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.

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.

Clearing the Air

"Thornburg got it right with ruling on TVA pollution." Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times, 22 January 2009.

I may have returned to Brown, but I'm still managing to write at the AC-T in spirit. Actually, I finished this editorial on my last day and it just now ran. This one was tough for me to write, because I knew almost nothing about coal power when I began. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to write this-- I wouldn't have done as much research about what is a really important issue. So now I know about coal. Hooray!

Still working on my editorial voice. For some reason, I'm less folksy and snarky when I'm writing as an editorial board. The editors at the AC-T were very patient with me and gave me good edits for this, as always.

Turn your head, cough, and ponder the health care crisis in this country...

"Let's not let health care slide during this recession." Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times, 6 January 2009.

My first-ever editorial for any publication! It's fun yet terrifying to write as the opinion of the paper's editorial staff-- on one hand, you have the excitement, power and anonymity of writing the opinion of a group that holds high standing in a community; on the other, you have a feeling best described as "oh gosh what if i screw up and make everyone think the paper endorses bestiality*???" So it can be very hard to balance these two emotions when writing an editorial.

All in all, though, this was fun to write. It was a challenging assignment in many (good) ways, and I know I didn't fully capture the difficulty of the health care situation. There are some people who just can't afford health care, no matter what, and I feel kind of bad for telling them it's their duty to go to the doctor.

Fun game for readers: how many health care-related puns can you find in this editorial? First one to respond with the correct answer wins a comprehensive single-payer national health care system!


*For the record, the Asheville Citizen-Times does not endorse bestiality. Just in case that wasn't clear in the editorial

Nutcase Spotlight: Cal Thomas

I've not been doing so well at this whole "posting on my blog" thing, and I apologize for that. It's mostly because my time has been taken up by other writing and editing endeavors at the newspaper I'm interning at over break (more to come on that).

Today, I'd like to share one of my most favorite nutcases of all time with you: Cal Thomas.



Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, the bent of whose opinion can be most kindly described as "far-right-wing." He speaks for the disenfranchised righteous conservatives of America. He used to have a fantastic moustache, which he shaved in 2006.

It takes a certain type of man to wear a caterpillar on his upper lip, and that man is the #1 syndicated columnist in America. But even that's not enough to pull off that shirt and tie combination. Sorry, Cal.

But enough fashion commentary from me, Goddess of the Mismatched Socks. There is much more to love to hate about Mr. Thomas than his sartorial choices.

Cal has two pet issues. The first is the plight of the religious right in America, which makes sense, considering he was the president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985. Apparently, the religious right is on its way out... unless its members make drastic changes. Do something, concerned citizen, before it's too late!

Cal's other issue is Israel. He is the platonic ideal of the extremist, non-Jewish, pro-Israeli right-winger who has co-opted the pro-Israel stance in such a way that he paints anyone who proffers a different stance on how to solve the conflict as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. I have yet to read a more righteous, dogmatic opinion on the situation in the Middle East from any other source.

Take his recent column, "The Gaza Nazis." Cal asserts that Hamas is, essentially, the new Nazi party, because both groups share a genocidal bent against the Jews, and doesn't go much further than that:

Jews are vermin and less than human, Hamas says. Oh, wait. Wasn't the same said of the Jews by the Nazis? The only difference is that today's killers don't speak German.

Whoa whoa whoa. This is not the place for me to get into my views on the Holocaust or the Middle East or a long treatise on my views on making historical comparisons, but something needs to be said about this. I concede the existence of similarities between Hamas and National Socialism (and also every other group in the history of the world that has tried to wipe out the Jews), but it is downright stupid to argue for a near-identical historical comparison between two groups using one point of ideology. Both the Holocaust and the Gaza issue are too complex to be reduced to such a caricature.

Furthermore, a statement along the lines of:

Is there an Arabic equivalent of "Sieg Heil"?

serves no purpose than to fan the flames of the hatred-fueled fire of the Israel- Palestine issue.

Moving on...Cal is a hard-hitting journalist. He hosts Fox News Watch, a program that's dedicated to ferreting out the liberal media. And lest you think he's naught but another talking head of the vast right-wing conspiracy, check out this recent interview he did with President Bush. Talk about in-depth!

But really, there's more to Cal than I give him credit for. I was reminded of this with his December 31st column, entitled "Make Love, Not War!" My first thought on reading this was that Cal must be going senile, and decided to reconnect with his true hippie self as a New Year's resolution. My second instinct was that he had lost a bet.

But alas, both of my initial instincts were wrong. The article is about a supposed CIA plan to give Taliban warlords Viagra.

The column, which only contains information from anonymous sources, features such pithy remarks as:

Not many would describe consensual sex as torture.

I'd agree with that. Well, unless you lie back and think of Dick Cheney.

And:

Adolf Hitler was 5 feet 8 inches tall. Josef Stalin was short and variously reported to be between 5-4 and 5-6. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is 5-4. Mao Zedong was 5-11, possibly the tallest of the modern despots. We know that Hitler and Mao had sexual hang-ups. Could all dictators share the same problem? Would Viagra, or something similar, have lessened the possibility of forced famines, war, the Holocaust and other mass killings? Were these caused at least in part by pent-up feelings of sexual inadequacy?

Cal, you've rendered me speechless.

And that, dear friends, is why I keep reading Cal Thomas, mustache or no.

The President-Elect Walks into a Bar...

"We can learn to laugh with politicians, not just at them." Guest Commentary, Asheville Citizen-Times, 7 January 2009.

I had a lot of fun writing this. Pieces like these remind me of why I love writing opinions-- I love the opportunity to use a snappy, critical voice and throw in some wordplay as well. In all sincerity, I think that Obama's "mutts like me" comment may be one of the most important statements on race of our time.

Still need to decide if I'm going to be an opinions columnist again this semester. On one hand, I love getting to choose my topic and be playful with my language, but on the other, I really need the reporting experience. Decisions, decisions.

Column. Opinions Column.

"What we can learn from James Bond." Opinions Column, The Brown Daily Herald, 18 November 2008.

This column was, by far, the most enjoyable to write of anything I did this semester. As some may know, I'm an unabashed fan of the James Bond films, and I was looking for a way to exercise my comprehensive knowledge of the series. People seemed to enjoy it, so I don't think it was too masturbatory. This column really made me want to do more arts-based opinion writing-- I think art is something that really needs to be more common in American editorial pages.

One life lesson -- about relationships-- didn't make it into the final piece. While it would have been nice to include something that at least attempted to talk about James Bond's portrayal of women and relationships, it didn't ring true, and I was out of space anyway. I suppose that could be a whole other thing in itself...

Y'all Come Back Now and Read My Column Again, Ya Hear?

"The unbearable stigma of being 'Dixie.'" Opinions Column, The Brown Daily Herald, 7 November 2008.

Other potential titles for this column included "The unbearable lightness of whistling 'Dixie,'" "The unbearable stigma of whistling 'Dixie,'" "The unbearable lightness of being 'Dixie,'" and "The unbearable lightness of OH MY GOD I am so so sorry, Milan Kundera."

Though I was somewhat nervous about the whiny tone of my argument, so I was floored when I received an overwhelmingly positive response to this column. People were literally stopping me on the street and sending me emails and Facebook messages to thank me for writing about being a Southerner at Brown. It just goes to show that you never know how writing will be received. And that's the durn truth, y'all.

Learning to Take My Own Advice

"Learning to shut up." Opinions Column, The Brown Daily Herald, 21 October 2008.

Sigh. This is one of my weaker columns, in part because I don't think there was enough material for an 800-word piece, and partly becauseI wrote it while I was still very frustrated with a few moronic fellow students. One thing I've learned is that it's best not not to write opinions columns while tired, frustrated, angry or occupied-- they're rarely as cogent or polished as the pieces I write when I'm in a better mood.

I do believe that I had a valid point in writing this column, situated somewhere in the middle of the piece, but I'll leave you to divine it for yourself. I need to learn how to shut up and let my writing speak for itself.