Memory, Forgetting and Astronomy

Remember when Pluto was a planet? Leave it to Frank Deford to give me a little chuckle (tee hee, he said Uranus!) and help this Only Grrrl with her sports metaphors--can't have a career in politics without 'em!

This makes no sense to me at all

Priscilla Slade, the former Texas Southern University president fired for her spending of school money on personal expenses, is teaching accounting courses on campus this semester.

Here's some suggested reading for our friends with shopping addictions.

Maybe we can entertain each other.

Famous last words? Not quite. But when I wrote them (a year ago today), I had no idea what a year would follow. It's been one hell of a trip around the sun—quite heavenly, actually.

As the present now will later be past

True, the times do change.

Change is the only constant, the only thing you can really count on. Yet this week I've been struck again and again at how "we" continually deal with the same "issues"... over and over again.

Forget about repetition compulsion. I can't even begin to deal with that here.

What seems to keep cropping up for me are those endless and endlessly prescient warnings from the past of a future that's doomed (today?)

We look to the past for validation that the problems we face now were somehow foreseen by someone smarter than we are, or maybe someone who's more respected than "we"--the ever maligned left--are.

So we have Eisenhower warning us about the evils of the military industrial complex. We have Jefferson warning us about the concentration of corporate power. We have Orwell, Atwood, Huxley with their dystopic literary visions (many of which, by the way, have been banned by many a public school). And we have others coming along later and commenting on said dystopic visions.

...all this to demonstrate the seriousness and urgency of tomorrow's problems today (or today's problems for tomorrow).

But if we were doomed in the future yesterday by the same problems we're facing today (and faced yesterday)... doesn't that mean we can just blow it all off because in 50-100 years, there will be people looking back and saying how prescient we were to predict tomorrow's problems yesterday (today?)

Ummm, no.

Instead, I think we should pay more attention to the countless anonymous people who kept the fight going in between times, because without them, yesterday's predictions of doom might have been fulfilled. Instead, we have the opportunity to carry on. And hopefully, the sun will come up, and we can start again.

Sophie sees stupid people, too

Only Grrrl's Only GrrrlCat.

Wow! Is that 12 column inches, or are you just happy to see me?

Silly me... I was starting to worry that I had lost my legendary feminist edge. But all I had to do was buy a newspaper.

The New York Times found this story fit to print right there on the front page: "Dancers Have Landed in Iraq. Marines Offer No Resistance."

The least they could have done is put "dancers" in quotes.

The dancers, known as the Purrfect Angelz, boast one starlet, Tanea, who not only served three years as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, but also played quarterback in the Lingerie Football League.

That's right, grrrls and boyz, your tax dollars are hard (!) at work sending a troup of "dancers" on tour in Iraq. It's all in an effort to boost, you know, "morale." The NYT said this "Shake and Awe" campaign was so effective some of the Marines "had to be reminded not to leave their weapons behind." (which weapons, one wonders? and whose behind?)

Will getting a hard on make these guys better soldiers? What about all the our women soldiers? Gosh--I hope they're lesbians, or at least happily self-loathing enough to appreciate this pep rally.

In truth, I have to admit that some of the LFL footballers' outfits are mighty cute.

What I don't appreciate is:

1) cheerleaders with Uzis

2) my tax dollars supporting an act designed to get these guys all revved up and frustrated with sexual tension that can be redirected to make them better killers... I mean, soldiers.

3) the New York Times writing about it without any sense of irony... Come on, these ladeeez are not Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell. They're not movie stars. They are sex industry professionals. Why not be honest about that and actually take a moment to consider what that says about military spending, gender dynamics in the still male-dominated military, and this worthy mission of exporting "democracy" to the Middle East.

Happy B-day Miss Pineapple!

Love you!

Only Grrrl wakes up to a new day

Be here now

"We're meant to die. That's what makes everything about us matter."
—Aeon Flux

This gorgeous flower is as big as my head and blooms for just one day. It is truly glorious.

Savor your moments.

You forgot convicted felon

Surely I'm not the only grrrl who was struck dumb by the announcement that Martha Stewart would be addressing the women of Texas as a keynote speaker at the Texas Conference for Women.

Now, I know this conference is not about feminist consciousness raising. And "Martha Stewart" is probably only rivaled by "Madonna" and maybe "Oprah" in popularity as subject matter for feminist analysis and debate. Avoiding that rabbit hole, (although, it's a very alluring rabbit hole... and one I may revisit later), let's just say we accept that the Texas Conference for Women is actually intended to support women's economic advancement, provide networking opportunities for women and train women to be leaders in their communities (i.e., to indoctrinate and integrate women better into the very social, economic and political systems that only function properly on the backs of overworked and underpaid women).

Say all that is ok! (Ignore all that parenthetical nonsense. It's just crazy talk!)

Like a joke that's only funny because it's true, the selection of Martha Stewart as keynote speaker reflects layers of irony in the current political leadership's (mis)appropriation of the rhetoric of values and the "american dream"--and the underlying message is clear.

In this version of the values based approach to achievement, the "self-made man" (or woman) succeeds by hook or by crook. Image is everything. Cheating on your taxes, insider trading, mark-to-market accounting are all just part of what it takes to get ahead--like, really ahead, which is the only kind of getting ahead that really matters.

Sure, it's usually best if you don't get caught. But even if you do, it's ok.

The Enron crooks go down in history as "the smartest guys in the room."

Martha Stewart got caught. And she did one better than ole Ken Lay: she lived to tell about it.

She did her time. And prison didn't break her will to succeed! Thousands of jokes by late night talk show hosts couldn't bring her down. Now we can honor her great wealth (the true sign of her greatness) and celebrate her resilience in the face of adversity. Truly, the epitome of every "american's" dream.

Whew!

OK... satire doesn't always serve to bring the present moment to it's deepest purpose.

Seriously, I can think of several women who are alive today who could have been chosen to speak at this conference--some of them even within the limitations of definitions of success that serve to preserve the patriarchal status quo: Oprah and Madonna for starters—again, avoiding the question of whether (or to what degree) they function (either as historial people or cultural icons) to uphold or subvert the status quo)—at least they aren't convicted felons!

Here's a very short list of some brave and otherwise outstanding women who could have been invited:


Sherron Watkins: Enron whistleblower honored by Time magazine in 2002 as Person of the Year -- along with 2 other women whislteblowers: Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom) and Coleen Rowley (FBI).


Bethany McLean: journalist who broke the Enron accounting story while working for Fortune Magazine.


Loretta Ross: a native Texan who became one of hte first women to win a suit against the make of the Dalkon shield. She's an internatinoally known feminist and human rights activist.


Diane Wilson: A fourth-generation Texas shrimper, environmental justice advocate, civil disobedient, tireless opponent of global capital, and peace activist who helped found Code Pink.

(Oh, wait. I guess all these women were/have been/are trying to take down the system. I guess that's whay they weren't invited)

Legs and Little Legs, circa 1971

Legs and Little Legs, circa 1971
Originally uploaded by OnlyGrrrl.

Origins of the Only Grrrl. This was taken at the zoo when I was two! I was a baby. Momma was a babe!

Gallos

Gallos
Originally uploaded by gesualdo.

My Chinese zodiac sign: Year of the Cock. Explains a lot.

The Tin Foil Hat: Hazzardous Nation

The Tin Foil Hat: Hazzardous Nation
Just in case anyone is out there... I recommend this post on The Tin Foil Hat!

Yeah, Baby!

Pickin' and Grinnin'

OMIGOD! I've become a Stepford Grrrl.

This is what can happen when a grrl is the Only Grrrl In The Room for too long. If you want to survive (the hospitality suite at a labor convention, say), you adapt. You SMILE. You learn to attach yourself to the alpha males who will protect you (and who are more often than not the same men with the power to authorize giving money to your organization to keep you employed), as long as they maintain a certain degree of "access" to you. You tell yourself it's a fatherly hug... and you smile.

But just the other day I was crossing the street and some man in a car waiting at the light honked at me and motioned for me to SMILE!!!. In that moment, I realized that it had been a really long time since that had happened to me.

See... it used to happen all the time.

The degree of my relative pre-prosac "happiness" aside, that sort of thing used to really piss me off. Maybe I was an angry grrrl then. But I was right to be mad at those assholes.

What kind of person just walks around smiling for no reason? Oh, wait. There was a reason: to be pleasant to look at, to be pretty. I swear, nothing pissed me off more!

So, Thank you, Average Guy in the champagne-colored Camry. Your simple gesture was more effective than a howling wolf whistle. You pissed me off!

More typing into the void

I surveyed my grrrlfriends for ideas on what to name my internet persona. Several of them asked me what did I want to do with this internet persona?

I didn't know. Comment on blogs. Maybe have my own blog. Express something. Recover my ability to complete a thought in writing. Hopefully something more than just learn how to make text bold and type ellipses... But I guess that can come in handy sometimes...

I'm new to the blogosphere. Frankly, I find that I get confused about how to use it, how to interpret what I read on it... it blurs my understanding of public and private. It adds layers of imaginary to the already symbolic process of externalizing words and pictures. That's clearly part of the attraction.

But, what's with all the anonymity out here in cyberspace?

What happens to the therapeutic value of self-expression and self-exploration through journalling when it's conducted in the semi-public format of a semi-anonymous blog?

What does it do to a person's ability (or even inclination) to communicate directly?

Semi-public indirect communication, introspection of semi-anonymous authors...

Again, I come back to the problem of samsara and the gaping holes in my knowledge "my" own reality...

The mountain is there
And then it isn't
And then it is again

Samsara and the Conundrum of Hope

Last night I was thinking about hope and the problem of "reality." The whole idea of hope becomes absurd within the context of reality as illusion. Hell--you can hope for anything! What where will that get you?

My (illusory) reality is so full of holes (that I know are there) that I could be sitting in one right now and not even know it. The holes are gaps in knowledge that I fill in based on ... what? Experience? Conjecture? Outright fantasy?

What happens when you pin your future to hopes that are rooted in the black hole of knowledge gaps that may or may not be there?

What Now?

I'm not really sure...

But I like how this little thing just hangs on.