It's Me! In DC!

Somehow, and I don’t know how entirely, it’s been two and a half weeks since I arrived in the US.  In a bizarre turn of events, I’ve rarely been at my computer, except when at the office, and thus have been entirely woeful about sharing news of our adventures.

And adventurous they are.  Today, I was supposed to my friend Jonathan after work finished.  It’s the first day of the session of Congress, and there was a vote on, so we were forbidden from using the magical tunnels that connect all the buildings (they keep us from needing a coat).  When votes are on, the tunnels are only for the members.  So instead, I walked outside, across the courtyard, and into the Capitol.  I was to meet Jonathan in Statuary Hall, which is where Congress met for a good number of years a long, long time.  It’s amazing, because the room has certain echo spots, so if you’re there alone, you get to try it out.  You can whisper on one side of the room, and people positioned in a certain spot on the other side of the room can hear.  There are plaques on the floor where former presidents’ desks were.  I was running a bit late, though, and Jonathan walked into the next room to meet me. There we were, under the dome of the Capitol building.  It was amazing.  I’ve been there a few times now, but being there at night, when it was almost totally deserted and closed to the public was surreal.

We then went down a set of tiny abandoned stairs, and through the crypt (yes, it’s really called that), and down hallways, and through security, and up an escalator, and through more security (or, at least, that’s how it seemed), and then through a door, and into the gallery of the house.  There below us were our respective congressmen, and Nancy Pelosi, and Dennis Kuchinich and all sorts of other people well recognised and kind-of-recognised.  Sadly, Aaron Schock was a no-show.

So yes, it’s been exciting.  The office itself isn’t always thrilling- I’m doing lots of data entry- but I’m learning lots, and occasionally something happens that is just wonderful- I’ve been able to write a few things, which has been great.

Non-internship things are going well too.  After one day of DC site-seeing, we went to New York City for a couple of days ahead of NYE, and were staying in Times Square, so we got the whole experience, and didn’t even have to wait outside for 6 hours.  When I was in Central Park, I found a wallet, opened it up, and discovered it belonged to a fellow Australian, so we had quite an adventure tracking him down (He didn’t have a Facebook page, which made it challenging, but his parents were listed in the White Pages, so Mum helped out, and we got in touch). We wandered up 5th Avenue, had yoghurt on the Met steps, went on an NBC tour (and bought LOTS of Chuck stuff).  I spent a wonderful, snowy morning with family friends in New Jersey, taking the train out and back.  I also went to the Central Park Zoo, and saw the Penguins, which feature in many a dodgy chic lit novel, but in real life, they smelled really, really bad.

We took the bus back to DC on New Year’s Day, and the internship started the following Monday.

Some other things that may or may not be great:

1. I live next door to a mall.  Seriously. A BIG mall.  With a Norstrom and a Gap and a Benetton and a Macys.  You may think this is good, but really, considering my bank balance, it is very, very bad.

2. American food is GIANT.  Seriously, the servings are enormous and very, very cheap. And American Sprite, in its corn-syrup-laden goodness, is just so yummy.  This is all Not Very Good for my waistline.

3. It is COLD. Like, really cold.  We’re lucky when it gets above freezing.  We’ve had a few little bits of snow, but no good downfalls yet.  We’re getting acclimatized (I don’t even wear a scarf anymore!!), but seriously, to borrow my friend Naomi’s phrase, it’s so cold it hurts to wear pants.  I do love the cold, but it gets a little tiresome, wearing quite that much clothing.

So that’s what’s going on… more news soon ( I hope…)

I’m very cross tonight. Most of the time, I quite like being Australian.  I love my socialized medicine and my affordable education and my superannuation. Not tonight, though. Tonight I am ashamed. And tonight I want to tell you about it.

Oh, what a delightful thing, that this still goes to the world. For the time being, at least, the Australian government cannot legally restrict my capacity to send this message far and wide.  I can TELL you I am ashamed.  But my legal right to say such is, at least indirectly, being put in serious jeopardy.

You see, those days of freedom are waning. Today, Senator Stephen Conroy, who has taken the mantle of Douchiest Man In Australia from a field of hundreds of worthy candidates, announced that the trial of a “clean” internet feed had been a success.

What’s a clean internet feed? It’s the government imposing mandatory internet filtering at ISP level. It requires ALL internet service providers in Australia to prevent their clients from accessing a black list of sites.  This black list is provided by the government and is not available publicly.  Furthermore, the blacklist cannot be challenged.

How can such blatant abuses of freedoms be tolerated in a democracy? Of course it’s by stating it’s “for the children”.   The moves have been framed in terms of porn and violence, though there’s a strong “illegal activity” element.  The government has stated it will restrict access to such sites. As is to be expected, Rupert Murdoch’s papers are singing its praises.  They’re framing it a victory for family values.

But it is not. It is a victory for human rights abuse.  Extreme, I know, but that’s what this is.  The government should not be able to limit our freedom on speech in such a manner.  They should not be able to limit our capacity to organize.  They should not be able to determine our values for us. That is our responsibility,  not theirs.

The technology requires to do this is not reliable.  It doesn’t block the sites it purports to block, and it limits beyond the scope of what it is supposed to limit.  Furthermore, it legalizes behavior by the government that ought not be legalised.  The government should not be able to decide what the public can and cannot see. That is a fundamental conflict of interest.

It bothers me so much. It bothers me because, fundamentally, its a reminder of what we lack by not having a Bill of Rights: protection against government overstep.  But it also reminds me of the way the government don’t truly understand the role of digital media.  Do they think it’s not *really* the media? Do they think we don’t take it seriously? Do they think it doesn’t matter to us?  Do they think we don’t want to protect it?

The online world isn’t just a part of our world. It is inseparable from our world. We read, write, share every day via digital media. It’s not optional to us: it is fundamental to our experience.  We do not want that compromised.  We do not want our experiences of the digital elements of the world to only be what the government deems to be appropriate for us.

We are adults and we deserve to be treated as such.

What’s more: we care about our freedoms. We consider digital freedom to be fundamental to that. We will vote accordingly.

#nocleanfeed.

Heart,

An Angry Australian.

Sweet Potato Patties

The mos of Movember have been shaved away, and the clarity of mind that followed Ocsober has been long lost in the Christmas Party season.  Not to worry, though, because Veganuary is just around the corner!

Veganuary is the invention of my friend Mal and I.  We were talking about the benefits of eating vegan, both personal and environmental, and decided to commit to eating vegan for a whole month.

The environmental benefits of eating vegan are well-known.  The awesome PB&J Campaign, which encourages people to eat plant-based foods at lunch time, has some incredible state.  The amount of carbon you save by limiting your meat intake is incredible.  Check out the numbers.

Why just a month?  Well, deciding to eat vegan is certainly a lifestyle, and one that takes a lot of commitment.  Veganuary is a good way to learn a bit about the benefits of eating vegan food, and to introduce a few vegan meals to your regular rotation.  After eating vegan for a month, it’s a lot easier to imagine a life in which meat is an occasional luxury, rather than a regular feature.  And you’ll do far more environmental good than, say, switching your lights off for a purely-symbolic hour.

Plus, it’s a great way to start the year on a healthy note, especially after the aforementioned Christmas parties.

As I’ve probably mentioned, oh, 16000 times, I’ll be in Washington DC for January and February, and living in a shared apartment where we’re likely to share meals.  Maintaining my vegan pledge while I’m there will no doubt be a challenge, but worth the effort.

So through Veganuary, I’ll try to post some of my favourite vegan recipes, and let you know how it’s going.

And why not think about signing up** for Veganuary yourself?

*Here’s a link to one of my earlier vegan recipes, Sweet Potato Patties, pictured above. They are seriously yum!

** That is a metaphorical “signing up”.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been reading a lot of feminist books lately, and learning a lot more about feminism.  It’s been really wonderful to feel like I OWN my feminism for the first time in my life.  But one of the things that I learnt, while reading those books, is how much I’ve grown accustomed to misogyny in the world, and how accepting I am of it.  I laugh off jokes about women in a way I’d never laugh off jokes that were similarly racist.  I see women depicted as shrewish, stupid or desperate, and don’t respond to the fact such woeful stereotypes are common.  Accordingly, since I’ve been reading these books, I’ve been offended a lot more.  Not because I’m overly sensitive, but because there are a lot of genuinely offensive things said about women.  It’s like my eyes are open to it for the first time.

It’s weird, though, because it’s had another effect.  I’ve also become newly aware of how much I similarly ignored insults of my Christianity, and how often I’ve not said anything while my faith was offended.  Just as I’d laugh off comments about women, I’d similarly laugh off comments about Christians, never stopping to say “wait, that’s offensive”.  In many cases, I don’t think it was deliberate or malicious on their part, but just as I’d started to be offended by a culture of misogyny that I saw more broadly in my life, I found a culture of anti-Christianism which was particularly noticeable amongst my fellow liberals.

And really, Christians are still one of the great targets of liberal scorn.  Yes, it is the majority religion in the US, and yes, they have a considerable about of political power, but that doesn’t mean it’s somehow ok to religiously profile them in a way that is utterly unacceptable when done to other religious groups.  Yes, some of them do it too, and yes, sometimes “they start it”. But that doesn’t make it acceptable or justifiable or in any way ok.  Doing the same thing just exacerbates the problem.

It came to a head recently after a conversation with a friend recently in which I felt my faith was insulted.  It wasn’t deliberate or malicious… it just was.  He didn’t realise he was being offensive.  The truth is, for a long time, I didn’t even realize I was being offended.  Then, all at once, I did.  Just like the misogyny, anti-Christianism was suddenly everywhere in the liberal world.  Previously blind to it, I could now see it everywhere I went.  And more than that, I realised how much my faith informed what I believe about a whole range of things, and the degree to which I’d been self-censoring any acknowledgment of that because I felt uncomfortable as a Christian who is very much a liberal.

Liberalism is poorer for the way it often regards Christianity.  We cede this vast swath of society to conservatives, and don’t even bother to engage with it.  And if we do, we almost delight in offending it much of the time.  We aren’t culturally sensitive, we don’t think about how to speak their language.  We often assume they are bigots.  Even as a Christian, I find myself doing this on occasion.  We are happy for them to agree with us, but only on our terms.  Mostly, though, we’ve made the liberal world such an unpleasant and mocking place for the Christian that it’s easier to run back to conservatism, even if they don’t always agree with it, because at least they aren’t mean to them.

But here’s the thing:  we should be talking to them.  About many things.  Because there is common ground, and there are discussions to be had.  There’s certainly a Christian case for health care reform… is anyone making it?  What about a serious discussion about the role of government? We liberals need to rethink how we talk to and about Christians.  We’ve written them off as the great unwinnable.  Many of them probably are.  But it’s silly to just give up, and assume this from the start.  It’s almost a kind of ideological purification we so mock the conservatives for.

I’ve read feminist bloggers complaining about women saying “I’m pro-choice but I’d never have an abortion”, because if they’re pro-choice, they’re pro-choice.  And yes, that is true.  But that’s become a necessary statement because liberals frequently conflate public and private morality.  It’s as if agreeing with a political position is endorsing an action.  In our political culture, it’s become so automatic that the two are the same thing that people feel it necessary to make that statement.

What a false thing!  Being pro-choice doesn’t have to mean endorsing abortion, it can simply mean a belief that decisions about when life begins are so complicated and personal that they should not be made by the government.  Being pro-gay-rights doesn’t have to mean a personal belief that homosexuality is right, but that that decision is personal and not to be legislated.  We seem to have this belief in the liberal world that people have to not only agree with the outcome, but agree with how they got there.  We have a notion that the private lives of people must be fully reflective of their beliefs about public life.

But beliefs about society are not the same as beliefs about one’s own life.  I have several principles that guide me politically:  I believe governments are responsible to protect the physical security and wellbeing of their citizens to the greatest practical extent, and, after doing so, to ensure their maximum liberty.  Which is why I love socialized medicine, and I’m entirely pro-gay rights, and pro-choice.  I’m also a Christian. And my belief in who God is and what he’s done is real and true.  But I believe in democracy, not theocracy, and whatever my personal beliefs (aside from my Christianity, which you’ll notice is quite vaguely described, I have been very careful and specific to avoid mentioning ANY specific personal beliefs in this post, because it is not about that), I don’t think they should be informing the way my representatives govern.  I want a government that will protect individual liberties, because that is right, and because that will ensure I am always free to believe what I want.

And that is the conversation we should be having with Christians.  Not “what do you believe about abortion”, but more fundamentally: what is the purpose of government?  What are its limits?  What should it do?  Surely it’s not a stretch to believe there are many other Christians out there who believe government should protect and educate its people, and to preserve individual liberties.  And if there are, we should be talking to them, because there is a lot of room for them in liberalism.  But to do so, we probably also need to stop making fun of them, and assuming that because they live a certain way, they are inconvinceable. And we don’t need to convince them to change any of their personal beliefs… just to think about the way they think about government.

I was at an event this week that discussed global warming.  I shouldn’t share any more specifics of the event, but it was attended by lots of men in their 50s, and the general vibe in the room was to complain about how much a carbon emissions tax will cost them.  Despite remarkable concessions granted to this particular industry, and it being an industry that could largely benefit from an increased awareness about Climate Change, all they did was complain.

They need to shut the **** up.

I am sick to death of people complaining about how much things are going to cost them.  I am sick of people being unwilling to sacrifice ANY part of their lifestyle.  I’m sick of people complaining about what it will cost.

Some industries are going to die.  Some lifestyle habits aren’t going to be sustainable.  Some people will lose jobs.  We’ll probably all have less disposable income.

Deal with it.

I am fed up with these baby boomers complaining.  They know full well that the full effects of climate change won’t be felt in their lifetime so the answer, obviously, is to do nothing.

Climate Change is not debatable.  It’s not a myth, or a conspiracy.  It is real.

What’s more, the free market won’t be able to convince people to make environmentally responsible decisions- the lag between cause and effect is far too great.  We will need governments to intervene to make sure the decisions that are made today reflect their true cost.  Because climate change won’t hurt the Baby Boomers.  It won’t hurt most of the current CEOs and world leaders.  It’s a problem from which, by virtue of their age, they are protected.

But there’s a good chance it’ll happen in my lifetime.  There’s a much better chance it’ll happen in my children’s, should I one day have kids.

We’ll have the unbearable heat, the insufficient access to water, the rising oceans, the unlivable cities.  We’ll have problems with our food supply, we may well run out of oil.

So you know what, older-folk-complaining-about-the-cost-of-climate-change: Stop being so FREAKING selfish.  Stop being greedy.  Stop thieving from your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Action on Climate Change- and real action, not this wimpy pseudo-action- is a moral imperative.

So SHUT UP to all those people complaining about how action on climate change will cost them. It’ll cost all of us.  But NOT doing anything will cost my generation a hell of a lot more.  So suck it up, quit your whinging, and take responsibility for a mess you had a big part in creating.

PS. There is no dancing like dancing to live music.

PPS. I’m pretty sure their new song, the one they played between Vintage Books and Buffalo Country, will be their first genuine hit. It’s incredible.

There is so very much wrong with the piece, I genuinely don’t know where to begin.  How is it ok, in a world where women earn substantially less than men, to tell women to EXPECT less, to ask for less, to encourage them to temper their expectations?  We should be demanding more.  We should be saying if there’s a world in which women have difficulty having a good job and being a mum, maybe we need to change some things to make it easier.

Jill Berry, president of the Girls’ School Association in the UK, justified her suggestion by saying that:

“Your priorities shift, but you’re not selling out – you are facing reality and trying to be realistic about what you can achieve and you should stop beating yourself up about it,”

But what REALLY bothers me about the article is that the only mention of the child’s father is in the line:

When my pupils try to wind me up by saying they plan to marry a rich man to support them, I ask them: ‘what if he runs off with the au pair?’”

Where’s the talk of partnership?  Where’s the talk of child-rearing being a two-person exercise?  Where’s the discussion of the even split of home duties?

These girls should be raising their expectations.  They should raise their expectations of their partners: they should only have children with someone who respects them enough to share these duties, make equal sacrifices.  We might not be able to have it all, but there’s no reason that women should lower their expectations.  We should be looking for ways to solve problems, not retreating to retrograde gender roles in order to make the problem go away.

The summer of 2009 seemed long for both the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress.  Facing falling polling numbers and increased outrage at its health care reform proposals, Congress adjourned and returned home for the summer to find angry constituents organized in vocal opposition to the administration?s plans.  While polls continued to illustrate that the public was broadly in favour of health care reform, representatives faced bitterly divided constituencies and increasingly vitriolic rhetoric.  Right-wing media figures accused the Obama administration of trying to enact a radical socialist agenda. Congressional coalitions that had once held promise now fractured. The bipartisan “Gang of Six” on the Senate Finance Committee split down party lines. The momentum gained by the new administration slowed.  Yet as the leaves started to turn, and Congress returned from its break, health care remained on the agenda, bloodied, but not beaten

Click here to see the whole thing.