ASK Musings

No matter where you go, there you are.

Monthly Archive: September 2013

Monday

30

September 2013

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COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – September 30, 2013

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So much relaxing this weekend. Also so much rain and wind! It was great weather for reading the internets and increasing my anger with the GOP.

– It’s not our place to tell women that what they choose to wear is wrong: Calling all feminists: Get over the veil debate, focus on real problems (h/t @ajam)

– HURRAH! I love this: Why We’re Shutting Off Our Comments (h/t The Mister)

– WHAT THE EVER LOVING HELL? Adrian Mendez Runs Girl Over Multiple Times Because She Refused Sex: Cops (via @Wonkette)

– In other news, humans are the worst: Judge to Sikh Man: Remove “That Rag” (h/t @RaniaKhalek)

– Whoa. An advice columnist gets it right! Carolyn Hax: Don’t try to get a child to conform to gender expectations (h/t @fakedansavage)

– Oh New Jersey! New Jersey judge rules gay marriage must be legal (via @ajam)

– Jimmy Kimmel – yup, that’s racist: The Worst Part Of The Kanye-Kimmel Saga? It’s Hardly Surprising. (h/t @DrJaneChi)

– Horrible, horrible people: GOP adds ‘conscience clause’ to spending bill

– SNL is White. So, so White: Saturday Night Live’s race problem

– Apparently this bakery’s front counter was also so, so White: Racism in Plain Sight: Woman Denied position at NYC Bakery For Being Black (via @MadameNoire)

– Ha: Finding women who can write is complicated at the London Review of Books

– This is awesome: Guest Post: A Letter to Marissa Alexander by T.F. Charlton (Grace) (h/t @laurenarankin)

Thursday

26

September 2013

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COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – September 26, 2013

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Crisp fall day – needed a coat for the morning walk to work.

– Oooh look! A group that did something utterly ridiculous took it back. So that’s nice: School board lifts heavily-criticized ban on Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’

– A nice exploration of all the ways we tell boys it’s bad to be anything less than ‘masculine’: The real boy crisis: 5 ways America tells boys not to be “girly” (via @schemaly)

– A long read: NCAA and sexism: ‘We Felt Like We Were Above the Law’: How the NCAA Endangers Women (via @scATX)

– Kind of nice to see a guy calling out the dude bro ridiculousness: #BeAnExample (h/t Miss Representation)

– This is awesome! Marissa Alexander, Sentenced to 20 Years for Firing One Shot Into the Ceiling, Gets a Retrial (h/t @DrJaneChi)

– So bizarre. Famed Italian pasta maker Barilla: Gays can eat someone else’s pasta (h/t @JessicaValenti)

– Ooooh, goodie. A lit prof who won’t teach books written by women. FANtastic. Lit Professor Who Doesn’t Teach Books by Women Is Surprised That Offends People (h/t @RepresentPledge)

– Anotherexample of why we need universal health care, not this system that still ties much of the health care to employment: ObamaCare List Hits 313 As 54 Colleges Cut Adjunct Hours

– And finally, my favorite article of the day: Atlas Shrugged Producers Launch Kickstarter to Finish Their Self-Reliant Epic

Wednesday

25

September 2013

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What I’m Reading – September 25, 2013

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I just finished “Weeds.” A couple of years late, but glad I finally closed that out.

– Yup. “I cannot – CANNOT – care more about football players than the child victims. I cannot. Stop asking me to. And if you are angry that we are to the point where someone feels like they must choose between football players and child victims, THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM”: The Reduction of Penn State Sanctions: The Unsurprising Cowardice of the NCAA (via @scATX)

– This is fascinating. “Gender mainstreaming has been in place in the Austrian capital since the early 1990s. In practice, this means city administrators create laws, rules and regulations that benefit men and women equally.” How to Design a City for Women (h/t @FemFreq)

– I know my mom has stopped enjoying going to NFL games – and they’ve been season ticket holders for years. As a Female NFL Fan, I Want a Better Stadium Experience—Not a Pink Jersey (h/t @scATX)

– This is so … ugh. Live your life how you want, but the part about letting marital rape happen? NOPE. ‘Real Housewife’ Melissa Gorga’s New Book Advocates Marital Rape (h/t @JillFilipovic)

Tuesday

24

September 2013

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What I’m Reading – September 24, 2013

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And the downside of the return of autumn – sickness abounds.

– Result of a Supreme Court ruling last session … very sad: “I do not want to go! I do not want to go!” Screamed Veronica as She was Taken From Her Biological Father (h/t @ChiefElk)

– Health insurance is almost here: Seattle volunteers spread the word about Affordable Care Act (via @ajam)

– Shocker: The latest B.S. attack on the Affordable Care Act is … B.S.: Sorry, The Latest Anti-Obamacare Article To Go Viral Is Totally Wrong (via @ThinkProgress)

– Interesting article on names: What’s so wrong with giving your kid a ‘black name’?

– Yup. Jillian Michaels is not a good person: I Worked Out With Jillian Michaels and She Made Me Feel Bad About My Body (h/t @TheLindyWest)

Thursday

19

September 2013

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COMMENTS

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason

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As you may have read yesterday, I loved Bridget Jones’s Diary. It was fun, honest, shallow, deep. Everything I want in a quick read. So naturally I downloaded the second Bridget Jones book. Still a quick read, still entertaining, probably not as great, but still fun.

Spoilers ahead, sort of.

200px-Bridget_Jones_-_The_Edge_of_Reason_(book_cover)

This book starts with our heroine still dating Mark Darcy. There are some challenges, and they spend the better part of the year apart, possibly due to a scheming ‘friend’ who has decided that SHE belongs with Mark Darcy, not Bridget. There are bits that made me somewhat uncomfortable – basically the entire storyline involving Bridget’s mother and a trip to Africa – but there were also a lot of moments where I genuinely laughed. There’s also an entire chapter that I admit to reading with one eye closed because OH MY GOD EMBARRASSING. If you’ve read this book, I think you know the chapter. Ah, Colin Firth.

This book has a few more absurd components than the first one, and I have to say that I was a bit annoyed that the same plot device from the first book – Horrible Legal Misunderstanding Fixed by Dashing Mark Flying Somewhere To Fix It – was unnecessary and seemed to be a bit … lazy? I mean, it worked in the first one, so perhaps Ms. Fielding felt if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? I don’t know. The second half of the Thailand storyline was ridiculous, but the first? I do have to admit that I didn’t see it coming. So there’s that.

Also, there’s a weird language issue – I don’t know if this is an England thing, and I don’t recall it from living there a year, but instead of referring to someone as Asian, the author has the characters saying ‘oriental.’ That’s … not right. And was jarring every time I saw it.

I don’t see myself re-reading this book, but I am still excited for the third installment. I like Bridget. I don’t know if I would be friends with her, but I’m invested. She can be shallow, but I do think Ms. Fielding has written her with a good heart. She’s flawed but she’s not insufferable. I want good things for her.

Thursday

19

September 2013

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COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – September 19 2013

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Tomorrow is day one of a two-day drill. Saturday night will be spent on the couch, watching shitty movies, then sleeping. A lot.

– Fascinating read: How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers

– A little more detail on why Blurred Lines is such a creepy song: What Rapists Say Echoes the Lyrics of “Blurred Lines” (via @MsMagazine)

– Whoa: French Senate Says “Non” To Mini-Miss Pageants (via @AP)

– Whoa. Cards Against Humanity did a little subversive move at PAX: Penny Arcade

– “And here’s a handy rule of thumb: if your team name exists only because there was a genocide, then you might need a new team name.” Rick Reilly and the Most Irredeemably Stupid Defense of the Redskins Name You Will Ever Read (via @EdgeOfSports)

– KITTEH! This Russian Library Just Hired a Stray Cat as Its Assistant Librarian (h/t @DrJaneChi)

– Fat people get shit treatment just by existing. Just Because I’m Fitnessing While Fat Doesn’t Mean You Can Try To Sell Me Weight Loss Crap (via @theRotund)

– Who does this? How is this … the hell? Parents Complain After Child Forced to Reenact Slavery on a Field Trip

Wednesday

18

September 2013

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COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – September 18 2013

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First off – happy birthday to my father in law, who I’m 99.9% sure will not be reading this 🙂

– Group Health makes a change; rights a wrong: Group Health about-face: Customers will have access to abortions (via @Q13Fox)

– This is fabulous: The Inside Story Of The Feminists Who Fooled Us Into Thinking Playboy Cared About Consent (via @ThinkProgress)

– Want to read an article that unironically shows the problem with Americans who choose ignorance over reality? Apparently Penny Arcade buys into the idea that racists are just a small segment of the U.S. They continue to be unimpressive: Miss America, bigot shaming, and the media’s vile attraction to the worst in America (h/t @PublicShaming)

– I like to support the independent, local shops for my hot chocolate fix. However, this definitely makes me feel better about choosing Starbucks: An Open Letter from Howard Schultz, ceo of Starbucks Coffee Company (h/t @King5Seattle)

– Fascinating: The 300-year-old fertility statistics still in use today (via @BBCNews)

– I am now a signatory! Welcome to our our newest signatories!

– Intriguing – NCAA claims that colleges can’t use sex to recruit players. And yet … there seems to be nothing in the rules that state that: Where *Exactly* Does It Say That? The NCAA’s Prohibition of Sex In Recruiting (via @scATX)

– Domestic violence: A ‘Grim Tally’: Abusers, Guns, and the Women They Kill (h/t @JessicaValenti)

Tuesday

17

September 2013

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COMMENTS

Bridget Jones’s Diary

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Five stars.

Bridget Jones

 

This book is so good.

I saw the movie. I laughed at the idea that Renée Zellwegger was fat. I drooled a bit over Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy. I loved the screw-up at work where Bridget claimed she was on the phone with an author who had, unbeknownst to her, died three decades earlier, when the word fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I recognized the friendship archetypes.

The book isn’t better, or worse. It’s different, and frankly, I thought it was fantastic. I was expecting a sad, ridiculous stereotype of a woman – instead the Bridget Jones in print is a complex woman who isn’t overly intellectual but isn’t flighty or ridiculous. She’s living in a world where she’s been told what her value is in terms of looks and in terms of her marriagability. She is rational, then irrational, then rational again.

The book has a somewhat similar storyline to the film – there is a relationship with her boss Daniel, there is a disdain, then attraction, then disdain, then attraction with Mark Darcy, all her friends are accounted for – but there are also some diversions. For example, she has a brother in the book. And her mother’s journey takes something of a dark turn. But the core of the book – and of Bridget herself – remains.

I’m newly married, and I only spent one year as properly single in my 30s. However, I could relate to so much of Bridget’s internal monologue. Some of it was so ridiculous – like when she leaves a potential sex partner because she doesn’t want to just fuck around, and has this triumphant feminist moment … then muses “I may have been right, but my reward, I know, will be to end up all along, half-eaten by an Alsatian” – but still relatable. She’s so hard on herself – tracking her daily food consumption, her weight, her cigarette intake – and beating herself up with each weight fluctuation.

One favorite part is when she somehow manages to get her weight down to her goal, and everyone comments that she looks a bit tired, and looked ‘better before.’ “Now I feel empty and bewildered…Eighteen years – wasted. Eighteen years of calorie- and fat-unit-base arithmetic…I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life’s work has been a total mistake.” Observations like that – as well as the one that she has lost 72 pounds and gained 74 pounds over the course of the year – are real, at least, to me, and they represent the constant struggle many women face, and how they feel they can’t win. I’ve been there. Shoot, I live there.

She’s also hard on herself when it comes to work, and men. Whenever she has a flash of self-confidence or makes an attempt to start fresh, something inevitable pops up to derail her. Sometimes it’s silly, but most of the time it seems fairly realistic. It’s not like everything is bad, always, but there is this sort of constant underlying stress. It’s not the same stress as someone who is facing poverty, or racism, or anything so serious, but it’s that steady undercurrent saying you aren’t thin enough, or smart enough, or attractive enough, or enough like society wants you to be (i.e. married and having children). It’s the stress of wanting to fit convention, then buck it, then fit it again.

The book feels light and deep at the same time. I’m sure if I spent more time analyzing it I could find some problems to dissect (is she an active agent, or does she fixate her life around finding a mate?) but I kind of don’t want to spend more time focusing on it because I don’t want to ruin a really fun reading experience.

Tuesday

17

September 2013

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COMMENTS

What I’m Reading – September 17, 2013

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Weird 24 hours in my town – a stabbing three blocks from my home, drive-by pellet shootings south of us, and a white powder issue at a nearby hotel. Ugh.

– Oh goody – super fancy surveillance cameras: New HD CCTV puts human rights at risk

– Good for her – and shame on the company: Victory! Lambda Legal Helps S.D. Transgender Employee Win Landmark Settlement (h/t @SophiaPhotos)

– OWS Anniversary: Occupy Activists’ New Fight for Regulation, Affordable Housing and Social Justice (via @AllisonKilkenney)

– Even in the Not For Profit world, the wage gap persists: Same Job, Same Size Budget Equals Less Pay for Women (h/t @JessicaValenti)

– This is awesome and I support it: A Statement of Trans-Inclusive Feminism and Womanism (h/t @JessicaValenti)

– Interesting development: Yellen as Fed chair would be tougher on banks (via @PublicI)