I gave a concise (for me) version of an old-school (because 2006 is old-school) Chaliceblog rant over the weekend about political issues from the pulpit. 

In my defense, I was asked.  

I summarized my, admittedly very conservative, opinion as: If you are tempted to preach about an issue (probably ok), a person (not a good idea) or a bill (really not a good idea), ask yourself "if I am risking my tax-exempt status to preach this, is it worth it?" And proceed accordingly.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know this isn't a new set of standards.  

Anyway, thinking over this rule of mine yesterday, there is a political figure whom I'd very much like to hear a sermon about:

Susan B. Anthony. 

I don't necessarily want to hear that sermon before election day, because I don't want to raise the spectre of Hillary Clinton's fondness for the suffragettes.  I don't want to hear about Susan B. Anthony as a metaphor for Hillary. 

I want to hear about Anthony herself, her flaws and the proper way to look at her and the way she and the suffragettes achieved the just result using some terrible methods. 

Susan B. Anthony, beloved famous Unitarian, was not, in fact, as racist as some of her contemporaries.  But she said some pretty terrible things.  One thing she wrote to her BFF Elizabeth Cady Stanton* in 1884 sums up my issue with her nicely:

"“I have but one question, that of equality between the sexes—that of the races has no place on our platform."

Let that one sink in for a moment.  

This is, by far actually, not the worst thing a suffragette ever said.   Her fellow suffragettes were even more blatant about tossing around the idea that giving women the vote was an awesome way to maintain white supremacy.   Their willingness to throw people of color under the bus has made it very clear that they were really, truly, fighting for rights of women primarily like themselves. 

That said, I am an educated, upper-middle class woman like them I sure do appreciate that right to vote I've got.  Women haven't actually had it all that long.  My grandmother was born before women had the right to vote, though we'd admittedly attained it by the time she was old enough to actually vote.  

I realize, as the tumblr kids say, "All your faves are problematic," and I can't even say that Susan B. Anthony was one of my faves.  But two things bother me:

1.  I draw a distinction, reasonable or not, between "your rights/needs are on my agenda, they just aren't on the top" and "I will actively demonize you to make my position seem more reasonable."  Anthony did some of both, though she tended toward the first, that quote at the top of the page notwithstanding.  Lots of suffragettes picked option B and I haven't seen any indication that Anthony told them to cut it out.  

2. These women seem to have at best ignored the reality of the pre-voting-act black voting experience, and at worst straight up lied about it.  To hear Carrie Chapman Catt (founder of the League of Women Voters) talk, black folks were voting all over the place and white women needed to have the vote lest black men end up entirely in charge.  "“White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by women’s suffrage,”  she said, in what I can only guess was a comforting tone?  cite 

History has a lot of casualties.  I know this.  A lot of buildings I'm fond of, from the Great Pyramids to the White House, were build by slaves and I don't really know how to value the buildings without devaluing the slaves.  Maybe they would have been built without it, just as I'm sure I would have the vote BY NOW even if the suffragettes hadn't resorted to such terrible tactics.  

But my grandmother deserved that vote too.  

I like to tie things up in a package.  "History is just like that" would be one way to do so, but I'm not there yet.

Still trying to figure this one out. 

CC

Ps.  Lots more here   

*Who had "it sure is degrading that white women can't vote when all these lesser people totes can" as a favorite topic. Most memorably:  

"“…but now, as the celestial gate to civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see “Sambo” walk into the kingdom first. . . .

“Think of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence . . . making laws for Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, or Fanny Kemble.”

cite

Cady Stanton was, thank goodness, an Episcopalian.

In general, I intend this to be for journaling about that which is greater than myself.  That said, my thoughts have been pretty much in this realm for the past couple of weeks.  I've been helping a friend build his wife a porch on the weekends (I love manual labor in a privileged thank-goodness-I-don't-have-to-do-this-everyday way. Helping people move is my favorite, but building projects are a close second) and I've just started reading Patricia Highsmith's Carol.

I'd have more to write about here if I were reading more theology, even popular theology, but I'm afraid lesbian crime novels are more my speed these days.  I'm still halfway through The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of Soul in Corporate America. 

Having read a lot of stoic writers, but very aware at how bad at Stoicism I am, I try to keep up reading on that too.  But I keep getting caught up in questions of how to maintain virtue. I'm not making excuses, I hope, when I note that a lot of the good qualities that make up a virtuous character are a lot easier to get when you're more secure in life and have had a reasonable childhood.  I do feel like I have to work really hard at things like having an OK relationship with anger and accepting life's hardships in a way that someone who has been kicked around by life less might not. 

One of the things I don't like about the way that human minds are put together is that problems tend to compound each other.  For example, if your   Adverse Childhood Experiences score is high enough, you're at a greater risk for, among other things, a bunch of mental illnesses. I look at all the ideals of human excellence I'm shooting for, and it seems like a high score on a test like that one makes qualities I want to work for all the more difficult to attain. 

Not that there's anyplace to file a complaint...  

 RANDAL
:   (suddenly outraged)
  Fuck you. Fuck you, pal. Listen to
  you trying to pass the buck again.
  I'm the source of all your misery.
  Who closed the store to play hockey?
  Who closed the store to attend a
  wake? Who tried to win back an ex-
  girlfriend without even discussing
  how he felt with his present one?
  You wanna blame somebody, blame
  yourself.
   (beat, as DANTE)
  "I'm not even supposed to be here
  today."
   (whips stuff at DANTE)
  You sound like an asshole. Whose
  choice was it to be here today?
  Nobody twisted your arm. You're
  here today of your own violation,
  my friend. But you'd like to
  believe that the weight of the
  world rests on your shoulders-that
  the store would crumble if Dante
  wasn't here. Well, I got news for
  you, jerk: This store would survive
  without you. Without me either. All
  you do is overcompensate for having
  what's basically a monkey's job:
  You push fucking buttons. Any moron
  can waltz in here and do our jobs,
  but you're obsessed with making it
  seem so much more fucking important,
  so much more epic than it really is.
  You work in a convenience store,
  Dante. And badly, I might add. And
  I work in a shitty video store.
  Badly, as well.
   (beat)
  You know, that guy Jay's got it
  right-he has no delusions about
  what he does. Us? We like to make
  ourselves seem so much better than
  the people that come in here, just
  looking to pick up a paper or-God
  forbid-cigarettes. We look down on
  them, as it we're so advanced.
  Well, if we're so fucking advanced,
  then what are we doing working here?

-Clerks

Possible actual spiritual reflection to follow, later today.  I'm halfway through David Whyte's The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of Soul in Corporate America, which is basically his book-length response to Can Poetry Matter?   Of all the book-length responses to that essay I've read, it may be my favorite, though.

CC

I've had a lot of things on my mind recently, not the least of which is the upshot I got from reading Harry Markopolos' No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller about his attempts to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to go after Bernie Madoff.  For some reason, he had huge problems getting the SEC to take him seriously.

The thing is, I can tell what the problem was from reading the man's own words: the dude was a huge douchebag.  In his book, he talks about how he wanted to give his fiancee silicone breast implants for an engagement present, he tells endless annoying jokes and he makes it extremely clear that he is the smartest man in any given room.   I would not hang out with this guy for anything.

At the same time, there are plenty of people who think low things about me, and I'm right sometimes.  I'm not sure how I feel about the degree to which the way in which we present ourselves impacts how our message is received, or if it is received at all.  Part of me wants us all to be a bit more open minded, part of me wants those of us with truths to say to figure out how to present ourselves so our words will be heard. Maybe if we reach toward each other, we will touch a bit more often.

 I grant you that this isn't the most earthshaking insight, but it's what I've got today.

The assignment was "draw a container and what goes in the container." We were later told that the container is practice and the contents are spiritual calling.



Interpretations welcome.

I read the Goldfinch a couple of years ago. Its major theme is that preservation of beauty is, if not as important as creation of beauty, at least a worthy passion in itself.   That's pretty self-evident, on some level, but I easily get lost in the details when I try to think too hard about some aspects of it.

For example, when the characters in the book seek to "preserve" the stolen painting, the first thing they do is protect it from the elements in every possible way.  This makes sense.  But, to put it mildly, not everything can or should be preserved in the way that a painting can be preserved. 

A flower, for example, can be preserved in glass, or photographed, but really the best thing we can do is grow another flower.  I've made a good friend who is a baker, and truly an artist with bread.  Nothing teaches you about the impermanence of perfection like that.  Her bread, on the night it's baked is the most amazing stuff ever.  A few days later, still very good.  A few days like that, bird food.  So, goodness, eat it while you can.

I talk a good game about being able to let things go, and to be better able to let beauty and other good things go, accepting their impermanence, is something I'm really working on philosophically at the moment, but I think everyone's a preserver on some level.  We think "this thing is awesome and I don't want it to change and try to fight for the status quo."  I'm trying not to be this person, but I'm human and I tend to cling to things and people in a way I feel like a smarter, more self-sufficient, person wouldn't. 

Indeed, on some level I think keeping things at arm's length is the best way to truly enjoy their beauty.  One of the ironies of The Goldfinch was that the main character kept his painting so carefully locked away, for many years he didn't look at it himself. 

CC
who is aware that her posts here wander around to whatever I'm thinking about at the time I sit down to write.  At the same time, I figure that as long as I'm keeping the focus loosely on "that which is greater than myself" I'm doing something of spiritual value.

Also just saw Deadpool last night.  It kicked ass. 

I spent last weekend at a convention so I was completely out of nature's path.  Ian can't stand going to a con and never leaving the hotel, but I like the bubble of being surrounded only by one's fellow attendees.  At one point, I looked up and could see the snow coming down onto the hotel's glass roof but I was out of the cold for days.  

There are a lot of people who have great reverence for nature.  I'm fairly certain nature will kill me if it can.  So I relish being out of its grip.  The sheer glee I get from being able to avoid nature is irrational, probably, but it's there.

Air conditioning is an ecological nightmare, but it's also among my favorite things.  Like, one time @RevGlenrose asked us to list our favorite things alphabetically and "central A/C" was my choice for "C."   Though I don't have a medical need for air conditioning, sigh, you now have that in writing, I know that "summer comes to New Orleans, a bunch of people die from the heat" used to be a thing and now is at least a far less common thing.

There was an episode of Yogi Bear, and I'm almost certain I'm not making this up, where Yogi Bear caused some catastrophe and Ranger Smith, exasperated, asked why Yogi couldn't be just a regular bear and hang out in the woods out of trouble.  No, instead Yogi had to be a smart and selfish bear and involve himself in wacky hijinks, causing the catastrophe that I'm almost cure occurred in the episode of Yogi Bear I kind of remember.  Anyway, by the end of the episode, Yogi had gotten the park, himself, and Ranger Smith out of trouble.  Us inventive bears are resourceful that way.

Obviously, I'm going for a metaphor here.  It is humanity's nature to be smart and selfish bears and I like that about us, even if I do wonder what it will mean for the world.  Will we the inventive bears always be able to save ourselves?  I'm inclined to say yes, but maybe I'm just rationalizing that air conditioning habit.

Today I had to wait until the ice was melting to get on the road to work, once again at nature's mercy.  She wins in the long run, I suppose, no matter how smart a bear you are.

So, I started rereading The Gift of Fear.  I'm only a couple of chapters back into it and I'd forgotten most of it.   I think for a lot of it I'm going to need to have a sort of division in my head between de Becker's concepts of "fear" and "intuition" and my own.

Because, as I wrote the other day, I'm not entirely sure that fear isn't the root of evil*.  One of the reasons I am such a great fan of reason and using logic to talk myself down is that I have quite the overactive amygdala.  At heart, I am very much the "Oh shit, the boss is looking at me funny, I'm going to get fired" person.  I've been working on these instincts for literally my entire adult life and am pretty good at talking myself down out of a tree.  But the instincts are still there and the slow parade of all the reasons I don't suck comes in handy more often than I enjoy talking about.

In The Beekeeper's Apprentice there's this kickass scene where Sherlock is telling his teenage apprentice (I KNOW**) that on some level, every crime is self defense.  He later goes on to explain to her in no uncertain terms why self-defense on most levels is not something one is justified in killing over, because duh, but I think his point is interesting and deserves more thought than the pleasant little novel it is in has time to give it.

Several years ago, I decided that "victims" were the single scariest group ever.  Just about everyone who had ever done anything awful considered themself a victim and thus fully justified in whatever awfulness they committed.  (Obligatory Godwin's law example: the Germans' victimization by the Treaty of Versailles.)  I've been through unpleasantness here and there but I've vowed to not ever consider myself a victim of anything, because rationalization is already my superpower and I don't need the extra help to justify my own actions.

I am a better person, when I don't let fear win, when I experience the gratitude at the goodness and abundance of what is around me (though I also try to remain in the Stoic habit of periodically imagining my life without that goodness so my appreciation remains nice and sharp, along with my awareness that a life without luxuries would be less awesome but still a life, and that's a lot.)

Anyway, this theory is evolving, and I'm curious what other folks think of it.  If the word "Evil" doesn't do it for you, "awfulness" is fine with me.  The underlying point "if it sucks, fear probably causes it on some deep level," remains.

What to do about that is another question.

CC


*Yes, I was raised Presbyterian, I know that you can kick 1 Timothy 6:10 at me and tell me that love of money is the root of all evil.  I tend to think really all of your basic greed sins (Money, sex, food are your classics) come from fear that you won't have enough, of either the thing itself or the love comfort and safety it symbolizes for one.

Counterpoint: if one googles "fear is the root of evil" one gets a few ernest people and a bunch of prosperity gospel types who say that fear is the root of evil so go ahead and love money.  Jerks.

** I remain astounded that the plot "Sherlock Holmes has moved to Sussex to keep bees, but he's bored.  One day, he meets a precocious fourteen-year-old girl who is as smart as he is and take her on as an apprentice and they solve mysteries together" could possibly have produced one good book, to say nothing of the first six or so in the series though it gets uneven after that.

I was telling someone I used to date about this series and he, ungallantly, I thought, asked "How long does it take Sherlock to hit that?" and I had to confess two books, though in that time he does wait for her to grow up.

I see things like this and I'm all "thank goodness I don't blog anymore." and then I'm like "Shit, I started blogging again."


CC
who, on reader request, added the subscription gadget to the upper right corner so that you can put your email in there and get every post by email.  I will tweet them too.  Goodness we've come a long way since the heady days of 2010.  Warning: If you subscribe, you might get three versions of a post because I am a terrible proofreader and I always see something to fix.

Ps. Have started rereading The Gift of Fear.  Cheyenne is right, de Becker uses "intuition" in a very specific way.  I'm not sure I agree with him, but that's another post.  Not tonight's post, though.

In the comments on my last post, my friend Lisa asked me "I'm curious to know why you see yourself as a maker of bad decisions. A decision could be a good one, given all available data, even if the outcome isn't what you'd hoped for."

That's a good question.  In truth, I very much like the person I am and the decisions I've made have made me the person I am, so I'm not sure I regret them.

At the same time, I linked to a "Bad Decision Dinosaur" comic where the dinosaur is cheering on Napoleon's Invasion of Russia.  People know that Napoleon ended up invading Russia in the winter and that's how it ends up in snarky comics, but Napoleon started with Smolensk in August.  The Russian army just kept retreating, and kept burning villages as it retreated to starve the French.   The French had never seen this tactic before and were like "What the hell, Tsar Alexander?"

Arguably Napoleon's problem wasn't invading Russia in August, it was getting himself deeper and deeper and not knowing when to quit.  Maybe that's where I meant to say my problem was.

I had dinner with my friend Cheyenne, who had read yesterday's post and felt like I wasn't really understanding de Becker's point about Intuition.  As fear is, I think, going to be a theological point for me, (Katy the Wise and I have discussed whether it is the root of evil), I feel like I should reread de Becker's book.  It's available on Kindle Unlimited, so now it's on my list.

CC

I identify with this dinosaur. 

“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart” 
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

I've been thinking about this quotation today, to say that I've been "meditating on it" is to give myself entirely too much credit.   Now de Becker is a really smart dude, his book is brilliant, but I feel like he also is giving me too much credit. My intuition, at least, responds to a very loose definition of "something" and I'm pretty sure there are times when my still small voice wants carrot cake, which is not to say it really has my best interests at heart.

I see myself as a maker of bad decisions.  Now, mind you, I've made a couple of excellent major life decisions.  TheCSO is the best example.   In general, I surround myself with wonderful people.  But when it comes to pretty much everything else, I kinda suck.  "When should I go to law school?"  "Is this a good time to buy a house?"  "Do I want a PhD in Political Science?"*  And then there's the whole "let's graduate from college in 2000 and try to get a journalism job" thing.

Life has a lot of chaos to it, and I'm not convinced that my intuition isn't always just telling me what I think I want to hear.   Am I really following clues to a mystery that is me?  Or am I hearing hoofbeats and unable to think of anything but zebras, then disappointing myself when ordinary horses go by?

One time I had a dream where I spent hours in a forest, trying to figure out a solution to a puzzle carved into a tree.  Eventually, I woke up.  There was no solution, because it was just a fucking dream.  This is the other side of seeking life's bids for attention, and my skepticism of the concept kicking in. Sometimes a memento mori is just a dead bird on the sidewalk.

At the very least, one of the things I'm looking for in this reflection project is to figure out how I make the decisions I make, in hopes that I can do better.  At this point the "what if I fuck up?" factor that I work into major life decisions is quite high and that's not a comfortable place to be.

Discernment.  Easy to spell, difficult to do.  de Becker's book goes into how to do some of it around fear, though he's a greater believer in intuition than I am.  Perhaps his intuition about scary situations has proved correct because he's an expert on fear.  I find the idea that "intuition" is just the rapid application of experience comforting, even though I'm not sure I believe it.

My intuition tells me this: "If something's comforting, it's often not true."

CC





*No, I do not.  I pursued one and dropped out before I even had a master's degree.  "Chalicechick the terrible grad student" is a whole different set of stories.

Drama nerds know this as what Linda Loman says about Willy toward the end of "Death of a Salesman."

The relevant part of the quotation is:

"I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."

This quote is a double-edged sword for me.  Minor Quibbles:  First of all, on some level I'd rather all but my very favorite people paid less attention to me than more.  Also, I've known some old dogs who have fallen into their graves after spending their lifetimes giving joy.

Major Quibble: I want to have lived a life of significance, but I find paying attention to all sorts of things very difficult.  I'm not sure if it's more work for me or if I'm just not very good at it, and those things are not mutually exclusive.  Could I be addicted to distraction?  I spend most of my quiet moments having conversations with myself in my head.  Some of them are replaying past conversations, sometimes I'm preparing for a conversation in the future.  But whatever I'm doing, I'm not listening to the world around me.

"Good conversations" and "driving" are when I do my best attention-paying.  And even with those my attention can be suboptimal.

What is my attention so afraid of?  And if I can figure out that thing, will it lead me to the significance I want.

I guess those are my questions for today.

CC

Every few months, I try to reread this article. The TLDR* of it is this: A happy marriage boils down to following up on your spouse's attempts to telling you things.

If TheCSO has read a news article on, say, a new major transportation project and pops in to tell me about it, the way to stay married is to get enthusiastic about what makes her enthusiastic rather than being an asshole and making a big show of not caring.

The article puts it more nicely.

But that's the bones.  When your spouse is trying to tell you something, they are making what the article, and the research underlying it, call a "bid for attention."  In happy marriages, people response positively to those.

I've been married for going on twelve years and I've listened with interest to descriptions of innumerable transportation projects.  One of the great secrets to married life is that if you married a smart and awesome person, many of their interests are likely to be smart and awesome as well.  If you listen when they talk, soon you're invested in those interests too.

Anyway, I work pretty hard at this wife thing.  I like to think that I respond fairly well to my friends' bids for attention too.

But recently, I've been thinking over my theology and my philosophy of life, to the degree that I have those things.  As I've tried to articulate what's important to me and how I can focus my life around those values, I've started to wonder, what if there are bids of attention from the world and the way I see it that I've been ignoring?  So I'm starting to make a practice of mindfully pursuing my yearnings, mostly the nerdier sorts, and look for what I might be trying to tell myself.  And I'm going to write about it, because truly I don't know what I'm thinking until I've written it out.

If this revived blog has a goal, it is that, to watch the world more carefully for invitations to think harder about things and to find meaning in new places, and to chronicle me wandering through the world more attentively and what I find when I do.
CC


*Internet for  "Too Long; Didn't read" also known as an "executive summary."

I'm in a theological study group at church and we've been talking about spiritual practices. I'm trying to find a new spiritual practice* myself.

 "You have such a way with words," one person suggested.  "Have you thought about journaling?" The conversation continued in this vein for a bit.

 Finally, I thought, "Well, I used to have a place where I did something sort of like that." So I'm going to give it another shot. Don't know if I'm going to stay with it, but I'm going to try.

 I'll post my first substantive post about that tonight.

 But first, an FAQ, because I love FAQs.

Q: Welcome Back! I've missed you!
A: Thanks, though you don't have to. You can always follow me on Twitter. I'm Chalicechick there too.   I tend to be pretty liberal about friending on Facebook, too.

Q: What's up?
A: Not a whole lot.  The big news is that TheCSO is undergoing gender transition.  We wrote an entire FAQ about that, and I've posted it below.  Other than that, I got out of law school, got a law job that pays the bills and I go to the same church and mostly have the same friends.  I have a Goddaughter now, you'll probably hear about her.   The dog died.  That was sad.

Q: So, what are you going to be writing about?
A: My personal life, hunt for a personal theology/philosophy of life and the same sort of cultural criticism stuff I liked to write before.  Funny stuff that happens to me.

Q: So what AREN'T you going to be writing much about?
A: My job, national politics (I lean Clinton, FWIW), UUA politics (I lean Miller, FWIW), won't go too far into transgender issues.   There are smarter people writing better things on that last topic especially.  I also don't write about my own church.  The minister shouldn't have to worry about critiques of her sermon showing up here on Sunday afternoons.  They won't.

Q: How will this ChaliceBlog be different?
A: I'm going to be heavier on comment moderation.  I have less patience than I used to, and less time.      I'm also probably not going to get into as many big arguments.  Again, less patience, less time.  If you want an interactive medium, try Twitter.  My plan at least is to use this as a bit more of a broadcast medium.   Also, both Nora Ephron and the UUA Washington Office are gone and have not been replaced with equivalent targets for snark.  I confess I've mellowed a bit in that department in general.

Q: How can I foil your plan to use this as a broadcast medium?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.

Q: Are you going to stick around?
A:  In this format, I don't know.  But I'm extremely active on Facebook and moderately so on Twitter.

Q: How can I encourage you to stick around?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.

Thanks,

CC
who suspects these questions would not be asked frequently, indeed not much at all, but enjoys interviewing herself.


 *Which I define as a way to connect me to that which is greater than myself, one way or another.

Posted to Facebook 07.19.2015.

 This is the same document with only minor edits, plus our names changed per the conventions of this blog.

 So, hi, we’ve got an announcement. 

TheCSO has made the decision to undergo gender transition. We’ve told a few people about this, but since we’re telling everyone en masse at this point, we thought an FAQ might come in handy:


The easy questions:

Q: So TheCSO is female now?
A:  TheCSO is in between, but on the female side.

Q. What pronoun does TheCSO prefer?
A: TheCSO likes “she” or “they.”  Chalicechick does not like “they” truth be told, as to her it sounds awkward and confusing.  So she talked around pronouns when TheCSO was concerned and considered TheCSO’s pronoun “TheCSO” as an interim step.  This wasn’t TheCSO’s favorite approach but the biggie is to avoid male pronouns.  Chalicechick is using “she” and female-gendered terms like “wife” now.

Q: I’ve called TheCSO “he” for years, what if I call TheCSO the wrong thing?
A: That’s cool.  We know this isn’t easy and TheCSO understands genuine mistakes are going to happen.  Chalicechick still slips up every now and again.

Q:Is TheCSO keeping the name “TheCSO”?
A: That’s the plan.

The complicated questions:

Q. How long has TheCSO wanted to do this?
A: A long time.  TheCSO came out to Chalicechick in college, years before we got married.  She has always known this was a possibility,  but TheCSO didn’t feel like fully transitioning to female and when we first got together and being “in between” was more or less unheard of outside of the gender activist community.  Chalicechick was concerned about the societal consequences of having to constantly explain that TheCSO had a gender that nobody else seemed to have.  Now that TheCSO’s career is in a good place, our marriage is totally safe and genderqueer and trans folks are becoming more and more common, the timing seemed right.  TheCSO’s tired of being uncomfortable.

Q: A lot of transsexuals get fired, are you worried about that?
A: For TheCSO’s employer to fire TheCSO for that reason would be a violation of both their company policy and the DC Human Rights Act, which covers TheCSO’s workplace in DC.  

Q: Are you guys going to stay married?
A: Yup.  We’re still in love.

Q. Will the state of Virginia still recognize your marriage?   Sure, gay marriage is legal there now, but Virginia is conservative and that could change again?
A:  This question was answered at length in previous versions of the FAQ, but is now irrelevant.  Thanks, Justice Kennedy!

Q: I feel like I’m really close to you guys, but you never talked about this with me before, and you’ve known for like SIXTEEN YEARS?  What gives?
A.  We get feeling that way and we’re sorry.  This stuff is not easy to explain and while we’re centered about the basics of it and committed to approaching it as a team, the details are a lot of stress.  Sometimes it’s a big comfort to just talk about other things.  If one or both of us has hung out with you and confided in you about other things or just done fun stuff with you, you’ve been more help than you know.  Thank you and we’re sorry if you feel we took too long to let you in.  Please don’t think that we didn’t tell you because we thought you would react badly, if we thought that we wouldn’t have been your friend in the first place.

The hard questions that make us a little cranky:

Q: Is Chalicechick a lesbian now?
A: She’s not much on labels.  She didn’t marry TheCSO’s gender, she married TheCSO.  That said, she did know about this all along, so… kinda? If you want to look at it that way? We don’t though.  We do consider ourselves a woman married to a woman though.

Q: Is TheCSO having surgery?
A: We know our friends would generally be too polite to ask this very personal question, but we also figured they might want to know.  No, TheCSO has no plans to have surgery of any type.  But TheCSO is on hormones and has been for over a year.   If you have other medical questions, feel free to ask in person, we’d rather not go into more detail on this forum.

Q: What if I think TheCSO’s still a guy and feel the need to say so?
A: Then it’s best if you save everyone some pain and unfriend us now.  We don’t have anything else to say to one another.  If you want to stay friends with us, don’t talk about that to us because we don’t consider her gender an issue for debate.

Summing up:

Q: So how can I help Chalicechick be more comfortable in this weird time?
A: She’s good.  It IS a weird time but her and TheCSO’s support system, (if you’re reading this you’re probably part of it) has been wonderful. We’re very privileged as couples dealing with these issues go.  Mostly, she’s grateful.

Q:  So how can I help TheCSO be more comfortable in this weird time?
A:  Use “she” or “they” or talk around pronouns, try not to use male gendered language.  Ask  questions.  TheCSO’s glad to help and would rather talk about it than leave people wondering.

Q: I’m glad you guys are good, but what if being your friend makes me want to reach out to other people dealing with gender issues?
A: That’s awesome of you.  We are in a position of enormous privilege and we know it.  But not everyone is as lucky as we are and there are some folks who could absolutely use your help.  We’d be really grateful, and you could do a lot of good, if you help out one of the following organizations:

• Rainbow Youth Alliance:  http://rainbowyouthalliancemd.org/
• Trans Housing Network: http://www.transhousingnetwork.com/
• Whitman-Walker: http://www.whitman-walker.org/

Still, I'm sorry to hear of hear death. CC

First off, a poem:

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

Margaret Atwood

Blog post:

Friend of the Chaliceblog Joel Monka tells an amazing story about the work he's been doing in his Prison Ministry

Blog:

I'm really loving Privilege. It is a fashion blog, but like all good fashion blogs it is about a lot more. Also the author is a wonderful writer.

Product:
I've never had any real knack for lipstick, but you wouldn't know it to see me in Buxom's Big and Healthy Lip Stick. Idiot proof, I promise.

Non-fiction book:
When I was studying for the bar, I was doing a crazy (for me, probably not for you if you're physically fit) amount of cardio and some strength training besides because of The Spark, a book by John J. Ratey on how exercise is incredibly good for your brain. I'e slacked off a bit since starting the day job, but I'm hoping to get back into the routine because I felt great.

Fiction:
I think Peter Abrahams' A Perfect Crime might be the best crime novel I've ever read. Complicated and darkly funny, with amazing dialogue, every word of it is a joy. I'll go ahead and say there are some pretty big coincidences in it that might stretch credulity, but I sit here the grandchild of two women who lived down the street from each other in Texas as little girls but never met until their children met in North Carolina and decided to get married, so coincidences don't bother me so much in fiction. Anyway, Abrahams has a bit of a Carl Hiaasen vibe, but with the zaniness taken down a notch. I will probably read all his work eventually, though for the moment I'm reading Michael Connelly's The Poet which is so far perfectly enjoyable if not quite as well-written as "A Perfect Crime."

Movie:
I went to London for a few weeks about a decade ago and while I was there, I got very sick. There was a Hitchcock movie marathon on and I watched a lot of it. For whatever reason Shadow of a Doubt was the one that really captured my imagination. I haven't seen it in some time, but if you're up for a low-key thriller you should really check it out. I loved it.

Song:

Coworker: When's your swearing-in?

Me: Halloween.

Coworker: You should get sworn-in in costume.

Me: I think I'm going to feel like I'm wearing a lawyer costume.

Coworker: Yeah, it always feels like that for awhile.

CC

Poetry.
First off, I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but PoemHunter.com just sent me this again. I like to use it as a chalice lighting for youth stuff, though I don't have it memorized:

Summons

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.

Robert Francis

Short Fiction.
I was facebook chatting with a friend and he told me about this short story. The ChaliceMom is a big O. Henry fan, but I don't recall reading that one in any of her collections, though I'm sure it was there. I've read what was essentially the same story in a Roald Dahl short story collection, but I liked O. Henry's version better.

Long fiction
I'm parway through Will Ferguson's Happiness but I don't know if I will make it all the way. Comic novels are often like cheesecake for me. Each individual bite is great, but at some point, ick. Still, the bites have been good so far.

I've also been rereading My Life and Loves by Frank Harris. I realize my love of bawdy novels is not a universal thing, but this one seriously isn't that bad and it is a great read.

Movies.
OK, I haven't SEEN this, but the preview makes it look like exactly my sort of thing


Short Non-Fiction
The Economist, of all places, gives a shoutout to people who talk the way I do.

Non-Fiction.
I know a lot of you have probably read Tender at the Bone but I was telling a friend about it the other day, so I thought I'd mention it here. It is the the memoir of a former food critic for the New York Times, and it isn't even about her food critic years, though she has written a good book about those too. I can't even really describe what I like about this book in that my memory is there are parts that arn't all that compelling. All lives have uninteresting years, I suppose. But when Reichel's life is interesting, it really is. Her childhood has some things in common with mine, which made that part an extremely compelling read.

Also, because I'm a huge nerd, I've been keeping Robert's Rules of Order for Dummies next to my bathtub for long sessions of bubble bath and procedural law. Don't knock it
'til ya tried it, kids.

Webcomics.
I've recently started reading Sex, Drugs and June Cleaver, mostly because I met the author at a con and became a big fan of her as a human being. I've been sticking some of my favorites from her archives on Facebook.

Shows.
I haven't been to a good gallery show in a long time, but I saw this at the National Gallery with Melina in May, and it is a great show. While it was too broad to be a good show for learning all that much about what I'm looking at and how it all connects, but I got to renew my crush on Modigliani, so that's something.
I feel like I'm a bad abstract expressionism fan if I don't make it up to the DeKooning show at MOMA before it closes at the end of the year, at the same time, I think I'd rather go see the Zaha Hadid show in Philly. If anybody wants to make plans to see either of those, I'm there. Seeing Mary-who-Dances and going to Fabulous Fanny's might make the DeKooning show a winner after all.

Blogs.
Too many to name, but I started reading this one today and have already learned a lot.

Music
I've been listening to a lot of Bird and the Bee recently:


CC
who is also on book four of the Dresden files, FWIW. I'm told they get better.

I've been going back and forth for nearly 48 hours over whether to write this.

That usually means I shouldn't.

But I was ready to drive home from work today and the sky opened up. A smarter person would use this valuable quiet office time to catch up on work, but I've had a pretty productive day and I don't think I'm going to.

Because something's bothering me.

I didn't realize how much really until I was thinking over a dream I had yesterday. In my dream someone was telling me how cold I was, a charge I've heard before though rarely from my own mind.

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 really didn't resonate with me. I'm a little weirded out, partially because I follow a lot of awesome and spiritual people on twitter. All of yesterday, my twitter feed and my facebook feed were an ever-pumping heart of emotion. Sadness, even despondency, at the loss, anger at the Bush administration, it was all there and vital and real.

I watched it all unmoved.

I retweeted something at some point about how we should watch porn to prove the terrorists didn't win. Over dinner, theCSO pointed out that they did win. I countered that they hadn't gotten exactly what they wanted to the degree that they wanted, but yeah, he has a point. Malcolm Gladwell argues in one of his books that the amount of time we spend on TSA related delays adds up to 14 lifetimes a year.
I don't take Malcolm Gladwell as fact, but that's at least truthy.

Even still, what's 14 lives? Seriously. 14 people will easily have died in the amount of time it takes you to read this blog post. Does it really matter if they choke on hamburgers or suffer kidney failure or die in a terrorist attack?

It isn't that national events don't effect me. A good look at my blog archive reveals a woman who kinda whacked out when Hurricane Katrina beat up the City of
New Orleans and the government left her for dead. Ok, that's not what happened, but that's still how it feels years later.

9-11 doesn't have that resonance for me. And I'm not sure why because the two events have a lot in common. I've never lived in New York like I did in New Orleans, but I like New York and strongly associate it with Mary-who-Dances. I do view both events as essentially natural disasters. I don't know that either disaster could have been prevented but strongly suspect not. I do know that both could have been handled a lot better in the aftermath.

Maybe it is just that I feel like America cared about 9-11 and I still have a sense of betrayal, just or no,* about New Orleans.

After Hurricane Katrina, one of my coworkers said "I hear there are people in New Orleans who are shooting at the cops."

I said something flip about them likely being the same crackheads who are always shooting at the cops, the only difference was that now the narrative was being used to let us think that the victims deserved what they got.

Ok, I don't think I put it that well at the time but it is what I meant and I think that might be part of what's bothering me. The huge line between mostly rich white people (like me) being unquestionably heroes and mostly poor black people (not like me) being looters and ungrateful and spendthrifts and everything else that was lobbied at them. (You think no 9/11 survivor got a boob job with some of the money? I suspect someone did, though I don't know. But we know for certain that a Katrina victim spent government aid money on one. The media made rather a big point of it.)

I love my friends and I'm sure a lot of the stuff that has been written about 9/11 is moving and awesome and helpful to the people for whom this crisis is still a real wound that is deeply felt. But the only thing I've read on the topic that has really meant anything to me was Laura Miller's essay Why we haven't seen a great 9-11 novel because she says what I've trying to articulate to myself for some time**:

a firefighter who dies trying to pull people from a garden-variety house fire in Queens is no less brave or heroic. The civilians who perish in that fire or in a six-car pileup caused by black ice on an interstate or in a boat caught in a sudden storm or in a massacre by a gun-toting maniac in an IHOP are just as dead and just as fiercely mourned by their friends and family as those who died on 9/11.

Miller goes on to say that 9/11 was a tragedy made to be a media spectacle, made to force us to look on a real-live Micheal Bay movie. Once you're past that, the deaths don't fundamentally differ from any other deaths, the heroism no different from any other heroism. And like for the rest of life, there is no easy narrative that perfectly suits what we've always thought politically, despite many people's desire to create one.

So, that's where I am on 9-11. And I know nobody was sitting on the edge of their seat going "but what does CHALICECHICK think about 9-11?" but I guess part of me needed to see someone other than Laura Miller be the cold one who doesn't quite get it.

CC

EDIT: I got a very kind and smart email from a nice person who pointed out that I am friended with a whole lot of ministers who were trying to reach out and care for those around them, something that it wasn't as much my job to do. That's an excellent point and one that should have been obvious to me, but wasn't.

*Yes, I'm aware that I'm the one who relentlessly pushes FBI statistics on crime in border towns and doesn't care how people *FEEL* about the crime rate due to immigration in the face of the fact that Arizona cities have comparitively low crime rates. The difference here is that I'm not trying to legislate my arguably irrational and unsupported-by-fact feelings. Arizonans did.

**To clarify, I recall being as upset as anybody else in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

Over the weekend I was on my church's retreat. Yes, we're a large church and we have one. We rent a YMCA camp.

We do a lot of workshops there. I taught one on Bellydancing (which I'm a relative newbie at) and making weird stuff out of duct tape (which longtime Chalicesseurs will know I'm pretty good at.)

There was also a discussion group with a church committee, part of which became about
growing the church.*

As a group, we seemed collectively nervous about the idea of evangelism. And I get that, because I am too. I've lived in the South, where people coming up to you and inviting you to go to church is a common thing. At the same time, the discussion made me think about how I evangelize other things in my life that I like and appreciate.

Point of fact, sometime last year, my husband and I discovered a kickass Thai restaurant. If you're in the DC area, you probably want to know that this place is called "Elephant Jumps"** I learned about the place at my old job. The owner was my boss' brother-in-law. TheCSO and I first went just to give them some business, but we were blown away with how good it was. It was the best curry I'd ever had, and I love curry. It was cheap, it was delicious and they had some Thai-American fusion dishes so we could even take our friends who view Thai food as gastronomically adventurous. (The ChaliceDad is one of those people.)

It was, in short, everything we wanted in a Thai restaurant. As new restaurants have a something like 50 percent survival rate in a good economy, it was very important to us that this place survive. Like a church, a restaurant must essentially grow to survive, especially in the DC area where lots of people are always moving away.

I used this example, though with less detail, in the discussion at the retreat. I said that theCSO and I made a concerted effort to spread the word about Elephant Jumps. At the same time, we didn't, and at this point I turned to address the guy sitting next to me, an occaisional Chalicesseur (Hi Tom!), and said "We don't say 'I'd like to tell you about my journey of personal growth that has lead me to a really good restaurant."

Everyone laughed, and I did say it in a funny way, but my fundamental point about evangelism was serious. We get so scared of evangelizing, but we do it all the time.

The thing is, I don't know that the type of evangelism that we're afraid of is the kind of evangelism we should be doing in the first place. Elephant Jumps didn't have a "bring a friend" day and theCSO and I never talked to strangers about it directly. I didn't wear a button that, symbolically or literally, said "Ask me about Elephant JUmps."

The owner of Elephant Jumps told us proudly recently that he's thinking of opening up a larger or second location. And, again, they opened in a terrible economy.

Anyway, here are the elements of the model I'm proposing, let's call it the
"Elephant Jumps model of Evangelising."

1. A kickass product.
We have an amazing interim minister. I've always thought this, but I realized how deeply I believed it when someone on facebook was looking for a DC church to visit. I looked up what the service was about and I found myself responding "My minister is preaching about Canada. I know that doesn't SOUND promising, but every service she gives is good."
I've rarely felt comfortable saying that so confidently. Indeed, the last time I've had a minister who was consistently thoughtful and awesome in the pulpit every single Sunday was when I was in Katy-the-Wise's congregation.
Now, I don't kick ass at my job every single day, though goodness knows I try. I assume even our minister has off days, but even if she should have one, our music director is so tremendous that I still feel confident saying "Come to my church and Sunday morning will rock." I don't say that if it's a lay service because we've had some mediocre lay services in the past. Mine may or my not be among their number.
But anyway, our church manages to have consistently awesome preaching, much like Elephant Jumps does consistently amazing things with tilapia.

I couldn't have evangelized about Elephant Jumps if they didn't have amazing food in the first place.

2. Get the word out to your friends.
This should not be an awkward discussion. IMHO, if it is awkward you're doing it wrong. If you had a fabulous meal at Elephant Jumps and someone were talking about good noodle dishes, you'd bring it up, right? Evangelism for church should work the same way. Saying something like "(My minister/this lady at my church/a religious education class I took) made the most fabulous point about that..." at a relevant point in a conversation about spirituality/life/etc is my favorite way to evangelize to friends. Don't make recruitment your goal. Make modeling how a person can be relgious without being a pain about it your goal. Don't go recruiting, but don't hide how much you like your church and how much it enriches your life.

You can invite people to church, of course, but I only do that when I'm pretty sure there's something the person I'm inviting would be specifically interested in and include a social thing with you afterwards. (E.g. "I know religion and homosexuality is something you're interested in. My church is doing a thing on that this Sunday. If you show up, I'll take you to brunch afterwards" or "Doing anything on Friday? I wrote a mystery story and I'm reading it at my church cabaret. Show up and we can go for dirnks afterwards.")


3. Get the word out in an even wider way.
My first step in getting the word out about Elephant Jumps wasn't even verbal, though I told lots of people about it in the ensuing week or two and have done so in small doses since. My first shoutout about Elephant Jumps was on on Yelp. As I've mentioned here before, I found my first UU church, Katy-the-Wise's, from their website. My latest bit of online evangelism is to tweet about awesome stuff I hear about in church using a hashtag for my church.
The spiffy thing about this is, I have some friends who do things like that too. We've formed what feels to me like the beginnings of an online religious community as we just tweet stuff that is meaningful to us. I love this because honestly having church be somewhere I can "check in" whenever I'm low on spiritual fuel is more important to me than having it as a place to go Sunday morning.***
More importantly, it sends the message "You think I'm cool enough to follow on Twitter, well, here's something I think is cool enough to write about."

Anyway, that's my plan for evangelizing a church. It's what I'm comfortable with, and honestly, it's what I feel would work for me. If I were looking for a church, I'd check it out online**** and when my friend was jazzed about how great his/her church, was, I'd listen.

It's not going on on street corners, but I really do think it could work.

CC


*there were also discussions about stuff like the Middle East, with guys who would be in a position to know. I personally couldn't deal with that at a retreat because my perception is that I start smelling like a horse within minutes of arrival, but I'm delighted that we have these things. One of the badass things about going to a large church is that we've got members who do all sorts of cool stuff for a living. If my church could figure out a way to use its human capital more efficiently, we would be in great shape to actually do awesome things in this world.

**If you know Northern VA and want to get specific, you know that place "Grevey's" in Meriffield near INOVA Fairfax? Same shopping center.

*** I know you may not agree. I do see the value of brick and morter churches, I just find words and ideas churches as valuable if not more so personally.

****Negative reviews online aren't inherently all that offputting to me. That someone would have a bad experience is going to happen. But positive reviews mean a lot to me. I don't yelp about every restaurant, I yelp about the ones that make the experience memorable.

I just left a long-winded one on The TogetherBoss Blog.

TogetherBeth has a blog now.

If you go there and my comment isn't up yet, feel free to come back and read her post again. Most people need to be told things multiple times these days.

Including me.

CC
who is having a long day.

Good job, Toyota's ad agency.

CC

I realize I owe y'all a post on the ethical eating project. But the question I've been asked most often in the last few days and some of the other related questions bear answering.

1. You sent me a google plus invite, what does that mean?

I like you and wish to remain connected with you and/or video chat with you at some point in the near future.

2. You didn't send *me* a google plus invite?

Either I didn't think you were into that sort of thing or I didn't feel like I knew you particularly well. If you want one, shoot me a facebook message. If we're not facebook friends, that's a big clue why I didn't think you'd be into that sort of thing.

3. What does google plus do?

It's a social networking site, kinda like Facebook.

4. Well, yes, but what does Google Plus do that Facebook doesn't?
A few things:

First of all, for legal types and other professional folks, being able to keep your work contacts separate from your social contacts is a lovely thing. Google Plus uses "circles" to make that easier. Arguably, if you don't want your parents to see something, you shouldn't be putting it on the internet in the first place, but if you like to keep your family stuff separate, that also is an option.

So far my favorite new feature is the "hangout" where you can announce yourself available to all your friends for video chat. I had a nice chat with a friend from college. Ok, slightly awkward, but nice. I'm really looking forward to using this for meetings in the future. I'm not sure I will keep it open most of the time, because I have stuff to do, but I will be trying it out over the next few weeks.

There's a feature called "sparks" that I haven't really explored yet. Something about sharing interests with other people. I will report when I figure it out.

So far, the most subtly striking feature I've seen is that any time I'm on gmail, I have notification box that lets me know that I've got a new message on plus. Given the number of people who use gmail for work, it is possible that staying off of google plus will rapidly become next to impossible for those of us with short attention spans.

5. How else does it differ from Facebook?
Well, as this XKCD comic indicates having a Facebook-like feel without being Facebook has some real advantages. The two primary things facebook has that google plus thus far lacks are annoying webgames and a willingness to hand out your private information like digital Halloween candy.

Of course, you're giving Google still more information about yourself, but at this point, it isn't like Google doesn't probably know everything about you that they want to. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Anyway, that's what I have to report. If you're on google plus, feel free to friend me. If not, I can't say that I see it as a lifechanging big deal so far.

6. Any implication for online connectivity among religious people so far?*
I've never had time to join a covenant group. I'd be interested in trying one one the "hangout" feature sometime. No, I don't think everybody's covenant group should be online. But I think it is worth a shot.

To me, at least, this video chat felt a little more natural. Goodness knows it is easier to use than most chat programs I've tried.

So that's that for now.

CC

*If you're new to my blog, one of my serious interests is religious faith in a digital world and the way technology can be used to form meaningful connections between people. I realize this is kinda weird if you only know me in a law school context.

"You look tired. You haven't been sleeping very well. If you're cussed enough to stick this one out I get it and I'll support you, but I think you've proved your point and I think this is starting to impact your performance on bar stuff. Ten days is plenty."

You know how a nuclear power plant has those control rods, and when they drop, the plant shuts down?

Those were the control rods.

He's right. I'm tired. I did the best I could and I stuck it out for almost ten days. But I've eaten a buck and a half's worth of food today, and that isn't enough to study for the bar on.

I do have thoughts, and lessons, and other debriefing stuff. I'll write it later. Suffice to say, were I not studying for the bar, I could do this. If I started over knowing some of the stuff I know now, I could do this. I'm sure if I were a better cook or had more time, I could do this.

But right at this moment, I can't do this.

Sorry, guys.

Suffice to say, I am sure there are people who can do this, who are used to eating ethically on a small budget. But it is a lot to ask.

CC

Ps. I didn't tell theCSO that the moment he said "I notice this is affecting you in a way that could impact bar stuff" I was quitting but that was always the plan.

Sorry for the late update.

Today I had my study group over, so I'm counting what I fed them, too. I skipped breakfast and the lot of us ate a box of quinoa pasta and half a jar of organic spaghetti sauce.

Quinoa ...............................4.39 (The CSO had some, but I'm charging myself for his too.)
Half jar of Organic pasta sauce.......1.48
Cheese bread..........................3.25

I drank skim milk......................47
One of my friends had a coke...........60

The other friend brought her own beverage. They also brought rice crispy treats and strawberries.

Luckily quinoa really sticks to one's ribs, so I just had two ears of corn on the cob and some more milk for dinner:

2 ears corn on the cob @ .50 ..........1.00
2 cups skim milk.......................94

Total for day: 12.13

Remaining money: 25.17


So I entertained and everybody ate pretty well. But I still have several days left and not a lot of money to spend on them.

In the comments a few days back, Dancin' Hippie pointed out that I have been getting a lot of my protein from peanut butter and that a lot of people with kids can't send them to school with peanut butter sandwiches. I thought that was a really good point and wanted to share it.

Also, Heather suggested I eat more eggs as they are a cheap protein. That was a good suggestion and I'm planning to eat more eggs in this final stretch when the money is really tight.

CC

Headed out so I figured I would go ahead and track since I'm done eating for the day.

Breakfast and lunch:

Three cups organic cereal @ .46 apiece -- $1.38
Two cups fat free organic skim milk -- .94

Tomato ------------------------------- .80

Dinner:

Cage free eggs, scrambled -- $1.23
Milk in preparation --- $.15

Bread for toast---- $.20

Two more cups of milk $.94


Total for the day--$5.64

Remaining money -- $37.30

Headed to the movies so I will make this quick:

We had a lazy day around the house with more snacking than meals.

I ate two tomatoes, an energy bar, a can of veggie chili, some macaroni, two slices of bread with jam and quark and a veggie corn dog.

I think this is about seven bucks worth. Will do the math after the movie or tomorrow.

Sent from my iPhone


Two organic tomatoes @ .80 ---- 1.60
Veggie chili---------------------2.69
Energy bar------------------------.50
Macaroni---------------------------.75
Veggie Corn Dog-------------------1.17
Two slices bread-----------------.40
1/3 small container of quark cheese 1.25
1/3 small container of raspberry jam 1.35


9.71 oops.

Remaining money - 43.94

More on this tonight.

Ok, have some questions that people have emailed/chatted/facebook messaged to me.

What's the deal with not tracking when you're at a friend's?

Because I don't want to be the person who comes over to your house and says "this is what I eat" unless I have a really good reason. This is a perfectly fine thing to do myself but I don't want to impose it on my friends, husband or dog.* TheCSO, FWIW, thinks this is unreasonably restrictive of me in that lots of people say "this is what I eat." And yeah, I don't care if people say "this is what I eat" for:

(a) Health reasons
(b) Religious Reasons (i.e. Halal or Kosher, less so "my religion is boycotting tomatoes this week.")
(c) Permanent dietary choices (or even people who observe "meatless Mondays.") As long as it is a long term commitment thing. This is not me trying to be a bitch about other people's choices, it is just a massive convenience thing for my friends. For example, FortiesGirl keeps reform kosher. She's one of my best buds, so I keep Kosher food around. When I say "Hey Fortiesgirl, wanna stay for dinner?" I know that means I'm making kosher food for dinner. Similarly, Jana-who-creates is allergic to cinnamon. I've got friends who are in recovery. All of that is A-ok because I know what to expect because all of them are permanent conditions.

If I decided to say, go vegan, I'd just say "I'm a vegan now" and all my friends would know what to feed me. If three months later I was like "Yeah, turns out I like bacon. I eat meat again now," fine.*** But for me to be like "I'm only eating Organic or Local or Fairtrade food unless none is an option and no overfished fish and meat only once a day and you need to keep track of every penny you spend on me so I can put it on the internet" would be well, weird. Can't have that.

So yeah, that's my justification. If you think it sucks, what can I say? Start your own damn ethical eating project. If it helps, I'm having some friends over to study next Tuesday. We're going to eat spaghetti and I'm going to charge myself for everybody's food.



Can your husband buy you food? What about food you already own, do you have to pay for that?


Second question first, if you're taking the bar exam, all I need to tell you is that I'm using cash accounting rather than accrual accounting.

Ahem.

Ok, for the lucky rest of you, that means I charge myself for something when I eat it. Not when I buy it.** Therefore, I am eating the organic peanut butter that we already had. But I called up Trader Joe's and I found how much they charge for it and am billing myself equivalently. If theCSO and I split a large container of soup in roughly equal portions, I'm charging half of what we paid for the soup.

That also answers the first question. Even if theCSO bought the food and put it in the fridge, when I take it out and consume it, I'm charging myself. FWIW, despite the fact that I am eating what people serve me when I go over to friends' houses, I'm not actively trying to beat my own system. That would be silly. So yeah, I'm not going to be like "I ate a steak because my husband bought it for me." That's just straight up cheating.


You're not eating many vegetables.

No, I'm not. Tomorrow is the farmer's market. I've been eating extra cheaply this week because I'd like to add an additional $20 worth of ethically-compliant vegetables to my diet next week. But I will suspect that one of the major hypothoses I will have at the end of this is that one can eat ethically, eat within food stamp requirements or eat healthily, pick at most two.


Why do this so close to the bar?

Honestly, because a few days after the bar, LinguistFriend is moving in with us. I didn't want him to have to put up with these restrictions. TheCSO has been really tolerant. Also, because poor people have busy lives too. If I had tons of extra time to lavish on this project, I wouldn't be doing it justice as a model.

How come it is seven o'clock and you haven't updated?

I eat late and I'm busy. Expect updates at circa ten p.m.

Do you have something planned for the day you finish?

No. I'm fond of those Brazilian steakhouses, but I decided having something food-wise to look forward to that was off the plan was a violation of the spirit of the project.

Poor people who are trying to eat ethically don't have a magical day ten days away when they will get to go to a Brazilian Steakhouse. Why should I?

What I miss most, and this is very sad, are microwave burritos and Lean Cuisine. Bar prep tends to get me home around twoish and I really like coming home and eating lunch five minutes later. That is most easily achieved with sandwiches and I'm tired of them already.

Sermon over, on to today's stats:

Breakfast, as it were: (190 calories each)
Energy bar 2 @ .50 1

Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwich made of:
Two tablespoons organic peanut butter @ .28 (200 calories)
Two tablespoons organic raspberry spread @ .47 (45 calories)
Two slices of organic bread @ .20 each (110 each)

Dinner:
Sloppy Joe leftovers
Vegetarian sloppy joe sauce 3/4 cup 1.00 (120 calories)
Veggie faux meat crumbles 1/3 package 2.00 (200 calories)
Two slices of organic bread @ .20 each (110 each)

Skim Milk: .94 (172 calories)

Tomato soup: 1.59

________________________________________________

Total for the day: *7.88
Remaining money: $70.15


Tomorrow: The


*Organic dog food is a thing, but it is not covered by foodstamps.

** Do not treat this as a gospel example of the cash method of accounting. It is more of a metaphor.

*** FWIW, I have a permanent preference not to eat veal or foie gras because they depress me and I make efforts to avoid overfished fish even when I'm just eating regularly. And okra is gross.

Three energy bars for breakfast

Clam chowder and three cups of skim milk for lunch.

Going to a friend's house for dinner. Won't track there.

CC

Sent from my iPhone


Breakfast:
Three energy bars (570 cal) 1.50

Lunch:
Can of clam chowder (280 calories) 1.50
One organic tomato @ .80 (22 calories)

Total for the day: 3.80

Remaining money: $78.03


ADDED LATER: As Cubit pointed out in the comments, I had the wrong day. Ate pretty simple stuff today then had dinner at a friend's. I had wondered if I would eat a lot more the first time I had the chance to eat for free. I really didn't.

Will update numbers and stats tomorrow.

Yesterday was great as far as money went, but I found myself really exhausted. 1400 calories a day is not a starvation diet by any means and it could just be that I'm adjusting to a different diet or didn't sleep well, but to be on the safe side, I decided to try to eat a bit more protein. Probably some more vegetables will help with my alertness.


Breakfast, as it were: (190 calories each)
Energy bar 2 @ .50 1

Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwich made of:
Two tablespoons organic peanut butter @ .28 (200 calories)
Two tablespoons organic raspberry spread @ .47 (45 calories)
Two slices of organic bread @ .20 each (110 each)

1/2 cup organic applesauce .23 (40 calories)

2 Cups of organic skim milk (for preparation, drank the rest) .94 (172 calories)


Dinner
Vegetarian sloppy joe sauce 3/4 cup 1.00 (120 calories)
Veggie faux meat crumbles 1/3 package 2.00 (200 calories)
Two slices of organic bread @ .20 each (110 each)

Cup of organic skim milk .47 (86 calories)

Calories: 1,683

Money spent 6.99

Money remaining: 81.83

Level of suck: Tonight was ok. I'm getting tired of peanut butter for lunch, though. The fat free organic skim milk adds a lot to my enjoyment of my meals.

Part one analysis: Good, although I'm not actually sure the tomatoes in the sloppy joe sauce were organic.

Part two analysis: Eating more did cost more, but I'm still saving up for my trip to the Farmer's market.

First off, thanks for all the comments and love on the overview post, and thanks for the emails and facebook messages. A couple of general points in response:

-The big one is the food desert. Fresh fruits and veggies are hard to get in the city. Lots of people have suggested farmer's markets and I plan to hit one on Saturday, but while I'm not going to make any serious attempt to simulate a food desert, I'm not going to go really far out of my way to make it to a Farmer's market before one comes to my neighborhood. There are two within walking distance (ok, anyplace is within walking distance if you have the time but these are within three miles) McLean's is Fridays and Falls Church's is Saturday's. I have to be downtown on Friday mornings for bar prep so the Saturday market it is.

-Preparation time is also an issue. I'm studying for the bar. When I'm not studying for the bar, I'm reading Harry Potter fanfic, writing self-pitying emails about how I can't concentrate and having sociological debates on Facebook. I like to cook but I don't cook much for myself. My guess is that folks on food stamps also often have this issue, too, so in a sense not going overboard with cooking is a hat tip to the part 2 analysis.

-TheCSO wanted to know about food that is being thrown away. If someone is about to throw away a sandwich, does that sandwich have to be organic for me to eat it? I've consulted the statement of conscience and decided that it is OK for me to eat the occasional thing that was about to be thrown out, but I may revisit that if I find myself abusing the privilege. (Hey, if I don't drink this can of Ginger Ale I opened and left on my own coffee table this morning, it's just going to waste...) I'm planning to do the same thing for friend's houses. As in, if I go to dinner at someone's house, I'm going to eat what they serve. People on food stamps are dinner guests too sometimes, and I have no intention of showing up and being like "Oh, by the way, this is what I eat this week" because I hate those people.

Honestly, the people most likely to invite me over are Fortiesgirl and Cerulean anyway and they're the sort of people who would regard this eating challenge as a chance to try out this great new recipe they have for gruel.*

Now today had a special challenge, a birthday party for a judge I used to work for. It was in a dive bar I love with amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. (Yes, the buried lede there is that I used to work for a judge so awesome that his birthday is in a dive bar. Indeed, I will venture to guess that this might have been the loudest judicial birthday party DC will see all year.)

My plan was have a beer. Dive bar beers are like three bucks. Guinness calls itself "a meal in a glass," right? So I ate very carefully all day, and like a happy little lamb I marched up to the slaughterhouse that was the Judge's birthday party.

It was right about when I hit the door that it occurred to me.

Per part 1, my beer needed to be organic.

Mother fuck**

I ate nada.

Not even cake.

Luckily I have the fat girl advantage as far as turning down cake. Everybody loves a fat girl who turns down cake. "Bless her heart," they think, "She's trying." I actually saw the skinny wife of another judge pressured in to cake. When I said "no thanks," my refusal was enthusiastically accepted.

Anyhow, here are my stats for the day:



Breakfast, as it were: (190 calories)
Energy bar @ .50

Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwich made of:
Two tablespoons organic peanut butter @ .28 (200 calories)
Two tablespoons organic raspberry spread @ .47 (45 calories)
Two slices of bread @ .20 each (110 each)

1/2 cup organic applesauce .23 (40 calories)

Dinner
Box nature's promise organic macaroni and cheese: 1.59 (675 calories)
Cup of organic skim milk (for preparation, drank the rest) .47 (86 calories)


Daily Subtotal $3.94

Remaining amount in budget: $88.12

Approximate calories consumed: 1,417


Level of suck: A lot better than yesterday. It's hard to feel anything but awesome when you just ate a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese. Missing out on the grilled cheese and beers sucked at the time, but sweet mother of all that's swell that fake cheese powder over organic noodles made me happy.

Part 1 analysis: Pretty much perfect. Literally ever crumb that went into my body was organic today. I also didn't eat any meat.

Part 2 analysis: I totally get why poor people don't eat enough vegetables.

CC


*Ok, truth is I've been meaning to try gruel since I read "Emma." I love Mr. Wodehouse. My interpretation is that it isn't that he's really a hypochondriac, he just hates change. As often as I advocate for change in things when I think it is the right thing to do, in my heart of hearts I can't stand it, which is why Mr. Wodehouse and I could totally be friends.

** If you're new to the Chaliceblog, you will find that I curse a lot. Most often in my head, but what I write in my head ends up here. I also curse at the youth a lot, but my church will tolerate a lot from anyone willing to spend a weekend sleeping on a floor with the youth group.

The major coup of the day (which actually occurred yesterday) was expired energy bars.

I know, kinda questionable, right? But I know a place that sells energy bars that are about to expire for 50 cents. I poked around there and found some organic ones. So I picked up quite a few. I probably won't make it to a Farmer's Market until Wednesday at earliest, so I had to content myself with some canned vegetables and one fresh tomato. I'm hoping that I will be able to do some good soups in the slow cooker once I make it to a farmer's market.

Anyway, here's what I ate and how much it cost: (calories)

Breakfast, as it were: (190 calories each)
Two energy bars @ .50 1

Lunch:
Tomato sandwich made of: 1.20
One organic tomato @ .80 (22 calories)
Two slices of bread @ .20 each (110 each)

Can of clam chowder* (280 calories) 1.50

Dinner
Half can of vegetarian organic refried beans (140) .75
EVOL Bean and Cheese Burrito (440) 3.49


Daily Subtotal $7.94

Remaining amount in budget: $92.06


Approximate calories consumed: 1,482

Level of suck: So far, I'm ok, if a little hungry. I'm going to hold off on seeing if I need to eat another energy bar. If I do, I will come back and charge myself for it.

Part 1 analysis: I'm doing pretty well on the Ethical eating part. I'm probably eating more animal products than would be ideal, but for a first day's efforts, this seems pretty good.

Part 2 analysis: I was a little over eighty cents over budget. Not a big deal, but I need to figure out ways to eat about ten percent less expensively. The energy bars were a real find but probably shouldn't have had the burrito.


CC

*Clams compassionately gathered, rest of soup organic. Clams are ok to eat from a sustainable fishing standpoint and I'm not sure how you'd mistreat a clam anyway. This soup is at Trader Joe's and I loved it, FWIW.

First some background: at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, we passed a Statement of Conscience on Ethical Eating. I didn't like it. Here is the draft closest to what we passed, though a few mostly superficial amendments were adopted from the floor. Kinsi had a nice discussion of the class issues in the first draft. There were some changes made to that draft (reflected in the draft at the first link) to at least tone down the overall elitist feel of the thing. To my reading, it still doesn't reflect a real understanding of how difficult this stuff actually is if you aren't upper middle class. Further, it was clear from the overall tone of the debate on the floor that people just didn't get what a privileged position we were speaking from.

In response, the (total cutie) Rev. Nate Walker issued the following challenge:



(Summary: Just as an experiment: try to live on the amount of money that folks on food stamps have to live on.)

What the Rev. Walker didn't do was actually put the two ideas together. What if someone on food stamps actually tried to live by our statement of conscience?

Now, "living by the statement of conscience" is something of a misnomer in that the statement of conscience itself doesn't list any real edicts, though goodness knows the vegetarians gave adding them a shot.

So, I've reviewed the latest draft of the statement I could find, and made the following food policies for myself that I plan to stick with for the next couple of weeks:

1. Eat meat (or chicken or fish) at most once a day
2. Only buy animal products that certify the animals have been well-treated.*
3. Buy Organic whenever possible**
4. Buy Local whenever possible.
5. Buy Fair trade whenever possible.
6. Eating Communally (Ok, I'm not even sure what this means so I'm honestly not doing it.)
7. Eat in quantities that do not lead to obesity.

So that's half of my project. Virginia's food stamp guidelines are relatively straightforward in forming the other half of my project:

Items that can be purchased with SNAP include:

Food or food products meant to be eaten by people
Vegetable seeds and food producing plants, roots, and trees for family consumption
Baby formula, diabetic, and diet foods
Edible items used in preparing or preserving food such as spices and herbs,
pectin, and shortening
Water and ice labeled for human consumption
Snack foods
Meals delivered to elderly or disabled SNAP recipients if the organization providing the meal is authorized to accept EBT cards

Items that cannot be purchased with benefits include:

Prepared hot foods in grocery stores
Any prepared food (hot or cold) sold and meant to be eaten at the store
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco
Cleaning products, paper products, toiletries, and cooking utensils
Pet foods
Items for food preservation such as canning jars and lids, freezer containers, or food wrapping paper
Medicines, vitamins or minerals***
Items for gardening such as fertilizer and peat moss

I will add that I'm going to try to not eat out and if I do, the cost of whatever I order will come out of my budget. I realize food stamps can't be used to eat out at all, but I'm not completely screwing my social life just for this experiment. Also, if I find that this stuff is seriously getting in the way of studying for the bar, I will quit.

So there we go. TheCSO doesn't have to do this and the number of business lunches he eats would make it impractical, so I'm doing this by myself. Thus my budget is the amount of food stamps given to a single person: $200 per month or $100 for the two weeks I'm hoping to stick to this.

I haven't figured out what I will do if I go over to a friend's for dinner, money-wise or diet-wise.

I've eaten only ethical food today and have kept track of what I've spent on it and I will post an update tonight with how my first day went.

Cheap recipes very welcome.

FWIW, I have read the Rev. Naomi King's excellent fleshing out of the food stamp challenge. But I'm not living by it. Her points are well taken, though. My suburban self will have lots of choices that people who live in economically disadvantaged areas don't have. I will have in the back of my head that if I say to my husband "Screw this, let's go get some steaks," he will agree. Hell, I will have the car for the trips to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's this will require.

So whatever I do and however much I complain, keep in mind that I'm still doing a really privileged version of this.

Again, cheap recipes welcome.

CC

*I'm granting myself a de minimis exception here. That's lawyer for "If the energy bar has a thin layer of milk chocolate and I have no way of knowing how the cow that made the tiny amount of milk that is in the small amount of milk chocolate was treated, I'm granting myself a pass on worrying about it."

** 3, 4, and to a lesser degree 5 conflict a lot. (My whole foods has organic tomatoes and local tomatoes, but none that are both. A purist would likely not buy tomatoes at all, but even the statement doesn't demand purism, so I just picked one.)

*** I am continuing to take medication and vitamins and I'm not taking the cost of them out of my budget.


(ADDED: Sara, I hit the wrong button and deleted your comment by accident. Your encouragement is appreciated, I'm just an idiot.)

So, I'm graduating today. And I'm all weird about it. Chalicessuers, and I do thank those of you who are still around, know that ritual has never been my thing. It still isn't. This morning I'm wondering if I should wear heavy makeup for long-distance photos or lighter makeup for closer-in photos, which is not to say I want any photos at all. Which fashion concessions do I make to formality and which to sitting in 80 degree heat, and will they be immaterial once I'm wearing a robe?

And why does my father, a stroke patient who has a lot of trouble walking without assistance, feel the need to show up at all? Doesn't he remember how graduations suck and how he hates that sort of thing? We all hate that sort of thing, don't we?

After my swearing-in that will be (knock wood) in October, my friend is throwing a cocktail reception. The air will be cool, the photographs will be minimal and the there will be wine. I have remained staunchly agnostic on the graduation attendance of every specific friend or relative who has asked given that I have this alternate event that will be a celebration of the true end of my "becoming a lawyer" experience and will suck a lot less to attend. Cerulean and Forties Girl still might be coming to the graduation, though Jana-who-Creates is wisely waiting for the wine and cheese.

I like the idea that the bar is in July and the party will be (again, knock wood, I realize I'm smart but this is a hard test) in October. It will give me time to reflect on the bar and to get some distance from the tremendous suck that is bar study, though the Rev. Dr. Lifecoach has been making a bad time better by talking me through the process.* I turned in my last thing for law school last Monday, as in, May 16. I haven't had that distance here. Indeed, I was in a clinical program, which is the wussier lawyer version of a medical residency, and it was a truly grueling amount of work. AND in the end I didn't get the grade I wanted.

So at the moment, Graduation feels like "a celebration that Chalicechick no longer has to hit herself in the face with a hammer every goddamned day."

I suppose that alone is worth wearing a moderate amount of makeup and nice shoes.

CC

*If you're reading this, I have started the flashcards.

At about 5:00pm today, I finished law school. Like, emailed in my last bit of work for my clinical program. Then a client called. But by six, i was gone

At 9:30am tomorrow, my bar prep class for the Virginia Bar Exam begins, either right on time or a week late for the early bar prep portion, depending upon one's perspective. I'm taking bar prep with WickedSmartBetsy, my case team partner from Clinic.

So far, there's been an online video intro by a lady who uses the word "physically" excessively.

Updates are probably going to be sporadic for the Chaliceblog, probably from now on. But I'm guessing you knew that by now.

CC

Anybody going to Arisia? I'm going to be there for a couple of days...

CC

I'm not the easiest girl to appall. But I'm appalled.

CC

Ps. I googled the lady who left that book review and discovered she is your basic troll who wanders around the internet posting nastiness wherever she can. For example, she really doesn't like Jews.

I mentioned that I was concerned that damn near anything could look like "reasonable suspicion" to justify the sort of police stops allowed under the law. My example at the time was that if a woman were dressed up and headed to her favorite nightclub, there might be "reasonable suspicion" that a sexily-dressed woman walking down the street late at night was a hooker and that would be enough to stop her under the law*.

I was totally underestimating the creativity of our nation's law enforcement professionals. Police in Philly have twice arrested this poor bastard for loitering--at a bus stop.

So, yeah, my faith that the words "Reasonable suspicion" have any meaning at all in Arizona is pretty lacking.

CC



*Somehow I doubt there has been a spike in the deportation of sexy people since, but it seemed like a good example at the time.

Remember how I mocked Keith Olbermann mercilessly when he ranted that the fake twitter feed in his name was the tool of a Republican conspiracy, and it turned out that the twitter feed was being written by his own network's publicists?

Yeah, that was funny.

Anyway, it is Glenn Beck's turn. My husband reads lots of web-produced comics written by big nerds. (The best of which, as far as I'm concerned, is XKCD.) A bunch of webcomic artists got together and wrote a book called Machine of Death about the personal societal impacts of a machine that can predict the method of an individual's death. And they publicized it on their comics, asking people to buy a copy on October 26, the release date, to see if they could get it to #1 on Amazon.

LOTS of people did.

However, October 26 was the release date of Glenn Beck's new book, and he was not happy to have been beaten by both "Machine of Death" AND Keith Richards' auobiography. He has turned this into a new rant topic, hinting at both a huge conspiracy and/or a sick society for his loss. Being beat out by a rock star I suspect he could have dealt with, but being beaten out by a dozen sci-fi-short-story-writing weirdoes was just too much for Mr. Beck's ego to take.

Now, Micheal Moore did essentially the same thing when "Canadian Bacon" flopped, with an even heavier dose of implied conspiracy, so I'm left with the conclusion that pundits are nuts and people should read the news for themselves and make their own decisions.

Which is, admittedly, what I thought in the first place.

CC

though I'm kind of embarrassed at my own results.


CC

The upcoming "Rally to Restore Sanity" in DC this weekend is kind of a big deal to a lot of my Washingtonian friends. I don't fundamentally believe in political protests. It will be the first political march I've attended since college for a purpose other than keeping somebody else out of trouble. We've got a dude driving up from North Carolina just to attend.

Anyway, even reporters want to go. But when you're a reporter, that's just not that simple

NPR has asked its employees not to attend unless they are covering it.

The Washington Post says its staffers can attend, but not actively participate.

And yes, the local alternative paper has a policy mocking the bigger news outlets'policies, because that's how they roll.

But seriously, this "don't do overly political stuff that will cheese your sources off if you want to get good information out of them" is not a new thing just invented to persecute Juan Williams.

CC

Lots of smart people I like having been writing about Juan Williams. If you don't know, he was an NPR reporter who was fired for admitting on national television that he is uncomfortable when he sees someone on an airplane in Muslim garb.*

Should he have been fired for expressing controversial views?

Personally, I'm asking the question this way: How are Williams' future interviews with Muslim sources likely to go? Even if they make nice with him and try to be understanding, hasn't Williams pretty much completely hosed his chances of having a Muslim source or someone else who thinks he's a racist trust him and open up to him in the future?

That is the crux of why reporters aren't supposed to do what Williams did.

Example from my own brief journalism career: One time, a county official was ranting (in a private conversation with me) about how the departing Clinton staffers had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars in White House property during the Clinton/Bush transition. I said simply that I'd read that the GAO did an investigation and concluded that the damage and missing items were minimal, costing less than the GAO investigation itself.

This guy didn't argue with me then, but never took another one of my calls or gave me any more information and it seriously screwed with my ability to write stories having anything to do with his area of authority in his part of the county. (In a small town, one guy can easily be the hub of information on a given subject.) Eventually, my editor took that beat away from me and gave it to the new reporter. He would talk to the new reporter.

I still think what that guy did was completely insane. I was very young then and remain fairly blunt now, but I don't think I was in any way rude about what I'd said. I really don't think I even gave my own opinion, I simply pointed out in a private conversation that the GAO report disagreed with his assertions. And it cost me my beat and made me look very bad in front of my editor.

So yeah, that kinda stuff happens to reporters, and I can certainly see how what Juan Williams did would seriously hamper his ability to do his job. His comments on national TV hampered also showed that he is a dude with seriously poor judgment willing to do things that hamper his ability to do his job. Y'all know what the state of journalism is these days. Is it really so surprising that his actions go him canned?

Of course, now he works for Fox, where getting the other side of the story from a Muslim source likely won't be that big a part of his job.

CC

*Of course, the 9-11 hijackers didn't wear Muslim garb, they dressed to fit in with other people on the plane. This was the first thing that made me wonder about Williams as a reporter.

Co-worker: What's a word that means you can only deal with one thing at a time?

Me: Monomaniacal?

Co-worker: No, like, a normal person word.

Me: Focused?

Co-worker: Yeah, that's good.

I've been decluttering the house recently and having trouble with the whole "defining clutter" aspect.

This blog post was helpful with that.

CC

Desmond Ravenstone has about the most useful post I've seen on the It Gets Better line of thinking. I've had complicated feelings about that campaign in that I certainly agree that things get better. If life after high school doesn't get better for any given person something's very wrong. But it does seems like a pretty passive strategy, and Ravenstone encourages all of us to seek out some more active participation.

A young adult rights about the experience of being one of the few young adults in a church. I don't agree with everything he says. But I think he makes a lot of valid points.

CC
who as a very young twentysomething in grad school, liked the "a few hundred aunts and uncles" feel of an older congregation, but this dynamic is surely not for everybody and it got, well, old.

Read all about it.

I don't know if I'm more annoyed that someone who made her money raising unrealistic expectations about romance is now profiting off the inevitable result of unrealistic romantics getting married or that divorce is STILL this woman's schtick.

Either way, Nora Ephron sucks.

CC

Click here.


CC
who had never heard of these laws until tonight.

"You know what’s not fun, ever? PROTESTS. There’s a reason people used to laugh at liberals, in the 1980s and 1990s: Because liberals did the protests, and protests are Earnest & Boring, unless they are Dramatic & Violent, or happened back when Protest People had dignity & self respect (Civil Rights & MLK Jr., Velvet Revolution, etc.) or at least had lots of super-fine hippie chicks and Black Panthers with enormous super-cool ‘fros. Now everybody’s ugly and dull. Sure, the Teabagger folks are also obese, racist and terribly old, so they have funnier protests. But when you go somewhere with a slogan on a sign, nobody wins." Source.

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I've been thinking about James O'Keefe and why it is that everybody looks so incriminating on his videos, yet nobody gets prosecuted when the situation is investigated.

It's because they go along.

We all do it. In the part of DC where my law school is, people coming up to you and yelling at you about their issue of choice is pretty much chronic. And do you argue? Of course not.

When a guy comes up to you and tells you how, say, the Army implanted a signaling device in his leg in Vietnam in 1978 and has been controlling his actions ever since,* you don't say "What motivation would the government have to do that?" You don't even say "We pulled out of Vietnam in 1975."

You just smile and nod, or furrow your eyebrows and nod in that specific case, act like you are interested in this person's drama and would help if you could because that's the quickest way to get someone like that to leave you alone.

Similarly, when I was a political fundraiser, I heard "I'm giving this to your candidate because his opponent wants to..." followed by some crazy rumor all the time. At that point, my job was not to evaluate the person's reasons for giving my candidate money, it was to take the money and smile and nod and validate their reasons for giving it.

So when James O'Keefe shows up dressed like a fratboy pimp wannabee says he wants advice on opening a prostitution ring that he has no apparent resources to open or well thought out plan for opening**, people (except for that one guy) don't think "oh, my gosh, this man is a threat to society" they think "how to I get this whackjob out of my office?" No ACORN staffer ever actually helped them at all. Some staffers actually gave them bad tax advice that would attract IRS attention. One staffer screwed around with them and claimed to have killed people herself.

Mostly, they smiled and nodded and went along.

And when O'Keefe called up Planned Parenthood and offered them a donation to be expressly used on aborting minority babies, the fundraising person thought "A donation's a donation" and took the money.

Nobody actually did anything wrong, but because smiling and nodding looks like agreement, they looked terrible on video and they all got fired.

I think one reason why this story bothered me, and keeps bothering me, as that I've dealt with this situation both as a fundraiser and as someone who is supposed to help the general public. I worked for a government agency at one point and I got all those calls all the time. I would patiently explain that if the Post Office was discriminating against them because they were Italian*** that they should call 888-EEO-USPS and speak with the Post Office's EEO officers, who were specifically tasked with dealing with that sort of complaint and could talk them through the process of filing a formal complaint that would get the Post Office's attention. I would say there was nothing anyone in my office could directly do to help them because USPS cases weren't in our jurisdiction. When they said, no, no, I had to help them because calling the EEO office never worked, I would ask if they had tried the Post Office's EEO office.

They would then ask to speak to my boss, who would listen to their complaints about how I was incompetent. He often then gave the call to the most shameless person in our office, the guy who liked to tell people they were describing the worst human rights violation he'd every heard and give them the number to the United Nations.

They loved that guy. My boss was, all things considered, very understanding about the fact that I kept trying to give them information that actually helped them, rather than being the sort of encouraging-but-unhelpful that they wanted to hear and that made them happy.

My weasel co-worker spent a lot less time on the phone. But if O'Keefe had ever called, he's the one who would have ended up on the video. Of course, I'm the one would would have taken the check from the crazy person as a fundraiser.

These days we really have to consider the O'Keefe factor, even in our churches. If a pregnant teenage girl comes to a UU minister and asks for help because her older boyfriend got her pregnant and she wants an abortion but feels like she can't tell her parents, we could be the next ones on the news accused of promoting child rape if we give her the help she's asking for. I honestly don't know if at this point I would advise people to smile and nod or to actually be helpful or what to do. In some jobs, just telling people what they want to hear is by far the best way to get through the day, but the person on the other end of the line could always be James O'Keefe.


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* Actual claim made by guy on street to CC at one point.

** Oh, and most of the time he didn't even say that. In the transcript at the link, he is asking ACORN about the best way for his prostitute girlfriend to pay taxes. That's all, no prostitution ring even came up.

*** Not an exact claim I ever heard, but representative.

He should know by now that he's known for lying with video and on video. I'd like to think his shenanigans wouldn't have worked, but maybe a few of the people who believed the ACORN videos might have bought it.

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Awesome.

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Recording the cops during a traffic stop is obviously legal but it is nice that a judge agree.

Woot!

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"I hear you're having a sign-making party for John Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity," the lady at church whom I'd seen around but never met said.

"I'm thinking about it, but I'm trying to talk someone who lives closer in to having it." I said.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if the church could sponsor a sign-making party or let people from out of town stay here for it?"

"Actually, I don't really think it would. I don't see this rally as problematic, but I'm worried that sign-making parties and lending the church to protesters would become a regular thing for liberal political rallies and I think that would be a bad trend for our church. I think we should leave the sign-making and such to individuals. But feel free to ask the minister about it. She might not agree with me." I said.

The woman hadn't been expecting to be disagreed with. It really took her aback.

"Oh, I'm sure people would understand that this is a different sort of rally."

"I perceive that this is a different sort of rally, but someone who is passionate about immigration who wants to hold an event for an immigration rally or some such would likely feel differently. It just seems like a bad precedent to set, but again, the minister might disagree. You should ask."

"But..."

And it went on like that for while.

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A few weeks ago, Chalicesseur TK wrote me a note suggesting that I write about these UUs who leave water in the desert for humanitarian reasons. They were recently tried for littering. As far as I can tell, they were guilty under the law as the law doesn't provide an exception for "humanitarian littering."

They got off on a technicality. I'm not going to cry about that.

While I'm sure that a legislator who is smarter than I am could craft an exception that lets one throw water bottle out one's window for humanitarian reasons, but would still cover littering, I don't see Arizona voters/legislators letting it become law.

I agree with the article that this is a bittersweet ending, at best.

One time, my brother got out of jail and Epilonious left a comment on this blog reading "Congratusorry."

That's about where I am. Congratusorry, Tuson UUs.

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Who doesn't see this as the church involving itself in politics unreasonably, FWIW.

Sorry it has been an unofficial hiatus. I'm conflicted every time life gets busy because while leaving with no explanation seems rather rude, to me people who post something along the lines of "I'm cutting back on my blogging and feel the need to tell you so" every few weeks are worse. It always feels like people on BBses who would lose an argument, announce grandly that they were leaving and then be back to posting within days.

Of course, it is possible that I shouldn't worry so much about what people think of me, a criticism that has been made of me before. (The reverse criticism has, of course, also been made.)

Life goes on. TheCSO and LinguistFriend are well. Joe the Math guy is fine as far as I know, though we haven't talked in a bit. Cerulean and Forties Girl are having a kid, so I am planning my third baby shower. I owe you guys some seven postings on books I've read that I didn't expect to like. The annoying thing is, I've read the books. Expect a posting on Charlotte Bronte's "Villette" as soon as I can figure out how I felt about it.

Speaking of books, I hit what I like to think of as a "clutter event horizon" a few weeks ago and have been doing massive decluttering. If you live in my 'hood and would like some books, give me a topic and you can have any books on that topic I deem superfluous.

The new church year is starting and I'm back with my adorable and brilliant youth. I'm feeling optimistic about the direction of my church, even though I don't know what the direction of the church is yet exactly. I tend to be a fan of change within instutitions (except when they redecorate. I pretty much always hate that.)

Anyway, expect more postings.

Love and kisses,

Chalicechick.

I have happy memories of making Christmas cookies with my mom. As an adult, I've never done it. These inspire me to give it another shot.

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So today was Awesome Day, my self-created holiday for the contemplation and celebration of all that is awesome.

I've got a lot of friends who are pregnant or have just had a kid, so creation and new life has been a big focus of my thoughts this year. As ZombieKid and TheGnome get older, perhaps old enough to read this blog pretty soon, new kids show up in my life. I've never believed in having friends who were all my age. When I was younger, I felt like no one I was in high school or college with had been anywhere or done anything much and gravitated toward hanging out with adults or at least friends a few years older.

Now that I am, gulp, old enough to have a PhD (or a kid, for that matter,) I find kids and teenagers a break from my serious misanthropic self and that they find a useful change in perspective. OK, a six-year-old and I developed a rather intense mutual dislike a few months ago, but that one was justified, I swear. So, usually kids refresh me, but not always.

So, I guess the awesome thing I'm thinking about today is that life provides one a constant supply of new friends--some coming in the smallest of packages.

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This is a little twee, but I like it. More on Awesome day later.

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shaved her head to raise money for research on children's cancer. As someone who would happily pay fifteen times what I just donated to cancer research to have hair as thick and lovely as she does, I feel strongly that this sacrifice should not be made in vain.

As of this writing, she's just under 1/4 of the way to her goal. Let's do our best to get her there.

CC

or at least one very much like it, something like two years ago. Her responses are here.

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I think part of my confusion is being from DC: you pretty much have to TRY to get arrested protesting in DC and most of the people who do it are seriously getting in the way of people who are just trying to get to work and live their lives. And yes, for all the symbolic value you may see in it, public buildings are places where people work and do business and you are making their lives non-symbolically-quite-concretely-in-fact more difficult even if you're just "sitting in."* From everthing I have seen, most of the time DC cops are very cool with protesters if for no better reason than they've seen so many of them and dealing with protesters is really routine.

Example: I personally witnessed this conversation at a "Free Tibet" rally I attended in DC like ten years ago-

Protester who has just crossed a police line: FREE TIBET!
Cop: Get back across the line.
Protester: FREE TIBET!
Cop: Get back across the line.
Protester: FREE TIBET!
Cop: Somebody's going to have to free your ass if you don't get back across the line.
(Protester returns to other side of police line)

Ok, I understand that cops aren't always that reasonable with protesters, but I still don't see what's so great about getting arrested. I sympathize greatly with the protesters-of-color after the Oscar Grant verdict who percieved that they were leading a peaceful, reasonable, legal protest until the skinny white anarchists showed up and made it look like the black people were rioting again. Certainly "stores destroyed in the wake of Oscar Grant verdict" news stories didn't make those distinctions.

I get that people get arrested protesting with differing levels of justification for it. What I don't get is why we're all so proud of ourselves about it. It seems meaningless at best.

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*I probably won't get around to posting again anytime soon, so I will just note here that the "Let's 'sit in' at the U.S. Capitol and try to disrupt the work of the very people most likely to PASS legislation like ENDA, who need to work as fast as possible given how midterm elections are likely to go" concept makes no fucking sense to me either. You want to "sit in" at the Capitol? The Senate and House go into recess August 9. Do your symbolism then, when you will be less likely to be concretely getting in the way of what you are symbolically getting arrested to support.

On January 6, I announced that my New Year's resolution was to read some books I didn't think I would like and write about my reaction to them. I was trying for one a month and I've pretty much stuck to that as far as reading goes, I just haven't been writing about them. I gave a large list of categories of books I wouldn't normally read and asked for suggestions, though more are always welcome.

For those keeping track, Water for Elephants is a historical novel that fails the Bechdel test.

I have what I think are good reasons for not liking what I don't like. I don't expect every book to grant me an epiphany about how wrong I was to dislike its genre, though I won't be surprised if that happens once or twice. Mostly, I'm going to read with an open mind and see what I discover.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I don't know why I have a thing against historical novels written by a modern author, I just kinda do. At least partially, the issue is that I often have trouble identifying with the characters and find that historical novels spend way too much time describing the setting. I don't so much read to explore new worlds as to explore new people, so I tend to find books that spend a lot of time on the setting tiresome.

Water for Elephants really doesn't have that problem. The author does a wonderful job of surrounding you with a depression-ever circus without ever being too lavish in the details. You fill in the battered sequins and smell of horses yourself. The frame story is set in the present day. If anything more detail is used describing the main character's nursing home, but even that never seems excessive. Essentially, Water for Elephants is the story of a large animal vet who is now very old and in a nursing home, but had spent his youth traveling around with a circus during the great depression. The narrative shifts back and forth between the present day in the nursing home and the main character's time working on the circus.

This is a really well-written book. I liked it very much and have told lots of my friends about it. In doing so, I've discovered that it was a fashionable book club book from a few years ago and many people had already read it. I've never been a book club kinda girl and the "Angela's Ashes" sorts of things I perceive they read don't appeal to me. So in a sense, I've found one more reason I wouldn't expect to like Water for Elephants. I did, though.

I know someone who is on the Board of Directors of a local nursing home. This gentleman told me that the Chair of the Board of Directors found the nursing home sequences so powerful that he bought copies for the entire board and the senior management of the nursing home. IMHO, this is a great idea. In both stories, the main character is fighting to keep his dignity in a weird and hostile environment.

The plot is, at times, melodramatic, but I found that the setting and the general mood it evoked made it work. The circus and its employees tend to have a very "us against the world" sort of attitude and people who think that way tend to end up in melodramatic situations, IMHO. What it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in the sheer pleasure of the well-drawn characters.

The Elephant was a wonderful character.* Though the main character does find love, the relationship between Vet and Elephant feels far more central to the book and far more vital.

CC
who really did read that in February/March

*Animal lovers take note: This is, again, set in a circus during the great Depression. Some scenes are going to be squicky.

Sorry I've been AWOL for a couple of weeks. My summer has been busy, if fun.

Random thoughts-

-I applaud the "don't cancel the Arizona GA" plan. At the same time, I stay well away from UU events with "Justice" in the title, so I'm skipping that one. But I should be in Charlotte next year.

-I'm really bummed about the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband, who was a beloved and respected professor at my law school. At the same time, I'm perversely a little pleased that lots of the news coverage focuses on him as her husband, since this stuff usually goes the other way.

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Criminal justice *headdesk* of the day. Not the editorial itself, but that it needed to be written.

She would have loved writing letters like these.

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Just sayin'

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Everybody on TV is reading the same edition of the same newspaper.

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Criminal Justice *headdesk* of the day.

You know those annoying radio commercials where the president of a indentity-theft-defense outfit gives out his social security number and challenges people to steal his identity?

His identity has been stolen 13+ times.

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Criminal Justice *Headdesk* of the day. If you were worried that Ryan Frederick, who shot a police officer who was raiding his house in the middle of the night because an informant said there were marijuana plants growing in his greenhouse* might be freed, don't, Frederick's appeal was just denied.

*There was $25 worth of pot in the guy's house. The plants in the greenhouse were Japanese maples.

Longtime enemy of the Chaliceblog Mary Beth Buchanan was running for congress. Her campaign sucked and she lost.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Ok, I wish it had happened to Martha Coakley.

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At Elizabeth's Little Blog

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I'm still weirded out when columnists just straight up lie. Case in point: Maggie Gallagher's claims in the National Review online that the Human Rights Campaign "specifically cites her support for “marriage equality” in cases before the Supreme Court as a reason for voting for her."

Uhhh... Nope. The press release says no such thing.

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The Washington Post's Hank Stuever thinks young people love Betty White because they have wacky grandparent complexes.

Of course she's also a brilliant commedianne with amazing comic timing.

No, that can't be it.

Sigh.

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Criminal Justice *headdesk8 of the day. If you were worried about that cop who had a kid ring hid doorbell and run away, then chased the kid down, had a scuffle with the kid, then shot and killed him, don't. The deputy was cleared of all charges.

Apparently, sex toy retailer Adam & Eve will ship your purchase unmarked, but then starts sending you promotional mail. Admittedly the customer at the link had her items send to her work address, which means she's gutsier than I am, but still, given what they sell, they probably shouldn't be doing that.

Anyway, Goodvibes.com doesn't do the "sending you a bunch of catalogs" thing. Since I know that the Chaliceblog is primarily read by sexy people, I thought y'all should know.

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Joe Arpaio week continues on "Criminal justice *headdesk* of the day."

Husband is out of town. I'm doing some contract work and working on papers.

You may recall from a previous "Criminal Justice *Headdesk* of the Day" that several months ago there was a federal drug raid in Missouri where a big SWAT team stormed a family home, killed the family dogs in front of a little kid and then charged the family with "child endangerment" because there was a small amount of pot in the house.

I'm sure I mentioned at the time that the most obvious danger to the pot was SWAT teams coming in with lots of firearms and shooting dogs. Anyway, there's video of that raid now, which is not to say I suggest you watch it.



Still, it's nothing you wouldn't see in any war movie. I guess that alone pretty much says it all.

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Since I'm behind, we will call this yesterday's Sheriff Joe Arpaio themed "Criminal Justice *headdesk* of the day. It is actually one of the nastier things I've ever seen, and I was reading nasty police stories for years before I started this feature.

Ouch.

At the same time, I'm bitterly wondering if the reaction to a much whiter town having a massive flood and needing federal disaster relief will have fewer jerkass overtones. On the one hand, it would be nice to see some of the nastiness avoided. On the other, it will bum me out if it turns out that racial animus is a really big part of what caused e-mail forwards like this to go around. In some ways, I would almost rather I did see a few jerks if only for my own peice of mind on the subject.

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I've decided it is "Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Greatest Hits" week on Criminal Justice *headdesk* of the day. In today's installment, the sheriff's buddies subpoena a newspaper for all their notes about the sheriff--and any information the newspaper has about anyone who has visited the newspaper's website since 2004 and looked at articles critical of the sheriff, and anyone who has visited the newspaper at all in the past two and a half years.

Well-known transphobic and general jerkass Dan Savage is also a pit bull hater and kind of stupid about it. On his blog, he asks...

""An Aurora man has been charged with battery after attacking his sister with a pit bull, according to Aurora police. Rey Jaquez, 50, of the 1000 block of East New York Street, was charged with two counts of domestic battery on Monday after he threw the pit bull at his sister and the dog bit her, police said.

A question for pit bull apologists: we hear you, we hear you. There are no bad dogs, only bad dog owners, and perhaps it's unfair to take a dim view of an entire breed when it's actually a particular breed of humans who are to blame for all those maladjusted, poorly socialized, violent pit bulls making the news. But how are we supposed to tell the difference? When a pit, perhaps unleashed, is trotting towards us, how are we supposed to determine that this particular pit has a good owner? Do we guess? Cross our fingers—while they're still attached—and hope for the best? Or, considering the potential consequences if we guess wrong, do we presume all pit bulls have bad owners for the exact same reasons we presume all guns are loaded?""



First of all, if a pitbull is being THROWN AT YOU per the article that sparked this question, it's probably safe to say that the dog will be scared and frustrated and angry when it falls to earth, any kind of dog would be. Savage ironically titles his article "it's not the dog, it's the owner" as if he doesn't think having an owner who throws dogs across the room would contribute at all to one of those dogs at some point biting somebody.

As for meeting a strange dog on the street, if the dog is standing rigid, barking at you, crouching and bearing her teeth, or growling and coming out you with her head near the ground, that dog is about to make trouble. In that instance, you should stand still, speak softly and always remain facing the dog. If you've done nothing to antagonize the dog, in theory you should be fine.

I should mention that meeting strange dogs on the street is not something you should try to do. For a dog to be roaming around leashless with no obvious owner is a bad sign. A much worse sign, actually, than a dog having been born a pit bull.

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Criminal Justice *headdesk* of the day. Like a golden retriever can attack someone and never have to worry that her breed will be banned, cops can usually drive drunk and know that the other cops and paramedics will cover for them, even when they kill people.

Remember way back when UUism was down by less than 100 people and Morales made a big, election-friendly fuss about how we were way down without actually mentioning that the drop was so small as to be statistically insignificant? And when somebody asked the candidates what mistakes they had made and Hallman candidly answered about problems with Pathways, while Morales said something politician-y about how hard it is to schedule a church service when his church had SO MANY MEMBERS?

I wrote then "I don't believe him. I don't want a marketer, I want a minister."

Recent stuff the UUA under Morales has been up to includes slashing the Commission on Appraisal's Budget, according to President Morales, "as a way of initiating a conversation about the committee." Cutting the UUA Washington office is supposed to improve advocacy for reasons no one can explain. Merging a couple of our social witness departments and giving them less money is supposed to improve things.

Of those three issues, the Commission on Appraisal bothers me the most. I think of it as UUism's R&D and I appreciate having a committee to look at potential issues within the UUA and make recommendations. It is supposed to be independent, which Morales paints as "lacking in accountability." Source.

He made a lot of pretty statements on the campaign trail about raising membership. I'm not holding him to those. I am asking when he's going to quit insulting everybody's intelligence with all this marketing blather and just talk to us like we're reasonable people.

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who also thinks this is a really stupid time to be shifting duties from volunteers to paid staff in the name of "Policy Governance," but that's another post.

I've been trying to figure out how to write about this for a bit and properly phrase my dislike for what has gone on, but for whatever reason, the words aren't coming.

So I will try asking about it. My impression is that the facts of the situation are as follows:

1. A vote of GA created the "Office of Gay and Lesbian Concerns"

2. At some point the UUA added "bisexual" and "transsexual" to the name and altered the mission to include them. Well, theoretically.

3. Recently, the UUA "merged" the Office of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Concerns in with another advocacy group at significantly reduced funding.

As far as step two goes, I'm OK with that. But is the UUA allowed to do step three? I mean, if a GA vote created something, can the UUA just get rid of it.

Polity-wise, it just seems fishy.

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who asked about the on the UUA mailing list a few weeks ago and nobody else was bothered, but has remained bothered herself.

For the first time last week, I did a legal *headdesk* rather than a criminal justice one. Clearly I shouldn't do that because unlike the elegant simplicity of the standard "Cops raid the wrong house and kill somone's dogs, police chief says they did everything right" criminal justice *headdesk*, the Clay Greene lawsuit is getting complicated.

Basically the elderly gay man who claimed he was forcibly separated from his elderly lover is being accused of domestic violence by the county that did the separating. the trial is coming up in the case this summer and it should be an interesting elder law case no matter what. I still don't see what right the county had to take Greene's stuff, even if he was abusing his partner, which certianly hasn't been proved. It seems to be that the county treated them as married for the purpose of taking Greene's possessions along with his boyfriend's, then refused to treat them as married for the purposes of allowing hospital visits, etc.

We will see.

CC

After several years of coming in second Comcast has finally won the Consumerist.com's "Worst Company in America" contest.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks.

CC
Criminal justice *headdesk* of the day: Story about cops who just HATE being videotaped ends with the story of a police officer who committed suicide after a videotaped incident hit youtube. The officer left a note saying he was just trying to "protect his men." However in that incident he was "protecting" them from a naked guy trapped on a fire escape and "protected" them by having the naked guy tasered until he fell off the building.

Ok, special bonus *headdesk* about WHY the cops hate to be videotaped. Because when they lie in their police reports about what happend, or in this case make up the circumstances of the arrest completely, they get caught.

So I will celebrate by doing so. The Paycheck Fairness Act is a good thing. It would allow women who are discriminated against under the Equal Pay Act to get punitive damages. This is a good thing, IMHO, since it sometimes seems like punitive damages are the only thing that corporations will listen to. Further, it makes it illegal to fire somebody for discussing their salary.

It's a pretty modest expansion of the law, and in directions that I think are reasonable.

It has already passed in the house. If you'd like to bother your senator about it, here's a canned letter that looks pretty good, or you can just contact your senator directly, which is usually more effective.

CC

I am still working on my paper and was googling for information on my local megachurch to see if I could figure out if it was doing commerce of $500,000 per year for Equal Pay Act purposes.

Anyway, I stumbled on to the fact that people are reviewing that church on Google. There are reviewers who sound like the usual crackpots, actual discussions of scripture being taken out of context, and, of course, people who are very happy there. That particular church is a pretty polarizing place in my community, so it doesn't surprise me that they would attract both positive and negative attention, but wow.

CC

(Again, this question is also on Facebook and I am reading answers and responding both places.)

Listed below are some religiously-related jobs. Who is a minister for the purposes of your views on yesterday's discrimination question?


Jobs within a church

Senior Minister

Associate Minister

Director of Communications

Bookkeeper

Church Custodian

Director of Music

Organist

Children's Ministry Director

Director of Religious Education

Church Secretary

Church office Manager

Nursery School attendent

Seminarian working as an intern



Religious Jobs Outside of Churches

Teacher at a Religious school

Principal of a religious school

Theology teacher at a religious school

Chaplain at a hospital or nursing home

Kosher Supervisor at a hospital or nursing home (required under Jewish law to be a rabbi)

(Again, there's no right answer, even less of one than with the first question as the courts are wildly inconsistent between circuits on some of the grayer areas)

CC
Today's *headdesk* is a legal one rather than a criminal justice one, unless you consider what the state and nursing home did theft and/or false imprisonment.

Please answer this poll, preferably at length, in the comments.

A. No, because who would be a good minister is entirely the church's decision and the courts and/or the government should have no say in how churches are run. Freedom of religion means that churches have a certain amount of autonomy under the constitution and if the courts/government have a say in the selection of church leaders, then the autonomy can be unduly influenced.

B. In a limited sense. If a church has a normally illegal distinction as part of its doctrine/tradition, then that part should be exempted, but nothing else should. (E.g. A Catholic church can refuse to hire Alice as a priest because Catholic doctrine/tradition requires that priests be male. But they cannot refuse to hire Father Bob because he is old* since Catholic doctrine doesn't really have anything requiring priests to be young.)

C. Yes, the cause of anti-discrimination is a very important one and demanding that churches follow the same hiring rules as any other organization only makes sense and doesn't burden religion significantly, besides, giving church organizations freedom to discriminate is not part of freedom of religion.

D. One of the above, but for another reason.

I should emphasize that this is not a law quiz. The law does currently take one of the views above and I lean toward another one, but some very bright people have argued the third view. Anyway, I'm just trying to find out what some layfolk and ministers think about this issue.

CC
today's criminal justice *headdesk* of the day is pretty mild, but still...

EDIT: Currently the law does recognize a ministerial exemption from all discrimination laws, and even the Equal Pay Act, so the courts take position A. A lot of churches use that to get away with some nasty things, so I am trying to figure out a just way to argue for position B. Position C is that of some legal scholars I have read.


*They can, of course, refuse to hire him for any number of other reasons.

As the above-cited examples indicate, the idea that knowing that an employment action will have a negative impact on a group of people sharing a trait and taking that action anyway equates a intent is not one the Supreme Court had expressed before this. This new definition of "intent" as applied to disparate impact could serve to revolutionize disparate impact law should it be widely held as part of the holding of Ricci. That said, this point was ignored entirely by the media in the wake of Ricci and has not appeared in any law review article or other secondary source currently available on Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw, so it does not appear to be the prevailing view of the upshot of Kennedy’s choice of wording.

Solicitor General Kagan gets a lot of grief for being too conservative for Obama to pick her. I don't think she necessarily is, it is just that she has been running for the job of "Supreme Court Justice" for a really long time. As a potential Supreme Court Justice, she's not talking about her opinions on anything.

Except now she's the Solicitor General, and she has to talk about that. The Obama administration has adopted the Bush/Cheney theory of executive power, and Kagan has been repeatedly asked to defend that and has done so. But my guess is that her actual views, if not those on executive power on other things, are probably a lot more liberal than she gets credit for.

CC
who would love to see Leah Ward Sears, would be quite happy with Diane Wood, but doesn't think Kagan is a bad third choice.

Love them all

CC
who is having a stressful law day and likely isn't good for anything else.

Criminal justice *headdesk* of the day, the third one to feature Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Don't miss the first six words of the third paragraph.

Senator Leahy: Is there a constitutional right to privacy?

(Then)Judge Ginsburg: There is a constitutional right to privacy which consists I think of at least two distinguishable parts. One is the privacy expressed most vividly in the Fourth Amendment, that is, the government shall not break in to my home or office without a warrant based on probable cause; the government shall leave me alone.

The other is the notion of personal autonomy; the government shall not make my decisions for me; I shall make, as an individual, uninhibited, uncontrolled by my government, the decisions that affect my life's course. Yes, I think whether it has been lumped under the label, privacy is a constitutional right, and it has those two elements, the right to be let alone and the right to make basic decisions about one's life course.

-Justice Ginsburg's Confirmation hearings

I am with her on the first right. On the second right, I am conflicted. In the sense that "privacy" is used in an abortion law context to mean, essentially, the right to make your own decisions about your own private affairs, I'm with her. But were we to take "privacy" by what I see as its usual meaning, the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively, I think we can get there through the common law given that Griswold v. Connecticut* more or less set the stage for it, but I'm not sure the right is constitutional exactly.

Thoughts?

CC

* Holding that bans on birth control to married people were illegal because of a constitutional right to privacy.

I frequently disagree with the stories that are chosen to win Pulitzer Prizes*, but I really can't argue with one recent selection.

I read Gene Weingarten's Fatal Distraction when it first came out and I found it heartbreaking then. I still do.

That link is very sad and might not be for you. But it is a brilliant bit of reporting.

CC
Pulitzer-themed criminal justice *headdesk* of the day.

* My feminism and my fairly libertarian outlook are internally arguing over the prize going to Kathleen Parker. Will let you know who wins.

One line of argument that really bugs me is when people say that a group in question is the "last acceptable target" for jokes. Most recently, someone claimed that poor white people were the last acceptable targets. I provided some alternate targets, and those targets "weren't the same" for reasons relating to Jeff Foxworthy's success in the mid nineties* and unrelated to his obscurity since.

One wonders if, in an ideal world, one would even have acceptable targets. As far as targets relating to race and culture go, we ideally probably shouldn't. At the same time, I don't particularly have a problem with having some cultural standards, though at times that leads us to cut some pretty fine distinctions. (I was telling theCSO yesterday that I don't judge "Bombshell" McGee because she dresses skankily, I judge her because she ACTS skankily, and yes, I judge Jesse James for the same thing.)

Anyway, TVtropes.com has made my day by compiling a list of acceptable targets of various varieties. Some of them might not be acceptable among your friends, but the site generally provides enough examples that I'm persuaded that people meeting that description are to some degree targeted. Also, there are plenty of groups (people with dwarfism come to mind) that my friends wouldn't tolerate snark about, but that I totally see are comically fetishized by the larger culture.

Acceptable Cultural Targets

Acceptable Ethnic Targets

Acceptable Hard Luck Targets

Acceptable Inevitable Targets

Acceptable Lifestyle Targets

Acceptable Hobby Targets

Acceptable Nationality Targets

Acceptable political targets

Acceptable Professional Targets

Acceptable Religious Targets

Acceptable Sexual Targets

I suspect that each of those lists contain at least one group I think my circle of friends would find it acceptable to make fun of and one group that I wouldn't. (E.g. I think I can safely say that for most of the people I hang out with, making jokes about Mexicans is not acceptable, making jokes about Canadians is. Similarly, making jokes about transsexuals is not ok, making jokes about furries is. Making fun of Mormons, not cool, making fun of scientologists, ok.) One could argue that part of the difference is that different sorts of jokes are made about Canadians and Mexicans, given that Canadians are usually mocked for their politeness in a way that half comes off as the joke-teller mocking America by implication. That distinction breaks down with the second example, though.

Anyway, no one group should ever consider itself the "last acceptable target."

CC

*Any kid who grew up about when I did knows that about the time Jeff Foxworthy became famous for insulting poor whites, the least cool rich black guy of them all, Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, was going off the air. Many people who were teenagers of the early 1990s can still rap the theme song. Some sociology student has quite the dissertation topic right there.

(If you've ever wondered how my law school writing differs from my blog, this post is a fair mix of the two. Ok, my capitalization is usually at least somewhat more consistent in my formal writing.)

McDonald v. City of Chicago background

(Oh, and "incorporation" means taking something that the constitution says the federal government can't do and making so the states can't do it either. At this point, just about every right in the bill or rights has been incorporated--except the right to bear arms.)

The general idea here is that the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment was intended to include all of the rights of being an American, and one of those rights per the bill of rights is the right to bear arms. I'm not an originalist by nature-- and Due Process incorporation is a method that is far more consistent with precedent given that the court has for decades used the Due Process clause to do what the Privileges and Immunities clause was probably designed to do. That said, the Due Process method doesn't actually make as much sense, so I tend to favor a privileges and immunities clause interpretation that will effectively incorporate the right to bear arms. I tend to think both methods allow for it.

Academics widely agree that the Slaughterhouse cases, which gutted the privileges and immunities clause in the first place, were poorly decided. Further, the vague nature of some of the Due Process clause's language actually makes it a pretty poor choice for handing out rights.* Putting aside my reticence about supplanting 100 years of jurisprudence with a single case, I want to note that reviving the privileges and immunities clause allows for applications of it that a liberal court might find quite palatable, such as the right to education or even the right to health care. If we're going to muck with precedent, there's no sense in not going at it whole hog, after all.

Though I tend to agree with the argument that the original intention of the right to bear arms was militias and thus some restrictions on gun ownership are appropriate, the idea that the states are allowed to experiment on, effectively, just one of the Bill of Rights while pretty much every other one has been incorporated at this point seems inappropriate to me no matter how many scary stories of gun violence are trotted out.** I would no more vote for restrictions on free speech to be a matter for the states.


CC

*What is 'arbitrary' is often decided, well, arbitrarily, and the word “liberty” was twisted in two entirely different directions in Roe v. Wade.

**I would favor removing the right to bear arms from the constitution entirely before I would favor not extending an existing constitutional restriction to state law . I don't favor either at the moment.