To Filibuster or Not to Filibuster?

Today is the day when a filibuster will either happen or not. And I still have major reservations about it. It’s most likely going to be ineffective - Alito will still be confirmed - and will probably result in a lot of ugliness in Congress. And it will be used as a campaign tactic in November and in 2008.

But then there’s the real need for progressives to stand up for what we believe. For too long, we’ve allowed conservatives to frame the debate - “values voters,” “tax relief,” and “up or down vote,” are all good examples. If progressives are going to filibuster Alito - we need to give the American people a good reason, one that will stick in an election. We can’t just go tilting at windmills if we don’t have a good political framework in place to explain to the American people why we’re doing so.

And that’s ultimately why I think that a filibuster is ill-advised. Because we don’t have the framework in place to explain it to the people, and the other side does. So our actions will be explained in their terms, and it will make the ensuing “nuclear option” look like our fault. It will also make John Kerry look like the ill-informed pompous ass that he is and that’s bad if he somehow gets the nomination once again in 2008.

I still say we should admit defeat and refocus. But I’ll support my Senators if their consciences dictate that a filibuster is necessary.

UPDATE 2:16pm PST - Ill-advised or not, it looks like Alito has enough support to override a filibuster if one should take place. I’m not happy about this nominee to be sure, but I hope that these numbers will at least convince the Democrats still in the filibuster camp that it’s not worth the political sacrifice.

UPDATE 4:01pm PST The fight is over. Alito will be confirmed tomorrow. Here is a list of Senators and how they voted. From Washington, Senator Cantwell voted to end debate while Senator Murray supported the filibuster. Hmm….

UPDATE 4:05pm PST Incidentally, I have called both of my Senators to encourage them to oppose Judge Alito’s confirmation to the high court. I encourage all of you to do the same. You can find your Senator’s contact information here.

How I Became an Athlete

I’ve never thought of myself as athletic. As a child my preference was always for sports like gymnastics, ice skating and ballet. These were solitary activities that required grace and rhythm rather than a ball. They were perfect for me, as I loved music, wasn’t at all socially adept, and had a better sense of movement than hand-eye coordination. Sports that didn’t require me to interact with anyone else or throw anything were optimal.

Unfortunately, my father wanted me to play team sports like basketball or soccer because he thought I ought to learn teamwork, and he got his way. But these were games for which I had no aptitude and even less interest. What’s more, my teammates teased me mercilessly for my lack of ability, and I had no social skills with which to form clever retorts. The result of all this was that I was miserable at sports and loathe to exercise as a youth. Thankfully, I was blessed with a metabolism that kept my weight in line with what our society considers attractive - and so I was spared many of the struggles that adolescent girls experience as their bodies mature.

My desire to exercise changed radically when I got to college. Without my father deciding the sports I would play, I had the latitude to do what I had always preferred. For years, running became my favorite form of exercise. I was running 10 miles a day and preparing to try out for Pomona’s track team - a team sport at last - when I was in a car accident. The back injury I sustained made long distance running impossible.

That’s when I discovered rock climbing. My fiancé got me into it, and at first I was terrified. The height, the ropes and the possibility of dying weighed on me. But gradually, as my natural skill for the sport became evident, I found myself thinking of little else. It is two years later and I still can say that I climb at least twice a week. And it was with climbing in mind that I signed up for a membership at 24 Hour Fitness last week.

In the past, gym memberships meant little more to me expensive obligations. To have a membership used to mean that I must either attend the gym or feel terribly guilty and fat every month when I paid the bill for something I never used. Now I see this membership as a way to cross-train for climbing. Access to the treadmills and PreCors is nice, but I really joined for the yoga and kickboxing classes - which I hope will increase my speed, stamina, flexibility and finesse on the wall.

The downside to the gym is that you can’t take two steps without running into a poster or pamphlet about weight loss. And while I’m not anywhere near fat, I’m also not as thin as the images on these pamphlets seem to suggest I should be. This threatens to take my focus off of being a strong athlete and put it right back on my “shortcomings.” In adulthood, lack of hand-eye coordination and social graces has been replaced by a lack of will to look like society says I should.

But neither of these things are - or ever were - shortcomings. They simply predispose me to a certain kind of sport. And isn’t that what being an individual, and an athlete, is all about?

Queer in Washington Just Got Easier

I’m very proud to be a Washingtonian at the moment, and even prouder to be a citizen of the great city of Kirkland - whose Republican Senator Bill Finkbeiner was the key swing vote in the 25-23 decision to extend the Washington Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Governor Gregoire has said that she’ll sign the bill into law.

The Seattle PI reports that local crackpot anti-gay crusader Rev. Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond will work with other homophobes to overturn the bill in a statewide referendum.

We have to make sure that victory doesn’t make us complacent. The other side is great at eliciting that gut level anti-gay reaction from a lot of people, and that could make the referendum successful unless we work hard to energize our own base to defeat it. Only time will tell if Washington has the requisite maturity to make this law stick. But for now, it’s a great time to be queer in the state of Washington.

Match Point is a Must See

I went tonight with my friend Tony to see Woody Allen’s new film Match Point. The film was incredibly well done.

Periodically, I like going to films without knowing anything about the plot to start off with, and this was a great candidate for that sort of thing. All I knew in advance was that it was written and directed by Allen, starred Scarlett Johansson, and was marvelous. Read no further if that’s all you want to know going into the film - a situation which I highly recommend.

What I liked most about the film is that it told a terrible, tragic story without being sad - that and Johansson’s lips, whose magnificence nicely compliment her flawless performance. But despite the fine performances by the entire cast, the real kudos go to the director. Woody Allen’s great talent lies in his ability to keep any situation - no matter how grim - from being bogged down in its own propensity for misery. He finds the humor in everything, even double homicide.

Go for the Gold, Michelle!

I don’t think there’s a skating fan in the world that doesn’t adore Michelle Kwan. The woman skates like she was born on the ice, like her body was hand built with the passion and grace that the rest of the universe has discarded all too freely.

I’m very happy that she’ll be competing in Turin. I hope that she skates like we all know she can.

True to Form, John Kerry Picks Worst Possible Moment to Act Like a Visionary

Have you ever heard of a politician whose timing and instincts were so clearly off about everything as John Kerry, who today announced that he and Senator Kennedy would attempt to mount a filibuster against all-but-confirmed SCOTUS nominee Sam Alito.

I’ll admit that I get a little flutter in my heart every time someone says “defeat” and “Alito” in the same sentence. It would be so brilliant if we could get together the votes to keep that guy off the Supreme Court. But the fact is, he’s qualified and ideology is not a justification for a filibuster.

The filibuster idea is getting a cool response on Capitol Hill and I called my Senators to urge them to vote against his confirmation, but not to filibuster. This is a battle we have lost.

Hamas?!?!?!?

Oh. Good. Lord. What have the Palestinians gone and done now? Electing Hamas as the ruling party in their parliamentary elections was a really dumbass move. Hamas appears to have won majority control of the Palestinian Authority and may wind up choosing a new prime minister. Members of the ruling Fatah party have already handed in their resignations, giving serious credibility to Hamas’ claims at victory.

This is a disaster of epic proportions. It seems like every time Israel and Palestine get anywhere near close to solving their problems, they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Ariel Sharon having a stroke, followed by this clusterfuck, is so depressing it makes me want to throw up.

Frizzen Sparks has a really good point when he writes that if there are any future terrorist attacks on Israel, that Israel will have every reason to retaliate with full force directly against the Palestinian government. This takes all the muscle out of the phrase, “the terrorists are not the people,” since the terrorists have now been democratically elected to represent the people.

I used to think that this whole Palestinian state/elections process was a good idea, that the presence of democracy would wipe out the terrorist ideology. But then again, I used to think giving everyone the right to vote in the United States was a good idea too, and we went and elected a pack of terrorists ourselves, so where does that get us?

I’m so disillusioned with everything right now. I was unbelievably naive to think that peace in the Middle East was even remotely possible during my lifetime.

Wow, I’m More Conservative than I Thought I Was

I’m a periodic viewer of ABC’s Boston Legal which is a hilarious show about a quirky Boson law firm created by - you guessed it! - David E. Kelly. In many ways, I find the show to be a clever recycling of all the elements that made Kelly’s previous show about a quirky Boston law firm, Ally McBeal successful. But Boston Legal works better than McBeal because it’s got a better cast, including Star Trek alums William Shatner and Rene Auberjonois.

Anyway - on last night’s episode they were trying a wrongful death case against an HMO. The plaintiff was a young woman whose abusive father had murdered her mother - who had been living at a secret battered women’s shelter - after he used her social security number to access her explanation of benefits on the HMO’s website.

It was a very sad story in which the HMO was cast as a villain for failing to protect their clients’ private information, despite the fact that their privacy measures were compliant with all Federal, State and industry requirements. And in the end, the jury awarded the plaintiff an insane amount of money and everyone left happy except for the big evil HMO.

The problem is, that case never would have gone that way in a real court. The HMO complied with all the laws protecting privacy, yet the plaintiff’s lawyer tried the case on the issue of privacy. Protection of privacy isnt an issue for the courts, it’s an issue for the legislatures. If they want to raise the burden of Internet security on companies, then they should enact stricter requirements. Courts can’t make new laws or require stricter standards, they can only enforce the existing ones. That’s what the separation of powers is all about.

The Right to Choose: The Barn Door has Closed

Predictably, CNN predicts “smooth sailing” for Alito past the judiciary committee. Despite all his talk about the right to privacy, committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) will vote to recommend the nominee to the floor.

The Democrats are still trying to fight this nomination. And I do genuinely feel a little flutter of hope in my heart every time someone says something like “we may have enough votes for a filibuster.” But while it’s hard to admit, it’s pretty much a given that Alito is going to get through. Like I say, we lost this battle in 2004 when young people didn’t turn out in any kind of significant numbers to protect our rights, and now we’re going to pay the price.

I read a great Op Ed by William Saletan in the Sunday New York Times about how everyone on all sides of this debate can support the idea of fewer abortions.

We in the pro-choice movement need to take our eyes off the Supreme Court and start reframing the message about why we support a woman’s right to choose from “it’s a privacy thing” to “the government should give women every opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancies via free unfettered access to birth control, and trust that they’re going to make good decisions.”

That’s going to save more babies than overturning Roe ever will. Too bad we’ve been getting it wrong all these years.

Long Distance Relationship

There is a hole in my life - a gash cold and gaping.
It is the absence of you, it stretches corner to corner
From the long expanses, the preplanned weeks
When your smell fades from my apartment
And I forget what you look like, except in photographs.

It’s telling, with all the miles that separate us
That the small warm inches of smile
And stubble
And hazel flecked with grey
Are the most important distances I have ever traveled.

Sometimes you just need a laugh…

…like after the Seahawks win and sweep your city into yet another week of football obsession. Bleh!

Anyway - this animation of what the lyrics to the Fall out Boy song, “Sugar We’re Going Down” sound like when mumbled by Fall Out Boy’s lead singer. Warning: this is in no way work safe, there are way too many penises.

Seahawks. Oh Gawd!

I am not a Seahawks fan. As my grandmother used to say, “football is just a bunch of men in tight pants sniffing one another’s butts!” But it appears that my beloved city of Seattle has been gripped by a football frenzy so severe that it’s been recommended that Seattlites travel tomorrow only if absolutely necessary - read, wife goes into labor - to avoid the traffic.

I suppose I would be moderately pleased if the Seahawks went and won the Superbowl - or whatever they call the damn thing. It might just light a fire under the Mariners’ asses to go out and bring me a World Series ring - preferably on one knee.

Image by David Horsey

The L Word Season 3

I hate how The L Word continually treats Alice, it’s only bisexual character. She’s clearly at the bottom of the heap in terms of social order, especially this season when losing Dana to Lara drove her totally out of her mind. And now they have her sitting in a love addicts meeting talking about how she was only with a man because she finds men to be easier than women.

Give me a fucking break! When are they going to portray a bisexual character with some honesty? Either we’re insane and lame like Alice or out cheating on our women with guys like Tina! It’s ridiculous.

Anyway, my two big predictions for the season are:

• Kit’s homophobic son David and Billie Blakie, her super-gay business manager will wind up having sex by the end of the season. How do I know? In episode 3.2, Billie and David share a very long, antagonistic look. Just feel that chemistry building, my darlings.
• Tina’s going to cheat on Bette with a guy, and I’m pretty sure it’s that guy from Angelica’s music play group. Note: I guessed that before seeing the Season 3 teaser OR watching episode 3.2. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I love The L Word, but after that disastrous car chase scene between Alice and Dana, they’re going to have to work hard to prove to me that they haven’t jumped the shark. Maybe they should bring back Marina. I liked her…

Friends are the Family You Choose

Throughout my young life, there have been moments when I could literally feel myself growing up. These are not flashes of insight, but quiet realizations. The sensation that accompanies them is like being vividly reminded of the workings of your cardiopulmonary system. It’s a sense of internal complexity and vulnerability that you seldom recognize.

I had a big series of those moments this weekend, which I spent visiting with college friends in Chicago. I have grown very good at pretending that I do not need people, and even better at pretending that I do not miss them when they’re gone. But I was reminded so vividly this weekend of the intimacy that can exist between people - bonds so strong that neither time nor distance can break them. I do need my friends. I need everything they offer without reservation: their friendship, their honesty, their withholding of judgment, their love. It doesn’t make me weak, it makes me human. To pretend otherwise is unnatural.

What I realized is far bigger than that. It’s about truly taking the time to understand who someone is and how their experiences affect them. A true friend knows and cherishes every fear, every vulnerability that is shared with trust.

I was asked this weekend what memory I would take with me, were I given only one that I could remember in the afterlife. I’ve come to the conclusion that I would take the memory of a bright fall morning when - buoyed by our newly cemented senior status - my friends and I sat around a table at Frary dining hall. Andy said something, and my friends laughed. I loved him for making them laugh, and I loved them for finding him funny. And I looked around the table at the faces of those people whose lives had become so intertwined with my own, and I fell in love with them all.

What is the Pitt/Jolie/Aniston Triangle Supposed to Tell Women?

“Careful, girls. If you’re not sexy and maternal at all times, your man will leave for someone who is willing to have his babies. You’d best get barefoot and preggers in a hurry!”

At least, that’s cautionary tale that the tabloids keep trying to tell, and it’s making me sick. I adore Angelina Jolie because she’s openly bisexual and she’s got a lot of chutzpah. But the tabloids paint her as a feminine paragon: sexual, nurturing and other-focused. And they paint Aniston as an emaciated, child-hating shrew whose refusal to have a baby right when Brad Pitt wanted one drove him into the arms of a woman who would happily accept his sperm.

Am I the only person who thinks this is ridiculous? The message they’re trying to send to women is that we’d better be willing to sacrifice our careers in order to hold onto a man, because there’s always a woman waiting to snag him if we don’t give him anything he wants. And it tells men that they deserve to leave their wives for someone who suits their convenience or immediate fancy without a backward glance at the commitments they made. It’s like the whole purpose of this is to keep us living in fear of losing our men while reminding our men that they have options and all the time in the world.

Well I say, if a man wants a kid and you don’t - let him go. If he wants you to put your life on hold and you don’t want to - let him go. Because if there’s someone better for him out there, then there’s bound to be someone better for you out there, too.

Twenty-Somethings and Pimples: A Temporary Departure from Impactfulness

When I was in my teens, I had perfect skin. I went through all those hormonal fluctuations without a single zit. And then about six months ago, my skin started breaking out. It was most likely due to stress, but even after my stress levels went down, my skin kept acting up.

When the problem first appeared, I ratcheted up my use of an anti-acne treatment called salicylic acid. I used Aveno’s salicylic acid foaming facial wash twice a day plus a serum from Origins that contained a huge amount of the stuff. The idea was to dry out the little fuckers, but they kept coming. New red bumps cropping up on my face daily. I responded with more salicylic acid. But it didn’t help, and I started to get really preoccupied with ways to cover my skin. I had gone from having perfect skin to wearing liquid foundation every day. I was really frustrated.

But as it turns out, all that salicylic acid was only making the problem worse. I was putting my skin through so much anguish with all the rough stuff, and it was reacting. In your teens, when you skin is oily, that kind of thing works. But in your twenties, you can’t beat it into submission anymore. The nice lady at Sephora told me to cut back on the salicylic acid to one product in the morning and find a soothing facial wash to use at night. Then I added a soothing masque with some white tea and gave my skin a break. And guess what? It worked. I woke up without a new pimple this morning for the first time in a long time.

I know this isn’t terribly interesting to read unless you’ve had a skin problem. It’s certainly not a passionate feminist polemic. If anything, it’s a symptom of a society that puts too much weight on how a woman looks and not enough weight on how she thinks. But the fact that I like having clear skin doesn’t turn me into the other extreme: a woman who cares only for her looks and doesn’t think about anything else. I’m somewhere in the middle. And in an imperfect world, that’s the best you can be.

By sharing my recent experience, I hope I’ve tipped off a few other twenty-something women about the potential cause for a sudden outburst of never-before seen pimples - so they can get back to focusing on the important things, like world domination.

We now return to our regularly scheduled insight.

And Then, There Was Light

I’m just taking a quick break from work to revel in the beautiful sunbeam that just floated through the window and onto my desk. After 24 straight days of rain here in Seattle, the sun has finally shown her face.

When I was living in LA, I used to complain constantly about how the sunshine was like a friend who was so cheerful all the time that you just wanted to slap her. But somehow, I must have picked up the Los Angelean propensity for sun worship, because I am facing the window and letting the pale yellow light float over my face.

After all, who knows how long it will last?

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