More Moo-tastic Behavior on my part.

So, when everyone is a toddler, they have a song they're obsessed with and need to hear again and again and again. It's a phase.

When I was little, the song I made my parents play over and over was Funkytown by Lipps, Inc. Which explains a lot, I think.

When my sister was little, her song of choice was the Howard the Duck movie theme song. I shit you not.

Proof of Abbie's superior wonderfulness? The song that she demands to hear over and over again (by shouting gleefully "Purple gong! Purple gong!" until we relent and play it) is Gogol Bordello's Start Wearing Purple.

Which, you have to admit, is pretty damn cool.

Photos!

I'm still angry. And now I'm angry about this, too.

But I was all stuffy and couldn't sleep last night, so I stayed up blowing my nose prolifically and finally organizing some of my photos that have been languishing on various hard drives and memory cards for ages. Have a look.

Here are the pictures from the last Aelthing.
I added more pictures to this set, ones from St. Patrick's Day and Easter this year.
And I added more pictures to this set, too, from a very nice day a few weeks ago. Capybaras! Polar Bears! Starfish! Oh my!

There's still some on the old camera from Christmas, if you're Brian's mom reading this (who's asked about them), but the cable for that camera seems to have been lost in the move. So, those will continue to languish, for now.

Hey.

Guess what.

In 15 minutes it will be my 30th birthday.

Woot.

No, reconciliation is not really the primary goal.

As I have previously mentioned, I am taking a Caribbean Studies class this semester (which, note to Anthropology department, is really an Africana Studies class and not an Anthropology one, and should be listed as such, just fyi.). And as I have mentioned before, it's full of people who are a huge annoying pain in the ass.

Something happened during a discussion in that class the other day that was quite reminiscent of certain events in the blogosphere as of late, namely this and this. Specifically, yet another incident of No, White Person, it is Not All About You.

We were discussing the book A Small Place by Antiguan writer Jamaica Kincaid. Pretty awesome book, actually. If you haven't read it, it's a really scathing takedown of the tourist industry in Antigua, of white tourists in Antigua, and of the Antiguan government's corruption and impotence in the face of the tourism industry. (And incidentally, if you have a Netflix account, you can hear most the book in the narration of the film Life and Debt, just click "Watch Now." Go on, I'll wait.)

In any case, the overall tone of the book is one of sardonic, fuck-off anger. And our professor asked us if we thought that was a valid literary technique, if the author was really angry at us, or if she was just, "venting," or what have you. A white male student who sits down the row from me popped his hand up and replied that he didn't think the anger was a valid technique, and that it really put him off the whole message of the book. He said that if the goal of activists for racial equality is to achieve "reconciliation," then this wasn't the way to do that because he didn't see a place for himself with someone who was so mad about something he couldn't do anything about.

Which is an argument that probably sounds familiar to some people.

And besides, when he travels to the Caribbean, he doesn't stay in all-inclusive resorts, but slums it the way the real, native people of the Caribbean do! He's not the assholes the author talks about, he hates those people! Doesn't he get credit for that?


Here's what I wanted to say to this young, white, male, dreadlocked college student. I wanted to say that no, the goal isn't reconciliation. The goal is the end to the oppression and suffering of people of color. I hope reconciliation can happen as part of that, and I think that would be a natural byproduct, but no. That's not the ultimate goal.

While the book A Small Place was written with people like you as its intended demographic, it was not written for you or for your benefit. It was written for the benefit of the people of Antigua. It is not meant to make you feel better about exoticizing the "slumminess" of other cultures so you can feel authentic about your dreadlocks. It's not all about you, dude! Black people don't need you or anything from you, really.

You do not have something to give us that we lack.

I wanted to say these things, but instead bit my tongue until blood came out my nose, because I didn't want a repeat of the incident that started off the semester. And I feel like a right stupid fool for not saying anything. I'm as angry as Jamaica Kincaid.

After class, the only other black female student in the class came up to me and said, "Can you fucking believe that guy? I almost went off on him! It's not all about you, dude!"

Heh. My thoughts exactly.

Dear White Mainstream Feminism,

This one's for you.

I am pissed.

Sometimes issues in blogtopia and in my actual life dovetail to make, like, a perfect cone of angry that funnels directly into my brain.

I am pissed. More later.

Life and Debt

Just saw this movie, and I would highly recommend it. If you have a Netflix account, you can "watch it now."

How do those IMF people sleep at night?

Your Monday Morning Atheism Moment

Repent Sinners! Also, I want that dress.

The blogger's national anthem.

Hehe.

Bloggers of the world unite!
Stand up for your blogly rights!
Don't let the sunshine spoil the rain
Just type up and complain (heheheh)

Let this be the bloggers' cause:
Point out everybody's flaws!
Something is wrong with everything
Except the way I blog!

Geraldine Ferraro tells it like it isn't.

Hey, guess what? The pre-moving business pretty much extends itself into a post-moving business where I still don"t have a whole lot of time for anything and I'm constantly running late because I can't find the box where I put the thing I'm looking for.

So, still not much time to blog. But I did want to talk about something.

By now everyone has heard the toolish remarks of Geraldine Ferraro regarding Barack Obama's apparent lack of any sort of interesting qualities besides his skin tone. To quote Joe Conason in Salon:

Until lately, Ferraro was an admired waxwork, a symbol of national progress and a brief entry in a child's textbook. Then she confided her opinion of the Democratic presidential front-runner to a California newspaper. "If [Barack] Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

That sounded like folk wisdom from her home borough of Queens, N.Y., where she once represented the Archie Bunker constituency in Congress -- and where racist resentment of all those "very lucky" black people was once a common refrain (and can still be heard in certain saloons and clubhouses today). Those corrosive observations usually referred to affirmative action, which threatened traditional ethnic monopolies on certain jobs and contracts in both the public and private sectors. And indeed, Ferraro's reaction to the criticism of her stupidity is reminiscent of the resentful whining of white men who complained about "reverse" discrimination and the supposed taboos of political correctness.

Yes. Exactly. Whenever this meme has appeared with regard to Obama (and it's especially hurtful to to hear it kicked around the feminist blogosphere) it's like a stab in the gut. I hear my mother's Italian family (yes, from Queens, NY) in my head saying the same things about my father.

Via Daisy, here's Roseanne Barr making a similar assertion.

Premiere Hillary represents the soul of the Democratic Party: the women who support her, Latinas, Latinos, 30 percent of the black voters, the blue collar worker, male and female, as just proven in Ohio, and the Baby Boomers...quit bitching and moaning and whining now! Be a man and take vice, bow to the woman who is the last vestige of the New Deal which represents universal health care.

Silly black man. Even though you're ahead in delegates, you just don't know your proper place, which is bowing down to white women. And even though she's behind Obama, Clinton deserves the nomination because...well...she just does. And 30 percent of black people is plenty enough!

Ugh. When I've heard feminists say recently that racism is less openly welcome in our culture right now than sexism, I can only point to examples like this. There are ways to call someone an uppity nigger who doesn't know their place without using the words "uppity nigger who doesn't know their place."

And I'm back!

So I finally have internet hooked up at the new place. Hooray!

You can tell it's been awhile since I've been on the internet because I'm apparently the last person to see this:



And the response:



Is this what happens when celebrities get bored?

Only of interest to distant relatives

Okay. A few things.

1. She still takes my glasses off my face. And I'm not a good disciplinarian.
2. Yes, that is an empty case of Rolling Rock.
3. When YouTube compressed the video, it came out really dark and really loud for some reason.
4. I sound like a dude.
5. Abbie is cuter than you.

Still With the Busy

Aelthing is over. Will upload pictures when it doesn't hurt to move.

Now I'll be busy with moving and College Bowl. Gah.

I just keep thinking about March, when all I'll have to deal with is school and work and family. Yay! Lol.

Dear Jack,

Wherefore art thou? Come back!

Busy

It's Aelthing time again, and also we're moving to a new house this week.

Plus, the regular scheduled childcare, work, and school thing. So, really really busy for the next little bit.