blind insight

Quiz show.

Seems like I'm constantly getting quizzes via e-mail. Who's your celebrity love match? What color is your personality? What's your kissing style? Which reality show is right for you? What breed of dog are you? That kind of garbage. But just this week, I've received two interesting twists on the format, both of which involve subjects that have some actual relevance to my world.

First up, "What Book Are You?"

And here's my result:

You're A Theory of Justice!
by John Rawls

In the beginning, you lived in a town. The town had many problems! Rather than moving, you decided to come up with the idea for the best town ever. Going all the way back to the original position, you created the idea for the best town ever! Lo and behold, the best town ever looked almost identical to the town you lived in. You decided to stay in the town. Now you resent people mistaking your refined thought experiments for "the wall of stupidity" in high school debate rounds.

This seems rather apt in a weird sort of way. I was hoping more for, say, "Love in the Time of Cholera," but I suppose it's better than being "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." Plus, I managed to survive an International Studies undergrad major and three years of law school without ever actually reading John Rawls, so I'm not really familiar with this work that supposedly epitomizes me.

Then, for even more quizzly entertainment, I learned Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?

I'm Rule 20(a). Here's what this means:

YOU ARE RULE 20(a)! You are Rule 20, an important part of the Federal Rules' policy of permissive joinder. You are designed specifically to allow as many parties in an action as can be tried efficiently, and you'll include someone as long as there is some factual overlap between a claim involving them and the rest of the case at hand. You are popular, out-going, and are never far from friends. However, your overly gregarious nature and magnanimous approach to all things cause your closest friends to wonder that, even when you're surrounded by your compatriots, there is a part of you that feels cold and very alone.

Hmm. Not sure how accurate this is. I like the idea of bringing people together, but that last part . . . .

So What's next? Which Bill of Rights Amendment Are You? Which Brainwashing Cult Leader Would You Follow? Which Media Scandal Would You Be Most Likely To Cause? Which Superstore That's Slowly Destroying American Culture Suits Your Style? The possibilities seem endless.

Why Mel Gibson's "Passion" scares me.

I'm taking tomorrow off to ski with the appellate gang from work (the "appies," as I've labeled us). It's been a long week, and I'm looking forward to the play day.

I leave you for the weekend with David Denby's powerful and thorough review of "The Passion of the Christ" (aptly dubbed "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre" by at least one commentator). Denby does a masterful job of capturing all that disturbs and frightens me about Mad Mel's latest oeuvre.

Been there. Done that.

This is nifty -- check out the map of places I've visited:

You can create your own visited country map here.

As always when I think about all the nifty places I've visited, I'm wracked with longing for all the even niftier places I've yet to discover. Look at those huge, empty continents sitting there! Africa! Australia! Antarctica! Places that don't start with "A" even!

Someday . . . .

No Dowd about it.

I have to hand it to Maureen Dowd. With one snappy column, she's managed to hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head of both of my soapboxes-of-the-month.

You go, Mo.

Not exactly what I had planned this morning.

I came into the office early this morning to get a jump on this ever-so-frustrating brief I'm writing. Walked in the door just after 7, before any of the secretaries had arrived, armed with my coffee and breakfast roll. I was already feeling a tad frazzled, since I'd managed to just-miss my intended bus and was behind my self-imposed schedule. Then, while turning on my computer and trying to figure out why the e-mail system kept booting me out, I managed to knock my coffee (that strong, black, life-sustaining coffee) all over my desk, my floor, my chair, and myself.

The string of cuss words that erupted from my mouth could have shamed the counter crowd at Madge's Roadside Pub 'n' Grub and turned the ears of a small child blue. I stormed through the (thankfully empty) office in search of paper towels, then spent the next 20 minutes trying to get the java off myself and everything around me while begging the tech guy to fix the e-mail problem from afar. I left Steve a panicky, choked up message, then plopped a pile of paper towels and my coffee-damp tush on my soaked chair and tried to focus.

Given that I hadn't actually consumed any of the coffee before I spilled it, this was nigh on impossible. But around 8, an altruistic colleague saved me with a fresh, hot cuppajoe. And then, while trying to recapture the motivation and energy with which I'd left the house this morning, I read this. And now I'm really choked up.

Monday morning soapbox.

I watched John Kerry and John Edwards in a pseudo-head-to-head on George Snuffleupagus's show yesterday, and continue to be impressed by both candidates. I'm still supporting John Kerry, partly because I think we need a consensus candidate, and partly because he's the only candidate I've had a positive gut feeling about from the beginning. Edwards is young and charismatic and Southern -- all great qualities -- but I don't think he's quite ready for the POTUS gig.

While I found the juxtaposed George interviews very informative and interesting, the biggest impact the show made on me was with the interspersed snippets of Dubya stating his position on the issues addressed in each question. It never ceases to amaze me just how moronic our Fearless Leader appears, how dead and vacant his eyes seem, and how glibly he manages to spout blatant lies like "America's healthcare system is the best in the world."

Along these lines, I offer you this piece, which has been circulating by e-mail for quite some time. It's not new, but is well worth revisiting if you're having trouble getting fired up about November's election:
____________
RESUME
GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement:
*I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. *My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

Military:
*I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
*I graduated from Yale University with a low C average.
*I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
*I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975.
*I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
*With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS
*I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
*I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
*I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
*With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
*I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
*I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
*I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury. * I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
*I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
*I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
*I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
*I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
*I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
*I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
*My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
*My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
*I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip- offs in history.
*I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
*I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
*I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
*I created the Department of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
*I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
*I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
*I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
*I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
*I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
*I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August in 2001, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
*I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
*I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
*I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
*I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families -- in wartime.
*In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.
*I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
*I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
*All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
*All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
*All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
________________

In other news, this weekend Ralph Nader decided to run again. I have to imagine that Nader has some non-ego-driven basis for this decision, since it seems to me an arrogant move that could hand the election to the Republicans. Nader may well see himself as validly seeking to turn the U.S. into a multiparty democracy, but his announcement left me chilled to the bone at the thought of four more years under President Shrub and his Minister of Injustice, John Ashcroft. I have to hope that the majority of voters for whom "Green" issues are paramount will acknowledge John Kerry's outstanding environmental record (and personal commitment to environmental issues) and do their part to boot Bush, leaving Nader with only a symbolic handful of votes.

An interesting scenario is painted in this piece by Slate's Timothy Noah. Should former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore throw his hat into the ring, we may see the closest thing to multiparty election in this country since pretty much never. Moore will siphon off the ultra-conservatives, the ones who reject the First Amendment, live for the Second, and think George W. Bush is too damn liberal. If Nader takes the extreme lefties and Moore pulls away the far right, then whichever John wears the Democrat hat will be left to battle Bush for the middle. I still believe that the majority of the middle is intelligent (and fed up) enough to show Bush the door, particularly when the alternative is virtually guaranteed to be a John of intelligence, integrity, and action. And I'm crossing my fingers that Edwards will stop pooh-poohing suggestions of a VP nod, since the two-John ticket looks awfully strong from my vantage point.

Now get off your butt and go register to vote.

Outing the Agenda.

So you thought I was done ranting about all that gay marriage stuff? Do gay people get to marry one another anywhere outside that Queer Capitol of the Free World (oh, wait -- is that Amsterdam? OK, the Queer Capitol of the Rather-Less-Free-Than-They-Used-To-Be United States), the City by the Bay, dear ol' San Francisco? Hmm? Didn't think so.......

And so I leave you for the weekend with this most excellent analysis of the issue's complexities, presented by cartoonist Mark Fiore. Close your office door, turn up the computer sound (deaf buds -- this is still good soundless), and prepare to see exposed . . . The Gay Agenda!

Shocking, ain't it?

Wimmin's issues.

I've been processing some unresolved thoughts since Monday night's discussion group meeting. The plan was to have a less-structured-than-usual chat about what we each want from the group and whether we might engage as a group in some sort of effort for the betterment of the world (or a piece of it).

Whether accurately or not, I began to feel that our discussion was degenerating into a bitch-fest about how crappy things are for women, how impossible it is to balance life, work, career, children, and relationships, how the patriarchal workplace perpetuates the impossibility of reaching such balance, and how all of this is never going to change. I expressed my concern that we seem to be having this discussion repeatedly, and commented that I find it unproductive and frustrating. But I don't think I conveyed my feelings very well, since subsequent communications with members of the group reveals that they perceived me as being "bothered" by discussing "women's issues and struggles."

I certainly am not bothered by talking about women's issues. I went to Vassar, after all, and even served on the board of the Boulder chapter of the National Organization for Women at one point. But I do get tired of having the same conversation over and over again about the plight of the modern educated woman.

I find our discussions far more satisfying when we talk about something -- whether a planned topic or during our schmoozing time -- that is simply a random subject of interest to us. Then, the breadth of our perspectives and interests and backgrounds leads to a rich and fascinating exchange. I come away feeling energized when we talk about topics such as health care, the upcoming election, water policy, and why and how we've chosen various causes to which to devote our time and passion, because we approach the subject from our uniquely feminine perspectives and shared womanhood, leading to an entirely different discussion than we might have in a mixed group.

Sometimes it is interesting and empowering when we discuss how each of us struggles to find balance in our lives and reconcile the choices we've made. More often, though, it makes me feel sad and defeated, because what I really wish is that women didn't feel the need to justify these choices to one another and to ourselves, when most (but certainly not all) men seem to claim the right to simply make those choices and live them out. I dream of a society in which women allow themselves the full range of choices about life, love, work, and family, without rushing to pass judgment on themselves and their sisters.

And if I'm honest with myself, some of my frustration with this stuff stems from the feeling that I have little to contribute on the topic. I am blessed with a job that I adore, that allows me considerable flexibility, where my direct supervisor and half of my colleagues are women, and where the men are as concerned as the women about protecting their family time. Thus, when the topic turns to the difficulty of maintaining a balanced life, I feel as though I can't possibly relate to the enormous time and energy and frustration drains that the rest of the group members face in their lives and careers.

Plus, I'm single, I don't have kids, and as I've discussed before on this blog, I'm still struggling with ambivalence about my barely-audible biological clock and doubts about the likelihood that I'll ever marry and/or reproduce. So although our discussion on Monday in fact was considerably more substantive and the array of life-situations far broader, in my mind, all I could hear was "poor me, I've got a gorgeous baby and a great job and a perfect husband and I have to make these tough decisions about how much time to spend with each of them and all those single women and men with stay-home wives just don't understand." This, more than anything, is probably why I cringed when the discussion headed towards "life-balance" territory. Perhaps I need to spend less time urging the group to move on from moaning about women's trials and tribulations and more time examining the roots of my own aversion to the subject.
______
As an addendum, I'd like to direct your attention to this marvelous dialogue running this week on Slate. The discussion ostensibly centers on the treatment of nannies in affluent U.S. households, but in fact addresses many of the issues that came up in my discussion group. The last post in Thursday's entry, by writer Barbara Ehrenreich, could have come verbatim from one of our meetings and hits the proverbial nail on the head in identifying the real culprit toppling women's efforts to "balance."

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

This has been one of those stretches when Steve and I don't get to see each other during the week. Usually, we manage at least one school night together, but between our respective work schedules, his class schedule, my busy slate of social and extracurricular activities, his dreaded upcoming Prelims, and the ever-annoying reality of my non-driver status, it just isn't happening this week.

Or last week, either, for that matter. By Friday night, when I got dropped off in Golden, we were both pretty damn happy to see one another. That warm fuzzy feeling lasted the whole weekend (and even survived my lift-line reference to Steve's "little pole," which I SWEAR was about his ski gear!!!!) and made this week's solo stint even tougher. At least we have another weekend escape ahead of us -- we leave tomorrow for two nights here with some friends.

When we're apart like this for a week at a stretch, we end up having lots of long, rambling, semi-coherent phone conversations in the late afternoons. These typically consist of one or both of us griping about our inability to accomplish whatever it is we should be trying to accomplish instead of talking on the phone, one or both of us (usually me) losing track of the conversational thread because we're simultaneously surfing the internet, answering e-mails, and paying bills, one or both of us (usually me) reminding the other about whatever it is we're supposed to be doing when we actually see one another again, one or both of us (usually Steve) ranting about our boss's/professor's/opponent's/colleague's/friend's latest offense, and one or both of us (depending on who's busier) whining about not having enough time to ski/climb/bike/work out/sleep. We usually manage to squeeze in a bit of heated political/intellectual discourse, and allocate at least five minutes to flirtation and silly banter.

This mid-week drought isn't really as tough as maintaining a long-distance relationship, since Steve can be at my door in half an hour in a pinch and we're pretty tuned in to one another's daily goings-on. But man, does it have me looking forward to the weekend! Thank goodness it's (almost) Friday.

Metrosexuals in the Mug.

What a very Vassar day I had today! A comment from Rebecca, below, an Alumnae interview with a lovely and intelligent prospective student, and dinner with a classmate who lives four blocks away from me but whom I never see.

It was great to hang out with him right after talking so much about VC with the prospective. In addition to waxing nostalgic about college, we talked about home decorating, cooking, clothes, art, and relationships. And on the way home, I had a sudden revelation. The Vassar Boy is the original metrosexual!