I was under the weather this weekend so didn't do as much writing as I had intended.  On the plus side -- I quit smoking.  I've got nicotine patches, like, ever'where but I'm not sucking tar down my throat.  So YAY!

I finished watching all 10 hours of the PBS documentary about the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz entitled "Carrier."  Hackneyed to say, I know, but I laughed, I cried, I felt wildly patriotic, I felt furious at the gub'ment and frankly the blind eye some of the servicemen and women turn to what they were doing, and I was completely satisfied when the 10th hour was done.  And wow.  The characters and stories they focus on.  One's a self-professed racist so determined to get off the boat and out of the Navy that he is too thickheaded in his racism to realize that he's being discharged less than honorably.  Another is this macho man who was raised by carnies who also salsa dances...beautifully.  One poor kid doesn't even get the respect of a Dear John letter, just 6 months of heartbreaking disinterest from his pregnant girl (who you just know is hooked up with someone else).  And one shooter (team responsible for shooting the planes off the boat) is my husband.  He doesn't know me, he's too young and he's married to some other woman of course, but oh yes.  He is my husband.

Also, some of the most harrowing television I have watched is the episode when there are 14 planes in the air, the seas are angry, the deck is pitching and the planes HAVE to land...in the dark.  Pilots were thrumming with fear and adrenaline getting out of their planes after landing finally on, like, the fourth attempt.

The first two hours are on Hulu.  The remainder can be found here.  And here's the preview (24 minutes with short commercials).

It Wasn't Me

Cy Bolton has a rundown in the LA Times enumerating President Bush and company's lies running up to the war in Iraq.  If I have the spirit, I'll try to find conservative responses to the article, if only to see how they could defend the actions set forth in the article...other than some sort of sleight of word to argue that what was seen, wasn't.

It's interesting.  I had a huge argument with, and consequently lost, a very good friend who was also very conservative, because of the run up to war.  Right before things started happening, all I had to say was "I have a feeling he's lying to get us into war."  And you know how conservatives pounce on liberals "feeling."  Admittedly, it was a wet noodle argument.  I wish Mr. Bolton's article was available.  I also wish I'd paid more attention at the time to offer just feelings; nothing more than feelings.

The last paragraph of the article:

Space constraints don't allow for a refutation of all the lies the president told about Iraq's threat, their weapons and their link to Osama bin Laden. However, consider this final point: Our government spent nearly tens of millions of dollars to try to impeach a president for lying about consensual sex between two adults. Compare that to this abomination: George W. Bush knowingly lied to the American people in selling his case for a war that has directly led to the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans. They are deaths brought about by his lies, deceit and deception. It is an American atrocity of monumental proportion, followed closely by the heinous fact that no one has held him accountable. Where is the outrage?

Where, indeed.

But Where Did The Mass Before The Big Bang COME FROM!!!

This is an 8 minute clip (beginning with and including 4 brief commercials) from a 36 minute documentary on Hulu entitled "Cosmic Voyage."  It is at once wondrous and disturbing.  It presents, in quick order, theories regarding outer space, inner space, big bang, black holes and others in impressive (at least to me) computer animation.  It freaked me and my limited understanding the frak out.

I should say, though, that that one time a hundred years ago when I did mushrooms with my boyfriend and his best friend and I sat on the living floor in the dark shaking and breathless with an ecstasy I've never again experienced, even with you know who (who could drop ecstasy on a sister to just pass time), because I understood completely the universe -- it looked JUST LIKE THIS!

Elite? Who? Me? Ha!

Jack and Jill Politics has a great post (by way of Aunt Jemima's Revenge) about the charge of elitism leveled against Sen. Obama and his wife.  I very much like the point that the majority of White America, and much of Black America, has no idea that there is this demi monde of true black elitists in society.  This is interesting; if you have the time, check out the links in the quote:

Unless the Obamas are leaving this information out of their personal biographies, the Obamas are not members of The Links, Jack and Jill of America, or The Divine Nine. The Obamas don't have a summer home on Martha's Vineyard....(Valerie Jarrett does) or Sag Harbor, where many of the real black elite are currently sipping mint juleps right now. I also don't believe that either Obama had a cotillion that "introduced" them to society.

[...]

Lawrence Otis Graham who wrote, Member of the Club and Our Kind of People, can tell you who and what makes one a member of the black elite. These are black folks that even the average black person maybe unaware of and most certainly the average white person is clueless about. Black generations of wealth, power, and prosperity, like the Kennedys, the Bushes, and the Vanderbilts. (You don't actually believe that CNN's Anderson Cooper has to work, with his mama being Gloria Vanderbilt?) The Johnsons of The Johnson Company and Ebony magazine are part of the Black Elite, three generations removed from their founding grandfather's humble beginnings.

Even as I read about the Black American upper crust and their self-reverence, my racial paranoia will remind me of the old old old joke:

What do you call a black man who is a doctor/lawyer/executive/politician/ThirdGen$$ with a thriving and successful practice/business/campaign/closed society who went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton?

I won't supply the punch line, but it's certainly not "elitist."

And I further don't think for a minute that conservative talking heads and politicians sit around lamenting how this "elitist" is snatching voters from their heretofore victorious jaws.  I think they save that term for the cameras and the public, some of whom are hungry for a reason to not vote for Sen. Obama.

To quote the Eagles:  I could be wrong, but I'm not.

"Post-Racial" is Still Racial

Another of my word usage pet peeves...

If you have to use "racial" as part of a definition of something, it is still racial.  I'm not fooled by the addendum of "post" to attempt to indicate that it is somehow past, over, behind the concept.

To be "post-racial" would be to not bring it up at all.

And I still hate "reverse racism."

She Makes More Than I

Honestly, Maureen.  Is this the best you can do?

For some of Obama’s critics, it’s a breathtaking bit of fungible principles, as though Gandhi suddenly donned a Dolce & Gabbana, or Dolce & Mahatma, loincloth.

Not to be overly critical because clearly, you've made a living at writing.  I'm just starting to start.  But isn't this a little...uh...weird?

I'm Here to Remind You of the Mess You Left When You Went Away

Spencer Ackerman, national security big brain, has moved his blog Attackerman from ThinkProgress to FireDogLake.  My links to his old blog won't work; right now ThinkProgress doesn't seem to have an archive of his posts so...

Anyway buona fortuna to Spence.  He'll do well there, I think.

Is Somebody Judging My FanFic?

Since I was patriotically indignant regarding habeas corpus rights for Gitmo detainees vis-à-vis the Constitution, it seems only fair that I turn my attention to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  The problem is that I don’t quite understand the issues enough for what can be my impressively dramatic flair of righteous indignation.  This is a simplistic deconstruction and if I’m wrong anywhere, please correct me.  That, of course, is assuming anyone is there reading Anonymous Sec’s.  Bueller?  Bueller?

FISA was created in 1978 in the course of investigating Nixon “using federal resources to spy on political and activist groups,” thus violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The Fourth Amendment dictates that the government has to have a proven reason to go through your belongings:  your house, your correspondence (telephone, letters, e-mails), etc.  They cannot just do it because they think maybe you might be perhaps doing something illegal.  Probable cause for search and seizure has to be proven reasonable to a judge who then issues a warrant.  Law & Order 101.

FISA’s purpose was to provide:

Judicial and congressional oversight of the government's covert surveillance activities of foreign entities and individuals in the United States, while maintaining the secrecy needed to protect national security. It allowed warrantless surveillance within the United States for up to one year unless the "surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party". If a United States person is involved, judicial authorization was required within 72 hours after surveillance begins.

Okay.  Loftier climes than I inhabit, but I’ll go with that so far, particularly with the judiciary and congress watching.

Then 9/11 scared the bejeesus out of practically everyone in the country, not the least of whom was President George W. Bush.  (Wait a hot minute, here.  Now that I consider it, Bush reacted to 9/11 from a position of wide-eyed screaming fear.  Okay for we regular folk, but good gugga-mugga, he's the president.)  His response was to use the National Security Agency to end around FISA’s purpose to surveil foreign entities and individuals, by instituting warrantless domestic wiretaps of international communications of U.S. parties and using the telecoms to do it.  Meaning, if your dear gray haired Turkish grandmother was happy as all get out for your regular Sunday call from her baby-boo, the NSA could listen in and didn’t have to get permission from anyone.  If you belonged to, say, a nerdy fanfic roleplaying website with members from all over the globe, including the Middle East, the government could read your overwrought and overdramatic romance ‘ships and laugh their asses off, without permission from anyone.

All safe and well, you say.  There’s nothing in the Turkish conversation, or the ravings of geeky roleplayers to alarm the government.  You say that.  I say that.  But what guarantees that the government doesn’t find something terroristically subversive in my characters Parasol and London’s vampiric sex romp through Compton.  They are not bound by law to give a reason for their alarm.

On June 20, 2008, the FISA Amendment Act was before Congress.  The bill was two-fold:  securing the ability of the government to continue with domestic warrantless surveillance and granting telecoms immunity from prosecution for facilitating that surveillance.

Democrats, in the majority, offered little to no resistance in defense of the Fourth Amendment or in support of due process, as if Bush, the Republicans and the bill were the Borg.

Sen. Obama gave a rather inconceivable endorsement of the bill, vowing however “work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.”

Something interesting to note:  On Thursday, June 19, 2008, Sen. Obama met with the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom were caught in the Borg FISA thrall.  According to reports, Sen. Obama got into a slap fight with Rep. Keith Ellison, one of two Muslim members of Congress, over the Muslim head scarf brouhaha at one of the Senator’s rallies.  The reports end there with no mention of what conversation was had over what they had to know would be a major deal coming down the pike the next day.  Did they strategize?  Did they actually discuss their capitulation in reasonable terms?  Did they realize that Democrats are in the majority?  Oh, to be a fly on that wall.   Jack and Jill Politics has a list paying mind to the CBC members behind the curtain who voted for the bill.

Glenn Greenwald, a blogger for Salon and former constitutional litigator, virtually lost his mind over the bill.  He has pages…pages…of recriminations for Congress and Sen. Obama.  His points, though lengthy, are ex-constitutional litigator smart…like a certain CodeHead Lawyer I work for.  And he’s really really mad at Obama.

In the next couple of days, I’m gonna write about the FISA issue and Sen. Obama’s endorsement.  As I said before, many feel bummed by what they call his cowardice.

Again, if there’s anyone out there who believes I got something wrong in my simplistic FISA explanation, or anywhere else for that matter, I welcome the correction.

Upcoming

It was hot in the valley this weekend and except for a few necessary things, I got nothing done.  Slaving over my hot laptop wasn't one of the things I could find it in myself to do.  I tried going to my local air conditioned coffee shop to write, but the music was blaring and people were talking, and kids were running around like it was Chuck E. Cheese's.  It wasn't conducive to my writing regimen.

There are a couple of things I want to address, though.  I had a reader send me an email requesting that I write about the Crazy Teenage Knock-Up Coven.  I also want to address the FISA issue, not so much to pontificate on, but to explain it to myself and to you.  I think it's an important turning point in the election, particularly if Sen. Obama is your candidate of choice.  A lot of people feel betrayed by the Senator, including perhaps MoveOn.org -- they've called on the Senator to support a filibuster.  I'm sure it's one of many turning points between now and the election.  It's going to be a bumpy ride, methinks.

Also, feel free to e-mail me via the link in my User Profile if you have any questions or comments you don't feel comfortable leaving in the comments section.  You see what I did there?  I write this like I've got the NYT readership?  I'ma gonna act like I do.

Check out some of my links.  There was some good writing over the weekend, particularly my blog crush, Ta-Nehisi Coates.  My other blog crush The Corsair continues his crush on Jim Webb for VP.  ThickWitness has Adam Mansbach's review of John McWhorter's new book.  It's a riot.  As always, national security big brain Spencer Ackerman  and his equally brainy fellow blogger Matthew Yglesias are always worth a read.

Catch you on the other side of my soul-sucking day job.

Larger Than

First posted on ThickWitness on May 17, 2008.

*******************************************

There’s a photograph in the newly released Esquire Magazine, the one with Barack Obama on the cover.  In the center of the frame is his daughter Sasha, eyes wide, mouth open.  Michelle’s face is crinkled in a tickled laugh.  The camera catches the back quarter of Senator Obama.  His hand is reaching past his daughter to someone’s hand in the crowd to shake.  His face is tilted upwards, surveying the crowd obscured in the black background of the photograph.  Sasha’s yellow hair ribbon is tied in an askew bow and cute as hell.  The caption reads “The day after announcing for president in February 2007, Obama greeted a crowd in Chicago.  His daughter Sasha, trying to get her father’s attention, shouted, ‘I love you, Daddy!’”

I can’t stop crying.

This little girl might lose her daddy to things larger than her existence.  The look on her face.  That adoring, loving look on her face clamoring for her daddy’s attention in a crowd of adoration less personal than her own, is…heartbreaking.

But it is also indicative of my fears for my preferred candidate.   I worry that if elected, will he be up to the task?  And if up to the task, will he be allowed to excel?  And if allowed to excel, will his excellent choices be free of corruption?  And if free of corruption, will the path of this country be righteous?  And if the path of this country is righteous, will the world’s as well?

It's as if I don't want to lose my preferred candidate to the things that are larger than his daughter's existence.

********************************

Post Script:  After ThickWitness published this on May 17, Senator Obama held that amazing rally in Oregon where 17,000 people showed up.  Many were there to see The Decemberists, a local band, but many were there to see Sen. Obama.  It looked like my fears were somewhat realized.

Goodbye E.J., Lucy and Ethel

This isn’t very lyrical or poetic.  It’s just a remembrance of my cats.

I just dropped my cat, E.J. off at the vet to be euthanized.  She was just beginning to get sick.  She threw up virtually every night, usually at the same time.  She’s had bad bouts of diarrhea every few days.  To her credit, she always made it to the litter box.  She was getting sick in the way that older cats get sick.  She was winding down.  E.J. was 16 or so.  I can’t remember the year I got her, but I remember the job I had, my favorite song, my favorite outfit, my boyfriend (Hi, Frank; too bad we didn’t work out.  We could have been divorced and acrimonious by now).

I had another cat, Lucy, who I had to put down last year about this time.  She made it to the ripe old age of 19.  The last two of her years were tough.  She had one thing after another happen to her:  kidneys, urinary tract, thyroid, digestive.  I spent a ton of money on Lucy.  Money that I didn’t have.  Money at a bargain rate of 17% interest.  If the vet had told me when they gave her that first antibiotic shot for her very first urinary tract infection that it was gonna cost me thousands, I’d have said “Put my girl down; she’s lived well,” and felt lucky to have had her around me for so long.

I first got cats because I hated coming home to a house without another warm being in it.  I got Lucy with her littermate Ethel.  Yeah, cute, huh?  When they were first born, they completely hung out together and I couldn’t bear to break them up, so I took them both.  They were a riot.  I’d let them out of the house in my safe neighborhood in the morning when I went to work and they’d meet me every day as I drove up after work and we’d trundle in the apartment.  Lucy was a big muscular cat and she kicked a lot of ass in the neighborhood while I was away.  We’d all sleep together, Lucy and Ethel curled up in their fetal position comfort in the crook of my hip.  If I had an overnight guest and he objected to the cats sleeping with us, I’d remind him that the cats lived there; he was just visiting and would be out early.  This I said giving the hairy eyeball.  He usually decided all three pussies were worth it, as well he should have.

Ethel must have eaten poison or something because I came home one day to only Lucy greeting me.  A neighbor told me Ethel was dead under a bush.  I wrapped her up in one of my best towels, put her in a box and called Animal Control and they came and took her.  Lucy was bereft without Ethel.

A girl at work brought in some kittens to be adopted and talked me into taking E.J.  E.J. stands for Ethel Junior.  E.J. was a petite long-haired cat with Yoda ears, lots of mouth and claws, and was fearless.  Lucy did her best to ignore the teeny-tiny E.J. when I brought her home, to no avail.  They became friends and were so funny to look at together:  Big muscular street brawler bitch Lucy and her mouthy energetic sidekick, E.J.

I was never the kind to take pictures of my cats and plaster them up at work like they were kids.  We lived together.  That was all.  I fed them and we occupied the house together and slept together.  Except for the last year when E.J. lost her mind and wouldn’t go outside without Lucy, they were indoor/outdoor cats.  We lived our lives knowing that we had each other.

Right now is the first time in 20 years, I’m at home without animals.  It’s sad.  Really sad.

When I took E.J. in to be euthanized today, the vet was totally unprepared.  The front office staff didn’t know what I was there for.  Everyone was all chipper and sing-song-y.  I had to stand there with my doomed cat for a good 20 minutes while they got everything together.  It was awful.  And I feel awful because I don’t have the money to find out what was wrong with my cat and maintain a chronic condition, like I did with Lucy.

I came home from the vet today, threw out the litterbox that for the past year has bedeviled my sinuses, all the paraphernalia and medicine and treats, scrubbed again all the spots all over my house that she threw up, vacuumed the hair away and sat down bawling to write this.

Poor E.J.  As much a victim of the economy as I.

I have a vitriolic screed going on in my head about veterinarians and shelters, but don’t have the heart to express it right now.  I came home from the vet today, and threw everything out, but I know I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning wondering why E.J. isn’t crying for her food and feed the space E.J. used to occupy, realize what I've done and set my hands on the countertop and cry for a good hour or so because I feel selfish and I killed my cat because I couldn’t afford her any longer.  If Lucy or Ethel or E.J. were here when that happened, they'd quiet down for a hot minute and wrap themselves around my legs to comfort me...before they started yowling for their food.

First Rule of Anonymous Sec's; Don't Talk About Anonymous Sec's

So, I've made it my business to invite some people I know to this blog.  How else can I get it read?  Some of the people I've invited work with me, so I'm going to ask that those that do, if you're indeed reading on a regular basis, let's not discuss it at work.  Let's keep it on the down low.  Why?  The reasons are several-fold.

And by the way, this post is about other notable facts about Anonymous Sec's as well.

I don't want my blog persona outed.  I want to be free to express myself without somebody who knows who I am in RL to come at me about something I express here.  Folks I work with, know who I am, will witness my thoughts, opinions, rants (reasonable and unreasonable) being laid bare here.  I'd like to keep that wall up.  So instead of e-mailing me at work or talking to me within that otherworld of work, please feel free instead to comment away.  I do suggest you comment anonymously or adapt a nom de plume, as it were.  I also suggest you read other people's comments and engage.

The thing about talking about Anonymous Sec's at work?  It is exclusive.  There's nothing worse than secret societies.  I hate them.  They're all cliqueish and in-crowd-y and I don't want to be that way at work.  It's my opinion that it has kind of become that way at work, and I have no choice but to deal with it because it ain't my ship to captain (though I'm fairly certain I'm rowing), but I don't want to contribute to it there.  I wouldn't feel good about that.  Yeah, I long for the halcyon days of my work environment but as it's been requested of me time and again, I'm endeavoring to "let it go."

Also, regarding work and Anonymous Sec's, I don't post from work.  I don't look at comments at work.  I don't engage in this at all.  This is on my time, what little of it I have.  I do that because I don't think it's ethical and also, I don't want the powers that be (TPTB) to come at me with some humbug bullshit about bettering my personal existence and fulfilling my soul on their time -- and all of a sudden, I'm out of a job.  Hey, it happens.  Everyone knows that a job is there to crush you, not lift you up, or at least not while they're paying you.  I'm half serious there.

And, I won't talk about work on Anonymous Sec's, other than anything I wouldn't discuss with TPTB outright.  Luckily, I don't do much of anything that I wouldn't have heralded on the front page of the New York Times.  I may not be proud of it, it may at times leave me humiliated, ashamed, downtrodden and weeping, but I will own up to it, particularly if asked.  Also, if I were to get all closed society and start complaining here about all the crap and all the people that piss me off there, well, nothing of substance will get written.  And I want this to be ABOUT something, y'know.  I'll end up whining and you'll end up leaving, mumbling about how self-involved I am and then I'll be forced to defend myself with "Goddamn, y'all.  It's a blog.  That's what blogs do."

But I digress.

To the right there are websites I regularly visit and get my news from.  These are my favorites.  This is a lefty blog, but the right is welcome also (I miss you Old Boss, the blue-eyed Republican boy ::sniff::), as long as everyone is civil.  I won't administer this thing from work, so the last thing I want is a flame war outbreak while I'm blithely serving my masters at work.  Of course, I should be so lucky that enough people are around to break out flaming, but you get my point.

The best time to read this thing, I think, will be in the morning.  My plan is to come home at night, decompress, and start looking around the internets for things to pontificate on and then pontificate early in the morning.  It takes me a long time to write stuff because I sweat every word (have I said that before?), but my hope is to have something up daily.  The subject matter of my pontifications may not be timely because...soul-sucking job and interminable commute, but I'll try and I'll probably get better and quicker at expressing myself.

I'll be e-mailing all the people I've strong-armed into checking Anonymous Sec's out with news that a new post is up.  That e-mail to you will be short and sweet.  Feel free to pass news of this thing on, just be careful of my real identity -- see above.  I'd caution those I work with to pass on the referral via your private or home e-mail, not the work one.

I'm going to be trying some different blog layouts, so if anything catches your fancy, speak up.  This is a work-in-progress.  It's not in focus yet.  It will be.  Or it won't.  Who knows?

For those that are here and plan to check in regularly, thank you.  I really appreciate your support.  If I know you're here, I'll be more responsible about posting because I apparently have to have other people counting on me to accomplish anything.  For my own good isn't good enough, it seems.

Anything I write for Spencer Ackerman's Attackerman will be cross-posted here, but I urge you to check out Attackerman.  Boy knows his shit and frankly, a lot of it goes over my head.  Think on that.  The Middle East, its politics, players, and purpose is complicated.  But because of his focus, I've become more knowledgeable and informed about the war.  Comments are welcome there as well.

On a personal note, people have liked what I've written before, but Spencer is the first to support my writing on a regular basis.  And he doesn't coddle me, so what I do there is some of the most sincere effort at writing I've made -- I'm looking to impress the boy.  Thank you so very much Spence.  It means the world to me.

The name of the blog comes from my desire to be anonymous and "sec" is short for secretary, my profession.  This is Anonymous Sec's blog.  Geddit?  The double entendre was at first unintentional but then I noticed and well, it can be good.

I think that's it for now.

Anonymous Sec's

PERHAPS MY GUESTBLOGS ARE ALL ABOUT ME

This was posted on Attackerman on May 17, 2008.  Some of its points are no longer relevant, i.e. including Hillary Clinton, but the sentiment is still existent.

Getting and staying responsibly informed on political issues is hard work.  I have no data to back me up, but I would venture that most lazy U.S. citizens rely on meager sources to help form their opinions.

The first source is the home.  Until one is old enough to view things through one’s own eyes, you view them through your parents’.  This is how racism and abuse perpetuates.  Once one gets up some size and views things differently than your family, it’s often an alienating fork in the road.

Now one is bombarded with sources of information on which to base views.  Friends, television, the internet.  Most, if not all of it, are biased.  One gravitates towards like-minded sources.  It becomes an echo chamber of thoughts and ideas shoring up one’s own formed or forming opinions.    It’s overwhelming.  So, the resources are winnowed down to something manageable within one’s life, yet still unchallenged by opposing viewpoints. 

Even if one were perfectly evenhanded in the use of resources to form one’s opinions, the environment itself biases those opinions.  Most U.S. citizens, unable or unwilling to travel to different countries and cultures, have beliefs colored by knowledge of only their country and way of life.

Being liberal minded, my resources are mostly also liberal minded, but I make myself check in on opposing viewpoints.  I spend a lot of time yelling at the computer or television screen, wondering how the hell anybody could look at the situation and think the drivel they put out in the universe is sound.   (Malkin I will forever find suspect because of her conservative views on Japanese Internment during WWII-no matter how logical it may sound in your xenophobic insanity, you don’t snake your people and you don’t do it in public.)  However, I check them because I think it irresponsible of me not to.  I also check websites and blogs of those not in this country; I found one in the comments section of one of my posts and will continue check it.

I suspect a conservative minded seeker of equanimity would think the same of my left wing blogroll. 

Of all the resources at my disposal, which one is the truth?  Short of seeing things with my own eyes, which television station, website, blog will give me the unvarnished, unbiased facts?  Few, I would venture to guess.  I would have to see it with my own eyes and decide.

The same is true of this presidential election.  Short of having McCain, Obama and Clinton over to my house for a weekend gabfest and barbecue where I can look them in the eye and grill them on their policies and see how they handle themselves unguarded, I can only judge each on what I observe through the filtered prism of a screen with pundits screaming what they REALLY mean when they say whatever.

Spencer says things like “Gee I can’t on Saturday.  I’m going to Afganistan.”

My niece, who travels often to Africa, has friends who were lost in Kenya’s upheaval.  She reports that “I am ecstatic to report that my friends in Nairobi are alive.”  On the domestic side, that same niece has lost more friends than I can count to violence here at home.  She says things like, “I’m down because my good friend was shot and killed in an altercation.”

These are sentences I have never in my life uttered.

I am a coward.  I am a coward living a comfortable life.  I am a coward living a comfortable life in a comfortable country with comfortable people running it.  If given the opportunity to travel the globe to see things for myself, I would sweat that opportunity.

Of course, one never knows what one is capable of until tested.

THIS ISN'T NEARLY AS RIBALD AS I CAN MAKE IT

I know it’s old and the point probably flogged like the dead horse it is, but the query in the Google search “Are Women Funny,” returned a particular hit of Christopher Hitchens’ Vanity Fair January 2007 headline “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”  It a long, anthropological treatise that as far as I can tell boils down to men have to be funny to get laid, women don’t because they have inborn…um…desirability.

Anyway, recently the subject has been brought up again in counterpoint in an article entitled “Who Says Women Aren’t Funny” by Alessandra Stanley in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair.  It’s a long historical treatise that as far as I can tell boils down to men find funny women threatening, particularly if desirable, but the catch is that these days a woman has to be sexy for men to entertain the thought of them being funny.

Clearly, the point of the party-girl picture of funny women Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Tina Fey accompanying the article (Tina is the funniest head writery one with the vodka bottle between her legs), is that they are monumentally desirable.  Personally, I have a hard time judging women’s sexiness, aside from the occasionally funny Angelina Jolie.  I’d laugh heartily at every single moderately sub-funny thing she said.  But I digress.

Desirability and funny and reasons therefor in either gender are subjective concepts and cannot be argued empirically beyond a reasonable doubt even by big brains like Hitchens and Stanley.  One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

Come to think of it, I can empirically argue that a woman can be funny, at least from my point of view (see what I did there?).  I give you the timely, and unfortunately out-of-sync, Wanda Sykes.  Her desirability is still subjective.

Posted on Attackerman, May 17, 2008

STREAMING, FLAXEN, WAXEN

This post appeared first on Attackerman on May 30, 2008.

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Okay, I’m going bring up black hair care for a hot minute.  Hey!  Don’t you roll your eyes at me.  It’s in line with Spencer’s mandate to write about things he’d never think to write about.  Spencer?  Would you write about black hair care?  Okay, then.  Feel free to blast past or stick around and maybe see something new.

Tuesday on Jezebel, over 200 comments were lodged on a post written by Dodai entitled “Do White Families Need ‘Special Training’ Before Adopting Black Children?”  The subject was a report that took issue with the 1994 Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) that was passed to make it easier for black children to be adopted by families who were not black, namely white families.  The report said that color consciousness was important in shaping the MEPA’s policy.  Dodai’s post was informative and as usual, well written, throwing in something about Angelina Jolie’s dedication to providing all of her children with cultural references personal to each of them.  (Call me, Ange.)

The subject was deep.  (In answer to the question, one commenter cut the bull and said “yes.”)  Right off, black hair care became commenters’ subject matter, focusing on Zahara Jolie-Pitt.  Jezebel posts a lot of pictures of Zahara because the child is adorable, her daddy’s rich and her mama’s good lookin’.  As usual, something is said about the need for someone who knew what they were doing to pay attention to the child’s head of hair.  I, along with those I can only construe as my fellow black women commenters, do a lot of the saying.  It may not seem important to an observer, but those many comments about hair were directly on point to the topic of the post.

Black hair shouldn’t be washed every day.  Black hair can’t be combed when it’s dry.  Black hair hates fine toothed combs.  Black hair needs some kind of heavy leave in conditioner.  Black hair is delicate and breaks easily.  Black hair can’t run wild on a consistent basis.  Black hair running wild consistently will loc.  Black hair is not slippery.  Black hair is shiny.  Black hair will hurt you like the torments of hell if the kitchen (the finer hair at the nape of the neck) is tangled.  Black hair eats rubber bands.  Black hair on little girls should be braided so the ordeal of getting the hair did is not a daily one.  Black hair being braided is a joy to watch.  Black hair being braided is hell to endure.  Black hair loves bright ribbons.  Black hair ties us together.  Black hair will wend its way through generations and all manner of multiethnic dilutions and peek out to show its gentle or harsh nappy edges proudly.  Black hair is extraordinary.

Something to embrace if the morning, and I mean the whole morning, is spent doing an adopted child’s black hair.

WILL IT GO ROUND IN CIRCLES

First posted on Attackerman on June 9, 2008.

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Wow.  I’m with Kaiser.  Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest Health Maintenance Organization, has been my preferred HMO anytime I’ve worked somewhere that offered it.  Today it was announced that Kaiser, in partnership with Microsoft, “is endorsing the drive toward consumer-controlled personal health records.”

The partnership, announced Monday, will begin with a pilot project open to Kaiser’s 156,000 employees, which will run until November. If successful, the product linking Kaiser’s patient information with Microsoft’s Health Vault personal health-record service will be offered to Kaiser’s 8.7 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia.

Kaiser has been using the internet for its services for several years.

…[T]he Kaiser move, analysts say, is significant because of California-based health company’s size and its reputation as an innovative user of information technology. In the mid-1990s, Kaiser began offering its members the ability to ask health questions to nurses over the Web. In the last few years, it has gone much further with its Web-based My Health Manager personal health record, which enables patients to make appointments, e-mail questions to doctors and place prescription orders online.

Okay, the Kaiser offices where I go?  I’d say 80% of the people are older.  Of course, I cannot say definitively, but if my mother were any indication, older people have no idea how the internet works for them or they call up their kids and get them to get the information.  So perhaps this plan isn’t so much for them as for the Kaiser members, existing and future, who are more internet savvy.  I can’t bring myself to think that the plan won’t be totally effective until the older members…  Gah!  I can’t even type it.

Further, I’m fairly computer savvy and I’ve tried using My Health Manager to make appointments.  The time lag is not something I care for.  The convenience still lies with calling Kaiser’s appointment line and getting what I need then, like during my lunch hour.  The same goes for e-mailing questions or concerns to my doctor.  On at least one occasion, I’ve had a hilariously slapstick e-mail string indicating that neither my doctor nor I understood what was requested and what could be supplied.  Of course, the system should get better as it’s put to more material use by Kaiser and its members, but they’ve had a system ramping up since the mid-1990s, and, well, I’m not particularly happy with it.

Kaiser chose Microsoft over Google, which offers the same kind of computerized management system, because Microsoft has better security.  Whatever.  If someone wants to hack it, it’ll be hacked.  Or Skynet becomes self-aware, and Sarah and John can’t destroy it before it decides my kidney problems aren’t worth the money expended and sends T-1000s to terminate me and my ilk.

But that’s just paranoid.

HERE I GO AGAIN

Cross-posted at Attackerman:

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Since my last posting on the SCOTUS habeas corpus ruling, I have become obsessed with opinions and arguments about it in the blogosphere, particularly in online letters to the editor.  Maybe “obsessed” isn’t the right word.  “Deeply interested” sounds more sane, huh?

Perhaps I’m deeply interested because I work in the legal field and love the legal system.  Perhaps because I saw “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” a hundred times.  Perhaps because I can be a patriotic sucker when the right thing gets done by people appointed to do the right thing.

Brian Stuckey, from Denver writes in response to the New York Times editorial entitled “Justice 5, Brutality 4” (bottom of page).

The truth of the matter is that the Gitmo detainees are not the innocent victims of war, as some would have it. According to a Wall Street Journal editorial, at least 36 former detainees have already “returned to the fight.” Does anyone in his right mind expect that today’s ruling will lessen the potential for terrorists to rearm with the intent of killing American soldiers?

I would point Mr. Stuckey to One Drop’s elegant essay on the blog Too Sense for an in-depth counter to his points, but considering that he could not have possibly read the Constitution to come to such conclusions, it may be too long.

Let me.  I’ll be brief.  My counter, Mr. Stuckey, in order:

The Constitution requires that you prove it.  Subverting the Constitution has dire consequences.  The Constitution cannot be pimped to assuage fear.

SERIOUSLY? "BABY MAMA?"

First posted on Attackerman on June 12, 2008.

I’m home sick today, depleting my already meager vacation time to nurse myself. But ever the albeit neophyte political news junkie I blame Spencer and Megan and Jezebel and Jack and Jill Politics and Matthew Yglesias and Ta-Nehisi Coates and The Field Negro, Baldilocks (yeah, I know, but I like the way if not what she writes) The Corsair and Too Sense among many others, for making me (ah for the days of ignorant bliss), I spent my sleepless night lurking the internet.

A lot has been made of Fox News’ captioning of Michelle Obama with the term “baby mama.” Counterpoint by several sources says that Mrs. Obama referred to her husband as her “baby daddy.”

I say all arguments are irrelevant to what should be the issue. In my sleepless haze, I’ve written to both Fox News (yeah, that’ll be heard) and NYT with my point, which I hope is as cogent in the clear light of day as it seemed last night.

News, real news, or what I remember as real news, has an obligation to uphold at least minimum standards and judgment. The term “baby mama,” while seemingly acceptable in colloquial conversations or in reference to entertainment or gossip – and I question even the wisdom of that – has no place in THE NEWS!

Oh, and as an aside, though it would be equally wrong, where is Fox News’ blaring of the picture of Mrs. McCain captioned with that awful invective (or approximation thereof) cavalierly ascribed to her by her husband?

It irritates me that African-American colloquialisms, mannerisms, dress, music, physical attributes, the list goes on, have been co-opted by America in such haphazard fashions. By that I mean parts of the culture are understood and claimed piecemeal (“baby mama”) but the whole (among which, church and history) is somehow “other.” Many ethnic cultures are co-opted, this is a multi-ethnic country, but my guess is that if Fox News were an individual, he/she would stress less if she/he woke up one morning Scots-Irish than if they woke up Black Like Me.

But on topic: IT’S THE NEWS!

I have to lie down.

How Can You Not Understand

One Drop at Too Sense has a beautifully written and crystal clear explanation of what the Supreme Court of the United States's opinion on habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees means.

This part gave me goosebumps:

It is not an act of weakness to adhere to our own sacred principles. Rather, it is the highest possible expression of strength. Holding fast to our own principles is a clear statement to our enemies, and to the world, that we cannot be terrorized into giving up what it means to be American. That we are willing to fight and die in honor of our deepest political philosophies...because, yes, recognizing that our enemies have civil rights and enforcing those rights does present risks, in that it is always possible that the person we free today will return tomorrow and attack us. Living up to our self-proclaimed ideals in the face of that risk is precisely what it means to be an American.

With regard to the argument that our civil rights only apply to our own citizens, one of the core principles of the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement that spawned our Constitution, is the idea that rights are not granted to individuals by the government, those rights are endowed by the Creator. The Bill of Rights protects rights that already existed according to Enlightenment doctrine, it does not grant or confer any new rights to anyone. Thus the existence of due process rights is not a product of our Constitution, our Constitution recognizes and safeguards what already exists. Stating that Gitmo detainees are entitled to habeas corpus is not granting them new rights, it is protecting the rights that they already posses by virtue of the Creator's endowment.

You should read it.

No Security For You

A contribution from me for Attackerman on the SCOTUS habeas corpus opinion:

The Supreme Court of the United States has granted the right of habeas corpus in Federal Court to Guantanamo detainees.  Finally.

Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia each read snippets from their own opinions.  Justice Kennedy said: 

"Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law… the political branches [may not] switch the Constitution on or off at will."

Justice Scalia, hoisting the mantle of fearmongering,

[W]arned that some detainees will be freed and return to war against America: "The nation will live to regret what the court has done today."

No.  If the government believes the detainees to be guilty of nefarious acts against the United States, then the government needs to get on their motherfrakking job and MAKE THE CASE against any habeas corpus petitions, in accordance with the law and in accordance with the Constitution.  Why is this so hard to understand?

Justice Scalia boogedy-boogedys the argument that detainees may return to war against America.  No doubt.  Given the inequitable circumstances presented them by our government, behavior otherwise would be the surprise.  However, their way to salvation is theirs alone and has little to no bearing in how we, as a nation, chose to honor our ideals.

The point may be true that because of this government’s course in dealing with suspected terrorists we have not had an attack since 9/11.  But what has been lost in the equation seems dear, much more precious than just living safely.  That is, living safely with all that the country was founded on operative and intact for all, because if this can be done to these detainees, then what guarantees that given provocation that only the government is aware of, it cannot be done to any American.

That’s not security.  That’s governmental subordination.  Isn’t the government subordinate to its citizens, not the other way around?

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

It’s all so…so…so…breath-catchingly dramatic for These Kids.  Like Wuthering Heights for the Manhattan Media Blogging Set.

I have been bemusedly reading all the sturm und drang going on with These Kids who now/used to/no longer/perhaps will again, again, write for Gawker and These Kids outside the Gawker bosom who write and love/hate/disdain/love again them.  I realize that the term “These Kids” by its very nature of being uttered by me is condescending, so I’ll cop to that.  It’s one of the perks of being older (a POV Spencer could not write about).  But it’s condescension without the venial purpose of wagging my finger at or lording it over These Kids.  Rather, it’s an ageist condescension marked by years of observance and having a life somewhat lived, something These Kids cannot possess.  It’s benign condescension, if you will, without investment and without competition – I haven’t a nickel in the dime other than being an infrequent commenter in various rooms of the Gawker Mansion. 

Hanging around people younger than I on the internet and in real life, I never cease to marvel at how MUCH IT ALL MEANS to These Kids in and among themselves.  Was I like that?  Is everyone like that?  Maybe hyper-awareness of every single thing he and she and they and we and them and us and you and me are feeling is symptomatic of walking on the light side of the years granted you.  Perhaps.  It would be unfair of me to take callowness away from them, so I’m’a cut the youngsters a break.

With a caveat.  One that I cannot imagine will be heeded nor, perhaps in the scheme of things, should it.

Stop.  Honestly.  Stop.  Stop right now and turn your attention and talents away from each other and focus on something else.  There are things that you may never get to do because right now, just now – time, time, time is on your side, but time is bitchy and selfish and fickle and before you know it, well…

You are writers.  You know the rest.

THE SMART-ASS COMEBACK, BUT I LOVE YOU BOO

Jack and Jill Politics pointed me to a rundown of Matthew Lynch at Black State's Top Ten Reasons Black Men... do something. I don't remember. Well, yes, I do. Top Ten Reasons Why Black Men Don't Date Black Women. I wrote a response. I didn't think it was really appropriate for Attackerman, so I posted in the comments section of JJP...like a comment whore. Read Matthew's screed, read JJP's post and read my comment below.

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Well, gee, Matthew. I didn’t know I was being so mean. But I do want to take a moment and address your and your 5 friends’ concerns. Let me address them separately, okay, Boo? Perhaps we can do something to reach a healthy and happy middle ground. And I’m not even going to go call 5 of my friends to reach a consensus. I’m going to fly solo. Aren’t you proud of me?

Before we talk, though, would you like me to fix you a sandwich? No? Okay. Well, let me slip on my heels and we can talk.

1. Black women make black men feel under-appreciated, unwarranted and irresponsible and regressive.

Oh, Honey. I appreciate you. God knows that just living this life is a hard hame and I’m grateful that I don’t have to pull alone. The way we pool our resources is just awesome, like we’re equal or something. And you doing the dishes last month? I cried. You are so into this.

2.  Black women are too aggressive and no longer patient in waiting on the pursuit of a man.

Okay, yes. I asked you out first. But only because I thought we both wanted that, and didn’t we, Boo? I mean, you seemed into it that night (remember, Sweetie?) and here we are in all our awesomeness. If I was being too aggressive, you could have ignored me, just like all those girls at the bar were ignoring you.

3. Black women are strong headed, too independent which presents great challenges in relationships.

Precious! I thought you liked strong head. Oh! Oh! Strong headED. Oh, Sugar, silly me. You mean that I think I know my mind, pay my bills and ask that you pee IN the toilet or if you can’t, then you clean up the scattershot? Okay, then. Of course. You can pay my bills. And I promise to never ever think again. I’ll be a doll. A quiet doll. And it’ll look like I’m always saying “Oh!”

4. Black women are masculine in that they are controlling and like to run the relationship.

You mean because I have your dick in my hand, Snookums. Honestly, Sweetheart, you weren’t using it and I thought, “Two of us, one dick! And it’s Black Dick, Too!? Dammit, we can conquer the world.” But I see how you can feel that way. Here’s your dick, Beloved. I won’t touch it again.

5. Black women expect too much. They are gold diggers who will not look twice at a blue collar black man.

Okay, Angel, that’s not fair. You have no gold. And is the value of gold really that high in today’s market? Oh, but you’re not talking about me? Then what golddiggers are you speaking of, Babydoll? I know this is stupid but for some reason and here I go thinking again…and after I promised…but for some reason I keep thinking about a line from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Yeah, your favorite movie. Anyway, Lorelai Lee says, “A man being rich is like a girl being pretty. It isn’t necessary. But, my goodness, doesn’t it help.” Don’t get all mad, My Prince. I don’t want rich. I want you and all our awesomeness.

6. Black women are hot headed and have bad attitudes.

Oh, Dollface. You know that’s only at work.

7. Black women stop caring about their appearance after a certain age.

Oh, AllThatIAm! I care. Look at my heels. Are you using my mother as an example? Okay, she’s a little heavy on the appliquéd sweatshirts and she’s not big on make-up. But she’s in good shape and she’s boning your friend Ronnie so he likes her appearance. But I promise to never ever gain weight. I know! We won’t have kids. See. Problem solved.

8. Black women are not as sexually open as other races, especially in regards to oral sex.

Mmmrphgggllmmr. Let me up, Dearheart. What?! No, I won’t remove my finger. Not until you take that back!

9. Black women’s tolerance is far too low; they are no longer empathetic to the black man’s struggle in white America.

Sigh.

10. Black women do not cater to their men.

Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. I'm being flip, I know. That used to make you laugh, but no matter.

Hey, Matthew. Why don’t we try something new and exciting, hmm? Why don’t we come to this thing on equal footing, realizing that our gender is a subset of being human. That’s our commonality. We’re human beings who love each other. If we want a caterer, then we should throw a party. A party celebrating how amazing it is that we found each other because the odds were not there. I don’t need you to be anything but the best person you can be. I will try to do the same. If you do that, I'll walk through the gates of hell with you and you'll trust that I'll always be beside you. And let’s forget all this Top Ten Reasons foolishness. If you want a white girl and you love her, I say to find love is a blessing. Be with her for deep or even for shallow reasons because I don’t want to stunt your self-discovery.

But Matthew. Sweetie. Honey. Sugar. Baby. If you want me – like I want you? Let's promise to make each other believe how human and lucky we are ever single day.

Your Baby forever,
Anonymous Sec's

Fresh Starts

So, I'm writing a lot these days. Mostly contributing to my internet friend and fearless political wonk, Spencer Ackerman. His blog is Attackerman. He asked me to guest blog for a weekend when he was out of town and I did. Boy. Was it hard work or what. I worked all weekend, sweating every single word. As a matter of fact, that's my mantra. I Sweat Every Single Word.

I also contributed one post to my niece's blog, ThickWitness. Check hers out as well.

Anyway, since I'm all kinda prolific these days, I thought I'd make an attempt at keeping my own blog as well.

Here goes.