Tag: #opinion

  • If You Ban Books, Remember to Bring Props

    Today, I read an opinion essay in The New York Times by Carmen Maria Machado about books being banned, especially her memoir In The Dream House, in Leander, TX. (Go Texas!) To quote from Machado’s essay;

    “This year, a parent in Leander, Texas — livid that “In the Dream House” appeared on high school classes’ recommended reading lists— brought a pink strap-on dildo to a school board meeting. Voice trembling with disgust, she read excerpts from my book — including one where I referred to a dildo, inspiring the prop — before arguing that letting a student read my book could be considered child abuse.”

    Sadly, the parents in Leander are trying to ban books, which, and no one there seems to have learned this, never works. For one, you can’t kill an idea, and two, the parents are just making these books even more desirable to their kids, because the books have become clandestine.

    Please, read Machado’s essay, as she makes a very persuasive argument for the need of teenagers to have access to books that share a wide range of different viewpoints from a spectrum of authors. But, she also points out that education on healthy relationships is never taught in schools, and her book, and many others, can be a teaching tools for what a compassionate and caring partnership between adults can and should be. I found the essay well written, and made me think more about what my daughter should have access to.

    One last funny note…

    Please click the link, “brought a pink strap-on dildo ,” because I had a question. As the parents were offended by the book, “In the Dream House,” somehow they thought, especially Lori Hines as she is the woman in the picture, that bringing a dildo was a great “prop” idea for the meeting. You know, really ramming home their point, but it does raise questions for me like; Did Lori go out and buy a pink strap-on dildo, did she own one, or did she borrow it? Also, what is she planning on doing with it now that the meeting is over? Did she think about how in the high school, she will be known as the “pink strap-on dildo mom?” If you didn’t want kids exposed to pink strap-on dildos, you have, in fact, exposed your kids to a pink strap-on dildo? (Also, saying pink strap-on dildo over and over again is kind’a fun.) This might be a moment where the stunt upstaged the message.

  • Oh, Brett

    I can’t help but wonder what is going through the head of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh?

    If he’s innocent, I do feel a little bad for him.

    If he did it, then he’s going to get what he deserves. (If you aren’t sure, this is what I am talking about.)

    This story so touches a nerve with me. Though I am a white male in America, outside of that, I do not see any similarity with Brett. If anything, he is emblematic to me of how screwed up America is right now.

    Though I was not born into a well-connected family or got to go to cool places for Summer vacation, or even could get away with behaving “badly” and have it chocked up as “boys being boys.”

    There is a part of me that believes Brett when he says he has no memory of the events he’s being accused of. It’s not that he was too drunk. It’s because why would he need to remember those moments?

    When you think you sit on top of the world, then you start to believe that everyone wants to be like you. Brett was having fun, and everyone around him was having fun, right? If we are all having fun, and fun is good, then nothing bad is happening. Thus, those moments were inconsequential, and thus forgettable.

    And I saw those actions in high school, and even in college. I saw the reactions, and the impossibility to convince that guy that his “joking around” was actually hurtful. To that guy, everything was taking from hi perspective, because we all want to be him, right?

  • Keep It Together

    I have been trying to stay positive through the move to California, all the changes that it has brought, and the fact that I am way outside of my comfort zone. It has been messin’ with my head.

    The biggest issue that I am having right now is that I haven’t been able to find a job. I have sent out 20+ resumes to prospective jobs in the span of 6 weeks, and I have only landed two interviews. It has made me start second guessing myself, and then on Friday night I started down the spiraling path of self-destructive thinking by beginning to believe that I would never find a job, and that would cause us to default on all of our bills, and that it is only a matter of time before we are homeless…

    And then I read this opinion piece over the weekend, all about rejection.

    It did put a few things in prospective, which I needed, so thank you Emily Winter for writing it.

    I still need to get a job to pay bills, that part hasn’t changed, but it reminded me to start thinking about longer term goals. What are the steps that I need to be taking now? And there is a difference from just “trying” at something, and working hard at it. As Emily said in her piece, “I’m so tired, and that’s how I know I did it right. If I weren’t exhausted, it would mean I’d just spent the last year asking for things without putting in the work to earn them. To me, there’s nothing more off-putting than entitlement.”

    She has a very good point.

  • It’s the Debt, Stupid

    I like reading David Brooks. Today, I read his opinion piece about how it’s not about the economy anymore. That things seems to be going well with the economy; stock market is up, GDP is up, growth is booming… but somehow no one is happy. He points out the many ills in society right now, especially the report that showed that American life expectancy has decreased due to suicide and drug overdose. He draws his own conclusion on what we should do, but my gut tells me that what he prescribes is just old thinking for new problems; as he put it, policy makers will need to “…figure out how economic levers can have moral, communal and sociological effect.”

    So… Jobs won’t solve these problems, but jobs will solve the problem?

    I have heard that before. Polices have been made around that idea, and yet here we are. A job without dignity, both moral and economic, creates more problems than it solves.

    The thing is that if you don’t earn much money and if you get a minuscule raise, though statistically a significant increase, you still don’t have shit. And if shit keeps increasing in price, you never get ahead.

    Why do people under forty spend more money on “experiences” rather than homes, retirement, or even a savings account? Because that’s all they can afford.

    A dollar value-based society, whose capital is not easily accessed by any economic levels except the top, creates a debt culture, and in the end, will start to eat its tail to survive.