Maddow for Prez (and Stewart for Veep, of course)!

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This picture of wishful thinking is at the beginning of this post to make it known with no uncertainty how much I love and respect Rachel Maddow. I also would like it to be known that my adoration for her is NOT bandwagon-jumping: I have professed my loyalty to Dr. Maddow as early as December 2008 ever since I saw her appearance on Conan O’Brien (and for that there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Coco and his hair…)

To further set my girl crush all ablaze, Maddow gave a “fake” Presidential Address on her June 16 show following the much-anticipated, and laster much-criticized, Presidential Speech from The Oval Office by the Prez regarding the BP Oil Catastrophe. (Ok, seriously, peeps, we really need to stop using the term “Oil Spill”. Thanks.)

Maddow began her show thus:

“You know how sometimes after you get into an argument or a confrontation with somebody, you can’t help afterwards thinking of all the things you wish you’d said.  You run it over and over in your mind, imaging the perfect comeback or the perfect way to have made your point.”

Did I ever?! Yes, YES and YES!!!! She had me at this “OMG that’s exactly how I feel all the time” moment…

But, that’s not all!

She proceeded to give her own Presidential Speech, a speech that she wishes the real President Obama has given instead. Here are some of the highlights in text. Or you can read the complete transcript which MSNBC put up right away due to unusually high demand. Or feel free to watch the video clip instead (after the jump) which is extremely gratifying, to say the least.

I‘m here to announce three major developments in the response to the BP oil disaster that continues right now to ravage the beloved gulf coast of the United States of America…

(1)

Never again will any company, anyone be allowed to drill in a location where they are incapable of dealing with the potential consequences of that drilling.

When the benefits of drilling accrue to a private company, but the risks of that drilling accrue to we, the American people, whose waters and shoreline are savaged when things go wrong, I, as fake president, stand on the side of the American people and say to the industry, “From this day forward, if you cannot handle the risk, you no longer will take chances with our fate to reap your rewards.”

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(2)

The second major development I‘m announcing tonight, my fellow Americans, concerns another oil industry assurance we can no longer believe.  The industry has long assured us that they were capable of handling spilled oil.

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The same low-tech ineffective equipment and techniques are being used to respond to this oil disaster today that were used in the 1960s and ‘70s to respond to spills back then.

That‘s because the industry has not invested in any new containment and cleanup technology in all of these decades, because they haven‘t cared too much about it as an issue and it shows.  It shows both in the inept technology that we have to deploy, to contain, to clean up a spill like this.

And it also shows in the lackadaisical, uncoordinated, unprofessional way this inept technology has been deployed by BP.  Beaches have been fouled.  Wetlands have been destroyed.  Wildlife has been killed that should have been saved.  Pensacola Bay in Florida, if properly boomed, should never have been breached by oil.  Perdido Pass of Orange Beach, Alabama should never have been breached by oil. Queen Bess Island, the pelican nesting ground and Barataria Bay in Louisiana – Barataria Bay itself – none of these areas should have been breached by oil even given the sad state of existing technology to stop it.  But the fact that those areas were breached is BP‘s human error.

And tonight, as fake president, I‘m announcing a new federal command specifically for containment and cleanup of oil that has already entered the Gulf of Mexico with priority of protecting shoreline that can still be saved, shoreline that is vulnerable to all that has not yet been hit.

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(3)

And finally, the third development I have to announce to you tonight in the response to this oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is about how we got here and how that will change.

Every president in the modern era has complained that America must get off oil.  Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W.  Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now, I, fake President Obama – we have all intoned solemnly that we must get off oil.

Now that we have, at the hands of the oil industry, experienced the worst environmental disaster in American history, the time for talk is over. The world is different now.  Our country is different now.  The scales have fallen from our eyes.

People say we‘re not ready.  They‘re right.  We‘re not ready.  We also weren‘t ready to fight in World War II before Pearl Harbor happened.  But events forced that upon us and events have forced this fight upon us now.

I no longer say that we must get off oil like every president before has said, too.  I no longer say we must get off oil.  We will get of oil and here is how.  The United States Senate will pass an energy bill this year.  The Senate version of the year will not expand offshore drilling.

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If there are elements of a bill that cannot procedurally be passed by reconciliation, if those elements can be instituted by executive order, I will institute them by executive order.

The political cowardice that has kept politicians from doing right by this country, finally, on energy – finally, standing up to the oil industry – that cowardice has been drowned in oil on Queen Bess Island.

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Although I am not so naive as to believe that any president will ever be able to pass an Energy Bill and have it executed just so that will have any real impact on the environment in my lifetime, like I said, it is gratifying to imagine what it would have been like to hear these same statements from the real Commander in Chief (assuming he has not lost his mind and decided to wage a war directly against the 50% of the country that considers Fox News a reliable news source). Naturally, depressing at the same time to imagine what could have been…

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Here’s to you, Dr. Maddow. Thank you for the Perfect Comeback.

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She proves that a brilliant mind makes you instantly hot. Period.

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When I was in college, Deconstruction and Postmodernism were in vogue, later when I was in graduate school, Cultural Relativism was all the rage, and I thrived in the academic environment that prized my way of examining and understanding life and people from all perspectives.

In real life, this makes me a person with no strong conviction, I suspect. My penchant of looking at people and life in general from both/all sides made me a great research scholar or maybe even a good instructor but would not have done any good if I wanted to change the world. For starters, I am agnostic because I have not the guts to decide on one thing or the other. (At least that is MY reason for claiming I am agnostic). I often corner myself onto a slippery slope by empathizing to a fault.

These past few days I believe I came to some certain degree of appreciation for things that I have sorely despised:

Teabagging Parties and Internet Trolling.

Tea Party Protest Sign. Well, sort of. The gist of it.

I went to a live taping for Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and it was a blissful relief to be surrounded by people who shared my worldview, and I assume, my socio-economical and educational backgrounds. No apology was needed (except I did apologize profusely when I asked to take pictures of Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell. What can I say? They just seem too sublime to be asked to partake in such vulgar activities such as FANGIRL WORSHIP…) No explanation was demanded. I agreed wholeheartedly with everything that was said.

I can see why the teabaggers are drawn to these crazy tea parties! I thought. (Seriously. THIS can be very annoying sometimes…)

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On the same day I went to the Wait Wait taping, I also discovered the titillating excitement of being an Internet Troll.

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Ain't that the truth?!

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I became obsessed with this post “How to Be a Good Wife” on Scary Mommy as soon as I saw the words: “Completing Him” challenge: Be the woman your man needs.

Long story short: Jill, Scary Mommy, found a post on a blog (which turns out to be a Christian, sort of “Come to Jesus” “Let’s know HIM and serve HIM well” kind of blog) that encouraged the readers to participate in an 8-week challenge that will help the women learn/make an effort to love their husbands. Some choice examples:

Make a list of 5 things you currently do and ask him to prioritize them for you of what is important to him. For example – a clean home, home cooked dinner, coupon clipping, service at church, having friends over for dinner, watching/doing sports with him, etc.

No complaining, criticizing, rolling your eyes, nagging, or giving him any friction this week. Enjoy a week of peace in your home!

Support his vision. Discuss his vision for your family. Where does he see your family in 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. Share with us how you let your husband lead.

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Unknown Mami inspired me to turn my comments into a post because comments sometimes really are the best part! Besides, I am lazy. So why not recycle words that you have written?!

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Fort De Soto lives up to its title

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Our trip to St. Pete Beach, and especially North Beach at Fort De Soto was filled with moments of wonders:

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White sandy beaches, calm and clear water, massive expanse of azure that makes one understand what it means to not be able to tell the ocean from the sky, the elegant flight of Brown Pelicans, and the delight of coming face to face with the living ocean: oysters, sea urchins, sea snails, mollusks inside sea shells, hermit crabs, and schools of fish that swim right next to you, by your feet.

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Azure paradise

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And sting rays. They hang around at the sandy bottom of the shallow ocean water on North Beach.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLeIQrcyNA

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And Brown Pelicans. Did I mention the Brown Pelicans yet? There were three of them flying over the hotel and in front of our room every single day, at dusk. (Sorry about the quality: I rushed out to the balcony with my phone to catch this picture)

Brown Pelicans are endangered even more because of the oil spill

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Every time I saw them, I was reminded by the NPR interview with an environmentalist that I happened to hear the day before our trip: how Brown Pelicans are one of the animals that may experience the worst impact since they just came off the endangered species list in November, after 40 fucking years of struggling for survival. Every time I watched their graceful dive into the ocean, I felt like crying.

I wanted to say, I am so sorry.

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Oiled Brown Pelican being cleaned by IBRRC

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The video below is shot by an amateur videographer flying over the scene of the oil spill: it shows the extent of the damage is much worse than what BP has led the public to believe. My apology first:

I believe it’s important we all see this even though I am not sure what good it’ll do.

Helplessness.

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I don’t like to feel helpless because that feeling will soon degenerate into hopelessness. How about a good dose of anger? How about this headline?

BP makes enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup thus far.

“On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant’s profits averaged $93 million a day.

The amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated at 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. In the first quarter, BP produced 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day worldwide — and it received $71.86 for every barrel.

At $93 million a day in profits, BP makes $350 million in about 3.8 days. The Washington Post noted that Exxon, through a decision by the Supreme Court, was able to pay only $507.5 million of the original $5 billion in punitive damages that it had been assessed for the 1989 Valdez disaster.”

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Or how about a screenshot of HuffPost when I opened it up this morning?

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"Not my fault!" and naturally "I am not a crook!"

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GREED.

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Once again, my dear readers, I apologize: I don’t know what good this ranting will do, but it makes me feel much better. Even if just for a short while.

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I am having a hard time with this post: I cannot decide which WTF moment to lead with. Too many blazing instances of human stupidity, greed and bigotry circulating the Interweb and I am at a loss. But forge on I must since if I don’t write a WTF Wednesday post this week, it would be like Tiger Woods missing the opportunity to play his 18 holes after being appointed the chaperon for the Miss America Pageant.

WTF Moment #0: BP Oil Spill. ‘Nuff said.

WTF Moment #1: BP’s liability is, as of now, limited to $75 million due to a law passed 20 years ago.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4n0SvG0-Y

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WTF Moment #2: BP made $5 billion in profits in the last quarter. That’s PROFITS, peeps, not REVENUE. And it is last QUARTER, not last YEAR.

WTF Moment #3: BP CEO said they will take responsibility for the RESPONSE but NOT the Accident. Since the drilling platform was outsourced to another, much smaller company, BP is, as implied by Tony Hayward, not at fault. In the same vein, DOD is not responsible for what happened in Iraq since much of that has been outsourced to Blackwater, and I am not responsible for my children since much of their education has been outsourced to the public school education system.

WTF Moment #4: Soon after the explosion and the resulting spill, BP reps went around coastal communities, offering residents, including fishermen whose livelihood depends sorely on the ocean, Wait for it! A whopping $5000 if they agreed to not sue. Please see #2.

WTF Moment #5: Is it just me? Was anybody else disgusted by BP’s move to create an environmental friendly, greener, image with their new green sunburst logo? They spent millions of dollars on that rebranding campaign. It would be tragically ironical if they end up paying LESS in liability for the largest environmental disaster to ever happen to this country than what they have paid in that marketing campaign.

WTF Moment #6: “Rush Limbaugh suggests environmentalists planned oil spill.” Please say something to this while my jaw is on the floor and I cannot talk.

Earth to Rush: Hey! This is Glenn Beck. I don’t believe that Obama blew up the oil rig!

WTF Moment #7: If you are shocked by #6, you are going to love this…  According to Rush, “The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there.” And, there’s more!

“It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.”

My favorite comeback came from Keith Olbermann: “You know what else is natural, according to Rush? Hemorrhoids.” GOLD!

WTF Moment #8: (This is personal whining…) We have planned a mini vacation to St. Pete Beach, Florida, this week specifically just so we could revisit Fort De Soto Park, one of the best beaches, and most under-hyped, in the US. It’s not just me saying it, it was selected as America’s Best Beach in 2005 by Dr. Beach. From what I have read so far, there is a chance that these beaches will luck out and escape the tragic fate of being affected by the oil spill. At least for now. But some scientists are not as optimistic and have predicted a not-so-sunny future for the Florida coasts, and ergo, economy. Upon learning this, I am becoming grateful that, by coincidence, this may be the last time we have a chance to see the beaches in their pristine, gorgeous state before the looming disaster hits.

WTF Moment #9: Another disaster was not receiving the deserved attention due to the oil spill and other shenanigans (that will be reported later in this post): the flooding in Tennessee and Kentucky which has reportedly claimed 29 lives and put more than 1,000 people in emergency shelters.

WTF Moment #10: The bomb used in the Time Square Bomb Scare was made with no more than items found in random hardware stores or beauty supply shops based on instructions found easily on the Internet. New York Times published a lengthy article describing the contraption, complete with a shopping list for any wannabe copycat out there. But of course, nobody in this country would be crazy enough to want to copy this. So we are good.

WTF Moment #11: The Time Square Bomber “suspect” Faisal Shahzad had been put on the “Do Not Fly” list but still managed to board the Emirates flight.  Authorities are blaming Emirates Airlines for working with an outdated Do-Not-Fly list.

WTF Moment #12: Arizona. Where should I begin? Ugh.

On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill that enacted the toughest and most stringent immigration law this country has ever seen in modern days. You know, after the Immigration Act of 1924 which included the National Origins Act and Asian Exclusion Act and most of what’s covered in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 were abolished by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. So yeah, we effectively walked backwards 45 years…

This law would make it a crime for immigrants to fail to carry immigration documents on them and give the police the authority to detain anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally.

Note to Self: When in Arizona, remember to NOT dressed like an FOB. And of course, to remember to carry my U.S. passport with me at all times.

WTF Moment #13: Arizona. I cannot even make this shit up. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.”

Ok. I agree that teachers without a command of correct grammars should not be teaching English. But how many people you know that are native English speakers ignore grammars when they speak? How often do you see native English speakers with higher education commit the “sudden death” (imo) mistake of using IT’S when they meant ITS?

And how about those accents sported by other native “English” speakers from the other parts of the world? The Irish. The Scottish. The Australian. Hack, I have a hard time understanding the British accent.

Here’s my proposal: Anybody that does not speak AMERICAN should not be allowed to teach in our schools. Period.

Oh. You say you don’t know how to define “the American accent”? You say you cannot understand the Bayou accent even though it is technically VERY AMERICAN?

Well. Fuck me.

I wish Arizona have simply come clean from the beginning and said what they have had on their mind all along, “Whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical and WHO HAPPENED TO BE BROWN.”

You know what? I am pretty darn sure they have no problem with Elin nee Nordegren Woods’ accent even if she sounded like the Swedish Chef.

WTF Moment #14: Arizone. Again. Triple win. Seriously. Give the other states a chance. South Carolina called. They are not too happy with the spotlight you have been getting lately. They want their hard-earned “Worst State” title awarded by Jon Stewart back!

The attack on ethnic studies.

According to a proposed bill, school will lose state funding if they have classes that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

Have you read the Classic English Literature Canon used in English 101? Leaf through it and let me know when you come across an author whose works have been included in Classic Lit that is was (well, according to the DEAD White male rule, they are all dead so the past tense is a given) NOT white. Go on. I’ll wait.

Oh. What? You cannot find any. So one could argue that Classic English Lit canon can be construed as “designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group”?

I guess I shouldn’t have behaved like an ungrateful immigrant. We really should be grateful that within the proposed bill, the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide will still be allowed. Oh my god. This is huge. Thank you so much! Until some closeted Holocaust denier becomes the next superintendent, that is.  So teach them while you still can, teachers!

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Now that healthcare reform bill has been signed into law, and we are NOT holding our breath to see when changes can really be carried out, probably years, and by then, I’d probably be dead from holding my breath especially since I can in all honesty hold my breath for only 10 seconds under normal circumstances… It’s amazing I know for someone with such a loud mouth and loud voice, my lung capacity is pathetically puny… what with the lawsuits filed by several states, the continual protests from the GOP and the Tea Don’t-Call-Me-Baggers Party members, something else on the horizon for the Republicans to wage a new battle:

The proposed VAT.

Actually, it was not even proposed in the congress. People started ASKING QUESTIONS about VAT because economist, former Federal Reserve Chairman, current White House advisor, Paul Volcker on April 6 answered a question at a New York Historical Society event, saying that VAT is not as toxic an idea as people may think. Oh, he also said, “If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes.”

Ooops. They (The Dems) did it again! Sound the alarm!

I have been trying to read upon various opinion pieces to draw my own conclusion. But the fact is: NOBODY has officially proposed it yet except John McCain, the Maverick. He alone proposed an anti-VAT amendment preemptively.  Like anybody else I would like to be able to keep as much of my hard-earned money as possible. I was surprised therefore by my annoyance when I received an email from my Congressman, taking a survey, with a simple question: “Should Congress impose a new VAT tax?”

With NO information whatsoever on the background and origin of the recent brouhaha over VAT.

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Most likely I simply needed a good dose of rage to distract me from life itself. Nothing, NOTHING, gives a good slap to wake me up from my self-pitying stupor like a good invitation for raging psychotic foaming. I immediately saw this email, perhaps wrongly, as an incendiary, biased missive disguised as an innocent, neutral survey. A fear monger. So I fired off this email, perhaps a bit pigheadedly. It felt good, I have to admit.  I don’t really care that he will not read it.

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Dear Congressman Kirk,

I feel the email survey on the proposed VAT you have sent out via email is misleading, if not disingenuous. When you send out an email with a brief question “The Congress decided to add more tax. Do you think they should levy more tax?” I am going to take a wild guess that most of the respondents will say “H to the ELL NO WAY!” I am going to take another wild guess that you and your staff will then show the survey results, perhaps even call a news conference, with the “stunning” result of the majority surveyed having chosen “NO”.

If a doctor goes to a patient and says, “Would you like to have toxic chemicals injected into your body, with the potential risk of killing the cells in your bone marrow, losing all your hair, and in general feeling weak and like cr*p all the time?” I am going to take a wild guess that the patient is going to say, “NO.” But if the doctor provides the patient with the facts and the reasons behind his/her recommendation, the patient will be empowered to make an informed decision.

Yes. You can argue that people who want more information can always go online. After all, google is just one click away. But let’s be honest with ourselves: The topic of TAXES has always been extremely personal to people especially those who are blessed enough to be in the high-income bracket, and lately it has been turned into an emotional subject as well. in your wildest guess, what will be the % of the people who after receiving this email wondered about the facts behind the VAT proposal instead of getting some gut / visceral reactions to the short question you posted?

Frankly I am disappointed. For the very least you could have included a link in your email to a fact-based, neutral information page. Granted very low % of the recipients are expected to bother to click on that link, but to those who care to learn more and to make their decisions based on facts and not based on a base human desire for self-preservation and an all-too-human “They can eat cake” mentality, such a skin-deep effort on your part would have helped prevent this bad taste in my mouth I am experiencing.

Sincerely,

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I only bring up my degree when I write complain letters...

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Who here has an obsessive personality and voted “Most Likely to Grow Up Alex Forrest” in High School? ME! I just cannot let it go.

Here’s what I wrote last week about the epidemic of the phrase “That’s so gay!”…

Let’s start with the word “Gay”.

Let’s start with banning the usage of the word “gay” as a substitute for “stupid, dumb, ugly, undesirable, etc.” from your schools.

Since I wrote “That’s so Gay” is NOT so funny! This has nothing to do with sense of humor… last February, “That’s so gay” has been gaining popularity as just another common expression. I am hearing (and seeing on Facebook) this phrase more and more often, from children younger and younger who have no idea what “being gay” means. As the phrase takes on the facade of familiarity, moving into the realm of the vernacular, taking on the identity of an idiom (because what exactly does it even mean in this context?! Children or the immature adults only know to prevent this phrase from ever being used on them… but what exactly does it mean?!) it is becoming harder and harder to fight it off.

I am tired of hearing “That’s so gay.” I really am. There are so many words in English to choose from to denote your distaste for something. Get a thesaurus. Get a book of classic insults by Shakespeare. Wilde. Because when you are so concerned about being called “gay” that “That’s so gay” becomes a popular insult, you know, you sound like a Homophobe to me. And you know what they say about Homophobes… How about this, let’s give “That’s so Beck” a try.

Once again, this is the case of “I must have been under a rock” since ladies and gentlemen, there IS has been a champaign to stop this madness, to bring awareness to the harm done by such a “harmless” phrase.

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I was really excited initially, “OMG! There IS a movement right now so I can simply jump on the wagon without having to feel so frustrated, with my panties all tied up and nowhere to go!”

Upon further investigation, I realized that the campaign was launched in 2008 by the Ad Council to dissuade people from using “That’s so gay” when they mean “stupid”. In 2008, people. That’s like the last century, no?! And we are still dealing with the same shit, and it is getting worse and worse every day.

I have been staring at this Twitter counter for a while now.

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I don’t know what’s happening with this campaign, movement, PSA. Is it still in vogue? Was it ever? But I saw this, I thought my proposed replacement phrase THAT’S SO BECK! has legs!

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Let's be creative! That's so..... Bush? As in the plant bush, really. Scout's honor.

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That’s so…

What clever, witty, humorous sayings can you come up with as a comeback?

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Watch the PSA commercial with Wanda Sykes from 2008 for inspiration if you wish. It’s as per usual HILARIOUS. (Warning: Just don’t read the comments… Trust me.) As for effectiveness? Let’s just say it was done in 2008 and I don’t remember ever hearing about this, until now. Sorry I’m all Rah! Rah! one second, and then Debbie Downer the next.

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If you look at the ratings, the crazed fans (“regular Suzy homemakers” many of them) in the audience, the 4.5 million followers on Twitter, her No. 3 position on the Twitter ranking (behind Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears *Yes, I know* BUT ahead of POTUS), you’d be convinced that Ellen DeGeneres has gone mainstream. For goodness sake, Ellen is a CoverGirl! She is able to mention her wife Portia de Rossi in the mundane way that spouses mention each other in their conversations with other people without raising any eyebrows.

Wanda Sykes has a show on Fox.

The primetime TV show “Modern Family” on ABC includes in its main characters a suburban couple with an adopted daughter who happen to be gay without any trace that would possibly remind you of Jack from Will and Grace.

If you put your blinder on (and force yourself to forget about Prop 8), you can tell yourself that, yes, gays and lesbians have been accepted as “one of us”. Or at the very least, homosexuality is now broadly accepted as yet another piece of fabric weaved into this complex, multi-faceted world that we live in.

You would be wrong.

First of all, as you are well aware of, there is a fight raging on in Washington over “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. I can’t do my frustration justice without simply asking you to watch my beloved Jon Stewart proposing a ban on Old People from serving in the Senate. Naturally “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” would apply also should this ban go through…

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Earlier we were outraged by what happened to Constance McMillan, the lesbian high school student in Itawamba, Mississippi who wanted to wear a tux and bring her girlfriend to the prom and was denied this request by the school board. At the same time we were amazed and impressed by this young woman’s poise, resolve and courage when she didn’t take the easy way out by simply backing down and instead took her case up with ACLU. Such a story naturally hit close to home for Ellen: She invited Constance to be on the show to tell her story and presented Constance with a scholarship of $30,000 (from an anonymous donor) at the end of the interview. Later when a federal judge ruled that the school board violated her rights by cancelling the prom (without ordering the district to hold the prom as planned), Ellen sent yet another strong message to Constance, and also to her viewers.

You’d thought such outrage would have taught the school district, the parents and the students involved to rethink their position and learn a lesson from this. But no…

Last Friday, Constance was sent to an effectively “fake” prom which was only attended by 5 other students. The principal and teachers were also there as chaperons. Two of these students were reportedly disabled. (One had to assume that they have also been directed to this “fake” prom). In the mean time, a privately-held party organized by parents was held in another location attended by, you guessed it, the other students. “The parents didn’t want Constance there, and they didn’t want to get sued.” Some reports said.

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The "Secret Prom" Constance McMillan was not invited to. She lucked out judging by the photo...

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You’d think that people would eventually wake up one morning and realized such cruelty is unbecoming of a human being and relent. But no…

The other students have been identifying themselves as victims because Constance ruined the prom and their memories of senior high school. As a normal teenager would do when they have an ax to grind against somebody, they started a Facebook page called “Constance quit yer cryin.” (I just spent an hour reading some of the things being posted on that Facebook page. My jaws are still on the floor…)

All this is unbelievable isn’t it? Well, no worries. Because our fellow human beings never disappoint. What is even more unbelievable, more outrageous, more horrifying, and more saddening is the case of Phoebe Prince in South Hadley, MA, who killed herself in January after cyber and emotional bullying. The most un-fucking-believable part of this? Her tormentors went to her Facebook the day after she hung herself (and discovered by her 12-year-old sister!) and mocked her. Right there on the memorial page.

It’s been two months and every time when I think of her and this story, I cannot stop cursing and crying.

Finally on March 29, nine teenagers were indicted for their involvement in this case. I sure hope I will not hear about Facebook page set up by supporters of the Hadley 9 bemoaning how Phoebe Prince has ruined their lives.

What happened here?

The teachers have been blamed for Phoebe Prince’s death; the school district/board has been blamed for the prejudiced decision against Constance McMillan.

How about the parents?

What I am seeing is a severe case of Undeserved Sense of Entitlement and Lack of Accountability.

Teachers don’t teach you this at school. Nor should they be responsible for building characters and moral fortitude for the kids. It is the parents’ job, isn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong: I am not so smug as to assume that I will be able to understand my children when they turn teenagers. But as a parent, you have got to try as hard as you could. Now I know you did not try hard enough if you were organizing a private party just so you could exclude the gays and the disabled. The disabled? WHAK? Does the Bible say something against the disabled too?

Candace Gingrich-Jones on HuffPost put out a call for action:

“We can all learn a lot from Constance McMillan and how she has handled herself — when we see something that doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. And it is the responsibility of every one of us to take some kind of action on behalf of fairness. Whether you bring up bullying at the next PTA meeting, write a letter to the Itawamba County School District, or call out your friends or co-workers when they say ‘faggot’ or ‘that’s so gay,’ you are improving the climate for queer youth — and adults. Do something.”

DO SOMETHING.

Let’s tell our kids that “the buck stops here.” The buck has got to stop with them. Let’s tell them that we understand peer pressure and how hard it is to survive high school, but they have to be the one that speak up. If not to their peers, then to an adult. If malicious rumors are being circulated about someone, the least they have to do is to NOT continue the chain. Break the cycle of cruelty. Sometimes all it takes is one person to stand up or stay back or speak up.

LET’S DO SOMETHING.

Baby steps. All of us.

One Ellen DeGeneres is not enough.

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Let’s start with the word “Gay”.

Let’s start with banning the usage of the word “gay” as a substitute for “stupid, dumb, ugly, undesirable, etc.” from your schools.

Since I wrote “That’s so Gay” is NOT so funny! This has nothing to do with sense of humor… last February, “That’s so gay” has been gaining popularity as just another common expression. I am hearing (and seeing on Facebook) this phrase more and more often, from children younger and younger who have no idea what “being gay” means. As the phrase takes on the facade of familiarity, moving into the realm of the vernacular, taking on the identity of an idiom (because what exactly does it even mean in this context?! Children or the immature adults only know to prevent this phrase from ever being used on them… but what exactly does it mean?!) it is becoming harder and harder to fight it off.

I am tired of hearing “That’s so gay.” I really am. There are so many words in English to choose from to denote your distaste for something. Get a thesaurus. Get a book of classic insults by Shakespeare. Wilde. Because when you are so concerned about being called “gay” that “That’s so gay” becomes a popular insult, you know, you sound like a Homophobe to me. And you know what they say about Homophobes… How about this, let’s give “That’s so Beck” a try.

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p.s. Here’s my angry musing on the increasing popularity of the usage of “Gay” as an insult…

The increasing popularity of the usage of “Gay” as an insult is indicative of the underlying homophobic mentality permeating in our society, despite decades of working towards acceptance by the “mainstream”. This is, the way I read it, part of the backlash against the gains made by gays and lesbian. They have co-opted the word “queer” so that now it conveys pride in self-identification in some specific uses. It is then not too far off to see the co-opting of the word “Gay” as revenge by the not-so-enlightened amongst us: they are trying to turn the previously neutral and PC “label” (for lack of a better word) into a slur. “You took an insult word from us so that we can no longer hurt you with it. Guess what? We are going to turn how you have been identifying yourselves with into a insult equivalent of anything undesirable…”

Clever maneuver by the not-so-tolerant.

What does this say about how we really feel about those who are different from the “norm” deep down, behind the door, if we allow the use of this word on the playground and in the school hallways as part of the litany of insults that our kids can hurl at each other?

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…………………………………………………………………………………….

And, like a bad infomercial on TV, THERE IS MORE!

The drama continues here on the Facebook page set up by the adults from Itawamba, Mississippi. It is easy to see where the kids have learned their prejudices and bigoted attitudes. I don’t want to sound naive to say that I am shocked by the ugliness found there. But despite all my cynicism, I am still shocked.

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Thanks to the straight (and stern) talks from you, I went to see a doctor today. Just a random doctor since I don’t really have a family doctor. My Ob-Gyn is the only doctor that I “keep in touch” throughout the years. And oh, yes, my dentist. I have been forced to drop quite a few family practitioners in the past when they 1. suggested that I get my tubes tied after I had my second child, 2. ordered expensive tests that still cost thousands after the 80% insurance pay when the disgonosis turned out to be Achilles tendinosis (So no, nothing to do with my nerves), 3. mis-diagnosed my blood clog as a muscle tear.

I gave the good doctor the litany of my symptoms: nausea & vomiting, dizziness, headache, sinus discomfort (but not pain nor pressure), stuffy feeling in my ears. I shared with him my theory of this being allergy-induced since my “condition” started a month ago when Spring supposedly arrived. I appreciated his gallant efforts in not rolling his eyes in my presence. I also informed him of some new development: running nose, a fever, and possibly the worst chill I have ever had in my life.

After all this, his diagnosis? “Are you suffering a lot of stress lately?”

I am a working mother with two rambunctious boys working full time commuting downtown with the company headquartered in another state 800 miles away and a boss that is scheming to either get me to move there or to get rid of me and a husband that travels 50% of the time for work. So yeah. I guess I am stressed.

“Have you suffered from any head injury? Did you hit your head somewhere?”

Why? You read my blog or my tweets?

“I think this is tension headache.”

Hello? What about the nausea and the vomiting?

“Are you married?”

Do I look tired and not care how I look? Yes, I am married.

“You should ask your husband to rub your neck.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Ha ha. Yes. I should write you a prescription to get him to do this, and if I submit it to your insurance, they may even pay him! Ok. Here is what I want you to do…”

Miracle drugs?

“I want to get some blood tests done to rule out the usual: thyroid, glands…”

Really? Why am I NOT surprised?

“And then I want you to get an MRI. I am worried about the headaches. The MRI is going to come back clean, but I want to rule anything out before I talk to you again. So after you get your MRI, call me, and I can talk to you about Tension Headaches.”

Seriously? Is an MRI even remotely necessary in my case?

Like a good Chinese girl (brought up in a Chinese society let me emphasize this), I did not question the good doctor. And really, should I even question my good fortune? I am blessed enough to be covered by a top-notch health insurance plan: the free health insurance provided by my company is a Cadillac plan. It covers everything. No pre-certification required for most of the expensive tests. If the doctor does not even want to wait and wants me to get an MRI before he even talks to me more, which I am actually able to get right away without having to call the insurance company and go through the labyrinth of paperworks, unlike say people on Medicare, should I not be grateful?

Fine. Call me an ungrateful bitch. But here is what I thought as soon as I walked out of the doctor’s office:

Son of a bitch. He is worried that he may get sued if something happens to me and he did not order me an MRI.

How much of the root cause for the rising health care costs in the U.S. is due to the fear of lawsuits?!

(Yeah, I know. You will be wanting to see me eating my foot if the good doctor was right and the MRI does detect something. THAT will solve all the questions about “What the F is wrong with you?!” in more ways than one. And seriously, if something is growing inside my head, you cannot fault me for being a bitch so would you really still want to see me eating my foot?… So the way I see it, either way, my foot will stay as far away from my mouth as humanly possible. Ha!)

All this rambling reminded me of a post from February 18, 2009, “Americans pay $650 billion more for health care than comparable countries…” when there was absolutely no traffic to my blog…  Reading the conclusion I drew more than a year ago,

“In the United States, the ‘average’ consumer of health care pays for only 12 percent of its total cost directly out of pocket (down from 47 percent in 1960), as well as for 25 percent of health care insurance premiums, a share that has stayed relatively constant for the last decade.  Well-insured patients who bear little, if any, of the cost of their treatment have no incentive to be value-conscious health care consumers.”

This sounds familiar but now we have the numbers to back up our suspicions:

In order for any health care reform to work and stick, it is important that we carry out the education and cultivation of a new generation of patients that are “value conscious” and treat the burden of health care, even when they do not have to pay for it DIRECTLY, as ultimately their own INDIRECT cross to bear.

I am saddened and a bit ashamed, seeing how I will be getting an MRI after all, albeit begrudgingly. I am only human – I do not want to bear the unnecessary risk of not getting this MRI just to make a point, especially since it is readily available to me. So that puts us in a bit of a conundrum, doesn’t it?

Foot in my mouth after all.

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I am honored to welcome Velva from Tomatoes on the Vine to participate in the WTF Wednesday feature in which rants and foaming are conducted and strong opinions are shared on things that bother us, that just won’t go away until we get on our soap box and let it rip.

Velva celebrates the deep, communal meaning in food, through her wonderful blog: Tomatoes on the Vine - sustaining our bonds with one another through the simple grace of sharing a meal. What makes me respect her even more is that, in the midst of the gorgeous pictures she takes and the delicious plates she shares with her friends and families,  she did not forget where the food came from, and how it got to our table. The Politics of Food Production and Distribution. We don’t want to think about it. But it is there.

Now let’s give a round of applause and welcome Velva to WTF Wednesday! (And you can be NEXT!)

The Price of Tomatoes

by Velva Knapp @ Tomatoes on the Vine

I was born and raised in South Florida where the landscape and food are as diverse as its people. I don’t want to take you to the part of South Florida where you pass million dollar houses and shopping malls that include Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany’s. I want to take you on a journey to the other side of the tracks to Immokalee, Florida, located 120 miles Northwest of Miami. When you arrive, the highway suddenly shrinks from six to two.

Welcome to the Tomato Capitol of the United States.

During the months of December through May most of the tomatoes consumed in the United States come from this impoverished, gritty, dusty town filled with potholed streets and trailers that are almost uninhabitable, or at a minimum in permanent disrepair. Not only is this the Tomato Capitol of the United States but according to Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney, “Immokalee Florida has another claim to fame: It is “ground zero for modern slavery”.

How does slavery occur in the United States in 2010?

The condition in which these migrant workers live and work is appalling and sub-human. Since 1997, over 1,000 men and women have been freed by law enforcement in Immokalee, and these were only the cases that led to conviction. A well-known fact is when you are undocumented, mistrustful and speak little or no English; you are not likely to report the crime. This allows the crew bosses who exploit these workers to go uncharged and the big growers who hire them, simply turn a blind eye and go unnoticed.

As I write this post, I am not referring to a few incidents of unscrupulous crew bosses, what I am writing about takes place everyday, and not just to a few but to many migrant workers who do jobs that most Americans cannot even fathom.

I am not trying to stir-up a debate about U.S. immigration policy but, to look on the human side of the people who work our fields to ensure that our grocery bins and fast-food chains are filled to the brim with tomatoes and most other produce. The fact remains that big companies under the guise of labor contractors and crew bosses, recruit, lure and hire migrant workers. Promise them basic necessities such as food, shelter and medical care, if they should become injured on the job. Instead, many migrant workers are provided appalling housing conditions, virtually no medical care and there is a cost for everything.

The migrant worker working in Immokalee’s tomato fields, rummages through staked vines looking for hard green tomatoes-when the 32-pound basket is filled, It is then hoisted upon their shoulder and then trotted up to large dumpster the size of a gravel bed of a truck. The basket of tomatoes is then dumped, and the process starts all over again. This is usually done at break neck speed. On a good day, for each basket that is picked, a worker can earn a token worth about 45 cents. A young fit worker could pick a ton of tomatoes a day, netting about $50 per day-that is if the worker actually receives what they have earned. A known practice is that when piece workers are paid their work is routinely falsified.

Oftentimes, their pay is also docked for everything from drinking water from a hose, a meager meal of tortillas and beans, or using the bathroom. An average trailer that literally leans in the wind and houses on average ten migrant workers usually costs about $800 per month. Want to take a cold shower $5 to use a garden hose and $20 a week for urinating and defecating outside because there is no indoor plumbing. In a relatively short period of time, the workers are in debt to the crew bosses and in a situation in which they cannot pay off their debts, and are forced to live in involuntary servitude.

Next time, you head to the grocery store and are placing your tomatoes or other produce in your cart you can reasonably assume that your produce was picked by the hand of a slave – as it is not an assumption. It is a fact.

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I probably don’t need to publish this post on my blog. It is not appealing. It is not good writing. It will not make you laugh out loud. It is not even a proper rant. Besides, it is friggin’ long – I am amazed at how much I tapped out on my iPhod, and tedious. I am not even making any coherent argument, not to mention grammatical errors! Run-on sentences! totally exposing myself as a feeble-minded person. Even the title spells “MEH”.

That being said, I feel this pathological need to be on the record, I guess. Since I have been treating this blog as my diary, I want everything that comes out of my head to be on here. So, sorry about this… mental puke…

I brought the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett with me on my flight back home last December. I have had the whole flight between IAD and Narita to ponder on this book. I won’t even attempt at writing a review since I am really not qualified to do so. And at any rate, there are already more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon.com. Furthermore, all the book reviewers in the major news outlets have done so and waxed poetic on this book, with one of them comparing The Help to To Kill A Mocking Bird.* I will just make a list of things that I have been chewing on. By Tap Tap Tap on my iPhone (without a SIM) and therefore heavy editing involved thereafter.

Spoiler alert: If you are thinking of reading this book, you should skip this. I will also be 100% honest with myself, which means I will be contradictory, at times nonsensical, and possibly offending, especially if you love the book.

Confession first: I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. Cliché, yes. Truth is: it IS a page turner. For me. From the moment when I opened it in August when I first received it, I could not completely put Aibileen out of my head until the Christmas week, when I finally had time to sit down and read the book in long stretches.

The stories are riveting. The voices are, as much as I hate using this word because it is often confused with “stereotypical”, or at the very least “archetypal”, the voices sound to me “authentic”. That is, when I was reading it, when I was caught up in the drama of the story that was being expertly told, when I was kept in suspense as to the safety of the women, when I was hoping with clenched fists and a racing hear that they would triumph over evil and that justice would be done. Well, justice be done to a certain extent, in the strict confines of the story-telling.

Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

So what do I know about whether the book is “authentic” or not? Hasn’t this always been the gripe I have against books like Memoirs of a Geisha? That a fiction novel, on account of its main characters being of a non-white race, is evaluated and praised for delivering an “authentic” portrayal. Do we even care whether Dan Brown’s characters are authentic or not?

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I cannot help, in the back of my mind, though I immensely enjoyed the stories of these women, that a white woman took possession of the black women’s stories twice, especially after I read Kathryn Stockett’s personal note at the end of the book: like Skeeter in the story, Stockett wrote the black women’s stories and gained wild success.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

What bothers me even more is Skeeter’s cajoling, forcing almost, these women into telling her their stories because she was told that she needed to write something that nobody had ever written before in order to get into the publishing world. Throughout I was extremely uncomfortable with her motive: next to the all too real risk to the black women’s lives, her motif seems so trivial. Selfish even. What is the potential downside for her engagement in this feat? None too serious really. And indeed, there was a happy ending for Skeeter. But for Minnie and Aibileen the future remained uncertain.

Although I do wish something horrible would happen to the wrong-doers and was a bit let down when it didn’t, I do applaud the author for not cheapening the story by taking the easy way out. They are still in the mid 1960s in Mississippi and it is not like they are going to all of a sudden find true equality by the end of the book. I need to give the author props for not providing her White readers with an easy cathartic way to assuage the white guilt. “The villain that caused such misery is dead/appropriately punished, all is well in the universe. Now get on with your merry life.”

As I mentioned, the book received gleaming reviews. From White book reviewers. This could be racist on my part, and certainly identity politics at its worst as some might say, nevertheless, I feel I NEED TO know how an African American reader may feel about this book. NOT because a white woman from a privileged family in the South wrote this book, but because, again, despite my immense enjoyment of this book, and yes indeed I feel guilty for liking this book when I started wondering how my friends back in my graduate study classes would have said about this book, I cannot ignore the conflation of the tropes: 1. the White heroine being rescued, or finding self-realization, through Black folks around her that she does not socialize with, 2. Black people, unable to help or save themselves, being rescued by a White person.

I imagine this book already optioned by a movie studio. Or soon will be. Anyway you look at it, it IS going to be a great vehicle for some of the outstanding African American actresses, and god only knows how hard it is for a good script with a strong minority character lead to make it all the way to some head honcho’s desk. I do hope that the script and the actor that portrays Leroy would breathe some more life into him rather than the one-dimensional wife-beater. When in doubt, we reach for the things we share as women: abusive husbands, cheating boyfriends, sexist Chauvinistic patriarchs. In that process, our men are further demonized. Joy Luck Club immediately comes to mind. I can’t watch that movie without cringing. Not a single man in that movie is worthy of loving. Is it why it was accepted by the white mainstream audience? “Poor Asian women. They are so much better off over here. Away from their men.”

When The Blind Side came out, and the Internet was all abuzz about what a feel good movie it was, it immediately raised the mental red flag for me. “Feel good” means, to me, “Not for you. You are probably not the target audience/reader. Stay home. Otherwise you won’t feel good.”

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

* The surest way to incite heated debate against the worth of any book is to compare it to the beloved To Kill a Mocking Bird… So if you hate someone, yeah, go ahead and compare them to Harper Lee.

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