Zygoteville

The NYT (again) fucks up royally

Dear The New York Times. You have, for a third time (here is the first and here is the second), horrified me by including in your pages a piece that is jaw-droppingly inappropriate for inclusion in your publication or, frankly, any other publication of value whatsoever. The offending -- and offensive -- piece starts out with a huge photo of a well-nourished, self-satisfied white woman clutching a white baby and staring straight into the camera. To the right is a slight, dark-skinned woman looking not at the camera but at white mother and child. Spread out behind the three is a sprawling green lawn that meets with a sprawling white house on the sprawling grounds of what might as well be a plantation (just as the little white baby might as well be called Little Massa').

The white woman in the photo, it turns out, is a Times reporter and author of the story. She is a wealthy woman with a wealthy husband, and together these two wealthy people spent obscene amounts of money trying to make a baby. When she proved unable to carry a child to term with their own parts, they then paid a poor woman $25,000 to allow them to implant her womb with his sperm, her egg, and the silver spoon for the fetus' wee little mouth. This in itself is troublesome enough, but then the author has the nerve to go on for more than 7,000 nauseating words of the most whiny and self-absorbed drivel I've ever read (at one point she wonders if after the birth the surrogate mother will expect to continue to have a relationship with her and frets about what it would be like to have Thanksgiving with the plebes).

The author glosses over any aspect of the story that is worthy of comment: the fact that the surrogate mother is planning to use some of the money to put her children through college, and that the surrogate mother's natural daughter had already allowed herself to be harvested -- in her case, as an egg donor -- to help pay for her own college tuition. Nor was it worth more than mention that the surrogate mother's family had fostered some 17 children (something that the author apparently never considered, or considered and rejected because her overwhelming self-narcissism would not allow her to pass up "the immense opportunity that is a child" to serve as "proof" of her and her husband's love to be "recreated beyond us" -- may the lord save her son, because I can already tell what kind of mother she will be). These things are not important to the author and do not constitute the story that she and The New York Times wanted to tell. What she and The New York Times think their readers want to hear about is how hard it was for the author to go through this process, how some people were -- gasp! -- less than generous with her, and how relieved she was that the surrogate mother and her husband were college-educated, voting for Obama, and had a "computer-generated essay" that indicated they "must live in a house with a computer and know how to use it." Phew!

What this article is essentially about is a spoiled rich brat of a woman who insists on having a child and who actually has enough money to make it happen by paying off a poor woman to allow her to colonize her womb. Upon finishing the article I pretty much just wanted to shoot the author in the face and be done with it. My only comfort is that judging from the comments to the story, many other readers apparently felt the same way I did.

Election Night in Columbus

EC and I had spent all day at two remarkably uneventful precincts in Columbus and Gahanna, Ohio. I stayed behind after the poll closed to help the in-state observer inside the polling place close out and report the precinct numbers (final count 178 for McCain and 134 for Obama, in a heavy Republican district) and watch the poll workers pack up with an efficiency that was again remarkable primarily for how uneventful it was. It was 8:30 pm. I sped through the night in our hot silver (silver is the new black) Chevy Impala, my nerves growing to so fever a pitch that by the time I arrived at Chipotle to pick up EC I was a babbling wreck, sailing around the dining room and nearly leaving my cell phone behind, hanging from its power cord where I had plugged it in for a short re-charge.

We drove around downtown until we found a parking lot several blocks away from the Democratic election party at Columbus' Renaissance Hotel. We didn't have enough small bills so a woman with a Working Families t-shirt gave us a dollar for parking. Everyone on the streets were going to the same place. The air was cold and electric and I think I was kind of twitching I was so nervous.

The hotel was packed to the gills with young and old (mostly young) Democrats. I alternately drank from a bottle of water and a small Bailey's I had brought with me. I had reverted to the most frantic version of myself, insisting that EC and I flit from room to room to first hear Governor Ted Strickland speak so we could scream as loud as we could when he mentioned California, then outside to one of the huge television screens set to MSNBC. "You're really stressful to watch election results with," EC said to me more than once during the night. I insisted on taking a picture of the bloggers and radio people set up on the sidelines. We rebuffed three guys who tried to hit on us in an insultingly juvenile way that they were about three times too old for. (Guy to EC: "My friend over there is interested in you." Me: "Well he can come over here and say so." Guy: "He's a little bit shy." Me: "Too bad for him.") We met up with the collective three-person entity, Brooklyn, who we had met canvassing the day before. I shared my Bailey's with them. The anticipation in the room was so high and so tense that I think my body was processing at a different speed or in some different way from how it normally does. (I say this because I must have drunk half that bottle of Bailey's and had nothing at all to eat all night except for a few sticks of celery, but never felt a thing.)

When Obama won Ohio the room exploded in cheers so loud that I would not have been surprised if the vibrations had caused pieces of the ceiling and walls to come off in big chunks. I received about five text messages simultaneously from friends and family who knew I was in Ohio and who, upon hearing the news, needed to confirm with me what we both knew. I texted back things like: "Fuck yeah!" or "Fistpumps for Ohio!") I called Chris but couldn't hear him with all the shouting. "He won Ohio! It's over!" Chris said. "Not yet," I said, remembering, and unwilling to be rash with my emotions or my sanity again. "Wait."

Every time a new state was called, a great cheer would go up and people who hadn't been in front of the screen and could no longer see the results for all the waving hands and jumping bodies, would grab the nearest cheering person to find out what state it had been. At one point EC was in the bathroom and I dashed in and shouted, "Florida! Florida! He got Florida!" and a collective yell went up from behind the bathroom stalls.

As the states piled up, victory seemed inevitable and yet I still found myself trying not to hope too much. The disappointment had been too bitter in 2000 and 2004, so I reminded myself that a party trying to win a presidential election is capable of anything. Thus, in the days leading up to Tuesday my repetition of the mantra to EC: "There's still three more days -- then two, then one -- for them to find Osama Bin Laden. In Iraq." Throughout this campaign built on hope and change, I had perhaps been able to sustain myself only by, deep down, not truly letting myself believe that the outcome I longed for could possibly come about -- it was simply too much to ask, and, after all, what had I or any of us done to deserve so great a gift? That's why I think, when the crowd erupted a second time with a noise so deafening it was almost like silence, and people near me were now shouting, "We did it! We did it! We won!" I didn't believe it. But then when I did, something in my heart burst and I began to sob so uncontrollably that four or five people nearby solicitously passed me around between themselves in big bear hugs while I, shoulders heaving, gasped, "I'm so happy, I'm so happy." (At some point while I was crying, I ran into the guy from earlier who we had successfully rebuffed. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, "It's okay," probably because I was still crying pretty hard. "Move," I said, pushing past him to find EC.)

The rest of the night passes in a blur with the sort of delirious happiness that the very best moments of your life separate into bright, fleeting snapshots. I remember screaming to no one in particular, "Dance party for Obama!" and watching as the group of people in front of me immediately obliged. I remember receiving so many text messages that they came one on top of the other as I was reading them. I remember the feeling going through the crowd as Obama appeared on the screen to give his first speech as president elect -- several hundred people seized with a dazed elation, made even stronger by the knowledge that every single person around them had been seized by the same feeling. As he spoke we all threw our arms straight up into the air as we clapped, and when Michelle and the girls came on stage people started jumping up and down, hopping like insane, joy-crazed bunnies, anything we could do to make our bodies expand out and up to fill the growing space that was the fulfillment of all our hopes.

By two in the morning my voice was hoarse and my throat was sore from screaming. EC had consumed four Jack and Cokes and one glass of white wine and was becoming pretty loopy. I kept it together long enough to drive us back to the hotel and make her drink some water before she passed out on her bed.

The next morning she woke up with what we dubbed the post-Barack Obama hangover. "Turn on the television," she said. I hesitated, my finger on the power button. "It's okay," she said. "Barack Obama will still be president."

So I turned it on. And he was.

Let America Be America Again

I was once told that always, for anything you need to know, go to the poetry. We're at three days and counting. The world is about to change. So here goes...

* * * * * * * * *
Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

voter fraud my patootie

Is it wrong that I see these cries of voter fraud as nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt -- led, unfortunately, by the Republican party -- to limit the vote to rich, white property owners? Excuse me, why are you all screaming about voter fraud until the blood vessels on your neck pop out and make you even more unattractive than your ridiculousness is already making you? Did you all not get the memo that it is no longer 1870, or 1919? Did you all also not get the memo that this is a democracy and what we seek is over- rather than under-inclusiveness of the franchise? Or that in typical elections barely half of the American population turns out to vote, something that as a country which purports to be a democracy we should be ashamed -- let me repeat that, ASHAMED -- of.

If these douchebags, male and female, actually stopped for one second and put some thought into the meaning behind those "Country First" signs that they're waving around, then the lack of civic participation in the United States would actually concern them, and they would be participating in canvassing, voter registration, and GOTV drives. They would not be be spending their time badmouthing an organization that, since 1970, has worked on behalf of low-wage communities to expand affordable housing, improve public schools, stop predatory lending, fight redlining and housing discrimination, and help pass living wage ordinances across the nation. (Yes, ACORN has been the force behind the nation's living wage campaigns, or did you assholes not know that? Or worse, do you not even care?) Dear Republican Party, if you bring down this organization, I will come looking for you. Or rather, to be more precise, my fists of fury will come looking for you -- for your crotches and your faces and any other body parts that my fists can do damage to. You heard it here first. I'm pissed.

It is disgusting to me that McCain et al can stand there and lie through their teeth with such guile and semblance and purport to be so concerned about voter fraud when what what they are actually worried about is making sure that poor people of color don't vote. Of course they couch it in other terms, but you can see what they really mean. So concerned they are about the "purity" of the vote, so concerned about ensuring that the vote is not "tainted." Don't get me wrong here, voter fraud is a serious issue, but let's be honest. The voter fraud that we should really be focusing on is that which actually has the potential to do serious damage to the validity of the franchise, and that is not false voter registrations. It is fraudulent voter machines. This is where the real story is. But, of course, that's not something you all are going to be blood vessel popping out screaming about because, well, those are your guys. You damn sickos.

Also, as long as I am on an angry rant, WTF is up with Proposition 8? What era are we living in that we are still trying to dictate who can marry who? And why are you scapegoating the Bible rather than blaming it on the real cause -- you and the fact that you are filled with an all-consuming irrational hate? Jesus Christ, who you say that you believe in, preached love. Let me say it again: Jesus preached love. Jesus preached love. Jesus preached love. Love above all else. You people who call yourself Christians and spend your time and your energy and your petty little lives hating and hating and hating should all be made to slap yourselves repeatedly in the face until you see, through your own self-inflicted pain, the error of your ways. You all make me so goddamn tired.

Now I'm going to sleep and I'm probably going to grind the hell out of my teeth tonight, I'm so damn pissed off. Thanks a lot.

No on Prop 8!

Note: This is an email I sent out to the Californian members of my family today, urging them to vote no on Proposition 8. I'd like to encourage you all to send similar requests to your own families and friends in California. We cannot let this bullshit pass this year.

Dear Family,

I am writing to you all today to urge you to vote NO on Proposition 8. Proposition 8, if passed, would rewrite the California Constitution to deny the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry. Such a denial of fundamental rights is not only morally unjust, but unlawful. State law should never single out anyone -- in this case gay and lesbian couples -- to be treated differently under the law.

Many of you know that this issue is important enough to Chris and I that one of the things we requested in lieu of wedding gifts was donations to the Human Rights Campaign, which has fought for equal rights for gays, lesbians and transgendered persons since its founding in 1980, and continues to be one of the leaders today in the legal fight for marriage equality. I am asking that each one of you please take the step to ensure equal rights for all Californians by voting NO on Proposition 8.

Supporters of Proposition 8 have been spending millions of dollars over the past few weeks to spread outright lies about what would happen if gay and lesbian couples have the right to marry. But let's be clear. Allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry would have NO effect on the tax-free status of churches. Allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry would NOT mean that your children would be taught to be gay or lesbian in school (whatever on earth that means). Allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry would NOT unleash all hell so as to allow people to marry their dog or their cat or their bird or any other non-human animal. What allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry WOULD do is ensure that our our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members who are gay and lesbian are treated just the same as anyone else who loves another person deeply and wants to make the symbolic commitment of marriage.

I want to conclude by pointing out that the arguments supporters of Proposition 8 are now bandying about are precisely the same arguments that were made against interracial marriages in the first part of the 20th century. Looking back on it today, it is shocking to us that legislatures ever denied a person the right to marry the one they loved simply because they were of another race. Yet it took a Supreme Court case to actually settle the matter that race-based legal restrictions on marriage were unconstitutional, and changing the entrenched opinions dead-set against interracial marriages took even longer. Please let us be a people who learn from our mistakes rather than repeat them by casting a blind eye to history. Join me in supporting marriage equality by voting no on Proposition 8.

I'd be happy to discuss any of these issues with you at any time before the election.

this is really your idea of a wonderful block?

I earlier blogged a rant against Gabe Hudson's "Urban Seoul" piece (which, for the record, I also emailed to him directly, and have yet to receive a response). Today, the NY Times Real Estate Magazine published "It's A Wonderful Block" by Mark Oppenheimer, another author who seems to suffer from a complete lack of racial and ethnic awareness. Since my little screed will likely not be published, I am again printing here the version I sent to the NY Times. (Chris made me take out what I thought was my best line: "Oppenheimer's article leaves me wondering if maybe one of the other unsaid reasons that he and others think West Rock Avenue is 'such a great place to live,' is because everyone is white.")

Mark Oppenheimer has a flawed view of diversity. He would have us believe that his neighborhood's proximity to Protestant and Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues, and its acceptance of gay and lesbian couples, indicate a progressive 21st century ideal of diversity. Yet he fails to address his neighborhood's lack of racial diversity. The Chaundhry-Samuels family, as the apparent representative people of color on the block, is given a feature photo and placed strategically in the two-page photo spread. True, towards the end Oppenheimer seems to realize his error and tries to backpedal with the underdeveloped concession that "it's nice to be near people different, and it's also nice to be near people the same." What he, and apparently the editors of Key Magazine saw in the two-page photo spread that opened his article, was "a great neighborhood." What I, and I think many others, saw was a familiar homogeneity.

getting 10 things off my chest

Here are 10 things that I've been thinking the past few days, and particularly in the wake of Sarah Palin's speech this evening.

1) These die-hard Hillary fans who still will not quit chanting "Nobama," even after Denver, are displaying exactly the kind of irrational, unreasonable, and semi-hysterical behavior which reinforces the misogynist arguments out there that women are not fit to lead. They are not doing themselves or Hillary a favor. They're only serving to delegitimize women as viable holders of political office. They need to quit their stupid antics and grow up. Now.

2) All the adult males associated with Palin look like douches. Please refer to the following exhibits: Douche #1, Douche #2, and Douche #3.

3) Cindy McCain is the female Skeletor.

4) I, too, am glad that Sarah Palin did not abort little Trig, but let's be honest. Everyone knows that the older you choose to have children, the greater the risk of genetic abnormalities such as down syndrome. Have a baby at age 44 like Palin did, and here is your down syndrome risk (see Figure 1). She already birthed four of god's children. Was it really responsible childbearing behavior to insist on having another?
[09/09/08 Addendum: EC has pointed out that this comment is insensitive to people with Down syndrome. I think she is right, and I apologize for the posting and apologize if I have offended anyone. My growing wrath at the Republican party is turning me into (and/or exposing me as) an insensitive little bigot. The comment is also irrelevant in light of more recent news showing that the pregnancy appears to have been unplanned on Palin's part. All of which is to say that I, too, it appears, am a douche.]

5) Speaking of Trig, why, every time the television camera bounced back to the Palin family during her RNC speech, was somebody new holding him? First Cindy McCain, then Bristol Palin, then Todd Palin, then Piper Palin. Is this a metaphor... for... something?

6) John McCain did not actually divorce his previous wife. He absorbed her into his enormous bulging neck.

7) Using a snowmobile like a racecar, is like using a fortified military vehicle to go grocery shopping. But come on, who does that?

8) I could care less that Bristol Palin is pregnant out of wedlock. But did she have to do it with such a douche? Then again, I guess the traditional wisdom is that girls marry men who remind them of their fathers. (Okay, sorry, this is kind of a repeat of #2.)

9) During her speech, Palin re-told John McCain's many times told POW story -- how he endured years of torture at the hands of the Viet Cong, and actually refused an offer of early release, opting instead to remain in captivity with his comrades. Then she told the story about how after daily torture sessions, while being dragged back to his cell, McCain would still manage a grin and thumbs up for his fellow POWs. She then said something to the effect of, "This is the kind of man we need to lead America." So, is Palin saying that America needs a leader who can grin through the torture of the American presidency? Or is she saying that America needs a leader who can... lie? Bottom line is, enduring what John McCain endured as a prisoner of war -- the imprisonment, the torture, the solitary confinement -- undoubtedly qualifies one to be a national hero. And he is. It does not, however, qualify one to be the Commander in Chief, no matter how many times you tell the story.

10) If the Obamas had to fight John and Cindy McCain or Sarah and Todd Palin, who would win? I submit to you: obviously, the Obamas. Michelle Obama -- I mean, come on, she can take on any of the four, easy. And Barack? He'd just blind them with his dazzling smile, and then sucker punch them in the face with his fists of hope. Ka-blam! Tell the other side of consciousness that the audacity of hope sent ya'!