tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17240488457485383382024-03-05T13:11:40.949-05:00CanCritCultural criticism and commentary from a Canadian perspectivecancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-67739708591139429292010-05-15T18:34:00.001-04:002010-05-15T18:35:51.364-04:00New address!Hello all! I'm moving over to WordPress, which has a more flexible platform than Blogger in a lot of ways. You can find me at <a href="http://cancrit.wordpress.com">http://cancrit.wordpress.com</a>.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-30848428543003124992010-05-15T16:42:00.001-04:002010-05-15T16:45:11.517-04:00Newfoundland and Labrador: "Discovery" & Regional Stereotypes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Lisa Wade at <a href="http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/05/15/discovery-or-colonization/">Sociological Images</a> and Thea Lim at <a href="http://www.racialicious.com/2010/05/05/newfoundland-the-myth-of-land-discovery/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Racialicious+%28Racialicious+-+the+intersection+of+race+and+pop+culture">Racialicious</a> have both commented on an advertisement for tourism in Newfoundland and Labrador.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9XOm5YSyrP3OfTNQ62OhJIS41s93ExDTP17UZ1CAiCsnH59ThYi5pNieJh7gpncjfIAVqab0AcNqCpSJVLjIjmMZI45yJWHObxU0zr56E6gRI6Smdm5jcwqeB-Qt0vEWqejR0HGDQZk/s1600/nl+tourist+ad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9XOm5YSyrP3OfTNQ62OhJIS41s93ExDTP17UZ1CAiCsnH59ThYi5pNieJh7gpncjfIAVqab0AcNqCpSJVLjIjmMZI45yJWHObxU0zr56E6gRI6Smdm5jcwqeB-Qt0vEWqejR0HGDQZk/s320/nl+tourist+ad.png" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>(Text reads: Discovery is a fearless pursuit. Certainly, this was the case when the Vikings, the first Europeans to reach the new world, landed at L’Anse aux Meadows. While it may only be a three-hour flight for you, it was a considerably longer journey a thousand years ago. But it’s a place where mystery still mingles with the light and washes over the strange, captivating landscape. A place where all sorts of discoveries still happen every day. Some, as small as North America. Others, as big as a piece of yourself.)</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>Their comments are quite astute: Lim points out that talking about the "European arrival in the Americas “Discovery,” rather than Colonisation or Genocide," both effaces a lot of colonial history, and effectively dehumanizes the indigenous peoples who were in Canada at the time of European arrival. She also points out that the discussion of "the land – or indigenous people, or their culture – as so <i>mysterious</i> and <i>spooky" </i>is at once way of dehumanizing and romanticizing indigenous peoples. (SocImages mostly restates Lim's analysis.)<br />
<br />
Perhaps one of the most problematic elements of Canadian culture is the tendency to claim victimization (at the hands of our British rulers or our powerful American neighbours), while apparently forgetting that the nation only exists because of a seriously brutal colonial history. (Or, frankly, while apparently forgetting that we rejected the American Revolution because we <i>wanted</i> to be part of the British Empire.) So -- Lim and Wade are both 100% right about the problems with framing this ad. That said -- I'd like to add a little nuance, because there's more going on here.<br />
<br />
First, Wade refers at one point to the Vancouver Olympics as "remind[ing] us relentlessly [that] Canada was home to many peoples when the Europeans arrived." That's true, of course, but it's a bit historically imprecise to talk about the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows as part of that bigger European arrival, or bigger colonialist project. L'Anse aux Meadows appears to have been maintained quite briefly around 1000 AD. Leif Ericson didn't "discover" Newfoundland, but neither did he try to settle it beyond the one temporary outpost. (And, of course, this all happened about 500 years before Cabot made landfall in 1497, marking the beginning of real European rule of the region.)<br />
<br />
All of this seems to confirm the suggestion that this ad "effaces" colonial history -- in part by reframing European arrival as something separate from a bigger colonial project. It <i>was</i>, in the case of the Vikings at the beginning of the last millenium -- but in the 16th century, it wasn't. And as on the rest of the continent, it was brutal. The Beothuks, as you all probably know, weren't represented at the Vancouver Olympics because the last of them died in the early 19th century. <br />
<br />
Second, I'd like to add that this advertisement is also seriously problematic in its representation of Newfoundlanders. (Full disclosure: I've never lived there, but my relatives on both sides go back several generations in NL.)<br />
<br />
It's difficult, in general, to talk about Newfoundland in one breath with the rest of Canada. The province joined Confederation in 1949, making it <i>by far</i> the last province to do so. Until that time, it was a separate Dominion of Britain, and was more-or-less directly under British rule. Historically, it's been an economically poor ("have-not") province -- and it's been regarded as a bit <a href="http://www.themuse.ca/articles/29914">weird and backwards by the rest of the country</a>. Newfoundlanders are stereotyped as poor, uneducated, backwards simpletons with bizarre accents. <br />
<br />
The children in this ad seem to be embodiments of this outpost stereotype. They're pictured with dirt-smudged faces, in clothing that looks to be homemade (the cable-knit sweater) or cast-off (the rest). They're playing with rocks in a grassy field, as what looks to be a bad storm rolls in. Unless I'm missing something, this is not how Newfoundlanders live. Certainly Newfoundland is beautiful, has a pretty distinctive landscape -- and certainly most Newfoundlanders adore it for that reason. But, believe it or not, they're fully modern there. Rural mostly, yes. But if you're going there to see children with fairy-crowns of curly red hair whose parents for some reason don't tell them to come inside when it's obviously about to start pouring rain, you're going to be disappointed. (Especially after making that three-hour flight, all the way from Ontario or the northeastern US.)cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-6158330076694561102010-05-12T16:40:00.002-04:002010-05-12T16:41:29.159-04:00Maternal death rates in the Globe and Mail<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">With thanks to <a href="http://maryqueenofthoughts.blogspot.com/">Mary, Queen of Thoughts</a>, I give you this image from Monday's <em><a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/">Globe and Mail</a></em>: </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1fgIxk3zG4A/S-lhvbe5lEI/AAAAAAAABfk/B6NCblvsL-4/s1600/maternal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1fgIxk3zG4A/S-lhvbe5lEI/AAAAAAAABfk/B6NCblvsL-4/s400/maternal.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">After talking to MQoT (one of my BFFs IRL!!!), I want to add a bit to her commentary. (Only to extend, not to contradict.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">First, as she and I discussed, it's mind-boggling to use only two colour gradations here. I realize that this map comes from a G&M special issue dealing with Africa, and so it makes sense to foreground issues of African maternal health. I also realize that there are some substantial debates going on at present about the inclusion of contraception and abortion in the current G8 initiative. The G&M has historically been a Liberal-identified paper, so it makes sense that they'd foreground this highly partisan issue at this point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">By using only two colour gradations, this map gives the impression that Africa is much, much worse off than all of the rest of the world (with the apparent exceptions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, if I'm reading this right). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let's contrast this to some other representations. First, I'll include this diagram from <a href="http://chartsbin.com/view/lac">ChartsBin</a> (click for an interactive version):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://r.chartsbin.com/chartimages/l_lac" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="http://r.chartsbin.com/chartimages/l_lac" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This diagram uses progressive gradations of colour. It still shows that the maternal mortality rates in most of Africa are really elevated, but it also shows that there are elevated rates in parts of South America and southeast Asia that aren't accounted for in the G&M version. The<a href="http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html"> WHO site</a> includes a less attractively nuanced colour scale, but gives a similar impression. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ET45WKcncdEGDtY2kzEDqrpeAOeHfWwjTSm6NwOw-3l8hLDr7XV0JkntjZIRCNA0y2djyFPKAXEHDTjeFythiqmkV9pcZieM8h7AwFbG9VttLNPq0qaV5f-jjkJnQWoAdi-KAPJhAZ8/s1600/mmr_map_080625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ET45WKcncdEGDtY2kzEDqrpeAOeHfWwjTSm6NwOw-3l8hLDr7XV0JkntjZIRCNA0y2djyFPKAXEHDTjeFythiqmkV9pcZieM8h7AwFbG9VttLNPq0qaV5f-jjkJnQWoAdi-KAPJhAZ8/s400/mmr_map_080625.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Again, by setting the numbers differently -- and, crucially, by including multiple gradations of colour -- this map makes it clear that there are regions of Africa that are comparable to regions of South America and Asia in terms of maternal mortality. It also shows that Canada, Australia, and Western Europe have lower maternal mortality rates, clarifying that these areas are substantially more privileged than much of the world. And it makes a distinction between countries with higher rates of maternal mortality. Setting the threshold for BRIGHT RED at 300 deaths per 100 000 live births makes it impossible to see that there are big differences between regions and countries in the continent.<br />
<br />
But -- perhaps that's the point. Africa is still the continent that we love to talk about in terms of sweeping generalizations that efface the substantial differences between its regions and nations, as <a href="http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/afro_regional_committee_20090831/en/index.html">many</a> <a href="http://tryingtofollow.com/2006/09/30/continentism-lets-stop-talking-about-africa/">have</a> <a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=11&year=2008&base_name=should_we_write_about_africa">pointed out</a>. It is indeed the only continent that it's still <em>acceptable</em> to discuss in sweepingly generalized terms. While the G&M "special issue" on Africa might be well intentioned -- and I haven't read the print version, so won't venture a guess on that -- the basic effect of a diagram like this one is to reinforce the popularly imagined version of the continent as a unified, uniformly Othered place of disaster and suffering. There are major social justice and humanitarian issues to be considered in relation to the continent, and I'm willing to concede that many of those are out of proportion to what's experienced in the rest of the world. I object, however, to the Globe's sensationalized, uncritical depiction of the continent. If their goal was to explore a serious humanitarian issue with attention to economic, geopolitical, and cultural issues, they've failed. If their goal was to make Sub-Saharan Africa look like a pool of blood, however, I guess they've hit the mark.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-70559328280974014012010-05-01T17:23:00.000-04:002010-05-01T17:23:06.016-04:00BACKWATERFrom <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-landscape-of-death-in-the-humanities/article1553062/">Margaret Wente's interview with Camille Paglia, in yesterday's <i>Globe and Mail</i></a>: <br />
<blockquote><b>Do you have any impression of the landscape in Canada right now?</b><br />
I'm not that familiar with Canada. But when I was at York University a few years ago, I thought, “Oh my god, they are so shallow. Such a backwater.”</blockquote>Thanks, Camille! Way to make me sorry that I assigned <i>Break, Blow, Burn</i> to my first-year writing students last year.<br />
<br />
See, I'm on board with a lot of Paglia's arguments -- if not, precisely, with the ideology that underlies them. Take for example her ideas about education: she says in this article, as she has elsewhere, that teachers need to take a long view of history, and that we need to be pass on basic factual knowledge. That's absolutely true. This is, in fact, why I assigned <i>Break, Blow, Burn</i>: most of its essays are real gems that show careful attention to poetic form, poetic content, and cultural-historical context. That's exactly the kind of analysis that I wanted my students to see, and exactly the kind of analysis of which I hope they'll be capable. <br />
<br />
But when she says derisively that "teachers have no sense that they are supposed to inculcate a sense of appreciation and respect and awe at the greatness of what these artists have done in the past" -- that's where she loses me.<br />
<br />
I've taught a lot of Beethoven this year. I fucking love Beethoven. I have <i>two </i>Beethoven busts, people; I frequently hop around a little when I listen to the <i>Eroica</i>; and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8HPGFJiq7M">seriously, I think an awesome first date would involve hand-holding at a performance of the seventh symphony</a>. And, as you'd hope, I have a solid understanding of his works -- of their form, their musical rhetoric, all of that. But it is <i>not my job</i> to make people feel "awe at [his] greatness". I will demand that they can track key changes and motivic development, I will demand that they can find the secondary theme, and I will ask them about the dramatic function of the coda. I will wear <i>my awe</i> on my sleeve, but I will not demand that my students feel what I do. Neither do I want my scholarship to be about "greatness". <br />
<br />
In her interview with Wente, Paglia says, <br />
<blockquote>“Critical thinking” sounds great. But it’s a Marxist approach to culture. It's just slapping a liberal leftist ideology on everything you do. You just find all the ways that power has defrauded or defamed or destroyed. It's a pat formula that's very thin.</blockquote>The question I pose back to her is this: what's the ideology involved in lamenting the lost prestige of the humanities, and in declaring that teachers need to teach "awe and respect"? That's a line of thinking that reifies cultural hierarchies, and that leaves us unable to consider the ways in which these hierarchies reinforce particular forms of power. <br />
<br />
And it's the kind of thinking that leads people to declare Canada to be a "backwater". Always has been. I <i>know</i> that, with very few exceptions, we fail on those kinds of hierarchical terms -- the terms of progress, innovation, 'universal expression'. But -- that's a problem with the hierarchy, not with the nation.<br />
<br />
Of course, I could be wrong. I may have spent the last ten years working up to a "long view" of Canadian culture, but I suppose that a weekend in Toronto and a lifetime immersed in High Art might have saved me the trouble of thinking all of this through. Dr. Paglia, is that the kind of informed assessment you want to make? I hope you see that when you argue on the one hand for close reading and historical knowledge and thick criticism, and on the other are willing to denigrate a national culture you haven't studied <i>at all</i>, it's doubly insulting.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-80746861115866406422010-04-28T23:32:00.011-04:002010-04-30T13:37:50.878-04:00"Glee": Five Lines that Should Change Your MindI'd hardly be the first to suggest that<span style="font-style: italic;"> Glee</span> is neither as subversive or as progressive as its quirky humour and 'inclusive' cast of characters might suggest -- but this week's episode, "Home", seems to me to be a tipping point in terms of bad, bad politics. If you love <span style="font-style: italic;">Glee</span> for some reason, I think this might be the week to reconsider your feelings.<br />
<br />
I give you five lines -- selected from many -- that should change your mind.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><b>1) "Hold up, did she just say she was going to eat us?"</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70-Mvw0MRWeMCtsT_3YZKRtc_x4m4bqX4OUzo_XH1h5gJFU9qMW3643NNeOGvx48sJcE-KGwbRVpcIthwApkt0hddEb4z5hHyXBfInKhw4gr-w3FWveCQRnPGA0VXd6jhyjYQl6gFp_U/s1600/screenshot32.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465447255353223554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70-Mvw0MRWeMCtsT_3YZKRtc_x4m4bqX4OUzo_XH1h5gJFU9qMW3643NNeOGvx48sJcE-KGwbRVpcIthwApkt0hddEb4z5hHyXBfInKhw4gr-w3FWveCQRnPGA0VXd6jhyjYQl6gFp_U/s320/screenshot32.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 181px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></div>Mercedes goes on a diet this week, after being ordered by Sue Sylvester to lose ten pounds. As a plot point, this probably had to happen at some point: after all, can a larger woman appear regularly on television without at some point having to acknowledge a wish to change her body? While I'm not surprised that such a plot line emerges in the show, I'm floored by the way in which it's executed.<br />
<br />
First, it's made clear that the slim and attractive cheerleader characters are all normally on some version of Mercedes's diet, and that they pragmatically regard subsisting on a (frankly deadly) liquid diet as the price they must pay for their status. When Mercedes is made miserable by her diet -- starting to picture her classmates as cakes and hamburgers before she faints in the cafeteria -- the "maintext" message is something along the lines of "diets don't work, and <span style="font-style: italic;">crash</span> diets are really really bad!". But why is it Mercedes, the heavier African-American character, whose appetite is so enormous that it has to be caricatured, if numerous other characters are on the same diet? The <span style="font-style: italic;">subtext</span> here is clear: to me, this moment dramatizes any number of cultural anxieties about the unruly appetites and voracious carnality of 'plus-sized' women -- and perhaps yet more problematically, about the unruly appetites and voracious carnality of women of colour.<br />
<br />
<b>2) "You're so lucky. You've always been at home in your body."</b><br />
<br />
It gets worse after the cafeteria scene, as Mercedes and Quinn bond in the nurse's office about their experiences with food. Quinn tells Mercedes that she's "been there, hating [herself] for eating a cookie", but that she's "[gotten] over it". Mercedes acknowledges the racial difference here, saying that Quinn probably had a reasonably easy time coming to terms with her thin cheerleader body and "white girl butt".<br />
<br />
But it's not being white and thin and popular that's made it possible for Quinn come to terms with food: it is instead the magic power of white-lady motherhood. "When you start eating for someone else," she says, "so they can grow and be healthy, your relationship to food changes. What I realized was, if I'm so willing to eat right to take care of this baby, why am I not willing to do it for myself?".<br />
<br />
Two things there. First, Quinn's tummy appears to be smaller than it was before Christmas. Is she not still pregnant? <span style="font-style: italic;">Is</span> she in fact eating? And second, why, in the 21st century, do we have a plot where a mean white girl gets mystically transformed by impending motherhood into -- what, Harriet Beecher Stowe?<br />
<br />
Worse still:"You're so lucky," Quinn says. "You've always been at home in your body. Don't let Miss Sylvester take that away from you."<br />
<br />
What does it mean when a character who personifies white middle American femininity enviously declares a larger African-American woman to be "at home in her body"? Does she long to be free from the shackles of conventional beauty? To be "at home" in a body that gives in to its appetites, regardless of social consequence?<br />
<br />
Julia Starkey has written an essay, "Fatness and Uplift" (included in Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Fat-o-sphere-Dieting-Declare-Truce/dp/B002SB8PJW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272516251&sr=8-1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere</span></a>) that provides a really excellent comment on this kind of thinking.<br />
<blockquote>My experience of being a fat black woman has not been a fat-acceptance wonderland. I don't feel like I have been shamed for my body, but I have felt pressure to have a more socially acceptable body size.... Because of the history and attitudes in my community, I feel a responsibility to act in a manner that adheres to a strict code of conduct. Part of the code is hiding its existence from mainstream white culture. I struggle with those pressures when I don't feel like pulling myself together, when I want to toss a scarf over my messy hair and go grab some milk at the store, when I want to snarl at someone rather than do racism 101 for the umpteenth time. Being told by white women that I have it easy when it comes to my body image dismisses all of the complexities and difficulties of my identity and reduces them to "Cosmo says you're fat. Well, I ain't down with that!".<br />
Making assumptions about someone's identity and culture based on fragments of pop culture is dehumanizing....Sometimes what you think is fact is based on false premises. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Black women do not live in a fat-acceptance utopia, and you're making racist assumptions if you think they do</span>. (Emphasis mine.)</blockquote>Of course it's possible to read Quinn's comment as one about Mercedes's self-confidence in general. But -- if it's not that, or not just that, it's also a comment about longing to cross to the other side, to the "fat-acceptance utopia" of African-American culture. As Starkey makes clear, that's a longing that depends on false assumptions about other peoples' lives. When you combine these false assumptions with the power dynamic implicit in the interaction between Quinn and Mercedes, you've got a major problem on your hands.<br />
<br />
And don't tell me that it didn't ring false to you when Quinn's hand was the first one raised in the auditorium when Mercedes asked, "how many of you feel fat?". Or -- when it turned out that Mercedes's grand gesture of resistance to Sue Sylvester was a bland performance of a Christina Aguilera song about self-esteem.<br />
<br />
<b>3) "You always give me the right advice, Mr. Schuester."</b><br />
<br />
Am I wrong, or does "good advice" in <span style="font-style: italic;">Glee</span> always get passed from a person with more power to a person with less power? This week April appears. She's now not only a drunk, but also the mistress of a very old, very wealthy strip-mall owner -- which doesn't stop her from throwing herself at Will. Despite being in the midst of a divorce, Will declines her advances, and gives her kind, brotherly (or fatherly, or paternalistic) advice: "Are you really where you want to be? Being somebody's mistress? Don't you think you deserve a little bit more than that?...You're always going to feel empty inside until you really find a home." She agrees to ditch the old man, saying, "You always give me the right advice, Mr. Schuester."<br />
<br />
And thank goodness for his advice: when April ditches the old man, who promptly drops dead, she makes off with $2 million in hush money that will apparently make it possible for her to head off to Broadway. So, of course -- doing the right thing pays off. It's wonderful! And it tells us that women who listen to the kindly Mr. Schuester -- who "always gives the right advice" -- end up better off.<br />
<br />
This is a trend in <span style="font-style: italic;">Glee</span>. We've got kindly white people (Mr. Schuester and Quinn in this episode) giving valuable advice to their social subordinates, with magical results. All of this goes to show, of course, that the white people (especially men!) in power are actually really wise and benevolent, and that if you were to listen to them, be nicer, work harder, settle down into a 'real home', and eat nourishing food that would properly sustain any fetuses you have might have in your womb, everything would be better for everybody.<br />
<br />
<b>4) "We got a deal here, right? I don't try to change you, and you don't try to change me."</b><br />
<br />
Kurt's father, Burt, is dating Finn's mother, after being set up as part of Kurt's diabolical plan to get closer to Finn. All of this backfires, though, when Burt and Finn get along a bit too well, bonding about what Burt calls "guy stuff" (i.e. football). When Kurt confronts Burt about this, Burt reminds Kurt that he loves him, and rebuffs Kurt's suggestion that Finn is the "son [he] always wanted". Kurt should accept this, of course, because Burt is 'sympathetic to [his] 'stuff'" and sat through <span style="font-style: italic;">Riverdance</span> three times. And further, they've got a deal: "I don't try to change you, and you don't try to change me."<br />
<br />
Isn't that some version of the deal that has been struck with the "queer community" in general in the twenty-first century? "Okay, I guess you're here to stay -- and I guess we can be civil to you. But definitely do not, under any circumstances, try to change us. We will not be converted to your 'lifestyle'."<br />
<br />
And of course, it's not coincidence that "gay<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">" is a lifestyle</span></span> on <span style="font-style: italic;">Glee</span>. Kurt is a charming character in some ways -- but his queerness is made apparent mainly through his love of musical theatre, cosmetic products, and interior decorating. His <span style="font-style: italic;">sexuality</span> is only on display in song (as in the "House is Not a Home" number, which he directs to Finn): it is his <span style="font-style: italic;">lifestyle</span>, his interests and fashion choices, that his father doesn't "try to change".<br />
<br />
The entire arc of this plot, of course, also functions to cast Kurt as a schemer, and an outsider to normative family relations. Witness the end, where Burt and Finn reconcile and sit down to watch a basketball game -- while Kurt, feeling the loss of his father as punishment for pursuit of Finn, stands outside, spying through a window like an hysterical woman scorned in a stalker movie.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hcsJQAfhg5UTPJx3okPq9qqcqleuwx2fPHTjsW0xeunLVOxwL1KFItS0ks-IASVChAQ_3fKFAj9kA_cz9h9ovQfqD0Rn1ScZvwER8Tgn7SNa11Wzt-e5emO5qs90zs34O8u9LbeRHMQ/s1600/screenshot31.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465443421394099346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hcsJQAfhg5UTPJx3okPq9qqcqleuwx2fPHTjsW0xeunLVOxwL1KFItS0ks-IASVChAQ_3fKFAj9kA_cz9h9ovQfqD0Rn1ScZvwER8Tgn7SNa11Wzt-e5emO5qs90zs34O8u9LbeRHMQ/s320/screenshot31.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 181px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<b>5) "This family manages. We get by. You just don't know any differently because you think what we have is normal."</b><br />
<br />
The counter to this relationship, of course, is that of Finn with his mother. Finn isn't pleased about having Burt take his long-dead father's place, and he declares that he likes his family as it is. His mother replies: "This family manages. We get by. You just don't know any differently because you think what we have is normal." Later, she says, "We don't need any more memories or ghosts. We need a family. A home."<br />
<br />
This is a more obvious example, I think, than the others I've raised, but let's recap: a family is not a family, nor a home a home, without a male head of household. A single mother and son can "manage" or "get by", but must indeed be haunted by their lost husband and father. They cannot be happy until they allow this lost husband and father to be replaced. And a young man who has never known his father cannot, either, know what "normal" is.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-253534348942891902010-04-26T02:41:00.008-04:002010-04-26T05:06:24.709-04:00Instruments and Ideology<a href="http://www.myspace.com/juliafeltham/">My sister</a> had some pictures taken recently for an album release -- and gosh, if they aren't adorable! Let's take the one, for example.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhTcg3EhnrtbsWsWkijAKDSf7nUU8dRFy3m1zF-jxh-u07IbddJdRaUmc3uW04OHIrt3PZZtXM9e-cBgPf3GOWjXHG8mkJyZ6ZPeYgSwULvnTTJC-XII5N5fsiyy8YV1kT5-tuumHHK8/s1600/julia+and+cello"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhTcg3EhnrtbsWsWkijAKDSf7nUU8dRFy3m1zF-jxh-u07IbddJdRaUmc3uW04OHIrt3PZZtXM9e-cBgPf3GOWjXHG8mkJyZ6ZPeYgSwULvnTTJC-XII5N5fsiyy8YV1kT5-tuumHHK8/s320/julia+and+cello" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464336444667514898" border="0" /></a><br />She's happy, delightfully signalling her Eastern Canadianness with her galoshes, and standing on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_Hill_%28Fort_George%29">iconic Haligonian territory</a> (even if she's blocking the view of the clock tower). Yet when I was giving her feedback on the pictures, I said, "ooh, Julia, don't use that one!". Not because I don't like the picture -- but because she's in fact holding a cello. In the others, she's holding her usual instrument, a guitar.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0G3RZmw-gZwIhLjSG8PfZf5eDDBHyBuWgJKmTZ-1dRUyE2GKUlzDj1XAsDKqFXMvxAGLsNjnxI1SysOs1_dMwd5-93lliGv422lec22p8QsFfMTtpRzV3yHn2PTTgPxgZ-73ROLeNtI/s1600/julia+and+guitar"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0G3RZmw-gZwIhLjSG8PfZf5eDDBHyBuWgJKmTZ-1dRUyE2GKUlzDj1XAsDKqFXMvxAGLsNjnxI1SysOs1_dMwd5-93lliGv422lec22p8QsFfMTtpRzV3yHn2PTTgPxgZ-73ROLeNtI/s320/julia+and+guitar" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464336732575759138" border="0" /></a><br />Now, in my fairly professional estimation, Julia is a much better guitarist than she is cellist, and she's certainly a more <span style="font-style: italic;">serious</span> guitarist than cellist. For that reason, it seems more honest for her to pose with the guitar. But that's not why I had this reaction. It's because she's not a real cellist.<br /><br />We talked about this, and the conversation was handily archived by Gmail. (What follows is edited to remove the parts where I told her that she's a terrific guitarist, on the whole making it sound like I'm a <span style="font-style: italic;">jerk</span>.)<br /><br /><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"></span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il"></span></span></span></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il">Julia</span></span>: I actually will be playing <span class="il">cello</span> on the album, and strangely I have been getting lots of cred on my <span class="il">cello</span> lately. Did you know since being the only cellist at the ECMAs I have played on 4 studio albums with <span class="il">cello</span>? (though, to be fair, one was [ex-boyfriend's] band)</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: wha?</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>That's... weird to me!</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il">Julia</span></span>: Its weird to me too. (<span class="il">cello</span>) I am mediocre, and not classical at all but... people love it! And fretless playing by ear? Is EASY and amazing on an instrument tuned in fifths.</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: See, I've just never thought of you as a serious cellist</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>and some snooty part of me is like, "<span class="il">JULIA</span>, STOP DOING THAT".</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>If that makes sense :P</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>Which... I am going to admit it doesn't</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"></span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il"></span></span></span></span><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"></span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: Apparently I am invested in high art values</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>and think that people shouldn't be non-serious players of string instruments.</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>haha</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il">Julia</span></span>: ME TOO! I am happy to hear you say that. People get angry at me for being shy/tentative or angry at being called a cellist... but I always say "HAVE YOU HEARD CELLISTS?" I do not have their discipline or technique.</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: haha</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>OH THANK GOD</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>I am so relieved to hear YOU say THAT</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; float: left; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>And... must point out that we have internalized the same values :p</span></span></div><div><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il">Julia</span></span>: But I think.. in some ways for other people it is really refreshing and sounds... inventive and weird that I play <span class="il">cello</span> like a guitar or percussively? But I often when coerced to play shall say I am an abomination to the art in some ways..</span></span></div></blockquote>So -- what is this all about? If Julia were to pick up, say, a ukelele or a zither after years of playing the guitar, no doubt I'd think that was fine. If she had pictures taken of herself and a hammered dulcimer I'd probably say, "that's weird", but would have no such intense "JULIA STOP DOING THAT" reaction. And all of this, I have to admit, is because the cello is to me a "serious" instrument, one that should not be played by those who don't have proper conservatory discipline and technique. There's room for extended techniques, or pop cello, or jazz cello in this formulation -- as long as you've got the conservatory training <span style="font-style: italic;">first</span>, and are choosing to set it aside. To be a guitarist who plays the cello "like a guitar or percussively", well, that can't be a musical activity of real value. It's an affront to an instrument with a long and storied past, and an affront to all of those conservatory cellists who spend five hours a day thickening the coffee-bean shaped callouses on their thumbs.<br /><br />Or -- is it? I almost <span style="font-style: italic;">viscerally</span> believe what I've just written. But who's to say that only those with a particular kind of training are 'authorized' to make music on a particular instrument? Would I have this kind of reaction to unschooled performance on an instrument that didn't so strongly signify the Western High Art tradition? And would I have this reaction at <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> if I hadn't spent the last ten years in university music departments?<br /><br />I raise these questions because I think of myself, on the whole, as being quite critical of the ideologies that underlie our attitudes about music. I spend a lot of time digging through these ideologies, and I do a lot of work to distance myself from them. But apparently, my investment in the cello as a Serious Instrument cannot quite be undone by critical analysis, or even by a picture of my much-adored youngest sister looking much-adorable with a cello she plays like a guitar.<br /><br />Now, the endpoint of this thinking in this case is, probably, me giving Julia a scolding for not practicing her scales or bowings (a scolding that she'd shrug off, because she is used to me being scoldy). But imagine how this could play out if I weren't her mostly benevolent, if crotchety, older sister -- if, say, I were a non-benevolent and very crotchety orchestra director, and my objection weren't to a lack of particular training, but to the absurdity of a woman playing the cello. (What kind of woman, after all, would want to play an instrument that's held between the legs?) Or -- what if my objection were to people of colour playing orchestral instruments, in general?<br /><br />Well -- I'd be in <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/archives/2006/12/cultural_racism.html">really fucking esteemed company</a>, apparently. I'd be just about set to take over the<a href="http://www.parnasse.com/vpo.shtml"> Vienna Philharmonic</a>.<br /><br />And here's the point.<br /><br />If you're hung up on who is making the sounds, instead of on the sounds themselves -- and we are <span style="font-style: italic;">never hearing only the sounds themselves</span> -- you'll probably miss some real aesthetic delights. More importantly, if you don't interrogate your ideas about who "should" be making particular sounds, you will shut entire demographics out of particular kinds of music making. That, it shouldn't need to be said, is absolutely not okay. And that, as anybody who's taken a music history survey should know, is how it's always been.<br /><br />I'm shocked to realize that I have such a deeply held sense of propriety in relation to an instrument I've never played. (Especially since I've delighted in INTENTIONAL <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfcPIG8eFVk">breaches of propriety</a> on instruments I do play...) And so I make an incremental step forward, and admit that my dear sister might well be making tremendous, unorthodox noises with her cello -- even if she's not a 'cellist'. (Giv'er!)cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-71294485510279265552010-03-27T01:33:00.004-04:002010-03-27T02:11:15.988-04:00The Week in Evil (27/3/10)So much evil... where to begin?<br /><br />1) Oh, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/rapist-hopes-victim-has-learned-to-keep-her-doors-locked/article1514112/">here</a>. While being sentenced for two rapes committed on the York University campus in 2007, Daniel Katsnelson<note> declared that he "h</note>opes some day the victim will be able to take away something positive from this, as he has,” and “suggested that now maybe she will know to keep her doors locked". Which brings us to <a href="http://www.scarleteen.com/blog/heather_corinna/2009/12/15/10_surefire_ways_to_prevent_sexual_assault">this clever list,</a> and also very clearly to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder">this</a> -- though obviously not to <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remorse">this</a>.<br /><br />2) Similar theme, but it gets a bit more horrifying <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/18/afghanistan-taliban.html">here</a>. Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman, was married at 10 to a man who kept her in a stable until she began menstruating at 12. She was jailed when she tried to escape, and upon release returned to her husband's family (by her father) -- who cut off her nose and ears as punishment for 'shaming' the family. Donations to fund reconstructive surgery and other assistance can be made <a href="http://www.womenforafghanwomen.org/front_lines.php">here</a>.<br /><br />3) And last, I'll point to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/03/25/nunavut-dog-commission.html">allegations by Inuit that the RCMP slaughtered up to 20 000 sled dogs in Nunavut, northern Québec, and Labrador between 1950 and 1980</a>. If you want to erode your belief in the decency of Canadians, read the comments. Mixed in with the statements of outrage (the kind <span class="r">that maybe make you hope that humans are not such wicked beasts after all), we find these gems:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"I think RCMP went to Nunavik, saw how the dogs were treated and the condition they were in and thought they were doing the right thing by putting them down."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">"</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="r">My father was an officer in the north at this time. The citizens were warned to fence their dogs and keep them on leashes when out walking. The reason being the dogs were attacking people and killing people. The dog cull protected the community."<br /><br />"my father shot my dog and i want money too.</span><span style="font-style: italic;">"</span><br /><br />So -- in other words -- an mass animal slaughter that was part and parcel of a colonialist cultural genocide was, of course, carried out for the good of the colonized. And my goodness, if only they wouldn't <span style="font-style: italic;">whine</span> so much about it. We can pretend that these aren't the sentiments underlying comments like these, but we'd quite simply be lying to ourselves.<br /><br />Now: take all of that anger -- I stirred it up on purpose, people -- and <a href="http://www.jewcy.com/faithhacker/whats_a_mitzvah">do</a><a href="http://www.jewcy.com/faithhacker/whats_a_mitzvah"> something good</a> with it.<br /><br /><br /><span class="r"><br /></span><div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br /></div>cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-80474299661494635432009-07-24T23:46:00.006-04:002009-07-25T00:14:25.094-04:00CSIS, Khadr, Human Rights -- and an aside about health care.<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/15/khadr-csis015.html">As reported by the CBC,</a> the Security Intelligence Review Committee has released a report indicating that CSIS violated Omar Khadr's human rights by not taking his age into account when he was interrogated at Guantanamo Bay. (He was sixteen at the time, and as video evidence shows, broke down crying for his mother while being questioned.)<br /><br />Further, as reported by Kathleen Petty of CBC on <span style="font-style: italic;">The House</span>, SIRC's report indicates that "CSIS cannot carry out its mandate solely from an intelligence-gathering perspective. They have to take things like human rights into account."<br /><br />I'm not going to comment on this in depth, but I'd like to say -- thank goodness. It remains to be seen whether or not CSIS will develop a proper protocol for dealing with youth in the future, but the declaration by SIRC that human rights have to take precedence over gathering information fits quite precisely with what I like to imagine to be Canadian values.<br /><br />And, on that note, an aside about health care. Today, I decided that I wanted a specialist opinion about a (definitely not urgent) health issue. So, being in the US and having good insurance through my student-employee union, I checked the directory for my insurance provider, and booked an appointment. In about two weeks, I'll be seeing a specialist (with a <span style="font-style: italic;">subspecialty</span>, even), and paying about $10 out of pocket.<br /><br />So, for a few minutes, I thought -- maybe this is better than the care I'd receive in Canada. Back home, I'd certainly be waiting longer for this doctor, and being in a smaller area I'd like not be able to find a doctor with this particular subspecialty. I wouldn't be able to decide on my own, either, that I wanted this issue double-checked, and then to make my appointment.<br /><br />But then I thought, you know, I would gladly sacrifice those benefits to be sure that I was in a system where other people are getting looked after. I'd quite happily wait a few more weeks or months to be seen (with no likely health consequences). I'd quite happily consult with my GP about a referral. And all of that is, quite simply, because that's the way I think things should work.<br /><br />So, at the risk of playing Smug Canadian (a game I try to avoid), I'll point out that this too is part of what I imagine to be Canadian values. Just as I'd choose to protect human rights over 'intelligence gathering', I'd choose to be part of a national collective that protects the basic healthcare needs of <span style="font-style: italic;">everybody</span> over the convenience of those privileged to have good coverage. That's not to say that the Canadian system is perfect -- because it isn't, of course. But the <span style="font-style: italic;">principle</span> behind the system is, well, the right one.<br /><br />Aieee! Have I gone patriotic?cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-34647291324782208492009-07-15T23:00:00.003-04:002009-07-15T23:49:35.638-04:00Fat kids and self-esteem<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/overweight-children-suffer-anxiety-as-young-as-6/article1219571/">The Globe and Mail is reporting that overweight children suffer from anxiety as early as six years of age. </a>I have <span style="font-style: italic;">no </span>doubt that this is true -- but I'm going to object to the framing of the results in the report. Let's take this, for example:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Furthermore, as these children progressed from kindergarten to Grade 3, their negative feelings grew more pronounced, lead researcher Sara Gable says.</span> <p style="font-style: italic;">“They actually get worse, so you think about the mental health implications of that,” says Dr. Gable, an associate professor of human development and family studies. “It just adds to the body of research that we already have telling us the cost of the lifestyle problems apparent in the U.S. population.”</p><p>The clear implication is that negative feelings and poor self-esteem are a natural consequence of a 'lifestyle problem' -- rather than the result of others' reactions to one's body, or of messages that one receives about one's body. That is, fat kids have it coming, right? The bullying and social exclusion that these kids experience is simply the natural, predictable result of piggish, lazy living. A critical reading of Dr. Gable's next comment further suggests that this is her stance:<br /></p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Overweight girls were especially affected by their heavy stature, Dr. Gable adds. Bigger girls had trouble getting along with their peers and exhibited other negative behaviours that emerged after kindergarten, including a lack of self control.</p><p>If overweight girls are "especially affected by their heavy stature", could it be because they are constrained yet more than boys by social norms about physical attractiveness? Could it be, perhaps, that we continue to value girls according to how they look -- and that perhaps being chronically devalued because of 'heavy stature' simply <span style="font-style: italic;">hurts</span>? The vague reference to "lack of self control" suggests a tired association between fat and behavior, and also seems to correlate fat with undisciplined, and therefore unfeminine, conduct.<br /></p><p>These results doesn't say to me that kids need to be put on diets: they say to me that fat prejudice starts <span style="font-style: italic;">incredibly</span> early, and that it has the power to erode the sense of self of the young and vulnerable. They say to me that we need to stop looking at fat as a definitive marker of a 'lifestyle problem', and start focusing instead on the more complex business of talking about good health practices at any size. And they say to me that we have a collective responsibility to treat people with decency even if they're fat.<br /></p><p>In the interest of disclosure: I was a fat kid, and I'm a fat woman. And <span style="font-style: italic;">of course</span> I struggle with self esteem. But I stand firm on this point: if you devalue me because of my size, that's your failing, not mine. There is no natural relationship between size and self-esteem. This relationship is most transparently something that we construct in day-to-day interaction, in our media, in our culture. And while I'm all for research that explores this relationship, I am straight-up angry to see it reported as yet another reason to scold the hefty.<br /></p><p>On that note: you know what's <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> lazy? Demanding that other people change their bodies to fit your aesthetic, rather than reframing your own perception. You know what's <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> a problem of self-control? Treating people -- <span style="font-style: italic;">especially </span>children -- in a way that reinforces their low status, because it delights you to be so wonderfully superior. Give me the choice, and I'll own the sin of a big round belly or a wide lumpy ass over the sin of narrow-minded cruelty any day.<br /></p>cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-86547161908238522092009-06-17T02:39:00.001-04:002009-06-17T02:41:21.994-04:00Another reason for the CBC to go commercial-freeOkay, I know it's late, but I'm watching <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hour</span> on Newsworld. (I don't have TV in my house, let alone Canadian TV -- so when I visit my mom, I like to catch up.)<br /><br />And then, I saw this:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/S1ZZreXEqSY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/S1ZZreXEqSY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br />Is that <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> necessary? I think not.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-83579698697283828322009-06-08T01:18:00.005-04:002009-06-08T03:16:50.049-04:00Naomi Wolf on the Male Brain<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/feminism-and-the-male-brain-free-at-last/article1171663/">Naomi Wolf's commentary on brains and gender today in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Globe and Mail</span></a> makes it clear why essentialism is such risky business. As she writes:<br /><p> <span style="font-style: italic;">Feminists understandably have often shied away from scientific evidence that challenges this critique of sex roles. After all, because biology-based arguments about gender difference have historically been used to justify women's subjugation, women have been reluctant to concede any innate difference, lest it be used against them. </span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;">But now a spate of scientific analyses, based on brain-imaging technology and new anthropological and evolutionary discoveries, suggests we may have had our heads in the sand, and that we must be willing to grapple with what seem to be at least some genuine, measurable differences between the sexes.<br /></p>Wolf goes on to discuss work by Dr. Helen Fisher and Dr. Michael Gurian. On Fisher's work, Wolf writes:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">... in her description of our evolution, Dr. Fisher notes that males who could tolerate long periods of silence (waiting for animals while in hunt mode) survived to pass on their genes, thus genetically selecting to prefer “space.” By contrast, females survived best by bonding with others and building community, since such groups were needed to gather roots, nuts and berries, while caring for small children. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reading Dr. Fisher, one is more inclined to leave boys alone to challenge one another and test their environment, and to accept that, as she puts it, nature designed men and women to collaborate for survival. “Collaboration” implies free will and choice; even primate males do not succeed by dominating or controlling females. In her analysis, it serves everyone for men and women to share their sometimes different but often complementary strengths - a conclusion that seems reassuring, not oppressive. </span><br /><br />Reassuring, maybe. And anecdotally, I might be inclined to agree that women <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> more verbal and more inclined to "build community" than men -- but then, I certainly know men (heterosexual men, even!) who will happily spend hours gossiping around a French press. It seems more useful to suggest that it serves everyone for <span style="font-style: italic;">people</span> to share their "sometimes different but often complementary strengths", than it does to talk about this kind of complementarity as something that exists in a gender binary. Even if these differences are 'wired in' <span style="font-style: italic;">generally</span>, they will certainly not hold true for all men, or all women. And even if these difference are 'wired in' generally, should we <span style="font-style: italic;">accept</span> them as the basis for a functional society?<br /><br />I don't know Fisher's work well, and I'm hesitant to characterize it based on a brief second-hand report. But I would have liked to see Wolf ask some more bigger questions here.<br /><br />First, I'm not sure why she so eagerly reads and accepts the suggestion that we should take gender norms that presumably existed in hunter-gatherer societies as a basis for current childrearing practices. We simply <span style="font-style: italic;">don't</span> live in that kind of society any more, and our "survival" no longer literally depends on the norms that she outlines. I can see a lot of benefit to encouraging girls to "challenge each other and test their environment", even if for that's somehow less 'instinctive' for them. If it's also true that it's harder for girls than boys to build muscle mass, would we tell them not to bother trying? (I suppose that we <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span>, in some ways -- and that's simply not acceptable either.) Should we really consent to be constrained by our purported biology?<br /><br />Second, it strikes me as flat-out weird that any current feminist thinker would not, in fact, ask if there's anything about <span style="font-style: italic;">current</span> socialization of young girls that makes it <span style="font-style: italic;">seem</span> that they have less instinctive interest in challenging their peers or testing their environments than do young boys. I'm not sure that it bears explaining, in fact, why young girls might be discourage from such "challenging" or "testing". It's a major lapse on Wolf's part not to address this basic issue.<br /><br />When she discusses Gurian's work, however, Wolf's comments are even more disappointing:<br /><p style="font-style: italic;"> Michael Gurian, a neurobiology consultant, takes this set of insights further. [...]</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">He even posits that the male brain can't “see” dust or laundry piling up as the female brain often can - which explains why men and women tend to perform household tasks in different ways. Men often can't hear women's lower tones, and their brains, unlike women's, have a “rest” state (sometimes, he is thinking about “nothing”). [...]</p><p style="font-style: italic;">Somehow, all this is liberating rather than infuriating. So much that enrages women, or leads them to feel rejected or unheard, may not reflect men's conscious neglect or even sexism but simply their brains' wiring. According to Dr. Gurian, if women accept these biological differences and work around them in relationships, men respond with great appreciation and devotion (often expressed non-verbally).</p><p>So -- my response is pretty similar here. It seems that there's a very basic question about the influence of social norms on this 'brain wiring', or on the way that it gets expressed in behavior, needs to be asked here, and Wolf's not asking it. And then, really, how much are we willing to be constrained by our brain wiring? If it's less "instinctive" for men to handle particular household tasks, does that get them off the hook? Or, if those are still necessary tasks, is it imperative upon them to simply <span style="font-style: italic;">learn</span> to handle them? We can't simply allow basic inequities in the division of domestic labour (and yes, that's what laundry is) to persist because men are fortuitously wired in a way that gets them off the hook. That's bad for everybody.<br /></p><p>And again, of course, these differences don't fall cleanly across gender lines. I'll speak from experience here. I grew up in a household where, because of various issues in the family dynamic, I wasn't terribly well trained in basic housekeeping skills. And sometimes <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> really "don't see" clutter, dust, whatever. I'm working on it, slowly and systematically. Why? Not because I regard it as some kind of <span style="font-style: italic;">feminine</span> imperative, but because I want to live in decent conditions, and because I don't want to drive the people I live with insane. Just as it's harder to learn a second language in adulthood -- because of changes in the plasticity of the brain! -- this is a much trickier set of skills to teach oneself as an adult. But you know, it can be done. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect this of me, and I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect it from other people (be they family, roommates, or partners).<br /></p><p>I think that legitimate research in evolutionary biology (as Helen Fisher's seems to be, from my other encounters with it) is fascinating, and potentially deeply revealing. But as individuals, as partners, as parents, or as teachers, we might actually do well <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> to be so 'reassured' by readings of this research that try to identify essential differences between the sexes. Instead, we might ask -- who do we <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> to be? Biology might be destiny to a point (and I <span style="font-style: italic;">don't</span> believe that we can transcend it completely), but is it acceptable to use it as a collective excuse for perpetuating fundamental inequalities? <span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Italic" title="Italic" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 4);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="img/blank.gif" alt="Italic" class="gl_italic" border="0" /></span></span></p>cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-28977165738212024822008-12-21T11:27:00.002-05:002008-12-21T11:32:53.568-05:00Working where they'd forgottenI had a dream last night that I was in my old house, one my family had moved out of about fifteen years ago. Some of the rooms had been converted into offices, and I was sharing one with a bunch of highly distracting co-workers. And then I remembered: in the finished part of basement was the study, the <span style="font-style: italic;">actual</span> office. Everybody had forgotten it but me, and so I very quietly went down there, and found a lovely space (lovelier than it had been in life) where I decided I'd work secretly, perhaps extending invitations to a few favoured friends to use the second desk.<br /><br />That means something, I think: it's a call to work in an old space, in a corner in a basemet, perhaps forgotten and unnoticed for a time.<br /><br />That's okay with me.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-10680227602805985382008-11-15T06:00:00.005-05:002008-11-15T07:39:06.810-05:00Margaret Wente on coffee cups and plastic bagsMargaret Wente has written a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081114.wcowent15/BNStory/specialComment/home">column</a> for the Globe and Mail in which she criticizes Toronto's recycling plans as "not based on economics, or feasibility, or anything that resembles common sense, but on the simple belief that the more we recycle, the faster we will go to Heaven." Her major objection is to a proposal that would have retailers give a twenty-cent credit to customers who use reusable coffee cups. Saying that "[i]t never occurred to [her] that choosing a coffee cup for my double-double is an ethical decision", Wente goes on to argue:<br /><p style="font-style: italic;">I have now spent many hours researching this matter on your behalf, and I have found entire websites, engineering reports, and university student subcommittees devoted to the environmental impact of coffee cups. The classic of the genre seems to be a study called Reusable and Disposable Cups: An Energy-Based Evaluation, by former chemistry professor Martin B. Hocking, who, I am proud to say, comes from our own University of Victoria.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">To perform a proper lifecycle analysis of coffee cups, Prof. Hocking began by calculating the embodied energy (MJ) in each type of cup. Not surprisingly, he found that it takes a great deal more energy to manufacture a reusable ceramic cup than it does to manufacture any kind of disposable cup. For every paper coffee cup you use, you'd have to reuse your ceramic mug at least 39 times to break even, energy-wise (assuming that you wash it once in a while). For every polystyrene cup, you'd have to use your mug a whopping 1,006 times to break even. </p> <p style="font-style: italic;">I trust that clears things up. </p>Well, no, not really. First, it's not so unreasonable to expect to reuse a ceramic mug 39 times. That's a little over a month of once-daily use. Using the same mug 1006 times seems a bit less likely -- but then, that's less than three years of once-daily use. Shouldn't a ceramic mug last for three years? Further, the numbers that Wente gives address only the energy costs of <span style="font-style: italic;">production</span>. Recycling and waste disposal both use additional energy. I'd like to see some numbers that take into account the differences at both ends of use. And of course, there are other issues to be considered: landfill space, pollution from production, etc.<br /><br />Wente also objects to actions dedicated to reducing the use of plastic bags, on similar grounds:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Everybody likes to point to Ireland, which slapped a hefty tax on plastic shopping bags a few years ago. Voila! People practically stopped using them. But then they started buying plastic doggie poop bags and plastic kitchen bags and plastic wastebasket bags to replace all the plastic shopping bags they had formerly recycled.</span><br /><br />Here's the thing: I don't use plastic liners in my garbage baskets, except for the large bin in the kitchen. They're actually not necessary. (The dog issue is different, but I don't have a dog). So the argument about shifting around waste doesn't really make sense for me. I also *like* my reusable bags better. They hold more, and they have sturdier, more comfortable handles. Of course, I notice this difference because I carry them myself when I walk back home from the supermarket, or sling them on the handlebars of my bike. I'm betting that Wente still throws her plastic bags in the trunk of her much-loved SUV.<br /><br />I don't want to make this a virtue contest. Wente is probably correct that plastic shopping bags are not going to push us over some kind of ecological tipping point. But the bigger issue, the one she overlooks because it's the thing she <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> doesn't want to confront, is the issue of attitude. Why on earth should we defend our 'right' to generate more waste than we really need to? Superficially, Wente is defending single-use coffee cups and plastic bags; dig a bit deeper into this argument, though, and you'll find that she's defending her right to overconsume. Focusing on individual bits of garbage might allow us to justify a wasteful lifestyle. Considering a really different lifestyle, however, makes ours (mine included) seem simply absurd.<br /><br />My grandmothers would never have thought twice about reusing <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> reusable. My mother, for instance, tells me of her mother making aprons out of flour sacks. Why? Simply because you wouldn't waste a perfectly good flour sack if you'd grown up in pre-Confederation Newfoundland. I remember my father's mother reusing Red Rose tea bags through cup after cup, because it was the economical thing to do. (I also believe that she never bought a car she couldn't pay for outright -- on a teacher's pension.) Perhaps instead of defending our 'right' to generate garbage, we could start questioning why we allow ourselves to look at unnecessary waste as anything but a mistake. Perhaps rather than splitting hairs about whether or not we use more energy by buying a ceramic mug than a paper one, we might simply accept that it's decadent, and a bit obscene, not to make the best possible use of everything that we're lucky enough to have.<br /><br />*********<br />Of course, my current irritation with Margaret Wente might have something to do with her recent column about <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081024.wcowent25/BNStory/specialComment/home">"savages"</a>.<br /><br />Near the end of a long social studies unit about the Miq'Maq, my sixth-grade teacher used that word, too. She only let it slip once that whole year, and mumbled it a bit -- but I can still remember her glimmer of satisfaction, and her apparent relief. I have no doubt that she'd been saving that slur for weeks.<br /><br />Does it surprise you, hearing that, that my sixth-grade teacher was a truly awful woman? She was nasty and smug and more than a bit stupid, though somehow able to keep a lot of people on her side. The sliver of hate that pushed through to the surface in that mumbled slur was an absolutely integral part of this woman's nasty, smug stupidity. It was not some coincidental bit of ignorance.<br /><br />Even though a full fifteen years have passed since the sixth grade, I still wish that I'd spoken up in that moment, instead of swallowing my discomfort -- so I'll speak up now. Wente's column doesn't have the bluntness of a simple slur. It pretends to be reasonable, and it pretends to rest on fact. But -- it doesn't. It simply asserts something that Wente believed before she started her research, and pretends to back it up with some selectively gathered bits of information. (Two of the authors that the cites have since written in to object to her characterization of their work.) It also assumes an unsettling degree of intellectual authority, and rests on an incredibly uncritical appraisal of value and reason and truth. Today's column, not coincidentally, does the same thing.<br /><br />Perhaps the ugliest utterances are also the most revealing.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-89450313779943993632008-11-08T13:54:00.010-05:002008-11-08T15:34:18.333-05:00Protecting Marriage on YouTubeIt is, of course, much to my dismay that California voted in favour of Proposition Eight. It's only since the election, however, that I've become aware of some of the materials posted by the "Yes" campaign -- and I think they are instructive in understanding the real basis for objections to legislating same-sex marriage.<br /><br />I have often said that I simply don't understand the argument about same-sex marriage as a threat to 'traditional' marriage. On some level, I assumed that this whole debate was about something metaphysical, some fear that if you let the gays into the Magic House of Procreative Marriage, they'll spread Sin Spores and everyone will get dirty. That kind of anxiety never made sense to me, and it left me feeling simply confused about the whole debate.<br /><br />Then I watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI-GjWY-WlA">this clip</a>. It's predictably manipulative, in a lot of ways. The description of Jan and Tom and their family is an almost-amusing construct of the 'normal' family: they own a minivan, they have a dog, Jan cooks while Tom mows the lawn, and they sure do love their gay neighbours. (Though, G-d forbid, not <span style="font-style: italic;">too </span>much!) The general tone of the ad is calm, and the language clearly tries to be neutral, creating the impression that these arguments against gay marriage are reasonable, and <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> based on blind hatred. Of course, they talk about homosexuality as a 'lifestyle choice', suggest that 'strong families' need a heterosexual nucleus, and talk about <span style="font-style: italic;">tolerance</span> of homosexuality (as if it's something to tolerate?). If you're in the habit of reading this kind of language, you'll catch the nastiness under these euphemisms -- but perhaps not otherwise.<br /><br />What I find instructive about this ad is not so much its strategies of manipulation, however, but the concrete objections that it voices in relation to gay marriage. First, they express concern about 'teaching gay marriage' in public schools; second, they suggest that legalizing same-sex marriage is likely to result in government interference in churches, who they suggest might be forced to perform same-sex marriages. I have to read these objections as showing, in part, a desire to maintain institutionalized discrimination.<br /><br />Rather than simply labelling these objections as discriminatory, though, I want to understand them. The issue of government interference in the church is a clear extension of the conservative tendency to limit (or pretend to limit) the scope of government in general. This objection creates a bit of a feedback loop, of course. It declares a desire to maintain the separation of church and state -- but it wants to maintain that division by passing legislation that is in keeping with conservative Christian values. I can acknowledge that an individual congregation should have the right to determine its own collective values, and I quite agree that the state should have limited control over religious practices in general. But can't this objection be addressed by simply affirming the separation of church and state? If there is a provision that allows same-sex couples to be married in town hall, or in progressive churches, but still allows individual congregations to refuse to perform ceremonies -- well, that objection loses all validity, and we're back to the Sin Spores argument. (As I understand it, Canadian legislation still leaves this choice up to individual churches, and our society hasn't crumbled.)<br /><br />It's the argument about 'teaching homosexuality' in schools that I find to be most revealing. Instinctively, I find this argument to be absurd. As I see it, there is <span style="font-style: italic;">literally </span>no possibility that reading <span style="font-style: italic;">King and King</span> is going to change the sexual orientation of a single second-grader. What it might do is make a child with same-sex parents feel a bit less excluded -- or, better yet, mean that when one of these kids hits high school and comes out (comes out<span style="font-style: italic;"> anyway</span>, to be clear), he or she will be a little less afraid, and a little less abused and persecuted by his or her peers. To me, that sounds like a good result.<br /><br />Thinking about this issue a bit further, I asked -- why would a person be <span style="font-style: italic;">so concerned</span> about what their children see and hear? Why not trust that your child will develop the skills to sort out right from wrong on their own terms, and with your guidance?<br /><br />My best guess is this: if you accept the authority of religious doctrine without question, then perhaps you believe that's the only position a person <i style="font-style: italic;">can </i>take in relation to authority, or in relation to information itself. Your concern then becomes teaching your children not to question authority, not to struggle to reconcile their beliefs and values and opinions with what they encounter in the world, but instead with controlling the authority to which your children are exposed.<br /><br />I feel like this interpretation has given my some new insight -- though I'm not sure quite where it leads me. It does, at least, remind me how happy I am to have been raised as I was, to understand doubt and questioning as part of real faith.<br /><br />(Christian to Christians: if the Spirit is alive, shouldn't we let Him move? And if God is love, isn't He there when two people declare it?)cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-77060460401581119622008-10-20T04:36:00.004-04:002008-10-20T05:06:15.413-04:00Political Preference and the ClassroomThere's been a heated discussion on the New York Times website about the issue of teachers declaring their political preferences, particularly in the form of wearing pins that endorse a particular candidate. This discussion has followed a blog post by Stanley Fish, which you can read <a href="http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/buttons-and-bows/">here</a>.<br /><br />As a teacher, I'm in an unusual position at the moment: I'm Canadian, and teaching in the US, so I <span style="font-style: italic;">can't</span> vote. I know who I'd support if I could -- but I have a handy, default dodge for any student questions about who I support. How would I handle this situation if I<span style="font-style: italic;"> could </span>vote? I think that I would evade the question, at least to a point. I'm not sure that there is a comfortable answer to this question, but this is why I'm taking this position for the moment:<br /><br />As a teacher, I'm in a position of power over my students. I'm reasonably certain that my political view become apparent to my students at some point during the semester -- but I'm not interested in putting them in a position where they have to agree or disagree with me on this kind of point. If they think of me as a good teacher, if they respect me, they risk being swayed for the wrong reasons (i.e. because they want to please me, or because they want to emulate me. I'm not sure that my students <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> want to please or emulate me, usually, but in this area, I'd rather play it safe and limit my influence).<br /><br />But my bigger concern is that, as a teacher, I can't reduce political issues simple binaries. It's not my job to make sure that my students vote for the 'right' candidate. It's my job to give them the intellectual sophistication and critical thinking skills to see through bad arguments and manipulation on <span style="font-style: italic;">both</span> sides, to encourage them to question campaign strategies in general, to nudge them a bit closer to being engaged citizens, to urge them out of complacency. If I try to teach that way while I'm wearing an Obama pin, I make the discussion partisan in a way that is, quite frankly, counterproductive. I make it easy to dismiss me -- or to agree with me -- without considering the real content of what I teach. That's not what a classroom is for.<br /><br />Whether I teach Beethoven or Shakespeare, Madonna or the Beatles, I'm giving my students something that I want them to bring into the world with them, something that I want to make them thinking and questioning citizens. The issue of support for a particular candidate <span style="font-style: italic;">feels</span> huge in the run to an election, but in the long term, I want to give my students something much bigger, and much more important. That's a big task, and I'm never sure that I'm up for it -- but oh how I try.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-29167639651233804112008-10-05T01:12:00.005-04:002008-10-05T01:46:32.536-04:00No really, what the hell IS wrong with Russell Smith?From today's <span style="font-style: italic;">Globe and Mail</span>: <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081004.RUSSELL04/TPStory/?query=russell+smith">"Ladies, Don't Pad Your Resumés"</a><br /><br />The column is full of Smith's usual hooey, exhorting women to dress for male pleasure. In particular, he'd like us to wear skimpy bras that allow for "natural sway" and -- oh joy, oh bliss! -- the breathtaking possibility that one might see the natural shape of a nipple, "surely the most erotic sight in clothed humans". Part of me wants to commend him for celebrating the female body. That part of me is far outbalanced by my queasiness at the (recurring) suggestion that a woman who does <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> dress to please men is somehow not doing her job.<br /><br />Which brings us to the headline. I don't know if Mr. Smith writes his own headlines, but this one is simply nasty in its implications. If my breasts are my resumé, am I in fact applying for the 'job' of being sexually attractive to men? And being sexually attractive to men <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> my job, then are my breasts my primary qualification?<br /><br />I can't help but take this kind of thinking personally. I realize <span style="font-style: italic;">so often<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span></span> that in this culture, it is my failings as an aesthetic object that define me for other people. And yet, there is so much about me that simply can't be seen.<br /><br />(Can you <span style="font-style: italic;">hear</span> it, at least?)cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-82753087411108551752008-08-11T10:59:00.005-04:002008-08-11T11:30:53.433-04:00Thank you for contacting customer serviceDear Education Client, <br /><br />Thank you for alerting me to the problem you are currently experiencing with your Education Product. I assure you that we are working diligently to address your concerns. <br /><br />Upon checking your purchase history, I see that you have ordered some of our Learning Tokens, which, when accumulated in sufficient numbers, can be exchanged for entry-level employment at a rate of remuneration marginally above the government-mandated minimum. I apologize for any difficulty that you may be experiencing in accumulating these Learning Tokens. <br /><br />Despite the best efforts of our Education Company, these Tokens occasionally cause difficulty for our clients. We disclose the possibility that Tokens of Grade B or lower may be issued, when Tokens of Grade A are preferred. As our Waiver indicates, these variances in Token Grade are not a result of our quality control, or of Token availability. Rather, they are designed to encourage you to accumulate these Tokens in a way that leads to ancillary benefits for you, the Education Client. <br /><br />You have indicated that your current Token is unwieldy, and that you are concerned about the Grade of your Token. I assure you that your Token was issued with the utmost attention to your Client Profile. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee Token Grade at this time. Further, if you inspect your Token closely, you will see that the Grade controls are in fact accessible by you, the Token user. If you are having difficulty in operating the Token Controls you may wish to set up an appointment with our Customer Support team. Most of our clients find, however, that with sufficient effort they are able to operate their Tokens in a way that provides our intended ancillary benefits while at the same time increasing the Token Grade. This may require you to read our Support Materials. <br /><br />We regret that we cannot accept returns of Learning Tokens. You may, however, withdraw from the Token system at any time, and exchange your accumulated tokens for entry-level employment. You may also upgrade at any time. (Upgrades are reflected primarily in ancillary benefits, and while they are likely to be reflected in the Token Grade, we can unfortunately make no guarantees.)<br /><br />Please do not hesitate to contact your <del>teacher</del> Education Product Representative if you have any further questions or concerns. <br /><br />Sincerely, <br />Your Education Product Representativecancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-57684268633722936012008-07-28T12:49:00.005-04:002008-07-28T12:59:09.748-04:00Attention menfolk!You may be operating under the assumption that a magic fairy washes your dishes, picks up your socks, mops your floor, scrubs your toilet. Or you may be operating in a state of minimal awareness, where you believe that these things do not need to be done, and that your house will nonetheless remain liveable. Also, you may be convinced that your gender makes it somehow impossible for you to see dust.<br /><br />This is NOT TRUE. And if you believe these things, and you are not living in squalor, it is probably because a woman who lives with you has learned that it is easier to play magic fairy than to get you to play domestic. And -- here's news -- you're not a feminist, buddy. You're not even close.<br /><br />Ask my mom, for instance. Or, ask my dad, and he'll deny it, but might just admit that I explained to him how to empty the lint trap when he was forty-seven years old, and that he then spent the next nine years in court trying to prove that my mother had never done a thing for him. Hooray for heterosexual love.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-84130332982443403792008-07-14T00:25:00.003-04:002008-07-28T13:05:49.033-04:00What the hell is wrong with Russell Smith?I'm often unsettled by Russell Smith's fashion columns. There's something <span style="font-style: italic;">incredibly</span> creepy about the way he discusses women's wear -- and really, I can't be alone in thinking so. Take his most recent column, "Footwear for slave girls is oddly appealing":<br /><p style="font-style: italic;">Do guys like those strappy gladiator sandals for women?There is something oddly sexy about a lower leg bound in leather straps and buckles. Perhaps it's their suggestion of confinement. Perhaps it's that they remind us of all the impossibly beautiful "slave girls" in the series Rome, or mad Cleopatra and her smoky sexuality.</p><!-- /Summary --> <p style="font-style: italic;">The problem with so many of these elaborate harnesses is that they can get a bit gaudy - they tend so often to metallic colours, to sparkles and spikes and studs, that they can look a little bit brassy, as if to suggest that the wearer should also have a pack of menthol smokes, platinum blonde hair and her house upholstered in leopard skin.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Luckily, most Canadian men aren't as sensitive to aesthetic connotation as this. All they are going to notice really is whether your shoes are flat-heeled or high - and even this we tend to register unconsciously, as a vaguely different shape to your leg. </p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Now the high-heeled variety of gladiator sandals are extremely flashy, indeed overtly fetishistic; they just scream high-maintenance, expensive gifts and uninhibited sex. We will certainly notice these.</p>No, really. I couldn't have made this up if I tried, could I? I'm sure that Smith thinks this kind of discussion of desire is a sign of enlightenment, a sign that he has transcended his provincial small-city Canadian past. I'm sure of this because I read his columns with faithful distaste, and because I too am a Haligonian expat. Clever as Smith always obviously thinks he is, knowing where he's from I can only see his attitude as the typical smugness of an Eastern Canadian who wants to sever all connection to his once-home. So much more sensitive to aesthetics than most men? Of course! So cutting towards women who dare not dress to arouse, and so vocal in his declarations of lust for those who do? How liberated he is from the backwards bourgeoisie of Nova Scotia.<br /><br />I'm sure Smith is clever; obviously he's well-read. That makes his evocation of vague Orientalized objects of desire all the more offensive, because he should know better. And it makes his discussion of women -- arousing or not -- all the more tiresome. If he's so clever and liberated, why is he so desperate to prove it?<br /><br />In response to his imagined retorts:<br />1) I have also lived in Paris. I live in New York now. Shut up.<br />2) I was very badly treated in Nova Scotia through much of my youth. I was also bored senseless. I'm quite sure I know what you felt. It's still home, even if I never live there again.<br />3) I'm sure that you'd be appalled by my summer footwear of choice. I pick it for the arch support, not for exotic sex appeal. Whatever. I make delightful company, even if I'm not fetching drinks for bulimic men in sheets, and even if there's no chance that I'll off myself with a poison asp.<br /><br />Pfffffft.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-24689404176134665712008-07-09T14:20:00.005-04:002008-07-09T14:31:59.108-04:00Harper, Carbon, and the G8The CBC site is reporting <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/09/g8-summit.html">the following:</a><br /><p style="font-style: italic;">As the Group of Eight summit wrapped up in northern Japan on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it's a "mathematical certainty" that developing countries will bear the brunt of the work in lowering global greenhouse gas emissions.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">His comments to reporters in the resort town of Toyako came as several developing countries reportedly balked at climate change targets proposed by the G8 countries the previous day.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">The major industrial countries represented by the G8 set a goal Tuesday to halve emissions that contribute to global warming by 2050, though no international baseline year was set and the plan lacked midterm goals.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Harper said that by 2050, developed nations will likely account for no more than 20 per cent of global carbon emissions.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">"So, when we say we need participation by developing countries, this is not a philosophical position. This is a mathematical certainty," he told Canadian reporters at a news conference Wednesday.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">"You can't get a 50 per cent cut from 20 per cent of emissions."<br /></p>1) Developed countries have spent a couple of centuries "developing" while emitting massive amounts of carbon. It's why we have the technology and industry we do today.<br /><br />As the developing world catches up in terms of technology and industry, how is it that we now get to blame <span style="font-style: italic;">them</span> for the state of the environment?<br /><br />The ruling class will always try to maintain its status. That's part of what this is about: plain and simple, economic imbalance <span style="font-style: italic;">works </span>for the developed world, and we collectively want to maintain it.<br /><br />2) Way to shirk your responsibility, Harper. Regardless of what's going on in other nations, it's still incumbent upon Canada to do better. We've made commitments to reducing carbon emissions. If you're short-sighted, you might be focused on the economic undesirability of making such a change.<br /><br />But, hell, I don't really know about economics. That's not what I do. Sometimes, though, you just have to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do -- not because you see a concrete long-term benefit for yourself, and people like you. I'd like to see a national leader who understands that.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-51835068565805537702008-06-30T22:52:00.006-04:002008-07-01T00:58:35.545-04:00Gas and Cable<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/06/27/f-gas-roundup.html">It looks like gas prices have finally started having an impact on cute little white girls in Utah.</a> Thank goodness; I thought we'd have to wait a long, long time before this issue started getting sufficient media coverage.<br /><br />Okay, seriously now. Two little girls from Utah, who cannot spell "money" or indeed "cable", are upset because their parents have cut off their cable TV to pay for gas. I'm thinking, long term, these kids are going to be better off. Perhaps they can spend their Hannah Montana time taking the bus to the library.<br /><br />In fact, part of me feels that a lot of <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> things are going to come from rising gas prices. Anything that makes people take public transit or bike rather than driving -- well, that's a good result. And, if we're going to be honest, rising gas prices are the only thing that's going to make the average North American consumer make those changes.<br /><br />Good effects aside, though, I'm more than a bit concerned about this situation. Here, two cases in point:<br /><br />1) My airfare to get home for Christmas this year will be approximately $200 more than it was last year.<br />2) A pound of tofu at Trader Joe's is $0.50 more expensive than it was a year ago. Or, I'm pretty sure it is. And I'm guessing that much of this increase is the result of increasing transport costs.<br /><br />As a graduate student, I feel these economic pinches pretty acutely -- or, at least, cumulatively. I can, however, bear them pretty easily. For me, a few extra dollars each week at the grocery store is something I notice, but -- since I'm shopping for one -- can absorb pretty easily, and still buy fresh produce and <a href="http://www.fageusa.com/products.html">tasty Greek yogurts</a>. $200 extra a couple of times a year to visit my family hurts a bit more, but for now, I can handle it.<br /><br />The thing is: I'm in a pretty good position. I have a low income, but my future earning potential is reasonable, and I certainly come from a comparatively advantaged background. I have no dependents, so I'm typically cooking for one -- and because of my Newfie heritage, I'm well-schooled in running a good and frugal kitchen. Thanks, Grandma!<br /><br />I'll also add that I'm already making, as a matter of course, most of the 'sacrifices' that people are talking about as a result of rising fuel prices. First, I don't have a car. I also split my heating costs three ways with my roommates, keep the thermostat at 60º as much as I can stand it, and refuse to run the air conditioner. (I actually took it out of my house.) When I do laundry, not kidding, I use a <a href="http://www.laundry-alternative.com/">hand-crank machine and spin dryer</a>. So -- effectively, there's not much on which I can cut back.<br /><br />If, with all of these advantages, I'm still noticing meaningful economic changes, the story to be told is not mine, and <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> the story of privileged white girls from Utah giving up something they (probably) shouldn't have anyway because of gas prices. The story is about food and energy costs hitting people who can't be hit any more. That's been getting some coverage, I know, but it's where the real crisis is coming, and it's time we took heed.<br /><br />On the whole: enough, ENOUGH whining about having to make negligible lifestyle changes. You shouldn't be driving everywhere anyway. You shouldn't be so invested in cable TV that you take to the streets in protest. You shouldn't be beside yourself about the cost of leisure travel.<br /><br />Be indignant for the people who need it.<br /><br />And perhaps, be indignant about the state of the market. Be indignant that people in positions of power have realized that people will buy very nearly as much fuel at $140 a barrel as they did at $90 a barrel -- and that they've simply decided to charge $140. Be indignant that these same people have wielded their money and power for decades to ensure that we would have few viable options to fossil fuel, when this time came.<br /><br />A <span style="font-style: italic;">reductio ad absurdum</span>, yes, but not an unsubstantial part of the question. The end result will be predictable: the very rich will get richer; the moderate privilege of us in the middle will shrink; the really poor will suffer abonimably.<br /><br />How do we live with this? If the poor are still with us, it's because we need them, some more than others. It's an ugly admission, but as I type it, I realize that it doesn't weigh on my conscience nearly enough.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-72095721478107003712008-05-16T05:36:00.002-04:002008-05-16T05:38:17.082-04:00I'm not somebody who typically reads news stories and gets agitated about lenient sentencing. <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080516.woneday0516/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostview">This, however, strikes me as seriously, seriously wrong. </a>cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-75744461915004462902008-03-30T21:11:00.006-04:002008-03-30T21:22:38.430-04:00RIP Book RoomThe closure of the Book Room, Canada's oldest bookstore, was announced several months ago, and now it seems <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/03/29/bookroom-closes.html">it's happened</a>. Of course it's sad to see it go; it was quite a nice bookshop, and in its way a bit of local history.<br /><br />But (!): in fairness, I have always <span style="font-style: italic;">vastly</span> preferred The Bookmark and John W. Doull as independent bookstores. I'd be beside myself at the loss of either of those (much as I was at the closure of Sam's). I'm hoping that these businesses are more flexible and adaptable than the Book Room, which blamed its closure on the rise of internet book-shopping, proved to be. But, just in case, if you're in Halifax, I beseech -- nay, implore! -- you to shop at these stores. What kind of city would we have without independent booksellers? I shudder to think.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-29447989496866034832008-03-24T07:10:00.004-04:002008-03-24T07:38:17.128-04:00"The Emperor's New Clothes": Three Musings1. It's the child, the child with no position to protect, the child with the least authority of anybody in the story, who announces the emperor's nakedness.<br /><br />This tells us: the risk in telling the truth is least when you have the least. We accept and propagate deception to keep what we have.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">(Here, I have everything: a full fridge; a heated house; clothing; the necessities of life.<br /><br />Here, I have everything: a fridge full of food grown by people in total poverty; house heated with oil won in foreign wars; clothing sewn by ten-year-old girls; necessities of life bought cheap, at somebody else's expense, to leave some money for luxury. What am I going to do about that?)<br /></div><br />Also: The utterance of the weak has power. And not simply because this is a story for children.<br /><br />2. The emperor, he's at fault. He's foolish and he's vain, and these are real flaws.<br /><br />But the emperor gets his comeuppance. He's humiliated; he's spent piles of money on lavish robes that don't exist -- while conmen-tailors skip town happily, with their pockets full.<br /><br />This tells us: you may think that you know who you please when you keep your mouth shut. You're probably not looking in the right place.<br /><br />Or, our flaws leave us vulnerable to real, active evil. That's not inexcusable, perhaps; it's certainly human. But you need to keep your eyes open, and your mind sharp.<br /><br />3. The emperor was naked all along. And everybody saw it.<br /><br />This tells us: If it's true, it's true; you see it, even if you don't say it. So say it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ask</span>, at least. Is the emperor naked?<br /><br />I've been thinking about this story a lot lately. Health care in America? The emperor's naked. War in Iraq? The emperor's naked. Public education? The emperor's naked. And on, and on, and on.<br /><br /><span><span></span></span>cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724048845748538338.post-55804842017656131322008-03-24T03:42:00.004-04:002008-11-12T21:27:34.659-05:00Plantation sugar?Every time I go home, I'm startled to see these sugar packets:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ8tKg31nZqr21cHtfHIRtroi88XQdFwKPVMYdfj0Bqf__f5eDkTWcFLGd82P7hWGqmKw-9A5xqWf0sJYGG77_bRB7aoZ1NpFn9PsQJ4KwoEC_ytvadLNIpmAw9w4GJ-36B80s5OVVfpc/s1600-h/haircut_20.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ8tKg31nZqr21cHtfHIRtroi88XQdFwKPVMYdfj0Bqf__f5eDkTWcFLGd82P7hWGqmKw-9A5xqWf0sJYGG77_bRB7aoZ1NpFn9PsQJ4KwoEC_ytvadLNIpmAw9w4GJ-36B80s5OVVfpc/s320/haircut_20.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181211316554562866" border="0" /></a>Now, there's nothing wrong with the sugar itself. (It's raw sugar, basically indistinguishable from the "Sugar in the Raw" sold in the USA.) But why on earth is there a picture of an ambiguously dark-skinned person playing a mandolin under the label "plantation"? Perhaps the Lantic Sugar company doesn't find this image offensive, but given the long practice of bad white people using African slaves in Carribbean sugar plantations, I have to object. It goes without saying that there's a complex, ugly history there. This stylized image, which suggests that this sugar is natural, exotic -- raw, of course! -- translates that ugly history, and all of those offensive essentialized concepts about people of African descent, into mere marketing.<br /><br />I've dumped dozens of these packets into my coffee over the years, but after putting it into those terms I think I might be switching to Splenda.<br /><br />This is also a reminder about the importance of ensuring decent treatment for <i>current</i> farmers and farm workers -- be they growing sugar beets, sugar cane, cocoa, coffee, or any other commodity crop. I'm not as rigorous as I should be about choosing fair trade products when possible, and I'm not sure that fair trade arrangements are the best of possible solutions -- but it's better than the alternative of certain exploitation.cancrit(at)gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799484498731785372noreply@blogger.com3