiped our asses, cuddled us when we cried...the idea that we might accept their being encouraged to refuse healthcare out of a desire not to be a "burden" on us is heartbreaking. And history teaches that if the people behind this get away with it with the elderly, it won't stop there. This is a huge threat to the safety of disabled people.

Everyone, please pass this around and get people talking about it. There has to be something we can do about this. People are not expendable.

Journalists get lots of freebies, especially music journalists, but this has to be one of the cutest I've seen so far. Some background - VAMPS are a Japanese band with sort of a campy vampire theme (they're fun, not scary). And what you're seeing here is their own makeup line, VAMPAddict, from Shiseido. This just amuses the hell out of me - band themed lipgloss? Seriously? It's from Shiseido though so the quality is good. The whole concept is just kind of awesome for a band that has lots of female fans (and lots of male fans too - I wonder if they make eyeliner?).

I want one of these as a pet. OK, so my cat would probably try to eat it, but still, holy shit cute. Look at it's little blue feet!

Explanation here.

Anyone know a great tailor in the Bay Area?

Local readers, help me out. I have a tailor that I use for simple things like hemming jeans, but I don't think he can handle what I have in mind. I was cleaning out my closet and found a vintage Red or Dead skirt in this amazing subtly sparkly purple denim. Seriously, this thing is gorgeous, but I must have been heavier when I bought it because it's a bit too big. Also too long - oh high end designers, why do you assume everyone is 5ft11? So it needs hemming, but I'd also like to have them narrow it a little all the way down, and make it taper in at the knee to make it more pencil-ish.

Anyone know a local tailor who can handle that? Normally I'd just take my chances with my own tailor but hey - vintage, one of a kind, etc, don't want to ruin it.

I am a huge sap

OK, I admit it, this made me cry. Normally I'm a cynical bitch but when it comes to animals that seems to totally go out the window.



You have to love the use of music too.

Whiny loser with possible OCD issues meets feminist blogosphere, hilarity ensues

Cock bibs? Seriously? OK first of all…do you not want women to lick your balls too? If so, how are they supposed to achieve this, by ducking under the bib, thus rendering its use pointless? And how exactly would you end up with a quart of saliva in your pubic hair? Are your pubes made out of shredded ShamWow? Are they super ultra absorbent? And why is saliva in your asscrack bad thing anyway?

Look, sweetie, here’s the thing. Sex is messy. By definition it involves copious amounts of bodily fluids, which do tend to get everywhere. That’s why they invented towels, Kleenex and showers. Though given the level of maturity indicated by both the idea of the Cock Bib as humor and the idea that saliva is icky, perhaps baby wipes might be more appropriate in your case.

I keep meaning to post about the ridiculous Double X launch and particularly Linda Hirschman’s stupid potshots at Jezebel. The comments on this post are actually a perfect example of why Hirschman et al seem to hate Jezebel, and why I love it. Oh no, women being all crass and direct and unladylike! Help me to my divan before I swoon! If we go around talking openly about sex how will we ever convince men to value us on the grounds that our special feminine delicacy gives us moral authority? It’s not like part of the point of feminism was that women should allowed to be people, crass humor and all. Nope, it would be far better for all of us if we maintained a po face at all times, lest we be suspected of being unserious.

If that’s your idea of a social justice movement, fine. You’ll have to excuse me though, I have the online equivalent of a bar table full of witty female friends to get back to.

Sometimes there are just no words

You know, it's not like I don't know that a lot of people on the right are batshit crazy bigots. It's not like they do a very good job of hiding it. But sometimes, when they're talking amongst themselves, they don't even try to hide it. Sometimes the level of condescending racist bullshit is so thick that not even the strongest galloshes will allow you to make it through.

Witness this article on Redstate.com, always the place to go for intellectually rigorous journalism. It begins with the salutation "Dear Black Americans" and just gets worse from there. Quotes in bold.

"Sometimes — no, actually always — the true friend is the one who tells you what you don’t want to hear. The one who does not indulge you, the one who will neither promise you nor give you candy and other bennies. Instead he tells you to sit down and eat your green beans and spinach — and if you want that nice car, then quit whining, get an education, earn a good job, and earn that nice car."

Yep, Republics are just like your dad, always there to remind you to eat your vegetables even if they aren't tasty. This is not at all patronising or racist, it's for your own good.


" I ask you to consider, why is it that you hate Republicans so much? "

Gee, I wonder why?

"We received not one ounce of gratitude from you, but we did it anyway."

No I don't.

On what Chris Brown did

Notice that I’m not saying “on what happened to Rihanna”. That’s how things are usually constructed when we talk about violence against women – “she got herself beat up”. By fairies apparently. Certainly not by an actual person who bears responsibility for what he did.

So I’m going to just say it. Rihanna didn’t just “get beaten up”, someone beat her up. We know who it was, because he turned himself in to the police. Stop it with all the shit about “we don’t know what happened”. Yes, we do in fact know what happened. Chris Brown beat up his girlfriend. Why he did it really doesn’t matter. I don’t care if she hit him first – if that’s what happened then sure, he had a right to defend himself. But looking at Rihanna’s face, that’s not a picture of what happens when someone is just defending themselves. That is not a proportionate response. That is what happens when someone decides to beat someone else up.

It doesn’t matter if she was jealous, or cheated on him, or gave him an STD. Those could all be reasons to dump someone, but none of them are reasons to beat someone up. Even if he did “just snap” in the middle of an argument, he had the option to walk away before things got that far. He chose not to. That means that yes, we do know what happened here, and there is someone to blame.

Every single friend of his and every single member of the media who’s insisting that we don’t really know what happened, that this is just unfortunate for both of them, should be ashamed of themselves. We know what happened here. A man beat up a woman. It doesn’t matter why, the fact remains that he didn’t have to do it, but he did. That’s a choice that he should have to live with for the rest of his life. Can we please, as a society, try to make sure that he does have to live with his choice instead of trying to make excuses for him?

More health-related oddness, and the slow drip of ideas adding up to a need to mainstream the Fat Acceptance movement


Anyone else ever taken the Real Age test? Mine is 29.6 (my actual age is 35.4). Sounds good, right? But there are a few…issues. First off, who designed the nutritional analysis and why do they think it’s still 1965? They ask you to estimate how many servings of various vegetables you get per week, but offer only about 10 to choose from. OK broccoli is cool, cabbage sure, but where are all the other options? What about eggplant and zucchini and snow peas and bean sprouts and yams and…So they end up telling me I don’t get enough veggies, when I eat a couple of servings of veggies for both lunch and dinner. Do I need to start adding broccoli to my breakfast now?


Speaking of veggies, I get a dire warning to “vary your veggies” with a big red X for failing to do this is making you older. OK, so in an average week I eat…drum roll please…eggplant, zucchini, broccoli, yams, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, some sort of fresh green beans, and spinach. Also bell peppers and asparagus, but only in the spring and summer because in winter they, like strawberries, are a sad imitation of themselves. Plus black beans, kidney beans and garbanzos (plus lentils too). Yeah, about beans – it tells me I should be eating more of them. Problem is, the test won’t allow you to indicate that you eat more than 1 serving of beans a week. Um, what? I probably eat at least 5 or 6 servings a week. Gotta say, a bit culturally clueless there…there are cultures where legumes are a daily staple, shouldn’t the test make space for people to indicate that consumption? The whole food section is very “stuff white people like”. Then it suggests that I’m probably low in vitamin E, and recommends that I eat sweet potatoes… which I actually DO eat, but there’s no place to indicate that. So I’m baffled – why not give people a wider range of veggies to choose from, and include the option to indicate that they eat beans if you’re going to count those as veggies? Were they high when they designed this part of the test?


It also scolds me for not knowing my exact blood pressure, which is apparently really really bad because OMG everyone has high blood pressure now! Except I’ve had low blood pressure my entire life. Another scolding for not knowing my exact cholesterol numbers…and then it helpfully lets me know that I’m consuming about half the recommended cholesterol limit a day. Um, think maybe we could connect the dots here? Again, it’s been a while and I don’t know my exact numbers, but they’re low and always have been.

Then it tells me I eat too much saturated fat. I eat chicken breast almost every day, maybe 1 oz of cheese a day and no other dairy, lean beef about twice a week and lots of olive oil, and maybe 1 serving of ham or sausage a week (and I mean literally one serving, as in one sausage, in pasta sauce). That’s too much saturated fat? Seriously?

Also why does it tell me that I could be getting more fiber even though I already get tons? “Eat more grains”. Um…I eat some form of high fiber grains at each meal – unless I’m calculating the serving sizes wrong it just wants me to eat bigger portions? Basically I eat brown rice or occasionally brown pasta with lunch and dinner, and sometimes some sort of sandwich with whole grain bread as a snack. Plus a small portion of whatever I had for dinner the night before as breakfast (I don’t like most Western breakfast foods, other than oatmeal).I’m confused – how in the hell could I be getting MORE grains? Also why doesn’t it let you indicate that you’re consuming whole grains rather than the processed white versions? Makes a big difference nutritionally, that.

The one piece of nutritional advice that they’re totally right about is that I don’t get enough calcium. I’m not sure how I could get enough, though, since I’m lactose intolerant and hate the taste of milk. Suggestions?

But my favorite part was the section covering exercise. I get at least 30 minutes cardio a day, plus strength training 6 days a week, but apparently that’s not enough! Oh no, I get a little blurb about increasing my cardio plus a helpful hint to increase the number of different types of cardio I do. Not that it gave me the option of indicating the ones I already do, I guess it’s just assuming that 30 minutes a day = only one type of exercise? Not quite sure WHY it would assume that…And then a little blurb about flexibility training, which is pretty damn lulzy for someone who used to be a competitive gymnast.

So yeah, overall I think this thing is a useful tool but it could do with being a bit more precise and expanding the range of options you can choose from. Especially the food section – people, there are veggies other than peas, cabbage and cauliflower! No, seriously! And some of us eat legumes every day, not just “at least once a week”!

Pop quiz – do people really think that healthy adults under say 50 need to be constantly monitoring their blood pressure and cholesterol even if they have absolutely no indicators for developing high blood pressure or high cholesterol? Do other people constantly track this? Because from my POV, well, it’s been low every time it’s been tested and nothing about my health or lifestyle seems to have changed, so…

Also, I’m not sure I’m thrilled to see them pushing high consumption of soy products. Isn’t the jury still out on whether that’s good or bad for women with a family history of breast cancer? Because my Mom died of breast cancer, and my Dad’s sister had it too, and yet they’re still telling me that I should try to eat more soy.


Now here’s the point where all the reading of Fat Acceptance blogs I’ve been doing comes in handy. So I get to the fitness section and see the following. BTW, just FYI, my BMI is in the “healthy” range and nowhere on the survey did I indicate a desire to lose weight, and I did indicate that I already get some form of exercise every day.

If you’re not getting the results you want from your workout, try adding a different cardiovascular activity to your weekly routine. Here's why: Based on your answers, we estimate that you burn close to the number of calories needed to help you grow younger, but you may be able to do even more. Most people can safely burn up . . . to 3,500 calories per week. However, talk to your doctor before you change your workout. Regular cardio activity can make your heart and arteries younger and stronger, enhance your immune system, protect you from stress and depression, and boost your brainpower.4 Ways to Increase Your Cardio
Keep moving. Do anything that requires steadily moving your large muscles (thighs, butt, back, and chest) -- running, skating, cycling, skiing, power walking, swimming, dancing, jumping rope, and doing household chores that take a little hustle (raking leaves, washing windows).
Hop on a machine. Try the stair climber, elliptical trainer, treadmill, stationary bike, rowing machine, or cross-country skier.
Take classes. Sign up for dance, step aerobics, kickboxing, or water workouts -- just to name a few.
Play games. Try singles tennis, basketball

OK, so, my BMI is normal…why is it assuming I’m not getting the results I want from my workout? Are we now just assuming that EVERYONE wants to lose weight, even if they’re not actually overweight? Note the part where it says that based on my answers I’m probably burning enough calories already…so why assume I need to do more?

And that, my friends, is what prompted me personally to move from passively supporting the Fat Acceptance movement as simply a moral necessity in that all people deserve to be treated decently into wanting to get actively involved. When we’re starting to assume, just as a matter of course, that everyone wants to lose weight and should do so even if the medical establishment says that their weight is “normal” (mine is in the 35th percentile for my age and height and look, I’m still automatically being offered weight loss advice) and they already work out…we have officially jumped the shark as a culture. Even if you’re not fat, don’t get too comfy – what if you GET fat? Basically everyone should worry about their weight, a lot. Because we all know that there’s nothing better for your health than stress, right?

So I’ve been reading a lot of blogs from the Fatosphere recently since the lovely Theriomorph directed me to Shapely Prose. It’s been rather a revelation, and there’s a post coming up about that. In the meantime, it got me thinking about the idea of healthy eating and what that really means. I know what it means to me – eating foods that make me feel good physically and also give me pleasure. What it seems to mean to a lot of people is something very different, though – low fat, or low carb, or some other diet plan based on the idea of banning certain “bad” foods.

I don’t think there are any bad foods. Well, OK, high fructose corn syrup is pretty much entirely bad, but that’s sort of a frankenfood and not a naturally occurring food item. If our food suppliers had stuck to using plain old sugar to sweeten things we’d all be a lot better off.

My idea of healthy eating is based more around trying to make sure I eat as many good-for-me things as possible rather than trying to eliminate “bad” things. I used to totally buy into the “x foods are bad” way of thinking, and it wasn’t until my late twenties that the seismic shift in my thinking occurred. Since it did I’ve been a whole lot healthier, and happier. I’m not a child; I don’t need a list of OMG FORBIDDEN SINFUL foods to scare me into eating well. I just need to pay attention to what I’m actually craving and give my body what it wants.

So, to start me off writing about this stuff, how about a recipe? I’m a serious foodie so I cook a LOT. I love talking about food, and am seriously considering trying to broaden my journalistic focus to include food writing. Anyone else who reads this like talking about food? Have a good food blog you want to share? Let me know.

Cassandra’s weird and wonderful Vietnamese/Japanese hybrid curry

This recipe came about because I love Vietnamese curry, and I love Japanese curry, and one day I was making a Vietnamese curry and thought “hey, I wonder what would happen if I added mirin to this”. The answer? Awesomeness.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 large chicken breast
5 zucchini, or 1 eggplant, or a pound of carrots
2 small onions
3 heaping tablespoons curry powder
5 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons mirin
1/3 cup coconut milk
5 cloves garlic
1 inch piece of lemongrass, finely chopped
Chicken stock

Sauté veggies in olive oil till softened. Add onions, garlic and lemongrass and sauté for another few minutes (don’t let garlic burn). Add chicken and brown. Add curry powder and stir fry until fragrant, then add soy sauce, mirin, chicken stock and coconut milk. Simmer until preferred consistency is achieved. Serve over rice – I use brown jasmine, but any rice you like will work. Serves 2.

This is especially good on a cold day when you need some comfort food to warm up.

Body Image Stuff

It’s taken a while for me to admit that I have some body image issues. Which is silly really – what woman doesn’t? Our culture is pretty much designed to give women body image issues – they make us better consumers. And keep us too distracted to focus on stuff like, say, equal pay.

For some reason I’ve always been reluctant to actually talk about my own personal body image issues, though, but lately I find that I want to. Why? Because I think that the veil of silence surrounding this stuff is part of the reason that the issues are so widespread in the first place. Because I think that the pressure not to talk about them is a form of sexism. Because women aren’t supposed to say this hurts me.

So, with a hat tip to Theriomorph for posting this wonderful essay that finally pushed me over the edge into actually being willing to talk about it, here’s my personal situation.

My entire life I’ve felt like I needed to lose weight. The funny thing about this is that this feeling seems to exist independently of what my weight is at any given time – I pretty much always feel like I need to lose 20-30 pounds. I felt like that at size 14, and I felt like that at size 5. Right now I seem to waver between a 6 and an 8, and yep, “I need to lose 20-30 pounds” is always there at the back of my mind.

The funny thing is that technically I’m not even overweight. According to ye olde BMI chart my weight is just fine. Even at the upper end of my personal scale – an 8 – I’m still thinner than most women my age (35). And yet I feel fat. I look in the mirror and see someone who needs to be thinner.

I suppose part of the reason I’m reluctant to talk about this is that I know that some people will read it and go “oh ffs quit whining, you’re not even fat, not like me!”. And they would in fact have a point. Like I said, I’m not unaware of the fact that the average American woman is bigger than me. The average woman in the media though…ah, now there’s the rub.

If you were to go by the media standards a woman my height (159 cms) should be a size 2 at most. Even that has been considered a bit hefty on some occasions (anyone remember when they were calling Jennifer Love Hewitt fat? She’s a size 2). Never in my adult life have I been that small. Not even when I went through what I can only 20 years later admit was a bout of borderline anorexia as a teenager and was eating less than 700 calories a day, less than 300 during the truly scary period. The smallest I ever got was a 5, and that was on the aforementioned nothing but rice cakes, chicken broth and bananas diet, with an extremely active lifestyle. Even when I’m thin enough that you can see my bones through the skin my hips are still 36 inches. I have D cup boobs. I’m just not blessed with that wispy ectomorph type of physique. Blame my stocky Celtic ancestors, with their muscly legs and their childbearing hips.

Why the persistent wish to be an ectomorph? I’m not even attracted to female ectomorphs. I’m most often attracted to women with builds a lot like my own, just a bit thinner. I am however extremely attracted to male ectomorphs, and maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe it’s a fear that if I don’t lose weight I won’t be as appealing to the men I’m attracted to as I would like. Maybe it’s just being aware of how the world treats fat women, and fearing the weight of all that loathing crashing down on my head. Maybe it’s just a desire for approval.

That’s the sick thing about dieting, that even when you’re displaying blatantly unhealthy behaviors it gets you tons of approval. When I went through my less than 700 calories a day phase not a single friend or family member went “ok, this is nuts”. Not when I obsessively tallied everything that I ate, not when I started refusing foods that I’d always loved, not when I felt like I was drowning and I was desperately waiting for someone to say "no, stop, you don't need to do this". For at least a year I was hungry all the time. Even in the summer I felt so cold that I needed a sweater. I shivered when everyone else was sunbathing. And no one said a damn thing other than gee, you look so much prettier lately, what’s your secret?

How do you deal with that, the rage that you feel towards the people who were supposed to love and protect you for watching you hurt yourself and praising you for it? It was my mother who bought me the diet book that recommended the appropriate serving of rice at each meal as being two tablespoons. My father still asks me how my weight is doing before any other question, and no amount of visible discomfort on my part or requests that he please not go there has ever dissuaded him from doing so. How do you process the fact that other people actually approve of your acting like a nutcase? That they like you better when you’re miserable but highly decorative?

I haven’t behaved like that for years now. I made a deliberate decision in my late teens never to count calories again, because it just wasn’t worth what it was doing to my mental health. I eat a healthy balanced diet that even includes sweets. And yet, the voice in my head persists, the one that says if people knew what you looked like under your clothes they’d be horrified. The one that says, no matter how hard you try it will never be enough. No amount of reassurance from adoring partners both male and female that my body is just fine has ever been able to make that voice go away.

What scares me is…is this even unusual? The wall of silence around women’s feelings about their bodies is so solid that most people just don’t talk about this stuff. Sure, we make the publicly required protestations like “oh my ass looks so big in these pants”, but we never talk about the real stuff, the stuff that hurts. And I’m finding more and more that I want to talk about it, because I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that not talking about it is part of what got us all into this situation in the first place.

So, hey, if you want to talk I’ll listen.

Observe my photography skills

You know, when I decided to start writing about music again I had no intention of doing anything other than writing. When I discovered that photography would be part of the deal it was just kind of...OK. Not something I've ever made any effort to learn how to do, but it can't be that hard, right?

Many months later I'm here to tell you, it's a lot harder than it looks. Half of what I get ends up being out of focus (discovery - it's actually much harder to shoot in digital than with a traditional camera), it's a lot more complicated when you can't use flash, and I really need a better camera. However, like most things, if you keep it at you do eventually improve.

Lately I've been getting a few shots that I actually, gasp, kind of like! A most unexpected development. Now if I can just figure out how to pull that off more consistently...

These shots are of Dir en grey at the Regency Center in San Francisco, if anyone's wondering.

Oh my goth

Ah, my people. It's not that I don't love you, honestly, but you have to admit, sometimes you are a bit ridiculous. Hark unto this piece of ad copy.

EAU DE GHOUL They all started telling stories, then, of how fine and wonderful a thing it was to be a ghoul, of all the things they had crunched up and swallowed down with their powerful teeth. Impervious they were to disease or illness, said one of them. Why, it didn't matter what their dinner had died of, they could just chomp it down. They told of the places they had been, which mostly seemed to be catacombs and plague-pits ("Plague Pits is good eatin'," said the Emperor of China, and everyone agreed.) They told Bod how they had got their names and how he, in his turn, once he had become a nameless ghoul, would be named, as they had been."But I don't want to become one of you," said Bod."One way or another," said the Bishop of Bath and Wells, cheerily, "you'll become one of us. The other way is messier, involves being digested, and you're not really around very long to enjoy it.""But that's not a good thing to talk about," said the Emperor of China."Best to be a Ghoul. We're afraid of nuffink!"And all the ghouls around the coffin-wood fire howled at this statement, and growled and sang and exclaimed at how wise they were, and how mighty, and how fine it was to be scared of nothing.Dessicated skin coated in blackened ginger, cinnamon, and mold-flecked dirt, with cumin, bitter clove, leather, and dried blood.

Yep, that's what I want, a perfume that makes me smell like dirt, dead skin and...cumin? I'm so confused.

Also this company makes a scent called Glowing Vulva. Um, yeah. If this is a realistic scent I'm thinking dabbing it on your neck and wrists might not be the best plan.

Then again, let's look at this in a positive light. I might quite enjoy having a glowing vulva. Why, think of the money I'd save on lightbulbs! Next time I wanted to create atmosphere during an intimate moment I wouldn't need to get out the candles, just undress. Also, guys, just try claiming that you're unable to find the clitoris when it's GLOWING.

And then there's this.

BRIMSTONE In Hermetic alchemy, brimstone is one of the Three Heavenly Substances, one of the primary alchemical Priciples. It represents the strength of will and the vigor of passion, and it is a symbol of the process of fermentation. A smoky, gritty blend, husky and gray.

Um, isn't brimstone supposed to smell like sulphur? Mmm, sulphur, what a perfect scent for a perfume.

More mocking one's own later. I mean the Twilight movie did just come out...

Need some input from the workout junkies

So I've been having an odd issue when I lift weights recently and I'm hoping some of my lovely readers might be able to help me figure it out. Whenever I start doing bicep, tricep and chest exercises I get a wierd pain in my elbow. I mean literally in the ball and socket joint. It's only there while I'm actually doing the exercise, and it's a sharp pain that happens as I bend the joint. It tends to fade after the first set of reps, and by the third I can't feel it at all.

Could this just be a sign that I need to warm up more? Am I using weights that are too heavy? Advise me, people. It's not a sharp enough pain that I feel like I'm injuring myself but it's odd enough to make me wonder what's going on.

So far, so good

The numbers are starting to come in and it looks like Obama is in the lead. Everyone has Ohio going to Obama, and if he wins Ohio he's pretty much in. Guess the voter suppression didn't work this time, huh?

I've been staying out of the whole online debate ever since I realised that it was going to turn into a massive intra-left food fight, but I will say this. Initially I would have preferred Clinton (because of a stronger committment to feminism and more foreign policy experience), but once it was all decided, I always said I would support whichever Democrat was chosen. And I have.

Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000, but Republican cheating handed Bush the Presidency. This time it looks like even with them making every effort to suppress minority voters Obama is still going to win by a clear majority. Which tells me that the Bush govenment is so unpopular that even with all the attempts at fraud (calling Latino voters and telling them they can vote by phone ffs, how stupid do Republicans think people are?), they still can't win. Part of it is the war, of course, but I really think the collapsing economy might have played a bigger role. And I think that the banking crisis was the real nail in the Republican coffin.

So, first order of business of an Obama presidency - sort out the economy. People are hurting, and it needs to be fixed ASAP. Second, foreign policy - the Bush administration did a lot of damage to America's image overseas, and a whole lot more people hate us than did 10 years ago. Pulling out of Iraq is a necessary start, but a start is all it is. There's a lot of work to do. Even those of us who would have preferred Clinton, this is not the time to hold a grudge about that.

Everyone, it looks like we're in. Now let's all roll up our sleeves and get to work.

First day home from the hospital


Hell Week, or, what happens when your beloved pet gets sick

I really have been intending to blog more lately but the last week has just been such pure hell I haven’t gotten around to it. So what happened was…

The weekend before last my cat (who shall from now on be known as CC for Cassandra’s Cat) starting acting weird. Listless, antisocial, hiding under the chair, not eating. At first I thought he was just in a bad mood but then he started throwing up. And then I figured he was trying to get rid of a hairball, but it just got worse and worse over the next few days.

Then on Tuesday night he started wailing at me ever time I walked past. It was a really weird upset sound like he only makes when he’s really in distress. So of course I started freaking out but the vet’s office was closed. I ended up staying up all night trying to see if I could make him feel better and worrying. First thing in the morning I called the vet and made an appointment, and by the time we got there CC was clearly fading fast. He could barely even stand up by that point, and he really didn’t like the vet, wouldn’t interact with her at all.

So then the vet takes a look, asks me how old he is, feels around for his internal organs, and tells me he has kidney failure and probably lymphoma throughout his intestines and we should talk about putting him to sleep. At which point of course I go “WHAT? But he was fine up until a few days ago.” So she says that we can put him on fluids and she can take X-Rays and see what happens. I very reluctantly leave CC in her care, because I do not like this woman at all. A couple of hours later I call her (note that she doesn’t bother to call me) and she says they did an X-Ray and he has a mass near his heart that she thinks is a tumor. Again she starts talking about putting him to sleep. But I press her and she says well actually the pet hospital could run some more tests and maybe we could get him chemo, though she’s still painting the direst picture possible. So I say “OK then let’s do that right away”.

So finally at about 5PM CC arrives at the proper pet hospital. At which we finally find a vet who actually seems to like cats. By this point CC is so miserable he’s hardly responding to anything and he has no strength at all. The nice vet admits him to the hospital to run more tests and is very understanding about how upset I am and promises to call me if anything changes, and with an update in the morning.

Well, after a mostly sleepless night I get a call and guess what? CC does not have a tumor, or any signs of cancer. What he has is a benign cyst (note – NOT a tumor), weakening kidneys (he’s 17) and anemia. So they treat the kidneys with a fluid drip and the anemia with an iron shot. Later that day I go to visit and he’s weak but moving around and wanting to explore. He also actually EATS when the nice vet tries to feed him – not much, but at least a bit. I leave scared and upset but a little more hopeful.

Next day nice vet calls me all happy to say that his blood count (anemia) is getting better and he’s drinking on his own and generally looking livelier. In fact he tried to bite the vet techs when they gave him a pill. She wants me to take him home and see how he does there, and she feels confident enough to release him since his kidney numbers are also improving.

Finally I get him home on Friday night and he’s SO HAPPY. Weak and a bit wobbly on his feet, but purring and happy to be home. All weekend I’ve been watching him and giving him his medicine and trying to coax him to eat. He’s still a bit weak, but he’s eating well and drinking on his own and the fluids I give him under the skin once a day are clearly helping. He’s still not a totally healthy kitty, but he’s doing better and he’s clearly happier.

The moral of this story is…don’t give up. If you love someone or something, be prepared to fight for them. Positive thinking is powerful.

And also, always ask for a second opinion, and trust your gut. If I’d listened to the first vet CC would now be dead, and he would have died lonely and scared in a strange place. I still don’t know for sure how much time he has left, but however long it is at least he’s comfortable and happy, and I’m appreciating every day I have with him.

Also I HATE the attitude American society has towards old people and old animals. As soon as vet # 1 heard how old CC is she wanted to put him to sleep, without even running any tests to see what was actually wrong with him. I really feel sorry for her elderly parents – I wouldn’t want someone with an attitude like that taking care of me when I’m old. What is wrong with this society that it doesn’t treasure its elderly? After a lifetime of caring for others we just want to throw them away?

I think I’m moving back to Europe when I get old.

Of course now I have to figure out how the hell I’m going to pay off the massive vet bill but you know what? Whatever it takes it’s worth it. There aren’t many living creatures in this life that any one of us truly love, it’s worth holding on to the few that you do.

Call for career advice

Hey there blog friends. So, I'm at sort of a turning point career wise and I could do with some input from some smart people. And then I thought, hey, lots of smart people read my blog, why not ask them?

I'd particularly love to talk to people with any experience in print journalism. If you're willing to play career counsellor/sounding board drop me a line at cassandrasez at gmail dot com.

Population control and ethics

I read an interesting article in Salon today. Interesting for lots of reasons – the interaction between population levels and the environment is a complex one and worth exploring – but mostly interesting in this case to see a group of experts who disagree on many things all agree on the fact that the problem can only be solved by allowing women to control their own reproductive capabilities. Which is exactly the opposite of what one side in the upcoming election wants to see happen.

Now I know that abortion is a contentious issue for American society. I don’t think it should be, because the fact that women should be allowed to control their own capacity to reproduce is so simple and obvious that anyone who doesn’t grasp it is, in my opinion, an idiot. It’s interesting to note that all the experts seem to agree that this is in fact that key to controlling world population numbers – give women education and choices and they tend to choose to limit their reproduction to the replacement rate or below.

But really it’s not abortion that’s the big issue in this debate, in my opinion. What it really comes down to is that there’s a set of people in American society, who have more and more influence in American politics, who believe that any attempts to control reproduction are morally wrong. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of these people are distrustful of science. Even the most cursory look at the science suggests that unchecked population growth is a disaster.

So I’m just going to come right out and say it. A generalized opposition to the idea of women controlling their own reproductive capacities is morally unacceptable. Not just for the feminist reasons, though those are obvious. Also because the world cannot sustain an indefinite number of people, and because this society in particular already consumes more than it’s fair share of the world’s resources. Anti-abortion policies are bad enough; anti-contraception policies are a crime against humanity that endangers us all.

And that, folks, is one of the biggest reasons to vote against McCain and Palin. These people aren’t just obnoxious ideologues, they’re dangerous. America already consumes more than any society in the world – more than even China, which has a population far larger than ours. For America to even contemplate not limiting its population growth is completely unethical. We have no right to allow our collective hubris to overwhelm our rationality. We need a government that understands that contraception is a good thing. Right now we don’t have that, and if McCain is elected we’ll have another one that actively opposes the idea of women controlling their reproductive capacities, which research the world over shows is the key to keeping population numbers under control.

These people are dangerous. Don’t let them win.

When I am an old woman I shall give young women compliments
(I already wear purple)

I’ve been seeing more and more comments about women and appearance around feminist blogland recently (not that this is a topic that ever goes away for long) and I find myself feeling rather irked about the whole thing. This is one of those issues where I feel fundamentally out of step with most of my fellow feminists. I don’t have an instinctive distrust of the very idea of conventional beauty, as it seems many feminists do. I don’t distrust or resent women more attractive than myself. I don’t hate younger women for having tighter asses. In fact, what is it with the constant “perky boobs” references from so many feminists? Seriously, what is that about? Are they under the impression that those women in possession of such boobs have chosen to tweak their own genetic make-up in such a way as to make their boobs perky on purpose, just to spite the less perky? Why is this being used as a dismissive insult by feminists?

This is one of those moments where I bless the fact that I didn’t grow up in America or the UK. I grew up mostly in the Middle East. In all honesty I think that growing up there influenced my feminism in all kinds of ways, but one of the clearest ones is that I find this sort of constant ranking of other women in terms of their appearance and inability to empathize with those women who fall at different points in the ranking absolutely baffling.

I like looking at beautiful women. Now, admittedly this is probably in part because I am attracted to women. I think it’s more than that, though. My mother also loved looking at beautiful women and she was as straight as a ruler. Most of my mother’s friends were the same. I remember my mother’s friend Elizabeth, a gorgeous woman who looked like Natalie Wood, who I spent much of my childhood observing. As a little girl I always thought that it would be great to grow up to look like Elizabeth, but even knowing that I wouldn’t (I always wished that I could have really dark eyes like her, instead of the light brown I ended up with), I still always found her fascinating to observe simply because she was really, truly beautiful. And I wasn’t the only one. I can remember my mother’s much older friend Theresa, whose house felt almost like mine as a kid and who used to cut my hair till I was in my teens, fussing over Elizabeth, doing her hair and helping her with her make-up. It was always clear to me that she took pleasure in having young, beautiful women in her home, and that part of the reason was that she had three sons and no daughters or granddaughters. When I hit puberty, it was those two women, Elizabeth and Theresa, along with my mother, who taught me how to take pleasure in my own appearance, how to see personal adornment as a game, as something fun and creative that you did because you felt like it, and that if you didn’t feel like it on any given day you just didn’t do it. That was how I grew up, with the idea that beauty is a fun thing, something to be enjoyed, a way that women bond with each other.

I was always aware that there was another way to see things, but it seemed sort of blessedly irrelevant to me, cocooned in the warmth of my mother’s circle of friends (a circle, by the way, in which it was always clear that men were essentially peripheral – they were allowed to share part of us, but there was another part that we all reserved just for each other). That other way never really hit me full-force until I went away to school, and was confronted with just how much ugliness British and American culture is able to create out of women’s beauty, how it poisons the pleasure that we take in our own appearance and that of other women, how it teaches us to rank ourselves and hate those above us on the scale, and despise those below. And every holiday I would go running back to my mother for reassurance that things didn’t have to be that way. I would sit cuddled up in a big chair with Elizabeth’s daughter (my pretend baby sister since I never had a real one) and watch her putting on her make-up and re-learn the fact that beauty could be a game, sit at Theresa’s kitchen table and let her remind me that food is supposed to be a source of pleasure too and wish that she really was the grandmother that she felt like to me (my own paternal grandmother was a horrible, bitter, angry woman who never had anything good to say about another woman in the entire time I knew her). And then I would go back to school, and try to shut down and not take in any of the poison that was being fed to me, and deep in my heart refuse to learn to hate other women just because some of them were prettier than others, because I knew that it didn’t have to be that way.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I realized that there was a term for what I was doing, the way that I talk about women and beauty around the women that I grew up with and the women that I trust who I know now (Mr. C’s mother and his brother’s wife, a few close friends) and the different, more careful way I talk around all the other women who I don’t feel it’s safe to be honest with. The term is code-switching. Like most other people who code-switch, most of the time I do it without even being consciously aware of it, pick up subtle cues about which people I can be my real self around and which people I need to be wary with and adopt the way of speaking that is expected of me. I still think that the mainstream American way of talking about women and beauty is poisonous, and I go out of my way to avoid people who gulp down the poison and insist on feeding it to others, but really, it’s impossible to avoid completely. It’s too pervasive. All that you can really do is to observe which people are completely invested in that framework, which ones automatically rank all other women and either envy or scorn depending on that ranking, and try not to get too close to them.

It hurts me to see that poison coming from feminists, though. It hurts me no matter which target it’s being aimed at. Every time I see someone making generalized comments about “blonde bimbos” or “fuckbots” on a feminist site I lose a little more of my faith in the ability of the movement to effect any lasting social change. Every time I see the term “collaborator” being used in a way that makes it clear that the judgment being made is being based purely on the appearance of the woman being described, I wonder where it all went so horribly wrong. How can we possibly achieve anything if we don’t learn not to hate each other? How can we work together if we can’t learn that the fact that a woman doesn’t look like us doesn’t mean that she can’t be trusted? The anger that some women are treated differently by society than others based on their looks is a valid anger, but why the hell are feminists directing it at the women who happen to fit the preferred look rather than the system that insists on ranking all of us?

So, this whole thing has been bothering me. Of all the odd things to bring it back to me, it was actually a random meeting with a stranger that did it. I was on the train on my way to meet a friend for dinner and there was an older lady sitting in the seat in front of me. She wasn’t familiar with the train system and asked me how many stops there were until the place she was going (presumably because I was the only person around who looked like they might speak Spanish…which I actually don’t very well, sadly, but I do know enough to give directions so we managed). So we chatted back and forth for a while, and I was trying to explain that I was getting off at the same stop and could show her where to go, but my Spanish sucks so I wasn’t able to say it properly. So, we get to the stop and she gets up, and she doesn’t realize until we’re actually getting off the train that I’m getting off too. The she sees me and smiles and we get on the escalator together and I lead her over to the map and try to explain where she needs to go. And then I realize that I’m running late and that I have to get going, so I say goodbye and I’m trying to explain in my crappy Spanish (I understand what’s said to me a lot better than I can speak myself), and I feel bad for having to run off and not just walk her over to where she’s going, because she’s an old lady and it’s kind of a rough neighborhood if you don’t know your way around. And then she smiles and pats my cheek and says “mi nina linda, esta bien”. And you know what? That little comment made my day. Hell, my week. Because it’s been so damn long since I had to leave the warm safe little cocoon that I grew up in where women were actually nice to each other and we gave compliments just because we could. And I want to live there, and not in this alternate hell-world that is mainstream America in which older women hate younger women for their perky boobs and fat women hate thin women and thin women look down on fat women and everyone seems to hate tall skinny women just because the fashion industry loves them. And the fact that that hell-world of ranking and competition and constant sniping has infected feminism breaks my heart, because we of all people should know that hating other women because of something as random as how they look is poison, and yet I see it all the time. Why do we do this to each other? Can we please just stop?

When I’m an old woman I want to be like the older woman I met on the train. I want to be like my mother, and her friends. I refuse to hate younger women because they have perky boobs, and I refuse to participate in this system where we cut each other down based on where we fall in some stupid ranking system that’s almost totally arbitrary anyway (this season big boobs are in! next season, super straight hair!).

When I’m an old woman I’m going to randomly tell young women they’re beautiful, just to make them smile. In fact, I may just start now.