A Great Light Has Gone Out

Douglas E. Curran/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Today former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated during a rally in Rawalpindi, Islamabad. The assassin shot at her several times before blowing himself up.

I saw Bhutto speak at American University when I was there, and she showed that there might someday be change in Pakistan. She was amazingly inspiring not only as a torch-bearer for diplomacy and peace, but as a woman in political life. Remarkably, one of my co-workers went to AU and saw the same speech, and we agreed that she truly gave you hope that things could get better, and things could change. She was a powerful force for good.

It's hard to say where Pakistan will go from here. I worry very much about the fallout from this and the effect on the upcoming "elections." It's time for America to start seeing the world with new eyes and telescopes, observing ALL the world and standing up for those oppressed by human rights violations, and facilitating DIPLOMATIC DISCUSSION where none exists.

A great light has gone out.

HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, I'M ENGAGED!!

This is an old picture and the stone is just kind of resting on the setting (we were shopping at the time, not buying), but that's the gist, and I'll post a new picture when I have time and/or stop peeing my pants, but everything was perfect and I love Speed and WOOOOO!

January 20, 2009

If for NO OTHER REASON but this fucked up, utterly gross, and completely telling statement from George W. Bush, January 20, 2009 cannot fucking come fast enough.

Q: Tell us about your future son-in-law, Henry Hager. Did he do right and
ask for Jenna’s hand?

The President: “He kind of sidled up to me and said, ‘Can I come and see you?’ We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, ‘Got a deal.’ [Laughter] And I’m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible.”

Via Feministing, who declared this their "Sexist Quote of the Year."

Point of clarification: it's not the asking that is so problematic, because I would like Speed to check in with my fam and make sure they are down with the whole marriage thing. I know that many feminists take huge issue with men asking womens' parents about marriage, but that is a department of the feminist movement that I am not 100% on board with. I agree that a lot of traditions, particularly wedding traditions, have their roots in sexist and oppressive meaning, but I believe that a lot of that inherent sexism has sort of worn off over time. I don't want to get married in a white dress because I want to advertise my highly valued virginity (heeeeeeeeeeh), I want to get married in a white dress because my Mom and my grandmothers got married in white dresses, and THAT is the tradition I care about. I don't want Speed to give me a ring or ask my parents for permission as part of a business transaction, I want the ring because a.) we found one I like, and b.) I like the idea of advertising that I am with someone who I plan to hunker down with forever. I want him to ask my parents so he and I both know that they are on board with the plan, and so that THEY know that we care about their opinion. My negative reaction to this quote isn't about the actual action, it's about Bush actually clinging TO the negative connotation from which the action sprung.

Seriously, how is this douchebag in charge of ANYTHING, much less a country?

Thank You, Galliano.

I would get married in this dress tomorrow and be the happiest, clothing-wise (and, you know, Marrying the Man of My Dreams wise), I've ever been in my life. I suppose it should be in some kind of white or ivory or whatever, but honestly, I could care less.

Perhaps different makeup and hair, however.

On Where To Write Well

I have been reading Linda Grant's blog, The Thoughtful Dresser, with great enthusiasm since it was mentioned on Manolo the Shoeblogger's page, and of particular interest was her very brief and certainly incomplete c.v. listed on the site, to wit:

Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006. She writes for the Guardian, Telegraph and Vogue. Her latest novel, The Clothes on Their Backs will be published by Virago in February 2008. For further information see her website at http://lindagrant.co.uk/

It got me thinking about when we would reach a point where a successful blogger could transition easily to print media without being The Blogger of the organization. Right now, I feel like when a blogger snags a job writing for print media, it's a Big Deal, and bloggers are still seen to some extent as wild cowboys and girls of the Internet. It's understandable that this idea would persist - after the Howard Dean rise and fall and the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon and resulting crash landing in the box office, supplemented with hundreds of other examples, there is still no proof that "popular on the Internet" necessarily translates to "popular in real life." Either marketing folks worldwide are not translating between the two circles, or it doesn't work and never will.

I hope that in time, people in marketing and in general will see that the reason you can't narrow down the Internet and pigeonhole its users or content into traditional categories is not that Internet users are strange, alien beings, but that they are everyone, and that has serious implications. Since time immemorial, we've all been marketed to in little bundles...toys for boys, toys for girls, gifts for women who like fashion, gifts for the accepted picture of a feminist, gifts for men always involving tools or sports. I, however, know not one single person who fits only one category or picture, so why these typings persist is beyond me. I can be a feminist (don't get me started on the stereotype of THAT term), love fashion, spike my blood pressure repeatedly with sports, knit, change a tire and most of the fluids on my car, AND hang my own pictures. Obviously, as a woman interested in sports and unafraid of tools, I feel particular hostility towards those marketing powers that be who have decreed both as the exclusive purview of men. I do not want a pink tool set featuring cheap tools that break.

In any case, I hope that marketing folk start seeing the Internet Revolution as it truly is - free expression from every corner of the globe and all walks of life - and adjust accordingly, and also hope that the often snooty print media begin to realize that good writing is good writing, regardless of where it is. I grew up with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and by the time it made it to my front door, it STILL was awash in typos. It appears to be on an upswing now, but it's still not devoid of issues. I briefly wrote for one of their projects, the Wicked Cool Music site, which showed great potential, had the main page been sustained, and I believe that my writing there was much better, typo-wise, than a large portion of what I've seen published in the T&G's print pages. It's not just me and my ego, either...I feel like the bulk of the things I read online are better written and less typographically problematic than newspapers and sometimes even books and magazines. This does not mean that ALL Internet production is better than print media - I think that's obvious - but the snobbery that seems to abound between bloggers and print media folks seems greatly exaggerated.

I hope that in the nearby future, some editor, maybe late at night after a frenzied day resulting in the rolling of many a head, hops online to read his or her favorite ______________ blog, and suddenly, in a flash of light with the sound of singing angels all around, it comes to them: "These people write just as well as my staff."

Snow, Snow, Snow

Today I am wearing:

A red, cable knit sweater from Target that is semi-like this one, except it's a v-neck...



...a pinstriped pant from Kohl's (Apt. 9) in charcoal grey...

...these flats, also from Kohl's (the only good part of the Vera Wang collection, IMO), but in raisin with smoky colored sparklies on the toes.

I am carrying this bag, which SORT of matches via red stripe but let's not fool ourselves...it happened to be where all my junk was. I am also wearing a black, kind of ironwork looking necklace that is long with open flat beads and open round beads, which also came from Target, any my usual claddaugh ring and earrings.

In other news, I had started another blog, in which I talked about fashion, and I have since realized that this is a stupid idea and thus I should just combine the two and talk more about fashion if I want to talk about fashion. So, I'll be adding some back posts...if you hit the fashion label, you'll find them. Enjoy!

In Which I Go To The Grocery Store

Minor note on a DIFFERENT grocery store: My diatribe in the direction of Shaw's parking lot and their STUPID SPEEDBUMPS OF TRANNY DOOM was successful and the SSoTD have been removed. TAKE THAT!!! FEEL THE WRATH OF MY POISON PEN!

Regrettably, the funky little Honey Farms/Pet Barn/Sheep Shack/nail place that I like because it shares my sister's name plaza in HOLDEN/PLEASANTVILLE, MA has installed one of the SSoTDs. FEEL MY WRATH, FUNKY PLAZA!

I have to say, I DO understand the impulse to put these things in...more than once, I have nearly been mowed down by some douchebag driving his very own Shaws 500 with my arms full of groceries, or hauling a bag of cat litter out of the Pet Barn, but I think that the choice of installing speed bumps that REMOVE THE UNDERSIDE OF YOUR VEHICLE is a little self defeating, since NO ONE will be coming to your store. There is a way to go over a standard issue speed bump without feeling like you are causing massive damage to your undercarriage...there's no way to go over these without doing so. I tried going so slowly I actually came to a stop at the bump and had to gas it to go up and over, and STILL...kaCHUNKTHUD.

So anyway we went to the grocery store yesterday and I have some observations.

1. It takes a long time to put $600 of coins through a Coinstar machine, will make you feel like a weirdo, and will probably make people hate you.

2. Halls Ginger Ale cough drops...sound fun, are not. They are just different flavored cough drops, and not even particularly ginger-ale-y. Sad, really, although in retrospect, I realize that what's so happy-making about ginger ale itself is the crispness and fizziness of it, which you're not going to get out of a cough drop. DAMN YOU MARKETING!!

3. Polar Pomegranate Dry...EXACTLY as awesome as it sounds. Oh my god. I love those Polar people.

4. Silk Pumpkin Spice soy milk...made of delicious. I like soy milk anyway, but if you're not a soy milk person, this is the kind of thing to start with. It's got a texture between milk and eggnog (more towards the eggnog end), and comes in all kinds of flavors including vanilla, chocolate, chai latte, and this pumpkin spice, which I highly recommend.

5. Sabra hummus is seriously proof that God loves us. It is so creamy and fabulous and the Sabra people specialize in "hummus with stuff in it" which is MAGIC, so I usually get the "Supremely Spicy" variety, although they also have a jalapeno one which is on my list. Other flavors that I can remember include tahini, eggplant, garlic-like-whoa, and many other things that look delicious but I can't recall.

Thank me later.