Hell Kat

I haven't blogged yet about Katrina - partly because I've been glued to the television, partly because I don't really know what I can add to the discussion. Am I aggrieved by what's happened? Lord, yes. I never dreamed I would see images of hungry, homeless people lined up on sidewalks waiting for (belated) aid to come, while dead bodies lie where they've fallen in the streets, right here in my own country. I'm by turns heartbroken, appalled, depressed and infuriated by our descent into what sometimes looks like a parody of Third World squalor.

But what can I say about these horrors that hasn't been said? Sure, I could excoriate the federal government for its feeble, much-too-little-much-too-late response ... but plenty of people have done that (here, here, and here), and with an eloquence that eludes me at the moment. I could call for FEMA director Michael Brown's head on a pike ... but my hard-charging senator, Barbara Mikulski, has already beaten me to the punch. And I suppose I could add my own observations about how Katrina ripped through the thin veneer of this nation's tolerance for people who are poor, black or both, thus exposing our innate racism and classism ... but there's not much room left on that particular bandwagon, populated as it is by everyone from Ted Kennedy to Kanye West.

Truth is, nothing I say here can ease the crushing losses suffered by the citizens of New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Slidell, and the now nonexistent Waveland, Miss.

So, like most everyone else, I make my donation to the Red Cross. I listen to the calls for assistance and for investigations into FEMA mismanagement as I box up clothes and household items to send to people who've lost - it defies imagining - everything. I thank whatever higher power may be lurking out there for the abundant good fortune in my life, and I stop kvetching about the comparatively minor annoyances. And I rededicate myself to campaigning and voting for candidates at every level who put justice and compassion ahead of profits.

It doesn't seem like much ... but right now, it's the best I've got.

Screwballs in short skirts

Time, which has evidently run out of important things to write about, features Ann Coulter on the cover of this week's issue. Well, more precisely, Ann Coulter's very long, very thin legs, which take up most of the cover and look alarmingly like tentacles. The perspective of the photo gives her the appearance of being a circus freak. Which, come to think of it, sums her up pretty well.

The cover story itself, oh-so-cleverly titled "Ms. Right," seeks to position Coulter as a symbol of the partisan divisiveness that currently plagues America:

...no one on the right is so iconic, such a totem of this particular moment. Coulter epitomizes the way politics is now discussed on the airwaves, where opinions must come violently fast and cause as much friction as possible. No one, right or left, delivers the required apothegmatic commentary on the world with as much glee or effectiveness as Coulter. It is almost impossible to watch her and not be sluiced into rage or elation, depending on your views. As a congressional staff member 10 years ago, Coulter used to help write the nation's laws. Now she is far more powerful: she helps set the nation's tone.

At the same time, it portrays her as a white burgundy-drinking, Nicorette-scarfing cutie pie who blushes when overheard excoriating liberals in a restaurant and is horribly, horribly misunderstood. Moreover, the article implies that part of the reason people at both ends of the political spectrum are so het up about her is that no one expects to hear such rancorous bilge spewing from the mouth of a pretty blue-eyed blonde who's thin as a drinking straw.

...one is astounded to hear from Coulter something like, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity," as she famously wrote of Muslims who were cheering after the Sept. 11 attacks, not least because Coulter might be shrink-wrapped in a black-leather mini as she says it. The combination of hard-charging righteousness and willowy, sex-kitten pulchritude is vertiginous and—for her many young male fans—intoxicating.

Oh, please.

Coulter is no more appalling than any other conservative blowhard simply because she's female - in truth, she's preceded by any number of viperous women, among them Phyllis Schlafly, Laura Schlessinger, Mary G. Kilbreth, and (as noted in the Time article) Claire Booth Luce.

Nor should her physical attractiveness make her statements more shocking. Why should we be somehow more aggrieved by the deranged rantings of a nutter who looks like Ann Coulter than one who looks like John McLaughlin? A crackpot is a crackpot, no matter what package it comes in. And Coulter is most certainly a crackpot. What else do you call someone who lobs grenades like "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building"? Bertrand Russell, she ain't.

But Coulter's true agenda emerges about halfway through the Time article:

"Most of what I say, I say to amuse myself and amuse my friends. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about anything beyond that."

So will someone please explain to me why we still spend so much time thinking about what she says?

Her continued fame (or, more accurately, infamy) must surely constitute the longest 15 minutes in recorded history.

Rambling thoughts on recent news

Because It Just Doesn't Make Sense, That's Why

To the great joy of all who believe in basic human rights, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled on Monday that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians violates California's Constitution.

Quoth Judge Kramer - who is not only a Republican but also Catholic - "It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners." Amen, Yer Honor.

No rational purpose has ever existed for any form of discrimination against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community ... but it's certainly nice to hear it from a relatively conservative judge.

The ruling will be appealed. We know that. The issue will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court, where the issue will have to be decided on the merits of the law - not on religion or tradition or whether half the country freaks out at the thought of gay people having the same rights as their own selves.

Until that day comes, however, we celebrate victories wherever we find 'em.

A Case for Living Wills

The tragedy of Terry Schiavo continued, with the Florida legislature and both chambers of Congress rushing last-minute measures to a vote, all in an effort to keep Schiavo's husband from having her feeding tube removed against the wishes of her parents. In a breathtaking example of Congress's penchant for theater of the absurd, House Republicans issued a subpoena for Schiavo to appear before a congressional hearing - a blatant attempt to subvert a court order allowing her feeding tube to be removed.

The Florida judge presiding over the case finally told Congress where to stick their subpoena, and the feeding tube was removed at 1:45 EST this afternoon.

There is no happy ending to this story. None. But it serves as a potent reminder that every adult should make out a living will.

No Guts. No Glory. No Wonder.

My seamhead husband and I spent a couple of hours last night watching C-SPAN's rerun of the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball. My beloved had never actually sat down to watch C-SPAN - and probably never will again - but for a while there, it was more entertaining than an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

After listening to a pack of obsequious congressmen lob softballs that Mario Mendoza could have jacked, and hearing Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling make statements that ranged from pugnacious to pathetic, we came to a few conclusions:

• Jose Canseco is a clown.
  
• Sammy Sosa looked like he got lost on the way to Camden Yards and somehow wound up in the Rayburn building.
• Sammy also managed to conveniently forget he knows how to speak English.
• Jose Canseco is a clown.
• Raffy Palmeiro is one heck of a handsome man.
  
• Curt Schilling needs to make up his mind whether steroid use in baseball is or isn't a problem, because he contradicted himself half a dozen times.
  
• Jose Canseco is a clown.

But what saddened me most was Mark McGwire's non-testimony. The man who kept us glued to the screen in 1998 as he and Sosa chased Roger Maris was a mere shadow of his former self - and I'm not just talking about the considerable change in his physical appearance (which could be explained by the fact that retired ballplayers don't need to retain all that muscle, couldn't it?).

My respect for McGwire came not only from his talent at the plate, but from the way he conducted himself during that remarkable season - with dignity, humility, and a refusal to feed the rivalry the press kept trying to cook up between him and Sammy. Most of all, I gave him huge props for speaking openly about going through therapy - an admission that most athletes wouldn't make if you held a .45 to their heads. He had integrity, and we loved him for it.

The Mark McGwire I saw at yesterday's hearing was not the Mark McGwire of 1998. This Mark McGwire stammered and stalled, feebly refusing to answer questions about whether he or any player he knew had used steroids. Over and over again, he bleated, "I'm not here to talk about the past." "I'm a retired player." "I can't answer that." "It's not for me to determine." "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions."

After a couple of hours of that, how can anyone not think that Big Mac was ducking the questions because he was, in fact, juiced while he was playing? That those 70 runs, and the entire magical season, were the result of - let's say the word - cheating. By choosing to all but plead the Fifth, McGwire forever tarnished his legacy as both a great player and a man of integrity. Moreover, as today's Washington Post noted, McGwire's crowning achievement will now be tagged with an "unwritten asterisk."

It's enough to make me wonder whether the notion of the baseball hero has gone the way of the dodo bird. And to thank the gods for Cal Ripken.

Et tu, ESPN?

I know, I know ... I've been a real slacker. But today I actually have time for a drive-by.

My subject of choice, however, is not politics - well, not in the strictest sense, anyway. It's sports. Or, to be more exact, the infuriating preponderance of sports-related websites and magazines that wallow in sexism.

I'm a woman. I'm also a sports fan. Baseball is my passion, but I also enjoy football and basketball. I'm crazy about the Winter Olympics, too. I'll even watch golf on TV. (OK, soccer I'll never get. As my husband says, soccer was no doubt invented by someone whose kid couldn't catch a ball.) And my reaction to today's cancellation of the NHL season was, "Didn't they cancel it months ago?" But for the most part, I love sports.

What I do NOT love is sports websites and magazines that feature swimsuit issues - can anyone explain to me what half-naked models rolling around in the surf have to do with sports? - or slobber all over pulchritudinous female athletes (most notably the young, blonde, utterly-incapable-of-winning-a-tournament Anna Kournikova). I quit on Sports Illustrated's website years ago, out of protest over their swimsuit issues. ESPN.com became my sports site of choice ... until I saw this.

The most maddening part of all is that there really are no other viable alternatives. What kind of business model do you suppose these sites have that encourages overt sexism? Are they trying to alienate female consumers?

My queendom for a sports site that doesn't assume all male fans are horndogs - and that's savvy enough to realize that there are an awful a lot of female fans out here, wallets in hand, waiting for the ESPNs of the world to stop treating us like objects.

A little touch-up and a little paint

Fabulous post today from Annalee Newitz at AlterNet (via blackfeminism.org), about a real jaw-dropper of a ruling from the ostensibly liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The gist of the ruling? It's OK for an employer to fire a female employee for refusing to wear makeup on the job.

As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up. Read the ruling for yourself, here.

Then, as a gesture of solidarity, vow to never again wear makeup to work unless you bloody well feel like it.

What's the life of a woman worth?

In Fort Worth, Texas, apparently, it's 14 years and 6 months less than the life of a man.

Y'know, it's a good thing I've lined my skull with chicken wire so there's less mess when my brain explodes.

And you just know Scott Peterson is thinking, "Drat ... I should've offed Laci in Fort Worth."

The late, great Shirley Chisholm

It occurs to me that in my post-holiday stupor, I (unforgivably) neglected to note the passing of Shirley Chisholm. Anything that can be said about this brave, awe-inspiring, and entirely splendid woman has most likely been said already... but I'll add my two cents.

Ms. Chisholm was a force of nature - spirited, unyielding, groundbreaking. She was outspoken when women and blacks were openly reviled for being so, and she neither suffered fools gladly nor meekly acceded to the limitations others tried to foist upon her. Those limitations came not only from her political enemies, but sometimes from her own adherents:

During her failed presidential bid, Chisholm went to the hospital to visit George Wallace, her rival candidate and ideological opposite, after he had been shot -- an act that appalled her followers.

"He said, 'What are your people going to say?' I said: 'I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.'"

Her Congressional campaign was inspired by her belief that "Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."

What's shocking is that 36 years later, her description is still accurate.

Shirley Chisholm fought for the underdog - the poor, the underprivileged, women, African Americans. An activist, a rabblerouser, and - as the title of her book aptly noted - "unbought and unbossed," she was, in the words of Shakespeare, an "unruly woman." He didn't mean it as a compliment - but I do.

Once, when asked about her legacy, she said, "I'd like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That's how I'd like to be remembered."

Consider it done.

The Name Game

I went a couple of rounds with my aunt the other day over her insistence on addressing mail to me and my husband as "Mr. and Mrs. HisName." After she sent us a Christmas card thus addressed, I politely asked her to please not do that anymore - and was shocked when she protested. Vociferously.

"No, no, no!" she said. "Why?"

"Because that's not my name, that's why."

"Well, that's just silly. If you're going to be that way, I won't send you any more mail."

I laughed, but wasn't much inclined to back down. "That's fine with me - if you're going to address it that way, I'd just as soon not get it. And anything I do get from you that's addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisName, I'm sending back!"

Much exasperated huffing. "So what am I supposed to call you?"

"The same thing you've always called me," I replied. "You were at my wedding - you know I didn't change my name."

After some more tussling she finally agreed to honor my request, then said, "But on Christmas cards, you'll still be Mr. and Mrs. HisName." When I loudly objected, she grumbled, "All right, all right!" I think it's entirely likely she was just saying that to shut me up.

I have to admit, I was pretty floored by her reaction. I knew she was somewhat old-fashioned, but this I hadn't expected. For one thing, we've always been very close; it hadn't occurred to me that she would be so dismissive about something that's so important to me. For another, it's not like I asked her to call me Princess Swapneshwari or some out-of-left-field moniker. It's the same name I've had since I was born.

But convenience really isn't the issue. This is about society's enduring expectation that a woman is duty-bound to surrender her name when she marries. I've had variations on this conversation many times over the years, and I'm constantly amazed at the disrespect I'm shown simply because I don't want to be known as an accessory to my husband. The fact that I want to be called by my own name doesn't mean I adore him any less. And for the record, I deeply resent being told I'm "silly" about this subject. There's nothing silly about asking to be treated as an equal, even if it's on the front of an envelope.

I don't know, maybe I'm the proverbial salmon swimming upstream here. But it's maddening to find that, more than 30 years after the women's movement crashed through barriers, the decision to get hitched still relegates us to a bizarre sort of anonymity. It's as though we cease to exist as individuals the day we take our marriage vows - and so, stripped of our names and identities, we're ultimately reduced to one word:

"Mrs."

I just can't wrap my brain around it

More than 150,000 dead in South Asia, with disease expected to claim thousands more. Children torn from their families ... sisters in search of missing brothers ... lives shattered, entire towns flattened...

And here I sit, in a comfortable chair in a comfortable house, in a nice, comfortable neighborhood.

Am I crazy to feel guilty?