Proud To Be An American

Speaking out.

Some time ago I re-read The Jungle, which everyone remembers to be about the meat industry in the early 1900s but is really about the building of America. Sure, there was a lot about how meat was processed and packaged and sold to the mostly unsuspecting public, but there was a lot more about race, prejudice, corruption, and wealth and poverty. 

We have this image of America, of the brave outcasts who dreamed of a better life for everyone, who came to this unconquered (but not uninhabited) continent and set up a society in which every man, woman and child would have the ability to rise to wealth and comfort through hard work, and care for himself and his family without extreme hardship. 

The upcoming presidential election has brought up what it means to work hard, and what it means to be comfortable. Everyone who was in the race was wealthy from the very beginning, and those who claimed to have worked their way to the top did so because of family connections or by living off of stock gains while they got their footings. Regular Americans? If they have stock it's not enough to live off the gains while they set out to chase their dreams, and more families today need two incomes to provide for the children, especially as healthcare costs increase year to year. There's the mostly unspoken idea that if you're unable to rise up into the ranks of the 1% you're just not working hard enough (mostly unspoken because it's been said, despite it still being highly taboo to bring that up). Obviously if the existing 1% got there (and obviously they got there by working hard and being smart), anyone can get there, so the poor and the struggling middle class should just stop whining. 

But I work in a country where it's uncommon to be rewarded for your efforts, where those who make the most money within a company receive financial rewards that would make it appear they're benefitting the company when the reality is they're failing at their job, and where those on the bottom rung of the ladder work hard and long and with sometimes harsh demands because they're constantly under the threat of being fired and losing the things they're already only hanging onto by a thread. Employees have to prove themselves in order to get a modest (or deserved or well overdue) raise while CEOs and presidents pocket buckets of cash because it's expected, regardless of whether it's deserved. 

The higher ups are also hiding behind the recession (which is over, apparently?), telling the workers that we're all struggling right now and promising things will get better once the economy does, you just have to wait it out like everybody else. And if it's obvious the company is doing well, or at least the CEOs aren't struggling, then it's unpatriotic to complain about your wage or your working conditions. All you have to do is put in your time and things will work out just like it did for the wealthy- don't complain when you're living in the greatest country on Earth.

In The Jungle, families came here using the very last of their life savings, after selling the farm and every single one of their possessions, save for some clothes and the things they can carry, because of the stories of prosperity and opportunity that this great new country provides. They came here willing to work hard and failed because working hard wasn't nearly enough, and wasn't even the issue. They were dumb and were taken advantage of, and nothing's changed since then. We're still willing to work hard, to give it our all, to build up the company that hired us, but we also want a little acknowledgement so that we, too, can make a life. It doesn't seem too much to ask for, especially when that's what the country has promised us. I am proud to be an American, but not always for the right reasons.

Three Years of Blogging

I started this blog 3 years ago today (under a different name for a few days, until I settled on this) as a way to keep me focused and sharp during what would become a 3 month period of unemployment. There's certainly been a lot that's happened and changed in three years:


Got 2 jobs at the Wild Animal Park
Broke up with my long term boyfriend
Seriously doubted my faith
Collected unemployment insurance
Moved out of my wonderful studio
Changed my phone number
Lived with a friend
Lived with a crazy person
Had an amazing summer
Started running, seriously
Reevaluated my meat eating habits
Dated a friend, then ended the friendship
Used my Class B license for a job
Made a bunch of international friends
Had a shitty year
Said goodbye to a dog
Read a bunch of books
Remembered why I love living in San Diego
Was more or less dumped in favor of cocaine
Was more or less disowned by my father
Found a great roommate and a great apartment
Learned to love North Park
Got a writing job
Rediscovered my real passion
Celebrated 2 cousin's weddings
Ran 3 half marathons in 2 states
Made real friendships
Lost fake friendships
Fell deeply in love with a real friend
Traveled to San Francisco and Las Vegas
Sold a car
Bought a car
Started a new blog


This year has been amazing so far and the vast majority of last year was, too. I fully intend on enjoying the rest of it as much as I possibly can. Imagining what the next three years might hold is pretty exciting, too, especially (and this is where I get to be a girl) when I think about the amazing times in store with my boyfriend at my side. There's one thing that will always be certain in my life, in the next 3 years an beyond, and that is that I will always be writing. 

Race At The Oscars

Those are happy tears!

Leading up to the Oscars over the weekend there seemed to be a lot of talk about Octavia Spencer, who played a maid in The Help, being nominated. Some people were angry not that she was nominated, but that she was nominated for what they considered to be a demeaning role. Their point was that black actors should have more varied roles, not just play maids and servants. But this movie was based on a book, which was written partially about the author's real life experiences in a certain time and place in history when wealthy white households employed poor black maids and servants.

This whole controversy made me wonder what would have made these naysayers happy. They were angry that a black woman was nominated for (and won!) a stereotypical role in a movie. But what about the alternatives?

Should she not have been nominated? Octavia played her character very well. I'm sure it wasn't an easy role but she shone. Her mother worked as a maid, and I think winning an Oscar for this role is a great way to pay tribute and acknowledge the history of her home state and region. Her skills deserved nomination and she deserved the award she won.

Should she not have played the role? Octavia chose the role. If she believed, as a black female actress, that a role as a maid to a wealthy white woman in the American South was demeaning she could have not auditioned, turned it down or made it clear she didn't want any part in it. But clearly she did, and that choice was hers alone.

Should the movie not have been made? OK, well the book was great and the movie made a wonderful story that many more people got to enjoy, so I'm all for this movie. I don't think there's anything wrong with making movies about recent time periods. Plus, it's not like everything's all fine and dandy today; we still have loads of discrimination in all sorts of forms, not the least of which is still race in this day and age.

Should the book not have been written? A good number of the naysayers never even read the book, for various reasons. I can see choosing to not read the book, but it does kind of take away from your ability to be vocal against the validity of it (yeah yeah yeah, I'm vocal against Twilight and I've never read them, but I've seen the movies, sort of, and I'm willing to acknowlede my hypocrisy), and especially your ability to knock the actress who played a character in the ensuing movie. The author grew up in the same place she wrote about, and part of her goal was to more effectively represent what life was like in that time and place, Jackson, Mississippi. While it may seem stereotypical to say that wealthy white families employed their poor black quasi-neighbors as diminished servants, it happened in real life, so why try to ignore it? Again, it's not like we're all that advanced as a society now. Plus, I'd be willing to bet the South has quite a bit more left over discrimination because of their history.

Should producers be focusing on providing black actors with more substantial roles? Sure. Of course. But have you seen the types of "black oriented" movies that are out there, or worse, the TV shows? They're incredibly stereotypical. Black thugs, fat funny guys eating fried chicken, being loud and shouting at each other at all times... how are these characters any better than a black maid? The bargain bin at Blockbuster has these movies, which should be an indication of their quality. The Help isn't reinforcing stereotypes, but plenty of other movies and TV shows are.

When it all comes down to it, Octavia was so happy and excited and beyond composure that she clutched her Oscar and cried onstage. The bottom line is she played a difficult role very, very well (and she held her character true to the book, but that's beside the point) and she deserved the recognition she got. I'd even say she stole a good portion of the movie and was a very significant supporting character. I'm sure she's still very happy she received the most prestigious award in her industry and is glad she chose the role. And I hope those who were knocking her role earlier will shut up about it.

Grammar And The Internet

If this guy ever comes into your lunch place, run.

I recently (and by recently I mean several weeks ago, I just forgot to publish this post) finished reading a grammar book called Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss. Though it may sound nerdy, it was actually very funny. Even the title is a joke:

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. "Well, I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Get it??? Pandas eat shoots and leaves (you know... bamboo) but the manual incorrectly used a comma in between eats and shoots so the panda ate, shot and left! Ha ha!

Anyway, the rest of the book was fun to read. But towards the end I did find a funny problem, and it had nothing to do with the fact that this book is about English English and I'm an American (though I could adapt to English English very quickly as I already use some of the un-American grammar described in the book). The book was first published in 2003 when personal computers and access to high speed Internet was first fully mainstream. So when I was starting college, buying my first laptop and becoming fluent in what Truss (and others) have dubbed "Netspeak" she (and others) were trying to make sense of this chatting and texting business that seems to have forgotten all about grammar. Which is perfectly understandable. When something comes along that changes life as we know it so dramatically (do you remember the time before the Internet?) those who were not only used to the previous way of life but who made a living in that previous way of life must be a little reluctant to adapt to these new ways. Especially if that previous way of life was proper English grammar and those who made a living in that previous way of life were grammar sticklers (we call them Nazis). Texting and chatting shorthand must drive them up the wall. However, this paragraph made me lol:

I've just spotted a third reason to loathe emoticons, which is that when they pass from fashion (and I do hope they already have), future generations will associate punctuation marks with an outmoded and rather primitive graphic pastime and despise them all the more. "Why do they still have all these keys with things like dots and spots and eyes and mouths and things?" they will grumble. "Nobody does smileys any more."

HAHAHA, Ms. Truss, how little you knew. Welcome to 2011, where the emoticon is not only still just as popular but often absolutely necessary. No matter how effective of a writer you are, it's still nearly impossible to get the proper tone across when dealing with a sensitive issue (or just teasing, as I've come to learn) in a short text message. Plus, it facilitates flirting a whole hell of a lot.

Though I have to agree with Truss on other annoying means of emphasis. Exclamation points are not to be used in every sentence and certainly should not be over-used (which I find is a symptom of the older generations!!!), all caps means YOU ARE YELLING AT ME (which just makes me ANGRY), and italics and dashes (oh god, and ellipses, please please please do not use ellipses after every half thought) need to be pulled out only when necessary. But then again, I'm the kind of person who writes full and completely punctuated text messages, judges those who don't, and has a hard time deciphering poorly written and badly punctuated corporate emails.

But an interesting thing has occurred in recent months; a new form of emphasis has been adopted by the younger generation (younger being those still in high school, a whole ten years younger than me) which involves retyping the last letter of a word to emphasize that word. "I love you" is now "I loveeeeeee you" and it means "I love you very much." This would make sense with a word like "so": "I love you sooooooo much" is something people actually say IRL. People don't actually say "loveeeeeee." You can't even pronounce that because the "e" is silent. But, and here's the logical kicker, you could say "loooooove." Quite often now I see on Facebook, "I'm veryyy exciteddd!" I can only assume that some kid somewhere knew enough to figure out that some words can be emphasized by retyping the last letter in that word (like "so"), but didn't know enough to know that it doesn't work with every word (like "very"). But it caught on anyway. During a chat once I actually mentioned to a friend my appreciation for his knowledge of the difference between words that can be emphasized that way and words that can't. He wrote, "I'm reeeeeally looking forward to..." when he could have written "I'm reallyyyy looking forward to..." So I thanked him. And to my surprise he knew exactly what I meant and said it annoys him too. Halleluja!

I doubt the new emphasis of retyping the last word will stick on, and if it does I hope it will stay among the younger generations (I hope people grow out of that and we're not reading corporate emails with "very importantttttt" in the subject line), but I like that the Internet is causing trends to be born at this quicker rate. Truss mentions that in the time before the Internet it was near impossible to add a new punctuation mark, and even if one got approval from the grammar gods it was hardly used and would likely not become mainstream. I think if an idea is good enough it will stick around long enough and with access to all the ideas out there at our fingertips we have an opportunity for communication that would never have been possible otherwise.

100% Real Chicken!

This is in your chicken.

Go to a fast food restaurant. Or drive around and check out billboards. Or just turn on the TV and watch some commercials. I guarantee you'll be promised 100% real chicken. Or real cheese. Or real beef. Real food. At restaurants.

Am I the only one who thinks it's silly that restaurants feel the need to advertise that they sell real food? Are the ones that advertise real meat implying that the ones that don't are selling fake meat? Is there any chance that we're eating fake food products? If there isn't any chance of that, why would some restaurants advertise that they sell real food?

This is a scary thought. The thought is made more scary having just finished The Jungle. That is a scary book, especially because it's all real. Sinclair went undercover in a Chicago slaughterhouse in order to write the book. He got a job, toiled as a worthless cog, saw the insides of the meat industry, and wrote so the rest of the world could understand. And understand they did. Well, kind of. The Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act were passed, which was a step in the right direction, but his goal was a bit loftier. He wanted to expose the lies of America for what they were: lure people with the promise of wealth and the American Dream and crush their hopes for a decent existence. But that book was written waaaaay back in 1906, over 100 years ago. No way food is still produced the same way, especially after all the regulations we have now.

Right?

That's what I'm not sure of. Sure, sausage isn't made from the scraps of beef on the slaughterhouse floor anymore (I think...), but would we be proud of how our meat is made? Probably not. A new report came out showing the amount of antibiotics in the livestock we eat: an insane 80% of all antibiotics consumed in the United States is consumed by livestock. Americans only consume 20% of all antibiotics in the country. But if we feed our animals all these drugs, aren't we consuming them in the end when we eat the animals?

And what does 100% real mean???

Turns out I'm not the only one asking this question. There's a Facebook page wondering what McDonald's served us before if now they're serving us "100% real" chicken. It seems that the more I learn about the food I eat the more questions I have. Now I understand why there are people who only eat "dead" plants (like, apples that fell from the tree on their own accord) and why there are people who will spend 4 times the regular cost of produce for organic. There has to be a happy medium somewhere, a way to eat food responsibly and healthfully without going into debt. It seems the search for answers continues.

Eating Animals

I kind of have a hard time eating guys like this.

As you may have noticed to the left, I'm reading a book called Eating Animals. Eating Animals is a book I've wanted to read for a long time now for it's frank journalistic look at what eating animals means for us, for animals, and for the planet. The author has had a on-again off-again relationship with eating meat, often being a vegetarian who had bacon on Sundays and on burgers. The book is not, so far at least, an evangelical vegetarian piece. It proposes an honest look at our meat industries, doing research too involved to do on a smaller scale and too unbiased for Peta or other animal welfare groups. The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, is someone who really likes the idea of vegetarianism but also really likes how meat tastes. When his first son was born he realized that he would have to make decisions about food for him, and he decided he couldn't do that without knowing what that meant.

The first few chapters talked almost exclusively about tuna. I read those chapters while eating a tuna melt. The second time I sat down to read I was eating a banana with peanut butter. The third time I ate black bean and corn tacos. I feel I'm going to find it more difficult to eat meat as I read this book, an issue Safran Foer discusses. He points out that the automatic assumption we make when reading about meat, even when we see the title Eating Animals, is that it must be against the meat industry for its inhumane practices, and if that's the automatic assumption made by the majority of the people, what does that tell us? It tells us that we already know the meat industry is wrong, that even if eating meat isn't wrong in itself, that how we treat and kill the animals we do eat is wrong.

One of the reasons I like Safran Foer (so far) is his inquisitive manner and understanding way of writing. He likes meat. It tastes good. He gets that. He just also gets the importance of not supporting the way we obtain our meat. To him, supporting something he believes in is worth ignoring his cravings. He's not out there to convert you- just to provide any reader with the information they need to make a decision 3 times a day. If you make the decision to eat meat, fine. But here are the facts anyway.

Peta, take note. The whole "chickens are people, too" campaign doesn't work. Mostly because chickens aren't people.

Anne Frank

Just finished reading (re-reading?) Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank had to be the most intelligent 14-year old girl in the world. She was insanely smart for her age, well wise beyond her years, and so articulate and able to easily express the most basic feelings that people have struggled their whole lives to express. It's a huge shame on our species that she had to die at the hands of an evil, racist authority.

Anne was in hiding in a warehouse with her family and 4 others for over 2 years during World War II. During that time they did not leave the warehouse, did not breathe fresh air, came close to starvation, came close to discovery multiple times, and had restrictions on when they could run water, use the toilet and even get up and move around. Their lives depended on extreme secrecy and security measures. Annes only solace throughout this whole ordeal was her dependency on the privacy of her diary. She wrote about quarrels between the tenants, being chastised by her parents, her longing for her friends, her lack of anyone to confide in (except her diary, which she named "Kitty"), the goings on in the world, being terrorized by air raids, the pains their friends took to bring them food, their near starvation... all before age 14, young Anne experienced and documented a life none of us can imagine. And she took it all in stride: every so often when she became depressed, Anne would bring herself back out of it by remembering how lucky she was to be in hiding when her friends suffered unimaginable fates in the outside. Starving, alone and terrified for 2 years, Anne pulled her own chin up, even when the adults couldn't do so.

In her diary she wrote about her dreams for the future, after the war. She saw the life of her mother and knew that was not for her. She wanted

"to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to... to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!"

Oh, Anne. You have no idea.

Unsurprisingly enough, this part of her book resonated with me. I've looooong known that the housewife life is so not for me. Granted, I'm glad my mom did it, and I don't think less of women my age who want to do it, I just couldn't do it or even imagine doing it. Anne had considered having her diary published and wanted to become a journalist. She also laughed at herself, wondering who would ever read the dumb whinings of a teenage girl. In the mid 1940s, Anne started to struggle with the notion of doing things differently. It was expected that a good Jewish girl would marry and have children, but Anne wanted more. Things aren't so different now.

Sixty-plus years later, women are still expected to marry and have children. It's more acceptable to also have a career (or hobby or part-time job or volunteer) but the question of getting married and having children is ever present. Telling a curious asker that you have a husband and child(ren) doesn't require further discussion. Telling a curious asker that you have a cool job prompts questions of who you're dating and if you want to have his kids. Having a job is not an acceptable answer unless you also are at least engaged.

What is it about the older generations that want us to bear our own children and become a family so badly? Why is it not OK to skip that step in life? We are not animals in the sense that we bear young every year in order to ensure the survival of our species, and since it's such a HUGE deal to raise even one kid in this world why is it not acceptable to opt out?

Answer: They sacrificed happiness and freedom for the good of the younger generations and now it's our turn to do the same. People who marry young are, for the most part, viewed as more mature and responsible than those who marry late. We equate marriage with maturity and the later you do it the less responsible and more selfish you are. I suppose it could be said that marriage can force a couple to become more mature and responsible, and that having kids forces people to make decisions for the best of the child rather than what sounds fun, but is that really the path we want most people to take? Force someone, in the midst of learning to handle life, to become something completely different? This will only force people to suppress certain feelings until something happens (like divorce or the kids growing up) to make those feelings resurface. And now we have rampant 40- and 50-somethings back on the dating scene trying to just be happy. Maybe if they'd had the opportunity to do what made them happy in their 20s they'd have made better life decisions and wouldn't need to deal with the sudden resurfacing of emotions not dealt with in decades.

A New York Times article ponders the state of the twenty-somethings. Because we obviously have a problem if we're not graduating, finding a life-long job and partner, marrying and popping out kids ASAP. The article is very long winded and goes into the psychology of 20-somethings (including brain development and cultural expectations) but it also spends a few pages discussing if "emerging adulthood" should be the newest recognized developmental stage in life, which I'm not really interested in. Do we really need to recognize it as a stage? Can't we just settle with a continuous cycle of the older generation criticizing the younger generation for being different?

My mom has been unhappy with her job (and state of being, really) for the better part of a decade. She tried taking classes at community college but couldn't finish a whole semester. Her job offers stability, health insurance and a flexible schedule. She tells me she made sacrifices in order to obtain those things, for the kids, and suggests that maybe it's time I do the same. But why should I? I have no need to make those kinds of sacrifices. Sure, it'd be nice to have health insurance, but I'm young and in good health, so it's not something I'm willing to sacrifice happiness at work for. I'm 24 and living on my own, supporting myself fully, and am not looking forward to marriage or children. This is the time to deal with the issues my parent's generation ignored for the sake of starting a family, and dammit I'm gonna take my sweet ass time.

So, Anne, your thoughts are just as relevant and resonating in women, at least this woman, today as they were in the forties. I'm just glad the privacy of your diary allowed for the kind of frank opinion that is absent in most other books. And, of course, I'm excited to see you live on decades and decades after your death, untimely as it was.

In Which I Disappear

If this is what passes publication, I better be an author.

Even if a book is bad or boring I'll finish it. Since I graduated college and started reading my own books for fun I've only not finished one, and that was because it was going around in circles and I had a more exciting book waiting (it was Catch 22 and I plan on trying again someday). Until yesterday.

Last summer I picked up the most interesting looking thriller book from a sorry looking pile of freebies in the employee lounge because, well, it was free. I just got around to reading it about a week ago and the first sentence is:

An hour before his world exploded like a ripe tomato under a stiletto heel, Myron bit into a fresh pastry that tasted suspiciously like a urinal cake.

Already I knew I wasn't going to like this book. But I don't give up on books very easily; I want to give them a chance because sometimes it takes a while for it to get going. But then I got to the first paragraph of chapter 6:

Myron mixed childlike Froot Loops and very adult All-Bran into a bowl and poured on skim milk. For those not reading the Cliffs Notes, this act denotes that there is still a great deal of boy in the man. Heavy symbolism. How poignant.

Aaand I'm done. Your sarcasm does not work, Mr. Coben. Luckily, my newest book came in the mail the other day and I'm way stoked to read it (see image to the left). It's one of those books I want to finish as quick as I can and make it last forever at the same time. So I'm going to be MIA for the next however-long-it-takes-me-to-read-this-giant-book-in-between-my-2-jobs. This one I'll probably stretch out a little longer than the last two in the series because the author died right after delivering the manuscript... so no more Lisbeth Salander or Mikael Blomkvist. That is, at least, until they make a movie out of it. And I dunno quite how I feel about that...