President Obama!

Watching the inauguration today, it made me indescribably happy when I read the little thingy at the bottom of the screen that said "President Obama says farewell to Mr. Bush."

President Obama. Mr. Bush. How awesome is that? (Answer: incredibly so)
He's finally gone. After spending half of my life with him and all his idiotic, anti-science, anti-choice, warmongering, power-hungry, god-crazed, hypocritical cronies in charge of the country, it is just so great to have someone like Obama as president. He won't be a perfect president, and he will probably be more centrist than he should be, and he won't be able to accomplish everything he says he will, and he will make mistakes. But he's intelligent, diplomatic, and pretty liberal, so I admire and support him, and I'm glad he's president.

I really liked Obama's inaugural address. I liked everything he said about ending the war in Iraq and forging peace in Afghanistan, creating transparency, regulating the free market, utilizing alternative fuels, and reforming healthcare and education. I liked that, despite all the appeals to God to bless America, he at least acknowledged non-believers. Overall, I was impressed. Aretha Franklin was amazing. And while Lowery's speech didn't make up for Warren's bigoted "compassionate conservative" prayer, it was really cool to hear the Negro National Anthem. Even Rick Warren couldn't ruin the inauguration for me.

A great inauguration. And it's snowing! This is the best day of 2009 so far.

Gaza, Israel, and Blaming

It's easy to be blind to Western privilege, and the privilege of not having to live in a war zone. It's easy to try to diagnose the reasons why the "conflict," as the word "war" is so often sterilized, began, without once realizing that the atrocities of recent weeks will never really end. Violence is a sad, horrible cycle that I, or anyone else with tons of privilege, will never be able to understand, no matter how much we try to theorize about jus ad bello or political opportunism or whatever else we use to, intentionally or not, reduce people's death and suffering to a question of foreign policy.

It doesn't matter who started it. It really doesn't. It doesn't matter to the person who was killed by the airstrikes or the person who was killed by the rockets. It doesn't matter to their families. It only matters to people like me, rich, white Western kids who write speeches for their debate class. And not angry ones about the hideousness of war, but calm, emotionless ones with five or more citations, seven minutes long, about whether Israel was justified in attacking Gaza.

War is never reasonable. It is never proportional, and it should never be justified. People are dying. Where is the outrage?

So what can you do, if you, like me, are truly ignorant of this situation? Stop reading the New York Times or watching CNN for coverage. Western media tend to either oversimplify these wars or dehumanize and other the victims. So here are some links to news articles without that bias.


Gazans: 'We are living a nightmare'
Massive Israeli carnage leaves hundreds of Gaza victims
Palestine: Situation report in Gaza by UN humanitarian coordinator
Barak: If the ceasefire deal doesn't meet Israeli demands, Gaza operation will continue
25 Gaza rockets strike Negev over course of Wednesday
Special Reports: Confronting Hamas


And we all need to stop blaming one side or another for the attacks. Everyone, even the US, is responsible to some extent. Eventually, we can discuss reasoning or justification. But right now, the attacks have just happened. To speak so callously and with such detachment from the situation is insensitive. We can, and probably should, all be talking about what's happening. But we should spent less time blaming and more time discussing this from a humanitarian viewpoint.

Take a moment of silence for Gaza. And donate here.

That poor, poor man.

From the LA Times: Bush never recovered from response to Katrina, aides say.

You know what else never recovered from the response to Katrina? NEW ORLEANS.

This piece almost reads like an Onion article.

"...entered a downward spiral from which he could never recover."
"Katrina to me was the tipping point."
"[I]t was the final nail in the coffin."
"The decline was accelerated."

No, they're not talking about New Orleans, but about the president. Who sat back and watched the devastation FROM AIR FORCE ONE. Honestly.

Somebody get me my throwing shoes.

I feel like writing about something I hate.

How about Twilight! OK.

Twilight is a poor excuse for erotica, a vampire story, a love story, and a collection of some words written down on paper. I hate that it has become the cultural phenomenon that it is, and that whenever I meet someone new the first question I’m asked is, “So, have you seen Twilight yet?”

No, I haven’t.

Twilight is poorly written. It’s repetitive, cliched, dull, and unimaginative, and it's full of plot holes. It makes vampires as un-scary as they can possibly be. It tries to pass chivalry, stalking, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and traditional gender roles off as TRUE LOVE <3

Obviously, I have serious issues with the series, and my opinion will not be changed by another reading, a viewing of the movie, or a decent review. Whether it is a good book, or even good vamp fiction, is up to the reader. But it is undeniably un-feminist, anti-choice, and very Mormon.

It's ok to like Twilight. But I wouldn’t mind listening to people go on and on about it if they realized how trivial it was, or how gratingly backwards it is. What disgusts me is the whole meme that Twilight is this wonderful book for girls, and it’s changing teen fiction, and it’s a cultural landmark, and it’s universally recognized as the perfect love story™.

Twilight is essentially one woman’s fantasies in book form. And while they may work for her, it saddens me that they’re expected to be the norm for all of us [women]. Not all of us adhere to such traditional gender roles. Some of us want to go to college, even if, horrors, it means we’ll have to be away from our boyfriends for a while. Some us would rather not die at 18 in order to live in isolation for the rest of eternity. Some of us do not think it is thrilling when a creepy guy watches us sleep, kidnaps us, or is chivalrous. How about writing a book that represents more varied ideas of love, some that transcend ‘traditional’ cultural values and norms? A strict reinforcement of (hetero)sexist standards of relationships is hardly groundbreaking.

Of course one can still be a feminist and love Twilight. I really don’t care about someone’s personal taste in literature. But I hope my generation isn’t shocked when this all fades away, doomed to obscurity, after legions of women rise up and realize how pathetic this ‘cultural phenomenon’ really was.

I do not in any way feel that Mormons are sexually repressed, but I do believe that Mormonism as a faith upholds ‘traditional values’ about sex that are inherently not progressive.

Things You Can Expect in this Blog

Well, there's really only one thing through which all other things are filtered: feminism. The other things are as followed:
Life (mine, though I will not divulge boring things or those which will attract stalkers)
Privilege (mostly mine)
Pop culture and TV
Writing
Fashion
Gender, race, and class
Books and music
Politics (not limited to US)
War
Kyriarchy, patriarchy, other systems of oppression
Religion
Science
Cats

Resolutions that aren't mine are pointless.

New Year's Eve (and New Year's Day, for that matter) is one of the stupidest faux-holidays there is, and there are a lot of them. The slow, steady, unending plod of time is hardly cause for celebration. January is a cold, boring month, but with the creation of New Year's, we have somehow injected meaning into it. Like most holidays, there are things you're supposed to eat (doughnuts, apparently), things you're supposed to watch (large objects descending from the sky), and things you're supposed to pretend aren't creepy when they really are (babies in sashes). But the weirdest ritual of all of them is creating New Year's Resolutions. Why would I be more willing to lose weight/change my life/repent for my sins in January than in any other month? Just because it's the beginning of a brand new year, it's supposedly full of inspiration and potential. And if you want to accomplish something, why wait until January to do it? Why not start as soon as you get the idea? Creating resolutions for the new year is a pathetic, meaningless hobby that sets one up for failure, and no one should do it.

Well, except me, of course.

Keeping up with a blog is my resolution. Like all other resolutions, it is pathetic, meaningless, and failure-setting-up. Unlike all other resolutions, I acknowledge this. I will probably get bored of this blog around, oh, January 7th or so. It says so right in the title. So when I do give up on this non-resolution, I won't feel guilty at all, and next year around the same time, I can start a whole 'nother one. In fact, this is my second blog. My other one, A Natural Selection, ended after about ten posts. This one will probably have the same fate, as will the next.

Much like the slow, steady, unending plod of time, it is a cycle that will never end.