there’s still a lot about the u.k. that is inherently sexist. some of it is more overt (the topless photos inside the “newspapers”) and some of it is more subtle (the use of the endearment “love” in a pejorative and belittling way). margaret thatcher notwithstanding, there are still a lot of obvious inequalities and insidious patriarchal attitudes that pervade the culture. i was quite struck by it when i first arrived, and i am sad to say, it has since faded into background noise. because, well, i live here – and you just can’t spend all day every day in a black cloud of righteous indignation.

one thing that never fails to raise my hackles, however, is the topic of rape. rape is an appalling topic no matter what the circumstances, but rape in the u.k. is truly horrific because only 5% of reported rape cases end in a conviction. that’s a number which has, in fact, been falling since 1977. of the cases that go to trial, one of every two ends in acquittal. in other words, a victim who manages to make it to trial has only a 50/50 crapshoot of getting to see her attacker put behind bars.

and reading the reports, it’s not hard to understand why. in news item after news item, there’s just no sense that anyone in the justice system takes rape seriously. there’s a lot of talk about the number of false accusations, the difficulties of determining consent if someone’s been binge drinking, and passing the buck blame-gaming. all we hear is how hard it is to determine what happened when the two parties know each other. attempts at judicial reforms have been dismissed by judges, police incorrectly record allegations as “no crimes”, and more than a third of dropped cases have should have been pursued. but perhaps the most telling indicator of how rape is viewed and prosecuted in the u.k. is that women are still often questioned about their sexual history as part of the trial.

all of those elements combine to form a pretty clear picture: rape just doesn’t matter much. and given that most rape victims are women, it implies that women just don’t matter much. which is why it is estimated 9 of 10 cases are never reported. the response to the most recent reports are feeble at best. there is no outrage, no shock – instead people say there shouldn’t be artificial targets for conviction. they trot out the old stereotype of a woman who only cries “rape” the morning after in a haze of regret. they say that a trial ending in a verdict of “innocent” is just as successful as a trial ending in a verdict of “guilty”.

what it boils down to is more of the same old shit. when rapists are free to walk the streets, they are free to rape again, creating more victims who don’t come forward or have ineffectual trial cases, further solidifying the wall of silence and making even more women vulnerable. and in a culture where victims of rape are blamed and disbelieved, why should any woman want to put herself through even more trauma when the chances of justice are so low, and the chances of humiliation so high? for victims of sexual assault, there truly is no justice. and while i can tune out the page 3 titties staring out at me from the papers every morning and i can tune out the men with a disparaging sneer in their voice, i simply cannot tune out the horror of living in a country where rapists get away with it – over and over again.

(while i have referred only to female victims of rape here, that’s not in any way to dismiss the plight of male victims of rape – simply that the overwhelming numbers are women)

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an old friend i’ve been out of touch for a long time recently asked me where i’m at, and where i’m going (and no, she’s never been one for light questions or easy answers). and i found that when you’re trying for a succinct explanation of who you are these days and how you arrived there, it’s easy to come across as pretty goofy. everything sounds so overly slick and pat. glib. like you actually knew what the hell you were doing when you decided to do a, b, and c, rather than groping blindly along trying to figure it out by feel. like you seriously considered options x, y, and z, weighed up the pros and cons, and decided on a course of action.

in reality, i jump into most decisions or experiences in my life with little or no thought. i’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants kind of girl, and have always followed my heart over my head. of course, putting that out there in words makes me sound pretty irresponsible. and i guess that i probably am. but thinking about it further, trying to make sense of my insensibility, i realise there’s really no other way i could do anything. i could try for caution and self-protection, but it just wouldn’t be me.

you see, inside i’m a scaredy-cat. i talk a good game, all bravado and bluster, but inside i’m stone cold with fear. so i learned long ago that the only way to overcome that knock-kneed quaking, the only way to overcome my natural inertia and paralysis in the face of change, was to not think about it. nike’s old slogan “just do it” became my motto. it’s the same principle as bungeeing off a bridge – if you think about the actual jumping, you’ll never ever do it.

it’s hardly an advisable way to make lifechanging decisions, but it sure beats the sinking regret of inaction. my own personal brand of self-exploration: scare yourself shitless and see what happens.

so whenever someone tries to tell me i am brave, i feel a bit of a fraud. i’m not brave – to me the word “brave” connotes courage, of which i have none. stupid impulsivity? that i have bucketloads of. fear of standing still? check. stubborness? to spare.

of course at times, there have been bright, flaming failures. when you leap into things with both feet together and eyes tightly shut, there are bound to be mistakes. but there have been beautiful successes as well – things i never would have been able to bring myself to do if i’d stopped to contemplate the potential consequences. places, loves, and experiences that i would have been far too scared to immerse myself in if i’d thought even a millisecond about being vulnerable. i live that way because i don’t know any other, even though by most people’s measure, doing without thinking would be considered foolhardy. moving far away, saying “yes”, telling someone you love them – all without caution, without agenda, without pretense of bravery. with only your heart and your fear and your faith.

my friend said she thought foolhardiness and love might be two sides of the same coin.

and, you know, i reckon she’s right.

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there’s an interesting little experiment that’s been taking place in our household these past ten days: jonno is cooking.

now jonno *can* cook, but rarely does. back when he was first wooing me, he used to make simple but tasty dinners for me all the time. but since the honeymoon ended, it’s just been a function of the division of labour in our relationship; i really enjoy cooking, and am halfway decent at it, so 99% of the time, i am head chef at chez nous. now, every once in a while j will bring home some ready made pasta, or a roasted chicken as a change of pace – but most nights, i take the time and effort to put together a fresh and healthy meal from scratch. and i don’t mind doing it, even when i’m tired or cranky, because j is usually very good about letting me know how much he appreciates it and it makes me happy.

about two weeks ago, however, he came home with a cheeky attitude that rubbed me the wrong way – a sense of expectation and entitlement that made me feel taken for granted. now i usually don’t mind doing the cooking or shopping – but it sure as hell ain’t my *job*. and it appeared that that point needed a little renewed emphasis.

so we’ve swapped roles for a while. j has the chore of planning and cooking healthy meals after a long day at work, and i spend my evenings relaxing and waiting to be served. so far his efforts have not been too bad – we’ve only had frozen fish and chips once, and steak and potatoes twice. there have been, however, several evenings of eerily familiar dishes resembling many of my trusty standbys. i suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so i should be pleased he likes my cooking enough to recreate it himself.

in the meantime, i’m just trying to enjoy this while it lasts, or until his repetoire is exhausted. all i can say is, it’s nice having a personal live in chef, and i’m beginning to realise just how good he really has it. and i only hope after this role-reversal experience, he comes to his senses and realises it too.

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so it was actually quite a busy weekend for us, considering that our usual friday to monday schedule generally involves doing as little as humanly possible. friday night we met our friends emma and dave for drinks to welcome them home from their own round-the-world trip. we’d met them as travel mates on our uyuni salt flats excursion starting in chile, and ended up travelling in parallel with them for about three weeks up through peru (including witnessing the horrific accident together). we compared stories, moaned about their enviable tans, and in spite of drinking inadvisable quantities of wine and prosecco, i was actually feeling surprisingly fine on saturday morning (though that can’t say anything good about the state of my liver). i got up, went out to get bagels and eggs, made breakfast and coffee, considered going for a run a bit later in the afternoon.

and then bam! at one o’clock a massive migraine hit. this is the return of a very disturbing trend, and in spite of jonno’s incessant teasing, i know it was a migraine because i don’t get funny visual effects with just a plain garden-variety hangover. i was incapacitated for most of the afternoon, but rallied in the evening (assisted with a small overdose of ibuprofen) for dinner at chris and ton’s house. funny how the prospect of a home-cooked meal can make getting up from the couch so much more enticing. ordinarily, evenings at chris and ton’s end when chris starts going through his extensive wine collection and drunkenly opening bottles at random, while we start swilling it like water. luckily it was one of our rarer and more sedate evenings and i managed to steer clear of most alcohol and escape unharmed.

so i was feeling good sunday morning, when i woke up at a lazy hour, went for a run, and was in the shower thinking about breakfast and a relaxing afternoon when jonno burst into the bathroom.

“do you know anything about meeting muriel at baker street at noon?”

shit!! shitshitshitshitshit!

i dash out of the shower, and start running around the house, wet and naked, yanking on the nearest clothes, yelling “tell her we’ll be there in an hour!”

my aunt muriel, as I’ve mentioned here before, is my grandfather’s cousin, and my only relative here in the u.k. she’s a garrulous old bird in her mid 70s, and lives up near oxford, where we dutifully visited her for an overcooked sunday dinner and sherry every few months. she’d wanted to meet up with us since we returned from our travels, but now that we no longer have a car, agreed to come meet us in london for lunch. i’d made the plans, written them in my diary… and completely plumb forgot.

understandably, poor muriel, after taking the bus all the way down to london, sitting in the cold for a half hour and being stood up, was not all that interested in waiting around for another hour for our inexcusably late arrival, and graciously agreed to try again another day as I apologized profusely.

meanwhile, i’d barely had time for a sigh of relief and to dry off properly when, not three minutes later, my friend kim popped by for an impromptu visit – something i have always been encouraging her to do, but which only a few minutes earlier would have resulted in her witnessing my wet and frenzied racing about like a madwoman. however we had an enjoyable chat over coffee, as I tried to slow my heart rate from all the earlier excitement, and she was thoughtful enough to drop off a cool little travel book for us as well.

after that, the bulk of the afternoon was taken up with grocery shopping (read: me forcibly dragging j through the grocery store) and noodling on the computer, until later that evening we headed over to kerryn and tracey’s place for our traditional weekend dinner and videos date. kerryn flexed his culinary muscles with roasted sea bass with chorizo, and we watched the inane “my super ex-girlfriend”. (yes, i managed to stay awake.)

so that’s what our eventful weekend looked like – food, drink, friends, frenzy and a healthy portion of humble pie.

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it’s not even the end of january, and as ridiculous as it is, spring is here. i know this because i smelled it on my run this morning. you know the smell of spring – it’s the smell of earth warming, trees stretching, the thin hint of fresh greenery sharp in your nose. it’s so recognisable you can almost feel the sea change, pinpoint the exact day the seasons turn. a visceral intuitive knowledge.

it is also probably the most important day of the year for me – it’s the day i know i’m safe once again from the clutches of the wintery depressive bleakness which tries to invade my brain every year. those clouds that seep in at the edges so stealthily i rarely realise it until i find myself choking up at greeting card commercials on television.

i haven’t ever written here about my depression before. no reason, really – it’s not something i’m ashamed of or try to hide. there have been some really black moments in my life – times when i needed professional help. the first, darkest time was my first year of university when i spent 6 months contemplating throwing myself out a window. it’s amazing how twisted your thoughts can become without even being aware if it. how easily your mind turns traitor against you, sabotaging any hope, killing off signs of light. i honestly didn’t realise how bad it was until i was (thank god) well on the other side of it. but looking back, i can see what a bad place i was in. i vowed never to allow myself to go there again.

and it really is like being in a different world. a different planet. it’s impossible to see reality. there’s a blackness that seeps into your thoughts, your soul, slowly creating a kind of tunnel vision until you can’t see anything but darkness all around, and you no longer even know which way is up because all you can feel is that you’re getting pulled further and further down by the undertow. your life doesn’t work anymore, doesn’t make sense anymore. and you struggle and struggle against it, the gravity of it which is the heaviest burden you’ve ever known, it’s utterly exhausting, and in spite of all the flailing you just keep slipping further and further away from the shore, from sanity, from anything that ever mattered to you until finally all you want is to be able to stop struggling.

if you’ve never experienced it, that description doesn’t even begin to do it justice. and if you’ve ever experienced it, that description doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

so yeah, i’ve had some pretty bad depression. and after that first time, i decided that i didn’t deserve to ever have to feel that way again. since then, i’ve gotten help when i needed it. luckily, it’s been few and far between. luckily, i learned my lesson that first time. luckily, there are drugs and therapy which work for me.

but the thing is, it’s always part of my history, part of my genes and brain. there’s a “strong familial tendency” towards depression that means i will always be predisposed to that slippery slope. it’s something i am, and will always have to be, ever vigilant about. a constant temperature-taking of my emotions, never letting my guard down. awareness is everything. i can never take for granted that it’s just “the blues”, or a bad week. i can never just allow myself the luxury of melancholy.

and so, i have a love/hate relationship with winter. the shorter days, the desire to hibernate. sleep more, socialise less – it’s all very dangerous for me. that sounds a bit melodramatic, i know, but it’s a truth with which i am intimately acquainted, and i’m just not willing to risk otherwise. so i count the days until the solstice, and tell myself it can only get better from there on out. i check my eyes for tears, check my heart for dark spots, stick to the straight and narrow and steer away from any ruts or ditches.

and i hold on for this day. spring. renewal and rebirth for more than just the flowers. i smell that smell and know it means i’ve made it through to the other side, and come out alive and well. that’s something i will be forever grateful for.

spring is here. and god it feels good.

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depression

I’m currently in the process of trying to format my “world tour blog” into a book of sorts, just to keep. It’s a slow process, not least because I find myself endlessly re-reading some of my favourite entries. It sometimes seems surreal that I was there, I did those things, I wrote those words. In retrospect, I feel as though I was a different person on that trip – someone I have often longed to be in my day to day existence, someone I was able to fleetingly allow myself to become, someone I was able to capture in my journals, however briefly. With no strictures, no obligations, no expectations, I was able to become the experiential, self-aware, intuitive, free spirit I always wanted to be. That may have been the biggest gift of our trip.

Every time I make a new friend, without fail, at some point early in the friendship they reveal that when we first met each other, they thought I didn’t like them. Always. For years now, people have told me this. Which is rather painful, actually – because almost invariably it’s someone who, upon first meeting, I thought was really cool or wanted to get to know better. So even if I really liked them or was excited to hang out with them, they experience the exact opposite. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why, and it’s a hard thing to know that I come across that harshly on first impression. And no matter how I try, I can’t seem to change it. My insides are not matching up with my outside.

Which is why I desperately wish that I could bottle that “travelling jen” that I am so nostalgic for now. I want to be able to always be that confident, that easy going, that adventurous. I’d always dreamed of feeling that free – I’m not sure what holds me back from expressing that in my day to day life. I remember feeling much freer, more “myself” in New York, which leads me to suspect that part of the difficulty is London itself. Part of it is probably age (what happened to that girl who dyed her hair blue and didn’t give a fuck?) But once again, there’s a disconnect happening on a fundamental level between my internal yearnings and how I live my actual life. I want authenticity. I want to reconnect. I want to live the way I feel.

I once wrote:

we watched “the motorcycle diaries”again tonight – the movie about che guevara’s seminal road trip through south america. i remember seeing it before, but i am struck by the difference now. i see flashes of familiar – places i’d only dreamt about when i last saw this, now mine in memory. these are parts of me that i get to keep. i have these, tucked away under my belt for reminiscing, tomorrow or a lifetime from now. when it is winter in london, i will always have summer in bangkok or spring in beijing.

these are parts of me i get to keep.

at the end of the film, che says “i am not the me i once was”. there is truth in that, i know. i am not the same me who dreamt of someday seeing machu picchu – i am now the girl who climbed the inca trail in the rain, saw dawn over the sun gate, bowed low to enter the temple of the condor. i have breathed the mist into my veins, felt the cool stone beneath fingertips, heard the echoes reverberate off the green peaks.

so i get it now, what this deep stirring ache is at the bottom of my heart. i recognise what these growing pains are. it’s clear to me what is happening.

it is not, as i originally thought, that i simply see the world differently. it is that i am different because of the world.

That is the real me. I need to find a way to let her be free.

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woke up and looked out the window this morning to see this:

which just made me groan.

i really can’t wrap my brain around just how less than an inch of snow can cause so much chaos. other cities all over the world deal with snow for whole months of the year – perhaps someone from london’s city planners could go visit one of them and report back?

jimminy cricket – what a palaver for something that was completely melted away by midday! the exact same thing happened last time it snowed, too. i had a better sense of humour about it then, it seems.

i miss snow – but in london it’s far more trouble than it’s worth. : igh::

more predicted tonight – i’ll be lucky to make it to work tomorrow.

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fringe benefit of being an expat? i don’t even have to *pretend* to care about the bloody “state of the union” address. in fact, i didn’t even know it was tonight until it was mentioned on this evening’s news.

ho hum – how friggen predictable. but wait! he’s going to mention global warming again!! yeah, because he was sooooo convincing about it last year. ::heavy sarcasm:: let’s just continue to alarm people without ever encouraging any actual change in our consumption lifestyles. that’ll save the planet.

at least in the u.s., he won’t have people telling him he shouldn’t fly anywhere on holidays anymore, like poor tony blair! apparently the second most powerful man in the world is supposed to just drive down to brighton beach, or summer in blackpool. george, on the other hand, could easily drive to his vacation ranch in texas – in his luxury armored SUV, of course.

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global warming, state of the union

i have often blogged about being pro-choice. but today, the anniversary of roe v. wade, i am asked to quantify *why* i am pro-choice.

it’s very simple for me, really. i am pro-choice, because I am pro-women.

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blog for choice

i am sitting on the train, reading the paper on the way home, engrossed in the latest jade goody saga.

“jen?”

i look up, and across from me is a thin blond woman who seems oddly familiar, but is not ringing any bells as I try to place her face.

“it’s lucy. from laos.”

…

we were on the slow boat down the mekong river in Laos, from Huay Xia to Luang Prabang – a two day journey, with an overnight stopover in the tiny flyspot village of pak beng. pak beng has exactly 3 rustic “hostels”, limited running water, and electricity only between the hours of 7-11. still, after 9 very long hours on an uncomfortable cargo boat, we were eager to explore, so we walked down to the dirt path by the river as light began to fall. as we walked past a brightly lit house with blaring, thumping american music, we saw a few other tourists from the boat inside, beckoning us in. turns out the party was actually a wedding reception for two young laos newlyweds in their late teens, and we spent the rest of the evening dancing to rap music, drinking the local moonshine, and chatting with a group of australian girls who were on their way to england after their holidays. in particular i spent some time talking to this girl lucy, who was a qualified occupational therapist, about the nhs and her tentative plans to move to london, giving her my email and telling her she should get in touch. we bonded in that way you do when you are travelers thrown together in a strange environment, and you’ve been drinking too much homemade grain alcohol, and the whole world is your friend.

…

and now here she was in front of me – holy shit. i am really bad with recognising people out of context, but as soon as she said “laos” it all came flooding back to me. turns out she lives just in clapham, of all places. so she filled me in on her experiences since moving here, and i told her about the rest of our travels. we engaged in small talk until we reached her tube stop. and then, she was gone. there was a brief moment where i thought about exchanging phone numbers… but then it passed. i think sometimes travel bonds don’t always survive the real world – and maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be.

the train pulled out of the station.

i went back to reading my paper.

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in the past 24 hours, i have lost my wallet, my brand new work swipecard, and a receipt for the £40 ticket I bought trying to get from Birmingham to London (which I need to get reimbursed from work)

in the past 24 hours, both my wallet and my swipecard were found and returned to me. the world is full of good samaritans, i tell ya’.

however, i am going to start stapling things to my forehead if this trend continues!

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this is what happens when I don’t check my emails… anyone got tickets to the sold out “arcade fire” gig at the brixton academy?

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the arcade fire

hillary is officially in it (as if there was ever any doubt!)

i have to admit having mixed feelings on this. on the one hand, i would desperately love to see a “madam president”, and believe that I will in my lifetime. on the other hand, i *can’t* just vote for a woman on principle – i’d have to actually believe in her platform. tokenism isn’t enough. as is always said of any minority looking to break historical barriers, you have to be twice as good as the majority representative you’re competing against. as smart and capable as she seems to be, i’m not sure hillary *is* twice as good. while i find myself agreeing with most of her policy ideas, i am also acutely aware of the significant step towards the centre which she has taken in her role as a senator trying to curry favour and keep her job. it smacks of sellout to me. i might still vote for her – but it would depend on who the alternative was. and i’m not sure you can win the presidency by “not losing” to the worse candidate.

but i think there are two much bigger reasons hillary won’t win the white house. the first is named barack obama. now, I don’t think obama is going to win either the democratic nomination *or* the presidency, but I do think he plays the role of spoiler in this race, siphoning just enough votes from the front runner to make things difficult.

the second reason? hillary just ain’t “likeable” – that ephemeral, but oh-so-necessary quality for appealling to the public at large. that certain je ne sais quoi or x factor, if you will, which *shouldn’t* matter in the polls, but which inevitably does. we americans like to elect people we think would be good next door neighbours, or who we find attractive or charismatic for whatever reason. it’s that charisma which barack obama has in spades, making him a serious contender in spite (or perhaps because) of the fact that very little is known about him. it’s why bush was elected (and re-elected) even in the face of some serious capability qualms. and it is precisely that ineffable quality which you either have or you don’t. you can become more well known, loosen up, try to be seen as more down-to-earth – but you can’t grow charisma, no matter how hard you try.

i think ultimately, that will be her downfall. as smart as she is (and she is), as capable as she would be (and she would be), i think in the end she’s doomed to the same fate as john kerry: an eminently qualified, “unlikeable” has-run. which is a shame really.

ah well, there’s always the next election.

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2008 presidential election, hillary clinton, barack obama

i’m not very typically feminine in a lot of ways: i don’t have lots of shoes, i hate shopping, i don’t wear much makeup. but i sure do love my perfume.

i’ve always loved perfume – as a kid i remember first buying some toxic green stuff from the drugstore called “emeraude”. when i would babysit i was always compelled to steal spritzes of perfume from the mother’s medicine cabinet. and when i finally earned enough money to buy the nicer stuff, my first signature scent was “calyx”, a lovely floral scent reminiscent of calla lillies. when that suddenly became very popular a few years later, i changed to “sunflowers”, a happy yellow perfume. soon enough i started smelling that in every elevator i got into, so i changed to the more sophisticated “l’eau de issey miyake”, and was very attached to that for a long time. eventually that caught on as well, so i changed to the more unique “marc jacobs”, and later, “flower” by kenzo. and in between all those, there was the “tobacco flower” perfume from the body shop that i adored until they discontinued it, a brief dalliance with “sugar” (which smelled exactly like sweet brown sugar), and an early twenties love affair with “sung”. my latest infatuation, which i bought on the ferry home from paris, is “parfum d’ete” by kenzo – in many ways, it reminds me a lot of my old “calyx” days. and when i look back on my fragrant history, it seems like i was always needing a new fragrance to match a new phase in my life – if i needed confidence during a low period, then i went for something bolder. if i was in a carefree, happy place then the scent was invariably something bubbly and uplifting. and when i was single, it was always something spicier, more overtly sexy.

and cologne on guys – i remember the smell of every guy i’ve ever dated, sometimes more clearly than i remember his face. “bowling green”, “fahrenheit”, and “onyx” are all imprinted on my brain from the time spent kissing their necks, just below the ear. mmm, delicious, almost primal memories attached to those . i’m a woman lead by her nose, and i love musky smells, while i cannot stand “soapy” smelling men’s colognes.

but what i love most about wearing perfume is the way a scent can make you feel, the way it can change or enhance your mood – lighthearted and airy, brisk and efficient, or seductive and intense. it’s the liquid equivalent of a handbag collection, or a trademark scarlet lipstick. my favourite perfumes are the ones that make me think of either crushed green leaves or gently warmed wine. something fresh and light, or something red and rich. and no matter what i happen to look like that morning, i always feel incredible for that moment that i first put on whatever perfume matches that day. i may *look* rumpled and sleepy, but i smell wonderful and summery and full of confidence. that’s the kind of feeling that just can’t be bottled.

or, maybe it can

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(thanks for the heads up, stacey!)

originally posted in salon, but so powerful, i’ll reprint the whole thing here…

Why I defend “terrorists”

An open letter to Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, from a lawyer representing five men at Guantánamo.

By Anant Raut

Jan. 17, 2007

Cully Stimson
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs

Department of Defense

Washington , D.C.

Dear Mr. Stimson,

I am an associate in the Washington office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, a New York-based, international firm with 1,100 lawyers. I practice general corporate litigation. I also represent, on a pro bono basis, five men who are being held as “enemy combatants” at the U.S. detention center in Guantánamo Bay , Cuba . “How can you defend terrorists?” is a question I’m sometimes asked when people learn about my pro bono work. On Jan. 11, in your capacity as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, you asked the same question of every lawyer representing detainees in Guantánamo.

During the course of an interview on Federal News Radio, you named my law firm and 13 others whose attorneys have clients in Guantánamo and urged our corporate clients to take their business elsewhere. “You know what, it’s shocking,” you told your audience. “I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms.” You then said our efforts might be funded by “monies from who knows where.”

Mr. Stimson, I don’t defend “terrorists.” I’m representing five guys who were held or are being held in Guantánamo without ever being charged with a crime, some of them for nearly five years. Two have been quietly sent home to Saudi Arabia without an explanation or an admission of error. The only justification the U.S. government has provided for keeping the other three is the moniker “enemy combatant,” a term that has been made up solely for the purpose of denying them prisoner-of-war protection and civilian protection under the Geneva Conventions. It’s a term that was attached to them in a tribunal proceeding so inherently bogus that even the tribunal president is compelled to state on the record, in hundreds of these proceedings, that a combatant status review tribunal “is NOT a court of law, but a non-judicial administrative hearing.”

And, lest there be any doubt, Mr. Stimson, we are not receiving any money for this. My firm’s work is pro bono. At the end of the year, the partners set aside a substantial portion of the firm’s profits to pay for my trips to Guantánamo and my translation costs, just as they pay for my colleagues’ fight for clean drinking water in the lower-income neighborhoods of D.C., as well as hundreds of other projects I would be happy to discuss with you directly.

I also get asked other questions about my pro bono work, Mr. Stimson. “How can you defend terrorists?” is only the third most common. The second most common question is, “Why do you do it?” In law school, I would feel outrage whenever I read about a case in which our courts had the opportunity to take a stand — against slavery, against the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II — and didn’t. But I would also feel self-doubt. It’s easy to feel righteous anger now. But, I wondered, would I have felt it then? Or, in the name of security, of easing the anxiety of the public, would I have been able to swallow these affronts to the freedoms I see as the cornerstone of our national identity? The people I’m defending were caught up in the adrenaline and paranoia of our nation’s darkest hour. All we’re asking for is a fair hearing. Why does this frighten you so?

Mr. Stimson, you should also know that I am frequently mistaken as being Middle Eastern or Latino (no and no; the correct answer is “Indian”). In November 2001, I was walking to dinner in the trendy Dupont Circle area of Washington , D.C. Just as the sun was going down, I heard a car slow to a halt behind me. “Hey, you, dumb blonde,” yelled the driver to my date, “can’t you see he’s a terrorist?” He then sped off.

Dehumanizing people makes it easy to believe the worst about them. When they look different from you, when they sound different, it becomes easier, and when you dress them in identical uniforms and lock them in cages, it becomes easier still. All I’ve been trying to do for the past two years is give my clients a chance to challenge the assumptions that have been made about them.

And finally, Mr. Stimson, the question I get asked more than any other is, “How can a place like Guantánamo continue to exist?” I think it is because we as a nation are afraid to admit we’ve done something wrong.

There is a widespread belief, as well as a need to believe, that the men we’re holding in Guantánamo must be bad people. They must have done something to end up there. They couldn’t just be, in large part, victims of circumstance, or of the fact the U.S. government was paying large bounties in poor countries for the identification and capture of people with alleged ties to terror. If the bulk of the detainees are guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, if there’s no evidence that some of them did the things of which the government has accused them, then it would mean that we locked innocent people in a hole for five years. It would mean not only that our government wrongfully imprisoned these men but that the rest of us stood idly by as they did it. It would mean that we have learned nothing from Korematsu v. United States, that we have learned nothing from the McCarthy-era witch hunts, and that when we wake up from this national nightmare, once again we will marvel at the extremism we tolerated in defense of liberty. It would mean that even as we extol the virtues of fairness and due process abroad, we take away those very rights from people on our own soil.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It is my belief that the true test of a nation’s commitment to liberty occurs not when it is most readily given, but rather when it is most easily taken away.

Mr. Stimson, that is why I do what I do.

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leave the house at 8:00 for a conference in birmingham. first train – cancelled. second takes 3+ hours and i finally arrive at the leisurely hour of 12:30 – just in time for the lunch break. conference ends at 3:30 and i race to the station only to find all trains to london have been cancelled. i spot a train for stanstead airport and jump on that. except it terminates in leicester. to my good fortune i discover a train headed to st. pancras and just make that by the skin of my teeth. get into london at 7:30. only to find massive delays on the northern line. the tube pulls in packed by the doors, and no one makes an effort to move in. in complete and utter exasperation i hop on the tiniest bit of ledge (y’know, wher you have to suck in your stomach as they close the doors?) and politely but loudly say “would everyone please move down into the carriage? everyone over here (i gesture to an empty space) could just step down a bit?” no one moves a muscle.

“or, y’know, *not*!!”

some guy pipes up, “actually there’s a baby in here, so no, we can’t”.

i can’t actually see much, so i assume he means a pram is taking up space.

i settle in, grumbling, and as the crowd thins out, realise there are a bunch of people with giant backpacks on (not having had the common courtesy to take them down from their shoulders to make more space) and the baby is a tiny newborn strapped to the front of it’s dad in a carrier.

fuckin’ idjits.

i make it home at 8:30 pm.

and in case anyone was counting, that’s more than nine full hours of travel hell.

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rail service, wind storm, u.k.

people have said I should link to the shortcut blog when I have a post up, so check the latest out here.

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he’s been smoke free for two whole weeks!

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So Paris was lovely – if very tiring. I was last there back in 2003, when my work permit application was denied and I was ill-advised by someone in the Home Office to leave the country and re-enter as a tourist – advice which lead to me being summarily escorted through Heathrow Airport and put onto a plane bound for the States a few days later. Not fun, and didn’t leave me with the best memories of an otherwise beautiful city. So when our friends Kerryn and Tracey invited us for an impromptu road trip to the City of Lights, I just *had* to go. And so midnight Friday (or Saturday, really) we all piled into the petite Vauxhall for a journey through the night. We pulled into Paris around 7 am, found our hotel and jumped on the Metro headed for the Champs Elysee in search of breakfast.

We wandered somewhat aimlessly in the direction of the Arc de Triumph, keeping an eye out for food, and ended up popping into a delightful bakery for some sandwiches. And what did I spy winking at me from behind the glass? Macarons, french macaroons, the delights of which I’d only heretofore read about via Anglofille. I *had* to try one, even at that highly indecorous hour for sweets (though when has that ever stopped me before?) I tried a pistachio flavoured one, and after the first bite I was sold. Both light and dense, the sweetness of the macaron is balanced out by the delicate cream in the middle. Yumm-o.

Sated, we walked up to the Arc, (via a detour into the Peugot concept store – after all, we *were* with two boys), goggled at that for a bit, then took the roundabout route back over the river to the catacombs, where the remains of 6 million people were interred. Walls and walls of bones and skulls stretching endlessly in the dank dark tunnels of subterranean Paris – truly creepy.

After a big (and very late) lunch and coffees, we headed towards the Tour Eiffel, and commenced to queue for the lift to the top. We’d wanted to get there for dusk to see the lights of the city at night, but it seems we were not alone in that idea. We waited more than 2 hours in the cold and dark with feet tender and achy after a long day’s walking. When we finally made it up, though, the view was absolutely spectacular. Like a glittering web the city spread out below. And just as after we got down, the tower lit up like a giant fizzing sparkler, bouncing light into the trees and clouds and river.

We headed back to check into the hotel, and, energy sorely flagging after 12 hours en foot, only just barely managed to drag ourselves back out to the street for a dinner of Chinese food which satisfied the two primary criteria of being tasty and near to the hotel.

The next day, even more tired than we thought possible, we headed out early again. It was a beautiful crisp sunny day, and after making the obigatory stop for a picture of Moulin Rouge, we climbed up to Montmartre, navigating the crooked streets strewn with artists, quaint boutique shops, whitewashed houses and cobblestones. At the very peak of the city, looking out over the haze, stood Sacre Coeur – a blindingly white cathedral full of turrets and minarets with a distinctly Mediterranean flair reminiscent of a mosque.

Then it was back on the Metro to Ile de la Cite, to see that *other* famous church, Notre Dame. I’ve seen it before, but the splendor and grandeur of it still takes the breath away. Awe inspiring.

And what else is left, then, but to stroll along the Seine in the sunshine and spend the waning afternoon hours surrounded by the masterpieces of the Louvre? The scale of the Louvre is both daunting and mind boggling. Where any respectable museum would give its proverbial eyeteeth to have just *one* truly great work of art, the Louvre is stuffed chock-a-block with them, crammed into every nook. Botticellis line the passageways, da Vincis hide in a dark corner. We just had enough time to race around like mad to all the “big” works, then explore the quiet African art corridors and the Napoleon Apartments.

And then, after stocking up on more macaroons, it was time to get back on the road. Kerryn, being the trooper he is, drove all the way home, and after an extra long delay waiting on the ferry, we finally made it to our beds at 2:30 am, visions of Paris dancing in our heads.

And I’ve not stopped thinking about it since. I love that it’s just so pretty. I love that it’s so unapologetically European, in a way that London is not. I love the layout of the city, and the Metro system – god, I love the Metro system. J and I could not stop marvelling at how it’s cheap and easy and it just *works* (which would not be such a novelty if we didn’t spend hours every week suffering through the Tube tunnels). I love that the French aren’t afraid of indulgence and luxury and sophistication. That’s it, really – Paris is just so sophisticated. And that sophistication is very alluring. I can picture myself on the balcony of a little garret apartment, drinking a cappucino and smoking a Galuoise.

Can’t you?

Many many more photos here

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paris

i don’t know exactly when i stopped believing in god – i only know that one day i suddenly noticed the absence in my life. and when i took a good look around, it turned out he’d been gone for a while.

i grew up nominally catholic. my mum (protestant) and my dad (catholic) dutifully took us to church every sunday, trying to inculcate in us the deep abiding faith that has both comforted and strengthened them throughout their own lives. our church was a real hippy-dippy church, rooted in activism and social causes and rejecting the more sexist tenets of the catholic doctrine. (i remember quite clearly that they used to have laywomen deliver the homily [shock! horror! that a woman might speak on the "word of god"!] until they got their knuckles rapped by the diocese.) so my initial grounding was a good one, and even if i never really believed all i was told, i never held it against them either. i never felt the need to rebel against a message i mostly agreed with. love one another. turn the other cheek. thou shalt not kill. to my mind, these were all the teachings of a wise man, worthy of veneration, even if his wisdom had been twisted to the purpose of the powerful throughout the centuries. j.c. as a profound philosopher who espoused kindness and tolerance? yes. son of god? not so much.

but even as an adult, i got something out of it. i attended church somewhat regularly when i lived in new york, not out of any sense of obligation or fear, but because i found it enjoyable. the tradition and ritual were soothing, calming and it was like turning over a fresh leaf every sunday. i would reflect on where i’d been less than kind, re-commit myself to try to be a better person in the coming week, and find encouragement in being part of a community of people who felt the same. i never felt brainwashed or sheep-like. it was a very rational kind of faith – in separating the myth from the message, i believed because i chose to. it was nice to imagine a “higher power”. it was nice to feel there was a purpose to life. it was nice to feel not-alone.

after i moved from nyc, however, i only attended church sporadically. never really found a place nearby that i liked, never really tried to. i got caught up in the crumbling of my first marriage for a long time, and my esteem took some hard knocks. and then september 11th happened. i remember going to a service shortly afterward, wanting to find some assurance and peace, and instead of feeling strengthened, i felt hollow. i was sending out prayers reflexively into the universe, and there was nothing in return. whoever i thought had been listening before, was gone. september 11th didn’t shake up my beliefs so much as point out they were no longer where i thought i’d left them.

and i’ve missed faith. missed that feeling of inner solidity – that unfailing sense of peace and certainty at the core of everything. the idea of grace and a benevolent force that carries us through when all else seems meaningless. it felt good. for a while i really wanted to still believe, but part of me always knew i was faking it.

and then lately i stumbled back over buddhism. i first came across it in university (where i once considered doing a major in religion) and for whatever reason, as intriguing as it was, it didn’t connect. but as i begin to explore it now, years later, i find there’s some small string of my heart resonating with what i read and hear. something inside me nodding quietly. no god – yes. impermanence of all things – yes. karma and dharma – yes and yes. finding an end to the desire and pain and harm which block kindess and compassion and equanimity. someone once explained it to me as a light which is obscured by a thick layer of dust – these things are already there within us, waiting to be revealed once the rest is cleared away. and i’m nodding. this is what i believe of people’s innate nature, this is my worldview. this makes sense to me, and it is something i can test empirically myself. i don’t need to filter out bits i don’t understand or pay lip service to something i don’t believe. buddhism is a religion of practice. and lord knows, practice is something i am good at.

so i’ve been reading and listening. trying to learn how to meditate – the fine art of sitting still and being still within. anyone who knows me will know how difficult i find that – i am many things, but calm and quiet and still are none of them. yet perhaps those are precisely the things that i need the most. and since they don’t come naturally to me, i’ve been trying to practice. it’s heartening to know that even monks must practice. i’m in good company.

i am a fledgling in this process, all wide-eyed naivete with more questions than answers. but for the first time in a long time, i am finding that center again. the strength at the core of me that was always there, but long covered in dust. i am practicing sitting. practicing being and accepting. practicing quieting down the fear and noise that get in the way of my life. working to find a path through the dust to the light.

after all, practice makes perfect.

———-

in other news, heading to paris for the weekend, so will update when i return. haven’t been there since the deportation debacle of 2003, so should be fun (if very wet)!

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as a british visitor to the u.s., jonno has had to voluntarily surrender his right to privacy at the border for several years now – smile at the camera, press your two index fingers on the pad, bend over… well, maybe not that last one. yet.

but now, by doing so, he will also voluntarily be providing that same information (the sort of info usually only kept on criminals) to the home office in his country of citizenship. because the u.s. will helpfully make that database available to international intelligence agencies – aren’t they just the sweetest?

but the americans aren’t the only ones doing all the gift-giving:

Britons already have their credit card details and email accounts inspected by the American authorities following a deal between the EU and the Department of Homeland Security. Now passengers face having all their credit card transactions traced when using one to book a flight. And travellers giving an email address to an airline will be open to having all messages they send and receive from that address scrutinised.

so never mind that jonno didn’t have to get fingerprinted to even *get* his citizenship *or* his passport in the first place. and never mind that if he never, ever visited the u.s., and never got arrested at home, the police would probably also never have his digits. nope – now, simply by virtue of visiting his in-laws, he will be surrendering his right almost all his personal privacy, both home and away.

two for the price of one, folks! what a deal!

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privacy rights, war on terror