this right here, is everything i hate about valentine’s day

the press release says:

“Valentine’s Day carries such an element of surprise we hope this year’s fun love cucumber will get hearts racing, whether it’s in a romantic packed lunch or a lovingly prepared salad.”

are you fucking kidding me?? if giving someone a heart-shaped cucumber is your idea of romance, you have big, big problems.

did people not think this one through? first of all: cucumbers – commonly joked about as masturbatory sex toys. secondly: cucumbers – only really ever eaten as a salad ingredient. which, since most shitty valentine’s marketing is aimed at women, only underscores a crappy diet food subtext. third of all: i don’t get it, who the fuck wants to get a cucumber? is it supposed to generate an “awww”? it’s a fucking cucumber – it doesn’t exactly show depths of emotion or feeling.

and worst of all, this represents the nadir crass, cheap, commercialised, sexist valentine’s day marketing. it’s not bad enough there are already cards and flowers and chocolates and teddy bears, we also have heart-shaped omelette pans, paper clips, key chains, ice cubes… and now cucumbers.

is there nothing people won’t manipulate for cheap sentimentality in the name of profit?

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there’s a lot we don’t know about what happened to cause the assassination attempt in arizona.

but here’s what i know, what we *all* know already. you cannot create a climate of intolerance, hatred and rage, without someone getting hurt. you cannot shout “fire” in a theatre – because there are unintended, but not unforeseeable repercussions. and you cannot have an environment where almost everyone gets a gun, without almost everyone getting a gun.

this is what the continued feedback loop of amplification and escalation of violent and inflammatory political rhetoric has come to, this is what all the Glenn Becks, Sarah Palins, and radical Tea Party hyperbole has become the catalyst for: an assassination attempt.

this is the same congresswoman who had her offices vandalised, who’d received death threaths, and who was at the centre of one of the most highly politically charged elections this year, in the most highly politicially charged state in the country. she had an image of crosshairs put on her by no less than Sarah Palin. and she was shot point blank in the head by someone who appears to have mental health issues, but also a serious political motivation. this is not coincidental.

this was an assassination attempt, pure and simple, and assassination attempts are political, even when carried out by people who are mentally ill.

as pretty much every rational person acknowledges, the Palis and Becks of the world never really meant for someone to be killed.

but there are multitudes of people out there who are *not rational*. there are multitudes of people out there who with hairtrigger emotions and bulging temples shrieking at the top of their lungs about HITLER and REVOLUTION. the vitriol and hatred and rage has been escalating UNABATED for the past two years, and has been cheered and egged on by people like Beck and Palin who wrap themselves in flags and ammunition and foam at the mouth about “socialism” and “fascism”.

every time i see American news it makes my FUCKING GUT ROIL and my bloodpressure skyrocket. and i am a rational person.

you cannot drop a lighted match into a tinderbox, and then be surprised when it explodes. and maybe it wasn’t anything palin specifically said, or beck said which fomented this man’s hatred of government – but for the past two years they and other politicians) have been intentionally and deliberately whipping people into a frenzied hysteria for their own profit and purpose. you cannot engage in such acts, and then claim innocence when it all gets out of hand. when someone puts a microphone in your hand or a camera in front of your face and you begin to *claim to speak for others*, then you have a responsibility for your words and actions which you cannot conveniently discharge.

you cannot use language about “reloading”, and “second amendment remedies” and putting images of crosshairs on people and then feign horror when someone unbalanced connects the fucking dots into an image of a gun.

george wallace didn’t explicitly call for the assassination of martin luther king jr, but one cannot in all good reason, pretend that his wildly inflammatory rhetoric didn’t influence james earl ray.

this is what happens when violent words and images impact on violent people. this is what happens when violent people have ready access to guns. the end result is murder.

there are six people dead today, including a judge and a child. there is a congresswoman with a hole through her head fighting for her life.

this country, my country, has been ratcheting up the noise and agita to an unsustainable level – all rational thought and speech has been drowned out. it’s become a caricature of itself, representative of every horrible stereotype about America that I fight so hard to dispel over here, and which, every time i return, slaps me across the face as feeling completely alien to the country that (in spite of all its flaws) i love. these embers of discontent have been fanned by the becks and palins and tea partiers. the fire is officially out of control, and it threatens to engulf all that is good and sane and reasonable. if it wasn’t this guy, it would have been someone else – of this i am certain.

the only question that remains is whether the becks, the palins, the tea partiers, use this as an excuse for more incendiary argument and publicity, or as a wakeup call.

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holy shit. it’s 2011, and this whole quitting-my-job-and-trying-to-move-to-canada-thing gets underway in like 13 weeks! yikes and double-yikes!

it’s beginning to occur to me that this plan may be a little bit half-baked. it’s also beginning to occur to me that there are things in london that i will miss, or never got a chance to do. i’ve sat around here for nearly eight years now – how many weekends did i waste in front of the television and computer? if i could only have them all back!

(anticipated) absence makes the heart grow fonder.

so i’ve determined not to waste what time i may have left.

in the meantime, here’s a meme:

What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
traced my family history roots – that was a lifelong dream fulfilled.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
nope. and nope. resolutions are a waste of time. as yoda says, “do, or do not. there is no try.” however i did go back to being a vegetarian at the start of 2010.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
not this year. guess not as many people were getting busy

Did anyone close to you die?
i lost my grandfather after many years of Alzheimer’s, and my friend beth quite unexpectedly. (that’s quite enough universe, thanks.)

What places did you visit?
Boston, Scottish highlands, Venice, Croatia, Paris (again). this was a travel-lite year for us, and Prague was postponed for the trip to Boston.

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
more courage and confidence. it’s been an angst-y year, and i spent much of it feeling all muddled and confused and indecisive. not typical for me.

What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory?
the day i was scheduled to fly home to see my dying grandfather, and the volcano in iceland erupted. my plane made it out 3 minutes before the uk airspace closed, and i was just an emotional wreck.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
finishing marathon #4 (third time is the charm) and raising a good amount of money for the ellies as well. yay me!

What was your biggest failure?
watching more than 50 movies, but reading only 12 books. that ratio is just all kinds of fail.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
just an ongoing soul-destroying battle with bursitis (the disease of the elderly), and significant injury to my wallet after (yet another) dental crown.

What was the best thing you bought?
iphone4iphone4iphone4. iphone 4.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?
J’s – for putting up with my shit, day in, day out. The boy deserves a medal. i seem to say that every year.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
fucking voters and the fucking tories they elected. gah! argh! bah!

Where did most of your money go?
sad but true: socked away in savings. b-o-r-i-n-g.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
iphone4iphone4iphone4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (in case all the exclamation points don’t convey my excitement strongly enough, i love my iphone 4) also: the olympics!!!!! (yes, i’m the only person in the world who gets excited about winter olympics)

What song(s) will always remind you of 2010?
joanna newsome – good intentions paving company. this strange little song tugged at my heart in inexplicable ways.

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Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder? hrmmmm. i’m going to err on the side of optimism and call it a wash.
Thinner or fatter? I decline to answer
Richer or poorer? our savings is better off, but the fun fund has been much poorer for it.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
you know – sex, drugs, rock n’ roll. chillin’ with my homies.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
agonising about my job. frittering away time on the computer.

What was the best book you read?
too much happiness, by alice munro. i love short stories and alice munro is a master story-teller at her finest.

What did you want and get?
iphone4iphone4iphone4!

What did you want and not get?
a nobel peace prize and a lib/lab coalition government.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
not being made redundant. i know that doesn’t exactly answer the question precisely, but it kind of made a mockery of job satisfaction.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
“the path of least resistance.” because that’s how i get dressed in the mornings.

What kept you sane?
pretty sure this question is not applicable.

What political issue stirred you the most?
the aforementioned election, and the savage “efficiency agenda”. the current government is doing a vicious imitation of thatcherism and has the unalloyed temerity to keep doling out the platitude of “we’re all in this together”, which just makes me want to hurl.

i have strong feelings about it.

Who did you miss?
all the usual suspects back home. plus my grandpa.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
life moves on, with or without you. all you can do is try to steer.

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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.

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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

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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.”

keith olberman said:

“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 happens, this happens OVER and OVER and OVER again, EVERY TIME. It’s not about Julian Assange. He isn’t a special exception. The way this case has been treated is not even unusual. This happens EVERY TIME a woman reports to the police that a man with a lot of fans and a lot of people in his corner has raped her. EVERY FUCKING TIME. They bully her, the people in charge bully her, his fans bully her, the media bullies her, until she agrees to fucking go away, so people can keep pretending that it never happened. So that it can disappear. So that women just agree to SHUT UP and MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO RAPE US AND GET AWAY WITH IT.”

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.

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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.

as one columnist said:

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.

as this author says:

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

do something for them today.

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it’s difficult being a pacifist on veteran’s/remembrance day. i am awash in a sea of poppies commemorating “the glorious dead”.

to my mind, there is no such thing.

my facebook and twitter feeds are flooded with syrupy militaristic sentiment “honouring those who serve for us all” – including my several cousins in the military.

they haven’t served for me. they actively participate and support institutions which murder with my tax dollars.

during the two minutes of silence observed everywhere – at work, at schools, across the country – it is presumed that my quietude is a symbol respect for lives lost in battles on my behalf.

to me, all deaths in war are an ignoble failure to achieve peace.

but to speak out, or otherwise protest a holiday that i view as a tacit national veneration of killing and being killed, is a transgression of the norms that few would understand, a disrespect of the dead that i can’t bring myself to broach.

so i’m silent in the silence, and in my own internal way, wish for an end to the guns, the bombs, the machinations of senseless death that prevent the rooting of tolerance and peace. a wish for an end to the remembering, and the start of a worldwide silence that is the end of war.

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nope. still can’t forgive him. ever.

LAUER: You talk about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There’s another guy you write about in the book, Abu Zabeta, another high profile terror suspect. He was waterboarded. By the way, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, according to most reports, 183 times. This guy was waterboarded more than 80 times. And you explain that his understanding of Islam was that he had to resist interrogation up to a certain point and waterboarding was the technique that allowed him to reach that threshold and fulfill his religious duty and then cooperate. And you have a quote from him. “You must do this for all the brothers.” End quote.
BUSH: Yeah. Isn’t that interesting?
LAUER: Abu Zabeta really went to someone and said, “You should waterboard all the brothers?
BUSH: He didn’t say that. He said, “You should give brothers the chance to be able to fulfill their duty.” I don’t recall him saying you should water– I think it’s– I think it’s an assumption in your case.
LAUER: Yeah, I– when “You must do this for–”
BUSH: But…
LAUER: …”All the brothers.” So to let them get to that threshold?
BUSH: Yeah, that’s what– that’s how I interpreted. I– look, first of all we used this technique on three people. Captured a lot of people and used it on three. We gained value– information to protect the country. And it was the right thing to do as far as I’m concerned.
LAUER: So if– if it’s legal, President Bush, then if an American is taken into custody in a foreign country, not necessarily a uniformed–
BUSH: Look, I –
LAUER: American —
BUSH: I’m not gonna the issue, Matt. I, I really–
LAUER: I’m just asking. Would it be okay for a foreign country to waterboard an American citizen?
BUSH: It’s all I ask is that people read the book. And they can reach the same conclusion. If they’d have made the same decision I made or not.
LAUER: You’d make the same decision again today?
BUSH: Yeah, I would.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking…Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet…The CIA’s waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown.

…..

nope, not ever.

LAUER: This from the book: “I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low.”
BUSH: Yeah. I still feel that way as– as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.
LAUER: You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?
BUSH: Yes.
LAUER: I wonder if some people are gonna read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this–
BUSH: Don’t care.
LAUER: Well, here’s the reason. You’re not saying that the worst moment in your Presidency was watching the misery in Louisiana. You’re saying it was when someone insulted you because of that.
BUSH: No, I– that– and I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well. There’s a lot of tough moments in the book. And it was a disgusting moment, pure and simple.

Monday August 29, 2005 – Day of Katrina – Blanco calls Bush, saying, “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.”
Thursday September 1, 2005 – 3 Days After – In a special report that is typical of the picture that television is conveying to the world, CNN Correspondent Adaora Udoji reports: “Three days after Hurricane Katrina, and the situation is getting more desperate by the minute. Thousands are still stranded in misery. . . . They are marching in search of food, water and relief. They’re surrounded by a crumbling city and dead bodies. Infants have no formula, the children no food, nothing for adults, no medical help. They’re burning with frustration, and sure they have been forgotten.”
Friday September 2, 2005 – 4 Days After – A convoy of military trucks drives through floodwaters to the convention center, the first supplies of water and food to reach victims who have waited for days. Thousands of armed National Guardsmen carrying weapons stream into the city to help restore order.

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“If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: ‘God, I’ve got to get my fucking rocks off’, or they’d go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it.”

Fry, 53, continues: “I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want,” he said. “Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!’ But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?”

so sayeth mr. stephen fry. (and also here) now, i have no personal affection for mr fry, unlike much of britain. nor do i think as a public persona he is required to be infallible.

but i find his continued perpetuation of this stereotype of women as frigid to be insulting (and even potentially dangerous) for a few reasons:

a) it’s just flat out archaic – what’re we, in the 1950’s?

b) he’s a gay guy, speaking on something he knows nothing about

c) it insults women everywhere by implying that we only have sex either passively or manipulatively

d) the implicit passive role of women in sex is something we have fought long and hard to overcome – women have a right to their god-given built-in sexuality, including enjoyment, exploration and initiation of sex. reinforcing lazy stereotypes undermines that message, and diminishes the work of sex-positive feminism.

e) viewing women as undesiring, apathetic, or averse to sex *as part of their biological makeup* undermines the power and necessity of women’s active, engaged, willing consent as part of sex.

and if society don’t take women’s “yeses” seriously – how do we expect them to take our “noes” seriously?!

women have enough messages out there about how they can’t/shouldn’t/mustn’t enjoy sex. we don’t need another clueless voice added to the chorus.

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so he hadn’t eaten all day – no kibble/wet food/treats/cat milk. i’ve never known Zeke to turn down a morsel of food in my life, and he was just so listless, and hiding under the bed

i ring up to make an appointment with the vet for tomorrow, and they’re booked for tomorrow but have an opening for tonight. I figure it’s best not to let this go over the weekend, and take the slot.

we take him there in his crate. the vet pokes and prods him, checks his eyes, mouth, nose, ears, temperature, gait, belly, everything. says if we didn’t tell him he was ill, he would never know it. says we can do some more tests, or wait and see if he feels better. we go home, £30 lighter.

walk in the door, try to give him some food – and MIRACLE OF MIRACLES…. he’s suddenly eating.

the moral of the story: Zeke is a drama queen.

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the “it gets better project” was launched in response to the recent tragic rash of lgbt youth suicides. but you know, you don’t have to be gay to have been tortured by bullying, and you don’t have to be gay to have felt suicidal.

i wasn’t the only kid who got bullied, and i wasn’t the only kid who ever considered killing themselves – but it felt like it at the time. i didn’t have the internet to help me feel less alone – but watching these videos now, “it gets better” is a truth that resonates so deeply.

yet it angers me that millions of adults have experienced this, survived it… and it still continues to happen. every day.

every day there are children on their way to school whose sense of worth is so low, their alienation and pain so great, that they want to end it all. and there are adults who see this and do nothing. there are teachers who see this and “try to stay neutral”. there are people with the power to make things better who fail to act.

it is fucking unconscionable that any child should ever, ever feel life is not worth living. it is disgusting that there is any adult who could help, who chooses not to. dan savage said it best: fuck you, children are dying.

it is lovely to know that there are strangers who are reaching out to convince kids to hang on. that it gets better – and it does. it so does.

yet it’s horrible to know that kids need strangers reaching out on the internet to convince them to hang on. when is it going to get better?

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so: changes.

thanks to the lovely new conservative government, there are cuts to be made in the public sector. big cuts. on the order of 20-40% cuts. this is what’s happening at my work right now. the first round of cuts are being made, and it’s got us all running around nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

and even where there are no official cuts, there are “efficiencies” to be made. translation: doing even more with the same (or fewer) people. no regard for actual capacity or resource – simply a mandatory understanding that however overworked you are, however thin you are spread, you *will do more* and you will like it and be thankful you weren’t part of the cuts.

what this all means for me is that my team is getting “restructured”. someone has decided that things would work better if a bunch of my team went into this other team and did something completely different. and in this reshuffle, i am likely to lose my team manager job, and get forced back into the kind of job i left last time. the worst of it is the way in which it has been handled – with completely inhuman disregard for people’s feelings. we all know the score and we are all grownups, yet it’s all been done in such a callous way, without even a pretense or nod toward acknowledgement of people’s distress. we were brought into a boardroom, and had some papers shoved at us. even knowing it was coming, i found myself getting emotional and angry, and angry at being emotional.

the job i mostly really liked and believed in and was told made a real difference, didn’t actually matter after all. what i do is not valued enough to merit the consideration of a genuine discussion. my team (or what will be left of it) is just expected to pick up and carry on and no one has given a moment’s thought to how they will continue to do the work, or why they’d even want to stay in an organisation that didn’t bother to think about them. no one ever talked to us about what we actually do – we are just bodies to be moved somewhere else as they see fit.

it hurts, dammit.

never one to leave my fate in someone else’s hands, i’ve decided it’s time to leave. rather than be subject to this fucking chess game being played with people’s careers and lives, i’m opting out. i’ve let my boss (who, bless, has tried her best to manage the proposed changes, but the ball was never in her court) know that at the beginning of next year, i’m gone.

all that talk about moving i’ve done in the past few years? my hand has just been forced. january/february. that’s not that far away. and what comes next remains to be seen. j and i have a half-baked notion that i’ll go to vancouver and try to get a job. i don’t really know how that will work, but i’ve always seemed to manage to sort something out before – pulling up sticks and moving seems to be my thing. i’ve moved to new york, boston, and london without a job or much planning, and somehow always managed to land on my feet. mind you, none of that was in the midst of the worst recession in 80-some-odd years. that’s a daunting prospect – we’ve got a little savings but not enough for me to stay unemployed for too long.

oh: and no, there’s no backup plan.

i am angry and sad about my job. terrified and excited about the future. (and sad too, as well, for all that i will be leaving behind – something which i have not even allowed myself to begin to think about or feel yet.) amongst all that are a million logistical nightmares to be sifted through one at a time, and some belt-tightening to do, now that the countdown is on.

dear readers, i am predicting a bumpy ride ahead.

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this post started as a comment conversation on facebook, and i thought it was worth sharing here.

it’s all about new york city mayor bloomberg’s plan to ban people using food stamps from spending them on soda.

“In spite of the great gains we’ve made over the past eight years in making our communities healthier, there are still two areas where we’re losing ground — obesity and diabetes,” the mayor said in a statement. “This initiative will give New York families more money to spend on foods and drinks that provide real nourishment.”

although many in the public are cheering it, this initiative is problematic, to say the least. it is punitive, paternalistic, and unrealistic.

currently in almost any american grocery store, you can find a two litre of soda for under a dollar. now walk over a few aisles and take a look at the price of milk, or fruit juice. there’s simply no comparison. soda is the cheaper option by far.

the reason that soda remains so cheap, is because it is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. and the reason that corn syrup is so cheap is because the government pays for it. it is the very height of hypocrisy that with the one hand the government is pumping massive amounts of money into corn subsidies that make syrupy drinks dirt cheap, and with the other hand, slapping the poorest people on the wrist for buying it.

of course, people are quick to point out that food stamps are public monies, and tap water is both healthier than soda and free from the kitchen sink. soda, on the other hand, has lots of unneeded calories and no nutritional value. and also, shouldn’t we be encouraging healthy choices by the poorer population, who have disproportionately higher rates of obesity, diabetes, etc.?

they’re right of course. tap water is free and healthy. i, however, don’t drink it. i don’t drink water because i don’t like it, and as someone who is not subsisting on public generosity, i get to make that choice without any public critique because i’m rich enough to not have the morality police breathing down my neck. no one looks askance at the 12 litres of soda i buy weekly. no one tells me i should be buying milk or drinking water instead. it is only the poor who have their food choices scrutinised by government, it is only the poor who are restricted to choices that we deem nutritionally worthy. and where does it end? pop tarts are nutritionally worthless as well. so is ice cream. so are chips. so is table sugar. some “juices” are actually far worse than sodas in terms of sugar and calories. yet these are not coming under fire – soda is a completely arbitrary political soapbox.

but it’s *public money*. surely by accepting public money, you agree to sacrifice some level of personal choice?

i don’t know – does trying not to starve mean you forfeit your right to a little human dignity? does it mean that you agree to a level of paternalistic intercession by the state which no one else is subject to? people are not poor by choice, and they’re generally already further punished by substandard housing, substandard education, and substandard healthcare. so we’re not bothered that our tax monies pay to warehouse people in conditions you wouldn’t let a dog live in, and that our tax monies pay for a school system that cranks out barely literate 18 year olds (let alone being able to budget, shop for, and prepare balanced meals) – but *god forbid* people buy soda!!

soda is a bandaid on a cancer. soda is something we can easily demonise and easily deal with. soda is something that makes us feel like we are doing something, without ever addressing any of the root causes. people who live in a state of food insecurity biologically crave immediate, palatable, calorific foods – in other words, junk. but we tell them, no – if you’re poor enough to need food stamps, you can’t buy a coke. not on our dime.

we can get all righteous about people on food stamps buying soda, without ever having to examine why people in the richest country in the world are on food stamps to begin with.

this initiative is not about actually *improving* poor people’s health. if that were the point, they’d do something about making sure you could get fresh vegetables in all inner city areas (you can’t), or making sure that the free lunch program didn’t serve processed junk foods (it does), or making sure that urban kids had safe open spaces to play outdoors and didn’t have pollution-induced asthma.

but health is a performance which expected of poor people (and other groups), not for their benefit, but for ours. their health belongs to the wider culture and society at large, and if they do not perform as expected, it is considered a moral failing. they receive public monies – they are expected to be healthy.

and if the point were actually about improving *everyone’s* health, then they’d just ban or heavily tax soda for everyone. which i wouldn’t like either, but at least it would be fair.

yes, poverty and poor health are desperately intertwined. but it’s not because of soda.

the other thing to consider? the profile of people on food stamps is changing. a lot of people on food stamps these days are not the most impoverished in society – they’re people who’re having a difficult time keeping food on the table because they’ve been laid off, or lost their house in the recession. they’re trying to scrape by, and ending up short of cash at the supermarket checkout. they’re not on the lowest economic rung of the ladder – they’re trying to avoid falling off the one’s just above. these days, in this economic climate, it could just as easily be you or i who find ourselves struggling and hungry. now think about telling me, or your neighbour, that we can’t buy a soda. society makes assumptions and judgments about people on benefits that they would never make if they knew the reality, and that gives them license to act in paternalistic ways that they would never accept for themselves. the general public gets to have an extra slice of cheesecake after a stressful day – someone on food stamps can’t buy themselves a mountain dew.

let’s call this what it is: punishing people for being poor, assuming that because they need handouts they are moral failures and that they are unable/unwilling to make healthy choices, and therefore making those choices for them – even when they are not healthy choices the general public themselves make. because the proportion of people on food stamps who are overweight and drinking too much soda is only a small slice of what is a huge national pie.

ultimately this is a public policy based on *one thing* – it is making an entirely ineffectual and symbolic stand against *one choice*. it’s like looking at the scraps of the thinnest security blanket we choose to give people who don’t have enough to eat, and arguing over *one thread* of it. and i’m not willing to argue over one thread when the real problem is the size of the blanket, or even more critically, the need for the security blanket in the first place.

so when you sit at your desk in the morning with a diet cola, or need a noon caffeine pick-me-up, or are thirsty after a long day at work, imagine finding yourself on food stamps and pouring yourself a nice big glass of tap water instead. think about how important that cola you’ve just been deprived of becomes – not because it’s that important in the grand scheme of things, but because mayor bloomberg said you can’t have it.

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i know i haven’t been here recently. guess that’s likely to happen when you’re not sure what to say.

i’ve often claimed to be an open book, but the reality is, there are just some things taking up most of my brain space at the moment, that i’m not going to share with the world. maybe when they’re in the safely in the rearview mirror, but not right now. i need time to process, decide and act, and that’s not best accomplished in front of others, nor is it interesting to others. so i’m mulling behind the scenes tending to my life and letting the weeds grow where they will.

none of which is helped by my homesickness. usually around this time of year i head back to boston and cape cod for a visit with the family, but due to the fact that i went in april, and the afore-not-mentioned current stressors, i’m not going this year. i miss it desperately.

new england fall is one of my favourite joys in life, something i don’t think i’ll ever get out of my system. pumpkins and cranberry bogs, apple picking, chilled salt air, riotous coloured leaves, empty beaches, woodsmoke, early morning fog, the first frost. they have seeped into my bones over the years, and looking out on the wet grey and brown cityscape that is a london autumn (not “fall”, but “autumn”), casts an additional dreariness over my mood. fall always makes me wistful and nostalgic, but missing out on it even more so.

so that’s where i’m at at the moment – my absence has been noticed, and unfortunately it’s not because i’m too busy frolicking in fields of unicorns, rainbows and fuzzy bunnies.

my mom always said that if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing. sage advice, and i’m following it.

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i remember very clearly the first time i became aware of the addictive power of the internet. the year was 1994, and i was finishing up my last year at new york university, with some extracurricular credits to fulfill, and decided to take a computer course. as part of the course, they took us to the university computer lab and introduced us to the newfangled internet.

this is a pretty good representation of what the internet looked like in 1994. and yet, one boring friday night, i found myself going to the computer lab, just to do a bit of surfing. before i knew it, i was a frequent visitor, getting caught up in usenet, following hypertext link after hypertext link. the only thing that curtailed my internet browsing at the time was the lab’s two hour limit that kicked me off the computer so people could, y’know, do schoolwork.

once i graduated in the spring of 1995, however, it quickly became clear to me that i had to get my own computer. in all honestly, i pretty much only purchased my mac (which i could not, as a broke new graduate, even afford at the time) in order to spend time on the internet. people became frequently annoyed with me for monopolising my phone line using my 56K modem (”but i can’t reach you! what’s email?”) but i was hooked, and the only thing now keeping me in check was the price of dialup time.

it’s only really gotten worse from there. i can easily spend most waking hours in front of a computer screen – even better, my addiction is now more socially acceptable than ever. no one thinks it unusual that i keep the internet on my body at all times via my iphone. no on thinks it unusual to meet people via the web or internet forums. no one thinks it unusual that i document my thoughts on a blog, facebook, and twitter. society and technology have become my enablers. the internet is the first thing i turn on in the morning, and the last thing i turn off at night.

but i can no longer deny that it is taking its toll. it’s become fashionable of late to talk about unplugging, but it’s something i’ve been pondering for a while. i’ve been reading the “your brain on computers” series at the new york times, and recognise myself in nearly every paragraph. i am unable to modulate my computer usage, and it is having an effect on other areas of my life. for example, my book reading has nosedived in the past few years. now, i actually read a significant amount during the day – i read the news every morning on my commute, i read blogs and critiques and web articles throughout the day, and in fact i have a backlog of bookmarked information waiting for me to read in my downtime. but when i sit down to read a book, even a book i am truly interested in, i find myself unable to fall into that deep well of concentration and imagination that i used to love so much. i am unable to give it my full attention for more than 20 minutes at a time, and consequently am barely making it through even a dozen books a year. for someone who used to consider herself a serious reader, that’s frankly shocking.

i am no longer able to enjoy my music. i collect lots and lots of music via various blogs, or (the dangerously immediate) itunes, and while my 25 gig music library is not as large as some, it has become far too large for me to really enjoy. i spend so much time looking for new stuff, that i rarely listen to anything i already have. i find myself incessantly clicking through my ipod catalogue, hurrying through whatever is currently playing because i want to see what comes up next. i’ve always joked that i have the attention span of a fruit fly, but it verges on the ridiculous that i am too impatient to wait for a 3 minute song to finish before checking on the next one.

i am unable to allow myself any unconnected down time. i fill all the random moments of my life (waiting for a train, waiting on a queue, waiting to meet a friend, waiting for a movie to start) with information at all times. any time i’m not actively doing something else, i’m either clicking though twitter, listening to podcasts, or checking email. hell, i can’t even just watch television without also doing something else on my phone, and i am never doing *nothing*. i am never just observing, or thinking or (god forbid) interacting with the external world. and what’s worse is that i now find the non-connected external world boring, creating further incentive to keep my headphones plugged into my ears, my eyes glued to my iphone screen. i am less and less engaged with the non-digital world. i am less and less present in both my imagination, and my real life. when i’m not connected, my brain feels empty – not in the pleasant sense of being relaxed, but in the scary sense of feeling devoid of thought.

i don’t like what the internet is doing to my head. i feel that when i am not connected, i must be missing something, and when i am paying attention to one thing, it means i must be missing out on something even better. when i want to sit down and read a novel, i find myself too distracted by everything else to do so. when i want to listen to a new album, i find myself too distracted by everything else to do so. when i want to write a blog post, i find myself too distracted by everything else to do so. i find myself fantasising about being able to leave my iphone home for just a day, and yet i can’t. in my head, i negotiate how long i’ll spend on the computer, and then i break my own agreement.

part of the difficulty is, of course, that we can no longer live unconnected lives. not in a westernised, modern world. we are required to spend time on computers for jobs, everyday communication, etc. much like a food addict cannot just stop eating, i cannot just stop using technology. and i don’t really want to. i mean, i can’t see much point in spending a month offline like this guy did in his experiment, when, as soon as he got back online, he found himself back in the same rut.

what i crave most is balance. i am jealous of people who have it because i don’t know how to find it, or more accurately, enforce it. i haven’t, as yet, neglected my relationships, friends, work or social life, and i haven’t yet suffered any real adverse effects – but i know that the importance of the internet in my life has become completely lopsided, and perhaps even (to use the language of addiction) unmanageable.

i fear i may need to just go cold turkey in an attempt to press some kind of imaginary reset button, but an all-or-nothing stance doesn’t seem like a reasonable solution to the problem of digital addiction when we live in the internet age. in short, i need help. if you’ve managed to find some semblance of balance, how did you do it? i welcome any advice.

i can’t get away – stardeath and white dwarfs

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everyone has a story about the day.

i have my own as well. in the grand scheme of things, it’s completely unimportant. i, and everyone else, felt like the world was collapsing around my ears. people who were there. people who watched it unfold in front of their unbelieving eyes. everything crumbled, and everyone everywhere felt the reverberations.

there was even more sadness in the aftermath. the morning the bombing started in afghanistan, it was the beginning of a chain reaction of further killing and atrocities that even today, nine years later, has yet to stop. nine years later, there is still innocent blood being shed in multiple countries as a direct result of that singular day.

and it exposed the nasty underbelly of hatred, both against americans and perpetuated *by* americans. a disgusting display of vitriol which people continue to ratchet up for political means. hatred is so often just a veneer for fear, and fear has always been the most effective tool of political manipulation.

how much has changed since then? looking around the political landscape, you’d be hard pressed to identify much. there is still quick anger over the wounds in the ground. there is ignorant fear in abundance. there is intolerant rhetoric being flung around like so much dirt. there is extremism tarted up as populism.

these aftershocks seem to just keep coming, and the fear continues to crescendo unabated. it continues to change more than the skyline, more than the political landscape – it continues to change americans as a people, and not for the better.

yet we seem to want to hold onto that grief. each year, we emblazon stuff with flags, tune into the mawkish memorials, wallow in the losses over and over again, year after year. and while remembrance is important to our collective history, the excessive nature of such hyper-sentimentalism holds us back. i think we want to “never forget” because it feels like letting go of who we were before – before we knew it as “before”. the reality is, that country, that world is long gone.

i can, if i want to, easily bring up tears for that day. i could, if i wanted to, tell my story as if it were yesterday. for a long time, it felt appropriate to hold on to that emotion, that moment that everything changed. for a long time, it felt inappropriate to move on.

but as long as we continue to consider ourselves a wounded country, we will never be healed. reliving the fear keeps us fearful. every year that we recount the stories as if they were fresh, keeps us stuck in the raw fury of that moment. as long as we continue to war, with others and with ourselves, we can never be at peace.

nine years on, we deserve some peace. but we have to try to move on in order to find it.

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