I saw Serenity at a preview months ago, liked it very much indeed thank you sir, although I didn’t think it was quite as good as the best of the TV show it was based on. Still, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and I’m hoping it does well.

Most of the reviews I’ve read are warm but not ecstatic. About half of them, like the Times‘ reviewer, compare Serenity favorably to the recent Star Wars trilogy:

It probably isn’t fair to Joss Whedon’s “Serenity” to say that this unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas’s aggressively more ambitious “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.” But who cares about fair when there is fun to be had? Scene for scene, “Serenity” is more engaging and certainly better written and acted than any of Mr. Lucas’s recent screen entertainments.

The only outright pan I’ve seen so far is USA Today: “Isn’t it asking for trouble to make a movie version of a TV flop?”

There are posters to look at, too. The German poster, featuring Summer Glau in an extremely skimpy dress, is as cheesy as a cheese shop during a cheese convention right after the cheese delivery (and where did she get that haircut? Late 80s Madonna meets Severus Snape). The American poster of Glau in the same dress but a cooler pose is only slightly better. After viewing those two atrocities, this other American poster - which I think is the main poster they’re using in the US - will hardly seem cheesy at all.

I honestly don’t remember if Serenity passes the Mo Movie Measure or not. I’m planning on seeing it again, I’ll report back when I have.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

Just watched the “Commander in Chief” premiere. Politics aside, it just isn’t a very good show, is it? The damn thing is so earnest - there were a couple of jokes (including a funny running gag about Hilary-resentment among the White House staff), but they were very far between. It’s as if someone set out to prove that West Wing would be unbearable without the sense of humor.

The Nigerian subplot was an insult to viewers’ intelligence. I understand it was intended to be wish-fulfillment, but come on: once having been warned, why wouldn’t the Nigerian government just move the prisoner to a secret location right away, or have a guard shoot her in the head before the US Marines could arrive? Why would they set a precedent that the US gets to dictate Nigerian internal policy, without even offering any benefits or face-saving to Nigeria’s government? It makes no sense.

Plausibility aside, I’m also bothered by the politics of the Nigerian subplot. The show endorses the idea that the US can get whatever it wants in foreign policy if the President is just willing to be a belligerent enough bully and to wave around the US military like a magic wand. The world doesn’t work that way - but the belief that it does helped Bush and co. get away with claiming that Iraq would be a cakewalk, in and out in less than a year, welcomed with hugs and flowers, etc.. I was hoping that the atrocious results in Iraq would put that kind of thinking in the grave for at least a few years, but apparently not.

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Some of you may have wondered why I haven’t put any posts up here in a while. The short reason is that my personal life has exploded in several dozen directions. The long reason has to do with the personal, the political and the etiquette of guest blogging.

I could tell plenty of stories about feminist issues. My brush with the fear of rape that my nominal male privilege has thus far protected me from. Being centre stage at a slut-shaming. How violently irritating it is to hear racist or classist jerks talking about poor (mainly black) women “squirting out babies”. The way people who would unhesitatingly class themselves as pro-woman slip almost without realising it into treating a pregnant woman as a walking incubator. And, as of last night, how it feels when your ex-boyfriend seems to have taken a deep draught from the fountain of Men’s Rights idiocy.

I could tell all these stories, but I don’t know if I could make them about anything more than “this happened to me, and it sucks”. I used to pride myself on being able to turn my personal experiences into essays about more universal truths, but these stories are too new, too raw for me to manage that. And I want to have something to say: I don’t want to turn Amp’s excellent blog into a forum for my woes.

So I’m trying to work out whether my experiences, written out as calmly as I can manage, are something worth saying. If they’re not, I’ll have to go on hiatus until my life is sufficiently stable that I can relate my experiences to a coherent philosophical outlook; if they are, I’ll gladly stay and share them.

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This post was removed by request of the author.

As Kim (basement variety)’s pregnancy goes on, napping has become a more important part of Kim’s daily life - and naps have always been part of Sydney’s agenda. (Sydney’s sister will arrive in less than two weeks, by the way - very exciting!)

As a bonus, here’s a cute shot of Sydney snapped by her dad (or maybe by Kim, I’m not sure) at a wedding we attended this past Saturday.

Damn, but she’s a pretty child. Doesn’t stop her from wrecking havoc in her secret identity as destructo-girl, though.

From a much-criticized New York Times article:

[A female Yale student] added that she did not think it was a problem that women usually do most of the work raising kids.

“I accept things how they are,” she said. “I don’t mind the status quo. I don’t see why I have to go against it.”

That same student, in Mediabistro, is clearly unhappy with how the Times quoted her.

The things I told her about fighting against stereotypes that people had of me as an immigrant, and how I overcame obstacles to get where I am today never appeared in the article, and what did in fact appear is a quote about “status quo” that I do not mean in that context.[...]

It saddens me that I am portrayed as an insensitive and unambitious person in the article, and really did not know that Louise was only going to quote those of us who wanted to stay at home if/when we had kids. She in fact did interview my other suitemates who answered the survey as either not wanting to have children at all, or would continue working as a mother. I am somewhat shocked that she did not include ANY of their ideas or views in the article.

The student’s full response can be read at the Mediabistro link. It certainly lends credence to the impression many of us had reading the article - that the reporter, Louise Story, had already drawn her conclusions before doing research.

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My desktop is getting cluttered with links that I won’t have time to blog about….

Heidi at Letters of Marque on What Women Want: “In short, what this particular woman wants is a wife. And I resent (in a vague sort of way) the fact that socially and actually, it’s harder for me to get a wife than it is for a man to do so.”

Hilzoy does a terrific job refuting claims that the Violence Against Women Act is pork spending. (Sheesh!)

And also at Obsidian Wings, Edward points out that the US - in its immigration law - does expect married couples to actually share romance and affection. This conflicts with the claims of anti-same-sex-marriage folks who, ridiculously, have claimed that there is no connection between romantic love and marriage at all.

Kieran at Crooked Timber presents some data on wives and/or mothers in the workforce

From an essay on gender and Katrina in the Chicago Tribune: “And yet there is another equally important and starkly apparent social dimension to the hurricane disaster that media coverage has put in front of our eyes but that has yet to be “noticed”: This disaster fell hard on one side of the gender line too. Most of the survivors are women. Women with children, women on their own, elderly women in wheelchairs, women everywhere–by a proportion of what looks to be again somewhere around 75 or 80 percent.” I’d like to see more on this; I’m not sure if this writer is working from solid data or subjective impressions.

Some more ignored victims of Katrina, via Professor Kim: Latino immigrants, American Indians, and prisoners.

Anti-Feminist watch: Cathy Young, in my opinion the most intelligent anti-feminist journalist out there, has a blog.

Lucinda Marshall says it wasn’t just hysteria; women probably were were raped in Katrina disaster areas. Read her article, and her interview with Judy Benitez of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault. “Some have suggested that since there are not yet official reports of rapes in the Superdome or elsewhere during the hurricane aftermath, then clearly it is just so much histrionic rumor. The idea that because something cannot be measured, it does not exist is ridiculous.”

You know, I can forgive Yahoo and Google and Microsoft cooperating with China’s censorship program - I’d rather folks in China have censored access than no access. Plus, these folks would have faced censorship regardless of what US corporations do. But now Yahoo has cooperated with China police to throw a journalist in jail for ten years. There are some compromises that no one should be willing to make for money or access; Yahoo has now made it clear that had they existed in Nazi Germany, they would have been eagerly leading the SS to hidden Jews if there was a buck for them in it. They’ve moved far beyond disgusting. Hat tip to Tennessee Guerrilla Women, who links to a WaPo editorial on the subject.

Also at Guerrilla Women, Congressman Stacey Campfield - who is white - wants to join the Black Congressional Caucus. “The East Tennessee Republican says that when he was told that he could not join the Black Caucus because he is white, he thought, ‘What? Whoa!’” There are also quotes from some of Campfield’s semi-literate emails; he sounds like a generic right-wing troll, but he’s really a GOP congressman!

And once again at Tennessee Guerrilla Women, a new British study suggests that men die sooner in more patriarchal societies than in more egalitarian societies.

Las Vegas Weekly has a story about the UFCW union hiring underpaid, no-benefit workers to picket Wal-Mart. The story writer obviously has an anti-Union bias, but unless she’s outright lying then she has a point. Unions of all people have no excuse for mistreating workers.

You know, I somehow missed linking to the genuinely ridiculous Focus on the Family “Is Your Child Becoming Homosexual?” piece last month, which many bloggers made fun of, including Balloon Juice. If you want a good laugh combined with an undercurrent of dread about how genuinely warped by hate these so-called “Christians” are, give it a look. (Focus on the Family, perhaps in response to the widespread mocking, has seemingly taken the original page down).

Bush has given the Saudis a pass on their participation in international sex slave trading. Ecuador and Kuwait were given free passes, too. As Mark Kleiman comments, what’s a little slave trading among friends?

Scott at Lawyers Guns and Money has a good post pointing out the obvious: despite their claims that they’re concerned with “activist judges” and the like, when it comes to opposing queer couple’s interests, anti-SSM folks are concerned with substance rather than process.

Ann Althouse has an excellent post defending the use of foreign court opinions by American judges.

“The incidence of teen gonorrhea in the United States is 70 times that in the Netherlands and France.” Well, thank goodness for abstinence-only education! (Via Majikthise).

There’s a lot of talk about ending teen pregnancy (although by “teen pregnancy” most people really mean unwed teen pregnancy). Many people worry about unwed teen pregnancy as the cause of poverty, especially of Black poverty (something like 70% of current births among African-Americans are to single mothers). And they talk about teen pregnancy as if it were a pathology.

I think the pathology model is mistaken. Poverty is a cause of high teen pregnancy rates, rather than vice-versa. And poor black teens aren’t pathological; they’re rational actors, who make the best choice they can given the opportunities they have. When high rates of some population - in this case, poor girls and especially poor Blacks - get pregnant, then chances are getting pregnant is a good choice for their circumstances. If we want less pregnancy among poor black teens, then we need to reorder society so that poor black teens face a better set of circumstances.

Why is unwed teen pregnancy a rational choice?

1) For teens raised in poor (and statistically more likely to be polluted) areas, with lousy food and lousy medical care, their health will probably peak at around ages 17-19. That makes the teenage years a much better time to give birth than later years. Among poor black girls and women, the infant mortality rate is twice as high among those who wait until their 20s to give birth as it is for those who give birth in their teens.

2) For those who will be relying on an extended family of older female relatives to help with childcare and support, it makes sense to give birth when mothers, aunts and older cousins are younger and more able to offer assistance. Furthermore, grandmothers may feel more obligated to offer extensive aid to their 16-year-old pregnant daughter than to their 26-year-old pregnant daughter.

3) For middle-class whites, the opportunity costs (aka “what you give up”) of early childbirth are enormous; college and early career-building are made much harder by a baby or two in tow. Furthermore, the odds of eventually getting married and having a healthy child in wedlock are very good for middle-class teens who wait until they’re women to marry and have children.

For poor teens of color, in contrast, the opportunity costs of early childbirth are much lower. Poor teens can see that their odds of affording a good college followed by a high-paying, high-status career are low. And for poor black girls, the odds of finding someone suitable to marry during peak childbearing years - or even during their 20s - are much lower. So overall, poor girls of color have much less reason to delay childbearing.

Studies have shown that, for poor women of color, economic outcomes aren’t much different for girls who wait to become mothers in their 20s than they are for girls who become mothers in their teens. One study I read (which I’ve seen referred to by Arline Geronimus, but not by others) compared sisters who became mothers at different times in their lives, for example, and found that the future income was about the same regardless of the time of first birth.

At this point, therefore, it’s no wonder that so many poor teens see no reason to put off motherhood. Rationally, they’re as well off - or better off - becoming a mother in their teens.

If we want to change teen pregnancy, we need to change the circumstances of poor girls’ lives - and especially the lives of poor black girls - until their most rational choice is to put motherhood off until they’re in their mid-twenties and married. Circumstances that need changing include, but aren’t limited to:

1) The provision of easy-access, super-cheap universal health care. The model should be France’s, where anyone can walk into any general practitioner’s office and make an appointment without having to navigate any bureaucracies or pay out of pocket.

2) Middle-class, attractive jobs need to become widely available for poor folks.

3) There need to be far, far fewer black men of marriageable age in jail and prison.

4) Detriments to health that are especially common in areas where poor folks live - things like lead paint, poor quality food, pollution, etc - need to be effectively mitigated or eliminated.

5) College education and attractive career paths after college need to become likely possibilities for poor girls - even for those who are mediocre scholars. Just as such paths are now available for middle-class and wealthy boys even if they’re mediocre scholars.

6) Much, much more serious work fighting the racism and sexism that (among many other causes) holds back women of color. Affirmative action programs should be returned to their strong forms, which haven’t existed since before the Reagan administration.

I used to wonder if I was the only liberal who thought this way. Then, a few days ago, I came across a reference to Arline Geronimus on a feminist econ list I read. She’s done a lot of research on rational choice and teen pregnancy; much of this post is drawn from her work.

Dear Democrats,

You have taken me for granted for far too long. You’ve assumed that, because I’m a liberal leftist, there’s no way I’m going to vote for a Republican, and, by default, you can count on my vote. Well, guess what? I’m asking for a trial separation, and quite frankly, if you don’t get your shit together now, I’m going to be filing for divorce.

You’ve made the mistake of thinking that because there’s no one new in my life that I’m not going to leave. You forget that sometimes, people leave marriages even if they don’t have a brighter prospect on the horizon. Sometimes, they leave a marriage in order to save their own lives, souls, mental health. Consider me one of those people.[...]

All I ever seem to get from you is empty promises. That, and asking me if I have a few bucks in my wallet to cover you until payday. I give you the money and you go out and buy yourself clothes, shoes, and a car that make you look just like the other guy. If I wanted to be married to the other guy, well, shit, I’da married him. But I married you. You, who wooed me with your commitment to human rights, the dignity of all persons, and a burning desire for justice that set my heart on fire. Now, all I ever hear from you is, “Not tonight, honey. If we do it now, it’ll make us look like obstructionists. Or, the neighbors down the street might disapprove.” What happened to my brave spouse?

(Link via Media Girl).

I admire this letter, really I do. I want to be able to leave this relationship. I want not to be taken for granted.

But I’ve gone to bed with that cool rebel in his shapeless black suit and his snarling passion and his engorged movement. God he was good. He batted his eyes and then took me places I’ve never been before - like seeing a presidential candidate make a speech in which he full-on supported my issues (gay marriage and all!). It made me tingle, I swear, down to my toes; I had never been so fulfilled by a politician before. I swooned, I panted, I screamed until my throat was horse, I surged with enthusiasm.

And I began to think: Shouldn’t I be able to feel tingly like this all the time? Why haven’t Democrats ever made me feel that good?

I volunteered with a rebel Democrat, “Red Bev,” with her seductive socialist background and her come-hither “change from within” looks. She was running for Governor, and her policy stands were built like a brick shithouse, I’m tellin’ ya. We’d meet at her campaign office, and I grew so attached that I even met her in out-of-town hotels - it was like a whole campaign! And all along, she was telling me: this is working, we’re gonna win, keep at it, work harder, Amp, harder!

She lost. Lost, lost, lost. She was never even close - and she knew it all the time, she was just stringing me along. And the cool dude in the shapeless suit who said he was starting a movement? I never heard from him again until four years later, when he came panting around, still sounding the same, wanting to act as if I could forget all about what had happened four years earlier. The long-term movement I thought I was in love with had its way with me and then disappeared like it had never existed at all.

Say what you will about mainstream Democrats, at least they don’t break my heart.

Then Kerry came around, with his puffy hair and athletic build, and I knew he was playing me. “I’m electable,” he crooned into my ear; “do you want to be a sell-out winner or a purist loser?” He slid his hand down gently below my waistline, towards my warm spread wallet. I stared at the ceiling and thought of funding for the UN Population Fund.

Of course, that smooth talker had lied to me. Turns out the choice was between being pure and losing, and being a sell-out and still losing.

Anyhow, maybe I should be celibate for a while, too.

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This post was removed by request of the author.

From today’s New York Times:

There’s nothing like a touch of real-world experience to inject some reason into the inflammatory national debate over gay marriages. Take Massachusetts, where the state’s highest court held in late 2003 that under the State Constitution, same-sex couples have a right to marry. The State Legislature moved to undo that decision last year by approving a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and create civil unions as an alternative. But this year, when precisely the same measure came up for a required second vote, it was defeated by a thumping margin of 157 to 39.

The main reason for the flip-flop is that some 6,600 same-sex couples have married over the past year with nary a sign of adverse effects. The sanctity of heterosexual marriages has not been destroyed. Public morals have not gone into a tailspin. Legislators who supported gay marriage in last year’s vote have been re-elected. Gay couples, many of whom had been living together monogamously for years, have rejoiced at official recognition of their commitment.

As a Republican leader explained in justifying his vote switch: “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” A Democrat attributed his change of heart to the beneficial effects he saw “when I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples.”

The anti-marriage equality people aren’t done in Massachusetts yet, of course; they have a new ballot measure to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions, which the voters will get to consider in 2008. But a March 2005 Boston Globe poll found that 56% of Massachusetts voters favor same-sex marriage, and that percentage will only increase over the next three years. I expect that the numbers that favor civil unions, which the ballot measure will also ban, are even higher. Unless equality advocates in Massachusetts totally mess things up, I don’t see how they can lose in 2008.

The anti-equality line in Massachusetts has now been defeated in both the courtrooms and in the legislature. When it gets defeated in a voter ballot in 2008, what new excuse will equality opponents find to refuse to acknowledge legitimate government actions?

I was particularly struck by the Republican the Times quoted, who said “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” Damn straight. The odd thing about the fight for marriage equality is that, in and of itself, it won’t change very much.

Don’t get me wrong - for those lesbian and gay couples who want to get married, it’ll be a huge difference, and I’m outraged at the injustice done to same-sex couples unfairly barred from equality.

Nonetheless, marriage equality is not a radical change, in and of itself. Marriage equality is just the latest step of two long-existing trends.

One trend is the increasing gender neutrality of marriage; although there’s still a long ways to go, the “separate spheres” that once defined marriage have become overlapping spheres. Although stay at home dads are still a small minority, their numbers are increasing, and the idea no longer seems outlandish. The number of households in which both mom and dad contribute to the homemaking and the breadwinning has increased to the point that it’s probably the norm (although most mothers still do an unfairly large share of the shared labor).

There have been a number of laws that have changed as this trend towards greater sex equality has continued. Wives can now own property independently, have the right to refuse sex with their husbands, and women in general have many more protections from discrimination in the marketplace and workforce.

As marriage becomes less and less about “wives and husbands fulfill two strictly-bounded separate roles,” the rule that only women may marry men and vice-versa has lost its basis in our society.

The second trend, of course, is the increasing acceptance of sexual minorities as equal human beings and equal citizens. The increasing acceptance of queer equality has been going on since the Stonewall riot, at least, and marriage equality is just the latest phase of this long-term movement.

Both sex equality and queer rights are important long-term movements in our society - and both of them, over the last several generations, are radical changes. Same-sex marriage, however, is just one more effect of these larger social movements. Gay marriage isn’t a radical step; it’s just the next step.

• I’m thinking that “gender-neutral marriage” may be the best term to use, better than either “marriage equality” or “same-sex marriage.” By “best,” I mean “most accurately describing what it is I advocate.” No matter what, the media is going to continue to call it “gay marriage,” of course.
• I’ve wasted far too much time in the last few days debating in the comments section of Family Scholars, particularly in this thread. There is absolutely no chance that I’ll change the mind of folks like Jose, On Lawn, and the other homophobes who hang out in the Family Scholar comment section. But I still get drawn into these arguments. I tell myself that I’m doing it in case any fence-sitting lurkers read the thread, or to help develop good arguments that can be used by me or other gender-neutral marriage advocates at a later date. But really, I’m probably just addicted to argumentation.

  Anyhow, the thread is interesting for showing how many GNM (gender neutral marriage) opponents are opposed to the very concept of “homophobia”; peel their rationalizations away, and it’s clear that they’re real agenda is to erase the concept of “prejudice against homosexuals” from the language. It’s loathesome.

  (There’s also one interesting post about the origins of the word “sexism” buried in there - it’s post number 83. If I do say so myself).

• Good article in The New Republic about the struggle for GNM in California. The writer, E. J. Graff, feels very confident about the future, and I somewhat-mostly agree.

So Bean was blowing bubbles at Sydney…

Read the rest of this entry »

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A frightening ‘first’ has been acknowledged in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research Educational Trust. It seems that for the first time in United States history, the cost of health insurance for a family of four now exceeds the yearly income of a minimum wage earner.

The LA Times has reported on this survey, that gives the amount of $10,880.00 as the cost for insuring a family of four, whereas the income for a minimum wage earner is $10,712.00. Tragically, this rise in costs of premiums has also seen a dramatic downward shift in the amount of businesses offering health insurance plans to their employee’s, which helps illuminate why it is that we are seeing so many people dropping off the insured statistic grid in the United States.

“When we consider that it is small business that drives the economy … to have that engine resting on the backs of millions of uninsured workers is a bad proposition for the U.S. economy,” said Peter Lee, president of the San Francisco-based Pacific Business Group on Health, an alliance of employers that buys insurance for big companies.

“This has to be seen as a wake-up call to policymakers and healthcare providers, as it puts an increasing burden on an already frayed safety net.”

Interestingly enough, most people would like to point the finger at litigation as the primary reason for this, but more information is emerging that shows the symbiosis between insurance companies and health care providers is causing a huge portion of the inflated costs. What are often referred to as ‘usual and customary costs’ paid to health care providers by insurance companies are at this point far less than the amount charged for the services, and it is being speculated that medical providers are in turn trying to make up the difference by ordering unnecessary tests, or office visits.

Regardless, the tag line of the reporting article rang menacingly true to me:

“We’re in a new universe of healthcare coverage, where it is a commodity only for the wealthy,” said Jerry Flanagan, with the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica consumer rights group.