ERA: Take Three?

I'm pretty sure a lot of Americans believe the Equal Rights Amendment was passed in the 70s. (The ERA was actually originally introduced to Congress in 1923.)While it's true that the 92nd Congress passed it in 1972, the ERA came 3 states short of ratification, failing to meet it's 1982 deadline.

But it's back! On Wednesday, The Washington Post broke the news that House and Senate Democrats have introduced the amendment back into Congress under a new name: the Women's Equality Amendment. (WEA? Not quite as catchy...)

Just to be clear, here is the text of the amendment:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

I know. Crazy, right? Good thing we have WOMEN like Phyllis Schlafly to prevent freaky liberals from passing something as "retro" as the ERA. Back in the 70s, she warned us this amendment would give us unisex bathrooms and force women into war via the draft. Now? Why, same-sex marriage for all! Abortions galore!

Schlafly and her flock pretty much single-handedly destroyed the ERA in the 70s. Can she do the same this time? As Carol Lloyd at Broadsheet points out, unlike the 70s, we now have a Christian Right, the Promise Keepers, and a men's rights movement. Shlafly sounds as crazy now as she did then, denying the existence of marital rape and asserting that "women in combat are a hazard to other people around them." (According to Lloyd, 160,000 women have served in Iraq, many in combat zones). Can the Congressional Democratic majority help? We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

An amendment that would give women a right to sue for a higher pay rate (on average, women's salaries are less than men's for equal work - STILL), that would make gender discrimination legally equivalent to discrimination based on race, seems like it should pass with flying colors. I can't even fathom why there is any serious debate about its ratification.

Writing Scripts for wallstrip? Priceless

It's Mastercard today on wallstrip. And yes, they know it's not Thursday. This one was a lot of fun. I don't think they changed my script at all. I credit the stock - it was easy to figure out.



Wallstrip was also featured on CNBC and Viral on Veoh (they're the second show profiled, a little over two minutes in). Both great plugs! Great job, guys.

I love Socialism

According to Broadsheet, "Still reacting to last year's models-dying-of-starvation tragedies, the Spanish health ministry is taking a step beyond just banning ultra-thin models from the catwalk: it's teamed up with four major Spanish retailers to create mannequins that look more like actual women, and plans to set standard sizing for women's clothing so that sizes don't fluctuate between stores. "

So how will they decide what the mannequins will look like? The article goes on: "the Health Ministry is using laser-equipped booths that can scan 130 body measurements in 30 seconds (apparently when the Spanish Health Ministry wants something done, it gets it done). The booths will be sent around the country to measure the curves of 8,500 women, ages 12 to 70, and their results will be passed on to designers who account for 80 percent of the clothing in the Spanish fashion industry, says the Herald. The study's results will be used to set sizing standards."

I know this isn't a magical fix-it for eating disorders, but it's definitely a big step. Women like myself hate size-guessing at different clothing stores. We hate seeing that cool outfit on the mannequin make us look bloated and awkward. It just makes sense. Let's take a page out of Spain's book! Please!!!

The Only Time Porn is Not Okay...

From Bust Magazine:
"U.S. Air force Sergeant Michelle Manhart served in the armed forces for 13 years, until she was relieved of duty this winter because she posed nude for Playboy."

From AP:
""This staff sergeant's alleged action does not meet the high standards we expect of our airmen, nor does it comply with the Air Force's core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do," Oscar Balladares, spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base, said in a statement."

A woman legally poses nude in a magazine full of (shocker) nude women = relieved of duty on moral grounds. A man gropes, harasses, assaults, RAPES a fellow woman soldier? If the barriers don't intimidate the woman from reporting the incident, the man may be reprimanded (no!), have his pay docked (gasp!), or have his rank reduced (say it ain't so!). Oh, and said man can have any NUMBER of said nudie magazines with no consequences whatsoever. Now THAT'S morality embodied.

Woman feeling proud of her job, body, womanhood, life, and self? Let's can her! Such a public display of immorality must be dealt with! Women can't exploit their own bodies! That's our job!

And ...
Scene.

BCOO: Before the Mortgage

Well, I asked for it and the book delivered. A little fluff for the road.

A book of essays is hard to review. I think the editors, Christina Amini and Rachel Hutton, did a nice job tying everything in together. I had fun reading it. But the only real stand-out for me was Sarah Vowell's family Thanksgiving essay which I'd heard before.

Next, I give John Irving another shot with The Cider House Rules. I didn't like the movie. I hope I like the book!

My latest wallstrip script

Going solar with wallstrip. I learned a lot researching for this one. Solar power is awesome!

BCOO: Blindness, Jose Saramago

Saramago gave me a gift. I felt privileged to read Blindness.

The narration and style of this novel create the perfect tone for this story of a blindness plague. "Blindness" focuses on several unnamed characters, examining their humanity or lack thereof in the midst of inhumane conditions and circumstances. The novels hits you in the gut and tears your heart out, displaying disgusting humans, faithful animals, and regular people in extreme situations.

I'm sorry. I'm trying not to gush. The narrator keeps things interesting (You didn't think a blindness plague would be enough, did you?) with constant intrusions into the story. The voice of the narrator is satirical, sardonic, self-referential, philosophical, and judgemental. It is continually questioning its own logic:

the only difference was in the colour, if black and white can, strictly
speaking, be thought of as colours.

Saramago plays with language constantly, examining the futility of speech in a world with different rules. In a land where no one sees, why would anyone say, suddenly understanding, "Ah, I see." This extends into a metaphor for an uncharted world. When cliches no longer make sense and language is peppered with useless phrases, everything changes. Unconscious gestures, expressions, everything is meaningless in a world where no one can see. This, if you pause to consider it, would be expected. But when language breaks down in addition, all communication stops. The world, in effect, ends.

Well, not exactly. Language, of course, doesn't break down entirely. But the possibility is intriguing and it gives the plot a nice sense of impending destruction.

I can't do this book justice with my little blog entry. If you want the chance to read a gorgeous, self-effacing, original piece of art, read Blindness.

Oh, and thanks to Sharif for letting me know about the musical version of "Blindness" opening in Chicago. It could go either way - I hope it's wonderful.

Next up: Before the Mortgage: Real Stories of Brazen Loves, Broken Leases, and the Perplexing Pursuit of Adulthood, edited by Christina Amini and Rachel Hutton. I know, I'm jumping from Camus to John Irving. But I'm about to go on tour. These essays will be nice fluff for the hotel rooms. It's tongues in cheek and I get to read Sarah Vowell, Davy Rothbart, and Thisbe Nissen.

AutoZone - another wallstrip

The script for AutoZone is about half mine (the last half). I like what they did with it. The stock market being what it is right now, most people aren't looking to invest. But wallstrip keeps on truckin'. Great work, guys.

Conservapedia

Wow. I'm stunned. No, actually I'm not. Head on over to Conservapedia. "A conservative encyclopedia you can trust." Read: the conservative answer to Wikipedia.

Entries are to follow strict " Conservapedia Commandments." I've starred the entries I found interesting:
"1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
2. Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
*3. Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
*4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
*5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1] (the footnote clarifies: "You will only be blocked for violating command 5 if you repeatedly change words from American spelling to another spelling.")
6. Do not post personal opinion on an encyclopedia entry. Opinions can be posted on Talk:pages or on debate or discussion pages."


The site gives an exhaustive list of examples of "bias" in Wikipedia. Among the complaints: "Wikipedia's entry on abortion reads like a brochure for the abortion industry."

The articles are ridiculous. There are highlights of Bill and Hillary Clinton's failures and Nixon's triumphs, and JFK is completely absent. Sorry, Nixon's entry warrants a complete quote:
"Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the Christian United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. He was the 36th Christian Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, in the administration of Christian Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a Congressman from California, he investigated communists and instigated the successful prosecution of Alger Hiss. Nixon served as Vice President under President Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, and lost his first presidential race to John F. Kennedy by a tiny margin. In 1968 he won the election to president, and was reelected in 1972 by a landslide, but had to resign the following year due to a threat of impeachment by Congress for the Watergate scandal.

President Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was the first President to visit communist (Red) China. He appointed a conservative (William Rehnquist), two moderates Warren Burger and Lewis Powell) and a liberal (Harry Blackmun) to the U.S. Supreme Court. Nixon was from a Quaker family. His Christian foreign policy as president was marked by détente with the atheistic Soviet Union and the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. His centrist domestic policies combined conservative Christian rhetoric and liberal action in civil rights, environmental and economic initiatives. As a result of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned the presidency in the face of likely impeachment by the United States House of Representatives. His successor, Gerald Ford, issued a controversial pardon that cleared him of any wrongdoing. "
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I could go on. But here's the point: what the hell are they thinking? Wikipedia, as I've mentioned before, has a communal entry system. Anyone can come in and write anything they want. If it's biased, that's because the people writing the entries are. So why not encourage conservatives to write entries on Wikipedia? Maybe it will even out the supposed bias (I'm pretty sure I disagree there is one in the first place).

And can I just go on a brief tangent about CE and BCE ("common era" and "before the common era")? Why would anyone have a problem with this? It's not "ignoring" history. It's simply making room for everyone's beliefs without changing our entire calendar. Okay - end tangent.

Is this a country that can't cooperatively write an encyclopedia entry? Do we need to have separate but equal -pedias? Is this democracy at its best? Do we need places to go and only hear what we want? Is truthiness truly the wave of the future?

Okay. I'm done. Look at the site. Explore. I know I'm giving them traffic, but it's terrifying to see this segregation of "facts." I don't understand it.

BCOO: Ines of My Soul, Isabel Allende

I know more about the conquering of Chile than I ever thought I would. That's a plus. But I think that's all I got out of this book. Maybe that's good for some people, but if I'm going to read a history book, I have a million other things I would like to learn about first.

Ines Suarez narrates Ines of My Soul. She is Pedro de Valdivia's lover. Who's he? The man who conquered Chile. And that's all I really needed to know about the history. I know. I sound like a whiny little kid. I did actually feel like I was back in high school being forced to learn about mythology when I wanted to learn about World War II. Yes, I have more perspective now. I understand both are important. That doesn't change the fact that I felt forced into learning about Chile's first years.

The book is interesting because it attempts to give a voice to the women in that time period. Ines Suarez is, indeed, a strong, wonderful woman. But she's there to serve Pedro do Valdivia's interests. Allende uses Suarez as a lens through which to view Pedro de Validivia and his exploits. I wanted to see Suarez.

Maybe I'm alone in this. The middle of the book did draw me in, but by the end I was just reading to get through the book. Then again, I'm the one who doesn't like war novels. This one fit that bill.

I'm already well into my next book, Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Saramago writes in Portuguese, but the translation has to be spot on. This book is gorgeous. Better stop there. More when I finish.

Plan B on wallstrip

A dream come true to write this wallstrip:


The Colbert Report and Plan B - what more could a girl want???

New wallstrip

Here's another one of my wallstrip scripts. This time, we looked at the male side of things. I think they did a great job.

If you missed it, check out yesterday's (2-20-07) show in the archives. If you like dogs, you'll be hooked. For those of you who know him, Chomsky makes his video debut. And the ego continues to grow...

The March, E.L. Doctorow

The March is literally THE march - Sherman's March during the Civil War. The novel is split into three sections: Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. We follow many characters on both sides of the war, including a free slave girl who joins the march, two escaped Confederate prisoners, General Sherman, a Southern belle, and a surgeon on the march.

I've only read one other Doctorow novel, Ragtime, which I loved. This one, I'm not so sure about. I found myself comparing The March to two other books set in the heat of battle: The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, set in Vietnam, and Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, which takes place during Westward expansion.

I don't like war novels. I knew that going in to each of these books. Blood Meridian was for school, The Things They Carried was recommended numerous times. The March, I found on my own.

I bring these other two novels up because I loved them. Despite my dislike of the genre, these books got through to me. This was probably because the books are not "war novels." Like any good book, these two novels defy labels.

The March is a different story. While I was able to immerse myself in the different characters, I was constantly ripped out of the moment by an account of battle. I understand this is a matter of taste, and I'm glad I got past it.

The best moment in this book is a scene with a character named Albion Simms. He is an unremarkable character until a spike winds up in his head. This doesn't happen until the North Carolina section of the novel, and it's one of the things that kept me reading. The surgeon decides to leave the spike in his head, deciding removal would kill him. The character remembers and forgets indescriminately and unpredictably. It is one of the most interesting parts of the novel. His death made me gasp out loud.

I'm glad I didn't put the book down. I'm glad I made it through. Doctorow embodies different mindsets about the conflict and about war in general, that make it an interesting read.

Next up: Ines of My Soul, by Isabel Allende

Re-Integration + BCOO - You Suck, Christopher Moore

I know you've all been on pins and needles about my wordpress experiment. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about (read: all of you), I decided to move my Book Club for One over to a separate blog on wordpress.com for a bunch of un-interesting reasons.

Well, I hated the site. I also missed the occasional comment from *intelligent* readers. Especially when I got this:

"how could you whomever you are actually enjoy this book? Its bland, hard to read, and the book is screaming out to be put down every time you read a line. Add to that flicking to the back of the book to check meanings of words etc, it is on the whole a very unsatisfactory book"

That was in response to my post about Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, and it made my decision for me: BCOO is moving back to The Peeled Apple. Go ahead and groan, I can't hear it.

I know it may be boring for some, but I like to have a record of what I've read and how I felt about it.

Here's what I thought of You Suck, by Christopher Moore:

---------------------

The last couple Moore novels I’ve read have left me wondering whether my reading taste has changed. As I read A Dirty Job and some of Moore’s older ones recently, I started to feel like Moore had lost respect for his readers. I started out feeling the same way about You Suck, Moore’s latest. It’s a sequel to one of my favorite Moore novels, Bloodsucking Fiends.

As always, it was wonderful to encounter some of the characters I remember from his other novels. There are the usual winks to well-versed Moore readers, which can get tedious at times.

But then the story kicked in. Moore gently makes fun of his characters, while unfolding a one-of-a kind story about true love between vampires. The novel takes place in San Francisco, which is conducive to Moore’s self-indulgence as well as his humor. It’s a give and take, but in this novel the humor wins. With a self-conscious goth girl named Abby Normal narrating a large portion of the novel, and the return of The Emperor of San Francisco, You Suck completely hits the mark.

This is Moore’s tenth novel and though they aren’t all winners, he is definitely an original. His novels are guaranteed to be unique, for better or worse. I definitely recommend Moore for anyone who likes to read screwball novels tightened with sincerity. But I’d start with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Next up: The March, by E.L. Doctorow

Floridian Fame

Florida is famous! Not in a good way. The state I'm longing to leave keeps giving me reasons to drive, crawl, or hitch my way out of here. Recent Florida stories include:

1) The 21-year old rape victim who was jailed hours after the rape. While in jail, she was denied the second dose of Plan B because it didn't jive with the medical supervisor's "religious beliefs." She finally obtained the pill 24 hours after the allotted time, rendering the medicine ineffective. The story hasn't hit many other headlines since that first day, though SaveRoe.com has details on how to contact Governor Crist to get a serious investigation going. I have a question - if they had found the outstanding warrant before the victim was examined by a nurse, would she have been allowed to take Plan B at all?

2) In yesterday's winner for oddest story, Anna Nicole Smith died. No one really knows what to do with this information, although CNN seems to be sticking with a mix of tribute and "holy shit this girl was screwed up." They also insist on highlighting a connection between Smith's life and Marilyn Monroe's. I think that's a bit offensive. Smith was discovered unconscious in a hotel room in Hollywood, Florida and died in the hospital. The autopsy is today. Her life is a soap opera, complete with a dead child, a fight for money (inheritance from the 80 year old man she married), an investigation into the paternity of her newest child, big boobs, weight problems, alcohol problems, intelligence problems, and slut problems.

3) And Florida hits it out of the park with this story from Atlantic Beach, FL. Let me set the scene for you: The Atlantic Theater had a sign up on their marquee advertising their upcoming production of "The Vagina Monologues." A woman drove by with her 12-year-old niece. "What's a vagina?" asks the niece. The woman called the theater, blaming the sign for her niece's question (why she didn't blame her sister for not teaching a TWELVE-YEAR-OLD the word vagina escapes me). The theater changed the sign to read "The Hoohaa Monologues." No. This is not a joke.

This is ridiculous. CNN has a video taken from local television that's pretty funny. The fact that the theater changed the word is insulting. The fact that the woman called to complain is insulting. And the fact that this girl didn't know what a vagina is...that's almost unbelievable.

4) Let's not forget the astronaut love triangle. Lisa M. Nowak drove to Orlando and attacked a fellow astronaut with pepper spray on Monday. There's not much to be said about this. The media is alternately taking it as a big joke (with headlines like "Astro-nut" and "Lust in Space") and an opportunity to psychoanalyze the lives of astronauts. It's a depressing story. I think we're all so interested because it's a "catfight" in space, as Broadsheet points out. But I also think we're disillusioned by this story. Astronauts are our heroes. They are hard-working, highly intelligent people. To find out that they're human - that's news-worthy.
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So there's Florida for you. According to these stories, we're free-speech-hating, rights-crushing, potential billionaire-killing, voyeurs who live in America's penis.
I know that this is an unfair portrayal of Florida, but it's stories like these that make Florida "special."

More wallstrip!

Here's my next episode of wallstrip. FMD is a lot less sexy than my last script, but it's all sexy when Lindsey is reading it. I'm so excited I get to hear her deliver my words! It's a little surreal to hear my stuff done so well.

The guys over at wallstrip have been getting some well-deserved publicity. Watch Adam Elend and Lindsey Campbell on ABC News. Also, Google has contacted them about putting the video on their stock page and you tube is putting them on their front page rotation. Congratulations, guys!

I think I should invest in wallstrip.

My first wallstrip script

The powers that be changed a couple things. Can you tell which lines? I think there's one that's pretty obviously not me.

I'm pretty happy with it, though. Lindsey is wonderful, it's hard to write bad stuff for her. I think I've gotten better though. My next show is Thursday, FMD, then one next week for AUXL.

Keep watching the show at wallstrip.com. It's really great.

I can finally get back to Jason's website, thanks to a temporary computer my mom cooked up for me. Big changes coming, thanks to a great new logo from Julie. Check for them at LTMProductions.com

Rape Victim Jailed

Widespread availability of Plan B doesn't help anything in jail.

(Gasparilla is a pirate festival where Tamps goes Mardi Gras. With beads, parades, and a sea-to-land invasion, the city goes nuts celebrating pirates who terrorized the seas of Florida.)

Last Saturday at Gasparilla, a 21-year old woman was raped. She then took a twenty minute walk to her car and called the police. She was riding in the front seat of the police car when the police learned of two outstanding warrants for the victim in Sarasota County. The warrants involved the payment of restitution for a juvenile crime.

Instead of looking for her rapist, the cops cuffed her, put her in the backseat, and took her to jail. She stayed there for two days. No bail.

It gets worse. The victim was allowed a rape exam, where she obtained emergency contraception to prevent a baby resulting from the rape. Twelve hours later, when her next dose was due, a medical supervisor at the prison refused to give her the pill for religious reasons. In fact, the girl waited 36 hours before "media inquiries" forced the jail to give her the second dose. This is unacceptable.

The girl was finally released on bail. The police department is supposedly planning to increase the time allowed before arresting a person for an outstanding warrant. In any case, this should never happen again.

In this story, we have a woman who had her freedom taken away three times. First, her rapist took her power, her sexuality, her body away. The police then pushed her down even further, cuffing her and, literally, putting her behind bars. Then she was denied Plan B: the choice to control her body and keep away an unwanted child. I can't believe how insensitive these people were.

I'm trying to see it from the cops' point of view. Apparently, they arrested the girl on a sergeant's orders. Still. If anyone can give me the other side of it, it would be appreciated.

--------------------------------

Just wanted to thank all of you who commented on the Electric Youth post. I only sought one side of the story through a documentary that was, according to the commenters, severely skewed in its viewpoint. Thank you for your input.

Wallstrip Debut

If you have trouble viewing this movie,
go to wallstrip and listen to Jason and I make fools out of ourselves for a pretty funny bit. Jason did the music, we did the vocals. wallstrip was just profiled in Business Week and they put out great shows. I've just started writing scripts for them. My first show is next week. I'll put a link up when it comes out.

The LTM Productions website is up. Not too much content yet, but we're getting there.

Electric Youth

I want an electric car.

After seeing the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car, I can tell you there is no excuse. I should be able to run out, buy a car, and charge it up at my corner station.

You have to see the movie. It's like a soap opera. GM kills their baby because it's prettier and smarter than the rest. How can it sell crappy cars when they have a cleaner, faster, prettier younger sister? And with Uncle Exxon-Mobil breathing down its neck, the choice seemed easy: crush 'em. Kill them and don't look back.

Ford lost 12.7 billion dollars in '06.

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Update on the European BMI-ism. The fashion industry over there says "no thanks" and "you can't make us."

Spanish clothing designers are countering with "standardized sizes" in cooperation with Spain's Health Ministry.