Toddler Logic

On the phone yesterday:
"I had a purple lunch box and I went to college and I drove my car to college and I opened my purple lunch box and it had macaroni and all kinds of food that was in my purple lunch box."

At dinner last night, after standing all his fusili up in a pile of pasta sauce:
"I'm putting candles on the cake. (Singing, hands waving toward face*) Happy birthday to dear mommy, bringing in the light, bringing in the light, bringing in the light for Shabbat."

*This is what you do when you light the Shabbat candles.

Sonnet 130

I was just listening (again) to Alan Rickman's recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, found via the Smart Bitches, and I was struck, as always, by how he can completely make me melt into a puddle for thirteen lines, and then completely lose me when he misreads the last one. Why, Alan? Why did you have to insert an invisible "whom" where no whom ought to be?

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Shall we walk through it? Yes, let's.

It's a Shakespearian sonnet (that's a formal designation, not an indication of the author), so the turn should be after the third quatrain - and there it is, at line thirteen. The first twelve lines are all inversions of standard Petrarchan similes describing the poet's lover, but even if you didn't know that, it's pretty obvious that he's rejecting common florid descriptions. Whether you want to read it as the poet acknowledging his mistress's imperfections and loving her regardless, or as a more calculating poet deciding that no woman could live up to the similes, so he may as well stick with the one he has, I don't think there's any way to read it as a celebration of the idealized woman.

So why, tell me, would anyone take the "she" in the final line as the subject of an unspoken "whom" clause, when it's quite clearly an example of synechdoche referring to all women?

Wrong
As {any} [she] belied |with false compare|
where: {direct object} [subject] verb |sub-clause|

Right
As [any she] belied \with false compare\
where: [subject] verb \agent of passive verb\

In other words, it's not the mistress doing the belying, it's the similes which set a standard no woman can possibly achieve. To say that your mistress walks like a goddess is to insult her, not only because real people just aren't like that, but because it implies that your love for her is based on a quality that she doesn't even possess.

And just for fun:

Happy Bloomsday

Jessica has tripped my overactive guilt reflex over the fact that I've never finished a single thing by James Joyce. So, to avoid having to hand my English degree back, I promise to give him another chance.

I'll keep you posted.


*grumble* stupid impenetrable modernists *grumble*

An Open Letter to Senator Clinton

I've submitted the following to Sen. Clinton's website, prompted by her mention last night of wanting to hear from her supporters. I'll be sending a letter to Sen. Obama (or at least his mail-readers) as well, which I will also post here. And, hey, weren't those two incredible speeches last night?

Dear Senator Clinton,

I'm writing in response to your comment last night that you want to hear from your supporters to determine how to go forward.

First and foremost, I want to congratulate you on an excellent showing in this primary season, and an incredible speech last night. And I want to thank you for everything you've done so far.

All through my childhood, I was told that women can do anything men can do, and I truly believed it. But after years of fighting a society that didn't get the message, I'm exhausted. I work in an industry composed primarily of women, but the majority of our executives are men. I am paid about 50% of the local average for my job and experience level, despite excellent annual reviews and a history as a valuable member of the company. When my son was born, I slipped from the "woman" pay scale to the "mommy" pay scale, just in time to start making those monthly daycare payments.

Watching your campaign, your courage and perseverance in the face of a sometimes hostile media, and seeing that nearly half of the Democratic party responded to your message, has given me hope that what I was told really is true. A woman can do whatever she sets out to do, even if it's something in a traditionally male sphere. I know it will still be harder for us, that we'll still have to fight to prove ourselves in a way that men won't, and that makes me angry. But your campaign has renewed my faith that success is possible for women, and for that, I thank you.

What you do from here, of course, is your decision, but I hope you will continue fighting for universal health care. Whether you continue to do so from your seat in the Senate, or from a different position in a new Democratic administration, I believe this is a fight that needs to happen, and needs to happen now. When my son was born, I was lucky enough to have reasonable insurance that had covered much of my very complicated pregnancy, although not without extensive prompting and checking-up on my part. We decided to add him to his father's insurance policy, as it was more cost-effective than mine, and that decision was the start of a year-long nightmare of bills going unpaid and fruitless phone calls where insurance representative assured me everything would be sorted out, but nothing ever was. The insurance companies argued back and forth that the other should be responsible for any bills related to my son, and I spent hours every week on the phone trying to clear it all up.

In the end, the bills for my pregnancy-related expenses came to nearly $80,000, most of which could never have been foreseen. The bills for my son's care amounted to a far smaller, but still significant amount. I was incredibly lucky to have insurance that, while difficult, was comprehensive enough to eventually cover most of the cost. How on earth does a family who isn't so lucky deal with this sort of expense? How can we possibly have become a country in which childbearing is only a possibility for the wealthy? We know that the system we have is intolerable, and we need you to lead the way in crafting a better one, so that no woman ever has to choose between proper pre-natal care and paying rent.

I was thrilled to be a first-round delegate for you in Washington state, and I'm proud to have been a small part of a primary season that has been historic in so many ways. You have made me proud to be an American, and given me strength to keep fighting, and I hope that, although Senator Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee, I will still have the pleasure of seeing you active in the political arena, and still fighting for what should be a basic human right.

Now That It's Nearly Over

Let's talk about the primary. I've spent quite a while Not Blogging about this, and I've had a good long time to stew about it, so bear with me. Part of my reason for Not Blogging is that many of the things I need to say involve real people, not just people-from-the-internet or celebrities politicians, so if you recognize yourself in here, bear in mind that I absolutely adore you personally, and our political differences don't affect that. Unless, of course, you're an asshole, in which case all bets are off.

First, I want to tell you about being a minuscule cog in the Democratic Party machine. We have caucuses here, which, for reasons I've never worked out, involved selecting delegates, who will then get together and select fewer delegates, and so on up the line until they send some folks to the DNC. I dutifully headed off to my neighborhood caucus with no plans whatsoever to run for delegate, and I signed in supporting Hillary Clinton.

I knew going into the caucus that Obama was predicted to win big in Washington. What I didn't know was the the Lndn LRch crazies would be turning out for Clinton. But there they were, two of 'em, babbling about the housing market and Blmbrg and conspiracy theories. I've tossed off comments about the Obama kool-aid, but these folks have nutritionless beverages down to an art form.

There's not much to say about that first caucus, except that I kept overhearing people talking about "that woman" who was running against Obama. This would prove to be a very unsettling theme.

When it came time to elect delegates, only the two LL-crazies from the Clinton side wanted to run, and I couldn't see myself sending either of them to the next level, so I stepped up. I won handily, I might add, and I ran a clean campaign. Crazy #2 was elected alternate in case I was eaten by rabid hyenas.

Now we unmoor ourselves in time for a moment. During this primary season, I have heard or been told that:

• Any discussion of politics in the workplace is inappropriate - this despite numerous Obama signs in other offices (and one McCain sign), as well as plenty of Obama discussion


• I'm free to switch my allegiance to Obama at the district caucus (never mind my opinion, and that of the people I'm representing - this one really stung, particularly as it came from a good friend)


• The Clintons should be shipped to a deserted island and left without provisions - that's some serious hate, even if it's the height of hyperbole


• Hillary Clinton's support is bad luck for anyone else in terms of political ambitions, as well as quality and length of life (wtf???)


• As a Clinton supporter, my motives in all things were suspect, and I was likely to resort to underhanded or illegal means to disenfranchise Obama supporters

And these all came from fellow Democrats, and mostly from friends. No rabid neo-cons here.

And this brings us to the district caucus, where I was treated to the following:

• "The Clinton people sit over there; this side is for the real people" (repeated ad nauseum whenever anyone came looking for a seat)


• Obvious and deliberate perusal of my tits before suggesting that, by asking a group of loud men to take their conversation to a room where debate on the party platform wasn't happening, I was being wildly unreasonable: "Nobody can hear back here, honey; maybe you ought to move"


• Several friends waving and coming to say hello, sitting down to chat, only to look askance and wander off in a hurry when they saw my Hillary Clinton sticker

So, okay, some people are assholes, and other people perform tremendously assholic moves without realizing it. And politics, like any other competition, brings out the ugly in all of us. And yes, I'm far more sensitive to the barbs directed at me than to those directed at other people.

You know what? These candidates are pretty damned similar. And they're both politicians. Neither will lead us into a glorious future of unparalleled prosperity and peace, nor will either one transform us into a war-torn, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden nation staring into the Stygian depths. They'll be better than BushCo, and better than McCain. They won't live up to the hype. They'll disappoint us on key points. That's politics.

I looked, and I looked, and ultimately I preferred Clinton's health plan. That was just about the deciding factor right there. Obama seemed slightly less good on the environment. Clinton had that pesky war vote, but has since come around. Charisma worries me. On the other hand, I like hope, and I like change (for certain values of change). I also like the idea of someone without the blinders of male privilege. And I have to say, it felt really fucking good to have a choice of two people who didn't make me retch.

But what I want to know is this: why does it have to be so ugly? Where is all this hate coming from? Are we as a country so sick inside that we really want to label nearly half the democratic party as inhuman? Why are people so gleeful when they pile on to Clinton in comment threads? It was an exciting primary season, and people whose votes are usually just a formality got to be in on the process. We had two pretty decent choices with a real shot at winning. And yet, I find myself resenting Obama for the way his supporters have acted.

I hate this feeling, and frankly, it makes me despair at the very thought that this is the world I have to raise my son in.

ETA: I just saw on FDL that Clinton has announced she's okay with the VP spot, complete with all sorts of disapproval that she should "angle" for it or use her delegates as "leverage."

And that's the thing that gets me: she's running for president, people! Of course she wants to win, you don't run if you don't want to actually be president. If she can't win, why should she be faulted for setting her sights on the VP spot? What, did you want her to be a self-sacrificing martyr? Would a man be discounted for doing the same thing?

Don't just hate. Examine your hate. You may not be able to change how you feel, but you can try to understand why you feel it.

ETA2: I want to be clear: there are perfectly valid reasons for voting for Obama over Clinton, and equally valid ones for voting for Clinton over Obama. What I don't understand is the hatred, the schoolyard bully attitudes I see online, and the way that "I just don't like her" is some sort of code phrase for "she's a castrating bitch who needs to be shown her place." I don't understand that at all, and I can only read it as misogyny - how do you hate someone you've never met? How do you hate them so much that you'd threaten to vote in another Bush clone instead? Do you need to like your politicians? Will you be joining them for a beer after work or something? Dislike her politics, her tactics, the way she's run her campaign; I can understand that. Hate her? I just don't get it.

This is Just an Update

Not crap, it turns out.

Whew!

It's interesting that I'm having so much trouble judging the quality of my writing this time around; I remember knowing the difference between a good essay and a lousy one when I was an undergrad. I'm not sure whether it's just lack of perspective because I have so much more riding on this (I'll be asking all of these professors for letters of recommendation), or whether I've actually lost the ability to evaluate my writing; I'm sincerely hoping it's the former.

Titles

To my knowledge, Hillary Clinton has not resigned her Senate seat. So why do I keep seeing articles* referring to her as "Mrs. Clinton," hmm?

Regardless of your personal opinion of her, she is a US Senator, and has as much right to the title as any man in the same position. Are we really so mired in the past that the highest position anyone is willing to imagine for a woman is that of wife?

ETA: I've also noticed a lot of articles referring to her as "former first lady Hillary Clinton." See above, people: she is a current US Senator. Examine your rhetoric.


*No, I'm not linking, because I didn't save them, and I don't feel like searching. They've been popping up in my Google news feed regularly; you shouldn't have to look terribly hard.