Out and Back

Revolutionary spirits...

Now that I'm a crazed road warrior, I get most of my news from USA Today -- either the online version or the print edition left outside my hotel room door. This afternoon, while unwinding from a long day, I came across this interesting article. Rev. Gary Kowalski, a Unitarian Universalist minister, has written a fascinating-looking book called Revolutionary Spirit: The Enlightened Faiths of America's Founding Fathers. In the book, Kowalski takes on the obnoxious myth that our nation's founders were Christians and that our country was founded on (big air quotes here) "Christian values." From the article:

Instead, [Kowalski] depicts them as curious, strong-spirited, scientifically-minded men who were determined to keep religion out of government.

"I wanted to set the record straight," said Kowalski, 54, senior minister at the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Burlington, Vt. "I really felt that their legacy had been misappropriated by the religious right."

Before he could educate the public, Kowalski had to educate himself.

He first became interested in the early Americans' spiritual beliefs as an undergraduate at Harvard. In 2003, Kowalski could no longer tolerate what he saw as an influx of historical inaccuracy, and set about researching the true spiritual nature of the historical icons.

As an unwilling resident of South Carolina, which is rife with wingnuts who actually believe we're a Christian country, this article definitely piqued my interest. (If you think I'm lying about the wingnuts, here's some food for thought: the county where I live went for Huckabee in the Republican primary on January 19. Barf.) I'm looking forward to reading the book; I cannot tell you how many times I have read remarks on the editorial pages of the newspapers around here lamenting the fact that the "Christian" values our country was supposedly found upon have gone down the tubes. Good grief. When I finish Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, I'm definitely picking up Kowalski's book.

Gone too soon...

I got home from work this afternoon and checked out Perez Hilton (one of my guilty internet pleasures) and was very shocked to see the news that actor Heath Ledger had passed away. He was just 28 years old.

While I'll admit to enjoying the occasional supermarket tabloid and to checking out Perez Hilton regularly to chuckle at the latest celebrity gossip, I also profess a great love for movies and the actors and actresses that help bring them to life. And that love is sincere and reverent and, I think, transcends the baser instinct that drives me to read about Britney Spears' latest antics and shake my head in disbelief.

Like a lot of people, I first saw Heath Ledger in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern update of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. He played the Petruchio character (Patrick) opposite Julia Stiles' Katerina (Kat in the film.) It was a movie squarely aimed at teenagers, but it was more intelligent than most. I liked it so well that I actually bought a copy when it was released on video. It was funny, cute, and smart, and the two leads definitely left an impression on me. I still giggle at Patrick's impromptu serenade -- singing "You're Just Too Good To Be True (Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You)" to Kat from the bleachers during soccer practice.

Of course, most people (myself included) would argue that Ledger's greatest success came with his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. It's still difficult for me to find adequate words to explain the emotional impact that movie had on me in general, let alone to describe how deeply I was moved by Ledger's performance (and that of his co-star, Jake Gyllenhaal.) All I can do is tell you to rent that movie and watch it -- of all the films Heath Ledger made, I think it's the one that shows most clearly what a powerful and gifted artist he was. It's hard to describe such talent in the past tense.   

The culture of victim-blaming is alive and well

Stepping out from behind my semi-anonymous blogging persona for a moment, I was dismayed (but not altogether surprised) to read a report in one of the local papers about a sexual assault on the Clemson University campus. (My husband is a grad student at Clemson and we live nearby.)

The story reads, in part:

Clemson University police advised students Friday to walk in groups of threes and fours after sunset after a student reported that she was sexually assaulted by two men in a campus parking lot on Perimeter Road early Friday morning.

The student, 18, was exiting her car when one of the men grabbed her from behind and sexually attacked her in Parking lot R-1 about 1:30 a.m., Clemson Police Chief Johnson Link said. She said she was then forced to the ground and attacked by a second man, he said.

She had been waiting in the parking lot for campus escort assistance, Link said. The campus escort is a service offered through the university Police Department that provides an escort for students going across the campus at night.

The student notified Clemson educators several hours later, Link said.

Like a lot of newspapers, the online edition of the Greenville News has a "story chat" feature that allows readers to post their reactions, comments, and thoughts about the various articles, opinion pieces, etc. It makes for entertaining reading a lot of the time, but sometimes the comments that get left are just upsetting. In the case of this article, someone named sillyhunter posted the following (emphases mine):

This story has some questions................Why was this child out in a parking lot this late? Why wait to report a rape later the next morning.....Had enough time to decide if it was a rape or not?? And if she doesn't know about safety in this day and age maybe college is not for her. Sounds like she still needs to be under the watchful eye of a responsible adult. Maybe went to a frat party and had one drink to many and got just a little too loose and had party regrets the next morning??????It's always somebody else's fault never the victim. The difference between a stupid victim and smart person is that one is the victim.

I just about upchucked when I read that comment. I posted my own response (I use the handle "coneydog" when posting to the forums on the Greenville News website) and was heartened to see that someone else posted a response basically telling sillyhunter to shut up.

Yes, dear ones, the culture of victim blaming is alive and well in South Carolina. I guess I'm not surprised, considering how much misogyny still pervades society down here. Any locals who come across this post are probably going to tell me to go the fuck home, Yankee, but I'm not backing down on this one. Rape is an underreported crime, and despite the notoriety of the Duke lacrosse rape case (in which the charges were eventually dropped because the alleged victim kept changing her story and there was no physical evidence linking her to the three players she accused) the number of truly false reports of rape remains quite low. (One reference I found suggested as low as 2% of all reported rapes in the U.S. are false.) And for every rape that is reported, how many go unreported because the victim is ashamed, afraid, or forcibly silenced?

Ladies, it doesn't matter how much you had to drink, what you were wearing, how well you knew the guy, or what you may or may not have done with him in the past. If you didn't want to have sex with him and he went ahead and fucked you anyway, he raped you. It doesn't matter if you fought back or not or if you told him to stop or not, because silence does not equal consent. And to the young woman at Clemson, I hope they catch the pigs that did this to you. For every insensitive creep that calls you "loose" and accuses you of having "party regrets," there are many more of us who care about you and support you without ever having met you. Remember that.

Congratulations, Al Gore

Finally, Al has won something that George W. Bush and the Supreme Court can't steal from him -- I couldn't be more pleased for him and for the cause of advancing awareness of climate change.

I can't believe I live here

I read the local newspapers online so I can keep up with what's going on at "home."  This evening, while perusing the Anderson Independent Mail, I came across this story:

ANDERSON COUNTY — Two disputes over the proper way to prepare a customer’s meal led to fingers in the face and bodies on the floor at an Anderson County Burger King.

Both incidents needed intervention by Anderson County Sheriff’s deputies at the fast-foot restaurant in the 300 block of S.C. 28 Bypass.

According to the incident reports:

The first 911 call was received at 3:53 p.m. Tuesday.

The second call was received about 40 minutes later.

In the first dispute, two 16-year-old girls, suffering scratches to their necks and faces, threw punches after arguing over the proper way to prepare a chicken sandwich.

No arrests were made.

But minutes later, another employee went to jail.

The second fight, including fingers in the face and two women on the floor, broke out about 4:30 p.m. when one 17-year-old female employee confronted another teenage girl, accusing the 17-year-old of not doing anything to stop the first dispute.

Shamika Smith of Anderson, who reportedly scratched Amanda Green, was charged with assault and battery and taken to the Anderson County Detention Center.

Sigh. Nothing like a girlfight at Burger King making the local paper to make one realize what is really important in life.

Sic 'em, Tisbe!

This walking slag-heap (who lives in nearby Georgia) thought it would be nice to feed live cats and kittens to his pit bulls.  What an utterly pathetic excuse for a human being.  I'll bet you a million bucks he's one of those good ol' boy types who didn't neuter his dogs, either... afraid it would take away their manhood or some such bullshit.

Too bad he never met my cat, Tisbe. She'd have taken his face off.  If the judge who sentences him is looking for a creative punishment, I'd be happy to loan Tisbe to the cause.

I'm well aware of the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans.  Men who abuse animals frequently also abuse women and children, and I think the punishments for these kinds of offenders should take that fact into account.

Get him, Tisbe!

I'm double-blogging!

I've been posting here at Out and Back since May of 2005, and have every intention of continuing.  However, over the past few months, I've found that I've become quite the wizard when it comes to successfully navigating the frequently-choppy waters of business travel.  I decided to share my wisdom, and I felt the best forum for doing that would be on a new blog. To that end, I am proud to announce the launch of Prescription Suitcase: The Cure for your Travel Headaches.

Check it out, if you're so inclined.  It's just getting started, so I don't have a lot up at the moment and I am still trying to work out how it will be structured, how frequently I will post, etc.  I also don't plan to be too blatant about the fact that Prescription Suitcase and Out and Back are written by the same person, so you'll notice that PS doesn't link to OaB, nor the other way 'round.  But if you bother to check out what's happening here at OaB, I figured you deserved to hear about PS, too.  Come on over and sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Seven years (and no itch!)

Just a short post to wish my husband a happy 7th anniversary.  We've been married for seven years today (and no itching to speak of, at least none that a little hydrocortisone cream can't cure.)

Love you, honey!

Excuse me while I throw things...

I was dismayed yesterday to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the plaintiff (and the EEOC, I might add) in this case.  Here's the gist: according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employees who experience discrimination in the work place are required to file suit within 180 days.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued over the years that "each paycheck that reflects the initial discrimination is itself a discriminatory act that resets the clock on the 180-day period[.]"  Today, the Supreme Court effectively told the EEOC to stick that interpretation where the sun don't shine.  So now employees can't sue for pay discrimination more than 180 days after the discrimination allegedly occurred... which means that employers are going to get away with continuing to pay women and minorities less than their white male counterparts and employees who are experiencing discrimination will have an even harder time getting their cases heard.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened a can of dissenting whoop-ass today, though, reading her dissenting opinion from the bench, which doesn't happen very often.  According to the New York Times article:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small, Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay."

Rock on, Justice Ginsburg.  And props to Justices Souter, Stephens, and Breyer for not having their heads up their asses.

In April, the American Association of University Women released the findings of a study it conducted over the course of several years about the pay gap.  Their findings?  The pay gap is real and it gets worse for women the longer they are in the work force.  You can read more about it here.  Then write to your elected officials and tell them to get off their butts and support the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act.

Pot, have you met Kettle?

Get this: Newt Gingrich admits that he was screwing around on his wife at the same time he was going after Clinton over the whole Monica Lewinsky thing.

But he's not a hypocrite, no... because he didn't lie to a judge about it.

Flimsy excuse if you ask me.... if he'd had to testify about his own affair, you can bet the bastard would have perjured himself.  What kind of red-blooded male will actually admit that he's cheating on his wife?  And even if ol' Newtie didn't lie to a judge, he sure as hell lied to his wife at the time. 

I'm not the only who feels this way.... check out this little ditty by Eric Schwartz.  (It's not about Newt, directly, but it does draw a lovely comparison between Clinton and Bush.)