OMG! I was trying to Google something and it auto-filled after "who is a-" http://bit.ly/fZB7Kp googlediscriminates

Brazillian Hate Crimes

I have very mixed feelings about posting a story on the same day about the same thing that Joe.My.God had on his blog, but in posting it, it passes my litmus test: Would Margaret Cho re-post it? Yes, she most certainly would...So here it is.

Nearly a month ago, Priscila, a transgendered woman from Brazil was shot to death.  Brazil is supposedly (I've never been there, so I can't say) among the most homo/trans/queer-phobic places in the world.  The current president's platform (like most mass-appeasing politician's) was that human rights are core.  The discrimination that Priscila faced is common, and pushes many transgendered Brazilians into sex-work.  Watch the video, sign the petition, and remember that your vote here counts, too. 

Discrimination, adversity, violence, prejudice, intolerance, ignorance, hate...  America is a great country to be, as we all have the right to be.  If you have never done so, vote. Get involved with the HRC, or the ACLU, or NOW. Some organization geared toward making a change.  It is 2011, and we still segregate, discriminate, and hate. All people are created equal. Period. So, let's stop treating other people like less than people.



http://www.allout.org/petition/priscila

Brazil needs to pass the Anti-Homophobia law because ...

I'd like cheese on my entire family!: When Food Attacks!

This blog I discovered was pretty illuminating. At surface level, it is really easy to say that I don't have food issues.  To actually think about it, I probably have enough issues to warrant a subscription. (Sorry for the lame pun.)  America is such a weird food place.  I've been to lots of other countries where the combination of assigning values to food, coupled with the obsession to fit an arbitrary, unrealistic, and unhealthy body image are just not present.  In Germany, most of the people I met were pretty Americanized, socially, so our irreverent, idiotic way of imposing our ridiculous beliefs and standards onto others is pretty apparent.  I noticed some of this in France, as well, but I will preface this statement with the fact that most of my time in France was in Paris, perhaps the tourism capitol of Europe...

I just got my lunch from a 7-11.  There are so many many many things wrong with this statement.  Instead of a nutritious, well balanced, planned meal, I, like most college students, opted for something quick, unhealthy, sometimes in a bar-form, and loaded with chemicals.  The college-food trifecta: cheap, quick, and accessible!

I have also been guilty of buying into the "healthy label" nonsense.  I drink diet soda, use Splenda in my coffee, eat sugar-free candy, pick baked chips over fried chips, etc.  None of this really has anything to do with health.  None of these products are necessarily healthier than their regular counterparts.  The healthy alternative is the water and fruit or vegetable that I'm swapping out for coffee and chips.  I must also disclaimer that I am a vegetarian (usually vegan, but sometimes I have a dairy relapse). But I knowingly keep using artificial sweetener and "low sodium" soy sauce on my lo-mein, because it has been instilled in me that to eat sugar leads to fat, and to have fat is to fail, and that to fail is unacceptable.  Eating sugar, by proxy, is unacceptable.

I did not see very many artificial sweeteners in Europe during the two years I lived there.  Mostly, there were packets of Equal, compulsory for diabetes compliance, but not the plethora of chemicals in a rainbow assortment that we Americans stand by.  

I began to associate these feelings I'd had with some American myths that get perpetuated here, (especially after my humble beginnings into Women's Studies). I now know why I do what I do.  I still get diet soda, but it is because I don't really like the taste of regular sucrose (what makes granulated sugar sweet), and I eat junk food, and I smoke.  I no longer see this consumerism as a massive failure on my part.  I might choose to make healthier decisions, but they are no longer deeply rooted in my American phobia of missing the ideal body size.  I eat things which I like, mostly in moderation.  Food should be about nutrition, not statistics and numbers on the back of a package.  I have, to this day, not seen a banana with nutritional content painted on the peel (which I'm sure makes some people uneasy, I'm sure).  

If you want a cookie, eat a cookie, for chrissake! Kudos, blog, kudos. 

I'd like cheese on my entire family!: When Food Attacks!: "Many, many years ago, I stopped assigning moral value to food. Nommy noms are no longer 'good' or 'bad,' they are just food. Cakes are..."

Off With Their Heads!

It's been a while since I've blogged about something of substance. One could argue that I've indeed, never really blogged about anything of substance, and that the premise of blogging is, by nature not substantial!

Alas, here I am, again, writing.

I am a student at Temple University in Philadelphia, about to be greatly impacted by Gov. Corbett's budget cuts to public education.  The school, (more specifically the Dean of College of Liberal Arts) has taken preemptive action to reduce spending. Great idea, but terrible ramifications. They decided to reduce spending by nearly 20 grand by eliminating the department heads of many of the programs of the liberal arts, and re-shuffle the programs under already existing programs (i.e. Women's Studies will now fall under Sociology).  There are many, many, many problems with this (and the way they implemented it), chiefly that none of the department heads were consulted.  Also, they were cut before the new budgetary design had been drafted.  (Hence preemptive) 

The two largest issues that the students in these programs will now face are a significant loss in assistance with their academic progression in these fields, as well as predictable losses in the number of courses offered in the  affected programs.

Among the programs to be re-structured/maimed in the process: American Studies, Women's Studies, LGBT Studies, Jewish Studies, Asian Studies, among others.  The irony inherent here, is, in case you haven't noticed, these are programs traditionally associated with discrimination, oppression, and adversity.  Why should the academics associated with them be any different?!?

The cuts to the programs wouldn't be as "shock and awe," maybe, if all of the schools within Temple University had made similar cuts or "streamlining endeavors."  But they didn't. The science departments made no changes to their programs whatsoever.  There are dozens of programs in the School of Science and Technology that are considered "untouchable" because they are sciences.  By the virtue of being a science program, they are able to apply for grants to do research and bring the university money.  The arts, however, are not as fiscally virtuous, and therefore become another notch in the bedpost of capitalist casualties.  This reinforces the false notion that the science programs are more useful than the arts, especially the humanities. 

Are they? Of course not.  Just because someone's life was saved by a chemical compound, doesn't mean that the quality of that life wasn't equally saved by discovering queer culture, or Jewish studies. Or any other humanities niche. It is thinking in terms of the discriminatory sweeping generalizations that tends to get us into trouble!  It is time to accept and promote academic diversity instead of feeding into the corporate university eugenics of the arts.


There is very little coverage of this, so here are the links I could find.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/03/08/temple-u-head-urges-public-response-to-corbetts-education-budget-cuts/

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/119232609.html

 Get involved. Act up. Use your free speech that has been fought for! If you pay to go to school, it SHOULD be up to you to study whatever you want to.