ERA All The Way!

Have you recently found yourself feeling the urge to read a good feminist diatribe? How about a good fifteenth-century French feminist diatribe?

Me neither. But I was assigned one. And my god it was worth reading.

A work that echoes the rhetoric skill of Plato and St. Augustine, but with the passion of Gloria Steinem, The Book of the City of Ladies is the story of the humble Christine (de Pizan) who while reading the great ancient authors' tirades against women is visited by Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice. These representatives of God answer questions like, "Why do men say that women make marriage miserable?" and "Is it true what men say that women like to be raped?" Yes, folks, she hits it home on all the tough subjects. From relating the story of the Amazons to Dido and Cleopatra, she sets the foundation of the City of Ladies one strong woman at a time. With her eloquent marriage advice (If you have a good husband, thank God; if you have a bad husband, pray to God) and noble goal of enlightening men while inspiring women, Christine de Pizan has really created a work of philosophic hilarity, brilliance, and balls.

I give it six stars out of five.

The Pillow Book of Bry Bryagon

I love spring. Every day - no matter what the season - I wake up between four and six a.m. and try to get back to sleep. In the spring I can open my window and listen to the dozens of different birds that live in our backyard. The air has that distinct fresh smell that reminds me of springs past. It lulls me back to sleep in the most comforting way. I wish the early mornings were springtime early mornings all year round.

My Gay Comrades

Last evening was the one year anniversary of my asking my Fiancee to marry me. I took her out to dinner at a fabulous little restaurant. We were seated next to a large table with a family of eight or ten celebrating what looked like their mother/grandmother's birthday. Sitting facing us was a woman in her mid-to-late-fifties with very short gray hair, a beige blazer and a red collared shirt. I poked my Fiancee, telling her to check out our lesbian friend (as I always do when I see "one of us" in public).

We forgot all about her as we enjoyed our amazing meal (mussels in a mustard wine sauce, duck for her, lamb for me), but as this woman's family filed out to leave she was the last in line. On her way out she stopped at our table, nodded and said "Evening, ladies" before following her wife out the door.

That is what I love about being gay. Gay men tip their hats to us when they walk by the coffee shop we're lounging at. Lesbians honk at us on the highway, waving excitedly. The butch girl who sweeps out the back of the tiny grocery store in Nowhere, Maine nods and says "how ya doin'?" The gay manager of the Au Bon Pain gives me extra bread for free with a wink. It's like being in a secret club - out of a room full of people only the gays are aware of the silent camaraderie.

It makes me feel like I'm not quite so alone when I drop my Fiancee's hand walking through the common because there are a bunch of guys hanging out by the basketball court. Like if that bitch in the Market Basket parking lot screaming "DYKE" at me really chases me, there will be people around to help. And most of all, like I don't just get snickered at in the mall for being recognized as gay. I get respect from the old school men and women out there who remember switching partners when the red light flashed and running from the cops when the door you had to knock on exactly five times got busted down. They look at us, young, in love, planning our wedding, with pride and pain and hope. I may still get spit on and told I can't see my wife in any hospital outside my state, but I've never gone through what they did.

As much as I fear losing all my rights to a nation-wide ban or on the Massachusetts ballot of '08, as much as I get gay bashed and live in fear of really being beaten while alone one night, I have to remember that from '69 to now, it has gotten better. It really has gotten better.

Of course, we still have a long, long way to go.

A Note on Imus

The communication over this issue in all types of media is wonderful. I'm glad to see that America is outraged by racism. Suspend him if you want. But firing a man for saying something racist tells the world that a) he has the power to hurt people THAT MUCH with his stupid thoughtless words b) there is no forgiveness for thoughtless speech and c) there is no "recovering" from being labeled a racist.

Rather than allowing him to continue his show in a slightly new direction after learning the power of his words, reviewing the nature of humor and trying to choose his words better in the future, we're telling the world that if the general public decides you're racist, it's over. If that's the attitude out there, he might as well join the KKK because that's the only place he's going to get any support.

Ignore the Nutjob

If you broadcast a nutjob's manifesto after he murders people, don't you think other nutjobs are going to go for post-humus glory too?

Nutjobs should be ignored. It's the victims who matter.

Occasionally nutjobs lose their shit. Evil is tragic. We need to collectively focus on recovery from that evil.

I am sick and tired of people pushing their gun-control views on the world everytime something like this happens. Just because one nutjob does something horrible doesn't mean we should all lose the right to bear arms, nor does it mean we should all be armed to the teeth.

5'2"

I'm sorry, Mr. Ahmadinejad, but Western women aren't scared of you.





That chick rules.

Transmen

Okay, two things:

1) The problem with college students changing their gender is not that they are too young (most trans people realize there's something "wrong" with them before or during puberty), it's that they are in an environment where they become tangled up in a very small, peer pressured community. Trans people feel like they need the surgery to prove themselves. Dress, act, be however you want. But realize that these things are permanent, and a penis or vagina is not going to make you happy, no matter how much you think it will "complete" you.

2) If you enroll in a women's college and realize you are a man, I appreciate the fact that you should be accepted and supported through this difficult transition. But how dare you graduate from a women's college? How dare you tell us to treat you like any other man and then use the fact that you were born with a vagina to go to whichever college you want? Choose. Be a man or don't. But to be a man at a women's college is to be a hypocrite and to take advantage of the institution that has accepted you and supported you. Become a man and then go to a college where men are accepted. But don't tell me you have any right whatsoever to graduate from Smith.

3) Transwomen going to Smith? Maybe. But we have to think the details of the admission procedures through a bit though. We have to figure out what requirements one must fulfill to be a woman.

Supply on Command

I would like to acknowledge the scholars whose work I am totally summarizing here: G. Urton, D. LaLone, T. LeVine, T. D'Altroy.

The Inca Empire was (as far as I know) unique in the world in that there was no major market system. LaLone has shown that there may have been a market economy on the outskirts of the empire, particularly in the north, but at the heart of Tawantinsuyu there was no major commercial system of exchange.

The Andes contain many different environmental zones, each with its own animals, plants, and resources. The way the Andean peoples exploited this environment was with the ayllu system. An ayllu is a family or clan group. Each group would have a "place of origin" where the family was centered, and would send small detachments of members off to live in a different environmental zone. At certain times in the year, groups living along the coastal desert, in the foothills, in the depths of the rain forest, and in the mountains would all gather in their place of origin to exchange their respective resources. Thus without money, without markets, and without bartering, each family is able to take full advantage of the varied terrain of the Andes.

Granted, there was some limited exchange of specialized goods, but ideally each ayllu was more or less autonomous. So how does one run an empire if everyone is self-sufficient? You control their labor.

When the Inca conquered a new territory, they divided up the land into three parts: that of the people, that of the state, and that of the state religion. The people were allowed to farm their land first, but then worked the land of the state and the land of the state religion. Storehouses for state goods and foodstuffs were built by the thousands all over the region, and were so full that they did not run out for more than twenty years after the Spanish invaded.

The interesting part: most of the goods never moved. When the army was in Chinchaysuyu, they lived on the local supplies of that district's storehouses. If they were in Antisuyu, they used those supplies. And when an area was rebellious, the state would take an entire ayllu from an area loyal to the Inca and move them hundreds of miles to "infiltrate" and settle in the rebellious territory. The Inca moved people rather than goods.*

I have never seen a system so "backwards" to our own economy (and that of the entire ancient "Old World"). The most amazing part: the Inca empire only existed for roughly a hundred years before the Spanish conquest. Their elaborate system of labor and population rotation was just getting started. We will never know if their continued expansion would have killed the market systems of the north or if they would have incorporated these systems into their empire.

*Not only did the rich and varied environment encourage this, the Inca did not use wheeled carts to transport things. Goods were carried on the backs of men or llamas, but mostly men. If the capital, Cuzco, needed specialized goods, they simply brought the craftsmen to Cuzco for a few months after the harvest was taken care of. People were easier to move than goods.