for the past few years, i’ve been taking part in the mayfly project: the year in 24 words.
doesn’t look like they’re still doing it this year, but i enjoy the challenge of distillation anyway. when it all boils down to just a few words, what *really* mattered this year?
here, then, my essential, concentrated 2010.
lost loved ones, but found my roots. lost my job, but found a plan. suffered marathon training, endless insomnia, seven year itch. all change.
tomorrow i turn 38. and i know, i know – i bitch and moan about my birthday every year, but this year’s been particularly hard.
maybe because for the first time, i have started to see and feel signs of aging. i’ve had a smattering of grey hairs for 10 years now, but they are starting to come in thick and fast. my face is definitely starting to soften, and there are a few telltale wrinkles appearing. i’ve got the tiniest hint of a neck wattle (that only i can see, but i know it wasn’t there before). the metabolism is getting considerably more sluggish and i’ve continued to have bursitis in my hip for most of the year. i find my brain batting about foreign thoughts of creams and potions, and “defending” against further decline. what little vanity i have is screaming in horror every morning when i look in the mirror and see someone who looks older on the outside than i feel on the inside. it’s not that it’s so bad now – it’s that i know it’s only going to get worse.
maybe because in a few months, i’ll be leaving a job i’m not terribly thrilled with, to go to canada and try to find… another job i won’t be particularly thrilled with. i am sick and tired of doing jobs i don’t particularly enjoy, just to pay the rent. i want to do something i love – friends around me this year have made significant career changes, and i’m jealous. unfortunately, i won’t be able to start studying for a master’s degree for nearly two more years, at the earliest, assuming that everything goes exactly to plan. and that’s depressing as hell.
maybe because i’ve really loved my thirties. in spite of my initial terror, my thirties have turned out to be empowering and freeing and fun in a way my twenties never were. the thirties have been the decade where i really feel i’ve come into my own, and the prospect of leaving them behind for official “middle age”, is quite sad indeed. i’m sure there are a million people waiting to tell me how fabulous forty will be. but frankly, i’m not inclined to believe them just get.
i’m determined not to spend the next few years in a panic over the arrival of something i can’t control. time marches on, whether i dig in my heels or not. but i also have to acknowledge that i’m feeling quite fragile about it all this year. and so this is a mini-wallow, rather than a pity party. i’m dipping my toe in the woe, rather than sinking into it. but as has become tradition, i’m going to try my damnedest to celebrate where i’m at right now, even with all my misgivings about the future.
for years now, i’ve carried around a newpaper clipping. it’s from the boston globe – they used to do this thing (perhaps still do) where every day next to the comics, they’d have a quote. on my birthday on year, this was that quote – i cut it out and have saved it ever since. from one of my favourite poets, it is perhaps the truest thing i’ve read, and it never fails to be meaningful to me when i need it most:
“to be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
- e.e. cummings
so in case you’ve never heard of #mooreandme, here’s the background: lots of “progressive” people in the u.s. media have been involved with discrediting and dismissing the rape allegations against julian assange.
one of them was michael moore. he went on keith olberman’s left-wing talk show, and the two of them laughed at the rape charges. they said it was just about a “broken condom”. (which it definitively is not.) moore called them “hooey”. he went on the bbc and did the same.
and sady doyle (who’s been pretty much the only feminist blogger i regularly read any more) took them on via twitter. she launched a campaign via the #mooreandme hashtag. she kept people tweeting at them (and donating to rape crisis centres) for seven straight days.
in a medium which is as fleeting as twitter, in a medium where hashtags regularly feature insulting misogynist crap, she kept thousands of feminist tweets flying at the brick walls for a week straight. day and night i would check the hashtag and see people from all over endlessly asking olberman and moore for public corrections and apologies, to acknowledge the seriousness of the allegations and the way in which they dismissed them. and when it came to light that michael moore would be interviewed by feminist and progressive television journalist rachel maddow, she began tweeting at her to enlist her help in getting moore to acknowledge the issue.
and sady not only got them to acknowledge it – she got them enlisted as allies. michael moore went on the rachel maddow show and said:
“Every woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted or raped has to be, must be, taken seriously. Those charges have to be investigated to the fullest extent possible,” Moore said. “For too long, and too many women have been abused in our society , because they were not listened to, and they just got shoved aside. . . .So I think these two alleged victims have to be taken seriously and Mr. Assange has to answer the questions.”
“Assange attacks the women (in a “tizzy”), prosecutors, compares himself to victims of anti-semitism: http://bit.ly/guvMSJ (AFP): “In an interview with The Times (of London) on Tuesday, Assange compared WikiLeaks’ ‘persecution’ to that endured by Jews in the US in the 1950s.” Actual Times piece is behind Murdoch paywall. Way to burn away more of your support and make yourself look like a misogynist at best, Pal. And no, the irony of ME tweeting this is not lost on me, #mooreandme”
they have *come around* to understand that when the question is (as rachel maddow put it):
“Can your suspicion about the forces arrayed against Julian Assange and Wikileaks — your suspicion about the timing and pursuit of these charges — coexist with respect for the women making these accusations against him and with a commitment to take rape allegations seriously, even when the person accused is someone that for other reasons you like?”
the answer must be yes. the only answer is yes. because to do otherwise is to contribute to the pervasive culture which makes it harder for all rape victims everywhere to report their rape. and when you are a prominent media journalist, when you consider yourself a political progressive, when you are a caring human, you have an obligation to avoid doing that.
sady doyle, at the considerable personal expense of death threats and rape threats and online harrassment and defamation, kept us all going with her persistence and passion for truth in the face of so many lies, so many obstacles, because:
this isn’t about julian assange. it’s not even about michael moore, or keith olberman. it’s about the women who report rape and are made to shut up and go away, and the ones who are too afraid of being told to shut up and go away to report it in the first place.
thank you, thank you, thank you sady. you’ve personally restored a little of my faith in humanity today. rape matters. it matters to women, and it should matter to the media too.
it’s nearly christmas. for atheists, that means being inundated not only with sentiments about “christ being the reason for the season”, but also maligned as a root cause of mythical “war against christmas”, and (particularly unique to the uk), the anti-american, anti-”politically correct” sentiment that comes up whenever anyone uses “happy holidays” or attempts to be more inclusive.
even attempts by non-believers to reach out to other non-believers is seen as an affront to christians spoiling for a fight at this time of year.
to all the christians who somehow feel my atheism is a threat to their beliefs, here’s a hint: it’s not about you.
my atheism is not, in fact anti-religion, because it’s not about religion at all. i truly don’t care what you believe about virgin births or angels or holy ghosts. i may, in private, think such beliefs are silly or naive – but there are plenty of people who feel the same about my stance.
in my atheism, i can respect christmas as a lovely historic convention which encourages people to be better to one another. i am reminded of the way that my mother explained to me santa wasn’t real – she told me that once upon a time there was a person named Saint Nicholas, who embodied a spirit of generosity which we pay homage to this day. likewise, i think there was probably a wise person named jesus who once lived and spread a message of love and tolerance and a lot of people choose to commemorate his birth. i see nothing wrong with that whatsoever. i don’t think there are many who would.
but the fact that i don’t believe in god, or some benevolent/cruel supreme unearthly being, or a higher power of any sort has nothing to do with whether or not *you do*. it would be sheer hubris to think that i could persuade you of my beliefs, any more than you could persuade me of yours. that’s an exercise in futility, and to what end?
the fact is, i don’t think about your beliefs, or believers. at all. your christianity and your holidays don’t diminish my atheism in the slightest. which is why i can’t understand all the vociferous defensiveness ? christianity is unlikely to become an endangered religion any time soon. i don’t get the persecution complex at all.
If you are genuinely discriminated against, you’ll know it. They’ll burn your churches, refuse to hire your kid, not let you into the country club, etc. If you are genuinely discriminated against and you’re pissed off about it and you do something about it like fight back, then you’re smart.
If you are not genuinely discriminated against — if, in fact you are in the historical class of discriminators — and you’re in the driver’s seat anyway with all the money and the privilege but you start feeling like you’re discriminated against — you know what that’s a sign of?
Loser. Mental emotional moral political social loser.
and that’s what i think when i continue to read these accounts of the goliath-like christians who feel threatened by a bus ad, or a tunnel billboard. they have churches on every corner, and yet they protest they’re being somehow undermined. atheists account for a miniscule proportion of the population. is the entirety of christian faith really that feeble that a few non-believers can shake your foundation?
there’s a insider baseball joke about the rivalry between the red sox and the yankees, which may lend some insight. it goes, “yankees suck!”, “red sox… who?”
there are, of course a few boorish atheists out there, who will expend time and energy trying to actively refute religious doctrine. but frankly, that’s like pissing into the wind – hopeless, and just ends up making you smell nasty. but they are, in my experience, about as few and far between as those people who shout apocalyptic bible verses at you as you go into the subway.
so this season, perhaps it’s time for christians to demonstrate the tolerance jesus was supposedly famous for, and stop slanging inflammatory rhetoric around. after all, i’m no biblical scholar, but i’m pretty sure christ didn’t build a base of followers by naming and shaming people who disagreed with him.
If Christians want to win the war on Christmas, we need to stop fighting it. Enjoy the season, reflect on Christ, break bread with those you love, and look for opportunities to meet the needs of others. Such things will seem more authentic to a skeptical world and scream “Merry Christmas” in ways a retailer never can.
over the past few weeks, London has been the scene of several massive student protests, with multiple smaller scale protests and sit-ins also occurring at major cities and schools throughout the country. the largest (and most raucous) of these protests was last night, which sparked violent clashes with the police in Parliament Square, and culminated in an attack on Prince Charles and Camilla’s car as it carried them to an engagement.
what were they protesting? the vote which made policy a trebling/tripling of the cost of a university education over the next several years. the cost of a bachelor’s degree in England has effectively just gone up 200%.
to put this in a bit of context, prior to the mid 1990s, a university education was effectively free for all, subsidised (like healthcare) through taxes. some means-tested tuition fees were brought in after that, but in 2003, the year i arrived in the U.K., the government voted to allow universities to set their own fees, up to a maximum of £3000 ($4700) per year. it has remained at that level until the vote yesterday which will (over the next few years) allow universities to start charging up to £9000 ($14000) per year. (it goes without saying that this is tuition only – books, living costs, etc., are extra.)
additionally, the new policy will abolish the education maintenance allowance. this is a small weekly stipend paid to low-income students from age 16-19 to help make it financially feasible for them to stay in school. this is because in the uk, compulsory secondary education (what americans think of as high school) ends at age 16. after that, students may take up further study (what amounts to vocational education, “college”, and pre-university preparation). however many students may just go straight into work.
right about now, the jaws of many of my american readers are dropping. or, as brits say, they’re gobsmacked. you mean university used to be *free*?? you mean they used to *pay* kids to stay in school?? you mean you could get an oxford or cambridge degree for less than $15000 total??
yes, yes, and yes.
which brings me to the point of this post: many american expats i know online are absolutely astonished that there is this kind of furore over the new fees. not only do many of them think it reeks of a sense of entitlement, but also that a system which comes to mirror that of the US more closely, is actually better – that using loans and scholarships to pay for a university education means that those who go will be more motivated to be successful, and that a degree will be more meaningful.
and although i used to feel somewhat similarly when i arrived in 2003, today i could not disagree more.
when i first got to the uk the year the £3000 “top up fees” were introduced, i could barely contain my disbelief. “they’re complaining about $5K a year for tuition?!? these brits don’t know how good they have it!” coming from a country where going into debt for higher education was an absolute given for almost all students, and where fees at even the less-rigorous state-subsidised schools could easily exceed $20K per year, it seemed to me that the whole uproar was completely disproportionate to the issue.
but as i’ve come to know a bit more about the priorities and political leanings of this country – indeed, as i myself, have become more and more british – i’ve come to understand why it matters so much. and it *does matter*.
the fact is, the U.S. system is broken beyond repair – people can spend a lifetime paying off student loans which hang over their head. the yoke of student debt follows them everywhere they go, in everything they do. it can impact job choices, housing options, credit ratings into perpetuity practically. so I don’t think comparisons with the US are fair.
some americans i’ve run across have said that because a university degree adds a measurable monetary value over one’s entire career in the form of higher salary and better quality of life, those who stand to reap those rewards should foot the funding bill. but the argument that “those who benefit should pay”, ignores the fact that a university degree is fast becoming a default requirement for even entry level jobs. and in a poor economy with high (and rising) unemployment, competition for jobs, both here and in the U.S., even those with degrees are having a hard time getting into work as the competition amongst educated jobseekers gets fiercer. after all, there is a rapidly growing contingent of recent graduates who can’t even afford to move out of their parents household, due to a dearth of available work.
the other thing americans often miss is that the U.K. system is predicated on the belief that (again, like healthcare), education is paid for by all because it benefits all through contributing to a greater societal good. i don’t have kids, or a car, yet i help pay through my taxes for the school and roadways infrastructure because they make the country is better. whether i can quantify it or not, i indirectly derive benefit from lots of things which i may help pay for, but never use myself.
finally, i strongly believe that an education should not be beyond anyone’s means. there is a strong class divide here in the U.K. (and in the U.S.) which according to all measures, continues to get wider. access to education is one of the few equalising forces which can help mitigate the gap between the haves and the have-nots. for the “working class” folk, a trebling of educational costs may not only actually put further education out of reach in real terms, but also acts as a strong disincentive to even pursue other means for those who may see it as a psychological barrier. if you believe that a university education is only something for the better-off, why bother striving for something you don’t think you have a hope of attaining? in a country where the net salaries are already often much lower than those of their american counterparts, this presents a worrisome barrier to those who are already struggling.
and so i find myself i find myself continually amazed at the clashes taking place in front of my eyes. since the election, this country has begun morphing into something i’m entirely unfamiliar with (not having been here during Thatcher’s regime). part of the reason people are so upset, is because the liberal democrats, who won seats in parliament by pledging to oppose fee increases, have done a 180, and are now largely supporting them – in particular, deputy prime minister nick clegg, who signed a pledge on record. so on the one hand, fuckyeah to the protesters, who, although they were unable to prevent the passage of the law, have managed to grip the country’s attention – nothing like teenagers mobilising to the streets to get media coverage! and brave as well, considering many of the police tactics employed against them. these students are passionate about policies which directly impact them. it’s hard to imagine something like this happening in the US, where tuition continues to skyrocket unabated and largely unprotested. the violence and destruction is taking place is deplorable – but as the “kettling” of the demonstrations has shown, when people see all the passageways in front of them being closed off, emotions boil over.
on the other hand, it is depressing as hell to realise that this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are more savage cuts to come, more protests to be fought, and more people to fall by the wayside. in many ways it feels like i’m getting out just in time.
but i know i’m truly British when it feels like i’m deserting the cause by planning to leave.
so wikileaks spokesperson julian assange has been arrested and brought into custody (just down the street from me!) after being the subject of an international manhunt by interpol.
he’s been arrested on the basis of four allegations of sexual assault, including rape. to many, given the intense political pressure he’s been under due to the revelation of confidential government information, the timing of the arrest is all just a little bit too much of a coinky-dink.
because apparently the media and the public *know better*. last night and today’s news has been full of all sorts of articles with the explicit intent of diminishing, debasing, and discrediting both swedish law (under which the charges were made) and his accusers. so bullshit like this is being bandied about:
“Julian Assange: Captured by the World Dating Police” I see that Julian Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke. I understand, from the alleged victims’ complaints to the media, that Assange is also accused of texting and tweeting in the taxi on the way to one of the women’s apartments while on a date, and, disgustingly enough, ‘reading stories about himself online’ in the cab…Thank you again, Interpol. I know you will now prioritize the global manhunt for 1.3 million guys I have heard similar complaints about personally in the US alone — there is an entire fraternity at the University of Texas you need to arrest immediately.
(thanks, naomi-fuckin’-wolf!!)
People who saw Assange and the woman in the days after this incident is said to have occurred said the two displayed little if any obvious sign of tension or hostility; to some who saw them at the time, it was not clear their relationship was anything other than amicable and chaste.
…The next morning, however, under circumstances which remain deeply murky, the sources said, Assange allegedly had sex with the woman again, this time without a condom. Then, after a meal during which the Mail says that the woman joked that she could be pregnant, they parted on friendly terms, with Miss W buying Assange his train ticket back to Stockholm.
(that’d be the credible msn weighing in, by citing the daily mail)
“Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative” -Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called “sex by surprise” or “unexpected sex.”
One accuser, [AA], may have “ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups”
(if you actually read the article, the reputed “CIA ties” are laughable – also, way to out a possible crime victim by splashing her full name everywhere! stay classy.)
and finally, the coup de grace, daily mail
An attractive blonde, Sarah was already a well-known ‘radical feminist’. In her 30s, she had travelled the world following various fashionable causes.
…
The prosecution’s case has several puzzling flaws, and there is scant public evidence of rape or sexual molestation
What happened over the next few days — while casting an extraordinary light on the values of the two women involved — suggests that even if the WikiLeaks founder is innocent of any charges, he is certainly a man of strong sexual appetites who is not averse to exploiting his fame.The pair went out for dinner together at a nearby restaurant. Afterwards they returned to her flat and had sex. What is not disputed by either of them isbthat a condom broke — an event which, as we shall see, would later take on great significance.
At the time, however, the pair continued to be friendly enough the next day, a Saturday, with Sarah even throwing a party for him at her home in the evening.
…
She had snagged perhaps the world’s most famous activist, and after they arrived at her apartment they had sex. According to her testimony to police, Assange wore a condom. The following morning they made love again. This time he used no protection. Jessica reportedly said later that she was upset that he had refused when she asked him to wear a condom.Again there is scant evidence — in the public domain at least — of rape, sexual molestation or unlawful coercion.”
whew! so glad that’s settled then! as long as the daily mail says there’s no evidence. now we can dispense with the silly conventions of “investigation” and “trial”. what a timesaver!!
the funny thing is that all these articles quote each other in one big congratulatory circle-jerk, without any actual, y’know, *evidence*. (funny, the mail actually nailed that – even a broken clock…) probably because what happens in the privacy of the bedroom is rarely documented and distributed for edification of the worldwide media.
let’s face it – people are quick to decide that these are trumped-up charges by women who have some ulterior motive because that’s what they want to believe, especially wikileaks supporters. how can their whistleblowing hero possibly also be a sex offending arsehole?
but let’s look at the charges as they were presented to the british courts when assange was taken into custody.
“The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
The second charge alleged Assange “sexually molested” Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her “express wish” one should be used.
The third charge claimed Assange “deliberately molested” Miss A on August 18 “in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity”.
The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on August 17 without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.”
not quite so funny sounding now. huh. “sex by surprise” isn’t nearly as amusing when you’re talking about having sex with someone who isn’t awake to give consent. also, perhaps i missed it, but when did our own legal systems become so brilliant at dealing with sexual assault that we can all feel secure in laughing heartily at Sweden’s consent laws? HA HA!
look, whether you believe the allegations are politically motivated for the convenience and expediency of the multiple government witchhunts which are in motion, or you actually believe there may be something more substantial to the charges, what you cannot in any good conscience say is that *you know*.
none of us know. not yet, perhaps not ever. but that’s what the judicial system is for. so let’s all just shut the fuck up for a little while with the assertions that it wasn’t “rape-rape”, that these women are trying to deliberately trap assange, that swedish laws are stoooopid and silly (”sex by surprise” – ha ha! sex without condoms is a crime – outrageous!), and slanging about the same old myth about women who withdraw their consent post-coitally and call the cops.
let’s just stop already. really. enough.
it is once again world aids day.
this year, worldwide new infections continue to decline – hurrah!! and child-to-mother infections are declining as well – hooray! and with more people having access to anti-retroviral therapy, aids mortality is decreasing as well!
but as positive as all that news is, the flip side of that coin is that there are more and more people who are living with hiv, and living longer than ever before. this battle is far from over – funding is more important than ever to help ensure the downward trends continue, and that people living with hiv get the support and medication they need. there are still 10 million people who need anti-retrovirals, but aren’t getting them.
and it’s not just less well-off countries who are still fighting – in the u.s., the number of people living with hiv has grown 30% in the last decade. african-american women are 19x more likely to contract hiv in the u.s. than their white counterparts. and in 2007, the u.k. reported the highest ever number of new infections amongst men who have sex with men.
and we mustn’t forget that even with falling infection rates, hiv is still the number one killer worldwide of women of reproductive age.
we cannot get complacent!
there are 33 million people still living with hiv today.
you probably know one.
