My son is following me around the Internet. He’s opening my Favorites folder and finding my blogroll and clicking like a madman. And leaving comments.
Yeah, so a couple of days ago, he found Tom’s blog, and left a comment on a post about racisim, and then I responded to his comment, and then last night our dinner conversation was about the posts that we’d each left on a blog from California.
Is that weird?
One of those movies that no one has heard of but everyone loves. Poignant and funny and all that. But something is bothering me about it.
This will be spoilery. I can’t do invisi-text because text color alternates. So just don’t read on if you don’t want to.
» Read more..
I used to date a guy whose mom bred show dogs, or pedigreed dogs that could be show dogs, or something. Anyway, I learned from him that show animals get really long names so that they aren’t repeated in the official pedigree database. Or something. It prevents hundreds of cats named “Socks” from being listed. And the long names can be pretty funny.
Anyway, I got the idea in my head that if it was good enough for show animals, it was good enough for my animals. So I started giving my cats ridiculous names. These are their “real” names, of course, the short version is just a nickname. So, for example, Princess was really Princess Just Go Ahead Now. Cuddles, who started life as Persephone, was Persephone Queen of Night and Shadow. And so it goes.
So, as I’ve come to know their personalities, I’ve decided on the full names of the Gang of Two. They are
Mighty, Mighty, Mingo
and
Fanty Fraidy Run Away! Run Away!
Yeah, like you care.
Foreign reprint rights have been sold for The Way of Four. An edition will be published in Indonesia.
I happen to think this is very cool. It is, however, confusing, in that the form I was sent says the language is “Bahasa Indonesia” and our languages of the world book at home doesn’t list “Bahasa” among the many Indonesian languages.
Whatever. Someone will read it. And it’s still cool.
Eugene McCarthy and Richard Pryor on the same day? I feel like a hand passed over the graves of two whole generations.
Since naming the Gang of Two went so well, it’s time to name the blog. It is shameful to have such a lameass blog name as Deborah Lipp. I comfort myself that some of my favorite bloggers have equally pedestrian names, such as Bob Harris and Roger Ailes.
It’s possible that all the really good names are taken, what with Alas, a Blog and Pink is the New Blog already snatched up. Nonetheless, I will try to carry on.
Still haven’t downloaded a poll plug-in, and won’t get around to it until after I finish editing the James Bond book, which I think will be this weekend. So you must struggle with text. I’m so sorry.
Most of the names I’m suggesting are specific references and I’ll be happy to elucidate, but they should also stand on their own.
Name the Blog
a) Practicing Witch
b) Property of a Lady
c) Mine is an Evil Laugh
d) Great Name for a Blog
e) But I Digress
f) From My Lipps To Your Ears
g) Don’t name the blog, keep it Deborah Lipp
h) Other
The Way of Four Spellbook is now available for preorder. Plus, there’s a nifty graphic of the cover up on my In Print page.
The relationship between the In Print page and the In Progress page is kind of existential. Once I’ve finished writing a book, it’s not in progress, but not yet in print. I should probably just rename the pages rather than contemplate the limbo in which those books live. Especially since the Pope abolished limbo.
Too bad.
Just kidding. The minor surgical procedure today went very well, I’m home and woozy.
In Spanish class, Arthur (the son) mentioned that Cubans speak Spanish faster than anyone; Puerto Ricans come in second. Some of the kids said that was ethnic stereotyping. But it’s not! It’s regional variations in the way language is spoken (and Arthur, who plans on becoming a linguist, is particularly interested in that). I’m a New Yorker; when speaking with my home office in Salt Lake City, I have to make a conscious effort to slow my conversational style. New Yorkers talk faster than those from Utah; that’s not an ‘ethnic slur.’
There’s this thing, called racism. We’re not allowed to do it. We’re not allowed to talk about it. So now kids know that there are words and phrases that are taboo, but they don’t know why, so everything’s taboo, even things that aren’t. No wonder people complain about “PC” language.
We won’t teach about racism. Teach about it? We won’t even examine it and discuss it so that we know what to teach. All we do is point in its general direction and say “DON’T!” And that is so completely useless that kids end up thinking that recognizing speech patterns is somehow oppressive.
I know, it sounds surrealist, like ceci n’est pas une pipe, but trust me, it’s not. This is genuinely about choice. About a woman’s right to choose.
There are people in this country who oppose legal abortion because they are “pro-life.” They believe the fetus is a living being who must be protected. Arguing, even discussing, abortion is often a total impasse because “pro-life” versus “pro-choice” doesn’t work; these are two roads that don’t intersect.
But I’m not talking about that.
See, right now there is an increasingly fervent anti-choice movement in this country. Not pro-life, anti-choice. These people don’t give a good goddamn about the sanctity of pregnancy or motherhood. These people, the James Dobsons, the Jerry Falwells, the entire American Taliban, are really interested in taking away a woman’s right to choose.
What is “choice”? When we talk about a woman’s right to choose, we mean her right to full ownership of her body. Her right to say yes to sex, and to say no to sex. Her right to say yes to childbearing, and to say no to it. Her right to be chaste, her right to be promiscuous, her right to be the master and owner of her body, including all the juicy parts.
The American Taliban is waging war on a woman’s choice. This story was the turning point for me. See, first we have pharmacists refusing Plan B (which isn’t an abortofacient, but birth control, it prevents pregnancy). And now we have a pharmacist refusing to treat a woman for a sexually-transmitted infection. They want to stop women from having sex of which they disaprove. Period. They don’t care about fetuses (I mean, a fetus is protected by treating herpes), they care about controlling our body parts. Not some “unborn child’s;” ours.
Here we have a story about a high school senior who was refused permission to graduate with her class because she was pregnant. Here is a Catholic school teacher fired for being pregnant. These women made a pro-life choice, they did not have abortions, which is what the moralists claim they want. And they were punished for it.
They were punished because the moralists are lying. They don’t care whether these women carry to term or abort. They only care whether these women fuck. And if the women fuck without permission, they’ll be punished no matter what choice they make. They’ll be punished for choosing.
This is consistent with punishing the victim of an alleged rape. A woman’s right to say no is a choice, and the judge in this case cares more about male perogative than women’s choices.
Watch out for this. Watch for people who claim to be pro-life but want you to think, not “life vs. death,” but “slut vs. good girl.” Watch for voices that claim feminism has no vested interest in allowing women to be sexually free. Watch for the pervasive distaste that accompanies images of women who exercise sexual choice.
And don’t be fooled.
Update: Via Shakespeare’s Sister I find that great minds think alike: Maria Luisa Tucker at AlterNet has posted a piece today on the same subject as this one, but with very different examples about how supposedly liberal men are very interested in making sure women don’t fuck whom they want, when they want. Wish I’d written it, it’s terrific. Go see for yourself.
