Senator Kirsten Gillibrand sent me a response to this letter.

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concern for the Clean Air Act, and your desire to protect the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other pollutants. I share your view on this issue and will continue to oppose efforts to undermine the Clean Air Act.

One of my top legislative priorities has been, and will continue to be, to ensure that New York’s families have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I will continue to oppose attempts to overturn the EPA’s endangerment finding, strip the EPA of its lawful authority, or delay the implementation of Clean Air Act regulations set forth by Administrator Jackson.

We must continue to press for cleaner standards for the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. These plants, many of which are inefficient and scheduled to be decommissioned, must not be allowed to continue to operate under the lax standards that they now follow. We need to ensure that all newly constructed coal fired power plants meet emissions standards and that the plants that continue to operate abide by elevated performance standards. These outdated power plants represent the inefficient and carbon-intensive technologies that we must move away from in order to transition to a clean energy economy.

Thank you again for writing to express your concerns, and I hope that you keep in touch with my office regarding future legislation. For more information on this and other important issues, please visit my website at http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov and sign up for my e-newsletter.

I am very impressed with this thorough response. Kudos, Senator!

Fobes published an article last week entitled “How Feminism Became A Joke.” Susannah Breslin writes that Feminism is a joke because:

• Gloria Steinem approves of Mad Men but not a new television show about the Playboy Club.
• Her film studies professor explained a phallic symbol in a way that went over her head.
• Feminists point out ways in which patriarchy harms women. When we don’t believe that Hugh Hefner is a guru of spiritual enlightenment, this makes us “hypocrites.”
• No one is a feminist anymore.

Her arguments about Steinem and hypocrisy were too convoluted to follow, and I haven’t seen “Working Girl” so I can’t comment on Sigourney Weavers symbolic penis. However, the tired cliches about feminists not having a sense of humor and feminism being dead are so patently false, that I don’t know if anyone who espouses them actually knows what feminism is, or what has been going on in the past 20 years or even the past 5.

In terms of feminists who have a sense of humor, there’s Amanda Marcotte, Twisty Faster, Julie Klausner, Sady Doyle, Greta Christina, Jen McCraight, the entire Jezebel blog… there actually hasn’t been a feminist blog I’ve read since I’ve started reading feminist blogs in 2005 that hasn’t made me laugh at least once. Of course it can’t be all fun and games, there are serious and sometimes tragic issues to discuss. But feminist ladies (and dudes) do know how to crack a joke when appropriate. There’s also a rich history of funny ladies who are also feminists – Sarah Silverman, Maria Bamford, Sarah Haskins, Kristen Schall, just to name a few.

As far as “No one’s buying it anymore,” I’m not sure how anyone with an internet connection could not notice the Slutwalks being planned by people all over the world. Or the thousands who marched across the United States in defense of Planned Parenthood earlier this year.

Whether Breslin is dishonest or clueless doesn’t matter. This kind of dreck is published (and solicited) by Forbes to remind everyone what the rich and powerful think of women. And that’s the cruelest joke of all.

On Monday morning, I experienced a moment of clarity – a long moment of clarity. I was reading Fire Dog Lake.

I thought, I have voted Democratic all my life. I have been a campaign volunteer for local candidates every year since 2006.  I have always followed current events closely. I am disillusioned by President Obama’s refusal to see the Republicans for who they are – bitter hateful people intent on destroying the country – not allies who just happen to have a different letter after their name.

I gave a good chunk of my money to Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for Obama again. In November 2012, when I step into that voting booth, if I see the name, Obama, on the ticket, for the first time in my life, I will vote for a write in candidate. If I can remember how to spell “Janet Rhodes”, then I will vote for Janet Rhodes for President of the United States.

This is when the long moment of clarity occurred.

I immediately called the White House switchboard.

I gave the White House volunteer my background info. And then I said, “I want Obama to resign, effective immediately.”

Since making that phone call, I’ve honed my voting strategy. I’ve been reading the comments at Pandagon, Alas A Blog and the Angry Black Lady. Several people have pointed out that it’s most effective to vote for whomever you truly believe in, whether it’s a third party candidate or writing someone in. No matter what I say, voting for Janet Rhodes would be interpreted as an endorsement of the moonbat, purity troll agenda. It would also reinforce the assumption that throwing a temper tantrum is an effective way to get what you want.

My husband also weighed in, asking me quizzically. “Who are you, and what have you done with the reasonable, pragmatic woman I married?”

But I don’t care. All that matters is  my number one political goal: to show everyone that I am smarter and more liberal than they are.

When I step into that voting booth in November 2012, I will vote for someone who is not Barack Obama. When I experienced that moment of clarity, I realized that my vote is a weapon. And I intend to use it.  I intend to use it for the forces of spite, cynicism, pettiness and acting like a toddler who has missed her afternoon nap. This is the America I was raised to believe in. One where people brandish their rights like firearms, or nuclear missiles, ready to send anyone who calls for dialogue, compassion or incremental change straight to hell.

The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job In The World is Still The Least Valued by Ann Crittenden

The Price of Motherhood was an alarming book, and an important one for anyone who is thinking of becoming a parent or who already is. I do not have any children, but I would like to one day. The idea of “mommy wars” always seemed too simplistic to be valuable, and my suspicions were correct – there seem to be few if any differences between children whose parents work, and those who are cared for at home.

Crittenden shows that no matter what choice women make, they’re in for a raw deal. It’s not just that a gap in employment could lead to lower wages and difficulty finding a job when returning to the workforce, there is a penalty for having children at all – even if they return to work very soon after giving birth.

The idea behind the Price of Motherhood is that our society undervalues child care, whether it is provided by parents or outside the home in day care centers. The most astonishing part of the book was that even husbands of working mothers face a penalty:

A survey of 348 male managers at twenty Fortune 500 companies found that fathers from dual-career families put in an average of two fewer hours per week – or about 4 percent less – than men whose wives were at home. That was the only difference between the two groups of men. But the fathers with working wives, who presumably had a few more domestic responsibilities, earned almost 20 percent less.

A 4% decrease in hours worked led to a 20% loss in income. For men.

This book is an important one for everyone to read. Crittenden presents a fascinating case of what a divorce settlement would look like for a family where the husband works and the mother stays at home with the children where the income is divided in such a way that keeps all people at the same percentage above the poverty line as they were when the marriage was in tact. The amount the husband has to pay is sizable, and the anecdote makes it clear why divorce often leads to poverty for women and children.

I felt an overwhelming sense of doom when reading this book. The truth is that no matter what, in the United States it is not easy to raise a family. I think that this book is valuable for answering questions that a lot of young women have before starting a family but are unsure where to look for answers. Many women were raised to believe that since motherhood is rewarding and natural, everything will work itself out in the end, and might feel that our financial concerns are not valid. They are. Securing resources is a part of taking care of children. I would recommend this book for anyone curious about or planning for the financial aspects of parenthood.

Greta Christina recently commented on facebook:

[I] Am very puzzled by the troll on my blog who thinks I’m a vegetarian dog owner. And who apparently thinks these would be bad things. ?!?!?

And it brought me back to the eighth grade. I was sitting in Art class. At my assigned table were two other girls I didn’t know well but were fairly neutral towards me and two boys who, for some reason had decided to pick on me. They bullied me while the two girls said nothing, for fear that they would become the targets next. They made comments about my clothes, or anything they could think of. I was a slightly awkward 13 year old, growing out my bangs and without much fashion sense, but my biggest crime, in retrospect is that as a new student that year I hadn’t yet found a stable group of friends to back me up. And I also had not learned how to project confidence and a “don’t fuck with me” vibe – my adolescent vulnerability was on my sleeve.

I was a part of my school’s Conservation Club – an extra curricular activity for young environmentalists with maybe 4 other kids but somehow the boys in my Art Class had found out about this and thought it was hilarious.

“Hey! Those acid wash jeans are sex-y!” he said mockingly.
“Shut up.” I thought I was being forceful, but it probably made the bulls-eye bigger.
“Do you know how you are going to end up? You’re probably going to never get married, because seriously, what man would want you? And you will be living in a big mansion, as President of Earth Day adopting Korean kids.” So much to unpack there. Sexism, racism, and more from some middle school jerk.
I thought about it. I knew the “forever single” was supposed to hurt my feelings, but I was more interested in his career prediction. President of Earth Day, I already knew, was not a real job, but it sounded pretty fucking cool.
“Ok, whatever.” I said. The bell was about to ring.

I’ve often thought back to that day and how much his insult(s) revealed the amount of toxic hatred our culture spews and is picked up by kids and teens. I thought of it the night before my wedding and laughed that he was so far wrong on two counts (My job is white-collar boring and administrative, and I have not yet see President of Earth Day on Monster.com). The mansion and Korean children have also not materialized.

So yes, Greta, trolls have a way of picking out stereotypes they feel represent the “worst” about a group and flinging them back at us in a way that both fails to insult and reveals a lot about their own warped ideas.

I’ve written before that I think Vag Magazine is hilarious. While we are waiting for season two, they are doing a series called “That’s Not Feminist!” Episode One is Here.

Fennel answers a question I sent her in Episode Two:

Pollution from coal-fired power plants is making our kids sick — 1 in 10 already suffer from
asthma. Our kids deserve better than a city with smog-filled summers. Tell President Obama
to stand up to polluters. Text COAL to 69866 to take action for cleaner air. sierraclub.org/coal

The environmental movement is often characterized by the right as being loony or wacky or valuing inanimate trees over human life. I do believe that nature has an inherent value and I agree with John Muir that “Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded.” We must protect our natural resources because they are priceless and because they are essential to human health. Clean air is a natural resource, and when others are fouling it and making us sick we should be outraged.

Children’s bodies are more susceptible to harm from pollution than adults are. This is something rarely brought to the table, especially by those who consider themselves to be pro-life. However it’s a vital issue, not only in terms of children’s health in general, but to environmental justice. Poor children and children of color are more likely to be exposed to dirty air and water, and combined with other risk factors of poverty like low quality health care, lack of access to exercise and food desserts and the outcomes don’t look good.

So, three cheers for the Sierra Club. I’m really digging their new thought provoking advertisements. It’s important to explain to people how these issues impact them, especially when it can feel like environmentalists are out of touch with the general public. I think about that every time I see climate change come in dead last on the list of issues Americans are concerned about (although “environment” in general fares better).

A few weeks ago, I simply posted a link to a story about the beginning of the lawsuit Jamie Leigh Jones filed against KBR-Haliburton. Since then, people have come here searching for “jamie leigh jones pics” and “jamie leigh jones sexual partners.” The defense decided to dig up information on her past, which could explain the search terms. But they way rape victims are sexualized (i.e. Lara Logan) might have played a role as well.

Last week, a jury found that Jones was not raped. It’s not surprising. Few rape cases end in a conviction even in a criminal trial. I had thought that the damage done to her pectoral capsule, genitals and anus would be enough to convince anyone that she had not had consensual sex, but it’s unclear what the jury was allowed to hear, and KBR has done a good job of muddying the water. One of the most powerful corporations in the world used popular narratives about women being liars to avoid liability. Considering the number of American soldiers they have killed through negligence, the fact that they gave our troops dirty water to drink, and the allegations that they participate in human trafficking, it is a deep and cruel irony for KBR to question the credibility of anyone.

Jessica P at Care2 has a lot to say about they way the sexism inherent in our culture is still obvious from this verdict.

It’s hard to write about something so disturbing, with a faceless, amorphous, villain right out of central casting. By my count, they imprisoned a rape victim, electrocuted our soldiers to death, serve troops disgusting muddy brown water and are modern day slave mongers – almost too evil to be real, as if from a children’s story. The good news is that the number of rapes is at an all time low. The attitudes of some people make it difficult to convict rapists, but collectively we are doing something right with preventing the crime to begin with.

On Saturday night I went with some friends to the evening session of the Get Real Belgian Festival at the Altman Building in New York City. The price was a bit steep compared to other beer festivals I have been to, but there was a discount code for 20% off and many people got last minute tickets with Groupon. I think it was worth the price, because the event was crowded but not oversold. I like the idea of paying extra to have room to breathe, to move through the crowd, and not have to wait on ridiculous lines for everything.

I tasted many of the beers and I think I’m really starting to get the hang of the idea of tasting versus drinking. I definitely poured out more samples at this festival than I had ever done previously, and it’s not because there were more bad beers. The sample glasses were a little bigger than what I was used to (and actually made of glass!) and this often resulted in a larger pour. It wasn’t worth the calories/sobriety/stomachache to drink so much of a beer I didn’t absolutely love.

A lot of craft brewers I’m a fan of were there, like Allagash and Ommegang, as well as beers from home brewers, which I though was a really great opportunity for the brewers and festival goers alike. My favorite beer of the night was the Harbinger Saison from Sixpoint, it was just perfect. I also tasted my first Flanders Red Ale, which was an entirely different gustatory experience, that I don’t know if I will seek out again. But I never thought I would like the hoppier beers and they are growing on me, so who knows?

The festival also included some delicious food from Petite Abeille, great tunes from Lifted Crew and I spent some time perusing the brochures and fliers at the Belgian Tourism table. A beer pilgrimage is definitely on my bucket list.

My friends and I checked out the seminar on pairing beer and chocolate. The presenter was knowledgeable and very interesting, but even though he had a microphone the crowd was talking over him. I’ve got nothing against a little cheer and rowdiness at a beer festival, but why would you do while a class is going on? That’s what the main floor is for, really.

Overall, I had a wonderful time. Get Real is planning an “All American Craft Ale Festival” in September and I am looking forward to another well done event showcasing great beer.

After hearing many compare Glenn Beck to the title character in Sinclair Lewis’ classic novel Elmer Gantry, I was very curious to read it. It Can’t Happen Here is one of my favorite books, and so I was looking forward to another sharp political classic that has stood the test of time.

I was completely engrossed in this book from the start, when young Elmer is in college in Kansas in 1902. The first of many surprises in this book was that college kids haven’t changed much. The scenes describing the landmines of social interactions and the earnest piousness of college ministries could have come right from any campus in the 21st century. Throughout the novel, Lewis’ dialogue is realistic and does not sound dated at all, aside from a stray reference here or there. There is a running gag in the book which had me delighted every time it was used. The humor has not gone stale, and I found myself laughing out loud a lot.

The story follows Elmer Ganrty from avowed college atheist through his conversion, time in divinity school, and his work as a minister. His journey takes him to places unexpected but the narrative works; though there are several distinct stories that are much like acts in a play or episodes of a miniseries.

Elmer is conniving, but not quite evil. His womanizing and the liberties he takes with theology were enough to get the book banned when it was published. Like Brave New World, scenes and subtext that are not at all shocking today were scandalous when it was published, especially when concerning the life of a clergyman. Elmer is intelligent, but not as smart as he thinks he is. His charm and tenacity make him impossible to hate, though you get the feeling you probably should. Despite the fact that it is fashionable to say so, I found him nothing like Glenn Beck. Gantry is a gifted orator with the power to sway people. There are dozens of conservatives with more charisma than Beck. Beck’s talents are not in speech writing or delivery but in both subtle dog whistles and angry, paranoid ranting. Although there is one scene in particular where Gantry gets a bit carried away where I do see a slight resemblance, that they are both ambitious people who use religion to further themselves is where the similarities end. If anything, Gantry is part Roissy (without a blog), and part Ted Haggard (without the gay). Perhaps people are referring to the film adaptation for the Glenn Beck allusions?

Sinclair Lewis spent time in several churches researching this book, and so it’s no surprise he has something to say about many different denominations. A few of the stereotypes have been lost over the years, but he meant to critique all religions, not just one. The book sometimes strays in to Stranger In A Strange Land territory in that a short vingette seems only there to tell us Lewis’ opinion on a topic rather than to advance the plot, but these are few and brief.

We do see how life turns out for several of Elmer’s classmates and their endings are sometimes bittersweet. The women of this novel are more than a backdrop, they are as three dimensional as the supporting men are but we only really see them through Elmer’s eyes. As the book spans the course of decades we can see how his relationships or all kinds change over time, and this is a powerful device.

Elmer Gantry is such a good read. The humor and story have aged so well. In part it’s because Sinclair Lewis is a masterful storyteller. But it’s also because the strong influence that religion has in the United States has not left our politics or private lives. Elmer uses religion to influence both in all the ways we fear it can be used. This is why his story still resonates.