Reasons to celebrate

Before Friday, I have to write a book review and a 5-page paper on Teotihuacan influence on the Classic Maya, give a Spanish presentation on Borges, and prepare for a Spanish as a Second Language exam. Even so, there are still reasons to celebrate being alive on this wacky planet, such that it is.

a) The video for Lady Gaga's new single. While not as good as that of "Paparazzi," it may or may not feature Lady Gaga being sold as a sex slave to Russians in a pristine white environment that looks like a mental hospital/the set of THX-1138. And that's enough for me, even if she is ripping off Madonna.

b) The beginning of "America's Next Great Pundit," the Washington Post's new plan to ruin their integrity after the salon scheme. It's like reality TV for people like me! I am disappointed by the lack of white supremacists on the cast, though. And I would be lying if I said I didn't wish I had applied, although I think being an Ivy Leaguer would not go nearly as far in a pundritry competition as it appears to do in America's Next Top Model.

c) Imogen Heap's cover of "Thriller". Possibly even more epic than the video of Filipino prisoners doing the dance to the aforementioned song.

I can't decide which is most epic. Back to talud-tablero architecture.

And the wall came tumbling down

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's also, as George Packer points out, the anniversary of the date of Kaiser Wilhelm's abdication, the Beer Hall Putsch, and Kristallnacht. "The German calendar is appropriately inconvenient: nothing good is conserved without the active remembrance of something bad," he writes.

How true. As a history major born on the 43rd anniversary of the use of the atomic bomb, a subject which I've thought about and written about to death, I've spent my entire life trying to learn that history doesn't discriminate. Certainly, people instigate events, and make decisions on specific dates for reasons, but ultimately, we have no control over what happens on the anniversary of any given day.

We like to tie historical events to memorable causes. But more often than not, the path of history is much more inglorious than we would like to admit, as Packer writes:

The wall came down not because Ronald Reagan stood up and demanded it but because on the evening of November 9th, at a televised press conference in East Berlin, a Party hack named Günter Schabowski flubbed a question about the regime’s new, liberalized travel regulations. Asked when they took effect, Schabowski shrugged, scratched his head, checked some papers, and said, “Immediately,” sending thousands of East Berliners to the wall in a human tide that the German Democratic Republic could not control. Soldiers and Stasi agents didn’t shoot into the crowd, but things could easily have gone otherwise.

What many like to see as an inevitable conclusion and what nearly everyone sees as an inspiring symbol of the end of an era only occured because of a strange set of coincidences and mistakes. And as epic and beautiful as that image is, we need to remember that there are many more forces at work than just fate and justice in the creation of history

And so then, how to treat the death of Vitaly Ginzburg, a fascinating man instrumental in the creation of the Soviet H-bomb? With him dies one more memory of a terrifying period in human history, one more account of Stalin's brutality.

That is perhaps the greatest loss. How will we remember the past when those who have experienced it are gone? At Brown University, my fair undergraduate institution, we celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with German spoken word, free sausages, and a reenactment of the day, complete with tearing down a mock wall on the Main Green. At the same time, on another quad, football players in pink shirts bench pressed weights to raise money for breast cancer as students cheered them on.

Coincidence? Certainly. What does it mean? You got me. At any rate, I'm glad it happened, just as people around the world, including myself, are happy for the coincidences of twenty years ago, as we all should be.

64 Too Many

Back when I considered myself really political (that is, about six years ago), I added myself to a bunch of political email listservs. Though I've gradually dropped off of most of the mailing lists in hopes of conserving inbox space and because of my increasing disenchantment with the political process (I never quite got over Kerry's loss in 2004. No lie.), I still receive emails from MoveOn.org and the Barack Obama campaign (the latter the outcome of my brief phone banking stint in October 2008.)

In general, my attitude towards the daily dispensations of these political listservs wavers between vague tolerance and serious anger, the latter emotion usually occurring when I am expecting some sort of employment or school-related email and get a request to donate 25 dollars to help run an ad in some Midwestern state. However, my tolerance for the emails has increased as of late, thanks to the ever-growing hullabaloo surrounding the public option.

I lack the time, energy, and faith in my ability to argue for the public option strongly in this post, so I will brief on my reasons supporting this policy. As the child of a physician who frequently hears stories of people putting off yearly physicals until they have a terminal condition, I support a health plan that emphasizes preventive care. After seeing my elementary school students come in day after day with untreated burns, bumps and skin conditions and struggle to focus because their parents couldn't afford eyeglasses, I support affordable, comprehensive health care. And after having to pay out of pocket in a foreign country, I realize just how expensive and scary getting sick can be for the millions of Americans without health insurance.

So when I received a Obama campaign email asking me to call my representative to support a new health care bill in the House with a public option, I thought twice before hitting "Delete" and instead picked up the phone to call Representative Heath Shuler, the former football player-turned-Democratic rep for my district.

I didn't get to talk to Shuler, which I didn't really expect to do anyway, but I did leave a message and did feel pretty good about myself. While one dinky constituent leaving a message in favor of the bill probably wouldn't push my representative to change his opinion, a torrent of support, of which my message would be a small part, might do the trick.

Sadly, I don't know whether that torrent of support materialized, and if it did, why it didn't work. Because while the House's most recent health care bill, which contains a public option, was passed Saturday night, Rep. Shuler voted against it.

Let me say that I am very grateful for those who worked to make the bill a reality, and for Rep. Cao of Louisiana, the one Republican who voted for the bill. But I remain extremely frustrated with my Representative for not only not voting for this health care bill, but also voting for the Stupak amendment, a bill which prohibits coverage of abortions within a government health care plan. Shuler was one of 64 Democrats to vote for the amendment, and one of 26 to support Stupak's addition while voting against the health care bill itself.

Many are downplaying the amendment's significance, stating that abortions are widely funded in the private market already, and that it maintains the status quo of the Hyde amendment, which prevents federal funding for abortions except in instances of endangerment of the mother. But these arguments ignore the fact that the bill appears to actually expand existing legislation. According to some opponents, it will force women to get a separate insurance rider in order to cover abortion. And of course, poor women will still have to pay out of pocket should they need the procedure.

Whether those who voted for the amendment voted because of their own personal beliefs or to save the public option bill, which Stupak and others were threatening to filibuster, is uncertain. Regardless, however, the passage of the amendment is a disappointment to me and to anyone who believes that everyone deserves to have the access to the same health services, regardless of economic status.

And so, tomorrow, I will be making another call to the office of Representative Heath Shuler. I can't say that it will have the desired effect, but I feel that I can't let my frustration with this turn of events go unheard. Check this list and see if your representative is on it. If you oppose the Stupak amendment, please give him or her a call.

Of acronyms and exactitude

HOLY CARP. I just learned about this thing calledNaBloPoMo, also known as National Blog Posting Month. It's like NaNoWriMo for people who are more self-involved and less creative! Yay!

Seriously, though, I wish I had found out about this sometime around, say, November 1, so that I could actually do it over a month. Apparently this thing happens every month, but NO, I cannot wait until December, because I am (a) impatient and (b) not quite overloaded enough with four classes, rehearsals for three musical groups, job and fellowship applications, opinions columns, and making poor, poor academic decisions (more on this later). Perhaps I will start now and go until December 7 (a day that will live in infamy!), or perhaps I will count all those opinions columns I need to do backdated posts for as November 1-6. Or perhaps I will fail.

Either way, I will probably need the power of the Holy Carp in this picture to help me. Stay tuned.